Three year olds are the cutest kids ever! They look cute, they're sweet, they're cuddly and affectionate, they recognize emotions based on facial expresssions, and if your face is sad or angry, they immediately make an effort to cheer you up, just by getting close to your face, stroking your hair, and yelling, "Happy!!!" I say "they" because Tyler did the same thing at this age, and I remember my nephew Cole doing the same thing as well. Tyrien loves to play with my hair, climb on my back, asks for hugs, asks for kisses, and no matter where I end up sleeping, in the middle of the night, he wanders the house until he finds me, and curls up next to me. But he's also becoming more independent. This morning when I woke up, I saw the boys' bedroom door was open, so I searched the house, and found him asleep on the couch.
In February Tyler took his blue belt test in Little Dragons (jiu jitsu.) He was very focused, and seemed nervous, even though he was very familiar with the material.
After passing the test, he received his blue belt and a certificate. Then his teacher gets to throw him. Tyler went up in the air, landed on the mat at his sensei's feet, and looked up at him with adoration in his eyes. Then he got up and ran towards us, not realizing his teacher wasn't through with him yet. His teacher called him back, because he wanted a hug. Tyler's been training under him for almost three years, and has clearly won his way into his instructor's heart. We first started Tyler in the class because he was unable to follow directions on the soccer field, didn't listen to the coach, and couldn't seem to focus. This instructor affectionately calls him "Gumby", explaining to new parents, "I call him that because he's all over the place." Seeing Tyler alternate between focusing so attentively, and running around, light on his feet, laughing gleefully...it's awesome.
I decided to throw a mardis gras party this year. I decorated, ordered masks, hosted a mask decorating activity, cooked Cajun food, and made a king cake, including hiding a baby in it. I did a much better job of prepping - I decorated Friday night, then on Saturday, did all my vegetable chopping and shredding first, and measured all my spices first, got the crockpot going with chicken jumbalaya, made the king cake and decorated it with green, yellow, and purple sprinkles, then started cleaning. Then around 4pm I started prepping the red beans and rice, the cauliflower rice, and the dirty rice. I even had time to shower before the guests arrived. Tyson initially said he wasn't getting involved, but then the day of, he declared he was in charge of adult beverages, including hurricanes. I warned him that the reason I'd given up on making hurricanes was because I didn't think I'd find passionfruit juice in Tucson. He assured me he could find it, so hurricanes were back on the menu. He came back hours later after shopping multiple stores. That king cake was made out of Pillsbury Cinnamon Buns and the hurricanes were made out of Hawaiian Fruit Punch.
One of my guests was preparing to leave with her kids, so I rushed to do the King Cake. When I sliced into the first piece, Tyrien crashed over the front of his handlebars on his bike. Sarah kindly took the knife away from me and served the cake while I tended to Tyrien. With all the action, I forgot to take any pictures, other than this one:
Congrats to Auggie for becoming King for a Day! For a night, really. I might have been the only person willing to bow before him, but I got to see his bright smile and giggle, over and over. His dad said he loved it.
Oh my gosh, speaking of his dad - his awesome parents...Penelope was sick, so Dahkniel and Sarah took turns attending the mardis gras party in shifts! Dan came first, then went home, Sarah joined us for a while, and then took Leo and Auggie home, then Dan came back to hang out some more.
That reminds me - they invited us to celebrate New Year's Eve at Noon with them, in a wash, mining for iron in the sand. That was so fun! Reminded me of raking a zen rock garden. When I first met Dan, I loved the way he fostered his kids' interest in science. Now he is doing the same, not only for his younger kids and their friends, but also by going back to school and becoming a teacher. I can only imagine all the cool activities he must do in his classes. This was such an awesome activity, and now we have two tubs of iron for sciene experiments.
The boys' big Christmas gift of the year was a multi-game table. Tyler had been asking about ping pong, and I knew he liked pool, so I found a table that could allow him to play both. Sort of.
It also has slide hockey and foosball. It arrived in November, and sat, waiting eagerly to be assembled and played. On Christmas, after cooking and serving a delicious dinner, Tyson went to assemble it, and discovered that the dent on the outside of the shipping box translated to a hole in the foosball board. The manufacturer appeared to be very happy to work with us, but then reported that it was on backorder, and we'd need to wait until sometime in March to receive the replacement board. When I said that it is unreasonable to expect a 7 year old child to wait until March to get to play with his Christmas gift, they offered us a partial refund. I repeated my sentiments, and they gave us our full refund, and we didn't have to return it. So Tyson went on a multi-weekend quest to find suitable supplies to recreate the foosball board.
The table is a big hit! At the mardis gras party, Leo had a blast challenging all the attendees to foosball.
