Okay, maybe not ruining my life, but having a serious impact.
Anyone who spends a lot of time with me knows that I get weird food obsessions. They are not always as totally horrible for you. I went for about 6 months requiring about a pound of fresh asparagus per day. Sometimes they are pretty unhealthy. I recently recovered from a serious Fry's fried chicken addiction (it couldn't be KFC, or another grocery store, it had to be Fry's.) Weird right? I always wondered if there was some ingredient in these things that my body was lacking, but since my recent Peeps dependency developed, I have ruled that out, since there is admittedly no possible health benefit to eating sugar coated marshmallow chicks. I like to open the package and let them dry out for a day or two so that they have a perfect crunchiness. I know its bad when I find myself hiding them in the house because I don't want my kids to know about them. Not that I wouldn't share, but as a mother I just can't let him eat such an unhealthy item. I'm like a drug addict who tell her kids to just say no.
The other day I was at Walgreen's stocking up for the week and the lady at the checkout asked me if I wanted to try a new type of candy bar. I declined the offer explaining that I now had enough Peeps to put any healthy person into diabetic shock and I am very particular about how I get my total lack of nutrition. She said "Oh yeah! I have seen you in here before buying Peeps!" Thank you very much for the friendly customer service but I am mortified and have since vowed to get a new Peeps dealer.
Easter needs to come and go or else I need a good twelve step program. Peeps are one of those things in life that people either LOVE or HATE. I would be interested to hear everyone else's opinions about them. Where does everyone stand?
John took the boys to the Phoenix Zoo today. I might be biased, but I think this might be the cutest picture ever taken. The great thing about one year olds is that they don't hold anything back. If Ham is sad he cries, if he is happy he laughs and if he wants to snuggle a goat, he snuggles a goat. Emotional honesty at its finest.
When I was a little kid my mom bought me a set of hamsters. One was white and one was black and I named them Salt and Pepper. Salt was an adult and Pepper was her baby. The second day we had them, I looked into the cage and made a gruesome discovery. Salt had EATEN pepper. It wasn't like pepper was just missing or dead... he had been eaten by his own mother. I won't go into great detail about the crime scene, as it still makes me shudder.
Why am I telling this story on my blog? Its very simple: Today I want to eat my child. Perhaps Salt wasn't the psychopathic cannibal that I have thought she was all of these years. Perhaps she was just a mom who had put her kid in so many time-outs that she didn't know what else to do to get her message across and she just snapped. Maybe Salt cleaned up the same mess so many times in the same day that she just couldn't hold onto her little hamster sanity.
Don't worry. Don't call CPS. My kids are not in mortal danger, I'm just having one of those days.
I went on a walk with both the boys this morning. Before we even got four houses away Jack had a total temper tantrum. I just turned the stroller around and started waking in the direction of home. "How sad. I was really looking forward to a walk, but I guess we need to go home. What a bummer." Jack was outraged. The emotional breakdown escalated. We got home and he was sent into his room. After a while he started shouting out at regular intervals. "Can I come out now?" At first I answered him each time. "NO." Finally I stopped responding. After a while he tried a new tactic. "Mom, I need your help really bad."
"What?"
"How do you spell 'let me out, please'?"
After a few minutes he was shouting for me again. "Mom, come to the door and look down!"
Here was his note: It looks like a foreign language at first glance but then you realize that the letters are just backwards and all squished together and he used a P instead of an L in the word let so it says "Pet me out please". John and I had a good laugh about it, but we still didn't let him out.
A while later I went to have a chat with him, to see how the lesson learning was coming along. "Can I come out yet?"
"No, Jack, I'm here to talk to you about it."
"But didn't you get my paperwork?"
PAPERWORK? He thought that he could get out of time out if he submitted the right paperwork? Maybe he has a future in government. Maybe Pepper the Hamster should have better mastered the bureaucracy of being a kid. It certainly worked for Jack today.
Strap on your weapons, brush up on your gang signs, We are having a Castles N' Coasters birthday party!
