Power of Persuasion

A compilation of a few of the interesting things that have come out of Buddy's mouth in recent weeks.

My sister-in-law, Tahsha was over at our house. Buddy has always had a *thing* for her and always wants her to play with him. She wanted to hang out with the adults and kept trying to get him to play by himself. That is until he matter of factly told her to just "suck it up" and play with him.

At his annual check-up with the doctor, the nurse gave him his first ever eye exam. He had to cover his eye with an eye patch and tell the nurse if the object she was pointing at was an umbrella, house, or apple. When the nurse got to the bottom row, I noticed Buddy had taken the eye patch off and was reading the objects with both eyes. I scolded him and told him he needed to look with only one eye. He said, "If I'm going to see those pictures I'm going to either need to take the eye patch off, or move a little closer."

Then Buddy and I later had dentist appointments. After last time's visit I thought it would be easiest it we got our teeth cleaned simultaneously. I've since changed my mind. Let me explain. While the hygienist had control of my mouth -- and I was unable to defend myself -- I could hear Buddy in the next room over telling his hygienist all sorts of things about our family that were totally untrue. Then the dentist went in to look at his teeth and Buddy spent a solid ten minutes trying to persuade him that he needed gold teeth like a pirate. Buddy wouldn't let the poor man move onto the next patient until that request was honored. The dentist has six children and one more on the way, so he's very accustomed to accommodating children. But Buddy had him flustered to the point that he promised him next time he'd find a way to get Buddy a gold tooth. When he came in to see me he said the only other person that's ever asked for a gold tooth (and been dead serious), he encouraged to get a grill. So I guess we could always go that route. Since my heart was softened to men with a grill during last season's "So You Think You Can Dance."

It's a rather common occurrence that someone says to me, "Do you ever wonder what Buddy is going to be like as a teenager?" Although I am sort of curious, I actually have a pretty good idea of what he'll be like because he's practically a teenager now. At least he's got the drama and mouth of an adolescent. One day Buddy came out of time out and totally calmly said,"How would you feel if I went and lived with another family?"

And then one of my all-time most favorite Buddy comments was when I was taking him around to a bunch of errands for Primary. He asked where we were going, I gave him the run-down and he let out the world's biggest sigh and said in a huff, "Why are you ALWAYS working on Sharing Time." (So it's not always me that feels like that.)

Could These Children Look Any More Different? Or Be Any Cuter?

One blond-one light brown. One nice haircut-one crazy. One blue eyed-one brown. One oblong face-one square. One transparent skin-one brown. One skinny nose-one button.

I couldn't stop looking at Sambo and Buddy today at church. They looked so adorable in their coordinating sweaters, so I had to take a few photos when we got home. One of the huge advantages to adopting your children is that it's not vain to say they are the cutest children in the whole world. Because mine are. I mean just look at them. Maybe it's still not socially acceptable to brag about your children as much as I do, but give me a break. These boys are cool.

(I'm thinking of changing Sambo's blog name to SpongeBob-SquareHead. Check that head out!)

Smoothies

I've been on the hunt for a delicious and healthy smoothie recipe for a couple of years now. Everyone tells me that you just throw some fruit or berries in with whatever else sounds good. Blend and voila, you've got yourself a smoothie.

Ask G. This strategy has never worked for me. I'm a good cook, but my OCD requires a recipe. But since I haven't had a recipe I experimented many, many times and never got it right. Too many berries, not enough liquid, bad combo of fruit, too runny, not healthy, the problems were endless.
Lately two different friends have insisted that spinach is a key ingredient in a yummy and healthy smoothie. Then we bought a decent blender. Then we started buying soy milk. Then I found the perfect mix of frozen fruit at Costco. And my recipe was finally born. So I'm going to share my final recipe with you. I'll spell out all the instructions because I wish someone would have done that for me a long time ago. I hope you like them as much as we do. We are totally addicted in this house.

Fruit Smoothies
1 cup spinach juice
2 cups frozen fruit/berries
1/2 frozen banana
2 cups soy milk

I pre-blend my spinach. I buy a big bag at Costco and blend it up right when I buy it. I puree 1 cup of water with 2 cups of tightly packed spinach leaves. It makes a ton, so I keep some in the fridge and freeze the rest for later. (Make sure you reserve a few spinach leaves for a delicious chicken salad for dinner one night.) So to make the smoothie, blend everything together! This amount serves 4-6 people, depending on how big your appetites are.

