#1 : “Jayden, stop sticking your trains up your nose”
I can’t believe how many times a day I have to tell someone to take a toy out of different body parts.
Then, I said something today that I’m going to have to provide some context behind, but I still couldn’t believe that it came out of my mouth.
#2 : “Jayden, would it be alright with you if I used the dead man’s banana for your lunches?”
Jayden had been helping Royal pack his lunch this morning and came out of the pantry holding a banana and this story about a man who was going to eat the banana, but before he could eat it a T-Rex ran up on him and ate the man instead. So then the banana was all alone in the hot sun and that’s why it had brown spots on it.
Kaylee just posted something on her blog on Tuesday about documenting the things that come out of our mouths as mothers. Things I can’t believe we say, like “please don’t eat the bubbles in the bathtub”, or “please stop chewing on your shoes”, or “get your toe out of your mouth”…hmmmm, maybe I don’t feed my kids enough????
Today, the kids and I had to make a stop at PetCo. I caught Jayden yesterday dumping all of the fish food into his fish tank. He had good intentions, he wanted to make sure Fishy had enough food while we are in Arizona, but it just put one more thing on my to-do list for today : Clean out fish tank…. Anyways, while I was getting Willow out of the car Jayden was standing next to me. I grab Willow and start walking but Jayden wasn’t following me. So, I turn around and say this :
“Jayden. Will you please stop smelling the tires and come with me?”
Royal had gotten 4 tickets to the Wichita State baseball game for Tuesday (the 20th) night. And it was perfect timing because Norma was in town to watch Willow, so Royal, Fireball, Jayden, and I headed to the game. We had plans to go to a KC Royals game while in Kansas City the following weekend, so I thought this was a good way to test Jayden out and see how he did during the game. The game, however, was s.l.o.w. But Jayden was entertaining, so I turned my video camera on him and just started taping him watching the game.
My favorite quote of the night, which sadly wasn’t caught on camera…all the sudden Jayden yelled out, “We got nothin’ for ya, cupcake!”
What??? Where in the world did he pick that up???
And here’s a little video showing my favorite Jayden snippets that I heard all game long, I think he’s pretty darn funny. (and he does mix up baseball with a little football, we tried to explain they were different games, but he didn’t quite catch on…)
Jayden has struggled with figuring out how to put socks on, but this morning he decided he was putting on his own dinosaur socks. He’s sitting on the couch and I hear him say he got one on and then a few minutes later I hear this : Mom! You have to help me! I can’t get this sock on, it keeps messing around…”
Thursday’s StrollerFit classes are right across the street from the zoo. So, I know this is going to come as a big shock to ya’ll, but as we were leaving Jayden asked if we could go to the zoo. I said sure, as long as he knew we couldn’t stay too long. My plan was to check out a few animals and then head back home and have lunch here. So, we walked around, we fed the fish, honked at some nesting geese, contemplated feeding the giraffes but that made Jayden a little anxious so we moved on to the tigers, and then for our last animal we were going to speed walk on over to the lions and then head home. Well to get to the lions from the tigers we have to walk around Africa - the giraffes, rhinos, elephants, and hippos. Jayden asked if we could swing by the hippos real fast and see if they were in their pool. Sure enough they were. The wall around the hippo pool is too high for the kids to see them while sitting in the stroller. So Jayden jumps out, and if Jayden is out then there is no way Willow is going to stay put. So I pick her up and hold her in front of me so she can see the hippos. She stuck her little foot through one of the bars and then kicked around a few times…mostly because she wanted me to let her stand on the wall by herself, but there was no way I was doing that, everybody knows hippos are mean suckers and I’m not letting her fall in…but on one of her kicks she managed to hit the side of one of the bars and her shoe. fell. off. It fell off! Right into the hippo pool! I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh Willow, your shoe!’ The other woman standing there with her kids looks at me a little funny, then looks down at the hippo pool and says, ‘Oh my gosh! Your shoe is in there!’ Duh. Then the hippos start to move. It swims right over to Willow’s pink shoe, nudges it with it’s nose a couple times, then pulls it under the water. Jayden is completely traumatized. He’s keeps saying, ‘Mom, I’m scared! Mom, I’m scared! That hippos has Willow’s shoe! We need to get it back! Mom, get her shoe! I’m scared! The hippo has Willow’s shoe. Now Willow only has one shoe, she needs her other shoes. Bad hippo!’ I’m like, ‘What the heck are you scared of? The hippo? The shoe? The hippo can’t get us and I’m pretty sure Willow’s shoe is toast. Get back in the stroller, we’ve got to go find someone to tell them what happened’ The lady who was standing next to me says, ‘Wow, it’s amazing that hippo knew right away something got thrown in the water’ Ummm, yea, hippos ain’t dumb lady! They like food, look how fat they are! :) I am thinking, where the heck is my camera??? I would of so taken pictures of Willow’s shoe floating around just for the blog and proof of it to hold it over Willow’s head later! :)
