What Summer Looks Like

Hanging with the cousins at the BOG. Spending HOURS building canals in the sandbox.

Begging to go swim in the sludge.

Being mesmerized when Uncle Kaleb throws ground bloom flower fireworks in a bucket of water.

Hanging out with the cutest baby on the planet. I don't even hold it against him that he's just barely turning 1 but wears larger-sized clothes than Tukker, who is 3. Tukk's in 18 month clothes. Klive's in 2T. I've been saving boy clothes to hand down to him. Silly me. Now his mom is saving boy clothes to hand down to Tukk.

Finding a safe place away from the terror of the fireworks.

Celebrating our independence by giving small children burning sticks to run around with.

The sprinkler under the trampoline tradition.

And drawing with sidewalk chalk. Clothing, as always, is optional.

Free Style Walking Skillz

I've talked a lot about my many skillz on this blog. (Please note that my talents are so amazing that they've earned the z.) FHE planning skillz, parenting skillz, leg shaving skillz, cake making skillz...And I hope you'll forgive my bragging when I tell you that I've recently discovered yet another skill to add to my resume. Free Style Walking. I first discovered my impressive Free Style Walking skillz last Monday when I was jogging on a trail with my dog. I'd just hit a downhill and picked up my pace. I was feeling good, I was feeling confident, when WHAM! I slammed into the ground and bounced 3 feet down the trail before I even realized I was no longer on my feet. I lay there, face down in the dirt, trying to figure out what had just happened. I was a little sick to my stomach (whether from the pain or the shame I'm not sure), and my dog was standing over me looking at me like I was an idiot.

I assessed the damage: torn up knee, trail rash all up my right leg, bruised elbow, more trail rash up my arm and on the top of my shoulder. I have no idea how it's possible to hit on your elbow AND the top of your shoulder. I'm pretty sure it takes skillz.

Then I realized someone might be coming up the trail soon, so I dragged myself out of the dirt and started limping for home. I passed a lady a couple of minutes later. She scooted to the far side of the trail and didn't make eye contact. I think she was just intimated by the blood running from my knee to my ankle and the dirt caked all up the right side of my body, because she figured I must be a hardcore free style walker and she knew her skillz would never compare with mine. Or she thought I looked like a psychopath. It could go either way.

This "incident" shook my confidence for a while, especially when I returned home to have Cole burst out laughing as soon as he saw me, then ask, "Did you wreck... while you were jogging?" But as I picked a rock out of the hole in my knee I assured myself that trail running is a dangerous sport - right up there with croc wrestling and king crab fishing - and it could have happened to anyone.

Then a few days later I somehow managed to slam the car door on my calf. I'm still not exactly sure how I managed such a thing, but I do know that it involved skillz. And that it hurt. A lot. My confidence was threatened yet again, but I blamed the accident on my eagerness to get into my grandma's house because she was making homemade ice cream, and who wouldn't be in a hurry when homemade ice cream is involved?

Then this morning I went jogging again. And someone booby trapped a section of sidewalk. I'm sure there must have been a trip wire there, because there's no way I could have stumbled over the tiny, 1/4 inch difference between two sections of cement. I fell for a good five minutes, in slow motion, while making this horrifying groaning/moaning noise. I had time to register the fact that I was falling, register the fact that I was in a residential neighborhood and surely someone would see me falling, and then register the fact that the horrible noise I was hearing was, in fact, coming from me. Yet I was powerless to stop the fall. Or the noise.

I finally hit the sidewalk, but luckily I managed to catch myself this time, so all I came away with was some scraped palms, a sore wrist, and a massive, bleeding wound in my self-esteem.

I'm expecting a call from my agent any moment saying that someone in Hollywood wants to use my free style walking skillz in a feature length film.

Maybe it's time to pack up my running shoes and invest in this:

FHeffinE

"Family home evening is a special time set aside each week that brings family members together and strengthens their love for each other, helps them draw closer to Heavenly Father, and encourages them to live righteously."


That's straight from the church's website. Family home evening — or FHE, as those of us who are pros at planning this magical family night call it — is an important part of our religion. But sometimes it's hard to make it a success. Since I'm so good at instilling light and knowledge into my children I thought I'd help you out by detailing the very spiritual, very moving FHE we had tonight so you can follow my example:


1. Plan a treat. This is number 1 on the list because, of course, it's the most important part of any FHE. And of life in general. Tonight ours was apple crisp topped with whipping cream… the real deal, not that Cool Whip crap.

2. Plan a lesson. And by "plan" I mean go online to sugardoodle.com at 6:30 pm and steal one of their ideas.

3. Ask the children in your most loving, "religious mom" voice to stop spraying the flipping windows with the hose and come inside for FHE.

4. When your oldest starts pitching a fit because he'd rather fill the sandbox with water and play in the mud than learn about the Lord, remain patient and kind… and threaten to cancel the slumber party he has planned with his cousin later that week if he doesn't get his butt in the house.

