Milking it

This post is not about milk.

This afternoon, a rare thing occurred in our house.  Wolfie threw a toy at Tulip's face.

I'm not being sarcastic here.  Yes, of course our children throw things at each other, as all children do, but we've done a pretty good job teaching them what toys can be thrown in the house.  There is a very, very short list of toys that can be thrown at sisters.  They are the six soft jingly blocks, the soft football, and...uh, I guess that's it.

I don't know what game they were playing - I mean, other than that game where you throw toys at each other - but Wolfie threw a wooden food toy at Tulip and it hit her in the face right next to her eye and left a tiny welt.  This, is unprecedented.  Seriously.  Again, no sarcasm.  This was a big deal.

So we dealt with it, then shortly got everybody ready to go to Central Park downtown in Valparaiso because that is suddenly the best place to be.  Today was a Taste of Valpo festival and for $5 your kids could get a wristband and jump on inflatable things all day.

Luna can really hold her own in those bounce houses.  For her, the biggest challenge is sometimes climbing up that ramp to get in the bounce house.  Two of the inflatable things had ladders and slides and we wondered if she could do the ladders on her own.

Of course she can.

But to play it safe, we asked Wolfie (or maybe he volunteered) to be Luna's "partner" to see if she could climb up the ladder herself.  After she proved that she could, Wolfie apparently had something to prove as well.  He continued to hold Luna's hand and lead her from bounce house to bounce house (there were four).  He was the model big brother.  Another two-year old friend really wanted to go in one of the inflatables so we hooked him up with Wolfie too.  I told him that he was being such a super big brother and for a moment I thought that he had just jumped this huge maturity milestone.  But then Gabe leaned in and whispered, "I think he's trying to prove that he's a good big brother" and I remembered the wooden food thing. 

Yeah. So.  We decided to milk it.  He watched over his younger sister for, like, 30 minutes!  Do you know what this means.  Gabe and I were free - FREE - to talk to other grown-ups uninterrupted.  It was awesome.

Wolfie finally asked me if I could watch Luna so he could go in a bounce house himself.  Oh, that boy!  He really is that sweet.  He didn't need to prove anything.  But, sometimes a mama and a papa do need to be able to just chill with other mamas and papas.


Second story of the day.
We went out to eat in between bounce housing.  At the restaurant I had to take the girls to the bathroom just before the food arrived and then again just after the food arrived.  Of course you did, all of you seasoned mamas are snickering.  That's the way it goes with kids in restaurants.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  But, I figured out how to milk it.  I ordered ribs.  RIBS?!  I can't even think of the last time I ordered ribs in a restaurant with children.  That's like ordering to be hand-tied.  Plus, by the time I finally sat down to eat my ribs everyone else but the baby was nearly finished.  Again with the snickers - I know, I know.  But then, I was all, "Mama can't do that for you.  My hands are covered with barbeque sauce." and "I can't do that for you.  I'm eating ribs."  And pretty soon Papa was saying, "Let Mama eat her ribs."  and his hands were all over the baby's plate and she quite enjoyed ordering her Papa to butter her yet another cracker.  Was I that incompetent to parent my children because of some sticky fingers of my own.  No.  But sometimes a mama just has to enjoy her own sticky fingers.