Dad

Happy Father's Day, to the father of my boys.

Here are the recorded words of your three sons:

Ben: I love dad because he loves me and he rough-houses me.  He's just so cool.  He lets me go to work with him sometimes, which is really cool.  I love the Ferrari game and racing with him outside.  That's what I really I like about him.  I love it when he tells me stories at night and sometimes we make up silly stories!

Mitchell: I love that my dad is a business man and he works.  That's what I like about him.  He gives me special treats.  He sprays whip cream in my mouth!  I love it when he tickles me and plays with me.  He's pretty good at rough-housing.  He's not very good at brushing my teeth though.  He lets me play in his car.  I like it when we sit out there and have dude time.

Jack: He picks me up! He reads stories with me! And last morning one time I wiped my boogies on him! *cue the crazy laughter*

Dad!!!

I am doing things a bit opposite with Jack than I did with my older boys. Both my older two were sleeping in "big boy beds" before they were potty trained. As I don't need the crib for a new baby and I am not moving at the moment, I am in no hurry to move Jack out of the confines of his crib. So although he is potty trained, he is not able to get himself up in the morning to take care of business.

What does he do about this?

Well, since I was gone all weekend, Jack became quite attached to and used to his dad, so when he wakes up and needs to do his duty, he immediately starts yelling, "Dad!! Dad!! I need you! Come through my door! Open it! I'm ready to get up! Get me out of bed! Dad!! I need to poop! Dad!! Poop!" For those Will Ferrell fans out there, picture him yelling "Mom! Meatloaf!" and you will get the idea.

I love that he calls for dad now. It's too cute. I also love that he no longer wants to poop in his pants. However, I don't always love to rush into his room immediately after he wakes up at 6am. I miss the days when he would wake up, poop in his diaper, not care, and just sing and play and talk leisurely in his bed.

So what does he do now that mom is back on duty and dad isn't rushing in first thing in the morning? Well, he doesn't want to poop in his diaper, so this morning, after calling for dad and telling him he had to poop and no one showed up, he took his diaper off and pooped in his crib!

I heard that all on the monitor as well. "Dad! I need to poop! Dad! I'm pooping! Dad! I'm making a mess mess mess! Help, Dad!"

I really have no one to blame but myself. I am the one who keeps him trapped in his cage and I am the one who ignored his pleas for help. It is only fair that I am the one who had to wash him, his clothes, his sheet, his blankets, his giant stuffed dog, and his bibi.

As I was cleaning Jack up, he looked at me accusingly and said, "Mom, I needed dad! I pooped!" Glad Jack at least is blaming someone else...

A Win For The Boys

Our giant bean bag chair continues to be money well spent. Just the other day, I went up to check on the dudes up in their room, only to find all three boys happily sitting still on top of the bean bag.

I think they won this one, Matt...

The Threat

As I was busy trying to get my kids ready for school this morning, Matt came wandering into the smoothly-running and on-time schedule that is my normal morning and kept insisting on messing it up! I love having him around in the morning, but he was wandering around, drinking coffee, making jokes, and distracting the boys.

At one point, he actually blocked my path from breakfast table to kitchen sink with some sort of attempt to dance with me while holding coffee in one hand! I sighed at him and said, "Matt, the only way I have time for your shenanigans is if you are going to actually help out in here!"

To which he replied, "Did you just threaten me with child care?"

Well, it worked. He got out of my way.

That's Mine!

Matt likes most food. He eats most things I buy and make and rarely asks for something I don't normally get, but for some reason, I almost always ask him if he wants me to pick him up anything special when I am heading out shopping. He always gives me a look like "Why do you always ask me this? My answer is always the same!"

Well, this week, he actually made a request: beef jerky! I think the most recent package from my parents (which always includes jerky for Matt) got him thinking about it. Since he ate that entire package in under 5 minutes, he must have had a hankering for more!

So while I was at Costco, I got quite a few giant bags, with the intention of rationing Matt by hiding some of them. He was quite pleased with a large stash of his favorite snack.

He was pleased, that is, until I informed him that all three of his sons love beef jerky as much as he does! I thought he'd be pleased and call it "dude style," but his first reaction was the opposite: "What? You gave them some of my jerky? That's mine! They're going to eat it all!"

Haha... now he knows how I feel when he polishes off something from the fridge that I just got!I know the point in buying food is to eat it, but I hate seeing it disappear so quickly. So I completely understand his reaction; it was just so funny coming from him!

