Random

I love my brother Alex. I love that he is amazingly good at math. I love even more that he's willing, at a moments notice, to take a detour on his way home from a long day of school and work and come tutor my daughter, while his beautiful wife Bridget (who just happens to be one of the nicest people one could ever meet) waits for the dinner and movie they planned on for the evening. Yea! for super smart brothers. And super nice brothers. I have five of them, and I count myself hugely blessed.
Braelyn won't be thrilled that I posted this picture, but in all fairness to her, who expects a flash to go off during family home evening opening prayer? I was opening my eyes to see if my kids were closing theirs, and I saw Brooklyn and couldn't resist. I REVERENTLY got up, and REVERENTLY took this picture, and then REVERENTLY closed my eyes for the remainder of the prayer. I fall in love with Brooklyn all over again about every twenty seconds or so all day long.
Brooklyn got all her "hair stuff" and treated Braelyn to a head massage (if you call a two year old jamming clips into your scalp a massage) and some hair beautification.
Braelyn returned the favor. They are twelve years apart, but they are as tight as sisters come.

Discovery #3

My girl has naturally curly hair now. And while that might not seem impressive, let me tell you, it is. You just have to believe me on this one. When she was little I would bathe her, then put a lot of gel in her hair, wrap her hair in small sponge rollers, and torture her by making her sleep on them. The next day I would take them out and she had the most lovely curls. Tight, gorgeous curls all over her precious little head. I'd spray, and spray, and spray, and maybe spray again, to make sure they stayed. I'd hold my breath and hope that maybe this time, the result would be different. But no, within an hour it would be a soft, large, gentle curl. Within two, it would look like I had taken a flat iron to

it (although at the time I'd never heard of a flat iron). I'm telling you, there was no product or implement out there that would make her hair hold a curl. And now just look at her. Jody doesn't appreciate it AT ALL. And as for me, I'm a little bit jealous!

Discovery #2

Spaghetti and Red Heads are a Perfect Match!

Discovery #1

When you move out to the "country" and have cow pens at the back of your property, you just never know when someone might leave the gate open and THIS will be the view out the master bedroom window when you wake up.

This provided a lot of morning excitement for everyone, but I think Jody was the most excited of all. If you look closely, you'll see the tail end of a bull whip in the second picture. Hands down the happiest day of the year for him, the day he received that bull whip. And today has to be right up there. When we saw the cows practically on the porch, we shared a little laugh and called the kids. Then all of a sudden, Jody's expression changed. A glint in his eye, determination in his countenance and a call for...the whip. "Cooper, bring me the WHIP!" Oh the happiness that came from having a real, valid, reason to own a bull whip! (Not that he really cares if he has areason or not) He pulled that baby out and started cracking it, and darn it all if it didn't work. Those cows jumped and ran straight for the pens. Who knew that a bull whip and two curious cows could make my man so happy. I swear he stood two feet taller when he walked back towards the house.

Priceless

"Mom, will you please remind me that I lost a tooth?"

May I just say, this boy is the cutest thing ever.

Conversations

These conversations entertained me, and I've got to write them down so that someday when I'm old (in like ten years or so) and my kids say "did I ever say anything funny?" I'll be able to come up with something.

(Doing homework with Crew)

Me: Crew, you are reading so well! I can't believe how good you're getting!

Crew: (Smacks his hand on his forehead) Aahh! Cooper just asked me if I could read and I told him no. I better run find him and tell him I can!!!

(The boys are into running on the trampoline in socks so that they can build up static electricity and shock each other. I know, I know. Boys.)

Crew: I always run out of shocks so fast! Cooper and Conner have way more shock power. I think it's because their socks are furrier. My socks just run out of juice so fast!

Me: Cannon, I'm so glad you've been getting a green light everyday at kindergarten. And I'm really glad that you are being such a good friend to the other kids in your class.

Cannon: Yeah mom, I'm a really good friend. I don't hit them, or kick them, or throw rocks or even sticks at them!

Watch out for that boy. His definition of a "good friend" is pretty broad.

252 Times

About ten years ago I went to a parenting class. The man was supposed to be a great speaker with a lot of great ideas. I only remember one solitary thing from the class. Someone posed the question "What do you do when your child is whining at you, repeating the same thing over and over?". His answer was "All you have to do is quietly continue to do what you are doing, and ignore the whining." Sounds simple enough. But I knew from personal experience this didn't work. So I got brave and raised my hand and said, "But my little girl doesn't stop. She just follows me wherever I go and continues to whine". He said, "You just aren't giving it enough time. Here, let's give everyone an example." He then asked me to get up and role play with him, me being the whining child and he being the parent. I followed him around the room trying my best to imitate a whining toddler. He just kept walking around and I started to feel foolish, and I eventually gave up. He turned to me with enthusiasm and said "See!!" I wanted to tell him that a toddler doesn't have an audience of adults watching, nor do they have the social awareness to be embarrassed by their actions, thus the exercise wasn't really a comparable situation. But he seemed so pleased with himself and I was still feeling embarassed so I went and sat down.

Fast forward a few years.

This morning I dropped of the elementary kids at the bus stop and it was just me, Brookie and Colton in the car. Brooklyn had been happy, but something triggered her whining switch, and she began to say"I...want..my..daddy" "I...want..my..daddy" "I...want..my..daddy"

"I...want..my..daddy" "I...want..my..daddy" "I...want..my..daddy" .....

You get the idea. I tried many tactics.

"Brooke, look at the horses!" nothing

"Brooke, look at that purple car. How silly!" still nothing

"Brooklyn, where's your baby doll? Let's go home and get her dressed!" nada

and the gold star of parenting, "Brooklyn, do you want a treat when we get home?"

This girl was serious. And out of the blue, this memory of the parenting class came to my mind and I figured I might as well try. So I calmly continued to drive, trying to ignore the whining that was shooting directly into my right ear. I couldn't believe her stamina. I decided it would be fun to count how many phrases she could fit into one minute. It was an average of twenty one, depending on how long she dragged out the word 'daddy'. I have timed the drive home- it is twelve minutes. She didn't stop until we were in front of our house. So 12 x 21 is 252. She repeated herself 252 times. I've got to hand it to her. On some level, that is impressive.

But I would like to find that man and tell him that boy was he wrong.