Luke Skywalker One. Vader Zero.

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Last month, Beck made an emergency landing at the Tria Acute Injury Care Center (if you ever have a broken bone - go directly there. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.) We got lucky that time; Beck had just sprained his finger. A little bit of tape for a few days and he was good as new.

But get this - you get a REALLY cool goody bag at Tria. Something Caden took envious note of when Beck came home from that visit.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon.

Cade "jumped" to the bottom of the steps (I'm told he was only on the second from the bottom, but I'm skeptical since there were no actual witnesses other than his duplicitous six year old brother...) and, of course, he landed wrong. Nanny took good care of him, iced it and hugged him up. But it looked like he was growing an egg on the top of his foot by nightfall.

So like any good parent, I had him pop some Ibuprofen and we all went to bed.

Well, I can't tell you how excited Caden was when he found out he was going to go to Tria himself in the morning. He went to sleep with visions of that goody bag dancing in his head all night long.

Either that, or he was just really excited that he wouldn't have to go to school tomorrow as evidenced they the note he wrote at bedtime:

{Begin Translation} Dear Ms. Brooke,
I am deciding that I will not go to school tomorrow. I broke my foot so I could have a stay at home day.
Yours truly, Caben. {End Translation}

When we finally got to Tria he was the patient-est patient there ever was. Not a single complaint. He was super proud to be there just like his big brother did before him.

He didn't want to take his sock off when asked because Beck didn't take his off when he was there! The doctor and I thought that made total sense... so after some ingenius reasoning (with a four year old) we resorted to what amounted to bribery... He finally relented when he heard that he'd get to have a picture of his foot taken and see what his own skeleton looked like! Now that was cool.

Oh. And then there was also the ride in the wheel chair...

When he got his cast on he declared:
"It's Darth Vader's mechanical foot!"

(He chose black for a reason!)

Apparently Lord Vader and Luke Skywalker had gotten into it with their light sabers yesterday and Luke finally beat his dad at his own game!

So:
One fractured metacarpel, one really cool goody bag and a couple of weeks in a cast. All in a days work for Darth Vader.

One big happy family

Beck finally moved back up to the top bunk again this weekend. Yeah!  Must mean he's growing up (again) after six months in shared sleeping quarters in his little brother's lower bunk.  Either that... or the fact that they're both grown two inches in the same time frame had something to do with it.  In either case, it'll make bedtime go a little more smoothly - for Beck anyway.

A typical bedtime these days includes 1) Beck passing out in three to five minutes while 2) Caden stays up and chats with Izzy (our new kitten... blog fodder for another day... c'mon! I'm a working mom with limited time on my hands...!) or Caden reads a book (or five) or he pulls out all the Star Wars Legos (still the active obsession for both boys) or he just comes downstairs and hangs out with the 'rents and listens to the iTouch and rocks out... until Mom and Dad say, "Uncle!" and he typically, finally, agrees to go to sleep too... in OUR bed, with us...  (but that's about an hour from now... Caden and Daddy are "working out" together downstairs right now... I managed to sneak away to the office while Beck sleeps peacefully in the next room!)

What prompted me to blog tonight - since I won't win any awards for "Blogger of the Year" in 2009?  (Getting to the point...)

  

Beck decided that it was time to read the Bible again a couple of nights ago.  A little background: About a year and a half ago we read a kids version: "The Eager Reader Bible - Stories to Grow on"  ( I'm not eagerly promoting it... it pretty much scared the be-Jesus out of him - yes - I just said that... but maybe he just wasn't ready for it yet either...)  But I thought it was important, since we don't belong to any church, that the boys still grow up knowing the stories of the Bible and understanding what religion is (if for no other reason than that they be educated about it when they enter the real world... how many fictitious books have you read with biblical themes in your life...?).  So after the Eager Beaver debacle I bought a different edition - one I recognized from my childhood - "The Golden Children's Bible"  - bigger, harder cover, less cartoonish....  It sat on the book shelf untouched for about... a year and a half.  Until Friday night.

So Beck pulls it out (and decides it's time to sleep in his own bed again on the same night. Yeah!...).  And we start with the story of "The Creation."  The Golden Books version is quite a bit more detailed - but that just means they ask more and better questions, right?.  Then we covered "The Garden of Eden", "The Serpent" and "Cain and Abel" (do you remember that they were the sons of Adam and they fought?  Wow, brother's fight?!  Okay - so with B&C at three and five  - I don't let Cain and Abel kill each other (that's for Star Wars make believe)... but they do hurt each other...  and boy does that bring on some more good conversation.  

So, tonight God flooded the entire Earth and Noah saved one of each animal and started the world all over again.  And Beck asked why?  So we went back to the beginning.  

