Friday, February 26, 2016

Bubble Lessons

This here is the face of a boy trying to figure out how to form the gum in his mouth into a shape that will allow him to blow a bubble.
Don't worry:  it will only take a couple of seconds for that stare to suck your soul out through your eyes.  It won't hurt.

And yes, the wad of gum flew out of his mouth and thudded on the table within seconds of this photo.

At The Helm

Sam is steering us into spring.  Tally ho young captain!

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Butt?

Sam's obsession with butts is still hangin' on.  Not always accurate, but hangin' on.

The other night, he kept pulling down the neckline of my tshirt, pointing to my cleavage, and yelling, "Butt!  Butt!"  Awesome.

I mean there are websites dedicated to quizzes where you try to determine if you are looking at a butt or at cleavage so I guess I should go easy on the little dude, but c'mon man.

Dinner time

Yesterday morning, I brought Sam into Alex's room so we could all snuggle and slowly wake up.  Sam squealed upon seeing Alex, and immediately started climbing all over him.  Alex sleepily reached up, patted Sam on the head, and said, "I love ya buddy!"

I replayed that little scene in my head while I was trying to maintain a level head during the debacle that was dinner last night.  I made chili.  Both boys love chili.  But last night, Sam tore through 4 clementines before we even sat down, so he wasn't hungry and thought finger painting the table with his chili was a better option.  Alex slammed a glass of milk while waiting for his bowl of chili to cool off.  Then he got it all exactly how he wanted it with the addition of exact measurements of cheese and sour cream.  He took one bite and then crumbled a huge piece of corn bread into his bowl.  And subsequently (and so shockingly) didn't like the mushy texture he created.  So I got him a new bowl after we had a little talk about being wasteful.  I also fulfilled the request for a milk refill.  While I was getting the new bowl, I told him to wait on the milk.  He didn't listen, and slammed a second glass of milk while his chili cooled and then wasn't hungry.

So, I enjoyed a nice glass of wine with my chili while I sat by myself at the table.

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Steady As She Goes

I was just singing loudly and obnoxiously in my office...and I choked on my own saliva.  Just letting you know in case you thought I gained some class or sense of decorum in the last couple of days.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Fox

Oh! Oh! Oh!  I never posted the video of Sam saying "fox."  I'm not proud of my immaturity...but I'm sure as hell not ashamed of it either!


I suppose I'll keep him...

Butt!

Sam is currently obsessed with butts.  Now, "butts" can be various things.  Buttons...belly buttons...switches...actual butts...and apparently any body near a butt.

He also refuses to let me use the bathroom alone.  If I am smart enough to close the door, my time in the bathroom is accompanied by a soundtrack of gibberish and little hands smacking the door.  More often than not, I am trying to use the bathroom as quickly as humanly possible so I don't even bother with the door.  There is that reason and the fact that his older brother will just waltz right in any way, so why bother.

Anywho, it used to be annoying enough when Sam would come in because I would have to attempt to stop him from crawling behind the toilet to get the plunger, while keeping one hand on the toilet paper roll so he couldn't unroll it like a cat high on catnip, while also maintaining my seated balance.  Those tricks have ceased to entertain him.  Well, the plunger has lost its luster.  The toilet paper roll?  That bad boy NEEDS to be unrolled.  Now.  Always.  To the very last square.

His newest bathroom game is to peek around the door with a big grin, pat pat pat his way over to me, forcibly remove my hands from my lap, stare and point at my nether regions and proudly proclaim, "BUTT!"

He also noticed my pants slipping the other day when I was squatting down to retrieve the previously launched Nuk from under the table.  As I was reaching for the Nuk while refusing to get on my hands and knees, I heard little feet pat pat pat up behind me, and I felt a little finger poking me while his sweet little voice announced he could see my "BUTT!"

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Little Wins

First favorite thing about being alone in the office?  Getting to rock out to En Vogue Radio on Pandora.

Second favorite thing about being alone in the office?  Getting to unabashedly make a funnel of out of the bag of chips I'm consuming to be sure I can easily pour every last delicious chippy crumb directly into my eating hole.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Gut Shot

I changed my work schedule so Alex can come home after school instead of going to day care.  And now I get to see him every day at 3:15.  But I still have to work.  So while he loves coming home, it was a shot to the gut today when he looked up at me with his sweet blue eyes and said, "Mom?  Can you put your jacket on and come play with me?"  And I had to say no because someone needs to know how much 11 unit heaters are going to cost.  Blerg.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Naughty Free Spirit

Yesterday morning I told Alex I would grab some clothes for him while he was drying off from the bath.  He said he could do it and scampered off to his room.  Happy with one less thing do, I snatched Sam from the bath and headed to his room to wrestle him into clothes.  Good good.

