"You mean all we get to do is make stuff??!!""

So said my son upon arrival at Kaleidoscope. We took a big group of moms, grandmas and kids to lunch at Crayola Cafe and Kaleidoscope today. My kids love Crown Center, so we went early and checked out the Lego exhibit and the recently-changed-hands toy store. I managed to purchase only silly putty, so I think that was a success.

We had good plans for Crayola Cafe and explicitly told the hostess that we wanted to split up in small groups and NOT be considered a group. So much for that. Lunch took forever while they tried to bring all our food out at once, except for Lisa's table that ate about 15 minutes even later. We started at 11, but barely made our reservation at Kaleidoscope at 12:20.

I'm not sure about Kaleidoscope. I mean, it's cool. I remember it being cool when I was a kid. But the only word I can use to describe it at this point is chaos. There was just mass chaos as maybe 100 kids were released into an area the size of our church fellowship hall and ran wild. I know it's less creative, but my suggestion: give me some sort of example of what we're supposed to be making at each station. I know I'm not very crafty, but I think I speak for all of us when I say: Give me a little help here.

Once we acclimated (about 5 minutes for us, more for the more organized moms), I think we all had a good time. Sam isn't too crafty either, so he was always ready to move on before Kate was. All in all, they had a good time.

One of the pictures below captured the ongoing saga that is Grace and Sam. They were walking through Crown Center, holding hands, and pointing out things in the stores to one another, laughing. I leaned over to Lisa, Grace's mom, and said, "I've been on dates that weren't as fun as that." She responded, "Most of my current dates aren't as fun as that!" Ah, married life. I don't believe her for one minute though.

Oh, the other funny thing that Grace said is when she and Sam were building with Legos after Kaleidoscope. She said she was "building a secret room that only she and Sam could find." When she saw the look on my face, she added, "Not because we're like dating or something. Just because we're friends." Oh, okay. That's better.

Sam and Kate in front of LEGO art. (We're a cultured bunch.)

Amy and Evan sharing a moment at Crayola Cafe

Sam and Grace on their "Date"

Kate and Sam. In Kaleidoscope somewhere.



Kate and Evan working hard on painting.

Sam painting. This lasted about 3 minutes. Used 1 color and said, "Done. What's next?"

I caved.

As some of you know, I have a lot of ambiguity about the topic of allowance. We have friends doing the D.Ramsey "dividend" method, friends who forbid allowance, friends who give their kids whatever they want anyway. It's a very complicated topic to me. I hate to have the kids do things around the house because they get paid to do it. I want them to do it because they've been asked, and because they are members of our family and therefore they need to contribute.

However, Sam is now old enough that he has lots of desires. (He would say NEEDS.) Many of those are things we simply will not buy. As he will tell you, we don't buy toys when it's not someone's birthday or some sort of special occasion. And, as he's graduated to "big church," I thought it would be good for him to learn about giving an offering. So, the time has come.

We talked a couple of times about how to implement the allowance, but in the end, I decided I'd just give him the money weekly with minimal strings attached. Last night, I gave him his whopping $2.50 and explained that he would be getting an allowance as a member of this family. He will be expected to do the same things he does now—help around the house, practice piano, other duties as assigned. But the allowance was not payment for services rendered, but it was a privilege. Then I tried to explain the tenth going to his savings (piggy bank) and the tenth for offering, but in the end, explaining it by the exact amount (25 cents) seemed easier.

He's thrilled with his new found wealth and is already planning a shopping spree. And he's requested a wallet. We talked about picking something to save for, so hopefully he'll go that route rather than blow it all on our first trip to Target, but who knows. It's his money to learn with.

Words of the Wise

To say that Kate is more talkative would be like saying that there is more water running through Niagara Falls. It's not the volume, but the quality of her vocabulary that has us all rolling.

Starting a couple of weeks ago, her new word was "Awesome." Everything was awesome.

Today, we were talking about going to Jo's house and she said, "I love Jo and Glen. They're AMAZING."

The kicker was Friday, though. Stu was watching the kids while I was at a board retreat. They decided (they being the kids, not stu!) to go to Pizza Street for dinner.

"But dad," Kate said, "You never give us any money for games there and that's so embarrassing."

He assured me that they did go to Pizza Street, and he did not embarrass Kate.

