I left work at midday yesterday so I could play in the snow with my boys. We had a snowball fight in the backyard, but the powder wasn’t sticky enough to roll a big ball for a snowman. We left our yard and walked through the neighborhood, and over to the nearby grocery store, where I bought some fresh chocolate chip cookies for dessert after dinner.

The blanket of snow survived all yesterday (the temperature stayed in the 20s), and it will probably stay for most of today, too. Schools are closed again, so the boys have another chance to play in the stuff. But I’ll stay at work all day because national deadlines don’t get put off because one state gets a snowstorm.

Here are some pictures from the event:

In the neighborhood:

My drive to work:

View from the offices:

Angels by my boys:

Bullgrit

To give his old man a break, Calfgrit8 said I could post his story he wrote for a homework assignment. He had a list of words to include in a story, and for this, he got a star (and a note to “Don’t forget to indent”).

* * *

One day a boy named Jake wanted to go to the old barn. So he decides he will. First he goes to the barn. There is a big wide carpet in the barn. Then he throws a party. His frends arrive just in time. Later he goes to a small yard. Jake decides to play in the park with his friends. Then They played target. In the game you thorw a ball in a hop to earn points. Next to the farm there is a department store. In the store there is a compartment room and in room there is a big carpet. When the party is over Jake’s frinds started to leave. The End!!!

Calfgrit8

Something a couple weeks ago made the boys start talking about having a slumber party, just us family. We all agreed we’d try it Saturday night. I rented WALL-E for the occasion.

After both boys had their baths, and were in their PJs, we all went around the house collected all the pillows and blankets we own. I pulled some down out of the closets that even Cowgrit had forgotten we had. While we parents prepared for bed time, the boys set about arranging the blankets and pillows on the floor in the den, in front of the television.

We all settled down on the floor and turned on the movie. We had miscalculated the time the movie would finish, so the boys ended up staying up an hour later than their normal 8:00 bed time. It was a good movie, and all of us enjoyed it, especially being cuddled up together on the floor among the pillows and blankets.

Finally, with the TV off, the lights out, and everyone tucked in, we tried to go to sleep. Cowgrit couldn’t get comfortable on the floor and so moved to the sofa. I was fine on the floor, so I stayed. Calfgrit8 was fine, and tired, and got quiet almost immediately. Calfgrit4, however, was excited to be doing something different — not in his bed.

CG4 talked and talked, moderately quietly, and held his hands up in the air playing. . . something. After a few minutes, Cowgrit took her pillows and blanket from the sofa and went to our bed. She’d never make it camping (and she has no desire to try it).

Eventually, after almost 30 minutes of talking and hand jiving, CG4 fell asleep. I got up and went to my office computer for a little while. Then I went back to the den and laid down again. I fell asleep pretty soon thereafter.

Although I could fall asleep on the floor, turns out I can’t sleep very long there. I woke up many times in the night, uncomfortable. But I was so tired, it never dawned on me to move up to the sofa for the rest of the night. I ended up just tossing and turning all night.

And speaking of tossing and turning: Calfgrit4 sleeps all over the place. With no bed to give him boundaries, that kid rolled and slid everywhere in the room. At one point that I saw him, he had pushed about three feet headward from where he started out in the blankets. At another point, he was perpendicular, forming the center line of an H between CG8 and myself. Early in the morning when Cowgrit came into the den to check on us, she couldn’t see him buried under his blankets.

The next morning, the boys were happy for the excitement of the “slumber party.” I, however, paid the price of aches and pains for lying on the hard floor all night. I hadn’t got good sleep for all the tossing and turning (my own and CG4’s), and my body felt like I’d gone four rounds with . . . whoever the current boxing champ is. I had to pop a bunch of ibuprofen to be mobile all day. Next time, I’m taking the couch.

But all in all, it was a lot of fun. The boys want to do it again, regularly, and we’ve discussed doing it once a month or so. This could be a cool family tradition.

Bullgrit

Since around October, Calfgrit8 has been wanting to get a Bakugan. At one point he had saved up some money so he could buy one himself — they’re around $4.00 — but every store we checked was sold out. We kept an eye out for them all through November and into December, but none of the stores we visited had any.

In about 6 weeks, we searched at least 6 different stores, visiting each at least twice. We shop at Target usually about twice a week anyway, so each time we’d always check the toy section to see if they had gotten in any Bakugan. We could find the empty shelves and hooks where they were supposed to be, but we never found the toy.

Cowgrit and I searched for these things on the Internet. We could find pictures of the little balls, but all online stock was empty, too. We could only find them in stock on sites like ebay, for $10-15.00 each.

Eventually, Santa got a few a about a week before his big world trip — three for Calfgrit8, one for Calfgrit4. Thank goodness for Christmas magic.

Then, less than a week after Christmas, we spotted this in our local Target (none of these pictures overlap):

This pictures are all from one store. That big red wagon full of boxes: all those boxes are full of Bakugan packs. I estimated probably 500 bakugans on the aisles, not counting how many might be in that red wagon.

What the Hell!?

Bullgrit