Ten Glorious Years

Ten years ago one of the best things that has ever happened to me walked into my life. He is kind, patient, loving and is great at keeping my feet warm in the winter. He loves me no matter what and always, always makes me feel better when he is in the room.

No, no, it isn't Greyson or Raif. It is Guinness and he turned the big 10 this week. Happy Birthday to my lovable tank of a dog. Thanks for a decade of friendship and love.

The Little Things

I think one of the hardest things to learn as a parent is to look at things through the eyes of a child. Our perspective on life is just so different from theirs. The things that simply don't matter to us are immensely important to them. I don't really care who gets to open the mailbox to get the mail, but they do. I don't care who gives the treats to the dogs but they do. And sometimes little things that I don't even think about make a big impact.

Quinn received a coupon for a free Krispy Kreme doughnut for Valentine's Day and has been nagging me for the past month to redeem it. This morning was rainy, cold, and miserable and I knew that we would be spending the day indoors so why not take the kids with me to get doughnuts for breakfast this morning? And it being a lazy Sunday morning and not being in the mood to fight with them over clothing choices I told them they could go out in their jammies. You would have thought that they had won the lottery: the giggles, the laughter, the dancing around the room. All the way to Krispy Kreme and back and especially at the store they were in heaven. It completely made their morning; something I never would have considered to be a treat/reward at all.

I guess I need to spend a little more time trying to look through the eyes of a child.

All Dressed Up...

And somewhere to go.

Saturday we went to see the Nashville Children's Theatre production of Goodnight Moon. Surprisingly good, as I had my doubts on how they could create a play based on a book that takes approximately 3 minutes to read.

The show was an excuse to dress my kids up and an even better excuse to take pictures of them.

The Story of Babar

Today was Book Character day at BGA. Every student dressed up like their favorite character from a book. Each child gets to stand up in front of the whole school during Friday assembly and share the book and the character. So this is how Greyson left for school today...


I am pretty sure that Babar is not his favorite book but rather his elephant outfit is his favorite costume and this gave him a chance to wear it to school. I can only imagine that they will get nothing done in school today, especially my son who spent his morning reading time moving his trunk out of the way!

Gesundheit

This evening Quinn received a reading coupon for finishing her first real book, a fact that obviously upset her brother (since he didn't get one tonight). As Raif was calming him down, Quinn was explaining to me that it was OK that she got the coupon because a couple of days ago Greyson received something and she didn't. That was fair, in her humble opinion, she told me because things need to be "easin' sneezin'" between the two of them.

Xanadu

As I mentioned yesterday, hockey season is technically over around Tennessee but that doesn't stop the Erim children from practicing for next season. With warm weather afoot and a mother who is less inclined to stay inside a refrigerated building when it is so nice outside, a father purchased an alternative...

Of course we live in a horrible place to actually skate. We live smack in the middle of a huge hill, so skating on our street is out. Our pretty driveway is aggregate, horrible on the skates and on the knees and elbows so that has meant trips like these to the park.

Now if only I could find one with a magic mural depicting the daughters of Zeus, then we ALL would be happy campers.

Batter Up

With winter coming to an end, so has hockey season around here (with the exception of the NHL, whose season I swear lasts 11 months a year). New season, new sport and surprisingly for us that is baseball.

Personally, I find baseball to be an incredibly dull game. I can't remember the last time I watched a game on TV and I enjoy about 2 or 3 innings at the actual ball park and then I just get bored. So I never imagined that I would have a kid on a baseball team, but Greyson's friend Hutch asked him to join his and so here we are.

This past weekend we went to the Dick's sporting goods and outfitted him with a glove, bat and cleats. And since we rarely play baseball around here we figured Greyson probably needed a bit of tutelage before he hit the field.

We had some batting practice


And some catching


He actually did quite well and hit a couple of nice balls out of the yard (thankfully none hit a car or house) and by the end of the weekend had a pretty good grasp of catching with a mitt and only got hit in the face once or twice. Watch out Major Leagues, here comes Greyson!