As soon as Josh got home from school the other day, him and Caleb started bantering back and forth. It was getting on my nerves, but after about 5 minutes of it… I opted to not say anything and just record what they said. I had little to no contributions to the conversation, but they just kept going… it was actually more fun to be an observer then a contributer and now when I go back and read it, it actually was quite funny! Maybe you'll get a kick out of it too.
C- There is lava under the ground.
J- Not everywhere.
C- Mom, is there lava under the roads? … pause.... if there wasn’t lava under the roads, then what IS under the roads?
J- gravel.
C- Mom, what’s gravel?
C- Brooks can talk
J – no he can’t…
C- yes he can, he can say grandpa.
J- nooooo, he says Dad. He doesn’t say Grandpa.
C-Mom, can Brooks say grandpa?
...pause...
J- She's not getting in the middle of this.
J – I remember when you weren’t even alive yet.
C- No you don’t.
J- yes I do.
C – Was Mom alive yet? Or was she already dead?
J- YEEEEES she was alive (laughing).
J- Can I have soda? ….. please?.... pause.... Caleb already did… I can tell by the look on his face! (Caleb turned around guiltily to reveal his red mustache. Josh was right right. Caleb had some for lunch. Josh proceeds to pour himself some pop.)
J- you are a baby… because you don’t want to watch "Monster House".
C- Mom, Josh keeps saying I’m a baby.
J- Maybe because you are one.
C- I don’t like you… and YOU’RE the baby!
J- Mom, Caleb said I was a baby.
J- Caleb, if I weren’t born yet, what would you be doing?
C- I would play Wii.
J- If I wasn’t born, you wouldn’t have that Wii because I got it for MY birthday.
C- Play legos?
J-No, you wouldn’t have that either
C- I would play xbox? ....pause... Would I have clothes?
J- You would not have any of that stuff, because pretty much everything in this house used to be mine.
C- under his breath to himself… We wouldn’t have these strawberries? (if Josh wasn’t born yet)
J-Caleb, you’re putting your dirty hands all over the strawberries!
C- I cleaned my hands.
J- they don’t LOOK clean!... let me smell them. (hmmm, where has he heard THAT before?)
C- Brooks can have peanut butter/jelly now. He’s old enough.
C – Would we have this water? (if Josh waan’t born yet?)
J- (muttering to himself while doing his homework) Man, I can’t do anything today, all because of me! Now I have to go to bed early because I talked back… a half an hour is a long time!
J-Can we have a friend over to play?
Mom- I don’t know… you guys have been fighting with each other since you got home.
J- I know, it was kind of fun. We haven’t done that in awhile.
Going back to the conversation about what Caleb would do if Josh wasn’t born yet…
C – would we have this cup?
J- If I wasn’t born yet, you would just sit there and drool…
C- (speechless)
Then they just disappeared into the playroom, and I haven’t heard a peep out of them!
toilet... shmoilet
A couple weeks ago, Brooks threw the TV remote to our bedroom TV into the toilet. It no longer works. The cable remote does change the channels, so if we choose to lay in bed and "surf" we can still do so... however, volume control and turning the TV off is now impossible unless you get out of bed.
(This is the part where I divulge how lazy we really are!)
When you're tired and on the verge of drifting off to sleep, the last thing you want to do is get out of that nice, warm bed, just to turn off the TV. So, the result is, we don't watch TV in bed anymore. It's just not worth it.
(This is the part where I redeem myself!)
Now, 2 weeks later, I'm proud to say we are making better use of our night-time hours. I am reading more and Mike is rediscovering an old hobby. It's great... I feel so much more productive and so much more empowered because I'm not allowing my "brain to go to mush", which is what I always tell the kids.
Who knows?... maybe I'll just put the other TV remote in "the toilet" as well. My next post might be about how me and Mike are having conversations longer then the average commercial break.
(This is the part where I divulge how lazy we really are!)
When you're tired and on the verge of drifting off to sleep, the last thing you want to do is get out of that nice, warm bed, just to turn off the TV. So, the result is, we don't watch TV in bed anymore. It's just not worth it.
(This is the part where I redeem myself!)
Now, 2 weeks later, I'm proud to say we are making better use of our night-time hours. I am reading more and Mike is rediscovering an old hobby. It's great... I feel so much more productive and so much more empowered because I'm not allowing my "brain to go to mush", which is what I always tell the kids.
Who knows?... maybe I'll just put the other TV remote in "the toilet" as well. My next post might be about how me and Mike are having conversations longer then the average commercial break.
Brooks Bond... 007
Brooks, my 18 month old, has a knack for slipping, unnoticed, into rooms and shutting the door behind him. This immediately gets him off my radar, because when I see a closed door, I assume that it kept him out. It's only after I've looked in every other opened-door-room that it finally dawns on me that he's managed to disarm the door and slip in undetected. The end result can often be catastrophic! You might wonder how I can be fooled so easily... trust me, I wonder the same thing... especially when it happens daily.
