DS Ponders the Origins of the Human Race

DS is an inquisitive littel 5 YO.
For the 2nd time he asked me how we got grown-ups, if they weren't in mommy's belly first.
He really seems to be struggling with the idea of what came first, the chicken or the egg. But on a more human scale.
Not sure how to answer the question.

Working late. Again.

But, I did manage to do Day 3 of the 30 day shred. I may not do it every day, but by golly, I'm sure gonna try to do it every other day. I've either got to go shopping or lose weight. I vote for losing weight.

DS has whole conversations with me on the phone. It's kind of cool. He went from merely parrotting (parottig? parrotting?) whatever dad told him to say, to actually having a back and forth conversation. How was your day? Chase built a huge Lego ship. That sort of thing. Kind of cool.

Catching Up

So, what has been happening since September?
DH had is second hip replacement surgery. Two weeks earlier than expected, but that's fine.
MIL is here helping out; I kind of wish she would move in with us permanently. She does laundry. And my children adore her.
We went to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, VA. The kids had a BLAST. Then we drove up to NY for MIL's surprise 70th birthday party.

DS is in transitional kindergarten. He's blossoming. I don't worry too much about homework. He has to repeat kindergarten anyway, so why have him be bored? And he has years of homework ahead of him.

DD is kind of freaking me out. She's 3.5 and seems to be very advanced. I may keep the two of them in different schools. I think DD will need a talented and gifted program. DS, on the other hand, is a perfectly normal 5 YO boy. I do not want to set him up for a lifetime of underachieving b/c why bother if his sister is always so good at everything. I want him to shine.
At the same time, I don't want to hold DD back. She needs to shine too.

UGH. The thought of dealing with 2 different schools is maddening.

DD wrote her name backwards, then held the paper up to the light so that she could read it the right way. She's 3.5. I'm just saying.

Great weekend.

We had a great weekend.
Some good friends and I (and DH!) went to the They Might Be Giants children's concert. We thought it was going to rain, but it held off just fine.
DS was a dancing machine! Who would've ever guessed.
DD was more interested in rolling down the hill than the music.
Good food, good wine, good friends, and happy children. What else is there?

Kindergarten, snapping and hamburgers

DS has learned to snap his fingers! He says he taught himself, which is entirely possible since no one in this house taught him.
DS also started transitional kindergarten a couple weeks ago. We aren't really making a big deal about the whole kindergarten thing. He misses the cut off to start in public school, and we're going to put him in public kindergarten next year. That is when we'll make a big deal about it all. I r.e.f.u.s.e. to have him do homework now. He isn't even 5 yet, and he'll have plenty of time to do homework. I want school to be fun riht now.
DD mispronounces hamburger. She says 'hangeber'.

DS Wrote a Book

DS "wrote" a book yesterday. It's basically just random letters written across 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper. DH and DS folded and taped them together so they would look like a book.
I caught DS "reading" his book to his little sister today.
So totally cute.

Bathrooms

DD is now afraid of bathrooms. And it is my fault.

While driving to our Disney Christmas Vacay, the sweet little punkin' had to potty. Anyone who has travelled I-95 has seen the signs for South of the Border. Personally, I think this place is a disgusting tourist trap. It was, of course, the only place we could stop since DD had to go NOW.

There were at least 2 tour buses and only one ladies room (it had multiple stalls, but when there are 800 million women who need to go to the bathroom, it doesn't matter). I hold my 2YO DD like a shield and rudely push my way to the front. There is standing water throughout the entire bathroom. I wipe off the seat and put her down. She does her business. I sit down and do my business. I stand up to button up and turn around. HER HANDS ARE IN THE TOILET!!!!!!! I shriek like a madwoman; fly to the nearest sink and commence rinsing off her hands. Of course there is no soap. DD is crying b/c I've scared her out of her mind. I whip out the Purell and douse her hands. I think I put so much on her that there were pieces of skin hanging off.

