… is on Masterpiece. I tivoed the first part, and have it playing on the tv during one of the many dances in the film, when Jocelyn comes downstairs.

She stops DEAD in her tracks and watches, riveted.

“MOMMY! There are PRINCESSES!”

She’s watching attentively now, and has already pointed out that they are wearing long gloves and SHE needs long gloves for HER princesses.

Sometime ago, I related the first tale of Ethan kissing on the playground. With a girl named Jeni in his class. We haven’t heard any other tales of this sort of behavior.

Until now.

It’s valentine’s day, right, so when the kids came home and unloaded all their valentine’s day party look, the kitchen table was pretty much covered with cards, candy, pictures, candy, cards, candy, empty wrappers, and some candy.

I was trying to get some more details about the parties and I picked through the cards and inspected what other mom’s had gotten their kids to give for valentines. (I was definitely the worst/cheapest/busiest mom, btw. My kids gave very generic valentines, with no extra goodies attached, in the midst of handmade, boxes of nerds, a barrel of monkeys (big hit, btw), temporary tatoos, lollipops, etc.) I noticed a couple of things from Jeni. Not valentines, or rather, not the valentines that were probably given with everyone else’s — a drawing that was probably done in the afternoon. It was a picture of dolphins with little hearts sprinkled everywhere. Very cute. I noticed it (and btw, he’s always drawing pictures for his friends, and bringing home drawings made for him by friends, so nothing unusual here) and commented on it to Ethan, and somehow got into this convoluted conversation:

Ethan: Me and Jeni love each other.

Ethan: But we had to go behind the tire.

me: Behind the tire?

Ethan: Yes. Because Mrs. T. doesn’t like it when we give loves.

James: Give loves?

Ethan: Yeah. So then Mrs. T couldn’t SEE US!

First of all, I’m pretty much dying at this point, having to cover my mouth to keep from giggling and smiling from the cuteness of it all. But I also wanted to know *what* exactly was going on behind the tire. I am very cognizant of the fact that he has not actually said “kiss” anywhere.

I tried to get more information and had to muddle through him pointing at his mouth (it was dinnertime) to indicate he was chewing and couldn’t talk, muttering, “I don’t want to TALK about it..” with stoic 5 year old rolling of the eyes, when finally:

me: What exactly went on behind the tire?

Ethan: We rubbed cheeks.

This is very characteristic of Ethan. He is a very snuggly boy, always up for a hug and a cuddle, always hugging his Pookie bear, and sometimes just grabbing my hand and rubbing it gently on his cheek. Lately, his compliment of choice is, “You’re the best, mommy/daddy.” We hear that at least half a dozen times a day. We’re not complaining 🙂

He’s a marshmellowy sweetie.

Just like his daddy.

I didn’t update the banner for so long, because I didn’t have any good photos laying around, and also I liked the January banner a lot! But this morning, I got a good photo, and voila.

New banner.

This isn’t the actual show and tell item. But I think you can guess what it was.

Weekend Catchup

So, as you know, we went bowling on Saturday. It was a lot of fun. It was NOT fun, however, to arrive and be told that the wait for a lane was 1 hour long. We decided to go get some ice cream and then come back. Even ice cream did not help convince the kids to leave the building, so enamored were they of watching all the bowling.

Also, just so you know.. it’s exausting bowling with small kids. The getting up and sitting down and up and down and making sure the little fingers stay away from where teh ball comes out and the helping pick up the very heavy ball and the moving of teh weird metal contraption and the cheering, and the making them wait until the lady in the next lane goes, and OMG SO EXHAUSTING.

However, it was fun.

And I will say, the bumpers came in handy for me as well!

THE SCOOP ON ALL THE SICKNESS

So everyone went to school the last few days of last week, as I reported. Thursday I ran to Target to pick up some veggies and valentines for the kids’ upcoming valentines parties and still beat James and the kids home. I hit the button on my answering machien while I packed frozen veggies into the freezer to hear our pediatrician’s voice telling me that the 24 hour (or is it 48 hr?) strep test? For Ethan? From I took him in to the too-hastily made doctor’s visit when really his symptoms hadn’t really changed much and he kept telling me his throat hurt but I was convinced he was workin it to stay home another day and play on the Wii? THAT strep test?

Was positive.

