Last Preschool Days

I can not tell you how sad it makes me that my days with a preschooler are over.  In fact, today is the last full day of school, after that...  it's over.  I took Clayton for one last hoorah, just the two of us, to the zoo.  It was a beautiful, perfect day!  On the way to the zoo, Clayton says, "I want to see the lions!  The last time we were here, we didn't get to see the REAL lions.  We only got to see the SEA lions.  They don't even have legs!"

There was also one of those moments that sappy people like to point out, and say things like "See the children don't even notice the differences between us all.  Blah, blah blah."  We were walking by a little boy with braces on his legs, sitting in a wheelchair, and Clayton points and says, "Look Mom!"  and I start to cringe, getting ready to feel embarrassed and have to explain to my 4 year old how it's not nice to point, and he continues "That boy has a Superman shirt!  The blue one!"  I smile and feel relief, and yes I am glad that he noticed that the crippled boy likes Superman just like he does.  He didn't even seem to notice his leg braces or his wheel chair.  (Go ahead and barf in your mouth now.  It's okay.)

I love that kid!  Yesterday I left Clayton at my Mom's house while I volunteered at Justice's school's Fun Day.  The fact that my preschool days are nearly over, was on my mind as I was on my way back.  It's a mark of how I was feeling that I decided to pick Clayton up BEFORE I went to run some errands at the store.  I just wanted my little guy to tag along with me some more. 

MAN IS THIS EVER A HORKY POST?!  I'm a sap!

Careless Swisspers

Like a Weed - Four Year Edition

It's been four years since I started taking pictures of the kids with the growth chart.  I may be tooting my own horn, but I'm just so glad I've been doing this!

Major Bedhead warning!  (We take most of our pictures at breakfast.)

Random Bloggable Stuff

 Justice made a Nyan Cat costume for Nemesis.  She didn't appreciate as much as I did.

 

The Antics of Ross and Mark

I apologize to my Facebook friends who already saw this, but Mark's class picture needed to go on the blog.

 Um, Ross in his various get ups?

Clayton's pajamas & Watermelon hat.

 Ben 10 ate all the cookies.

 Lydia and her beautiful friends getting ready for their first formal dance.

Here are Justice's plans for a machine that turns you into a super hero.  

Naked Astrologist

  ~ for my brother, John

(My parody to Paleontologist by They Might Be Giants)

I love lookin' at the moon
and the stars up in the sky
'cause they tell me when to brush my teeth
and how I'm gonna die

But I'm not your normal wacko
pedlin' fortunes of the week
'cause I talk about the future

while I show you my left cheek

But all the folks, just think it's heinous
When I start talkin' about Uranus

I am a naked astrologist
that's who I am, that's who I am
that's who I am
I am a naked astrologist
that's who I am, that's who I am
that's who I am

Could it be a great big fortune
or an accident you'll meet?
Will a tall, dark, handsome stranger
come and sweep you off your feet?

Put my fortunes into cookies;
took them to The China Wok
But when the moon made it's appearance
Chin Lee kicked me off the block

'cause all the folks just think it's heinous
When I start talkin' about Uranus

I am a naked astrologist
That's who I am, that's who I am
That's who I am
I am a naked astrologist
That's who I am, that's who I am
That's who I am

From Hulk to Ninja

So yeah, my 4 year old, Clayton, is almost never "Clayton."  This is one of the fun things about that kid, he is always somebody else, and if I call him "Clayton," he will correct me.  "Mom, I'm Spiderman!"  or "Mom, I'm Indiana Jones!"  or "...Ben 10!" or "...Thor!"  or "Captain America!" or any number of other characters.