The next time she had to go potty I told her to stand there and put her hands on her tummy while she waits for mommy. Now everytime we go to a public potty, she solemnly informs me that "I not touch anything. Hands on tummy."

Talking Trash

My 4 year old son is a trash talker! Anytime we play a game, he talks trash! "I'm gonna beat you mom." or "Watch out, I'm gonna win." Things like that. What a cutie pie.

Snow Day

How I thought it would be:

Children frolicking in the snow. Coming in to a warm house, putting on dry clothes and drinking hot chocolate. A little soup for lunch. Naptime. More frolicking.

How it really was:

Children running around the yard getting their shoes and pants wet. Reaching down to touch the snow. Screaming in agony because, the snow? it is cold. Sobbing children being stripped in the garage and needing to be dried off. The fun lasted about 15 seconds.

Since then, we have eaten a snack, played with Play Dough, and colored. It was only 10:30. What the hell am I supposed to do with them indoors for the rest of the day? Looks lik it will be all day cartoons in Chez Wizzle!

We went around to deliver homemade zuchini bread to all the neighbors.
At one home, my DS tells the lady that we have a bigger tree. At the same home, the woman of the house ("WOH") asks DD if she wants to give her dog a treat. WOH hands a doggie treat to DD, who promptly puts it in her mouth! Great.

Swim Lessons

Last night was DD's first swim lesson. DS is old enough to do the lesson's by himself, but DD has to have a parent in the water with her.
DS was happy and proud.
DD wanted to play. She was fussing and crying almost the entire time. Not because she didn't want to be in the water, but because she wanted to do what she wanted to do. She did not want to play ring around the rosie or kick with the other children.

How you can tell I'm a mom

If you saw a woman in a suit walking to work this morning with a Dora umbrella barely covering her head, that was me.
If you saw a woman sitting at her desk eating lunch from a Thomas the Train container, that was me.

Overheard

Overheard this morning --
DS to DD: "you're the bad guy"
DD (loudly): "I am not the bad guy. I DD."
DS again: "you're the bad guy"
DD (even louder): "I not bad guy. My name DD!"

Potty Training

DD is almost there.
Stayed home all weekend. She had 3 accidents and spent most of the weekend sitting on the potty watching TV.
Day 1 - Monday. School wasn't so excited about underwear. She had an accident and the immediately put her back in the pull-up. She did fine at home.
Day 2 - Kept her in the pull up for school. Dry all morning. Great all afternoon at home. Went to neighbor's house to play - pooped in her underwear! (BTW - had neighbors over to celebrate getting their sod put in, the neighborhood is starting to look less like a construction zone and more like a neighborhood.)
Day 3 - overconfident & took her to school with underwear. Accident. Pull up.
Day 3.5 - She. woke. me. up. at. 4. AM. to. pee. Then didn't want to go back to sleep. I was impatient and banished her to bed. She cried. Bad mommy. Couldn't go back to sleep myself, but didn't want to make too much noise, so here I sit blogging.

Proud

DS learned to swing yesterday evening. It was a nice evening, and he just started pumping his legs. "Look, I did it!" Every once in a while he would get things confused, but was quickly back on track. I even called out DH to look and tell DS how proud he was. Good job, son.

The LOs love their new school. They were quite upset with us this weekend when we didn't take them to school.

Today is DS' first karate lesson. Hope he loves it!

Tonight I was reminded of something DD did when she was about 9 months old. I was putting on some purple footed PJs that had a chicken design all over it. She looked at it, her eyes got real big and she started yelling at the top of her lungs "bach, bach, bach" (how do you spell that anyway?) and pointed at her PJs. She was so excited that she had these chickens on her PJs. It was just the cutest thing.
What reminded me of this was that as we were lying in her bed this evening after singing her the nightly songs (mocking bird, itsy bitsy spider, twinkle twinkle and ABCs - in exactly that order), she started pointing at all the things on her PJs and asking "what is that." She pronounces each word very distinctly with a heavy emphasis on "is."
Totally adorable.

