Return of the Scarves

When a grandparent passes away, most people inherit something. Maybe a little cash, some land, jewelery, or a precious family heirloom. When my grandmother and grandfather passed away, my brother got guns. I, however, got a shoe box full of scarves from the 1950's. Seriously. I'd forgotten about them for quite awhile (sorry grandma), but several years ago Marcus discovered them and fell in love with the scarves. He was probably about 8 or 9 and used them to play magician. He tied them all together and stuffed them up his sleeves. We would pretend to watch in amazement as he pulled them out of his sleeve over and over and over and over... Finally, Blake got tired of his son playing with women's scarves, and they mysteriously disappeared (unrelated to Marcus' act). He never admitted to any involvement, but we all suspected he did away with them. Today - as I was searching for something else, I found the missing scarves! Guess who loves them just as much as his brother did! Mason immediately put on a multi-colored one as a sarong. He then used another one as a flag for his laundry basket boat. I can't wait for Blake to get home. He'll be so excited that the scarves have returned!

Tastes Like Chicken To Me

One of my favorite conversations from our Branson trip...

Waiter at Shorty Smalls: How are your fish sticks?
Mason: Great! They taste just like chicken.

Mothers Don't Vacation

We got home Monday evening after a long weekend in Branson. Most of our family is referring to the weekend as a vacation. For me, the mother, the only time I vacationed was when I ran ahead of everyone in the outlet mall and hid in a clothing rack for the whole 5 minutes it took them to find me. On the trip down to Branson, Max did pretty well for the first hour or so. Then he insisted on being held and screamed bloody murder when we put him in his car seat. Don't preach at me about car seat safety. I'm from the generation that rode in the car's back window. Plus - my husband is the best driver in the world. However, I was mad at him during most of the trip to Branson. While I was wrestling with the heavy, squirmy, fussy baby and refereeing fights between the other two, Blake was listening to his iPod and using his noise-canceling earphones. Can't you just see it? Chaos in the back of the van and an oddly blissful driver oblivious to all of it! I thought I was going to actually get physical with him when he shouted back (he shouts when wears the ear buds) that he was having such a great time on the trip! Speaking of getting physical, I'm thinking of investing in my own noise canceling ear buds so I can cancel some noise the next time he's thinking of "getting physical".

Honestly - we had an awesome weekend. I'll blog more about all the funnies later. I'm especially excited to tell of Marcus' tragic experience on the Ride The Duck adventure. Not only was he mistaken for a woman, he was trapped between a bossy grandmother and her husband who had a breathing disorder. Good stuff - stay tuned!

Sell It To Your Neighbor For Pete's Sake

One of my favorite things in life is humor. I'm so thankful that God has a sense of humor and allows us to laugh. I get a kick out of so many things, but sometimes I can be guilty of laughing inappropriately. I've never cracked up at a funeral, but I did get a horrible case of the giggles when Merle Moore (age 265) sang a solo in my hometown church when I was about 12. He had about 2 notes left in his range and the song he chose didn't hit either one of them. Thankfully God hears our hearts...though I'm not sure that part of him was working that well, either. Oh - that reminds me - I also got the giggles in the same church when an obese man had a heart attack and the ambulence had to come and take him to the hospital. It was during the Sunday evening service and when I noticed that he'd tipped over in the pew I also noticed that his very busty wife had two or three open buttons on her blouse. To this day I wonder if the two were related. Anyway - on to today's funny...

I'm so sad that I missed the complete exchange, but when I got to work this morning, Blake was having a pained discussion with an Asian lady with a very heavy accent. She had brought a stereo system for us to sell, and was having second thoughts about selling it on auction. I believe her concern was that she couldn't control the selling price on a true auction, but she wasn't willing to pay the deposit we require to set a minimum price. If you know Blake at all you know he has the patience of a caffeine addict with ADHD on diet pills. This woman didn't stand a chance. Looking back, we realize that she was saying "Already" (say it to yourself with a Chinese accent - like "all leady"). Blake thought she was saying "Old Lady" and because she'd mentioned her neighbor, Blake assumed she'd received an offer from an old lady neighbor to buy the stereo outright. He proceded to repeatedly encourage her to sell the stereo to her neighbor, as she'd probably fetch a better price. She was truly confused by this, since we now know that she has no neighbor interested in the stereo. But it didn't stop her from repeating the word, "all leady", "all leady". I'm not sure how the whole exchange finally wound down, but the lady left and we're still auctioning the stereo. And I'm still giggling.

