Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Oh what a day

Sunday was a busy, busy day. The boys woke us up even earlier than normal. Why is it that we occasionally have to threaten to wake them up on weekdays, but on days where we would actually appreciate the extra 30 minutes or significantly longer in case you are listening boys… they decide they want to get up early?? It’s the excitement of getting to spend the day with us, right? That must be it.

After running through our morning absolutions Kevin and Ryan headed out the door to go get us rodeo tickets and Connor and I headed out a few minutes later with our own to do list in hand. Connor was a champ – he patiently stuck with me as we tackled item after item on our list. By the time 9:30 rolled around we were done with our list and headed over to join Kevin and Ryan in line for tickets. Ryan was being the model child standing in line quietly enjoying some “cranbabies” when we arrived. Turns out he had already polished off the box of raisins and as many stale crackers as he could choke down.

It was actually kinda funny – Kevin had mentioned that the crackers in the blue package weren’t as good as the ones in the red package. I couldn’t imagine how animal crackers could taste that much different but didn’t think much of it. I gave Connor his box of raisins and we waited, and waited. Ryan kept eying Connor’s raisins so after I while I started prowling through the bag to see if he had more snacks before he decided to try to confiscate some of his own. And there sat the cookies. I opened the bag and gave one to Ryan and snagged one for myself. It was immediately apparent why Ryan hadn’t wanted more of them to begin with – they were stale. Not the just not quite fresh stale but the “YUCK!!! I can’t believe you ate this and fed it to your child stale!” Ryan happily gave it back. I opened up Connor’s bag and found his red bag of cookies and Ryan happily scarfed them down.

We eventually made our way to the front of the line and after going through the gauntlet of people with add-ons were finally done. 4 tickets to the rodeo. It will be the boys’ first trip to the rodeo and while I don’t harbor any delusions about them actually watching much of the rodeo I know they will thoroughly enjoy the barns full of animals.

With tickets in hand and the boys chomping at the bit to be let loose we let them run the half mile or so back to the car. By the time we got home it was time for lunch, then a long, long nap. While the boys napped I ran some more errands and got home just in time to sit down for 30 minutes or so before starting dinner. I decided to be adventurous and try a new recipe – a meatloaf. It took no time at all to get it ready and into the oven leaving us with a whole hour to play before dinner.

I had been promising the boys that we would feed the ducks “soon” for a couple of weeks. I had even been saving some bread. So we grabbed the bread and piled into the car to go feed the ducks. The front of our neighborhood has its own flock. There must be a 100 ducks. They are fed well, and often. They typically even come running anytime a car stops nearby. When we got there all the ducks were in actually in the pond. A man was standing nearby fishing. And before long it became apparent why the ducks were safely ensconced in the middle of the pond – the man’s dog soaking wet and eagerly running around the edge of the pond trying to figure out how to get to the ducks. He eventually put his dog on a leash and sent it off with his kids to the playground nearby. I took our bowl of shredded bread down to the water and tossed pieces here and there to entice the ducks back to the nearby hill where the boys were eagerly waiting. The ducks trailed after me picking up the pieces I tossed here and there along the way.




The boys were so excited to see all the ducks and did a great job grabbing giant handfuls of bread and throwing it to the waiting hoard. A far improvement from their days of dropping it on my exposed flip flop clad feet. Though perhaps they are egged on my exhortations the entire time of “Throw it! Throw it!” Because as they have now both learned they are at the perfect height for a duck too impatient to wait for them to throw it to snag it right out of their hands. It was Connor’s turn this weekend. He paused for just a moment, with a fistful of bread held aloft. One of the ducks took it as in invitation to snatch it from his hand. I think he was more startled than anything, but after a minute or so was right back to grabbing and throwing fistfuls again.

We headed back home and before long pulled the meatloaf out of the oven. I will spare you the details, but needless to say that’s one recipe we won’t be making again. It will go into the same pile as the orange marmalade pork from earlier in the week.

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