How long must it have taken them to get them all up there?

You can tell me the truth, do these things happen in other houses?

Ensuring there will be plenty of future blog material.

In case you can't see the little + in both of those tests, or if you haven't read a cheap pregnancy test lately, both of those little tests mean that Camden will no longer be the baby in our family come November. (Hooray for us that we figured out how to not have another baby in December...but just barely.) And actually it is Andrew who is neurotic enough to make me take not one, but two tests.

I had a few other possible titles for this entry:

Blessing #4

Pate Party of SIX

One last shot at a quiet, calm, compliant child

Proof that we are crazy

When all is said and done, it will be a decade of diapers.

The LAST one.

Did I really just upload a picture of something I peed on?

Sure.

Hudson will have tubes put in his ears in a couple of weeks. He had some questions about it and seemed a little perplexed when he heard that his tubes would eventually fall out. His next question was great. He said, "After that do you put them under your pillow for a tube fairy?" Either he is clever and thinking about how to get money, or we are on the right track and he does have some hearing issues.

Ainsley with the word mis-use this time (and a healthy does of self-esteem)

Ainsley has almost grown out of using words incorrectly, almost. This was the conversation at the dinner table the night I registered Hudson for kindergarten.

Ainsley: You are going to LOVE going to school at Deep Creek.

Hudson: But I want to go to school at my school still.

Ainsley: No, Deep Creek is way better. And besides, you will be a star there.

Hudson: Why?

Ainsley: Because everyone there loves me, and because you're one of my ancestors you will be like a star.

Ancestor is now a vocab word for the Pate family.

Favorite moments 3/2/09

Obviously I love the funny things kids do and say. So yesterday, my birthday, my children (well, one of them) blessed me with a couple of cute things that made my day. (My day was also made by going and getting my nails done and a wonderful, quiet, dinner out alone with my husband-thanks for babysitting Katie.)

Hudson had a friend over for a few hours in the afternoon. Here are two of their conversations:

#1 ~ During lunch they had a very heated argument about what REALLY makes 6, one thinks it is four plus two, the other thinks three plus three. They were ready to fight to the death over this. I blew their minds by saying that five plus one makes six.

#2 ~ They come bursting in from outside where they were digging with the little hand held, dollar store, garden shovels that the kids gave me for my birthday. Almost yelling Hudson says, "Mom, is hot lava real?" I said yes. His friend says, "See I told you." Hudson says, "So does that mean it can squirt up at us?" I reassure them that it can't. His friend says, "Yea, but Tiffany we are really strong and dig deep, so it probably will."

It is going to be a toss up between majoring in math or science for these boys.

What Hudson was doing with his time.

Sometimes things sneak up on me as a parent. I think it is the frog in the boiling water thing. Hudson knows just how to push Camden's buttons and Camden gives great reactions when he does. It is little things like pretending to shoot him, touching his car set, blow on him, you get the idea. Consequently I was saying, "Hudson, stop stirring up trouble" over and over every day.

All of a sudden I though, "wait, how did we end up here?" And I knew something had to change. Hudson has a bad habit and Camden has been conditioned to respond. Because Camden doesn't understand, "just ignore him and he will stop," I have to go with solving it on Hudson side (which really is where it should stop.) So today I broke out the behavior modification. After explaining the new system to Hudson where his behavior would be rewarded/punished he said, "If I can't bother Camden, what am I going to do all day?"

(FYI- today went great and Hudson was able to fill his time.)

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.