Shame on Me...

Trying to quit Facebook. Really REALLY trying. I'm starting by not posting. It's just time. I've been burned one too many times. My own fault, really. But I'm just TIRED.  Tired of putting myself out there and having people take advantage of it. Again... totally my own fault. I'm too trusting and I share too much. Even with a carefully constructed "access list" of people I thought I could trust, I'm still burned.

I'm sad.

I'm annoyed.

I'm hurt.

I'm a little angry.

And I'm angry at myself too because again... mostly my own fault.

When will I learn to stop trusting people so easily?

Which reminds me... the blog's getting locked up again too soonish. It's a pain in the butt, but my creepy stalker from California is back. I've figured out how to block her/him for the time-being but I'm sure he/she will find their way back eventually.

Internet = blessing and curse.

Oops.

I pulled this drawing out of Simon's folder yesterday after school:

"Simon, I love your picture! Is it our family?"

"No! It's ninjas!"

K.

Mix it Up!

Today is "mix it up" day at the kids' school as part of anti-bullying week. They are supposed to wear mis-matched clothes and sit with people they don't normally sit with.

Ten to one Ben wants nothing to do with the mismatched clothes and Simon goes bananas with it.

Pictures coming. ;)

Rock On...

I was working on goody bag ideas for Ben's rock climbing birthday party (9! He'll be 9!!!)  next month and I was telling him some of my thoughts:

Me: So I was thinking maybe rock candy, pop rocks, and chocolate candy that looks just like rocks... cool, huh? 

Silence....

Me: Ben...Get it? Rocks? Rock climbing?

Ben: (dead seriously) But I'm not into geology right now.

Me: Well, yeah but it's a ROCK-climbing party...

Ben: Yeah, but I'm not into actual ROCKS. That's geology.

Me: You know what, just nevermind. Go back to Minecraft.

Sheesh. Tough crowd.

Be Our Gueeeeest!

Jonathan is 30 Months Old!

Dear Jonathan,

Today you are 30 months old. That's halfway to three!

You are, to put it mildly, kind of a handful these days. Sorry, but it's true. You lose your "stuff" at the drop of a hat, although daddy and I seem to be slowly cracking the code on that and learning how to catch it before it spirals out of control.

What does out of control mean? Oh, dear child... someday you can show this to your girlfriend so she can laugh and laugh. When you lose it, you LOSE it. You throw yourself facedown on the floor to start. I mean flat-out, face plant, whenever you are. Then you roll around and kick the floor, screaming and crying. It escalates into you standing back up and throwing your whole body all around... sometimes into walls, furniture or the floor again. You like to throw things and knock things over. We can't offer you anything because you throw them back at us. We can't rock or cuddle you because you kick and scream harder. We just have to put you on the floor in a wide-open room and let you go until eventually go calm down, ask for your binky and pull it back together again.

Yep. It's about as fun as it sounds.

In other news, you are talking nonstop these days. You ask questions, you say "I love you", you show us things you like. You went along to Ben's doctor's appointment last week and talked the entire time, asking Dr. B about this "Compeer" (computer) and talking about our "compeer." And on and on and on. I looked at Dr. B and said, "Yeah, in case I didn't mention, this one talks now." He chuckled.
I actually had to shush you, which, a year ago, is something I never thought I'd have to do. LOL!

You are growing quickly! I just put away all the 18-24 month pants and shirts and dragged out the 2T stuff. The pants are still big around the waist, so we have to roll them, but you finally don't look like you are waiting for a flood and your belly is not hanging out. I weighed you for the first time in months and months last night and you are 29-1/2 pounds. :) Not sure how tall, but you can reach some buttons and things you couldn't reach six months ago, so you must have grown!

You have gone right along with your brothers in their latest Star Wars phase and can handle a light saber like a pro. If people come over, you will often go get them one, hand it to them and say, "Here. You take dis one." and then, without any other warning, you'll start battling them.  HA!

School is going well. You like your teachers and you know your friends' names now. You'll sit through the story most of the time, although music has become difficult because you only care about pushing the button on Miss Sally's CD player.

Speaking of which, you are obsessed with CDs/DVDs and CD/DVD players these days. It's like deja vu. Ben used to love them too. We have all kinds of scratches on our kids' DVDs to prove it. Open close open close in and out in and out. All day long you'd do it if I didn't distract you. It's a full-time job!

