Breakdown

Oh the agony!
My child started to cry out of no where. I knew that he was in the kitchen alone so I had ruled out his brother hitting him....and I did not hear a crash so he didn't fall, hmmm, the sound was terrifying almost like it was the end of the World!
"What's wrong Brent?" I shouted!
"The BATTERIES DIED IN THE DSSSSSS!!!"
I looked over at my husband and we both started laughing uncontrolably. Seriously, having a breakdown like that over an electronic device! Brent walked into the living room, DS in hand, still crying.
"It's okay sweetheart, just turn it back on and start over"
"But I was almost done with that levellllllllllllllllll"
Trying to cover my giggles I thought of something.
"You know", I said to my husband, "if that had been my computer at work and I had lost what I was working on I think I would breakdown and cry like that as well!"
His crying may of seemed out of place at first but the more I thought about it the more it was justified. Don't get me wrong, there are better ways to deal with frustration then dropping to the floor and screaming NNNNNNNNoooooooooooo WHYYYYYYYYYY MMMMEEEEEE, but I could definitely understand his pain. That is something I never had to deal with as a child since electronics in general were still new but it is something my children will have to deal with a lot. If your hard-drive crashes you can lose hours of your favorite music, papers you worked on forever for school, reports you spent endless nights typing for work, passwords, pictures, your entire life! This is the generation for technology and it is relied upon too much! But what more can we do than just keep up. Learn from these mishaps and back everything up, even if it's the third level of the toy story three game.

The First Tooth

"MOMMMM, THE TOOTH FAIRY CAME!!!"
A smile grew across my face as I heard the half asleep child yell from the other side of the house. I dropped my hair brush onto the bathroom counter and quickly tiptoed into my son's room trying not to wake my other son.
"I told you she would come!" I whispered to him
"THE TOOTH FAIRY REALLY CAME!" he said again.
The magic in his eyes was something I will never forget. I had accomplished one of my biggest goals, instilling the wonderful light that creates childhood memories into my child. I almost wanted to cry. The magic of believeing is what a childhood is truly about. The love that comes with Christmas and believing in Santa Clause or the Easter bunny- it is what keeps children pure and hides the real life pain and stress that they will soon have to endure when they get older.
"I love you so much!" I said to him, no longer trying to whisper as I noticed my other child stirring in his warm blankets the cuddled him tight.
"What about me mom?" I heard come from the bottom bunk.
"I love you too, so much" I reached down to kiss my youngest.
I turned to walk back to the bathroom to finish my routine but had to look back once more to check on my children. The grand smile still lingered on my oldest. The magic was contagious. I continued to smile for the rest of the day.

The Mystery Spot

The babysitter stepped into the living room to check on the children once more before she had to leave for the day. She glanced over each child assuring they were okay and quickly noticed an odd shaped brown spot on the side of my youngest face. Panicking she rushed over to his side and demanded "Brent, what's on your face!" A reply came from the other side of the room...
"Oh that's just the booger I wiped on him." Stated my oldest son.
Now this is the part where the adults are not suppose to laugh but want to so bad.
That is truly brotherly love at it's finest.
The booger was removed and they both lived happily ever after!

Practice Bus Ride

We arrived at the elementary school just in time. All of the other children looked just as excited to be starting kindergarten as mine did. Frantically jumping up and down tugging on their parent's hands, wonder filling their little eyes. We walked in and prepared for the practice bus ride all of the kindergartner's got to go on. They finally called my sons bus number and he jumped up and flew out the door before I had a chance to get out of my seat. I hurried to catch up to him pulling my youngest son along beside me. I think I was more nervous than my soon to be kindergartner was. In Fact, he was not nervous at all! As my oldest boarded the bus with his friends he had made in preschool my youngest started to frantically wave stress-fully saying "Bye Jake, Bye...BYE!" After my oldest was out of sight my youngest turned to me burying his head into my stomach and started to cry.
"What's wrong?" I asked him
"I'm gonna miss my brother!" he muffled back through his tears, then proceeded to cry harder.
"Aw sweetheart, it will be okay. Your brother is coming back."
"But I miss him!"
I comforted my youngest as he cried for the entire twenty mintues my oldest was gone on his practice bus ride. When the bus finally arrived back at the school my oldest stepped off the bus with the biggest smile glowing across his face! My youngest ran up to his brother greeting him with a strong brotherly hug as if he hadn't seen him in years. I smiled to myself. I knew then that I must had done something right for them to have so much love for each other.

