July 5, 2010

Tip for anyone that needs a blindfold for a spontaneous game of pin the tail on the donkey (or stick the sticker on the poster) - take a pair of sunglasses and tape paper over the eyes.  Works so great!  I took Jocelyn to a birthday party last weekend and we were supposed to bring an activity - not really something I wanted to spend money on  So I wrote "Happy Birthday Quintin" on a piece of construction paper and made the dot over the i in Quintin really big, brought stickers that fit it, and my make shift blind fold.  Big hit.

Only 4 weeks until vacation!

Josh enjoyed sleeping in for the past 2 weeks that the kids have been out of school, but now tomorrow he's back to having to get Morgan on the bus for the next 4 weeks.  Still, it'll be good for Morgan to get out of the house daily, and increases the chances of everyone else getting out as well.

Measured all the kids today - Timothy is 5'2.5" (he's grown nearly 2 inches since November), Morgan is 4'9", Jocelyn is 45 inches, and Jesse is 41 inches.  Morgan's a bit shorter than Timothy was 2 years ago, but not by much.  Jesse's almost the same height as Jocelyn was 18 months ago (and seeing as Jocelyn has outstripped the other boys in height so far, and was the tallest of 5 boys and 2 girls at the birthday party, I'd say Jesse is holding his own).  I also had to order Timothy new sneakers as he's up another size (now a size 7 mens and officially has bigger feet than I do - one more year and he'll be taller too).

Yesterday was rotate-the-shoes day. The boots and coats and shoes got filtered for ones that are too small, then the surviving shoes put into the bench in the front hall and coats into the closet, and out came the flip flops and sandals.  I think I have at least one coat in every size between Jesse and Timothy, and often more than one. Boots are more hit or miss depending on who was what size during the winter months.

It's about a billion degrees here and we've been hiding inside most of the weekend, blech.

I've been somewhat working out again - when I get home from work I take the kids out.  We do a lap around the neighborhood (well, Morgan stays home), which is a half mile, then we play tag/races/soccer/basketball/baseball in the yard for a while, then whoever is up for it does another lap with me.  The first week I had to nag Timothy pretty hard to keep going, and there was a lot of whining, but now he even goes on his own if I don't go (like today - holy heat!) and generally keeps a good pace (somewhat faster than me except for uphill).  Jocelyn and Jesse tend to sprint, wait, sprint (pretty even match between the 2 of them - Jesse is quick!).  I think Jocelyn has the best stamina of us all and when we don't have Jesse with us she paces herself with me and says we're the girl team and need to stick together (she's very competitive, so when Jesse is with us she has to "beat him").  We were on our 2nd lap one night and Timothy had already gone ahead and was out of sight.  It seemed like she was losing steam and I thought she was going to stop, so I asked if she wanted to race to the mailbox and she TOOK OFF.  If my whole life depended on it I couldn't have caught her.  She creamed me.  Then she thought racing was super fun and wanted to race all the way home, which is uphill and usually I walk one mailbox jog the next on the 2nd lap, but she wasn't having it and was yelling at me to keep up.

One night just a couple nights ago Josh and Morgan even followed us walking and apparently Morgan started to jog in imitation and did about half a lap jogging.  So we'll see if we can make that a more regular thing for him.  We've been trying to limit his calories to 1600/day (per several google sources on calories needed for growing preteens) to try to at least keep his weight steady and wait for a growth spurt.  He wears a men's size 6 shoe, and a men's medium for clothes - yikes.

Jesse got his first buzz cut yesterday as he is simply not capable of sitting still long enough for a regular haircut and I needed to buzz Timothy anyway.  Boy does he look cute!!  Jocelyn wants her hair cut off but it gets to be such a mess it's just easier if I can braid it each night, so I talked her into leaving it long for now.  I myself have finally grown my hair long enough to be donated and need to go have a haircut. Perhaps I'll make an appt this week.