Single Parenting

DH is out of the country for 10 days, so I'm single-parenting it. I have help; my MIL is here for that time to help take care of the kids. But, this is the first time she's been to our house, so she doesn't know where anything is and I think she's sometimes a little tentative around me. She's a great MIL. I enjoy having her around and it is great that she is such a help with the LOs. They adore her. Today she got DD to pee on the potty!!!! Then she called me at work so I could tell DD how wonderful she is. It's pretty bad when you rely on your visiting MIL to start the potty training process. I'm also counting on daycare to take care of it. Bad mommy (and daddy).
It also doesn't help that DH and his sister purchased a 33 unit apartment building less than a month ago. So, here I am trying to juggle my job, my kids (who are a little freaked that daddy isn't around), and this apartment complex. DH hasn't had time to develop any routines to tell me about. I'm just winging it. Yesterday I got a call from a tenant who was rather pissy about the fact that garbage had piled up around the dumpster. When I talked to DH this morning, I asked him when and how often were they supposed to be emptied and who was the company so I could call them. He said Waste Management. I get to my office and spend a bit of time in the morning with Waste Management. They've never heard of us or the apartment complex. So, I take time out of work (I'm working on a time sensitive project) to drive the 20 minutes to the apartment office. It wasn't Waste Management, it was Allied Waste (sounds the same, right?). When I called, I found out that they had set everything up, but DH had forgot to mail in the contract! The lady was nice enough to set up a pick up for tomorrow at no charge and we're set up to begin on Oct 30. DH has it set up for every other week, but I think he's going to find that it needs to be weekly.
It's tough. DH has had to do all this juggling, while hauling the kids around. He sold an apartment building in NY, bought an apartment complex here and then had to figure out how to run it. He's done a phenomenal job. It just isn't easy. He finally admitted that he can't do this and take care of the kids at the same time. It's a good thing I already knew this and had set us up on a waiting list for daycare last December! It's amazing that more hasn't slipped through the cracks. He needs to be able to sit down and focus on the business, otherwise we're just going to have more of these little snafus. I'm really amazed at everything he gets done in a day. Far more than I get done in a week. But, I think he needs to slow down a little.
The LOs are very excited about starting 'school.' They are so ready.

Not much going on other than the normal business of life.
DH is overworked. Hopefully things will even out soon and we'll be back on a more normal schedule. I want to help, but am sometimes at a loss at what to do. I don't want to butt in on his business, but I don't want him to think I don't care or I'm not paying attention. Because I am paying attention.
The LOs seem to be having a blast. Tomorrow we get to tour their new school (daycare). I hope they love it!

Labor Day Redux

So, Labor Day was actually more than a week ago, but I've been busy with work.

We left around 9am on Saturday for the drive to Atlanta. It was later than I wanted to leave, but we waited until that morning to pack, so its actually not a bad start - all things considered.
The Little Ones did pretty well on the drive. It wasn't until toward the end that they got antsy. We had to pull over on I-285 b/c DS had to go potty "right now."
We spent the evening at the hotel and let them splash in the hotel pool. It was small and over-chlorinated, but we needed to let the kiddos get some ya-yas out of their system. I had bought some swim vests at a sporting goods store and was hoping that would help me feel less anxious about them being near the water and maybe make them less anxious about getting wet. DS officially started doggie paddling around the pool! He was so proud of himself - "look, I'm swimming." Keep in mind, he refuses to get his face wet and he was swimming with a psuedo-life vest, but its progress and I was very pleased for him! DH was so proud that you would think DS was Michael Phelps.
DD, of course, thought she could swim too. Which means she wouldn't let me touch her. Until she nearly drowned b/c she can't doggie paddle yet. It was getting late anyway and the kiddos needed to be bathed (chlorine smell was overwhelming and DD would get hives if I didn't get the chemicals off her skin). There was a Shoney's within walking distance of the hotel. Bleeech. These places used to be decent. It was never a gormet experience, but you could get a burger and some mac/cheese. The food was just bad and we should've walked to the McD's or Chik-fil-e instead.
This was a dry run for our Disney trip over Christmas. We were all in a single hotel room, with 2 queen beds. The kiddos slept in one bed and we slept in the other. We left the light on so that DH and I could read. I thought the LOs would be too tired and would just pass out, but I guess the excitement was just a bit much. They settled down, but it took them a while.
The next day we got up way too early. I was hoping my exhausted kids would sleep in the dark hotel room for longer. I hadn't slept well b/c every time DD rolled over, I had to peek and make sure she hadn't rolled off the bed. DH got up once to put her head back on the pillow (instead of at the foot of the bed) and I got up once to do the same thing. She's quite the traveller in her sleep! We didn't even get dressed, I just dragged everyone down to the continental breakfast in the lobby. Nothing very exciting - typical cereal, oatmeal, make your own waffle kind of thing. We had talked about bringing our own coffee maker. I regret that we didn't. The coffee was terrible. But, that's because we've become big coffee snobs.
So, we hung out in the hotel room until about 0945 and then headed for Six Flags. There were no lines, it was a little hot, but not too bad. The kids had a total BLAST riding all the little-kid rides. We got DS onto a kiddie roller coaster, but he didn't like it at all. There were a couple rides that I could see he was totally scared at first, but then realized that it was fun and started having a great time. I get the feeling that I'll be hanging out with DS while DD and DH go on all the big rides when they get older. We both hate heights and neither of us likes to spin around too much. We ate a little lunch and then headed over for the Thomas the Tank Engine area. They had a little playground and thomas train to ride. DS is a little old for it and DD isn't terribly interested in Thomas. But they enjoyed the train ride and really enjoyed the playground. I'm glad we saved that for the end. Otherwise, we would've spent too long at the playground and not enough time on the rides.
We tried to ride the big train back to the front gate. We got on and waited, and then there was an announcement that there was a mechanical problem and the ride was closed indefinately. By this point, DD had pooped her diaper and DS was just pooped. We got off and started trudging along. Wouldn't you know it - we heard the train whistle by us about 5 minutes later. Oh well.
DD fell asleep in the stroller before we even got to the car. Of course she woke up when we got to the hotel and thought it was party time! So we all laid down for a nap. DS got up first and went swimming with DH while I stayed in the room until DD woke up.
We went to Cracker Barrel for dinner and then to Walmart. The reason for going to Atlanta was to attend a wedding and I wanted to get some toys for the brides children and a card. We bought stuff for the kids to color.
The next day, we got up early and headed into town for the Georgia Acquarium. It's a great place. Very stroller/kid friendly - until you get to the play area. They very strictly enforce the height requirments for kids to play on the structure. Which means you had lots of very upset children who couldn't play on the structure with their older sibling! Why didn't they just make a play structure that was appropriate for everyone!? Then to make matters worse, the one slide that DD could go on, they have the slide entrance on the second floor on the opposite wall from the stairs to get to the slide. So, you either had to slide down with the child, or have another person waiting at the bottom to get the child. There was no way to put the child on the slide and get to the bottom to supervise before they were off and running. And you couldn't just stay on the bottom while the child went up the stairs by themselves, it was too far from the slide. It was truly terrible. Since we had gone a little faster through the exhibits than we should've (we counted on the play area keeping them happy for longer than it did), we were done by 11AM!
We ate a totally delicious meal at Legal Seafood.
Then back to the hotel room. DH took the kids upstairs for a nap and I went to get a pedicure. I was back before everyone woke up and had a little snooze. Once we woke up we got ready and drove to the wedding.
The wedding was, . . . .interesting. These are my relatives and they don't have any money. So, there were a few things that were different. The food was bad and they didn't have enough of some things and too much of other things. Oddly enough, the things they had too much of were the more expensive items. The glow-sticks were a big hit. My kids and the brides kids are similar in age and they were running around having a blast. It was nice to catch up with the family that was able to attend. I'm glad we went.

Cute things they say

DS can't say alligator - he says "alledeggor"
DD doesn't say carry me when she wants me to pick her up - she says "carry you"