So on my way to find a zoo person, Jayden can’t stop talking. He is a total verbal processor (ahem, Grandpa Fireball…..) He keeps talking about it and asking questions and talking and asking, and he talks really fast (I suppose that comes from me, as my mom always used to call me motor mouth). At one point he said, ‘Mom, we need to go get Dad. Dad will come back and sword the hippo and get Willow’s shoe.’ ‘Mom, I need to go get a fishing pole. Then I can get the shoe from the hippo. That is what God told me. God, who lives in my heart, told me to get a fishing pole to get Willow’s shoe back. That’s what I need to do Mom’
So, I finally find someone, tell them that my daughter dropped her shoe in the hippo pool. I had no intention of getting my shoe back, but I didn’t want to read in the headlines about one of the hippos at the zoo dying because they choked on a hot pink sandal. She radios my message in and I hear a lady on the other end say, ‘She dropped WHAT in the hippo pool?’ Oh, how I wanted to say, “ha ha ha, just kidding, April Fools!’ The zoo person tells me on my way out to check with the entrance because if they find my shoe, that’s where they’ll leave it. So, we head off to the bistro so I can get the kids something to eat while we wait to see if the sandal can be retrieved. Jayden still can’t stop talking. He’s talking so much he can’t even eat his chicken nuggets. Chicken nuggets, people. Jayden loves chicken nuggets so much, he asks for chicken nuggets for breakfast all the time! I was leaving to go to the store last night and I said, ‘Jayden, anything you want me to get you?’ He says, ‘Just make sure you have some chicken nuggets! That’s all mom, chicken nuggets!’ And now he can’t even manage to calm himself down enough about the shoe to eat some! Jayden stops a lady who is going around cleaning tables and starts saying that hippos aren’t suppose to eat shoes, and that hippo made a sad choice. Of course he’s talking a million miles an hour so she’s having trouble following him. When she looks at me and I clarify that she has indeed heard correctly, a hippo ate Willow’s shoe, she just says, ‘Oh, dear…’ and moves on. Another woman was sitting at a table next to us, cracking up, listening to Jayden’s story. She says, ‘I thought those things only happened to me!’ And then continues to chuckle to herself. Funny, lady, funny.
I wrap up Jayden’s left over nuggets and load the kids up to leave. Jayden, still very concerned about the shoe, asks if we can check the hippo pool one more time and see if we can see it. I’m like, fine, but then we’ve got to go. We see no shoe in the pool and head towards the entrance to see if the shoe made it there. I go up to one of the windows and say, “Um, yes, my daughter is the one who lost her shoe in the hippo pool. They told me to check here to see if you were able to get it.” The lady sitting at the window just looks at me like I am pulling an April Fools joke on her. But then another woman comes up behind her and says, ‘Oh yes! They were able to get it!’ She holds up Willow’s shoe just barely touching it with her thumb and index finger and says, ‘I’d probably wash this, the trainers had to tell the hippo to spit it out!’ Oh. My. Gosh. Nasty! I’d wash that shoe even if the hippo didn’t eat it, have you ever seen hippo water?????
So, the shoe is totally intact, a few stains that I’ll see if I can get out in the wash. But of course, I ran into the woman from the bistro on my way out to the parking lot. She goes, ‘Did you get your shoe back?’ I’m like, ‘Oh yea, the hippo had to spit it out.’ She just starts laughing again and I turn around and speed walk the kids out to the car. :)
And now for you…the story in Jayden’s words…just so you have an idea of the intensity and speed at which he was talking and asking questions…
I was working on some sewing projects when Jayden brings down the game Uncle Wiggly to play with Royal. Jayden has lost to Royal the last couple of times they’ve played, and he’s had a little bit of trouble dealing with that. Competitive much??? Totally not sure where he gets all that from… :)
So, as Royal is getting the game set up Jayden says to him, “I’m gonna win this time! Last time I losed, this time I’m gonna win!”
Royal says, “I like your attitute! Remember, always come to a game believing you are going to win!”
To which Jayden says, “Remember Dad, always come to a game knowing you are going to lose.”
