Listening Ears

If you keep your listening ears open around our house, you're bound to hear some amusing things. These are a few of my recent favorites.

"Mom! Van wants a beer!" George bellowed to me as Van was putting his hands on a box of BJ's home-brewed beer that was carbonating in bottles.

Silas: Mom, do we have any string?
Me: Probably. What do you need it for?
Silas: I want to make a zip-line from my top bunk down to my dresser.

"George, don't lick my car. I'm not sure when it was last washed, but it's not in recent memory," said BJ during yesterday's snowstorm.


Silas has an affinity for Peppermint Patty quotes, probably because I do too. Lately we have been watching lots of Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Yesterday he sidled up to me and whispered unexpectedly in my ear, "Let's not play lovers' games, Chuck." This may have been rivaled only by his previous Peppermint Patty display toward Tex, when he sailed past Tex out the door one day and nonchalantly stated, "Tex, you're not coming. You're not allowed to go places except Bark in the Park, you sly devil you!"

In a conversation about the resident mouse in our garage:
BJ: I saw Mickey again tonight. I'm beginning to think that my relationship with Mickey is entirely too cordial.
Me, laughing:"Oh?"
BJ: Yeah. I mean, we say hello to each other. Exchange pleasantries.

Silas to BJ, regarding a letter to his grandparents: "Dad, you write the letter and I'll draw the pictures, because you're good at writing and I'm good at drawing."

A few days ago, a friend of mine and I were remarking about how dangerous life is with small children. This she remarked upon after having let her young son go unattended for a mere sixty seconds before finding him wielding an ax from the woodpile. Similar hair-raising events are regular around here. The other day I was changing Van's diaper and I heard Silas goad in the boys' bedroom,
"Jump from a really, really high distance, Georgie!"
I let out what seemed a slow-motion "Noooooooooooo!" and hurried to their room just in time to see George hurl his thin little 27-pound body off of Silas' top bunk and all the way down to the floor. He landed perfectly and laughed, the little stink.

He's about to jump off that too. I just know it.

Kids will be kids!

Batter-stealers

Gratefulness for Years of Fun

BJ has recently set up a neat screensaver slideshow on our TV that we and our boys have had a great time watching on lazy mornings lately. After breakfast on a weekend morning we often convene in the living room as a family and play with toys; in the background we play an album of our choosing and across the TV scrolls eleven years' worth of our photos on a random basis. The boys love it and often scream in delight when they see family members, Tex, and friends. Silas sometimes looks at pictures from early in our marriage and sagely states, "Mommy, you were young then," and "Daddy, you had hair on your head then."

This morning we were all playing while listening to Of Monsters and Men, and I just couldn't help but feel my heart swell with emotion when looking at some of these pictures as they came upon the screen. What an overwhelming sense of gratitude I felt for all of the years I have been blessed to live, all of the lovely people who support me in my life and endeavors, and all of the places I have seen and things I have done. I occasionally grinned ear-to-ear at the images coupled with the beautiful lyrics, "Hold your horses now/Through the woods we ran..." I saw pictures of our second apartment, the U of Minnesota campus, Gallagher-Iba timeouts with Eddie Sutton at the helm, Tex as a puppy, my children being born, blinding snowfalls, North Carolina beaches, Christmas gift-unwrapping, hot afternoons at the lake, Korean Buddhist temples, campsite scenes, fish caught, miserable post-surgery moments, morning coffee on a Beavers' Bend deck, fly fishing in Colorado, turquoise lakes in Banff, and swollen pregnancy feet. How did I ever get so lucky to have had all of these moments? Thank you, BJ, for setting up frequent trips down memory lane! Here are some pictures that I saw just this morning:

Can't get over how young we both look!

Terry (BJ's dad) and Silas at Beavers' Bend, Oklahoma

BJ in front of a palace in Seoul

 Loveliness!

Susan (BJ's mom) and Silas

Outer Banks, North Carolina

Potty break in those early training days!

Bill and Cindy (my mom and dad) with George in Rocky Mountain National Park

Split Rock Lighthouse, Minnesota

Aunt Jenny and George on his birth day

 Uncle Matthew sketching on the University of Virginia campus

Jenny's Top 10 Favorite Things About Living in Oklahoma

# 10-- The Mexican Food
Thank you, God, that most of the southern half of the United States can do some justice to the delicious cuisine of our neighbors to the south. BJ and I once (and only once!) made the unfortunate mistake of trying Mexican food in Minneapolis. When BJ and I are craving Mexican food, we now end up in places like Ted's, Alfredo's, Big Truck Taco, and Cocina Guatelinda. =)

# 9-- The Open Sky
Carrie Underwood wasn't kidding when she sang, "I miss the big blue sky, the Oklahoma kind." I missed it when I was gone too. I want to see nearly every bit of the sky, and in Oklahoma I can.

# 8-- Conversations with Friendly Rednecks
Oklahomans know what I mean. Here is an example of one of my favorites, a conversation some years ago with a fellow on our hospital unit:

          Me: So, what are you going to do when you get home today?

          Friendly Redneck Fellow: Well, I guess I better mow the blasted lawn
          before the weather comes in tonight.

          Me: Yeah, I hear there's a big storm coming.

          FRF: Yup, and I've got four acres to mow.

          Me: Geez! I hope you have a riding lawn mower!

          FRF: Well, I used to, but last year I done blowed it up!

# 7-- The Equal-Length Seasons...All Four of Them!
If you get too much further north or south from here, the seasons suddenly begin stretching in one direction or the other. Now don't get me wrong, because the summers in Minnesota are absolutely glorious! Glorious! We were outside all the time! But the winter lasts from October to early-April. Down in Dallas, just a couple of hours south of here, there really is no winter. But here, we get four wonderful seasons, and basically all in equal length, with perhaps a little taken from spring and added to summer as it starts getting pretty hot in the last half of May. If you can handle the heat in June, July, and August, then you're golden for the rest of the year!