In February, for Tyler's rodeo break (it's so weird, schools here get days off for rodeo, and his school takes an entire week!), I decided to embark on a quest to find snow. My friend Emery informed me there was no snow in Flagstaff. But she made a trip to Flagstaff sound pretty enticing, so I decided to take the boys up there anyway. Good friends are better than snow, any day.
Then the day of, the weather app indicated snow was on the way. I looked at the hourly version of the map, and decided to adjust my driving time to avoid the snow. I planned to arrive at 4pm, when it the storm would have passed, and before the roads had a chance to ice up for the night. I asked Tyson whether he wanted me to drive his truck (four wheel drive) or my car (which needs new tires.) He said to take the car to save on fuel, since it was only supposed to snow an inch or so, during the morning, and would likely be melted by the time I arrived.
At around 3, I let Emery know that my phone indicated we'd be arriving at 3:45. And then we passed the Oak Creek turnoff, and everything came to a standstill.
I sent Tyler up the hill to relieve himself. After those first 45 minutes, I decided to go, too. Tyrien said he wanted to come. We began working our way up the steep hill, and then I heard multiple car engines turn on. I picked Tyrien up, and hurriedly made my way back down the rocky hill. I rushed to strap Tyrien back into his car seat, raced around to the driver's seat, turned my engine on, and we didn't move. More denial. I kept an eye on the temperature, 36 degrees.
At some point, Tyler broke into the Doritos.
Eventually I decided it was worth making the trek up the hill, for both myself and Tyrien. Then I decided to make the boys run laps around cars. We made friends - one woman offered us juice (because giving kids sugar while sitting in a car for hours on end sounds like a great plan! but I appreciated the sentiment, accepted her gifts, and saved them for the kids for later), another woman offered us the use of her restroom in her rv, and various people let us pet their dogs.
No one had thought to bring a frisbee. We returned to the car, turning the engine on periodically for heat, and listening to Charlotte's Web followed by The Cricket in Time Square.
Eventually, we resorted to this.
And then we stooped to this level.
Eventually we moved 30 feet, then stopped again for a very long time. The passing of tow trucks made me wonder whether there were multiple accidents occuring, rather than just one big one. I couldn't get internet connectivity, but I could text Tyson. Tyson found out two semis had collided, and there were casualties. When Tyler became impatient, I let him know the severity of the situation, and that we needed to be respectful towards the people who died. He assumed they were bad drivers, and I explained, as my brother in law once told me, "NO one's good at driving on ice."
We finally got moving again, after three hours. But by then, the temperature had dropped to 26 degrees, and sure enough, by the time we got to Flagstaff, the roads had iced up. We were traveling down a steep hill when the traffic light abruptly turned yellow. I applied the brakes, telling Tyler, "So, right now, I don't know if we can stop."Sure enough, we continued sliding forward. Fortunately, the drivers were used to this, and waited until we stopped before proceeding. We stopped just after the crosswalk, so were not actually obstructing the intersection. Phew.
I parked on the curb at Emery's house, but Chris came out to tell me to park in the driveway because the snow plough would be coming through. He left in his truck. I slid while parking in the driveway. Emery suggested I repark to give Chris more room. I attempted, and slid so much that I went back inside and admitted I'd made it worse instead of better.
It was awesome to be reunited with the Eaves! Emery took one look at Tyrien and said, "I have something for you" and returned with the most adorable Chewbacca pajamas. The boys played with lightsabers, we watched the Olympics, and then the boys all camped out in Wesley's room to read books and the three older boys eventually fell asleep. Tyrien stayed up late, as usual.
When I woke in the morning, the temperature outside was 2 degrees - this was the coldest my boys had ever experienced. But the house was warm.
There was a 2 hour delay, so Emery decided to let Noah take the full day off. Emery lent us snow gear, and we took the boys to a park to play in the snow - not deep enough for sledding, but perfect for traipsing, playing on the equipment, and the Eaves have a cool snowball maker that can make snowballs even with dry, crumbly snow.
This was Tyrien's first experience with snow! He loved it...at first. He couldn't keep his gloves on. He especially loved sliding down a very steep slide and landing, hands/face first into the snow. He soon began crying insolably because his hands were too cold. Emery explained to me that little bodies get cold faster than adults, and that this was about the right amount of time for the kids to be ready to get inside and warm. I remembered then, when I was a kid, there were three houses in a row of kids, and we probably weren't spending more than a half hour outside before going into a house for hot cocoa, and that was why we rotated houses (even though my house had the worst tasting version of hot chocolate. The McClains' had Nestle Quick, that was the best.) We got in trouble if we kept returning to the same house, with parents getting cranky at wet boots on their floors. So we rotated houses. Until Emery's words, it had never occurred to me that we weren't actually "playing outside in snow for hours."
