If you can't sayin nothin' nice...

don't say nothin' at all. So that's why my blog has been so quiet. I have read several Christian fiction novels which talk about Earth being a war-zone with evil/good beings, unseen and fighting it out all around us. Waging war over our very souls and trying to upset or strengthen any work of God that we are trying to put our energies into. Let me just say that if that's so, I'm pretty sure that my guardian angel is needing a break to catch his breath.

I have one in the editing stages that served as a vent for my frustration but in the meantime, here is my lighter post for your viewing pleasure. I know I'm late for "Das Not Funny" Friday, but let's just pretend.

** Braeden was home sick from school all week last week. And with Tony having taken off an entire week 2 weeks before with Seth, it was my turn. One of the days, he tells me he has made up a new number. Oh really? What is it? "Derf". Oh, and how many make up a derf? "Two". And he starts counting without missing a beat - "One, Derf, Three, Four.... Twenty-one, Twenty-derf, twenty-three..." Where does he get this stuff? At least I know he can be successful in a career as a politician, where making up numbers has become an art form.

** Braeden absolutely, positively loves our neighbor and friend Brent who named him "Popsicle" when he was about 2 (because you never saw him walking around without one in his mouth).

#1 because Brent has a huge garage where old toys go to die. And he lets Popsicle go shopping whenever he wants in said garage. Thank you Brent.

#2 because Brent does BBQ competitions. And lets us have left-overs. I think I may just love Brent too. But it's funny now - Popsicle loves ribs. Which I have never, ever made for him. But he'll just ask his buddy "hey Brent, when you gonna make us some more ribs??" My poor child is now begging for food. Sweet.

Anyway, one day last week Braeden asks Tony - "if we don't get the money for Olivia's adoption, how are we going to pay for it?" Tony looks him over and says jokingly "well, you look kinda healthy. Maybe we could just sell you." To which Braeden breaks out in a HUGE smile and smirks "yeeaaaaah.... Misser Brent." So glad to be loved little buddy.


Also as a side on the adoption front: We have started our homestudy visits. Our first one lasted from 6:30-10. No rabbits were shot on the rabbit trails that we ran down that night. It was mainly an informative session with all the ins and outs of potential problems, paperwork, etc. Our social worker is super nice and very easy to talk to (obviously).

We also received our fingerprint appointment for our i600a. An $830 piece of paper from Citizenship and Immigration services that will give us permission to adopt an international orphan. I thought we would have to wait until the homestudy was finished until we got the appt. And I had heard it took a while to get, but we will be on our way to Charleston (closest place) next Monday to our appt.! So not only are we starting to move, but we are moving fast it seems. Hopefully all our paperwork will be on it's way to Ethiopia by March or early April at the latest. But we still have to raise about $6000 more before then to pay our international fee. The international fee pays for Olivia's care, medical needs, lawyers, court costs, etc. So if you feel led, 'chip in' now before our raffle closes on Dec. 1st to get a chance at winning the artwork.

Das Not Funny Friday - Rude and Crude

I had to share two quick ones to let all of you parents of adorable little baby girls just turn green with envy that you don't have boys to make your lives more exciting. Go ahead, I know you are completely jealous of the amount of bathroom words, flatulence, giggles, and unspeakable messes that little boys can make.

Two examples from this week which made me chuckle:

Seth and Braeden were on the couch watching cartoons last Saturday morning. Both covered in one thick flannel blanket. Heads at opposite ends of the couch. Got that picture in your mind?

I hear someone obviously rip a hole in my couch and look to see both boys turn to each other at the speed of light with wide eyes and Seth says, "I pooted."

Braeden, "let's SMELL it!"

Both boys, in a synchronization that must have been practiced many times, lift the blanket simultaneously to cover their heads with the blanket. Ewwwwwwww.
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We had chili beans the other night for dinner. Seth went on and on about how much he loved them and could we have them more often. He wolfs his down and runs back outside to play.

Approximately 30 minutes later he shoots in the door flying toward the bathroom with the passing message "NO MORE BEANS FOR DINNER...... EVER!!!!!"

I know you want the excitement that is the Wages household.

Das not funny Friday - Dry Heave

I have been wracking my brains the past few weeks with not a funny tail in sight. And then the Heaven's opened and not one, mind you, but two hilarious editions floated down for the week:

#1 - Tony and I volunteered Friday night with a new church in Columbia "Awaken". They put on a park movie night with free popcorn, Pepsi, bouncy house (that deflated and threatened to trap a few small children), and tons of fun. After the evening, as we were helping to tear down and clean up - I introduced myself again to the pastor's wife and was having a lovely, adult conversation when "Invasion of the 3 year old and the 'peepee' dance" started previewing. I look to the rec. building - dark. I look for any potty houses - nada. So I go to option #3 - big brother. "Yeah, that's why I had ya first son."

