Conversations with a four year old

Another advantage of working second shift is sharing two meals a day with my kids, instead of one. Sure, it's more meal prep and more dishes, but some days the meal time conversations are priceless. Like today.

First imagine a bagel with strawberry creamcheese. Now nibble a straight line across one 'edge', leaving the hole intact. Insert thumb through hole

"look mama, it's like a face. With pointy hair." (nibbled line represents hair, not sure if the finger is the nose or the tongue sticking out?)

Me - "oh really? Look at that!" as I sip tea and give Norrie some more bread.

Conrad - "No, it's more like a colossal squid." Hmmm...He totally has my attention now.

"It's red and has one eye, just like a colossal squid. And know what else momma? The eye on the colossal squid is as big as a basketball and they have two cutting long arms, and then small arms that don't have cutting things. The squid is so strong it can trap a whale, a black and white whale."

Okay. That was interesting. When I got to work this afternoon I googled colossal squid, to see how accurate he had been.



Lunchtime menu: ham and bean soup, toast with butter. As far as I know, CW has never had this before, but of course he takes one look and says, "EW! I don't like!". Whatever happened to my kid that would eat anything, and tell other kids at daycare to at least taste everything on their plate?? So sticking with our house rules, he has to at least taste it. One bite, ew, doesn't like it. But then he requests ketchup. Shudder. But you know what, why not? Sure enough, he puts it right into his bowl mixes it up and takes another taste. Would you believe he ate all of it? Then declares " I liked it more than I don't like it, so I ate it all momma. What's for dessert?"

It's dinner time now - I wonder what Tim and Conrad are discussing tonight?

Garden

not much to see yet. I finally purchased some asparagus to put in this year. (see trenches)

Conrad helped me set up my new bean towers (square shaped towers). Then I stuck in a couple tomato cages to see how it will all fit - planning an eggplant and pepper plant between the pole beans. To the right of that I already have onions planted (marked by the wood). Most of the green in the picture is weeds or grass, but one spot is actually a crazy onion plant I got from a friend's dad several years ago. It is HARDY! It comes up before the snow melts! And in the bed farthest from the camera, I have some peas, carrots, and swiss chard planted.

This is one of the projects Tim did on Easter Sunday. I finally bought some strawberry plants this year too, and here's their new little home.

Potatoes were all in by Good Friday :)

And the raspberry plants are cleaned up and ready for summer!

My little garden helper :)

(he's watering the rhubarb. And talking to it. So cute)

Easter Sunday

We had a beautiful day on Sunday! After mass a friend took some family pictures for us.

Then we went out for breakfast with another family from church. And the rest of the day was spent enjoying the beautiful weather on the prairie.

Norrie swings and swings and swings. I rotate between giving her a push, working a little in the garden, pitching a few for Conrad, pushing Norrie on the swing, doing a bit more in the garden, playing soccer with Conrad, you get the idea. I actually get a fair amount accomplished that way!

kids on the prairie

Now that I'm on 2nd shift, the kids and I get more time on the prairie while the sun is up! Twice a week CW has preschool so we're up and out fairly early still, but the other days of the week we "sleep in" and then play and garden and walk the trails.

Conrad is exploring the wetlands. Much deeper and he would have had wet toes!

It's kind of like a jungle gym, just on a much smaller scale. And it doubles as a dining table and chairs!

Siblings. Wrestling. Conrad is pretty gentle - most of the time. Sometimes he forgets.

Just a goofy shot.

Shoes and jewelry.

Nearly naked baby! Love those pictures!

The other thing these two like doing together!