Busy, busy, busy

Just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean we haven't been doing anything interesting. We've been busy since Dan's last day of school. Jake's been busy playing with hot wheels and learning that though sharing doesn't seem very fun, it really is the right thing to do. Ty's been busy attempting to get more bruises on his head before the other ones have a chance to heal. Dan's been busy on ESPN.com salivating over the upcoming NBA draft, and thoughtfully doing dishes and playing Mr. Mom when he notices that I'm about to kill the kids. I've been busy working more and busy running the dryer with a pen in my scrubs pocket and busy cleaning out the resulting ink stains in the dryer and busy figuring out how to get ink out of half our clothes that ran through the dryer with said pen.

As I said, busy, busy, busy. But busy doesn't mean that we're not having any fun. We (the kids and I) have loved having Dan home for the summer. A few nights ago, Dan and Jake bought a tent and set it up in the backyard and camped out. I could hear Jake from inside..."What's that noise, Dad? It was car, I fink, no maybe a truck. What kind of truck? Probwee a Chevy. Is it a Chevy Dad, or a Ford? Maybe a Toyota? I think it was a Nissan. Yep, a Nissan. Like Poppy's..." and on and on. They didn't fall asleep for quite some time, but they made it until 6:30am.

Today we went out to lunch at Marie Callendar's because I had a birthday coupon that expires on Saturday. The coupon was for $5 off my entree and a free piece of pie for everyone who ordered. That included Jake, so we decided to let him get a piece of french apple. Um, have you seen the size of those pieces of pie? Seriously like 1/4 of a pie. Jake at the WHOLE thing in like 2 minutes flat. He kept thinking we were going to take it away from him, so he was inhaling it. By the time he was finished he had goo dripping off his face and crust up his nose. We were getting stares from the people across the aisle. They may have disapproved, but Jake is nominating us for Parents' of the Year.

Thanks Marie, for taking our minds off of our ruined clothes, dirty dishes, bruises, and sharing issues. Now if we can just get Jake to go to sleep tonight after all that sugar...

Things a 1 year old is not yet able to do:

#1. Feed themselves yogurt without supervision.

#2. Stand on kitchen chairs and bend down to pick up a toy.

#3. Tell their brother it is not okay to spray their head repeatedly with Windex glass cleaner while mom is in the other room.

26 years old

Today is my birthday. As I'm writing this, I have a pointy hat on, a party blower in my mouth, birthday cake frosting on my face and my computer is covered in streamers. Just kidding. Birthdays are sure different when you get older, aren't they? Dan has parent/teacher conferences tonight, so we had to celebrate my birthday yesterday evening after I got home from work. This is what I saw when I got home:

I couldn't have asked for a better present. My two adorable baby boys telling me they love me, and a thoughtful husband who made me dinner and gave me some awesome creative presents even though I'd given him no ideas. My birthday lists used to be 23 miles long and included a pony and a life-sized stuffed animal, but now I just want money for some new clothes and a new kitchen strainer. (Ty broke the last one pretending he was the drummer in a garage band.)

But I wouldn't trade 26 for 6 any day. I have experienced so many of God's incredible blessings in my short life, and it makes me excited for birthdays to come. Thank you to my little family for making me so proud to be your wife and mom.

God's little boy

The combination of working a lot lately and dealing with a kid at the peak of his terrible twos is what has been keeping me off the blogosphere for a while. I just had to share this story, though.

For the last two weeks or so Jake has been pushing the limits. Let me rephrase that. He's been wildly flinging himself over the limits and laughing in my face as he does it. I've never thought of him as a maliciously disobedient child, but I have begun to see glimpses of pure defiance, and it is not pretty. For example, we just got a brand new exercise bike that we're keeping in the living room. We told Jake he wasn't even allowed to touch it, much less play on it. The day after Dan assembled it I was in the kitchen doing dishes and Jake calmly walked in and said "Mom, I just broke the ekercize bike." You what? "I just BROKE the ekercize bike." And sure enough, the ekercize bike was indeed broken. He had actually ripped the console off it's stand, breaking off a piece of plastic that held it in place. He had to have been hanging on it. I thought about hanging him from it again.

There are many more stories that end with Jake screaming at me for disciplining him "don't spank me, mom" "don't send me to my room, mom" "stop punching me in the face, mom."

Ok, so I'm being a little dramatic, but he has really been pushing my buttons. Today I was trying to put him down for a nap and I asked him to go potty before we started the nigh-night routine. He started whining, then shrieking "no potty, mom, no potty" and he actually threw himself on the floor crying. He was really tired, which made it worse. I told him I wouldn't read him his book unless he went potty. Then I thought about the book we've been reading before he goes to sleep, both at naptime and bedtime. It's called "God's Wisdom for Little Boys" and it's a bunch of Proverbs put into little poems, and Jake just loves it. Because we're reading it so much, I thought he may remember some of it. There's a poem about obedience, and I started to quote it, "God teaches children that they should..."

"obey" Jake whimpered. He started to walk to the bathroom. "rules of udders, do ut day say" (the rules set by others and do what they say) "God's little boy no usseptions (God's little boy makes no exceptions) "he minds and fawows anections" (he always minds and follows directions). He quoted it again as he was on the toilet and again when he walked back to his room.

I couldn't help but smile. I'm so proud of God's little boy. And of the authors of this book for turning my whiney snotty nosed kid into a poetry quoting, potty loving angel.