Swashbuckling Eggheads

Easter is not really my kids' favorite holiday. 

Well, Camden likes it. He announces to anyone that will listen that he was "born on Easter." (Actually, he was born on Good Friday, and came home on Easter. But to him that translates to born=Easter). 

Okay, they don't hate it. But there's a lot of pastel colors and girlyish prints that make them cringe. 

So, how do you get very boyish boys engaged in decorating Easter eggs (beyond just coloring them)?

By adding PIRATES, obviously. 

I found these pirate Easter kits at Target on clearance after Easter last year and saved them for this year. It has pirate stickers, shapes and yes, weapons, and even comes with an egg holder designed as a pirate ship.

Argh, matey. 

The boys loved making these little pirates. They added their own drawings to them using markers and even made treasure map and chest eggs, and a shark and an octopus. Because obviously. 

Calen wasn't feeling well at all so he made a few pirates and then called it a night. But Camden was so into it he made not only a dozen of his own pirates, but finished off Calen's kit as well. He probably would still be making pirate eggs if I hadn't told him it was time for bed. 

The best part of this is opening my refrigerator to two pirate ships and 20 buccaneers staring at me. 

Calen's pirate crew. He made the ones on the ship and Cam and I did the ones in front. 

Cam's swashbuckling crew

The Day You Turned Eight

Calen is eight. 

EIGHT!!!

I'm pretty certain him turning 8 is illegal somewhere. Like some sort of time traveling violation because we just brought him home from the hospital like, last week and there's no way that eight years have passed. 

Besides, I'm obviously not old enough to have an 8 year old. 

Calen's party was actually yesterday. Actually, he had two parties. One was last week during an impromptu 4 day visit to Washington (don't hate me, you guys. We had some family stuff to deal with and didn't tell anyone we were in town) with his best friend at a trampoline park and then Red Robin for dinner, followed by a joint birthday cake for him and his cousin that are a week apart. 

Celebrating spring birthdays! Calen and Brooks in March, Cam in April

Birthday celebrations with Calen's best friend Cameron

Recreating a scene that happened at Calen's first birthday, when Cameron came over and stole birthday cake and then Calen fed him chunks of cake with his hands (but, we used forks this time. Because obviously)

Okay, back to yesterday. 

Calen got to pick three friends to meet up at (yet another) trampoline park and arcade, play for an hour and a half, then go to Mary's Pizza for a rowdy dinner involving six boys, a half ton of breadsticks and a Pokemon cake. Super fun and we left a very large tip. 

Today we kept to our family birthday traditions. 

(note, I've done four of these "The Day You Turned" now with Calen. Here's when he turned three, four, and seven). 

We started with birthday pancakes, which are regular pancakes except birthday'd with whipped cream, sprinkles and a number candle, and comes with free terrible singing rendition of "Happy Birthday" by Mom, Dad and brother. 

Today happened to be the first day of school back from Spring Break (boo), and Calen announced no more than 20 minutes before we were leaving that he needed to bring in cupcakes to school for his class. Because I can whip those babies up in 15 minutes. So instead, we ran to the exchange and bought a package of Chips Ahoy cookies and I told him to tell his classmates to imagine they were cupcakes, and call it good. He liked that idea. 

At lunchtime I decided it would be fun to surprise him at school with a McDonald's Happy Meal instead of a lame school lunch. We ate together in the cafeteria and I got to watch the chaos that is elementary school lunchtime.

After school, Brad came home early and we did presents. We only had two small presents (and one big one outside), so I thought it would be fun to do a scavenger hunt instead of just sitting and opening. It took him all over the house: in his shoes, in the pantry (with a favorite bag of chips), on the toilet (where one of his presents sat), in the library closet upstairs (where a new book awaited), in the clothes dryer (another present inside), in the game closet and then finally taking him to the garage where a full size basketball hoop awaited him (unassembled, because life). It was so fun to watch him run through the house and be truly excited and grateful for everything he received. 

