I had no choice

My little son LOVES to watch The Little Mermaid.  We watched it for the first time a few weeks ago and now it is all he watches.  He loves Sebastian the most.  We bought the movie, we listen to the songs EVERYDAY, we travel around with Little Mermaid toys. 

So, the other day, the day we bought the movie (which by the way we bought at Half Price Books for $14.99 – thanks Angie for the suggestion), he came home very excited to own his new favorite show.  He was playing out back with his friends, the twin girls from next door and the little girl from across the street, and it didn’t take long before I heard this conversation:

Girl 1: Owen likes Ariel.

Owen: No, I like Sebastian.

Girl 1: No, I mean Owen likes the movie, Ariel.

Owen: I do like that movie.

Girls (all): HA HA HA, Owen likes the movie Little Mermaid.  HA HA HA.

And then, I had no choice.  I found myself at the door joining in the conversation:

Mean Crazy Mom (yelling from the back door): Why is that funny?

Girls: (Silent)

Mean Crazy Mom: Why is that funny? I don’t understand.

Girl 1: We don’t know what you mean, but it is a girl movie.

Mean Crazy Mom: Why is it a girl movie? What makes it a girl movie?

Girls: (Silent)

Owen: (Slight smirk on his face)

Mean Crazy Mom: What makes it a girl movie?

Girl 1: It is hard to explain.

Mean Crazy Mom: Try.

Girls: We don’t know.

Mean Crazy Mom: Well, if you don’t even know why it is a “girl” movie, then maybe you should stop making fun of Owen, because I don’t know any reason that he can’t like it and I can’t see what would make it a girl show.

Overall Conversation: Done

Laughing: Gone

Owen ran over and gave me a kiss and ran back to play and that was the end.

It is just so sad, the whole story on so many levels. I hate that there is a distinction between boy things and girl things and the expectations to fit into your role.  I hate that expected role playing starts at 5 (or even earlier).  It breaks my heart to see his face question something he loves because someone told him not to love it.

I am not sure if I made the right decision by stepping in.  If I step in and say something, I am not teaching him to stick up for himself but then again, he was outnumbered and seemed at a loss of what to do.  He looked so proud when I was talking to the girls and did announce before they left that day that The Little Mermaid was his favorite movie of all movies.  We also talked later about not making fun of people for something they like and to help those that are getting picked on by other people.   

I don’t know what the answers are here.  I don’t know how to teach the kids to stick up for what they believe in and love while maintaining that important feeling of fitting in. 

I suppose, for now, I only know that he still LOVES The Little Mermaid, that all the girls still played with him that day and have been back each day since, and they haven’t mentioned it as a “girl” show anymore.  I’ll take my happy ending for as long as it will last.

Fan of Hardwood?

I just got my carpets cleaned about a month ago.  You would never know.  It is a stress of my life to look and see so much dirt on the floor.  It isn’t the whole house, just the main floor where we are all time.  I tried adding rugs.  It worked to protect that area but everywhere without a rug is d-i-r-t-y.  I either need to cover the entire carpet with rugs, get new carpet or add in some hardwood floors.  Emilee suggested splitting the room in half and doing hardwood on one half and leaving the carpet on the other. 

I mentioned it to my dad who has a knack for decorating and finding good deals.  He said it would look great, directed me to craigslist, found someone selling the exact amount of flooring I needed, told me what to offer, instructed that I get it and said he would have the client doing his next week come out and do mine too.  It all happened so quickly. 

I called Greg on his way home from baseball and told him to go get money out of the account, drive to this person’s house and pick up my desired hardwood floor.  The guy asked Greg how we were installing it, Greg replied that he didn’t know we were until about 20 minutes prior.  It seems every time Greg leaves, he comes home to new instructions or new projects (It is not my fault, I blame the pregnancy.  All of the additions and changes will be noted soon).

So, the hardwood is here.  The room will be split in half, half carpet, half hardwood.  The new floors will lead in from the garage, in from the back screen door and down from the kitchen. 

Please bless it is what I want. 

(As a side note to the playhouse post, it is pouring rain and has been all day.  Owen and his crew of friends have been in the playhouse for 1.5 hours.  I never realized it would stay so dry and give them a place to play for so long in the rain.  I went out to hang some tap lights for them and they had bowls of snails and slugs.  It is everything I imagined and more)

Now, if the hardwood floors can just work out as beautifully I will be happy.

And Greg will be happy when the next 10 weeks are done and I have all the projects in my head finished up by that point. 

