They Hear What They Want

Me: "Noah, where do you want to go to college?" Noah is 4 and a half but it's never too early to start inquiring!

Noah: "I want to go to southern Alaska." SOUTHERN ALASKA? Where is that coming from? I didn't know Noah knew the words southern or Alaska. I truly never know what is going to come out of his mouth.

Joshua: "Noah, there is too much snow in Alaska. Pick some other place."

Noah: "Where did you go mom?"

Me: "Michigan State Univeristy."

Noah: "Oh ok. I'll go to University of Michigan like you and daddy." HOW could he have just heard that? How?? There was no TV on, no flying saucers going through the room- there was NOTHING to distract this kid and yet he transposed the very critical order of words.

Joshua: He said nothing because he was rolling around on the floor laughing at Noah's unintended verbal slur and the clear look of ARE YOU KIDDING ME on my face. Joshua has been threatening attendance at U of M for years at this point. And even bought a Go Blue t-shirt the last time we were in Michigan- with his own money.

I have professional baby pictures of both boys sporting MSU onesies. I think they are holding it against me or something.

-Sheryl

Happy New Years 1966

The boys were looking to watch something that wasn't football related so that means we were digging around in On Demand selections. I came up on Batman, the 1966 version.

In the age of all things done with super duper computerization and electronics, I thought for sure Joshua would be done watching this thing in 7 seconds. NOPE. He was cracking himself up with the very unrealistic special effects. He also asked why the caped crusaders spent so much time running around to all their vehicles instead of just storing them all in the Bat cave like in the cartoon. It was a pleasant sign that he's willing to keep his imagination for a while longer before reducing himself strictly to realism.

By the time it was over both boys were back to running around as Jedi's. Well I think Joshua is a Jedi, Noah is some kind of bad guy. He even put on a pair of his brand new Star Wars underwear that had a bad guy on it. In an effort to be authentic. And they've both promised to start getting dressed beginning tomorrow. They've spent the better part of the last two weeks only wearing pajamas.

It's been a very Happy New Year!

-Sheryl

Getting Out the Door

Me: "Joshua! Lets go! You're the only one not ready to get in the car!"

Joshua: "I can't find socks!"

Me: "Get some out of my drawer!"

Ok. Admittedly it's totally ridiculous to send my son to my sock drawer to borrow some, but somehow Joshua's socks are frequently missing. Well. The truth is that he changes his socks often throughout the day- whenever they get dirty or wet or when he just takes them off because he felt like it. He won't put the same pair back on. And I have yet to purchase the right volume to accommodate socks that need to be in the drawer and socks that are in the laundry and socks that are missing.

Back to trying to get out the door:

Five years go by (maybe 35 seconds... but any mother knows what it feels like when you are TRYING TO GET OUT THE DOOR and you have a lagger).

Me: "JOSHUA! LETS GO!"

Joshua: "I can't get the sock on!"

Me: "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. Get down here and I'll help my super genius 7 1/2 year old figure out how to get a sock on. For pete's sake Joshua this screwing around is not helping us get out the door!"

Joshua sits down in front of me. Puts his foot up. I try to put the sock on. It doesn't go on. What. The. Hell. My 7 1/2 year old just out grew my socks. Me. My socks. A full grown adult's socks. He can't wear my socks. I don't have a back up plan for my failure to do the load of whites anymore. And worse... he's 7 and a HALF. And he can't fit into my 33-year-old grown up sized socks.

Soccer Stars

Joshua has turned in to this boy that actually shoves his arm out to keep kids off him in soccer. Previously he hung out down field, waited for the ball to break free, ran with it until the rest of the pack caught up and then he pulled off the ball and went back to the other end of the field to repeat his process. It has been fun to watch him grow up so much lately. Not so happy about the inch and a half since the end of August that we just scratched above his last growth marker.

Noah goes to soccer. And after great demonstrations as a strong, 32lbs scrapper who will bust through anything, he has taken to standing in the middle of the field and holding his coach's hand. He's trying again at today's game to return to his former scared-of-nothing self. Because if he does play then he gets to go pick out his Yoda Halloween costume at Target. I'm never above bribing a 4-year-old.

The Summer That Joshua Became a Boy

One time Jill called Joshua a Forty-five year old man in a 7-year-old body. He think about stuff I will never even dream up by the time I'm 45. And he has a temperament as far from being a little boy as possible. Well he use to. This seems to be the summer that Joshua has become... a boy.

He plays in the dirt. I mean he sometimes would before... but I have a picture where he just got done playing in some mud in his bathing suit. Except he is completely sans clothing, still covered in mud, and hosing off his BATHING SUIT. That's what he was worried about. Dirt on his clothes. Because he sometimes reads this blog, I won't post the pic.

He also is playing sports. Well trying... he is blessed with his mother's coordination and being a few years behind kids that started sooner and then growing several inches recently. But he is playing wildly with other little boys, scraping his knees and coming home covered in pond yuck. He argues with his little brother instead of telling me the psychology behind why he thinks Noah is behaving the way he is.

