The Boden Funnies

 I forget how much I enjoy the blooming language of a three (almost four)-year-old!

Me:  "Where's the dog?"
Bo:  "He must have strutted off."


Bo:  "Mom, would you be pleased with yourself if you were tired and you didn't talk to people in church?"


Bo:  "Mom, when people look at you, do you hear a 'dink-dink-dink' ?"
Me:  "ummmm......no........"
Bo:  (staring at me intently for awhile)  "Can you hear it?  Can you hear the dinking?"

May 12, 2013

I am planning on posting the amazing birth story of Gage.
I am planning on posting pictures and stats of our newest little miracle.
But....I don't have an hour (or more) to upload the pictures, edit, then post what I want in order to "do them justice" and I don't have the time right now to post the amazing birth story of Gage and "do it justice" so here are some random things I don't want to forget that I can put down quickly.....

Coming home from Fredericksburg was great but not at all easy.  Ryan decided to come down with the "gunk" we have all had (sore throat, cough, fever, etc.) the day we came home.  Poor guy has been trying to help me out and I've been trying to help him out and we are both exhausted, sore, & irritable.  (By the way, we have had this "gunk" since April 2 when Ben first got sick.  I still have a sore throat and ear-ache, goop in my eyes every morning, etc.  Everyone has had a case of it.  Ryan's turn I guess??)  The children have been amazing to help out.  The girls have gone the extra mile in caring for their baby sister & helping out in the kitchen.  Benjamin has picked up the slack in other ways, Boden has been exceptionally happy to play with Natalie & to help out where he can.  They are all joyful most of the time and do what we ask without complaining.  They are also great at helping each other and finding things to do to keep themselves and their "Littles" occupied quietly.  Thankfully the weather has co-operated and they have also been able to be outside a lot!  The people from our church have been great to serve us also.  They have brought several meals and one lady even went to the grocery store for us!  Just my little list of things I am thankful for!

Anyway, continuing on....when we got home the kids were THRILLED to find their gardens thriving!  Sarah's dill is ready to pick, Maya is about to get a yellow squash, and Benjamin found quite a treasure in his!  He came in yesterday yelling, "I got dinner!"  Ryan and I both thought, "Oh no, what has he killed now?"  But it was just a GIANT zucchini he picked out of his garden!  He ate that (along with the rabbit legs he had killed and skinned the day before) for dinner.  I don't think he was impressed with the rabbit-- that's one way to get a kid to eat his veggies!

Boden's comments when two different friends commented on how pretty his new brother is:
"You sure have a pretty new brother."
"He's NOT pretty.  Boys are handsome."
"Oh you are right.  Boys ARE handsome."
"But Na-Na (Natalie) IS pretty."

And......
"You sure have a pretty new brother."
"But sometimes he scrunches up his eyes like this..." (Bo procedes to make a really scary face, scrunching up his eyebrows).
"Oh!  What do you think he is thinking when he does that?"
"Well Mama says (uh oh, what DOES Mama say??)  he's probaly thinking, 'what's all these hands on my head?' "
(laughter, sigh of relief from "Mama"  :) )

Sometimes hard times truly are the sweetest.

Conversation With A Two-Year Old

We were just getting home from church and Natalie needed to eat.  

Dinner was ready in the crockpot so I said, "If you guys want to go ahead and eat you can."

Boden pipes up, "I want a can."

Me: "You want a can?  (heeeheee) Are you hungry?  Do you want to eat?"

Boden:  "NO!  I want a can!"

Me:  "A can?  Are you sure?"

So I go to the pantry and get out a can of green beans.  "Here ya go Buddy.  A can just for you."

Boden (delightedly) "Thanks!"  

When I asked him what he was going to do with it, he replied, "Roll it."  Duh.  

Hahaha!  Two-year-olds are so funny!  Come to our house, you may roll a can too!

Boden Matthew

I cannot believe how big Boden has gotten so quickly!  He is talking up a storm and keeps us moving and laughing.  He is a busy, busy little guy.  He will pull the kitchen chairs up to the counter or go get a stool in order to reach just about anything he sets his sights on.  He has learned to open the pantry doors and more than once I have found him sitting inside with a spoon and the oatmeal container.  He loves oatmeal and will even eat it "raw" out of the container!  It is also not unusual at all for me to find bites out of the apples, pears, and whatever other fruit I may have stored in there.  He is very good at letting everyone know exactly what he wants.  Anything from, "Nack (snack), Mommy" to "Ben-a-men, No!"  His most recent obsession is going potty.  This is great as long as he doesn't have any clothes on.  He will run to the potty or out to the porch and shout, "Mommy, tee-tee grass" or "tee-tee potty". But, if he has ANY clothes on, he will forget what he is supposed to do and just pee wherever he happens to be.  This isn't a problem until we want to go somewhere or someone stops by.  I'm hoping the constant diaper-on, diaper-off won't confuse the poor kid and in a few months maybe he will get the hang of things ! 

