most of you know that chase has a speech impairment. he has been in speech therapy since he was 2 years old. our goal for him was for full remediation to take place before kindergarten starts. i am so thankful that we started him in therapy so early. it has made a huge difference. however…along with a speech delay comes some very humorous words. for chase…his brain processes what is being said perfectly but gets tangled coming out of his mouth. it’s a disability involving pronunciation. they say that it involves low muscle tone and that it should totally re mediate itself. this is why he is also in occupational therapy. the mouth is not the only muscle that is hard for him to work right. it has affected his fine motor skills as well. for example…it is hard for him to hold a pencil properly, or color, or form letters. his therapists are great and i know he will eventually get it…in his own time…and that’s ok. he loves people and i always tell him that makes me more proud of him than anything else. anyhow…in speech…his biggest hang ups are L’s and TH’s and sometimes V’s…depending on where they are placed in the word. for example…he would say, “i want to brush my teef” and “can i use gwu (glue)”. his first swim teacher’s name was liz and everyday he would say, “hi wiz.” anyhow, the other day he said something so funny that i had to tell the masses. (at least the grandparents 🙂 this is not so much a pronunciation problem as it was what he thought the words were. anyhow…he was wanting to put on his baseball uniform and play outside. he was also looking for his baseball glove and batting glove. this is what he came in the room saying…

“i need to put on my human form (uniform). and mommy…i need my glubbs (gloves)”

after he left the room, i looked at chad and chad said, “did he just ask for his human form?”

i said, “yep. he did.”

i love that kid.

i’m not a huge fan of play dough. it makes such a mess. so, it may not be the play dough that i mind…but the mess. however, kids seem to love play dough. we have it. we just don’t use it. i always find some reason why we don’t need to play with play dough.

over spring break, i decided to make edible play dough. i looked up recipes online and found a ton that were made with peanut butter, honey, and dried milk. chase can’t have dairy…so i had chad on it while i was in the kitchen making lunch. he found one that was 2 cups powdered sugar; one cup peanut butter; and 1/2 a cup of honey. i decided to try it and it was amazing. i highly recommend trying it with your kids. (or, if you don’t have kids…who doesn’t enjoy a day of sculpting with play dough that you can eat?) i let them each pick several cookie cutters to use with it and then made a snowman together. we used chocolate chips for the eyes and a mini carrot for the nose. they actually fought over who ate the nose. i think i’ve stumbled upon a great way to get them to eat all kinds of veggies. hey kids…it’s not just a corn-cob pipe…it’s actually corn on the cob.

you know how much kids can talk? a lot. my kids talk a whole lot. all three of them. there is constant chatter. so, it’s no surprise that sometimes my ears get tired. towards the end of the day, colton was coloring at the bar. he asked me what he should draw. i said to draw a horse. then, he asked what color it should be, except i was in the middle of doing something and didn’t answer him right away. he asked again and i said, rather quickly, “brown. make the horse brown. with a black mane and a black tail.” colton looked at me and said, “you’re an angry woman.” wha????? where did he hear that? did i sound angry? i didn’t think i sounded angry. i didn’t feel angry. i felt tired…but not angry. i laughed and thought, “no…i’m a tired woman.”

does anyone remember that movie? where the waitress starts talking to her customer and he says that if he wins a million dollars that he will share it with her, and then does…both.

that movie is really beside the point. chad and i did so bad on our march madness, ncaa tournament picks, that we decided to enter another contest on yahoo for just the sweet 16. if you get all the games right, you can win a million dollars. of course, there will be a lot of people who get them all right, so the tie-breaker is if you guess the score at the end of the game right. if there still is a tie, then they go to what you guessed as the half-time score. in the last pool, i took north carolina all the way to the finals, and since i did so bad…i decided to pick them being upset in the first round of the sweet 16. didn’t happen. but, i was 5 for 6 until davidson went and won. i had them losing too because they are a 10 seed, i think…and they barely won one of their games to make it into the sweet 16. oh well…now i’m 6 for 8…which is pretty good for a girl who really doesn’t know what she’s talking about when it comes to these basketball teams. chad knows which ones play the best defense, and which ones play better in tournament situations, etc. etc. etc. but he’s not doing any better than me…so neither of us are going to win a million this weekend. so really the title of this blog should be…it didn’t happen to us.

i went to go see the musical, the spelling bee last night and it was so good. i went with my mom, and a friend and her mom. we had so much fun. in the lobby, a guy came up to us and asked my friend and i if we would like to be in the musical. they were casting 4 people from the audience to be a part of the spelling bee. now…a few things were going through my head at this point. one, i am a terrible speller. two…i get stage fright. three…you don’t get to be a part of a broadway musical everyday. and four…this could be my big chance. i could get discovered and whisked away to new york to start my broadway career. (ok. that last one was just coming from my “dreamer side” of my brain.) i then pretended to step up to the mic and started singing “the sun-il come out, tomorrow…” it was at that point that i may or may not have embarrassed myself. everyone was laughing though. and i prefer to think that they were laughing with me…and not at me. we did decide that we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be in a broadway show…OR humiliate our mothers…so we went to the casting person that the guy directed us to. they were picking 4 people to represent the audience…so probably, 1 child, 1 girl, 1 guy of different ages and so on. so, i knew that we would both not get picked. we got interviewed together though, which was really funny. when the casting lady asked if we had any hobbies, my friend said piano and i said, “spelling. s…p…e…l…l…i…n…g.” she asked what i did for a living and i told her i stayed at home with my 3 kids. then she asked where we got our news from, such as cnn, newspaper, etc. i said, “playhouse disney.” she thought we were quite funny. however…we didn’t get chosen. oh well…i guess it just wasn’t my time to get discovered. (we decided that we were too funny and that we would upstage the actors.)

that may…or may not have been our attempt at comforting ourselves.

so…it COULD have happen to me…but it didn’t. again.

i love spring break. i loved it then. i love it now.

this week, we took it easy. relaxed. shot the breeze. kicked our shoes off.

a lot of times, one thinks that one should go on vacation or have some big special activity planned for weeks like this. well…there is something to be said for having absolutely no plans. that was us this week. at the start of the week…no plans. on friday, after colton got out of school we took them to blockbuster and let them each pick out 2 movies for the week. colton picked the bee movie, and cars. chase picked buzz lightyear (some spin off from toy story) and didn’t want to pick a second one. aiden picked cinderella 2 and strawberry shortcake. but other than that…nothing.

we ended up having a really good week. every friday night, we let the kids have a sibling sleepover. this is where they get to get their sleeping bags out and watch a movie and sleep in the same room. every night, aiden asks, “can i sleep with my boys?” and every night, i tell her, “you have to wait until friday night. on friday night, you can sleep with your boys.” i love that she calls her brothers “her boys”. so…they were pretty excited that every night could be a sibling sleepover, and they loved waking up every morning on their own. they would play upstairs in the playroom together for hours if i let them. we would eat breakfast around 10 and that meant that i did not have to make breakfast and lunch. i love whoever invented brunch. it had to be a mom who didn’t enjoy cooking. the first couple of days we just hung out around the house and enjoyed not having to be anywhere.

wednesday, the kids got to spend the night with my parents and that is always a big deal for them. chad and i got to go to church that night and then go eat afterwards and watch a movie that we had rented.

thursday, chase got a haircut and then we met friends at the park for a picnic and egg hunt. we came home just in time to catch the start of march madness. we love march madness in our house. well…i’m not sure aiden and chase love it. but, the rest of us do. and they play along.

friday, we took them to NASA and they got to see the rockets that are displayed on the grounds. that was really fun for the boys, especially. chase loves anything “apollo 13”. even though it is called a saturn v rocket, chase calls it an apollo 13. i think that he finally understood, yesterday, that it was a saturn v and that there were a lot of apollo missions. then, we picked up lunch and brought it home. then, aiden and i went to target and the fabric store to get ribbon to make a bow for her hair to match her easter dress. that afternoon, i took colton and aiden to see horton hears a who. chase didn’t want to go, so he stayed home and enjoyed the afternoon with daddy. last night, we ate dinner outside and then they all slept in the boys room.

this morning, chad went to feed the homeless in galveston with some people from our church and the kids and i boiled a dozen eggs to dye here in a little while. they just brought down all their blankets and anywhere chairs. aiden just informed me that they are going to build a “fork”. tonight, i have to work at the saturday night easter service.

tomorrow, we will go to church and then head to my parent’s house for lunch.

