An Open Letter of Apology

Sometimes, I feel totally overwhelmed. Sometimes, I feel like I am failing, just failing. Sometimes, my house is messy, my kids are out of control, my to do list has become so long that it is now a mobius strip and is, literally, unending. Sometimes, I just don't know how to get ahead or even just catch up. So, until I figure that out I am going to make myself feel better by issuing apologies for the things that I should or should not have done. Maybe if I can just get some things off my chest, I'll feel better. So, uh, here goes:

To the plants in my garden: I am sorry that I did not nurture you properly. I'm not sure if you need more fertilizer or if you just needed better soil, or if you need counseling but apparently I have raised you with a fear of having a family. I promise your children will not be as difficult to manage as my children. You've already put down roots, like physical roots, so it would be okay, really, to bear some fruit. Don't be afraid to make the commitment. I'm sorry if I haven't been supportive enough. I am also sorry if I did not express enough appreciation for the one radish and handful of basil you have produced so far.

To the random man at Walmart: I am sorry. Just really sorry. I had no idea that when my son walked in the general direction of your cart that he was planning to stop and purposefully sneeze all over you and your food. If you would like copies of his medical records to prove that he does not have any communicable diseases I would be happy to provide them. It was just seasonal allergies. Besides, you'll have to cook all of that sausage anyway and any germs should be killed in the cooking process. Frankly, if you are planning to eat all of that sausage yourself then that the sneeze is the least of your health problems, but it still was very very wrong of him to do that. I have had a long talk with him and I am hopeful that there will be no more sausage-sneezing in the future...... maybe. Your look of disgust was, unfortunately, a big incentive for him to do it again.

To Tobias: I am sorry that I took too long to prepare lunch for you and that your hunger drove you to bite through an entire stack of tortillas... while they were still in the package. I am grateful that none of your brothers noticed the little bite marks out of each quesadilla that I served them. I will try to cook faster next time.

To my neighbors: I am sorry for the screams issuing from my house. We are not filming a horror-movie, nor am I abusing my children. Please do not call CPS. I am just cutting their hair.

To Elijah: I am sorry for ruining your life by cutting your hair. I realize it was your ambition to grow up to be a rockstar/fringe spiritual leader/hippie/the next Samson/hairstylist and I have likely destroyed your dreams at the tender age of 6. I understand, completely, why you feel you must scream as though your very soul were being ripped from your body when, in fact, I am just removing some dead cells. So sorry.

To the random Walmart employee: I am sorry for the doing a double take in your direction the other day. I know it was terribly rude of me and that you might have felt embarrassed when the five little boys in, under and hanging-off of my shopping cart also looked. It was just that you were wearing extremely tight leggings that matched your skin tone EXACTLY and it took my brain a moment to process what I was seeing. I apologize. I cast my eyes down in shame, also to avoid seeing what I thought was a half-naked person.

To David John: I am sorry for failing to have appropriate supplies for your sea monkeys. It broke my heart to hear your conversation with your brother:
D: Sea monkeys do not have birthdays because they are sea creatures and sea creatures are not borned they just grow.
E: But they hatch out of eggs. When they hatch out that is like their birthday.
D: Yes, but sea monkey still cannot have birthdays because you can't put a party-hat on a sea monkey.
I should have anticipated this and found a supplier for sea monkey party hats. I know you were feeling bad for your sea monkeys' lack of birthdays.

To my readers: I am sorry for the lackluster state of the blog this summer. I have been searching for the cause of the drop in quantity and quality and have a working theory involving potty-training, accidents and bleach. In the last two days alone I have sat in, slipped on, and waded through bodily fluids. This, combined with the fumes from the clorox wipes and intense cleaning sprays has caused a semi-permanent cloud of chemicals through which coherent thoughts cannot traverse. I am sorry, so sorry.

Kaleb Kapers

This was our third year hosting my awesome nephew Kaleb in the summertime. He is extremely helpful in wrangling in our five guys. He always seems to be here for his birthday (poor kid) so he has to settle for a cake that I can actually make. Angelfood cake with strawberries? Check.

Kaleb can pull faces with the best of them. No wonder he is my boys' hero.

