Did I just get stung?

Last night Russ & I were talking on the phone (he's in SC again) and he says, "You want to hear something funny?" The story he tells is so not funny, unless you were the one who experienced it and a year has gone by...at least that's what I think. Let's see what you think:

Russ has been trying to clean up the landscaping around the house these last couple of trips. Yesterday he did some weeding around some stepping stones than no one steps on anymore. He noticed a big black bee buzzing around him, but ignored it because he figured, "I'm not bothering it, it won't bother me." Next thing he knows, he feels a sting. Of course at this point expletives are gushing from his mouth and he's checking his skin for a stinger. No stinger is found, so he assumes he wasn't stung. After all it's been 3o years since he was last stung by a bee, so he can't be sure what it should feel like. (His words, not mine.) Ok, to me, this is just crazy talk! You flippin' know if you've been stung by a bee! Anyway, Russ goes back to standing on this stepping stone to continue weeding. It doesn't take long before he feels *sting* *sting* *sting* *sting*. Only then does he notice that he is surrounded by yellow jackets. They are in the air, on his skin, on and under his clothes. Panic soon sets in and he goes running--yellow jackets still on him. Shaking to get yellow jackets off--yellow jackets sting him. Runs in the house--yellow jackets still on him and stinging him. In full panic mode he manages to kill all the yellow jackets he's brought into the house. He says he was stung at least eighteen times. He spends the next few hours jumpy and flinching at anything that remotely sounds like buzzing.

Fast forward a bit...Russ has been to Home Depot to buy a spray that shoots something like 24 feet to kill this nest he's disturbed. He's dressed in long pants, his sweatshirt with hood on cinched tight so you can only see his eyes, gloves and bottom pants taped tight so nothing is getting into his clothes. He sprays the nest and goes running. A couple of hours later (not the full recommended 12 hours he should wait) Russ goes out and flips over the stepping stone and takes off running again. No yellow jackets. He jams a stick into the heart of the nest and goes running again. Only a few remaining yellow jackets come out. Russ is successful and has destroyed the nest, which by the way was attached to the bottom of the stepping stone. No wonder those critters were so pissed. Russ was squashing their house!

Good news & bad news month

The month of May was a crazy busy, sometimes wonderful, sometimes horrible month. The wonderful part was getting to enjoy the beach with my family and friends. It was just a weekend, but it was a great weekend. We also celebrated Owen's 3rd birthday at an art studio. Lots of painting and coloring was had by all. I loved the personalized paintings the kids got to take home as a party favor. (I have spot picked out by our front door to put them on display). The party was a big hit and Owen had the best time. He was just loving the attention and imaginative play areas when he wasn't painting.


On the flip side, this was the month of our wedding anniversary, that we really didn't get to celebrate; my dad ending up in the hospital after a heart attack and having quadruple bypass surgery; being "fortunate" enough to be on my boys' preschool's executive board and having to assess the future of the school; two boys with projectile vomit illnesses; and volunteering more than most for our son's baseball team during snack shack week. The day I began writing this I should have been out celebrating a friends 35th birthday, but to be honest, I was so exhausted I preferred crawling into bed to shut out the world. That is May in a nutshell. Hoping June will be a better month...

Giving up FB games

So my excuse for not blogging? Playing Farmville and Cafe World on Facebook. I knew I was addicted, yet I'd still waste many hours playing those stupid games. I can't believe I haven't written anything since the beginning of May! So much has happened since now and then I have my work cut out for me, if I can even begin to remember what actually happened! I know. I suck. I apologize. Facebook is evil.

And the 2010 rookie champs are...

...not the Diamondbacks. The fact that the D-backs made it to the championship game surprised all of us parents. Brandon's team was the surprise of the season. One parent said, "I feel like I'm watching the Bad News Bears!" at one of the tournament games. Our boys weren't that bad at the beginning of the season, but they'd improved so much since March. It was a pretty spot on analogy. They were truly amazing to watch as they dug their heals in and beat team after team. Ok, they only had 3 games before championships, but it seemed like a long haul. On the big day the kids faced off against the best team in our division. The Cardinals hadn't lost a game all season, and they certainly weren't going to give up a game now. At the end of the 1st inning, the D-backs were only down by 1 run. I thought, "Wow! They are going to make this team work for it." It was a fleeting thought as the Cards scored 5 runs the next inning leaving the score 8-2. In the end we lost 18-10, but the kids had a blast. Brandon got to score one of those runs. He says it was his favorite part of the game. He didn't seem sad or disappointed when the game was done. He said he had fun and wanted to get an ice cream from the snack shack. I love that boy!

River Park Diamondbacks

Facing your fears

That is exactly what Brandon did last night at his baseball game. I had told him earlier in the day that all he needed to do at his game was focus on swinging his bat as hard as he could. "Even if you are afraid of the ball, swing as hard as you can. You don't even have to try to hit the ball, just swing hard. If the ball hits the bat, it will go flying out into the field." I must have sounded like a broken record because I kept telling him, "Remember, the ball isn't going to hit you. You're going to hit the ball." I don't know if any of that helped, but he sure faced down his fear of the pitching machine last night like a champ! He made it to the batters box twice and hit 4 or 5 foul balls and 2 base hits. The second time he got up to bat he yelled, "Mommy! I'm not afraid of the ball!" from the batters box. He sure wasn't! He actually did a happy dance and spun around and around on the first base bag. Coach thought he did so great, he gave Brandon the game ball to take home. The boy was walking on air! He promptly put the ball on the shelf next to his other trophies. It is the one thing on that shelf that he's most proud of.

