Here are a few more funny stories...although some aren't funny "haha" as much as they are shake your head and laugh b/c there is simply nothing else to do. Or at least it's that way to me. These may all be hysterical to those outside of the day to day life with the McCleese boys. (We are definitely in a phase where Will wears me out mentally with all of his questions and curiosities, as much as I also treasure those qualities...and Owen, well, he just plain wears me out. Esp physically, but mentally as well. He keeps me constantly on my toes).
My first story should have made it on the last "funnies" post, but I forgot about it. Owen had a bad fever virus about 6 weeks ago and the high fever was making him ache. And so he refused to walk since his legs were hurting. As he and Will were walking/crawling back to Will's room to play I overheard Will (who broke both of his legs within a year of each other) explaining this to Owen. "Owen, you HAVE to get up and walk. If your legs hurt, then you have to get a boot to wear on your leg. And if they hurt really, REALLY bad then you have to get the big white cast (referring to his body cast from the femur break). You don't want THAT, do you? So get UP."
Next story is another of Will's...mainly some example of the questions I've been answering lately. The big questions right now center around letter sounds since he's learned to read. "Mommy, why does the letter 'O' not have a 'w' at the end of it when you write it?" I asked him why it should...and got the "duh, Mom" reply (from my just turned 5-yr-old!) "because it sounds like O-wa when you say it, Mom. But we don't write it that way. So why does it say O-w...if it's just O?" And just FYI...my answers sometimes get voted off the island with this reply from Will..."ok, Mom. But, do you maybe have another answer too?" My response is usually something like..."well, I'd like to use my "phone a friend lifeline, please." Only it usually comes out..."ask your daddy when he gets home." :-) Let's see. "What gave God the idea for gravity?" is one we've covered lately. Not to mention the somewhat recurring discussions about what makes our arms and legs bend...to which Will came to his own conclusion that "God put some strings in there to hold them together." Yeah...we just call 'em tendons and ligaments, but who's that picky when you are barely 5? I could go on for a long time, but let's just say that when he goes to bed and I don't have to answer questions that make my own head hurt...my ears hurt from the SILENCE. Amazing.
Ok, now for some goodies. 2-yr-old Owen. Wonderful, passionate, hard-headed, hot-tempered, cute-as-a-button, charming, mischievous Owen. When I put Owen to bed at night, I feel like 10-pounds has been lifted off my shoulders for the next 12 hours before I have to do it all again. There are many stories I could tell about Owen. First, I had to take him to the doctor for strep a couple weeks ago. Owen HATES the doctor. Starts screaming when we hit the parking lot and doesn't stop til we are walking out. Considering he weighs 40 pounds and has to be charted on the 3-4 yr old growth chart b/c he's so big...he's like wrestling a small Labrador for that hour at the doc. The doc and I had to hold him down to do the strep test (swab the back of his throat) and in the bucking and shoving Owen was doing to get off the table, the doc looked at me and said "I'm not sure what you are gonna do in a few years when he's as big as you." Yes, doc, I know...me either.
Owen likes to fight things just for the fun of it a lot of times and nap-time is no exception. This week he was resisting going to sleep (have I mentioned that even before he could walk he would drape his arms over the side of the crib to keep himself from laying down and falling asleep?) so I went back in there ready to fuss big-time and make him be still and go to sleep. Except when I walked in I asked the question I should know better than to ask..."what are you doing?" He looked up at me, grinning, and pointed. He was...get ready...FINGER-PAINTING ON THE WALL WITH HIS BOOGERS. Yes. He was. Believe me when I say next time when he asks for a kleenex he will be taken very, very seriously. He was so very pleased with himself and sad to see his artwork go.
Next, Owen loves sugar. He loves to eat, period, but especially sugar. I'd made these super yummy chocolate-brownie cookies last week for a party we were going to and we had some left over. So they were in a ziploc bag to be put in lunches, for snacks, etc. Well, Owen knew about these cookies and he liked them. A lot. He stalked these cookies all over my kitchen. If they were behind something on the counter, he'd get his little red plastic chair, carry it to the counter and get the cookies. If they were on the top shelf in the pantry (I really was trying to keep them away from him), he would drag first his little red chair, then when that didn't work he'd drag a dining table chair, after that he moved to the bar stools. I don't know how many times that week I'd hear furniture scraping around the kitchen and come out to find him either reaching for or having gotten those cookies. One day, I heard Wes say "Owen, what are you doing?" Finally, after days of trying, the kid had victory! He'd gotten the cookies, opened the bag and Wes caught him carefully taking one big bite out of each cookie and then putting it back in the bag. (we don't know if he thought we wouldn't notice since he'd only taken one bite and not eaten the whole thing, or if he was trying to lay claim to them all by biting out of all of them, who knows). Turns out he'd taken bites out of ~15 cookies before he got busted. I'll give him credit for tenacity! Well, we kept those bitten cookies and I sent them in his lunch and gave them out for snacks. Finally, I'd had enough of trying to keep him away from the cookies so I sent them with Wes to the office. Wes asked 2 of his co-workers if they wanted one, and both reached in and grabbed one. Apparently, we hadn't gotten rid of all the ones with Owen's bite taken out, b/c BOTH co-workers came out with one of "Owen's cookies." They decided they didn't want cookies after all. Oops...sorry guys.
And last (for now) of Owen stories is yet another example of his temper. Wednesday night we were in the playroom after church collecting the boys and getting ready to go. Owen dropped (or threw down in frustration, not sure) a lego creation he'd built, and it broke all over the floor. I went over and knelt down to pick it up and Owen thought I was trying to take it from him (like he was in trouble). So what did he do? Throw a fit on the floor like other 2 yr olds? Nope, he flat-out tackled me. Knocked me flat to the floor. Anyone see the Tim Tebow commercial during the Super Bowl where he tackles his mom and they both pop up laughing? This was a perfect rendition of Tebow's tackle, but NO ONE came up laughing. He knew it the second he did it, and his eyes were wide with "oh, I've done it now." Let's just say that the problem was corrected, and as of now, there have been no more tackles. But seriously, I hear all the time about 2-yr old with "fall-out-on-the-floor temper tantrums" but this was the first I'd heard of a "tackle someone out-on-the-floor tantrum." If anyone hears of a football league for 2 yr olds, please let me know!
And in the nature of a cute Owen story (which we have plenty of, we just have so many mischievous stories that those tend to get told first), you have NEVER heard cute until you've heard Owen say "Now I lay me down to sleep" in it's entirety by himself at night. Wes has been saying it some with him, and neither of us realized he'd memorized it already. But now he likes to say it by himself, and I swear, no matter what the day is like with him...when I hear him "Now I way me down to sweep, I pway the Lowd my soul to kweep" then I remember to give thanks for such an amazing child...and remember that the qualities that make him hard to handle now will be some of the very qualities that make him into a fabulous adult. Assuming we both live to his adulthood. I often say that "Will is going to do something amazing in his life quietly and intentionally, and probably something that's meant to help others in some deeply meaningful way. Owen will also do something amazing in his life, but it will be loudly and boldly and probably publicly." Yep...those are my boys!
