You Can't Hide... Or Can You?

We just got back from being out of town for almost a month, going on three different "trips." Obviously, I have a lot to write about, but I just wanted to write about two things before I forgot.

It's always funny to me how small children try to hide things (usually unsuccessfully) from their parents. (Kind of like when I ask Jackson if he is wet and he insists he'd not but there is a huge wet spot at the front of his pants.) This morning Jackson was throwing a tantrum and got up from where I put him on time out, so I took him up to his bed. He didn't WANT to stay on his bed and was very upset at me. I went out of his room to look for something and when I came back, Jackson was "gone." He had hidden by sitting next to the armchair in his room and putting a blanket over his head. He held very still, certain that if I didn't move, I wouldn't notice the huge Jackson-sized bulge under the blanket next to his chair.

The other funny example of this was when we went camping with my parents. We were setting up the camp kitchen (my mom is a SERIOUS camp cook-- don't mess with her pop-up tables, camp cookers and multiple organized holders of cooking gadgets). We had just set up a pop-up table with a rack for hanging stuff on top and gotten everything on it organized when Addy pushed on it a little bit too hard and the whole thing fell over. After one huge-eyed look of panic, Addy immediately lay on the ground and pretended to be asleep. I guess maybe she would thought she was just taking a nap in the middle of the dirt and some nearby squirrel had pushed the table over. :)

Fun With Dental Floss

Jackson found a package of dental floss today and went to work. Who knew that dental floss could be so fun, even if you aren't an obsessive fan of oral hygiene?

How can this much string fit in such a tiny package?

"Wait a minute, I'm stuck!"

"It's minty!!"

All of this fun for only a couple dollars worth of floss....

Jared's Blast to the Past

Jared came up to me yesterday and asked if he could use the phone. I was a little bit suspicious and asked him what he wanted to use it for. He said, "Mom, do you know what a Game Boy is?"
"Um, yes." [How does he know about Game Boys?]
"It's kind of like a DS but it doesn't have two screens on top of each other."
"Oh, really."
"There's this number I want to call and I can earn my own Game Boy."

So it turns out that he is really excited because he has been reading some old "3-2-1 Contact" magazines that we got from grandma. [Do any of you remember that show-- "Contact, it's the answer, it's the moment, when everything happens, contact!"] He points to the back page of the magazine where there is an advertisement: "Earn Great Prizes and Cash! It takes only one FREE phone call." Jared says, "Look mom. It says you can call anytime. I want to call so I can earn a Game Boy."

Yes, my 8-year-old wants to call this number to sell stuff so he can earn a Game Boy. Yes, one of those Game Boys... the old black and white teensy screen things from my childhood. I try to suppress my urge to laugh and ask him to hand me the magazine. I look for the publishing date and say, "Jared, this magazine was printed in 1991. Do you know how many years ago that was?" He mentally calculates for a moment and then says, "Almost twenty.... But it says I can call anytime." At this point I lost it and laughed out loud.

I don't know if I should be proud of myself or ashamed that his hand-held video game deprivation is so bad that the prospect of a black and white Game Boy is exciting....  I don't know which is funnier: wanting the game boy or wanting to call the company from the 20-year-old magazine ad.

Check out the sweet AM/FM Cassette with Black and White TV and the hi-tech Emerson Video Cassette Recorder. Pretty sweet prizes... I'd be tempted too.

Alaska: Sunbathing

Sunbathing in Alaska. Enough said.