Color Bubbles

Color Bubbles, originally uploaded by cheryl.

The Easter Bunny may or may not have thought the new Crayola Color Bubbles were a good idea for a certain little boy in our house. Well, two little boys, really. The twins LOVE bubbles. It's one of their many obsessions, and one they will try to make you keep doing over and over and over again.

Today we finally broke out the color bubbles.

It was a bit ... how do I say this ... messy.

This picture of Connor, this is after we had already cleaned up. Our hands and arms were too dirty to even think about touching the camera during the actual bubble blowing process. So this is the after photo, as in after we took the garden hose and sprayed down our entire arms up to our shirt sleeves. Clearly, we didn't spray our faces off.

Color bubbles are pretty, I'll grant you. They're fun and different and the twins absolutely LOVED them. Connor even enjoyed them. Until he looked down at his hands.

You see, my boys like to run around popping said bubbles as they try to float away. They don't just watch them float by, oh no, they have to touch them. And today, they all turned green in the process.

So here's my humble opinion on color bubbles. Fun, interesting and good every once in a while to break up the monotony. But, make sure you meet certain conditions. Stay away from anything you don't want to have color spots all over it (at least until it rains, as it was pretty washable on every surface we saw today). Wear old clothes, as they're going to get spots on them that may or may not come out in the first wash. Or, better yet, wait until the middle of summer and break them out when you're already doing something messy or with limited clothing - you know, like swimming or running through the sprinkler.

And, finally, be prepared to have color spots all over you. My hand turned green where I was holding the bubbles and the extra stuff dripped back down. My toes turned green for the same reason. I had green bubbles bursting in my hair and on my face. I had dots all over my clothes and my skin (and I wasn't even chasing the darned things like the boys were, I was just blowing them for goodness sakes).

Let's just say everyone had a bath pretty quickly after they came inside tonight. Consider yourself warned.

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Cheese!, originally uploaded by cheryl.

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Silly, Part II, originally uploaded by cheryl.

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Swing Boy, originally uploaded by cheryl.

A Fast One

Silly, originally uploaded by cheryl.

Though I can't be positive, of course, I am pretty sure my oldest son pulled a fast one on me today.

Yesterday, when I picked him up in car line at school, his teacher mentioned that he had not been himself and to keep an eye on him, as several of his classmates had been out sick recently and something was definitely going around.

Ominous words, those, for a mother with three school-aged children.

We made it home, and his cranky disposition reared it's ugly head. He was sent to his room for hitting one of his brothers, with no apparent provocation other than he happened to be standing beside him. And once in his room, he promptly fell asleep. And stayed that way. From about four o'clock yesterday afternoon until just after 6:30 this morning when I went in his room to see about school for the day.

Of course, you can't tell how well a child feels when you have to wake them up (after 14 hours of sleep, no less). With elementary school starting so early, there's no chance of observing behavior, you have to make an instant decision.

This is where I made my mistake. I asked him, "Do you feel any better? Do you want to go to school today?"

He skipped over the first question and just answered the second one.

It took several hours to realize this fact, but eventually I did. He was tired, and still a bit crabby, but he doesn't appear sick. His low-grade fever that I thought he had this morning was probably a result of too many covers, not an actual fever. Though lazy and lifeless the first few hours awake, the rest of the day he's been eating and drinking and bouncing around like a wild child.

So he may have gotten one over on me today. But he's going back to school tomorrow. I've learned my lesson, I'm not even going to ask. If he's sick, I'll just get a phone call later in the day. But the funny thing about that is on the days when he's complained of not feeling well and not wanting to go to school, I've never gotten that phone call. I'm pretty sure I won't get one tomorrow either.

Sneaky big boy.