If you read my last post, Our Vacation Nightmare, then you know that this wasn’t our best week.  Now it’s Friday night, and as I sit here, with Alan beside me, and all of our children sleeping soundly, none of that even matters anymore.

I love it when we sit and talk about all the cute and funny things our children have done lately.  And whose heart wouldn’t melt from having little almost-three-years old Dan keep visiting my room, after we’ve put him to bed, for one more kiss on each of his ouchies.  Then he comes back in here and asks if he can sleep with mommy.  Sorry, Dan, but Daddy did carry him sweetly back to his own little bed.

I suddenly don’t remember my problems at all.  It’s the magic of Friday.  All I can think of now are the good plans I have for the weekend and how much I love my darling little children.

Dan loves cars and airplanes right now.  That’s his thing.  He is so sweet when he begs Caleb to play cars with him.

Daniel, JD, and I went to Target today, and they were SO well behaved.  I don’t remember my 1st two being this well behaved at this age, though, granted, they were much closer in age.  Daniel doesn’t run away from me, hide in the racks, ask for anything, or throw any fits.  He’s an awesome shopping buddy.  JD is too.  JD was so HAPPY just to ride in the buggy and be out of the house, seeing new sights.

We are all just tickled pink that spring is coming soon!

You know what really makes us snicker each night though?  Daniel’s doctor requested that we give him more juice and less milk.  Now Daniel wants juice before bed, so each night he comes out of his room and says, “Juice? Doctor say juice.”

He had mixed feelings about the snow….

Dan LOVES the snow.  I let him play for a while in this left-over snow last week, and then I brought him in and served him a nice, warm bowl of chili.

It was one of those brief, shining moments where I felt like the clouds should part and light should shine down on me, as I am obviously being such a WONDERFUL mother.  

Of course, I’m sure it was followed by some great and embarrassing mistake, but for the moment, ahhhh, perfect mommy.

It doesn’t get any sweeter than this.

They keep improving toys!  Check it out!  The paints are in the book!  Each page has its own set of paints.

People have started asking me if JD is crawling yet.  This always happens with my chubby bubbies.  No.  Not even close.  Not even thinking about it.  He scoots on his bottom in the floor, and he’s getting better and better at it.  He’s the first of our boys to choose this method of transportation.  I made a video today.  It looks almost like he’s jumping.  That video will be uploaded very soon.  I promise.

Chubby babies–as in the really super fat over 20 pounds kind–almost always crawl late.  It’s a lot of weight to carry around.  I just expect it.  None of them have crawled before 9 months, and Dan and Caleb were both 10 months.

Yes, he can roll.  He doesn’t do it a lot though.  He prefers to sit and scoot or stand.  That’s just who he is, and we are perfectly fine with that.

Like many well meaning parents, I try to feed our brood wholesome foods…..I’m not a stickler though.  I make no apologies for my microwave popcorn and casseroles made with cream of mushroom soup.  Oh, and my Granny lived to be 100 eating REAL bacon, so you can just take your turkey bacon to another house.  We don’t do that here.

Anyway, I bought this “truwhip” stuff.  You need to know this.  It tastes a little like carrots.  HOWEVER, once mixed into our trifle with peaches and angel food cake, we could not taste the difference.  

SOOOOO, I recommend it for trifles, but I do not recommend it for eating out of the tub.  ; )   Yes, I have been known to eat Cool Whip out of the tub.  Good stuff.

One more ‘story’.   This one took me by surprise, and it is just so very Caleb.

Alan and I are not exactly the cub scout parents of the year.  We have been worn down when it comes to investing more into kids activities than the kids do, so we now invest very little energy indeed.  I wasn’t even tracking that the tiger cubs were supposed to be collecting anything.

Well, at this week’s cub scout meeting, many of the boys brought collections to share.  This was much like “show and share,” an activity that is probably Caleb’s favorite thing in the whole whole world.  See, while Caleb’s talent may not lie in the language arts–as in reading and writing–Caleb has a very enviable gift for public speaking.  Not many folks are as uninhibited as Caleb.

Caleb didn’t miss a beat.  We’d never discussed collections once.  He raised his hand and said, “I have a collection too. It’s too big to bring it here, but I can tell you about it. ” He proudly and happily continued, “I collect pajamas!!  I just love pajamas.”

His leader probably thought he was joking, but I can assure you he could not have been more serious.  I’ve been buying Caleb a new set of pajamas regularly for as long as I can remember because they are his favorite thing in the whole wide world.

We wish you all a wonderful weekend–may you have all the pajama time and juice that your heart desires!

The post “Doctor say JUICE.” Funny Moments from Raising Four Boys appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Today you get to laugh at my misery.  I have a hilarious mom story for you.

Before the “mommy brain” kicks in and I forget, I must share this quote that I am still smiling about:

The bad thing about this is that by the time I got there the parking lot was full.

Now that wasn’t really that big of deal, except that it was about 15 degrees outside, there was still snow all over the place, and the wind was blowing me in the face and trying to throw JD’s blanket off of him.

There I was, pushing the stroller with one hand, holding the blanket over the stroller so it wouldn’t blow away and expose JD to the elements, with the other hand and of course carrying my 20 pound diaper bag on one shoulder, only it wouldn’t stay on my shoulder.

