Could you please stop?

Camden gave us 7 months of just quietly being a sweet little baby. And then he decided he was going to make sure that even if he was the 3rd child, he was not going to be ignored. Don't get me wrong, he is still sweet, but he is also quite capable of making his needs known.

He went through a stage of lots of hitting last fall, and he also was a biter as soon as he got teeth for a long time. The hitting was aggressive, but the biting was just out of excitement or a need to use his little teeth. The biting stopped, and he never was kicked out of the church nursery for it, so I was happy it was over. The hitting, with lots of training, decreased to just an occasional outburst when he was really upset.

Until last week. He has been fighting some little cold, nothing terrible, but it is either that or some developmental stage that has brought out a very quick temper in the little guy. The first sign of anything that he doesn't like and he is biting, hitting, or both. I knew it had sort of taken over everything when this morning he came up to me and said (pauses between each word as he works to get them all out) "Mommy, I hit people." (lots of emphasis on people)

Who do you say that I am?

So here is Andrew's most popular church opener ever. Which I sacrificed as what could have been a great blog post- but alas, his audience at church may be wider than my blog audience, so I acquiesced. So for those of you who don't go to Cstone or were not there on 2/8, here is a portion of what he said and the video:

I have had to wrestle with my wife over saving this for an opening today rather than putting it up on her blog like she is dying to do. A few years ago we went out to lunch with Ralph and Myrna Alexander, Hudson at the time was about 2 and when we walked in to the lobby of Gresham Newport Bay, he ran up to this bigger than life wooden carving of an old fisherman and started yelling, “Jesus, hey Jesus” over and over. At the time we were not sure if we should be totally embarrassed in front of these experienced, life long, missionaries that our child thought that this Gorton’s fisherman guy was Jesus, or actually proud that our little guy had Jesus on his mind. Well, fast forward to today, and I can’t believe I’m going to show you this video, because Camden has taken this to a whole new level. And I’ll say I should go with proud back then, and embarrassed about this one.

The toilet is not a hoop.

If your a kid who really likes balls you know what would be really fun? Finding a bag of cotton balls in the drawer, take them out, then throw them all in the toilet. Then come show mommy that you, "dunk-it-n-da-HOOP!"

I wonder what the implications of that is on our septic system?

A God complex?

Tonight at bedtime:

Hudson: (singing some Christmas song that I can't remember now...) stops.. Mom, is it still Christmas time?

Me: No

Hudson: But it just snowed like another day ago.

Me: It can snow in the winter before or after Christmas. But it was really warm for winter today. (side note: 57 degrees is wonderful in February!)

Hudson: But I like all the toys I got.

Me: Yeah, and isn't it fun that your birthday is so close to Christmas.

Hudson: Yep, because that kind of makes me Jesus.

Me: No honey, it really doesn't.

Application of the Sunday School Lesson

Andrea taught Sunday School last week and she talked about earning rewards in heaven. We had a couple of cute stories related to the lesson.

First, she had a bag that she took "treasures" from. Things like a toy car, play jewels, a label maker (one of my most precious treasures too!) an ipod and a little toy basketball. If you have ever been around my family before, or read my blog even once you probably know what happened when she brought out the ball. Camden starts saying, "my ball, my ball" over and over. Amazingly he didn't yell it out, so I was pleased. The best part though, is a little while into the lesson Hudson leans over to me and whispers, "I'm totally going to win the ipod." I think he was hoping for a game show lesson Andrea.

But my favorite thing is Ainsley did transfer the lesson to a real life situation. We had babysitters on Sunday afternoon (thanks sweet Strandberg kids) and while I was picking them up Andrew was having the "be calm, be obedient" babysitter talk with the kids. He was having them come up with ideas of how they could be kind and helpful and Ainsley asked, "What of these things will earn me treasures in Heaven?"

I'm not sure you'll get treasures for obeying babysitters, but it will keep you out of trouble here on earth.

And to think I was complaining again today about the cold.

2 inches of snow in Damascus today and I'm complaining about the cold. Then again Nathan helps me out and shows me why I have NOTHING to complain about. He may put the companies that make sleds right out of business. Here is my brother-in-laws 6th installment in his Minnesota cold series:

Perspective

While I'm happily enjoying the fact that my boys are again playing outside on this sunny January day, my sweet sister is not so lucky. It is sunny in Minnesota- but they aren't leaving the house. It was -19 at one point today. A couple of days ago she was hoping they would make it UP TO zero! Nathan added to his series of "It's so cold in Minnesota that..." movies. He has done things like make Tennille go outside with wet hair so it will freeze straight up, pound a nail with a banana that was outside, and blown bubbles that instantly freeze and become little balls. My favorite however is throwing the cup of boiling water up in the air- very cool what happens. The one he did last night is pretty funny, who knew you could break a shirt?

We'll work on hospitality

Hudson: I'm NEVER having my friends over to play again.

Mom: Did you not have fun?

Hudson: Yes. But from now on I'm only going to their house. They can never come here again.

Mom: Why?

Hudson: 'Cause when they're here it just gets all messy and then I have to clean my room before they come and then clean it up when they leave. So I'm just going there to mess up their house now.

Hurry and invite Hudson over soon, I'm sure his social calendar is going to fill up fast with that attitude.

I wonder if that is what George Lucas would say?

Camden hears the word cute often. Before last week he has never used it himself. But he now brings me the light saver that he got for Christmas and says, "Mom, it CUUUUUUTE!"

Pronoun Confusion

When you have small children and they say something funny everyone tells you, "are you writing this stuff down?" I now can say "yes" because I'm keeping track of them on my blog. My Grandma Moon kept a diary for most of her adult life. If the national weather service ever wants to know the history of the weather in Milton-Freewater Oregon for about 60 years we have a daily eye witness record. She has records of her kids lives, and so I've decided that even if no one reads my blog, this is sort of my version of my grandmas diary. I've found a service that will actually print out your blog into a book. Someday maybe I'll get around to that. In the mean time here is a recent funny kid story.

Camden is confused about his pronouns. When he wants to be picked up he stands at your feet, reaching up and yells, "Hold It, Hold It." This is sometimes changed to "Pick it up, pick it up!"