Christmas Card!

Yesterday, when the mail came, there was what was obviously a Christmas card - red envelope and all.

This one was different. The address took up the whole envelope, which was about 5" x 7". It was printed in pencil, and on three lines - literally. Three lines drawn - probably using  a ruler - across the envelope itself.

The stamp covered part of the adressee information. It was addressed to "Grandma Donna & [this part covered] Grandpa Marc." My heart skipped a beat.

The back had the return address of Mikey's school - 

Over the message on the inside were two more lines: "To Grandma Donna & Grandpa Marc." And under the message, two more ruler-drawn lines:

Love

Mikey

I cried.

A couple of random ....

Mikey continues to eat. For a snack, he ate: popcorn, pretzels (more on this), a mandarin orange, and pecans.

The pretzels were in a wooden bowl. There was also a new jar of peanut butter on the table. Turned my back for a few minutes, to find that Mikey had:

• Opened the peanut butter (I buy "natural" which separates)
• Poured the peanut oil onto the pretzels
• Was eating the pretzels (and peanut oil - yuck) with a spoon!!

(FYI he later had an enchilada plate AND a bean and cheese burrito, plus some cheese quesadilla I made, and an ice cream drumstick, for dinner.)

The boys help us with recycling. We take glass bottles, plastic containers and cans to a recycle center. They have to help us separate the cans and plastic into large bins, and the glass has to be sorted further into colors. The sorted materials are taken to the scale and weighed; our id is checked and we get a voucher for the material. We go to the cashier to get the cash. The boys then get a share.

Both boys have banks at our house; David has spent a lot of his (and Mikey almost none). Today David asked to go to the Japanese marketplace (indoors; we've had rain for days now). Grandpa asked if he planned to buy anything. He decided to take his money with him. I have it on good authority that he bought something for Mom. (Can't say what - she reads the blog ;-).

created by Pacman

Michael is on the computer - during the course of his e-travels he often repeats and/or modifies things he hears/sees. He just declared that "David [his brother] is produced by Pacman." Who knew??

Chinese Food

David has been expanding his culinary experimentation. (With Mom's help of course.) Last night, we decided to bring in Chinese. We asked Mikey what he wanted, and go the usual, "orange chicken and noodle" response.

David thought about it for a minute and declared he wanted, "pot holders." Grandpa - who had asked the question - looked very confused and was momentarily speechless (!!!). Grandma to the rescue:  "I  think he means pot STICKERS, sweetie."

*chortle chortle* %snort%

Just a quick one

Last August, we took a vacation; I was gone for almost 2 weeks. I got this email from David:

Subject: i miss you.
Body: That is all.

It's been a while ...

... since I posted anything. How time funs when you're having a good fly!

To back up a little...

Birthday Party

We hosted the usual birthday bash for the boys this year, with the usual bounce house and Baja Fresh. This year, the boys' other grandparents were able to make it to the party. We got together and got them new portable game consoles - Mom did the actual shopping; we got off easy by writing checks. Their actual birthday was Friday, and I was there when they opened them.

David always has a list of things he wants - and they are starting in TRUE teenage fashion to be EXPENSIVE things, so he didn't get everything on his list.

When we asked Mikey what he wanted for his birthday, he said, "Foxy." (Foxy is Aunt Evie's dog.) Well, we couldn't give him Foxy on his birthday because Labrador retrievers with nice big claws are not compatible with plastic-based bounce houses. So we had Foxy over the week before. And Mikey got in all his play time then.

The day was absolutely gorgeous. And the folks who showed up all had a nice, pleasant times with the boys and with each other. Even clean up and put away (of the bounce house) seemed to go very well this year. I guess the stars were aligned.

Disneyland, Disneyland and more Disneyland

We have passes to Disneyland. And we have taken full advantage of them. When I say, "We" I mean primarily Mom, the boys and I. (Grandpa and I have made it over there together once or twice.) The four of us have gone together, and I've taken Mikey separately - and don't remember but think I took David one day, too. Mom has been able to take David on days when Mikey is in school.

David has been getting bolder. He finally went on the Haunted House, and has tried several other rides that used to scare him, including at least one roller coaster - this is terrific progress!

Mikey is interesting. He focuses on a couple of rides at a time, and rides them over and over and over again. Most recently, that has been Pirates of the Carribean. So each time we go, we ride it 3-5 times.

One of those times, he looked at me and said, "Blue Bayou." For those of you who have never been to D'Land, the Blue Bayou restaurant is probably the finest dining establishment in the park. It is inside the ride area, and forms a part of the Louisiana bayou atmosphere. It is a sit-down restaurant, and unless you've reserved a table 3 weeks in advance, you are unlikely to be seated in the summer.

However, Grandma gave in and checked on it for lunch. We had to wait about 5 minutes but we got seated. I did tell Mikey this was a "nice" restaurant and he had to use his manners. He behaved very well. Service is not fast, but they did bring bread fairly quickly - they brought four good-sized pieces of bread - I had one and Mikey had three BUT he used his knife and napkin. He mostly used his fork with the salad and he used his utensils with his main meal. That took quite a while to arrive. I took the precaution of handing the waiter my Disney pass (for the discount) and credit card, and asked him to ring us up right away. Which was a good thing. Mikey was very good throughout the meal, and with a little coaxing, waited for me to finish (oh and he at half of my Monte Cristo along with his own lunch, including the asparagus!) But when we were done - he was ready to go.

We had one minor incident on the way out - Mikey got hiccoughs and decided he needed water. So he grabbed a water glass on a table where people were sitting!  They looked startled; I apologized and I think they saw that Mikey had special needs ... they were very nice and said not to worry about it.

Will try to catch up more soon.

What IS it with soap, anyway?

For various reasons, and because I'm not currently deployed on a contract, I've been providing some extra help with the boys over the last couple of weeks. I was at their house - Mikey was already at school - and David was getting ready to go somewhere.

"Go to the bathroom, then wash your hands AND face," I told him.

About 30 seconds later, he was back out. "David," I said, "Go back and wash your face WITH SOAP!"

With body language and stomping indicating exactly what he thought of this, David stormed back into the bathroom, muttering on the way, "What IS it with soap, anyway? It gets in your EYES."