Fire-Camp Hostess

I love campfires-  the smell of campfire takes me back to some of my earliest memories.  My Dad was always building fires- in winter to keep warm and in summer for the best delight of camping. There were marshmallow roasts and wood hunts, and Mom teaching us how to magically spin water in buckets.  Camp fires bring back a million memories of the camps I went to and the camps I worked at. Melodies of "Puff the Magic Dragon," and "One Tin Soldier," still haunt my memory when I smell the smoke that hangs heavy around a damp fire pit. It's easy float back 15 years when the sun sets and the firelight dances on the faces around the fire to the days when I would scan over 200 faces hoping for a glimpse of who would later become my husband, hanging out with his group of campers for the night.  There are visions of the "Sin-Box" skit with Kris Sipe whining about his lack of macaroni and sore fingers as I tried to play along with, "Jesus Loves Me- Alleluia" and the "Rock."  Campfires have always been one of the highlights of my life, and one of my favorite fall traditions with my own kids.

      This Thanksgiving was no exception.  I bribed all three of my children into watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade with peppermint candy canes and Jr. Mints (sad, I know!) I spent the afternoon making blueberry pie, stuffing, mashed potatoes from scratch and roasting a turkey breast.  My oldest trudged down the stairs and moaned, "Do we have to eat all this yuck?"  My children are full of gratefulness (In Jesus' Name!)  "Yes, you GET to eat all of this yuck!"  I tried to cheerfully answer.  Braden wasn't impressed, and looked at the floor.  "I'm bored," he declared. Thinking quickly, I promised a Thanksgiving campfire.   "OOOOOOhhhh, can we have chips- you know the blue chips and salsa?"  "Absolutely,"  I answered thinking..."why did I bother cooking at all?"  After a tasty dinner (at least Chad and I agreed on this point) we headed off to the backyard to start gathering wood. 

      Ashlyn has renamed our campfire tradition to "fire-camp."  Despite being corrected several times, she adamantly insists on calling it a "fire-camp,"  so we just go along with it.  The kids loaded up the pit, adding special pieces of rotten bark, damp wood and leaves- ahhh perfect fire starting material.  It was a Thanksgiving miracle that we even got it started!   Ashlyn  remembered her bag of "porcupines"  (AKA pine cones)  and added them to the special fire mix.  Suddenly, she announced she needed a drink.  After a while Chad looked at me and inquired, "How  big of  a drink was that girl getting."  As if on cue, Ashlyn appeared at the crest of the back yard carrying a hostess tray with drinks for everyone!  They were specialized too- lime bubbly water for me, Coke for Chad and water in water bottles for the boys (Caed's favorite way to drink water.)  Chad and I looked at each other and teared up- our five year old was serving us- thinking of us, and her brothers... now that's something to be thankful for!  

     Here's to more fire-camps in the future-cheers!

      

I'm Raising a Hampster

Who wants to eat stuff you don't like... I don't, and I suppose my kids are no exception to the obvious. Every person handles their distaste for certain flavors in different ways. There's Braden who tries to swallow his distaste with gulps of milk (I know, I know... he shouldn't...Like I haven't told him...) Oh and we've paid for that behavior. I can't say how truly disgusting it is to have your kid regurgitate his dinner on your counter... grrrrrrr. Then you have Ashlyn, who takes small bites, acts super sweet and innocent, then throws the food out when you're not looking, or my other favorite, "accidentally" drops it on the floor, where the two dogs "accidentally" lick it... But the oddest behavior in the family by far comes from Caed's choice on the subject of handling his distaste for certain flavors.
Lately, he's been packing "unpreferred" morsels into his left cheek, and holding them there for ridiculous amounts of time. Most of the time it's pretty obvious, from the cheek bulge that he still has some chewing to go. But one night I told him to brush his teeth, and he admitted that he couldn't because he still had a jaw full of food. Last night he was eating tortillini and green beans. He really wanted the bubble gum ice cream his sister was already savoring, so he shoved his last bite in on top of one that had been currently stored. I really can't describe how ridiculous this looked- so I video taped it. For lack of a better description however, it seems that I am raising a hampster!

