First Day of School

My oldest child has reached a fabulous milestone. Public school! Yippee! I had no tears on his first day. He did great and is having a great time in Mrs. Butler's class. I'm so proud of the leaps and bounds that he's made in the last year or two, socially. He's still super shy, but he's willing to try new things and overcome his anxieties. He's a great kid!

Cats!

Thanks to a cousin's love of the production, "Cats!" and a very talented Aunt Julie, Alex came home from Gma C's looking like Old Deuteronomy, singing Magical Mr. Mistoffelees and Macavity. Fun times!

Happy Birthday to my big boy, Alex!

How did my sweet, sweet boy turn 5 already! Time has whizzed by! Alex is such a sweet, thoughtful little guy. He's so concerned about others' feelings, and will go out of his way to make others happy. He's so easy-going, and has really come leaps and bounds with his anxiety over the last year. His interests can be summed up into two categories: friends, and Star Wars. Never saw a kid so obsessed with Star Wars... makes it easy to buy him presents! His highlight was his Darth Maul double-bladed light saber, and decorating sugar cookies with his buddies.

Merry Christmas

Here are the three greatest Christmas presents a mom could ask for. Christmas was magic for these little boys this year.

From left to right, Jax, Alex, and AJ, after presents, Christmas morning.

Jesus' Team

Alex and I were driving home the other night, and he says, out of the blue, “Mom, Christmas isn’t about the presents, huh? It’s about love. And Jesus.”

Then he proceeded to talk about it for many minutes. “I don’t like the presents. They’re not my favorite. Jesus is my favorite! And love!”

After a few minutes of this he says to me,

“Mom, who’s team are you on?

Because I’m on Jesus’ team.

Not Satan’s team. His team is naughty.

We’re on Jesus’ team, huh?

Give me five, Mom!

Go Jesus!”

Miscellaneous happenings...

This is a direct copy and paste from an e-mail I sent my missionary mother. Just thought I'd update for posterity....

How was your Easter? Our Easter bunny came on Saturday, and Sunday we went to Jen's baby's blessing. Then we went to our church. Then we put the kids to bed for naps, got 'em up, and went to Gma C's. It was quite the busy day.

We're all still stuffy and sick. Jackson isn't coughing nearly as much though, so that's good. I'm wiping snot noses dozens of times throughout the day, however. (including my own poor stuffy soul.)

Today on the way home from my workout, AJ pulled his usual, "No!!! No Home!!!!" in a high-pitched, girly squeal. So, instead, we drove uptown, called Daddy to meet us in front of his building, and we walked around temple square. Needless to say, the boys were in heaven. The sun was warm, the air was cool, and the flowers were obviously breathtakingly gorgeous. The boys loved all of the various fountains the best, of course. (And the Lays potato chips that Daddy brought them.) It was a fun little change of scenery.

On the way home AJ and Jackson both cried off and on for about twenty minutes. "want daddy! daddy! daddy!" Kinda funny.

Well, I have a whole load of pictures for you.

1,2,3: Remember that night I was talking to you, and I said, "Oh, how cute. The babies are at the piano, turning the pages, playing and laughing at each other." ? Well, here are some pictures from that. 4,5,6: These are the boys in their t-shirts that Daddy brought home from his business trip. They loved them. The blurry picture of AJ is compliments of our budding photo journalist, Alex. He is in LOVE with the digital camera. I deleted about 20 pictures that he took, but I'll include a few of his classics in this e-mail. 7: Silly Alex using his Easter basket for a hat. I thought it was pretty creative, because I never would have thought to put it on my head! 9: One of Alex's pictures that he took.
10: Another Alex picture. Not too bad, huh? Gotta love Jaxie's runny nose!

11, 12, 13, 14: More of Alex's pictures. Pretty funny, huh? He's quite the detail oriented kid. I especially love the one of the recycle garbage. Funny kid. 15: Alex being sweet to Jackson, for once!

16: I love this picture. This is of all the boys just before bedtime. Everyone just had a bath, orange Triaminic, and teeth brushed. They love to sit on our bed and draw on their magnadoodles while watching a "kid show." They were all so tired and cute, I couldn't resist taking a picture. Just a moment in the life of us....mmmm... if only you could smell their yummy lotion!!

Happy 4th Birthday!

