my poor, poor kid

I think whatever we tell Henry, he takes to heart. Not just to heart, but puts that heart into a little Ziploc baggie and then wraps that bag in duct tape about a million times. I guess I'm just saying, what we tell him is what he believes more than anything.

And he is never wants to disappoint us, ever.

::

Henry and I were sitting crisscross (take that preschool teacher who said he could never sit crisscross 'right') on the floor playing with the little ones. I'm using the term playing loosely, because all I was doing was pushing the button on the pretend microwave so they could throw a ball into it. They would then shut the door and sign for help from me to push the button again so they could get the ball out of the microwave. Repeat this over and over and over. Yes, totally fun times.

So anyways, in between pushing the microwave's darn door open button, I noticed Henry had a hole in the bottom of his shoe. "Henry, did you know you have a hole in your shoe?" I exclaimed and pointed to the worn down sole. "Yep" he responded with a shrug. I continued, "Well, how long has it been there?" remembering that it had snowed that last weekend. "A few weeks... I think," he replied.

Henry continues, "my friends at school were wondering why I have a hole in my shoe and I told them that it hasn't been 6 months yet, and that my shoes are suppose to last 6 months like my mom and dad said."

To further stab the plastic fork into my muffin top region, he finishes "it's OK Mom, I'm happy with what I've got."

My poor, poor kid.

::

He's the one who makes me feel like we might doing this parenting thing pretty well.

Wyatt, on the other hand...

mullet no more

I don't like mullets. Now if that makes me not a very good (former) Iowan, so be it.

Edy's hair wasn't growing into those cute wisps of baby curls and I was fed up with her looking like a red neck. I decided I was giving up on being like all those other mothers of little girls who have 'never cut their girl's hair' and do just that... cut her darn hair.

(taken with my phone)

I'm pretty sure that this will come up in some sort of future therapy session where she is working out issues about her weird mother, because as I sat down in the chair with Edy in my lap and I said "just cut it, I don't care if she looks like a boy..."

But I like to think of her cut as a pixie style... and that she definitely looks like a girl.

Reassure me.

that day

I'm struggling.

I'm attempting to decide if we should tell Henry that there isn't a Santa Claus. It feels like I may be taking away a part of his innocence, and Henry is so much my innocent child. In his perfect world, nothing would be better than both teams winning, a glorious tie, where the opponents slap backs and hand out high five mutually.

Smiles across the board.

My little the world is wonderful boy.

He tells us that so and so 'doesn't believe in Santa', but that 'he still does'. Which leads me to believe that he really doesn't, or that he's questioning all of it, or that he doesn't want to disappoint us by not believing any more.

Would I be taking away a part of his innocence by telling him?

Or would I be making him a believer is something bigger, in trusting us, in us telling him that we will always tell him the truth. That he can count on us, no matter.

I feel foolish that I just want one more year of that magic, but more foolish in hoping that Henry would pretend just for us, for one more year, that Santa is real.

If we tell him, are we letting him in on our secret, making it that something special between just he and us?

If we don't tell him yet, are we just being wishful? Him going along with the game until that day that he comes up to us and says he 'no longer believes in Santa Claus'.

That day that could be tomorrow.. or next year, or even possibly, several years down the road.

Answers are welcomed.

on my plate

I'm pretty sure when people see us coming, they do one of two things; 1) they turn their head in the other direction, like 'here comes that train wreck, avoid this at all costs', which I know, we do look like a literal train. Two one-year-old little girls in the wagon, me ahead of them, pulling; Wyatt running too far ahead for me to even see him and in the middle, another little girl, a two-year-old, trying to catch up.

Or 2) when people see us, they go out of their way to help us; screaming at the top of the hill, waving hands in the air, 'NO! Let me get that door for you', though I'm in arm shot of just opening the darn thing myself.

I get it. I look like I've got my hands full (and omgosh, I wish I got a dollar, or a puppy, or a Snickers for every time I heard that phrase in my face: 'looks like you've got your hands full', duh, I run a child care, that kinda involves taking care of a few kids). People see me and pretty much assume that I've already got too much on my plate, maybe it's the permanent wrinkle lines across my forehead from screaming at Wyatt, I'm not sure.

So, what did I get assigned to bring to Wyatt's little preschool Thanksgiving feast next week:


It's just like telling that weird uncle of yours, who you wouldn't trust with your dog, 'just bring rolls or something' for Thanksgiving... 'Don't put too much on his plate,' nudges your sister.

I'm that weird uncle who can't handle bringing anything more than rolls.

::

Sometimes I love my job.

self-proclaiming myself

I don't toss around the word 'genius' very often, because honestly, it takes a lot to impress me.