Hulk-Spiderman-Indiana Jones-Ben 10-Godzilla goes everywhere with me, and the items that he wears / takes with him just crack me up.  If you are Indiana Jones, for instance, you must have with you at ALL TIMES, a jacket, a hat, a gun, a "gun pocket" (aka a holster on a belt), a whip, and a "purse" (aka a satchel) with a map in it.  These items must be carted all over the grocery store, the park, or where ever you happen to be going.   I don't mind though, because I think it's dang funny and cute.  Old people, where ever we go, LOVE him!  Since he is the youngest of four boys, we have accumulated a LOT of hand-me-down Halloween costumes that fit right into this kid's mania for get ups.  My favorite going-to-the-store memory is when I took Spiderman Magician with me to Aldi.  Just picture the looks we got when he walked into the store, no where near Halloween time, wearing the full Spiderman Halloween costume with the addition of a huge, black, velvet, magician's top hat.  Spiderman in a Top Hat, it was a hoot!

If you've read my last post, you'll know that he has been the Hulk pretty frequently lately.  The problem with the Hulk is that if we ever want to go anywhere, I have to convince him to transform into Bruce Banner first -otherwise he will refuse to put a shirt on.

You can therefore imagine what I must have been thinking when he turned to me yesterday, in the middle of sacrament and whines, "Mom, Ninja Turtles don't wear CLOTHES!"  I about choked!  I was seriously busting up as I told him, "You can NOT go naked in church!"

How Do You Get the Hulk Dressed?

I'd already given in and let my 4 year old "Hulk" wear his purplish blue shorts for the second day in a row. I did insist that at least he put on clean underwear.

   Clayton:  "Does Bruce Banner wear underwear under his purple pants?"

    Me:  "Yes!"

That done, we move on to:

  "Okay, Hulk, put on your shirt."

   "Hulk hates that shirt!  It has a bomination on it!"

   "Okay, how about this shirt"

Hulk proceeds to turn down 4 shirts in a row, throwing them, each in turn, vehemently on the ground. Finally I catch on: Hulk doesn't wear shirts.

    "There are four shirts. Hulk had better pick one and put it on, or Hulk can't go to the park."

    "...and then Hulk gets a headache," as he's holding his head, hunkering down, and pretending to shrink, "and he turns back into Bruce Banner, and puts his shirt on."

Justin is the New Carl Sagan

Since Lydia passionately hates Justin Beiber, and REALLY doesn't like Elvis Presley either, I've been having a lot of fun hiding Justin Beiber / Elvis pictures all over her things.  She has already discovered these, so they are safe to post.  Every time she finds one, she screams and rips it up.  She even screamed in the middle of Sunday School class, and ran to the trash can vigorously shredding the one I left in her scripture case.  Here were some of my hiding places:

Justin inside her bathroom cabinet.

 a morph of Justin and Elvis inside her scriptures.

 Inside her makeup case

 Inside her sketch book

 Inside her yet unused makeup case.

 shuffled inside a deck of her magic cards

 on her school binder

 inside her band music

 in her drawer

 decorating her room in general

 on her pillow

and a message from Justin himself on her facebook page.


P.S.  For anyone wondering about the Carl Sagan reference, here's a link.

My Sister, The Bag Lady

     I am so proud of my sister, the bag lady.  Ashley is 25 years old and handicapped.  I am convinced that you couldn't find a sweeter girl anywhere.  A little over a year ago, someone from our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, got her interested in making satchels, filling them with school supplies, and then donating them to an organization within the church, who in turn distributes them to needy children, world-wide. 

     Last year, around this time, she succeeded in making about 125 bags, and filling them with supplies.  This year's haul was around the same number.  From the smile on her face and the excitement in her voice, as she shows me all of the bags she has painstakingly sewn together, it is clear that she just loves to help.  I am truly in awe of her accomplishments. 

     Ashley took it upon herself to beg for and gratefully accept many yards and yards of fabric and school supplies donated from friends, family, and church members.  What supplies were still needed to fill this massive load of bags, she and her parents paid for out of their own pockets, taking advantage of post back to school sales.  It is fun to see the gleam in her eyes as she describes her bargains.  "Trent and I bought 90 rulers today for just ten cents a piece!"  

     I can't imagine how many hours she has put into carefully cutting out and then sewing together close to two hundred fifty satchels.  "I was a lot faster this year than last year."  she told me.  I just love to picture kids all over the world carrying around the bags that my wonderful sister, Ashley, the bag lady, has lovingly put together, freely giving of her own time and resources.  Love you Kiddo!  You are just awesome!!

