There are moments in motherhood that some people call paychecks. Here are some of my "paychecks"...
Seeing what Nora has decided to wear to school.
Making silly faces with Wesley, watching him grow.
When the kids play together nicely.
Family walks on beautiful nights... and when funny stuff happens. "your eye, mommy!"
Ethan taking 12 samples from the Vitamix guy when he says, "take as many as you'd like!"
I love being a mom. When I look for the good stuff about being a mom- I see it everywhere, I hear the sweet things they say, I feel their chubby arms around my neck, and I know how to make them happy.
These kids were meant to be mine, and I was meant to be their mom.
July 8, 2011
Nora saw some mannequins at the mall, and said, "Ha ha, look at that, fake moms."
July 17, 2011
I was reading a book and Wesley crawled on my lap, put my bookmark onto the page I was reading and said, "AH DUN!
That fabric on the table has to be good for something.
August 20, 2011
Ethan: mom! we haven't been to Sonic in like a month!
Me: I didn't go to Sonic until I was 25 years old, and somehow I'm still alive.
Ethan: Yeah, I guess you're right. I could survive without Sonic...At least for a year.
August 25, 2011
I (Brian) asked Nora if she likes sharks and she said, "No. I like ponies, and butterflies, and princesses, and mermaids, and unicorns, and pegasuses."
Wes likes to explore and investigate his surroundings.
September 2011
Words Wes loves to say right now: "Eeeeww!" "Oh No!" "Daddy!" "Oh man." "Aah done"(all done) "No, no, no." "bo-pin" (broken) "pee-po" (paper) "ahm one" (I'm one) "Nana!" and "Bampa" (grandpa) - that's right "mommy" didn't make the top 10..
Sept. 22
Ethan made these huge Halloween Party invitations with time, date, location and instructions to wear a costume. I came in and saw them and said, "Uh, Ethan- you need to ask me first. We are NOT having a Halloween party."
Ethan said, "That's why it's a joke mom. Didn't you read the bottom? It says JK."
At 7:00 am...
Me: sleeping peacefully
Nora: MOM!
Me: (not sleeping) huh-wha?
Nora: Ethan won't let me watch TV, he's been playing the Mimtembo all morning!
My best friend Mollie wrote an ode to her father for father's day. One of the points she made rang so true to me that I am copying and pasting it onto my blog (hope you don't mind Mollie)
• He makes stuff up. This one is self-explanatory, and I don’t have a particular memory of it, mostly because I live it every day. Yes, this unfortunate trait was passed right along to me, full force. If I don’t know the answer to a question, I find myself answering anyway, confidently delivering guesses as if reading out of an encyclopedia, even though my brain is telling me the whole time, “Stop, stop, you don’t know what you’re saying. You’re making this up. You know this is all fiction you are saying in a convincing way, with an authority your loose facts and often wrong intuition don’t deserve. Lies, lies!” But alas, I can’t help it. It’s genetic.
Ha Ha ha! That is me and my dad to a T. Brian is so going to appreciate this post. And Mollie, you explained it perfectly in a way I never could. Thanks! It's good to have a good laugh at your self ever now and then.
Ethan has this way of getting me to do things.
He owns probably close to 50 stuffed animals. And he loves them all, individually. I'm not kidding. They all have names, likes, dislikes, personalities and they are occasionally referred to as my "other" children (by Ethan- not me!). So when he asks me to make him a stuffed animal I say no- right? Wrong.
I've blogged about how Ethan's super power is manipulation before.
Somehow I was duped into making Ethan a stuffed frog- did I mention he already has like 3 stuffed frogs. I came into his room to help him get ready for school and he was in his closet crying. I found out that the problem was that he couldn't find one of his stuffed frogs. This was a problem because he wanted to take this particular stuffed frog to school because he'd earned a "bring a stuffed animal to school" pass. I of course said he should take one of his other frogs with him. This was no good. No good because all his other frogs had already been to school. Long story short- he convinced me to make him a new one so he could take it to school the next day. AND he wanted it green, soft, fuzzy and ready by 3pm that very day.
So, I hugged him, said "OK honey", took him to school, came home and created a pattern, cut, sewed, stuffed, and finished the frog by 3pm.
Geez, I'm such a push-over!
I was in the bath and Nora walked in.
Me: Nora do I have any mascara under my eyes?
Nora: Yeah, some under them, and on top of your eyes, and you look like a mad man.
So the last road trip we took Ethan was doing this thing where he would never have to use the bathroom when we stopped at a gas station, but ten minutes later he would have to go (like, so bad mom!)...
We stopped at another gas station, Ethan said he didn't have to go.
15 minutes down the road everyone in the car is asleep except Ethan and I.
Ethan: Mom, I really, really have to go.
Me: Oh no you don't
Ethan: Mom! I'm gonna pee my pants.
Me: That's right you are.
Ethan: Mom!!!!!! Stop the car, I'm serious.
Me: So am I, I asked you at the gas station, and you promised that you wouldn't have to go soon, now you have to wait.
