The happiest place on earth?

Last week we returned from our family vacation to the Magic Kingdom. The last time we went there, Max was only 2, and doesn't remember anything (except refusing to ride Dumbo after standing in line for 45 minutes)
This time, Max turned out to be quite the little daredevil, he wanted to ride all of the rides. His favorite ride turned out to be Space mountain, however, he still wanted me to ride with him so I could hold his hand.
He really didn't like any of the rides where he got wet. Splash Mountain is my all time favorite ride, and I really wanted a photo of the look on Max's face so we sat him in the very front. I completely forgot how wet the front seat passenger would get.
Max was not amused.
And as for those stupid ride photos, why do they all make me look 40 lbs heavier than I think I am?
Stupid cameras.

The best quote of the day came from Max, after a mix up on the seating for Space Mountain. He wanted to sit in the front seat with his dad, but at the last second, he got confused, switched seats with his sister and ended up sitting in the second row. To say that the kid was furious would be an understatement. We argued with him for a while, trying to make him understand that HE was the one that switched seats (he got turned around and misunderstood where everyone would be sitting) but he kept blaming everyone else for him not being able to sit in front. Finally he looks at all of us, throws up his hands and says "EVERYONE SAYS THIS IS THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH, BUT IT REALLY ISN'T!!!"

While we were passing one of the shops in Adventureland, we saw a huge pile of pillow pets, Minnie mouse, Stitch, Goofy, Eeyore, Winnie the Pooh and Max's favorite Perry the Platypus.

Max had brought his birthday money and he had just enough to buy the Perry the Platypus Pillow Pet. (I dare you to say that ten times really fast) (No, seriously, go ahead, I'll wait.........)

We convinced him that we should come back at the end of the day so we didn't have to carry Perry around with us all day.
That evening, after watching "The World of Color" in California Adventure (really awesome show! I highly recommend seeing it. I spent the whole time trying to figure out how they did that) we made our way back to Disneyland to purchase Perry, and Brielle wanted to buy a Minnie Mouse pillow pet for herself.
We stopped at the Emporium near the entrance and got Minnie, but they didn't have any Perry's. In fact, the guy working there said he didn't think they even made them.
We made a mad dash back to the shop in Adventureland. We saw a kid walking around the store holding a Perry the Platypus pillow pet. I couldn't see any more so I asked the clerk. Apparently the other kid had bought the last one.
I asked the clerk if she knew of anywhere else they might have one. I even picked up Max and told the lady to look at his sad face.
She made a few phone calls, and there were none to be found.

Max was very sad that night, Brielle had Minnie, but there was no Perry for Max.

Riding back to the hotel on the shuttle, Max fell asleep. Max did not wake up to walk into the hotel. I guided the sleepwalking Max into the hotel while CJ video taped him stumbling around. The hotel staff got quite a kick out of him as he tried to lay down on the floor while we were waiting for the elevator, then he tried to lay down on the elevator floor, then the floor in front of our room door.
When we got inside our room, he finally ended up landing with his top half on the bed, and his feet still on the floor. He slept this way for about a half hour until we took pity on him and put him in his pajamas.

The next day we went to the beach. At first the kids weren't too excited, but when it was time to leave, we couldn't get them out of there. Aaron LOVES the water. I think if we lived there, he would become a surfer. While we were there, Max needed to use the restroom, so we had CJ take him to the restrooms back by the parking lot. They had been gone quite a while, and I was starting to get worried, so I called CJ on his cell phone. I got no answer. A few minutes later I tried again, still no answer. Finally, my husband went looking for them, soon they showed up, CJ had miscalculated and went the wrong direction.
He had also left his cell phone in the car.

That night we attended an Anaheim Angels baseball game. Our hotel was close enough that we just walked to the stadium. As we walked in the gates, we all got a Hula Dancer doll. Aaron immediately turned around and asked me if he could sell his on eBay. My first thought was that we now had a bunch more crap to stuff in the car on our way home.

The next day we went back to Disneyland. We got up super duper early and made it there in time for the special early entrance. We went straight to Space Mountain and Max got to ride in the front :)
As we were passing one of the shops in Tomorrowland, I looked in and saw three Perry the Platypus Pillow Pets on the shelf! Max grabbed one and we bought it immediately. I learned that the store would hold Perry for us until it was time for us to leave.

