I came into the playroom today and found Mr. President writing this on the whiteboard while Go Go sat obediently copying it down at the table nearby.

When I asked Mr. Pres what they were doing he said, “I’m teaching Go Go! Maybe he won’t have to go to Kindergarten if I’m good enough!”

And there you have it. Who really needs Kindergarten when you have a big brother anyway?

Occasionally I have one of those days that are wonderful. One of those days when I do most things right. I spend the one on one time with the kids that I always mean to, we learn a lot, we have fun, we make great memories. Those Great days don’t happen all that often and so I started blogging in part to document those good days to help me remember that raising small children is not always hard. I have a friend who blogged about a Great day she had and called it, “I was a Mother Today”. In it she talked about all the great things she did that day and I LOVED the post. How awesome that she could celebrate her really good day. We need to do that as mothers. So much of what we do can feel like drudgery and so I applauded her for sharing. However, there were others that didn’t feel that way. She was maligned for “bragging” because it made others feel bad about themselves. All I can say to those people is-Pulease! Grow up. So, for posterity’s sake, for my own need to remember the good days and to thumb my nose at those who would malign me for tooting my own horn, HERE GOES!

Today the boys got their jobs done so early that we had time to read a story from the Friend before Mr. President went to school.

I managed a trip to the grocery store with no altercations and Blue Jeans got to sit in the “car” cart for the very first time and he didn’t even fall out! He just turned the steering wheel and honked his little horn like an old pro. He thought he was a very big cheese.

I helped Go Go write his very own book just because he wanted to and we illustrated it and printed it up on the computer. It was all about an Orange Race Car-of course. Here is his novel, in all its literary finery;

The Race

We want to win the race. We have an orange car with a wing that goes faster. And we think the other race cars are not faster. We think we will win the race. And then we’ll get the trophy.

The End

He was so proud of that little story that he read it all day long saying over and over again, “I LOVE this BOOK!”. He is now sleeping with it by his pillow.

I played the card game War with Mr. President, which he won “again” and then we read the amazing Chronicles of Narnia popup book we got from grandma.

The boys love to cuddle with me in the morning upstairs in my bed and we haven’t had as many chances to do that since Pres. started school. But today I managed to cuddle with the boys by combining cuddle time with story time and we had a cozy time upstairs in my bed reading Farmer Boy. We learned all about the hard work it takes to make sugar and plant potatoes. I got to point out what a hard worker Almanzo Wilder was at the young age of 9. “Can you believe that Almanzo was harrowing whole fields all by himself?” “Did you notice that his dad didn’t have to stand over him and keep him on task?” “Isn’t that great?!” Gotta love those great literary examples!

It was a beautiful sunny day and so the boys got to play outside in our backyard with the blossoms blooming above them. Then we started out on a bike ride only to realize that it was maybe just windy enough for the kites I’d been saving for a windy day. We pulled them out and tried to find a big field nearby but all were taken and the wind just wasn’t very strong so I told them I was giving up. Catastrophe-note to self-just let them try it even when there is no wind. They begged and pleaded to go out in the back yard to try them and lo and behold they worked BEAUTIFULLY. They had a great time running around and around the yard with their Spiderman and Transformer kites blowing in the breeze behind them. Mr. President took every opportunity to point out that he had been right about trying them even without much wind and that I’d been wrong and later informed me of this deep insight; “The weathermen are right most of the time but they’re wrong some times just like Moms are right most of the time but wrong some times. Though his grandmother Wesel will roll over in her not even dead yet grave, it is true that he’s already figured that little secret out. And today I was thrilled to be wrong just to see the glee on their faces as they ran themselves silly in the wind.

Blue Jeans is a climber. My other two luckily were not, but this one will climb on anything and everything he can. First it was the walker toy/car that he would roll over to my desk and precariously balance on as the wheels rolled back and forth so he could slam on the keyboard. Or he’d roll it over to the table and stand on it to be up with the big boys. Didn’t matter how many times it rolled out from underneath him. He would roll it right back over crying in pain from the bump on his head. I removed that little vehicle from the room so he wouldn’t be tempted again. Next it was the books bin. He would dump out all the books on the floor and then go to my desk to repeat the process. That time, he figured out the benefits of standing on mom’s rolling, spinning desk chair-“Look Ma, No hands!”. I removed that bin from the room opting for a pile of books on the floor rather than having my 1 year old do circus trapeze acts while on a spinning chair. Next it was his baskets of toys. Dump out the baskets, push them over to the desired higher location and climb, thereby breaking my nice decorator baskets in his attempts to reach new heights. The baskets are now often on the top counter in the kitchen where he can only see them and whine with his little hand pleadingly pointing at them. Today, with none of the regular resources left to him, he got into the tupperware cupboard, dumped out all the tupperware, pushed the bin over to the table and stood up on it. He then turned to grin at me with the most mischeiouvous and triumphant grin of utter glee that said, “Face it, Mom, you can’t keep a good man down!” I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud and got out my camera.

Needless to say we’ll be having some lessons about how we don’t climb on the table in the near future. And hopefully my little photo shoot won’t undermine them!