June 19, 2010

We are expanding our departmental web site at work to include more detailed profiles of everyone.  Because our department is scattered throughout the country, it's a way for people to get to know each other.  So I volunteered to fill the profile out first and have it be presented as an example to the rest of the department.  One field was "words of wisdom" and without much thought I typed "If you're not part of the entertainment, you're part of the problem."  On the big screen at the department meeting it warranted a small collective giggle and a lot of general nods.  There was no doubt that these were my original words, even though of course they weren't.

The other day Jocelyn came up to me while I was reading People magazine and said "I don't know where my bear is."  "Yeah, well," I said, turning the page, "if it were up your nose you'd know it."  Puzzled, she walked away.

A coworker and I were discussing her daughter's college major over some coffee, and her concern that she'd come back home after college.  "It doesn't really matter what she does, if she's the best at it, the money will follow," I said.

When my kids complain they are cold, I tell them to put on a sweater.  When they are being snarky, I tell them to stop being pills.  When Timothy brings home grades, I ask him if he did his best.  Every day when I get home from work, I change my clothes before I do anything else.  When I take the paper apart to get the funnies, I do so carefully so as not to displace anything else in the paper.  The first thing I do when I'm holding a baby is stick out my tongue.  I never scrape my teeth on my fork.

Happy Father's Day Dad

June 6, 2010

Tuesday was our 14th anniversary.  A friend told us a year or two ago that if Josh and I ever broke up, it would ruin all faith he had in marriage.  It's a compliment if you think about it hard enough.  

But anyway, Josh went to New York for his brother's graduation from law school, so I was on kid duty.  After Jesse and I picked Jocelyn up from school, the 3 of us headed to the mall.  Jesse wanted to ride the escalators, so we went to JC Penney and rode up and down a bit.  Their escalator is wide enough for the 3 of us to fit side by side by side.  Both Jocelyn and Jesse managed to consistently step on the crack, but then would adjust so we didn't have any major incidents.

We were actually on a mission to buy Jocelyn some pants.  Hers are all too short! But apparently one cannot buy pants in the spring/summer.  There were some jeans at The Children's Place but they were $15/pr!  Geez, she can just wear capris.  So after our unsuccessful mission we headed to Build A Bear Workshop, where we were the only ones in the place.  I tried to talk them into what I consider to be the more interesting non-bear animals, but Jocelyn was quite sure she wanted the pink bear. Jesse at first picked a rather cheezy looking baseball with arms and legs, but I had to put my foot down there, so then he wanted the blue bear that matched Jocelyn's pink choice.  

So off to the fluffing machine with our clearly unhappy Build A Bear helper who seemed rather annoyed that my children require frequent repeating of instructions. After stitching up the bears, the helper went back to moping in the front corner of the store.  Maybe her boyfriend had broken up with her earlier.  We headed on to the air bath and took our sweet time as there was no one behind us.

Jocelyn was very decisive about which outfit and shoes her bear required, where as Jesse really didn't care any more at this point.  So Jocelyn and I dressed the bears while Jesse played 20 questions with what's-behind-that-door.  On to birth certificates where the bears were named Sweetie and Awesome, and then $80 later we were headed home.  Both carried their bears proudly out of the store, at which point the boxes became much to heavy for them to handle on their own and I was given the responsibility of getting them safely to the car.

After I put the kids to bed I watched Temple Grandin, which I DVR'd months ago. Have you seen it?  It's really quite an amazing (true) story, much more so than I was expecting.  I highly recommend it.

Friday was Timothy's birthday so I worked at home and took a break when he got home to have cake and presents.  He wanted those silly bandz things, what a dumb fad.  But whatever, a cheap enough indulgence.  Then he had a school dance (it was very important, they were being graded on it, for gym).  A girl asked him to slow dance, so he came home floating on air.  He also reported (only to Josh - to me he said he didn't want to go into details) that another girl had offered to do a "sexy dance" for him for his birthday, so now I have a permanent migraine.

