Wornoutwoman

I thought you all would like to see some of my son's latest work. He's the inner-child voice-over actor. So you won't see him in the commercial, but you'll hear his voice. I think he did very very well. I've got a talented little guy!

My son has and will always have a very big heart. In years past, on his birthdays, he's taken the initiative to give to various charities of his choice. You can click here to read about last year's birthday giving. It was pretty amazing. Well - one year older and little wiser to the world, he's gaining more knowledge of money and it's power. I think the fact that I've been somewhat unemployed or self-employed since July, has had a larger effect than I thought. Obviously, it benefits him, because I get to spend almost all my time with him, but he notices that we're restricted as a family to do certain things, from big to small on a financial level. Last Wednesday night, at church, we were helping the kids decorate little plastic piggy banks. We told the kids, once they filled this itty bitty bank up...they could feel free to donate it to the charity of their choice. We're trying to teach these little hearts and minds about other places of the worl...

This time of year it's tornado after storm after tornado after ... well, you get the point. It rained all day yesterday non-stop. And in the evening, when driving my son to church I noticed how crazy the clouds looked. They were separating on the lower levels and rolling around. The color of the sky wasn't green, which is an indicator of perfect tornado time, but it was 'off.' Right before I pulled out of our neighborhood, the tornado sirens started blaring and I knew I had to head back home to catch the forecast and wait it out in our closet. My son is really good at playing off his emotions. He's not one to show fear unless it's really bad. I made light of how fun it would be to build a tent in the closet and we tried to have the most fun we could. Unfortunately, I still had to listen to the weatherman to make sure I knew exactly where the twister was and could be touching down, and what kid wouldn't freak with that intense language spouting ...

Today is the day. My son gets to meet his Soccer coach and his T-ball coach this morning! It doesn't quite feel like Spring until he's in his soccer jersey running the field, well that and the frigid weather makes it not so springy. Is that a word? I think it's going to be better for me than him. Being cooped over the winter was harder than usual this year because he's gained another year and not as easily entertained. I can't just put a toy in front of him and expect him to marvel like he did when he was tiny. Now it's whining, "I want to doooo something" or "When can we go outside?" When that doesn't produce anything fun, it becomes silly name-calling or crying fits out of boredom to push my buttons. What he doesn't realize is that the silly name-calling gets to be worse. "Hey, Mrs. Jiggly Pens...whatcha doing?" What the? A) What kind of name is that? and B)'NO woman wants to be called Jiggly anyt...

I recently posted on how my son just loves our babysitter. Little Sarah is a great girl, who comes over from time to time to give us a night out. We usually use our family, as we're on a tight budget, but we can't rely on them every time. A few weeks ago, we asked her to sit for a few hours. I had a work function to go to, and my husband could get home from work in time for our schedules to work for our son. She came over to bridge the gap. Later that night, I got home to see my son and husband playing. I asked how everything went. He raised his eyebrow and said fine. I knew there had to be a story there. After our little guy went to bed, he told me what Sarah informed him about the night's activities. Apparently, when they were playing UNO earlier in the evening, he jumped up and rushed off saying how his tummy hurt. She followed him to the bathroom but stood out in the hall without seeing in to give him space. She asked if he needed anything. He told ...

For Christmas, my son got a hermit crab. Our 9-year-old neighbor girl across the street has one, named Larry, which he's always been fascinated with. She'll bring Larry over to play, which just thrills my kid. For months, he's been wanting one. One of my husband's co-workers got one as a gift, at the office, and was far from thrilled. My husband offered to take it off his hands, and we surprised my son on Christmas day. Now it's his own personal pet. Not that our dog isn't loved by my son, but this was given to him and it's all his. He knew he couldn't name it Larry since that name belongs to hermit crab across the street. So he improvised and stole from his favorite new character from the Bee Movie, Barry Bee Benson. My son's hermit crab is now called, LARRY LEE LENSON. :) My son feeds it, waters it, baths it...and plays with it daily. It's actually given such pride in taking responsibility for something that he's branched o...

My son goes through phases on when and if he wants to do his bed time prayers. Most nights I do them, and then he'll get a wild hair and decide it's his turn. His reason? Because I take "toooo" long! I usually go through and thank Jesus for all our special family and friends. Thank you for both Nana's...thank you for Aunts Cheri and Kathy....etc Now when he prays he gets straight to the heart of it because apparently, I'm too wordy. Here's his normal prayer when he chooses to lead us: "Dear Jesus, thank you for all my people! Please put Jesus in all bad stranger's hearts. And thank you for Abayasenga (our child in Africa, we sponsor) and for helping up sleep through the night! Amen!" I can't help but smile and the 'all my people' part, because he doesn't like that I list out ten different people at a time. It's mostly in an effort to get him sleepy, but also to remind him to be thankful for those in our l...

My son is at an age, where the boys and girls are already separating into groups of the same sex but still notice one another. He has a gorgeous little four-year-old girlfriend, who used to be in his class last session. Now they go to separate schools, so (sigh) they only see one another from afar at birthday parties. This past weekend, we attended yet another birthday party. I called his girlfriend's mom to see if she'd be there, and let her know that my son would be attending. This knowledge sparked this adorable little girl to write my son a love note. See it above...she drew him and her twice under the sun together. She wrote their names, but I cropped those out due to my son's and any child's privacy that I write about on my blogs. It was the sweetest thing ever to see her hand it to him. I wondered if he'd respond in kind and smile sweetly at her. He just held on to it, without opening it and returned to making his party favor bag with the other...

