Leprechauns

The beauty of having a teen aged sister is that they do things like show up on the morning of St. Patrick's Day with green comb-in hair paint. The other benefit is that your Mom will be so thrilled that you are bonding over the love of green hair, that she will not hesitate to agree to it.

Emily's best super model pose.
So after we got Emily all in her green gear & hair Jacob announced that he wanted green hair too. I told him he had swimming lessons, and couldn't because it would wash off in the pool BUT after swimming I would put some in his and Jane's hair.

Then we set about the morning routine.

I heard them laughing together upstairs. I should have gone running to check on them, but instead finished up the breakfast dishes and glanced at the clock to realize that we were perfectly on time to leave for said swimming lesson.

Laughter in this house does not mean happy children - it means trouble. I searched them out to tell them it was time to leave.

First I saw this -

Then this -

and this -

this -

And finally this -

I had been smart enough to put the green hair paint up very high when I was finished with it. Jacob is not the child to be deterred by lack of a coloring medium - he simply substituted bright pink toothpaste. Needless to say, we were late to swimming (but miraculously, did make the last 1/2 of the lesson.)

And even though they SO didn't deserve it, I did paint their hair green to match Emily's later that day.

Helmet

I got a package in the mail, and Jacob used some of the packing material to make himself a helmet. He made it entirely himself - can you tell?It might be just a tad big.

I've been meaning to order him the great crocheted chain-mail hood and helmet from NOVA Natural. This won't last long - I'd better order them this week.

He has seriously worn it a lot - and by some miracle hasn't even walked into any walls!

What a great boy, um I mean knight.

Therapy Anyone?

So here are a few more Jacob stories from this week -

(1) Giving him his gummy bear vitamins in the morning, he asked "Mom, how they make gummy bears? They kill a bear, and get little pieces of it off?" This was complete with actions of him killing a bear and hacking off little pieces. I explained about making it like jello, and putting it in molds. I'm not sure if this is accurate - but it's a heck of a lot better than what he was coming up with.

(2) Going to bed, and about to read a bedtime story, he said "I tell you a story." OK then.
"Once there a house, with a Mommy, and Daddy, and girls and boys. A bad guy came. The people in the house turned into a dragon, and kill the bad guy. The end." Nice.

(3) Immediately after the 1st story he said "I tell you another one."
Once there a house, with a Mommy, and Daddy, and girls and boys. A bad guy came. The people in the house turned into a MONSTER, and kill the bad guy. The end."

HMmmm - I only have one boy, so no point of reference (though, I have read "Raising Cane".) So, I'm thinking maybe it makes sense that something called gummy bears, come from a dead bear, and his stories are his way of exploring feeling safe in his house & with his family. This perpensity towards violence is normal - right? It's actually pretty cute - as long as it doesn't mean he's on the track to becoming a serial killer!

Raising a Reader

Emily has become quite the avid reader. At her recent parent teacher conference, her teacher told me they had had an assignment to write a sentence for "Happiness is ..."

Emily had written "A quiet place, and a good book." My work here is done!

Going Bananas

We went to Stew's on Monday for a few things. When we got to the bananas, they were all green. Maybe Jacob hasn't ever seen green bananas before, or maybe just not noticed them. He was a little freaked out.

I was a good mother and took the opportunity to explain to him about how lots of different kinds of fruit are grown on trees. Bananas grow on trees and start off green, when they are ready to eat they turn yellow. Sometimes people pick them before they are all the way ready, so they can send them far away - but they'll still turn yellow, and that's when we can eat them.

After we got home, I was unpacking things and putting them away. I heard Jane calling Jacob to come and play. Then his response "I can't Jane, I waiting for the 'nanas to turn yellow."He was standing stock still, and staring at them intently, so as not to miss it. Cute boy, he must have though it was some kind of wonderful food magic. I explained how it happens slowly, and would take a few days. He left to play, disappointed, but more enlightened.

