Notes on Everyday Stuff

Lil Jo (for those of you who are into Veggie Tales - I do call her that because I love that particular episode) has started saying a lot more lately. She has also taken an interest in repeating words we say to her so her vocabulary is increasing daily. I forgot how fun it is to hear new little words! Her most frequently used word is, of course, no. But she also really likes juice so she asks for it A LOT. I had to cut her off of it entirely for a few days after Daddy let her have *gasp* TWO cups of juice a day while the girls and I were away in KS. She also uses 'peez' regularly and does not understand why she doesn't get everything she asks for when she uses that word!

Lil Jo loves, LOVES fruit snacks. She gets more excited for a packet of fruit snacks than any other food (even chocolate, chips, or juice! - yes, she likes junk food way more than I like). Today she pulled me into the kitchen (if a person does not come when she points and says 'peez' she will tug at his/her clothing until he/she complies with the request/demand) and over to the cabinet where she pointed and said 'peez, peez' until the snacks were procured. I gave in to her demands today (usually fruit snacks are only for after nap) because she's a bit congested and has some eye goo so I thought so extra vitamin C might be a good thing.
Her sisters were not allowed to have fruit snacks until they were almost three because I thought they were a choking hazard. I still think most varieties are unacceptable for under 3's, but I had to find a compromise after Daddy gave Jo tiny pinches of his "Smiles" (GV brand snacks) which caused her to go around begging for more tastes. Her sisters, usually not so fond of sharing, love to give her food items that have been forbidden to her by Mom. Luckily, I found Welch's fruit snacks that are VERY soft and small (and relatively cheap) especially compared to the firm, throat sized 'Smiles'.

A and B have taken interest in reading lessons again so we are giving that another go. They have also become obsessed with 'Super Why' and 'Word World' so they are hopefully learning a bit from those shows. Our break from Spongebob has been going well, and we really haven't been missing him all that much. Every once in awhile the girls will still try to convince me that they are ready to not say naughty words like Spongebob....but I remind them that it's not just the naughty words but also the tears and tantrums when Spongebob time was over that necessitated the break.

I'm eagerly awaiting the end of summer which in this hot climate means highs under 90. Then we can start playing outside again!

I'm sure there are more things I wanted to record, but I had a visitor (yay! -three in one week) and lost my train of thought.

I'm off to go cook up a pot o' beans - yum (and cheap!)

Goals

I've been feeling a bit...blah the last couple of months. Probably a combination of a hotter-than-usual Texas summer and the useless feeling that came from weaning Baby Jo. Anyway, I have come up with some goals I'd like to accomplish over then next few/several months.

1)Find a piano - start teaching the girls or at least brush up on my sorta-skills
2)Find/buy a sewing machine - attempt to make clothes or something else useful
3)Find a productive hobby - something that produces something useful or at least pretty.
4)Start to learn Spanish - the Latin American kind. I also want my kids to learn - but I don't want them to do it without me (can't have them talking behind my back right in front of me!)
5)Find inexpensive ways to improve our house.
6)Set a consistent schedule that allows for quiet times, exercise, quality time with each family member (this might be the hardest on the list!)
7)Become reaquainted with my Horn and look into local groups that might need an extra.

So these are just things I would like to do but don't want to forget about during the busy-ness of every day stuff.

If any of you, my few, but faithful readers, have any pianos or sewing machines or great hobby ideas or expensive language learning programs (Rosetta stone!) you'd like to share - I'd be grateful!

A month off...

I haven't posted in forever because I took a month off from Internet 'distractions.' It was a good month and my brain stopped thinking in facebook statuses. I also stopped writing blogs in my head so it may take me a bit to remember some of the stuff we did this summer!

The biggest development of the summer has been in my girls' ability to swim. They took swimming lessons at the 'Y' and did well. I did have my doubts about whether or not they did as well as the instructor said in the completion certificate. We practiced at several friends pools - but they were small enough that the girls could easily reach the sides or bounce off the bottom to catch their breath. There wasn't a lot of opportunity for the to actually swim. But last week we went to a birthday party at a big, deep pool. There friend (the birthday girl) was an awesome swimmer(probably because she has a big, deep pool in her backyard!) and she seemed to inspire the girls to swim so they could keep up with her. I was prepared to jump in at any moment to rescue them should they flounder...but they did great! I'm so excited that they love to swim. It's one of my favorite things and I love that we can all love swimming together. Now I need to get Baby Jo swimming so I can swim with them!

I hope that they will dive (ha) into reading like they did into swimming.

