What Legos Can Tell You About A Person

Editors note:  This is the first of a few late summer entries onto my blog.  We had a fabulous summer that kept me too busy to blog much, but so fabulous that I MUST blog about it, even if it is a few months late!

One fine summer day (and evidently a pajama day), my two sons were happily playing with Legos together.  Yes, together, and happily!  THAT is the magic of Legos.  Especially when you have 97,345,323 Legos.  One Lego LESS than that amount, and they would NOT have had enough to share and get along.

After a couple of quiet hours (can I get a WOOHOO!) Connor & Noah came running downstairs, eager to show me their amazing Lego creations.

Connor showed me his modular design Lego rocket ship which could launch a separate rocket, all very technical, well thought-out and precise.  VERY Connor.

Noah then showed me HIS Lego rocket ship.  And I cracked up laughing when I saw it and I still crack up every time I see it.

Noah...well, you see, Noah built a party ship.  A rocket ship full of Lego party people from an alien to a ninja to Darth Vader.  No controls or modules and not really very technical or precise.  But very social.  And VERY Noah.

I'm pretty sure Connor's ship would have dominated Noah's in an epic galatic battle.  But Noah's little gang would have at least had fun going down.

I hated babysitting when I was a kid, didn't know if I even wanted to have kids, then waited a long while to actually have kids, BUT I always knew that if I had kids I wanted to have boys.  And sure enough, I LOVE these two boys crazy mad and they entertain and crack me up every single day (and of course, they also infuriate & irritate me and are stinky & dirty every day, too).  And mostly what cracks me up is how radically different Connor & Noah are.

My ideal dream family was to have three boys, but it turns out I was wrong about that.  Because along came Shelby, my little girlie.  And she's extra awesome and not-over-the-top-girly because she carries around dinosaurs and Hot Wheels cars in her purses, and she loves snakes.  I have a joke with Shelby that she's my favorite dress up toy to play with.  I think having a girl after having two boys was extra fun, and I DID go extra wild with the girlie clothes and girlie hair clippies and girlie jewelry.    Oh, and can you see her shiny blue toenails??  Squeeeee!

Recently, I found myself watching the Real Housewives of Miami (no judging!  I just watch for the joy of palm trees and flowers!) and thought their newest cast member looked like Shelby.  What do you think?

It's reasonable to assume that Shelby would resemble her.  After all once upon a time, I looked very much like that hot babe on TV, too.  See? A stunning resemblance, wouldn't you say?

Mindy Z - best roommate ever!

UPDATE ONE HOUR LATER:  I'm too vain. I couldn't leave that photo up without showing what I really looked like at 20.  Maybe not as hot as that Miami chica, but hot enough.  Albeit with very poofy red hair.

(By the way, that's me hard at work at the BEST JOB EVER - I worked as the receptionist at the USU Football players dorm.   I actually was rarely in that office because I was usually out in the games area playing pool with the cute boys, all the while getting paid.  Seriously, BEST JOB EVER.)

Oh, and for the record, I'm not sure how a post about Legos and boys morphed into photos of me at 20, so don't ask or try to figure it out.  Just go with it.

...And All Were Happy in the Land

Everyone is happily settled in school and so far I'm happily enjoying my 3 kid-free hours every morning, basically accomplishing nothing aside from fulfilling the stay-at-home-mom role of watching soap operas and eating bonbons.  DID I MENTION HAPPILY??  YES. AND  ALONE.  AND QUIETLY.  And ALONE!!!!!  Actually, it's not soap operas but I am quite enjoying Jeff Probst's new talk show.  And actually not with bonbons (yuck) but usually with my preferred breakfast of microwave popcorn (yum).

So far, second grade SEEMS to be going better for Noah than first grade did.  Here he is at his desk, where we noted his placement at the END of a row.  Mrs Rosen has already evidently discovered that it's best NOT to have blabbermouth Noah placed in a group of kids who could serve as his audience.

Noah's China obsession continues.  Each second grader added a country or place they'd like to talk about this year.  Some kid wants to know about "big rock."  Bwa ha!!

Mark and I cracked up at this note about Noah, authored by Noah.  It starts out very neat (which we've been hammering him on for over a year now).  Annnnnnnnnnnd there, as you get to the end, its pretty much illegible where he evidently became bored or saw something else more exciting going on that he just HAD to be a part of.  He's just SO NOAH - yes, being "Noah" is an adjective in our Ritchie vernacular now.

