Day 67: Conversations With Calen

Calen is still having some mild issues with his bike (nothing we can't fix), which prompted this random conversation in the kitchen this morning:

C: "Mom, can I buy a new bike?"
Me: "No, if there's a problem with your bike, Daddy will fix it."
C: "Why can't I just get a new bike?"
Me: "Do you have any money?"
C: "No."
Me: "That's why you can't. You need money to buy a new bike."
C: "Don't you have money?"
Me: "Not money for a new bike!"

Calen walks away, then comes back with a contemplative look on his face. 

C: "Mom, I think you should just go to Bank of America and get some money."
Me: "....Bank of America?" (we don't even bank there). 
C: "Yeah. It's a bank. For Americans. We're Americans. You can just go in there and get money there."
Me: "That's.....not how it works....."

I was going to explain how a bank actually works, but the moment had passed and his seven year old attention span had moved on to the Lego Bionicle he was playing with and began to explain how the BLADE SWORD SKATEBOARD can morph into whatever terrain it's skating on. 

That saved me a lot of boring lecture time on how banks work. 

The picture of the day is completely unrelated. At Calen's game today, Cam and another little brother were watching the hitter with their little hands up on an invisible bat, and when the hitter would make contact, they'd swing and proceed to "run the bases", which was actually just a loop around the bleachers. 

Can they just never grow up?

"Up to bat"

Day 66: Art Interpretation

As most households with boys (and girls) under the age of 18 know, Minecraft is a pretty big deal in the kid video game world. So big there's a whole line of merchandise to go with it: shirts, hats, toys, books. For Calen's Minecraft birthday party, he received a Minecraft handbook, a sort of guide to the monsters, weapons, minerals etc etc in the game. This is right up Calen's alley since he is obsessed with reading anything non-fiction, and has poured over this book for a solid month now. 

This morning I came downstairs to him happily sitting at the dining table with a pencil and crayons in hand and his handbook held open to the monsters page, drawing "lifelike models" of the monsters in the game. 

"This is my guide of monsters so if you see them in the game then you know what they are." Because I play as often as NEVER with him. But at least I'll know what they'll look like, just in case they ring the doorbell. He ran out of time to label them before he left for school, he said. 

I like how he tried to make them "3D". And really, for a 7 year old lefthanded boy, he's not a bad artist. 

Day 65: The Cages

Calen happened to challenge me to a match in the batting cages. 

"I bet I can hit more than you because I have bigger GUNS."

Then he proceeds to roll his sleeves up and show me his muscles. 

Actually, we had planned on going to the cages anyways. My neighbor and I joined a softball league on base and we are years/decades a little rusty. Plus both of our oldest sons play baseball so we took them with us to the cages. Then the challenge ensued. 

For the record, I did hit more than him. At a faster speed than him. 

Come on, good parenting means you don't let them win all the time. 

But he does have bigger "guns" than me. I'm sore, he's not. 

Day 64: Everything Is Better With Ninjas

We try to do a story every night with the boys before bed. The kids both like reading (Calen moreso than Cam), but we definitely have to be creative when it comes to finding reading material to keep early elementary aged boys engaged. 

Especially when it comes to the classics. Because let's face it, they're kind of played out. 

Unless you're this author named Corey Schwartz, who must either live in a house full of a dozen little boys, or is a college drummer in a hair band in his basement, or something equally cool. He has reinvented some of the classics with you know, ninjas. And friendly violence. 

What little boy wouldn't read that?

We have two of his books, The Three Ninja Pigs, and tonight's feature story: Ninja Red Riding Hood. 

Because everything is better with ninjas. 

I love reading these books. They make me laugh. It's the old story everyone knows except everyone is a ninja and there's wonderful scenes of ninja violence that rhymes and everything. And the illustrations are delightfully funny. 

I bet your childhood copy of Little Red Riding Hood didn't have illustrated rhyming battle scenes. 

Rumor has it there's another book we don't own called Goldi-Rocks and the Three Bears, and a new book coming out next month: Hansel and Gretel: NINJA chicks. 

This guy needs to win a Caldecott award for engaging little boys in reading. 

Battle scenes!

Day 63: The All Star

If Calen's coach gave out game balls, Calen would have gotten it today. 

The kid is not necessarily a natural athlete, but he's decent, for his division (8-under). 

But on this team, which is pretty much the Bad News Bears of Rohnert Park, Calen really stands out. Because he actually knows what he's doing. 

Tonight, he was playing 2nd base and took a quick grounder and threw it hard to the first baseman. It was an easy out, except the 1st baseman wasn't even aware the ball was in play, so the runner was safe. But the next play Calen got an even sharper grounder and took it upon himself to run to 2nd base and force out the runner. 

