Toothbrush Time

Toothbrushing time at the end of the night is like the final (sometimes) chaotic hurdle before bed. If nothing else, it is comedy and complete "boyness" as the kids start getting wild using their toothbrushes as weapons, spitting everywhere (they finally have a legit reason to spit), and flooding the floors. I must must must video tape this one night.

Punk'd?

Had to take Quatro to the doctor today, so Hubby and I conquered and divided, and I took the younger two while he worked at home supervising the older two.

He may have had the easier job. :)

Quatro had woken at 5am, napped briefly on the 20-minute drive to the office, and was clearly tired... and wouldn't you know, it was the morning that the doctor was running not 15, not 30, not even 60, but NINETY minutes late.

Ninety minutes in a small waiting room with an active 2-1/2 year old toddler, and a newly-walking, can't-hold-me-down one year old.

I really, really wish I had started snapping photos early on in this adventure. I would have photographed Quatro accidentally pulling over an oversized one of those wire rollercoaster moving type of toys (pictured right) on top of himself and crashing to the floor (he giggled; he wasn't phased, but everyone in the waiting room gasped and held their breath)... and lovable Cubby repeatedly trying to embrace a guy in the waiting room who clearly was NOT amused... and Quatro picking up the in-reception phone and babbling into it (I honestly could have sworn it was an unplugged dummy phone, but later realized it was not)... and Cubby throwing a mini tantrum when I took away the baseball book that he kept chucking across the room... and Quatro high-tailing it to the main office door so fast that I didn't have time to move him away before, wouldn't you know, that second the door flung open as another patient came in, thus bonking him squarely in the forehead... and Cubby trying desperately to lovingly "whack" a calm little seven month old baby...

By the time we finally got ushered to our own exam room, the boys were still being good, but were understandably beyond restless. At least we had a change of scenery.

And speaking of scenery, the exam room boasts ceiling to floor windows that moment- arily take your breath away when looking down from five floors up. My kids LOVED them and showed no hesitation or fear, but decided to pound repeatedly on them. I could not keep them away. It drew them like magnets. And it had me completely nervous the entire time.

Quatro, who is proving to dislike any time of confinement, found that he could reach the door handle exiting the exam room, which naturally I would not allow him to do. Pictures are better than my description here. The sweet love, he was just so antsy, I wish he could have understood that he simply had to stay inside the room to play. Sigh.





The boys also found the doctor's swirly whirly chair to be immeasurably amusing. Round and round and round, until Cubby flung off in a dizzy twirl and the legs of the chair rolled right over Quatro's bare feet. At some point during this swirling the doctor FINALLY walked in, apologizing profusely (I do love this doctor, he was just attending to some especially sick kids today), and since his chair was occupied, sat in a little patient chair to chat with me.

Thankfully, in all seriousness, the health reports for Quatro were generally positive and showed some improvement, and I would gladly sit through hours and hours of waiting rooms with any number of my children if it meant good health, a priceless gift.

Still, I DO wonder if I was being punk'd.

Mini Entrepreneur, Part 2

After the whole "I'm charging you for leaving your shoes out" episode the other night, I picked up my each pair, put them away, and thought it was all over.

How silly of me to think my Tadpole would forget. That kid has an AH-mazing memory.

Tonight as I snuggled up to him before bed, he said, "Mommy, after we are done cuddling, look on the table. I left three tickets there for you." [Remember, I left three pairs of shoes out.]

"Here's what you have to do. Take the tickets, put them on my desk - mine is the one in the fun room, where I do all my art projects - and leave money on them. You can either leave a penny, or a dollar bill."

I don't know what's funnier to me, the whole entrepreneurial thing, him not letting it go, or the tickets themselves, complete with four-year-old spelling and drawings of my shoes on them:

High Strung, Anyone?

Noise. I live with a lot of beautiful noise from beautiful boys. But, as anyone would feel, it grates on me after awhile. Often times in the evenings I don't turn the TV on or call friends because I want to enjoy the quiet and stillness.

The other night Hubby and I escaped for some beloved sushi, leaving the kids with my MIL. We walked into the restaurant less than 30 minutes from leaving the house, so I suppose I hadn't quite decompressed yet.

While waiting to be seated I heard this loud, regularly patterned "bonk bonk bonk bonk bonk bonk bonk" noise and immediately the hair stood up on my arms and I thought, OH MY, where is that supremely annoying sound coming from?!!

I turned to see it was simply the sushi chef chopping food.

Yeah, I think I need to just chill out.

Mini Entrepreneur

When Hubby was around eight, he changed his name from his given name to a nickname. In order to force his parents on board with this switch, he decided to charge them for every time they called him by his given name. So relentless was he that they finally adopted his nickname. I'm not sure how much money they actually lost in this process. Ah, a persuasive young entrepreneur at eight, and the man is still an entrepreneur. And the man is still called by his nickname by everyone he knows except his grandma.

Seems that Tadpole is following in his Daddy's footsteps.

First let me say that while I dislike clutter and chaos in the house, I have a terrible habit of leaving my shoes all over. Everyone probably has something they spend ridiculous amounts of time hunting down in their house - keys, a purse, wallets, their watch... mine is shoes.

Often times I'll find them hidden in the kids' closets, lurking in the little-used living room, peeking out from under bean bags in the playroom, etc. And I'm lucky if I find them both.

Tonight while corralling the kids into their respective rooms for bed, I couldn't locate Tadpole. I finally found him in the Fun Room (that's what we call the play room) with these on his little drawing table:

I'm the only girl in the house so I guess I can't say they are someone else's shoes. Figuring he was up to something funny and harmless, I gave him five minutes to get into bed, and left to go cuddle with Tigger.

