Apology!

I do not consider Chase and Ryder to be overly aggressive boys.  I've been around boys who are far more rough than them.  Still, between the hyperactivity and need to touch and feel and grasp everything there is certainly a likelihood that wrestling happens, fists get thrown, feet get kicked.  Sometimes, its intentional.  Most often, when that is the case, it is with each other.   I remember when they were 11 months old and they were rolling around wrestling.  I knew that  they didn't learn that from watching me.  When I called Todd, astonished, he said "boys will be boys, Wendy.  They wrestle."  So, short of something too fierce, I let them duke it out themselves.  But, there is a line.  Always.  And when they near it, or more likely, step over it, I make it clear that certain behavior is unacceptable.

Depsite letting them have their moments there are 3 rules that come into play:

1.  No hitting.  We do not hit.  Not each other, not our friends, not anyone.

2.  We DO NOT HIT GIRLS.  Ever.  Yes it is a double standard.  I am sorry.  But, even now we teach our boys there are certain things that are off limits around girls.   Farting.   Burping.  Penis talk.  Hitting.    ALWAYS.

3.  WE NEVER HIT BELOW THE BELT!   Not boys, not girls!

So, you can imagine my surprise, my disappointment, my humiliation, when I learned that Chase broke all 3 rules in one shot.  At school.  At school, where you're supposed to be on your best behavior.  So, I guess he broke 4 rules.

This report was given to me after I was told he had a fantastic morning.  He listened fabulously and used  great manners.   This report was all given along side the dose of "he was very apologetic, said it was an accident, and seemed truly upset about it!"    Not quite the teaspoon of sugar needed to help the medicine go down.    More like a pinch.  Of Nutrasweet.

After a long talk about why what Chase did was bad we came up with proper punishments.  In addition to some other things we decided he should write an apology letter, so that he could accept responsibility. He wrote to Peyton.  He wrote to Ms. Liz.  He also chose to write to Ms. Nadine (who was not present.) And, because he loves to write, Ryder chose to write to Oren.  Apologizing for something he did not even do.  But, still. 

It was not meant to be funny.  And, although it was a serious matter, Chase's letters were quite humorous.  Here they are below.  Hopefully, he did learn a lesson or two from this.

I love you, too!

Turner, my happy, smiley boy, who speaks only the words he can say well, finally has uttered four little words to me at just over two years old.

I love you, too!!

I've been waiting for such a response.

I love you, my buddy.

Tears of Tease!

We have a lot of laughter in this house. We use a lot of sarcasm. We tease one another.  This has always been our way.   The boys have caught on to the wit in the house and have started to use some of their own.  I have to admit I am proud.

Chase and Ryder are so very different and this is evident to everyone who knows them.  Their differences are clear even where they are similar.  For example, they are both very sensitive boys, empathetic and caring.  However, where Chase is very verbal in all of these ways, Ryder is quiet about it.  Chase will tell me how beautiful I am (and every other girl, for that matter!) Ryder will pick me flowers.  Chase will say he missed me so much.  Ryder will run to me and give me the biggest hug I have ever received.  Chase cares what people think and do and wants to think and do as they do.  Ryder does things his own way and isn't interested in the crowd.   It is truly amazing to watch two boys handle the same situation so differently.

Today, my heart broke a thousand times as Chase cried.  Apparently, he was teased at school.  This was enough to send  him into two year old hysterics.   He is not the type of kid who is picked on, for this I am grateful.  And, because he is being raised in a hilarious home by, wink wink, hilarious parents, he has a sense of humor for all things funny.

Another thing about Chase is he has fantastic verbal skills.   Since the day he spoke his first word he has spoken clearly, and correctly.  He forms grammatically sound sentences and corrects his peers for mispronounciations. Sometimes we are baffled by the words he uses and how he says them, correctly, every time.

So, to find out that he got teased for saying "hambooger" not "hamburger" left me baffled.   When he said,  "hambooger" most of the kids laughed except, according to Ryder, Ryder and Ellie. The kids laughing immediately triggered Chase's tears.  Kids will be kids.  My guess is they laughed when they heard booger and not at the fact that Chase said it wrong, because at 4, most of the kids still mispronounce a lot.  Truth is, that is exactly the type of thing Chase would laugh at.  Ryder too. But when I asked him why he and Ellie did not laugh he said, "Chase was so upset it was not funny anymore."  That's Ryder's sensitive side overtaking his silly, booger-silly, side.

