Toy Money

So I've told you how Nick now gets allowance (we call it 'toy money' since allowance doesn't mean much to him) each Saturday. $1 for every day he sleeps in his bed and stays tucked in. It's been working! Downside is, when we go to the toy store, he spends a good 1/2 hour looking at everything and asking "Can I buy this? Can I buy this?" I have to point out the dollar amount on everything. No hasty decisions being made by this little one. He had his heart set on a motorcycle Transformer this week, but we made it to Target to find their Transformer section cleaned out! Poor little guy. Offered to drive to another Target, but he wasn't going to let this toy department out of his grasp. He ended up with another Ben 10 toy - Brainstorm! And I don't have to transform it!

I was smarter this time and had him hand the cashier his toy and his money. Figure we're trying to teach him the value of money and that doesn't happen if I'm putting his toys in with all the other junk we buy at Target. He handed her $7 crumbled up dollars and was so confused when she gave him change back. I explained that 2 quarters and a penny could get him a tatoo at the candy machines. Walking outside, he was walking so tall and said "I'm so happy!"

Bragging

Nick and I were grocery shopping this weekend and he was all excited to pick out fruit snacks for the cook-out. We went up and down several aisles, but couldn't find them. Suddenly Nick yelled out "Mom, look what I found! You gotta come see this!" And there it was, the fruit snack section. With so many choices. He was beside himself with joy and could barely decide. After all that, he forgot to break out the fruit snacks during the cook-out. But apparenlty he and his friend Cooper were at school bragging this morning about what kind of fruit snacks they have at home.

Sunscreen tickles!

Now that the warm weather is here, school has slowly turned into "outside play school". While I was slathering him with sunscreen this morning, I told Nick that he was practically getting a massage out of it. This prompted a giggling fit. Just try putting sunscreen on a squirming, giggling four year old. Everywhere I touched him brought an eruption of laughter. Jeesh. Guess we'll find out tonight which spots I missed!

Continents

Nick has been learning his continents at school. He was so upset last week when a few of the older girls had finished continent projects to take home. He insisted that he'd done one too. I didn't know what to tell him other than "ask the teacher". So imagine my surprise and his pride when his project was ready to come home! Apparently they all had to cut out the continent shapes and then glue them in the right locations. He did such a rockin job! He told me his teacher had to help with with writing names on a few of the continents. But he wrote Europe, Asia and North America all by himself! He told me North America was very hard to spell. Rock on Nicholas!

Taco??

A few weeks ago we were walking down the street and Nick starting talking about “blah, blah, taco, blah, blah”. We asked him to repeat it couldn't figure out what word he was saying. Taco? Tiger? Until he finally described it as “You know, Owen and I wrestle and then I taco him”. Ahhhh-tackle! Nick enjoyed it so much that we had to replay this unintended game over and over on the rest of our walk. One woman walking in front of us didn’t realize we were playing and stopped to say “My guess is TOP”.

It happened again this weekend. I was asking Nick if he wanted to run errands with me and he said he wanted to go to the toy store before going to Erin’s. Who’s Erin? He just laughed. "Not Erin, run erins!" Ah yes, I see now! Silly mom.

Boy's Night

So every few weeks we host “Boys Night”. This is a little different from “Monday Night Football” in that it’s a group of 4 boys + Nick who rotate houses every other week for a 4 hour play marathon. The first time we hosted we had 6 boys total and were totally unprepared. We took them to the playground and each one ran in a different direction. Last night we only had 4 boys total and we were ready. Except that we fell into these natural/un-natural roles of good cop/bad cop. I was the crazy hormonal mom sternly saying “No jumping on the couch.”, “Next one to say “stupid” gets a time out.”, “Stop tattling on each other!” Chris was the cool dad with “Hey boys, did you say you wanted poop for dinner?” and “Here, try to catch me on this big field while I run around and wear you all out.”

Dinner was interesting. We made mac & cheese and they were all psyched for it. Until we sat down. HG would only eat watermelon. OR wanted hot dogs with his mac & cheese, but then wouldn’t eat his mac & cheese. HP only wanted bread. Nick wanted it all (really, bird eater wanted it all?!). After a few hours of play we got them all to settle down for a movie and popcorn. Chris couldn’t make enough popcorn to keep these guys satisfied.

9pm rolled around and the parents started arriving for pick up. I was so happy to go to bed. Chris was definitely the better parent. The good news: we get several weeks off before we host again.

Nesting

Nick and I are nesting. I’m ready to get started on the baby’s room and he’s apparently been telling folks at school that the crib is up. It’s not. So when I suggested we get to work the other night, he was only too happy to leave his fort and help. Chris was out with the boys and missed all the fun. The former owners of our house painted a cute mural on the walls of the nursery with trees, flowers, insects and a few bunnies. So our guest room has been a bit “outdoorsy” for some time. The guest room now moving to the tiny room in the basement. Sorry guests. It truly is a “bedroom” now, as the bed is about all that fits there.

Nick and I got upstairs and got the mattress off pretty easily. Until I stepped on his hand. Nothing a Transformer band-aid couldn’t help (had to be a Decepticon – bad guy). Even though there was no blood. Then we wrestled it out into the hallway where Nick’s wrist got stuck between the mattress and door frame. A tiny bit of blood and bruising with this one. This is where it started to dawn on me that a pregnant woman and 4 year old shouldn’t be attempting to move mattresses by themselves. But Nick insisted we continue. So with a bandaged wrist we managed to slide the mattress down the stairs. With a big thud and crunch. Sigh. Slight dent in the wall and the mattress was stuck at the landing. We finally got down the second flight with some wall scrapping. We’ve been meaning to paint those walls anyway. This is where I finally said “enough”. Nick insisted we could get it down the basement stairs. I insisted we had to stop and wait for Dad’s help. We then took turns deciding what Chris’s face would look like when he came home and saw the mattress propped up against the wall. We both guessed a look of surprise. Apparently it was a look of eyes rolling.

We were able to talk Chris into helping us move everything to the basement last night. Got the mattress down the basement stairs by folding it in half. Who knew?! (Mom and Dad – tell us if you can tell the next time you sleep on it). Then we set the bed up in the new guest room. Nick was super helpful and would have gladly stayed up all night putting the crib together. Told him that would have to wait for another night. Especially since we can’t remember where we put the crib hardware. Sigh. “So this is nesting, eh?” said the happy father.