Jordan has recently taken to polling the family on a variety of topics as a stalling tactic anytime he's supposed to be accomplishing things. I think it irritates me more than anyone else, particularly because his favorite time to do it is when I'm trying to eat. Questions range from "Mom, what's your favorite color?" to "Mom, what do you think the smallest animal in the world is?" to "Mom, what is your least favorite food?". Of course, he asks me the same questions day after day too, and I'm expected to then in turn ask him his favorite/least favorite/etc. whatever. The other day he informed me, word for word, "My least favorite color is tan. Even though I like tan on my skin, that doesn't necessarily mean..."
Read MoreThis is why I shouldn't write about things when they're going well - I jinx myself. Yesterday, a week and a half away from Jordan's x-ray appointment, his patched splint popped its patch. Jordan thinks the wheelies he was popping at the time are to blame, even though he didn't fall down or anything.
Surprisingly, driving to Children's Hospital for casting, cast removal, x-rays and splint fixing is not my favorite thing to do. Especially now that no matter which way I go to get there I'm confronted by major construction and stand still traffic. So I called Jordan's doctor to see if we could get in early for x-rays and maybe ditch the splint altogether, but that was a no-go.
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If you're reading this, chances are you know that Jordan has had a broken arm for most of the past 9 months. But since I'm as tired of answering the questions "What happened to his arm?" and "How is Jordan's arm?" as he is of hearing me say "Where's your splint?", "Settle down, you don't have your split on." and "Go put your splint on." I thought I'd address the issue publicly, so to speak.
Read MoreLast night I was at the computer (working on this blog actually) while Jordan was getting ready for bed. He had just gone to the bathroom when he came over and informed me that his butt hurt. So I told him to bend over so I could see if anything was wrong. While he's bent over pants-less and I'm leaning over to see what's going on, our neighbor walks up to the front (screen) door to let us know that he put Jordan's bike by our garage door. So he gets a lovely view of me inspecting my son's butt. I started laughing hysterically, told Jordan it looked fine, but he could put some ointment on it if he wanted and thanked the neighbor. Meanwhile, Jordan looked up, startled, fell over and crawled behind the coffee table to put his butt out of view.
Read More*Note - If you are easily offended by hearing about #1's, #2's, or the use of the word "potty" in place of the more formal "toilet" do not read this post.*
Not to brag or anything (okay, yes, I am bragging), but Sasha has been officially fully potty-trained since about mid-June. That's right, day-time, night-time, at home, in public, no more "little potty" potty-trained. Although she still sometimes has accidents during the day when she doesn't quite make it to the toilet in time, or forgets to "scootch" back enough (causing pee to shoot out between the toilet and the toilet seat), she's never wet the bed. Sometimes she wakes up and cries until we take her to the bathroom, some nights she sleeps through. In case you couldn't tell, this makes me really really proud and really really happy.
Read MoreI've suspected that Sasha's been having nightmares for a while now, and last night confirmed it. I was in bed sound asleep when all of a sudden at 12:30 I heard Sasha start to cry over the baby monitor. The crying quickly escalated to screaming, and then I heard her thump out of bed and run for the door. I went upstairs and she was laying against the bedroom door sobbing "I'm scared of spiders" over and over and over again.
Read MoreI got this idea from a friend's Facebook post. ("Wouldn't it be fun to get a peek into what others do on any given day? Today, tell us what you did! All the details.") Here's mine from yesterday:
Read MoreSo, here I am, typing away at 2:30 in the morning when I should be sleeping. This week really dragged me down. It started with a really busy weekend, which was fun but not at all restful.
Saturday we went to a pancake breakfast, then took the kids to the bank. We decided that Jordan and Karlye are old enough to have an allowance ($1.50 a week, split 3 ways between church, savings, and spending - woo hoo!) and to start learning to manage their money. In preparation we emptied their piggy banks and had them deposit the money in the "big bank". It was even more fun and educational than I had planned because they got to go in the back with the teller and watch all of their change be counted.
