Not Possible

How do you stay mad at this face?  Ya can't.  At least not once sass and attitude stop spewing from it.

And let's be clear:  I am talking about Alex's face.  Sass and attitude will always be spewing from my face.  Can't stop; won't stop.

Healthy?

Pretty sure the amount of feta I put on my salad completely negates any nutritional value the salad once had.  Whatever.  There was an annoying amount of feta left.  Too little to leave in the fridge without being dumb.  Too much to keep any salad dignity in tact.  Far be it from me to leave something annoying in the fridge.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Alex launched into full asshole mode yesterday when I went to retrieve him from the neighbor's house because it was time for dinner.  He had decided he was not done playing, and for some reason, he thought that had any bearing whatsoever on whether he was required to listen to me or not.

After a whole bunch of sass, he straight up got on his bike, drove it to the middle of the street, summoned up every ounce of disrespectful attitude in his little body, and announced he wasn't coming with me.  Things went downhill real quick like from there.

I resorted to grabbing the handlebars of his bike and pulling him along with me.  And at this point, he apparently didn't think he was in enough trouble, because he started to snottily shout pout at me that he was going to follow me and that I didn't need to pull his bike and that I was going to knock him over.  I was done with quietly reprimanding him at this point and loudly dared him to talk to me like that again.  Extra points to me for mature parenting.

So there I was, on fire with anger, sweating, pushing a stroller with my left hand, pulling an almost 6 year old on his bike while he drags his feet on the ground with my right hand, and daring him to be rude to me again.  And at that moment, a relative of a different neighbor that happened to be lucky enough to be outside to witness this debacle, shouted out, "Oooooohhhhhh...You're in BIG trouble!"  Bitch, do you think you're helping here?  Shut.  Up.  This does not concern you.  And even if it did; that's the input you chose to add to the situation?  Thanks.

After a very long time in his room, Alex sheepishly came down to the dinner table and apologized to me.  I accepted his apology, but I was clearly still mad/disappointed/embarrassed.  He was very sweet and respectful throughout dinner, and then asked if he could take a bath.  While in the bath, he says, "Mom, I don't think I have the right to take a bath."  What.  I asked him to explain that.  "I don't think I have the right to take a bath because of how I treated you.  And?  I don't think I should be allowed to ride the dirt bike."  He was pullin' out all the stops!

I assured him that he always has the chance to make things better and that we will just move forward from here and make sure to be respectful of each other.  Good gravy this kid is somethin'.

Pullin' on my Heart...errr...Shoe Strings

This baby.  He loves loves LOVES my shoelaces.  Please excuse the fuzziness of the picture...I was grabbing a quick shot and then rushing to make dinner while he was entertained.  Turns out I didn't have to rush, he played with that shoe for a half hour.

Shake Shake Shake

Sam is borderline obsessed with anything that makes noise when you shake it.  Totally weird for a baby right?  Anywho, I found a souvenir tambourine I bought for Alex when I was in Nashville, and Sam couldn't have been happier.

I think the crossed eyes are from concentrating on using the correct tambourine form.  Yeah, yeah...that's it....he's not going cross-eyed from chewing on the most likely toxic plastic used to make that gem of a souvenir, no way.

Not Quite the Noble Gas

Sam was home sick yesterday.  He has an ear infection, which isn't contagious so he would have been fine to be at daycare, but he decided to barf everywhere and have juuuuuuuust enough fever to send him home for 24 hours.  Alex hasn't been 100%, but he is no where near staying home sick.  He's the kind of sick where you don't feel super great while you're waking up, but as soon as you get going everything is ok.  At bedtime last night, he showed that he was a little jealous that Sam got to stay home...

Alex:  I'm not going to make it.
Me:  You feelin' alright?
Alex:  No.  My chest hurts.  Like when I breathe in, it hurts.  I think I know why.
Me:  Do tell.
Alex:  My chest hurts when I breathe in because my lungs hurt and my lungs hurt because I'm not getting enough helium.  I really think I need to spend more time outside to make sure I'm getting enough good helium.
Me:  You mean oxygen?
Alex:  Yes.  Oxygen.  I need more good oxygen.

Forgotten Loss

I don't know what you're talking about...Of course I didn't clean out Bingo Zingo Fast's tank while Alex was at school and then put it in the basement in an attempt to have Alex to forget about getting new fish to replace Bingo Zingo Fast.  Only a monster that was so f'ing sick of cleaning a fish tank would do such a thing.

Whatever, I have left that tank with no fish in it on his dresser for over week since Bingo Zingo Fast died.  The first day, he asked if we could get some new fish and I said yes.  But then he didn't ask about it again, and I was not about to bring it up.  I am perfectly happy being fish-less for a bit.  And yes, if he notices the tank is gone and asks to get new fish, you know damn well we are going to get new fish.  Just let me enjoy this break from algae alright?