Bat Rope

One of the "perks" of tutoring kids that are older than mine are hand-me-downs. I have one mom who has given my children almost as much as I have... and judging by the piles around my house as we move back in, is no small amount!

Our latest treasure haul included old Batman and Robin movies. (you know the old "kabow," "BAM," ones...) I have to say they are quite hilarious, especially as they describe the secret "bat-technology" of the day. One of the opening scenes includes Batman and Robin flying off to check out a suspicious ship in the "Batcopter." As they hover over the treacherous waters, Batman goes in for a closer check on his trusty rope ladder, suspended from the bottom of the Batcopter. This in itself is completely insane, but when the mechanical shark jumps out of the water and chomps onto Batman as he is clinging to his rope ladder... well, lets just say we were all laughing to the point of tears. Thank God Batman carried his all important "shark repellent" in tow!

So what does this really have to do with my life? Well lets just say that it must have made an impact on the kids, because the other night at dinner-the movie reference was appropriately used. We were eating cheese quesadillas and Braden had a long cheese string hanging from one end. Ashlyn very observantly stated, "Hey Braden, look, you have a bat rope!" Well they thought that was the funniest thing since the tootie bags. Now there have been several references to bat rope, when eating burritos, nachos and of course pizza. The next time you experience that "cheese string," remember the bat rope. And if you have time, be sure to watch some of those old Batman episodes, that will be sure to make you smile.

I AM Your Sweetheart!

"Ashy took my power ranger, and dat's not f-A-ir!" Caedmon pouted. (Insert drama and a bit of southern accent...)

My mother used to tell me life wasn't fair. Which, although true, used to enrage me. Well, ok, sometimes it still makes me pretty mad. I remember thinking it was her job to make it fair- fair for me. So I guess I shouldn't be at all surprised when my children get a little miffed when they perceive life's events as unequal.

Of course it's not always about toys or art supplies not being shared. Lately the "fairness" issue has been causing some issues when giving out compliments. "Ashlyn, thank you so much for getting your shoes on without asking. I really appreciate that!"
"I put MY shoes on! I feel like you don't love me anymore because you didn't say that you liked me putting on my shoes..." Braden protests.
"I det MY shoes mommy. Am I being a good boy, mommy?" Caed inquisitively asks in that sweet still-toddler voice.
"Yes, yes of course, Caed, and Braden you didn't even give me a chance to say I appreciated your obedience..."
It's CRAZY- you can't say anything, unless it applies to all three at the same time. So I should have seen this coming...

Today we were off to the store. Chad was chauffeuring, (thank God, I think I would choose to be driven around at all times if possible, especially when monitoring children.) I digress. Ashlyn was sitting so nicely in the seat behind me. She looked so beautiful with her smocked Fourth of July dress on and her silky blonde hair pulled up with tiny heart clips. I couldn't resist a comment. "Ashlyn, you are my sweetheart." I cooed in her direction.

Caedmon, sitting across from her took this very personally. He ripped apart his "Octopus Pime" transformer limb to limb, chucked it on the floor and in a deep, growly, angry voice declares, "I AM your SWEETHEART."

Chad and I looked at each other and started cracking up. "Yeah, Caed, you are my sweetheart too!" I said through muffled laughter.

Like I said before, My mom used to tell me life wasn't fair. She also used to say, "One day Sara, you are going to have a child, and they are going to be JUST LIKE YOU." Well, she was right. The only thing she failed to mention is that I didn't just have one, I had THREE strong willed, black and white, wonderfully competitive, beautiful children. And I couldn't love them more.

Tootie Bags and Germ Dogs

I love when kids come up with their own names for things. Sometimes they do it by switching words around and sometimes they don't know what to call things, so they just make up their own terms... which ultimately ends up making us non-creative adults giggle...which is also nice!

About two weeks ago, Daddy agreed to buy Transformer toys for the boys. Braden excitedly announced he wanted Optimus Prime, the good-guy leader. When we asked Caed which one he wanted, he began jumping up and down and screamed, "Octopus Pime!!!" What is even funnier about this, is the same reference was made in a Wal-Mart commercial later in the week, which Caed hadn't seen.

