7 years 4 weeks and 3 days

Things I just remembered that I forgot. Documenting Scott’s bday! School starting has rocked my world, but I think a routine is finally getting established. Phew. I almost pulled everyone out and starting homeschooling, but instead of being super drama queen, I gave it a week and everyone is thankful.

Scott. Quite simply, you are beyond amazing. You are so smart. Not just you are my own kid and I think you are smart, but you are really smart. Sometimes you bust out a fact or a question or read me something and I am shocked. Especially when you started reading my texts to me. That scared me until I figured out how to hide the pop up on my phone. You are funny and goofy. You like to have your own space and be the boss. You are good to your brother when it matters. You feel deeply and have a compassionate heart. You play soccer and basketball. You have crazy climbing skills that you demonstrate every chance you get. Even in Whole Foods. You are a rule follower. You are daring and brave. Flips off the high dive, jumping off Dripping Springs, backflips on the Blob. You scare me  a little. We love you. Higher than the heavens and deeper than the seas.

PS I really hope your two front teeth never grow in because you are super cute.

Birthday dinner of shrimp, crab legs, scallops and honey chicken with rice. Absolutely no fruit or veggies.

Requested dessert: chocolate cream cookies, swedish fish and chocolate lava cake.

The favorite present!

Reasons I cry during yoga

Have a great year little love bugs that aren’t little anymore. You are destined for greatness.
P.S. I miss you already.
P.P.S. If you could work on being in a better mood when you get home from school this year, that would be great. Thanks in advance.

Girls have Virginias

Soooo… It was an interesting night….

So far, my stance on sex ed has been on a need-to-know basis. If a question is asked, I answer it honestly. I have been asked, “Where do babies come out of your belly?” And I have answered. So far, no one has asked how a baby gets IN your belly. Last night, the boys were being boys and hiding a bouncy ball spasticly from each other while the other one guessed where it was, of course the it soon ended up hiding in underwear. They started yelling something about PP’s (our short cut for penis) then they just started full on yelling PENIS! PENIS! My mistake was intervening…

Me: Guys, penis isn’t a bad word, but it is a private word. It isn’t something that I want you to run around yelling because you are talking about your super private areas and we don’t talk about our private bodies with people that aren’t the 4 of us. Got it?

Boys: GOT IT!

Nate: Girls don’t have pp’s.

Me: Nope they don’t.

Scott: What do girls call their private areas?

Me: (deep breath, stay natural, deep breath) Girls call their private area vagina.

Silence

Nate: Girls have a VIRGINIA! That is so funny! It is like a VIRGINIA!

Scott: (cracking up) Oh man, virginia! VIRGINIA!!!!

Me: (having a deep internal battle, do I let it go? Because how hilarious is this?!) Guys, chill out. The word is vagina and it is also a private word, so please QUIT SCREAMING ABOUT IT!

I am sure this will be repeated in public sometime soon so put earmuffs on your kids if you frequent Target and Whole Foods.

Speaking of Virginias

Nate decided to turn into a 14 yr old girl for about 30 minutes. Some how in the bath tub, Scott’s eye got scratched and he was “going blind” so I quickly got both the kids out to ease the drama. To set the scene, No one was in trouble. I didn’t yell. I just said, “Time to get out.”

Nate: (laying on the ground with his head in his hands fake crying) I need a new family! No one in this family loves me. I am going to live with a family that likes me.

Me: Umm, Nate, what just happened here? No one is upset at you.

Nate: I want to live with a new mom and a new family. None of you love me. Everyone is mean to me. 

Me: I am so confused right now. What is going on? 

Nate: (fake whimpering)

Me: (time to change tactics) Nate, if you had a new mom, she wouldn’t know your secret handshake… I would be so sad if I didn’t have you.

Nate: (looking up with dramatic eyes) I can teach it to her (and I am not kidding he really said this…) DUH!