We spent a ton of time at Dickinson's new outdoor pool while he was here. I have pictures of all the boys enjoying the fun, but Kaleb was off on the water slides most of the time so I don't have any swimsuit footage of this cute 12-year-old. He'd probably be embarrassed anyway. As his Aunt, I am a pro at embarrassing him.

Someone is very proud of his swimsuit body.

David John took great glee in getting his brothers with splash guns.

Gabe took to wearing his life jacket and hanging out in the deep end. Oh yeah, he is big stuff.

Elijah is a water bug as long as he has his goggles.

Jami couldn't get enough of the kiddie water slides.

He also loves the great outdoors so we spent a whole day hiking in the badlands. We checked out some binoculars from the ranger's station and brought a picnic lunch. Every time we go to Teddy Roosevelt National Park I can't believe how beautiful it is and the wildlife is awesome.

Gotta love the view.

I love how the binocular strap is blowing in the wind. Kaleb couldn't get enough of them. There may have been a few scuffles over use of those binoculars. Next time, we may have to bring one for everybody.

Benjamin loved pretending to get stuck in cracks. Unfortunately, there were some middle-aged women hiking behind us. Every time we stopped to play, they would catch up and I would get "the look" when my children pulled stunts like this.

"Mom, can I roll down that hill?" Nope. Sorry kiddo. 

Gabe is getting ready to go "rock climbing".

I love this picture of Tobias, but the lady hikers informed me it was very irresponsible of me to be far enough away from him to take this picture.

Elijah likes balancing on the rock formations or following a seam.

I don't usually do selfies, but every once in a while I figure I should provide hard evidence that I exist, that I'm not some third-person omniscient narrator for my children's lives.

The boys were all interested in this field which had a tree, flowers, grasses and an assortment of cacti.

It was the middle of the day in summer, so we didn't see a lot of large wildlife during our hike. On our drive out however, we found the herd.

The buffalo calves were still pretty little and they were walking right past our windows.

This guy is taking a dust bath. It was super cool to watch!

I didn't get a good shot of the fight that occurred between two bulls because I was too frightened they were going to run straight into our car, but here is one of the guys skidding to a stop after running at his nemesis. The whole experience was pretty incredible.

As always, his visit ended far too soon for my boys so after we took Kaleb to the airport in Bismarck we hit the charming little Bismarck Zoo. Oddly enough, the animal my boys were most fascinated by during our trip was a little bird eating crumbs in the picnic and play area. Go figure. At their request I have at least ten pictures of the little sparrow and almost none of anything else in the zoo. At least I got a shot of four of my monkeys on the zoo train.

We enjoyed the train ride, but we had to wait a while before the train actually left the station. Tobias didn't even want to stick around for the photo. He jumped off the bench (notice the space in the middle) and took off running while I was trying to take the picture. I had to chase him down several times before the train finally started moving.

David John 5.0

I am so far behind on blogging. So very, very, far. I promise that I think 1,000 funny thoughts a day and I am just dying to tell you about them but by the time evening hits my brain has turned into a giant pile of mush. Usually I can't articulate a single coherent thought. That is why I keep random memos of funny things in my phone so that when I am having a good-brain evening I can write about the funnies of days past. As I pondered what to write today, I realized that the number of awesome David John quotes in my phone has reached critical mass. If I don't publish these quotes and then delete them I am pretty sure my phone will self-destruct in 10, 9, 8, 7.... Shoot! I better stop rambling and just get to the good stuff. One more note, David John also turned 5 like a week and a half ago so I am interspersing his sayings with random birthday pictures.

David John loves to play pirates, here are some of my favorite pirate quotes:
At the playground talking to random kids from atop the play-structure: "Argh, I'm a pirate! I know I look like a people, but it's just dress-up."
In full pirate-gear stomping around the house: "I'm Champenbargerfok and I'm going to plunder up some treasure!" I think we may have a future fantasy-writer on our hands. Who comes up with names like that?
Coming upstairs in the morning in pirate persona: "What's for my scurvy breakfast?!?"

I brought this "mud pie" for a singing time activity on a fast Sunday. I made it out of dirt since everyone would be fasting. David John didn't believe me. He thought it was chocolate. After spitting out the giant bite he took he exclaimed, "mud pie tastes like dirt!"

