First, I stayed up way too late resizing gory paper bunny easter box pictures. I think it was around midnight when I finally laid down. And my brain took a while to settle down, it was going like a mile a minute.

Then, 1:45am, I wake to hear Ethan scream-crying. I hop out of bed and run to his room. The minute I touch him, I know it’s not just a bad dream, he’s feverish. I took him to our bed, got him a drink of water, and some motrin, and stripped off his (long sleeved, thermalish) jammies. I tried to put a loose t-shirt on him, but he refused, so I left him in his dinosaur underwear and covered him with just a sheet.

He stayed quiet, but didn’t go back to sleep until the fever broke, about 40 minute later. I tried to sleep, but I kept having to get up (potty, potty again, Jocelyn screaming in HER sleep only to be totally fine and dead to the world when I got to her room) and other circumstances kept me awake as well (squirmy boy, snoring husband). Finally after Ethan was cool to the touch and had gone to sleep, I abandoned my bed and went into the guest room / office. Only thing is, I have been trying to clean out my office for my parents imminent arrival next week, and the bed was littered with stuff. I moved it/shoved it over the best I could and after tossing and turning for a while, drifted off. It was about 4am when I went in there.

The alarm went off at 6:15, and my eyes popped open. That bed is SO COMFORTABLE. The mattress in our room is much harder, so whenever I sleep in the guest room, I feel like I’m sleeping on a cloud! It’s like sleeping in a nice squishy hug! It’s just heaven! When I am sick and have been sleeping on that bed for a while, I always tell James that I’m not ever coming back to our bed, because the guest bed is so so so so comfy.

But even the comfiness didn’t keep my sleepy, I hit snooze and drifted a little bit until it went off again, but then I got right out of bed and went to check on the boy and the man. They had switched sides sometime in the night. Have to ask James if something happened. He was sleeping soundly, no heat to him, but didn’t want a blanket other than the nice cool sheet.* James and I discussed who would stay home with him, and I hopped into the shower. I was brushing my teeth when Ethan crept in (he loves to sneak in and surprise folks) with a big grin on his face, and shorts on his lower half, and soon started talking a mile a minute about a shirt I had deemed too small this year, but that he wanted to wear anyway. (I relented, I’m a softy, and it turns out it’s not really too small after all.) He was running around at top speed and I began to wonder if he needed to stay home after all. The real kicker was that his Easter party is today, so James and I decided to let him go to school. I hope he does ok.

I forgot my cell phone at home today. It’s in the pocket of my jeans that I wore to the park last evening.

We got home yesterday, I made some sandwiches, piled the kids into the bike trailer, and we rode down to the park. I had been promising Ethan we’d go soon all week, but we had to make Easter cookies for the party Monday/Tuesday (Monday for dough, Tuesday for baking and frosting and bunny box filling). James got home, hopped on his bike and joined us. It’s downhill all the way to the park, which means that it’s uphill all the way home. (not relaly all the way, but there are 2 hills/slopes.) I really wanted to switch the bike trailer to James’ bike and let HIM haul them home, but I didn’t wimp out, and I did it myself. I love my bike so much. Even though it was REALLY HARD, I can just set it on a low gear and peddle all the way up the hills. I’m going at about a snail’s pace at that rate, but it was so cool to be able to ride uphill pulling all that weight and not have to stop and walk the bike up. I remember in college with my … I think it was a 10 speed, I had to walk my bike up hills when it was too hard. Obviously, I just needed more gears!

I thought I’d be sore today, but I’m not. I’m tougher than I thought. Project Skinny seems to be staying on course. My downfall is when I go to the Cafe that is in my building, I start with a piece of mango and pineapple, and then I get the yummy green beans that I’ve no idea how they made (lots of oil? Probably!) and then I get suckered into the chinese section and do I pick white rice? Nooooooo it’s the fried stuff all the way, and then I go to weight my styrofoam container and it’s always over 7 bucks. SEVEN BUCKS! That means I got too much. Bother. It always starts with the mango and pineapple, which I love more than life itself. So yummilicious. I’ve been doing well with ordering a sandwich and getting some fruit all by itself on the side. It also comes to 7 bucks, but I know my turkey no mayo is very points friendly, so it’s all good.

We ordered the Canon EOS 30D and it arrives today. I got the body only, because our friend is selling his lens that comes with it, so we save like 40-50 bucks that way. It will kind of suck when it arrives (it’s coming to my work) and it won’t have a lens so I can’t use it right away, but I guess I have to work anyway. I want James to stop by and get that lens tonight though on his way home, so I can use it tomorrow. He, of course, wants to take the camera to work with him, and get the lens tomorrow, and check it out first. HAHA FAT CHANCE! Besides, he should be working. I’m staying at home with the kids, whose school is closed for Good Friday.

OK. typed too much now. Just goes to show how I ramble a lot when I’m tired. Let’s see.. slept from roughly.. 12am-2am, then from 4am-6:30am. So! I’m working on 4 1/2 hours of sleep today! Should be interesting!

