Anchors away

Somehow even AJ sensed he was in the presence of a legend.

At a retirement party for my former WDIO colleague, AJ giggled at the chance to wear a fake moustache and pose with Dennis Anderson.

AJ first met Denny a couple years ago. It happened to be at a spaghetti dinner fundraiser. I forget what exactly the fundraiser was for, but for months after, anytime AJ saw Denny on TV, he excitedly announced, "It's the guy from the noodle place!"

I often wonder what will happen to TV news in the future. The continued rise of the Internet and social media certainly has changed the way I - and no doubt many others - get my daily news fix. If there is a need for news anchors long term, I might know a couple people interested in the job.

Playing news anchor is a favorite game for the kids whenever we visit Sam's Club. Any long, low box or piece of furniture works quite nicely as a news desk, don't you know. AJ's news reports generally go like this, "A kitten got stuck in the tree today, so the police and the firemen got it down... " 

His delivery certainly has a charming appeal. Now we just need to work on his news judgement.

Party girl

In retrospect, it was probably cruel to tell an almost four-year-old that she had to wait until after lunch for her party, which really didn't start until 2 p.m. And then to reveal the cake decorated with plastic princesses... and tell her not to touch it... well that's just asking too much.

As I set to work in the kitchen assembling fruit and veggie trays I looked over and discovered one of the green frosted leaves had left the cake.

"I was just trying to see it," Sydney explained as she reached for the Cinderella figurine.

"Sydney, don't touch." I told her again.

"Okay, Mommy," she answered as she reached again for the cake.

"Sydney, don't touch!"

She jerked to attention, as if snapping from a trance. She was simply too excited.

Getting her dressed for the party was a relatively easy task. I let her pick her favorite dress, and accessorized it with a crown and a flower in her hair.

"Princesses love flowers!" she happily affirmed for me. The tiny carnation was originally part of a bouquet I'd bought for her on impulse, figuring it'd make a nice centerpiece. At first, Sydney wanted to carry around the flowers rather than put them in a vase. Once she finally handed them back to me, I discovered the one small stem had been broken. I trimmed off the bloom and offered to clip it in her hair. Sydney was thrilled!

The party started and went off mostly without a hitch... until it was time to open gifts. Little Miss Independent was so sure she could open everything herself. But then she had trouble opening an envelope (photo above) and ripping off the wrapping paper (photo below).

Aaahhh... a princess toy. That's more like it!

And birthday cake. Once again the party was a success. Sydney was actually quite good at blowing out the candles. We made her do it twice because the first time she blew them out so quickly that no one had time to take her picture.

One other party highlight: meeting the newest little girl in the family, Bella, the Bianchi's new chihuahua. 

Lucky girl that she is, she has two more birthday celebrations in store. On the actual day, we'll celebrate and give gifts from the immediate family, plus she gets to bring cupcakes to daycare. We're also planning - for the first time - to do a party for her friends. We just have to figure out when we can do that. Quite possibly she'll have to be patient until July. It's a lot to ask, but by then she'll be four, so maybe it'll be a piece of cake.

A sprinkling of summer weather

There's a not-so-funny joke in this region that if you don't like the weather, just stick around 10 minutes and it probably will change. All it takes is a wind shift to create drastically different conditions. Saturday's weather was an example of how we got that reputation. I took the kids grocery shopping in the morning, wearing polar fleece. By afternoon, it was so warm the kids were running through the sprinkler.

AJ ran around the yard, charging at the sprinkler with a hockey stick, much as I imagine Don Quixote went after wind mills. Initially, Sydney wanted nothing to do with the game. Until I suggested she could wear her new ballerina swimsuit. Suddenly, running through the sprinkler was all she wanted to do.

When she discovered sandbox toys doubled nicely as sprinkler toys... and those toys could be used to splash her brother... well, that just made it infinitely more fun.

Until AJ turned the tables on her. Suddenly, not so fun after all.

Eventually they grew tired of the sprinkler, though the water play continued. As I worked in the garden I could hear them inventing new games, including pouring water into their winter sleds and splashing it at each other. It's always nice when you can find ways to enjoy seasonal toys year 'round.

