The great mystery of motherhood

Our friend Cailean posted a blog about her children's personalities and how much influence she had/didn't have over them. She used a great art analogy, and it inspired this image that I just can't get out of my head. To me, being a mother is like being an artist. Except that as you work, your strokes take on a life of their own, moving across the canvas, shrinking, expanding and changing colors. I was bound and determined that I would raise peace-loving boys. At four and six, they love soldiers, superheroes and weapons of any kind. I had to laugh as our hometeacher walked out the door last night, trying not to slip on the little metal balls that are the "bullets" to Brigham's slingshot. He had spilled them all over the front step. Eric said something like, "Yeah, we like to throw those out when people come over, make it a little challenging to get into our house." :) Currently there are two arrows stuck into the shingles on our roof, evidence of little Eric's attempts to shoot a bird. And yet.....something tells me they'll grow up to be loving, gentle husbands and fathers. I guess that is the great mystery of motherhood...how much influence do you really have? What parts did you create and what came with them into this world? Personally, I plan to take credit for all the good things and blame the rest on genes:).



And, I just had to post this picture of our poor, depressed dog. You see, he got neutered a few weeks ago, and we were supposed to watch him and make sure he didn't lick at the stitches. You try watching a golden retriever h-bent on licking his crotch every second of the day while trying to make sure your sons aren't shooting arrows at the mailman. After about a week, Eric noticed that there was "stuff" oozing out of the wound, so I took him back to the vet, who claimed he had never seen a surgical wound get this bad. I looked at my feet and cleared my throat a lot. Mustang had to have another surgery to cut out the infected skin and re-stitch the wound. This time they sent us home with an "e-collar", pictured, since we had proven ourselves to be such inattentive pet-owners. You've never seen a sadder dog than Mustang has been these past few weeks. He's not allowed to roam around in the backyard or go running with me, which is his favorite thing to do. And he has to run around all day with a giant white cone around his neck. As I write this, he's having his way with a stuffed jack-o-lope. I just don't have the heart to take it away from him...he has so few pleasures left in life. Only one more day until he gets it off, thank goodness!

A southern gentleman and a four-eyed monster

Here, finally, are the promised pictures of Eric at cotillion, and Brigham in his new glasses. Life has been turned upside for the last few weeks: we got new carpet (and the smell makes me want to vomit when I walk in the house!), the dog got neutered, we survived the sugar avalanche that is Valentine's day, and a few other mishaps as well. Things are finally settling down, and I find I have a backlog of things to blog about, so.....





As I believe much of our readership is of western origin, I should explain cotillion. Here's the wikipedia definition:

In the United States, Cotillion has become training that children and young adults attend to learn manners and proper social behavior in the context of formal dance. The participants dress up in formal attire and some cotillions emphasize the use of white gloves. Modern day Cotillion takes the form of classes and parties. These programs use dance as an interactive tool that breaks down inhibitions and teaches important social skills. Some of the dances currently taught include waltz, fox trot, tango, swing, cha cha and many other ballroom dances. The parties are typically "graduation" parties usually held after a series of classes.

Eric is only old enough to do "junior cotillion", which is just manners, no dancing. In a class of twelve kindergarteners, Eric was the only boy. I was afraid he wouldn't want to go back after finding this out on the first night, but he never batted an eye! The last night was graduation, and we dropped Brigham off at his friend McKenzie's and had a special night with Eric. He was SO handsome and self-possessed!

One of the nights that Eric had cotillion, Brigham and I went on a "date". Yet another perk of having sons:). Daddy gave him some money and a short tutorial on opening doors for girls, and we were off. I let him choose where he wanted to go and he chose Chick-fil-a (I LOVE that place!!). We had ice cream and lemonade, played on the jungle-gym, met a police officer, got a balloon and then headed home. All in all, one of the best dates I've ever had:).



And here is Brigham with his new glasses. It turns out he's almost blind in one eye. The day we got the glasses, I put them on him and he just looked around, blinking. Then he said, "Mama! I can see far away!". During lunch that day he told me that his Doritos looked like "fire in the night". Eric was pretty jealous of all the attention. It brought back memories of the time I was in fourth grade and it occurred to me, halfway through the routine vision test at school, that I could fake not being able to see the letters and get glasses. The problem was that when my parents took me to the doctor, I couldn't remember which eye I had faked and I accidentally faked the wrong one. Needless to say, I didn't get glasses. So Eric and I look on in envy together!



And that brings me to my last thought for the evening. The blue chair in the picture is the one that my friend Lindsay and I reupholstered...it still needs a cushion, but you get the picture. The green one I found on Craig's list last month. I think there's an invisible line that you cross when you acquire a lime-green chair. I've crossed it and I'm not looking back!