weather lesson

I was awakened with a knock this morning and a sad little voice saying "Mom, Chloe won't get up and play with me!". Chloe, much like us, is not a morning person. Dennis, however, is very much a morning person and he woke up, noticed his buddy was still here at his house, and was ready to get up and play IMMEDIATELY. She eventually joined him, and we breakfasted together on her requested meal of cinnamon rolls (a delicious choice). They costumed themselves as Iron Man and Jessie (Toy Story) and remained this way for long enough that it occurred to me that attempting to get them dressed to leave for the lake was not all that necessary. After all, Iron Man and Jessie are just as portable as Dennis and Chloe, and so we headed out, costumes and all. They got a real charge out of marching into the house and surprising Gigi with their costumes. And oh, what a fabulous day we had! We feasted on hot dogs, enjoying a meal on the screened porch while it was still gorgeous outside. Then we painted some drinking glasses (which will remain at Gigi's house for use there). Chloe and Dennis really let their artistic abilities show, Chloe with an inspired use of color and brush technique (beautiful glasses!), and Dennis with his planning a subject and following through (he painted one glass as a fire truck and fireman and another as a fire, and they are recognizable as such). They moved on to cookie baking after that and then playing on the porch until Dennis was stung by a wasp. Gran and Gigi came to his rescue, Gran with a borrowed cigarette from a neighbor that she turned into a tobacco compress for his arm wound, and Gigi with a wonderful distraction: a new Transformers book that went along with the Transformers Band-Aids on his arm. His tears dried immediately as we read the book to him and Chloe while they ate cookies and drank Coke Zero. And then, just as it was naptime, a hailstorm arrived, perhaps the fiercest I have yet experienced. We let them out of bed to come and see the hail falling on the deck and, more interestingly, into the lake (making big splashes all over). It was scary loud and bigger than golf balls (biggest I've ever seen!). The kids were fearfully impressed and were happy to stay inside under the roof! It stopped very soon after it started, and Gigi went outside to fetch some of it to bring in for the kids to see and touch. Sure, it's ice, but I'd never looked that closely either--it looks like there's a core with rings around it inside the hailstones. We all looked and touched (and Hobbs even sniffed and licked one, which I guess is Dog Scientific Method) and learned. And they napped gloriously long naps and woke subdued and calm. We enjoyed Chloe and were sad to see her go back home when her parents arrived to pick her up.

Dennis always takes a while to get used to playing alone again after he's had company of any sort (church, school, slumber party friends), and I was catching up with David this evening when Dennis kept running in and asking me to come and see various things "right now". The last was a monster named Figaro who was hogging his Smart Cycle (and who I promptly kung-fu-kicked off Dennis' bike). He gave up (Dennis, not Figaro) when I again returned to our bedroom to chat with David, and he decided to join us there and bounce all over the bed while we talked. He snuggled all into my neck and named all his friends and then asked me if I knew who he liked best of all. I asked who (and caught David smirking with the knowledge of what was coming next) and Dennis said "you, Mommy, I like you best of all". I love that kid. He knows just what to say to me!