Ethan: I can't. MOM! I gotta go NOW.
Me: Put on a pull-up.
Ethan: No way......
5 minutes later
Ethan: (while relieving himself in a pull-up) Mom, just so you know, I'm 100%, NEVER doing this again.
On Sunday Nora was sitting next to one of the Primary leaders and she leaned over and whispered, "Quick, tell me the answers so I can get a treat."
Nora said she was going to name her daughter Alice. I asked her what she was going to name her son. She thought about it and said, "Coconut."
The missionaries in our church go by the title Elder (Elder Smith, Elder Jones...). The Elder's stopped by our house last night. We sent Nora to bed and she said, "Not until I say goodbye to the Elderlies!"
Nora got out of preschool, ran over to me and said, "Mom! I got to meet my teacher's husband today. He is one good lookin dude."
Common Saying: You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit.
Nora's Saying: You get what you want, and you don't throw a fit.
Common Saying: Move your feet, loose your seat.
Nora's Saying: If you get up and move your feet, then you loose your spot.
And just a quick story about how Nora likes to substitue her own version of things....
She drew a lovely picture. Then she showed it to me. I noticed that she had glued some ribbon to it. I wondered how she had done this because I knew she didn't have any glue. So I asked and she told me she used tape. I looked closer, there was no tape. So I asked again, and she said, "I used my boogers."
Nora, Wesley and I were in the tub and I said, "Three cute, chubby people in the tub!"
Nora said, "No, two!"
Nora has a hard time with numbers so I said, "No, three...One, two, three! (pointing at each of us)."
Nora insisted, "No two! One, two (pointing at just herself and Wesley)."
In my head I thought, oh, how sweet, she doesn't think I'm chubby!
Then she continued, "Only two cute people are in the tub."
Shocked and a bit hurt I responded, "You don't think I'm cute?"
To which she quickly replied, "But you're smart!"
We've been trying to live it up the last few months we are here...
On Friday we went to the Senior Celebration on Campus, it was so much fun!
Free food, games, back massages (ahhhh), free stuff (you know, water bottles, pens, candy and the like), give aways, entertainment and stuff like that. Like I said, it was fun.
Brian and I competed in a Newly Wed game. We got second, lost by one question. I think our being married for about 9 years longer than the competition actually put us at a disadvantage for some of the question. Questions like, "What's the strangest present your spouse ever got you?" Well, I have to go through 9 years of presents in my brain in like 10 seconds. That was hard. Oh well, it was a blast, and we really did know each other very well. We only missed ones that neither of us knew the answer to.
Ethan got to wear a snake around his neck. And to get candy he had to get it out of the tarantula cage. Nora wanted nothing to do with that!
Then while we were waiting for our ticket number to be called during the raffle, they had a dance contest... I looked at Brian and said, "Where is Ethan! We have to get him up there!" So we chased him down and convinced him to go on stage and dance in front of hundreds of people. The winner was decided by who got the most applause/cheering from the crowd. Ethan won! (and some other guy). It was awesome.
A little while later Ethan was with me out in the hall when BYU's President walked by.
I introduced President Samuelson to Ethan and explained that he was the President of BYU. Their interaction went as follows:
Ethan: "You're the president of the whole school?"
President Samuelson: "Yes, I'm the President of BYU. Do you want to be the President of BYU some day?"
Ethan: "Uh, yes. Uhm, no. I want to work at a pet store."
President Samuelson: "That sounds like it would be more fun."
As Ethan's getting ready for bed he says to me....
At night my girlfriend magically appears here (in his room). Her name is, uh... Sweetie! She loves, Loves, LOVES black licorice. Even two thousand times more than you do. And she loves chicken and bacon like me. And she likes chicken tenders. And she loves sweet little babies like Wesley, sweet tender babies.
Later:
Mom? (I go in his room) My girlfriend, Sweetie, looks a lot like you.
Ethan: I have a real live girlfriend Me: You do? Ethan: Yeah, I don't know where she lives or what her name is. But she is Bee-U-Tee-ful! she always wears fake eyelashes. Me (huh?) Ethan: We're gonna get married someday. I love her.
I have never taken my kids to Wienerschnitzel, and as far as I can remember I've never been there myself. But today my brother Tim watched the kids while Brian and I went to an etiquette luncheon at BYU (fun!). I gave him some money for lunch, so he took the kids to get hot dogs. When they pulled up to the drive-through I don't know what picture it was that my kids saw, but I'm assuming it was similar to the one above. Anyway, here is how the conversation went:
Nora: What the heck! Ethan: There's poo on that hot dog! Nora: Yeah! Poo! Ethan: Actually I was thinking more like diarrhea.
So you might be wondering what a Seinfeld baby is. They are my babies. Well, for some reason my children come out looking like a character from Seinfeld. Let me show you:
Here is my little gymnast. She is the first one to do a somersault in the video. Sorry, no sound. She also decided to go through the tunnel backwards (and cut in front of other kids). Enjoy.
