Meet my children, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I want that magic formula...not the one that will turn someone into a raving lunatic, but the one that will magically turn my three year olds from grumpy guses to the happy children I like best. Yesterday I had a full-on physical wrestling match trying to get Jo and Doug into their car seats to go buy milk at the store. Andy was semi-cooperative but distracted. So then we get to the store and Doug is singing and dancing down the aisles and people are smiling at how happy he is. I don't know if it was the car ride, a difference in scenery or what. We didn't even stop by the bakery for a cookie and there were no complaints about it either. If the child had been old enough to have the physical capabilities to skip he would have. And then to further emphasize his attitude change he and Andy helped put the groceries on the conveyor belt, they loaded them in the car without me even mentioning it, and then both boys climbed in their own car seats, put their own straps on, and did as many of the buckles as they could.

This morning it was Andy. He was running a fever last night, and while he is acting normally I couldn't really send him to preschool. So when he found out that he couldn't go today I endured 30 minutes of "but I WANT to go to school" whining (don't get me wrong...I'm very happy that the child likes school). Then I suggested that he could play school at home with Josie so that we didn't make the other kids sick, and it was like changing the channel because suddenly he was happy.

Tired, Tired, Tired

Today I am just plain tired.
I have not gotten enough sleep lately between Doug having trouble falling asleep (two out of the last 5 nights), me staying up too late (a different two nights out of the last 5 nights) and Doug throwing up last night (but he seemed fine this morning) so that I spent part of the night with him in the recliner.
Additionally, I FINALLY got to talk to a manager at Roto-Rooter about the mess the plumber left last week. I am the type of person who hates conflict, but it should be the manager trying to get a hold of me, not me having to chase him down after almost a week's worth of calls. I was beginning to think that "he's on a conference call" was code words for "he doesn't think you're worth the time of day to call back." So now I am sending a letter with what was damaged and values and let's hope that it elicits a speedier response then the phone calls did. At least the secretaries I talked to there were nice.
I'd like to think that I might go to bed earlier tonight, but I have a bunch of stuff I need to do and at some point I have to at least pretend that I am getting a ton of Grad Assistant work done.

Back and forth

I am so looking forward to our regular baby-sitter being back in town. The main day I need him is Monday and he won't be back until Thursday.
I got baby-sitting worked out today, but it was the type where it involved three different people (plus preschool), Jim, and me. So instead of having this nice chunk of time to work on campus I spent the day going back and forth between being on campus to teach and either shuttling kids or waiting for a baby-sitter.
I walked back and forth from my parking spot to the education building three times...and to counter-act any benefit I might have reaped from all that walking over the course of the day I ate a corn dog, a soda, two microwave egg rolls, and about 15 cookies.

Today- The Highly Reel

Here are the high-lights of today (because it is late and tomorrow will be run run run all day and I really should be in bed...which is why I am blogging)

1. Doug was particularly cheerful this morning on the way to church (he has taken whininess to new heights a few days this last week). Somehow we got into him singing "ma na ma na" and me doing the "do do" part.
2. Got to eat fried fish for lunch...which was something I had been craving. I probably ate it way faster than I should have but it tasted good. I also got to see a little girl from the next table loving all over my boys...I don't know if I am ready for that.
3. All three...yep three...children took naps today! At the same time! (The down note to this is that while Andy was waiting to fall asleep he pulled his bed apart including the mattress, and then tried to sneak out and lock himself downstairs with all of the toys. Fortunately three year olds are really not that sneaky and he got the punishment that was advertised...no extra pillows/toys/blankets/etc. and his bed currently has the mattress and main pillow and that is it.)
4. I somehow let myself get talked into baking cookies. While I did not manage to get the cookies started before a child woke up, I did get the kitchen picked up some (had to find counter space) and then only had one child (Doug) actually helping to make the cookies. We made "Cowboy Cookies" that were basically my grandmother's oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, pecans, chunks of dark chocolate, and chunks of white chocolate.
5. I got some laundry sorted (my down-fall...I can run load after load through the washer and dryer and somehow I don't get it sorted...I think my record is somewhere around 5 loads of laundry waiting to be sorted and yes I have run out of undergarments when this happens). I got to sort it in the room where we moved the TV and enjoy the new ceiling fan that we probably can't afford this month but that makes a huge difference in the temperature of the room. It is making me feel a little more settled (despite the fact that we have been in the house somewhere close to 9 months...settled is a relative term).
6. I have started scrubbing the kitchen floor....Cinderella style with a stiff brush (and yes this is actually a highlight). I have realized that this 1970's floor is not getting replaced any time soon and that if I am going to have to live with it (which I am) I might as well do my darn hardest to actually get it clean. I realized that one of the reasons I kept putting off mopping it (see previous mopping reference) is because even when I do it is still dirty. However, after the third time in a row mopping last week (yes I actually mopped my floor three times in less than half a day...even without anyone spilling something on it) I realized that I might actually be able to get more of the dirt out that was down in the little dips in the floor. So I went and got a scrub brush and while it is going to take me awhile it is actually looking cleaner. The true tests will be if it feels better on my bare feet and if I can mop more than a small section before my water looks horrible.