It's Monday which means baseball practice for him, that we allowed him to cut out early from so we could continue our tradition of the birthday boy picking where we go out for dinner. This year he wanted Orange Chicken from Panda Express. What can I say, the kid has good taste. 

Birthday dinner!

Followed by our annual trip to Toys R Us where he uses his birthday money to pick out what he wants. I love watching him wander through the store deciding what he wants. For the first time in eight years, he passed by the matchbox cars without picking one. Instead, he picked out a much desired Nerf gun, two small Lego race car sets, and a larger pack of Pokemon cards. 

Birthday swag!

He told me it was the best birthday ever, so I guess we did something right. And we had fun too. 

I can't believe he's eight. The days are long but the years fly by. Happy birthday buddy. 

"Mom, We Are OUT Of Food", A Tale About Raising Boys

I woke up this morning, stumbled down the stairs where I assumed the boys were on their 7th bowl of cereal or something. As I rounded the corner I found the kids lounging on the sofa (and not getting ready for school), and Calen looks up annoyed and dares to say in an irritated voice: 

"Mom, we are out of food." And then, as if I had insulted his existence by not having ten boxes of cereal ready to pull out of my sweat pants, went back to reading his Pokemon character handbook. 

For the record, we did have food. But it wasn't cereal, granola bars or graham crackers. 

I opened the freezer to "wow" the kids over the treasure trove of Eggos hiding in plain sight and toured the kitchen to show them other edible items in our house such as an entire bowl of bananas, that the boys thought were inedible because there very slightly dark yellow (but not quite brown). 

Calen wasn't particularly impressed and decided he'd "help" me by writing out a grocery list.

But, he was so excited about being helpful, so I tucked the list in my pocket and took it with me for my (already planned) grocery trip. 

The boys eat a lot. Like, I-don't-know-what-to-do-when-they're-teens a lot. And since we live in a very expensive area, I shop a lot at Grocery Outlet. Which is basically the ghetto leftovers of America's grocery stores, but shit is cheap there. 

This cartful of food might last me a week:

Please appreciate the CEREAL for Calen.

We had to make a house rule that each person under the age of 20 is only allowed ONE bowl of cereal per day, after find the boys (particularly Calen) eating 3-4 bowls a morning. Stop eating all my damn food!

Honestly though. Once Calen gets beyond those child-labor-law ages and can legally work, he's paying for his own darn groceries. 

Good grief. 

Chucky And The Slime Pit

This was actually about yesterday. But I'm too tired to post about today. 

Other than sports, the kids and I haven't had a lot of interaction the last few days. Because those sports are taking over our lives. We have, or had, practice or a game every.single.day for the past 3 weeks. Calen was finishing up a basketball season, and baseball started for both boys. The only day we had that was sports free was Sunday, but I work Sunday nights at the exchange on base. So, that doesn't leave for a lot of spare time lately.

Brad went off to help work one of the boys' league's baseball fields today to get ready for opening day, so it was just the kids and I this morning before I had to leave for work. The weather was absolutely crazy, with sunshine and then suddenly hail and then rain with wind, so we decided it was best to stay inside and find something fun to do. 

Yesterday, I wandered into Michaels' and found these stupidly cute little forest homes with little pewter gnomes and all sorts of accessories to decorate for spring. I thought "hey! How cute would it be for the kids to build a little home for a little gnome", especially since it would be a good substitute for St Patricks Day, since we are absolutely zero percent Irish at all. Also, I had a gift card so it was basically free. 

I brought home a little terracotta plate and some fake moss, the little house, a gnome, and some stepping stones and mushrooms. I showed the kids and excitedly asked if they wanted to build the little gnome a home. 

"Yeah, I guess so." "Not really." said Camden. They didn't seem too impressed. 

But, they built a little home and got sorta kinda into it the more they did it. They argued over what the gnome's name would be. Cam offered "Chuck E Cheese" and they both agreed on the shortened "Chucky". As if a gnome in your house isn't creepy enough, name it Chucky. 

It took a whopping twenty minutes and they were done and then asked if they could go back upstairs and play. They really didn't seem thrilled with it but I find the little gnome house a charming spring decoration in our entryway. 