5. Try to get your spirituality on by focusing on the lesson you glanced over briefly painstakingly planned as you chop the apples for your dessert. Or just chop with your eyes glazed over and your mouth half opened and drool a little as you think about how good dessert's going to taste.

6. Be (painfully) jerked out of your whip-cream induced reverie when your 3 year old starts whining that he's sticky… and then notice that while you've been daydreaming he was busy dumping half a bottle of maple syrup on his shorts and his belly and smearing it all over the place. Then think back to this post (Questions) and realize there's no point in asking why he is doing this.

7. Remain loving and sweet, even when your oldest climbs up on the counter to see the giant maple syrup mess while you're cleaning up his brother and of course gets it all over himself, then wanders around the house spreading sticky goodness to every corner of your home.

8. While you're still dealing with the syrup lake (and waterfall, since it ran off the counter and all over the floor), tell your kids to stay inside because you're going to have some special family bonding time, by hell, or the whole family is going to pay.

9. When your youngest starts screaming because he was trying to sneak out back with his brother and smashed his finger in the door, use the "that's what you get for not listening to your mother" line as a way to teach him obedience… not because it's sort of like getting to say "I told you so."

10. After the syrup is cleaned up, glance into the backyard to find that your oldest has decided to hammer all of his toys into the mud (again, you're long past asking why at this point in your life) and that your youngest has ditched his syrup-covered clothing and is now running around with the hose, completely naked… spraying the windows.

11. Give up. Because people like me know the saying "nobody likes a quitter" is a bunch of crap. More like nobody likes the jerk who made up that stupid saying.

12. Tell yourself that just because there was no lesson, no dessert, no special bonding moments, and one child ended the night covered in mud while the other ended it naked and smelling of syrup doesn't mean your FHE was a complete and total failure. Is it the whisperings of the spirit helping you remain so positive? No no, it's the fact that you made the whipped cream before all this went down, and you fully plan on taking the entire bowl and a very large spoon with you to go have a long soak in the tub. While your children are taught the gospel according to SpongeBob.

PS. Shortly after clicking "publish" on my original post Tukker came in to inform me that he had peed on the couch. And yes, he was still naked, so there wasn't even a thin layer of cotton to absorb a small amount of said urine. About five minutes after that Caulder told me he'd just sharted and needed new undies. I'm going to need a helluva lot more whipped cream if I'm going to survive family home evening. Bless my heart.

Birthday Paaaarrrrties

The Tukkman lucked out and got two birthday parties this year. On his actual birthday we took him to Pirate Island for a buccaneering good time. I made his cake that morning, and all day he kept saying, "Okay, I ready eat cake now." I tortured him - on his birthday, no less - and made him wait until the party before he got a piece.By the time we got to the restaurant he'd apparently had it with waiting, so he started picking gold coins off the cake, licking the frosting off them... and then putting them back on it. I guess that's the birthday boy's right.We finally had to move the cake over to the other table to save it from being licked to death. Unfortunately, we didn't really think that one through because we put it right in front of my dad, who promptly began picking treats off it, too. Then we ate pizza, sang to the birthday boy, opened presents...

And played arcade games until Cole's quarter stash was gone. Cole's family had a big camping weekend just before Tukk's birthday, so we celebrated with them at the B.O.G. They spoiled him rotten, too. And both sides of the family know him so well. Here's a list of some of the things he got:

A bag of donuts
Cowboy boots
A toy shotgun, complete with ejectable shells and firing noises
A remote control 4-wheeler
Another bag of donuts
Some Legos, so he can be just like Caulder
A wild west set
Transformers
A bag of candy
A shovel (that's right, Cole and I got him a shovel)
A fishing pole
And another bag of donuts

It's like our family found an "Ultimate Gift Guide for the Budding Redneck" online... and got him everything on it. It was perfect. And he was excited EVERY TIME he opened a gift and found another bag of donuts waiting for him. But I think the best present of all was the cake we made for his camping party:

I've never seen him so excited. He ate four donuts and an ice cream cone. And then he spent the rest of his party doing this: Donut-induced sugar coma. Best. Birthday. Ever.

The Big Man Turns 3

It's Tukker's birthday tomorrow, so in honor of the occasion here's a list of some of our favorite things about the little big man:

He runs up to us randomly throughout the day, throws his arms around our legs and squeezes us, then says, "I wub wu!"

He follows Caulder around all day long, mimicking everything he does. He's even starting to copy the hour-long storytelling fests that Caulder provides. Most of what Tukk tries telling us is either an exact repeat of what Caulder is saying or half gibberish, but he cracks himself up every time.

He's totally suave. One day a pair of cute little girls walked past Tukk. He flashed his goober teeth, waved, and said, "Hi! I'm Gukk." Smoooooooth.

