Ethan 2007:

Ethan 2002
Jocelyn 2006	Jocelyn 2005

the idea of taking a blogging holiday sounds much better BEFORE the holiday than afterward, when you’re trying to think of all the stuff you were going to blog about.

and then (at least, if you’re me) you suffer from the ‘i have to tell everything in the PAST before i can tell anything about the PRESENT’ and then you just don’t post because who has that kind of time? to recap all that has happened? and then days go by and your blog sits there all cobwebby and sad.

So to keep THAT from happening (much longer), we’ll do a very quick recap. in a very non-linear way.

1. having grandparents around is a hoot. jocelyn is still at the age to be very excited and aimable about every little thing. Ethan however, is getting older, and is not particularly amenable to putting on a show of excitement/emotions for every little thing. I needed to point this out to my mom once, who understood immediately and demands/disappointment on not seeing Ethan hop up and down about something were put to rest. I think that this is one of the big steps from a toddler to a child. He has become more reserved. This makes him less baby-cute, but very sweet in that, ‘this is a little man we see before us’ sort of way. And it makes those tiems when he does show the little-kid-excitement even more exciting

2. jocelyn has still got the baby-cute thing rockin’ big time. the things she says and observes are hilarious, and always more so when heard in that still baby-esque voice. She picks up the xbox controller and says, “I want to GO A CAR!!” and it just slays the room. She is a master of theatrics and has little moans and whimpers that she strolls out whenever she feels she has been put upon. My older sister Ellen used to always call her second daughter Rachel, “AJ” — which stood for Amy Jr. She claims I am a very dramatic, theatrical person (who MOI???), and Rachel did everything in a big “oh, WOE is ME!” sort of dramatic way, thus the nickname. Well, NOW I know what Ellen was talking about, as Jocelyn is proving to be quite the AJ.

3. She is also quite the musical child. I know Ethan had little songs he sang too, but I don’t think he did it quite like Jocelyn. She is constantly humming or singing. The other day at naptime, I heard her over the monitor singing from her crib “Frosty the Snowman” over and over again, with all the correct words (even some I had been getting wrong for years). She will pick words from whatever she’s thinking or doing and put them to music she’s heard. The melody heard most often is Dvorak’s Symphony No 9 “From The New World” which was featured on an episode of Little Einsteins. In the episode, a ring from Saturn’s moon came off, and the Little Einsteins returned it in their rocket. (I recommend this show for the excellent music alone.) Jocelyn will sing, “Ring is going home..” or whatever else comes into her mind, whether it’s “Dolly’s haaaaas a biiiiiiib..” or “Daddy’s hair, daddy’s hair daaaaaaaaddy’s hair..”

What really astounds me is how quickly she’ll pick up a melody and repeat it. I’ve been humming “In the lovely afternoon” from Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” recently – just a few bars really, not even a full verse – and she’s already singing and humming away at it perfectly. Ethan loves music, but is fairly tone deaf (which doesn’t stop him from singing, thank goodness). It’s still a bit early to tell for Jocelyn, but she can carry a tune fairly well. I’d love to have a little singer in the family. I hope we can foster lots of love for music always in our household.

4. Speaking of singing… my mother is a fantabulous pianist. It was quite a joy to have her in the house. Whenever we’re together she plays and I sing. Sometimes it’s a frustrating experience. I was a voice major in college, and haven’t done anything vocal since. Most of the time, it shows. This time however, I have to say, I’ve still got it baby 🙂

When I was growing up, hearing my mom play was a constant in my life. She has always taught piano, as long as I can remember. She is always playing for church or other activities, accompanying others, singers, violinists, flutists, what-have-you. She went back to school when I was in middle school/junior high and for years, listening to her practice was how I fell asleep every night. She was always busy during the day, so the evening became her practice time. Some piano pieces are always “hers” in a way, because I’ve heard her play them so often. Names and composers always escape me, but me or my brother can always say, “Play the loud, crashy one mom,” and she knows what we mean. Hearing my mother play is probably the thing I miss most, living so far away from them.

5. Christmas eve presents of jammies will probably not become a tradition in our family, as they were fairly negatively received by Ethan this year. I should have known better, actually. I wrapped them up, and the kids opened them. Jocelyn liked hers fine, but Ethan was obviously expecting some of the Christmassy toys he’d been waiting for all this time, and expressed his displeasure and refused to wear them to bed. Oh well. Maybe if I don’t wrap them, or just call them jammies. “Time to open your christmas jammies!” — that might work. we’ll see.

