Not yet

I'm not ready for this.
Today at lunch, Q asked me how the babies get out of their mama's bellies.
With the first child, I usually could just dismiss everything by saying, "The mamas just go to the hospital and the doctor takes the baby out." And the questions would go away.
It didn't work this time.
I can say that I am pretty straight forward about most things with the boys. But I think 4 is too early for this child to know all the details. He wanted to know and he was not taking any of the vague, mamsy pamsy explanations I was dishing out.

Luckily I remembered that I did have ONE c-section, which in reality was an awful experience. But how glad I am for it now....it makes this all a little easier to explain.

"Do they use scissors?" he asked.

Yes, and scotch tape....

Mom and K in 2002

My mom in 1999

 

Thanks Mom

There was an elderly gentleman in my former church who sent me a birthday card every year. I was the only one in the congregation chosen for this honor. The reason was simple. I had the same birthday as his mother and that day just so happened to be his anniversary day.

He was in his eighties. And he told me once that he thought of and missed his mother every day. I thought this was amazing. Somehow I thought as you got older and time passed, those feelings would somehow fade. As if age could make you stronger, tougher, more of a grown up...

Today would have been my mom's 72nd birthday. And though it has been four years since she has been gone, I know for sure that when I am in my eighties I will still think of and miss her.

She is in everything I do. There was a time when I just didn't know how I would get through a day without her. We would talk on the phone every day and we would dispatch the latest ho-humness of our comings and goings. I would tell her the latest mundane thing the baby was doing at the time, and she would thrill in it as much as I would. Only a mother can do that.

When we knew the breast cancer would soon be taking her away from us. I knew that I had gotten through most of my trying times in my life because she was there for me. Now with the arduous task of raising children ahead of me, I asked her through tears and with great desperation, "What am I going to do with out you? How will I know what to do?"

She said with gentle confidence, "Don't worry. They will teach you want to do." And her words come back to me as they often do, with each child a different set of circumstances, a different set of needs. Somehow, I know what to do. (more or less)

I see her in my boys in ways I never thought I would. She has a silent way of making her hand felt in our lives even now.

Sometimes I feel extremely gypped. She was taken from me way too soon. My kids will never know first-hand her humor, kindness and wisdom. She would have loved my boys and them, her.

So I bought her a birthday gift....a little plate for her urn, finally. So everyone would know who is inside. I meant to do it years ago, but somehow never knew what was right. This year, I had to do something, even if it was wrong. I know she would say, "It's about TIME!" I also put a small dedication on there that says, "For your courage, strength, beauty and grace, we honor you."

Thanks mom

The sting

I've pulled out the scrapbooking stuff and am ready for action. Slowly, slowly starting to get my life back.
Scrapbooking is a weird hobby though. I find it odd that even my hobby is about my kids and husband. I often don't feel like I have gotten a break after doing it.
Nonetheless, I want to start the baby's book.

Baby got stung by a bee on his eyelid. Where else? The soccer game. ugh. I'm starting to hate that place.

Some guy ran over after the baby (and I) started screaming. He sent his mother for ice and helped me hold the baby still while I pulled the stinger out of his eye. Then he said he was going to look for a cigarette. This is a hell of a time to go for a smoke, I thought.

He came back with a pack of chewing tobacco and told me to put some in my mouth and then put it on the baby's bee sting. He said it would take the pain out of it. This, I determined, is a southern thing.

I did this alternating with the ice. I suddenly found myself enjoying the cud of tobacco that was in my mouth. "Give me some more of that. That's not half bad," I told the fellow.

Just what I need another bad habit.

soccer mom from hell

Today i am transporting the kids btw soccer games. who knew that i would be a soccer mom? I don't even like soccer.

Geez

During the older one's soccer game last week, some kid (from the same team) said something to K on the field and then slapped him across the face.

i looked around the field to see if anyone was videotaping b/c for the first time I felt like I wanted to go and whomp a 6-year-old's butt.

I could just picture the headlines around the world. "SUBURBAN SOCCER MOM LOSES HER MIND." "DANGER ON THE FIELD. MOM ATTACKS SIX YEAR OLD."

I'd be in jail. My kids wouldn't have a mom. oh woe, so i didn't.