Early Morning Seminary is GREAT, Even for Me!

This is going to sound crazy, but after fretting about the impending early morning seminary for the past couple of years, I'm actually REALLY loving this! I made my mind up years ago that my kids would attend early morning seminary (yes here in the mid-west, seminary is at 6:00 a.m., 20 minutes away from my house), no matter the sacrifice. But as long as I can afford the gas (the Lord will provide, somehow right.), I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this. I have been going to the opposite side of the building, and practicing my piano for an hour every morning. 30 minutes of ghastly scales, but I'm DOING it! I'm actually going to miss EMS on my Tuesday / Thursday mornings that I run with my group, and someone else drives. I love music a million times more than even running or biking. It's nuts!

Mwhahah!

Okay, I've never heard this before! (And I've had 5 kids.) The 1 year old that I babysit is in my kitchen doing what I can only describe as a for real, maniacal laugh. Do I really want to know what THAT means?

Annoying School Outreach Program

Is it just me, or do any of you other folks get a little tired of the School Outreach phone calls 500 times a day.

"Hello Parents!

This is Mr. Fill In the Blank, Principal at Fill in the Blank School. It's been a wonderful day here at ______! Today was the second day, and boy was it a GREAT one! We celebrated back to school by having PIZZA in the cafeteria, and by making everyone smiley face

badges!

I just wanted to remind everyone about the Parent/Teacher night tonight at 6:00 pm. 50 fliers were sent home in your child's folders, but I wanted to make sure that you knew about this wonderful opportunity to become acquainted with our curriculum, and the many school rules.

Speaking of which, I wanted to remind all the parents out there that parking on the roof of the gymnasium is strictly prohibited. Also I wanted to ask you to not moon kids at the morning drop off.

Also I need to remind you that any parents wanting to pick up your child prior to the end of the school day will need to submit to a DNA test. Please allow 60 minutes for the results.

I look forward to a great year here at _________ Elementary! I can't WAIT to meet you all at the Parent/Teacher night HERE TONIGHT at 6:00 p.m. Please remember to bring your wallet and be prepared to pay copious extra fees!

Thank you so much!

Fun With a Hose

Apparently the activity of choice once the tv goes off (and Mom goes out to the back yard) is to spray a hose into Mom's piano room through the window. I've never been so close to murdering a couple of six year-olds before in my life. Water pouring through the floor into the basement. Luckily my piano seems to have somehow miraculously escaped the majority of the water. Only my sheet music appears to be damaged. Give me a year, and if my piano survives, I'll probably laugh.

 It is amazing how after screaming and yelling, and spanking and banishing kids to their rooms, and crying and fuming, once I surveyed the damage, forgave the little bugers, hugged them until they stopped crying, and told them that I love them, it's amazing how much better it feels to forgive than to fume.

Nightmare Conference Call

You can only laugh at these things!  Oh the mortification!  So a little background information here:  I have a small at home job working for a court reporting company, in which I print, bind, and bill for depositions.  I work AT HOME, with five kids, a husband and a dog.  This is usually no big deal.  I do all my work on the computer via email and the post office.  I don't see or talk to any of our lawyer customers - EVER.  Until today.

Also of note is that about a week ago, Ross, my 12 year old son, changed my outgoing voicemail message to something like this:

"Hello? ...  Hello? ... What? ...What? ... I can't hear you... Oh wait!  I'm not HERE!  Please call back when I am."

I thought it was funny, and since pretty much nobody but my family ever calls me, it's no big deal.  It's not like any employer type people are going to be calling me, right?  I actually thought those words.

