Five Little Acorns

I'm thinking it's about time to clean up this blog!

Hope your Christmas was merry!

Heard Around The...Christmas Tree

Reese: "Hey-stop that right now! I'M fighting the soldier. You fight the angel!"

Heard Around The House (the Who Are You version)

Cole: "You know, Reese, sometimes I can't tell if you are Cole or Reese."

*******

Reese (sigh): "Cole, do you know what I wish I was?"
Cole: "What?"
Reese: "Human."

Breakfast Fare

Quote of the Day:

"Even things that look disgusting can make you bigger. But not sweet things. Sweet things keep you tiny." --Reese, age 5

(ages, for those who have asked: Cole 7, Reese 5, Reuben 3, Sean 1)

Our Mom, by Cole, Reese and Reuben

What is something your mom always says to you?
Cole: I love you.
Reese: (no answer)
Reuben: Let's go!

What makes your mom happy?
Cole: That her kids love her.
Reese: Happy face.
Reuben: Medicine.

What makes your mom sad?
Cole: When we disobey.
Reese: Being naughty.
Reuben: Sick.

How does your mom make you laugh?
Cole: By telling us jokes!
Reese: I don't know, jokes?
Reuben: Madagascar 2 caterpillar.

What did your mom like to do when she was a child?
Cole: Puzzles.
Reese: Play games.
Reuben: Play with my boys.

How old is your mom?
Cole: 40.
Reese: 22.
Reuben: 5.

How tall is she?
Cole: 6 feet.
Reese: 50 feet.
Reuben: Big.

What is your mom's favorite thing to do?
Cole: Take care of her children.
Reese: Pick berries.
Reuben: Play together.

What does your mom do when you're not around?
Cole: Take a rest.
Reese: I have no idea because when I go somewhere, I don't know what you do.
Reuben: The computer.

If your mom became famous, what would she be famous for?
Cole: Having 5 kids! (yes, we have one on the way!)
Reese: (no answer)
Reuben: Treasure!

What is one thing your mom is good at?
Cole: Taking care of her children.
Reese: The computer.
Reuben: Computer.

What is one thing your mom is not very good at?
Cole: Building houses.
Reese: Legos.
Reuben: Going.

What does your mom do for a job?
Cole: Takes care of her children.
Reese: To tell us to do the dishwasher.
Reuben: Doing the dishwasher!

What is your mom's favorite food?
Cole: Salad.
Reese: Those little cabbages, what are they called? (Brussel sprouts?) Yeah, yeah, brussel sprouts!
Reuben: Eggs and toast.

What makes you proud of your mom?
Cole: That you take care of us.
Reese: That you can feed us.
Reuben: Make mine birthday cake.

If your mom was a cartoon character, who would she be?
Cole: Batgirl.
Reese: A space man.
Reuben: Star wars.

What do you and your mom like to do together?
Cole: Do school.
Reese: Go to the Daisy Cafe.
Reuben: Play.

How are you and your mom the same?
Cole: We both have big feet.
Reese: Our skin is the same.
Reuben: Same kissing.

How are you and your mom different?
Cole: I'm young, and you are old.
Reese: You have spider veins, and I don't.
Reuben: You change into Dad.

How do you know your mom loves you?
Cole: Because she always has.
Reese: Because I always think about it.
Reuben: Me be special.

What does your mom love most about your dad?
Cole: He's handsome.
Reese: He gives you kisses a lot.
Reuben: Him special.

Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
Cole: To a fancy restaurant.
Reese: Red Robin for her birthday.
Reuben: At Robin.


Isn't having children enlightening?

Storytime

I think one of my favorite things about school this year has been the narrations: the boys create, and I write down their creations. Wonderful. Even a child that cannot write can tell a fabulous story! Here are a few for your reading enjoyment.

REESE'S PET, by Reese

Once upon a time there lived Reese. He walked along and found a little pond. He saw a tadpole and he picked it up with a bucket. It was full of water and he put in the tadpole. The end.

REESE'S SEA STORY, by Reese

Once upon a time there was a turtle. He was swimming along. He scared hisself by getting caught by a net. A octopus saw the turtle! The octopus swam to the turtle. A froggy jumped down in the water. The froggy got to the turtle first. The froggy freed the turtle. And then it was the regular sea again. The end.

THE KNIGHT'S FIRST BATTLE, by Reese

First some knights wanted to do a battle. They saw lots of other people doing battle and they really wanted to do one. The knights looked around for some bad guys. And the queen said, "Go find some bad guys." The knights looked around in the bushes. And then they found bad guys. And then they raised their shields and helmets and spears and swords and stuff like that. And they were finally fighting about a green jewel and a red jewel.

RED POEM, by Cole
Red is a strawberry
Red is a raspberry
Red is a jewel
Red is an apple
Red smells like a flower
Red feels like softness
Red looks like a red rose
Red is for the most wondrous thing you can find in the earth.

