This morning, James got up and hopped in the shower while I laid in bed wishing I didn’t have to get up for about 5 minutes.

When I finally got up, I got a couple of clean items of Ethan clothing from the heap of clean laundry in our room and headed over to Ethan’s room. I opened the door, and found Ethan standing right inside. I could see he was a little surprised to have the door opened for him by me, but he hardly glanced at me as he sped by, ignoring my cheery, “Good morning! Do you want to pick out some clothes?” and the items in my hands.

I continued on my way, deposited the clothes in his closet, and went to get Jocelyn up. Every morning, she is still asleep, and I (when it’s my turn to get the kids up) gather some clothes, scoop her sleeping form up from her bed, and go plop her on the toilet to go potty. She wakes up halfway with me rummaging around in her closet and dresser, and I hold her for a minute before putting her on the potty, but yes, I know what you’re thinking, it’s kind of an abrupt way to wake up, but hey, I don’t see YOU over here doing it a better way so just shoosh already.

As I was sitting in the bathroom with Jocelyn, I heard Ethan motoring around the upper floor. He crashed around in our bedroom for a bit, and I saw an Ethan-shaped blur rush past the bathroom door into Jocelyn’s room, and then another blur as he raced out again and headed down the stairs. I halfheartedly called out to him, “GO PICK OUT SOME CLOTHES,” but it didn’t do any good.

Jocelyn, fully awake with a newly empited bladder, danced around the bathroom insisting on dressing herself and generally being a cutie patootie. I got her toothbrush all ready for her, along with Ethan’s, and then left her to dress herself and went to search Ethan down. As I stepped out of the bathroom, I saw him scooting at a much slower pace from his room to mine. No words. Grumpy, sulky face. Gone was the happy motoring pace.

I went into my room and found him sitting in a corner on the side of the couch.

“What’s wrong, Ethan?”

Nothing but a sad face.

“Are you trying to find something?”

“Yes. I can’t find my Pookie bear. I looked EVERYWHERE.”

Oh dear. CRISIS MODE! CRISIS MODE! Ethan has had the same little white bear that I had as a little girl since he was an infant and I put it in with him in his crib. As a baby and a toddler, he liked it, but I would say that his baby blanket was more of his “attachment item.” Lately however, he is enamored with his pookie bear. He will take it to school, he will make the bear give people hugs, he even made pookie bear show his bottom to James once, and then put him (pookie bear, not James) in time out for the act. Every now and then, he’ll talk for Pookie bear, and then quickly tell you, “That was my bear!” He will tell me, out of the blue, “I love my pookie bear SO MUCH!” and then try to squeeze it to death. That bear is much much much beloved.

“Why don’t you go brush your teeth, and I will look for pookie bear.”

I was sure I would find him, but as I took my turn motoring around the house I got more and more worried as I thought about the possibility of a lost pookie bear. I tried to remember when Ethan had him last. I knew he didn’t take him to school yesterday, but DID have him that morning. Ethan came into our bed in the morning for a few snuggle minutes before getting up, so I started to think Pookie bear must be hiding in our bed somewhere.

I came back to the room, where Ethan was perked up but still very sad on not having Pookie. James was out of the shower and I explained the dilemma. We started searching the bed and bedroom, and finally, james let out a cry of discovery.

“Look what I found!”
Ethan RACED to his daddy and took his beloved bear in his arms.
“There’s pookie bear! He was HIDING!! I love my pookie bear SO MUCH!”

Crisis averted 🙂 These pictures are old ones, but still cute, and give you an idea of what Mr. Pook E. Bear look like:

Since I had some time in between working myself to death and staying away from all things couch and computer related, I did get a few things done on my SEWING MACHINE! My mom sent me some cute fabric for a blankie for Jocelyn with little rabbits on them, along with the 4 cute little stuffed animals, a rabbit, a froggie, a bear, and a mousie, and the story of Peter Rabbit. I set to work!

I machine quilted a simple diamond pattern, and then bound it with a store bought pink bias binding. The quilting was easy, but the binding was definitely trickier. I chose a scallop stitch, and found that the blanket was so thick that it needed to be pulled along lest the scallops get too bunched together. Like this:

However, that led to my next problem, of pulling it through too fast, leaving loooooooooong scallops:

But I got it worked out most of the time:

All in all though, I’m pretty happy with the job I did 🙂 Jocelyn received it with many hugs and kisses, and really, that’s all that counts, right?

