Dixie update

By the way, Dixie is doing great. The kids LOVE her and have never gotten so many timeouts since she arrived. (They have to be reminded a LOT not to chase her and grab her.) To their defense, they've never had an animal that they can just go up to and pick up. That charm hasn't worn off yet.

Every day when we get home, Dixie comes to greet us within minutes. She's a sweet, great addition to our family. Even her and Sasha are doing okay together. She likes the kids a lot and lets them pick her up, carry her around, etc. We're just trying to teach them early on to be nice so she'll like them in the long run, too.

Juggling the homefront

Steve's gone this weekend. We miss him, but we do okay. Saturday we wen to the zoo and then today we hit the apple farm for about the 4th time this year. We LOVE apples in our house, and the apples at the store just can't compete with the ones you can pick yourself.

I'm doing this pre-holiday fitness challenge with some family. You know, instead of getting on the big fitness kick after the holidays, we're going to try to lose a little weight now so we don't have to feel guilty at the holidays.

Anyway, I get this bright idea this afternoon to get a quick workout in on the elliptical downstairs while both kids were awake. I set them up with popcorn, water and some TV. Should be smooth sailing, right? Uh-uh, sure. Kids have this radar that goes off when they know you're in a helpless position. They did okay at first, but then both ended up spilling their popcorn everywhere. In my best panting/threatening voice, I threaten them with something. They won't get to go to the park or something if they don't clean up that popcorn.

I bet they were laughing at me on the inside. "Hehehe. Go ahead, Mom. Get off of that thing and make us!"

After I finally finished my workout, I got off and "made" Jack go and get his little vacuum. The joke was kind of on me, though, because he thought that was great fun.

And one more makes...

EIGHT! We're now a family of 8. I've been talking on and off about getting another cat. Then this summer Steve made the mistake of saying we could get another cat if I REALLY wanted to. There's this great adoption place in town that saves the animals from animal control. On Monday, we went to look at this little kitten, and she was NOT a big fan of the kids. She was sweet but shy and we were way too rambunctious for her. But while we were there, there was this other cat who was desperate to get out to say hello. When they let her out, she strutted all over the room and even let Jack and Annabelle pick her up. We were hooked!

Five days later, we became the proud owners of Dixie. (The name is a tribute to the Dixie in Brisco County for anyone interested.) We figured we already have three animals, so really, what's one more?

She's beautiful, sweet and the kids LOVE her. Sasha (our other cat) would never willingly be in the same area as the kids, and even our dogs don't choose to interact with the kids unless there's food involved. I don't think we could have found a better fit. Dixie is roughly 1 and is tolerant of everything. So it's only our second day, but so far, we're very happy. Here are some pictures...

"We don't say come here, Daddy! We just say teddy bear."

Yes, this phrase also puzzled us when Jack said it. Huh? Are the kids abusing the phrase "come here" at school? We quizzed Jack for a while, thinking we'd get the real answer out of him but no dice. He was very certain that Miss Molly told them that they can't say come here. They can only say teddy bear instead.

So finally I remembered to ask Molly about it this week. "Are the kids not allowed to say come here?" I asked. "They can only say teddy bear?"

Molly laughed. "Well come here isn't the thing they can't say," she told me. "It's for the child here that swears. Instead of swearing, we try to get the child to say other silly words like teddy bear."

Ahhh, it all makes sense now. Yes, there's a 3-year-old in Jack's room that swears. He's been known to drop the f bomb...call teachers bxxxx...and finally, throw around "shit!" In fact, Jack was very eager to tell us about it last week. "Mommy, Billy says shit but we don't say shit. Right Mommy? We don't say shit, but that's what Billy says. He says shit."

This conversation happened at Target. :)

Naughty Mickey

As most know, we're big Disney fans in our house. The kids even own Disney stock, so please, spend all you can to ensure the domination of "The Mouse."

Anna's favorite show is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, which is a modern take on the Mickey cartoons. And while it is a modern take, I can't help but point out that the show is still kind of sexist overall. First of all, Minnie and Daisy are always wearing dresses, high heels and bows. Come on! Where are the jeans? Furthermore, the males are always the ones who are solving the problems and going out on the quests to fix problems.

This brings me up to the whole point of this posting...naughty Mickey. So in this one episode (Goofy's Petting Zoo), the boys are all out looking for the animals that Goofy lost. He was napping on the job, and the animals escaped. They finally find the last animal, which is a baby elephant. And guess where the baby elephant is? Sitting up in a tree. (Yeah, the logic of a kids show!) Anyway, the boys decide they have this brilliant idea to shake peanuts at the baby elephant to bribe it down the tree. So they all stand at the bottom of the tree and start singing "Shake, shake, shake, your peanut. Baby elephant, come down the tree. Shake, shake, shake your peanut. Baby elephant, come home with me."

Now while they're singing this, Mickey, Goofy and Donald are doing an Elvis-like hip gyration. And they are emphasizing the "Peeeeeeeeee" part of peanut. Think about it. The boys, hip gyration, shaking their pe....

Now you can tell me those Disney people didn't have themselves a little laugh as they were writing that episode.

I am a bad mother

So Steve is gone this week to a computer training class. It's just me and the kids. Actually, it's kind of relaxing when it's just the kids and and me. Not that Steve isn't relaxing, but when it's just me, I tend to relax because I know there's no one to lean on. I don't need a man!

Well tonight, I learned that I'm not as confident as I thought. I put Anna to bed, and about half an hour later, she's giving me trouble. Trouble as in, she's not sleeping. She's been teething lately, so we never know whether we'll get a full night of sleep. (And you think you're all done with that after they're newborns!) I think all four of Anna's canine teeth...you know the pointed ones...are coming in at once.

So she's giving me trouble tonight, and I'm semi-frustrated. Okay, I'm definitely frustrated. After multiple trips into her room, she still won't go to sleep. I even tried rubbing her gums with the teething "magic" ointment, which really isn't so magical.

As I went in a couple of times, I'm thinking...ewww, something stinks! I even took out her favorite blanket because I thought it was the source of the stench. The last time I went in there, I was holding her when I decided it was her pajamas that smelled. I took them off, and all of the sudden, it hit me. She had a poopie diaper. I felt awful as I changed it. She had a really red little bottom. I loaded her up with diaper ointment, and asked her if she felt better. With these big, soulful eyes, she nodded and said, "Yeah." I laid her down and haven't heard a peep since then.

Poor kiddo with the bad mommy. I guess Steve is good for something after all.

I can just see Anna tomorrow at day care, comparing "bad mother" stories with the other kids.

Trip to the Farm

My mom came for a visit in August, and one of the highlights of our trip was going to the farm. I thought I would share a few pictures of our adventures. We saw plenty of "real" farm animals, but our favorite by far were the the cats. Yes, that is a picture of my sweet little girl, having a time out on the farm.

Labor Day weekend

We went Up North for one last time this summer, and it was great weekend. The water was a little cool, but it didn't stop us from playing in the sand and even jumping off the dock. Actually, the kids jumped into the water while I stood about waist-deep in the lake, hoping I wouldn't get splashed too much.

The other big part of the weekend was our 2007 Fantasy Football Draft. Steve's family has a friendly fantasy football league, and I love it! Before I participated in the league, football season was often painful and excruciatingly long. Don't get me wrong...I love football. But I'm also married to a man who LOVES football. Before we had kids, we turned football early in the morning on Sundays (pre-game show) and then we watched until late at night. He'll watch anything, though his team of choice is the Chicago Bears.

Anyway, football season is much more fun now that I play fantasy. (It probably doesn't hurt that I won our league last year, too!)

So in this year's draft, I was thrilled to pick up Peyton Manning with my first pick. I also picked up the Bears Defense, another one of my favorite picks this season. As many of you know, we have a little bit of football rivalry in the family. Steve likes the Bears and I like the Colts (because of Peyton). The kids have apposing jerseys, so I snapped this picture of the two of them sitting together. Wouldn't it be great to see the real Manning and Urlacher, sharing a moment like this?

Baseball Jack

So I'm really getting fancy with this blog now. I have a video of Jack to share! I'm so impressed with myself. I'm like one of those young kids with the technology!

Back to the purpose of the video, though...Jack is a big fan of playing baseball. Sometimes he likes to play catch with his mitt. But lately, he's been wanting to hit. We tried throwing him a baseball-sized ball at first, but that's hard to hit for a little guy! Now, we use a giant purple ball which works out much better. He's getting to be pretty good with his timing and stance!

By the way, for anyone who knows Steve, this makes him VERY proud. In fact, as I'm typing this, Steve is sitting here, watching baseball and reading a book about fantasy baseball. (I'm really not making this up.)

Anyway, we think Jack might be left-handed, but he bats like he's a righty. Oooo, maybe he'll be a switch hitter.

Okay, okay...back to the video. Well, I'll let you watch it yourself. This is what happened during a recent "batting practice" in the living room.

Sick girl update

So for anyone out there biting your fingernails to find out what's wrong with Anna...she has hand, foot and mouth disease. (Don't worry, it sounds much worse than it really is.)

Actually, it is pretty icky. She's got a sore throat, mouth sores and spots on her hands and feet. They can't do anything to actually treat it, which means no real antibiotics. But for now, we have this over-the-counter mixture that the doctor recommended. You know, a little bit of this...a little bit of that. It's all good. I just hope I got the right medicine. When we went to Walgreens, the lights were completely out so one of the employees had to help me find the medicine with a flashlight.

Anyway, she's fast asleep now. She looks so peaceful. It's hard for me to imagine that she's the same girl who was crying in the doctor's office earlier.

For any worrisome grandparents out there, she'll be fine. This is not to be confused with "Hoof and Mouth Disease," commonly associated with cattle. I looked it up, and it turns out when an animal gets this similar disease, the owner usually kills it and burns its carcass. (Harsh, but that's what it said.)

I'm glad the treatment for Anna is less severe. Hopefully with a few days of ice cream, yogurt and our secret mixture, she'll be good as new!

Sick girl=cranky girl

We should be embarrassed that it's been so long since a posting about our dear little fam. Steve has been falling down on the job, so I'm taking over. My pal, Am, recently started a blog, so she's inspired me to write about our own family, too.

So what's up with the title of this entry, right? Well, I'm home with Anna today. She's sick. And let me tell you, this girl knows exactly what she does (and doesn't) want. She's not shy about telling you.

This morning she spent a good 5 minutes in the corner because neither Steve nor I could understand what she wanted, and frankly, she'd rather hang out by herself than to be around her slacker parents. (I could just imagine her thinking, I'm so misunderstood!)

Actually, I don't want to give her a bad rap because she's pretty darn cute, too. In fact, she's especially adorable right now as she's watching Curious George in honor of her sick day.

We're going to the doctor soon, so I'll report after that.

Oh yeah, I'll give a family update at some point, too. After all, it's been an entire YEAR since our last blog. Something must have happened by now, right?

Of Spare Tires and Swing Sets

Every morning, I have the kids to myself for about an hour. Stacy leaves for work at about 6:30, and I bundle Jack and Annabelle into the car around 7:45 for day care. Stacy then picks up the kids at 4. We worked this out to both save a litle money and to minimize the amount of time the kids need to be at day care, but I have found the best reason to be the time I get every morning with them.

I've been known to spend the time watching Barney (or SportsCenter) with them, or fruitlessly encouraging Jack to eat some breakfast while Anna tries to take a quick morning nap. Some mornings, they're both a little cranky and I spend the whole time comforting one or the other. Most mornings, though, we spend playing with toys in the living room, or reading books, or playing with the dogs, or any number of things.

This morning, we played on the swing set.

Last Wednesday, I was diligently working when my mom called. She had just been at the Toys R Us store near our house and bought the kids a play set. She had misread the size of the boxes it came in, and realized that she wouldn't be able to fit them into her car. She made arrangements with the store to allow me to pick up the boxes after work. She left the receipt in a top-secret location at the house, along with a bonus present for Jack to find on the deck.



As 4 o'clock neared, my phone rang again, interrupting more diligent work. Have I mentioned that I work diligently? It was Stacy, and she had a flat tire. Within the space of a couple minutes, it became clear that I was going to have to leave work early to take care of that indolent tire (indolent? Can a deflated tire be indolent? Sure, why not...it's definitely not doing its job). I told Stacy I was on the way. At the very least, I thought, I could swing by Toys R Us and get the play set after changing the tire, and would probably get home early as a bonus.

I arrived to find the front passenger-side tire completely deflated, and resting on the rim. There was a brief adventure while I tracked down the jack and the spare tire. If the manual wasn't in the glove compartment, I never would have found the tire. I may send an email to US Customs to inform the border patrol of that clever hiding spot in the Honda Odyssey. I bet all kinds of Canadian Bacon is being smuggled over the border in minivans, even as you read this.

The van sat at a slight incline, but since I had no pieces of wood to block the tires, I gave the jack the old college try. Unfortunately, college doesn't work out for everyone. I had the van fall off the jack twice before Stacy offered to "borrow" a lanscaping brick. It was sufficient to keep the van from rolling until the spare could be attached. Stacy took the van to the local service station, and I left to pick up the kids.

There was no getting home early. I guess dropping a van off the jack a couple of times really increases the changing time of a tire. I would never make it on Bobby the Bunny's crew.

I had just enough energy left after the tire-changing ordeal to pick up the play set, and then transfer the boxes from my truck to the garage. The boxes just barely fit in the truck. I thought that must be a pretty big play set, but there was no way it would be put together that night.

The following night, we cleaned the house and packed for a long 4th of July weekend at the lake, so the play set was left in the garage.

Unfortunately, no one broke into the garage while we were gone and assembled the play set. Maybe I should have left the garage door open. Oh well, it was time to get to work. Diligently.

I emptied the two boxes across the garage floor and driveway. The hardware bag was missing an instruction manual, but the miracle of the Internets allowed me to print out a new manual from the manufacturer web site. I probably should have taken inventory of all the pieces at that point, but there were SO MANY PIECES. How could any be missing?

I gathered up the recommended tools and set to building. The slide platform almost assembled itself, it was such a smooth process. Then, the instructions said to install the slide platform support/cupholder bar. Cupholder? On a swing set? These kids nowadays don't know how good they have it. "But what if it's not for the kids?" I thought to myself.



Now that's smart engineering.

Right around this time I discovered that some pieces were, in fact, missing. Important pieces, actually. The big bars that go across the top and support the swings. I was prepared to call the 800 number in the instructions to get the missing parts, but Stacy insisted that the store should have the parts on hand. No way, I said. She was pretty insistent, and called the store herself. Turns out they did have the pieces on hand. Score one point for her (I know you're reading this--stop gloating. I can feel your look).

I picked up the missing parts, and the rest of the build was a piece of cake. Well, kind of a big cake that takes a long time to bake if the cook isn't very skilled with wrenches and hammers and such. I'm not sure if that qualifies as mixing or torturing the metaphor, but in either case it can't be good for the metaphor to be treated in such a fashion.

Finally, just before bedtime, the kids were able to take it for a spin.




This morning, Jack dried off the slide with his pants, and gave the glider swing a good riding. It looks like the swing set is going to be a regular part of our morning routine this summer.

Thank you, Grandma.

Abominable! Can you believe that? Do I Look Abominable to You?

Oh, the neglect this blog is forced to endure. I am amazed that it is able to maintain a positive outlook.

After some adjustment to the natural order of things with two children (primarily by the daddy), our house has settled into a regular, if hectic, routine. Annabelle has been nominated as best baby in the entire world by settling into a regular full-night sleeping schedule back in January. She goes down at 7 or 8 at night, and sleeps until 5 or 6 each morning. Not only that, but she's the smiling-est little girl you'll come across. She spends her days sleeping, then smiling, then having a look around, and then smiling some more. I should have the picture page updated in a few days, and there will be several smiles on display.

Oh, but there's a dark side. When that girl does not get what she wants, when she wants it, she has a voice that could shatter glass. Fortunately, we've managed to appease her before the glass-breaking stage so far, but it's been close. I remember back when Jack was a few months old, and that I thought his little crying was so cute. Anna has never had a "cute" cry. She could audition to be an Amish air-raid siren.

Jack turned into a little boy one day a couple weeks ago. One night, I put my baby to bed, and the next morning a little boy woke up. He is obsessed with Monsters, Inc. and Barney, and sings along to songs from his music class. He seems to know exactly what I'm saying all the time (although he's clever enough to pretend he doesn't hear much of it, especially when it starts with "Stop that" or "No"). His 2nd birthday party is tomorrow, and the theme is "March Madness." All of the food is going to be his favorites - taco dip, pickles, juice, the works. We're going to make homemade ice cream and have fun building sundaes, too. Sure sounds like some March Madness to me.

Another Big One

Annabelle had her 2 month doctor appointment yesterday, and she's following in the footsteps of her older brother. Perfectly healthy, and 14 pounds now -- 95th percentile, just like Jack.

Settling In

Jack started back to daycare yesterday. We figured he would be happier if he started back part-time, so he's going to be going Tuesdays and Thursdays this month, and then he and Annabelle will be in full-time at the end of this month. Everyone was very excited to see him, and it only took him about 20 minutes to settle back into the room. Before he left, he used to spend all his time with Maya, but it looks like she wasn't willing to wait for him. He spent most of the day yesterday chasing Gabriella around the room. At least he took it well, and moved on.

Anna is a little angel. She's already staying awake for a good part of the day, and sleeping most of the night. There is the small matter of the groaning, though. If she's awake, she's groaning. If she's falling asleep, she's groaning. If she's deeply asleep, she moans periodically. Whatever it is that she's trying to say, seems pretty important. She's been growing quickly, and will have another doctor appointment pretty soon, and I'll be able to report some measurements.

We had a nice Christmas season, and even made a day trip up to Appleton on Christmas Eve, where Santa paid us a visit. Jack was very intrigued by him, but was careful to maintain a safe distance. Ian was initially cautious, but much like Ralphie, he was able to regain his composure in time and rattle of some requests. No Red Ryder BB guns, though.