Servanthood

When you're on your hands and knees scrubbing stains out of the carpet in the playroom, and you're becoming quite certain that you're raising a houseful of pigs instead of boys, and one of them looks at you and says "Wow, Mom, you look like a servant when you do that" and the others pipe up and join in and they get involved in a conversation about how they are so glad you aren't a servant.....

it's good if they can run.

Quickly.

Mom! Come Quick!

I sent the boys down to the basement in preparation for the start of school.

L (running upstairs to the kitchen): "Mom! Come quick! There's something I need to show you!"
Mommy: "What?"
L: "It's hard to explain! You know that thing? That Dad is going to use for his garden plants? Chewy's in there, and he's shaking!"
Mommy (taking time to grab the camera): "Uh-oh."



Yes, Chewy, the dog who makes up for his lack of intelligence with a sweet disposition, had fallen into the basement window well. After a couple of humiliating pictures, I opened the window and he hopped out and ran upstairs. I let him back outside, where he was joyfully reunited with Maggie. He didn't appear to suffer any wounds, other than his pride.

Happy 4th Birthday, M!

M decided he wanted this pirate cake for his birthday. It looks easy enough, right? I should have read all the reviews before I started. I had the cake baked by 6 yesterday morning and was feeling good about the day to come. I started decorating the cake about 8:30 or so. By 10, I realized it was going to be a lost cause. I'd already lost 1 layer completely, another layer was in shambles, and the remaining 2 layers were crumbling before my eyes. The boys thought this shipwreck was great, because they got to eat cake twice in one day. L did try to talk me into setting it on fire, but I declined.

I thought for a few minutes about how to make a more stable cake, loaded the boys in the van and ran to the grocery store to get more cake mix and icing ingredients.

This is what I came up with. It's a bit tall (looked more like an ocean liner to me), but M was happy and the other boys liked it as well. I finished just in time to get everyone and everything cleaned up before Judo (ugh-much different than what I had planned for the day).

Four is a pretty big age around here. M had his first official Judo class yesterday and did pretty well. He's been begging, practicing, and watching for months and he was excited. At church, M will no longer be allowed in the nursery, so he'll have to sit quietly for the church service. And he moves from the 2 & 3 year old Sunday School class to the 4-1st grade class, which includes going to Wednesday night activities. He's very excited.

Here are the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. We celebrated M's birthday by going to McDonald's for dinner (his brothers tried to talk him into Chuck E. Cheese but Cr & I nixed that). We came home, had cake, and M opened his presents. He received a Thomas the Train bed set for his toddler bed, a Pirate Ship, a Leap Frog Word Launch game, a walking Dinosaur (although it's not Trample, it's a Spinosaurus or something), and a Bike-Just-His-Size. He's quite happy.

Lobbyist

Last night, Cr came up with the perfect career for M.

Lobbyist.

M is passionate, persistent, and loud (I don't know if this one is a requirement for a lobbyist, but I'm sure it might be helpful at times).

Case in point:

After dinner, M decided we needed to have dessert. He request for ice cream went something like this:

M: Can we have dessert?
Mommy: I'm not sure. You guys didn't eat very well.
M: How about ice cream? We have ice cream.
Mommy: I don't know.
M (standing in his chair, jumping with each request): Dessert! Dessert! Dessert!
(I go over and ask Cr what he thinks about ice cream. He likes the idea.)
M: Ice Cream! Ice Cream! Ice Cream!
Mommy: Why do you want ice cream, M?
M: Because it's Yummy! Can we have dessert?
(Notice, he never strays from his original request)
Mommy: Yes, you can have ice cream.
(Cheering from all the boys)

So, he was successful with his lobbying. He must've realized that, because about an hour after they finished their ice cream, he came up to me again, with a big smile.

M: Mommy? Can we have ice cream tomorrow?
Mommy: I don't know.
M: How 'bout yes?