Mercy Me

Finally. Finally the weather is where it needs to be, cooler nights and fair days.
You know my struggle living in the Alpha mom world right? Well in my feeble attempt to try to do better for the lives of our children, I volunteered to be the grounds mom for my son's class.
I knew I was about to find out some awful truth when nobody volunteered for it. (curiously, no one did last year either, but since I was 8-9 months pregnant, no doin)

So I walked past each classes' little area of garden as I walked around the school to our class' section. Not too bad I thought, a few weeds here and there. A little weed tuggin, some compost, pansies and mulch and we'd be on our way.

I talked to the teacher about getting the kids involved so they could feel some ownership of the area and watch with educated wonder as spring bloomed with the bulbs we so lovingly planted months ago.

Then I rounded the corner and was struck with jungle fever. GW Bush could fix the energy crisis with the amount of switch grass growing there. Vines had covered and strangled the little shrubs. The plastic weed barrier that I found buried there was apparently merely a suggestion.

My "helpers" and I worked for over an hour. My "helpers" eventually found some sidewalk chalk and started writing signage pleading for mercy and begging others to come help, pull the weeds from their dehydrated bodies. 

Tues 9.19

Today I ran through the list of things to do when you get lost or abducted. (because I am an anal overprotective mother)

I explained how talking with strangers is not really a bad thing, it just depends on the stranger. Or as Q says, "Never talk with a STRANGER stranger."
Something like that.

I wanted to make clear that the no hitting, kicking, biting or screaming rule that normally stands around here, goes out the window if someone tries to steal you.

What to do? We do and say all the things when we think their age and intellect can handle it, to keep them healthy and safe from harm. But often it is the thing that smacks us from the left when we are looking to the right for the antibiotic, seat belt or helmet.

Spinach, it's the new hamburger

Really, how could this be? Bags of spinach?
You know you think you do the right thing. Each day this week, I've put a handful of spinach on my boys' plates and told them to eat up.

Friday night I fed the boys and they ate fistfuls of the leafy greens. Hunka walked in the door from work and told me to throw out the bag of spinach. Now, I'll be the first to admit I've picked out some slimy, questionable leaves and eaten the rest. But how, I wondered, could my perseptive hubby know the state of the spinach from across the room.

He told me about the E-Coli threat found in bags of spinach and how it has been all over the news. Now I do try to sneak in bits of info from the outside world when I can, via radio or internet. But when you are in a full Higgly haze of Cheerios, Resue Heroes, and non-stop clutter, I just didn't get in my up to the minute news.

I talked to my kindred friend via phone about this latest in our motherly woes and she says without missing a beat, "You know you never heard this stuff about NACHOES!"

So true....has there ever been a scare involving Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby ice cream? Lay's Potato sour cream and onion chips? Cheese curls? No of course not. Now there just may be a message in there somewhere.

Mud, sweat and tears

I'm in between soccer games. Q is playing with the mini-kickers 3 year-old program. He is the big man on the field because he didn't make the cut off b/c of his late birthday. What a difference a few months makes at that age.
Their t-shirts say "Mud, sweat and tears" and really it is mostly just tears and mud. I think three -year olds are hilarious playing soccer. I mostly just spend my time laughing. There are usually three kids that stand on the field and cry, a couple that just stand and grab their winkies and the rest clustered around an immobile ball.
Q was so proud of himself. He scored a goal and then the coach put him in the goalie position. He blocked all the balls.The kids were dropping like flies out there. Our team started with five kids. The other team had 10....by the end Q was the last one standing as the goalie and the other team had about 4 kids left.

eau de baby

I wish I could bottle this stuff.
As I pulled the precious sleeping baby out of his car seat after we dropped off Q at preschool. I snuggled him and sniffed him, as I often do.
He smelled like a sweet warm Krispy Kreme doughnut mixed with baby powder and sunshine.

I've got a gummy little secret

You should know this about me...I'm a bad bad mama.

I am entering the confessional
....forgive me blogger for I have sinned...

You see, I give my sons vitamins whenever I can remember or whenever their spinach intake is not what it should be.

I got a fabulous deal on Gummy Bear vitamins at Costco, by the way. They also make sour gummy bear calcium vitamins, And they are deeelish. So coming out of being pregnant, nursing and plus this genetic disposition towards osteoporosis-...I NEED to take extra calcium, right.

