No more monkeys

Although it is considered bad form to say "I told you so" and the like when children hurt themselves, this particular case warranted an exception. Let me explain, lest you think me cruel.

We have a cute book with 8 monkeys jumping on the bed, and it has little plastic monkey faces in the book. With each page it counts down and one fewer monkey face is on the page as you see more monkeys who had fallen off the bed. Both kids love this story and can read it (The Boy can kinda read it; Meatball is reciting from memory).

Also, there is a game that they play, mostly with Daddy, that involves supervised jumping on beds or furniture.

As such, they hear the phrase "No more monkeys jumping on the bed" with some regularity. So, when The Boy took a header onto the floor as a result of bouncing his fool self around on his bed, I picked him up and hugged him and said, "What happened to the monkeys jumping on the bed?" to which he replied, "they fell off and bumped their head" which helped me to see that he was going to be fine and also clicked for him as the lesson to be learned. Not likely to stop him from bouncing around but he will be more careful. We hope.

In earlier injury news, Meatball tripped over a wire or something and hit his chin, splitting it open a bit. Mama called the doctor and asked him if stitches were needed. I told him that the cut looked like a piece of orzo. He said to do a butterfly bandage if possible but that it would heal okay on its own. He also said that 75% of the population has some sort of scar on their chins, so Meatball is likely to join the majority there,

The morning activity today was bowling. I didn't know how that would go with these boys. Grandma came with us for moral support (understatement...) and also didn't know how it would go. It's her kind of activity, being that it is indoors. Seeing as how the skies opened up a few times today, indoor activities were everyone's type. The boys were excellent! They loved the concept of bowling (with bumpers of course) and they enjoyed taking turns and watching me bowl. Meatball learned to refrain from chasing the ball down the lane. I'm not a good bowler, but I'm not a complete embarrassment and it was neat for them to see how a grownup does it. They thought it was cool that the screen told us who was to bowl next. They got a kick out of the ball coming back each time, and of course they liked the snacks.

The reason why we went bowling is because I signed us up for "kids bowl free" which gets kids under 18 to play 2 games any day all summer. You still need to rent the shoes unless you have your own. But it is all over the country; you just pick your facility. Not a bad idea because it generates some business in an otherwise slow season. This particular place had $2 specials for "kids bowl free", where you get a little drink and a snack (bit of pizza, fries, chicken, pretzel, hot dog...those sorts of things). We had also paid $25 for the adults in the house to get to play all summer. We didn't get our money's worth, except that when I signed up, I got $25 toward Restaurant.com right away. We use those a lot, or at least my mother does.

It took about 90 minutes to bowl one game with The Boy, Meatball, and I playing. We used bumpers, of course, which made the scores interesting. For the first few frames, the kids were winning.

In the attitude department, today was a great day with The Boy and his interactions with me. I took great care to tell him what was going on, to listen to his input and give choices, and to respect his right to be busy. I took the same care with Meatball and didn't get the same pleasant results, but I think that the 2-year-old is going to act his age, so he just needs to see other people being kind and being positive. Also, it's better to have all of the children acting their ages instead of The Boy acting as though he is also 2.

Musical Daddy returns late tonight from his travels to take my aunt to Connecticut. He stayed in NJ with his dad and woke up to come back for a coaching session for his chorus. Long few days for him.

Aside from the head injuries, all is well over here.