Outs in this division are still few and far between (except strikeouts). So it was a big deal that Calen got one (almost two) in a row. 

He also went 3-3 off the pitching machine with 3 singles, a run scored and 2 RBI's. 

Great job slugger. 

His 3rd single! Note the ball in play

Day 62: Shopping For Sushi (That's Actually Zucchini)

Camden came home from school with a note asking to buy some zucchini for his class, since they are making vegetable soup on Wednesday. 

Cute. 

So after school we went to the grocery store and I let him carry the basket and walk around and we found zucchini. 

Barely five year olds walking around Safeway with shopping baskets is tragically adorable. I mean handsome. Imagine the rage if Cam found out I called him "adorable". 

Since we were there at lunch time I picked up some (not very delicious) sushi at the deli. At home I ate half of it and put it in the fridge. Later, Calen opened the fridge and said "Sushi? Why do we have sushi?" and Camden goes "Yeah! Zoo-shee! It's for my school we're making soup!"

I guess he thought "zucchini" was pronounced "sushi". 

He's not bringing my sushi to school to make soup. 

On the hunt for zucchini (and not sushi)

Day 61: Life With Boys Volume #751

Sometimes you just need to dedicate an afternoon to building Legos and laying on the floor playing Army men. 

Because boys. 

Day 60: Plan B

It's been a long weekend, you guys. 

The goal today was to head straight from Calen's afternoon baseball game to this arcade/go kart fun place (Scandia Fun Center) and meet Cam's favorite Petaluma friend and his parents for an hour or two of fun (in lieu of a party).

Between the day-long birthday festivities yesterday, the sudden crankiness that Camden woke up with today (regardless of the fact that we tried to convince him that "big five year olds don't whine....", to no avail), and two baseball games set 2 hours apart from each other (thus us being out of the house for basically 6 hours today), we were all strung out, tired, and cooked. 

And then my friend called me and said she had just pulled into the Scandia parking lot, and it was packed, so packed there was barely any parking (100 spot lot) and we both envisioned lines ten kids long at each game inside. 

I looked at Cam, hot and cranky from having to spend the last two hours "watching" his brother play his game, and decided NOPE, there's no way this is going to happen today. 

Who wants to take two overtired kids to a place with 300 obnoxious kids where they have to wait in line for 15 minutes to do ANYTHING anyways. 

Not me. 

Unless it's Disney World. Because that's worth it. 

So we decided plan B: our friends would come to our house, we would eat Cam's cake, and he and his friend could play Disney Infinity upstairs and play Legos for a few hours until bedtime. 

Quiet. Calm. No one else's kids. And Cam was happy. Perfect. 

Where we spent basically the entire day. 

Day 59: The Day You Turned Five

My BABY is FIVE you guys! ::cries:: ::wails:: ::mopes:: ::etc::

Good Lawd, I'm tired. It's been a marathon since 5am and I'm char-broiled. 

The kids generally aren't allowed to get up before 6am. But the time on Calen's clock had been changed (probably by him), so they both come barging in at o-dark-thirty announcing "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!" and then we had to be those jerk dream-crushers to grumble under the covers: "It's not your birthday until 6am. GO to bed."

Of course, they never actually fell back asleep. So we were up as early as them. 

The birthday tradition in the house is basically the same every year with each kid. Their actual birthday is "family day" and a party (if applicable) is set for a different day. Because by God we as parents get to celebrate surviving another year, darn it!

So this morning it started with the usual birthday pancakes with whipped cream (chocolate this year...did you even know that's a thing), sprinkles, and a candle, and singing (as much as we can handle singing at 6am).

Normally, we wait until after Brad gets home from work to open presents. But since he hadn't left yet, and we were all up so damn early, we decided to hell with it, let him open all his presents at the crack of dawn. So he did. He got a couple small Lego sets and some Batman vs Superman guys. And the highlight of the day: a Star Wars BB8 droid that moves (rolls on the floor plus his head spins) and talks and has two modes, button mode (push the button on his head to move) and voice mode (he'll come to you if you call him...usually). So he spent the morning playing with that. 

It was a school day so I dropped him off at school with a package of Chips Ahoy cookies to share with the class, and then moped around town for 3 hours whining to myself that my kids were too BIG already, so I did some retail therapy and got Cam one more present and strapped it in his carseat for pickup:

Chewbacca!!

The initial plan after school was to go to his favorite playground with a Happy Meal, but it was POURING down rain, so we just went to McDonald's for lunch instead. 