Read MoreJordan's friend Mya came over after school yesterday. Jordan was so excited all weekend about it. Yesterday morning he came down for breakfast wearing a WI Badger sweatshirt. He informed me that he wore that shirt to Mya's when he went there to play, and she loves Bucky Badger and she chased him around all day, so he thought she would chase him around all day that day too. Then he said, "I'm going to stand by Mya in line, and I'm going to sit by Mya on the bus. That's my plan for the day." After breakfast he made me go upstairs with him to see how perfectly he'd made his bed and laid out his pajamas (which he never does) so that his room would be nice when Mya came over. There was a lot of talking and giggling and running around yesterday afternoon. When they finally sat down to color, I overheard Jordan telling Mya that God says you have to love everyone, and that means that he has to love her too.
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The person Jordan talks about most from Kindergarten is his friend Mya. This is a picture that she made for him the other day. I think it's too cute not to share. (The back of the picture, in case you're wondering what the arrow leads to, is a graph that Mya drew. Because, as Jordan's recent schoolwork stated, "Graphing is Cool!".)
Read MoreToday was one of those on-the-go days, the kind where you can barely catch your breath and grab a drink of water between errands. It started off, as so many of my days now do, with me fighting with Jordan about the amount of breakfast he needs to eat to be prepared for school. This morning he thought that should be none, and I thought some would be better. I gave my usual running countdown til bus arrival time, while he threw an even bigger fit than usual. Finally at 8 minutes and counting he wolfed down his breakfast, speed-peed, threw his shoes and backpack on and ran out the door. (Nope, no time for proper dental hygiene today).
Read MoreI, as I imagine most people would be, am pleased any time my children show evidence of possessing interesting or unique talents. Sasha's predilection for squirting pieces of food out of her nose, however, is not my favorite discovery. First there was the fettuccine incident, and now we've had an olive incident.
Read MoreThe other night for dinner I made fettuccine and scallops with a wine butter sauce. Classy right? So the kids and I are sitting down to eat when Sasha starts choking. I look at her, and can see no evidence of food in her throat, at which point I start to panic. I can't remember if she's had seafood before or not, and figure it would be just my luck that she would be allergic and going into anaphylactic shock.
Read MoreSasha's Vocabulary List: mama, dada, papa, food (which can mean food or, in combination with boob-grabbing, "nurse me NOW"), cheese (which also means any kind of food she likes), ba (means bath), poop, truck/sock/quack/cracker (all pronounced "cock"), hat, bankie (blanket), Jo (Jordan), Ka-ee (Karlye), eye, nose, teeth, cheeks, chest, foot, shoe, ball, bike, Abbie (the neighbor girl), baby (usually in reference to her baby doll), me (while admiring herself in the mirror), boop (means book), a wide array of animal sounds with gorilla (complete with chest thumping) being the current favorite, and several I'm sure I'm forgetting.
Read MoreI don't know if it's the winter blues or what, but this week just doesn't seem to be getting any easier. I've got a headache that won't quit, and my life has shrunk (was it ever any bigger?) to work, home, and the car. Maybe I'm just too idealistic. I've got a few dream lives stuck in my head, and I don't see any way of making my life more like any of them. Why do I have to be so moody anyway? I complain so much I irritate myself, so I'm now going to attempt to be positive.
Read MoreMondays are really never any fun, but today is really extra Monday-ish. Part of that may be that Jordan has the stomach flu, but I think a lot of it is that my weekend wasn't very fun or relaxing. Saturday consisted of Justin being gone all day long for "Bar Olympics". Taking care of the kids by myself for the entire day was even less thrilling than usual given that I had to take Sasha in to urgent care in the morning after she fell and hurt her foot. It turned out to be just a little bit of a sprain, but she was limping around miserably for most of the day.
Read MoreMiss Sasha (often known as Miss by Mom and big brother Jordan) can now say several words, "cheese", "up", and "Dada" being the current favorites. "Yes", "teeth", and "hat" show up sometimes, while "Mama" has all but disappeared. If Sasha's very excited to see me I'm DaDA!, otherwise I have no name.
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