Birthday Prep

The boys' birthday is coming up.  Well, in a month.  Which means it's high time to start the preparations, you know.  Quinn and Colby spent hours (and I mean HOURS) looking at cakecentral.com's gallery trying to pick out cakes and a theme.  After Colby picked  Transformers and Quinn picked out a lizard, I applied a little pressure to see if we could get a theme that blended a little bit better.  Quinn switched to dolphins, which wasn't much better.  Colby suggested putting Transformers swimming in the water of a dolphin cake.  UHHHHHHHHHHHH, I appreciated the effort, but didn't think so.  It would be REALLY nice if I could make one cake rather than two, so we aren't eating cake for three years after the big day.  No matter how much I tried to convince them, though, they were adamant about wanting their own cakes.  OKAY.  Fine.  Two cakes, but one THEME.  Quinn was pretty stuck on dolphins, so Colby caved and went pirates.  THAT I can do.  So, the plan at this point is to take a sheet cake and cut it in half.  Quinn's half will be decorated as water, with jumping dolphins, and Colby's will be the island with a treasure chest.  The boys want a pirate ship on Quinn's cake with a gangplank that bridges over to Colby's cake.  Hmmmm.  That may be tough, but we'll see what I can do.  Good thing we're starting early with all of this!

Money for the Poor

I heard the boys cackling outside my room, saying "money money money!!  I'm rich!  I'm rich!"  Oh no.   That didn't sound good. Then, to my surprise, they came jumping on to my bed and said the following:

Quinn (showing me his burgeoning wallet): "Mom, I want to give this money to the poor."
Mom: "What?"
Quinn: "To the poor.  Because they don't have any money.  Where can I find the poor?"
Mom: "Where'd you get that money?"
Quinn: "From the money bag, after our Easter egg hunt."
Mom: "OHHHH.  And you want to give it away?"
Quinn: "Mom, the poor don't HAVE any money."
Mom: "You're right."
Colby: "I want to go to Walmart and spend my money on Beyblades and candy.  Can we go to Walmart?"
Mom: "So, Quinn's going to give his money to the poor, and you're going to buy candy?"
Colby: "Well, if I have any left over, I'll give the rest of it to the poor."
Mom: "Let's do this.  The food bank gives food to people who can't afford to buy any.  Let's go there this morning, and you can give your money to them.  And we'll clean out some food from the pantry and give them that as well."
Colby: "Well, maybe I'll give $3 to the poor.  Or maybe I'll give them $8. "
Quinn: "I'm giving all of mine to the poor."

I didn't say a word, but Colby was slowly convincing himself to give more to the food bank, and spend less on candy at Walmart.  We'll see what he finally ends up doing when we get there.

That was NOT the conversation I anticipated on having when I heard them gloating over their riches a few minutes before.
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ADDENDUM:  Giving money to the poor is apparently easier said than done.  I think Quinn envisioned going up to a ragged person on a street corner somewhere and handing them his bag of pennies.  When that wasn't an option here (our winters pretty much keep the streets free from beggars), we opted for the above-mentioned Food Bank.  It was closed.  Not only closed, but all three entry ways to it's parking lot were physically blocked off.   So we couldn't even get CLOSE TO THE BUILDING.  Craziness.  Plan B was Goodwill, where I dropped off a bag of clothes, and the food that we had gathered for the food pantry.  Quinn debated back and forth as to whether he wanted to give Goodwill his money or not, after I explained that they SOLD THINGS.  I was quick to assure him that they also gave people jobs, and provided low-priced used goods for people without a lot of money, so he would still be helping the poor.  But he instead elected to put his money in the "poor box" at church.  OK.  So we headed over to the church, plunked his money in one penny at a time, and it was such a long process, that he decided he'd had enough. He ended up putting in maybe half of his money. We lit a candle, and said a quick prayer of thanksgiving for our blessings.  Colby donated not one red cent, saying that he was saving his money for a Ninentendo DS.

See, this is where being a parent is tricky, because then the boys talked me into going to the Dollar store, where Colby had LOTS of money to spend, and Quinn had only a dollar left, because he had given the rest to the poor.  Colby bought two fun toys and some candy, and Quinn bought a crossword puzzle book for a buck - and then started crying because Colby had more than him.  I certainly didn't want to reward Colby for his LACK of unselfishness, and punish Quinn for his good deed.  But I also wanted Quinn to realize that when he gives something away, it means he doesn't get something himself, and that's the POINT.  Not that there is an endless supply of everything, and that he can give away and still have plenty for himself.  I wanted him to know that the POINT was denying himself the extra toy, so that someone else could have something.  UGH.  How do I handle this situation???

In the end, the best I could come up with was to make it clear that "Colby's" toys were actually "communal family" toys that he would share with his brother.  They both seemed fine with that solution, so that's what we stuck with.  The whole Dollar Store thing pretty much ruined the good vibe from the donation, and I wish I wouldn't have caved on that point.  We should have made the donation, and then been done.  Let the good deed stand for what it was - an act of kindness from a sincere little boys' heart. 

Trash Talk

Taught the boys two new games yesterday - tetherball and checkers.  My boys are competitive young things, and it was SO FUNNY to hear them "trash talking" each other.

Quinn: "Oh no you don't!"
Colby: "Take that!"
Quinn: "I see what you're doing"
Colby: "I gotcha.  I gotcha."
Quinn: "My bad.  My bad."
Colby: "You think you can do that to ME?"\
Quinn: "UGH!  I'm so dumb!  Why'd I do that?"
Colby: "Watch out!  Here I come!"

I can't remember most of them.   But it made me laugh.

The Enemy

Colby: "Watch out Quinn.  Mom's in a BAD MOOD."
Mom: "No I'm not!"
Quinn: "Well, you're being really bossy."
Mom: "That's my job."
Colby: "hee hee he.  No it's not, Mom."
Mom: "Yes it is.  God gave you to me, and told me to boss you around, so that you'd grow up to be good, responsible men."
Quinn: "No He didn't".
Mom: "Yuh-huh."
Colby:  "No, Mom.  You're just acting German."
Quinn: "Yeah.  You're being German."
Mom: "German?  Are you calling me a Nazi?"
Q&C: "YEAH!"

I think that documentary Rob had the boys watch last night to commemorate the landing at Normandy sunk in.  A little too well.

Blood suckers

Quinn: "Mom, I know why tacitos...squaitos.... moquit..."
Mom: "mosquitos?"
Quinn: "YEAH.  That's hard to say.  I know why those like to bite me best."
Mom:  "Why?"
Quinn: "Because my head's the biggest, and it's full of lots of blood."
Mom: "AHHH.  I see."

Swear Words

Quinn: "Mom, I know ALL of the swear words now, but I'm not going to say them."

Great.

Colby: "But 'swear' isn't a bad word.  It means promise, and promise is a good word."

Mom: "Yup".

Quinn: "Mom, these are all the good words.  Nice, kind, true, promise."

Mom: "And honor, integrity, and courage."

Colby: "What do THOSE mean?"

Mom:  "It means that you do what it is right, what is good, and are brave about doing it."

Quinn: "Oh.  Like God.  He's very brave."

Mom: "Yup."

So, a conversation that started out making my stomach churn  turned out okay in the end.  And for the record, I know that they really don't know all the swear words, even if they think they do.  I've heard them.  The "F" word is "fart", and the "S" word is "stupid".  That's fine by mean.  I'll take that for now. 

Summer Perspectives

Colby:  "Mom, how long until school starts again?"
Mom:  "June, July, and August.  Three months."
Colby:  "THREE MONTHS?  That's not long at all!"
Mom:  "I know it's going to go really fast."
Quinn: "Then why do you keep saying it's going to be a looooooonnnngg summer?"

It's all in your perspective, my boy.  All in your perspective.