Birthday girls

Happy birthday, Grandma Jo!

We spent the weekend celebrating birthdays a little bit early. Sunday we had a party for Sydney, at which she received the darling dress, hat and purse in the above photo, all handmade by Grandma Jo. So far, the purse is Sydney's favorite part. After all, can a girl ever have too many purses? This one is particularly special because it has a long strap so she can carry it over her shoulder like Mommy does. She's been carrying it all over the house. 

Meanwhile, we celebrated (Surprise!) Jo's birthday on Saturday at their campground. In answer to another higher rhetorical question, no, a girl also can never have too much cake.

Thank goodness the weather cooperated for both parties.

Sydney's a bit confused about the significance of a party that doesn't fall on her exact birthday. She's twice asked me, "did I turn four at my party?"

One more week, sweetie.

Playground adventures

I'm a few days behind in some of my blog posts. That's always a pretty good indicator that we've been busy, and the kids' imaginations are in high gear.

Last Thursday, the first day of summer vacation, we headed for the playground. In jackets.

And polar fleece.

The cool termperatures didn't seem to bother the kids. They were too busy running around and climbing. Sydney's latest accomplishment? Conquering her fear of the sleek new slide. Note, there are no real sides on it.

Through some kind of physics... or geometry... or other math (thus illustrating again why I majored in journalism) some playground designer came up with a new slide that looks like a giant, curved tongue. There are slight ridges on the outer edge of each curve, and somehow that's enough to keep the kids from tumbling off of it. Each time Sydney safely reached the bottom, she performed a little happy dance - clearly quite proud of herself and wanting everyone to share in her glory.

 

AJ, meanwhile, commandeered the ship-shaped climbing structure. He'd come prepared with pirate hat and sword and quickly recruited all the other kids (except for one boy, he told me, who didn't want to play) and even a dad to join his pirate crew.

Every so often they'd be forced to abandon ship, jumping down or sliding off, and then making mock swimming motions. Playing along, I warned them to watch out for the sharks. Sydney looked back in all seriousness and answered, "Those are just dolphins."

One boy in particular (shown on the right in the photo below) seemed to latch on to AJ and the make believe adventure. They played together for at least a half hour, with the boy always addressing AJ as, "Sir."

I asked AJ how he'd convinced the kid to call him that, and AJ answered, "I don't know. He just started doing it."

A natural born leader.

Nice distraction... or not

I never thought I'd be happy to see a snapping turtle on the loose in my neighborhood.

But when you're driving a 6-year-old home from baseball practice, and he's upset because he was next in line to bat when the coach announced practice was over (never mind that he'd been first to bat so he had as many chances to hit as everyone else on the team), it's kind of nice to have an easy distraction opportunity like, "Hey look! Is that a snapping turtle?"

The tiny reptile had been crossing the street when we first spotted it. I'm guessing it had crawled out of the drainage pond that's on the far side of our next door neighbor's house. By the time we parked the car at our house and walked to where we'd seen it last, we found it had successfully reached the other side and was heading down the hill.

And now I can only hope that we never see it or its kind again. Especially not if he gets any bigger.

Don't jump to conclusions

"And that, dear Rapunzel, is why you should always wait until you hear the whole story..."

No, Sydney didn't really say those words to her doll, but that's the lesson I've learned from her on two occasions this week. As tempting as it is when her stories drag on and on, it's important not to try and finish them for her, because the ending could turn out quite different than what you expected.

Sydney came home from daycare with a fat lip a few days ago. She told me she got a hole in it because she got "bumped into a tree" while playing with friends.

"Oh no," I tried to console. "Did your teacher give you ice to put on your lip?"

Sydney then said, "Olivia did it."

"Olivia pushed you into a tree?" I asked. I knew that Sydney and Olivia have had their issues - most likely because they seem to have very similar personalities. I wondered how I'd even mention this to Olivia's mom, who is a friend of mine.

"No, Olivia gave me water so it wouldn't hurt."

Much better ending!

Wednesday, Sydney was telling me about her day and said, "I bite... I bited Ryan."

My eyebrows shot up. "You bit Ryan?"

Sydney continued, "I bited Ryan to come to my house and play."

Much, much better ending!