Curiosity gets the best of all of us...

It's happening. My very inquisitive 5 year old is asking questions. This is nothing out of the ordinary.

"Mommy, what does modify mean?" 

"Daddy, what tells your eyes to see?"

But the mother of all questions came this week when I was putting the boys to bed while Justin was at church.

"Mommy, how is Landry going to get out of your belly?" 

*GULP*

It was one of those mother meta cognitive moments where you're fully aware that you're thinking about what you're thinking. I think my thought at that very moment was OMG, how can this already be happening!? He's only 5 years old!

Something I feel pretty sure about when it comes to parenting is that I want my children to feel like they can come to me for answers and know that I'm going to tell them the truth. But it's finding that line of telling them the truth and then telling them what they can developmentally handle at that particular time that's the tough part.

So my head was spinning fast and all I could say after a pause that must have been nearly a minute long was, "Well, Mommy is going to push her out." I was really praying that would pacify him.

But that was quickly followed by another question, "Out of your mouth?!"

Completely without meaning to, I busted out laughing because it caught me so off guard. He asked why I was laughing at him and I had to reassure him that I wasn't laughing at him merely laughing at how adorable and cute he was.

After realizing that more information given to him would only entice him to keeping asking more questions, I finally ended the conversation with, "It's getting really late, Daddy and I will answer that another night."

So I might be truthful, it might only take me 5-10 years to tell the whole truth.

Kids say the darndest things...

Here's a few of my recent favorites that I don't want to forget. Man, this kid is funny!

1. Nolan's teacher was teaching the kids some words in Spanish and he tried his hardest to say por favor by saying, "4-5-4". My Spanish speaking mother is proud of his attempt.

2. Nolan: What are those cars doing there?
    Me: They're fishing
    Nolan: Cars can going fishing?

3. Me: Your teacher told me you want to be a policeman. Is that true?
    Nolan: Well (whispering as though it's top secret). I want to be Wolverine.

4. But my most recent favorite is what he calls tarantulas. It sounds something like "trilantrilia"...with about 3 extra syllables.

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5. And lastly, I hope that this doesn't offend anyone but it's Nolan informing me when Campbell needs a diaper change. This is my life in a house full of boys!

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Top 6 cutest things Nolan's said recently

#1
Me: How did you learn to color so pretty?
Nolan: Because I'm a rock star.

#2
"Mommy, why are you eating so much candy?" (after catching me in the act of eating his Halloween candy)

#3
Me: What do you want to be when you grow up?
Nolan: a vampire

#4
Nolan: My tummy hurts (while he's eating dinner)
Me: Well I guess you can't have any of your Halloween candy.
Nolan: I'm just kidding, mommy.

#5
Nolan: I love you mommy
Me: Oh but I love you more.
Nolan: No, I love YOU more
Me: No, I love YOU more
Nolan: Ok, I'm not going to talk to you anymore

#6
Word mix-ups:

• "blisterd" instead of blister

• "slurbert" instead of zerbert (for clarification on zerbert see video below of Campbell giving his daddy one)

• "any-Ms" instead of M&Ms

• "brektfast" instead of breakfast

Wanna eat?

My boys are so cute I just want to eat them! Let me first state the obvious that I'm not really being literal when I say that I want to eat my kids so don't pick up the phone and make a CPS call on me. But they're just so dang adorable that I just want to savor every moment and squeeze them! Before you go thinking that I'm too weird, I was so relieved one day on a shopping trip to Target to overhear a mom tell her daughter, "I'm going to eat you." Nolan heard it too and said, "Mommy! She said 'I want to eat you' like you want to eat me!" I was so excited that I wasn't the only crazy out there that I went up to her, stranger and all, and told her what we had in common.

