Ode to the First Born

In light of my last post, I wrote an ode.  If you aren't an English nerd, you probably don't know what an ode is, but I can clarify for you.  An ode is a lyrical poem with complex stanza forms.  As I'm sure you all know, "Melissa" and "Complex" don't usually show up in the same sentence.  I'm not so sure about the complexity of my ode, but I had fun writing it anyway.

You poor, poor being

How you were thrown

Into the arms of the unknown

Her first born, your mother was seeing

So small, so wet, so precious

Not knowing what to do

Everything was so new

She took you in her arms with a promise

No harm will succumb to her first little son

No dirt will he know

Not even on his toe

I won't take a chance with one toxin

True to her word

Much to your chagrin

Again and again

She washed and she wiped Northward and Southward

The Third Baby Blues

Things are quite different for the third baby in a family.  Let me show you just one scenario:

Baby is toddling around outside and decides to put some dirt into his mouth.

Parents' reaction:

Baby #1: "AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! Gross! Gross! Shooey, Shooey. Don"t do that! Let's take him inside. We have to clean him up immediately. Do you think he actually swallowed some? Should we call the doctor?" The parents will worry off and on the rest of the day and torture themselves with what foul, unseen items could have been in the dirt.

Baby #3: "HaHaHa. Look honey! He's eating dirt! Get the Camera!"

EXHIBIT A

Kohen's 1st

The "new baby" is no longer new, but he'll always be the baby. Kohen turned 1 on October 22 and we celebrated his birthday with a Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party. This is one of my favorite children's books and I had a ton of fun decorating. It's too bad Kohen won't remember any of it! We have a ton of pictures so I'm going to share quite a few with you all.

November, where did you go???

Well, the month of November snuck by me. Here it is December 8th and I still haven't written a post about Kohen's 1st birthday, my own birthday or Thanksgiving.  What a Looser I am!  I'll get right on it peeps, fans, family members and friends. Please forgive me...both of you....

Meanwhile, here is a cute little video I took on my phone about 6 months ago. It's not very clear, but you can still hear Kohen cracking up.

Laundry: The bane of my existence

The laundry situation at the Pettis house is a little out of control. 

Please.

Send. 

Help.

Now.

Homeschool Field Trip

Every year Shawn and I try to catch Tehachapi's apple season. Last year they only sold apples for two weeks and we missed it. This year they have an abundance of apples and have been selling apples for about two months. 

If you only buy apples in the grocery store, you are missing out. We were told by the apple growers that the apples in the grocery store are actually last year's apples and have been kept refrigerated since they were picked. Obviously the fresh ones are way better.

As we were driving around, we stumbled upon a pumpkin patch (happy, happy, joy, joy). Have I told you that I love pumpkins? Well, I do. I have a fetish about pumpkins, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. 

Kohen wanted to get down and walk so we were happy to oblige him. We soon got distracted with helping the boys pick out their pumpkins. Kohen wasn't impressed with the pretty, orange pumpkins at all. He decided to have a sit and check out the dirt. 

It looked interesting...... It felt interesting....

Let's see if it tastes interesting.

Not so much.

Tip of the day: Emergency Adhesive

Pretend you are having a bad day and find yourself in a MacGyverish position.

Let's say you're locked in a building with a bomb that's about to explode or stranded in a deep crevice facing a deadly avalanche.

Possibly, you're trapped in a 3 bedroom house, with three boys, sleep deprived and out of coffee..... wait, that's my reality.

We're supposed to be pretending, remember?

Anyway, you're in a sticky situation, whatever it may be and you need some type of adhesive. You have no tape and no glue of any kind.

What do you use?

Rice Krispies.

I have discovered that Rice Krispies + milk = super glue.

It's true.

Try it.

Or better yet, give your kids Rice Krispies for breakfast and don't clean up after them for about 30 minutes or so.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

We recently took our first homeschool field trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium. My dad had gotten us tickets and we used them on Karter's birthday weekend. 

There's something very intriguing about the ocean and the aquarium was a cool way to get to explore a small part of it. 

My favorite part was the sea horse exhibit. It was huge and displayed so well. I have never seen so many different species of sea horses and I have been to three other large aquariums. This had the best sea horse exhibit by far. I wish I had taken more pictures.

If you've never been to Monterey Bay, it is totally a worth while trip. We didn't get to spend any time on Cannery Row, but all of the shops and restaurants looked like a ton of fun.

Here the boys are "underneath" a wave

Kohen loved looking at all the fish too.

Can you see the sea horse? 

When I first saw this tank, I thought "what are all those people staring at?" These sea horses are so cleverly disguised. God actually made their body leaf like, so they blend in with the sea weed. This truly was the coolest thing I saw all day. It's called a Leafy Sea Dragon. 

Here is a better pic of it.

Pappa Mick, Kenson and Karter and Harry Otter.

An explanation of my "First day of homeschool" post

Sometimes I have these really, weird, lapses of memory/reality and I forget that I am the mother of unruly boys. I don't know how this happens, I have three constant reminders running circles around me all day.

This happened to me on a Monday, our first day of home school. I was making pancakes and I told Kenson to go wake Karter up and tell him I was making pancakes for breakfast. In my delirium, I envisioned Kenson skipping down the hall, butterflies flitting about, birdies, singing sweetly on the window sill. He gently leans over his sleeping brother whispering softly, "Little brother.... Mommy dear is making us pancakes. Won't you please join us?" My darling offspring would then walk back into the kitchen arm in arm with broad smiles on their faces.

What was I thinking?

I KNOW that this would never, ever happen in my house..... with my boys. Yet, for some reason, I did it anyway.

