Please ignore the crooked door in his last day of school photos. You see, LittleBrother is difficult to photograph, as witnessed by the disintegration of his first day of school photos. He’s a spitfire, and we learned that even more this school year. He grew and changed and morphed from cute little LittleBrother to this cute but slightly ornery little boy with a sense of humor and an early case of sarcasm. I think we’re in trouble with this one.

I say that kindly, of course, because he is awesome in so many ways.

He hasn’t yet picked a hand to write with, but that’s mostly okay. He writes and colors almost equally with both hands. Though he does bat left handed. He says that he wants to write with his right hand, but he still switches at will; if he wants to color on the left side of the page, he puts the crayon in his left hand. I’m sure he’ll figure it out sometime in the near future, and we’re continuing to encourage him to do what feels right.

Apparently what feels right is reading. I don’t know if it’s because he was basically present for all of BigBrother’s reading lessons or his super awesome brain capacity or just his personality, but the kid is already blowing through early sets of BOB Book readers. When he asked to start learning to read this past winter, I kind of shrugged at him. I suppose that’s one of the problems with being the younger brother. Imagine my surprise when he got out a book and blew right through it. And it wasn’t a matter of having it memorized, because he just blew through a whole set that BigBrother never had. He’s just awesome.

He did a lot of other stuff this school year, too. He made new friends. He went on playdates — without me. He sang really loudly at his Christmas and Spring programs. He made lots of crafts, many of which he was personally affronted if I didn’t keep on the fridge for the appropriate amount of time. He is playing on a t-ball team — without his brother. He got stuck in a tree with his Buzz Lightyear wings. (No, really.) He got started on learning computer skills with his own monitored account and time limits. He can rock a Kindle Fire and an iPhone both. And he grew. A lot.

One of my favorite things about this little man is that he’s tough. He hasn’t met something that he can’t do if he wants to do it. On the flip side, he also won’t do something if he doesn’t want to do it. Both of those things are great traits — but they can be frustrating and hard to keep up with at times. He’s a fantastic little boy who is growing so quickly that I can’t believe my eyes.

He’s very excited to be on summer break. He’s been asking when we were going to the beach for vacation since February. He said last week, when we were going fishing on BigBrother’s last day of school, that he wishes we could go fishing every day. He wants to go camping. A lot. He wants to spend the summer playing and laughing and telling jokes that drive me crazy and poking at his brother and generally being… LittleBrother.

I’m looking forward to it.

So, both boys are now out of school for summer. Look for the OMG post soon.

I’ll have an OMG-SCHOOL-IS-OVER post in a week, once LittleBrother finishes up preschool for the year, but today let’s take a look at BigBrother this year.

– __ — __ –

This oldest son of ours has grown by leaps and bounds since his first day of Kindergarten. Yes, physically in that shorts season needs to arrive and stay because some of his jeans look funny. Yes, physically in that he went through another size of shoes this year and, really, I can wear his socks. Yes, physically in that he started to school year with baby teeth, lost six of them (*gag, wretch*), and grew those lost teeth back into his mouth.

But in lots of other ways too.

We started out the year walking him into the school and all the way to his classroom. Then he asked us to stand in the lobby and watch as he walked to his classroom, waving as he disappeared inside. Then we just walked him to the front door. Yesterday, I stopped in front of the school in the drop off circle and he jumped out, told me to have a nice day, slammed the door and ran to catch up with his buddies. Today I shrugged at him as he asked why I was walking him not only into the school but all the way to his classroom. “I have to give your teacher her present,” I mumbled, blinking back tears that this was his last walk down the hall as a Kindergartener. He smiled and skipped — something he couldn’t do at the beginning of the year either.

My worries about him not responding well to the sit-down-and-shut-up aspect of school were short-lived. BigBrother loved his teacher — well, he loves all teachers. He didn’t want to disappoint her. He was on green absolutely every single day of school. He lost a total of two minutes of recess, both near the end of school, for talking when he shouldn’t in class. I figure if my son only lost two minutes of recess for talking, there’s hope for him yet. (Oh, you guys might find this hard to believe, but I was totally a talker in school. Totally.) On his final report card, his teacher wrote:

Thank you, BigBrother, for working SO hard this year! You have been the ultimate Kindergarten student. Enjoy your summer!!

