I Love Fall

I really do. I'm always a little sad to see summer end but fall in Washington is usually gorgeous. Right now it's about 70 degrees with clear blue skies. That's better than most of our days last summer! I especially love the changing colors of all the trees and plants around here. So beautiful. And they match my home decor so well! Love it!

Yesterday was the first day in a long while when all the stars aligned for a perfect picture day. Johnnie didn't have school, I didn't have work, neither child needed a haircut, and the weather was beautiful. Of course in our household nothing is ever easy and we didn't actually end up leaving until around 3 pm to find our perfect picture takin' spot.

After getting lost downtown for awhile (I have AWFUL direction skills) and finding three separate spots that I didn't think were good enough I finally found a beautiful little landing spot with TONS of leaves.

So I woke the kids up and threw them in the leaves. What? That's not nice?

Apparently they didn't appreciate it and both totally acted out. And I learned a valuable lesson. That I need a 'helper' for days like that.

I was hoping for a few more pics from the 'shoot' but I am in LOVE with the ones I got. Plus, I think my kids are the cutest children that have ever walked the face of the planet so I am just a little bit biased.

Funny story, after about five minutes of sitting in leaves both my kids were like "eff this" and started running away from me (hence all the pics of them from behind) and after awhile I couldn't even tell them which direction to go in. Joey is just learning how to run and tries to whenever he's got the chance even though he's not very skilled at it yet and totally busted his face in the dirt. Poor kid was screaming so hard and wouldn't stop until I had him back in the car in his seat with his sippy cup of milk. The funny part is that while all this chaos was going on I had a pack of 'Greeners' (that's a word for hippy out here) watching, giving me weird looks, and walking in our general direction. A normal person would kind of give a sympathetic/weird/awkward/poor mom look my way and keep their distance but not these people. As I'm sitting in dirt trying to console my screaming snotty child these people walk right to where we were, which wasn't by anything or anyone, to look at a leaf on a tree next to us. A freakin' leaf! Ugh.

This...

...made me happy today. :)

"The Question"

"Mommy, where was I when you were a little girl?"

Johnnie, my four year old, asked me this question today while driving home from preschool. My husband, Jeff, had the day off from work and stayed home with Joey so Johnnie and I could have a rare moment with just the two of us. Lately he has been very concerned with what I watched, played with, and even ate as a little girl and so this question didn't come completely out of left field. I understand that at his age it would be hard to comprehend time and age and advances in technology. I mean, c'mon, some of the toys that are available now are just ridiculous! Makes the kid in me a little jealous.

We've been having these little discussions a lot lately. Johnnie will ask me if I liked watching ICarly when I was a little girl and I will inform him that ICarly wasn't a show on TV when I was a little girl and the majority of the cast weren't even alive yet. This usually just adds more confusion but at least I'm being honest and direct, right? Hey, I could just say "yes" and be done with the convo but that's not my style.

Johnnie is a child with a lot of questions and I do my damnedest to answer each one simply and logically enough for him to understand. Of course there are holes in this method because some things are just way too complex for a four year old to wrap his brain around. Johnnie can tell you that a balloon will fly in the sky because there is helium in that balloon, and that helium is a type of gas, but if you ask him what a gas is the answer is "I don't know". Because Mommy and Daddy don't know how to explain it. That's what science teachers are for.

Which brings me back to the topic at hand. I really didn't know how to answer his questions today because I haven't given it much thought yet. I thought that this topic would be something that would come in a few more years when I'd have the time to research it and give him an honest, but not graphic, answer.

Instead the conversation went more like this:

"Mommy, where was I when you were a little girl?"

"You weren't around because you weren't made yet, honey."

"Made? You mean people put me together like a robot?!?!?"

"No, no, not like a robot. Mommy and Daddy made you."

"How did you and Daddy make me?"

-awkward pause-

"Mommy and Daddy loved each other so much that we wished we could have a baby to share our love with."

"Ohhhh, you wished for me and then I was in your belly?"

"Yes, baby, exactly. That's how it happened."

Now, I know that this is probably the most simplified and romanticized version of how a baby is made but it seemed to pacify him for now and hopefully I bought myself a couple more years before I have to give a more detailed answer.

God help us all when I do.

You Probably Shouldn't Even Bother Yourself With Reading This...

