Tooth Fairy Update

I'm posting this picture to show you what my 4 year old did NOT get from the Tooth Fairy.  (And on a side note, a reminder that he is not the one who lost the tooth.)

The Tooth Fairy did indeed stop at our house and to Ryan's delight, she left him another gold coin; she also happened to have a tablet of Halloween paper -- so that was an added bonus.  Let me tell you, that fairy is organized as she just happened to have two pads of paper so Cole also got one. 

Ryan, six years old, was pleased with his discovery, but as you can imagine, Cole was less than thrilled that he didn't get a John Deere tractor.  (We're talking real tractor here -- we already interrogated him about that.) We reminded Cole that he really wasn't suppose to get anything as he did not lose a tooth, and his reply was that he'd "just ask Santa" for the John Deere tractor. 

I seriously need to have a chat with Santa before Cole sits on his lap this year.

Bring on the Tooth Fairy

The Tooth Fairy is visiting our house for the third time tonight.  Our first grade son is so excited to have lost another tooth, however you couldn't tell it a few hours ago. I was helping him floss his teeth and noticed his tooth was just hanging there, so, I pulled it. He screamed, not in pain, but in anger because he wanted it to stay in his mouth until October.  Apparently, there is fame in being the first one of the month to sign the Tooth Chart in his classroom... a memo that I failed to receive.

As our sons were going to bed, they were having a very intense conversation.  My husband and I were eavesdropping and trying not to giggle at them. The conversation went like this:

Ryan: The Tooth Fairy is coming to my room tonight.

Cole: I know, she's coming to my room, too.

Ryan: No she's not. You didn't lose a tooth, I did.

Cole: Well, she'll still bring me something. She'll already be here anyway.

Ryan: I don't think so.

Cole: Oh yes, she's going to bring me my own John Deere tractor.

(My husband and I stopped stifling our giggles and looked at each other in horror.)

Ryan: OK, Cole, I'll let her know that's what you want.

(At this point, my husband and I locked our parental eyes.  It was one of those moments that confirmed I was indeed married to my soul mate as I knew we were on the same wavelength.)

My husband mouthed to me: Cole wants WHAT??!!

I mouthed to him: And Ryan's going to LET HER KNOW??!!

Meet Our New Family Members

Meet the newest members of our family:

Sally

and Lenny.

It began day before yesterday when I opened the door for our dog to go outside and in came Lenny. As you can see, he immediately made himself at home.  The ladybug was found on our dog's back by my four year old. He immediately named her Sally and created a home for her, also inside our house.

So, Sally and Lenny (you may remember that his cousin, Larry, visited us not long ago) had been just hanging around for a couple of days and then yesterday, my son decided Sally needed a little extra air, so he let her out of her container, inside the house. All day long he screamed at me to watch out because I was about to step on Sally.  Then he'd realize it wasn't her, and mope a little more. 

I don't have the heart to tell him that we may not see Lenny and Sally again. Do lizards eat ladybugs?

I'll Do Anything

I'll do whatever it takes to cheer up my sons.  Losing two dogs in less than two years has certainly taken a hit on my family. Betsy went to Heaven a little shy of two years after Bear went through the same thing. In fact, one week after Betsy's death will be exactly two years ago that Bear died. Oddly enough, they had exactly the same type of cancer (lymphoma) that began in the same lymph node, yet they were from different breeders.

Our dogs, or furkids as I prefer to call them, have been a huge part of our lives for many years. They were my "first children." It saddens me that my sons were not a part of Betsy and Bear's "good" years... the years that the dogs ran, chased balls (well, Bear did; Betsy refused to think she was a dog) and greeted us at the door with wagging tails.  My sons have had too many experiences with vets, in a sad way.

It hits me the most when I am home alone and realize Betsy is gone. She's been in the house with me for 14 years. Nights are bad too and sometimes I feel like I am the only one grieving, and then I remember we all grieve in different ways.

