From the back seat

Overheard in the van this week:

Caleb –  “I’m going to grow up to be bigger than Rylee you know, because boys are bigger than girls.”

Kyler –  “Maybe…but mom is bigger than dad, so maybe not?”

Caleb:  “No, I will, I’m sure.”

Kyler –  “But mom is a little bit the E-word.”

Caleb –  “No, she’s the F-word, you mean.  Yeah, but don’t say it, it isn’t polite.”

Mama is thinking these boys don’t realize that in 5 short months since Finn’s birth I’ve lost 30 pounds and am pleased as punch to be back at what I weighed before baby #3 – even if I’ve still got a ways to go!  Not to mention they’ve no idea what most people think when they hear “F-word”.  Making a mental note to work on phonics some more with Kyler, who apparently has E and F sounds a bit mixed…

Kyler:  “I KNOW, I didn’t say FAT!”

Mama can’t control the front seat giggles and thanks them for trying to be courteous.  If this isn’t the most humbling job in the world I don’t know what is (grin).

Just Heard Thursday

After an unusually long stretch of not one kid-free moment for me, I could feel my internal reserves running on fumes.  Usually I do a fair job of getting out, taking care of myself which I’ve come to find a non-luxury but an honest necessity in this stage of life I’m in with little kids, homeschooling, not working outside the home…

So last night around 9 I headed over to a friends’ home (her husband is out of town for the week) for a movie, popcorn and good wine.  It was just what I needed only I was left in charge of movie selection and I’m embarrassed to say that my choice was not the best.  We watched The Blind Truth-a smutty, low quality romantic comedy chock full of sexual innuendo.

At dinner tonight, I intimated to Chris that the movie had been fairly sub par.  He asked what it was about, to which I replied “It was about the ‘truth’ of what men really want.” He cracked a smile and instantly caught my drift.

But Rylee immediately responded exceedingly confident that she knew the answer:

COKE!

We were undone.  I’m still laughing typing it.  I hope she thinks that all men want is coke for MANY years to come 🙂

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Kyler (bursting in the door from the yard):  “Mom, I saw Mason’s peanut.  It’s huge.  And it’s a hairy peanut.”

Two things are important here:

  1. Mason is the dog who lives behind us
  2. Peanut is Kyler’s term for boy private parts

I hid behind the counter laughing.  Mainly because my mother was there and I wanted to act grown up enough not to bust a gut laughing at bathroom humor.  But really, I’m not grown up enough.  Yet.

Little life lessons

As we meander through our days, we’re learning new things along the way…

Like choosing Charlotte’s Web for our movie selection as the kids snuggle in my bed and I answer phone calls and emails was probably not the best choice for such a week as this.

Although it would seem to me that Kyler is relatively unscathed by the sadness surrounding him, as he watched a movie he’s seen and enjoyed many times, his response told me his little 3 year old heart is hurting too.  Rylee described it all to me later in the day:

“Mama, first he cupped his face in his hands.  You know, during the part of the movie where Charlotte dies?  Then he started weeping with tears down his face.  And then, he was weeping loud and I had to come and get you then.  He was so sad.”

Sweet little boy, I cradled him a long time and we shared some serious love.  No words.  Just lovin.

I also learned that when the heart is in agony, the stomach is very unhappy as well.  Cheese pizza from Costco is surely the worst thing to feed a stomach when one’s heart is hurting.  It may sound good.  But it is a very bad idea.

In general, Costco on a busy Saturday when life seems to be crumbling is not the best place to be.   A bottle of wine, one of my father-in-law’s favorites, nearly undid me and tears were so very close.  I started to recall the conversation we had just weeks ago about screw top wine bottles versus corks.  The recalling brought tears and I hid my head as I recognized someone I know but don’t know well enough to want to cry with in the wine aisle.

And as if I needed another reminder, God gives the sweetest little gifts in the midst of great pain.  As we were perusing dinner options, I heard my sister say “SHUT UP!”  but in a good way, as in I-can’t-believe-this-NO-WAY!  She ran into a precious friend who was only in town from out of state for 2 short days who she wouldn’t have otherwise seen.  They caught up for a bit and it was wonderful.

As my sister talked with Rylee who was struggling to understand why we were still sad, she reminded her that in a few months she would have a new baby cousin to play with.  It was a beautiful reminder of how life works and that there is great joy in our life as we anticipate the arrival of a new member of the Jorgenson family.

Rylee, our question asker, keeps asking questions.  They are sweet and tender and repetitive and hard to answer.

But she needs to ask them and we keep answering.

Even though we don’t have the answers.

Just Heard Thursday

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Here are a few things that made us laugh this week (and one from July that I found and had forgotten to post)!

Kyler (to a toy phone):  “Yes, I do.”

Toy phone (again): “Do you want to be my friend?”

Kyler:  “Yes, I said yes.”

Toy phone:  “Do you want to be my friend?”

Kyler (exasperated, still holding the phone to his ear):  “Yes, I said YES already!”