I drank way too much coffee today so right now I'm feeling like I need to clean all my bathrooms from top to bottom, hit up a Joann Fabric's hard, and finally clean out the 'too small' clothes in my kid's closets. With a slight case of paranoid anxiety underlying it all. Fun times. Most likely I'll just alternate between hanging out on the computer and crocheting flowers. I'm really into crocheting flowers right now.

Wanna know how I was able to get myself into such a state? Because I FINALLY bought a full-sized coffee maker from Walmart yesterday for only, brace yourself, $6.88. Seriously. Obviously it's the lowest of the low when you're talking about coffee maker quality, but who cares? I've got crack in a cup. Yay!

On a completely unrelated topic (that is really probably something best for a Twitter 'tweet' or something or other but I'm getting old and Twitter scares me) Johnnie was talking to my husband about numbers earlier today and Jeff asked him what his favorite number was. Johnnie didn't even skip a beat and told him that his favorite number is one. And the reason? Because it's easy. Hmmm.

And then he sang a song about it.

I apologize for this abomination masquerading around as a legitimate post. Because it's not.

P.S. Did anyone watch Glee last night???? I did and do you know who's freakin' excited it's back?? This girl. And Puck is still hot. Just sayin'.

Pumpkins All Around In My Little Red Wagon...

That's what Barney is singing right now on Sprout and I just know that this is what will be in my head for the next few days. The Sprout channel is a wonderful learning tool for children and I know that my son has learned a lot from it but I also know that I am not alone when I say that I CAN'T STAND it. Oh man, it's like these shows have subliminal messages in them or something! Even my 13 month old gets sucked into these shows and he doesn't know what they're talking about! It's like baby crack!

I have a confession to make. I had Joey a day after Johnnie's third birthday during the summer and Joey was a difficult baby who was hungry ALL.THE.TIME. No joke. I was seriously breastfeeding this kid (sorry) every hour and a half for at least 45 minutes so this didn't leave much time for poor three year old Johnnie. I felt bad and we had a lot of family members that would take him out for the day and things like that but there were some days where I would be at home with him all day and would have to find things to entertain him in between feedings. We would do the usual preschooler projects but sometimes he would just want to hang out and watch TV so I would set him up in the living room or my bedroom and put on his favorite channel (Sprout).

But then, something would go terribly, terribly wrong for this poor three year old and he would accidentally change the channel to CNN or The Weather Channel or maybe even just static and this sad little boy would come running to wherever I was nine out of ten times feeding his new but extremely inconvenient little brother.

So, I did what any quick thinking but stuck-on-the-couch-feeding-a-newborn mother would do. I taught my three year old how to use the remote. It was the only thing I could do at the time and....he's....learning....his....numbers,....right? (Just humor me.)

I'm not proud of this fact (okay, maybe a little) but my son knows how to get to Spout, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, and ESPN. I'm pretty sure my husband did some teaching of his own on that last one.

But to every good thing there is a downside, and the downside to our situation is OH MY GOD, WE TAUGHT OUR CHILD HOW TO USE THE REMOTE!!! WHAT WERE WE THINKING??? And this kid knows how to use it. We'll all be sitting around, enjoying a very educational hour of Jersey Shore or The Bad Girl's Club when all of a sudden we'll see a '1', '1', and an '8' pop up at the top of the screen. All of the adults in the room will scan the room for Johnnie and he'll be off in a corner sitting with the remote trying to act like a perfect little angel while not making eye contact with anyone. How do we not notice that instead of seeing a bunch of drunken people get into fights we're seeing Caillou talk to his cat Gilbert about what he did at playschool? (Shoot me now for knowing that.)

TANGENT ALERT: I really hate Caillou. Like, to my core. Maybe it's his incessantly high pitched voice and the only way I know that he's not a girl is because they say it in the theme song? Maybe it's the fact that he's supposed to be four years old and is bald while his whole family, including his younger sister, all have hair? Maybe it's the simple fact that I am 26 years old and know waaaaayyy too much about a show aimed at a preschooler market?

Now I'm just depressed.

Mother and Son

Johnnie (4 years old): You smell like poop.

Maria (26 years old): You smell like poop.

Johnnie: You smell like poop and garbage.

Maria: You smell like poop and garbage.

Johnnie: You smell like poop, garbage...and cats.

Maria: .......you win, my friend, you win.

How do you top cats? Really? This kid's a genius. I'm imagining a smell that would most likely come from one of the houses on Hoarders. I should be really offended that he would say such a thing to me, his mother, but instead I'm kind of proud in a twisted way. Like I almost did something right.

Aw, I think he's going to do well in school.