When Ryan walked in the door from school yesterday, he asked where Betsy was. He, like all of us, expects to see her upon entering the house. When I reminded him, he looked sad.  I wanted to "fix" things for him, like all mothers would. But, he needs to process it all in his own way.

Today, I decided things would be different. I needed to take the reins for my family and move us ahead. So, when Cole and I went to get Ryan at the bus stop, we rode our bikes. I, however, was not on MY bike; instead, I rode Ryan's little bike, complete with training wheels. All of the parents at the bus stop laughed, and I laughed too.  It felt good to be happy and to be my silly self, and better yet, to see my son get off the bus laughing at me.

We'll be OK, I feel certain of that.  I will help my family find a happy place again. I, on the other hand, will likely shed a few more tears on my pillow at night.

Betsy Is in Heaven

Betsy could no longer walk this morning so we took her to the vet and sent her to Heaven.  I know we did the right thing, so why can't I get a deep breath?

An Update on My Sweet Betsy

Thank you to all who have prayed and continue to pray for Betsy and the rest of our family. She had an appointment with our vet this past week and sadly the cancer has spread to another lymph node under her front leg. She is certainly a fighter though, as she continues to amaze us with her will to live and strength. She is still walking fairly well and still watches over my sons. I know she feels she has a "job" to do because she guards our children; it must concern her to think of leaving them.

I pray with her every night and talk to her, telling her how much I love her and that when she tires of all the pain, it is alright to leave us and I will take good care of "her" boys. She just looks at me and licks my hand as I pat her as if to tell me she understands what I'm saying. 

As you can probably guess, it is very hard for me to type this, but I've had several of you email me, wondering how she is doing.  I truly appreciate your support.

I'm not sure how much longer she has with us, but one thing is for certain... I will never let her suffer.

I Hate Cancer!

Our Golden Retriever, Betsy, has been diagnosed with lymphoma. She has been a member of our family long before we ever had children. The only way I can explain my sadness is by comparing it to the loss of our other Golden Retriever, Bear, who oddly enough had lymphoma discovered in the exact same lymph node. They are from different breeders.

Betsy is now taking prednisone, which as many of you probably know, is only to mask the symptoms and give us a little longer to adjust to the notion of life without her, if that is even possible.

It has barely been two years since we went through this with Bear. I am not ready to experience the same thing again with my two young boys. They are so young to experience the loss of the only two pets they've known and loved deeply. It was hard enough then and I can't imagine living through it again. Those of you who have a pet and gone through something similar, you know what I mean. It's that same feeling of not being able to breathe.

Currently, Betsy is holding her own. She still walks around, although her limp is a bit more noticeable. She still guards my children. And tattles on them when they are misbehaving. She was my first child.  I don't know how I will make it through the pain in my children's eyes when the time comes.

Mommy, I want to ride the bus. *UPDATED*

My oldest son, who is six, wants to ride the school bus home. I fought it for a year while he was in kindergarten and now I'm giving in to the big yellow box on wheels.  Part of my hesitation is that last I knew, several school buses were not air conditioned.  Yes, you read that right... no air conditioning on a school bus in Florida.  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Then I found out the bus that comes to our stop is indeed air conditioned.  And that the driver is nice.  And that she has a good driving record.  And that it is one of the newer buses.  And that it has seat belts. And the two children next door also ride it.  And that the bus arrives near our house about 10 minutes after I get home from picking him up in the car rider line. OK, you see where I'm going with this.  Somehow all of that does zilch to make my anxiety go away.

Monday morning arrives and I have all of my ducks in a row: a note to the school office, a note to the teacher and a note to the driver; all of which I later found out were unnecessary as I all needed to do was write a note in his agenda. I wasted three pages of my favorite yellow fluorescent paper. (No one was going to lose THAT note.)

The plan was to leave early for school and talk with the driver after she arrived at school, just to let her see my son ahead of time and to let her know to take damn good care of him on the way home, in my most pleasant yet serious Mommy voice, of course.  Well, we were nearly out of the house and my neighbor called.  That morning there was a substitute bus driver.  And a substitute bus.  With no air conditioning. And no seat belts.

