People Letters

I was laying awake one night with a problem on my mind. A mommy problem. A decorating problem. Leif wanted his name hanging in his room somewhere. When Leif was a baby, Charles and I had painted pottery letters for his room, but they kept falling, so we took them down and never replaced them. Just that afternoon, Leif had asked that we put his name back up on the wall. I thought of those letter pictures where they take parts of objects in black and white and form letters with shapes. (See picture to the right) But then I thought that wasn't personalized enough. So, I thought of cutting a matte in the shape of LEIF and putting pictures of Leif in the cut outs. Then I thought that the name LEIF has a lot of straight lines, and I bet Leif could form them with his body, if he had some help. So, we tried an L:

Then, we had his "best buddy" Will over and did the whole name:

And Will's whole name:

And then we improved on the idea by having the kids wear all one color and long-sleeves for Gwennan's name:

And Owen's name:

And then our family decided to make a Christmas card out of it:

And, I'm thinking that it might be a great business idea. The kids love it. It shows their physical ability and coordination and expressions at that particular age. I've even had a family who wants to come and do their last name together....so we'll see!

Dinosaur Poop

Leif: Mom! Mom! I think we found some dinosaur poop!
Me: What makes you think that it's dinosaur poop?
Leif: It's round?
Me: Hmm, looks like rabbit poop to me.
Leif: Mom, we don't have a rabbit who poops back here.

Mommy's work out

Throwing the workout mat at each other.

Laying in my "tunnel".

Tuck jumps with Leif. (good picture, Owen!)

This post is in honor of all of the parents out there who work out in their home with their children around.
I do my best to get the kids excited about jumping and working out with me, which sometimes works. Other times, Owen stands next to me sobbing asking for me to hold him, which he suddenly needs as soon as I start my work out. Or, they climb on my back while I'm doing push-ups (something Daddy can do, which I can not!) or lay in my "tunnel" while I do sit-ups.
It's a work out just to try to work out, which works, I suppose. Keep at it mommies! (and daddies!)

Owen hugging me while I do sit-ups and Leif in my "tunnel".

Scorpion-digger

Leif: I want to be the first person to dig up a scorpion.
Me: The first person? I think other people have found scorpions before now.
Leif: They have, who?

...And the fact that I didn't have a list of names ready, meant he might still have a chance at being the first person to ever dig up a scorpion. 

Parable of the Lost Tooth, Part 1

WARNING: This story includes some poop talk. If that sort of thing bothers you, don't have children...and don't read this entry! :)

Here are the photos from whole tooth-chipped tooth (15 month) to chipped-extracted tooth (4.5 years old). That tooth hung on for 3 years longer than we had originally expected, and I'm thankful for that! 

When Leif was 15 months old, he had perfect little baby teeth. One day he slipped and smacked his mouth, chipping his left front tooth. It took months for me to adjust, but the chipped tooth became an endearing part of Leif's look for me. I was glad he hadn't lost it, but we knew it was loose, and didn't know how long it would stay put.

The wounds from Leif's Halloween fall.

In March of 2012, Leif hit his front teeth at a playground and the dentist wanted to extract them both, but we said wait. On Halloween 2012, Leif fell off of someone's front porch (luckily only 2 steps) and his chin landed on the sidewalk. It seemed as though his teeth were sparred until the next day when Leif started to complain about his wiggly chipped tooth. It was EXTREMELY wiggly, and hurting him on a low level constantly, so we knew it was time.


At the dentist they informed me that they give a novocaine shot for extractions, and I knew that would be rough for Leif, but I prayed for the best, which is all I could do at that point, since parents aren't allowed to be with their kids. The dental assistant brought me back to the meeting room and informed me, "The extraction is complete." (Horray!) "But, he swallowed his tooth." (WHAT?!) If Owen wasn't in the room with me, I might have sworn at this point. What came out was, "I'm going to be looking through a LOT of poop this week!" Leif had agreed to the extraction on the condition that we would get a special little box for him to keep his tooth in. This tooth was a treasure- you swallow a diamond, you sift through your poop. I knew it wouldn't be any different for Leif. The assistant then informed me that Leif was MAD, really mad. He didn't want her, he didn't want me, he didn't want ice cream. He told them to just put the tooth back into his mouth. Oh my.

Eating frozen yogurt together after extraction.

