Harrison and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Harrison woke up on Monday and it was raining. He doesn’t like the rain. He gets wet in the rain. And when he got to the table to eat breakfast, he was greeted with a waffle and hash brown patty instead of pancakes. Waffles give him heart burn.

“Waffles don’t give you heart burn.” I responded.

“They do today”. He answered.

On the way out the door I gave him a different umbrella, it’s doesn’t open automatically – the other one opens automatically.  The other one has to spokes sticking out, I don’t want him poking some kid’s eye out. I got a heavy sigh and frown.

At school, he got in trouble for not listening – “twice”, he announced.

“I was telling friend #1 not to sit on the square because something yucky was on it, eeww! Then the teacher told me I needed to listen.”

“Later on friend #2 wouldn’t move forward, he’s supposed to move forward! I told him he has to move forward – the teacher told me I have to stop talking and listen.”

During recess Harrison fell and scraped his knee. He told me that it REALLY stung but “there are only two reasons you can go to the nurse -  if your bone is sticking out this way (as he twists his wrist into an unnatural position) or if you’re bleeding”.

“I wasn’t bleeding.” He huffs.

Then at the end of the day friend #3 jumped in a puddle, kicked water toward him and got his socks wet. He had to walk home in wet socks.

“I hate wet socks!”

At home I sat down on the sofa next to him to listen to his day assuring him that we all have bad days, he burst into tears and blurted out, “And now I can’t find the paper fortune from my cookie and it was really good!”

“…I was kind to that little boy in the store this weekend and helped him find his mommy and then he smiled at me and my fortune said, ‘be kind to others and kindness come back to you’… BUT NOW I CAN’T REMEMBER IT AND I LOST IT!”

(we found the fortune under the dining table.)

Later, as I started making dinner, he was jumping up and down behind the counter, playing peek-a-boo with me... Until he misjudged a jump and bumped his head underneath the counter.

Not too long after that as he hid under the table, pouting about yet another indiscretion, Daddy came over to inform him it was time for homework. A short drama ensued. We told him he had to come out and do homework or else and as he crawled out in his grumpy state, he stood up too soon and banged his head again – “in the same place!”.

“I’m really having a BAD DAY!” he cried.

We sat down on the sofa to regroup and pray. After a few more tears, I played him a Nina Simone song– reminding him that tomorrow will be a new day.
God and Nina, that made him feel better.

The G.I.D. told him that his mantra for the day was,
“Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down".
And even though it was lost on the six-year-old – I smiled.

At the dinner table I read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Harrison laughed and happily declared, “At least I didn’t have THAT BAD of a day!”

And with that, bedtime was a breeze.

 

I hope it doesn’t rain next Monday…

A Big-Kid Room

It’s actually been MONTHS since we re did Harrison’s room.  After we moved we had to combine Harrison’s room with the toys from the guest room/playroom/TV room. Not to mention the toys big Brother brought over to the house before he went off to college.
 
It quickly become obvious that just moving the furniture from Harrison’s nursery wasn’t going to cut it in the new space. We had to let some of it go to move forward in a new environment.

I searched for a good couple months. Finally, I landed on the Ikea Expedit shelves as the perfect resolution to my space issues. Shelving that could grow with Harrison.

So off we went to Ikea to get the new furniture – only to find out they were changing manufacturers and would have the units for two – three months!

Let me tell you, we have three Ikeas within a 50 mile radius – I tracked them all and I became very well acquainted with Craigslist to no avail.
Finally, they were back in stock and I drug the hubby to the nearest Ikea as fast as humanly possible. 
I didn’t get the walls painted yet, but we love the outcome of Harrison’s room.
Harrison loves the outcome of his room.

In the picture above, you can see the clear bins that hold all of Harrison’s Legos. I love these; most of the time he only dumps one small bin at a time as opposed to dumping a giant tub all over the floor.

We swapped out the smaller unit in the closet with the vintage chest of drawers. It works much better next to the bed and still fits the pails that hold miscellaneous toys.
As he cleaned his room the other day to prepare for a play date, he stood back to take it all in. Suddenly he jumped up on the bed and announced, “There’s room here for another person! Hey, Can I have a sleepover! I’m ready for a sleep over now!”

The question is: Am I ready for a sleep over.

Oh, and notice how good he looks in those jeans… just sayin’.

Snapshot Sunday | His Happy Face

My dear friend over at Barely Controlled Chaos made a list of goals for the year that included taking a “favorite photo of the week” in an attempt to pick up her camera more this year.  In my own life blogging fell by the wayside for so many reasons in the last two years.

The other night as I read through some old blog posts and released a couple more drafts that got left behind here at PBP , I realized how important this platform is in recording the precious moments the G.I.D. and I share with our sons.

Moments that I would have otherwise have forgotten.

Moments that make me happy.

So as I took pictures of Harrison late Saturday night for my 366 Project (picture a day), I captured a moment that I kept coming back to for the rest of the weekend. He was in the middle of a laugh while putting together a new Lego set.

I caught that happy face and I LOVE this picture.

I LOVE his HAPPY FACE.

One of the categories my friend has added to her blog is “Snapshot Sunday” a resurrection of sorts of Best Shot Monday … and I loved Best Shot Monday. (Apparently, I’m feeling a lot of love this Monday morning…)

I know it’s Monday, but I was computer-free yesterday and I just had to share MY favorite snapshot this week, Harrison in his “Happy Place”.

Happy Monday!

What!?! {photo story friday}

He told me he he doesn’t like jeans.

A BOY who doesn’t like jeans!

I mean, REALLY? Boys and jeans go together like a horse and carriage, peanut butter and jelly, salt and pepper, Rosemary and Thyme, Laurel and Hardy, George Burns and Gracie Allen… well you get the idea.

Heck, when I was a kid, I longed for jeans. Where I grew up jeans were cool – especially Levi’s. And I WANTED Levi’s, no other jeans were good enough – not Calvin Klein, Wrangler, Lee or Sassoon. No. I needed traditional, button-fly Levi’s.  But don’t cry for me, I had jeans - I just didn’t own a pair of Levi’s until I was in college.

Harrison, however, has already owned several pairs of Levi's (Thanks to Big Brother, re-sale stores and friends). Although it’s not about Levi’s; he doesn’t like ANY jeans. He admonished me again this morning when I made him wear jeans to school (instead of exercise pants),
“Mom, remember, I don’t like jeans.”

I remember, but you’re wearing them anyway.

I mean after all, who DOESN’T own at least ONE pair of jeans to wear occasionally?

Then again, there was my mom. 
She owned 77 pairs of polyester, elastic-band pants - in a rainbow of colors.

Not one pair of  jeans.

Apparently the no-jeans gene skips a generation.

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

Wordless Wednesday | Zombie!!

This year it's been all about zombies.
Not that we have ever watched zombies...

Then again, they're everywhere during the month of October.

...and there was that one time when he bonded with "Headless Harry".

Wordless Wednesday | He’s Going to be a Street Performer…

Happy Wednesday!