The one part of summer that has always been a tried and true event for my little man-boy is Day Out with Thomas. Serious. Thomas the Train was the first genuine toy Joshua played with. Before that he would mostly just play in the sink with water and bowls and spoons and funnels and collanders. That's all he wanted to do. And he would do it for hours.

But then came trains.When Joshua was 2, I saw him laying on the floor with a Thomas engine someone had given him and he had some blocks lined up behind it. After I took a picture of proof that my son COULD play with toys, I packed us all up to go get more engines at Target. Immediately. He wanted to play!

And then when we found out a REAL Thomas would come into town... HOLY COW. We were all over it at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI. And when we moved to Washington- HOLY COW. Thomas comes here too at the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie, WA. The summer Jill was visiting was actually Thomas weekend. She came on the ride- and held Noah who was monsterously beside himself with the crowd. I had forgotten how anti-crowd he was at that stage in his life. Oops.

But this year... Joshua was 7 and Noah was 4, ages that are dangerously on the bubble of not loving things that have always been loved. We got out of the car when we pulled into Snoqualmie with a parking spot so prime the train station and the lines and the crowd were all within sight as soon as we pulled in. The boys jumped out of the car with their train engineer hats on and we started walk-run-skip-walking over to the station when Joshua not only slowed up, but he handed me his hat and asked me to put it in my purse.

He spent the rest of the Day Out with Thomas feeling a little out of place and notably sad that Thomas isn't what he use to be. Noah was happy- but Noah loves this stuff. It could have been a Hello Kitty conference and the kid would have been ecstatic.

Joshua pulled his hat on for a quick picture with Thomas and his brother- and as a mom I'm grateful. But how very sad that my little man boy has officially entered the big boy world where Thomas the Train is a has-been.

It stinks that they grow up.

-Sheryl

P.S. Jill isn't dead by the way. She finally emailed with some weird claim about technology failure after some bad storms.

Why We Have 'Wrinkles'

****This was the post that I thought I lost.... dang blogspot for hiding things in edit mode...

Noah has a level of charm that I have never witnessed from another child on the planet. Random strangers- and best pals such as Jill- fall in love with him nearly instantly and there's no explaining it. Jill LEFT her glitter flip flops for him because that's what he wanted. She LEFT HER FLIP FLOPS FOR HIM. That's what he does. He causes people to be so charmed that they give him the shoes off their feet.

It was that charm that saves him when I'm in the middle of trying to watch his older brother's baseball game while I let him sit in the car and dink around hosing up every control, open every cd, dump out the glove compartment and deposit the contents of my purse throughout the entire square footage of my mom van. He is allowed to stay in the car with me no more than 10 yards away and he was told to not holler at me unless it was super duper important. Which of course as soon as Joshua goes up to bat Noah starts hollering. I bolt over to see what the issue is:
"MAMA! MAMA!! MAMMMMMA!"

"What Noahy?"

"Um. Um. Um... what happens when somebody only has one eye?"

I couldn't be mad. Because his little head was stuck through the window and it was an honest question and to him it was an emergency. And everyone within 49 feet was giggling.

But perhaps his best statement of the week was:

"Mama, I know why God gave me a wrinkle." I was definitely perplexed at where in the HELL my 32lbs 4-year-old had a wrinkle...

"Why Noahy?"

"He gave me a wrinkle so that I don't stick to the potty."

Wrinkle. Crack. We all have a word for it I suppose.

-Sheryl

Diligence and Peeing in Your Shoes

I went on a business trip to Dallas for a few days this week. I was grateful from the stand point that the hot water heater had crapped out over the weekend- it's less than 2 years old- and the part wouldn't be ready until THURSDAY.

I was balistic and I wasn't even the one stuck at home with two little boys who at some point would need a bath with actual warm water. Not to mention dishes... laundry... standard, basic stuff.

But the very day I leave I receive an email from my 1st grader's teacher letting me know he would be recognized for the character quality of diligence on Wednesday. When I wouldn't be home. I felt horrible. She noted that he was "being honored for his diligence in listening, following directions and great comments".

There was also a note sent home from my pre-schooler's teacher. He had become aggravated at lunch because his spaghettios were slimey. So he was sent to nap early which caused him to throw his blanket, flip his cot over and in general be mad. He then proceeded to 'fake' going potty only to get back to the classroom and consequently peed all the way down to his shoes. He was even sent to the pre-school directors office for his inordinant- but horrible- behavior.

I love both my sons equally. I do. The boy who got an award for diligence also left the certificate on my pillow and left the light on in my room so I would see it when I got home around midnight. The boy that peed in his shoes was mad his mama was gone. And he diligently tried to point this out for anyone that could understand. I hate leaving them but I must get paid too- new shoes that don't smell like pee are expensive.