Making a Splash and History Lessons

At dinner time a few weeks ago Silas knocked over his cup of soda, sending it everywhere.  As I frantically tried to clean up the spill, Silas said, "That's why it's called Cranberry Splash."

I gave Gideon and Silas the inside of a roll of wrapping paper to play with.  It was great fun because it could be rolled from both sides making a "pirate scroll," which doubled as a "spotting scope."  After playing with the scroll for awhile, Gideon said, "Mom, way back in the 70's, they used to use scrolls."  (Before books were invented you know.)

The Boy Who Cried Ant

For the first time since being in Las Vegas, we've had a steady trickle of ants coming into our kitchen during the past week.  This has thrilled Gideon and Silas.  Like most little boys, they love bugs and they think ants are particularly cute.  If they can get an ant to crawl on their hands or up their arms, it entertains them for a very long time.  On Sunday, Gideon had a tiny little ant crawling on him when he suddenly cried that his ant had bitten him.  Gideon's mood at the time was such that Peter and I thought it was an attention-getting ploy.  We both told him that his ant was way too small to bite.  Then yesterday, Silas was playing with an ant in the kitchen when he suddenly started screaming that his ant friend had bitten him.  Silas' tears and subsequent terror of the ants in our kitchen eating him up were so obviously real that we knew Gideon had been telling the truth after all.  This prompted us to do a little internet research.  I now know what fire ants look like.  Oops.

Motherhood Milestone

Today is a big day for me as a mother: I took my first kid to the ER.

I put Silas down for a nap and about five minutes later I heard him screaming.  When I came up to his room, he told me that he had swallowed a tack.  (The map above his bed is held up with tacks, which fall out on a regular basis.)  Silas kept grabbing his throat and crying about the tack hurting him.  Peter thought we should take him to the emergency room.  I called our insurance's nurse advise line and the nurse concurred.  So off we went to the emergency room, where we waited a lot, got an X-ray, waited some more, and eventually talked to the doctor who confirmed that Silas had a tack in his stomach.  The doctor had called a surgeon to find out if the tack needed to be removed.  Apparently spiky things that are shorter than two inches will usually pass without harm (for everyone's future reference).  I do, however, have to make sure that the tack passes within a week...which means...drum roll...yep.  They sent me home with a big bag of gloves.  Now we can just hope that Silas doesn't sit on it when the prodigal tack returns.

Halloween Pictures

I thought I would get one more year of choosing the boys' Halloween costumes, but no.  When I started suggesting Halloween costume ideas, Gideon told me he was going to be batman and Silas told me he was going to be a "ghostie."  They tenanciously stuck with their ideas for weeks, despite my awsome suggestions of garden gnomes, chemical engineers, etc.  Alas!

Halloween Prayer

Part of Silas' prayer tonight was "Thank you for vampires."

Pictures

It's been awhile since I've put new pictures on here, so here are a few recent ones.

Yes, this is actual grass.  In Las Vegas.  Weird.

We looked over in church and saw Gideon sitting perfectly still, "reading" his Gideon's bible.  We couldn't resist discreetly taking a picture with Peter's phone.

Our cute little nerd boy.

Gideon would wear a suit and tie every day if I would let him.  Since the suit is outlawed for everyday wear, he has to make due with just the shirt and tie.

To the untrained eye, these might look like missing pages from a book.  Not to Silas.  He picked them up off the floor and held them together around his head, declaring that he had a "warrior hat" on.  Peter finally took pity on him and taped the pages together so that he didn't have to hold them on his head.



Creative Insults

Silas has a great imagination.  This morning when he woke up, his first words to me were, "I'm a baby bird and I've been sleeping in a nest made of rocks and you're my mommy bird and that's my brother bird."  This is pretty typical for Silas.  He loves make-believe and he's very creative.  His creativity found outlet in a new genre--insults--today at lunch.  First, he called Gideon "Jack-O-Lantern poop!" which got a pretty good reaction.  When Gideon and I started laughing, he immediately followed it up with, "You fried garbage noodle!"  (Sorry Jace.  I think Silas has beaten us both in the random category.)

Typical Fight

If you ever get the impression that I am somewhat less-than-sane, here's why.  Gideon and Silas fight with each other pretty much all day and these are the kinds of things that they fight about:

Silas, holding a spatula: "It's my sword!"

Gideon: "Is that your fly squasher?"

Silas: "No!  I already told ya, it's my sword!"

Gideon: "It's your fly squasher."

Silas, now screeching and crying: "No!  It's my sword!"

Boring Muffins

Last week I made a whole bunch of muffins because I was sick of having the same things for breakfast over and over again.  I put about 40 muffins in the freezer.  I happily pulled out muffins for breakfast again this morning and gave one to each of the boys.  Silas ate his.  I ate mine.  Gideon didn't touch his.  "Gideon, why aren't you eating your muffin?"  This was his explanation: "I picked it up and then suddenly I got really bored.  I need something a little more interesting."

Gideon the Procrastinator

Yesterday morning at breakfast Gideon started to say, "I want to learn how to..." and then he paused in thought, so I contributed, "Read?"  "No!  I want to learn how to be nice."  Gideon started to sing part of a primary song with the line, "I want to do just what is right, each and every day."  This was apparently his inspiration for wanting to learn how to be nice.  Fast forward a few hours.  Gideon was teasing Silas and making him cry.  "Gideon that is unkind." I said.  Without any reminding on my part, Gideon recalled and  promptly amended his previous announcement by saying, "What I meant was, I want to learn how to be nice tomorrow."

I was discussing with Gideon the reasons why he needed to learn how to wipe his own bum.  "When you get to kindergarten, your teacher will not be able to wipe your bum for you."  "Oh.  When I get to kindergarten, will I be a man?"  "No, you'll just be a really big boy."  "Hmm.  Well, I'm not going to learn how to wipe my bum until I'm a parent."