An Easter moment

We spent another Easter at my mom's house. She has the best backyard for the Easter Bunny to visit. He was busy again this year hiding another 100-something eggs. Of all those eggs, my brother always dyes a special egg and hides it really well. The finder of thus egg wins a special prize. This year it was Dylan. The look on his face was just awesome. You could see it written all over his face that he just could not believe he was the one who found it. Once he got over it, his smile just lit up his face.

Deets and the winning egg (found in the compost pile)

Deets with his prize

What does the word "fight" really mean?

Over the past few weeks Russ and I have come to see that Brandon does not really understand what fighting means. He interprets anything that involves pushing, shoving and general horse play to be fighting. Although we are pretty sure the first incident he relayed did involve older boys getting a bit carried away, he has since been participating in rough play with other boys in his class.


He came home from school one day and over a plate of oreos I asked him what he did that day. When it came to recess he told me, "I don't want to tell you, because you might get mad." I prodded a bit more and he told me that he and another boy were fighting with someone on the playground. Well after a few more questions, it turned out to be play fighting. I had to explain to Brandon the difference between play fighting (everyone laughing while hitting and pushing) and real fighting (mad faces, mean yelling, crying and people getting really hurt). Now I think he gets it. It's definitely interesting to hear that he's starting to do more "boy stuff" rather than wander the playground by himself everyday.

Ok, this is a total "mom" post. So sorry!

Sorry, but I have to report that Owen has tackled the scariest part of potty training tonight. He's been saying for weeks that he wants to "go poo on the potty" right before bath time. No luck beyond the pee. Well tonight he was victorious. I left him in the bathroom for some alone time, and sure enough, I hear this excited yelling that he he went poo in the potty. I came in to this radiant smile. It was just awesome that he had no fear like my other 2 boys. He just decided tonight was the night and made it happen. He walked away with a fist full of M&M's which he proudly showed to his brothers. That's when Dylan whined, "When do I get M&M's?" He now has seen what he gets if he ever goes poo on the potty. I am hoping and praying this will be Dylan's turning point, and he'll stop being a non-pooing stubborn mule of a boy. Maybe, just maybe, Dylan will be potty trained before he starts kindergarten.

Why do they wait so long to tell you the important stuff???

All 3 boys got into trouble today for, I guess you could say being themselves. They were fighting and crying and carrying on, so I put all 3 on time out. After their time out, I sat down to talked to all of them about being brothers. We had this discussion about protecting each other when they are out in public, and how it should be the same at home and how we need to use our words and listen better.

Anyway, after this is all said and done, Brandon tells me that he and the neighbor were walking together at recess one day, when two older boys came up to them and just pushed them down. Well, the neighbor pushed back and so did Brandon. I guess punches were thrown and my boy ended up in the nurses office with ice packs on both eyes. Apparently this all happened "a long time ago." I was so pissed that I was never told. I vaguely remember noticing Brandon's eye looking a little red and asking him about it, but I got an "I don't know" answer. I'd say that was at least a month ago. I was relieved that he actually fought back and didn't just stand there while some older boy beat him up. I'm not happy with the teacher's response when Brandon told her what happened. She basically told him not to go to that part of the playground again. WTF! I'm so livid I can't wait for school to open on Monday.

What I hate is the uneasy feeling I have now just wondering what else I don't know.

Spring Break in Santa Cruz

I am very thankful the way the calendar played out this year. Typically Easter falls later in the month than it did this year, making it impossible for me to get away for spring break with my family. (My work schedule has me Sacramento bound between the 5th and 20th of each month.) This year with Easter so early, I was able to "relax" with the family on the coast for the week. I admit the rain did dampen our plans, but we still made it out of the house nearly every day to do something.

We spent a good 4 or 5 days at the beach and a couple more hiking in the forest. On two separate occasions, two of my boys were nearly run over by cars. If you find gray hairs on my head, you will know where they came from. Brandon was very nearly run over by the lifeguard truck because he had layed down in a hole right in the path of the beach patrol. He'd go huddle in that hole when he felt cold, and we thought nothing of it. When I saw the truck pass by on the beach, it slowly dawned on me that Brandon was laying in it's path. I looked back and sure enough the tire tracks head directly at him and then veer around his hole. I stood shaking my head, because I felt like an negligent parent and also because Brandon saw the truck coming and still didn't move. The lifeguard made sure to let us know Brandon shouldn't be where he was, because it was a busy weekend and if there was an emergency, a lifeguard may not see him laying in his hole. Talk about feeling like an idiot. All I could do is nod my head, because just the day before the beach patrol and paramedics had been called because a couple of people were pulled pretty far out by a riptide. Brandon for sure would have been run over that day.

The second incident happened the last day we spent at the beach. We were carrying our things back to the car. Owen was out ahead of everyone because he wanted to be first. We told him over and over as he reached the sidewalk to wait for us. "Owen, wait there!" All he could see were his brothers coming and he wanted to be first to the car, so he ran out in the street in front of a moving car. I just about died. I literally could not make my body move. I was frozen as I yelled my baby's name. He stopped and came back on the sidewalk looking completely confused. He had no idea what he did wrong. We were so lucky that driver had slowed down because Owen was standing right on the edge of the sidewalk. When he bolted in the street, the van was going slow enough that stopping wasn't difficult. I am so thankful for that careful driver!

Aside from those heart stopping moments, we had a wonderful time collecting beach treasures and playing in the water and sand. The hikes in the forest were fun too, but convincing all of them to go was difficult. They were usually too comfy in their jammies playing XBox games. In the end we forced everyone to go. Nisene Marks was lush and green and beautiful. Even when it began to rain, it was a wonderful place to be. The boys loved it.

The kids could have stayed longer in Santa Cruz. They just love it there. Who cares if they sleep on the floor. They wake up to views of the ocean, property ripe for lizard catchin, and the guarantee they are either going to the beach or the forest that day. They have it so good. If only they knew how lucky they are.