Day 6: Leap Year-Day-Whatever

This is the second time since I've done this blog that I'm posting on leap year (leap year? Leap day. Which is it when speaking about the specific day?) which is kind of fun. Except last time the kids were a LOT smaller. This also means that kid I've known since elementary school turned like eight today (what a drag that crap is). 

Calen has been on this cooking thing lately. In true Calen fashion, he's been asking me the "how does everything work" questions and really wants to know HOW food ingredients are made ("Mom, how do you make pepperoni?" -- buying it at the store is not an acceptable answer for him. So on a whim he asked me yesterday if we could make fruit salad (of all things) with dinner tonight. And I said sure, because that's an easy one that I don't have to commit a lot of thought/energy/sanity/cleanup to.

I decided that since he's almost seven, he's old enough now to learn how to use a knife (*gasp!* *shock!* *horror!*) to slice fruit. So after very specific safety instructions, I allowed him to slice an orange, all while hovering over him like a very nervous sentinel. 

And he did great! As in, he successfully sliced fruit and didn't lose any fingers in the process! 

But because he's a six year old boy, things escalated quickly as he explained to me that it's lucky that the orange isn't a zombie orange because if it was he'd NINJA CHOP IT (and gave me a very alarming visual aid by slamming the knife down onto the cutting board) and suddenly I was very realistically telling my kid to "please don't use real knives as zombie weapons in this house" and to only "very very carefully slice the rest of the fruit and no more ninja chopping". 

We don't have a normal day in this house. 

Note the intensity on his face. This is serious business

Day 5 - Salvaging Sunday

What are we supposed to do with our Sundays now that football is over?! 

Not put on real pants until 3pm, that's what.

Actually, I didn't feel so hot today, so we kept it low key. I gave the kids two new monster trucks and a box of sidewalk chalk for no good reason other than "yay, it's Sunday!" and that somehow kept them busy for a good hour or two outside on the patio while I very importantly sat on my sofa, played Fallout 4 and tried to move as little as possible. 

Calen is (most likely) bossing Camden on how this race is going to start

But who am I kidding, I'm a mover and a shaker and can't handle wasting an entire family day. So later this afternoon we walked over to the little lake we have here on base and went fishing. The boys love the idea of fishing but not the fact that a fish won't clamp on to your hook the moment you cast into the water. So it's a good lesson in patience for them I guess. And a good lesson in patience for Brad and I, who had to constantly put down our rods to untangle the kids from their lines, fix their reels, re-teach them how to cast, and explain to them for the 300th time that complaining will certainly not cause the fish the leap out of the water and flop around at their feet.

And no, we didn't catch anything this time.  

And yet somehow, they still continue to ask us to go fishing every week or so.

Calen had been asking for me to buy ingredients for them to make homemade pizza and I finally remembered to buy them on Friday. So the kids got to make a pizza for dinner. Between the cheapo $1.65 pizza crust, equally cheap and gross pizza sauce, and overboard amounts of Mexican shredded cheese (because that's what we had), the pizza was...completely disgusting marginal at best. But the kids thought it was amazing so I just sit back and congratulate them on their "delicious" pizza and eat a salad for dinner instead. 

Maybe that's what I need to do to eat healthier. Have the kids make their own pizza every night. Then I would eat salad every day and they would happy and my scale would be happy. 

Maybe I should just order pizza. 

Please note: I had to draw a LINE in the sauce down the middle of the pizza so that the kids each had their own half and couldn't cross the line. Thus preventing fights over pepperoni. 

Day 4: Picking Dandelions in the Outfield

I'm tired and cranky and not in the mood to blog so I'll keep it short. Just a little tidbit from today.

Camden had a much better tball practice today than Wednesday. Not like he was suddenly Sportscenter's Player of the Week or anything, but he threw no more not so intense tantrums on the field and dare I say even took turns reasonably. 

