The Scream of the Wraith

I heard a sound come from Doodie today that I've never come from any child. Of course Maeve was directly responsible for it. I made the kids go play in their room instead of watching cartoons all morning and Maeve decided that Doodie wasn't allowed to play. So she slammed the door shut on him, which she does all the time, no matter how many times I tell them to keep the door OPEN. But this time Doodie's fingers were in the way, and she PUSHED on the door to close it. She is evil.

When I ran to see D's fingers there was a nice, neat row of deep lines pushed into his skin on all four fingers of his right hand. After calming him down and having him sit with me for 30 minutes or so I can now see that they are swollen to about twice their normal size and I'd bet they are going to be purple and blue before too long. I don't think they are broken because he doesn't scream when I touch them and he's up playing now, but man.

Maeve is evil.

I hope Doodie survives.

;)

Night Snow

A few days ago we took the kiddos out after dinner to play in the snow. It was so much fun! It was already dark, but the kids played for about 45 minutes and had a ball. We even made snow cones out of REAL snow and some strawberry syrup! The girls really liked those.

It's so nice to be able to have moments like these with our whole family. I love winter. And I love snow. :)

Daddy's home with the little ones today

cleaning up Maeve after lunch…

Maeve: My hand hoits
Dad, seeing nothing wrong: how come your hand hurts?
M: cuz.
D: because why?
M: leave me alone.

end of conversation. yikes.

It's made of people! PEOPLE!!!

Scene: The fam is in the car driving through downtown Chehalis on our way to the Santa Train. The streets are decorated for the holidays.

Michaela: That's a funny snowman.

Mike: You're a funny snowman.

Michaela: I am not a funny snowman!

Mike: You're a funny snowman.

Michaela: I am NOT a funny snowman! I'm not made of snow!

Me: Okay, you're a funny snowwoman!

Michaela: I am NOT a funny snowman! I'm not made of snow, I'm made of HUMAN!

The hilarity ensued. :D

This was too good to not post here too...

Here's the link to tonight's entry on my other blog. Not everyone checks both, but it's worth reading. My son is turning out to be more than a handful... :)


http://motherhoodispoop.blogspot.com/2008/12/doodie-put-toy-in-toilet.html

The Sounds of Dude

Alasdair has learned how to put his hands in the air and say "ta da!" and he says it a LOT. And every time he says it its the same sing-songy note. He's got pretty decent pitch! Must have gotten that from me. ;)

A few minutes ago he was sitting on the floor and had one of the girls' pink easter buckets over his head. He was cracking UP! Must have gotten that from his dad. :D

It's Mercules!

Michaela has always had some really cute ways of saying certain words. So cute that I don't bother to correct her. My most favorite one that has gone away since she's learned to read is that she used to say "stuffing" for "something". Like, "Mommy, I need to show you stuffing" or "I spy with my little eye, stuffiiiiiiiing Blue!" Too cute. But one that had stuck with her (until today actually) is calling both Mercury and Hercules "Mercules". Hilarious! We were watching an old movie on VHS the other day and there was a preview for the animated movie Hercules on there and she starts yelling "Mercules! I love that movie!" Makes me crack up every time I think about that. Or maybe it's stuffing else. ;)

Bored Games

Last night we got finished with dinner and bathtime relatively early, so we cleaned up the living room, the kids had a "treat" from their Halloween baskets and I asked Maeve if she wanted to play a game. I figured that we could work on some counting by playing Dora the Explorer Chutes and Ladders. We had a half hour until bedtime, so we could play the game, maybe even get in a book, brush teeth and get tucked in just in time.

Nope.

Who would have thought that you could play Chutes and Ladders as long as you could play, say, Monopoly? We played that game for 45 minutes. Maeve gave up after about 10 minutes, so then it was just Michaela and I. Even she was getting pissed that she had to keep going down the stupid slides and not winning, and she loves playing games!

It also amazes me that my 6 1/2 year old who is pretty darn bright, can not for the life of her figure out how the chutes and ladders board works. She doesn't understand which way to go, she doesn't understand that just because you are touching a ladder or slide doesn't mean you get to go up or down, and she thinks that if you touch the square at all, not just land on it, you get to go up or down.

