You know you've failed as a mother when...

...your six your asks you as he prepares for his shower, "Mom? Do I have to get new underwear? I JUST put these on yesterday."

He seemed totally perplexed, and quite annoyed really, to learn that underwear require daily changing.

I swear we've covered this subject at LEAST a dozen times. Apparently he was not much impressed by any one of those conversations.

Silly Goose

Today while reading My Father's Dragon out loud to my three big boys I held up the book to show them all the picture of the rhinoceros throwing Elmer around by the seat of his pants using its tusk. If you've never read the book it sounds scary, but it's cute and silly in the story, and the picture is intriguing for sure.

When Goose (3 1/2) saw the picture he was captivated.

I asked him what he saw in the picture and his answer cracked me up:

"He's dangerousussin' him!"

Too funny

The other day I heard Punky and Finny playing upstairs in some very boyish fighting type game involving Legos, Transformers, Playmobil guys, or most likely a combination of the three. I'm not at all sure what the real context was of the conversation I overheard between Punky's "guy" and one of Finny's "guys," but I did catch this little snippet that made me laugh out loud:

Punky (in his very cute false baritone "manly" voice with a bit of an old fashioned but not quite British accent thrown in for good measure): "I swear, I shall not be defeated!"
(short pause...)
Punky again, still in the same accented baritone manly voice: "Then again, I do not swear."

Ahhh. The joys of raising good little Christian soldiers. They'll beat the snot out of the bad guys, no doubt. But heaven forbid they swear. That, apparently, is where the line must be drawn. ;o)

That's a first...

We've lost plenty of teeth in this house.



In fact, this morning the 10th tooth of the family was lost. So it wasn't the actual losing of a tooth that got to me this time. It was the method by which said tooth was lost.



Today while I was making lunch Punky and Finny were upstairs in their room working on tidying up their Lego area. Finny came running downstairs full of excitement and anticipation to tell me about how his already loose tooth was suddenly REALLY loose. He had been taking apart a Lego creation and had used his teeth to pry apart a particularly stubborn piece. Of course I never allow them to pry Legos apart with their teeth. I've actually a purchased a nifty little tool made specifically for prying stubborn Legos apart just so that my children will not chip and crack their precious teeth. But when I'm not looking, apparently they just do it anyway...



But I digress...



So He asked if I could pull it the rest of the way and I told him it wasn't quite ready for that, but that I thought it would surely come out sometime this week.



I thought that was the end of it, as he happily went back upstairs to finish the Lego cleaning. But then I heard a wild stampeding of feet as someone came galloping across the upstairs hall and down the stairs into the kitchen where I was still working towards making lunch.

And there was Funny, smiling maniacally with a slight tinge of blood in his mouth and a tooth in his hand. He was so excited as he announced with a thrill, "Mom, Punky came up with this great idea and he got my tooth out!!!"

I was still trying to piece it all together as Punky came trotting up behind Finny to tell me in better detail what exactly had happened.

So apparently Punky's "brilliant" idea was that if a Lego had loosened the tooth to begin with, then surely that was a good tool to use to remove the tooth once and for all.

And so he happily presented this idea to his little brother, who trustingly allowed his big brother to wedge a long, thin Lego piece to his wiggly little tooth... and yank with all his might until the thing popped out.

Yes. My seven year old pried out my five year old's tooth with a Lego piece.

Ick. Ewwww. Talk about giving me the willies.

It is funny now in hindsight, to imagine Finny happily going along with his brother's genius plan of tooth removal. Now let me just state for the record that never in a million years would Punky let anyone near one of his loose teeth with a Lego in hand. Oh no. That boy starts crying at the mere thought of discomfort, let alone the actual real potential for pain.

But apparently he had no trouble whatsoever inflicting that kind of pain on his little brother. Nope. No trouble at all.

Finny admitted that yes, it did indeed hurt quite a bit when he did the actual yank. But as soon as the tooth was out, it didn't hurt anymore. So that's good, I guess.

So there you go. Yet another moment that I never saw coming in my years of mothering.

And just for the record... I did tell that that Legos were not an acceptable form of tooth removal in the future. Next time, just come ask Mommy for the floss and I'll let you try to tie the thing up and pull it out that way. I'm not sure why, but it's somehow much less creepy.

But hey, A+ for creativity and ingenuity, huh?

Picture Day

It's been almost two years since I have taken my crew in to get somewhat formal pictures taken. And by somewhat formal, I just mean anyone but my husband or I taking pictures of all four of them together in outfits that are somewhat coordinated.

