Rugrats and Dirty Rugs

Aidan looks just like the cherub on my sidebar with innocent expression and all. Of course, he is definitely cuter. He can be very sweet and empathetic as well. He loves to cuddle and kiss and be an all-around little angel. There is another side to Aidan, though. It seems as if he is an angel one minute and a devil the next. He has been a busy little bee this week. This week, after school was over, I come upstairs to find cereal spread out over the family room. Another day, I had stupidly left out some spices on the kitchen counter one of them being garlic powder. After school, I come upstairs to find a fine layer of garlic powder on the kitchen floor and the bottle no where to be seen. Later on in the week, I find the rest of the garlic powder in with the summer clothes that I had put in bins to be stored when the weather finally gets cold. As I'm picking out clothes for the boys to wear, I have to shake off garlic powder in the process. A couple days ago, I make a couple apple p...

I am a daydreamer. I always have been. When I was a girl, I daydreamed about my prince charming. Now, my daydreams are a little different. I daydream: 1) about being 120 pounds again. 2) about what I would like to eat. 3) about going on a date with my husband, but not just any date. The kind of date that Richard Gere took Julia Roberts on in Pretty Woman. You know. The kind where she wears this glorious red gown and he wears a tux. He then takes her on a ride in a limo then a plane to see an opera. 4) about giving birth during different scenarios. For instance, what happens if the baby's head starts to come out while we are still in the car? 5) about having long, glorious hair down to my hips like those medieval women you see in the movies. 6) about Hilary Clinton and that muslim Obama guy being mysteriously assassinated. 7) about being kidnapped by Muslim terrorists and sent to live in Iraq while awaiting ransom. (I have no idea why I think about that one. I have an overactive ima...

Whenever I get pregnant, I space-out for nine months. I define the word "absent-mindedness". I'm always losing something I need or forgetting about something. Basically, I lose my mind. Just last week, I brought my boys to the grocery store to get a few things and walked right up to the exit door. I just stood there for two seconds wondering why the doors wouldn't open when the entrance doors next to us opened for someone else. This pregnancy hasn't been as bad, but I recall a time when my absent-mindedness cost me a huge amount of embarrassment. When I was pregnant with Justin, Nathanael was in pre-K and Caleb was barely 2. We had a little Kia Sephia at the time instead of our van with only two little ones sitting in the backseat. Three days a week, I took Nathanael to his adorable little class at a Christian school in town. I always liked to walk him to the door and get a kiss and hug before saying goodbye. I would then walk back to the car and to my ...

In a house full of boys, the potty-training doesn't end. I'll be potty-training my boys until they are out of the house. I've gotten them to the point where they will use the toilet, but that's about it. I still have to remind them to wipe themselves, flush the toilet, and wash their hands. After the 101st reminder of those basic things, they still don't remember to turn the light off or shut the door while they do their business. Whenever I clean the two bathrooms that they use, I scour those places with heavy-duty cleaners and when I'm done they still smell like urine. One day, this past week I went into the downstairs bathroom. Being 90 weeks pregnant, I have to visit the bathroom hourly. With three boys using the same toilet, it certainly gets a lot of use during the day. As I stood up, I realized that there is another rule that needs some help. As the only female in the house, this rule had me irate as I stormed out of the bathroom into the kitchen. I looke...

When I was a kid, my parents made my siblings and I go to bed at 8pm. When kids have to wake up early to get ready for school, it's understandable to me now why they felt we had to be in bed at a decent hour. My brothers still complain about that to this day. They like to tell of how they would be told to go to bed and they would look outside. To them, it looked like the middle of the day it was so bright out. My brothers were probably in the middle of a death scene or something. They would trudge to bed with many whines and complaints. I'm sure my sister and I did as well. My brothers would plop into bed, prop their chins in their hands, and look out their bedroom window. They would watch forlornly at all the children across the street playing in their yards and wishing they could be with them. After having my own boys, I believe it is a boy's dream to live like Peter Pan. Hey, they want to BE him. No school, no clothes, no dining etiquette, no vegetables, no b...

The batteries died on my camera before I could zoom in and get a better picture. You kind of get an idea of how big it was by looking at the big, black blob. This is the tarantula that was terrorizing our house before my husband bravely put it to death.

I love to watch my son play soccer with other kids his age. Some kids are so tall they look like giants compared to my pre-adolescent one, but I don't worry. I know he will catch up someday. This year the parents on the sidelines are particularly vocal. Throughout the game, I hear a lot of "go, go go!", "kick it!", "good job!", among some other riveting comments. Our team has the most parents yelling at the top of their lungs. The other teams' parents usually look over at one point with frustrated looks at all the noise. I usually just sit there and watch like the dignified person I like to think of myself as. All the kids on our team want a chance to kick the ball into oblivion, so the defenders usually don't protect the goalie leaving him stranded. During one point in last week's game, Nathanael was the goalie. His teammates were on the other end of the field all ready and willing to get their chance to win a goal for their team...