So one of the main law firms that we work for is changing their billing system.  In order to be able to submit bills I would need to attend an online class today to learn how it all is to work.  So at the appointed time, I followed the links to direct me to the said webinar.  I've never attended anything of the sort, so I didn't really know what to expect.  As it turns out, it was a giant conference call on the phone, and a shared computer screen.  I went to the website, and called the number that I was directed to call.  Easy.  I am immediately put into a conference call with about 20 different law firms all learning the new system.  Instead of seeing what they are talking about on my screen though, I see a pop-up window telling me to enter my phone number.  Thinking this is someway that I'm supposed to log on, I enter my phone number.  Now in addition to hearing (and being a part of the conversation), I am hearing their system calling my phone.  It doesn't really register what is happening until I can hear my own voicemail message through my phone.  "Hello?   .... Hello?  What?  What?...etc."  To my horror, I realize that all of these other professional type people are hearing my voicemail right along with me.  Horrified, I hang up.  I proceeded to call back and enter back into the conversation a minute later, only to realize that at my house, this is NOT going to work.

"Mom, can I have some ice cream?"

 "MOM!  He's using my toothbrush!"

"Mom, can I get on the computer after you?"

 knock at the door "WOOF WOOF!"   

'Oh crap!  Renae mute the phone, quick!'  I'm thinking.  Unfortunately, I don't actually know how to use that particular function.  I've only done it on accident a few times.  In my frenzied frame of mind, I push the button that I THINK makes the phone mute, only to realize that I was wrong.  I press another button.  Wrong again.  I am screaming at myself in my head, 'RENAE!!  They can HEAR you pressing these random buttons!'  Panicked, I hang up again.  Bruce suggested that I use his phone, since he knows how to mute his. Then ensues a frantic search for Bruce's phone, in which Bruce has to remind me that I can just call it to locate the thing.  (I was in such a frantic frame of mind by now, that it actually didn't occur to me.)  Just as I found his phone, I realized how to mute my own, but by the time I got back into the call, I had missed over half of the instructions, and was completely lost.  Fortunately I have written instructions, which I think will be just fine.  Sheesh!  What a morning.  LOL!!!

Clayton's Big Idea of the Day

Clayton: Mom, can we put Ally (dog) in the washing machine and shrink her back to a little doggie? Can we, pleeeaase?

Me: Um, no. That won't work.

Clayton: But I want to see Ally as a little puppy again, can we please put her in the washing machine?

Boys

I love this kiddo!

Clayton (4 yr old) to Dog

Pointing at our cat, Nemesis:  "Place!  Place! PLACE!!"  (Don't ask me what "place" is supposed to mean.)

"Okay, I'll give you one chance to eat that cat.  Now GO!  GO AND DO YOUR DUTIES!!"

Why?  Because the cat was trying to help him finish his eggs?  It's a mystery.

Life With the Herdmans

Justice (6 year old) has been complaining of a hurt tooth.  The gums around one of his teeth are swollen, and don't look right.  I took him to the dentist, and they took x-rays, and were kind of puzzled.  The dentist says it looks to be just irritated because it needs to come out.  Anyway part of what convinced me to take the kid to the dentist was as I was checking on our browser's history, you know to see what web pages my kids had been visiting, I noticed several entries where Justice had googled "hrt teeth"  "hert tooth"  "hurt tuth"  etc.  I figured if he was really that concerned that he was googling it, maybe I should pay attention.  Funny kid.

Since we were discussing doctors and such.  Lydia had a scary episode with some major allergy / asthma type of thing.  None of my kids have ever had anything of the sort, so I just thought she had some kind of bug.  She sure was coughing a lot, but I just figured she was sick.  When she asked to go to the doctor, I nearly said "No, lets give it a day or two to give your body a chance to fight it off."  But then I realized that she's has NEVER asked to go to a doctor before, and really doctor visits are not the favorite things of modest 14 year old girls.  So I listened and made the appointment for that afternoon.  Good thing too.  The doctor calmly told us that she needed a breathing treatment, and then walked out of the room.  I heard her in the hallway saying "We DEFINITELY need a 125 in here!"  Now, I'm not sure what '125' refers to, but her tone made me take things a bit more seriously.  After 2 more breathing treatments and a bit of steroids, the doctor told us that she wasn't breathing well enough for her to let us go home.  I was informed that she would have to be taken by ambulance to Children's hospital 45 minutes away, where she would spend the night, and likely a day or two.  She was then wheeled over to the hospital next door, and put in the care of the E.R. doctors there.  After a complete work up, another breathing treatment, and a total of 6 hours worth of doctors, they said that she was doing well enough to go home.  YAY!  She is on three different kinds of medicine, but doing fine.  I hope that is the end of that.

