Michelle's Madness

Last night, Jacob was having a hard time getting to sleep. He said he was having bad dreams, but I know that he hadn’t even fallen asleep yet and just wanted to snuggle. So he came into my room and I let him snuggle with me for a few minutes. Well I was watching Family Guy, so of course he started watching with me. At one point Stewie said, “You’re going to (bleep)ing die in about 5 seconds…” and Jacob said, “I think he means ‘F word die’”. Indeed. So I told him, “You know, as a 7 year old, that’s probably not something you should really know” and he replied, “I won’t tell anyone”. As long as we have an understanding.

Then, a couple of minutes later, Stewie called someone a tall glass of poop juice and that certainly got raucous laughter from him. A good poop joke is always a hit with boys. On that note, I put him back in bed. As I was trying to say goodnight to him, he was laughing so hard that I starting laughing really hard, which only made him laugh harder. Brian came into the room to see what was so darn funny. Jacob kept repeating the line and I told him not to bust that out at school and he said, “I know, I won’t”. Here’s hoping…

We were goofing around before the boys went to bed tonight and Logan was showing me his different "faces". Here is a selection:

Happy Face:


Sad Face:


Mad Face:


And then on to the silly faces:

Silly Face #1:



Silly Face #2:


Silly Face #3:


Silly Face #4:


And Jacob got in on the silly face act too:

So last night I’m sitting at the dining room table with the boys, and I started thinking about some of their differences. Sure, they have many similarities; they both love Star Wars, superheroes and Transformers. They love to play outside with their friends and go to the park. They love the same movies. And of course, everything Jacob does, Logan has to do too, because Jacob is the coolest person Logan has ever met.

But it’s their differences that are very interesting. Logan wakes up smiling; Jacob wakes up grumbling, once you finally get him to wake up. Jacob is a picky eater, whom we must convince to try new things; Logan is game to try just about anything. He even loves broccoli. Jacob is a little negotiator (I told him if my company ever wants to buy another company that I would tell them to give him a call; he asked if I was kidding him); when asked to do something, Logan will usually just say, “Okay!” and do it. (Usually.) When doing anything that is considered a competition, Logan cheers when anyone wins, while Jacob gets annoyed when he isn’t the winner. We’ve been working on this by playing Chutes and Ladders. It’s actually a great way to show him that just because he is last, it’s not impossible for him to win. Someone might land on a chute, or he might land on a ladder. His sportsmanship has been so much better this week, even last night when he did come in last. He knows that there will be another game and another chance to win. This is a huge breakthrough for him.

I remember the first time we ever played Chutes and Ladders with Jacob. Logan was too little to play, so it was just the three of us. Jacob won the first game, but when he lost the second game, he got all kinds of pissed off. To the point where we put the game away and didn’t play again for a long, long time. We played this weekend and he started to do the same thing: he won the first game, but when he was behind on the second game, he started to complain that he didn’t want to play anymore. He didn’t get too angry though, so that was a nice change from the little beast he became when he was younger. Hopefully it will just continue to get better.

The next task: teaching him to win gracefully!

Let me start by saying that Jacob is turning into me more and more everyday. So any of you who know me will understand why the following exchange did not end in punishment or admonishment of any kind (other than to tell him not to say this to anyone else!). We were in the car, driving to my mother-in-law's house, talking about Transformers.

Jacob: "All Transformers are too hard for Mommy." (followed by riotous laughter from the males in the vehicle)

Me: "Yeah? Bake a cake!"

Jacob: "Bite me!" (followed by laughter from all)

Brian said that comment was sent straight through from God himself. It was said with such perfect timing, I'm actually very proud. I can't possibly get mad at him for saying that because Brian and I have conversations like that on a regular basis, jokingly of course. It would be different if he had said it out of anger and slammed his bedroom door on me. But no, it was just another demonstration of the sarcasm that is so prevalent in our genes. (Thanks Dad!)

Though I do have to say that it can be difficult dealing with a mini male version of myself on a daily basis. But as long as we all maintain a somewhat compatible sense of humor, I'm sure things will be okay.

Trudging through the store
Kids bouncing around like they're
pinballs on steroids

Jacob lost his first tooth today and he'll be getting his very first tooth from the tooth fairy. Although he just this minute informed me that it's not the tooth fairy that gives kids money for their teeth, it's parents. I asked him how he knows that and he said he just knows. He said nobody told him that, he figured it out by himself. Hmmmm. Interesting. Well that's a little twist. At least he still believes in Santa for now.