(He’s such a good sport.)

I’m only 15 days late! But here is a new banner:

Jocelyn turned three years old last Saturday. We invited her everyone in her class, and her neighboring class, and had about 8 kids attend. We had some cute little crafts to do which I think were actually a little too old for them, but they did pretty well anyway, and mostly, they played with all the toys and then had pizza and cake. Much fun was had by all, and Jocelyn had a blast. As requested, she got her “four balloons” (she changed it from three to four). Daddy picked out Ariel, Dora, Clifford, and Elmo mylar balloons for her, and she was so excited it was just too cute. She particularly loves the Ariel balloon (it’s still floating about) which she walked around holding to her body as if it was an oversized doll. I had bought her a cute little dress to be her “birthday dress” and she happily twirled about in it. We noted on the invitations, “Please no presents” but a few of the parents asked to bring something anyway which I had a hard time saying no too 🙂 I think she got just the right amount of presents to not really set a precedent so she thinks birthday = STUFF, and it wasn’t overwhelming to her, which was what we were aiming for with the no presents thing. (Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a no-presents-at-all birthday, she got family presents, so we just wanted to limit the amount, and take any pressure off of our guests.)

Looking back over the last year makes me so sad and nostalgic. This year she changed from baby to girl. I always use a certain criteria to cling to the belief that my kids are still babies:

1. sleeps in a bed (not a crib) and sleeps pretty normally. IE: when you go in to check on them, they’re not sleeping in crazy positions, they pretty much stay in the middle, head on pillow, etc.
2. is potty trained and diaper free during the day

Um.. CHECK AND CHECK. SNIFF!!!

In this past year, Jocelyn has moved from her crib to her big girl bed with a rail, and a few weeks ago, I took the rail off. I took it off while making her bed and left it off with the intention of putting it back on by nighttime, but she insisted on it staying off, and we haven’t looked back. Ethan fell out of bed a few times when the rail first came off his bed, but so far, no bumps in the night from Jocelyn. AND, every time we go in to check on her, she’s in a fairly “normal” sleeping position. She is also diaper free during the day, though she wears one at night. MY BABY! NEXT SHE’LL BE GOING TO COLLEGE!

This struck me even harder as I was looking at pictures of her over the last year. So without further ado, I present a year of Jocelyn: Baby to Little Girl

March 2006

April 2006

May 2006

August 2006

December 2006

January 2007

February 2007

March 2007

or at least better.

My back is A-OK, I must say. It’s not back to totally normal, but day to day activities are now able to take place without feeling like there’s a knuckle driving into my spine. I can’t just sit on our couch in the evenings though. Most nights I spend sitting on a stool, and for some reason sitting in my car gives me that knuckle in the spine feeling as well. It is getting much better though, and I was even able to sit on the couch last night for a whole 20 minutes! The arm pain was not nearly as well as I would have liked on MOnday, and so I did take Tuesday and Wednesday off to make sure that situation was totally under control. Sucks to be using this much sick time so early in the year, but I don’t think it was avoidable.

We do have some exciting news, we took advantage of me being unable to work by going car buying yesterday. We bought James a 2006 (so, used) Subaru Impreza WRX STI. (Read: super super sporty-fast-maniac-huge-spoiler-car) I did all of the legwork, which I kind of got a thrill out of doing and totally enjoyed, by calling around to all the dealers in a 250 mile radius to try to get the bottom line price. I managed to fanagle the price down while James sat looking out the window at his soon-to-be new car and drooling. I must say, it’s a very pretty car. So shiny! So fast! So pretty! I told him we should name it. He kind of laughed, and said he’s never named a new car before, so the rest of the day I kept dropping girl names.

“Don’t drive Miyoki through too many slushy puddles!” (she is a subaru, after all)
“Little Katelyn is soooooo pretty!” (I don’t actually like that one, because I think of a little toddler girl for some reason)
and finally, I’d open the garage door and call out, “Good night, Natasha!” before going to bed.

So yeah, congratulate James on his new baby, and condole with him on the departure of the very first car he ever bought, the ford contour SVT (it never had a name.)

