After dinner, we weren’t qick enough to put the Cheetohs away. Chevy walks by the table, grabs the corner of the bag and poof! Cheetohs all over the floor. I turn around to see him on his hands and knees, face first licking crunchy orange crumbs off the floor.

A little later Hudson comes downstairs with his play gun with laser. He turns the living room lights off and wiggles the red beam of light all around the floor. Chevy giggles and chases the red light until he falls on the floor. Is there any question why I do not have any longing for a dog?

The funny thing is, the envelope is sitting right next to me on the computer desk and I have no urge to open it and find out. I have less restraint when new email pops into my inbox. I guess in my mind not knowing the gender is all part of the wonder of pregnancy and it makes delivery that much sweeter. Carrying the baby for nine months, I get so used to the little kicks and punches and I feel like I know him/her by the time s/he’s born. I know I already love him/her.

So maybe we’ll choose to find out sometime in the next 4 months. Or maybe we’ll just let him/her surprise us one last time.

facing forward

Baby's foot

Baby's profile

Baby's profile #2

Ford (4 1/2), who had been sitting quietly on the couch, hopped down, walked past Chevy and said, “You have sewious mommy issues.”

A few minutes later…

The TV remote was lost. (Not an unusual occurance in our house.) Since I was STILL trying to make dinner, I didn’t want to stop to take time to look for it. Plus, I was pretty sure I was NOT the one who had lost it. So, I told the kids that whoever finds the remote will get a special something from mommy. (I was thinking hugs and kisses and praise, and maybe a stick of gum.) I overheard Hudson (8 1/2) in the playroom say to Ford, “Ford, if you find the TV remote, you can play the Wii!”

I did not want to have to make good on that promise if Ford did find the remote. And I did not want to deal with the temper tantrum that would ensue if he found the remote and I didn’t let him play the Wii. I said, “Hudson, you know we don’t play the Wii during the week. No one will get to play the Wii, even if you find the remote.”

Hudson replied, “Good job, Mama. You ruined the moment! Ford had been looking for the remote and now he stopped!”

A couple hours later, after repeatedly (like 5 times each) telling Hudson and Ford “no” they cannot play the Wii tonight…

Ford walks up to me as I was playing upstairs with Chevy. He says to me sweetly, “Mama, Hudson an’ I will give you FWEE dah-wers if you wet us pway ‘da Wii.” I couldn’t say no to that. And I couldn’t take their money (not like they had it anyway.)

And just before bed…

I asked Hudson to bring Chevy over to me for a diaper change and PJs before bed. Hudson grabbed Chevy under the arms and staggered across the room to me. After setting Chevy down, Hudson said, “He’s REALLY heavy! I’m getting old.”

I replied, “what would you do as boss?”
“Have us play Wii all day, eat whatever we want…”

I said, “It doesn’t sound like a very good deal for me. What’s in it for me?”
Hudson replied, “On Sunday, I’ll let you have the day off.”

Later on, after seeing a LifeLock commercial, he asked me, “Mama, can I see my card that I got when I was born? The one that has the numbers on it?”

“Your social security card?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to see if I’m Jewish.”

Quickly realizing that I had been wrong to assume they were too young to understand or care about my “work world,” I tried to simply explain what was different about my job now. “Yes, I’m working in the same office… Yes, I have the same boss…what’s new is that now I’m a boss.”

Hudson said with a little bit of awe, “You’re a boss at work?!?!”

Kirk, the smart @$$, asked the kids, “Where else is mommy a boss?”

Hudson said, “no where.”

“You just earned yourself some brownie points,” I told him. Then, just to make myself feel better about my bossy reputation, I asked, “So I’m not the boss at home?”

Hudson said matter-of-factly, “No, I’m the boss at home.”

Ford asked what a boss was, and I explained that it’s my job to organize people’s work and make sure everyone is doing a good job. Again, Kirk piped up, “she tells other people what to do.”

Hudson asked, “so…are YOU going to be doing any work, then?”

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“Fuwst, I went into da bafwoom, washed my hands, den I picked a cwumb out of my nose and dat fixed my pwugged nose.”

A few minutes later, he goes into the downstairs bathroom and gets out his toothbrush, toothpaste and mouthwash.
“I hafta bwush my teef cuz I got teef bohns (teeth burns).”

Can’t argue with that.

To top it off, we went a bit crazier with the Christmas lights this year. I know it’s not like some of those 500,000 light-carnival-houses with the blow up santa elmo and dancing coke bears. But for us, it was a lot of lights! My mom was calling my husband “Kirk Griswold,” and commenting that the neighbors are complaining because it’s “too bright to fall asleep.” The kids love it, which is totally the reason why we did it… I don’t think a day will pass between now and December 25th that we won’t have some sort of Christmas music blasting in our home.

Me: “But you just had a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup from your Halloween candy!”

Ford: “I know. But I can’t feew dah taste anymoh.” (I can’t feel the taste anymore!)

How could I say no to that?

“..rocket shoes for everyone in our family so we can all fly places together.”

“…a hat that gives me all the answers to my school work. I would wear it to school, it would read my tests. I would press a button and it would shine the answer on the inside of the hat where only I would see it.”

“…a tube of slippy stuff. I would pour it on cement, that way I could slide around on cement without my feet burning.”

“…the ability to fly.”

“..a bucket of tar, so I can pour it on the floor of my bedroom. People will walk in, their feet will get stuck, they will fly out of their shoes and fall into the bathroom.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he probably won’t get any of those things this year.