Another big milestone (by accident...)

Ok, so last Sunday Zachary came home from church with a big, huge, powdery lollipop thing. And being the kind brother that he is, he decided to share it. (Alright, I know some of you are disgusted by our family lollipop sharing practices, but if no one's sick, I just let it go. Honestly, I'm more grateful that they're sharing than worried about the transfer of germs! But, back to the story...) Jacob had been sucking on this thing for a long time, and his brothers were starting to get a little grumpy, so I imposed a time limit to sucking. Jacob's time was up, and so I went to get it from him. He ran away from me, with the sucker in his mouth - which, unlike brotherly germ sharing, kind of freaked me out (due to an incident that happened when I was young - a friend ran down the hall with a toothbrush in her mouth, fell, and the toothbrush became imbedded in the back of her throat. Thankfully her father was a pediatrician and she survived, but now the sight of kids running with things in their mouths really scare me. And, again, back to the story...) So, when I cornered him in the laundry room, I told him that his turn was OVER and it was time to give up the lollipop. I told him that I would count to three, then it would come out of his mouth, like it or not. "One..." "Two..." (do you see where this is going?) "Three..." And I (being a mom of my word) pulled the lollipop out of his mouth. At the same time, Jacob decided that his teeth would be stronger than mom's fingers, and he clenched down. Jacob was wrong. Next thing I know, he's on the floor yelling at me that I had pulled all his teeth out. I panicked, then checked his mouth. There was one bottom tooth that was a little loose, and I told him that if he would leave it alone then it would tighten back up and be fine. Meanwhile, his brothers filled him in on the tooth fairy. Jacob decided that it was in his best financial interest to work that loose tooth out. And so 2 days later, I had a sweet 5 year old who was $1.00 richer. Is this all my fault? Maybe not entirely, but kind of. I'm going to try to place some blame on his brothers to help alleviate my guilt of how this mom invited the tooth fairy to meet Jacob...

Another practical use for pokemon

Anyone who really knows my sons will recognize the "Pokemon" overload we have going on over here. I mean, these guys love pokemon. Like, they watch the shows, collect the cards, play the games, talk the talk... I even overheard Jordan and Levi talking the other day:
Levi, the 3 year old: "I battle you!" (as he throws something imaginary at Jordan)
Jordan, the 13 year old: "Levi, I am not going to battle you until you get some new pokemon!"
And I think "Wait, the 3 year old is battling the 13 year old, and the 13 year old is taking it seriously enough to be concerned about the 3 year old's collection of pokemon?!?!"
OK, so maybe you had to be there, but I had to shake my head and laugh.

Another case in point: Here's Jordan's birthday cake. Yes, it's a Pok-e-ball.Do you notice what Zach is doing in the background? Yup, playing a pokemon game on his DS.

Anyway, in order to save some money, I am now trying to teach my boys piano (yeh, I know what you're thinking, and I'm thinking it too, but we'll see how it goes...). So I sit down with Jordan for his lesson and introduce his newest song. It has triplets and 16th notes, and I'm trying to get Jordan to count them out loud. To get the rhythm right, I count "trip-o-let, trip-o-let..." on the beat. Jordan decides to customize it. He starts counting "pok-e-mon, pok-e-mon..." on the beat. Then we get to the 16th notes. I, being the boring old mom that I am, start counting "one-ta-tee-ta, two-ta-tee-ta..." as I was taught to count them in music theory class. But, hey , what do I know? Jordan thinks and asks "Do I have to count them like that?"
"Well, I guess not. How do you want to count them?"
Of course, out of the hundreds of pokemon out there, there would be a 4 syllable pokemon creature name. So now from this day forth, it is no longer a 16th note, but a "Rat-a-tat-a."

Hey, whatever works, right?