So I mentioned to Jocelyn’s afternoon teacher (I pick up, James drops off) that we did underwear over the weekend, and she told me that we could totally send her in underwear even if she wasn’t totally ready. “Just send in A LOT of changes of clothes.”

So this morning, she went to school in her Dora the Explorer panties along with a bag of about 12 changes of clothes, including some socks. I plan on doing laundry tonight. And baths.

It will be so nice to have her potty trained.

To me, the milestone of when little ones leave babyhood behind is when they’re out of diapers, and when they stop sleeping every which way in the bed. She’ll be out of diapers soon *knock on wood* but she does still sleep every which way.

Of course, I’m totally kidding myself with this, because yesterday? When I bought her a 4T shirt? It fits her FINE. FOUR TEE! She’s obviously not a baby. Her big 4 year old brother wears 4T! MY LITTLE BABY GIRL!! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

– amy wishes for the soft velvety skin of a little baby. amy will have to babysit for Tamara & Andrew a lot.

QUICK NOTE:

In lieu of hosting this blog on the borg collective in our basement, James has purchased a hosting plan, and it’s moving over to a server which promises connectivity EVEN WHEN OUR OWN INTERNET IS OUT. How cool is that? So, it’s actually moved, but the DNS takes a day or so to update. Hopefully you won’t even notice anything. Just know that now, Crazy Mokes is even cooler. Just FYI.

THE KINGDOM OF MALL

I’ve discovered the way to withstand the holiday scroogocity that comes from entering into any retail location which bombards you with Christmas music.

(Even when it’s the same Christmas music that I, myself, play at home (harry connick jr, ella fitzgerald, bing crosby) it still sucks the life out of me when I’m in a store. Plus, it ruins the music so I don’t want to listen to it at home, even though it’s my favorite.)

Don headphones.

Blast ipod.

Ignore salespeople (and other customers) until you want questions answered or aid getting things down from top shelves or your credit card swiped.

Yes, this means that I ventured out into the Kingdom of Mall, where fake Santas reign and holiday cheer is strictly enforced on all unfortunate mall citizens (employees). Not only did I enter the Kingdom of Mall, I went to Tyson’s Corner, which is like going to the very Kingdomest of Kingdoms, not just any old Kingdom. The crowds weren’t too bad at all, and I reaquainted myself with the Elizabeth Arden counter at Macy’s, where I spewed lots of nonsense and the lady didn’t judge me too harshly.

Lest you think, “Oh she just stopped in at Macy’s and then left again. That’s not really a visit to the Kingdom of Mall,” I also went to: Pottery Barn Kids & Payless Shoes, all of which were at opposite ends of the Kingdom, and therefore maximized time spent amongst it’s citizens and visitors. Total time spent: 2 hours. I don’t think I’ve spent that much time in a mall since high school.

ENOUGH ABOUT THE MALL ALREADY

The James’ work holiday party was good. The entire time, I kept reminding him that already, with the presence of fake gambling tables, it was better than my work holiday party will be. This thursday we shall see if it is so. Another reason it was/will be better: The dancing boob girl. It was an incredible sight to behold, and no one at our table could look away, hoping against hope that those magnificent orbs would somehow escape their bonds and start dancing of their own accord. Oh, dancing boob girl, how we were sorry to leave the party, and thus, have to stop watching you. Later discussion among friends involved opinions on whether they were original or enhanced, and let me state for the record, the amount of jiggle to those boobs makes me state firmly: REAL.

When we picked the kids up at the school at 11, I had guessed that Ethan would be asleep and Jocelyn wouldn’t be. I was wrong. When I walked in, they said Jocelyn was asleep, but in truth she had just been lying there wide awake. Ethan however, hopped up after watching his favorite movie of all time, Cars, was racing around the room in his jammies like a bullet with 2 other little boys, holding a toy car and making brrrum! brrrum! noises. Saturday morning was the first time we have ever slept in since Ethan was born. I’m defining “slept in” as, in our own house with no extraordinary circumstances, like grandparents who get up and take the kids downstairs so we can sleep in. We all slept soundly until about 9am. It was WONDERFUL. Now we know that all we have to do to sleep in is keep our kids up until 11pm at night. Wheeeeee.