Feeling Unspecial

One of the draw-backs to not having all your kids in the same school is that sometimes, one of them has a day off when the other one doesn't. Today is one of those days. Ben is off, Mitchell is not.

Matt and I thought it would be fun and special for him to be able to go to work with daddy all day. He is old enough to be able to do this on a real work day. During the times when Matt has to get work done, Ben can read silently, play computer games, draw pictures, and hang out with co-workers easily.

I gave him the choice of staying home, sleeping in, staying in his jammies all morning, and watching some cartoons or going with dad. He immediately chose "go with dad!!!"

Mitchell chose that option as well. Poor guy. I had to explain to him that he couldn't go along because he still had school. He was just crushed. He moped around all day yesterday and then this morning, when Ben and Matt were getting ready, he just kinda slumped down, bordering on tears. (Real tears are a pretty big deal with Mitchell - very rare.)

He even ran up the driveway, following them as far as the street as they drove away, then just stood there watching for a few minutes.

He came back inside and said, "Mom? I'm special too! Howcome I don't get something so special like Ben?" I explained to him that although he was just as special to us, sometimes things are more special when things aren't exactly even - when it seems unfair. Sometimes, in order to understand when something is really special, you have to also know what it is like to feel... well, unspecial. He didn't get it. He is nothing if not stubborn - his thoughts and ideas are no exception.

I tried to make every day life a little more "special" for Mitchell today without buying him things and trying to make up for what Ben got to do. Someday it will be reversed and Mitchell will be the one getting special treatment. Perhaps then he will get it.

In the mean time, I've got a mopey little boy, waiting for his big brother and his dad to get home so he can stop feeling so left out.

The Jacket

Hah! I forgot to update you on what happened to Matt's jacket the next day! Remember? The one that kept moving into more and more obvious and obnoxious places?

Well, I must have only encouraged him with my blog about his antics because the next morning, I found this:

Nice...

Subtlety...

Matt has been pestering me for the last few weeks to get something done for him. I have been "forgetting" about it and putting it off, as I don't see it as a high priority at this very very busy time in our family's life.

Apparently, it is a bigger deal than I thought though and he is not going to let it go. This is what I saw as I came downstairs into my entry way this morning:

Are you trying to give me a "subtle" hint, my love?

It was too funny to be annoyed. He has now hung this same jacket in 3 different places, each more obvious and annoying than the last. I wonder where it will end up tomorrow if I put it off another day?

I'm Not With Him

You know that annoying person who forgets to turn their phone off at the movies or at church or some such place? When their phone starts playing some obnoxious tune like "California Girls" or any other Katy Perry song, do you turn around and look for the offender? (As if we didn't have to listen to her enough everywhere else!) Do you give them the evil eye or ignore them?

Well, today at church, that annoying person was my husband. Right in the middle of the service, we both heard a muffled song near bye and started looking around. It only took a couple seconds though for Matt to recognize the song and start scrambling for his phone in his pants pocket. In his attempts to get to the thing, he spilled his coffee on his crotch, but in his fumbling to get it to stop, only made it louder! He finally just stood up and got outta there as quickly as he could. It wasn't quite quick enough though to spare us all the song that somehow began playing in his pocket. This is what we were all treated to mid-service:

Well I stumble my way into my local bar.
Where I saw the devil in my glass.
The bartender told me it was time to go.
I told him that he could lick my sack.

Whiskey's gone but I ain't leaving.
There's got to be a bottle in the back.
Whiskey's gone but I ain't leaving.
Got to get this devil off my back.

Thank you, Zac Brown Band, for your classy and eloquent words. Thank you, Matt, for downloading them onto your phone. Thanks again, Matt, for sharing them with us all at such an appropriate time and place.

I love how he took off out of the service as fast as he could, leaving me there with the spilled coffee and an equal mix of snickering and evil eye. If I wasn't too embarrassed to find my voice, I may have said, "I'm not with him!"

Just Make It Stop!

Last night, I woke to the sound of a loud, high-pitched beeping every 20 seconds or so. I followed the sound out into the hallway to find the carbon monoxide detector acting up. In my sleepy state, all my efforts to stop the noise only made it worse until it was finally a constant, high-pitched screech. I panicked at this point and just tried to muffle the sound by hugging it close to my body and completely covering it while I shouted for Matt to help me.