 So back to the lighter side of life.  Yesterday we took our annual family trip to the cemetery where Bruce's grandparents, and a few other relatives are buried.   As we were getting out of the van, I told Bruce that he should give the kids a review on cemetery etiquette.   (I know this is hard to believe, but sometimes my boys are a bit rowdy.  On a side note, my brother John once brought out his copy of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" and showed me this illustration on the Herdmans, and told me that it reminded him of my kids.  Yeah, it is pretty funny, but I'm not sure if I should be insulted or not.  I know I'm going to sound like every other stupid parent out there, but really and truly, my kids are generally well behaved, good kids.  Rowdy, yes, but GOOD kids.  Their teachers all tell me so. (Well, Justice did get into trouble several times for "being silly" in class, but on the whole, he really is a good kid.  I SWEAR IT! )  Okay, back to the cemetery:  I told Bruce that he should remind the boys of proper cemetery etiquette (i.e. no climbing on headstones, jumping on graves, etc.)  At the time, Justice and Clayton were a couple of graves away, examining a headstone, and Bruce must have had something in his tone as he called them over, because Justice replied with "What? We aren't peeing on it!"  (They weren't, I could see them perfectly well the whole time.)

On the way home from the cemetery, Justice and Clayton had the following conversation:

Justice (6yr old):  Jesus is dead.

Clayton (3 yr old):  No he isn't.

Justice:  Yes.  He DIED.

Clayton:  NO!  He used magic and powered up!

Maybe we need to go over a few essentials again.

One way that we survive sacrament meeting at church is to bring lots of paper and pencils.  As long as the boys can draw, we get through without too much incident.  Their drawings sometimes tickle me.  Here is a sort of random sampling, pulled out of my church binder.

 I don't know who did this one.

 I think this ninja one is Mark's.  This is our family as ninjas.  See how well we hide.  Bruce is apparently the best ninja, because he is invisible.

 This one is Ross'.  Something about his dream land?

This one was passed from Ross to me during sacrament meeting today, folded up.  As I often get folded up little valentine-like notes from my kids, I was expecting something like "I love you Mom."  I was wrong.















This one was done by Justice today.  I think he gets bored and draws things he imagines would be funny to happen?  Last week he did a drawing labeled "Cherch" with a guy screaming madly from the pulpit, and someone in the back of the room shooting the speaker.  I couldn't find that one to include.  (and no, LDS speakers do not scream from the pulpit.)  This one is kind of light, so I'll explain.  Here you find a spring loaded pew, and a guy shooting out of the seat, smacking his head on the ceiling, and falling head over heals onto the pews in front of him, smacking head and groin in turn.

And just to prove that we aren't complete heathens, here is a picture that I found in my binder of Jesus being tempted to jump off the temple.  (I'm not sure who did this one, but I think it's Marks.)



















The most hilarious one ever, I'm not allowed to share.  The illustrator is just too embarrassed.  It's been a year or two, so maybe I'll be able to convince him to let me share sometime.  I nearly busted a gut right there in church.  But alas, I can't share. 

Happy Mother's Day to Me

You might be a mother if you slept on the couch, because one child took your spot in your bed, and you woke up with one kiddo at your feet, one kiddo snuggled to your belly, and one kiddo's feet on your head, feeling lucky, because at least this time, you didn't get peed on.

Gee, I Can't Imagine Why Not

Justice (6) and Clayton (3) were just now having an argument as follows:

Clayton: NO!!

Justice:  Fine. I'm NEVER playing Indiana Jones with you ever again. I'm never ever going to play Indiana Jones with you again, Clayton. Never.

Me: What's going on?

 Justice: He won't get tied up when I hit him with the whip!