God created Adam and Eve.  They had babies who had babies who had babies...  And Eve (that sneaky little sass) she convinced Adam to eat that forbidden fruit... which gave them too much knowledge and they were banished from the Garden of Eden and bad things started happening amongst all the people they created in the world because they didn't follow Gods simple rules... until God finally decided to put a stop to it and start over.  Hence Noah's Ark.

Beck inhaled sharply and said, excitedly, getting it:  "So everyone in the world is one big FAMILY?"  (He totally honed in on that and not the "bad things happened to the evil people concept", whew!)

But, wow!  I was so impressed with my little five year old.  I have a sharp little boy on my hands! (Yes, Grandpa... I know you've been saying this all along...)  

Then we get to go on to talk about how silly it is that some people fight with other people in the world, because, according to the Bible, which many people believe in... we're all brothers and sisters... aren't we?  Then Beck yawned and climbed up to the top bunk...

Caden, on the other hand, just took my iPhone and is listening to the "Star Wars" soundtrack in his bed... it's only 9:45pm... At least he's in HIS bed. (For now.)

What Three Year Olds do when they SHOULD be sleeping...

I can't. My Back Hurts.

Ok. I know. I've been remiss with the blog. But I've got good excuses... ok. Maybe not that good... But at least this is something!

So, I've been struggling with some back pain lately. Lately being since about the time Caden was born three years ago. I ignored it because it was intermittent for a long time, a long time being about three years - give or take. Then it took a turn for the worse after the holidays this year. So to make a long story short(er)... I started physical therapy a couple of months ago (see... who has time for a blog too!?)

During all of this the boys have been hearing a lot of, "Mommy can't do that because it will hurt her back" and "No! No! don't hang from Mommy's neck like a Monkey! Mommy's back! Mommy's back!" and "Don't step on the cracks or you'll break you mama's back!"

You get the idea.

Tonight, as I was lying (gingerly) on the bedroom floor with Beck playing a little board game (or more to the point, getting my bum kicked at a little board game), I heard this conversation take place in the kitchen between Caden and Alex:

Cade: "Daddy, will you pway storm twoopers and Cody wif me?"
(Star Wars references from Caden who is playing with action figures placidly at the counter while daddy cleans up from dinner...bless him!)

Alex: "No, sorry Caden, I have to finish cleaning up the dinner dishes... But YOU can help me if you want too!"

Cade: "Uh. No. Daddy. I can't. My back Hu-wurts"


I laughed so hard I nearly broke my back!

(Sorry. No time for pictures - but the boys are just as cute as always these days!)

Forever indebted to George Lucas

It's all Star Wars, all the time at our house these days.

I thought the Toy Story obsession was adorable... Then came Cars. I thought I'd never see anything so adorable as my two boys playing "Cars with eyes" for hours on end. But I've been proven wrong (again...). The Star Wars obsession is the best yet! I will forever be indebted to George Lucas for the memories!

Star Wars Galactic Battle, By Beck Sosa, Age 5

C3P0 and R2D2 under the Purple Death Star, By Beck Sosa, Age 5

Darth Vader of The Dark Side, The Artist

Light Saber fights are a pretty regular occurrence at our house these days. It's tricky business, this light saber fighting and war stuff. Explaining why it's O.K. to fight with light sabers (compare it to Olympic sword fighting?) and why it's O.K. to shoot each other with laser guns ('cause they're fake and Star Wars is just for pretend) even though that stuff is never O.K. in real life...

Star Wars is turning out to be a great lesson in understanding what it really means to be a good guy or a bad guy and what it means to be good or evil. It's WAY easier to drive these concepts home when there's a light saber involved! And, believe it or not, they actually find it much less frightening than reading stories of the same concepts from the children's Bible. It's hard to re-enact Cain and Abel without throwing rocks at your brothers head (and mommy won't let you do that for real or pretend!)

Check out this video clip:

Luke Skywalker and "Dark" Vader battle to the end.

Author's Note: Even Star Wars guys die with their tongues hanging out!

The Empire Strikes Dad (too)...

Beck dumped out all the money in his piggy bank last weekend and spent every last (time- consumingly counted) dime online ordering Star Wars costumes...

Luuuuuuuuke... I'm your Father!

See for yourself. Click PLAY.

The first official "friend" sleepover

Cousin Olivia had a sleepover with Beck and Caden last night at our house. The mommy's and daddy's went to the Loffler Companies Holiday Party at the Metropolitan while Aunti Sheri and Cousin Viki presided over the ruckus.

It was great to FINALLY have a volunteer to help me out in the kitchen! Livi helped make pancakes, eggs and bacon for breakfast.

Then everyone played hard to work it all off.

Cousin Livi (a.k.a. Buzz Lightyear-Fireman-Pirate-on-Lightening-McQueen) and the boys played Ninjas and Star Wars. Despite the costume to the contrary, Liv insisted she was Yoda.

And then Livi honored us with a little ditty she calls "The Train" on the harmonica. She must get it from her daddy!