My son was upset and thankfully, Daddy stepped in and agreed with me that he needs to ride the bus when it's the real deal, not something that will change the next day.

Tuesday rolls around.  Same scenario... preparing my son to ride the bus home from school, reminding him of where I'd meet him, etc. and the phone rings. Yep, you guessed it.  My neighbor was calling to tell me that it was the same as Monday.

Now I am starting to wonder if it was really meant to be.  I'll try it again tomorrow, but I'm not sure how things will go. Perhaps I will paint my husband's truck yellow.

Is it time to pick them up yet?

School is back in session and I cannot believe both of my sons are gone at the same time. I dropped each of them off at their respective schools, one in first grade and one starting preschool. As I walked back into my empty home, it felt as if my thoughts echoed.  All of the sounds that I love were gone.  There were no toy train whistles, no mini Buzz Lightyear crying out, “To infinity and beyond,” just silence. As I wandered aimlessly around my house, I thought of a hundred things I could be doing.  But I did nothing except sit and reflect on how much Iove my family.

11:59 Good Morning!

Well, sort of... almost afternoon. 

Betsy, our dog, woke me up at 6 something this morning to eat her breakfast and go for a walk; only to come inside and find Cole awake, who was upset because he wanted to go on Betsy's walk and had missed it. I didn't know he was awake and was secretly hoping he was still asleep so I could go back to bed.

Soooo, Cole, Betsy and I went on a second walk. (Keep in mind that my eyes were still somewhat glued shut because I worked until late last night.) 

Then we came back inside and there stood Ryan, same scenario.  So off we went on another walk, this time minus Betsy, who had given me a look like 'eff off' when I said we were going for yet another walk.

After my third walk, the boys rode their bikes, scooters and played football --------- all by, oh, about 7:30.  All I did at that point was sit outside on a lawn chair and pretend I was the employee at the drive-thru window at Walgreens. Why Walgreens, you ask?  Well, I don't know.

Don't get me wrong -- I love that my children want to play outside and have chosen one of the cooler times of the day to do so, but gosh was I tired!  Most other days I can't pry them out the door with a crowbar.

At 10:30, my husband woke me up because he was going outside to mow the grass. I don't even remember climbing back into bed.

Right now, Cole wants to take "his" money (he has saved $11.00 ~ thank you, NeNe; a.k.a. Grandma) and go to the most germy-ist place in town, Wal-Mart, to get some tractor -- no one else in the family has a clue what he is talking about. I have a feeling it may be the $300 one hanging from Wal-Mart's ceiling for the past 30 year or so; in which case we can cancel the shopping trip until he saves $289 more dollars.  I am desperately trying to talk him into going tomorrow instead, when the Wal-Mart weekday germ factor will decrease by 39.4%. Perhaps, by tomorrow morning, he will have moved on to wanting a toy that costs $4.98 -- at Target.

Just sharing a little slice of my life with my family, friends, followers and fellow PNNers. :)

Anything Is Possible When You're Four

Cole: "Look, Mommy, I grew taller last night when I was sleeping."

Me: "You know, you DO look taller this morning, Cole."

Cole: "I'm trying to grow faster than Ryan so I can be an adult first."

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

"Mommy, why do girls wear shoes with sticks?" (high heels)

Mommy, Can We Have Some Fish?

Me: No.

Cole: Why not?

Me: Because we have a dog.

Cole: Dogs don't eat fish.

Me: I know.

Cole: Mommy, do cats eat fish?

(Mommy thinking...)

Cole: Mommy, can we have a cat?

Me: No.

Cole: Why not?

Me: Because we have a dog.

Cole: Mommy, do dogs chase cats?

Me: Yes.

Cole: Mommy, do dogs chase squirrels?

Me: Yes.

Cole: Mommy can we have a squirrel?