Just what I wanted.

Ever since we moved in to our house I have been bothered by the backyard.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the backyard.  There are about 100 different kinds of plants and trees that bloom in such a way that once something dies, something else comes up, leaving us with some kind of color all summer.  The yard is really private thanks to a greenbelt behind us and rows of trees that have been growing for some time.  We have a patio table with a wonderful garage sale umbrella (best find EVER).  It is a beautiful backyard. 

The problem you ask? Well, there are two.  1. It is the most uninviting yard for the kids. They will NEVER stay in the backyard and 2. There is a huge wasted space area.  Let me explain.  The yard slopes down to the greenbelt in the back and the people before us dropped the yard down to create sort of a separate area.  There are rock stairs that lead down to the unused space.  It has flat rocks on the bottom and wonderful shrubs and plants around the edges.  But what do you do with a space like that? I suppose we could put a hot tub there.  NO.  I will announce now that I will never own a hot tub.  We could put the world’s biggest picnic table down there and host a lovely dinner party.  Nah, we won’t ever do that.  We could put some grass down there, of course it would be ten feet high cause to mow would be hard.  Nope, nothing seemed practical to put down there EXCEPT a swing set.  You see, a swing set will solve both of my problems.  It may make the backyard more kid friendly rather than only plant lover friendly and it will use this big wasted space. 

So, to the Internet I went.  I had an idea in my head as to what I wanted.  I found all kinds of big swing sets on Craigslist but they were the kind where you come and take it apart and then put it back together.  Now, don’t get me wrong, it would be possible, but the idea of Greg and Ben and Steve marching down to someone’s house with their tools and then dragging a bunch of screws, misc. wood pieces, swings and tools back to my house to assemble something that my children would climb on was just too much for me. And they just weren’t what I had in my head.  It was then the image in my head materialized and I found a guy who customizes a set to your needs and space requirements and comes out and builds it for you in your backyard. 

So, last Tuesday we started with this:

Which soon became this:

And now we have THIS!

I love the way he set it up, I love the suggestions he gave, I love that it didn’t take up any amount of space in the yard other than the space that was never used.  I love that he came out and 4 hours later it was done.   

And now, I keep finding kids in the backyard.  Just as I always dreamed. 

(Thanks Sam.  www.samscustomsets.com)

Chaos

Cousins arrived yesterday to spend the week.  Within seconds there was more chaos than we have seen since last year (when cousins were here).  There are blankets, clothes, backpacks and toys all over the floor, water balloons freezing in the freezer (despite that it is 60 degrees outside), suitcases, wet clothes lying on the floor, cups of water on the counter, tv blaring in the background, angry cousins cause they don’t like the selected movie, and this is all within the last 2 hours. 

I almost went insane and had my house cleaner come tomorrow.  Then I saw the above chaos and promptly rescheduled for another date.  It was either that or I would lose my mind trying to keep it clean to believe I got my money’s worth. 

We will have her come later so that we can eat terribly, live in a mess, watch movies while we play with toys, stay up too late and thoroughly enjoy the chaos and the wonderfulness of having COUSINS!

Through my eyes.

Angie had a post the other day that Evan thought Ivy looked a little like Maggie Simpson.  The other day her hair was horrible as a result of a previous day with two crazy ponytails that got wet and then something weird happened to the front, resulting in a hairdo leaving her looking a tad like a sloth bear.  

(a happy sloth bear)

Thoughts about Owen

Things I love…

1. That every Tuesday he goes to the speech therapist to learn to say his “s” sound.  She comes down to get him so I don’t have to bring Ivy up and then she brings him down at the end of the lesson.  From the beginning he has just jumped out of the car and headed in like he has always done that.  He is so trusting.  His “s” sound is getting better everyday.

2. That he has a silver tooth and still loves the dentist.  He had an eventful dentist visit a few weeks ago, he had 4 cavities one of which needed a crown.  For a small child such as himself, a crown is a silver cap.  It is a molar that will eventually fall out, but for now I love that silver tooth.   He is still excited for his next visit and thinks the dentist is great (his dentist is amazing by the way, other than saying he thinks something a little sharp went in his mouth, he has no idea he had a shot).

3. That tonight he is preparing a solar system to take to school tomorrow for sharing.  He is learning about the solar system in school and wanted to created his own.  He has bouncy balls in different plastic bags: the sun and 8 plants (rest in peace Pluto as a planet).  We have Mrcre, Venus, Rth (+ 1 moon), Mars, Jupitr, Satrn (+ 6 moons), Uranis, Neptoon.  I am in love with those bags. 

