Don't ask if you don't want to know!

I continue to learn some of the same lessons over and over in motherhood. One of the most valuable is don't ever ask a child a question that you don't want an honest answer to. And then brace yourself because you never know what you might get!

Recently I received an email from my best friend about Mother's Day. She was sent one of those generic forwards where children had been asked a series of questions about mothers and the answers are always so cute. Well being the great mother that she is she got that email and decided to ask her 2 oldest children the questions in that email and send their replies to her friends. It was one of the sweetest and cutest emails I'd ever received. So in the spirit of her email I decided one night to ask Cullen one of the questions and see what his answer would be. I only asked 1 question. Here's how it went. . . . . . . . .

Me: "Cullen, why did God make Mommies?"
Cullen: slight pause "Because they don't have wee-wees."
Abrupt end to conversation followed by hysterical laughter!!!!!

Now you see why I only asked 1 question! :-)

What do you pray for?

Tonight at supper this was one conversation we had:

Cullen: "I like to pray."
Mommy: "That's so good! What do you pray for?"
Cullen: (hesitates for a second then does his wide- eyed, raised eyebrow happy face and says very excited. . .) CANDY!

Honesty. . .children can teach us a lot about it!

Anatomy 101

The following is Facial Anatomy 101 by Cullen, age 2:

Cullen climbs in my bed this Sunday morning, greets me with his sweet smile and wide eyes and says "Good morning" then snuggles close. He was quiet for a few seconds and then suddenly starts reaching for my ear furthest from him and says "ear" then he goes to the other "ear". I then realized as he was reaching for the rest of my face that we were going to go through the litany of facial features that he knows. I thought it was so cute the way he touched all over my face so proud trying to show me that he knew the names for everything and so I listened as he touched my face and said "cheek", "lips", "eye, "nose" and then he sort of sits up with his hand still on my nose and says with great delight "and there's the boogers in there"!

What can I say. . .boys will be boys and all body parts will be appreciated for the ability to produce gross contents!!!

Food Glorious Food!

I'm dedicating this post to all those people who dearly love me and worry whether or not I eat! All of you will be happy to know that a Jr. Hamburger, regular onion rings, 7 packs of ketchup and cup of ice water later I have consumed an outrageous amount of calories for lunch today and have loved every minute of it! As I lathered my onion rings with ketchup, I thought "Wow, this is so delicious and even though in a few hours my stomach will be protesting my food choice with indigestion. . .it's soooo worth it!" I ate an "All-American heart attack disguised in nifty little paper bags" kind of lunch that everyone should indulge in from time to time!

Amazing!

Yesterday morning Cullen woke up and advised me that he would be wearing big boy underwear to daycare! Since we haven't been working on potty training I was quite surprised. Don't misunderstand me, he does know about pottying since he has a big sister and he has even shown some interest from time to time sitting on the potty and coincidentally having good timing and actually using it twice. However, it is not something I've tried to get him to do other than encouraging that one day he will get to use the potty and be a big boy with big boy undies and all that. I don't stress about potty training though because I don't feel like it's worth it. You can't "make" someone go potty so what the use in stressing out a kid until they are ready? Just my opinion! Anyway, I digress! My point is that he must want to go now because he wore big boy underwear ALL DAY LONG yesterday without any accidents!!! When I went to get him I was fully expecting him to be wearing his spare outfit and when I saw he had on the same clothes from the morning I just stood there in the doorway of his classroom stunned. I asked the teacher if he had on a diaper and when she said no it was like I had won the lottery. I scooped Cullen up and told him how proud I was of him and went on and on to everyone in the room and then every person that walked in. Almost every person we passed on the way out got a report on Cullen's achievement for the day (we do live in a small town and yes I was talking to people that I knew)! I'm sure everyone thought I was nuts but I didn't care, I was a proud mommy and a shocked mommy. . .my kid potty trained himself! What's even more comical and puzzling to me about the whole thing is the way the teacher said the acted during the day. She said that morning they asked him not long after he got there if he needed to use the potty and Cullen held up his little hand and said "not right now" and then about half an hour later the teacher saw the bathroom door opened and walked in to find Cullen sitting on the potty. She said they just couldn't believe that he did it and then continued the whole day. He is such a strong willed child and this is just another example for me of what a blessing that can be!

When we got into the car I continued to praise Cullen's new accomplishments and told him that we needed to share his news. Immediately he started listing off all the people he wanted to know about his potty success. I grabbed the cell phone and called Tripp and then my Dad and Cullen told him and then I heard Cullen say "Amazing". I assumed at first that my Dad had responded to Cullen that way and that Cullen was just repeating it but after I asked my Dad and he said that he had not said that to Cullen I realized just how proud of himself Cullen really was. . .he was AMAZED!!!
I am too!