Me: No.

Cole: Why not?

Me: Because squirrels like trees and we don't live in a treehouse.  (not bad, eh?)

Cole: Oh.

Later that day, my son brings me his homemade fish tank.  See the fish?  They are popcorn kernels. 

Now that is a low-maintenance fish tank!

What pets have your children wanted to have?  Did you cave?

What do you mean we are out of them?!

Sunday morning I was convinced by two adorable little boys to make pancakes for breakfast.  Normally, we have blueberry pancakes, but yesterday was special... Ryan had finished another season of T-ball and was awarded a trophy half his size.  We were celebrating! 

So, how do you celebrate with pancakes?  You add chocolate chips. 

I advise my sons to check for all ingredients prior to my warming up the griddle, which they happily do.  They each get a piece of paper and a crayon, and off they go to the kitchen.  I sat on the sofa, listening to their brotherly conversation as they tried to spell words correctly and figure out which sugar was the right one.

They wrote down every ingredient and checked them off one by one. Then they came back to report to me.

"Do we having everything?"  I asked.

My sons answered in unison, "We think we do..."

I tell them each ingredient and they let me know if we have it in the kitchen.

Flour?  Yes.

Sugar?  Cole answered, "Yes, the white kind, but it might not fill the spoon with the capital T two times."

(I make a mental note we need to buy more sugar at the store.)

Butter?  Yes.

Baking Powder?  Yes.

Eggs?  Yes. Ryan adds, "I am the one who checked them so Cole won't break them."   Cole's rebuttal, "I would NOT break them.  And you are not THAT much bigger than me anymore, Ryan."

Milk?  Yes.

Salt?  Yes.

Chocolate Chips?   (dead silence)

Chocolate Chips?  (still no answer)

I say, "We don't have any chocolate chips, do we?"

~ Silence. ~

My Mommy interrogation begins...

"What happened to the half bag of chocolate chips in the pantry?"

Cole sadly admits that he ate them -- all of them. 

It must have been one of his most horrible 4-year-old moments to realize that his little sneaky snack deprived him (and Ryan) of chocolate chip pancakes.

I couldn't stand it so I asked where he was when he ate them.  He said he was sitting in the pantry!   OK, where was *I* ??   How do they do this?  Does this happen to any of you?  You are with your children all of the time and still you are occasionally shocked that they did something wrong and you were RIGHT THERE?  Sigh.

So, anyway, we did eat pancakes that morning -- with blueberries.  And I added chocolate chips to my grocery list, along with a mental note reminding myself to find a better hiding place for them.

And then I stepped on a fireman.

OK, so he was plastic.  HOWEVER, the fact remains that I need to work on increasing my worth in my family.  I think in a dog's world, it is referred to as the "Alpha Dog."  Yep, that is what I want to be...the Mommy Alpha Dog, or the Alpha Dog Mommy; whichever carries more clout.

I was walking through a room full of toys -- typical afternoon -- carrying a laundry basket through the family room and couldn't see the floor. Forgetting to do the pass-through-a-room-full-of-toys-shuffle, I did the unthinkable and took an actual step. 

The fireman may as well have been a nail coming through my foot -- or at least that is how it felt.  Ever stepped on a Lego?  Well, plastic firemen are about 10 times more painful.  I held my breath so as not to yell any adult words as I fell to the floor to examine my foot.   No holes, no blood, which was good.

As I am checking the damage to my foot and contemplating putting Elmo ice on it, my boys come running.  Were they coming to check on me?  Nooo, they wanted to make sure their fireman wasn't broken.  Then, the ultimate insult was when one of them ran for the toy rescue truck -- for the fireman.

***For those of you who are wondering if the fireman was injured, well, shame on you.

(I will tell you he was not hurt, only so you can sleep tonight.)

That is when it happened... I realized I had, somehow, dropped on the family value scale, right below plastic firemen. 

In the end, the fireman got to rest -- next to the infamous "BunnyBear" and covered with Blankie. 

