Signs You Love Your Neighbors Too Much

1. You pull into your garage after school/work, get the kids out of the car, and they immediately walk across the yard and into the neighbors' house.

2. You start your billionth story by saying "this one time, my neighbor Nicki said...", and your coworkers mimic you by saying "this one time, at bandcamp..."

3. You have moved your baby monitor to their house so you can hang out there longer.

4. You are only slightly shocked to see one of the neighbor boys opening the sliding door to your house - from your fully fenced and locked backyard. (He climbs the fence. We're going to put a gate in to cut down on the possibility of injury.) Then he walks into the house and says "my mom told me to come over and ask what Jamie's doing and tell her to come over."

5. You bring yummy food home from Noodles and your kid asks to eat it over there - and you agree because Nicki already told you to bring it over.

This could go on for awhile but I'll leave it there. We have the best neighbors!

School Conference

We had our first Parent-Teacher conference at Jack's school yesterday. What a surreal experience. It is really strange to sit and have someone else tell you about your son. Here's what we learned:

He is doing really well with his language - writing and reading. He's writing words and beginning to read. He's also doing really well at math. He is writing into the three-hundreds and recognizes three-digit numbers.

He's learning some Spanish, sign language, a song in Russian and a Sri Lankan dance.

He's "playful." Miss Mari says that he is starting to talk to his classmates during work time, but nothing that's annoying her. That's me in him.

He listens intently to every single thing she says to them, then repeats it back to her at strange times, sometimes months later. He tries to make sense of everything she's teaching them. After learning about Presidents, and specifically JFK and Lincoln, he asked her if someone killed ALL OF THEM.

He has to play with the peg board every day. He will not miss a day. She brought it over to show us and set it on her desk as she went to find something else. Chuck immediately began playing with it. Like father like son. He's already Googled it and found a place to buy them.

Jack's a very well-behaved boy. He helps in the classroom, does exactly what Miss Mari tells him, and gets along with the other kids.

The last thing we learned is the funniest to me. Miss Mari was telling us about one little girl who has developed a habit of taking some of the materials and moving them to other spots in the room. At this point we were in the hallway and Jack was standing with us as we prepared to leave. He listened as Miss Mari told several stories. Then he said "yeah, sometimes I just sit where I am and watch them move things and then I know where to find them."

My little spy.

We're very proud.

You Just Keep Growing and Growing and Growing

Chuck and Jack's conversation before bed:

Jack: "When Grandma Bernice and Grandmommy turn 100 I'll be 11."
Chuck: "How old do you think they are? No no, you'll be like 27 when Grandma Bernice turns 100."
J: "Mommy knows someone who is 100. Do you know someone who is 100?"
C: "No I don't."
J: "Because 100 is as old as you be."
C: "No, you can be older than 100."
J: "How old CAN you be?"
C: "Well, I think the oldest person is 114."
J: "Do you know him?"
C: "No."
J: "How did he get that way?"
C: "Well, he just kept on livin'."
J: looked like his mind was blown "Does he have a giant house?"
C: "I don't think so."
J: "It has to be huger than our house because his head would be up by the ceiling...Grandma Bernice will need a bigger house when she's 100."

I Win

If I can be bold, I have made up the best parenting rule ever.

After listening to Jack whine and complain quite a bit yesterday, I instituted a new Banjostrand Family Rule. For every one complaint/whine, you have to say one nice thing about the subject you are talking about.

I love my rule.

He said he never wanted his bike again. "What do you like about it?" "...training wheels..."
He railed on something vague about our house. "What do you like about it?" "...trashcan..."

My theory is that he is going to get so annoyed with having to answer me every time that he'll eventually stop the negative talk. Either that or I'm going to learn a lot about his favorite parts of the universe.

Conversations

My conversations with Jack could not be funnier right now. He is a funny little kid. And gullible.

