Conner's 5 Today

Well, today was a big one. The day Conner turned 5. So hard to believe. He's getting so big and he's just not the little guy he once was. He's still our little guy, but he's definitely becoming such a bigger boy.

Ahhhhh yes... I can remember back. To hear Anita screaming at Conner, "STOP! STOP!" and then, " YOU'RE HURTING ME!" ...and then.."GET OUT OF THERE!" .....yes, I can remember it like it was.... well, today. Yes, some things never change.

Here's to the little guy getting big!


  

Putting on Socks

Friday morning after I came home from the gym, I was standing in the kitchen getting a drink and I heard Zach yell, "Me DID it! Me DID it! put socks on! Me DID it!"

I peaked around the corner and grinned really big to see him sitting on the floor with one sock on and one in his hand going on the other foot. I said, "That's great Zach! You did a very good job! Can you say, I did it." - always the teaching moment... At least he did then say, "I did it!"

We were very proud for him, even if they were upside down (they were the ones with grey bottoms). Of course, Conner had to point out that he didn't do them correctly, but we diverted that to point out that getting them on his feet was the important part.

Anyway.... hearing Zach say "Me DID it!" has got to be one of the cutest things lately. I always correct him, but some part of me doesn't want to see him know how to say it correctly, because it is so darn cute!

I'm Telling

Yesterday, Anita was running back and forth between the living room and den cleaning and picking up and taking stuff outside to the shed. While she was out here for a time, the boys were in the living room, and obviously having a run with each other over who could be the loudest or get in trouble the fastest. Lately, Conner's thing has been to tell on Zach, or to try and punish him himself. I've often heard Conner say while Anita and I weren't around (in the other room so he couldn't see us), "ZACH. GO TO YOUR ROOM! I'M VERY ANGRY WITH YOU!" To which, of course Zach will reply, "No!" - which is pretty much the same thing he does for Anita and me, so at least he's consistent. Else, I'd probably let Conner start disciplining him.

Anyway.... Anita was out here yesterday and we hear something go *POW* and then we hear Conner scream, "MOMMY! ZACH HIT ME........WITH THE BIBLE!"

I just put my head down on my desk and started laughing. Oh me.. Talk about a Holy Smackdown!

A little while later, we heard Conner yell again, "Mommy! Zach called me POOPIE!" To which, Anita in here grumbled, "Well then, you shouldn't have taught him the word!"

Golf Clubs

I haven't made a post in several days because I was out of town in Memphis last week. I had something that I meant to post, but had almost forgotten about. One night last week, I was talking to Anita on the phone and she said, "So, Zach broke the tv today." ..... "uhhhhh, what?" was my response.

"He hit it with a golf club." she told me.

Grrrrrrrrrrr. Sure enough. When I got home, there is a small spot in the lower right-hand side where the glass is broken on the inside. Needless to say... no more plastic (or metal) clubs or bats in the house for quite awhile!

Sleeping In

So, I stayed up pretty late Friday night, and was hoping to sleep in just a little on Saturday morning. As in,.... 8:00 AM even. That would have been fine. However, Anita, having gotten up early and ready to have a productive day painting Conner's room, got ready and rushed in about 7:00 AM and tells me, "Boys are watching tv. They've got waffles and juice. They should be fine. I'm going to Lowe's. Be back shortly."

My response, "Wrrgghhaaaa?" from my waking stupor.

She's out the door five minutes... if that... and it starts... they come rushing in jumping on me and yelling and screaming. I tell them to go back to the other room and play in there or watch tv while I sleep a little longer. Works just fine. For 2 minutes. Then, I'm awakened by, "ZACH! DON'T TOUCH MY TRAIN!", which I have to go and break up. Then it's Zach crying because Conner did something. Then it's, "DADDY! Zach hit me in the head!" Then it's..... yah, every 5 minutes for an hour leading up to the grand finale.

I was actually back asleep when I hear Conner yell, "SHOOOWEEEE! Yuck! ZACH HAS A POOPIE DIAPER AND HE TOOK IT OFF!"

My eyes pop open and I am staring at Zach. Bare-bottomed with poop clinging to him, half-way up in his climb to get into the bed with me.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!

I couldn't believe it. I bolted upright, snatching him up and holding him at arm's length to carry him to the changing table. I had to wipe him down really good because it had gotten on his legs. I then found the dirty diaper sitting in the middle of the living room.

All I could do at that point was to clean him up. I called Anita on the cell phone at Lowe's and as soon as she answered I just said, "You couldn't have left at 8:00?"


ughhhhh..... so much for sleeping in.

Power Rangers

Anita reminded me of a post that I wanted to make. In my last post I made a comment about how surprised I was that Conner didn't forget about the Hyper Jet (read previous blog entry). He has a great memory and so I guess it isn't unusual for me to say this, but I was more referring directly to something else that happened just before we left town for Christmas.

Last January, for Conner's birthday, he received 3 power rangers figures. Anita and I both have no real love for the power rangers and honestly didn't really want him to have them. (This is due to the fact that they generally promote violence and we have seen the effects of that cartoon directly on little boys over the years.) However, he received them as gifts and we weren't going to just take them all away from him. At least not ALL of them. We put them aside, and then let him open one of them. The other two, Anita put back and Conner didn't really realize they were gone. He never said anything else about them.

So..... a week before Christmas Conner comes up to Anita out of the blue carrying his one power ranger figure and says, "Do you think we could get out the other two power rangers I got for my birthday?"

DOH!

