Becca and the boys

It's been another one of those days, the kind that make me want to build a float out of flower pedals, rent a band and a street in downtown N.Y.C. and throw my mom a ticker tape parade. Airplanes towing banners, people waving handkerchiefs out of open windows and balloons, plenty of balloons. What a woman! She held it together long enough to see us eight kids raised (well, Laura will be in a couple of years, and I think she's going to make it.)

Today was a day of training, encouraging, warning, disciplining, head-shaking, cleaning, laundry, feeding and on and on and on and on.

Jack decided to pick up the can of spray paint that the contractor (wait till I get ahold of him!) left outside yesterday. He thought it would be a good idea to spray the thing... all over the railing of the deck we have been power washing for the last month in preparation to stain...

I put Austin in bed while I work in the attic next to his room. I am organizing the boxes of kids clothes that will be stored in there. I work for a bit while Austin is playing in bed. I decide the bed shouldn't be a place of play so I invite him to get our and play on the floor till I'm done. I keep working, he wanders off. In comes Ty:

"MOM!!" (he was crying) "My gum is stuck in my hair!"

"OK, it's ok. Calm down. (I wonder how this can be. He hasn't slept. How else does gum get in your hair?)

"How did your gum get in your hair?" I ask.

"I put it in there." he moans.

"Why did you put it in there?" (this will be interesting.)

"To see if it would stick."

Ty lost some hair today. No way was I going to try to get it out by holding an ice cube on it to try to freeze up the gum. I remember my mom doing that to me. Back then it never occurred to me that maybe she had something else to do besides sit and try to pick gum out of my hair. Call me crazy, but I'll bet she had other things going on.

I go up to go through shoes. Oh the shoes... I bring down four pair that had to be thrown away. I had saved them after Jack, but now decided they were just too far worn out to pass on to another boy.

Time to find Austin to put him down for a nap. I look everywhere and finally find him on the construction zone side of the house... bare foot. muddy. holding a sharp object.

And I see Jack, well the top half of Jack. He is down in the moat that will be our foundation. It rained last night and like a siren calling the sailors, Jack was drawn to the mud pit.

I thought about leaving everyone as is and going inside to make the necessary arrangements for the honorary parade that is due the woman who victoriously made it through 30+ years of raising double the children I have. Wowsers.

One of these days Mom, one of these days... you just wait. You'll get your parade. In the meantime enjoy the new recliners.