A bump

Ella got hurt a little this weekend. This photo doesn't really do her injury justice because it doesn't actually show the mini golfball sized bump protruding from her forehead.

She was on a friend's swing that was hanging from a tree. Cameron pulled her back and pushed her a little too hard forward. Instead of gliding back and forth through the hair and squealing with delight, her head slammed into the tree, and screams quickly followed.

But unlike my other two kids, who can't seem to brush off any minor scrape with some sense of normality, Ella only cried for a little bit, and was back to running around in no time.

It wasn't until later that I actually even noticed the bump. When she woke up from her nap, Melvin noticed the cut and bump, and immediately applied some ointment to prevent any kind of infection...what a doctor he is!

Except now because of his actions, we might have social services knocking on our door sometime soon. Because when asked about the "owwie" on her head, Ella doesn't remember that it was Cameron that caused it, but rather she only recalls that Melvin put some ointment on it....and her response to any inquiry about her injury is:

"Daddy did it!"

36!

Happy Birthday to my husband today!

In his own words, he's "crossed over to the dark side." Meaning, he's now closer to 40 than he is to 30.

Last night to celebrate we all went to the Mall of America to the Rainforest Cafe and on the amusement rides. (Okay, that was more for the kids, but still fun for all of us).

Today we let him sleep in while I took the kids to church. Then we all went to our favorite breakfast place. Tonight Cameron and I are taking him to NBA City and to a Timberwolves Game.

The man works too hard and needs a little fun!

Day for Dads

The past few years I’ve ordered different gift baskets to send to all the “dads” in our life. However, this year, with the kids being sick all last week and me being in some unnecessary funk lately, I just totally dropped the ball and sent out nothing. On Saturday, I managed to get a gift together for Melvin…traveling to 5 different stores with Max and Cameron to get him a gift card from all the places that he likes to shop. (Not too original, but better than Cameron's 2 ideas....a shout of "Hip Hip Horray!" or a container for bugs) But for everyone else, I didn’t even get cards sent out.

So I will acknowledge them here….and hope that I get something out to them by the end of the week.

Happy Father’s Day….

To my father



To my father-in-law





To Grandaddy Melvin




To Pop-pop Zibby




To Grandpa




To (Uncle) Wally



To the rookie dad, my brother, (Uncle) Scott



I hope you all had a wonderful day.

And all kudos to my own husband:

Although he works a lot, when he is home, he always takes time to spend with the kids. Yesterday, part of his father’s day gift was supposed to be for him to go fishing….alone…so he can actually fish…instead of babysit. But at the last minute, he couldn’t resist Cameron’s request to go with him, and he took him along. And then today, when he should have been relaxing, and doing everything for himself…he decided to have a family day instead, and we took the kids to Valley Fair (an amusement/water park) around here. What a wonderful dad he is!

To all the fathers out there…..Happy Father’s Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How does he know?

This evening, while my husband was shoveling some mulch, Cameron was staring at some goofy high school boys across the street messing around making up some game with a ball and karate nunchucks (sp?). He was mesmerized by their stupidity.

“Why are they doing that?” he asked his daddy.

“Because they’re silly little boys,” was Melvin’s response.

Cameron just looked at him and with all the wisdom in the world said, “You know you did naughty things, too.” And as he walked into the house, and we both sorta looked at him wondering what he was talking about, when he continued with, “So don’t even try it. You know when you were their age you did naughty things.”

What a perceptive little boy his is. If only he even knew the half of the naughty things his father did in high school….and I wasn’t around then, so I can only go with what he has told me.

Grinding again

I’m sure one of the benefits of having family around is that there’s always a dad, or uncle, or grandpa to help you out when you have minor repairs to deal with….like a garbage disposal that suddenly stops working.

But my family lives clear across the country, and I have a husband who doesn’t have time to fix a garbage disposal because he’s too busy fixing vaginas.

And I’m cool with that. Because if he didn’t do that, we wouldn’t have the $60 dollars the plumber charged for the 5 SECONDS of work that it took to get my sink back in working order.

Nice and soft

Every week my husband and I have a “date night” planned. However, with his schedule and other activities, we seem to average going out together about once every two weeks. Usually we just do dinner and a movie, but he always complains that we should do something different. So this time I planned something different alright…but I wouldn’t tell him what because I feared his reaction.

All he knew was that it was around the corner from our house. I had to make an appointment for it. He could wear whatever he wanted, but I suggested shorts. And he knew that I was afraid he wasn’t going to like it.

His guesses were:
Swimming, Going to the gym, Painting pottery, Going to the gas station???

