Toothless

My wee one is now top teeth toothless!

Look how ornery he looks!

And, just in case you feel you haven't seen enough of my son's teeth or upward views of his nostrils taken with my craptastic blurred views camera in the course of this blog, I have this picture to offer you:

'Cuz he's the noteman, yeah, eah, he's the notemannnnnnnnnnn

We went out to a fancy delicious 4 course dinner sort of place tonight with Rob's parents. It was simply delightful and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

As a result of our date night, we hired one of our favorite babysitters and left her the typical note, have the boys brush teeth, go potty, in bed by 8-8:30, help yourself, yaddah yaddah. After we left, this counterfeit note was mysteriously placed next to our real note:

I must say, well played my seven year old, well played. The classic part is even how he signed the note in a typical way I might sign a note or an email.

Genius move.

Luckily for us, we have a very savvy babysitter who saw right through this ploy, and thankfully when we got home at 9:30, they were both already fast asleep.

There was essentially a trail of other notes leading to his bed, which also made me laugh, but not quite as hard as that one.

Even if he did have a bloody nose, which I didn't see evidence of, I can't really see waking him up now for it.

And yes, I do know that this shirt does fit him quite tight, but really, was it so important to tell me how it fitted horrible tonight? Couldn't we have talked about it tomorrow?

Thank you little man for giving me laughs when you've been giving me so much grief lately.
I guess it all balances itself out, doesn't it?

My favorite places

We went to one of my very favorite places in the whole world yesterday, my grandparents farm in Wisconsin. It is a wonderful getaway for us and the boys absolutely love going there. We played lots of games and just generally slowed down and enjoyed life as much as we could.

We had to skidaddle out of there when the snow started falling down by the bucketload and suddenly there were about 5 inches on the ground, which guessing by the remoteness where we were, wouldn't be plowed that day, if at all, so we cut the weekend short a bit on Sunday.

Judging from my usage of the word skidaddle, we were clearly away from modern civilization for a while.

However, nothing can match being in a place that was completely 100% always overflowing with love and good memories.

And for that I am so lucky.

The evolution of Mr. Sensitive

My seven year old boy has morphed into a 16 year old hormonal girl and I don't know how to change him back. Please help me.

The change has been so drastic, and so extreme, that I am honestly searching for some sort of medical answer to what might have happened seemingly overnight and wondering if I need to see a doctor or a child psychologist. I mean, have you ever experienced something that so throws your out of your normal routine, and is such a cataclysmic change that you feel that someone has abducted your child and replaced them with a cheap imitation?

Mr. S has wonderful endearing qualities (see bed in breakfast). He gets along with everyone at school, so much so that he has been asked to be a part of the "friendship group" at school to be a role model for how to be a good friend. Yet somehow, he has convinced himself that no one likes him and he has no friends. Last Thursday he got off the bus looking like his dog had died, so I worked out of him that a few of the girls had called him a bad word. Once I learned the bad word was 'idiot', he also said they'd called him an alien. I cheerfully explained to him that to a 2nd grade girl, probably all boys are aliens to them, and not to worry about it. However, Mama Bear's hackles certainly were raised, as most moms can relate to, that my son's feelings had been hurt. I shared with him that when I was just a bit older than he is now, a boy in my class called me 'Hairy Houndog' walking home from school one day because I had hair on my arms, and I still remember the moment as if it were yesterday. Words can sting for a long time.

Fast forward, this thinking pattern he has embraced has transferred to his home life, where he has convinced himself that no one in his family loves him or cares for him. Now, essentially when anything doesn't go his way, he stomps off, slams his door, and stays in his room as long as possible. I'm talking anything. Doesn't like the cereal choices. I say no to funky sleeping arrangements on a weeknight. It doesn't matter the issue, it simply has to go against his wishes and he turns into a hot mess. The bulk of our conversation is how he can't wait to move in with his grandparents, where he will certainly be so much happier. He doesn't really want to have to change schools, but it will be worth it. Today, the suggested living arrangements were that just he and Dad live together. Meanwhile, as often happens when one child turns into a two headed monster, the other child changes from a caterpillar to a butterfly, making their differences seem even more stark.