We Are Definitely The Weird Neighbors

Have you ever had one of those moments where you wake up in the middle of the night realizing something disastrous happened earlier in the day? All of the pieces of a series of events mysteriously come together in the night and land in your brain causing you to sit upright in bed.

At some point in the day, a few days ago, Mason asked me to write a sentence on a piece of paper for him. The sentence was, "Maddy is my sister." Maddy is our next door neighbor, and Mason often refers to her as his sister. He REALLY wanted a sister when Max was born, and even offered to settle for a hamster instead of a brother. Alas - he ended up with a brother and simply pretends Maddy is his sister.

Anyway - at another point in the day Mason asked for an envelope. At another point in the day Mason begged to deliver a note to Maddy, but reminded me that he wasn't allowed to ring their doorbell anymore (another story for another day). At another point during the evening, as I was immersed in another project and only half listening, Marcus told me that he and Mason had delivered a note to the neighbors by ringing their doorbell and running away. Now - you're getting all these tidbits at once - allowing for an opportunity to put the pieces together quickly. I was not so fortunate.

I woke up at about 2 am realizing that the neighbors heard their doorbell ring, went to the door to find nothing but a blank envelope. What was inside the envelope? A note bearing an adult's handwriting with the words, "Maddy is my sister" in block letters (so Mason could read it easily). After that incident where I was accused of stalking the Women of Faith group, this is not going to look good. Again - another story for another time.

Mason The Problem Solver

Twice lately Mason has tried to come up with a "better" solution than what I've suggested in hopes to avoid work. A few days ago I read about a method that supposedly helps parents train children to put their toys away. In theory, you explain to the child that everything has its own place and that the toys prefer being in their homes versus on the floor - or wherever they happen to be instead of in their proper place. I noticed that Mason had some toys on the floor in the kitchen, and I said, "Mason - these toys aren't in their homes. Why don't you put them away so they'll be where they belong?" He said, "See this kitchen? Let's pretend it's Branson and these toys are on vacation." Whoever wrote that book hasn't met Mason. Today I told him to get a pen for me so I could write out my grocery list. He was busy playing but suggested I use his safety scissors, which were right in front of me, to cut letters out of paper to spell out what I needed. I could use tape (that was also beside me) to adhere the cut out letters to a piece of printer paper...also right beside me. Seemed logical to him. He didn't have to quit playing and my list would be a work of art!

Max's First Word...Sort Of

Max has been babbling for some time now, but none of the words have been distinguishable. He's only five months old, but I'm so anxious for him to start saying mama! This morning Blake and I were laying in the bed with Max and just enjoying his cooing and gooing. Then, out of nowhere, Max says, "Boobs". I'm not kidding - it was plain as day. Great - leave it to a Baysinger boy. His first word is "boobs". Blake was so proud.