it’s been a good week. i love having all my kids home with me. i had a realization this week too. colton is 7 years old…which seems really young. but, these 7 years have passed by so fast. in another 7 years, he will be 14. i can’t believe that. our time with them goes by so fast. to think of the time that he leaves for college makes me want to cry my eyes out. it makes me appreciate each day with them more…and realize that it doesn’t have to be spring break to make each day special. just waking up with them makes it special. and each moment is a gift from God…to be enjoyed…to be cherished. each snuggle…each game…each story…each bedtime…all little gifts of time. there will be a time when they won’t let me snuggle them…or want me to tuck them in. they will tell me to leave them alone. they won’t ask for me to come play with them…or come lay by them…or come read to them. so, when they climb in my lap these days…for some comfort after they didn’t get their way, or they got their feelings hurt by their sibling, or they are trying to buy time because they don’t want to go to bed yet…i will remember that there will be a time when they will no longer fit in my lap. and i’ll whisper to them how much i love them while i kiss their heads. and then i’ll say, “let me hold you a little longer.”

a few things on my mind. some serious…which will not be talked about tonight, and some not so serious…which will be the topics of the evening.

i’m not sure how i entertained myself before my 3 children. these days, i wake up every morning wondering how they will make me laugh today. and, it usually doesn’t take long before it starts. for example…

every monday, colton gets his spelling list for the week. throughout the week he is supposed to write a sentence for each word and then on thursday, i give him a spelling test. this has been an enjoyable thing for us both. he loves coming up with the sentences and i love to pretend like i’m a real teacher when i give him the test. i have total flashbacks to fourth grade. that’s when i remember taking spelling tests. my teacher would say the word…then use the word in a sentence…and then say the word again. so…obviously, that’s what i do. so last week, one of the words was “shell”. after colton went to bed, i looked over colton’s sentences. this was his sentence for the word shell.

“we shell play football today.”

i found it humerous. i read it to chad and he laughed and said, “even if the word was “shall”…who talks like that anymore?” i think it just shows how well colton knows the Bible!! they are always talking that way. ok. that’s probably a stretch.

this week, one of his words was “child”. this was his sentence…

“we have one good child.”

i didn’t even bother to ask him which child he was refering to. speaking of spelling…i’m very excited because my mom and i are going to see the broadway show “the spelling bee” with my friend and her mom. i’ve heard that this is one of the best shows on broadway. it is coming to houston and i think it is going to be really fun.

a few days ago, i was getting ready to run some errands. my usual routine is to get the kids ready first and then let them play while i get ready. then, i call aiden into the bathroom so that i can do her hair. she loves to come in a little early while i am putting my makeup on. she always says the same thing. “i need my lipgloss.” this makes me proud because i am a complete lipgloss junky. i let her put it on herself and she, of course gets it all over her mouth. it’s clear…so i don’t really have an issue with it. people just think she’s really shiny. well, the other day, i turned around and she was putting lipgloss on boo radley. (did i mention that we have boo radley back?) why she was doing this makes sense. but why he was letting her…didn’t.

then there was today at target…where aiden loves to go and chase hates to go. in the little girls department, they had little easter purses and hats. they had both white and pink ones. i figured aiden would go crazy over them…due to the fact that she loves purses. i was right. while my attention was elsewhere, i turn around to see aiden turn the corner…sporting the white straw hat while swinging the little, white purse. what i did not expect to see was my sweet little chase…in his soccer uniform…wearing the pink straw hat with the little, pink purse on his arm. shockingly…that wasn’t the funniest part. he had the hat down over his eyes. so as aiden was skipped toward me with agility, there was chase…running into the racks of clothes. i was rolling. obviously, he learned this behavior from boo radley. shhhhh. don’t tell chad.

this superhero “phase” is really hanging on. chase dresses up like superman or batman nearly every day. on saturday, he put on the bulky superman costume and then put a sweatsuit over that. you can see his cape hanging out the back in the picture. he then found a plastic pair of those coke bottle glasses that make your eyes look really weird…especially if they only have one of the lenses in them.