GOLD POEM, by Reese

Gold is a goldfish
Gold is a jewel
Gold is gold
Gold is a banana
Gold smells like bananas
Gold feels like a banana
Gold looks like a yellow cup
Gold bee.

THE QUEEN'S FIGHT, by Cole

One day there was a castle. And there was a good king that was two hundred years old. And he had two million knights guarding the castle. And one day a dragon came. It was a big, red, evil one. And he took the queen. And he took her two hundred miles away to the great evil castle. Which the evil king lived in the tallest building. And then below the big building, there was four small buildings on each corner of the big castle. And the dragon flew up to one of the small buildings which ten knights came to take the queen to the big building. And the stairs went around, and around, and around....there was four hundred steps. And they finally got the queen to the evil king's throne. Which the evil king said to her, "You are going in the dungeon for forty years. And when it's been forty years, if you are still alive, then we'll let you back to the castle. But if you are dead, then we will throw you in a pile of skeletons."

So they locked her up in jail with two hundred different locks. She stayed there for forty years. After forty years, the king had no queen at all, and then a woman came to the gate. It was the beautifulest girl the king had ever seen. And she said, "Your wife in jail is going to stay in there forever and I am the new queen." So the king married her and they had a lovely wedding. And there was a big feast at the end.

And then, ten minutes later, the real queen came home. And she said, "Let this queen go away!"

And suddenly the new queen turned into a bad guy witch. And the king was shocked to see how ugly this princess looked like! And the king called the guard as loud as he could. And they took her away. And the old queen said "I am the real queen." And then they lived happily ever after.
The end!

Remembering Creation

Quote of the Day:

"I can't remember what it feeled like when God was making me." --Reese, age 4

Of Cow Pies & Mullets

Playmobil Quote of the Day:



"What's that in your hand, Mom? Oh....two poops and a hair?" --Reese, age 4

Haircut Time!

Quote of the Day:

"But I don't wanna look handsome; I just wanna look like I do now!" --Reese, age 4

We Love Indiana: Dead Or Alive

Quote of the Day:

"I put my special legos in this box. My guy, the grandpa and the whip are in there so that I can play Indiana Jones. The skeleton is in there so that I can play Indiana Bones." --Reese, age 4

Heard Around The House

Cole: "I just love to close my eyes. Then I can daydream all I want about Indiana Jones."



Reese: "Reuben, are you a Nazi?"

The Alphabet And The Sea

Quote of the Day:


"MOM! MOM! I JUST DISCOVERED SOMETHING! A "U" is an upside-down octopus head, and an octopus head is an upside-down "U"!" --Reese, age 4, Lover of All Things Of The Sea

Heard Around The House

"I don't like babies. Reuben is still a baby. Well, Sean is a baby, and I like him.....but I don't like other babies." --Reese, age 4

Today

Today, when I was putting Reese down for a nap, I found a meatball under his pillow.

A meatball.

Under his pillow.

And if you think that's weird, wait until you hear the conversation that followed.

Me: "Reese, you can't have meatballs down here."

Reese: "But Cole has one."

Me: "He does? Where?"

Reese: "Under his bed."

Me: "Will you get it for me?" (I was, after all, holding the baby. Yeesh.)

Reese climbs around under Cole's bed and rescues a perfect little meatball from the frame of the bed. A place where I would have never, never found it. He hands it to me and I trek upstairs, trying not to laugh my head off.

I walk into the living room.

Me: "Cole, I brought your meatball upstairs and it's on the kitchen counter. No more hiding food in your room, okay?"

Cole: "Well, okay. But we do usually remember it."

What?

Me: "How many other foods have you hidden down there?"

Cole: "Just one. It was a cookie."

Okay, now cookies--that I can understand. But meatballs? Reese said they named them Midnight Meatballs and were saving them until after lights out.

Today might just be my weirdest day as a mother!

Hunting for Crabs

Quote of the Day:

"Mom, at the beach house we saw a crab that had been shot with a gun." --Reese, age 4

Raining

Quote of the Day:

"Sometimes, it's raining somewhere,
and sometimes, it's raining nowhere." --Reese, age 4

Eden and The Dinner Table

Quote of the Day:

"Getting sent out of that garden is like having to get down from the dinner table for not using manners. I don't like that" --Reese, age 4

Happy Birthday Reese!

We are celebrating Reese's 4th birthday today. That means that the last Leap Year was the year he was born--and he was just one day shy of being a Leap Year baby. My actual due date was February 29th, and I giggled to myself all during my pregnancy whenever I told someone I was due on Leap Day and their response was, "When is that?"



When Cole was nearing his second birthday, Justin and I decided that maybe it was time to have another baby. Cole himself had been such a surprise, born just 9 months and 11 days after our wedding, and it had taken quite a bit of finesse to scramble around and reorganize our life as newlyweds to prepare for a new little life. Now, nearly two years later, we were settling into our routines and thought it was time for Cole to have a sibling.



