that is so NOT funny

I woke up the other night to something nibbling on my arm. It was NOT my husband. Our hamster had escaped again and gone missing for a few days. I was standing on the bed, body hugged to the wall, screeching for Collins to GET IT!!!! Collins just thought that was so funny. I say nay, nay. We looked for that thing from 12:30 am to 1:00 am. We saw him dart under the bed and then we think he went back into his hiding place. Collins has set up a different trap for him every night. Let me just say that we don't have a hamster in the cage. I am still uneasy going to sleep. And I think we are going to stick with pet fish from now on. Cuz if they get out of their cage, they die.

duct, duck, goose

We were doing an art project today and Evan asked if he could use the "goose" tape. Think about that for a minute. I couldn't stop laughing because it reminded me of all the funny things that we don't realize our kids think we are saying. Like the time Evan said he stepped on a "KICK" after he spilled the Kix cereal all over the floor. I should write these down. Just so we can have another good laugh about it later on! When Evan will get how funny this is!

man(ster) handling

Here comes my two year old, booking around the corner of my room, looking like an Olympic torch runner. Knees high, full speed ahead, terribly proud look in his eyes. Carrying something. Waving something around. So, I am thinking, "What the heck is that?! Did he just come from the bathroom? Outside in the mud? Oh boy, oh boy, do I want to know what that is?" I run over to him and there in his hand, sprawled out on his back with a terrified look on his face, is Hammy. Our sweet, quiet, NEW little brown and white hamster. Actually, it is my nine year old's hamster from his birthday last week. AHHH! I grab little hamster and begin checking for vital signs. Breathing, shaking, clawing. GOOD. This animal is alive. WHEW!
SO, let me pause for a moment and tell you about our little animal lover. Our two year old loves animals SO much. He picks up the bunnies at the farm by their ears, holds cats by the tail, manages to pet dogs, goats and horses the wrong way-you know where their hair is sticking up all crazy after and it just looks painful as he rubs backwards. All in the name of love. He thinks they are "brothers from another mother". He talks to them. Waits for answers.
THis is the child that single handedly...I mean single footedly...as a baby... kicked our new yellow Tweety to death while laying on his back. My poor little boys cried for days and gave a funeral. We have not had a pet since. Way too traumatic.
SO, we do not need anymore deaths in our family. I rescued Hammy from our man(ster) handling child and took him to the safety of his cage. A line from the Monsters Inc movie came into my mind. "Then it picked me up with it's mind powers and shook me like a dog!" Perfect. Meanwhile, little guy is behind me telling me all about what the two of them have been doing together. Quite an adventure. I see the little hamster ball there on the floor, open. Apparently, the hamster had a hard time getting into that ball. So my two year old says. I don't want to know. I have no idea how long they played. I just know that I had been listening to him chat for a while. I thought he was just talking to himself again. Nope.
I asked our nine year old to check Hammy for battle wounds when he got home from school.
Hammy is perched up on a bookshelf for now because his two year old (BFF) decided to get him out again (to feed him!) and we lost him. He was holed up in the bathroom thankfully. The look on the boys faces when they realized that Hammy was missing AND POSSIBLY DEAD was too painful for me to relive again. We have also had that experience before. Our little guys prayed for THAT hamster for days and left water bottles on the driveway for him. Unfortunately that story had a really traumatic ending that I cannot share here.
Maybe we should ALREADY be praying for this hamster.

fine art

Yea....see below.

budding artist

I have doodles all over my stuff now. Calendars, phone lists, bills, paper plates, napkins, letters...you name it and it has doodles on it. All sorts of stuff. Hearts, fire, monsters, silly faces, numbers, letters, patterns. So, my five year old has discovered the power of the pen. Or pencil. Or crayon. Whatever is closest. He just bought himself a little pack of markers at Aaron Brothers the other day. Very particular about how they line up and stack in the plastic holder.
Well, the other night we were cleaning up the play room and found this drawing and about fell over laughing so hard. We had to take a picture of it. He is getting very creative.
So, now you know two things about our five year old. Cuz it's true. And anyone who spends more than a few minutes with him knows. And he is proud of it.
But not as proud as he is of his doodles. Just yesterday he doodled happy faces all over my tax forms. He thought they were so hilarious. Hopefully our accountant will appreciate them as well. Thankfully they were nothing as graphic or sensational as his self portrait.

mom's pimped out

Last night, my "just turned nine year old" son came home from a night of hard partying. Yea. He went to Dave & Buster's for his birthday celebration. And the little sweetie came home with a present for me...a silver eagle medallion on a chain. I felt like Kib from Napoleon Dynamite accepting this gift of love from him. Collins thinks I should wear it to church. All I know is that the gleam in my little man's eyes as he shared his winnings with me will forever be in my heart. Peace out.

don't roll your little eyes at me...

or I'll roll your little head across the floor. That's what Bill Cosby's mom used to say. I never got it....until now. My five year old is a pro at rolling his eyes. I swear his eyes are double jointed. I am not sure if this is more a reflection of him or my nagging....or his ten year old brother-he's pretty sneaky about his eyeball movement. And is this new... or was I just too busy to notice before? Or was I so busy before that I did not have the time or energy to nag him with such precision? Because he has been flying under the radar for a while. He has figured out what he can just ignore without getting called on it. Go pick up your clothes, go put your skateboard away, hang up your towel, put your backpack where it goes for the fourth time.....geesh, I ask alot of him. So, now I get the eyeroll and head raised to heaven as if he is asking God, "Why me!??" Wait....maybe it wasn't my ten year old-it seems I have been doing that for quite a few years.
Well, I am on to my five year old. He now does this little head swing to the side and then eyeroll so I won't catch it. I told him that his eyes might get stuck like that. I always swore I would never try one of those "every parent says that at some desperate moment when they realize they have lost all control and don't know anything better to say" things. But, I did it. Let's see if it works. He's only five. HE'S ONLY FIVE!

Four boys don't fit in the shower

I don't know why all the boys have to get in THE shower each night...not just a shower, but my shower. All together. If they go in their shower, they have to go in shifts and I have to stand there yanking them out on one side and shoving them in on the other so no one collides and the water doesn't get all over the walls and floors. Cuz Daddy always has something to say about the excessive amounts of water left in the bathroom when the whirling durvish of slippery limbs and wet heads is over.
I don't know who started the "rat tail" fight with the washcloth or the "jump off the bench in the shower" contest or the "who can make the wettest fart noise with their hands over the mouth" contest or "who can clap the water into each other's eyes the hardest" fight or "who can stand the longest in the hottest water" contest or "who can make the coolest picture on the glass" contest. But, I think it has something to do with the fact that they are all in there..at the SAME time. Oh, and Dallin's waterproof watch. I mean, do the people that design houses do this on purpose as a joke?! Hey, lets put the fun shower that all the kids can fit in mom and dad's bathroom. That way, the water can get drug all over the upstairs!
The most pitiful part about it is that I have let it go this far. In everything. As long as nobody is hurt. Because I cannot come up with anything even remotely close to the energy or momentum that these boys have together. One boy is one boy. Two boys is four. Four boys is...like sixteen. The energy astounds me...it is ordered chaos. And I know they are done when somebody gets hurt. (whistle blow) That's it... everybody, out of the pool!
Unless, of course, they are hurt so bad that they can't stop laughing....that's when I know I am in for it.