Braving Boys

Boy stuff keeps me so busy that I often don’t find the time to write about it. But I want to, and I need to, because one day, these beautiful monsters of mine will be all grown up, and there’s no way I’m going to remember all the cute little stories if I don’t jot them down. Here are a few:

Danny

Danny, 6 years old, finally lost a tooth on December 30. We were at Busch Gardens, eating lunch, when John tugged it out. It was hanging by a thread, we told Danny, and that’s why it needed to come out. He’d been very patient for weeks, letting that tooth linger in its assigned space. Big bro Joe would have yanked that thing from his own mouth the minute he noticed it jiggling even a tad bit. Not Danny, who is now monitoring another loose one. Yesterday, he came out of school and asked me, “Mom, is this hanging by a thread?” I checked and told him it was not. “Then how many threads does it have?” he said. We talked about threads, and figures of speech, and now we await the loss of pearly white No. 2. I predict it comes out, oh, sometime around mid-February. Joey happened to have a barely wiggly one after school yesterday, too. It was out by 5 PM.

Mom and Joey: Same-size feet

Joey is tall. Really tall. He just turned 9 on January 3, and he’s a half-inch away from measuring 5 feet. He’s almost as tall as his Nanny, his feet are nearly bigger than mine, and the mom of the short boy he guarded during his last basketball game was not at all happy about the pairing. About his height, Joey said recently: “I don’t always like being tall.” I asked him why, and he told me people at school think he has had to repeat a grade. “Has anyone ever told you that?” I asked. “No,” he replied. “But still.” Yea, I gotcha, Joe. And that’s exactly why the kid must pass his FCAT test in March, because if he doesn’t, he must do third grade all over again, and there’s just no way he can actually repeat a grade. That would just look downright silly.

We think Danny has a photographic memory — the kid can recite parts of a nutritional label in a nutty accurate way. Sugar and protein are his favorites. Name a food or drink (mustard, ketchup, ground turkey, milk), and he’ll spit back spot-on numbers. The other day, I told each boy they could pick out a frozen treat at the grocery store. Danny picked Scribblers popsicles (no protein, 6 grams of sugar), and Joey grabbed for a package of Klondikes, which didn’t escape Danny’s glance. “Those are loaded with sugar,” he shouted at his brother. Sure enough — 23 grams of the stuff in each square of chocolate-covered goodness. Joey didn’t care, he picked them anyway, and we’re OK with that. I mean, we don’t eat too much junk at our house, so we figure it’s OK to enjoy an occasional treat.

Somehow, we got to talking a few days ago about behavior (the boys like to report on who was good and bad in school each day), and I told them that everyone has good qualities. No one is entirely bad. That’s when Joey said, “I don’t always do the right thing. But I always try my best.” I don’t think I can really ask for anything more. And that’s what I told him — just before I picked boogers off his bedroom wall.

Stay tuned. More to come.

Photo: One in a Million / [ tumblr ]

I much prefer when my boys make me smile than frown, cry, yell and scream. Sometimes, I have to make a focused effort to ensure my face looks happy, though, and it also takes some pretty heavy-duty work some days to flip-flop my head around so that frustration doesn’t take over. Silence helps, so do candles, hot bubble baths, long runs, kid-free dinners out, and when I’m feeling extravagant, pedicures. But one of my best methods for reversing the ragged moments is reading inspirational quotes. Perfect then that I just found the fantastic site called One in a Million. It’s “a place to come when you really need to smile,” writes 22-year-old Sara, who put this masterpiece together for herself and her mother — her goal was to keep their spirits up in the face of her mom’s incurable cancer, and I’m telling ya: This really is the place to find a smile, and now that I know about this mood-altering spot, you can bet I’ll be visiting, like, all. the. time.

It’s just that good.

See for yourself.

www.bethenny.com

If you’re a fan of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” then you know Bethenny Frankel. She’s not only a reality TV girl, though — she’s also a celebrity natural food chef, columnist for Health magazine and best-selling author.

First came Bethenny’s book “Naturally Thin,” detailing 10 real-life rules for escaping a lifetime of dieting, and now she’s written “The Skinnygirl Dish: Easy Recipes for Your Naturally Thin Life.” This is where she shares fast, practical and economical healthy recipes, then teaches us how to live without them. How perfect for those of us — like moms of busy little boys — trying to live cleaner lives in less time!

Bethenny also dishes on how we can minimize the “cooking noise” in our lives. Keep reading for some inspirational nuggets — and for the scoop on how to win one of her books.

• Do you hear yourself saying any of these things: I have no food in this house. I don’t have the slightest idea what to make for dinner. There is nothing to eat! I don’t know how to cook. That’s “cooking noise,” and you can stop it, and you can learn to feed yourself without stressing about it.
• Food is one of the most powerful tools you have for building a healthy body and a calm mind. Food can make you strong or weak, energized or depleted, skinny or fat. You are what you eat — it’s true.
• Being naturally thin is a practice — you will never be perfect (no one is), but you can choose a healthy path and keep plugging along on it.
• Recipes are a bit like kindergarten. You learn some basics (how do Whole Grain Blueberry Pancakes, a Healthier Cobb Salad and Oatmeal Raisin Cookies sound?), then you gain the confidence to branch out on your own. When you know how to cook, you won’t need recipes anymore.

OK, I could go on, but then you wouldn’t need the book, and I really think you should get it. Or you could enter this giveaway for a chance to win a free copy. Details follow:

• Leave a comment and share why you need this book!
• Leave your comment no later than 5PM ET on Tuesday, January 12, 2010.
  
• You may enter only once.
• Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, and the District of Columbia, who are 18 and older.
• One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
• One winner will receive one copy of “The Skinnygirl Dish: Easy Recipes for Your Naturally Thin Life,” valued at $16.00.
• Winners will be notified by email, so make sure to check next week to find out if you’ve won!

Want another chance to win? Same giveaway going on at my Breast Cancer blog. Click here and enter again!

9th Birthday Wishes

It started out that we were going to take a small group of kids to the 34th Street Grafitti Wall for Joey’s 9th birthday party. It’s where University of Florida students and others in the Gainesville community go to express themselves by painting all sorts of messages — some happy and inspirational, some simply advertising free beer (hey, it’s a college town, what do you expect?). Here’s a peek at what you might see on a drive-by of this wall that borders the University golf course and is commonly known as the city’s “concrete blog.”

Rumor has it that it’s technically illegal to paint this wall, although I made a call to the local police department and learned that it’s not illegal — it’s just not safe. You see, 34th Street is a crazy busy place, and we’d have to paint at our own risk. So even though Joey desperately wanted to leave his mark on the wall, we just couldn’t justify putting a bunch of kiddos in danger. So we improvised and created our own backyard grafitti wall. John hung three big pieces of wood, painted them all with a dark background color, and today, Joey and his friends and family went to town.

35 Avenue Grafitti Wall

The crew painted their hearts out, and they went home with splattered hair, hands and clothing (smocks only do so much!). Before departing, though, they played a rousing game of Paint the Tail on the Donkey.

That's Joey's tail sprouting out of the donkey's neck.

And we did some face painting, and sack races.

Ready, Set, Go!

And of course, there were gifts, plus pizza and cake.

Happy Birthday, Joey!

And because our outdoor party temps were tops at about 55 degrees, a bonfire with s’mores was in order, too. Overall, it was a swinging good time, a perfect celebration for a boy who turns 9 tomorrow (that means another party, just a quiet family one, no paint involved).

Swing, Tori, Swing!