Born on the 30th of July

That's right, our David John turned 6 one month ago and started kindergarten last week. He's lost some of his baby fat and he can read chapter books but this kid is still ridiculously cute and funny. Right now he is obsessed with all things Minion and Super-hero Squad cards. He's reading Peter and the Starcatchers. He likes to read and watch Scaredy Squirrel. He loves dogs. We may have to break down and get one someday. We love this kid. Here are some pictures and classic David John quotes from last month.

"Wait, in kindergarten I will have a principal? I hope she doesn't put me in the choker!" (Yep, he's read Matilda.)

That moment when you try to just drink your smoothie straight out of the cup.

David John was expelled from his preschool in the Spring for bad behavior. He's the most stubborn child I have ever met. Since I was teaching music at the school, I actually witnessed him lie on a rug with his bum in the air for three hours without moving instead of following a directive from a teacher. Anyway, when I asked him what happened on the day he was dismissed he shrugged his shoulders and said, "I've been lemonaded."

We had a friend in the van with us one day and for some reason the boys were talking about kisses. The friend said that he loves his mom and he kisses her on the cheek. David John said in disgust, "Ugh! That is so romantic!"

There was food and fun at the family get together, but a giant mud puddle trumps all.

At art lessons, the children were supposed be making a color gradient by adding black and white paint to a colored paint. When the teacher came to check on David John he had made five beautiful blends of various colors to make a very aesthetic collection. But they were definitely not a gradient. The teacher explained what he was supposed to do and he replied, "I didn't quite get the point." Free thinker that one.

On our drive to Utah, we experienced a very bad smell wafting in the windows. I said "It smells like there was a fire at the cigarette factory." David John: "I don't even know how to smoke!" Elijah: "Did someone toot?" David John: "It wasn't me. They don't smell like that."

"Mom, am I so dirty?"

Lately, the boys have talked a lot about who their "girlfriends" are and who they are going to marry. David John listed several candidates but the boys shut him down. All the girls he talked about were too old, too young, already taken, etc. Exasperated he asked, "Who am I going to marry then?!?" I explained that he would probably end up marrying someone that he hasn't even met yet. He said, "You mean I have to marry someone I don't even know?!?"

"Mom, when I gargle there are tiny drops of rain falling out of my mouth." Yes, I know. I can tell when you gargle because the floor is all wet.

David John originally asked for a blueberry cake with popsicle candles, but he settled for a fruit pizza with blueberries on it and popsicles on the side.

David John: "Mom, it is crazy! We all jumped on Tobias over and over and he didn't cry!"
Me: "Let's not jump on him anymore. I don't want him to get hurt."
David John: "Oh, he won't. Someone else is the target now."

David John was invited to a Boxcar Children themed birthday party. He was talking about the "Boxer Kids" for a week. This is probably a freudian slip based on the fact that certain people in our house like to run around in their underwear.

Here's the birthday boy sporting his minion shirt. On the morning of his birthday we had a private screening of The Minion Movie at a fancy theater in Orem. The boys all loved it.

Truth or dare has become standard fare at our house. For some reason the "truth" question is always, "Who is your girlfriend?" When they asked David John he just started laughing uncontrollably. When he could breathe he said, "I get laughy when we talk about romantic stuff."

Houston, We Have a Math Problem

This is a post I found stashed away in my drafts folder that I started writing almost two year ago. Funny thing is, what I was writing about still holds true so I finished it off with some more recent experiences. It's especially timely because our boys are actually obsessed with math right now. We have to ask them to stop the math quiz games so that we can eat dinner in peace.

