Truth-telling

I have something I need to share with you, my limited but loyal audience, made up primarily of people I'm related to:

The tots and I spend most of the day doing absolutely nothing...in fact, I'm a pretty hands-off parent most of the time.  I let them play by themselves, and only intervene when I'm afraid the downstairs neighbors are going to turn us in for breaking the noise ordinance.  The good news is, because of that, they are pretty independent and play really well together.  I call this method Laissez-faire Parenting, an environment in which transactions between private parties are (mostly) free from parental intervention.


I think many of you are under the false impression that I'm a hands-on parent, that because we go for one walk or one trip to the park a day, because we do one awesome project a week, and I document it with photos, it seems likes we are doing awesome stuff all the time.  Well, that's just not true.  Those are 10-90 minute parts of our day, often not even the best parts, they just happen to be the most interesting.


Keeping that in mind, I would like to share about our yesterday and this morning.  Yesterday, I made this for breakfast.  It's toast, with ricotta and arugula and a poached egg.  That actually doesn't have anything to do with anything, but it was dang tasty.

The tots and I were bored, and it was overcast and a bit drizzly and dreary, so about 10am I decided we should go to Fort Collins.  Fort Collins is about an hour drive away, but there's real shopping there, a Whole Foods and a Sam's Club, and we needed coffee and toothpaste and such.  So, we hopped in the car and away we went.  I'm going to pretend this was how the kids were the whole way:

It's a lie, though.  Jubee screamed at me for some reason I'm still not clear about, pretty much the entire way, and Sam kicked my seat and giggled, and repeated, "be quiet, Jubawee," until it was nearly as annoying as the screaming.

Once we got there, though, it was worth it.  The tots decided they were happy and loved each other (and me) and shopping was a pleasant experience.  I picked up a rotisserie chicken and some potato salad and coleslaw for dinner at Whole Foods, we stocked up on coffee and toothpaste and I also got some more coconut oil and apple cider vinegar (with the mutha).   

The drive back was everything a drive through the mountains should be.  The tots were sleepy and happy, and I got to listen to my The Civil Wars CD in between renditions of the ABCs, Manamana, and Chugga Chugga Choo Choo.  Oh my gosh, have you guys seen this?  It's freakin' hilarious:

It's called Choo Choo Soul, the kids watch it on Disney Jr.  I love the conductor lady who is obviously channeling J-Lo, and her huge hoop earrings.  I feel like this show is going to somehow counterbalance my kid's dorky genes inherited from me and Cam.

Anyway, when we got home, I put the kids at the table with dinner, and went to clean up a few dishes before Cam got home.  The kids got awfully quiet, so I went to check on them, and this is what I found:

I asked Sam what happened, and he said, "like this, mom," and windmilled his arms around in a repetitive throwing motion.  Yeah, they had a food fight, with rolls and potato salad...I wish this picture could show the sheer quantity of it, there was potato salad stuck to the walls and rolls covering the floor.  It's amazing how much food seems to expand when it's off the plate.

This morning, we built this:

It's cute, right?  I wasn't going to make it because we don't really have any art supplies here besides construction paper and markers, but it's amazing what you can do with a box, markers, a dull pocket knife, and waxed and minty dental floss.  If I tweeted, I'd hashtag noexcuses like those people who exercise, only with crafting instead of running.  To be honest, after all that sawing with that dull pocket knife, I'm pretty sure I've burned a few calories; at the very least, the muscles are sore in my left arm. #craftercise #noexcuses