Best Ravellenic Project EVAH!

Yup, I win!  We adopted this fella from the shelter today and are just delighted with him.  Poor guy doesn't even have a name from us yet, Hopefully he will by the end of the weekend.  Kudos to National Cat Protection Society in Newport Beach, they were awesome!

He will be keeping me company as I start taking Destructo-boy to pre-school this fall, sniff-sniff.  Plus, now I feel like a 'real' knitter as I have a fur-ball that will chase down stray yarn balls and eat them as they roll away from me.  Please don't complain about the stray hairs in your holiday knitting, you might not get any the next year! 

Success!

He is potty trained!  Destructo-boy that is, Mister Vonkysmeed came to me that way.  It was so much easier this time around than it was with Lil' Miss.  Maybe because I learned that pushing ended disastrously with her so I backed off this time and let the boy take the lead.  I showed him what to do, set up a sticker reward system and then let him have at it.

Don't get me wrong, there were quite a few mistakes made along the way, on both sides, but after 8 weeks he is going days at a time with no accidents, it has been a few weeks since his last oops.  I think the last one was when he was away from home and didn't know where the potty was, can't really blame him too much on that one.  Amazingly enough he is usually waking up dry too and it took the girl well over a year to be trained at night after we started her potty training.  Although on those nights he falls asleep early and we don't bother to put on the night time diaper are of course the nights he wets himself.

He was so excited to pick out his new underpants choosing Toy Story and Cars 2 when I laid them all out for him.  Then he wanted to show them off, to the point that he dropped his pants in the quad of Lil' Misses school to show them to a neighbor.  I haven't laughed that hard in awhile!  Now that he has been wearing them for a few days he isn't dropping his pants to show them all the time, but he is getting particular about which one he wears on a given day.

Next I'll let Mister Vonkysmeed demonstrate how big boys pee in the potty (I don't really have the equipment to do that for the boy!), I see Cheerios kept in a bowl in the bathroom in our near future.

Sick Girl

She's been sick for three days now, I know this isn't big news to anyone else but my child has one of those iron-clad constitutions that mean she rarely gets sick and even then not for long.  Poor thing, I hope she gets better soon because I'd really hate to keep her home from school tomorrow.  Not that I don't like having her around but if I do she won't get her perfect attendance for this year like she did last year (that said I am not sending a sick child to school, it's not worth sharing with everyone else!). 

Thankfully the vomiting stopped after Friday night, but anyone know how to get the smell out of a couch?

Potty Training, mark 2

Good God, I have to do this again!  I don't know who was unhappier with it last time, me or Lil' Miss?!  Neither one of us like it and I gave up for a bit before starting again and letting her take the lead, that worked much better.  Now it is time for Destructo Boy to give up the diapers.  I hope we both survive!

Yes, I do realize I am starting this WAY later than most people would, but I didn't want to turn it into a huge fight and he just didn't seem ready.  I say this because he is already 3 and I know many people think I am way late on starting this.  In my defense he was a late talker and had no interest whatsoever in the potty.  Now he is very interested and I am hopeful the whole process will go quickly and smoothly!

We just started this week but he seems to like the potty chart so far, there is just something about kids and stickers.  For our potty chart Lil' Miss and I decorated a half sheet of poster board with diecuts made with my handy dandy Slice leaving a space in the center for an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper where we will actually keep track of the pottying.  For the 8.5 x 11 paper I just used an Excel spreadsheet to create columns for the days of the week and a marked starting line at the bottom of the page.  Every time he sits he gets to put a sticker on that day regardless of whether anything came out or not (right now we are encouraging the habit of sitting on the toilet, I don't care if it is successful or not).  And yes, I did just tape it to the back of the bathroom door with packing tape, I am so uncreative with my hanging of the actual chart!

Next we need to go to the store to get the inspirational potty training underpants, I am not talking about Pull- Ups, I hate those things (glorified diapers that are impossible to get off without making a huge mess!), but rather about the cloth ones most often sold by Gerber.  It seems like the Pull-Ups style pants are just too much like diapers and keep the kids too dry but regular undies are so thin that if when an accident happens everything gets wet.  The nice thick cloth ones are  a nice happy medium for our family, now just to find the blasted things!  They do seem to be nearly impossible to locate in local stores, which I kind of wanted to do for Destructo to get to carry them to the checkout and be able to understand what a big boy he is.  Maybe we'll get lucky at our next Target trip!

