It took me much too long, but I finally took a minute to pull a pillowcase out of the “linen box” and show him how it was done. He insisted we make a finish line so that he could win, but since Oliver was napping at the time, it wasn’t much of a contest. And since the boy seemed intent on having a film-ic evidence, I recorded his first sack race.

Since then he and Oliver have done a couple of races, and Oliver is passably good at hopping around in his pillowcase, although, predictably, he gets tired and starts to walk halfway through.

It was Oliver’s first time riding solo on the balance bike, although he quickly realized it was a lot more fun if Mom pushed him while he held his feet up.

Simon’s bike had a serious flat tire, so Micah took some time to show him how to fix a tire tube.

Micah and Simon totally wasted me and Oliver in the “race” around the block. And then, just when Oliver and I turned the corner onto the homestretch, Oliver had a bit of an accident in which his foot got stuck behind the seat and it took me a while to get him untangled. As we were approaching our building, Oliver kept talking about how Dad and Simon beat us home. He was a little sad about it. But just about to go up the steps when Micah and Simon jumped out from the other side of the stoop and surprised us. This led not only to forgetting about having been beaten home, but also to several minutes of Oliver wanting to try the same trick with them, but I don’t think it was quite as effective. Fun to try, but I think the element of surprised is lost when you are talking to those you are hoping to surprise the whole time.

Still, a morning well spent.

And, by the way, who would’ve thought February would be awesome bike weather?

And yet.

And yet, I always seem to get up early to make a special Valentine’s breakfast — today, just like last year, it was waffles with fruit and whipped cream — and to make goodies to deliver to friends. The boys and I put a lot of effort into some sugar cookies today (actually, the boys put most of their effort into eating the dough and cream cheese frosting which is what “helping” is at their age, right?), and I made some cherry-chocolate goodies yesterday, so we would have something to give. Sadly, I didn’t get the goodies all packaged (in our signature parchment-paper-sewn-into-an-envelope) until dinner time, which was followed closely by bed time, which meant it was too late to go out with the boys. So we have some lovely Valentine’s Day goodies waiting until tomorrow to be delivered. Maybe they’ll take the edge off the post-Valentine’s Day let-down, if such a thing exists.

It seems like a lot of effort to put into a holiday that I really don’t have strong feelings about, but I imagine I’ll do it again next year. And the year after. And maybe I’ll make a tradition of it until I not only have strong feelings about it, but we have such a great routine that it’s hardly even an effort at all. Maybe.

Hope you all had a happy Valentine’s Day.

And the second trip was as unexpected as the moment the door didn’t yield to Oliver as he sped toward it as fast as he could. I was on the other side of the room and didn’t see exactly what happened, but the short story is: he ran into the door. And blood poured from his mouth. I scooped him up and ran him to the ladies room (we were at the church for institute). As more and more blood dripped out of his mouth, and then spurted all over the place (sink, walls, counter, shoes, clothes, floor), I realized I had no idea what to do. Institute was over as all the other mothers dropped everything to help me figure things out. An hour later, the doctor had given him the all-clear: his teeth were fine, it had bled enough that infection wasn’t a worry, and in two weeks time, we won’t even be able to see where the cut is.

But right now, it looks pretty awful:

And so do the clothes he was wearing at the time:

Of course, I’ve been expecting this kind of thing from Oliver for a long time. And I expect a lot more of it in the future. But I’m grateful that we have avoided stitches for at least a little bit, and that mouth wounds heal quickly.

Written in a Book

Master Simon likes the chess,
to exercise his cleverness.
But all his games, he must confess,
are written in a book.

Master Simon prefers the black,
both to block and to attack.
But whether forth or whether back,
his moves come from a book.

Master Simon slides his queen.
He Ls his knight, he steps his king.
But he won’t do a single thing,
that’s not written in a book.

Little brother, come be white!
I’ll check with queen, you block with knight.
But when I win, don’t frown, don’t fight,
for it’s written in a book.

Master Simon, please don’t yell,
when he moves that piece like M, not L.
For little brother, as you can tell,
surely cannot read a book.

And it only took two trips around the block to do it.

Do you want to know what is like a Pixar movie in book form, only way way way better? Winnie-the-Pooh. I had no idea. At least not until Micah and I got “The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh” for Simon as a Christmas gift. I felt pretty strongly that he needed it, despite the fact that I had never read the books and my only acquaintance with them came through Disney. I’m not in love with Disney Pooh, but I guess since it was a children’s classic, I thought it would be a great gift for Simon. And I also hoped it would get him interested in longer books — possibly be a bridge to chapter books.

Well, it turns out that it was probably the best gift ever. Over the past month we’ve been reading chapters from it every couple of days and Micah and I love it probably as much as the boys do. Maybe more. Simon is the one who brings the book out and insists we read a chapter or two from it, but I don’t think he gets all the humor. Or all the story, either, but he doesn’t seem to mind. I admit that sometimes it is a little hard to follow even for me because Mr. Milne is the king of run-on sentences, but that only adds to the story as far as I’m concerned. Plus, the man is a total genius and so he is allowed to do things like that and people have to love him for it.

Yesterday morning I read the last two chapters to the boys. Micah was asleep, but woke up and joined us for the last chapter. I turned the last page was reading the last line (“But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place at the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”) when I totally lost it. I seriously couldn’t finish reading the words. And it was hilarious to me that I was crying so hard over this that I couldn’t keep myself from laughing. So I laughed and cried to the amusement of Micah and Simon for a couple of minutes before pulling myself together long enough to finish the sentence.

And then I promptly put the book down, grabbed my camera off the shelf, and took some pictures of my boys running around the living room with their balloons.

I’m not entirely sure what it is about Christopher Robin and his friends that made me so emotional (and honestly still does), but I assume that it probably has something to do with wanting to freeze time and to always be able to go back to the time when Simon flies our couch-plane to Utah and Oliver can’t sleep without his hands full of cars and they choo-choo through the living room together or sail somewhere on our ship/bed. And then I have to laugh at myself some more because it’s not like these days are really even close to being over. We’re just getting started, people, and already I’m mourning the end.

Oliver waits until they cool down, then peels the cheese off them. Where did that child come from?