Taking care of Maggie…he lets her out of her crate, then lets her outside and back in, then gives her a treat.
Year: 2013
Kids are freaky.
So a few days ago, this rash erupted on Katie.
Freaked me out, of course. I assumed it was just some random kid thing so gave her Benedryl…and emailed my sister who knows all things dermatological. She asked if Katie had been sick recently… Why, yes, she had been. She guessed it wasn’t anything to worry about and to just keep an eye on it. Luckily it didn’t appear to be terribly itchy (I caught Katie rubbing around her neck once but that was about it.)
The next morning, the torso rash was just about gone but there were new spots on her arms and legs. Freaky. Another day (this morning) and it’s all about gone.
Phew.
It looks a little better now.
I bought some pre-lit garland at Target today. Owen liked his surprise—he had to keep going outside to look at it. 🙂
Hanging snowflakes!
I hate the little white 3M tabs, but I gave up on the suction cups this year because they never stay stuck (we tried putting them up last night and half fell down before Owen went to bed).
Owen hopes Santa will like these!
Hanging more ornaments
I let Owen hang the stitched ornaments tonight. They all went in about a 1′ x 2′ square section. 🙂
She loves being outside!
Carrying her spoon and bucket. 🙂
Owenisms 32
Me: Katie, you need to put that ornament back on the tree.
Owen: Yeah! Or Santa won’t be happy!
On the way to school:
Owen: Mama look! We’re holding hands!
Me: Awww! That’s so sweet!
Owen: Yeah, I love Katie.
A minute or so later:
Owen: I’m done holding her hand. My arm is tired.
On the way home from school, we were trying to think of G things Owen could take for Show & Tell this week.
Me: You could take garbage.
Owen: Nooo! That’s stinky.
Me: You could take our garage.
Owen: Moooom! That’s too heavy.
Me: You could take Gramma.
Owen: Which one?
Me: Gramma Jean.
Owen: No, she’s not here. [As if the other ones might have been?!]
G Artwork
A Gingerbread Man and the letter G in marshmallows and Froot Loops.
Ornaments she can play with!
I got out the bag of stitched ornaments that my Grandma Smith made (and got passed down to me after she died). I figured Katie couldn’t really hurt them…and she LOVED them. Getting them out of the bag, putting them back…tongue out the whole time, working hard.
First parent/teacher conference!
I honestly wasn’t surprised at most of the stuff she told me—we know he’s a smart kid.
He knows all his colors and shapes. He apparently didn’t know what a rhombus was—but I think that’s okay for Pre-K. 🙂 (But in his favor, he does know what a trapezoid is from one of his games but they didn’t ask that.)
She was very impressed that he knows all his uppercase and most of his lowercase letters. I said he knows ALL of his lowercase letters (and has known them for almost two years) but he often gets sidetracked when questioned. She agreed—she says she’s seen it, too. So she’s going to start working with him more on sounds (which they’ve already started). I told her he can say the alphabet backwards—and she really didn’t believe me. He got to about T then fizzled out because he was playing with Katie. But she was impressed. 🙂
She said he can count and recognize numbers to 13—and again I said he knows to at least 20 and he likely lost interest or got sidetracked. She agreed, as she’s seen him recognize other numbers. I told her he can count by tens to 100 and asked him to do it, but of course he wasn’t in the mood so he didn’t get very far.
He can write his first name so they’re going to start on the spelling of his last name. But they are also going to work more on him writing his name a consistent size. I said “OH YES! At home, he will write a huge O, then a tiny W halfway across the page, then a teeny E, and a sketchy N.” 🙂
She said his fine motor skills have definitely gotten better. He can now walk along the balance-beam-type-rail they have on the playground instead of falling off and he can jump from one spot to another (I haven’t been on the playground to see what spots she’s talking about). He can’t skip, but she said not many of them can.
He does well with verbalization—his speech is getting a lot better (she says she can understand just about everything) and he can express his emotions well. “Owen shows great language, social-emotional, and cognitive development. He’s able to express his feelings and use his words to explain himself.”
So, overall a very good report!!
Meeting Frosty
She was very intrigued by the toddler-life-sized Frosty at Owen’s school today.
I wish I was this cute after a nap.
And hugging “Alno.”
Katie is 17 months old today!
I couldn’t pick THE SHOT so you get four. 🙂
Katie and the wipes
We had an old pack of wipes floating around that she’s been playing with. I noticed today she finally actually got it open… And you can see that she knows how to blow her nose!
I’m about to get passive aggressive.