After last night I know remember why we don't play Chutes and Ladders with our kids. :)

A Michaela Moment

My sister in law is putting together these cute little books about "cousins". Each of the cousins had to answer a bunch of questions and then she'll put them in a book with their photo and names, etc. This will help us all keep the cousins closer since some live very far away. I'm going to share with you Michaela's answers, complete with her own spelling. I let her do her own. :)

When is your birthday? March 19'2002
Where do you live and what color is your house? Foltin and Pinck (Fulton is our street, and that's Pink)
What are your nicknames?
Do you have any pets? What are their names? Pigy and Bene (mind you, they are no longer with us, for like a year and a half)
If you have any special stuffed animals, what are their names and what are they? Suzzy and rabbit (this is my rabbit from when I was a baby. I wasn't aware it had a name :)
What was your first word? wats that
What book or story do you like to read or have read to you? the poler exsperes (the polar express)
What is your favorite animal? Horse!
What did you dress up as this past Halloween (2008)? perinsses! (Princess)
Who is your favorite friend at school and why? Sara
What is your favorite class/subject at school? music
What is your favorite color? pinck
What is your favorite food? nodels and sacs! (this is supposed to be noodles and white sauce, or alfredo)
What is your least favorite food? musherooms
What is your favorite holiday or season? christmas
What is something that really makes you laugh? jocks (JOKES, not Jocks, but hilarious!)
What is your favorite sport/game/activity to get your body moving? socer
What would you like to be when you grow up? ballerina
What is your favorite thing about your brother(s) or sister(s)? ticheling the (tickling them)
What is the most fun thing about having cousins? playing

Get your kids to eat ANYTHING!

Seriously, the trick is chopsticks. My kids will eat anything we put in front of them if they can eat it with chopsticks. Tonight my husband made this stir fry out of some asian eggplant, some pork (usually it's tofu), some bell peppers and some onion. It's not a favorite of our kids. One doesn't like tofu, one doesn't like onions, one doesn't like pork, none of them like eggplant. But all of their plates were clean tonight! DH fed the baby with his chopsticks, and I gave the girls the pair of kids chopsticks that we lifted from a popular chinese restaurant that we'll call "O.E. Fangs". ;) Try it, it works!

We could feed the Poor

Tonight as I was cleaning up the dining area in our kitchen, I realized that with all the food that ends up on my floor in a single day, mostly from Doodie, I think we could feed a small country. I keep trying to figure out how to get my grocery bill down to something less atrocious that it is now, but we haven't been able to so far. Maybe I can just put some sort of safety net below Maeve and Dude and then just dump it in a tupperware container for the next day. We could have "leftover lunch" each day!

But seriously, it's really gross. I actually have to look at what Doodie throws on the floor and compare it to what he started with in order to figure out how much he ate. And then I have to subtract the amount that he smeared in his hair and add the amount back that he grabbed off of Maeve's plate. It's like doing Advanced Algebra at the dinner table. :)

Another Proud Mommy Moment

Michaela is a few pages away from reading book #2 in a chapter book series!! I've been trying to get her to read a chapter book on her own for a few months now, but she just refused. I bought all sorts of different types of series from the book orders at school or getting some from the library, anything from Jewel Fairies to Flower Girls. But finally she sat down and read one in two days and she's almost done with #2! Geez, I hope the library has this series!! :)

You know what I love?

I love coming home from a crappy ass commute on a day when it's pouring down rain and I've just had to stand on the bus the whole way home (not to mention the extra bad traffic because of an accident) and I see Michaela peeking out the window when my car pulls up. I love that when she opens the door I can see Maeve's head bobbing up and down because she can see me and she's yelling "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" I love seeing Doodie waddle toward the door when I walk in and drop everything he's holding, grin the biggest, goofiest grin he's got and say "Mama!"
I love that after I get home, whenever I leave the room my littlest ones panic because they think I'm leaving again. I love that Michaela wants to tell me everything about her entire day from beginning to end in about 90 seconds talking non-stop. I love tucking my kids into their beds at night and having them all warm and cuddly knowing that first thing in the morning when they open their eyes they're going to say "Mommy!" all over again. :)

SO GROSS

So, I just changed Maeve's diaper, right? And it's got this little tiny turdy in it, no big deal. I see worse every single day around here. So I clean her up, put on a new diaper, get her sparkly princess skirt back on and off she goes. At that moment, my nose starts to itch because my crazy loose hairs are tickling it. So I use the back of my hand (not my wiping hand mind you) to itch my nose and all of a sudden ALL I CAN SMELL IS POOP!! Oh, god. On the back of my hand is a smear of poop. I have no idea where it came from, but I know it's now somewhere on my face near my nose. UCK! So i high-tailed it to the bathroom to sanitize my face with bleach. I can't smell it anymore, so that's good I guess.