But I'm just going to say it,

today, I'm pretty much a genius.
(And if you don't know me, this is completely dripping with sarcasm.)

Edith is completely fed up with ever being fed, and of course, I haven't had the time to spoon feed anyone since like 2003. So, I throw the spoon and whatever it is that she wants on the tray and let her go for it.

Her particular favorite right now, applesauce.

Except she shoves her little hands into the cup only to come up with just enough to lick off, then comes the frustration of not getting more, which follows by the complete frustration of me as she tosses the cup over her tray to splatter all over the floor and wall.

Enter my 'geniusness' for the day:


Applesauce through a straw.

Do not confuse this with those silly applesauce pouches that kids squeeze into their mouths... well... maybe it's a little bit the same...

dang it,

so today, I'm self-proclaiming myself a genius cheap ass.

ladies man

My husband asked me out on our first date while pulling cans at the local grocery store.

He was a bag boy there, I was the cashier (trying to avoid being up front cashiering, because seriously... there probably isn't a job out there that is more boring than scanning your favorite buttery spread over that laser light thing). So anyways, I was in the aisle pulling cans along with my future husband.

It went something like this...

Future husband:
"So, you wanna go out with me sometime?"

Me:
"Well... no."

Silence.
Chirping in the background.

I go on to explain "See, I have a boyfriend"

And that was it.

We continued pulling cans forward, sharking our real job duties, joking with each other about the bad country music playing over the intercom.

Yes, my husband is a real ladies man, he obviously worked hard to convince me to dump my boyfriend and go out with him instead.

(Though when I did dump my boyfriend, he was one of the first people I told, and as they say, the rest is history.)

::

So Wyatt, working on 'what he is thankful for' in school, brought this home today.

Our ladies man in the works.

With the million of possibilities of things he could write;


he's "thankful for Bella",

the cute one that sits besides him at snack time.

Both of them probably sharking their preschool duties and making fun of toddler tunes playing over on the piano too.

chastity belt for chocolate

There are things that I do for Halloween to enjoy the season,
or actually, quite the opposite, not enjoy at all, but apparently essential for me since I have absolutely no self control at all.

1) I don't buy candy until the weekend before Halloween, or I'll eat it all.

2) On the Halloween candy scale of cheap, middle range and upper-high class candy, I buy the middle class bag of candy, and by middle, I'm still shelling out 20 bucks for Skittles- ugh. I just don't buy candy with anything that contains, covered in or has 'chips' of chocolate in it, or I'll eat it all.

3) I either wear mittens, keep my hands in my pockets or carry a 22lb. toddler while trick-or-treating, or I'll eat every piece of chocolate the kids throw in their bags while they are knocking on the next door and not looking.

You see where I'm going with this

So, newly added this year, the chastity belt for Halloween candy.

4) I've sorted every candy that tempts me and put it into a zip-lock. I stuck the bag in the freezer, the freezer the happens to be in the garage (in hopes that the steps down to the garage make it feel slightly more challenging to get to for my lazy a$$).


I've convinced the boys that these candies are way better frozen... now if I could just convince myself that they aren't.

namesake

This year was so different than last year.

Last year, Henry spent Halloween in the ER.

It's been a year and I've never blogged about it. But, when I don't blog about things, I feel like I'm not being honest with you, like I'm faking you out, you aren't getting the real me.

Last year, Henry couldn't walk, he couldn't stand. He cried trying to get his costume on, it wasn't until my husband said, "I'm taking him to the ER" that I started feeling like I was the wrong one, that he wasn't 'just fine'.

But we didn't get any answers. It wasn't his appendix, at least that would have been an answer.

He slept on the couch at Christmas, too tired at times to open his gifts.

He vomited for a week in January.

All of these were clues... that we didn't see. Hindsight, of course.

Then his urine turned rust colored, near red, dark like a cola. Henry, who is normally startled by anything out of the ordinary, wasn't. He laughed as he peed into the toilet. We laughed along with him, only hoping to get him to bed as soon as possible...

to see, to research, to put our minds at ease, and to fear for his life:

why does he have blood in his urine?

He went to the doctor in the morning; blood was drawn, tests were taken,

And answers were finally given.

Undiagnosed strep throat, so long undiagnosed that it started to affect his kidneys.

And this is why I haven't blogged about it. Would people come here and say, 'ha- how could you have not known. It's a mother's instinct, you should have looked more, asked more questions, pressed further for answers.'

'You are living by your blog's namesake'.

This Halloween, Henry was fine.

I know that it wasn't my fault. I know that I can blog about something like this and I'm going to have supporters.

And I might have some people who would blame me too, and this year, I'm OK with that.