(side note-he wore these glasses to church on sunday. that was interesting. we were getting out of the car and he asked me if he could wear them. i said, ok. colton said, “don’t wear those chase. people will look at us funny.” i told colton that i was glad that chase didn’t care what other people thought about what he wore. i said that the only person we have to worry about is God and that i was sure that He wouldn’t care if chase wore those glasses.” colton just sighed.)

anyhow, he was being clark kent. this went on all morning and through lunch. after lunch, they wanted sweetarts for dessert. aiden got 2 after chad had said she could only have 1. he told her to put the 2nd one back and then something funky happened. she started screaming this high-pitched scream that sounded like she was seriously injured. we thought she had bit her tongue or something. i mean, it was a new scream. one that definitely required stitches or something. oh no…she was just mad. she said that chad had “hurt her feelings”. we looked at her with an “are you serious?” look and then he took her into the other room to have a talk with her about how she can’t scream like that when she doesn’t get her way, etc. etc. etc. i peeked around the corner to see how the little chat was going and saw chase hiding behind a wall watching the scene. it looked like he was talking very softly into his wrist. i listened to what he was saying and this is what i heard: “lois is in trouble. i repeat. lois is in trouble.” then out of nowhere, he flew into the room, threw himself in front of aiden and put his hand up in front of chad’s face and said, “you stop. this is my friend.” then, he whisked her to safety as chad tried to compose himself and i reached for the camera. i think we were just out-smarted by a 5 and 2 year old. colton just rolled his eyes. i actually think he wondered why he had never thought of it.

with all the disney and animated movies out…it’s enough to confuse a person. especially if you are aiden or chase.

currently, the favorite movies to watch in our house are aladdin and beauty and the beast. we not only watch the movies…but listen to both movie soundtracks as well.

as i type, aiden is dressed up in her cinderella costume, complete with heels and all, and chase in the ever popular, being held together by a thread due to being worn constantly for the past 2 years, batman costume. i heard her knock on the door to the room chase…i mean, batman was hiding in. chase said, “whooo iiiiiiiiiiis it?” aiden…i mean cinderella…said, “tinkerbell.” i immediately laughed and decided that this was a play i did not want to miss. so i listened closely. then they acted out a scene from aladdin to the music of beauty and the beast. i paused for a moment…took it all in…and decided they both deserved academy awards for their creative screenplay adaptation.

and that’s when i decided to get my old soccer and swim trophies out to present them their awards. if only i had a red carpet and paparazzi.

this morning, i piled the kids in the suburban and began the short little drive to take colton to school. colton began freaking out that he forgot to get his rock out of his pocket and that if he didn’t bring his rock that they were doing a project with, he would get his clip moved. getting your clip moved is what happens when you get in trouble. in his whole year of kindergarten and his whole year of first grade so far, he has never had his clip moved. he is terrified of having his clip moved. he will do anything to avoid having his clip moved. now, i ask you, how can a kid be sooooo worried about getting in trouble at school yet not give 2 flips about consequences at home? maybe it’s the clip. maybe i should start making him move a clip instead of losing playstation. maybe this clip has some magical power that i am unaware of. who knows and i am off subject. suprising.

well…as i’m listening to him fret about his rock and his clip i pull into the school drive. that’s when i saw it. a little girl wearing a pink cowgirl hat. and that’s when i remembered. today is go texan day. the kids were all dressed up in their western wear to celebrate the start of the rodeo. i LOVE go texan day. i always dressed up from head to toe. it was so fun. and i forgot. i immediately projected my love for go texan day and how i would feel if my mom had forgot (of course she never did…and that stirs a whole other pot of emotions like why i can’t seem to be like my mom who would have never forgot to dress me up for go texan day. she had it all together, boy.) i, immediately began brainstorming how i could remedy this little “slip up” so that colton would not be the only one not dressed up. i sheepishly said, “ooooh colton…i forgot…it’s go texan day today.” now…i thought that he would flip his lid because i forgot and that he would be the only one not dressed up and that he would be all mad and crazy and stuff. but his reply was, “it’s go what day?” oh thank you sweet Jesus. he doesn’t really care about go texan day. that’s when reality hit. even if i had remembered that it was go texan day (i mean it is written neatly on my calendar that seems to be pointless about now) he didn’t have anything western that fit him anyays. i would have had to buy him something. and i would have too. because i love it. it’s important to me. but, that would have been a total waste of money, because it’s not important to him. he didn’t care. now, if it had been “go dress like your favorite athelete or superhero day” we would have been in big trouble. but i realized how much i place my favorite things and opinions on my kids. and how i have before, and would have this morning forced him to put on the boots and the hat and he would have been grumbling that he didn’t want to and it would have been a struggle and a battle that would have been pointless. if go texan day was required for a grade or an issue of respect or instructed in the Bible by Jesus himself, then that would be different. but it’s a choice. and colton’s choice. not mine. all this seems really silly…being that i totally forgot about it and it wasn’t an issue…but it just got me thinking. and that’s always dangerous.