GROSS!!

Polly Pocket Redux

Okay, so we all know how much i hate Polly Pocket, yes? The other day I was horrified to find out that this Christmas season they've come out with a new P.P. product that trumps them all! Get this: Pop 'N Swap Polly Pocket. Now you don't have to struggle putting on all those tiny little clothes and shoes and crap. Instead, you just PULL THE BODY IN TWO and swap them. Seriously mix and match torso/leg sets. That is so disturbing, I don't even know what to say.

What I do know is that my kids will NOT be getting that from Santa this year.

This is what happens when you don't strap your toddler into their booster chair...

So, that's Doodie up on the table, cleaning up the ketchup

from the girls' lunches with his fingers...

And here's him cramming it into his face...

And here's the aftermath!

Dude slept all night!!

Really!

Now, maybe you'd think that because he's 16 months old that this should be old hat by now, but you'd be wrong. Doodie is a terrible sleeper. He goes down fine, I don't have to fight with him to sleep, but he wakes up 3 - 5 times a night looking for his binkie and his blankets. So, 3 - 5 times a night I have to roll out of bed, stumble down the hallway, plug him back in and cover him back up. If he wakes up near the time that Mike is getting up for the day, I'll just have the baby come and sleep with me, but he's non-transferrable. I can not for the life of me get him off of me and on to the bed next to me without waking him up. No way, no how. And I can't lay him down next to me awake and have him go to sleep there. The girls were so easy like that, but I guess I just got lucky with the boy. ;)

And somehow Mike thinks I get more sleep than he does just because he gets up an hour earlier than me. Yeah, RIGHT!!

Doodie's New Kicks!

We got Alasdair his first "official" pair of shoes, at least ones with an actual sole, not soft leather ones. I'm big into foot health for the little ones, so I really like quality shoes for them. Pedipeds are my favs for the pre-walkers and newly walking. These were his first pair:











Love them!!

But with the weather here in Washington being so yucky during the Fall and Winter, he needed something to walk in outside that wouldn't just soak up the water on the ground. So, I got a new favorite brand for toddlers, See Kai Run. These are the new kicks we just got yesterday:













So cute! They retail for around $40, but I got them off of Amazon.com for just under $18 new, plus I had about 4 bucks left on a gift account, so I ended up paying about $16 for these bad boys. :)

Screaming Mimis

I don't know what was up with my kids yesterday, but Maeve was actually pretty good and the other two were out of control. Michaela threw a bitch of a tantrum because daddy finished cooking dinner in the middle of the Simpsons. Seriously? She shouldn't even be watching that crap anyway. And it was an all out tantrum, complete with tears and infantile screaming. Luckily at just that moment I had an urgent errand to run that required me to leave the house for an hour. :)

Then that night I put Doodie to bed at like 7:30, and at 8:10 (just after the start of an all new House), he starts screaming. Mike and I couldn't do anything to calm him and I didn't know what the problem was. His cheeks were pink, but he wasn't feverish. He didn't want a bottle, which I had previously denied him because we're trying to get rid of it. So I thought maybe he peed and it had just burned him on his nasty diaper rash (see motherhoodispoop.blogspot.com for that story), but nope. I changed him and it didn't seem to help. So I did what any desperate parent would do. I unnecessarily medicated him. :) I gave him some Motrin thinking that whatever was the issue maybe could be cured with a little ibupro. Then I thought maybe it was his teeth. He's getting 5 or 6 teeth all at one time. So i dug up the baby orajel and smeared that all over him. He calmed down long enough to suck down a bottle of half and half and pediasure (gross) and we were able to put him back down to bed easily. At this point it's now 8:45 and i've seen approximately none of the all new House. Lame. But that's the way it always goes when you're a mom. :)

ps - i just turned on Nick Jr for Maeve because Dora will be on momentarily, but the end of SpongeBob SquarePants is on. She says, "ButtaBodge?" Yes honey, ButtaBodge.

