Playdates

I can't tell you how fun it is to see my little guy playing with his friends. It's wonderful when you can see and hear your children interact with other children they know and love to be with. Take for instance today...Ethan had his best friend in the world over...aka: Jamie!

These two monkeys treat each other like they were related. They yell at each other, beat on each other, steal toys from one another, complete "monkey-see monkey-do" the whole time they are together. And yet, they also work well together, talk to each other, (maybe not quite listen to each other all of the time!) read together, make up games with each other like Chairs, and Crash! They could't be more different and yet more alike. Ethan is older than Jamie by seven or eight weeks, but Jamie is taller then Ethan by a couple of inches. They compliment each other, therefore are able to teach each other things that us poor mommies either cannot, or don't want to be taught!

For instance; Jamie likes to wrestle and play rough with Ethan who would much rather run around like a mad man screaming at the top of his lungs while pushing his dumptruck that he constantly crashes into the walls (or people). At the same time, Jamie likes to sit for short periods of time and work on little craft projects like coloring or drawing. Ethan however would just scribble a little bit, and then find it much more interesting to peel all of the paper off of the crayons before taking off on another run around the house.

Well, some of that has changed. Don't get me wrong, my little guy still has enough power to run most of Manchester, but for the first time, I was able to get him really involved in an art project today with his friend. They painted, (that's right I said paint) these sticker crafts I picked up a Target...(love that store). We put on some plastic smocks, put down a drop cloth, and put into those tiny little hands the power of a paint brush, complete with water, paints and said object to paint.

I had to remind him a couple of times to focus, but he actually did it. He must have sat there for a good 15-20 min. painting. Now, don't think he still wasn't very "Ethan-like" because any of you who know these two little boys would most definitely be able to pick out who painted which pictures. Jamie's has nice bright colors that are for the most part identifiable as a rainbow of color. Ethan's on the other hand has more of a brown kind of coloring going on...but he managed to use every single color, name them, and chant along with Jamie all the steps of how you paint. Which go something like...dip, dip, dip (in the water to rinse), dry, dry, dry (on the paper towel), then paint, paint, paint...repeat. It was wonderful.