Because if there’s one glorious thing to being deaf… Also, I’m nuts

 

 

Mr. Daddy had to travel for work.

 

Momma had a discount coupon burning a hole in her email.

 

And their boy has got the rhythm, got the beat, and he can’t stop it.

 

Cue a music lesson, an impromptu stop at the store, and one very happy (and crowded) little boy riding home with a full size drumset.

 

 

Pretty much every single person who saw that picture told me I was out of my squirrel-loving mind.

And then I got that set home and thought, “self, you are out of your squirrel-loving mind”.

 

Because if you’ve never put together a drumset before, you really ought to treat yourself to that experience sometime.  Make sure you throw in a deliriously impatient 7-year old randomly pounding on whichever drum you are trying to attach and smashing cymbals 2” from your hearing-aid.

 

But I need to backtrack a bit.

 

The teacher started the lesson off with the best part of drumming.

Boog was ENTHRALLED.

 

It was all going swimmingly when he pulled a classic Boog stunt.  The teacher was bent over him tapping out the beat with him in unison.

 

When Boog had completed the rhythm successfully, he deigned it a perfect time to celebrate.

Completely forgetting the poor man directly in his line of fire, he threw his arm up in victory and twirled his drumstick. 

Right in the poor guy’s face.

 

You know when you put a card in a bike wheel…?  It was kind of like that except it was a nose vs. drumstick.

 

~

 

Once we realized the teacher wasn’t going to flunk him over that – I made an unplanned detour to ensure that the drumstick craziness could continue at home.

 

And after setting up a full-size set of drums in the living room… I let Boog go to town on them.  I may or may not have secretly been hoping our horse-beating neighbors were enjoying the music too.

 

 

Let’s just say that the cymbals are kind of a pain to fix when your kid does this to them.  Fourteen times.

Umm yeah… they’re not supposed to look like that.

 

 

Over the next week, we had a parade of visitors – and without fail, every single adult grimaced when they walked in to see this.

“Drums?!?!  Are you crazy?!?!”

(which is a highly ridiculous question to ask me if you’ve ever read my blog)

 

It was so very easy to smile conspiratorially with Boog and say,

 

“If not a deaf mom, who would let their kids learn to play?”

 

 

You know, the deafness thing can be really un-fun most days.  I miss 90% of what goes on around me simply because some sounds you cannot lipread.  But of all the things I miss, music was a brutal loss.

 

My entire family (and much of Mr. Daddy’s) is musically inclined.  After I lost my hearing at age four, I grew up with my sister and mother singing harmony.  I watched, knowing the words but mouthing them.

 

It was a happy thing to realize that Boog had a love of music.  And could pick up a beat.  Happier still to realize we could both enjoy percussion.

 

It shakes the house, that big bass drum.  The snare drum takes a fair beating most days.  And the tom-tom send thumps through the floor.

 

And oh the drumstick twirling.  I could watch that for days.

 

He plays with a crazy grin (and even shares his sticks with those same adults who said Mommy was insane).  Our house is full of joyful noise right now, and I really love that the silver lining to this deafness is that my boy can enjoy this.

 

And Mr. Daddy?  You’ll catch him geared up like this:

 

 

Did you let your kids play loud instruments?

Did others think you were crazy?

 

.

I have got to stop screaming in Target

 

 

So remember when I told you my kid had made it his life’s goal to check out every public restroom in the tri-state area?

There was the one where he prayed loudly, “Jesus, help me POOOP”. 

 

Consider yourself blessed if this blog is the only place you will ever experience that phrase.  Amen and Amen.

 

And when his plan totally backfired at Target?  Leading to this face:

 

Or hey, when he discovered what that hole in the front of his “underwears” was for?  And everyone else in the Walmart bathroom got to hear his conversion from disbelief to glee?

 

 

Oh gosh… I knew there was another story.  But I wasn’t prepared for the number of results that came back when I searched my own blog for the word “bathroom”.  Y’all… it’s a sickness.

 

The ultimate one was the righteous plugged toilet.  And how my monkey boy ended up defacing church property.  And me.  Talk about holy water.