He arrived in his top bunk with several white slips of paper, which he explained to me when I crawled up to say goodnight to him, were "tickets" that I would be receiving tomorrow.

"Mommy, you will get tickets and I am going to charge you for every shoe of yours I find."

As an aside, where does he get this? Sure, the boy has always been on the neat end of things and is rather organized, but he's FOUR. And you should see HIS room. Stuff all over, and certainly his shoes are not all paired and lined up in HIS closet. Hmmm.

He went on to tell me, "I am going to charge you a quarter for the first shoe. And the second. The third one will cost you a dime. The fourth one will cost you... what's another kind... um, a nickel. And all the rest will cost you a penny."

I'm quick at math, and I knew how many shoes he'd lined up already, so I was busy calculating how much I would be out when he added, "I don't really care if you give me round money or you pay in cash!"

Needless to say, before crawling into bed with my laptop tonight, I have cleared the house of all of my stray shoes.

Buzzzzzzz

Recently, I estimated that it would cost approximately $12,960, give or take, to have the boys' hair cut over the course of the next 18 years.

$12, 960.

Should I first start with all the amazing things I could DO with that amount of money? Let's see. A tummy tuck is the first thing that comes to mind. Also, that would pay for a housekeeper twice monthly for the next several years. I could put it into a fund a buy a sports car by the time my kids were all out of the house.

As you may imagine, I decided I would learn to cut hair.

With the help of a few hairdresser friends, a great pair of scissors, some serious paying attention when I do take them to a real salon, and a lot of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse videos on my computer, I have managed to do a semi-decent, socially acceptable job of giving my boys haircuts over the past few years.

Enter my husband making continuous suggestions about giving the boys crew cuts for the summer. "It's summer! You know what that means! Time for crew cuts!" Then, "I think you'd look great with a crew cut!" And, "Wow! Sometime you will be able to get a crew cut!"

Although I was a bit hesitant (hey, something to worry about while I was up in the middle of the night - could I pull off giving a crew cut? Would Tadpole LOOK ok with one?) I took a clue and asked the Hubby for clippers and suggestions. Thank goodness for the tutorials on Wikipedia, etc, these days, since I didn't get much in the way of advice. And the clippers, it turns out, are designed for facial hair removal, not necessarily thick, overdue-to-be-cut, little boy head hair removal, but how was I to know?

The crew cut took three times as long as my regular cuts. When all was done, I think it turned out well. All things considered, and that this was my first child's crew cut. Hubby did think that it needed a bit of touching up, and took him to his barber. So I got a few pointers on perfecting my buzz cutting for the next time.

Now all the kids want crew cuts. And I can see why... how adorable, handsome, and awesome is THIS:

Although, this kid would look adorable, handsome, and awesome no matter what haircut he had. :)

Quatro Turns ONE!

My little "baby" has officially turned one... sigh. It always amazes me how time flies by so quickly. People say it all the time soit sounds trite, but *blink* and was it not just his BIRTH day, one year ago. As he changes and grows and walks and learns new words, I can't help but mourn the loss of his babyhood just a wee bit.

I'll also now officially be retiring the "I Am One" shirt. It has served us well! Just £12 for that cute long sleeved tee that has shrunk and acquired stains over the past four years as first Tadpole, then Tigger, then Cubby celebrated their first birthdays wearing it. That one definitely goes in the keepsake box!

Here is my sweet boy eating his first chocolate cupcake and enjoying every moment of it. Happy first birthday, Quatro!

Excitement du jour...

We were getting ready for a swim yesterday afternoon when it started getting all weird in the sky; no rain, just super dark clouds and swirling whirling wind. We have these massive oak trees in the yard surrounding the pool area, and I felt a bit nervous. I mean, it was windy, and suddenly. As I watched the sky, I announced that we were not going to hang out in the lanai area, as I was a bit nervous about a branch or tree crashing down on us. My MIL later admitted she thought I was a bit cooky, worrying too much...

As I held the baby and corralled the boys in through the door into the garage area, we heard a loud bang. Instead of opening the garage door, MIL suggested we take a peek outside the guest house front door, and wow were we surprised to see this completely blocking the door and the view outside:

The boys were SOOOO excited. Uh....... I was more fearful, wondering what the heck had happened and what if any damage had been done. Time to investigate further. I opened the main garage door, furthest from the guest house door, and were we ever surprised to see that a half dozen huge branches had fallen in front of the guest house and the third garage door.


Imagine a bunch of little boys, who absolutely love trees and excitement, seeing massive branches down in front of the yard. Realizing of course that everything was fundamentally ok (thank God, really... it could have so easily landed on the house), they started winding up. "Mom! Check this out!" and "Can we climb it?" and "We gotta get a chainsaw and hack that thing up!" and "Hey! Let's crawl inside of there!"


So this morning, my wonder-parents arrived with chainsaws in hands to start chopping and bundling the tree. The boys were out there bright and early, even before breakfast, eager for the project to begin. And it was done in no time, thanks to the expertise of Baba and help from his crew which included Nana, the boys, and Papa.

Happiest Kid Ever

Honestly, as if Cubby is not already the Happiest Kid Ever... get him together with his beloved Baba and he is - if it's possible - even happier.

We went to Tadpole and Tigger's spring program at school, and Cubby got to sit in Baba's lap the whole time. Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy. And happy makes for an even more adorable kid.

What is not documented in pictures here is this: the barely touched plate of dinner Cubby left prior to racing off to the program, or the chocolate-smeared face of a content little boy after Baba gave him cookies.

Lots of cookies. So many that I think Baba lost track counting how many Cubby ate. No wonder he and his Baba get along so well.