I'll Come In When I'm Ready, Mom!

Matt and I were talking together about why this Halloween has been such a big deal for our big boys, when it never has been in the past.  Last year, in fact, we just ignored it altogether and they never even noticed!

We agreed that there are many reasons contributing to their excitement over this somewhat made-up holiday.  First, their school made a big deal and had a lot of activities and crafts and projects pertaining to it.  Second, they just LOVED the decorations all over the neighborhood, which were constant reminders of the holiday.  We regularly had to take "Halloween walks" over the last month, to see and re-see all the scary and silly decorations that our neighbors have gone a bit crazy with.  Thirdly, I think spooky and scary and silly are all things that just make sense to these two boys at the moment.  Fourthly, (and I think this is the main one), they are just finally at an age where a holiday actually means something.  They know it is coming, they are able to count down the days until it arrives, there are activities leading up to it, and, in this case, there are costumes to be worn and played with.  Not even for Christmases past have they had this much excitement leading up to the actual day.  I think they are just at that magic age where this sort of thing is simply perfect!

The magic culminated tonight as we suited up, met up with some friends from the neighborhood, and hit the sidewalks for some trick-or-treating.  What a great neighborhood we live in for kids.  Everyone was out participating, whether giving or receiving candy, and hardly any house was "closed" to the kids.  It only took a few blocks for the dark to settle and their bags to be full to overflowing and we headed home.

But for Mitchell, the best part was still to come!  He just LOVED manning the candy bowl here at home.  He sat out on the front doorstep with his strobe flashlight, a voice-distorting megaphone, and a giant bowl of candy, calling one and all to him for some Halloween treats!  Ben and Mitchell did it together at first, but Ben kept hearing the call of his candy upstairs, and decided he'd rather keep an eye on his own candy (and organize, sort, and stack it like Scrooge with his piles of gold) than keep sitting in the cold, supplying the stragglers with treats.

Mitchell was just in his element though and flagged trick-or-treaters down with style, shining his flashlight in their eyes, handing out giant handfuls of candy to each person, trying to convince adults to partake, laughing a crazy laugh into the megaphone, and dancing around holding himself as he refused to take a bathroom break.  I wonder how many parents got a kick out of the potty dance as Matt and I did.  We finally had to give Mitchell the dentist a five-minute warning for coming inside, and he turned around and said, "I'm not ready yet!  I'll come when I'm ready, mom!"  We stuck to our five-minute time limit, but he managed to get rid of most of that candy for us!

So it has been a fun fall season for us, thanks in part to our friends' and neighbors' decorative efforts, and Halloween came and went and left us all with belly aches.  Tonight was a blast for the kids, but I am so glad it is finally over!  Now I can take down the spider webs in their room, I can stop trying to "save" Mitchell's costume from certain destruction, and we can get on with preparations for more real and meaningful holidays.  

Part Puppy

I sometimes wonder if the stork brought me the wrong species of baby.  Based on his behavior, Jack often acts more like a puppy than a human.  For example: he LOVES to play fetch!  He even plays it all by himself!  He will throw a ball, then pounce after it on all fours, pick it up with his teeth, laugh a bit, then throw it again.  

And speaking of putting things in his mouth - the boy doesn't just hold things with his teeth or gnaw on a teething toy.  He puts ALL objects he can find into his mouth and really attempts to tear pieces off of it!  I have never observed him actually swallowing the chunks, but he really can rip things apart.  I have found bite marks in many toys and non-toys alike and even found completely shredded things, with a trail of pieces leading back to my little puppy.  

He also uses those magnificent teeth of his to bite me if he can and also uses them as an extra hand, since the two he has are used for getting around.  It is really so cute and quite puppyish when he comes crawling up to me with his little blankie in his mouth; big, round eyes looking up at me, begging me to pick him up.

He pees and poops about as much as a puppy as well and, just like with a puppy, I have to get up in the middle of the night every night to, well, not take him outside to poop (that's kind of a funny thought) but to change his poopie diaper.  

Ah, well.  Puppy or baby boy - he's pretty stinkin' cute and a constant source of laughter and happiness for the rest of us, despite his nightly middle-of-the-night-poops!

Shtarting To Shound Shilly

So far, I am nothing but pleased with the school year.  The boys and I are quite happy with how things are going - they are learning, having fun, and making friends.

I only have one complaint so far, and while it isn't the school's fault, I'm not really sure who specifically to blame it on, so I just say, "he picked it up at school."  Mitchell, who is normally a very clear annunciator and only has a few words he routinely pronounces incorrectly, has picked up a lisp!  Suddenly, he has replaced his "s" sounds with "sh" sounds.  I will finish my entry in Mitchell's new language.  

At firsht, I jusht tried to ignore thish new development.  After all, it'sh not like he doeshn't know how to shay hish "sh's" and needsh to be taught.  I figured it wash shomething one of hish friendsh wash doing and he wash jusht trying it out.  Well, it hash been a week or sho now and it ish shtarting to get on my nervesh.  Sho now, not only ish he talking like thish, but I correct him every time he doesh it, making it doubly annoying for ush all!  Hopefully, thish ish going to be a very short-lived experiment of hish.  I may jusht end up doing it myshelf if he doeshn't quit shoon!

Posing With Pumpkins

Why is it that we all want to take pictures of our kids with, on, or around pumpkins?  This time of year rolls around and we all travel as far as we need to to make our kids pose with this big, orange vegetable.  I suppose if there was such thing as a zucchini patch, we'd flock to that as well?