Here's how I think he does it. He quietly awaits. He is constantly plotting, and uses his seemingly innocent "playing" as a decoy. He has learned my pattern of behavior and can calculate the exact time it takes me to rotate a batch of laundry, or unload a dishwasher. He has an acute sense of timing, despite his inability to tell time. But most importantly, his ability to sense my moment of weakness, (along with his highly sensitive cloaking device) and sneak beyond enemy lines, which leads me to believe that he truly is a mastermind!
Here are a few of his recent victories...
--toilet paper roll emptied onto bathroom floor
--toothpaste mountain on the bathroom counter
--clothes from his drawers strewn all over the room and mixed in with dirty clothes pile... what's clean? what's dirty?
--permanent marker on the couch, wall and window
and my personal favorite...
--remote control in the toilet
Bravo Brooks... I've been foiled again!
Here's the little bugger dancing because he got hold of the xbox remote!
"Don't tell Mom!"
People can't keep a secret. I myself have been guilty of passing along a scandalous tid-bit (of my own, or someone else's), but deep down I'm leery of the consequences of the divulgence. Basically, I know that if I let something slip, it's bound to hit the fan and become public knowledge. So, to prevent it from happening, I either, 1) keep the truly juicy stuff to myself... or 2) do not utter the words, "How did anyone know?"
But I'm amazed how a vast majority of the population, including my children, have yet to figure out this seemingly simple "cause-and-effect" rule of the universe. Because time after time I have witnessed countless people make a mistake or do something stupid and then deliberately tell someone all about it. And then days, weeks or even months later they are utterly astonished how anyone could have found out!
So, I have three examples to help illustrate my point...
1) I came downstairs one morning to find a heap of colorful tin wrappers scattered all over the counter. I did a quick scan at the faces of my two young sons and after a quiet deliberation in my head, came to the conclusion that the chocolate-face-Caleb was the culprit. His obvious failure to conceal the evidence was his own demise, however, he repeatedly blamed his elder brother, Josh for telling on him.
2) I recently read a post on facebook where the person divulged, "totally disappointed in my very best friend". Do they really think that so-and-so is going to ask another so-and-so if they saw so-and-so's message on facebook... and that maybe this will continue round and round until the best friend actually finds out that they are a total disappointment? Maybe this is just the poster's passive-aggressive attempt at getting even... but is it possible that people are really clueless enough to think that if they make a general statement that people can't connect the dots and figure out who they are talking about? Do people really believe that they can spout off whatever comes to mind, and that there will be no consequences for their actions?
3) I overheard a conversation last night between sons #1 and #2. I was doing the night-time-quick-pick-up, and Josh and Caleb were in their rooms getting jammies on. I wasn't sure... but I assumed that their conversation had something to do with a large collection of socks under the bed. There was some more whispering, and then I heard the words, "Don't tell Mom!" So far, no one has come forward or tattled about the contraband under the bed. And under more serious circumstances, those words "don't tell mom" might cause me to cringe and worry into the night, and construct a plan to nudge the guilty one to come forward. But since their crime was just a pile of dirty socks, I think I'll overlook it... at least until laundry day!
But I'm amazed how a vast majority of the population, including my children, have yet to figure out this seemingly simple "cause-and-effect" rule of the universe. Because time after time I have witnessed countless people make a mistake or do something stupid and then deliberately tell someone all about it. And then days, weeks or even months later they are utterly astonished how anyone could have found out!
So, I have three examples to help illustrate my point...
1) I came downstairs one morning to find a heap of colorful tin wrappers scattered all over the counter. I did a quick scan at the faces of my two young sons and after a quiet deliberation in my head, came to the conclusion that the chocolate-face-Caleb was the culprit. His obvious failure to conceal the evidence was his own demise, however, he repeatedly blamed his elder brother, Josh for telling on him.
2) I recently read a post on facebook where the person divulged, "totally disappointed in my very best friend". Do they really think that so-and-so is going to ask another so-and-so if they saw so-and-so's message on facebook... and that maybe this will continue round and round until the best friend actually finds out that they are a total disappointment? Maybe this is just the poster's passive-aggressive attempt at getting even... but is it possible that people are really clueless enough to think that if they make a general statement that people can't connect the dots and figure out who they are talking about? Do people really believe that they can spout off whatever comes to mind, and that there will be no consequences for their actions?
3) I overheard a conversation last night between sons #1 and #2. I was doing the night-time-quick-pick-up, and Josh and Caleb were in their rooms getting jammies on. I wasn't sure... but I assumed that their conversation had something to do with a large collection of socks under the bed. There was some more whispering, and then I heard the words, "Don't tell Mom!" So far, no one has come forward or tattled about the contraband under the bed. And under more serious circumstances, those words "don't tell mom" might cause me to cringe and worry into the night, and construct a plan to nudge the guilty one to come forward. But since their crime was just a pile of dirty socks, I think I'll overlook it... at least until laundry day!
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