Loving on groceries

Man, it's been a busy few weeks!  Why are the last weeks of school so darn crazy?  Also, how is it that school has been out for 1 week today but it already seems like it has been an entire month?

But having nothing to do with that, my almost 20 month old has the weirdest habit!  Most of the weird things he does I think, "Oh yeah, been there done that.  One of the other kids did that too" - but with this one, I'm not sure any other kid on the planet has done.  If they have let me know and maybe we can start a support group.

Baby crazy pants throws an absolute fit if he cannot hug every single item I put into the grocery cart. 

As you can imagine this proves quite challenging for some items I purchase:

1) Bread, buns and things of that sort.  Why does he hug these much harder than anything else I purchase?  Probably because they are squishy and "hug" back? I have many many bags of crumbled hot dog buns currently residing in my pantry.  The geese at the park are going to LOVE us!

2) Chicken, meat, etc - plain and simple I am not going to give my kid salmonella just so he won't scream.  I apologize to all other shoppers within ear shot.

3) Frozen items - they are cold and then he screams, I don't give them to him and he screams.      Lose, lose situation there.  

4) Glass bottled items - he has a penchant for throwing the item on the ground after he has loved it within an inch of it's life.  Fortunately I figured that out before we sent some poor unsuspecting shopper to the hospital.

This week he upped his game to wanting to kiss the items. 

Where does this go next???

Good thing he is cute.

Madonna, who?

I risked my sanity last week and took my 3 children on a road trip BY MYSELF.  You know what?  We survived...barely.

5 hours and 9.2 million crumbs in my car later, we arrived in Oklahoma City for a visit with my family.  Surprisingly the only time I wanted to wrangle the necks of any of my children was during this conversation:

Scene: Imagine the most lovely singing voice on the planet. Sort of like an angel singing at the top of her lungs trying to regain her youth. (in case you couldn't tell, that was dripping with sarcasm.  I was blessed with my parents' singing voice.  It is NOT pretty)

Me: "You must be my Lucky Star
'Cause you shine on me wherever you are
I just think of you and I start to glow
And I need your light
And baby you know" 

Now imagine the snotty-iest, most obnoxiously pre-teen accusing voice you can think of. Very similar to nails on a chalkboard.

9 Year old daughter: "UM, WHO sings this song???"

Me: It's Madonna.

9 Year old daughter: Humph, never heard of her. Can we turn on some Taylor Swift?

SMACK!

Okay I didn't really smack her simply because that wouldn't be safe while driving 80 MPH down the highway.

Baby on the run, er crawl

You turn your back for 1 second...

I guess I should be glad that he is 17 months old and still crawls otherwise he would have been 1/2 way to Missouri by the time I caught him.

Note1: If you knew where I lived you would find that last comment hilariously funny - we live in Kansas but 5 houses from the State Line of Missouri.

Note2: If you can't find me for a few days, check the local jail.  A policeman drove by and looked at me very suspiciously as my baby was crawling dangerously close to the street and I stood there laughing & taking pictures.

My 4 year old pimp

My son just turned four and he is really cute - as all four year old boys are. However he has a skill that I'm not sure many kids his age have mastered yet - picking up women. 

I was getting him from school one day a few months back and his teacher was cracking up. She explained she had a doozie of a story for me. She wasn't lying.

Apparently she was sitting next to Zach at lunch and he was quietly munching on his PB&J sandwich. All of a sudden he turned to her and said "heeeey girrrrl" (I wish my computer could talk to you so you could hear the perfect R&B sweet slow talk he did it in.)  The teacher, not knowing if she had heard him correctly said, "excuse me Zachary what did you just say?" 

Zachary, "I said, heeeey girrrrrl.  That is what my daddy told me I should say to the ladies."

After I hung up with my divorce attorney I fell all over myself apologizing to her that my son was trying to pick her up.  Thank God for her being her because she thought it was hilarious and actually had to excuse herself from the table to bust out laughing in the hallway.  She then proceeded to tell all the other teachers about it and now as they pass one another in the halls they all shout out "heeey girrrrl". 
Nice legacy for the Gedmans to leave behind at our little Christian preschool.

Fast forward to a few days ago when my husband (ok, I didn't kick him out after that incident but believe me he is walking on thin ice here) and Zachy went to Best Buy.  A sales girl came up to them and started discussing whatever item they were there to purchase.  At a lull in the conversation she bent down to Zach and said "Hi cutie, what's your name?"

His response? "I'm Zach", then lazily points his thumb at my husband and said "this is Dan." 

She ate that up and Dan was pretty sure at that point he could have taken her behind the refrigerator section and had his way with her.  He said Zach is the best wing man he's ever had. Nice.

Can't wait to see what he is like at 16.

Bieber hair

My 3 year old has Justin Bieber hair.  If you don't know who that is, good for you.  But if you do know who he is you might think my child needs a hair cut and you would be correct.  Z man refuses to get one and although I am the mom and should probably assert my authority I really have no desire to put some poor hair stylist through the agony of trying to hold him down. I know from experience that it is not fun.

The funny thing is that it has been so long since he has gotten a haircut that the hair has gone back to being cute.  Sort of like if you hold on to your clothes for long enough they will come back in style.

Plus now we have a fun thing to tease Z with.  We call him Bieber all the time and he insists in his cute 3 year old voice "I'm not a beaver, I'm a little boy!"

Not so green

Am I the only one who has a table that looks like this when they leave Baskin Robbins?  I feel very bad about the tree that gave its life so my son would no longer have an ice cream covered face and hands and legs and ears and shirt and hair and - well you get the picture.