A Little One's Pocket

"Boy's! Get your stuff together we're getting ready to go!"
It takes about 30minutes to get the kids from my mother's living room to the back seat of the car. As I was walking the children out the front door of my mother's farm house my youngest son walked up to me with his little hand clinching his shorts pocket tightly and stated in an innocent voice... " THERE'S NOTHING IN MY POCKET MOM!" Now every mother of a little boy knows that what he really meant was "MOM - YOU NEED TO CHECK MY POCKET RIGHT AWAY!"
I had a gut feeling this was going to be interesting.
"Let me see what's in your pocket Brent." I replied.
"No!, There's Nothing in my pocket!"
For fear of what it could be he was hiding I changed the tone of my voice..."LET ME SEE NOW!"
He put his head down in shame, reached into his pocket and pulled out a frog! Oh My...
I tried to keep from laughing then quickly realized that this frog looked familiar. It was the same frog I had seen my son playing with in the yard about two hours before that!
Oh No I thought to myself. Could this frog have been in his pocket for the past 2 hours! We had done a lot in that past two hours; went to the store, went on a walk, the boys wrestled outside.
It was clear that the poor frog was dead but I explained to the kids that the frog was tired and sleeping and that we had to take him back to his home. Brent wanted to keep him forever!
When we finally arrived home the boys rushed inside. As usually I lagged behind because of having to carry things in and cleaning up the car. On my way in the house I passed a frog on the sidewalk. "Run little frog." I whispered. "RUN!"

Rock Out

It's started already! I thought that I had a few more years..."Louder mom!" screams my oldest son from the back of the car. "Turn the music louder!"
"But son it's 7 o'clock in the morning!"
My five year old insisted on blaring the headbanging sound he called music in the car on the way to the babysitters that morning. A trend I knew would not quickly fade. This was a sign of transition from toddler to kid. At least I could tell by the type of music that he liked what kind of kid he was going to be!
As I turned the music louder in the car I realized two things. One; that the music was too loud and became annoying which was a sign of me becoming older (OH NO!). And two; that what you do to your parents really does come back to you. Memories flooded my head of riding with my mother at that age to the babysitter even earlier in the morning and begging my mom to turn up z93!
Did I become my mom? Did my kids become me? And what else is in store for me through the years of my children growing up? ....This might be a bumpy ride.

Let's Go Krogering

This is my endorsement to Kroger's. Not just any Kroger's, the Kroger's Market Place! It's Only The Best Grocery Store In The World!!! It feels odd saying that. I remember being a little girl and hating grocery shopping. "What fun is buying food", I used to think. As I get older and more into cooking I have come to realize that grocery shopping can be fulfilling... if you have the right store! I have had some terrible shopping experiences latley at the local groceries that have lead me to write this post. Over the past month I have bought tons of blueberries and raspberries that all turned out to be MOLDY when I unpacked them at home, and they are not cheap! I have bought bad shrimp, bad meat (that all should not have been bad!), and have had some terrible times even trying to find simple cooking ingredients such as BREAD! Yes I couldn't find the right bread at the store!!! Now my Kroger Market Place has it going on! I have even participated in a wine tasting while grocery shopping at my Kroger. What an absolutely perfect place! They have everything I could ever want! Plus a wine cellar for my wino addiction, a liquor store, and a Starbucks!!! Let's go Krogering Ladies.