A day in the life of Tarena.....

Actually that should be more like morning/mid-afternoon in the life of Tarena. Today Keaton and Jackson came to play and honestly, I was a little intimdated. But ready to do it....but a little worried...I've faithfully kept up on Tarena's blog and I know Keaton can make a person cry. So..her dear husband Tim calls at 6:45 am or so (I'm already awake knowing they are coming around 7) and in the background I hear the boys arguing fiercely. (My little one is still fast asleep). I think I started to sweat...

They got here and in the first 5 min I think Keaton had touched everything in the living room and asked at least 2 questions about everything he touched. Mostly 'What is this?' 'What does this do?' So by the time we got to breakfast by 8:20 or so he had asked AT LEAST a thousand questions.

So we had a little conversation that went like this:
T: Ok Keaton, I have 100 questions for you. Do you think you can answer that many?
K: Why?
end of conversation....

No, but after that I think I got like four in...:O) Keaton did great, wasn't as difficult as I planned on him being (whew, I guess I have a pretty good imagination) and found out that Jackson is as much of a 'get-in-ta' as Lisa's Gracie is. For those who haven't been around toddlers for awhile, that's the phrase for those children who manage to get into everything you might think they'll get into, and then exceed your expectations. See, I never heard much about Jackson on Tarena's blog, so I assumed he was just a hang around, do whatever everyone else is doing kind of kid. Well, his thing (at least at our house) was opening closed doors and being where no one else was. So that equated to spending a lot of time playing in the toilet. Keaton did a good job trying to keep the bathroom door closed, but the problem is that Jackson can open closed doors...and then lock himself in the bathroom so that he could continue playing in the toilet uninterrupted!! Fortunately our doors are those easy-to-open-even-if-they're-locked kind, which made Jackson turn around and frown when Keaton and I intruded.

After the rainy morning the sun kinda peeked out so the boys headed outside to do yardwork. Apparently our yard brings this out in young boys...(like Tyson's pinecone pick-up from a few days ago) Keaton had fun raking leaves and Jackson ran around and climbed on Jada's A-frame ladder.

We had time to bake Apple Bread, which was fun to do as a team. There was flour all over the table and muddy shoe prints on the floor. While it was baking Jackson had time to sneak into the hall closet and then clean the bathroom with febreeze. It smelled great!! :O) I noticed after they left he had moved the knick-knacks off the toilet and there were muddy handprints all over the back and lid of the toilet, presumably because he was 'cleaning' them...

Oh! And the best phrase of the day from Keaton was this: 'Is there one I can do sitting down? I'm getting tired.' Of course I had him repeat the phrase!!! What lead up to that was he had earned game time on the Nintendo Wii, and the game selections we have require you to be standing up hitting a baseball, swinging a golf club or tennis racket, throwing (rolling) a bowling ball or boxing with two hands. There isn't an option to be sitting down and doing them, it's just not possible. So apparently he had tired himself out doing all of those things! He did a great job following directions so he was able to play a few times. Wow! I never thought I would hear those words!!

Well, I still have some muddy footprints to mop up, but my reward will be eating some yummy Apple Bread!! Tyson cried when they left, I think he enjoyed watching 'the Big Boys' and learning from them. He has a little tool bench to hammer on that he is doing better with after watching Keaton and Jackson play with it. He played with it all evening, even in between trick or treaters. (He loved answering the door and seeing all the different costumes!!)

Whew...see you again soon Beckham's!!! Oh, and Jada slept all afternoon....

Too bad there aren't any photos, but the camera broke permanently the other day...