You are funny and you love to sing and dance. Your favorites these days are Disney songs from Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. This is well-timed since we are going to Disney  in a few months! Hope this phase lasts until August! :)

The big question everyone asks is if I plan on starting to potty train you soon. Yeah. NO. You have no interest. So for both of our sanity,  our plan is to start in June or July. Hopefully something will change by then. :)

So that's you at 2-1/2! I know it has been a few months since I have actually written one of these monthly updates. So hopefully that gets us all caught up!

Love,
Mommy

Sweet Simon...

Last night, our house, before bed:

Ben: (sigh) I want some water.
Tom: Well, go down and get yourself some.
Simon, from the other room:  Hey, I'm going to go get myself some water, be right back!
Ben: (continues to whine about not wanting to go get water)
Tom: Ben, go down and get yourself some water. We are not your servants.
Simon: Hey Ben, I'll get you some water! Would you like some?

Melt my heart. This is just ONE example -- but Simon is seriously the sweetest, most compliant, easygoing, low maintenance, okay whatever, wants-to-be-a-helper-child EVER.  Ben isn't even all that NICE to him most of the time.

WHERE did he come from? Because it certainly wasn't Tom and me. I'm pretty sure God accidentally sent us my brother's kid from the future instead of the one we were supposed to get.  Either that or he was thinking he'd give us a nice respite between high maintenance 1 and 3... we earned it, right?

Lego ER...

Recovering patients to the left... patients in surgery in the middle... spare parts on the right. ;)

B'Ball Tournament...

Ben's team won game 1 of their tournament!

Going back at 3p.m.  for round 2.  I am a little bit torn about how to root for this game as Ben is invited to a birthday party at 4:30 for one of the kids on the team/in his class... as are two of the other players. So if we win, Ben has to make a choice... plus, we most likely lose the other kids to the party. Ugh.

Bad position!

But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

Update: THey lost! Whew! ;) I know that sounds bad... but everyone involved with the birthday party was kind of relieved!

Almost Six, Going on Nine....

At preschool yesterday, the other moms and I were talking about how it's complicated when our oldest kids befriend kids their age who have older siblings because the younger kids tend to be a little "older" and know things our firstborns don't know yet, which they then share with OUR kids.

I pointed out that our second, third, and fourth-borns (Yes, one of us is crazy enough to have four!) are going to be BE those kids.  LOL.

Anyway, thankfully, Ben is not all that streetwise or sophisticated, so the most he has really shared with Simon that is a little beyond his age is Minecraft... and maybe some funny words and phrases like, "That's awkward" or "This is EPIC!" which crack me up whenever I hear them come out of my five-year-old's mouth.

Anyway, so Simon will be the one to introduce Minecraft to the kindergarten class, I think. Sorry, other moms! But it IS kind of a cool and creative game. He JUST got into playing Minecraft himself  few weeks ago after watching Ben for a long time; but he already knows his way around really well. The funny things is that he only likes to play so he can build and create things.  And that is SO Simon.

He called me up last night to show me that he had built the Emerald City (as in, from The Wizard of Oz) LOL! And he had, indeed. The entire Emerald "castle" with all kinds of intricate details. I don't know how he has the patience for it, but he'll work on his designs for HOURS if we let him. He is absolutely driven to create and is happiest when that's what he is doing...  and he is always SO proud of his work. He is as right-brained as Ben is left-brained.

It's kinda cool. :)

What's he going be, I wonder?!

Needle in a Haystack...

Ben's two weeks without electronics have forced him to get creative with how he is spending his time. So, at some point during his hiatus from screens, he decided to find all the pieces to every Star Wars Lego guy we have ever owned and put them all back together again.

YAY!

Here's the problem. He has gotten completely fixated on this ONE guy... Captain Rex.  (see below)

He has found all but one piece -- that little antennae thing sticking out of the helmet -- and is driving us all crazy trying to find it. It's smaller than Jonathan's pinky fingernail and I personally dug through four giant boxes of Legos looking for the silly thing.  Meanwhile, Ben has torn the house upside down. 

Just a minute ago, he wandered through looking for it and said, "Well, I guess I've learned my lesson... don't put things off." 

"You mean, put things back where they go right away?"

"No... why would THAT make any difference?!"

Uh. 

LOL. 

I Am NOT Smarter Than a Third Grader...

The following email showed up in my inbox yesterday afternoon:

Neither Ben, nor I felt like tackling this last night after his regular homework, so we put it off until this morning. 

