Soccer

Fall season for soccer has ended. Both Alli and Andrew were on teams with great coaches and great teammates, yet I just can't decide if my kids enjoyed themselves. Sometimes they looked like this:



But I'd say the majority of the time, mid-game, they looked like this:





So what do you think? Big thank yous to their coaches for their patience and training. I guess I can chalk it up for another "good, learning experience" for them, right? They might never be the next David Beckham . . . but run, children, run! At least LOOK like you are playing! I pace my house in anticipation for Spring soccer.

11 Sweet Years

Happy Anniversary Baby
I love you even more now than then.

Boy Brains

I decided long ago (whilst growing up with brothers) that boys were just plain mean. Then as I got into my dating years, I decided that boys were just plain weird. It wasn't until I had two boys of my own that compassion for this gender really started to set in as I realized that they honestly and truly are missing part of the gray stuff between the ears.

Why is it that they are completely unable to determine that everything they do has a consequence? How do you teach a child to "look before you leap"? I am awe-struck every day as I watch my boys (4 and 2) do things that a normal person, under any stretch of the word, would stop and say, "oh, dude, hey let's think about this." I've compiled a list of things that surely they must ask themselves nano-seconds before the action actually takes place. What should follow is the thought of what will happen should they follow through with so-planned action. With boys, that is the element that is missing. An alarm should sound every time they get those wild eyes coupled with wide-spread grins, and throaty giggles. For me they have. And this is why:

"What would happen if . . ."

- I threw this entire box of Disney Trivia cards, or dominoes, as high and far across the room as I can? (Better yet, what would Mom do?)
- I ran top-speed, head first into (what looks like) a soft couch? (Unfortunately, the 10+ year old couch if bare bones with only the illusion of puffiness.) I know this fact as I've repeated the same action countless times, yet don't learn from it.
- I flew, again face-first, down the slide while baby brother sat unawares at the bottom? Consequence = bloody lips and heads
- I ran and body-slammed my Dad who is sound asleep on the floor?
- I climbed to my sister's top bunk, wrinkle free and perfectly made for the day, and chucked every item around each corner of the room?
- I took a mouthful of mom's arm and decided to bite HARD?
- I sucked on the tube of toothpaste?
- I held sister's long, red hair ribbon over the toilet bowl, directly in the stream of my pee. (This one took coordination, I'll give him that!)
- I jumped Superhero high on this Pogo-Stick, a thing, I might add, I know absolutely nothing about? (Anyone who has seen his now dead, black front tooth is witness to the consequence of this one.)
- I threw this towel straight up into the ceiling fan spinning on high-speed?
- I ran straight for my brother, who is running straight for me? Consequence = split, bloody lip and a trip to InstaCare.
- I squished my banana/muffin/cold cereal/pbj sandwich/syrup-filled pancake with my fingers and better yet, wiped it into my hair?

- I dipped my Cheetos into my Kool-Aid?
- I took handfuls of dirt out of my mother's only potted plant and flung it across the formal living room, oh and smeared the black soil into the couch?
- I poured this bucket of water over baby brother's head?
- I dropped a penny or a toy or a tissue down the A/C registers?
- I quickly pushed my plate of dinner that mom just dished out, so it slid off, spilling all over the newly-mopped floor?
- I dropped my pants and ran through my aunt's wedding dinner in my underwear, laughing all the way?

Nope. Nothin' in the noggin.
So why is it that, rather than getting totally exasperated, nay furious, with them, I find myself trying to stifle a giggle? Then I might possibly take them tenderly into my arms and say, "Well, honey, what did you think would happen?" Okay, so more often than not the whole tenderness thing goes by the wayside and I find myself clamped-jaw, yelling, mad at their inability to think, and then totally and completely full of remorse as I realize that this time I did not think before I acted. Could this brain-dead behavior be hereditary? Do boys just know how to melt their mother's hearts this way because we can relate to them so well on this "look and leap" theory? Either way it doesn't matter to me. I'm just darned glad I have them.