Little Moo Turns 7!

Our oldest son, Little Moo (I don’t know that the term “little” still applies, but we’ll go with it) just turned seven. For the past ten years I have worked with children from ages birth through six and I have enjoyed that I have a number of tools in my arsenal to care for young children. But now…now we are in uncharted territories and we all get to learn together!

I was feeling sentimental and thought I’d share some pictures of Little Moo through the years. Sure I could share the professional photos taken over the last 7 years but I really wanted to show him as he is, a wonderful little boy.

As you can see, he’s not so little anymore. While he can be a challenge some days we love him more than anything and look forward to growing with him!

Everyday Things

It is amazing how little every day things can make us so happy. Obviously I could be talking about stolen moments with your children or husband (which do make me very happy) , but actually I’m talking about things.  That probably makes me sound materialistic, but I mostly mean those little things. Like new socks. How awesome are new socks?! That can make my morning!  Or a blanket warm out of the dryer. There are so many little things that can really make our day, we all have them, and I bet a few of ours overlap. But how many of us sit down at our desk and think, “this is SO AWESOME!”?

This kid.

We had been searching for awhile for the perfect desk for his room and found it yesterday. We put it in his room, wiped it down and he spent the next hour “setting it up”. My Little Moo is a quirky kid, and I love that about him. He often gets excited about things that most of us overlook or take for granted.

And guess what, the desk came with extra prizes!

A used folder and half used legal pad that appears to have been bent. He didn’t care, he immediately ask for a pencil so he could write on his new pad of paper at his desk.

It  is even better  when those little things lead to memorable moments with our loved ones. So pay attention to those little things, let them make you happy and enjoy your day!

Some Days…

Some days just don’t start off right. What should have been a slow and relaxing start to the morning just didn’t start off slow or relaxed. Nothing major, just aggravating. Thank goodness Little Moo only has two more weeks of school left! I should know on such mornings there is no such thing as just doing something “real quick” successfully. I should know this, but do I listen to myself?

Ab-so-lutely not!

At a slow point in the morning I went out to move the sprinklers “real quick” and came back to this

Littlest Moo found the cupcakes left over from last night’s BBQ. And, you know, helped himself. I’d had enough this morning, but instead of yelling or getting angry I took a breath and said screw it, and went for my camera.

 

The damage had been done, so I let him eat his cupcake. How terrible would it be to yell, throw them out and no one got to enjoy a cupcake? Some days it is just not worth it, and it is best to just go with the flow. Our morning included an extra cupcake snack!

Enjoy your Monday like a delicious cupcake, attack it with excitement and have no regrets!

One for the Books

I waited a couple days to write this post. You know, so that I can look back and laugh. It took a couple days.

This post is about Mothers Day.

Since I always have to work on Sunday we celebrate Mothers and Fathers Day on the Saturday before.

I can go into the gory details. But I’ll give you an overview.  Mine started with Little Moo waking me sometime before 7am. Way before. He shoved a handmade gift in my face and said “Happy Mothers Day!” then asked to watch TV. Sadly we had been having a week long room cleaning standoff and he wasn’t allowed television until his room was cleaned. Any guesses on what this will mean for the day? Here’s a hint, he wasn’t happy about this consequence. And he let me know. All. Day. I was lucky enough to drop him and Littlest Moo off with Grammy for a few hours only to drag a zombie Zippercow around to local nurseries. Then have the kids shout at me some more, fight, not listen. Little Moo shouted at one point “Mothers Day is when moms are supposed to be nice to their kids!” At one point he threw a tantrum and slammed our slider door and managed to shatter the glass. Then yelled at me some more about his consequences. I cried (a couple times) that day. Sunday after work wasn’t much better. I can safely say the most pleasant time of the weekend was being at work.

It’s my own fault really. I thought that since things have been rough and I’ve had a lot  to deal with since Zippercow has been not well that maybe it might just be a little more special. But duh, he’s still not well so he didn’t really have the energy to pull off his usual magic (he’s usually really good at this sort of thing) let alone add that little something extra. I tried not to get my hopes up, but let’s be honest, I did.

Fortunately for my husband and boys, I know they love me. I know they appreciate me. And we can laugh about it now, the terrible mothers day. The post is not meant to make my husband or boys feel bad. The idea was to share that no matter what, I still love them. Even on the bad days.

Always.

Oh and next year, feel free to make it extra special!

Can You Feel The Love?

You all know how I feel about carving pumpkins at Halloween? Well addressing valentines takes a close second. It seems like it should be fun. Cute little valentines, red, pink, and purple everything, and sticker hearts, what’s not to love? It screams everything girly I adore. And as a grade school girl I remember sitting down to my list of nearly thirty classmates and picking just the right valentine for each classmate. But that was the later years, when all my parents had to do was buy the box I’d so carefully chosen and then I’d sit down to the list and do the work.

Yeah, we’re not there yet.

Now, it is just a painful exercise in patience. Really it is just a holiday themed homework assignment. “Don’t forget Uppercase “A” and lowercase “l” and “Use your best writing” This is the first year he had to address them to each student. At least last year all he had to do was sign his name on them (this cut down time on passing them out, man she was an awesome teacher!) but even that was painful. He was done signing his name after the ninth one, still eleven more to go son.

So this year his teacher requested no candy. I believe she said it is so the kids can focus on the valentines and not all the treats (when did Valentine’s Day turn into Halloween  Part Deux?)  So we picked some awesome Cars 2 Valentines that came with tattoos. Cool right? Right???

“Mommy, it’s kind of like a Valentine Factory!”

“This is hard work!” ~ Little Moo

Yeah…I have awesome fine motor skills and even I was struggling getting the little tattoos into the manufacture provided slits.

