Amen to That

It's official. We're Presbyterians. We completed our two evening new member meetings and we got voted in officially. So now I belong to a church. Next up: baptism. I had to get 4 forms. I feel a little funny talking about it since I'm so not the religious type. I'm still sort of amazed that I'm going to church. But I must admit that I really am enjoying going. I still feel a little bit funny praying so much and talking about God a lot.
I've been working on my preschool packets to register the kids for next year. Yikes. Next year is going to be expensive! Whoo. But so worth it. So worth it.
In other news, I got my allergy testing done. And put up with days of welts all over my arms. I'm allergic to everything. Except mold and arizona cypress. The other 47 things are a definite yes. I was suprised that I was allergic to cats, dogs, and dust mites. I suspect everyone probably is just slightly. I got my first allergy shot on Thursday.
The eye thingy is still going strong. I probably should try to go back to the doctor.
The kids and I took a long walk (they all ran) tonight. The weather was just gorgeous. It's going to be 80 again tomorrow. Too bad everything froze so hard. My poor little petunias are mostly gonners.

Infection and Connection

Well, we made it through the week. My eye infection is still hanging around though and that is making me irritated and ugly since I'm trying not to wear eye makeup. We did the usual stuff all week. School, dance, play group. Charles got home on Friday afternoon and left this morning at 6. He'll be back again on Thursday night. I didn't go to Phoenix to meet Uncle (sorry again Unc) because my eye was bugging me so much and the prospect of three hours of driving (half at night) was just too overwhelming.
On Saturday night I went out for a Mom's Night with playgroup. We had the best time. We played games and laughed and talked until midnight. I couldn't believe it was so late! I think it was one of the best mom's nights we've ever had. Today we went to St. Andrew's to tour the 4 year classes. I don't feel any particular affinity for any of them though. There is a definite preference in the three's for Mrs. Wallace if you ask around, but there doesn't seem to be a favorite among the 4s teachers. Except for Mr. Merritt, who is really cool and dresses up in costumes and does crazy stuff, but he teaches a T/W/Th class that has two mornings and an afternoon. Nah. I'm looking forward to being able to send all of them to school and have a few hours off. Though it will cost a fortune. C'est la vie. Our packets come out on the 15th.
We have our first membership dinner at church Thursday night, which I'm looking forward to. Then we do a second one the following week. I don't know if Charles will officially join since he wants to remain a Catholic, which is fine with me. Maybe we'll go to the Catholic church in Post Falls during the summers. I imagine I'll have to get baptized, which I sort of dread. We'll see. My friend Jill is also joining. I didn't know that she's been doing the Friday woman's book group there.
In the kids department, Laney is really starting to do a lot of drawing and writing. It's cute because she writes her name backwards. The downside of a big long name is that it takes a long time to learn to write it. I found out today that I shouldn't be mixing upper case and lower case letters when I show her name. Oops. I'll start doing the big D and lower case everything else.
Griffin has been a little pill lately as only a 2 year old can be. He's defiant and obstinate. We made mini pizzas together tonight. I try not to think of home many times he licks the spoon as he spreads the sauce. It's just better that way.
Kenna is chapped all over her face at the moment and her other issues are still in force. She told Charles that "her highness" (aka nether regions) hurt the other day. We decided that was a pretty appropriate word for her. She's such a little princess and loves to be waited on. She is really good at playing the helpless baby. She makes me dress her and help her with the potty etc. Griffin dresses (and redresses and redresses and redresses) himself and does all potty business on his own. He's all about the independent. K was gifted with a hand me down baby stroller from Leah and is in absolute heaven.