At one point, he was ready in the infield for the ball, but happened to look down and saw a completely irresistible dandelion in the grass. I heard him across the field shout:

"Oh! A flower!" Snatched it out of the grass and announced "I have to go give this to my mom!!" And started running off the field towards me, flower in hand. 

The coaches were patient but convinced him to stay on the field and deny me my flower until after practice. 

Daddy's lesson of "always give your mother flowers" must have truly stuck in the four year old's heart. Can't help but love it. 

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Calen had practice today too. And look how brave he was, actually volunteering (and excited to try) to be catcher. ("Coach! I can be catcher today! See? I have a cup on" -- proceeds to punch his junk with his fist --- while I bury my face in my cell phone hoping no one will notice he's my kid). He took to it quickly and didn't back out of those machine pitches flying right at him. He even caught one in the chest, and laughed afterwards, saying "It's a good thing I have all this armor on!" I was so proud of him!

I can't even tolerate how cute a six year old in catcher's gear is

Day 3: Reading Material

You know, most six year olds like stories with knights and dragons or astronauts or something. Calen doesn't like fiction. I mean he does, but only during storytime before bed. If my little bookworm is going to lock himself in our "library" (upstairs walk in storage closet), which he does daily, it's going to be strictly non-fiction. He'll pour over charts about sharks. Or Lego Star Wars minifigs. Or National Geographic for kids. Or his personal favorite, natural disasters. 

Here's Calen's reading material for the day:

Completely, and totally, obsessed. 

I don't know if I should be pleased that he prefers non-fiction over stories, but after 3 solid years his obsession with natural disasters hasn't ceased to exist, and I'm starting to get shifty-eyed over whether he's going to become the next Doomsday Prepper 15 years from now when he's moved out. 

I mean, great if he does. Then if the next big earthquake/hurricane/zombie apocalypse/sharknado happens, I can just hang out in his basement and eat MRE's and clean his semi-automatic shotgun. As he tells me, the next time there's lightning in the sky, he's just going to shoot it to protect us. With his Zombie-Strike Nerf Gun.  

Seems legit. 

He also brought home this gem from the school library. Some author somewhere knew exactly how to get to a 1st grade boy's heart:

The sub-title. I can't even. 

AND, there's even glorious color photographs of sea predators battling other sea predators. Ever seen a narwhal impale a man-o-war jellyfish? Me either. But here it is in full page glory.

Come on, you can't resist seeing whether a crocodile could take down a giant squid or not.

Okay, I'll admit it. I was more than a little amused by the photoshopped violent illustrations. And totally allowed Calen to gleefully show me each "battle" on every page and let him read me all the little fact bubbles and discuss it with me in detail this morning. 

Apparently this is one title in a whole series. I can't wait to see what he brings home next week.

I mean, at least he likes to read, right?

Day 2: Conversations That Shouldn't Be (But Are With Boys)

You know, people say that boys are gross, but unless they have boys, they have no idea. Boys are gross. On an unimaginable level. Where after some interactions with my young sons, I feel the need to shower, take some Dramamine, and go to confession. And they're only 4 and 6. 

Here's just a snippet of gross that I dealt with today:

Me: "Calen, go get a sponge, get it wet, and go scrub all those boogers off your wall above your bed!"

Calen wasn't even phased by how this is gross, and went to do it. Then came downstairs. 

"Mom! I got some of the boogers off but some are REALLY stuck on there and I couldn't get them all off by using my fingernails. Can I have a knife?" 

So he took a butter knife and chiseled boogers off his effing wall. This is no less than the third bedroom he's had where he's had to do this.

You know those new Clorox Bleach Commercials? Like This one? They should hire my kids. And give me the profits. Because I deserve it. And I need to buy bleach.

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Later, I sent them to the playground within 50 yards of our house. Cam has gotten in a lot of trouble at the playground lately, so before he walks out the door, he goes:

"Mom, I won' go in other people's houses and I won' pee on the pwaygwound an I won' pull my pans down and show my butt to anyone. Pwomise!"

...And what the hell exactly do you even say in response to that? 

"Umm.....good?"