Marc is getting a new car. That means we have been to the dealership several times with children in tow. The dealership, thankfully, has a great play area, friendly staff, popcorn, peanuts and soda. Marc let the boys have a snack and some sprite so that if they spilled it wouldn't stain. David John asked for rootbeer, which happened to be the caffeinated variety Barqs. Marc replied, "Sorry David John, the last thing I would give you is rootbeer." David John took it surprisingly well. As we were leaving the dealership, however, David John piped up, "Dad, what about my rootbeer? You said the last thing you would give me is rootbeer and now this is the last thing."

David John has a love affair with giant marshmallows. One day, he was explaining the difficulties of me having a bag of giant marshmallows in the cupboard. "I know the smarshallows are there and the smarshmallows contract me to steal them and eat them. The contraction might last forever!"

David John couldn't find the magnets, so he just drew a picture with a permanent marker and hung it on his wall for decoration. It totally looks like that little guy is swearing up a storm comicstrip-style. I asked David John what the guy was saying. He replied, "I haven't decided yet."

Benjamin is not the best at apologizing so Marc was modeling an apology for Benjamin, using David John as his role play partner. David John got confused, however, and asked Marc, "Wait, why are you apologizing? What did you to do me?"

David John loves to explain compound  nouns to people. I thought, at first, that explaining them just made him feel smart but I came to realize that dissecting the compound nouns was actually a revelation to him. I think it was the day he exclaimed at the table, "Wait! You mean peanutbutter is made from peanuts?!?!" Anyway, he often excitedly tells me things like, "Mom! I know why this is called a lunchbox! It's a box and you put your lunch in it!" Often, the explanations are obvious, but sometimes he gets it slightly wrong. "It is called a hotdog because it is hot and it looks like a dog's tail." Marc: "Actually, I think it's because it looks like a wiener dog." David John: "No, Dad. It's a dog's tail."

David John was super-excited about these home-made robot invitations for his party. He could invite eight guests but he was worried about the guest list. "Mom, I am worried if I invite her there will be too many girls." "Hmm," I said, "if you invite her there will be three girls and nine boys if you count your brothers. I think it will be okay."

David John filled out a Father's Day Questionnaire in his primary class. His teacher told us it was her favorite. Here are the highlights.
My Dad is: 64 years old
He likes to wear: church clothes
He loves to eat: a kind of soup
He is smart because he knows: that in Star Wars Obi changed the evil clone-trooper's mind and he likes to choose the right.
It makes my Dad happy when: I love him all up.

On our epic road-trip this summer, David John sat in the middle of the first passenger row because he is the most likely to throw-up and it helps that he can see out the front windshield. It also means that he is best able to hear anything that Marc or I would say. So, he took it upon himself to repeat every comment we made to the rest of the boys in the van. This was often helpful, as the other boys didn't always hear our answers to their questions or important information like: if everyone stops hitting each other we will start a movie in exactly 5 minutes. Every time David John repeated us verbatim, he has a great short-term verbal memory, Marc and I would giggle because he reminded us so much of the Sigourney Weaver character in Galaxy Quest. This was especially true when he would repeat at loud volume completely non-necessary information. "Mom says she will need to use the bathroom soon!"

Easiest donut-robot cake ever. Thank you, Donut Hole. I wish you could see better in the picture, but his eyes are glowing battery-operated tea-lights. David John loves to pretend to be a robot. He often talks in robot monotone. I just wish he wouldn't do it in prayers, or into the microphone at church...

David John has a gift or malapropisms. Here are some from our family vacation:
when jumping into the pool: "Canyon ball!"
after being warned about copper-head snakes while we were playing in the creek: "Mom, I am putting sticks in the water so they will float down and kill the baby bomper-head."
after being told we weren't sure how to do something: "Read the constructions!"
after Tobias chewed on David John's toy: "He put his mouth-water all over it! It is called mouth-water because it is water and it is in your mouth."
asking for a snack in the car: "Can I have a canola bar?"
referencing a hot-tub: "I want to play in the swirl-pool."

