Roses and Thorns

Our family does a quick little game at the dinner table most evenings called "Roses and Thorns."  It's a game that gives everyone at the table a chance to share their "high" and their "low" of the day, a game that reminds us to stop and think about what we are thankful for, as well as giving us the freedom to share our feelings about what made us sad.  Long-term, I hope it helps us become closer as a family as we learn to listen to what is going on in each of our hearts, sharing in each others' joys and sorrows.

Well, the other day, we were going around the table in a clockwise manner, and then we got to Isaiah.  We usually skip him because we figured he was too young to have a clue what we were talking about, but this time I asked him, "So, Isaiah, what were you thankful for today?"  And without skipping a beat, he said: "God."  We were all stunned.  Then I asked, "And what made you sad today?" and again he replied without hesitation: "Wasps." (He is terrified of wasps and encountered one that day). We all busted out laughing.  What a joy it is to have small children to make us laugh and remind us of Truth!

some comic relief

I realized the other day that most of my posts lately have been either heavy, depressing, or religious in nature...  Does that make me a melancholic Catholic?  :}  Anyway, I thought all of your readers out there (all 2 or 3 of you!) would appreciate some light humor that happened in our house a few days ago.

My two year old is going through a bit of a bossy-bullying phase (which I am not at all proud of and take partial blame for because I know I should be more strict with disciplining him), but the other day he said something that made me laugh out loud (even though I probably should have spanked him instead).   Isaiah asked me if he could watch a video, and I told him "no."  He immediately started whining, and then asked me again.  I said "no."  Then he started throwing a bit of a temper tantrum and asked me again.  I said "no" and started walking away to ignore him.  Then in his sternest little two-year-old voice, he said, "One......Twwoooo.......THREE!"  I couldn't believe it!  He thought he could use one of my tricks to make me obey!  Apparently, I should stop using that trick...  It doesn't work to make my kids obey anyway, and it sure didn't work to make Mommy obey either.  Sorry, Isaiah!  :)

Memories I Want to Remember

Part of the reason I blog is to be able to write down funny things my kids say and do so that I don't forget them months or years down the road.  It seems like it's the split-second endearing moments that make motherhood worth all the hours and years of routine and sacrifice.  So here are a few snapshots (in words) of recent memories I want to remember...


The two older boys are in baseball right now, and I am surprised at how nervous I get when they are up to bat or on the pitching mound.  Dominic was standing near me while we were watching Michael's game last week, and in the middle of an inning the coach asked Michael to take over as pitcher.  As Michael started pitching, Dominic tells me, "Mom, mom, Michael is the pitcher!"  As I was trying to keep my eyes on the game, I just nodded and said, "Ya, ya, I know."   Dominic immediately replied, "But mom, shouldn't you be doing this?"  I didn't know what he meant, so I quickly glanced at Dominic who was apparently showing me what I normally do when Michael is pitching...  He had is hands in a prayer-position way up by his mouth.  I had to laugh out loud!  I never realized it before, but that is the nervous stance I take when one of my boys is pitching or at bat.  I guess I just do it as a nervous habit, although sometimes I really do start praying to help calm my nerves and hopefully to send some graces in my boys' direction to help them do well.  How funny that my 5-year-old noticed that...I hope no one else noticed!  Now that my kids are in sports, I am starting to realize why my mother used to obnoxiously yell and grab my leg when I sat next to her at my brothers' wrestling tournaments :) 

Nathanael is saying all sorts of funny things these days now that his vocabulary is taking off like wildfire.  Just this morning he was playing with the bikes in the garage and I said, "That's a bike, can you say bike?"  He looked at the bike again and confidently said, "A butt, a butt."  :)  And last week, I was filling up water balloons outside for the older boys while Nathanael was playing in the rocks nearby.  He came over to me making a perfect buzzing sound.  I thought to myself, how sweet, he must have seen a bumblebee.  Then I hear Dominic yell, "Mom, Nathanael's holding a bee!"  So I drop my water balloon that I was filling and quickly run over and slap the bee out of Nathanael's hand.  It falls to the ground, still very much alive, and Nathanael reaches down to pick it up again.  "No, no!" I yell as I quickly stomp on the buzzing bee with my shoe.  Then, of course, Nathanael starts to cry.  How he escaped from being stung is a miracle to me, but apparently kids never escape their moms ruining all their fun.  :}