Sure Little Moo was excited to make them, but it took the ultimate parenting patience to complete them all.

Sigh….the things we do for love!

The Sometimes Useful Useless Stuff We Know

A couple weeks ago a coworker of mine started to recite Dr. Seuss’s The Pale Green Pants to wrangle and quiet a group of unruly 4, 5, and 6 year olds. She told it all from memory and the kids were quite entranced and some of my other coworkers were in awe. But I knew. My first question when she finished was “Was that your son’s favorite?” She laughed and said “yeah”. The coworkers in awe don’t have children so they don’t know all the useless things that fill your brain as a parent. Useless unless of course you have to wrangle a bunch of unruly children, which fortunately worked like a charm.

Today I was reading to a little guy and though the book was missing a page, it didn’t phase me, I know it word for word and probably always will.

This book is the best! I make sure every little one I get gifts for has a copy of this book! Not only do I know it, but both my kids do by heart. It was the first thing Little Moo recited, before any nursery song even.

These are a few of the other random books that will always rattle around my brain.

 

 

 

How about you? Are there any books that you could recite from memory while half asleep rocking a two year old?

Moving on up!

This is a way overdue post but if you read my last post you’ll see that I’ve been a little…occupied.

Our boys are moving up in the world. Littlest Moo thought it would be stellar to fly out of his crib so it was time to move him out of his crib

To his “big boy” bed.

It was rocky the first night. He slept through the night but it was like trying to get a cat into the tub to lay him down on his bed. THANKFULLY that lasted all of a couple days. Now he sleeps in there just fine! So big!

Oh, and about 4 days in his big bed he lost his paci, as in, Zippercow took it and told him he is a big boy and big boys don’t sleep with pacies. Strangely that seemed to work. It seems harsh to do it all at once but in Zippercow’s defense his pacies started to tear and we sure as hell weren’t going buy more to just take them away a few weeks later.

*Sniff* my baby isn’t a baby anymore but a full fledged toddler. They grow up so fast.

But that is not all!

Our plan all along was to get Little Moo a bunk bed for his birthday and give Littlest Moo his old mattress and box spring. This was going to take place this summer, but instead Littlest Moo’s circus escapades left us in predicament. We tossed around a couple ideas but in the end it was decided just to go through with our original plan, just sooner than anticipated. This pleased Little Moo.

While I had my concerns about the top bunk and him being too young, he seems quite at home up there!

Man they are getting big!

Look Out World, Here He Comes!

For about a week now we knew that Littlest Moo was on the brink of walking. We could just see it. He would psych himself up like he was going to walk away from the couch then bend at the waist and crumple to a crawling position. We noticed he was ready for bigger and better things when he started doing this

 

 

For a couple months we have been using this bench to keep Littlest Moo out of Little Moo’s bedroom while still allowing the bigger kids to easily get back and forth. Sad day. This no longer works. So baby boy isn’t walking, but will climb over things? Sweet.

Then this weekend he did it! He took a couple steps between Zippercow and I and then by the end of the weekend he was walking short distances!

We are noticing he seems to like to have confidence in what he is doing before embarking on something new so while we can see that he has the skills needed to reach a milestone he waits just a little bit longer and clearly chooses the mode of transportation that is the fastest. But I suppose I do too, hence why I walk instead of G.I. crawl.

It is so fun to get to know your little one and  begin to learn their personality as it blooms. Littlest Moo is a VERY happy little boy always smiling, waving or laughing. But every now and then we see little snippets of what we are sure the toddler years will hold for us. While Little Moo waited until about three years old before getting into full on tantrums Littlest Moo has given us a preview of what we should expect. I think when he’s happy (which is most of the time) he’s very happy but when he’s not, watch out!!!

Dun Dun Dun!!! Be Sceered. Very sceered.

One Saturday Morning…

Zippercow and I have often joked about how nice it will be when our children are old enough to get themselves some breakfast and watch cartoons on Saturday morning all while letting us sleep. We know this is a delusion of course because even if they don’t come wake us there are is always the children fighting over what they watch and who is on what couch that is sure to be loud enough to wake us. However this last Saturday Little Moo woke a little too early for this Mom, especially on the only day I don’t have to wake to an alarm clock. So, I stumbled to the living room with my eyes mostly closed and turned on some Phineas and Ferb (isn’t that what everyone watches at 6am on Saturday???) and crawled back to bed only to have him “sneak” on me (that’s how he says it) 3 and half minutes later to insist that he needed to eat that very second. Who eats less than 5 minutes within waking!?!?!? I mumbled something about getting some cereal himself. He was uncertain but I assured him he could  do it. I was certain this would mean half the box would be on the floor and I’d have a heck of a mess to clean up but I didn’t care it was six. oh. clock. Strangely enough Littlest Moo didn’t wake until almost 9am (unheard of for this little man) and we came out to the living room to this

Phineas and Ferb trance.

Before I even made it to the kitchen I noticed he had milk in his cup which terrified me slightly, how on earth did he poor out of the huge gallon jug and not make a horrific mess? So from here I make my way through the dining and kitchen to assess the damage.

Chair pulled up to the pantry to reach the cereal. You’ll notice he left a path of his morning accomplishments.

He tore the tops off the box??? I still don’t understand why that was necessary but as you can see there is no cereal on the table (or the floor below) so I don’t mind the torn boxes at all.

A different chair pulled up to get into the cupboard for a cup. He left every cupboard and door he got into open.

Much to my relief the milk was almost gone so there was just enough for a cup and he poured it without spilling a drop. So all-in-all we got to sleep longer allowing us to be rested enough do deal with his I-woke-up-too-early-now-I’m-going-to-make-you-pay pleasantness AND he  discovered he can fend for himself.

Score!