Time for me to hide the blue highlighter. Jayden now has blue whiskers that don’t wash off very easily at all, and when I came home from my mini roadtrip with Kaylee this weekend, I found Willow with little blue dots on her head. :)
This has been some of the longest couple of weeks ever! We’ve had so much going on that I should of had tons of post about, but there has been sickness running rampant around my house and I haven’t had a chance to sit down and write anything. So, here’s kind of a catchup with ALOT of pictures to satisfy all you suckers out there who have been muttering mean things under your breath each time you check my blog and see the same post up. As you know my parents got back here from Pennsylvania at the beginning of December. And then Jordan flew in on the 13th to spend Christmas with us. It has been so fun to have him around, even if it feels like I still hardly see him. He stays up way too late for me and then sleeps in a good part of the day, but when he finally gets up, its fun to have another McComb in the house. I’m just not sure there is anybody else out there who gets the McComb sarcasm that gets thrown around when there is more than 1 sibling together. :) We have gone around and looked at Christmas lights a bunch of times. My mom and I went to a Christmas dinner cooking class. And we have played inside alot because it has been soooo cold.
Willow has gotten very good at throwing and catching balls.
Jayden has continued with his obsession of all things dinosaur and we are now building them out of blocks. This is flying Little Foot. And I don’t have a picture of a later version of him that Jayden and Papa built, but he had guns on his wings. It was pretty awesome.
Christmas Eve came fast around here since we’ve all had the flu at different times this week. But we were wishing for a white Christmas and in the form of extremely high winds (like 50 mph) and snow that came down sideways, we got one.
Jayden all decked out in his Christmas T-Rex outfit went outside to check it out. And then later, we put a few more layers on the dinosaur, so he and Papa went outside to “swim” into the wind.
Here is the Christmas Eve dinner my mom and I cooked together from the recipes we got from our cooking class. We made a roasted pear salad with candied pecans, beef wellington that looked like presents, and duchess mashed potatoes that were pipped out to look like Christmas trees. (My potato trees could still use some work, they actually looked better than in the picture. In the picture they just look like a blob) But it makes a pretty little plate!
After dinner we went to the Christmas Eve service at our church. The kids did pretty darn good during the service, even if Jayden did keep the rows in front of us entertained. Jayden sung pretty loudly during the worship part, which is great, it was just funny because he didn’t know the words so he was just singing loudly. (best way to spread Christmas cheer, right??). He then let out a very audible gasp when our paster said something out Jesus dying on the cross. And then at the end of the service he had his candle lit and Papa was kneeling next to him to keep him from lighting the church on fire and Jayden yells out, “Papa, hold your candle up higher!” “Papa, STAND UP!” It was pretty darn funny.
After church we came home and the kids got to open their Christmas pajamas, which I made this year. And I also made a matching pair for Royal. :)
Christmas morning didn’t start as early as I thought it would. Jayden slept in until almost 8 and Willow slept in until 9! Christmas miracle? I think so! Since my dad had come down with the flu last night, Jordan, Jayden, and I went and picked my mom up at the motorhome this morning so she could come and open presents with us.
Jayden had to try out his new sand chomper in some snow that blew up on the deck!
Jayden then proceeded to help everybody else open their presents by pulling all the presents out of the stockings and handing them to you. Once our stockings were finished, and it was time to open the other presents, Jayden would grab a present from under the tree, run over to me, ask who it was for, then run to the person it was for, open it right in front of them, and then hand them their present. He was quite the helper.
Jayden helping Uncle Jordan.
Jayden helping dad…
Jayden helping Nana…
Jayden helping Willow…
There’s not much cooking that happens in the kitchen on Christmas day. I did the cinnamon rolls and breakfast casserole on Christmas Eve, so all I had to do was pop them in the over in the morning. But on Christmas day, we try and focus on the fact that it is Jesus’ birthday, so ever since we have had Jayden, I have made a birthday cake for Jesus and after dinner we sing Happy Birthday to Him and eat birthday cake. Even Jesus got to use the Thomas the train candle this year!
Before I became a mom, and more precisely the mom of a talking, independent, stubborn, very curious little boy, I would of never been able to guess the types of questions I would answer or the types of requests that would come out of my mouth. And I’ve decided it’s time to start writing some of them down because there’s no way Jayden will believe me later the things I’ve had to answer or ask him to do. Here are a few of the latest questions that have come up, that I’ve had to create answers for. You’ll notice there is a running theme in the majority of the questions going on right now…
Jayden: Are those the tracks for the Polar Express?
Jayden: Does Dora have guts?
Jayden: Would a T-Rex eat my Rudolph?
Jayden: Are there guts in my neck?
Jayden: If I’m a T-Rex, what kind of dinosaur am I eating for breakfast right now?
