Rainy Days

The past few days have been filled with lots of rain and playing inside.  I thought April showers were supposed to bring May flowers, but apparently Mother Nature hasn't gotten the memo.  Don't get me wrong -- I love the rain for our lakes, my yard, and our current drought, but rain and toddlers do not mix.  And on that note, neither do rain and husbands that work in construction.

We found this week that the secret to getting all of the neighborhood kids out of their houses is to bring out Jackson's big truck.  It went from 1 kid to 9 within a matter of minutes, and of course, everyone had to take a turn driving.  We quickly learned which kids Jackson will be allowed to ride with when they're teenagers, too.  News flash...out of this crazy {but sweet} bunch, it's not many.

We also kept an eye on things next door, but because of the weather, not much happened this week.

The only real highlight was when they unloaded a dumpster to pick up the skid-steer and then took it away.

On Tuesday, Jackson was up at the crack of dawn and insisted on eating popcorn for breakfast.  He also insisted on popping not one but two bags {one for Jackson and one for Mommy}, and lucky for him, it was too early in the morning for me to really care.  I'm not sure if I should be excited or concerned about the fact that he is now able to make popcorn all by himself, too.  He uses a kitchen chair to get it out of the pantry and put it in the microwave, and he even knows how to get it out of the wrapper, which side needs to face up, and which button to push on the microwave {the one that says "popcorn"}.  It's not quite gourmet cooking, but I guess the silver lining is that he'll be able to make breakfast for both himself and for me when the baby gets here in August.

Because it was raining, I knew that we had a long morning ahead of us and pulled out the playdough as soon as the popcorn excitement had worn off.  Believe it or not, I really don't think he was even trying to make a mess, but he's just that good at it.  He did do his best to help clean it up though and even tried to sweep it into the dustpan, which was so sweet.

At one point, he asked to sit on my lap, and I scratched his back, hugged on him, and kissed his head while he built "castles".  And then the conversation went like this...
Me: I love you, Jackson.  Do you love me?
Jackson: Yeah.
Me: So what do you say then?
Jackson: Happy Mother's Day, Mommy.  Happy Easter Egg, Mommy.
Not exactly what I was looking for but sweet nonetheless.  And it almost made up for the fact that the red and yellow playdough are almost completely mixed now.

We also spent some time running the trains through the train wash...

...and when I finally felt like we had exhausted almost all of our indoor options, I decided to make a quick trip to the bank to deposit some birthday checks.  While we were there, the bank teller asked if I had ever used mobile banking {apparently she didn't realize that this was our big outing for the day}, and then on the way home, Jackson fell asleep.  Thankfully we weren't too far from the house though so he only slept for just a few minutes.

When we got home, I put on a movie in hopes that it would help get us through till nap time.  Jackson has never been a big fan of TV {the apple doesn't fall far from the tree}, but he was pretty much mesmerized by "Charlotte's Web".  Obviously he didn't sit still long enough for us to make it through the entire movie, but it definitely held his attention longer than anything else has.

That evening after dinner, we spent a good chunk of time watching the rain fall and explaining to Jackson how much the frogs love both the rain and the thunder/lightning.  We've realized in the last few days that Jackson is afraid of thunder, which is so sad and somewhat precious, so we're doing our best to convince him that it's not scary but cool -- but so far, he's not convinced.

Today was another rainy day filled with more indoor fun.  We started the day out by making blueberry muffins, and he really was such a big help.  He was great at lining the muffin tin, and he took me by complete surprise when he checked the level of the oil that I had poured into the measuring cup before he poured it into the mixing bowl.  Apparently he's seen me bake before.

Sampling the blueberries, or as my mom would say, checking to make sure that they're not poisonous.

This time, when he requested playdough, I opted to bring out the non-crumbly kind {a.k.a. putty}.  Not quite as much fun but definitely not nearly as messy either.  And thankfully, he seemed more than satisfied with it.

He also requested to take a bath, which seemed to be about as good of an idea as any, so I filled it up and let him play in there till his fingers and toes were all pruney.

And then, right before nap time, we did this.

I don't know if it's because he's growing up or because I know that one day soon he will not longer be my one and only, but these days, I love nothing more than to rock the baby that I purposefully never rocked to sleep for fear of creating a bad habit.  Rainy days and toddlers don't mix, but rainy days and snuggling definitely do.