The Beast

So, Maeve is a total fireball. We haven't a clue what sets her off, or how to calm her down. She's a storm waiting to happen. When she was born, we nicknamed her "the Beast" after her Auntie Greta, who apparently was quite the screamer also (so we hear). When Maeve was born she cried and cried and cried. All the time. For no apparent reason. This was a total shock to my system considering Michaela was happy all the time. You could prop her in the corner of a room and she'd be happy all day long! After 2 months or so of constant crying and screaming from Maeve, I got close to the end of my wits. I put her down on a blanket on the floor and left the room to collect myself and BAM!

Silence.

wtf??

You mean, for 2 solid months, all we had to do was leave her alone?? I seriously couldn't believe it. That's when we learned that Maeve doesn't like to be touched unless it's on her terms. She would much rather be left alone to observe and play. She'll come to you if she wants any affection. So things were much better for us for a while. See, Michaela likes to be very hands on, and she just could NOT leave the baby alone. So from about 10 months until about 20 months old, Maeve would just screech and scream every time Michaela tried to touch her. And no matter how many times we asked Michaela to just leave her alone, she couldn't. Finally, Maeve learned how to scream NO, and subsequently learned to hit, which we let her do. The only thing that would teach Michaela to leave Maeve alone was to get a smack once in a while. It worked! :) Now, I'm not the type to just let my kids beat on each other, but Maeve deserved the chance to defend herself against the hands of her sister.

Today, Maeve is more well adjusted overall, but she has acquired this new personality quirk. She gets upset about something and will just start screaming NO, and maybe some phrase to explain her issue (yesterday it was "I stand up"?) And she'll scream for an hour, maybe more. If we try to put her in her room to calm down there literally is no end. I think she just zones out and forgets that she's supposed to be calming down and that she doesn't need to be upset anymore. If we're lucky, we can go and lie down with her or sit with her and somehow snap her out of it. Usually talking to her just makes her scream louder, but once in a while we're able to get her out of her trance and back to the real world.

How can someone this cute be so full of angst at 2 years old already?? 13 is gonna be fun in the Guthrie house. :)

The More You Know...

So, the other night I stopped at the grocery store to get Michaela a treat after swimming. She had her best class ever! She was actually listening, paying attention, and attempting to try what they wanted her to do! Anyway, I needed a treat, too. Watching all that swimming can really take it out of you! ;)

So I got some ice cream and went to go grab some Magic Shell (I was having a nostalgic moment from childhood). Right next to the regular Magic Shell was a limited edition flavor in a bright red bottle!! Cherry! I picked some up thinking that it might be good. Lemme tell you something. It's not. Don't try it. Don't buy it. Just don't! DON'T!

It's like waxy, congealed, cherry flavored cough syrup poured over your gourmet vanilla bean ice cream. Yuck. Just stick with Chocolate. Or Peanut Butter. That kind is good too. :)

My new favorite blog

I happened upon this blog from the Bloggers Choice Awards, and it is freakin' hilarious! I'm crying here at work today while i read some of her older posts. I highly recommend it!

http://mom2my6pack.blogspot.com/

Duh!!

Scene: Alasdair and I return from a friend's baby shower, to which I brought her a baby bathtub and some other bathtime accoutrements.

Michaela: How was the baby shower?

Me: Good!

Michaela: Did Alasdair have to get in the baby bathtub?

Me: No, why would he?

Michaela: Well, why do they call it a Baby Shower?

Totally. :)

O, Pie Pocket, How I Hate Thee

From your scary little face to your obscenely small feet, I do loathe thee. Your tiny rubber clothes are impossible to get on and off, especially if you're under the age of 4 or over the age of 10. Your miniscule shoes are lost in my brown shag carpet and have been sucked into the oblivion of my vacuum cleaner bag. Your accessories are gone forever in the bottom of the toy box.

Why, O why do our kids love you so? How many times a day must I put on and take off the same outfit? Mrs. Pie Pocket must hate doing your laundry. As I remove your little plastic leggings for the 17th time today, I curse you, Pie Pocket. And Princess Pie Pocket, how creepy is your removable HAIR? Alas, the kiddies love you and you are here to stay.