Emerson and The Parrot

Monday we had snow day although we didn't actually have snow. The schools here closed in anticipation of a snow event and therefore the kid's daycare was closed, absurd I know! That meant that I had to find some place for the kids to stay yesterday since I didn't get the day off. Oma and PaPa graciously offered to let the kids stay there in the morning and Aunt Judy (renowned animal rescuer!) came to visit with her new friend. Emerson has consistently said for several months that she wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up although the child is more of an animal observer than an animal lover. So you can imagine my surprise when I see this picture! At first glance you may be thinking that she looks just like a future veterinarian but if you really look at it I think you will see that look in her eyes that is shouting "I am brave. . .I can do this. . .this bird is creeping me out. . .oh goodness, don't move bird. . .wonder how long I'm going to have to smile for this picture. . .I hope this is almost over. . .what was I thinking when I said I wanted the bird to sit on my shoulder?" thought process that was truly going on behind the toothy smile! However, I'm pleased to say that according to Oma Emerson really was brave and admired herself in the mirror, let Oma take a picture and at that point she was, as Oma put it still "unbitten innocent". Can guess what happened next? Yep, the bird thought Emerson's fingers looked like a good snack and OUCH! that was the end of the bird interaction! Looks like Emerson's going to have to look for a different future profession.

Good morning

This morning, like most, I was nestled close to a warm little 2 year old lump of sugar when I woke. Cullen wakes up most mornings around 5am and climbs in bed with me. Thankfully he does go back to sleep for an hour or so! This morning he woke up around 6:45am started wiggling around, got up and walked around the room, I closed my eyes again and then I felt 2 little fingers prying my right eye open. When I focused on the chubby little face just inches from my own face I saw Cullen's bright eyes and long eyelashes looking intently at me. Without taking his fingers from my eye he smiled and said "It's a magical morning, Mama". Now if that doesn't make for a good morning, I don't know what does!

Alive

Yes, I am still alive. I'm sorry for the recent lack of posts but sometimes inspiration is hard to come by. However having 2 adorable children means inspiration is only an tiny hug away. I think that I will start to try to blog again although I'm not sure what the content will be yet. I'm sure that most of it will continue to be silly stories about life with 2 young children though. And I promise to get some new pictures up soon. Sorry for keeping everyone out of the loop for so long.

Okay so on to updates on the kiddies. I enrolled Emerson in Pre-K starting in August. This was really hard for me and really exciting for her. I know most people say that letting go of the last child is the hardest but with Emerson being dubbed the NICU baby she is the hard one for me to let go of. Emerson continues to be my "girly" girl wanting to wear high heels, jewelry, dresses and most importantly lipstick! She loves her teacher at daycare (what a blessing!) and loves all things school related. She has continued to come out of her shell and plays with several children now and even has a boyfriend, yikes!!! She is my typical 1st child enjoying structure and routine and I love her for it. I love her sheer determination and stubborn streak although it makes parenting difficult at times. One of my most favorite things about her is that she really does love all things girly and isn't afraid of what anyone else says. She is confident in her cuteness and will not hesitate to agree if complimented. I love being a mommy to a frilly little princess much more than I ever could have imagined. Cullen is Emerson's complete opposite as a boy in every sense of the word. He loves to be rough, pretend to be a monster, jump from high places and do anything remotely dangerous. He also is my quirky child carrying around and sleeping with a silver slotted serving spoon as long as his arm which morphs into anything his mind creates. . .sword, gun, baseball bat, golf club, etc. He also loves money and was recently carrying around his "pigga" bank as he calls it until it had a tragic accident and broke spilling it's pork bellies all over the floor of Olive Garden. Now his "monies" are contained in a plastic 1 cup measuring cup which he tells goodnight each night and wakes in the morning to immediately retrieve even before he snuggles in the bed with me. I love that he has such a fun personality. He is the jokester of the family always making us laugh with his extreme silliness. I love that he is such a "boy" he cracks me up with his constant activity but wears me out too! But my favorite thing about Cullen is his kind heart. Although he can be quite a difficult, very strong willed child he is my most sensitive child. He is genuinely concerned if someone is hurt or upset and he loves to show his love with words and hugs. He is unashamedly honest with all of his emotions and will immediately tell you if he is upset but in the regard he is just as expressive when he is happy. He truly is a mama's boy!

Now that we're all updated I'll make sure to post a silly story soon!