Three Boys and Me

Signing Off

2010-12-28T08:57:00.003-06:00

Some days I miss writing this blog, but most days I don't. I kept it up for as long as I did as a sort of digital scrapbook for my boys when they get older. It has been a relief to not observe every action, every moment and try to figure out how to turn each one into a fun blog post. I am back to enjoying those actions, those moments instead of stopping to take mental notes.

Thanks to those who followed my blog. I enjoyed writing it, and am now going to continue to enjoy not writing it.

Inactivity

2010-04-17T08:34:00.002-05:00

My blog posting has taken a back seat to work travel and spending time with the family when I am home. The boys haven't stopped being interesting, hilarious, and surprising - I just haven't had the motivation when home to write about it. Maybe soon I'll start again.

Age is Relative

2010-03-22T06:57:00.002-05:00

I was watching a movie with my boys the other day (have you seen Band Slam? Great movie!), and it contained a preview for the new Twilight movie. The boys have always wanted to watch the Twilight movies, which amazes me since when they do have bad dreams they are usually about vampires. After seeing the preview for Twilight New Moon, I think they changed their minds about wanting to see it. The preview was scary and freaked them out.

And, being a mom who seldom gets to prove herself right, I couldn't resist a little I Told You So. "That's why you can't see the Twilight movies."

"What are they rated?" Jack asked.

"PG-13. But some PG-13 movies are closer to PG, like Harry Potter, and some PG-13 are closer to R, like Twilight. Does that make sense?"

I was expecting an argument about how if they get to see some PG-13 movies they should get to see them all, but they didn't argue. My explanation made sense to them. Or they were still too afraid from the Twilight preview to make their case for seeing it.

For Jack and Luke, aging is not a progression of years but a series of milestones based on rules and restrictions. These milestones include things such as when they can ride in the front seat of the car, when they can have a cell phone, and when they can watch Lord of the Rings. These types of milestones have deadlines associated with them that are moving targets. There is no set in stone age for when they can do these things.

If one of their milestones was "When can I drive a car?" I'd have a clear answer for them backed up by law and the fear of arrest. But, for now, I'll just have to continue to answer in vagaries. And I believe it is for this reason, and my fault entirely, that now my boys "Can't wait until we're M for Mature so we can play Bioshock."

Intruder Alert

2010-03-15T06:06:00.002-05:00

The tornado siren was going off. It took me a few minutes to notice it fully because the t.v. was on and the sun was shining. It wasn't the first Tuesday of the month, so I knew it wasn't a test. I looked outside. No clouds whatsoever. I got online. No tornado warnings. So I guessed it was just a test after all.

When I picked the boys up from school, I asked them if they had a tornado drill.

"Yes! And a fire drill!"

They were both happy about the break in their monotonous day of learning.

"I like the tornado drill the best," Luke said, "because I get to go downstairs." Downstairs is the domain of the older children, and grades K - 2 rarely get to go down there.

"I like earthquake drills," Jack said, "because I get to crawl under my desk."

These drills are clearly games to them, but I think they understand the threat that drives the drills. They know the meaning of tornado and earthquake and what they have to do to stay safe in the event of one of these disasters.

Then Luke said, "In Kindergarten, I liked the Intruder Alerts because I got to hide behind my coat in my cubbie."

"What's an Intruder Alert?" I asked, having never heard the boys mention these before.

"We pretend there is an intruder and we get to hide."

What sounds like a game to play in the backyard during the long summer nights is actually the scary reality of the possibility of harm coming to my kids at school. Though they understand the threat of nature related dangers, I don't think they could ever grasp the reality of a person coming into a school and hurting children. I think that is beyond their little imaginations, and they have HUGE imaginations.

It saddens me that my kids have to take a break from school work and fun to practice skills to use in the event an intruder enters their school. Unfortunately, in our world today, it is necessary. So, although I am not happy that the need for these Intruder Alerts exist, I am happy that the school is taking steps to protect my kids. And I pray that the day never comes when they understand the real meaning of the Intruder Alerts.

Neverending Nightmare

2010-03-10T06:54:00.003-06:00

Now that I am "grown up" it is easy to forget the sheer horror I felt as a kid after having a particularly scary nightmare. I rarely have nightmares nowadays, and when I do they are made up of spiders, tornadoes, car crashes, or graduations where I discover I hadn't attended class all semester. These nightmares have an affect on me, but not the way nightmares surely did when I was a child and they were made up of monsters and my inability to scream or run away.

Jack had a nightmare recently about vampires. In his nightmare he was bitten by a vampire and I was shot and killed. He was, and still is, disturbed. While the possibility of him being bitten by a vampire is nonexistent, the possibility of me getting shot does exist even if that possibility is the minutest of the minute.

But it's not the part about me getting shot that has him upset. It's the vampire part. Usually when the sun comes up, bad dreams go away. This one just won't leave for Jack. He asked me to look at his neck for any marks. I did and told him I didn't see anything. "Look for two little spots close together." Nothing. "Why are you asking? Did you hurt your neck?" "No," he said. "The dream just seemed so real."

Ah. I was looking for vampire bites.

Then later he came up to me and said, "If I was a vampire, I'd run into the sun to die because I wouldn't want to live my life as a vampire. I don't want to drink blood."

I began reassuring him again that he has not been and would not be bitten by a vampire. EVER.

"I guess it wouldn't be so bad," he said, "if you and dad and Luke and Meemaw wouldn't mind if I bit you and then we could all be vampires together. And we would get to fly."

So then Luke and Jack started a conversation about the super powers held by vampires and Jack finally woke from his nightmare.

Step Number One...

2010-03-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

When Luke is not listening, we sometimes call him our little evil genius. It is a running inside joke. He of course is not evil, but he has these underlying attributes that when combined with his smarts have the potential to form a potent and interminable adversary.

I know that he is a sweet, good-natured, caring boy who will grow up to be a sweet, good-natured, caring man. But those nano-second glimpses we get of his ability to manipulate; his scheming and conniving mind; and his enjoyment of pulling one over lend a slight corroboration to our nickname for him. Watching him is sometimes akin to watching Harry Potter - you know he is good but the potential exists for him to use his substantial power for performing dark deeds.

Lately I've been thinking that the evil genius joke has run its course. The superstitious bone in me thinks that if we say it enough, we may just cause it to be true. And I would hate for Luke to overhear our joking and get his feelings hurt.

But then I snapped this picture the other day while he was sleeping:

I think prerequisite number one of being initiated into the evil genius club is having the ability to sleep with your eyes open.

P.S. Way to go to the other genius in our family, my cousin Clayton, who scored big time on his ACT!

Observant (Or Not)

2010-02-25T07:51:00.002-06:00

I have always thought that I would have made a great detective. I think I have an astute attention to detail. I notice things often that others don't notice. I can tell almost immediately upon walking into a familiar space when something is different or has changed. I have in the past described John's activities at home just by looking around at what was different from when I left the house in the morning.

So when the nurse at school called me to tell me about Jack's injury, and I told her I was with him at school and would come by and talk to her, I was surprised when she said, "So you must have seen it."

"Seen what?" I asked.

"The huge lump on his forehead. It's very hard to miss."

I hadn't noticed anything wrong with him, and as I stood in the hall outside of his class talking to the nurse on my cell phone and berating myself quietly for being a bad mother, I wondered why he hadn't told me he was hurt.

"You need to stop by on your way out so we can talk about watching for warning signs of a concussion."

I agreed, and apologized for being a lame mother that doesn't notice a huge lump indicating my child had experienced a potentially concussion-inducing injury.

I went back into Jack's room and made a bee-line for him and his injured head. I started moving his hair around to see the injury. "Mom, gosh, stop it! What are you doing?" He was behaving like a normal 8-year old being embarrassed by his mother in front of his class. "Why didn't you tell me you got hurt?" "Because I didn't."

So I called the nurse back. She was adamant that it was Jack. I asked Jack's teacher, who had taken the injured boy to the nurse, and she said that it wasn't Jack. The nurse was surprised and couldn't figure out what had happened. She either wrote the injured boy's name down incorrectly or the injured boy gave her my son's name for some reason. Jack had not been hurt, and I hadn't failed to notice the goose-egg on his head that the nurse made me feel so bad about not seeing. I felt vindicated.

So a couple of days ago Luke said to me, "I think you need to give me some medicine. Haven't you noticed I've been coughing since Thursday?" I hadn't really noticed. Last night, he complained about not feeling good, but I thought it was just his cold and cough and him trying to get out of school. At bedtime I took his temperature. It was 103. He vomited all night.

So I guess I'm not that observant after all.

Sin City

2010-02-18T06:47:00.004-06:00

Here's what you get at New York-New York in Vegas if you ask for a room away from the roller coaster:

That is the view out of our window. We couldn't have been any closer unless we were directly under the tracks. I guess they figure no one is going to sleep in Vegas before the coaster stops running at midnight. They never met me, though.

But, I ended up succumbing to the temptations of the city and was not disturbed by the roller coaster. I stayed up late, I drank beer, I smoked cigarettes, and I gambled (and won!), all the while trying not to think of my grandma and how disappointed she'd be.

I also returned to my normal self upon hitting St. Louis soil. Other than playing poker with the boys and their authentic poker chips we brought them from Vegas, I have no desire to gamble. After stepping on the scale, I have no desire to drink. And my throat is still recovering so I have no desire to smoke. I was in bed last night before 10:00 pm.

I guess you could say I'm boring again. But I was really fun in Vegas.

P.S. Happy Birthday, PeePaul. Enjoy your day off and have a great birthday!

Traditions

2010-02-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

My mom would hand my sister and I each a metal bowl and spoon. She would tell us to pack the snow down hard into the bowl.

We would bundle up and head into the yard with our tools. We would be careful to walk in a straight line to disturb as small an area of fresh, white snow as possible.

We would scoop the snow, careful not to dig too deeply. Grabbing dirt or grass would render our scoop worthless.

We would scamper from one spot to the next, avoiding any spots with tints of brown, yellow, speckles or other evidence of contamination.

We would fill our bowls, scooping and packing, scooping and packing until snow overflowed the brims.

We would carry our bowls into the kitchen, and then transfer the snow into our cups. A scoop of snow, a pour of Coke, a scoop of snow, a pour of Coke until we had the perfect combination of snow to soda. The perfection of a winter slushy.

This week, we finally had a snow day. I told my boys about winter slushies with the fondness and nostalgia of an adult longing for the simple pleasures of childhood. They seemed willing to try. What they weren't willing to do was collect the snow.

So I collected the snow careful to avoid even the most minuscule speck of off-white knowing Jack would refuse to try the slushy if he thought the snow was dirty.

I transferred the snow into cups and poured in the soda. I added straws. I took the slushies to my boys. I waited for the reaction.

I got a "gross" from both of them. I was amazed. Maybe the delicious taste is rooted in the preparation, and they did not participate in that step.

So, I guess my hope of carrying on the winter slushy tradition has been dashed. I guess I will have to stick with the winter tradition of Jack putting snow down Luke's neck as soon as we walk out the door.

Luke's Special Night

2010-02-06T09:47:00.003-06:00

Jack had his first sleepover at a friend's house. They got to go to Monkey Joe's and stayed until it closed. Then they went to Incredible Pizza and stayed there until it closed. Then they went to the friend's house and watched a movie and played games. They were up until 2:00 am. They got up at 6:00 am the next morning. I don't know if that mom is my hero or my worst enemy.

When Luke heard about all of the fun things Jack was going to get to do, John and I told him he could have his own special night. He could pick where he wanted to go, where he wanted to eat, what he wanted to do after, and where he wanted to sleep.

He picked Texas Roadhouse for dinner, then we came home and played penny-ante poker. He slept in a sleeping bag in front of the fire.

Little did I know I was raising an old west cowboy.

My Fifteen Minutes of Fame

2010-02-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

Up until now, we have avoided Kidz Bop. Jack and Luke are both music lovers and have preferred to listen to the real deal, which just happens to be much of the same music that John and I like. When they heard Fireflies by Owl City on an ad for Kidz Bop 17, they asked John to buy it. And when John found out it came with a bonus CD, Kidz Bop sings the Beatles, he couldn't resist. I guess that is his sneaky way of getting the kids to listen to the Beatles since they won't do it through Rock Band.

I find Kidz Bop to be a slightly more annoying version of the songs that get overplayed on the radio. But I do enjoy listening to Jack and Luke sing and a couple of my favorite songs made it onto Kidz Bop 17, though I suspect that after a few rounds of hearing them performed in this fashion they will be crossed from my favorites list.

One of the songs on the CD is Paparazzi. I explained to the boys what the word paparazzi means. They asked me if I have ever been "a paparazzi." I said no, but that I was famous once and was hounded by paparazzi. They did not believe me. In fact, they told me to shut up.

I felt I had to redeem myself, so I told them that in college I was famous because I was the Queen of Love and Beauty. Their eyes got wide. "Are you teasing?" they asked.

"No, I am not."

After a pause for reflection, Jack said, "Dad got really lucky."

Luke said, "All the boys must have wanted to marry you."

I didn't deny it, choosing rather to bask in the glory of their awe. Especially considering that the day before I had spent most of the day labeled by them as "Trash Lady."

Vegas, Baby!

2010-01-26T06:00:00.001-06:00

On occasion, my work travels take me to a fun city perfect for piggy-backing a family or parents-only vacation. Such an opportunity has come up for a work trip to Vegas to turn into a weekend vacation for John and me (with a couple of our good friends coming along as well).

With the details still very sketchy and the trip itself up in the air, the boys heard John and me talking about it. They were VERY upset. They reported that they have ALWAYS wanted to go to Vegas.

How do you explain that a place with moving and talking statues, erupting volcanoes, pirate ship battles, roller coasters, circuses, tigers, dancing fountains, water parks, and on and on is not a place for children?

Luke crumpled when I told him sometimes parents need a kid-free vacation. He cried and cried that he was in bad need of a vacation. "How many days are in a year?" he asked. I answered 365 days. Through his tears, he espoused the unfairness of getting only one vacation a year when there are so many days in a year.

Reminding him that he gets the ENTIRE summer off, that we spend at least one week a year either in Florida or Colorado with other one to two day mini-trips in between, and that his life is pretty much one giant vacation did not help calm him down. Rather, he began packing his suit case to run away to a family that would take him to Vegas.

To Luke, it's not a vacation unless air travel is involved.

Career Talk

2010-01-21T07:32:00.002-06:00

Jack and Luke like to talk about what they want to be when they grow up. Their thoughts on future careers have stayed fairly constant through the years, with Jack doing something related to fish and the ocean and Luke doing something related to animals.

Jack has started to branch out a little bit, realizing the range of possibilities for someone with his talents and interests. He talks about cartoonists, video game designers, and other outlets for his creativeness.

While Jack talks often about what he wants to be, he rarely names things that he does not want to be. Except for one thing. He does not want to be a police officer. His reason?

"My goal is to go my whole life without ever getting shot."

It's nice when your kids goals are in line with your own.

Our Own Indiana Jones-Style Booby Trap

2010-01-14T06:40:00.004-06:00

We really dislike our basement ceiling. It is too low. It is made in such a way that you can't remove the tiles to access what is above and then put the tiles back in place. It is full of holes from cable running projects. This is what I see when I look at our ceiling:

We are in the process of planning to tear the whole thing down. We will either put up a new drop ceiling or leave it open, depending on what we find and how bad it looks. The previous owner tended to stuff things up in there, so it should be an interesting project.

But, in the meantime, we have found a use for the mess of a ceiling.

Thanks to a willing Daddy and his persistent children, my kids finally have their own Indiana Jones arena.

Before long, they had us reenacting scenes from the various Indiana Jones movies. Luckily, they did not want me swinging on the rope. I don't think I could have pulled that off.

