Stress? What stress?

Ah, the winds of change. They sound all breezy and poetic, which, I suppose they are for some. But alas, I live on the TX plains where mostly the winds of change resemble tornadic activity. They come roaring through, plucking you right out of your comfortable little place in life, then spit you out in some foreign technicolor dreamland. So, here's where our little breeze turned mesocyclone....

We put our house on the market in early April and SHAZAM! It sold 2 weeks later. Excellent! But then came the search for a new house. Apparently we are just a *wee* bit picky. We drug our realtor through every house in the city that was in our price range, but to no avail. We were nearing the closing date on our house and were going to be homeless if something didn't pop up soon. We were actually getting ready to sign a lease on an apartment when I sat down one night to look through aaaaalllllll the listings in the city again, this time through more compromising eyes. I even upped the pricing parameters hoping we could maybe find a suitable house and then work the sellers down into our price range. Sure enough, a listing we hadn't seen before popped up and it looked really promising house-wise. Not so promising price-wise....it was almost $20k above the absolute maximum on our budget. We decided to go see it anyway, and guess what?? Matt and I actually agreed on a house!! This was the one...and it was vacant so we wouldn't have to move into a rental until the sellers could move out! Trying not to get our hopes up, we made an offer a few thousand below our budget ceiling, leaving us at least a few dollars-worth of wiggle room knowing we'd have to negotiate up. Not an hour later, they accepted our first offer. Whaaaat? Really? Apparently they'd listed it last year, taken it off the market after 5 months, re-listed it this spring at a reduced price, and then moved out (empty nesters as best I can tell). The offer we made happened to be their bottom dollar and they were so ready to be done with it, they just accepted!

Now, as if the house saga wasn't enough, I managed to get a job in the middle of everything. I didn't actually mean to. Seriously. I didn't. I knew I wanted to go back to work in the fall when G went off to kindergarten because frankly, I've been getting a little bonkers at home recently. Bonk. Ers. So an old colleague of mine in LISD advised that I get my file updated in the system so when a part-time job opened up in the fall, all my paperwork would be in order. So I did as she suggested. However, being a secondary math teacher, I started getting hammered with calls almost immediately. I took the interviews, but they were all for full-time positions, and I turned down the jobs when they were offered. During all this, I had decided to get paperwork in place for LCISD also, thinking something out there might become available in the fall. Less than 20 minutes after I'd hit the submit button on the application site I got a call from the HS principal requesting an interview. Weird. But I went. The interview was great...I was pretty hooked right from the start, even though the position available was full time. About half-way through, the principal asked if I'd been through Human Resources yet. Um, nope. Apparently all apps go straight to HR where they're screened, then they'll call you for a general interview, then recommend you to interview with the principals if you make it through all of that. Hmmmm. My app must have had a mind of it's own because it didn't go where it was supposed to go.

So I finished the interview and the principal sent me over to HR so the process would be complete, albeit backwards. Before I left, I stopped to say hello to my high school English teacher who has been working out there for some time now. While I waited to see her, the HR guy comes walking though and stops to chat, and says, "You need to probably be thinking about whether or not you're going to come back full time or not. Like, you need to probably decide today." Gack!! Today?? Sure enough, the call came later that day offering me the job. I knew I wanted it, but I asked for another day to think it over before I decided. I can't say what made this offer different from the others, but I really felt at peace with it, whereas with the others, I really did not. So I accepted and now I am a Pirate. Aaargh!

This decision also means the boys can come with me and be Pirates too! So, in addition to scouring the city for a house, I have also been scouring the schools trying to make a decision on where to send the boys.

I think we've got it all figured out. And almost all worked out. New house, new job, new school. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

Zing!

WHO keeps messing with my space-time continuum?  Seriously.  I have no idea how mid-May got here so impossibly fast.  Easter was a blur.  But the boys actually sat still long enough to dye all the eggs this year.   Three cheers for 30-minute attention spans!

Spring sprang and the boys now spend all their free time outside with the boys across the alley or playing baseball with Dad.

We put our house on the market on April 9th and sold it 2 weeks later.  Those were the longest 2 weeks of my life.  While I thoroughly enjoyed having a sparkly clean house, I did not much care for being the Fingerprint Nazi I was forced to become...."Don't touch that!  You'll get fingerprints on it!  Don't sit on the bed!  I just made it up!  No you can't use the potty I just scrubbed it!  Go pee on the tree!"