A different kind of Christmas village

I have been debating starting one of those ceramic house village collections for quite awhile now.  The ones by Lemax at the local Michaels always seemed kind of, well, a little cheesy to me and roughly made.  However they are affordable which can't really be easily said about what I was really considering, Dept. 56 houses.  There was even a store of theirs locally where we could go and look at all the different villages they carried.  I think we ended up in there every Christmastime looking and wishing we could afford to start a village.

Now that Mister Vonkysmeed's employment status is more stable I decided to definitely start a collection this year and had even researched a local store that carries Dept. 56 villages for me to go look again.  Then I ended up on the LEGO website to request a free magazine subscription for Lil' Miss and one thing led to another until I discovered this,

LEGO Winter Village Bakery, 10216

Yup, LEGO has gotten into the Christmas village business and they have a new customer in me!  This is the third year they have produced a new building and with Mister Vonkysmeed's blessing I have ordered all three buildings to get us started.

With these buildings we get the additional fun of assembling them together as a family, always a good thing in my book!  Additionally they are not made out of fragile porcelain as the other villages are, always a bonus in this family with young kids and a 'bull in a china shop' kind of hubby!

Surviving

That about sums up what I am doing right now when it comes to these kids.  I cannot even begin to count the number of arguments I had to break up yesterday.  With Lil' Miss being in school all day and therefore getting a break from Destructo Boy every day I kind of forgot how they often don't get along.

So I am really trying my hardest to not completely lose it and grab their little heads to bang together.  I think we may end up taking daily walks to get some of their energy out and just to give them a view other than the house.  Having said that I should note it's not like we sit all day around the house!  I try to make sure we get out of the house at least once a day, if not to a summer class for one of the kids than on an errand or at least to the park.  Even with an outing they still seem to get rather sick of each other pretty quick and end up in some form of an argument, and I only have so much patience for breaking up these daily fights.

One of my tricks to get a little break is to have them watch a movie in their room (yes, I am one of those bad mom's who put a tv in her kids room but at least they don't get cable in there!) while I get to do whatever I want in another room, usually watching a non-child friendly movie myself.  Even with that they have still been arguing, over who is on who's bed, over being hit either on purpose or accidentally, it never seems to end.  So for now I feel like I am just surviving while I figure out how to keep them happy and busy but not fighting constantly this summer.

School questions

Parenthood is not for sissies!  The most unexpected issues crop up and cause stress/anxiety where you never imagined it would, like where to send your kid to school when they are already in school.

I just found out this morning that the two little girls we walk to school with are transferring out to other schools next year and Lil' Misses best friend Miss E is also transferring out, as are the majority of the kids in her little group in class.  I had decided with Mister Vonkysmeed to keep her in our neighborhood school in spite of it's problems because well, it is our neighborhood school.  But now with hearing about all these other kids transferring out I am second guessing myself, am I really making the right decision?

I'm feeling like maybe I am being lazy since I really don't want to have to drive her to another school instead of walking to this one.  However we have had a very positive experience so why change?   Lil' Miss is doing well, very well in fact, and we have been beyond happy with her teacher.  'The other parents are understandably concerned since our school is a Title 1 school (meaning at least half the students qualify for a free lunch-meaning they are poor, and mostly Spanish speaking) and is currently earmarked for Program Improvement (meaning their test scores have fallen-in my opinion due to the large percentage of ESL kids whose parents do not provide any kind of help to their kids at home).  For these reasons they are getting their kids into other schools in the district that are higher performing schools.  In spite of our schools problems Lil' Miss has a fantastic Kindergarten teacher and I know the first grade teachers are also very good but I still wonder if this is the right decision. 

This is not a dilemma I ever thought I would have to deal with, I just assumed we would go to the neighborhood school and all would be fine.  I never thought it would become an issue of whether to stay in our school or not.  However I didn't realize we were not in the school district I thought we would be in when we bought the house, whoops!  Maybe I should talk to Lil' Misses current teacher for some much needed reassurance that I am making the right decision. In other words, please don't let me screw up my kid!

Destructo TALKS!

Finally, he is starting to talk to us!  And now that he is started it's becoming a little flood of communication.  It seems like every day a new word pops up, or words are being used together that never were in the past.  Both of us seem to be feeling much better with the new communication being used.