I knew I would love them as soon as I met them. I just wondered what they would think of me. I was nervous the day my husband drove me up to the family cottage in Michigan to introduce me to his parents. I fiddled with my hair and primped in the mirror over and over again looking at myself and wondering how many glaring imperfections in me would they see during our time together. Would they wonder what in the world was he thinking? I have often wondered that myself, but I wasn't about to let him go. You don't find one like him. We pulled into the gravel driveway and when I got out of the car, I was immediately enveloped in hugs and greeted with smiles. From that very moment, I was their new daughter. I didn't have anything to worry about. After twelve years of marriage, that has not changed. During our July vacation, my mother-in-law informed me that she thinks of me and her other daughter-in-law as her daughters. Period. A few years ago, we both discovered we shared a love...

One night, we had a big thunderstorm and our electricity went out. There was no TV, no lights to be able to read, and no computer. We were bored off our rockers. We lit some candles and then Nathanael had an idea. He wanted to do some Bible plays. My husband and I offered to be the audience, so Nat put his brothers to work and they did the story of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel. Nathanael was the narrator as well as a character or two and he astounded us with his knowledge of the two stories. He narrated almost as if he were reading from a script. We asked him where he got this information and he told us about this book, The Children's Illustrated Bible. It was collecting dust on the bookshelf when he discovered it and took it to his room. Over a short period of time, he read it from cover to cover. This was surprising to us because, well, the kid doesn't enjoy reading. When he reads, he does it to get it over with and therefore, doesn't remember much of what h...

I'm not normally a mean person. I would rather die than show any mean-spiritedness to anyone. I hate confrontations and I am a people pleaser. I like to make friends and to be nice at all costs is very important to me. Things get a little tweeked when I'm pregnant. Hormones rage and emotions run high especially when I'm tired or hungry. Sundays seem to bring out that part of me. Our church is mostly full of old people. My husband and I look like total babes compared to the amount of life experience in the building. When we started attending almost a year ago, they took one look at our family and was willing to spoil our children rotten till I was ready to pull my hair out. I kept thinking, "I'M the mother!", but to no avail. Our children are just too much temptation for them and they bombard us with candy, cake, ice cream and stuffed animals galore. All our kids have to do is look up at them with their beautiful eyes and pink cheeks and they are wr...

This past weekend our family went through more arachnophobia . In my last story about that, I mentioned my oldest son coming to me in the middle of the night telling me he had seen a big, black, hairy tarantula in his room. I didn't believe him and neither did his father. We thought it was his imagination or he had been dreaming or anything to make us able to sleep at night. We were sleeping totally unaware. My husband was spraying the outside of our house with spider repellent when all of a sudden the door bursts open and he yells, "Dee! Get out here, quick!" I thought, "What in the world has him freaking out like this?" and walked out the front door. He pointed to the corner where our house meets the garage and I looked up. There on the wall of my house was the biggest, blackest, hairiest tarantula I had ever seen in person. I just could not believe my eyes. I ran inside and told the boys to get outside to see this thing. Nat took one look and said...

I have the laziest boy on the face of the earth. If you think yours is the laziest, I beg to differ. I love the kid. He makes me laugh and has a great imagination. I could just eat him up. The one thing that makes me worried about him is that he will turn out to be a bum. On the streets. Homeless. Whenever I ask Caleb to do something for me, out comes this high-pitched whine almost like a fire engine screaming down the street. It especially drives me crazy during school time. I ask him, "Would you act like this if Mrs. Cook told you to do this?" It does make him think about that and his answer would be no. I told him I deserve the same respect as his teacher and I can also whop him if he acts up. It doesn't seem to be working on his behavior, though. Another thing that he hates doing is taking a bath. We have threatened him with all sorts of disgusting things that could happen to him if he doesn't clean himself. I told him if he doesn't wash his ha...

When my husband and I went out together for the first time, we went to a restaurant with some friends. We were sitting in a curved booth together and having a great time getting to know one another. I remember having a lot of fun. Years later, my husband informs me that he thought I was bored off my rocker at the time. I didn't understand because I remember that I was so happy just being with him. Soon after we were married, we were at Walt Disney World with his brother, his brother's wife, and their sister. I was having a fine time enjoying the rides. My sister-in-law asked my husband at one time if I was alright. She wasn't sure because I looked so serious. Occasionally, I will get a concerned friend asking me if I'm okay because they see that serious, bored look on my face when I'm perfectly happy and having a good time. I find it an odd characteristic and I know I have passed it on to one or more of my sons. When I was a kid, one of my favorite cartoons was T...

I told my husband that a good vacation for us someday would be to go to Yellowstone National Park. The boys were wondering about it, so I told them what it was like there- geysers, an active volcano, animals of all kinds, Old Faithful, etc. I could see the wheels turning in their heads just thinking about it. I found this little note last night from Caleb addressed to his dad. I will type it exactly how he wrote it. Hey dad, whats up. I was thinking that mabey we can go to the yellowstone naichanal park so we can see volcanos. I love you so much dad. I swore up and down to his father that I didn't put him up to this. This one's definitely a keeper.