That first month, I didn't get pregnant, and I remember feeling devestated. Certainly babies were not things that could really be "planned"! The timing was obviously out of our hands, and we wondered if this time, we would be forced to wait.

But no--the second month came along, and we discovered--elatedly--that a baby was on its way. Now, when I think back and remember my disappointment that first month, I feel almost panicked, realizing that if we had conceived right away, we wouldn't have gotten REESE!

Here's some fun Reese-filled trivia for you.

*Reese is the only one of my boys that is a Pisces, like me. If it hadn't have been a Leap Year, my due date would have been March 1st--which is the same due date my mother had when she was expecting me. That's a little weird.

*Reese was my shortest labor and my largest baby--nearly ten pounds--a fun combination that enticed me to try an epidural the third time around.

*Reese has the fairest skin of the boys (white like his mama) and looks the most like the Baer side. Cole told me once (when he was 3 and Reese was a baby) that only he and Daddy could go in the restaurant, because they were dark, and Reese and I needed to stay in the car because we were white. I was speechless!

*Reese began speaking actual words at the astonishing age of 7 1/2 months, but he didn't walk until after his first birthday. I think he figured that there was no where worth going, since Mom was usually where the food was. At just over a year, he could put away an entire Costco hot dog and would ask for more. By eighteen months, his confessed favorite food was "meat". He could eat steak with the best of them! I would take him to playdates and all of the other kids would play so hard that we couldn't get them to eat....and Reese would eat so much that we couldn't get him to play. Ah yes, a boy after his Mama's own heart....

*Before the age of two, Reese had discovered two of his favorite things were drawing and building Legos. Not the big, bulky, toddler Legos--the real deal, folks. He would sit before a pile of pieces and create the most wonderful machines, spaceships, monsters. And the thing is: they would actually LOOK like what they were, and have functional parts. I still can't build anything worth beans out of Legos, unless I have a pattern I'm following. And as for the drawings--he would scribble something on his paper, study it for a few minutes, then suddenly gasp, and yell, "IT'S A.....(fill in the blank)!" He would proceed to fill in the details to finish out the whale, or carrot, or whatever. His creativity unlocked something inside of Cole, who up until that time would never try something unless he knew he could do it perfectly. Cole had always refused to pick up a crayon or marker because he recognized that he didn't know how to draw a car, or a hat, or a dog. So he wouldn't try. Watching Reese create out of nothing, and find such joy in it, finally gave Cole a desire to try without worry of failure. To this day, two of their favorite things to do together are draw and play with Legos.

*As a toddler, Reese also had a habit for creating more-succinct names for things (in my opinion) than their actual names. My two favorites to this day are "Hawkyboarding" for skateboarding (in honor of the revered Tony Hawk), and "Suicycles" for motorcycles.

Reese's birth was unique. He came quickly when no one even knew we were in the hospital. My grandfather had just died a few days prior, and his memorial service was planned for the 28th--the day Reese was born. When I suspected I was in labor, I didn't bother calling our families, because I knew they would be unable to make the trip to the hospital due to their obligations at the service. By the time we arrived at the Childbirth Center, in the wee hours of the morning, we discovered that delivery was imminent. I still remember phoning my parents, waking them with my call, trying to explain to them that Baby was HERE! I finally had to hold the phone up to my crying newborn before they would believe me.

Reese's birthday is sacred to me because I can't celebrate the birth of my son without remembering my grandfather. I think of them both whenever I hear Jack Johnson's song "If I Could", about the baby that was born just as his friend lay dying. The lyrics say, "one goes out, one comes in"....

So Happy Birthday, Reese: We are richer for having you in our lives. And Papa, we are thinking of you too, and someday we will introduce you to this wonderful boy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY REESE!

Modern Day Slavery

Quote of the Day:

"Mom, you are a SLAVE, because you work so hard, and you always have to wait for us." ---Reese, age 3

Good vs. Evil

In our house, illness is commonly referred to as a fight between The Good Guys and The Bad Guys. This allows for general ease of parenting (ie: "Go right to sleep, so the good guys can do their fighting") as well as ease of receiving health reports---a report from the battlefront ("the good guys are winning") is easier to decode than a cryptic "fine" when one asks how the invalid is feeling.

Reese has been fighting off a mild bug the last couple of days. At any given moment, his battle reports can turn on a dime....and of course, being Reese, they are filled with extra doses of creativity, making them difficult to decipher after all. Here's what I've gotten from him so far today.

First thing in the morning, after a good night's sleep: "It's all good guys, everywhere!"

After lunch, heading towards a much-needed nap: "In my body is the Heart Man, two circle guys, three square guys, and 6 bad guys."

Post-nap: "There used to be 6 bad guys, but the Heart Man is so, so special that he killed all of them, and now there are only four."

Climbing into bed, doped up on Tylenol and wrapped in Mommy's special blanket: "I feel just like I'm giving you a flower!"