The past few months have been, in a word, difficult.  I found myself wondering why Mister Vonkysmeed and I decided to have another child, I mean Lil' Miss was never this difficult, was she?  Then all of a sudden about a few weeks ago the boy started using new words, daily, sometimes several words in a day.  And he continues to use them which is the biggest step forward.  Don't get me wrong, we don't have many sentences yet, but he does seem to have finally grasped the notion that if he uses a culturally agreed upon word for something he will get results.  Although we sometimes get the most interesting Destructo-Boy interpretation of a word that takes several times to decipher, that is if we are able to at all.  My personal favorite is when he brings a book to someone and says "TO" most urgently.  Um, run that by me again?  He hasn't quite figured out that the operative word in "read to me please" is not 'to' but 'read', but it is awfully cute!

Most of the time the new communication is working just fine, sometimes not so much when he is trying to desperately say something and for the life of me I can't figure it out.  Then the tears start and the volume increases, just fun all around (yes, he cries too).  I must say it is so much easier to handle a child who is willing to communicate with us instead of the grunting and pointing nonsense that has been going on (I think I am really lucky to be alive since I was a grunter/pointer until almost 3 years old, thank goodness the boy isn't taking after his mommy!).  Now that we have started to communicate we can begin to think about the next big step, shudder, potty-training!

Playdate DRAMA...

Who knew there could be drama involved in playdates?  Let me take you to the beginning to understand the current state of affairs.  Lil' Miss made her first special friend, Miss E, in Kindergarten and withn a few weeks we saw them walking home and realized they lived literally around the corner from us.  So the new friends mommy, Missus Sweden and I started talking and set up playdates for the girls.  It was kind of funny as we had no experience doing this and both admitted it to each other, but I told her that I felt we should for lack of a better word, 'inspect' each others' homes to make sure we were comfortable with the girls playing there and make sure we had contact info for each other and all should be fine.  She agreed and we had a new routine on Fridays.

So this was the state of affairs for a few months, every Friday we would have the girls play together for a few hours after school, alternating homes.  it was working really well, and then The Third Wheel was introduced over winter break.  She was the child of divorced parents and Missus Sweden felt kind of sorry for her so invited her to a playdate we had set up to have at her house.  It seemed to work out alright, but you know how threesomes turn out, generally not too well.

The next playdate was scheduled at my house and instead of talking to me directly TTW's mother asked Missus Sweden if she could come to the playdate.  So here I was with this child I hadn't really invited, whose mother had no idea how to contact me and who didn't even know where I lived, talk about poor judgment (please excuse me why I shimmy into my judgey pants!).  So we continued on this way, alternating between our house and Miss E's house with TTW added in for spice.  Then TTW's mom wanted to have a playdate at her home, um, NO!  Why no?  I had serious problems with her judgment, after letting her kid come to a home she had no contact info for, let alone had never seen, as well as her not being within walking distance, and the fact that she currently had a brother residing with her who until that time was a homeless drug user.  But how to bow out gracefully?  Thankfully The Child Whisperer came to my rescue with the perfect excuse, #1, Lil' Miss is not ready to be that far away from home (yup, blame it on the kid!), and #2, neither am I.  TTW's mom seemed to asccept this, although she was clearly not happy.

So things continued on but there were starting to be problems, Miss E and TTW were starting to have some issues with getting along.  TTW is a rather bossy child who is sadly lacking in manners (and I'll admit it, I don't much care for her) and Miss E had had enough of being told what to do constantly.  So every week now instead of Missus Sweden and I getting to watch the girls play nicely and hae some fun with them, we were having to intervene to stop the fighting.  Eventually Missus Sweden called up TTW's mom and apprised her of the problem, although she never pointed fingers or placed the blame on TTW, her mom went ballistic.  Apparently we were the mean stay at home moms who were 'cliqueish' and didn't like her.  She refused to accept that it just wasn't working because the kids weren't getting along, it was us evil moms that were the problem.  Sigh, really?  Didn't we leave this kind of crap back in high school, apparently not.

So currently we are back down to two very happy little girls going from one house to another on Fridays and having a fantastic time playing together.  It really amazes me how well these two get along, when they have a conflict I will inevitably hear them saying "Eeny, meeny, minny, moe..." to pick who gets to choose.  The truly amazing thing is that they did this all by themselves, no one directed them to resolve their conflicts this way.  Oh, and although they still play with TTW at school and seem to be getting along much better, her mom hasn't even said hello to either of us since then.  Hold a grudge much?!