Saturday morning we headed over to Morgan's school to help plant the new garden his special ed teacher coordinated.  I had thought we would be digging up the earth and hauling soil.  I didn't realize how much prep she did beforehand.  She got a grant from the town and had a whole area fenced in with one middle circle bed and 8 rectangle and square beds around it.  The middle bed was planted with oranges, reds, and yellows to look like fire and there were large tree stumps set around so it looked like sitting at a campfire.  She had contacted a master gardener from town to help design what went where, and her husband and a few others had already set everything up.  There was a DJ and she'd found a restaurant that set up and served grilled hot dogs and chili and beverages (a huge cooler of juice boxes - boy were my kids happy!) to everyone for free.  Some parents donated cookies for dessert.  We were each assigned to one of the beds for planting and shown what to put where. Dozens of little watering cans were set up at the entrance.  This was so well organized!  

There was a water table set up as well, along with large yoga balls. Morgan brought a yoga ball over to our area and bounced while the rest of us worked.  It only took a bit over an hour before everything was planted and we all were sitting and having some lunch.  We really had a fun time!

Last night Josh took Timothy and a friend to a minor league baseball game for his birthday.  They sat in the VIP seats where waitresses bring you food instead of having to wait in line.  Apparently at one point Timothy nudged Josh in the side and said "hot chick!"  Josh looked briefly in the suggested direction, but then looked away immediately - the girl was about 14.  Josh explained that Timothy needed to keep some things to himself.  Josh also reported that the car ride with Timothy and his friend was filled with farts, penis jokes, and other such lewdness.  Joy.

I'm happy to report that Morgan rode the bus all week with mostly no problem.  One day they forgot to return his gameboy, which we started sending for the ride when he started having problems, so the next morning he balked a bit but eventually complied.  We still have no idea what the problem was/is.

May 31, 2010

I thought instead of actually thinking of something to write this weekend, I'd just write down various things everyone has said over the past few days.

Josh: everyone shut up

Jocelyn: I hate shutting up

<watching opening to the 2nd Transformers movie, which starts with "Earth, Birthplace...>

Jocelyn: hahahaha birthplace

Jesse: hahahahaha

Josh is in the garage getting something from the freezer, hears breaking glass.  As he high tails it back in:

Jocelyn: FREEZE!  NOBODY MOVE!  Ok, everyone out of the kitchen.

Jesse broke yet another glass when kicking a ball in the house, the martini glass Josh JUST bought to replace the one Jesse broke last week

me: Jesse, we told you no kicking balls in the house!  you broke daddy's glass and made him sad

Jesse: it's ok mommy, we have lots of glasses, I'll go get him another one (runs off)

me: hits forehead with palm

Jocelyn: can we go to the animal shelter and bring home a pet so I'll never be alone?

me: when are you ever alone?

Jocelyn: stares at me, then changes subject

Jesse: whatcha doing?

me: I'm going to take a bath

Jesse: can I take a bath with you?

me: no

Jesse: please?

me: no

Jesse: pleeeeeeeease

me: no

Jesse: mommy, please means you say yes, let's try again.  whatcha doing?

Jesse was making faces at us through a window

me: he thinks he's so funny

Josh: he thinks he's funny like you think you're smart

me: I know I'm smart

Josh: exactly.  that kid's hilarious.

Josh to Jesse: hey goofy

Jesse: you're goofy

Timothy to Josh: need an ice pack for that burn?

Timothy, on Friday: 1 week until my birthday

Timothy, on Saturday: less than one week until my birthday!

Timothy, on Sunday: it's my birthday week!

Timothy, on Monday: 4 days until my birthday!

Josh, lying in bed Friday morning.  Jocelyn and Jesse and giggling together under my blanket.

Josh, lifting blanket: what are you guys doing?

Jocelyn: we're p-tending we're twins in mommy's tummy

Jesse and Jocelyn were both naked waiting to take a bath

Jesse to Jocelyn: hey, we don't match

Josh: Jesse, I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, what number do you want?

Jesse: Jocelyn's

Josh: no, there's a number in my head between 1 and 10, what is it?

Jesse, looking up: I can't see it

May 23, 2010

This house is like a balloon - every time you clean one place, another one is suddenly dirty!  Ok, maybe not quite a balloon.  A balloon doesn't have mini-people following you around spilling things on the clean spots.

Morgan had a tough week.  A couple weeks ago he started sporadically giving his teachers a hard time about getting on the bus to go home, and twice Josh had to go pick him up because they couldn't get him on the bus.  This week he wouldn't get on the bus to go to school Thursday morning.  I had specifically worked from home because he had an in school chorus recital and his teachers told me how much he loved it and that he has a really nice voice.  But he wouldn't get on the bus.  Or rather, he'd get ON the bus, but when they tried to buckle his seatbelt, he freaked out and started hitting his assistant and then even Josh.  After he got off and got inside he was still very upset - no school!  no bus!  He was crying and throwing himself down.  We called his teacher and she said if we could get him to school they could help get him into the concert.  He wanted to go in the car, but not to school - he wanted to go to the park.

So yeah, I lied.  I didn't exactly lie.  I just said let's get in the car and didn't say where we were going, which isn't exactly the same as lying.  He knew where we were going once we passed the park and was not one bit happy about it.  I had Jesse with us too. We stood in the parking lot and he slapped me when I took his seatbelt off, then threw a fit in the car, but Jesse and I just stood and waited and I kept saying he could do this.  Seeing we weren't giving up, he got out of the car and walked to the door. When he saw his para (who is this cute 20-something skinny thing with long dark hair and henna tattoos on her feet, which I could see since she was only wearing flip flops) he freaked out again but eventually went inside and sat on the bench in the lobby.  His para let him play knock knock jokes on her phone while his teacher made him a schedule that just said "assembly" and "home".  As the 5th grade band was finishing up (after about 25 minutes in the lobby), he got up and went in and took his seat beside the stage.

He sang all the songs and wore the props and did the hand moves but wouldn't stand up like everyone else.  Afterwards his teachers told me usually he did everything, including the standing and dancing.  But I could tell he was singing all the words, so that was nice.  I took him home afterwards.

We took away the computer Thursday and told him he couldn't have it until he rode the bus.  We kept saying "bus, seatbelt, computer".  I told his teacher and she made him a schedule that said that and agreed he could have computer at school first thing.  Friday morning he rode the bus, with seatbelt, no problem, and had a fine day at school.  But he wouldn't come home, and Josh had to go pick him up.  Ack!  We have no idea what is going on.  We assumed he got pinched by the seatbelt somehow, but on again off again rebellions?  I think this week his teacher is going to ride the bus with him and see what's up - else we might have to.  Something is bothering him, but what??  Since he didn't ride the bus Friday, we've spent the weekend hiding the computer.  And he is one good seeker!  The new mantra is "bus, seatbelt, school, bus, seatbelt, home, computer".  Don't know if it'll work... cross your fingers!

I finished scanning all grammy's pictures in and got 975 of them put into a shutterfly book this weekend.  Took a looooong time, but I think it turned out great - can't wait to see it!

May 16, 2010

I wish they had invented point & shoot cameras back in the 50s.  I've spent today scanning in old pictures from my grandmother, and let's just say it's a good thing neither my grandmother nor grandfather quit their day jobs.  Heads cut off, or even almost whole bodies, often blurry or dark, the pictures are even sometimes hard to make out.  (Sorry Grammy!) Still, they tell a story of a whole life time.