How did my sweet little guy grow so old! He's not a baby, or even a toddler, anymore! He is such a sweet, innocent, shy, anxious, obedient, thoughtful, darling little boy. He has promised that since he can't stop growing up, that he'll always love and hug his mommy, "even when I'm a big daddy." I'm holding you to it, sweet boy.

Best Buddies

The other day I took the brothers to their 18-month appointment. Since I'm a regular at the pediatrician's office, the gal at the front desk was chatting away and commenting on how big the twins were getting, etc. She asked, "How is Alex doing with his little brothers?"

I answered, "Well... he does pretty good, but he's just a typical big brother."

She said, "Like right now?"

I quickly turned around to see Alex with Jackson in a head lock, giving him a noogie. *sigh* Yep... like right now. sheesh!

But these boys do really have a great time together, and every morning they are all so excited to see each other. Today they were "snuggling" on the oversized chair in the living room. They barely fit, but they were having a great time. It was a nice little "moment."

Visit to Santa

Well, Santa came to our ward party again, and this year Alex actually sat on his lap! Hurray! However, he never dared to tell Santa what he wanted. Luckily Santa is a smart fella, and he let Alex know that if they put their heads together, he could read Alex's mind. Phew. (I'm sure Mark wished he had that same power to figure me out... Maybe if he grew a beard and a belly...)

Ahhh, poop, poison control, and other misc

Just to put your mind at ease from the start... No. My child did not eat poop, resulting in a call to poison control. Just FYI.

What a day! And it's only 12:45 p.m. And so I blog for therapy.

I just put all my bath toys in the dishwasher, and a load of laundry in the washer. I'm bleaching my light colors. Why? So that I can get the poop germs out of the toys and washcloths and the pee germs out of the bath towels. How did this happen, you ask? Well, let me tell ya.

It all started with a whining and crying Alex. (surprise, surprise) He started crying first thing this morning, and hasn't stopped yet. Granted, the poor kid has a nasty head cold, so I know he's miserable. But still! Males.

Anyway, I threw all three kids in the bath and all was going well. I was just getting Jackson out and drying him off when AJ stood up in the tub and said, "Poo. Poo. Poo." I looked over to see the lovely stuff floating around in the water.

Gross.

So, of course I had to put Jackson down (naked) in order to save Andrew from playing in the stuff like it was play-doh. I successfully got AJ out fairly poop free, got him dressed and went to find Jackson.

Then ensued the discovery of the pee soaked towel. (Thank you, Jackson, for not peeing on my carpet.) As I cleaned up and dressed Jackson, AJ got a hold of a full, newly-opened-this-morning, box of cereal (thank you, big brother Alex) and quickly dumped the entire contents out onto my bedroom floor. We then had major meltdowns as Mom vacuumed the floor instead of letting the 18-month old child use the vacuum.

*sigh*

All this happened as my husband tried to book a flight for me to visit my parents in Georgia. With all the distractions, we missed the steal-of-a-deal pricing by about 1/2 hour as all the flights proceeded to fill up.

Oh, and where does the Poison Control come in? Well, luckily that wasn't today. That was yesterday. Because, you see, this mother (who really is in the running for Mother-of-the-Year) left her little toddler (guess which one? yep, AJ) in the basement for no more than 30 seconds unsupervised. It was long enough for Alex to come running upstairs yelling, "Mommy! AJ is eating the washing machine soap!" Sure enough, the Tide with Bleach was all over the floor and all over his mouth. Hence, Poison Control. (I'm happy to let everyone know that a few drinks of milk or water are enough to dilute the small amount swallowed and all is well. But when he's 14 years old and failing all his classes, remind me that the Tide just might have caused some permanent brain damage. Only time will tell.)

And thus it is.

I'm ready for a nap. Ciao.

Words...

Ya know... I never was one for possessing great words. No real words of wisdom. No funny sayings. No clever comebacks. Nope, not me. I could spell those words, and I could place them in a grammatically correct sentence. But I wasn't ever one for being able to arrange those words in a funny sentence, or one that could spew out some cool saying.

I always admired those people who said "cool" words. Ya know... like "flip." Or "rad." Or "totally sweet." In Jr. High, I was the queen of copying people with cool words. Even now I like to pick up on rad sayings.

