I’ve Been Waiting for This Day

Thing I Love: Milestones

Our nest is a flurry of newly discovered skills! Here’s my list:

• Henry can sit up on his own without seconds later bashing his forehead into the shag. Huge. Plus, mobility still seems quite distant in the future. Even huger. I don’t need that kid discovering how inept his mother is at childproofing (and cleaning, in general). At this point he still respects me. I intend to keep it that way until he’s at least 10 1/2 months old.

• Charlie can blow his nose. Big stuff. An endless nostril clearing future lies before him. Congrats, Chuck. We couldn’t be prouder.

• Joe is learning to read words while simultaneously Owen is learning to read music. Magical. Maybe soon they can host a concert reading of set 1 of the BOB book series. (fingers crossed!)

• A.J. can sew. (But he did it while watching Transformers 3. Machismo status: MAINTAINED)

   Thanks for allowing me this brag. Photographic proof of mentioned milestones below:

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Love’s a Mess.

I’ve decided to start a new segment. This is it: Things I Love. Okay, okay. I know. Cliche!!!! (an aside: I don’t know how to add an accent mark. Please ignore that typo and pronounce the word correctly anyway. Thanks. Also, if you know how to add the accent mark, I would certainly listen to your advice. Aside over.) I get it, but maybe you’d like to know a bit more about my sister and I? Maybe? Can we shovel out just a little more? You bet. And to highlight the mushy gushiness of this particular cliched (ignore the  typo) segment I’ve decided on the addition of sacchariny  pink as it’s banner color. Not that there is ANYTHING artificial about the following sweetness. It’s all real, I tell you, and I LOVE it.

Today’s Thing I Love is brought to you by my Olders (I have “Olders”, “Youngers”, “Bigs”, “Littles”, “Middles”, “Talls”, “Shorts”, “Sillies”, “Whinies”, and endless other classifications for my children. Sometimes they’re just “Brothers”. Sometimes they’re just “The Children”. And sometimes I actually refer to them by their Christian names. It’s a mood thing.) So, this morning those two (the Olders) straggled into my bedroom and heaved their sleep-limp bodies onto my bed. Nothing abnormal here. There they rested for a brief moment before Owen’s head catapulted skyward, “Hey, Joe. Do you want to surprise Mom and Dad?” (I think they thought I was sleeping. I pretty much was. Only my ears had awakened.) Then they shot out of our room faster than I could say “Wha…?”. At this point I was certain that they were going to surprise us by getting dressed, putting their jammies on over their clothes, and then pretending that they refuse to get dressed. We’ve fallen for that one on more than 6 occasions. Timeless humor, that. We went on with morning routine. I pretended that my Littlest still needed me so that I could remain immobile for awhile. My better (and more responsible) half prepared for the day. We were then invited out into the rest of our home. For what? Did we see shirt collars poking out of Batman Jams? Nope. Not even. Those boys were fully dressed. Their room was clean. The kitchen was clean. The hallway was clean. The living room was clean. ALL OF THEM CLEAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOVE LOve loVe LovE LOVE love LLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOve.

Best surprise ever. I have assured them of this countless times and will continue to do so indefinitely.

I always love The Children. I rarely love the mess.

May I have some cheese with my whine?

I’ve been going back and forth about whether to write the following post. Do I? Don’t I? Do I? Don’t I? Well, I guess, I do. Here goes. Usually we attempt to inundate you with portions of our lives that are chortle eliciting. (“Chortle”, by the way, is a word invented by Lewis Carroll that combines the words “chuckle” and “snort”. It’s my favorite way to laugh.) But, I do feel like being pouty. I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again. I am TOTALLY aware that it’s a choice. Oh, WELL! Seriously, what, in this world, could I possibly have to pout about!?!?! Well, the first happened today. My husband was abducted by the school system for another year. (Yes, he’s a teacher. A great one. Seriously. You should all send your children to his school just so that they can sing in one of his choirs and study music theory from him. I promise they’ll learn a ton, be challenged, and love every moment (almost) of their time with him. He’s one of those teachers. The really good kind.) Does my parenthetical explanation mean that I should release him to others every August??? NO NO NO! I WANT HIM HOME! I LOVE HIM HOME! HE IS MY FAVORITE!

The second reason for my pout? Well, on Monday I lose 2 more. My inquisitive, teasing, book-geek, mother-loving 2nd Grader and my silly, sweet, head-standing, mother-loving Kindergartner are leaving my grasp. I know. I know. I could homeschool them. But, those of you who know us well know that it’s not an option presently. SO WHAT DO I DO???? I WANT THEM HOME! I LOVE THEM HOME! THEY ARE MY FAVORITES!

The longer I am a mother and a wife the more addicted to my children and husband I become. What, dear friends, is the solution? Please, offer me words of comfort and advise. But also, please ONLY SAY THINGS I WANT TO HEAR. That’s my mood right now. I’m sure you can empathize.

One more thing, I refuse to sell short the countless women who live their lives with husbands deployed. What you do is mind-bogglingly brave. I cannot even begin to imagine…

Ach! I miss them already!

“The Most Popular Farm in the WORLD”

My boys created it. This morning. Our living room. It’s super super popular. The most. In the world.

What makes such a popular farm? A few things. Firstly, one must have a “Hard To Find” section. This portion of the farm houses some of the most hard to find species (it’s certainly no misnomer). Like what? Well, how about 2 dinosaurs? Seen any of those lately? Hard to find. Also, the elusive Super Gigantic Bat lives within the walls of the HTF section. I haven’t seen one of those in captivity in YEARS. Lastly, and really, most crucially, one must must MUST have a dinosaur/SGB wrangler. Meet Michelangelo. He’s a pro. His wages are astronomical, but he’s worth every slice.

The HTF

I'm glad you've got him under control, Mikey.

I’ve done an extensive interview with the creator of the next section:

The Baby Cage

According to the Baby Cage Architect there are some components necessary in creating a “safe” and “happy” place in which baby animals reside. The first of these components are “lots and lots of poles”. What do these poles do? How do they protect the young ones at such a delicate stage of life?

“The poles collect all of the electricity and energy together and gather up all of the tornadoes and lightning to keep the babies safe. It’s for distractment and destroyment.” – BCA

Whew.

Also, an important entertainment component of the BC is the many television screens on which the babies “get to watch The Princess Bride EVERY DAY.” How lucky are they? I can only imagine Baby Tiger saying “No more rhyming and I mean it!” while Baby Rhino finishes with “Anybody wanna peanut?”.

Won’t this farm be amazingly popular??? You bet. Oh, wait. I forgot the most important element in popular farm formation – a pile full of really cute boys:

Pardon the absence of Architect #4. Farm creation is exhausting and a construction induced nap was a necessity.