Poison what?

Any woman who lives in a household of boys will appreciate this story. We live in a wooded area and to my boys there is nothing better than going out in the woods with their dad to cut down trees. Whenever they do this manly-man task they always wear long pants and shirts (no matter how hot it is) to prevent being exposed to poison ivy but it never fails, they always get some funky rash! Last summer Nick got the mother-load of poison ivy - I'm not kidding - he looked like he had a bad case of leprosy. This year is no different except now all three of my boys (Yes, that includes my husband) have poison ivy (Nick), poison sumac (Mike) and Jay has something that I can't put a name on, I can only describe what he looks like - a teenager at the start of puberty with puffy eyes. How all three of them ended up with their dreaded rashes (after being in full gear) I'll never know. However, these past two weeks I've had my fill of it. I've had the "pleasure" of watching Mike's leg ooze from the sumac, taking Nick to the doctor for treatment and learning that he's obsessed with rubbing calamine lotion all over a particular body part - even though the poison ivy didn't spread to that area - Nick is proving to be another typical boy, infatuated with his you know what. And to top it off, Jay's unknown rash has spread to his forehead and tummy but doesn't itch - And to think those boys give me a hard time for not helping them when they cut down trees - Who would take care of their funky rashes if I also got poison ivy or worse yet, poison sumac? Cutting down trees and applying ointment to myself is not my idea of a good time. Hee, Hee.

Brotherly "love"

Since having Nick and seeing how the younger child takes so much "abuse" from the older child I have apologized to my sister profusely. Being four years older than Kim I took every opportunity to terrorize her. And bless her heart, she rarely narked on me. Jay is no different than I was - only more physical! Jay is either so nice to his brother or so terrible to him - there is no in between. Nick's favorite animals in the world are penguins and giraffes. Just the other morning, while in the car (which are where most of our fiascos occur) he asked Nick if he was aware of the "fact" that giraffes eat penguins. Immediately, Nick started wailing which prompted Jay to start calling him a baby which makes Nick cry even more - Okay, so you get the picture. It's really just another typical drive to school in the Siebert van. But every so often I get a glimmer of what a sweet older brother Jay can be. The other day we were at the beach (in our subdivision) when a neighbor boy started calling Nick a baby. Jay came to Nick's defense and told this boy to knock it off, his brother wasn't a baby - which was interesting to me since Jay calls Nick a baby at least 10 times a day - but that aside it was good to see Jay sticking up for his little brother. It's that old truth that you can talk nasty about your family as much as you want but nobody else can!
Today Nick wasn't feeling well and was crying (I know I'm mentioning Nick crying a lot in his blog but really he doesn't cry too often) and Jay came up to him and got him to stop crying by telling him a hilarious story, which made all of us laugh. Nick stopped crying and broke out in gales of laughter from hearing his brother's story (which was about farting, of course). Then there was the time when Jay was four and Nick was a baby. I had taken Jay with me for Nick's shots. When Nick got his shots and started wailing Jay broke out in song, "You are my sunshine."
As I've aged I have realized there is nothing like a sibling. I tell Jay all the time that when he and Nick are grown and Mike and I are dead (I know, I know, terrible thought but it's true) there is no one who will know his history and where he came from more than Nick and no one who will laugh more with you over those crazy childhood stories!

Bedtime blahs

For about a month now Jay has had a really hard time settling down at bedtime. I really don't know what is going on with him. Both my kids have never had an issue at bedtime - I always joke that they zap every ounce of energy I have during the day that when bedtime rolls around, I've paid my dues and thankfully they both go to bed great. Jay has a really hard time with transitions and the start of school stresses him out so perhaps that is the problem but he's complained of his legs hurting a lot lately - Growing pains! Last night I put Jay to bed and when I went to check on him at 10:30 (which is way past my bedtime) he was in his closet, wrapped up in his sheets like a cacoon. But the real kicker is he had taken every last shirt in his closet off the hangers and made a "bed" with his clothes! It was like a bomb of clothing had exploded all over his closet and a big giant caterpillar had laid his home on them. Jay is really learning the definition of consequences these days so even though it was 10:30 I woke him up and he had to hang up all his shirts - and Yes, I did end up helping him as I didn't want to be up one second longer. By the time we finished it was 10:45 and his gerbils had kicked it into high gear. It was like they were building their own gerbil city, they were so loud. Jay was wide awake at that point and was complaining that his gerbils were preventing him from falling back to sleep. The problem solver that I am (I mean that sarcastically) I slid the cage out into the hallway. At 11:00 I finally got into bed. Mike and I laid our heads down on our pillows when we heard the gerbils in full force building their city. We listened to this nonsense for a few minutes - realzing we were never going to fall asleep. I trudged out of bed, headed back upstairs and moved the gerbils into Jay's room - where he was finally sleeping peacefully! Needless to say, it can only get better tonight.

