Daily dose of Lars

Lars is a double edged sword. He's full of life and energy and happiness. He always entertains me and anyone he's with. But he's not always great at entertaining himself. After Theo and Ida leave for school in the morning it's pretty much "Mom will you play blocks with me?" "Mom can I play on your iPad?" "Mom can I watch a movie?" "Mom will you read to me?" Which is great and I do those things (although iPad and movies are only allowed while I'm in the shower or occasionally in the afternoon) but sometimes I have other stuff to do. It perplexes me how to get him to play on his own at home, which Theo and Ida were always pretty good at.

One thing I will give him: he's fantastic on errands, if it's just him and me. In fact he much prefers running errands over staying at home if no other kids are there. He even likes the grocery store and the mall and will sit in the cart or stroller for hours, just taking it all in and telling me about what he sees. But at home he's always like "So what happens next?" And the daily institution of afternoon quiet time, which my older kids happily submitted to, is always a battle with Lars.

Usually when he starts in on the requests I give him options of things to do (eg, "either play in your room or clean up your room"; or, "if you want to watch a movie then first you have to play outside on your scooter while wearing your helmet")(he loves to scoot but is not a fan of the helmet) and after some initial resistance/whining/etc he gives in. 

I was shocked yesterday, when I told him he could do the dishes if he was bored, that he actually went in and did the dishes. He unloaded the entire dishwasher, put the clean dishes away and then loaded it with dirty dishes. I could have cried, and almost did. This is the happy flip side of a third child who doesn't know how to play alone because he's used to playing with older kids. He knows how to do the dishes, because he's used to watching older kids and helping them do their chores.

Anyway. Lars is awesome. Frustrating sometimes; awesome all the time.

Some sound bites

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8/28

Theo- I'm excited for the football game.

Lars- me too.

Theo- You're not going, Lars.

Lars- I know. I'm just excited of it.

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8/28

Theo- if you swallow an apple seed you'll turn into an apple.

Lars- no I won't.

Theo- If you have a fever and swallow an apple seed you'll turn into a POISON apple.

Lars- (stunned silence)

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9/2

Lars- I'm going to turn all the people in my preschool class into strawberries and I'm going to eat them.

Me- Really.

Lars- Yes, I'm going to wash them and eat them all.

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9/3

Lars- Mom, can you play blocks with me when you're done playing yoga?

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9/8

Lars- Mom can I have some of your water?

Me- sorry, I have a cold. My water bottle has germs in it.

Lars- But I'm just not going to drink the germs. I'll just drink the water.

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9/9

(In the car)

Lars- Let's listen to ABBA.

Me- (incredulously) ...What? ...Really? I'll happily play ABBA.

Lars- So play it then!

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I hadn't listened to ABBA in probably weeks and didn't know he even knew who they were. I laughed so hard. And was so proud. Can you hear the drums, Fernandoooo....