Today's Surprise

I made Adam wait till Mike came home to open the Amazon package that showed up today.  He was very excited to see what his surprise was.

After that, we spent the rest of the afternoon playing tea party.

  

This is Adam adding two spoonfuls of sugar to his tea.  He is pretty convinced that you can't do it one spoonful at a time, but that both have to go in at once.

We literally played tea party for over an hour.  There was pouring and stirring and sugar and milk, toasting and declaring things "divine and delightful."  This was a very, very successful gift.

Edited to add video!

Yesterday's Awesome Day

Adam had such a great day yesterday that I just had to share it.  First,  he peed on the potty at Miss Maureen's house, which was very exciting.  He told me about it when I picked him up, and then he told Mike about it when we got home.  When you asked him, "What did you do at school today?" he said, "I peed in the potty!"  And everyone clapped for him.  I think it's time to really start potty training.

Then, when we got home, Adam helped me make supper.  He spread the tortillas on top of the Mexican casserole, carefully covering all the meat and veggies.  Then he sprinkled cheese on top, spreading it out.  Once he put a big handful of cheese right in the middle and laughed, because he knew that wasn't what we were going for.  Comedian.

At the table, Mike thanked us both for making supper, and Adam turned to me and said, "Mom, thank you for helping me."  Aside from the cuteness of that, the politeness just blew me away.

Then we had a lot of fun having a tea party in the bathtub.  The tub toy pig drank too fast and got all wet--over and over again--and this was the funniest thing that had ever happened in like an HOUR.  So we laughed a lot.

In short, yesterday was kind of an awesome day.  And, because I know this is what you're in it for, here's a photo.

Eventually We'll Run Out of Vacation Pics

It'll take a while, though.

Adam proudly going down the stairs.  Since I was standing there taking the photo, this isn't the most exciting incident, but he roamed free through the house throughout the vacation, which I think was quite liberating for him.

This was our first swim of the vacation.  You can't really tell but it was raining a little.  This is why Adam referred to the lake as "the cold, cold water" throughout the rest of the vacation.  As in, "Mama, I want to go for a swim in the cold, cold water."

Here, we hardly even begin to capture the pure chaos of mealtimes.  We have a table with 8 chairs.  We have four families, all with different traditional mealtimes, some with kids who have different specific preferences for meals (Tigerlily liked plain noodles, but only if no one else ate any noodles out of that batch).  There was some delicious homemade pizza in this photo.

Finally, a couple of "behind the magic" photos that explain how we got that one, single group shot.  We do have some nice ones of almost all the families.

I particularly love this one because Becky looks so gloomy in the background.  I'll probably crop it eventually (sorry, Becky!), but as it stands it kind of makes me laugh.

I can't even imagine what this will be like next time, when they're all 3-7 instead of 1-5.  A whole new world, every time.

Very Short Stand-Up

Adam's new favorite joke.  Let's start with the original that he heard me tell an appreciative audience of 3-5 year olds last week:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Interrupting chicken.
Interrupting chi--
Bok bok bok!

Okay, now here's Adam's version;

Knock knock, who's there, interrupting chicken bok bok!

He's turned a knock knock joke into a one-liner.  I have a gifted kid on my hands.

Adam has also lately taken to calling me a "seener-eener."  For a few weeks, I didn't think it meant anything.  Now I know better.

"Mom, do you know what a seener-eener is?"

"No, I don't."

"A seener-eener is a little animal that walks in the woods.  It has some food.  It is pink and it is a zebra, and actually it is orange."

He's repeated this description several times since then, although the orange has taken precedence over the pink in the seener-eener's color scheme.  But a little orange-and-pink zebra that walks in the woods--that's what I am.

Thanks to Jason for the mug shot!

Vacation House

I have explained this vacation to everyone the same way: 4 families.  16 people, 8 of them children under 5.  Imagine that.  Are you imagining it?  Yes, you're absolutely right.  It's just like that.  Which is why there's just the one photograph.

And why Conrad's looking backwards.  There are plenty of other photos of Conrad; he's very photogenic.  

Adam and I tooled around in my new kayak.

And we swam a lot.  He even went skinny dipping for the first time--in the rain!  He spent the rest of the week calling the lake "the cold, cold water."  To be fair, he was right.  He kept saying, "I want to go swimming in the cold, cold water."

It was complete chaos of course, but it was also a lot of fun.  So great to see everyone, swim, row.  I even ported the kayak through a shallow section from one lake to another!  I'll put together some more photos soon, but we really had a blast.

Vacation Teaser

Much, much, MUCH more to come!