Sleepover

Sam had his first official, non-family sleepover on Friday night. He had Austin, a friend from church, over and guess what they did? Play Lego Batman, of course. I'm not sure who likes it more, Sam or Stuart, but it was a big hit. Stu managed the three kids on his own while I went to dinner with the girls, and they were all sleeping soundly when I got home about 10. They did really well and had a good time.

We also went to Grant's bday party this weekend. Kate thinks that she is invited to anything Sam is, and don't suggest that she's too young or not one of the friends, because she'll be upset. It was a slip-n-slide party and about 75 outside. I think the kids were freezing most of the time, but they had fun anyway.

Kate's new word for everything is "awesome." As in, "Dad, what are we doing after naps?" "Oh, I don't know, eating dinner?" "Awesome."

Oh, and the other funny Kate moment of the weekend is something she did when I was putting her to bed. She's back on board with the no nail biting, but she found her purple blanket this weekend and has been trying to sneak in a few thumb-sucking moments. That's not nearly as big a deal to me as the nail-biting. But I was putting her to bed and she was holding her blanket and Cinderella Kitty-cat, and she looked at me and said, "Could you leave, Mama?"

I said, "Why? Do you want to suck your thumb?"

She looked side to side and said, "Could you just leave?" Sneaky. Even at age 2.

Deanna Rose. No bowling. No, Deanna Rose. Bowling

Ugh. Mother Nature complicated the Summer of Fun this morning by deciding to stop raining and then drizzle, and then stop, and then sprinkle. So, in my wisdom (lack), we decided to brave Deanna Rose anyway and passed along the word to the fellow moms. But by the time we got to Overland Park, it was raining, and I had figured out that mucking through the animal pens wouldn't be fun even if the rain stopped. Several moms had already cancelled, but the brave few that showed up made an emergency detour to the closets bowling alley.

Most of the kids had never bowled, I think, so that turned out to be fun. The alley gave us this special ramp thing that the younger kids could use to speed up the process. That was a big help, because several of the girls sent balls down the lane at about -5 miles per hour prior to the help. Carter and Sam, future engineers, examined the ramp from all angles to figure out its magical power. The little guys got bored waiting for their turn, but it was good practice and everyone generally did great! We stopped at McDonald's afterwards for grub on the way home.

Bowling excitement!

Kate watching her ball progress down the lane

GGG and Mommy watching the ball. GGG is WAY into balls of all kind, but these are a little heavier than what he is used to!

Stella and Chloe: The small helping the small. :)

McDonalds! Being entertained by the College Blvd "we only deal with professionals" employees

BMB: No offense intended, but dogs ARE a lot like kids.

We've had some dog issues of late with our aging, but quite lovely, pooch Maddie. It's enough to make me want to pull my hair out after I chase after not two, but three mess-making children around here! We got the good word last Saturday that her kidneys are o.k. (whew!), so all seems well on that front.


Last night we had dinner with my friend Ellie, who has just become the proud owner of a cockapoo puppy. As she followed the puppy and raced it outside to potty and cleaned up its messes, she told me she realized that it really was like having a child. Here she is going through the potty training process again, yet finding herself totally enamored with this furry little friend. You know she's crossed over into dog-lover territory when she mentioned her desire to kennel the puppy during vacation with a place that will truly love and care for her dog.

So, here I am this afternoon, racing home from work in a mad dash to get my poor, somewhat anxious dog out of the pouring rain. (Who knew it was going to rain today? Not I, and I get the weather by text message every morning! I guess it helps to read it.) I got home to find a very wet, very muddy Maddie waiting by the door. You know the drill-- I rush her into the bathroom, trying to minimze collateral damage, and give her a bath all while wearing my sexy new wedge sandals. Nice.

It's then that I realize, Maddie is truly like having a child. I know you skeptics and dog-haters out there are thinking, "Don't compare your dog to my child!" and I've heard that before. But as I'm scouring the tub and cleaning the mud off the floors and trying to salvage the new rug, I'm thinking that this is the same thing I do for the kiddos every day. I'm constantly loving on them, caring for them, washing them, keeping them warm-- all the good parts of parenting. Yet at the same time, I'm gritting my teeth and scrubbing the mud or crayon off of the bathroom tile, putting in another load of laundry, and thinking how much cleaner and easier life would be in general without all of the mess-makers.