Fairies, Swimming, and Puppets

Starting out another single parenting week. C left for Vegas today and won't be back until Friday. The kids and I went to church together this morning and then I went to K'Deo, the Sunday school puppet show. They've been after me to go to the puppet show with them for a while so I figured why not? It was ok. I even survived the confetti cannon at the end.
Charles and G went to the hardware store together and got haircuts yesterday. They've been having a lot more father/son bonding time lately. Griffin proudly announces that he's "daddy's little buddy". Charles just finally realized how cool he is I guess--and G is getting less attached to Mommy so that helps tremendously.
I have some sort of weird eye disease. I went to the Minute Clinic on Friday and they gave me some stuff for it that helped a little, but it's getting worse in a different spot now. I'm heading to the allergy doctor tomorrow so maybe that will help. My eyelid is puffy and itchy in a ring around my eye. It's awesome. Really.
We went to the Mini Time Machine museum last Thursday and it was pretty cool. The next time my parents come down we'll have to go see it. Though, unlike some museums my mom and I saw in Cornwall, there were no taxidermied kittens on swings. Yeah, I was disappointed about that. The best part of the museum is looking for the fairy. She flies in near the door and you can see her glow and hear her sparkling, then she goes inside her tiny little door in the wall (it's a light on the wall). She also appears as a hologram image inside the magic tree in the museum. The great majority of the kids' time was spent jockeying for position in front of the fairy hollow. The twins also spent a great deal of time running and screaming in the echoing room. I was really proud that they were mine...
On Friday we went to swim lessons, which everyone adores. Then Charles and I went swimming with the kids during their open swim session. The twins better learn how to float. Griffin is convinced he knows how to swim, so he just launches himself into the water. Whether you're looking at him or not.

Crash and Nearly Burn

(Slow posting this was actually for Wednesday January 19)
We had a good weekend. On Sunday we went to church and Kenna made a project "for Jesus!!" Then we had a relaxing day and didn't do much of anything. Though Charles did finish his wall building and painting. His addition looks great! On Monday I sent them to the park together and I cleaned house. Charles returned and said that he wasn't cut out for that job. Too much to watch for at once. That afternoon we went over to Olive and Don's to visit. They are debating on selling their massive nativity collection (I told them I would help). There are over 300 of them.

Yesterday Charles left and things were going relatively well until about dinner time and then all hell broke loose. I was trying to get dinner ready and Griffin was "helping" me. During a rather key part of the cooking he suddenly lost his balance and fell off his chair--and swept the counter trying to save himself. Down came G and down right behind him came my Pampered Chef batter bowl (it's large, heavy and glass). I watched slow motion as he landed and the bowl bounced about 3 times. On the third bounce it exploded. So I got kind of excited about everything and the girls tried to run in to the kitchen. I yelled at them to get out, ran for the broom to sweep the glass explosion up and came back to start sweeping. Meanwhile dinner was burning. I checked dinner (thank god) and realized that in the fall he knocked the plastic bottle of olive oil over and onto the lit stove. It had melted through the top and was pouring oil onto my stove top. I expect I was about 45 seconds from a massive grease fire. Crisis averted, dinner served, and I had a glass of wine. One of the kids asked me for something and I turned back to find Kenna trying to chug my wine (quite an oenophile that one). So I packed them all off to bed without a bath. Kenna refused to wear her pullup. I caved. I went to bed not long after them.

Kenna peed her bed at about 2 am. I got her cleaned up and put her in my bed, but she woke Griffin who also wanted in my bed. They both wanted to sleep in my spot. We did some negotiating and settled down to sleep. Except my son didn't want to go back to sleep. I finally sent him back to his room at about 3 and he stayed up and kept me up for another hour and a half. Then he was up promptly at 7.

We skipped Kenna's dance class today because she didn't get up until almost 8:30. We went to Laney's. Then we came home and had lunch and went to take Laney to school. I got all the way there, went to take the kids out of the car and discovered that Laney (who had run out to put herself in the car) had declined to wear any shoes. No shoes at all. So we had to drive all the way back home, get shoes and return. I would have skipped it all together, but we car pool with another family and it was my turn to pick up the girls today. I was so mad I could spit. Griffin fell asleep for a nano second in the car on the return trip and that was his nap for the day.

So, not exactly a joy of parenting week. I need a nap.

Thoughts and the Brain

It is so strange to have Tucson be the focus of national news. Seeing the churches, schools and shopping centers of my neighborhood on the news all the time is a little disconcerting. Somehow real life and "news" don't seem to be connected most of the time. But I guess it's the week for surreal life. Laney has a new classmate and I saw his mom and thought "weird, I know that woman from somewhere". Then I figured it out--she is the blogger behind the decorating blog Three Men and Little Lady.
Laney told me today that she's going to be a brain doctor. This has nothing to do with the news (which we haven't watched at all) and everything to do with seeing an ad for a neurology seminar series in the newspaper. She made me read all about the brain to her. She thinks brains are cool. She's just not too sure about shots. Doctoring may be called off if there are shots involved (for her).
We had a great day at playgroup today (my first day as "leader"). The weather was gorgeous. Now that my parents have left, the weather returned to the upper 60s and low 70s.
Kenna told me tonight that she was little and needed "just a little chocolate. not big. Two pieces." Then she gave me a big sly smile and added "or three?"