Me - "Hey Seth, will you go take your sister to the woods so she can pee?"
Seth - "Braeden's gotta go!"
Me - "well, just all go, but hurry!"

I continue on my adult conversation, confident that our vast experience of camping (cough-cough) and southern life should suffice for minimal potty accidents. I then look over and see both boys, pants open and loose, standing at the very edge of the woods, not a foot inside - peeing in our direction. Great. Glad you both have such nice manners men. I then look over to see my daughter running in circles continuing to do her dance to the peepee gods and holding herself. I take off trotting to the edge of the field madly signing "turn around! turn around!" while restraining myself from yelling at full throttle. Run past the boys and hear, "Seth peed on me!!!" Obviously, cause mom told them to turn around and we all know those things don't have shut off switches. Ignore and take little girl deeper into the woods and help her squat to pee all over her legs and shoe. Glad I could be there to help ..

I return to the field and later catch up with the pastor's wife to apologize for, on our first meeting, having to tell my kids to take their sister to the woods to pee. How so-fist-if-icated I is. We then get in our '64 pickup, threw the chilluns in the back, and head to the shack. I take that back, we might have stopped at the 7-11 for some more chew, cause mama likes her late night dip. We are in South Carolina after all.. (Oh, and even though it was late - we DID get quick baths to wash off the urine smell. In case you were worried about us tipping off the deer while huntin' the next mornin'.)

#2. Last night at a dinner of fine dining of baked potatoes and soup ala can - Addison tells me she likes sour cream. Can she have some? "Uh, baby, you don't like sour cream." "Yes, I do, I want some. "

I place a dime size dollap (cause everythings better with a dollap), on a minut piece of potato which she snatches up and begins to chew.

Chew....Gag, dry heave.... Chew....Gag, dry heave.... Chew .... Gag, dry heave.....Chew ... Gag, dry heave. (gotta admire the persistence). She then swallows, looks to us quickly with a huge smile and declares:

"YUMMY!!!!" Oh, child. Your lying skills already are giving me nightmares in preparation for the teenage years.

Das Not Funny Friday - Mom on the Fly

In an effort to encourage all you other moms (make you feel sorry for me), I wanted to briefly describe a day in the life of the Wages. Mind you, my major stresser was getting Addison to her first school "program" tonight. With camcorder in toe to record that beautiful memory...

8:00 am - Tony leaves for his Memorial weekend boy's trip. Plans to come back unshaven and stinky. Swell. I wrap my arms around his legs and cry "Don't leave me!" as he walks out the door.

3:10 pm - work all day, then pick up the boys from school. Race them to Book of Daniel Bible Study at a friend's house. 10 min. late as always.

3:45 pm - Rush to get Addison from daycare. Her teacher says, "did I mention you are suppose to bring a finger food for her play tonight? Uhhh, no." Go home wondering what I can throw together in a pinch. Box of graham crackers, anyone?? I have to confess the time difference may be attributed to a 15 min. nap I may have taken. (Which may have just ruined your feeling sorry for me. But I was up until 1 am painting again. Yeah, not so smart in retrospect.)

4:30 pm - and back to pick up the boys from study. They aren't done so I wait until

5:00 pm - race to Taco Bell to grab (cough, cough) nutritious dinner.

5:18 pm - run into the house to make them drinks (so they can eat in the car) while they change into ball practice clothes and grab their bats and gloves

5:40 pm - both to ball practice. 10 min. late as always. Do not stop to think about the effects of inhaling spicy beef and processed cheese 2 minutes before athletic activity. Thank goodness I got away lucky on that one.

5:50 pm - home to make batch of mini-muffins. Martha Stewart, I am. Throw nutritious Nacho Supreme in front of baby girl with instructions to "hurry up and eat". Cause not only am I Martha Stewart, but I'm June Cleaver as well. Hurry and change her dirty clothes into school T-shirt, Gymboree jeans that are just tooo adorable, and side braided pig-tails. This is her stage debut!! I skip bringing the bouquet of roses as that may just be a bit much for a 3 year old.

6:35 pm - Race back to ball field to pick up dirty, smelly boys from practice. Have flinting thought that I should have brought clothes for them to change into. But hey, they ARE boys.

6:55 pm - Fly to church fellowship hall and dump Seth with Addison out at front door so I can find parking spot. 10 min. late as always. (hmmmm, pattern??)

7:00 pm - Stand at the back of the seated crowd (as there are no seats left), camcorder in hand to capture this momentous moment. (And to use to make Tony feel guilty later for his choosing campfire hot dogs and mountain sunsets over 20 min of watching other people's children sing.)

7:03 pm - Addison comes out on stage. Cute as a button. Thumb in her mouth. Finds me in the crowd of flashing cameras and camcorders. Cue the music.... I start recording.......