I DO like green aggs & ham!

Isn't reading great?  Especially when you get rewarded for reading the classic by Dr. Suess, Green Eggs & Ham.  Yes, to reward Lil' Miss for reading through the entire book all by herself (and it's a whopping 62 pages long!) I made green eggs and ham for breakfast this weekend.  I realize it's not a ham steak, but I thought since sausage comes from pigs it qualifies as ham, right?

Just in case you feel like doing this for your child, or maybe for yourself just because, let me be the first to tell you that just adding blue food coloring does not work.  You'd think it would too.  Normally when you add blue to yellow you get green, but with eggs you just get blue, so go for the green food coloring.  If there is anything more revolting looking than green eggs, it's blue eggs.  I think ours were a tad on the minty green side because I had already added the blue.  I suppose it works for it being the month of March too, you know, like shamrock shakes, except it's shamrock eggs!

I can't say I enjoyed the treat quite as much as Lil' Miss did, even Destructo Boy ate his green eggs with gusto.  Mister Vonkysmeed doesn't care for eggs even when they are the more traditional color so he escaped this mornings breakfast.  I actually had to close my eyes for the first few bites, I know they are the same but that color leaves something to be desired.  In spite of my lack of enthusiasm for green eggs I know I will have to do this at least one more time, when Destructo Boy reads Green Eggs & Ham by himself for the first time.  When he does that he'll get rewarded too, with his own special breakfast.

Wednesday is for kids

At least in our house it is!  We have allowed Lil' Miss to choose the dinner menu for a few months now, within reason of course.  Her favorite so far has been fish of some variety, usually catfish (a five year old choosing fish, weird I know!) with rice and broccoli, interspersed with the request for my made from scratch mac and cheese.  At some point I will hand over the dinner preparation to her to help her with learning to plan and prepare meals.  Of course she will have to share the choosing with Destructo Boy once he gets a bit older and more verbal.

With the new year we have also added in games after dinner, after everyone is finished eating we all sit down and play games or puzzles together.  Lil' Miss has been loving this new part of our routine and gets so excited when I tell her it's tie to go pick out a game to play.  Mister Vonkysmeed is usually less than enthused with the choices (I'm not exactly doing backflips over them either to tell the truth) but she is only 5, so the games are of necessity a little on the simple side.  Think Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, Hi Ho Cherry-O and youget the idea.  Maybe some nights we'll turn to the Wii for something a little different. She is learning to handle disappointment with this though, not an easy thing for a 5 year old.  Some nights are a little rougher than others but it's getting better.

My hope is that by establishing a family routine now, when they get older the kids will still want to spend time with us old fogies, and it gives wonderful opportunities for open and honest communication with each other.  I know that if I blink too long they will be all grown up and out of the house so I've got to enjoy my little anklebiters in all their frustration causing glory now!

ees boke

some handy sign language in use

He Talks!  Well, kind of.  When a toy isn't working as expected, has another toy crammed into it, or just isn't doing what he wants Destructo-boy walks up to me (usually stomping on my feet in the most painful manner possible) and presents me with the toy stating "Boke!" or occasionally "Ees boke!"  Another common word is "Wah" meaning water which would be our cue to go get him a sippy cup.  We are also starting to say something resembling truck which are one of his favorite things right now (boy does this kid love trash day with trash, green waste and recycling designated trash trucks rumbling through the neighborhood!).

It is no less frustrating to communicate with the boy, he understands most of what we say to him and I know he is capable of speech now that he has said a few words.  He has decided however to use grunting and pointing most of the time, he will say a word and then not repeat it for weeks.  "Boke" and "Wah" seem to be the exceptions which he usually uses at least once a day.  Thankfully we also finally got him to use at least one sign language sign, putting his hand to his mouth to indicate being hungry.  This has certainly helped with some of the crying (yes, some of mine too!) around here.

At least I know for sure he is capable of speech, he is just stubborn about using it.  Although I have a sinking feeling once he starts talking he is not going to stop!

Trains, trains, trains

Lil' Misses latest setup, pretty good for a 5 year old!