Can't win them all.

We still had time before I had to go to work, and I wanted to salvage the day. So I pulled out a boxed science experiment that we had been saving for a rainy (hailing) day. This one was easy and further up the boys' alley: slime making. 

The kit had this mystery powder that you add water too and mix. After a short time mixing it turns into slippery, slimy, slime. We split it in half and the boys enjoyed playing with it (at the table, in a contained plate) and seeing how stretchy it could get. We discovered later it glowed in the dark, so they'd take turns carrying their plate of slime into the bathroom and turning off the lights. 

Definitely more exciting than building a gnome house. 

Gross booger there, Calen 

A Person's A Person No Matter How Small

I guess yesterday was Dr Suess Day, or his birthday, or something involving him. I only know this because Facebook told me. 

Good ol' social media saving the day again. 

We didn't do anything Dr. Suess-y. We didn't even read a Dr Suess book, even though we own many of them. 

How rebellious of us. 

My favorite Dr Suess line is "A person's a person no matter how small" (Horton Hears A Who). It's an especially good reminder for me, as a parent, to speak to my children as humans, and not less-than. It's also a good reminder to them that they are people, and thus need to chew one bite of food at a time, and can't pee at the playground. You know, balance.

In small people news today, Camden lost a tooth. 

And you know, my kids NEVER lose teeth normally. There is always some sort of story to go with it. 

This tooth somehow got loose naturally. I think. The kid face plants a lot that he might have knocked it loose at some point. I knew it was loose which instantly means I want nothing to do with it. Loose teeth are effing disgusting and they trigger my gag reflex in ways I can't explain. Luckily, Camden takes care of his own loose teeth. He wiggles them (gag) and then yanks them out himself (even more gagging). I told him if he yanked it out too soon the tooth fairy wouldn't take it. Famous last words, of course. 

This morning at a some ungodly hour (a little after 3am, actually), I was startled awake from our bedroom door bursting open and a large voice from a tiny person "I LOST A TOOTH!!!!!!" and then switched our bedroom light on in the middle of the night after announcing "Uh oh, I dropped it. I can't find it." And thus began a five minute search for a tooth hiding somewhere on my bedroom floor, before I groggily told Camden "forget it, we will find it tomorrow" which THEN brought on tears because Cam thought that the tooth fairy would come right now if we found it, since you know it was nighttime. 

Go to bed, Cam. 

I somehow calmed Cam down and convinced him it was the middle of the night and tooth or no tooth, he needed to go back to sleep. Then I went back to bed, hoping and praying on my way back to my side of the bed I didn't step barefoot on a tooth, because gross. 

Also, Brad slept through all of this. Because of course he did. 

Once morning (real morning) came, Cam found his tooth (under my bed) and I ceremoniously set an alarm on my phone to not forget the tooth fairy tonight, because can you imagine if I did. 

Also today, Calen was asking where the Angels baseball team was from, and I answered "Los Angeles, California", Camden goes "Why are the angels lost in California?!" 

Oh Cam, please stay small. 

A person's a person no matter how small!

Don't Even Bother Using The Phone. Ever.

Well, I had a little tantrum and stayed off the blog for a while. I ignored my laptop, watched TV, and went to bed every night without blogging. And I liked it. 

Alas, all good things must come to an end. 

Now that my boycott is over, I stumble back to report to duty. 

What can I say, it's strangely fun. And people were complaining. 

Mainly the reason I opened my laptop today was because this afternoon two things happened spontaneously in my living room that caused something in my head to trigger "well that's blog worthy". So here I am. 

As I'm on the phone with a friend -- and let's just stop here for a moment. Why is it that my kids will completely ignore my existence if I ask them to put their laundry away, or to try and discuss how their day is going, or shout that the house is on fire, for hours on end until the second I pick up the phone, and then suddenly both are bounding down the stairs at the same time shouting over each other, one announcing "Mom I totally just nun-chucked myself in the penis" while the other is describing the entire life story of a Lego samurai guy. It doesn't matter what dark closet I try to hide in, the moment I make a phone call, they find me. 

