This is for Kat… you have only a little time left before you are going to be holding your cute new little baby boy!
This is for Levi and Jessie, soon your little one is going to be smiling, and things are going to start getting easier!
For everyone else, isn’t he adorable?
~Tonight I was praying with my boys before bed, and I asked God to fill His presence in the room. After I was done, my 4 year old asked, “what kind of presents is God going to fill our room with?” I laughed, and went on to explain how I was in his presence right then, and if I was out of his room I wasn’t anymore. He just looked at me confused and said, “You are going to be inside my present?”
Yesturday I walked over to our neighbors house and discovered that the kids had filled their entire porch with dirt about a half inch thick. Then went into their garage where they had torn up boxes and styrofoam to create a house. Today my 2 year old son dumped a bag of rice all over the kitchen table and scooped and dumped. Tonight I sprayed shaving cream all over the tub walls and let them paint themselves. The kids love to make messes, and I actually had fun too.
Today I was privledged to have a little 3 year old girl grace the presence of my testosterone filled home. She came dressed in pink, with sparkly sandles on. She told me how our dog, (who is a boy) and her dog, (who is a girl) are in love. She said, “isn’t that romantic?” She twirled around in the kitchen as she sung to herself, and walked on her tippy toes as she played “mother” to my sons. She sat quietly while we ate lunch, and chewed with her mouth closed. She colored in the puppy dog coloring book, (the one that usually only I color in) and presented her dad with a picture when he arrived to pick her up. As we watched her skip home, I said to my son, “Girls are different than boys aren’t they?” to which he replied, “Yeah they have different parts.”
*I let my 4 year old son stay up a little late the other night to wait for his daddy to get home. We were watching tennis, (the only thing I could find suitablefor children on) when a diet pill commercial came on. It showed the before and after pictures of this woman, to which my son commented, “You need those mommy!” ……yeah, thanks…….
Bill Cosby used to have a show called “Kid’s say the darndest things.” I think my son could be on that show, he makes us laugh, cringe, and blush quite a bit with his honesty.
What have your kids said, or shouldn’t have said that is just pure honesty?
Cooper Trey was born on November 14th at 12:20am. He was so cute from the begining, and has made the transition into our family smoothly. He eats every 3 to 4 hours, and sleeps two 4 hour chuncks at night, which has made my recovery speedy, because I am not exahusted! I wouldn’t be able to function so well if Brody wasn’t home. He gets up with the kids in the morning so Cooper and I can sleep in, and he’s always doing something with one of the boys. Our neighbors and friends have been bringing us dinners, even Eliot’s pre school teacher brought us dinner one night! Blue and Aiden adore Cooper, and are also becoming closer friends themselves. Aiden has grown up a lot since Cooper was born, he even has a new big boy bed that Brody built. Having the three of them at such different stages makes this time of life very full, and exciting. There isn’t a time day or night where there isn’t something going on in our house!
I am incredibly greatful for our new addition, and for all of our family and friends.
The Nashville zoo has a new exhibit of Aligators. My 4 year old son could not wait to go and see them. So we went, and we raced up the paths past all the other exhibits until we got to Aligator cove, and saw around 16 baby aligators swimming creepily in the murky water. At first, we could only count 5 or so, but my dad quickly saw how they hid themselves amongst the logs, and on the bottom of their artificial swamp. We stayed and watched them, my son entranced with their movements, and the informative video playing in the background. He soaked up the information like a sponge so he could repeat it later to his daddy and friends. I couldn’t get over how sneaky they were, and how beady their yellow eyes were. Nonetheless, I was happy to watch my son’s enthusiasm.
I am NOT a fan of reptiles in general, but aligators and snakes are my least favorite of the entire animal kingdom. My son knows this, and thinks it is hilarious to try to get me into the snake building, and get a glance at one of the many snakes in there. I avoid that section of the zoo, so much so that I sit outside and wait for my husband to bring the kids back out. Unfortunatly on this trip to the zoo, I was forced to enter the dark, humid small hallways filled with glass boxes of snakes. My sons took off in opposite directions, and my dad and I split up and followed each of them. Just entering this place made me breathe heavier. I hugged my sides and walked quickly down the un-necessary small hallways. I closed my eyes, as I rounded a corner of snake boxes, and jumped as my earing touched my neck. I caught up to my son just as he was pointing out to me that I was standing in front of the giant snakes chamber. I closed my eyes and backed into an artifical plant that I subconciously imagined to be a snake landing on my shoulder. I gasped, grabed my sons’ hand, and took off down the hallway. Once I reached the exit, my son informed me he needed to pee, and off we went again down these hallways.
This place that I usually avoid, I had to spend a near hour in, and made about 4 loops through. My sons made friends with some children that were equally enthralled with the creatures, and they played and giggled and pointed as my son laughed hysterically at my jumpiness.
As I was darting through this place, following my boys, I had time to think about a few things. One, I am going to have 3 boys, who will all love to torment me with my fear of snakes and aligators, so I better get used to it. And two, I learned where the snake boxes were, so now I can enter this place, and only look at fish and turtles, and act relatively calm, so my sons won’t get a kick out of scaring me to death. I’ll have to work on my initial reaction, but i’ll master it, and they’ll never know, that the snake place creeps me out, then maybe eventually they’ll tire of the snake house, and we won’t have to go back.
More likely, although, I’ll learn to appriciate the things they find facinating, and they’ll continue to find ways to scare me one way or another, I guess that is just what boys do, but I believe, or I’ll pretend, that they do it out of love.
So now that I am pregnant with my third boy, I have decided that I need to learn more about these boys that are filling my house. After growing up with a brother and a dad, being married to Brody for 6 years, having a four year old boy and a 19 month old boy, I am thourghly convinced that boys are different than girls.
Firstly, they like to wrestle, girls don’t. As my first son has grown, I have had to learn how to play with him. He doesn’t like spiderman and wolverine talking and getting to know each other, they are supposed to fight, and once again, wrestle. For some reason that is more fun.
Secondly, the words “poop,” “booty,” “toot,” of any form can make any male young or old laugh. (not to mention that boys smell more than girls…)
And thirdly, they love adventure, and love to succeed, and be the hero.
I am currently reading a book called, “The Minds of Boys,” by Michael Gurian. He has done extensive scientific research on boys minds, and shows that the brains of boys are literally built differently than girls.
Some quotes from the book:
~”Boys tend to have more dopamine in their bloodstream which can increase impulsive risk behavior” (is that why Eliot thought it was a good idea to try to jump off the trampoline on his skateboard?)
~ “The boy fueled by his boy energy, tends to learn by innovating in risk- taking ways, wearing goggles so the dangerous game can go on.”
~”This boy energy, is one of the greatest assets of a civilization. Our homes and buildings are built by it. Our roads are laid down in its vision. Our rocket ships fly because of it.”
There is debate on wether all children are blank slates, waiting to be written on, or wether they are born with gender differences. In our neighborhood, there are 15 kids that play in our cold a sack nearly every night. The boys are usually riding bikes, throwing a football, running, and jumping off of things. The girls will sit and put on make up and jewlery, or perform a song and dance for everyone. The girls like to be pretty, and the boys like to be tough. The girls like to talk and bond, and the boys like to wrestle.
Through everything I have seen thus far, and witnessed in my life, I simply have to conclude that boys and girls are different from each other. That, I believe, is what God had in mind when He created us. He intended for us to be different, and we as women couldn’t live without the men and boys in our lives. Even as rough, smelly, and confusing as they are.
