Timeout, Jail - What's the Difference?

After jumping on the furniture for what seemed like the 100th time today, I put Josh in time-out. Josh asks me, "If I'm really good, will you let me out of jail?" To which I respond, "You're not in jail." Josh says, "Oh, I thought I was."

Happy Father's Day

With Father's Day upon us, we take time to think about our fathers and pay tribute to them. This year is my 23rd Father's Day without my father here with me. I've been thinking a lot about him this last week and wanted to write down some memories.

My favorite has to be the "high-yas". When dad would come home from work, he would throw us up in the air and say, "HIGH-YA!". We looked forward to that everyday. But before the "high-ya", there was always a kiss for our mom. Just something little, but I remember.

I remember crawling in bed with him on Saturday mornings. He always sucked his sheets. I wonder if that's because grandma wouldn't let him suck his thumb. I'll have to ask him that. We wanted to suck his sheets too but it was never allowed. We settled fir sucking on our hair. Our mom put an end to that by cutitng our hair short.

I remember the pumpkin ice cream. My dad got a deal on it so there was tons of it and it wasn't very good. While most dads say, "If you don't eat your dinner, you won't get any ice cream." Our dad said, "If you don't eat your dinner, you'll have to eat the pumpkin ice cream."

I remember reading his missionary journal when I got home from my mission. I don't really know who or what he taught, but I do know almost everything he ate while in France. He kept a very detailed account.

Happy Father's Day Dad! I love you and miss you. I can't wait until we're together again!

I Should Have Let Him Keep the Car Cloth

Like most kids, Josh had a security blanket. It started out innocent enough. While coming home from Logan when Josh was still a baby, he would not stop crying no matter what we tried, until that is, we gave him a burpcloth. He happily sucked his thumb and stroked the cloth on his cheek. It was great. Anytime Josh cried, I could just give him a burpcloth and he would console himself with a little thumb sucking and cheek stroking.

What started out as something great, turned into something annoying. By the time he was three, he had picked out a favorite burpcloth. Before, any old one would do, but now, it had to be the "car cloth". If it wasn't that one, he didn't want it. Finding that thing became our life's mission. Heaven help us if we couldn't find it.

Well, the car cloth got to looking really disgusting. If you don't believe me, take a look at it for yourself. I was so ready for Josh to be done with this thing but he was not having it. And then one day it happened. We were in Maryland for Christmas break. We had taken the metro downtown and spent the morning. We got back on the metro and headed home. When it came time to get off at our stop, Josh asked where his car cloth was. We looked all around our seats and couldn't find it. Josh of course began to cry and I silently jumped for joy. Yeah! It was lost. No more car cloth. Sure, that afternoon was a little rough, especially at naptime, but Josh did it. He went cold turkey. No more car cloth.

That night, when I was getting ready for bed, I felt something bulky in my pocket. I reached in and guess what I found. Josh's car cloth. I then remembered that I put it in my pocket because Josh kept dropping it on the metro. I quickly stuffed it back in my pocket and there it stayed. I called Tim to tell him what had happened and he told me that I needed to tell Josh and give it back to him. Was he kidding? Josh was 3-years old and still sucking his thumb and carrying around that disease filled burpcloth. No way was I going to tell him I had found it. As far as Josh was concerned, it was still on that metro car, never to be seen again.

We had about a good month of Josh not carrying around anything with him as a security blanket. I thought he would soon give up his thumb sucking as well, but boy was I wrong. We bought him a new Spiderman blanket for school and that has now taken the place of the car cloth. He carries that thing around everywhere and it's huge. I have put my foot down on taking it out of the house though. I can't believe he went from a little burpcloth to this huge blanket. I should have let him keep the car cloth. At least it would have eventually disintegrated.

Sorry Sucka

Sometimes Josh can be a bottomless pit. He will start with breakfast and then not stop eating until lunch. This morning was almost one of those days. After asking about a million times for something to eat and a million times of me saying no, I gave in. I was doing my hair and Josh comes back with a juice box. He asks if he can have it. Sure, was the answer. No harm in a 100% juice juice box. Little did I know he had also tried to get a little something else. When he was down for his nap (ha, ha), I walked in to the kitchen to get some water. I look into the dinning room and what do I see? A box of cookies that used to be in the pantry. They were sitting under the table with the same number of cookies as were there last night. Josh thought he was being so slick by sneaking cookies, but you're not so slick when you can't open the container. So, sorry sucka! Better luck next time.

