counting my blessings…

i realize that in my last couple posts, I have really painted a ‘not-so-pretty’ picture of my littlest blessing… I’ll call him Isaac.  fitting, since that is his name… Hebrew for laughter.  and I have to say, that name fits him like a glove. 

he makes me laugh… a LOT.  sure, the laughs are sprinkled between the panic, the wincing, the mild and not-so-mild heart palputations and all the rest, but he is mostly a joy. and sometimes I forget that…

so, my neighbor’s daughter, Elaine, who is about my age, lost her 7-year-old son in a car accident a few months back.  I had never met her before, but have been close with her mom since she moved in across the street last year…

well, yesterday Elaine knocked on my door, just as I was finishing cleaning up Isaac’s latest mess, and he was about to destroy something else… I was about to lose it.  She and I only talked for a few minutes but I was floored by her strength.  I can’t even imagine this woman’s grief, yet just a few words with her put things in perspective for me so fast…

while I can’t promise I’ll never complain about the ‘messes’ of motherhood… I will say that today I’m grateful to have them…. and Isaac is more than happy to oblige

 

“koi boy”

trouble has a face… and it looks like this! 

If ever there was a child destined to be a trouble-maker… this is the one!  I may as well just face facts… this boy was put on the planet to give me gray hairs! 

he’s a handful, but I think that’s why god makes kids so darn adorable… they might not survive if they weren’t!  I snapped this photo as he was climbing out of my koi pond this morning… we buried the last fish months ago (he wanted to grow a fish tree)… I suppose it’s early demise was inevitable with this kid around.

 

Oh, the joys of raising boys… Part II

children have such amazing clarity it absolutely stuns me sometimes. 

So, my little guy (he’s 4) likes to put his hand down his pants… I know, surprise, surprise.  And lately I’ve really been trying to drill it into his head that it is “inappropriate to touch your ‘privates’ when other people are around…”  So, today, when that uncoltrollable urge to play with himself struck, I said, “… if you’re going to touch your penis, you really should go in your room… mommy doesn’t want to see you doing that.” 

“what’s a ‘penis’, mommy?”, he replied.  (I hadn’t realized that this was the first time I had actually called it by it’s “proper name” with him). 

Trying to wipe the smirk off of my face, I answered: “… it’s what YOU call your ‘pee pee’, babe… it’s where the pee comes out of your body when you use the potty.”   (I love it when I come up with the perfect answer… but I have to admit, his reply ‘trumps’ mine… by far)

“Oh, okay… so if this is my ‘penis’,” he said, pointing to his crotch… “then (turning his back to me and pointing at his bum) THIS must be my ‘poonis’, right?”  

hey, who can argue with that kind of logic? 

 

4-year-old charmer… FREE!

So, today I kept the little guy home for the first day of my little “keep-Isaac-home-2-days-a-week-and-see-if-I-can-get-anything-accomplished” experiment… let’s just say it’s not really working out.
 
for starters, he found a bag of uncooked alphabet pasta and “sprinkled” them all over the house… I wouldn’t be surprised if I could spell out BABAGANOUSH (not to mention a few other choice words) with the letters I found in the couch cushions alone!
 
Moving on… lunchtime was a real treat… he peed in a bucket outside and poured it in the dog’s bowl… which, of course, the dog immediately drank from (Note To Self:  Don’t EVER let the dog lick your face… EVER!)
 
Then we went to pick up “the other one” at school… that was a mistake    2 boys are exponentially crazier than 1.  I put them in their room for fighting with bats in the front yard and they promptly emptied an entire container of baby powder all over everything… the only reason I even checked on them was because I thought I saw smoke coming out from underneath the door.  I’m still choking on the dust.  (and the house smells like a baby’s bottom)
 
To top it all off, Isaac found a pair of scissors and proceeded to give himself a haircut… which I had to finish for him… let’s just say his new look fits him perfectly.  (see photo).  Yes, those are skull-and-crossbone underwear… and if you look real close, you’ll notice that the tattoo on his belly reads:  “Crash And Burn”.  ya just can’t make this shit up.
 
All this and it’s only Monday… and for those of you who were undecided about becoming parents… I’m glad I could help   

 

snow in San Diego?

 

yep, you read that right… snow in San Diego!  well, let me explain.  Valentine’s Day was a total washout… it literally rained ALL day long.  (not very romantic… especially if you’re sharing it with a 4-year-old and his 6-year-old brother… but I digress.)  Rain down here means SNOW in the mountains… the local mountains.  The mountains that you can see from the beach… the same beach we spent the day at LAST weekend… I can’t decide whether to keep sunscreen in the glove compartment… or, well, gloves!  (does anyone actually use the glove compartment for gloves?) 

Anyhow, the 15th was BEAUTIFUL… clear skies as far as the eye could see… and lots of local snow on Palomar Mountain.  So we grabbed our yet-to-be-worn snow gear that Santa brought and headed up the mountain… (along with EVERYONE else in the county) In less than an hour, we were knee-deep in the white stuff… a very cool (if not cold) way to spend a Friday afternoon. 

Snow brings out the kid in all of us here in San Diego, since it’s something we very rarely see… unfortunately it also brings out the ‘knuckle-head’ in some.  There were people up there riding down the slopes on garbage can lids, cardboard boxes and even the occasional plastic bag.   I wonder if they know Wal-Mart sells these ’snow saucer’ thingys for like, 3 bucks… and they actually protect your ass!  Anyway, those people were fun to laugh at and still seemed to be having fun… so everyone was happy.

As it got dark, the boys and I were treated to a spectacular sunset. (well, the boys were… Mom was too busy shoveling as much “fun” into the back of the truck as possible… so we could savor this winter treat for another day)  Back down the mountain… and all that glorious white stuff got dumped onto the front lawn… and it’s still out there!