It's king sized!

My back, neck and shoulders have been killing me at night.  I wake up hurting every morning.  I wake up several times during the night to readjust because some appendage has gone numb.  I tell E this and he says maybe it's time for a new mattress set.  Pshaw, I say, this one is only...oh crap this one is almost 15 years old.

Yeah, maybe it is time.  But it's Christmas so I'm not about to buy something so expensive until the rest of our gift receivers are taken care of.

We were in town.  I said, "Do you know how much a mattress costs?"  "No clue, I haven't bought a mattress set in forever."  So suggested that we price them just so we know what we need to get into a new one.

We left with a king sized memory foam Tempurpedic (is that how you spell that?) mattress set.  I've never had a king sized bed but I wanted one.  Why?  I don't know.  It sure would have been nice when G was itty bitty and sleeping in our bed with us but my time machine isn't working anyway so I won't wish too much for that.

When we got home we discovered that one of the boxsprings had a hole in the fabric on top and that the fabric on the sides were torn where it looked like maybe it was dragged across rocks or something.  E called the store and we just have to take that boxspring back the next time we come to town and they'll give us two memory foam pillows for our trouble.  Considering they were running a special that was $400 off the set because they were giving us the boxsprings for free...bwahahahahaha, we scored!  We also managed to leave there with a new set of king size sheets.

I have always bought my blankets/comforters, etc. in king size because I like having the overhang.  I guess they don't make something king sizer than the king size but at least I don't have to buy any new bedding!

So hopefully YAY for good sleeping for the first time in a few months!

A day in the life of...us.

I suppose it's time that G doesn't get to hop in the shower with me on a whim any more.  Because now every shower (it happens rarely but it does happen out of convenience) involves conversations about wieners and vaginas.  Or take off the vah and you get how G says it, gina (not Gina).  Sometimes he says angina.  Hahaha!

Today since he decided to cut his own hair with the scissors I left on the counter and stepped away from for less than two seconds (because I was giving E a haircut)...because G was busy playing Mario Kart so I thought it was safe...he had to get his hair cut to fix his handiwork and I threw him in the shower with E to wash all the errant hairs off of him (he fuh-reaks if they get in his mouth, it's a little comical in a pitiful kind of way).  G was still in the shower so I hopped in really quick instead of getting him out, drying him off, getting him dressed, then getting in myself.  After our typical conversation about how mommy's wiener broke off and how Siren has a gina G asked if he could use my loofah to scrub his butt.  Uh, no but thanks for asking.  I gave his fanny a little pinch and put conditioner in my hair.  My back was to G as I was doing this and he exclaimed, "Wow mommy your butt is so big!"  E was at the counter brushing his teeth and he snickered.  Before I could say a word G said, "And you shut it, Daddy!"  So I snickered.

We're such winner parents aren't we?

I told G it wasn't nice to comment on the size of a woman's butt and he just laughed and made some sing-songy bit up about how big my rear is.

This is after my attempt to fix it without shaving him bald.  Good thing I've already made our Christmas cards huh?

Why yes this is his, "What, Mom?  I don't know what you're talking about," face.  He wears it well don't you think?

We bought a Black Friday deal on a little flat screen TV to put in G's room so he can watch his dvd's in there.  Before you go crazy on what a bad idea that is, hear me out.  The hope is that we can keep him and his toys in his room.  Now whenever he watches a movie or TV he brings stuff out to play with since he can't sit still and it gets strewn about the house.  It's a reasonable idea.  I have literally found that I'm less stressed out when there aren't toys e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e..  No, we're not confining him to his room or anything.  Well his new TV showed up today.  He's super excited about it.  I didn't order a wall mount because I know nothing about flat screen TV's so we can't put it in his room just yet.  I put it in the back room for now.

G came to me while I was working and said, "Where did my TV go?"  I said, "Remember earlier when we were in the shower and you were mean to me and hurt my feelings by saying I had a big butt?"  "Yeah..."  "I sent your TV back because you were mean to mommy."  I was totally joking.  I really was.  He just walked away, didn't even seem upset.  An hour later he came into the office in tears.  "Oh no, what's wrong son?"  "I'm sorry I was mean mommy.  I don't want to be mean, I want to be a good boy."  It took me about 15 seconds to figure out what he was talking about.  I said, "Oh bud, I was just teasing you, I didn't send your TV back!  I was just kidding."

Oh yes, he was upset that he had been mean to me and hurt my feelers.  I'm sure he was equally upset at the thought that his new TV was gone but I like to think that it was more the feelers thing.  I feel like such a jerk.  I showed him his TV and explained to him that it had to stay there until Daddy could mount it on his wall but that I didn't send his TV back and I was just teasing him.  He blubbered for a few minutes and was all better.  And here I am, blogging about it.

our kind of duck hunting

G and I needed to get out the house/away from the yard so I suggested we go down to the pond to see if we could find any ducks.  My mom had left me her wide angle lens and a zoom lens to play with for a month or so until she comes back for Christmas so my suggestion was two fold, play for G and play for mommy.  

