My Kid Circus

Today is my sweet baby K’s first birthday. I cannot even believe it.  With Z, the first year seemed to go very slowly. I was so excited to celebrate his first birthday and looking forward to what is to come.  With D it went a little faster, but with K, wow.

The day she was born was definitely an answer to my prayers and as I got to hold my long awaited daughter.  I am so very thankful to get to be her mom.

And later I will share the story of how we kicked off the day with a call to poison control, but right now I am just going to celebrate the day. 🙂

Yesterday we had some friends over after school.  This was a particularly fun playdate because we picked up those friends after school, so we had my 2 boys plus the 2 friends all in the back of the van coming home.  Z and D were over the top excited about having company in the car.

I have to admit that I have always loved hearing conversations between my kids and their friends.  It always makes me laugh to hear what they choose to talk about.  This time, I saw that there was a definite difference between the conversations of 3 year olds, and conversations of 5 year olds.

The 3 year olds went like this:

D- ” I like Buzz Lightyear.  We can play Buzz Lightyear.  I have Woody too.”

Friend- ” Okay.”

The five year olds, however, were a bit more entertaining.  It started out like this:

Friend-  “I have a baby.  She doesn’t move around or anything”.

Z-  ” Does she throw up?”

Then, I heard the friend say, “I will tell you a secret.”  Z then loudly announced to me that they were going to be telling secrets.  I think he was trying to tell me that I was not supposed to listen.  I’m not quite sure what I was supposed to do.  I was just driving the van, minding my own business.

Anyway, of course I listened when I heard that they were telling “secrets”.  Here is their conversation:

Friend- “You know who is disobedient, and does something inappropriate every day at school?”  (Yes, this friend has quite the vocabulary!)

Z-”  Who?”

Friend-  “Sarah.  She kisses Tommy every day!”

Z-” WHY?!?!”

Friend- “She wants to marry him”.

Z- “I don’t want to marry ANYBODY!”

Friend: “Well, I want to marry somebody.  But I know who it ISN’T going to be….  Sarah.  That’s for sure!”

Ha ha ha!  I loved it.  Just please don’t tell Mr. Z that I was not only listening, but blogging about their “secret”!

I know a lot of people think their first children are  smart.  We have always suspected that Z was pretty smart, but now I will share with you the reasons why we believe he is actually a genius.

It all started when he was just barely walking.  He couldn’t yet speak, but his favorite book was “Brown Bear Brown Bear, What do you See?”.  Anyway, one day we were telling someone that was his favorite book, and the second he heard us say “Brown Bear”, he waddled back to his room as quickly as possible, and waddled back to us carrying the book.  I know.  Crazy. 🙂

So, the next evidence we got was when Z was about a year and a half.  We were at the beach, and my husband was wearing a Nike t-shirt.  We were just walking around and Z put his hand on his shirt, looked at his dad, and said “Nike”.  He pronounced it like “bike”, but still.  Pretty advanced reading for an 18-month old.

So, that definitely set the stage and brings us to 5 year old Z.  In general, he tends to be a deep thinker, and asks great questions.  One day, he said to me, “Mommy, where did God come from?”.  I reply with, “That is a great question.  What do you think?”  He considers it carefully and then says, “I think a long long time ago there was nothing there.  Then there was a big explosion and then there were stars and planets and everything.  And God was there in the kaboom”.  So, maybe his theory was slightly different, but yes, he basically came up with the Big Bang Theory.

Clearly, a genius.

Okay I am almost embarrassed to be publishing this in February, but it is what it is.  Maybe some of our Christmas memories can bring you some February holiday cheer. 🙂

Definitely one of the highlights of the holiday season was the church Christmas pageant.  This year both of the boys were old enough to participate, and I was so excited that they were both going to be sheep, and their cousins were both going to be angels.  Too cute.

So, first we have rehearsal.  The little guy is everywhere but where he is supposed to be.

Behind the communion table

On the left, trying to sit down

Hiding between my legs, under a pew

So, at this point I am pretty worried about the actual pageant, on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve comes.  On the way to church, we see this billboard.

I’m sure this looks familiar.  It is, after all, kind of a Christmas icon.  Anyway, Z yells, “Hey, why is Santa drinking that wine??”.

Well, Santa could have used some wine by the end of this night.  We got to church in time for the pageant, and got in our seats.  Z was sitting nicely with the shepherds and sheep ready to do his part, but little D immediately said that he was NOT going to do it.  When it came time for their part, he luckily changed his mind, and dutifully followed his big brother down to the front of the church.  At first we were all pleasantly surprised that both boys seemed to be doing what they were supposed to.

Then came a period of sitting ‘quietly’ for the shepherds and sheep while the bigger roles were speaking.  We see D look at his big brother, take off his sheep ears, and put them on him, so Z had 2 sets of ears.  Z did not like this at all.  Somehow within seconds the sheep were wrestling!  It definitely started with my 2, but the other 3 sheep thought this looked like a good idea.  I tried to sneak down and quiet the chaos, but it didn’t do much good.

I am hopeful that the other parents were so busy watching their own little angels that they didn’t realize where the chaos began.  We all at least got a good laugh out of it.  One woman came up to me afterwards and said, “hey, that is why they call it the barnyard service”.  I hadn’t heard that before, but I guess our little sheep were keeping it real.

Okay, if anyone is still out there, I just wanted to assure you that we are still around, and the kids are still making life crazy.  Unfortunately, it has been so crazy that I haven’t had much computer time.

I have 3 blogs in the works though, so I promise I will be back soon!