Timing

2010-01-08T08:10:00.003-06:00

The time it took for school to be canceled for a snow day from when Jack and Luke started asking for one: 68 days

The time it took them to decide they were ready to play in the snow from when they woke up: 4 hours

The time it took me to find the snow gear: 20 minutes

The time it took to find alternative snow boots when I realized the ones that fit were in John's car still covered in mud and cow poop from New Year's Eve: 15 minutes

The time it took me to convince Jack that it was o.k. to wear women's boots to play in the snow because he couldn't go out in tennis shoes and it was my old boots or nothing: 8 minutes

The time it took Luke and me to get dressed in all of our layers of snow gear: 10 minutes

The time it took Jack to get dressed in all of his layers of snow gear: 22 minutes (he is my slow child, taking after my Grandpa Kirby)

Once outside, the time it took Jack to hit Luke in the face with a snowball, successfully ending our outside time: 20 minutes

The time it took to doff all our gear it took so long to put on, shove it into the dryer so it would be ready to put back on when they decided to go back out in 15 minutes, and clean up the floor from the melting, muddy mess: 18 minutes

The time it took for me to remember snow days are not all they're cracked up to be: 0.5 seconds

New Year, New Old Traditions

2010-01-04T07:18:00.003-06:00

Since at least 1993, John and I have been ringing in the New Year with our friends Angie and Brian with few exceptions. Our celebrations have run the gamut, from attending a ritzy banquet at a hotel to me going to bed at 11:00 with the flu. No matter the venue, the night together always started the New Year right.

This year we continued the tradition, only Brian was not physically a part of it. Brian lost his battle with cancer on March 17, 2009. The holidays hit his wife, children, family and friends hard drawing more attention to the void because of the special time of year and the traditions that will never be the same.

Although not physically there, Brian's influence was all around. From the bonfire and cigars to the heated games of Euchre to the stories and laughter, it was a night that I think Brian would have enjoyed immensely. I even stayed up until after 1:00 rather than the 12:02 I am famous for.

Angie and Brian's boys, our boys, and Angie's sister's son spent the day climbing hay stacks, traversing fallen tree jungle gyms, riding four wheelers, and playing DS and Wii. They even found an old (or new - who knows?) pair of underwear in a broke down pickup truck, and if you know boys you know that was a hilarious find that made the day.

By nightfall, the adults were exhausted and declared kid new year at 9:30. After about one minute of horn blowing, stick clacking, yelling, and drinking sparkling grape juice outside in the cold, the kids unanimously declared kid new year boring, loud and cold. That is all but Luke who fell asleep at 8:30 and missed the whole thing though we tried to wake him many times. Jack was especially sad he did not get to wish Happy New Year with his brother at his side, but quickly forgot this sadness the next morning bright and early when the New Year kicked in with a bang and the boys started their traditional brotherly bickering.

And I'm happy to report that the New Year has not diminished my boys' effect on the ladies. Angie's adorable niece had them smitten. I asked Luke if he likes babies and he said, "You mean hot babies?" I asked him what a hot baby was. He replied, "You know - hot chicks." I said I didn't mean hot babies. I meant real babies. With diapers and drool. He said, "I'll stick with the other." I guess I don't blame him. He changed his tune though when she started dancing to the music from his MP3 and saying his name.

Jack liked her right away and informed me that, "I am going to make her fall in love with me so she becomes my slave." To this I laughed and he said, "What? That works on babies." To which I replied, "And on women." I am proof enough of that.

Four Christmases

2009-12-28T09:07:00.007-06:00

I know there is a movie that came out recently with Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn titled Four Christmases. I have yet to see that movie. I have, however, lived it.

Our Christmas was a wonderful whirlwind, with the boys anxiously looking forward to their first Christmas (Jeff City at John's parents'), second Christmas (St. Louis at my mom's), third Christmas (St. Louis at our house) and fourth Christmas (Courtois at my dad's). And these four Christmases did not disappoint.

Santa delivered exactly what they asked for, and even managed to produce a picture of Rudolph as requested by Jack. I love the mystery and excitement that comes with believing in Santa and will miss it when they stop believing, but the whole hunt for presents and setting up for Christmas morning will sure be easier once Santa is no longer in the picture.

One of Luke's favorite gifts was a gift I received that he somehow declared both of ours. It is a cooler stool, and I don't think I'll ever get to use it. It is in his room, filled with WebKinz.

He also got a camera, and has been working on taking that one perfect shot that will gain him notoriety as a photographer. This one he believes is the winning shot.

We always see the most interesting things at gas stations on the way to my dad's house.

Jack got a DSi, and I haven't seen his face since.

For the next five days, we plan to play our games, laze about, stay up late, and sleep in. But first, I have to figure out Jack's new alarm clock as it went off this morning at 6:00 am.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

2009-12-17T05:56:00.011-06:00

You helped me get through high school.

You helped me get through college.

You helped me find a job when I desperately needed one.

You helped me get married.

You helped me give birth to Jack.

You helped me give birth to Luke.

You helped me grow up.

Every milestone in my life you've been there, guiding me and moving me along a path that I could be proud of.

But more importantly than the big events, you've been there for me always. All day, every day.

I love you. Happy Birthday.

To Spend or Not to Spend

2009-12-15T08:00:00.000-06:00

Jack surprised me.

After Christmas Jack often has a case of the Christmas blues. He is sad and doesn't know why or how to put it into words. I try to explain to him how it is normal to feel blue after Christmas, after spending all of your hours surrounded by family and laughter only to have to start thinking about going back to school, after getting to stay up late almost every night and have every day bring something special, after waiting for weeks to open your presents and suddenly it's over.

So the other day he came to me and said, "Sometimes I feel bad after Christmas." I started to delve into my Christmas blues talk but he stopped me. He said, "I know that, but I feel bad because I think you spend too much money on me and in these hard times we should be saving money. Maybe you shouldn't get me so much this year."

I was glad to hear that Jack correctly relates the presents he gets under the tree to the status of our bank account. I'm glad that he has a feeling of financial responsibility, but I don't ever want him to feel responsible for our finances (at least not until he is a top-paid major league baseball player).

I thanked him for his concern and assured him that we were doing fine and that there was no need for him to worry about money.

Then he added two things to his Christmas list.

What'd I Say?

2009-12-12T07:40:00.004-06:00

My blog has captured someone's attention. I don't know why, but my post Beyond the Dead has become the target of repeated junk comments. Every day, a few times a day, I have to reject a comment such as this:

最近旦那とマンネリで全然Hしてません。正直もうかなり欲求不満です…誰か相手してくれる方いませんか？空いている時間は多いと思うので都合は合わせやすいと思います。お互い楽しめる関係になりたいな。人妻でも平気な人いたら是非相手してください☆一応18歳以上の人限定でお願いします。上はどこまででも大丈夫なんで

Do these symbols actually mean something? Please, someone tell me if I'm being cursed.

Sleep Symphonies

2009-12-11T06:01:00.000-06:00

John has only once told me no in regards to topics for this blog. I asked him if I could record him sleeping and put it on the blog. Not video, just audio. He said absolutely not.

John is a melodious sleeper. He's got his standard snoring, but he also has a symphony of other sounds that he makes while sleeping. I can't describe them. That is what the recording was going to be for.

I am a good sleeper. I can fall asleep just about anywhere, and it takes me only about 3 minutes once my head hits whatever pillow I am using. But, it has to be dark and it has to be quiet. And I'm cranky if it is not dark and it is not quiet and I am in my own bed. It reminds me of a scene from the movie Candy where she's trying to sleep and he's trying to watch t.v. and he ends up with his face nearly pressed against the screen and a blanket over him and the t.v. so the light doesn't disturb her.

So sometimes I wonder if it is just me and my need for silence that makes it hard to sleep through John's snoring.

The other night Jack and Luke had a sleepover in our room while I was out of town. John had fallen asleep with them, which is next to impossible as they are both active sleepers with legs and limbs flying about all night and smacking whoever happens to be next to them in the stomach and head. And Luke can sleep through just about anything. But that night he woke up, woke John up and said, "Daddy wake up. You're snoring three different ways."

See? Symphony.

No Hablo Inglés

2009-12-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

Some say English is one of the hardest languages to learn for non-English speaking people. But why should it be?

Each letter in the alphabet has one distinct sound and use.

OK, never mind that, but there is only one letter or combination of letters for each distinct sound.

Ummm, well, there aren't words that sound the same but are spelled differently.

How about each word only has one meaning?

It seems that every rule has an exception. No wonder it takes twelve years of school to get it right.

Right now in school, Jack is learning about verbs, nouns, plurals and possessives. If you were a teacher, how would you explain plurals?

To make a word plural, you always add an "s", like one snake, two snakes.

Unless the word ends in an "s" already, then you add an "es", like one bus, two buses.

Unless the word wants to be Greek or Latin, then you remove the ending sound and add an "i", like one cactus, two cacti.

Unless the word ends in a "y", then you take away the "y" and add an "ies", like one baby, two babies.

Unless there is a vowel before the letter "y", then you just add an "s", like one toy, two toys.

Unless the word is "deer", then the plural is "deer".

Unless the word is one of those words that follows no rule at all, like mouse/mice, child/children, or man/men.

Jack is doing pretty well with learning his plurals, but tends to follow the basic rules for those irregular words he hasn't memorized yet.

He brought home a worksheet the other day in which he lost a point for not correctly providing the plural form of "woman." His answer? "Ladies." I think he should have got bonus points for that answer.

Breaking News

2009-12-02T05:59:00.002-06:00

I wake up daily this week to a newspaper riddled with world changing news.

President Obama is intensifying the war in Afghanistan.

A serial killer is indicted.

Mr. and Mrs. Reality TV fool security and meet the President.

Health insurance coverage is expiring.

With all that is going on, the news Jack shares when he gets home from school is, "Did you know Tiger Woods crashed his car after cheating on his wife?"

So we talk about rumors, and spreading gossip, and how exactly he knows about Tiger Woods and his reported cheating. I never got a clear answer on that one.

He did ask, "What's a tabloid?"

And I said, "Exactly."

Simple. Innocent. Loving. Real.

2009-11-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

My son Jack is a caring, sensitive child with overflowing empathy. He often will give answers such as "World Peace" or "To End Hunger" when asked what his wishes are. And I'm sure he does want these things, but is he giving the answer he thinks he should give, the answer that he thinks adults want to hear?

Jack's school Thanksgiving assignment gave a glimpse into the real Jack, and I liked what I read. It reminded me that there is a child inside that head of his.

What I am Most Thankful For

I am most thankful for my family. One reason I am thankful for my family is because they love me. I am also thankful for them because they buy me food. I also love them because they buy me stuff. They are a great family because they let me watch t.v. Those are some reasons I am thankful for my family.

Fun With Gloves

2009-11-23T06:35:00.007-06:00

My dad and step mom live in an idyllic country setting about two hours south of St. Louis. It has a pond fed by a natural spring. It is surrounded by National Forest. It is quiet and private. It is picturesque. It is nowhere near emergency services.

So, 10 days ago when my dad thought he was having a heart attack, my step mom had to drive him to the nearest hospital, which then helicoptered him to St. Louis.

He arrived at the hospital on Saturday. All day Saturday, Sunday and Monday, they alternated between getting tests performed, hearing that the tests showed nothing wrong with his heart, and sitting for hours without any information at all. On Monday night my dad was ready to check himself out. The doctors and frantic tears from Linda convinced him to stay for one more test.

On Tuesday they performed a cardiac cath. On Wednesday they performed triple bypass surgery to repair three of the five blockages. He woke up during the surgery, something they said would never happen. He also put up quite a fight with the nurses after the surgery, trying to get out of bed and pull out his tubes and wires. It took four of them to hold him down and finally get him sedated. The phrase, "Strong as an ox" comes to mind.

On Thursday morning they removed the breathing tube and moved him out of ICU one day ahead of schedule because he was doing so well.

On Friday they diagnosed him with MRSA, the antibiotic resistant superbug.

On Saturday, I brought the boys up to surprise him. They weren't allowed in the room because of the MRSA, but they could stand in the hall and talk to him, which they did.

And what do you do if you are a young boy at the hospital? You play with medical gloves. They make great balloons. Luke discovered while wandering the halls of the hospital that if you squeeze them just right while wearing them they make a fun squeak. Luke was happy to demonstrate this fun trick.

Yesterday my dad got to go home. He will have months of recovery, but I think he'll surprise everyone with how quickly he gets there. As long as his five large dogs take it easy on him.

And You Can Feel It Swaying

2009-11-16T06:29:00.007-06:00

We finally got to take the boys to Chicago. This is something we've been wanting to do for a long time, and it was worth the wait. The weather was great. The hotel was free. The fear factor was unparalleled in St. Louis.

Take for example this:

Nice view, eh?

How about this view?

Or this one, which was a little hard for me to enjoy with Jack's death grip and the feel of the building swaying ever so slightly.

If you need some perspective, this should provide it for you:

Or this view from the ground, showing the boxes in which we were standing:

So if you are in Chicago and need an adrenaline rush, head to the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower.

And be sure to take the City Pass with you. Our wait went from 2 hours to 2 minutes with our special tickets.

Ominous Feelings

2009-11-09T06:00:00.001-06:00

Have you ever had the feeling that something bad was going to happen to someone you love? I've had that feeling lately. There's no reason behind it, no explaining it or pinpointing it, but the feeling is there nonetheless.

Like when I'm driving with the boys in the car, I am worried about being in an accident. I've never been in an accident before so think maybe I'm due.

Or when the phone rings, I hesitate before answering expecting bad news on the other end.

So when I'm feeling like this, I am slightly high strung. I am craving quiet, safe activities that don't involve running with scissors.

What I am not craving is the boys on the roof, staring over the peak from the flat spot, yelling down and waving. And when I anxiously yell up, "Sit on your butts! Don't move! This was a bad idea! Come down now!" the response I get is "Oh Mom. Don't worry." That's like telling me not to breath.

And I am not craving a brush burning party, with fire lapping the lower branches of our tree and our dog circling the burn area barking like a mad man while the boys wait near the edges for the snakes to slither out of the fire's way. And when I start screaming, "The tree! The tree!" what I am not craving is John's leisurely stroll with the hose because he wants a few more leaves to burn up before he puts the fire out.

I am now convinced that the ominous feeling I've had hasn't been for a loved one but for my own well being, and the bad thing I have been running from is my own heart attack, which I narrowly escaped this weekend. Maybe I'll feel safe tomorrow.

The Dog Ate My Homework

2009-10-30T05:28:00.012-05:00

Halloween is our thing. We love dressing up. We love carving pumpkins. We love making our house spooky. We love burying ourselves in a big hole in the yard and jumping out at unsuspecting trick-or-treaters as they approach our door.

Each year we try to come up with cool and unique pumpkin carving ideas. We spend hours looking for the perfect pumpkins to complete our plan. We carve pumpkins like this:

This year, I carved an evil snowman made from three white pumpkins. It took forever to clean out the slimy, stringy white pumpkins. It looked great. Here is what is left of it:

Yes - my dog ate my pumpkin. When I saw him sniffing around the carved pumpkins, I covered them with a tarp. And put folding chairs on the edges. And put a cooler on top. He still managed to get under the tarp and drag out the pumpkins. He even ate the candle.

At least he didn't get these, which have been moved to the safety of the garage and will only get one night of glory:

Beyond The Dead

2009-10-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

Every month or so, our school opens up a glass front case in front of the cafeteria and calls it the "School Store." They sell pencils, erasers, notebooks, key chains, and other little trinkets for $0.25 to $1.00. My boys look forward to these school store days so they can buy 100 tiny erasers for 50 cents.