Mancala

Last night, when Doug was having trouble falling asleep after a late in the afternoon nap, I taught him to play Mancala. He MOSTLY has the idea of how to play using the very simplest version of the rules that I know, and of course at this point no idea of strategy and just barely a concept of trying to win. The funny part is that he calls it "my cala" but he likes the game and it is really my first success with either boy at introducing the concept of playing a board game and of one of them having the actual attention span to play one to the end.

Pudding is not an exfoliant

Andy and I made pudding parfaits (chocolate pudding, Graham crackers crumbs he squished, butterscotch pudding, and whip cream). They were intended for after dinner. Josie thought hers was so great. She ate it ALL over the place. She even rubbed it into her belly as well as digesting some from the inside. Somehow she managed to miss her hair amazingly enough. She also looked at me (with her pudding goatee) and said "good".

Hmmm..

Hmmm...what to post about today?
The fact that I found six phone numbers on my cell phone that apparently my children programed in?

The fact that Doug insists that when he put DVDs in the DVD player that they are not only right-side-up but that he very carefully lines up the picture so that it is exactly "straight" in the spot?

The fact that Andy said he wanted pancakes and bacon so we ended up doing breakfast for dinner rather than eat the simple leftovers we had planned?

The fact that Josie actually got to help stir the pancakes this time instead of just watch (she so thinks she is one of the "big" kids)?

The fact that my children ate goldfish crackers for lunch because Doug just didn't quite get the idea of leaving a bag of them at school so that the teacher could use them for snack time? (Imagine driving all the way home with a child wailing in the back seat "Back, Back, I want to go backwards, I didn't get my goldfish.")

The fact that Andy did eat a little soup for lunch but that what he ate mainly consisted of him digging around with his hand in the soggy goldfish cracker filled soup to find the "noodle" that were the shapes from the Disney Princess soup? (Yep...my boys like the princesses...perhaps I should get Aladdin, or Tarzan, or Peter Pan, or Jungle Book to watch next.)


Hmmm...what to post about?

Move'n and Groove'n Day

It's been an interesting day...

• Spent almost 90 minutes trying to talk Doug into actually eating something for breakfast and ended up having to walk him in and admit to his teacher that he'd only had some orange juice to drink (she said she'd had days like that too)
• Forked over a bunch of cash to the plumber who pulled another batch of "new" wipes out of the drain. Jim has been so busy and with the rain we had it just wasn't getting done. Unfortunately the guy left a mess so we'll see where my complaint goes
• Andy woke Jo up from her nap after only about one hour so he has been threatened to within an inch of his life if he should EVER do it again
• Waited (and waited and waited) for the DirectTV guy to come and then spent three hours with him while he upgraded us to HD (I got a deal too...they upgraded me for free plus the relatively minor handling charge) so now we can actually use the HD portion of our TV set. He also moved the connection into the living room so I can do some flip-flopping of rooms that makes more sense to me
• Doug was having trouble falling asleep, and so was Jo. The solution...I put them both in Jo's crib with the instructions that Doug was to "help" Jo fall asleep. I think it worked because it has been quiet in there for a couple hours. I guess I should get motivated and move him back to his bed, unless Jim has beaten me to it

Not a bad day...just busy. I also worked some and got some laundry done so I should probably go to bed.

Monkey Do

Josie is REALLY good at communicating. She has a bunch of words that she says that at least I understand, but she also is good with nonverbal communication. The other day she tripped and fell down and then wanted me to kiss her hands. So she came up looked at me expectantly, and when I didn't do what she wanted she kissed her hands and looked at me again.
This morning, while the boys are at preschool, she was cooking me something in the play kitchen. She brought me a spoonful of pretend food and apparently was not satisfied with my slurping noises. She made an "mm-ahhh" sound and when I copied the sound she went off happy that she must have cooked something good.
She also will walk up with her fingers closed and arms out like she is holding an imaginary steering wheel. She'll look at you expectantly until you say "Ready, set, go!" Gee...I wonder where she learned that behavior from (Don't forget the sarcastic tone when you read that).
You may not have noticed that I updated some of the side-bar information to include what her current vocabulary is. However, I know that there are a bunch of words that I am still missing.

What does this say?

What does it say about the amount of cleaning that I normally do when my child asks who is coming to visit because I am mopping the floor?