Me: Okay B, what's this mean?

Ben: blah blah blah critical thinking... I really don't know. 

Mkay. 

So I crowd-sourced some input on Facebook. May as well put my smart friends to good use. (many of whom happen to be teachers, or ex-teachers, so I thought for SURE we'd get some good explanations)

Nada.  Actually no, I take that back, Ben's teacher from last year chimed in with a great and helpful answer a few hours later, but it was already too late. 

We came up with something on our own, but I'm almost positive it was wrong. I did send an email off to the teacher joking that I was too dumb to help with this. 

She wrote back and said the kids were supposed to bring home their purple folder and inside was a checklist about how to write higher-level questions that gave examples.

Well now THAT would have been useful. LOL!  I wonder what it's like to have kids who actually bring home what they need?  Anyone? Anyone? 

Gorgeous...

There is an amazing sunrise happening outside this morning. I saw the red reflecting off my neighbor's window and had to go outside and check it out!

LOL!

Eating dinner, Tom and I were discussing how much better the kids' behavior is when electronics are taken away. (as they are for Ben this week after a stunt he pulled over the weekend) I said it made me want to get rid of all of them for good.

Ben, who was listening in, says, "Oh no... are we going to be one of those mother nature families?"

...Continued....

Soooo.... third-grade homework x 2 + boys who would rather be playing SOUNDS worse than it is, I promise.  They were both really good about it.

I had a Goofus and Gallant moment when I opened Ben's agenda and it was...  blank, as usual. I opened Zach's and... he had written everything down... every day... for every class. What the....seriously?

"Ben! Look! HE actually writes in his agenda!!!" (I'm not above using peer pressure to my advantage!) Unfortunately, Ben, was unimpressed, or maybe he was just busy looking for his spelling notebook, which he had not brought home.

They both had to take the same spelling pre-test, so they had a little competition. I got about four words in and Zach stopped me, "Can you use them in sentences?" he asked. HA!  Called out for my laziness by a third grader.  Needless to say, I came up with some goofy sentences for the rest of them. Also, Zach won the spelling test contest handedly. Ben was annoyed.

Homework finished, they headed back downstairs and then, just as I doing a little "I totally rocked that" victory dance, I heard crying.

Went down to find Simon sitting by himself with his head in his hands again.

"What's wrong now?"

"I wanted to play in the moonbounce with everyone, but they keep hurting me."

"I'm sure they don't mean to hurt you. They're just playing rough and having a good time."

"I want to play with them, but I caaaaaaaaan't! Wahhhhh! (Yes, he actually said "wah" This child will win an Oscar one day, mark my words.)

Poor Simon. He's a BIG kid and I think people think he's rougher and tougher than he is. He'd much rather be sitting quietly building with Legos or drawing than rough-housing. He wanted SO badly to be playing with the other boys though, and he kept trying, but it was clear he just couldn't hang.

So, this was a tough call....  Ben was in heaven because for him, the crazier the better. And Zach and Adam were happy too. They were all having a blast jumping and flipping and wrestling.  I couldn't ask them to do something else just because Simon wasn't having fun. So, I decided to just remove Simon from the situation altogether, and he got some extra Minecraft computer time all by himself upstairs with me while I finished making dinner. He was surprisingly okay with this. (I already have a plan for next time... going to have a friend over for Simon... because six boys? Why not? Or maybe drop Simon at his friend's house on the way home from school.)

Oh, where was Jonathan during all this, you ask? Right in the middle of the action, of course! Zach was super cute too because he was really concerned about him. He kept letting me know when he would fall or hurt himself in any way. (he never really got hurt... just a head bump here and there... he seemed to have enough sense to stay away from the major craziness, and was happy just to be basking in the aura of the big boys)

Fast forward to dinner. I had made little pizzas for the boys, but had chicken soup in the crockpot for Tom and me. I called them all up and, Adam announced, in the same way I could totally hear Ben saying at someone else's house, "Something smells WEIRD! Ewwwwww!" HA!

While I got everything on the table, the boys played with the cat, who was sitting by the door waiting to go outside. Ben let him out and Adam was fascinated. "Where will he go? What will he do? When will he be back?"  I explained that he goes out and explores and hunts and he'd be back whenever he felt like it. I turned around and the next thing I knew, Adam had disappeared.

"Uh... hey, Zach? Where'd where did your brother go?