Football

My 5 lbs. baby boy is playing football and seems to be loving it. Just this week they started practicing in full gear and that is when Jay discovered that football really can be fun. Any opportunity Jay gets to physically assault someone, he's all over it - and I mean that in the nicest way. The rougher you play with him, the better. The fact that he is given permission to run into people and try to knock them over truly gives him great joy!

Nick's first day of Pre-K

The title of this blog is a little incorrect. This is Nick on his first day of his last year of Pre-K. This will be his second year at the same school, with the same teachers. He loves it and so do I. He catches the bus with his brother every morning. The picture below is the group of kids at Nick's daycare (where he goes after school) waiting for the bus. I love waiting on the country road, chatting with all the kids before school. These years before Nick enters Kindergarten are truly the best years of my life - No pressure, just simple, fun preschool with a four year old boy who thinks Preschool is the best!

Cleaning with Nick

I had to get the house cleaned this morning. Mike and Jay left to run errands, Nick decided to stay behind and help me clean and trust me, I use that term loosely. Just to get started he decided to build himself an umbrella fort, right in the foyer. Clearly, cleaning was off to a good start.

Nick decided to use the vacuum tube as a bar-bell. As you can see he was really doing a "great" job helping me vacuum.

I sent Nick upstairs to retrieve the dirty laundry. He decided it would be a better idea to dump the laundry all over the floor and play in the basket instead.

Chick magnet

Tonight I was fixing Jay's hair which he hates (but it was sticking up, driving me nuts). This is how our conversation went:
Jay: "Mom, I don't like it when people mess with my hair."
Me: "Oh Jay you just wait until you meet some girl one day who wants to run her fingers through your hair - I promise you, you will like it then."
Jay: "I'm not a chick magnet, mom!"

I just had to laugh!

Oh how the tide turns

I often notice that when one of my children is driving me crazy, the other one isn't. The Lord really doesn't give you more than you can handle! It's completely random too. Currently Jay is driving me crazy and Nick is nothing but smooth sailing which makes me laugh because I thought I was going to lose my mind with Nick all last year (Yes, we all "loved" age 3 with Nick). And while I was going crazy with Nick, Jay was a dream. It just makes sense that now the tables have turned. For example: Jay and Lauren have been thick as thieves since she was born. Nick, on the other hand, not so much. Nick and Lauren haven't always gotten along but wha-la, suddenly Nick is all about Lauren and Lauren is really liking it! Last night Lauren came over and Nick didn't have a chance to give her a hug when she left. After she was long gone, he started crying. My other son (who was always Lauren't biggest fan) acts half annoyed with her now -What the??? Today Nick cuddled up next to me and wrapped his arms around me and kissed up all the way up my arm, told me I was the best mom ever and if he had a favorite giraffie I would be it. Once again, What the??? I'm completely baffled. For now I'll just suck the life out of Nick. Ha! The tide will turn, give it time, I'm sure I'll be blogging about something sweet Jay has said or done (although tonight, I got nothing) and something obnxious Nick has done.

3rd grade, here we come

Jay's first day of 3rd grade. He looks so old and grown up to me but I know next year when I post his picture on the first day of 4th grade that I'll say the same thing.

Brothers. Next year, Nick will enter Kindergarten and will be starting school on the exact same day as Jay. But Nick doesn't have too long to wait. He starts Prek on Monday, Aug. 23.

I had a small preview into the life of a junior high boy today. I had to pick up 2 junior high boys as a favor to a friend. When both boys got in the car I immediately said to them in my bright, sun-shiny voice, "Hey Guys, how was your day?" In unison and without hesitation both of them replied, "BORING!" Ha. I just had to laugh.

I am nervous about 3rd grade for Jay but then I'm always nervous at the beginning of the school year. School is really hard for him and September and October are always brutal months. I'm hoping football will help with some of the school frustrations. Thankfully Jay has an excellent teacher again this year. I'm sure he'll do just fine!

Fun at the zoo

My boys, actually getting along!

Kim and Lauren feeding the birds. Kim and I often joke that we don't know how Lauren can be related to us as she is afraid of everything. She did enjoy feeding the birds as long as mom stayed close.

Jay feeding the birds!

Nick attracting a family of birds!

The three ya-hoos as Kim and I affectionately call them! Lauren, age 2 1/2, Nick, age 4 and Jay, age 8. Wow, they are all growing fast. And next year we'll have a fourth to add to the clan as Kim is expecting in March.

All smiles holding the centipede.

Jay's turn!

Mom, Kim and I decided to take the kids to the zoo as our last summer hoorah! Kim and Mom both head back to work next week. Jay starts third grade on Wednesday and Nick starts Pre-k on Monday, Aug. 23 so it's back to reality for all of us. The kids really enjoyed themselves and minus the unbearable heat we all had a good time!