He's still snuggly. Every couple of hours he has to climb up on someone's lap with Kenny & Cow and snuggle in for a few minutes. Sometimes when I'm the lap he needs he says, "I wub big momma!" He must realize that he can call me whatever he wants as long as he puts "I wub" in front of it.

He plays "skidstee." He'll sit out in the yard for hours picking up handfuls of dirt or rocks, raising them over his head, pivoting to one side and then dumping them, all while making a noise like a skidsteer. It is a crackup.

He tells awesome knock knock jokes. For example:

Tukk: Knock knock.

Caulder: Who's there?
Tukk: Gampa Farney.
Caulder: Grandpa Farney who?
Tukk: Gampa Farney go bassoom (bathroom)!

And then both of the boys giggle like fools. Tukker changes the names in his knock knock jokes from time to time, but the punch line is always the same. And always hilarious.

He gives us the "shifty eye." Sometimes when he's being mischievous he'll smile and move his eyes back and forth from right to left like a cartoon character. Gets him out of trouble every time.

He thinks he's just as big as everyone else, and always wants to do everything "all myself." Whenever we tell him he's too little to do something, he insists, "I not teeny. I big!" Except when we tell him he's too big to still be sucking on his fingers. Then, of course, "I not big. I teeny!"

He's very helpful, in a miniature man sort of way. For example, when I'm doing yard work he comes out and helps by pulling up all my flowers, or grabbing the shovel to dig up rocks, which pretty much always ends with him accidentally cracking me in the skull with the handle. And what better way to mop than with your He-Man sword… in your underwear?

He somehow gets everyone to spoil him. EVERYONE. One day his occupational therapist was at our house working on fine motor skills with Tukk, which he hates because it requires sitting and focusing on things like puzzles. For Tukk, having to sit longer than 30 seconds is a particularly cruel form of torture. His OT gave up on puzzles and moved to these plastic rings Tukk was supposed to pull apart and put back together. Instead he grabbed them all, stacked them into an arch and started driving a Hot Wheels car through them. I apologized that he was being such a stinker, and she said, "It's okay. I'm just so excited that he has the cognitive function to use his imagination like that!"

Then she tried to make him pick the pieces all up and put them away, and Tukk got so mad he stood up and pitched an ear-splitting, foot-stomping hissy fit. Instead of getting frustrated with him, his OT (who's been working with him since he came home from the NICU) literally got tears in her eyes and said, "Can you believe he can do that? A year ago he couldn't even walk, and now he has enough balance and leg strength to stand on one leg and stomp!" Clearly we're not the only ones who are ridiculous about this boy.

We're pretty sure his redneck teeth are his super power. At first we blamed our inability to stop spoiling the crap out of him on the whole "critically ill preemie who barely survived" thing. Now we're starting to think the spoiled rotten factor actually comes from the teeth. You see that picture at the top of this post? How can you possibly get mad at a kid who has teeth like that? I'm telling you, it can't be done.

He jumps off everything, and it's always preceded by a 15 minute long countdown that goes something like this: "One, two, see, two, see, me, doo, eight, see, one, dee, six, goo, bee, two!" This is especially fun when you're supposed to be catching him after he jumps, because you never know which "number" is the magic one that's going to precede the leap. Catching the Tukk requires constant vigilance.

He takes his pretend play very seriously. He doesn't get out of character, even when using the bathroom. (I'm sure it goes without saying that he was pretending to be a motorcycle in this picture. There's nothing that says "I'm a high-speed, 2-wheeled racing machine" like having a cracked plastic bucket on your head.)

There's just something about this boy. You can't be around him longer than 3 minutes without him making you smile. We're starting to think he might actually be worth all the trouble he caused when he was born. Our insurance company may disagree, but we're kinda glad he stuck around.

Things You Can't Do With A Broken Arm

Reel in a monster fish.
Become a dead-eye rock thrower with your left hand.

Figure out how to use both controls on the Wii so you can still play like a demon with your cousin.
Shoot your aunt down (multiple times) while swimming.

Give your brother a horse ride.

Go on a 4-wheeler ride.
Swing like Indiana Jones.

We've also busted him multiple times jumping on the trampoline. I argued with him for 10 minutes the first time it happened about why it was a bad idea to jump with a broken arm. Apparently my argument didn't even register, because he's a repeat offender.

As you can see, having a broken arm has really been slowing Caulder down. He's just been pining away morosely, waiting for his chance to enjoy the summer. Luckily our pediatrician gave us the official okay to take his sling off on Monday. It wasn't really doing him any good at that point, anyway. After about the first week he barely seemed to notice he had a broken arm.

The doctor told us it will still be healing for a few more weeks, so Caulder needs to be careful or he could rebreak it. Be careful huh? Riiiiiiiight... Apparently the doc has never lived with a 5 year old boy.