"Oh... he went to go find the cat."

I wasn't quite sure what to do, but I think it's pretty safe to say if you lose someone's child they aren't going to let you watch them ever again.

I opened the back door, and saw Adam wandering across the backyard.
"Hey Adam? Come on back, buddy! The cat goes all the way to the woods! He'll be back later! Come on in and have dinner!!" I felt like Willy Wonka in that scene with the kid who falls into the chocolate river... "No.... don't.... stop...." Again, authoritative voice with other peoples' children, notsomuch my strength.

Thankfully, just as I was going to get my shoes and coat on to chase him down, Zach leapt into action, ran out and brought his brother back. Thank goodness for big brothers.

After that little hiccup, we actually had a really fun dinner. Everyone ate happily and they chattered amongst themselves. It's always fun to listen to kid chatter when friends are over. You never know quite what you're going to hear. In this case, Zach at one point exclaimed, "Holy poop!" which caused Ben and Simon to spit their drinks out laughing. He explained that he actually says that when he WANTS to say something else. Then he asked me if I was old enough to say bad words.

*snort* (I was already seeing a fantastic blog post in this)

"Yes, I am."

"Oh, but you don't say them because of your kids, right?"

"Yeah, mostly. I try not to say them much."

"My daddy says the s-word sometimes. Once he said it and I heard him because I was hiding behind the wall. Do Ben and Simon know that word?"

Adam joined in the conversation, "*I* know that word!!!"

In my head, I was thinking that his mom would absolutely, positively just DIE if she heard this conversation.  (sorry, M... but I shudder to think the things Ben has probably said in school, so we're probably pretty even here...)

Related, and possibly THE most amusing part of the evening and the part which I swore I'd keep to myself, but since I was dared to tell the whole truth, here it is -- Simon came up from downstairs later and asked me if "Holy "shid"" was a bad word. (he mispronounced it but I was still shocked to hear it come out of his mouth) Sooooo... sounds like some educational things were happening downstairs. Honestly, I guess I'm kind of surprised we've gotten this far without my boys hearing that word, and I guess it was bound to happen eventually.  My kids know better than to say it though and it's still better than some of things my friends' kids have learned while riding the bus. (Do any of you know about the two angels next to the middle finger routine? Lovely!!!)

Anyway, so the kids played uneventfully for the rest of the evening until I heard the sound I'd been waiting for all afternoon/evening... THAT cry. The one where you go to investigate and just hope you aren't going to be making a trip to the emergency room.

It was Zach and he had banged his head on one of the columns in the playroom during a heated light saber battle. I arrived on the scene to find him laid out flat on the floor, holding his head, and sobbing.

Leave it to me to break the teacher's kids.  Awesome. He was okay though, thankfully, and we were just heading up to get an icepack when his dad arrived. And thus, ended my very exciting three-hour tour of five boys on a school night.

Would I do it again? Absolutely!  Am I crazy? Quite possibly.

Ben had a blast and it really was a totally manageable and fun evening on what would have otherwise been just a boring Thursday.  Fun to shake things up a little sometimes and help someone out in the process.

Zach stopped me in the hall at school the next afternoon and asked, "When Ben comes to my house to play, can he bring his laptop?" LOL.

So with that,  I'm going to go ahead and call it a success. :o)

Finally!

Ben had a followup checkup today for a couple different things, including an ear infection from WAYyyyy back. (oops... mom of the year!) Anyway, they checked his height and he is FINALLY, finally four feet tall. He was so excited! ;)

10th percentile for weight (49 pounds) and 3rd for height. LOL.  Once a peanut, always a peanut. ;)

Telling Tales Outside of School.... Continued....

... so, left alone with the pile of backpacks, and not hearing any immediate cries of death or dismemberment coming from anywhere in the house, I went about business as usual. Hung up coats, sorted through the folders, laid out Simon's homework, and got Jonathan situated with a show and a snack.

Ben and Zach eventually resurfaced and landed on the couch with the laptop where Ben immediately launched into wall-to-wall Minecraft-speak. (Minecraft, for the uninitiated, is this computer game all the boys between 7-12 are into. I don't pretend to understand it and I don't really get the premise of it, but it seems to involve building things, collecting things, blowing things up and killing these weird, cubey guys... )

Anyway,  Ben played for awhile, yammering on about redstone ore and creepers while Zach watched.

