Milestone Minutiae

The kids (and their friends) have a strong tendency to take apart toys and spread the pieces all around the house, so that things with one specific purpose are separated from the other parts that would allow them to function.  It drives me insane. When the most recent part went missing, I banned the Xbox until it is found, in the hopes that the boys (and their friends) would have incentive to look for it, and to try to remember where someone carried it off to in the first place.  It's been three days and the part has not been found. This evening, Henry wanted to play a game on the Xbox.  Henry isn't really banned from Xbox, because he's not involved in the toy shredding (yet), but he can't play alone so I asked Emmett to play with him.  Emmett didn't want to play the game Henry wanted to play, so he protested.  Here's how it went: Emmett: "But I'm banned from XBox!" Me:  "You're not banned from playing Raving Rabids" (that's

Henry asks, "Mom, how do you spell DVD?" I reply, "Dee Vee Dee." Henry says back, surprised and amazed, "There are two dees in DVD?!?"

Emmett solved one side of a Rubik's cube today.  He was really excited about it. 

Henry finally agreed to try swimming lessons, so I signed him up.  As I was getting him ready for his first lesson, he started to get really worried and was saying that he changed his mind.  I ran through all my pep-talk stuff but he was unconvinced.  I finally told him that we'd just get ready for swimming and he could decide when we were at the pool, and that it was totally ok from me if he decided not to.  That seemed to make him feel a little better. At the pool, he was still nervous and I tried a little pep talking again, this time emphasizing that it was his decision (and I meant it).  He said, "Maybe I'll just put my feet in the water."  So we started on the first step, with me explaining to his teacher what was up.  After a couple minutes of coaxing, we got him to go down to the next step with the teacher.  I realized that at this point, I was just a distraction, so I hurried off to sit along the side of the pool.  He wasn't thrilled about putting his fa