As usual, I picked my son up after work, at my caretaker's place. I asked him how school was today. I knew they had a moon bounce for that day's fun activity. He and his best friend are always together and having fun....rowdy boy fun, and I knew he was looking forward to the moon bounce. My little boy was so excited and proceeded to tell me that his best friend, Isaiah, was in the moon bounce, while he was trying to find another way in. He wanted to crawl up inside it. He told me he unzipped it to get inside. He said, "But Mommy! It deflated with Isaiah in inside!" I assumed when he wanted inside...he meant inside where Isaiah was, bouncing. I stopped to think about what he just said. I asked him if he was inside it with his little friend while it deflated. He said, "No, it just bent over and the air went out. I heard my teachers saying...hmmmm....some kid must have let the air out." I had this funny feeling when my son continued, "I ...

Each night before bed, my son enjoys watching "How It's Made" on the science channel. He has watched twenty minutes every night since he was two. TV for kids isn't a great habit to get into, but this show is much better than most anything out there. He knows how most everything is made...seriously. Last night, they showed how fish farms are run. The fun music was playing in the background as the fish farmer was squeezing the female's fish eggs out to harvest. Then he proceeded to squeeze the male's sperm into the bin, where the eggs had been deposited. This was how they harvested the babies. Once the babies were shown, hatched and swimming, he giggled. He thought the babies were so cute. He said, "I didn't know fish came from eggs!" I told him, "Yes they do...like birds." He looked at me with this quizzical look, smiled and said, "Mommy...you were my egg, weren't you? I hatched from you!" I had to laugh...what ...

Before I go on my trip, I will leave you with this story. Of course, my son is always serious, but I always find him so funny. Like all loving parents, I'm biased. Last night, my son was taking his shower. I detached the shower spray to hold and shower himself off with. I let him stand in there on his own for a while to gain more independence, but I always stay within earshot just in case. As I heard him singing, I asked if he was doing okay. My husband walked in and whispered, "You'll never guess what he's in there doing!" I raised an eyebrow in wait and he laughed, "He's got the showerhead turned toward his chest, and he told me that he was giving Jesus a drink because Jesus was thirsty!" I shook my head...there my son goes again. Thinking so literally. Of course, the water should be shooting at his heart...because Jesus lives there!

Little boys are always infatuated by what (to put it bluntly) hangs between their legs. They're constantly playing with it or learning new ways to pee with it. My son likes to pee in my mother's lawn, much to her horror. We're trying to break him of that. It's funny...I've spent years breaking dogs of peeing indoors, now I'm reminding him that it's not nice to pee outdoors in Nana's lawn. Needless to say, little boys at this age are trying to figure out what makes them unique and different from girls. They see the obvious differences...long hair vs short, attracted to dolls vs trucks, soft-spoken vs loud boy noises. But the most frequent question I get when it comes to body parts is: "Mommy, how come you don't stand up to go pee?" My answer: "Because boys have pee pee's and girls don't." Lately, he's on to bigger and better questions about things like strangers, or heaven, but yesterday he learned a hard l...

When I was getting out of the shower this morning, my husband rushed in and said, "Come here, you've got to hear this!" I dried off and listened from my room to my son saying the sweetest prayers on his karaoke machine. It wasn't hard to hear since he had it turned it to the loudest volume setting. I heard: "Dear Jesus, Thank you for dying on the cross for me. You rose again and you love me...thank you. My mom likes roses and she saves them after they die! Oh and please bless 'Abensengya' (that's the little boy we sponsor in Africa). Give him a house with bricks instead of mud and sticks...oh please give him a garage door and food! He doesn't have food like I do because he's on the other side of the earth, where its dusty and dirty. But the moon is a dusty surface, and it's okay. Thank you, Jesus, Amen!" I was amazed at his prayer and then all of the sudden he broke out in: AAAAAlll Aboard! Haahaaahaaa! I-I-I-I....cr...

Last weekend we attended one of the many birthday parties that we've been invited to. It's definitely birthday season! My son is the kind of kid that interacts better with adults but is still social. He's firstborn with no siblings, so that makes sense. He's become such a social butterfly in the last 5 months and it's so good to see. I'm glad he's not off watching other kids have fun from the side anymore. One of the girls from his class was at this party. She's a beautiful Greek girl that is the same age as my son, but a head taller than he is. Her parents are really tall and gorgeous people. Okay....they're Greek so that makes sense too. The entire party he kept asking me, "Is it okay if I go play with Toni?" or "Mom, can I sit with Toni?" I couldn't figure out if he was trying to get my permission or if he wanted to make sure I'd be okay without him. It was so cute. By the end of the party, he was ...

My son has definitely got the teasing thing down pat. He even does it with the cut of his eyes and a coy smile. Man, ladies...WATCH out! He's gonna be a lady killer and he's complimentary to boot! He knows the exact moment when to tell me how beautiful I am, which always makes my day. The other day we had one roll of toilet paper in the house. Obviously, it was time for me to get to the grocery store. He ran to his bathroom to go and ran back to me asking for a roll. I gave him mine from my bathroom and watched his eyes get real big. He told me, "but Mommy now you won't have any!" I told him not to worry he could have it, and he ran back to do his business. A couple of hours later, nature did it's calling for me and I jotted to the bathroom. I sat down, went pee, and looked to my left...no toilet paper. I yelled for my son and he dutifully came running to my bedroom door. I told him I needed some toilet paper, and asked if he would bring ...