Hanging out with my kiddos

I had a great time hanging out with my kiddos last night. I mean this; that's not Mom Sarcasm. Hubby had called me before I left work to tell me that Kiddo had not taken a nap at all and that Little Bit had woken up grouchy. (Side note: If I say, "Are you grouchy today?" she'll say, "No, I not grouchy, Mommy!") I expected difficulties when I got home. When I arrived at my humble abode, both kids were playing in Kiddo's room. Kiddo was playing with his pirate ship (a gift from a friend of Hubby's for Christmas last year that he absolutely adores) and Little Bit was getting in his way. Screaming ensued. So I changed into my "comfy" clothes and headed into Kiddo's room to distract Little Bit from Kiddo's pirate ship. I grabbed the polydron pieces and began having her help me put them together. That didn't work so well because she hasn't really developed the hand-eye coordination it takes to get them to work; even I have a hard time with it sometimes. But they're fun and you can make all kinds of neat shapes and things. (I think I'm going to try to get some more for Kiddo for Christmas...I know he enjoys them a lot.) Then I pulled out the blocks and began stacking them as high as they would go. This was interesting for Little Bit because as soon as the blocks were stacked 6 high, she would knock them over with great amusement. We stacked and built and rolled and spun the blocks for quite a while. Kiddo lost interest in his pirate ship and came over to play with us. Then we had a game of "Toss the Block into Little Bit's Dora the Explorer Bucket." This was all kinds of fun - and in the middle of tossing blocks, Little Bit said, "We Will Wock Oou, Mommy! We Will Wock Ooo!" and Kiddo echoed this request. So, of course, being the accommodating Mommy that I am, I fetched Little Bit's CD Player out of her room, found the appropriate CD, and played Queen's We Will Rock You for the babies, who just wanted to dance. The Tossing Blocks game soon became the, "Dump the Dora the Explorer Bucket Full of Blocks All Over the Carpet and Begin Tossing Again" game. Little Bit hefted the bucket twice ("Heby, Mommy!" Hear: "Heavy, Mommy!") and then Kiddo had to get a turn or two. I left them playing happily with the blocks and such and went into the kitchen to make dinner. Tilapia filets (Gorton's frozen, of course, but very good), corn, green beans, pineapple tidbits and a spinach/blue cheese salad for me. They played well and quietly the entire time I was cooking. Once I brought the fish out of the oven, Little Bit appeared in the doorway of the kitchen and said, "I hungy, Mommy!" and immediately tried to climb into her high chair. Dinner ready, both kids ate very, very well. Little Bit ate every single bite of her fish, every single piece of corn and every single green bean I gave her. Then she had some pineapple for "dessert" and when Hubby got home from work and was eating his dinner, Little Bit sampled some of his food, too! Apparently she was hungry! Little Bit went to bed at 7:30PM, and Kiddo was instructed to clean up his room before 8:00 PM. He even went so far as to get the little blue step stool from the bathroom so he could put his own clothes away. (I had to instruct him a little bit because he had every drawer of the bureau open and I was worried it would become unbalanced and topple over on top of him. I explained that he had to open one drawer at a time and this he understood immediately and complied without a single complaint. A wonder.) He put his own jammies on and went to bed without argument and was asleep in less than 10 minutes. No nap will do that to a kid, I guess. Anyway - it was a nice, productive, fun evening and I enjoyed it. TTFN JMS