 

 

But it’s like I can never close the series of “Shopping with Kids”.  Because there is never a dull moment with this Boog.

 

(By the way… I’m sorry for all the links.  Drives me crazy when I’m reading someone’s blog and they’ve linked up every other squirrel-lovin’ sentence.  But it drives me nuts worse when I don’t know the story behind it.  And since people are often doubtful all this crazy stuff could happen to us…)

 

 

Target.  Of course.

I knew it was trouble as soon as I turned around from securing the handicap stall door.

 

His boxers were at his knees and he was ready to get down to business.

 

Oh please, oh please.  Don’t let him see it.

 

But then… he did.

 

He stood there in rapt attention as the fly buzzed from the tank to the rim.

 

 

Right within firing distance.

 

 

 

OH MY LORD.

 

 

Have you ever seen a kid chasing a fly with an apparently unlimited supply of urine?

 

(The kid had the limitless pee, not the fly.  Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a fly pee.  Have you?  I have; however, seen pee fly).

 

It was thoroughly traumatizing trying to stay out of the line of fire and screaming at the giggling boy to STOP JUST STOP!  He was alternating between crazed laughter and kamikaze shooting sounds.

 

Y’know.  Flies are dumb.

 

That sucker circled the bowl of the toilet 14 times until all the shenanigans somehow knocked the toilet paper dispenser off the wall (seriously… this only happens to me) and the psuedo-gunshot sound scared the kid into instant peelessness.

 

(I love that word.  Pee-less-ness).

 

I have got to stop screaming in Target.

 

.

the last time your kid did something so publicly humiliating you knew they could never ever top it

 

Because, y’know, dropping your pants in the middle of the Safeway parking lot to prove to your mom that you couldn’t find your underwear after swim camp is totally normal.

 

So… the last time YOUR kid did something so publicly humiliating you knew they could never ever top it… GO!

milestones

 

 

The man

has another birthday.

 

 

He’s ridiculously cute

I think I’ll keep him.

 

(And now I know where Boog gets those ridiculously stubborn cowlicks times two).

 

The past few years have had some heartbreaking grief.

 

 

And then his own health scare.

 

And then… him putting the fear of God into cancer.

 

He doesn’t know the meaning of quit.

 

And I’m glad.

 

 

Because he doesn’t quit loving me.

Doesn’t quit being my best friend.

 

 

Doesn’t quit teasing me.

Doesn’t quit being an awesomesauce dad.

 

He’s good people.

 

 

Happiest birthday Mr. Braddy.

(I had to… I just had to!)

 

 

 

Stop it, I mean it!

 

Impromptu Princess Bride quote fest in the comments to show him some birthday love!

 

 

.

and we return to blogging with farts. because boys

 

 

Quality family time + distraction from the heat = the county fair.

 

Remember when Boogadacious went on this crazy-high jumping thing last year?  And the guy working it gave me all kinds of laughs when I looked at the pictures later?

 

I figured Boog would like the animals best… especially twin kids who sucked on his fingers.

 

 

 

And I thought for sure nothing would beat his ride on a CAMEL with Cousin A.

 

(Seriously… county fairs aren’t like what I remember!)

 

 

I was pretty sure he’d love the spinny ride. 

Are you sensing a pattern with the many faces of Cousin A yet?

 

(Seriously – someone please tell me what that couple behind him is doing?  It’s doubly hilarious that every picture before and after this one they are happily posing for my camera, ha!)

 

 

I severely misjudged the amount of delight his sledgehammer prize would bring him.  Cousin A deserves sainthood for this one.

 

And if you guessed that he then accidentally brushed a stranger in the face with it and she totally flipped out on us… well, 50,000 OnceUponAmiracle points to you!

 

 

 

But I should have known. 

 

That the highlight of his entire day cost absolutely nothing, yet was utterly priceless.

 

 

See… Cousin A began a story with,

“There was big fart and a little fart.  And one day…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no idea how the story ended.  Except that Boogadacious was in hysterics.  And several tweens nearby were totally blowing their eavesdropping cover.

 

They’ve bonded now, y’know.

 

“There was big fart and a little fart.  And one day…”

 

 

.