clickmom

still my baby not for long

Josh was just the absolute easiest bestest sweetest dream come true kid in the world today. And when he wasn't being only that (as if it isn't enough) he was being too freaking adorable. We spent the day with Boops' kids (who are Matt's and Evan's age) and I kept waiting to hear them call out for Josh's removal. They didn't have a single issue with him all day.

Then when we sat down to dinner (chinese takeout) Josh asked for a stallion pancake. I just love when kids do that. Then, a few bites later, Josh turned to me and used TV speak when he said "Mom, do you want to know what you get for me? Well, coming this summer from the award winning folks who brought you Lego Star Wars...." As horrifying (exactly how much tv does he see?) and annoying (talk like a kid kid!) as the TV speak is, I just want to wrap him in a tortilla (gluten free) and start munching every time he does it.

Maybe it is just him. I dunno.

Then tonight I needed to do some portraits if the boys. But I wanted to do it individually. First I grabbed Evan, then I called Matt up and then I called Josh, except Josh thought I was calling him for his bath so he shows up in my studio 2 minutes later in his birthday suit. And being as comfortable as a 6 year old can be in his birthday suit he plops right down on the stool and can't wipe the big grin off his face. But here is the one thing, I (for some reason) want to take a serious portrait and Josh can not stop laughing and giggling.
So, he's trying as hard as he can to hold the happiness in but he can't. And it is all so sweet and so naked and so this very moment and it won't last forever that my heart feels like it will just explode all over the room with all the love and happiness. And finally Josh manages to hold a serious face for a few seconds and I am in shock because WHERE DID MY BABY GO?

And who put this similar looking grown up-ish guy in his place? But it was only for a frame or two because before I knew it the giggles broke through and my baby was back and I am so incredibly grateful that I got that little bit of today on .. well I was going to say film but I guess I technically I got it on .... memory card and now through this modern miracle of 21st century technology I can put it here for you to see too.

cash and checks only

This morning the kids and I were discussing what errands we would be doing today. One errand was Matt's weekly comic book run to the comic book store to see if this week's new comics were out yet. (I consider that research for future career) Josh got very excited and asked if he could buy something for himself. I said he could with his own money. Within seconds Josh was back with the reclaimed dressing jar that he has been using to stash his hard earned (swiped from the laundry machine) cash. I got worried about Josh thinking he could spend every last dollar on the actions figures so I said he could only spend up to $10, thinking that he could get two packs of (still wasteful but less painful when stepped on) trading cards for just under $10.

Josh was crushed. He wanted to blow his whole wad. He didn't want to me try and reason with him so Matt, always the helpful (and entertaining and hilarious) one that he is told Josh he would explain it to him in a song. I kind of focused on the dishes at hand for a moment but came back to reality just in time to hear Matt enthusiastically singing "and when you are old ... and wearing adult diapers ..... action figures won't pay the rent."

"holiday" concert

Josh performed in his grade's holiday concert last week. For some reason the kids came into the gym-atorium as dogs. I'm not totally up on your holidays but I didn't know puppies were a christmas thing too.
Josh , breaking with his two older brother's tradition of not singing at all and standing there wide eyed and frozen, and using special Josh highly refined skills of completely over acting gazes longly at his star. (Note: not a Star of David)

Also, during the hand motion song towards the end Josh was really feeling the passion of something.
But what I haven't mentioned yet is that Josh has a cold with one of those really nasty sounding wet coughs going on and I probably should not have sent him to school that day, except his little heart would have been crushed if he missed the concert, so I sent him anyway. And now I fear that there are (or will shortly be) a few mothers nursing their coughing first grader kids through christmas who are raising their fists in the air and cursing my name every time their kid hocks out a big green louie just to be a good boy for santa and I will end up hiding in the shadows every day at pick up until someone else gives Josh a nice case of the chicken pox over spring vacation or something.

My kids think they are funny

NaBloPoMoney

Last night when I was at the ER with grandma the husband was in charge of putting the kids to sleep. He let Josh stay up late to watch the end of a DVD they had rented. First the husband bargained with/bribed Evan to pretend that Josh had been dutifully put to bed at 9. Then he turned to Josh to make sure that the child who had begged to stay up late was down with the ruse. Josh wanted to know how much he'd get for lying to me, not realizing that his bargain/bribe was the staying up past his bedtime part. The husband fell prey to Josh's abundance of adorable (sucka) and agreed to the same deal he had cut with Evan. They would get ten dollars to say Josh had gone to bed at 9.

During dinner tonight the subject of bed time came up and I (having been filled in by the husband who can not keep a secret ever) asked what time Josh had gone to bed last night. A hush fell over the table. All three boys stared at their laps. Then Evan boldly spoke up and said that he had gone to bed at 9:45. I turned to Josh and asked again what time he had gone to bed. His face lit up a smile spread from cheek to cheek and he announced "I went to bed at 9 o'clock last night!" then he turned to the husband and added "Now you owe me ten bucks!"

NaBurnedOutAtDay18

The scales are loaded with this right now: sleep on the one side and post on the other.
Naturally I'm going to post, because I said I would post each and every day for a whole painfully long month and heaven forbid I don't after thinking all those evil thoughts about the lucky people on the randomiser who skipped a day, but here is about all I am capable of right now. I've got two tid bits of cuteness that I emailed myself after hearing them (so I wouldn't forget!) and that is about it.

1. The husband took the boys to an old fashioned Kosher deli. It was full of atmosphere. They had the hundred year old shriveled salamis hanging from the ceiling. Evan glanced up and said "Whoa! Those things look like grandma!"

2. Putting Josh to bed he said to me "So, my bed is a jack right?" And I was so confused that I didn't know what to say. I just looked at him with my screwed up face. Then Josh, trying to clear things up for me, went on "Well, if yours is a king and Matt's is a queen, then what else is there?"

Also, Postsecret didn't post new post cards today and I am totally bumming. sigh. Well at least my girls at gofugyourself are not at a fashion show this week and Monday is always a good day over there.

That's all I got.

NephewSavesThePostForToday

So, feeling rather tapped out by both life (my personal one these days, not life in general) and also NaBloPostEverySingleDayBecauseYouSaidYouWould- AndNowYouHAVETO I sat in my vehicle at almost 3 o'clock this afternoon, waiting for Josh to get out of school wondering if I'd be able to summon the funny for tonight's post when lil sis called to save me with this anecdote.

This week, here in Stepford was conference week, (and you'll be happy to know my kids are still perfect and absolutely beloved by their respective teachers) so when lil sis said she had a conference with 8 year old nephew's teacher I wasn't surprised. . Lil sis said she and her husband were at my 8 year old nephew's private school (for boys who are incredibly smart just their aunts) for a conference with his teacher as well. Except it wasn't the kind that is all prescheduled and follows a report card. It was the kind where the teacher calls you on the phone at home and says in a very serious tone "There is something we need to discuss"

And I got so excited because OMG lil sis was a holy terror as a kid and if her kid has even a fraction of her ... spunk... then this is going to be such a fun ride! You know, for me! I'll just sit back and observe from 120 miles away. Someone get the popcorn!

So, lil sis starts telling the story, and I am all giddy and imagining lil sis holding the new baby nephew on her lap and her husband sitting in the little third grade chairs, wearing their nice teacher meeting clothes, with their knees up near their shoulders and sweating it out while the pinched faced bespectacled teacher (I have no idea what the teacher actually looks like) rifles through some papers setting her authoritative tone for this impromptu conference. And then the actual (as opposed to my imagined) teacher tells them that there was an incident involving my nephew (their son, what ever) and a computer.

And my imagination is speeding a thousand miles an hour, I think of the kid who while doing her animal report google imaged BEAVER, I'm thinking about wildmom's kids who should be hired right now by the government today (if the government has a brain) because those kids can and have done remarkable things on the computer (that we know about) and their school is not always thrilled about that (understatement), and I am thinking about lil sis's own personal brand of special and how she related to her teachers (In second grade lil sis's teacher wrote EXCELLENT across the top of lil sis's assignment and lil sis says to the teacher, "How dare you write on my paper! This is my paper and if you have something to say to me you can say it to my face.") and the possibilities of what my sweet charming nephew, son of lil sis, could have done between the potential genetic bad ass attitude he may have inherited from lil sis and the involvement of high tech 21st century equipment are literally getting me high.

Then the teacher, according to lil sis, explains to lil sis and her husband that the students were told to do some school related research on the computer and that they have been instructed to do their school research on elibrary.com (or something like that) and my nephew, jokester that he is, decided to entertain his pals and check out eharmony.com instead.

I couldn't contain my laughter.

Then lil sis reports that the teacher informs her that all the schools computers have had to have eharmony.com blocked from them.

So I'm guessing the teachers won't be internet dating from the faculty lounge any more.

NaBrickHouse

Hey mighty mighty letting it all hang out!

Dinner got off to a rocky start tonight. By rocky you can pretty much guarantee that we were all perfectly content except Evan (my man on the edge. I have taken to describing him as "edgy". I think it fits, don't you?) who was doing his best to agitate someone (Josh) else, while I was doing my best not blow my top (and scream in front of my (judging) parents). Luckily there was peace in sight tonight! Tonight thanks to a table topics (I can not tell you how much my kids love the table topics) tangent (the best part of table topics is how far we can go with a single idea) we went around the dinner table saying something nice about the family member to our left. It was all very loving, very hallmark card, very aaaawww, and rather dry and predictable until we got to Evan who stood up and performed a whole original song and dance about how great his brother Matt is. You can imagine the accolades of praise he received after his original vocals and choreography and Evan, being one who loves the spotlight as much as any one else who loves the spotlight then grabbed some nearby paper and penned a funny, touching , loving song for every family member at the table. When he turned to me, to present my original song of specialness after a lively and amusing over the top introduction, Evan broke into his very special rendition of Brick House complete with his very Chippendale dancer type moves. It was funny, but not as good as Matt's song of love and appreciation, but then Evan sang a real made up just for me song and my favorite line in his song was "You are a pearl among pebbles". Evan said he thought this one up all by himself (along with "You are a shark among fish", which didn't exactly strike the same chord) so don't even think of telling me that you have heard it before. But you know that the next time Evan pretends to load and shoot a semi automatic weapon into his brother's head, I am going to summon up all that good loving pearl among pebbles energy and try to react (without freaking) accordingly.

NaBloGenderConfused

Evan: (thinking in a sing song kind of way) Pretty pretty I can be so pretty
Josh: WTF?!?

In yet another, cool guys aren't afraid to wear heels (and now I know lil sis's true shoe size!) moment, Evan decided that despite the not one but two different costumes he talked me into spending lots of cold hard cash for this fall, he wanted to go as a girl for halloween. Boops donated her old nursing dress, we had the wig from my own personal stint as Buttercup one year and lil sis donated the 3 inch heels. How clever is my frighteningly gorgeous (as a girl) 10 year old son? The real girls couldn't resist him all day. They spent their Halloween day coming up with girl names that fit Evan and also giving him hair and makeup tips. My personal tip would have been: no sweat socks with lil sis's 3 inch mules, but whatever... Very slick there son, very slick.

The above photo was taken on the way out the door in the morning. By the time Evan (Evelyn, Evana, Evanka) participated in his school's halloween parade at 2 o'clock he looked like a lady of the evening after a particularly gruelling shift. His wig was crooked and mussed, his eye makeup smeared and he was limping (all the while sashaying down the driveway) after not ever changing into the sneakers his mother made him bring to school for day time use.

Which didn't matter much anyway because Evanika passed out on the couch upon returning home from school to awake two hours later with 103.5 fever. Sadly, he was then quaranteened to the bedroom and did not participate in last night's national sugar binge. This year might go down as a Suckoween in Evana's book.