Win, win!

We spent the rest of the day riding as many rides as we could before it got too crowded. At one point we split up, I took the older boys on Splash Mountain, and Brielle took Max on Thunder Mountain Railroad, while hubby hung out on a bench, waiting for all of us.
We got back to the bench, but Brielle and Max were nowhere to be seen. We waited for quite a while, then I went looking for them. (sound familiar) Due to a miscommunication, they went to the wrong bench and got lost.
Brielle felt really bad, and CJ tried to console her by saying how much worst it was when he and Max were lost. They argued for several minutes about which one had the worst experience getting lost, when Max looks at both of them and says "HEY! I got lost TWICE!!"


By about 7:00 that night, we decided we were all Disneyed out and decided it was time to leave. We went and picked up Max's Perry, bought a bunch of suckers for souvenirs and took the shuttle back to the hotel.
We still hadn't eaten dinner, so we found the nearest Spaghetti Factory and went there. It was after 9:00 when we got there so we were all tired and hungry. About halfway through his mad-n-cheese, Max snuggled up against me and fell asleep.
We now have video of him sleepwalking out of the restaurant, and back into the hotel.

The front desk staff were quite entertained.

Our last day in California, we went to Pasadena because CJ wanted to visit Caltech. I can't believe that our kid is old enough for us to start visiting Colleges.

That afternoon we went to the beach again. Again, Aaron spent his time diving into the waves. We had to keep telling him not to swim too far out because he was making me nervous.
I told Max he should really go put his feet in the water. A few minutes later, he came back soaking wet, with sand covering the entire front of his body. Apparently, a wave hit him, and knocked him over.
Max shook the sand off of his arms and said "I WOULD LIKE THE BEACH MUCH BETTER IF THERE WASN'T ANY WATER!"

Poor Max.

We did have a great vacation. We also got to visit my husband's family who lives in the area. The kids got to pick lemons from the trees in their back yard (they have lemon trees in their back yard!!)
and make fresh strawberry lemonade! The family all commented on how tall all of the kids are, and on how much Max looks like his grandpa :)

Never a dull moment

Max came into my office while I was working and started making a very annoying noise.

When I asked him to please stop, he said "I'll stop if you say a big word"

So naturally I said......

"A big word"

"No!" he replied, "I meant a big word like discombobulated or something like that!"

Discombobulated?

???????????????

Last night, Aaron showed me a picture he had created on the computer.

(chocolate + mom = happy mom)

What can I say, my kid understands me.

I told him that he should add some Diet Dr Pepper, because combined with chocolate, that would make me even happier!

A few minutes later, he comes back with this.

I'm not sure if the addition of the delicious diet drink made me insanely happy, or just insane. It certainly appeared to have caused me to lose a bit of hair.

I told him that it would be awesome if he could give me a little more hair and while he was at it, he could give me a nice pair of shoes.

Yep, that's much better :)

What a difference a day makes, just 24 little hours........

Earlier this week Max decided to make himself a 3 year calendar. He stapled about 36 pieces of paper together, and has spent the last few days drawing grids on the papers and filling in the days of the month.

Max was very upset about the fact that June only has 30 days, he feels that it should have 31 days.

In his calendar, he went ahead and gave June 31 days, because apparently, he does control the universe.

This wasn't much of a problem for him until he got to the end of December and discovered that he only had room for 30 days.

He informed me that now December will only have 30 days. (again, supreme controller of the universe)

This is actually a very big problem for me because December 31st is our wedding anniversary, and I'm not about to give that up. Next December we will have been married 20 years, so to get rid of the 31st this year would be unacceptable.

Max, being the clever little manipulator that he is, had an argument ready for me.

"If we take away the day in December and use it in June, we'll have an extra day of summer vacation!"

I have to admit, he almost got me with that argument. I love summer! An extra day in June would be lovely.

We were about to give Max a very long explanation of the reasons why we couldn't create June 31st, but we decided against it because we realized that it would be much easier just to add the extra day in June than it would be to listen to Max whine about having to erase and re write all of the numbers on his calendar.

Is everyone on board with this? June 31! Mark it on your calendar.

Perhaps we should make it into some sort of holiday so we don't need to go to work that day.

He also said that February 29th should be called Farch because it is half of February and half of March.

********************************************************

Bonus!!

A completely random comment I heard by one of my children today.....

"Ask her to log in one more time and I'll show you my toenail!"

I'm going to assume it would have made more sense if I had heard the whole conversation.

The reason why someone in our family will be getting an entire case of scotch tape for Christmas.

Today the kids were making ornaments to decorate the new Christmas tree that we got for our kitchen. (What, don't you have a tree in your kitchen?) (OK, so I may or may not have purchased the tree as incentive* for the kids to do something that I wanted them to do) (and I like having a tree** in the kitchen) I had planned to decorate the tree with chili peppers or something like that, but today the offspring*** were too excited and decided to take matters into their hands and use a case of printer paper to make ornaments for the new tree.

They made tons of snowflakes, a big paper chain and a really cool star for the top.

Max is an amazing kid, if he has access to a bunch of paper, scissors, tape, crayons and a stapler, there is no limit to what this kid can create.

Earlier today, Max was working on a new creation for the tree when it appeared that he needed some tape. He asked everyone if we knew where the tape was.

Due to the fact that Max is generally the only one who uses tape, none of the rest of us knew where it was.

I even checked in my super secret tape hiding place, and there wasn't any tape there. (apparently, Max discovered my super secret tape hiding place)

Max was continually growing more agitated, and kept asking us where the tape was. (because everyone knows that asking someone the same thing over and over and over will make them know the answer)

"Where is the tape?"

"Who hid the tape?"

"Why won't anybody help me find the tape?"

"Why am I the only one looking for the tape?"

And finally.........

"IT'S NOT FAIR THAT I'M THE ONLY ONE LOOKING FOR THE TAPE!!!"

I calmly suggested that he look in his room because he WAS the last one to use the tape.

"IT'S NOT IN MY ROOM!!! SOMEBODY TOOK IT!! I NEED THE TAPE!! WHY ISN'T ANYBODY HELPING ME LOOK FOR THE TAPE? IT'S NOT FAIR THAT NOBODY IS HELPING ME LOOK FOR THE TAPE!! WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS ............

Then he spotted the tape sitting on the kitchen table right next to where he was standing. "Oh there it is." he said simply, then grabbed it and walked away.

Here is what the tree looked like when the kids were finished. I actually like it! (The huge decorations kind of cover the fact that the tree is incredibly scrawny) The big square snowflakes were made by Max.

*Some people prefer to call it bribery, however, I feel that bribery is such an ugly word.

Bribery is when someone says "I'll give this to you if you do something for me" and incentive is when someone says "Do this for me, and I will give you this"

See, completely different.

**And I use the term "tree" very loosely. It was $20 at Wal Mart

***The boys actually wanted to drape the tree with cords and cables from multiple electronic devices.

Top ten things overheard when I was playing Mario Cart on the Wii with my kids

#10. "PUSH THE B BUTTON!!"

#9. "HEY! YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY! WHY ARE YOU GOING THE WRONG WAY!!"

#8. "PUSH THE B BUTTON!!"

#7. "WHERE IN THE HECK IS THE B BUTTON? I CAN'T FIND THE B BUTTON!!!"

#6. "TURN AROUND MOM! YOU'RE STILL GOING THE WRONG WAY!!"

#5. "WHY DO YOU KEEP DRIVING ON THE GRASS?"

#4. "PUSH THE B BUTTON!! PUSH THE B BUTTON!! PUSH THE B BUTTON!! PUSH THE B BUTTON!! PUSH THE B BUTTON!! PUSH THE B BUTTON!! PUSH THE B BUTTON!!"

#3. "YOU FELL OFF THE TRACK AGAIN?? WHY DO YOU KEEP FALLING OFF THE TRACK???"

#2. "PUSH THE B BUTTON!!"

And the #1 thing overheard when I was playing Mario cart on the Wii with my kids...........

"This is what happens when you try to teach stuff to old people."

Too many video games?

Yesterday I asked Max for a kiss on the cheek. As he leaned over to kiss me, I turned my head and planted one right on his lips.

He wiped off his mouth and said "OK mom, let's try it again!"

He tried to kiss my cheek, but again, I quickly turned my head and kissed his lips.

Frustrated, he said "Again, try it again!"