I’m about ready to leave a passive aggressive note in our neighbors mailbox… They’ve left this pool out for garbage pick up for a month now. After it wasn’t picked up the first week, you’d think they’d realize it wasn’t ever going to be picked up. It’s really getting annoying. And it’s unsightly.
The things she does…
So I don’t pick up stuff as often as I should, so for about a week now, there’s been a laundry basket in the living room with odds and ends in it that need to be put away. For some reason, there’s a changing pad in there…which Katie pulled out today. I didn’t pay much attention because, honestly, she’s ALWAYS into something…but when I looked up, I saw this:
She had opened it and was laying on it, playing with an ornament…
She’s too smart for her own good.
Katie was on my lap this morning trying to get my phone out of my pocket. I was ignoring her. She was babbling something but I wasn’t really paying close attention. So she gets off my lap, goes to get the Elmo doll, and brings it back saying (her version of) Elmo. Then tries for my phone again.
Then it hits me. She wants to play the Elmo app on my phone.
She’s too smart for her own good.
A Santa hat this time…
I put it on her normal and then she pulls it to do this:
Bear down
Guess who? And why am I not surprised?
The bear again…and hat fun.
She stole the bear off the tree again! She thinks I won’t care because she’s kissing it like I asked her to. 🙂
You put a hat on her and this happens:
Clark Griswold I’m not.
This is our holiday display. It’s not quite up to my usual standards…but at least it’s something. 🙂 (My pre-lit garland all died last year so I finally tossed it and haven’t found any decently-priced stuff to replace it. And I was going to string lights on the porch and bushes, but the lights I was going to use ended up on the house. And I don’t really feel like buying new lights.)
Our neighbors, however, surprised me—they’re renters, so I didn’t expect much—but they went all out. 🙂
This is what we do on an unseasonably warm day.
It was 80° today so I got the water table ready as a surprise for after school.
The deck was dry before they started. Katie did most of it.
Soaked girl.
Katie is one smart cookie.
Today I took Owen’s backpack and put it by the laundry room so I would remember to take out his sheets and blanket to wash. Before I knew it, Katie had grabbed it and was putting it where it normally goes by the front door on the hook.
Last night, I had Owen set up their Playskool Christmas village toys underneath the tree. Before he could even finish, Katie was taking the pieces and putting them back in their storage box.
She also knows that the remote control goes in the top drawer. It used to be when we left it out that she would grab it and run off with it…but now she opens the drawer to put it away.
And the other day she scared the bejesus out of me—she was standing at the top of the stairs and started down by herself. Forwards. Without holding on to anything. 😐 I just about plowed Owen over trying to get to her before she went tumbling down the stairs. She has no fear. So now you just have to hold her hand and down she goes…she’s too short to reach the railing and has no interest in going down backwards or on her butt.
And of course, she knows to go to the back door when we talk about going outside…and to go to the front door when we tell her it’s time to get Owen.
I guess 13 years was a good run.
I am just stunned at how it happened! I was sliding the screen door open and my hand got wedged between that and the sliding glass door. It barely even rubbed. It was obviously enough for me to notice, though, which I’m glad I happened to look down because that’s when I noticed the missing diamond (it was in the tracks).
And I’m pretty sure this isn’t a wait-while-they-fix-it fix. It’s a tension-mount, which I remember them saying was a much more rugged setting…and hence more difficult to fix if it did come loose (and I specifically remember them saying if I ever needed it resized, they’d actually have to melt the gold and redo the entire ring…or something along those lines).
Like I needed this to worry about right now.
I bet you don’t have your A/C on today.
I just turned the A/C on. It’s humid, already 72, and supposed to be 78 today. I’m all about warmish winter weather, but this is a bit ridiculous.
Rainbow artwork!
This week’s theme was weather. They drew rainbows on coffee filters which Owen showed me this morning while we were waiting for his teacher. I thought it was very interesting to see the completely varied talent levels (though one is the teacher’s).
Owen’s is the topmost one at an angle.
Happy holidays to you!
Owen just started singing this on his own. I asked him to sing it again and it was almost the same. Enjoy!
Presenting the Christmas tree!
I thought I’d record Katie’s first sight of the tree, thinking maybe it would be something super cute.
Ha. She got me. Little stinker couldn’t have cared less. 🙂
Then it was off to pick up Owen from school…and I decided to record him, too, sure he would be WAY more excited since he’s been asking about the tree. I love the ornaments he names. Excuse the messy house. 🙂
Then it was game on: Katie vs. the tree. I showed her the bear first, thinking “Oh, she knows how to kiss, I can get this picture super easy on the first try.” Ha. Right. She liked it but didn’t want to get near it to kiss it. I’m sure she was just overwhelmed by (in her mind) all the fun things to play with.
Her shutting the gate because I had left it open. 🙂
Playing with the light cord.
Owen was EXCITED to put ornaments on the tree. SUPER EXCITED. He kept saying “Mom, I like putting ornaments on the tree. I hope Santa likes them!” Of course he still put the first 10 ornaments in the same one-foot section…I had to gently guide him to the rest of the tree. 🙂
Sparty was the first ornament she snuck out of the box!
I am pretty sure this mouse elf was the same ornament Owen first grabbed off the tree when he was her age!
Watching the bubble light!
She kept going back to the bear and finally just grabbed it off the tree and hugged it!
And kissed it!
And carried it around with the mouse.
Then tried to put it back—in the right spot!
Owen hung it up…then a few minutes later she went back and grabbed it again.
Our stealthy shooter. 🙂
Overall, Katie didn’t do too badly. Of course, I did have to keep saying “Gentle! Gentle!” and telling her the ornaments stay on the tree. She would start to take one off, look at me, I’d tell her, then she’d put it back, smile, and run off laughing. Stinker. It’s going to be a rough few weeks as I surely don’t have enough “No no, Katie’s” in my daily life as it is. 🙂
Owen just kept saying how much he liked Christmas and the tree and the lights and the ornaments. 🙂 He knew there were more ornaments left, too, and wanted to put them up. So, we put up the rest of them after Katie went to bed. I think Owen has inherited my love for Christmas…
Saved by a friend.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to get the lights up this year…it’s hard enough to do inside stuff…but outside stuff? Requiring a ladder and four arms? Plus the tree? Ugh. I had managed the mantle and was just going to plod along as much as I could during Katie’s naps and possibly skip the outside lights…until Owen asked when we were putting them up because he liked them. Cue mom guilt. So I posted my lament on Facebook and a friend graciously offered to help (they’re moving soon so aren’t decorating this season). Boooo for them moving, but woohoo for her offer to help!
But what a debacle. (Granted, a minor debacle or two in the grand scheme of things, but still a debacle typical of my life.) My friend is now the outside proof that STRANGE THINGS really do seem to happen to me.
First.
We plugged the lights in before we got started and they worked. By the time we got to the end, they were out. Huh? We look again. Yep, out. This can’t be, we think—we both saw them lit. RIGHT? Maybe it was the extension cord? We tried another. Nope. The outlet? Nope, another item plugged in and worked fine. Reset the outlet. Nope. Tried about six rearrangements of extension cords and direct into the outlet and…nothing.
WHAT. THE. HELL?
We took a step back off the porch and—AHA! It was only the last 4′ of lights that were out—the section right above us that we were looking up at. The rest were on. But seriously? They were brand new expensive LED lights last year. GRRR. So our options were to leave them as is or restring the whole house again with some old-school multi-colored lights that are many years old that were just extras. And I’m sure you can guess what option I chose. I couldn’t leave the mantle garland uneven…you think I’m leaving up lights that have a section burnt out? 🙂 So we restrung the whole house (at least we had the system down by then!) and I chucked the “old” ones.
Second.
This one should really be filed under YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. I wouldn’t have believed it if it didn’t happen to me—but I had photo proof and a friend watching. So there.
I think it was actually quite impressive:
Yes, that’s a light completely wedged in the sole of my flip flop. What? How? I mean really? I was just walking along and it got jammed in there. JAMMED. Like we needed to use pliers to get it out—and of course it broke. Which meant I had to take a light out of an extra string of all-blue lights. And then we had to replace a few other burnt-out lights with…blue lights.
Fixing the dips.
By the time we got to the end of the house, we had enough extra to put on the bushes…except we noticed that most of them were burnt out as well. Ugh. By that time I was burnt out on lights myself so I just let them hang down the side of the house and that was that!
Then Ruth, saint that she is, asked if there was anything else I needed help with. Well, I said, we could put the tree up… So we broke open two wine coolers as our celebratory drink after the escapade that was putting up the Christmas lights (plus we were both sweating from doing the lights—it was 72°!) and put the tree together and decorated most of it! (We left the bottom undone for Owen to finish.)
I can’t begin to thank Ruth enough. Really. She helped me not lose my shit when all kept going wonky. If I had been doing it by myself, the swearing would have been in utter frustration instead of in humor. 🙂
As soon as she left, someone was already making herself at home.
And her sister checking things out, too. Thankfully, this is as much interest as they both show.
Phone Fun and a New Outfit
