now I ABC's

The boys ran some errands with Rodgers, and I asked Nate to bring chocolate home to me. He obeyed. I shared.

I may have mentioned before that my boys love playing in the dirt. It's one of their favorite past-times. They have slightly sensitive skin, and certain types of dirt (especially red, African dirt) makes them break out in little rashes on their arms and legs. But they don't care. They would roll in big piles of dirt if the opportunity presented itself.

It's surprising, therefore, that they can't stand to have visible food or dirt on their hands. As taught on the show Sid, the Science Kid, Nate says the alphabet while washing hands, to make sure he has washed long enough.

Ben tries to say the alphabet as well. He doesn't know letters or anything advanced like that, but he makes the sounds for the entire song. He calls it "Now I ABC's," as in "Now I know my ABC's."

Adorably, when Ben's hands are dirty, he doesn't say "dirty" or "wash." He says, "Now I ABC's!"

The Pink One!!!!!

We have several big box stores near us, which is usually where we buy groceries. Most frequently we go to the newest, Naivas. As far as quality and selection goes, I would say Nakumatt is like WalMart, Tuskys is like Kmart, and Naivas is Target. Roughly.

Naivas has a fleet of cozy coupe shopping carts. Some have functioning horns, some have keys that turn (but don't come out), and one has a hot pink trunk. The others have an open cargo space. Nate adores the pink trunk one. He begs for The Pink One. Our rule is that he can have The Pink One if it is at the end of the corral. I'm not going to move 10 carts out of the way trying to the get to The Pink One or stand at the front of the store until someone returns it.

I remind him as we walk up to Naivas.
"What kind of car can you get?"
"One I can reach."
He knows the rules.

Still, when The Pink One is there but out of reach or not there at all, he often throws a fit and ends up walking through the store whimpering. This has happened so many times, and I've had to explain to Naivas employees so many times that he's upset about not getting The Pink One, that they know now.

Today, we got to use The Pink One. As Nate got in, with a big grin, the Naivas employee standing there celebrated with him. Sometimes, when someone returns The Pink One after we've already started shopping, one of the employees will find us in the store to bring it to us.

So here it is, in all its glory. The Pink One.

entitled...

When we run errands, we carry water bottles in the car with us. It's hot and humid, not everywhere we go has a/c, and some of the places with a/c don't set it very cool. We get thirsty.

Sometimes I forget our water bottles, or a quick trip turns into a longer one on a whim, and we don't have enough water. Juice boxes are pretty cheap, and there are usually some in a refrigerator at the big supermarkets. So if we need an extra drink, I let the boys get juice boxes. It doesn't happen often, so we don't think it's really a big deal.

Rodgers is working late today, so he hung out with us this morning. Ben was particularly grumpy, so we decided to get him out of the house, in a hurry. We didn't take the time to fill our water bottles. We got some water at the mall, which we drank quickly, but then decided to head over to Tuskys.

When we were done shopping, but not quite ready to head home yet, we decided to take an extra stroll around the first floor. When we got to the cold section, Nate marched straight up to the drink refrigerator, grabbed a juice box and said, "Do you need some juice, too, Ben?" as if it was a given that they were going to get juice.

I was going to let them have juice today, but didn't expect Nate to get them, unprompted, as if he owns the store. At least he thought of his brother.