The third time, he was a little quicker, and I kissed his chin, then he said "OK, score for level 1, mom, 200, Max 100. Begin level 2, double points, and GO!"

Because I like it when my food stares back at me

A few days ago at lunchtime, Max asked me if he could have a corn dog. I was right in the middle of something, so I told him that if he would wait patiently for a few minutes, I would fix him a corn dog.

"Waiting patiently" to Max sometimes goes something like........

"MOM! MOM! I'M STARVING! I NEED A CORN DOG! I NEED A CORN DOG! PLEASE! PLEEEAAAASSSEEEE CAN YOU FIX ME A CORN DOG?!?! MOM! MOM ! MOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!!"

You get the picture.

Since I was still at a point in my project that I just couldn't drop everything to go and feed a corn dog to my "starving" child, I asked CJ to fix it for him.

He agreed to help, and I thought that the matter was taken care of.

Until several minutes later when Max came back into the room, sobbing, with CJ following.

"Mom" CJ complained "I fixed him a corn dog and now he's refusing to eat it!"

"Why?" I asked.

"He says it's because it doesn't look like a person!"

Max calmed down enough to agree.

I looked at CJ and said "Seriously? What's wrong with you? You made a corn dog and it doesn't look like a person?"

Max said "NO! He didn't make it look like a person!"

CJ shook his head at Max and said "Max, corn dogs don't look like people, they look like corn dogs!"

So I had to leave my project and fix the corn dog so that Max would eat it.

Cloudy with a chance of tantrums

OK, it's official, I'm sick.

Earlier today I wrote on facebook that I would like to find the person who gave me this virus and poke them in the eye with a sharp stick.
As my head becomes increasingly congested, that stick is getting sharper and sharper.

In other news, apparently, I underestimated just how serious Max is about disliking the snow. Remember the other day when he heard the "Let it snow" song on the radio and yelled "I DON'T WANT IT TO LET IT SNOW!!""
That was nothing compared to the rant he went on earlier tonight when he saw the snow falling.

He stood in front of the window and yelled and yelled at the snow to stop falling, (because apparently he has that type of power) then he started crying, threw his arms in the air and yelled "THIS IS DEFINITELY WRONG AND IT NEEDS TO STOP NOW!!"

It's going to be a long winter.

Maybe you should re-check the math on that

This is a post I just found in my drafts folder. When I wrote it, Aaron refused to let me publish it, however, today he said it would be OK.
All he asked was that I make sure that everyone knows that this happened last year.



I love the fact that my kid's teachers require them to read a certain amount of time each day.
(I don't ever remember this being a requirement when I was their age, not that it would have been a problem, because I usually spent a great deal of time with my nose in a book.)

Our kids do read the amount of time that they are supposed to, and sometimes more. The problem that I have is having to record the amount of time they spend reading.
For some reason, this simple act of writing down the amount of minutes read each day is something that nobody in our house is able to accomplish. (myself included)

We have tried everything, charts, timers, and even just writing the numbers down on the big dry erase board in the kitchen.

It appears that we are "reading minute recording impaired." (RMRI)

Last week Aaron came to me and said that he needed to turn in a reading log for the last several weeks. He wondered how much I thought he had read during that time, as if I would remember that sort of information.
I came up with a great idea. I asked him to bring me the books that he has read in the last two weeks.
Next I timed how long it took him to read one page, and told him to times that number by the number of pages he read, and that would tell us how many minutes he had read.

He thought this was a great idea, and he went in the other room with the books and the timer.
A while later, he came and asked me to sign a slip of paper. On the paper was written;

Aaron's reading minutes
112,037

"Here mom" he said "I figured out how many minutes I read, and I need you to sign the note so I can hand it in to my teacher."

I looked at the number he had written. It looked a little high. He HAD recently been reading much more than he had previously, however, I knew there was no way that in the last 2-3 weeks, he had read for well over 100 thousand minutes.

I told him to go and divide that number by 60 to see how many actual hours that added up to.

1,867 hours

Then I told him to divide that number by 24 to see how many days that would take.

77

Which would mean that he would of had to be reading for the last 11 weeks non stop to read that many minutes.

I am very sure that he didn't read for 77 days straight, in the last two weeks.