Me: Okay, well, I would love to read to you before you go to bed, but if you want to lay in my closet and be sad, that is up to you. PS, I hope you don’t go to a new family, we would be super sad.

Nate: Ughhhhhhh….. (comes out 10 minutes later and acted like nothing happened)

RANDOM.

I really hope he doesn’t start turning into a 14 yr old girl very often, because I was really excited to have boys and skip all that drama. 

PS Vagina is a super creepy word and so are all the other words to use instead of vagina so feel free to just start saying Virginia because I definitely will be. 

Never a dull moment. Ever.

Oh geez

Any bets on how this is going to end?!

I have found this summer, by about 3pm… We are ALL done playing nice. Including me. We are all three pretty tired of each other.

I finally got tired of yelling “Quit fighting!!” and changed it to a super compassionate… “Someone is going to get hurt and when it happens, I’m not going to care. You have been warned…. Carry on crazy people, carry on.”

And the first one to cry??? Nate takes the prize! I actually had my money on Scott.

Speaking of Changas

I have been in blog avoidance because the thought of catching up on the last 6 mths stresses me out. And then I thought, “Hey Cori, just pretend like the last 6 mths didn’t happen!” And then I thought, “Wow Cori, you are super smart! I am going with your plan!”

I have memories in my head and heart and iphone. That will do for now.

Soooo…. Nate has been on this big kick of randomly saying… “Speaking of ____” and it is usually just followed by a normal sentence. IE “Speaking of grapes, can we go jump on the trampoline?”

On Sunday in the car he said, “Speaking of chimi-chaaaang-as… What is a Changa?” It has been cracking me up all week.

That gem of a story has nothing to do with the rest of this blog.

Sunday was Father’s Day! I decided to actually do a Pinterest project (my first one out of my 5 million pins).

I mean is there anything cuter than asking kids questions you know they will say funny things to? I think not. Although, Scott is reaching the kids-don’t-say-the-darndest-things age. As you will note from his page (that I didn’t let him fill out on his own because it would take to long, bad mom), we have a height correction. He was very stressed out that he was going to get a question wrong. I told him do not under any circumstances ask your dad the questions to check your answers. IT IS A SURPRISE. Scott walk up to Mike:

S: Dad, how tall are you?

M: 6 ft. 

S: turns to look at me with big crazy eyes, walks over and whispers….. I’m going to need my paper back.

Scott also made sure his picture included such details as “those red dots on dad’s arms”. Nate decided to draw a picture of a botser (monster robot) being destroyed.

Seriously Weird…. Seriously

All of the sudden Scott is a too cool six year old. It began over Thanksgiving break…

Humiliation Scene #1

Tootsie Roll came on the radio and OF COURSE Mike and I turned it up and started dancing. Scott is in the back yelling, “People are going to start staring at you.” “Seriously, they are going to STARE. Seriously guys, they will stare because you are being weird.”

So OF COURSE, we turn it up louder and OF COURSE we pull in to the parking lot of the movie theater and Mike rolls all the windows down, turns it up louder and gets out of the car and starts dancing. Actually, I was a little embarrassed by Mike’s roger rabbit, but I went with it.

Humiliation Scene #2

I was going running after I took Scott to school on Thursday so I was wearing my running clothes when I dropped him off (like 95% of  the other moms dropping off)… While getting out of the car:

Scott: What are you wearing?

Me: Ummm, my running clothes (that you have seen me in a million times)

Scott: Are you wearing those into school?

Me: Ummm, well, I am dropping you off while wearing them sooooo…. Is something wrong?

Scott: (audible sigh and eye roll) It’s just a little weird.

Me: Oh babe… I hate to tell you this, but if you are embarrassed by running clothes, you have a LONG road of humiliation in store for yourself.

Scott: (looking at me like I really am weird)

Me: (looking at Scott like I know I am weird and couldn’t care less)

Scene #3

I got bored while Mike was out of town last week and decided to cut some bangs one night. The next morning…

Scott: What is going on with your hair?