Working on dinner in the kitchen, I kept peeking into the other room, waiting for the telltale glazed-over look from Zach that I often see on the faces of Ben's friends when they come over. Ben is utterly oblivious to other people much of the time, and can easily dominate a conversation with things that mean nothing to the other person involved.

Interestingly, it seemed to be going okay. After about fifteen minutes though, I reminded Ben he needed to let Zach play too instead of just watching.

"Oh but I WANT to watch him play!"Zach piped up.
"You sure?" I asked.
"Yeah!"

Seriously? (insert chorus of angels sound effect here) Okay, then. Awesome. Perfect! Wonderful! Knock yourselves out!

All was well with the world.  Upstairs, I could hear Simon, my hoarder child, giving Adam the tour of every single piece of minutia in his bedroom.

Eventually, they all tired of their respective activities and headed down to the playroom.

When I was finished, I headed down to check on things and that's when I found Simon sobbing on the second step.

Crap-tastic. Tears already?! It was not even 5p.m. yet. This suddenly had the very real potential be a long evening, like Red Bull and Tylenol long.

As it turns out, Simon had definite plans about what he wanted to do (Legos) and everyone else wanted to play in the moonbounce. I actually had, in fact,  foreseen this problem, as Simon is the youngest of the four of them by two years. I had just hoped it would work itself out and they'd all find some common ground.

I brought him up to do his homework and talked to him about being a good host. He was taking it as a personal affront that his Lego plan had been rejected. Poor kid. Stinks to be the little brother sometimes.

Meanwhile, downstairs... three boys in a moonbounce. Yep. It sounds a lot like what you'd think it would sound like. LOUD. But happy loud.

Simon finished his homework and I walked him back downstairs. Adam had done his homework at school,  so just the oldest boys were left.

"Ben and Zach, why don't you guys come up and do your homework?"

"Nah!" came the stereo reply.

Hrm. I clearly have a lot to learn about this authoritative voice thing.

"Nice try. Let me rephrase that... hey guys, it's time to come up and do your homework."

"Ooooookay," said Ben, realizing he was not going to win.

"My mom lets me do it at night." said Zach. His look told me he was waiting to see if I was buying what he was selling.

I had a little pep-talk with myself right then. I briefly considered just letting it go. I HATE making other peoples' kids do things they don't want to do. And I really wanted them to have fun while they were over. But, on the other hand, I knew by the time they got home, it was going to be late and, if I were his mom, especially on this particular day, homework is kind of the last thing I'd feel like dealing with.

So I did what any good mom would do. I text-tattled. Shameless, I know.

I showed him the text and he laughed. Busted! 

Upstairs we went, leaving Adam and Simon (who had come to his senses by this point) happily playing Wii. Whew! Crisis averted and back to four happy kids (and Jonathan whose mood changes minute to minute). Five boys on a school night? Piece. of. cake. Right?

Well, mostly? (to be continued... again...)

Jonathan Update...

Jonathan is plugging along with speech. Cindy was here yesterday and he had a great day. It's weird how hot and cold he is... but I guess that's because he's two. She stayed awhile after his session was over to talk about our next steps. Apparently, there are all these decisions to be made and questions to be answered before he turns three.

Does he still qualify for Infants and Toddlers? Does he qualify for IEP services at the elementary school? If so we want to continue home services? Do we want to send him to the school to work with the SLP there? Are his issues even something an SLP can help with? Do we want to bring in a psychologist to evaluate him and try to label whatever is going on? Do we care? Do we want Cindy to keep coming to the house or do we want to join her preschool group?

Lordy.  All this for a kid who, to the untrained eye, has nothing wrong.  The services and options are kind of overwhelming and amazing.

What IS wrong with him? We still don't know. His expressive language is caught up and age appropriate. He talks in complex and complete sentences now, uses pronouns, all the good stuff he's supposed to do.

She has questions about his receptive language... also he still has some weird physical red flags. He leans on everything, has some head lag and is physically impulsive and sometimes dangerous to himself. I'm less worried about that stuff, honestly... but it's all part of the puzzle, so I'm told.

His skills are "scattered", meaning he has some skills that are way above his age level and some that are way below. This is apparently a red flag for a few things.

He's extremely obsessive/perserverative  like Ben was at that age (and still is to some extent). Right now, he would open and close DVD/CD players all day if I let him. It's hard to redirect him.  Also, he's very dependent on routine and shaking anything up often results in freakouts. So, there's that.