I looked like a limping hunchback, pushing a stroller.

Plus it was about 11am, and I hadn’t had breakfast yet.

As you can imagine, I was in a pretty bad mood by the time I got into the gym.
But I told myself, “It’ll be okay because they’re serving Chick fil a.”

I was right in time to see Jeff entering the gym carrying the yummy chicken goodness.  Yes!  I chatted to a few friends and then got in line.  It didn’t seem like that long of a line, and yet when I got to the table…..the woman in front of me……got the last. chicken. sandwich.

I don’t care how good a person you are or how much you try to say, “Hey, I have it good compared to a lot of people, I should just be thankful,” this sort of morning will put you in a seriously bad mood. Despair. I was in despair.

After that I just kind of gave up on happiness.  A few things happened:

–People occasionally brought Dan over to me when he couldn’t find me, and he was pouting.  (Don’t worry.  It was a small gym.  He was fine.)

–I spotted Dan with a bag of chips, was just sure he’d swiped them, so I went to the snack stand and paid for the chips…..only to find out later that Alan actually had bought those for him.  I could’ve saved myself that embarrassment.

–A big kid knocked Caleb over, which hit him right in his fever blister, which caused about 5 good minutes of Caleb tears.

–I decided to settle for the pizza, once I got over the Chick-fil-a disappointment.  I waited in line again, put in my order, opened my wallet, and WHAAAT…. discovered that my wallet had been completely emptied (accidentally) by Dan when I had him fetch my wallet out of the bottom of the stroller.

Only my stroller was on the other side of the gym.

Yes, I panicked.  I mean, of course I panicked. Some of us are cool, and some of us just aren’t. I ran back to the stroller, leaving my snack table friends standing there waiting, and there was my cash.

So that provided yet another moment of snack table humiliation.

–After the wallet incident, Alan and Joshua left for Joshua’s basketball game. I stood in the middle of the gym, struggling to eat my pizza without getting any on JD (who I was wearing in an Ergo carrier), while Dan was not eating the pizza he’d asked for– but instead was playing at my feet, and Caleb was standing there crying from his fall.
I was standing there thinking, “I must look like a sight,” and there had reached that level of embarrassment at which it is not even possible to be embarrassed any further. At this point, it was just “whatever…” when a grandfatherly gentleman passed by and pointed out to me that Dan was running over his pizza over and over again with the stroller wheel.

I was so annoyed, but I just handed Caleb the pizza and told him to go throw it away, which he did.

–Then Dan kept pushing that stroller, and nearly running into people, and a part of me really just wanted to cry, but of course I decided against it.

–Then a woman I’d never met came up, introduced herself, and thanked me for all the work I’ve done as room mom for Caleb’s class, so that was nice.

You know, good things do happen.  God bless all the people who take the time to say thank you and spread words of encouragement.  You can imagine how much WE ALL need it.

–Right before I left, I was having a good conversation with a group of friends, and the boys were all playing nicely, so I was feeling much better.
Then it was time to go, and I got all the boys’ jackets on them, and happily headed home…..until I actually walked out the gym door, the arctic wind hit us in the face again, and I remembered the long walk to the remote parking space that I’d found.
Caleb said, “You know, Mom, Dad parked a whole lot closer.”

Sigh.

Dan kept whimpering when the wind would blow his hat off.
You’re picturing the misery?

—Oh, and the back van door sticks in the cold, so then there was that.

Once I got home and all of this was over, I didn’t leave the house again.  I remember nothing about yesterday after that point. I don’t think I will ever leave my house again, come to think of it.

No, no, I will not ever miss days like THIS.

I will miss my children being children.  I will miss cuddling babies, and reading to sweet little ones.  I will miss kissing their soft cheeks and crossing the street holding tiny little hands.  I WILL miss those things.
I will not miss that feeling of hopelessness, when you’re out in public, and it just feels like there are more babies than you have hands, and your arms just ache.
And other people don’t miss it like they think they do.
  They just don’t remember.

Right before I had Daniel, things had started to get really good.  Joshua was 5, and Caleb was 3, and I remember being at the playground and being able to sit on a bench feeling fairly carefree.  Meanwhile, my friend Olivia would be following her 1-year-old all over the playground, and I remember thinking, “Oh, wow, I’m so thankful to be past that.”

Ha!  Oh, how things do come back around.

Meanwhile, John David has been working on his rolling skills.

He LOVED the pizza crust, but I had to take it away because he kept gagging on it.  Oh well, we’ll try again soon, JD.

For more hilarious mom stories go here.

The post Hilarious Mom Story: Taking 4 Boys to the Pinewood Derby appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

The post Finding My Sunshine appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I have mentioned several times lately that my current life circumstances have been leaving me feeling extremely overwhelmed and highly stressed out.

I keep trying to strategize and find a way to make my life easier, simpler, and more stream-lined.

• There have been tears.
•  negative thoughts
• lots of not-so-nice things said
• wringing my hands….

I feel so sorry for people who live life always this busy!  Life is short, and the grief is not worth it.

Today message from God felt very clear:  I need to trust him.

  So here’s my game plan for this week:

1.  Trust God.

2.  No preschool.

3.  Chill.

4.  Schedule my work-outs.

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”        Mark 1: 35

Quote of the week:

Quote from two weeks ago:

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