The Birdhouse

So a few months ago, during one of my late night feedings with Ashley, I heard strange noises in the wall. I told Jamie about it and he passed it off as my sleep deprivation. After it continued, I expressed my desire to have Billy the Exterminator visit.
Then one morning, I came down stairs and saw this.....

That's right. It's a hole. This hole went from the living room all the way to the outside. I could look out of it and see the trees! I didn't. I was terrified a bird would peck my eyball. And I was terrified one would get in the house and attack my family. Terrified. I completely flipped out. I called Jamie and didn't recieve the same urgency vibe that I felt so I took it upon myself to handle the situaiton. And I fixed the hole.

Jamie says I over reacted. I say I was protecting my children from the disease infested varmits that gnawed their way through our wood siding, 2x4s, insulation and drywall.

And in case you are wondering, its repaired now. By a professional who used more than duct tape. Thanks to our trusty contractor find who remodeled Caleb's room, our birdhouse is no more. Buh Bye Birdies.

Calebisms.

Driving down the highway today, we passed an old school bus. But it had been repurposed and was no longer a school bus. It was a Chiefs Fan bus. It looked as if someone has spray painted this poor bus with a horrible shade of red missing random spots and not adding second coats in others making the red seem more pink. The bus looked as though it had been retired to the junk yard. Perhaps some crazy KC Chiefs fan saw this bus and saw a real gem. But I saw it to be more of a hazard to anyone on board this bus. Once you got passed the spray painting horror, you see the large sign on the side that said BIGGEST KC CHIEFS FAN. Yea. We already got that. Then, as if this sight barreling down 435 wasn't enough, as it passed us, we see the grill that is hanging on to the rear of this bus with a bungee cord. This grill was most likely in the junk yard with the bus. And it was not a tail gating grill. It was a grill. A full size, family mans grill. Rust and all.
Just as Jamie and I were about to burst out in laughter at this site before us, Caleb just made the situation a tad better. From the back seat, he excitedly leaps forward to attention and screams "LOOK! It's the Chiefs bus!" Without missing a beat, Jamie reassures him that he believes the Chiefs bus is probably a little nicer and it might have aircondition and an operating door. He gently let Caleb down.

So Jamie and I held our laughter in order to protect Calebs feelings.

We soon returned to our previous conversation which, of course, was surrounding September 11, 2001. Today is the ten year anniversary and it has been brought up many times today. Caleb, very matter of factly, says "So.... the people that attacked us, were they the Japanese?" BUT.. he pronounced Japanese like you would Chimpanze. Japanzes.

We couldn't hold our laughter any longer. Poor kid.

We did give him the correct information on 9/11. And he is not angry with the Japanese. Or the Japanzes.

September 11th

So earlier, my often air headed 10 year old asks me "Mom, why is everyone making such a big deal about 9-11?" I respond by telling him that its a huge deal. I told him that almost 3,000 people died that day. And I tell him how America was forever changed by these unspeakable acts of terroism. I explain that so many people were forever affected and so many lives were changed all because of this one moment in time.
He looks at me and says "I know all of this, Mom. What I don't understand is why everyone is making a big deal out of it now. Don't people think about this every single day? It seems like we are celebrating something bad that happened and maybe we should do things every day to honor the people who died and show respect to the people who went through so much. It just doesn't seem to make sense to only make a big deal out of it once a year or once every ten years."

Not so air headed.

He actually made me speechless.

Ten years ago, Jamie and I had just moved to California. We had just settled in our tiny, comfortable apartment and were a very happy family of three. Caleb was just over 4 months old. A lot has happened in ten years.
Of all the changes that we've seen personally, the biggest is that 4 month old. He's becoming quite the young man. I couldn't be more proud.

I love being a mom....

This is what we do while we wait on Caleb to return from Lacrosse practice.

And we look so cute doing it!!

Why do we always seem to take several days to recover from long weekends? We had a fabulous Labor Day weekend with cooler temperatures, late night bon fires, a nice bike ride, trip to the park and a visit to the zoo. Of course, I had to drug Jamie, Caleb and Faith with allergy meds after being outdoors for more than five minutes. And Jamie had knee issues walking around at the zoo. And back issues. And I heard a lot of whining about too much walking. But it was fun!!
Caleb had today off school for a teacher in service day. They've only been back to school for three weeks and the teachers needed a day without the kids. Makes sense.
So I told Caleb that we were going to get some chores done this morning. I say "Your room is going to get cleaned really well." His response (totally straight faced) "Sounds great! Who is going to do it?"  The thing is... he wasn't being sarcastic, he really had no idea that I had any intention of making him clean his room. I should have known we were going to have issues since this is how the process began. Trying to get a 10 year old boy to clean his room the way I see appropriate isn't an easy task. Did I mention 10 year old boys are gross?

Faith actually cleaned her room too. She even cleaned the boogers off the wall. I know this because she told me so. The sad thing is, this is not the first time shes told me this. We obviously have a late night habit that I need to find a way of breaking.

Sleep?

I'm tired. I'm not sure if this baby is attempting to make me crazy or if I'm just old. Either way, I'm tired. And she is finally sleeping. At the moment.
Last night was a rough one though. After an hour and a half of her screaming and me attempting every single trick in the book, I finally went in and just rocked her. This was not our first rocking session, but this time I decided to try something different. Wait for it... I took my shirt off and wrapped her in it. A friend of mine had suggested stuffing something of hers down my shirt so it would retain my smell and then let her sleep with it for comfort. In a moment of desperation, I just took my shirt off. So we rocked. She snuggled my shirt and fell asleep so I carefully laid her down. I then walked out of her room, passed my confused husband and into our room where I put on a new shirt, climbed into bed to crash and was then awoken by Faith. Seriously.
So I'm tired. And cranky.
But Ashley is sleeping with my shirt again tonight. Whatever works. Right?

And Caleb is now playing the trumpet. He could either do choir or band this year. He chose band. He and Jamie were "jamming" together earlier. Jamie on his guitar, Caleb on the trumpet.

My ears feel like they are on fire.