Is This Appropriate Winter Attire?

This is the view from my back deck.  Winter is officially here.  Temperatures remain below freezing, snow is on the ground. 

Today it’s snowing with howling winds.

Official blizzard weather. 

This is the best time of year to be a kid, snow is full of fun possibilities.  “Little Miss” asks her brothers if they want to play outside in the snow.  I have 2 very excited little boys who eagerly run to the entry to get their snow stuff on.

But CamCam gets sent upstairs to me, despite his protests.  Once he gets here I see why.  I tell him, “CamCam, you gotta get dressed if you want to play outside.”

He replies,

“But Mom, I got my hat.”

Our Little Dancing Machine

Ever since he was a small baby, “Little Hurricane” has LOVED music.  He loves to sit and listen to music, he loves to ride in the van with music playing, but most of all, he loves to dance to music.

When I’m out at stores, I won’t even realize that they have music playing until I see “Little Hurricane’s” shoulder start bobbing up and down. 

Here at home he’s always dancing.  He dances to the music that plays during a show or movie, he dances to the radio, he dances every time The Dada’s phone rings. 

And the older he gets, the better his dancing gets.

I’m curious what kind of career this could possibly translate into?

Wish I could go back in time and give these to me:

 

 

 

 

 

Little Hurricane was on a roll this morning!

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I’m picking my battles, Don’t judge me

“Pick your battles.  Your child insists on wearing a t-shirt and shorts in December?  He’s the one who’ll be cold, not you.  Save it for something important.”

That wise advice came to me from my kids’ pediatrician before my first child was even born.  I was only 19 at the time and that conversation has stayed with me.  I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve been in the midst of “fighting” over something with one of my kids when I’ll remember “…save it for something important.”

Ironically enough, most of my battles HAVE in fact been fought over wearing clothes.  It’s already been well established that CamCam HATES wearing clothes.  I really though he’d grow out of this by now, but I still have a streaker in the house. 

You can’t even begin to imagine the battle that ensues when we need to leave the house.  We live in New England, it’s December, it’s ridiculously cold outside.  But CamCam still cannot see why he needs to get dressed to go out. 

And then there’s the coat.

Ohhhhh, the coat.  Why does he hate his coat so?  I let him pick it out himself, I foolishly thought this would help.  But apparently a coat is an evil burden CamCam wants no part of. “I don’t need my coat ma, I’m fine,” he says when we’re leaving the house.    In the van he will not get into his car seat until his coat is off.  Once we get to our destination, I get to stand outside in below freezing temperatures trying to get CamCam to understand why he now needs to put on his coat.   Often I have to force him to wear it.  We barely step inside the door of wherever we are going when CamCam abruptly stops, unzips his coat, and throws it into the stroller in disgust. 

The other night I had to stop at 3 separate places.  Once to get into the car, 3 times to get into 3 buildings, 3 times to leave 3 buildings- that equals 7 times I had to fight with CamCam about wearing his coat.  As we were leaving the final building I told him to wait, we needed to put on his coat.  He laughed and ran for the door.  Little Miss caught up to him and CamCam started crying and falling to the floor, “I don’t wanna coat, I don’t wanna coat….”

The advice I got from the pediatrician so long ago came back to me.  I said to Little Miss, “Never mind, just forget it.  One of two things will happen, either he’ll be cold and realize how foolish he is, or he actually is too hot and he’ll be happy.” 

We went outside and CamCam was so happy.  He was skipping along, singing, jumping off of steps.  He was free. 

I was smiling.

And then a couple came out of the store behind me, and I heard the women turn to her husband and say:

      “That boy really should have a coat on.”

What Was He Thinking?!?

I would LOVE it if I could, just once, understand my kid’s thought process.  How often I shake my head and say “What were you thinking?”  

“Were you thinking???”