I assume we take pictures of what we love.  In the hundreds and hundreds of pictures that I've scanned this weekend, spanning 85 years, maybe a handful of them don't have people in them.  Very few landscapes or gardens, a handful of houses or cars (and even then - it was when my dad or Bob had a new house or car), and then of course a bunch of Sam (their cat) in the early 70s.  But then there is every birth, every wedding, every graduation, every Christmas.  There is grampa holding his mother's purse at his niece's (confirmation?) as a nun.  Grampa with Bob & dad, Grammy with Bob & dad (apparently no one else to take the picture). Grampa with Grammy, and Grandpa, and Grammy.  More so as they got older - more so after Bob and dad were out of the house.  More relaxed, more smiles.  Each with Sam of course.  But it was these pictures of each of them alone, taken by the other, where I really realized how much they loved each other.

Grampa often had a scowl on his face in the 40s, and alternated between a scowl and a tired look in the 50s and 60s.  He smiled when he held a baby, he looked proud around his kids, protective around his mother, but that was about it.  But in the early 70s I saw the smile come and relax his face.  I could see not only in his eyes but through his eyes that he loved Grammy, that he loved his kids, and starting in 74, that they both loved all of us.  

Grammy looked happier too than she had in years - especially when she was teasing Sam with a knitting needle or cuddling him on the couch.  And then I'm assuming the photo onslaught that began in 1974 and peaked in 1976 but stayed high through the 80s was not due to some decrease in the price of film and processing but rather that there is nothing you can love more than your grandchildren, especially when they are babies and toddlers.  Or at least that's what I read into the pictures.

I feel like I have lived a lifetime today, but unlike a real lifetime, I have lived only the joy, only the happiness.  My heart is full - and I haven't even scanned in the 80s yet! But then, I know the 80s will make my Grampa age and sicken, and eventually the frequency of pictures will trail off again towards the end of the 80s until there are very few in the 90s at all until Timothy is born.  So I think today I will stop here and just be happy.

May 9, 2010

Yesterday I was cleaning out my dresser, resorting all the drawers and such. Morgan waltzed into my room so I decided to teach him about knocking.  I put him on the other side of the door and told him he had to knock before he could come in.  I closed the door.  He knocked.

me: Who's there?

Morgan: banana

laughing, I opened the door.

me: banana who?

Morgan: knock knock

me: who's there?

Morgan: orange

me: orange who?

Morgan: orange you glad I didn't say banana?

ok, old joke, but the first time Morgan has ever told me a knock knock joke!

So instead of Mother's Day, we do more like a Mother's weekend here.  I get to do whatever I want and have whatever I want to eat brought to me on command - it pretty much rocks.  Yesterday I decided to reorganize all my dressers and get the bedroom cleaned up, and then scrubbed down the bathroom and the tub.  Ok, that doesn't sound that glamourous, except I did it alone without kids screaming in my ear the whole time!  Also watched everything I had stored on the DVR while I was sorting my clothes.  The I started sorting all the pictures I got from my grandmother a few weeks back, a task which I finished today.  So now I have envelopes for every year from 1974 to 1988 and the pictures within them are in calendar month order, or as close as I could get it.  Then separate envelopes for 1970-73, 1966-69, and pre-66.  Everything is now ready to be scanned, so guess what I'm doing next weekend!

It's been really fun looking through all the old pictures though.  Life before digital pictures - everything is too dark and someone's head is constantly cut off, but fun pictures none the less.  Was color film invented in 1963?

This morning I got chocolate chip pancakes in bed with cantaloupe on the side.  The kids all marched screaming happy mother's day and each holding a canvas with their hand print on it.  Super cute!  Plus Susan and Jonathan sent some really pretty multi-color roses.  So basically, I've been a princess all weekend - very fun.

The kids have been trying extra hard to play nicely together and not fight this weekend.  It's not worked out perfectly, but it's been close enough and I told them it's a very nice present.

Well, I think that's about enough from me - hope everyone had a great weekend and Happy Mother's Days to all the moms!