So how do some of you bloggers come up with such clever stuff? There are those of you who I read regularly. And then there are those I happen upon, like this or that, that I can't stop reading - even though I don't know you from my mother's uncle's neighbor's friend... well, you get the picture. (My husband razzes me about this daily.)

And then there are the people who can recite every word, word-for-word, from movies and songs. How do they do that? Seriously? All I have to say is "Monty Python," "Nacho Libre," or "Napoleon Dynamite" in certain crowds, and we have entertainment for the evening. (And to drive home my point, I just spent two whole minutes on Google, trying to remember the name of the movie "Napoleon Dynamite." See what I mean, people? sheesh.)

What about those people with a perfect comeback? Really. I mean, after you've just been verbally attacked or ridiculed, you don't all just say, "Well... uh... hmmm." And walk off? Wouldn't I love to be able to say the 100's of things I think of, after the fact, while I'm fuming in the privacy of my own home? Oh to be so talented with an immediate reply...

Oh, and names? Forget it. You'll always be Jane Doe to me, until you've either been married into the family for a few years (and even then there's no guarantee), you've grown up with me since kindergarten, or you're my own child. (And then, once again, no guarantee.)

See my point now?

This is why I'm SO GRATEFUL that this flaw of mine does not seem to be passed on genetically to my child. Or perhaps it's the good genes from his father. But Alex seems to come up with some doozies. In fact, I keep a Word file called "Alex-isms" just to keep track of it all. Now, I know a lot of his sayings aren't "originals," but he's only three. THREE, and he's saying things like,

"WORD UP, Mom."

or, after dropping his toy, "Oh RUBBISH. What a mess."

or, "Mom, that's totally SNAP."

And names? He can tell you every Tom, Dick and Harry that he's ever met. Every character in every story and movie. Every store that we've ever been to ("There's 'Burt Brother's', Mom!"). Every proper name of every animal at the zoo. (Me: "Look at that cool monkey, Alex." Alex: "Mom! [with a slight air of disgust] That's a Mandrill. Or are you looking at the Lemur?") Even if it's been months, and he only met the person, went to the store, or saw the animal once - he remembers.

And so it is. Words - totally not my thing. But luckily for my kid, it's totally snap.

Happy Halloween

We had a great Halloween at our house. The kids are still bouncing off the walls, they're still behind on sleep, and Mom's still pilfering the "stash." Good stuff!

Sidenote...

As a sidenote to this entry on Alex's latest bathroom achievements...

No one ever told me that I'd have a totally different reaction to this whole process than I expected. The constant fear of wet floors/carpets? Expected. The never-ending laundry? Expected. The blowout of holding "it" for four days? Expected. The wish to go back to diapers because it was just easier? Expected.

But what about the other stuff? My little boy, looking so grown up and skinny in his tighty whiteys? Not expected. The frequent comment, "Mom, go out. I need some privacy." Not expected. The comment, "Mom, this is so much easier than diapers. Why didn't we do it a long time ago?" Not expected. Already learning to "aim" and wipe the rim because Mom is a bit of a freak when it comes to that kind of mess? Not expected. Chatting with his buddies about having Bumblebee or Anakin on his underwear? Not expected. No longer having a basic daily need being totally dependent on Mommy? Not expected. Feeling sad about the previous, and sentimental about my baby growing up? Not expected.

And thus it is. "... babies grow up, we learn to our sorrow." But one little ray of sunshine? The diaper bill automatically cut in third? Expected, and lovin' it.

Who needs...

Who needs fancy, shmancy child-proof locks when you've got a creative three-year-old who is determined to keep his brothers out of his toy drawers?

Always trauma... but worth it!

Countless "pep talk" conversations, bribes, two suckers, threats, hugs, consolation and a Curious George movie later, we went from this long shaggy hair

to this nice short cut that hopefully won't grow long for another 4 months!These guys wanted a piece of the action too. So, Jackson ended up with a faux-hawk,And AJ's curls just got a trim. (I can't cut them off yet!!)Overall, it was a fairly painless process. I was a little worried about handling all of them by myself, in case we had major meltdowns, but they did well! AJ even had a 103 fever (I know... don't tell the haircutter! I couldn't reschedule, I'd been talking it up for too many days with Alex. The show had to go on!) and Alex had his typical haircut phobia panic attack. But all in all, not too bad! Unfortunately it was $43! Yikes! I know! Nuts! So, I guess I'm going to have to start figuring out this haircutting thing on my own. But really? I think it was totally worth it.