Noah has only been in trouble twice that we know of.  His first grade teacher sent notes home nearly every week about some unacceptable behavior of Noah's (most were justified, we're not faulting her!).  This year, he was in trouble his very first day for talking (at which point we presume his desk was moved to its lonely and audience-less end of row position).   His second "incident" was for wearing his favorite monster cyclops hoodie with the hood UP and over his face, trying to scare the girls.  I guess he practiced on Shelby first.

*sigh*  SUCH a Noah thing to do.

And I absolutely LOVE this photo of Connor.  He may be in big bad middle school now, but he still comes home and puts on his penguin slippers. Kind of a Noah thing to do, don't you think?  :)

The Hills (of Cicero) Are Alive With the Sound of Music

Actually, Cicero has exactly zero hills.  And, thus far anyway, we have exactly zero music.

But we DO have a new trombone!  What a ruckus THAT caused in our household today!  And by ruckus I mean loud screaming for turns to try it out.  And lots of trombone honking.  But so far, the honks definitely beat the screeching squeaks from Connor's turn at the viola last year.  *shudders in memory*

Connor has decided on learning the trombone for middle school band and in his rabid enthusiasm and excitement insisted on getting it THAT VERY SAME DAY we turned his permission slip in.
  

Do you see a common theme/fixture in all these photos?

Shelby was FASCINATED with the trombone.  Obsessed.  Absolutely completely psychotically OBNOXIOUS.

It didn't take Connor long to discover the number one appeal of playing the trombone - the sliding thing that he could BONK people with.  I clearly remembered getting bonked more than once in band because the flutes had to sit in front of the stupid trombones.  *grumble grumble*  Connor started with Shelby, the nearest target.  I kinda sorta couldn't blame him, though.

Shelby protested by sitting IN the trombone case.

Upon his arrival home from school, Noah joined the ruckus and got his turn.

Connor decided to try and silence Noah's attempts by plugging up the trombone.  With his hand.  It didn't work.

Shelby then tried to help Noah out by continuously shoving "the instwuctions!  the instwuctions!" in his face.

Noah brought in the princess wind-up music box to add to the music fest.  Someone please help meeeee!

While Mark relived his glory days as a trombone player in high school, Shelby spotted the camera, forgot about the trombone temporarily, and started modeling and posing.

And at last, it was finally Shelby's turn.

Don't let the flower hair clippies and her silver sparkly shoes fool you - this little girl is girlie-girl in appearance only.  She hangs pretty much exclusively with bros, after all.  Whatever boys can do, she can do better.  Or louder, anyway.  She carries Hot Wheels cars and dinosaurs in her (pink flower) purse, she can burp louder than anyone in our family AND she's our kid LEAST afraid of bugs.

TIME OUT: As I sit here typing, Noah just ran through my office with Connor and the trombone chasing him.  Had to take a blog time out to remind Connor that the trombone is NOT a $900 toy.

First Day of School Yadda Yadda Yadda

I know, I know, EVERYBODY is doing it, posting their photos of their kids on the first day back to school.  But hey, it's mostly on Facebook (or so I hear), HOWEVER, since I'm no longer on Facebook (I broke free!  I broke free and it's amazing!) I'll have to do it here.  And, I don't think I've EVER made a blog post about the first day of school.  And it's high time I did!

I am soooo thankful to have three little kiddos who LOVE school.  This morning as I was stalking the elementary school waiting to take photos of Noah exiting from his bus, I saw a little boy sobbing his way into school - I ached for that poor little scared fellow.  Or maybe he just had a fabulous summer and didn't want it to end.  MY kids, however, couldn't wait for school to begin.  Did they NOT have a fabulous summer!??!?  Hmmmphh!

Anyway, here's that first AWWWWWWW back to school clothes and backpacks photo.  Although technically these are all last years' clothes and backpacks, but still in excellent and quite useable condition, thank you very much.

Oh, you noticed we're in our back yard, did you?  Yup, Connor refused to have his photo taken in the front yard because he is now in middle school and very mature and evidently has a mature reputation to maintain.  Or create, I suppose.  He's already attempting to master that "guy" pose where you put your fingers underneath your biceps to make them look bigger.

I know this is a dippy and trendy and very over-used family photo pose (bums, people, REALLY?  You'll never see ME in a family photo like that!), but I did it anyway.  Pretty stale, eh?

Second-grader Noah.  Yes, with jam on his face.  AFTER he'd supposedly brushed his teeth.  You did NOT fool me, Noah, you little punky boy.

