special time

Mr. Orange and his stingray.

Yesterday I was able to spend quite a bit of time with Miss Pink since Mr. Orange played with his cousin all morning and then had a date with his Nana later in the day.  Today I had special time with Mr. Orange while Miss Pink was at preschool.

Can I just tell you that this little guy is super cool?  I mean, I know he's my son, but he is seriously cool.  After we dropped off Miss Pink, we came home and I was busy in the kitchen cleaning up breakfast and going about my day.  A few minutes later I hear Mr. Orange come into the kitchen and he says, "Mom.  I'm ready for my special time.  Come play with me."  I finished up the dishes and went into the living room.  He had his stingray (he got it at the Aquarium yesterday with Nana) and his big stuffed crocodile.  He hands me the crocodile and says that the two animals are in battle.  He proceeded to tell me the rules (which changed every 30 seconds) and we went into battle.  Now I'm pretty sure that when a crocodile chomps down on a stingray that the stingray should die.  Or when the crocodile swooshes up into the air and then body slams the stingray that the stingray should die.  Or, when a stingray stings a crocodile the crocodile should die.

That's what you would think, but you would be sooooo wrong.  You see, stingrays have magical powers.  They can light fires under the water and shoot lasers out of their tails.  Crocodiles have armor and shields so they cannot be stung by a stingray.  How on earth can a battle end?  I though battles were supposed to be "to the death".  Well, after 20 minutes or so, mom was getting a bit tired.  So the stingrays master died a tragic death of being tickled.  Never fear, the master returned to life the second I stopped the tickle torture.  The stingray killed the crocodile and the crocodile did a pretty fantastic job of dying a long drawn out death, as interpreted by its' master, me, yet Mr. Orange was not satisfied and his stingray brought my crocodile back to life.  I was then informed that my crocodile could not die easily since it had so much armor (see above).  Well, I thought that my crocodile probably had an Achilles Heel (I've been reading way to much Percy Jackson lately) and started to sing a song about how the crocodile didn't like to be tickled because its' armpits are its' weak spot.  After 5 minutes of song, Mr. Orange finally caught on and the battle ended.  Phew.  I am not good at playing battle!

The battle made me hungry so we decided to make cookies together.  I ran upstairs to switch the laundry and could hear Mr. Orange getting things out of the cupboard.  I came down and he looked at me so sweetly and said, "How about blue cookies?"  I told him that blue cookies really aren't very appetizing so we settled on green.  As we were mixing up the batter, we realized that green is not a very good color when you use wheat flour and Sucanat.  The dough looked pretty gross, but tasted okay.  Next time I'm thinking that we won't use food coloring.  :)  Or maybe we'll go with the blue.

We picked up Miss Pink and she suggested that "we" go for a bike ride.  ("We" because I have to walk really fast behind them while they ride their bikes.)  We put on our coats and took a nice long walk/ride.  Miss Pink is pretty competitive and likes to give her brother a run for his money.  She will get really upset if he makes it to the fire hydrant/tree/whatever-I've-told-them-to-ride-to-and-wait-for-me-at first.  Today he rode patiently behind her and then would ride up next to her and ask her so sweetly, "Miss Pink, may I ride in front now?  Is that okay?"  If she said yes, he would move ahead, if she said no, he would pull up and let her go ahead.  There is one part of our ride where the sidewalk ends for construction so it's all rocks and we have to get out on the road.  Last summer Miss Pink didn't know how to stop and went cruising right off the end of the sidewalk and landed in the rocks.  She's pretty nervous about that patch now.  As we approached it Mr. Orange would say, "Miss Pink, it's okay.  Just remember to stop.  I'll show you how to stop.  I'm your big brother so I'll protect you."  He loves to look out for his little sister.

Later in the day Mr. Orange was trying to earn a few more stars so that he could go to a movie with Mr. Blue and Miss Pink while I had book club at the house.  I was sewing some things for church and he said, "Mom, what can I do to help you?  Oh, I know, I'll sweep.  Is it okay if I sweep for you?"  Um, let me think about that...YES!  If there is one thing I absolutely hate doing, it's sweeping.  Don't ask me why.  It's not like it's gross, or hard, I just hate doing it.  That's why I walk around with socks on my feet - so I don't feel the crumbs.  He got the hand broom and dustpan out, got down on his hands and knees and swept up the entire dining room and kitchen.

Mr. Orange is my little pal.  I love him to pieces.