Tomorrow is James’ birthday. Shhhhhh! Don’t tell him, but I got him a cool present, and it’s supposed to arrive today! I hope he likes it. It’s one of those things where he might not (might not like, and also might not have any use for) but I took a shot anyway.

I was talking to my mom the other day about the upcoming trip, and somehow, I asked her to go get one of the books I loved as a child and read me the publisher/copyright info so I could see if I could find it somewhere. She did, and I looked, and I found 2 of my favorites and ordered them. They were published in 1969 and are very large hardcover books with 2 fairy tales in each book. When they arrive, I’ll take pictures, because the illustrations are amazing.

I forgot my footnote, here we go:

* Cool sheets. Don’t you just love cool sheets on hot spring/summer nights? It is hot in our house in the evening, but then it’s always pretty chilly in the morning. I think we should invent a Sheets Cooler. It would be like a electric blanket, only it would be cool, instead of warm. Think about how nice it would be to have nice cool sheets all night long. I always get all tossy and turny after I’ve been sleeping for a while and the bed is all hot from the body heat and the hot night. I like it when you first climb in and the bed is nice and cool, and even though it’s warm out, I still like the weight of a blanket. An hour later though, and you’ve got a hot bed. Yuck. Cool Sheets (TM) from raine designs! (when I start my inventing empire, that’s what I’ll be.)

– amy just waves goodbye limply.

It all started when someone left out a few baby carrots. I’m not going to point any finger (ETHAN!!!), but what’s done is done.

It started out benignly enough.

Do you see that? DO YOU SEE IT? A rapid, blood sucking bunny rabbit. SURE, it looks all cute now, but have you seen Monty Python’s the Holy Grail? I don’t want to RISK seeing how fast that bunny can move.

It only got worse. BEHOLD!

THEY WERE MULTIPLYING! I tried to ignore them, but that proved to be the wrong choice.

Oh. My. God. Well, there was only one thing I could do. You may want to skip the rest of this. It gets a little gory.

First…. I killed them. These rapid, carnivorous bunnies had to go. I had children in the house to think of!

Notice how Friday, our cat, on the couch doesn’t even pay attention to what I’m doing. she’s too busy checking out the book she ordered from Amazon. I knew I should have torn up that credit card offer that came for her.
I FEEL NO GUILT SO DON’T EVEN TRY IT!

But what to do next? I was a little desperate. What to do?! What to do!! I grabbed the handiest thing to staunch all the bunny blood.. plastic grass. that’s right… I stuffed them.

It’s surprisingly effective. Of course, even though the blood was stanched, I still had all these bunny corpses to dispose of. Trash? No, first place anyone would look. Paper shredder? My god, man, even I’m not that cruel! I will stuff them with plastic grass, but I won’t shred their empty husks of bodies! The humanity! THE BUNNIMITY!

I did the only thing I could do. How to get rid of eight bunny corpses??

Luckily, I had just the thing.

Put cookies in them and send them to school for my son’s class. Toddlers can handle anything. They won’t even blink. Plus, due to their inherent destructive nature, those feeble bunny corpses probably won’t last the day through. I was as good as HOME FREE.

What was that? Did you hear that?

I gotta go. I think the bunny police are after me.

– amy points out that when everyone’s after you, paranoia is just good thinking.

Make your own paper bunny baskets, and many other paper toys, courtesy of The Toymaker.

JOCELYN

Scene: Daddy and Jocelyn sitting at the table in the kitchen. Daddy flipping through a magazine keeping Jocelyn company while she finishes her dinner. Me and Ethan in the family room, him watching tv, and me crocheting.

No one has really said anything for a few minutes. Daddy is perusing his magazine, Ethan is totally absorbed in Dora’s manaical exuberance, Jocelyn focusing on what she loves best, filling her tummy with anything from cheerios, rice, chicken, small mammals, you know, whatever is on hand, though in this case I beleive it was carrot cake, when I hear floating out of the kitchen, with a very Jocelyn-esque pause between each word,

“You Robot, Daddy?”

ETHAN

Scene: Outside in our courtyard. Our kids and several other similar aged neighbor kids and zooming around on trikes, in wagons, in purple cars, and on foot. In Jocelyn’s case, on hopping feet. Parents are also present. I’m sitting on my neighbors porch steps when Ethan pulls up in a Cozy Coupe Car.

He very busily opens the door, steps out and says matter of factly as he runs over to me, “I just need to give you a kiss.”

He kisses me, and then informs me, “Now I need to get back in my car.” as he does so, and speeds off, leaving me in a flabbergasted puddle of mommyhood.

Ethan’s teacher Ms. Maria is from Brazil, and she was a doctor in her country. She has been taking classes to become certified here in the US, and it was with a sad heart that we learned she will be leaving Ethan’s school to persue her chosen profession, and her last day with Ethan’s class will be Friday.

