FeelingCrazyToday --- Oh So Cute

Kisses

2006-07-24T17:10:00.000-05:00

While at a matinee of Monster House this weekend, I leaned over and kissed my 6-yr old nephew. He leaned over the armrest separating our seats and gave me a kiss in return. Then he whispered to me, "there's more where that came from."

How Cute!

2005-09-15T08:39:00.000-05:00

Scream and Yell came over bright and early this morning. The days that one, or worse - both, is a little turd, I can't wait for their parents to pick them up so I can have some piece and quiet.

But then there are little moments when they're irresistible. Even though Scream was a little squirrelly and frustrating this morning brushing his teeth, he made up for by being so cute when he left for school.

I was paying bills and updating the budget on the computer and not paying close enough attention to the clock. I didn't realize it was already time for Scream to go to school. Not only was it time for him to go, but it was a few minutes later than when he usually leaves.

I told him he should hurry to make sure he got there on time. He ran the whole way, his back pack bouncing up and down as he went. It was just adorable.

Plus, it is somehow completely adorable when he comes home from school and walks in the door. Everyone agrees there's just something oh so cute about it. So I know I have that to look forward to later today.

A Conversation I Had

2005-08-30T13:58:00.000-05:00

Earlier today my 4 yr old nephew Yell was asking about an ice pack he saw. I told him it belonged to Wonderful Hubby's friend.

"Who is him?" asked Yell.

"Who is he?" I told said, correcting his grammar.

"I don't know," he answers.All of a sudden I was in an Abbott & Costello comedy routine.

I Created Treat Monsters

2005-02-10T16:41:00.000-06:00

Being almost five, Scream has been potty-trained for a while now. Even though Yell is almost 4, he's really bucking the whole potty thing. He's been dry for the most part, but to be on the safe side, his parents have him wear a pull-up.

Quite a while ago, I told Yell that I'd give him something from my treats drawer every time he used the potty. I have a drawer in the kitchen with all sorts of goodies, the likes of which would make me too hungry so I can't list them now. Since Scream is so close in age to Yell, it only seems fair to give him a treat for going potty too, especially since back when I started the bribery, he was relatively new to the whole potty thing himself.

After Scream and Yell hanging out with me for the afternoon, I'm surprised there are any goodies left in the treats drawer. They finally caught on to the idea of potty as currency.

After snack time, they wanted more junk food but had grown tired of me telling them they had to wait for supper. They both darted for bathrooms, even remembering to flush and wash hands, and came running to the kitchen to claim their prizes. Hmmm, I might have to figure out some other bribery plan.

Sorry, Bucko

2005-02-10T15:48:00.000-06:00

Fantastic Kid was upstairs, busy plugging away at his math homework so I was trying to keep my nephews, Scream and Yell, downstairs so he could work with at least some peace and quiet. As the boys were walking down the stairs, Scream pulled the neck of Yell's shirt.

This of course made Yell let out a high-pitched squeal. The windows didn't break, but one might be a little shattered. His face was a neat shade of red, too.

In trying to teach the two little guys how to interact without hitting and punching and kicking, although I sometimes prefer these methods myself, I coached Yell in talking it out with Scream instead of the high-pitched squeals.

"I don't like when you pull my shirt," Yell told Scream after some prodding. I was expecting Scream to apologize, but there was no response."Scream, did you hear what Yell told you?" I asked.

"I heard it," he replied, and went about playing.

"I don't like when you pull my shirt," Yell repeated after some more prodding. Still no response from Scream, let alone an apology.

Again I asked, "Scream, did you hear what Yell told you?"

"I heard it," he replied a second time, and resumed playing a second time.

"What can you tell him?" I asked Scream, hoping to coach an apology out of him.

"Sorry, Bucko." It wasn't the heart-felt, concerned apology I was looking for, but I guess that'll have to do.

Locked Out

2005-02-03T21:14:00.000-06:00

When The Best Kid On Earth was coming home from school this afternoon, I decided to put the dog on his leash and walk down the street to meet The Best Kid. On our way we passed a friend of my son's and a much younger boy.

The two boys were outside the younger boy's house. They told me that the younger boy was locked out of his house and that his parents were gone, so he was home alone. That left the little boy sitting in a snowbank at the end of his driveway.

I invited him to wait for his parents at our house. Before he came over though, we still had to meet up with The Best Kid and walk home with him. We met up with him, the dog pulling us all over the street to sniff at melted snow and garbage the whole way, and proceeded to our house.