Then we came home and I asked Cam what he wanted to do and he said he wanted to play Lego Jurassic World (on Playstation) with me, so we did a little 2 player action for an hour or so.

Once Calen and Brad came home, we headed off to Mary's Pizza Shack (Camden's dinner restaurant of choice) and he terrorized our table and the one next to it with his Lego T-Rex. The waiters brought him a sundae and sang and he giggled and announced loudly "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!! I'M FIVE!!!" to any patron within shouting range. 

T-Rex's need drink breaks too

Then off to Toys R Us per tradition, where he picks out his own gift from me and Brad. This has always been my favorite part, watching them stroll through the aisles with (almost) complete freedom and seeing what they're SO into each year. By then he was pretty tired, but he held fast to specific things that he suddenly NEEDED in his life. Including an entire set of Big Hero 6 figures, a Lego Batmobile, and a random $3 jump track piece for Hot Wheels (of all damn things). And Brad and I got him a bucket of Toy Story green army men because obviously AND it comes with the parachuting guys too. 

I mean, c'mon. 

He had such a fun day, but by the time we got home he was pooped and it was bedtime. I checked on him not ten minutes later to find him sacked out under his new Jurassic World blanket, snuggled in with Baymax and Chewbacca. 

Good night birthday boy

The cutest part of the day was that whenever anyone would tell him "Happy birthday", instead of saying "thank you", Camden would respond "Happy birthday to you too!" All day. So cute I almost died.

At least he's still kind of little. 

Day 58: Cake Night

It's the night before Cam's birthday which means work into the wee hours of the night decorating the dining room, wrapping presents and most importantly making the cake. 

The cake is a big deal in our house. It's part of my "gift" to the kids, a ridiculous, fancy, out of control awesome cake. 

Camden's request was a Lego Jurassic World cake. I'm sure he would have been just fine with a chocolate cake with a dinosaur on top. But what can I say? Go big or go home. So we had to add some people being eaten by dinosaurs. Bonus points for a Lego toilet and a guy falling into the target. 

Day 57: Picture Day

Most of you know that I try to do photoshoots of the boys individually around their birthdays. It works out for me because it's spring and that's always a good time for pictures. 

Camden doesn't like taking pictures. The woes of being a photographer's child. 

So with a lot of commanding threats bribery of bubblegum (which since baseball season started, has been a hot commodity in this house), I convinced him to walk down with me to this little gazebo by the lake on our base this morning to take his birthday pictures. So we walked all the way down there,

to discover I had forgotten the battery for the camera. 

Well shit. 

So we walked all the way back to the house and by that time it was time to go to his Kindergarten screening at the elementary school. Then came home and tried again, with the battery this time, thank you very much. 

And holy MOLEY did they turn out cute. For not liking to take pictures, Cam is extremely photogenic, and while his smug little half smile is effing adorable, I can also get a very genuine grin out of him by demanding "DON'T SMILE!!!" 

Ten minute photo session. And done. Easy.

Photo dump!

The classic "Cam" face

Intermission to find "rollie pollies" (potato bugs)

And then we changed gears, and decided to include all of Camden's favorite toys. Because you know, they're only five once, and before we know it toys won't even be cool anymore. 

Cam's favorites are: Dinosaurs (Jurassic World in particular), Star Wars anything, transformers, monster trucks, and this week, Baymax (Big Hero Six).

And then we had to include the superheroes that appear almost daily in my house. Enter Cam's favorite heroes: Batman, Thor, and Hulk Smash. 

All in all, this was a really fun photoshoot and I'm pleased with the results. 

Happy almost 5th birthday Cam!

Day 56: Thor In Pajamas

We were so uninteresting today, the highlight of the day was Cam running around the living room in his pajamas and Thor helmet, furiously striking down imaginary foes with this foam Thor hammer. 

Good thing my phone was nearby and it takes stupidly fast photos, or I would have never caught this (or taken video, which may be floating around my house now....)

This is also the third night in a row where I've gone to bed, laid down and said "FU*#!!! I didn't do my blog!!" 

So I'm keeping it short. Again. We just haven't been that exciting this week. 

Day 55: Life With Boys volume 135

You know you live in a house of boys when you go to sit down on your sofa and there's a dozen matchbox cars crammed in between the cushions. 

"It's a parking garage that got squashed by an earthquake." Calen informed me later. 

Well, now I know....

The parking garage I sat on. 

Day 54: Reasons My Son Is Crying

Today's 4 year tantrum is brought to you by:

Camden suddenly insisted he needed to wear his aviator sunglasses to church. Inside church. Inside his Sunday school classroom. And I said no, he can't wear them inside the classroom, that I'll hold on to them, until I pick him up. 

