I'm glad I speak Peyton

During Spring Break, the kids and I had a great time. The boys didn't fight as much as usual, so we were able to do a lot of things that we can't normally do because they are at each others throats. Like play board games. Usually, board games start off fun and in the end, someone is bleeding or permanently scarred (either physically or emotionally), the board is ripped in half, most of the pieces are missing and the cats have run for cover.

So we broke out Hungry Hungry Hippos - which I now believe was made by a man who wanted to torture his wife with the constant begging to play this annoying and extremely loud game. One day I am going to "accidentally" lose all of the marbles for it. That will be a very, very sad day. But not for me. 

We played that horrible game for almost an hour and Cale asked if he could play Battleship with me. Peyton was crushed, he wanted to play with us so badly, so we waited until he tuckered out and then got to bombing each others ships. I'm gonna tell this to you straight. I love Battleship. Great game. But it's not that much fun after the first hour because you have an indecisive child who can't decide what to call. 

We finished after what seemed like an epic 17 hour game and Peyton comes out of his room. He spies the game. And immediately starts begging to play. He just didn't understand that he wasn't old enough. And this was really my fault, I should have put it away because he wouldn't have remembered about it if it wasn't right in front of him. 

I had to tell him that when he was a little older, I would play with him, but right now, he's too little. That seemed to satisfy him for a little while. Then 15 minutes later, he came and asked the same question - he received the same answer. 

He eventually went into his room and was playing with his Tag books. I sat down to read a book myself and he came in again, this time he said nothing. He had his Handy Manny blanket trailing behind him and I thought that he was just going to sit down on the couch next to me. No dice.

I peek at him out of the corner of my eye and see him staring at me. All the while, he is slowly sliding his blanket over the Battleship box. I kept my book up and was watching him over the top of it because I really wanted to see how this was going to play out. He covered the entire game with his blanket and was pulling it towards him - he had come to the conclusion that if I wasn't going to let him play it, he was going to steal it. He was so concentrated on his task that when I asked him what he was doing, he actually jumped. Then he yelled at me, "I JUST WANT TO PLAY BUTTSHIP, MOM!

Buttship? I'm just glad that I knew what he was talking about, otherwise I would have been thoroughly confused. 

Kids are just weird.

Getting your child to laugh is a HUGE priority when you have an infant. You try anything you can think of to get your kid to chuckle, even if it's just for a moment. Something about a baby's laugh can cure any and all problems that you might have or at least make them seem like they aren't as important as you once thought that they were. 


What ends up happening is you make an idiot out of yourself - and you don't care where it is that you are or who is watching. You'll make faces and sounds that make absolutely no sense. Actually, before you were a parent, you have probably made fun of someone who was doing the same thing that you're doing now. All parents go through that. So if you aren't a parent, laugh away at those who are because you'll be the one looking like an idiot eventually. It's all for a great cause - the magical giggle.


My husband and I would spend hours just watching Cale and doing anything we could think of to make him laugh. It actually became a contest - who could make little Cale laugh the hardest or the longest. We had gotten pretty good at it, we figured out what he liked the most and we did it all of the time. 


One day, we were just sitting around talking. One of us said the word 'duct tape' and Cale busted out laughing. We just looked at him and then at each other, wondering what the other had done to make him laugh. We couldn't figure it out so we went back to talking. Duct tape was said again. And again he was laughing hysterically. For days, we would be in the middle of a conversation, then insert 'duct tape' into the sentence and wait and see if he laughed. He did, every single time. 


We progressed from duct tape to scotch tape - which made him laugh just as hard. By the end of the month, we figured out that saying any kind of tape, rubber cement or glue would just send Cale over the edge. For people not within the family, it probably seems weird. It did for us too, at first. The sticky products kept him laughing for almost a year. 


If you think that is weird, Peyton's laugh word was calibrated thermometer. Now THAT is weird. 


Just goes to show that you never know what might make someone laugh and it's definitely worth trying things that you wouldn't think would work. Because they just might and then you'll have a story as great as ours!

Oh really ...

Most of my stories revolve around asking the kids to clean their room ... in case you are wondering, it is in constant disarray. I have always asked them to pick up each toy after they are done playing with it. They take this as some kind of insult to their little dignity, lock arms with each other and stand together against their horrible mom that is trying to ruin their lives. It would really take 1/100th of the time that they actually spend cleaning, but hey, what do I know?!?


