Finders Keepers?

We have an unwritten rule at our house that whatever is left in pockets and goes through the wash is fair game. As of late the boys have been leaving all kinds of stuff in their pockets. I'm not in the habit of checking their pockets since they just recently perfected the skill of putting things in and taking things out of pockets. The only problem is I don't want any of the stuff I've found in the bottom of the washing machine after washing the boys' clothes:

When I emptied this most recent load of wash, I found two matchbox cars, some coins pilfered from my own coin jar, and a bunch of plastic coins smuggled from Grandpa's house.

Birthday Fun

Drew and Owen turned 3 yesterday! It's sort of unreal to me how fast their young lives are flying by!

The day started out right with a ride in Grandpa's Corvette.

The boys went wild opening all their presents. Even Samantha got into it.

I made two cupcakes for the boys so they could each blow out some candles and so they wouldn't spit on the cake.

It was fun to hear the boys sing along and to see them actually blow out the candles by themselves, then clap for themselves.

The boys requested a Corvette cake (Drew requested it, Owen went along with it). It didn't turn out as planned, but it tasted good!

Drew had to have the "engine piece." We had already started cutting the back of the car, so we tried to convince him that he engine was under the car. He's no dummy; he knows it's under the hood! We gave in and just cut the piece for him.

Comments

My cousin sent me an email letting me know something was going haywire with the comments link on my blog. If anyone else has been having problems posting a comment or even accessing the comments page, please send me an email. hmcanfield at yahoo dot com.

Some Pictures

Something that should have been on my "to do" list from the other day: Charge my camera batteries. It's one of those things that takes so little time that I just think, "I can do it whenever. Some other time." So it doesn't get done and my camera batteries die completely and I put the camera on top of my fridge (isn't that where cameras belong?) to collect dust. I finally remembered to charge them, though, so now I can record visual proof of the craziness that goes on at our house.

I took some pictures of Samantha's most recent skills:

Left: Samantha loves to "talk" on the phone. Here she is holding it up to her face and saying, "Aya!"

Right: Samantha also loves to ride her brothers' Wiggle Riders. She recently mastered climbing up on them by herself, though only one of her feet can reach the floor at a time.

Since I got my camera functioning again I thought I'd try to get a photo of all the kids together. Here's what I ended up with instead:

Here is Samantha wearing her birthday present from her Aunt Amy:

Monkey Hear, Monkey Say

Background: Drew gets sent to his room a lot. We generally put him in there to cool down, because he has quite a temper. Sometimes we put him in there if he's disobedient. For instance he's doing something I don't want him to be doing, I tell him to stop, he doesn't stop, I tell him to go to his room. When he has completed the sentence (as in punishment, not string of words) I sit down with him and we talk about what he was doing, why I sent him to his room, how I expect him to behave. Given the frequency of trips to his room every day, I wonder at the actual effectiveness of this method. But at least it keeps him out of trouble for a few minutes while he's in there.

Yesterday morning I had sent Drew to his room for some reason. I went into the laundry room to switch the load from washer to dryer. Owen followed me to help.* About thirty seconds later, Drew came walking into the laundry room asking if he could help. Before I could even say anything, Owen started speaking for me: "Drew. Did I say you could come out of your room? Why did I send you to your room? What did you do? You go back in there. One. Two. Three." He said all this with no pauses for Drew to respond. I was trying so hard not to bust out laughing, feeling grateful that I could hid my face behind the washing machine lid so they couldn't see it.

*I love it when Owen helps me put laundry in the washer and dryer. I hand him the clothes to put in, and with every item I hand him he says, "Oh, thank you!" Like I'm doing him the favor.

Imagine My Surprise

I've been thinking a lot about the upcoming election, the candidates, their views, my views, how those views mesh (some, not so well). I had come to the conclusion a while back that I am neither a Republican or a Democrat; I'm not extremely conservative or extremely liberal. I'm certainly not a fence sitter; I actually don't think there should even be a fence--most of the issues that extremists get in a tizzy about are not so cut and dry. There are a lot of exceptions and special cases to be considered.

My aforementioned conclusion came while I was loading the dishwasher one evening after the kids had gone to bed. I was contemplating the complexities of politics (my understanding of politics, that is. It's very very basic, so to someone else my thoughts might not be considered complex at all) and thinking about my stances on some of the issues that are often brought up during election time. I decided I fit some combination of both political parties; I'm a Demican. That sounded weird, so I shuffled the words up a little and came up with Republicrat.

A few days later I was looking through the MSN headlines and I saw an advertisement for a new political party called the Republicrats! They totally stole my word! I was so bugged that every time I saw the ad I vowed I'd never visit that site.

I broke my vow tonight; intrigue bested my resolve. Now I feel silly for my tiny little boycott of the website. I should have gone to it before! It's pretty humorous and I like the guy's suggestions for how to resolve some of our country's current issues. Check 'em out if you like.

But don't you hate it when you think you're being all clever and you realize someone else had the same idea and marketed it before you? Grr.

One of These Days

...I'll finish a blog post the same day I start it.

