lazy thursday

Mitchell is so much closer to his normal self today. Good thing - I hate when they're sick. It's no fun for anyone.

Now Jordan is in kindergarten (or maternelle as the frenchies call it) and Tennyson is in nursery school two mornings a week, so for two mornings a week it is just me, Mitchell and Elliot. She mostly sleeps. For the first time in forever I actually get to spend time with just Mitchell. It's kind of cool. He's a funny little kid, but often his humor and silliness is entirely dwarfed by the big kids. They're a lot more rambunctious than he is. Today we cuddled, he watched me surf the net for a bit, he drove matchbox cars on his baby's face, you know, normal stuff. I read him a book and he actually got to point out the dog, tree, ocean, Charley's dad, etc. without Jordan and Tennyson jumping in and beating him to the punch line.

Try explaining to a five year old that you know she knows what a cloud is. She still thinks you're just favoring the little guy by letting him have all the fun. Usually I make them take turns when I play kind of a book eye spy with them. Still, when Mitchie takes more than three seconds to find the crow in the tree someone jumps in and points it out.

Not today! He felt very princely I'm sure.

Look how much he loves his baby:


See her bawling away beside him? He doesn't care. He sat on that little blanket with her for quite some time and played toys and chattered at her to stop crying, and when that didn't work he drove his little cars around on her. She's kind of a diva - apparently his efforts weren't up to her baby standards.

The other kids get mad too when they find out that while they were in school Mitchie and I went to Sobeys, and he got a cookie. And - *gasp* - they did not. It doesn't matter that they got to paint and play and have snacks at school.

Right now they're out in the sandbox, playing in a smaller sandbox that was left inside the big sandbox and filled with water last night. This is what they looked like earlier this week when they played in the sandbox all afternoon as it rained:


This is what they're doing now:


See the sandbox filled with water within a bigger, equally sloppy sandbox. I expect them to look like this


again when they're done. I used to try and keep them from doing these things, because they really are quite dirty and cold when they're done, but they're having lots of fun. They're also not wrecking anything, escaping from the yard, waking up younger siblings, fighting or laying in front of the tv. They've thrown a bunch of grass in there and are stirring it up with shovels. A minute or two ago I saw Jordan spit in it. Remind me to set some serious ground rules before I let those two cook dinner in my kitchen someday.

All in all, a pretty good day so far. I'm going in to Winnipeg tonight to hang out with a girlfriend I haven't seen in a while, and we'll eat some food and watch a new episode of Grey's Anatomy. Steven will stay with the kids and feed them a nice dinner that I've already half prepared.

Things I didn't get accomplished today? The bathrooms, mopping, laundry.

But that's okay. Because he looks like this:


and they're hard at work doing this:


And it's nothing that I can't wash. Later.

Did I mention that ten years ago today I was as giddy as a school girl because this great guy that I had a huge crush on for a while had kissed me the night before?

And we haven't looked back since.

Love you Baby.

(this is the part where the kids would tease him because Mommy said he was a Bayyy-Beeyyy)