Can I get back to you on that...?

Jack asked me last night were he will live when he is “old” like my husband and I.  I told him that he will live in his own house and maybe even have a family of his own.  He got teary eyed and said he wanted to live with us forever.  It’s funny to think of how much things will change when he is a teenager.  Then he asked me why God killed the dinosaurs.  He stumped me on that one.

This won't last long...but I'll take what I can get

While I was walking Jack to his class last week, I teased him that I was going to give him a loud kiss on his cheek to embarrass him in front of his friends.  He said I could go ahead and do it so I kissed his cheek as loud as I could.  He laughed and it was a sweet moment between us.  I’ll never forget it.  J

This is the kind of stuff I’m dealing with lately

At 4am this morning, he crept into our room.  He was there to wake me up…again.  Yes, it was Callen and he brought with him a terrible lie.  “I peed my bed and jammies”.  His sweet little voice charmed me out of my comfortable bed and down the hall to his room with him.  I checked his bed for pee…it was dry.  He had already taken his “Cars” jammies off and I checked those too…dry.  What was going on here?  What was this little guy up too?  “I want to wear my Scooby’s” he said as he pulled his favorite jammies out of his closet.  I instantly I knew he had me where he wanted me;  he was using me for my buttoning skills.  I told him he needed to go back to bed and he instantly began to try to intimidate me with high-pitched crying and various other scene-making antics.  He has misjudged me…for I will not take that shit.  No, I will not take it!  I told him I would put his butt in the shower, jammies and all, just like Dad did last week, and he began to calm down.  I asked if he needed to go pee; he was adamant:  “No!”  I took a deep breath, got him back in his bed, tucked him in, and began to walk out of his room.  I took only one step and I felt it…I had just stepped into a patch of pee-soaked carpet.  Instead of using the bathroom, he decided to just pee on the carpet.  I glared at him and he gave me a coy look that told me that he knew he did wrong but was also impressed with himself.  So my husband has the day off today and instead of hanging out with my guys, I’ll have to steam clean the carpet in his room…again.  This is how life with Callen has been lately; every day is something new that I could have never expected and cannot seem to prevent.  *sigh*…

A bit of this, that, and the other

I think things are finally settling down here.  Sure, I am busier than I have ever been, there are never enough hours in the day and Callen has a black eye, but the new rhythm of our lives is finally coming together for me.  Two of my favorite things that have come together since school started are that Jack and I pick out all of his school clothes for the week each Sunday night.  Jack doesn’t care much about what he wears so this is an extremely easy process that speeds up the morning routine for us.  The other thing is that my close friend and neighbor, Tracey, has been making my life so much easier.  She and I have an awesome carpool schedule and if something comes up, she is there for me whenever possible and vice versa.  Thank goodness for the help of other moms and friends…we get it and look after each other.  Before I had kids, I could have never imagined how important these relationships would be and how much they would help maintain my sanity.

Okay, sappy stuff is over (for now).  Yesterday after the church service, I picked up Callen in his Sunday school room, Cowpoke Junction.  He and I then went upstairs to get Jack from his Sunday school room.  After we got Jack, he said he had to use the bathroom and ran off down the hall.  Callen was doing something that distracted me and when I looked up, Jack was gone.  I assumed Jack had gone to the upstairs bathroom not far from us so Callen and I went there to wait by the bathroom door for him.  He was in there for a few minutes so I sent Callen in to check on him.  Then Callen was in there for a few minutes and I had to go check on him.  I had to go through one door of the men’s bathroom which led to a small hallway and then go through another door that opened to the bathroom.  (I was surprised how clean it was in there).  Anyway, when I opened the door, I found Callen standing on a stool wetting his hair and “making his hair handsome”.  When I asked about Jack, he said “he’s not here”.  Panic hit me immediately…where the heck was Jack?????  I had to drag Callen out because he did not get how scary this situation had just become; he was still very much focused on this hair.  So I get him out and head back toward the direction of our car and his classroom.  Finally I see Jack standing by the glass doors looking out into the parking lot at our car.  It turns out that he had gone downstairs to use the main bathroom which is a bit of a walk away from where we were.  Jack told me he was waiting by the glass doors so he would be able to see us if we went out to the car (as if we would leave without him).  He’s a smart kid and I was happy with the way he handled not knowing where I was.  He went to the one spot where he would be able to see me and be seen from a few different directions.  I’m not sure if this was a parenting success or failure, but everything worked out fine…thankfully!

Okay, more sappy stuff.  Today is 9/11 and I feel compelled to acknowledge this day here.  We all remember that day and where were.  The question of where we were on 9/11 has replaced “where were you when Kennedy was shot?” and before that there was “where were you when Pearl Harbor was attacked?”  Although these kinds of nation-changing events don’t happen very often, they leave in their wake a severe sense of sadness, loss, fear, and a million “what ifs”.  As bad as we are wounded by these events, they also leave in their wake a sense of unity in our country, a sense of duty, and eventually, a nation that can heal and recover from such unimaginable tragedy.  I can look back on that moment in time and see myself standing in the administration office of my building on Naval Station Norfolk when I heard the news about that first plane.  It’s easy to get stuck in that moment because it’s a clear mark of before and after.  Just before that moment, as far as I knew, everything was fine.  After that moment, things would never be the same.  Shortly after that moment, the magnitude of what was happening would hit us all like a sledgehammer.  Focusing on the bad is so much easier than focusing on the good, so, on this day, 9/11/11, I choose to focus on the good things that have changed in my life since that day:  I married a wonderful man, have two wonderful sons, and a happy and full life.  All of these things can exist at the same time as the sadness I feel for the events of that day ten years ago.  I don’t have to give up one to have the other.

I'm tired, things are crazy...and some other unpleasantness

I’ve been neglectful with this blog.  Truth is, I am swamped.  Jack started first grade on the 15^th and things are going well, but between school, soccer, house stuff, and the never-ending errands that need to be ran, I am tired by the end of the day.  Not so much physically, but mentally.  It doesn’t help that Callen has stopped taking naps, so I am no longer able to take my hour long “lunch break”.  I really need some mental down time during the day to carry me over until after the boys are asleep.  I’d like to interact with my husband after bedtime, but lately my brain is struggling to put full sentences together.  Once I get used to the routine, it will get easier I’m sure but to go from summer break to full back-to-school mode is a challenge.  Callen starts preschool on Tuesday too and although that means more running around, it also means potential down time for me (meaning doing anything without constant interruption).  Anyway, despite the fact that I haven’t posted much lately, things continue to be interesting around here.  My 3½ year old said, “I hate my life” when I told him he had to start his morning chores the other day, my 6 year old continues to use the excuse “my brain told me too” whenever he gets caught doing something he shouldn’t, and just today my little guy pooped on our backyard patio.  One minute, I looked outside and saw him “digging for treasures”, and the next his shovel was in the dirt and he was gone.  I went to the sliding door and there he was, standing upright, his pants and Scooby Doo underwear around his ankles, pooping.  This was not the first time either.  I went outside to bust him and of course, I stepped in some of his…um…unpleasantness.   Yuck!  Oh the joys of parenthood…