Ninja Moves

It's been a long day. Packing stinks. My back hurts.

So when Ben whipped me in the arm with his goggles while demonstrating his ninja moves a little too close, I felt a very loud "Ouch!" was not only acceptable, but downright necessary.

So, in the end, thank you, Ben. Not only for the goggle-shaped welt on my arm, but for the much-needed excuse to yell loudly in my backyard for all to hear. I feel better now (despite the big welt, of course...)

Commando

Jack started a new trend in our house out of his dislike of wearing underwear. Now that he insists on "going commando," as he tells anyone who will listen, his big brothers think that sounds pretty good. They're suddenly questioning the need for underwear ever. It's quite the debate in our house and I admit, I can't think of many reasons they need to get one more article of clothing dirty every day. I support this movement from a laundry standpoint!

Except maybe with Mitchell. He has very little bottom to hold his pants up so now, instead of showing his underwear all the time, he's showing crack.

Today his buddy said to him, "Mitchell! Why don't you ever wear underwear?!" Mitchell gave him a super chill look and said, "Dude, I'm going commando. Don't you know? It's so much more comfy!"

His buddy got it. Commando is spreading.

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.

No Fair!

Mitchell is almost always entertaining.  He's smart.  He's funny.  He's goofy.  He asks rediculous questions.  He hops up and down when he's excited.  He will show even the mailman his treasures if he can trap him for long enough.

Today was no different.  A long boring car ride was spiced up a bit with the musings of Mitchell.  He asked me if I was tired and I answered that I was a little bit.  He offered to trade seats with me so I could rest a little and let him drive - "Mom!  I know how to drive!  I'm serious!  Give me a chance!"

I told him I wasn't quite that tired and also that he wasn't quite big enough to actually drive for real yet.  Thought that settled it.  Nope.

A few minutes later, a Mini Cooper drove by and Mitchell brightened up again: "Mom! That car is definitely smaller than ours!  I could drive that one for sure!  We really need to get one of those!"

He was so serious about the idea of a small car being for smaller people that it made me almost sad to tell him that no, he was still not old enough, even if he felt he was big enough.

Well, he did not care for that answer.  "Well that's not fair to all the kids out there who want to drive!"

That's so true, Mitchell.  Six-year-olds wishing to drive cars really get a tough break in life.

His Favorite Girl

I've spent enough time around kids, mine and other people's, to notice that when it comes to how they feel about the opposite sex, age has nothing to do with it.  Nor does the sex of the child.  They are either all about it or they find it embarrassing or even disgusting.

My boys fall somewhere between embarrassing and disgusting.  It's not that they don't like girls.  Far from it.  Some of Ben and Mitchell's closest friends are girls.  But if anyone even hints at the word "girlfriend," or raises an eyebrow when a girl gets flirty with them, or teases them in any way about girls, they get embarrassed and shush you.  Big time shushing.  And add in some serious eye-rolling too.  You get the picture. Ben more so than Mitchell, probably because Mitchell is just better at ignoring anything he doesn't like.  

But because they have been good-naturedly teased about it and just exposed to the whole idea that a friendship between a girl and a boy might someday have more involved that they don't quite get, they now use that knowledge as just one more thing to torment each other with.  

When they tire of more tried and true forms of pestering that start to loose their irritating effectiveness, they now toss in girlfriend comments.  Any time one of them wants to bug the other, they just claim some girl is his girlfriend and off they go!  

Jack doesn't get what all the fuss is about.  He is just recently even aware that girls are not just boys wearing girlish pink!  But because he listens to everything going on around him and soaks up all his brothers do like a sponge, he's jumping on the girlfriend wagon as well.  But he's all about it!

Riding in the car a couple days ago, he was playing with his phone.   Normally, he is playing a game on it, but this time, he was pretending to talk on it.  He was chatting away and I asked him who he was talking to and he said, "Oh, just my girlfriend."  I asked who his girlfriend was and he said, "Oh mom, it's you of course!  I'm talking to you because you are my girlfriend!  You are my favorite girl so you're my girlfriend."

He might be the sweetest boyfriend I've ever had.  I'll overlook his age and general lack of personal hygiene.  I'll be his girlfriend until he decides to break up with me.  

Girlish

As many of you know, we generally like to do things "dude style" around here. After all, one lone female is not enough to balance things out so I've let go of some of my more... optimistic hopes in raising kids: things like never having pee on the floor, drinking out of cups rather than straight from the carton or faucet, a neat and tidy yard free of all the random sticks from the entire neighborhood, wearing pajamas to bed rather than nothing, and peace and quiet at any time of the day. I'm dealing with those things. I'm adapting. And constantly picking up sticks.

As Jack gets older and smarter, he's picking up on and embracing dude style as well. But he has taken it to a new level by defining its polar opposite: girlish. Anything he suspects his big brothers would frown upon is labeled "girlish," like, "Mom, if I wear those red pants, its ok! It's not girlish!" Or, "I don't want you to snuggle me right now, mom, it's too girlish." A couple days ago when I asked him to talk on the phone to a loved one he ran away yelling, "I can't!! Talking on the phone is too girlish!!"

Good point, Jack. You win that one.

The Message

I am a light sleeper. I can't tune anything out, even in my sleep. So when my kids are out of bed while I'm in mine, they rarely surprise me. I hear their shuffling feet long before I see their sleepy (or not-so-sleepy) faces.

This morning, before the sun came up, I heard jack shuffling toward my room. So when he peaked in, I was ready. What do I mean by "ready?" I had pulled my covers over my head and pretended to be asleep still.

Jack was undeterred. He pulled the covers down and said in my face, "Mom... Wake up sleepyhead... I need to give you a message. I really need to give a message..."

Turns out his message was simply that he wanted to get out of bed and watch cartoons much too early. I was kinda hoping for a more original message. I've actually heard that one before. Quite a few times actually.