Remembering the good 'ol days

After dinner conversation lead to us talking, picking on each other as usual and this post......taking time to reflect and remember some of the good times (and ammunition/embarrassment for the girlfriend/wife times) from C's youth.

1. Playing in the mud constantly to the point of we strip him down to his skivies and hose him off outside before even putting him in the bathtub (ask us about naked baby boy beer sometime). I think the kid thought there was always a "pre-bath" until he reached the age of 6 - 7.

2. Playing blow the stop lights from red to green. Especially at the intersections of any street and Pennisula Drive. You locals all know how long those lights can be, poor kid would be light headed by the time he would finally blow it green and be soooo proud of himself. (oh we should be put in jail just for that child abuse right there!)

3. Ben telling the stories of the Lake Erie Monster. What is the LEM you ask? Well C was (still is) always interested in construction and at this particular time PennDOT was working on I-79. It was all torn up and C was chattering away about the different trucks (backhoes, dumpers, diggers, carla compactors and chewers....remember this is a 3 year old child describing the construction equipment) and Ben preceeds to tell C that LEM is the one that tears up the road not the chewer that C sees. Ben describes LEM as a dragon type animal (who can fly) with big teeth that comes and tears up the road at night only when we are all sleeping and C can't see him and LEM sleeps during the day in Lake Erie. But wait it gets better! Of all the questions that C kept battering Ben with..."Dad what does the LEM do with all the concrete he chews up?" (because of course no one else is working and the dump trucks are all sleeping!) Ben doesn't bat an eye and says "Well C, you know all those rocks out in the lake (jetties), those are the LEM poop". I about died from trying not to laugh and C well he thought it was all logical. So keep your eye open for the Lake Erie Monster and in our family he lives on!

4. "Nakes mom, nakes!" Running toward me as fast as his little legs could take him, partially covered in his precious mud and I'm thinking "oh crap, how can I be brave enough to deal with snakes and get them out of his mud pit". As I take my little boy's hand and he walks me to his mud pit so he can show me where the "nakes" are, to my great relief I find.........worms! I try to explain to C, that these little wiggly things are not snakes but worms but to no avail. Mom is dead wrong....they are "nakes". So I was supermom, got those bad "nakes" out of his precious mud pit and all was right is C's world again that day. To this day when I see a worm, those words echo in my head....."nakes, mom, nakes".

5. One of C's nicknames is Bear. His great-grandparents gave it too him but he also got it because as we were purchasing a car one day and finalizing the paperwork we had C with us. He wasn't much older than 7 months and the car salesmen were astonished by the size of his hands. Everyone in the whole place had to come and see him and the GM came over, picked his hand up and stated "look at the paws on this guy". So yeah, Bear fits and he's blessed to have gotten his hands from his great-grandfather S. and his great, great grandfather H, whom are both outstanding men.

6. We bought him from Wal-Mart and could exchange/return him anytime! Yes he believed this for a long time, till probably about the age of 7 - 8. One day as we were checking out at Wal-Mart I was joking around with C and stated that I could return him and get my money back. He was bright enough to state he didn't have a price tag on him, but I was quick enough to tell him that his bar code was behind his ear so he couldn't see it. Well with the help of a wonderful Wal-Mart employee that saw that laughter in all this, she held the hand scanner behind his ear and scanned something at the same time so he heard the "beep" sound and saw "his price" show up. The look on his face....priceless!

7. Rescue Heroes. These small sized plastic action figure heroes from Fischer Price (check out their website...but I warn you now they are addicting!) changed our world all because one Christmas, Ben and I picked up a truck that we had no clue what it was. Low and behold it was one of the Rescue Heroes truck, which led us to getting the action figures, which led traveling the tri-state area (yes I did just say that) looking for those precious action figures that our son loves to this day. Infact as we were doing spring cleaning and *gasp* I suggest that we donate the 4 HUGE tubs of Rescue Heroes to the children's ward of a local hospital or C's old pre-school, I got the look that I just killed his best friend, with the drop down jaw! I seriously thought C was going to break down and cry. How can a mom live with that.....so needless to say we came to an understanding that I store them until C gets his own apartment/house at which time all 4 HUGE tubs go with him (even if he has to sleep on top of them!).

