T-Bone!

I figured it was about time for another round of family updates.  And we're starting with Trent because he just had a birthday.

Trent is now three, and I have to take him to the doctor for his annual check-up to be sure, but I'm betting he's at least the size of an average four year old.  He isn't very chunky anymore, just huge in general, so we've switched from calling him "Chunks" to "T-Bone", which is a nickname his Uncle Matt gave him not long ago.  Trent will not answer to Chunks anymore at all, and will, in fact, correct you if you try to get his attention that way by shouting, "No....  T-BONE!!" 

Trent has a personality that matches his size, and he's not afraid to put me in my place.  He recently got a spanking for something or other, (honestly, he gets a lot of spankings, so I can't be bothered to remember the reasoning behind them all), and as soon as my hand made contact with his backside, he turned and yelled at me with a voice he stole from the little girl in The Exorcist, "MOM!  YOU DON'T HIT ME, OKAY?"  And in spite of all his speech issues, every word of that sentence came through crystal clear.  It was a little scary, but mostly amusing and I had to laugh at him.

Trent's speech is coming along nicely.  His fist sentence containing more than two words happened not long ago with a complaint he brought to my attention while I was showering one day.  He pounded on the bathroom door until, shampoo on my head or not, I had to open it.  I looked down at him with suds drifting down my forehead and a towel wrapped around me and said, "What??"  He responded by saying, "Mom, Heaten hitted me."  Unfortunately my response was, "YES!!!", because rather than give a poopy what he said, I was just excited that four intelligible words had come out of his mouth in a string that formed a sentence.  He wasn't very pleased with my reaction.  (Heaten, by the way, is how he says "Ethan".)

Trents favorite foods are candy, cookies and chips.  Get's that from me.  We're in trouble with this one.  He can sniff out my stash of high fructose corn syrup no matter where in the house I hide it, especially if it's wrapped in cellophane - he just considers that a challenge.  And if ever I leave an open can of soda within climbing reach of Trent, you can bet that the next time I pick it up to take a swig it will be significantly lighter and the gutter will be full of a soda/saliva combination.  If you know me at all, you know that means I will not be finishing that can of soda.  

T-Bone is a pretty fun kid to have around the house.  He loves to dance, which is hilarious because he gets his moves from his Dad, who contributed genetics, and who also must have exposed Trent to that SNL episode of Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze dancing for Chip N' Dale or something equally inappropriate.  There's more pelvic action involved in T-Bone's dance moves than any three-year-old-stuck-in-a-four-year-olds-body should possess.  But if he does grow up to be a male stripper he won't have to worry about choosing a stage name, will he, Uncle Matt?

Child Prodigy

Trent is my baby, and with his third birthday rapidly approaching I decided it was time to potty train.  

Right now, nothing feels more insipid than a story about toilet training a three year old, so I'm going to make it quick.

This kid was potty trained in four hours.

I'm not kidding.

I put him on the toilet for the very first time in his life at seven in the morning on Monday, and nothing happened.

He peed his underoos three times before eight o'clock, and again at ten; then, at eleven in the morning we had success.  Pee-pee in the potty.

No joke - Trent has not peed his pants since ten in the morning on day one of potty training.  

He goes by himself.  I don't have to ask him if he needs to go, he just says, "Pee-pee's coming," and trots off to the toilet where he climbs on, does his business without the aid of a kiddie-sized seat, and gets back down.  (I do help with the hand-washing.)

The kid did go four days without pooping, and I was a little concerned that it would hit suddenly and with ferocity - but no.  Tonight, right before bed, he just did the doo.  Simple as that. 

I declare him a child prodigy.  And this week's favorite child.

The end.

Speech Therapy

My youngest son, Trent, is in speech therapy.  It's going pretty well.  He says all kinds of words now, and more and more often he will spout off a word that he hears one of us say, and it will surprise and delight us.  


Last night Andrew and I were watching The Hangover because it seemed like the entire world was raving about it a year ago and we never got around to seeing it.  All the kids were in bed, but Trent wouldn't stop crying, and after we'd paused the movie about eight times to try to get him to go to sleep I gave up and brought him downstairs hoping he'd fall asleep on my lap.  


But no - Trent watched that movie with serious intensity.  When it got to the part where Heather Graham breastfeeds the baby and it shows the entire breast being plucked from the shirt, Andrew looked at me in shock and said, "Did you see that boob?"


