Tonight the boys were bathed, adorable & clean in their jammies; finishing eating dinner and clearing their plates from the table. I asked them if they wanted to cozy up in Mommy & Daddy's room and watch a nature show before they went to bed. They shrieked YES! and as they walked down the hallway I followed them with my arms outstretched (zombie-style), making a scary face and weird noises. They screamed, started running, and in fits of hysterical laughter threw themselves onto the bedroom floor; I pounced on them and tickled mercilessly. They both laughed and laughed, and then out of nowhere Xander sat up, got very serious and said "normal moms don't do this kind of stuff." ...... I laughed so hard! But then I tried to compose myself and be serious, in case he truly was freaked out (I've noticed he has really Grown Up this summer), and asked him "do you wish I was a normal mom?" I was fully prepared to work on improving my behavior if he said YES. Thankfully he replied "NO!" with no hesitation whatsoever, and asked to be tickled some more. Goodness, I love that kid so much. But it was a perfect reminder of how odd I am by Normal Mom Standards, which I honestly forget most of the time. I'm assuming most moms don't chase their kids down the hallway acting like a zombie? Well, why not; its perfectly normal to me! Seriously, as long as my kids are having fun and not embarrassed, I'm cool with being not-normal. *Sort of like the time when Xander's class was on a field trip at the park, and all the kids were screaming for "Mrs. Martin" to push them on the swing or merry go round - I did honestly worry about how I looked in my neon green Cherry Valley Elementary T-shirt, muffin top jiggling everywhere, totally sweaty and immature, with the teacher and other classroom moms looking on .. but it was just so fun to be the mom that 24 first graders wanted to play with!! Later that night as I was tucking him in Xander said "howcome you're the only mom who plays? None of the other moms at the park today were playing, they all just stood there." I was very pleased that he noticed, but mostly felt sorry for all the other kids whose moms don't play.*
Moving on. Lately Dax really likes to make things for me out of Legos, as a present. He gets up in the morning (around 6:30 these days .. ugh) and runs down the hallway into our room, intent on hopping in bed with us. But for months the Lego bin has been on our bedroom floor, so he gets sidetracked and sits down and starts swishing around in the Legos, building things before he wakes me up. When he's made a satisfying creation he trots to my side of the bed, holding his creation oh-so-carefully in his sweet little hands. "Look Mommy, I made you a pie." [Square flat Lego piece with side pieces built up around it.] "Look Mommy, I made you a jet." [Very symmetrical creation indeed resembling aircraft.] So anyway, tonight both the boys are up way too late, building with Legos. And Dax has something very exciting he's made. "OK Mommy, you are going to be IMPRESSED!!" he announces as he walks into the kitchen. "Wait, don't look, I'm not done" - does a 180 and goes back down the hallway. A few seconds later he comes back and sets his creation on the counter; fiddles with it a bit more. "OK, now you can look." Right as I look, he decides there is more work to be done. Thankfully he didn't object to me taking some photos of his delicious little hands putting on the finishing touches. [His hands are not going to be 4 years old forever, with his cute little nails all bitten up! I had to record it for posterity!] If Lego creations are going to be gifts to me, I simply must take photos, since they only last a day or so before they are taken apart to become something else, or sadly after a week or two Mommy loses patience with a nightstand covered in 'gifts' and gently places them in the Lego bin, where someone takes joy in destroying them to make something new. Again, reason to take photos....
I'm so glad I got a few photos, because before he could finish to his satisfaction, he accidentally dropped it on the floor and it shattered into a million pieces, half of which went under the stove, never to be seen again. Xander heard the crash (the sound of Lego pieces clattering all over a non-carpeted floor is unmistakeable) from their bedroom, where he was hard at work building something, and immediately hollered out "whoops, that's OK Dax, you can build it again." Such a sweet big brother! He knows how upsetting it is to drop a Lego creation you've worked on for half an hour! Dax and I picked up all the pieces we could. He wasn't too heartbroken. Then Xander came in, apparently having lost his pajama shirt in the previous ten minutes. "Mommy, OK .. well, Mommy, this is probably one of the cooler trucks I've built, its super tall, but the tires are really weird." [I always try to remind them that I am a girl and therefore I don't know how things are Supposed To Look when it comes to trucks, airplanes, cars, and anything else with a motor, so if they don't tell me something is weird, I'll never know the difference!]
Oh, how I do love these funny, smart, awesome boys! They never cease to entertain me. In the time its taken me to write & proof this post and upload the photos, Dax has fallen asleep and Xander is still up, alternating between building with Legos, watching a Walking With Dinosaurs program, hanging out with Juston who is downstairs in his office, and scouring the fridge for snacks. I think I'll follow his lead and go do all those same things.
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