My Un-neighborly Attitude

The new neighbors moved in a few weeks ago.  We've seen them maybe twice (pretty uncommon considering we share a driveway), except for their youngest kid who catches the bus with Toby every morning.  He's a really sweet fifth grader who patiently kicks the soccer ball back and forth with Toby before the bus comes.  I think it's Toby's favorite time of the day.  :o)
Today they were out in force (meaning there were a lot of cars in the driveway), and while Toby and I were trying out his new bike (hooray!) a swarm of kids emerged in their front yard.  Toby froze at the top of our hill to watch them all run around and he immediately asked if he could go play.  This is where the "letting go" stage of parenting gets tough for me.  I don't know how I feel about Toby walking up to strangers to play, although he does it all the time at school or on the playground.  It seems like it's different turf when it's our neighbor-kid with what looks like a gaggle of cousins. (Is that un-neighborly?)  But Toby was practically drooling to play with kids that were infinitely more entertaining than dear old Mom, so I let him go, while tagging along to "help" him.  
Turns out he didn't need my help.  Most of the kids were leaving and Toby quickly got into a friendly game of catch with the neighbor kid and his dad.  BJ and Norah came outside and all the guys played catch while Norah showed off her one-legged twirling skills and got in the way of almost every throw for a while.
After a good bit of friendly banter, ball throwing, and Norah chasing (on my part), the four of us decided to try out the bikes.  There's a boat launch just on the other side of the marina that is newly paved and we walked over there for a trial run, with Norah taking along Toby's old bike.  I am really impressed and surprised by how well Toby's riding his two-wheeler.  He's been riding his old bike with training wheels for almost two years, but without a paved driveway it's been hard to gauge how well he can actually ride.  (He rode his bike around the basement this winter, and maybe that had something to do with it.)
Regardless, I'm really proud of Toby for going out there and having fun with life, whether it's stepping into a new circle of friends or doing dare-devil tricks on his new bike.  (He hit a huge rock in the parking lot of the boat launch, and I'm just glad he didn't bust his new bike on the first day!)

Toby (on the old bike) playing tag with Norah in the basement.  (November 2010)

My Belated Birthday Gift

My Dad's birthday was yesterday and I, being my completely scatter-brained self, forgot to call him.  So today we had a mini celebration for him, complete with cake and candles.  Sorry we couldn't be there, Dad.  (I bet you're thankful you don't have to eat cake with kid-spit-splatter all over it!)  :o)

My Biggest Weakness

I love chocolate chip cookies.



The recipe I've been using lately calls for (lots of) browned butter, which is just awesome, and if this picture was a scratch-and-sniff I'm sure you'd scratch your computer screen to catch a whiff of that aroma.











 What is it about cookie dough that tastes so fantastic? My kids want nothing to do with the baking process except when I am done mixing, which is when they fight tooth and nail for a beater to lick.




















These are the few survivors of an afternoon of cookie-baking. NOT because we ate all the dough but because we made a dozen monster-sized cookies to have for dessert with company. But these didn't last much longer.





An example of how warm cookies are my nemesis: A few years ago some genius at a title company served warm cookies at a closing we went to. My brain should have been freaking out about signing away our lives by taking on another property, but instead I just ate warm chocolate chip cookies and let the pen do the work.

My Kids With Glasses

The kids always have fun trying on other peoples' glasses, mostly because I won't let them near mine. We are lucky they've made it this far without needing them, considering the gene pool they come from.
This type of entertainment always gives me flashbacks to elementary school: when my older sister and her friends would take my glasses at recess, put them on and run down hills.  Apparently the warped vision they got from my strong prescription was more entertaining than the twisty slide or the swings.  Hopefully my kids aren't headed down the same path.

My Big Kid

We took Toby down to the campus to let him ride his bike around the parking lots on Sunday.  So here's a quick little video of him riding around, on Day Two of the "training wheels are off!" adventure.  Who knows where it will go from here.  Probably to the store to buy a new bike, judging by the way this one fits!
(And I'm very sorry about the windy-sound interference.  It's what you get here on Avery Point in the spring.  And my comment you hear was in regards to the race he and Norah were having.)

My Watcher

Norah still loves to watch for Toby or Daddy to come home in the afternoons. Sometimes she is still sleeping when it's time for me to go out to the road to get Toby off the bus, but if she's awake she'll climb out of her crib (and bring her pacifier and donkey along) and watch at the window for us to come back inside.







Now that it's getting warmer (and the snow's all gone) we'll play a quick match of soccer when Toby gets off the bus. Yesterday we noticed a purple crocus right next to Toby's goal so we had Norah be the "flower guard" for the game. But she burst into tears when the ball accidentally rolled over her flower.
Here's to hoping we find many, many more flowers around the yard in the coming weeks!

My Comedy of Errors

To watch Toby and I play catch on a beautiful spring afternoon takes a certain amount of patience.  Which even I don't have in abundant supply.  So after about 100 throws, with only 5 complete catches between us, we gave it up for a more successful adventure: riding Toby's bike.  We took the training wheels off yesterday, and Toby has adapted more quickly than we gave him credit for.  He made it from our front door all the way to the street while avoiding two lake-sized puddles without stopping or crashing.  It felt good to see him go that far, even though it hurt a little bit when he said "I'm going to do it without you, Mom."  (Clearly he felt I was the one holding him back in the catcher's department.)

My "Yittle Yies"

I apologize in advance for the catchy tune playing in this video, but it's the "la la la song" Norah sings along to whenever we hear it on the radio.  But she doesn't pronounce her l's, which makes for a cute toddler video (while also documenting her realization that she can yell and sing at the same time).  The song is "Little Lies" by Dave Barnes.

My Favorite Time

I love coming home from the library with a big bag of books and watching the kids dig into them so heartily. It warms my heart to see how much they love books.

My Hobby

I LOVE BREAD. That's all for now.

My Pre-Spring Spring Break

OK, true, I don't technically have a spring break, not being a part of the working world.  I have TWO!  One for BJ (this week) and one for Toby (in April).  And this first spring break, which seems to me to be extremely early (it not actually being spring for another two weeks and all), is being spent pretty much the same as always.  BJ's at the office (aka Starbucks) working on a paper or something, and Toby's at school while Norah and I are home or running errands and the like.  But we're also enjoying a fair bit of this:

Toby is turning into a pretty good chess player, and in just a few more games he's possibly going to beat me.  And, I'm telling you, my competitive spirit doesn't want to lose to a five year old, so when he does beat me it just might be the end of my chess-playing days.

And this.  Norah got her first haircut.  We got to keep the hair in a bag, which I thought was a nice touch.  Except the girl who cut her hair seemed to be hesitant to cut anything at all.  So there's barely any hair in the baggie, and when I brought it home BJ said, "Is that all she cut?"  Needless to say, we won't be waiting another 3 years for Norah's second haircut.

And, of course, there's still lots of dancing going on.  Toby takes a break from putting on his socks to do some moves.  (Yes, he's wearing an iPod shuffle.  We let him borrow it.  Honest.)  Before long he heads back to the Lego table.

What do you think of Toby's new haircut?  I like the short hair look.  (I'm not sure if I have shown a picture of this Lego creation yet, but there it is...  That castle came in a box of over 800 pieces.  And do you know when Toby wanted to build it?  New Year's Day, when we had just been up with friends until 4 in the morning.  God, I love that castle.  Click on the picture to see it bigger.  It's amazing it actually looks like a castle, being built by a 5-year-old and an adult operating on 4 hours of sleep.)