Happy Halloween!

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the quick pace through the holidays...so here's to the start of the craziness!





Oh and to not be undone...me...(actually, I told my mom this is what her upper lip will look like if she keeps shaving it...I don't care what Dr. Oz says mom...)


Have fun!

the knife

It's so true that if you blink the years will fly by. My oldest will soon be 7 in just a few weeks. I, like every other mother, am getting all misty thinking about those first moments in the hospital when I gazed on this incredible creature that I now was to take home and raise. He seemed so small (not for long) and vulnerable. He needed me!

Jump ahead 7 years. He's all legs, energy and dancing to the beat of his own drum. At 7 he stands above my shoulder in my bare feet. (Current scientific growth charts project he will be as tall as I at the age of 10..thanks dad for that info!) He is growing and becoming an amazing creature.

Currently, A and I have been reading a book about masculine initiation. The author talks about the stages boys and men travel through in their lives...Cowboy, Warrior, King to name a few. It has shed an interesting light on how I view parenting my boys. I've always been a "teaspoon of dirt a day keeps the doctor away" and I've watched mothers run after their sons "rescuing" them regularly from things like...oh, dirt and adventure (they may get hurt...or dirty). I've always tried to limit my "be careful's" to only life threatening scenarios. I don't want them to be overly cautious and lose their sense of abandon and adventure.

Recently, I've been challenged in this area. I knew it was coming. I've always said that I will more than likely be sitting on the sidelines watching one or both of my children hurl themselves around a track on or in something that requires fuel.

J has been talking about getting a pocket knife since we visited his older boy cousin this summer. His cousin is in Cub Scouts and was learning to use a pocket knife. Oh, J thought this was the coolest thing. So A and I decided that we would get him one for his 7th b-day. He and A picked out the perfect camo swiss army knife on-line and we started the long painful process of waiting for it to arrive.



The instructions have been clearly ingrained since we first started this adventure. He is not to use it without adult supervision and it will be kept in a "safe" place other than his back pocket. Time seemed to drag on forever, yet he never whined, he only waited with eager anticipation and excitement.

Finally, about a week ago it arrived! I wish I had a camera at the moment he opened the box. Truth be told I just wanted to be in the moment rather than trying to "capture" it...(it's captured in my heart forever!) Excitement! Shock! Thrill! Now the hardest part would be waiting for daddy to get home. There are just some things that a boy needs to do with his dad and learning to handle a knife is one of those things.

After a few brief instructions and words of caution about safety J was set free to whittle. He sauntered around looking for the "perfect" piece of wood...found himself a chair (which he moved about 10 feet away from everyone so we'd be safely out of the way) and began to whittle. His male bravado was strong. After about 3 strokes with the blade he leaned over his shoulder and.....spit. Yes....he leaned over his shoulder and spit. I literally did a double take, looked at A and asked, 'he just spit didn't he?' 'Yes, he did' said A. Where in the world did he get that from? A has never whittled before and I don't remember watching any whittlin' and spittin' shows on PBS? At this point I realize (and embrace) that you can't fight the Y chromosome.

bad salami dream

Last night B woke up scared and said he had a bad dream. So I climbed into bed (no small feat trying not to dislocate anything while crawling into the bottom bunk of a not so tall bunk bed...mind you at 12:30 a.m....after being awoken from REM sleep...but I digress) and snuggled him back to sleep.

Earlier this evening, on our way to church, B started talking about his scary dream. I asked him if he remembered why it was so scary. He said, "Well it was the salami's that my friends and I were fighting." I'm racking my brain about how in fact a large salami could be frightening in a young boy's dream. We had just read the "Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle that night and I do recall that the said caterpillar had ingested a rather large salami. But why are B and his friends fighting these large salami's and what makes them so frightening?So I comment, "These were big salami's that look sort of like a hot dog, right?" "No, mommy, like the green guys on the show where they walk like this," and he sticks his arms out in front of him,"the guys we see on that old show 'Scooby Doo'"....Ohhhhhh, he's talking about ZOMBIES....zombies...salami's....well one can definitely feel like a zombie at night after eating a salami. Beware of zombies posing as salami's in your dreams...if so...throw back a few Maalox before bedtime...sweet dreams.

growing up

Lots of growing pains lately...for mommy. Watching my boys continue to develop their distinctive personalities, likes and dislikes, passions. (or should I say passionate likes and dislikes!)

The beginning of another year of school has brought even more changes. Both boys headed full on into school each embracing it according to his personality. J was initially excited; everything was new and interesting, however his excitement quickly subsided as he realized that in first grade the amount of "playing" during school has sharply declined. He's doing well grasping concepts, understanding the work and his reading continues to expand. Things have changed...he doesn't seem to be so impressed by his "new found knowledge"...seems to him new learning experiences come with new responsibilities for one's behavior and work. Don't get me wrong..the teacher reassured A and I thins morning that J is a good kid...he's just..."a boy"...this seems to interpret (in J's case) to a bit distracted, a little restless and somewhat impatient about ANYTHING taking too long!

Tonight J and I played our favorite bedtime game of writing a sentence for the other and then having that person draw a picture to go with the sentence. He really loves that game and I love to watch him use all his creative energy to come up with clever sentences for me to draw and then to illustrate the crazy sentences I hand down to him (i.e. tonight's was "The alien threw toast at his enemies!") As we snuggled to close out the night he showed me his new loose teeth...the two top front and center. It struck me like a knife to the heart...there goes my baby...when those two teeth are gone and his new ones come in..his face will begin to change...it will be just the beginning of his journey into manhood. The dance of our relationship will begin to change once more..and more frequently I will lose the grasp of his hand if only for one moment...but that brief moment will feel like an eternity.