8. Ben telling C he was born with a monkey tail! (oh this is still on going to this day!) One of those times when Ben and C are going at (just a couple years ago, infact), picking on each other and Ben pipes out that C was born with a monkey tail but we had it surgical removed when he was a baby because it was hard to put diapers on him with his tail. C being the smart one that he is, is bantering back with "well I don't have a stub". Ben "they took it completely off at your butt". C "I don't have a scar". Ben "Can you see your butt?". You see the look on C's face like "I really want to look at my butt now, but I can't, I know I can't see my butt, do I really have a scar, Oh my God I was born with a money tail!" The poor kid looks at me with this desperate, sad look on his face with one word echoing out of his mouth "Mom?".......I lost it, could not keep from laughing any longer, infact I'm surprised I didn't pee my pants. C takes one NASTY look at Ben, calls him a butthead and walks out of the room, while Ben and I continue to laugh our monkey tails off! (I'm assured C will need at least 5 years of psychological help for that one alone!)

~Danine

Oh the dreaded time has come.......

As much as I am torn about this post, I'm excited too. My little boy is turning into a grown man...argh *sigh, sniff, sniff*.

He came home the other day talking about the Fall Ball (a dance at the high school in October) and how two mysterious (yes TWO!!) girls want him to go to the Ball because they like him yada, yada, yada. Oh I listened, I questioned, I even tried helping him find out who these two mysterious girls where (a mother needs to know which girls to beat down don't they?) but deep in my heart I truly thought C would blow this dance off like all the other ones. Oh no....he's truly looking forward to going to this dance (and yes he likes to dance and does a good job of it too!). Also girls are always asking to borrow his clothes now. Now being a female, I KNOW where that one comes from and where that leads......

Now I have to prepare myself for the inevitable....GIRLFRIEND! Even more I know I won't be C's number 1 female in his life anymore.

I'm thinking I need to get some advice from my mother-in-law on this one. How did she deal with me "taking away her son" and not kick me in my arse? (Now don't get me wrong I love my mother-in-law and she's great!) Better yet, my solution, me and C are going to play with his Tonka trucks and Rescue Heroes in the mud and go to the zoo and never think about girls AGAIN!

~Danine

Pictures as Promised

Well as promised here are some pictures from the North East game that C did so well in. 

He's No. 24 this year due to the fact that a Junior player already had his much convented No. 11 and of course wouldn't give it up (even though I told C to offer him some money....hey sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do).  So instead on the day that uniforms are handed out I get a phone call at night at work from C to tell my what his number was (we'd all be talking about it, like doubling 11 to 22 or tripling it to 33).  He preceeds to tell me it's 24.  I was dumbfounded, why 24?  That number was never brought up.  When I asked him why, "Mom, it's your birthday".  Needless to say, I teared up, spend the rest of the night on cloud nine at work and the girls at work think I have the most thoughtful son.  I couldn't agree with them more!

Taking the ball down the field (some pretty cool red shoes too!).

Doing some fancy footworking to stop the opponent from taking the ball further.

You can see here that the NE player is grabbing C by the shoulder to try and take him down.  Didn't happen!

Well the shoulder grab didn't work so we resort to the knee into the stomach.  Sorry to say that didn't work either.  Shocked that kid too, though C's response "Mom, it hurts more to get punched in the stomach when you've lost 25 lbs!".  

~Danine

Soccer Season Buzz!

Well we're fully into the soccer season now (hence the reason for such the lateness of the post). C has yet to start a JV game but he does start the second half, major improvement from last year!

There are some teams that don't even have a JV squad for some reasons or other and our coaches let our JV players chose if they want to go to the all Varsity games or not (home or away). Can I say, I'm so proud that C has chosen to be a part of the T-E-A-M no matter what and go (even sitting through down pouring rain!) just to be there, to learn, and most importantly to cheer on his team mates! Makes me proud to know that maybe we did instill some morals in him?

On another note....Tuesday game against North East (which has always been a great team and a difficult team to beat!) C did an amazing job! He blocked, saved the ball from going out of bounds a couple times and took the ball down the field. I know this doesn't sound like a lot, but he was a complete different player. The look in his eyes, his demeanor....it was THRILLING to watch. I barely got shots off of him because I was in awe of my son and smiling, shouting, and cheering. (pictures to come shortly). After the game, the coach called C in to his office and told C he was impressed with him and coach saw a major improvement in C. I asked C what changed, he's comment "Mom, I really wanted to win this one". The score you ask..... 1 - 1, we tied!

Well we're off again tonight for another round of soccer. I don't think the house knows who I am, the cats barely remember me, BUT Erie County soccer fields cringe from my cheering for our team, and I'm completely loving my life as a teenage rhino's soccer mom!

~Danine