Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Sometimes she melts my heart. Sometimes.

A couple of cute Kairi stories for the morning.

1. We have been getting up way too early this week. Combine that with Alex still not sleeping through the night, and I feel like I'm dieing. To help myself survive, after I dole out bananas, cereals bars, and cups of (Silk)Milk I turn on Noggin, shut all the other doors in house to limit the kids to the living room area, and then curl up on the couch and sleep doze. Kairi will frequently shout to Alex through my morning nap "SSSHHHHH! MOMMY SEEPIN'!" Yeah, that's no help, Kairi, but I take what I can get these days.

This morning it happened a little differently, though. I sat down on the couch trying to decide if I could make it through the day without a nap when Kairi shouts "Ready Mommy? Ready?!? Lay down!" As soon as I was laying down she pulled Brother's newest piano over next to the couch and began to sing while playing it "Go to sleep Mommy, Go to sleep Mommy, Go to sleep Mommy, Close your eyes Mommy, Go to sleep!".

Ten minutes later she woke me up to sing me back to sleep again. And again. And again.


2. Yesterday during Alex's morning naptime (which I'm afraid is about to cease), Kairi started looking for him. Of course hearing his name shouted through the house woke him up. I went in to cuddle him for a moment and lay him back down. He was more than willing to go back to sleep. UNTIL Kairi burst into the room, grabbed his brand new toy truck, and ran out of the room saying "Come on Fruffer! Let's share da tuck! VRooom! Share da tuck! VRooooooom vroooom vrooooom! Hurry Fruffer hurry! Share da tuck with me!"

Yeah, Alex didn't go back to sleep.




She's cuter than should be allowed. :) Even when she's not helping at all, she's adorable.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Children, we need to have a talk.

Ok, kids. Settle down now. We need to have a chat.

This first part is for both of you.
The morning does NOT start until 7:00am. Got that? Even that is a little early for your sleep-deprived Mommy, but I'll deal with it as long as you oblige. This getting up between 5:30 and 6:30 crap has got to stop. Until the first number on the clock reads 7, you can not get up. I don't care if the clock reads 6:59:30. It is not yet 7, so stay in bed! In the rare case we DO have to get up earlier because your daddy has duty that day, it does not mean that you can wake up at 5:30 the next 3 days in a row. It does not work that way. And if you insist on waking up at 5:30 the next day, you can fully expect me to doze on the couch while you are penned into the living room with me. I will not respond to your pulling of my hair or bouncing on me. It just doesn't happen, so stop trying.


KAIRI
~Lotion is not a hair moisturizer. Stop putting it there. And stop teaching your brother to.
~The pantry is not open for a reason and you are not a monkey. Stop scaling the pantry shelves for food. I have everything you are even remotely interested in hidden. Either that, or else you've already moved it to your bedroom. If you break a pantry shelf and cause me to spend $50 on getting our landlord to send someone out here to fix it, I will NOT be happy.
~I know that we all rave over Alex when he babbles. But he's 14 months and he rarely speaks. That does not mean that we need to rave over you for spewing nonsense when you speak with clarity 90% of the time. And throwing a fit because I didn't tell you how cute you sounded is not going to make me want to do it anymore.
I'll stop there. We'll address more next time.



ALEX
~You are 14 months. I have HEARD you say Mama, Dada, more, and all done before. Therefore, I know you can. START. I know you are getting a late start because you couldn't hear me before, but the fact is that now you can, so it's time to get busy boy. TALK!
~Again, the hearing thing. I know you couldn't hear me before so it made it super easy to not have to mind. I excused your ignoring me on a regular basis. But you can hear me now. Yesterday Dr. Weiss said that your ears were completely clear. THAT MEANS YOU CAN HEAR ME!!! So when I say "Alex come here" and you glance out of the corner of your eye at me and then run in the other direction, I know that it's because you think it's more fun to pretend you can't hear me than to obey. From now on, this won't fly. Boot camp begins today. You WILL obey. Got it?
~Just because you are little, and cute, and have absolutely gorgeous eyes, does not mean that you can demand to be held every time I sit down at the computer. I know that you don't want me, but rather the 10 million Dr Pepper cans your daddy left at the desk. Or the screws he left up here. Or the cds/dvds. They are not yours. You are not getting up here. Screeching at the top of your lungs and throwing things at me will not get your way. It only annoys me.


