...pants on fire

So this is a post about my sons new found love of lying. He has discovered that unless Mom and Dad see something happen they really cannot prove that it did. He has not quite mastered the full concept of lying and usually opens his lies with a line like the following recent ones, "I don't have candy in my pocket," "I didn't hit Annabelle in the head with my stick"... Keep in mind, these are conversation openers where no information was asked of him. When we then follow up with, " Jackson, do you have candy in your pocket?" he replies with, "Well, did you see me get candy?" if the answer is no he sticks to the lie until the pocket is checked, if the answer is yes he knows the jig is up and confesses. He has also discovered that this skill can be used to work his parents against each other and will often say when talking to one of us about something he wants that the other has vetoed, "Well, did you talk to Mom?" and "Did Daddy tell you I did it?".
He's lucky he's cute.

A big brother is born

Last weekend we were at the park with Kaysha and Patrick and were playing in a picnic area where two other children and their father were also sitting. The other kids were probably around 2 and 4 years old. The two year old little boy was concerned that Anna was getting to far from me and went over to her and was trying to get her to come back into the picnic area. He pushed her a little rough and then the four year old sister went over to her too and was telling her to come back in by her mom. I was just about to get up and decide if I needed to intervene, and was thinking in my head, "Hey, tell your kid to get his hands off of my daughter" when I looked over and Jackson was staring at them and slowly moving over to where they were. He walked over there quickly and without saying anything to them stared at them, quickly slid next to Anna, put his arm around her shoulder, took her hand and led her away from them. I almost cried. The look on his face when he looked at the situation and then at them was perfect "big brother", taking control of the situation. How do they learn that, I was so proud. Anna is in good hands.

(So these pics have nothing to do with the post, they are just cute brother and sister pictures)

First Love

I wanted to make sure to post about this since this is the closest thing I do to journaling right now. Last week I was having a rough afternoon and was emotional. Jackson saw me start crying and gave me a hug and asked, "There, all better now?" I said that I was and he turned away for a few seconds and looked back at me with a shy smile and said, "Mommy, I'm in love." I said, "You are? With who?" I didn't even know he knew what that meant. He paused for a minute and then smiled and said, "With you." Wow, not a bad day anymore. The next day we were doing an activity with pictures and color tiles and he said," Let's do the heart one because we are in love." How does he know what that means and how do I break it to him that I am already taken?

Is it bad that I hope he feels this way forever? Someone told me that you never get over your first love, I hope not. Sorry to his future wife, but I hope he always loves me like that and says forever to his future wife, "Yeah, it's pretty good, it's just not quite how my mom does it." Yeah, she will hate me. I'm half-way kidding, ok, maybe 25% kidding.