I might as well have said that Disney World burnt to the ground. 

Note: He has not cared about these sunglasses at ALL, ever. Until this morning. Now they're the most important thing in his tiny little life.

Kid just wants to look good. 

Prior to his sunglasses-removal meltdown. We're inside here. In church.

In other news, we finally painted and "erupted" the kids' little volcano from the kit they made last week. 

I have an issue with the term "volcanic eruptions." When I lived in New Jersey, there was a gentleman's club (that's the nice term for it) next door to our neighborhood Red Robin called...."Volcanic Eruptions." 

Eww. Eww. Ewwwwwwwww. 

Facts you never wanted to know but can't live without. 

It's "erupting". 

  

Day 53: Life's a Beach

The best thing about Brad being in the Coast Guard is that no matter where we've lived (and it's been a lot of places now), we're always near a beach. 

And who doesn't love the beach. 

So that's what we did this afternoon after the boys' doubleheader of baseball games. We went to Bodega and chilled at our local beach. Then we bought pizza on our way home because who wants to cook after chilling out on the beach? 

Is it summer yet?

 

Waiting for that perfect wave...

Cam wrote his name, can you see? Love his 3291 lines in the "E" in his name

Day 52: Sobering.

Disclaimer: this is not a run of the mill post. It is deep, intense, and covers unpleasant topics. But it's important, and I encourage you to read it. 

I am troubled tonight. 

Normally, you hop on Facebook to do nothing more than waste a good half hour of time scrolling through your news feed, occasionally giggling at funny cat videos, cooing over pics of your friend's new baby, skipping over all the exhausting political posts (in my case). 

But sometimes, sometimes someone posts something that hits you. Hard. Like standing on the freeway and getting blasted by an 18 wheeler right in the heart. It makes you feel terrible, but you read it anyways. Because it's important to read. Because it gives you perspective. 

Tonight, I was completely knocked off my feet by a link. This link. 

The backstory is, my little cousin, just a year older than Calen, is battling cancer, and has been for some time. This link is about one of her closest friends. If you don't care to read the article (though I encourage it), her friend went in for a routine doctor appointment today, to discover the cancer is back. Not just back, unstoppable. Untreatable. She may have a month to live. She may have less. 

She is six years old. 

As an empathetic person already, I immediately threw myself into this mother's shoes. But as a mother, a mother of young children, this knocked me flat. For I am not the type of person that thinks "this could never happen to me." What if it did happen? What if I took my sons to the doctor, expecting nothing, and walked out hearing, knowing, they would not live to see this summer. What if, as of today right now, Calen has played his last baseball game. Camden will not reach Kindergarten. They will not go to the playground again. They will never ride a bike again. They will not grow up, get married, have children of their own. They have no future. And not because they were taken suddenly, like a car accident (not to discount the heartbreak and misery of losing a child suddenly), but because of a disease that you can't control, slowly, silently, stealing the life out of your child right in front of you. And you are forced to sit by helplessly and watch. For a week, two weeks, a month maybe. There is no treatment, no cure, no way to stop or slow it. How would you deal? How does this mother deal??

I also think of my baby cousin, who has buried more of her friends at 8 than I have at 31. I think of myself at 8, and try to imagine watching multiple friends slip away from childhood cancer. And if I myself had the same disease these kids have, as my cousin does, and am forced to wonder "Will I be joining them in Heaven? Will I be next?" At eight. These are things 8 year olds shouldn't have to think about. 

I was at this cool playground in town today with Camden, hours before I ever got on Facebook and read this post. Instead of sitting by and watching Cam play, like I usually do, I decided I wanted to play. I hopped on the swings beside him and we jumped off pretending to be skydivers, I climbed the castle toy with him and spun him on this spinning thing and we ran and laughed and I remember thinking "what a great day, I'm so glad I actually decided to be involved today, instead of just watching."

And then I read this, and it meant even more. Because there are days when we want to disconnect, when we aren't interested in talking about Lego Ninjago for an hour or laying on the floor playing matchbox cars, when we count the minutes until bedtime. And not that it's wrong to feel that way. But this gives me a lot of perspective, to want more involved days. Because we have no idea what will happen tomorrow. And you will not look back on your (or your child's) life and say "I wish I had sat on the sidelines more." You're going to wish you had jumped off the swings with them. You're going to wish you could have just one more day at the playground. 

One of my nightly prayers is to thank God for having healthy, happy children. And to pray that I continue to have healthy, happy children. We, as parents of healthy children, cannot take a single day of our children's lives for granted. Because we have no idea what tomorrow will bring. 

Healthy. I thank God I'm allowed to say that.