Our Sunday morning routine restored order to our house after days of busy-ness and evening engagements. Kai and Shen let Tina and me “sleep in” until 9:00 AM. They made their regular 7:00 AM appearance but after going potty they were willing to return to their own bed where we could hear them talking and playing quietly together while we listened to NPR. At 8:00 they reappeared and told us they were going to “go play”. We could then hear them deconstructing the playroom while we managed to listen to a few more NPR stories. Our goal is always to hear Will Shortz’s puzzle before we get up. The challenge is that it comes on at exactly the point when Kai can no longer wait for breakfast. This morning, right on time, his desperate pleas began just as the puzzle segment began. Grudgingly he consented to give us three more minutes, and we got to hear the whole game before getting up to serve the boys cereal: oatmeal for Kai, and Cheerios for Shen.

Shen has for months now insisted on making a small bowl of cereal last for over an hour. This is in stark contrast to Kai’s ability to empty a bowl of oatmeal before I can return to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee. Shen would stretch out the meal process to interminable lengths, but for nearly a week now, he has been eating his breakfast (and other meals as well) in a reaonable time. We don’t want him to bolt his food at the same speed as Kai, but we don’t want to wait until lunchtime for breakfast to end either, so this change in behavior is a welcome one.

After breakfast on the weekends we let Kai and Shen watch PBS kids programs on the Tivo while Tina and I read news and blogs on the internet. When we feel we’ve passed the limit for acceptable “screen time” for the boys we move on to other things. This morning it was still gray and cold outside so I brought out the Lincoln Logs and Brio Trains. The base set of both these toys are hand-me-downs from Cam and Ben. The older boys never really played with these much. If I got them out they would play along, but would rarely sustain or initiate play with these toys. Kai and Shen on the other hand, love these and will spend hours on them.

I designed the structure above, but Kai and Shen both actively participated in the building of it by following the base pattern I layed out to stack up the walls. Kai is particularly good at this and can build his own simple structures. He enjoys the repeating pattern and seeing his towers grow taller and taller. Kai is also quite good at laying out the Brio track. He is able to to close off the curves to create elaborate circuits, and both Kai and Shen enjoy driving long strings of train-cars around the track. It’s really nice seeing these classic toys put to use. I think I enjoy watching the boys use these as much or more than they enjoy the playtime themselves!