The librarian said my children should be on leashes.
That was kind of a low point.
Days like that make me question my parenting and whether I am raising truly ill-behaved children. I have spent a lot of time pondering this and my conclusion is this: We don't have behavior problems, we just have math problems.
Individually, our children are delightful people. Take one of them, just one of them, just about anywhere and you will have a great time. They are quirky and funny and smart and cute. When you have just one child with you, even if they do start to misbehave you can quickly react with some fabulous parenting strategy: distraction, empathizing, humor, extinction, time out, mirroring, the choices are endless. Easy peasy.
Collectively, our children are a "handful". That is the number one descriptive word that strangers say when they see my family. When all five are together they CAN be delightful, but they can also be disastrous. It all comes down to math.
The first, and most obvious problem, is that once you have three children your arms are outnumbered. However, when I had three I found that, in an emergency, I could also restrain one little person using my legs. With five, my limbs are completely outnumbered.
The second problem is that naughtiness of little boys is not additive, but rather exponential.
For example, let's say you take one little boy to the store. He starts to climb the shelves or pull things off. You can stop him pretty quickly, so lets say he gets five bags of chips on the floor before you stop him. If you take two little boys to the store, they will coordinate their efforts and run in different directions. So, you get the first one who has five bags of chips on the floor, but by the time you get him buckled into the grocery cart and locate the other little guy, little boy #2 has now tossed 15 boxes of crackers. So you've gone from a level five mess to a level twenty mess by adding just one boy to the mix. When you have five mobile little boys the numbers go up quickly.
The next math problem we have is the multiplication of ideas. I have literally found a collaborative list in one of the boy's bedroom entitled "Evil Schemes". Item number 1 on the list was "mess up mom's hair" which is confusing because I almost never "do" my hair in the first place. Anyway, the point is that our boys work together to come up with more and naughtier ideas. Parachuting off the top of the fridge? Sledding down the stairs into a massive pile of toys? Tarzan swinging on cabinet doors that then breaks them off their hinges? Magic potions that explode all over the bathroom? Yep. Collaboration at its best.
Our final math problem is just an issue of probabilities. If you have one volatile chemical in isolation, you are probably safe. Two chemicals might come together and have a reaction. Five chemicals? It's almost guaranteed that something is going to blow up. Marc and I have been thinking of our boys lately in terms of that classic logic problem involving the fox, the goose and sack of corn. The idea is that a farmer needs to move all three things across the lake but the canoe only holds the farmer and one item at a time. The only safe things to leave together are the fox and the corn because the fox will eat the goose and the goose will eat the corn if left unsupervised. In our family we have a great white shark, a crocodile, a wolverine, a komodo dragon and a king cobra. You can only keep your eyes on two of them at a time and the rest of them might strike at any moment. They will either try to eat each other or team up to eat all of your emergency hidden stashes of cheetos and jellybeans.
Bonus math problem: 5 boys + costco sized jar of jellybellies = ?*
*acceptable answers might include pandemonium, chaos, destruction, the apocalypse, chernobyl or insanity

Boy Talk

I can't get enough of what my boys say sometimes. Here are some of the best quotes from the last few months.

Said to a babysitter when she rang the doorbell: "Um, you are a little bit early and we are eating dinner. Can you just play outside for a few minutes until we are ready for you?"
The poor babysitter was standing on the porch frozen, unsure if she really wasn't allowed to come in when I came to rescue her.

We read Matthew 28:3 for scriptures one night. Part of that scripture says, "His countenance was like lightning..." I asked the boys what they thought that meant. "It means his face can kill zombies." Oh, good. Let's hope the second coming happens BEFORE the zombie apocalypse.

Said when a little boy got out of bed to come get a cup of water. "I think I need more water because I'm pretty drinky."

My Mom was visiting in May and was trying to help out by picking up Benjamin from preschool. She came back to the house pretty soon frustrated and embarrassed because she got turned around. So, I went to grab Benjamin while my mom stayed home with a napping Tobias. Benjamin was confused when I picked him because he was expecting Grandma and asked me what happened to her.
"Grandma got lost."
"So, where is she?"
"She's at the house."
"Oh good, you found her then."

One of the boys asked me to buy some cherries when I went grocery shopping. I came home with a few pounds of cherries. I thought he would be excited but when he saw the bag he said, "Oh, I meant like two cherries."

We had a conversation about the phrase "green thumb" when we were working on our garden. I had explained that I did not have a green thumb so I was worried our garden might not grow. In fact, I told them I thought I had a black thumb. Later, I'm not sure who said what, I heard this conversation behind me while I was driving.
"Okay, so a green thumb means you can grow things and a black thumb means that you make things die."
"What does a red thumb mean then?"
"That you hit it with a hammer."
I laughed so hard. They could write a corny joke book.

David John was being especially crazy one day and was trying to climb out of the van window as we were pulling into the garage. Gabriel grabbed his leg and said, "You are such a European!" He wasn't sure what European meant but somehow he thought it implied something along the lines of crazy. Maybe he's picking up on some conservative politics?

Oh Beautiful

for spacious skies. This spring and summer have been some of the most beautiful times we've experienced so far in North Dakota. My parents drove Sam out here so he could work for the summer and we went hiking in the badlands. I'm sure I will take a million pictures of the badlands in the years that we will live here, but I still just feel so blessed whenever I look at them. These pictures fill me with joy so I'm posting them here in case they make anyone else's heart flutter and want to sing America the Beautiful. So, I apologize in advance if there's a post like this every year but I just can't help it. I love where I live and want others to love it too.

