A New Way To Fight

Ah, summer... So much fun in so many ways, but so much time... together.  I like to try to insist my three boys NEVER fight or bicker, but somehow, I seem to be unsuccessful in my dream of peace and quiet so far...

Don't get me wrong, my boys are buds.  For the most part, they just love having each other around.  They share a lot of the same interests and when forced to choose between playing together more civilly or separating, they always choose to stay together.

But they bicker.  They push each other's buttons.  They pester.  Today, Ben even proclaimed, "Mom, one of the things that steals my joy is when Mitchell pesters me!  And also not being able to go to the pool..."

I thought I had seen all the ways they get at each other, but this afternoon, I witnessed a new one: they fought through drawing pictures.

As I came into the kitchen, they were right in the middle of a big fight with, yes, pictures!  Ben was drawing Mitchell crashing in his spaceship, to which Mitchell responded by scribbling Ben out of his picture.  Ben retaliated by putting a dress on Mitchell, which really got Mitchell mad so he drew dog poop on Ben's head.  Ben made a club list that he pointed out did NOT have Mitchell's name on it.  Mitchell can't write very well yet, so he just wrote Ben's name and scribbled all over it.

This went on for a while until Mitchell was drawing on Ben's arm and then ended up knocked to the floor.

Ah, summer... Guess we'll go to the pool after all!

Save the crocodile!

Today, on our first official day of summer break... we ran out of things to do.  It was just so hot outside and the big boys insisted that since they have "been so busy" all year, they wanted to do nothing today.  

So while Ben and Mitchell "did nothing" together - which consisted of building a massive castle out of Legos, pushing Ugly Dolls around on the vacuum, and making potions in the sink - Jack kept getting in their way so they banished him.  He was forced to play with me.  

No matter to Jack.  He tromped into the kitchen, pulled out a few utensils, and proceeded to make up a good game of "Save the Crocodile!"  How, you ask, does one play this game?  Well, one person has to be the crocodile (my hand) and Jack has to be both Kevin, who is trying to hurt the crocodile, and at the same time, God, who is trying to save the crocodile.  

At one point, Kevin got in his van and ran over the crocodile.  This necessitated a savior - "Don't worry, crocodile!  God will save you!  He's gonna save you!"

I like this game.  I get to sit (or lay...) on the couch while Jack kills and revives my hand/crocodile over and over again.  The only downside is that he sometimes gets a bit rough in his multiple attempts at killing my hand... I mean, crocodile.

Boonts!

Jack has been making quite a bit of progress in his speech over the last month. I can no longer measure his vocabulary in neat and easy terms such as "Yeah, he has about a dozen words." I can no longer list all his well-used words off the top of my head, and I am not the only person who can understand his words anymore.

Despite his advances, the last week or so, he has begun adding his own flair to his words, that are a funny but frustrating development. He is adding a "ch" or "ts" to the end of many of his words. One of his most-used words, fan, has become "fanch." Hands have become "hants." Spoon = "foonch." Even his brother has gotten a new name - "Bents."

My new favorite evolution though is his new word for balloon: boonts!

Yesterday, I bought a bag of water balloons and they kept us busy all day. I must have filled and tied hundreds of balloons. Keeping up with three boys who can explode them faster than I can fill them keeps a mom occupied (and more than a little wet.) Every time Jack needed a new balloon filled, he would hand me an empty one and say, "boonts! boonts! boonts!" until I finished filling it for him.

Now half a dozen "boonts!" for every balloon I filled for him equals A LOT of the same word over and over again!

It must have been cute and catchy enough though, because the rest of us eventually started calling the water balloons "boonts" as well, and now they big boys say it without even using a baby voice or laughing. That is just what they are calling them now, apparently.

Today promises to be another hot one and with daddy out of town, I think we will probably use up the rest of our "boonts" (and possibly the rest of my sanity as well...)

Dirt, Dude Style

Summer is all about getting sweaty and dirty when you're a "dude." At least, that is what my boys tell me when I ask how they get so dirty.

They tell me I shouldn't worry about it too much, it's "dude style" to get dirty and make messes.

Mitchell can't quite decide if dirty feet is a good thing or a bad thing though. He has a certain pair of shoes that he LOVES because they are exactly like daddy's and he gets to slip them on with no socks, but they also make his feet quite stinky and sweaty. Every time he kicks them off, he has to sit down and clean out between each of his toes with his finger. It is so funny to see him sitting on the floor, foot pulled up into his lap, methodically wiping the dirt out from between each of his toes.

The other day, he kicked his shoes off in the car though and began his cleaning ritual right there in his seat next to Ben. Ben was severely grossed out and said, "Ew, Mitchell! Stop taking your stinky shoes off and stop touching your stinky toes! Don't even think about touching me now!"

Mitchell didn't even look up from his grooming, just said, "Ben, my feet are dirty and I'm cleaning them 'dude style'."

I am constantly getting schooled as to what exactly "dude style" means. Apparently, it includes both having dirty feet and also cleaning dirty feet with your fingers in the car.

Quit Being Such A Baby!

Summer is suddenly here, and with hot summer sun comes the dreaded sunscreen, unfortunately. I actually got busted by the boys' pediatrician last week when on our very first hot and sunny day of the year, she asked Ben if his mom puts sunscreen on him when he plays outside, to which he answered, "No! We don't use sunscreen!" I had to interrupt to explain that we do actually use sunscreen, just hadn't gotten it out for the summer yet.

Sunscreen... yuck! Slimy and smelly and always a pain. Yesterday, as I was spraying my kids down with it, they started whining about how it was getting in their eyes. They were making quite a big deal about how painful it was, like there is any easy way to get sunscreen on three wiggly boys. I told them to knock it off and quit being such babies. It's just a little sunscreen!

Well, it was already very sunny and hot out first thing in the morning, so I smeared some of the yucky stuff all over my face before I went for my run. Not 5 minutes into my run, I was already sweating from the heat and the sunscreen began running into my eyes. Yowzers! I was wiping and rubbing my eyes the rest of my run! It actually does hurt and I had tears running down my face from how much my eyes were watering! Who's the baby now?

I am going to have to be more purposeful about using the tear free stuff on our faces from now on.