Say it ain't so

Last night I was upstairs with Jack, helping him brush his teeth, when he told me some startling news. This was news I was nowhere ready to hear and did not expect to be hearing it anytime soon. I have a girlfriend. Nope, no way, nada, I don't think so. I took a deep breath and shook it off-surely he means he has friends who are girls. Yes, that is what he means. Then I look at him and ask him to clarify: girl who is a friend or girlfriend? He looks at me and says-girlfriend. Hmm... Ok, well really what is a girlfriend in kindergarten? I mean just a girl you call girlfriend right? You think she is pretty, you want to pull her pigtails, and maybe make her scream by shoving a frog in her face. So I ask him what exactly a girlfriend is? I mean he may not even know what that word means. He looks at me like I am an idiot. Then he says-A girl you might marry one day. Deep slow breaths. Deep slow breaths. Well, yeah I guess he does know what a girlfriend is. Then I ask him how he knows she is his girlfriend. He says-we hold hands all the time and there is even a rule about not doing it but we do it anyway. Again I repeat--NOPE, NO WAY, NADA, I DON'T THINK SO!!!!!!  Maybe I passed out for a minute, maybe I turned white, maybe I turned red, maybe I yelled-THAT GIRL MAKES YOU HOLD HER HAND?! I don't really remember. The next thing I remember is him still talking about how last year at Montessori a couple people had girlfriends but he didn't. I just sort of nod and say in a slow calm voice- I am glad you waited.

Now my head is swimming with all sorts of things like= no kissing, no sex, no babies, respect, does he know how to treat a girl with respect, I haven't even gotten around to that yet, I bet that girl is tricking him, wait -no that is mean, and all types of crazy thoughts that are probably overly exaggerated for a simple kindergarten girlfriend. Then I think- Where is Pete? I need Pete.

Let me just say Pete was not on the same page as me at all. When I called Pete he was proud that Jack had a girlfriend in kindergarten because Pete didn't have his first girlfriend until 2nd grade. What?! No no no. Then he says maybe this is why Jack has been acting better at school this week-he needed a girl to reign him in and exert a positive influence over him. Again-No, no, no.

To top it off, this morning when I took Jack to school he told me I didn't need to walk him to class or even into the building because he knew the way. So I was left standing on the sidewalk just watching him walk away.

Deep Slow Breaths, Deep Slow Breaths, Deep Slow Breaths.

Jack started soccer

Yesterday Jack entered into the world of team sports. He is playing 3 v 3 soccer with no goalies. He and Pete have been practicing for a couple weeks now. Of course, when we arrive at the field a sense of fear overwhelms Jack, he no longer wants to play soccer anymore and believes that everyone will think that he is stupid. After some prodding we get Jack to walk over to his team. Once the game begins and he is able to kick the ball all fear leaves and he even scores the first goal of the game--his first goal ever! After this it all becomes about how fun it is to run after the ball, kick it, and even 'explode' other people. He didn't realize that people ran into each other or even fell down sometimes and he thought that was awesome.

When I arrived to the informational meeting for Jack's soccer team I was asked to be team manager and said sure. So last week I was helping to sort, label, fold, and pack up t-shirts for the whole league, sending out an email to assign snack duties to the other families on the team, and working the concession stand. In the concession stand I was in charge of making pretzels, nachos, and popcorn-making popcorn causes slight finger burns just so you know. Pete says I am turning into one of those moms that gets super involved in everything. I believe he might be right though that is not what I intended. For Jack's school we have signed up to help in the library, bring in snacks for the teachers, help with classroom parties, and the book fair.

Luke became very interested in puzzles. We have a 12 piece Melissa and Doug puzzle that he sits in front of for over an hour every day. He breaks up the pieces, flips them over, then reassembles the puzzle all by himself. Last week he would have me sit with him and help him out but this week he doesn't want me anywhere near him as he turns the pieces in various directions to get them all to fit correctly. Occasionally he will ask where one goes but mostly he just wants to show me the finished product. I am impressed with his focus and the repetitiveness of this task. He will just sit and do this one puzzle over and over and over again for at least an hour without stopping.

