Larson Boys

I did something horribly mean (like refuse to give Ian as many fistfuls of jelly beans as he requested) and he declared loudly, "Mom, I am so angry at you! I am even more angry at you than dad is old! Even more than that! Like 32 Angry!"

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Reading Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain with Daddy. The boys love reciting all the repetitive lines that build up by the end.

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Ian and Joseph share two imaginary friends. Their names are Boopee and Breston, they are both male, and they were originally dreamed up in Ian's imagination. Boopee is more popular with the boys, though both come up frequently in conversation. When it's time to pull the car into the garage, the boys will often shout "No! This isn't our house! You took us to Boopee's house on accident!"

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Ian is learning the song "Praise to the Man" for primary and asked what "traitors and tyrants" were. I explained it, and then thought it might also be a good time to explain that sometimes our actions don't have immediate consequences; sometimes people make wrong choices and they won't have a consequence until they get to heaven. But there are always consequences eventually. I felt pretty good about sneaking that life lesson into our conversation. Until...

Later that day Ian was in the backyard of a friends house and was saying unkind things to some of the kids. When they threatened to go tell Ian's mom and dad, Ian replied, "That's okay. I'm not going to have any consequences until I get to heaven and then Heavenly Father will give me my consequences." Nice try. 

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Bathing Helen always becomes a family affair. The boys love to help.

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Ian is obsessed with the number 30 because that is how old Daddy is. When he sees 30 written on speed limit signs, on pagination in books, on a digital clock or anywhere else, he gets really excited and has to show everyone. Sometimes he'll tell me he found a surprise in a book and cover it up with his hands -- hiding underneath is the number 30. When we sing hymns at church he insists on holding his own hymnal, and he always finds page 30 before "singing the words" to the song.

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Ian loves when I ask him what time it is. He can read all the numbers accurately now, and sometimes will even say things like "Ten twenty-seven" instead of "ten, two, seven".

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A few months later now, Ian can always accurately tell me the time on digital clocks. It's really helpful! Except when he does a count-down when we are driving somewhere and running late.

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Scott built this waterfall contraption, and reaffirmed that he is, indeed, the coolest Daddy ever.

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When we ask Joseph to fold his arms for a prayer, he folds them but leaves them hovering  a foot apart, with a big grin on his face.

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Ian can count from 0 to 100 with only a little help. He often forgets that 60 comes after 59, and occasionally at the first number after rolling over to 30, 40 and 50. He also loves asking me which of two numbers is bigger (58 or 72) and this week he has gotten much better at figuring the answer out himself.

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Ian and Joseph love swim lessons with Ms. Gail, but they usually protest when I tell them it is time to go there. Last week Ian and Joseph told me that they were just going to drive to Ms. Gail's house, run up her stairs to where she keeps her lollipops, steal a lollipop without doing any swim lessons, and drive away. All by themselves. The truth is that they love working with Ms. Gail, and often Joseph will look over at me mid-lesson and declare, "Mom, I'm not done yet", lest I yank him out of the pool prematurely. Right now the boys favorite part of their lessons is kicking across the pool with a noodle and then jumping off the rock wall. Their least favorite is rolling over to float on their backs.

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Scott BBQ'd this creation for July 4th. He nicknamed it "Four year olds dream breakfast" because Ian would probably serve up something similar every day if given the chance.

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At swim lessons last week Joseph was asked to swim across the entire width of the pool (about 3xs as far as he'd ever gone before) and to roll over and take several breaths on the way to make it possible. He dove in eager to try it out (and be like his big brother). About the time he needed his first breath he started to do it and then either decided against it or forgot exactly how to do it. And after that he just kept going and going and going until he finally reached the other side of the pool, without having ever taken a breath! After that he flatly refused to jump in the pool and do it again; his instructor pulled him gently into the water and helped him do it again while taking breaths along the way, which he did just fine. He took on a lot of water and threw it all up almost as soon as his lesson was over. Poor little guy! He hasn't regained his carefree, fearless approach after that, and today when she asked him to jump in and do it he fixed his jaw and just stared at her until she brought him down into the water with her, after which he swam across the pool, taking breaths, just fine. He also said "why" when she asked him to do something today! (She replied "Because Ms. Gail said to, Joseph, that's why" and he did it).

