restitution

If I could describe my grandmother in one word, it would be- generous.  She wanted everyone to feel special all the time and would go to great lengths to make that happen.  She had china and she served dinner on it everyday.  Her philosophy was why would you save something for a special occasion instead of using it with the people you love the most.  

On Christmas, we were in the midst of moving.  Among the boxes of new toys screwed VERY tightly into their packaging, was more boxes filled with our belongings waiting to be loaded into the moving truck on Dec 28th.  Needless to say, our Christmas was busy and rushed. And... we ate our Christmas dinner on paper plates.  As we were dishing out the meal that B.'s grandmother prepared with my mother and mother-in-law while we packed, I was just thinking how much different it would be if she were there.  She was a woman that somehow got everything done.  She went to college in the 1930's and worked as a school principal while she raised 3 boys in the 50's.  Though I know she would have understood and would not have been ashamed, I still felt like I was letting her down a little.  

One Saturday morning, I feel like I made restitution.  A. had a tea party with 2 of her new little friends.  Her flower shaped jelly sandwiches were served on Mommom's silver.  Her orange juice with sherbet was in her tea carafe and her fruit with dip was on her china serving platter.  

A. waiting for her friends to arrive

A. didn't want K. sitting at her table with her china. He was banished to the play room.  

Somehow, he wriggled his way back to the tea party to make his very own butterfly shaped  fancy Nancy inspired place mat.

Here's to you mom mom!  I hope I'm half the mother that grandmother that you were!

a beautiful bride

Bear with me while I keep posting about the differences in our new small town life vs. our old suburb life...

Our old routine was that the kids would wake up and watch about 30 mins of TV while eating breakfast so that I could get myself ready.  It didn't matter what time I got downstairs because we had lovely on demand. Fresh Beat Band, Dora, and Doc McStuffins, and Imagination Movers were at our disposal.  Now, our kids have learned the novel concept that TV starts at a certain time and you don't get to pick what you want.  A.'s  new favorite show is... our wedding video.  She can start that whenever she wants (well when we let her) and there are people in it that she knows.  I think she has watched it about 10 times in the past 2 months.  The first time she dramatically said, "Mom, do you see the tears that are coming out of my eyes right now?"  A friend asked her who her favorite princess is and she said, "Abby" (Abby was our flower girl).  When it gets to the point where B. and I dance, she stands up and dances with K.  In other words, she has definitely gotten more out of the wedding video than when I used to have to beg B. to watch it with me on our anniversary and one or the other of us would fall asleep.

Since A. is so into our wedding and since we now have storage in our basement, I had my mom bring my wedding dress back to our house.  I think it might have been the best day of her life.    

removing the city

Our old house was on the corner of 2 busy streets.  A lot of times people would zoom past the stop sign oblivious to their surroundings.  My children were taught NEVER to go in the street. Even at age 1, K. knew to stop at the edge of the sidewalk when his ball went in the street.  Now, we live at the end of the road with only about 6 other houses.  I could count the number of cars on one hand that pass each day.  Since we live in new construction, the sidewalks are being completed as each house gets done.  That means that our sidewalk goes about 10 feet.

On one warm day, we took the kids out to ride their bikes.  They both tried to go to the end of the sidewalk and turn around.  It went something like this--
A. Mommy, can you give me a push
I subsequently gave a push
7 seconds later
A. I'm at the end can you help me to turn around?
2 seconds later
A. can you give me a push?

repeat, repeat.  I told her she was allowed in the street now and she just didn't believe me.  She cried and cried.  We took her bike to the basement and she was much happier there.

Fast forward a few weeks and this happened

 Beautiful snow where my children couldn't tell the difference between the street and the sidewalk.  A. was doing snow angels in the street.  And, from then on, they have both become desensitized.

So, we moved to the sticks and my kids love fire and run in the street.  hhmmm... maybe this wasn't the wisest move on raising safe kids

against all odds

You may remember back in Nov. that A. got a new pet, Jewel.  For weeks, she loved it so much that she would carry it around the house, drop it on the floor, and almost step on it.  She would leave it on the counter, shelves, and even on the oven.  K. would wake up in the morning and say, "Jew" and run over to the cage.  He would spin it on the table until he located the little withering away pest.  So, the poor thing was living in a constant state of being bruised, lost, and dizzy.