Well I guess telling Nolan all those times that I want to eat him have finally made an impression. Besides him telling me, "you can't eat people, you can only eat dinner," we've been pretty safe up to this point. Well tonight Nolan was helping me put Campbell to bed. He's so wonderful...he reads books to him, turns on his night light, and sits by the rocker as quiet as a mouse while I sing Campbell a song . Well right before we put Campbell in his crib we had a little snuggle moment and Nolan put Campbell's hand in his mouth. With Campbell just getting over strep and Nolan coughing like a barking seal, I told him that wasn't such a good idea. He responds, "Well he's just so yummy, I want to drink him." Hmmm, I've never thought of that one, but he's right!

The proposal

You don't expect to hear a proposal from your 3 yr old. So it wasn't exactly a proposal with a question but he definitely said he wanted to marry me. Oh I just treasure these years with my boys so much. When they hug me like crazy and say or do things that make me roll on the floor. Nolan often asks me, "Mommy is your heart smiling?" It's like he knows! Talk about intuition in that kid. How can your heart not burst when you hear something like that? Here's a couple of proposal videos I got of Nolan. Someday, I'll be watching these and crying especially during those years when he's embarrassed to even hug me. Thank you God for this memory.

MaZaing

Nolan is definitely a little man. When he goes big potty he shouts, "I need a mazaing!" for his reading pleasure. I just love how he says it...makes me laugh every time.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Happy Birthday Daddy! Nolan loves birthdays...LOVES them. Even if they're not his own. Today he called Justin and told him "you better hurry home so you can eat your birthday party." Gosh, he says the cutest things.

Nolan is just too smart for his own good. The other day he tells me all his vowels. Once again, I had no idea that he knew this. Then I asked him about other letters and he says the letter B is a "continent". Hey...CONSONANT is a really hard word to say for a 3 year old!

"Yogurt" practice

Nolan and I have been practicing saying "yogurt." I think it's so adorable that it says it wrong. For months he called helicopters, "olliegotopters" and it broke my heart when he said it right for the first time. It just reminds me how fast he's growing.

Little Botanist

On the way home after school I asked Nolan if we wanted to help me plant some flowers. I bought some this past weekend and really needed to get them planted. Here's how our conversation went:

Me: Hey do you want to help me plant some flowers when we get home?

Nolan: Yea, you need seeds first and you put them in the mud.

Me: Do you know what plants need to grow?

Nolan: WATER!

Me: Do you know what else they need to grow?

Nolan: (silence)

Me: (trying to give him a hint) It starts with an 'S'. The Sssssss.....

Nolan: SAUSAGES!

So there you have it. Plants need water, mud, and sausages to grow.

Batman

"I'm Batman Mommy." I was pretty shocked when he told me this because we've never even mentioned Batman around him. I'm pretty sure his friend Cayden at school has an equal obsession about Batman that Nolan does about Cars. He tells me this usually out of the blue just in case I forget that he has super powers. On the way home the other night, he tells his daddy, "I'm Batman Daddy." Justin the avid Batman lover that he is thinks this is pretty cool and asks if he can be Batman too and Nolan agrees that Justin's worthy of Batman material. I'm feeling a little left out and ask if I can be Batman too. "No, you're a princess, Mommy." Fine by me!

I think this stems from a recently discovered muscle fascination. My mom and grandma would play their infamous trick of reverse psychology on me as a little girl. They would tell me not to eat my carrots because then I would make my eyes sparkly and my hair shiny. Worked like a charm every time even if I gagged a few times. So I mention to Nolan how broccoli gives him muscles and he totally eats it up. Now unfortunately for us, he flexes his muscles after every bite and we have to feel his muscles and talk about how big they're getting. It makes for a long meal time but hey my kid is eating broccoli! Yes, Nolan...you know the kid that survived off snacks for two years of his life. If you would have told me that a year ago, I would have called you a liar!

Is your child smarter than a 5th grader...mine is!

I discovered within a month of my first year teaching that my 2 year old (at the time) was officially genius. He continues to live up to this title. I had a wedding shower to go to last night and I looked it up on Google to find directions. Nolan had just woken up from his nap and sees the map and screams, "There's the continents!!" Having absolutely NO idea that he even knew this, I continue to question him.

Me: Well, yes it is! Do you know what continent we live on?

Nolan: (no hestitation) North America

Me: Do you know any other continents?

Nolan: Asia. That's where panda bears live.

Me: (picking my jaw up from the floor) Do you know where giraffes and zebras live?

Nolan: Africa

Me: (yelling) Justin!!! You're not going to believe this!

Genius maybe? Dead serious that I have fourth graders that think that Texas is a country and have no idea what continent we live on. Then today I overheard him upstairs telling his daddy and Pop, "That's a Brachiosaurus." What 3 year old knows that? There was a part of me that was so proud of him for just being so darn smart but then another part of me that was freaking out a little that he has this whole other life where he's learning all these new things without me! How dare him.

Did you hear that?

Nolan has been in the habit of not wanting to eat at dinnertime lately and then right before bedtime pulling the infamous, "but I'm hungry" routine. Last night we stood our ground and told him "too bad so sad" even though it was REALLY hard especially when he knows exactly how to get me, but I resisted. Tonight he ate his dinner after some coaxing, of course. As I was getting Campbell ready for bed, he told me that he was hungry again. Since he ate all his dinner I told him he could have some applesauce. So like a big boy, he went downstairs, ate his applesauce and even put his bowl in the sink. Afterwards, he was shouting upstairs to me.

N: Did you hear that mommy?

A: What, honey?

N: My tummy! It said 'I'm still hungry!'

I remember back just half a year ago when I wondered how in the world he was ever going to survive on fruit snacks and goldfish. Friends kept reassuring me that it was a phase and someday I would wish that he would stop eating so much because the grocery bill will be so much. We're not there yet, but I can see it coming!

Hot pink

Nolan's newest artistic phase is coloring. Not so much him coloring but he wants US to color and for him to watch. Tonight I was coloring with him in my lap and I said, "Will you find me a hot pink?" I don't think he knew what hot pink was so I helped him find one. As I'm coloring he asks, "Can I touch it?" I was a little confused at first on why he was touching the tip so carefully. He really thought it was HOT!

Go away bad dreams!

As you know, Nolan has at least 2 nights a week where he wakes up screaming as if someone is scalding him with hot water from his nightmares. It was at its worst after the big wreck that we barely missed last year. I understand the trauma in that one for sure but still don't understand why he's having nightmares still. I swear he lives in a bubble and the scariest thing he may watch on TV may be Mater from Cars. One morning after being weary eyed and groggy from a nightmare night, I mentioned how I'm at a loss about these nightmares to my mentor teacher at school, Beth. She had an awesome idea. She told me that she used to give her girls "bad dream spray" and every time her girls had bad dreams she would spray them away so that they wouldn't come back again. Her girls loved it and kept their bad dream repellent on their night stands. Hey, I'll give it a try. You know me...I need my sleep!

One night about a month ago, I tried it and it worked! Well last night, it was another nightmare night. He was hysterical and I was trying to calm him down. Through his tears, he tells me that he wants me to get the spray. Being that I'm half asleep and I only did it once and it was a month ago, I totally think he's talking in his sleep and making no sense. Then finally after he repeated it about four times, I remember the nightmare repellent. So I go to get the spray and hurry back. Picture this, it's 4:30 in the morning. I'm stumbling and I'm spraying water, ummm I mean the nightmare repellent in all four corners of the room. It seems to appease him and he goes back to sleep. Now I just need to teach him that he can spray this nightmare repellent himself.

So I come downstairs and Justin asks if he was ok. I slip back into bed but couldn't fall back asleep for awhile because I was feeling a little damp from the spray. I'm wondering when he's going to catch on that the nightmare repellent is the same stuff I put in his hair in the morning before I brush his hair.