Meet Me in St. Louie

Marc had a weekend conference thingy in St. Louis so I tagged along for fun. One of the first places we stopped was this delightfully tacky Indian restaurant. It was delicious, but it was lucky that we didn't notice this sign until we were leaving or our expectations might have been too high.

 Yes, that does say the restaurant serves the largest verity of Indian delicacies. That's right, at Mr. Curry there is no variety only truth. In other words, the dishes served at this restaurant are true dishes and all other Indian restaurants are frauds in comparison. Not only are they true, but they are "traditional, authentic and futuristic". Oh yeah, the chef is clairvoyant. He knows what the Indians of the future are eating and he's serving it up hot and ready on the buffet line. We can confirm the traditional and authentic claims, I don't know about futuristic although they did have a dessert we hadn't seen before. Truly, it was a treat to have ethnic food that isn't available in Dickinson. Thank you Mr. Curry.

We loved walking around the City Garden in downtown St. Louis. It was hot and humid and the fountains were filled with little children splashing and playing. They even had lifeguards on duty. It was so cute! We weren't wearing our swimsuits so we stuck to the shade and the statuary. These are some of my favorite garden pics. I ended up spending a lot of time there while Marc was in meetings.

It's a little creepy. Reminds me of a spinal tap song.

That doesn't look super comfortable to carry on your back Mr. Horse. Al the same, there's something I love about it.

This was my favorite statue in the whole garden. I call it, "Cute Husband in Shades".

Aww. Reminds me of our bunnies Boo and Radley.

Pinnochio looks so happy. I wonder if this is the moment he realizes he's becoming a real boy.

This was particularly intriguing. I think it's lady justice. The giant head is hollow and water runs down away from it almost like blood. You can crawl inside the head and view St. Louis through its eyes. Thought provoking.

Speaking of justice, here are the current courts with their impressive columns.

This yoga-doing sumo man was Marc's favorite. There is something charming about him.

Of course, he likes this one too- Wife with Waterfall.

The hotel left a little to be desired in the way of amenities but we didn't know just how bad things were until we saw this sign.

Sorry, I had to. This kind of thing slays my little boys.
Anyway, we chose to stay out of the "poo" and instead went to the gardens in central St. Louis in the evening. Unfortunately, the greenhouse of tropical flowers we wanted to see was being usurped by a wedding. We decided to be good and didn't crash it. It was a gorgeous place to get married, but I have to wonder if the bride was sweltering in her many-layered dress. Instead, we discovered a touching memorial for those who fought in the Korean war.

The story of the Chosin Few is the Iwo Jima of the Korean War. These men fought against impossible odds, outnumbered 8 to 1, in one of the coldest Korean winters on record they battled their way to freedom through 10 Chinese infantry divisions. Marines are amazing.

We then stumbled on an outdoor theater that was playing Beauty and the Beast and I had never seen the live musical so we took advantage of being child-free and stayed up way too late watching it under the stars. Sometimes it's just so nice to be alone. On our way into the amphitheater, we passed two policeman who were there for crowd control. One of them was a little rotund, and was wearing a very old fashioned uniform and was smoking, I kid you not, a stogie. It was like a cartoon come to life. I wanted to check his pockets for donuts.

Ignore the sunburn, the sweaty hair and the red eyes. It was so fun and totally worth it. I am one happy girl with by playbill and souvenir cup.

I spent some time in the Old Courthouse reading the history of the Dred Scott case and feeling in turns proud and ashamed of my American heritage. It's a beautiful old building.

Isn't this a cool view of the courthouse with the arch behind it? It's like they did that on purpose or something.

I loved the refurbished inside of the courthouse. So beautiful.

Of course, we couldn't visit St. Louis without visiting the arch. It was kind of a scary experience. If you've never been to the arch, you have to ride up to the top in a little space-age looking pod. These things are tiny. I learned I have a bit of clausterphobia and some other poor souls were sobbing when they got off the pods at the top. I felt so bad that they would have to ride back down too. I would have rather taken the stairs. That being said the view from the top is lovely and the arch itself is awe-inspiring.

A view from the top- including the stadium where Marc watched many a Cardinals game as a child. He's still a huge Cards fan.

I love this man. He held my hand in the scary pod things and made sure I got my turn at the windows even when it was crowded.

It was far too short of a trip, I'd love to go back with our boys sometime. Of course we'll have to wait until they aren't arch enemies anymore. See what I did there?