Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts

Sunday, December 16, 2012

It's A Date

Monkey and I went to a birthday party for her best friend at school. Friend's mom and I were talking. She told me a funny story.

Earlier in the week, her daughter brought home a piece of paper with five numbers on it and Monkey's name. She gave it to her mom and said that it was Monkey's number. Her mom was confused. It didn't look like an address, and there was not enough numbers for it to be a phone number. Her daughter insisted it was still Monkey's number and they are supposed to meet at Monkey's house to play.

During our conversation, the mother told me the numbers. 12345*. I just laughed. That was our house number. Monkey had given her friend our house number (no street) and told her to come over and play. They had it all worked out. They just had to figure out how to get the friend to our house.

If this is any indication of how things will go as she gets older, I am going to be a very busy mom.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Happy Halloween!

I hope that everyone had a happy and safe Halloween. Ours was full of firsts.

This was our first Halloween in this house. This made me a little anxious because it is new territory. Every neighborhood has a "normal" time that they start hitting the streets and knocking on doors. In my old neighborhood it was what I would consider kinda early. Before the sun went down. I wonder if that was because we lived in a kind of ghetto neighborhood and people didn't want to be out much after dark. Just after the sun started to go down we went out to the front yard to try to get a feel for what was going on. There was almost no one on the street. We ended up hanging out and letting the kids play in the yard for a bit before all the other kids started coming out to make the rounds.

This was also the first Halloween that we passed out candy. In the previous 5 years, we would pack up Monkey and Bug and drive down the street to my parents' house. Like I said before, we lived in a not so great neighborhood, and weren't really keen on the idea of going door to door. Needless to say, we weren't home, and therefore we didn't pass out candy. This year I took the kids around as Bear hung out in the front yard with the pumpkins and passed out candy. He said that he was kind of disappointed in the number of kids that came by. We chalked it up to the fact that we kinda live in the corner of our little neighborhood, and the kids probably didn't make the effort to go out of the main area for candy. At the end of the night, we probably got about 25 kids by the house. Not bad, but not great compared to the number of kids that were running around.

This was Bug's first Halloween that she could actually participate in. Last year she was only 15 months old. She was a little ladybug that got pushed around in a stroller all night. This year she was at the front of the line at every house yelling "TRICK TREAT PEASE!"

And finally, this was Monkey's first Halloween after starting school. Just after we left our house, we ended up seeing one of Monkey's friends from school. The two of them decided that they wanted to walk around and trick or treat together. We let Monkey, Bug, and Minnie Mouse (the friend's costume) lead the way while her dad and I kept them on track and moving. Monkey and Minnie we chatty and loud 6 year olds and Bug was more concerned with holding Minnie's hand. If she stopped holding her hand, Bug would run up to her with her hand extended and call out to get her attention. "Minnie! (yes she actually said Minnie and not the girl's real name) Minnie! Hand!" The girl would hold her hand out and walk hand in hand with Bug while talking with Monkey. We also ran into a few other kids that Monkey knew. Little Miss Social would run over to them, hug them, tell them what great costumes they had, tell them bye, and run back over to us.

All in all, this Halloween was really good. We learned a lot about the neighborhood. We saw no aftermath of shenanigans. No toilet papered houses. No smashed pumpkins in the middle of the street. Now that that is over, we have Monkey's 6th birthday in a week and Thanksgiving just a couple weeks after that. Then Christmas, my birthday, and New Year's all lumped up together. It's gonna get busy quick, but I wouldn't have it any other way.


Tuesday, October 30, 2012

The Dog

After Bear and I got married, we talked more seriously about having kids. I told him that I wanted kids. He said "lets get a puppy instead". So we did. Enter Cami. She was the only girl out of the whole litter of seven or eight puppies that were found abandon in a cardboard box and taken in by the pound. She had huge ears for a very young puppy and they used to flop down over her eyes. She was adorable.

Bear's master plan to put off having kids worked!... for a little bit.

Having a puppy wasn't enough for me. So we got pregnant with Monkey. Now we have a puppy (that Bear occasionally refers to as "failed birth control") and newborn Monkey. We thought that Monkey and Cami would be best friends and grow up together. Six years later, this is not the case.

Monkey likes the dog, but Cami tends to be "aggressively passive". She will live in your personal space bubble unless you force her out. Monkey likes her space.

Bug is the human this dog was meant for. They are two of a kind. Both full of energy, don't listen, and will eat anything. ANYTHING. They chase each other around the house. Cami playfully nips at Bug to get her going again and Bug lays on her and tries to ride on her back. They both have their tolerance thresholds, but they seem to be able to hold each other's attention much longer than anyone else in the family can. It makes for great entertainment watching them run around and wear each other out.

Maybe Bug is half dog and Cami is half Bug? Who knows. All I know is they make each other happy. And even though Cami is/was failed birth control, we all still love her. Most of all her kindred spirit, Bug.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

The Social Butterfly

Monkey has been in school now for about three months. She has to go to before and after care (like school day care before and after school hours) because of my work schedule and Bear's school schedule. There are  kids in every grade from Kindergarten to at least 5th grade that are in before/after care. I like the idea of them all being in a social setting together because it is helping Monkey learn how to deal with kids a varying ages. She always comes home with stories about her friends and what they did before or after school.

This past Friday night, we went to her school for Fall Festival (also mentioned here). I dread social settings where I don't know anyone. I feel out of place and like I am forcing myself on someone if I do try to talk to them. This was important to Monkey though, so we went.

As we walked in the gate, Monkey was already yelling "HI!" to one of her friends. It seemed like every two minutes she was running off to be social with someone. The amusing thing was it wasn't just an "oh hey, ok bye" thing. She would walk up to them and say "Hi, *name*!" and give them the biggest smile and hug that should could come up with. She would tell them something she liked about them (ie: i really like your costume) or tell them how happy she was to see them. She would then introduce Bug to them, give them another big hug and run back to us to continue on with whatever we were doing.

On one hand I have major anxiety watching her run off and talk to everyone. On the other hand, I am happy that she is confident enough start branching away and becoming her own person. Her teacher mentioned to us that she is generally a popular kid. That she always has at least 4 or 5 kids around her at recess and that the kids all love her. I can only imagine what will happen in the future. I wish what every parent does of course, I just want her to be happy.