Monkey See, Monkey Do

Canaan was doing his homework Thursday night, practicing writing his "T" words for the week. Matty can sometimes be a handful while Canaan is doing homework. So, I looked through our workbooks and found a page Matty could easily do and handed him a pencil and told him to circle the smallest picture in each row. "OK," he said as he proceeded to circle nearly every picture on the page! OK, maybe we need to work on it a bit more. But, he was so proud to be sitting next to Canaan doing his own "homework" I had to snap a couple pictures to share.

Destructo-Boy in all his glory!

That's a sock puppet on his hand.

First Stripe

Messy Matty

I thought I would take advantage of Dora's captivating hold over Matthew and cast my absentee ballot this afternoon. I appreciated the quiet while I tried to look up names and issues that haven't been blaring at me on local TV for the last several months. That is, until I was finished and walked in to the living room to find a bag of Doritos on the coffee table and chips all over the carpet I just vacuumed last night. And then into the kitchen to find a string of paper towels lying on the floor to mop up what I thought was water spilled in front of the open pantry doors. Closer inspection revealed it was not water, but grease! He was spraying my non-stick cooking spray all over the floor! The dining room didn't escape either. It was covered in Pixie Stick dust deemed too sour to consume. And a quick peek at his favorite hiding space, behind the couch mom is no longer capable of squeezing her 8-months-pregnant body behind, told me where the chocolate ring around his mouth came from--the last of the Hot Fudge Sundae Pop Tarts. Now, lest you think I don't feed my child or that my pantry is stocked only with processed and sugary foods, I do have to say in my defense there are apples and carrots and grapes he could also have chosen to make messes with, but, well, they just aren't as fun to crumble up, dump out, or squish, and they certainly don't come in a really cool spray can. However, Mom is now prepared for the next election!

Li'l Dragons Tournament

Canaan was so excited for this tournament; he's been asking about it for weeks and this morning he woke up asking what time we could leave. He did really well. They did relay races like they've practiced at his weekly classes. He was paired up with two other kids to do flag sparring. He was disappointed when they practiced in class and he didn't win, but he won all 4 matches today. Then they moved to the battle stick sparring and he was paired up with a much taller boy that looked like he was using Canaan to play Whack-A-Mole! At the end, his class was awarded certificates for participation with both a ribbon and a medal attached and a waist-high trophy. The smile on his face at the end made it all worth it.

First Stripe

I've been trying for nearly a week to upload this video to Blogger and I finally did it! Anyway, Canaan was so excited to do his test he exaggerated his movements and nearly knocked himself over! But he passed the test and will get his stripe and certificate on Monday.

Nesting

I am 32 weeks and 4 days pregnant today. I started thinking maybe I should get a bit organized for Gracie's arrival. I've washed and put away the clothes my friends were so gracious to pass along to me, as well as the things I've saved from Canaan and Matty's baby days. But all of her new things were still hanging in the closet with the tags still attached. So yesterday I managed to cut all the tags off, remove every bit of plastic stapling, throw out all the cardboard molding and packaging and got the clothes into the wash. I dried them first thing this morning and managed to piece back every outfit as it ought to be. I still haven't gotten around to putting them all away yet and some pieces were still stacked on the couch when Canaan got home from school today, which turned out to be a good thing. If I had I might not have overheard this conversation between my boys:

Canaan: Matty, look! Look at Gracie's teensy-weensy, tiny little socks! Look at how tiny her feet are going to be!

Matty: Yeah! Just wike da Itsy Bitsy Spider!

What insight! Canaan knows she's going to be much smaller than they are. And Matty, though he's never been pregnant, somehow knows I suspect Grace might actually have eight legs, despite ultrasound evidence to the contrary!