Queue the two-year-old who spouts, "BOOB!"


And of course, because Andrew and I are such mature parents we laughed like a couple of school children.  So guess who thinks "boob" is a hilarious word now?  That's right.  Trent, the Wonder-Talker.


I was a little worried that Trent would demonstrate his new word for his speech therapist when she came to our house this morning, but he behaved and "boob" didn't make an appearance, (verbally or otherwise).


The speech therapist did leave a CD of the most annoying children's songs ever recorded for Trent to listen to, and I dutifully played the CD when she left.  Trent loved it, and I was singing along...


"Puppy!  Puppy!  
Where are you?
Where are you?
Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof woof woof!"


This CD was really aggravating Drew, who is four, talks pretty well, and who's musical tastes lean more towards Pink and Kevin McHale, shouted over the kiddie rap, "Mom!  Stop it!  You're making me PISSED!"


So that pretty much proves that none of our kids really need speech therapy, because Andrew and I will eventually teach them all the words they really need to know.

Bullets

• I have to wonder why we need another Spider-Man movie.  I don't care if you think Toby Maguire was a crap Spider-Man and you loathe Kirsten Dunst - it's a comic book movie.  They aren't really supposed to be that good.  No need for a re-do.  How am I going to keep my kids from finding out about this?  I really don't want to spend another fortune on Spider-Man clothes and toys and DVDs.

• My tongue is blistered or something from all the Fire Balls I have eaten in the last two days.  I love 'em.  You wouldn't believe the things my dad made me do to earn them when I was a kid.  A kid old enough to know better.

• There's nothing quite like having a 4 year old who is so proud of the size and awesomeness of his poop that he refuses to flush it.  But that's OK, because I don't think it would go down anyway.  He has a right to be proud.

• I taught Cameron how to properly swing a bat.  I taught both Cameron and Ethan how to ride their bikes without training wheels.  I taught them how to write their names.  But for the life of me, I cannot teach Drew how to pump on the swings. 

• A few days ago my mom called me and left a message on my phone telling me that she had a zucchini that looked just like a penis.  That was all.  Nothing else on the message.  My mom is awesome.  And that zucchini must have been a real doozy because aren't they all a little phallic?

• I am reading three books all at once right now.  I never do that because I have a terrible memory which can cause confusion.  I am reading The Help, With Hitler To The End, and The Beautiful and Damned. Not on Kindle though, because I still refuse to go there.  Anyway - I'm finding that I pick up a book and suddenly I can't remember if Hitler was ever in Mississippi ordering around a colored maid while some slick trust-fund boy visiting from New York looks on and can't help but feel bored.  So now I'm determined to finish The Help before I continue with either of the others, both of which I will read one at a time.

• I am sorry for any of you who have been locked in a miserable heat wave.  But I have been stuck in the wretched Pacific Northwest, where summer has yet to make an appearance.  I'm still wearing hoodies and socks every day.  It rains here all the time.  And we've only hit 80 degrees or higher about four times this year.  Love your sunshine, People.

•  Every Thursday we go to Dairy Queen.  It's my bribe to get the kids out of the park.  When I've had enough of pushing kids on the swings I say, "Let's go get ice cream!!"  It's the only way I can get those kids to leave the dodge ball game.  So last week Trent goes running with his cone, trips on his sandal, and lands head first right in his ice cream.  He was really ticked at me for taking his picture.  And then I felt bad when I had him cleaned up and saw that he actually did have a bloody goose-egg under all that soft serve.

Naps Are Good

Today I made the mistake of trying to get by without a nap for Trent.  It wasn't a huge mistake - it fell in between cutting my own bangs about a year ago and telling my kid to go take a shower because he stinks, but then realizing it was me.  

Anyway, Trent usually takes a nap at about 1:00, and today we breezed right past it with no problems.  Until I called him to the dinner table and when he didn't come, (he sort of loves food), I went looking.  He was asleep on the couch.  At 5:30.

But I knew better than to wake him up, because my kids are beasts when they are awoken against their will.  Waking him up would have meant holding him and reassuring him that he was OK for at least an hour before he calmed down.  So I left him.