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Toy car:  “The Piston Cup is mine!”

Kyler:  “No its not.  It’s mine!”

Apparently he can argue with toys if no one else is around.

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At the dinner table last night a discussion of muscles arose:

Caleb:  “Squeeze real hard Kyler, like this-then you can show your muscle.”

Rylee:  “If dad were here, he would show us his muscle and it would be like a giant, hard rock.  He’s so strong.”

Kyler:  “You have muscles mom?”

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Rylee:   “Yeah, Princess Camp was pretty fun today.  Except this one girl named _____.  She made us call her  AngelCake.  She was really mean.  She kept hitting me with the streamer sticks we were playing with.  She kept going in time out.  She didn’t listen at all.  That was not so fun.”

Milking machine

cow

Heard at the dinner table tonight:

“Mom, do you ever wish you were a cow so you could be milked?  It would be so fun.  When I grow up I’m gonna be a cow.  Rylee, don’t you want to be a cow?”

Me thinking- well considering the hundreds (no joking) of hours I’ve spent with a pump already in my 6 years of mothering, I could safely say with a smile “No, I don’t think I want to do that.  It actually doesn’t sound fun at all to me.”

Quiet stares.  “Okay, well you could be a farmer.”

Perfect, sounds absolutely lovely to me.  I actually had the desire yesterday to go out my back door, yell with my kids as loud as we could, then come back inside.  I quickly realized it was early and we couldn’t do that.  Oh to have wide open spaces for yelling and running!

Unrelated, but a piece of advice:  When potty training the two year old, don’t choose reward candy that you enjoy.  Then you might eat them all yourself in the exasperated moments of accidents and be left without the necessary incentive when you need it.  Trader Joe’s miniature peanut butter cups.  They looked cute and tiny and perfect.  I don’t even like chocolate right?  They should have stayed at the store.

Recent Quote

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Kyler – Daddy, coffee, me, fweeeese?

Me – OK. (I warm up some coffee and put in some egg nog for some flavoring for him)

Kyler – Keem, Daddy Keem.

Me – What’s keem Kyler?  Can you show me?

Kyler – (as he’s opening the fridge and pointing up to the half and half) Keem Daddy, Fweeese?

After I set him up, I left the room for a bit to try to get Audrey to sleep.  When I came back, he had the chocolate syrup out and says to me – put in here Daddy?

Our native Seattle-ite, already learning the art of the perfect cup of coffee!

Naked trees and hummus

Here is the scoop on the last few days here:

Rylee read her first book by herself-so exciting! Here she is sounding out a BOB first reader book.

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Rylee and Audrey took their first bath together

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We did patterns today with foam shapes, I love that with the instructions “see what kind of pattern you can make with your shapes” they both did totally different things….and Caleb’s more turned out to be a collage

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I am attempting a dairy free day, we made hummus together for lunch it was so fun. The kids never will eat store bought hummus. So imagine my shock when they devoured it at the park today when we drove to meet Daddy for a walk. We ran out of crackers to dip in it, Caleb suggested a spoon, if only we’d had one.

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A sweet nose kiss from my second born…who informed us that though the trees were nearly naked “they aren’t quite naked, that one has on a hat and underwear”

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Rylee enjoying her favorite thing in the world-Audrey (who is, by the way, wearing a size 6 diaper because I forgot the diaper bag, had to use an old washcloth in the car for a baby wipe and could only scrounge up a Kyler-sized diaper in the parking lot while everyone waited for us)

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Christmas card photo? Maybe, if I hadn’t changed the exposure level on the camera earlier today for indoor photos and forgot to change it, leaving this one a tad overexposed, bummer.

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Chef Mom

Audrey Rose almost 6 months old!

Heard today at home:

Rylee (while putting her socks away, to herself) – “These are my husbands socks, his feet are just so big!

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Me (doing math with the kids on our walk): “If you add all our kids and all Kim’s kids, how many do you get?”

Rylee: “A lot….let’s see….it takes both hands….eight, eight kids!”

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Caleb – “Did you know my dad has MckGuinness socks Nana!” (Nana bought him Guinness beer socks in Ireland last month)

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Kids calling me from the family room: “Cook, can we please order 15 goldfish and 6 almonds?”

Me: “Yes, thank you for saying please but I’m not sure I want to be called cook.”

Kids: “Chef, can we please order…..”

So chef it is, I can deal with that. It implies some sort of excellence in my making of oatmeal, grilled cheese and tomato soup today.

The B Hunt

Let me first explain that this week is “L” week for school. Last week was “B” week. We start the week by going on a hunt for everything that starts with the letter of the week and make a list that we add to all week.

Caleb stumbled into my room groggy and still waking up. First thing out of his mouth?

“Mom, we’re on a B hunt and we forgot to add Tree and Levi to the list”.

I’m about as out of it as Caleb, Audrey is getting up a lot in the night all the sudden and wow was it hard to even open my eyes today after punishing my exhausted self by staying up till midnight canning more applesauce before the apples went bad. Caffeine IV drip anyone?