Joe’s Place

On the way to visit Grandma and Grandpa today Joe said that they had not seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang before and I assured him that they had.  In fact, they had watched it with Daddy when he was little.  Then he asked if they watched it when they were as little as him.

I told him that when they were his age they did not have TV’s.  Silence……………….What did they watch then………….?  I told Joe that they didn’t watch anything, they had not invented them yet (not sure of the exact date of invention, but I knew they weren’t broadcasting TV for people yet, didn’t want to get too technical).  He then asked something about what did they do then and I told him that they listened to programs on the radio.  For some reason he did not question this, but I am sure there will be follow up questions soon.

Joe and daddy were driving home from grandma’s and daddy, in his less-than-harmonic voice (some would describe it sounding like two cats fighting in the back yard) was singing with a Patti Labelle song “Ring my Bell” (and singing “ding-a-ding-a-ding”). 

Joe said, “daddy….you sure are smart, but you maybe are weird”. 

Mike said “what does that mean” and Joe said “it’s a figure of speach — it means that I love you…”

Grandma Drinkwine is going in for to receive some test results today, and she also has some tests to come.  Joseph, daddy and mommy have been saying prayers nightly asking God to please be with her as she goes through these tests and results and to help her be strong, but most importantly to help her stay well.

This morning, while Joe and mommy were watching Scooby (a tradition) mommy paused the show and asked Joe if it was OK to say a special prayer for grandma today.  I won’t lie….he did think about it a second, and then smiled at me and said “sure”.

We prayed that God take care of her and although it was selfish of us to ask him to do what WE wanted (we always know God knows best), that we were this time asking that he keep grandma well and healthy so she can be around for a long long time because Joseph so loves his grandpa and grandma that he would really miss either if something were to happen.  We asked for this special time to please do what we want and keep her well so we can have her to ourselves for a long long time.

This is from mommy:  God Bless you Arlene (grandma to some, Arlene to Joe) and keep strong and remember that He is with you all day and every day and if you feel scared and weak, He WANTS you to lean on him.  Give it all to him to take care of, He wants to help always.

Love, Mommy, Daddy, Joseph Daniel Drinkwine, Cocoa and, yes, Butch!

While talking to Joe this afternoon, he told us when he grew up he was going to marry Katie.  I told him how excited I would be to babysit his kids and dote on them, blah, blah, blah.  Then he told me that when HE has kids, he’s not going to let them get away with it.  I thought about it and figured I knew what he meant.  When daddy came home I told Joe to tell daddy what he told me about what he was going to do when he had kids.  Joe said to daddy, “when I have kids, I’m not going to let them get away with it.”  Mike said, do you mean, you won’t let them get away with everything”, and Joe said “yes, that’s right.”  Mike said, “so basically, you’re going to do what we are doing to you, not let them get away with everything”.  Joe said, “you can’t not when you’re already doing it”.

Unfortunately, it’s either too deep for me to understand, or I’m just not smart enough.  I’ll ask Kelley (Katie’s mom) if she can decypher it.

Wow, nothing like getting nailed by your 4 year old with you own words.

First the background……………………

Joe got a Hot Wheels track for Christmas (as well as many other wonderful gifts) and immediaely wanted to put it together once we were at home and gearing down after all fo the festivites.  It took a while to get it just right, but hey, that’s half of the fun at times with Christmas gifts for little ones.

Unfortunately, little boys (and I suspect, little girls as well) have a limited amount of tolerance and impulse control and seem to want to take things apart just as much as put them together, maybe even more so.  As a result, we (meaning me) spent a good amount of time putting it back together every so often.  At some point the taking apart process became a little more often and seemingly more aggressive (taking things apart and tossing/throwing).

I tried to explain that constantly taking it apart and putting it together again can wear on the connection points and it could stop fitting together correctly.

At some point it got put away as it was sitting idly by in favor of other toys.

Today, Joe asked about it and I told him we could get it out after he got some of his morning duties taken care of.  He agreed and dutifully took care of his assigned tasks.

I then got it out and the accompanying cars to use with it.  Joe wanted to carry ther box containg the track parts and as he came into the family room and took it out of the box he exclaimed “I thought you said I couldn’t take it apart.  But you did, that’s not fair, my friends would say it’s not fair too”.

OK, on the one hand I am glad he remembered the conversation, however, on the other hand, how do you explain the apparent discrepancy to a 4 year old, so he will understand the difference between taking it apart and putting it away for an extended amount of time as opposed to taking it apart over and over again on a daily basis…………….

I look forward to more of the “Gotcha” moments.

OK, Laura’s trip to Schweitzer is only 24 hours along and already the boys are missing mom.  not that we aren’t having fun and doing things, but just that it is a little lonelier without mom around the house.

Any time I reference Laura in a conversation (especially if we are out of the house) Joe asks if she will be home when we get home.  His sense of time isn’t fully developed yet, but that is probably a good thing since it may not seem like a long time to him since he has no idea what two or three days means.

What bath is not complete without a bungee cord????

Joe got Christmas II while we were at Trudy & Steve’s a few weeks ago.  It was “game” night, and Diane (Godmother) came up and we all had dinner together (macaroni and cheese, what else?).  Diane had a Christmas present for Joe and of course he loved it.  We had a good time learning how to play “Sequence” and “Chicken Feet”.  Chicken Feet is played with domino’s and Mike and I have started teaching Joe how to play b/c the domino’s are white with colored dots, so he can sort of get it.  He loves when we make a “chicken foot”.  It really is a fun game.

Watching a movie one minute, asleep the next.  Ha!  Not tired my foot!

Apparently Joe thought that Butch needed a “medal”, and when I asked him what it was for, he said he gets to be the “alpha dog” for the day.  Thank goodness Cocoa was out of the room when all this was happening…..