a 4 year old mind

Last night my husband had dinner with the president of his new company, so me and the little ones rented a movie and snuggled in on the couch waiting for him to arrive. We had finished 'Scooby Doo Meets Batman' and were on to watching figure skating. Little man had just fallen asleep and big brother was well on his way when all of the sudden I am covered in puke for about the 7th consecutive time since we have been here. Apparently between the antibiotic for ear infection, the nighttime cold and cough meds, and the chocolate milk (now that the fever was gone)...little guy couldn't keep it all down.
I wrapped he and I in his blanket and carefully carry him to the bathroom. Big brother follows and says he will just grab Buzz Lightyear on the way. I decide that chances are if I don't just get in too I will have this puke smell on my leg and most of my upper body all night. So, I hop in with little guy. He is laughing now and playing in the water. I am quickly washing off the evidence and getting ready to get out when big brother comes over to investigate. He puts his elbows on the side of the tub and rests his head in his hands and says..."How come you have these big hippos (confusing a once fat comment made by his cousin about my hips, with boobs) and I don't? I mean look at little guy, he has these two brown dots and that is it. I don't even think I have that?"
Then lifting his shirt to check he says, "Oh, I do. Daddy does too, just not like yours."
I said as I am hoisting myself out and into a towel, "Remember how mommy told you that God makes everyone special? Well He made girls to have different ones than boys." 'Nuf said? Not quite.
He says, "Then why doesn't (girl cousin) have them?"
I said, "Only older girls have bigger ones than yours. Her's are just like yours now." I am dying here. Probably breaking every parenting rule by not just coming out and saying the proper term for them or something. You have got to know my kid. He will say anything to anyone sometimes. This is the same kid that about a year ago asked me what those 'hills' were down by my stomach. I quickly continued to get dressed and sort of ignored the question wondering if they were really sagging that low. The next time that this came up was after watching Tarzan, he told me he wished he had those big muscles right there like mommy and Tarzan do. He would even put toys up to his chest and say look at my 'muscles'.
He apparently was satisfied in knowing that older girls get them, and it was just another way God makes us different and special. He just had one more thing to say about the subject as I was getting little bit dressed for bed, again. He said, "Is this sort of like why girls p.p. out of their bunkusses (bottom), you know since they don't have a wasset (penis)?"
At this 10:00 point of exhaustion, all I could say was yes.
I read them a story, told them I loved them and we talked about how excited we were to be driving back to OK to get the rest of our toys. He told me that he thought Woody was assigning all the other toys moving buddies like on the movie. I told him he was probably right. After 'doobing' himself a king, me a princess, and little man a prince he leaned back on his pillow, covered up with Pistol Pete (his blankie that will probably be somewhere in his backpack when he starts high school), and said, "Well, I'm gonna hit the jack!" :)

setting myself up for disaster

Some day I will learn. Today is just another experience in the life of a mother. Don't expect your 4 year old negotiator to understand the value of a last-minute homemade Valentine's gift when he saw you get something nice.
I took the boys on this great outing yesterday only to realize that it didn't replace a wrapped Valentine gift. Last night, after a long day of play and an evening at the gym, my husband surprisingly stopped by the mall on the way home. He parks in the perfect place to aquire a double stroller from customer service, takes us directly to the food court to get the boys an ice cream to occupy their time while we shopped, and then took me shopping for the perfect Valentine treasures! What a nice guy...thoughtful, sweet, caring, and spontaneous. Our oldest was perfectly content until my husband comes out of Brighton with a wrapped package. The whole way home all he could say was that he didn't get a 'present'. I tried to explain that his whole day was our Valentine's gift to him. That getting to go to the museum, see Clifford, and the binoculars he picked out in the gift shop were all a really big deal. It was a lost cause. 4 year olds tend to have a one track mind on issues like this. There is sometimes no explanation that makes things better.
You see, my husband and I came from very different backgrounds. My parents divorced when I was 9 and my mom had never worked aside from being a stay at home sitter for another family. My grandparents were not your typical come over and just pick you up for a shopping spree kind of grandparents. My 72 year old grandmother would now rock climb to my rescue just to take me shoe shopping...the woman has more shoes than Oprah and all are quite sassy, but when my grandfather was still alive that would not have always been the case. With 4 kids and a single newly employed mother we struggled, to say the least. My husbands family was more well off. I wasn't even sure how to order a steak, so when we were first dating I always ordered chicken until I finally told him I didn't think I had ever eaten half of the menu choices if any. He was kind enough to explain and help me out. His father was constantly moving them to improve his pay and their livelyhood. His parents did eventually divorce when he was in college. Very sad, yet a harse reality that we face daily. Both of our fathers remarried and his dad has a child 4 months younger than our oldest. They are great friends, yet the whole -he's your uncle- thing will hopefully never be discussed until they are old enough to get it.
Now that we have our own children we have tried to work really hard at not spoiling them ourselves, but when you throw in the grandparents we have a big issue! With both grandmas, both grandpas, not to mention all the aunts, uncles and step-grandparent involvement it is no wonder that our 4 year old was confused with a non-wrapped gift. In a situation like this you want to crawl in a hole and ask yourself what you have done wrong. I can only hope that when we get more settled here, he will understand that we are not in OK anymore.
Since the whole incident happened on Feb. 13th I woke up early the morning of the 14th and printed off some much desired Power Ranger coloring sheets from the internet along with some other super hero friends. I carefully wrapped it in the beautiful Brighton tissue paper and toole bow. When he woke up I said, "Guess what Brother Bear, you do have a present!" He was so excited and began digging in. My heart broke when, after all of the discussion the night before about how a gift isn't always wrapped and because we now live far away from all grandmas you may not always have something in a nice neat package, he finished opening it and said,"This is nothin' but coloring sheets!"
I said, "Just what you wanted!"
He acted very quietly disappointed, but I think knew better than to say anything else. After a few hours of play and cartoons, he was telling the dog sorry for something then looked at me and said sorry about the pictures. He since colored them all. Maybe there is hope afterall!

