Mister Man Rocks

Really, I know this already. I sometimes forget though because we don't have a ton of one on one time. Little Miss is a me-too-firster, and that sometimes puts Mister Man at a disadvantage, since he's such an easy kid ninety-nine percent of the time.

We had a birthday party to go to in Glenview, which is about an hour from our house. It was at 2pm, and Little Miss was not invited. She naps, and wouldn't have been able to go even if she were invited to decorate a cake and a cookie at a bakery. HA! Like I would have let her make that mess anyway.

I decided to take the easy way out and go to the Kohl's Children's Museum right after church and just make it a non-issue for Little Miss that a) she wasn't going to the party and b) that she had to nap and Mister Man didn't.

We belong to the museum because it's a great place that the wee ones and I love. We don't get to go too often because it's almost an hour from our house, but we go a half dozen times or so times a year. With two wee ones, it gets hard because I'm contantly monitoring who's where and doing what and negotiating to keep someone at the current activity or with the other to move on to another exhibit. It gets a little stressful.

I've never gone with just Mister Man and I, but we had fun. In fact, he asked if we could do this with just him and me again soon. Awww. You betcha, kiddo!

In the craft room, we got to look at worms in dirt and touch them and see what they do. Then, Mister Man drew a picture of a worm. He named it Lurker Turker (or LT for short, as you can see on his page). I thought it was very creative that his worm was a rainbow of colors with purple hair and lots of legs.



As always, we loved playing with the construction set. This is the first time we've been that he really figured out how the levers work and that he can control the crane bucket to pick up the "dirt" beanbags. And yes, that's a CAT tee shirt, so he inadvertantly dressed himself properly (my only requirement for his dressing is that it be a bright color if we're going to be in a crowded place).

He did a lot of really hard work on the conveyor belt where you place the dirt onto the conveyor belt, turn the wheel (which he did cooperatively with a little friend he made -- he made a friend!) which sends the bean bags down a chute and off the roof, catch the falling beanbags in a wheelbarrow and wheel the load back to the conveyor belt. It was really neat to see him sharing the duties with several children who came and went and helped with various parts of the work. For a boy who started out with social delays, this is so cool to see!

We also went to Dominick's where Mister Man picked up a shopping list and picked up one (and only one) of each item on his list. There were plenty of other kids who swept whole shelves of items into their carts leaving nothing for the others. No comment from me on that. He was really proud of what he put in his cart, and he loved it when I helped him check out at the register and he had to "pay" me for the items.

I forget sometimes how much fun it is to spend time one on one with each of the wee ones. They really are good kids and a delight to hang out with (ok, usually). My goal is to spend at least one afternoon alone with one or the other at least once every other week. I'd like to do it more often, but with my and my husband's work schedules, that may be a bit of a stretch.

Either way, we have no school this coming Friday, so guess where we're headed!