Micah goes bowling

On Saturday, Micah went to a friend's birthday party.  A bowling party. A cosmic bowling party.  I think know I was way more excited than Micah as I always enjoy a good game of cosmic bowling.  

But this was his first time ever bowling and it was loud and had crazy blacklights, and he just didn't know what to make of the whole thing.  I forced him to do it twice, just to try it and he hated it.  So I told him he did a good job trying and he didn't have to do it anymore, and then we went to the food table to get him some pizza.  Voila!  A brand new boy emerged after two slices of pizza and now he was dying to bowl.  

He started cheering. For himself and for others.

He started clapping. For himself and for others.  

He started jumping up and down.  (That was just out of sheer excitement for the sport.)

Here he is in action - bumpers down, pink ball rolling.

If you look closely, you can see the ball rolling right along the bumper, so you know the pin count was minimal. But check out the joy on his face and in his body language.

In case you missed it, this is what joy looks like.

Yep, he's a bowler.  We're going to have to get him one of those arm braces and everything.  Here he is cheering for a friend who had just bowled.  (Later he started hugging everyone after their turn.  I don't know what got into him.)

A bonus party favor was a gift card to spend in the arcade.  Micah sampled several rides, including a motorcycle race,

and a roller coaster simulator.

But in the end, he came back to bowling.  He didn't do very well with the duck pin bowling since the ball could actually go in the gutter, but he still loved it.

 Loved it.

Liam channels Elton John, circa 1970's

Friday Night Lights

This is the time of year that the Florida weather me depresses me most.  I can handle January through August fairly well.  But once September hits, it's supposed to start getting cool and the air should be crisp and the leaves should start turning colors and there should be high school football games where we wrap our hands around bad hot chocolate to keep our fingers warm and I should be changing out the summer clothes for the winter clothes.

Instead, in Florida, we keep wearing our same flip-flops and shorts, t-shirts and tank tops.  We sweat through the day, and keep the air conditioning on through the nights.  We take our pumpkin spice coffee iced and we spend high school football games swatting away mosquitoes.  We look forward to the humidity decreasing down to 95% and hope the temperatures somehow manage to dip into the upper-80s instead of the mid-90s.  It doesn't happen, but we dare to dream.

I miss fall.  I miss the smells and the feels and the colors and if I think about it too long, I just get depressed.  So instead of wallowing, we took off for the beach Friday night to celebrate what we have rather than mourning what we do not.

We traded the Friday night lights of a high school football stadium for the bright light of the setting sun at Fort DeSoto Beach.

Instead of watching the birds start their migration south for the winter, we hung out with this guy, who graces us with his presence all year long.

We watched our boys run barefoot on the sand and chase our bird friends into the air,

and we watched them fly gracefully away.

We dipped our toes in the still-warm waters of the gulf and dug in the cool sand with trucks and shovels.

We listened as our boys ran towards the steps of an old fort, laughing and shrieking as they tried to catch each other on the empty stretch of sand, and appreciated the quiet of September in Florida when we who live here reclaim our land just briefly from the tourists who flood it in the summer and the winter visitors who start arriving next month.

We worked really hard to get to the top of the fort so we could have the best view...

...of this,

and this,

and this, 

and this.

So instead of being depressed that fall doesn't feel like fall here, I was happy just to be somewhere with these guys.

And I was grateful for different kinds of colors - those that paint the sky instead of those that paint the leaves.

And I realized that it's not the same in Florida, but fall is still beautiful here in its own way.

Potty-training, take 2

I hate how I have been such a blog slacker lately.

I don't want to make excuses because I don't like reading other people's blogs and just seeing excuse after excuse.  The bottom line is that life has caught up to me in the last few weeks.  Hopefully I'm going to be better at carving out computer time because I get so mad thinking about all of the sweet moments with our boys that I have not recorded and it makes me sad.

I have been working on my "what you need to know about Micah at age 4" entry, and that will come soon.  Four is a big age, and there is lots to say about that kid.  Because he totally rocks.

But tonight is a brief entry and it's about Liam, that little charmer.  Lately, he has taken up a new fascination with underwear and has expressed a real interest in using the potty, unlike his brother who was three and a half before he just decided one day that he would give in to our pleas and use the potty. 

New underwear for Liam?  Check. (Thomas the Tank Engine, at Liam's request.)
Spare outfits for preschool, including socks and shoes?  Check.
Additional spare outfits for daycare?  Check.
A promise from Liam that he would tell someone when he had to use the bathroom?  Check.

Huge load of laundry at the end of the day because he went through five pairs of shorts, two pairs of socks, two pairs of shoes, one shirt, and one bathmat?  Check.

What do you wear when you have very few pairs of shorts left at home?  This lovely outfit.

He was still his usual cheerful self, despite the multiple changes of clothes.  Today we are thankful for patient preschool teachers and daycare workers who love our kids through all of their trials, for a working washer and dryer, and for a little boy with a desire to try something big and new.  Tomorrow is another day...