Brendanism #549

Yesterday was a good day.

I spent a wonderful day with Dreamy Smurf chaperoning for his class field trip to Greenfield Village.

For those who don't know, Greenfield Village is a fantastic place to visit if you ever find yourself in Michigan. It's like taking a walk through time back to the 1800s. With homes (some originals and some replicas) of people like Henry Ford, George Washington Carver, Thomas Edison, Noah Webster (along with the first copy EVER of the Webster dictionary), and the Wright Brothers. There's old school houses, old churches, slaves' quarters, there's shops with the first bicycles, Replicated Model T production lines, first light bulbs, first airplanes, old (original) post office. There's horse drawn carriage rides and train rides....I could go on and on....it's just a really neat place to be if you're into the whole "Little House on the Prairie" thing.

Dreamy Smurf and his buddies (below)....I edited them out because I feel funny posting pictures of other kids on my blog without parental permission.....Am I the only freak like this?....do others feel funny about this?

Dreamy was totally into it. Reading and learning about each stop....he was fascinated with how different everything was back then. I loved that he was fascinated by all this. I made a much different trip to the same place with my oldest son's class 2 years ago....there was ZERO interest from my son and the group of kids I was assigned to. I basically had to force them into each building as they all just wanted to run and goof around.

Sometimes I feel that Dreamy Smurf doesn't get the same amount of "blog time" as my other two. His older brother gets blog time simply because he's a dramatic clown and is always trying to make people laugh.....some of the things that come out of his mouth simply make for a good blog post. Smurfette gets blog time because she's the youngest and my only daughter. And sometimes I feel that Dreamy Smurf gets slightly overlooked. He doesn't have that dry sense of humor that Hefty has and he doesn't have the advantage of being the youngest and only girl either. Plus I spend more time with his little sister because she's not in school all day and doesn't go to gymnastics every day....so naturally I have more to say about her.

Middle Child Syndrome. It's awful. Dreamy Smurf was always the shy one who didn't like to be the center of attention. He tends to be the "sweet one." His teachers adore him. The other class parents are always telling me that he's "such a sweetheart." He has definitely come out of his shell in this past year. Trying hard to over come always being overlooked. He's turning into a bit of a goof ball in his attempts to simply be noticed. I hate that. I hate that he is so overlooked sometimes that he feels the need to act like a goof ball to get our attention.

Even as a baby he tended to get over looked. He was my best baby BY FAR! I fell madly in love with this child and his unbelievable dimples the second I laid eyes on him. It took a little longer with the other two for reasons I'll save for another post. He was such a cuddler, he was my only baby that would let me rock him to sleep....I loved that....he rarely cried....and when he did cry it was more of a pathetic whimper than a down and out ear piercing cry. He was always such a happy, content, and EASY baby.

I would bring him somewhere and carry him in from the car in his car seat. He'd be asleep so I'd leave him in there and let him continue sleeping. I'd kinda forget about him and then 3 hours later find him wide awake, still strapped in his car seat, just staring at every one in his own little world....happy as a clam....who knows how long he had been awake. He made my life easy because he was born when his older brother was only 22 months old. It makes me teary eyed thinking about how much my little Dreamy Smurf missed out on because he was my middle child.

He makes me laugh every day with his funny little Dreamy quirks....even when he's frustrating the hell out of me with his wierd and picky little food aversions and his spacey and easily distracted ways I'm still laughing inside at his little Dreamyisms.

Well, I'm going to start making sure my sweet Dreamy Smurf gets his equal share of blog time.

Which leads me to the following story that summarizes Dreamy's personality.

My husband and I do not give our children a weekly allowance. They have their chores that they are responsible for .....keeping their bedroom and their bathroom clean, emptying the dishwasher, emptying the small trash cans around the house on garbage days, and putting their folded or hung up laundry in the laundry room away, and the basement is their domain. They are responsible for those chores. They do not get paid for those chores. But if they want to earn money I find other "above and beyond" chores for them to do. I pay $3/hour. I'm cheap.

So Dreamy Smurf was home with me a few days ago and I asked him if he'd like to earn some money by helping me outside. I was kinda thinking it'd be a nice mother/son working side by side moment.....and I was willing to pay for that moment. So I put him to work. I had several flower pots that needed to be filled with dirt. We have 3 yards of dirt sitting in my driveway still....don't ask.....so I handed him a shovel and said here ya go. We chatted about nonsense for awhile while he shoveled and I planted flowers in the flower bed. And then the following conversation took place...between me and my 9 year old Dreamy Smurf.....

Me - (UGH - GROAN - stretch). "Man, my back is killing me."

DS - "Why?"

Me - "Cause I'm getting old and my back can't handle being bent over like this anymore."

after several minutes of silence......

DS - (said with dead straight serious face) - "You know, mom, you should really think about getting the Roll & Grow."

Me - staring at him with my mouth hanging open......silence for one, two, three......"What?"

DS- "The Roll & Grow....you should get one....then you wouldn't have to bend over to plant flowers and your back wouldn't hurt."

Me - More silence for several seconds- *blink blink*- mouth still hanging open - "What's a Roll & Grow?"

DS- "You know...... the "Garden in a Box"

Me - "The what?" (now I'm starting to feel like a dim-wit)

DS- (now he's looking at me like HEL-LO-O) (rolls his eyes at me like I AM a dim-wit)....."The Garden in the Box?.....you know?......It's like a green blanket that you unroll on the dirt?....you water it and in a couple weeks the flowers come up?" (he then gives me the raised eyebrows with the head turned slightly to the left and hands in the air....like....NOW do you know what I'm talking about?)

Me - More silence...mouth still hanging open...."I've never heard of it......where did YOU hear about it?"

DS - "TV"

Me - "A commercial?"

DS- "No they had a whole show on it. It was interesting. And when that show ended there was another show about the....." And now as I'm typing this I can't for the life of me remember what the other product was....but he went into great detail about that one too....and now I'm a little pissed that I can't remember because I DO remember that it sounded kinda cool....like something I may want to purchase.

So this is what I mean when I say "Dreamyisms". While other 9 year olds are watching Sponge Bob and playing WII or football outside.....my son is watching infomercials. I love that about him.

It makes me laugh.

HE makes me laugh.

He's quirky.

It's cool.