Overheard in the car on the way home from the skating rink last night:

“Dude – I did this one wipeout and landed in the splits!”

“I’m gonna have a few new bruises.”

“It was totally awesome!”

New bruises … totally awesome. *shakes head in wonderment* Boys will be boys!! :p

Speaking of the skating rink … did you know that “retro night” now features both Tears for Fears AND Elvis? If that didn’t make me feel old, the fact that Def Leppard also qualifies as “retro” certainly did. At least I got to jam to some Armageddon It.

P.S. Apparently, lip-syncing and playing air guitar while skating with one’s children falls under the “embarrassing” category. Duly noted.

I was scanning Facebook and admiring the newborn picture of a dear friend who gave birth yesterday when No. 5 walked in the room. He was beaming from ear-to-ear and wanted to let me know that he successfully romanced a Whirlm in Viva Pinata.

I showed him the newborn photo, he said, “I got a baby worm, and they got a baby person!!” 😀

As I wrote the other evening, No. 3 pulled out his own tooth (I think he’s up to #6 or 7, if I’m not mistaken!), and I had every intention of going straight to my purse after I got off the computer to scrounge up a buck to put under his pillow.

I forgot.

It didn’t cross my mind again until after I got to work the next morning, so I called Dad while he was still at the house and asked him to check & see if the tooth was still in the baggy under the munchkin’s pillow. I hoped that maybe No. 3 forgot about it, too, and I could pull a sly switcheroo. Otherwise, I figured he’s old enough to break the news and end the fantasy. I’d simply have to come clean and tell him the big-kid truth about the tooth fairy and offer an apology for forgetting about it. Nos. 1 & 2 already know, of course, but we have a “secret” deal where they trade their teeth for dollar bills. They still get the cash, so they’re happy to keep the secret from the little guys.

I wasn’t upset about having to tell him the truth; I’ve always said that I won’t flat-out lie to them about fantasy things like Santa or the tooth fairy. So, imagine my surprise when I got home and No. 3 proclaimed: “Mom! The tooth fairy came during the day this time, instead of at night.”

“Oh?” I asked, “Perhaps she just got busy and ran out of time the night before.”

Without missing a beat, he said, “Or, maybe she had Mother’s Day off or something.”

What a sweetie. I didn’t have the heart to burst his bubble. So, for one more tooth, at least, the fantasy is still intact.

I had a delightful Mother’s Day Eve. Two of the boys spent the night at Nana & Granddad’s house, and the other three were relatively well behaved as they played video games and got to stay up a little late. I locked myself in the bathroom, ran a hot bath and enjoyed some red wine and a good book (I actually put my nook in a gallon zip bag so that I could read it in the tub). I felt very luxurious with my wine glass in the bathtub, and I only got interrupted three times by people knocking on the door. (At least they don’t know how to pick locks … yet.)

This morning, I was woken up by several blurry faces (I didn’t have my glasses on yet) appearing at my bedside and an iced skinny vanilla latte thrust beneath my nose. The guys had gone to a local Mexican food restaurant for breakfast burritos and made a stop at the coffee shop on the way home. I can’t remember the last time I had breakfast in bed; it was really nice. They even took my burrito out of the tortilla and served on a plate it the way I eat it: low-carb. 😉

The two who were at grandparents’ came home in time to join us for church, so we took up almost a whole pew with all seven of us seated together. It was nice, though, to have all of them with me on Mother’s Day.

After church, we met up with Nana & Granddad at the lake and enjoyed a picnic lunch, followed by a couple of hours of swimming in surprisingly frigid water. The boys had a blast, and I think everyone will sleep well tonight after all of the fun in the sun!

The planned activities were memorable, but what really struck me about this weekend were all of the unexpected things that popped up, as they always seem to do … things like:

• helping one of the 6yos with a dreadful bloody nose … “I think ALL of my blood is going to come out!” he cried as his poor little nose gushed into the bathroom sink. I told him the story of how the school nurse knew me by name because of all of my bloody noses. I remembered the trick of putting a piece of a paper sack beneath the upper lip (across your top front teeth); apparently, it helps to dry out that nerve in your nasal cavity. I also had him hold ice on the bridge of his nose. It was a miserable 10 minutes or so, but I managed to convince him that he wasn’t going to lose all of the blood in his body, and it eventually stopped.
• helping the other 6yo with what can only be described as diaper rash, accompanied by a speech about proper wiping. Oh, the things I thought I was finished doing after they outgrew diapers! Who knew I’d still have to wipe behinds at age 6?!
• cheering on the 7-1/2yo for pulling out his own tooth … which reminds me, the tooth fairy needs to go scrounge up a dollar …
• assembling and moving furniture. We’ve been needing to replace a few of the boys’ beds, and we found a great deal at a local consignment furniture store on two bunkbeds and a futon. So, went spent much of the weekend tearing down old beds, cleaning the scariness beneath them and assembling the new furniture. Someone made a comment about manual labor being difficult, and I mumbled under my breath: “It’s easier than the other kind of labor!”

On that note … Happy Mother’s Day!

