Today So Far

Today has been one of those delicious lazy days. No one is bugging me to take them somewhere, no one is bored, I have no immediate demands, and we're all kind of happy to hang out and veg. J's probably not so happy that he doesn't get to do that, and Danyo was kind of bugged that he bothered to go to work today, but that will all work itself out in the end.

Earlier today Danyo found a Potty Time dvd I had purchased for him a while ago. We lost it before he ever even got to watch it, he has since been potty trained (I know, right--NO DIAPERS HERE!!!). He found the dvd today and watched it three times in a row. Toilet paper was singing, there was a distressed king who's princess wouldn't pee in the toilet, there were songs about flushing and lot's of rejoicing about poop and pee going in the right place. He couldn't take his eyes off of it. I imagine it's a lot like the time I watched "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". I was riveted. I was like, "this is my life, I can't believe it, it's like they are in my head!" I think he was experiencing this.

Bo sat on the couch at one point and chuckled or full on guffawed at about every other sentence he heard. That was equally as entertaining for me.

Bo finally convinced him to let him play the wii. And by "convinced" I mean, unplugged the dvd player and sang "bye bye" to the potty drama.

Yesterday Bo decided to lie about getting into some cookies. He's a little bit like J in this regard. I think Avee and I know that we should save the big stuff (lying) for the big stuff (not dinky cookies). J lies about things like, whether or not he peeked in at the sleeping baby when I'm neurotic and think our newborn is going to jump out of his own crib. And whatnot. So, Bo and I had a showdown. Had he gotten into the cookies, he would have been lightly scolded. Reminded that those kinds of foods are not healthy, etc. But he chose to lie. And he persisted in the lie. I knew he wasn't being honest and I couldn't believe he was choosing this thing to lie about. He's trying it on for size, he gets caught every time, so I'm hoping he decides it isn't worth his time.

I called J and told him I wanted to beat him, skin him, throw his DS, the Wii, and all his clothes in the trash AND ground him from treats for a week.

J said I should probably just ground him from treats for a week. Whatever. He's soooooooo boring when it comes to making this authority business interesting.

Bo confessed about 30 seconds after walking away from our conversation. He's such a sell-out to his sneaky side. Avee has way more stamina than that. Fortunately for us, she's reigned that in a bit. Fortunately for her Kindergarten teacher, I should say.

Speaking of Kindergarten, Avee doesn't want anything to do with it. She confessed today that she's scared of being wrong. Aw, sweet little thing. She could be the most wrong little redhead on the planet and I'm certain her teacher will adore her. She will be the cutest little wrong thing ever.

Last night I was tucking her in and tears welled up in her eyes and she threw her arms around my neck. "I don't ever want to grow up and live without you and daddy! I want to stay with you forever!" I assured her she could stay with us as long as she wanted (T-10 years and she will be saying the very exact opposite of this, I am certain). I was curious though, I asked her, "Why don't you want to grow up and have your own house and your own family?" She answered emphatically, "I do not want to cook for other people!"

I hear that sister, I hear that. I told her she should marry someone nice like Daddy then.

I also successfully taught Avee and Danyo how to swallow pills. That sounds bad, doesn't it? I have had the hardest time finding Omega-3's that my kids will take. I've tried several brands, several types, but they all gag. I finally found an "orange-chocolate" liquid one that Bo will take, he actually asks for it every day. So, that was one down. I was having no luck, so I finally decided to teach them to swallow the little tiny gel-caps I sold the farm to buy a while ago. Danyo downed his without any water. He was determined to be the tough guy. He gagged a little too. I finally convinced him to use water and he was begging for more.

Avee, it took much longer. But it was finally a success and I feel happy now that I don't have to be as conscientious about what I feed them, because I can mask all my short-comings with some supplements. Yay me!

Bo is harrassing me for the computer. It's a toss-up between having them in diapers, having to feed them, and having to answer questions and share the computer. I'm not sure which I prefer.

Just kidding. Sharing wins over diapers ANY day.