 It was Christmas of the year 2007 that we were introduced to GeoTrax.  From cruising around the 'net I quickly realized that these toys can become an addiction (well at least more for the parents if not the kids!).  I think everyone bought a little something for Lil' Miss that year to add to the GeoTrax set, this happened even though she didn't quite "get" what to do with it all and certainly couldn't build herself a track yet!  So, in spite of the somewhat uncomprehending 2 year old, the collection grew exponentially at first (mommy & daddy needed all those extras to build an interesting track!) with extra track packs, bridges, and assorted buildings.  She did however rather quickly understand that the controller for the R/C train was important (still didn't know exactly what to do with it) and refused to give it up.  So what did Mister Vonkysmeed do?  If you guessed he went out and bought another R/C train for his own use, give the lady a prize, you're a winner!

We are not lucky enough to have a basement, finished or not, as they do in other parts of the country in which to put a playroom for the kids.  We also have a fairly small home (Destructo-boy & Lil' Miss currently share a room, sorry kids but the planned addition will cost about 200K, gotta wait a few more years!) so our family room where the tv and my laptop reside also house most of the toys.  Of course, fairly quickly the family room was being completely taken over by train tracks.  We adults were getting ambitious with our constructions and every time someone wanted to sit down on a couch they quite literally had to step over various parts of the layout to get there.  So I decided that the trains did not need to be out all of the time.  But what to do with all those trains?  Target (pronounce it tar-jhey so it feels fancier somehow) gave me my affordable solution of two Rubbermaid plastic totes.  They fit ever so nicely behind the end table out of sight, keeping me happy and all the parts together when not in use.

Enter child #2 to the trains and what first started as a spot on imitation of Stitch in the "Ooh, SanFrancisco!" scene starring Destructo-boy as Stitch, has evolved into more interest in actually playing with the trains instead of tearing the tracks apart and flinging them all over the family room (yes, this resulted in Lil' Miss screaming and crying trying desperately to both stop him from pulling up more tracks and recover the pieces already flung across the room which would've been much funnier if I didn't have to physically pull them apart).  He is finally starting to 'get' how to use the trains on the tracks, placing them correctly and running them back and forth with his little hands, he even got an R/C train of his very own this past Christmas.

 I love to watch them when Lil' Miss is using the R/C train and Destructo-boy is madly running back and forth to keep up with the trains progress, squealing all the while, jumping up and down, pointing and yelling "Ack-Ack" (didn't know he had watched Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!).  They have gotten a whole room of adults to sit watching them play with the trains this way, quite entertaining (or are we just easily amused, hmmm).  He is absolutely fascinated with watching it go round and round, particularly when the track has been set up with lots of elevation changes, a roller coaster track as Lil' Miss calls it.  I love it when a toy entertains the children and adult equally, talk about value for the money!

Cow fetish

Not that kind of fetish, what kind of sick people are you?!  I was talking about this kind of fetish:

fet-ish  noun
an object (as a small stone carving of an animal) believed to have magical powers to protect or aid its owner; broadly:  a material object regarded with superstitious or extravagant trust or reverence

After an angiogram last month discovered a torn arterial valve, Pops-in-law had a wee bit of open heart surgery this week to have it replaced.  He is doing amazingly well and is being sent home from the hospital after only 4 days.  In case you were not aware (and I was not until this request came my way) that when a valve is replaced they can be harvested from either pigs or cows and as you probably already guessed, Pops-in-law got some beef.  So Mister Vonkysmeed suggested that I could just "whip out" a little cow toy for him to put a smile on his face.  I suspect the humor will be most enjoyed by my Mister, but whatever it takes to help everyone get through this stressful event.

Now on to the crafty bit... I used a free pattern, Fabio Frog, from Lion Brand for the head, body and arms and for the snout ears and horns I used Chibi Cow by Marika Allely.  Why did I not just use the cow pattern you ask?  Well, I was lazy and wanted to make as few pieces as possible and this seemed the easiest way to go for me (the cow pattern has the head and body crocheted separately and had more rows to do-yes, I am that lazy).  They were both very easy to follow and the cow was done in a day.  I added on my own tail, just poked some yarn around a few crochet stitches, then braided it and ended with a nice knot.  Last of all I found some pretty checked ribbon recycled from an old floral decoration to tie around Bessie's neck, now if only I had a bell...

I did suggest embroidering stitches along the cow's chest, but Mister Vonkysmeed thought that might be a step too far for his conservative father.  All right, but if the Mister ever needs something like this, it is getting surgery stitches!

Giving Thanks

Love me some Norman Rockwell!

