He's So Romantic

Yesterday, a friend came over with her kids, and her daughter, Grace, left her stuffed tiger here. Now, Grace is the sweetest 3rd grade girl I know and so it's not surprising that Deacon has a little bit of a crush on her. During t-ball Grace would be the only girl Deacon would pay any attention to or even talk to.  When her family went on vacation, Deacon asked for her all the time. After all, she IS adorable:

Back to the tiger.  Deacon got home from school yesterday, saw the tiger and asked whose it was.  I told him it was Grace's and he asked if he could give it back to her.  We meant to do it yesterday after Zeke got home from school, but we forgot.  So this morning Deacon saw the tiger again and said, "Mom, we didn't bring Grace her tiger!" I said, "Oh yeah. It's okay. I'm going to see Ms Ryan today and she can give Grace back her tiger." To which Deacon made a kind of sad and thoughtful face so I said, "Unless you'd like to give it to her yourself?" He cheered up and said he'd like to do that, so I said I'd bring it with me when I picked him up from school and we'd take it back then.

It's raining today.  It was sort of lightly raining when I left the house to pick up Deacon from school.  In the 3 minutes it took to get him, it started pouring. I mean, really pouring.  I asked him if he still wanted to go then or if we could wait until later in the day to see if the rain calmed down, but he insisted we go right there and then to bring his lady back her tiger.

Deacon is my shyest and most introverted child.  He's incredibly sweet (obviously) but he's very shy and doesn't like to do many things that require talking to others - especially on his own.  But when he pulled up to Grace's house, he said he wanted to go on his own to bring her tiger back, that I could wait in the car with Finn. And wouldn't you know it, he went up to her door on his own, rang the bell, and waited so patiently for someone to answer the door. He gave her the tiger and then stood there grinning like a fool as Grace (and her mom) thanked him for being such a sweet gentleman for bringing back her tiger to her. He was still grinning in the car, but sadly my camera was wet and all of the pictures I took of him came out blurry.  You'll just have to trust me when I say, it was absolutely adorable. Oh, and the rain slowed back down almost as soon as we got back home afterward.

And that's the story of how my sweet prince of a boy braved the pouring rain and overcame his shyness to bring his lady back her stuffed tiger. He's so romantic.

Little Stories About Not-So-Little Boys

It used to be that when I'd pick Deacon up from school he would run to me and throw is arms around me and tell me how much he missed me that morning.  Now, I get this face:

 

 

and a grumpy Deacon telling me he'd rather I be late picking him up so he could sit in the office reading one of the books they have in there.

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point over the past few days Finn has decided he's SUPER afraid of bugs.  All of them.  Yesterday at tball he had a mini meltdown because the tiniest of ants DARED to crawl on the same bleacher he was playing on.

 

Then, this morning, after we put the boys on the bus, he went inside to get the iPad while I chatted with a neighbor for a minute.  When Finn came out to show me that he had found it, a bee buzzed past his head which caused him to run to me yelling, "No buggy! I can't go home! NO BUG!" And then he parked himself on the sidewalk and every few seconds would mutter, "I can't go home."

 

 

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

Speaking of tball, Zeke is LOV-ING IT.  He has such a great time every time we go.  I'm almost a little sad there are only 2 more days. He loves hitting and running and "catching" and throwing.  He loves all of the coaches, and the other kids.  He comes home so pumped every single time.

 

 

Deacon, on the other hand, quit after the 2nd or 3rd practice.  Tball just isn't his thing and that's okay. If practices and things weren't all during our dinner time, I wouldn've tried to switch him from tball to soccer since he keeps saying how much he likes soccer, but that would've meant being at the field every Monday through Thursday from 5-6 (really out of the house from 4:45-6:15) for 2 months.  We eat dinner at 5 most nights, so while I was willing to do it twice a week for tball, I wasn't willing to do it 4 nights, espcially with Josh gone like he has been.  But soccer comes around again in the fall, and then it will be on!

 

 

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

 

A few days before Finn's birthday he and I were shopping at Michaels for things, when he found this shovel that he just HAD to have.  I decided to get it for him, figuring it would be an early birthday present.  Plus you can never have too many shovels when going to beach (or the "big sand box" behind our house). Right?

