::mother of boys?::

Project by Emma - captures the Max perfectly

Boys.  Who knew I was going to have boys?  I always thought of myself as a girl mom.  Honestly, I rarely liked my friends little boys.  I always loved their daughters.  Cute and pretty and understandable.  With little purses and bows and saying adorable things.  But usually the little boys either seem wimpy or totally wild.  They all seemed to have the same short hair cut and the same clueless crap going around in their heads.  Most of the time they all look the same to me, crappy boy shirt-pants/jeans-character tennis shoes-short hair.  Little to no variety in the look.  They hardly ever seemed to have much personality besides breaking stuff.  Their mother would tell me all the cute stuff they did but I saw them more as an untrained one year old Labrador.  They eat and/or destroy everything they come in to contact with.  Dry wall, glue, dirt, laundry soap, couches - whatever.  

Perfectly dressed with all clothes 100% matching, clean and ironed. 

Then Josh and I got together.  THANK the gods he had a daughter.  A two year old boy might have driven me off but a two year old girl was a dream come true.  I couldn't wait to shop for her and take her fun places and basically treat her like a little doll.  Isn't that what parenting is?  Right???  It seemed right to 23 year old me.    Once Josh and I where pregnant I had my fingers crossed for a boy.  My little boy was going to be named Charlie and he wasn't going to be like other little boys.  He was going to be a gentleman like his father and not a distructo like most little guys.  I wanted a boy because I felt like it would be easier on Emma if Josh and I's first child together was a boy and she could have more time to be the only girl.  When we found out I was pregnant with Lily, I was actually mad.  In the true fashion of who I was at that time, I pouted for several hours.  Then I started shopping, because obviously that would make me feel better.  Now that Lily is 10 I seriously thank the world that she is my daughter every day.  That kid and I where made for each other.  Now I did spend the first five years of her life with my credit card out at Gymboree, she had every purse and tights and bows and sweaters that matched all her perfect dresses.  She was always perfectly dressed as a little girl.  Since Emma came and went, Lily had a ton of supervision and never really broke anything or destroyed anything.  I used to have a glass case full of fragile treasures in her playroom.  Never one thing touched.   

Lets get one good picture - nope

When we got pregnant again over four years latter, I still had that feeling that little boys where wild animals.  But I still wanted one.  We had two little girls now and I felt like I need to "give Josh a son".  This was not something he every made me feel.  He actually wanted another girl, but I felt like I real needed a boy.  Then we had Max.  And I learned what having a boy that people call "all boy" was all about.

Snow boots and shorts backward

What could go wrong?

He breaks stuff.  Often.  My house was hardly baby proof with the girls.  Emma never broke one thing in her entire life.  Lily grew up with a jar of Sharpies at her eye level and never colored on one thing besides paper.  The girls didn't need basic rules about safety - they didn't want to hurt themselves and they knew that jumping off the back of the couch would potentially hurt.  Max needed a rule about everything.  Don't put plastic bags on your head, don't play in the front yard naked, don't climb on the roof, don't play in the hot car, and on and on and on.  We learned fast not to have one breakable thing below adult eye level, not his eye level - because that kid can climb.  Seriously - you let your guard down for five seconds and things get interesting really fast.  

Please look at the couch next to him

Three years after Max I was pregnant again.  I was praying for a girl.  I wanted a little doll to dress again.  A little baby Lily all over again.  If I would have had a girl that poor thing would have had so much pressure on her to be like Lily she would have eventually lost her mind.  Instead I had an awakening and my whole life changed.  That baby I was pregnant with died and was delivered at 18 weeks.  He was named Zack (spelled like Jack but with a Z because he made me puke the entire pregnancy and I had to take Zofran like candy).  And he was a perfect little boy.  A little boy.  I was so surprised that he was a he.  I just knew I was having a girl.   After him we quickly got pregnant again - and I have never wanted anything so bad as a I wanted a little boy.  I was dying for a little boy.  I wanted a little boy because I had lost a little boy and the dream of a little boy was so sharp in my mind.  And he was a little boy!!!  Quinn came in to our world almost one year after Zach.  Quinn was healthy and perfect and mended my heart from the loss of his brother.  

Stuff we found in the vent in the kitchen

 Now I think back about when it was that I fell in love with little boys.  When the animal craziness actually became a bonus instead of a negative.  When I started to see the humor in a Sharpie left out with no lid and became a detective at following the trail of marker scribbles.  When I stopped caring about what the boys where wearing because they where going to trash it anyway.  When I fell in love with dirt stained knees and grass stained feet.  When did I fall in love with little boys?  It happened slowly, one broken dish at a time.  But Max paved the road and Quinn didn't have much resistance.  

Five mins in to our ranch vacation he fell in to the freezing cold pond

Max has taught me so many things about life - that my schedule doesn't really matter to anyone but me, that some people need 10 minutes to put on a coat, that hair can bring joy to strangers, that happiness in contagious.  I adore Max.  He gets away with stuff that no other kid could because my heart melts at his smile.  You have to meet him to understand him.  I know I am his mother and obviously not an unbiased opinion but he is just so handsome and charismatic that life is a joy with him in it.  Quinny is still just two, he is still growing into his powers of destruction.  Don't worry, he already breaks crap all the time.  He got two full box's of cereal out last week and dumped them both totally out - and that was TWO separate events on two different days.  He has Max's destruction gene for sure.  But Max desensitized me to it some.  It doesn't seem like as big a deal as it did the first time around.  

