Who said T-Rex was a meat eater?

Fynn is a very picky eater, and even with stuff he does like, he eats very little of it. Just about every meal ends in his plate, over three-quarters full, being thrown on the floor before any of us can do anything about it. It's like he thinks, "I'm done, NOW WATCH!" Today was no exception, and unfortunately the plate had lots of peas left on it. Before I had a chance to clean it up, Bryce looked over and found him gently feeding peas to his dinosaur. I had to fish peas out of its mouth later, and I guess he must have been giving it "sips" of milk, too, because a white liquid trickled out of the corners of the mouth.

Careful selection process

"What? Whatcha starin' at? Dude's hungry."

Beats cursing

Ewan's favorite movie all last week was "The Last Mimsy." Tonight while he was walking with a plateful of fish sticks, they all slid right off of the plate and onto the floor. Looking down at them in dismay and frustration, suddenly he exclaimed, "THE LAST OF ALL MIMSYS!!!"

Of course, I laughed.

He looked at me very sternly. "I wasn't saying that to be funny."

My personal leech

Back in May, what was once very cute and sweet...

Now, not so much...

My son the pole dancer

Mean mommy

Yesterday, I fixed a nice dinner, one that was full of things Ewan normally loves to eat.  Pork chops, corn on the cob, macaroni and cheese.  But Ewan has been in this odd habit lately of suddenly saying he "hates" his favorite foods, and refusing to eat.  Sometimes he'll have eaten at least 3/4 of a meal, then suddenly put his fork down and say, "This is gross!"  So last night at dinner, he pulled this little trick, and as he often claims to be hungry right before bed to get a piece of buttered toast, we told him there was no way he was getting anything.  We were also about to go visit my parents, so we told him no cookies or snacks there at all.  

Surprisingly, he didn't beg for any snacks there, even when it was discovered they had Oreos.  But he suddenly got it into his head that they were going to fix him a "nice dinner."  We kept telling him he couldn't eat anything there, but he could have some of our nice dinner when we got home.  He kept begging and pleading, "PLEASE!!  I want to eat a nice dinner HERE!!!"  I repeated my refusal several more times, and he finally stopped asking.  Toward the end of our visit, Fynn was getting quite hyper and destructive, Ewan was getting hyper, and at one moment at the end of my rope, I said, "Okay, we're leaving, you two are..."  I was planning on saying "driving me crazy" or something like that, when Ewan turned to me.  

"Starving?" he suggested.

A fine-looking young man

Ewan's physical self-image is pretty healthy, I think.  Today, getting ready for church, after we'd fixed his hair and put on the finishing touch of his shoes and socks, he stopped in the hallway and looked at himself in the full-length mirror for a moment.  Finally he said, just very simply, as if remarking on the weather, "I look good."  Then I guess he decided to pass the good feelings onto me.  After I put on my dress, he looked at me, very impressed, and smiled.  "You look cool.  I want a hug."

Consumerism - 2, Taylors - 0

(Don't let my title fool you; I'm not one who gets all riled up about "rampant consumerism" or whatever it is people get riled up about...)

Up until very recently, like two weeks ago, we didn't have cable or satellite or anything like it.It's not that we don't enjoy the shows that are on there, but rather we enjoy them far too much, and by not having it, we've been trying to save ourselves a life of couch potatoism and brain rot.  (Not that people with satellite have a life of those, just that we know WE would.)  We're giving it a trial run, and really so far it's not that impressive.  Every time we turn it on, something good has just ended and the current run is all junk.  But who knows, we may keep it, just because it records stuff for us!  But mainly because of the daily fresh episode of the Backyardigans.  THAT IT RECORDS FOR US!  

As a result of never having had satellite, Ewan's T.V. experience has been mostly commercial free due to PBS Kids and DVDs, and also our family's tendency (passed down lovingly from the Taylor side) to mute commercials.  But lately, while Fynn is napping, I know I need to take advantage of that opportunity, so I let Ewan catch up on his Backyardigans while I get some rest.  So I can't decide if this is a bad thing, or just a terribly funny thing.  Ewan lately is pimping out all sorts of products to me.  He was absolutely insistent that we make sure we get some Clorox in our cabinet.  I assured him we had some, and he would not rest until I actually showed him the bottle, to which he said, "So that's where you keep the Clorox, now where do you keep the Clorox wipes?"  He then proceeded to tell me all the things Clorox was good for.  Same day, later, he drops his applesauce all over the floor.  As I crawl under the table armed with paper towels and some random cleaner, he chastises me, "Mommy!  You need Clorox for that mess!"

But today was the best nugget of all.  We went out back to play, and out of the clear blue, he exclaimed, "OH NO!  We don't have any Claritin."  Assuming he was referring to Bryce's allergy attacks every time he steps in our backyard, I said nothing.  After a few minutes of reflection, Ewan told me some long thing about Claritin which ended in, "So I need Claritin so I can ride a skateboard."  Which, I haven't seen the commercial he must be referring to, but I can only assume it involves some poor allergy-ridden boy who can't enjoy the outdoors until he has his Claritin, which magically makes him a whiz on the skateboard.

Lessons from Elmo

Today, Ewan had to change shirts due to a spill, and before he had put on a new one, I noticed his back was quite red where he'd been trying to scratch it. He then told me, "My back itches so much!" I told him to come to me so I could look at it, but before the sentence was out of my mouth, he'd put on a new shirt and was heading out to the backyard. I heard him say something about a tree, so I watched him out the window and witnessed this:
There my son was, moving his back up and down against the tree to scratch it. I just asked him where he learned it, and he said from a little girl on Elmo's World who likes to scratch her back on trees. This is what my son takes away from an episode of Sesame Street. I thought he was going to tell me he learned it from watching the dog or an animal from TV. He repeated this again later in the evening, and Bryce was able to witness it that time. There we were, hiding behind the curtains, laughing hysterically, and then we ran and sat down as he headed back in, pretending we'd been sitting in the living room the whole time.

Enjoying randomness

Have you ever been watching the news, and towards the end, they include a story that you just can't believe made the cut?  Sometimes they come up with the most ridiculous, nonsensical, or just plain ordinary stories to include on the news.  Tonight, after a piece about how a sheikh paid $2.7 million for a female camel, because females run faster in big races, my mouth was hanging open in disbelief.  I mean, why do I need to know this?  But then the newscaster made up for it by looking deathly serious into the camera and saying, "We just thought you should know."  I want to take him out for lunch and buy him a steak for that.  

For fun

I saw this in Reader's Digest, and for some reason found it hilarious. It actually made me laugh out loud when no one else was in the room with me.

Mom?

Things I've been horrified to hear coming out of my mouth since Ewan started preschool:

1.  "HOP UP!  You don't want to be late for school!"

2.  "Tell me what you want for breakfast, I'm not sending you to school without food in your belly."

3.  "You are NOT wearing THAT to preschool."

A balanced diet

Doughnuts in our house are a rarity. I think I can count on one hand the number of times we have gone in our five years of marriage. (I mean, I know I drink a lot of Coke, but something about doughnuts... the sugar, the fat... while tasty... ick.) So when Bryce came home with a $25 Krispy Kreme gift card they gave him at work, I decided to take the boys for breakfast this morning. There was one left on the table in the box, and I thought it was safe out of reach. I left the room for a minute, and came back to find this:

Then this:


It was every so slightly reminiscent of this last picture. When we very first moved into our house, our oven didn't work for a month, and we were living on take-out and T.V. dinners. Our new neighbor had bestowed upon us a caramel-apple-pie-cheesecake, which we discovered Ewan devouring. He was only 18 months old and he'd gotten the fork himself, and was being very resourceful and serious about his endeavor:

R.E.D.

Ever since Ewan started in primary, it has been my favorite part of each Sunday to sit in the back with my class and watch him in Opening Exercises. It's all I can do not to run up to the front, grab him and squeeze him right in front of everyone. Bryce and I have only been doing very sporadic Family Home Evenings with him since he was about two. Neither one of us grew up having Family Home Evening, so it's something we have to remind ourselves to do, and even then half the time we're clueless how to do it. So I've enjoyed being able to see what he's learning just in Opening Exercises, then to see what he has to say after church when we asked what he learned in class. (The answer is usually, "I don't remember," but with some prodding we can get something better out of him.)

