Kid Quote of the Day

A friend generously gave us a bike that her daughter outgrew that is the perfect size for Amanda.  Amanda had asked me for a bike because she "wanted to ride like Sarah".  Sarah saw the bike in the back of the car.

Sarah:  This bike is really dirty.  Why would anyone want a dirty bike?

Me:  Because it's free.

Amanda:  And I love to ride dirty bikes.

Stream of Consciousness

Tonight at dinner, the kids and I got on a really weird topic of conversation.  I'm not sure how, but at one point Sarah wondered what if Andy was a cow and we had to milk him.  I mentioned that we would have to do it because it is uncomfortable for cows not to be milked and it makes them feel much better afterwards because of the pressure build-up of the milk in their udders.

I told the kids it was kind of like when babies nurse, the mom can feel the pressure of the milk building up and it feels better when the baby eats because it takes away the milk and decreases the pressure.  Very matter of fact, almost scientific.

The next thing out of Andy's mouth is a question about Mick Jagger.

Me:  Does talking about cows make you think of Mick Jagger?  He's got the mooooves like Jagger? (There is a song where the chorus is "He's got the moves like Jagger, he's got the moves like Jagger, he's got the mooooooooves like Jagger".  I don't know the name of the song, but the kids love it and it is catchy).

Andy:  It does in my version.  You know how kids like to make up their own version of songs?

He went on to explain that his "kid-version" of the song is "He's got the boobs like Jagger", so when I started talking about breast-feeding he thought about boobs which made him think about Mick Jagger which led to his question.

I think it was if Mick Jagger had a wife.  Maybe he was thinking about her boobs.  Nine-year-olds sure are interesting.

Kid Quote of the Day

"Who would want to play with a naked baby doll?  Well, Amanda would, but not me."

-Sarah

Picture of the Day

The birthday boy in video gamer heaven, playing online with his cousin and uncle, who are in Chicago.  He could seriously do this all day.

Picture of the Day

Here is a picture of Renee, April and me from the big birthday party in New Jersey.  It was a decades party, so you were supposed to dress in your favorite decade.  One of us is dressed from the 70's, one from the 80's and one from the 90's.  Can you guess which is which?  Lol.  Surprisingly I went for the relaxed, conservative look.  I'll never change.

Cake Balls

Tomorrow is Andy's birthday, so he asked me to make a treat for his class.  Always the overachiever, he didn't want anything as mundane as cupcakes.  No, he asked me to make cake balls.  It's not that cake balls are that difficult to make, because they aren't, they are just very time consuming.  First you have to make the cake and let it cool, then add the frosting, then roll the balls and put them in the freezer for a couple of hours.  Then you have to dip and decorate (or cover all your mistakes) them.

I made the cake early in the day so that was no problem, but once I picked the kids up from school we were on the go with activities.  While I was making dinner for Charlie and the kids I also formed the balls and stuck them in the freezer so they could set while I went out to dinner with a friend.  Once I got home it took me a bit to get into the dipping mode, so I started kind of late.

Melting chocolate is not my forte.  It doesn't seem that difficult, I mean how hard is it to melt those little chocolate disks?  Apparently it is very difficult, because I always over cook the chocolate so that it is actually hard and creamy (more like frosting) than smooth and runny.  They didn't turn out exactly as I would have liked, and when the chocolate missed a spot the cake stuffing started pouring out the holes, but they turned out pretty well for my second attempt.  Also, thanks to the tutelage of my chocolate-making friend, Terri, I have learned the art of drizzling another color icing on top to hide your mistakes.  Okay, I've learned about it, that doesn't mean I actually do it that well.  She makes it look so much easier than it really is.

So at 1:30 a.m. this morning I went to bed after completing the cake balls.  This morning Charlie and Andy helped me bag and tie them before they left for school.  Thankfully Andy was actually very appreciative of my efforts.  He may actually be starting to get it in his ripe old age of nine.

Here are a few pictures.  One is of four finished balls and the other is the finished product that each of the kids got to take home at the end of the day.  Want me to make you some?  Get in line.

Kid Quote of the Day

"Mommy, I'm all strapped in can we go now?"

-Sarah, the child who 99.9% of the time is the slowest and last one to get strapped into the car.

An Escape from the Madness

Over the weekend I went to New Jersey for April's 40th birthday party.  She is one of my BFFs from college and it amazing to us both that we have known each other for over 20 years.  Our other BFF, Renee, joined us as well.  We stayed up late, ate and drank a lot, teased each other, told stories and when we ran out of things to say just sat there contentedly in silence together.  An amazing escape from reality with two of my favorite people.