HOUSE STUFF

So, bouyed up by my parents imminent arrival (shoosh, i know it’s still like weeks away) the boy and I went downstairs to work on the laminate flooring project that has been lying dormant since it was started a month or so ago. We got a few rows done, when I then ran into a snag. I’ll probably go into it in more detail in another post, but let it suffice to say that we’re going to have to cut some boards down lengthwise, which will be a pain, especially since we don’t own a table saw, only a circular saw. I was bummed, because it would have been nice to knock a good chunk of that out.

So just to take the sting out of that, let me say that I cleaned the pantry out. Trust me. It was bad. And now, it’s all sparkly clean! So at least something was done this weekend. It wasn’t ALL just sleeping in and watching boob girls and giving up in frustration at laminate floor laying and letting Jocelyn pee everywhere. Oh. Right. You don’t know about that yet.

PEE, PEE, PEE PEE PEE!

The weekend we tried to take some potty training steps with Jocelyn. Which basically means we put big girl underwear on her, and she made small puddles in various locations around the house throughout the weekend, including on the couch. We went through every pair of panties she owns. At one point, James said something like, “Wasn’t it a lot easier with Ethan?” I just laughed. Ethan took months, and would only sit on the potty after I invented an intricate reward system involving stickers and M&Ms. You laugh now, but just wait until YOU try to convince a 2-3 year old to sit on the potty for more than 5 seconds. She knows how to go, and if she has to go and you sit her on the potty, generally speaking, she’ll go. It’s the getting her to STOP whatever she’s doing when she realizes she needs to go, and go sit on the potty that we’re having trouble with.

The tough part is while yes, we tried over the weekend, now it’s monday and she goes off to school and .. well, now what? Do we send her with underwear on and lots and lots of changes of clothing? Because they would need them. I’d like to have her a little closer to trained before sending her to school in underwear, but I don’t think that is going to happen in just the 2 days we have over the weekend. I guess we need to talk to her teachers and see. Maybe we can make some progress over the Christmas week off from school they’ll be taking.

My baby. She’s getting so big! Sniff.

– amy wishes you a very happy monday

my brain has been swirling with thoughts that i keep thinking, “I should put that on my blog!”

So this might be a little scattered.

LET’S JUST GET THE POOP OUT OF THE WAY RIGHT OFF THE BAT

We have had many a day when we are lying in bed all groggy and half a wake Saturday morning and we hear Jocelyn’s little holler, “Moooooommmmy!!! I’m pooooooooopy! I took off my diiiiiiaaaaaaaaper!”

Nothing will get you out of bed like that sort of wake up call. We are still haunted, HAUNTED I SAY, by Ethan’s Excrement Extravaganza (we just refer to it as E cubed) when we walked into Ethan’s room and were accosted by the sight and smell of a poop-smeared room. Walls, carpet, bedding, even INSIDE THE DRESSER DRAWERS, people. It was awful beyond the imagination.

So while in the back of our mind, we know that REALLY, the worst is behind us, still those poopy words shore will spring you into action!

It wasn’t that bad. (I score “stripping the bed and tossing everything in the wash” as “not that bad.” you have to look at things comparatively, people.)

TUUUUUURKEY

We have had a succession of kind of laid back thanksgivings. Just us. Just our little family. Usually, I make way too much food and no one under age 30 eats anything except pie and bread, which can be exceedingly frustrating for the chef.

James handled the turkey this year, and while we had a little moment of fearing it was overdone, it was perfect, as usual. (Brining is the way to go, people. Let’s BRINE THE CHILDREN.)? I only made some dressing, and the thanksgiving must, Company Carrots.* Last year, I don’t remember what I made, but it was a hairy sort of day and I remember being sort of cross and tired all day. This year = much more laid back. Also, I’m over the dressing I usually make. It was just OK, and I didn’t even save any for leftovers. Next year it’ll be something new. Dessert didn’t consist of pie. It consisted of chocolate mousse torte cake. And it was gooooooood.

I had to work Friday, which wasn’t so bad. It was nice to sail down the highway to work with no traffic whatsoever. It was shocking to look at the mall and see the parking lot FULL at 8am. I stopped at McDonalds that was near the Microcenter, and it was stuffed full of people. I went to work and it was blissfully quiet and I got a ton of work done. I took a break and did some crappy blurry camera phone pictures of myself with my new haircut/dye job, so I’ll have to post those sometime.

HAIRCUT? DYE JOB? WHAT’S THIS?

So I decided to go blonde for the winter. I walked into the salon Wednesday night, sat down, and said, “I’d like to go blonde. I realize this is hard with red hair, but I really don’t want to walk out of here as a strawberry blonde.”

I walked out with strawberry blonde hair, and a haircut that I have to describe as Melissa would say, made me look like a mushroom.

I was quite happy with the color, actually, but the haircut I got fixed on Friday. It’s all a bit shorter than I would like, but really, I’m easy. It’s hair. It grows back. You don’t like it? Give it time, and try again. It may be a bit more strawberry than I’d like, but I can fix that in January.

I had a bit of a dilemma in the spring when I dyed it red. See, I have been dying my hair red since high school. Then through sheer force of will, I managed to NOT dye it for a while. Long enough that it grew out my natural color and there was no more red. So going back to red was a bit of a struggle in the amy brain, but as soon as I got back to the, “what the hell are you freaking out about, IT’S HAIR IT GROWS BACK JUST DO IT ALREADY” then i was fine. and i gotta say, i love the red hair, i just thought blonde would be fun for a while.

OH MY GOD LIKE WE REALLY DIDN’T WANT TO KNOW THAT MUCH ABOUT YOUR HAIR

Ok, then I’ll talk about Jocelyn’s! I sat down with her today and french braided her hair. Of course, I had to put Dora on in order for her to hold still long enough, but it was so much fun. Like having my own little barbie doll to play hair with. It was really too short to stay in, and so we took it out after 5 minutes before it just fell out, but it was such fun. She is such a sweetheart. She is doing and saying so many intolerably cute things every day. She just kills me with all the cute.

LET’S GET TO THE CHRISTMAS STUFF ALREADY

So Ethan has been anxiously counting down to the christmas holiday since before halloween. It seems like as SOON as Thanksgiving was over, he was like, “Next is Christmas, RIGHT???” We told him yes, and Saturday found us digging out our Christmas decorations, and going tree shopping. Yes, the tree has been purchased and it is up and decorated. Christmas stockings are hung. And taken down, and carried around and rehung, and pointed out, and described, and taken down and put on little feet, and then rehung again.

Now we just need to get all these boxes outta here. and the gourds. Sorry gourds, you are no longer seasonably appropriate. You must go. Plus, you were starting to get a little wrinkly, so into the compost bin you go. If you’ll fit.

I HAVE TO WORK TOMORROW

I actually had to work a bit this weekend too, but working from the comfort of your couch while watching Gilmore Girls off your Tivo and Season 1 Battlestar Galactica (we’re done now, and WOW, what a finale. Gotta get Season 2 SOON!) and getting up early and actually putting on CLOTHES and driving into the office… that will suck.

BUT AT LEAST THINGS WILL BE CLEAN WHEN I COME HOME

because we managed to get a lot of stuff cleaned up around here this weekend. half of our garage had been littered with bikes, wagons, … and other junk that i can’t picture now that it’s all cleaned up, which means MY CAR IS ACTUALLY HOUSED IN THE GARAGE! YAY ME! this is especially good because Friday has raine with a chance of SNOW SNOW SNOW! so it’ll be nice to park in the garage and not have to worry about frost/snow on the car.

We also cycled through quite a bit of laundry. I knew you wanted to know ALL about it.

I NEED TO BRAIN-VOMIT MORE OFTEN

Because if i get it all out more regularly, then I don’t make these ridiculously long posts with lots of nonsense in them. I’ll try to do better.

