Serenity Now

Yesterday I realized that if my husband ever loses his day job he could hire on with the local CSI after watching him with one of our boys. It began in the afternoon when Wannabe came to me and said, "who drank my Powerade? It was up to here and now it is down to here."

It was obvious who had done it. The kid who always takes other people's treats. But you always have to ask every single kid. Of course he said he didn't. Then Brett said to him. Let me smell your breath. It was two hours later with not a trace of Powerade left on his breath. But my son didn't know that.

Deer in the headlights.

Confession given.

A couple of hours later I opened up a container containing cookies that I baked the day before. I handed a cookie to Brett and underneath it was this...


Nicely hidden underneath.

Rather than ask each boy who ate the cookie, Brett took the bitten cookie and held it up to each boy's teeth to see whose bite it matched.

Same boy. Of course.

Then Brett starts to say, "if you're going to steal a cookie you should at least..."

I stopped him before he could finish the sentence. I didn't want him to teach said boy how to properly steal.

Yes, it is that time of year again. Time for the annual Reflections contest. The theme this year is Diversity is...

My oldest son has opted out which makes me sad because I love seeing the pictures that he takes every year. But there is still a week and a half for me to try and strong arm him into it. :)

My younger boys usually draw something but this year they have discovered the magic of playing with cameras and have each acquired their own camera. I wish I could say that it has something to do with their mother taking thousands of pictures every year but actually I believe it has more to do with Sheriff's inane silliness with the video feature on his camera. Thanks to the magic of garage sales this summer each boy has his own camera to play with.

Giggles was the last to take his picture for Reflections so we now have all three entry photos to prepare...

This is Smiley's:


Wannabe's:


and Giggle's:


If only the theme was based on Roblox, then I KNOW Sheriff would participate!

It is that time of year again. Time to take our kids to jump on giant inflatable pillows, go down giant slides, ride the mechanical bull and get lost in a corn maze.

I wish that I had precious pictures of all of these wonderful events from this year.

But I don't.

Usually I haul around my ginormous backpack with my large canon camera and accessories so that I can capture all of the memories. In fact we even had this great idea for a Reflections picture that one of the boys was going to take. But I woke up Saturday morning with a killer lower back ache from standing at the ironing board on Thursday and Friday for too long working on Christmas cards. My bad.

I was not going to bring the big camera. No problem. I'll bring the point and shoot I thought. I checked the battery. Full, it showed me. Great. After taking a couple of pictures it was down to 2/3rds battery. No problem, I thought. That should last the rest of the day.

Wrong. I went to turn the camera on and it gave me the message to change the battery pack. What good is it if it goes from full to 2/3rds to empty after taking 6 pictures? I was mad. I still am.

But I do crack up over the fact that Giggles and Smiley still had the same reaction this year over going through the inflatable creature that they did last year. And it is one of the few pictures I DID get...

BEFORE:



AFTER:

When I was growing up my mom never had to worry about me doing things improperly. I was the queen of proper. I was always concerned about doing things the right way. I still am. I DO NOT want to get caught doing things the wrong way. In fact, it REALLY bothers me that certain intersections in our state are being changed so that you cannot do an immediate right turn on to them. You have to go further out and THEN turn right. If you take an immediate right turn you actually end up in on-coming traffic with people honking at you like you are an idiot. Yes. I speak from personal experience. But in my defense, you USED to be able to make an immediate right turn there. They changed it from what I knew. It is all in what you are used to.

But even I am known to cut a corner here and there.

Take the other week for example. We have family home evening every Sunday afternoon. Well, on Conference Sunday my husband was out of town so it was me. All me. For a week and a half with kids. By the time Conference Sunday came around I was ready to cut a few corners on things. I turned on conference and had all of the "stations" set up for the kids. Conference bingo with Froot Loops, missionary letter writing, Friend magazines to read, etc. So we get to the end of the day and the kids say, "what about family home evening?" I say, "I figured that Conference counted with all the activities you did." "What about our treat?" they asked. Here was my real cop-out, "you had Froot Loops with your bingo."

