Yesterday Jim bought Finding Never Land and we watched it. Tanner was rather disappointed that it wasn’t about dragons. Not sure where he got that idea.

There was a line in the movie that stole my heart and I am going to embrace it and deliver it from now on. I am often asked what time my kids go down to sleep at night and I never have an answer. Basically, we just all fall asleep and then we relocate to our bedrooms. Jim and I love family time and it just never feels like a good moment to say good night to Tanner and Ty so we just don’t:) Actually that’s not true…Tanner is usually tucked into bed before he falls asleep and Daddy reads stories and tickles his back but that rarely happens at a decent hour. It is almost midnight and Tanner and Daddy are watching Fear Factor at this very moment. It is not important for us to get kids down at any particular time though when I am a stay at home mommy. We just live with a schedule that suits us for now. Jim and I are night owls so it works for us if the kids are too.

Thanks to this movie though, I now have a very profound answer to deliver that is MUCH better than “I don’t know what time” AND it is also an answer that has a serious ring of truth to it for me. Ready?

“Little boys should never be sent to bed because they will wake up a day older in the morning.”

I almost cried when I heard that. That is my new favorite line of defense against a bedtime. I also agree with it:). I love these evening hours with my sons and I don’t want to give them up at 8:00 PM. Time with my babies is short and I cherish it. Each morning they are a day older so I prefer each day to last as long as possible.

Tannerisms

“Grandma. Are there snakes in Chicago?” – Grandma was impressed at the question and that he knew she lives in Chicago and could say the word. I was surprised too actually.

“Dat’s Shox Ten!” – Apparently he CAN read. I was watching tv and the little Fox 10 symbol came up and Tanner repeated this.

“Mommy. Ty’s messin with your stuss” – I hear this ALL day.

Tanner and the XBox

I am limiting XBox time now much to Tanner’s dismay. I am pretty impressed though with how much my three year old knows about this. He and daddy can carry on conversations about their adventures and I am absolutely clueless to what they are discussing. Tanner is even trying to teach me the elementary stuff so I will play with him. He explained a map to me this week and let me know that I couldn’t shoot my own guys. If I start straying off the beaten path, he gets aggravated and just like a male, reaches across my lap and starts taking over my controller all the while telling me I am doing it wrong. All the while I am asking myself how I got in this situation because I HATE playing video games.

The “S” word

Yesterday Tanner and I were in Ty’s room and Ty was in the front room. We heard Ty crash and hit his head. This is an every five minute occurence so there wasn’t great reaction on either of our parts in all honesty. Tanner looked at me very seriously shook his head and said “Stupid”. I choked on my laugh. This statement was pretty unexpected but I had to admit, the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result and our determined little Ty does have a habit of repetative behavior with repetative consequence. Tanner and I then had to talk about never never calling one’s brother stupid. I can’t help it – if you could have only seen the practical look on his face you would giggle too. (And to be fair, he didn’t mean his brother was stupid, he meant Ty’s actions resulting in his fall was stupid).

Little Puckins

This week I was playing cowboys with Tanner. He gave me all the bad guys and he took the good guys and then told me that I had to steal his horses. It was hilarious to me when I heard him call his GOOD guys “little puckins” (little pumpkins) right before they used their lasso and strung up my guys by the neck. Little pumpkins isn’t the word I would have used:). Further, why is it he always makes me the bad guy?

Like Dis

I have been telling Jim that I fear Tanner has more common sense than I do. I have been talking about his sense of direction quickly advancing over mine. He is beginning to help me with practical matters as well. I was playing with his dinosaurs with him and one dumb creature would not stand on two legs no matter what I did. I finally started grumbling against the manufacturer for their poor creation. Tanner took the dinosaur from me and softly said “Mommy – like dis” and simply put the 4 legged creature on all fours. (Sheepish smile – 2 legs were shorter than the others so it DID look like it should be a 2 legged standing dinosaur).

Like Daddy

While Ty napped in the swing, Tanner needed some outside play time. Poor guy gets lonely and at the moment I am his best play partner (sad for Tanner). Anyhow, he insisted that I sit in the dirt with him while we loaded up dump trucks with dirt. I found this more interesting than cowboys and xbox actually. I am not afraid to get a little messy:). At one point I asked him if I could get a chair because sitting on the rocks was not that comfortable (which he pronounces comfbabull”). I told him the rocks were starting to hurt my bottom. He said “Ya! What’s da deal with dat?” LOL (Jim say’s that all the time).

While we were playing with these trucks, Tanner interrupted and said, ” Mommy don’t get in my way.” Hmph! Here I am trying to play and now he butts me out. Fine. I watch. Next thing I know he say’s “Are you going to help me?” Sheeeessshh!!! Can’t win for losin’.

He must have just been in a sassy mood today. I had to hide my face in a book laughing when he got into a controversy with his father. Jim was correcting him on how to pronounce a word. Tanner has been saying “da -eee” and “Ma – eeee” leaving middle syllables out. He can pronounce them correctly he just has gotten into a lazy habit. This bugs Jim so he was reminding Tanner to say it right. Tanner got frustrated with this correction. He was actually talking to me when Jim intervened with this correction. As a result, Tanner looked at his dad and with aggravation in his voice said “I don’t want ask you! I askin mommy!” These are things that normally wouldn’t be funny but Tanner is so mild manner he rarely (actually never that I can think of) has said something so sassy. Jim did not let this go of course and discussed how our children will speak respectfully and not talk back but I was mighty thankful I had an object to cover my face because I couldn’t help but giggle.

Write Dat Down!

So Tanner and I are on the trampolene today laying flat on our backs and discussing the shape of the clouds. He found some pretty interesting characters too. I was impressed with his imagination (or maybe mine that I knew what he was talking about…wait…does that mean he has the imagination of a thirty SOMETHING:) year old or that I have the imagination of a three year old? LOL)

While relaxing we began to talk about his fear factor party. To my amazement he was full of ideas. I found him so funny that I wanted to write his ideas down. I got pen and paper for our Fear Factor business meeting and told him I need to keep track of his ideas. If I would stop writing he would say “Come on Mommy! Write!” Here is what he wants (all written down as he told me about things and all straight from him without my input – though some of these, not all, were his responses to questions I asked).

* He said he wants a cake with dead bugs on top.

*He wants spiders because that is what he thinks Uncle Darin is afraid of.

*He wants dead bugs because he thinks that is what Uncle Dusty is afraid of.

*He said he wants animals that bite really hard.

*This one I didn’t write but when he noticed that I didn’t write it he insisted that I write it down. He wants dead animals to put in people’s hands (don’t judge too harshly – he always thinks the dead rats are amazing on fear factor so that is the association)

*His invitation list initially was short. He wants Sweetie and Grandma at his party. Won’t they be excited! Especially now that they know he has invited dead animals. LOL. (And no, we will have to have a creative work around for this because I will NOT be looking for any dead rats).

*He asked if I could make punch with a snake in it and if I could make fly soup. Interesting because he doesn’t drink punch or eat soup often so funny that he even knew to be creative about that. Did he see something I didn’t?

*He wants Papa to be scared.

Each time there would be a lull in our conversation he would say “Mommy are you shinkin’?” Then he would say “Mommy what my shear shactor pah-tee gonna be?”

Note to my mother: Aren’t you so excited about this? LOL!