Pretty Party Dress

Before Brett's grandparent's left for Arizona to escape the impending rain, they were able to come for a visit and brought Brooklyn the most adorable dress.  She quickly named it her "Party Dress."  Because, and I quote, "When I wear this purple dress, I just want to party!"  The things she comes up with.  Geesh.  I wanted to take a few pics of her in the infamous party dress but the boys just didn't want to stay out of the picture so it became an impromptu sibling photoshoot.  I thought, heck, if they all want to be in the picture maybe I can get a good Christmas picture.  Yeah, right.  

Bink and J and their almost smiles.

Nice smile J.

Super Cheese E!

It's getting worse...

Hilarious!

Hey, over here, Emmett!

I really should just give up.

But they are so funny!

The super happy boys.

E was clearly tired.

Tired enough to rest his head.

Finally just kicked the boys out.

And her inner model took over.

Eat your heart out Tyra Banks.

And, J is sad/mad that I kicked him out of the photoshoot.

Three Hours

Cleaning supplies?!?  Days, weeks, months with no pictures and I dare to post this one?  Don't worry there is a great explanation.  Today I spent three hours cleaning an angry crayon mural off of Jameson's wall.  We've (I) have been having some trouble getting Jameson to go to bed at night.  When Brett is gone Jameson knows, knows, he is gone and really pulls out all the stops at bedtime.  Screaming?  Check.  Kicking the wall?  Check.  And now, angry crayon mural.  Angry, jumping, crayon mural.  No pretty picture.  Just heavy handed scribbles in all directions, everywhere.  Out of his reach everywhere.  Jumping up and down on his bed with a crayon everywhere.  When I went up Tuesday night to ask him to stop kicking his wall, again, I was greeted with the lovely angry crayon mural.  I was so angry I had to pull my first, "We'll talk about this in the morning."  And we did talk about it and then I gave him a sponge to clean it up with.  Well, news to me, crayon doesn't just come off the wall.  Drywall does, but not crayon.  After several different attempts I had to fire Jameson and Google "how to remove crayon from a matte paint wall."  Well, Google solved my problems again.  Like always.  If you ever need to remove crayon from a matte paint wall grab your hairdryer, some magic erasers, dish soap and a towel.  You have to remove it in sections the circumference of the end of your hairdryer.  Small circles they are.  Turn your hair dryer on high, heat the wall for 10 seconds.  Use water soaked magic eraser in a smooth, one directional motion.  Do not scrub.  Remove any smudging with the towel and dish soap.  Ta-Da!  Clean wall.

Three hours.  THREE hours.  My only regret is not taking a before and after picture for when it becomes a funny story...which it has not...yet.

Boyfriend

It's happened.  One of Brooklyn's classmates has asked Brooklyn to be his girlfriend.  Lucky for us she responded, "My Dad won't let me have a boyfriend for a long, long time."  When he told her that he was in love with her today and pleaded to be her boyfriend she replied, "No thank you.  I am not interested."  While telling me this story she paused to look at me and said, "Don't worry Mom, I used my manners."  We've taught her well.  :)

Owie

Decorating for Halloween is always a bit of double-edged sword around here.  The kids are always SO excited but as soon as I open the box they decide that half of the decorations are too scary.  Way too scary. Talking Skeleton?  Too scary.  Fake spiders?  Too scary.  So, needless to say, we have a whole lot of not scary jack-o-lanterns around our house.  The big kids think it's great.  Emmett, well, he seems to be a bit more sensitive.  You'll have to bear with me here because this is about to get confusing.

Let's go back to summer.  We were able to visit Brett's parents quite a bit over the summer and they live right on the water.  Salt water.  When the tide is out the kids love to look for treasure on the beach.  Treasure as in starfish, clams, eels, and tiny crabs.  These tiny crabs are pretty harmless but if you are Emmett, you pick them up entirely wrong and they pinch you...and don't let go.  It would go a little like this.  Emmett would turn over a rock, dozens of crabs run for their lives, Emmett finds the biggest of the little crabs, picks it up, BOOM the crab latches on to Emmett's hand.  Owie.  Emmett would say owie in a very low, husky voice.  No panic.  Just low, husky, monotone, owie.  And, repeat.  All day.  So.  Many.  Owies.

What on earth do crabs have to do with Halloween?  Well, apparently anything "scary" is now an owie. The same low, husky, monotone, owie.  Spiders = owie.  Witches = owie.  Bats = owie.  Yes, even jack-o-lanterns = owie.  As you can imagine, Emmett is primarily saying owie these days.

Poor sensitive, gigantic Emmett.

Deoder

Ever since Jameson turned four he has made random, bold announcements throughout the day.  A few days ago he burst out of his room and while still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, declared, "I am four.  I have hair in my armpits and I need deoder."  In shock, I simply replied, "Ok."  He went on to say that no one likes stinky pits and it was a deoder (his word for deodorant) emergency.  Let the boy have deodorant.  I figure if we start early there won't be a fit TO wear it when he actually is stinky.

Oh, he also knows karate now that he is four.  He like to yell this randomly as well...I'M FOUR, I KNOW KARATE!  All while his hands are on his hips and his chest is puffed out.

That's our Jameson, keepin' it goofy.

