Tonight I got the boys to clean up their room and the family room -- no easy feat -- with the promise of a rare movie. Since it was so hot this afternoon, I was sort of a dud mom (despite our earlier foray to the fountains), and I was so tired of their constant fighting that I thought that a movie might earn me a little peace. But not before some serious cleanup.
Unfortunately, Julian cleaned up Legos in their room, which included disassembling a "bomber plane" that Gabriel was very proud of. I probed Julian to find out if he was just being thorough, but his goofy and even amused reaction told me it was deliberate. Gabriel was really bummed, wailing and carrying on, which is unlike him.
Julian was surprised when I didn't scold him, instead telling him he'd made Gabriel really sad, then told him to go clean up in the family room. Meantime, I consoled Gabriel by helping him rebuild the plane -- not that he needed my help, but time with Mom playing Legos together is highly coveted -- and infrequent -- time (~guilt~). I was the piece-finder; he'd tell me what size and color he needed and I'd find it in the mishmash of hundreds of mostly different pieces. It took him less than 10 minutes to remake it exactly.
Thank goodness Julian didn't disassemble Gabriel's Lego aircraft carrier. It's hard to tell in the photo, but it's actually a decent copy, with an island, a catapult for takeoff, and an angled landing strip. I glowed with satisfaction that our trip to a real aircraft carrier -- which they both still talk about every day -- inspired them.
And someone else, too. Katrina has no idea what an aircraft carrier is, but she spent some very concentrated time building one of her own too.
All the books they picked at the library were about military vehicles, and Gabriel's reading log for school contains lots of books like "Air Force Fighters." In one of Gabriel's assignments, where he was supposed to fill in "My question for my teacher is: ," he wrote: "can you tell me about WWII?" He wrote that only because I made him erase what he'd originally wrote, which was "CAN I QUIT NOW?!" and then I said that as an example of something I'd ask....so he wrote it down and I let it go. His teachers are going to think we're warmongers!
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