Monday, April 13, 2009

Random weekend thoughts

We had a nice Easter weekend. Peanut kept us quite entertained with her first Easter.

Some random things and thoughts:
- My 5 year old daughter has a bad habit of getting up in the night and getting in bed with Hubby. He doesn't like it because our daughter, like all of our kids, is a busy sleeper. All of the kids kick, squirm, hit, and do random gymnastics in bed while they are asleep. So, to keep daughter in her own bed we are doing rewards. I asked her what she wanted for a reward and she requested stickers. So, last week, I took her to Dollar Tree and she picked out a small journal and three sheets of stickers. Being the girly-girl that she is, she got a hot pink journal and Barbie stickers. She has earned 5 stickers so far and she loves to put them in her journal. The really neat part is she is making up stories about her stickers. Under the stickers she will write a random group of letters, numbers and happy faces. They are her stories. She has read them to me. They are very cute and all about princesses and fairies.

-Daughter's latest favorite name for a Barbie or fairy is "Stumbleina" Yes, 'stumble' as in, to fall and 'ina'. It is like Thumbelina, but it is Stumbleina. It makes me laugh every time she tells me a story about Stumbleina.

-Daughter also has been asking me questions lately. OK, that isn't unusual. This girl asks a LOT of questions. However, lately, she will ask me a question like, "What color do you think Cousin Claire likes?"
I'll answer, "Oh, I think she likes the color purple."
Then daughter will answer back, "No Mom, I think she likes pink the best."
It makes me want to yell "why did you ask me in the first place?"

-Peanut has grown so much lately. If I could write all the things she has done since turning 1 a week and a half ago, it would take up a huge amount of space and take me all day to write. I've noticed with kids they will have not only growing spurts, but learning spurts too. Peanut is turning out to be a girly-girl too. I'm glad. She likes to wear necklaces. She will get a hold of one of her sister's dress-up necklaces, put it around her neck and prance around. She wore a bright colorful necklace all day on Saturday.

- Easter related thought. Well, it has nothing to do with the spiritual nature of Easter... my kids and Easter egg hunts. I've never seen kids so competitive with each other to find eggs. My 10 year old has no mercy for his younger siblings. When we open the door to do the outdoor hunt, he is blocking the door and sprints out when we open it. The three year old starts to cry almost immediately because before he can even step out of the door, his oldest brother has collected 10 eggs. My 8 year old son has never learned, even though we tell him year after year, to not follow his older brother when it comes to egg hunting. Ten year old will have gotten everything so if you follow him, there will be nothing left for you. We've encouraged him every year to run in a different direction, but he never learns. Instead, he follows his older brother and gets a lot less eggs. Five year old daughter really can't win either. As soon as she spots one and runs for it, the older boys will chase her, pass her and get the egg first. Then she starts to cry.

If two of them see an egg at the same time, they both run for it and whoever grabs it first shoves it into his bag. The other one claims it was his/hers first and grabs it out of the other's bag and sticks it into theirs. Then it becomes an argument. The ironic thing about our outdoor egg hunts is that we only use empty eggs. They gain no more candy by collecting more eggs. We don't even count who has more, but they still fight over who has the most. I'm seriously thinking of having two hunts next year, one for the older boys and one for the smaller group. Maybe it is time we make a rule that after 10 years of age, you can no longer hunt for eggs.

That would be so sad, though. My family did egg hunts every year and I did it well into my late teen years and I want my kids to have fun. They just turn it into a major competition and ruin the fun for all. Good thing Easter comes once a year.

3 comments:

SLC said...

Whoa sister, that egg hunt needs some help. Either two hunts, or limit how many eggs the older boys get to find - when they're found that number, they're done. Claire finds more than William, but she is not allowed to get them all. We make her leave some for William. The minute it gets mean, she's done. Good luck next year. Do you remember that time during one of our hunts when you reached for a plastic egg on the fence and unknowing to you, it was covered in bird poop? Priceless.

The Roaming Rolfe's said...

Our is the same, my 8 year old and 6 year old are always at it! We are going to make a egg limit next year. Poor Bekah doesn't get many and we have to ward off Jacob so she can get some! Then we get upset because some one has more! We are going to limit it!!! Glad we aren't the only ones!

Martie said...

I had to groan when I read the comment about your dd asking so many questions. Sometimes I have to tell Delany "no more questions for 10 minutes" because I think I just may pull my hair out! :O)

For Easter we do three things that help with the egg hunt. One is that we give the little ones a head start. The second is that the big children are only allowed to get the eggs that are higher up... none from the ground. And the third and most helpful is that afterwards we dump all the eggs in a pile and divide them up evenly. That way everyone is happy!

Have a great day!

Martie
mom to 9