Baby (or Toddler now, I guess :() Jo is starting to test her limits and her Mama. She loves to climb up on the table or the computer desk. She pushes buttons on the computer screen and dump her sisters' cups all over the table. She also really enjoys eating crayons and chalk so I have to be constantly monitoring where the girls put their art supplies.

That's what I have for now!

The girls, however, did not take a month off from internet distractions - they found a teletubbies game and were very excited to show it to Lil Sis.

Just a Quick One.

Just wanting to record B's newest idiosyncrasy:
I will ask her to do something, for example "go get the fruit snacks, " and she will reply, all in one breath, "I can't reach them, but I can." Or she'll say 'I don't want to do that, but I do.' It's like she changes her mind without even pausing to think. She's started using these double sentences all the time!
"I'm going to put this in here, but I won't."
I wish I had a recording, because I really can't catch the funny inflections on here.
Anyway, perhaps only interesting to me!

This is much more interesting:
Baby Jo has been pooping at least 8 times a day (not an exaggeration) for almost a week now. It has been solid about half the time and runny about half - but today has been straight diarrhea each time. We go to the doctor for shots on Tuesday - so I'm going to get her checked out! Hopefully it's nothing serious - she hasn't been acting like she feels bad. I wasn't too worried, but now that we're in our 6th day of it....
I bought her some Gatorade and have taken fruits and dairy out of her diet to see if that helps.

*The girls don't miss the dog at all and seem to enjoy pretending to be a dog much more than they ever enjoyed having one. Unfortunately, I have not been cured of the desire to have a pet. But we decided that we need to wait a few months and get our finances all straight before we venture into the world of pet adoption again. Maybe we'll get lucky and the perfect dog/pet will fall right into our laps! HA!

Nothing says fun like making instant pudding in a butter tub!

Fail!

Well we got a puppy. I started having second thoughts before we even brought him home. But I always have second thoughts, so I have trouble distinguishing the correct from incorrect.

Anyway, my girls are not ready for a puppy. A. has not come off of the couches/lawn chairs since he's been here. Even when he's sleeping she keeps at least 5 or more feet between herself and the dog. He really is a good little puppy as puppies go. I think he'd be easy to train and he's got a nice little nature.

But, he is also ALL teeth. You can not pet him without a bite. I know all puppies bite and chew - but this one is definitely on the extreme biter/chewer end of the spectrum. And the whole "give them something they are allowed to chew on, so they won't chew on things they are not supposed to chew on" philosophy has not been working out for us. 'Jaws' prefers human flesh when he gnaws. I don't think we'd make it through 2 and a half more months of teething.

I told the girls this morning that we had decided to take the dog back. B. cried a little, but after I explained that the dog would not quit biting for quite a while and that he was not going to stay little, she seemed ok with the decision. I asked A. how she felt about it and she said she wants to get a different dog. We'll see.

Baby Jo loves doggie when he's nice and cries when he bites - but she feels the same way about her sisters, so I think she'll be ok.

Here's hoping doggie gets a better, more tolerant home!

Perplexities of Four-year old interaction

This morning I gave A. the coveted Ariel spoon. She had been having a bit of a rough morning, and I had just stopped her attempt at annoying her sister by stealing her sister's seat at the table. When she received the spoon, she celebrated, and B, who generally rejoices with others, celebrated along with her. Then, A. told us (in her best taunting voice) that she had the Ariel fork last night and now she had the Ariel spoon too. B, as expected, launched into a full cry at the unfairness of Mom and life in general. I expected the situation to escalate with A. continuing her taunting and B. continuing her shrieking.
However, A., very surprisingly, said she had the Ariel fork last night so it was B's turn for the spoon and requested that I switch the utensils. Shocking coming from the Queen of Inciting-lots-of-Negative-Reactions-on-Purpose.
Every time I start thinking I can predict their behavior, they change it up on me.

Baby Jo just go in trouble, again, for pulling the chair out and climbing onto the dining room table. This time she was sprinkling the table with the contents of one of her sister's cups. She's becoming quite adept at moving the chairs around the kitchen.