So veggies safely stowed into the fridge, I hied my way back to Target and filled the prescription she had given me in case of just such an event. As an added bonus, I was now starting to feel kind of overly tired and had more congestion going on than before. I know, just so wonderful! Luckily, a call with explanation to my doctor yielded her calling in a prescription for me w/out having to go into the office. James having seen her just days before helped that, no doubt.

So yeah. Entire household on the antibiotics. I guess our (james & mine) family practice doctor had the right idea when she said the entire family should be treated.

Everyone is doing much better now, thank you, with the exception of Jocelyn — who is still so dang snotty and coughy and it’s day 7 of antibiotics and shouldn’t she be feeling better by now? I may just phone the pediatrician and see what she thinks. James was also STILL complaining of sore throat pain as late as Sunday. I think they both had a pretty nasty version of this. Blech.

THE REST OF THE WEEKEND

Saturday dawned with me rarin’ to go. Mountains of laundry was piled up to be washed. Rooms were tidied up and cleaned. Litter boxes were dumped and refilled (ok just the one). I even cleared out the area next to my side of the bed which has been strewn with magazines, books, cards, toys, kleenex boxes and more magazines and books for years now. Ethan, as he was casually running through the room, came to a dead stop and stared at this area, before finally commenting, “Wow. Very clean!”

I ran out of “Must! Do! Everything!” energy just short of actually wielding any sort of cleaning product and attacking the bathrooms, which really is a pity, and spent most of Sunday sitting on my laptop playing mah-jong, freecell, internet backgammon (when the wireless thingee decided it COULD connect me to our wireless network afterall) (Damn all the neighbors who have made their networks secure – don’t they realize I might need them to play backgammon???) while watching old episodes of Scrubs.

Seriously. Remember how addicted to ms. pacman i was? Now I am all about mah-jong and backgammon. so nice and mind-numbing. Those are games I can get behind = no thinking required!

Monday dawned with everyone having clean sheets and towels and a mountain of clean laundry to put away. Yay.

-amy

Oops. I missed several days of my “photo a day.” I would like to blame the shoddy behaviour of my wireless card in my laptop. Doh.

Oh well. Here are the missing photos, all taken Saturday night, when we took two VERY EXCITED kids to the bowling alley. It was such a hit – we’ll definitely be doing it again.

Jocelyn – Granny style, Ball in Midair

Ethan with the Metal Contraption

Ethan’s “I made a strike!” Victory Sign

Jocelyn: “I’m so confident, I don’t even have to look”

Bonus shot: Ethan’s 2 strikes in a row:

Just one note – I can’t wait until I get my flash (planned birthday present).

EVERYONE is at WORK and/or SCHOOL today!

However, Jocelyn clung on to me like a barnacle and cried when I finally pried her off and scooted out the door. That hasn’t happened in probably a year or more. Very sad 🙁

NOW I HAVE THE MOMMY GUILT!

Ethan tried to insist that he was sick, but he had no fever all day yesterday and methinks he was working it a bit.

NO MOMMY GUILT THERE!

Hopefully by the weekend, everyone will be back on the “healthy” side of the spectrum.

I’ve decided I’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do for Jocelyn’s birthday this weekend. Her birthday is March 10th, so we’re getting close. We originally thought we’d do a party at home, maybe rent an big inflatable bouncer, and eschew all the different party venues that our kids keep getting invited to (chuck e cheese, pump it up (warehouse full of inflatables), etc.) But now the thought of the party at our house is making me tired. The cost of these venue parties is what gets me, but then I started thinking about how much we would spend even if it was at home and then add on the stress of cleaning before and after… I don’t know, maybe I’m just stressed out in general but the thought not having to worry about all the party at home particulars is starting to sound good. I need to look into bowling alley parties, as I think they’d be a lot cheaper than the other alternatives.

Also, in the past, we’ve always specified “presents not required” on the invitations, as we wanted to keep the present expectation low. I’m starting to waffle on that too – if new stuff comes in, then that gives us a good reason to clear out some older unused things, right? Plus, they’ve now seen the presents that other kids get at their parties – Jocelyn probably won’t notice quite yet, but I know that Ethan will be grilling us on this point. My thought is maybe we should let them get presents from friends, but I don’t think James has changed his mind, so we’ll have to discuss.

What are your thoughts on parties and/or presents?

-amy