ONE LAST THING

Last week, I tried to get the sitter for the weekend (not this last weekend, but the week before) and the sitter left a message at the speed of light and I just took it to mean that she could not make it. So I called and told her I didn’t quite understand her message, but I was going to assume she was busy.

BUT SHE WASN’T! SHE WASN’T! SHE WAS AVAILABLE! And let me tell you, when you THINK you can’t go out, and then you CAN, it’s almost better than chocolate and peanut butter after lots of sex (almost).

We decided to hurry and try to finish up the christmas shopping before a movie. Then we were starving so we stopped at California Tortilla, got stuff to go, and snuck it into the new Bond movie (it was good, despite the blonde Bond. You wouldn’t think I would be prejudiced, having decided to go blonde myself, but sadly, I am, and it’s a hard one to get over, but it was still good). I still want to go see Stranger than Fiction. Afterward we went to Sweetwater Tavern and shared a flourless chocolate waffle while just wallowing in our kidlessness for just a FEW MINUTES LONGER.. Ahh. heaven.

OK THIS IS THE LAST THING

This friday: James’ company holiday party.

Next THURSDAY (can we say “cheap?”): my company holiday party.

All I can say is, better have open bar.

A new suit was purchased for James today, and I purchased some new duds last Friday (yes, I braved the crowds on my way home, and it wasn’t too bad). Note for next year: take some dance classes before the holiday parties, so we have something to do and won’t get bored and just wnat to go home and watch tv.

I hope they’ll be fun.

THE END.

– amy knows december isn’t til next week, but she put up the new banner anyway.

* When me and my siblings were little, company carrots was our very favorite dish at thanksgiving. My mom would tell us she would make however many carrots we would peel, and we would peel 2-3 5lb bags at least. I’m 32 now, and it’s still my favorite. Very simple, too. Yum.

Only one of Jocelyn’s. I’m afraid they’re not to the stage where they look like actual objects, but cute none the less. Beautiful use of color, don’t you think?

the rest are Ethan’s:

Fire house with orange bell and ladder.

trucks

Maze. Ethan loves mazes (it’s so nice that now there’s something to engage him while we wait for our food at a restaurant). So this drawing was especially sweet.

T’s have monkey tails. Just letting you know.

Practice writing, crane on a flat bed truck.

I don’t remember if he said that tall one was a rocket, or a tower, or just a tall house or what.

Houses.

Our house. Not just any house, OUR HOUSE. Because our bricks are sort of pinkish, mommy!

and finally, this one is my favorite:

It could be because when I saw it, his cute face was looking up at me, and he said, “I made this FOR YOU mommy!”

It could be because for MONTHS, nay, YEARS I have been trying to get him to draw ANYTHING, but alas, to no effect. Always, he would hand me or his father the drawing utensil, and patiently instruct us on what we were supposed to draw. “A train!” “No! Not like that! With a grill! On a track! Now a truck! No! not like that! A dump truck!” “Why don’t you try?” “No. Just you do it.” and now finally, look! He is doing it himself. I think this is a big part of why this one is my favorite.

but mostly, it’s because you can see how happy he is drawing trucks. He obviously loves trucks. and he loves to draw them. A merry little page of a busy flock of little trucks.

And he made it just for ME!

Jocelyn has been really whiny lately. She instinctively says “NO!” to everything that is queried of her and she generally assumes the loudest and whiniest tone ever.

It must be very frustrating to have every decision made for you. You will eat now. You will get up now. You will get dressed now, and you will not watch TV with popcorn now. You may not use my new fabric to drag around the house and then pretend to sleep under, and you will go upstairs, take a bath, and go to bed now, because my nerves just can’t TAKE IT ANYMORE AHHHHHH!

Ahem.

No wonder she meets every approach with “NOOOOOO!!” It doesn’t help that when I’m trying to cope with an instance of Whiney Tantrumy Jocelyn, Ethan will choose that moment to come over and start talking to me.
Let me share with you the things we’ve (me, her father, and her teacher(s)) tried through this increasingly difficult stage.

