Snips and Snails and Puppydog Tails

Do you remember that Friends episode where Ross and Rachel discover that Emma laughs every time they sing “Baby Got Back,” and so they repeatedly sing this wildly inappropriate (but awesome) song to their infant? Yeah, living in a house of boys is like that. All. The. Time.

Some inappropriate songs we have been known to sing to/with the children (or that they have learned well enough to sing on their own)…

• “Baby Got Back” (of course)
• “Rump Shaker”
• “Ice, Ice Baby”
• “Fancy” (Iggy Azalea’s, though some might also argue that Reba’s “Fancy” is also inappropriate)
• “Royals” (I’m telling you, you haven’t lived until your 4-year-old sings “You can call me Queen B” to you)

And when the song IS appropriate (or at least not wildly inappropriate)? Why, just change the lyrics! Some real life examples:

• “You Are My Sunshine” becomes “You Are My Moonshine”
• “Surfin’ Safari” becomes “Poopin’ Safari” (yes, this was during potty training)
• “Hush little baby, don’t say a word/Papa’s gonna buy you a mocking bird” becomes “Hush little baby, don’t say a word/Papa’s gonna buy you a big brown turd” (really, nothing is sacred in a house of boys.
• “King of Pain” becomes “King of Crust” (sorry, Sting fans)

This is, by no means, an exhaustive list. But, at least we’re teaching them to appreciate ALL kinds of music, right? Also, we throw some killer dance parties in our living room.

(Please, don’t call CPS on us – we also sing lots of very appropriate songs, too, but that doesn’t make as funny a blog post.)

Bear, being generally awesome.

Today I need to give a shout-out to our Bear. He’s been a-MAZE-ing in the kid and brother department these days.

He’s rocking the school thing – getting up on his own, making his lunch, killing it in the grades department. He comes straight in from class and gets down to the business of homework – reading, math, spelling, you get the idea – so that he’s all done by the time practices roll around. He tells me about the cool stuff he learned in science and all about the books he’s reading for battle of the books. This kid is smart – way smarter than me.

And then there’s the brother part. How awesome a brother is he? Let me count the ways from just this week: 1) he holds Daniel, often while he’s crying, and tries everything he can think of to soothe him; 2) he offered to help Sam with his homework so that they could then watch a movie together; 3) he used his own money –  unprompted – to buy a fundraiser item from Bubba to help him meet a goal. How many 10 year olds do you know who’d do that?

This kid rocks my socks off, and as the “middle child” I worry sometimes that he doesn’t get nearly enough credit for all the awesomeness that he is. So, Bear, thank you for being you. Don’t ever change because you are sweet and funny and smart and charming and talented all rolled into one ball of excellent.

Snippets of conversations I heard from the nursing chair last night at dinner time while Daddy and the boys served their plates:

B: We heard the weirdest song on the way home from your baseball game on Sunday, Caleb. It was something about “that bass”

J and C in chorus: Because I’m all about that bass, ’bout that bass – no treble!

—– a few minutes later —–

B: [child’s name], quit farting on people! It might have been funny the first few hundred times, but now it’s not!

Thus began a conversation about farting etiquette (it’s a thing, people, especially when you live with boys). My favorite gem of this conversation was, “The best thing to do is SIT ON IT.”

Not too long after this, I joined them at the table. Farting talk tapered off and we ended up (after everyone was done eating) pulling up Jimmy Fallon clips on the iPad. It started with the Adam Levine/Jimmy musical impressions bit, then went on to the Justin Timberlake/Jimmy “History of Rap” bits.

Y’all, I really did the world a disservice by NOT having my video camera ready to film the singing and dancing that went on around my table. Really. You have not lived until you’ve seen your 14-year-old break it down to old-school hip-hop, and your 10-year-old bust out all the words to Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy.”

We ended the evening with a rousing 3 part (14-year-old, 10-year-old, and 4-year-old) remix of “Baby Got Back.”

So, you know, a typical Tuesday evening around here.

Between unpacking a new house, a new baby, and baseball times 2, we didn’t take a family vacation this year. However, Sam got to go on his first solo trip.

He hugged Dad’s neck (and Mom’s).

Loaded up in Grandpa’s new truck.