And even though I know now with a few years parenting under my belt, that it's a phase, it is still difficult not to feel like this is how the rest of my life is going to be. I sobbed watching Parenthood a few weeks ago as the mom struggled with her decision to not let her 16 year old girl date someone, which resulted in the 16 year old girl moving in with her grandparents. She questioned and second guessed herself and the decision she made, and I sat back somewhat smugly thinking, whew, well at least I won't have to struggle with those teenage angst girl issues. BUT ALAS! Here I am! I've always banked on the fact that I will pay my dues with loud, rambunctious energetic young boys who will give me little to no grief once they hit their teenage years but wow, it's so not working out that way.

{And if other small boy moms do not admit this fact to your face they are thinking it too, trust me. We talk about it.}

So, here I am beating myself up every day wondering what I'm doing wrong, because obviously I have done something to lead this child to believe that no one likes, loves, or cares for him, right? Despite the million times a day and ways I show him that I love him? Yet I play the same soundtrack in my mind. What have I done wrong? Does he have low self-esteem? Is that inherited or learned? Was I not firm enough in the earlier years so now he thinks he can get away with it? Are they spoiled? What's really going on in his head? And over and over and over.

Aargh. I know this too shall pass, but while you are in the thick of it, hooyah.

Mr. Sensitive

My wee Jack is very sensitive and tenderhearted. He tries to do things to please me, such as making me breakfast in bed. Once in a while, this is very sweet and I enjoy it. However, based on the positive response he got the first time or two he did it, he tries to do it every morning that we don't have school. He gets up at exactly 7 am every morning, then comes in to say good morning. He'll putz about for a bit, and my tip off that something is in the works is when my door quietly shuts and I hear the pantry doors start slamming. So, often lately, I will tell him no breakfast in bed today please. This is the note I found when I got out of bed:

Open it up! I mad!

Apparently my constant denials of the offered breakfasts in bed is not making him happy.

I realize as I type that I may sound like Cruella Deville denying a nice thing my son is trying to do for me, and I apologize for that. But, I'm trying to explain to him that when something is done ALL of the time, it loses it's specialness. Plus, honestly now that the boys are older, we take advantage of laying in bed after they have gotten up sometimes just to rest or occasionally catch a few extra winks, so frankly sometimes we are just not awake enough yet to want to eat at 7:07.

For the record, this was just the first of several notes booted my way over the weekend. Oh, the joys of childhood literacy. It cracks me up.

Peeves

I had to make a trip to Target today since the nosepad fell off my glasses and I noticed it was getting uncomfortable to wear my glasses as a result. Somehow the fuzz from a cotton swab being wrapped around the metal portion digging into the side of my nose just wasn't doing the trick anymore. I took Luke along after I picked him up, and apparently the first item on the list was to drop his hat into the toilet at Target before {after? I'm not sure} he went to the bathroom. He commented upon his hat falling into the toilet that he'd made a big mistake. Right on, brother.

So I head to the optical area to share my woes with her and mention the toilet incident, commenting that heh heh, my day can only go up from here, right? We then headed to get a bribe small ICEE for Luke for coming along with me, which he then proceeded to drop in the middle of the aisle after just a few sips. I have to mention that I've had to locate store personnel the last three times I've visited Target for spills, and the previous two were mine, and much pricier. I was gleefully browsing while on an alone trip to Target and sniffing cologne testers when one slipped right out of it's plastic harness shattering all over the floor {oops!} and then last time, buying an Olay Pro X facial cleanser which although it was in a plastic tube, when it slipped out of my cart, cracked and started spilling all over the floor {still expensive but slightly less expensive oops} so the ICEE spill today was a much less costly oops caused by me. Although it probably tripled the cost of the incident when they pulled from the shelf and then opened and used some sort of Spill Cleanup product similar to a kitty litter cleanup and brushed it all up with a little broom. There must be something in the handbook about how if something was previously in contact with a customer's {oops this is Target here, a guest's} mouth that you heretofore cannot have any handly contact with it and it must be disposed of in a most toxic preventative manner. I felt sort of bad about that, I could really have just wiped it up for him with a few paper towels, but alas.....

Next enter the peeve part of the post. I went through the checkout line, and the cashier didn't say Hello, even when I said Hello to her! PEEVE! Really aren't they supposed to greet you first but especially once you've said hello to them, shouldn't a person respond simply out of good manners? And then she finished the transaction handing things back and forth with me without a word. The optical gal summed it up right when she agreed that she might expect that at Wal Mart, but not at Target.