Children's Museum

It is so funny how we can sometimes have so much more fun with our children when it is just us! We don't have to be in a group or at a party to totally enjoy the moment. Today we ventured out to the children's museum. Clifford the Big Red Dog was there for Valentine's Day and we just had to go see him. Little bit cried like a banchie, but big man hugged him, high-fived and sat by him for a quick pic. We had never been somewhere like this before. It was far cooler than any zoo or pizza place with games. They had cute little areas set up for make believe of every type. They painted, went grocery shopping, worked at the checkout stand, invented, played dress-up, and climbed through a forest of trees. I love it that people are so open and funny with their children. I like to check places like this out before my husband goes. The forewarning of women hiding in the cave breastfeeding is always a good heads up. My oldest was enjoying the kareoke and while waiting patiently in line for the microphone I asked him what song he thought he would do. We were hearing all these cute ABC songs and Twinkle, Twinkle...he gets up there and belts out, "Who let the dogs out! Woof, Woof." The sweet 70 year old volunteer working that attraction was luckily cracking up! My husband grew up watching sports center and playing Texas football with full pads at 4 years old, so it is always refreshing to see our boys just being little kids. Exploring, learning, playing, and feeding off each other is awesome to see. It makes me once again thank God for the opportunity to be with them EVERY day! Thank you Jesus.

Jjo, Not Jlo

Have you ever wanted to know why it is that some days you wish you were someone else? Well, when I was pregnant with my first my little, cute, petite, yoga instructor sister would lovingly call me 'jjo prego'. Needless to say that stuck through my next pregnancy as well.
Ever since we moved we joined one of the many rec. centers in our area. We are not in OK anymore! My husband even made the comment one day that he had not seen one morbidly obese person since we'd been here. You don't go to Wal-Mart and see people in motorized carts because they can't walk otherwise. You can barely find a McDonalds and there is only one drive-thru bank teller with an actual human working in a 20 mile radius. Not so convenient when you have two kids in the car, one of which is usually virus-stricken, but a healthier way of life for sure.
Since the rodovirus, we have missed a week of gymtime!! YIKES! When I was teaching plus doing most of what I do now, I never would have considered joining a gym. No time! Now that I have been going all but one day a week, I feel like I am going to just fall over with a heart attack for missing. I even called my buff, blue-eyed brother to try to arrange with his gym back home for me to visit while I was going to be in town. It is like an addiction.
Like many other things in my new life as Wonderwoman, I have decided if God is giving me this opportunity then I need to sieze it. I need to overdo it. I need to go to that rec. center and change something, meet people and share my excitement for being there. I need to show my boys how important fitness and healthy living really is to our family. My diabetic husband has gone from a 52 waist when we arrived to a new 'hot' 46. Eating better seems to come easier with me being a bit more prepared on the meals and shopping trips. The new cartoon Lazy Town is not hampering our progress any either with my oldest now always wanting 'sports candy' (fruit/veggies). I am loving it!
The problem with missing lies in the devil creeping back into every aspect of eating, mood, motivation, and recovery. You see, I am not exactly your picture of perfection. I have wide 'hippos' (as my 3-year old niece lovingly called them), extremly thick hair and a 2-head instead of 4 leading me to some pretty short hairstyles none of which are desirable with a chubbs face, I would be a great candidate for extreme makeover lop-sided breast addition, and I am only about 5 foot 4. When I was working out everyday I was feeling so much perkier. Not as free flowing with fat. :) This all seems silly, but someday I hope to look back and be laughing my Jlo 'A' off! I did secretly love it when that was my prego nickname, because I really do think Jlo is beautiful and the extra junk in the trunk well-tamed will someday be me! So, I am not going to give up...ironically, in my bible study I am doing I was reminded that in reference to Proverbs 23:7 How you see yourself will determine the fruit of your life.

Just me and my boys moved! My husband took a new job, and it has been so far quite an experience. No one tells you when you decide to move more than 3 hours away from home that your little ones will be sick for at the minimum 18 months. So far in my new career path I have been covered in puke for 3 out of the 6 weeks we have been here. It has been an eye opening experience. I never knew you could go through a whole jumbo econ. box of diapers in a few days until we discovered the rodovirus. A nasty bug we may have picked up at snow school on the slopes. Our first day of family fun turned into a week of quarenteen. I do on the other hand feel that God has given me a fresh start with my kiddos, and a new outlook on mothering and parenting all together! I worked my tail off teaching for the last 10 years...dropping the kids off at the babysitter (whom they called 'grandma') and excitedly started my oldest at preschool this last year. I really had the best of all worlds. My hours allowed me to transport my oldest to and from school and still usually make it home before 4. Between running everywhere and trying to overdo my job at school with too many tasks...by the time I did get home I was spent. The joy today comes in not getting dressed until 10 a.m. because I spent the morning making Valentine's with the boys and being a nurse to the recovering rodo-victim. Three nights of little sleep are now not a big deal, because I will use the occasional naptime for a little snooze myself. My husband is working at a job that allows him great friends and a lot less workload for a lot more money. He feels respected and valued. He deserves to feel that way. Daily validation of a good decision comes when my sweetheart still asks me, "Mommy is today a school day, or a grandma day?" I proudly tell him that today is a mommy and the boys day! He gets really excited!!