Monday, March 25, 2013

Score One Against Lazy Parenting

This little Trevor has been a happy boy lately,

except at church sometimes he is a little bit frowny.

Last Sunday, as usual, we were in a hurry to get ready in the morning and rush out the door to try to get to church on time. It was a little bit hard to get his shoe on, but I didn't think anything of it. At church he said once that he wanted to take off his shoes. If it had been Dexter, he would have just taken off his shoes, he used to take his shoes and socks off at church every Sunday, because they made his feet hot. He doesn't like hot feet. But I guess having them tie with a double knot makes it a little tricky for a four-year-old. But, Trevor wasn't really complaining, just kinda frowny, and I didn't feel like taking his shoes off when it was kinda hard to get them on in the first place!

Sadly, he was limping as we left church. I thought maybe the shoes were just getting too small and assured him he could have a bigger pair next week. When we finally got home and took them off, a little toy came falling right out. See it on the floor there near his knee?

It sure looks small, but when it's inside a shoe, I'm sure it felt huge. I felt so bad for being neglectful and not listening to him when he said they were pinching his feet. Sometimes we do have to listen to our kids.

Here is a close up. The shoe is on its side and the little fireman is on the sole.

I guess he has forgiven me though, because this week, when we were eating lunch after church he pulled this pretzel out of his shirt pocket and said he saved it for me.

Nothing says, "I love you," like food from your pocket.

On a different note, I haven't been able to go for bike rides, because Trevor outgrew the baby seat on my bike and someone smaller came along to take his place in it, and I haven't wanted to leave either one behind, so I just haven't gone for a bike ride since before my little sweetie pie was born.

But, I decided enough was long enough, so I replaced the bike tire on Geneva's bike along with the inner tube and I pumped up all the flat tires. On Trevor's little bike that he inherited from Dexter, it said inflate to 40 PSI, so I did. But, then when I was pumping up the back tire, I noticed the front tire had a bulge and thought I should let some air out, which I was going to do as soon as I finished with the back tire. I was using a pump that plugs into the car cigarette lighter, so that's why it was so easy to overinflate it. Of course, as soon as I was done thinking the thought that I should let some air out, it popped!

Bother.

So, then I had to go to the store to buy a new tiny innertube. Those little tires are hard to pump up, because the pump thing barely fits in between the innertube thing and the middle of the tire. Anyway, long story short, I got all the bikes working (I'm not always lazy!) and we rode up and down our street, with the three little kids staying on our sidewalk. I told Trevor to just practice balancing and walking the bike. He was very nervous at first, but then he didn't want to stop!

You can almost see him on the left side of this picture. It was also this little sweetie pie's first time on a bike. She loved it.

Trevor wanted to ride his bike before church yesterday, but I told him there wasn't time. So, after church he started talking about it again. Spencer said, "You want to go for a bike ride?" Trevor said, "No, I just want to ride my bike."

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Score One for Lazy Parenting

I wish I had two hands for typing right now, it's so much faster, but this little sweetie pie is currently sleeping on me.

Anyway, what I was going to say is that two weeks ago, my seven-year-old was lamenting the fact that he wanted to wear shorts, even though it was cold, but he couldn't because both pairs that he owns were in the laundry and he had been wearing pants for a couple of days and they were bothering him.

So, he took it upon himself to do laundry! Yay!

The first load that was dry, he took items out of the dryer one by one and put them away or brought them to me for help if he didn't know whose they were or where they went.

I thought he would do the load with his shorts and stop, but all week long he did between two to four loads of laundry every day, (I told you I was a lazy parent).

He said, "I'm doing laundry so that no one will ever run out of a type of clothes that they want to wear again!"

Finally, the day did come when there wasn't enough dirty clothes to make a load. He was bothered to run out, but I told him that was a wonderful problem to have.

This is the same boy who, when he was feeling cold in the living room said, "The heat in this room needs to be upgraded." Do we live in a digital world, or what?