I'm not a big fan of bananas, but everyone else says they are a MUST. So I usually blend everything else and pour myself a glass then throw the banana in after. I usually make them in the afternoon for our snack, then put some in the fridge for G to have the next morning for breakfast. Sambo loves them and starts freaking out at the sound of the blender. But they are too think for a sippy cup, so I just water his down a bit. One friend uses canned pineapple for her 2 cups of fruit and I've tasted it and it's delicious too. Enjoy!

There's Too Much Testosterone In This House

I find it weird that all males are the same: whether they are 5 or 34. I'm thinking I need a daughter to commiserate with me.

Buddy: How old do you have to be to get married?
Me: It doesn't matter, but you have to go on a mission first.
Buddy: Did you and dad kiss when you got married?
Me: Yes we did.
Buddy: My girlfriend is going to do that to me when we get married.

And in somewhat related news, today Buddy told his friend in disgusted tone, "Did you know Chris Brown beat up Rihanna?"

(I am quite disturbed he knows that and repeats it, but at least I am fairly certain he won't harm women and his testosterone will be directed toward them in other ways.)

How to Love Your Cousin

My sister had a baby, Hippo, three-and-a-half months after Sambo was born, so we're hoping the two boys will be really close. They came to see us right after Christmas, which was really fun. They live in Utah so we hadn't seen them since Hippo was a newborn. It was really fun having Hippo at our house because he was an absolute delight and thought my boys were super cool. It didn't take long to notice how different Hippo and Sambo are, though. At most recent check, Hippo is six pounds heavier. Sambo is really agile and loves to crawl, Hippo not so much. Hippo is social and aware of everything and everyone, Sambo is clueless and is just barely realized I'm his mom. I could go on, but you get the picture.

And while this video was shot two months ago, it's speaks volumes to their personalities. (Warning: you might want to turn your speakers OFF because my laughter and commentary are extremely annoying.)

* * *

Then last week G's sister was in town for a few days. Her baby, Logan, is seven months and adorable, so it was fun to see them. While they were here, Buddy was pretending to be Edward from Twilight. He's obviously never seen the movie or anything, but he's heard enough Twilight chatter to become interested. I told him the premise of the story and the rest is history. He wants to be Edward. While Logan was here, Buddy asked me who should be James, the bad vampire.

Buddy: Who should be James?
Me: Sambo.
Buddy: (Extremely offended) No! James dies and I don't want Sambo to die. How about Logan?

La Musica

Part of the "fun" of moving and unpacking boxes is that you find stuff that you either forgot you had or find stuff you had not seen in a long time. A while back my parents gave me some of my stuff that they had in their attic. There were a couple boxes of old tapes that I had collected. Anyone who knows me knows that I love music. I have a pretty extensive music collection. My tape collection started when I was in 4th grade and lasted until I started to get more on CD.

Anyway, I found the tapes in the move and went through them the other night. I did end up getting rid of a lot of them, but I kept most of the music that I got when I was in Argentina. In addition, I also found some old recordings that people had made with a handheld tape recorder at some of our shows. Interestingly enough, the good folks at Acura decided to equip the 2008 TL-S with a cassette deck in addition to all of the other audio functions. I now have a box of tapes in my trunk and I've been listening to my old cassettes for the last week or so. It's been pretty fun.

Let me Introduce Teddy

Teddy has special magical powers. He can comfort a bad dream, an owie, loneliness, and he even helps you feel better when you're really sick. He doesn't mind getting peed on and he hates getting lost.
When Buddy was about ten months old he fell in love with this little bear and so we named him Teddy. Teddy provided comfort and friendship and became a part of the family.

Buddy would suck on his tongue and put Teddy up to his mouth and rub Teddy's ear on his lips. It was adorable. He only recently stopped doing it (Much to my disappointment. I hoped he'd do that forever.)

We've tried to introduce all sorts of stuffed animals to Sambo but he really hasn't taken to any. He sucks on the tails of his monkeys, but he doesn't really snuggle with the monkeys. In fact, he usually throws them out of the crib.

However, we've noticed that he likes to snuggle with Teddy. Buddy's Teddy. Every time he gets his hands on Teddy he laughs and hugs him. He's pretty easy to console anyway, but Teddy always does the trick. Thank goodness Buddy doesn't seem to mind sharing because the older Sambo gets, the stronger the bond becomes.

Have you ever heard of such a thing? Two brothers loving the SAME bear. And neither boy minds.
That either shows how special Teddy is. Or how close these brothers are.

Home Sweet Home

Last weekend we moved a very short distance down the road to a new home. I think I've mentioned before that we really weren't intending to move. But we chose this particular home and put our house on the market, rather suddenly actually. If it didn't work out with this one, we were happy to stay put.

A week of living here and we love the neighborhood, the gorgeous view, the school district, the space, the kitchen including a six-burner stove and double oven. It was a sunny Saturday yesterday and while we worked all day, Buddy played outside with the neighborhood kids. He was in heaven and we actually got a few things done.

My mom (the workhorse) was such a big help, taking time off work to help clean and supervise my children. To put it into perspective, she cleaned five bathrooms (some at the old and some at the new) in one day and that was the tip of the iceberg of her help.

Let me take a moment to pay the proper respects to our movers. We hired two guys that busted their humps moving all of our junk. One guy literally picked my hope chest up and threw it over his shoulder and carried it up the stairs like it was nothing. Then he threw our mattress on his back and ran up the stairs with that. I was in awe. Best few bucks I have EVER spent.
But with the move came a few annoyances that I just have to tell you about. In no particular order:

*Within the first week both children fell head over feet down the entire flight of stairs. It is truly a miracle that both were completely fine. A gate has been purchased. (But I doubt the gate will help Buddy's clumsiness.)
*I've spent the past 5.5 years avoiding a particular stretch of road that is always very congested. It drives me CRAZY how slowly people drive. But now because of the location of our home I can't avoid it. A week here and I'm already driving way out of my way to avoid it, which is equally as annoying.
*Boxes, boxes, and more boxes.
*Buddy enduring a three-week long asthma attack that I finally attributed to above-mentioned boxes.
*G pestering me incessantly to get rid of baby stuff/Christmas stuff.
*No attic space in the new house and finding new spots for Christmas stuff, baby stuff, food storage, etc. Interestingly enough, G had no problem finding ample storage for his junk.
*Packing and unpacking. Oh the humanity!
*An incompetent appraiser for our old house.
*Having to lower our sales price because of that moronic/incompetent appraiser. (Our buyers had offered a significant amount higher than our asking price.)
*Pushing back closing two days because of moronic/incompetent/loser appraiser. Most people told me that's "no big deal" in the grand scheme of buying a home. But since G only took one day off work and I had already scheduled utility shut-off times and we had movers arranged, it was a bit of an inconvenience. Oh, and all four of us were sick which made the tight move-time even more fun.
*Major illnesses. Buddy had major asthma and couldn't stop coughing or catch his breath for days. Me and G had colds, and Sambo vomited for five days and had diarrhea for ten days. Which meant I couldn't farm either one of them out to friends. So, during the rush to move, we had both children under foot the entire time.
*Have you ever moved with a newly walking one-year old? It's more fun than it sounds.
*Let me somehow express how much fun it is to have all your earthly possessions packed and to have the movers working their magic, and to realize that your baby has vomited like crazy and leaked poop all over the crib/sheets/carpet. The movers were young kids who probably were repulsed by the smell of our home.
*Then let me tell you how close to nervous breakdown I was to have the same thing happen the next morning when we were in the new house. Sambo throws everything out of his crib, so he had thrown the puke chunks onto my pristine new carpet. And I had no carpet cleaner, towels, garbage bags, baby shampoo, etc because everything was still packed. And G was at church and I had to be to be there in a few minutes. Thank goodness for cell phones and *emergency* texts to the spouse to get home right away.
*Ruining G's leather seat in his car and the kitchen table when oil from a reed diffuser leaked all over both. Warning: Reed diffusers smell great but are toxic to varnish and leather. Do not use around varnish or leather under any circumstance.
*Realizing we have way too many toys.
*Going without cable and Internet for a few days (thank you very much appraiser and my need to switch utilities start-up/shut-off dates).
*Boxes, boxes, boxes. Boxes, boxes, boxes, boxes, boxes, boxes.
*Struggling with the thermostat in the new house. This house is balmy, especially upstairs. I'm getting nervous for the first gas bill...

Despite a few days of chaos, we're getting unpacked and we're able to relax a bit now. But mostly we're happy and excited to raise our children here. Here's to never moving again!

Update

We sold a house. We bought a house. We moved. We are living out of boxes. More on the new house and pictures to come.