After returning from the store Dela (age 7) asks “What’s Borax?”
August (age 10) without missing a beat chimes in “It’s like the Lorax, but for Laundry.”
“What”
“I am the Borax and I speak for the clothes.”
After returning from the store Dela (age 7) asks “What’s Borax?”
August (age 10) without missing a beat chimes in “It’s like the Lorax, but for Laundry.”
“What”
“I am the Borax and I speak for the clothes.”
I have six pictures and two birthdays to share this week.
Tuesday was August’s actual 10th birthday. I previously posted about his party last Friday. Here he is blowing out the candles on his cake.
Then he opened up the biggest present from his grandparents containing the biggest LEGO set he’s ever gotten (the Monster Fighters Haunted House) with over 2000 pieces.
He is equally daunted and excited about putting it together.
This last picture of him shows some excitement because I finally broke my own rule about giving video games as presents.
The next day (literally) Xavier turned 3. Instead of another cake we got cupcakes. next year we’ll probably have back to back cakes.
It was an overwhelming day for him. We let him open a present in the morning, and another later in the day, then another before dinner. Essentially we were trying to not give him too much at once, but even still it was a lot for a little guy whose concept of time is “now” or “not now” and having his older brother have a party AND a birthday, then his, well, he was appropriately confused.
The following day in the back yard I found him using some “walkers” or whatever they are called on his own for the first time.
Ciaran (5) and Xavier (3) are playing in the front room. They start getting into something they shouldn’t. What that is isn’t important.
I raise my voice and say “Get out of there!”
They immediately run and sit together in the big red chair.
I put whatever it was back. As I walk out of the front room Xavier asks if they can get up.
I don’t say anything.
Xavier then asks if they are in time out.
Again, I don’t say anything.
They stayed in the chair together for 5 minutes before getting back up to play.
Last year I started making specific posts for each kid as they celebrated their annual milestone. It started with August as turned 9, followed almost immediately by Xavier as he turned 2. Ciaran was central in a post in July, then Dela in August, and finally Kyle as he turned 21 last month.
Then I decided against doing another round this year.
Partly because I had other things to work on and time was/is an issue. Another was I simply had a difficult time coming up with something to say for each of the kids, and if I did a post for one I’d have to do one for all of them.
So I punted.
And as I am typing this post my train of thought got interrupted (in between that last paragraph/sentence and this one) by a visit by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I really don’t remember where I was going with this post. I decided to finish up something else I was working on, then wrap the last present for Xavier which he will unwrap in just a couple of hours, get lunch, etc.
I still don’t know where I was initially going with this post. So I’ll punt again.
Hey there. You like “Doctor Who” don’t you? Of course you do. If you don’t, then stop reading. This isn’t for you.
The current season of “Doctor Who” is about to end, but it doesn’t have to.
Shout Factory accidentally sent me two copies of K-9: The Complete Series on DVD. I don’t need two copies.
Want that extra DVD copy of K-9: The Complete Series I have? Leave a comment here. That’s it.
This giveaway is open to residents of the United States and Canada ages 17 and older. One entry per person/household. Winner will be selected at random from the comments below on Monday May 20.
Odds of winning depend on the number of entries. Must be present to win. Post Post Modern Dad is not liable for injuries to self esteem or geek credibility.
Friday we had my son Augut’s 10th birthday party. He wanted to do the same thing as last year – the video game truck. I went through my archives and couldn’t find the post I had about the event, which is bothersome. I did find a twitter post though.
So essentially, you spend a couple hundred bucks and a truck with multiple screens pulls up in front of your house. The event was such a hit August wanted to do it again, and we were happy to oblige. When I went to contact the company about returning, that’s when it looked like it might not happen.
The company we used last time wanted us to fit into their schedule for Friday. The day was wide open, and we could select either a 2-4 pm slot or the next one that starts at 4:30. The problem was school lets out at 3 and gathering the herd and walking them all to the house a block and a half away simply doesn’t take more than 15 minutes.
After spending a while trying to figure out a way to get my needs to work with their schedule, I hung up, frustrated.
