Forgetting an important task...

As I finished tucking in Thing Two, I turned off the light. I hear a very weary voice say "But, Mom, you forgot something!"

"What is that son?" I asked. Tired myself, eager to have him go to sleep....

"You forgot to give me my goodnight kiss!"

Uh oh...so I leaned over and kissed his forehead.
"Much better" he sighed as he drifted off to sleep.

There you go kid, breaking my heart yet again!

Mom, I want a Mowhog...

Fingers crossed that since he can't say the word right, the woman at the barber shop won't know what he's asking for?

Yeah, right....a mom can always dream...

What if I don't like Him?

A little background: I grew up attending church routinely. As an adult, not so routine. And lately, not even the C&E participant. (Christmas and Easter). This was ok for me, but as a mom, I was starting to realize that I owed my boys at least the exposure to organized religion. I need to give them tools by which to make a decision about religion later on in their life. So, along with two of my dearest friends (who've also faced this similar dilemma), we packed up all the young uns and went to the church on the hill.

So, last night as we were tucking the boys into bed, Thing One said "Mom, I'm a bit worried. You know, I don't know this Jesus man. What if I don't like him?"

Thing Two, in his usual always has an answer state, says "but you have to like Him. He made us! What's not to like?"

Thing One pondered again for a moment and said "Ok, but why is his name Jesus and not something like Patrick?".

Oh yeah baby, it is time these boys get a bit more exposure to church on a regular basis....

It is ok Mom, you'll always have Thing One...

Thing Two is my more helpful thing. On Sunday he decided he wanted to help vacuum, so I fixed him up with our little portable unit and said "want to vacuum the stairs?" Sure, he grinned eagerly, as he is a child who has yet to realize this is a "chore" and not something to agree to quite so quickly.

when he finished, I praised him for his efforts (just like those mommy manuals tell you to do) and I sighed "Oh my, my baby is all grown up, what am I going to do without my little baby?"

That's when he replied, in the most sincere, honest way (you know how kids can be sometimes) "don't worry Mom, you'll always have Thing One".
(editors note: Oh course, he didn't call his brother "thing one" but I don't think I need to use actual names).

It made me happy and sad all at the same time. He's right: we will always have Thing One. For those of you who know all about Thing One and his journey, you can see how perfect Thing Two's observation was. And yet, it made me proud that at the young age of 6, Thing Two knows that, recognizes it and loves his brother just the same!

Ok, enough with the sap and sentimental stuff. For your viewing pleasure, I've included a photo of Hubby. He was kind enough to paint our bedroom this weekend. The problem with any home improvement project, and especially painting, is once you've got one room done, you realize how badly the other rooms need a fresh coat of paint! Hmmm...wonder when it is safe to bring up more paint jobs? Timing is of course everything!

And snow it did...

Well, the snow lasted pretty much all day yesterday. And as I took the boys to school, I looked around the neighborhood and thanked my lucky stars that ALL we lost was a silly old patio cover. The destruction of trees in our neighborhood is heart breaking.

Again, for those of you who DON"T live out here in the Land of Sunshine, you probably don't understand our sense of sadness and loss. Trees don't grow very fast out here: so to see my neighbor's 12 year old tree, which was just starting to look like a great tree, cracked down the middle. Well, it kind of makes ya sad.

I know, in the grand scheme of things, a cracked tree isn't the end of the world. We're shown images every day of devastion far worse than a broken tree. But, big or small, it is sad just the same.

Let it snow...

yes, those of you who read this from places far beyond! The land of Sunshine was covered with a THICK WET blanket of white stuff. Fear not, it never lasts too long. But the first shower of the season always takes us by surprise. So far, we've been "surprised" by having our pretty patio thing collapse (forgot to remove the canpy, snow has bent the frame). I've also realized that the Things outgrew last year's snow boots but I hadn't gotten them boots in their new size. And finally, I'm not sure exactly what "delayed" start to school means. I think it means they start at 0945, but I'd better go and double check. But first, cofee...
PS: Fear not, I"m not THAT organized, this is an archived photo from last Spring!

Not much news...

Well, it was a quiet yet busy week. If you have school aged kids, then you probably know what I'm saying. Nothing wicked crazy happened, but here it is Saturday morning. When I last thought about what day it was it was Monday morning. The week just flew by, doing a whole lot of the same stuff. Over and over.

Hubby has taken the first, and HUGE step towards being his own boss. I'm proud of him, excited for him, and just looking forward to the next 90 days passing by uneventfully as we sort out new insurance plans, new hours, and submitting invoices while waiting for payment on said invoices.

I'm not feeling all that chatty so instead, check out Thing One and Moosey. They remain inseperable!

Not enough trikes? No problem...

The Things had off from school last week, so on Friday I suggested we open up Camp Chang. They each invited a couple pals over and before we knew it, we had a full house. The weather was beautiful and they spent most of the day outside in that boring backyard. As you can see from this photo, even though we had more things than trikes, they found a solution to their problems. It was really quite a sight, that is for sure!

Which brings me to another concern: do those things have ESP? How do they know that I'm contemplating purging some of their outgrown play stuff? I had just thought to myself "time we pass those trikes on to some little kid in need". And then POOF: they are playing with their old trikes, having contests and races...as if they KNEW I was up to no good! Same with their Rescue Hero stuff. I even had a family picked out that I was going to pass on their outgrown stuff. (that's the tricky part: you want the toys to go to good use, but you can't give them to the family down the street with the young boy because the green eyed jealousy monster will spot the outgrown item and shriek FOUL! That is MINE!).

Come on Things...quite playing mind games with your momma! she's getting old and sentimental...oh but you probably knew that...that's why the trikes and the rescue hero fire truck remains in the stash of stuff!