Busted Being Old

Trying very hard not to dance all the while totally lip syncing and enthusiastically head bopping to "Automatic" by the Pointer Sisters as I make my way through Trader Joe's.

I wasn't even embarrassed when I totally made a random guy bust out laughing. I think that's when I added some shoulder.

No way to control it, it's totally automatic.

Mesmerized

Up and down, on his little tippy toes, watching the big girls.

Boy Parts

Olive, my self-proclaimed artist daughter, likes to entertain her tablemates by nibbling her food into different shapes. It started innocently enough with graham cracker underpants and has evolved greatly over time.

Tonight at dinner, in a restaurant, she proudly presented the table with a scrotum. Or a boat. Also, a capital D laying on it's tummy. But really, first and foremost, a scrotum.

Thank goodness this still applies. We all tried really hard not to react. The Cracker lost it first, I silently followed, and by the end even the baby was all "funniest thing ever!"

She is LOUD, and she wouldn't let it go, but at least it wasn't "scrotum" she uttered no less than a dozen times.


PS Please, crazy people, stop lecturing the rest of us on using correct anatomical terms with the very young if you aren't going to do it right. When dealing with preschoolers the opposite of penis is not vagina. Girls do not pee out of their vaginas. Seriously. Look it up.

22 Days Straight of Sick

and still going. Over break we watched every clip we could find of BBC's Walk on the Wild Side.



Jason's cube farm has an Allen. And a Steve. It's been difficult.

Homework Classic

Trevor walks 10 units south on the Northern Trail. Then he walks 3 units west, 4 units north, 3 units west, and 6 units north. How much of the trail did Trevor walk?

"Most of the way."

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Listening to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Mommy: Who can name a wind instrument?
Cracker: Trombone!
Olive: Tuba!
Daddy: Whoopee cushion!

Why You're Never Failing as a Mother

Read this.

Elf with a Shelf

(Everyone knows Dick in a Box, right? Because you should.)

Thank You, Weird Al Yankovic

Me: Good morning, Olive!
Olive: (giggling) I'm about to get medieval on your hiney!"
Me:
Husband: She just said...
Me: Oh I heard her.

Turns out she had no idea what a "hiney" is, but she does know all the lyrics to this:



She sang it all the way home for my dad today. To quote him directly, "Damn, she can be a lot of fun when she's not doing time in the naughty nicho." True dat.

We all agree, it's a nice change after a two year obsession (shared by her brother) with alternate lyrics, supplied by their father, to Cake's "Never There"

You never wear, your underwear!
You never, ever wear your underwear!
Dun dun dun dun dun dun HEY!

Yeah. Awesome when they break out in song at a restaurant.

Or that Sublime song she and her brother swear has a reference to male genitalia. (It does not!) Or that James' "Laid" is currently getting heavy play on satellite radio and the baby is in luv. Eeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeee!

I can't wait until she discovers her new favorite Pink song unbleeped in my workout mix.

Homework, Fourth Grade Style

You hide your homework folder because...yeah.

You hide your agenda so you can argue that you can't do your homework because you don't have the assignments written down.

You hide you English and math book because you need them to get your homework done.

You even hide your completed/ready to turn in homework because you hope that it will keep the next assignment from being assigned.

You got us on this one: we don't know why you don't turn in test corrections.  Enlighten us?

(PS  It's time for a new hiding place.  I found behind-the-curtains-in-the-baby's-room the Friday before Thanksgiving.  Good one!  I do thank you though because knowing where to go has made my life a little easier these last few weeks.)

Us

I often look at my children and wonder, "Where the heck did that come from?"

Oh yeah, I get it now.

Holiday Card Rejects: Olive

Eighteen(ish) Things I Love About You

I love the way you always happy shriek every time you step outside, even when you were only inside for 30 seconds.

I love the way you follow bugs and insects around with an endless string of "Hi! Hi! Hi!"

I love how much you love animals, and the happy noise you make every time you see one.

I love that it happens even when it's just a picture of an animal on the cover of a book. I love how you hug and nuzzle said book because your emotions overflowth.

I love the way you park yourself in front of the bookshelves, clearing them ever so slowly as you thoughtfully study each page.

I love how you say "Awww" when you hug.

