Overheard At the Park

The Setting

A bunch of little kids are playing in the big sand area at the park. A probably 10-year old girl is sitting on the button that controls whether more water is released into the sandpit. A 10-year old boy is standing in the sand trying to build some elaborate dam or something. The sand is totally saturated with water. There is actually more water in the pit than sand and every child in there is caked in mud from head to toe. It's a mother's worst nightmare. The boy approaches the girl.

* * *

Boy: Move so I can turn the water on.

Girl: No way! It'll create more of a mess than we already have. I'm trying to prevent the water from overflowing.

Boy: Mud is fun!

Girl: NO IT'S NOT!!!!!

Boy: You wouldn't know fun if it hit you in the face!

Girl: Yeah-because rolling in the mud is fun.

Boy: What's your definition of fun? The mall?

Girl: Uh-YES! (like duh!)

* * *

Despite threatening Buddy with his life if he stepped foot in that mud pit, I found him there an hour or so later. I couldn't get too mad since he had just been stung by a bee and at least he was playing and distracted from the agony of a bee sting.

It's very hard to tell, but he's in about three inches of mud. Notice his hands and wrists are buried. Soaked is an understatement.

It just amazes me that boys are the same from the time they're 9 months to the time they're an adult. But thankfully girls are too. My definition of fun happens to be the mall as well.

Old Maid

I've always been a big fan of playing card or board games. And it's pretty exciting that Buddy is finally getting to that age where it's enjoyable to play games with him. Fortunately for me, he's pretty competitive. Just like me. I'm not a poor sport or anything, but boy do I love to win.

I remember playing Old Maid with my mom when I was his age. I remember my mom laughing hysterically when I pulled the dreaded old maid card. And I remember being devastated when it happened. But then that joy -- absolute elation -- would come over me when my mom picked the card. My mom had a nasty technique to get me to pick the dreaded. She'd hold all of her cards in her hand in the traditional fan, but the old maid would be raised maybe a centimeter or so higher than the others -- to entice her naive child to pick the tallest card. I'm not sure how long it took me to catch on to her trick, but let's put it this way: it only took Buddy twice.

So tonight instead of going to the gym I decided to nurse a headache with a few rounds of Old Maid with Buddy. We hadn't played that game since he's been old enough to fend for himself, so I couldn't wait to put mom's technique to work. I raised the old maid higher in my hand, Buddy picked it, I erupted into a fit of hysterical laughter, which then sent Buddy into a fit of rage. Seriously, I wish you could have seen it. He was freaking out, sobbing, hitting me, throwing his cards, and yelling. I could not stop laughing, even though I knew I was hurting his feelings tremendously. He's only four years old, after all.

In the end, he won the first game, and I won the second. Wonderful times. The the main reason I even had these children is to torment them as much as my dear parents tormented me.

When I put him to bed, I told him how much fun I had and when he told me that I really hurt his feelings when I kept giving him the old maid, I had to carefully explain that I wasn't laughing at him per se, but I was just having so much fun. "And plus Buddy, you'll get to do that to your children one day."

Brotherly Love

One of my life's most pleasant surprises is how much Buddy and Sambo love each other. I wrongly assumed Buddy would be jealous, or would lose his patience with his brother, but not at all. Never. Buddy had a few behavioral issues in the months leading up to Sambo's arrival. And now I can see it wasn't stress about the upcoming addition to the family, but it was stress about *not* having his brother with him. Buddy recently asked me if I wanted Sambo really bad. I told him, of course I did. And he said, "Me too."

It brings me a great deal of joy to see the bond these two boys share. They a-d-o-r-e each other. Plus, these boys couldn't be more alike if they came from the same genes. Although they look nothing alike and Buddy is rough and Sambo is gentle, they are both chatty and busy and wiggly and happy and laugh at the same exact things. They both hate milk but love food, they both are short and stout, they both love swimming, they sleep well, neither has any issues with strangers, and they both love to play outside, and I'm pretty sure Sambo will follow in his brother's footsteps as a world-class climber.

I'm not naive enough to assume they'll never fight or anything, but so far Buddy is extremely protective of "his" baby. In fact, he tells me that when he grows up and is a dad, he wants Sambo to be his "kid." He calls Sambo his "best" and he prays for him about ten times each time he says his prayers. Buddy gets very worried when Sambo is sick and prays for him and tries to give him blessings. I can't even count the number of times I've walked into the room and found Buddy laying his hands on Sambo's head. And you should see the look on Sambo's face and hear the squeal come out of him when Buddy comes around. He refuses to wave at me or G, but every time Buddy walks in the room he waves at him and tries to get his attention.

Buddy wants to be like his baby brother. He insists on me combing his hair "just like his" after his bath and it's like World War III, to do Buddy's hair for church. "Sambo doesn't wear gel and hairspray. I want hair just like his." And of course, Sambo wants to be just like Buddy. Sambo refuses to play with baby toys. His favorite toys are Buddy's dragons, dinosaurs, and dress up clothes. And get this: Never in my life have I heard of this. Sambo is obsessed with Buddy's beloved teddy bear. Buddy has been in love with "Teddy" since he was a baby -- sleeps with him, cuddles with him, takes him on vacation, you know, his "lovey." Thankfully, Buddy doesn't mind sharing because Sambo loves Teddy too and laughs hysterically when he gets his hands on him.