Now, I still have a pet peeve about boring boy hair.  I don't like short hair.  I will never cut the boys hair super short.  Of course that means they will both cut off all their hair as soon as they are old enough to control their own hair - the lesson of over control has already been taught to me by the girls.  As long as I am the one that gives them their hair cuts they will have long hair.   

I still struggle to connect with my friends sons.  Its harder for me to find common ground with them then with the little girls.  I am still a total sucker for a little girl.  But now I get confused by a little boy that doesn't like to be dirty, or doesn't have a constant curiosity drive.  I expect a little boy to be climbing and jumping and wrestling and act pretty similar to the Tasmanian devil.  Wild little boys make sense to me know.  Reserved little boy confuse me.  I never had one of those.                      

Really it all comes down to this, I adore my children.  All of them.  I adore my Emma to pieces, she is a true blessing in my life.  My Lily is my soul mate, we where designed for each other.  My Max is my heart.  He makes me happy when skies are grey.  And my Q is the rainbow baby that brought me back.  Boys, girls, step, no step - all four of them make up a family I am so proud of.  




PS - When looking for pictures for this post I found about 100.  Seriously - they are doing something bad in just about every picture.  Here are a few extras for fun.

Where is Max?  I can't find him.  Oh - asleep under his bed with a movie. 

Baby stacking rocks in monster truck wheel

 

Happy to be dirty with a black eye. Next day went to ER for eye infection.

Q- in jammies   M - with a sword

Bringing swag while dressed as a 100 year old at the 100 days of school party. 

He taped his own hand together and then tried to cut in apart. 

Filthy old cage and why did the puppy join him?

The duck making a good choice.

His "Man Chair" as he called it

Let me go!

Sneaked outside to eat this alone

Because he can't just smile.

Another broken thing

Please note the sink is totally full and actually flooding the bathroom

::max 6 quinn 2:

 Max - January 31

Quinny - February 3

::pirate party::

This kid turned 6!

And we had to have a party... 

 

And for the record we used our trailer to take our supplies down to the church.  

We are getting pretty serious.  

 A PIRATE PARTY!!! 

The treat table had jello pirate ships, pirate rice crispies, cannon balls (black gum), fruit swords, two treasure chests of candy, Swedish fish, and two cakes.

Why two cakes?  Quinn turn two on 2/3.  He doesn't care about the rule that you don't get big parties till you are school age.  He thinks all parties are his party.  So, till he figures it out he can share parties with Max.    

Iced by Lily. 

For the record these are not Jello shots.  

I can't tell you how many people asked me if they were.  

I know I am crazy, but even I wouldn't give Kindergarteners booze.

 Cakes where made by my wonderful and reasonable cake lady.  

Message me for her contact info.  

Quinn's cake.  

 

 

 The cake was so heavy that it was easier to hold Max over it than move it to him. 

Josh printed me off a few pirate flags.

We started a few weeks ago on the grand ship, but we could finish it till we got it in the gym. 

The mast and sail was too big to be assembled at our house.  

And I love how it all came together.  We got most of our boxes from dumpster diving at rental shops.  The front is made from a 70 inch TV box.  The middle is made from a 60 inch TV box.  The back is made from a stove box.  The curved back was made from scraps of other boxes pieced together.  The sail is super cheap scrap wood, chicken wire, and a $5 black sheet from Walmart.  Total cost with duct tape included was less than $20 and the kids loved it. 

  

We had some old scrap boxes set up for the boys to play with. 

For crafts we had three options -

They could make a spyglass.

They could make a parrot.

And they could make a pirate hand stamp.  

Please forgive his purple beard.  I didn't have black when we did our mock up. 

 

 

 We had a pirate gear table when they walked it.  They had pirate sashes, which where cut up strips from a $5 sheet.  They also had pirate beards, swords, earrings, and tattoos. 

I really fell in love with the adorable beards that my Mother In-Law came up with.  She threw them together about 10 mins before the party.  I was very impressed. 
  

So impressed that I had to wear one.

Even Q felt the pirate fever. 

 Curly head had a great time rocking it out with his homies. 

Two pirates.  

 Josh was so helpful to me.  He was the head engineer of the ship and actual is the reason we had it almost done in advance.  He even built me the sail when I changed my mind last minute and wanted one.  As usual - I am lucky to have him. 

 And Mr. Max.  What a delicious little creature.  A big bad six year old.  

All pictures by Emma.  

Link to project ideas and even free printables - pinned on my Pintrest page.  

This was my first school age big party for Max.  
What did I learn:
Boy's don't usually care about crafts.
Don't give boys weapons.  I had to take away the swords.
Don't try and have organized activities.  They just want to run. 
Keep it short.  The whole party was 1.5 hours.  Perfect.
Don't ever let a herd of wild children into your tiny house.  
We had the party at a near by church gym.