My poor babysitter

My friend Tina watches my kids for me on Thursdays and Fridays when I have to go into the office for work. I have to say, she's a trooper. Last year it wasn't so bad. Both of her kids were at home those days, so she just had to take care of my younger two and pick Michaela up from school. But this year, it's a different story altogether. Here's a rough sketch of her day when she watches my kids:

1. Come get Maeve and Doodie from my house at 7:30.
2. Drive Chloe (her oldest) to her old daycare so she can take the bus down the road to Kindergarten.
3. After the bus picks up Chloe, she drives Brynn (her youngest) to preschool. Now it's 9:00.
4. Back to her place with my kids for about an hour and a half.
5. Loads my kids back in her car and picks up Brynn from school.
6. Back to her place for a quick lunch and nap for the three kids.
7. Wake kids up at 2:00, load them back in the car to go pick up Michaela from school in Everett.
8. Back to Marysville to give the kids a snack and let them play at Chloe's school until 3:00 when she's out.
9. Load all the kids back up and bring them to my place until Mike gets home.
10. Back home to Marysville!

Good Lord. :)

THANKS TINA!

Mommy Moment

I’m digging around in my wallet to clean out all the silver change and leave it in my desk drawer before my kids can throw it into some random fountain at the closest Mall or Park they can find. But what’s this? There’s not just change in my wallet?

No.

There’s also a used Sesame Street Band-Aid wadded up in there too.

Gotta love being a Mom.

Some days I'm not sure how my kids survive...

So, today I took the kids to get their pictures done at our local photo studio. They had matchy-matchy outfits and brand new bows for their hair. We headed out this morning armed with clean clothes, groomed hair and all my coupons in tow. To start our outing, we were late. Of course. Taking these kids anywhere by myself when we HAVE to be somewhere means we WILL be late. We got to the studio and started the photo shoot. The group photos were first. Here's basically what happened for the entire 40 minutes:

Michaela: bouncing around like a maniac and getting in the way of everyone elses photos. Oh, and NOT looking at the camera.

Maeve: tantrum. On the floor, head down, bawling. The only words she would say were "No. No! NO!" She wouldn't sit, stand, jump, twirl, nothing.

Alasdair: Walking. Anywhere. He wouldn't sit still to save his life. And he wouldn't smile.

The strange thing is that when we were all done and looking at the photos, Maeve's turned out the best! We didn't get nearly as many of her of course. But I always aim to get an individual shot of each kid and at least one group picture of them. With Maeve there were like 5 of her individual shots that I wanted to take home! But I knew the husband would kill me if I brought home eight 8x10s of our kids. :)

We finally arrive home, and Dude is asleep. Michaela gets out and I ask her to unlock the front door so that i can get the baby in to his crib for his nap without waking him. So she runs to do that. I grab my bag and take the cardboard envelope with the shiny new photos in them and hand it to Maeve, open side UP and ask her to carry it into the house. All the while I'm arguing with Michaela because she has forgotten how door locks work, even though she used to unlock ours every day. So, frustrated I go open the door and when I come back down the stairs Maeve is holding the envelope at me and saying "all gone!". WHAT?? So I panic and look in the envelope. Sure enough, it's empty. So I freak out thinking that maybe they fell out somewhere at the mall or something. I asked Maeve where they were and she points to the stairs. Nuh-uh. I go and look. There they are. Our four new 8x10s slid underneath the porch.

Now our porch is enclosed. There's no way to get underneath it really. I contemplated pulling up a stair board, but that would be a pain. I could wait for my husband to get home, but it could rain. We are in Washington, after all. So I go get his long BBQ tongs, clean them off and reach underneath the porch from the side. Success!! I was able to get them out without damaging them or without them getting nasty and dirty.

But I was seriously about to break out my whoop ass on my kids. How do they make it through the day??

Sweet Home

We just got back from our second of three "vacations" this year, the first being our trip to Disneyland in May and the next one being the 13th annual Good Lovin' camping trip in about 10 days.

We went to visit my sister-in-law and her family in Ralph, Alabama. Yeah, it's as exciting as it sounds. And boy was it HOT. But they took us on a road trip down to the Gulf in the city of Orange Beach. It was absolutely beautiful. The warm water, the white sand, the dolphins, the sun. Wonderful. Oh, and the sunburns. Not so wonderful. But we all had fun regardless.

