Wow! Yawn.

From time to time, people are really nice and tell me what a good mom I am. Usually I dismiss this as a nicety, as I'm just doing what I think is expected of me and what I want to do for the boys. And of course I don't share the bad stuff where those same folks would, um, clearly not think the same of me.

But this week, I've twice done something that I'm calling above and beyond the call. I got up with Colin to watch the Leonid meteor shower in the wee hours of the night. Or morning. Whatever you call 3am or 4am.


I got up with him at 3am on Tuesday and 4am on Thursday. Why did we miss Wednesday? Because although this 6 year old child WOKE HIMSELF UP AT 3AM (no alarm!) and came to me to go look, I said, yeah, yeah...let's rest for a few more minutes. And we woke up at 7am with Colin bawling about what he missed.

Colin claims he saw 12 between each day. I count 7. But we had fun looking.






Can you see it?! Yeah, me neither.

Caption Contest

What do you think Seamus' problem is??
 

Ok, I know a lot of you can't leave comments - as you tell me via email. :) Alas, it could have been an amusing contest.

The story is that Seamus is too sick to go to school, yet he thinks he should be able to have a playdate with his buddy next door, JoJo. No amount of reason can get a 4 year old to understand why school is a bad idea and therefore playing with his friend is not an acceptable substitute.

It's gonna be a looooooong day.

Cosmetic confusion

Aidan asked me to feel his face, remarking how smooth it felt to him. To me? It felt cold, clamy and a little bit sticky. Given that we just came back from the pediatrician with antibiotics for strep for both he and Colin, I worried that something more was wrong.

Until he held up my vanilla blackberry lip gloss. And announced that he had slathered it all over his face. Then I explained what it was and he looked a little sad and confused.



And in case you're wondering - lip gloss does not easily come off of skin when applied in heavy quantities.

300 pieces of fun

Colin and I spent just over 3 hours (straight) on a 300 piece puzzle. I can't decide if that is good or pathetic. What I am sure is pathetic, however, is how achy my back is after hovering over the table for that long. But the result was worth it.
 

October "Bores" Bring November "Scores"

You know that whole thing about April showers and May flowers? We have our own version of that.

The Scientist seen here at his school parade...



...had to be convinced to go out Trick or Treating. Yes, I had to actively argue with him (and Aidan for that matter, that's a whole 'nother story) to go acquire candy. Whose children are they?! Oh, right...Joe's. Me? I'm all about hitting as many houses as humanly possible.

So I managed to get him out and to our neighborhood pre-ToTing party.

This can also be refered to Cocktails for Candy. But that's not relevant here. What is is that after 6 houses Colin decided he was bored and it was much more interesting to stay with Grammy, who very nicely came up to hand out Reece's Peanut Butter Cups, Kit Kats and spider rings to all who braved the trek to our door. Like these kids. In suburbia they really need to work for their chocolate!


So...Colin happily stayed home, answered the door and sorted his candy. And the payoff? The next day, when all the other 6 year olds were too pooped from their sugar-high crash, Colin was in top form and MANAGED TO SCORE A GOAL IN SOCCER. For anyone who has had the pain pleasure of seeing my adorable little nut play soccer this year, this was quite the shock. Colin's spent a lot of time checking out the sky for tornados, ending up on the wrong side of the field since he inherited my inability to discern left from right or yelling at his teammates for not passing to him. (This is a team of smart, skilled little boys.)

And he may or may not have been rewarded with an ipod shuffle. Hey, so I have been bribing the kid about focusing on school and soccer. And after yesterday AND 2 solid weeks of good daily reports from school? I had to give in. Keep your 'sucker' comments to yourselves, thankyouverymuch!

Teach, Your Children Well

Sing it with me...


And then be like me and let your middle child teach your youngest...

The kindness of strangers

Seamus: "Mommy, look at me! I'm boxing the lady. And I winned!"

The lady? Holy Mary, Mother of God. A statue in front of the church.

Fortunately, the few people standing around chose to pretend they didn't just witness that.

Our little gourmet

Weekends are made for sleeping in. Fortunately, our children believe this too. But they still tend to want to be up a little earlier than we do. This is where it's come in awfully handy that they are now old enough to get up and take care of themselves for a bit. It used to be just a little TV. Now? They make themselves breakfast.

But lately, Colin's decided that he must cook for everyone.

He even made menus. Rest assured, he's a better microwaver than speller. (Blogger keeps flipping the close up of the menu...maybe it's all confused thinking the words would make more sense in that direction? Hey, Colin's trying!)

Boom! Shake!

After taking a vacation day to chaperone Aidan's field trip today to Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum (after which I am still wondering why they're ok calling it Indian and not Native American, yet our tour guide still asked the kids to sit Criss Cross Applesace and not Indian style) I actually didn't have to run around like a nut to get the boys from school and a child (today, Aidan) to soccer. So I offered to give Colin a rare thing - an hour or one on one time with mommy.

I gave him a host of options. He came up with his own. Go to the library and look at earthquake and volcano books. I warned him I didn't have my library card (and I didn't want to ask them to look up our number, since we currently have over 20 items out) but he was all set with that because he just wanted to make his plan for the next time we're there. Oooh-kay.

Once there, he wanted zero to do with me. Except to point out to someone (and why not me, since I was cloesest to him) that one of the volcano book used the exact same picture and isn't that just crazy?


Me? I started reading a memoir that I'll have to go back and check out.

All in all, we were both happy and that's all that matters, eh?

Thank goodness I didn't give him $20

Soccer. Saturday morning. And afternoon. Looong day, 6 games between Aidan & Colin. Aidan finished his 3 games first and was, understandably, hungry. Between my parents and I (Joe had left by then) we were out of $1s. This is because we'd given over many singles by this point for doughnuts, coffee, doritos, smartfood, etc.

So, I gave Aidan a $5 bill that I had to let him get the hot dog he was begging for.

About 5 minutes later, he returned. With two hot dogs in hand.

Aidan: "Anyone else hungry? I got two!"

Me, silently: "Aw, how sweet. He thought his littlest brother might be hungry too. What a thoughtful kid."

That's about when I noticed the Boy Scout standing behind Aidan. With his hands full. Of Gatorade, Cheetos and candy bars.

Boy: "Uh, where should I put this other stuff. They said I should help this kid carry it all, his hands were full from the hot dogs."

Aidan: "Oh, right here! Mommy, look at all I got with that $5!!"

Well, dur me. I just assumed that he would know he didn't need to spend the whole amount. But nope. He's got $5, he's spending $5.

My mom was proud of him and thinks he inherited her skills in bargain hunting.

Me? I laughed at Aidan. He got mad.

Do you believe in magic?

Seamus does. Except the magic he belives in? It's basically the birds and the bees. Let me explain.

When Cyndy had Nolan, there were lots of questions from each boy about how the whole thing came to be. Someone (Cyndy? Kirk?) explained that Kirk did some magic and Nolan got into Cyndy's stomach and then he was born. They accepted that, thank goodness.

But since there is still a little (lot) baby obsession in our house, I got to have this conversation in the car on Monday morning. (Just before I hopped a flight to Florida, where I am now...and for the record, I didn't even experience fresh air for a single second today...I didn't even get within 20 feet of a door to the outside world. Lucky, lucky me.)

Seamus: Mommy, I want you to have a baby in your belly.
Me: Not going to happen Seamus.
Seamus: Yes it will. Daddy can just do magic and you can have a baby like Nolan. He's soooo cute.
Me: Um, yeah. No more babies. But yes, Nolan is adorable. And we can see him all the time so that's just as good as us having a baby.
Seamus: Hmmm. Acutally, I want to be a baby instead. So I'll just go back in your belly.
Me: Not possible, buddy. You can't go back in.
Seamus: Yes I can. I want to.
Me: Yeah, well - good luck with that. I just can't happen that way.
Seamus: YES IT CAN. I'm going back in so I can be a baby like Nolan. Being a baby is fun.

And so on with me trying to convince Seamus that he can't go backwards without trying to invite too many questions about why or about how babies are made. That was a fun car ride.

Colin didn't stink at soccer this week

That about sums it up. He can turn it on out there (like during tryouts since he managed to make the travel team)...but he tends to take, shall we say, a more laidback approach. I don't think my father can watch another game after he attended one a few weeks back, I'm pretty sure he wanted to run on the field to shake Colin out of his fog. I was right behind him. But this weekend? Not so bad. Go Collie!

It must have been this pre-game focused ritual. And yes, we tell him all.the.time to fix the earphones. He doesn't get it.

This? Ok, this was a bad moment. One of the other player's dad said to me, "Hey is that your son going to the bathroom over there?" I immediately looked around for Seamus, since he tends to get a kick of simply pulling down his pants and relieving himself in the middle of public. But nope. It was Colin. See the fence and the kid on top of it? That's him climbing back over the fence after he was done. He got put back in the game about 30 seconds later. Awesome.

And here are a few action shots. On the field and in goal - and no, he didn't let any in!

Seamus and his BFF

That's Best FROG Forever.

There's a frog that taken up residence on our back deck. Seamus has gone from cooing "oh, he's sooo cute!" to asking me to set up a playdate with the frog to suggesting we build it a crib so it has somewhere nice to sleep.

Anyone got a actual 4 year old child who might be interested in a playdate with my son? He might need some human interaction we're just not providing him....

[note: this is where the picture was supposed to go. then the darn thing hopped away.]

The sarcasm gene might have bypassed Aidan

T. Wray (hi, Daddy!) gave my sisters and I the gift that keeps on giving...sarcasm. I dare you to have a conversation with any of us that doesn't have some element of sarcasm.

My eldest, however, might have missed out on this fun personality trait. Or perhaps it just takes time to develop?

Aidan's having a tough time focusing on his homework. But somehow, he rocks it if I simply sit there and stare at him to make sure he's paying attention. So I suggested that maybe he'd do better in school if I took a picture of myself, got a nice frame and left it on his desk at Parent Open House tomorrow night.

He agreed this would help him.

Then a minute later, he says, somewhat sheepishly: "Um, mommy? I think that picture might embarrass me. Maybe it's not such a good idea."

Being the mother of the year that I am, I simply replied: "Duh, Aidan."

Yep, I'm the greatest.

Lasagna Stoup

Thanks to everyone who helped celebrate Aidan and Seamus' birthdays here tonight. Total, utter madness. But I hope folks had fun...or at least the maragaritas numbed them enough. I had several people ask me for the lasagna soup recipe, so I thought I'd just post it. It's here too.

Lasagna Stoup
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO)
1 pound ground beef sirloin
Salt and pepper
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, peeled and grated
3 to 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
One 32-ounce container (4 cups) chicken broth
One 28-ounce can Italian crushed tomatoes
1 pound lasagna noodles, broken into jagged pieces
1 cup basil leaves, torn
1 cup whole-milk ricotta
Grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese, to pass around the table

Directions:
1.In a soup pot, heat the EVOO over medium-high heat. Add the beef, season with salt and pepper and cook until browned, 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in the onion, carrots and garlic and cook until softened, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in 2 cups water, the chicken broth and tomatoes; cover and bring to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente, about 15 minutes. Stir in the basil and season with salt and pepper.

2.Serve the stoup in bowls and dollop with the ricotta. Pass the parmigiano-reggiano at the table.