When he throws tantrums, watch out. I can see them coming now most of the time, but sometimes, the trigger is seemingly nothing at all. They are doozies... he hurts himself, throwing himself all around into walls and floors. He also has frequent night terrors like Ben used to.

Nothing we haven't dealt with before and I think ultimately, he'll just end up being smart and sort of quirky like B... but the difference is, we might actually get to find out the real WHY. It would be nice to have a name for it this time around!  I have my ideas about what it might be and so does Cindy. But we'll see what the psychologist comes up with.

So that's what's going on there... interesting and puzzling stuff!

Telling Tales Outside of School...

We're just going to go ahead and call this a series. LOL.  There is way too much good material coming out of my Thursdays.  Again, Zach and Adam's mom, you asked for it.

So my little Thursday friends came home with us this past week instead of me taking them home. Their mom had a doctor's appointment and asked if that would be okay, to which I said a most enthusiastic YES. Our neighborhood is oddly deserted and anytime we can mix it up with some new kids around here, we welcome it, plus the boys had been asking for a couple weeks if Zach and Adam could come play. Perfect!

The next week was a series of back and forth emails that went something like:
"Are you sure?"
"Yes I'm sure."
"Are you REALLY sure?"
"Yep. Really sure."
"I just remembered they will be all sugared up from their Valentine's Day parties... are you SURE you're sure?"

I get it though. When people invite more than one of my boys over at a time, I always wonder if they *really* know what they are getting themselves into.  One at a time, Ben and Simon (Jonathan is excluded here) are really well behaved. Put them together though, throw in a little ADHD, a healthy dose of sugar, and sibling dynamics and the result can be unpredictable, to say the least.

The majority of the boys' friends come in pairs though, so I did, in fact, have some idea what I had signed up for and I had a talk with Ben and Simon beforehand about the ground rules, the biggest of which was "NO big brother vs. little brothers games!" (those never end well)

Moms of all boys really and truly have the best senses of humor, as is evidenced by the fact that Ben came home on Wednesday with a ziplock bag survival kit from the teacher. Inside, was a valentine's cookie, a Red Bull and a pack of Tylenol with a note that said "Good luck".   LOL!

Fast forward to Thursday...

I grabbed Ben and Simon from parent pickup, walked down to the classroom to find the other two. No kids in sight there, but a teacher pointed me to the computer lab where I successfully located child #1. He piled on his coat and backpack and then gestured toward a gigantic, three-tier Valentine's box on the table. "That's mine too."

*cough* Turns out, someone's mom is bit of a valentine's box overachiever. (can't complain though, seeing as how she made Ben's too since I knew nothing about these boxes until two days before... )  But, I digress...

I surveyed my situation  -- Jonathan face-planted in the hallway, angry about not being allowed in the computer lab,  Ben's valentine box in one hand, and this giant box before me -- and pondered my options. "Um... do you think you can carry it, buddy?"

"I can't. It's too big!"

Luckily, my sherpa skills are finally honed, so I managed to snag it with my free arm, along with Ben's box and then through what I can only chalk up to divine intervention, convinced Jonathan to put himself back together and follow me.

"Where's Adam?"

"Dunno."

 Have I ever mentioned that eight-year-old boys, in general, are like, ZERO help most of the time?

I ran into Ben's teacher who had been watching the scene from a distance, as the teachers on Thursdays tend to do, as it is obviously THE best comedy show EVER.

"I think Adam's down the other hallway and, by the way, here are a couple bags for Michelle!"

I thanked her and hung the bags from my one free pinky finger.

Anyway, so down the hall we went... Ben, Simon, Zach, Jonathan, me, the valentine's boxes and several gift bags. The entire way, Simon kept badgering me for FunDip, which, from the looks of the green ring around his mouth, he had gotten his first taste of that day.

We found Adam with his teacher, who quickly became my hero because she convinced Zach he could, in fact, carry his valentine's box after all.

While we were walking out of school, Simon, for some God only knows reason, decided to tell us all the story of the time he zipped up his boy bits in his footie jammies. Good times. Zach turned around and said, "WHY is he talking about zipping up his wee?" Before I could answer, Adam piped up with his own similar story. As I walked on ahead, the conversation behind me mercifully turned to 3D DS games.

This. Is. My. Life.