I love little boy eyelashes.

He was again fascinated by the cattails but this time he wanted to know why someone went and cut off some cat's tail and put it in the pond.
"It's a plant, it's just called a cattail, it's not really a cats tail."
"But you said cattail."
"Yes, but it's not a real one, it's just a name for it."
"But you said."
"Okay fine, believe what you want."
"Okay I will."

Well I'll be, it started to snow on us!  We had to make a run for the car!

We drove up the river a little bit because, well we weren't really ready to go home yet.

I wore his silly fanny out.  Go mommy!

another reason why I love where I live

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks."
~John Muir

This is the kind of education that we wanted to be able to give G and what better place to do that than here?  People have asked me, "Why in the world do you live clear out there?"  This is why.  We wanted to give him his introduction into a world like this.

New carpet!

YES!  FINALLY!

New carpet!!!!!!! 

We didn't have to pay for it so that makes it even sweeter.

Except that we had to pack up and move everything out of the house.  Well everything except the kitchen and bathrooms and then whatever we could pile in the kitchen and bathrooms.  Big fun.  I hope to never have to do that again for the rest of my life.  It reminded me that we will have to pack and move three years from now though.  Ugh.  Maybe I should start now?  G kept having little freak outs as we moved things out like, "Daddy pwease don't take away my bed."  "I have to buddy but it'll come back in."  "But I need it."  Or my favorite, "Why you take away all my toys?  I need my toys.  I'm so bored."

E picked it out, nice yes?  It feels good under the feet too, so much cushier than the 18 year old carpet we've been walking on for the last three years.  And I think the lighter color will help during our long, dark winters!

Now I stress out about someone (who shall remain nameless) spilling stuff on it.  Or someone (who shall also remain nameless) tracking stuff in on it.  I will NOT buy a carpet cleaner.  I will resist the urge.

Did you notice a familiar face in the pictures?  Besides G that is.  Nana came the Saturday before the carpet came in (Tuesday) to wrangle G while we packed and moved stuff.  It was a very pleasant surprise.  Her and I took G into town on Tuesday (after he cut his foot on a tack strip because heaven forbid he stay out of the way) and we went and watched Wreck It Ralph and did some shopping.  Hella cute movie by the way.  When we got home G was SO exicted about the new carpet.  He ran all over it and rolled on it and kept making exclamations like, "There's new carpet in my house!"  And, "Isn't this the awesomest carpet?"  And, "I love my new carpet."

Tomorrow marks a week and he is still talking about how much he loves it.

Not him again...

Well, America (not popular opinion) you elected him, now figure out how to deal with him.

I voted for Romney.  Yes, I'm saying it right here.  I did.  I would likely have voted Steve Urkel before Obama since I would at least believe Urkel's, "Aw did I do that?" ridiculousness.

momma's boy

Yay!  It's so great to see that it's not a bad thing that I WANT to raise a momma's boy!  Since G is my one and only I want to be close to him and I don't want that to change just because he starts growing armpit hair.
http://www.mamasboymyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/1206_family_mamas_boy.pdf

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/mamas-boy-myth-debunked-sons-close-mom-grow/story?id=15964415#.UIWtV8VG_XQ

Right now he prefers his father, mostly, but he's coming back around to me.  I can let E have this time since G was mine for the first two years...because he was a booby addict.  Since I'm his 24/7 person (E works outside the home 10 + hours a day, 40+ hours a week) G gets tired and bored of me so his daddy is a lot more fun.  Little does G know, I'm the more fun one.  I love this article though and I hope as G gets older I'm able to not feminize him (not too worried about that because he's 100% boy) and yet give him qualities that are not gender specific.  Like strength.  It is feminine and masculine, we all should have it.  It would be great if I could teach him the kind of feminine strength that allows us to bear children with little complaint and eradicate the man cold strength that his masculine side tends him towards, but I don't know that I can teach that.  I can't see myself ever turning G away from my affection just to toughen him up.  If I was willing to hug a daughter in the same situation why in the world wouldn't I hug a son?  Nah.  He's my only, I don't want to ever push him away.

K.I.S.S.I.N.G.

This is my approach to homeschooling G.  Remember the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid) theory?  I'm pretty sure that's what Albert was talking about.

I've gotten a lot of advice from other homeschooling moms, the ones I seek out are the been there, done that momma's mostly and their advice is pretty much the same, adapt to your child.  So there are some days where we do a lot of directed learning but on those days I let G lead the learning mostly.  What do I mean by that?  If he says, "I'm going to draw a triangle," I sit down with him and talk about shapes and show him how to draw different shapes and we talk about how many sides each shape has, etc. and then we'll look through a book or two, or a magazine and try to find a certain shape in the pictures.  Same type of thing for letters except we work on the phonics of the letter he's interested in and we look for things in books or magazines that start with that letter, etc..

Right now G is playing Super Mario Kart on the Wii.  I consider it learning.  "WHA?" you say?  Sure it is.  He's learning focus and he's using his hands in a fine motor skills way.  And I ask him questions like, "Uh on is says you're in 9th place, how many people are behind you?"  He doesn't always come up with the right answer but it shows me he understands "behind" (or "ahead"), etc..

We played Wildlife Bingo last night (thanks Aunty Sarah).  Sure it's a game and it's about matching because we draw a card and it has a picture of an animal on it and he has to see if he has one of those animals on his big play card and then mark it.  He asks every time it's an animal that he's not familiar with if I'll read the facts about that animal which are printed on the card we drew.  Yep, you bet buddy, I will always read the facts on the card.  So he's learning about the critters in the environment but then he's also learning how to watch for his Bingo.  A few times he had the 5 spaces in a row but I didn't tell him.  He has to count to understand he got them and he learns about vertical and horizontal and even the diagonal.

Everything is learning.  Poor kid can't watch a movie without me asking him 20 questions about things happening in the movie.  He can't color/draw without me asking him to do specific things (i.e. where do you draw the tongue on your smiley?) or challenging him to do something new/different.  Next school year we are going to start the K12 program, kindergarten level and I hope we're both ready for it!  And I certainly hope that K12 is a big believer in K.I.S.S. too!

G's Halloween

Oh my stars it's nights like last night that make me fall in love with this little man all over again.

I'm not a Halloween person.  I think it's a ridiculous holiday on so many levels.

But I'd asked G awhile ago if he wanted to go trick or treating for Halloween and he was ambivalent about it.  I went ahead and ordered him an Optimus Prime costume when he saw one at Walmart and got excited about it.  Then as the day approached the more cartoons were on about Halloween and the more excited G got.

E and I decided to take G to a Trunk or Treat in Stevensville (about 1.25 hours from here) instead of to the mall where everyone just shuffles along in a line and holds out their buckets.  It's an insane amount of people and even though it is warm and safe it's just no fun.  Well E got tied up at work and so it was just me and G instead.  I drove all the way into Stevi and as we approached the parking lot where the Trunk or Treat was happening I started to worry because there weren't many cars.  I just assumed (foolishly) that a small town would mean that everyone would kind of participate but that was not the case.  Not even a dozen cars there.

Oy.  Well we came all this way so let's do it.  G wanted nothing to do with the trunk or treat.  He wouldn't talk to anybody and wanted as far away from the candy passer-outers as he could get.  He was being a brat, to put it simply and I warned him once that if he didn't at least try to trick or treat (remembering that he wanted to go) then we'd leave and go home.  We got throught the cars and about that time I noticed that the parking lot was at the front of a large residential area.  I asked G, "Want to trick or treat these houses?"  "YES!"  And so we did.   

Every house he walked up to the door, knocked and waited patiently (that can't be said for many of the other little hellions we saw).  The door would open and he'd say, "Trick or treat!" and hold out his little bucket.  Then for every person that put candy in his bucket he'd immediately say, "Thank you!" and even sometimes, "Happy Halloween!"  I was so proud of him, I never had to prod, he just said thank you!

And when a homeowner had a dog G would get doubly excited and ask, "May I pet your doggy?"  The ones in costume he went crazy over.  At some of the houses he'd ask, "Do you have a dog here?" Goof.  We wandered a large portion of this neighborhood and G loved every second of it.  He wasn't pushy like most of the other children but he got plenty of candy and had so much fun.  He'd tell me when we'd see a house without the porch light on, "Oh dey runned out of candy so dey turned off the lights!"  And he'd say, "Let's check out the next house!"  I loved watching him get to do something that was new to him and exciting to him. 

The funniest part is, he's not much of a candy eater!

It was unusually warm for the end of October in Montana so G was able to wear a pair of long johns under his chintzy costume and he stayed warm.  I remember almost always having to contend with snow and having to wear a winter coat over my costume so this was a nice change.  G and I had pizza at a place in town and then came home. 

He had to call his daddy while we were trick or treating so he could tell him all about what he was missing.  I think E was pretty bummed he had to stay behind.  And G called Aunty Sarah on the way home to tell her all about it too.  Then he said to me, "That was so big fun, mommy, fank you for the trick or treating."  

I'm so proud of him for being him!