This morning she called him “the shining star” of the class. It almost makes up for the times that he calls me by his teacher’s name at home. Almost.

Photo “pin-spired” by Call Me Crafty‘s post I pinned on my photography board. Also evident in this photo: We have moved!

He was reading — the basics — when school started. In the survey that I filled out, I told his teacher that I wanted him to finish “learning to read,” though I know that there’s really no “finish” to that, that reading and learning are on-going. I’m sure she thought I was nuts, just bragging on a kid who probably didn’t know how to read yet. The second week of school she pulled me aside and let me know that he had been tested and was already reading at a 1st grade level. “I just wanted you to know that I know,” she said, sharing an understanding glance. I felt good knowing that I hadn’t been imagining or talking-up his skills; he was really reading. His reading took off this year, and he’s firmly reading at a 2nd grade level, pushing that envelope every day as well. He reads all the time — occasionally getting in “trouble” for reading after last light’s out. He read the whole way to another city in the car yesterday. I love that his love of reading was nourished and encouraged this year.

He learned the ins and outs of playground fun — and warfare. There was that whole recent b-word exchange, a few hurt feelings on all sides, a couple conversations with the teacher when he came home in tears for things that were more than young friends learning how to be friends. I struggled most with this — with the letting him figure out how to handle the ups and downs of friendships on his own and trying to figure out when I should step in as a mom if things looked to be escalating past what was normal for young children. The word bully is thrown around so much, but I’ve seen inklings of it even in Kindergarten — and it broke my mommy heart. Not just for my all-too-trusting BigBrother who was surprised more than once by angry kids, but for the child acting out. Growing up feels harder nowadays, though I imagine it’s just because I understand what I didn’t back in the day. And, you know, it’s my kid, hear-Mama-Bear-roar kind of stuff.

I thanked BigBrother’s teacher this morning, stopping myself short from hugging her and weeping on her shoulder. I just feel so grateful that BigBrother had such a great year of Kindergarten, great first year of real school. I worried so much about how he would respond to school, to other kids, to a big building, to all of it. I don’t know why I worried.

He’s just so awesome.

And now he’s a first grader. Please excuse me while I weep in the corner.

*insert blubbering here*

Tomorrow, his last day of school, I plan on doing some Pinterest-inspired photos. And blubbering.

But BigBrother was mightily upset at the time. He was using all of his facial expressions that mean Serious Business.

“Mommy, he said a bad word.”

“Oh yeah? What word did he say?

A dramatic pause. “The b-word.”

I blinked. What kind of Kindergartener uses the b-word? I tried to think of what I knew about this child’s parents. Did they regularly use the b-word? Or maybe, like me, maybe the mom occasionally forgot that the children were in the car when complete a-words pulled out in front of her in traffic. Ahem. I decided to move forward with my line of questioning. Mainly because I was curious.

“What’s the b-word?”

An even more dramatic pause, if at all possible. “BUTTCHEEKS.”

You have no idea how hard it was for me not to laugh in my six-year-old son’s face. I had to swallow. Hard. And stare at the corner where the walls meet the ceiling across the dining room. I kept swallowing to keep myself from smiling. BigBrother was, at the time, mortally wounded. I needed to respond accordingly. I couldn’t laugh in his face. I just couldn’t.

Once I composed myself, I empathized with him and talked about how some words really can hurt others’ feelings. We hugged a bit and he went off to play with his brother. Who, by the way, he called a “meanis,” which does rhyme with what you think it rhymes with, when he wouldn’t play what he wanted to play. Apparently lessons about names are short-lived.

I chuckled to myself and made note to blog this story tell FireDad later.

Later happened in the car where most of our family’s important conversations take place.

We rehashed the story again, FireDad not doing the same stellar job at not laughing as I did. My laugh-happy husband did bring it back in to the “words can hurt other people” and “that’s why we are careful with the words we choose.”

A pause from the back seat. “Yeah, we don’t choose the letter words.”

FireDad and I exchanged a look. I spoke. “The letter words?”