Max, the king of Kindergarten

Max just went to bed. (by 9:30! High fives everybody!) He is SO excited to start school tomorrow that he got ready for bed the first time I asked him.

He even took a bath!

Woo Hoo!!!

However, he is really worried about something.

Yesterday I asked him if he was excited for school to start, and he showed me how excited he was by smiling as big as his face would let him.

Then I gave him the news that caused him to worry.

"Max, I think you're going to miss me while you're at school."

He rolled his eyes.

"In fact, I think you're going to miss me so much that I should probably just come with you."

He shook his head "No Mom, the only grown ups there will be the teachers."

"Oh, I'm sure they won't mind, I'll be very quiet."

"No Mom, there won't be enough chairs there. You won't have a place to sit."

I thought for a moment then said "I know! I can sit on your chair, and you can sit on my lap!"

"No Mom, the chairs are too little!"

"OK, then maybe I can bring one of our folding chairs and just sit next to you."

"NO MOM! You can't come to school with me!"

"Max, I really think that you're going to miss me too much. I need to come with you."

Then he says "You should just drive me to school and drop me off at the front doors with the kids and I will walk in by myself!"

"I don't know," I said "What if I drive you to school, drop you off at the front doors, then park in the parking lot and walk in the school?"

Then he got a little testy.

"Look mom, HERE'S THE DEAL! You will drive me to the school and DROP ME OFF at the front doors, then you will GO HOME!!"

While he was saying this, he waved his arms around kind of like one of those guys who directs the airplanes to the gates. All he needed was the big flashlights. I might have snickered a bit, because really, it was funny.

Then he says "Look, I'm SERIOUS, see, I'm wearing my SERIOUS FACE!"

And he was indeed wearing his serious face, although in my opinion, it looked a little bit more like his "I just smelled something bad face"

"Hmmm" I said "So exactly what do you think I should do when I get home? I'll be there all by myself."

Max told me that I should get some work done.

"No, I think I should probably take a nap."

"Mom!" he said with a big sigh, obviously trying to hide his exasperation "You can't go back to sleep after you drop us off, because then you will just dream about missing me."

So then I asked him if it would be OK if I just stood outside and watched him through the window of his classroom.

He shook his head and walked away.

That kid is seriously going to miss me.

Duh!!!

Brielle went to girls camp last week. On the last day, they woke the girls up at 2:00 a.m. and they hiked to the top of the mountain to watch the sun rise.
Brielle was telling us how cool it was to watch the sun rise from the mountain top when Max said (in his most condescending voice)


"Brielle, the sun doesn't RISE, the earth is SPINNING!!"

I'm so glad that my blog can be of service to those searching for help with thier potty training dilemas

Today I looked at my stat counter and discovered that the #1 google search term leading people to my blog is........



"Potty training quotes"


I was amazed at how many people were searching for quotes about potty training, and every one of them ended up reading this post.

Go ahead and click on the link, the post was from two years ago. It was Max at his finest.

My place of honor as Max's favorite

Warning, potty talk ahead.

Seriously, if you continue to read, remember that I warned you.

This morning I met a friend for breakfast. I had a lovely time and enjoyed a much needed interaction with an adult human of the female kind.

As I was leaving the restaurant, I called home to make sure that the kids were doing OK.

CJ answered the phone.

Me: "How are things?"

CJ: "Fine?"

Me: "Is everyone awake?" (I left while they were all still sleeping)

CJ: "Yes"

Me: "What's Max doing?"

CJ: "I don't know, but he's been in the bathroom for over an hour."

Me: "Is he OK?"

CJ: "I don't know."

Me: "Can you check?"

CJ: "OK."

I hear him walk through the house to the bathroom and knock on the door.

CJ: "HEY MAX! ARE YOU OK?"

Max: "YES!"

CJ: "He's OK."

Me:" What's he doing?"

CJ: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Max: "NOTHING."

CJ: "He says he's not doing anything."

I was convinced that everything was OK, so I continued home.

A little while later when I walked in the door, CJ said "We figured out why Max has been in the bathroom for so long. He's been waiting for you to come home so you could wipe him."

I asked him why nobody else had helped him out with his situation and CJ said "He wouldn't let us help him, he only wanted you to do it."

Isn't that terrific? I am Max's official butt wiper.

I'm not sure if I should feel privileged or annoyed.