Now I just have to get used to that little gap-toothed grin!

1. The pumpkin patch
The boys always have so much fun at the pumpkin patch. Unfortunately this year, due to time constraints and long lines, we weren't able to do everything we wanted to do, but we still had fun. And we got 3 HUGE pumpkins for only $10.75, which is awesome. At lesser pumpkin patches, these pumpkins would have been $10-$15 each.

We did some of the corn maze, which the boys thought was fun for about 7 1/2 minutes. Which is okay, because the maze is ginormous, so it would have been worse if we had been smack in the middle of it and then they decided not to walk anymore. This year's maze was cut into the shape of a Toyota Tundra. This is an actual aerial view of the maze. All the green is corn.



My pumpkin boys:




In the pumpkin maze and overlooking the pumpkin maze:





Fun pictures and pony rides:






2. Halloween goodies
No, not just candy, but other Halloween themed yummies. I have an Amish Friendship Bread starter that I've been using to make bread for the last couple of months. The boys love it for breakfast. For the most recent batch, I replaced the oil with canned pumpkin, and it made really yummy pumpkin bread. Today, I made roasted pumpkin seeds using the seeds Brian pulled out of the pumpkins he carved. I made one batch just regular salted, and the other batch spicy with garlic salt and cayenne pepper and Worcestershire sauce. Delicious! And last night, the boys and I had a blast decorating Halloween cupcakes:




3. Little boys in Halloween costumes
What could be better than little boys dressed in their costumes, totally getting into the spirit with a cool action pose?



(BTW, Jacob is Optimus Prime and Logan is Bumblebee. Remember, there's more than meets the eye!)

4. Really cool carved pumpkins
Brian's project for today: carving our awesome annual jack o lanterns! They were time consuming, but quite worth it. The boys are super excited about these. Didn't he do an awesome job???





Here is one more that Brian did a few days later:



Bring on Halloween!

Sunday night (well, at 2:30 in the morning, so technically Monday morning) I half woke up to find Jacob giving me a kiss. Then he went right back to bed. Since I only half woke up, I couldn't be sure that I wasn't hallucinating it, so I asked Brian about it. He said he did come kiss me, and he wasn't up to go to the bathroom or anything.

So I asked Jacob last night if he had come into my room in the middle of the night just to give me a kiss. He said yes, and I asked him why (not to look a gifthorse in the mouth or anything; I'll take little boy smooches for as long as they are willing to give them to me. It was just curious timing) and he said, "So it was before you left for work." Awwwwww....

Yesterday after I picked up the boys, we were in the car and Jacob asked me, “When I grow up will you still be my mom?” I told him, “Of course I will still be your mom. I will always be your mom and you will always be my son.” He thought about that then asked, “When Logan grows up, will he be your grandson?” I told him, “No, he will also still be my son. You both will always be my sons, you will always be brothers, and I will always be your mom.” He thought about that for a moment then said, “Cool.”

Later on last night, I was lying on the couch and Jacob came and lay in front of me to snuggle under the blanket. After a while I told both boys to go get their jammas on. They both ran off to their rooms, but Logan came right back, and with a mischievous little smile, proceeded to steal Jacob’s spot with me. I asked him if he was stealing his brother’s spot and he said yes, and then just lay there with a satisfied little smile. Jacob came back after getting changed, and expected to come right back to his spot. He was quite disappointed to find his little brother right where he wanted to be. About 10 minutes later, I told Logan to get his jammas on and Jacob stole back his preferred snuggling spot. But Logan just climbed up and laid on both of us.

Yesterday was 9/11, and I usually try to avoid all the news coverage of the anniversary. So I didn’t intend to watch any 9/11 stuff yesterday, but Brian stopped on the History Channel briefly and we both got sucked in. We watched the show “102 Minutes That Changed America” (I think that’s what it was called – I know it was 102 minutes). It was 102 minutes of continuous video footage and recordings from multiple video cameras around the area (the news and various people in different parts of the city looking out their windows, or in NJ looking across the water, and even from on the ground by the WTC). Also included were recordings from police band radios and walkies. It was still so surreal to watch, maybe even more so now because the footage they always showed on the news was just from the news helicopters, which were required to stay 5 miles away. Nothing like this, with all of the video from on the ground, showing the huge cloud of ash and debris that shot between all the buildings, and people just covered from head to toe in grey ash.