I wouldn't offer my heart to my dog were she in need of transplant, or jump in front of a moving vehicle for her like I would my own children, but a lot of the feelings are the same. Maddie is a part of my family, take it or leave it, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Bad habits die hard

Kate stopped biting her fingernails (and toenails) about 2 weeks ago, thanks to help from the nasty nail paint and the purple nail polish bribe. However, all of the sudden, last night she started biting again. We were sitting at the kitchen table, and I looked over at her and she had one in her mouth and another was bleeding. Good grief. So we jumped up, washed our hands, and trimmed the rough edges, followed by nasty nail stuff. Poor thing. She said, "I won't bite my fingernails any more, Mama. Please don't use the nasty stuff!" But I told her that until the whites grow back, we'd have to wear it again.

I had just clipped and painted them pink on Sunday, so I know they weren't jagged or too long. We saw some friends last night who has a son that's a thumb-sucker, so that probably didn't help. Still, I was surprised. We were just reading books when she started into them.

I'm so disappointed! I really hoped she was done with that. Now I'm wondering if it will ever stop completely, or if it's something she'll always fight against. She seems to be aware of it afterwards, and knows not to do it, but I guess the draw is still there.

Sam, Sam, the Ladies Man

Sam has two girlfriends from preschool. The Incredible Summer of Fun has become a mini-dating experience for Sam, as evidenced by last Wednesday's trip to the movies. He had one friend on each side. It's a good life.

Afterwards, we had a couple of friends come over to play on the new swing set and have lunch. The kids all played great—there were 5 total—and we actually shared some adult conversation. More good life.

The trouble started when I put Sam to bed that night. Right before prayers he told me, "You know mom, I kissed X (names left out to protect the innocent) on the lip today."

"WHAT!!??" I calmly responded.

"Yeah. It's no big deal mom, because she won it."

"She wanted it?" I asked.

"No Mom. She WON it. We were having this test, and she answered all the question right, and she won it."

"Oh, that's nice. I think maybe we ought to save our kissing for, you know, mommy and Kate and our family and stuff," I suggested.

Sam looked at me like I was crazy and said, "But why?"

"Well, I just think you're a little young for kissing," I said. And you know, at the time, that seemed very logical, but now it does seem a little sketchy. I mean, how young is too young? And you know they don't mean anything by it. It's just to see what things are like and so on. Big deal.

"But MOM," he said, "It's romantic."

Good grief.

The next day, I notified said parents, who were equally surprised and yet not at all. The girls have been kissing Sam on the cheek for a while now, but this is definitely new territory. I thought all was settled until Friday, when we had this conversation:

We were talking about someone being in love. I'm not sure the context anymore. But I thought this was a teaching opportunity, so I said, "See Sam, you ought to wait until you're at least in love to kiss a girl."

Much to my surprise, he responded, "X and I are in love, Mom."

"Sam, you can't even narrow down the list to just one girlfriend. That's not love."

So, the saga continues. No more closed door play for Sam and his girlfriends, that's for sure. And I thought Disney was so clean with its lack of kissing and all…

The New Swingset

You know those huge, permanent-looking, wooden swing sets that are really popular now? Well, after a whole week of pricing and looking at them, Stuart and his dad purchased on on Friday for our backyard. Stu said he figured he'd worked so hard to grow grass back there that there ought to be something to play on.

I've heard horror stories about the assembly of these "building sets", as Kate started calling it. So has Stuart. But he and his dad and my dad started working on it about 10 am on Saturday with the idea of completing it, or getting close to it, by 4 p.m. so my parents could head back to central Kansas.

10 hours later, they were closing up shop for the day with a glorious, very sturdy fort built in the back yard, but quite a bit of work to do to complete the project. Arrangements were made and Stuart and Clarence continued to work all day on Sunday until, at about 3:30, it was completed. Yea! It looks to me like they really did some fancy engineering to get the thing stable and level on our very un-level yard. It's very beautiful and very sturdy.

Kate and Sam, of course, love it. I think my favorite comment during the project was when Kate first saw them digging on Saturday morning and said, "My mom is going to be so angry at you for digging a hole in the back yard!" When I got home later, she ran up to me and said, "Are you mad at the hole, mommy?"

I'm sure there will be many years of fun playtime out in the back yard thanks to Stuart, Clarence and my Dad's hard work this weekend. I'm hoping it will bring a few minutes of non-tv-induced peace to me as well!