*sigh*

Genetics at Work?

J was working in his Explode the Code book yesterday. He was doing an exercise where he is supposed to write the word describing the picture.

The picture was a picture of a bathroom.

He wrote "Baf" (it was supposed to be "tub").

I guess one doesn't actually need to be born in the South to spell like they were born there.

Keeping It Real

Back in October, I mentioned I wanted to run a 5K. Not too long after that, I caught a cold and could not run. Then the holidays hit in full force, and I decided to go back to doing exercise videos or walking on the treadmill until after the first of the year. I began Cool Running's Couch to 5K program on the 8th and I began week 3 today. March 4th should be the final week. We'll see if I make it this time!

Summed Up

About the Packers Loss:

Z: "I'm not wearing a Packers Jersey again. Until next season."

Cr: "Well, what can you do. You live with Favre, you die with Favre."

It's a sad day here. I hope this means that Favre will be back next year, that they'll get most of his young team back, and they'll win the Superbowl next year and then Favre can retire.

Until then, I hope the Giants play as well against the CheatingPatriots and keep them from winning it all. I can't make myself root for the Giants, though. The pain is still too fresh.

Dinnertime Conversation

The funny:

J (looking slightly pensive): I'm glad I only have to get married once. I don't like kissing people.


The sweet:

M: When I grow up I'm going to go anywhere I want to!! (a short pause and a big smile) with Dad!!!

Stayin' Alive

The Judo Tournament was this weekend. L, Z, & I all competed. We all survived.

L took 3rd out of 3 in his division. The poor kid weighed in at 43.3 pounds, so his weight class was 43-58 pounds. In addition, the announcer messed up the names when they were calling competitors to the right mats, and we didn't hear his name get called. When he finally got to the right place (due to some error on my part), he had to go straight to the mats and fight and was caught off guard. He fought harder in his second match, but still lost. He was disappointed, but getting a medal anyway helped soothe that a bit.

Z took 2nd. Unlike L, he weighed in at 42.3 pounds, so he was the heaviest in his weight class. He won 2 matches and lost 1. He was really nervous, so I'm more proud he went out and fought hard.

In my class there were 4 competitors. I signed up for Master's (over 30, any belt color) at the recommendation of my Sensei. So did Anne (the other Mom in my Judo class). Well, due to a paperwork error, our Sensei ended up telling them to put us in Senior Novice. This class included a 13 year old white belt who outweighed me by 40+ pounds and a white belt cadet from the Academy. Uh, this was exactly what I tried to avoid by signing up for Masters.

My first match was against the cadet. I got an Ippon (which means I threw her so hard the match ended on my throw). I was really happy about this later when a friend told me he'd seen her at other matches and hasn't seen her get slammed, and when I found out that her and her cadet buddies were calling Anne and myself "the Moms". Heh. My second match was against the girl who outweighed me. I did get a score on her and survived when she landed on my head, but lost the match. My last match was against Anne, and I won. I ended up with 2nd overall.

And to top it all off, the Packers are hosting the NFC Championship!

Flashback

I cleaned out my craft closet over Christmas break and found a piece of paper where I'd jotted down a few things said by L & Z when they were 4 & 3.

A bit of background: They were huge Buzz Lightyear fans. Huge. And, Z was clumsy. Very clumsy.

One day he was running and he tripped. He looked up at me with a big grin and said: "I fall with style." (For those of you who haven't seen Toy Story over 1000 times, Buzz Lightyear claims he can fly, and when he attempts the result isn't exactly flying. Woody says "That's not flying. That's falling with style.)

A bit of background: The boys slammed the front door open and the doorknob put a hole in the wall. After a failed repair, we needed to get something from the store so the hole was in the wall for quite awhile. L asked us when we were going to fix it, and we started teasing him telling him that since he and Z did it they should fix it.

L's answer: "Little boys don't fix holes. God will come to my home and fix the hole. That will be fun."