Cheese balls

At Kmart, shopping for a new bike helmet for Owen:

"Mommy?"
Yes Owen?
I just saw one of those big boxes of cheese balls.
Oh?
[minutes pass, shopping continues]
Mommy?
Yes?
I really love cheese balls.  They are so yummy.
Mmm.  Yep, sometimes they can be tasty!
[minutes pass]
Mommy?
Yes Owen!
Do you fink you might be able to buy us that big box of cheese balls, maybe?  We all really like dem.  It would be really nice to have dem.
Owen, you asked me very, very nicely and I like to get special presents for my favorite boys in the whole world, so even though we can't get treats every time we go shopping, yes, I am going to buy them for you today.  Keep your eyes peeled and when we pass them again remind me to pick one up.

4-year old BLISS!!!

In the car on the way home, after distributing a handful of cheeseballs as an appetizer for dinner (indulgent mommy, let's face it)...

Mommy, cheese balls taste so good!  Aren't you so glad that you bought them?
Well, they're OK, but this isn't the best brand I've ever had.  I think these are a little too salty.
Oh no mommy, I think these are a de-LICIOUS kind of cheese balls.  They are so, so tasty.
[Asher saying 'deeee BOLL!  deeee BOLL!  Mo'  Mo'  Mo'!]
Mommy, I have an idea.  Listen to this!  Sometime we should go to the cheese ball orchard and then we can go pick TONS of cheese balls off of the trees!  That would be great!
I'm pretty sure cheese balls don't grow on trees.  They are made in a factory.
Does GRANDPA work in the CHEESE BALL FACTORY??!
No honey, he worked in a tire factory.  He made sure that the factory was always working so that the workers could make tires for cars and tractors.
[disappointed] Oh.
Are cheese balls healthy food?
Not so much.  They're junky food, just good for a special treat every now and then. 
Oh.  I sure love junky food!

Dad

It's been a year since my Dad died.  I'm brewing on what to write.  It's one of those things that I want to think about and not just jot something down (like I usually do here), so that means it's going to take some concerted energy to make it happen.  Energy is a scarce resource these days...my Dad would have been excited to find out (or perhaps would have just thought us crazy, as we wonder ourselves)...that we are expecting another baby!  I'm sad that a new family member will never even have a picture with its Grandpa to look back on.  But maybe my Dad gets to hear the news even where he is; what do we know about that, really.  December 25 is the due date!  Pardon me signing off while I attempt to make it through the day and keep my lunch down.  This little baby is giving me a hard time already!!

:)

Gala

On Saturday night after Owen's party, we had a RARE opportunity for a fancy night out.  It was the MIT Lincoln Lab's 60th anniversary gala, held at the Museum of Fine Arts downtown.  Formal dress, fancy dinner in the new 3 story gallery, wandering through the exhibit halls, and entrance to the special Chihuly glass exhibit.  It was divine.  We stayed til 11pm, got home a wink before midnight, were totally tired the next day, but it was so worth it!!  The tickets were expensive (even subsidized heavily by the lab, they were $75 each!!), but how often do you get to wear a formal and happen to have your mom visiting to babysit.  Only thing we didn't get was a picture of ourselves...shucks.  The glass exhibit was AMAZING.  I don't consider myself an art connoisseur by any stretch, but this was just beautiful, even to a layman.  It was colorful and whimsical and striking.  Here's some examples:

The last installation was 2 or 3 stories high, floor to ceiling in the gallery where dinner and dancing was located.  Fantastic at night when it was all lit up!

Birthday!

My mom is visiting (wonderful!!), my sister left not too long ago (double wonderful!!), so it's been a full and fun time around here.  Saturday was Owen's 4th birthday party.  Owen's dreams of this party were born months ago, and he has come close to mentioning it every day since.  Often at bedtime his story request was, "Can we just talk about my birthday party a little bit?"  I think it was his first really anticipated, full-on, excitement-filled birthday party.  He had settled on a beach theme, and of course along with that...a cake shaped like a LOBSTER!  Now there's a way to instill fear in your mother's heart.  Never fear, marshmallow fondant to the rescue.  He also wanted to eat lobster for lunch and he hoped the cake would be bigger than he is.  Well, he got the lobster cake :)  It was chilly on party day but all the kids seemed happy to be playing outside, so we went with it, did our games outside, and then came in for presents, lunch and cake.  A super-fun day all around.  Thanks to all our friends for making Owen's day special!

Beach gear relay = kids having fun but wondering, 'why are we doing this?' while grownups get the most laughs.

Hunt for [pictures of] seashells game

Fishing game:  hook a magnetic fish, read the # on the back, and everyone do the corresponding activity (e.g., pretend to swim in the ocean, sing ABCs, wiggle!, etc.)

Nunu + Asher = love affair.  Asher would happily relinquish all claims to me if Nunu would adopt him!

The bigger boys are the ones most interested in the presents.

Hit-of-the-party present:  1/4 size guitar from Nunu.  Oh my, how much amelodic strumming can I take?  My limits will be tested in days to come.  He loves it!!  And so many other wonderful presents too.  A birthday is at least as good as Christmas when you're 4 (I'm not sure it wasn't better!).

The lobster cake.  After so much anticipation of the cake, Owen brought his claw back complaining it was bitter.  I suppose when you have to use a tub of red food coloring, that can happen :}

Happy Birthday Owen!  My favorite 4 year old in the whole world!  You are a blessing to our family, and growing into a special boy.  We are proud of you and love being your parents.  You are fun!

More Cancer

Friend from high school and youth group...newly discovered cancer...cat scans last week...biopsy today...PET scan tomorrow...full diagnosis Thursday...possibly start treatment Friday...early 30s...wife and 6 month old baby...frightened family...will you pray for him with me?  I hate cancer and how it rips so much good apart.  Thinking of my Dad this time last year, and realizing that it can be even worse when it hits a younger family...beyond difficult.

Milestones

I mentioned that the boys have been on the fast track since vacation. 

UNDERSTATEMENT.

It's like their brains were on auto-pilot before we left, in a bit of a rut, and breathing the air in Texas woke them up to the world of possibilities for preschoolers...and most of those possibilities involve trouble, whether intentionally or as a side-effect!!  It's been a wild ride.  And I haven't been feeling my best since we got back, so it's been...wow.  Just, wow.  I could list some other really interesting examples too, but I think this one sums it up.

**Gross alert**

After returning to town late-ish Sunday, Monday was a challenge with unpacked cases and travel gear strewn about, Reuel off to work first thing, and all of us with a vacation hangover!  Imagine me, prepared for a tough day, but completely unable to imagine the scene that would greet me as I opened the door to the bathroom, not having heard Owen for a while, and wondering what he was up to.  There he was, standing on a stool zipping up his pants, having just...gone to the bathroom...BOTH BATHROOMS if you know what I mean...into a plastic trash can that normally lives in our room!!!  I have never been so absolutely shocked and dumbfounded in my 4 years of parenting experience, and I hope not to be again.  If you know Owen, you know this is way out of character.  He's fairly into 'the rules'.  He is adventurous, but within bounds.  This was out of bounds.  He could barely conceal a grin, but my face stayed stony, you'd better believe.  We had words and actions.  I don't *think* he'll try that again, but I didn't *think* he'd try it the first time.  All I can figure is that he went to the bathroom in the woods a few times while the guys were far from facilities doing things on the ranch, and that set the whole concept of free-spirit toileting in his head.  Oh boy(s). 

**End Gross alert**

Today involved two significant milestones...one good, one normal, but not-so-good.  Asher threw his first real lose-control, freak-out, unable-to-calm-self-down tantrum.  I've never seen him like that, and had forgotten how scary they can be.  He was so mad and I just tried ignoring him (as I have in the past) but he ramped up and stayed at level 10 for so long that he nearly made himself throw up.  He was acting quite bizarre, actually, and the anger really overtook him.  I was not as scared as with Owen, but just sad.  Does my parenting breed this??  I finally got him calmed down because it was clear that leaving him alone was not going to help after a certain point, and he just moaned and caught his breath over and over til he fell asleep for his nap and I put him down.  Woke up still a bit out of sorts but better.  He is VERY willful these past few days, and I sense a challenge.  For now, I will tell myself he is tired from vacation and this will change next week (repeat until true).

Owen has had his fair share of tantrums too, but way outstripping that...he learned to ride his bike by himself with virtually no adult training in about 10 minutes total!!  Well, that's a bit of exaggeration...the background is that he's been on training wheels for a long time, more than a year I'd say, and I had at one point watched a you tube movie about how to teach a child to ride a bike, so a couple weeks ago we tried it out.  All we did was take off the training wheels, take off his pedals, and put his seat low to the ground.  He learned to balance by pushing himself around and gliding.  Yesterday I saw him glide far enough that I put the pedals back on a few minutes before suppertime and when I held the bike while he got on and gave him a push, he instantly could ride with pedaling!  He could not get started on his own yesterday evening.  He whined for my help more, but after just a couple more pushes, I told him he'd figure it out if he practiced on his own.  This morning after Reuel left for work I could not locate Owen.  As I was looking for him, he ran in the front door saying, "I CAN DO IT!!  I PRACTICED!!" and sure enough he made the major progress he needed to get started on his own, and now it's just going to be practice and fine tuning.  It is satisfying as a parent to watch your child achieve something he set out to do.  He is passionate about his bike and is just so pleased with himself.  And we are proud of him too! 

Here's the proof!  http://vimeo.com/23294679

TX!

We had such a great time in Texas visiting Reuel's parents, sister, et al. and also his brother, et al.  What fun!  Between the 4-wheeling, fishing, farm equipment 'driving', animals, and picking produce from the garden (try getting <2 and <4 yr. olds to only pick ripe strawberries...quite a challenge), I think Owen may be left with a permanent-inked definition of fun and a yearning to live on a farm (just this morning he told me that he's decided he will be a farmer and a clown when he grows up, and on his farm there will be cows and he won't sell them!  Also, the cat will live in the house and not in the barn.).  Easter egg hunting and playing with the cousins was super-fun.  Both boys upon returning home tried to grow up about 2 years.  I can barely keep a handle on them these last few days!!  Time with brother, sister-in-law and cousins in Dallas was AWESOME!  The kids just really enjoyed each other (...um...except for Asher trying out his teeth on Graham more than once...why???).  Owen is all chatter about Hannah and things she does, and what she wears and likes, and what they did and talked about together.  They shared a room and it was pretty cute.  We were just a door away, and in the morning I could hear them stage-whispering:  "Are you awake??  Yeah!  Owen, did you get your buzz lightyear underwear?  Yes Hannah, did you get your underwear?  OK, let's take off our pullups and then we'll go downstairs and play.  OK!"  We had tons of fun seeing some of the kid-friendly spots in their area, looking at house-shopping choices with them, and just sharing our precious little time!!  It is sad to be so far away all the time, even though we realized that we do enjoy a lot of things about where we are too.  Can't have it all!!

Pictures!  https://picasaweb.google.com/amyswint/20110501_EasterTX?authkey=Gv1sRgCJOSvejEkvj_9wE#