My entrepreneur Luke has figured out a new use for the school store. He buys highlighters for a quarter and then resells them to people visiting our house for $1.00.

He has made his room a store. His desk is the display case. He has bags full of change. He has made signs of all of his inventory and what the cost is. If you are looking for a glow-in-the dark bat that cost a dollar but is being resold for three, now you know where to go.

He even has a name for his store. He wanted a Halloween name because he only wants his store to be open around holidays and Halloween was the next upcoming holiday. I suggested Ghoulish Goodies. He said, "Too lame." I suggested Dracula's Castle. He said, "Too old school." I don't even know what that means. I said, "Well what about something like 'The Other Side'?" And he said, "I know! Beyond the Dead!" I don't know if I'd shop at a store with that name, but I obviously had no acceptable options so he went with it.

He even gave me a job. He told me that I could be in charge of making the change. But, I got fired less than an hour later because I wouldn't let him have candy before dinner.

A compelling name, a varied inventory, seasonal hours, low overhead, a no-nonsense approach to managing, a 500% markup. I think I have a successful business owner in the making.

So, if you stop by for a visit be prepared to leave with something from the store. Luke is a very persuasive salesman. And he has thirteen dollars in profits to prove it.

And It Was John Who Showed Them This To Begin With

2009-10-16T06:00:00.002-05:00

I don't know what is more annoying - this:

Or your kids watching this video over and over and then spending the rest of the week saying, "Hey, hey mom. KNIFE."

The House Where John Lives

2009-10-13T06:00:00.000-05:00

This is the house where John lives.

This is the backyard of the house where John lives.

This is the patio in the backyard of the house where John lives.

This is the new fire pit that John built on the patio in the backyard of the house where John lives.

This is the trash can where John put his ash after having a fire in the new fire pit on the patio in the backyard of the house where John lives.

This is the garden hose that John used to put out the fire in the trash can where John put his ash after having a fire in the new fire pit on the patio in the backyard of the house where John lives.

This is what is left of the trash can after using the garden hose to put out the fire in the trash can where John put his ash after having a fire in the new fire pit on the patio in the backyard of the house where John lives.

This is proof that, even after the fire in the fire pit has been out for 24 hours, it is not safe to put ash in the trash can after having a fire in the new fire pit on the patio in the backyard of the house where John lives.

Get Rich Quick

2009-10-08T17:19:00.004-05:00

I wouldn't describe Jack as materialistic. Although he likes to have stuff and gets excited when he thinks about the next thing he can buy, he doesn't judge people by what they do and do not have and he is just as happy with a piece of paper and a pencil than he is with his Nintendo DS.

That said, he is very interested in money, and having money, and how much things cost, and how he can get rich. Being only eight years old, his concept of "rich" is a little askew. He thinks if he had $10,000 he would be considered rich. And I guess he would be rich, for an eight year old.

Because of his desire to be rich, he is often planning and scheming. He doesn't expect the money just to fall in his lap. He knows he will have to work for it. So he spends time thinking about jobs and asking questions regarding careers and how much people get paid. He puts thought into his future career, trying to take what he loves and determine if he could get rich doing it.

A recent conversation began with him asking what was the best college in the country. When I started explaining about how many colleges there were out there and how colleges were known for being the top for different areas of study, he could see that graduating from the best college in order to get rich wouldn't be as simple as he thought.

That moved on to, "How much do you get paid to own a newspaper? Are people that own newspapers rich?"

I answered that some may be, but some may not be. It depends on how many people buy your newspaper. I guess that sounded too complicated for him, so he asked, "What is the best baseball college?"

I explained to him that there really isn't a baseball college, that you choose your college based on what you want to study and then can play baseball at that college if you make the team.

Also too complicated so he asked, "How much money does a butler make?"

I guess he's hoping to get rich through proximity.

Goooooo, Tigers!

2009-10-05T07:14:00.003-05:00

John has been coaching Jack's baseball team for several seasons now. When he first started and I went to watch the games, the boys looked so cute and tiny, runny willy-nilly around the field with no idea where the ball was headed. Half the time, the boys would be distracted by a bug or the dirt on the field and forget that they were in the middle of a game. Sometimes, they sat right down on their butts in the middle of the field, needing a break.

It's been quite an adventure watching this team, gauging the progression of their skills, seeing their love of the game grow and their discipline for playing grow along with that love. They are still boys, however, and do sometimes still get distracted by something other than the game. At one game, a boy decided he needed to go to the bathroom and started running off the field. It wouldn't have been that big of deal if he hadn't been the batter at the time. Poor guy. I think he struck out just so he could go pee.

The boys love to practice, love to play, and have been gracious, although disappointed, when they've lost. They slowly started winning games here and there, and then this fall baseball season their play came together in succinct harmony:

Even if they never win another game, they've got this first place trophy to admire. But, given the size of that trophy, I think the desire to win will overshadow the distractions on the field.

Lessons From the Dog Park

2009-09-25T06:58:00.002-05:00

Luke confessed that he hasn't been playing with anyone at recess. I asked him why and he said all of his friends play kickball. I asked why he doesn't play with them. He said he used to but he doesn't anymore.

With Luke, there is almost always more to the story but he won't share it if you push him. He has to tell it in his own time.

Finally, he divulged that one of the boys, nicknamed Bubba at the boy's own request, called Luke the "Worst Kickball Player in the World" when Luke didn't make a play. So Luke quit playing on the spot and won't play anymore. He chooses to do his own thing at recess, alone, rather than face more embarrassment and berating. This makes me want to go to every recess with him and play with him, but I know I can't.

I talked to him about this kid and how he plays kickball. He's not perfect, of course, so we talked about how he may name call to take the attention off of himself. We talked about insecurities and doing what you want in spite of name calling and not letting someone bully you out of having fun. We talked about practicing kickball in the backyard to build his confidence.

There is another boy that plays kickball at recess that Luke has been in a friendly competition with since Kindergarten. He refers to him as a "friend who is my archenemy." This kid is smart and athletic and popular. Luke never showed much interest in him outside of their competition. Luke invited him to our house to play yesterday, and I wonder if he thinks moving from competition to friendship with this boy will ease his recess woes. Kind of like Smalls and Benny in the Sandlot.

I was terribly shy in school, and had someone not spoken with me I probably would have spent most of my days alone. I was not one to make the first move. I painfully remember how hard it was to make friends and how honest and mean kids can be to each other.

At the dog park the other day, I watched how the dogs interacted. Each time a new dog came in the fenced area to play, all of the other dogs would run up to it. They would do a little greeting and tail wagging, and then they'd all run off as a group to play. Whenever one dog saw or smelled something interesting, all of the other dogs would run over to check it out. There was no ganging up, no hurt feelings, no one left out of the play. Too bad it can't be this simple for kids.

Maybe I should suggest a field trip to the dog park to observe the social interactions of an animal who knows nothing more at that moment than wanting to play and have fun with everyone. I think there are good lessons to learn there, sans the butt sniffing.

A Christmas Conundrum

2009-09-22T06:00:00.000-05:00

With Christmas just a few short months away, evidenced by the Christmas displays at Target right next to the Halloween candy, my boys have turned their attention to Santa.

Jack mentioned, with a slight sense of trepidation, that none of his friends believes in Santa. And, as kids do, these friends have offered him much evidence as to why Santa isn't real and are pressuring him to embrace the dark side. He dropped this on me in the car the other day, when my defenses were weak and I had in no way practiced a Santa speech or explanation. And Luke was in the car, so I didn't want to come clean for that and many other reasons.

"My friends say Santa isn't real. Is he real, Mom? Or is it you and dad that got that t.v. for me and get us our presents every year?"

"Some people believe in Santa and some don't. I think he's real."

"So it wasn't you that brought the t.v. to my room?"

"It was Santa."

"Do you swear?"

And there it is. The Question. It is an unwritten rule with my boys that if someone asks, "Do you swear?" that the response can only be the truth. How do I get out of this one without lying to The Question but also not giving up on the magic of Santa? Especially with Luke in the car?

Because truthfully, I am not ready for Jack or Luke to stop believing in Santa. Because if Jack stops, Luke will stop because Jack would not be able to keep that secret. Because it is so much fun to keep that belief alive and to have Santa's presents under the tree on Christmas morning. Because, for one to two months out of the year, I can use the "Santa's watching," method of discipline that never fails to work.

So I said, "I believe in the magic of Santa, and we can talk about it more later if you want."

And Jack, who is smart and could have easily seen through that if he was ready to stop believing, said, "I think I'll believe you instead of my friends. You always tell the truth."

So he has two disappointments waiting when the truth is revealed.

And Luke, who was listening intently to this entire conversation, said, "Why does Santa only bring one expensive present every year? He should bring more."

And that successfully changed the subject from whether or not Santa is real to how the boys can get more presents this year. I better start saving for Christmas.

Who Needs a Radio?

2009-09-15T13:47:00.005-05:00

When in a boy's life does everything become a competition? I can't pinpoint the defining age or event that turns brothers into competitors, making every daily chore or monotonous task a fight to the finish. There must be some reason, other than chromosomal tendencies.

What used to just be walking to the car is now a race to get to the car first, usually with one person calling for the race and beginning the race in the same split second and winning due to the head start with the loser crying foul and claiming they won because they touched the right rear taillight first and that was the finish line.

What used to just be getting dressed, taking a bath, eating and any number of daily activities now has a built in element of who can finish first, fastest, best.

Sometimes I can use this to my advantage. When we are in the car and the boys are screaming and my head is pulsing with each increasing decibel, I can pull out the "One, two, three - Hush Puppy!" and the boys immediately become silent in their quest to win the game of who can be quiet the longest.

Their newest competition is over our dog Indy. Who gets to pet him first, who gets to hug him longest, who Indy gets to lay with, who he puts his head on in the car and who gets the butt region are all common points of contention. It makes Indy's head spin.

But can you blame them, when he is so cute and cuddly when he's tired?

When coming home from the park the other day, Indy should have gotten in the car and immediately fallen to sleep. But both the boys wanted his head. Jack began singing quietly and soothingly to Indy. To my pleasure, this went on for several minutes until Luke figured out what was going on. He chimed in with his own song, trying to get Indy to come to his side. What we ended up with was a muddled battle of the bands in the back seat of the car, and one very confused, wide awake dog.

A New Age of Gross-ness

2009-09-10T06:00:00.001-05:00

When I was a kid, there wasn't much that wouldn't gross me out. In elementary school, I was always the follow-up puker. You know the one - the one that would get sick simply because they saw or heard or smelled the vomit of someone else. I also gagged at the sight of boogers, snot, poop, and almost anything else you can think of that is the crux of being a parent.

This gross-out reflex didn't stop at adulthood. One summer when I was home from college, I spent a week babysitting my cousin Clayton, who, unfortunately for him, had to wait patiently whenever he had a poopy diaper while I left the room three or four times to gag and gain composure before I could finish the job. Each time I stepped out of the room, I'd say, "Just a minute Clayton. It's o.k. I'll be right back." And when I stepped back into the room, he had of course moved just enough on the diaper to smush the poop around causing me to gag even more.

Once I had my own kids, I outgrew my gag condition fairly quickly. What choice did I have? Everyone said I would but I didn't believe them. They were right, though, and I have managed to gain control over the gag reflex. Not that my boys don't try to gross me out. I have been assaulted with burping, farting, booger wiping, snot stains, chewed up food spitting, dirty underwear, urine in odd places, poop up the back, and projectile vomiting.

But with all of the training, all of the building up of defenses, nothing quite prepared me for this:

or this

I now have to deal with this spitty mouth guard that oozes drool that gets placed on surfaces only known by Luke and then put back in his mouth and has to be sterilized and I find it all over the house covered in gunk and it is just disgusting.

I also have to deal with this *ahem* cup that Jack loves dancing around in with his sliding pants on like a baseball stripper down to his last garment but that I find sitting on things like the kitchen table and who wants to see a cup sitting on the eating surface whether or not it actually has come into contact with his goods and pieces?

I knew sports would be dangerous and competitive, but I had no idea they would add this new level of gross-ness to our house.

Symbolism

2009-09-01T06:00:00.000-05:00

Luke found the lid to a plastic storage tub, the storage piece of which has long since disappeared.

When he saw the image stuck on the lid, he said to John, "I found the thing you changed my diapers in when I was baby."

Luke equating this symbol:

to something that is an acceptable activity, or blocking out that symbol from his vision completely, explains so much about his behavior and personality. It also reaffirms my belief that I am in for a wild ride with him.

Trust Me: The Light is Not Taunting You

2009-08-28T10:28:00.005-05:00

It was a beautiful morning.

The birds were chirping.

The flowers were blooming.

The typical August heat and humidity were missing and the air was pleasantly breathable.

The sun was shining through the windows.

Radiance was reflecting off of every surface.

And my nut-job of a dog decided to try to eat the light out of the wall.

I rue the day we bought that laser toy. We created a light-obsessed monster.

Prayers Answered

2009-08-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

Since Jack's confusing, unexpected and scary diagnosis, we've been talking quite a bit about prayers. Jack was surprised to hear that I pray every night. He was even more surprised to hear that I pray for him and Luke every night. I don't know why this would come as a shock to him. I guess we don't talk about it much. We talk about his prayers but not about mine. So I told him a little about it. I told him that I pray for him always, and not just when he is sick. I also told him that I am not just asking God to keep him safe or make him well, but that I am always thanking God for the gifts of Jack and Luke.

We had the appointment with the Pediatric Neurosurgeon on Saturday at 8:00 am. That is waaaayyyy too early in the morning to have to think about spinal cord surgery. We were the only family in the office so got an abundance of attention. First, a PA came in and asked Jack several questions and put him through a battery of strength and motor skills tests while the neurosurgeon reviewed his MRI. Then, the neurosurgeon and another doctor came into the room and called John and me into another room to discuss the films. I was hoping we would pass by a toilet on the way so I could puke.

What he told us was that this:

was likely something that Jack was born with, is not all that uncommon, and would likely close itself up as Jack grew. He said he saw nothing obvious that would be the cause of it, no blockage of spinal cord fluid flow, and would recommend another MRI in one year to confirm his diagnosis. Basically, what we had was wonderful news and answered prayers.

As we left the doctor's office and explained to Jack what the doctor said, Jack said, "I knew I would be fine because I have been praying. Will you come to my next MRI, Mom, and rub my feet when they get tingly like you did last time?" So now I need to make an appointment with a cardiologist to repair my melted heart.

But, I do have to say that what really scares me is this:

I wonder if we could turn this image into Jack's next Halloween costume.

Our New Old Life

2009-08-21T10:00:00.002-05:00

Our new life has started. It is eerily similar to our old life. Our old life before John started his own business. Our old life before he was home all the time. Our old life before we lived on one income.

So our choice was for John to go back to work or to give up our house. We decided to keep our house. I'm wondering if we made the right decision.

This week has been a might bit stressful. Not that the last year and a half wasn't stressful with John trying to get his business off the ground and watching our savings dwindle from a nest egg to Oh My Gosh We Have No Money. But we're back to our old ways with John going to work every morning, now even before the kids wake up, and me running the school routines while working my 40. Not that we won't make it work. It will just take awhile to get used to again. And maybe we'll decide it's not worth it. Maybe we'll give up our house after all. Or maybe we'll win PowerBall.

I do enjoy driving the boys to school again. They are very talkative and hilarious in the mornings. We spend the drive jamming out to Spongebob's greatest hits. It is oddly exhilarating. And the boys are adjusting to the new schedule too. They miss their time with their daddy, and even notice on most days that they haven't seen him in the morning. They want to stay up late with him into the night talking. That means I have to nag them from their beds in the morning, but I have figured out that waking them up at 7:15 am to allow for 15 minutes of Wii is the difference between them jumping out of bed and me dragging them out of bed.