4. That he very rarely stops singing.

5. That he calls Ivy “Honey”.

6. That he can’t wait for the baby to be here.

7. That he saw some weeds in the yard on Sunday and told me that the yard didn’t look very distinguished.

8. That he and I have a bedtime kiss: Kiss on the lips, kiss on each of his cheeks, kiss on each of my cheeks, then we say (from a book we have): Sometimes you make me mad, sometimes you make sad, but no matter what you say or do I will always love you, then we kiss on the lips again.  He makes sure we do it every night.

9. That he likes me to lay on the couch on my side with my knees bent so he can snuggle in “his nest”.

10. That he asks if we can always live together.  I always say yes – forever! 

I heart that kid.

One day a few weeks ago……

There was a day a few Saturdays ago when we went to a Toyota dealer to look at the Sienna.  You see, we figured with three kids we wanted more car than what the truck provided and I wasn’t sure I was on board to deal with three car seats in a really tight row in the 4-Runner.  I am sure I would have been fine, but I felt like the 4-Runner was small for me and the two kids, I was not sold that it would work with another baby. 

Forever I have wanted a Sequoia.  Then one day, out of nowhere, I realized that it was not really practical.  I envisioned spending way too much on a car that would have a third row with access only by scaling the middle seat to get to the back.  I know the seat goes down and you can get in the back that way, but I will have two car seats on both sides.  The vision of muddy little rain boots after a day at school flying over the seats was enough to make me reconsider. 

The question begged to be asked: “Could I drive a mini-van?”. 

I posed the question to Emilee, who owns a Sequoia, who responded with a definite YES, I could drive a mini-van.  She assured me that if she could go back in time she would get one in a second.  She also said that everyone she knows that has one loves it (and she knows a lot of people with one).  I decided to sleep on it and see how it felt. 

The next night, someone I went to high school with posed a question for discussion on Facebook:  Should I get a mini-van?  The response was overwhelming positive in favor of getting a mini-van over other large SUVs.  While most agreed that it wasn’t their dream car and minus the kids they certainly wouldn’t be driving it, but throw back in the kids and you don’t get better than the mini-van.  2 points for the mini-van.  0 for the Sequoia. 

A few days later my ex-boyfriend from college posted on Facebook that he just bought the Honda Odyssey.  Rob has a mini-van.  My ex-New Yorker boyfriend with only 2 kids had a mini-van.  Hmmm.  3 points for the mini-van.  Actually, that probably brought the count to 5 for mini-van, extra points for un-believability. 

Suddenly I see mini-vans everywhere I go and suddenly I find myself wanting one.  It is as though the Universe is screaming at me that I need a mini-van.  The Sequoia seems like an unpractical distant memory and I realize I crossed over to the group of mini-vanners, and more so, I am excited about that.  Greg agreed it was the best choice and we decided we would buy one at the end of the summer. 

One gray yucky day after t-ball, we decided to head out to the dealer “just to look”.  I swear that is why we went, we even tried to drive by the cars slowly without getting out of the car.  Before long we decided we just had to get a better look and jumped out. Before I knew it, the guy was there asking all kinds of questions, you know the ones they teach them in selling cars school to make you think they are your friend and you hold all the cards. 

And then things progressed, suddenly before my eyes, Greg was taking a test drive, we were walking down to the office, we were sitting in the office, we were discussing prices and trade-in options, we were discussing colors and credit scores and models. 

And then we couldn’t help ourselves and signed the papers for a new loan for a 2011 Toyota Sienna Limited!!!

And then before I knew it this was happening…

and now we have this….

and I am in LOVE. 

It is very clear that I can not only drive a mini-van, but I can love one as well.  (especially one with all of the bells and whistles they offer, that obviously helps)

And today was the first day that I truly used the mini-van.  We went to zoo.  We loaded Owen and his friend in the back, Ivy and Evan in the middle seats and Angie and I rode in the front.  Everyone had room, everyone fit, no struggles with seatbelts or car seats and we were all in one car, and the baby to be could have joined us.  Owen and his friend watched a movie on the way back with their wireless headphones, Angie and I listened to old country songs on the XM radio while the navigation system assured we made it back the right way, the babies slept soundly in the middle, the stroller rode in the back with room to spare, and…. I couldn’t help but fall a little more in love. 

I am sold.