Hobbies

My kids each have their hobbies lately. Benjamin's is building. Whether that's with Jenga blocks, colored foam blocks, legos, or whatever else he finds. He is forever coming to me with his newest creation and describing to me in great detail how it "pooms the bad guys with fire!" or "blasts into space" or "sees when bad guys who shouldn't come in are coming in!" Yesterday during the other twos' naps, he asked me to play with him. So I started doing what I do best - create a perfectly symmetrical, completely non-functional structure. "That's cool! What's it do?" he asked excitedly. Do??? I thought. It does nothing. It just is. See how perfectly symmetrical and pretty it is?? But I looked into his excited and expectant face and I realized I couldn't just say that. So I came up with some grandiose explanation involving rockets, thrust, fire, explosion...you know, all the stuff boys love. "Wow! I want to help!" he shouted. It snowballed from there. Pretty soon we'd used all the blocks in the set and created an entire state-of-the-art defense system, complete with bunker, guard towers, rescue rope, secret passageway, flame thrower, control panels, etc. We both had a lot of fun, but I insisted on taking a picture before he got to kick it all down - the end result of all his creations.


Bella's hobby is cutting paper. She used to have a really hard time handling scissors but she finally got the technique down a few weeks ago and she has become a cutting fool. Every morning she tells me, "I want to cut, mommy!" (Thank heaven there's a comma in that sentence.) That's my cue to retrieve her scissors from the high shelf while she grabs a magazine or two or three from the pile. Then she'll happily sit at the table and cut the magazine to shreds while she waits for breakfast. I'm amazed how long it holds her attention. She really is so cute to watch. Although, beware - I found out that "safety" scissors can actually hurt quite a bit if you try to take the magazines away too early and your daughter isn't ready to quit.

Christian's hobbies are sleeping and eating, but I've also been trying to get him to smile more. The other day as I was getting this picture,


he suddenly pulled one of these:


I was so excited. He's done that more and more lately. I think it transforms his whole face from dazed newborn to charming baby. It's so fun.

And here's a picture I thought was funny. I was trying to get a cute pic of the three of them during tummy time but none quite turned out. However, this one amused me. Benjamin has really been so sweet with Christian from the very beginning. Often holding him or playing with him for long stretches of time. And from what I remember, really, at no time did Bella attempt to crush his head. :)