Most of me wonders if Chase said "hambooger" on purpose, to make people laugh.  I wonder this because he so rarely mispronounces words and he does have a bit of class clown in him.  He cried, whimpered even, for a long time and I wanted to cry along with him.

(Although this post was unfinished and unpublished until 9/25/13, I wanted this story documented.)

Adults Only!

Last weekend was awesome. Really awesome. We had a rare, adults only, relaxing, and fun time with good friends. We hung out, ate, drank, laughed, played games, watched TV, slept late, ate more, drank more, laughed more, etc. It felt like college again. Sort of. At least for 48 hours we forgot about responsibilities. We forgot about children. About bills. About laundry. (We also forgot we were on weight watchers, but no need to really document that!). We forgot we were thirty-somethings and, easier than expected I might add, we channeled our twenty something selves.  I am pretty sure my thirty something self, channeling one decade prior, had a lot more fun than my way too mellow twenties self actually had.  It was awesome.   And, since we really are much closer to 40 than to 20 we spent Sunday at the spa, which was very much needed.   Are there weekends better than that?

My mom told me, when I began having children, that my friends will always be my friends but I would soon make friends through my kids, because of my kids.   I did not fully understand this at the time.  Some of my best friends have been so for nearly 20 years.  But, so it goes.  And time passes.  Some relationships dwindle.  Others grow stronger.  Real friends are always there.  My girls are my girls and nothing changes that.   But, it's also true, that over time, friends change, relationships change, we change, and welcoming new, close friends is great, though it does not replace our old friends.  Just like we still love our first born just as much when we birth our second children.  Our love is multiplied, not divided.

Four years ago I wrote this post.  It was true, then.   All of it.  The fact that I had to work really hard to see my closest friends (I still do) and the part that these new girls I was meeting were just that....new.  All these  years later there are far less definitive lines between the old friends and the new friends, the close friends and the new friends.  What I hadn't known back then was how much I would have in common with these girls I was meeting, who kids were (are) the same age as my own.  How much fun we could have together.  How close our husbands could become.  I value these friendships, and know that new friends can, too, become best friends.

We (these friends and I) had a conversation once, "how long do you need to be friends with a new friend before they are no longer new?"  Our answers varied:  5 years: 10 years; ultimately we decided it was a feeling (40,000 memory miles) and not a quantifiable number.  With that I surely agree.

Any friend that you can be your true self with, and they with you, is no longer a new friend....just a good friend. I'm lucky to have good friends!!

Flyers Wives Carnival

As a gift from Uncle Rob and Aunt Jamie, Chase and Ryder were given tickets to the Flyers Wives Fight for Lives Carnival.   What an awesome gift!!  As a special outing all 5 of us went, in addition to Rob and Jamie, Jamie's brother, John,  her niece, Charlotte, and nephew, Jack!  We were all very excited about what we expected to be a fun and special day.

Geared up in our Flyers logos it was fun to be part of the orange and black sea.  It was also very cool to know the players (and alumni) were in the building, though we only saw them from a distance.   There were some fun games, though we didn't get to play most of them because the event was poorly organized.  But, the kids had fun. They got to slide down an inflatable slide ten times in a row which is enough to make any 4 year old's day.  We did win some cool prizes, the highlight being the Flyer insigniaed whoopi cushion that still has the boys cracking up.  Particularly Turner who's first dose of absolute hysterics came from the "in stereo" fart sounds!!

It was a day all in good fun, for a good cause.  And, it never hurts to show our pride of our favorite hockey team.  Hopefully, we will be part of another orange and black sea one day.  One day soon.  When the Flyers earn themselves a Stanley Cup.

Bowl of Mush!

Chase and Ryder are hardly girl crazy, but they like girls. They find them "pretty" and know they should hold a door for a girl and, whether or not they follow such rules, that farting in front of a girl is a no-no. They seem to know that girls like flowers and compliments and a day never passes that they don't telll me I am the most beautiful woman in the world.  Chase especially has a way of knowing the right thing to say.

When they were babies Chase favored the ladies. Me, either of the Mom-Moms, any of my girlfriends. He knew even in his preemie state that if he flashed his dimples and batted his eyelashes he could get away with almost anything. Cool Ryder favored the dudes. He was a man's little man right from the start.   I was the only exception to that rule. He would hang out, chill with daddy, in Uncle Dave's lap, Uncle Rob's, Uncle Chad's. He would always ask for the daddy's of his friends. That was Ryder, already learning to play hard to get.