“Yeah, you know. The a-word, the b-word, the h-word, the s-word.”

I started to get worried at that point. Did he really know all of those words? I mean, those words did have associated “bad” words to them. Did my six-year-old know what the s-word was? We already knew that he thought the b-word was buttcheeks, but did he know the h-word? The a-word? What other letter words did he know? I started mentally composing yet another post about how Kindergarten expanded my child’s vocabulary in ways I could never have imagined and certainly didn’t appreciate.

He continued from the back seat. “The z-word.”

And we both lost it at that point. FireDad and I giggled and snickered and snorted and laughed. BigBrother started laughing too, not quite aware that we were laughing mainly because we were glad that our kid didn’t know a wealth of “ugly” words. He was just happy to hear laughter, to join in. We eventually simmered down and, one more time, brought it back to remembering how important it is to choose your words wisely, to be careful with others’ feelings. No letter words. Especially no z-words.

He may not know what all the words are behind the letters, but he’s learning to be careful with the words he does choose.

And, thankfully, we’re having a good time while we learn. Just don’t make me call you a z-word or flip you the bird — like I may or may not have done to the PTA President. Whoops?

The boys got light sabers (aka, life savers) for Christmas a few years ago. As our old house was small, there wasn’t much room for light saber fights in the house. The whole “the local drug dealer makes it impossible to play outside” thing also meant we didn’t get much light saber time in outside either. As such, the new yard has seen a lot of Star Wars action.

The backyard is a great place to act out any number of scenes. Recently we’ve taken to building forts on the back deck. The light sabers also make their way in there, eventually knocking down the fort.

The front yard sees a lot of action as well. I’m sure our neighbors think we’re either hugely dorky or very into violence. Who knows. Who cares? The boys have been having a blast playing and playing and playing and using their imaginations and playing and playing and playing and, okay, sure, some pretend violence.

Which occasionally means someone gets bonked in the forehead with a light saber.

{Don’t adjust your monitors. FireDad was that sunburned.}

But I figure that’s fine, since FireDad hasn’t ever seen Star Wars before. I know, right? He gives me a hard time because I haven’t seen various movies over the years, but he hasn’t seen Star Wars. It’s okay. It’s being remedied shortly. My parents bought him the original trilology on Blu-Ray.

We’ll all watch it together soon. Right now, the boys are discussing various Star Wars characters that they want to be for Halloween. LittleBrother is currently hooked on being Yoda. BigBrother wants to be “Dark” Vader. They’re gender casting me into Princess Leia’s role, and that’s fine because one of my friends has the hair — but I’m going with a white robe, not the gold bikini. Obviously. I do expect them to change their minds umpteen billion times before costume-ordering time is upon us.

Until then, you might see us on our evening walk with our light sabers. Don’t mind us.

We’re just using a little bit of the force to get through our evening walk which solely exists to help tire the kids out the rest of the way before bedtime. We need the force. Let us use it.

I am a glutton for punishment.

Holidays are stressful days unto themselves. But I always want a family picture on holidays. Family pictures bring their own kinds of stress, and so I just add more stress to an already stressful day. Apparently I hate sanity.

On Easter morning, the boys were ready quite quickly. Let’s face it, it’s not all that hard to put on a button up shirt, pants, socks and shoes. New haircuts made it so they didn’t even have to brush their hair. Teeth brushed and, voila! Done!

I still needed to finish my hair, which is par for the course in our house. I had a random and rare stroke of genius: Set up the tripod and let the boys get their sillies out before the family picture. I was expecting that their photography wouldn’t be of use to me.

And, truth be told, some of it looked like this:

Both photos straight out of camera, just cropped.

Which, of course, both photos are twelve kinds of awesome in their own way. I smiled when I looked through my memory card that night, and again now when I sat down to write this post about letting your kids take their own photos. There’s something special and perfect and just right about those two photos. BigBrother is all Mr. Serious, Let’s Do This Right and LittleBrother is all Mr. Pfft, Go Your Own Way. Very spot on when it comes to their personalities.

Of course, I kind of love this one the most.

Photo edited only for color.

