Wednesday, April 27, 2011

And then she cried...

If the opportunity presents itself, I talk to Katie about loving Jesus and having him in our hearts and how he's always with us... (and how he can see EVERYTHING WE DO and how he knows EVERYTHING WE THINK, and how if there's mean and angry feelings in our hearts, there's NO ROOM FOR JESUS THERE.  Not to scare her or anything.  We might just happen to have these talks when she's in a mood and being... oh, a little mean and disrespectful though.)

Well, one day Katie told me she loves Jesus more than she loved me.  I suspect this was meant to be a mean thing (like when she told Grandma that Grandma was a flower... a flower wilted and stuck in dirt or something like that, after Grandma wouldn't give her a third popsicle).  And even if she meant it mean, it still gave me a good opportunity to tell her that she's supposed to love Jesus first and most, then her family and then other stuff.

This was a few days ago.

Fast forward to last night.  Katie is in bed singing to herself.  (My actual Facebook post was: Katie is in bed singing to herself. I can hear her sing "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is alive"... Now she's humming and "bawking" like a chicken. And back to Jesus!

She had just picked out her clothes for Wednesday that she can wear to gymnastics (long shorts and a tank top because she gets sweaty, her words) and she had just given me orders not to forget to bring her "Katie" cup for gymnastics in case she gets thirsty. (I suspect it was the fact that the other kids had their own cups last week that makes remembering her cup super important.)

I thought the evening ended on a very high note.

I went to bed smiling about how cute she was. 

I went to bed cheering about how it was earlier than 12:00 a.m.

I had just gotten comfy and was finally relaxing feeling baby Jackson kick and push and jab... when I heard it.

Her saaaaaad voice.  The voice that gets weepier and weepier.  Until the soft weepy voice turns into a wail. 
She was talking to herself but she sounded like she was on the edge between weepy and wailing.  (Once she's at "wailing", we've got a crisis.  And I've got a headache.)

So I went to check on her before she passed the point of no return and as we cuddled I asked her what was wrong.

She said (in her weepy voice)...

"Mommy, you know how I'm sposed to love Jesus first, and then my family, and then my toys?"

I said yes.

"Well... Mommy... *sniff* I don't think I doooooo *sob sob* I think I love my toys moooore *sniff* than I love Jeeeeeesus*sob sob sob*. "

I hid my smile and tried not to let her feel my belly shake from my laughter as I gave her an extra long squeeze.

I told her Jesus understands how hard it is to be a kid because he was born as a baby and had to grow up just.like.her.  And Jesus knows how she feels, and what's in her heart, and that she loves him.  And because Jesus knows all of this, he also knows that she wants him in her heart because she loves him.  It might not have been the perfect answer but... 

She calmed down a little.

Then we snuggled till she fell asleep. 

Crisis averted.

At 12:00 a.m.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Life skill lesson for Katie at 5 years old. Too much too soon? Nah.

Katie didn't want the egg salad I made for dinner so she MADE her own peanut butter and jelly sandwich. All by herself. Basically I gave her a butter knife, peanut butter, jelly, and the loaf of bread. And she turned it into a sandwich... that she actually ate!

Then she counted all of the big girl stuff she did today.

1. Made her bed ON HER OWN
2. Cleaned up her toys ON HER OWN
3. Cut up eggs for our egg salad sandwiches (with one of those Pampered Chef egg cutty things)
4. Rinsed off dishes
5. Got her OWN bread for her sandwich
6. MADE her sandwich

She's super proud of herself!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Katie... This is your mother speaking. STOP growing up.

You know how one second you're changing diapers or looking for a little shoe or packing a diaper bag and the next you're not?

Well, that's what's happened with Katie.

She grew up on me. 

She turned 5, even after I told her not to.

She turned 5.

Not fair.

I revived from my faint just enough to go with her on her play date during her birthday week (which was a couple of weeks ago but for some reason I didn't hit the post button so I'm doing it now... just pretend you're reading this on or around April 9th!).

Jake, Grandma and Grandpa came with us and Katie played with Jake until Livvy (that's her friend) arrived and the girls played for a bit before stopping to eat.  Jake had a great time climbing to the top of the platforms and going across the wobbly tunnel.  He didn't get stuck and was totally unafraid, but any time Katie started to go down toward the entrance, she made sure he was okay and following her. 

