So the boys and I were watching some of the inauguration this week. R had some questions about the presidency and all that which I did my best to answer. Then he asked me when I had been president. I told him I’ve never been president. So he asked when Daddy had been president. I told him Daddy had never been president either. He thought on that for a moment, and then declared:
“Well, that’s kind of pathetic, isn’t it?”
K, picking at a sesame seed on a sandwich bun: “I’m going to save this, and plant it so we have a sandwich tree! But, the rule is, you have to eat the sandwich you pick off the tree.”
R: “Mommy, you are a really good yo-yo.” Said as we were playing with said toys in the kitchen. Followed slowly with a “…person” And here, I thought I hid it so well 
It’s been a rough week. I know I promised pictures on Wednesday, but I just couldn’t get to it. Things have been busy, I’ve been driving myself crazy over what really should be a simple decision, and the boys have been overtired and having a hard time getting along with each other.
Which brings me to today’s story.
The other day, after being sent to bed for being mean to K, R comes down the stairs clutching his pillow. Between exaggerated sobs, he tells me that he’s just come to say goodbye, and that he has to leave this place because he “just can’t live like this anymore.”
N says he gets his melodramatic tendencies from me. I say that when you point a finger at someone, there are four fingers pointed right back at yourself. And, remind me again, which one of us was in show choir and multiple school musicals? 
“That is the best grass ever!”
(Said to a five year old whose class grew grass–the lawn kind–in containers.)
WHY the class grew grass in containers…that I still don’t know. But it looks a hell of a lot better than the crap that passes for my lawn!!
It amazes me how children find delight in the smallest of things.
Today I broke out the shorts for the first time this year. K was so funny! With total glee in his voice he says “Mommy, these are LITTLE pants! And they have BIG pockets!! Look at this Mommy, isn’t that so funny?”
Me: “K, those are called ’shorts’.
K: “They’re SO cool. They have big pockets! These…what are they called again Mommy?”
Me: “Shorts”
K: “These shorts are SO COOL!”
Then he asked me to put his socks on him because his hands were cold. I asked if he really just wanted to keep them in his pockets, and he said “Yeah, because these shorts have BIG pockets!”
Last night, N and I got to have an actual, real, true DATE NIGHT! Woohoo!! It was a very nice evening out. Mom came over and watched the boys for us. They have been completely whammy all week long, and I was concerned about their behavior for her, but they were great! Being stuck at home so much has been trying for all of us. The boys are bored, and have too much pent-up energy, and I’m on a very short fuse. Soon…soon…soon the weather has to turn and we can start going outside! Even if we just get into the yard to work on the gardens a bit would be a Very Good Thing. But even on sunny days there has been a bit too much of a bite in the air to do so. But anyway…despite my fears the boys were great for Mimi and we got to go out on a date!
We went to Hibachi for dinner, and ate way too much food, and I got about half of mine boxed up to take home…only to forget it on the table when we left. 
Of course, the flaming volcano we ordered may have had something to do with that, too 
(Flaming Volcano = Rum, orange Curacao, & tropical fruit juices in a volcano shaped dish w/a crater in the center where they set fire to some other kind of alcohol & two-foot-long straws to drink it with. It serves two and is ohhh so yummy!)
After dinner we decided to go wander around the bookstore for a while. I picked up one of the book-club-books I need to read (Eat, Pray, Love) and the third in the George RR Martin series I’m reading, and we picked up a Backyardigans book for K for his birthday. Gah. A week from now my baby will be four. Gah, I tell you. GAH!
We closed the bookstore…we were one of the last to check out. The boys tend to be loudest in the places where you’d most like them to be quiet (bookstores, church, libraries, the living room…) and we generally avoid bringing them in. Which means we don’t often get to a bookstore together. As an activity that was formerly a frequent date for us, we’ve both missed it terribly in the last six years or so. It was great to hang out, chat, check out new books. I found two books in the humor section that looked like a lot of fun, but not quite enough so to actually pick up. One was “What Would MacGuyver Do?”, a collection of essays about real-life situations where people found ways to “MacGuyver” their way out of a tough spot, and the other was “Porn for New Moms” which I thought about picking up for C but her sense of humor isn’t quite as twisty as mine. It’s a collection of pictures of men & babies with captions like “Here, honey, I filled the bath for you and lit candles, and I’m going to read dozens of stories to the baby while you relax in the tub” and “No, no, you carried this baby for nine and a half months and you’ve done enough! I’m going to cook dinner and do the dishes and feed and bathe the baby…” Cute, but totally not a necessary book to own! Especially not when my own baby is about to turn four. Gah.