6. The kid presents were a big hit. The only thing Ethan kept asking for anytime anyone asked him what he wanted was a “Toy Factory.” Some puzzling over this made us realize that he wanted a “factory” that was a toy. not a factory that produces toys. He has a “factory” on his geotrax train, so we supposed that that was what he wanted. A geotrax barrel loader was obtained, along with some expansion packs that had HILLS (GLORIOUS HILLS!) and Ethan was a happy camper.

Jocelyn received a trunk of dress up clothes, and a baby basinette and high chair. Both have had quite the workout, but the dress-up clothes have been slightly favored. They had other presents also, but these ones were the big santa presents.

7. I gave my dad and James a “photo safari.” Reviews were good, though not gushing. I suspect my father already knew anything that was offered in way of instruction, but still the opportunity to go into DC and shoot photos is still nice. James learned some stuff about composition, and you can check out the photos he took in the flickr set. I generally hog the camera, and he enjoyed spending some quality time with it. We may have to get him his own flickr account to keep our stuff separate, or maybe we’ll keep it all together.. not sure what we want to do. Guess we’ll see.

8. the lens is fantastic….. and my dad is/was right. we need a flash now. badly. and a camera case 🙂 this MOMENT however, while I am very happy with the lens, I’m kind of enthralled by my second christmas present.

9. i had a little second christmas which i’ll talk about in a later post… involving a new SEWING machine, yay for me! it’s a very nice one too.

10. The week was just so nice and pleasant. The pace always move a bit faster when my mom visits, as she is very much a DO-ER. Always up, always doing, always wanting to GO GO GO, OUT OUT OUT. Me, i’m more of a home-body and would be perfectly content to stay home. There were times I had to call a stop to all the DOING, and there were also times when she had to grab me by the arm and haul me off to go DO, and it was all good and fun. The kids loved seeing their grandparents, and I hope we can have them for another Christmas in the future. Maybe sometime in 2007 we can have a family reunion, as I’d love them to see their cousins as well. A definite downside to living on the east coast is being so far from my family, and their cousins, a few of whom are right around their age.

I think that’s enough of an update for now. I’ll try to get more later.. and I’ll REALLY try to get some photos up as well. I have about a billion blogs to try to catch up on as well, so we shall see!

happy holidays and merry new year to everyone!

2 things out of 20. 2 things i can remember. 18 that i cannot. more on the ‘olidays later as well.

i am sitting on the couch with my laptop, showing my mom pictures of the kids on flicker. my mom keeps alternately oohing and ahhing, and saying crossly, “Make it BIGGER.”

This is when Jocelyn comes over, points at a picture, and says, “BIG it, mommy, BIG IT.”

Very cute. As long as we don’t have to get her a tiny white hood. Luckily, I know she was just verb-ing a noun.

ethan is big into Zero lately. It comes up in the weirdest ways. He also has a teeny bit of a hard time spitting out a thought in his head. He almost stutters as her tries to pick the right word at times, and you can see him trying to express his feelings and thoughts properly. However, sometimes, there is no editing between brain and mouth and the words just tumble straight out.

He was finishing up breakfast, but still had some orange juice in his cup.

e: may i be excused?
a: don’t you want to finish your juice?
e: no. you can drink it if you want mommy.
a: just have one more sip of your juice (becuase i am thinking if he tastes it, he’ll finish it), and then you can be excused. I want you to go upstairs and get dressed, ok?
e: (sip) OK! (scampers off, but stops at the top of the stairs to yell down at me)
e: MOMMY!
a: yes?
e: The, the juice, the juice must stay in the cup! The cup, it goes by my spot! The juice can’t go anywhere!
a: (laughing a bit) you mean you don’t want me to drink your juice?
e: YES! ZERO people drink my juice! NONE! ZERO!
a: OK, I’ll make sure it stays right here, by your spot, for you!
e: thank you mommy!

the former president died, and therefore, i get tuesday off. it’s like a second christmas!

-amy

If you live in the northern va area and have little kids that love trains, I can’t recommend the Santa Train enough. For $4 a ticket, proceeds going to Operation Lifesaver, an organization dedicated on train safety education, you get a train ride, train safety coloring books, a glimpse of Santa on the train, and very excited and happy kids. The only problem is they sell out so quickly, usually within 4-5 days after going on sale.

Since the event is already over, the pages on the various websites regarding this event have been taken down, but next November, you can vist the VRE website and I’m sure they will have it again. They have several different stops along the western rail (Manassas, Burke, etc) and eastern rail (Woodbridge, Springfield, etc.) This year, once again the train was a big hit. Learning from last year, the kids do get bored in the middle, so we brought snacks.

Most ironic moment.. standing at the station, the train easing up, to see some dumbass parents ignore the flashing lights and lowered gates to RUN ACROSS THE TRACKS with their kids in tow, to get on the station side of the tracks before the train comes up. Exactly what the Operation Lifesaver program later instructs our kids circle in the coloring book they hand out as “unsafe behaviour.”

Anyway. On to the cuteness. You can view the entire flickr set as well.

trying to get a glimpse of Santa

These kids grow up so quickly in a year. Last year’s Santa train:

It’s brain vomit time, so please excuse the lack of any sort of linear narrative.

Jocelyn, the poor girl. We kept thinking it was a cold, and she stayed home Wednesday and Thursday. We were all set for her to go back to school Friday, but when I checked on her on the way to bed, she was WIDE AWAKE, and had a fever of 103. Ugh. Our girl is such a good sleeper, that she doesn’t even complain when she’s super duper sick. James stayed home, took her to the doctor and it turns out she has a double ear infection. It just breaks my heart. DOUBLE EAR INFECTION. And not a PEEP during the night. Ugh. My sister recently had an ear infection, and she informed me that hadn’t realized that DIZZINESS is one of the symptoms. She said she laid down and the room wouldn’t stop spinning. She didn’t realize what it was from, and thought she needed to eat something.

So of course, when Ethan whimpered a little Sunday morning, had a temperature of 102, I rushed him over to the urgent care center, only to hear his ears were fine, his throat is a little red, and I should “watch him and see how he does”. She gave me a prescription for an antibiotic, and if he gets worse I’m supposed to fill it.

I don’t like that really. I don’t think I can handle that sort of decision. and Ethan is no help, because you ask him how he’s feeling, and he says, “Good.” and then coughs up a lung (i’m exagerating). Anyway. The fever I think was a fluke, and we will indeed, wait and see. And possibly take him to his usual pediatrician for a more formal “yes do it.” before haphazardly giving him antibiotics.

On the upside, Jocelyn must be feeling better even though the snot factory in her nose is still going strong, because yesterday for naptime, she slept from 12:30 to 4pm. Making up for all that dizziness and no sleeping in the night, probably.

CURSE YOU PARENTS DAY OUT!!!

Our kids’ school offered another Parent’s Day Out – usually they are “Night Out,” but this one was saturday from 10am-3pm, so that parents could possibly go get some shopping done during the day w/out the kids. We did a wee bit of shopping, but most of the time was taken up with seeing Better Than Fiction (pretty good) and me dragging James to an Indian buffet that I’ve been to several times with work friends. After we got the kids, I was wondering if the whole thing was a good idea, because now they were all hopped up, had no naptime, and especially in Jocelyn’s case, were pretty whiney and fussy. And it was HOURS AND HOURS until bedtime. So I had the GRAND idea to go see the Bull Run Festival of Lights*. James put in his 2 bits on how it would be crowded, and I should have listened, OH HOW I SHOULD HAVE LISTENED. Trust me. Spending hours and hours at HOME with cranky kids who are whiney and prone to getting into fights is one thing. Hours and hours trying to entertain said kids while in the CAR is quite another. Ethan was a champ. Jocelyn not so much.

But we went, and spent maybe an HOUR just waiting to SEE the lights. If you’re in the area, and have a hankering to pay $15 to go see this extravagant display of leisurely use of electricity, I would advise NOT going on the weekend. We didn’t get home until 9pm, a good hour past their bedtime.

*I looked up the URL to link this too, and right there, on the front page, it states, “Expect long lines on the weekend.” I am dumb, dumb, dumb.

WE SAY THINGS THREE, THREE, THREE TIMES IN OUR HOUSE

I think it is because of my love for the Eloise books (they’re so super cute, go read one) and the fact that they actually made 2 made-for-tv MOVIES out of the Eloise books (ABC family is showing Eloise at Christmastime, AND Eloise at the Plaza put it on your TiVo!!!) and I like to watch them. In Eloise world, she has a nanny (played by Julie Andrews in the movie, she is so wonderful) who always says things three times. LORD, LORD, LORD, we are TIRED, TIRED, TIRED! It’s time to SLEEP, SLEEP, SLEEP! And thus, Eloise is always saying things in threes as well, and it has been something I’ve adopted unconsciously, and thus, the kids adopted, and I’ve even heard James say some things thrice as well!
So it is both cute, cute, cute, and SMELLY SMELLY SMELLY when I hear Jocelyn call out, “I am POOPY, POOPY, POOPY!” from her room in the morning. (not of the smeared kind, thankfully. just the in-the-diaper kind.)