They didn't like that one bit. In fact, just to let me know how much they didn't like that, Giggles reminded me the following Saturday night in his prayer, "and please bless that tomorrow we will have a PROPER family home evening."

That put me in my place.

Yes, we had a proper family home evening the next day. With a proper treat.

As a parent don't you sometimes wonder what your children will be when they grow up. You even ask them that question when they are little so you can later see if their little childhood dreams and fantasies came true.

Take Smiley for example. When I ask him where he wants to go on a mission the answer is always the same... Disneyland. They don't have missionaries serving in Disneyland but I don't have the heart to tell him. After all, maybe in 2024 they will. Who knows?

As for his career Smiley wants to be a jet, but if he can't be a jet then a jet pilot.

Personally, looking at what he does he has a whole range of career opportunities available to him. He could be a tagger. You know, those who leave their unwanted artwork over things? Multiple afternoons spent removing his artwork off of his walls and bed has not deterred him from continuing this practice.

He could be an actor in a sequel of Liar Liar based on a character who always lied. Although in the movie Jim Carey's character was forced to tell the truth. I wish I could blow out some candles and wish that Smiley was forced to tell the truth forever. That would be a refreshing change.

He could be an eyelash model. Do they have those? Seriously. Everyone that meets him is struck with instant jealousy over his eyelashes.

He could be a songwriter or singer. If he is awake he is singing or humming.

He could be a famous basketball player. The shortest, best NBA player in the world. At two he was the most coordinated kid who could bounce a ball - and then he started running. But now his feet have caught up with him and he still has a great love of the game.

He could be a politician - maybe even President of the United States because hey, they also don't listen to what they are told and do whatever they feel like doing.

So much potential in one little boy. I wonder if he really will be a jet - I mean jet pilot one day?

Last week I went on my first school field trip for this year. I made the mistake of going on the bus. I knew it was a mistake within the first minute of taking my seat. I had no idea fourth graders could hit the sound barrier the second they set foot in a bus.

My bad.

I WAS armed with a water bottle and some maxalt.

My salvation.

While Wannabe was sandwiched between a couple of friends laughing and giggling I spent the half hour of head-pounding torture in conversation with a couple of girls in my assigned group.

As any parent knows you can't just go on a field trip, you must LEARN something so we were handed out pencils and papers with questions to fill in and then set out on our own to find the answers. Even having a couple of girls who had been to the mine before - "hundreds of times" according to them, it was still a challenge to find a few of the answers. Wannabe and I scrambled during the movie to fill out one answer as the six-part answer was shot off in rapid succession making it difficult for him to write down fast enough in his giant hand-writing.

Still, I loved the excitement as the children showed me their favorite things, and why they love to come visit the mine again and again. I was a "newbie" which had them amped up even more giving them the opportunity to be my tour guide.

All too soon it was time to get back on the bus for another 30 minutes of jumbled up ear-shattering noises for the return ride to the school. This time though I sat with Wannabe who didn't mind being with his not-so-cool mom.

When he arrived home from school he handed me thank you cards made by my group including one from him that read as follows:

I love you mom and I thank you for leading us to wear we went and it ws fun to look at the smok and the giant hole. it was a blast. (spelling errors included)

He included a picture of a monster with sharp teeth eating a person. All of his pictures include something with sharp teeth. I'm not sure if I was the one being eaten and I'm a little afraid to ask.

I'm pretty sure that if it was Smiley who drew the picture it would definitely be me being eaten because he has been in the doghouse lately and probably wishes that a monster would eat me. No such luck. He is stuck with a mom who is actually trying to teach him to make good choices and doling out the consequences when he doesn't. Poor kid.

Overall it was a great day and I hope to go on many more field trips with my kids. I'll just remember to drive myself there next time. :)