I can visually imagine Anita's jaw dropping when he said it. The thing is.... well... we regifted them to some little boy for a birthday party Conner went to during the year. We don't even have them anymore. Double DOH!

Anyway, Anita had to tell him that she didn't think we had them anymore or that we'd have to try and see if we could find them or something.... hmmmm... we're such bad parents! We give away our kids new toys!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Well, the holiday season is over and we are all getting back into our routines I guess. I started the new year without any resolutions really. I've been hitting the gym pretty hard for the past 8-10 weeks and so I definitely want to keep to that. However, my only "resolution" ( I like using the word goal better) is to trim back the fat and sugar from my diet some and regulate more what I am eating to help me become more lean again. I also want to add some cardio in to the workout to get the cardiovascular system in better shape. All that being said though, I have set myself a goal for the year to try and push myself to not STOP working out like I usually do. I have set myself the goal of lifting 1 million pounds this year. Not at one time of course. I'm not THAT strong......hah. Anyway, I setup a blog to track log my workouts and I'm keeping up with the running total of weight lifted there: http://oneyearonemillion.blogspot.com

Okay, back to Christmas. We went to Madisonville and had a great visit. The boys had a wonderful Christmas and and enjoyed their gifts immensely. However, the time around all their family is what I see lights them up the most though. The boys did get some cool stuff and they had fun playing while we were at my parents' house. Christmas morning we had to wake them up to open presents and when they came in and saw the Santa gifts, we all had a good laugh. Conner received a cool cash register that talks and adds, and has play money in it, and has a scanner, credit card slider, etc.. it's very cool. Cool enough in fact, that Zach looked at his bike and then he went over and started playing with the cash register too. haha. For the next ten minutes, Zach played with the cash register and we couldn't get him to open other presents or even come sit on his new bike. Oh well, I'm sure he'll enjoy it in time. For the time being though, it looks like TWO cash registers would have been a hit :).

The boys receieved a present for the both of them from Anita and me - A Rescue Heroes Hyper Jet. This thing is massive. As if we needed another large toy in our small and very crowded house, but well, there you go. There is a funny story behind this gift though. Anita bought this thing back in the summer. She was in Toys 'R Us and found it on sale and then very sneakily since she had both boys with her went and found someone and asked them if they could ring it up and let her pay, but not bring it to where the boys could see it, and then load it in the car after she had the boys in the car. All of it went successfully and they were almost home, when just down the road from our house, she goes around a corner and the thing slides in the back and Conner hears it, turns around and says, "THE HYPER JET!" hahaha. Well, Anita came in the house just muttering curses under her breath. It was so funny. Figures. So, we had to diffuse Conner for a few days, and we hid the Hyper Jet in the attic. Fortunately, he actually forgot about it... which is...amazing quite frankly, and they were both excited about it. Conner especially. This thing seriously though... it's huge. I caught Zach trying to get on it. Probably to fly away.

One big present the boys got from Anita and me had a rather entertaining story behind it. We gave Conner a giant box of Star Wars figures, and Zach a smaller, but no less substantial smattering of Star Wars figures as well. They were really more for Conner, but we couldn't give them to just one without both getting them cause we knew how many problems that would cause down the road. This way, if Conner tries to get possessive, we just have to remind him that some of them are Zach's too, and since they don't know which are which now, they'll just have to share all of them. See, there are some tricks you learn as parents :). Back to the story though.... these particular Star Wars figures have a story behind them. I purchased them between 1995 and 1998! HAHAHA. Back when they rereleasd all the Star Wars movies to create hype for the much anticipated (sadly) new Star Wars movies (Episode 1, 2, 3) that would be coming out. I, like, apparently everyone else, could only think about how popular and valuable all those Star Wars figures were from the 70s and 80s and had the idea to buy up a bunch of the new release of figures as soon as they were released in hopes of saving them to be collectibles later. Well, obviously they made a LOT more of them this time because they haven't appreciated any in 10 years. In fact, I can find them all day long on Ebay easily for half what I paid for them 10 years ago... or even less usually. So, going on that depressing bit of news, I decided to pull out all the figures I had stored in the shed and give some away to two little boys we pulled off the Angel Tree at church. Then, we decided this would be a good year for Conner to receive some as gifts. So, after giving away 10 to the two little boys, 4 to a little boy for his birthday, and about 20 between Conner and Zach, I only have about 75 left! Guess what every little boy who has a birthday that Conner goes to is going to receive for the next 2 years!

I've got one last story and then I'll wrap up with just posting several pictures.

Sunday morning (Christmas Eve), we had all planned to go to church with mom and dad. Well, Zach had been intermittently throwing up since Thursday morning and had done so just after bedtime Saturday night. Given the circumstances, Anita decided she would just keep him at home. I said I'd go ahead and go with my parents to church though and that Conner was welcome to come with me if he liked. While I was in the shower, Anita had this conversation with him to ask him about going...

Anita said, "Conner, would you like to go to church with Daddy, Mama-T, and Papa-T?"
After thinking a bit, Conner said, "I think I'd really like to just stay here and play."
Anita trying to persuade him (since he loves music and Christmas songs) says, "You know, they are going to sing Christmas songs. They will probably sing some Christmas carols at church today."
Conner hesitates a moment then says, "Which ones are they going to sing?"
Not giving up just yet, Anita replies with his favorite song (as if she has any idea what they will sing), "They might sing Hark the Herald Angels Sing."
Conner looks at her and thinks about it, but quickly shoots back, "Well, we do have the book and we can sing that one here at the house."

:) The boy's sharp. I tell ya. Always keeping us on our toes.