Buddy actually gets offended if we forget to tell him if Sambo sprouted a new tooth, or learned to pull himself up or whatever. Sambo learned to crawl one night after Buddy was in bed, so I told him first thing the next morning. You would have thought I announced we were going to Sea World, he was so happy. And Buddy gets really impatient with me when I try to re-direct Sambo. Sambo is at that very enjoyable age when he gets into EVERYTHING, so I'm constantly sighing as I pull him out from underneath the computer for the 500th time in an hour. And Buddy always says, "It's fine, mom. He's just a baby." Sometimes Buddy's helpfulness isn't so helpful, though. One day I went outside to take the garbage out. Sambo started to cry because he loves to go outside too. So, Buddy decided he could be helpful by opening up the door and letting Sambo crawl outside. Because every mom wants to come around to the front of the house to see their infant sitting on the driveway. Or like the other day when Buddy opened up a new can of formula and started to make a bottle because he knew Sambo was hungry and I was busy talking on the phone.

They share a room and they both love it. Buddy gets so excited when we put them to bed at the same time, even though most nights we are so exacerbated by Buddy, we try to get him into bed first so we can feed Sambo in peace. But anyway, Buddy has expressed several times that he wishes he could sleep in the crib with Sambo. And a few months ago we went to Sunriver with a bunch of friends and stayed at a really nice house there. All the kids slept in a cool "kid" room, which had several bunkbeds. Buddy was excited at first to sleep in a bunkbed (because he wants one), but after more than an hour, he hadn't gone to sleep yet. I went in there to scold him, assuming he was distracted by the other kids (who were all asleep, by the way). But he said he didn't want to sleep with them. He wanted to sleep in the room with Sambo. As soon as we moved him to Sambo's room, he was asleep within minutes.

Nothing, I mean nothing warms a mommy's heart more than to see her children in love with each other. It's a blessing to be sure. And while it's good while it's lasting, at least I'll have these precious pictures and stories to remind me of the good ol' days when they start to lose patience with each other. But for now, I'm loving it.
*Note: We decided to change Pee-Wee's name. We were hoping a cool nickname would emerge, but alas after 9 months, nothing has. He is a boy of many nicknames at home, all stemming from his name. So we're going with one of them even though it's quite close to the real thing. I hope we don't regret this...

On the Market

Well, you'll never believe what we've been up to since the last time I wrote.

I am not a spontaneous person. Not at all. But within the last few days we've decided to sell our house and buy a different one. We weren't looking to buy at all. But we decided to take a look at a particular house I had driven by several times and admired it each time I was in it's neighborhood. The price was low enough we thought we better take a look. We saw it once and we fell in love and we saw it twice and couldn't imagine living anywhere else. It's not too far from where we live, it's in the same school district, same ward, and we know several people in the neighborhood. It backs to green space (in fact the nature refuge I've written about) and it's got a really nice kitchen, plenty of space, a sprinkler system, and a three-car garage (G's favorite part).

In the last week, we've tried to make this work. We've thought good and hard about if this is a good idea, negotiated heavily with the sellers, spent hours and hours talking with two different mortgage brokers who are clearly dieing for our business, spent hours and hours talking with our realtor who thankfully lives across the street so he can come over every time we have a question or panic starts to set in. And let's put it this way, he's spent more time at our house than he has his own house the past week. It's been crazy to say the least.

If you know us at all, you know that we research every purchase we make to death. We make a spreadsheet of prices, research features, shop around, and eventually make a very informed decision. It's a little ridiculous, yes, but we've made some very wise purchases and investments this way. Take our current home and G's education, for example.

So what the heck are we thinking making the biggest financial decision of our lives in a matter of a few days?

Now can you understand where our stress level has been lately. But despite it all, we're confident this is a good move.

So, in this "tough" housing market, we realize it's going to be a tall order to sell our current home within the next 60 days. In my humble opinion, our house is totally awesome. But it needed some work in order to make it desirable to everyone else. Fortunately, we installed AC and painted the exterior a few weeks ago. (Which by the way I'd like to publicly thank G for insisting we do both of those things this summer. Without those projects behind us, selling our home at a decent price right now would be impossible.) In the last few days, we've trimmed every tree and bush in the yard (and we've got a jungle for a yard so that was quite a task), laid sod, patched the rest of the grass, laid bark dust, laid decorative rock, power washed the driveway and patio, cleaned the windows inside and out, weeded, planted more flowers, cleaned out the garage, scrubbed every square inch of the inside of the house, cleaned all light fixtures and replaced all bulbs, removed half of our furniture, packed all our personal belongings, got rid of our special yellow couch, touch-up painted, re-caulked -- and that's only the tip of the iceberg. Oh, and G still worked, I still took care of the kids, I did a big primary project and taught sharing time this week, G taught elder's quorum, and I was sick as a dog the whole time. I'm pretty sure I've lost 10 pounds this week because I haven't sat down until right now and I've barely eaten a thing. So that's good news too.

But now our house is clean, it's staged to sell, and it's now on the market. If you know anyone who's looking to buy, we can recommend a phenomenal realtor.

Our humble home:
$279,900
1550 sq feet
3 bedrooms, 2 baths
Backs to green space
View of sunset
Garden area
Vaulted ceilings
Pass-through gas fireplace
Private and quiet neighborhood
Central AC
New exterior paint
Oversized 2-car garage
Garage and attic storage
Shed

And here are several pictures I took last night:

Pulling Video From the Archives

We were watching old videos from when Buddy was younger yesterday. Buddy was two years old here and since we didn't have a blog back then I have to share now. Between his attitude then and now, I have a pretty good idea of what kind of teenager he'll be. The trouble is, he's just like G and I. And that's frightening. Kinda makes a case for nurture in the nature v. nurture debate, now doesn't it.

Speaking of funny, maybe next time I post old videos I'll post something from my college journalism days.