The boys were actually pretty helpful during those 2 weeks.  It could've been because they were afraid of Nazi Mom, but I'm choosing to believe it was because they are just sweet and compliant children.  Have I been breathing too many household cleaner fumes?  Probably.

Here's Grant during a moment of helpfulness cleaning out the flower bed with Daddy.  This lasted 5 whole minutes until he discovered the worms he could dig up in the mud.  Apparently worms are more fun than manual labor.

Another soccer season has come and gone.  Life can't get any better than shaved ice after a game.

We made it to Ranch Day this year too.  What a FUN way to spend a day with the family!  And it's freeeeeee!

Here Matt and Jaden are patiently waiting on hot buttered biscuits baked over the campfire in a cast iron dutch oven.  Lots of other people started to gather and wait too.  It cracked me up to see a bunch of people living in the richest country in the world elbowing small children out of the way to make sure they got a biscuit before they were all gone.  Sorry there are no pictures of the stampede to post.  I was busy wrestling an elderly woman to the ground over the last biscuit.

The weather was strangely cooperative too, which was nice.

Photo by Grant...

The boys both got to ride horses....they thought it was a lot more fun than this picture shows.

The kids received a work card when they arrived and after working as a ranch hand at 5-6 locations, they could turn the card in to get paid then spend their earnings at the general store.  My favorite was the laundry work station.  My grandma had one of these old washboards!

Diagnosis

Littleboyitis -- a condition commonly known to afflict mothers of ornery little boys. Symptoms include, but are not limited to, headache, nausea, back pain, extreme fatigue, sudden and acute loss of sanity, and heart palpitations. Currently there is no known cure for Littleboyitis. Symptoms can be controlled through the administration of fermented grape juices, tropical vacations, and in extreme cases, tranquilizer darts.

These are two known organisims that cause Littleboyitis...

Case #1 -- Yesterday morning Grant was playing in the backyard when after some time I realize he was being TOO quiet. So I went to check on him and found him in the alley. Gack!! Bear in mind that the gate to the alley is padlocked, so not only can he locate the keys, but he can also operate the lock. Dear Lord...

Me: Grant!! WHAT are you doing out here??

G: Mom, look! I found an alley cat!!

Me: Whaaaaat? Get back in here! The alley is dangerous!

G: But Mom, I'm trying to catch it so we can have a pet! I almost had it 'til you scared it away!

Me: (string of muttered profanities and lots of head shaking)


Case #2 -- The boys' Papa is an avid outdoorsman and hunter. I have the deer jerky and wild pig sausage in my freezer to prove it. Each year Papa, Matt, and the boys take their annual Boys Only camping trip as well as other assorted hunting/hiking excursions to the lease to stomp in the dirt, pee on the cacti, and engage in other manly adventures. On one such occasion, some years back, Papa discovered an aoudad (pronounced OW-dad) skull. A real-life, sun-bleached, dead-critter SKULL. Okay, except an aoudad isn't really a critter. It's a full sized sheep-like animal imported from Africa. And it's dead skeleton head has been hanging on my fence in the backyard ever since. I came to terms with this sometime ago and truly, I don't even notice it anymore.

So, back to Grant. After the cat incident, I re-padlocked the back gate, put the keys on a really high shelf, and went back to what I was doing. Sometime later, the backdoor slams and...

G: Hey, Mom! I have some good news and I have some bad news. The good news is I found this pretty leaf and it's for YOU!

Me: Oh, thanks buddy! And the bad news?

G: Well, you better just come look.

He took me out into the back yard to show me this...

Me: Um, what happened exactly?

G: I was trying to get a tooth out.

Me: With that baseball bat over there?

G (dejected): Yeah. But it didn't work.

Me: Why did you want to get a tooth out?

G (mischievous grin): I was gonna see if the Tooth Fairy would notice that it wasn't mine.


Case #3 -- Littleboyitis often flares without warning. Observe the two adorable specimens below, decked out in their Easter duds, happily hunting eggs.

Suffice it to say, this Kodak moment ended in a fist fight over a golden egg.


Fortunately for most, Littleboyitis is a bi-polar type condition. It certainly is for me anyway. I'll often find myself 'muttering profanities' only to be laughing out loud at any number of little-boy-shenanigans moments later.