I walked in the bathroom and told Max that I needed to take Brielle to her friend's house, then I needed to go to the bank and after that, I would be going to the grocery store, and when I had finished all of my errands, I would come home and wipe his butt.

Get this..................He was willing to wait.

No, I didn't make him wait, mostly because I didn't want the toilet seat to leave a permanent impression on his backside.

Also, I realize that you are now going to tell me that Max is old enough to be taking care of this issue on his own, however, you don't do his laundry.

Overlooked and offended?

Yesterday, Max did something clever/funny/adorable. My first reaction was "Hey, I'm going to write about that on my blog!"

One of the other children (I forget which one) said "Why do you only write about Max? You never write about us!"

So I pointed out a few things.

#1. Max does some pretty darn adorable stuff. They did cute stuff when they were his age too but, alas, I didn't have a blog then and that was a really long time ago, and I can't really remember all the cute stuff that they did.

#2. They don't like it when I write about stuff they do that I find amusing, mostly because if I find it amusing, it's probably something potentially embarrassing for them.

Even though I explained the situation thoroughly, they still felt rather put out that I haven't written about them in a while.

Today, something funny happened with one of the kids and I really wanted to blog about it because, seriously, it was darn funny.

The child involved freaked out and said there was no way that they would be OK with me blogging about this particular situation. The freaking out was so intense, that I'm not even able to say on my blog which of my offspring was involved.

However, nothing was said about Facebook..............

Max and the big, sweaty guy

Tonight we went to a wedding reception for the son of a neighbor.
As we waited in the incredibly long line to greet the happy couple, we heard rumors of ice cream as refreshments.
The children were elated..........except for Max. He doesn't like ice cream, because apparently, it's too cold.
After we made our way through the reception line, the kids made a mad dash to the ice cream table.
I will say that we were not disappointed :0)
Chocolate dipped waffle bowls, brownies, caramel, chocolate and marshmallow topping (which I need to say was like creamy clouds made of sugar, sent down from heaven to rest upon my ice cream) various fresh fruits, crushed candy bars, chopped nuts, sprinkles and pink m&ms adorned the table.
Max still insisted that he didn't want ice cream, however, once he saw the brownies, he got very excited.
"I want a brownie! I want a brownie!" He jumped up and down until he got his hands on the plate with the brownie.

Then he saw the ice cream.

The lady serving the ice cream asked him if she could put some on his plate. He hesitated until Brielle said "You know, Max, the ice cream has been sitting out for a while and it's melted a little bit, so it won't be super cold."
This was all it took to convince him and he eagerly handed his plate to the lady who put a Max sized scoop..............

right on top of his brownie.

I knew that this would be trouble, especially with the whole "my food can't be touching, even a little bit" phase that he's been going through lately.

Surprisingly, Max didn't even flinch, and we walked outside to a table in the garden area of the reception center.

We sat down and slid Max's chair up to the table. He picked up his spoon and then it started.

"Hey. I didn't want the ice cream on top of the brownie."

He was uncharacteristically calm about the whole situation. I suggested that we just scoop the ice cream off of the brownie, and he happily agreed.

Then he looked at the brownie.

"Hey, there's still some ice cream on top. I don't want it there."

The already soft ice cream had melted a bit and left a puddle on top of the brownie. I scraped it off the best I could, but there was still some ice cream residue remaining.

My husband said "It's just the same as when you dunk your cookies in milk before you eat them. Go ahead and eat it, it'll taste good."

Max eyed the brownie suspiciously. "I dunk cookies in milk not brownies." Then he picked up his spoon and looked over the entire brownie, trying to find a place to dig in.

Again, I was a bit confused by his calm demeanor.

He finally looked up at me and said "Can I just pick it up with my hand and eat it?"
I told him that would be fine, so he picked up the brownie and "HEY THERE'S ICE CREAM ON THE BOTTOM OF MY BROWNIE!"