At 9:30 he woke up.  It sucked big time.  He was grumpy, (no dinner), and I was already tired...  So I fed him dinner, and then we watched two episodes of Gilmore Girls while we knocked out a bag of Twizzlers.  Then we played cars.  Then we changed into our jammies and watched one more Gilmore Girls.  Finally I talked him into going back to sleep.

Now I'm super exhausted and he's had a lot more sleep than usual, so he'll be up with that obnoxious woodpecker that has a thing for the tree outside my bedroom window.  (AKA 4:30 AM)  I'm going to be so beat tomorrow.

So why am I still up?  Too many Twizzlers, I think.

Stubborn Trent

Trent really is the most stubborn child ever born.

He's a diva, too.  Whenever he gets upset he storms down the hallway with a vicious screech that turns into wailing sobs, chooses a bedroom, any bedroom, proceeds inside and slams the door.  Then he bawls and screams at the top of his lungs for as long as it takes for one of us to go back and get him.  Except, if the person who goes to retrieve him is the same person who ticked him off to begin with, (most often me), then the wailing and screaming starts all over again at an even louder pitch.  

So usually I send Cameron back to coax Trent out because Trent likes Cameron.  Cameron is the giver of piggy-back rides.  (How he manages that, I will never know, because Trent weighs the same as a baby elephant.)

More evidence that Trent is a major diva - today he was drinking Ethan's milk from a mug that Ethan left on the table.  When it was all gone, Trent brought the mug to me and grunted for a refill.  Instead, I handed him the sippy cup of milk that I had poured for him not half an hour ago, but he chucked it across the room and shoved the mug into my thigh.  OK, so the kid doesn't like sippy cups anymore.  I collected the sippy cup and poured it's contents into the mug and handed it to Trent.  He muttered a "da-da-da", which means "Thank you" in I'mTooStubbornToMimicWhatYouSay, and took a sip.  Then he looked at me with a scowl and tipped that mug of milk upside down, spilling the contents onto the kitchen floor.

I think he was unsatisfied with the temperature of his beverage.

Diva.

So now I'm rethinking his Halloween costume.

Anyway, back to the stubborn.

Today, Trent threw one of hits fits, slamming the door and screeching like a banshee.  He picked my room this time, and I'm fine with that as long as he stays out of my jewelry box.  And I think it's ok for him to go off on his own and vent his frustrations, so I left him in there for a while before attempting to get him to come out.  I went back once and knew it was a job for Cameron.

Cameron went back, followed by Drew, and emerged without a chunky toddler, but Drew came out crying with a three inch scratch on his back.  Don't mess with Trent.  Actually, it was my dresser that scratched him, but anyway...  

When we finally got the little turd to come out and stop crying over the injustice that was me not carrying him all the way down the hallway when I got him up from his nap, he sat on my lap and glared at anyone who came near.  But Drew, always helpful, decided to brighten Trent's mood with a Goldfish cracker.  He held it up to Trent, but Trent was not going to take it.  He wanted it, but he wasn't going to give in.  So Drew held it up to Trent's mouth and gently shoved it between Trent's lips.  And there it sat.  Trent wasn't going to spit it out, because he wanted it, but he wasn't going to comply with the Good Spirits Campaign that Drew was waging, either, so he couldn't bring it all the way into his mouth on his own.  

We let it sit there for a while.  Trent scowled and didn't budge.  We giggled and Trent didn't so much as crack a smile.  Finally, when drool started to run down Trent's neck, Drew pushed the cracker the rest of the way into Trent's mouth, and we had success.  A smile!

Stubborn little diva.

Re-Vamping: Brotherly Love

I'm going to be on a bit of a blogging hiatus for a few days, so I decided to do a little re-vamping of some old posts and plaster them up here for your discovery.  They are all older ones that most of you are unlikey to have read.  


Enjoy, and I'll see you all soon!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brothers are a wondrous thing. Quarrels between them never last, wounds of both the physical and emotional kind heal with lightening speed, and there is always someone who will laugh rather than scowl when you fart.

For brothers, tattling seems to come with unspoken guidelines. It's perfectly acceptable to tell on your brother when he does something to harm or annoy you, but to rat on your bro for jumping on his bed after "lights out" will bring you no satisfaction, but rather shame and dishonor. 

