The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

THE GOOD - Doug finished his check ride today and will be arriving at SeaTac Airport around 5:30 pm tomorrow!

THE BAD - This last week has been so hard. I'm pretty sure Audrey entered her terrible 3's. It's either that or she is having a tough time being separated from Doug again. Either way she's been worse than normal. Everything is met with opposition. I just hope things settle down once Doug gets back because I'm not sure how much more I can take.

THE UGLY - Yesterday after Jacob's Homeschool PE class I took the kids grocery shopping. We had been out of juice for two days and Audrey was hounding me about it. When we walked into the grocery store I thought I smelled something (like a poopy pull-up), I decided to ignore it since I left her pull-ups and wipes in the car. As soon as Jacob got into the car part of the grocery cart with Audrey he made a comment about how she smelled. I decided at that point it would need to be a short shopping trip, but about 1/4 of the way into getting the stuff I needed she decided she wanted to get out. Well, I quickly saw that the shopping trip needed to end abruptly. When she stepped out of the car she had poop going up her back. The only problem was that I didn't have the juice yet. Hmmm, what should I do? Stay the course or bail out. As any good mom searches for the right answer by waying the pros and cons, I decided to stay the course, get the juice (and few other things on the way) and pray that no one sees what I just saw. I did my best to reminder Audrey not to lift her arms, but that didn't worked so well. She was bending over, raising her arms and she even fell a couple times. It was impossible to get her to understand why all of these things were bad. We finally made it out of the store and life went on until the next day when I picked Ethan up from Cubbies at AWANA. I smelled an odor in the air as he ran over to me. It didn't take me long to realize the smell was coming from him. Only it was worse this time because he was wearing underware, but it wasn't just any underware it was his WALL-E underware. I had to order them through E-Bay because they don't sell them in the store, so there was no way I was going to throw them away as I normally would. Ugh! Will this ever end?

Two for Two

The last two days have been interesting. I got my weeds pulled. The weeds filled up two and a half large plastic bags. My neck and legs are sore today from bending over so much. I did get some help from the kids, but most of it came from Audrey. She was adorable. When I pulled a weed she would put it in the bag for me. Then, there were times she was practically on top of me because she wanted to be in on the action. She even started to pull on some of the plants and I had to explain to her that those weren't weeds. Ethan and Jacob helped a little but they were more interested in watching TV and playing. The sweetest thing Ethan did yesterday was when he was inside the house and the rest of us were outside. He knocked on the sliding glass door a couple of times. I really can't explain why, but when I turned around and made a motion to ask him "What?", he opened the door and said "I wish Daddy was here". That just about broke my heart. I suppose the highlight for Jacob was when he offered to water the plants for me. I told him he could, but he had to count to 10 as he watered each plant to make sure he gave them enough water. As he went from plant to plant he count to 10 each time. Probably the funniest thing that happen was when Audrey came over to me to show me the small rock she found. She said she was going to put it in her pocket, but I told her she didn't have any pockets. After fumbling around for awhile she realized she didn't have any pockets, so then she said she was going to put in her pee pee. Don't ask me why she would say that, but it is probably because we are working on potty training so there's a lot of talk about pee pee and it's a more common reference to that area right now versus her pull-ups. Anyways, I saw her try to put it in the top part of her pull-ups and then I went on pulling weeds. A few minutes later I heard her say "Where did my rock go?" Hmmm, I wonder.

Round 1: Last night I was vacuuming the family room and the kids were playing in the garage. We converted the garage into a room. It has carpeting, but no padding. While I was vacuuming I heard a tug and then crying ensued. I knew right away what had happened because I caught Jacob climbing on top of the police car earlier. However, it wasn't Jacob who fell it was Ethan. At the same time that happen something happen to Jacob's foot, so they were both bawling. I never found out what happen to Jacob's foot because I was more concerned about Ethan's fall. I could tell he cut his chin. It didn't look too bad, but I had no idea how he fell and thankfully it didn't seem like he was hurt anywhere else. It was close to bath time and by the time the bath was over the crying had stopped and he seemed to be doing OK. I was just glad I didn't have to take all three kids to the ER since Doug isn't due back until Thursday!

Round 2: Today was a gorgeous day and we meet some friends at Point Defiance Zoo. The kids had a blast and when we came back home I was focused on figuring out what I wanted to tweak with our plant beds. I'm still not completely happy with what I put together. As I was focused on the garden the kids played on our slide that also has a rock wall and platform at the top. I noticed yesterday the structure wasn't centered on the mats and one side was a little on the concrete. I'm usually very careful about making sure it is where it should be when the kids are playing on it...except for today. As you might be able to guess, today was the day I heard a thug and then crying. Once again it was Ethan. He as laying face down on the ground and it was obvious his head had hit the concrete. I was fully expecting a trip to the ER, but due to all of Jacob's head injuries I now know what to look for. Ethan would be OK, but he now has a bump on his head and a cut on his chin from yesterday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we won't have another incident tomorrow. As I questioned Jacob and Ethan about what had happened I discovered that Ethan was climbing the rock wall and Jacob was standing on the platform. Ethan's head was pushing into Jake's stomach and Jacob decided he didn't like it and pushed back which resulted in Ethan falling to the ground. I, of course, had a discussion with Jacob about why he should never push, but I'm pretty sure this is going to fall under "it didn't quite sink in yet".

I'm Exhausted

The kids and I flew back from Oklahoma on Tuesday after spending two weeks with Doug in Altus. He has been there since March 26th for IP (Instructor Pilot) School. We've been home for three days but haven't been home much. Each night we've gotten home after 8 pm and the kids are usually in bed by then and have had their baths. I'm looking forward to a relaxing day tomorrow pulling weeds. Maybe I'll be able to get the kids to help me out. Today we went to see Planet Earth with some other homeschooling friends. One thing I realized early on was that it wasn't made for the younger crowd. There was a lot of narration and it was slow moving. It held Jacob's attention most of the time, but towards the end of the movie Audrey and Ethan were laying on the floor underneath the seats in front of them. I was one row back and found it quite disgusting to see them laying there, but I knew it would be a major battle to get them to sit in their seats. Having three kids has caused me to overlook a lot of things I wouldn't have tolerated with just one. Thankfully there weren't very many people there. I'm sure it would have made a difference if there were people sitting in front of them because they would be bothering someone at that point. However, Audrey almost forced me to get up when I saw her eating popcorn off the floor. She was even nice enough to offer some to Ethan, which he refused. He was having too much fun looking at the blue track light. I know, I know...you are probably repulsed that I didn't get up to do anything about this. However, I decided that it could be worse...like on our plane ride home when I caught Audrey licking her seat belt buckle. Now that is disgusting!!! However, one child doing that apparently wasn't enough. When we were getting ready to land I saw Jacob sucking on his seat belt strap. I try really hard to teach them what's appropriate and inappropriate, but, sometimes it just doesn't sink in and sometimes I'm just too exhausted to do anything about it.

Day 1 - Why I decided to blog

I was at Jacob's Homeschool PE class and a friend of mine brought a book to show to everyone that she created from her blogs last year. I was so inspired to see what you could have through blogging that I decided to start my own blog site. I am hoping that when 2009 is over I will have captured all the crazy, wonderful and unexpected things that have happened throughout the year. Thank you Jennifer for inspiring me to blog!