Jack has been begging to go to this place, and I keep saying, "We'll go for your birthday next year". I was just trying to put him off, hoping that he would forget about it, but of course he turned five and had but one request. Instead of having a full blown party there I called Kristen and had her come out with Emma and Ella.
We have been to Castles N' Coasters before so I thought I that I was pretty familiar with how it works. Apparently there have been some policy changes since last time. There we were at the gates, with three little kids so excited they could hardly see straight. The plan was to go in, ride the roller coaster and leave to have cake and ice cream at home.
I stood in line to buy the tickets.
Me: Six tickets to ride the roller coaster, please.
Minimum wage guy at the window: Uh, we only sell all day ride passes. If you want to ride anything you have to buy one of those. They are $25.00 apiece.
Me: Maybe you don't understand. We don't want to be here all day, we couldn't spend all day here even if we wanted to. We just want six tickets to ride the roller coaster ONE TIME.
Minimum wage guy at the window: We changed our policy last summer and I can't even ring that up on the computer. You can spend $25 bucks per person for a day pass or you can't go in at all.
John and Kristen in the back ground: Hey Jack, there are a million things we could go do that are better than a stupid old roller coaster!
Me: (getting a crazy look in my eye and a scary inflection in my voice) No. This kid has been waiting pretty much his entire life to ride the roller coaster and these guys just drove 60 miles to ride the roller coaster. We. Are. Riding. The. Freaking. Roller. Coaster.
Minimum wage guy: Sorry. I can't do it. I'm really sorry.
Me: (in a really really nice voice, that was clearly more terrifying than the scary voice because it made the guy wonder if I was emotionally stable.) We are not leaving until we get this little problem solved so I'm going to need to speak with your manager.
It was funny to see them all scrambling around back there. They might as well have had a flashing red light and alarm. CRAZY LADY ALERT! CRAZY LADY ALERT! THIS IN NOT A DRILL!
Eventually the manager came out, obviously having been briefed about what was going on. Everyone (including my husband) looking on nervously to see how this battle of wills would go down.
Long story short: The manager welcomed us in for FREE, and offered to personally escort us onto the roller coaster. He also gave us his name and told us that if we had any problems or questions to have him paged and he would take care of us himself.
Moral of the story: Being a total bitch pays off.
Ironic ending to the story: Jack REFUSED to ride the roller coaster.
Jack and Ella were so happy to see each other . They threw their arms around each other and hugged for the longest time. They are the cutest little pair of best friend cousins in the world.
The kids had more fun climbing on the rocks than anything inside of the park.
There are a few words in the English language that Jack can not keep straight for the life of him. It doesn't matter how much we correct him, he is guaranteed to get it wrong. He likes to sing the song We Will Rock You by Queen (who doesn't?). Every time its the same. "You got mud on your face, a big musgrace....." That one always cracks me up because what in the world is a musgrace, anyway?
The other word he always mixes up is REsist vs. EXsist. He says to me "mom, do aliens resist?" keep in mind that we are a law enforcement family in a border state. I totally thought he was asking me about how undocumented immigrants handle arrest. "I'm sure sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, Buddy." He looked at me like I was crazy. I was surprised that a five year old was concerned about the immigration issue at all. "Mom, they DO resist. They come here in UFOs and do tests and stuff." OH.... those aliens! Sure Jack, aliens resist. He also made the statement yesterday: "Dinosaurs used to resist but now they are dead and they so they don't resist anymore." A true statement. I can't argue.
Instead of the word really he says lee. As in, "Mom, I'm lee hungry. Dad, I lee want to play with you etc. He just can't squeeze that first syllable in.
My dad got released today after being the bishop for 6 years. We went to the meeting and heard his and Mom's testimony. I can tell that my dad has such mixed feelings about this release. On one hand he loves the people in his ward with an intensity that I have rarely seen in life, but on the other hand, it has been a lot of hard and emotionally taxing work and the break will be appreciated. I couldn't resist taking a picture of my dad with his counselors on the stand for the last time. After the release and call of the new bishop, member after member got up and told about what a powerful impact Dad has had on them. One man told about how he had prayed for help to straighten out his life and find got. He had written his prayer out in a letter to God. The letter was written on Saturday night and on Sunday morning there was my dad at his door, telling him that he had felt impressed to come over. The two men hadn't even know each other before this. Dad taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the man's life was changed forever. I cried as I listened to this miracle and thanked Heavenly Father for the privilege of knowing Milan Haws.
