My work here is done....

Gavin, in his room for hitting Marshall in a dispute over a gun (of all the weird sentences to write), steps out and asks if he can come out now.

"Yes, but..." I began, taking a deep breath. "you have to understand that you cannot just go hitting people. We have talked about this before and..."

He rolls his eyes and walks slowly backward into his room, lightly closing the door behind him.

My son the mobster

Apparently the going rate for teeth these days is three whole bucks because that is what Gavin's girlfriend got for her front teeth. Gavin only got a buck for the first one (the tooth fairy hadn't accounted for inflation apparently) but because he had his dad painfully yank the second one out at the baseball game, dad thought it prudent to give him three bucks for it. (Let me state for the record that Jo refuses to play tooth fairy on the grounds that he doesn't want to deprive me of such a "fun" motherly duty. Riiiiight.)

Only problem is, we didn't HAVE three bucks on us at the time, so we borrowed it from Marshall "Frankie Hollow Legs" Gravano here. Homeboy has pestered us about that three bucks every day since then, sometimes repeatedly. If he comes at me with a baseball bat, I'm hiding. Can I come to your house?

Greetings from The Booger Brigade!

I have one booger getting teeth and one losing them. It's a neverending barrel of chuckles at my house.
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I was sitting on my bed feeding Rowan a few weeks ago after M&G had gone to bed when I heard the pitter-patter of little feet coming my way. In my doorway stands a forlorn Gavin. Tears welling in his eyes, chin quivering, he tells me that he's afraid that he's going to have to leave soon.

"Leave to go where, sweetie?!" At this point, despite not knowing what he's talking about, my eyes are welling up - something has broken his adorable little 6 year old heart and that, in turn, is breaking mine.

"I'm going to have to go live with another familyyyyyy." he wailed, nearly sobbing now.

"Oh sweetie, no! You're stuck with us! I'd have you live with me forever if I could!" I say, halfway between crying myself and laughing hysterically.

"But, but..." *sniffles* "I'm going to marry Abby-gail and then I'll have to live at her house." *snivels* "Do you know where she lives..." *hard gulp* *deep, wobbly breath* ".....so you can come visit meeeee?" *full blown sobbing, his head in my lap*

After I wrestled my swollen heart out of my throat, I explained to him that not only would he not be getting married to Abby-gail for a long time, he would probably be driving himself by then so he could come over any time he wants. In fact, if you don't come visit me, you little fink, then you'll be written out of the will!
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Abby-gail and her parents came for a cookout the following weekend and I recounted this story to them. I was meeting her dad for the first time that day but I was worried that he thought my adorable mama's-boy was a pervert or something. Thankfully, he thinks it is as cute as the rest of us do. Whew!

As I was making Gavin's burger, I jokingly pulled her mother aside (I totally love her mom) and said "Now, because Gavin is going to be living with you when they get married, you need to dress his burgers with a smiley face in ketchup on the bun. And it'd better have a nose, otherwise you'll never hear the end of it."

She said "Let me go get Abigail so you can tell her this. She'll be the wife after all. Better yet, just make a rule book and give it to her at the bridal shower."

I look over and Gavin is glaring at me as his future mother-in-law and I crack up laughing.

Parenthood is so fun!

Poor teething baby!

I'm in this recurring, revolving, ridiculous (yet ironically adorable) hell. I have some generic baby Tylenol that I bought before all the hubub and it seems to help a teensy bit but the only thing that truly stops the screaming is for him to nurse - whether he is actually getting anything out of them is apparently immaterial because my boobs are as empty as my checking account, yet still he sucks. So I've gotten to the point where I don't even bother closing things up and am basically walking around with my mudflaps hanging out (sorry for the TMI). He will nurse long enough to fall asleep but as soon as I try to lay him down (in all sorts of places, positions, situations) he wakes up and starts howling again so the only option I have is to put him back on the boob again. The toofies are right under the surface though so I'm hoping they break through soon, otherwise I fear my boobs might actually attempt to make a break for it.