Saturday, February 28, 2009

Recent Pics

Anna made the valentine and the boys just wanted their pictures taken.

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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Too smart for Daddy

The boys get up too early around here. It used to be that J got up too early. Now, that B has moved into J's room, both of them are getting up too early. They come into our room and want to watch Disney channel. We try to settle them down but they end up playing/wrestling/pillow fighting. All of those things are not conducive to Mommy getting 15 more minutes of sleep. We all know how Mommy is when she doesn't get 15 more minutes of sleep.

DH had a fantastic idea. He set the clock in their room 15 minutes early and told the boys they couldn't come into our room until it said 6:30.

That plan didn't last long. Last night I reminded him that he couldn't get out of bed until 6:30. He said that wasn't fair because his clock was wrong and that would mean he was stuck in bed until 6:45. He wanted Daddy to come in and reset his clock right away.

It was a nice idea, if only it had worked.

Monday, February 23, 2009

complete

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Monday, February 16, 2009

Tooth Fairy

J had a loose tooth for the past 3 months. I discovered it before Christmas when the new tooth popped through behind the baby one. The baby tooth was loose, but firmly attached in front. We wiggled it when he would let me, but that wasn't often. I was sure it would come out over Christmas break. I had grand plans of making him a tooth fairy pillow for Christmas. I never got around to it but it was okay because the tooth was still there.

In January, my friend Susan posted about her son losing his tooth and I thought it was a brilliant idea. J, not so much. He wanted nothing to do with it.

A had an orthodontist appointment two weeks ago, so I dragged J over to see the dentist and she said since the new tooth came in behind, it wasn't putting pressure on the front roots of the tooth. She said it may take time, but keep wiggling and it will eventually come out.

On Friday, J allowed me to look at his tooth. I practically had to sit on my hands to prove to him that I would not touch/yank/pull/wiggle it. He showed me that he could push it almost all the way out with his tongue but he wasn't ready to pull it. He went to grandparents on Saturday and I warned them it was about to fall out. When we picked him up on Sunday, it was still hanging in there.

Finally, last night, he asked me to pull it. I sat down and put him in my lap. I reached in to get hold of the tooth and it slipped from my fingers. J immediately pursed his lips and said he was not going to pull it. I told him that the tooth fairy knows when is a kid is cooperative in tooth pulling and the tooth fairy doesn't bring as much to a kid who fights with his mom when she tries in pull his tooth. Yes, I resorted to bullying tactics. It worked. He opened his mouth and I grabbed the tooth. He grimaced waiting for the awful pulling. He didn't realized that the tooth popped out the minute I grabbed it. We put it in the plastic treasure box the dentist gave him. Good thing I never made that tooth fairy pillow!

Afterward, he acted all brave, like there had never been a struggle. That was the easiest thing ever and why did I ever make a fuss?? What bravado! Now he's happily smiling and pushing his tongue through the hole where his tooth was. He had 3 more loose teeth. What fun I have to look forward too.

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Saturday, February 14, 2009

Just short of the finish line

All week I've been slogging away at the melon shawl trying to finish it for the casino night party tonight. I didn't make it.

The border knitting has only gone so-so. The pattern is easy to do, but I bought some cheap metal dpns to knit it with and I wish I had gone shopping for better ones. Not that the needles are bad but they are slick. I dropped a needle and had it slide out more than once. When the needle dropped out the stitch that attaches the border to the center panel dropped and dropped and dropped fast. I redid parts of the border way too many times. I blame that on me staying up past midnight trying to get it done and was just plain ole sloppy.

So Thursday night I put the kids to bed. I finally get everyone settled down, no more waters, no more demonstrating the song they learned in school, no more B won't stop talking, etc. I picked up my knitting at 9:15 and I realized that I was tired. Really tired. I decided that I would just give up and go to bed.

At least I know I'll have it ready for next year and it's going to be beautiful!

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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Yummy Dinner

I marinated a flank steak this afternoon. On my way home from Valentine shopping, I stopped at the grocery to get some vegetables to go with the steak. While there A mentioned that she wanted those onions, you know the brown stringy & crunchy ones. I had to interpret what "those onions" meant but I figured out it was the onions from this recipe. (I guess I've never blogged this recipe. I've got a pork tenderloin in the freezer, I may need to make it again.) We picked up a big bag of green beans which I parboiled and then sauteed in the pan after caramelizing the onions.

It was all good. I'm going to have to remember this one.

I should have knocked on wood

I spent yesterday evening dwelling on a post.

I dreamed of posting about how after dealing with B still sleeping in the crib and constantly climbing out, we had finally successfully moved him into the bottom bunk in J's room. I was going to say that the boys had finally settled into a routine. I figured out that I had to move the ladder to the top bunk until they were both asleep to stop B from climbing up and jumping on J after he fell asleep. I was going to exclaim that they both were sleeping through the night. No getting up in the middle of the night asking for water or jumping on each other or wanting to play.

Of course it had only been a couple of night in a row of the two of the sleeping in the bunk beds. I had to just think of the post and wait to make sure it was true.

It turns out that just thinking of posting of the wonders of the boys sleeping together is a huge jinx. Nope. We had up and down and screaming and yelling and doors slamming and crib jumping and climbing out then more screaming and calming and soothing and going back to sleep. Then I had to put me back to sleep.

Never again will I start thinking of a post before it is really time to post.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Drama of the Girl Scout Leader

I have 4 girls, A, B, C & D.

A & B are schedule to lead meeting 1.

2 Junior Girls Scouts working on their Bronze award are planning a workshop at meeting 2.

C & D are scheduled to lead meeting 3.

Meeting 1 gets cancelled because of the ice day. I need to reschedule so I decide to push them to an open date in April.

A week or so ago, I get a email from C's mom that she and D's mom cannot make meeting 3. She asks for the meeting schedule so she can try and switch with someone else.

A few days later I get an email from the Junior Girl Scouts who are doing meeting 2. They can't make that date. I tell them to take meeting 3. I let C's mom know. She mentions taking meeting 2 instead but never confirmed.

Meeting 2 is Wednesday. Saturday I still don't know what's going on so I email A & B's moms and ask if they can come to meeting 2. They can and all is hunky-dory.

This afternoon I get an email from C's mom saying that she's planning on coming to meeting 2 on Wednesday. I spent the afternoon thinking about how I've mishandled the situation and how I can diplomatically say no to C's mom.

(Her conflict was that she has a new job and has a hard time taking time off. So if she's planning on Wed then she probably scheduled time off.)

I send C's mom an email and I probably made her mad.

Not two minutes after I send the email to C's mom, I get an email from A's mom that there has been a death in the family and she can't make it to meeting 2.

Great!

I send a note to C's mom suggesting that if she is already free on Wed, that she and B's mom help the girls host the meeting 2 and we'll put A with D in a meeting in April.

Gosh, I really hope that this works out but I highly doubt it. The way things have gone in Brownies this year, it will all fall apart. If things do go to heck, I've already decided I'm just going to cancel meeting 2 and deal with it later.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

A year and half later

In November '07 I was in charge of the bake sale at church. I spent all this time worrying about how many baked goods we would have enough stuff. I baked for a week. I made a bunch of stuff.

There were problems with the church calendar and we didn't get to hold the bake sale in November so we pushed it back to this weekend. I'm so over the bake sale this time. If we don't have enough, oh well. I didn't slave over making tons of stuff.

Here are my contributions:

Heart shaped brownies:
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Leftover cupcakes from J's class party that I had in the freezer:
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Chocolate chip cookies that I'm still in the process of baking:
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I just don't feel like baking. I can make something else tonight if I need to but I'm not going to kill myself over this.

What I have felt like doing is knitting. I've started the border on my melon
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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

He's ready

In DH's extensive research for our Canadian Spring Break trip, he figured out that renting ski helmets is pretty expensive, $7/day. He found these helmets on sale for about $20 a piece shipped, a good deal.

B loves his helmet. He spent most of the afternoon in it. Luckily I was able to convince him to take it off before he went to bed.

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Monday, February 2, 2009

Solo

DH went to a casino night meeting so I'm flying solo tonight. Aside from the meltdown over studying for the PSIA spelling test, we did fine. Boys went down without a peep, a miracle since B took a short nap this afternoon.

Earlier this evening I got notified that someone had tagged a picture of me on Facebook. It was a soccer picture from when I was 6 or 7 seven years old. I couldn't remember half the people in the picture. One of them ended up going to school with DH. I couldn't remember who she was but apparently she contacted DH on Facebook and told him that she remembers me. There were a few that I recognized and I wanted to tag them too, but I was terrified of getting it wrong. Would you be insulted if someone tagged the wrong person and said it was you? I wasn't sure if I would be. I suppose it would all depend on the person they said I was. It had better not be the ugly kid!

Here's the funny question from B tonight. He was going to the bathroom in our bathroom before bed. He looked up the sports page sitting on the ledge and asked, "Why does Daddy always read the paper when he goes poop?" He got my ready response, "I don't know, ask your Dad."