Great Stories From This Week

On Thursday I had Raelin, Ryker, Liam (my nephew who's about 16 months old) and Liliana (our friends' baby who is the same age as Liam). Angel (Liam's mom) had run to the store to get a few things for the dinner I was making for all of us. While she was gone, I was slaving away over a hot stove, and the kids decided to all gang up on me. Raelin and Ryker decided it would be a good time to do what they do best and fight! Raelin was getting pretty sassy and bossy, so I gave her a time-out to regroup. I went to talk to her about being bossy and how I like to be around my nice, kind, happy Raelin so much more than when she's bossy and rude. I lectured for a minute or two and she said, "But Mommy, I just want to learn it the hard way." Oh, boy, are we ever in trouble!!! Then I went back to the stove to rescue the dinner when Raelin said that Liam was getting into trouble. I went and looked and Liam had taken the canister out of the vacuum and dumped all the dirt and dog hair and whatever else was in there all over the floor and was playing with the filter. So I scooped up the big clumps and ran back to the stove. Then I turn around to find Liliana on the floor with a package of wipes (the pop out kind), pulling them all out! Brice's mimic later of what was going through her mind was, "Oh, look! Another one. And then another one. And another one. Wow, they just keep popping up!" She was surrounded by wipes and having a grand time! I went to pick them up but then I heard my kids in the garage and decided that was much more important to check on. Go ahead, Lily, just keep pulling! So I went out to the garage to find:

Raelin with a hand saw, sawing away!And Ryker with a 4 foot stick, hitting things! Maybe he thought he was hammering things and, lacking a hammer, the stick was the next best thing (kinda fuzzy picture, but you get the idea).

So, I got all the kids back into the house and away from the dangers of our garage and attempted to rescue dinner yet again. Minutes later, I noticed the back door open and looked out to find Ryker out there with the filter from the vacuum (I hadn't bothered putting it back together--the damage was already done), banging it on the porch to get all the dust out. He's seen Daddy do that apparently. In the meantime, however, the babies were both escaping! I herded everyone back inside again and fortunately, Angel returned before any other catastrophes came to pass. Amazingly, dinner was still fabulous--we had Caribbean Black Beans with Mango Salsa over rice. Don't you wish you were here! For once in my life, I was able to just laugh at all the mayhem going on around me even in the moment (as you can see, I even took pictures of it all!). That was a first!

Here's a funny Ryker anecdote: This morning we were getting ready for church when Ryker came to the bottom of the stairs and called, "Brice, Brice, Brice!" Brice came to the top of the stairs and said, "Ryker, you should call me Daddy." Ryker said, "OK" and started to walk away. Then he stopped and said sheepishly, but matter-of-factly, "Mommy calls you Brice," and stuck his thumb in his mouth and swirled his hair as he wandered off.