...I'll finish Drew's Halloween costume (I've gotten fed up with it, especially after I finished sewing all the little "bandages" to his pants and realized I hadn't left enough slack for them to fit around his little--okay, big--belly).

...I'll be able to keep up on housework for more than 5 days in a row (it's my new record, just reached it Friday and let everything go to pot on Saturday so that you'd never know our house was ever clean).

Holiday Confusion

I've been sewing like a madwoman, trying to get Halloween costumes ready. They've turned out to be less time consuming than I anticipated, and I have 2.5 of the 3 ready. I'm pretty pleased with the results so far. Since David basically told me my previous ideas were no good (at least as kids' costumes), I had to come up with something new. Samantha will still be a pumpkin, Owen will be Dracula (he's been working on saying, "I vant to suck your blood!" and laughing menacingly. It's very entertaining, especially when Samantha tries to imitate the laugh), and Drew will be a mummy. Drew's has been the most time consuming of the costumes, and is the one that is only half finished. I'm sewing strips of fabric to a shirt and pants, rather than just wrap Drew up on Halloween. This way, he'll be able to use the toilet without unwrapping the entire costume.

When I come up for air from sewing, I'm greeted by a ton of snow (it snowed four or five inches on Sunday morning) and the smell of wood-burning fireplaces wafts around the neighborhood. I actually got out my recipe box yesterday and started drooling over all the holiday ham and wassail recipes. Then I started singing Christmas carols and had to restrain myself from going out to the garage and bringing in all the decorations. Hopefully I can refrain until after Thanksgiving; I have rules about keeping the Christmas decorations in boxes until then.*

*My friend and I used to be so adamant about this: we had a neighbor put their lights up about two weeks before Thanksgiving (which is fine if you want to get them up before the weather gets bad, but you're not supposed to actually turn them on). We were so offended we went and taped paper hand-turkeys all over their house.

It's Either Laugh or Cry

The current state of the world bothers me. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that I really liked: If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

I don't like to get outraged, though; it gives me a belly ache. So sometimes I don't pay attention on purpose. And sometimes I take things with a slice of humor and a grain of salt (I watch a lot of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to get my "news;" the only other news I watch is the three minute segment that gets DVR'd after Jeopardy!-- This way I get about half of whatever the top story is in Pocatello).

I've been trying to pay attention to the political candidates, and have all the Presidential Debates recorded to watch later (the thing about later is, it's like tomorrow. There's always going to be a tomorrow, and there will always be a later). I was in a time pinch so I watched this Saturday Night Live version of the most recent dabate instead of the real thing. From what I've heard it was just as informative in a fraction of the time.

The Best Kind of Day

I had a lot of fun today. Maybe it was because I actually got some things done around my house. I scoured the bathroom that I'd been neglecting for a while; it was especially icky because Drew poured half a bottle of shampoo into the tub and I didn't have time to deal with it right away so it just sat there for days. Made the place smell real mango-ey, though.

I cleaned the boys' room, which always seems to be strewn with toys, clothes and blankets no matter what I do. Normally I'd have the boys clean it up themselves, but I was going on a tear and just got in there and took care of it. The boys helped by entertaining Samantha.

I also folded a ton of laundry that had been sitting around for almost a week. Owen even offered to help, which was really nice. His version of help is different than mine, but I want him to offer again in the future (many times, in fact) so I showed him how to fold washcloths. He didn't really get it and I ended up refolding them when he wasn't looking, but he was really proud of himself. Then he helped me put them all away. I told him, "Good job," to which he replied, "You're welcome." He does that a lot lately--says "you're welcome" when I give him any kind of praise. It makes me laugh.

The very best part of today, though, was that while I was doing all this cleaning, Drew and Owen were behaving! They played so nicely with Samantha, and they didn't bicker with each other at all. And, they didn't make a ton of other messes while I was cleaning the existing ones.

Here is a snippet of a Drew and Owen conversation I overheard while I was cleaning today:

Owen: Get in the boat, Drew! Get in the boat!

Drew: I'm scared of the monster on the boat!

Owen: I get scared too, sometimes.

Wild Weekend

We spent our weekend in Salt Lake City. When we got to the hotel, David wasn't there. The guy at the front desk asked me if I was a relative. I told him I was the wife. He gave me a peculiar look and asked, "Is your husband expecting you?" It was the kind of look that said, "I'll stick up for him if he isn't, and he's up there with someone else instead." Very weird. But he let me use the front desk phone anyway. I couldn't reach David so the kiddos and I loaded up in the car and drove to Target to get some grub and some milk for Samantha.

After a three hour car ride, we all needed a bathroom break. Trouble is, Owen has always been afraid of public restrooms (can you really blame him?), and come to find out Samantha is too. They both cried the entire time we were in there. Drew wasn't afraid and he wanted to run around touching everything and pushing all the stall doors open. We finally made it out of there without a ton of germs on our hands, thanks to a Target employee who walked in just as I was trying to figure out a way to get out of there without putting my hand on the dirty door handle. She held the door for us and when Drew told her "Thanks" she practically crowed, "What a sweet little boy! So polite!"