For the last three weeks I have been driving to Durham to take the kids to swimming lessons. It's about half and hour away, so they have plenty of time to watch a movie. Last week, they were watching Return of the Jedi. One day, before we left Caed walked into my room and said, "Hey Mommmy, 'member when we watched Star Hors? Yeah, can we watch dat again?"
I just had to hear him say that again, so I asked him what he wanted to watch, and he very clearly stated, "STAR HORS!" Well, Princess Leia was dressed a little racy.

Chad's Birthday was yesterday. The kids had worked hard all week creating water color paintings to frame and give him as gifts. They were very proud of themselves and definitely thought that Daddy should have a "party." I indulged... off to the store to get party hats and Transformers tableware, and of course a party favor. As my eyes perused the party aisle at Target, I spotted the perfect favor. Last night as we doled out the ice cream cake, loaded with extra heath bar and double fudge, the kids were thrilled to drink milk out of their umbrella straws and Bumblebee cups. That's when I whipped out the favors...Braden no more than laid eyes on his when he squealed with delight, "I LOVE TOOTIE BAGS!!!" AKA- whoopie cushions. he he he. The rest of the evening was filled with peels of laughter as all three children continuosly inflated and relieved their own mini-tootie bag. What a crack up.

This morning I awoke to Caed throwing himself on top me and sliding off the bed due to the pillow I had propped on one side of me- over and over. Ashlyn had climbed into bed on the other side of Chad and was passed out (thank God for king size beds!) After waking Chad, myself and Ash, Caed continued to entertain for attention. At one point he disappeared. He returned with a dog toy in his mouth- gross! Ash looked at him and declared, "EEEWWW- Caed you're getting GERM-DOGS!" And of course she meant - dog germs. Ya gotta write this stuff down, because although funny, the good stuff seems to fade too quickly.

Cute Caedisms

Tonight I was whispering to Caed and he looked at me and said, "Why are you talking little to me?"

This morning Chad mentioned wishing we could go to the beach. Caed overheard him and said, "I want to go at the beach too, not swimming lessons!"

A couple of weeks ago we were driving down the road and Caed was really tired and had dozed off. Braden was asking me some questions from the back of the Jeep. I guess we were talking really loud, because Caed woke up and said very groggily, eyes half closed..."Shut your mouth mommy!" And promptly fell back asleep.

We've been driving to Durham every day for swimming lessons. On highway 85, there are several bridges. Grandma Brown taught the kids to throw their hands up in the air to "hold up the bridge," when she came to visit several years ago, and they still do this. Caed actually demands that everyone in the car hold up all the bridges. Well, this week they added "throw, throw, throw," while wildly pretending to throw things past the bridges. When I asked Braden what they were throwing, he told me, "the road signs, you wouldn't want them to fall off the bridges and crush our car!" Caed of course doesn't quite say his "th" sound, so now he rides down the freeway yelling, "Hold up the bwige, frow, frow, FROW!"

I Think We Might Be Losing It...

Have you ever asked your kids to do something and they respond with the same speed and intention as an inanimate object? Yeah, me too. This behavior is most dominant at bed time. There is something about the day winding down and the idea that they are going to spend time by themselves, in the dark that brings out the most stellar qualities in young children including, but not limited to: whining, complaining, manipulating, crying, yelling, demanding, etc. That's exactly how a night about a week and a half ago went. It was preceded by an event that I believe I could have predicted, but just didn't take the time to do something about... until it was too late.

I was upstairs, working on the computer and the kids were playing in the guest room. This really was my fault. I had given Braden a "secret" hiding place in the guest room for his lego bionicle pieces, to keep them safe from Caed. The secret lasted for about three days before Braden showed his siblings where all of his "treasure" was hidden. Now, I had put some other items in that room that I thought would be safe because prior to the lego storage, the kids never spent any time in this room. Of course the kids were all building up there once the "cat was out of the bag" and that's when I heard an enormous crash. That's never good...and I knew exactly what it was...the chest of drawers, the hermit crab aquarium, and Braden's large Lego set. I went tearing down the back stairs and up the front ones where I was greeted in the hallway by three terrified children all covering their hinies and Caed announcing, "Don't 'pank me!" over and over. The sight was ridiculous- thousands of legos scattered, eight drawers dumped out, a glass aquarium over-turned, hermit crabs scurrying, and blue, yes CAROLINA BLUE sand all over my carpet. The kids helped clean up, what they could. I ended up steam cleaning the carpet.

