I think it was the last time Libby's family came to visit, almost three years ago, when Libby and her Dad built a little foundation in our back yard that we could build a playhouse on. That foundation has been lying bare ever since as we've never had the energy or, really, ability to do construction work with the kids around. Kids have a nasty way of wanting to touch saw blades and eat nails.
Mostly the problem was Gabe because he's got his hands and face in everything. But this year he finally reached a point where we could explain to him how painfully his hands would be ripped from his body if he touched the drill while it was running, or how his eyes might explode and drain out of his head if he didn't pay attention to where the dust from the saw was flying and stay far enough away. And also that ALL of Daddy's tools are coated with a fine layer of poison that will eat his skin away and leave him a pile of stinking, sloppy bones on the ground if he lays a finger on them.
Well, maybe not THAT kind of message, but we've at least been able to convince him to work on his own projects with the scrap wood and his hammer and a few left over nails or screws instead of having to be all up in our business.
Norah, of course, isn't all that interested in what we're doing. Really, if we can convince her that she can hit a ball with the bat on her own and we don't have to play catch with her every second we're outside, we're able to go about our business without much trouble.
So back in early June, when we had a nice weekend, we got started on the playhouse. We framed out two of the walls.
And then it was a hundred degrees or more for two months.
And this week we finally got back to building! I was able to mostly finish a third wall yesterday (it's still pretty slow going with both kids out there, but at least it's going).
While we were out there, though, the chickens became a distraction to the kids and Gabe demanded that they needed to be fed. I remembered that we had a box of Cheerios in the freezer outside that I had picked up about two years ago. Libby, apparently, is off Cheerios--and the kids had never really cared for them at all (after they were past the "finger food" phase, anyway. So we've had to boxes out in the freezer for quite some time. And I decided to feed them to the chickens because they pissed me off every time I saw them going uneaten in the freezer.
So I pulled the box out and let the kids feed most of it to the chickens. After the third or fourth handful that Gabe dumped into their little trough, he decided that he wanted to try the Cheerios again. And he decided that he loved them. He refused to let me feed anymore to the chickens because he wanted to eat the rest of the box (which was still about half full).
Norah also decided to try one. She poked her tongue out of her mouth, touched the Cheerio, made a face and said "Yucky!" I tend to agree. They taste like those corn starch packing peanuts (yes, I've eaten corn starch packing peanuts--they taste like Cheerios). Plain cereal is boring and pointless. If I wanted to eat a plain piece of bread with milk on it, I could eat a plain piece of bread with milk on it. I want ZAZZ in my cereal. Or at least a mess of sugar. Norah obviously agrees.
Gabe took the box over to the picnic table and got to work on it. Norah went along because that's what she does. Even if she didn't have any interest in eating the Cheerios, she wanted her fair share because Gabe was having some. I went back to work for a bit but, when I looked over, I saw Gabe sitting on top of the picnic table, Norah sitting on the bench beside him, and they were sharing Cheerios, quite picturesquely. It looked like someone was staging a commercial in my backyard. They were laughing and Gabe was shoveling handfuls into his mouth and then dropping the next handful onto the table so Norah could play with them.
I ran in to get the camera to try and capture it. Of course the best, most cliched bit was over by the time I got back, but I went ahead and got a few videos of them afterwards. And I think people should pay my kids to sell their stuff, because they apparently have a pretty good knack for it after being in front of the camera so much for this blog.
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