Obsession Resurfacing

Those of you who have known my son Jeffrey since he was a toddler, will well remember the days of his all-consuming key obsession. He was totally obsessed with keys of any kind; they were all he seemed to care about in his young life. If anyone came into our house carrying keys, Jeffrey could somehow hear them jangling from the furthest corners of the house and would instantly come running. “Are dose yur keys?” he would ask, focusing on the key ring with a maniacal gleam in his eye. He wouldn’t rest until he was holding and examining said keys, grilling our guest, memorizing each key, learning whether is was to a door or a vehicle or something even more interesting, like a bike lock.

While in pursuit of his obsession he ran off with, and subsequently lost, several sets of keys. Eventually, friends and family got wise to him and took to hiding their key rings, keeping them tightly held and silent while entering our house. (With the exception of my teasing Uncle Brad, who would always come in dangling and jangling his keys as loudly as possible; getting a huge kick out of Jeffrey suddenly appearing out of no where and becoming his instant best friend).

Fortunately, and to many friends/familys relief, Jeffrey’s key obsession gradually faded away. Mike and I were also relieved to see that he didn’t pick up any other obsessions to replace that of the keys. We foolishly assumed his obsessive tendencies had seen their last day…turns out…we were sadly mistaken.

Now, several years later, another obsession has surfaced. This one rivaling his former obsession with keys.

The thing is people…STAR WARS MANIA IS TAKING OVER OUR LIVES!

Just the other day I over heard Mary Kate say, with more than a little exasperation in her voice, “Jeffrey, can you talk about anything else besides Star Wars? Please!”

Don’t get your hopes up Mary Kate. We’ve seen this behavior before.

Let me give you a glimpse into Jeffrey’s Star Wars obsessed world.

For instance…

We accidentally left his Star Wars character encyclopedia at Uncle Darin and Aunt Kim’s the other night. Jeffrey could not rest until it was retrieved and safely back in his possession.

One of his favorite pastimes is to get on Amazon.com and scroll through Star Wars Lego sets and dream. He has to rely on dreams because MAN- those things are expensive!!!!  When he actually gets his hands on one, it instantly becomes his most prized possession.

He’d wear his Star Wars t-shirts and pajamas everyday if they weren’t occasionally wet from washing…

..and his light saber collection is vast and growing. His light saber moves are improving too, maybe a little like this guy.

He will only eat lunch from a Star Wars lunch box (which he has two of)…

…not to mention his collection of action figures, Pez dispensers, and posters; and his playing Lego Star Wars Wii games and watching the movies (both of which I allow only rarely, for obvious reasons).

Jeffrey’s current dresser display.

Obviously we as his parents are feeding this obsession. After all, Jeffrey can’t drive himself to Target to by a Darth Vader alarm clock or General Grievious’s double light saber. (Although I bet Uncle Brad would let Jeffrey drive himself to Target).

It seems I can’t help myself though. Marketers are geniuses; preying on a parent’s own childhood memories to entice them to purchase products. They seem to know full well that I grew up with three brothers and several cousins who had similar obsessions with all things Star Wars. All the stuff certainly takes me back to those happy days. In fact, it’s been truly alarming to me to discover just how much I really do know about the world of Star Wars. Jeffrey thinks it’s the coolest thing ever that I saw the first Star Wars movie in an actual theater.

Mostly though, I’m just a sucker for watching Jeffrey’s face light up with pure, unadulterated delight when I present him with anything Star Wars related. So…I guess I have no one to blame but myself for this current obsession that is taking over our lives.

(I just hope this will be a childhood preoccupation and that the boys won’t be attending Sci-Fi conventions in their 40’s!)

___________

The other night Mary Kate and I stumbled upon this You Tube video. As soon as I clicked play, Jeffrey and Jonathan (who is being converted a bit more everyday to a similar obsession) came running from the furthest corner of the house to watch-- it’s no longer the jangling of keys but the sound of John Williams that causes them to come running now. 