At this point it became a blessing that Owen was around because he was the only one Leif still trusted. They held hands leaving the dental office, and climbed into the car together. I mentioned that I wanted to them out for ice cream, and Leif was still quiet. We drove a minute down the road and Leif says, "Mommy, I swallowed my tooth!" And he burst into tears. I reached back and held his hand, and when I couldn't anymore, Owen held it. So, I let him in on my poop idea. "You know Leif, everything that goes in, has to come out the other end." Suddenly his tears were silenced. "We could, if you want, go through your poop for the next couple of days. The dentist says the tooth is really small, but we could try." And I had just written my own smelly future....
(Continued in Part 2)

Parable of the Lost Tooth, Part 2

Continued from Part 1 where I explained how Leif had his tooth extracted and swallowed his tooth, and was extremely distressed until I told him we could search through poop for it.  

At 4:38am our bedroom door flies open. "Mommy, I have to poop!" It was Leif, who NEVER gets up to use the bathroom during the night. "Leif, just go on the potty, there's very little chance your tooth is going to be in this one." But he refused. Charles had the idea that Leif could poop into the old toddler potty, that I never let my kids use because of the gross factor. So, I stumbled downstairs and into the garage trying to find all of the pieces to the potty. The bottom, which also becomes a step stool was out on our back deck. So, in a t-shirt, underwear and socks, I go out INTO THE RAIN to retrieve this final part. The deed was done, covered & stored in our garage for examination in the morning. It was then well after 5am, and our noise woke up Owen, and thus began our day.

"So, did the Tooth Fairy come last night?" I asked Leif when I was awake enough to think. He ran upstairs and comes back beaming with the Sacagawea Dollar I had put under his pillow. "How did you get it under my pillow without me knowing?" He asks. (I've already told him the history of the tooth fairy, including the fact that the parents are actually the fairies.) "Well, I was the Tooth Fairy, so I was super quiet."

Geared up for the search!

We geared up in masks and gloves. We got out newspaper, plastic knives and plastic bags. We spent several days carefully and painfully searching through number twos. Leif vowed never to poop at school again until we found the tooth. But by the end of the week, Leif said he was ready to quit. I told him we could put his Sacagawea Dollar into a tooth treasure chest, and keep it in memory of his lost-lost tooth. He didn't even cry at this suggestion. I thought he was done searching through poop, although he had mentioned several times that he would never give up on the "tooth quest". Apparently that was his name for what we were doing.

I wrote a blog post and I called it "The Lost-Lost Tooth", but I didn't publish it. I was suspicious that Leif was going to have us try again, and I was right. Saturday morning Leif informed me that "the Tooth Quest was not over." So, I warned him that after this, we were not going to look any more, but we could try this one last time. We got geared up and Leif said, "I don't want to do this, but I'm going to." And I said, "me too, let's do this." So we search, and we search, and I really thought we were done when my plastic knife clinked into something. THE TOOTH! Leif exclaims, "Thanks Mommy! Can I go play now?" We laughed and did some high-fives and a happy dance. Leif ran to tell Charles and I ran to find some bleach.

Finally reunited. (post bleaching)

Saturday night we read the parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the prodigal son, and talked about how God would not only search to find us, but he sent Jesus to die for us so that we would never have to be apart again. And He celebrates us, just like we laughed and celebrated the lost tooth that was found.

Lessons you can learn from me:
1. Sometimes being co-dependent can land you elbow deep in poo for days on end, so mourn losses with your kids and move on!
2. If your child swallows anything of value, do NOT feed them peanuts until your search is over. 

Lessons you can learn from Leif:
1. When getting your tooth pulled, sit PERFECTLY still, and maybe your dentist won't drop your tooth down your throat. 
2. Poop stinks. 
3. My mom rocks.

Lessons we should have learned from Charles:
1. It's okay to be sad and say goodbye to things.
2. It's okay for our children to be sad and say goodbye to things.
3. My wife is crazy.

The tooth!

4. Feeling like a lost tooth stuck in poop? Don't worry, Jesus is looking for you and won't stop until the plastic knife clinks against your teeth, or some other part of you that might clink.

The End. 

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

I should record Owen singing more often, since he does it so much. But, last night in the bath he was playing with a boat singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and so I asked him to sing it again for me: