Lately Caleb has been very preoccupied with what size clothes he is wearing. He reasons that since he is 6 years old, he should only wear size 6, 6/7, or S(6/7). A few weeks ago I bought him an Angry Birds shirt and a Lego Star Wars shirt. My little fashion icon was bursting at the seams and couldn't wait to wear them until he checked the tags and discovered that they would in fact not burst at the seams if he wore them. Silly me, I should have known better than to buy my tall six-year-old a size M(8) shirt. And so the shirts hang, unworn and forlorn, in the boys' closet.
Caleb also insists on folding up his sleeves if they even so slightly cross the threshold of his wrists. This morning as he was getting dressed, I thought I'd appeal to his tendency to pay attention to aesthetic detail and pointed out that if he folded his sleeves as usual, the NFL logo of his Redskins sweatshirt would be covered. I thought this might be a good way to convince him not to fold his sleeves, since they honestly were not too long and looked kind of ridiculous folded. After agonizing over this dilemma for a couple minutes, Caleb figured out that he could instead tuck his sleeves inward, thereby not obstructing his view of the NFL logo. And it's not that he really cares about the NFL or even knows what it is. You see, today was "Sports Team Spirit Day" at school, which is why I had them wear their Redskins sweatshirts for the first time, and when I asked them if they knew what sport the Redskins play, Joshua was at a complete loss and Caleb hesitantly guessed "basketball". I guess this is what happens to boys whose fathers couldn't care less about professional sports (not that I'm complaining)!
In other news, Caleb and Joshua have recently become obsessed with knowing which presidents of the United States were good and which ones were naughty. While Joe and I have been able to offer relatively educated judgements about the moral integrity of the founding fathers as well as the presidents who have served during the past 80 years or so, we have been at a loss when the boys ask us whether James Polk and Rutherford B. Hayes were good or naughty. The boys have a U.S. Presidents book that they like to consult in their quest to determine the goodness or naughtiness of each president, but the internet has also proven to be helpful. I was amused to overhear the following conversation between the twins a couple days ago:
Joshua: "Was JFK a naughty president or a good president?"
Caleb: "He was naughty."
Joshua: "Why was he naughty?"
Caleb: "Because he was not faif-ful to his wife."
Joshua: "John-John and Caroline's daddy was not faif-ful? Oh, that's too bad."
Caleb: "Yeah, and Bill Clinton was not faif-ful to his wife, either. Hey Mommy, what does 'faif-ful' mean?"
So if you were to ask the boys which presidents were naughty and which were good, they would probably tell you that George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and the George Bushes were good guys. They'd tell you that Harry Truman, JFK, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton were naughty. And that Jimmy Carter was not necessarily naughty, but that he just made some stupid decisions. I'll refrain from passing judgement on our current commander-in-chief, although I'm sure the boys would be happy to offer their humble opinions if you'd care to ask them.
Moses, meanwhile, has been too busy drawing and writing to care about presidents. When I pick him up from school, he begs me to take him home so he can draw. He'll say, "Mommy, I want to go home and draw you a picture because I love you". Recent drawings have portrayed cowboys riding horses, flowers, our house, our new van, and carrots growing in a garden being eaten by the Easter bunny. I'm reluctant to say this, but his drawings are actually probably better than those of one of his older brothers (who shall remain nameless), probably because in his 3 short years he's dedicated more time to drawing than his brother who is twice as old as him. Whoever said practice makes perfect wasn't kidding.
And now for a few quotes...
Uncle Charles: "Branden! You can't run around in the parking lot! That car almost hit you!"
Moses, gesticulating sternly: "That wasn't a car. It was a truck."
Joshua, after he refused to participate in swim practice without his twin, who was at home sick: "I'm sorry I didn't swim, Mommy, I made a mistake. I'm so sorry, sweet Mommy. It's all my fault, I won't do it again."
Caleb: "Mommy, you are the best cooker because you just made me kale!"
Joshua: "Can I have some more kale?
Moses: "I love kale!"
Moses: "I see a fallabella! It's so small and cute."
Me: "Yeah, it's small and cute just like you, Moses!"
Moses: "No, I am big!"
Me: "Maybe we should give away the bunnies. They're so destructive."
Boys: "Noooo!"
Me: "We could get a pet fish instead."
Boys: "Ok! Yaaaay!"
Caleb: "Or maybe we could get a gun instead of a fish."
Boys: "YAAAAAY!"
Friday, March 30, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Our St. Patrick's Day Splurge
Some people have been puzzled by how we've managed to survive as a family of 5 in a 5-passenger car for the past three years. Since it seems like a lot of folks buy a minivan as soon as they find out they're expecting baby #2, I guess it might seem odd that we held out for so long. Honestly, it didn't really become an issue until the twins graduated to booster seats about a year ago. Whenever I took the boys somewhere in the car, I had to block out an extra 5 minutes dedicated exclusively to fishing around in the narrow crevice between the booster seat and Moses' carseat in a frustrating attempt to buckle the their seat belt one-handed. Times two.
So when Joe's friend and fellow guitar-player on the church worship team announced that his wife was expecting their third child a couple months ago, Joe decided that it'd be nice if we could give them the Santa Fe, a considerable step up from the 20-something-year-old Camry that his wife was currently driving. Their baby is due in August, so we figured we had all Summer to find a nice used van that fit our budget to replace the Santa Fe.
Then while we were visiting Granny and Babo over St. Patrick's Day weekend, they offered to watch the boys while we went out for a test-drive or two. It seemed like a good idea since neither of us had ever been behind the wheel of our top two contenders- the Odyssey and the Sienna. We assured the boys that we were just going to look at cars, and that we certainly would not buy one that day. Upon arriving at the Honda dealership, we soon found ourselves test-driving a souped-up 2010 Odyssey, but balked in discouragement when we learned the price. It just seemed like a lot of money for a used vehicle. Next, we looked at a 2012 Odyssey that cost slightly less than the 2010, but didn't have leather seats. My sincere attempt to be open-minded could not overcome the fact that I'd had my heart set on leather seats for the longest time. All of our couches are leather, and for good reason- I can only imagine the amount of destruction that three boys would wreak on fabric upholstery.
So, we cut to the chase and told the head honcho at the dealership to show us the cheapest 2012 Odyssey with leather seats that they had. He asked us what color we wanted, and I told him we didn't care about the color, all we wanted was leather seats and a low price. So he said, how about this one, and gestured toward the showroom model right beside us. "Sure," we said. What I didn't tell him was that it was the exact same Smoky Topaz color that I'd picked out on Honda's website when I "built my own" Odyssey online just for fun a few weeks earlier!
We were so unprepared to buy a car that day that amid negotiations, Joe had to leave the dealership and drive to the nearest branch of our bank and use the ATM to check the balance in our checking account so we'd know exactly how much we could put down. In the end, they offered to sell us the brand new showroom model, with leather interior and only 5 miles on the odometer, for the same price as the used 2010, which was nearly $4K less than MSRP. With the monthly payments working out to be just a little more than what we were saving each month from our recent mortgage refinance, we were sold!
The boys have been just as excited about our new van as we are. Caleb has written about our new van in his journal almost every day at school since we got it, each day discussing a new feature, such as its 8 seats or the fact that it is "zero years old". They fight over who gets to push the buttons that open and close the doors, and get a big kick out of talking to Daddy on the phone via the van's bluetooth technology. The salesman had assured us that the person on the other end would only be able to hear front-seat passengers, but our boys are apparently a loud exception.
At first we installed Moses' carseat in the middle row and the twins' booster seats in the back row, but Moses sulked and begged to sit next to his brothers. We thought he might enjoy a reprieve from being flanked by his big brothers in tight quarters, but apparently not. One of the countless nice things about the 2012 Odyssey is that the middle row of seats can be adjusted not only front to back, but also side to side. So we now have all three boys across the middle row of seats, and there is plenty of room in between each seat for the twins to buckle themselves in. So now, a task that used to consume 5 minutes every time we got in the car takes me no time at all because the boys can do it themselves! And in the mornings as we're heading out the door to school, the boys can open the sliding doors with the push of a button from inside the house. I used to give them the Santa Fe key and tell them to go unlock the car and get in, hoping that they wouldn't lose the keys somewhere between the house and the car, and if the keys did make it to the car, that no one would get knocked in the head by a swinging car door. As you can imagine, our mornings are much less stressful now.
And as fond as we are of our new Odyssey, parting with the trusty Santa Fe was bittersweet. It was the first car that we'd purchased together as a married couple after Joe's Taurus drowned in Hurricane Isabel. It had been with us through four moves and brought home our three babies. And it really was in good shape, with 100K miles down, and according to other 2003 Santa Fe owners, at least 100K more miles to go. But any sadness that we might have felt was washed away on Monday evening when we saw the huge grin sweep across our friend's face as she drove it away into the sunset.
So when Joe's friend and fellow guitar-player on the church worship team announced that his wife was expecting their third child a couple months ago, Joe decided that it'd be nice if we could give them the Santa Fe, a considerable step up from the 20-something-year-old Camry that his wife was currently driving. Their baby is due in August, so we figured we had all Summer to find a nice used van that fit our budget to replace the Santa Fe.
Then while we were visiting Granny and Babo over St. Patrick's Day weekend, they offered to watch the boys while we went out for a test-drive or two. It seemed like a good idea since neither of us had ever been behind the wheel of our top two contenders- the Odyssey and the Sienna. We assured the boys that we were just going to look at cars, and that we certainly would not buy one that day. Upon arriving at the Honda dealership, we soon found ourselves test-driving a souped-up 2010 Odyssey, but balked in discouragement when we learned the price. It just seemed like a lot of money for a used vehicle. Next, we looked at a 2012 Odyssey that cost slightly less than the 2010, but didn't have leather seats. My sincere attempt to be open-minded could not overcome the fact that I'd had my heart set on leather seats for the longest time. All of our couches are leather, and for good reason- I can only imagine the amount of destruction that three boys would wreak on fabric upholstery.
So, we cut to the chase and told the head honcho at the dealership to show us the cheapest 2012 Odyssey with leather seats that they had. He asked us what color we wanted, and I told him we didn't care about the color, all we wanted was leather seats and a low price. So he said, how about this one, and gestured toward the showroom model right beside us. "Sure," we said. What I didn't tell him was that it was the exact same Smoky Topaz color that I'd picked out on Honda's website when I "built my own" Odyssey online just for fun a few weeks earlier!
We were so unprepared to buy a car that day that amid negotiations, Joe had to leave the dealership and drive to the nearest branch of our bank and use the ATM to check the balance in our checking account so we'd know exactly how much we could put down. In the end, they offered to sell us the brand new showroom model, with leather interior and only 5 miles on the odometer, for the same price as the used 2010, which was nearly $4K less than MSRP. With the monthly payments working out to be just a little more than what we were saving each month from our recent mortgage refinance, we were sold!
The boys have been just as excited about our new van as we are. Caleb has written about our new van in his journal almost every day at school since we got it, each day discussing a new feature, such as its 8 seats or the fact that it is "zero years old". They fight over who gets to push the buttons that open and close the doors, and get a big kick out of talking to Daddy on the phone via the van's bluetooth technology. The salesman had assured us that the person on the other end would only be able to hear front-seat passengers, but our boys are apparently a loud exception.
At first we installed Moses' carseat in the middle row and the twins' booster seats in the back row, but Moses sulked and begged to sit next to his brothers. We thought he might enjoy a reprieve from being flanked by his big brothers in tight quarters, but apparently not. One of the countless nice things about the 2012 Odyssey is that the middle row of seats can be adjusted not only front to back, but also side to side. So we now have all three boys across the middle row of seats, and there is plenty of room in between each seat for the twins to buckle themselves in. So now, a task that used to consume 5 minutes every time we got in the car takes me no time at all because the boys can do it themselves! And in the mornings as we're heading out the door to school, the boys can open the sliding doors with the push of a button from inside the house. I used to give them the Santa Fe key and tell them to go unlock the car and get in, hoping that they wouldn't lose the keys somewhere between the house and the car, and if the keys did make it to the car, that no one would get knocked in the head by a swinging car door. As you can imagine, our mornings are much less stressful now.
And as fond as we are of our new Odyssey, parting with the trusty Santa Fe was bittersweet. It was the first car that we'd purchased together as a married couple after Joe's Taurus drowned in Hurricane Isabel. It had been with us through four moves and brought home our three babies. And it really was in good shape, with 100K miles down, and according to other 2003 Santa Fe owners, at least 100K more miles to go. But any sadness that we might have felt was washed away on Monday evening when we saw the huge grin sweep across our friend's face as she drove it away into the sunset.
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