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My Mom and I told the boys we were going to Rudy's BBQ for lunch, but then reneged when Ian started shoving Joseph and Joseph wouldn't stop spitting bubbles and fussing for his binkie. Joseph was the most disappointed but eventually he got over it and went to play on the slip-n-slide.

After naptime Ian suggested we go to Rudy's BBQ for a snack instead, since it hadn't worked out for lunch. When I explained that it's just a lunch and dinner place and we weren't going for a snack, Joseph suggested that we just go to see the dog at Rudy's then. When I told him Rudy's BBQ didn't have dogs there, he replied "Yes they do. It's white and brown. And it's name is Scout." I then realized Joseph had thought we were going to visit his friend Ruby L. who moved to Utah last year, with her brown and white dog Scout. I wish we could go there for lunch too!

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After stringing Fruit Loops in his nursery class, Joseph didn't stop talking about how fun it was for weeks. He told us all about how his teacher helped him keep them on the string, and how she helped him count the cereal. When we did it ourselves it was cute to see how Joseph "owned" the activity and explained to everyone how to do it.

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The day I got home from the hospital Joseph stared at my stomach and asked why there was still a baby in there. When I told him there wasn't, he asked why there was a ball in there then. I explained that when Helen was born, she left a little bit of food in there that she hadn't eaten before she was born.

A week or so later, Ian said "Mom, your stomach is flat now" (a statement that was very generous) and Joseph then responded, "Yeah, that's because Helen drank all her food out in the milk."

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A gigantic wasp (with shiny cobalt blue wings!) flew around the kitchen during snack time and caused all sorts of panic. I finally killed it and flushed it down the toilet. A few days later another wasp visited during lunch. Joseph insisted it was the same wasp, and that it had swam back up into the toilet from the depths of the sewer system. Joseph is potty training and I didn't want him to be afraid of things flying out of the toilet, so I drove home the fact that the wasp was DEAD DEAD DEAD and was not coming back. This wasp was a new one, maybe a brother wasp or something. To this Joseph said: "Yeah, I think that the wasp was dead and it went up to heaven. And then it was resurrection time, so it came back down to earth in the toilet and was alive again. And now it's in the window blinds again. It really is the same one."
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Ian was holding Helen during sacrament meeting yesterday and announced "Helen has 11 fingers!"
I said "No. Count again Ian."
A few seconds later Ian announced, more loudly this time "You're right! Helen has twelve fingers!"

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 Ian is a bit girl-crazy and forges friendships with older little girls wherever we go. A cute little girl wrote into the Friend magazine and Ian took a shining to her picture. Her name is Sabrina and she's a 7 year old from Arizona, and somehow Ian crossed her name and age and has been referring to her as Seveenis. She's become something of an imaginary friend, though he doesn't pretend she's present. He is constantly pretending to fly/drive/live in Arizona, but he never quite makes it to her house. He's frustrated that we don't have her address or phone number. He recently said that he wishes they published addresses in the Friend, so that he could drop by and surprise her at her house. Whenever we meet someone who is seven years old, he'll exclaim "Mom! They are seven! Like Seveenis!"
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Why some baby equipment didn't last through three children. The motor on the swing is broken, and the bouncy seat is stretched out so poor Helen slouches badly in it.

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Ian recently tried an unusual pick-up-line on a 15 year old girl at the pool the other day.
Ian swims up to the girl and says: "Hey, do you know about the gospel?"
Girl: "No."
Ian: "Oh. I do."
He then tried to go grab his size 10 shoes to show her -- he takes a strange amount of pride in the fact that they are size 10. I am sure she would have been impressed.
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I was explaining "imagination" to Ian by telling him to close his eyes and "see" a purple fish with green spots and an elephant trunk. But when he said he couldn't "see" it, I saw that my illustration of imagination didn't work. "That's okay Ian, your imagination is still growing," I said.
A few minutes later I overheard Ian explaining to Joseph, "You don't have an imagination yet Joseph, so you'll just have to pretend."
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