Thomas loves toilets. He loves to splash, slam the lid, and apparently throw things in the toilet. Thomas loves the toilet so much that I have tried to impress on Jack the importance of closing the lid after finishes but he doesn't always remember. On Saturday Jack did not remember and I heard Thomas making his way in that direction, so I asked Jack to go back and put the seat down, but instead Jack said, " Mom, I can't. Thomas put my pajamas in there!" I think we may have another mischief maker.

I bought a couple new sippy cups for Thomas, some without handles, and now he refuses to drink anything. For a few days I was really at a loss as to what to do because he really didn't want to drink out of these new cups. Well, we figured out that Thomas wants to bypass the no handle sippy cups for just the real thing. Once we handed him a regular cup and a bottle of water he drank like a pro.

scissors and toilets

After a phone call from my sister and a brief look at my calendar it was decided we would make a last minute visit to Henderson. On Sunday we decided to go feed the ducks at the State Hospital and then follow that up with some frisbee golf down at the Riverwalk. While at the Riverwalk it began to rain but we weren't quite done playing so we didn't let a little water stop us, but once we (me) got cold it was time to go home and change out of our wet clothes. Jack thought it would be a good idea to cut paper, and I agreed that it would give the kids something to do while I got changed, so I handed out the scissors (safety scissors for Luke) and paper then headed back to dry off. It was just moments later when I heard Pete say, 'Hey Beck, maybe next time Luke should use safety scissors and I could use some ice.' Totally calm unlike me who would have been like, 'OH MY GOODNESS THERE IS BLOOD EVERYWHERE AND IT WON'T STOP! WHY WON'T IT STOP AND WHY ARE YOU PLAYING WITH SCISSORS YOU KNOW BETTER!!?? ARGH!!! ' (even though I had given him the scissors).  Pete used ice and pressure but the bleeding wouldn't stop so we loaded up the boys and headed to the ER. Only Pete and Luke were allowed in the back so I hung out with Jack and Thomas in the ER until my sister picked them up and then I was able to go in the back with Luke and Pete. We kept constant pressure on it and realized that the Henderson ER is nasty, extremely slow, and not very good at what they do. After 4 or more hours, a dirty room, and a nursing staff who just ripped the gauze off Luke's finger to look at it but then just left without saying anything to us or re-wrapping his finger we finally got our little guy taken care of and he ended up with about 5 stitches in the tip of his right index finger. He was very good the whole time and earned the prize of ice cream for dinner.

Thomas celebrated his first birthday! Luke apparently thought it was his birthday because he has claimed Thomas's presents as his own. We had some cake in Henderson and then once back home I made spaghetti and cupcakes, but Thomas wasn't in a great mood on his birthday and ended up sleeping through dinner and wasn't overly interested in anything that was going on- he only wanted to cry. Now our baby is no longer a baby but a toddler-if only he would start toddling. :)

This brings us to today. Luke and Thomas went upstairs to play and while I heard laughing I also heard splashing-hmm. I have raised Jack so I know about mischief and this was definitely some no good merry making. Part of me thought I should just hang out downstairs because I didn't really want to deal with it- I was just drinking my coffee so I didn't have a ton of energy yet. After trying the yelling stop from downstairs move, which I knew to be futile, I got up to check it out. Luke had made a run for it but Thomas isn't wise enough to know how to scatter when mom is walking up the steps so he was still hanging out by the toilet. I always scan the environment first and I noticed a few things: floor was covered in water, toilet was covered in water, water in toilet was kind of murky, and Thomas was wet and I do mean head to toe sopping wet. At first I wanted to flush the toilet to get rid of that murky water but then I realized something had to make the water look like that and flushing it before investigating would not be a wise mommy move. I ask Luke why the bathroom was wet and what happened to the toilet and he yells from Thomas's room, 'Sarge.' I ask, 'Where is Sarge?' After getting nowhere with this I ask him to put Sarge in my hand. He finally emerges from Thomas's room, also wet but not as wet as Thomas, and points to the toilet. I ask, 'Is Sarge in the toilet?' Luke answers, 'Yes. Sarge truck.'  Now I take a deep breath, stick my hand in the toilet and begin to fish for Sarge. Luckily, he was only a little stuck and I was able to retrieve him fairly easily. Luke was very happy to have Sarge back and when I begin to ask about how Thomas got so wet I realized this 2-year-old was not going to give me any more information. So now I am left to wonder how the boys got so wet when the toilet was still full of water when I arrived on the scene. Sneaky boys.

Now some pictures of the boys.