I'm not sure how he slept through the original beeping which seemed so loud to me, but by the time the thing was a constant beep and I was shouting for it to just stop, he came to my rescue. He wordlessly took the shrieking thing from me and marched it downstairs. I heard the front door open, then shut, then he came shuffling back into bed.

I asked him how he got it to stop, and he said, "I didn't. I just chucked it out the front door." He was asleep moments later.

Well, as I sit here in my living room today with the windows open, I can hear a faint beeping coming from the yard somewhere. I suppose we want our yard to be as free from harmful carbon monoxide as our house though, right?

We'll Just Ignore Him For A While

Sometimes, Jack just doesn't want to cooperate with the family. Last weekend, we were celebrating Matt's birthday, enjoying a nice BBQ out on the patio - well, I should say, attempting to enjoy the BBQ. Jack was not happy about something and once he was told "no" one too many times for his liking, he lost it.

Now what do you do when your baby won't stop crying, simply because he isn't getting his way? Well, I don't know what you do with yours, but after attempting appropriate distraction without giving in to his demands, I knew we were just in for a little fit.

Now, as he was sitting right next to Matt this evening and he was being quite loud, Matt had the great idea to just turn his chair around to face away from us and ignore him until he could calm himself down and stop his silliness.

Once again, my blogging obsession took over and rather than being heartbroken that my poor baby was upset or annoyed that my child is acting embarrassingly and never admitting to such things in my own children, I ran for my camera. Seeing Jack turned backwards at the table, facing away from the action while the rest of us went on with dinner as usual, pretending we could not hear him was just too funny to leave unrecorded. So.... I snapped a few shots.

(I will admit that I felt a little badly taking pictures of him in this state; not out of embarrassment, but out of fear of what my little guy must be thinking of his evil mother for making a joke out of his ordeal.)

As you can see from that last shot, his dislike over being excluded from the action dried his eyes and he just stopped the crying. After a minute or so of peaking over his shoulder at us, we turned him back around and he was ready to rejoin us! Of course, the arrival of birthday cake may have had something to do with his change of mood...

Dragon Makes a Friend: A Play For Dad

My handsome hubby had a birthday this weekend! While I personally am not one to make a huge deal about birthdays, my boys are just crazy about them - their own, each other's, mine, Matt's, really anyone's as long as they get to be a part of it!

The boys woke up bright and early, eager to FINALLY give dad their present they were so excited about and that we had all wrapped up (and then rewrapped after Jack thought it was for him) the day before. As happy as Matt was to receive his thoughtful gifts from his sons, (Mitchell wanted to keep wrapping up more and more of his toys to give him, plus they both made him 3 or 4 cards each, plus the knife) I think the boys might have been even more excited. Mitchell's feet were just dancing around all morning. He just could not stand still and was hopping around and spinning and grinning and... just being so Mitchell.

After the presents, it was time to get down to the entertainment: the play they worked so hard on all week! Remember my fairy wings? Well, it was time to get them out of hiding, get them on, get costumes on, set up the stage, get the props, and paint Mitchell's face! It was like a party around here!

We had a blast. Ben remembered every one of his lines, Mitchell looked fabulous as Jack Skellington in his tuxedo, the sets turned out so nice, and our front porch was just the perfect stage as daddy and Jack and Uncle Carl sat down below in the audience, cheering us on.

I am so proud of my boys. They love their dad so much and were so excited to do this for him. They are already planning their next production and I have heard rumors of a space theme with an astronaut dog and a space alien. I wouldn't be surprised if a dragon or skeleton made it in there too somehow...

Secrets

Matt's birthday is coming up. For the boys, this momentous occasion is only slightly less exciting than their own birthdays. We love sitting around while Dad is at work, talking about him and what kind of things he might like as presents for this big day.

This year, the boys have come up with some good ideas: a motorcycle, a bicycle, a helmet, weights, track shoes, a sword, and a space ship (Mitchell is quite mad about outer space right now...)

The boys and I decided that they could chip in some of their own money to get dad a pocket knife (that's almost a sword, right?) and I ordered one online. Today, it arrived.

I wasn't thinking when I opened up the package (if I had been thinking, I would not have opened it up in front of them) but when they saw what was in there, they were beside themselves with excitement! Three reasons why they were so excited: 1. a package came in the mail, 2. it was dad's present, and 3. it was a knife!

They wanted to hold it and "try it out" and open and close it. They wanted to carry it around in their pockets. Jack just wanted to get a turn to hold it (yeah right.) They wanted to wrap it and give it to him as soon as he got home!