Sharks

The NY Aquarium is included in our Wildlife Conservation Society membership. Lucky for us, because Jacob LOVES this place. It's in Brooklyn, and when we lived there I took Emily all the time, she was also obsessed with ocean life, but her favorites were whales - especially Beluga's, which they had there at the time. It's not a bad drive from here, and so I try to get him there once a month.

We hadn't been since the Christmas break, and he had been asking & asking to go but there was a catch, he wanted his BFF Colin to come too. Last Friday our schedules matched up, and we picked Colin up from pre-school and headed down there. My big plan for the aquarium & zoos, is to go later in the day - that way all the school field trips are eating lunch, and then leave not long after we get there, and I don't fear losing my kids in the chaotic masses.

This day was perfect, there were 2 school buses in the lot - but we never saw any kids, so they must have been heading out while we were in the entrance area (where there are a couple of eels that Jacob loves.)
Of course, we headed right to the sharks. Then on to the other exhibits. Jane is finally tall enough to reach the viewing areas - just.

Colin.

Waiting to see the demonstration of ocean waves in caves.

Jacob is more attentive at the aquarium, than anywhere else.

Winter in NY lasts SO long. It really won't be warm here until mid May. Sigh.
Anytime I can get my kids outside in the cold weather months to stretch their legs, is a good day. When we are somewhere like this and there's not a crowd, it's wonderful to give them free reign, and watch them run.

The 3 of them ran in a circle like this for maybe 10 or 15 minutes. So cute.

After we had seen everything else, we went back to the sharks. Jake can never get enough looking at sharks. He frequently talks about when he gets big he's going to go diving with them!

My kids are sure this is Crush (from Finding Nemo.)

Jane and Colin ran around in here, while Jacob stood mesmerized.

Then they got a big cookie each (Colin chose the octopus, my 2 wanted the fish) and went to watch the seal show.

Jane (being Jane) scraped of the frosting with her teeth, and threw the rest away.

Osborn the seal.

I don't think Colin shares Jacob's love for all things aquatic - and maybe all the talk of sharks had made him nervous. We were right in the front row of seats, and he was a little bit worried that the seal was going to bite him. Here he is telling me that he could see it's teeth, and he wasn't really happy about "those long things" (whiskers) either!

Once the show got going, he was really excited and stopped being worried. Once the music started all 3 kids were bopping, and clapping and laughing at the seal.

It started to rain just as the seal show was ending, so we made a mad dash for the car, and hit the road home. Traffic was heavy so it took a little while, but all 3 kids fell asleep and the ride was peaceful. Such a great day.

As we were leaving Jacob asked "Mom, you love sharks?" I grew up in Australia, and spent the better part of my youth at the beach, where I actively tried to avoid them, and always swam between the flags. After seeing the movie Jaws as a teenager, I couldn't sleep for weeks because I was convinced a giant Great White was going to appear in our family pool. I have a long history of being terrified of sharks.

I love my son, and I love the pure joy this interest brings him.
I replied honestly "Yes Jacob, I do."

Secret Ingredient

Jacob has been really fascinated with Princesses for a couple of months. Perhaps it's a progression from his knight interest, or that he has 3 sisters and we have TONS of princess dress-ups, either way it's pretty funny to see my rough and tumble boy in the pink glittery dresses.

My kids really like the Oral-B Princess toothpaste. The other night I was brushing Jacob's teeth, and we had this conversation.


J: This is Princess toothpaste?

Me: (thinking he was going to ask if it is for Princesses to use) Yep.

J: Them kill princesses & put them in here?

Lipstick

I don't get much sleep. My little guys get up at 5:30am every day, no matter what time they went to bed the night before. I stopped trying to fight it long ago. Rick is up at 5:30am for work, and Rebekah for seminary - it's pretty hard to convince them it's still night time & to go back to sleep when everyone else is getting up. They go to bed in the evening around 7, but sometimes they are really melting down & it's 6:30pm! This would be all fine and dandy for me, if I didn't have older children needing my attention, help and taxi service. It's usually around 10pm, before I'm finished with my Mothering duties for the day. Then from 10pm to 12/1/2am I do the things I need & want to do. I'm tired a lot, but Emily was just the same & started sleeping later once she was 5yrs old, and Rebekah will get her license and be able to drive to seminary next January , so I know it's not forever.