Unfortunately, boys are rough, and most of the tattling in our home comes from a wrestling match getting out of hand. One child will cross the line between playful jabs and malicious wallops, and then everything is fair game, including intentional knees to the groin or running to mom and crying foul.

I once got tired of hearing the complaints of who smacked who first and whether someone hit on purpose or too hard, so I removed myself from the equation with the regrettable words, "I don't want to hear it. You two deal with it yourselves." Cameron and Ethan were six and four at the time and "dealing with it themselves" was wholly beyond their capabilities, and I would surely pay for suggesting it. 

Five minutes later, I heard a ruckus from upstairs followed by crying, then a shrill scream, and then more crying. My reward for excellent parenting had arrived sooner than I'd anticipated. I called the boys back downstairs.

"What is going on?" I demanded in my most exasperated mother voice.

Cameron whined, "Ethan hit me in the face with a baseball bat!"

There was only a plastic bat upstairs so, in spite of the blood slowly running from his nose, I wasn't overly alarmed. "And so what did you do to him?" I asked.

"I threw a hanger at him."

I looked at Ethan's face, and sure enough, there was a small scratch on the surface of a bruise that was already forming under his left eye.

Tattling then became the mom-endorsed form of retaliation.

Blunt honesty is also a trademark of brotherhood. A boy can tell his brother anything and know that he cannot be demoted to the status of a mere friend or acquaintance. Brothers they will remain. I have noticed that in our house, the boys tend to listen to each other's words of advice more than they will mine or Andrew's. They have an ability to reason with one another that we, their parents, will always be left to envy.

It was a few years ago that I was in my bathroom getting ready to go shopping with my mom and I heard the following exchange between Cameron and Ethan, who were bickering loudly over something completely ridiculous, I'm sure:

Ethan: Just relax, Dude! (He was three at the time.)

Cameron: What?!?!?

Ethan: It means, Don't be grumpy.

Cameron: (telling Ethan off for being bossy, which lasted long enough for me to remove 8 curlers from my hair...and was finally interrupted by Ethan shouting...)

Ethan: Don't be an ASS!

Cameron immediately stopped being an ass. Problem solved. Ethan's vocabulary, however, has been undergoing constant therapy ever since.

Ethan was able to enjoy four years of being the youngest of just two children before he became a big brother himself.  When Drew came along Ethan was immediately smitten and became the best older brother in the history of siblings.  That lasted about a year, and then Drew learned to walk.  Overnight Drew became the biggest pain in the butt that Ethan had ever encountered. 


That feeling is one that largely remains present in our home today.

I have never understood it, but Ethan's favored form of entertainment is to put on a movie, grab an action figure that somehow goes along with that movie, and then skip, hop, and run back and forth from one corner of the living room to another acting out the scenes in the movie and making one kind of bizarre sound effect after another; an ability which seems to be coded in the male DNA.

About two months ago, and much to Ethan's horror, Drew began to mimic Ethan. He would find an action figure of his own and follow the odd room-crossing procession right on Ethan's heels. Ethan has been very distressed by this new development in Drew's interests, and told me one day that I needed to make Drew stop following him.

"Why do you care if he follows you?", I asked. "What's the big deal?"

"He's making me feel like an idiot!" came Ethan's frantic reply.

I just laughed and told Ethan that Drew follows him and copies him because he loves him and wants to be like him. Ethan was neither flattered nor gracious about my explanation, but now stops his scene reenacting whenever Drew joins ranks. Too bad, really, because Ethan did look a bit like an idiot when he did it, and I really enjoyed watching him.

I think that I am not alone in looking forward to the day when Trent becomes a viable playmate for Drew and the older boys can occasionally be left in peace. In a house filled to the brim with active, boisterous male-type children, I fancy myself an expert in the field of brotherly love, but I know that they have more tricks up their sleeves, and I will continually be taught by them. Like it, or not.

(Originally published October, 2009.)

Week In Review 8/29/10

Boy have we had a week.  It's been a long time since I've had a fatigue-induced mental breakdown, but I suppose I was due.

Monday we took the kids to the park for one last summer picnic.  We were sick of sandwiches, so we brought Dominos pizza.  That stuff is good.

We played at the park and had a good ol' time.  Then it was home and bed, and our first day of homeschool.

It was hard, people.  Hard.  So much time, so little cooperation from the littles who were not used to being ignored for so long...  Cameron and Ethan were amazing though.  They did beautifully.  