Just the other day CamCam and Nolie were downstairs playing.  I heard CamCam cry, so I went to see what was up.  CamCam was standing at the bottom of the stairs, Nolie was hiding (definite guilty move!) and CamCam’s face was covered in a black sorta haze.  My paranoid prone brain naturally went to every worst case scenario that could have produced crying AND a black face. 

“What happened to you?”  No answer.

“What did Nolie do?”  No answer

“What’s happened to your face?!?!”  That’s when Nolie saw his chance.  He knew he’d be in trouble with the first two questions, but on this one he was scott-free.  He came bouncing out of hiding and exclaimed “CamCam ate the stamps!”

Apparently my boys were playing with stamps, and CamCam decided to lick the inkpad. 

“What were you thinking?  Why on earth would you lick the inkpad?!?”

Naturally, he had a perfectly logical explanation:  “Because, I was playing basketball and so then I ate the black.”

Well, logical to him anyways. 

I really wish I could say they grow out of this.  But, alas, experience has taught me that this is not so.

Last year, when my oldest son was 12, I went into his room and saw that his comforter had a big hole in it.

 

“What did you do to your comforter???”
”Nothing, it ripped.”
”There’s no way that it ripped like that.”
”Yes it did.”
”You seriously expect me to believe that it ripped in a perfect square.”
    silence
”Did you cut it?”
”Yeah.”
”Why did you cut it?”
”I spilled lemonade.”
(trying to wrap my brain around that one)”So why would you cut it if you spilled lemonade on it, I can just wash it.”
”No, I didn’t spill lemonade on it, I spilled it on the shelf here.”
(trying not to scream) ”I don’t get it.”
”I didn’t have any towels to wipe it up with.”
”So you thought cutting your comforter was the best idea?!?”
”What else was I supposed to do?”

I have a feeling that once they’re teenagers, it only gets worse.

House Cleaning Strike

You know what I don’t want to do anymore?  Clean my house. 

Nope.

Had enough.

I hear many moms say it’s a never-ending battle.  And guess what?  It really is a never-ending battle. 

At any given moment I have enough laundry thrown around the house to open my own Gap store.  And everyday I pick it up.  How is that even possible?  I know there’s seven people living here, but come on!  No one's changing clothes 10 times a day, where is all the laundry coming from?  Heck, CamCam won’t even wear clothes.  Is someone throwing it out of the closets when I’m not looking?  Something fishy is definitely going on here. 

And dust.  I think all the world’s dust originates at my house.  Yup.  Right here is the source.  Sorry people.  It doesn’t matter how often you dust, soon as you turn around, it’s right back.  It’s like some sort of evil monster. 

Ohhhh, fingerprints.  I have fingerprints all over the windows, furniture and kitchen appliances.  Except, my kids have Indestructible Fingerprints.  No matter what cleaning product I buy, I can’t get them off.  I actually wiped some of the finish off our end table, but the fingerprints wouldn’t budge. 

Mopping is a joke.  All I do when I mop is guarantee that soon after someone will have an accident.  Maybe someone can’t make it to the bathroom.  Maybe someone decides to throw a plate of food across the room.  Or maybe someone decides their old enough to get their own glass of apple juice and then, oops, when they spill the entire bottle decide they better use every towel they can find to smear the stuff across the room.  

How about picking up?  Anyone still bother to try and pick up toys and things that are where they do not belong?  I read this cleaning tip once- it said to take a laundry basket with you throughout your house and anything you find that isn’t where it belongs, toss it into the basket.  Hahaha, one laundry basket!  Could anyone accomplish this with one?  I think I’d need at least 10.

But seriously, if I really put my mind to it and decided that this was it, I was going to go right now and not stop until I had the entire house in tip-top shape, I bet I could get the whole thing done in less then 3 hours.   

I could do it.

And my three little boys, if they really put their mind to it and decided to go right after and not stop until they had messed up everything I did, I bet they would be done in less than 3 minutes. 

They have done it.

I hope I’m not asking for too much, but. . .

I think I need a break.

One week would be nice.  One week away on vacation somewhere warm and I could have a week off from doing laundry.  Ahhhh, that would be great.