Emery had to travel for work that night. Chris took Tyler, Noah and Wesley to buy pizza while Tyrien finally took his nap. The older boys went to bed relatively early. Of course, the Sleepless Wonder stayed up late, watching the Olympics.
We got home early enough to perform some science experiments, inspired by the Eaves' boys. Tyrien was so excited, he asked for safety goggles, too. I remembered Tyler had goggles outside, from his Toys for Tots reward bathtub chemistry set the year before. I retrieved them, cleaned them up, and had a very happy three year old scientist.
Our next rodeo break activity was Pump It Up "Glowdeo." What is it about black lights that makes everything so much better? I think I had more fun than the kids. I burned my elbows on my very first slide down. Tyrien wasn't a fan of the first room. The first slide was too steep for him. Then he went into a bounce house with me watching on the outside. A bigger kid kept pulling down a pop up tube and releasing it so it would hit Tyrien in the face and knock him down. At first I thought the big kid was oblivious. The third time he did it, he met Angry Mama Bear. But the damage was done, Tyrien had no interest in entering any of the equipment in that room. He figured out how to have fun within an arms' reach of me, though!
The second room was a different story - as soon as we entered, Tyrien dashed off to a maze structure, so quickly that I actually felt worried as I looked for him. All three of us ran the entire time we were in that room. Tyler partnered with two kids from BASIS, so I played with Tyrien the entire time. It was so fun to see Tyrien figure out how to climb structures - going from falling and crying to being able to climb them all by himself in such a short amount of time.
I told my boss about this experience, and she told me she'd once been to an adult birthday party here. I LOVE that idea! It never occurred to me that adults would rent out the space for a party, but of course! Doing it. Someday.
I stuck with the 2 hour screen time limits for the boys even though it was vacation. This translated into lots of reading time. I'm so excited to have a family of readers now! I took Tyler to Barnes and Noble and taught him the joy of spending hours in a bookstore perusing books, and then lounging around the house on our couch, reading. I often discovered him snuggled up with Tyrien and reading to him.
I also was able to fit some extra Krav classes in. I am so grateful that the owner has created a kid-friendly environment. Tyrien understands from Lil Dragons that he can't be on the mat where we are training, but he can run and play on the other mat. Sometimes I bring them puzzles to work on, sometimes I let them play electronics as a last resort, sometimes I set up obstacle courses for them with hula hoops and cones. My favorite is when the teacher's kids are there, sometimes a game of chase ensues.
One day at work, I had the rare opportunity to go to lunch - it had been months since we'd had the opportunity. Students weren't due to arrive until 1. It turned out, only one other employee actually had the means to go. We went to Bison Witches because she'd never been there, and it was the UofA's spring break, so it was easy to park and get a table. She loved it. We reminisced about the last time we had gone out to lunch, about 6 months prior, and I had texted Tyson to say I was downtown, but he didn't receive the text, walked by, saw us, looked surprised and waved but kept walking, and D jumped up, raced outside and shouted at him, "Tyson! Nice to meet you!" So again, being so close to downtown, I texted him, knowing he probably wouldn't be able to join us on such short notice. He texted back asking if we were going to be there "All day?" D suggested I prank him. I claimed we were going to drink one more stout, then get a tattoo. I thought he'd know right then I was lying - drinking on lunch hour? AND with an employee??? D told me not to answer any more texts from him so he would think I was actually sitting in a chair, getting needled.
D took me to a thrift shop, sure enough, they had temporary tattoos. The cashier immediately picked up on the fact that this was a prank, and suggested we use lipstick to make it look more realistic. We returned to the office, and D ordered me to sit in a chair, ran out, and returned with a wet paper towel. The first tattoo didn't take - students were arriving in our building, and in her haste, D applied the wrong side. Fortunately, it was a twopack. We applied the tattoo in the same location as Tyson's. His is the symbol for a dragon, so I actually got a dragon, and D applied the lipstick after, smudging with her finger. I told her to make sure to get my little bump in the photo so he'd know it was my leg and not someone else's.
She told me to wait until she called back to send him a picture. She called an hour later. I worried it was too soon, but I did need to get ready for a ceremony... I sent the text. I checked in with my tattooed teammates to get a realistic price to quote.
Tyson sees this prank as a failure, because he zoomed in on the photo, noted the detail, and immediately determined that it was fake because it would have taken more time than we'd allowed. I deem it a success, because we made him take a closer look.
That was the most fun I'd had at work in months! Every trip with D is an adventure.
