The weekend in review

We did so much this weekend. I don't think tired has caught up with me yet. Saturday morning we went to the pumpkin farm. We did the hay ride and then the 12 acre corn maze which was a blast. The kids took turns leading the way through the Washington State shaped maze. We then ate lunch, went through the petting zoo and then through the kids hay maze so they could go down the slide and play in the hay. We then went out to the field and picked out our pumpkins. Man it is a good year for them too. Huge and plentiful.
Then Saturday night we went to the Everett Sausage Fest and got to see Tim Noah a childrens entertainer. I actually saw him when I was in kindergarten. Bear and Bug both loved him and were dancing in the kiddy "mosh pit." We got a CD signed after the show and got to meet him.
And then today we went roller skating. And this was a big one because Bug got to put on skates for the first time. I did not know they made skates that tiny. They were so itty bitty cute size 6's. And she looked so itty bitty cute in them. Miss Independant did not want to hold my hand she just wanted to get out and skate. We spent most of our time on the outside patio so the kids could just play around and not get run over by big people. They both lasted about an hour on the skates. And I have to say, she just took off and did not look back.
Then tonight we decorated our pumpkins which meant the kids got to paint their pumpkins. Bear got very serious and took about 30 minutes to paint his. Bug decorated the pumpkin and her own hair with finger paints.
And I realized something tonight as I was loading up our pictures that made me kind of weepy. She is no longer a baby. She actually looks like a little girl.
She suprised us all this morning at breakfast. I was putting her spilled cereal back in the bowl and I said, "One..." And she automatically says, "two...." I looked at her and did it again thinking maybe it was a coincidance, but she did it again.
We had so much fun and now I am looking forward to relaxing tomorrow.

Half Monkey

She is a climber. More than her brother ever was. Or maybe I just blocked that part out. Anyhow, she is climbing on anything and everything that is vertical. These are some of the thing I have caught her on:
Her brothers bookshelf
His bed that is four feet off the ground
The dining room table
My night stand
Her highchair by herself
My bed that is on top of six inch risers

And tonight was just the topper, I have a pressure mounted gate that has teeny tiny holes in it. Designed to deter children from climbing up it. Bear has tried and he can't do it. Tonight she was at the top of it. She stuck her big toes in the little holes and just scaled it. And then got to the top and wasn't quite sure what to do.
Her favorite thing to climb is my nightstand. It is about a foot away from the bed. She puts her hands on the table and then walks her feet backwards up my bed. Today she was almost upside down, her feet were above her head. And I just sat there and watched her, wondering how she was going to get out of that one. She walked her feet back down a little and then just crawled up on the night stand.

Dinner

I have started Bear in Awana. Kind of. We are doing it long distance right now until we get up to the Island. So his leader, our beloved Gephry sent us his Cubbie motto last week and sent us his first verse this week. I read it to him. And then I asked him to say it with me as I said a little bit at a time. I John 4:10 God loved us and sent his son. This opened a whole can of worms that I am not sure how to explain to a three year old. And showed me that I am slipping a little bit.

"Mommy? Who is Gods son?"
"Jesus is his son."
"Oh.... Well if God is the daddy and Jesus is the son, who is the mommy?"
"There is no mommy honey."
"There is no mommy in Heaven? How was Jesus born? Daddys can't have babies."

I changed the subject at this point. I could have explained how he had a mommy on earth, and Mary and Joseph and the Trinity, but I think it might have confused him even more.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?


And then a few minutes later he starts singing very quietly:

"Everybody wants to go to Kevin, but nobody wants to go now."

"What are you singing? Can you sing that a little louder for me?"

"Everybody wants to go to Kevin, but nobody wants to go now!"

"Um, I think it might be Heaven everybody wants to go to."

"No, it is Kevin. I heard it in a song. Everybody wants to go to Kevin."

"Where is Kevin?"

"I don't know. It might be near Heaven."

Words

She has started saying more and more words lately.
Here are some of my favorites:
Bookbooka (book) This is so funny when she says it
Goo guwl (good girl) This one she runs around behind Bear saying "goo guwl Oah"
Baybay (baby) She loves her babies
Daw (dog)
Dut (duck)
K-at (cat) phonetically she has got it down! :)

This child has the determination and stubbornness of her name sake, my grandma. Yesterday we were playing in the backyard. And in the backyard are two lawn chairs, you know the kind that have that rubbery plastic bands that leave the indentation of your butt when you get up? The kind that the slats are two inches apart so that when you sit on them it looks like something from a playdough factory gone wrong, with your butt fat squishing out all over the place. Anyways she kept wanting to sit in them even though there is a chair that she can climb in and she won't fall through. But no, she needed to know she could do it. She took turns with the chairs climbing into them and getting different parts of her body stuck in it, sometimes a leg, sometimes an arm, sometimes an arm and a leg. A couple of times she fell and bonked her head. And each time I would take her off the chair and encourage her to go play in the grass. And each time she would go back to the chair I was not standing in front of and try all over again. After 15 minutes of trying to get up and sit down on a chair, she finally did it. She sat down on the edge, swung her feet back and forth a few times, gave me a big proud smile, and got down and ran off.