 

 

This has happened more times than I can count.  My sweet boy loves to sleep with that silly shovel. Nap time, bed time, it doesn't matter.  More times times then not that shovel is in bed with that boy.  Best $2 spent ever.

Fill-Ins, Flowers, and Fun!

I must say, I had a pretty good Mother's Day.  Sure, Josh left around 2 in the afternoon to go to Sweden for the week, but after he left the boys and I went to my mom's for dinner, and it was a really nice day.

 

Fun:
As soon as I got out of bed, and went downstairs the boys bombarded me with the things they made at school.  Besides these hilarious fill-ins they each did (pictures below), Deacon made me a flower that came with flower seeds, and some "cards", and Zeke made me a "kissing hand" pot holder, some cards, and a book.  The book is If You Give A Mom a Muffin, and the illustrations Zeke made for each page are fantastic - I had so much fun reading it and maybe some day I'll post it here for you.  Until then, here are pics of the other goodies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flowers:

Friday morning, Zeke came into my room all excited and said, "Mom! I'm going to bring my wallet to school today so I can buy you flowers for Mother's Day!" Not entirely confident he'd be able to get a flower with the $2 he had in his wallet, I gave him $10 just in case.  And because Deacon couldn't be left out, I gave him $10 as well, and told the both of them NOT to spend the entire $10.  I told them to buy me ONE flower, and to bring back the change.

 

Deacon straight up didn't listen at all.  However, the huge smile on his face when he walked out of school on Friday with a little pallet of 10 flowers for me, made it impossible to be upset with him for not listening.  He was so proud of himself too when he and Josh planted them that afternoon.

 

 

Zeke, on the other hand, taught me a lesson on semantics.  When he got off the bus with 10 flowers I said, "How many flowers did I tell you to buy?"  He looked right at me and said, "You said to buy you one flower.  The rest are for other moms I know."  Well played. He actually sold one of the flowers to his friend on the bus, so he came home with 9 flowers and a dollar. 

 

 

He and Josh wound up planting 4 of them for me, and the rest he gave to other moms.  Originally, one was for each of his grandmoms (1-3), one was for his Sunday school teacher (4), and one was for my cousin Candice (5).  When I explained that we wouldn't be seeing 2 of his grandmas, or Candice he reconsidered and gave 2 to his Sunday school teacher, 2 to my mom and 1 to Ms. Ryan.  He's such a sweet boy, and I pray so often that he stays that way.  Oh, and Karen and Mom and Candice, sorry you couldn't actually have your flowers.  But he was thinking about you and loving you and wishing you Happy Mother's Day all the same.

 

Also, while we were at my mom's yesterday Zeke and my mom planted the flowers he gave her together.

 

 

Fill-ins:

I don't know why these made me (and Josh) laugh so hard, but they did.

 

Deacon's:

 

 

Zeke's:

 

 

It really was a good Mother's Day. I'm blessed to have 3 wonderful boys, whom I love with all my heart.  I'm so happy to be their mother, every day of every year.

A Beautiful Day for a Beautiful Boy

On Finn's birthday we had a party to celebrate our boy.  Since it was a beautiful day we set up outside and had a bunch of family over.  It was a little windy, and the wind was chilly, but while the backyard was bathed in sun, we had a nice time out in the backyard. All six grandparents came up, as well as Tante and her boyfriend, Tia, and Finn's best buddy Chase, and Chase's family.

 

 

We pretty much just hung out.  There were bubbles and playing and family and food.  We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner.

 

 

Then there was watermelon...

 

 

followed immediately by cake.

 

 

Along with the cake were cookies made by my friend Heather again.  This time the theme was "PBS on a Platter". There were Cat in the Hat hat cookies, Curious George cookies as well as yellow hats for The Man in the Yellow Hat, and then Finn's favorite, Super Why.

 

 

After dessert was finished, the backyard was completely shaded and chilly, so we cleaned up and came inside to open presents.  This is when Finn pretty much reached his little breaking point.  He started insisting that people go home and turn off the tv.  He refused to open presents too, so I took him upstairs for a quick 3 minute "reset" time, which worked.  Once he was ready to see everyone again he tore into some presents and had a great time checking out all his booty.  (He really did make out like a bandit - thank you everyone for the wonderful presents.)

 

 

Then we hung out for a bit longer until everyone left and it was off to bed, tired and happy.  All in all, a really great day.