little boy afternoons

After the big kids head to school the little guys and I head straight to the couch - it's book reading time!  Except on the days when I am super sleepy and can't keep my eyes open, we usually read for almost an hour.  It's one of my favorite times of day.  

And then John Paul practices his reading.  He's on the 4.5 minutes a day plan.  But I'll take 4.5 minutes :)  He is so squirmy, wiggly, squiggly, upside down jiggly.  He reads with his feet behind him, and his feet above him and his feet kicking my feet.  He will sit still - he loves to cut and glue and tape and create and Lego and whatnot, but something about words on a page makes the boy wiggle.  Somehow, he's making remarkable progress regardless of the squirms - ha!  And while I sometimes wish I was in full body armor, I'm learning to learn alongside him and in his way.  

Besides the wiggle-master, we have another reason to keep our reading lessons under 5 minutes - Mr. Luke, who knows that snack comes right after JP finishes, and he's in a hurry to get things underway.  

And then, we play.  Sometimes outside, sometimes inside.  Often the little guys enter their own play world and I tune them out :)  but on Thursday Luke and I had some unfinished parking lot building to attend to, and things got complicated.  In my free time I counted matchbox cars and the total is somewhere near "this should be plenty for our family" :)  

And then we each had a turn taking a picture of our creation.  

Blurry pictures by Thing One and Thing Two - whom we've recently nick-named Fili and Kili after the youngest dwarves in The Hobbit.

Grateful to spend these hours with these boys.   Even when they want to read the same books over and over.  Even when the wiggles drive me crazy.  Even when I think I'll never be able to buy enough bananas to provide three days in a row worth of snacks :)

Grateful.