So Jacob started watching with us for about the last 45-50 minutes, and he had nothing but questions the whole time. “How did this happen?”, “Why did this happen?”, “Why don’t the terrorists like America?”. We figured that he can’t avoid seeing and hearing about it at this time of year that it was okay for him to watch so we could talk to him about it. He kept saying, “When is the other building going to fall?” like it was a movie, and we kept telling him it’s not a movie, that this is real. He was having difficulty wrapping his mind around this happening in real life, and why it happened, and I can certainly understand. It’s tough to wrap my mind around it too. He asked some very good questions though, and in his mind he processed the “why” to be “…because we have all the cool stuff.” Not a bad interpretation of such a horrible event by a 6 year old who was still in the womb when the event took place.

When I was helping him get ready for bed, he was still asking questions and he asked, “How do you become a good person?” So we had a discussion about that. He’s got a pretty good head on his shoulders already, not bad for a 6 year old. We talked about how good people care about other people and help other people and do good things (I used the fact that I gave blood the day before and how much he helps his brother as examples). He seemed good with that.

I can only imagine what he’s telling his classmates about the tv show he watched last night…

I love a good long three day weekend. Plenty of time to putter around the house and get things done without busting my ass, and lots of time to play, hang out and be lazy, eat, and nap. But of course, the beasties need to be entertained periodically, or they'll eat us, or at least drive us very crazy. So this morning while Brian was at work, the boys and I baked some cookies. Jacob chose to make chocolate chip M&M cookies, which turned out yummy. Of course, I cannot stop eating them...




Then when Brian got home, we surprised the boys and took them to the local serpentarium. It's a museum, but you can also buy creatures and their various accoutrement. I very much wanted to take home a turtle. I love love love turtles! I loved the snakes too and I really wanted to pet some of them. I wanted a snake in high school but my then (evil) stepmother quickly vetoed that because snakes apparently represent the devil. Turns out she WAS the devil, and now she's burning in hell.... well, Arizona, but tomato, tomahto.


Larry, Moe, and Curley here were pretty funny. I swear they were posing for the camera.


And I'm not sure if these guys were showing us their butts, acting aloof, or if they were just really interested in something. Actually, it kinda looks like they're watching the game...


This snake was quite interested in Jacob. As soon as he walked up to the glass, it moved forward from the back of its enclosure to check him out.


This is the snake Brian got a call on a while back. The owner committed suicide, so he had to collect her from the home. However she is so big and heavy that her cage didn't fit in his truck. She's about 10 feet long and 100 pounds. Note the smaller snake next to her. That's her boyfriend. They are trying to mate the two. Imagine that, you lose your owner and your home and your new owner immediately starts pimping you out. Oh well, no worries, if she's really that bothered by it, she can just eat the male. That'll learn 'em.


These green tree pythons are really cool. They make me think of the book Verdi. And they're super expensive.


One more day of lounging, food and fun. The weather has cooled and the boys will probably play outside with their friends some more. We'll barbecue some burgers and do nothing. Just what a holiday weekend is for!

Last night, I experienced every working mother’s favorite situation (please note the sarcasm). Jacob was reading to me, and then I read to him, and we had a nice little chat before I turned out his lights for bed. Then our conversation turned to this:

Jacob: “I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.”

Me: “I know, I don’t want to go to work tomorrow, but it’s just one more day and then we have a 3 day weekend.”

Jacob: “I want you to pick me up from school tomorrow and on every minimum day.”

Me: “I know sweetie, but I can’t pick you up from school because I have to work. I will try to get the time off so I can pick you up on your minimum day, but I can’t promise it because I’ve taken too much time off already.”

Jacob: “Everyone else gets picked up by their moms (which of course is untrue, but try telling that to a sad, tired 6 year old). It’s not fair!”

Me, while giving him a hug: “I know it’s not fair honey. I want to pick you up and it’s not fair that I can’t, but I have to work because our family needs me to.”

Then he started crying. Just stick the knife in a little further… now a little to the left… THERE you go, right in the heart. Now my day as a working mom is complete.

I'm done with hot weather. Unfortunately the hot weather didn't get the message and it's supposed to be 106+ on Thursday. I'm overheating just thinking about it! I am definitely ready for some cooler weather, homemade stew, a fire in the fireplace, visits to the pumpkin patch, and my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving and Halloween. The boys are trying to decide what they want to be for Halloween, and of course they are very indecisive. They are flipping through a catalog and they want to be something from every page: Batman, Power Rangers, Indiana Jones, Darth Vader, an astronaut, you get the idea. But it sounds like Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are the clear favorites. That will be really cool, and they are starting to get excited too. Are we there yet?