For Tyler's March spring break, I ended up having to work for part of the week. Monday we all were off, and went for a nice family bike ride. Tyler requested we stop at the fountain in front of Old Main. Tyrien slept, Tyler stalked the two guys cleaning the fountain, and Tyson and I just sat on a bench relaxing and counting the number of women wearing yoga pants. Over 9 out of 10 women on campus that day wore yoga pants. The active wear fashion trend snuck up on me. I saw my employees wearing spandex outfits to work, figured they didn't want to change clothes for teaching gym class. I noticed lots of BASIS moms wearing spandex outfits and sneakers, and assumed they were stay at home moms that had time to go work out at the gym right after dropping off their kids for the day. Then someone posted that viral video "ActiveWear" - "I go shopping in my Active Wear. I buy coffee in my Active Wear" and that's when I finally realized, these women aren't working out! It's just a fashion statement!???? So on campus, it's not the vibrant, matching spandex outfits - it's yoga pants. Mostly black yoga pants, sometimes grey or dark purple. Shirts are cropped short or at least, are not long enough to hide their derrieres. It's hilarious to listen to Tyson complain about how awful this trend is. When he was in college, he complained about all the college girls wearing Victoria Secret "PINK" pajamas and sweats to class, and imagining how expensive those sweats must be. Now it's yoga pants, and he's equally perturbed. We sound like a bunch of old codgers! "I buy coffee in my Active Wear."
Tuesday I had a doctor's appointment, so I had Tyrien go to preschool, and took Tyler back to his beloved Golf N Stuff. It was cool that day, so I only paid for a round of golf - no bumper boats, go karts, or laser tag (which Tyler is still fearful of.) I hit my ball out into a ravine, so Tyler kindly shared turns with me with his ball, but it made for a very short game. I let him spend $5 in the arcade, and again, he kindly gave me some of his tokens and taught me to play the Jurassic World game, before abandoning me for Star Wars Battle Pod.
Wednesday Tyler, Tyrien and I went to a morning Krav class. Tyrien calls it "Big Dragons." They were so excited to go! Tyler told me he likes to watch me - that surprised me, and made me feel good. The disciplines are so different. Where Tyler wears a gi and an obi and has to bow on the match, follow Japanese commands, in a relatively quiet environment, I get to wear normal workout clothes, we listen to loud music, there is no bowing, definitely no Japanese...and where jiu jitsu is mostly grappling on the ground, with honor and discipline, Krav is dirty and brutal - eye gouges, kicks to the groin, repeated knees to the groin, escaping choke holds, lots of exercises where we're surrounded by 5 people, being attacked from all directions...with lots of burpees and planks between exercises.
After class, we got lunch and went bowling.
I love that the computers at bowling alleys are now touch screen and you can set it up so the bumpers go up for your littlest kid at every turn, and down for everyone else. Tyler did not love this feature for the first game. He cheered up at the second game when I turned the bumpers on for him. For the second game, I requested a ramp for Tyrien. He loved it!
Thursday Tyler went to A Camp for the day. We were the second people to arrive - a little girl was already there. Tyler immediately began chasing her around the gym. He looked so happy. This is the camp where he was greeted like a rock star upon arrival, and yes, sure enough she was a kid from BASIS. As I left he camp, I ran into a parent and son from Catalina. Yup, Tyler would be surrounded by friends. Sadly, I assumed there would not be swimming, while Tyler thought there would be. He was so nice to me about it. He played on the deck while other kids swam. I feel awful - of course he would have loved to swim! The concept of swimming outdoors in March is lost on me. But he'll go to A Camp the entire month of June, with swim lessons four days each week, plus the regularly scheduled open swim sessions.
Friday, I had to work, but Tyson again had the day off. This is a difficult time of year for us - my dad's death date and birth date anniversaries, and the anniversary of when Tyson's dad's cancer reached his brain. I believe Tyson honored his dad by taking Tyler shooting for the first time yesterday. I feel like it honored my dad, too. I texted my brother Eddie, admitting I felt nervous. He reassured me and sent me a website to show Tyler about gun safety.
I loved hearing Tyson teaching Tyler safety and respect, reminding me of when Eddie sat me down on his bed, showed me his rifles and pistol, and taught me about gun safety. I think I was about the same age as Tyler at the time. It was the same serious tone of voice, focus, the same rules.
They had a great time! They got to the range before it opened, were second in line to get in, Tyler followed directions and rules, and proudly displayed his two targets on the wall above his bed.
I appreciated that Tyson took the time to text me pictures and video while they were there, and to let me know they had left. This reassured me that they left the range with the same number of holes in their body as they started. Then the next text I got from Tyson was a picture of Emery, Chris, and Noah - they all met up at the Pima Air and Space Museum! I was so glad that they got together. Tyson warned me after that he thought they'd be too tired to meet me after I got off work, and he was right. But somehow it still feels great knowing Tyson and Tyler got time with them. It just feels better having them in the same town as us for a couple of days!
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