Peyton had been lying down because he didn't want to clean his room. He came out of the room and said that he wanted to play with me. I told him that we would definitely play together once he finished cleaning up the Lego massacre in his bedroom.


This little turkey, put his hands on his hips and then looked at me. Then he held up his chubby little left hand and spread his fingers. He held out his right pointer finger and this is what it was like.


Peyton said (as he pointed to his pinky), "I don't want to lay down."


He pointed at the next finger, "I don't want to eat."


Yet another finger, "I don't want to play with you."


And his thumb, "And I DON'T want to clean my room."


Then he stomped off down the hall, yelled that he was going to slam his door and promptly did so. 


I was laughing pretty hard at this point for a few reasons. One was the little list he decided to spout off to me and  I was also laughing because he probably thought he could get out of cleaning just because he was adamant that he didn't want to. Don't think so, cutie.

Psychological Torture

Our two kids could not be more different. I'm sure this is true for a lot of families. Cale is the intellectual, non-sporty child and Peyton is the partially dense, athletic one. You can really see these differences when the kids pick on each other.

Peyton always has to take things to a physical level - like hitting, tripping or tackling. Cale on the other hand, will mess with Peyton's mind. I think the psychological meanness is worse than the physical. Mostly because since Peyton isn't a quick thinker like Cale. But Peyton is downright mean and a gigantic bully (and he's the younger one).

Cale asked if he could make their lunch one day and I told him that was fine. He's pretty good at making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When he wants to be.

Cale had had a rough day with Peyton that morning. This is what it was like: Peyton runs up, frogs Cale in the back, Cale cries, Peyton laughs, repeat with another body part frogged.

So Cale went into the kitchen to make their lunch and he finishes pretty quick then gives Peyton his sandwich, takes his own, sits down and starts eating. Cale has this weird little grin on his face. Peyton thanks Cale for making his lunch and then takes a big bite out of his sandwich. He chews twice and then puts it down, just staring at it for a minute. Then he picks it up and pulls the pieces of bread apart and finds a big surprise. There was nothing there. Cale hadn't made him a sandwich at all, just slapped two pieces of bread together. 

That is when I realized Cale was using psychological warfare to destroy his brother. Peyton just couldn't understand why there was nothing on his sandwich. It was a little sad. Peyton started crying and Cale pretended like he didn't realize that he had done that. To be honest, I really didn't blame Cale for doing that to his brother. He kinda deserved it. Peyton is just lucky that there wasn't something nasty between those two pieces of bread. The only reason that didn't happen is because I don't think it occurred to Cale to REALLY sabotage Peyton's lunch. Yet.

A new way to slim down

I never thought that children would have body image problems. It's kind of shocking to find out that our 4 year-old obviously does. Being honest, he is a little chunky for his age. Okay, fine. He's really chunky for his age. I thought self-esteem might be something that he was worried about when he got older, but not before he even started school.


A couple of weeks ago, I had taken a moment for myself (gasp, I know!) and decided to check out my facebook page. Peyton was playing quietly in his room. I had been on less than 5 minutes when he started yelling for help. His exact words were actually for help because he was stuck. Believe me, we have Peyton-Proofed their room because of situations like this that might occur. There was nothing he could be stuck in.


I walk into this child's room and what do I find? He has decided to make a homemade girdle. With medical tape. What he looked like still amazes me and it probably will for years to come.


He had somehow wrapped the tape all around his stomach, going from the top of his underwear all the way up to his little man boobs. Not so bad, right? While he was doing this though, he also wrapped himself to their bunk bed. He was one with the bunk bed. He looked like he was being sacrificed by the natives and it was just a matter of time before they were rotating him over a fire.


It took me a few minutes to process what it was that was actually going on. Finally, I went over and slowly unwrapped my little mummy. Let me tell you, we buy the good stuff. This tape was so sticky that it left little red marks going around his body with bunches of the sticky stuff left behind. It took a couple of days to get all of the sticky stuff off, he had a nice collection of crumbs stuck to it till we could chisel it all of.

What is that flying at me?!?

