Visit to Portage

Tired boy passes
out on Aunt Jill

We went to Portage the weekend before Easter to visit family.  It'd been a while since Xander had gotten to see much of the extended family--my awesome aunts and uncles. We had family coming to visit from West Virginia, some of whom I'd never met and some of whom I hadn't seen since 1993. So, even though I had a mountain of grading and work to do for my classes, the kids and I trekked out.  You rank, Faubers!

Before the WV crew arrived, we had an informal shindig with some family. Ainsley is still going through her awesome selfish phase, so every toy in the house was HERS and if an adult looked at it or played with it, she was fine.  However, if MaKayla even breathed near it, Ainsley squealed to the dolphins.  I should add that I didn't *bring* any toys, so all the toys that Ainsley was metaphorically peeing all over were ones that Jessica brought over so that the kids could play with things.  That's right, Ainsley was being selfish with MaKayla's OWN TOYS.  I was so proud.

Selfishness: In Action

*side note* Look, I know the selfishness is a phase, and I know that it's a sign of her confidence that she will assert herself with anyone and everyone (and yes I know where she gets that from, tyvm), but when she does it with other people's things, I start to worry that I haven't grown a confident little girl, but I've grown a bully.  This is also partially my baggage. I remember my cousins telling me when I was preteenish that I used to be "so bossy." I'm gonna give it another year; by then Xander will be big enough to assert himself with her and I think The. World. Will. Change. for little Miss A.

Forcing some sharing on Ms. A

So, my kids love men.  I understand this and know where they get it from—kids prefer the gender of their primary caregivers.

Grandpa Lee Roy has finally grown comfortable with Mr. Xander.  (Lee is nervous around tiny babies...Xander has moved into the age of hardcore Grandpa doting. This is never more prevalent when we go to Portage though.  While Xander is a Momma's Boy (in all of the good sense of the terms), he still digs hanging with Grandpas and Daddys.


Ainsley, being a big ole Daddy's Girl, has always preferred the company of men.  She particularly loves my cousin Jake. He's just the right kind of cornball for Miss A.

*side note part deux* A part of me doesn't want to have another kid.  Sean and I each have "one of our own." Plus I don't want the grown ups to be outnumbered by the wee ones.  We don't know if we're having anymore...there aren't any plans at this point in time.

On the other hand, both of my kids were enchanted by Beth's girls. Taylor particularly.  Taylor's at that perfect age of being a kid enough to still like fiddling and playing with them but being grown up enough that they feel like she's a grown up. (My kids also prefer adults to children.  I'm sure that'll get socialized out of them once school starts.)  You can see the abject joy each of them had with Ms. Taylor.

Bike riding is cold.

Homeless chic

Question: What trip to Grandma's is complete without a trip outside?  No trip!  Even though it was pretty cold out, Grandma and Ainsley got bundled up to do a little bike riding.  Xander and Momma stayed inside because we aren't Crazy People.

Bracelets were part of Ainsley's Easter basket from Grandma.
When we got home, this is how she decided to "play" with them.

Playing Games

Today, after we got the kids up from their naps, Sean was cleaning A's glasses and I was searching for snack cups when we came upon this:

Seriously working

When we asked what they were doing, Ainsley replied, "We playing games!" What is unclear is if they're playing Momma games (the FB social games) or Daddy games (card games/computer games).

Coloring Easter Eggs

Tiaras. Yes, mine is from
St. Patrick's Day

This year, Ainsley and I made coloring Easter eggs a girls' thing!  Mostly because Xander was too small and Sean was watching soccer.

Ainsley decided that coloring eggs was way too boring for just plain old art shirts, so she added tiaras to the mix.

Sean helped us get the cups ready by cutting up some water bottles—recycling had just run, so we *just* had enough. I'm glad we went with clear containers, she enjoyed it much more.

Dropping in the eggs! Exciting!

As we colored the eggs, I spent some time explaining to Ainsley that we leave the eggs out for the Easter Bunny to see.  He can't hide them because they'd go yucky so he leaves other eggs hidden.  She didn't really care. She just wanted to color eggs.  It was with great enthusiasm that she put each egg in the container. She wanted to do pink first—she's been on this pink kick lately.

Eggs!

Once we got all the eggs in the cups, she was pretty bored.  I now understand why the Paas people put all that crap in their packages.  So, we spent some quality time looking at the stickers that came with the kit. Yes, another thing I used to think was useless.

Matching things is awesome!

The most awesome thing for Ainsley was the matching game.  Seriously, these Paas people know what they're doing.  In the time it took us to play one game, the eggs reached maximum color awesomeness!

One thing that struck her as odd—the cards didn't exactly match. The purple egg had an orange background on one card and a different color on the other.  That, Paas people, is not a match.  We got over it though.

Inspecting sticker placement

I really thought the coloring part of the eggs would have been Ainsley's favorite part; however, I neglected to remember that there were stickers.  Once she saw the glorious, glorious sheet of stickers, it was end game.  We stickered the hell out of every egg we colored. There was no rhyme or reason to the stickering.  It was an out and out sticker melee.

Sticker HEAVEN!