They graciously let me walk them to their rooms on the first day of school. I needed that. I did not get a kiss from Luke, though, and he informed me, "This will NOT be happening when I go into second grade next year."

We'll see about that.

What Does Love Weigh?

2009-08-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

With school not beginning until Tuesday and my husband traveling for a new job, last week stood to be a stressful one. I was attempting to take over 100 pages of notes from a recent project and mold them into a functional and understandable product for my client. I had been attempting this for several days and time had run out.

Luckily my sister came to the rescue and, instead of me juggling the boys on one hand and typing with the other, she entertained them in that special way only aunts can do. Thanks, Nanny (which is her nickname, not her job description).

I had to share something she sent to me in the mail. She does this often. I'll open the mailbox and out of the blue there will be a thought or a sentiment from her just because. This one in a little red envelope nearly escaped my attention because it's the size of a gift card.

It reads, "Thank you for sharing life with me. I love you, Shannon."

Luckily, it was attached to this:

This envelope is from the Postal Service and requires $0.22 postage due on my sister's little envelope. That is such my sister's luck. She would have been devastated to know that her note arrived attached to a bill. Just thinking about the expression on her face when I would tell her had me cracking up. So I didn't tell her. But I posted it here so she could read about it and be surprised, knowing that the note brought me love and laughter all in one.

I don't know why it came with a postage due envelope, because the envelope had a $0.42 stamp attached and it was a teeny, tiny envelope. Maybe it was overweight because of all the love stuffed inside.

The Pain of the Dentist

2009-08-12T06:44:00.002-05:00

The nervous energy that accompanies a trip to the dentist manifests itself in my boys the way most things do - they wrestle.

And I think our dentist and all the people that work there know this. They seem to be finely attuned to the moods of children. And they have decked their office, lobby and tooth torture areas out with myriad ways to distract the kids from the impending chair treatment.

Just check out the pictures on their website and you'll see what I mean.

There is a large fish tank with colorful fish aka Finding Nemo. There is a bird aviary. There is a play room with things to climb on, things to stack, things to read, and a computer loaded with games. There are televisions playing kid-friendly programming. The furniture is soft and oddly shaped and fun to crawl on. The walls are painted with murals of big fish and sharks and octopi. The hygienists and office workers wear St. Louis Cardinal shirts.

With all of this stuff, you think my kids would be entertained for the fifteen minutes that they wait for their names to be called. But they've seen it all before - every 6 months to be exact. So they resorted to the one activity that never grows boring and that activity is driving their mother insane.

I managed to distract them a bit by letting them take pictures of the fish tank with my phone. But then they started fighting over who took more pictures and I had to take the phone away and they started wrestling again.

The (imagined?) looks of disapproval from the other parents with perfect children began when I couldn't control my boys, so I did what any mom on the fifth day of a low-grade fever with snot dripping and her nose skin peeling from incessant wiping whose husband was on the second day of a four day business trip would do. I bribed them with new Nintendo DS games.

A Calming Activity

2009-08-07T06:00:00.001-05:00

We've come down with a nasty little summer bug at our house. First Luke, then Jack, then John, then me.

We were all lazing about the house with me on the couch and Jack deciding to entertain himself right before bedtime with a non-energetic activity. He thought he would build a fort because, "building a fort is a calm activity and mom likes calm." Although the sentiment touched me and made me chuckle, most ideas that my boys come up with either begin or end on the other end of the spectrum from calm.

Here is the fort he built:

From the top of the stairs

And from the bottom.

The strategically placed tube gave the boys a great slide to climb up or down, to hide from Indy while he tried to eat their toes, or to try to teach Indy how to climb. It also gave them the perfect avenue to crack their heads on the concrete and brick wall.

The fort itself became a study of our household members' flexibility, as it had to be traversed to make it up the steps to the bedrooms. A stall tactic by the boys perhaps to avoid going to bed? I was tempted to march them through the back door and up the driveway, but I was too tired. So I climbed the menagerie of blankets, pillows, cushions, foot rests, and death traps.

For sick boys, the energy bubbled over. The fort soon became an undersea ghost world where Indy was a ghost shark trying to eat them. We warned them time and again to settle down or someone was going to get hurt. Luke said, "I'll get hurt," with the excitement of a child volunteering to go to the carnival. "I'll hit my head right on that thing." To an outsider, this statement from Luke may be perceived as sarcasm or sass. But Luke is always the one to get hurt and he was simply stating a known fact. He didn't want to stop playing over something that was inevitable.

Before too long, I was pulled from the couch by a crying Luke. Jack had gotten too rough, had not thought things through, and had hit Luke in the eye with a piece of flying fort. Game over. Time for bed. "But I'm sick and too tired to go upstairs," proclaimed Jack. It's easy to pull the sick card at the end of the day when there is no chance of missing anything fun.

When A Bump Is, But Isn't, Just A Bump

2009-08-04T06:00:00.001-05:00

I was pushing Jack on the swing. He asked me to push him on his butt because his back was hurting. I didn't pay much attention.

Later we noticed a bump there. We took him to have it looked at. The doctor scheduled an MRI.

I got to be in the room with him. It was an open-sided MRI machine. It looked like a giant UFO. We talked about being an astronaut and pretending to be a Pokemon.

I reminded him he had to be very still. I remembered my own MRI and how I was enclosed and cried through the whole thing. I would tell him that story when he was finished with his own. He laughed. He was braver than I was. I told him I was claustrophobic. He told everyone I had a disease.

The technician taped a vitamin to his back so the radiologist would be able to focus on the spot we were concerned with when reading the films. I couldn't stop thinking of the story of the Princess and the Pea, worrying that he wouldn't be comfortable laying on that vitamin.

After 35 minutes, they conveyored Jack out and we waitied for the doctor to read the films to see if he needed the contrast injection. It took 20 minutes for that decision, with Jack still strapped down and me rubbing and rotating his legs, which had begun to go numb and tingly. The doctor was consulting with a patient with sad news after a mammogram. I wondered if that would be us soon.

Jack needed the contrast. His eyes got big, he started breathing heavy, but was fine after he heard everything that was going to happen and she showed him all of her tools. Jack has to have an explanation and see all the implements before moving forward. His doctors and dentists know this about him. Seven more minutes and he was done.

We couldn't wait for our results. We had to go pick up Luke. We would have to distract ourselves for 48 hours and try not to think the worst. The radiologist called 15 minutes later with a preliminary report. I ran home and jumped on the Internet. Probably a mistake given the oodles of information with no specific explanation behind it.

We kept the weekend full. We went to see Harry Potter. Jack and John went to a Cardinal game. Jack played in his All-Star game. Jack and Luke had a sleepover at meemaw's. John and I went to a Cardinal game. I tried to ignore Jack's unopened box of school supplies on the dining room table. I can be too grim.

The doctor called. Syringohydromyelia. A rare disorder. Jack has always been unique and continues to be so, even in illness. Jack hasn't been experiencing symptoms from the disorder so may just need monitoring and not surgery. We have an appointment with a pediatric neurosurgeon to figure out our next steps.

The bump the vitamin was taped to? Didn't even show on the MRI. Without the bump, we wouldn't have discovered the syrinx in his spinal cord. And maybe we didn't need to. Maybe Jack would have gone his whole life never experiencing symptoms. Or maybe not. I have to think that bump showed up for a reason.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

2009-07-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

I really admire those new mothers to sons who say they are going to try to discourage violent play in their households by not buying toy guns and knives and the like for their boys. I also would like to say good luck with that. Because they are soon to find out, as most mothers that I've spoken with that have tried to go down this path eventually find out, somehow, someway, boys will have toy weapons. They will take something and make it into a gun or a knife, no matter how benign that object may appear to anyone loaded with x chromosomes and over the age of 12.

Take paper airplanes. My kids discovered a page on how to make paper airplanes in The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden. Dangerous indeed. Paper on its own is relatively safe. It's lightweight, it can't be thrown very far, it doesn't hurt when you hit someone with it unless crumpled into a tight little ball. Barring a rogue papercut or two, I wouldn't consider paper itself very dangerous.

The actual process of building paper airplanes also went well. The boys sat down with John and very patiently folded their pieces of paper into the correct shapes to make the appropriate planes. No fighting, little arguing, just the anticipation of whether or not their airplanes would fly.

Then the testing came. And boy did they fly! The airplanes went from one side of the room to the other. They did spirals and flips, probably accidentally but the tricks were still magnificent. And this is where it began to deteriorate.

Jack's plane accidentally hit his dad in the forehead. John made a funny noise, keeled over and said, "You got me!" The game was on. No more peaceful gliding. No more loop-di-loos. No more seeing which plane would travel the greatest distance or who could catch their plane in mid air. The gauntlet had been thrown down. And John's head made a fantastic target.

It is amazing how quickly, in the hands of a boy, a toy can go from nice and quiet to destructive and hazardous. The paper airplanes became bombers with passengers crashing to fiery deaths as they pummeled John over and over in his face, head, belly, and backside. I considered asking him to put on safety glasses for fear he would lose an eye, and at one point when an airplane hit his throat thought he had been given an unscheduled and unneeded tracheotomy. Luckily, the sharp airplane points don't hold up to much abuse and they were dulled by his body in no time.

So to those moms out there who hope to stave off violent play in their homes, I wish you good luck. And remind you to keep a close eye on your husband. In my home he is often the instigator.

The Simplest of Things

2009-07-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

Luke will be playing flag football in the fall. He played baseball this summer and proclaimed it, "not his sport." He feels that football will be his sport because it will be full of action with "no stupid waiting around for something to happen." We'll see. He may play one game of football and wish for some of the sweet downtime of baseball.

In preparation for his football season, we bought him the pee-wee sized football that will be used in his league. He played with it a little, and then proclaimed it the best thing he has ever gotten. Ever. And over the course of a few days, he has not let it out of his sight. He sleeps with it. And every hour or so he restates that it is the best present that he has gotten in years. In his life even.

This from the kid that begged for the Robo-Quad for Christmas. And from the kid who couldn't live without the DRex Pet. And from the kid whose life would be ruined if he did not get the 3D Video Spy Car.

So come December when he is making out his list to Santa, I am going to remind him of his past technology overload and how he played a total of 7 minutes with all of these toys and how the simplest of gifts earned his top honors. And I hope he'll remember still how much he loved his football. Because Santa is not made of money. But, Luke will remind me that Santa doesn't need money. His elves make all the toys that kids ask for.

And I'll have to remind him that Santa has to buy all the materials, and microchips are very expensive.

Keeping Secrets

2009-07-20T06:58:00.002-05:00

At their young ages, my boys still feel that they can come to me with secrets. They still trust me to keep their secrets, and when they have a secret burning inside of them that someone told them that they just have to get out, they know that they can share it with me. In a nutshell, they aren't teenagers yet.

I have to be careful with this, though. I have to clarify before hearing the secret my rules of nondisclosure. When the boys, usually Jack, come to me with, "If I tell you a secret do you promise you won't tell?" I have to say to them first, "Is someone in danger? Is someone going to get hurt? Is someone going to hurt someone else? Is someone doing something bad?"

If the answer to each of these questions is "No," then I agree to keep the secret. They know that if they answer "Yes" to any of the questions, that once I hear the secret I might have to tell someone else to protect the bearer of the secret. The boys have been fine with this arrangement so far because I've never had to tell the secrets they've shared with me. As I said before, they're not teenagers yet.

Jack came to me recently with a secret regarding a girl that he is close to and I won't share her name so as not to reveal his and her secret. When he told me that she told him a secret but it was too good to keep and he had to tell someone, I agreed to hear it and asked him my questions. He answered "No" to each of them (whew!) and I promised I wouldn't tell anyone.

"She met Joe Jonas and he asked her to marry him and her mom signed a contract saying she could marry him now even though she's not old enough."

The "she" he is talking about is ten years old.

I guess I need to have a talk with Jack about my questions and what it means for someone to be in danger or whether or not someone is going to get hurt. Because I think marrying Joe Jonas would qualify as imminent danger. Have you seen those pants he wears?

The Caribbean Can Wait

2009-07-08T08:11:00.014-05:00

Fourth of July was our 11th wedding anniversary. We didn't spend the weekend in St. Thomas, USVI where we got married,

but we did spend it in Marshall, MO and Shawnee, KS. That's just as good, right?

The boys think so, who spent Thursday night playing with farm kittens, riding the go-kart, and doing fireworks.

The boys think so, who spent Friday playing XBox with their good friends Gavin and Grant.

The boys think so, who spent Saturday morning at a Fourth of July parade collecting candy, even though there were occasional lulls in the booty.

The boys think so, who spent Saturday afternoon at Power Play, playing video games and Laser Tag and cashing in tickets for cheap junk that required super glue 30 minutes out of the building.

Indy thinks so, who spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday playing non-stop with his new friend, Ziggy, at the home of our hosts and the world's greatest dog park.

And John and I think so, who spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday watching our kids have a blast, being cooked great food, and hanging out with our friends and each other.

That Would be a Great Trick

2009-06-29T14:16:00.006-05:00

Our dog, Indy, has learned to come and alert us to the fact that he is going to be sick (vomit) so we can let him outside quickly.

Our last dog, Shasta, didn't need to learn this trick because she had an early warning sign that sounded like a camel coughing up an elephant and lasted for about 15 seconds before her present actually arrived.

But Indy is a silent gift giver, so his attempts to alert us to the onslaught are much appreciated. And I think he really, really does not want to be sick in the house. I think he feels guilty and sad when he does that, like he is creating more work for us and would like to avoid that if at all possible. You can see it on his face if he doesn't make it outside. He appears embarrassed and apologetic, even though it is not his fault - although he could have not eaten the rubber ball, piece of bed sheet, and OMG what is that? that caused him to vomit in the first place.

So the other night when I was getting the boys ready for bed, I was distracted and didn't notice the early warning signs. Luke's mattress was on the floor of Jack's room for a sleepover when Indy came in. Luke was delighted when Indy hopped onto his mattress, expecting Indy to snuggle for awhile. Luke quickly became mortified when Indy barfed on his blankets. Luke burst into tears. I'm lucky that's all he did. Had it been me at that age (and right up until I had kids) I would have followed up Indy's deposit with one of my own.

Luke was devastated. How could Indy do that? What did Luke ever do to Indy to deserve that kind of treatment? To Luke it was as if Indy saved up his stomach contents, sought Luke out and purposely puked on his blankets.

I said to Luke, "He didn't do it on purpose or to hurt your feelings. He was trying to get our attention to tell us he needed to be sick, but we weren't fast enough. You know how sometimes you are going to be sick and you try to make it to the toilet but you don't and you get sick on the floor instead?"

"But my bed is nowhere near the toilet," he said.

And we started laughing, the image of a dog trying to get sick in the toilet instead of outside fresh in our minds as we went on an Indy present hunt through the house and loaded Luke's blankets into the washing machine.

My Vacation Lessons

2009-06-26T07:09:00.006-05:00

Vacation advice for those getting ready for summer trips to beach areas:

Stay hydrated and eat lots of fruit. This helps in the 90 degree heat and non-stop playing in the ocean and on the beach. I recommend Baileys Banana Coladas - fruit, liquid, and ice!

Bailey's Banana Colada Recipe

Banana Liqueur
Dark Rum
Bailey's Irish Cream
1 oz Banana
Pina Colada Mix

Put the banana and banana liqueur into a blender until it becomes a thick paste. Add Bailey's to taste; pina colada mix and rum to taste as well. Blend well, add ice, and blend again until smooth.