I've always said that God made 'em cute in order to ensure their survival.

Adventures. Or not.

I am an amazing parent, filled to the brim with exciting ideas to keep 2 little boys engaged and busy and of course, learning!  Every day is packed with arts & crafts, blowing bubbles, and bike rides to the park!  Cue the rainbow and unicorns!  Cue the fairy tale music!  Cue the flying pigs!!  

Yeesh.  A girl can dream, right?  Typically holidays, minor ones included, provide oodles of prime activity fodder.  Even the most uninspired mom can Google "St. Patrick's Day fun", or at least serve up green milk for breakfast.  Yesterday actually WAS St. Paddy's Day but my children didn't get any green milk.  I wonder if they even got any breakfast.  hmmmm.  Anyway, I did manage to get us all dressed and out the door somewhere close to noonish with the grand idea that we should journey out to the local archaeological and natural history preserve.  Whoa!  Did I just see a unicorn?!  Oh yeah.

This was our first trip out there.  In years past I'd just never been brave enough to try it.  I figured active excavation sites + ancient artifacts + 2 little boys  = bad idea.  But, the boys are growing up and tend toward pleasantness more than heathenism these days, so off we went.  The visitor/education center has a quaint little museum then outside there are about 3 miles of nature trails to explore.  Score! 

Here's Jaden observing a spider he spotted.  You might note that this momma was not observing with him nor helping him identify said spider.  She was several feet back using the max amount of zoom on the camera to snap a pic, ready to stomp anything that skittered by.  I don't do spiders.  Just call me nature girl.

The spider was just about the only critter we saw.  There was apparently a stink bug, but Jaden squashed it.  Oh, and we saw one bird.  And an airplane. 

It's still wintery enough that there wasn't even a sprig of green poking through the dirt.  Nothing but dead/dormant scrub as far as the eye could see.  But there WERE rocks!  Rocks, rocks, and more rocks.  Thanks to the good Lord for miles of never-ending caliche.   

Here Grant's got a dead gourd and Jaden's carrying a monster sized rock which he's intent on taking home.

Insert minor meltdown here when I tell him this is a preserve protected by the state and he can't take it.  What was that I was saying about pleasantness?

Oh well.  At least we got some fresh air and sunshine.  There was nary a cloud in sight, and after the raining slush on Monday, that big blue sky was worth the day's efforts.

Friends 4 Evr

 I wish I had been smart enough to document the many adventures of these 4 munchkins through the years.  They've been partners in crime (last night they froze a pair of Matt's underwear just for kicks) since day one.  When they're not huddled together plotting pranks, you'll find them pillaging the lands as a marauding band of pirates, inventing new games involving the trampoline, rope, and a bed sheet, or practicing an elaborate theatrical production that they will later con you into watching.  All 45 minutes of it.

Tell me these bedheads aren't the cutest things you've seen all week...

It takes a lot of patience to get a pic of the 4 of them.  They're all so compliant, lining up, draping their arms around one another, smiling, the picture of sweetness.  Until one of them gets goosed by a mystery hand and they all dissolve into a fit of giggles.

And then there's Grant...

Grant:  Mom....I just love Chloe and Collette.  It's like they're our sisters!

HusbandSpeak

Matt: If I were a wizard, THIS would be my wand.

And Yoda would be my Patronus!

Luuurve

I really love...


that these boys are all mine

and that between the three of them, they possess a galaxy-sized measure of obscure Star Wars knowledge.

I love...

that I married a man who makes the most ridiculously scrumptious chocolate creme brulee...

and that there are no pictures of it to post because I ate the last of it for breakfast the other day.

I love...

going to wake the boys in the morning and finding them snuggled together

the perfect peace that is the face of a sleeping child

their coconut flavored hair after bathtime

big brown eyes



and Valentine parties

I love...

that my big kid is still innocent enough to be puzzled at our laughter when he brought this home from the school library...

I love...

photographs that stir my heart

girlfriends girlfriends girlfriends

parents and in-laws to share in the story of our lives

merlot


I love...

that J will proudly storm the grocery store in this get-up

that G tries to swing high enough to loop himself over the bar

and funny faces

and noogies

because there's just no better way to show someone you love 'em. Unless it's your grandma. You should probably just hug her.