Although a week off from laundry probably isn’t possible.  What would everyone wear?

6 Days then.  I’d like 6 days off from cleaning the house.  No vacuuming, no dusting- how awesome would that be?

Of course, no one would be cleaning in those 6 days, so I’d just have a lot of catching up to do.  6 days break is asking too much.

5 Days- for 5 days I would love it if the kids would stop fighting.  No pushing someone because they took your toy, no rough-housing resulting in tears.  It would be so quiet here.

But how would I stop them from fighting?  Sure, Little Miss is fine, but it’s in boy’s blood to fight- I don’t think it’s possible to contain it. 

So 4 Days it is.  For 4 days I don’t want to have to clean up from a single meal.  No highchair trays dumped to the floor to signal “I’m Done!”, no peanut butter sandwiches turned into table art, no more spaghetti sauce in hair. 

I think that’s asking the impossible though.  NO way that could ever happen.

How about 3 days?  A long weekend- maybe The Dada and I could go away for a long weekend and just relax.  Marvelous.

Except that I know the minute I leave the house I’d miss my kiddos too much and I wouldn’t enjoy myself at all the entire time.

So a long weekend away is expecting too much of me.  How about 2 days?  For 2 days I’d love it if I didn’t have to pick up a single toy.  No rooms looking like a hurricane or tornado just went through them.

Of course I DO have a little hurricane and tornado living in my home. 

So one day.  For one day could no one please ask me for food?  No more eating full meals and then 15 minutes later crying to me about how hungry your tummy is.  No hanging on cupboard doors wailing about how you need to “eat, eat, eaaaattttt!”  No opening the fridge door and climbing up inside. 

But that’s never going to happen, I have a house full of boys.  Endless guts.

So maybe just a few hours?  Could I have a few hours to maybe work on “The baby’s” scrapbook?

Fancy paper, markers, nifty scissors, glue, stamps and endless piles of stickers- what on earth am I thinking asking my little boys to stay away from that tempting spread???

Ok, so if a few hours is too much, how about a minute?  If I could just have one minute to run upstairs and use the bathroom without “Little Hurricane” pushing a bar stool over to the kitchen sink, climbing up the stool and onto the counter, then crawling into the kitchen sink and drinking the old liquids out of the dishes sitting in there; if I could just do that- it would be the best thing ever. 

Lost in Translation

What is wrong with the filter in our boy’s brains?  I know they are hearing what I say, but there must be something wrong with the connection between their ear and their brain that takes what I say, and turns it into the complete opposite.  And it’s not just one of my boys.  Nope, it’s all four.  So it definitely has to be a “boy thing”. 

I even think The Dada suffers from this.

I’m in the entry, putting on the boys coats and shoes as quickly as possible because we are running late for a doctor’s appointment.  I get “Mr. Trouble’s” stuff on him.

I say:  Ok, go out to the van and quickly buckle yourself in.  We are late so please go right into your seat.

He hears:  Go outside and run around to the back of the house.  Try and hide and when I come looking for you, run away and hide somewhere else.  Keep this up until we are REALLY late. 

I’m upstairs putting away laundry that has gathered outside the bedroom doors.  I’m in the boys room and CamCam comes up to me with a pile of his sister’s clothes.

He says: Here ya go ma.

I say: Thanks CamCam,  but these are your sister’s, they don’t go in here. The Baby’s sleeping in there though, so just put them back on the floor. 

He hears:  These are your sister’s.  Open her door and put them in her room, preferably as loudly as possible. 

We are out in public and Nolie and CamCam run off from me as we are leaving a building.  CamCam runs outside and takes off.  When we get into the van, I give the boys a stern talk about listening and safety.

I say:  You boys have got to start listening to me.  I’ve told you over and over that you have to stay next to me when we are out.  It isn’t safe when you run off.  But you don’t listen to me and that’s why we don’t get to do fun things like go to Chuckie Cheese and go to the playground.  When you start listening and being safe, then we can do more of these fun things.