CHRIS, because let's face it. Sometimes you're one of my kids too.
~When we had the talk about cleaning up your desk every night before you went to bed, I was serious. The fastfood cups and Dr Pepper cans have been here for at least 3 days. I know you weren't here yesterday, but that's 2 nights worth of cleaning that you could have should have done.
~The same goes for your dirty socks. YUK.
~You are capable of putting your own clothes away. The pile beside your bed that I told you I was too busy to hang up, was not intended to stay there. You have 2 hands. HANG THEM UP.
~Yes, you're doing much better. But these are things that you still need to work on. Thanks.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

The case of the missing diaper

I walked outside to check my mail moments ago. The mailbox is 2 houses down. It takes me less than 2 minutes to go get the mail and get back. I've done it several times.

As I walked out the door I told Chris I was leaving and to watch the kids. In order to get the door shut all the way you have to slam it. But even if it's not shut all the way, you have to pull really hard to get it open, and it's really loud. There's no way to get out the front door without the whole house hearing it.

As I get in front of the house, I see my kids standing there outside the front door. I yell ... "Kids! Get back inside." The 5 guys standing outside my neighbors house working on a car suddenly stop working to look at who I'm yelling about.

Kairi darts inside. But Alex instead leans over to pick something up off the ground. That's when I see it. My son (who has been wearing only a tshirt and diaper today) has no diaper on. None at all.

"ALEX! Where's your diaper?!?" I start running towards the house. Laughter erupts from my next door neighbor's front yard.

Alex turns to me, points to his naked private parts babbling and laughing.




Alex's diaper was found in Kairi's room. Chris got an earful while we got another one out, stuffed, and on Alex's butt. They were no where close to the street ... but that didn't make his mistake any better.

Friday, December 26, 2008

A Fresh Start

I'm not about to abandon my old blog. It's still very important for my family to have a spot to keep up with my children and their lives. But it's time for a change. I need a place where I can share my thoughts, my imperfections, and my struggles without having to worry about a frantic call from any family member that might read my blog because they are "concerned".

So here is my spot, my personal space. I don't promise that the language will always be clean. I will not sugar coat my life. And my husband will not always be perfect. But this is MY life. And I love it -- ok, so I like it most of the time. ;) Here I can be sarcastic, and not care whether or not my grandmother understood it, and not have to hope that she didn't.

To get started, let me introduce the family:

Chris
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The husband. Sailor, and therefore out to sea more often than home. Computer geek-extraordinaire. Spends way too much time on his computer/video games when he is home, but is working on it. We've had a rough time, but we're working through it. Every day with him gets better.

Kairi
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2 year old DRAMA QUEEN. There, I said it. Little Miss Attitude. It is from her that I get my name. She calls me Mommy when she wants something by being sweet; Mama when she's trying to get something from me with attitude; Mom when she's full of attitude; and on those days that she can't figure out what she thinks about me I get the ever-famous MommyMamaMom all rolled into one word. She is into EVERYTHING. Her favorite toy is my make-up. She uses up way too much of it way too quickly, and is very adept at finding it's newest hiding spot.

Alex
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1 year old Baby Boy. He gets away with way too much by simply batting his big blue eyes at me and grinning his sweet grin. We always said he was the good one, but we're learning that he's just as much trouble as his sister, he's just quieter about it. And sneakier. MUCH sneakier. He's a charmer and a flirt, and he's full of trouble.


MommyMamaMom -- Steph -- I'm the mom, obviously. And the wife. I constantly engross myself in projects that take up all my energy, and then quickly crash and burn because I took on too much. I want to keep a clean house and amazing food on the table, but am definitely not practiced at doing so. Getting better with practice. I sell MK. Ok, so sometimes I sell MK when I make the effort. I need to get better at that too. I used to teach -- I will again after the kids are in school. I want to get my masters. One day maybe even my PhD. But I have start studying again. And reading again -- yeah, I miss that.