Gold Digging and Galactic Hearts

Love is in the air.....It's Valentine's Day! The cards are signed, the goodies are packed, the children are in Valentine appropriate attire, and my heart is full of love! Since I have been with Corey my Valentine's Days have been filled with pure love, whether it was in an over the top surprise, or in a quiet evening home alone. I found me a romantic one, but he'll never tell you such a thing. I'm just going to say that no man can compare - But, the details are ours and I don't wanna share. I guess that's what makes it so fantastic - It's mine! The love, that is!

Cooper is in his last year of preschool, and the Valentine's are just as cute as ever. This year he sported the Star Wars Valentines with lollipops attached. He felt pretty cool taking those in, and he was the only one. Most 4 year olds aren't really into Star Wars, I guess. So, it was no surprise to find that, not only were there no other cards like his, most of the other kids have no idea what Star Wars is. Leave it to his fanatic dad and uncle to have introduced the love of all things Star Wars to my little man. (Imagine now the sound of the "whoong whooong" while swinging something like a baseball bat around.) Yeah, this is a great stage he's in.

Katie is gearing up for a magical trip to Disney World for a week with her best friend, Hannah. She leaves this Friday, and is so excited she can't seem to function properly. A week's vacation from little ones, household chores, homework and parents? Oh, how I would have dreamed of such a thing at 14 years old. But, as her mother, it's slightly different now that I have a different perspective. We talk about strangers (still, yes), responsibility, the fact that she's going to be 3000 miles away from us, the importance of listening to Kyle and Jill (Hannah's parents) and making sure that her phone is fully charged every day. I'm sure she'll be fine, but until she's on her way I'll continue to sound like a broken record.

Like all kids his age, Cooper occasionally digs for gold. We let him know that he needs to get a tissue, and there's never an issue. But, last night when he was caught "red handed," he quipped "I'm not picking my nose. I'm smelling my fingertips!" Knuckle deep, this kid has a come back with something that makes us laugh so hard we can't even argue.

Or, when Corey asks who the most beautiful girl in the house is (implying that he should answer that I am) he gets an honest response;

"Kenzie, then Rayla, then Katie."

Corey: "Well, what about mom?"

Cooper: "Yeah, she's okay. But she's NOT a girl. She's a mom."

Hahahah!

Oh, how wondrous they are! Happy Love Day, all!

**Now Loading**

Do you remember when we were children, and technology almost seemed out of reach? We had cassette tapes, record players, televisions that were so heavy you couldn't move them, and radios that had a manual dial knob. Saturday mornings were what all of us kids looked forward to, because that's when the best cartoons were on TV. Occasionally, after school, we'd get to watch those specials that would air with stars such as Ricky Schroeder or Alyssa Milano in them. Nobody had cell phones. Nobody had laptop computers. Those days seem so far away now.

Fast forward twenty some years and now I have children who will never know how simple life was when I was a child. Saturday morning cartoons are not anywhere to be found on the local networks. Instead, they're on Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, or, worse yet, the Cartoon Channel. And, even then, sometimes those cartoons are just too ridiculous for me to let them watch. But, thank goodness for the DVR, right? There's still a recording of Bubble Guppies, Dora the Explorer, and Little Einsteins, just in case. But, anymore, it's the other electronics in this house that they can't seem to get enough of.

The battle begins almost daily with a fight for who gets the ipad first. Yes, that's right...we have ipads. I use mine mostly for playing and Internet stuff. Corey uses his mostly for work. We can actually play scrabble together with them, and have done so many times. But, the free apps on these things are endless and our ipads have become riddled with children's games, and, our children have learned how to operate this with complete ease...much to my disdain. But, it's my fault. They know that if the little icon in the middle of the screen is spinning something is "loading." They know how to close, and open programs. They know how to delete apps; again, not something that I'm thrilled with, as a few apps and programs have been deleted, along with all the information that I put in to them. Everything is computerized, and that's all they know. Everything is on a remote. Cooper often says "just fast forward it" if we're watching live TV. Another benefit of recorded DVR items. I've never really sat and thought about this, as it has become a normal part of everyday life in this house, and most houses for that matter. But as I think about it, we really are on overload. Literally....I mean, it's all electronics. It's all we do. It's how we function. It's how we live.

Tonight, Cooper and Corey were looking through our wedding albums. One of the albums is only about 3/4 full, and the rest of the book is filled with white, empty slots. Cooper, such a child of wonder, passed the last picture and continued to turn the empty pages of the book. He exclaimed to Mackenzie, who looked on impatiently; "It's okay, the pages are still loading."