I convinced them that it would be more special if we wait until his actual birthday to give him his gift, so we put it away somewhere secret and swore to each other not to talk about it at all to dad. This is where Ben gave Mitchell a stern look and with an even sterner voice said, "Mitchell, you can't spoil the surprise! You can't talk about it at all! You can't ruin it! Do you even know how to keep a secret?"

Well, half way through dinner tonight, Mitchell started to leak. It was just too much to keep quiet. "Hey Dad! We got you a birthday present but I'm not going to tell you what it is!" This is when Ben started evil-eyeing him. "We got the packadidge today, but we hid it away and it's a secret!" This is where Ben told Mitchell to stop talking.

I am sure Mitchell thought he was changing the subject here and wasn't spoiling anything, but his next comment made Matt and me laugh, and Ben punch him in the arm. "So maybe when I'm a man, I could have a pocket knife too?"

Matt pretended to be none the wiser and we eventually got Mitchell to start talking about something un-knife or birthday related, but it must be heavy on his mind because it came up again later, when he and dad were having some "dude time" doing a project together down in the basement. "Dad, we should get some knives to work on stuff together... But I'm not going to tell you what we got you for your birthday!"

I wonder how often "knives" will come up in conversation in the next couple weeks...

A Sure Way To Get Some Attention

As I sat down to blog this afternoon, I wasn't exactly sure what I would end up writing.  My direction suddenly became clear though the moment I began to write, thanks to my loving husband.  

All afternoon, he has been watching a football game and playing/working on his phone.  The boys and I have been in the same room, but decidedly not doing those things.  I have been available for conversation or activity, but Matt was relaxing and doing what he wanted to do, so I did the same with the boys.

So all afternoon I have been doing nothing that I couldn't do while giving him my attention and he did not require it.  But, I kid you not, as soon as I started to write my blog, he suddenly sat down next to me and began a serious conversation requiring my attention and comments and opinions!  

I think maybe next time I want to talk and he doesn't or am in need of some extra attention, I will just open my computer and pretend to be "busy" and it will immediately draw his focus onto me!  

Let's Do That Again!

Ever on the lookout for something to kill time on the weekends, I suggested the boys find a "project" to do with daddy.  Now, since this was the day they got to empty their money jars, count it, and spend it, they were eager to find as many last-minute ways to earn some coins as possible.  

There is a never-ending amount of "projects" that can be worked on in the backyard, so that is where I sent them to find one.  After putting bikes and wagons back in the garage and throwing away the week's collections of "weapons" that Mitchell always piles up from every time we walk somewhere (mostly big sticks and sometimes left-overs from the construction site that is our street right now), they decided not to wait for the gardeners to come and begin piling up all those leaves!

Well, this is where the "work" stopped and the "playing" began.  Isn't that the way work should be for young boys, out in the back yard with their dad?  I must say, Matt did most of the work, but he didn't seem to mind as long as the boys were with him, flattening and scattering the piles of leaves almost as fast as he could make them.

In the end, we all decided not to actually get rid of the leaves.  They were just too much fun, and, to be honest, would take a lot more work to actually bag them up than any of us are prepared for, considering we have a gardener coming to do it anyways.  When it was finally time to come in and the boys got their "wages" for all their hard work, they both decided they'd like to do that project again.  Anytime, boys.  Anytime.

Some Thoughts On A Clean House

As I spend my entire free time this morning cleaning house, getting ready for friends to come over this evening, I am blogging in my head.  I sometimes drive myself a little crazy now that I think in blog, so I just had to take a tiny break to write it down so I can stop talking to myself.

I think I sometimes give the impression that I do not keep a clean house or that messes do not bother me.  I fear some picture me living in a house with toys never picked up and put away, floors never swept or mopped, toilets beginning to grow scary things in them, laundry in piles, mice roaming the place (similar to Templeton at the fair in Charlotte's Web.)

This simply is not the case.  I joke about the messiness of my house, but only to make light of the fact that truly, I am ALWAYS picking things up, putting them away, cleaning, straightening, sweeping... It really never ends, but I do stay on top of it (most of the time.)  In fact, the best compliment I have had to my cleaning attempts was a few days ago when, out of frustration that I was doing laundry yet again, Mitchell finally sighed and said, "Mom, no more laundry!  You are ALWAYS folding laundry!"  While that was not meant as a compliment, I'm sure, I took it as one and it felt nice that someone noticed that I am ALWAYS doing laundry!  He might be the first one in my family to realize that dirty clothes do not magically make the transformation from heap of dirtiness on the floor, to clean and folded in the drawer!  So thanks for the props there, Mitchell!

