Grampa Neil and Gramma's Christmas gift arrived: a trampoline! (Or as John called it, "a jumping thing!")
It took five minutes for the children to hatch the plan of jumping off of a higher stationary object onto the trampoline. We put a stop to that and started outlining safety rules.
This is Mary's maneuver when she says, "ta-da!"We were amazed at how well the children took turns. They quickly figured out that jumping simultaneously was fun but limiting because they had to do smaller jumps. So they decided to take turns. Each child would jump for all of 15 seconds, then get off and cheerfully say, "Your turn!" Over and over for 20 minutes, it was beautiful to watch.
My blood pressure was a lot lower on Friday after Chris and I talked and decided to change our rule about ornaments. It's very hard figuring out parenting decisions, but we have learned that there are often several or many legitimate choices and it is okay sometimes to change one's mind. Do we have a Christmas tree at all? Is it in a room the children can access or not? Is it a small tabletop tree (which some kids would actually leave alone--but not Mary!)? Do we decorate it or not? Do we use any breakable ornaments? If so, are they all over the tree or just on the top half? Are the children allowed to touch the ornaments? With one finger only or more so?Chris and I decided to change our minds and let the children touch ornaments, even taking them off the tree and putting them back, so we sat them down officially and told them so. All of the delicate ornaments were on the top half out of reach anyway. Never had Mary broken an ornament so far. Ornaments are to bring joy, that's the whole point. So the children spent the day gently taking nonbreakable ornaments off the tree and putting them back on, nothing was broken, and everybody was calm.
Our neighbor has season tickets to the Bobcats basketball games and was out of town, so he gave us his two tickets. Chris got to take John to his first professional basketball game!
In the evening we went to Carolina Christmas, which is a, elaborate lights display at the motor speedway. I don't have any photos of the lights because I haven't yet figured out how to use our new camera at nighttime and all the photos of lights were ruined.
In addition to the lengthy drive-through lights display, there was a carnival! We visited the petting zoo: the animals knew exactly who had purchased animal feed and who hadn't (and you can tell that John hadn't.)
Is that really a baby white buffalo? If so, that's neat!
Some birds were big and grand . . .
. . . some were small and weird.
The children got to ride many rides that Mama would not have allowed had she been the sole parent with them. In the end, they had much more fun because of Daddy's influence. These little race cars went surprisingly fast!
No, Mary wasn't allowed to ride this slide (Mama put her foot down!), but I know she would have loved it.
Mama was nervous.
Our neighbor has season tickets to the Bobcats basketball games and was out of town, so he gave us his two tickets. Chris got to take John to his first professional basketball game!
In the evening we went to Carolina Christmas, which is a, elaborate lights display at the motor speedway. I don't have any photos of the lights because I haven't yet figured out how to use our new camera at nighttime and all the photos of lights were ruined.
In addition to the lengthy drive-through lights display, there was a carnival! We visited the petting zoo: the animals knew exactly who had purchased animal feed and who hadn't (and you can tell that John hadn't.)
Is that really a baby white buffalo? If so, that's neat!
Some birds were big and grand . . .
. . . some were small and weird.
The children got to ride many rides that Mama would not have allowed had she been the sole parent with them. In the end, they had much more fun because of Daddy's influence. These little race cars went surprisingly fast!
No, Mary wasn't allowed to ride this slide (Mama put her foot down!), but I know she would have loved it.
Mama was nervous.And lesson learned from yesterday, my having forgotten to take my Bendectin the night before due to change in routine (fun date out with Chris): No, I am not ready to stop taking my anti-emetic! Woo-ee, that was a hard day for me! When we were walking back to the car after the carnival, I was extremely queasy and my 25-month-old said, "I'm sorry, Mama. It's not your fault. I want to give you a hug." And she did!
My kids are usually nearby when I read your blog. I am glad they weren't today. They would have been green with envy!
ReplyDeleteLooks like the children have had a blast! I hope they slept peacefully all night. :)
We may have to consider getting one of those little trampolines. What a great toy for excess energy!
What fun! We have been meaning to go to this too, but have yet to find time when we are all healthy. I'm really interested after seeing the fun your kids had!
ReplyDelete