Sad

My Grandma died. She was 98 years old and amazing. I have a feeling I will want to write more about her later but for now, we are heading to northern Minnesota for a few days so spend time with the family.

Wisdom

One day Tyson and his three year old friend Owen were sitting at the table eating what I'm sure was an extremely nutritious snack while I was sorting through some old photos. This is the conversation that took place...verbatim...

Owen- "Who's that baby in the picture?"

Me-"That's Tyson"

Owen- "Awww Tyson you used to be a baby?"

Tyson- (deadpan) "Yeah...I was scared."

Owen- "oh, did you cry a lot?"

Tyson- "yep."

So apparently the reason why Tyson was such a screamer was because he was every bit as scared of my parenting abilities as he probably should have been. Smart kid.

Big N' Mighty Machines

I won't lie...I have totally sucked it up as a blogger lately. There are of course many excuses as to why I haven't been writing (most of which sound too lame to even post). So instead of completely boring you with these sad explanations, I will just continue onto today's post.

So as we approach age 3 (in 3 short months...aaack!), I am loving a lot of it (and hating a tad too...damn these kids and their free wills). Tyson is a riot but also, his attention span has expanded to slightly longer than that of a gnat (and in turn, slightly longer than mine). This makes my life infinitely easier. Of course, I could totally turn this into something productive (like teaching him a new language...or algebra...or perhaps how to get both his underwear AND his pants up over his butt and not just one or the other) but instead I have chosen to hypnotize him with the greatest show a toddler boy has ever known...

"Mighty Machines!"

To you or I this might seem like the most boring thing next to Thomas the Train (who writes that show anyway? Ben Stein?) but to these boys...

it's heaven. I love it too...cuz who wouldn't love the opportunity to get something done (like cook an extremely nutritious dinner...or slam a beer...your choice).

Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails...

When I was pregnant with Tyson, we opted out of finding out if there was a he or a she growing in my belly. Coming from a family of 4 girls, I had totally prepared myself for the hormone crazy, teen angsty, fluffy dress loving girl. We were (happily) surprised with a sweet boy and all my preparations went out the window. Turns out I should have been preparing for a little man who's face is never clean no matter what...

and who regularly turns my living room into a parking lot...

someone who always makes my house look like this..

and thinks Mr. Potato Head accessories are a great disguise

and who is never far behind his daddy...

especially when tools are involved.

I also wasn't prepared for loving (almost) every minute of it.

(*Disclaimer. Jason was right there the whole time. We do not in fact let our kid play with actual power tools. )

Scenes from the Haak house...

Tyson: "mama, there's a bug on the floor!!"

Me: "no honey, that's just some dirt."

Tyson: "Mama, why don't you clean the dirt off the floor?"

Me: (exasperated), "Well, I try to keep the house clean but it's winter and everyone is tracking in mud on their boots and you put more food on the floor than in your mouth. Sometimes when I work and come home and am trying to cook a nutritious meal that you will probably never eat, I can't quite manage my time enough to get to the floors okay?"

Tyson: blank stare

Me: "stop judging."

Indoor fun

One of Tyson's many christmas gifts was a subscription to Highlights magazine (thanks mom!). I have many fond memories of Highlights so I was super excited when the first issue came. Since I am usually at a loss as far as keeping Tyson busy, I was even more excited to see there were some easy activities that we could tackle (meaning something easy enough for me to not screw up).

In order to make a crown you need some construction paper, a scissors, some tape and in our case, a boat load of stickers to make decorating fun.

Oh yeah, a pen helps to curl the edges if you wanna get fancy. Tyson was all about decorating with stickers but really wasn't sure about wearing the crown.

Luckily, Owen and Grace were all over it...

So Tyson decided to give it a try.

I was even peer pressured into making my own. (note: construction paper is not quite long enough for my large head)

Pros-we wasted a solid block of time doing something other than watching Little Einsteins. The kids had a great time.

Cons: there is now a picture on the internet of me looking this awesome. I grew up to be so cool.

That's what HE said...

Picture it, Christmas Eve 2010 (anyone else having a Golden Girls flashback yet? Sophia Petrillo anyone?). My family is sitting in a pew for Christmas mass while Tyson makes it abundantly clear to everyone how often (read: not very) we actually make him sit through church. (I would like to take a moment to apologize to my mother. The person who sent me oodles and oodles of Holy Water when I was in Iraq. I never did figure out what to do with it all as I had no baptisms or exorcisms to perform). In my defense, I work every other weekend and when we do become organized enough to go, we typically let Tyson hang out in the staffed play room in hopes of avoiding situations like the one I'm about to describe.

Anyway, so things start out like this: Tyson is thoroughly enjoying the pre-service music by dancing up a storm. Anyone watching would have thought ACDC was playing instead of O Holy Night. Then, he somehow lost one of his toys and decided to do his impression of an inchworm to crawl under three pews to get it while making sure to smile up at every new face he met. Super. Finally things get started and Tyson is sitting still. Then...

Tyson: Mama, (while pointing to the crucifix), why is there a sideways X up there?

Me: honey that's a cross.

Tyson: who's on the cross?

Me: That's Jesus.

Tyson: That silly Jesus!!!

While this is happening, you must imagine all of the sideways glances we are receiving that clearly portray the disgust that my kid doesn't recognize Jesus by site, or understand why he is on the cross. (Come on people, we're obviously waiting until Easter for that discussion. Now is the time to stumble through the virgin birth story in hopes of avoiding any sort of question regarding the birth or the making of babies). The rest of the service was spent walking in and out and in and out of church with a little time spent hiding in the bathroom in hopes that an extra wall would muffle his volume.

I'm betting that 2011 will be even more entertaining.