In 2007, Jude and his cousin wanted Darth Vader and Spiderman. In 2008, Jude, Karenna, and I did Batman, the Joker, and a few little friends.
This year Jude wanted X-Men for Halloween, so Karenna picked Rogue, while Jude and I worked on a two-sided pumpkin with Wolverine and Cyclops on it...
Jude was asked to clean his room Thursday night before he could play. It looked terrible; there wasn't a spot of floor that was safe for walking.
Naturally he was overwhelmed with the task, so I came in and helped by telling him how to break it down: first, picking up costumes; then, toy tools; then action figures; etc. Karenna just watched and echoed her "half-a-mommy" routine.
It took a lot of prodding...
Sometimes, he'd forget he was cleaning and play with each toy. (That's the kid curse: "May you get what you are." Chris was someone who had to play with every item every time I helped him move to a new place. Now Chris's punishment is to see things through my eyes watching Jude do it.)
Sometimes, he'd argue. "How many more times do I have to clean my room anyway?" I gotta tell you kid, it doesn't stop. It doesn't get easier when you get older, either; you just get a bigger place to clean--and maybe a few small whiny minions to help you clean it. Mwahahaha!!!!
Sometimes, he'd fake an ailment. "I'm sick. My head is really hurting me bad."
"Oh," I'd say feigning concern even more deftly than he could feign sickness, "Well, maybe when you are done cleaning you can go to bed early." Mwahahaha!!!!
"No," he'd fake a cry with crocodile tears, "I think I need purple medicine."
"The only thing that fixes a headache is rest," I insisted, "so let's hurry up and clean so you can get rested."
"I don't think it's a headache," he whines as he lowers his hand from his head and begins to clutch his stomach as if someone shot him there, "My stomach hurts!"
"Well, I think you really need to go to bed then!" Gotcha! With that he was reduced to a few complaints about cleaning for a few minutes before the whining resurfaced...
"When are we going to be done cleaning already?" he whined.
Enter Karenna's melodrama, "Ugh! Jude, I am sick of your whining!"
"Karenna, if you're sick you have to go to bed early." Jude told her in his best "half-a-daddy".
"No, I mean you're giving me a headache..."
"Karenna, if you have a headache, you..." (Well, you get the picture from there.)
I was up late folding laundry last night and I heard a kid get out of bed.
I figured that it had to be Jude.
Typically if someone gets out of bed and comes to the living rooms, it's Jude coming to ask why he still has to sleep, how many more times in his life he has to sleep, or if I will come back to his room with him.
Nope. Karenna came out, walked right past me and down the first set up steps on our split entry. Then I realized she opened our front door.
"What are you doing?" I asked her.
"I have to go to the bathroom," she told me.
"That's not the bathroom." I realized she was sleepwalking right out my front door.
After I got her safely back to her room, I settled into my room and found a battery on the floor.
I picked it up and found teeth-marks, "Jude!"
Karenna's been doing art with her brother. First, she traced his hand and wrote his name in it...
Then she taught him how to draw a dog. (Karenna's is on the top. Jude's is on the bottom.) She patiently took him step-by-step through drawing it:
Since we don't have cable, we have the opportunity to approve what content our kids watch before they watch it, whether it's a Netflix by mail, a Netflix Watch Instantly, a YouTube video, something on Hulu, or a DVD.
We don't just take the rating at face value. Something marketed as a kids' show may not be appropriate for our kids. (We're not big fans of Disney tween fare.) Something marketed to adults may be perfectly acceptable. (Our kids love Jane Austen adaptations. Yes, even Jude. While Karenna is a fan of the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice miniseries, Jude went through a Gweneth Paltrow Emma phase.)
We waited some time to decide on The Lord of the Rings movies. On the one hand, the kids love stories adapted from books. (They enjoyed the Harry Potter movies and now spend just as much time on the books as the movies.)
On the other hand, the kids are young, and the movies were considerably more scary and bloody. We didn't want the kids to be scared, or, just as bad, begin imitating the violent scenes all day. They like to act out everything they see, which means when Jude plays Star Wars I have to worry about light sabers hitting people and things all day. When he plays superheroes, he tries to somersault off of furniture or stand on the rocking chair until it tips. I wasn't eager to add more to the Jude Kauffman stunt show.
When we finally decided to let them watch, they were not scared after all. And, they do play Lord of the Rings. Here's how it works...
We paint 'em. The kids are too little to be messing with knives, so we buy some washable paints, chalk outlines of what we want to make, throw down a few drop cloths and presto...
Jude paints his color within the chalk lines. We have plenty of wet paper towels and baby wipes to remove any paint that runs or end up out of bounds.
Jude wanted to make a Batman this year, so Karenna made the Joker. Then four small pumkpins given to us my our neighbors were made into pumpkin people.