Before vacation, Marc had taken the boys to see "How to Train Your Dragon 2" in the theaters, so David John was super excited to see the komodo dragon at the Denver Zoo. He was staring, transfixed at the viscious reptile when he asked, "Mom, is it really hard to train that kind of dragon?" I replied that I'm sure it was near-impossible to train that kind of dragon. Later he told his brothers about the experience (they were on a different side trip) and told them all about the komodo dragon, adding, "It was even the hardest kind of dragon to train."

Our first activity at the party was decorating robot boxes. Elijah is modeling his in the front and Benjamin is in the background. When David John was wearing his, he insisted on being called "Robot Rally". He also amazed us all with the his robot's ability to transform into other things, namely, a box. In "box mode" he would sit on the floor, pull his arms in and press his face to the arm-hole. 

More random David-Johnisms:
"I go to Jewnastics class!"
"We are making a scary hunted house."
"Boom-ya!"
"Can you paper-clip my nails Dad?"

David John has a vivid imagination and often makes up elaborate stories. For example, there is an apple-sauce monster which lives in the park behind our house. David John sometimes puts food out for the monster and at one point made a sign warning others about the monster's existence. In June, he had an ongoing saga about purple bananas left in random places which would then hatch purple minions that could eat anything and anyone in their path. One day, he came inside to tell me that there were purple bananas in the backyard. He then gasped, and said, "Oh no! I left Benjamin in the backyard! I need to go warn him!" He then ran back outside. Meanwhile, Benjamin had come in a different door and disappeared into the basement. David John then came back inside and told me in a very matter-of-fact voice. "Well, mm, I was too late. It ate Benjamin."

Dang, I love those chubby cheeks! David John was a little overwhelmed by the party but I still think he had a good time. We played games including robot-arm relay, nuts and bolts scramble, and robot dance. There was also a "piata" filled with candy and tiny robot toys.

David John asked if he could have the cap to the now-empty milk jug after breakfast one morning. I said he could, as long as he washed it off well and then put it away somewhere. "Oh, thanks Mom. I want it for my bottle-cap collection. I will put it in my object drawer. Well, it might be an object. I'm not sure. Until I find out, I will just keep it in the object drawer." Later I asked him what his definition of an object was, and it seemed more like the definition of objet d'arte or something that had the potential to become art. However, after looking at the contents of his "object drawer" and finding a hideous plastic spider I am more confused than ever.

The local rec center recently built and opened an outdoor pool so we've been hitting the water in the blistering 80 degree North Dakota heat. The pool features a lazy river and slides and there are single and double inner-tubes available for patrons to use. David John approached me and asked if he could have an inner-tube for the lazy river specifying, "I want one for one character." He also told Marc that evening, "I was even in level 4," meaning the part of the pool 4 feet deep. Methinks he has played a few too many ipad games this summer....

We love this kid so much! I can't wait to see how he channels his endless creativity as he gets older. You've got the world on a string, kid.

Phew! Are you as exhausted as I am? Parenting this boy is a joy and a trial. Like the classic poem, when he is good is very very good and oh-so-cute but when he is bad he is horrid. As my grandfather said, "That one's a little different." Yep, he's an out-side the box kind of guy, at least when he's not being a robot, and we wouldn't have him any other way. Happy 5th Birthday David John!

Wedding Whirlwind

Tobias and I got to go to Houston... in August. So, not the best timing for a visit to Houston but we wanted to be there to celebrate my brother's wedding. You know, kind of a big deal. We got to stay with Jonx and Tine and even go to Liam's birthday party which was a big bonus. Unfortunately since I had left four other children and a husband at home, I couldn't stay long. It was a short trip but a ton of fun. Since everyone loves wedding pictures, here are a few:

Tobias and Mommy are sporting the wedding party color of mint.

Look at those handsome guys! Tobias loves his Bapa.

Joe and his beautiful almost-wife Dominika.

The whole Sherwood crew just before the ceremony.

I know this picture is fuzzy. Tobias just wouldn't stop moving, which was also a problem during the ceremony. He was one of the only little children in attendance and the beautiful old church has excellent acoustics. I'm so glad I didn't have the rest of the crew in tow.

So happy! It was an amazing ceremony given in no less than four languages. I got choked up a few times.

The reception was a serious party that lasted all night. Tobias passed out pretty early on in the night and we covered him with a matching mint dinner napkin.