CamCam hears:  We’re going to the playground!

The older two have been home from school for a half-hour and I am letting them know what their chores are. 

To my oldest I say:  You need to put your clean laundry away.  Please make sure you do not just throw it all in one drawer, you need to put everything away in the correct drawers.  I’ve even laid it out according to which drawer it goes in for you so there’s no excuse.

He hears:  Grab the 4 piles of clean laundry in one massive swoop and dump everything into the bottom drawer of my dresser.  If it topples over, grab whatever fell onto the floor, open the top drawer, and shove it into that.  Now, granted, only the middle drawer is staying closed, but 1 out of 3 isn’t half-bad. 

It’s getting close to dinner time, and I’m in the kitchen trying to finish up as quickly as possible.

I say:  Alright everyone, you gotta get out of here.  I know you’re all hungry and I’m going as fast as I can, but I cannot cook like this. 

They hear:  Mom can’t finish cooking unless The Baby is standing between her legs, hanging onto them and crying, Nolie and CamCam are running around her hitting each other, LaLa is looking in all the pots and asking if he can “just have cereal to eat.” 

The little boys have all been tucked into bed.  I’m in Nolie and CamCam’s room.

I say:  Ok boys, now it’s time to go to sleep.  I read you your book, everyone’s gone potty, you have your drinks right here.  There is no reason for you to get up.  I don’t want any talking or fooling around, it’s time for sleeping.

They hear:  Ok boys, it’s now time to act like caged animals.  I want to hear banging on the walls, throwing of toys, and LOTS of laughing.  Hopefully loud enough to wake The Baby. Tear apart your room.   And, I can think of at least 6 different things you could come out of your room to ask for.  Whatever you do- do not go to sleep. 

Messy Eaters

One of the coolest things about having lots of kids is how in one glance you can see the progression with each age.  The other day all four of my boys were sitting next to each other on the couch, and just so happened to be sitting according to age.  Their heads looked like a set of stairs, it made The Dada and me chuckle.  Anytime I’m doing an art activity with my three little guys, it quickly becomes apparent the amount of growth that occurs year to year. 

And then there’s eating.  Some nights I wonder when I’m going to be free of washing messy little hands and faces.  The other night we were eating spaghetti and I realized that this will happen sometime between the ages of 5 and 13.

The messiness of boys eating, according to age:

Age 13.  Perfectly clean, as I’d expect.

 

Age 5.  Little sauce on the cheeks, nothing awful.

 

Age 3.  Oh yeah, that’s more like it. 
Face, tummy, hands… nice. 

20 Months.  Maybe next time I’ll spoon-feed him.

He sure was enjoying this meal.

 

That explains how he gets it in his hair!

Hmmm, it might just be easier to trade in for a new,
clean baby. 

Now their rooms, that’s a funny thing.  If I were to take a picture of their rooms, the mess would go in the exact opposite direction.

That WOULD be the part he’d like. . . .

My boys favorite movie to watch right now are the VeggieTales movies.  Now, I don’t know if you’re familiar with this series or not, but it’s a pretty awesome set of movies.  Basically the premise is that they take bible stories and make them kid friendly.  Kids are thoroughly entertained all while learning important lessons.  VeggieTales teach kids about being kind to one another, compassion, being brave, doing what’s right, how to deal with bullying- it’s fabulous. 

So here I am, allowing my boys to rent and watch a bit more of these movies then I probably should because I feel that it is teaching them important things.  I’m really hoping that these lessons are soaking in. 

One of these movies is about Jonah and the whale.  Some things are edited for kids, for example- rather then getting into why Nineveh is so bad, they say that the people there slap each other with fishes.  But the basic bible story is the same, and this movie really does a great job of teaching compassion and mercy. 

So what did my boys get out of this movie?  Are they being kinder to one another?

Well, the other day I was driving them in the van when “Mr. Trouble” says to me:  Hey mom, you know what we need?  You need to go buy some fishes that are clean.

