The Graduate

My boy. 

 

He could possibly be the cutest little boy in the world.  He is sweet, sincere, smart, silly, and he holds a special place in my heart.

 

 

I get sad that he is officially done with preschool because that means he leaves me next year for kindergarten. I had a hard time with Afton,  and I don't imagine it get any easier when it comes to my sweet boy.

 

Song - "You Gotta Be"

 

But,  anyway,  I'm rambling. 

 

So, as I mentioned earlier, Jack graduated from preschool.  He spent the entire year answering my question of "What did you do in school today?" with not great responses. He would always say "We didn't do anything in school today." Or,  "I didn't learn anything mom.  I never do." Or I liked this one,  "I only remember what I did in sports class,  never in preschool."

 

 

I never heard of anything that he did in class, never sang songs for me, never shared. 

 

Ever! 

 

But, I did see him grow so much.  He learned his letters, their sounds, his numbers, shapes, patterns, addition, and how to problem solve. I only know this because he would complete his homework every week without any struggle.  He knew the material. 

 

He also learned valuable life lessons like how to stick up for himself and how to be a good friend.

 

I secretly hope that he had that foundation from the things I tried to teach him every day, (literally every day) since I  was an official stay at home mom.  But, really, all the credit goes to Ms. Bahati.  Jack loved her, and she adored him. 

 

 

He won her over, and his classmates really loved him too. They voted for him to be the flag holder during the graduation because he is the "most responsible and respectful."

 

Can't you tell?

 

Ahhhh.  Melt my heart. 

 

His buddy

 

  The walk

The Diploma

 The playing with the diploma

The ceremonial cap toss

The cake pop reward from Grandma Jones

The proud mom

 

He has a bright future, this handsome boy of mine. 

  

   

So thankful for this woman! 

 

I must mention that Jack was lucky enough to have both his Grandmas and Grandpa in attendance. Somehow I missed getting a picture of that, and I am quite mad at myself for it. We are glad to have had them there on his special day.

 

I don't want to grow up...

We had some time to kill this morning in between the things we had to get done. The boy and girl had been behaving rather well thus far, and it was refreshing. So refreshing and calm in fact, that we thought that we needed some excitement. We decided to take a risk.

 

Should we enter Toys 'R' Us?

Were our children strong enough to handle the temptation of seeing millions of toys at a time,  knowing fully that they would not be receiving a toy, any toy, NO toy, zero toys, when it was time to depart? Were they going to be able to understand the common term "killing time" without reacting in a way as if they were literally being killed as we would walk out empty-handed today? Were they strong enough to refrain from asking over and over again, "But can I just have this or that?" Were they going to be calm, cool, collected, rational children in the store, or the opposite, screaming, crying, tantrum-throwing children that they have been a time, or two, or three in their past? Were we foolish in risking our calm and peaceful morning? Were they going to be able to handle this experience?  Better question, were we?

Let me make this clear, my children do not get a toy every time we go into a store. No way. Absolutely not! That's just foolish. However,  this store was one that we rarely visit, and when we do, it is because we have a gift card and are fully intending to use it. Because of this, I had reservations about going in, but my Sugar and I were feeling a bit daredevil-ish this morning, so we did it. 

Jocelyn slept in the car with daddy.  I walked in with Afton holding my left hand and Jack with the right. I took a deep breath, and rolled the dice. (Man, parenthood is so risky, kind of like sky diving and Russian Roulette. Ha! )

We walked out of Toys 'R' Us, with Afton holding my left hand and Jack with the right.  Jack said, "Thanks mommy, that was fun." Afton agreed. (Jocelyn slept the entire time.)

On days like today, I hope they never grow up. They could be kids forever, a Toys 'R' Us kid even, and my Sugar and I would love every minute of it. 

It's a risk I think we'd be willing to take. 

Best Parents Ever

The conversation went like this.

"What are we going to get for dinner?" as we are approaching the mall food court.

Then, as any good parents with 3 very young children that happen to stroll right by a Cinnabon way past dinner time, we had to make a choice of what was best for our family.  

One parent says to the other, "I was thinking a box full of Cinnabons would be a great idea."

The other parent happily agreed, "Me too."

So, yep. We had Cinnabons for dinner. 

Please notice that Subway was not too far from us. 

We COULD have made wise choices for our dinner tonight, but we didn't. 

Why? 

Well duh, because we are the best parents ever!

I feel like I am going to puke.