Now that the bride has given her approval, I thought I would post a picture of a little project that I’ve been working on this week. (I didn’t want to post any pics until she gave the thumbs-up, in case she didn’t like them.) My best friend is getting married later this month, and I have the genuine honor and joy of being her matron of honor. Her eldest son was my ring bearer … I can’t believe he’s so grown-up now!!

Anyway, I made flower arrangements for the wedding party. Their colors are black & white, so I tried to use a mix of various white flowers, greenery and patterned ribbon:

The pair of over-sized daisies are for the flower girl. The boutonnieres are for the guys (obviously!). The bouquet on the far left is mine, and the larger one in the center is the bride’s.

We’ve been through thick & thin together all these years, and I’m so honored to be a part of her wedding! Love you, B!

Today’s prayer prompt was my 500th blog post … how fortuitous that it also sums up much of what I’ve gone through in life since I began blogging back in ’08. I started writing for a class project in grad school, then I kept writing posts as a form of journaling — basically talking to the wall, since I had no readers — but it was cathartic, nonetheless.

Here we are now, three years later, and what a journey it has been. It hasn’t always been pleasant, but it has certainly been a growth process. Thank you for joining me on this adventure!

I thought a new theme might fix the squished text problem that I’ve been having lately. This one seems to work just fine. Any feedback? I was going for something clean & relatively easy on the eyes.

… or your imagination, as the case may be!

The 11yo likes to create quirky lyrics to popular songs. Here is his rendition of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man:

“I am Ice Cream Man — running over little kids in my van!”

Oi vey. If I weren’t laughing so hard, I’d tell him that those lyrics are inappropriate. I have to admit, though – the kid has a sense of humor. Warped, yes – but a sense of humor, nonetheless.

Fourth grade is the year of the “hygiene” film, but fifth grade is the year of the “puberty” film. They separate the boys & girls, and parents have the opportunity to opt-out of the film, but I thought it would be useful information and help break the ice for further conversation. We’ve been open all along, I think, about “body” questions. The older two asked point-blank a while back how babies are born, so I fielded that question as matter-of-factly as I could on the spot, including some general details about the uterus and birth canal, etc.

I know that Dad had a follow-up conversation with the 5th grader, man-to-man, but they just talked about guy stuff, and I wanted to be sure that he had a basic understanding of what girls go through, as well. Tonight after our tutoring ministry was a perfect opportunity to chat in the car as he and I drove home together. I started by telling him that I know he and Dad talked, but I thought it would be helpful if I told him about girls’ puberty, too, so that he can understand what they go through. I asked if that would be ok (I didn’t want to shove the information on him), and he said yes, so I tried to explain things on his level, as best I could.

I reminded him of our baby birth talk and the special organ called a uterus that girls have. I told him that the uterus lines itself like a helmet to protect the baby, and that’s really awesome that our bodies are built to take care of babies. However, a girl’s body doesn’t know from one month to the next if she’s going to have a baby (insert candid reminder here that we don’t want girls getting pregnant!), so the uterus gets rid of the protective lining. I took a chance on the gross factor and explained that it’s basically bleeding for a few days, usually 3-5, but it could last up to a week. He was ASTOUNDED, I tell you. At first, he said, “No fair – you mean they get to skip school?” and I laughed and said no way – they not only have to go to school, but they still have to do everything else, like P.E., while wearing some kind of a pad to stop the bleeding. He was a wee bit horrified and just said, “Whoa.”

I joked about it a bit and reminded him of the creation story in Genesis, where it says that Adam will have to toil for food, but Eve will have pain in childbirth. I told him that I think Eve got the raw end of the deal. 😉  He said, “No kidding!”

I told him that periods are personal and private, so it’s not something that he needs to go and talk to girls about, but I wanted him to know about them so that he will be compassionate and understanding when girls he knows act cranky or feel bad. I was pretty blunt about how bad cramps hurt (I said something along the lines of: it feels like something inside of your belly is tearing because the uterus is opening & closing ), and I said that it’s normal for girls to feel aggravated or easily upset during this time. I told him it’s called PMS.

After sharing all of that, he said, “Well, you’re a mom, so I think you would know!” I also reminded him that I had a hysterectomy, which means I don’t have to have any more periods. He clued in immediately and added, “It also means that you won’t have six kids! Six boys is a recipe for disaster.” I had to laugh at that!!

I was so grateful for our time together in the car to talk openly about puberty, and I appreciated his openness and understanding. I think he will be genuinely compassionate to his friend-girls, and I hope that this conversation has paved the way to more open communication as he gets older.

Our house has a leak in the hot water line, so for the past week, we’ve been going to my parents’ house to bathe, and I’ve been boiling water to wash what few dishes we’re trying to use. (We are using disposable plates, cups & utensils, but we still need to wash cookware.) The plumbers are scheduled to come tomorrow to begin the repair – hallelujah! (It makes me cringe to say jackhammer and kitchen floor in the same sentence, but I’ll be thankful for whatever it takes to get it fixed!)

All that is to say, my evening “routine” has been a wee bit out of whack the past several days, so I haven’t written much. I am very much looking forward to being able to shower in my own bathroom, wash white clothes in my own washing machine (everything else can be washed in cold) and loading the dishwasher. It’s funny how we begin to look forward to things that are usually bothersome chores when the ability to do them is taken away!