November 15 Lovely Kiddos

Friday:  Sir Callaghan was intent on playing basketball today. I usually have this little hoop in my laundry hallway, hanging high on the door that leads to the spare room. But that hallway is so narrow and the hoop is so far beyond Cal's reach that he continually requests that I LIFT him up closer to the hoop so that he can dunk it. This, however, is a bit of a problem for ME. Last I knew, Cal weighed 38 pounds--and these are SOLID pounds. This kid is one tough little kid. I'm finding it more and more difficult to actually lift him. I can still ride him on my back, but lifting from the front just doesn't work anymore.

SO ... I moved our little hoop into the kitchen area and put it lower on one of the cupboards. Cal was very pleased; except it was WAY TOO EASY for him to just stand next to the hoop, lift his body up on his tippy-toes, and very simply place the ball in the hoop. And I did let him do this for awhile--but really! This isn't any way to learn how to shoot hoops!

I eventually moved the hoop up one cupboard higher, which made it more difficult--but not impossible for Cal to shoot the ball and every now and again actually have it go through the hoop. I found that Cal enjoyed playing more in the wide open space than he does in the hallway, and it was easier for me too.

Cal insisted that each time we actually "scored" some sort of fanfare ought to happen; so we settled on my whistle and blew it with great gusto when either of us made a basket.

Here is Cal after running around shooting hoops for 10 solid minutes. He was exhausted.

The picture below: Look at his face!!! Isn't he a scream?

After we had exhausted basketball, we were looking for something interesting to do around here and I got to thinking that Cal had never played with either "Rat" or "Charlie" -- with good reason, too! These two puppets are marionettes and are a bit fragile because of how easy it is to tangle up their strings. Knowing that Cal is a rather rambunctious little guy, I haven't shown these to him! He's a roughian! 

SO ... he and I had a little talk. I told Cal all about "Rat" and "Charlie", explaining how careful one must be to play with them and his dear little soul assented to "being VERY careful". 

Cal was SO PLEASED! He did an excellent job of taking care of "Huskie" (we changed his name from "Rat" to "Huskie" because Cal insisted that this puppet was NOT A RAT!!!). I agree! So, he is now "Huskie."

Cal was quite taken with him!

Then I fetched "Charlie" and showed Cal how to make him walk one foot at a time, which cracked Cal up.

But, being VERY careful, little Cal managed to make "Charlie" walk!

Doesn't Cal completely crack you up???

He even took a 2 second nap with his new friends. Since it was nearly 3:00 by then, I relented and put a "Hot Wheels" video on for Cal while I cleaned the place up a bit. Animated cartoons are NOT what they used to be in even my boys' day. Terrible art! Stupid story lines! And VIOLENCE in every single story. No wonder Cal has to make every toy of mine enter into a war to the finish! He even does this with PlayDoh!

Cal slept in my car on the way to his house and then we played with the other kids when they came home from school.

Aidan set up an area in the basement to play "I SPY." [note the items in the cleared out area.]

I brought along my game of "Sleeping Queens" for Erin and I to play because last week she mentioned playing the game with one of her neighbor friends. We played two games. Erin won both of them!!!

We went back downstairs and played until Dylan and Kelly texted me to bring the kiddos over to Holy Trinity by 6:00. Erin was showing me all of her unicorns that her mom had found while cleaning the basement! Yay, Kelly!