Me: Fishes?

Him: Yeah, me and CamCam need fishes that are clean so we can hit each other with them.

Not exactly the point I was hoping he’d get. 

From Eating money to Toilet aim to Killing lobsters

I LOVE preschool talk.  Just love it.  If you spend any amount of time listening, really listening, to a preschooler and what they are saying, I guarantee you’ll have a good laugh. 

There are those conversations that make you realize that, while it is possible to have a logical conversation with a 5 year old, it just isn’t possible with a 3 year old:

5 year old- Mom, when did I swallow money?

Me- I don’t remember you swallowing money.

5yo- Well, I remember that I did.  It was on my tongue and then it slipped down my throat.

Me- Well, don’t do that again.  We don’t want to put money in our mouth, it’s dangerous.  Plus it has germs. 

5yo- What’ll it do to me?

Me- They’ll make you sick.

5yo- No, I mean what do the germs do to me?

Me- I know, they’ll make you sick.  You’ll throw up.

3 year old, who’s been listening intently to the entire conversation with a look of concentration on his face- And what paper do??? It goes like this:  boom! boom! boom! (Hitting his book back and forth)  And people go ahhhhhhhhh! (Hits himself in face with book)  Like that!

Then there are those conversations that make you wonder what kind of child you are raising:

Like, when your 4 year old brings you something he’s built out of Legos and you say- “Oh, that’s so nice!  What are those, trees?”

And he replies- “No, they’re warriors of doom.”

There are the conversations you hear that make you wonder how on earth we got from point A to point B:

Nolie (aka Mr. Trouble)- (eyeing my dinner plate of tortellini)  Hey!  Do I like that?

Me- No, you don’t.  You think they’re yucky.

CamCam- Hey!  I like those!  I eat that!

Me- No, you don’t like these either.  You think they’re yucky.

CamCam- Yes I do, I like to eat yucky.

Nolie- You like to eat yucky things CamCam?

CamCam- Yup!

Nolie- Just not lobster?

CamCam- I eat lobster.

Nolie- You like to eat their bodies?

CamCam-  No!!! I don’t want to eat my body!!!

Nolie- No, not your body.  You eat lobster’s bodies.  You eat and eat lobster’s bodies and when you eat all their body then their dead. 

There are those conversations that just make you shake your head:

Like when I was talking with Nolie about how he needs to aim better in the toilet-

“Pee goes in here, not here, or here, or here.  Just here.

Nolie- And not in here? (pointing to where the seat connects to the bowl)

Me- No!!! Why on earth are you asking that?!? You don’t pee there do you?

Nolie- Yes I do.

Me- Why!?!

Nolie- Because I like to.

There are the conversations that make it really hard to be the tough, in charge parent.  Because all you want to do is laugh.

It’s bedtime at our house and, like usual, Nolie and CamCam are not settling down to sleep.  They were tucked into bed almost an hour ago and we can still hear them fooling around up there.  Time to send in the big guns- The Dada goes up.

The Dada (after a stern talk about how it’s now bedtime)- Now, do you want to go to sleep or do you want to find out what will happen if I have to come back up here?

Nolie-  I want to find out what will happen.

Dada- No, if I have to come back up, I’m not going to be happy.  So do you want to find out or do you just want to go to sleep?

Nolie- I really want to know what’s going to happen.

And then there are the ones that remind you that you're the mom of boys:

I’m sitting in a chair and Nolie comes in and sits in my lap.  He stayed awhile, which is rare for him.  Usually he jumps right up.  I put my arms around him, and he snuggled in.  So I started rocking and humming the itsy bitsy spider song to him, thinking, “isn’t this nice?”

Nolie- Guess what I did mom?

Me- Hmmm?

Nolie- Guess what I did mom?

Me- What?

Nolie- I tooted on your leg.

You know you’re the mom of little boys when. . .

Your dining room table is actually a fort

  

 

If necessary, you could feed a small family out of all your baseboard heaters.