It's craziness, complete and utter insanity, truly... but these are the times I realize I am so happy and comfortable in this place... as the mom of little boys. They are the best. Yes, they are crazy and loud sometimes and they think the word "poop" is the funniest thing ever... but I love it.... talk to me again when I have a 13-year-old and I may be in a different state-of-mind..

The boys made plans all the way back to the house and we had no sooner pulled into the driveway, then they disappeared in a flash, leaving only a pile of abandoned backpacks in their wake.

To be continued... ;)

The Chase....

One of Ben's teachers has been out sick for quite awhile (probably will be out the rest of the year... cry....) so I've been driving her two little boys home from school one day a week.  I pick up Ben and Simon from school every day anyway, so I figured grabbing an extra two and taking a ride would be no big thing. (And it's not.  Once you have three boys, adding an extra couple here and there is kind of a non-event.) But it IS interesting, to say the least,  and watching other peoples' reactions to my little parade every Thursday is probably the funniest part.

At pickup time, I wait in line with Jonathan to get my boys (which is a daily challenge in itself) then we go back down the hall to get the other two, who are either in the computer lab or one of the classrooms.

Here's a fairly accurate visual of how I spend the next ten minutes or so.

The first time I picked them up,  I found her two in the classroom. Ben and Simon, realizing the mom-to-child ratio was even less in my favor than usual, seized the opportunity, immediately dropped their coats and backpacks and took off to play.

Order quickly broke down and I panicked.  "No no! We're leaving! Put your coats back on!!" I should have kept a better poker face. Children, like dogs, can sense fear a mile away.

Simon dumped out a box of toy clocks in the front of the room.  Jonathan gleefully ran in circles, screeching. The bigger ones completely ignored my pleas to get their stuff together and instead, talked MarioKart strategy. 

Zach, the older of two boys, had his coat but not his backpack. We found that and started toward the door. At this point and I also had Simon.... but had lost Ben. Adam, the younger one,  was all the way across the classroom playing with the globe and had no coat OR backpack.

I decided to take the one at a time approach and went to give Adam his stuff and herd him toward the door, turned around and Simon was behind me with no bag, ready to play again. Got those two together, turned around, Ben and Zach had dropped their backpacks and were in the other corner of the classroom.  Somewhere in there, Zach informed me that his brother gets carsick when he plays DS in the car, which had been my main selling point to entice them all to follow me.  He also handed me a note from the nurse to give to his mom that said Adam had been running a temperature earlier.

Meanwhile, Jonathan ran amok, pulling things out of kids' desks while I focused on the big boys.  Ben, whose winter coat is that stupid kind with two layers that come apart, had gotten himself all tangled up, his backpack was nowhere to be found. Adam kept going back to the far corner to look at something near his mom's desk, Simon kept dropping his tote bag to follow him and Zach stood next to me watching it all go down. I did several laps around the classroom trying to get them at least all into the same corner. "Come on guys, your mom's waiting! Let's go! We have the DS's in the car! And a movie! And juice boxes! JUICE BOXES! And DS!!!"

Nothing. OMG. My own kids had completely jumped ship and formed an alliance with the other two and I was now definitely on the losing side of this battle.

This dance continued until one of the teachers came along and used that voice that makes kids all do what they're supposed to do. Note to self: Figure out how to do that.

We've done this three? four times now and it has gotten a little bit easier each time, but it still makes me laugh. I think the most humorous thing about the whole scene now is Jonathan bringing up the caboose, yelling out all their names in Jonathanese. "Ben!!!" "'Imon!" "Am!" "Zach!""STOP runniiiiiiiiing!!!!"

There are lots of stories to tell about this little adventure, which the teacher, who now has the link to my blog, declared I must be too chicken to put on here since I hadn't written anything yet.

Challenge ACCEPTED!

Oh just you wait, MC...  just. you. wait.  ;)

No Filter...

Walked into Chick Fil A tonight with the boys. Simon says, loud enough for everyone in the entire place to hear:

"Why does the playground here always make me barf?"

I quietly explained that it's just kind of germy and that a few times when they played in there, he got sick a few days later... and that the playground itself does NOT, in fact, make him barf.

"WELL, why is it so dirty and germy? Why do they not CLEAN it ever?!"

Face palm.

(I am not a germaphobe, it's just that a few times, we were in there, and there were actually PEE puddles in the tunnels... gag... and yes, at least twice my kids DEFINITELY caught a stomach thing from that place. So they are NOT allowed in there now.) LOL!