I have written out FIVE random things about Jack that make me smile. He is a wonderful kid and It blows my mind that God would give him to a crazy lady like me. This was my proudest moment. The moment I became a mother. The happiest day of mine and John's life. 1: Where in the heck did all of the time go? One day we was my perfect little baby and the next I am negotiating Oreos with him. He demamnded a minimum of six I said that we were more likely to be talking about 2. He settled for 3 Oreos but theres a caveat: He wants to know where they are hidden. those are his terms. "If I give you one more Oreo, I get to keep the location secret... deal? "Yes mom but next time you might want to start lower." "thanks for the negotiating tip, big guy."
2: He still sleeps with his bed time pull up on (and incidentally, Star Wars toys). Sweet Mercy, when does this end? It is soaked every morning and I am thankful every morning that it is not the bed which is soaked. Less thankful when I have to buy them at 15 bucks a pack and the least thankful when he decides to discard it at the foot of the bed right before I stand up. Please Heavenly Father, don't let my boy start high school wearing diapers at night.
3: Speaking of sleep, I sleep with him a lot lately and he still sticks his lips out all the way to sleep. This is so cute to me, Sometimes I even catch him suckling his tongue.This is Jack asleep in the car with the bird on his shoulder suckling his lips. I couldn't resist the photo. even though he has no memory of being breastfed by me, It will always be one of my fondest memories. When I see him suckle in his sleep I say...oohhh...he loved it too... thanks for letting me be your mommy, Jack Jack. And by the way , thank you to Dude for being our patient bird. Not all of our feathered friends appreciate dangerous toddler love, like you do. Thanks for not biting Abe's fingers off when he tries for wet open mouth kisses. You are a pal.
4: Most people say that Jack looks just like his daddy, but I am undeterred. He looks like me. And not just a little. He looks JUST like me. I can't even glance at him without seeing the Haws cheeks and the Arnett eyelashes and the little staci mouth. He is a much more masculine version and actually much better looking, but looks wise, the kid is MINE. Please look at the following pic and tell me I'm right.
5: Jack is a genius. I hateto state this because I know that everyone thinks their child is a genius but its his birthday and so I'm coming out of the closet on my belief that my first born might cure cancer or become an accomplished scientist or something along those lines. They say that when you hear a parent tell what traits their children posess, they are really telling you what traits they personally admire, not what the child actually has. I swear this is true. Start listening for the comments. ..."My new niece is so exceptionally beautiful. "..... "You gotta see my son. Hes only one day old but he was kicking so hard I can tell he is really athletic".... My mom used to tell everyone that Lauren was born bilingual.
Since learning this truth I keep it in mind when I think about telling people that he has a complex understanding of how storms form, or how a super nova explodes or why the guy in the ice cream truck must be poor because he will probably be tempted to eat the ice cream all day long. Also his lifelong ambition to be a sasquach hunter by trade because-and I quote- "you only have to catch one."
Look how happy he is experimenting, I used to do this as a kid. Mom found rotten science projects all over the house .
This is an experiment about which solutuon would clean the pennies most effectivey. We worked all day long for this one and we were determined to find which substsnce cleaned the penies best. We set up a hypohtysys and decided which methop would clean the best , It was olove oil, desolveit, Dr Pepper, soap, Pine Sol, Tabasco sauce, oxy clean,and water. It was so fun to get our resuts. In case you're curious, the best was vinegar and salt. A close second was just soap. Avoid oxy clean. It turned the pennies yellow. It was a lot of fun.
So there you go. I admire intelligent people and funny people, therefore, Jack is a genius and Babyham is a comedian. I'm a mother to the core. there you go.
I had to post this last pic of Jack because it shows his true nature when he is speaking his mind. lets just say that he errs on the side of drama. Where did he get that from? Could have been anywhere.
