If anyone has the right to complain

Our youngest son (Bubba) got hurt yesterday.  Nothing serious…just got his arm twisted the wrong way a little bit.  That’s the backdrop for a funny story that happened later in the day though.

Our other son (Boss) got tapped on the face.  He went into a dramatic whale about how “Momma hurt me”.  I ignored him because I knew he was just putting on a show.  Here is the dialog that ensued though:

Momma:     “If anyone has a right to complain about getting hurt, it’s Bubba.”

Bubba (in his best complaining voice):    “Momma, you hurt Boss.”

Momma and I had a nice little laugh at that one.

couple of firsts

Last night we had a couple of firsts at our house.

First fire of the winter.  The weather outside got rather frightful (or at least cold) so we decided to make a delightful fire.  We listened to some christmas music and read a book.

First people food for sissy.  We planned to wait until her four month birthday on the 19th to start her on cereal.  But, lately, she has taken an interest in people food.  That combined with the fact that she still wakes up once a night made us decide to go ahead and get the ball rolling.

Agree to disagree

My boys are getting to the stage where they like to argue with each other and (especially in the case of the older one) with us.  If one of them says something, the other one has to take the opposite stance.  And, they will argue it steadfastly until they are blue in the face.

The younger one mostly just argues because that is what he sees from his older brother.  Often, the younger one doesn’t even know what he is arguing about.  So, I have been trying to convince the older one (the boss) that in some cases they just need to agree to disagree and let it go.  However, explaining this simple concept to my 4 year old proved to be virtually impossible.  So, I decided to wait until the next time he took up an argument with me to try to make my point.

Sure enough, a couple times over this last weekend, the boss took up a meaningless argument with me.  In both cases, I cut it off quickly and told him that we would just have to agree to disagree…that we were both entitled to our differing opinions…but that we would have to agree to disagree.

In both cases, he said, “Dad, I am the one who agrees… I agree, but you don’t agree.”

Argggg

So, the arguing continues…

What I love about my kids

Here’s a list of what I love about my three kids.

4-yr-old – his curiousity and aptitude for learning.  Also, I love how he adores his younger siblings (especially baby sister).

2-yr-old – definitely his belly laugh and his sense of humor!

3-mo-old – her smile and the way she loves her momma!

The niece experiment

If you know me or follow this blog, you know that a couple months ago we asked our 17 year old niece to move in with us for the school year.  She moved in two days before our baby daughter was born in mid august.  Well, it has been an interesting experiment to say the least and very much a learning experience.  Well, I am sad to report that the experiment is over.  One week ago, she moved out.  Her mother rented a new place in another town and together they made the decision for our niece to move in with her.  She had to switch schools mid-semester which is something she is all too use-to.

My wife and I have a myriad of emotions about the situation.  We have never wavered from our priority of making this a successful school year for our niece.  We put that above everything in our lives and I am happy to say that we have no regrets and that we never changed our stance on that at all.

So, because of that, we are sad that she moved out.  We really did sacrifice a lot to make it work.  And, when we initially invited her to come live with us, we asked her to commit to staying for the year (which she did).  So, we were also hurt by the decision.  It is hard for us to understand how our efforts and sacrifice can be so easily traded in.  It is hard for us to understand how anyone can see it as a positive thing for her to once again switch schools mid-semester, especially considering how good a start she was off to.

But, of course, it is not at all surprising.  The very fact that we pushed for such a commitment from her demonstrates that we anticipated this day would come.

Along with sadness and hurt that we are feeling, comes relief and even some excitement.  There were times in these last two months that we actually looked forward to this day.  We never wavered in our efforts to maintain a stable environment for her, but at the same time, it was an incredible stress on our family.  She brought a drama to our household that we were not used to, and as much as we expected the drama to come, there was really no preparing for it.  For those of you wondering, adding a teenager and a newborn to a household at the same time is pretty much an insane thing to do.

Honestly, I think the biggest sacrifice that we made is one that most people involved will never even know.  We gave up the first two month’s of our daughter’s life.  In other words, instead of being able to enjoy and savor her and welcome her into our family like we did her two older brothers, we had to do it in the midst of other changes and tumult.  My wife particularly has felt this loss the most.  So, now, we have a tingle of excitement in our lives for how we can make up time with our daughter.  We really do have some catching up to do.  I am not writing this because I am angry or because I am upset, I am writing this to get it out.  This is therapeutic for me.

So, what did we learn from this experience?  Wow, it’s a long list.

We definitely learned more about the mystery that is the teenager.  Even though once upon a time, we ourselves were teenagers, there is a world of difference between being a teenage and being responsible for one.

We learned more about how to communicate and motivate a high schooler.  We learned how to communicate with parents of teenagers.  (Or should I say we learned how not to communicate with a high schooler and parents of said high schooler?)  We learned that actions speak louder than words.  We also learned that even actions can very easily twisted and misconstrued.