You open up your window to get some fresh air, and find that it is actually a carport. 

Your kitchen cabinets…

 

…are harder to get into then Fort Knox.

 

Your baby gate…

…is being held in place with cable ties…

 

…because someone worked overtime to pull it out of the wall.

 

You pull back YOUR bed covers and find this:

 

More of lunch ends up on the floor…

…then in this tummy.

Your sound system and DVD player have to be barricaded. 

When you manage to clean one room….

 

…only to pay for it in another room,

  

…and another. 

I Love You Guys!

    

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Edited to add:  I’m so excited because today I received an email from the SITS girls telling me that I am the Sits Girl in the Spotlight!!!  If you have NO idea what I’m talking about, then you have to check out the SITS website.  I love them!

And if you’re interested in the blog post that the featured picture prompted, here it is.   

 

Shhhh. . . Everyone freeze or they’ll get up!

We are still doing the no TV thing, and 99% of the time it is still going smashingly, but, I will admit, there still is that 1% of the time that:

Blue’s Clues is Awesome!!!

 

I wonder if stamps are figured into the cost of raising a child?

Recently I sent The Dada a text message that read:  You’re out of stamps. 

To which he replied:  How can I be out of stamps?  I just bought some.

To which I replied:  Because certain people in our house do not understand the meaning of the word “stamps”, but they do understand the meaning of the word “stickers”.

Yes, once again my boys were up to no good.  CamCam had his back to me, and I heard some paper crinkling.  I kept looking over, but didn’t see anything.  I assumed he found a little piece of paper on the ground and was playing with it.  But eventually I asked him what he had.  He said “Stickers.”  I figured he took some stickers out of his potty reward stash and was playing with them.  I don’t know why I haven’t learnt my lesson by now.  Why do I always assume my boys are playing with something normal? Why haven’t I learnt that their little imaginations never take them to toys or stickers or plastic containers?  No, their little mischievous imaginations take them to makeup drawers, markers, trash and anything that would waste my money. 

When I did finally go over to them, I saw that they had gotten into our stamps and put them everywhere.

“Who put these everywhere?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Trouble.  “CamCam and me?”  And then, get this, he says, with a sense of pride and accomplishment in his voice, “We worked very hard.”

Like I should be thanking him or something!  “Wow boys!  Great job!  I am so impressed that you put these very expensive stickers all over the room.  Way to go!”

 

---

This is pretty cool.  All our doorknobs should have a stamp on them.

 

If your going to play with stamps, there must ALWAYS be an attempt to mail a baby. 

  

 

So if you think your boys are up to no good never, never, never ask them about it and take their word for it.  Investigate.  I assume I’m being taught this lesson by toddlers so that when I’m the mommy of teenagers I’ll know better.

Thanks boys.

I swear we do NOT drink out of the milk carton!

Sorry for the abrupt ending, but can’t you just picture that gallon of milk tipping up higher and higher and then splashing all over CamCam’s face, him pulling back in horror, and the milk emptying out all over my floor???

So can I, that’s why I dropped the camera and ran.

How many people get to play Wheel of Fortune?

Last night my brother hosted a Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy party.  He’s been working MONTHS on this, and it was an absolute blast!  He built the entire setup himself, it was incredible.

    

See?  I kid you not, it was a life-size replica of The Wheel. 

 

And here’s the man of the hour! 

A couple of hours before we headed over there, I was making cupcakes to bring.  CamCam LOVES cupcakes.  What little boy doesn’t???  He kept walking in and out of the kitchen, “Mom?  Cut-cakes ready?”  He could smell the sweet aeroma and thought for sure I was holding out on him.

He watched me bring them out of the oven and asked if he could have one.  I told him no, they were too hot, and plus, we were bringing these with us to Gickey’s house. 

He kept an eye on them for me while they were cooling.  “Mom!” he said, while poking one in the top.  “Cut-cakes not hot anymore!  Can I eat one?”