Today in the car we had the following conversation:

Jack: "Logan has midgets in his closet." (What do you say to that, by the way? And how do you not drive off the road?)
Mommy: "Really? Did he tell you that?"
J: "Yes. It's true. He said it."
M: "Bud, do you even know what a midget is??"
J: "No. Do you know?"
M: "Yes."
J: "Tell me."
M: "Well, it's not a nice term. There are some people who don't grow the way you do or Mommy and Daddy did, so they are smaller than other adults. Sometimes they are your height. But they have decided that they feel best when they care called 'little people,' not 'midgets.' That word hurts their feelings so we don't say that."
J: silence
M: "And I'm pretty sure that Logan does not have any little people in his closet."
J: "Yeah, I bet he hasn't even LOOKED in there."

Currently

Another of my attempts to capture as many moments in the kids' lives as I can...

Jack - 4 and a half
Favorite Topics of Discussion: bear hunting, how fast he can run, what page on his workbook he's on at school (and where his friends are)
Favorite Movies: Fantastic Mr. Fox, Snow White
Favorite Books: anything Disney, Silly Jack
Favorite Songs: Hush Little Baby, I've Been Working on the Railroad (this has been on the list FOREVER)
Favorite Foods: Peanut Butter and Jelly, pancakes, yogurt, fish sticks, oatmeal

Ryker - 22 months
Favorite Topics of Discussion: dogs, balls, being thirsty or needing food, dancing
Favorite Movies: anything with animals
Favorite Books: I Went Walking, Elmer's Weather
Favorite Songs: anything Jack wants
Favorite Foods: crackers, yogurt, oatmeal

Banjostrand Vocab

Some new words have emerged in our house over the last week.

Jack:

-Medicillin (as in "I'm allergic to Medicillin.")
-Dame (exclamatory phrase just like something it sounds like that I say too much, apparently)

Ryker:

-Chichi (rhymes with kitty - full phrase is "I chichi" - meaning he needs water.)
-Ci (rhymes with high - meaning the tears are flowing.)

Judgement

How do kids do it? How do they not hold a grudge, place blame and just hate something? If something gave me the hugest bloody, swollen, nasty, makes-strangers-stare-at-me-so-much-my-mom-made-us-leave-Target-early black eye, I think I'd hate it. I'm certain I would.

I ate a bad tuna salad sandwich at Subway when I was like 10 and I loathe that sandwich from that place to this day. I'll do the math for you - that's a 21 year grudge.

But not Jack. I looked out the Hayes' window yesterday afternoon to find him happily swinging around on the infamous tire swing.

I can't decide if that's stupidity, or a profound ability to forgive.

Shiner

Somebody tell me my baby is going to be fine! Okay, okay, I KNOW he'll be fine. But he has the hugest shiner I've ever seen on a child.

He took a face-plant off the Hayes' tire swing, was walked inside by CJ (adorable) and appeared to just have a decent scrape on his cheek. But he was BAWLING. So sad. So we went home, I cleaned it and put Neosporin on the scrape, and a gigantic bandaid across his face. He ran straight to his room and shut the door. I went in and he was crying saying he didn't want me in there. He was laying on his bed, so I left him. But I went back quickly and he wanted me there. So I laid down with him. I had him mostly quiet and then Daddy came in see how he was, and he promptly burst into tears again. I got him quiet again and he fell fast asleep. Didn't even notice when I got up to leave. I went back in to make him get up to eat something. We could only get him to agree to apple pie, but hey, we just wanted him to have something in his tummy.

He only ate half, and as he was eating, the underside of his right eye got puffier and puffier. He would cry a bit, eat a tiny bite, cry a bit more. I sat with him then on the couch, holding one of Ryker's old teething rings (the cold kind) to his face. Poor guy. Chuck carried him back to his room, gave him Tylenol, and we propped his head up with another pillow. He's fast asleep in the clothes he wore to school (sweats, luckily).

I feel so bad! Poor boy. Chuck thinks it'll be fine tomorrow morning. I'm not so sure.

