It’s that time again…Katie has started ABCMouse!


So, Katie has been doing “homework” lately—we bought her a workbook like Owen gets for his Summer Slide and she has fun with that, plus she also has a few educational iPad apps that she enjoys. She saw a commercial for ABCmouse.com the other day and asked if she could have it on the iPad again.

First, huh? She remembers? It hasn’t been on the iPad for probably two years now!

Second, well, why not? Owen really enjoyed it and if she wants to do it…it certainly can’t hurt! (And in the back of my mind I keep wondering if maybe that’s one of the reasons why Katie is a touch behind as compared to Owen—even though I know I shouldn’t compare the two.)

So the thought was in my mind but on the back burner since we’ve been busy. So imagine my surprise when out of the blue I get an email from someone at ABCMouse saying my site came up as one that linked to them and—long story short—would I want to become a full-fledged official referral source. Well, sure, why not?

So Katie was EXCITED to start her “homework” and she kept asking to do it. Before I knew it, she was 14% done with the pre-k level. Hopefully her excitement continues! And hopefully I make some money off referrals!

Ahhhh. I love the feeling of a fresh cut…

Especially after my hair nightmare earlier this week. She definitely saw lots of breakage but thankfully my hairstyle hides it well.

And this is what it looks like when my hair is being dried and styled—since I have so much hair, my stylist grabs anyone else available to help. 🙂 (I had the kids with me—and they had their iPhones since we were in Occoquan—so I texted Owen to take the picture.)

And look at what we found on the walk to the salon…

And testing a new lipstick when I got home.

Home again, home again.

Me and Katie waiting for Tom and Owen to bring dinner to the gate in Atlanta. We weren’t able to get seats because we only had about 25 minutes until our flight started boarding.

We opted to board during the “people who may need extra time” call so we could have time to snarf our food before most people boarded. On the way down, we boarded during that time as well just because the kids were completely unfamiliar with the boarding process and we wanted it to go smoothly. On the way home we figured it had gone smoothly enough we didn’t need it so skipped it the first leg…but then decided why not on the second leg. 🙂

Everything went smoothly, and this is us walking to meet Tom with the car.

As soon as we got home, of course this happened:

Texts from Santa

Santa is texting the kids this year and they think it’s super cool. Owen texted back…and Santa replied!! (I had to tell him that he couldn’t expect Santa to write him back every time he texted and he said he knew—he was very busy.)

Owen was very concerned when Santa asked if he’d been a good boy: That’s a tough question. How do I answer Santa? Was I good this year? Mom, I feel like Santa is important to me. 

Awwwww. 

He didn’t write back for probably a half hour and it was after we’d discussed if he was god or bad. 🙂 I told him that all kids make bad decisions at times and might do some bad things, but overall he’s an amazing kid and I don’t think Santa would think he was ever a bad kid. 

Pókemoning in DC with daddy!

We’ve been promising to take the kids Pókemoning in DC since there are A LOT of crazy things there we can’t get here…so Tom took them this morning.

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Katie calls the Jefferson Memorial her castle. 🙂

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They took over the Jefferson Memorial—Go, Team Hudson!

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Apparently the kids are favorites of Japanese tourists, as Tom said they got stopped twice to take a picture. Also, this might be my new favorite picture of them. :heart:

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And then lunchtime!

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They. had. a. blast. Owen was even sending me texts telling (and showing) me what he caught. They can’t wait to go back!

Owen and the password 

So Owen came upstairs and woke me up about 6:45 to tell me that he couldn’t get on the iPad because it asked for a password. What? Password? We have no password on it. So I’m trying to wake up and be alert and comprehend what he’s telling me and I just have no idea so I tell him I’ll figure it out later.

So, this is what I went downstairs to find:

I asked what happened, and of course he wasn’t very helpful. He said it asked for a password and so he typed in mine. He doesn’t know mine, so I asked exactly what he typed. He said “The little A —” and I stopped him. “What little A?” He pointed to the @ sign and then continued “a JenHudson.” I laughed. That’s not my password anywhere (or username for that matter) but it cracked me up that that’s what he used. I had NO idea why it would ask for a password since we’ve never had one. We do have one set to restrict purchases, so I tried that on the off chance it got turned off and he reset it. Nope. I tried my iTunes password. Nope. AppleID password. Nope. And every time you try a wrong password, you get this:

Except the time increments increase so soon I was up to five minutes. After 10 wrong guesses the iPad erases itself. Hoo boy. I was 99% sure I would be wiping the iPad and reinstalling everything.

So I asked Owen again EXACTLY what happened (while simultaneously asking my online friends for help). He told me he picked up the iPad and it had a black screen then it had the Apple and then it asked for a password so he typed it in. AHA! I asked what he typed in. He quickly answered “qqqq” — so I tried it and BINGO! That was it.

So, what happened? Either the iPad updated itself with a new iOS that night while plugged in or it prompted him to update in the morning and he just said yes. And since we had no password set, when it rebooted it prompted him to enter one (we would normally skip that step) and he picked qqqq. 🙂

Two photos that sum up my day. 

Katie was a little shit most of the day. And THEN I discovered this:

What is that you ask? SHE SCRATCHED THE HELL OUT OF THE IPAD WITH A ROCK. (Breathe. Breathe.) WHAT THE HELL?! Needless to say she lost all iPad privileges for at least a week. Luckily it’s just the screen protector that is scratched—the actual iPad glass is fine. But still. 

So, after the day I had, this was my dinner:

 

Katie’s first text!

So I look over and Katie had the Messages app open on their iPad and she was enjoying looking at and touching all the emojis.

I heard stuff like “Cupcake…heart…pumpkin…flower giggle giggle cat…dog…bunny!”

I couldn’t figure out how she managed to find and open that app since I’ve buried it inside a folder. Then I realized that Tom had texted me and I obviously have the settings configured badly so that my texts appear on their iPad as well…so when he texted me, it popped up on the screen while she was playing her game, she touched it, and it opened the app. Of course, it was all her own curiosity that figured out how to then open the keyboard and emoji screens. 🙂

Anyway, I just sat and watched her…and then watched as she managed to hit send. 🙂

 

Genetics Revisit

Owen’s pediatrician wanted to revisit his genetics results to see if any new information has been discovered in the past 2.5 years…so it was off to Bethesda to see a specialist.

In the waiting room, Owen made a beeline for the one kid he saw who was also using a tablet. 🙂

The short story is that there is nothing new regarding his previous test results and we don’t have to worry about revisiting them for another two years unless something changes drastically with his health or behavior. We also don’t have to worry about getting Katie tested.

I fully believe it’s something that could’ve been handled over the phone without actually seeing Owen in person but I obviously that would make things too easy. (Fortunately the drive there did not give me an anxiety attack as it has in the past—the traffic was fairly light and I left plenty of time.)