That afternoon, I took Alex to a doctor's appointment, and as he slid out of the car, he caught the seat funny and was complaining that he hurt his butt.  I asked if he was ok and then jokingly/disgustedly asked him if I had to kiss his butt.  He giggled at the thought, but let me know that no, boo-boo kissing services were not needed.  And then he got a devilish little grin, and informed me that he wasn't wearing any underwear and hadn't been all day at school.  And he happily informed me as he skipped toward the door of the clinic that getting away with no underwear was precisely why he offered to get his own clothes that morning.

This kid.

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Good morning!

Today was like almost every other morning in that the boys wanted to take a bath.  As I have said before, this works out well because they are both contained and entertained for at least 15 minutes, so I can get ready.  The other really nice part is that Alex is old enough to keep an eye on Sam, and make sure he doesn't hurt himself or slip under the water or something else catastrophic while I'm scrambling to throw on some clothes.

Everything was going along just swimmingly, and Travis and I were in and out of the bathroom a couple times.  And then while I was pulling on my jeans, I heard Travis say, "OH!  Oh no no no!  Ok...everybody out!"  And I ran into the bathroom to see Alex clamouring out of the tub, while Sam sat there holding a turd loudly proclaiming, "Yuck!"

Having children is a bizarre existence.

Monday, February 8, 2016

Friday, February 5, 2016

Well, Hey There Neighbor

I was sitting at an intersection waiting to turn left on my way to get Sam.  There was a car coming from my right that was turning left onto the street where I patiently sat awaiting my turn.  When he turned in front of me, he kinda gave me a stare down like he was somehow annoyed with the position of my vehicle.  I, of course, couldn't look away and was starting to be confused by the odd look on his face until I remembered I was absentmindedly licking Dorito dust off of my lips.  I'm thinkin' I gave one of my neighbors a very wrong impression of me.

Slow. Down.

I come to you with a precautionary tale.  Never, under any circumstances, ever ever EVER rush through the awful process of waxing your upper lip.  Ever.  Let's travel back in time to about 7:02 Thursday evening....

Alex was engrossed in an episode of MythBusters, Sam was asleep, and Travis was at shuffleboard, so I had a solid half hour to myself.  Thinking ahead to the fact that there was no way I was going to want to take a shower after snuggling Alex to sleep, I figured I would use this time wisely and get cleaned up.  Once I got up to the bathroom, the face in the mirror needed a moustache removal like whoa.  So I got the little strips of horror out of the cuboard and starting warming them up with my sweaty palms of fear.

While I was warming The Strips Satan made up in my hands, I made the brilliant decision that I would do this as fast possible to minimize the pain time frame.  I've completed this task countless times, so why shouldn't I try to shave some seconds off my time, right?  Wrong.  This is not a job to be rushed.

Why you ask?  Why wouldn't you want to get the abomination that is waxing your lip over as quickly as possible?  Why?  I will tell you.  Because even though you think you have everything set correctly, and even though the first strip of agony goes well and it boosts your confidence for the second one, and even though you're starting to feel proud of yourself for forging through the pain, you will screw up.  And when you screw up, you will not realize the second wax strip is just slightly askew and is somehow stuck to the underside of your actual lip.  Not your upper lip, no no.  That sneaky little bitch of a corner is stuck to the delicate, plump, nerve-ending filled flesh of your actual lip...and a good side south of where the lip skin meets the face skin.  So when you are rushing through with all the confidence in the world and you don't realize where the stupid wax strip is stuck and you take two deep breaths and yank the strip off on the third deep breath?  ....  You will rip a big ol' chunk of your lip off.

And I will tell you:  the amazement of how many hairs are sticking follicle up on that little strip is dampened with a quickness when you spot a chunk of lip there too.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Buttons

Sam is very very into pushing buttons now.  And I mean actual buttons, not just pushing my buttons.  He will sit and push the various buttons on his toys over and over.  He wants to push the "buttons" on my phone when I'm trying to send a text.  And he really likes flipping the light switch on and off, which I realize isn't technically pushing a button, but he's 1&1/2, let's not get picky here.

The best part about this though is how he asks if he can push a button he has spied.  He looks up at you with his little concerned expression and says, "Push butt?  Push butt?"  It is so funny and so flippin' cute.  And since I have the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy, I frequently ask him, "Samsam, you wanna push butt?"

Monday, February 1, 2016

Fort!

Under the pillows, between the couch and ottoman, and through the blanket doors and you find the first official overnight fort of one Mr. Alex Thomas Julius.



He loved it.  I, of course, went to bed sad that he "isn't old enough to sleep by himself downstairs in the living room." ... The living room of our completely locked house.  ...  The living room that is a short hallway and 6 steps from my room.  Yep.  Pretty sure he's old enough.

Nice Try.

Alex has learned how to tell time, but is still working on mastering the skill.  The other night, it was late and I told him it was time to go to bed.  He asked what time it was and I told him to look at the clock and tell me.  The clock that has Roman numerals.  His repsonse?  "I don't know what that clock says, the numbers are all in Spanish!"