We did our basics; math, reading, (both individual and group), language arts, spelling, penmanship, ...uh...did I get it all?  I don't know.  And then there was our science unit for the week:  insects.  

I jest not - my kids are now bug experts.  We watched DVDs on bugs, or arthropods if you will, we built a bug trap (as depicted below), made construction paper insects and labeled all their parts, sculpted models of insects and spiders out of salt dough and then baked and painted them...  The kids rocked it out.  And when they took their final tests on the unit, they each scored 100% without any help from me.  I was so proud.  

They both know that spiders are not insects, but are members of the arachnid family which is a sub-group of the arthropod species.  They also know that pill bugs and crabs are both crustaceans.  (Hello!  I didn't know that!  Well, I knew that about crabs, but not pill bugs.)  

If you asked them what three characteristics are true of all insects, they could tell you that they are all invertebrates, they all have six legs, and all true insects will have a head, thorax, and abdomen.  Then they could point out those parts to you and tell you how to spell them.

I have no idea how long it will take them to forget all this stuff, but who cares?  We had success on our first week!  Of course, there are a lot of things we need to tweak and perfect, but we'll get there.

Here's the kids' trap.  They dug a hole, and placed four flat-ish rocks around it.  (Flat-ish is a word.)

Then they put a large yogurt tub in the hole, and filled dirt around it to make the top of the cup flush with the earth.

 

Then they put a box on top to keep water out of it, and waited over night.

The next morning, they found that they had captured at least three spiders, eight beetles, several potato bugs (pill bugs to some of you), and one earwig, which was evidently killed by one of its cup mates.  It was hard to document all of this because all the insects and spiders were racing around the cup like crazy trying to stay away from each other and find a way out.  We took video of it, but I hate loading video on this thing, so you're out of luck.  (Or maybe count your blessings cause this post is already really long.)

The boys documented their findings...

...and sketched pictures of all the different kinds of insects they found.

And there you have it - a taste of our first week.  

And finally, Cameron's sunflowers are really super tall now.  He's an excellent gardener, and he didn't get that from me.

Have a happy week, everyone!

Boogie Wipes

You all remember my Poster Child for Birth Control, right? No? Here - I'll remind you:

After I posted that picture ten million people threw up just a little, and one sweet woman from Boogie Wipes took pity on me and sent me a box full of her product.

Not that it matters all that much, but the package came in the cutest little presentation. There were two huge packs of Boogie Wipes, plus a healthy sprinkling of individually wrapped wipes, all atop a cute little layer of crinkly orange confetti.

The Magic Menthol wipes smelled so good that I immediately shoved one up my nose and left it there until it dried. My kid's favorite was the Grape scent. Smells kind of like chewable Grape Tylenol, which I'm always tempted to munch on like candy.

And the wipes are so soft! It's like silk, or air, or, hey, like a saline infused tissue. My kids actually held still while I wiped their noses! Boogie Wipes are basically a baby wipe with saline in them. And because I use baby wipes in a pinch for just about any cleaning job, there's really no reason why a regular wipe shouldn't work on snot, right? But Boogie Wipes contain some little extra bit of magic, because I swear that I didn't have to wipe the kids' noses as many times to get all the gunk out. And I could be wrong, but it seemed like the snot didn't start flowing quite as soon afterward.

I don't know if there is magic in these things, or if there are just some really smart ladies behind them, but either way, I'm a believer.

And thanks to these lovely Boogie Wipes, Trent has cleaned up pretty nicely!

*I was not compensated for this review in any way. I'd already gotten awesome free goods when I decided to write this. I just loved Boogie Wipes enough that I wanted to share my love with all of you!

Me And Poison Control - We're Tight

Tonight marked the fourth time in a little over a year that I have called poison control.

I'm not sure if I'm really paranoid or just a huge nit-wit. So I present it to you all - and you can decide.

The first time was when I called my mom at work and told her that I'd had a day from hell and by the way, guess what weird things my kid had eaten that day? A paintball and a shell casing from a .22 pistol. (Or something like that - I don't keep up on my gun lingo.) I thought she would laugh and tell me how crazy my life was, but she didn't. She got all freaky and started to wonder what kind of metal those casings are made of, and could it be lead?

And then I was sure that if I didn't do something my kid would die of lead poisoning.