And of course we can't forget Calen's latest new favorite word: "balls". Which we didn't teach him, thankyouverymuch (I don't waste my swear words around the kids on a word as stupid as balls), but I'm sure spending his days around first and second grade boys, he's picking up all sorts of new weekly vocabulary words. So now if he stubs his toe he goes "Oh my balls!!!!" Which of course immediately gives me a chemical reaction that causes my eyeballs to pop out of my head and my inner Monster-Mom voice comes out. 

"WHAAAT did you say?!"

"Ummm....nothing!"

And then I asked him if he even knew what balls are, and he goes "Uhhh, my weiner?" And that's the moment where you just turn around and walk away, because God forbid you correct him, and he has a new gross body part to laugh about to his friends. Nope. 

The only good thing about this new disgusting mode my kids are in is that Brad and I have a new game when he comes home, called the "Guess what came out of the kids' mouths today!" game. 

Unfortunately I've been informed that they don't outgrow this until never. The fact that I live with a 30 year old man confirms this. 



Obviously, no picture today. Because ewww. 

Day 1 - The Raging Side of Tball

Here we go again!

I was digging through my old posts of my last year long daily blog, and I'm pathetically thrilled that I have a daily diary of my vagabond life with two kids. Like in a "awww look how cute and funny my kids were" kind of way. And I thought about how many funny things the kids say or do now that they're bigger that I want to remember someday. Sooo, for some stupid reason, I decided to set up another post-every-day-for-a-year challenge. I'm a glutton for punishment.

I tried to start it up again in San Diego. But with Brad being deployed basically the entire time, I basically threw up my hands with a resolute "eff it". And I might throw my hands up on this one too. We'll see. 

Unfortunately, now that the kids are older (busier), it's going to be that much harder. So don't expect a lot of stories like I used to tell. (And honestly, I couldn't give a shit if you read whatever story I tell anyways). Maybe just a picture and a caption. So here we are, it's day 1!

I do however, have a story for tonight. 

It's almost spring in California and that means baseball season is already here. Baseball is a big deal in our family. Calen has played for two full years now, going on his third. And poor little Cam, who has been begging since he was 2 to play, is finally, finally, on his first tball team this spring. His second practice was today.

I was a little worried about Cam playing. He's fiercely competitive (like me). But when I say fierce, I mean angry, pissy, feet stomping tantrum fierce. He couldn't handle soccer last summer, when, if another kid took the ball away from him, he'd throw himself on the floor and scream. Or tackle the ball like a football. Or tackle the kid like a football player. But baseball? Where you have to stand around and wait for the ball to come to you (or more infuriatingly, NOT come to you)? I'm not sure if he could handle it. 

But I knew it would probably be funny.

I wasn't disappointed today. He was over on that blah left side (3rd, short, left-center), where the majority of hitters (being righties) don't hit the ball that way. So every hit he'd stomp his feet, put on his whine face, turn and wail to the coach and it's HIS turn, yell at the other kids ("HEY!!!!!!") when they got the ball (and it wasn't even close to Cam). His face was red and splotchy and tears streaming down his face and he was mad. 

And suddenly, you're that parent, the one with that kid that can't get his shit together like every other kid on the field. This is that shadowy part of real parenting no one warns you about. 

This is the face of whining. This is real, raw parenting here people. 

And then he got his chance at playing first baseman. Hey, the ball is coming to you every time! Be ready! Be excited! And he was!

And then he wasn't paying attention, and didn't realize the kid was throwing it to him. A perfect, arcing throw. That landed on top of Camden's head. 

"Heyyyyy!!! You HIT me!!" 

And after he was done throwing a fit that he got hit (not that he got hurt), he got to bat! His favorite! Excitement again!

And then it was over, and he was back to whining. 

I expected him to tell me after that he hated baseball and never wanted to play again. 

But he got in the car and said he loved his baseball team and couldn't wait to play again on Saturday. 

(hands up) Whatever you want, kid. 

First base is dangerous....they should have handed him a helmet too.