On the way, we again passed by the younger boy's house. When I looked at his house, I saw that the screen door was closed as usual, but the front door was opened wide into the house. I asked the little boy if he was sure he was locked out and suggested he try the front door to double check.

Turns out his mom was home all along. She usually has the garage door open when she's home. It was closed today, so the little boy decided that meant she was gone, and if she was gone, she surely would've locked the doors, and that would surely leave him stuck in a snowbank and the end of the driveway. I hope he isn't planning on being a detective when he grows up.

One Free Back Massage

2005-02-02T14:16:00.000-06:00

The autism center I volunteer at has a cat named Ladybug. She loves attention. I'm not a big fan of cats, but I put up with her.

Today I was sitting on just the front half of a chair and she jumped up behind me. She was trying to get all cozy back there and started doing what cats do - pushing her paws down as if she's marching in place or kneading dough. The funny thing is, she was doing it on the lower part of my back so I got a little back massage out of it.

Maybe I'll have to rethink my stand on cats. Wait, I just remembered the tiny poke of her nails going into my thigh when she tries to cozy herself onto my lap.

Babies In Love

2005-01-18T18:28:00.000-06:00

Friends of ours had gone on vacation and left their 9 yr old son and 4 yr old daughter with us for the weekend shift. On Friday while the big kids were at school, the 4 yr old and me were hanging out at home. But not alone. Scream and Yell were also over because I was babysitting them, too.

My little 4 yr old friend fits in nicely between Scream and Yell, being just a few years younger than Scream, and just a few months older than Yell. They kept each other entertained nicely, all according to my plan.

What I didn't count on was Scream and Yell falling so head over heels for my little 4 yr old friend. Sure, she's adorable, but I didn't think that'd matter so much to them.

Yell is a little cuddly lover - has been since he could control the movement of his body. "Cuddly" was even one of his first words. Within minutes of meeting my little 4 yr old friend, Yell hugged her told her "I love you." She ignored him.

Play continued and they all got along smashingly. No arguments, stealing of toys, pushing or shoving, as happens at some point when little ones play together. Nope, just one little love party.
When it got to be movie time, my little 4 yr old friend sat on the couch, and was promptly joined by Scream. He sat as close to her as he could and even put his arm around her. He too, proclaimed his love for her, to which she nicely responded, "please don't say that." He proclaimed his love a couple more times, each responded to with the same "please don't say that." He was even stroking her hair down the back of her head. She eventually moved and came to sit with me, thinking she'd get away from him, but nope - he followed right behind like a little lost puppy.

At 4 yrs old, my little friend is already quite the heartbreaker. I hope her dad is ready for her teen years.

Laughter

2004-12-25T20:47:00.000-06:00

What's better than hearing laughter? It's gotta be one of the best sounds ever. Especially when it's a child, and especially when it's my child.

We watched Home Alone earlier tonight. I saw the movie as a kid and we've seen the movie together before, but long enough ago that Cutie Son didn't remember much of it. He wiggled and wriggled so much with laughter that he fell of the couch and one point and was jumping around on the floor later.

I love being his mom.

I Followed The Numbers

2004-12-22T18:09:00.000-06:00

My mom received a call at work yesterday.

"Hi, Grandma, I followed the numbers," the little voice told her. It was my nephew Scream. My mom had recently let both Scream and his younger brother Yell each take home one of her business cards when they were with her the other day. Scream was very proud of himself for dialing the numbers shown on her business card all my himself.

After a little chit chat, my mom asked to speak to their dad. "NO!" Scream shouted in a naughy, misbehaving voice. Then he sweetly said, "I love you, Grandma," and then he hung up.

My mom then got another phone call. She picked up the phone and heard in a child's deep voice, "Hi, this is Corey." It was Yell, pretending to be his dad after a little coaching from Scream. "Tell her it's Corey," she heard Scream say in the background, "and say in a voice like this," he continued in as deep a voice as a little 4 yr old can do.

What little honeys.

Beware of Dog

2004-12-10T13:02:00.000-06:00

The times that I have been shopping recently and bought gifts, I have hidden them out of sight in the unused bedroom dresser drawers (yes people, we are so organized that we don't use all of our dresser drawers). Before the gifts are tucked away, I make sure Hubby and Son are elsewhere so they don't even see the stores' names on the bags.

I wasn't so particular with keeping Little Doggy away from the gifts, and I guess I should have. Right away he sniffed out which bag came from the pet store and had a toy and treats in it. He started chewing out the goodies, through the store bag, so I shoved it the dresser drawer.