While I was there, the one thing I noticed was how quiet it was.  April only has one little boy who is Amanda's age.  Although he cried a little and talked some, it seemed like nothing compared to my kids.  Possibly it was because he was a little shy with so many new people in the house or maybe he really is just that quiet.  April is coming to Texas in April so I had to warn her, my house is not that quiet.  I'm sure she will enjoy the chaos for the few days she is here, but will be glad to leave when the visit is over.  Of course, she is a pre-K teacher, so she's used to crazy, loud kids.

I got home Monday afternoon extremely tired and groggy from too much fun, and then moved right into the week.  Charlie left for a business trip the next morning and then I had to get back to reality.  I am finally finding a few minutes to write and I have a little person standing next to me who keeps asking relentlessly for an Airhead (candy kind of like taffy) that she is not going to get.

Not that I didn't miss the candy eaters (which to be honest I really wasn't gone long enough to truly miss), but it is wonderful beyond words to be able to get away and be me for a couple of days without anybody relying on my services to help them get through their day.  Plus, listening to my friends share stories about their kids helps me come back and be a better mom.  Relax, destress, gain perspective and patience.

For my the good of my kids I really need to go on more of these trips.  I'm sure Charlie agrees, especially he gets to come with me.

Kid Quote of the Day

Amanda:  I want a snack.

Me:  What do you want for a snack.

Amanda:  A lollipop.

Me:  Ha, ha, ha, you're so funny!

Amanda:  You not say ha, ha, ha.

Kid Quote of the Day

Me:  Amanda, look what came in the mail today.

Amanda:  Two Elmo shirts.

Me:  Yes.

Amanda:  I want one of those.

Me:  They are both for you.  You can wear one tomorrow.

Big smile from Amanda, amazingly speechless little girl.

Fail

It doesn't matter how hard I try, I can never get the girls to school on time.  It doesn't matter if we are rushing or we have plenty of time, I always seem to turn on the car at 8:50 (or later) and it takes more than 10 minutes to get there before the official start of the day.  Thankfully since I pay for them to go to school, I don't get a lot of flack from the teachers or anyone at the school.  They are just happy to see us.

Today was an epic fail.  It started out well enough.  I got up on time, got showered and dressed and was ahead of my usual schedule.  Charlie helped me get Amanda dressed so that battle was quicker than usual, and the girls were unusually interested in eating breakfast this morning.  They happily agreed to stop playing long enough to put their shoes on, all was well.

I wanted to leave the house at 8:40 so I could stop by the post office and drop off a couple of things.  They already had postage on them, we just needed to run them inside.  As I was grabbing Sarah's backpack and ushering the girls to the front door I realized I hadn't make Sarah's lunch.  All that time I wasted reading the paper or whatever else I was doing and I completely forgot.  This happens more times that you would think.  When I'm rushed I remember to do everything but we're late.  When I have all the time in the world I forget to do things and remember at the last second and then we're still late.  Of course if I had remembered to make her lunch in the first place we would have been on the late track anyway.

I quickly put her lunch together, put her lunch box in her backpack and headed back to the front door.  I called the girls and as they walked to the front of the house I noticed Amanda was wearing a uniform.  Oh yeah, she had school today too (yep, my mind is that scattered that I didn't remember putting a uniform on her), she needed a lunch also.  Ugh.  Back to the kitchen to put a quick lunch together for Amanda.

Half way through making her lunch the door bell rang.  I had no idea who that could be.  When I opened the door and saw my friend on the porch I remembered I was taking her daughter to school this week.  Totally forgot.  I took her yesterday, but that didn't seem to stick in my head.  Good thing I forgot the two lunches or we would already be gone.  Unbelievable.

In the end, I finally got all three girls in the car with their backpacks and lunch boxes and turned on the car.  8:57 a.m.  Majorly late.  I may never, ever, get them to school on time this year.  At least they didn't go hungry.

The Cup

I don't write very many stories about Andy and Sarah because they are older and have bigger issues, even at five and eight, that they may not want me sharing with the world.  Sometimes I want to write them just for posterity, but I don't.  Since Amanda's antics are more cute than embarrassing at this age, it's easier to focus on her.  Yesterday, however, something happened that I have to tell.

Andy joined a baseball team this spring (yes, in Texas they start baseball in February) for the first time in two years.  He got kind of sick of it before and we didn't push, only saying that he had to play one team sport a season but not mandating which one.  We never wanted the kid to get burnt out, but we did want him to learn to work with others and get some exercise other than working his thumbs on the video game controllers.

We thought he was done with baseball for good, but in the last six months he has gotten a lot more interested in it and decided to try again.  He was really excited to start the season, especially since now he is old enough to play kid pitch instead of coach pitch.  He went to a couple of practices and after one boy had an unfortunately incident the coach sent out a mandate that all the boys had to wear a cup to all games and practices.  Fair enough.