Me?  I finished the laundry.

Are your children misbehaving?

Join the forces of parents who are frustrated with their children.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I've had a friend tell me how frustrated she is with her kindergartner or preschooler.  I surely would be able to pay for groceries with that money.

It seems whenever you think you have "figured out" your child, he/she morphs into someone you don't know -- again.  Then, you are seeking another idea that might encourage your child to behave; while in the meantime you try to figure out this "new person" who is living in your child's room.

When it comes to behavior management, if we can all remember to focus on the positive and not the negative, we will be a step ahead of our children.  I know, it is hard.  They push our buttons and we react.  They want our attention and they don't care if it is negative attention -- they just want attention. 

So, whenever I come up with a new positive behavior management tactic to try with my children, I will post it on Crayon Marks, with hope it will help one other parent.  I also hope you will share what works for you.

This is my latest trick, (err, I mean strategy)... I asked my children what they wanted to earn through making good choices.  It had to be something reasonable.  My children chose chocolate milkshakes since having chocolate in our house is rare.  I wrote the words on a piece of paper for each of them.  Then, each time Daddy or I "caught" them making good choices, we'd tell them to circle a letter.  The goal, of course, was to get all letters circled within a certain period of time and be rewarded with a chocolate milkshake.  (I did not structure this so they are rewarded with sugar-filled milkshakes an hour before bedtime.) 

Remember, YOU make the rules -- your children only think they do.  This worked like a charm for us. 

Insert SIM Card

That was the message on my cell phone this morning -- the phone that is now our ONLY source of communication as we just canceled our landline phone.  Not knowing much about SIM cards, I opened the back of my phone and surprisingly, there was the battery and SIM card, in what seemed to be the correct locations.  So, I shut my phone off, turned it back on and voila, same message. 

Trying not to panic as I imagined all kinds of horrible scenarios -- emergency people trying to locate me for whatever reason -- I summon my 4 year old into the room.  He doesn't come.  I go to find him and there he is, sitting on his bed with his toy cell phone.  He quickly hides his toy cell phone under his covers -- a universal sign to all mothers that their child is guilty.

We had a little chat about what he did to my phone.  I took the back cover off my phone again, hoping that some magical cell phone God would have repaired it. My four year old suggested I call Daddy.  Well, Daddy is at work and cannot talk on the phone right now, plus MY PHONE DOESN'T WORK. 

As I examine my phone I see a "dummy" picture of how the SIM card should be inserted.  Mine was in upside-down.  Do you know what happens when your SIM card is in upside-down?  Nothing because it is stuck. One tiny screwdriver and ten deep breaths later, I managed to pry the card out and put it back in the correct way.  My phone now works and my son's phone is in the time-out basket. 

A SIM card is so small and is jammed in the phone, as if it's a permanent part of the phone not to be removed.  How does a 4 year old know that a SIM card comes out??!!  Why do I see bigger problems in my future?  Like my car battery in the middle of the driveway.

Scared!

Fear moved through my body at lightning speed.  I have never received a text message from my husband that simply said, "Text me." 

For some strange reason, all kinds of horrible things ran through my mind -- was he in some kind of danger?  I didn't take the time to think that made no sense, as he would have called 911, then me.

So, I did.  I said, "R U OK?"  And I held my breath as I waited.

The phone rang, after what seemed to be an hour or more.  It was him.

He asked me, "Is everything OK at home?" 

Bamboozled, I asked him, "What?!" 

He replied, "You called me.  Six times."

"Um, no I did not."

He was in a very important business meeting and had his phone on vibrate. 

It vibrated six times.

In a row. 

From home. 

He thought there was some type of emergency, as did I with him.

The culprit?

Yep.  Cole -- my four-year-old little angel, who got his hot little hands on my phone and called his Daddy. 

Six times.

Are you laughing?  Give me your phone number and Cole can call YOU. 

Oh, I'm sorry; he can't call anyone right now.  He's in time out.