Baby's Best Friend

For his birthday, Levi received a stuffed puppy from his Aunt Aimee. It is a cute border collie. Last week, I was playing with him and the dog, and making the dog bark at him, and he said his first word! He named the puppy Voof. You'd think he was just making dog noises, but seriously, he was pointing at the puppy and saying "Voof!" lol So that is the puppy's name now. They are so cute together. He really loves this dog. It is easy to get Levi to lay down for a nap or to go to bed; all I have to do is hold both him and Voof, then tell Levi that Voof is sleepy and lay the dog down in the crib on his side, and make snoring noises. Levi jumps right in and lays down next to Voof with his arm on a paw. It is soooo cute. Here they are together going for a ride in the van:

Levi and Voof


We were in the van to take Samuel and Caleb to their first day of camp at the YMCA. Caleb was super excited to go, but Samuel was a bit shy and nervous. Of course that manifested itself in his behavior as anger and stubbornness. He dragged his feet leaving the house, getting out of the van at the Y, going inside at the Y, signing the paper that covers the discipline rules for camp, and carrying his lunch bag each of those places. In fact, he mostly kept dropping the bag on the ground. He also hid in the vestibule rather than come all the way inside. I was so embarrassed. And angry. I really was torn between crying and just hauling off and smacking him. Of course, I did neither. But boy did I feel like it. Here they are in front of the Y:

Caleb and The Grump


And in front of the bus:

An excited camper


An exasperated camper and The Grump


Of course, you know the outcome of the day; they both had a great time. I talked to a counselor when I came to pick them up, and she said that Samuel told her he was afraid it would be boring, but that when she asked him again at the end of the day he admitted it was fun.

My mortification was not quite complete, however; I had had to wake up both Levi and Micah from their naps to go get Samuel and Caleb. Micah is not good when you wake him up before he is ready, and he demonstrated that at the Y. When he saw the room with all the fun stuff in it that the campers wait in for parents to come pick them up, he wanted to run right in and play. Of course it is only for campers so I couldn't let him. Well, you know that story too. He laid down on the floor and had a tantrum and I had to have Noah carry Levi so that I could carry Micah to the van. Wow I was making a bad impression as a mother yesterday!

It wasn't over today either. This morning I was carefully watching the clock to get the boys out to the van at exactly 8:00. I checked every 10 minutes to make sure we weren't late. On the second the long hand reached the 12 I looked and said "All right, it's time to get in the ... Aaaaggghhh!" It wasn't 8:00, it was *9:00*!!! HOW did that happen? OMG I can't even tell time. To make things worse, today was the scheduled field trip for the boys. The campers were going to have a tour of a potato chip factory. They weren't even going to be just at the camp, they were going on a trip! Waaahhh! I raced them out the door and over to the Y, and ran in the door to see if I could maybe meet the bus at the factory. The lady behind the desk was so nice. It turns out the busses went first to the lodge where the campers spend the day, and from there they were loading up to go on the trip, and they hadn't left yet. So she called and asked if I should drive the boys up to the camp or meet them at the factory. They said they'd hold up the bus for me to get the boys over there. Back out to the van I go, and hurry over to the lodge and we made it! Phew! I was feeling sooo guilty, I am so glad it worked out. When I went to pick them up today the report was that it was really cool and they had fun :-)

Tomorrow morning I will not make the same mistake of thinking it takes 2 hours to go from 7:00 to 8:00 LOL