Handy Marty

As you well know by now, the Molloy family loves hitting the playground circuit. We spend most of our weekends playground hopping around town. However, that doesn't mean that we don't enjoy playing in our own yard sometimes too. When the people who lived here before us moved out they left a (somewhat rusted) metal swing-set with two swings, a slide and a rocker. The slide and rocker became too gross to use before we even had children so by the time we had any kids to use it, it was down to just two simple swings. It was fine and we have plenty of other things to play with in the backyard too, but we have been contemplating getting a new swing set for a while. The problem is, most of those nice wooden swing-sets a.) cost more than an addition to your house and b.) are designed for people with backyards the size of a small planet. Our little budget and little city yard didn't seem to fit the typical swing-set mold.

After months of research and searching, Marty found what appeared to be the answer to all of our swing-set desires - a reasonably priced, moderately sized wooden swing-set! After a quick celebration, we immediately ordered it on-line and anxiously awaited the delivery. When it arrived, however, we realized why this amazingly perfect swing-set was so reasonably priced. It came as 81 pieces of lumber (not even pre-drilled or labeled in any way) and about 9 bags of various sized (and unlabeled) bolts, screws and nails. It also came with a 10 page instruction manual that, for 10 pages, was not all that detailed considering the task that sat before us. Of course, I panicked. Once again we paid too little for something when we should have just forked over a few hundred more bucks for a set that threw in the burly professional carpenters that come to your house and assemble it for you while you leisurely drink iced tea and eat bon-bons. But no. We were once again putting thrifty above practical.

Marty, however, saw my panic as a personal insult. He could do it! How could I even possibly doubt that he could do it?! He works at a place where instructors are teaching students about building stuff and certainly some of that has rubbed off on him through osmosis! And the challenge was on. Please don't get me wrong, it's not that I thought that my husband was not smart or capable enough to put together the swing-set. I never said or thought that. He is incredibly smart and incredibly capable and I in no way meant it as an insult. It's just that it was such a massive and intimidating project (81 pieces of lumber! 9 bags of bolts!) and neither of us had any experience doing anything like it. Or close to it. We've never built anything before. Maybe a piece of Ikea furniture. Once. That's it! But he assured me that he could and would figure it out and I was going to feel horrible for not believing in his massively superior carpentry skills in the first place.

And so Handy Manny-err-Marty got started with this big and scary building project. He worked weekends. He worked nights (literally by the light of the moon!). He worked alone. He worked with my dad. He worked with his dad. He worked and worked and worked. For weeks he worked. And what do you know - he certainly did prove that he has carpentry skills. It is beautiful! It is sturdy! It is fun! It is...done!

And so I do publicly declare that Marty was right and I was wrong. He is a brilliant carpenter and I am a silly non-believer. But I have never been more happy to be wrong. And our children (and all the neighbors children) are thrilled with our lovely, wonderfully built swing-set. They are enjoying endless backyard fun. After all the time and effort Marty put into this thing, something tells me we're going to be spending a lot less time at the playground and a whole lot more time enjoying our own yard!

Little Big Boy

I took Lucas in for his 18 month check up last week and the doctor confirmed what we already knew - that he is healthy and smart and charming and perfect. He is now 25lbs (30th percentile) and 31 inches (25th percentile) so he is on the smaller side of the spectrum for both of those things but he is continuing to grow at a perfectly healthy rate. He was extremely friendly (not surprisingly) with the nurses, doctor and families in the waiting room and everyone cooed about what a cutie and charmer our little red-head is. He was very displeased that the nurse stuck him with multiple needles (and actually sorta held a grudge about it for a bit) but all was forgiven once the Winnie the Pooh stickers came out.

Lucas is in the bizarro stage right now where is no longer a baby and does tons of "big boy things" (like communicating his needs/wants, doing things by himself, using a fork....) but still has plenty of baby tendencies. One of those tendencies is putting things that are not food into his mouth. Elise breezed in and out of the oral fixation stage before she even turned a year old, so this lingering phase is a whole new world to me. He eats random things that I KNOW he knows he shouldn't eat, but still does - perhaps just to drive me crazy but more likely because he simply cannot help himself. You still have to keep a fairly close eye on him, especially outside, as he tends to put rocks, wood chips, leaves and pine cones into his mouth whenever possible. And the boy loves him some crayons. As gross as he thinks they are (he always makes a grossed out face) he just can't resist chewing on them and we have about 65 half chewed crayons to prove it!

But despite this, he has never really eaten anything that was actually life threatening or dangerous ...that is, until this weekend. Early Saturday morning the kids were playing a game that involved running in and out of rooms and slamming doors while I was reading the paper. They were having so much fun - laughing and squealing - and I was having fun catching up with what was happening in the world, when suddenly, Elise appeared in front of me and reported that Lucas was "drinking something really gross in the bathroom." I immediately went to investigate and discovered that our little guy pulled the toilet bowl brush out of it's little toilet bowl brush cup and drank the contents of the toilet bowl brush cup. I kid you not. Grossest thing ever? Quite possibly.

A quick scan of the warnings on the Lysol toilet bowl cleaner (Warning! Ingestion may cause serious harm or death!) led me to call Poison Control to make sure that I shouldn't rush him to the nearest hospital to get his stomach pumped. Turns out that any amount that he possibly could have ingested (not very much) was diluted enough that it wasn't poisonous - just might burn his mouth and throat. Phew! It was quite a terrifying adventure and Lucas' breath smelled like Lysol for a few hours but everything thankfully turned out fine in the end.

And now we are doing a re-evaluation of what it means to childproof for our little boy!

Big(ger) Girls

Elise is getting to be such a big girl these days. The daycare director told me this week that she thought Elise was really blossoming lately. As cheesy as that sounds I do agree. From the way she talks to the way she interacts with others, she is certainly coming into her own. More and more, she is having thoughts and opinions on things, and is developing a strong sense of self and tons of self confidence.

She has always been a little reluctant to truly be herself around people - adults or kids - who she doesn't really know. She is more reserved - more of an observer than a participant - in crowds and when she is not in her comfort zone. However, I think that the combination of her age and the out-going nature of her brother is having a big affect on her. Lucas is not too shy to say hi (or anything else) to anyone. In fact, he talks to any and every one and because of it, gets lots of attention. I think Elise was beginning to see how at ease Lucas is around others and started sort of wanting that for herself too. And she may have been starting to get a little jealous about all that attention. Whatever the reason, Elise has been much more friendly, less reserved and more herself around strangers and people she doesn't know very well. This is making her more confident, which makes her seem older to me.

Something else that is making her seem like a big girl is her love for, well, big girls. Since the weather turned nice we have been spending a lot of time in our yard. A few weeks ago one of our neighbors, Lili, who is 7, came over to say hello and Elise and Lili somehow in the following thirty minutes became instant BFF's. We've obviously known Lili for a while but before this year the age difference between the girls just seemed too great. Now suddenly they play extremely well together and can't seem to get enough of each other. Every evening, they are both clamoring to play together.

Over Easter weekend, Elise also got her fill of older girl fun. On Saturday at the Meredith/Wolfe/Todd family event, Elise had several second cousins close to her age (Cory is 5, Kam is 3) to play with but it was cousin Emma, who is 9, that she latched onto for the day. She and Emma had so much fun together, in fact, that she was talking about how much she loves Emma for the next two days straight. Then on Sunday, Elise got to play with her 7 year old cousin Abby. She and Abby always have tons of fun together and their time together always ends in begging us not to separate them.

She can't seem to get enough of hanging out with older girls, and I guess we're ok with it as long as those girls are as smart and sweet as the ones she has been hanging out with.