So, a few weeks ago, there was no school or seminary, and after getting the kids breakfast I decided to let them play downstairs, and just grab a little more sleep. Twenty minutes later Emily woke me up saying "Jane took off her own diaper, and she's poopy!"

The mess was indescribable. If there's one thing I am most obsessive about cleaning - it's our floors. This was not good news for me. In my panicked and half-awake state, I grabbed a new bottle of carpet cleaner. One I hadn't tried before. Not being able to find the spray attachment, I just poured in onto the varying amounts of spread poop. UGH! As soon as I tried to wipe it up, I realized my mistake. This stuff was ultra-super-concentrated, it just started to foam. I got a bucket of water and several cloths, but it only got foamier, and bigger. You know in "The Cat in The Hat Comes Back" how the more they try to clean up the pink, the more it multiplies and spreads .... that was pretty much how I felt.

To make a long & boring story short, that 20 minutes in bed resulted in the purchase of a new carpet shampooer, moving of furniture, gallons of water being used, ignored other tasks for a day and a half, many, many hours of cleaning, lots of tears, some mumbling about maybe just needing to buy new carpet (it's only 18 months old), and Rick finally convincing me to let the remaining residue dry - then trying to vacuum it up.

All that is an overly-long build up to explain these pictures. What can I say, I am a slow learner. Last week, I tried it again. This time, I thought they could play in Emily's room - next to mine. Where I could hear them, and be able to respond quickly. Sure the rest wouldn't be great, but I'll take what I can get.

What was I thinking? After 15 years of parenting, and 3 living with Jacob, I should KNOW not to leave them unattended for any length of time. This one only took 15 minutes!There was some on the carpet and some on Emily's bed and her crib,
but most of it was just on her.

And didn't take as much to clean up as the previous disaster.

And was easy to restore to it's previous condition,

So I didn't even need to think about replacing her (much.)

Snowman

Pretty much, I don't like the cold. We go in and out of our house at least half a dozen times a day. I don't like having to do the whole coat, hat, & gloves on & off ordeal every time, and it costs a small fortune to heat our old house. For me however, winter is worth it for the snow. I LOVE snow. I want it as much or more than the kids. I love skiing, and sledding, and making snowmen. I love to play in it, and how it looks, and the way it muffles all sound when it falls. I love the smell of it, and the taste of it. I love coming inside to hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls after being out it it. I love canceled school, and church, and activities and getting a bonus day home because of it. There's nothing bad about snow.

This year while Utah set records for more than they could handle - we set records for none! Finally we got one decent amount. When you only get one snowfall for the year, you want to make the most of it. The kids went sledding with the neighbors, Sara (next door) filled bottles with colored water and they had tons of fun spraying the snow colors, and Rick got out there and made a snowman with them. They had SO much fun. If we got good snow this year, I would have never had to entertain Jacob at all, I could have just bundled him up and sent him outside - he stayed for HOURS.Making a snow angel. I'm not sure how he knew about these, but he has been asking since December to make one. He finally got to do it.

Jane had to copy. Making her "snow angel", she just rolled over and over in the snow.

Helping Daddy with the snowman.

Jacob spent most of his time shoveling. I'm not kidding - hours. There didn't seem to be any method to it. He wasn't moving it from one place to another - just random heaving of mounds of snow. He had the time of his life.

The middle.

More shoveling.

Emily came home from a friends house and joined in.

It was getting dark by the time they finished but no-one wanted to stop. (Like I said ONLY snowfall of the year.)

Our guy the next morning. Later Emily added her ear-muffs, which was cute.

Man, I wish we got more snow this year.