OH MY LORD, IT’S ONE WEEK AWAY

That’s right. Christmas. One week from today. There are a plethora of conversations relating to the time and distance in space Christmas day is from the present time, with Ethan. It usually goes like this:

ethan: Is it after this day?
me: no, it’s not for one week. That is seven days.
ethan: GAH!*
me: and only six days until grandma and grandpa will be here!
ethan: YEAH! after this day?
me: no, six days. they will be here on christmas eve!
ethan: YES!
me: and then for a week, we’ll have no school, we’ll get to play at home with grandma and grandpa.
ethan: wahooo! in SEVEN DAYS.
me: yup.

The conversations with Jocelyn are much simpler:

jocelyn: it’s CHRISTMAS!!
me: it is christmas time, isn’t it!

the end.

*seriously. almost exactly like Grace does it from Will and Grace on that episode where she wants to go, “GAH!” and make the face on antique road show when her piece isn’t actually authentic. of course, it turns out that it is. I think this is one of 4 episodes that I have actually seen of Will and Grace.

OH MY LORD, IT’S SIX DAYS AWAY

That is when my folks come. This means I have a whole crapload of cleaning to do before their arrival. It’s amazing the things you start to do when you realize your mother will be in your house. I will have more on this on another date. Right now, I have to go wash all the windows.

-amy amy bo bamy banana fana fo famy, mi, my, mo mamey… AMY.

Jocelyn just finished up a round of antibiotics last Monday, and now she is sick again. Started Friday with super goopy (pink-eye-y) eyes. We got some drops for her, the doctor saw her Monday morning and said, yup, she has a cold.

She is intolerant to milk, and she will get all snotty and sick when she’s had milk. Not just any dairy, but MILK. If the milk protein has been altered in some way, then she’s good with it. Cheeses are all ok, except american, which let’s face it, is basically congealed milk, dishes that have milk that have been cooked in the oven are ok (like bread. cookies. baked mac and cheese.) but stove top cream sauces are out. I guess it doesn’t break down that milk protein enough for her system to not go after it.

So James thinks I’m crazy, but I have been thinking about what she’s eating (as I always do whenever she gets a runny nose, FIND THE CULPRIT!) and one thing we’ve been doing is giving her M&Ms as a reward for various things. She let’s me blow her nose? She gets an M&M! She goes peepee on the potty? M&M time! She lets me put in her eye drops? Two M&Ms, one for each eye!

I recall at one time, like a year ago, I had chocolate in the “never ever give her” category. I don’t know why I changed my mind on it, but I did, and now I’m thinking that these M&Ms are the culprit. I can’t quite chalk it up to a normal cold when it happened so quickly after the round of antibiotics. Grrrr.

Ethan had this same intolerance and drank soy milk, but he outgrew it when he was about 18 months.

Jocelyn will be 3 in march. I’m starting to lose hope that she will outgrow it.

Grrrr.

Poor girl.

MY BOY, PSYCHO KILLER (QUEST-QUE C’EST, FUH-FUH-FUH FUH FUH-FUH-FUH FUH FUH FAR BETTER*)

Ethan has been learning his alphabet in pre-school this year. He learned it in pre-school previous years, but this year, the year before kindergarten, they are learning how to print as well and he is really getting into it.

He often comes home and wants to write his name, my name, Jocelyn’s name, daddy’s name, and other assorted words that he likes. Sometimes after he writes the word, he’ll take his scissors and carefully cut the word out and put it on the fridge (our home art gallery).

One day, he came home and said, “How do you write blood?”

“Blood? Why do you want to write blood?”

“Because my friend Palmer got hurt in school. He was bleeding. So I want to write blood, and then give it to him.”

“Ok.”

I spelled it out for him, and true to form, he cut it out with his pair of scissors.

I was a bit worried about my son taking a small piece of paper with “BLOOD” printed on it to school and handing it to one of the kids. It is a bit psycho killerish, wouldn’t you say?

Luckily for me, he put it on the fridge and had forgotten his plans for it by the next day. I don’t need to fear parent-teacher conferences on just why my son handed a small piece of paper with the word ‘BLOOD’ on it to his classmate.

* Run run run run run run awaaaaaaaaay
I feel better now. Don’t you? It’s like leaving ‘shave and a hair cut’ without the ‘TWO BITS!’ on the end. You just can’t do it. Oh David Byrne, you can burn my house down anytime.

JOCELYN THE SMARTIE PATARTY

Monday, on the way home:

me: “So what letter did you start this week?”
e: “I!”
me: “Really! ‘I’! What sound does the letter ‘I’ make?”
Jocelyn: “eeh! eeh! eeh!” (it’s very hard to ‘spell’ the sound ‘i’ makes. pretend i spelt it right)
me: “THAT’S RIGHT JOCELYN!!”