Other names I can come up with (or came up with):

Shirozaki
Kirusawa
Miyzaki
Suzuki
Hiroshima
Natalie
Natasha
Katelyn
Mae
Totoro
The older sister in Totoro whose name I can’t remember
Mawazaki

Here’s the from it’s listing photo (ie: not a photo we took) It has silver wheels though instead of the gold (we made them switch them) Click to see a bigger version:

Anyway, it’s back to the grind now. Jocelyn’s birthday is on Saturday, we’re having a little party for her, and she has informed us that she wants THREE BALLOONS. Every time we ask her what she wants for her birthday, she says THREE BALLOONS!

So she’ll be (at least) getting 3 balloons on Saturday! Yesterday morning, she looked up at me and asked, “Am I three now?”

Not yet sweetie! Oh I wish it would be never! Ok.. maybe not really. But she was a baby such a short time ago. Sniff sniff!

more updates later. yeeee-haw, it’s good to be back!

Since I’ve been *ahem* dead to the blog for, oh, 2 weeks now, I figured I would play catchup, because there has been stuff happening in this household, yeah! I wouldn’t want you to think that just because I haven’t written, nothing has happened, because .. well, you’d be wrong. So I’m going to take this week to try to play catchup as a way to get back in the swing of things.

First off, we got our swap package! and we sent our swap package! And oh my goodness, do these kids love everything they got!

this tutu is so beautiful. Jocelyn would wear it EVERYWHERE, including into the bathtub if we let her.

i mean, just look at these sweet little roses:

Jocelyn also received a little crocheted bag with a cinderella figure inside. It’s been over 2 weeks now since we’ve received the package, and she is still carrying it around everywhere. This evening as we were cleaning up, I asked her to put her cinderella away, and she trotted ALL over the main level, looking for her “cinderella purse!” She also went up to Ethan’s make-a-long boy doll, Aidan, and said, “Hi Aidan! I’m Cinderella! I’m soooooooo tiny!” while moving the little figure about, to show that she’s talking.

by the way, unrelated to anything swap related, this is what we call “crazy hair!”

Ethan has been pretty happy with the items destined for him as well. He received this cute little vintage car, which he loves to drive around on his road rug. The doors and the trunk open and close.

He also received a couple of calendars with vintage cars for each month. He loves to go through them and point out which ones look like Lightning McQueen and Doc Hudson. The calendars came with little stickers that one would normally use to stick on the calendar as a reminder for various events and/or appointments… Ethan has commandeered them and pasted them all over his car.

This item was meant for Ethan and Jocelyn both, but Ethan hardly gave Jocelyn a moment with it (which she didn’t really mind. She was too busy twirling) It didn’t take him long before he could “fly” his way to all the landmarks on the globe. He loves to settle down and fly all over the globe. Sometimes, he drives his car on the globe too.

We received a few other items too, but these are definitely the favorites… and the only ones I got pictures of.
Thank you and your girls so much, Amy!

so as to not shock your system with an actual POST… Here’s some pictures to ease you back in.

Whenever I put her hair in 2 piggie tails, I can’t help but look at her and exclaim, “Look! Now your’e a cutie patootie!”

Now if I can just get her to not pull them out after 30 minutes.

After I took the first picture she declared, “Now I’m going to make a funny face! TAKE MY PICTURE!”

Then she demanded to see it on my phone, and laughed and laughed and laughed.

-amy

It’s a late arrival home. Your husband is at class. Which means that you pick them up from school, play with them, feed them, wipe their butts, answer all their questions, bathe them, change them into jammies, read them both stories and tuck them both in all by yourself.

So you decide to stop at COSTCO after picking them up! I mean, why the hell not. You just LOVE headaches, right?!

It really does go very well, however, the constant need to stay patient and answer questions calmly and not, you know, LOSE IT when your son tries to hook up the chain that closes off the cashier line for the 4th time really starts to make that needley pain in your temples start to throb and those tarty school ma’rm shoes stop being so swanky and start to just really be painful and finally you’re in the car and you’re heading home annd really it is a miracle that you haven’t raised your voice in a shrill sireny lash at the kids yet..

So what do you do, when finally you manage to get the groceries out from the car, at least the perishable ones, and the kleenex, which is the reason why you just HAD to go there in the first place, because everyone’s noses are always running and nary a soft tissue in sight, and you even managed to remember to get a certain someone onto the potty before the flood gates loose and there’s a whole other situation to deal with and where was I again? Oh yeah, what do you do when you try to slap some peanut butter and jam on bread while getting the milk and eggs put away and your daughter steals away your very last reserve of patience by opening up the mongo package of kleenex and scattering all the boxes hither and yon in your kitchen, YOUR KITCHEN, the very kitchen where you are JUST TRYING TO GET SOME FOOD TOGETHER FOR PETE’S SAKE!!!!

WHAT DO YOU DO???

You take a deep breath, reach deep inside for inner strength and enthuse wildly, “JUST LOOK at all those boxes! Why don’t you make A TOWER!!”

Jocelyn: I am the queen of all things towery.
Ethan: I must hide behind my tower of invisibility so you cannot see me.

Jocelyn and Ethan had the best time building towers, kicking them over, and then picking up as many boxes in a tower as they could while exclaiming, “I’M GUS-GUS!!”*

Sometimes I really do deserve a mother of the year award.

* You know, gus-gus, from cinderella, he stacks the kernels of corn up to his chin and then they all go flying everywhere and the cat Lucifee is slowly stalking him down… Yeah. Gus-Gus.

– amy is lying, kind of, because all this happened a week or so ago, but she just got around to typing it up now.

time: early early this morning.

the scene: both still in bed. no words have yet been spoken, but we’re both kind of awake (alarm has gone off a few times).

me: i have to tell you something
james: mmmm.
me: it’s important.
james: ok. tell me.
me: it’s big news. you need to open your eyes for this.
james opens his eyes.
james looks at me.
james: you’re fired?
me: no.
james: Susie is fired?
me: yes. but that’s not the big news.
james: you’re pregnant?
me: no.
james: you need to pee?
me: yes. but that’s not big news.
james: You–
me: let me just tell you.
james: ok. tell me.
me: I have gotten. Past.
james starts to get that knowing look in his eyes.
me: The pretzel. Level.
james grins.
me: In Ms. Pacman.
james: This is huge.
me: This is huge.
james: Wow.
me: THAT’S NOT ALL!
james: there’s more?
me: THERE’S MORE!
me: I have also set. A new. High. Score.
james is stunned into silence.
the end.

New banner, people.

Wilfred and Virginia

James‘ grandmother (Nana) passed away a few weeks ago on January 9, 2007, joining her husband (Pop-pop) who passed over a year ago. It was hard to imagine Nana all alone after Pop-pop died.

I never met James’ mother, who died while he was in college, but I met Nana and Pop-pop several times over the years. I like to think of the time we stayed with them for a few days one Thanksgiving, before Ethan was born. They both showed me over their home, the house that James visited in the summer when he was a little boy. Pop-pop took me to his woodworking shop, where the tools he had amassed during his lifetime were placed carefully on the pegboards lining the walls, every one in it’s place. Nana showed me over her kitchen and informed me proudly how she designed the layout herself. I exclaimed over the spice rack hanging inside her pantry door, and Pop-pop disappeared and came back with 2 more identical racks, which we took home with us. One we left in our old house when we moved, the other hangs in my pantry now. My efforts to get some family dinner recipes didn’t go over so well. There weren’t that many to be had. However, desserts and cookies, I came away with a notebook full. (Some of which I still can’t get “just right.“) They talked to us and each other with a sharp wit that was a bit unexpected, on my part. They made me laugh, and they made me feel loved and welcome.

There was no funeral for either grandparent. I think in the abstract, this idea always sort of appealed to me, but no longer. It would have been nice to go up and see family that we haven’t seen in a long time. It would have been nice to sit with them and reminisce about the lives of these two wonderful people. It would have been nice to hear more of the stories, collect more of the family recipes, sit and soak in more of the history of James’ family. It would have been nice to say goodbye and have some closure. I guess that is what this post is for me now.

I think of the pain they must have suffered when they lost their daughter, and I can’t even imagine going through it. I hope I never have to. Parents are supposed to go before their children.

I like to think of them together now, and reunited with their daughter, who is likewise reunited with James’ father.

May they rest in peace.