Cameron knew where we were going, and he was just giddy knowing that I was taking his daddy someplace, and he didn’t even know where it was and probably wouldn’t want to do it. I had to threaten everything of interest to him so that he wouldn’t tell his father who was trying to pry it out of him.

So where did we go?

To get manicures and pedicures! When we pulled up to the strip mall, and he finally guessed that we were going into Mia's Nails, he just sat down on the curb and started laughing…telling me “Ha. Ha. That was funny one. Jokes over, let’s go now.”

But I insisted that we go. With all the handwashing he does all day, his hands feel almost like sandpaper…and they’ve been really bad lately. Plus, I knew he’d really like the pedicure.

Anxious as he was, he humored me and went along with my idea….and except for how much it tickled when they scraped all the dead skin off his feet…he actually enjoyed it, and claimed it was one of our better date nights.

When we arrived home, Sara told us that at bedtime, Cameron told her to tell me to make sure I come upstairs to let him know what color daddy got his nails painted!

Unfine lines

Note to husbands:

I don’t care how many dozens of bottles of products your wife has sitting in her bathroom drawers designed to counteract the effects of aging on her skin. If you’re shopping, and she tells you to get a particular kind of soap, do NOT pick up the age-defying variety and say, “Don’t you want this one instead?”

35!

Friday was my husband’s birthday….35 years young!

Because we were snow bound for a couple days prior, I had a lot of last minute shopping to do while he was at work…and I had the three kids.

At the grocery store, the kids were surprisingly good. They each picked out a birthday balloon for their daddy, which kept them quite happy going up and down the aisles of Cub Foods. Cameron chose the biggest one, Max chose a Dora one, and I chose one for Ella…it said “It’s not your age, it’s your attitude.” Cameron’s balloon ended up where most of our helium balloons ascend to, hovering at the top of our 20 foot ceilings in our family room (the last time this happened, the balloon remained there for over 3 months...I hope this one is not of such high quality).

For most of the day, the boys worked on making picture presents for their daddy.

Max made a really great picture with all kinds of paint, markers, googly eyes, and puffy balls….and then he decided to cut the whole thing up. Cameron told him he must be making a puzzle, and Max was very excited about getting to carry around a Ziploc baggie of paper shreds for his daddy. Cameron took a lot of time to make a miniature Melvin, complete with blue scrubs, and he wrote him a note that said, “Daddy you are the best daddy in the whole wide world 35 years old guy.” It was all very cute.

When Cameron wasn’t creating pictures for his dad’s presents, he was working on another present for him…..completing pages in his “math homework book” (a workbook Melvin bought him one time). I couldn’t even take a shower without that boy interrupting me to ask me how to do the next page…and the next page…and the next page. I think he completed about 20 pages in all.

Before Melvin and I snuck out for the evening, we lit all 35 candles, and the kids helped him blow them out. After singing happy birthday to his dad, Max managed to continually sing it to the rest of us as well.

Once Sara was able to brave the snowy streets and arrive at our house to watch the kids who were all strung out on cake sugar, Melvin and I headed to our destination for the evening.

Did we go to some fancy schmancy dinnery place? Or some chic new club? Or to some terrific bluesy concert? NOPE!

We went to the Waterpark of America! This may sound strange to some of you, but we go to water parks a lot (especially since we only live 2 ½ hours from Wisconsin Dells and we now own a condo there). However, we NEVER get to go on all the cool slides because of our kiddos. Even Cameron is still afraid of the bigger slides, and Max and Ella are way too small for them. So for his birthday, Melvin and I celebrated by slipping and sliding around the largest Indoor Waterpark in America.

It was very fun.

But I have to admit that I did feel a tinge of guilt because ever since this place has opened Cameron has been asking to go there. If he ever knew that we went without him that night…he’d really would probably break down in tears. But the guilt was not enough to keep us from going without him and enjoying ourselves.

So to end this post, I’ll do as I did last year for his birthday…with a cheesy acrostic poem.

M—Melt my heart
E—Everything I need
L—Living and Working for his family
V—Very fine
I—Invincible
N—Needing his wine.

Selective Slumber

My husband will lie for hours in bed, flipping through the channels, watching movies, eating cereal, claiming that he’s not tired and just can’t sleep.

And yet, in the middle of the day, while the kids are causing commotion all around him, he has no trouble sneaking in a snooze. Not even stirring when Cameron decides it would be really funny to stack every cushion, pillow, blanket, toy, etc. on top of him.

He slept like this for 2 hours.