Wow, is it 2011 Already??

It's been a while, I know. I guess I go into occasional blog funk or something. It has to do with how tired I am at the end of the night I think. Anyway, we've had a busy busy busy few months but I'm back to posting again. In summary: Thanksgiving at Olive's (yea! Tim, Carol and C visited), joined a church (yeah, I know, weird), did the whole Christmas thing (started organized, rapidly devolved), Mom and Dad visited for New Year.
The kids just started a new round of activities. Laney and Kenna are dancing again. I bought the cutest pettiskirt things at Costco. Laney gets tap shoes this time around. Of course, she did her first dance lesson and realized her friend Cameron is in gymnastics and seems to not get along with her teacher so we'll see... Kenna has been dying to go to dance, got there and refused to participate while covering her eyes. I don't really understand. Griffin plays with the car set and is content.
All the kids will be in swimming starting this Friday. Not sure what the twins will think, but given their intense desire to play in the backyard and get water out of the pool, they'd better learn to swim. Laney is taking advanced lessons and learning strokes. I'm also the new playgroup leader since Richelle has decided to simplify by stepping down as leader. We'll see how that goes.
The kids all got bikes for Xmas and we're trying to figure out how to ride them. The twins have these prebikes that don't have pedals. Kenna got pushed on her bike and now doesn't want to bother doing the work herself.
We achieved potty training success in early December (with continued minor messiness). Griffin is completely trained (night time too!) and Kenna went back to pullups at night but otherwise is done. He suddenly got the memo and all was well. This is one of the reasons that I didn't blog for a while. I'm sure you didn't want to continually read about potty training and it was really consuming my life. And a lot of Lysol wipes.
So cute story of the day: Kenna is just the singing-est kid lately and makes up her own songs quite a bit. Her latest is entitled the "Larry Song". Why? Who knows? It's hilarious though and if I can manage it I'll get video of her singing. The Larry song is always sung at high volume. It's about Larry. She particularly likes to sing it while jumping on the bed.
PS Regarding Xmas cards. I have had numerous trials and tribulations attempting to acquire and fill out cards this year. I'm thinking I might be able to manage Valentines. So to all of you: Happy Holidays!! And I probably don't have your addresses anymore unless you sent me a card since my computer with the addresses went kablooie.

My Name is Lisa

Kenna has decided that her name should be Lisa. Every time she tells us that her name is Lisa (I don't know why it is Lisa), it reminds me of the time that we went to a family reunion in Canada and Amanda's daughter Auguste told everyone that her name was "Michelle" and that Auguste was no more.
We just finished eating doughnuts. I got up and made apple spice cake doughnuts for breakfast. They were really yummy. Today we are going to a birthday party and I'm going out to dinner and a movie with my moms group.
Laney got promoted in her new swimming class yesterday. She started last week and they put her in their beginner class. I explained that she could swim, but they insisted. So I cringed through the whole lesson watching them "help" her swim and "help" her float. She even seemed sort of uncertain about it all. I talked to the manager and told her that if they wanted to test her, they should just ask her to swim across the pool. Well, this week she wasn't new to the whole thing anymore so by the time the manager checked in with the instructor the instructor said "oh yeah, she's ready". About midway through the lesson, D was starting to get a little bored and I expected her to swim off across the pool at any moment. She took a few trial swims, but stayed put mostly. Next week we move lesson times and are sharing our class with Campbell, our friend from dance class. Both girls are ISR girls and close to the same age, so they should be good in a class. Laney thinks that Nicola, Campbell's mom, is awesome. She's a doctor and Laney told her last week "I want to grow up to be a doctor in a hospital!". Then Laney told me later that she'd thought it over and she decided that she wasn't going to get married, she was going to be a doctor. I told her that being a doctor was a great idea and that if she fell in love, she could probably get married too. Since Laney found out that Nicola was a doctor, she's had a few questions for me. Like why I don't have a job. It's been an interesting conversation.
Griffin is just being his cute little self lately. He's cute even when being a butt. I am going to make him a chef hat and apron for christmas I think. He's so into cooking and helping in the kitchen. I've got to go wrap presents for the birthday party we're going to this afternoon.