I love your love of music. I love how your whole first year you never just babbled, but always sang your babble to your own original tune. I love the way you sing along to the radio now. (Your current favorite: Some Nights by Fun.) I love that you simply cannot keep your mittens off your dad's guitar. I love the obvious thrill you get when you help him play it.

I love how your babbling includes and abundance of trilling and rolling r's, especially when you are deliriously happy. (Btw, wtf super white boy?)

I love your amazingly stinky feet, that look exactly (but smell nothing) like your dad's.

I love your often impossible to tame thick blond fro. And your curls. I want to eat your curls.

I love that your favorite toys are play silverware, dishes, and fake food. I love the way you spend countless hours setting the table and playing kitchen. I love the fact that you totally do not remotely understand the fascination other boys have for all things vehicle.

I love the way you rescue unappreciated treasures from the recycling and turn them into toys.

I love that you think that spaghetti noodles are far superior to any other noodle shape.

I love the way you try so hard to be patient and control yourself when you know dinner is cooking but omg you wanted it like 5 minutes ago.

I love the way you ask for seconds (and thirds, and so on) by presenting us with an empty plate, a hopeful expression, and "Eh?"

I love how you clear your dishes from table without ever being asked, even though your brother and sister frequently forget. I love the way you patiently try over and over on tippy toes to get your plate/bowl/cup up to the counter above the dishwasher until someone finally comes along and helps you. I love how you are happy to keep trying even when it takes us a really long time to get there.

I love the fact that you have a full catalog of iPad moves you try to use on the tv screen, even though kids aren't really allowed on the iPad and neither of your parents have a smart phone. (Again, wtf?)

I love remembering how when you were just a few weeks old you figured out how to get onto your side by lifting your legs straight up into the air and locking your knees, folding yourself into a perfect litle right angle, and then letting gravity take you down. I love how we knew if you did that right away you weren't going to fight sleep. I love how you continued to do it when we put you down to sleep even after you had mastered rolling and crawling and way fancier moves.

I love that when I ask if you are ready for milk you always giggle and take off running for your room, slaming full speed into our nursing chair, even though milk is always followed by a nap or going to bed for the night.

I love the way you love your blankies.

I love the way you love your blankies even more now that they are starting to get holes because you now have a place to hook your finger.

I love the way you walk around with a blankie hanging out of your mouth.

I love the way we can tell how tired you are by the speed and quantity of blankie you shove in your mouth.

I even love the way you always pick less than perfect moments to go on a kissing rampage, like red sauce for dinner vs. white fabric couch I've just bleached. I hope you know no one else can get away with that. (And what is it about the couch that makes it so damn kissable?)

I love that on Halloween you kept stealing boxes of Nerds from the candy bowl because they made most excellent maracas.

I love your super unwavering friendliness that makes us feel the need to apologize to strangers all the time. (But seriously, please stop asking people we don't know to pick you up.)

I love the fact that you have never been startled, frightened, or overwhelmed by loud noises. (We've had your hearing checked. Multiple times.) You are so brave and used to the chaos that is being the youngest of three.

Or crowds, even rowdy, uncontrollable ones.

I love that when I tell you "Too far" you always make an immediate u-turn and come running back.

And last but certainly not least, I love the way you stop whatever you're doing and run to comfort your sister when she is crying. I love the fact that you accidentally tackle her as you wrap huggy little arms around her neck. I love the way you come back up to check her face, and then lay your cheek down on her shoulder, and toggle face-shoulder-face-shoulder until she is better.

Happy Eighteen Months! Don't change.

At least it appears she's given up on my debit card. For now.

Tap tap tap tap! Tap tap tap tap! Tap tap tap tap!

Grandpa: What are you doing with your mom's iPad? Are you supposed to have that?
Olive: It's okay, I'm just trying to figure out her password.
Grandpa: Give me that!
Olive: No thank you, I can do it by myself.

My Very Own Four Year Old Art Critic

I am drawing a rainbow with all 3 available colors of sidewalk chalk: red, yellow, and green. I am Blend Master.
"Um, Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"You forgot indigo and violet."

Funny

Laughter Before Coffee

This morning I was royally cussed out, in tantruming baby babble, for taking his earwig away. But then I pointed out last night's kitchen fly still buzzing around and BAM! all was forgotten distracted. So he toddled around after that, greeting it with the friendliest little "Hi!" each and every time it landed, until I turned my back long enough for him to get at the cat bowls and make cat food soup.

