A.B. Kagledom

In our continuing quest to keep these boys entertained, we've spent the past few weekends doing some fun things. We've been to the San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation....

We've been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium...

And this past weekend we stayed closer to home but still gave they boys a thrill by taking them on a 20 minute train ride, a stop for dinner, a 7-11 slurpee, and a 20 minute return trip home...

The boys love going new places. In fact, staying in for more than a few hours at a time seems to drive them nuts. Since daylight savings time began, we've spent nearly every evening riding bikes around the neighborhood and visiting parks in the evenings and on weekends. Last Saturday, we spent the morning at Shoreline Park and the evening at our local neighborhood park. Adlai has no problem walking to and from the park even though it is a half-mile or so away. In fact, we've pretty much stopped taking a stroller with us on our trips anywhere since Adlai doesn't need the assistance and he naps and sleeps better at night if he is completely worn out.

It should be mentioned that over the past few weeks Adlai has been pretty darn great. Two weeks ago he started playing with Simon instead of constantly scolding him for whatever reason. He has been more willing to snuggle and less apt to scream and throw and hit. He has also learned to bargain. "Jelly bean?" he asks. When we say no he replies: "ONE jelly bean?" When we say no he replies: "Pop corn? White bar? ONE white bar?" Tonight I thought he was a budding genius when I wrote "STOP" on his "homework" and he said "Stop sign!" So Matthew wrote "Yield" and asked him what it said and he said "Stop sign!" and then he wrote "Adlai" and asked Adlai what it said and Adlai repeated "Stop sign!" Oh well.

He loves to count objects and point out that he wants "10 binkies!" He keeps us aware of any "Stop sign!" we pass as well as any "Ding ding!" (crossing sign or lights or any striped wooden arm). Tomorrow he will attend his first preschool class (with Matthew) as a test of his readiness. We're hoping he is found as ready as a two year old and not a three year old. The school would like to place him in the three year old class because he was born in 2007 but the two year old class (births starting two weeks later), will be entering kindergarten with him and we would prefer to not have to send him to an expensive "Young fives" full time class prior to entering part time kindergarten.

Posted by kagledom at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Simon's mid-Winter break started the day after Valentine's day. Luckily, this break coincided with the mid-Winter break of the Seattle Kagle boys. Once this coincidence was realized, a vacation was planned. We left for our Kagle Hawaiian adventure on Valentine's day so we celebrated our family love a day early (and Simon's school party was two days early).

Simon made a valentine for every child in his class (per modern day requirements). Here he is once all of them were complete...

As is our tradition, we celebrated the holiday by making and decorating a giant chocolate chip cookie...

When it cooled, we stored half of it in the freezer and packed half of it up for our trip across the Pacific.

We dread taking Adlai on planes these days. He is just not all that pleasant when he can't have what he wants when he wants it and sitting still buckled up for five hours is definitely not his idea of a good time. A few screaming and hitting fits later, we managed to make it to Hawaii in relatively good condition. And except for a few restaurant induced anger episodes, Adlai was in rare form through the entire trip. He loved running in circles with the other boys around the living areas. He found Bradley particularly funny and interesting - especially when Bradley let Adlai pinch his nose over and over and over again. And Jeff taught him that, if he was pushed, Adlai was so strong Jeff would immediately fall to the ground. WHAT FUN!

Adlai loved the beach but found the sand (and sand toys) much more interesting than the water (probably because it was a bit cool). Simon, of course, wanted to be in the water every moment of every day - even when his lips had turned a very unfortunate color of blue. While Simon took turns sleeping next to his cousins, Adlai slept between Matthew and I each night listening to the tide below. He and Simon fell in love with fresh pineapple.

We spent an afternoon at the Dole Pineapple Plantation where Adlai was overjoyed to find himself on a train with all the Kagle boys looking at fields of bananas, pineapple, and other tropical fruits. There was even a "ding ding!" which we passed (!!) both ways (!!). Another afternoon took us to a macadamia nut farm where we were treated to a fire dance, a boat ride, and instruction on proper coconut opening. The leader called all the children to the front and Adlai was the very first boy to run forward. They were each given woven crowns with flowers. Adlai was so excited, he jumped and danced for the crowd and became the darling of the tour. Take a look at his face in this photo after receiving his crown...

Here are some more shots of the adventure...

On the return flight Adlai passed out for nearly three hours on my lap. I couldn't have asked for more - except maybe the few times he woke up confused and very very angry. But I didn't feel like selling him at the end of the flight which I take to be the sign of a good flight (and a pleasant vacation).

Posted by kagledom at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)