I realize the draw of these places is not just the pumpkins, but the family fun to be had there, but still, some of the poses I have seen (and taken pictures of myself!) of a kid and a pumpkin crack me up.  Nothing says "frame-worthy" like a picture of a kid on a giant vegetable.  I love it when parents (mothers mostly, I imagine) set up a whole bed of sorts amongst the pumpkins, complete with blankets and stuffed animals, for their infant to be properly posed and photographed.  I've also noticed that a lot of moms actually dress there kids like a pumpkin for these pictures too - kind of a "Where's Waldo" scenario, I suppose.  

I sometimes imagine what parents are thinking/saying as they scramble around the pumpkin patch, taking pictures of the produce: 

"Hey Ben, go hug that pumpkin!" 

"Ben, see if you can put it on top of your head!"  

"Matt, put Jack between those two pumpkins and then put one on his lap too so he can't get up so I can take his picture!"  

"Mitchell, peek out at me from behind that pile of pumpkins!"  

"Jack just fell down in between two pumpkins and is stuck with his legs in the air.  Can you reposition him and make him stop crying, please?  I haven't gotten the shot yet!"  

"Can't you all just sit and smile in the pumpkins for a few seconds while I take your picture?" "Hurry, take the picture of Baby Jack on top of this pile of gourds before he and the whole pile topple over!" 

"Honey, go ask that lady if she'll take a picture of us kissing while I hold a pumpkin!"  

"What do you mean, 'that's not a very safe place to put him,' it'll look great if he can just stay put!" 

"These pumpkins all look the same!  How do I decide which one to take a picture of!" 

Like I said, I am as guilty as the rest of you for these silly pictures, to the point of being disappointed in myself for not ending up with a picture worth framing somewhere in my house.  When I really think about it, how important is it in the end to have pumpkins in my pictures which are displayed all year 'round?  Not very.

Blame It On The Sun... This Time

I suspect many of you with children struggle with this same problem: a good picture of your whole family is difficult to come by!  I have many good pictures of each boy and even pictures of all three boys together, but precious few of all 5 of us together.  

There is always a reason why getting a decent picture of all of us is more of a dream of mine than a reality.  There are many many reasons, actually: I don't want other people handling my camera, it's a bad hair day for me so I don't want to be in the picture, Jack is asleep when I need him to be awake, Mitchell is in a "mood" and won't cooperate, Ben can't keep his tongue inside his mouth where it belongs, turns out someone had a booger sticking out of his nose, Matt is gone... you get the idea.  There are A LOT of reasons why getting a "keeper" is a rare occurrence around here.  Five people are just never on the same page!  

A couple weeks ago, we all went to a pumpkin patch, which, last year, yielded so many great pictures of my kids that I had high hopes for at least one good one of all of us.  Well, it turns out that this time, it was the sun that kept this from happening.  Normally, the sun is a help when it comes to taking pictures, but this time, it was a menace!  Everywhere I plopped the boys down for a picture, that sneaky sun shone right in their eyes!  Even candid shots were wrecked.  I have never wished the sun to go away before, but I was just praying for some cloud cover for just half an hour!  

Well, here are some examples of how our wonderful family shots turned out.  

As you can see, we never did get that "family shot" I was hoping for.  This time, it was the sun, next time, it will be something else.  I really should just give in and get some professional shots taken of us all, if for no other reason than for me to actually have a record of me even existing in my 20's, but they are so expensive and so much hassle to plan, prepare for, then agonize over which shots are best and worth so much of my money.  These pictures really are quite representative of our day anyways - it was way too bright and way too hot for the way we dressed!  I'm pretty sure we were all relieved when I finally gave up, put the camera back in it's bag, and headed home.

I did get a couple decent pictures of the boys though that I feel I should share after the terrible ones I have shown:

Oh, Barf...

I don't have many words to express how much I love to be thrown up on, so I'll let my picture do most of the talking.  However, with the intention of grossing you out as much as possible, I'd like to remind you that Jack no longer just "spits up" a little milk, his barfing is the real deal, folks!  This was a full meal, about an hour into digestion that went straight into my hair and down my cleavage, then slid down to rest under my shirt wherever it could find a stopping place.  

You know I'm a blog addict when my baby barfs on me and, rather than immediately cleaning myself and baby up, I run for my camera.  Something is wrong with me...

Trading Flab For Scab

Ew... Just writing the title to this blog makes me cringe a bit.  The word "scab" is just one of those gross-sounding words - to me, at least.  What is to like about a scab, other than that it means your body is healing itself?  Ok, that is a pretty good positive aspect of a scab, but I mean other than that, of course!  They are ugly, they itch, they beg to be picked off, and even if you don't pick it off, it often gets scraped off on accident.

Well, apparently, we don't all feel the same way about wounds and the scabs that follow.  As I was shaving my legs last night and having to maneuver yet again around the giant scabs running up my shins, I cursed my husband for the workouts that cause such ugliness.  Every time a scrape is finally healing up and the nasty scab is gone, he writes into my schedule more dead lifts and SCRAPE!  Off goes a chunk of skin on the front of my leg again!  

When I complain to him about this, reminding him that the point of doing this exercise in the first place is to have better looking legs, not uglier legs, he checks out the scrape and just says, "Looks good to me!"  When I ask him to clarify, he says something about how sexy these scrapes/scabs (and the scars that are surely forming) are because anyone who knows anything will see them and know that I am "seriously working out now" instead of messing around with some cardio (and really, according to him, I might as well just officially not try if that is going to be my only work-out anyways.)  

Apparently, these scrapes mean I have good form or something?  To me, trading flab for scab isn't quite what I had in mind.  Can't we come up with an equally effective exercise that spares my skin and doesn't leave me scarred?