Then, we headed to Hobby Lobby to obtain some sort of twiney type material for 22 2nd graders to use to make a Love Tree craft tomorrow for their Valentine's Day party. I am really not sure how I keep getting involved in class parties in the games/crafts area as this is not my strength. Also, my 2nd grader announced that he hated the craft as he later wrestled with said twine to make it look like a tree trunk, but once again, alas....
So I am using the bathroom there {do you see a running bathroom theme in today's post?} and encountered one of my other top 10 peeves, sitting on the toilet seat and then standing up with someone else's urine on your butt. I'm sorry but there's really no other way of saying it. And yes, I know most of you are still reeling from the part where I said I sit on the seat but sometimes, you really have to go, and I really don't care so I just sit down. But when you stand up and realize there was pee on the toilet before you OH that chaps me! That is so gross!

Aren't you glad you visited today?
I've got lots more where that came from.

GO PACK!

Congratulations to the Green Bay Packers on stompin' the Steelers! Yee hah!

The other highlight of the weekend was the boys building this masterpiece:

which they then asked for, and were given permission to, sleep overnight in.

Here's Luke's area

and here's Jack's area...

and Mom, here's what I caught Jack doing still 45 minutes after we put him to bed... a chip off the old block, huh?

And although I sternly told him it was time to go to sleep now, I honestly couldn't actually feel upset with him since I know the pull of a good book and a flashlight when you are supposed to be sleeping. Rob thought I was secretly happy to catch him doing this. Maybe so.

And though I was prepared for several middle of the night fort cave-ins requiring my assistance to reassemble, the first face didn't appear until 6:52 Saturday morning which really wasn't too bad.

So, we'll add this to our list of crazy family sleep nights. A few weeks ago the theme was "sleep in someone else's bed" so I slept in Luke's bed, Luke slept in Jack's bed, and Jack slept in our bed with Rob.

As you can see, excitement in our family comes cheap and easy.

The doings of a snow day

What does one do on a day snowed in with your kids while still battling a cold (though I fared much better yesterday I might add)? As a stay-at-home-mom (or SAHM as really cool acronym hip bloggers might say), this is a question you often ask yourself at the end of the day. What did I really do today? And is it just me, or do you sometimes feel you want to quantify a few exact things you did when your husband comes home to help validate why you are home? Not because of anything they say, but just because you think that they might be thinking, I wonder what you actually do all day?

So in light of that, here's what I did yesterday:

• made apple cinnamon muffins from scratch, then explained to my boys what "from scratch" means
• made roasted chickpeas for a snack, from the South Beach diet recommendations
• did 5 loads of laundry. Had empty laundry basket for about 4 minutes.
• unloaded, reloaded dishwasher, washed rest of dishes by hand. Had empty sink for 22 minutes. Towel used for dishes then went into laundry basket, thereby giving me only those 4 brief but glorious moments of an empty basket.
• swept kitchen floor, used droppings under bar stools to feed hungry children in third world countries. Not really. But there is always enough there that I probably could.  And WHY did I only sweep the kitchen floor? If I could have just extended that sweeping to all the hard floors I would have Level One'd it yesterday! Dang!
• Forced kids to play outside for an hour before the winds really started to get bad. Let them come back in when the neighbor claimed he couldn't feel his chin anymore. Made a round of hot ciders.
• Made chicken salad sandwiches for 3 boys and a grilled chicken salad for myself.
• Played Uno, Slamwich, and Twister.
• Drove to video store to return movies/games, dropped by grocery for a few items. Teamed up with bagboy to laugh at all the people who stock up for weeks every time we have a snowstorm while secretly wondering if I had enough canned goods. Decided we can clearly survive for 48 hours or so.
• Tasked Jack to vacuuming and folding laundry while I worked on dinner.
• Made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, chilled cabbage salad (YUM!) for myself.
• Flushed 10 or so boxelder bugs down the toilet (individually) throughout the day. So gross! How are they still alive? Did a few of them stay inside before the cold hit and then lay eggs or something to keep reproducing? And why do they forget they know how to fly as I walk them to the toilet on a piece of paper and then drop them in the toilet? Where are their survival instincts?
• Did "homework". Our school doesn't really 'do' homework so we make up our own, consisting of reading, math and spelling, which we do almost every night.
• Rob put boys to bed while I putzed around picking up some more, checked email and my favorite blogs for the 2nd?3rd?4th? time today, made a grocery list for my dad's visit this weekend and then retired to the most comfortable chair in the house to watch one of my favorite shows, Parenthood.

THE END.