the sweetest thing

On the way home from the park, the boys had this great conversation in the backseat.

Let me preface this by mentioning that one of the boys’ favorite phrases is “that’s mine forever.” They will often get into heated arguments about whether something is or isn’t theirs forever. Sometimes I use those arguments to remind them that that things they have are blessings, and when we go to heaven someday they won’t take them. And the only thing that is truly forever is God’s love and heaven. Sometimes I just listen to them argue and let them work it out. And sometimes I get all irritated and tell them that they are having the most ridiculous argument ever. I probably do number 3 the most. Anyway, I digress.

The conversation went a little something like this:

Logan-”dis rock is mine porever.”
Connor-”No it’s not.”
L-”YES IT IS!”
C-”Moooommmmm….Logan thinks that rock is his forever.”
(Mom ignores hub bub in the backseat. It’s been a long morning.)
C-”Logan, that rock is not going to live forever.”
L-YES IT IS!”
C-”No. It’s not. Let me tell you something. We are going to die.”
L-”No we’re not.”
C-”Yes we are. We all die.”
Pause in conversation
C-”We’re not going to die when we’re kids. We die when we’re grown ups. Actually, when we are past grown ups, like maybe when we are 90 or 100.”
L-”oh.”
C-”But let me tell you the really fun part. When we die, we go to heaven.”
L-”NO WE DON’T!” (Logan is in an argumentative mood.)
C-”No, Logan. Listen to me. Let me tell you something cool. When we die, we get to go to heaven and be with God forever.”
L-”NO WE DON’T”
C-”Log, yes we do. That’s the best part.”
L-”NO”
C-realizes this conversation might be futile at this moment. he let’s out a long, semi-frustrated sigh.“Okay, Logan. Let’s just talk about this later.
L-”Otay.”

I love their conversations. Connor, the wise older brother. Logan, the ornery little one. Love them.

Do you see it?
Connor lost his first tooth today! It’s been loose for quite some time, but today a chicken nugget did it in. We were at the park with friends when it all went down. There were tears and fears-it was quite the dramatic event! In typical Connor fashion, he was totally freaked out by the whole thing (because it’s new and different). Inside, I was freaking out too. I had to pull it…it was hanging on by the tiniest thread and it had to come out. I was dreading that horrendous root-popping sound, but thankfully it was so loose that didn’t happen.

Of course, now he is so excited that he lost a tooth. He can’t wait to show his friends and teachers at school tomorrow, and to see what the Tooth Fairy leaves him.

Isn’t he looking so grown up with his buzzed hair and missing tooth?! I can’t believe it.

He lives right here in Houston.

Connor has been bitten by the super hero bug. It started shortly after Halloween when I picked up a Spiderman costume for $10. Now, as you can see, he’s into Batman. But my favorite superhero’s are the ones he has come up with in his imagination, SuperStar, SuperLightening, and the newest addition SuperCloud. Here is a video of him explaining these three amazing heroes. Oops. Nevermind on the video. I recorded one, but our video camera is on the fritz, so it’s a no go. I had two favorite parts of the video: first, my dog puked in the middle of it, so that was a nice little interruption. And second, when asked about his favorite, he replied that he liked SuperCloud eighty eightian. That number, for those of you who might be unfamiliar with it is 80 with 80 zeros. He is one cool dude.

I have always loved a kid with a good ol’ Texas accent. I remember back in the day when Juli Beth’s son Wade was learning to talk and I fell in love with his little country boy twang. I remember thinking I wanted my kids to learn to talk in Texas so they could sound like him. Well, Logan is turning into a little country boy. I don’t hear it in Connor as much, probably because he learned to talk in the land of surfers, not the land of cowboys. But Logan is perfecting the art form of turning turning one syllable words into two syllable words. “Mommy, I need chocolate mee-ilk.” “Mommy, it’s ober day-er” (aka over there). Oh man, there are more but I am drawing a blank! His twang makes D and I laugh because no one else in the family has it quite as much as him. I for one think he’s a super cute cowboy.

