Is my mom lying to me?

Do any of you have a child that doesn't believe what you say- they have to experience it for themselves?

When Jake was 3 he was in the kitchen with me while I was cooking. I turned on the stove, turned to Jake and said, "Be careful the stove is hot."  In fact it was glowing red. I went back to the sink to grab the pot of water. I heard Jake say "ouch" as I turned to see him removing his hand from the glowing burner. "Yep, you're right, it's hot".
Well, duh! Kids must think parents say these things to tease them- dare them or play a joke on them.

Years later when I was telling this story to a friend and she started laughing, "Well at least he hasn't peed on an electric fence". She was paraphrasing a quote by Will Rogers:

"There are three kinds of men:

The ones that learn by reading.

The few who learn by observation.

The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves."

"Oh, well" I said,  "he's done that too."

 Year later- so old enough to know better he was going to the park with the Lacrosse team and coach (during a rain storm no less) the coach told them to be careful of the electric fence they were passing. Jake promptly dropped his shorts and peed on the fence. He was shot back on his butt. Half the boys were laughing, half the boys holding their privates commiserating with him. "What were you thinking" the coach asked.

"I wanted to see if it really was electric."

No reason was given on why he decided to pee on it.



The Ups and Downs in Porter's Life

        We went to a family reunion in Park City when Porter was 2, Jacob was 1 and I was pregnant with Riley.  The condos we stayed at had three stories with two elevators side by side. As a family we rode up to our room. Porter decided to be funny and ran back into the elevator as we walked to the room. Picture in your mind the following scenario (of course in slow motion as a panicking mother tries to save her child) bratty little kid laughing in a hysterical maniacal way as he thinks he is getting the better of his mom. The door closes within an inch of my reaching hand.
        Shortly thereafter the elevator starts to go down and the laugh turns to a questioning sound. I quickly run down the stairs to meet the elevator. I get to the bottom but his elevator stopped on the middle floor and he got off and went into the other elevator. He went up but Adam wasn't there because Adam had seen the first elevator door open without Porter and got in to search for him. It was like a scene out of the Three Stooges! By now you could hear Porter frantically asking where we were. This continued for quite a while with both of us yelling (one down the elevator shaft and one up) for him to stay put. At this point he was screaming and crying for us to find him.
        Eventually a sweet little old lady happened along, took him by the hand and had him stay put till I got to the floor he was on. One of many ups and downs being a parent.

The Blond Afro aka The Chick Magnet

After a year long break I am back to humoring myself and some of you. My boy, Jacob, has great hair. Which is amazing in and of itself because at 2 years old he woke up one morning with all his straight hair on his pillow. I took him to the doctor. The doctor opened jacob's file (a thick file)- let's take a look at what happened two months ago. Sure enough Jacob had suffered a fever of unknown origin that reached 106.  It cooked his hair and made it all fall out. But luckily for him when it grew backit was curly- very curly.  He says it's a "chick magnet". 
I am posting some pictures of his hair.  

This is his kindergarten picture.

This picture is with our neighbor, Gabrielle, who went as Napoleon for halloween.

I noticed he recently updated his facebook profile picture with his combed out fro (not my favorite look).

Maybe tomorrow I will take a picture of his hair somewhat tamed. He tells me he uses lotion to keep it from being frizzing. He is one funny kid.

Superman Pukes

       I'm sure many of you have had to deal with your child wearing a costume for weeks, even months, on end. Jake wore his superman cape everywhere he went- even preschool. The only problem was that Jake actually thought he had Superman powers. He would run in front of cars knowing his power would stop them. He would run off walls and leap thinking he would fly.
       One afternoon while my mom was visting from Utah, Jake climbed onto the kitchen table (he had figured out how to unbungee the chairs by this time- that's another story). At full tilt the child ran all the way to the end of the table and dove off. Much to his surprise he did not fly, instead he landed on a chair hitting his forehead on the back of the it. The event wasn't over- the chair skidded across the tile floor to come to an abrupt stop at the carpet edge throwing Jake backwards where he hit the back of his head on the tile floor.
       He cried for just a bit and then was very mad that he couldn't get the flying part to work. I gave him a childrens Tylenol, checked his pupils, and he went on playing.
       Later that evening we took my mom and kids to our favorite Mexican restaurant, La Margarita.  Half way through dinner Jake came over white as a sheet and started to say, "Mom, I feel......". He then puked his Mexican food all over my sandalled feet. I told my family I would see them later and took Jake to the hospital. By this time Jake was very still and quiet.
       The hospital staff immediately knew something was wrong as Jake was seldom ever this way.  While in the MRI Jake didn't move at all- normally we had to strap him down. The ER doctor came in with the results- double concussion. One in the front one in the back. These were concussions 3 and 4 before the age of four. And he wonders why I make him wear a scrum cap in Rugby.