He saw the bag go in the drawer, and now he won't leave the dresser along. He lays in front of it merfing little barks of "gimme, gimme" all the while. All of the sudden he's a watch dog. Only he's not watching out for our safety and concern. He's watching out for liver treats and peanut butter treats and a chew toy.

Crunchy Cereal

2004-11-24T09:18:00.000-06:00

My son has no idea that Rice Krispies snap or crackle, let alone that they pop. He doesn't look forward to drinking the milk out of the bowl, which has been made sweet by the sugar from the cereal. I think we ruined him.

When he was a toddler and learning to eat on his own, we didn't like him to get too messy. We decided milk on cereal could lead to him getting too messy so we gave him the dry cereal and a glass of milk. Once we figured he had the whole spoon-to-mouth thing down, we tried pouring milk on his cereal so he could eat normally. Nope. He wasn't havin' it.

To this day he eats his cereal dry with a glass of milk. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Once in a while we try to talk him into the joy of milk on cereal. He'll dip a dry piece of cereal into his glass of milk and see what it'd be like. 99 times out of a 100, he decides it's no good.

Yep, we ruined him.

This Says Aunt

2004-11-23T09:32:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I picked up Scream from preschool for my day of nephew(s). I love having the little guy(s) come visit.

Once Scream got his coat and hat on and was ready to go he handed me some papers. They were little yellow papers, like from a miniaturized legal pad, and had drawings on them. One of them had "Jacob" written in little 4 yr old writing. "Mom" was written next to that.

Pointing to "Mom," Scream tells me, "that says Aunt." Hmm...was he really intending to write "Aunt" and "Mom" was the closest he could come up with? Or (more likely) he made that for my sister and then decided to give it to me since I was taking him to play with me. What manipulation skills for such a young bugger.

P.S. Yell broke my heart when I was picking Scream up from preschool. Yell attends the same preschool and knew I was only taking Scream. He wouldn't even look at me since I wasn't taking him to play, too. When I tried showering him with kisses, he stuck his tongue out at me.

The No-Pants Dance

2004-11-19T14:37:00.000-06:00

I was just scanning in some old pictures from long-ago when my son was just a little tyke. One of the pictures reminded me of a cute story that is "oh so cute" and must be shared...

When he was around 6 or 7, he was getting ready for bed. He horses and around and gets distracted and usually the whole process ends up taking much longer than necessary. This particular night was no exception.

He had undressed for bed and was wearing only his underwear. He was doing a silly dance around his room, bopping around with his pointer fingers each pointing up in the air and singing "it's the no pants dance...doobie, doobie, doo."

He is quite the little ham and often does silly things to amuse others, but this time he was doing it just for his own pleasure. His door was mostly closed, only open a tiny crack. He had no idea I started peaking in once I heard the singing.

"It's the no-pants dance...doobie, doobie, doo."

No Weird Al Yankovic!?

2004-11-17T08:59:00.000-06:00

My son was in the running for mayor or Exchange City, the mock city he will go to as a field trip with his school. He wasn't elected the position, but that was just fine with him. When it got down to voting time, he was considering voting for someone else because he wanted to be a radio DJ more than mayor.

So lucky him, he lost the election in spite of voting for himself, and he interviewed and was hired as a DJ for KEXC, the Exchange City radio station. When he came home from school and was telling me he was hired he was totally bummed about it though. He found out they weren't allowed to bring in any of their own CDs. He had been planning on bringing in all of his Weird Al CDs to play. I think he was planning on enlightening his whole grade to the comedy/musical genius of Weird Al.

Hopefully he'll cheer up when he hears they have some songs by the Beatles and the Dixie Chicks. He had such a long face telling me he didn't get to bring any of his own stuff. I mean really, is life really worth living without Weird Al?

He Must be From Brooklyn

2004-11-15T17:15:00.000-06:00

"Now it's you's turn," he'll tell me when we play Candyland. He was born into an all-Minnesotan family and has only lived in Minnesota, but you'd think my 3 yr old nephew Dylan (aka Yell) is from Brooklyn or something.

He has the cutest speech impediments already. His thick tongue often reminds me of the Warner Bros. cartoon cat Sylvester ("thuffering thucotash"). "Stay" is instead pronounced "thtay" and "those" is "thothe." He also doesn't pronounce "r", but does the typical "w" sound, placing him "hue" instead of "here."