Yes, I knew we were headed for a meltdown, and it happened. I took the brownie, looked at the bottom of it, and sure enough, the bottom corner had some ice cream soaked into it. I turned the brownie around and handed it back to him. "Here buddy, just eat the other side, OK?"
He must have been really hungry because he did just that, and finished off the entire brownie, ice cream sludge and all.
I returned to my ice cream (remember, little clouds of marshmallow heaven mixed with chocolate sauce and crushed candy bars........) when Max looked at the melting scoop of ice cream on his plate.
"I don't want to eat this. Do I have to eat this?" he asked.
Almost as if they had rehearsed it, Brielle and Aaron said in unison "I'LL EAT HIS ICE CREAM"
He slid the plate over to them and they proceeded to attack the scoop seeing who could get the most of it first.
I leaned over to my husband and said "Apparently, I haven't actually fed them for like a week." (sidenote, I have fed them for the last week, I just haven't fed them ice cream)
As soon as Aaron finished of the bigger portion of the scoop, he started to shiver. It seems that the combination of eating his ice cream and Max's ice cream, plus being outside in the shade made him shiver uncontrollably.

Teeth were chattering.

This was really strange, because Aaron isn't usually a kid that gets cold easily. He's always the first one to declare that "Sure it's snowing outside, but it's really not that cold, I'm pretty sure I don't need a coat."
Brielle made some comment about how strange it was that he was cold because he's usually kind of sweaty, and then it happened. Max started singing.......

"He's big, he's sweaty, he's a guy, he's big sweaty guy!!"

We all looked at him, because this was kind of random. He must have enjoyed the attention because he sang it again.

"He's big, he's sweaty, he's a guy, he's big sweaty guy!!

This time we laughed, so you guessed it, he continued with his song, only louder.

"HE'S BIG, HE'S SWEATY, HE'S A GUY!
HE'S BIG, SWEATY GUY!!

Then again.

"HE'S BIG, HE'S SWEATY, HE'S A GUY!
HE'S BIG, SWEATY GUY!!!!"

So by now, people are staring. (You know, you'd think I'd be used to this by now.......)

At this point, we just picked him up and hauled him out to the car and we went home.

The problem is that now, I can't get the stupid song out of my head, so here it is, for your listening pleasure (or torture, you decide) Bill Nye and the Sweaty Guy song.








Is it just me, or does big, sweaty guy look a lot like an old version of Mario Lopez?

Back pain explained

Last week as we were walking into the store, Max would stop, put his feet together then jump over the crack in the sidewalk. He did this over every. Single. Crack.
It was kind of cute, but then he did it again when we walked out of the store.
As we were walking along, he said "See mom, I'm being really careful not to step on the cracks so your back doesn't break!" I thanked him for being so considerate then he looked at me with a gleam in his eye, giggled, then went ahead and stepped on a crack.
This morning I was walking across the kitchen floor when Max starts yelling "NO MOM! Don't step on the cracks, or grandma's back will get hurted!" then he proceeded to tiptoe his way over the 12" square tiles on the kitchen floor.
I spent the better part of the next 30 minutes explaining to him the difference between cracks and grout lines.

For the three people who are still reading my blog.....MAX QUOTES!

Max has a small American flag which he keeps in his room. We have taught him that it shouldn't be allowed to touch the floor because that would not be showing respect to the flag.
Several days ago, Max insisted on being carried everywhere. "Mom, carry me!" "Dad carry me!" "CJ, carry me!"
I said "Max, you're almost five years old, why do you think that we should carry you everywhere?"
"Because if my feet touch the ground, it would be disrespectful!"

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"If someone was on space without a space suit, then they would fall and see the ghost of Christmas presents."

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"Everything I hear and everything I see gets stuck in my brain."

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"Can you hear my heart? It's beepin' fast!"

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"I'll think about it with my brain because my brain knows everything."

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a toaster!

Max has a new obsession.

Bill Nye the Science Guy.

CJ found a few episodes of BNTSG on Youtube, and Max has memorized them. His favorite episode is the one about simple machines. He learned about pulleys, ramps and levers and his most favorite???

The catapult.

He is fascinated by the catapult. In the episode of BNTSG someone even tosses a piano with a catapult.

Apparently, the producers of this program didn't think of what would happen when a 4 year old learns how to catapult things. To them I say thanks. A bunch.

Max doesn't have a catapult, so he just throws things and says he's catapulting them. We have daily discussions about not catapulting things in the house.

This morning during breakfast Max asked "Would our toaster stop working if we catapulted it?"

"Yes, I'm pretty sure that it would stop working, and I like our toaster." then I added a new rule "No catapulting the toaster!"