Jameson's Birthday, Part 1

For Jameson's big fourth birthday we told him we would go out to dinner as a family at the restaurant of his choice.  This is a pretty big deal.  We hardly ever go to a restaurant.  If you have ever dined with us, you know why.  It's nuts.  Anyhoo, he said he wanted to go to the pizza house.  We confirmed and reconfirmed because pizza has never really been his favorite.  Pizza it is!  We headed to Alfy's (the only local dine-in pizza place we know of) for a delicious pizza and salad bar.  It actually really was good and pretty darn reasonable.  In fact, while I rave, we had one of the best customer experiences in recent history.  The woman taking our order kept telling us ways to save money on our order.  Saving money?  I'm in.  Jameson ate half a piece of pizza and then, with sad, pleading eyes, begged to go to the video game room that was in his line of sight.  We gave each kid some quarters and stayed in the game room for five minutes.  That all it took for them to get bored.  :)  Other than Jameson not wanting to eat his birthday dinner, Alfy's was a success!

On a serious note, I cannot believe, BELIEVE, that Jameson is four.  If I close my eyes I can feel his weight on my shoulder when I used to hold him.  His preferred way, stomach to my chest, propped up on my shoulder.  I can smell his ridiculously luxurious head of newborn hair.  I can see those adorable baby blue eyes light up whenever I entered the room.  That adorable big head in that adorable bright white helmet.  Sigh.  It really does go by all to fast.  But, I am happy I have those memories and get to build on them every day.  His contagious laugh.  His goofy demeanor.  Those long, ridiculously skinny legs.  Those same eyes that light up when I pick him up from preschool.  Sigh.  Happy Birthday Jameson!   

Playing games w/Dad.

Helping to steer the race car.

Brooklyn giving it a whirl.

Blowing out candles at home - check out Bink's face.

Handsome Birthday Boy!

Heartbreaking

Whew!  Well, summer sure seemed to zap all my free time.  Ha!  I thought summer was busy?!?  Summer pales in comparison to juggling two kids in school.  Two kids in school, part-time.  Two kids in preschool and Kindergarten.  These are the lines I repeat when I am FREAKING OUT.  I realize you haven't seen any first day of school pics, kids at their desks pics, etc.  Well, according to the dates on here I haven't posted anything since July.  Bad, bad Mommy.  If you haven't noticed, I love to kick myself when I am down.  So, before I backtrack and give you all the details on Brooklyn and Jameson's first week of school, let me break your heart.  I preface this with the fact that I know that there are terrible, sad, horrible tragedies that are much worse the following story.  But, in the moment, I could actually feel my heart break.

The kids and I loaded up in to the car this morning to first drop Jameson off at school and then Brooklyn.  Jameson's drop-off went flawlessly.  He is so excited for school that he is literally wriggling in his seat by the time we get there.  After he said, "Later Mom, Love you Brooklyn," he was off.  On to Brooklyn's school.  I park, unload Emmett and grab Brooklyn's hand to walk her in to school.  At the gate she asks if she can walk ahead of us because, and I quote, "no one else is holding their Mom's hand."  Heartbreak number one.  I thought she would be at least 10 before I was no longer cool.  So she saunters ahead and chats it up with some of her classmates.  We get to where she needs to line-up and she gives Emmett a hug and a kiss, the same for me, and then heads to get in line.  She quickly lets me know that we can leave now.  So, Emmett and I start our walk back to the parking lot, heavy hearted.  Halfway there I hear a kid wailing.  WAILING.  I feel so sorry for the kid that is so sad to go to school.  I think to myself that I guess I should be happy that Brooklyn is confident and independent.  You know where I am going with this, it's Brooklyn.  She falls into me (the back of me) and is yelling DON'T GO!  I crouch down so she can really get in for a good hug and try to calm her down.  She is mumbling in-between sobs that I can't go, she needs me at school, she just wants to go home, etc.  She finally agrees to walk back over to her class...glued to my leg.  I convince her to let go of my leg and I will hold her hand in line and wait with her (she is white knuckling my hand - funny thing, wasn't it just five minutes ago that she didn't want to hold my hand?!?).  The bell rings and the class starts filing in.  She panics and goes full circle back to wailing and tears.  We finally reach the door and her teacher looks at me with "you can do it" eyes and tells me to just go, she will recover faster if I go.  So, I go.  I turn away and hear her crying, still.  Don't look back, don't look back.  I have terrible flashbacks of when I used to drop her off at daycare and she would paste her face to the little window and cry when I left.  Sigh.  Heartbreak.  Clearly I may have post-tramatic-daycare-stress issues.  

I pace all day.  My cell phone is basically glued to my hand.  No calls.  She must be fine.  We head up to pick her up.  She comes running out of the building with a huge smile on her face and greets me with the biggest bear hug.  She said she had a great day.  Her teacher said it took her awhile to shake it off but she did and she really did have a great day.  She had a great day while I paced and ate chocolate.  Kids sure are resilient.  Which, I clearly need to remember. 

Even as I wrote this I can't seem to convey the feeling in words.  It seems so, well, not heartbreaking.  But, it has been a stressful few weeks and my emotions have been on high so, in the moment, I was heartbroken.  So heartbroken that once I was back in the car and I actually had to look back and thank Emmett for being so good on my hip while I calmed Brooklyn down...because I actually forgot he was on my hip for that few minutes.  Geez.  Self kick number two.

I figured this would be good to have on this ol' blog because it is only going to happen once.  One time.  Happy drop-offs from here on out.  Positive thinking and deep breaths.  I can do this two kids in school thing.  Two kids in school, part-time.  Pull it together me!