***

Connor is slightly obsessed with time. He is always aware of what time it is, loves to look at clocks, and even loves to watch clocks turn to the next number. He knows that his bedtime is 7:30, and if I try and put him in bed before then, it’s an issue because it isn’t time yet. Last night, he needed to go to bed earlier because he was up before 6 a.m. and didn’t go back to sleep (although he did stay in his bed until 7:00 because he knows that’s the time he is allowed to get up.) Anyway, I told him his bedtime was going to be 7:00 and of course he balked at the news. So I said “well, I can change your clock to say 7:30 if that will make you happier.” It worked. He thought it was so cool that we could change the time. I wonder if he thought I was really moving time forward. He ended up wanting his clock changed to 12:00. He thought he was big stuff staying up until midnight. At 12:10 (aka 7:10) he wandered out to the hallway. I stood in his doorway scratching my growing, itchy belly. He looked up at me (slightly sheepish because he knows he really isn’t supposed to be out of bed), walked up to me and gave my belly the softest hug and sweetest kiss. The he looked up at me and said “mommy? Can you get in my bed for a minute?” Oh my word, it was so sweet! How could I say no after that! We cuddled for a nanosecond and the conversation turned back to time. “Mommy? I’m just going to watch my clock until it turns to 1:00.” I have no doubt that he would lay there in his bed, willing his eyes to stay open just to watch the numbers turn for 50 minutes. So I moved time again to 12:45. Twenty minutes later, he was fast asleep. At 7:30. Or 1:05. Same difference.

***

PS-I love David Archuleta.  I voted for him like 10 times yesterday.

I’ve decided it’s time to move Connor out of his crib and into a bed. You may be wondering why I didn’t do this before Logan was born. I had several reasons.

1.) I really thought Logan would be less than 3 months old when we moved. I figured I would want Logan in our room until then so he wouldn’t need the crib.
2.) I didn’t want to buy a toddler bed for Connor. I wanted to go straight to a twin size bed, seeing as he is a freakishly large two year old.
3.) I like the confinement the crib provides. Even though he is freakishly large, he has never ever tried to climb out of the crib, so I didn’t see the need to move him.

However, I started to think that maybe I did want to move Connor to a bed. For one thing, it’s not that great having Logan in our room. As soon as he’s sleeping longer at night I want to move him in with Connor. I also decided that I don’t want Connor to think he’s being kicked out of the only bed he’s ever known just so Logan can have it. And, I decided that it might be a little too much change to move to a totally different place and take Connor’s bed away from him. Because of space issues, I decided that a toddler bed was the way to go.

Last week I was at Baby Depot trying make a return. While I was waiting in line, my eyes fell upon this fire truck bed . I didn’t seriously considering buying it because I knew it would be too expensive. But I did think about how much Connor would love that bed. He absolutely loves fire trucks, or “fire bire bucks” as he often calls them. I left Baby Depot and didn’t give the fire truck bed any more thought.

Last night I was bored and playing around on the internet. I decided to peruse Craig’s List. For anyone who doesn’t know what Craig’s List is, it’s basically a classifieds site. I frequently look at the baby and child stuff that is for sale just to see if there is anything I can’t live without. I used to check it out almost every day, but it has been several months since I last looked. My pulse started to race a little bit when I saw “Fire Truck Toddler Bed” listed. My heart skipped a beat when I opened the link and saw the exact fire truck bed I had just seen at Baby Depot, but for half the price! With my fingers crossed, I emailed the seller to see if it was still available. I received a phone call this afternoon from the seller letting me know that it was in fact available. The ad didn’t say where the bed was located; it just said that she would deliver the bed. Although she had lots of interested buyers, we were her first choice because the bed is in storage in Pasadena. So tomorrow afternoon, a fire truck bed is going to be delivered to us.

I just love when things work out like this. I think it’s pretty cool that I checked Craig’s list on the very same day the bed was listed. I think it’s even cooler that in a region as huge a Los Angeles the bed is located less than ten minutes away. Not to mention that we are getting the bed for 50% off. I can’t wait to see Connor’s face when the fire truck bed gets here. Stay tuned for pictures tomorrow!

Look how strong my neck is!

Our little munchkin.

It only took a little bribing with jellybeans to get Connor to hold Logan.

I just love this picture of Connor and Logan. Can’t you see the brotherly love pouring out?

We’ve been home for 3 days now and it is going really well for the most part. Connor hasn’t had too many meltdowns and seems to be adjusting pretty well. He even likes to help us out by getting diapers, throwing away the dirty ones, and pushing Logan in the swing. But his favorite way to help is to give Logan his “duck” a.k.a. his pacifier. Connor will walk up to Logan and say “Logan have yellow duck.” and try to put it in his mouth. Of course, most of the time Logan is sleeping and doesn’t want his paci, but it’s still really cute!

Logan is adjusting really well to life in the real world. He is such a good baby so far. He pretty much just eats, sleeps, and poops. He isn’t very fussy at all. I’m not sure if he’s just sleepy from being born or if he’s just going to be laid back. I’m certainly hoping for the latter!

It’s really amazing to me when I think about how much our family has changed in just a matter of days. We are so lucky and so blessed to have these boys.