“Do you think this picture looks okay?” “I honestly couldn’t care less.”

But they’re not all duds. I promise. While I was busy finishing my hair, the boys took this gem.

Photo unedited

The photo is a decent photo. I could wish that my four-and-a-half-year-old already knew how to hide the remote in his hand, but I’ll be honest, it’s not my strong point either. But it’s a happy picture that I did not have to coax out of my kids. They smiled on their own. They looked at the camera, which is something that LittleBrother often refuses to do for me because I am his mom and that is his prerogative. It’s a solid picture.

All it needs is a crop and some color help, and it’s a great picture!

Image edits: crop and color play.

Or, if you’re feeling crazy, turn it grayscale and fiddle around with brightness and contrast!

Image edits: grayscale, brightness and contrast.

I really do kind of love it.

I also loved having five minutes to finish my hair without children whining that they wanted to eat more Easter candy. I also loved that I didn’t have to take more time after my hair was done — when we were already running late for Easter morning service — to coax them to look at the camera and smile. It was already done! I also loved that when it came time for the family picture, their silly photos were already done and we nailed our family shot rather quickly. And yes, I do love the silly outtakes. What mom wouldn’t?

My happiness aside, the boys love being allowed to ham it up for the camera and take as many pictures with the remote as their little hearts desire. I did have to step outside once and remind them to take turns with the remote, but otherwise, they were happy, happy, happy.

If you want to let your kids take their own pictures, here’s what you’ll need:

• 1. A camera. Obviously.
• 2. A tripod or a sturdy surface. I’ve balanced cameras on a stack of books or set it on a table before.
• 3. A remote or a timer on your camera. For kid purposes, I suggest the remote. Here’s why: With the remote, they are already in focus because you set it up before you walked away to finish your hair. There’s no running back and forth by the kids so they stay in focus and they won’t risk knocking over your camera, causing damage and thus ruining the fun. Plus, what kid doesn’t want to be in charge of a remote? They really are rather inexpensive. Mine was $12!
• 4. Some form of photo editing software. I use Photoshop, but there are free ones for you to use. Picnik is closing, but PicMonkey is showing that it could be a decent online editor. I say you need photo editing because you may want to crop out the remote or fix a few things that happened while you weren’t standing over the camera’s settings.

And that’s it! You’ll want to set up the camera so that it receives the remote as most have to be on a specific setting to do so. Set your kids in front of something (a tree, a wall, just something that acts as a point of reference where they should be standing). Set the focus. And turn them loose. I encourage you to actually walk away so you don’t say things like, “No, don’t make that face! Smile! COME ON!” You’ll get some much more natural and much funnier photos if you leave the room.

One last tip: Get a few of the photos printed. I already got a few of their photos printed from their Easter photo-rama. They were tickled to see their handy work hanging up in their rooms.

Photos hanging on magnetic photo rope from Photojojo.

Happy photographing (while you’re fixing your hair or doing something else entirely)!

I started a tattoo board on Pinterest months ago. I saw and pinned lots of things that I liked, everything from lyrics to quotation marks and ampersands to defying gravity awesomeness to something akin to “put a bird on it” and beyond. I still couldn’t put my finger on it.

I knew I wanted something for my boys as I have a tattoo for the Munchkin.

But what?

I didn’t want names or dates. I didn’t want faces. I considered toy soldiers and aliens or ANDY on my foot, but Toy Story love will only last so long. Quite honestly, they’ve almost been replaced by Phinneas and Ferb, and that’s not happening. I would get a Star Wars tattoo, but I’d really rather get an Ewok than “Dark Vader,” so it wouldn’t be a true representation of my boys. I could get a peanut butter sammich, cut in triangles. That’s about true to form right now.

I realized that getting the tattoo now to represent something for my boys forever is a tricky, tricky thing. They might not always think that soccer is awesome. They might change their names to something mind-numbingly stupid or go by a nickname that isn’t Booey. They will change favorite colors and favorite foods and characters and movies and books and everything else a billion times over — because that’s what they’re supposed to do in this growing up process. That’s what I want them to do — to come to their own conclusions and be their own people and like whatever it is that they like, even if it ends up being music that makes me roll my eyes harder than BigBrother. I want them to be secure in their own skin, in their own bodies, in their own minds, in their own faith, in their own love.