Another mom left a note in all the kids’ backpacks on how she’d like to organize a booklet for Ms. Maria so she will have something to remember her time at the school. So last night as the kids were eating dinner, I sat down with paper and pen and tried to pry something cute and nostalgic out of Ethan. The paper started, “I will miss Ms. Maria because…” and we were to fill in what Ethan will miss most. The ensuring conversation pointed out how very much a 3 year old Ethan is.

me: So what do you think you’ll miss most about Ms. Maria, Ethan?
him: Um… I don’t know.
me: “I will miss Ms. Maria because….” *waits, looking at Ethan*
him: because when I get bigger, I will go and look everywhere and I will FIND HER.
me *decides to focus on the positive and ignore future stalking tendencies*: I hope we will see Ms Maria again someday. Do you like it when she gives you hugs?
him: Mmmmm. Yeah. (very non committally)
me: How about when she sings songs in spanish? Do you like that?
him: Yeah!
me: Ok, *writing and talking* “… she teaches me songs in spanish.” What else do you like about Ms Maria, Ethan?
him: *thinking*
me: *trying to prompt him* “I will miss Ms. Maria because…”
him: I will miss Ms. Maria because she toots!
me and james look at each other and can’t help giggling: *hee hee* Honey, I’m not going to write that. What else? Does she help you cut with scissors?
him: No, I can CUT ALL BY MYSELF!
me: Ahaaa.. did Ms. Maria SHOW you how to do it by yourself?
him, getting excited: YEAH! SHE DID!
me: Ok, I’ll write that down! “.. because she showed me how to cut with scissors all by myself.”
me (thinking we got enough mimsy pimsy stuff and it’s time to go for the heart strings: But really Ethan, you’ll miss Ms. Maria because you love her, don’t you?
Ethan: Yeah, I do!
me: *writes that down*
Ethan: And because she colors with markers!! WRITE IT DOWN!
me: Ok. *writes it down*
Ethan: And because she’s a stinky butt! WRITE IT DOWN!
me: I don’t think so.

Ms. Maria’s farewell note:

I will miss Ms. Maria because…
she sings me songs in spanish, and
she showed me how to cut with scissors all by myself, and
I will miss Ms. Maria because I love her. And she colors with markers.
Ethan P.

I did the whole letters with a dotted line for his name so that he could trace the letters of his name. He was very proud when he was finished.

The little stinky butt 🙂

I think I’d like to start a meme. Just ’cause. SO NERRR.

I was thinking about weird things I did (and sometimes still do) as a child. These are kind of typical things, not necessarily “original” things that ONLY I did, but my weird brain did some of them in a different way, but enough with the explaining and on to the listing.

Childhood, Remembered:

1. Everyone knows the whole step on a crack and break your mother’s back, thing. I never really heard that saying as a child, but I think everyone sort of instinctually goes through a thing with this, I’ve seen it with Ethan, and it’s amazing to see him only walk on certain colored tiles when we’re in a mall, or some such place. Walking in a certain/on certain things, I guess is something everyone has done in their lives.Here’s the kooky way I did it when I was a kid. I was very much into the “cracks” and not stepping on them. Maybe my brain decided that it was too easy, because I then started inventing new invisible lines that I couldn’t step on. For example, if I was walking down a hall, and there was a corner, I would envision the line of the wall continuing on the floor, even though the wall stopped at the corner, and I would not step on that “invisible” line. This is what I saw in my head:
   If there were no corners, I would draw a 45 degree line coming from the corner of a tile and not step on that.
   I would sometimes get very elaborate, because if you look around, there are angles and corners that can create lines everywhere if you continue them past their natural stopping place, the lines multiply and multiply and you couldn’t walk anywhere. I didn’t get obsessive or anything about this (I didn’t go hopscotching everywhere because of all the imaginary lines I couldn’t step on, for example), it was just a fun game that I grew from the original “don’t step on a crack” habit. (I just said crack habit. hee hee!) I still do this today, sometimes, and even if I don’t always avoid stepping on the lines, my mind seems to automatically draw them on the floor as I walk, if I’m not busy looking elsewhere. The lines are always 2 dimensional though, on the floor, even though there’d be plenty of fodder for 3-d lines going every which way.
    
2. Everyone has scary dreams, and I remember talking about the dreams we had as children with someone recently. They stay vivid in my mind, even 25ish years later. I had the typical scary dream that something or someone was going to “get” me and I would round a corner and see it, and could not move my legs. Pretty typical. I also had a couple of dreams where I was the one that would have to “save the day” .. these dreams always featured me and my family in trouble by bad things or bad people, and somehow at the end, someone would declare dramatically that “Amy can save us!” and then, somehow I would, or would at least try. I can think of at least 2 or 3 dreams where in a rush to escape the evil gonna-getchas, everyone would pile into our van, and somehow in the rush, I would end up in the driver’s seat, and *I* would have to drive. I couldn’t have been more than 7 years old, because of the location of these dreams, so it’s amusing to think back about these dreams when I had to do this complicated driving thing or me and my family would all be “gotcha-ed.” I remember being a pretty decent driver, with this very stern, “I can do it, I HAVE to do it!” mentality the entire time.
    
3. One thing that I did that I’m sure everyone has done, and I had no special Amy slant, was jump around the room on random things, following the self imposed rule that I couldn’t touch the floor. Ethan does this now, it’s pretty funny. I don’t know how it is that everyone makes up the same game when they’re little, but we all totally do. Ethan will lay down the couch pillows and jump from pillow, to rug, to his coat on the floor, back to pillow, and proclaim, “I didn’t touch the BUBBLES!”
    
4. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I had this huge thing against medicine of any sort. Someone sometime must have tried to explained how it helps your body feel better, but I just imagined little “things” (organisms? nano-bots? the “things” in my mind were totally scary and alien) entering my body and doing things that my body didn’t necessarily want done and it weirded me out to the point where I would hold a pill in my mouth until my mom left the room and then spit it out. I think it was also because I hated swallowing pills. (becoming a woman and the onset of cramps put a stop to this fear pretty quickly.)
    
5. I always felt like clothes fit me better the second day I wore them. If I had my way in the first grade, I would have worn the same clothes for the entire year. I definitely had favorites, and would try to wear them as often as I could. This stemmed an actual feeling of pity for my other, less favorite clothes that I didn’t want to wear, and sometimes I would wear them just so they wouldn’t feel bad, but then I’d go back to my favoritism elitist ways. I don’t remember all the clothes that were my favorite, except for one nightgown that I wore until it either was too small, or fell to pieces. It was a satiny material in soft pastel colors that was very smooth and soft, and it was very full, so that when I spun around it billowed out around me and made me feel like I was wearing a ball gown. Ahhh.. I still miss that twirly nightgown. A girl needs twirly clothes. Always remember that, people! Twirly clothes!

   Ethan definitely has favorite clothes, and the primary was a pair of red pants made in a sweatpants material, but weren’t quite like sweatpants (no elastic at the bottoms, for example). He had a red shirt with blue sleeves that he had to wear with it, and he called the ensemble his “red clothes” and delighted in saying, “Look mommy, I’M ALL RED!” I had to prepare him gradually when they were too small, that soon, we would have to put his red clothes away, and finally I said one morning when he was putting them on that that was the last time he’d be able to wear them. He took it surprisingly well, and the next time they came up and James tried to give them to him to wear, he informed daddy that they were too small, and he couldn’t wear them. He has other favorite clothes, and they seem to be his favorite because they are all one color, all gray, all blue, etc. I’m definitely saving those red clothes, though, it’s like an end of an era.
   Jocelyn doesn’t have any favorites really yet, except a purple poncho which, let’s face it, is just fun, no matter your age. She also is enamored with underwear and we got her some with Dora the Explorer. She gets mad when we put a diaper on her, and sometimes starts exclaiming, “umberwear, mommy! umberwear!”

So there are a couple of “typical” things that everyone has from their childhood (with some cute kid stories tossed in). I don’t think it will be a very hard meme, and it’s interesting to think about the things from childhood that define who you were/are and how you thought/think.

I am going to tag CHRIS, ANNA, & LINDA – these are all folks I know, so if you don’t participate I will beat you soundly 🙂 I will also tag two folks I don’t know in real life, but read them religiously, and so let’s see if they will also participate, though if not, who can blame them for ignoring some random chick and her silly meme: Rockstar Mommy and leahpeah, I TAG THEE!

And if you want to do it too, that’d rock! Let me know, and I will link to you!

– amy

I’m in such a great mood. I’m sure it will be wiped out when I have to go to work on Monday. I think the “honeymoon” phase when everything is bright and wonderful and carefree at work (don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been carefree, I’m just talking about my outlook on my job) is over, and the drudgery sets in. I’m exagerrating, it’s not drudgery. I really do like my job. Still! It’s amazing, really. I do however, wish I didn’t have to dress up all the time. That IS drudgery.

But I digress. I didn’t want to talk about work, I wanted to talk about the weekend, and being happy and carefree! I was in such a great mood when I picked up my kids on Friday. I have been reading all these crafty home-makery blogs lately (loobylu and wee wonderfuls in particular, see my side list) and have been really WANTING to be crafty and MAKE something! MAYBE WITH TOOTHPICKS, or my SEWING MACHINE! I have a baby quilt I started before Jocelyn was born that I could finish, or a little blankey I was crocheting that I could also finish, but all this requires time, and I’m kind of short on that, so I was kind of tickled when I ran across these easy paper toys that take no time at all. Just cut them out and glue, and you’re good to go, on most of them. I made this sun box, and this bug box for Ethan, and next I’m going to make this little fuschia box for Jocelyn. Since they only take about 5 minutes, it won’t bother me *too* much when they get ruined, as I’m sure they will. I’m going to make myself a little box too to put paperclips in on my desk.

So anyway, on the way home, I was telling the kids all the fun things we were going to do this weekend. Make paper boxes! Go on bike rides! Make cookies! Maybe dig in the dirt! We got home and I — OH! I forgot to tell you. I got my BIKE! Yay! So, we got home and some neighbor kids were out playing, so while Ethan and Jocelyn joined in, I tried to hook up the bike trailer to my bike so I could take the kiddos for a spin, and I thought I had it all worked out. Loaded them in, but the wheels were flat, so not even making it out of our driveway, we came back with promises of “daddy will fix it” and we’d go out again tomorrow. So, today, James filled the tires, and I took them out around the block, but I obviously hadn’t hooked it up correctly, because it kept hitting the spokes of my back wheel (bad! bad! bad!) and it turned out when I got back, the gripper thingee had rubbed some of the paint off my bike frame (sad! sad! sad!) but oh well, and I have touch up paint and James figured out the correct way (i love that man. He can figure things out, AND reach things on the top shelf!) to hook up the trailer, so we have another outing in our future, this time, I’m going to make James pump up his tires too and come with! And it will be LENGTHY!

The short jaunt we took around the block was a big hit. I stopped to talk to my friend and after about 10 seconds, Ethan voiced his frustration with a sturdy holler of, “LET’S GET GOING!” and as I rounded the next corner, he urged me to go “FASTER FASTER!” This bike thing was a great idea.

So after bike adventures this morning, we hpoped in the car and drive over to a furniture city said friend had told me she’d gotten some furniture at, and damn, they had some nice things at good prices. We bought a coffee table. I’m so excited at the thought of having adult furniture again. We banished our coffee table out of the family room when Ethan was a baby and while it does make the room a lot bigger, it will be nice to have a coffee table to .. you know, put stuff on!

So bike, check. Craftiness, check. Furniture, check. that just leaves the spring which is sprunging all over the place, and bunko. i may not get to bunko today. I’ve been checking my little seeds and growing somewhat saddened each day as nothing is showing yet. Every day I think, “why did I think these seeds would be any good, anyway? SILLY AMY! SEEDS ARE FOR .. GARDENERS!”

And at first look today, I was still sad.

But then I looked CLOSER!!

I’m not completely useless as a garden type person! Yay!

I have more to write, but Ethan is talking my ear off about trains and diesel trains and diesel gas and my “Mmm hmmm”s and “yes dear”s are wearing thin and Jocelyn needs to be gotten up! So more later.

Take a look at this, in the meantime.

– amy listens to Ethan: “Some trains have snow plows. We need new batteries in our train. Mommy, this is a tape measure. Am I 4 yet? Mommy, I’m going to measure your computer.”

it’s late, and i’m tired, and you know what that means? a rambling, mopey depressed amy.

but talking (typing?) it out always helps. get the poison out of the system. yammer and yammer until i purge my brain of it and then i can move on to other things.

like sleep!

….

well, that didn’t work. the typing it out bit, i mean. trying to put words to the mopeyness just didn’t seem to happen. i think it means i’m just tired, and need to go to bed.

tomorrow is my baby’s birthday. She will be 2 years old. I still think putting them both in the freezer at night or maybe tupperware will work – can’t we just keep them babies for a little while longer? It is strange how when I look at baby pictures of Ethan, I can barely remember how it all was w/out overlaying the sweet little man he is now over the top of it.

And yet when I look at Jocelyn and think about how she is growing and soon even more of her personality will emerge, it’s hard to imagine how and what that will be like. And yet a year from now, I’ll look back at the cute things she does now, and see how it all started, how it all was just the little flower buds that I could just barely see the color of what was to come.

it’s late and i’m making weird analogies, you’ll have to forgive me. She has been doing a lot better lately with the tantrums and the screaming of, “MINE!” and “NO!” Often, she will holler once or twice, and then stop herself, and say “PEEEEASE!!” even though we’ll have no idea what exactly she is requesting.

She also has been saying a phrase that we can’t quite make out. She says it ALL the time, and it could be anything. Here are our guesses:

• “assignment!”
• “excitement!”
• “It’s Simon!”
• “eh’s find it!”
  or more likely,
• “Let’s find it!!”

Other things she says often, and with conviction:

• THERE it is!
• I found it!
• MINE!
• NO!
• Turn, pease! (as in, she wants a turn)
• 1, 2, THREE!!! (especially when you start)
• “PEEEEE!”, “GEE!!!” “ZEEE!!” (said at the appropriate pauses in teh alphabet song.
• VROOM VROOM!
• It’s flying!
• Hi! (Enter name of family member here)! Hi!

She also has a fit whenever one wishes to lay her on her back to change her diaper. I’ve found the best way to avoid the hammering kicking legs is to ask her where various body parts are. This also works for kisses. Lately, she doesnt’ want to part with any kisses, or be kissed. “Can I have a kiss?” is always met with running away while shouting, “NO!” So then I say, “Where is my nose?” and she runs over to poke me in the nose with her outstretched finger, and declares, “NOSE! MOMMY’S NOSE!” Then I ask if I can have a kiss on the nose, and she will lean in and her soft lips will squash my nose flat (I have a squishy nose with hardly any cartilidge) with a loud, “MMMMMWAH!!!!” and then she may bear to have me return the “mmmwah” in kind.

One thing we are going to have to remedy soon, even though I swore it would be YEARS before we did this, because Ethan’s was so disastrous, is get her a big girl bed. We moved Ethan out of the crib at about 19-20 months, and he did ok at nighttime, but he just stopped napping during the day pretty much completely. He would just get up and play in his room instead, and sometimes fall asleep in the closet. We transitioned him at that age because Jocelyn was going to be arriving and we didn’t want him to feel as if she was taking over “his” crib, so the idea was to get him a bed, hide the crib for the next 3 months, so that when it was needed, he wouldn’t feel like it was his anymore.

Jocelyn is already older than he was, but I still feel like we could hold off a while longer. She could probably climb out if she wanted to, but she hasn’t ever tried, except sometimes she puts her foot up when she wants to get IN. However, this girl is so enamored of beds. She climbs right in them, pulls up the covers, tilts her head to the side and shuts her eyes – not squishing them shut like you’d think a kid would do, but just closes them shut normally, and then says, “Sleeping mommy!” She loves Ethan’s bed so much, I know when she gets her own bed, she will be in HEAVEN. So, even though I swore we’d wait until she was 2.5 years old, we have been looking at beds with a little more than just the window shopping eye. I would like to get her a nice bed that she can use a long time. Toddler beds never really appealed to me because they are used for such a short time, though a full size bed can be quite overwhelming for a toddler. Ethan’s bed came from Ikea and was expandable, though we put a twin mattress in it right away. We have thought of getting HIM a new bed, and giving his old one to Jocelyn, but we’re not sure what we’re going to do yet. A quick check of craigslist showed a number of toddler beds for $30-40 bucks, so that might be worth it, even if it isn’t used for very long.

Speaking of Ikea, we went there tonight. It was such a fiasco. Our kids go to bed at 7:30 pretty much on the nose. We head upstairs around 7 for baths and stories and jammies, and they’re in bed by 7.30 or pretty close to it. Going to Ikea on a weeknight meant that we got home at about 8:30. Ethan was asleep in the car, and Jocelyn was tickled pink about it, “Ethan SLEEPING mommy! QUIET!!! SHHHHH!”

We picked up a kid sized table and 2 chairs, as well as some new shelves to go in James new office in the basement. Next time, I think just one of us will go, or we’ll wait for the weekend. Ikea has a little children’s area where you check your kid in, they label him with a sticker with his name on it, check his shoes, give us a beeper and tell us we have 40 minutes of freedom before they’ll beep us. Except that we don’t, because we have Jocelyn, who isn’t tall enough or potty trained and therefore doesn’t meet the criteria of Ikea SmaLand. We asked Ethan if he wanted to stay with us while we shopped, or go to the play area, and warned him taht there probably wouldn’t be any other kids in there. He made sure we were talking about teh same place, “It’s where the balls are?” “Yes, the play area with the balls you can jump in,” and to my surprise, said he wanted to play in teh balls.

“The balls are going to be COAL! And then I’ll JUMP IN!”
I don’t think James heard it clearly, but I know what he was talking about right away.
“You’re going to pretend it’s the Polar Express, and you’re jumping into the coal car?”
“YEAH!”

Turns out that shortly after we checked him in, another kid got checked in. When I picked him up, the attendant said that they latched on to each other and were having a grand old time playing together.

At times like these, I think, what fun it must be to be a kid. Then I remember when I was kid. I remember how disappointing some things can be – things that are no big deal to adults, that we shrug off as unimportant, but can be devastating to kids. I’m always conscious of how many times I have to deny something to Ethan.

“Can I come in with you to get Jocelyn?”
“Can we go over the bridge?”
“Can we go by the train station?”
“But we were going to fold laundry with my loader and dumptruck!”
“Are we taking a bath tonight?”
“But I don’t want to try the meatballs..”
“Can we stay home today mommy?”

Sometimes it’s asked or stated cavalierly and I know he knows that the answer is likely to be no. Sometimes he answers my denial with a simple, “Ok.” Sometimes it’s an exhalation of frustration/disappointment, “AWWWWW.” And sometimes the request or statement is nearly on the brink of tears because the amount of control he has over his own life and actions are so limited that I know it must be frustrating as hell.

As mimi said not so long ago, “I swear, we should give every kid under four a medal for keeping their shit together even 60% of the time, because they were BABIES just moments ago and now they have to do all this BIG STUFF.”

It’s so true. Just because they can walk around and talk in complete sentences and have a fairly good grasp of the day to day events, there is so much they’re still trying to gather information on and assimilate into some semblence of understandability (it’s late. shoot me.) and then having their choices controlled and monitored so completely.. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am not about to just let Ethan do or have whatever he wants, and I’m not talking about that sort of “control”. When I told him he had to have one taste of the meatballs the other night, tears actually welled up in his eyes, and not because he was going to have a tantrum, but because he just really had a hard day and was hungry and just plain didn’t want to have any meatballs.. and so sometimes I bend the “you must try it once” rules, and let him have 2 bites of noodles instead of 1 of noodle and 1 of meatball in order to get the bowl of yoghurt.

Oh my god have I rambled. I think you’ll all probably be happy when I go back to not updating for a bajillion years.

And with that, I think I’d better go to bed already. Don’t you?

-amy will try not to lay awake and be mopey.

Read about the Word Challenge.

I talk all big about being happy going to work, but there is a part of me that just kills when I don’t get to see my kids for hours every day. We get home around 5:30-6pm each day, and we head up for bed between 7-7:15, so you can see that that doesn’t leave a lot of time, especially since you have fix and eat dinner in there also.

Ethan started full time preschool when his school started back in September. I had decided to go back to work and was desparately flailing around for a job in time for Ethan to start full time, rather than part time 3x a week. I knew that it would be better if he started school the way it was going to be all the time, rather than switched from part-time to full-time later. I was lucky and got a temporary gig for a web manager who was going on maternity leave. I got an offer from my current position not long after that, so on the first day of school, Ethan went back full time, and Jocelyn started full time at her home daycare.

I kind of wondered when or if Ethan would ever ask to quit going to school and stay home with me, like we used to. He has said on occasion, “Let’s stay home!” to which I would just say matter of factly, “But you/I have school/work tomorrow!” and it would evolve into a discussion on what I do at work, etc.

Yesterday was another of those days, we had picked up Jocelyn and were almost home, when Ethan stated happily, “School is ALL OVER!” and I could feel that knot of dread and pain start to form in my stomach as I tried to reply nonchalantly, “Yes, it is, we’re all done with school for today!” A pause, and then he said, “Let’s stay home, mommy.” and then the knot was fully formed and in rotation, making my stomach a gurgle of unhappiness. I knew exactly what he was saying, but I purposefully misheard him and said, “Ok honey, when we get home, we’ll stay home.” I think the conversation progressed from there, but I changed the subject and we got home, disembarked, ran around outside like crazy for a while, and went inside to eat dinner and watch Little Einsteins and make crazy GeoTrax layouts.

I would have to say, this is the one thing in my life right now that makes me want to cry. I know I’ve said how work is good for me right now, and when I went back, it was really out of financial necessity, and I may appear to be all gung-ho, “Working mothers UNITE! Together we can CONQUER THE UNIVERSE!” but I miss my kids. When I was talking to the lady at bunko about the costs of working vs. the costs of staying home, I was so sad, even in my defensiveness.

I miss being the one to feed them their lunch, and send them to time-out for being a snot, to sit on the floor and play with their toys, to lay on my back and give them SUPER-GIRL!s and SUPER-BOY!s, to start getting Jocelyn potty trained, to tuck them in for naptimes, for kissing the boo-boos, for taking them outside all bundled up to play, to see them all day and have them drive me so crazy that I wish I was working..

I miss my kids. Not seeing them all day makes me so sad.

– amy has to stop now before she starts to cry.

I wish there were more foreign language options for young kids. I would love to see immersion programs in our county schools, but aparently we’re living in the wrong county. It seems like right now, when they are so young and picking up everything quicker than quick, NOW is the time for them to be hearing another language and picking it up. I even looked for private preschools in our area, but nothing.

Doesn’t this seem like a no-brainer? There is research that points that language is easier when you are young. Research also points that kids that learn/study another language do better in other areas academically. Why don’t all ELEMENTARY schools have foreign language programs in place? Ethan has a weekly spanish class in his pre-school, and he will often sing me the spanish songs about numbers and body parts. I wish they would do even more.

Jocelyn can count to ten already. Heaven knows we haven’t been working on it or anything. Sometime in the last few months, she just started counting all the time. She picked up a floating “3” foam number in the bathtub last night and gleefully said, “THREE!” so she even knows what a 3 looks like. She must be watching a lot of sesame street at her daycare.

Maybe that’s teh answer. We’ll quit tivo-ing Little Einstiens and the other shows, and just pick something off of a spanish network. Might not be a bad idea.

How does one go about getting more immersion programs in one’s public school?

First off, happy first (ok, today is his second) day of new job, James!

2. We didn’t go see the panda. The tickets I had procured were pretty early. We live a fair ways away from the national zoo (hello northern Virginia suburbs!) We would have had to get up crazy early. So when all of a sudden I realized that WE WERE GOING TO GET SNOW last weekend, the conversation went something like this:

me: so. the panda. we’re going to have to get up early.
james: yeah. very early.
me: yup. early early early.
both of us: ….
me: so you know, it is supposed to snow this weekend!
james: SNOW! wow, gee, we wouldn’t want to go out and get caught in the snow.
me: nope, we definitely wouldn’t. and you know we have to wait in line to see the panda, we wouldn’t want our kids waiting in line outside in the freezing cold snow.
james: nope, wouldn’t want that.
both of us: we’d better not go.

Yeah. So, maybe next time. When it’s not so early. And so freaking cold.

3. We DID get SNOW! YAY! And did you know that Target has SWIMMING SUITS ON DISPLAY and have had them on display since JANUARY? I’ve been meaning to post a big ???!&#$*#&@???? about that and have forgotten. We don’t need short sleeve craziness YET, Target, so just CHILL OUT with your swimming suits and your pool toys and your sidewalk chalk and your bubbles and beach balls. JEEPERS!

So yeah, I’m bitter, because I can’t find my kids snow boots anywhere. Grrrr. Anyway, it started snowing late Saturday afternoon, snowed all night, and we had about a foot, or maybe a bit more, Sunday morning. It was all done snowing by then, which is what I call a PERFECT SNOW STORM! I took the kids out and we all played/ shoveled in the snow, then James came out, and I went in and he kept shoveling and the kids kept playing. I popped my head out to ask the kids if they wanted to come in, but they were having a blast. Despite the icicles wedged in between their soaking wet socks and their sneakers, because they don’t have snow boots. Jocelyn loved to gingerly lay herself down in the snow and make snow angels, though it took a few times of showing her how to move her arms and legs for her to catch on. Ethan loved to climb up the snow hills all the shoveling created and slide down them. I loved sitting inside with a cup of tea watching from the couch with my feet in slippers. Yesterday, I was in serious pain from the shoveling, the “you didn’t lift with your knees” sort of aching sore back muscles pain. Thankfully, it seems to be all gone today.

Oh, the back/ neck muscles weren’t just sore from the shoveling (i am a wuss, but not that much of a wuss). Ethan threw a tantrum at one point on Friday and as I was handing him off to his father, he punched me in the side OF THE NECK. I mean he really got me. DAMN it hurt, and DAMN it totally wonkified my whole spinal column. So yesterday, I was still dealing with the weird neck issues (I haven’t wanted to go see a chiropractic so badly in my life*) and then with the back muscles it was just too much. Again – today, feels like everything is spit-spot.

* Actually not true, I was probably in much more pain after I was rear-ended many many years ago. But nothing fades the past like the present!

4. Ethan did have a couple of punching, kicking, head butting tantrums over the weekend. He got tossed in his room and ignored for them, and his Geotrax train went into timeout until the next day. He seemed to get over them much quicker however, and James said that he could see the pause, in his mind, before he just let loose. The pause was non-existent before, so he is definitely making progress. He often will inform me, after he does something, “That was a good choice, mommy! I make good choices!” Yesterday he had a good day at school as well, no notes, no visits to the office, and his afternoon teachers said he did great. Nothing like bribery and rewards, so he got 2 M&Ms when we got home.

5. Work is a lot busier lately. And worse, it’s the kind of busy where I have to pro-actively do stuff, rather than just passively do what is handed to me. I have to put on the grown-up hat and make calls and act like I know what I’m doing, and convince people to spend the money in their budget by giving me work. The calls have turned into meetings, where I will again, have to act like I know what I’m doing, and use words like, strategy, goals, focus, standards, accessibility, etc. I DO know what I’m doing, but it’s much easier to do the passive thing than the proactive thing. I do get to ride on the metro train to DC tomorrow though, which I always enjoy, and of course, that also means there’s a Perfect Pita in my future as well. Yummilicious.

6. Birthday parties. Jocelyn is turning 2 in March, and it seems like we should be at the stage in our parenting to have a real children’s party, instead of just inviting our friends over for a get-together and make a cake and call it good. However, she IS 2, which is still pretty young, and have YOU had a house full of kids over? I haven’t, and I smell disaster. I am thinking of inviting our neighbor kids, the other kids in her daycare, setting up kid tables with butcher paper and crayons on them, making a cake, getting pizza delivered, and calling it good. I should think of it as like a trial run to Ethan’s birthday in May, when we’ll invite his class for some sort of party function. Eek. I’m scared just thinking about it.

7. Home improvement. I don’t know if you know, but Costco has a coupon for $5 off their laminate flooring. We have a room in the basement that we’ve just got finished by a contractor, and we’ve decided to lay the floor ourselves. I have vast dreams in my head of how we’ll become pros at laying this floor and then we’ll move on to bigger and better things. We’ll floor our bedroom and closets! We’ll floor the other bedrooms! Then the HALLWAY! THEN THE WORLD!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHA! I’m actually pretty excited, we were originally going to have our contractor do the flooring, but after looking at the instructions, we thought, “Oh we can do THIS.”

I’m sure you’ll hear about the divorce from “irreconcilable differences” soon, all stemming from arguments on the proper way to lay laminate flooring.

That’s it for now.

– amy walks the walk, but never talks the talk