Go Go decided tonight to jump off the ladder of the bunk bed and managed to really hurt his foot in the process. In his hysterical crying all we could get out of him was that “Mr. President told me to do it!” So, in an effort to teach him an important principle, I asked him what he would do if Mr. Pres told him to take a knife and stick it in his eye. He of course said he wouldn’t do that and so I tried to explain that just because someone tells you to do something stupid, does not mean you should do it and it is not their fault if you get hurt! Go Go was still basically hysterical while I was trying to impart this wisdom to him and I guess I should have taken that as my sign to teach the principle at another time when he was a bit more receptive. He walked away from me, went down the hall where he yelled at Mr. Pres, “Don’t tell me to to poke my eye out with a knife!” and then clocked Mr. Pres on the head.

Maybe we’ll try to teach that important principle again another day… but we’ll at least wait until Go Go comes out of Time Out.

That’s what most people are saying when we tell them our crazy news that we are moving to of all places New York City! Ok, so we’re not actually going to LIVE in New York City, but Rock will be working there. He has accepted a job to work for Fog Creek Software right in the heart of downtown Manhattan-3 blocks from Ground zero and the New York Stock Exchange. We will most likely live in Northern New Jersey and Rock will ride the train into work. New Jersey is cheaper and actually very very beautiful I was pleased to find on our trip there. I was very glad that suburbia can in fact be found there, for as much as I loved New York City, I would NOT want to live there. And that’s why when Rock first told me he’d applied for a job in New York City I told him he was insane and that I was never moving there. “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” Obviously, God definitely had other plans for me then I had for myself.

Here’s the story. We have felt for a while now that this summer was a good time for our family to make a change. Rock wanted to try something new at work and we both wanted a dryer climate. We both felt like it was time for us to move to a new place, have new experiences and grow in new ways. We were thinking somewhere in the WEST. As Rock started to job search he decided on a whim to apply for the job at Fog Creek just to get some good interview experience. As he got further and further in the interview process, we felt more and more like maybe this was something we should do. Three interviews later he was offered the job and we were faced with the major decision of whether to move our little family all the way across the country. New York City was virtually a foreign country to us. But after lots of prayers and a fabulous trip to New York and New Jersey, we took the offer. We are looking at it as a short term BIG adventure. I have always wanted to live out East for a time to explore all the church and history sights. And now we get the chance! It’s all very scary and exciting at the same time. We don’t know where we’re going to live, we don’t know if we can sell our house, we don’t know even the first thing about moving across the country, but we do know it’s where the Lord wants us to go… so New York City here we come.

I Really Meant to Blog About It
A five day trip to New York City deserves a daily blog post, but I was so busy walking up and down the streets of New York giving myself blisters, riding the subway for the first time with every nationality imaginable and walking down Wall Street next to the men in black Armani suits that I just didn’t have time. I was too busy crying at Ground Zero as I listened to the loved ones of those lost and heroes from that fateful day tell their story while we looked upon that massive hole in the ground, the sky and our hearts. I was too busy shopping literally shoulder to shoulder with millions of other people at Times Square in the world’s most amazing Toys R Us trying to find a gift for my boys that was Under $10.00. Too busy walking around not even a quarter of Central Park and it’s amazing beauty while buildings of spectacular history and architecture loomed just over the tops of the trees. I really meant to blog right after I fulfilled my life long dream of seeing the statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I meant to post on Memorial day when I visited the cemetery of Trinity church where Revolutionary War heroes were buried and George Washington prayed. I really wanted to blog it as I saw it. But there just wasn’t time. We filled every day to overflowing and as I think about all I saw I am still in awe of how little I really did see of this amazing city teeming with life and beauty. One minute you are looking at a massive pillared and ancient edifice and the next you are walking under a grove of the most beautiful trees and the next you are screaming along under the ground on the subway squished closer to humanity than you ever thought possible. It was a fantastic trip and I loved every minute. To see pictures of our trip you can go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kamadawn/sets/72157618845327007/

The two things I took away from this trip:
1. ALWAYS carry hand sanitizer when in New York because none of the bathrooms ever have any.
2. Every American needs to see Ground Zero with their own eyes so that they will never forget nor let our government forget what happened on 9/11.

But We Had to Come Back
The break from kids and every day life was wonderful while it lasted. Little did I know how quickly we would be hurled back into parenthood. We arrived home late Monday night physically and emotionally exhausted. Today is Wednesday and we have since returning home had two sleepless nights thanks to a fussy toddler, two trips to the Dr.’s office with the same two children for pink eye and one case of weird bruise-like red, blistery splotches. Not one Dr. out of 3 could clearly identify it and as his skin started to blister and ooze I started to worry about things like flesh eating disease. Rock was in charge of the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby and took Go Go who was just barely over the 24 hour no longer contagious stage, and I went to the t-ball game with Mr. Pres and watched from the car so as to quarantine the pink eyed toddler. I finished off my welcome back to motherhood with a mad dash to the pharmacy before it closed to get the 4th prescription in two days. I wanted to reassure the people staring at Blue Jeans while we waited in line, “Don’t worry, he’s not really rubbing his green goopy eyes and then touching the cart handle that someone else will touch within moments!!!!” Ahahahggha! How can people let their children DO THAT! But yet, there I was, doing just that. It is now 9:15 PM and 2 children are finally in bed but not asleep and the third is still helping put away the Pinewood derby track. He is in heaven as he knows it, though, so what’s a 10:00 bedtime? The house is a disaster and there is so much laundry in the laundry room we can barely open the door. Welcome home, Mom.

“Oh, I’m PAINED to death” when his tummy hurt.
“Mom! Only 14 more years till I can ride a motorcycle!”
It’s pouring down rain outside and 45 degrees. He comes up to me with a sleeveless shirt and shorts, “Mom, can I pleeease wear these today?”

I came into the playroom today and found Mr. President writing this on the whiteboard while Go Go sat obediently copying it down at the table nearby.

When I asked Mr. Pres what they were doing he said, “I’m teaching Go Go! Maybe he won’t have to go to Kindergarten if I’m good enough!”

And there you have it. Who really needs Kindergarten when you have a big brother anyway?

Occasionally I have one of those days that are wonderful. One of those days when I do most things right. I spend the one on one time with the kids that I always mean to, we learn a lot, we have fun, we make great memories. Those Great days don’t happen all that often and so I started blogging in part to document those good days to help me remember that raising small children is not always hard. I have a friend who blogged about a Great day she had and called it, “I was a Mother Today”. In it she talked about all the great things she did that day and I LOVED the post. How awesome that she could celebrate her really good day. We need to do that as mothers. So much of what we do can feel like drudgery and so I applauded her for sharing. However, there were others that didn’t feel that way. She was maligned for “bragging” because it made others feel bad about themselves. All I can say to those people is-Pulease! Grow up. So, for posterity’s sake, for my own need to remember the good days and to thumb my nose at those who would malign me for tooting my own horn, HERE GOES!

Today the boys got their jobs done so early that we had time to read a story from the Friend before Mr. President went to school.

I managed a trip to the grocery store with no altercations and Blue Jeans got to sit in the “car” cart for the very first time and he didn’t even fall out! He just turned the steering wheel and honked his little horn like an old pro. He thought he was a very big cheese.

I helped Go Go write his very own book just because he wanted to and we illustrated it and printed it up on the computer. It was all about an Orange Race Car-of course. Here is his novel, in all its literary finery;

The Race

We want to win the race. We have an orange car with a wing that goes faster. And we think the other race cars are not faster. We think we will win the race. And then we’ll get the trophy.

The End

He was so proud of that little story that he read it all day long saying over and over again, “I LOVE this BOOK!”. He is now sleeping with it by his pillow.

I played the card game War with Mr. President, which he won “again” and then we read the amazing Chronicles of Narnia popup book we got from grandma.

The boys love to cuddle with me in the morning upstairs in my bed and we haven’t had as many chances to do that since Pres. started school. But today I managed to cuddle with the boys by combining cuddle time with story time and we had a cozy time upstairs in my bed reading Farmer Boy. We learned all about the hard work it takes to make sugar and plant potatoes. I got to point out what a hard worker Almanzo Wilder was at the young age of 9. “Can you believe that Almanzo was harrowing whole fields all by himself?” “Did you notice that his dad didn’t have to stand over him and keep him on task?” “Isn’t that great?!” Gotta love those great literary examples!

It was a beautiful sunny day and so the boys got to play outside in our backyard with the blossoms blooming above them. Then we started out on a bike ride only to realize that it was maybe just windy enough for the kites I’d been saving for a windy day. We pulled them out and tried to find a big field nearby but all were taken and the wind just wasn’t very strong so I told them I was giving up. Catastrophe-note to self-just let them try it even when there is no wind. They begged and pleaded to go out in the back yard to try them and lo and behold they worked BEAUTIFULLY. They had a great time running around and around the yard with their Spiderman and Transformer kites blowing in the breeze behind them. Mr. President took every opportunity to point out that he had been right about trying them even without much wind and that I’d been wrong and later informed me of this deep insight; “The weathermen are right most of the time but they’re wrong some times just like Moms are right most of the time but wrong some times. Though his grandmother Wesel will roll over in her not even dead yet grave, it is true that he’s already figured that little secret out. And today I was thrilled to be wrong just to see the glee on their faces as they ran themselves silly in the wind.

Blue Jeans is a climber. My other two luckily were not, but this one will climb on anything and everything he can. First it was the walker toy/car that he would roll over to my desk and precariously balance on as the wheels rolled back and forth so he could slam on the keyboard. Or he’d roll it over to the table and stand on it to be up with the big boys. Didn’t matter how many times it rolled out from underneath him. He would roll it right back over crying in pain from the bump on his head. I removed that little vehicle from the room so he wouldn’t be tempted again. Next it was the books bin. He would dump out all the books on the floor and then go to my desk to repeat the process. That time, he figured out the benefits of standing on mom’s rolling, spinning desk chair-“Look Ma, No hands!”. I removed that bin from the room opting for a pile of books on the floor rather than having my 1 year old do circus trapeze acts while on a spinning chair. Next it was his baskets of toys. Dump out the baskets, push them over to the desired higher location and climb, thereby breaking my nice decorator baskets in his attempts to reach new heights. The baskets are now often on the top counter in the kitchen where he can only see them and whine with his little hand pleadingly pointing at them. Today, with none of the regular resources left to him, he got into the tupperware cupboard, dumped out all the tupperware, pushed the bin over to the table and stood up on it. He then turned to grin at me with the most mischeiouvous and triumphant grin of utter glee that said, “Face it, Mom, you can’t keep a good man down!” I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud and got out my camera.

Needless to say we’ll be having some lessons about how we don’t climb on the table in the near future. And hopefully my little photo shoot won’t undermine them!

We have wanted to start a tradition of family service and so this week we decided to do a little food drive for the local food bank. Today the boys and I went to pick up all the food and they collected quite a bit! And I think the boys felt good knowing they were serving. But the greatest thing about today was the woman we collected from who has very little herself who gave two whole grocery bags full of food-the most of anyone we collected from. She explained to me that even though she doesn’t have much, she knows what it’s like to have less and she wants to give if she can at all give. What an amazing hands on lesson and example for my boys of the Widow and her mite. I told them the story and Mr. President was of course baffled by her giving so much when it just didn’t make sense to him logically. In his little mind it was crazy that she would do that. But I’m so grateful they got the chance to see that! I hope they never forget it.

“Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.” Mark 12:43-44.