So today we went to our local Target Portrait Studio with four cute, smiley kids in very darling coordinating orange and white outfits. I have been so excited ever since I booked the appointment. I've never had four children in a photo shoot before! I was actually giddy as I walked into target and saw all of my babies looking so clean and neat and all wearing similar clothes. No one had a jammie shirt on. Not one holey knee. Everyone had recently trimmed hair and they were fairly clean and mostly brushed. I had picked all the boys' jeans out so they were all the right size and no one had hand picked any nice plaid button up shirts to go with their red workout pants and clip-on tie (that would be Finny's favorite NICE outfit. Real nice, huh?). All four of my kids looked absolutely darling.

It was perfect.

So of course it could only go downhill from there, right? I mean, I do have four children, after all. I think it is physically impossible for all four of them to be happy, cooperative and STILL at the same time.

So first there was Little Miss Girly Pie. She was the one I was really excited to get pictures of. For one thing I've never taken her in to get any pictures done before, so firsts are always fun. Plus it's nearing her birthday so I thought these could count as some one year photos. And add to all that I've never gotten to pick a dress or decide on hair accessories for pictures before. That's just a whole new world to a Momma of three boys! So I was just so excited to see my cute, happy baby girl smile for the camera and get some absolutely adorable shots to frame and hang up. I had planned the pictures to be smack between her two naps so she'd be in a great mood. And she was... in the waiting room.

But then we got into the picture-taking room - and the happy, smiley girl was gone. Girly Pie half smiled, barely, for the first two or three shots (group shots as she immediately cried when I tried to put her down alone for the individuals), and proceeded to cry the whole rest of the time if I even tried to peel her an inch or two off of my body. No cute, happy girl standing there beaming. Nope. In fact, it's a good thing I thought to wear a white shirt, because I ended up holding her for most of the pictures. But at least I did get a couple of sweet solemn faces - which look fine in sepia where you can't see the red eyes from her crying.

Sigh.

And then there's Goose, who apparently had to poop, as he was running circles around everyone. Literally. Circles. It was like I had just given the kid a Coke and a candy bar or something. It was pretty great.

And Punky, the first born ham that he is, was being the biggest show off and camera hog I have ever seen! At one point, the lady was just trying to get some candid shots of the kids all looking at Girly Pie (she gave up on trying to get smiles, since GP cried every time she tried to make her look towards the camera! – I even had to sit there with her in my lap because I couldn’t put her down anywhere near the camera lady. Girly Pie was obviously terrified of her.) and there was Punky in the background of everyone, literally standing on one leg and craning all his limbs out and making a super fakey cheesy “Look at me, I’m smiling!” sort of face. It was such an obvious center-of-attention sort of ploy it was almost funny. Almost.

Then there’s Finny. I had to remind him so many times not to scratch his nose (He doesn’t pick it, he just sticks his first two fingers in both nostrils and sort of scratches the whole area there constantly. I’m not sure if it’s a nervous habit or if he really is itchy. Either way – it looks REALLY bad in pictures!) or touch his face or cover anyone else’s face with his hands or the little flower prop we used in an attempt to keep Girly Pie's interest. Really he was the best one. At least he kept a somewhat natural smile on his face, didn’t try to steal the show, and mostly stayed in the same place.

So there you go. My first experience of getting pictures done with four children.

I'll post some of the pictures here when I pick them up in a couple weeks. When all was said and done - though they did not turn out as I had imagined they would - we did end up with some sweet shots of my kiddos.

So really, I guess I can't complain.

Though - I guess it’s no wonder I only take them once every two years. ;o)

Finny's Funnies...

So yesterday (or was it the day before? I dunno... it's all a blur...) I asked my big boys a question and they stumbled over the answer. Usually when I ask such a questions Punky jumps to the answer long before anyone else gets a chance to even really mull the question over. Normally Finny just happily parrots his brother's answer and just smiles, pleased that there is indeed an answer to the question at all. Sometimes he squawks that Punky didn't give him a chance. This time I think Finny got to it just a fraction of a second before his always-right-and-always-gotta-prove-it-to-the-world big brother. I didn't think much of it and did not tune into the minor conversation, and apparently disagreement, that ensued between them just after the incident. But what I did catch was Finny's just too cute and perfect response to his brother's apparent displeasure at Finny's knowing anything:

Finny (said with just the right amount of spunk, but not a trace of snottiness): "Punky, you're not the only smart one in this house."

Too true, Finny. Too true. And more power to you for figuring that out. Good for you, my boy.