Life is good.

Olive on the Presidential Election

Out of nowhere ...

"Mama?"
"Yes, dear?"
"Do you know why I'm not gonna vote for Mitt Romney?"
"Uhhhh...no."
"Because when he was a kid he holded down another kid and cut his hair! That makes him a bully! I'm not voting for bullies!"

Never Forget

Yesterday a part of me almost died.

I could share with you a long list of really good reasons why it was by far the most atypical day in years, but all that matters is that I forgot to bring my 16 month old in from the car during the hottest part of the day.

Ten minutes later, when I absentmindedly asked my husband "Where's the baby?" and he bolted for the garage I was lazily thinking "Wrong way, he's going to be in G's room with a Lego in his mouth."

And while I was completely aware that the door to the garage didn't immediately open and close again signaling his return it still didn't register. When he returned with our little guy, ever so slightly flushed and just a little bit warm, but totally fine, I think I went into shock.

"Why wasn't he crying? I would have heard him crying!"
"He was."

I do not know how close we came, but I do know that while yesterday the garage was just lukewarm less than a month ago it would have been unbearably hot.

I've never arrogantly claimed that I was a better parent than that. A broken routine, a small distraction... I've read the same story dozens of times with the worst possible ending always knowing it could have been me, so pay attention Heidi.

Yesterday it was me.

Any little change, a different day or one more distraction, and he wouldn't be...alive. No baby giggles and drunken milky smiles to mix with my tears.

Lucky.

First Day of Pre-K (+ Boys and Food)

Excuse me, but weren't you just a baby, like...yesterday?

I swear it's not that I'm getting older, it's the teachers who are getting younger. (Yet still old enough to have gone to grad school and gotten married, and then taught for a few years, and then have children of their own.)

(Good gawd.)

(See young but not too young teacher?)

After we dropped her off the boys and I ran into one of my shorter friends, and after last week's most insane growth spurt ever my 9 year old is closing in on 5 feet and some adults. Pretty sure those size 12 school pants I bought on super clearance earlier this summer are going to waste.

Then after school they had like 48 snacks, including appetizers that ran into dinner, because omg they couldn't wait another 20 minutes for 5 o'clock. In less than an hour they consumed 2lbs of blueberries, 3 apples, some grapes, 2+ lbs of yogurt, 1.75 lbs turkey meatloaf, 1.5 lbs of mini carrots, and an entire Costco 6 pack of romaine hearts.

AND THEY WERE STILL HUNGRY.

But I cut the little locusts off, promising them more food in an hour, because let's just stop for a moment and give your brain a chance to catch up with your stomach, 'kay?

(Sorry dear, they ate it all. Again. Can you heat us up some soup?)

Whipped

He swore it would not happen, but I think playing Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" over and over and over again on the guitar for Olive, albeit with a metal pedal, suggests otherwise.

Fun With Compound Words

"You know what goldfish are made of? Gold! And fish!" says my son, age 9.
"You know what rainbows are made of? Rain and bows!" says a friend, age 6.
"You know what peacocks are made out of?" says my daughter, age 4.

1-2-3 Not It

I love the way she always holds her own, and fits right in with the boys.

They don't know her, and yet they never question her presence, or give her a hard time, because she is...

Olive.

Do Not Wake the Parents

"There is cat poop behind the cowch. It looks like it is fresh. If you need my help I will be in my room. 8:15"

We especially love the time stamp. Yes, we are lazy motherfuckers who sleep way past 8:15am on weekends. Yes, our life is hard.

2am

As we all piled out of the car into the hotel the baby was thrilled. Adventure!

Teeth x 3, jammies x 3, tucked in x 3.  Exhausted parents x 2.

Even in the dark in a hotel crib Callum was still having the time of his life.  Thrilling!

"AAH DA NAH-NAH!  AAH DA!  AAH DA!  NAH-NAH AAH DA!" and so on, for a good 20 minutes.

For those of you who don't speak our baby, that would be: "All done night-night!  All done!  All done!  Night-night all done!"

Giggling kids = 3, laughing parents = 2.

Good road trip times.