In comes poison control.

And they told me that I had to take my kid to the emergency room to have an x-ray to be sure he had not swallowed it, or that if he had swallowed it, it had passed through his bowels.

Long story short, the x-ray was clear. And that trip to the ER will be paid off in approximately five more months. But you know what happens if you call poison control and they tell you to take your kid to the hospital and you don't do it? Neither do I. But I bet they sick the CPA on your ass and make sure all your neighbors know you are an unfit parent.

Episode number two happened a couple of months later when I had been babysitting my nephew full time for about a week. He got hold of the diaper rash cream and thought he'd see if it tasted better than that crap, Enfamil.

It was kinda humiliating to tell my sister that it only took me five days to almost kill her child.

My third call happened when my husband asked me to help him work on his 1963 Volkswagen Beetle. (Tip for the men-folk: Don't hook your gas line up to a compressed air tank and tell your wife to look into the gas tank and tell you if there are bubbles coming up in it.) So two eyes full of supreme unleaded gasoline later, plus a little in the mouth, we had call number three in the books.

Tonight I just laughed. Trent brought me a tube of rub-on insect repellent, which he had unscrewed the cap from and taken a bite out of. I honestly couldn't believe I was about to do this again.

After that third incident, my mother brought me a fridge magnet with Poison Control's number on it and a pamphlet that is meant for thirteen year old babysitters who are idiots and let their charges drink Windex and snack on Vicoden. Mom knew it would come in handy for me, too. And boy, did it! It was nice to not have to Google the hotline number. This way is much more efficient.

So I called and told the operator, (I always get a man), that I had a pretty thick file there somewhere with my information. He still asked for my name, the culprit's name, and our phone number. I gave him all the info he asked for and assured him that even though I was a repeat offender and a bad mother, I had not used a fake name.

Apparently, deet, the active ingredient in this particular type of insect repellent that Trent decided to sample, can cause seizures in small children, but given the amount that Trent ate, (and likely spat out), and his astronomical weight, he'll be fine.

But the nice man from poison control called back an hour later to check on Trent. And probably also to make sure I hadn't negligently damaged any of my other children.

If there is a black list at Poison Control - I'm sitting right at the top.

The Saddest Part of Summer

Poor, poor Trent.

Baby Face

I wish I had this picture hanging in my house. Maybe in every room. It's my baby - back when he was small. It only lasts for such a short time, and this picture makes me want to love on my kids every second I get. Especially that little Trent who isn't so little anymore.

Trent was born with this expression on his face, and he pulled it out, chin quiver and all, quite often during his first couple of months of life. I knew it was too precious to last forever, so one night I growled at him to scare him to pieces so I could capture this exact face. I felt horrible for doing it, but I'm so glad I did, because now I get to remember how sweet he was anytime I want to.

Cause he ain't to sweet anymore.

Thanks, Mama Kat, for this assignment. I think I might actually frame this puppy now.

I also loved the prompt about wishing you had taken action but didn't. I wrote about that not long ago. If you didn't see that one, be sure to read it here. There's naked people and a hose involved. Good stuff, I tell you.

Now get over to Mama Kat's place and link up your own stories, or read some of the others!

Summer Fun

Our summer rocks! Just sayin'.

Mom decided to go to the drive-in for her birthday and see Karate Kid. (Way more awesome than the original, by the way.) The drive-in is one of my favorite places ever. It's just cool.




My mom's a pretty hot 52 year old, huh? And speaking of hot...






Payback. You know what they say.




This is after four sodas, popcorn, licorice, blow pops, skittles and strawberry shortcake. Sugar is bad. But it's fun!




We've spent many a day at Lagoon, too. Buying those season passes was a really, really good idea. Whenever we're bored we just load up the car, drive for five minutes, and ride roller coasters until we puke.

I love Andrew's face in this one.


I love the names of these rides. I wish that was my job - Amusement Park Ride Namer. I would rock it! However, someone is doing a fairly decent job. Above, we have The OdySea, then below are the Jumping Dragon, Turn of the Century, and Tidal Wave - my favorite from my childhood. Hope you and yours are making some awesome memories this summer, too!

My Son, The Evil Genius

Trent was a really good baby. The best. He smiled all the time. He never cried, but if he did, it was so quiet you could hardly hear him. He had no need for toys, he was over the moon just to watch people and smile at them with his chubby, chubby cheeks.