I really do try hard to keep my home a neat, tidy, and clean place.  This is difficult, given that I have one grown man and 3 not-yet-grown men constantly "learning" to help me with this task, but you can erase the image of Templeton at the fair grounds.  We are not living in filth!

It would help if my husband was more of a stickler for cleanliness.  Don't get me wrong, he is a very neat and clean individual, but his neatness/cleanliness is like a bubble around him.  He keeps himself and his things clean and picked up, but will step over a toy or pile of laundry or pile of dishes that are not his without seeming to notice they exist!  He just doesn't seem to mind a little messiness around the house.  

This is evident to me by the way he praises me for all the work I do around the house.  He has actually gotten quite good at recognizing that I work hard to keep the house clean and also thanking me for it, but the way he does it is quite funny to me.  I tell the truth, he seems to compliment or praise me for a house well kept more often on days I have not done anything more than a daily pick-up, and is completely immune to the days the floors are shiny clean, toilets sparkling, fresh scent of Pinesol permeating everything.  

I suppose I should be thankful that he isn't tougher on me, requiring a higher standard in this area.  Perhaps I do a better job than I think, or perhaps he just knows I have more to do than keep things perfectly clean.  I just think it might be more helpful in keeping things extra clean if he knew the difference between toys picked up and the house being "extra" clean.  Oh well.

A Little Light Reading

After pointing out to Matt that we have not been doing a very good job reading to our third child, he decided to rectify the situation and make up for lost time.  Here they are, doing a bit of "light reading."

Although this wasn't quite what I had in mind when I said "read to him," I do appreciate it when he takes my suggestions seriously.

Not the Usual Suspect

When I threw something away in the kitchen garbage yesterday, I noticed a pair of Matt's shoes in there.  Hmm... This one has "Mitchell" written all over it.  For a while, he went through a phase where he threw all sorts of valuables away, but that was some time ago now, and lately I haven't noticed anything either missing or in the garbage that shouldn't be.

But now, suddenly, there are shoes in the garbage.  No one was around at the time to question, so I made a mental note to talk to Matt and Mitchell about it later.

Of course, I totally forgot about the shoes in the garbage until later that night when I went to throw something away in my bathroom garbage, only to find yet another pair of Matt's shoes in this garbage can as well!  What in the world is going on here?!

This time, I immediately found Matt and asked him if he was missing any shoes.  When he answered "no," I broke the news to him: "Are you aware that someone is throwing away your shoes all over the house?  Naturally, I suspect Mitchell"  At this point, he burst out laughing at my suspicious behavior and admitted that he had thrown them away himself.  His laughter was so genuine and infectious that I got caught up in the moment, laughing aloud with him at the silliness of it all and at my instinct to blame my mischievous middle child, that I forgot to ask why he was systematically filling up my garbage cans with enormous shoes!  

The Exercise Game

Matt and the boys have started a new nightly routine: they call it "The Exercise Game." It's a "dude thing," which means no moms allowed, but I was privileged to get to observe tonight. I don't laugh out loud very often, so this was quite a treat for me!

The rules are pretty simple: draw a card from a deck and whatever number you get, that is the number of times you perform an exercise of your choice. Matt, Ben, and Mitchell take turns drawing cards and coming up with an exercise for them all to do.

Tonight, they did 21 different exercises. Don't think young boys can come up with that many different types of exercise? Well, they began with some normal sounding ones such as squats, leg-lifts, push-ups, and lunges, but then started getting a bit more creative. Ben's turns resulted in exercises named dinosaur leg lifts and pooping dogs, but at least the activity to go with them closely resembled a more traditional type of exercise.

Mitchell's turns got funnier and funnier (to me at least. The guys were all taking them quite seriously.) He invented exercises with names like breeps, proos, bleems, and blaxopes; and the corresponding actions to go with these names were even funnier. There were spin moves and jumps and kicks and flexing, always with claw-like fingers and sound effects. He'd draw his number card, invent his exercise, demonstrate it to the other two, and around the living room they'd go - mimicking Mitchell's every move, as if it was a perfectly normal exercise routine. It was hilarious!

The nightly exercise game is always followed by a glass of milk (to help the muscles grow, doncha know) and some good "dude talk." Oh, it was an entertaining evening.