Whooping, Hollering Buddies!

Although we don't have winter weather here yet, there aren't many chances to go out and play after school these days. The fact that it starts getting dark around 4 pm probably has something to do with it!! (I swear we must be on the edge of our time zone!) At least our boys find ways to entertain themselves in the house -- and it sounds like a playground while they are doing it, so maybe it is exercise!?! Some Mom's have couch potatoes; I have couch howler monkeys!!

Bake me a cake as fast as you can!

Jordan's class at school read a story this week about a Hedgehog that baked a yellow cake and then ate it warm with a nice cold glass of milk. His teacher copied the recipe for all of them and he could hardly wait to make his cake when he got home from school. I let him measure and dump in all of the ingredients, beat it all together with the handmixer, grease the pan, and get the batter into the pan all on his own. He really enjoyed doing it.

But, he enjoyed "clean-up" the very most and so I am reassured that

he is a child after my own heart.

The difference between Jordan and I, is that he let Kade in on the dirty work. I've always considered it the chef's job. I always new he was a nice kid!

(FYI, my rubber spatula is still in one piece!!)

The cake was yummy baked, too!

Big Bumber!

There are some coding problems between Blogger and Blurb, so Blurb's slurping utility for Blogger will not be working for an indefinite amount of time. For those of you, like me, that have been "slurp"-ing your blog posts into Booksmart to make a blog book with all of your pictures and text (as a sort of family journal), this is really bad news. It is going to take me so much longer to finish my 2008 book when I have to copy and paste everything over, or post it in both places everytime!! Eeeeeewwww! Technology!! No wonder I retired from my computer programming career!!

Who ya gonna call?

Kade's pre school class went on a field trip to the fire station today. I got to be one of the field trip mom's . . . again. (That's odd!) I'm not sure that the fire fighters who sacrificed their time to educate us felt like anyone was comprehending anything they were saying, but the kids had a great time. While we were there, the kids got to:
1. look at the huge map of our town and see if they knew where they lived (apparently, a few live in the middle of the lake!),
2. learn about who to call and how when there is an emergency situation (hope they understood the 'when' part!),
3. check out all of the different emergency vehicles and learn about what they do, and
4. look at, touch, and even try on all of the different parts of a fire fighter's gear.

The main goal of the firemen was to show the children what a fire fighter will look and sound like if they come to help you out of a burning building. They told the kids not be nervous or hide from them because they are nice guys just wearing a lot of clothes so that they don't get cooked.

I hope that Kade didn't get any future career ideas. I'm going to write a new rendition of "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys." This mama isn't letting anyone become a fire fighter. There are much less dangerous jobs out there that have a sense of adventure. Take Brett's job for instance . . . he also wears a coat, gloves, and a mask and barrels into the unknown. But, he is still alive and well with squeaky white shoes at the end of his work days. How does dentistry sound to you, Kade?!?

Yes, all of that blue stuff is water, and no, Kade

isn't sure where to find his house on that map.

No explanation needed!!

Kiss Me

Kade has never been one for kisses. In fact, he has always been known to say, "Kiss me on my hair so I can't feel the wet." But the last couple of days he has been spoiling me with kisses . . . on my lips. Last night, after one of these sweet kisses, he turned to Jordan and said, "I didn't know that I would like that, but I do!" When his precious innocence fades, we are going to have trouble on our hands!

What now?!?

What do you do when your child's intelligence passes the point of absolute childhood innocence? We can no longer spell things that we don't wan't our kids to understand -- Jordan's reading skills foiled that method a long time ago. We can no longer speak in our synonym style code -- Jordan's reading skills have in turn increased his vocabulary, so that tactic is also history. I learned last night that the only type of deception that I thought that I had left is also a thing of the past.

When I was tucking the kids in to bed, Kade was giving me a very long and detailed description of a Republic Gunship toy that his friend, Graham, owns that he would like to have for Christmas. I was giving him all of the appropriate listening-interestingly cues, although I didn't have even the foggiest clue what he was trying to tell me about. (It is just simply not possible for my understanding of Star Wars guys, ships, planets, species, force powers, lingo, and plot to match that of my two boys. My female brain does not have the capacity for such things -- altough I do play a mean game of Star Wars Trivial Pursuit.) When he had finished his explanation, he said, "Do you know which one I'm talking about, Mom?" and I said, "Yes!"

My shock came when Jordan gave a wicked little chuckle and met my gaze with a very amused look on his face. Then he very saucily said, "That's a 'yes' of 'No, Kade. I don't know' ."

I was absolutely taken aback! I didn't know whether to laugh or to fall apart. I have always taught that honesty is the best policy, but didn't feel it wrong to let my tiny guys believe that their extremely juvenilish technical explanations of things are important to me and make perfect sense. I guess my method of letting them believe is no longer going to be enough. I've been found out!! Aaaahhhh! Jordan is too smart for my own good!! I guess this leaves me two choices -- I have either got to spend some of my free time pouring over Star Wars books and movies to learn all of the facts that my boys already know so I can share this exciting part of their lives with them, or I'm going to have to admit defeat and acknowledge that they have surpassed my expertise in this area and I'm just a boring girl. My boys are just growing up too quickly!!