If you go on vacation with lots of kids, make sure a few of those kids are teens willing to babysit one night so you can get a break and go out with the 21 and up group. Here's the babysitters and babysittees with Grandma Sue.

If you want fresh seafood, go to a reputable fish market. Don't try to get a bargain by paying $2.00 to catch a lobster from a child's nightmare version of the Crane Game.

Yes, we were at a bar and had been drinking if you can't tell from our yelling, giggling and over excitement at trying to catch a lobster with a giant claw. The famous Florabama. We went to the Florabama after leaving a bar with "entertainment." We asked the waitress if the "entertainment" was Karaoke night. She looked at us a little funny and replied, "No, that's enter singer's name here." I have video of the singer, who read the words to songs from his computer screen and kept bringing an endless supply of people from the small crowd, including his brother, up to help him sing. Come to mention it, the supply was endless. Including our group of 6 there were only about 12 people at the bar. We were driven away to the Florabama. So my advice is, make sure the entertainment is entertaining in a "Man that guy can sing" way and not a "This is great material for my blog" way. I will not post the video as that just feels wrong somehow.

When you're on vacation, remember to have fun but don't fall back into your old wild ways of smoking and drinking.

To Dive In or Not to Dive In

2009-06-18T06:00:00.002-05:00

The great thing about night swimming in Florida is that the pool water is so warm and it washes all the beach sand and ocean salt water off so you don't even have to take a bath when you come in.

The bad thing about night swimming in Florida is it's so dark that you can't tell if your kids are doing underwater tricks or going into convulsions.

What a Way to Spend a Birthday

2009-06-16T08:26:00.009-05:00

John turned 38 yesterday. So in celebration we went to Florida. OK. Not really. But since we were in Florida anyway, we celebrated.

His day started with breakfast in bed made by his mom and sister Julie and served by his two best buddies.

It then continued with opening packable presents (glow-in-the-dark beach Frisbee), and when I say opening, I mean taking out of the packaging because packing for the trip was enough - I could not actually get his presents wrapped.

The celebration continued with a day spent at the pool and beach, hunting for shells, building sand castles, and body surfing.

Immediately after this face plant, Luke declared, "I'm done."

We then had a birthday party for him in our condo with his whole family (minus his dad who is back in Jeff City - Hi Frank! We miss you!) with great food and more presents. How about that hat? That will protect his shaved head from the sun.

I think we will do the same thing today, without the presents. It is vacation after all.

It Might Be Time To Simplify When...

2009-06-12T06:00:00.004-05:00

...you have to leave your house sitter instructions like this:

My sister is house and dog sitting while we are in Florida. I wish we could bring Indy, but he will be happy being here with his Aunt Nanny. He will miss the ocean, but at least he has the waterfall in the backyard.

Our lives may be complicated, but he wallows in simple pleasures.

Bad Timing

2009-06-09T06:00:00.000-05:00

New car

Plus

Quarter-sized hail

Plus

Flimsy sheet and tarp

Equals

Rethinking that $1,000 insurance deductible and use of garage as toy storage and overall clutter festival.

PRESSURE

2009-06-05T06:00:00.001-05:00

Sweaty palms.

Racing heart.

Clenched teeth.

Playing the best team in the league.

Everyone's watching.

So much pressure.

Blood pounding loud in the ears.

Block out the crowd.

Bases are loaded.

Two outs.

Two strikes.

Get a hit.

Keep your eye on the ball.

Strike three.

Charlie Browned it. Oh well. Better luck next time.

Time to pitch for the first time ever.

This team is loaded with power hitters.

Best hitters we've seen yet.

Wish it was an easier team.

Batter's ready.

Relax.

Ball one.

Relax.

Strike. Yes.

You can do it. Just relax. Focus. Don't worry. It will be ok. Teammates will help. They will help get the outs. Don't worry about Number 12. He is a power hitter. It's ok if he gets a big hit. Almost struck out Number 12. Yes! Keep up the good work. Arm's getting tired. It's ok. Hang in there. Doing great. Relax. Just playing a game of catch. Don't listen to the crowd. Over the top. Throw some strikes. Focus. Relax. Sling it in there. You can do it. It'll be alright.

I wonder what was going through Jack's mind during the game. This is why I never played organized sports. I can't handle the pressure.

Desensitivity

2009-06-02T06:00:00.001-05:00

When do children become desensitized? How much talk of "Don't talk to strangers" is too much?

We have tried to strike a balance between informing our children with the information they need to keep them safe in a way that will not make them so terrified they will not want to leave the house.

One of the things that was hard for me to do was let them go to the restroom alone in public places. If it was just Luke and me, we would go into the ladies' room. If it was Jack and Luke and me and no family restroom, I would send Jack and Luke into the men's room together and stand outside until they came out, listening at the door for any suspicious noises.

So the other night when we were out to dinner and Luke had to go number 2, John did the honors and took him to the men's room. He was taking really long and we were close to the restroom so John left him in there. My line of sight only allowed me to see the top of the door opening and closing, though John could see who was coming in and out.

I gave John the "Are you sure?" look. He replied he was giving Luke 2 minutes and then would go check on him. Jack was seemingly oblivious playing his Nintendo DS.

I stared at the little piece of doorway, waiting for it to open and bring my boy safely back to me. It opened. I looked at John. "Just an old man going in," he said.

"Probably someone looking for children to steal," said Jack, never looking up from his DS.

I didn't know whether to bust out laughing or run for the restroom. Did Jack really think every person heading for the restroom was a potential kidnapper? But he didn't seem too worried about his brother, never missing a beat of gameplay. So had we desensitized him to the potential dangers of strangers, or had we made him afraid of everyone?

The old man came out and I sent John to get Luke. He was fine and felt like a big man having done the deed alone. He went back to playing DS, and I went back to praying I will be able to keep my children safe.

Young Love

2009-05-29T06:00:00.000-05:00

Never mind that she is moving to a school less than 1 mile from our house.

Never mind that since he has fallen in love with her, he has quit interacting with her completely.

Never mind that he has been in love with a different girl every year since preschool.

Never mind that he is only 8 years old.

Jack thinks he is in love, his love is moving, and he is brokenhearted.

And as is typical when Jack has something on his mind, it came pouring out 10 minutes into his bedtime. Only this time instead of being a long, sad, profound conversation, it ended being more of a goofy, giggly talk because his younger brother was sleeping over in his room. And that's probably a good thing. Because I don't know how to explain to him that he's not in love. I don't know how to tell him that what he thinks he's feeling can't be real because he's too little to understand love. But maybe he does. Maybe he has found love in its most innocent, purest form. Who am I to tell him what he's feeling is not love?

So we talked about her, and how he could still see her because she won't be far. And I reminded him of his past loves and how he thought he would never be over them, only to fall in love each year with someone new. I reminded him of his Kindergarten love, and how he never thought he'd survive without her.

"But I was dumb about love then. D-U-M-B. Dumb. I asked her to kiss me. In Kindergarten. In front of everybody. When I looked at her, all my eyes could see was blackness."

I think he meant he was blinded by love.

A Whole Year Braver and Wiser

2009-05-26T07:04:00.010-05:00

There wasn't much of a difference between May 19 and May 20. Not much occurred between May 22 and May 23. But sometime in the night during those two spans, my 7 year old turned 8 and my 5 year old turn 6. When they woke up a whole year older, they looked the same. They talked the same. They hadn't grown over night.

But to them, that one night's sleep that allowed them to officially state their ages one whole digit higher than what they had the day before was humongous. They acted a little wiser, a little more mature (at least until the gifts were opened), a little braver.

Jack is legally allowed to ride in a car without a booster seat. He misses the accompanying cup holders and head rest that came with the booster, but would never revert back to a tool of a 7 year old.

Luke got his own Nintendo DS and went for his first sleep over at his cousins' house. He even made it until 8:30 before calling to come home.

Jack braved the Superman Tower of Power at Six Flags.

Luke went off the diving board at the swimming pool for the first time ever. He didn't ride any new rides at Six Flags since the last time we went, but he was an excellent cheerer.

Jack was worried about another kid in the house now owning a DS, but stated after giving it some thought and time, "I was worried that this wouldn't work out, but it is a success."

Luke stated after Jack wanted to sit around the fire listening to John tell stories with his dad and sister, "I've heard all of Dad's stories - they're not that good."

It's hard to believe I have a future third grader and a future first grader. Jack already won't let me kiss him when people are around and often chastises me for embarrassing me. Luke will be starting full-day school and we will see him less and less. But I don't take it personally. I know it is part of growing up. I just make sure that I know their friends, am in their lives as much as they allow me, and that they look out for each other.

A Wild Weekend

2009-05-19T06:46:00.005-05:00

We live in St. Louis, but in an area with a big lot near a creek not far from Grant's Farm. This location makes our yard a playground to various wildlife. We have an array of birds, squirrels, rabbits, frogs, toads, owls, bats, snakes, chipmunks, opossums, and raccoons that call our yard home, whether permanently or temporarily throughout the year.

Now that we have our recently turned 1 year old wild animal Indy, the animals have figured out the range of his electric fence and love to stay just outside of its boundary, taunting him and grating the neighbors' nerves with his bark.

A raccoon inadvertently wandered into Indy's realm and was promptly chased up a tree. He stayed in that tree for hours. We thought he might have rabies so watched him for awhile, but then figured he was just stuck up there. So, since my husband loves me and knows that I have a soft spot for animals, he put up a ladder for the raccoon. I would have loved to see that raccoon use the ladder. I can only assume he used it to get down because the next morning he was gone. Our genius dog Indy just assumed he was still up in the tree, though, and barked at the tree for about another 3 hours.

This year a pair of blue jays decided to make a nest and lay eggs in a tree in our yard. Their nest is close to the ground within Indy's domain. I don't think they knew this when they went to work on their building. Those poor parents must be exhausted guarding their babies. Indy doesn't realize that the nest exists, but gets great pleasure out of "playing" with the blue jays. He has figured out that if he approaches the tree, the blue jays swiftly come out of thin air to swoop at him, quickly pecking his butt or head, before they fly up to a wire where they sit and taunt him. When Indy gets bored or wants to play with them, our Pavlovian dog simply walks close to the tree. Instant playmates!

Poor, lonely puppy.

Mother's Day Brought...

2009-05-11T06:47:00.006-05:00

Sleeping in until 9:00 am.

A giant, homemade card.

Promises of chores to come from Jack.

An "About My Mom" book from Luke calling me as pretty as a daisy, that I weigh 81 pounds, that I'm fun when I'm crazy but turn red when I'm mad.

A gift certificate for a pedicure.

A picnic at the park with my boys, mom and sister.

Games of ball, Cosmic Keepaway, a husband to hike through the creek and climb trees so I could lay on the blanket and drink a beer.

Cupcakes.

Love to fill my heart again and again.

Is This Progress?

2009-05-08T06:36:00.002-05:00

Luke doesn’t generally talk to adults that talk to him if he doesn't know them well. He barely talks to the ones that he does know. Adult acquaintances of ours, waiters, people at the checkout counter, or just general strangers offering a friendly “Hi” usually send Luke into his alter ego NipNip the Snail. Their questions or compliments are met with squeals, grunts and growls. I find myself assuring them that he can talk like a normal boy.

So when we were at the toy store the other day and he willingly answered every one of the questions asked by the woman checking us out, even to the point of holding a casual if very brief conversation with her, I was stunned. What did she have that others didn’t? What was she doing right to get Luke to come out of his NipNip the Snail shell?

As we walked to the door but before we got out of the store, he said, “I hate people like that.”

Before I had a chance to admonish him, he clarified with, “I don’t hate them, I just hate it when they act like that.”

I was taken aback, since not 30 seconds earlier he was holding what seemed like a very lovely conversation with this woman. “Act like what?” I asked him as we walked across the parking lot to the car and I felt like we could talk about this woman without hurting her feelings.

“You know, all ….” then he plastered the biggest, widest, cheesiest smile I’d ever seen across his face, tilted his head, and crossed his eyes just a bit. It was a 5-year old’s way of expressing that the woman was just a bit too eager to please, a touch over the top.

“I thought she was very nice. How would you want her to act?”

“Like the other one. At the book store.” Oh. Like the guy that had checked us out earlier that was cool and aloof with just the right balance of interest and detachment and that paid no direct attention to Luke.

So what I mistook for Luke coming out of his shell and enjoying a conversation with an adult actually turned out to be him humoring her. I guess that’s still progress. I guess that shows some empathy in him, that he picked up on her need to communicate with him and he obliged. And he almost made it out of earshot before he started ridiculing her. We’ll have to work on that one.

The Butler Agreement

2009-05-05T06:34:00.002-05:00

Pokemon cards are an enigma to me. I'm sure I could figure out all of the names and symbols and powers and points if I sat down with an afternoon to spare and a bottle of wine to kill. But do I really want to? No.

Jack and Luke have started a collection of Pokemon cards. I think the cards are an enigma to them as well, although they won't admit it. They both pretend to know what is a worthy card and what is not. Maybe they really do know. From their actions, however, Jack judges a worthy card on any card he wants that he doesn't have but that Luke has, and Luke judges a worthy card on any card that Jack wants.

Take for instance the Ancient Mew card. Luke ended up with this card through the kind dissemination of a lifelong collection of Pokemon cards by my cousin Clayton. Jack claimed he wanted it and saw it first. Luke is apparently faster and grabbed it first. Thus began a week long obsession by Jack over the Ancient Mew card. He had to have it. I even went on line to prove to him that it wasn't that special. He didn't care. I said I'd by him one of the ones online. He said he didn't want a used one. I pointed out the obvious used nature of the current card, but he still wanted it. His brother had it, after all.

He pleaded with his brother. He cried. He threatened. He bargained. "I'll trade you all of Pokemon cards for that one card. I'll trade you my Nintendo DS for that one card." The bigger the offers got, the more Luke's power grew. Finally, Jack agreed to be Luke's servant. Jack got his card. Luke got a servant.

But Jack forgot to work out the terms before agreeing to the deal. Luke wanted a servant for a few months. He wanted to pick out Jack's clothes that Jack would wear everyday. And I realize this being Luke's mother but Jack did not when he struck this deal, Luke can have constant demands and requests, some of them quite unreasonable.

So when Jack got tired of the whole servant routine after about two hours, Luke snatched back his Ancient Mew card. The deal was called off and Jack went back to bargaining and obsessing.

I tried to explain to Jack in a way that would not allow him to outright manipulate his brother that the more he appeared to want something from Luke, the less likely Luke was to give it. "Ooohhhh," he said. The wheels were turning. I heard him talking to Luke. "You know, that card isn't so good. This one I have is way better. But I'll trade if you want." No deal. Too little, too late.

After about 5 more days, the card was forgotten. Luke left it on the table and it got ruined by the dripping condensation from a water cup. I don't think Jack cared so much about the wasted greatness as long as Luke didn't have the card either.

Poitry

2009-04-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

I spent many hours writing poetry when I was little. As I got older, the poems got deeper and darker as I began to deal with more grown-up issues. But in elementary school, my poems were about rainbows and puppies and cute, girly things. And the rhymes were simple, one or two syllable words within the expected vocabulary range.

Jack also likes to write poetry. But, as I found out the other day when he brought home his completed "Poitry" book from school, he has added a whole other level of creativeness to his poetry that I did not have in mine:

It's a surprising likeness, don't you think?

Winning Isn't Everything But...

2009-04-27T06:00:00.001-05:00

My husband coaches Jack's little league baseball team. The team has grown from 10 players to 15. Parents want their kids to be on this team. It is a fun team. John is a great coach that cares about the kids more than he cares about winning. He wants to see the kids try their best, respect their teammates, be safe, and have fun doing it. He says "Winning isn't everything, but trying to win is."

