His Mother's Son

For some reason when I was a child people liked to give me things. In Hawaii, I actually had a homeless man stop me and give me his change. (I got yelled at pretty bad for actually stopping though! :)) Anyway I was heading out to go look at the antique and thrift stores for photography props. MJ decided to come prepared and had his wallet in his pocket in case he found anything he wanted to buy. I chuckled but let him bring it. We were in a thrift shop and while I was paying for my finds MJ was admiring a skateboard brand new in it's packaging. There was a nice guy who worked at the thrift store talking to MJ. MJ asked him if he had enough money in his wallet to buy the skateboard (he'd mentioned to Mike and I that he'd like to have one months ago), showing the guy his wallet with a single dollar bill wadded up and some change. The guy who had just commented that he thought the board was a bit overpriced scratched out the original price of $15 and wrote $1 and sent MJ to the register with a smile. I'm not sure which one of us got the most joy out of the whole experience. MJ who got to make a purchase all on his own and was absolutely thrilled at being able to do it, the guy who worked at the store who was smiling from ear to ear at having made this little boy's day, or me enjoying the kindness of strangers and watching my son drop a sweaty, wrinkled, one dollar bill on the counter to pay for his find. That crinkled up one dollar bill reminded me of working at the pool snack bar in the summertime and having little one's like MJ is now, approaching the counter, opening their palm with a handful of coins they had clutched so hard they were sticking to their skin and asking, "What can I get for dis many?" Not quite able to master the upright approach, Annabelle provided MJ with a motor and they both got to enjoy the new toy.

The skateboard made its way outdoors and will be a permanent outside toy.

Annabelle decided that she liked playing outside in just socks. We had a fantastic spring day, 65 degrees, a slight breeze, birds chirping, hummingbirds buzzing by (ok, they totally are freaky sounding, I have to give that to MJ), sunshine. It is so nice to have spring weather.

I bought a cool bubble toy and took it out yesterday with the kids. They (and I) had so much fun we had to stop at the store today to restock on bubbles. Check out this one MJ made.

Annabelle got in on the fun too, but getting the bubbles as big was a bit of a challenge for her.

This one's all about posture and expression.

And this picture, well there's no doubting that there's Crosson genes in this child. She looks like a combination of my brother Brian and I as children. Excuse the gross shirt...she was splashing in a birdbath next door. Gross.

Finally the yelling when I'm not trapped inside the car trying to talk to Kristi.

I was praying MJ wouldn't stand up while Belly joined him on his skateboard. Unfortunately he did...but Belly managed to hop off before getting hurt.

Annabelle thought sitting in the tire was funny. She joked that she was going potty.

I'm looking forward to many more spring days like this one.