Month: February 2015

It seems that boredom is the invention of creativity.  I once heard a wise mother of four boys, each in high school, tell me that the key to raising boys is to keep them bored. So they’ll want to get lost in a book or build something or be imaginative. Not allow them to play video games or detach from reality too much or too early. This has long been my philosophy. Why turn on the TV when we could instead put on a show of our own or have a dance party or bake something?  Sometimes, in the dead of winter though, when it’s too cold to go outside for days on end, this says easier than it is to do.  But it also helps that my boyz are in the habit of no TV (or at least little TV) so they don’t ask to watch it and they entertain themselves creatively most the time. Sometimes, TOO creatively.

One evening last week the younger boyz were playing in the basement while I was helping the older boyz with homework.  In between fraction flash cards and spelling words I had barely noticed that Griffin was getting dressed up as a puppy dog in Carter’s last year’s Halloween costume – complete with fluffy ears, gloves with paw prints and collar with a bell.  I vaguely remember zipping and velcro-ing and straightening his tail and then he was off to play in the basement with Fletcher.  A few moments later I heard a horrendous cry escalating up the stairs.  After strict instructions to play downstairs while we completed homework I asked, “Is someone bleeding?!” And the cry back returned “YES!”

“Oh no, what now!?” I thought to myself.  Griffin, still dressed as a puppy dog, has had a wiggly front tooth for the past several months and as he turned the corner there was a lot of blood and a loose tooth hanging from his muzzle and a worried look on his brow.  He had been playing tug of war as a puppy with Fletcher’s blankie and the winner had pulled his tooth out with it!  (Actually, both front teeth, but the other one’s not quite ready to come out yet – and Griffin wants to lose it at school because you get a commemorative tooth-shaped necklace from the school nurse when you lose a tooth at school!)  (Who can blame him!?)

Then the dog’s master rounds the corner, blankie in hand, saying, “Yea, it was time for that tooth to come out so I helped him!”

Isn’t that brotherly love in action?!

Woof Woof!

Here’s the tooth! I told him that happens to real puppies too!

For the Tooth Fairy!

For the memory books!

Fletcher “helped”

Brotherly love!

Daddy-O and I went to an event in St. Louis last weekend where we didn’t know a soul when we arrived, but by the end of the evening I’d made a new friend and discovered a Soul Sister!  We were sitting diagonally across the table from each other and as we talked I learned that she had started a new business – a do-it-yourself custom cupcake shop.  We exchanged cards and were each grateful for the other at a crowded dinner party.  The next day was Valentine’s day and she was going to be working in her store – as it was a busy bakery day.  On our way out of town, we GPS’ed her shop and stopped in for a visit.  It was absolutely ADORABLE!  The center store in a 1950’s retro strip mall, each building with it’s own awning and unique fascade.  Sweetology is her business and she likens it to a build a bear shop or a pottery by you painting shop except instead of having another bear or hand painted ceramic creation to dust, you get to eat your creation! What a novel concept! It’s the only thing like it in the country and, in my opinion, it’s going to be in a town near you soon! There was a traditional bakery counter with dreamy confections chilling behind the glass, there was also a pot of chocolate swirling behind the counter in a magical centrifugal force that drew me in. She called it “Drinking Chocolate”  “You had me at chocolate,” I thought to myself as she poured me an expresso sized cup to savor.  The darling pink and green walls and old fashioned soda fountain decor was delightful, but the wall of decorative candies to top your cake, cupcakes or cookies were what made me feel like a kid in a candy store! (Sorry, couldn’t resist!)  I felt like Carter when he couldn’t decide which jibit to get for his crocs! There were candy footballs, helmets, crayons, balloons, bears – even a tiny hammer and nail set. You name it! Each made of sugar.  Absolutely darling! For the locals, you could stop in and decorate your cake and make an outing out of it. They had a rainbow of icing colors and even a photo booth to pose with your creation before you indulged. We chose the “to-go” route and got enough for the boyz to decorate at home. We took pictures too.  Then we indulged.  They tasted even better than they looked! Here’s a glimpse of our fun.  To savor your own, you’ll have to experience Sweetology for yourself! ENJOY!

Holding up our “Naked” Cupcakes… the “before” stage

Fletcher adding the first of many colors of icing upon his cupcake

Too cute!

Carter posing with his creation

We’re sweet on Sweetology!

Many hands in the mix!

Griffin’s creation

Not easy to eat with just one front tooth!

This says it all!

Fletcher was getting his foot into it!

An artist!

Kiefer can’t believe how good they taste!

WOW!

His teeth are blue!!

Carter ate most of his… he never really eats the icing

Then there’s Griffin who took a different approach!

Fletcher’s weighed a ton by the time he was done!

So good you could eat it!

So, in a  moment of weakness, against better judgement, because it was another ice cold, frigid day, I let the boyz get into another Christmas present that I had been holding back for a rainy day, or a snowy day, as the case may be.  It was a giant blow up toy –  Bozo The Clown. One of those old fashioned clown punching bags with the sand bag of weight in the bottom so you could hit it and it would bounce back up. His clown face taunting the hitter to “Just try and hit me again” and then he bounces back up again for another attempt, “Hit me with your best shot!” His bright red nose actually squeaks when you made a direct hit. Bonus!  It wasn’t intentional. The boyz actually happened upon it while we were down in the craft room. And before I knew it they were racing upstairs and out to the garage to use Daddy-O’s air compressor air pump in the garage to blow it up and within minutes the biggest smack down heavy weight championship had begun.  Jay Boyz: Zero, Bozo: at least 10.  Other fights broke out between the brothers about whose turn it was or whose gift it was.  After stern refereeing and sending opposing brothers to their corners, the newness wore off and they moved on to other distractions, thankfully.  It wasn’t until later that evening when Daddy-O and I were trying to leave for a grown up party, all dressed up and ready to go, giving last minute instructions to our favorite babysitter when we heard the Jumbo Bozo Blow from the basement.  The littlest, Fletcher, came upstairs explaining that it was Kiefer who had the last laugh. (Or something like that…) We rushed downstairs to witness the damage we had heard from above.  Kiefer was saying something in his high pitched “I didn’t do it, blame someone else so they don’t get me in trouble voice” that can only be understood by dogs and we quickly surmised that he must have picked up Bozo the clown from his head and swung him into the wall like a baseball bat – smashing a hole the size of a small child into the drywall of the basement.  We scolded, we laughed, we forgave and gave hugs, then we left. Remembering that thankfully, the gift givers had also given us a Lowes gift card along with the gifts for the boyz.  Perhaps they had a premonition?

“Hit me with your best shot!” (The Clown, not the wall, Kiefer!)

Direct hit!

Kiefer delivered Bozo’s final blow!