Anyways, I'm on the phone with a friend today, and I find myself asking said friend to hang on for a second while I scold the five year old. "STOP shoving more food in your mouth WHILE YOU'RE CHOKING. Seriously!" (He was not like, choking-choking. He was coughing with food in his mouth. Don't call CPS). Then a whopping minute and a half after that incident, I'm shouting at the seven year old "WHY ARE YOU NAKED IN THE LIVING ROOM?! Take your pants, and your cup (he was getting dressed for baseball practice) and go to your ROOM where nearly eight year olds are supposed to get dressed. Jesus!" and then carry on with my phone call unphased, and neither is she, because she has two boys too. 

The moral of this story is don't even bother using the phone when you have kids. Ever. 

Good Lawd. 

Today was swallowed up by baseball practice. While Calen was practicing with his team, Cam and I did a little practicing of our own. He is convinced that "When I'm six and then seven, I'm going to play big baseball and I'm going to be the catching guy that sits behind the hitter." He means, he wants to be a catcher. Tball doesn't have catchers but he's getting ready for next year. We acquired some free catcher's gear, which Cam calls his "armor", so we've been practicing how to maneuver with it on and catch overhand thrown balls. 

The catcher's gear was made with 7-9 year olds in mind. He's 5, and he's small for his age. So while the gear fits, it swallows him up, and his tiny body running with it on makes for an uncanny impression of Baymax from Big Hero 6. He does as well as he can with it, but half of the time when he tries to reach for an outside pitch his whole body just flops over flat unceremoniously like that kid from the Christmas Story (I CAN'T GET UP!). 

Seriously can't stop laughing. 

But he liked it so much even after practice he ran around with his armor on anyways. And who doesn't like a cute little tiny baseball player in catcher's gear. 

Seriously, we couldn't "boy" more today if we tried. 

He thought he was so cool watching big brother's practice in his "armor"

Day 365: Three Hundred and Sixty Five

Well folks, we made it. A full year of blogging. And while I may have dropped the ball and not actually uploaded a blog post every 24 hours, there is a single blog post for each day on the calendar for the past year. 

This was a lot harder than the last time a did a year blog challenge. I mean, near impossible. 

Last time I did it (Feb 2012 - Feb 2013), life was a lot simpler. I had two toddlers at home. 100% of my days were wrapped around caring for, keeping alive and especially entertaining little kids. I was buried under piles of Pinterest crafts and simple "adventures" to the fish department at Petsmart. It was so easy to blog because every day we were doing something, even if it was just exploring a pile of mud in the back yard or watching baby Cam learn to walk. 

This time, life is a whirlwind. The kids are both in school, and by the time they get home, we are shoving forkfuls of yesterday's leftovers into our mouths while changing clothes and running across town to the next baseball practice or basketball practice or whatever practice. The kids are no longer toddling over to me with a handful of blocks asking to play, they are upstairs building Lego masterpieces together, or at the playground with their friends. Occasionally they ask me to play, but it is few and far between. Oh, they're still little and we have so much fun together in the few moments we have sitting still. But by the time I've settled down to write the blog in the evening, I'm so tired I don't even remember what the hell we did that day. Let alone anything worth mentioning. 

So, I dropped the ball a lot. I'd post 3 days worth of blogs at a time because I blinked and Monday turned into Thursday without me even noticing. But I did it, and it's quite an accomplishment. I cherish my last year-long blog, my own personal diary of what life was like with a 1 year old and a 3 year old. I know someday when my kids are too old to be called "kids", I will cherish this year stretch as well. I will try to keep up with it once a week or so, but no promises, people. 

As for today, we took a page out of the old book. Brad was feeling pretty sick today so the kids and I went out on an excursion to "The Hot Dog Store" (also known as Costco, named by Calen at age 2). 

This used to be our favorite family outing when they were very small in New Jersey. We would wait until Brad came home from work, drive an hour up north to the nearest Costco, and have a hot dog dinner (Calen the hot dog, Cam the bun) as a family, and then do some leisurely shopping at the very quiet (and basically abandoned) store.

So tonight we sat down and had Costco dinner together (pizza, this time) and went around shopping. The kids still find profound enthusiasm in picking out their own bath towels and sneaking seconds at the food demo trays, and climbing all over the mountains of toilet paper while I'm not looking. We had a strangely fun time at Costco together. 

The boys and I came home and turned on the Rescuers (very loudly, I might add, to drown out any barfing noises coming from upstairs), and had a great evening together. 

Here's to another year down of blogging. I really hope I find the time and the energy to keep up with it from time to time. 

And thanks to the like, twelve people that read it. 

Day 364: Movie With The Muggles

Today was the second Monday in a row that the kids had a holiday off from school.

Who makes up all these holidays? Do they have kids? Did they think about all the extra work us parents have to do on said holidays to keep their kids busy? Especially if you're a parent during the rainy season in Northern California? Stop it with the holidays!

So it rained, again, and we were stuck inside, again. 

I fully intended on raiding my Pinterest board of "random shit to do with the boys on rainy days" (not actually called that) to find a project to do, but instead I slept in, let the kids eat cold leftover pancakes, and tooled around on my iPad in the morning instead while the kids argued over a single Lego car. 

"Hey guys, you know that big huge bin of Lego instructions in the middle of your room?"

"What bin? The blue one? Yeah, what about it?"

"Why don't you pull out a set of instructions and build something. Like a second car. You know, that's what that bin of instructions is for."

"Oh, it IS?! COOL!"

.....

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one around here that is actually aware of the purpose of my surroundings. 

And while we were upstairs, I decided it was time to teach Cam how to make his bed. This is very much a do as I say and not as I do life lesson, because the kids are required to have their beds made, but I probably make my own bed maybe once a month. 

What can I say, I have shit to do. 

We did salvage the afternoon. Over the course of the the last year, Brad has slowly been reading Harry Potter (full unabridged, illustrated copies) to the boys each night. They finished Sorcerer's Stone a couple months ago and are about halfway through the Chamber of Secrets. So, today we rented the first Harry Potter movie (Sorcerer's Stone) on Amazon Prime and watched it as a family with a bowl of popcorn. 

I'm going to admit: I've never seen a single Harry Potter movie before. In fact, I only just started reading the books a few months ago. I'm currently on the 3rd book (Prisoner of Azkaban) and am loving the series. Better to be late on the train than to never get on.

At dinner, we had a fun conversation over the movie versus the book (Calen noticed a lot of parts from the book were cut out) and how we are a Muggle family and we all came to the agreement that there are definitely wizards living at Disney World to explain all the magic that happens there. 

Not a bad day with us muggles. 

Day 363: Blanket Forts and Board Games

The rainy season straggles on, and we're stuck inside another day. There's only so many movies you can watch before you just start going stir crazy. 

Today, we rearranged some furniture and took an old fitted sheet and made a blanket fort in the living room. We flipped the ever-present cardboard space ship (see yesterday's post) over to make a little table in the middle of the fort, and then the 4 of us proceeded to spend the entire morning playing board games inside the fort. We played Monopoly Junior (the half-hour abridged version of Monopoly), Operation and a Lego City game where you play cops vs robbers and try to arrest the robbers/steal the loot by rolling dice and strategically planning your moves. 

In spite of a potentially boring rainy day, we made at least the morning and family fun (indoor) day. 

Day 362: Fire The Thrusters

The saying "who needs toys when you have a cardboard box" doesn't change, no matter how old your kids get. 

I ordered new dog food containers on Amazon, which of course came in the largest box in the history of boxes, much to my kids delight. For the last two days, this box has taken over my living room and has been completely refurbished (using markers and Lego accessories) into a rocket ship. They've fired their thrusters to outrun alien ships, shot down vicious foes using plasma cannons and have both died in heroic battles numerous times. 

I hope they never grow up. 

"Quick! Fire the thrusters! Shoot the enemy while we get ready for hyperdrive!"