The difference between my kids

Bear will give you the biggest laugh every time; even just for looking at him cross eyed. I have never seen Bug give a big hearty laugh. It takes quite a bit to even get her to crack a smile and even more to get her to giggle.

(and he was laughing so hard at one point that I think he started speaking in tongues.)

While the kids are napping

The phone rings. Who will it be?
Dad
When done shopping at the grocery store, do you return your cart?
Yes
A really great salad must have this ingredient: Pecans, peaches
Do you take compliments well? Umm, I say thank you.
What is something that people are currently “into” that you just don’t get or appreciate?
The vampire thing. I am with you on that one Lawanda
What is something that really hoists your sail that other people might feel “ho-hum” about?
With a few exceptions, homeschooling
Do you play Sudoku? YES!
If abandoned alone in the wilderness, would you survive? I like to think so.
Did you ever go to camp as a kid? Lakeside Bible Camp!
What was your favorite game as a kid? Hide and go seek
Could you date someone with different religious beliefs than you? Not even a little bit
Use three words to describe yourself. Loving, faithful, boring
Do any songs make you cry? It is well with my soul
Do you know how to shoot a gun? Sharpshooter
What is the first thing you do when you get home? Take off my shoes
Have you ever taken pictures in a photo booth? Long time ago
How often do you read books? Every day
Which of the seven deadly sins are you guilty of (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride)? envy
Do you think more about the past, present or future? Try not to think about the past, I only think about the near future enough to plan out what we are going to do and how we are going to do it.
Share a fun memory you made with a roommate. Does living on a boat in berthing with 30 other women count as a roomate? It would have to be the toilet that fell over every time we hit a wave. Even funnier is Cat sitting on that toilet when it fell over.
What is your favorite children’s book? Anne of Green Gables
What are your most common nicknames? Riss
What color are your eyes? Beautiful Hazel
How tall are you? 5′9"
Do you like mustard? Yuck yuck yuck

Challenges

I knew this was not going to be an easy job when I signed up for it. I knew there would be moments when I would wonder if these little people would make it to their next birthday. I just did not take into consideration that these moments all might happen on the same day.
Please keep in mind that all of this followed a night where he did not pass out until after 11pm after 3 hours of crying arguing, begging, wall pounding, and every excuse in the book as to why he should not be in bed. I finally fell asleep to be awakened by her at 2am. I can only guess that her teeth were bothering her because she cried for an hour. And then was kind of enough to let me sleep in until 6 this morning.

-Decided to do laundry this morning. I took a load down to put in the washer and fed and watered Tela while I was down there. When I got back upstairs I was greeted with a full laundry basket that I could of sworn was empty upon my departure. After a closer viewing of this basket that seemed to fill itself magically, I found clothes that I could of sworn I folded the day before. I then saw two of her dresser drawers open and very very empty. My darling daughter had decided to help mommy and with a quickness I did not know she possessed had filled a tall laundry basket with perfectly clean clothes. Not only did she empty her drawers she had managed to throw them in a fashion that they had unfolded themselves along the way. She stood there with the most proud "I helped mommy" smile on her face. I wanted to cry.

-As I was cleaning the bathroom later this morning, I left them in his room to play quietly. They were both sitting in their chairs reading books. I knew the quiet would not last long before the leg-pulling-mommy-don't-leave-my-bubble-crying that has been my life the last two weeks while she has tried like the dickens to break through two molars and an eye tooth. But I digress. So after five minutes I decided to go check on them. I walk in the room and they were both up on his bed. Now after she had figured out how to climb the slide with socks on, I just took it off until a later date when she understands the significance of free falling four feet to a carpeted yet still hard ground. She had started to climb up the rungs but kept getting stumped on that last bit where the mattress meets the bed. Well I can now say she has it figured out. I tried putting things in front of the ladder, she just uses those to climb on. And if it is too high for her to get her leg on, she brings a car over to give her a little boost. I am afraid I am just going to have to take the ladder off now.

-And the Coup-De-grace: I was downstairs making lunch for them. I really put love into it too. I mashed up bananas and spread it with some peanut butter and then cut them into star shapes. I took cherry tomato's and string cheese and made them each a smiley face. Well while I was downstairs with this labor of love, they decided they would decorate themselves and the carpet and the wall and his bed with finger paint. I know I know at least it was not Desitin this time right? It was only washable finger paint. But still. They were both looked like some sort of living abstract art gone wrong. She was smeared with red and blue. He had gone ahead and mixed it in on himself creating a poopy brown color. Very quietly I took them to the bathroom to strip them down and hosed them off. He kept asking me, "Are you happy mommy?" "Aren't I pretty mommy?" I could not say a word.
I did not even take pictures of it like I did with the Desitin. I guess the novelty of having a son that views himself as a budding artist that must share his talent with the world has worn off.
I gave them their lunch and went to work scrubbing. It came up a little easier than I thought it would. But I still would rather been eating lunch with them than bent over under his bed scrubbing.

So now he is grounded to his bed for an undetermined amount of time. Maybe he will be let loose in time to enjoy the Christmas festivities. Next year.