Catch phrases

It's funny when the kids pick up on phrases of mine and Dave's, and it's funny when they come up with their own.

Luke loves to say, "Check this out," when he wants us to notice something.  At one point he had been doing some fake fighting with Kate and Anna and saying, "Take that."  The next day, he pointed something out and kept telling me, "Mama, take that" until he realized he'd meant "Check that out."

Another thing Luke says all the time is "super."  He usually uses it correctly, like, "I'm super hungry," but a few times he's used it in funny ways.  He was arguing with Ally, and he said, "That's mine.  That's super mine."

Luke also likes to say, "Aww, so cute" when he sees pictures of things he likes.

Ally still says "Awesome" all the time, with her little lisp, "Oh, that awthome."  It's just too much!

Anna has taken to adding, "Baby" at the end of things she says.  It's ridiculous.  "Okay, let's go, Baby!"

"All projects, All the time!"

We didn't go on out of town over spring break, which I didn't think twice about until it seemed "everyone" was bombarding me with guilt that spring breaks should be more special than my kids were getting.  Their cousins got to go with Grandma on a week long trip to Disney world, Dave kept referring to all his memories of travel, and I felt everywhere I turned for two days there was some reference to kids getting life-long memories of awesome spring break vacations.

So, Monday night I told the girls Tuesday was going to be special.  It was going to be a project day.  I said in my cheesiest advertising voice, "Tomorrow is projects day.  It'll be all projects, all the time!

We started the morning by peeling and crushing crayons to make "stained glass" crosses for Easter.

After that, we emptied the sap from the maple tree.  Did I emphasize it was the maple tree this year?  Once the twins went down for nap, we dyed Easter eggs.  We even used oil to make some tie dyed eggs.  That was fun, but did add a whole extra element of mess to the process.

During nap time, we also wound some water/glue soaked embroidery floss around some water balloon sized balloons to make these beautiful egg ornaments.

We'd planned to make fortune cookies after the twins woke up, but Ally was sick, so we postponed them until nap time the next day. (Anna chose to nap instead of joining us, so it was just Kate and me for this one.)

The fortune cookies were a bit harder to master than I'd anticipated, but they were sure fun.  Kate and I had a so much writing out the paper fortunes to insert.  Kate instructed me to make the words red and add numbers so they looked authentic.  I think we pulled it off.

We made some Easter ones for our friends
Ashley, Amber, Abby, and Maya,
but we weren't able to get them to them yet.

One of the fortunes Kate wrote.

So, we haven't made it to Disney yet, but we've had a lot of fun.

Tapped out

Thanks to the forgetfulness that can occur in two years, I decided we could tap the tree again.  

It's not the tapping that's bad, it's the boiling down of sap.  We had practically no success on the camping stove, and because you have to, by necessity, send over 97% of the sap into the air as water, it gets a little messy in the kitchen.

But, because it's such a fun experience, and because I do have a new fan in the stove's hood, I'll give it another try!

And, one other note, since Kate and Dave love to bring it up:

I did tap the maple tree right from the start this time.  I left the ash alone.

It's a look

Not every child can pull off men's glasses and a dirty face as well as Anna.

More potty training at the Melbye's

 Ally started to ask to go potty on the toilet just days before Dave and I were leaving her with Grandma.  Although she was having successes, but we thought we'd save Grandma some grief and save any big changes until we got back. We started putting her in underwear the day after we returned, and she has been doing "awesome."  That's Ally's favorite word.  If she likes something, she'll exclaim, "That's awethome!"

 I think it's hilarious that she's so conscientious about dumping and rinsing her potty chair, yet it never occurs to her to pull up her pants.  

Anna, Anna, Anna

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been hearing from Anna, several times a day, how Grandma is better than me.  The reasons I've heard most often are the following:

 

"Grandma doesn't make us clean up."  

"Grandma helps me get dressed."

"We can watch all the TV we want at Grandma's."

"We can leave our clothes just lying anywhere, even on the steps, at Grandma's."

Today I "ruined Anna's whole afternoon" by putting Luke, with whom she was playing, down for his nap.  I then proceeded to "ruin her whole life" as well as "hurt her heart" by telling her she had to either clean up the playroom or the basement.

At this point, I resorted to calling her bluff.  "Okay, Annie, I'll call Grandma and see if you can live there instead."

"No," she started, and I was sure that I had her, "She doesn't have all the toys that I like."

Okay, not exactly what I was hoping for.

Then she continued, "I want to live here," and just as I got a warm fuzzy feeling, she finished, "and you live there."

Tip of the day

Even if your child has done well with potty training for a couple days, 

it might be wise to consider a Pull Up instead of underpants 

to go under the  scarf, jacket, overall snow pants, and pants 

that will have to come off before she can get on the toilet.

They... are trying... to break my heart

They're breaking my heart.  These kids are both breaking my heart.

So, I left Luke's kitty down at Grandma's the night we got back from Arizona.  Stupid, I know.  I tried to give him other things to sleep with instead, but he didn't want any of them.  I broke into the Easter presents and got out an adorable stuffed golden retriever with bunny ears.