7:04 pm - Tears start to fall, face begins to crumple. Her teacher takes her off the stage and sits her on the floor beside her up in front, out of all our view. I crumple to the floor in exhaustion and laugh at the irony of it all.

Addison with her pig lollipop with the tag "You did a great job!!" June Cleaver let her have it anyway..... Addison with her BFF Berkley...... Addison with her scene stealing bro. Bet he would have sang "Three Little Ducks" proudly ....

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And my Das Not Funny Moment:

This morning on the way to school we are listening to XM kids on the radio and a high pitched little girl's voice does the standard "Looooook who's on the phoooooooooone." All is quiet for a second or so before my little angel in the back says with a sigh -

"I hate dat li'el gul"

This isn't her first time using that naughty word. Last week, while being dragged from ball game to ball game - she proclaimed out of the blue, dashing all hopes of a college softball scholarship -

"I hate baseball"

** We ARE trying to teach her 'hate' is not a nice word to say. So the above was replaced with,
"Well, I weally don't like dat gul"

Das Not Funny Friday

So in this week's addition of Das Not Funny we have:

** Addison's sweet spanking: I had bought a gift for my friend Jerry in Ethiopia for her upcoming graduation. Thank goodness I had followed my roommate Gina to buy extremely over-priced miniature Snickers bars in the airport gift store or I may have just had to be hospitalized from chocolate-withdrawal shakes while over-seas. Ethiopia shops aren't laden with Almond Joys, Twix, or even Hershey Kisses. I KNOW, I couldn't believe it either!!! So, I thought best to include my new friend in my addiction (so now I guess I'm an international dealer) and I included two bags of MnMs in the box. Since they melt in your mouth and not in the international package postal box, I hope...

So while I was putting the gift together, Addison picked up the plain pink MnMs and I said, "don't touch those, those are for mommy's friend in Ethiopia." So a few minutes later I hear, chink-chink-plink-dink (hey, that's the closest I can come to writing out how little candy sounds hitting the floor). So I go to her, being a little ticked I can't mail the box the next day, and fuss about disobeying mommy and stealing the candy right AFTER I had just said, don't take that. But hey, I should have had more compassion as this IS my child and a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to feed the habit. So I put her in bed and proceed to sit in front of the computer and eat the jumbo sized bag of plain MnMs. Cause I couldn't give them to her, right? That would have just been wrong! Thank goodness she didn't open the peanut bag, cause I'm not all about the peanut, it clashes with the chocolately heaven that is Hershey.

** Braeden's nutritional advice - My father-in-law dropped in to visit this weekend. The kids only see him a couple times a year and Braeden proclaimed with all seriousness, "Why is Papaw's belly so BIG?? He needs to eat some vegetables!" I could only laugh.. and agree..

Das Not Funny Friday

These aren't that funny but they are just the cutest to mommy, and that being me, they're going on my blog.

** Addison's new favorite mealtime prayer was learned at school - "A-B-C-D-E-F-G-thank you God for foodin me." Not my favorite, meaningful conversation with God but pretty darn cute none-the-less.

** Last weekend, while helping to baby-sit her cousin-twin Calista (the new big sister), Addison teaches her a new song while buckled in the back seat at the hospital "Put your right arm in, put your right arm out, Put your right arm in, and you shake it all about. You do the Hopey-Popey and you turn yourself about. That's what it's all about - HO-PEY PO-PEY!!!

Das Not Funny Friday (on a Sunday)

Da

Just to join in the fun that is us, insane blogger moms:
It’s finally Friday (or a Sunday..)! How many times this week did you hear or see something and think… “Das Not Funny!” but then realize that it actually was pretty funny? Well, such is the purpose of this blogapolooza known as Das Not Funny! Friday.
Check out this blog to see what else is not funny. Plus, by going over here you can see who else has seen or heard something and thought Das Not Funny! then stifled a giggle or even laughed out loud! Come on, you know you wanna…

So in honor of Das Not Funny Friday:
Today, on Sunday:

I'm taking my Sunday nap like a normal, God-lovin Southerner should (but my husband is up and about, before you call DSS) - and I hear Braeden tell his little next door neighbor girlfriend. "Yeah, I'm gonna microwave the egg." NOT a good thing, I'm thinking. So I quickly yell out from the bedroom - "Braeden NO. Do NOT do that!" My little man loves America's Funniest Home Videos and I'm guessing this is probably a copy-cat stunt.

5, maybe 10, minutes later I'm on the phone with my sister and hear a loud "BOOM!!!!!" You guessed it.... the egg. All over the microwave.....

So now he's cleaned it all up and is in his room while I contemplate at what age I may let him out. I'm thinking next Friday sounds pretty good, just so he can give me something else 'not funny' to write about.