We took a break for dinner, and luckily my tutoring student canceled. I got back to cleaning the carpets and finished up after putting the kids to bed (and yelling at them to stay there about 100 times) at about 9:00pm. After dumping the vacuum and steam cleaners downstairs, I plopped down to read my email in the TV room. 10 seconds later I heard the kids messin' on the stairs. So I start in with yelling at them- again, "Get in BED!" But, this continued on for several minutes. Out of frustration and exhaustion, I stormed down the stairs, and sure enough, Ashlyn is just standing there in the dark. "What do you WANT?!? I nearly screamed in her face. (no response) "You know, I have kissed you, hugged you, sung to you and now I'm gonna BUST YOUR BUTT if you don't get in bed right NOW!" (no response, and I'm getting angrier...) "Alright missy..." I growled, as I reached for the kitchen light..."that's IT!" I flipped the light on to grab my daughter and haul her back to her room, only to find myself screaming at... the VACUUM CLEANER that I had lazily dumped at the bottom of the stairs. Oh well, there goes the mother of the year award...again.

Now if that isn't story enough in itself, it actually gets better! I slowly trudged back up to the bonus room shaking my head, half laughing and half almost crying. Chad got a good laugh out of the whole situation (as I am sure anyone reading this has.) I sat down again, to finish reading my email when I start hearing the kids playing on the stair rails. I'm thinking to myself, "You have GOT to be kidding me." So I start my yelling threats again from one side of the house to the other..."GET YOUR HINIES IN BED NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" But, they just keep it up. Finally, I just asked Chad to go take care of the kids. Now, Chad was really irritated. It was almost 10pm by now. He had come home to a huge mess, a stack of drawers in the kitchen and a really pissed off momma...and we still hadn't even gotten a chance just to talk. So Daddy came stormin' down the stairs. "WE SAID GET-IN-BED!!!!" he roared like thunder. And then it was silent... I called down to Chad, asking what was going on...and then finally I heard him laughing. He came back upstairs and replied, "Yeah, Sara, that wasn't the kids making all of that noise...it was the hermit crabs! (Remember they had been relocated to the kitchen and had no bedding, because it was all inside the vacuum cleaner... so their shells were clanking on the glass, which sounded like the kids running their toys across the stair rails.) Oh, for pete's sake... here we were yelling at the vacuum and the hermit crabs, and all that time our kids were sound asleep! Do you see why I think we might be loosing it?

Daddy, I DIED...

Memorial Day Weekend wasn't one to forget this year... well who could between the neighbor battles over the bio-hazard sign in one yard and the Radon Remediation truck trailer parked in front of the other... then there was the Taste of Durham, shopping for shoes...errr I mean "SKETCHERS," the Dollar Store Adventure, Disolving our 18 month contract with DR Horton (for now...) Fort Fisher Aquarium and the Beach, which brings me to my title.... 

We did plenty to keep our spinning minds busy this weekend.  I am still waiting to hear about a teaching position, the settlement from the title company and of course, a sale on our current home.  So as listed above, we did just that.  On Sunday we went to Fort Fisher State Beach.  It was warm and the water wasn't too bad, but the wind made it a little too chilly for my liking once wet.  Of course, that wasn't going to deter the children!  It's nuts to watch three children, who can't swim in the ocean.  Even when you're standing over the top of them, the surf can be so unpredictable... and that's exactly what happened.  Chad had camped out a few feet off the surf and was monitoring two children in the sand, while I watched one in the water at a time.  We rotated through so everyone was happy.  It was Caed's turn and he had gotten quite confident in his ability to jump in the surf without holding my hand...then BAM...his feet went flying out from under him, a wave came and rolled him over and a look of terror swept across his face.  I quickly grabbed his arm and stood him up.  His hair was disheveled and small goosebumps began to form from the wind whipping across his tiny body.  He didn't say anything, and I tried not to make a big deal out of it.  "Love you Caed," I whispered and steered him back to his Daddy.  As he got closer, he ran to Chad and said, "Daddy, I died in the ocean!"  How does a two year old even know.  Later, when I asked him what he told his Daddy, he replied, "I told him I died in the ocean, but Mommy saved me!"  That's the way I like it, him remembering that I saved him. 