I got pooped on.

Remember when we were going to California? Remember how happy, impatient, and excited we all were?

But all good things must come to end. That time is now. Sadly, we are leaving California to head back home.  It's been a fun trip, for the most part. But, there were some bad moments in there.  I mean really bad.

I'll share them first, then end with the good stuff.

1. Jack had/still has some sort of stomach bug.  He threw up two nights. First, all over his sleeping bag, pillow, and the bed. The other night he managed to get it into the sink, toilet, and trash can. All of these are different puking experiences. But let's not forget when he threw up all his watermelon breakfast back into his watermelon bowl, that I was holding for him.Yep, me. I caught his puke. 

2. Along with his puking, came poop. Well, he said, "I'm not pooping mom, I'm peeing out of my butt hole." And sure enough he was.  Poor dude was jacked up. I can't tell you how many times we had to hand wash his underwear, but that's not even the grossest part.  Here it goes.  I'm warning you, stop reading if you can't handle gross. I mean super gross.

On our way home, Jack said,  "You need to pull over now." We knew that this was urgent.  We stopped for a potty, (not to be confused with party) and decided to get lunch.  While there, Jack used the bathroom 4 times with my Sugar. Each time quite impressive. (Please pick up my sarcastic tone while reading.)

Then I got to participate in the fun. His face looked so sad on the potty.  We went 3 more times, making a total of 7 trips to the bathroom in Farmer Boys Restaurant.  On the final time, while wiping his bottom, he sharted, ALL OVER MY HAND! (Do you know what a shart is? Well, look it up if you don't. Forgive the language in the definition.) Then he said, "Oh, now I'm done." Honestly, not sure how I didn't throw up on him. So freaking disgusting.

3. Then,  this just happened while driving home. Jack said again, "I've got to go. Pull over." My Sugar high tails over to the exit, only to find that it's a stretch of road that leads into a housing community with absolutely no spots to pull over. None. So, we were forced to make a choice. Poop in your pants or... help a brother out by pulling over. Jack pooped along side the road in a construction site for these fabulous new homes currently under construction.

That is poop. Well as Jack put it, pee out of his butt hole.

It's what they get for having nowhere to go! Dumb California.

4. Okay, so those were bad, like gross, super gross. But this little experience was just plain bad/rotten.  While visiting the USS Midway, a place of respect, valiant service, and honor, some JERK broke into our car! They stole my Sugar's TOMS sunglasses and all the quarters in our car. Ugh. 

5. Oh yeah, then we wanted to play on a slide with our babies right in the middle of downtown San Diego. They had old school metal slides that allow you to actually zoom down to the bottom. My Sugar and I were both excited (him a little more then me) to try them out with our babies, but an actual security guard for this park told us that we aren't allowed.  Really San Diego? You have that many allocated funds in tax payers dollars to pay a security guard to enforce this rule of "AGE 5-12" on a slide, but San Diego political officials, you don't see a need to have a security guard at the USS Midway to watch people's belongings? Ugh again.

Since I have probably made you throw up in your mouth a few times since reading this, or you now have the same appalled feeling we had about security guards and lack there of guards in beautiful San Diego, I'll move on the more joyous times we had on our trip. I'll try and just stick to pictures, because this is already too lengthy.                Like usual.

Bring on the fun!

 The Ocean - Sunrise to Sunset

Awesome!

S'Mores on the beach

Counting and sorting sand dollars and seashells

Carlsbad's The Flower Fields

SeaWorld

USS Midway

Searched everywhere to find where the dentists sleep on board the ship, but we couldn't find it. 

It has to be bigger than the sleeping arrangements for enlisted soldiers, hopefully.

More San Diego FUN

 See the rules on the SLIDE that are strictly enforced!

Paddle boating & Shopping 

at Camp Pendleton 

This is super hard! 

Afton and I saw a harbor seal while we were heading out from the dock! 

My Sugar didn't believe us.

So handsome!

Oceanside Street Fair

Just because...

My Sugar said these are the best fish and chips!

We also ate at Burger House down in Oceanside!!! 

Absolutely delicious.

Carlsbad Mural

I'll end this post on a sweet note with pictures of ice cream, candy, and of course, the sweetest little baby in the world.

Our trip started out pretty rough, but overall it was great. It was just what our little family needed. We have officially one more year left of dental school, and I know there will be ups and downs, but nothing that will compare to being pooped on, literally. 

Hopefully.