# 6-- Running Into People I Love in Random Places
I remember once in Minneapolis BJ and I were driving down I-394 westbound and I got a call from our friends Kevin and Carrie, who shouted, "Look to your right!" And there they were, driving beside us on the highway! This was only one of two times in five years of living in strange places (Minneapolis and Tulsa) that we ever ran into friends by chance encounter. In OKC our network of friends and family is more plentiful, as would be anybody's in their own hometown, and we regularly see unexpected friends and family members at places like Thunder games, restaurants, and Target. Happiness.

# 5-- People Value College Football
In other parts of the country you'll find emphasis on basketball, hockey, golf, surfing, etc. I love nearly all sports, and all of these listed I would gladly sit and watch! But something about football, especially college football, stirs my blood and revitalizes my very soul. Especially that orange and black team in Stillwater.

# 4-- Vacations!
That's right! Now we get to spend our vacation time actually going on VACATIONS instead of using them to visit much-missed family members at home! Places like Florida, Seattle, Boston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Virginia, and North Carolina have suddenly opened before our very eyes as we spend our time away from work going to visit friends in their very cool places (including Minnesota, which is now one of our favorite vacation destinations!). The pic below is from a vacation to see some of our besties in MN.

# 3-- Tex and Sam
Tex has insisted that I allow him to have one of these numbers so that he can relay his ecstasy about living one mile from his best friend Sam. Sam is my parents' golden retriever and an extremely frequent companion of Tex's. When we lived in Minnesota and Tulsa, we and my parents always made our visits driving trips so that the dogs could come along and see each other. Here they are napping together in our living room.

# 2-- Our Mommies and Daddies Are Here
Besides each other and Silas, they're our favorite people in the world. Need I say more?

and #1-- "There's no place like home."
There just isn't. When we lived in other places I sometimes felt as though I was holding my breath, and when we visited home it was like letting all that air out and gasping in the good stuff. It's weird, I know, but maybe some of you who are strangers in a strange land have felt the same way. Now, every day, my lungs are filled with sweet, familiar air.

Trouble Has Been Brewing

Let me just quickly say that Pioneer Woman's popularity has spread to my blog. I have noticed that I have officially gotten more hits on the PW posting than any other posting in the past, including Mommy Mathematics. The PW fever is rocking my blog too apparently!

Have I mentioned that I love being the lone girl in this little family of ours? My three boys, BJ, Silas, and Tex, spoil me terribly, and quite frankly I just can't imagine ever needing to upset this balance by adding another girl to it. Well, maybe one more. Three sons and a daughter sounds pretty perfect. Lately, though, both of our sons have been up to heaps of trouble. If you've smelled something fishy lately, it's probably what has been brewing at our place. For starters, there has been lots of horseplay (don't worry, Silas wasn't hurt in this picture).

There has been entirely too much begging for table scraps as well.

To be fair, it has been from some more than others...

But Silas isn't off here scot-free. He's been TONS of trouble lately! I've had to say to him, "Son, don't walk away when I'm talking to you!"

He has also begun growing his hair out too long for his father's and my taste...

And I promise, BJ isn't trying to murder him, despite how it may appear. We are not running a Sweeney Todd establishment here.

But in the end, BJ and I have decided to keep these two rascals, because how can you say 'no' to these faces, I ask?

I guess I won't.

=)

Ode to Tex

We definitely got lucky with Tex. I remember the first moment I saw him, when we were visiting the farmer who owned him as a puppy, and Tex came running out of the barn, the first of the litter to come around the corner to us. This comes as no surprise now, as we know Tex well, and we know that he always likes to be in places first, even if that means shoving other adults, animals, and small children aside. As we petted Tex that day and then turned our attention to his brothers to check them out too, Tex became adorably jealous and found a giant weed to pull with his mouth. Then he proudly ran back and presented that weed to BJ, and we knew it was meant to be.

Now, that doesn't mean that sometimes Tex isn't a huge pain in the ass. He loves to bark, usually at nothing, and it invariably wakes Silas up from a much-deserved nap (at least, a Silas nap that mommy deserved). He snores terribly at night and throws his bowl on top of my bare feet when he feels it's his meal-time.  But all in all, Tex is wonderful and I'm so glad we've got him. He would argue that life has been difficult lately though. For beginners, he recently got a bath. Major suckage in the life of Tex, even when that bath takes place in the newly-renovated master shower and consists of warm water and oatmeal shampoo (and free hot dogs to lure him in). Even worse, last Friday he had to get his teeth scrubbed on and cleaned up by the vet, which required anesthesia. Poor Tex, although I would argue poor us, since that procedure was pricey. But things are also hard for Tex in his daily life. Just see here:

First of all, he has to play with his brother Silas. This is never easy.

Then he has to bring in the morning paper (for a treat, mind you!).

After that, we request that he vacuum under Silas' highchair for us. It won't be long before Tex trains him to drop that food for him on purpose...

And after he finishes all of that exhausting business, he feels it is his personal responsibility to guard the house by the front window, which typically results in him getting worked up into a tizzy over birds, schoolchildren, our neighbors pulling into their driveways, and nothing. Please note in this picture that Tex's hair is standing on end over: nothing. Do you see any rapists or murderers out in our driveway?

Finally, to further add to the fatigue of his grueling days, Tex must play with Silas some more...

and some more...

So thank you, Tex, for all you do. You bear your burdens well, old man.