He came running into the kitchen when I was frosting them.

“Mom, can I have one cut-cake?”

”No CamCam, we have to bring these to Gickey’s house.”

“How ‘bout this mom?  How bout this- you give one cut-cake Gickey’s house, and give one cut-cake for me.”

Little CamCam, he has a solution for everything.

A side effect of potty training I DID see coming

If you’ve been reading my blog for any amount of time, you know that CamCam has always been a little obsessed with the potty. 

No, not in a good way. 

In a gross, yucky, make me want to burn down my house and move kinda way.

So it was with a bit of reluctance that I approached potty training CamCam.  Eventually, I knew I’d have to let him and the potty have time together. 

Alone.

Unsupervised.

It was an accident waiting to happen. 

Oddly enough, our “potty accident” didn’t occur when CamCam was alone.  Nope.  I was standing at the sink, 3 feet away from him.  Which, actually, shouldn’t surprise me at all.  Most things seem to happen when I am in the room.  I don’t know if I’m oblivious or if my kids are invisible, but it’s got to be one of those two.  So anyways, I’m standing at the sink getting ready and I hear CamCam playing next to me.  He’s playing with his new car, the one he earned by getting all the stickers on his potty chart. 

Vroooom, vrooom, ahhhhh! 

I look over to see what he’s doing, and there he is, kneeling in front of the toilet.  Both arms are in the bowl, and he is running that little car all over the inside of the toilet. 

Vrooooom, vrooom, ahhhh!  Don't go in the wata, oh no! Ahhhhh, Splash!!!

The Day My Creativity Was At Its Peak

Potty training is in full swing here!!!  Horray!  Woo-hoo!!!  Yes! Yes! YES!!!!

Can you tell I’m excited???  Yesterday it was as if a switch flipped in CamCam, he came upstairs and said he had to go potty.  And he did have to go!  Then he said no diapers, he wanted to wear Mickey Mouse pants.  So yesterday he was in underwear all day, and today as well.  And I have carpet, and couches, and my sanity to protect which means that I have to watch him like a hawk and hardly ever leave his side.  I have to be on the alert for any sign that it’s time to go.  So once again, I’m putting up an old post here following today’s SITS B2B writing prompt:  A Post Title You Are Particularly Proud Of.  Here’s my fave:

The One In Which A Cow Is Killed

Originally published April 30, 2010

Yesterday “Little Miss” had a chorus concert at her school.  Sitting for a long period of time in the middle of a crowd full of people with my 3 little boys to watch something that probably would bore them, yeah, I was pretty excited to take them to this.  I knew her part was last, so I didn’t get there early, I drove up as it was starting. 

And then I drove around the school looking for parking.

And again.

Why did they make a school without a parking lot?  There also was construction on the street, which made it that much better.  Finally I found a spot at the very end of the street, about 1/2 a mile from the school.  I parked and took a moment to figure out how to best get my crew to the school.  The school has stairs to get into it, so I couldn’t even pull out the big stroller.  While I’m trying to figure out if it would be possible to walk that far with them, “Mr. Trouble” pipes up and says: “We can’t park here, it’s too far!  What if my legs get tired?”

You know what?  He’s right.  I know that right in front of the school door was a bus only spot, and I decided that for once I wasn’t going to play by the rules and instead I’d make it easy on myself.  So up we went.  Thanks for the advice “Mr. Trouble.”

I decided it would be best to stand up back with my boys, it would give them a little freedom at least.  They did pretty well, we made it through half of the songs and then the snacks I brought ran out. 

Seriously boys, you gotta learn to pace yourselves!  They look at the size of the bag of snacks, and then look at how many people are sharing, and from that ratio decide how quickly they should shove pretzels into their mouth.  This was a 3 to 1 snack bag ratio so the little hands were grabbing overtime and cramming food in as their little eyes darted back and forth from the bag to each other. 

But once “Mr. Trouble” yelled out that this was boring and he wanted to go home, and CamCam chimed in with a loud YEAH!, I decided it was time to take them into the hall. 