We ate at some really neat restaurants there too. One was called the "Hangout", and it was just this huge beach themed restaurant. Wood picnic tables, open to the outside with sand piles and pits for the kids to play in. At night they have a stage and live music. While we were there having lunch they had a hippety-hop ball racing contest and Michaela made it to the final round! She's awesome at that thing! She lost to the other girl who was like 14 and a Cheater!! But she had fun and we bought her an extra special thing for being so awesome (she also ate ALL her fish and chips!). She picked out this pair of sunglasses with the "Camerican flag" on them. :)

The other neat restaurant was called Lamberts. It was very crowded and very loud and very awesome. You order your food from the menu and your drinks come in these half gallon mugs. As you wait for your food to come, they bring out balloons for all the kiddos and they have staff wandering around the restaurant dishing out the "passing dishes". One has fried okra, one has fried tomatoes and onions, one has black eyed peas, one has sorghum molasses and apple butter to put on your rolls!! Oh, yeah. The throwed rolls. So there are a couple of guys wandering around with trays of hot fresh sorghum rolls. They are huge and they are delicious. And they literally throwed them at you from across the room. Maeve got to catch her own and it took two tries, but she loved it. We made sure to take some home for breakfast the next day.

We also took a trip to the CHOM in Tuscaloosa to let the kiddos play around there. It was a really nice hands on museum, better than the ones we have around here. And my SIL took me to her mom's group meeting made up of some very nice southern conservative Catholic women. It was fun to sit and listen to them talk about Catholic school politics, many of the issues the same as we have here at our school, and other get-togethers they were planning for the next few weeks. They were a very nice group of ladies. She is lucky to have a group like that. It's something I've wanted for a while, but I have a hard time not being shy and quiet in new groups of people. The few times I have tried to join various mom's groups it just hasn't worked out. Of course, in the south they are NOT shy. I think I'd have fit in well with them. :)

The plane rides were semi-nightmarish and I'm positive that we made some unknown enemies out there, with their behind-my-back stink-eye because my kids wouldn't stop screaming or crying. Whatever. Shut up. My kids are actually relatively good on planes and it was a long trip for us all. We came home pretty close to 1:00 am our time this morning and took nice long naps this afternoon.

We're already back to normal. Alasdair is cranky, Maeve is screaming and Michaela is whining.

Ahhh, it's good to be home.

Salon of Shame

So, I got to go out last night with some friends and leave the rest of the fam at home. We went to a show called the Salon of Shame. It's freakin' hilarious. For an $8 admission fee you get to go have drinks and listen to other thirty-somethings read from their adolescent journals. You get short stories, poetry, journal entries, love letters, just about anything you can imagine, and it is GREAT. If you're in the Seattle area, I highly recommend it. On their website they have links to other Shame-type shows in other areas of the country.

After the show my bus home ended up being almost 40 minutes late. I got home just after midnight, tucked my babies tighter into their beds and hit the sack.

Wednesday Funny

Scene: I’m getting a bowl of green grapes for Michaela’s immediately-post-huge-lunch snack…

Me: “Do you like green grapes or red grapes better?”

Michaela: “Well, sometimes I like [green grapes] better because when they aren’t very ripe and I put them in my mouth I get blasty.”

Introduction

It seems that nowadays everyone is hooked on this "blogging" thing. I'm not a great writer, I'm not terribly witty, and I'm not terribly consistent, but I figure that my life is probably a lot like other peoples, so why not put it all out there?

I am married with three beautiful kids: 6, 2 and 1. The baby was born with Hirschsprung's Disease. You can learn more about it here. We've been very lucky so far with his recovery and his prognosis looks really good. I'm always searching for groups that might have information about how to cope with the challenges that this disease presents.

Family life is crazy around here with the two little ones at home all day with me while I'm trying to work, and it's summer vacation now so my 6 year old will be pestering us all too. I'll spend the summer toting everyone around to dance class, swimming lessons and soccer while trying to make sure everyone stays fed, clean and napped. Hopefully we'll have enough of those "moments" that are worthy to write about now and again that will amuse someone other than me!