Brenna's Love

"I wub you up to Heben."

Translation: I love you up to Heaven.

Melts my heart!

A few weeks ago Brenna told me she loved me up to the sky and I responded that I loved her up to the moon. She told me with a very disappointed face that, "the moon is down". I had no idea what she meant or why my response was so upsetting to her until I relayed our conversation to Brian later. He told me that the night before they had talked about how the moon comes up at night and goes down during the day. It was the wrong time to be loved up to the moon.

Well, now I know.

They Say You Never Forget How to Ride a Bike

They lied.
Brian went to the emergency room today to have his elbow stitched up. Fun stuff.

It's Good to Be Home

Going to the grocery store with three kids is really not as hard as people seem to think. It’s certainly not as fast as going by myself, but it’s absolutely doable. I wear Isaac in a sling, Brenna goes in the cart and Nathan walks. It’s easy, really.

Today, I forgot Isaac’s sling.

Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.

We got to Trader Joe’s and I realized we were in trouble. I thought maybe I could lay him across the seat on a blanket, the other two would walk, and all would be good. It was good. For about 4½ seconds. Brenna is a toddler. She toddles. Toddling is s l o w. So 4½ seconds in, when I stopped the cart for the first time, Isaac started screaming. And didn’t stop for the rest of our trip. So out of the cart comes Isaac. And promptly barfs over my shoulder, down my back and all over the floor. Clean it up. It would be great to put Brenna in the cart, but I can’t because I’m holding Isaac. And while I have, on occasion, let Nathan hold Isaac while standing, I wasn’t going to do it in TJ’s on the concrete floor while he’s screaming.

So off we go, I’m holding a screaming Isaac and the shopping list in one hand and pushing the cart with the other, Nathan (my rule follower) has a hand on the cart and is continually pushing it to the side, and Brenna is somewhere behind us. Thank goodness the store was pretty empty!

So we make a beeline for the snack/sample area. Usually I grab a little bitty cup of coffee and it does this frazzled mama a world of good. I decided against it today. Get the kids their snacks. It was cereal. The kind that is really small and actually needs a spoon. Alrighty then. So now my kids are moving at about a snail’s pace. I’m ashamed to say that at one point Brenna dropped a little bit on the floor and I told her to leave it; there was no way I was able to deal with it, and besides, I already cleaned the floor once this trip.

Here is the transcript of about two minutes of our morning at Trader Joe’s:

“It’s okay, Isaac”

“Nathan, stop pushing the cart”

“Come on, Brenna”

“You’re okay, Isaac”

“Nathan, let go of the cart, you keep pushing it”

“Brenna, where are you? Come here, Brenna”

“Nathan, please don’t stand in front of the cart while we’re moving”

“Brenna, come on, baby”

“Nathan, we’re turning. Nathan, we’re turning! NATHAN! MOVE!” (sometimes you gotta keep it simple!)

“Isaac, I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

“See that cashier with no people? GO!”

High Fashion

You know what I love about four year old girls? Their fashion sense! I have a dear friend whose daughter makes me laugh every Sunday when I see what she’s chosen to wear to church. I’ve often commented to my friend that she ought to keep a camera outside her daughter’s bedroom door and take a picture every day of what she comes out in.

So you can understand my excitement when my daughter left the house looking like this:

For Jenn:

Klassy. That's all I've got to say about that.

Oops.

You'll NEVER guess how this happened:
Man, our carpet is gross. This beautiful embellishment is right inside the front door to greet any visitors to our humble (and getting humbler) home! And to you problem solvers: it is not in a place that can be covered. Trust me, I tried to figure out a way.

All Boy

Right now I'm watching Nathan writhe around on the floor in the throes of death. I have no idea what he's dying of, but there are a popsicle stick sword and and an acorn involved. Also, much moaning and groaning and flailing. It's a slow death. Oops, I guess death is overrated; moving on to piracy.

Nothing To Show For It

This last weekend Brian took a tree out of our side yard. Check out my manly man!

He did have some help. We're all about child labor.

Pay no attention to Brenna's hand up her skirt, hard work gives her a wedgie.

Alas, the work force deserted him. Time to cowboy up.

Oooh. Muscles!

Brian insisted I put this picture in here. Look at those skillz!

I totally underestimated how heavy that thing was. I asked him to hoist it over his head and he looked at me like I was crazy.

Gross. Man sweat.

And nothing to show for all his hard work! But I guess that was the point.

Big Mouth

Isaac is teething... screeching and grabbing everything in sight to gnaw on. Sitting on my lap during Nathan's gymnastics class, Brenna's head was at the perfect level. Each time she came to me, he would lunge for her head and try to gum her.

I told Brenna, "he's trying to eat you!" Oops.

This week we switched to a new class to make our schedule a little easier, and met a whole new group of parents and their little ones, probably a dozen people. It was much tighter in the little room than it was in our old class.

So the other parents were watching and laughing at our little display.

Now that she knows he's hungry, Brenna can solve the problem! She turns to me and yells (to be louder than Isaac), " He wants b**by, mama, he wants b**by! Give him b**by, mama!"

And for the first time, I wondered if I should have chosen a more discreet word for nursing. :)

My Favorite Smell

I love when the lemon trees bloom. Walking by, you might catch a hint of the smell of these blossoms; but in a few days, when they're all open, they fill our yard with the sweetest scent.

He Gets It

When Nathan asks a complicated question, I can generally assume we’ll cover several subjects in just a few minutes! Today he asked why people go in different doors at Bible Study. Pretty simple, right? Well, I answered that the women who have kids go in one door, and the women who don’t bring children go straight into the meeting room.

So how come those other ladies don’t bring their children?

So we talked about women who don’t have children and moms with older kids and grandmas. The idea that grandmas have lives apart from their grandkids was new for my little guy! When kids grow up and move into their own houses, grandmas get to do what they like.

When Nathan grows up and moves into his own house, it’s going to be a great house!

So I asked him if he knew that different houses cost different amounts to live in. Big houses cost more than little houses. I asked what kind of house he thought he would live in someday.

His response was awesome! He said that he would need money to get a house, so he’ll have to get a job. Then he added that he’ll have to work at that job for awhile, because he’ll need to save up some money first in order to be able to buy a house! I was floored. My four year old gets it! I love finding out what he understands. I think I’ll wait ‘til he’s a little older before I explain just how long he’ll have to work to save up for a house…