Oh and fun fact, I knew a girl growing up named Robin Baskins.

My week

It has been a great week since the hubs got home.  Very action packed.

We ate things out of my garden! People this is huge, I have a charcoal black thumb and the fact that I grew things that are edible is amazing. Seriously my kids are the only things I've ever managed to keep alive.

My son got his foot caught in what looks like a foot guillotine and I had to have hubs come home early from work to get it out.  The crazy kid was more worried about me having to break the toy than getting his swollen, bent foot out.  When I gave him the option of breaking the toy or wearing the toy forever  - he chose the forever route.

We headed up to cute Weston, MO for one night and had a great time. Going to a winery town and doing wine tastings like there is no tomorrow is a brilliant thing to do the night before this:

I ran a 5K at 7:00 on Saturday night that was in no less than 3,000 degree heat.  I had a pretty impressive showing - 104th in your age category is pretty good right? Please hold your applause.

I'm waiting to find out, but I'm guessing there were like 105 people in my category.  Don't know why the logo will not let me show the whole thing but if you want to find out more about it, go here

Quite a fun week, so glad to have the hubs home!

UPDATE: 5K race results were posted and I was actually 95th out of 130 in my age group. Pretty pathetic but at least I didn't come in last :)

My daughter, the super model

Admittedly my daughter did take a modeling course last summer but it was not really what you think of as modeling. It was a great experience where they learned manners, learned about nutrition, about how to take care of their bodies and some tips on fashion. It was extremely age appropriate and in no way taught my daughter to pose for every picture like this:or this (and don't worry she was not let out of the house in this outfit)Because they are not my children, in several of the photos I cropped out other kids. They are all standing next to one another in a normal fashion and smiling sweetly for the camera and then there is a dead space and then my kid in her super model pose. Where does she get this?

Goal!

He watched an entire episode of Max and Ruby inside this basketball hoop and when it was over he screamed bloody murder that he was stuck and needed out. Weird kid.

He put a candy cane where???

My friend Lindsey's son speaks exclusively in Dora the Explorer speak. It is hilarious and actually also very amazing. When driving down the road he comes up with these amazing scenarios of how we need to get to the place we are going.

"You need to go through the prickly forest, over the shaky bridge and past the winding river to get to my house!"

It is so cute and shows what an imagination he has. To be honest, I'm impressed with his dedication. He can go on with it for a long time - my kids get bored of just about everything, other than making a mess, in 1.7 seconds.

The other day my son transformed himself into Swiper the Fox, a character from Dora. I was very excited about this at first because I saw all sorts of potential for his creativity and imagination. Unfortunately Swiper the Fox is a thief. He steals things from Dora and her friend, Boots the Monkey, then hides the item so they can't find it. Really - should I have been surprised this is the character with which my child would most identify?

So Z spent several days taking things out of my hand/sister's hand/random strangers hands and throwing them across the room saying "Ha Ha Ha, you'll never find it now!!!" - a direct quote from Swiper. It was sort of cute and funny (well other than snatching the random stranger's wallet) for a little while - except for the things we still cannot find. That kid has an arm on him.

There was one incident in particular that really made me put the kibosh on our resident Swiper.

My daughter had received a green and red striped candy cane from a friend at school. She was very excited about it and talked about it the entire ride home. When we walked into the house we did our usual routine which involves she and I bending over the sink and washing her hands to eliminate the Pre-K germs she acquires in a day.

Since we were not paying attention, Z snuck the candy cane out of E's school bag then walked up behind me "Ha Ha Ha" - and before I knew it uses all his 2.5 year old brute and shoved the candy cane straight down my pants and inside my underwear. "You'll never find it now" Z yelled and ran off.

Um, no, actually that candy cane was pretty easy to find...

Letter to Santa

I am pretty well done with my kids' Christmas shopping but I decided we had better write a letter to Santa to see if there were any surprises as far as requests go.

Here is the letter my 5 year old dictated for St. Nick:

Dear Santa Claus,

I like all the presents that you will give to me. You are so nice and I'm so happy that you came to my school. You are so sweet and you are so nice. I like you so much! You always let me sit on your lap when you go to my school. Dear Santa Claus you are so much fun. I like you, I love you Santa Claus. Thank you for all the nice presents you give me. I like the presents.

How does Rudolph's nose glow? I like you Santa Claus. Why don't other reindeer have shiny noses? I like you Santa Claus, you are so nice and I love you too. Oh Santa Claus I like you and you are so cute. Santa Claus, why is it not snowing today? I want you to be thankful. The End.

I counted and she complimented Santa in some form 9 times - think she is trying to butter him up? The funny thing is she didn't even ask for anything. Does that mean I can take all her presents back?

Can't wait to see what she names her kids

You have probably gathered by now that my 4 year old daughter is totally crazy - but that is what I like about her.

Every Wednesday her class has Show 'N Tell and the item a child brings to share must correspond with the letter of the week. This week is the letter "E".

At first she was just going to take herself because her name starts with "E" which I thought was cute and clever - but that idea went out the door. After rummaging in her toy box for an "E" item she found a colorful stuffed Elephant that she got as a gift from her Aunt Hilary. The elephant came named and has a cute book that goes along with him. His name is Elmer proven by the fact that ELMER is sewn on his side in large letters and the accompanying book is called "Elmer the Elephant".

I'm sure her teacher and everyone stared at her like she was a bit nuts when she introduced her elephant whom she calls Walmart. Don't ask me why, I can't break into that brain of hers.

Can't wait until it is "J" week and she takes her pink, curly pig-tailed hair, female baby doll named Baby Jesus.