My little preschool Shellybean.  She went to preschool last year, but THIS year she was riding the bus to preschool.  *cue the beginning of the Mommy tears*

At my behest, Mark followed Connor halfway to his bus stop and hid behind a car to take this sneaky photo.  Which is why it's blurry and awful.  But Connor discovered a 7th grade boy on our street (full of girls) and was ecstatic to have a new friend.

And NO, I did not follow Connor's bus to his middle school and take sneaky photos of him.  But I did drive by and take a photo of his school, knowing he was inside it.  *sniff sniff*

Shelby (looking somewhat nervous but still determined to be in the front of the line, no surprise there) leading the way onto the bus at the bus stop.  I'm frantically trying to take a photo while not blubbering in front of all of our neighbors (to explain the blur).

Here's Noah doing a tap dance off the bus.  Or scratching his bum.  I'm not sure which.  Probably the latter.  *sigh*

And another of Noah, in the flow and catching up with his old buddy from first grade, Tristan.  Noah's my little social bee, a trait NOT inherited from either Mark or myself.  But I do so LOVE that about him, even though his happy socialness gets him in trouble.  Kind of a lot.

And now the Mommy tears were full-on flowing.  Here's Shelbywaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa  *pulls self together*

And this photo…. *self falls apart again*  This will be one of my most-loved Shelby photos for my whole life, I'm sure of it.  *great wailing waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa*

Shelby even had to transfer buses at the elementary school, which greatly perplexed and worried and flat-out terrified me.  But look at her confidently going to her next bus, not needing me AT ALL.    Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

And now we're at the preschool.  This is where I full-on went bawling, had to put my sunglasses on and go back and sit in the car for fear of scaring all the little preschoolers with my puffy mascara-streaked face.   One of the parents asked me if I was okay and assumed it was my first child going to preschool.  "Ummmm, noooo blubber blubber blubber she's my third blubber blubber blubber but she's my baaaaaaby waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa blubber blubber"

I finally DID manage to get myself put together enough so that Mark and I could go have a celebratory breakfast at Panera Bread.

And afterward, I made Mark drive by Connor's middle school another time.  And yes, I took another photo.  I'll take what I can get of my beloved much-too-grown-up Connor.  *sigh*

FAST FORWARD ONE HOUR LATER

Shelby is home!  She came off the bus a happy little clam.

BUT Mommy was NOT happy when Shelby came home without her beautiful hair clippie from Grandma. Good thing she has 20 other pink hair clippies.

Shelby also came home on one of the most obnoxious sugar highs EVER.  Oh, cake for preschool snack RIGHT BEFORE you send 'em home?  Gee, thanks for that.  Grrrr!

It was right about here that she remembered something distressing about preschool - "I couldn't play when I got to preschool like I used to get to!  They made me SIT ON THE RUG and WAIT!!!!!"  Mark and I started to cackle at her dramatic, most awfully tragic announcement and then she shrieked, "HEY!  It's not funny!  Stop laughing!  I was MAD!!!! WAAAAAAHHHHH!!!"

A little while later, Connor arrived home and gleefully announced,  "Middle school is AWESOME!!!!!!!"  Which meant MORE Mommy tears.  You see, I'd been stressing (panicking / losing sleep / horrified) about Connor going to middle school for over a year now, ever since he skipped third grade last year and I realized that would mean he'd go into fifth grade in middle school at a wee 9 years old. DARN that kid for being so smart and for growing up so darn fast.  He's in BIG trouble for that.  *waaaaahhhhh* 

And finally, Noah arrived home, happily announcing, "Guess what?!?  I only got in trouble ONE TIME!"  Ummm, that's SUPER, Noah.  Off to a great start!  Ugh!  Looks like second grade may be a repeat of first grade, where I daily dreaded opening up Noah's binder to find what new trouble he had gotten himself into.  Upon finding out he was in trouble for talking (no surprises there) to his new buddy Jacob, we moved his name tag to a more appropriate place.  In school (long long ago), I was a quiet, model student, as was Mark (even longer ago), and I never dreamed that *I* would have THAT kid, the noisy problem child that always gets in trouble.  Where DID Noah come from???  And what the heck do we with DO with him!??!

We had a family dinner at Chili's to celebrate a successful and happy first day of school for all, where the waitresses were amazed that we could devour a Molten Chocolate Lava Cake in 90 seconds flat (look at all those hands and spoons and forks in there!).  Uhhhmmmmm, yeah, we're kind of amazing like that.  Thanks, I think.