Friday Night at McDonald's

So we gathered the troops to go to the Children's Museum of Phoenix on Friday night, since it is supposed to be free on the first Friday evening of the month. But after battling traffic all of the way over there, the place was decidedly closed. After mulling over the possibility of breaking in with a couple of other families who were equally frustrated outside, we decided to take the safe route and find something else to do.

After deliberating, and with Sarah repeatedly telling us that she wanted to go somewhere to "wun awound", we decided to head over to our neighborhood McDonald's play area.

Sarah said, "Nooo! I don't want to go to McDowell! I want to go wun awound!"

Papa: "Sarah, we are talking about McDonald's, remember the place with the kids and the hamburgers? Not McDowell, McDonald's."

Sarah: "I want that place! McDonald's!"

(We live near a street called McDowell and Sarah knows that when we are there, we are almost home, and not going to any fun kids' places.)

The kids loved it and Sarah climbed all the way up to the top of the play structure for the very first time - several play structure stories in the air. Stephen also climbed over some lower-level steps for the first time and went into a windowed tunnel with Mama and Sarah.

And yes, we ate a little bit of the dreaded McDonald's psuedo-food.

Not sure what happened with the Children's Museum but we hope to go visit some other time, as the online reviews say it is pretty nice.

After that, we hit Lowe's, which I did not think would be a kids' event, but I learned about the cool car-cart things they have there that made it all fun for the kids. Also we wandered though the plants section, which brought me fond memories of going to plant nurseries with my dad as a kid.

Love,

Papa

Family Politics

Papa: Dictator / Ruling Class
Mama: Cabinet
Sarah: Tea Party
Stephen: Swing Vote

Developmental Snapshot "Peepeepoopoo"

Sarah and Stephen have both recently reached developmental milestones in regards to "peepeepoopoo".

Stephen for the first time has been asking to be taken to the bathroom so he can use the potty. (He uses the poopoo hand sign of pulling a thumb or finger with the other hand, while making a "thhbbt" farting sound with his mouth.) He has requested a couple of times to be taken, and then sits down and with great effort and concentration does a little bit of "number one" and/or "number two". We, of course, clap and say "Yayyyy!", which he loves. This is a very socially motivated boy.

And Sarah, who has been off of diapers since she was 18 months or so, got up the other night to take herself to the bathroom to go peepeepoopoo. Before this, she would always drag either Mama or Papa (usually Mama) out of blissful slumber to take her. Hopefully this becomes a habit.

Love, Papa

Update, November 3rd:
This morning Stephen asked to be taken to the bathroom again, where he did peepee, and then refused to put on a diaper. He wanted underwear instead. He then kept it "clean and dry" until his next requested trip to the bathroom. Will we soon be leaving diapers behind?

Halloween 2012

We love going to Chipotle every Halloween. Every year the deal is a bit different but basically, if you wear a certain kind of costume, you get a free or deeply discounted burrito. This year, it was wear any costume and get a $2 burrito, with all proceeds going towards charity.

Sarah was a bunny (Peter Rabbit) with a painted face and some bunny ears we had around the house, Stephen was a firefighter with new boots from Grandma and a red firefighter's helmet from the $.99 store, and Mama and Papa were zombies in black clothes and face paint. It was fun because the Chipotle we went to was right by ASU campus and there were tons of college kids in excellent costumes filling up the store. We got four huge burritos, were stuffed when we left and still had half the food left over for the next day.

After Chipotle, we stopped at a few houses in the neighborhood to go Trick-or-Treating. At a couple of the houses folks were sitting out on their driveways with campfires roaring, and we even got to make some s'mores. That was fun for a couple of minutes but Mama was getting tired so we headed home, where we watched A Nightmare Before Christmas on DVD before turning in a bit early.

Sarah loved getting free candy, and Stephen did not want to be left out - we tried to just have Mama take Sarah door to door but Stephen started crying so loud I had to take him out of the car so he could have some fun, too.

Today Sarah had a hard time accepting the fact that it was not Halloween any more, and noticed that the Halloween decorations at the grocery store had been taken down.

Welcome to Our Kids Blog!

This should have been started 3+ years ago but better late than never. Right now we have two beautiful children, Sarah at almost 3 years old, and Stephen at 15 months. There are many funny and interesting stories about both of them and I will attempt to chronicle all of the new ones as well as record many of the old ones before they fall out of memory, as many surely have been forgotten already. 

Let's take a look at their forming personalities right now.

Sarah looks to be a natural leader, giving direction to older kids and adults from as early as we can remember. She likes to have a say in everything and to get her way. She is very smart and communicative. 

Stephen, on the other hand, stands out as being very happy and sociable, smiling and laughing often. He seems like someone who will be very agreeable and easy to get along with, as opposed to a leader necessarily. Perhaps a leader by winning others over rather than by giving them orders. Right now he is in that beautiful period when he is still unable to say more than a couple of words (papa? papa? papa? ;) and yet is learning to communicate his needs and desires clearly and eloquently nonetheless. 

Both kids are, of course, beautiful and genius and incredible and just right as they are. And hopefully mama and papa will be well-off by the time they are grown up and they won't have to worry about anything in this world.

Love, 

Papa