Wild Things

This afternoon I was getting the boys ready to go in the pool in the backyard (we got an inflatable pool). Benji took off all his clothes and put his bathing suit in the bathroom after he used the bathroom.

Then it was Nico’s turn. He refused to use the bathroom and before I knew it, he was running around the backyard naked. 

So we went in the house and put his bathing suit on. As I gathered his clothes, I could not find his underwear. 

I looked everywhere.. in the bathroom, at the bottom of the stairs, on the couch, on the back patio... no success. I finally gave up.

A little while later, I walked by and saw this:

Nico’s underwear was on one of the plant’s leaves... I have no idea how does happened. I can’t even wrap my head around it.

Brother

Same path. Same brothers. Different season.

The Things They Say #83

When Nico gets mad at Benji, he calls him “BenjiMAN” with a serious face and all his might. It takes everything in us to not bust out laughing... 

April Birthdays

Under normal circumstances (non-COVID-19 life), I'd say something like "April sure came and went", however, April came and stayed for a million days. April lasted forever. To the point that it seems like Benjamin should already be 5.5 years old by now. 

I came to the realization that celebrating a child's birthday during quarentine takes parenting to a new level, we should get a badge "Celebrate a Quarentine birthday for child younger than 7 years old". We kept the hype up leading up to each day and talked up birthday every day. For Benjamin we even counted down each day until we got to April 10. We got decorations and decorated the house the night before and baked a cake of sorts for each of them. Due to various factors, one being financial and the other one being Amazon being on a ridiculous delay to ship items, the theme for both was PJ Masks... Benji's day was blue for Catboy and Nico's day was green for Gekko! 

The whole experience for each day was emotionally taxing. Knowing that these kids look forward to their birthday party all year long (yes, they are already talking about turning 6 and 4) and us, as parents, are still tasked with making them feel special and be excited about their day - even if they can't celebrate the way they have been talking about for the past 363 days.

We had a virtual happy birthday singing with family on the video on the phone!

Then he got serenaded from the sidewalk by Natasha, Izzy and Lulu!

Nico's birthday came 19 days later and it was a challenge to make a point to decorate the house differently enough AND find a different PJ Mask mylar balloon (note: Kroger only has 1 option for PJ Mask balloon).

 

For his birthday, we were joined by the live version of the family - Michelle dropped by later with a huge #3 balloon!

I just love the way
Benji is looking at Nico 
in this picture! 

And there we have it folks, may we never have to celebrate little kids birthdays during a pandemic quarentine. But at least we can now say we've done it and survived it. Been there. Got the t-shirt. 

The Things They Say #417

Benjamin loves bread. He most likely inherited that from my dad, who - as my grandma use to tell us - would walk out the house on his way to school with a pieces of bread in each pant pocket. 

The other day Benjamin was asking for a snack and he asked if he could have “Nothing Sandwich”. Norm asked him what kind of sandwich that was... to which he replied “Bread stuck upon one another”. Had to give it to him... how can you turn that down?

——————

We went bike riding the other day and when we got to the green field Nico didn’t want to take off his helmet.

Nico, it’s time to play. Let’s get your helmet off

No!

Why not?

Birds will fly up and land on my head!! Need my helmet to protect my head!!

So he kicked the ball in the green field with his helmet on.

Monkey

Dear Monkey,

Earlier this month, Benjamin turned 5 years old. And on his birthday he pointed out that I didn't do a good job at sewing you back together the last night your head started coming apart from your body.

Casually (mainly because I am running out of techniques to sew your head to your body and succeeding) I said: Benjamin, you are turning 5 today... maybe it's time that Monkey becomes a decoration?

Benjamin hesitated for a moment and then said "Yes, he can be a decoration now". The moment those words came out of his mouth I noticed the look in his eyes and my heart broke a little. Benjamin's baby years are coming to an end and I am not sure if either Benjamin or myself are ready for it (I know you are, Monkey).

Monkey, I have no idea how you've made it 5 years and we haven't lost you. Perhaps because you belong to Benjamin. Nico's giraffe didn't even make it 2.5 years before we lost it and had to buy a replacement.

Although you are supposed to be on the shelf now, I still see Benji cuddling with you - I am so sorry you are about to be decapitated... in case you haven't noticed, your head is literally hanging by a thread - and I will let it be because he still needs you and I know you will faithfully be there for him until one day you will for real stay on the shelf, but Benjamin will be the one to make that call, whenver it is.

Jack of Multiple Trades

Because extreme situations call for extreme measures and my children's hair was beyond extreme, I decided to tackle haircuts today. I had tried this a while back, I don't remember exactly when it was, but I do remember attempting to cut Benjamin's hair in the backyard... it must not have gone over very well considering I've been paying someone to do so ever since.

After watching a couple of  YouTube videos until I found the one that was easiest to follow (which I am linking on this post mainly so I can reference back to it when it's time to do this all over again), we now have two civilized-looking little boys!

Here are some before and afters: 

Although I sharpened our hair scissors with Norm's knife sharpener, it was still quite dull. Need to go ahead and order a new one on Amazon so it can get here by the time we have to do this all over again.

I'm pretty proud of of how their haircuts came out! And so proud of them staying still with minimal complaining (all thanks to PBS Kids).