Yo Mama's So Fat

I've been watching my friend's kids this week. My kids have loved having built in playmates and reality is going to be hard for them when this gig is over. It has been entertaining to say the least, listening to some of the dialogue.

Yesterday at the zoo while biting into a white powdered donut her almost 6 year old closed her eyes and emphatically said, "This donut is amaaaaazing." Those things are far from amazing, but it made me laugh.

Today we were driving home from swimming and I stopped to get the kids a frosty. From the back Bo was bugging Christian, her 11 year old to tell his "Your Mama's So Fat" jokes. Christian declined. Bo persisted. I realized that Christian was probably declining because at 11 he didn't think it was appropriate to tell Fat Mom jokes next to a fat mom. So, I told him a couple of my favorite Your Mama's So Fat jokes and that was all the encouragement he needed.

They were LUH-AME. They sounded like a bunch of 5th graders made them up. At one point, I looked over at him talking, and the punch line was taking a lot of his concentration to share. He was using hand motions, trying to remember it all, and spent about 45 seconds telling it. I think a short punchline joke shouldn't take 2 minutes to tell. Anyway, the kids were laughing and enjoying getting away with saying fat over and over when her 8 year in all the excitement threw out her best made up joke. "Your mom's so fat she bought us all a frosty!" She had no idea what she had done and I burst out laughing. It registered with Christian about two seconds after it did me and his eyes about bugged out of his head. He wanted to reprimand her, but the damage was done and he knew that bell couldn't be unrung. She still doesn't know she called me fat and I still think it's hilarious.

Something's Right Around The Corner---I'd Say.

About 3 weeks ago J and I came home from a date night. We had a 17 year old girl and her 10 year old brother babysitting. Bo loves the 10 year old and the 10 year old is just about the sweetest kid I've ever seen in my life when it comes to caring for Danyo. So obviously, Danyo adores him. When we walked in the door, Danyo was playing with bubbles or chewing gum, I can't remember which. I made the comment, "That's all Danyo needs to be happy." The reason I can't remember which is because those are the two things Danyo needs to be happy. That's ALL he needs.

Mikey interjected, "and wrestling, he loooooves wrestling." Yes he does. Bo excitedly added, quite loudly, "We wrestled too, I totally HUMPED him!" Mikey's eyes got big, and J and I laughed out loud. I said, "Yeah, that's probably not what you did." I guess Bo asked Mikey what it meant, and Mikey told him it's not really a good thing. That was the end.

Today as I'm driving to pick up my friend's son, with a van full of my kids and hers, Bo says, "Mom, what does hump mean?" I knew where it was coming from, and having had bad experiences with half-answers, I took it on. Sort of.

"Have you ever seen a dog jump on another dog and sort of move up and down, or sometimes Jonathan's dog will do it to people's legs sometimes."
"Yeah."
"That's what humping is."
"Oh. Well, do only dogs do that?"

I knew. I knew he meant, "do people do it too?" but I was NOT going to answer that. Dammit.

"Well, let's see, I don't think I have ever seen a cat do it---horses might do it but really I've just seen dogs do it."

"I mean do only animals do it?"

"Um. Yes."

At which point, Bo says in his sort of conclusive, muttering voice (which implies, "I got this figured out, thank you very much), "Well, people are animals."

I turned my head to my window and laughed until I couldn't breathe. Then promptly called J. He needs to get his birds and bees talk sorted out.

Late Night Treat

I cannot stop laughing right now. I'm not even exaggerating a little bit. Ax my husband, he'll tell you. In fact, I think it's so funny, I don't know why he's not still laughing, to the point of tears, like I am.

For Father's Day, Bo made a "card" for J at school that was like the front page of a magazine. Very cute. It is hanging on the fridge and I see it every time I walk by and smile at the cute, "He's asome" and "He likes to go camping" even though J hasn't been camping one single time since we've been married.

It has been on the refridgerator well over a month. I have looked at it dozens of times.