We learned that teenage boys like teenage girls.  We learned that teenage girls like it when teenage boys like them.  We learned that myspace and the internet have completely changed the high school social scene.  We learned that teenage sexuality at its core has changed quite dramatically since our high school days.

We learned quite a bit about medical insurance and what it means to have someone in your family that may not have it.  We learned how to distinguish between real medical emergencies and those that need to be slept on and checked in the morning.

We learned that you can’t hide good food. 

We learned that it is better to give than to receive.  We learned that despite your best efforts, things don’t always turn out the way you hope.  We learned that my wife and I are a good team (actually we already knew that but it was nice to have it reconfirmed).  We learned that we can set a goal and prioritize it and not falter no matter what is thrown our way.

We learned a lot of things the hard way and in some cases we learned that we already have good instincts.  We learned that we still have an awful lot to learn.

So, would we do it all over again?  I can honestly say that I don’t know.  Knowing everything that we know now, I am still not sure we have enough information to make that call.  I still think we helped her get out of a bad situation.  There is no telling what we may have saved her from.  Further, there is no doubt in my mind that we got her off to a good start for the school year.  We hope and pray that this will carry over to her new school and her new home life.

All I know for sure is that we gave it all we had.  We have no regrets.  We layed it all out and didn’t hold anything back.  Only time will tell whether this will have any permanant results.

Time for me to be on my own now

 

Yesterday we took our son to his first day of preschool.  It went better than we could have ever imagined.  We walked in with him and helped him find his seat.  He started drawing a picture while other kids trickled through the doors.  Several of the children were crying and clinging to their parents.  Suddenly, our son looked up from his drawing and said

“Guys, I think it’s time for me to be on my own now”.

That was our queue to exit stage right.  We hugged him good-bye and slipped out the door.

What IS the matter with people? – episode 2

What IS the matter with people?

For today’s episode of What IS The Matter With People, I have two incidents to report – both involving parents disciplining their children.

1.  A couple in North Carolina decided it was ok to tie their 13 year old kid to a tree because of his disobediant behavior.  Here is the article (thanks to my wife who pointed me to it). 

2.  A 27 year old man in California decided it was ok to take his 2 year old out of the car and beat him death because he was “trash” and filled with “demons”.  Authorities showed up and the man refused to stop beating his boy so he was shot and killed.  Here’s the article. 

So, tell me,

What IS the matter with people?

Bye-bye, Lello

My two year old is so much fun.  I have two boys, 4 and 2, and they are both just a bundle of energy and joy.  The 2 year old in particular is at an age that is just so much fun right now.  My 4 year old was the same way at that age.

He is just learning so many new things right now.  Everything new thing he sees or hears, he says “Whassssssaaaatttt????”.  He is learning to say so many new words.  A few months ago, we were keeping track of the number of words he said…now we are trying to keep up with all the new words he is learning each day.  It is truly amazing how quickly he has gone from saying just a handful of words to now putting complete sentences together.

Another thing that is just hilarious to watch right now is his facial expressions.  He just cracks me up.  He will point at an outside grill or at a toaster or something such as that and say “Thasss Ott” (That’s hot).  But, the expression that goes with that is absolutely adorable.  He kind of crinkles his nose and nods his head in the direction he is pointing and give you a look that just says “I know you know this daddy, but just in case you didn’t, I wanted you to be aware that that grill can be a danger if exposed to your skin”.

He is also picking up lots of little fun phrases.  We take him to Dallas Mavericks games and the PA announcer loves to make a spectical of himself everytime a Mav goes to the foul line for a couple free throws.  He will say “Twwwooooooooooooooooooo shots”.  Well our son has picked that up and he will say that exactly the same way every time he tries to take a shot at his little plastic basketball goal.

He also has the ability to quickly recognize the Mavs logo and anything else basketball related.  Occassionally, I will wear a Mavs shirt or cap or something and he will automatically assume that means we are going to get on the “Lello choochoo for da bakabal gang” (Yellow train to go to the basketball game)  Unfortunately for him, the Mavs are done for the year…maybe I will have to stop wearing my Mavs gear until next season!

Oh, and one more cute thing about my son.  He has a blanket that he is completely attached to.  Our oldest son never got himself attached to anything quite like this.  But, our younger son somehow has gotten himself to a point that he cannot go to sleep without this little yellow blanket which he refers to by the name of “lello”.

(We have had episodes where the blanket has gotten dirty or wet and isn’t clean and dry by bedtime.  Believe me, that situation is disasterous and it is to be avoided at all costs.)

Anyway, he knows that he isn’t allowed to leave the house with that blanket.  So, whenever we get the kids ready to go in the morning for whatever the day has in store, he will walk his little blanket to the door, gently lay it down on the floor, waive at it, and say “Bye-bye Lello”.