Tomorrow is one of my favorite holidays, Thanksgiving.  Why?  It is a whole holiday about being with family and remembering what in our lives is good.  Plus there is a whole lot of really yummy food around!  Turkey roasting all day, stuffing, The 6 Fingered Man's yams (yes, I really do have an Uncle with six fingers-only on one hand the other got amputated-it's murder on little kids just learning to count!), mashed potatoes with gravy, and oh the desserts!  We get to smell this yumminess all day while hanging out with the family, usually watching football and talking and laughing together, pretty relaxing.  That said, Christmas is a close second with all the presents thrown in too, but on turkey day the focus is on togetherness and gratitude, not a huge haul.

So today on the day before our feast I wanted to take  minute to thank you first of all for reading this, but there is so much I have to be thankful for in spite of the hardships my family has gone through this past year.  I am hugely thankful for Mister Vonkysmeed, without him my life just wouldn't be complete, I mean who amongst us is lucky enough to marry their best friend?  Yes, that would be me!  Then of course I am thankful for my two little blessings, Lil' Miss and Destructo-boy, in spite of driving me crazy on a regular basis I cannot imagine life without these two in it.  Then of course I am so very thankful for the extended family, they are all so loving and supportive and I can say we are lucky enough to be one of those rare families with very little drama, makes the holidays so much easier!

Then of course I am thankful for the roof over my head the food on my table and the support from a certain someone who is ensuring we are taken care of.  With this year of unemployment there is no way we could have survived without that assistance, we are so very lucky for that in a time when so many others are losing so much. 

And on a less serious note, I am so thankful that KTLA 5 has brought back the Twilight Zone marathon, I have missed my day of black and white tv goodness.  I don't get to enjoy it at my aunt's house where we all gather (they like their football, so I bring my knitting!) but in the morning at home, you know what I will be watching!  I wish it were on today too while I do some baking for tomorrow, I am making my very first pumpkin pie (mmmm, pie!) and am making a Cheese Ball with Everything for the big day tomorrow.  I might even bake some dinner rolls from scratch!

So, what are you thankful for this Thanksgiving Eve?

First of Many ER Visits...

Destructo-boy fell today, prompting my very first 911 call, and my first trip to the emergency room.  We always knew he would be the one of our kids to go there first being the Dangermouse that he is, I just wasn't expecting it this soon, and while Mister Vonkysmeed was away for the weekend too (although I should have known to be on high alert because things always happen that way don't they!).  What started as a nice little photo shoot with the kids to update my Ravelry projects page turned into a screaming bloody mess. 

See, all I wanted were some pictures of my handknits actually being worn, so I got the kids dressed up all nice, grabbed my camera and started shooting.  Destructo-boy started getting all giggly, spinning in circles to make himself dizzy and ended up falling against the back of the couch.  Now mind you, this is an upholstered couch with the frame well hidden under fabric, who knew the back of a couch was dangerous?  He immediately started crying and I scooped him up as the hit was quite audible, then when the screaming became frantic I got my first good look...I swear it looked like he was crying blood (has someone been reading trashy vampire novels?).  I guess faces bleed heavily as his previous bad injury was tearing the upper labial frenulum (the piece of skin holding the upper lip to the gum) when Lil' Miss knocked him down last year, and boy did that bleed!  No need for an er visit that day, a quick call to the pediatrician reassured me there was nothing they could do for that one. 

But this one. well as I couldn't tell how bad the damage was, and my brain was screaming 'BLOOD!  Blood, blood, blood!' combined with a fear that his eye might be involved I grabbed a towel to hold pressure on the wound and then the phone.  Do you have any clue how hard it is to hear a 911 operator whilst holding a shrieking child?  Yeah, it's hard.  She kept yelling at me and I couldn't hear much of it, until I managed to locate a pacifier, then sudden quiet.  I suddenly realized it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared if he calmed down with just the binky.  But I needed someone to look at it before I was willing to transport him, I'd rather be safe than sorry with my kids! 

Lil' Miss was very excited when the firetruck pulled up in front of the house, I was just glad to have someone to look at it.  By then the bleeding had mostly stopped and they advised me to get him to the hospital for some stitches, but put on some steri-strips to hold it together until we got there.  And once there, well, we waited for awhile, and then we waited some more.  Did I mention I hate waiting?  Of course when they were ready to see him he had just fallen asleep in my arms, figures. 

