A Boy's Playground

Our street has turned into a construction zone.  While this is generally a nuisance for me - shutting off water, closing off the road so we can't drive on it, plenty of dust and dirt, and even more noise - the boys are just loving it!  Every morning, we sit at the living room windows, watching all the equipment and dump trucks and workers show up.  They park outside our windows, rumbling their engines while the men read their papers and drink their coffee (can't they do that with the engines off so early in the morning??) while the boys point out their favorite machines as well as scope out the scene for any new tractors that might have shown up.

It is fun to see them excited to watch this, but the best part of the day comes after the work day is over and the workers have gone home, but left all their equipment unattended on the street!  Not only can we play in the middle of the street, which for obvious reasons, is usually forbidden, but it has turned into a little boy's playground!  Are we supposed to be touching and climbing on this stuff?  I doubt it, but how can they possibly hurt any of it?   Every afternoon, Mitchell asks, "Mom, can we go check out the struction yet?"

They sit in the bulldozer scoop, crawl through giant cement pipes, dig in the dirt, climb gravel piles, and throw rocks into the puddles.  I basically have to hose them off and then immediately toss them into the bathtub when I finally drag them away, but they need a bath anyways and a good hosing is always a good time!  

So as much as I am looking forward to this construction project being finished, we are thoroughly enjoying it while it lasts.

Look Mom, Fingerpaint!

It suprises me how little I mind baby poop. Afterall, the first diaper I ever changed was my first baby's. I really thought it was going to gross me out a bit with so little experience dealing with it, but it never really has. This week though, Jack has pushed my limits as to what I find gross in the whole "baby poop" department.

The three boys love to take baths together. Sometimes, at the end of the day, a bath with his big brothers is the only thing that makes tired and cranky baby Jack smile and laugh. So they get baths together every single night (let's be honest - they could use baths twice a day most days!) and it is a welcome activity for all of us.

This week, Jack decided to mix things up a bit and thoroughly gross out not just me, but his brothers as well! He had had enough of the craziness in the tub, but wasn't done with the action entirely. He wanted to be near the tub, just not in it, so I dried him off and stood him up, holding onto the side to watch. With him out of the tub and no longer in any sort of danger, I ran downstairs for just a few minutes, mainly to get a diaper. Returning upstairs, I could smell the poop before I even rounded the corner to the bathroom. I knew he had pooped, but didn't know the extent of the damage until I actually saw it. Jack had pooped, then sat in it, then found it with his hands, then loved that apparently and proceeded to fill one Mitchell's crocs with it. He also had it on his face (which makes me think he might have actually gotten some in his mouth???) and had painted it all over the floor and wall as well. How in the world did he create so much...art in so little time??

Don't ask me why I thought Ben had any responsibility in this, but needing someone to scold other than a baby who only smiles at me when I scold him, I asked him why he didn't tell me Jack was pooping! He said, "Well, I smelled something pretty smelly and now I know what it was!" Both boys wanted out of the bathroom as quickly as they could and Mitchell succeeded in making himself scarce with some speed. Ben however was paralized by poop. He couldn't escape the tub for fear of entering the poop zone. After assuring him that I had it all cleaned up and he still wouldn't get out, I decided to leave him to figure it out on his own while I showered off my very dirty and smelly baby. I walked in on him a few minutes later and he had figured out a solution - he had taken down all my towels and made a trail from the side of the tub all the way to the door. No poop on those feet!