Consequences

Lately I've felt like my blogs have been kind of lame. Usually my boys give me something funny to blog about. Tonight they provided me with some content that isn't so funny but perhaps will be entertaining to the reader, especially if you're a parent.
Jay and Nick's behavior in the car is beyond RIDICULOUS! I put a lot of the blame on myself as I have let their behavior get out of hand. Jay can't keep his hands to himself and Nick has learned to fight back and the volume between the two of them has reached an all time high. It's the same song and dance everytime we get in the car - I threaten, the boys lose things like their new bikes or Jay's DS, etc..., etc....And I might note, Mike doesn't have a problem with them in his truck and they sit even closer together! But as usual he corrected any problem before it reached the point of insanity, which is usually the case with mom, a.k.a ME! Are you figuring out who the softer parent is? Years of parenting has taught me it doesn't pay to the "softie" parent. But I disgress. Jay did not have football practice tonight so we were going to Kim's to swim. I told the boys as soon as we got in the van that if there was any fighting we would head home. We didn't even make it halfway to Kim's when I heard slapping going on between them and then crying. I simply stopped the van, turned around and headed home. By the time we got home, Jay was in tears. I certainly wasn't going to let the boys go home and ride their bikes (in other words have fun) so their consequence was they both had to clean my van. Nick cleaned the tires and Jay scrubbed the side mirrors and washed all the windows. Better luck next time, hopefully the boys realized it would have been much more fun to swim in Aunt Mimi's pool verses cleaning their mother's van.

New bikes

The boys recently got new bike's. Well, Nick's isn't so new but he doesn't care, he likes it just the same. Mike's parents bought Nick's bike at a garage sale and Mike put a bell on it. Grandma and Grandpa kept the bike at their house until Mike bought the bell. Apparently, Nick rang the bell so much over the weekend (when he spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa) that my mother in law had had her fill of bell ringing and sent the bike home!

Jay has had a bike for quite some time but last spring we would find his bike laying around the yard, in the timber, etc...., in other words Jay would just drop it wherever he felt like. We told Jay that in order to get a new bike he had to treat the one he had with some respect. Mike and I watched all summer as he started putting his bike away in the garage and treating it better. Mike went out last week and got the new bike. Jay is one happy 8 year old boy!

Chicago, here we come!

Sorry it's been so long since I blogged. It's been a crazy week. Yesterday Mike and I went to visit our good friend, Mary and her boyfriend, John, in Chicago. First off, we really liked John! Mary has been dating him about 8 months and we think we might be hearing some wedding bells in the distance! Any-who, during our visit I was able to make a quick trip to Trader Joe's to purchase my favorite wine, go to Crate & Barrell (which Mike refers to as Crap & Barrell) and we hit the Garmin store for Mike. We ended the evening at Wildfire Grill and it was excellent food.

Summertime Memories

I work for a company that provides their employees with an awesome water park!! It is a HUGE benefit. The boys and I don't use it quite as often as we would like because we live out of town but we have used it more this summer than last summer. We really enjoy it. This water park has a vantastic dining area where you can order hot food at very reasonable prices. We tend to always eat our meals right at the park. Last night I took the boys and we ordered our dinner. As we waited there was a Disney movie playing in the dining area. The boys were hooked and I was relieved not to have to corral them while we waited for our food. However, something did occur to me. My boys were watching T.V. at a pool in an air conditioned dining area while we waited for our hot dinner. What the??? I remember when I was a kid my friend, Melissa, and I would ride our bikes to the pool. We'd listen to the 80's music and swim until our hearts were content (taking the 15 minute breaks every hour, of course). Sometimes, if we were lucky we would get a snack. We would wait in the small, hot concession area in a long line and get crappy cotton candy but we didn't know the difference. Perhaps my summertime pool memories might difference from Jay and Nick's someday, one thing is certain, all of us LOVE spending time at the pool! The boys will just remember their hot fudge sundae's from the water park and I remember the crappy cotton candy.

Conclusion of summer

As the weekend comes to an end I can't believe it's Aug. 1! I realize that my mom and sister, who are both teachers, are not looking forward to the start of school but I am!! Usually this time of year Jay prowls the house like a caged animal, the first sign that he's ready to go back to school. Today, the boys headed outside with Mike and during a 30 minute time span both boys came in and out of the house 7 times. It's like neither of them can settle. And I am also utterly exhausted. As fun as this summer was and continues to be, I'm beat! Even I am ready to get back to our regular routine.

The picture above is of Nick on Saturday morning. Every Saturday morning his first request is always for pancakes. Then Jay devised a make shift carrier for his gerbils. As you can see Mickey and Minnie are still doing well, but that hasn't stopped Jay from asking about what his next pet will be. Ha!