The kids won their first game. It was a definite confidence builder for the team and the coaches. Jack made a great play at second, catching a fly ball to rob a player of a hit. As the ball was heading toward him in the air, I had a Charlie Brown moment, picturing him dropping the ball and feeling like crud the rest of the game and night. But he didn't drop it. He caught it and got a big round of applause from the stands and his team.

After the game, I congratulated him on his catch.

"Yeah," he said. "My eyes were closed so I wasn't sure if I caught it."

I should tell John to remind the kids to keep their eyes open during the game.

So now that they've won a game, after a few seasons of playing together with most of the same players and winning only by forfeit, we'll see what they do with it. If John starts making the weak hitters in the line-up step into the pitches ala Mr. Buttermaker, we'll know he's lost sight of his motto.

How Cool Was That?

2009-04-21T06:00:00.001-05:00

Keep Believing

2009-04-19T00:01:00.001-05:00

Your birthday 6 days after. Your wedding anniversary 33 days after. An average day is filled with reminders as you struggle through the void. The milestones only make the day that much harder. But what the milestones also tell you is that you are surviving, each milestone a step forward through the year, and that each day you remembered to breath. And you continue to Keep Believing.

The Future Snob

2009-04-16T06:00:00.001-05:00

Jack has been a tad bit obsessed with money lately. He wants to know how much money I make a week, how much our house costs, how many bills we pay, how much money you need to be rich, etc., etc., etc.

When he asked how much money it took to be rich, I tried to explain to him that it didn't really matter how much money you had if your debt outweighed your cash.

"Yes," he said, "because you can be rich with love and with family and friends. You don't need a lot of money to be rich."

Not the point I was trying to make, but a good one nonetheless.

He decided he is going to be a billionaire when he grows up, so he can buy "one million Nintendo DSs."

I told him he only needed one.

He said he would be rich but, "would not be snotty like most rich people are." And, when he became rich, he would have to "wear one of those circle things around one eye." Unless he was a woman. Then he'd have to, "use those glasses that you have to look through while holding onto."

So, as far as Jack is concerned, all rich people look something like this:

or this:

It's a Long Story

2009-04-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

When we spend the night at John's parents, I push the bed up against the wall so Luke doesn't roll right off onto the floor. I do this partly because Luke is an active sleeper. But, Luke has never fallen out of any bed he's slept in. So I think I also do this out of memory of sleeping at my grandma's once when I was little, and rolling out of the bed into the space between the bed and the wall only to awake in some eerie, claustrophobic-inducing cavern that I was convinced had trapped me and was filled with spiders waiting to eat me.

So when Luke called me at 3:00 am to come "snuggle" and I went into his room and saw that the very heavy bed was moved away from the wall, I asked him, "Why is the bed moved away from the wall?"

"It's a long story," he said.

It was three in the morning. How could there be a long story at three in the morning? And what was so urgent that Luke needed to move the bed away from the wall? And how was he strong enough to do it? And how did he do it without waking his brother who slept next to him in the same bed? And how did he do it without me hearing? And did he accomplish what he needed to by moving the bed?

And the answers to all of those questions would have indeed led to a very long story. And did I mention it was three in the morning? So my tiredness won out over my curiosity, and the long story of the bed remains a mystery.

The Beginning of Another Year

2009-04-10T06:00:00.001-05:00

It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by. A year since my mom called to tell me my grandma had died in the night. We all thought she we would live forever, though we knew that was an impossibility. With some people, it just feels that way.

Time is a strange thing. It can be your enemy or your best friend, depending on what your needs are, what emotions you are having, what experience you are in at any particular moment. Who can explain it? Why does it seem that time stands still for seconds, minutes, hours, days when you are deep in grief and then suddenly, unexpectedly, you look back and the past weeks, months are a blur and a year has slipped by? Is that healing? Is that moving on? Or is that numbness?

I like to think it is dealing with the pain and moving on with life, because I know that is what loved ones would want and expect from us. And when I look back over the weeks and months, I know that I have been happy and living, and not numb or in pain. It is just the trickiness of time that makes me question it all.

We talked about getting together tonight as a family so no one felt alone on this day without her. “But why?” I wondered. Why mark a day that could not be changed, or taken back. Why mark the day where each day after was a little bit worse?

As I spoke with my mom on the phone about why we shouldn’t get together, how we were too busy and it wouldn’t make a difference, my phone clicked. Hers did too.

“What was that?" she asked.

“It must have been grandma,” I said. “She’s letting us know she’s all right. She’s with grandpa and they’re having a good time.”

We both laughed, and started another year without her.

The Cost of Santa

2009-04-07T06:00:00.000-05:00

With their birthdays coming up in May, the boys have been making out their gift wish lists. Jack has very little on his, but Luke wants almost every thing he sees advertised on television. He will be easy to buy for this year. The problem is once he gets something he thought he really, really, wanted, he typically tends to find out that it wasn't as cool or as fun as he thought it was going to be.

Take the D-Rex Pet. He saw the commercial for this toy before Christmas and fell in love with it. And that was the point. The commercials made it appear that this dinosaur would move and interact like a living, breathing creature. He asked Santa for this toy and was sure he would get it. Mom and Dad scoured sales at Toys R Us for weeks to find a deal, since we don't have a workshop like Santa and knew that Santa would not be bringing the D-Rex down the chimney.

As far as Luke is concerned, Santa came through for him. But, he quickly discovered that D-Rex required a lot of input from him. D-Rex didn't follow him around the house like a little puppy. It was a remote-controlled dinosaur, and albeit a pretty awesome one if you ask me, not what Luke was expecting. So it has sat, mostly unplayed with, like the RoboQuad he got the year before.

For his birthday, Luke is asking for the Spy Gear Spy Video Car. He saw a commercial, and the commercial showed all these fantastic things that the car can do. I suggested we find one and play with it first before he decides for sure that the car is what he wants.

"Because, you know, you always pick these really expensive things that look cool on commercials and then when you get them you don't like them that much."

"Like D-Rex Pet," he said.

"Yes, like D-Rex Pet," I said.

"But Santa brought me that so it didn't cost a thing."

Not that I don't want him to continue to believe in Santa, but it sure will save me money once he stops.

Sushi For Boys

2009-04-03T06:00:00.001-05:00

Most boys are, whether it be by genetics or social conditioning, adventurous. Tell them they are about to embark on an exploration and they are on board. Tell them they are off on a mysterious journey and they are all in. Tell them they are needed for an uncommon challenge or experiment, and they are at your side before you get all of the words out of your mouth.

Living in a house of boys, I know this about them and can, at times and please don't hold this against me, use this to my advantage. So when we drew snack duty for the Cub Scout meeting on April Fool's Day, I saw the perfect opportunity to have a little fun with a group of boys. This is a group of boys that enjoy each other's company so much, and enjoy being boys together so much, that our Cub Scout meetings revolve around which tasks in the Wolf book include running, jumping, or exercising. Anything to avoid sitting for more than 10 minutes.

So when it came time for snacks, I asked, "You boys like adventure, right? You all like to try new things, right? Well tonight we are going to try sushi."

"And what is sushi?" asked the Den Leader who was in on the joke.

"Sushi is raw fish, rice and seaweed."

I almost lost a couple of them right there. One boy's mouth fell open and I believe he almost puked. I said, "Who likes Chinese food? So you should like the rice. Who likes fish or seafood? So the fish in the sushi will be good, it's just not cooked. Who likes vegetables? Who likes salad? That's really all seaweed is."

The Den Leader said, "You don't have to like it, but everyone has to try one bite."

I put my sushi on the table in the middle of the boys, and it took them a few minutes to figure out that my "sushi" was rice cereal treats wrapped in fruit roll-ups with a gummy worm inside. I got the idea here, and it was big success.

Unfortunately, I talked up real sushi so much my son Jack was really excited about trying it. He thinks he will really like it, and I agree that there are some rolls he will probably really enjoy. He won't quit talking about how he can't wait to eat sushi. Do you know how expensive sushi is? I guess the April Fool's joke is on me.

Shiny Clean Dance

2009-03-31T08:48:00.003-05:00

What would you do if you were an avid Rock Band aficionado, used to jamming out to the likes of Wheezer, The Killers, The Ramones, and Cheap Trick, but forced to perform in a kindergarten music program and sing the Shiny Clean Dance in front of a crowd of Ooohers and Aaahers?

Well, if you were Luke, you'd plaster on a look of contemptuous tolerance and rock out.

The Life of Brian

2009-03-25T06:00:00.004-05:00

I wanted to share John's heartrending and spot-on eulogy that he gave on Saturday for his best friend, Brian. Many of my family and John's family have known Brian for years through us and did not get to attend the services. I thought you might like to read what John had to say. Although we did have a signal so that I could come up and finish the speech for him if necessary ("When I turn into a bubbling mush of goo."), that was not necessary and his delivery of the speech I'm sure made Brian proud.

Brian O’Neill had a wonderful, yet terribly warped sense of humor. A sense of humor that often had him laughing hysterically at movies that very few on this planet could possibly enjoy. I think the only argument we never settled was when he kept insisting that the movie “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” was funny. I look forward to the day when we can pick that argument back up again.

Brian’s particular brand of humor also resulted in him being a fan of Monty Python. Whether or not Monty Python’s brand of humor was funny was a point we never argued. One of their movies is entitled “Life of Brian”. It was advertised as “A Motion Picture destined to offend nearly two thirds of the civilized world. And severely annoy the other third.”

The life of our Brian, Brian Edward O’Neill, is a much more complex story. What does one say when called upon to talk about the life of Brian? Almost twelve years ago, when I first heard of Brian’s diagnosis……. of Brian’s prognosis, my thoughts involuntarily took me there. What would I say, how would I summarize this man’s life? At different points during his fight I would ask myself the same thing. Each time I was at a loss for what I would say. Up until yesterday, it was not something I could put down on paper. I think that was for a couple of very good reasons.

First of all, Brian is not the kind of man you can neatly summarize. Earlier this week, one of Angie’s friends asked me for a good story about Brian. A very good question, but one that I found difficult to answer. Partly because discretion immediately eliminates a lot of the good ones, but mostly because being a part of Brian’s life was not so much a series of good stories but more a culmination of countless subtle moments. More of a “Brian Experience”.

Secondly, his story wasn’t ready to be written. So much of Brian’s story is still not ready to be written. Right now the character we know as Brian will no longer appear in the story, but his true character will be felt throughout the rest of its pages. It will affect the upcoming chapters in the story of his family, as we anxiously turn the pages on the next great adventures of Angie, Gavin and Grant. Brian’s character will be ever evident in those he has left behind. Brian’s character will be a part of countless other stories yet to be written, life stories of people who are here today or people around the world who have never met Brian but know of his qualities, of his strength.

The final chapter will be withheld from all of us, until we stand beside him in Heaven. Only then will the true meaning of his story, of his family’s story, be revealed to us.

But Brian would want his life to have affected you most in those not so serious moments. I have heard my friend talking to me this week in some of those moments. Mostly through music. In the minutes and hours after his death, I was continually amazed at the songs he shuffled in on “BOZOs play list”. Some of them appropriate, some of them woefully inappropriate. Just the way Brian would have wanted it.

Just listen for him.

The next time you are looking for an MP3 player. You may be looking at the 8 or 16 GB models. When you feel an invisible hand shove you hard to the right and you find yourself seriously considering the 160 GB model, that’s Brian.

The next time you are about to order a Bud Light and find yourself moments later with a tall glass of Old Rasputin in front of you, that’s Brian.

It may even be during a game of Euchre, when you don’t have squat in your hand and you feel an urge to tell the dealer to “Pick it up”. That’s Brian.

In fact, the game of Euchre and the way Brian played it have a lot of parallels with the way Brian approached life. Many times I have heard his partner in life (and euchre) scream out to Brian, “How could you possibly win with that hand?” after he had done just that.

Perhaps that is why Brian was given this lot in life. God knew that if Brian was sitting at a table and these were the cards he was dealt, that nobody but Brian could turn it into a winning hand. So listen for Brian the next time life deals you a bad hand.

“Pick it up, win with it and amaze your partner while doing it.”

What Do You Do?

2009-03-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

What do you do when your five almost six year old asks if a girl from his class, that you know he has a crush on, can come over and play?

What do you do when he asks this after watching one of those Disney shows where the poor kids have signed a perpetual contract and we all have to watch them go through puberty, and on this particular show the boy has found the girl of his dreams and kissed her?

What do you do when, after you say yes we'll invite her over, he asks if they can play inside not outside?

What do you do when he asks if the air bed he got to sleep on as a special Spring Break treat can stay inflated while she is over?

Well, first you s*** your pants. Then you remember who you're dealing with and breathe a sigh of relief when you realize that he wants to impress her with his ability to jump from the back of the couch to the couch cushions and then propel himself into the air and do a flip and land on the air bed.

So, you don't have to worry that the parents of this girl will think you are breeding a sexual deviant. You just have to worry that your son's flailing limbs will knock her for a loop while she stands in awe of his circus-like abilities.

Saying Goodbye

2009-03-17T06:26:00.002-05:00

Some days we are faced with reminders of our mortality and the fragility of these bodies we are given; our life here on Earth is only temporary. What we do with those reminders …

Our reminder came twelve years ago when our dear friend, Brian, was diagnosed with an aggressive, malignant brain tumor. Brian was in his early twenties, healthy, smart, athletic, a newlywed with a lifetime of dreams ahead of him. For the next twelve years Brian would vigorously fight back the cancer. With his wife Angie, he would live a life of incorrigible hope and faith, never feeling sorry for himself or falling into despair. He would unknowingly bring hope and restore the faith of untold others that passed through his life. He would do this humbly, never feeling special or out of the ordinary for what became his lot in life.

I am devastated and heartbroken to say that Brian lost his battle with cancer on this day. The world is darker today, but anyone that says Heaven cannot be improved upon is wrong because I know, with Brian there, it just got a whole lot better.

Keep Believing Event

2009-03-16T09:22:00.001-05:00

Check out the Keep Believing Fund blog for details on the upcoming Keep Believing Event.

Next Generation Misbehavers

2009-03-09T06:00:00.001-05:00

John has a group of friends from childhood that he has stayed close with into adulthood. These cronies were partners in crime with him through harmless fun when they were little, and the more serious type of "adventures" that teenage boys with imagination and boredom tend to get into. John looked forward to the day his kids would create adventures with his buddies' kids. And when I say "looked forward to," I think he did this with excited anticipation but also a sense of dread now being on the other end of the spectrum and remembering the stress and worry that a group of boys can cause their parents.

One of these buddies lives just a few houses away from John's parents. This is a Norman Rockwell-esque neighborhood. It is the type of neighborhood where you can let your kids out to play without constantly supervising them. It is the type of neighborhood where everyone knows everyone and you can count on your neighbors to look out for each other. It is the type of neighborhood surrounded by woods and creeks and areas screaming to be explored with an adventure waiting around every corner.

So while visiting last weekend, we let our boy out to play checking occasionally to make sure he was unharmed. We didn't stand over him, but called out to confirm he was still within earshot, playing nicely, and not doing anything that would cause severe bodily injury or property damage. After about an hour, we lost track of him. We called and called but got no response. We started to worry. We ran around the yard and woods in the immediate area of the house and saw no sign of him. We started to REALLY worry. We called John's buddy. His girl was missing too. We figured they were playing together, but neither was answering to the calls.

John hopped in the car and started the search. He ran into his friend who was also driving around searching. John stayed in the neighborhood, searching around the woods and creek, while his buddy said he'd go look at nearby apartments where his girl sometimes went to play by the lake. John had no luck so left the neighborhood to go out on the road and head toward the apartments. He passed his buddy on the road, who had the angry and relieved look of a person who had a weight of worry lifted. His buddy pointed to the back seat indicating he had the misbehavers and was bringing them back home.