Caed went on to have a great day playing, but he held my hand a lot, and stayed very close.  We enjoyed all of our other escapades, and are happy to report that the Radon Remediation trailer has been moved.  As for the bio-hazard sign, not yet, but she did run over the realty sign on the corner of her lot! Ya win some and ya loose some.... HA

"Dats not right!"

So today, I was helping Caed put his shorts back on. Right leg in, left leg in and hoist. There we go... now why is that so tight. Then a waddle waddle here and a waddle waddle there... "Hey Mommy...dat's not wite!" OOOPS, both legs down the same hole! I have to say I'm glad it happened just because it was so cute to here him say that!

Other Caedisms include "Kisses" where upon I must stop everything I'm doing and stoop down low for him to kiss the side of my check (I love that, well except when the snot comes with it.) There's always the dinner gate too. He will randomly shout, "Close my gate!" and clamp down his hands and mouth, and will not open his mouth for another bite until you say, "Open your gate!" Then giggling, he will open both hands and his mouth. If you put a bite of food in, he won't chew it until you order him to, "close his gate." It remains cute, only because he does it every once in a while, and it doesn't go on for the entire meal. Caed likes to parrot his brother, and when he feels slighted he crosses his arms, furrows his brow and says in a mean growly tone, " I so very mad," or "I so super mad," or "I so angry." Which it's pretty easy to tell him you love him anyway because again, he's just SO cute!

Braden has completely amazed me over the past several months. Two weeks ago he came home with his first spelling list (in Kindergarten...crazy!) and he aced it. That was impressive, but even more so, his handwriting looks like it came straight out of the manual! He's reading books on his own and even offered to read part of the devotion the other day. I can't help but think about working for TWO years to try to help him learn to write his name ( I HATE the letter B!....) Guess it's a good thing I wasn't set on homeschooling!

Ashlyn still sings her "Jesus" songs, which are made up and sometimes involve the people or items in the room and other times incorporate her thoughts on how people should act and what might happen if they don't behave, and always end up some crazy statement like, "Jesus, You Rock!" Hilarious. She still is my snuggle bug at 4.5, but can get her feelings hurt and turn into what I refer to as "Miss Sassafras." I enjoyed taking her to see my father graduate in DC last weekend, and she is already wondering if we can go back and do it all again on Saturday. Oh, if only I had that much energy!

Smells Like Chad

I don't often take my kids to the mall. It's usually an experience I want to forget, and so do most of the other shoppers around us. But, I had to take back some items to AE and yesterday was as good as any other to brave the circumstances. I started with all kinds of bribes: biscuits for breakfast, a visit to the playground, trying out all of the coin operated contraptions, throwing pennies in the fountain and of course the delayed bribe of ice cream "later." As the time came for the stores to actually open, we began walking towards AE. As we walked along in front of Abercrombie, Ash stuck her nose up in the air and started sniffing. "Hey Mom," she announced, "it smells like Chad." Well, it kinda did. Not exactly his scent, but somewhat familiar. I laughed out loud. Abercrombie's doors hadn't even opened yet, but their cologne sure let everyone know they were there. Thank God "Chad" doesn't wear it so thick. That little girl is hilarious...as if she ever goes around calling her daddy "Chad!"

Oh, and as a side note, the shopping went ok, aside from the two little angels that I sometimes call my children ramming the front doors of AE when they felt like we had waited long enough for them to open. The lady in front saw us, but I swear she waited until every other store in the mall was open before she actually opened up. I think she was hoping we would go away. When she actually opened the door, I apologetically mentioned that he (Caed) really just wanted to get in. To which she replied (to Caed), "well do you have any money?" I was quick to answer, "No, but his Mommy does..." Whatever. (I have to stop saying that, Ashlyn actually responded "whatever" to me this morning when I asked her to pick up her markers...yikes...) And, surprisingly after we got into the store they entertained themselves with "captain hooks" (aka: dress hangers) "ya- ya- ya" and climbing into the middle of the racks. The good news is that I actually got some new underwear, which means I can toss out the ones with holes. Always lookin' for the up side!

