Finally a good school pic of Murphy!

My sweet little Murphy. I LOVE this picture. Look no hands in the picture! And he is focused on something, and smiling!! Take that last year's picture that looked like Kramer!

What in the name of all that is holy?

What photographer would put his name on this? I have never laughed so hard in my life at any school photo than I have at this. Please trust that I have seen my share of picture day mishaps, heck, I've even been the poor jerk in the photo. My poor sweet boy. His eyes look scared and his neck tendons (is that what those are?) look so taut I could play them like a stand up bass. I asked him what he was thinking when the snap was taken and he said (making the same face, and talking through his teeth), "They're all looking at me."

Lil' Miyo Homemaker

Miyo in her ballet slippers and outfit, with black tights which I think is cute, but I should probably get her a pair of pink tights, or maybe white.
She makes the best coffee.

We just got most of this stuff (we already had the kitchenette and the dolls). Most of it is actually for Murphy to help him learn to pretend and play. But Miyo fights over it with him. I am trying to get them to play together with it, part of Murphy therapy. He really only enjoys the sounds the iron makes currently, but I got him to flip a spatula in a skillet (breakthrough!!). The hard part now is finding half the little spoons and plates and whisks that Murphy throws behind the furniture and under our bed.

Memory Lane

I am going through Miles' book that I've written in since I was pregnant with him (if I'm being honest it's actually the 2nd book, he's 8). Anyway... I have been reading all the funny things he has done and said and have been laughing to myself.

Funny Miles Quotes Age 2:

He brings me a minipad and says, "I wanna put on you butt."

He approaches me with a packaged tampon and says, "I wanna bite this." thinking it was candy.

Age 3:

He was sitting on my lap and he said, "Mama, I don't love you." I pretended to cry. He took my hands from my face and said, "Mama, I love you, but I don't want to be with you. It's a complicated 'motion." Obviously he was three and couldn't have come up with this on his own, but I still think it's funny he used it on me. (If you are wondering it is from 'Finding Nemo'.

Age 4:

"Why do you love me?" I tell him because I used to carry him in my belly. "Why did you eat me when I was in you belly?"

We were at McDonald's and I told him to go introduce himself to some kids at the playland so they could play together. He said, "But Mama, I'm K-F-U. It's called shy." This was his 'I'm into spelling' phase. He also said, "I'm B-R-A, Miles." Also, "This skittle is pink, S-H-I-T, pink."

He called Hilary Duff, "Hair-a-lee Dust". He called 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' "Johnny Boo and the Prisoner from Axban".

He got himself a spoon and said, "This is what I'm talkin' to!"

He came up to me with no shirt on and pointed to one of his nipples and said, "This button makes my eyes attack." Then he pointed to the other and said, "And this button makes me love you." Guess which one I pushed.

Once I said something to him and he kept saying what, then finally he put his hand behind his ear and said, "Speak of English."

We were watching 'An American Tale' and the are supposed to be no cats in America (hence the song 'There Are No Cats in America'. Well, when they get to America there are of course cats. Miles is upset by this and cries, "That is NOT America, Mom. That is NOT America."

Age 5:

Miles said he wanted Ben to copy him, so Ben said "You gonna coffee me?" Miles asked why he said coffee instead of copy? Ben told him that is what Miles would say when he was little, and Miles said, "Dada, it's a French thing."

This was the age where Miles informed us that if he ever has a kid he will name it "Master Peestoe." Heavy into Star Wars at the time.

"When I'm six can I FINALLY have a paper route?"

I don't want him to grow up.

nuts and gum, together at last

Okay, so I have been thinking lately that Ben and I are perfect for each other. I think maybe we truly are "meant to be". Soulmates, if you will. Anyway so we are cuddling in bed and I am saying why we are compatable and supposed to be together... blah blah... So I say to him, "If I were born a man would you still love me?" To which he says, "No." Plain as day without even pausing to think it through. So I, being who I am, get offended. Does he not feel the same way about me? Doesn't he love me? So I try a different approach. "Do you think we'd be best friends?" No lie, he says, "It depends on if you were funny or not." WHAT? We'd be the same people, I would be me, but a man, and he would be him. And he says, "Wellll?" So now I know I actually hate him, and was fooled into thinking I loved him at all. So he says, "What if I was born a woman?" And I say, "Ick, I like guys, I don't swing that way."

It's Fall, my favorite time of year/Murphy escape artist

After I had swept all the floors and mopped Ben went outside with the boys, while Miyo took her nap and I cleaned the bathroom. He raked a huge pile of leaves and Murphy took armloads of it and threw it into the air, right back on freshly raked lawn. Miles took a bunch of it and filled up a sweatshirt and said it was his friend. He layed it on the ground and told me to look out the window. When I did he went up to it with a stick and poked it a couple of times pretending it was a dead body, we laughed and laughed.

I guess while I was cleaning and doing laundry Murphy tracked in a trail of leaves all over my newly cleaned floor. Ben vacuumed it up for me because he felt bad that I had just done all that work. I heard the vacuum and wondered what was up. Anyway, that is a really big deal, Ben doesn't even make his own toast (well rarely anyway). I love him, how sweet to do that for me.

So Murphy has gone into the neighbors backyard 3 days in a row, and everytime we get him and make him come in the house for the day. So today he went in the other neighbors yard, and he's never done that before so Ben went following him after putting on his shoes. Well the neighbor said, "Are you missing a little boy?" Ben was just starting to say, "Hey, did he go in your backyard?" So the guy tells him he was watching TV in his living room and Murphy comes running up the steps of his deck, opens the door and comes right in. We just moved in a little while ago so they were like, is that the new neighbors' kid? So I made him come in. Funny thing is Miles was in our backyard, right next to their's, and didn't notice any of it.

Miles is forced to play outside lately

The boys had a whole week off of school, so they are getting restless, and my house is a mess because they are in everything and I can't clean as well when they are under-foot. So I make Miles and Miyo go outside too. I say to Miles that he needs to get dressed in warm clothes and I send him out in the back yard. Murphy and Miyo want to be outside all day, and Miles used to too. Now he is into video games and can't be bothered with anything else. So I tell him that his TV and video time are going to be only an hour a day, and he can choose which one, or how much time with each (this isn't as easy for me to do, because it's really easy to let the TV take care of him all day). So he has been complaining and coming in every ten minutes and saying, "Now can I come in?" So yesterday I finally said to him, "You can come in and clean your room, or stay outside and play." So he stayed out longer of course. Well this morning he helped me clean his room, and then I had them all go outside and I swept and mopped the floors while they were outside. After a while Miles came in and said, "If I clean my room, can I come in?" And I told him he already cleaned it so that must mean he has to stay outside and play.

The picture is him jumping out of one of the trees in the backyard into a huge pile of leaves.

Miyo's new room

I am excited. Miyo has a big girl's bed. So Shene sewed her a new reversable bed spread, curtains and pillows. Now she has a perfect little bedroom that she will probably take for granted because she doesn't know what it's like to grow up in South Falls Apartments (which were low income-white trash) with government cheese and co-op powdered milk.

Speaking of my childhood: does anyone realize how uncute and not wonderful Cabage Patch kids are. I wanted one with all my heart and soul, didn't even have a real doll but I reached for the stars with my hopes and dreams. Everyone else had one, even some of the other white trash kids in So. Falls Apts whose parents wasted money on cigarettes instead of fruits and vegetables, but could still afford to buy their daughters My Little Ponies. Even next-door Jason Mastin had his room full of He-man toys, and his little sister Jolene had all the She-ra accessories.

Then finally one day my dad brought home a Cabage Catch doll (literally 4 or 5 years after still wishing for one). It was naked and dirty and scuffed and had a shoelace around it's neck. My dad said he found it in the dumpster. Thanks Dad.

Miyo startin' up the funny.

I already miss summer. Miyo went through the baby phase of always getting naked. I would look around to check on her and there would be a trail. A sock, then walk a little farther, a pair of pants inside out... Then of course a diaper with or without poop in it. Then I would find her, sitting on the couch, or under the dining room table, or jumping on the trampoline.

Anyway, tonight she was busy playing. Ben asked her, "Miyo, what are you doing?" Her response, "I lub you, too."

Lil' Daredevil.

If you look just above center of the tree you can see Miles climbing the tree in our backyard. To get down, he swings from one of the low branches, which is still like 4 or 5 feet under his feet when he's hanging there. It's really cool. I'm so proud of him.

Miles is the funniest person I know.

Miles spent the night at a friend's house and he saw Titanic in the middle of the night while the mom was asleep. So anyway, they of course paused it at Kate Winslet being painted by Leonardo DiCaprio and the mom walks in to check on them. So I talked to Miles about it. I asked him if he had seen breasts before. He said he had. I was kind of taken aback, so I of course asked where and who's. His hilarious reply, "Yours."

Murphy update.

Murphy lost one of his top teeth and now the other is loose. He went up to Ben and said, "Tooth." He showed Ben, so Ben thinks he wants him to get it out of there.

The neighbor lady caught Murphy in her backyard. She couldn't get him to talk to her so she came over and rang the doorbell. She was fully decked out in earmuffs, gloves and coat. It was like 55 degrees-I really don't think she needed the earmuffs to walk 30 feet to my door. That was my first clue. Second clue: I believe she was "trying" to make eye contact with me. She had crazy eyes, and was smiling and her face was pointed towards mine, so I had to assume she could see me, so I smiled back. Anyway she said Murphy was in her yard and wouldn't acknowledge her. Then as I ran out in my bare feet and t-shirt and pants, cause I don't put on a ski mask to go out in fall weather, she said, "you might want to put on something warmer". I pretended I didn't hear her, because I would have said, "My ears don't fall off when coming in contact with air." So then as I'm running to collect Murphy she is still talking to me, "Is there something wrong with him?" I wanted to say, "Are you sure you don't want to tell me what's wrong with you first?"

So I get Murphy and try to cut the conversation because I am starting to realize she has obviously fake teeth, they are definately man-made. I am trying not to wonder if she had them in, or popped them in to go 'visitin'. I keep saying "Thank you." and "I'm sorry." But she won't let it die. "So how many kids do you have?" "Do you live downstairs?" "What's your social security number?" Anyway, I'm sure we'll be hearing more about Crazy in the future.

What to write about, what to write? Let's start with Miyo.

I am going to blog so that my family from far away can get updates on my three growing kiddies. Miyo was just begging for a baby wipe, "Need a wipe. Wipe. Wiiiiipe!" So Ben gave her a baby wipe and she ran into her room and started cleaning one of her dolls' naked butts.

She is running around all the time. All day long she tries to change her clothes and shoes. In a small amount of time she will change into tap shoes I found at a second hand store and tap around pushing her baby in a stroller. Then she has on little ballet slippers Grandma Dianne bought her. Then she is in Miles' flip flops. If you visit our home expect not to be able to find your shoes, she will put them on and then discard them somewhere unknown.

She has hilarious spaced teeth with a little overbite like Grandma and Kelly (the overbite, not the spaces). And her hair is getting long. It is almost to her shoulders, and tonight I got everything but the bangs into a ponytail holder for the first time.