That is my wish for them.

Which is when the tattoo came to me, of course.

It’s a shame it’s trendy right now, which is quite possibly why I’ve put off moving forward with my new design idea. I don’t really like to be on trend. I’ll have you know that I got my nose pierced back when it was still something that only weird girls did, not the cool girls. I’m never quite in style, so it bugs me that the tattoo design I have picked is rather popular right now. Alas, it’s been sitting with me for months now and I feel at peace with the design.

I’m going with a dandelion tattoo, in full seed, because my sons call them wishers.

They have always called them wishers and, while they might someday roll their eyes at me when I reference their love of wishers, I will always hold those memories in my heart… of stomping feet in a stroller, demanding a wisher to blow. Of arguing over the last wisher in our brand new yard, the only dandelion in the whole darn development (though now there are many because, well, they blew on the wisher, likely wishing for more wishes and spreading seed everywhere). Of stopping in the middle of an Easter Egg hunt to pick not one, not two, but three wishers to blow all by himself since his brother was off searching for eggs.

And my wishes for the two of them will be forever visible on my skin. You know, like stretch marks but cooler.

I have the design mostly floating around in my head. In fact, stomping around on Easter Sunday brought me to this patch of wishers that the boys left untouched and helped solidify a few more things in my design.

Sadly, I’m searching for a new tattoo artist as we have lost our previous guy. (Hey, Pittsburgh? Some help here would be lovely.) I hope to get this tattoo in October, when summer travel and sun and fun and beach and water are done for the year again. I honestly can’t wait.

You know you’re ready for a new tattoo when you stop making excuses (weight, time, money) and start making plans.

That’s good, because we live there whether he loves it or not.

I had been worried about the boys’ transition to the new house. In the weeks preceding our move, they asked lots of questions. Like, “Are we going to take our toys?” And, “What about our beds?” And one that LittleBrother kept harping on, “Mommy, please don’t forget my toothbrush, okay?” It’s hard to explain that, yes, you’re going to move everything to the new house. BigBrother didn’t remember the last move; he was three months old and had a crib, a bouncy seat and some basic toys. Since then, he collected a bit more stuff… to put it mildly.

Thankfully they really do love the new house. They have more space in absolutely every place they could have more space. More bedroom space. A longer hallway to run up and down in their underwear, yelling, “Tra-la-LAA!,” thus channeling Captain Underpants. A much, much bigger playroom. Bigger rooms that they don’t care about (read: kitchen, dining room, and so on). A big front yard and a huge back yard! Even their closets are bigger and I have found them, on more than one occasion, huddled in a closet, playing and giggling. The transition hasn’t been much of a transition for them at all.

Maybe it’s because they’re kids and they adjust to change easier than adults do — or, uh, easier than I do. Because why can’t I remember where the cups and glasses are? Or the microwave — it’s not like the microwave is hard to see. There it is! See it! It is not over there! Why do you walk over there? I don’t know. The kitchens aren’t even remotely shaped the same, so why do I wander around aimlessly opening cupboard doors? Also, I keep reaching to the right for the toilet paper; it is not there. It is on the left. In fact, it was on the left at the old house, too. What is my problem?

But maybe it’s also because of their outlook on life.

We were heading home today after running a few errands.

“Home, home, home we go,” I chanted from the driver seat. Mostly I was trying to keep LittleBrother awake as he looked particularly dozy. As a rule, if he falls asleep in the car, he will be a bear for the rest of the day. We try to avoid this at all costs.

There was a pause. I was afraid he had fallen asleep.

“Home is where your heart is,” came his little voice from the back seat. I was kind of taken aback.

“What?”

“Home. is. where. your. heart. is,” he slow-spoke in a louder voice than before, just in case I was either losing my hearing or just not very smart. I craned my neck at the stop sign to see him in the back seat.

“Well, that’s true. Very true. So is our new house a home?”

“Yes, Mommy. You’re silly.”

And there you have it.

Maybe he didn’t have a transition or adjustment period because it wasn’t about the house or the space or finding the freaking microwave or the bathroom in the dark (though that was an interesting first night which caused us to purchase a night light for the hall the next day). Our home traveled with us from one house to another. The heart of our family didn’t change, just the place where we live.

My four-year-old is wiser than I am — and I’m okay with that.

I just hope to stop wandering around the kitchen sometime soon. You know, before I rearrange it and cause further confusion and delay. That’s just how I roll.

Because the following exchange would only happen in our house. First let me set the scene, and to do so, we have to back up a little bit. And talk about poop.

BigBrother demands that after a bowel movement but prior to wiping, he must flush. He was always panicked about “clugging” the toilet. A plunger had to be in plain sight. In our old house, he had gotten used to everything — himself, the way our toilet flushed, plunger in plain sight, and so on — and the panic subsided. It was just the norm to hear two flushes when he was in the bathroom. Life with boys. Or, at least, life with that boy.

On our first day at the new house but prior to the big move, he posed a question.

“Do we have a plunger here?”

We did, but we did not yet know that it was in the bathroom closet, so we told him no. He internalized that fact and decided not to utilize the facilities for the purpose of number two. Eventually, as we moved in, we found the plunger that came with the house and moved in our own plunger. Two plungers for two bathrooms. Life sure is good around these parts!

On our second day actually in the new house, he went off to do his business. He asked a few questions about the presence of a plunger ahead of time and seemed okay with it.

I heard the sound of the toilet flushing the first time, and then a panicked voice.

“Ahhhhhh! PLUNGER! PLUNGER! THE TOILET IS CLUGGING!”

And so I left whatever box I was unpacking and went running down the hall. By the time I got there, the toilet was done flushing and BigBrother looked slightly sheepish.

“But the water came UP before it went down.”

I explained that it’s a weird toilet and that’s just the way it works. It kind of looks like it’s going to “clug,” but then it doesn’t. He gave me a raised eyebrow, untrusting of this strange new toilet. I assured him that it would be fine and left him to finish up his business.

Every morning for the next few days, we had to stand there with him while he flushed because he was too scared to do it on his own. And not just stand there: coax him and tell him it would be okay and eventually say, “OMG! JUST FLUSH THE DANG TOILET!” Or not. But maybe.

Despite flushing drama, the two full baths, one being the master bath, just so happen to be one of my favorite parts of our new house. They’re horribly painted — and we can’t repaint just yet due to paint on the tiles. They really are the bane of our new house, though the carpet in the finished side of the basement (aka, playroom) comes in a close second). One day they will both be peaceful places for us to flush toilets.

So less this:

And something far more… us. And less tropical. Like the green accessories in our bathroom and the gray in theirs. Both with plungers in quick reach, obviously.

This journal came home with no Buzz, no Mario, lots of Phinneas (Fineas) and Ferb, some Star Wars and… some family stuff! I was tickled, of course. There was one drawing of the four of us with a sentence that read, “I like my famile (family) because we have fun together.” I smiled. I felt loved. I imagined the teacher reading it and picturing us as this great, awesome family.

I got smug.

Then I turned the page.

And gazed upon this.

I gasped and showed my husband. He laughed. The accompanying sentence was “I like my famile because they play wif (with) me.”

With THAT picture.

Oh hell. I wonder what the teacher was thinking when she saw that one.

I walked back to BigBrother’s room, journal in hand.

“Hey buddy, your journal is awesome this month!”

“Thanks!”

“Can I, uh, ask what this picture is?”

He looked.

“Yeah, that’s LittleBrother and me.”

Curiouser and curiouser.

“Well, uh, what are these?” I pointed.

“Those are swimmies, Mommy. We’re going swimming!”

Ahh, swimmies. The drawing was right after we went to Castaway Bay. It suddenly made a lot of sense. I told him it was a great picture and breathed a sigh of relief. Whew. I hope he explained that one to his teacher.

But really, these are the little reasons it must be hilarious to be a Kindergarten teacher. I think.

– __ — __ —

As an aside, here’s today’s 17 Days of Green photo!

A Ninja Turtle joined me. Life is good.