Line Up Your Daughters, We're Raising a Family Man

This past week we have been digging around the house looking for stuff to sell in the neighborhood garage sale this weekend. Of course, any time you do this you find lots of old stuff. For me, I found my tub of stuffed animals and baby dolls that are meaningful for one reason or another. Obviously, the meaning decreases each year I realize that they have been sitting in the attic. It is unlikely that my 2 boys have any real attachment to stuffed animals from my childhood when they are selective about which ones they currently have that they will play with. Also of note, each time I open this container, the amount of stuff I save decreases.

Sunday afternoon I found this container. I opened it and realized quickly that they all smelled pretty awful. Between the musky smell from being put up and the smoky smell they got from being in my house growing up, you can barely breathe when you open it. Yet another reason I become less attached. This time though I thought I might try to wash them. Then I will know if they are salvageable, and if so, which ones would be good to put in the garage sale. This is one of the larger Tupperware style tubs and probably holds 10-15 items. (This is a drastic improvement from the 2-3 tubs full that I had when I moved away to college). First load...success. They all smell great. I washed the second, and they were left in the dryer. Alone in the tub at the end... my newborn baby doll. She is entirely plastic, so I figured she'd require a hand bath and I had yet to find the energy for that.

Today I stayed home from work with Grayson, who was out of school to use up an extra snow day they didn't use this year. Why they didn't just take off a day at the end of the year, no idea. So we started off at the dentist, ran a few errands, then picked up Braxton and came home early. Braxton found my tub, and thus my baby doll. Braxton absolutely adores our friends baby, Braden. He even looks for Braden's car seat in the hall at daycare where they all get lined up. If he sees it, he wants to see Braden. If he doesn't, he wants to know where he is.

So I'm cleaning up the kitchen and I hear him rambling about Baby Brother tired. Baby Brother is also a girl, apparently the anatomical difference was lost on both of my boys as the afternoon went on. ...baby brother was also likely cold as his clothes were in the dryer.

Next thing I hear... Braxton dragging out his pillow and a washcloth. He puts  baby face down on the couch and starts patting his back.

Then of course, my TV is too loud, so Grayson applied some headphones to drown out the noise. I ended up explaining that if we would just put baby in another room, the TV wouldn't bother him.... so they did. And they insisted I find baby some clothes, and turn on Braxton's lullaby CD. Oh, and set a timer so that baby won't sleep more than 10 minutes for a nap. (Any real parent knows that 10 minutes is only enough time to think about what you might do while baby is asleep, not actually accomplish anything)

Other items on the counter ready for garage sale, unused baby bottles. Can you guess where that leads... luckily Braxton allowed me to replace the requested "baby milk" with water.

 
 

Baby Brother cries a lot apparently. He also needs a Paci. Braxton retrieved a paci from the drawer and had me squeeze it in baby's mouth. This is actually quite impressive since Braxton is a paci addict. He only gets his paci at night to fall asleep, but if he happens to get a hold of one during the day.... he'll sneak every moment he can before you catch him.

Time for another nap. Yep, face down on the chair.

But Baby Brother was cold, so we had to drag out every blanket, and the cover for the changing table to keep him warm.

Dinner time at the Weems's house... you bet! This newborn is talented. He can sit up at the table!

Bedtime. As a good parent, I dug around Braxton's bedroom and found his newborn night gown. Baby Brother is ready for bed.

Face Down of course. This baby is bound to be a SIDS statistic.

Now, at some point in all this, Dad comes home from work. I've texted him a couple of pictures. He has never been one to discourage his children from stuff typically reserved for girls, except possibly clothes. He seemed to find the situation amusing. He even went as far as to try to figure out how to keep the bottle from leaking any water while they were feeding Baby Brother. I did at sometime overhear the following while making dinner.

"If you don't leave baby alone for a while, he is going to be really tired"

I'm not sure if Dad was concerned for baby's well being, or was just not sure how much he could take of his sons' including the baby in their daily playtime routine. I did sense a little frustration when he stepped in water coming into the kitchen where the boys had stripped baby down to give him a bath ... with a washcloth and toothbrush. (Hey, at least the boys wanted the baby to be clean right??)

Now come on my mom friends.... which ones of you are slightly excited to see Braxton working on his parenting skills already??  It's not girly for him to have a doll and play house. It just means he is watching some great family dynamics (job sharing) at home and is copying them. We are really raising a true family man! .... now if I can just get dad to model getting his clothes to the laundry hamper, daily dishes, and laundry duty. Then Braxton will be a real keeper!!

Sneaky Story Telling

Yesterday was Easter. Everyone was up late coloring eggs and playing... running in circles through the house... Grayson, Braxton, and our friend Noah had a great time! I'm fairly certain that when we designed the open floor house that we live in.... we were not entirely in understanding of what great fun this layout provides for preschoolers!! 

Grayson is in a phase where he is scared to go sleep alone. He has quite the imagination so I am sure that this is partly to blame. He is afraid of the dark, afraid of his room, afraid of shadows... you name it. I suppose that this follows all the stuff I've read about having a vivid imagination that just won't shut off for bedtime. So the night before Easter, we suggested that he could camp out on Braxton's bedroom floor. He ended up waking up in the middle of the night and moved camp to our bedroom floor. I for one was excited about the Easter Bunny's visit to our house so I tried to not be too quiet as I started getting ready for church. Eventually Grayson got up and I caught him wandering out into the living room in search of his Easter Basket. He was very excited.... especially when he saw his sand bucket.

"MOM!! The Easter Bunny knew EXACTLY which toy I wanted!!!"

This was fantastic news considering he had seen this bucket several weeks ago at SAMs and nearly had a fit because we didn't buy it for him. Guess its a good thing the Easter Bunny loves him ;-)

Later that day the boys were playing outside and "Aunt Missy" was outside bathing Chester. When I went outside I was summoned over to her. This is pretty close to how this conversation went...

Lyssa: Did you tell Grayson that he can help me?
Me: No, but he can.
Lyssa: Well I didn't think so. He wanted to help and I asked him if he asked you.
    (this is a rough translation of their conversation)
      Grayson: Yes, she said I could
      Lyssa: Did she tell you that you could, or are you just saying that she did?
      Grayson: She told me I could, but don't tell her that she told me.

So from this conversation, we can deduct that 
1) Grayson is sneaky (I believe I used to get called this by my mom... I'm sure she smiles when she hears his tall tales and how sneaky he is... )
2) My sister has picked up some parenting intuition while being here with the boys.

I'm sure that the boys will be heartbroken when Missy moves out, but I'm sure she'll stop by to babysit... I mean eat dinner ;-) Perhaps we can start a routine "date night" with Aunt Missy for the boys.