We participated in Earth Hour tonight. I had meant to post about this earlier in the week but it kept slipping my mind. As Sam from Quantum Leap would say I have a brain like a sieve. We lit a few candles, read some stories to the boys by candlelight, talked to them about conservation and recycling, and played a game of Cosmic Wimpout by candlelight after putting them to bed.
And last but not least, I’ll leave off with a couple of quick “overheards”, both from K. Earlier today we were going out for lunch with C & C, and when we asked him what he wanted to eat he requested a “girled cheese sandwich”.
A while back was one I meant to post and don’t think I ever did, when we were at church and the children’s choir got up to sing. K clapped his hands over his ears and loudly proclaimed, in that pause just before the music starts to play, that “I don’t want them to sing to me!!!” I wanted to hide under the pew but of course everyone else thought it was hysterical.
Today in the car:
R: I’m the black dragon’s brother, the grey dragon.
K: That means I’m the black dragon! Are they friends?
R: Better, they are brothers!
And I might as well post what R said to me yesterday. He came up and gave me a big hug, then cheered and said “Yay, we are going to have a baby brother or sister!! I can feel all that baby goodness!!!!
Er…no. Sorry, R. What you are feeling is more like Mommy’s fatty squishiness.
Somebody save me.
It’s 10 PM and I hear a noise upstairs. K hasn’t fallen asleep yet.
“K, get in your bed!”
thud thud thud thud
“I AM in my bed!! And, and Mommy? I have to tell you something!”
“What do you have to tell me?”
“I love you!”
“I love you too, now stay in your bed and go to sleep!!”
I love the way children talk. The little turns of phrase that are just a wee bit odd. Tonight K said “Pasketti” while singing Hot Potato. A few other of his phrases I like are “Side Up Down” for upside down, I “got for” instead of I forgot, and his way of adding an extra syllable when he pluralizes some words, so that guests become “guestses” baths become “bathses”, and so on.
R has grown out of most of his “Risms”. I remember being so worried when he used to get “stuck” on a syllable of a word or on an idea he wasn’t sure how to vocalize. He’d be talking so fast to get an idea out and his vocabulary just couldn’t keep up. I remember him saying “and, and, and” probably about 20 times in the middle of an idea. But now he is totally fine, and we just have to wonder where he comes up with some of his statements. Like last year when he told his teacher that his manners were impeccable. 
It happened today. I knew it would be coming but man, oh, man did it hurt anyway. I got “the line” from R. He was in trouble for arguing with K over the video game and I told him he had to put it down. Then it happened. He said “the line”. “I don’t like you anymore, Mommy.” Yeah, that one. Ouch. After I picked my heart up off the floor, I was careful not to react to him too much. But oh, ouch. A few minutes later all was forgotten and I got a big hug and an I love you from him.
We got “Booed” last night! E arrived for book club and when I came to the door there was a pumpkin sitting on our front step. It’s gotta be someone who knows us pretty well because it contained a pack of 100 grand bars, pretzel/cheddar combos, butterfingers, and popcorn. We put the ghost up and booed two neighbors. No one else on our block had the ghost up so we’ll probably be identified as the culprits, but it’s all in good fun I put out Reese’s PB cups, twizzlers, and hot chocolate.
I just finished reading Promises to Keep by Charles deLint. I’ll put up a separate post for a review.
We were playing at the park with some friends yesterday, and a bit of our day went like this:
S (Running to his mom) K hit me with his foot!!!!!
I call K over to me: K, did you kick S?
K: Yes.
Me: We don’t kick people. Apologize to S.
K: (growls) Sorry.
Me: No, K, you need to apologize to S like you mean it.
K: (still growling) Sorry I mean it.
Another of those moments where it’s all I can do not to laugh.