Today as I walked by, something caught my eye and I immediately thought my brain had played a trick on me. So I backed up and saw---it was no trick.I wonder.... do you see it? Take a minute. See if you can.

I saw this ten minutes ago and I'm STILL laughing.

If you look closely at the real picture (it won't show up on this scanned version) you can see Bo's hastily scrawled name at the top has been erased and Avee has claimed this as her own.

I bet she's the one who put it on the fridge. I cannot wait to ask her about this tomorrow.

With this one, I don't think what you see is what you get. I pity the fool.

I bet you thought I went back to my old slothful ways of non-blogging. But I didn't. Our computer was broken for several days (there appears to be a pattern of our computer breaking in July---it's weird) and then the kids and I were out of town for nearly two weeks.

I'm home, recuperated from traveling with three young children, and I gots my blog on.
Sort of.

Today while I was upstairs "napping" but secretly watching a show on Lifetime that I don't care about, don't know the actors, and don't know the title of, but simply CANNOT TURN OFF, J gave the kids an assignment. He told them they needed to write a story that included a person, an animal, and an airplane.

Avee came upstairs and complained to me about J's instructions. I told her the upstairs was for naps, so she could stay with me and take a nap, or go downstairs and do what Dad wanted. She promptly left me.
While Avee was upstairs complaining, Bo took matters into his own hands and got the job over with.
Avee and I sort of hold the corner on the market of sassy and smart-alecky in this house, so this really made me laugh. Of course being true to himself, he wrote an actual story. He asked me to please share that one, but it's 5 pages, front and back with one little drawing and two word sentences on each page. I'm gonna pass on that.

Avee's was a picture. She told me the story was "too long" to tell me, but later changed her mind. I don't know if blogger will let me upload the video. It's 3 minutes long and not that exciting, but it is so very Avee.




In other news, my sweet niece came to visit from England. She really is sweet. She's 17 now, so being sweet is kind of a big deal. I remembered that I used to be as nice and unassuming as she was. Now I'm crotchety and bossy, and intolerant. I'm trying to go back to being nice and unassuming. That's my goal right now. I hope it's not as impossible as getting back into my skinny jeans has been...

I realized yesterday that the kids start school in 3 weeks. I can't believe it! In an effort to avoid some disciplinary problems for Bo, I'm going to start a "study time" with the kids to get them in the groove. Bo had a relatively rough start last year, but I think it was mostly because we ran around like wild animals the entire summer, and sitting still and listening was not anything his brain cells could recall.

Avee's not too keen on starting kindergarten. When she realizes there is no couch and no remote control she is REALLY going to be ticked.

I am simultaneously quite sad about letting her go, and looking forward to my solo time with Danyo. I really hope he takes the opportunity to stop being so demanding and screechy. He seems to really need my time and attention (or is considerably more annoying about getting it) than the other two.

Last night J and I went and saw Inception. I enjoyed it. I've become disenchanted with most movies in the theater because it's now $20 to go, plus childcare and most movies don't seem worth it. This one was. And it's 2 and a half hours long, and didn't feel like it, so that's always a good sign. J has a mancrush on Leonardo---so he liked it. Obvi.

We had a new library open here 2 weeks ago. I was pretty excited because it's like a mile away from my house and the other ones are quite a haul. I already have 7 things overdue. I like to support my local libraries.

I have to go return my stuff now before it becomes more "support" than is socially acceptable.

July 4th Around Here

We're having computer trouble. I think we have computer trouble every July. Dumb computers.

J and Bo got home yesterday. Yeehaw! Avee spent the whole week trying to bribe me into finding a playdate for her. She did not want to make that 3 hour round trip trek again. Poor thing. Friends are hard to find on Saturdays. We made do with portable dvd players though.

As a mother, I pride myself on catching my kids doing potentially nerdy things, (aka, social suicide). Bo had a habit a minute the first five years of his lives. Some long time readers may recall the intermittent clicking between words, or the periodic "refreshing of slobber" when he was 3, etc. I won't have that stuff. It's annoying and unnecessary. Bo has a little neighborhood pal who does silent Broadway shows with his lips every 30 seconds or so. He'll just be standing there and all of a sudden his lips are twitching, stretching, pursing, trying to walk off his face and sometimes his tongue will chase after. My mom says I have to leave him alone because he's not my child and I don't know what goes on his home. In theory, I agree. But when I'm watching this, it's hard to stay quiet. But I do.