Then we moved.  Jewel was loaded in my car and left there.  I am the culprit of forgetting the pet.  I forgot her for about a week.  When I finally brought the dried dirt into the house, we couldn't find Jewel.  I guess that she knew that though we had a funny way of showing it, we loved Jewel.  Because, in spite of our lack of care, this little caterpillar formed a cocoon in the corner of her borrowed cage.  So, we set her up near a window and checked in on her every once in awhile.

Then, we went on vacation and left her at home.  We came back and Jewel was fluttering in her cage.  Against all odds, the wooley caterpillar became a moth.

When A. took her out of the cage, she didn't fly.  She said, "her wings are just stuck, Mommy."  I don't know if she was right, but they put little Jewel on a bush.  Then later, Jewel was gone.  We choose to think that Jewel flew away.  I don't know if that is truly what happened, but that is what we will believe.  

Good luck Jewel.  Fly far!!

icks

Besides the "wawa", K.'s other new love is fire.  He knows not to touch the fire and pretty much says "hot" constantly while it is going, but if he does not have fire, he is not happy.  It started on vacation when Pappy kept us heated by the fire for the entire weekend.  It probably helped that we had hot chocolate and roasted  s'mores. 

 Since we got home, his first stop is our little, teeny, tiny wood pile.  He says, "eeck" repetitively and stacks each little log until it is as high as him. Then he pulls them back down onto the floor.  As soon as daddy get's home, he is running back and forth from the fire place to the garage until he gets some wood.  He knows where the lighter is kept but, fortunately, not how to start it.

My little country boy is fitting in so well at his new home.  

a change of heart

Ok. only 2 more about our vacay.

You may remember from our summer vacation that K. hated water.  He was great with the sand and liked throwing rocks near the pool.  But, getting in caused this 

He hated bath time and I think confused sitting in the tub with water boarding. 

Well, until recently.  Since we moved to our new house, he actually wanted to sit in the tub.  He wants me to close the curtain so he and A. can splash for at least 15 minutes.  He puts his face in the tub and blows bubbles.  

On vacation, our house backed up to this little beauty

I expected A. to love the water and throwing sticks, rocks, pretending to fish etc.  

I expected Uncle Pat to love the water and throwing sticks, rocks, pretending to fish etc.  hehe

But, I actually did not expect any reaction from K.  We didn't' even take him down there for the first 2 days.  He first looked at the river with Pappy from the porch.  Then, walked down with B. for a few family pictures.

Then, we were ready to go.  It took about 2.5 seconds for him to say "No, more wawa."  and "In wawa"  He was not happy that we would not let him get in to swim.  He was even more mad that we were trying to load the car and go home.  He took off towards the water 2 more times until we had to put him in his car seat so we could load the car.  He screamed and cried.  Even uppy side down from Gramps did not work.  We finally had to go back down to the "wawa" and say goodbye and blow it a kiss.  I guess my sand crab will join his sister as a fish this summer.  

a job I will never have

There are a lot of jobs that I never want to have.  1) Pretty much any job featured on the show Dirty Jobs. 2) Any thing involving heights.  Particularly, anything hundreds of feet over open water, or a busy road 3) anything sitting in a cubicle all day  I have now added 4) a ski instructor for kids.

Though I'm sure that they are organized in their own way, these lessons look like complete and utter chaos.

Picture this, 66 kids ages 7 and under divided into 11 classes.  A teacher getting 6 kids standing with gloves on hands and skis on feet.  1 child immediately falls over (usually A.).  Said kid looses her skis and the teacher walks over to help. As the child struggles to get skis back on her feet, a glove falls off into the snow.  Then the child has snowy hands and is now crying because she is not sure if her hands are freezing or burning.  Needless to say, I think the first half hour of ski school accomplished... standing with all clothing and apparel on the correct body parts.  And, as grateful as I am not to be that teacher, I was super excited that A. could, eventually, stand.

 The next step was going down the hill.  The teacher took each kid by hand down the hill and then put them on a conveyor belt back up to the top.  A. was the first one down the hill.  2 of her other 5 classmates stood at the top and cried.  A. said they cried all day.  Gramps said once when he stopped by, 2 hours later, one of them was crying so hard that he even wanted to go up and just say, "it really is ok."

 I left after she went down the hill once but she apparently had a blast.  And, at the end of the day, she could do this

 She could point her skis down the hill and stay upright for a short time.

She could get up when she fell, well if she chose to stand.  hehe

And, she could take on and off her own skiis

Most of all, she could go down a small section of the mountain with her daddy.  He said it was by far, his favorite day with her in her short little life.  I learned that you could not pay me enough to be a ski instructor.