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Lessons I’ve learned (so far) from living with boys:

• You will find dirty socks everywhere – computer desk, couch cushions, in the sheets, your front passenger seat (yes, really, and let me tell you how nice that smelled after baking in Texas summer heat) – and they will never, ever be paired or even unrolled from the foot removal process.
• Bathroom talk is “appropriate” anywhere… and “funny” always.
• Speaking of bathrooms, aiming is only a suggestion, apparently.
• Press for exact details of their day at your own risk – insisting that “nothing” is an unacceptable answer for what happened at school and that they better come up with something else might get you a very detailed description of the kid who threw up in Algebra… during dinner. Not that I’d know from experience or anything.
• Kissing is universally disgusting from age 3 to about 13…and always when it involves parental units.
• Locker room stink is not just for locker rooms, and it will bring you to your knees.
• Sports shoes are disgusting the minute you leave the store with them.
• It is perfectly acceptable for you to handle their grody (yes, grody), sweaty, stinky socks, underwear, or other articles of clothing to get them clean again, but it is NEVER acceptable to ask them to take a clean and dry load of laundry that might contain one of your bras or a pair of panties from the dryer so that you can switch clothes over.
• It is always time to wrestle.
• TV shows you never thought could even exist become regular viewing – Mecum Auto Auctions, Pit Bulls and Parolees (admittedly, I like this one), anything Bear Grylls, Dating Naked (okay, the Daddy in this house might have discovered that one, and it’s not regular viewing, but really, why is this a show???).
• It is always time for sports.
• You will utter the phrases “do not put your mouth on that,” “do not put your naked butt on that,” “do not shake your naked booties at your brother,” and “Oh my God, light a match/roll down the window/turn on the fan!” more times than you care to admit.
• It is always time to fight bad guys.
• Anything can be a gun or other weapon.
• No matter how uninterested you are in sports at any other time, you WILL scream like a preteen girl at a One Direction concert for that home run, awesome catch, or crazy soccer goal – and you might cry a little, too.
• Drive-by hugs – the kind that almost knock you over – are the best things ever and you will miss them when they outgrow giving them.
• Your heart will unexpectedly catch in your throat when you get random glimpses of what fine young men they are becoming.

I could go on and on; but you get the idea. And I love (almost) every minute of it. 🙂

In the dugout, freshly uniformed, and ready to play!

He’s been ready for 4 years. He’s been playing his own pretend games, complete with pretend coaches, teammates, and playoffs for at least a year and a half. He has practically grown up on a baseball field, and today, he got to take the field, finally, for his very own game as a Natural! To say he was excited would be an understatement. No, I take that back. It would be THE understatement of the year.

Warming up with coach

No, really. This is my non-morning child (he takes after me). He had an 8 am game, which meant he actually needed to be up earlier today than most school days. And he was SO excited that he didn’t even complain. After a pre-game breakfast of cocoa puffs (the breakfast of champions, you know), off we went to the KYA fields. At the field he and Daddy went into the dugout and hung up his bag and bat. Sam got his uniform shirt from his coach’s wife (hats will be ready next week, thus today’s TCU hat) and he darted out onto the field for warmups!

With each at-bat he got a base hit (it is t-ball after all), and he ended up making it around to score each inning. (Since this is instructional league, the kids only advance one base with each hit, regardless of where on the field the ball ends up, and they don’t advance on overthrows.) He slid into second and third each time (but not first – we don’t slide into first!) and popped right back up, ready to run some more.

Because I took way too many pictures, here’s a fun collage.

In the field he played catcher, pitcher (see videos below), and left field and loved it! He was baseball ready the whole time. He hustled, he tried to catch the ball, he chased the ball, and he cheered his teammates.

After the game, he told us his favorite part of the game was batting, because he got to slide. And he was ALL. SMILES.

Happy, hot, and sweaty after a great first game

Obligatory pic with Mom and Dad after the game.

Yup, I think we’ve got another sports fanatic in the family. I can’t wait to see how the season goes! (And I promise to TRY not to post really long, overly photo-and-video-laden writeups after every game. But, um…I’ll probably break that promise at least once because he’s SO. DARN. CUTE.)

Today, the BNHS football game was held at Cowboys Stadium. (Officially it’s AT&T Stadium, but sorry, it will forever be Cowboys Stadium to me. Just like the Rangers’ stadium will forever be the Ballpark – none of this Globe Life nonsense. But I digress). J’s band got to march on the field at Cowboys Stadium. They had the huge jumbotron on and everything.

The BNHS team on the jumbotron after taking the field

Team Captain hand shakes after the coin toss.

Bryan, Daniel, Caleb, and half of Sam even made the jumbotron during crowd scans.

WAY COOL

It was really cool. It was also really loud. Daniel and I spent most of the game in a quieter (and quite fancy) lounge area on the second level. There were TVs for me to watch the game, comfy seats, Daniel was able to nurse and nap without interruption (or the stink eye from anyone), the staff was SUPER NICE, and we ventured out onto the concourse at halftime to see and hear Bubba perform with the band. They did great!

BNHS band ready to take the field.

One thing that turned out great about having to go up a level for a little less noise was that I had a great view to video the performance. Sorry if it’s a little shaky – I was holding Daniel. (And the background squeals were other littles that were happily running around up there – it seems we weren’t the only ones for whom the lower concourse was too loud.)

Maternity leave is over. <sad trombone> Today I started back to work (yes, on a Friday), after 12 wonderful (paid!) weeks getting to know the new addition to our family. And while I still didn’t feel fully ready to go back to work – what Mommy does, really? – I wasn’t quite as distraught this time as I was with Sam. Why? No, not because Daniel’s my second baby and I’m a hardened Mommy. It’s because my going back to work meant walking upstairs to my home office.

Remember step 1 here? Yep, I get to work from home full time, and for now, that means that Daniel gets to stay home with me. Sam still goes to school for several reasons: 1 – he loves his school, 2 – it’s actual pre-K now, so he’s really getting ready for Kinder next year, and 3 – have you ever tried to work with a 4-year-old around? It’s next to impossible. Currently, the plan is to keep Daniel home with us for the first year, as long as it’s working for everyone.

We started off the morning with a happy back-to-work selfie.

Good Morning!

We also had some play mat time.

Cooing at jungle friends

There was some eating involved (not pictured – duh).

There was also nap time.

Sleepy time

There was a nice selection of reading material (though none of it got read today)

Mickey’s Sports, The Very Quiet Cricket, and That’s Not My Truck

Really, a Friday was an ideal way to start back to work. I spent the majority of the day sifting through three months’ worth of emails and filing things away. My team members were both off today, and, in general, the department is pretty quiet on Friday afternoons. While I still feel like I need some time to reacquaint myself with my job, and a quick look at our team Trello board assures me there is PLENTY for me to do (woo-hoo job security), at least I won’t be buried under thousands of unread emails on Monday. I’m sure there will be an interesting learning curve to the work-at-home-with-a-kiddo-actually-at-home-Mom thing (remember, when I first transitioned to full-time WAHM status, Sam stayed in school), but thankfully I think my newest little guy is going to be a patient trainer. 🙂

Oh, and in case you were just DYING to know what my office setup is, here you go.

It could also be considered a TCU shrine.

I’ve mentioned that the new house has a pond just at the end of the street, right? Only, like, a bazillion times (more if you happen to be friends with me on Facebook). Guess what? That pond has fish in it. And you know who loves to go fishing? Grandpa. And you know who loves to do anything Grandpa does? Sam. Earlier this summer, Grandpa and Sam went out early one morning and caught a couple fish (catch and release) in our pond. The prize catches were a Blue Gill and a Yellow Catfish. We have relived the glory of these catches many times over the summer. He’s ready for another fishing outing, Grandpa!

The blue gill on the line

The yellow catfish on the line

And, of course, some video of the actual catfish catching.

Marching Band Season – er, Football Season – has begun! Friday night, the Daneman boys experienced their first Friday Night Lights. Jacob marched his first game with the Byron Nelson Bobcat Band and he decided it was fun. Things he liked: performing halftime, watching the other team’s dance squad, and dancing with the other trombones in the stands. Things he didn’t like: how hot it was, the noisy bus ride home – the boy was tired after a LONG first week of school – and being put on clean-up crew (supposedly clean up crew is assigned to those who have been late to practice or not done things right, and he didn’t know of anything he’d done wrong or any times he’d been late – we hated to tell him he might have to just suck it up as a freshman…). However, I think we have the makings of a happy marcher.

Of course, I videoed. Since it was an away game, it’s mostly of the band’s backsides, and there’s some pretty funny running commentary throughout, but I think you can still get the idea. (Warning, the video is about 8 minutes long – I videoed BNHS’s whole halftime performance, including the dance team because, well, I like the whole halftime.)