1. Counting.

jocelyn: NOOOOOO!*
me: That’s 1.
jocelyn: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
me: That’s 2.
jocelyn: NO NO NO NO NO NO!
me: That’s three, time-out.

* Just assume that everytime you see a “NOOOOOO!” on this post, that the volume level is set on “migraine-inducing” or “nasal-whiney”.

Counting is better for activity that she needs to stop, rather than counting instances of bad behaviour. Like if she keeps running around her room naked instead of coming over to get her jammies on, I’ll start to count to three slowly, and before I get there, she’ll stop, run over, while saying, “I AM I AM I AM!” (as in, “I am coming! I am coming! I am coming!”) It also gives them time to stop, rather than just saying, “Come over here now.” If you give them til the count of three, it gives them time to adjust to the fact that they have to stop what they’re doing, and come over.

So counting. Kind of helpful, in some kinds of situations. Since you can’t back down once you’ve started (this falls under the very first parenting rule ever, which is: “When In A Battle Of Discpline, Never Lose Or Give In Or Then You Will Be Their Bitch Or At Least You Will Really Regret It When They Constantly Retest The Boundaries You Tried So Hard To Set”) always follow through, even if you realize that it wasn’t the best situation to use it in.

2. Giving her a choice:

me: It’s time to brush teeth!
jocelyn: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
me: Do you want pink toothpaste, or clear?
jocelyn: PINK!!!

And then the fight is over! When it works, it’s Magical! If only it worked EVERY TIME! IF ONLY!
3. Pointing out the different “voices”:

This one worked well, to a point. First, I had to make sure she knew what I meant.

jocelyn: NO NO NO!
me, first, getting her attention by removing her from whatever the situation is, and getting her to look right at me: Let’s learn about the different kinds of voices, Jocelyn.
me, talking normally: listen to this voice. This is a noooormal voice!
me, super over-the-top whiney: and this is a WHINEY voice!
me, normal: And this is a normal voice! Can you use a normal voice?
Jocelyn, in a normal voice: Yes! I can! I can use a normal voice!
me: GOOD JOB!

It really is amazing when this tactic works. She will be in the throes of a full whiney temper, and I’ll ask her to use a normal voice, and she sometimes will snap right out of it. Sometimes though, not so much.

4. Brainwashing. Or, telling her what to say:

This all started out innocently enough. Jocelyn has always had pretty impressive verbal skills. Ethan didn’t even say “mommy” until he was TWO YEARS OLD (I am not exagerating. mama, yes. mommy, no) and Jocelyn was stringing a few words together not long after 12 months. That constant stream of conversation Ethan keeps up evidently seeped into her brain pretty early.

So, all that, to say, it’s hard to remember that she is still learning a lot of vocabulary, and perhaps is just instinctively saying ‘no’ because that is the easiest thing to say right now. She gets to make so little decisions about her life and her body, that it’s easier to blurt out, “NO!” than to think it over, analyze what she actually wants, and then construct a sentence to convey those wants or opinions. So at these times, I would just tell her to say, “No thank you.”
me: Jocelyn, here’s your drink.
jocelyn: NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
me: Just say, “no thank you!”
jocelyn, all perky: No thank you!
then she eyes the drink, and says: I do! I WANT it!!
me: Say, ‘I would like the drink please!’
jocelyn: I would like the drink please!
me: Here you go!

I started to skip over the middle part of that conversation, and just tell her SAY, what I thought she wanted. Then I just started to tell her to say what *I* wanted… and she would say it!
me: Stop running around naked, and come over here and get your jammies on, sweetie.
jocelyn: NOOOOOOOO! *run run run*
me: say, ‘Ok mommy, I’ll come get my jammies on!’
j: OK mommy! I’ll come get my jammies on!”

AND SHE WOULD!! It’s BRAINWASHING MAGIC! I hope it lasts forever. It will be very handy when she’s 16.

me: I want you to be home by 11:30.
j: NOOOOOOOO!
me: say, ‘I will be home by 11, I won’t TP anyone’s house, and I won’t drink or smoke and I love you forever!”
j: Oh, mom, that hasn’t worked since I was TWO! BYE!

sigh. jeez. My brain won’t even let me fantasize about the possibilities. MY BABY GIRL! DON’T EVER BE 16!
5. Praise, praise, praise until you feel like you need some pom-poms and an audition for ‘Bring It On 3: OH IT HAS BEEN BROUGHT-UN! ‘

This is something I seem to routinely forget, and remember, and it always helps a lot for whatever it is we’re doing… praise praise praise for the good stuff she does. The last week I have been tearing my hair out and losing it and screaming like a banshee out of the blue because this behaviour was just pushing me to the very edge of existence (work (as opposed to staying at home with kids all day) has SO made my “patience” supplies dwindle, sigh) and I just have to keep remembering this, because I know it will help. Praise praise praise. Over the top praise, even. Every time she does it *right* I coo and carrying on until I feel like an idiot, except for the look on her face as she absorbs every word makes it totally worth it.
Hopefully with praise and my magical brainwashing abilities, I will still keep a bit of my hair. Holiday parties are coming up you know.

do you have kids? any special disciplining tricks you have tucked in your sleeve you want to share?
-amy points you in a crooked line

Click to see a bigger version, which is even better. What a good way to start the week.

WE HAVE TO CLOTHE THEM TOO?? SHEESH.

I don’t understand it.

It seems like I buy the kids clothes all the time. But Jocelyn has nothing to wear.

Last Friday, I thought it was because it was all dirty. But this weekend we’ve managed to cycle all but one load (and it’s whites, towels and dish/washclothes and things, not many clothes) through, and it’s all piled up on our bed. And tuesday morning? I rumaged through it, and found – NOTHING! The girl only has like, 3 shirts! I had to put Ethan’s sweater on her! It was the sweater I made him wear for school picture day, and he hates it. He saw me putting it on her, and instantly said, “She can wear my sweater mommy! It’s OK by me!” No kidding, sherlock.

Also.. at the end of the summer, I bought Jocelyn a few pairs of pants. 2T. Which are now (only 3 months later) way too small. They don’t really want to button around her big baby-tummy (babies have the cutest huge tummies. Jocelyn has still got hers. We used to call them frog-tummies), and she’s showing off her ankles to the cold elements, because they’re too short.

When she was a baby, I tried to cycle in some of Ethan’s too-small clothes into her wardrobe, but I soon stopped doing that, because not only is she NOT a boy, but she really does like *shudder* pink and girly things (i don’t mind the girly. just the pink). I do it with the non-gender things though, like jeans.

However, when James puts the laundry away (NOT THAT I AM COMPLAINING!) he sometimes looks at something and still assumes it’s Ethan’s without looking at the size tag.

And then we have this:

It’s hard to tell how SHORT these are on him, so we tried a few different poses:

I should have gotten a shot of him in the car, sitting in his carseat, which made them rise up to his shins.

ENOUGH ABOUT THEM. NOW ME.

So, along with my stinky tarty school marm shoes, I got some new pants a week or so ago. I took a look at my closet and realized that it was mostly skirts, and I need some more pants to through into the mix. I like flirty skirts, but not EVERY day. So I got me 3 pairs of nice pants, and since I have my tarty school marm shoes with the high heels, I got them long. They’d be too long with normal shoes, but with the shoes, they’re just about 1-1 1/2 inches from the ground. They are very swishy and make me feel oh so grown up. Which is important when you need to convince other people that you are grown up and don’t fantasize about doing cartwheels down the hallway at work. Oh no, not ME. I’m grown up! See? I have the pants to prove it! Too bad I shoot it all to hell coming in on casual Friday with jeans, flip-flops and a Seattle Opera t-shirt.

So, anyway. One pair in particular have a very wide leg, and are possibly a smidge TOO long. Because of this, I think of that movie, “House of Flying Daggers” where in the fan dance (at least in the commercials, i haven’t seen it) the girl has to like, toss her huge long kimono sleeve out away from her body like a yo-yo. and then pull it back in to her body to do it again and again and again.

Those are my pants. Yo-yo flying dagger pants. One step, out they go! SWISH! Other leg comes forward, it’s their turn! SWISH! yeah, you don’t want to be in my head when I’m wearing these pants. It’s like I’m a gay man with all that SWISHING.

I just had a discussion with james on whether it is normal to give as many little names to objects and people as I do. Can you say stinky tarty school marm shoes? Can you say yo-yo flying dagger pants?

He said, No. Not normal. You are a freak.

I said, I don’t care… Borg-boy.

INTERNET, I HATE-LOVE YOU. IF YOU LEAVE ME LIKE THAT AGAIN I’LL KILL YOU! DON’T EVER LEAVE ME AGAIN OR I WILL DIE!

Our internet was out all day today, and some of last night too. The first part of this post was actually meant to be posted last night. But no inkernet. Sniff. Since all our mail and websites and domains and databases and file servers and kitchen sinks and kittens and puppies are hosted right on computers in our basement (heretoforE known as “james’ borg collective”), if our basement has no internet connection, well, not only can we not look at stuff on the internet, well, no one can look at us! or email us! or wash their hands in our kitchen sink! or pet a kitty or puppy! ok, not those last things, but you get the general frustrating idea.

so our interweb connection is back up now, and thank god, because all the bits and bobs coming through the series of tubes was sorely missed!

POLITICS:

Um. Frak.

Never mind.. I changed my mind. Maybe tomorrow.

THE END.

-amy breathes a sigh of relief ahhhhhhhhhhhh interweb sooooo goooooooood

I was thinking about participating in NaBloPoMo. National Blog Posting Month, where you try to post something every day. I’m all for it, but was a little bit uncertain about my ability to do it. I thought, well, I will try to do it, and we’ll see how it goes, but I’m not going to make myself a slave or anything. As you can see this weekend, I didn’t post, so there goes that. Oh well.

I got my sewing machine back this weekend, and I’m excited to start some projects and finish up some others. The problem is, I have to pretty much work on the kitchen table, which of course, we need to eat at. when I was doing Jocelyn’s costume, we ate in the living room in front of the TV a few times, which is never a good precedent to set. So I was thinking about this problem, and suggested to James that maybe I could move my computer (which is in our guest room) downstairs to a corner of his office, which would free up the table which I could then move downstairs and use as a work table. He laughed. His office is a mess. I laughed too. Then we packed up the kids and went to Ikea to get another table. Ethan was very excited. He loves Ikea. When we were on vacation at the beach in CT, one morning I asked him what he thought we should do that day, and he said “LET’S GO TO IKEA!!!” So we went. Balls were played in. Pictures colored. Little play houses played in. Items obtained in the warehouse. I’m a big dumb, however. I got little storage shelvey thingees to use to support either side of the table top instead of legs… but I forget to get 2 of them. So I’ll have to go back and get another one. Ethan will be so happy.
Jocelyn amazing me sometimes. OK, all the time. but this was one time specifically.

It was a weekend morning in the past week or so, and I was downstairs with the kids while James showered and got ready upstairs. I was doing something on my computer. Ethan and Jocelyn were playing by themselves remarkably well, Ethan engrossed in some construction project, and Jocelyn busy “going to work! see you next week!” with her dolly and her stroller. Soon Jocelyn started checking in with me, requiring my input.

“Look at dolly, mommy! She’s wearing a cowgirl hat!”

“She sure is, what a great cow-girl!”

Attention back to computer. This went on for a few minutes, and then Jocelyn started playing with a train. You push down a certain part of it, and then it will zoom forward. She was enthralled and wanted me to be enthralled too.

“Come see Thomas, mommy!” (all trains are thomas to her)

“Maybe in a minute honey, I’m trying to do some work.”

She kept playing for a minute or two, and then I looked up to see her standing quietly at the side of the couch looking at me.

“Can you not work now mommy?” she said. And then I died from the cuteness. She said it so politely, and so ernestly. She wanted me to stop working and come play with her.

“I sure can, sweetie.” I closed the computer and went to see just what this Thomas train could do.

This is why I’m glad I didn’t do any committing to NaBloPoMo.

I sure can go and play.