When it was time, the girls got their shoes on and Grandpa brought Katie to her kids club.  I sent along a treat for her table (princess fruit snacks for the girls, toy story fruit snacks for the boys) and went with Grandma and Jake to order Katie's cake.  What theme, you ask?  Um, more princesses.

Then I ran to Aldi's for bread, remembered they had a good price on ham and picked that up too, saw some cookies, fruit snacks, fish fillets and added those to my cart.  I went in for bread.  How does it happen that I leave with more than I planned on?   I expect it at Target, but Aldi?  My first mistake was getting a cart in the first place!

Tonight (not really... this was actually Katie's actual birthday day) we went to dinner with Grandma and Grandpa for Katie's birthday dinner.  Last year it was Red Lobster, this year it was OCB.  Luckily, Grandma and Grandpa reminded Katie that OCB has her icee drink and she gets an ice cream cone after dinner.  It was way cheaper than Red Lobster and everyone gets what they want!  Jake included.  A buckets worth of mac and cheese?  Check.  A handfull of corn?  Check.  A few cups of fruit?  Check.  It was way better than buying him a kids meal and him not eating any of it.

Katie enjoyed her dinner too.  She also enjoyed eating a lemon slice.  Maybe she takes after me... I loooove lemon slices.  My mouth is actually watering right now as I type this!
Katie brought Jake a gift so he could open something and not feel sad.  How precious is that?  She wrapped one of their toys in one of baby dolls shirts and made (yes, MADE) him a card!  He looked at the card but was distracted once she opened her gift and he saw the TOY STORY picture on the box.

Grandma and Grandpa gave her the Ken doll from Toy Story.  Her princess dolls now have someone to go on dates with.  Which is what they were doing for about 30 minutes this evening.  Oh, change that... Ken was waiting to go on a date... the princesses were keeping him waiting.  Katie said he was waiting for 6 weeks.  Poor Ken.  And all this after he was rude (not sure how but it must have been pretty bad) and the princesses were planning to run train tracks over him.  I don't know if they set him free before the train arrived, or after.

Her party is on Sunday and she's really excited.  Grandpa and her have been working on a pink unicorn pinata for the party and just tonight got the unicorn horn in and filled it with candy.  This is like a work of art.  I almost don't want to see it destroyed, it's so cute!  I'll post pics once I have a chance.  It's seriously cute.  Grandpa crafted the horn and it's not just a tube with a point... he made a spiral around it.  The unicorn fur (not sure if unicorns have fur or what but you know, the stuff that covers the bod) is pink and grandpa put rows of the pink strips on it that he painstakingly cut into fringes so it looked like fur.  There's a string mane and tail. 

Seriously, I do not want to break this open it's so cute.  But Katie has no qualms.  It sounds like she wants to use her princess bat for the breaking.  Princess theme rears it's pink, sparkly head.

Finally got the birth certificate papers in the mail.  Woo hoo for me!
I didn't hear the kids argue once today.  (Maybe that's because they were either playing downstairs with their favorite people or eating and separated by a table.  Who knows.)

Katie just came in and asked, "Mom?  What are you doing without me?"  Another golden phrase?  "Mom, are you thinkin what I'm thinking?" 

She cracks me up.  Love this kid...

My 5 year old.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Little dictators don't get what they want (all of the time)

I ran to the grocery store last night for two things.  A&D (or "butt paste" as we call it in our house) and chicken.  Oh, and bread.  And I can't forget the juice.  Oh, maybe some coupon items too...  And John wanted a comb.

*sigh* It's never "just two things".

Anyway, before I left, Katie stops me and looks up at me with her sweet face, eyes big, and asks me if I could get her a present while I'm at the store.

I told her I would see.  I think she's figured out that this usually means yes in mommy speak.

She lost the big eyes and stared directly at me as she laid down her demands of what she wanted.  "Something with princesses on it.  And glitter.  And don't forget."

So, when I got home with a princess coloring book that came with princess stickers (I think they were glittery), she looked through the whole book, seriously thumbed through it with a look of concentration, then she looked at me, held up the book, and said, "Mommy, I wanted paintNot a coloring book."  And gave it back to me.  With the expectation that she would get a painting book. 

Um, I don't think so.

And it's funny that she thinks there's a chance that it might happen.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Urgent care is for wimps... the emergency room is where it's at!

Fun evening on Friday. Me and Katie and a friend and her two kids went shopping at a GREAT sale (seriously good deals) then to DSW, then to a pizza place for dinner, THEN to Walmart. 

I bought the pants I mentioned in my post from a few days ago (at $10, not the $2 I hoped to spend... but I think they're worth it...) and Katie got $5 to spend on whatever.

She bought a ballerina princess barbie.  Of course.

It seems like in the past year she's gathered a collection of barbie/princess dolls. We even had our first guy barbie join the group on Thursday (a birthday gift from Grandma and Grandpa) and Katie loves him. You might have heard of him... his name is Ken. He's in that new Toy Story movie?

Katie is pretty generous with her dolls... Jake introduced Ken to Woody, Sponge Bob, and Buzz and now they're buds. It's so good for Ken to get out with the guys sometimes... He's seriously outnumbered by the princesses. Those girls won't leave him alone!


So we finally head home at about 10 pm and it was time. We used Grandpa's truck for our transportation and I think it brought back memories of all of the times she's gone somewhere with Grandpa... which made her miss grandpa (TEARS on her face and her sad voice telling me "Mommy, I miss Grandpa soooo much.") and we were both tired.

We finally get home. I headed to the bathroom, and on my way I heard Jake cough in his room. A cough that sounded like a seal bark. Really bad.

John picked him up and he just didn't seem like his usual self (I know... middle of the night, of course he'll be tired, but it seemed different) and he was breathing funny but hadn't been sick or anything.


Katie was her usual helpful self by mentioning that Jake "might have" swallowed a tiny toy. She never said he actually swallowed this toy but she said that he had a tiny little ball or something and now she doesn't know where it is. Helpful, right? Just enough info to freak us out. Thanks sweetie.

Soooo, off I go to the ER at 10:30 at night.

Jake was tired and his nose was really snotty. Pretty gross... all of that snot. John does better with body fluids than I do but I do better with emergency care. I guess it's a given that I take one for the team this time.


(As a side note, John has been puked on WAY more than I have in our parenting career so we're probably still not even... although Jake DID pee on me during my c-section... right as he was being pulled out of my stomach which is pretty gross. Maybe we are even after all.)
Waited about 20 minutes to be called into the first room with the triage nurse. Oxygen levels were fine. Huge sigh of relief. A bit of a fever, lots of snot, and lots of nurse charming later and we were back in the waiting room. For about 45 minutes.

Not too bad so far. Hospital waiting rooms can be interesting.

Got called back to an exam room with a bed so we snuggled in and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Doc came. Gave Jake a quick once over but he didn't find anything scary. He ordered an x-ray and left to see other patients. 


Oh, a random guy pushing a computer walked into our room just before the doctor came in.  He typed away but didn't say anything to me.  Looks like it's this guys job to wheel his computer around with the doc, taking notes. He didn't look around, didn't say hello, didn't acknowlege us at all.  It was pretty funny.  Not very funny now that I'm typing this out, but at the time it gave me a chuckle.

Waited for the x-ray guy.

Waited.

Waited.

Dozed off snuggling with Jake till a
 nurse stopped by to ask if he wanted to color. He said yes in his cute voice. She brought in a table and colors and a book for him.

I dozed off again with him sitting in front of me, coloring away.

About an hour and a half later, doc comes to see if we've been to x-ray. I opened my eyes to a squint and told him that we hadn't. The tech came about 20 minutes later. Asked if I could be pregnant so he could ask a nurse to hold Jake during the x-ray.


Pregnant?  Ummm, yes.

Found a nurse. Did the x-ray. Jake charmed again. So cooperative and so sweet and he wasn't even afraid when I had to step away into the x-ray booth. He got 3 stickers.

Then back to the room and the same nurse asked if Jake wanted a popsicle... he said yes. And smiled at her.  Again, the little charmer.

We finally got the verdict. Nothing on x-ray (thanks again, Katie) and it looked like a virus. A contagious virus. He mentioned what to do in case of croup but the verdict was virus.

We finally got home at around 3:30 a.m. Yes, in. the. morning.

John held Jake and I went to bed.

And we decided to postpone Katie's birthday party when she ended up with a sniffly nose the next day. She wad surprisingly okay with it... once she made sure she would still get the princess cake she picked out when we did reschedule her party.


Oh, Grandpa? You might notice a blue, rectangle shaped sticker on the window of your suburban. Katie may have accidentally (or on purpose) stuck that there after our stop at the big sale. She was very upset when I mentioned that it was not a good idea to stick sticky stickers onto car windows... especially when the car window is not ours. She got very emotional when she thought that you might be mad at her. Funny, she didn't care so much about how mommy would feel when she stuck a sticker on the window of our car...

Friday, April 8, 2011

Some blog updates...

Hi everyone!

I'm considering changing the design of the blog.  I'm not going to go crazy and totally create something beautiful from scratch, no, it will probably be more like, "Hmmm, what template on Blogger am I loving more than the one I've been looking at for two years...?"  because I am not techy.  At all.

I'm still just surprised that I managed to add a "Subscribe" button and a"Follow by Email" button onto my blog. 

Psst...

It's right over there.

Over to your left  
                                 < -----------
                                                and
                                                    down
                                                          a little.

You know... in case you wanted to get every exciting post update sent directly to your email account OR reader (love my reader).  Or both?

But wait...

You might not want to do that.

Because I've also figured out how to get my blog to update from my phone, which means that I might, possibly, probably be posting more random (and by random I mean once or twice a day) pictures of the kiddos and stuff we're doing.  So if you don't want the extra email in your inbox, you might just plan to stop by when you've got a moment to catch up.

Oh, Grandma and Grammy? 

You there?

You might want to sign up for the email.



Because those pictures are going to be CUTE.

Katie "flies" and jogs on the Wii

Grandma and Grandpa have a new game on their Wii and Katie has been playing along! She jogged and flew around before bed the other day and last night too. She had so. much. fun!

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Beds, diaper changing trickery, and pet store fish

Okay, continuing on from yesterday...

On a side note, we picked up these beds about a week ago but Jake was a little sick (again!) and they've been sitting in our garage just waiting to be set up.  So, we get home and I notice that one of the headboards was missing from the garage.  Then I realized the mattress and other stuff was missing too.  Got in the house to find that John had been busy while we were gone... Katie's new bed was set up and her old bed was in Jake's room!  That was just the inspiration I needed.  That night I got Jake's room set up and everything in place.  It was a relief that everything fit in there and I can now say that space is at a premium in every room of our house.

Now we just need to paint the boys room, sort Jake's clothes, find curtains (that aren't pink - a leftover from Katie's habitation), get another sound machine, figure out if we're going to have issues with Jake staying put in his big boy bed or if he'll be as good a sleeper as he is now...if he's not in baby jail his crib.  Lots to think/worry about.

Oh, Katie was trying to help me the other night.  Jake usually does his best to avoid me when I need to change his diaper (I think he thinks it's a game) so I have to be very tricky when I try to catch him because he's faster than me now. 

So, the other night, Katie had a toy he likes and was telling him "Jake, come over her and look at this toy! You really like this!  It's so fun, see?  Isn't it fun?  Mommy needs to change your diaper, you should come here and mommy will change you and I'll give you this toy!  Won't that be nice?" and so on in her very best big girl/mommy voice.  She mentioned the toy, then me changing his diaper maybe 3 times with no luck.  He wasn't having it.  Finally, she looks at me and says (in what sounded like a reassuring, don't want to hurt your feelings because Jake doesn't want anything to do with you voice), "Mommy, maybe I won't tell Jake you're here, okay?"

So what else... I had my OB visit on Monday.  It went well (no shots, no tests, no discomfort... unless you count the weigh-in).  Gained 2 lbs since my last appointment TWO WEEKS AGO.  Arg.  Doctor isn't alarmed since this brings the grand total to 22 lbs gained through the last 7 months.  Also, good news.  I don't have to add another iron pill to my packed pill holder!  The doc looked at my levels and, while they're still down from the last time my hemoglobin was tested, the levels aren't horrible so I'm okay at 2 iron pills per day.  Can I just say?  What a relief!

Feeling okay mostly.  I'm not even that tired... but when I'm ready to sit down, I'm realllllly ready to sit down.  And it just seems like I can be right next to the kids all evening puttering around in the kitchen or living room and no one looks at me twice (or acknowledges that I even exist) but when I go to sit down on the couch and just get comfy, it's like suddenly I'm the air they need to breathe, the filling in their pop tart, the glass slipper in Cinderella's story.  And they neeeeeed me.  Sometimes it's fun to be neeeeeeeeded.  Especially when it's a super tough question about how to play a game on Sprout and they're in awe of me because I can figure that stuff out. 
Oh, there was also that time at Petco when we were looking at the fish and I was reading the names off of the tags.  We were about 3/4 of the way through after having stopped at each tank to admire each fish (lots and lots of fish) and I had just read off the name of the fish.  Katie looked at me with wonder and said something about how smart I was.  I asked her what she meant and she answered that I knew all of the names of the fish.  Ha!  I had to tell her that I was reading them off of the card.

(But sometimes it's hard to pull myself up (again) off of the couch for something for the 6th time in 10 minutes.)

And finally, Jake scared us half to death the other day.  Dad and John were loading something into the truck and Jake snuck out of the house.  (I did say he was outside... but apparently no one heard me.)  He took off running down the street and was just over half a block away before John caught him.  Luckily his little light up shoes were on so we could see him in the not-quite-dark but I don't even want to imagine how that could have turned out.

Just some other odds and ends... the kids ate sloppy joes and liked them, I made a mexican tater tot hotdish that everyone ate (even the kids had 3rds!), Jake has developed a love of toast to the exclusion of actual dinner foods, I sent the birth certificate requests in for both kids (lucky me... I was picked to do a dependant audit at work and have to prove date of birth, etc.  Of course that had to happen.), our hot water heater broke and we had to buy a new one, and lastly, I've got 2 months and 1 days left of pregnancy!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Said goodbye to Costco... it was hard.

Took Katie to Walmart this weekend because when I was there last week, I found a pair of knit pants for $2.  (Yes.  Two bucks.  The price tag said $10 but I really needed some comfy pants for work and these seemed to be okay.  Got to the checkout and they rang up as $2.  I should have gone back right then and picked up 5 more pairs but... I didn't.)  I decided I would go on Saturday after I thought about the expense a bit more.  Then I was like, what?  Think about spending $2 on pants I could wear during the rest of my pregnancy AND after? I'm kicking myself today.  Because today, the $10 pants that last week rang up at $2 actually did cost me $10.  Each.  So I took them out of the cart and just picked up the stuff I needed for Katie's birthday party.

The highly anticipated princess theme stuff.

You know... The princess plates, princess cups, princess napkins, princess tablecloth.  Princesses. everywhere.  Katie was very happy.  She was also in love with this outfit (Tinkerbell) and just exclaimed over how cute it was and that maybe she could wear it on her birthday.  It was pretty cute (in other words, it wasn't totally princess obnoxious) and it didn't cost a fortune so I told her we would buy it. 

More exclamations over how cute it was and how excited she was to wear it, I decided it was worth the $13 it cost.

However, in the excitement of finding all of my princess party stuff and this cute outfit, I managed to forget that when we were at Target a couple of weeks ago she found a dress that stopped her in her tracks.  Literally.  She stopped right in front of the rack and just stared at this dress.  And tried it on and twirled around in the dressing room and I was totally suckered into buying the "beautiful dress" for her to wear.

On her birthday.

Luckily, Katie has quite a week planned. She's got kids club on Wednesday, dinner out on Thursday, and her party on Saturday so even if she decides to add her purple Christmas dress into the outfit rotation, there are enough events to go around.  I'm thinking Tinkerbell on Wednesday and the beautiful dress on Sunday.

After Walmart we ran to Costco to eat samples pick up diapers and wipes and some other stuff I had coupons for.  And we shared a hot dog and an ice cream bar (seriously, those nut covered ice cream bars are SO good).  And then I *gulp* cancelled our membership.

Costco isn't exactly in my neck of the woods so it wasn't convenient to run over when we were low on something.  Plus, I did a little cost comparison and the stuff at Sam's Club (where my parents have a membership) and Sam's Club was actually cheaper by a dollar or two... or three for the things I buy most often in bulk!  So I cancelled.  I might have been in shock a little but I made it out of the store without any dramatic goodbye scene.

No tears allowed.  But sniffles are permitted.

Okay, so just as I was going to hit "publish" I realized that this post was getting VERY long.  So I'm ending here for the day and I'll post the rest tomorrow. 

Really, I won't forget. 

Really.  I'm going to schedule the part I copy/pasted to post tomorrow afternoon and I'm going to do it RIGHT NOW.  Otherwise I might forget.  Like two seconds from now. 

Oh, and, as always, feel free to leave a comment... I'm not sure if anyone reads this stuff anymore!