I went and bought it, but told Charlie it was up to him to show Andy how to use it.  Except we got really busy moving rooms this weekend and Charlie and Andy didn't know where I put it and never got around to it.  So, yesterday Andy had practice and he had to wear his cup.  Not that it's rocket science, but since I have never worn one myself I didn't feel that comfortable showing him how to wear it.

Luckily growing up I had a couple of brothers and so I had a basic idea of how they work.  Even more lucky the one I happened to buy was extremely self explanatory so we figured it out pretty quickly.  Andy is still young enough that he wasn't embarrassed to have me help him and at the same time thought it was really cool.  I tried to explain to him how it worked and make sure he had it on right so was trying to somewhat lightly punch him in the crotch so he knew what it was supposed to feel like if he got hit and make sure everything was in the correct place.  His natural instinct was the cover up every time I went to punch him, so it took awhile for us to make sure it was on right.

I left the room and told him to finish getting dressed and went to do something with the girls.  A few minutes later Andy comes out in only his jock strap and cup and his black baseball socks up to his knees like a grandpa and says, "Sarah, punch me as hard as you can wherever you want!"  Sarah was totally confused and just sat there not knowing what to do so he said it again, "Punch me as hard as you can wherever you want!"  She was still extremely hesitant, smart girl assumed if she punched him he would punch her back, so I said, "Sarah, he wants you to punch him in the penis so you can see how well his cup works."

Yes, at that point I was tired and didn't feel like watching it all play out or waiting for her to finally figure out what the heck he was asking her to do.  I went downstairs at that point so am not sure how it ended, but I don't think she ended up punching him.  He, however, kept hitting himself in the cup the rest of the afternoon, still unbelieving that he could punch himself there and it didn't hurt.

(Yesterday's) Picture of the Day

I meant to post this yesterday, but sometimes things go awry.  Sarah made this last week at her Valentine's party.  I'm not sure why they had their party a week early, but I guess it was so we could celebrate all week with this on the counter.  There were a lot more hearts in it when we brought it home, you couldn't even see the top of the bud vase, but I think everybody has been sneaking them all week.  I thought it was a very cute and easy idea for five-year-olds, and she loved it.  Glad she has such a creative room mom, because if it was me we just would have played Valentine bingo.

Periquito Azul

The kids have to do this "project" at school called Periquito Azul.  It's kind of like Flat Stanley.  For those of you that don't know who Flat Stanley is, he's a paper man that you send to your friends and have them take pictures of all over town and then send back to you so you can do a report.  Periquito Azul is sort of like that except you don't mail him anywhere.  You just keep him for a week or long weekend and take pictures of him and your child wherever you go.

The kids love it.  What pre-schooler wouldn't love an extra stuffed animal for a few days?  The parents, on the other hand, not so much.  Okay, I won't speak for all the parents.  This parent does not enjoy it because you have to go all these places so Periquito can go and then you have to take pictures that your kid doesn't want to smile for and then you have to put it all in a journal at the end of the week which is work for me.  Since the last time I checked Amanda could not write a few paragraphs detailing her adventures with her friend (however she did look at a word today and point out an "A" to which I was amazed because I haven't taught her anything about her letters), I have to write about how much we loved sharing our home with our visitor.

Whoever told you that your homework was done when you graduated college was wrong, because you sure do spend a lot of time helping your kids with theirs.  Even in pre-school.

Picture of the Day

Sorry this is blurry, but she doesn't stand still very well.  We stopped at a store today and they had this Angry Birds display.  Amanda decided she was going to buy all the of pig clip-ons so she has every single one she could find in her hands.  If we hadn't made her put them back she would have walked out of the store with all of them.

Sleeping Arrangements

For the past couple of weeks things have been a little messed up at bedtime because Amanda has refused to sleep in her crib.  It was strange because she would sleep there for her nap, but wanted nothing to do with it at bedtime.

It started around the time her allergies were really bad.  We weren't excited about her sleeping so far away from us so we brought her into bed with us.  That lasted about a week.  Then, Charlie went out of town for a guys golf weekend and I continued to let her sleep with me because I had so much room in my bed and I didn't want to deal with her crying.  She sleeps so much better in our bed that I didn't have to get up in the middle of the night to mess with her.  It was wonderful.

When Charlie returned, however, he reminded me that this couldn't go on.  We worked very hard not to make our bed a family bed, as the crunchy diaper mamas I know call it, because we wanted some time away from the kids.  I don't care if other people do it, I'm not against it, it's just not for us.

We were planning on moving the kids around this summer anyway, and I had talked about how Amanda would get Andy's bed and Andy would move to her room, or something of that nature.  I think bunk beds will eventually be involved, but we didn't get that far.  When Amanda again said she didn't want to sleep in her bed I asked her where she wanted to sleep.  "Andy's bed."  And where was Andy going to sleep?  "Couch."

