More Playground Fun

Dominic is having a Mom weekend because Marcos went to Chicago for a wedding.  By 9:30am this morning, we were sitting in the front yard sharing a donut we got at HEB after doing all our grocery shopping for the weekend. The second load of laundry was in the washer.  We'll see how long this efficiency lasts. 

After our donut - which we ate while watching the activity on our street from day 2 of our neighbor's massive garage sale - we managed to squeeze out of our own driveway and head down to the neighborhood playground.  The HOA put a new playground in about a week ago.  For about a week while it was being built, the parked skid steer by the mail boxes was the most talked about thing in our house.  Then one day, the skid steer was gone and the new playground was open.  Dominic was pretty sad!

Hopefully he'll move on after seeing how much fun the new playground is. Check this out:

My only complaint is the gravel makes everything so dusty. Dominic had to take a bath when we got home.  I guess the gravel works as intended though, because Dominic fell through the railing of the stairs and got up like it was nothing.  There were lots of places to climb, which was awesome for him.

Too much for Dominic Morales?

I think not!

After climbing it several times, he decided there were too many rocks at the bottom.

My little neat freak.

When he started looking longingly at the kids swimming, I knew it was time to go!

Now the boy is taking his nap.  I hope this Mama earned a good long break!

Temper Tantrum?

I think Dominic is experimenting with temper tantrums.  Giving them a whirl to see if they're any good.  I wish someone had taken video of this afternoon's episode.  Here is how it went: I was sitting on the couch watching Dominic play with some toys.  He was trying to put a fire truck into the door of his barn toy, and he could not get it to fit.  He tossed the fire truck down onto the floor, visibly frustrated.  I said in a calm but serious tone, "Do not throw your toys."  He looked at me.  Then he picked the fire truck up, and flung it behind him.  It landed on the couch.  I said in a stern and louder tone, "DO NOT throw your toys."  He looked at me again, and then ran crying into the wall on the opposite side of the room.  Still crying, he turned around and ran toward me with his arms up, and I pulled him onto my lap.  He buried his face in my shoulder and continued to cry.  After about 30 seconds, I calmly said, "Dominic, you're not even sad.  Nothing happened."  He immediately stopped crying, got down from my lap, and went back to the coffee table to play with other toys. 

In the past few weeks, there have been several instances where he acts angry and throws things, but he seems like he is faking it to gauge my reaction. Last weekend he was playing with his crayons, which mostly involves taking them out of a small box and putting them back in.  For no apparent reason, he suddenly threw them on the floor, one by one.  He acted angry, but I didn't see anything happen to cause him to be mad or frustrated.  I calmly told him that he needed to pick them back up.  He gave me an angry look and ran out of the room crying.  Before I could even finish picking them up (they then disappeared into my closet) he was back in the living room acting normal.  We talked about how he made Mama mad and there would be no more crayons for awhile.  It made me wonder if he observed a kid at school doing something similar, and thought he'd give it a try.  It seems kind of comical.  We have been trying to react calmly and ignore them; I hope that's a good strategy.  Nothing has happened in public. It seems like he does it at home when he's bored.

Splash Pad

Ever since we went to Brushy Creek Lake Park for a professional photo shoot in Sept 2011, I've been looking forward to going back with Dominic to play on the park's huge splash pad.  I love the splash pad concept, and would have been crazy about this place when I was a kid.  In my day, we ran in the sprinklers on the front lawn. 

We went last Saturday, sometime between making donuts and the evening fry fest mentioned in my last post.  Dominic loved it!  He ran around like crazy.  I found it much more relaxing than our recent trip to the pool, because I didn't have to stay by the boy's side constantly.  And although Dominic got soaking wet, the water was easy to avoid for bystanders.  Here are the pics I took on my phone:

He had to come over to my bench periodically and climb on it. He has been such a climber lately! Not to get off topic, but he recently started climbing onto our dining room chairs (which are tall), he can get in his tall high chair by himself, and he can get on my tall bed by himself (he uses the side rail to get on the nightstand, and goes from there to the bed).  He also gets on my bathroom counter by climbing onto the adjoining bathtub.  I think it's only a matter of time before we find him wandering around his room when he's supposed to be in the crib.

 We spent a few minutes at the playground but soon went back to the water.

I think we will make many trips here this summer.  It's a must in the Texas heat!

Donuts

We made donuts Saturday morning to try out our new deep fryer, which arrived in the mail on Friday.  I used this recipe, cut in half.   The donuts were fun to make and came out good. I don't think we'll do this often though.  The process took all morning, and the donuts taste best when fresh.

First I made the dough and left it to rise.

It took over an hour to get to this size.

I rolled out the dough.

Used a round cookie cutter to cut the donuts, and a shot glass to cut the hole.

Then they had to rise again after they were cut.

This was at least another hour of rising.

Finally, it was time to use this puppy.

The donut holes were hard to flip because they were so round.

The donuts were easy.

This is the glaze made from butter, powdered sugar and vanilla extract.

You are supposed to dip both sides, but I only did one.

They were good!  Better yesterday than today.  Luckily, we were able to give some away.  Later that day, Marcos made fried pickles, onion rings and chicken tenders. They all came out delicious.  It was not a healthy day!!