Jack, Wall-E & the Back

This past weekend Amy acquired another child to care for. Sensing that she was not content with chasing three kids around I pulled a muscle in my abdomen on Friday which made me virtually useless all weekend. At one the lowest point of my self-pity party I waddled off the bed onto to the floor where it took me a good 7 minutes to put my socks on.

"This shows you how much pain I'm in. Look, I can't even put my #$%@ socks on, honey."
"Um, try nine months of feeling like that."

Touche.

So despite the grumpiness and high maintenance that comes with having a husband who is confined to the couch, our crew managed to have a decent weekend. The boys and I got in two end-to-end viewings of Wall-E, which has quickly become the movie of the moment in our quarters. If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. As Cars was brilliant on multiple levels for parents and kids alike, Wall-E has a wonderful message of taking care of the planet for adults and a sweet, lovable little robot for kids. Not to mention the robot Eve who "shoots hot fire out of her fingers, Dad!" which thrills Owen.

Owen has really taken an interest in learning the sounds of his letters. He told me that he wanted to learn to read like a friend of his at school. Once I told him that the best way to learn to read was know all his sounds, he immersed himself in "what word starts with..." and "what sound does this letter make" games. He took the occasional break from the learning games as he did when I flipped to a volcano show on Discovery Channel -- "Dad, look hot lava and fire shooting all over that truck!" But for the most part a light has gone off with that kid.

Gus has taken an interest into the imaginary world as he now routinely informs Amy and me that he in fact has another brother besides Owen. This brother is named Jack, and apparently Jack is about 10 years old -- or a baby depending on the situation. Yesterday Jack told Gus that Gus didn't need to eat his breakfast or get dressed. Well no wonder my back hurts -- we've got more kids running around here than even Amy & I know about.

Cheers!



Here's the culprit btw. I think I twisted a muscle when I was holding this little one in the driveway. I would be frustrated, but it's kind of hard to get frustrated at a child with a duck hanging out of her mouth.