Me: I cut it. Do you like?

Scott: It’s a little weird.

Me: Thank you.

Scott: I mean… you kind of look like a teenager… but a weird one.

Me: All I heard was I look like a teenager.

Scott: Uhhhhh.

In the words of my friend Carissa Miller (while cracking up), “If he is going to be a kid that gets embarrassed easily, he was definitely born to the wrong parents!”

I love you Scott. I apologize in advance for all the embarrassing moments in your future.

A picture of your adorableness that you will find embarrassing in the future. PS I have TONS embarrassing pics that I will bust out at any given moment.

Artsy

Kindergarten has brought us many hilarious dinner time stories and interesting projects. I really hope Scott’s teacher thinks we are some what capable parents because the stories he tells us makes me personally question my parenting abilities. We have our first parent teacher conference on Monday… I CAN’T WAIT. I have a feeling it will be quite insightful. This is one of the awesome projects that have come home…

Yes. That says hot tub. And the picture depicts a “tank car” with full on guns, missiles, and bomb launchers. Fully equipped with a hot tub to soothe your achy battle muscles.

And Nate… Sweet Nate. I am sure I should double his teachers salary. He somehow gets pee on his clothes EVERY day. At home, totally fine. At school, pee clothes. Not accidents, just always gets pee every where while using the restroom. I hope Henry really is his friend. Nate seems to be the complete opposite of how I would have predicted “school Nate” to be.

Kindergarten Snapshots

Because Scott’s kindergarten teacher is capital A to the Awesome… She texts or emails me a picture of him doing his classroom thing every week. I used to pretend that Scott is her favorite and that she only does this for me, but then I realized that on group pics I wasn’t the only email address in the “to” box. It’s cool though, I am sure he is in the top 16.

Week 1 ("Sooo, I guess kindergarten is ok....")

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5 (first field trip!)

PS After about two weeks of school, Mrs. Mayfield called and said that Scott was having a hard time and getting teary eyed through out the day. Super mom and dad had NO IDEA. He only talked about how much he loved school. We started giving him a daily love note to put in his pocket and when he starts missing us or feeling sad, he can put his hand in his pocket and know we love him and we will see him soon. It has worked like a charm! All that to say, the pictures in which he has his hand in his pocket break my heart and make me proud at the same time. New experiences are hard…. He is brave and strong and got through it.

Be Still My Heart

This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9 NLT)

8.15.2011 Lost First Tooth

8.19.2011 First Day Of Kindergarten

I love you.

Two Hands

Oh man, yesterday anniversary, today Scott’s bday, this is officially mushy blog week.

Scott Michael Lyon,

You are 6! I can’t even believe it.

You are an enigma. You can’t stand the melty cheese on a quesadilla but you love sushi, crab legs, and Chinese food. You love every flavor of ice cream except for vanilla. You would rather have no ice cream than eat plain vanilla. You love every kind of weapon. And you are wavering between being an ambulance driver or an assassin (I am praying when your teacher asks you what you want to be that you just go with ambulance driver).

You are loyal, you are courageous and you are a rule follower. The love and kindness that you show your brother takes my breath away sometimes.

You are funny. A quiet witty funny that cracks us up. You love books and are starting to read. I can’t wait until you can read completely on your own, I think you will be heaven! You are focused and determined and have an amazing memory.

You are an amazing negotiator. Your dad has been training you since you were born. One of your favorite phrases is, “Well, how about _____, is that a deal?”

We love you so much. We love you higher than the heavens and deeper than the seas. You completely changed our lives when you were born, and I would never go back.

PS I changed my mind… Actually, I can believe you are six, I can’t believe you are starting kindergarten in nine days. Part of me wants to scream, “It’s too soon! He’s not ready!” But I know you are. You are ready to take on the world. With your family screaming from the sidelines of course.

PPS My dear precious eldest son, in your upcoming year of life, will you please let me take more pictures of you? Please.