A Family Conversation at Last!

Tonight was a milestone in our household - our very first dinner where all of us (well, us and the two oldest boys) participated in a full-fledged conversation. Typically, our "family conversations" go something like this:

Hubby: Boys, how was your day at school today? What did you learn about?

Boy #1, age 4: It was great! We went on the playground.

Boy #2, age 3: Playground - lalalalalalalla! (opens mouth to display food for all parties at the table to see) We play cars on playground - lalalalalal (more food display)

Boy #1 (laughing): HAHAHAAHAHH! I SEE YOUR FOOD!!!! Mommy! Drew's not eating like a gentleman. Nobody wants to see your food in your mouth, Drew!

Boy #2: Lookit my food on the table, Cade! (spits food out)

Me: Drew! That's enough! That's time out for you - please leave the table and I will call you in three minutes.

Dinner concludes.

But tonight, all four of us managed to communicate on a singular topic. It went like this:

Me: Honey - I was in the Best Buy shopping center today so I thought I would stop by and pick up that Guitar Hero III game you saw in the paper on Sunday for $20. I wanted to surprise you, bu they were sold out. I was totally bummed.

Boy#1: Daddy already get Guitar Hero!

Me (surprised): Oh, really? When?

Boy #1: When we went to look at TV's!

Me (surprised again): Oh, really?

Boy #2: It doesn't work with our guitar!

Me (suspiciously): Oh, really?

Hubby (sheepishly): Yeah. It turns out that you can use Rock Band with Guitar Hero guitars, but not vice versa.

Me: So now we have the game, but no guitars to play it with?

Hubby: Pretty much.

Boy #1: Don't worry, mommy! We can just buy more guitars!

Boy #2: lalalllalalallala (opens mouth to display food). Look Cade! See my food!

Ok, so it ends the same, but look at all the progress we've made in the beginning of the conversation!

New Year, New Name, New Focus

One of my New Year's resolutions was to spend more time blogging. Although I love to write and supposedly blog for four different blogs, the arrival of Baby #3 this past July has significantly cut into my available writing time. All all of my blogs are neglected - this one, I'm sad to say, the most severely. Even the name (Two Kids Two Close) is outdated since the aforementioned third child arrived almost SIX months ago. I've written before about my struggles to find material for this blog. So as part of my resolution, I'm taking another stab at not only updating the name, but trying to give it a renewed focus.

It occurred to me the other day that I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how in the hell to parent boys. Being a girl and further, the oldest in a family of all girls, I really don't know anything about boys. Getting to know my husband over the past decade or so has provided some insight, but not much,since his ways are often still a mystery to me.

At Christmas, my aunt sent me a copy of Dr. James Dobson's Bringing Up Boys, probably in the hopes that I would read it, catch a clue, and get some control over my kids. Although I have absolutely NO time to read and if I did, I would be starting the uber-addictive (or so I hear) Twilight series, I figured it was in my best interests to clear time for this reading material before I do some permanent damage to my kids. I am about halfway through it, and I've already gained some valuable insights, which I will share in my next post.

But for now, just thought I'd kick off the year by announcing my new and improved focus for this blog - parenting all boys. And who knows, since I've experienced living in a family of all girls, I may throw in a little compare/contrast here and there. Stay tuned for lessons learned from Dr. Dobson later this week and Happy New Year!