Now that they are pre-schoolers not much has changed. Ryder hangs with the boys but says his girlfriend is Jessica. Adorable Jessica is bright and sarcastic and silly and thinks superheroes are the coolest thing on the planet. She is, actually, perfect for Ryder.
Chase, on the other hand, has many girlfriends. His list includes ALL of the prettiest girls in class and he does not think he should have to pick just one.  Maybe he is right?!

Turner, is a different story altogether. He, like Ryder, knows how to hang with the boys and he also learned a thing or two about flirting from Chase. Most of the friends in his little world are boys. He can rough and tumble with the big and lil guys alike.  But, dimpled and long lashed as well, he knows how to flirt, when he wants to.  Bianca, or Manca as he says, our cleaning lady, is one of Turner's favorite ladies.  He grins when she enters the house and proceeds to follow her around and help her scrub or vacuum.  The other day he asked her to put his shoes on for him.  He loves Manca.   But, nobody, no one makes Turner all cooky like his little red headed love, Kate.

Kate, playing dress up!

Kate is the daughter of our friends, Ali and Jared.  She is small and mighty with her bright red hair and brighter blue eyes.  She has a dominant, and hilarious, personality.  She is well spoken and has a large presence in a room.  She has Turner completely gaga.  A two year old boy totally smitten for a two year old girl.  It's adorable, actually.

At home the mere mention of Kate's name is cause for grin.   Turner's smile already has a tendency to light up a room, but mention Kate's name and the dreariest of days can become sunny.  He will ask for her when I say gym or storytime, two events we see her at most often.  He will ask to see her picture.  His eyes light up, his smile lights up, he is head over heels.

But, then, put him in a room with her and he turns into a bowl of mush.  At best.   When he sees her, he will still grin, open mouthed, from ear to ear, but he will hide his head, his whole body behind me, inside of me, hoping she will not see him blushed and flushed.  A boy so vocal, so silly, so personable, so LOUD, completely folds himself inside of himself when in the presence of his girl, all the while with a smile on his face and love in his eyes.
Perhaps it's a game, part of his hard to get strategy?  Or, it's just a boy, too young to understand the butterflies in his stomach.  Just a boy, crushing a girl!

I am pretty sure Kate likes him, too.  She will need to be the aggressive one in this relationship, which knowing Kate, seems perfectly appropriate!

Jump Start!

A few weeks ago I enrolled in Boot Camp because I felt I need a little jump start to my overall improvement of my health.

Today, I got a much more literal jump start to my morning.

Ryder has never met a button he didn't love to push.  The car is his imaginative minds playground.  A push here and the wipers swoosh.  A push there and the Hazards blink.  A poke here and the interior lights go on.  There, the sunroof opens. And all these things can swoosh, and blink, and open and close simultaneously.  How cool is that?

I have gotten used to getting into my car at night time without interior lights on, or with the wipers moving or the turn signal blinking.  These are all part of my Ryder Clause.  But, to get in it and have the car not start was not something I had expected.  Especially on a school morning.  In the pouring rain.

But, this is exactly what happened despite Todd checking the car (and it working) this morning before he left for work.  He had to do so because the battery was actually killed last night when he was home to jump it.   So, I was on my own this morning.  Normally, in such a circumstance, I would wait for AAA and get my membership's fee worth.  But, I did not have an hour to wait if I wanted the boys to go to school.  Which I did.  I really, really did!

My cleaning lady was at the house.  So, I used Bianca's car to jump start mine.  I had Todd on the phone walking me through the process.  I do understand the concept of jump starting a battery.  I know I have even done it before.  But, I thought I was relieved from such duties when I said "I do."   Isn't the exchange for picking Todd's underwear up from the floor daily the right to never jump start a car again?  Or take out the trash?

Todd thinks so, because he offered to come home.  20 minutes I would have to wait.  So, I just did it myself.  Did I mention it was pouring?  As I write this, the bottoms of my jeans and the hood on my sweatshirt are still wet.  I think I feel a cold coming on.  Waah Waah!  But, in the rain, I managed to connect black to black (negative) and red to red (positive) and even tapped the metal to the battery first to make sure there were no sparks.   I follow instructions well!

I got the boys to school by 9:45.  In the grand scheme of things that is not that much later than I normally get there.  No rain.  No dead batteries.  I let the car run all morning too, so that I didn't get stuck mid-errand.  Hopefully, I won't need to jump start it again, but if I do, next time, I will show Ryder how to do it.  Not only would he get a jolt from the jolt, but wouldn't it be nice if he could learn to fix what he breaks?

Anyway, careful what you wish for.  I wasn't too specific when I said I needed a jump start!!