One of my kids past teachers was out there, and her and I started talking about kids.  She mentioned how she had 3 girls and 1 boy, and how boys were so much easier then girls.  How her boy was so calm and mild.

Hah!

Then she offered to watch mine so that I could watch the rest of the concert.  All I could think about was how she’s raised this one calm boy, and what on earth would she do if I left her alone with my 3 little monsters.  So I politely declined.  She went into her room and came out with these little animal finger puppets for my boys.  They eagerly grabbed 3 each, and she puts one on her hand and kneels down to play with them, “Hi Mr. Cow, how are you today?”

And at the same time, both my boys reach out with their little puppets and start hitting hers, “die, die, pew, pew, pew!”  I saw a shocked look that she quickly tried to conceal appear on her face.

I wanted to die from embarrassment.

 

In case you missed it the first time around

As a parent, how many times do you walk into a room, shake your head and think: I cannot believe what I’m seeing.  With a two year old, this is almost a daily occurrence.  I try as best as I can to describe these scenarios to you.  But nothing beats a good picture.  That’s why I always keep my camera on hand.  Because with 3 preschoolers in the house, I have LOTS of great head-shaking moments to capture. 

One of my favorite pictures of CamCam in the past year was in the following post, it’s the 2nd picture down.  The expression on his face is priceless. 

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The Cost of Toddlers

Originally posted September 5, 2009

There's no denying it, kids cost a lot of money. When you find out your pregnant, you start a list of all the baby items you'll need to get. It's amazing how much 'stuff' such a tiny person needs! And it's not a one-shop deal, as they grow they'll need even more 'stuff.' A lot of it is obvious: clothes, toys, books, bedding, etc. But there are a few things that you may not know you'll be needing for your toddler, so I thought I'd give you a heads-up.

Invest in a second set of play makeup. Even if you have a boy. Especially if you have a boy. Because every time you're doing your makeup, little hands will find their way into it. Worse, when you're not doing your makeup, little hands will find their way into it. I've had to throw out countless lipsticks because CamCam has shoved his finger into the tube to get at the color and rub it on his face. He loves to use the make-up brushes to brush his hair. He pushes really hard though, so they end up all smooshed down and unusable. Kinda like when I was in elementary school art class and the art teacher told us to put the brushes in the jar with their bristles up, because if we did it with the bristles down, the brush would be ruined and then he showed us one. All my makeup brushes look like that. All of my eye shadows have deep ridges across them from where he has scrapped them with his fingernails. I cannot buy compact face powder because he opens it and bangs it on the floor to get it to break apart and come out. I cannot buy loose powder because he opens it and shakes it everywhere like this:

You're toddler will be needing a pair of high heels to go with all that pretty makeup:

I am not joking, he is ALWAYS wearing my shoes! He loves all shoes but his own. He'll just randomly be walking around the house in different people's shoes, even company's.

You should be prepared to invest in a set of new keys for your keyboard:

You'll need a second set of accessories for your vacuum because the first set is actually pirate swords.

Every time I go to vacuum, I have to spend at least 15 minutes hunting down all the pieces. Everyday "Mr. Trouble" and CamCam use them to have pirate sword fights. "Mr. Trouble" always gets the big sword and CamCam gets the little one, but he doesn't complain. The funny thing is that I'll ask them where are my vacuum parts and they look at me like I have 2 heads, but if I ask them where's my sword- they bring me right to them. It's also very weird that I cannot find these vacuum pieces without their help, but no matter where I put these or try to hide them, "Mr. Trouble" and CamCam always find them without my help.

Lastly, I can't imagine why my electric bill is so high???

 

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Once I had time to think about it, I realized there were plenty of unnecessary things I wasted my money on.  That list is here.

As my husband puts it, I am being boring and recycling my old posts in response to the SITS writing prompt for today:  “Re-upload a post you wish more people had read and explain why it was important to you.”