Boden's favorite time of day is when Ryan comes home.  He will run screaming, "DADDY!" to the door and throw himself into his legs.  It is so cute!  Ryan, of course, loves his welcoming committee.  Then, almost always, the next thing out of Boden's mouth is "Daddy, play row-rows"  This means he wants Ryan to crawl around on the floor with him and play puppies.  Sometimes though the puppy turns into a frog and it's hilarious to watch Ryan trying to figure out if Boden is a "row-row" or "ribbit".

Another thing Bo loves is walking along curbs....or in our case, railroad ties. 

He also loves being a helper and will help out with little chores happily.  His favorites are:  putting the wet clothes into the dryer and then "push buttons" on the dryer to start it, putting away the silverware and plasticware from the dishwasher, picking up his toys, picking up trash outside and putting it in the trash can, putting away the folded laundry, cleaning the floor or windows with a rag....anything I can think of to let him do to help and he is a happy camper!  He stirred the scrambled eggs yesterday morning and then watched intently as they cooked in the skillet. 

The three older children are so great at finding things to do with him too.  Sarah loves to take him outside to the picnic table where he can finger paint and play play-doh.  Maya loves to snuggle and read to him and is a great help at getting him to eat!  I have often found he and Benjamin running around kicking the ball or playing some sort of boyish thing that is active and loud together!  He is the most well-loved and well-entertained 22-month old I have ever known!  

Last, but not least, Boden has started sleeping with Benjamin every night.  He is quite the wiggle-worm and when I go into check on the boys at night, I frequently find his legs under his pillow or his face in Benjamin's armpit or some other body part thrown this way or that.  Several times I have gone in to find Benjamin down at the end of the bed and Boden sleeping across the whole top of the bed.  I have asked Ben several times if this arrangement is okay with him.  Boden does have his own bed we could insist he sleep in instead of in the bed with Benjamin.  But, Benjamin always just says, "This is what I have been waiting for.  I like him in bed with me."   Referring to the fact that he has been waiting for a brother to sleep with and take a bath with and play with.  A playmate, a companion.  My heart is full of rejoicing.  Thank You Lord for brothers and sisters.   Thank You for children, for two-year olds, for babies.  Thank You for families who love each other. 

Amazing Things Our One-Year-Old Can Do!

1.  communicate with sign language....milk, more, Da-da, all-done, bath, diaper change, cat, bird, water
2.  drive a matchbox car around the room and make noises
3.  climb...the stairs, the dining room table, the computer desk, the picnic table!
4.  melt his Daddy's heart with a toothy grin
5.  find and successfully eat an apple out of the bottom of the pantry
6.  make his way out of the house and begin pruning my basil plants out on the porch
7.  say "Halleluiah" with us when we sing the "Halleluiah Song" in the mornings!
8.  pant like a dog when he sees the dogs
9.  hide enough spoons around the house that we don't have enough to eat with at breakfast
10. drink through a straw

But, he still can't sleep through the night!!!  That's okay though.  I don't really mind. 

Advanced Dining Techniques of the One Year Old

Apparently, it is no longer within etiquette regulations to just pop the food into your mouth when you find it under the dining room table....

In the new and advanced regulations, you must carry a spoon around with you and when you spy a piece of food under the dining room table, you must first pick it up and place it gingerly on your spoon before popping it into your mouth!

Just thought you should know.

So, what are YOU doing?

I am sitting in the office on the computer and both my boys are busy little beavers. Benjamin is going around the house collecting treasures to give to his cousins when we go visit them tomorrow (he even bought a candle for his Aunt Dandy from me for $1!) He is wrapping and taping and writing notes....too cute!
Boden is chewing on the M&M packages I bought for my brother. And the hand sanitizer. And the Altoid box. And the stapler....uh, maybe I better wrap this up!

Gross!

Now, normally I am not one to get grossed out by much. I can clean up vomit, poopy diapers, blood, spit, watch live births, butcher a deer, etc. But THIS takes the cake for me...

Maya, Benjamin and Boden were in the living room looking at books. Ryan asked me to stop cleaning the diaper I was cleaning out in the toilet and to follow him into the office for a second so he could show me something on the computer (I bet you know where this is going--too bad I didn't!) I was literally gone for less than two minutes. When I went back into the living room to check on the kids they were all three still sitting there in the exact positions I had left them still looking at books. So I went into the bathroom to resume diaper duty. When what to my wondering eyes did appear...a toilet literally PAINTED in poop--smeared across the top, down the side, onto the floor, across the rug...and of course a horrendous smell to go along with it! I could not figure out what had happened! All possible culprits were still sitting nicely where I had left them only minutes earlier! I yelled something like, "OH MY GOSH!" and ran to Boden, sure enough he had poop all over his little hands, his clothes, and across his face. Apparently he had stopped book reading long enough to crawl into the bathroom, have a snack, paint the toilet and resume reading in the amount of time I was preoccupied.

Have you ever been in a situation so disgusting you couldn't figure out where to start. Here's the dialog I had with myself: "OK now Annette. You're the mother here. You are going to have to be the one to clean this up. Yes you." So I wrangled the poopy breath into the bathtub, clothes and all and after assigning Maya to watch him I began the task of unpainting the bathroom. (Ryan did help clean up the spot on the carpet...thanks hon!)

I never can figure out why we mothers love to share stories like this!?!