what would we do, baby. . . ?

back before i had two little men of my own, i used to think i would never be that parent who would throw their kids in front of the TV in order to get something done. 
that was a noble idea. 
but, it wasn't all that well thought out, as i'm not exactly sure when i thought i would actually accomplish the daily to-do list. 
this week, bern and i let the boys watch a new version of Transformers on The Hub while we tried to catch up on cleaning around the house. 


as i have said many times, we can trust anthony to follow rules.
this includes the job of monitoring TV. 
we simply have to tell him that something is a show that is "off-limits," and he will forever avoid watching it. 
this system works nicely for us. 


so, as we were rounding out the 30-minute mark while desperately moving piles about the house, anth suddenly shouted, "mom! dad! come here! quick!"
assuming someone was injured, we made the mad dash toward the boys. 
while on the move, we then heard anth shout, "there is some REALLY WEIRD show on TV!!!"
and as we rounded the corner into the room where they were quietly sitting, bern and i heard the familiar tune that accompanies the lyric "...and there ain't no nothing we can't love each other through."


i can see how the cast of Family Ties could come across as somewhat out of place in comparison to Transformers and The Avengers and Phineas and Ferb. 
but the look on anthony's was was truly one of horror. 
maybe it was the hair...

sha la la la. 

a christmas lesson

tonight while tucking anth in to bed, i had him run down the most current list of his christmas wishes. 

i needed to make sure Santa had the most up to date list possible. 

anthony listed a RC something-or-other car, Criss Cross Crash and Beyblade (sp?). 

but then he leaned in and patted me on my cheek and said, "but mom, i'm not most excited about getting gifts. i'm most excited about spending time with my family." 

um...what?

i mean, yes the christmas season is definitely about more than presents and i'm all about that. 

but come on, the kid is 5. 

so i asked him if he and dad had been talking about that recently. 

"no, mom. but i'm pretty sure that's kind of what those christmas TV shows are trying to tell me."

"mom, i just don't get this song. i mean, whose mom wants wants to kiss santa with all that beard?"

- anth, listening to the all-christmas-music all-the-time radio station with me at bedtime.

table talk

tonight, in the middle of a healthy dinner of pepperoni pizza, benny suddenly pointed at 
his father and declared, "daddy, you FIEWCE!"


after some clarifications on our end of what word he was trying to say, it became clear that our little benjamin was, in fact, telling bern that he, in that moment, was "fierce." 


which left us to wonder if our littlest man, who likes to play 'monsters' these days, was confidently mispronouncing "ferocious"... a stretch for his vocabulary...or, if he was simply paying his papa a pop-culturally relevant compliment. 

Fail Photo 16

sometimes it's easy to tell when the photo shoot is over...

holiday planning equals fail (photo)

and in this case, the failure part will be coming from me. 
i'm owning this in advance. 
looking ahead to the holiday season and the general hustle and bustle that comes with it, i'm making this statement in advance: i'm probably going to be a tad lazy about posting this month. 
or a lot lazy. 
only time will tell. 


but, case in point, tonight i'm tossing up one of my many photos gone awry and putting my nose to the holiday grindstone. 
while i keep my kids contained. 
literally...

*note: dear friends in Social Services, no i am not literally keeping my children in a box. 
this shot was taken last june. 
the kids were playing sweetly together in this box. 
as many children who have plenty of good toys tend to do. 
it was cute enough for me to walk to the next room and grab my camera. 
and this is what the cute moment evolved into by the time i returned. 

that's what HE said.

• benny's command of the english language is getting more solid all the time. his vocabulary is increasing and, though it breaks my heart, he is slowly learning to properly pronounce words. thankfully, he is not quite there yet, and even his pint-sized defiance is still kind of precious. 
• that said, his little declarations tend to have a certain rhythm to them these days. for mommy, this serves as a very convenient what-just-happened-leading-up-to-this-statement decoding mechanism. thanks to benny's go-to responses, here's how i know what you (or, perhaps more accurately, i) just did...
• if he tells you YOU BOKE IT!...you have thrown away something that he did not consider trash
• if he insists NO, I'M TUFF!...you have paid him a compliment
• should he state I'MMA FRUDDAH WADED... he is irritated. likely with you. likely because you told him no. or supported a household rule. or, heaven forbid, informed him that, in fact, no, he can not have candy for breakfast/lunch/dinner. 
• if he looks at you, indignant, and shouts NO, I'MMA DEDDO MAYO!...you have started to head down the driveway to the mailbox without him
• if he retorts NO, I NOT A FART!...you have told him he is smart. for some reason, this is highly insulting to him. 
• • if he declares, NO, I BIG!... you have reminded him he is little. 
  • if he declares, NO, I LITTLE...you have suggested he is a big boy.
  • and, if he comes back with no YOU (insert verb/action phrase here)...you have asked him to do...anything.    (ie, "no, YOU take a bath, momma. no YOU wash yo' hands, daddy. no, YOU stop pokin' me, Antony.)