Then he gets the idea that the possessive form of words is I-mine, him-his, Dylan-Dylan's, you-you's. He also decided that the multiple of you is yous. Instead of saying something like "you guys" he'll say "yous."

Now all he needs to go with his Brooklyn accent is the grimacing face and lots of hand gestures and he could fit right in on the steps outside a Brooklyn apartment building...a potty mouth would help too. Luckily, so far "thut up" is racey enough for him.

Hair Habit

2004-11-12T08:06:00.000-06:00

My nephew Jake (aka Scream) has the cutest little comfort habit. Just like some girls twist a lock of hair around their finger, Jake twists a lock of hair on the very top of his head. But being that he is a boy with a typical, short boy haircut, he doesn't have much to twist. He reaches his arms up and just pulls that little tuff of hair with one hand, and then the other, over and over again.

Bostons are Hunting Dog

2004-11-04T13:45:00.000-06:00

It is a super windy day out. Leaves are blowing all over the place. Little Wally barks and want to go out. I opened the door and barely clipped his tether onto his collar, and he pounced and caught a leaf.

Only a leaf you might say. But this was a leaf he started hunting from the glass of the patio door. It isn't big game that we can clean up for dinner, but he hunted it all the same. Sure it was just sitting there. No longer blowing around in the wind once it landed behind the house and was sheltered from the blustery day. It was quaking a little bit, though. It wasn't a mere inanimate object that he hunted.

If you think Boston terriers are not hunting dogs, let me advise you to think again. Don't let their small, fragile, not-meant-for-the-outdoors bodies, their inability to sneak up on anything because of the snorting breathing and farting, and their inability to smell without their forehead touching the object because of their muzzle-less faces throw you off.

Halloween Question for You

2004-10-29T10:27:00.000-05:00

My husband went to work as the IT Fairy, complete with all pink clothes, fairy wings, a fairy tu-tu, and a fairy wand. My son is going to be Nintendo's Mario for Halloween. I'm ditching my usual daily fare of a housewife and instead dressing myself as a corporate merger lawyer who took a day off from work. What's your Halloween costume?

Running in Undies

2004-10-22T09:21:00.000-05:00

Just now as I am sitting at the computer, I hear the treadmill turn on. My son is walking/running on the treadmill in just his underwear and socks and shoes.

Little Thumb-Licker

2004-10-19T15:39:00.000-05:00

Today as I licked my thumb to get a grip on the papers in the large stack I was trying to count, I was reminded of my cutie pie little nephew Dylan. He was over yesterday to play with me.

Somewhere in his three years of living he noticed someone licking a thumb to turn the page of a book. Or at least that's what I assume because when we were reading some stories yesterday, he had to suck on his thumb before he would turn any page. Not the quick lick you're accustomed to, this was a big suck on the full thumb.

Good thing he's so cute...he can slob on my books if he wants to.

If Only...

2004-10-15T07:19:00.000-05:00

If only you could see how cute my little dog is when he is begging to sit on my lap at the computer. It's also pretty darn cute when he tries to find a comfy way to lay down to nap, including resting his paws on the computer desk and resting his head on his paws. Pretty cute - even though he can be annoying.

Quick Thought

2004-09-30T15:50:00.000-05:00

It's very amusing to watch a little cat-sized dog try to catch grasshoppers. I took my dog for a walk earlier and he went grasshopper-catching crazy. He pounces just like a kitty. It was as funny to watch as you're imagining.

A Moment

2004-09-24T18:04:00.000-05:00

I was already feeling content, but it was bumped up to happy when I watched the elementary kids walking home from school today. We live about a block from the school, so every day my son and the other 12 to 15 kids on the block walk to and from school.

In this day and age when kids seem to know things that kids their age didn't know in past decades, I love to see things that keep me in my bubble of make-believe. I like to think we're still in the 1950s.

It's a simpler life and much like what I've seen in episodes of Leave It to Beaver. TV and movies are still black and white in my world, although women have more equality in my bubble than what they really did in the 50s.Anyway, today I saw two nine-year old boys get so excited about finding a grasshopper. Not only was it sweet to see how excited they were over finding the grasshopper, but they then proceeded to try to gross out a couple of seven-year old girls with it. I love witnessing the moments of a child's childhood.

I'm sure none of the four kids were thinking what a cute moment it was that they were experiencing. I bet that since they each just started a new school year, having advanced another year, they feel older and smarter and don't realize they're just little babies with lots of growing up left to do.