I thought I had it made. The last baby was going to be a breeze and we'd sail through the final years of toddlerhood without any trouble.

Boy, was I wrong.

It seems a switch was flipped a while back and my angel baby has become a pint-sized Godzilla-type creature. He pillages, destroys, and generally leaves a path of destruction wherever he goes. Much like any other one and a half year old. You know the kind.

But every once in a while, I have to sit back and marvel at his genius. I swear he is smarter than any other kid on Earth. Yes, even yours, mother who just scoffed and thought, "She hasn't seen my nine month old play the violin." Trent is smarter than violin playing babies.

Don't believe me? I have proof. Take a look at the picture below.

See my sweet, serene, sleeping babe? He's not sleeping. He is FAKE SLEEPING so that he doesn't have to talk to my mom! I kid you not, my mother started to talk to him and play with him, and Trent immediately closed his eyes and pretended to be sleeping so that she would leave him alone. And he did it with a straight face.

My mom would leave him alone for just a few seconds, until he thought she had gone away, and then he'd open his eyes and look around. He'd catch sight of her again, she'd smile and say something sweet to him, and he would instantly be asleep again.

If that ain't genius, I don't know what is. Seriously. How many kids under two would think to do that? I'm going on vacation with his college fund, cause he's not gonna need it.

As a post script, I need to say that my mom is perfect and has never been anything but awesome to my kids. Trent just doesn't like her when I'm around. It's not her fault. Boy, he seems to love my dad, though, huh? Fake sleeping in his arms like a good little baby.

Picture Party!

In attempt to keep family updated on our goings-on, and so they don't forget what our kids look like, here are some pictures of what we've been up to...

We skipped church a couple weeks ago because half of us had snot hanging from our noses clear down to our socks. (Not me.) So Ethan went out to play soccer with his dad. He was having a great time until...


...he caught the ball with his stomach. Looks painful, no?


Cameron is almost done with his baseball season. His poor team didn't win a single game because none of them had ever played in the player pitch league before, while the teams they played against had plenty of experience in their pitchers who were two years older than them. I know that life isn't fair, but Cameron's love of baseball was killed, squashed, mutilated and left in the sun to rot when his team was mercilessly beaten over and over. That makes me pretty sad. At least he looks cute though, huh?


Another horrible part of the baseball season was Trent. We couldn't set him down for a second or he would take off for the road or the parking lot, giggling like a maniac the entire way. He loves to do whatever it is he knows he is not supposed to do, and it makes us nuts. Andrew shouldered Trent for several innings every game to keep him from being squashed by a car, but now that I think about it - that would have taught him a lesson.


We went to a park for a barbecue with my parents for Memorial Day, and Andrew wore this hat. He was relentlessly teased by my dad, and rightly so. That was also the last time we saw the sun. My fingers have been numb since May.


Andrew decided that it stinks to do yard work, and while we can't afford to pay a teenager to mow our lawn, (the little punks want $40 just for our backyard!), we can employ our own home-grown slaves and make them tend to the yard for a fraction of the cost of having a larger person do it. Ethan likes to think that he is a world-class weed puller now, but he needs some more practice. Still, nice to have some help.


Cameron, being taller and older, landed the job of mower. Now he knows what hard work is, because we have a rather large yard and our mower is not self-propelled. Total cost for two hours of hard labor? $5 per kid.


Andrew went paintballing. This is one of his trophies. Can't show you the other ones because they are too near the groin. Dangerously near.


At Grandpa's birthday party, Drew jumped on the trampoline. So did I. It was fun! I hadn't been on one of those in years. And I won't be doing it again anytime soon, because I peed a little bit with every bounce. My bladder control is not what it was before children.


Trent fell asleep well before nap time one morning because how could he resist cuddling up with his favorite blankey after a hard morning of rough-housing?


He likes ice-cream, too. I love summer. You can let the kids make total messes of themselves and then just hose them off before letting them back in the house!


Summer is also good for thunder storms. The kids were all lined up watching this one the other evening. The lightening was hitting pretty close, so the thunder was loud. Drew kept running to hide behind the recliner. Good stuff.


Alright - my fingers are going to crack in this cold, so I have to sign off. Have a fabulous weekend, all!