And, keeping with the theme of parents that can only talk about the sleeping and pooping habits of their children:
Baby Jo continues to wake up too early for me, but she seems to be settling on around 8:00 am. She slept in until 8:30 this morning. Sad that I felt like it was so late in the morning.....ALL of the rest of the family wish that she would sleep just a bit later.
On poo - several times in the past Baby Jo has had a bit of diaper rash because she had a poopy diaper that we couldn't smell. Sort of a good/bad thing. But the last 2 days - WHEW it has been instantly obvious that she has a full load. Blech! Daddy has not encountered one of these diapers - I think if he does he will flat out refuse to change them for fear of gagging :)

We are still having trouble finding just the right doggie. Most of the ones available for adoption are too big or pit bulls. I took a 'which breed is right for you' quiz on Iams.com. It's nice because they give you a huge list of possible breeds and the percentage match for each. After looking at the list I started looking into Spaniels - they seem to be easy to train and are good with children. They are also seemingly hard to find around here. The spaniel rescue will not let families with children under 7 adopt puppies!?!?! Geez. I feel like calling them and arguing with them...but I won't. I found a Cocker Spaniel/Corgie mix puppy on craigslist. Very cute - seems like the perfect mix for us - they want 225 dollars for her. Shocking. So, the search continues. We have a few rescue groups we visit every Saturday. One of them had the perfect dog, in my opinion, but they had it before we had finalized on our house. I feel like I am definitely making mountains out of mole-hills with this dog thing. But I like to be prepared, and a dog will be a big adjustment for all of us, so I want to make sure it's one that we will all be ok with in the long run.

Well, I suppose I should go join the girls in watching 'The Penguins of Madagascar'...or I could fold some more laundry....or both!

Why I don't update more often:

(besides the fact that I am trying to cut back on computer time to spend more time with the kiddies):I was on the computer...she was eating happily...next thing I knew...well...if you look closely you can see that she made sure and covered ALL of her face.

Here's what happens when little girls decide to kiss sidewalks:

Here's some of what we did for Memorial Weekend:

Here are girlies having fun with Daddy:

Here's the reason I have cups/Tupperware/toys/shoes/diapers/etc all over the house:

And here are a few more pics that I like:

In other news, about two weeks ago I spent about 36 hours in the ER/hospital with A. Nothing really serious - she just swallowed a quarter. After 5 days of digging through poo, we took her in and they sent us downtown to have it taken out. An interesting life experience, to say the least ;) (and...very weird coincidence, about a week later a little boy from our church swallowed a quarter, too. Ours was Pennsylvania, his was Idaho.)

Since I was away from Baby Jo overnight, I decided it would be a good time to wean her. She was down to twice a days and was getting pretty handsy and demanding between times. I had been planning on taking a 'Mom's Weekend Away' trip to wean her, but A's little episode seemed like a good time. It's been a little over two weeks and I'm finally almost pain-free. Baby Jo stopped pulling at my shirt and screaming after about a week, but she still is having trouble calming herself. There are certain times during the day where she just gets mad and cries and cries. I'm working on finding ways to distract her. I wasn't expecting to feel so sad about weaning her. I knew it would be a bit harder with her, since it was just her. But, it's way worse than I imagined. I don't remember being sad at all when the girls were weaned...so maybe I rushed it this time, but I think it's really just the knowledge that I'm probably done with babies. Anyway, I really miss my cuddly baby. My girls just don't sit still for much cuddling/holding time. AND now I have no way of getting Jo to go back to sleep in the mornings, so when she wakes up at 7 - we are up and at 'em for the rest of the day.

So that's a quick recap of the last month or so. Now I'm off to fold approx 4 baskets full of laundry - yay.

Bluebonnets

About a month ago I went to my church's annual women's retreat (it was awesome, fulfilling, mind-blowing, etc, etc) at a cute little place in the country. The bluebonnets were in full bloom and basically covering the entire area, so I called up my husband and asked him to come pick me up. I'm not sure exactly what I said to him, but the idea was that he could bring me my kids and my camera so we could put the bluebonnets to full use. It's a TX tradition to take pictures in the bluebonnets and last year we missed it, so I couldn't let the opportunity pass us by!!

Unfortunately, my husband didn't grasp that the whole reason he was supposed to come was so I could take pictures. I'm not sure what he thought was the reason for me needing him to drive 2 hours to pick me up when I already had a ride home....I thought the fact that I reminded him about 80 times to bring the camera made the point of the trip pretty obvious. Anyway, he arrived with the kids, two of whom were dressed in cute, spring time clothes that, while they might not have been what I would have selected, were passable for 'photo clothes'. The third daughter...well....here are some of the pictures....see what you think!

Turns out the outfits didn't wind up mattering much...since daughters A. and J. weren't interested in having their pictures taken and B. was obsessing about the bees/bugs :) But did you see Baby Jo's little pony tail?? Daddy did that - I was very surprised!

There were lots of awesome flowers - here are the only other ones in front of which the girls would cooperate and smile:

If you noticed that 'Supergirl' seems to have something on her cheek that is enhancing the tomboy look....well that's what happens when little girls dive into protruding corners. Here's a picture of the cheek taken about 5 days after the crash: