UNLESS YOU THROW UP, DON'T BOTHER CALLING

Grrr...I'm just waiting for it to hit. The runny nose, fever, stomach, intestinal ickies. Hasn't happened yet even though it has hit our school, and our community with quite a ferociousness already! I thought maybe a week ago our time had come when my oldest boy called from school not feeling well. Even though my rule is ***UNLESS YOU THROW UP DON'T BOTHER CALLING*** I decided to go bring him home; the kid loves school and wouldn't call if it wasn't true. Unlike his sisters at that age who called with every little thing, which caused me to enact "The Rule." When I got there he started to tear up. He really did look awful, poor guy. And about 5 minutes later he let it all go right there in the hall. (thank you to the nice janitor for cleaning it all up, and with such a nice attitude, too!) I took him home, put him to bed, and 2 hours later he was just fine. My kind of bug. :)

Yesterday, it was boy number 2 (when i write that, it doesn't sound so...right? i'll have to ponder that description...). Anyhow, same thing. But this time, I was out in the garage cleaning, and my dead cell phone was in my purse, and I never heard the school call. For an hour, my little guy slept on the chair outside of the office, all bundled up in a blankie, looking quite sorry and pale. I made a joke when I got there about how I should get the Mother-of-the-Year award for not having my cell phone on, and his so-sweet Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. H, said, "Oh well, you know this is what is was always like before cell phones!" Which made me feel only slightly better, but was more relevant and fun to reflect on today when I got this link on FB. By the way, he didn't have a fever and never threw up, but he did look terrible. After a little nap he was just fine. Again...my kind of bug!

he broke my heart this morning

yep. this is the one. my lovey, snuggly, gives-me -tons -of -kisses 7 year old. but not this morning. see, he's a pretty laid back little guy, and we never have much of a problem with him being disagreeable. especially about clothing. but he can be funny that way. doesn't like buttons on the pants (too difficult), doesn't like jeans (too hard feeling), doesn't like collars (bug him around the neck), hates making the transition to short sleeves and shorts in the spring because he likes to feel warm, soft things against his skin. Doesn't like button downs because they are not warm and soft and even with a tshirt underneath, he can still feel them. and for some reason, he just doesn't like stripes. so, even though i am a very accommodating mommy and buy him only soft clothing with snaps and not buttons, i can sometimes make, shall we call them, mistakes in judgement...which, by the way, is easy to do with him, because he tends to be so laid back. ("what? he won't notice the stripes, anyway!") yes, you probably can make a pretty good guess by now...i bought him a cozy, soft, no button long sleeved shirt WITH STRIPES! i couldn't resist...sort of nautical...darling...TOTALLY thought he'd go for it because it would be soo soft he wouldn't care. boy, was i ever wrong! it started last night when i laid it out for him and he protested. "let's wait till morning," i said. then he came downstairs dressed in his little brother's shirt that was in the pile right next to his. totally gave me this look like, "what? this was the shirt sitting there..." batting his long eyelashes and pretending like his little bro's shirt wasn't a size or two too small on him...

the battle ensued. well, not really. i told him to switch out with his brother, who (wearing the stripey tee) said, "i thought this was too big for me..!" and then i told him that this was a character building moment. that sometimes you just gotta wear what your mommy tells you to wear. then he launched into tears and wailing and pleading and went to grab his jacket and said, "i'm wearing this ALL DAY LONG so NOBODY SEES THIS STOOOOOPID SHIRT!"

fine, then...now go get in the car!

he didn't speak to me all the way there, but i really never expected that i wouldn't get a good-bye kiss. it's a tradition, for crying out loud. you don't get out of the car without giving mommy a kiss. mommy doesn't feel right without it, and we've worked out a system. kiss mommy BEFORE you get out of the car so that nobody sees you and there's no embarrassment factor. (which was difficult enough for mommy to hear...) but this morning? he just glared at me and stomped off. i was horrified, and sad, and broken hearted, and now have been thinking all morning about when he is too big for any kisses and snuggles at all from me. i'm certain that day will be here sooner than later. and someday, he will leave me for another and well...i just cannot go there right now.

today when he gets home he's getting a big talking to. i'll tickle him and pin him down and MAKE him give me a kiss. that'll teach him! :) and i'll save the stripey shirt for when i need a punishment for some awful behavior...like getting out of the car without giving mommy a kiss.

un unlikely griz fan...

we are so fortunate to live in Montana. Really. i couldn't wait to get the heck out of here, especially my hometown...where i'm back living...perfect place to raise the brood...centrally located for travel...ski mountain a mere hour away...blah, blah, blah...but i digress because i was really going to talk about how part of being that fortunate to live here includes going over to Missoula for all of the Grizzly hometown Football games in the Fall! When we moved back to the hometown, part of the allure was the thought of going to those games (2 1/2 hours away)...but 10 years and 2 more kiddos later, we'd never gone...especially shocking since my better half is a former fb player for said school...i guess maybe his unimpressed-with-the-crazy-football-madness-former-marching band wife rubbed off on him...hah!

then, fall of 2009 we became the lucky 1/2 owners of one of the stadium boxes and have been to pretty much every home game since! pretty easy -and fun- to watch a team with 66 wins in the past 6 years, and 11 straight big sky conference titles...

i truly never thought i would become a griz football fan. i went to a rival school over in idaho, for starters. fun to go to the fb games but nothing in comparison to what happens on the UM campus. when i moved back in the fall of '92 i found fb there a bit like going to game day at a Pac 10, mega size school. the big time. in this small college town. in fact, for years i was pretty annoyed about the whole maniacal mess that happens. how the entire town goes crazy and their lives centered around a football game, for goodness sakes.

an unlikely griz fan.

but now? we can hardly wait to load the suburban and head out on the lovely drive...so you might be able to understand just a little bit when you watch this AWESOME video...even i get a little tingly with anticipation!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZpbN4uC2yk

My honey

awwwwwww, it's my guy! he's about 9 here. isn't it weird when you look at a picture of the father of your children and see no resemblance whatsoever? but people say it all the time, i mean, really they do! "oh, she looks so much like her dad." and i just say, "hm. really?" i guess i don't see it, though he's a pretty handsome guy and i have some pretty handsome kids (whatever, i'm NOT biased!) ...thanks, hon, for contributing those great genes to our offspring! in the end, he was a sweet boy in that rad sweater with some killer natural highlights...and he still is sweet boy who wears an occasional rad sweater and some new natural silver highlights.

Pirate and Indiana Jones

Aren't they cute? my 2 boys? i was so proud of them for walking in the annual kids' parade in our hometown this summer...WITHOUT the prodding of their big sisters, who happened to be out of town. In fact, the boys didn't want to at all, until 5:15 when my oldest son mentioned that it might be kind've fun...but they had to be down to main street by 6:00 for registration! We raided the dress up(with 4 kiddos, there's always an abundance of that!) and I'm always happy when no one throws a fit because of limitations on what there is to wear (or eat, or drink, or watch, etc...). So, real quick, they let me style them into a Pirate and one of my fave's of all time...Indiana Jones! They both won first place in their catagories (who cares if they were the ONLY ones in their catagories?!) Thank goodness the judges didn't put them into the same catagory, that could've been disastrous for one to get a blue ribbon and the other not. R got to be in the 'best representation of a Pirate' and G was 'best representation of a movie character.' Truly, the organizers set it up so it's fairly easy to place, falling just short of having catagories like, 'Best representation of a Transformer!' Heck, Star Wars alone could have several of it's own catagories! (and, incidentally, is very popular every year). Still, they had fun, and got to walk up about 8 blocks of Main Street looking every bit their characters, only annoyed when I was near to snapping the 72nd picture of the hour...what troopers!