Every night around the dinner table, Paul always asks the boys the same question:  "So, boys, what did you learn today?"  The boys have come to expect it now, and they usually are prepared with an answer about something that they learned in school that day.  Well, a few weeks after Paul broke his wrist, he asked the boys that same question at dinner time.  Joseph and Michael both gave one of their usual responses about leaning how do do long division or learning a new spelling word or something of that sort.  And then it was Dominic's turn.  Out of the blue he replied, "40 is too old for snowboarding."  Everyone broke out in laughter...  I guess I kids really do learn from their parent's mistakes! :)

Rainclouds and Umbrellas

Last week was one of those grumpy bear, raincloud following me weeks. Not sure why. Perhaps because it's been a long winter and I'm suffering from Vitamin D deficiency. Perhaps because my husband was gone on a long work trip and I was feeling lonely and overwhelmed. Perhaps because I'm a bit sleep deprived from nursing nearly every 3 hours around the clock. Perhaps because my older boys were showing some not-so-virtuous qualities which caused me to feel a mixture of guilt (for apparently not parenting better) and sadness (for realizing that no matter how good I parent, they might still make poor choices). I know that all sounds heavy and dramatic. That's just the way I am (just ask my mother!). I have one of those Anne of Green Gables personalities---which is to say that when I'm happy, I'm floating in the clouds, and when I'm not, I'm wallowing in the depths of despair :) Unfortunately (for myself and those who are forced to live with me), I seldom find myself in between those two extremes :} Perhaps I'm being over dramatic, which is likely, because I also have the annoying tendency to exaggerate things a wee bit (just ask my husband!) :)

Anyway, in case you were worried, I am better this week. Each of my boys made up for last week's below-average behavior by reminding me in a number of ways that they are indeed better-than-average boys---actually they are quite exceptional most of the time. Joseph and Michael won me over again with these beautiful drawings that warmed this Catholic-to-the-core mother's heart...

I also caught the boys doing many kind deeds for each other this week, which made up for the not-so-kind deeds I caught them doing last week :) And Dominic brightened my week with countless quips in the car that make it impossible for me to stay grumpy for long, such as: "Mom, did you know that after I become a priest, I'm going to become a cowboy!" :) Totally random, totally made me laugh out loud. My, how I love how his little mind works! :)

Anyway, I just felt like sharing these thoughts for any of you mothers out there who feel like a raincloud is following them like the one that hovered above my head last week. Blogs usually seem to be filled with only the "happy thoughts," the "scrapbook perfect moments." But that's not real life. Life has rainclouds. Reading other blogs that only show seemingly Utopian lives frankly depresses me. I avoid them because they only succeed in making me feel like a failure. So, just in case my blog is guilty of giving the illussion that my life is all rainbows with no rain, I thought I better clear up that complete misconception :) May it encourage each of you kind readers to know that my life is far from perfect. Just ask my friend Jenny who gets an earful of all my rainclouds nearly every morning on the phone. She's the sister I always wished I had...the glimpse of sunshine on my cloudy days!



I think Jenny and I are such good friends because we share our imperfections, while at the same time encourage each other to keep our eyes focused on Him Who is perfect. She has been the perfect friend for the past 10 years. While our husbands were stationed together at the same Navy base, Jenny and I stationed ourselves at each other's houses almost daily because God was kind enough to make us next door neighbors (and I'm so glad He did!) Many children and many duty stations later, we're still kindred spirits :) How I hope everyone has a Jenny in their lives! :) A true friend is like a trusty umbrella when rainclouds come our way!

Car Conversations

I find that on the way to and from school my boys and I have the most meaningful and enlightening conversations. Just this week Joseph shared this profound thought:

"Hey Mom, it's not fair. Nathanael has everything done for him. He's like our master and we are his slaves."

"Yes, son," I replied, "you have just defined parenting." :) Joseph is wise beyond his years.

On that very same car ride, Dominic pipes up with a random comment, which he is very prone to do (it would certainly be entertaining to be inside his head for a day):

"Mom, did you know that when I go to school all the girls scream when they see me?"