Grass Wars

Easter grass has a sordid history in my family. My mom would get in the spirit of Easter and fill our Easter baskets with that weird plastic grass stuff. It looked really festive and cute and seemed like the right thing to do. But inevitably, strands of that grass would end up in random corners of our house. You would find it in your shoe the next fall, or a kitchen cabinet in the winter. It got to be a joke in our family. She used to complain about it - all "I hate the Easter grass!" and "HOW does that stuff end up EVERYWHERE?!" But if memory serves me right, my mom KEPT BUYING IT. So in my book, she started the war.

My freshman year in college I decided to really get her. I bought a big pack of it, stuffed an envelope full, with nothing else in it, and mailed it to her. Ha ha.

Point for me.

This year, she came up to Minnesota for Easter and, of course, brought with her two big bags of that crap...er...stuff. She filled plastic pails for the kids with it. My kids don't have the manual dexterity to retrieve candy from the pail without subsequently dumping blades (do you even call it that when it's plastic?) of the grass everywhere.

Point for my mom.

My mom was driving back to St. Louis on Monday. That morning, before he left for work, Chuck put a bundle of it under her front windshield wiper. He wrote me at work and told me what he did, and that he was hoping she wouldn't have noticed until she maybe had to use her wipers on the drive home. Ha ha.

Point for Chuck, and me by association.

Only my mom DID notice before she left. And she removed the bundle from her wipers and put it in our mailbox.

Point for my mom.

Today, I came out from my shower to find kitty-throw-up, complete with Easter grass remnants.

Game, set, match for my mom.

Gladys and the Pips

We have a little thing going where Jack sings and sings and sings, and Ryk does back-up. Our rides home regularly start with Jack requesting "Manic Monday." And if you don't know the lyrics, they go like this:

It's just another Manic Monday
Wish it was Sunday
'Cause that's my funday
Just another Manic Monday

But poor Rykie can't say most of those words, so he just patiently waits through the first part of each line, and then sings "DAY" right on cue, in sync with Jack. I don't know if I'll be able to get it on video ever, being that I'm driving and all. But if you want to hear it for yourself, just make an excuse for me to drive you somewhere.

Cards/Twins

You know what's a big deal up in Minnesota? Outdoor baseball. They've been without it for a long, long time - played in the climate controlled Metrodome for 20 or 30 years (I'm not a true Minnesotan because I don't know the exact number). But now they, or "we" rather, have outdoor baseball again, and people are SOOO excited. And rightfully so.

When it was announced that the first games in the park, albeit exhibition, would be against the Cardinals, I went a little bit nuts. I was raised a die-hard Cardinals fan, and I've taken quite a liking to the Twins since I've lived up here (13 years now!). I was determined to go. And my friend Clausman came through. Her parents gave us their tickets, so she and I got to sit in the very nice Legends Club off the third base line. But then my mom got in on the action too, and ordered 3 more tickets - for Chuck, Jackson and her. THEY got to sit in the lower deck, behind home plate up by the concourse. Not bad!

I carefully considered our outfits. Jack got his first Twins hat to wear with the Cards t-shirt he already had. I got my first Twins jersey (a Mauer one), and a new Cardinals hat to balance it out. Chuck decided to stay true to his roots and ONLY wear Twins gear, and threw in a Carleton shirt to keep all allegiances clear.
My mom bought me a Cards pullover, similar to the one she was going to wear, and it ended up being chilly, so I was wearing that OVER my Mauer jersey and I got a decent amount of crap about that up in C and my seats.

Anyway, the game was PERFECT! I'm kind of annoying right now because I won't shut up about how great it was. Perfect weather, awesome company, great ballpark. And having two teams that you like playing each other makes it so you get to cheer for pretty much everything that happens in the game. It was fantastic. Jack had a great time, too. And why not? He got to have a hotdog AND ice cream. AND Grandmommy playing games with him on her cell phone to keep him entertained!
More pictures are on Flickr - link to the right. Check them out.