Was I drunk on French Vanilla Coffemate or what?

What did happen is this: Somehow when the words left my mouth and entered into the ears of Kenson they turned into "Please, please go torture your brother and see just how mad you can make him." So Kenson, happy to oblige, sped down to Karter's room, leaped onto his bed and began jumping, up and down.

Karter, even under the best circumstances, is not a morning person. These were not the best circumstances and he began to scream like a banshee. I have never heard a banshee scream, but I imagine they sound similar to Karter in the height of his fury.

I intervened.

Karter stopped his screaming.

Kenson left Karter's room only to return a few minutes later to continue afflicting his brother. This time he decided to poke him randomly at intervals as he was trying to fall back asleep.

There really are no words to describe what happened next.

Let's just say it was ugly, real ugly.

I got angry, real angry.

This was our first day of homeschool.

It did not go well.

In hindsight, I probably should have just postponed the first day until Tuesday, but I didn't. (please see first paragraph)

It feels like fall

Today I woke up to a very pleasant surprise. I hadn't paid any attention to the weather in the paper or I wouldn't have been surprised.

Good thing, Huh?

It feels like fall, finally. It's cloudy, slight breezy and only 65 degrees. Awesome. Since it was 91 on Saturday, I had no idea it was going to cool down so drastically.

I feel giddy, like a school girl. Hey, I'm a homeschool girl/mom. Does that count?

Autumn is my favorite time of the year, hands down. I love the crisp air,the turning leaves, pumpkins, apples and candy corn.

I need to go get some pumpkins, a bale of straw, some indian corn and some gourds to decorate my front porch.

I also need to bake something. But I don't know what. I don't do pies so pumpkin pies are out of the question, maybe a pumpkin log?

Happy Autumn, Everyone!

Happy Birthday Karter

Karter's birthday was this weekend and my little guy turned 7. I'll share a few facts about him that y'all might not know.

Karter was the biggest of the Pettis babies, being born at 8lbs, 3oz.

He is the only one of the boys that has green/hazel eyes like his mamma.

He has a fear of natural disasters even though he has never been in one.

He loves knock, knock jokes. (would somebody pleeeese tell him some new ones.)

He collects stuffed animals.

His favorite animals are monkeys.

He's also very analytical so he has a thing for numbers and counting. An interesting conversation between him and my sister went something like this:

Karter: "Aunt Misti, what's your favorite letter in the alphabet?"

Aunt Misti: "Ummm, I don't know. I've never thought about it. Maybe M?"

Karter: "Mine is E. You know why?"

Aunt Misti: "Why?"

Karter: "Because E is the fifth letter in the alphabet and my favorite numbers are 5 and 15"

Karter smothers me with hugs and kisses throughout the day, especially when he's supposed to be doing his schoolwork.

He is easily embarassed and doesn't like to be the center of attention.

His favorite food is shrimp.

His favorite color is green.

Karter also thinks I am extremely old. Like older than metal, steel, or aluminum.

That's old.

I'm surprised he hasn't tried to put me a nursing home.

We had this conversation right after he learned to ride his new bike:

Karter: "Mom, what color were bikes back then?"

Me: knowing exactly what he was referring to, "Back when?"

Karter: "Back when you were a kid."

Me: "They had all colors, just like now."

Karter: "Oh"

I can see wheels turning in his little head and I'm wondering what's going to come next when he asks, "Were they made out of wood?"

Happy Birthday Karter Mack! We love you!

Differences

Monday, Karter and I were making cookies. I was dumping in the ingredients and he was manning the mixer. When we were finished, I ask the boys if they wanted to lick the beaters. Karter has done this several times before, but apparently actually seeing the raw eggs go into the cookie dough affected his decision.

He asked, "Can't raw eggs make you sick?"

I replied, "Well, yes, technically I guess they could. But you really won't be eating very much cookie dough and not actually getting a lot of raw eggs. So you probably won't get sick. You've eaten cookie dough before and never gotten sick."

Karter declares, "I'm not eating it."

That's just the kinda guy he is.

This made Kenson very happy. "Cool!" He exclaimed. "I'll eat yours too!"

Because, that's just the kinda guy he is.

Kenson's DIY photo shoot

These pictures really don't need an explanation, but this would not be a blog if I didn't give one, now would it?

Kenson found my camera and used it on his favorite subject... himself.

First day of school

I quit.

Just kidding, but it did not go well.

What's really important?

I finally received all of the boys' curriculum so the first day of school will be this Monday, Sept. 13th. Yesterday, I was making sure I had everything prepared. Sharpening pencils, trying to organize all of their books and muddling through the teachers' manual took up most of my day. Knowing that today was Sunday and I consider Sunday to be my day "off" (no laundry; no housework), I went ahead and wrote some assignments on our dry erase board. Later in the evening the boys asks if they could add something to the list. My parents had come over for dinner and we were saying our goodbye's and I never noticed what the boys had added to their assignments. This morning I took a picture to show you their addition.

Apparently "Bake cookies" is a very important task that I had neglected to include in their academics.

A new mascot

I love this Cat. I saw him the other day and quickly added him to my computer. He's my new mascot.

Do you think I could have a t-shirt made with him on it?

A bumper sticker?

A flag flown proudly outside my home?

Maybe just a coffee cup.

I think the reason I like him so much is that he so appropriately expresses my feelings on a plethora of subjects.

Me as a homeschooling mom

Gray hair

Potty training

Housework

Fat-free mayonnaise

Dieting

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

Angry kitty will be visiting the Pettis blog often in the future.