The truth is....I eat the boys' gummy bear calcium vitamins (at 15 calories a piece). A LOT of them. In fact, I eat more of them than the boys. And the really bad mommy part comes when I leave only the lemon flavored ones for them. I don't believe they should make those yellow ones anymore. (But then again, what would the children have?) Just like they should never make lime flavored Tums. (again a memory from the prego days)

You know....Hunka and I also eat stuff when they aren't looking....like ice cream and chocolate pudding. Sometimes they catch us, "Mama, what do you have in your mouth?"
I will look at them with my chipmunk cheeks filled with my winter stash and wide deer eyes staring into the headlights, "Broccoli and mashed potatoes," I mumble hand over my mouth being careful not to let them see.

Another interest point for my mother-of-the-year application.

relief

Because I worry about all things large and small....a little relief came in the mail a couple days ago.

"Hunka Hunka Burning Love's" company has become like most of the mega media giants that has caused the employees much grief over the past several years. (Yet they still have the nerve to send us pamphlets emblazoned with the proclamation "EMPLOYEES FIRST.")

It appears this company is offering back up care options as one of it's benefits. This I felt was a bold and helpful move they finally taken.

It offers to have access to care in centers or in-home in the case of illness or school holidays etc.
I often find myself knowing I can't get sick because I still have three little guys to take care of....this gives me at least a little comfort to know there is someone I can call.

Will we use it? Maybe not. But it sure helps to know we can.

 

Triple the load

I'm starting this new little thing. I've taken a bunch of pictures of the junk around my house and will be posting them on my blog. It gives me a new way to look at the clutter and dirt that is my home. I hope you enjoy.

I really don't mind doing laundry. It just seems that it never ends. I do find myself saying as I reload the same bunch of clothes back into the washer because I've forgotten about them and now they have a fowl locker room smell, "Well at least I don't have to go down to the river and pound them on the rocks...again."
I also think about people with more kids. Say my friend who had twins and then two years later....TRIPLETS. ouch. I think of her while I do laundry.
I also think of my friend that adopted a toddler from Russia and gave birth to a baby, all within a few months time and is now pregnant again....TRIPLETS. triple ouch.
I recently gave her a laundry basket and diapers. She may not have thought about this yet...but she will need more laundry baskets...to hold all the stuff she can't get to...in a pinch, kids can go in there too.

Overheard

The conversations are different when you have a little girl in the house.

Q had a little friend over yesterday who just happens to be a girl...... They ended up playing Rescue Heroes.

Girl: "Let's pretend they (rescue heroes) are girls."

Boy: "But they aren't. They are BOYS." (He runs off to find the token woman rescue hero "Wendy Waters" and hands it to his friend.)

Girl: "Oh ok...These are the boys and they are at HER party. " (Wendy, of course, is known for her fabulous parties.) "And these are their pets." (She lines the dinosaurs up politely next to each one.)

Dinosaurs and burly dudes have never had such a good time

View from on high....chair

 

Wanted Dead or Alive

How could she have done this to us? Oh the agony, the pain, the searing humiliation.
The blasted tooth fairy missed our house last night.

I've heard whispers of it happening in other homes, but never thought she would miss our house. I did explain about the northern and southern hemispheres and the grand scope of her nightly travels, plus the fact that he forgot to put it under his pillow the first night he lost it.

Surely, that must have played a role in it. surely

 

2nd oldest profession

Sometimes ya just gotta watch what you say. Take for instance anchor Kyra Phillips who went to the john during the president's live address and started to praise her husband and slam her unfortunate sister-in-law. Her mic was open and she was live private and personal with the entire country.

Then there is our own little "watch your mouth" episode around here...

"Mama, do you know what is special about you?" Q asked while I tried to do some excercises with my friend Denise Austin. "Oh no, what is it?" I asked ready to hear the full range of all my glorified qualities.

Q put up his fist in a sort of black pride way and wrinkled his nose. The fist for those of you who don't know the sign language of our house means a big fat ZERO.

I think it is those damn Higgly Town Heroes and how they profile a certain profession....the street sweeper, doctor, fire fighter. Q was quick to point out how I don't leave the house to do anything noble like the doctor; everything I do is just right here in this house.

I stopped what I was doing sat down in front of the child and explained how I gave up a career to do the most important job in the world, blah blah blah. But he would have none of it. That was then and this is now after all.

I asked him what he was going to do with his kids when he grew up. He explained that since his doctor's office would be in his house. He would let whomever came to the door take care of the kids. I thought that was a great idea.... so I told him to get dressed because we were going out to the street to pass him off to the first car that came by.

So if you happen to be driving by my house, look for the four-year-old sitting on the curb.