After watching this video five hundred thousand times, both of my boys declared they would like to sign up for cello lessons. I don’t have the heart to tell them that normal cello bows do not shoot laser bullets or light up like light sabers.

This is pretty entertaining though. If you’ve ever appreciated anything Star Wars in your whole life, I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy it…

May the Force be with you!

(It doesn’t look like it will be without us for quite some time)

He’s Back

Look who was back at our house last week…for three whole days.

And look who was totally depressed, annoyed and dejected last week…for three whole days.

(I mean, look at the expression on her face. She can’t believe Tulo has the nerve to sit on Mike’s lap. That’s were she sits! And Tulo doesn’t even seem to care!)

Poor Princess Winnie. She’s so picked on.

Arches

“Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.”
                                                                                                               The Family: A Proclamation to the World

How much more wholesome and recreational can you get than to take a family trip down to Arches National Park?

Not much.

It was a perfect day. Mom, Dad and kid approved.

Jonathan and Jeffrey kept hugging us tightly and thanking us profusely for bringing them. I wish we would have planned a longer trip. We only stayed for one day, but the boys were ready to spend the night in the van so they could stay for at least an extra day.

At one point, Jeffrey looked at me and said, “Mom, what if this place was our backyard? That would be so awesome!”

It really would.

The Sharp Stick That Broke the Camel’s Back

This is a picture of the sharp stick….

…that finally broke the camel’s back.

Let me explain…

This week was our Spring Break. We had so many lofty plans in place. After our kids saw our anniversary trip photos of Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon, they commenced begging for a trip that would include them. So we decided to grant the kids their wish. We planned a trip that was supposed to start on Monday, the boy’s official birthday. We thought it would be a perfect way to kick off our vacation week.

When I got around to checking the weather forecast, I discovered it was going to be much too hot for my liking down South on Monday and Tuesday. I convinced Mike to change our trip to Wednesday and Thursday when the weather was supposed to be much cooler. It was a good thing I did too, because on Monday Mary Kate started complaining of a headache and sore throat. By the end of the day she had a roaring fever and didn’t feel much like getting off the couch. (We crossed our fingers and hoped she’d be feeling better by Tuesday night. Our trip was still on).

In the mean time, because it was the boy’s birthday and they were feeling like their special day was turning out to be quite lame; Mike and I decided to take them to the local pool for a swim. When we got home we banished Mary Kate into the basement for awhile and invited a couple of the neighborhood boys over for Grasshopper Pie (the boy’s requested this in place of traditional birthday cake).

Once the presents were opened and their bellies full of ice cream pie, the boys decided their birthday wasn’t SO lame after all.

Birthday saved! Phew!

When Tuesday rolled around MK insisted that she felt much better, but I wasn’t convinced. When you’re a mom you can tell when your kids don’t feel well just by looking at their eyes. With MK in mind, Mike and I were back and forth about whether or not we should go ahead with the trip. We had pretty much decided to play it by ear…

…and then there was the incident with the sharp stick.

I was sorting through the clean laundry trying to decide what clothes to pack for our maybe-we-will-maybe-we-won’t vacation, when Jonathan came running in the house screaming in agony. I’ll spare you all the gory details (some of which caused my gag reflex to kick in), but the long and short of it is this: he was climbing out of the tree in our front yard and decided to jump down from the last branch. In doing so he inadvertently caught his back on the sharp stick (pictured above). That stick decided to lodge it’s pointed, jagged self into Jonathan’s back, take of chunk of skin with it, and leave a few choice splinters behind as well.

So…after a LONG and horrible afternoon at the doctors office, an afternoon that included shots and stitches in the double digits, Mike and I decided once and for all that a trip to Zion and Bryce must not have been meant to be and we called off the whole thing.

That sharp stick finally broke the camel’s back. (And did a number on Jonathan’s too).

When Wednesday rolled around though, and Mary Kate really was feel better (I could tell by her eyes) we did get to see our proverbial camel…

At Hoogle Zoo!

It wasn’t Zion National Park or Bryce Canyon, but it wasn’t so bad. We managed to have some fun even…

Proof that my nick name for Mike, Ape Arms, is appropriate.

The boy’s favorite zoo feature was the courtesy map. They were obsessed!

The giraffes are my personal favorite. I want one for a pet.

Mary Kate liked this little guy…

…and this bigger guy.

Our Spring Break was nothing like we planned, but it hasn’t turned out too badly. We even took a trip down to Arches for one day. (Details coming soon).

Sometimes you’re forced to be flexible, because life happens.

8

Saturday, Mary Kate spent some time scrolling through old photographs on my desktop. Later that night, I wander into the office and saw that she had left the picture folder open on the screen. It took less than 3 seconds for me to get sucked into a long journey down memory lane.

For starters, I saw this photo…(those big blue eyes, be still my heart)…

And this one…(I adored kissing those chubby cheeks)…

Then this one…(one of my all-time favorites, two little fat Buddha's in over-all's)…

And this one…(always important to capture the fleeting moments when they were actually clean)…

And this one…(wearing the most appropriate Halloween costumes of all time)…

…and there were hundreds more like these.

You know how people always tell you to “enjoy and savor the time when your children are small, because you’ll blink and they’ll be all grown up?” Someone would tell me that at least once a day when my twins were small. Those well-intentioned folk especially felt the need to tell me this on days when my twins were “awful fractious and I was terrible worn out.” (What movie is that line from, everyone?)

I always had the hardest time wrapping my brain around it when people told me these things. Raising the boys took so much out of me. Although there were moments when I would savor that adorable littleness, I would often find myself fantasizing about when they would be more grown up and wouldn’t require so much of me…physically at least. (I think children always require the best of you in every other way, for a life time).

My boys turn eight today, and that future time I used to fantasize about is here. Jonathan and Jeffrey are finally more ‘grown up.’ That littleness is gone away. Now a days, I don’t spend every waking hour trying to keep my head above water when it comes to them. And yesterday, as I looked back on all those hundreds of photographs, I heard the words of those eager advice givers (who had the perspective and experience to know what they were talking about) ringing in my ears.

They were so right!

I miss my little baby boys. So much. And I have a strange feeling that the younger years were probably the easy ones.

Ever since they were born, the twins have provided our life with challenge and growth and so much love. All that rambunctious, uncontained, Curious George-like, energy that came trailing along with them has brought some of my greatest challenges and most pure joys. I can’t imagine my life without my boys.

8 is a milestone year when you’re a Latter-Day Saint. The boys will be baptized in June, and they can hardly wait. They talk about it all the time. As their mama, I really think they have a good sense of what it means to take this step. I think they are ready.

But that’s several week away yet, and today we will party and celebrate, because the boys are 8!

Happy Birthday Jonathan and Jeffrey! I love you!

Winnie’s Conference Sunday

Winnie had it rough today.

She started the day with a lazy and relaxing morning nap on her favorite chair…

Followed up by another nap on Mike’s favorite chair…

Next…a long, loving cuddle and scratch, and yet another nap on my lap…

Which was then followed by a doze on the couch while the boys quietly put together their Toy Story puzzles…

Then of course, a short break for lunch…

Then some after-lunch grooming and beautifying, courtesy of MK…

This, followed by yet more napping on the rug stretched out next to Mike….

Then to top it all off; one last, long and lazy, late afternoon nap in her favorite chair…

Winnie was indeed in heaven today.

Not one of us went off and left her like we usually do. In fact, we all stayed home and hung around in the same room the entire day!

And…since we were all lounging around soaking up General Conference, we had nothing more to do except pet and scratch and love on her.

After today, I’m sure Winnie wishes every Sunday could be Conference Sunday.

After today, given the wonderful, enlightening messages that were given and the incredible spirit that was felt…I wish the same thing too.