We headed over to the snack bar and ordered some food. While we were eating, Drew kept scooting his chair back and dangling from the table. I kept telling him to push it in and if he didn't he'd fall on his head. Eventually my prophesy came true and Drew went crashing to the floor with a horrible thunk and scream. People stared and Drew cried and got pizza sauce all over my jacket, but he was just fine.

After our lunch we went to find milk and diapers. I found a display of Pull-ups at the end of the tampon aisle (just where I'd think to look) and a display of large boxes of Pampers at the end of the Depends aisle. The big boxes weren't really cost efficient, so I passed them up, and I kept walking the aisles finally coming to the conclusion that Target just doesn't sell diapers. We grabbed our milk and got out of there. On the way to our car I grabbed Drew's hand, and told him to grab Owen's hand, since my other hand was lugging Samantha in her carrier. Owen decided that he just had to jump in every puddle he saw. He let go of Drew's hand and fell on his knees just as a Jeep started to back up out of their parking space. I had to jump behind the Jeep yelling, "Don't go!" grab Owen, pull him dripping out of the puddle and lug him to our car. I was so frazzled by this point that I told the kids, "We're going back to the hotel and if your dad isn't there we're going home."

Luckily, David was back at the hotel. It was great to see him, but I got the feeling that we were sort of driving him crazy (by "we" I mean Drew and Owen). The boys were so hyper and excited to see their dad; they jumped around the hotel room and everything in the room had to be touched and inspected but it was all off limits to them so David and I were constantly saying things like, "Settle down. No jumping. Hands off the lamp. Stop smacking the TV, Samantha." It was a little nuts.

We ended up going to visit some friends; we followed them to a Carl's Junior where Drew and Owen could run wild at the play place while we chatted. It was probably the best part of the weekend. These are the friends who introduced me to David, and we hadn't seen them for about three years, so it was great to sit around and reminisce about old times.

We met up with another friend at her apartment and hung out with her and her girls. Her older girl is about six months younger than Drew and Owen, but she's a couple inches taller. She's also a lot feistier, which I found really amusing because Drew and Owen haven't really been around more dominant kids much. They're sort of the bosses in nursery because they're the biggest. Every so often Drew would come over to me and say, "That girl, he pushed me." And my friend would say, "Push her back." But Drew never dared to.

We didn't get much sleep over the weekend; Drew and Owen go crazy in hotels, especially when it's supposed to be bed time. They had to sleep on the floor because even though David was staying in a lovely little suite with a kitchenette, there was only one bed in the room. Sleeping on the floor for the boys means popping up every five minutes to say goodnight to Mom and Dad and Samantha, and to pinch Samantha's cheeks. Finally, close to midnight the boys went to sleep, but they woke up a little after five and every twenty minutes for the next two hours to make sure we were still there.

Sunday we went to my sister's house to hang out for a while then the kids and I headed home. Our weekend was zany and the opposite of relaxing, but it was a lot of fun as well.

...uh...

I've been sort of hiding out lately. I haven't done a whole lot of blog-checking and very little blog-writing. It's a very strange feeling (almost withdrawal-ish). I've been sort of keeping myself busy doing other things, trying not to go crazy (too late for that, I think).

David has been in Salt Lake for the last week, and will be there for one more week. We miss him. With his previous schedule I got used to him being gone for a couple days at a time then home for a couple days. But this two-whole-weeks thing is really getting old. We're going down to see him tomorrow, just for the weekend. He is there for Engineer training (think potbellied, pinstripe overall wearing train driving; not stick-skinny, Coke bottle glasses wearing computer hacking. How are those for stereotypes?). He had a week of rules classes here in Pocatello, and is in Salt Lake for the simulator training. He says it's pretty fun, and he's picked up on it quickly (like he does with everything).

I've been wanting to write a bit about my stepmom for a while now but I've been a little hesitant; partly because she reads my blog from time to time Hi, LuAnn!, and partly because I don't want to sound like I'm soliciting pity or anything. I guess I am soliciting hope and prayers and good vibes of moral support, especially for her. Last week we found out that LuAnn has cancer in her uterus (well, I found out. Her doctors had suspected it for somewhat longer than that, and were running all sorts of tests to be sure). This past Wednesday she went to the doc and had her uterus, her ovaries and her lymph nodes removed. The surgery went well and the doctors felt like they got all the tumors out (they definitely took everything they could see). In a few weeks she'll start radiation treatments just to make sure any cancerous cells that may be lurking around are taken care of. Next Sunday I plan on going to go help out for a few days while she's still recovering from her surgery. Here's hoping that I'll actually be able to help, and not make things too crazy by taking my three monsters over there with me!

This is all for now; I need to get ready for our trip south. This feels like a choppy, disconnected piece of writing, but that's sort of how my brain has been functioning lately. I couldn't think of a title for the post and I have no way to wrap it up cleanly while summarizing everything and making it all "flow," so... G'night!