Anyway, Bo is a twitcher by nature. He was gone from me for ONE WEEK. He was in good, capable hands and I didn't have one ounce of worry or concern the entire week. That's really saying something coming from an over the top mama bear like myself.

When I pulled up to the airport there sat J and Bo. Bo looked like he had enjoyed a nice chocolate ice cream cone when I saw him sitting on the bench with J. But as he got closer, I saw that I was mistaken.

I shudder to think how many licks it took to make that pretty little face accessory. In his defense, he was in Utah where it's really, really dry. I've laughed every single time I've seen it. It's just such a good reminder to me that I'm not really the boss. It's particularly entertaining when he tries to laugh.

It's Sunday morning. We kind of got to bed late last night and J had to be at church early for a meeting. I told him I would go as soon as the kids were awake. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a sleep nazi. I think sleep is one of the most important things we can give our kids and I'm totally judgmental of people who deprive their children of that essential need. Yeah, I said it, I'm judging people. There are always days, times, when that isn't possible, but as a general rule, sleep should come before most things.

Bo and J got up at 3 am to catch their flight. Although Bo slept during some of their travel time, it obviously didn't compensate for a 3 am wake up time.

When Avee and Danyo got up, I got up with them and we started to get ready. I dressed them, fed them, dressed myself, put on my makeup, all the while watching the clock, noting that Bo has never slept this long. Then it went from, getting to church in the nick of time, to---we'll be a little late.

Then out of nowhere, I sat down on the couch to help Danyo with his shoes, and I started coughing. (If you haven't been within 500 miles of my whining self or aren't on my speed dial, it is probably news to you that I have been sick for 2 weeks, most of which were, "it hurts to function at all" kind of sick.) I could not stop coughing. I was trying to tell Danyo if he wet his pants today, there would be no sparklers tonight (I'm mean, right?) and I couldn't stop coughing. I coughed and coughed and coughed for probably 4 solid minutes. That is an intense workout, y'all. Danyo went from patiently waiting, to irritated, to panicked as he stood in front of me. All my hard work on my face was for naught. Mascara streaks, smeared lipstick, splotchy concealer...ridiculous.

I looked at the clock, we were at that point, 20 minutes late (not even counting the first hour!) and Bo still wasn't up.

So I threw in the towel. Much to Avee's delight. She was begging to put on makeup and I usually let her put on lipstick or "lush" but I recently decided it was time to start drawing the line about public makeup wearing, and time she stop looking like a tiara wearing toddler whenever she wanted. I told her she could put some on after church, when we'd just be staying home. She was thrilled that the after ended up being "after thinking about church for half an hour".

It is 11:05 am. Bo just woke up. The bad news is, we're all going to hell if we die tomorrow. The good news is, we'll be well-rested and in good moods! Except Danyo. I just can't make any guarantees with him and his moods.

And because I need to record this stuff: The last night before J came back, Avee slept with me, and just before we fell asleep, this conversation happened:
Me: (singing) I like the way your eyes dance when you laugh...
Avee: (cute giggle)
Me: (thinking:why, she's never responded positively to my singing)....and how you enjoy your colorful bath...
Avee: Are you talking in your sleep?
Me: No
Avee: Then stop. I don't like hearing singing.
Me: You like hearing the Veggie Tales sing.
Avee: Yeah, but they're VEGETABLES!
Me: What about They Might Be Giants, you like them...
Avee: Okay, fine! I don't like to hear HUMANS, like YOU sing. So just stop.
Me: Okay. But really, I do like the way your eyes dance when you laugh.
Avee: (big sigh) I know Mom, I know.

I love that kid.
Oh yeah, and Happy Fourth of July!