Then Max says "But we could buy a new one!"

"I like this toaster, it works just fine, I don't want a new one. We will not catapult the toaster."

"Because it will break?" he asks?

"Yes," I agree "And I really don't want it broken."

"But I still want to catapult the toaster!"

"MAX, we will NOT catapult the toaster! It will break the toaster, and it might hit someone and they could get hurt."

Then he says "But what if we took it to that catapult place downtown?"

So, if you are just walking around, minding your own business, and suddenly a toaster comes flying past your head, you'll know why.

Breakfast, take two!

Yesterday morning when Max woke up he immediately came into the kitchen and asked me for his breakfast. I told him that he could have his breakfast as soon as he got dressed and he said "OK mom, but you should fix my breakfast while I'm getting dressed."

He walked into his room and I continued doing whatever it was that I was doing at the time. I didn't fix his breakfast because I had no idea how long it was going to take him to get dressed, and after that toasted frozen waffle gets cold, Max won't touch it.

Just a few minutes later, Max came walking back into the kitchen, fully dressed.

"Where's my breakfast? You were supposed to fix my breakfast while I was getting dressed so I could have it when I came out,"

I said "I didn't fix it yet because I didn't want it to get cold."

Then he threw his arms in the air, turned around, stomped back into his room and said.......

WELL THEN LET'S JUST TRY IT AGAIN!"

Just so you know, Max did not get his breakfast until after he apologized to me for being rude, and then asking for a waffle nicely, using the word "please." (and I may or may not have required him to say "Please dear mother")

An illness of convenience

Max was quite sick this weekend. Monday I took him to the doctor and we got him fixed up with some medication so he could get better.

Sunday and Monday all he wanted to do was sit on my lap and play with my hair, or snuggle next to me on the couch and play with my hair. The poor kid was so miserable, there wasn't much that would console him.

Max isn't much of an eater as it is, but when he was sick, he didn't want to eat anything at all. I brought him whatever I could think of for him to snack on and kept his water bottle filled because he was thirsty.

Yesterday morning when he woke up, he was feeling much better. He was still too sick to go to school, but he was walking around and talking, and he was able to fill his water bottle and put it in the refrigerator by himself.

This morning when Max woke up he walked into the kitchen sat down at the table and said,

"Yesterday I was feelin' better, but today I'm sick again."

He looked and sounded OK to me. I got him a waffle (I even toasted it first!) and brought him his water bottle. He took his medicine then said "Here's my water, you can put it back in the fridge now."

Max was sitting at the end of the table that was closer to the refrigerator, and I was busy doing something so I told him "Go ahead and put it in the fridge yourself."

He then whines and says "BUT SICK PEOPLE CAN'T PUT THINGS BACK IN REFRIGERATORS!"

Apparently he really enjoyed having me wait on him for a few days when he could hardly get up off the couch. I wasn't going to go along with this when he was perfectly capable of putting the water away without my help.

ME: "You are not so sick that you can't walk over to the fridge and put that away."

Max: "No! Sick people can't do that. You need to do it for me."

Me: "No Max, you can do it."

Max: "PLEASE GO PUT MY WATER IN THE FRIDGE!!"

Me: "The fridge is not that far away, you can do it."

Max: "BUT I SAID PLEASE! I can't do it, I'm sick again today."

Me: "OK, so don't put it in the fridge, it can just sit on the table."

Max: "But I like my water cold!"

Then he got off of the chair and sat the water bottle in front of me on the table.

"Here mom, I'll put it here so it's easier for you to put it away." Then he walked into his room.

I left the bottle sitting on the table.

Later in the afternoon, when we came home from picking up the kids from school, Max walked in the house, saw the water sitting on the table and said "Hey mom, you forgot to put my water away."

I told him that I did NOT forget to do it. He then put it away.

A while later, Brielle started to make cookies. We were snacking on the dough when Max came over to the kitchen counter and asked me "What are you guys doing?"

Me: "We're making cookies." as I ate a spoonful of dough.

Max: "Can I have some?"

Me: "No Max, I'm so sorry, you can't have any. Sick people can't eat cookie dough."

Max looked at me and says "Well, I think I'm feeling better now."

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I've put up the most annoying Christmas song poll on my sidebar. Vote early and vote often.