kids

One of the items Luke requested for his birthday was “a real first aid kit.” I was happy to oblige, and found him a splendid 299-piece kit with a zip-up case.

He also requested “a real Swiss army knife,” which, after some thought, I decided he was probably old enough and responsible enough to use wisely. His Destructo-Boy years are long past, thank goodness.

Predictably, getting the hang of the Swiss army knife soon necessitated the use of a band-aid or two from the first aid kit. I think Luke was delighted to have such an early opportunity to put his kit to use, and he’s kept it at the ready ever since.

I’ve spent the past few days tackling a long-neglected section of the yard where random objects have been piling up for ten years — on top of all the crap that was already there when we bought the place from an old woman who was apparently unable to throw anything away ever. It’s like an archeological dig. I kid you not, I found an actual gold pocketwatch at the bottom of one pile the other day.

Anyway, there’s this heap of old scrap lumber out there that I’d been sorting through until I unearthed a wasps’ nest; then I moved on to other junkpiles and resolved to address the lumber/wasp situation very soon and then kind of never did. Because I’m ON THE BALL that way.

So today I was carrying an armful of historical finds to my “stuff that’s probably worth keeping” pile behind one of the sheds, and being just a smidge preoccupied of late I forgot all about the wasps’ nest and walked right over the top of it. Naturally the wasps took umbrage at this, and swarmed up angrily around me, and one of them stung me on the arm.

My first thought was, “Wow, Luke will be so happy about this.”

I jogged into the house and called, “Luke! I need your first-aid kit, I just got stung by a wasp!”

He flew into the living-room at Mach 3, practically quivering with excitement. “Stay right there, Mom, I’ll get the stuff!!” He rifled through the kit until he found a packet of “Insect Sting Relief,” tore it open and carefully swabbed my booboo with the little medicated towelette. Gotta say, those things really work; a half-hour later you couldn’t even see where the sting was, and there was just some minor itching.

Luke felt so invigorated by this incident that he pulled out his new chemistry set and asked me to help him find something complicated and scientificky to do with it. Not feeling terribly gung-ho about the yard-clearing at that point, I agreed. We flipped through the little experiment guidebook and found a recipe for…CHEMSLIME!

How cool is that?? Luke is calling it his “Pet Blob.” I’m just glad he doesn’t have carpeting in his room, because you know that thing’s going to…

…and as I was typing that, Luke called me into his room with complaints that his Blob was “getting all over everything.” Yes indeedy, looks like I’ll be washing bedding tonight.

Still? A good day. We’re having more of those lately; just a general sense that life is getting better and forward progress is being made. I think I’m actually going to accomplish my goal of having the entire property cleaned up and organized by the end of the year!

I’m not quite out of the tunnel yet, but I’m definitely seeing some light up ahead.

Just going to keep on walking till I get there.

Luke will turn eight years old this Saturday. When I asked him how he wanted to celebrate he requested balloons and a cake and a big list of specific gift items (interestingly, none of which were toys unless you count the chemistry set), and oh yes, a trip to Knott’s Berry Farm. I told him I could afford the the trip to Knott’s or all the other stuff, but not both. He thought about it, and then reluctantly picked the cake-and-presents option.

When Steve asked Luke what he wanted and had heard the tale of woe, he said, “Of COURSE you can go to Knott’s too! Because I’m dripping with money and you can have anything you want!” Okay, that’s not what he said. I’m sure it was phrased more tactfully than that, but anyway the end result was that me and the kids and Steve AND his parents (dude, cut the umbilical cord already!!) spent yesterday at Knott’s together. And it wasn’t as awkward as I’d feared it was going to be, mostly because the kids had a blast and it’s hard to feel too awkward in the presence of kids who are having the time of their lives. Plus there were hardly any crowds or lines (we probably have the dismal economy to thank for that), so everyone got to do everything they wanted to do without much waiting.

This was the first time Luke and Elizabeth have been to Knott’s when both of them were too old for most of the Camp Snoopy kiddie rides. We did a brief camp walk-through for old times’ sake…

…and then moved on to the big kid stuff. Given the choice, I think Elizabeth would have spent the whole day just riding Jaguar over and over.

Luke had a similar affection for the Calico Mine ride.

I enjoyed communing with the local wildlife…

…and both kids had fun looking at all the old wagons and trains and such.

I’d say a fine time was had by all. And in one of the gift shops I found an item that was so perfect for Luke that it was worth the trip all by itself. It was a set of slotted “building cards” that could be used to create pirate-related structures — absolutely ideal for my budding architect/engineer/swashbuckler.

So today when I should have been catching up on a towering pile of chores, instead I spent the entire morning playing with Luke and the building cards. Check out the ship we made:

And now if you’ll excuse me, the mess around here is starting to impair my ability to walk from one end of the house to the other. I should probably do something about that…where did I leave my snow shovel….