Ainsley insisted on putting almost one of every sticker on her egg. Toward the end, I just got sick of stickering, I just kept feeding her stickers. It was like crack; she was so happy!

A is for Ainsley!

She also insisted on a pink egg for her A egg.  Let's hope that this isn't a trend!

*side note* Yes, that's a sparkly New York shirt Ainsley is wearing as her art shirt. Yes, that's a Thundercats shirt I'm wearing for my art shirt. We like to be sparkly and 80s when we do art. WHAT?

Our hard work.

Ultimately, we made a crap ton of eggs. But that's ok, because Xander will push an old lady in front of a bus for a hard boiled egg!

Happy Easter!

We had a pretty awesome Easter this year.   

Xander's Loot

Ainsley's Loot

The Easter Bunny brought lots of fun things for the kiddos.  Since this was Xander's first Easter, he got a BIG bunny (it's as long as he is!).  He also got some board books and Little People to play with.  Ms. A got a pig (which I think will end up being named Piggy), Peeps (yellow chicks and purple bunnies: "I eat EYES first!"), Strawberry Shortcake coloring book and Easter book, a Slinky, a Mrs. Potato Head, and Playdough. EB got pretty sneaky with his hiding places.  The boot was my favorite.

PlayDough Bunny!

Ainsley and Xander slept in pretty late today. (Sean has been playing Fallout 3 into the wee hours of the morn lately, so he wasn't going to be up any time soon.)  When she finally did wake up, she was excited to see her Easter basket. She immediately knew which basket was hers, and she was digging into it with careful purpose. She initially grabbed the little people things that had Playdough in them.

Slinky!

The Slinky became an element of particular interest.  She probably played with that for about 5 minutes.  I tried to show her how it works on stairs, but she was having none of that. She just wanted to hear it make its Slinky noise.

We grow nerds. Proudly.

She lined up her Peeps so they could watch her. Then she then broke into her books.  This was for sure my favorite part of basket discovery. She got three books (a Curious George Easter on top of the Shortcake booty).  She wouldn't do anything until she looked through each of the three books. 

I love you most of all
Piggy.

Next Piggy was found and given an obscene amount of lovins. She then demanded that Mrs. Potato Head be opened so she could play.  She didn't really get the idea behind Mrs. Potato Head, but she was obsessively playing with her—to the extent that she took Mrs. Potato Head to bed with her at nap time.

Can I haz Little People?

All of Ainsley's shenanigans finally woke up Xander.  He was particularly interested in grabbing his Little People egg. I wondered why the EB didn't unwrap the Little People from the packaging (and Mrs. Potato Head too for that matter).  I'll have to send him a note for next year.  I was ultimately proud of EB's thriftiness; I'm pretty sure I saw some of these toys on clearance last year at Target.  So, I suppose I'll forgive EB this transgression.

His first shiner

I gave Mr. X his bunny.  He was very happy with it.

*side note* Yes, that's a shiner on Mr. X's face. Last night, in a post-egg-coloring fit of energy, A and X decided to start wrestling.  This, of course, could only end in sorrow.  This time, the sorrow manifested in Ainsley somehow clocking X in the face with her Disney Princess chair.  I am looking into professional wrestling association training camps for Ainsley.

Big boys smile for Mommas

Once I freed all the Little People, Xander was very happy.  He's also entered into that awesome phase of babyhood where he's realized that he's supposed to smile for the camera, but doesn't yet recognize that his smile is power and hold it against us (I'm looking at you Ainsley!).

Xander also got some board books—one of them is a touch and feel book.  Ainsley the Book Destroyer decimates all of her books (this is a huge issue for me, by the way), so this was his first experience with a touch and feel book.  He digs it. A LOT.  He spent at least 5 minutes touching and feeling the lamb, duck, and bunny.

Touch and feel

I let the kids play with their Easter loot for a while...and then Ainsley discovered one of the hidden eggs.

Ainsley: "I found egg!"
Me: "That's right! Remember that the Easter Bunny hides eggs inside when it's wet outside.  I think I saw some in the dining room and living room."
Ainsley: "Let's find them!"

Discovering the egg

We left Xander to his Little People as she started gathering eggs. One of the eggs was structurally unsound and when she touched it, the candy popped out. 

I don't know if I can properly express to you with words how Ainsley reacted when she discovered that the eggs were packed with candy.  The closest I can come is this: it's similar to that scene in Scarface when Pacino does the HUGE PILE of coke combined with that scene in Over the Hedge when the squirrel drinks coffee.

Basket OCD

At first, Ainsley was putting the candy in the basket in order—the bunnies went with the bunnies, the Twix with the Twix.  However, as she realized exactly how much candy she was amassing, she went kinda crazy.

Mostly it involved her running around "I find eggs!", finding an egg, smashing it open "CANDIES!", and throwing the candy and egg husk into her basket.

Action shot...candy falling
into the basket

Xander, for the most part, hung around playing with toys on the floor; he just didn't really care.  When he did make a move for an egg, I thought Ainsley was going to scratch his face off.  I convinced her to share the empty eggs with her brother.  She did but with hesitation.