Josh didn't wear his Harry Potter outfit (including the over priced brand new robe, over priced glasses, over priced plastic wand, over priced broomstick, and something else, oh yeah, the ugly over priced diagonal striped tie) but instead opted for a more royal type day of glutonous paganism. It worked out well in the end because there were many Harry Potter's walking around Josh's school but there were no other kings, unless you counted one King Tut. Let's not count him, Okay?

Matt didn't wear the huge afro, sunglasses and bling he got at the costume store in September either. Instead, he went as Sanjaya. He had a pony-hawk.

The girls didn't respond to him the same way. It was anti-climactic. Next year I am going to get him a cheerleading outfit. (Just kidding!)

Since I was upstairs (my useless presence was absolutely required) tending to (breathing the same air as) poor sick (hopefully not contagious) Evan I asked the husband to turn off all 43 of the voice and motion activated halloween devices which decorate our front porch each year. Not knowing where the (oh so tricky they are pratically child proof) off buttons are located (Uh, on the back maybe?) he instead brought each device inside, which was fine through the night while the devil dog was in her crate, but once I let her loose this morning there was some kind of ghoulish commotion coming from the living room and the box of voice and motion activated devices. I had a grandma's rehab roommate flashback. shivers. Then I turned all of power switched to"OFF" and joined Evan for his (and my desperately needed) day of couch vegetating. He is still sick, but I feel much better.

NaBloMeAKiss

It's getting harder and harder to summon the energy to face another day each morning. This morning I woke up and realized that I had been so preoccupied with my mother and grandma that I hadn't been giving barely any worry time to dad. He's been taking his oral chemo and following the timed eating plan (so that the chemo is delivered to an empty stomach) like a real trooper. Dad's weak and sleeping more than his usual 17 hours a day, but he is trooping right along. I am praying that he he is the 50% of people for whom oral chemo will effective. I don't know how I'd be about taking my medicine if those were my odds. I suppose it easier to do that kind of thing when you only focus on yourself, but I know that if I had to be on that schedule it would be a disaster.

And I am not even considering that inconvenient fact that I eat/nosh/snack/binge all through the day pretty much every day just to get myself through. I am thinking purely of being on schedule. My boss out of the blue asked me how the binge thing was working for me the other day and I I told her that even though it wasn't working I was seemingly determined to keep on eating that way. I suppose eventually I won't be able to walk anymore if I keep gaining all this weight and then maybe no one will bring me cartons of ice cream and I'll take some of the weight off again. You know, I'll be back down to walking weight.

Last year I was among the first to sign up for NaBloMeDown and I really do want to keep things as normal as possible around here and really do want to participate except this year I am only pretending to be normal and in reality am very close to that proverbial edge. I think I'll signup anyway and see if I can just do it. I loved that pink elephant thing. (was it pink? it was an elephant right?) I figure if I go back to the iphone posting torture of last summer I can at least throw down a few lines here and there. Right? I am going to try to summon the funny side for more of November. She is still around and recognizing the funny in life, like Matt's interpretation of the scenario which enabled the brand new and somewhat inept possibly reality challenged limp wristed crossing guard becoming a crossing guard. Matt conjured up this image of a super friendly, yet dim witted, sort of guy who liked to wave (somewhat frantically) at the people on the street. Matt imagines that the waving guy thinks he has been selected to get paid to stand in the middle of the road and frantically wave "Hello", which he would have done for free anyway because he simply loves to wave "hello", to all the cars passing by. And now the waving man is so incredibly happy, his waving talents are on display for all to see. But he's not sure why he has to hold a stop sign or wear an orange jacket. (You know my babes are totally gonna get that joke because you kind of have to see this guy to believe that the local cops would actually pay him to disrupt traffic the special (needs) way he does!)

So, I am going to register for NaBloBloBloYourBoatGentlyDownTheStream as soon as I get back from little sis's house. Tomorrow. We are taking the kids up to meet their new cousin. And see utopia, whose progress has been painfully slow. But there has been progress, and in the scheme of things, I can't muster enough energy to give the contractor a hard time. So at least there has been progress. And a new baby, can't forget about him. He's really cute.