Extra Digits, Throat Possums, and Kissing Fairies

The last week has been quite busy between tutoring extra hours as the end of school approaches and Chad being in Minnesota for five days. Friday we had a follow up appointment to re-x ray Braden's arm. Thank God there are no breaks and the ugly bruising is subsiding! Chad had his own visit to the dermatologist, where he was going to have a small wart removed from his finger. When I asked him how his visit went, he dropped a shocker on me, revealing that instead of having a wart, he indeed had another digit growing out of the side of his finger! (I'm NOT joking!!!) They had to surgically remove the thing! What the #@%&*? A couple of years ago he informed me that the dentist had told him he was "more highly evolved" due to the fact that he had no bottom wisdom teeth... and now he's self generating new fingers... WHO AM I MARRIED TO???

In addition to the very busy week, we all came down with some kind of nasty throat-sinus-cough crap... perfect timing for my job fair on Saturday morning, where I had to compete with a hundred people in a loud, echoing high school gym with almost no voice- whatever... I digress...At any rate, after a day of driving to Durham and then driving around in the car wrapped in a down blanket while our house was being showed, coming home and basically passing out, waking up intermittently feeling like my throat was on fire all night long, we went out to get some throat drops. I had gotten goldfish for the kids and Braden offered some to Chad. Chad told him "No thank you, I have a throat lozenge in my mouth." About five minutes later, as we pulled out of the shopping center Braden says, "Hey Dad, can I see your throat possum?" I knew exactly where he got it from, but Chad said, "You want to see what?" Braden very seriously answered, "Your throat possum..." I was laughing so hard I went into a coughing fit that just about choked me. "Your throat LOZENGE...you know that kinda sounded like POSSUM when you say it fast..." I answered. I love a good laugh!

Then last night before bed time, Braden let me pull out his front tooth. I have to figure out a way to post pictures on this blog, because he is SO cute with that front tooth missing! We read the story Tooth Fairy Rules and I gave him a special tooth fairy pillow with a box to put his tooth in. (Last year, when he lost his first two teeth, he swallowed the first one and the second one almost got lost too...) So I thought I had solved this problem. Of course when the tooth fairy went to get his tooth, and the lovely picture of Iron Man Braden had drawn for her, inviting her for a play date and signed "LOBE BRADEN," the tooth was missing! I think Ashlyn must have gone to look at it after they were supposed to be in bed and it's probably on the floor in there somewhere. Anyway, the tooth fairy had mercy and left quarters in the empty box. This morning, the kids came flying into our room where Braden announced, "I do believe in the tooth fairy! Ashlyn told me all about her daughters, the kissing fairies who come and give you kisses while you are sleeping. I think they were in my room last night!" What a great imagination. Ashlyn also informed me that the tooth fairy's name is Karen! She cracks me up.

Brunch for Two...

This morning I was heating up left over pizza for breakfast, when Ashlyn caught wind of what I was up to. "I WANT PIZZA!" she screamed with delight. (Never mind the fact that she had already had a stellar breakfast of salami and cinnamon muffin...don't ask.) I raced off to try to finish cleaning for the showing we were supposed to have in an hour. As I grabbed all of my freshly ironed shirts (I'm so proud of myself...) I turned around in the TV room to see Caed and Ashlyn dining on top of the sub woofer. She had taken the liberty of getting a glass plate out of the dishwasher, used a fork to pull the pizza out of the toaster oven, and bring it up to share with her brother, who was completely delighted for pizza to magically appear at 9:30 in the morning!

Oh No You Didn't!

This phrase could apply to so many situations from the past few days... so where do I begin? Hmmmmm... how about with the most recent incident. Tonight I had two hours of tutoring at our house. I started talking to the kids at 7am about how I expected them to act while I taught. "Remember, Daddy's not going to be here... you HAVE to be quite... NO fighting...NO yelling...NO picking... NO whining...etc." I reminded them of these things on the way to and from school and during dinner too. All went very well, they watched ET and were very well behaved. (not bad for a 2, 4, and 6 year olds!) I was so impressed and whispered a prayer of thanks to God. Then I walked back to let the dogs out of their crates, which I had stashed in my closet. There, on the bottom of Andi's crate was my sweatshirt and undershirt. Andi looked up at me happy to have a nice "pad" to lay on... as I tried to figure out how she could have possibly gotten my clothing into her kennel, I noticed that not only had she drug it in around the bars, but she had also peed all over it! AHHHHHHHHH! If it's not one thing...it's another... and that's the truth!