For the examination and the eventual glueing procedure they swaddled him, mind you this kid didn't really like to be swaddled as an infant so he really wasn't having any of it now (especially not while being held on his back on top of me, who was also holding his legs in between mine, boy can that kid struggle!).  I thought he was loud before but this volume was pretty hairy!  So, they superglued it shut, as it turns out the cut was too shallow for stitches but too deep to be left as is, so glue to the rescue!  Along with some more steri-strips to hold it all together.  I just hope it doesn't scar too badly, I think hoping for no scar is a bit much, let's just keep it small okay powers that be?  And no more ER visits for awhile too, I don't think my heart can take another one too soon!

Costumes for Halloween

 Why oh why did I decide to make them myself rather than just buying them?!  Hmm, maybe because I am an idiot?  Or maybe because I'd feel guilty being a stay at home mom if I didn't?  Regardless of why, I decided to do it and boy am I sorry!  It has probably ended up costing about the same to sew the costumes for the kids as it would to simply purchase them already done.  Then besides the money spent is the vast amount of time involved, it takes quite a bit of time to cut out the fabric, sew it, press it, finish it...  Although, the kids get something really personalized out of the deal.

Lil' Miss has decided she wants to be Super Girl for Halloween, now before you get all excited this is not the Super Girl of Superman fame, she came up with this idea independently.  Here's the best part, when I asked her what her superpower was (because most heroes have special powers dont'cha know!) she informed me that Super Girl brings rainbows to people.  Yes, rainbows.  And what is special about that exactly, well it keeps changing.  At first she brought rainbows to teach people their colors, but now it has morphed into being a kind of replicator (where the food comes from in Star Trek for you non-geeks) that pops out fruits and veggies with special rainbow dots on them.  Does my kid have an imagination or what?!

Since every hero needs a nemesis (now imagine that word being used correctly by a 5 year old playing with her My Little Ponies and you have some insight into my world!) Super Girl is faced with the catastrophic powers of Destructo-boy!  Yes, we the parental units are really imaginative, aren't we.  Seriously, with a nickname like that how could he be called anything else?  With the window rapidly closing on how many years we get to dress them in coordinating outfits I like to take advantage of it as I can.

Sadly, we the adults don't really get to play along this year as we have in years past.  Lil' Miss has always had an entourage with her, Mister Vonkysmeed and I, Grumpy, Chatty-Cathy, and Kako Grikor all tag along with her on the special day, and after the first year we have all dressed up right along with her.  I think her Alice in Wonderland year was a favorite of the neighborhood, I was the Cheshire Cat, The guys were all cards, and Chatty-Cathy dressed up as the Red Queen.  I guess we'll all just be mild-mannered citizens according to Mister Vonkysmeed, at least the kids are happy, isn't that what really matters?

Growing Pains

They are more than just physical aches.  My lovely neighbor, The Child Whisperer, clued me into the simple fact that when a child is going through a growth spurt they start acting out at the same time.  I just realized after seeing how Lil' Miss has almost outgrown her leggings purchased for her at the start of summer that the major attitude problems we were experiencing over the past two weeks must have been due to a little growth spurt. 

In spite of realizing the why, the simple existence of the 'tude is beyond aggravating.  Ever have a cute little blonde blue eyed 5 year old talk back at you?  Doesn't matter how cute that child may be, you still want to grab them by the scruff of the neck and pitch them out the nearest window.  The fun is multiplied when you realize that elements of the 'tude are your own annoying habits being reflected back at you (yes, I really regret some of the choice phrases I have popped out with now that it's too late!).  Thankfully it only last a few weeks and then she gets back to her normal self, but nw we get the fun new tricks she is learning from her friends at school to deal with!

Not to be left out Destucto-boy has entered the terrible twos.  Lil' Miss didn't get there until she turned three, but the boy is already there.  It is completely normal for the age, but sometimes it is just so incredibly tiresome, especially when you are trying to get somewhere and he insists on doing everything himself.  Then when he doesn't get his way he starts screaming at such a volume as to put a Howler monkey to shame.  Some days I wonder why it ever occurred to me that having children was a good idea, then one of them gives me a hug or kiss and I remember.

Mister Vonkysmeed and I are not looking forward to the teen years, I don't know how we will survive!

Apples, apples, apples!