I Sense it in the Force....

...there is another round of Star Wars obsession brewing in our house. It has been a LONG time. Have I mentioned Star Wars is not my favorite? LOL.

But, on the bright side, the big boys have been playing SO well together lately with this as their theme. It started after Ben lost all of his electronics (again) for sneaking and playing Minecraft well into the night after being told to turn it off.

He gives us ZERO motivation to give it back either because he's a different, happier, more agreeable kid when he's off the video stuff.  I swear, video games are the root of all evil.  And yet, my kids own every portable device ever in addition to their Wii. You'd think I would learn. I keep thinking if we put more limits on it... and that works for awhile and then I get lazy.

Sigh.

Simon is just so happy someone wants to finally play Star Wars with him and it has been really sweet seeing them running around the house playing together. :o)

Another round of Star Wars 24/7 for goodness knows how long? Bring it.

Old Friends! :)

The boys were invited to the birthday party for one of our friends from the old neighborhood yesterday. It's hard to believe that our second-borns are all turning SIX. The funny thing is that I was picking out a card earlier for the birthday boy and I grabbed a "You're Turning THREE!" card initially before I realized that no... it's the third-borns who are all turning three this year. Simon and HIS little #2 buddies are all turning six. OMG. Where has the time gone?

It's always so great to get the old gang together. The kids pick up right where they left off at the Christmas party. It's a fun bunch!

These three are a trip!

Snow... sort of

Don't get me wrong, I'm not crying any tears over two winters in a row with no significant snowfalls.  But my kids are kind of snow deprived and it's getting a little sad. Simon wasn't old enough to appreciate the blizzard a few years ago, so has never even really played in the snow!!! It's weird! 

And Jonathan has never even SEEN a real snow... he was in utero during the blizzard! (I have fond memories of trudging to Safeway with my townhouse neighbors in the snow when I was 12 weeks pregnant and our neighborhood hadn't been plowed yet) 

So when a dusting was left outside in the morning after a quick snowfall two nights ago, two out of three went out. Jonathan went first... he lasted about seven minutes. Simon, on the other, spent about a half hour making tracks and snow angels. :)

The snow melted before our eyes... but they enjoyed it while it lasted. And now I have some snow pictures for next year's calendar! ;)

Simon had a little Valentine's Concert at school on Monday. SUPER cute... ridiculously super cute. Video coming!  He did a great job, though seemed to have trouble singing and doing hand motions simultaneously. LOL!

Weirdness....

Our county has this weird little pocket called the Hereford Zone. We live in it now and the kids' elementary school is in it. The preschool, however, which is a mile down the road (less maybe even?) is NOT. This resulted in a bit of a conundrum today as I pondered what to do about Jonathan's preschool class.

Not a huge deal to skip it... but I hate to. He does so well with routine and he does really enjoy it. Not to mention, we PAID for it. So I really try to not to skip unless he is sick.

Thankfully, it looks like no one else with older kids will be bringing theirs, except for the teacher, so it's just me, which means Ben and Simon can come. They're pretty excited about it too. LOL!  Doesn't everyone love going back to their "old school" once in awhile? Should be interesting, anyway.

We still have to leave a little early so I can take them to their school at 11 when it opens... but at least we'll get part of the day in.

YAY!

The Hair...

What Simon's hair would look like if we let it grow for a year and died it green... ;) 

Superbowl!

Apparently, while I was out shopping during football games this season, the Ravens were busy winning or something because they made the Superbowl. Ben was excited because he thought this meant we'd have a party.  I felt bad telling him that the game didn't start until 6:30, which meant having a party was kind of not going to happen since we have a toddler who goes to bed at 7:30 and so does pretty much everyone else we know who we would invite to said party.

A few days before, we did decide to invite my parents and aunt Debbie over for a  mini-party. :) It worked out well because Tom didn't really want to watch the game alone (since I don't pay much attention and Ben flits in and out of the room... Simon doesn't care much either) Our company lasted until the power went out at the game and then everyone bailed on us, but it was fun while it lasted and in Ben's eyes, it was celebration enough.

p.s. I think something is wrong with the lens that came with my camera because all my pictures are blurry lately... granted, these were super-low-light... but still, something is up. Gr.

YAY!

I'm thrilled about this letter. Ben is not. He has reminded me four times now since he has arrived home that he HATES school.  Knife through the heart...

Anyway...