Do Not Leave Your Laptop Unattended

The previous blog was posted by Seth. I had to leave it so sometime in the future I can show Seth his first successful even if unintentional blog post. I went upstairs to quickly (or so I thought) talk to Brad and then checked on dinner. I guess during this time I left my laptop in the reach of Seth. While stirring dinner, I heard Erik say "Seth! Seth! Mom!"

My response is typical mother response of "Hold on, and unless it is an emergency please do not yell."

"Mom, Seth has you laptop."

"Be right there, hey wait I didn't post anything!"

So the moral of this long winded story DO NOT LEAVE YOUR LAPTOP IN REACH OF A 1-YEAR-OLD!!! (My husband tells me this constantly. I must be a slow learner.)

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Mommy Boy

In my house, we do not have any other females. I am the only one. Even our pets are males. (We have Betas and the males are the pretty ones, my terminology not theirs.) We do have Goldfish but if you ask any of our boys they will tell you the Goldfish are males too. So it should come to no surprise to me that my three-year-old does not naturally use female pronouns .(He would have no problems if we spoke Chinese though!) Now come to find out that not only do I have to correct grammar usage but I also have to explain that we are not a gender neutral society. My older two boys went through the stage of defining everyone they knew as a boy or girl but Matthew did not really go through that stage so I am a Mommy boy, aka Mommy to boys (in my head at least). I wear this name with pride since we do have all boys. I love my sons and feel blessed that God has given us so many boys to raise into men. There are times when I need some "girl" time though not just adult time but time around other females. The grossness factor alone can be quite overwhelming. There are just so many ways boys are different than girls and sometimes I wonder, especially since I do not have another female on my side, if I am up to the challenge! Only time will tell...

Baby Dinosaur

Did you know we have a baby dinosaur in our house? Now we have a daddy dinosaur and sometimes a mommy dinosaur depending on his mood. If you have not guessed by now, Matthew is always calling Seth his baby dinosaur. When I tease Matthew and tell him Seth is my baby boy he says, "You call him baby boy, I call him my baby dinosaur." He is the daddy dinosaur and sometimes amazingly enough he is the mommy dinosaur. He has "Bubba" or brother dinosaurs too. Every once in awhile he trips me up when he asks where his baby dinosaur or Bubba dinosaurs are but for the most part I remember. I love watching his imagination work but it does makes me wonder what we are going to have in our home next?

Maturity

Erik, my oldest, is now eight years old. He is hard working and caring in so many ways but this has caused some growing pains. It seems as though I do not allow him to do things that others do. This includes using the stove (he likes making eggs for breakfast.), and shampooing the carpets just to name a few. This all came about by him throwing a crying fit one night when he stayed up too late. Needless to say he did not go about it the best way but it did cause Brad and I to reevaluate what we allow him to do. We now allow him to make eggs in the morning but he has to make them for everyone. We are now spending more "adult" time with him and allowing him to help in projects and operate some of the machines that were previously off limits. (I have a Kirby and I do not want it broken by improper use.) One side benefit came yesterday when the Seth was sick with a temperature, Erik was able to go shampoo the carpets at Nana's. This was something I had intended to do myself. I am both sad and glad that he is getting so big. I am also very thankful that he is so eager to help and to make sure he understands how grateful we are Brad and I are taking him to lunch today. It seems as if they grow up so quickly and I am sure before I know it he will be ready to operate even bigger machinery, like a car. No more of that now I starting to hyperventilate.

Clothing Swap

I just attended my first clothing swap. I have to say I love the idea. Someone was cleaning out her children's closet and noticed she had a lot of extra clothes. She happens to work at the ARC child center at the junior college and promoted this idea of a clothing exchange. Everyone brings the extra they have and swaps it out for stuff they need. I quickly went through my kid's closet and weeded a bag out. The friend that told me about this and I headed out there today. There was tables set up for all the different sizes and one just laid out on the appropriate table what they brought and then went through and grabbed what they needed. Essentially I picked up some of what I needed and was rid of my extra in a short time. This will work for me every time. Obviously not a perfect solution since I need 3t and 18month jeans and was only able to get one of each but did I mention it was FREE!

How Polite!

Seth this morning told Matthew "Tan-tu" today after Matthew gave him his cup. My heart melted that he was talking and was so polite. Then I remembered last night when he was laughing at pretend farts. Yup, all boy.