John followed his buddy back to his house, ready to read them the riot act. He would put on a good show of it. They were safe, and hadn't he done many of the same things when he was a boy? Hadn't he put his father through worry after worry? Looks like payback time had begun, maybe a little earlier than he was expecting.

When he opened the door to the back seat, there they sat, soaking wet and looking very guilty. But they also looked happy as heck and loyal to the end, neither blaming the other for trouble they were in.

I wonder who was the instigator, and if we are going to have to forbid them from playing together in the future.

Luke's Bully

2009-02-27T06:00:00.001-06:00

Luke has got a little girl in his class that is pinching him. My first thought was that she likes him. When I was 5 (and 6 and 7) I used to do mean things to get the attention of the boy I liked. I would kick him, hit him, make faces at him, tattle on him to the teacher – you know, show him my affection and win his love.

I told Luke these things the first time he told me she pinched him a few months ago. He accepted my explanation and let it go. I let it go. These are kindergarteners and the girl in question is not that big. How hard could she be pinching him?

The other night after reading books, I could tell he had something on his mind. Funny how, even at the age of 5, lying in a warm, comfortable bed in a dark, quiet room offers the perfect stage to lubricate the worries of the day freeing them from the mind and pouring them from the mouth. This is especially true with Jack. But that night, Luke talked. After he was spent, he said, “Night makes you think about a lot of stuff. It’s hard to quiet your mind.” Poor little guy.

He began by saying (using a made up name here for privacy – Hi Jill!), “Jill doesn’t like me at all. She told me she doesn’t like me. She hates me. She sticks her tongue out at me and pinches me. She pinched me as hard as she could.”

“Did you tell the teacher she pinched you?”

“I didn’t want to because I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but she saw me crying.”

So a little kindergarten girl can pinch hard after all. And I hated to ask, but I was talking to Luke so I had to:

“Do you know why she’s pinching you?”

“She said I pulled her hair. I didn’t. She said I pulled her hair and then she pinched me. So I flicked her hair a little and then she pinched me harder so I flicked her hair again. But she pinches me all the time, even when I don’t flick her hair.”

We had a long discussion about how it’s wrong to hurt other people, and how if someone is hurting him, he needs to tell a teacher or his mom and dad and not worry if the other person will get in trouble. If they are hurting someone, they should get in trouble. And if they are hurting him, they might be hurting one of his friends. I explained to him that it is never o.k. to hurt back. I told him that he should stay away from this girl and not play with her, and tell the teacher right away if she bothers him.

“The teacher said that all of our classmates are our friends.”

“You don’t have to be friends with someone that is mean and that is hurting you.”

Our school has a very strict policy on bullying. It also assigns a character word each month and teaches the students about this word. I like our school, I like its approaches to bullying and its methods for teaching about respect and friendship. But I think they may be missing the boat on the fact that 5 year olds can be bullies. And that girls can be bullies. And they may be missing an opportunity to teach our kids that you don’t have to and will not like everyone you meet and there is nothing wrong with not liking everyone you meet. The important thing is how you treat those people that you don’t like. We all know how to treat a friend. But how do you treat those people that you don't like and that aren’t friends? That is what defines character.

And this kid has character.

Monster Mysteries

2009-02-24T06:35:00.004-06:00

At my house we love a good mystery. We are also suckers for a good monster story. At least until bedtime when it is dark and quiet except for the "Thump, Thump, Thump," that is impossible to pinpoint and there is a scared child convinced there is a monster in the closet and a tarantula in the bed.

Because we love mysteries and are a sucker for a good monster story, we were excited to see the new pictures of the Borneo Monster. Just once, I would like to see one of these pictures accompanied by an article about why it is real, rather than why it is fake. But, the science side of me won out so I did read the article and it made some good points, which I shared with my older son Jack.

He had his own conclusions about why the pictures were real. "His head's poking up. How could they fake that?"

And even though John and I have a heavy background of math and science, we also were lucky enough to get a large dose of creativity and imagination. And I think that helps us encourage creativity and imagination in our kids. Which is what kept me from saying, "Don't be ridiculous. They do it all the time."

Luke asked for me to print out the photos of the Borneo Monster and he showed them around all day. When he took them to my sister's house later, she countered by showing him part of the movie Anaconda.

He came home later talking about the Borneo Monster and I had the same conversation with him that I did with Jack about why some people thought the pictures might be phony. He said they couldn't be fake because there was another snake like that in the movie "Andaconda." If there was one, there had to be two.

"The snake in that movie is definitely not real." I said.

"Yes he is. He's an actor."

Mystery solved.

His Wife is in Trouble

2009-02-19T06:00:00.002-06:00

Leaving the house to drive the boys to school the other day, I mentioned how I wished it wasn't cold and rainy and windy that day since I had a meeting.

"Why do you care? Isn't it inside?"

"Well, some of it is. It's at a college and I'll be walking outside between many buildings and looking at stuff outside."

"Why are you going to a college?"

"Because that's where my meeting is."

"Why do people go to college, anyway," asked Jack.

"That's where they learn to be away from their moms and dads," said Luke.

"That's where they learn the things they need to know to be what they want to be when they grow up," I said.

"Do I have to go to college?" asked Jack.

"No, you don't have to. But it's going to be really hard for you to do the things you want to do without going to college."

"Not everyone goes to college," said Jack. "Some people get a husband and he goes to work and you don't have to go to college to stay home." Here we go.

"I see. Well, I'm sure your wife will be fine if you want to stay home and take care of the kids while she goes to work," I said.

"I think I'll go to college and go to work and my wife can stay home and deal with all the diapers and stuff."

So tell me: was the conversation a success because he decided to go to college, or a failure because he thinks the woman is the one who should stay home?

But I know the truth. It has nothing to do with traditional male/female roles. He is really, really afraid of changing diapers. He doesn't want to get poop on his hands.

A Calming Bedtime Routine?

2009-02-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

Jack and Luke must, MUST, do something active and crazy right before bedtime. It's as if their brains scream to their bodies,"Run, Jump, Dive, Chase, Wrestle. Do something! You're going to be immobile for the next 8 to 10 hours."

So I find it humorous when I read some advice or reminder that a bedtime routine should be a soothing event that relaxes the body and calms the mind and transitions the child into sleep.

Our bedtime routine is a frantic event that damages the body and excites the mind and transitions the child into exhaustion. But that works, too.

The newest routine is a pillow fight before bed. The boys talked me into doing this one night when John was out of town. I agreed. I should not have. I got hit with this homemade pillow that felt like a brick. Aren't homemade pillows supposed to be lumpy and half-stuffed? Later, John said, "They are not supposed to use those pillows. They are hard as bricks." No kidding. Just ask my flat face.

So the boys got in trouble for breaking the pillow fight rules. And mom no longer plays pillow fight. But guess what? The boys changed the pillow fight rules and the brick pillows are now part of regular play. The new rule is no hitting in the face. Although it happens often in the pillow fight because they can't really aim. So they can do it on purpose and claim it was an accident. And the fight continues with no one having broken any rules.

So as the pillow fight roars, I sit in the other room hearing periodic bursts of laughter; bursts of crying (some real, some fake to bring someone close for a hit); shouts of, "Bring the Pain," and constant repeats of the one rule that is golden, "Don't hit in the penis." It sounds a little like this, only I am always braced for the tears:

I know the pillow fight will last until someone gets hurt (which is every time) or until John surrenders (also every time). Then he has to spend another ten minutes trying to settle the boys down in their beds. Then they get their calming books, but by then they are completely exhausted. So I guess our routine is working.

Their Newest Way to Torture Me

2009-02-05T06:00:00.000-06:00

After almost 8 years of motherhood to one boy and almost 6 years of motherhood to two, I thought I had adjusted.

I thought I had adjusted to their non-stop 60 mph speedometer.

I thought I had adjusted to their inventive minds that convinced them a pile of pillows would cushion a fall from any height.

I thought I had adjusted to their belief that turning a sheet into a cape would enable them to fly.

I thought I had adjusted to their inherent need to seek out danger, with calls of "Look, Mommy," ensuring I was a witness to every daredevil stunt.

I thought I had adjusted to the fact that boys will be boys even as I stood over them shouting warnings of, "Be careful," and "You're going to break your neck."

I thought I had adjusted to the indisputable fact that I could not stop them from experiencing life (especially when their main "life" encouragement came in the form of a 5'11" boy that just happened to be their father), and that I would survive their antics until they reached adulthood simply by closing my eyes and leaving the room.

I thought I had mastered this quandary of raising boys when I am a worrier by nature.

I thought wrong.

Enter the new phase of my life - boys playing on thin ice.

And if that wasn't bad enough for a day's fun, add to it boys playing on thin ice walking through these terrifying babies:

But I figured out how to solve that problem fairly quickly. I just yelled out the names of spooky things found in sewer pipes and that did the trick.

And as I watched them test the ice with a stick to see if it would hold them, and they rolled their eyes and told me that even if it didn't hold them the water would only come up to their ankles, I heard my own mom's voice in my head and the worries came pouring out of my mouth. "You know never to do this alone, right? You know that just because it looks frozen doesn't mean it is? You know that the edges may hold you but the middle may not? You know if you are on ice for some reason and it starts to crack, you should spread out on your belly so your weight is distributed. You know to never, ever walk out on a frozen pond right? RIGHT???"

And I heard their giggles as they dismissed me and I closed my eyes and turned away, knowing that they needed this fun, this life experience. I knew their dad was with them. I knew they were safe. And I prayed that when they are older and I am not with them when the danger presents itself, that they hear my voice in their heads as clearly as I hear my mom's and it guides them in the right direction. And for any boys reading this, that would be away from danger, not toward it.

With Profound Gratitude

2009-01-31T08:28:00.002-06:00

I want to give special thanks to Nap Warden for the outstanding design of the Keep Believing Fund blog. The Keep Believing Fund blog deserved a look that was heartening and inspirational, and now it has that look. Nap Warden is a blog friend of Angie’s and offered her design talents as soon as she heard of the Fund. She also created the button that is now being posted on hundreds of blogs and being linked back to the Fund blog site. If you feel like giving her a thanks, and learning more about this generous lady, you can visit her blog at The Chronicles of a SAHM.

I also want to give a special thanks to LaskiGal, who helped coordinate the Keep Believing Fund makeover and spearheaded getting the word out to so many blogs. I feel uplifted when browsing around on the Internet and I see that button on so many sites. If you want to give her a thanks for her help, and learn more about this bighearted lady, you can visit her blog at From The Cheap Seats.

These ladies represent the type of selfless giving that the lives of Angie and Brian have stirred. Angie and Brian may balk at that, but evidence would prove otherwise.

Keep Believing Fund

2009-01-29T16:03:00.004-06:00

You may notice a new button in my left sidebar. It is the Keep Believing Fund and it has been set up for anyone that wants to do something, anything, to help Angie and Brian and the boys. If you want to put a similar button on your blog, Facebook page, or website, just go to:

http://www.chipin.com/mywidgets/id/354fb459385e89ee

You can also donate through the Keep Believing Fund blog.

Dear Luke,

2009-01-26T06:00:00.001-06:00

You don't know this now - though some day you will - but when we wrestle I let you win. I am bigger and stronger and faster than you. I could use all of these things to win our wrestling matches but I don't. Because I love you. Because I would never hurt you. Because I don't want to spend the rest of my life in prison.

Haven't you noticed that you always win our matches? Haven't you noticed that, just when it appears that I will get you in a spot from which there is no escape, you pull some miraculous stunt that causes me to surrender?

So the next time we are wrestling and I have you in a pseudo makeshift, made-up mommy mega-fourplex smack down and you feel you are about to surrender, know that any second the tables will turn in your favor and I will give up the ghost. There is no need to do this:

Biting will cause the game to be forfeited immediately. And I don't care what they do on the WWF shows that you watch with Aunt Nanny. Biting is definitely outlawed in our wrestling matches. And me calling the game over biting does not mean that I surrendered. No matter what you tell Daddy and Jack. Even though I would have surrendered the match eventually anyway.

Legally Blonde Jokes

2009-01-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

I have the pleasure of attending the Legally Blonde production at the Fabulous Fox Theater this afternoon with twelve other girls and women in my family. We will have a ball. In honor of this production, please have a couple of laughs on me. I'm sure Elle Woods wouldn't mind.

Last year, a blonde replaced all the windows in her house with that expensive double-pane energy efficient kind.

Today, she got a call from the contractor who installed them. He was complaining that the work had been completed a whole year ago and she still hadn't paid for them.

“Hellloooo,...........just because I'm blonde doesn't mean that I am automatically stupid,” she said. So, she told him just what his fast talking sales guy had told her last year: that in ONE YEAR these windows would pay for themselves!

“Helllooooo? It's been a year,” she told him.

There was only silence at the other end of the line, so she finally just hung up. He never called back. Guess she won that stupid argument.

A blonde is watching the news with her husband when the newscaster says, "Two Brazilian men die in a skydiving accident."

The blonde starts crying to her husband, sobbing, "That's horrible!!! So many men dying that way!"

Confused, he says, "Yes dear, it is sad, but they were skydiving, and there is always that risk involved."

After a few minutes, the blonde, still sobbing, says, "How many is a brazilian?"

www.weather.com

2009-01-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

I realized on Wednesday that I hadn't left the house since Sunday. One of the hazards (perks?) of working from home I guess. I had showered everyday, but hadn't wore anything other than sweatpants, hadn't fixed my hair, hadn't put on makeup for three days. Just call me sexy wife of the year.

Since I've been busy at work and John's been available to shuttle the boys to and from school and perform some of the other household responsibilities like grocery shopping, before I knew it three days had passed without me seeing the sun other than through the windows or through the door as I let the dog out. And with the economy the way it is and our tiny budget, we haven't been going anywhere with the boys after school. We've been making our own entertainment around the house after school.

When I realized the extent of my hermitdom, and the extent that I was unbothered by it, I figured I better get my butt out of the house. I joked with the boys about my lack of fresh air and told them I was going to drive them to school. As we left the house, I complained about how cold it was. "It's been this cold all week," said Jack. "You would know that if you left the house."

"That's what the Weather Channel is for."

Just Doing My Part

2009-01-19T06:00:00.001-06:00

Some of the members of my husband's family, including my husband John, are participating in a New Year's resolution contest. It is a get fit/lose weight challenge with a monetary payout that is nothing to sneeze at. John is taking this very seriously. For those that know him, I only have to say that he has not had one single drink of beer since January 1 for you to realize that I speak the truth regarding his seriousness.

Each participant has a team member, the most logical choice being that team member's spouse. If the participant wins, the team member gets to share in the rewards, which include better health, better fitness, and gloating rights.

I've been leading a pretty healthy way of eating for about two years now. I've found many helpful websites that provide calorie counts of restaurant menu items and, one of my favorites Hungry Girl, provides guilt-free recipes of some of my favorite foods as well as a shopping list of must haves to take to the grocery store. John and I are computer geeks somewhat, so any resources I can provide him online he finds very helpful. And I know he reads my blog, so under the category of just doing my part I thought I'd provide him with this list of awesome calorie burners:

Cooking dinner 96 calories
Dusting 120 calories
Grocery shopping 190 calories
Ironing clothes 190 calories
Making a bed 94 calories
Doing laundry 250 calories
Mopping floors 150 calories
Washing dishes 144 calories
Washing windows 144 calories
Vacuuming 196 calories

These numbers are for an average sized female performing these activities for 30 to 45 minutes. Think how many calories an above average sized male would burn doing the same activities for, say, an hour or two!

Go Team!

