One-on-one night.

Back at the very end of March my dad called to see if he could take Noah to a Jazz game (ummm...yes!) and so we decided that while he was getting a fun night of one on one attention from grandpa, that we'd give Lincoln a night of attention focused on him too. So, here are a few quick pictures from that night. Here is Noah all decked out in his Boozer jersey and excitedly waiting outside to greet grandpa when he pulled up.

Noah & grandpa before leaving for the game. They had a great time, and Noah was particularly excited to tell me that he ate a hot dog AND cotton candy!

We had a more low key night with Lincoln, but we had a great time. He's been into eating noodles lately, so since we'd never been to the restaurant Noodles before we decided to give it a try. We enjoyed it, and it was so-o nice to be able to relax and enjoy each other's company without having to coax Linc to eat his food (he loved it)! Here he is munching a saltine and enjoying his mac 'n' cheese.

You'll notice the red mark/bruise on Lincoln's cheek...it was from an incident at a prior trip to the park (which I already documented in this previous post). Poor guy. Lincoln had a great night though and he really seemed to relish all the attention from Mom & Dad being on him. Part way through the meal he kind of stopped and looked back and forth from Mark to me, noticing that we were both smiling and admiring him, and he just grinned the cutest grin - kind of a happy/shy/pleased with himself grin. Precious. Here are a couple pictures of him being very thorough at cooling off his macaroni...


I have to mention one more side note before moving on...I wouldn't trade having both of our two boys for anything, but Mark & I kept commenting on how easy things felt being out with just one child. One kid to get in and out of the car, to answer questions while driving, to watch for spills during dinner, etc. Again, we wouldn't ever want to change the way things are, but it sure was nice to have a chance (for all of us) to just take out Lincoln...and to smother him with attention. Maybe someday we'll say the same thing about taking out "just two kids". Anyway, since that night was all about Lincoln - we tried to think of something to do after dinner that Linc would particularly like. He is super into trains right now, so Mark suggested that we take him to a couple of places to just play with trains. Perfect! First we went to Barnes & Noble. I don't take him there very often because when it's time to leave he throws the biggest royal tantrums. However, this time we were armed with the ultimate counter offer...when he started the tantrum (and, oh, he did) we just told him that we were taking him to another store to play with another Thomas the train. It took a second to sink in, and he just looked up at us to see if we were serious...once he could see that we were serious, then it was off to the car with smiles!

So, next we went to Toys 'r' Us where he played with Thomas the train. Eventually he allowed us to break him away from the train table to explore the toy store. We just let him look at and touch all the toys he wanted - and he LOVED that. We spent the most time in this aisle (with Wall-e and Toy Story toys). Lincoln just plopped down and moved from toy to toy yelling out the name of each toy and beckoning us over to look at each one. He looked so tiny sitting in that big aisle of toys...

Once we were ready to leave the toy store, Linc was delighted that we let him pick out one train car to buy (which we don't normally do just for fun) and then we headed home to eat some ice cream together and watch the end of the Jazz game.
It was such a fun night. It did help Mark & I realize that while we really love enjoying time all together as a family, that we really want to make more of an effort to give the boys individual time and attention too. Not only for them, but also for us to really take the time to think about what each child's particular likes are at that time (what would be fun particularly for them to do), to make sure that child is having a chance to be noticed, heard and praised specifically. Noah & Lincoln are less than 21 months apart in age, they are both boys, and they both like a lot of the same things - so it's often easy to lump them together in their interests...but, like all kids (no matter how close in age) they certainly have their own specific interests that are unique to them too. It was fun to get to focus on Lincoln that night. The cute way he talks right now, his cute little grins and expressions, and his over the top excitement for trains...and it was so nice to do all of that guilt-free knowing that Noah was having a great time at the Jazz game too!