the past 2 days have been frustrating. for no big reasons that would make anyone mad or frustrated, but for little things that just seem to get under my skin. it has made me wonder if most days are like this for most people and it is just our present state-of-mind that determines how we deal with it…or if sometimes i really do go skipping through my day, swinging my purse, while whistling a happy tune because everything is going swimmingly. i hate frustration. i hate more that moment when your frustration turns to full on anger. when that happens to me, things have a tendancy to go down hill fast. everything then begins to make me angry and i become irrational in thought and usually take my anger out on someone who doesn’t deserve it. (not that anyone ever really does.)

yesterday, i went to the mall with my mom, chase and aiden. it is warm enough here to wear flipflops but too early for aiden to wear sandals. last year, i got her a pair of pink crocs…not the real ones, obviously…but a pair for her to wear with jeans, shorts, and sundresses when there was no real need to go through the whole shoes and socks routine. i did this, under protest, because i thought…and still think…that those shoes are the ugliest footwear i have ever layed my eyes on. however, on aiden, i thought they were ok. not the greatest. still love plain, white sandals the best on little girls, but they look kind of funny with jeans, which she is still wearing. so…when i saw the children’s imitation crocs on sale, i decided to get her another pair. i took off her shoes and tried some on her. i determined that she needed the 8…in pink please. so, even though the man tried to get me to buy a 9 (and now i know why), i said i wanted the 8. he rang them up, tried to talk me into some of those little charmy things that go in the holes of the shoes…unsuccessfully, and i was on my way. she got them out and put them on and wore them outside, enough to get the bottoms all dirty. when i noticed them on her feet, i thought they looked a little smaller than what the pair that i tried on her did. after she took them off, i looked at the bottoms to check the size and they were 7s. and not only 7s…but two different size 7s. one is clearly smaller than the other and too small for her feet. instant frustration.

i went on a search today to get a new Bible. my old one is about to fall apart and i don’t want it to because my parents gave it to me and i love it. so, i went to every bookstore known to man in search of a plain, brown leather Bible. not black. not burgandy. not hunter green. not pink. not a study Bible. not a read in a year one. not a paraphrased one. not one for women, or the Bible for people of the military, or firemen, or golfers. (they really had the Bible for golfers) i don’t want two toned or beaded or embelished with celtic crosses or anything else. i want a plain, brown, leather Bible. do you know that they don’t sell those? is brown not a very common leather color? you can get brown leather anything. even brown leather Bible covers. but don’t even think about trying to find a plain, brown leather Bible. it’s not gonna happen. frustration mounting. even while searching for God’s word…which is what i needed to be bathing in at this point.

then, i went to hang the pictures that i got framed from new york for our theater room. they had been sitting in the corner for me to do and i finally got around to doing it. when i went to nail them to the wall, i realized that there were no picture hangers on the back of the frames. i hate that. so…i rumaged through my took box and found some make-shift hangers that would work and nailed my finger and stripped my screw driver trying to get those miniscule screws into the frame that hold the hanger in place. frustration thinking about turning to anger.

then, i looked in the mirror and hated my hair. i instantly got mad that i have not taken the time to get my hair cut in months and that it is so straggly at the bottom that it appeared frizzy today. i hate frizzy. then i noticed the mascara that gets under my eyes about half-way through the day due to buying cheap mascara. now, this happens every day and i just wipe it away until i can buy new mascara…but today…that cheap mascara was the point. the boiling point.

cue the irrational thought that it is better to have no make-up on and have my hair in a bun on top of my head than to look at myself for one more second like that. now cue the irrational behavior of frantically washing my face and throwing my pony tail holder when it won’t hold my hair the way i want it to. people at church tonight may wonder why i look like i rolled in right out of bed. i don’t care. there is satisfaction in taking control of the mascara and hair problem. sort of.

then, i went to find colton a plain white t-shirt to put on after his shower. i opened the dryer, filled with whites, and began digging around. now. i promise you, that if i was not looking for a plain white t-shirt, everything i pulled out of there would be a plain white t-shirt. but since i was looking for just 1 of the 10 plain shite t-shirts in there…all i kept pulling out were socks and chad’s underwear. so…naturally…i got mad at chad and his white underwear that was taking up all the dryer space and causing me to not get my t-shirt that i need. cue the angry behavior of throwing clean whites everywhere until i find one.

that was the moment that chad walked in and asked what i was doing. now cue me flying off the handle because my jeans feel tight. what am i really mad at?