Blasphemy!

Salad dressing containers without the smaller pour spout should be outlawed.  They put a smaller pour spout (aka - a fun stopper) on my giant bottle of vodka, so why can't they do the same for all salad dressings?  Outrageous.

Rockin' Some Semantics

Alex's classroom has a Rockin' Behavior Chart.  It's a guitar that has different levels of good and bad behavior.  Example:

The way it works is the guitar is cut out and hung on the wall.  Each kid gets a clothespin with their name on it, and everyone starts out each day on green, a.k.a. Let's rock 'n' roll - You're ready to learn.  Then, throughout the day, each kid can "clip up" or "clip down" as a result of different behaviors.  At the end of the day, everyone colors in a star on their star chart that corresponds with the color on which they ended the day.  Obviously the goal is to be on red, which is completely counter intuitive to me, but that's neither here nor there.  I like that it is a fluid behavior monitoring system, but sometimes a rough time right before the end of the day can give a skewed result of an otherwise good day.  But then again, if you have a good enough day to be up to red, you would REALLY have to screw up to get down to a bad ending point.

Anywho...Alex did really well with this system.  Did really well.  Until the new teacher took over.  The teacher he had for the majority of the year had a baby, so now they have a long term sub for the remainder of the school year.  She is nice and an accomplished teacher, but she is very different.  She has the same expectations of the kids, but as every person is different, every teacher teaches differently.  And my little monster isn't a huge fan of big changes; can't imagine where he gets that from.  Needless to say, we haven't seen many days of ending up on red.

Last week was a rough one in particular.  He started the week with a green, a purple, and a blue.  Wednesday night I told him his goal was to end each day on green or higher.  He said he understood and would do his best.  Thursday I picked him up and asked how his day was.

"Good!  I landed one notch below blue!"

...

One notch below blue?  So you landed on purple.  Purple.  Or if we're going to play this little semantics game you've started, one notch above pink.  You know, the one you have to go to the principal's office.  One notch above that.

Ya know, I thought this kid was going to be a mechanic or an engineer.  I've changed my mind...he's going into PR.

Ew.

Upon completion of cleaning both bathrooms, I have realized a couple of things:

1.  I do not understand how that much pee misses the damn bowl.

2.  These fools best get better aim or sit their butts down, or they are going to be on bathroom duty.

Booooo.

It's been a long week.  My shoulder/arm is all wonky and sore again, and Sam has been working on a cold so he has had to stay home 2&1/2 days.  K, those are my excuses for not posting.  I leave with a cute picture as a plea for forgiveness.

DIRT BIKE!

There are some dirt bikes at my parents' house and Alex has been longing to ride them for quite some time.  After proving himself on his regular bike, and Grandpa being nice enough to get the bike out of storage, Alex got his chance on Sunday.  And holy guacamole was he happy.

Grandpa took him slowly down the driveway, without the bike turned on, and walked next to him making him stop every 10 feet or so until he learned how to use the hand brake.  He had it figured out by the time they were to the field, so they turned it on, and away he went.  I was up at the house, but I could see, and more importantly hear, him.  From the moment he took off, all you could hear other than the hum of the little electric motor, was Alex creating his own soundtrack of motorcycle sounds through a smile you could see from space.

After tooling around in the field for a bit, he ventured back up the driveway so he could show me up close what he had accomplished.  He came zooming up, skidded to a stop in front of me, planted his little feet, yelled "DIRT BIKE!" and took off again.  All with an expression of such of joy on his face, you just couldn't help but smile.

Three.

Three nights.  Three.  That's how many nights in a row Sam slept through the night after finally giving in and employing Cry It Out.  Which, if I'm totally honest, wasn't actually that bad.  The first night he cried for 20 mins 4 different times, and each subsequent night was a little less until Thursday night when he made it through the whole night without a peep.  Same thing Friday and Saturday night.  Sweet sweet silence.

And then yesterday he got all congested.  Wanna take a stab how well he, and in turn I, slept last night?  I'm grumpy.

Never Stop Growing

Up until two nights ago, Alex refused to figure out how to use a swing on his own.  He would just pathetically sit there whining about needing someone to push him until Travis or I caved.  We have both spent a fair amount of time shouting, "Out!  Back!  Out!  Back!" in a coaching effort to get him to swing his legs at the appropriate time to get the swing moving.  I.e. "pumping" his legs.  Every one of our efforts was met with the most minimal effort from Mr. Alex.

Cut to last night when he ran outside to swing, and I looked out to see him swinging as high as the playset.  I went out there to tell him I was proud of him.  Beaming, he responded, "Well, I just thought that I needed to improve myself, so I figured I'd start from the top."

Oh?  Is that all?  Ok then.

T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

These two are nothing but trouble together.