Smalltown Friends

We have friends that live around the block from us. We met them during trick or treating on Halloween shortly after we moved here. They are awesome people. The Dad is a pediatric dentist and coached our pee wee soccer team last fall. The Mom is...well, she's everything.

They do fun things like have an ice cream social every June because it's national ice cream month. Who knew? Well, they did and they even make homemade ice cream. They are the fun neighbors everyone hopes to have, but usually we all just end up next to somebody who leaves their Christmas lights up all year, doesn't pull their weeds and won't take in their garbage cans for a week. (By the way, we live next to that family too.)

On the way home from school yesterday, this is what we saw.


They are adorable. They decided it would be a nice day to sell lemonade and cookies on the corner, so they did. I love that!


And I love them. Sadly, their house is on the market and they are planning to move to Prescott. So, if they are moved by June, we'll have to drive 20 minutes instead of walking 20 seconds to get to their house for the ice cream social. And we'll gladly do it because they are good people who make great ice cream.

Plus in this small town, we will still run into them at the store or library.

But, it won't be the same as having them around the corner.
I guess I'll have to make my own lemonade.

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I wrote this post and set it to publish Saturday morning. 3 posts in one day is a bit much, even for my wonderful mother in law. We just ran into Krista on our nightly bike ride. They made $33 in one hour. They did it on donations and she said a lot of older people would give $5. Holy cow...I'm going into the lemonade business! I'll work a new corner every afternoon. HA!

Tough On Dirt

Stanley Steamer is coming tomorrow. I hope our carpets will look brand new.

Getting ready for carpet cleaning is quite the chore. The Cheerios, raisins, vitamins, and other unidentifiable food that I found in the sofa could feed a small country. It was pretty disgusting. But, clearing everything out is kind of fun. I like how clean it feels to suck up every speck of dirt and dog hair from every corner in the room. And since I was using the hose attachment on the vacuum, I got rid of the dead flies in the windowsill.

The kids were ecstatic to play on the sofa cushions.

Why do I bother with toys when they can stay entertained for hours with a few pillows?

Being A Stay At Home Mom Rocks

Most of the time it rocks. And then there are the times when I want to drop the kids off at my friends house and call her when I get to San Diego.

Today was not one of those days. Today rocked.

While the rest of the world was working. We went to the park. It was a beautiful day. Warm, light wind, sunny...perfect.

Noah sat on a blanket in the shade and played with toys.




And this little man ran around with his friends.
Those eyes...I love him.

We definitely need to do this more often.

Cheap Entertainment

Babies are so much fun. I love watching Noah explore something new and figure out how it works.

Now that he sits up really well on his own, he is playing with all his bigger baby toys. It's a whole new perspective from laying down.


I love that babies find anything amusing...a spoon, cheerios on his tray and in this case, a Room Store ad.


He loved it! Just another use for the newspaper before it goes in the recycle bin.


Uh oh, what's that? It's a dinosaur and not the nice one like Barney.


And then it roared and freaked him out!



I think we'll stick to newspaper for awhile.

Imagine

I've never had a great imagination. I would much rather research and write a report based on fact than write a short story based on fiction. Maybe that is why I encourage Ben's infatuation with dressing up. Who am I to hinder his imagination? For now, I let him wear whatever he wants. Even out of the house.

This is what he wore to pick up Emily from school one day last week.


This was his outfit on Monday to get Emily.


And he put together this costume today. It's actually green dinosaur thermal underwear and it's 78 degrees outside. Do I care? Nope. He said he was a green power ranger.


The first time he wore the Batman mask to Costco I thought everyone was going to be looking at him (and me) like we were crazy. But the truth was, nobody really cared. We got a lot of smiles from elderly folks and a few people called him Batman. And he eats it up. He loves the attention.

In the fall, he will start preschool. I'll pick out a regular shirt and pants every day for him and he will wear it. But for now, I let him wear what he wants. He'll be told what he can and can't do for the rest of his life.

For now, he can just be Ben....
and Batman, and Green Power Ranger, and Mr. Incredible, and Superman, and Spiderman, and Red Power Ranger, and Robin, and Super Why, and a dinosaur, and the Riddler, and a witch, and Buzz Lightyear, and Lightning McQueen, and Captain America...

Historian

I'm the historian for our family. I take all the pictures, run the video camera and blog to capture and preserve our lives. I remember giving David a tutorial on how to use the video camera in between contractions with Ben. I wish he'd jump on the blogwagon and post something every once and awhile, but he leaves that to me.

And yesterday, it finally came in handy.

Usually, David helps me sweep and mop the floors. I sweep. He mops. We get it all done in about 30 minutes. We were supposed to do it last weekend, but didn't find time. David had spilled an entire container of orange juice the weekend before and even though we thought we cleaned it all up. We'd run into a sticky spot every once in awhile. Combine that with a golden retriever shedding his winter coat and you got disgusting. I decided yesterday to do the floors without David.

I will never do that again.

A one hour job turned into 4 hours. I'd get one section done and Noah would start crying. Diaper change, baby food, Elmo...he's good. Then, I'd start to Swiffer and Ben wants a sandwich. For the love of God, let Mama get some work done.

Around the fourth hour, when Elmo no longer held his allure. I decided to put on Noah's favorite person.
And nothing is better for him than hearing my voice on the TV and watching his sister.

That's Emily talking to herself in the mirror when she was 2.

Apparently, some things never change.

Separation Anxiety

Emily is a very independent adventurous girl. Even though she likes toys and dolls, she'd much rather have an experience than a physical object. Given an option to go to a waterpark for 4 hours or pick out 10 new toys, she'd go for the water park. I often think she will be chomping at the bit to get out and explore the world.

Her reward for staying in her room all night for the week is to sleep with her Dad on Friday night. She says he's warm and fuzzy. Truth is she doesn't like to be alone. David and her had gone to sleep in the guest room. He always uses this time alone to ask about her day. I was on the computer. And she starts to cry, like seriously sobbing. I walk in and ask what happened. They were talking about how she will go into first grade soon. Then, they counted all the grades through 12 and then David told her she'd move out of our house and go to college. She was so upset at the thought of leaving us that she couldn't stop crying. I told her she could live here for as long as she wants. It was touching to know that at the age of 5, she never wants to leave us.

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We were tucking Ben in the other night. David and I sit on his bed and listen to him say the same prayer (Now I lay me...) every night. Then we smother him with kisses. David asked him who he loves and he pointed to me. It's no secret that the boy loves his mama. I told him one day, he'll grow up and find another woman that he loves and marry her and have his own house and family. He started crying hysterically. We couldn't get him to stop. He thinks he is going to marry me one day. So, I had to assure him that he will always be able to stay here and that I will always love him. He'll start preschool next year and he'll probably have a huge crush on some little girl. And he'll forget all about marrying his Mama. So for now, I'll enjoy being his one and only.

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And this little man, who is trying to wave hi in the picture, is starting to get the idea of separation anxiety too. When I leave the room, he starts to fake cry and grunt. I didn't get it at first, but now I realize it's his way of protesting me leaving his line of sight. It's kind of sweet. He loves me.

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I sometimes think about our empty nest days. I know it will be extremely difficult for me. I'll have to redefine who I am again. But if my little chickadees never want to fly the coupe, that's fine with me. At least David and I will have somebody to stay at our house and watch the pets while we travel around Europe.