And the youngest child thinks we are heathens…

Jun 15, 2011 // by Jen // OurBlogs // Comments Off

Well, we have officially kicked off summer break! The kids and I met Auntie B at our favorite beach for fun in the sun and sand in our pants. Long gone are the days of Matthew being afraid of the sand (which I secretly loved because he would perch on the end of my lounge chair and happily watch the goings on around us, contained by his fear of that gritty floor) now he is only slightly timid about the water. The older two spent the majority of the time laying on the edge of the water letting waves crash over them. This is of course the part of the waves that churns the sand up like a blender, then depositing it in the tops and bottoms of unwitting children so that when they stand up their bottoms sag like the old days before swim diapers. We usually try to get lunch in before the sand completely envelopes them, a futile effort of course. Matthew is ready to dive into his sub hands coated like sugared doughnuts when I stop him. I tell him to go rinse off his hands in the water and he looks at me like I have sprouted a second head. Mary takes the lead and brings him to the water and I watch like its a silent movie. She gestures to him, he stares at her. She immediately drops to the ground and covers her own hands in sand, as a visual aid, and goes to the water and rinses her hands. Simple enough. He is still staring at her like she has just lost her mind. She just shakes her head and shrugs at me like “that’s all I got Mom”. She admits defeat and heads to the towel to eat her lunch. After a few minutes he finally gives in to the lack of civility and washes his hands off. A man’s gotta eat after all….

Still My Baby

Nov 13, 2010 // by Jen // OurBlogs // Comments Off

When my first child was born, my husband had visions of his middle linebacker. I was having no part of that! He was so tiny and delicate I couldn’t conceive of it. The game was so violent! I did not carry that child for nine months (not to mention the price my midsection is still paying seven years later) to throw him to the wolves. Well as time passed he grew, tall and skinny and he was all boy. The “football thing” was still not within my comfort zone. Yeah, he wasn’t whiny about getting hurt but he usually was the one doing the hurting, to himself. I couldn’t see putting him in a place where everybody was there to hit everybody else. Sounds barbaric.
Well, sometimes in life we look for signs. Signs that tell us which way to go, guide us in choices we make. One beautiful summer day my husband was mowing the backyard and James was running around playing. They began a game of tag, James (5 1/2 years) running as if being pursued by the mower. He was looking back at his dad and running full speed, just as he turned to look ahead he ran smack into the trampoline frame. He was clothes lined and landed flat on his back. He got up covering his mouth with his hand. When he pulled his hand away and saw it was covered in blood he, without crying, turned and looked at the trampoline that attacked him and said “stupid trampoline”. When I looked at his mouth and his top four front teeth were shoved back to the roof of his mouth and twisted. I cried, he didn’t. At the emergency room when the Dr twisted and pulled them into place with no more anesthetic than a dose of Motrin, I cried and almost passed out; he didn’t shed the first tear. He looked. at me and asked if I was ok. I then realized that my baby boy was gonna be fine on the football field, all padded and helmeted.
As it turns out, by “our” second season of football I was not only ok with him playing, I had turned into a rabid football mom, screaming and cheering like a maniac! After one of his games he told me “I heard you yell ‘that’s my baby’ mom”. I asked if it embarrassed him, he said “nah”… He is still my baby…