House Rules

I have sometimes contemplated developing a list of House Rules to post by the front door. The problem is that for the most part, they really only developed out of something Noah did, Noah started to do, Noah was planning to do, etc. Here are a few:

1. Don't start daddy's car.
2. Don't touch the tailpipe of cars.
3. Don't stand in the washing machine.
4. Don't touch poo poo.
5. Don't put pens in the water dispenser.
6. Don't put anything in the water dispenser.
7. Don't ride your bike with you Batman cape on. (we have a picture that shows what happens when you don't listen to this one).
8. Don't press the red button on mommy's key thing.
9. Don't stick any of brother's toys in your mouth.
10. Don't lick soap bubbles.

There's more. There's so many more.

This is the one that cropped up tonight however:

11. If you poo poo in the shower, you have to tell mommy but then you have to clean it up your self.

-Sheryl

I Remembered

I remembered what I had meant to post. It was one of those mom moments where you are absolutely so stunned that you don't know whether to holler or curse or to make a life moment of explaining the right thing to do for your children.

But after a long weekend on my own with Alan out of town, and worn out with the variety of screwiness that followed the weekend including a baseball game, team pictures, making a garden, covering for my boss, a cleaning project inside, a toaster oven failure, etc., I was VERY glad to end my Monday with picking my boys up. But it was stinking raining so here we were dashing to the car from school with still thinking about whether we had to negotiate baseball practice AND cub scouts or just scouts or neither depending on how tired we freaking were.

Before I could even put the car in drive Noah hollered he was thirsty. In my ultra-Seattle re-usable bag, I had a stash of juice boxes and fruit snacks and cracked open a fresh Minute Maid apple juice for him. As I was handing it back to him he started screaming like a mad man because HE WAS SPRAYING IT ALL OVER HIMSELF AND HIS BOOSTER SEAT WHILE I WAS STILL HOLDING IT. Some how it wasn't registering to him to just let go of the damn juice box. This wasn't the first time we've done the hand-the-juice-box-back-to-the-pre-schooler-in-the-car-seat-maneuver so I don't understand what the failure was here.

I used Joshua's sweatshirt jacket to clean it up and vowed to wash it when I got home tonight. Now that I think about it I'm pretty sure that I left it in the car. Gimme a break... I carried in a backpack, computer bag, cute blue purse, Target shopping bag, stuffed leopard and a pizza in one shot. I'm not a super hero.

But that little incident isn't what really blistered me. It was about half a mile later at a red light where Joshua handed me his capped water bottle and asked me to "open it carefully". Now Joshua has OCD, is meticulous, is relentlessly careful and as Jill has often said, a 46-year-old man in a 7-year-old body. So telling me to be careful opening a container for fear of a tiny spray of random water that he doesn't want to get on his own flesh or clothes is not unusual.

BUT NO.

This sucker dumped at least half a cup of water or more all over me and my lap and my drivers seat. And all Joshua can say is "See. It does that every time! I don't get it."

I could only turn around and stare.

Really.

Couldn't he have just told me it spilled water every time he opened it?

We stopped at Target and bought Icees and popcorn and a new water bottle.

Remember when we didn't take water bottles to school and instead lined up behind the entire class to wait for the drinking fountain after gym just hoping we weren't behind somebody gross as if that made a difference in the amount of germs we were inhaling off the faucet?
-Sheryl

It Got Eaten

My post got eaten that I put here Saturday. It was about Noahy and Joshua's baseball and eyeballs and butt wrinkles. When I'm done being mad about it getting eaten by blogspot I'll re-post.

And now because I typed that I forgot what I was originally going to type.

I guess that's what I get.

-Sheryl

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

What The HELL

Accomplishment of the week:

Convinced my mother to stop storing her purse in her car trunk. She some how thought this was ok.

What the hell moment of the week:

I caught the name of a friend on the right side of that damn thing on facebook and clicked her to friend. I interned for her the summer of my sophomore year in college. She facebooked back nearly immediately- to tell me she was dying of lung, liver, bone and lymph cancer.

Noahism-

"They maybe far away... or maybe real near by..." He's been singing the score to Annie. Relentlessly.

Joshua moment-

He HAD to go buy a white balloon Wednesday night because he wanted to send a message to God. He didn't want me to read it (of course I had too... but pretty much he asked God to read his thoughts in his brain). He released it and as it paused up in the sky for a moment, Joshua was sure an angel was grabbing it right then.

gutter mind

So last night I was reading a bedtime story to Gracie. Toot and Puddle and the Great Cheese Chase. In case you don't know, Toot and Puddle are two pigs that are life long BFF's-kinda like me and Sheryl. Really cute illustrations and they've even made it in to a cartoon.

Anyway, It was the first "non-cardboard" book i've read to her and was excited to be reading something with a plot, so to speak. It was all about how they traveled to Paris for a vacation and got to see all these famous spots, but what they really wanted was to go to this cheese bistro. In the end they got their cheese and returned home to Woodcock Pocket.

Well, what are you thinking about right now? Cause I can tell you what was running through my mind....WOODCOCK POCKET???? Is the author for real? You want me to read this to my kid with a straight face? Yeah, that didn't happen. But maybe not everyone has a gutter mind like I do. I'm not sure I can read that book again to her. Just looking at it on the bookshelf makes me bust out laughing. I'm super mature like that.

~Jill

baby steps

Gracie started walking this weekend. Most mamas understand that this is a happy and exciting thing, but it's also sad. We are nearing the end of her "firsts". She's already done the first smile,rolling over, sitting up, crawling, clapping, standing, first word (mama-yay!), and now walking.

I mean, what other firsts do I have to look forward to? First day of school-I think I can handle that. First crush-oh geez. First kiss-vomit. First serious boyfriend-shoot me now. From here on out, the "firsts" are just gonna get tougher.

I can't help but feel a little jipped. She's only 9 months old and she started doing all of this stuff earlier that normal. I wanted a little baby nugget for just a little longer. More likely that not, she is my last baby. I am trying to etch every single milestone into my brain, something I didn't do with the other two. Or maybe I did but it's been a decade since they were babys and now i've forgotten.

I will remember how funny she is. How her laugh sounds like an overly happy duck, quacking wildly. How she laughs like that as she takes her baby steps. When she finally falls on her butt she claps ferociously and looks so proud of herself. So funny to watch, so sad to watch.

~Jill