So this morning in Opening Exercises, Sister Hutchinson was talking about the scriptures and how important it is to read them. She told the kids even one verse a day, and for them to go home and tell their parents they wanted to do this. We do read four verses every night, one for each member of the family, and the reactions from Ewan have been mixed. I know lately he's been confused because every night it seems we're talking about Nephi's vision. At any rate, today after primary, we were sitting out in the foyer during sacrament, when Ewan grabbed my scriptures and proceeded to "read." It was sweet, cute, hilarious and inspiring all at the same time. I couldn't believe the stuff that was coming out of his mouth. Tonight, he did it again, and I was able to get it on tape. He always begins with "Behold," and somewhere in there he says, "The still small voice is Heavenly Father speaking. Don't do anything wrong." And, "The scriptures are true."

Hard Lessons and the Question of the Day

Right before I tucked Ewan in, we were having our "talking time," and he asked me what "nerd" means.  Not really knowing what to say, I hesitated for a long time, and finally told him it kind of means goofy.  He asked me, "Who is a nerd?"  I don't want him to ever make fun of people, or to ever censor himself in any way, so I gave him the most truthful answer, "Everyone is a nerd in some little way."  So he then asked me in what way Natalie is a nerd.  I told him I didn't know, but to not call her that because people don't like it.  So if he calls any of you or your kids a nerd, it's not personal, I'm sure he means it as a compliment.

Now for the real question of the night, also courtesy of Ewan:  "What would happen if your eyes were on your teeth?"

Finger lickin' good

Okay, so I totally stole this video off of Dooce's website, but it was so stinkin' cute, I couldn't NOT post it.  I want the soundtrack to this, and I'd listen to it on repeat as I went about my household chores.  I mean, seriously, this is cute at its cutest.  I'm totally against all that stuff they say is in our future, like picking what color your baby's hair and eyes are going to be, but if it were possible, I would soooooo pick a kid with an English accent.  

Splish, Splash, I was taking a bath

I've found that if I take 15 minutes in the morning to put on a little makeup and fix my hair, I feel so much better throughout the day. I just feel more put together and organized, and my mood is a thousand times better. So I always make sure to take that time for myself, but it's hard because Fynn is usually trying to grab my straightening iron from me, digging in the toilet or trash, or whatever else he can get into. I now have found a wonderful solution:
It's amazing how much fun an empty bathtub is. Perhaps it is the novelty. They were having so much fun, they didn't even want to get out when I was finished.

Precocious

Ewan asks every day, several times a day, what certain words mean.  It could be something he heard in one of my phone conversations, or a phrase he caught on TV.  Several times, he makes up a word and asks what it means.  Sometimes it's a very creative hodgpodge of letters that add up to one interesting make-believe word.  Other times, it's a very simple composition of words he already knows mixed with an extra letter or syllable.  Witness our conversation yesterday:

Ewan:  Mommy, what does lifed mean?

Me:  Lifed?  

Ewan:  Yeah, Mommy, lifed.

Me:  It doesn't mean anything, honey.  It's not a word I've ever heard before.

Ewan:  You've heard it now.

Don't want to meet him in a dark alley

If you haven't yet heard, there's a pretty weird, creepy video circulating of Tom Cruise singing the praises of Scientology. It's over eight minutes long, and I couldn't even make it all the way through it. But watch a little of it, because knowing a little about it makes this little parody by Jerry O'Connell just that much funnier.

Maybe they were white trash fairies

So I walked outside to get the mail, and I heard this lovely tinkling sound. It was the sound of a thousand fairies tripping and skipping down the street, their natural sparkle translating into tinkly music. I looked all around, trying to find the source. Were there fairies? Was someone ringing bells? Did Santa make a return trip? And then there it was. A tall, lone beer can being whipped down the street by the wind. Magical.

I've just been informed...

...by my older son that the dog thinks we're in Neverland. How will we get out?