Scar #2 on the Corner of Porter's Eye

A few days after the birth of Jacob Adam and I went grocery shopping. My mom was in town helping so she watched the boys. As we were unloading the van Porter (14 months) came out to help.  He grabbed a jar of spagetti sauce (a large glass one). As he was walking up to the house he dropped the jar. It exploded sending glass and spagetti sauce everywhere. When I say everywhere I mean everywhere- the portico leading into the house was 12 feet high and spagetti sauce covered it. Porter started screaming. That's when I noticed the piece of glass sticking out of the skin at the corner of his eye. My mom comes out with a cloth to try to stop the bleeding, I scoop him up and Adam drives us the the hospital. This was a different hospital because the regular one was getting remodeled.
The staff immediately took him in. After evaluation they tied him in a papoose to keep his arms still while they stitched him up. A nurse politely asked me to come with the hell telling me that I was causing my son additional stress and that he would calm down if I wasn't by him. As I reluctantly left with the nurse I turned to see my determined little boy breaking out of the "child proof" contraption and four grown men have to hold him down. (Yes, they got just a little taste of the stubborness of my child).

The nurse had me sit down while she started filling out paper work.

She stopped, looked up at me and said, "Now why did you hit your son over his head with a jar of spagetti sauce?"

My mouth dropped open. I asked if I could use her phone (in the days before cell phones). I called my house and urgently told my mom to stop cleaning the mess and take pictures of it instead showing that the jar had hot the ground first and not Porter's head. I explained that the nurse thought I had hurt Porter. My mother started shreiking as only a mother can shreik in the process of protecting her child. She asked to speak to the nurse.

The nurse did not ask again and the police never showed up at our house.

The tale of the 1st and 3rd scars on the same eye are for later.

"I'm naked, I'm naked!!!"

Bath time was always an adventure at our house. I bathed Porter (3) and Jacob (2) together for convenience but soon learned it wasn't convenient at all.

I got Jake out first, put his towel on him and told him to go get his clothes. I 'm drying Porter when seconds later I hear the "click" of the lock on the front door. I grab Porter and with him tucked under my arm, take off after Jake. 

Picture a very white little kid with a tow-headed afro, buck naked running down the sidewalk waving his hands over his head yelling, "I'm naked, I'm naked!!!"

We were the talk of the neighborhood for weeks.

This necessitated the keyed bolt lock on the front door and I wore the key around my neck at all times.

A Language All Their Own

We have all heard how some twins have their own language. While my boys aren't twins (they are 14 months apart) they created a language all their own.  Porter did not talk (except for mom, dad, dog, and various sounds) until he was 3 and half years old. He suffered from chronic ear infections for two years after he was born. The doctor explained that Porter heard everything as if he was under water and therefore spoke in "bubble talk".
Jacob started talking just fine at a "normal age". But his brother soon converted him. I was the only person that could translate what they were saying. My husband would just throw his arms up and ask me what they were saying. We finally taught the boys sign language for their basic needs and that helped greatly.
But when Porter wanted something he would get extremely frustrated that I wasn't reacting fast enough.
My favorite memory is when he wanted "gong, gong".  What?  Yanking on my shirt he kept saying, "gong, gong". After five minutes I apologized and told him a just didn't know what he wanted. He thought for a second then said, "Gong, gong, ga-gong gong, ga-gong, gong, ga-gong, gong".  In case you also need a translator that was him doing Darth Vadar's theme song. He wanted to watch "The Empire Stikes Back". Pretty clever.

Here are just a few of the words they used and the word it represented.
mabocks- dill pickles
babooshka- Captain Crunch cereal (yes, I know that is Russian for "Grandma" - I don't know the link)
horsey- tuna fish (tasty)
others to come as we remember them