I said, "Look, it's a puppy.  Do you want to sleep with this puppy?"

"That puppy Mason!" he says excited.

"Yes, Sweetie.  It does look like Mason.  And you can have it.  Do you want it?"

"No," he tells me, "Sabe it.  Sabe it for when Mason comes back.  He'll lub it."

"Oh, Honey," I say, exhausted of these conversations, exhausted from trying to get him to bed for three hours without his darn kitty, "Mason isn't coming back.  Mason is dead.  Mason can't come back."

"No, Mommy," he tells me, taking hold of my face between his little hands, looking me in the eyes to help me understand, "Gib it to Mason when he comes back laaater."

  

***

We decided that none of us liked not having a dog, so we were looking at puppies.  When I showed Luke the picture of a puppy we were considering, I asked, "Do you like this puppy?  Do you want this puppy to come and live at our house?"

"No," he said, dismissing the idea, "I no like that puppy.  I lub Mason."

***

Just now I was putting Ally to bed and I told her we were going to have a new member of the family, a puppy named Bailey.  She said, "No.  I no want 'a Bailey.' I want Mason."  I said, "I know, Honey, I miss Mason, too.  But, Mason can't come back.  Bailey will be our new doggy."  Just like Luke, just like he's been coaching her on how to help me understand, she proceeded to go into a detailed explanation of how Mason will come back.  "We go get him.  We go in the car.  He go in the car, and then we dribe home.  That how Mason come back," she says, nodding the whole time, as though saying it emphatically enough will make it true.

***

So now I just feel like crying.  But, I've already cried many days, and it never made me feel better.  I had been feeling better, but now I'm not.  So, maybe I'll just cry a little bit, but really, it feels like I should be over this.  And maybe I am, maybe I'm just not over my kids not being over it.

Introducing...

Bailey

This sweet little girl is 30 days old today.  She is going to come live at our house in a few weeks.

Arizona

Dave has always, always, always wanted to go to Arizona to see the Brewers play spring training games.  I have never been interested, and I brushed him off every year.  This year, his Dad's diagnosis made me realize life is too short to put off a dream. So we talked to his mom who agreed to take the kids for four days, and we booked the trip.  The kids were as excited to spend four days at Grandmas as we were excited to get away.

I wasn't especially excited about the baseball games, but we only saw two.  We spent the rest of the time climbing a mountain and seeing the Grand Canyon.  It was a wonderful trip!

And, the kids had a great time.  In fact, Anna has spent the last two days telling me all the ways Grandma is better.  I may fly back to Arizona.

Dave gets to see Maryvale Ball Park

The Sausages come, too?  If I'd known that, I'd have been more excited.

Here's a description of the trail we were taking up Camelback Mountain.
"Cholla Trail is recommended for experienced hikers and has steep, rocky sections
with drop-offs on both sides of the trail..."

I'm a tiny bit flushed from the exertion.  Just a bit...

That view!

And then I had to get down...  Crap.

I'd always heard the Grand Canyon was magnificent.  But, that didn't begin to describe it.

When it came to climbing Camelback, down was harder.
But, with the Grand Canyon, down was not the problem.

After two days of climbing, the second spring training game was a welcomed relaxation.

Grandpa

Dave's dad is sick.  He was diagnosed with Alzheimers.  One of the blessing that has come from this is we get to have him come spend the day with us every couple weeks if Dave's mom works a later shift at work.  The kids love this, especially Luke.

Luke saw this picture I'd snapped yesterday and declared, " Grandpa!  I lub him.  I lu-u-u-ub him."

Every couple weeks I think, "Cleaning up messes after breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner every day just isn't enough, I need a huge mess to clean up."  And I bake with my kids.

On this particular day, we had a bunch of over ripe bananas, so we made our favorite chocolate chip walnut banana muffins, a recipe my friend Katrina shared with me a couple years ago.  

If you're interested, you can find the recipe here. As Katrina suggested at the time, I grind up the walnuts in a food processor.  (I freeze them first so they don't turn into a nut butter.) That way the kids get the health benefits without the crunch they may not like.  I also use mini-cholocate chips, so that there's chocolate in every bite.

Look what the leprechauns did!

Anna had looked at the leprechauns that we'd made hanging on the wall.  She asked if we could always leave them up.  I told her that we'd take them down after St. Patrick's Day, and this upset her.  She wanted them to stay forever so they would always do tricks.  She was whining and crying, saying, "No!  You can never, ever take them down."

Dave, who would usually handle this well, was tired.  He just sighed.

I sat down by Anna and began to explain, "Do you know who really did the tricks?"

Kate quietly said, "Stop talking."

I continued, "Mommy did."

Kate said, "Please stop talking."

Anna looks sick.  "Really, Mama!?  Really?"

I wondered why I was saying this.  It was all in fun.  Kate knew leprechauns weren't real, but she was having so much fun.  There was no harm in the pretending, so I continued, "Yeah, with the help of the leprechauns outside! Not these leprechauns.  These are just art projects."

Kate took a sigh of relief and continued, "Yeah, these aren't real.  The ones outside are the ones doing all the tricks..."