.::still blinking::.

I have not mentioned before, but Gentry and I are part of a preschool swap thing. He is gone for an hour and a half every Monday and Wednesday. For this I pay the price of having to teach once a month. Not bad really, except that it is not really once a month. It is twice every other month. Still not bad right?

Except, who sends their children to preschool with boogers smeared clear across their face. “How nice to see you!” I say, then shut the door and vomit on all offending slime covered children. “Come get a kleenex and wipe your face please,” I say. More boogers are added to the dense sludge cake. Must run to bathroom to vomit a little more.

AND THEN! Then I have to wipe some other persons nose and hands and get all offending boogers out of the house. Which gets me all a twitching in my eye.

Then while the nice little girls are singing songs, there are two boys acting like beached whales on my couch. All flopping and groaning and leaking saliva. Only one of these boys was mine and I am not the sweet teacher or the kind and gentle mother. I am the mean one with the ruler and the board with the holes and I swatted them hard. Or being translated, I put them in opposite corners and made them have a timeout so we girls could continue singing about stars and buses and farmers.

I eventually gave up with teaching these pre-pubescent pre-kindergarten pre-potty trained toddlers anything and turned on the tv and we watched Super Why. I knew the tv would turn them nearly comatose and that is a state of toddlerhood I rather enjoy, especially when there are 6 of them here.

I went to lunch with my mom yesterday. Gentry came along and talked about when he got married in the Salt Lake Temple. He brought all this up. He said Salt Lake Temple. I asked him who he married and he said he got married. But he said that I was there and I was a princess.

Here is the thing. I wore a tiara at my wedding. I guess he is old enough that he could look at the pictures and figure out I was married at the temple and wore a tiara. But the fact that he talked about a specific place and told me what I looked like amazed me and made me wonder if maybe more was running through his little mind than just the pictures.

Maybe I should start paying attention and documenting this. I could get really creative.

:: tried so hard to give him a nice hair cut ::

:: trying to defeat the constant motion ::

:: final results :: razor 1 makayla 0 ::

I recently made a friend on Flickr. We did a swap. I sent her all sorts of Oriental treats from a market downtown and some fancy doggy treats for her dog. She sent me all this. I feel a little ashamed of the meager amount that I sent her. I will have to send some more.

Also, this afternoon I put the boy down for his nap an hour early because he was being so grumpy. He was fine for a while and then he started to yell for me. I did not go in for half and hour and when I finally did, he was naked. Not a stitch of clothing was even slightly attached to him. Not even a diaper. I could not help but laughing at him. Encouragement. Somehow I know this will not be the last time. I hope he doesn’t start peeing on everything. That might be the next logical step though.

Get naked.

Throw all clothing out of bed.

Throw all toys, blankets and pillows out of bed.

Now what?

Hmmm.

Now what?

:: protection :: it comes in many forms ::

:: hugs + kisses ::
:: my silly boy ::

:: the smell of rain ::

:: little boys who listen ::

:: making new friends ::

:: being wanted :: being needed ::

:: life is beautiful :: vega4 ::

:: these pom-poms :: elephants + goats :: these boxed cards :: good photography :: real portraits :: angel faces :: tender moments ::

We set out this morning to take care of the weeds that are taking over the alley between our house and the neighbors. They aren’t knee high yet and it rained last night so I thought I would be able to tackle this in an hour or two. Turns out that is not the case. My weed puller has mysteriously disappeared.

And the weed pulling gets a little bit challenging when you have to yell at a little boy every two minutes.

Stop throwing rocks at the neighbors house. Stop throwing rocks down the window well. Stop throwing rocks. Stop sucking on rocks. Stop eating dirt. After a brief dry heaving episode, we continued. Stop sucking or rocks. Stop biting wood chips. Don’t throw dirt at me.

Luckily for all it got really cold again and started to rain.

I wouldn’t trade this. I love a little distraction and entertainment while I work.

When do they turn from babies to little kids? Is it over night or a progression?

When did he learn to love me in return? How does he know that I can make his owies better? When he is sick or hurt, why is that my greatest hurt?

I think that I am not alone in the fierce protection I feel for him. I think there are those who feel the same about me. We are always someones baby. All grown up and doing my own thing, sometimes you need a hug from your mom. Sometimes, no matter how different you are or become, it all melts away and you feel the unconditionalness of that connection.

I think it finally sunk into today, as the boy went flying from his stroller onto the ground smacking his elbow and forehead on the sidewalk, that I am the mother of a rough and tumble little boy. And that yesterday was probably not our last trip to the emergency room. Since it was his second for the year I am hoping it is the last for the year, or at least a little while.

Here’s to having little boys and Elmo band aids making things better.