I could also make a post about Caed showing Ashlyn Daddy's (matchbox) car collection...and finding unmentionables... but that's just TMI! But it definitely belongs under OH NO YOU DIDN'T!

mmm mmm good!

Tonight Ashlyn made dinner. She called her creation "cereal soup." It consisted of playdoh and Littlest Pet Shop animal. By far the best LPS chinchilla cereal soup I have ever encountered. The only down side is, since she cooked, I have to clean up!

Braden has four teeth that are very loose. The tooth fairy brought him a new pillow box and he is ready to use it. He spends most of his free time reconstructing bionicles with multiple heads, weapons and arms. Right now he is "creating his own form of karate" and describing step by step his homemade process, which includes leaping from the steps, kicking bins of toys and announcing boom-chicka-wow-wow while flailing his arms. Quite humorous. He is wondering if I think the karate routine is "long enough," and naming people he could teach it to. Admittedly, he says, "it's not real karate, it's fake karate, but it's still dangerous (as another toy bin goes flying through the air)."

Caed is going through this phase where he talks out of the side of his mouth. I wish I had a picture, because he actually only opens one corner of his mouth and talks- very funny in person. He also notices every clock everywhere and points and says "clock" repeatedly, increasing in decibels until you repeat, "yes, a clock!" My favorite phrase these days is, "I so super mad..." Which could be about anything from not going to the car wash to the fact that his "cheddar cheese" is gone. He loves taking apart all of his brother's legos and still carries around a hotwheel or two. I love that he still gives me lots of hugs and kisses, and meets me at the door after work announcing, "MOMMY, I missed you so much!" And the sweetest of all little boy sentiments, "Mommy, your hair smells beautiful!" (Braden used to say the same thing.) He still loves piggy back rides and loves to be held. Thank goodness for a youngest child who still gives lovies freely.

I'm sitting here in a sea of papers about double deeded land, old Realtor flyers, tests to finish for my online class and cover letters for the job I need for next school year. Caed got up this morning begging to go to "his school" which doesn't start for almost 5 more months. I tried explaining that a few things needed to happen like, we needed to move, he needed to turn three and I needed a job. But as you can guess he just looked up at me with his big blue 2 year old eyes and said, but I want to go to school...

I tried offering playdoh or coloring, but he and his sister had other ideas, like climbing on the headboard of my bed and leaping off and jamming themselves into the end of the bed until they were stuck... which was fun until the panic of being stuck sunk in. So much for getting in a load of laundry, which was interrupted by screams for help.

As I went upstairs and thought to myself, "I'll just involve them in the chores... then no one will get hurt, trapped or otherwise hurt the house, themselves or any of the household animals..." (Last week I found them in the aquarium netting the fish and throwing out the decorations they didn't care for on one day, on another adding wads of toilet paper to it and on another setting the hermit crabs free, which the dogs later found and chewed up...) Anyway, as Ashlyn complained and acted incompetent in helping me take the sheets off of her bed, I saw Caed with his pants off. I knew he wasn't coming out of the bathroom, so I rushed to his room to check out the damage. Not only had he peed his pants... on the carpet... but he had dumped a huge box of k'nex parts on the floor and had been standing on them as he did so. I couldn't even make him clean it up because the pieces had to be sorted as to "dry and wet." He sat on the bed asking if he was "out of big trouble yet" while I sorted and grumbled. After washing the toys I thought, you know, it's about time I started writing this stuff down because, I don't think you could dream it all up.

And as I write this, I just remembered, that I really came up here to get the carpet cleaner, so I guess I better go take care of that, before the next entertaining moment of the day takes place.
I definitely think preschool will be good for these two munchkins next year, I guess all of this craziness lessons the guilt of going back to work.