Dreams

When Nolan got promoted to a big boy bed when I was pregnant with Campbell, we were a little concerned about him getting out of the bed and roaming the house during the middle of the night or the crack of dawn. So we made a really big deal about how he can't get out of bed unless mommy and daddy come up to his room (or of course to go potty). So for a long time, we would hear him yelling, "I HAD GOOD DREAMS MOMMMY!" when he was really to get up...so precious.

He doesn't do that as much now but we always ask him about his dreams in the morning since he's prone to have some pretty nasty nightmares. This morning I asked him if he had good dreams and he responds, "I told Daddy that I didn't have any dreams last night!" I said, "Really? I wonder where they went." He responds (without pause), "They went to someone else's house." Where does he get this stuff?

You forgot

Nolan has a steel trap memory. Months after almost being in a horrible wreck and seeing an SUV roll two times, Nolan would still bring it up and to this day knows exactly where it happened when we pass the same spot. So it's not shocking that he is an All-star memory match game player. It's unusual for him to lose. He will always let the other person go first. I think it's because he knows their fate and feels sorry for them. Usually, I'll say, "WOW, you beat me Nolan! Good job!" And he'll reply, "Yea, I 'bit' you."

Well apparently, Justin was on a roll the other day and actually beat him (it's that male competitive spirit coming out in him...even with a 3 year old as the competitor). And Nolan says, "Hey you forgot to let me win." I think he thinks that we've been letting him win...but he's really been beating us!

Nolie Nightmares

Nolan has been known to have some pretty bad nightmares. This week he had one and was crying hysterically so Justin went upstairs to calm him down. He stumbles in the room and asks him "What's the matter, buddy?" And Nolan through his tears is choking up as he says, "The problem is (sniff sniff)...I need a hug!" Justin gives him a hug and just like that, his nightmare was all fixed.

Don't forget the Lyrics

I would be a pretty bad contestant on this TV show...especially if it came to nursery rhymes. I'm terrible! I know like every other word or replace words with incorrect ones...it's quite humorous. One day when my best friend Angi and her husband were over I was telling them this exact story. Later that night, Nolan was singing a song and I started singing with him "Where is Bumpkin" instead of "Where is Thumpkin"...case in point.

Last night, I had single parent duty and was putting Nolan to bed. He loves Dumbo right now and loves a really sweet song that Bette Midler sings called "Baby Mine". Justin knows every word and sings it to him every night. So he asked me to sing it since Dad was at a church meeting. I tried to tell him it's going to be bad because I don't know the words. He convinces me that I know it. My kids are the only people that I feel comfortable enough to sing around...I know they don't mind my tone deafness. So I sing the first line and hum the next line and switch off and on between humming and words. I think he felt sorry for me.

Nolan: Don't worry mommy you will learn it when you grow up and get bigger.

Me: Oh yeah, well how do I get bigger?

Nolan: You eat broccoli

Me: (laughing hysterically)

I guess that's better than another time when I sang it and he said "No mommy, go get Daddy."

Smooth Talker

Bedtime is one of my favorite times of the day. Not so much the time leading up to it though. The baths, teeth brushing, putting on jammies are more of a chore than anything. But as soon as Nolan is in that bed and I'm lying down with him reading books, I just treasure that time with him. Books are read, prayers are said and then if I'm not exhausted by the 30-45 minutes that it takes getting ready for bed, we sing songs. Tonight was one of those nights that reminds me of how much I love bedtime. It went something like this:

Nolan: Mommy will you be my partner?

Me: Partner? For what?

Nolan: For Christmas

Me: You want me to be your partner for Christmas?

Nolan: Yea. Will you be my partner in my heart?

I don't really remember my response because I was about to squeeze him to pieces. He's got a way with words and all I can say is someday he really is going to sweep some girl off her feet with that smooth talking.

Santa's watching mommy too

Justin comes home the other day and says, "You're so busted!" Apparently, Nolan told Daddy on the way to school one morning, "That F150 was going too slow and made mommy go crazy! When cars go too slow, she says C'MON!" Guess I should be on my best behavior for Santa and Nolan...boy they sure are sponges, aren't they?