The Great Idea

Ben brought two of his buddies home with him from school today - the "playdate" I've been avoiding all year because, well... I prefer my kids to go play at someone else's house and usually succeed in making that happen when the idea of a playdate gets floated by me.

But today I decided, since Ben has been asking all year, I'd kill two birds with one stone and have two boys over at once.

And... it's raining.  Great.  What do I do with my three boys plus two more eight-year-olds for two hours in the house?

I was coming up with nothing in the idea department so I turned to them and asked what they'd like to do together.  Apparently, they had already been discussing and planning because Ben was quick to answer:

"Well, do you have any extra watermelons?  Because we were thinking we could take one up onto the roof and throw it off so we could watch it splat into a million pieces."  All 5 boys then began pleading with me to give them my "extra" watermelon and help them climb out onto the roof to pull off this grand scheme.

In the end, I had to tell them that it just wasn't going to work out because I only have the one watermelon and that was intended for them to eat.  They were a tad disappointed.  But they still ate an entire watermelon and seemed to enjoy just talking about how great it would have been if only mom had remembered to buy two watermelons instead of one.

War Paint

As I was getting dinner ready this evening, the boys began to trickle down from their upstairs activities.  First came Ben, then Mitchell, then... well... that was it.  Jack never trickled.

After a while, my curiosity got the better of me (plus it was time for dinner), so I went up to investigate.  I found him in my bathroom.  alone. Never a good sign.

Guesses?

I found him with two tubes of mascara, globby wand in each hand, brushing his hair and painting his face like war paint.  He grinned at me and said, "Look mom!  It's pretty like you!"

We let him wear it for dinner.  Nothing like giggling boys to make dinner stretch on even longer, but it was worth it.  He is a stinker... but hilarious.

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...

Anyone Seen Jack and Why Do I Hear Water Running?

That title is a bit of a mouthful, but it perfectly describes the picture I am about to show you. I almost don't need to give you any details... but I will!

A couple days ago, Jack was sitting on the living room floor, busy stripping from the waist down. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, "I need to go potty! Taking pants off!"

Well, great! As I neared him to help with the process, he put his hand up and said, "No help, mom. I do it self!"

Even better! Although I knew this could make a slight mess, I admired his determination and decided it was worth it for him to learn to do this without me. I stepped back and let him finish undressing, walk his naked buns into the bathroom, and shut the door. Just before he shut it completely, he stuck his little face through the crack in the door and said, "Stay mom. Need privacy."

I must have been blinded by my excitement over his desire to do this alone. I normally would have immediately been suspicious by all his attempts to be alone in the bathroom with the door shut.

Not only did I not get suspicious, I actually forgot about him in there, as I got busy doing things with the other boys, making dinner, etc.

About 10 minutes later, I noticed the sound of water running. I immediately though "Mitchell!" but he was with me. The next thing I said was, "Has anyone seen Jack?" We opened the door to the bathroom and there he was, naked from the waist down still, toilet lid open, pee in the toilet (and not on the floor yay!) standing on the stool by the sink with a sink overflowing with bubbles and an empty soap dispenser in his hand.

I do have to hand it to him for going pee all on his own. How did I miss his intentions though, when I know how badly he wants to play with that soap? It did keep him occupied and out of my hair for a good 10 minutes though. I considered pretending I didn't see it at all...

The Christmas Room

I know many of you love Christmas decorations. You love to get the boxes out as early as you can and for a month, (or more for some of you if you can manage it somehow) you love seeing your house covered from top to bottom in lights, flowers, wreaths, reindeer, candles, trees, fake snow, snow globes, santas, snowmen, and all manner of twinkly, fragrant, red, green, gold, and silver decorations.

I am not one of those people. I am, unfortunately, a bit... decorationally-challenged. I love to see someone else's beautiful home decorated well. I actually like tasteful outdoor decoration (when I say tasteful, anything that requires its own pump to keep it up is most definitely NOT included!) And I have a handful of items I love inside my house: a tree and my nativity set are the main ones.

But in my own home, most Christmas decoration is just festive clutter - something else to buy and dust and straighten. I, find myself cringing as I pull out the boxes thinking, "Man... where in the world am I going to put this stuff that will be out of the way, won't tempt little fingers to explore it, and won't tempt me to clean the house every single day?" And I have to put it all away again in a month!

This year, I found the perfect solution! We decided to put up our tree in a room that was formerly the "fort room." This room has not been used for anything really since the boxes were finally all flattened and stored. But we did some rearranging and now this room has some comfy furniture, a beautiful Christmas tree, and almost ALL my decorations! Christmas kinda threw up in there!

I love this solution because it gives us a Christmasy place to enter when needing a little bit more Christmas in our day. The boys love it because it is how they would love EVERY room to look!

We are suddenly moving our favorite books in there and there is now a bin of blocks in there. Ben does his daily reading curled up under a blanket in there. The ornaments on the tree have become their new favorite toys and they all have names and occupations and keep having tree climbing contests (the ornaments, not the boys.)

I am so thankful to be in this house and be able to have an out-of-the-way-yet-still-convenient room to make-over in this way. And I have to say, we are all having so much fun with the Christmas room, I find the decorations slowly leaking out of there and finding homes in other rooms. Perhaps the joy it all brings my boys is worth the inconvenience of clutter for me.

And candles really are pretty...

No Dumping

We all have things that drive us crazy when it comes to our kids. One of mine is dumping.

I hate it when my kids enter that stage where they feel the need to simply dump things. A nice bin of Legos? Let's dump it in a pile! And here is a separate bin of dinosaurs! Let's dump it and add it to the mix! Oooh... puzzles! those would look better dumped out into a pile of pieces!

Play dates are especially stressful to me as it seems my baby boy is not the only one who enjoys this. I turn into the crazy, mean mom who keeps lecturing other boys on proper ways to play, trying to force them to clean up after themselves, or, at least actually play with what they have dumped out. Some kids really do only dump, but never actually play with the dumped toy. Like nails on a chalkboard...

My older two boys have tried it and learned their lesson. They no longer dump without permission. Sometimes, you need the bin of Tinker Toys dumped out to find that piece you are looking for. I get it. We do it. They also always play with the dumped toys afterwards.

Jack, however, is still learning. He still desires to dump his bin of dinosaurs out before he plays with his bin of cars. This was the age I struggled to teach my older two boys, so I have hope that Jack will quickly learn not to irritate mom in this way as well.

Am I not allowing my boys to experience the sheer joy of dumping? Perhaps. I just can't stand dumping for the sake of dumping.

What drives you crazy?