Do These Lyrics Come With Parental Warnings?

2009-01-15T06:00:00.001-06:00

We've been playing a lot of Rock Band at our house since Christmas. I hate to admit it because I used to make fun of those people that I'd see in Best Buy with their fake guitars and pseudo-Rock Star moves pretending to play music and acting all cool when the song was over. The ridiculer has become the ridiculee.

Jack is always on guitar, unless he gets tired and lets his dad play, Luke is on drums though not lately because he beat the snot out of them the first week and they broke so we are awaiting the replacement set, and they can sometimes talk me into taking the mic. If our band scores high, we can unlock more songs.

I am no vocalist by any means, but I did get a score of 98% singing Celebrity Skin by Hole. I guess you could say Courtney Love is no vocalist either. I think I would have gotten 100% had I not had to choke over certain lyrics since I was singing them right next to my 7 year old. You know, the lyrics calling Cinderella a slut and talking about hooker waitresses. Not that he would have noticed. He was paying way too much attention to his guitar playing. That's one of the nice things about this game. If you are not singing the lyrics, you hardly notice them at all.

Which is why I hadn't noticed the lyrics to Cheap Trick's Surrender until John pointed them out to me. This has become Jack and Luke's favorite song. They want to hear it every time we get in the car (John downloaded it to his MP3 player-what a Dad!). They seem to only know the chorus, which talks about your mom and dad being a little weird. But if you listen, or read if your playing the game, closely, this is what you'll discover right from the get go:

Mother told me, yes she told me

I’d meet girls like you

She also told me to stay away

You’ll never know what you’ll catch

Just the other day I heard

Of soldiers' falling off

Some Indonesian junk that’s going around

Translation: nasty girl, STDs, penis’ falling off from Indonesian STD.

I'm waiting for the questions to start rolling in, either from the boys or from their friends' mothers.

His Alter Ego Strikes Again

2009-01-13T06:00:00.002-06:00

Have I mentioned that Luke is a genius? I know that I am his mother and that I am biased, but he is very, very smart. He knows things that he shouldn't know at his age. And not just how to properly throw a punch so he doesn't hurt his thumb (thanks Shannon), but reading things and math things and critical thinking things.

I guess he should be smart. My husband and I are both engineers. His IQ is 145 and mine is 135, although I still want a do over. I know I can beat him if I can take the test without kids coming and knocking on the door and breaking my concentration. Although he's beaten me at every game of Scrabble and Trivia Pursuit we've ever played. Did I mention I'm competitive? Anyway, back on track, I guess I was always worried that our smarts would cancel each other out and our kids would have trouble in school. But we've been lucky and they both do really well. Luke just continues to surprise me.

Luke likes to do Brain Quest cards in bed some nights instead of reading books. At age 3 he was doing the 4 - 5 year cards. At 4 he was doing the 5 - 6 year cards. Now at 5 he is doing the 6 - 7 year cards. And when I say "doing" I mean doing. He gets them right. He knows the answers. I don't know how but he does.

One of the questions I read him was "What's a shorter way to say 'They were not home?'" He looked at me like I was wasting his time and to get on with the challenge and said, "They weren't home."

So I started to talk to him one night at dinner about LEAP, which is the gifted program at our school. Kids attend LEAP one day a week instead of their regular class, and it offers a unique and challenging learning experience for those that exhibit a high aptitude for learning. I asked him if he wanted to try out for LEAP to see if it was something he might like.

The anxiety appeared on his face instantly when he realized the program would take him away from his class and his friends once a week. With that anxiety came Luke's alter-ego, the baby-voice speaking little kitten named Nip-Nip.

"Nip-Nip doesn't want to go to LEAP. Nip-Nip would miss his friends. Nip-Nip loves his friends. No LEAP, Mama."

"That's fine, Nip-Nip. Tell Luke to finish his dinner."

Maybe even if tested he would not qualify for LEAP. Maybe he's right where he should be. Maybe I'm just being the overly-proud, puffed up mother. It looks like if Nip-Nip has his way, I'll never know for sure. At least he can always fall back on his looks.

Luke's Lessons on Coping

2009-01-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

Luke does not like to feel sad. Or hurt. Or disappointed. He doesn't know what to do with these emotions, doesn't like how they take over control of his feelings, and doesn't like the vulnerability that goes with them. His way of dealing with these emotions is to convert them to anger. Anger is something he understands. Anger is power. Anger doesn't make you feel like crap.

The conversion from sadness, disappointment or hurt to anger is a visible transition, though it occurs in a nanosecond. And if you aren't ready for it, if you aren't paying close attention and gauging his emotions to know when something may disappoint him or hurt his feelings, all I can say is watch out. Because being prepared is the difference between blocking a punch and taking one square in the eye. Because with Luke, anger comes with hitting. Not all the time, but sometimes. And he has very good aim.

Obviously this hitting is unacceptable. Fortunately, if I can look on the bright side, he has kept his hitting in the family. It is usually his brother, my mother and me that are the recipients of Luke's wrath. We are working with him on better ways to cope with this anger. We are learning to predict when it might happen and trying to head that off. We are giving him ways to deal with it, like taking some quiet time for himself in his room or beating the tar out of a pillow. We are even talking karate lessons, hoping he will learn discipline a la Mr. Miyagi of the Karate Kid.

We talk to him in the way parents of the 21st century talk to their kids. We talk to him about his choices and making good decisions. Well, Luke's choice is to bop me on the head and deal with the consequences. Not the choice I would have hoped for, but he is a live-in-the-moment, spontaneous sort of fellow. And then he tells me I made him do it. He didn't have a choice. I thought our discussions about choices and making good decisions were going no where, but then he told me after he had a screaming fit: "Sometimes you just have to yell. It's not your brain. It's not God. It's not Jesus. It's your decision." He's right. Sometimes you do just have to yell. And yelling is better than hitting.

Little by little, Luke is coming up with his own ways of coping. Rather than giving us the chance to say no to something and disappoint him, he is answering his own questions. This goes something like: "Mom, can I have potato chips? No." A sentence like this is said very quickly all in one breath, not giving me time to say no and break his little heart, which of course makes me want to say yes just to see the happiness on his face.

He has also convinced himself that he didn't really want what he was asking for. This goes something like: "Mom, can I have some candy?" "No baby, not before dinner." "I was just teasing. I didn't want any." Which of course makes me want to say yes just to see the happiness on his face.

Which leads me to wonder if he is coping, or if he has just figured out another way to put one over on me. Did I mention how smart he is?

I Thought I'd Make Resolutions For Everyone

2009-01-05T06:54:00.002-06:00

Driving in the car yesterday, home from the house of my friend Angie (you know her from Keep Believing), I was bored, my eyes growing tired, the uninteresting drive lulling me into a dangerous state of hypnosis.

So I thought it would be entertaining to ask the boys about their New Year's Resolutions. Once I got their attention over the Nintendo games and DVD player, I explained to them that for grown-ups New Year's Resolutions were goals that we set to try to accomplish something we'd been wanting to do but hadn't or try to improve something about ourselves or in our lives.

Jack, still in Nintendo mode, proclaimed, "My resolution is to beat a DS game in less than 16 hours. And I will pick this easy Kirby game."

And Luke, never one to be outdone by his brother, chimed in, "I will learn to drive a car."

"You can't do that for 10 years, Luke. Can you pick something else?"

"I will ride on the hood of a car while it is driving down the highway."

"Ummm, I don't think so. Try again."

"I will ride on the trunk of a car while it is driving down the highway."

"O.K. How's your movie coming along?"

I feel that it is my duty to set resolutions for these boys. And while I'm at it, there are a few others that could use some resolutions as well:

Luke: Since I am beginning to realize that I do really dangerous things and always get hurt, though I think I always get hurt the last time I do something and haven't quite figured out the last time I do it is because I got hurt, I will stop doing the really dangerous thing that I am doing the time before the time I would normally get hurt. Or in other words, I will stop before I get hurt. Better yet, I will stop doing really dangerous things, but who am I kidding? I'm a 5 year old boy.

Jack: I will no longer use the word Sh*t. Even though I didn't realize it is a bad word and was just repeating the woman I idolize. Now that I know it is a bad word and hate to get in trouble or break the rules, I will not say it again. Unless she does.

My mother: I will no longer use the word Sh*t. Even though it was the only curse word that my mom let me use because it was the one curse word she used, and even though it flows from my tongue like water. At the very least, I will no longer say it in front of Jack. And if I do, I will try to whisper it. (I admit, I'm at fault here too so I will add my name to this resolution, but Sh*t it will be hard.)

Indy: I will no longer bark obsessively in other animals faces for 24 hours straight, imploring PLAY, PLAY, PLAY, PLAY. I realize they do not enjoy this, especially old cats who simply tolerate my existence to begin with and who could take out my eye with one swipe should they choose to do so.

John: None for you. You've made your own and they are better than any I could have come up with.

There you have it. With the exception of John, I expect we might make it until Midnight.

We Didn't Get A White Christmas

2008-12-30T06:00:00.000-06:00

...but our dog didn't seem to mind.

If we could disconnect the music, we'd have ourselves the best dog sitter ever.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T08:38:00.005-06:00

The Big Surprise

2008-12-23T07:59:00.003-06:00

How do you throw a surprise party for someone who is the leader, the manager really, of the family? The one who is the planner, the one who checks in on everyone to make sure that we are all o.k. and taken care of and doing what we are supposed to be doing and where we are supposed to be and getting the help we need if we need it?

Well, you start planning in July, you tell hundreds of lies, you fly that person's sister in from Colorado two days early, and you make that person think that everyone she knows has gone completely insane. Or that she has. Either way it doesn't matter. As long as she is surprised.

And one very, very important detail - you don't tell your children who can't keep a secret even when they think they are keeping a secret because they have that telltale grin and eye roll that screams I'm keeping a secret from you.

So, other than my mom insisting on picking up my aunt, who was already in town, and her family, who would be arriving two hours earlier than my mom thought, from the airport; other than my mom wanting to go to my uncle's house two hours early to help him prepare the (she thought) small birthday dinner for our immediate family; other than one of my mom's cousins running into her at a family function a couple weeks earlier and telling her, "I'll see you at your thing in a couple of weeks," ("What's wrong with Jimmy?" she asked my uncle Kiley later, never suspecting a thing); other than Jack talking to her on the phone hours before the party and asking her if she was excited about her party (she thought he was referring to her small dinner) and my husband ripping the phone out of his hand ("All of the men in this family have gone crazy," she said to me seconds later after calling to complain about how my husband ripped the phone out of her grandson's hand while she was talking to him); other than my sister having to call me from my mom's house every 30 minutes with reports of, "Now she's on the computer saying, 'That can't be right. There isn't even a flight landing in St. Louis at the time Patti told me'; other than my mom really not wanting to celebrate her birthday at all this year, we pulled it off.

Unless she knew about it all along and just isn't telling us. She would do that because she loves us that much.

Mad (Or Just Gross?) Science

2008-12-17T07:32:00.004-06:00

Luke got out his microscope last night and had a grand time "teaching" the dog all about it. It was fun for him to look at all the pre-made slides with common items, such as apples and salt.

Luke's interest began to wane quickly, so student turned to experiment and I helped him look at Indy under the microscope. We let Indy lick a slide and examined his saliva. It looked like a rainbow.

We used tweezers to grab some hair. I'm happy to report we saw no fleas.

I left the room and came back to a specimen of Luke's own doing:

"What is it?" I asked.

"Indy's eye juice."

So, maybe he's more Dr. Frankenstein than Einstein.

That Popping Sound is Exploding Eggs

2008-12-16T07:15:00.004-06:00

A few years ago I got the Back to Basics Egg and Muffin Toaster for Christmas. This was the perfect gift for me as I love egg muffin sandwiches for breakfast. I also love to eat hard boiled eggs for a quick breakfast or snack, and this handy little toaster hard boiled eggs with little mess or fuss.

You might think that hard boiling eggs normally is accompanied by little mess or fuss. Well, at my house, that task is tied with an absentmindedness unparalleled by any other activity. I don't know what it is, but as soon as I put those eggs on the stove and leave the room, I immediately forget of their existence. Until the popping sound and telltale smell of something burning.

So I was very sad when the egg element of my Egg and Muffin Toaster broke. I went on some forums and found this to be a common occurrence. I thought that, even though I used the egg element of the toaster often, the toaster portion worked fine so I would not replace the Egg and Muffin Toaster with another one when forums indicated it would likely just break again in a couple of years. Maybe I should rethink that?

Who knew exploding eggs could travel 15 feet?

Gum

2008-12-12T07:14:00.002-06:00

So if you swallow gum, it messes up your system and takes seven years to work its way out, right? An Old Wives' Tale for sure, but one that, once you've heard as a child, you don't soon forget. And even if I never fully bought into that tale once I had kids and was the very paranoid first-time parent, I still knew gum could be a choking hazard. So it was awhile until I let my boys chew gum, until I was sure they wouldn't swallow it and could chew it without choking. Even though Luke usually has enough gum in his mouth so it appears he is chewing on a golf ball while attempting some stunt such as flying from the couch onto a stack of pillows. I am fairly amazed we haven't been forced to Heimlich him.

The boys have become what you could call gum connoisseurs. I contribute this to my sister, Shannon, who they affectionately refer to as Nan. She loves gum, and she keeps them in stock. They won't taste vegetables, but they will try any manner of gum you put in front of them. That's their thing with her. I only ask they don't eat gum for breakfast when they are with her.

So, when it's dinner time and I tell the boys to go spit out their gum, I assume they know what I mean. But recent evidence would suggest otherwise. I find wads of gum on the floor next to the trash can. Or on the wall behind the trash can. Or in the trash can, just not in the trash bag. Or, I find the dog chewing on a piece that he picked up off the ground. Or I find the pieces inevitably stuck to the bottom of shoes. It almost makes me regret teaching them not to swallow their gum. That would be the perfect disposal mechanism.

His New Tell

2008-12-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

Jack would not be much of a gambler, due to his many tells. His latest tell is his embarrassment tell. He balls his hands up into fists and puts them next to his ears. I recently discovered this tell as we were shopping in Target looking for something very inexpensive on which he could spend his saved Tooth Fairy money.

He kept circling the Littlest Pet Shop aisle, but anytime someone approached he would ball his fists by his ears and make a bee line for the Star Wars figures. After alerting him for the fifth time that we only had 10 minutes, he was convinced the coast was clear and made it into the Littlest Pet Shop aisle undetected. He had a Littlest Pet Shop toy in his hand and was ready to head out when a girl walked into the aisle and spotted him.

I couldn't convince him she didn't pay any attention to him. I couldn't convince him she was doing her own shopping and couldn't care less what he had in his hand. In less than two seconds he had thrown that toy as far from his person as he could, grabbed a Mario toy, and headed for the check out.

In the car, I struck up a conversation about doing what you enjoyed and trying not to worry too much about what other people thought. "There are some toys that you may consider girl toys, like Littlest Pet Shop, that are fun and it's fine if you want to play with them. There are a lot of toys that are considered boy toys that a lot of girls like to play with, and they probably aren't embarrassed to go buy them."

"I guess so," he said, disappointed that he didn't have the toy he really wanted.

"You know those kids in your school, the ones that don't worry what other people think and have fun no matter what? They are the trendsetters and usually end up being the ones doing or playing with the thing that everyone else wants to do or play with. Maybe you can be one of those."

"One of what?"

"The trendsetters. The kids that don't care what other people think. The ones that have so much fun just being who they are and not worrying what everyone thinks, it makes everyone want to be like them. Because they're so cool."

"Yeah," he said. "Like magicians."

So maybe he won't be one of the cool kids. I just hope he's happy with who he ends up being.