That worked for a day or two, but Andy didn't really want to sleep on the couch.  I'm not sure why because the couch in the game room is more comfortable than any bed in our house, but if he didn't want to be there we couldn't make him sleep there.  So, Andy slept on the futon in our room and Amanda slept in his bed.  Do you see what is happening?  This girl is making decisions for the entire family that impact us all, and we're letting her.  We are so off our game.

Finally this weekend we took down the crib (no, it was not sad at all, it was joyous!) and moved the futon into Amanda's room.  Then, we moved all of Andy's stuff out of his and Sarah's room and moved most of Amanda's stuff out of her room.  It was not at all what I wanted to do this weekend, there are so many other things I need to be cleaning or purging, but it is done and everybody is happy.

Especially Charlie and me because we finally have our room, and our bed, back to ourselves.

2 1/2

Guess who turned 2 1/2 today?  Not a major milestone by any means, but I cannot believe how far we've come.  All of a sudden we have an independent, feisty, loud, giggly, loving, trouble-making little person in our lives who is no longer a baby and can do an unbelievable amount of things on her own, but still wants to snuggle.  I'm so excited to see who she's going to become!

Picture of the Day

From our Disney trip in January, trying on hats.

Kid Quote of the Day

Andy:  Amanda, can I have a hug?

Amanda:  No.

Andy:  Why not?

Amanda:  Because I don't yike you.

Andy:  Will you give me a hug if I give you this Tootsie Roll?

Amanda gave him the biggest hug ever.


LATER...

Andy:  I gave Amanda a Tootsie Roll so she would give me a hug.

Charlie:  Was it worth it?

Andy:  You bet!

Stickers

I think I've mentioned before how much Amanda likes stickers.  I know I've mentioned how much she likes tape, and stickers are SO much better than tape.  She loves them almost as much as Andy hates them, which makes the whole thing funny because he gets so mad when Amanda plays with stickers.

This is what she did yesterday when she was left alone with a sheet of stickers for about five minute.  Yep, she's that fast.  It was kind of funny at first, until we tried to take them off.  For some reason these particular stickers had extremely strong adhesive on them and they did not come off very easily.  They even left marks and took some skin off around the elbow pits (the crease on the front of your arm opposite your elbow where you bend your arm) because the skin is more delicate there.

I told her no more stickers on her arms anymore, but I also told her to stop coloring on her doll with crayons today and she just looked up, smiled, and then kept on coloring.  I don't think anything is going to stop her.  This kid does stuff the other two never did.  I think she's just trying to remind me that I saved the best for last.

Get Well Soon!

Sarah made this for my brother, Mike, who is in the hospital fighting a massive infection.  We're all thinking about you Mike, and sending you our best wishes for a speedy recovery so you can go home soon.  Stay strong, we love you!

Picture of the Day

This is what happens when Amanda decides she wants to sleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed.  Not exactly sure where we are supposed to sleep.

Picture of the Day

Another picture from our Disney trip.  You can sort of see the paint in the girls' hair from the day before.

Allergies

There is a price to pay for the amazing weather we've been having lately.  Amanda has horrible, horrible allergies this week.  It's so sad because this tiny little thing is coughing like crazy, that loud, scary, sounds-like-a-seal-barking cough, and she's having a hard time breathing.  Mountain Cedar is especially high this week, so she must be allergic to that, but knowing what it is doesn't make it any better.

Besides all the coughing and sleepless nights for her and us, we have once again brought her into our bed, making our quest to get her out that much more difficult.  She had been waking between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. every morning trying to sneak her way into our big, fluffy, soft bed.  Most days I could get her back to sleep, but occasionally I would be so discombobulated that I would just pick her up and bring her back to sleep with us.  Once I asked what was wrong, why was she crying?  Her response, "I don't yike my bed.  I yike your bed."  So cute, yet still don't want you there.

But now she's back in full force.  We want her to sleep with us so we can hear her breathing and know that she is okay.  After three kids you'd think we'd be better about this, but we both have a slight, crazy fear that if she doesn't sleep with us there's a chance she won't wake up.  We'd rather get no sleep and have her with us, so we can sort of watch over her.

Last night we gave her two steam baths, allergy medication, Benedryl, Advil, and two different inhalers.  Oh, and Vicks vapor rub on her feet with socks.  We were a little worried it was too much, but we've done it before.  When I took her to the doctor today to verify that she didn't have some major lung infection I was a little worried to tell him what we'd given her, but there was no need.  He told me to up the number of puffs from the inhaler and the rest was fine.  Ugh.

Hopefully once all of this blows over we can get her back to her bed and we can all get some sleep.  Until then I'll just enjoy the warm, cuddly baby in my bed and hope she stays comfortable.