The newer obsession

Thomas the Train is sooo yesterday. Today's newest fad?

Legos. Legos. Legos. All I hear about day and night are Legos.

"Mom, let's pretend my Play-Doh is Legos."
"Mom, when can I get some new Legos?
"Mom, let's look at Lego magazines." (the instruction manuals that came with his cousin's old Legos)
"Mom, my army guys are going to be Lego guys."
"Mom, I don't want to go potty to get some new Legos."
"Mom, can we go to the store and look at the Legos?"
"Mom, let's watch Star Wars Lego movies on the computer."
And my favorite, in his little sad whine..."Mom, I'm the only boy who doesn't have any Legos."

So, move on over Thomas, now there's something smaller that his brothers can choke on!

Who knew?

I asked Alex to write an "A" this morning as he was scribbling on some paper. Well... he did it! Just like that. I'd never really thought to teach him how to write his name. I figured he had plenty of time to do that. I guess I should try to show him more things, because he's obviously capable. So, here's my little boy's name, written all by himself. How'd he get all grown up on me? Darn him.


I must add a postscript. I know this isn't prodigy or anything. Just a surprise to me... that's all. :)

Dang... I'm good!

So, all of my efforts to teach my children are sinking in -- slowly but surely! The dialogue went something like this:

Me: "Alex, who loves all the boys in this house the very most?"

Alex: "You do, Mom!"

Me: "You're right! How did you know that?"

Alex: "Because I'm smart, just like my mom!"

Yah, baby... that's right. Just like your mom. At least something good is getting through. :)

His new obsession

Alex eats, sleeps and breathes Thomas. First request in the morning? A Thomas show. Play activity for the day? Thomas trains and track. Request every time we go to Target? A Thomas train. Play date of choice? Anyone with a train. Conversation as we snuggle at bedtime? "Mom, I can't wait to play with more trains tomorrow."

The other day, as Alex was watching Thomas on TV (thank heavens for DVR... that show airs at 5 a.m.!), he said to me, "Mom, Thomas is my very best friend." Then he blew a kiss to the TV and said, “Mom, I blew Thomas a kiss, and he felt it, right here (putting his hand on his chest) in his heart.” He was beaming.

We've only just begun...

circa 1970's, Karen Carpenter..."We've only just begun..." to fight! And man-oh-man, it's getting great already!

Jackson, the little smarty pants, has learned how to push big-brother Alex's buttons. And push he does -- multiple times daily. His tactic of choice? A big, open mouthed, roar/scream. (can't think of any other way to describe the most annoying sound in the world!) Jackson will be sitting quietly, minding his own business until Alex walks in the room. Then, he walks up to him, and in Alex's face let's out the loudest "aaaaahhhhhggggggrrrr" sound ever. He does it over and over again.

Poor Alex, who's always been sensitive to noise, (ex., "Mom, stop driving on the freeway! It's too noisy!) absolutely goes bonkers! He reacts by whining, then he just goes for the all-0ut blow to Jackson's face. When that makes the annoying sound come even louder and more frequently, Alex just covers his ears and starts crying, "Make him stop! Make him stop!" (a few strategic blows to Jackson's head seem to work their way in there again.)

I feel so bad, because how do you tell an almost 15-month-old child who understands a dozen words to stop making that aggravating sound and leave his brother (and mother!) alone? Yah, ya don't. And my art of distraction that I was so good about with the first child? Well, I've totally lost the touch. I don't distract now, I just say, "Jackson, stop it right this instance!" As if he understands... ha. I even get the stern, mean voice, but that little stinker just looks at me and laughs. The nerve... *sigh*

So today, I'm loading the kiddos in the car, and Alex and Jackson are in there first. As I go back inside to get AJ, Jackson starts up with his I-know-this-really-bugs-Alex-and-gets-me-some-nice-reactions-and-attention scream. When I came back out, Alex said to me, near tears, "Mom, can we get rid of Jackson? I don't want him anymore." heh heh...

Yep, folks. I fear this is just the beginning of some fun fightin' years. Here we go...