I can only imagine what this is going to be like next year, when I believe that Xander will be larger than his sister and will accept no such shenanigans.  At this point, she should be thanking her chosen deity that Xander doesn't know what candy is because I swear that boy will KILL you for food.  KILL YOU DEAD.

Xander: Not Really Caring

After a while, X found some joy in chasing Ainsley.  She became more and more Golum-esque with "MY BASKET!"  She would run with the candy and basket and try to keep it from him.

This sharing thing is a bitch and I want it to end. Thank you very much.





For your enjoyment (and because Sean was sleeping), I took A LOT of video of the egg hunt. Honestly, it was cracking me up.  In this video, she tries to be lazy and get me to an egg for her, discovers the boot egg, and shows the world that she has been cursed with my hair. So, here you go, enjoy!

MESS!

After egg hunting, there was PlayDough and breakfast (at noon), then Momma/Babies bath, then precious, precious nap for babies.  I snapped this picture right before I went downstairs to have a beer and some candy.  The only real work I did to clean up was put the PlayDough in zip lock bags so it'd stay soft.

One final note:
 

New Bath Toy=Imagination Station

My mom bought Xander this bath toy for Easter. It's pretty awesome--it's battery operated and pours bath water up through a faucet. It has these little cups for the kids to play with.  Way cooler than any bath toy we ever had.

*sidenote* I remember taking LONG baths with my sisters as children. I remember getting water everywhere so badly that we rotted out the floor and the maintenance guy had to come replace it.  I also only remember one bath game: Bar.  I was the bartender and sat near the faucet.  I would clean out the lids of all the soaps/shampoos/etc. and fill them with water. I'd then slide them down the edge of the bath to Jill and Jesse who would do "shots."  We were 11, 4, and 2 at the time. WTF.

Anyway, Ainsley and Xander LOVED the new bath toy. As is our way, we took a Momma/Babies bath. When we're done, I'll get out and take Xander to get dressed. At this point, Ainsley gets to play by herself. As I was dealing with , I heard her talking to the bath toy.  Since I'm not in the room with her, I normally will talk to her (cause I'm paranoid and afraid she'll drown. SHUT UP.).

Me: Whatcha doin?
Ainsley: I making coffee!
Me: What?!

So I walk in there and I see her using the faucet like a little barista and making herself a coffee.  I admit, I've taken her to a coffee house a few times.  She sees me drink coffee every morning, but this...too funny.

MY PARK!!

I took the kids to the park today. I gave Ainsley the option of park or store (she needs a new spring coat). "PARK!!" She demanded.  She was so excited she could barely contain herself when we got out of the van.

She ran as quickly as she could to the playground.  Seriously, it was like grown women and the Victoria Secret's SemiAnnual Sale.  She'd have shanked you to get to that playground.

I booked after her with Xander in tow.  He didn't really seem to care, but Ainsley was ALL about the slides.  She's always greatly enjoyed slides, but at first she was hesitant.  She kept reading forward and asking me to hold her hand to help her down the slide. 

That lasted for all of about five slide trips.  Then it was: SLIDE!!! SLIDE!! I SLIDE!!

Xander didn't get too into the slide.  I put him on it and he slid. He didn't giggle or laugh, but once I put him down on the ground, he discovered The Most Awesome Thing in the World: WOOD CHIPS.

Wood chips are awesome for several reasons.
     1.  There are a million of them.
     2.  They cover DIRT.
     3.  They are deeelicious!

Hold my hand &
tasty woodchips!

Needless to say, I spent most of the time at the park holding Xander to prevent excessive wood chip consumption.  At one point, while Ainsley was slideslidesliding, Xander made a break for it. He crawled completely away from the park at Top Xander Speed, which is quicker than you'd think!

There were a few other kids at the park--we went at around 5pm. Late enough that the "normal" families have to get home for their dinners, but early enough that the hoodlums haven't come to the park to smoke and be surly.

There was a girl Ainsley's age and her bigger sister playing at the park. Miss A had more fun chasing after the big girl--she's still leery of kids her own age.  I'm not too concerned about it; she'll adjust soon enough.

Peekaboo!

Ainsley became super adventurous. The slide had a tube that connected to a larger, spiral slide. Because the bigger sister was in the tube, A followed her. Then she slid down the spiral slide. She wasn't really prepared for the spiral slide and sort of shot down it backwards and sort of upside down. She landed face first in the dirt/wood chips--her glasses fell off her face. It took EVERYTHING in me to not rush to her. She got up and dusted herself off, but couldn't get her glasses back on. So I helped.  It was nice to still be needed a bit. *grin*

She ended up becoming quite skilled at maneuvering the spiral slide. I didn't have to teach her anything...she just knew to hold on to the side to balance herself.  In case there was a doubt, she is a genius.  There are decidedly fewer pictures of Xander because he lived this trip on my hip.

When it was finally time to go, Ainsley protested something wicked.  If you heard a great wailing coming from the Fort Waynian direction? It was Ainsley...lamenting our abandoning her beloved park.

MY PARK!! WANT
MY PARK!!

Do it again!

Then she noticed that I had taken her picture...