The Mad Housewife

I often wonder why I have so much trouble keeping my house in order. For Pete's sake - I'm a stay at home mom - how could my house always be such a disaster? Today I decided I would spend the day cleaning and organizing. I had visions of neat and tidy rooms, closets full of clean laundry and those lines across the carpet from vacuuming yourself out of the room. Here's a rundown of exactly why NONE of that will be happening any time soon.
1. Made a call to church Leadership Team director to explain why I wouldn't be giving a budget update to the body over the 4th of July weekend. 30 minutes later we were still solving all church related issues.
2. Received call from my brother desperately needing a part for his truck's air conditioner and there's only one left in Wichita. Asked me to PLEASE quickly pick it up for him downtown.
3. Returning home from O'Reily's noticed Michael's was open. Needed to stock up on some supplies for my craft room. Mason found a neat little sidewalk paint set. It was on clearance so I let him have it - that will come back to bite me in the behind later.
4. Notice we have overdue videos in the van. Since we're out, we drive in to Andover to return them.
5. Driving by Dairy Queen we notice our friends from church are eating, so we stop for a short (30 minute) visit. They were glad we stopped because Blake had left a giant blow torch at their house on the 4th and they were none to happy about carrying it around in their car.
6. Back home 2 hours later - still no housework done. Mason wants to paint the sidewalk with his new set. After 30 minutes of untwisting those impossible plastic ties on the back of every toy sold these days - we had freed the items and I sent him outside to play.
7. The neighbor boy comes over and wants to paint, too. I spend 15 minutes locating a paintbrush so he can play with Mason.
8. I start organizing the kitchen and look outside just in time to see that the neighbor boy is painting the blocks of wood that Blake uses to create his masterpiece bowls on the wood lathe. Abandon cleaning to shout at neighbor boy.
9. Max is quite grouchy and wants to eat. I start feeding him and he begins to drift off to sleep - yea! Unfortunately - neighbor boy and Mason blast in the door to get popsicles. Max begins to scream. See how that laundry is doing itself?
10. I send them out the front door with the popsicles and orders to keep quiet.
11. Mason comes in to report that the neighbor boy is painting "The Angel". This would be a fantastic sculpture done by Blake's deceased father that is on display at our front entryway.
12. I deposit Max in bed for a short lesson in falling asleep on his own and dash outside to clean the sculpture. You wouldn't believe the stares I got from neighbors as I'm hosing down the angel...as if I had better things to do! Couldn't help giggling as I remember the neighbor boy, in reference to his handiwork, asking me, "Isn't it 'boo-tiful'"?
13. Mason returns home from the neighbors (I'm pretending I knew he'd gone over there) and decides it's too hot to be outside. He wants to watch a movie upstairs. Great idea! Too bad I have to set up a 1980's VCR on that TV.
14. One child is watching a movie and one is asleep. I can finally get started on this housework. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? It's 3 o'clock and I haven't gotten a thing done. I'm exhausted. I'm taking a nap.

So Much To Share - So Little Time

So many fun things have happened recently, and I wish I had hours of time to blog. But, alas, I'm the mother of a 4 year old and a 5 month old...it ain't happenin'.

Max is now sitting up! He's still a little wobbly, but he's getting there. I took a video, but apparently it's too large a file because after about an hour of waiting yesterday, I couldn't get it loaded. A picture will have to do for now.


He had to get shots at the doctor's office yesterday. I'd recently read about the difference in pain between two test groups of infants receiving shots. One group got a dose of sugar water and the second group did not. The difference was remarkable - those babies receiving sugar water felt much, much less pain than the others. I'd read the article in the newspaper, then went online to get more details. I took my sugar water to the appointment, and gave him some before the shots. I never did read, though, how much to give the baby. I had a dropper and gave him about 3/4 of an ounce. The nurse didn't come in for awhile, so since too much time passed I asked her about giving him more of the mixture. She said that they had just gotten in some samples and they were using it for all baby immunizations. She proceeded to put a few drops on Max's tongue. I asked her what the proper dosage was and she said, "Oh - just a few drops on the tongue." Oops!!! She was surprised at how well Max took the mixture...and I didn't breathe a word as to why.

Max was definitely more graceful taking the sugar water than he was during a recent carrot eating episode. He discovered how FUN it is to spit after each bite. Notice the onesie that fits more like a tube top. This little guy is 5 months old and wears 18-24 month clothes! This size 12 month onesie has seen it's end.


Last night I served sloppy joe's for dinner. Mason ate a few bites and then announced that he was allergic to sloppy joe's and wouldn't be able to eat the rest of his. I told him that people who allergic to things often swell up and break out in hives, and since he didn't have either symptom he needed to keep eating. After disappearing for a few minutes he reappeared covered in red spots. He had taken a magic marker and given himself a case of the "hives"! Too bad they hadn't all come off this morning when it was time to go to Bible study!