ETHAN IS ALSO VERY SMART

me: So what words start with ‘i’?
e: ice!
me: hmmmm…. igloo. if. is.
e: THAT’S WHAT I SAID! IN MY CLASS! IS!
me: totally rad!

James later told me that his teacher was VERY impressed that he thought of ‘is’ as an ‘i’ word.

ETHAN AND JOCELYN ARE BOTH CUTE

Last night was my office’ holiday party. Yes. On a Thursday. And there was not a fully open bar (wine, beer and soft drinks only). On a Thursday. And it involved speeches that were overly long and invoked everything from our grandchildren working at our company to how someday we’ll be able to see a building with our company’s name on it from 66, or the toll road, or near DC. The glaring fact that our building ALREADY had our OLD company’s logo/name on it didn’t seem to phase him. The orator kept going on about how our efforts will make or break our parent company, and our work is what will sink or swim this company. It just made me want to holler, “MUTINY! WHO’S WITH ME? TOGETHER, WE CAN BRING THIS PLACE DOWN!” while swinging a sword and carving the place up.

The whole overly long speech situation gave me the giggles and everyone kept nudging each other to whisper smart ass comments to each other in a way that somehow made me feel like I was in church, and my mother was goign to smack me upside the head at any moment unless I started to behave and pay attention already. They really needed to offer us hard liquor to get through that speech.

So, along with the being on thursday, no fake gambling, no hard liquor, feeling like I was sitting in church for a good 20 minutes, sadly there was no dancing boob girl.Oh wait, this was supposed to be about Ethan and Jocelyn wasn’t it? Sorry I had to lament the fact taht there was no vodka, and no dancing boob girl. Wah. Still though, the folks I work with are a lot of fun, and we had a good time just talking and laughing. The food was good too.

ANYWAY. KIDS. CUTENESS. CARRY ON.

BEFORE the party, I had to get the kids, get the sitter, get the cat, get us all home, get ready to go, and then go. After I picked up the sitter, Ethan said to her, “I haven’t drawed you any pictures yet. But I will make you one when we get home.”

(AWWWWWWWWWW!)

At one point I said, narrating our events, “Now we will go get Sitter!”
Jocelyn: “At our house?”
me: “No, we will pick her up at her house, and take her to our house.”
jocelyn: “We will get SITTER at HER house! And then we will get LINDA! And they will come to OUR house! And WE will PLAY!”

Linda has been over to our house a few times now, and every now and then, Jocelyn will declare that she is coming over, totally out of the blue. This was one of those times. It was cute.

THE CROSSDRESSER

Jocelyn and Ethan’s classrooms each have a corner of dress-up clothes with a variety of different things. One time last year I arrived at his classroom to pick him up and he was wearing a dress-up dress, complete with heels, prancing around the room happy as a clam. The really cute part was at least 2 other boys were complaining that it was THEIR TURN ALREADY, and when Ethan saw me, he grinned like his face was going to split open, and hollered, “LOOK MOM! I’M A GIRL!”

So I knew what he meant, when on the way home one day, Ethan declared proudly:

“I was a GIRL today!”

me: “Awesome!”

-amy is researching for santa. wide angle lens? long zoom lens? fixed length? flash? oh, santa, your job is HARD.

We bring you live, updated information concerning the ongoing at school potty training.

Day One of Jocelyn Wearing Underwear to school ended with about 4 accidents at school.

Day Two: No accidents. NONE. The parents of Jocelyn were found in a state of shock, and could not be reached for comment.

This reporter surmises that pooping in the potty may still be a hurdle, but all the trepidation over sending Jocelyn to school in underwear was needless.

In other news, the cats in the Crazy Mokes household have been yakking up hairballs all over the carpet, so watch where you step. More at 11.

This happened just so straight out of the blue in the middle of the usual dinner chaos that it left me and James staring at each blinking, thinking, “Did this really just happen?”

Ethan: Daddy, what do you want? (i think he was refering to like, the salt or something, but James went with it.)
James: I want peace on earth. Goodwill toward men.
Ethan: HA!
James: What about you mommy?
me: I want my kids to be happy and healthy.
Ethan: YEAH!
Jocelyn: I want my friends TO! BE! HAPPY! (fist in the air, all black panther, FIGHT-THE-POWER-like)
me: You do?
Jocelyn: YES! HAPPY! (fist! fist!)
James: How about you Ethan?
Ethan: I like FLOWERS and KITTIES!!
me: Well ok then!

It was very cute, and kind of surreal.

Hard to beleive my baby is so big. Seems like this was only yesterday: