July 2007

Today while at Sierra’s swim practice, the rest of the kids and I were waiting on the poolside bleachers. I was chatting with the other parents when a nearby mom came over and tapped me on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” she said, “uh, but your sons are eating ants.” I looked down at my industrious little snackers and said saw that indeed, they were eating ants. “Yes,” I replied, “they’re into that right now.” I read the look on her face to read somewhere in between disbelief and confusion. Either way, I figured it was keeping them busy and now I wouldn’t have to worry about lunch. Having boys has really made me come to realize that the old saying is true, what doesn’t kill us, really does just make us stronger.

December 2008

Tonight after church we decided to make a run to Wal-Mart. Before entering the store, I gave the kids the usual reminder about staying right next to me and not wandering off, hold on to the cart, etc., etc. Well, after sticking by my side for about twenty minutes, Christian runs around a corner down an aisle. I yell, “Christian, I’m leaving. Let’s go.” After not receiving a response I follow the route he took. No Christian. Here we go. The kids said that he was talking about visiting the fish tanks so Tony stayed with the kids while I went over there to get him. I reach the fish tanks and still no Christian. I go back and Tony and I divide kids and split up to look for him. After our second round around the store, I start to get a little concerned. (Usually I find him on the first round…yes, this has happened perhaps once before.) Just as I’m thinking, “Okay, if we don’t find him this time, I’m going to have to go get some help looking for him” I hear over the loud speaker, “If you are missing a little boy with a brown shirt, and your name is NICOLE, please come to the front desk.” At this point, I now am thinking two things: 1-Thank you Lord, and 2–Please don’t let anyone from church be here. They’ll know it’s us! Without even giving me time to get to the front, the loud speaker repeats, “If you are missing a little boy with a brown shirt, and your name is NICOLE, please come to the front desk.” At this point Tony looks at me and is laughing. Ugh! Why do they have to keep saying my name! Shouldn’t somebody know if they are missing a child? I get to the front and hurriedly identify the boy. He’s mine. I hug him and I tell him all at once how dangerous it was to leave me and chastised him a bit. Then I told how glad I was that he was safe and how smart it was for him to find somebody who worked at the store to ask for help. And last, but certainly NOT least, I added, “And good grief, if that ever happens again, give them Daddy’s name!”

January 19, 2009

Today Tony and Christian went hiking with the walkie talkies. They went up in the hills somewhere and about a half hour later Tony called me on the radio and said, "Mayday, mayday, I bit into a cactus apple and my mouth has thorns in it." (I could tell he was on the brink of panicking.) “Come home!” I said, and then “What made you eat a cactus apple?" His soft little voice cracked as he answered back over the speaker, "I forgot I had pretzels in my backpack.”

January 17, 2009

Today was Tony’s first day in the Young Marines Program. The order was that all recruits had to wait in their vehicles until the squad leaders starting barking orders for them to get out and get into formation. The active duty Marines and the squad leaders stood in front of the rows of cars with stern facing and their arms crossed, just staring us all down. As we sat in the car and stared back at them, I have to admit I felt intimidated myself. Tony poked his head up from the back seat and whispered, “They look like they want to eat me…I saw that happen on Star Trek once.” I took a minute to respond because I don’t think he was far off…

January 17, 2009

Sierra busted Nico (2 years) indulging in a large quantity of ketchup. She told him that if he ate too much he’d get a tummy ache. His response was, “So what. I don’t care. It give me big muscles.” I think he’s turning thirteen this month.

One from the archives...

November 2008

Today, after way too much quiet time, I noticed that Christian was not in the house and I hadn’t seen him in a while. I went outside and called for him. No answer. I went out past the driveway and called down the street for him. One of the neighborhood dads down the road stepped out of his driveway and said, “You looking for Christian?” “As usual” I replied. He said that Christian walked by his house a bit before and said he was going to the ranch. The ranch borders our neighborhood but is still quite a walk away. I said, “Are you kidding me?!” It was getting dark, Christian didn’t ask, and above all, he knows better! “Yeah,” he said, “he walked by with his cowboy hat and boots [which turned out to be snow boots] and said he was going to the ranch.” Ugh! I got in my truck and drove off in that direction. When I rounded the final turn after driving down the long, dirt road to the ranch I spotted Christian standing next to a corral, with his cowboy hat tilted forward and he was doing his best imitation of a cowboy pose…which looked interesting with his snow boots. When he saw me, his cowboy face quickly dropped into an “oh-man-this-is-bad” face. I pulled up next to him and said, “Get in dude. You’re in some big trouble.” On the ride home I pulled over and explained, with tears in my eyes, that it was so dangerous to be walking down a long dark road alone. I told him, as I have in the past, that there are people out there who will take children and then I would never see him again, and so on. He just looked at me incredulously and said in a most passionate voice, “But everyone was soooo nice. They even waved.” I then went on to explain how some people pretend to be nice to trick kids. I asked him what he thought would happen to be if something ever happened to him. He responded, “I know, I know, you’d die of a broken heart.” I wiped away a tear (of mine) and he said, “Mommy, I’m sorry. I am even so ashamed of myself.” He looked so stinking cute sitting there all remorseful. I thought to myself, “How am I ever going to spank him?” At the end of the car ride, I had to reduce the consequence to not be allowed to go to the ranch for a week and just call it a day.