It is officially fall in spite of the heat we have been enduring!  And what is a classic fall fruit?  Yup, that would be apples, and we are lucky enough to live close enough to two different apple picking locales that we made a trip out this past weekend to Oak Glen to go apple picking.  In spite of the 40% chance of rain from thunderstorms (our local weather systems have been rather manic depressive the past few weeks!) it was a beautiful sunny day, almost too hot, note my sunburnt shoulders, sigh...

The apples available for picking this first weekend in October were Red Delicious, Granny Smith, and Rome Beauty.  Since I detest Red Delicious apples we got a peck sized bag and filled it up with Granny Smiths and Rome Beauties.  The trees were all around 6-7 feet tall, plenty low enough for a little girl to reach the lower limbs to pick off ripe worm-free apples.  I was expecting apple trees more the size of what were depicted in The Wizard of Oz, but these were great.  After seeing myself and Mister Vonkysmeed pick apples from the trees Lil' Miss was eager to do it herself, taking hold of the branch in one hand and grasping the apple in the other she gave an expert twist and off popped an apple, quickly followed by another and another.  Thankfully she did understand about checking the apples for wormholes first so we seem to have gathered a clean batch.  Destructo boy didn't really understand what we were up to as he kept picking up half rotten apples from the ground, we finally gave up and had him ride on Daddy's shoulders (which may have been his plan all along!) while we filled up the bag.

I foresee some srious baking in my not too distant future, we like apples here but I fear will not eat them all up as is before they go bad.  I have not counted but suspect there are at lease 20 apples in our little bag.  I am planning to make a yummy German Apple cake that I have successfully made before and may even try my hand at an apple pie.  Anyone know of any really delectable recipes?!

There were even some raspberries still available so Lil' Miss and I went in search of some amongst the rows of vines.  We managed to fill our little tray fairly quickly, much more were there than I thought would be.  Lil' Miss even caught on pretty quickly about what is ripe versus what isn't quite ready with her instructing me as to what to pick by the end of our last row.  I am so looking forward to next spring when we are planning on putting in a little vegetable garden in our sideyard, what fun we'll have then!

Funnily enough Lil' Misses kindergarten class is studying apples this week.  They all have to bring in an apple to school and will be painting with them, tasting them, and making applesauce with them.  I honestly had no idea when I set up the date for the apple picking expedition that her class was doing this, but it worked out great!  She even got called on to tell her class and another kindergarten class at the school about her experience of going apple picking over the weekend, I am such a proud and happy mama!

Starting school

For us it's not so much Back to School, as it is starting school.  Lil' Miss has begun Kindergarten and boy do I miss her during her time at school.  I managed to not cry the first day though, yea me!  She was perfectly fine with it all, telling me to go watch her from behind the fence to the Kindergarten recess yard rather than wait next to her for the teacher to take them into their classroom.  Such a self-confident little person, amazing!  We did go to the orientation the day before school started so knew where to go and the basics of what her room looked like and who her teacher was going to be, so that may have added to the confidence of Lil' Miss.  Apparently our school has had a little surge in enrollment as they had to hire on a teacher just four days before school started due to needing three classes for Kindergarten instead of two.   Guess which teacher we got?  I don't mind getting the new teacher, I am not such a fan of Lil' Miss being in the portable classroom though, it would be a bit nicer to be in a permanent room.

We are now into our second week and in spite of any reservations that I may have she is loving school so far.  She enjoys getting up to get ready for school and eagerly tells me about her day on the way home.  Luckily enough we live close enough to the school that it's an easy walk there and back for everyone.  We are even starting to see friends on their way home so are learning where in the neighborhood her new friends live.  We'll see how well our walk goes once it starts to rain though!  I plan on investing in some rain boots and rain jackets for both rugrats to keep them dry for that walk back and forth, we'll see if I need some rain boots too after the first couple of times walking in the rain.

I am still trying to figure out what to do with myself, how to rearrange my schedule with this change.  I am a bit of a creature of habit so will be much happier once I get it figured out and know what I am doing and when.  On the plus side, since I have to be up and ready earlier than I have gotten used to I am already adding in one good routine to my day, Destructo-boy and I are taking the looong way home from school so I can get in a little exercise every day.  Then once we get home I do my daily cleaning and then do my consultant work, and before lunch I have cleared all my "must do's" from the days schedule.  It is truly strange to have all afternoon to knit/scrapbook/sew before heading back out to pick up Lil'Miss at the end of the day.  I am sure we will all get comfortable once we settle in our new routine and I can only hope Lil' Miss continues to love school as much as she does now.  I still miss her every day though!