I laugh out loud, wondering if it's truly possible for 4 year old girls to already be having boy-crazy-crushes, and so I dig a little deeper, "Really. Why do you think they scream when they see you?"

He proudly proclaims, " Because I'm a velociraptor and they think I'm going to eat them."

Ahhh. Makes perfect sense.

Earlier in the week Dominic had another epiphany that he shared out loud with us on the way to school:

"Hey! Michael only has ONE EYE!"

All of us bust out laughing and ask what he means.

"Well," he honestly replies, "I have two eyes and Michael only has one...D-O-M-I-N-I-C and M-I-C-H-A-E-L. See?"

Yes, we all finally saw his logic and had a good laugh. What a great way to start the day :)

I'm glad we have these car conversations. It makes motherhood so worthwhile. God must know that mothers need some lighter, sillier moments to keep us joyful and sane :)

Tooth Fairy Tonight

Michael was beaming when I picked him up from school today, running at mach-speed down the sidewalk and waving a baggy in the air containing his first lost tooth. He has been waiting for this day for a long time. The past few months he had been lamenting the fact that he hadn't lost a tooth yet even though everyone else in his 1st grade class had---even his much younger cousin Elizabeth had lost a few! Oh, the horror of being a late bloomer for a boy (especially a highly competitive boy like Michael)!

Anyway, back to the beaming image of my one-tooth-less-son at school...

I immediately asked how it happened, and he exclaimed, "I lost it in my banana at lunch!" I laughed out loud and shook my head. How does a child lose a tooth in the softest fruit on the planet? I guess it is fitting for our funny and flamboyant son to lose his tooth in such a funny, flamboyant way! Congratulations, Michael, for your 1st grade coming of age event! I hope the tooth fairy can brave the bitter cold weather tonight...hopefully tooth fairies don't fly south in the winter! ;)

The Truth About Yawning

The other morning when Dominic had just gotten out of bed he did a huge yawn, and said with conviction:

"The sleep came out of my throat!"

Cute and kinda true :) I love it when my kids make me laugh. I really need to laugh more often.

Daddy Long Legs Data

Nary a week goes by when my boys don't enlighten me with some new piece of knowledge. Truth be told, they may be smarter than I am...but shhhhh, don't tell them that! This week they informed me that the Daddy Long Legs is NOT a spider! I told my boys that they didn't know what they were talking about. Then THEY told ME that the Daddy Long Legs can't be a spider because it has only one body segment rather than two, and only two eyes rather than eight. I still did not believe them, so I went online. Sure enough, they were right again. The Daddy Long Legs is truly not a spider, but simply another species in the arachnid family. Just as a butterfly is not a beetle, but they are both insects. I also learned (from the same website) that I had mistakenly told the boys months ago that the Daddy Long Legs is the most venomous spider in the world but thankfully its mouth is simply too small to bite a person. I thought I was so smart to reveal that amazing fact which I had learned when I was a kid. Turns out...it's an urban legend...completely false. Mommy is an idiot...but the kids haven't quite figured that out yet, so I'll try to continue the Einstein-act as long as they allow it. Probably won't be long.

Deep Thoughts by my 7-year-old

At the dinner table, Joseph announced, "When I get to heaven, do you know what the first thing I'm going to ask God is?"

"What will you ask him," I prompt.

"I'm going to ask Him what the world looked like before He created the heavens and the earth."

I told Joseph that his question was very deep, and then we discussed our guesses about how the world looked before God created it. We even read Genesis and discussed what a "formless wasteland" might look like...all of this while eating chicken nuggets :) I, too, have a few questions I'd like to ask God when I get up there, but I can't say that was one of them :)

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Michael is our "ACT BEFORE YOU THINK" child. He was simply born this way (but I sure hope he grows out of it someday!) I can prove this point with many-a-story, but here is the latest one... While we were on one of our hikes this past weekend, Michael jumped up on a huge rock that was overlooking about a 15 foot drop (at least). I promptly scolded him to get down while having a mini heart attack, and I explained that if he fell (which was a high probability since he's also our clumsy child) he could have died. The friends we were hiking with have a 3-year-old daughter named Agnes who witnessed and overhead the whole affair, and she immediately added, "Yes, he would need a very big band-aid." Truly, out of the mouth of babes comes wisdom. :)


I didn't get a picture of Michael on the rock with the perilous drop off because I was too busy trying to get him off the rock. So you'll just have to look at this sweet picture of Michael standing on some smaller rocks in the middle of a freezing, rushing, mountain stream instead. I sure hope his guardian angel has fast wings and is willing to work overtime! :}

Super-Fast

The boys and I rode bikes to the park this evening, and Michael (who just learned how to ride bike this summer) asked me:

"Mom, do you think you could beat me in a bike race?"

I smiled (to myself) and said, "Boy, I'm not sure anymore because you sure are fast!"

Then he said, "Well, I know I could beat you going downhill, because I'm super-fast downhill!"

I just love the things kids say :)

Thank you, Lord, for these sweet moments with my children.

They truly get me through the day with a smile in my heart.

Amen.

Sweet Conversation

Yesterday, I was playing upstairs with Dominic while Michael was quietly playing across the room by himself.

Out of the blue he asks, "Mommy, does everyone have to move away from their mommies someday?"

Surprised by the question, I relied, "Well, usually that's what happens when you become an adult...you move away from home and start a life of your own."

...a few minutes of silence...

"But, is it illegal to stay home with your mommy as an adult?" Michael asked.

Puzzled and amused, I replied, "No, honey, it's not illegal, and some people live with their parents even when they're adults."

...a few minutes of silence again...

"Were you sad when you left your mommy?" Michael asked.

"Yes," I replied, "a little bit, but I was also excited to go to college and get married someday...it was like a new adventure. But sometimes I got really homesick and I would call my mom and cry because I missed her."

"Did grandma cry too," Michael quickly asked.

"Sometimes." I replied. "I think she missed me too, but she was happy that I was growing up."

...more silence...

At this point, I could almost hear the wheels turning in his little brain, and I was dying to know what he was thinking, so I asked him, "Do you think you'll move away from home someday, or just live with mommy forever?"

"I'm not sure yet," was his wise reply.

"Well, I'm glad you'll get to live with me for many more years until you decide," I told him.

What a bittersweet conversation. I hope my boys always love me this much :)

Boy, do I need a girl!!!

While the boys were playing outside today, they decided to become "professional spider hunters." Within a few short minutes they had collected a thorn spider from the swing set and a bazillion baby spiderlings that had just emerged from their egg sack on a rock. They were going nuts with excitement, so the search continued. A few minutes later I hear them yelling, "Holy cow, that one is ginormous!" So I hasten to the scene. Sure enough they had uncovered a very large hobo spider in our rocks and were trying to kill it by throwing rocks at it. Hobos, by the way, are related to the brown recluse, and can give a nasty little bite if bothered (little boys throwing rocks at them might fall into the "bothersome" category). So mommy turned into "Spider Killer Woman" in a hurry and squished that hobo to smithereens; after which, I had a heart-to-heart chat with my spider hunters who are no longer allowed to touch the rocks beside our house, nor try to kill or capture dangerous spiders (thankfully, they know which ones those are since they have read EVERY spider book at the library). Michael agreed and said, "You're right mommy, if Grandma Theresa would have seen that huge spider, she would've BLACKED OUT!" No more than 5 minutes later, I hear their excited voices again, this time trying to capture a jumping zebra spider on our deck. I come to monitor the chase (again) and inform the boys that zebra spiders are way too fast to catch. Michael immediately tries to assure me by saying, "We're professionals. It won't be a problem." The only thing I am sure of is that I need a little girl. Pretend tea parties sound much safer than professional spider hunting.

The Things Kids Say...

The other day, Dominic was playing with his cars and trucks naming them one by one:

"Excavator, dump truck, fire truck, back hoe loader, convertible, semi-truck, hay-mer..."

"Hay-mer, what is a hay-mer," I asked him, as the strange word caught my attention in the kitchen.

He held up a skinny looking race car, and said "hay-mer" again.

So I wisely correct him and say, "No, Dominic, that's a race car."

"Nope," he relied, "it's a hay-mer," and he turned around and continued playing.

Alrightythen. I guess I should be thankful that my son has an creative imagination and won't be one to follow the crowd :)