Josh's Pics

We bought a kid friendly camera for Josh at an after Christmas sale. Josh played with is the day after we got it but quickly deleted the pictures before we could do anything with them. He never really got back into the picture thing. But today when we got home from church, we saw a happy little snail on the sidewalk. I saw the camera I just had to get Josh in the closet yesterday while I was cleaning so I suggested to Josh that we hurry inside and get the camera so we could take some pictures. The first one below is compliments of Josh and the rest are mine. So thank you little snail for helping us get some use out of this camera. The camera also takes video, so watch for some on those!

Benjamin Dillingham Heare

It's only been five weeks since Benjamin was born. I think that is an acceptable amount of time to wait to blog about our new cute little boy.

One the morning of April 6, 2009, we got up as normal and got ready for the day. Tim and I drove Josh to school. Tim took him to class and I tied up a few little last ends at the office. We came back home and got the last few things ready for the hospital. We drove over and took a few things that we would need immediately with us and left the rest in the car. As we were walking to the front door of the hospital, I looked over and saw my reflection in the mirrored facade. Wow, I was huge. No wonder I didn't let Tim take pictures of me until that morning. You have to have something for posterity (and your blog). Gross, right? So anyway, we make it up to labor and delivery and tell them we are here for our c-section. The nurses look at us funny and then look at their book and then back at us. "We don't have any c-sections scheduled for today," they say. I almost started crying. I didn't want to wait another day. They decided to set us up in a room anyway and call Dr Pead to find out what was going on. They came back about 20 minutes later and said that we were good and Dr Pead was on board! Yeah, just a couple more hours.
They got me all hooked up to the machines and I waited for what seemed like an eternity. I think Benjamin was thinking the same thing because I started having contractions. According to the machine, they were pretty strong but I wasn't uncomfoftable in the least. I think maybe because I knew that I wouldn't have to deal with them for that long anyway.
Finally it was time to head on back to the operating room. When I saw the table I would be laying on, I thought it was really tiny. But thinking back on it, I guess it would have to be that narrow so the doctors can get in there and do their thing. So, I got my shot and lied down on the table with my arms spread out on either side of me. It was a lot different this time. With Josh, I had been in labor for about seven hours previous to this stage of the game and was already really out of it. But this time around, I went from being totally with it to slowly being aware that things were going on around me and I had no power to do anything about it. It was really weird. Tim and the doctors came in and I was ready to go. The whole procedure went really fast. I tried not to look at Tim because everytime he would peek over the curtain, he would make these faces like he was totally disgusted. I know it look gross because the day before we watched a c-section on TLC. But I didn't need to see it on Tim's face, so I tried to zone out. The next thing I know, Benjamin is out and they bring him over for me to see. All I remember seeing is a scrunched up face and massive amounts of hair. I gave him a little kiss and off he went with Tim. C-sections are great because you can plan for them and they are over really quick. But the one thing that I don't like about them, is that I don't get a chance to hold the new little one as soon as they are born. But then again, Tim had that special bonding time with him so it all works out.
Here are a few little pics of the new little one!

Too Much TV?

I admit, I use TV as a babysitter for my 4-year-old. In fact, he's watching TV right now. But things might be getting out of control. Tim took Josh to Walmart over the weekend to make a Mother's Day flower out of Legos. (It's cute by the way. I'll try and put a picture up later.) Anyway, they were also looking for a birthday present for Josh's cousin. All of a sudden, Josh saw this:
Josh immediately said: "Dad, I need the Better Batter Baseball!" Not, "Dad, I need a new baseball" or "Dad, I need a new bat" but the "Better Batter Baseball". This boy watches too much TV. He is getting sucked into the marketing schemes of Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. They are in cahoots with ESPN to convince our young children that they need this contraption to play baseball. Not only does Josh think that he needs the Better Batter Baseball, but he also told me this morning that we needed to get some Glade Plug-in or other some such product so our house will smell good. So, not only am I a bad mother because I let my son watch too much TV, but apparently I don't clean enough so our house stinks as well. What are you going to do?