Notes from mom

• Grace informed me that she recently got in trouble at school.  Her name was moved to "warning" on the discipline chart.  What was the offense?  Singing too loud.  It's generally not a good thing to burst out laughing when your child reports how they got into trouble, but this "crime" is so in line with Grace's personality.  Turns out it was a classmate's birthday and while everyone said "Happy Birthday," Grace took things up a notch with a ruckus rendition of "Happy Birthday to You!"  It probably would have been more appropriate for the playground, but I'll bet she made her classmate's day.  That's essentially what I told her too, and smiling, Grace agreed.

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• One of the first books I ever read was the Amelia Bedelia series.  I would always laugh at how she took the figurative literally and made a mess of things, but all was forgiven after tasting her pie.  Recently Christina had an Amelia Bedelia moment that made me laugh out loud.  Typical me had several things going on at the same time and I enlisted Christina's help in the kitchen to cook some lasagna noodles while I tended another task.  We read the instructions together, and she took over.  When I came back ready to build Giada's vegetarian lasagna, there were no more than 4 noodles in the pot (fully cooked at this point).  When I asked Christina why she didn't put the whole box in she said, "It only said to put a few noodles in at a time."  I laugh just thinking about this.

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• Yesterday as I was packing away summer clothes and stocking dressers with sweaters, I realized that Caroline is essentially out of toddler sizes, which made me sad.  I tend to savor the stage my child is in, not wanting time to fly by the way it naturally does.  Time can be cruel!
• For the past year or so, Caroline has been calling me "Mudder."  This always makes me smile.
• Every now and then Caroline is happy to do her chores, but usually when reminded to get to work, she slumps over so that her hands are past her knees and she sulks to her room to clean.  I call it her elephant walk and we see it quite often around here.  Like Eyeore, it's not a happy thing either.
• On an endearing note, last Sunday after church Caroline came up to me humming, "Called to Serve," and asked, "Mommy, will you sing that part with me- 'Sons and daughters, Children of a King'?"  When I asked why that part of the song she replied, "I just love that part!"  Me too.

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• Thomas has been flying through the Harry Potter books.  We watched the first HP movie together and Thomas critiqued it for accuracy, so he's understanding these monster size books.  I'm going to start the HP series just to be able to talk about it with Thomas.  Conversations with Thomas are one of my favorite things in the world.  Thanks to HP, Thomas now occasionally will speak with an English accent, and will say things like, "That's quite all right, mother." 5 brownie points for that expression!  Without thinking he started the English accent during scripture reading and we all busted up laughing.

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• Wesley.  It looks like he's out of the toilet phase where anything within his reach was thrown into the abyss- Thomas' underwear, Star Wars figures, clippies, a paper plate, toothbrush, and a cordless phone (just to name a few!).  It's worth noting that Wayne took apart the phone to dry out the parts before putting it back together.  Later I was using that phone while talking to my KY sis and was getting lots of static.  "This must be the phone that Wesley threw in the toilet," I said, "Hold on while I change phones."  I suppose 5 kids will raise the bar for what grosses you out.  I don't think anything grossed my mom out (mom of 10)- there was the (in)famous placenta show and tell that clearly didn't go as planned because we all ran away, but I digress.
• Wesley has also come up with a creative way to avoid the dreaded, "No, No!"  For example when I recently found him standing on my chair showing interest in my computer, I looked sternly at his adorable face and said, "No! No touching mommy's computer."  For a moment Wesley looked like he was going to turn on the tears, but in a cute little voice he pointed to an object just to the left of the laptop and said what I know was, "What's that?!"  Tricky.  The old "Change the subject to avoid trouble routine."  He's good.
• Wes is completely into Toy Story.  We knew this was a matter of time.  Last night when he woke up screaming and crying (teething perhaps) we tried for 1/2 hour to help him go back to sleep, but finally it was Toy Story that did the trick.  Wes even laughs at some of the jokes in the movie.  I'm completely fine with this new fascination, because I admit I love Toy Story too.
• I need to snap some video because Wes has got some funky dance moves that involve getting very dizzy.

I'm thankful for medicinal laughter courtesy of these 5 children I mother.  You'd think I'd look much younger with all of this free flowing, life lengthening medicine!  Oh well, it still makes my day.

Wishing you giggling days and squish hugs!

XO,