To Google I went.
It took some searching, emailing and leaving messages with various companies waiting for some contact back, but Games2U came through.
Games2U worked with my schedule needs, but it doesn’t end there.
I want to emphasize this is not in any way this is a sponsored post. The company doesn’t know I’m writing this since they don’t even know I have a blog.
Four screens on the inside and two on the outside of video game fun for whatever age group you want. Feel like you need to limit the games they offer to younger kids? No problem. While the older (3rd grade) kids were on the inside of the truck playing Minecraft and LEGO Star Wars III or whatever, Ciárán was on the outside playing LEGO Batman.
Last year the “game coach” got the kids set up well enough, but this year, the Games2U game coach actually helped out kids. He wasn’t an expert at every game, but he knew enough and was helpful. My son enjoyed last year’s party, but this year’s much more, due in part to the helpfulness of the game coach.
By having August and his friends inside, and Ciárán outside, Ciárán who is half the age of August’s friends was still able to participate in the party. Déla even got in on the action. At first it was with a dancing game outside. The two of us were playing some music rhythm game and she kicked my ass. Then after a few songs she went inside the truck. Xavier just sort of hung out, never going in the truck, but “helping” Ciárán or staying in the house.
It’s not just video games that Games2U offers. There’s outdoor laser tag, or other types of events the company can do. I highly recommend them. Games2U did a great job with my son’s birthday party. It was worth the money.
After the time allotted The kids all headed to the back yard where there was plenty of pizza, then cake and the typical wrasslin’ that seems to take place whenever a group of this kind gets together. I don’t get it. I wasn’t like that at his age. Then again, I didn’t have nearly the number of friends he does either.
With pizza and cake dispensed with the party was winding down and parent began to arrive to pick up their respective boys.
A successful birthday party.
Look, I know it’s not Friday. Or Phriday. Yesterday I got rather distracted by a number of events culminating in August’s birthday party. There will be a blog post about that next week. This post is all about my daughter.
Last Saturday Déla had her First Communion. Here she is in her dress.
And here she is in line about to go in just before Mass.
And one more with the group afterwards.
Then on Thursday it was her grade’s turn for a school performance. In between songs kids came up and delivered lines about being good citizens. Here is Déla delivering her line. No, I don’t remember what it was.
We are sitting around the dinner table, eating our dinner, chatting about who knows what. Eventually the topic shifts to eye color. Each of our 5 kids have different eye color. None of them have the same color as Laura or myself.
Kyle has the eye color of my mother. Ciárán has the eye color of my grandmother. Xavier has eyes similar to Laura. We don’t know where August and Déla get theirs from though.
It was while discussing this last fact that Laura brought up the story of when we had to take Kyle to the emergency room because we thought he had appendicitis 2 days before his 6th birthday. Turns out he didn’t, but that’s a different story.
So while trying to figure out where it hurt and how much, the nurse was leaning over Kyle. Noting that his eye color is vastly different from mine and Laura’s, she asks “Where did you get your eye color?”
His response: “The candy shop.”
Xavier is too young to understand, Ciárán is rather nonplused, but August and Déla laughed heartily at this. It cracks me and Laura up to this day.
After a moment Ciárán breaks in to say “That’s not at all funny.”
Of course this made us laugh all the more.
How are you celebrating Star Wars Day? Hasbro graciously sent us a few things to help celebrate May The Fourth (Be With You).
Thanks Hasbro!!
Remember last week’s Shark Princess? He turned into an ice cream cone.
No, really. He walked around saying he was an ice cream cone.
Thursday night was performance night for the 3rd – 5th graders. I couldn’t get a shot of him (along with a gajillion other 3rd graders) playing the ukulele, but here he is singing… something… I can’t remember what.
This morning I took Ciárán and Xavier to the zoo. The first 10 minutes weren’t spent looking at animals.
And when we did get to look at the animals, they were distracted by them so I couldn’t get a good picture.
We sort of “lucked” into the opening of a new exhibit, the Asian small-clawed otters. Ciárán actually wanted his picture taken.
If you look closely above his head you can find one of the otters.