Yesterday I had taken a moment to write my blog. I wrote about something 3 months ago because Peyton had actually been pretty good lately. Saying that your kids have been good is like saying you haven't had any car problems lately. The moment those words come out of your mouth, Fate takes offence and decides to throw you a curve ball. Or in my case, a "frisbee".

So, back to my story. The boys were playing together in their room and I decided to steal a couple of minutes for myself and write a new entry on my blog yesterday. I sit down, finish writing it then I'm doing my spell check and I am about to hit 'publish post' when Peyton comes running into the living room.

Peyton was running like he was going to win a gold medal at the Olympics. On his way to me, he cocks his arm back and starts yelling, "I FOUND A FRISBEE!!!". The thing is, we don't have a frisbee in the house. My first thought is, what in name of everything holy, does he have?!?

Right as he said this, I look over just in enough time to see a shiny disk flying at my face. Survival instinct kicked in and I reached over and grabbed a pillow that was sitting on our armchair. I shoved the pillow in front of my face just as something hit it. Hard.

I was almost too terrified to pull the pillow down. I didn't know if I was in an innocent bystander or if he had decided to get me back for forgetting to get bananas at the store. I finally peeked around the pillow just to find him grinning at me.

What was his weapon? It was a sign that had previously been hanging above his bunkbed but had fallen when he and Cale were throwing stuffed animals at each other. I'm really lucky that I had left that pillow in the chair. If not, I would have ended up with a Ford emblem on my forehead.

Having a kid who tries to make you one with a metal sign is great.

Here's a pic of the projectile.

You are NOT old enough to drop an f-bomb!

Holiday's can be great things. The family gets together, sometimes the only time of year that you get to see each other because of how far you live away from each other. With our family, it is almost like a sacred time together. We always have tons of plans, food and laughs together.


The 2010 Christmas season was an especially big time for our family because my parents were moving to another country due to a new job and my little sister was bringing a guest with her. This was the first time that she had brought someone to a family get-together, so we knew that it was a big thing. Everyone was coming to our place and I had stressed over everything being perfect.


Of course, perfection never happens when you have children. Not that my kids aren't good kids. They are. Most of the time. But perfection really doesn't happen with kids because they are unpredictable. You never know what they are going to say or do because they don't have filters. They do and say whatever comes to their mind. Even if it isn't the right thing.


All of my family arrived and we were having a great time. We were laughing and joking and getting to know our special guest. Then it came time for me to start fixing our meal. I was in the kitchen getting everything prepped and Peyton was sitting with his dad at the dining room table and everyone else was in the living room. I was fixing the mashed potatoes and I had the mixer going, all the while, joining in with the conversations going on around me.


The next thing I know, Eric has said, "What did you say?" twice to Peyton. I turn off the mixer and listen in. Eric just has this stunned look on his face. He is completely speechless. I look to Peyton to see if there is any indication on his face as to what was said. He looks serious, his little brow is furrowed and he has a frown on his face. Eric asks him to repeat himself for a third time. What Peyton said next almost made me pass out.


 Peyton: What is that loud f-ing noise? (He was talking about the mixer)


The only difference is that he actually dropped the f-bomb. My family was quiet for a few seconds and then everyone either puts their head down or covers their mouths and starts laughing. Nice. Isn't raising a 4 year old great? I was completely mortified and of course, when Peyton wasn't within earshot, that phrase was repeated. Endlessly. I guess he hadn't gotten the memo that the ice had already been broken. If it hadn't, he would have smashed it to smithereens.

Be brutally honest.

Going to the grocery store seems like it would be an easy thing to experience. It was easy for us at one time. Then we had children. Cale is at the age where he's pretty good in the store. We don't really have to worry about him.

Peyton, on the other hand, turns into a demon child when we are in the store. It's like the moment we cross the doorway, he transforms into a human wrecking ball. He's running and screaming, grabbing things off of shelves, knocking into people, laying on the floor, dancing and talking to random people. Because of his erratic and always questionable behavior, he gets one chance to behave. If he misbehaves then Eric will pick him up and sit him on the seat in the basket. Nine out of ten times, he ends up in the basket. The sad part is, it happens so much, if he doesn't end up in the basket I start wondering if he is starting to get sick.

This morning we were making breakfast and Peyton and I were talking about some stuff we would need when we went to the store next. He got all excited and said that he would go with me.

Then he looked at me and whispered, "Daddy can't go because he puts me in the basket."