Hair growing WHERE?!

Annie is 8 and convinced she is in the throws of puberty. This all started when we were driving to their dad's house. Out of nowhere Annie puts her book down and sagely announced "I am starting puberty. For reals. There's hair in my armpit!"
She was undeterred when I told her that everyone has armpit hair. "No Mom, this is CuRLy!"   Oh yes, I was finally sufficiently impressed and let out of the conversation.
Until...
Tonight Alex said Annie has hair on her lip. "Oh my gosh, you're growing a *moustache*!" he announced.
Thus the hair conversation starts again and I am once again scouring her skin under her arm searching for any signs of puberty.

Of course, if she's really like me, she'll abhor puberty once it actually arrives. But for now, we are content to wear training bras and search vigilantly for hair in the armpits of an 8 year-old.

Sigh.

small thoughts today

The problem with having your children 2 years apart is that by the time one of them gets through whatever crazy phase they've been in, the next one is starting it.  Only you don't remember that they are just being [insert age here] and you think the next one has really lost her ever loving mind.  So you spend about 2 months trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with this child?!? and then you remember this seems hauntingly familiar.  This doesn't really help you very much though because the way you handled it with the last one will not work with this one because God has a twisted sense of humor and made each one of your children so very different from the others.

In some ways, however, the differences save their tiny little hides.  I don't know if I could handle having 2 of any of my children.  That doesn't mean I would ever give up the chance to have the three kiddos I have, just that it is both the rise and fall of parenting these days that they are all so very individualized. 

What we've been up to...

All dressed up for our Christmas program. 

Annie's having a particularly hard morning.

And no one understands her!

At all. 

Ashley rubber-necks for the camera and gets that smile back on quick!  In between shots, she kept staring at Annie like she was an alien.  But as soon as that camera started to click, she flips on like a lightbulb.

"If you don't come and smile right now, I'm going to send this to Grandma to see what you are really like..."

"Put on your big-girl pants." 
"I DID!"

Fine.  I'm smiling  See?  (See Ashley, too?)
Through the whole thing, Alex just held perfectly still and waited for it to be over. 

I love these kids so very very much!

First Day of School

Halloween 2010

Babes in the wood

Tonight I am using Google to remember Grandma. First, a song she used to sing to us at bedtime:

Babes in the Wood

Oh, don't you remember, a long time ago,
Those two little babies, their names I don't know
They were stolen away one bright, summer's day
And left in a wood, so I've heard folks say.
Pretty babes in the wood
Pretty babes in the wood
Oh, don't you remember
Those babes in the wood
Now the day being gone and the night coming on
Those two little babies sat under a stone
They sobbed and they sighed, they sat there and cried
Those two little babies they laid down and died
Pretty babes in the wood
Pretty babes in the wood
Oh, don't you remember
Those babes in the wood
Now the robins so red, how swiftly they sped
They put out their wide wings and over them spread
And all the day long on the branches they throng
They sweetly did whistle and this was their song
Pretty babes in the wood
Pretty babes in the wood
Oh, don't you remember
Those babes in the wood

You have to imagine it in a warble-y old woman voice for the full effect.
This all started by my saying something about the teeny-tiny something or other. And then googling that story. I don't remember the end in Grandma's version but the point is made:

Teeny-Tiny
ONCE upon a time there was a teeny-tiny woman who lived in a teeny-tiny house in a teeny-tiny village. Now, one day this teeny-tiny woman put on her teeny-tiny bonnet, and went out of her teeny-tiny house to take a teeny-tiny walk. And when this teeny-tiny woman had gone a teeny-tiny way, she came to a teeny-tiny gate; so the teeny-tiny woman opened the teeny-tiny gate, and went into a teeny-tiny churchyard. And when this teeny-tiny woman had got into the teeny-tiny churchyard, she saw a teeny-tiny bone on a teeny-tiny grave, and the teeny-tiny woman said to her teeny-tiny self, 'This teeny-tiny bone will make me some teeny-tiny soup for my teeny-tiny supper.' So the teeny-tiny woman put the teeny-tiny bone into her teeny-tiny pocket, and went home to her teeny-tiny house. Now, when the teeny-tiny woman got home to her teeny-tiny house, she was a teeny-tiny bit tired; so she went up her teeny-tiny stairs to her teeny-tiny bed, and put the teeny-tiny bone into a teeny-tiny cupboard. And when this teeny-tiny woman had been to sleep a teeny-tiny time, she was awakened by a teeny-tiny voice from the teeny-tiny cupboard, which said:   'Give me my bone!'   And this teeny-tiny woman was a teeny-tiny frightened, so she hid her teeny-tiny head under the teeny-tiny clothes and went to sleep again. And when she had been to sleep again a teeny-tiny time, the teeny-tiny voice again cried out from the teeny-tiny cupboard a teeny-tiny louder,   'Give me my bone!'   This made the teeny-tiny woman a teeny-tiny more frightened, so she hid her teeny-tiny head a teeny-tiny further under the teeny-tiny clothes. And when the teeny-tiny woman had been to sleep again a teeny-tiny time, the teeny-tiny voice from the teeny-tiny cupboard said again a teeny-tiny louder,   'Give me my bone!'   And this teeny-tiny woman was a teeny-tiny bit more frightened, but she put her teeny-tiny head out of the teeny tiny clothes, and said in her loudest teeny-tiny voice, 'TAKE IT!'

Good night. Sweet dreams.
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Holy Hell, it's hot!

Welcome to August in WW, I guess. It's 11 pm and still almost 90 outside. All I can say is thank all that's awesome that we have a/c!

I wish I could say I wasn't sleeping because of the heat. In reality, I start work in the morning, orientation, name badge (hope it's a good hair day!), etc. So no preschool kiddos until September 7th but actual new job in about 9 hours.

I just need to go to sleep as there is not enough Diet Coke in all the land to keep me awake enough to not yawn all day tomorrow if I don't sleep tonight.

I have never slept well the night before anything big, especially school starting. So you could say that I am as excited/nervous about tomorrow as I was about Kindergarten 26 years ago.

Yay!
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Goat... Nyah!

This weekend the kids went with Brandon to go to a family reunion for his mom's side of the family.  Brandon's got an Uncle Bruce that lives in Bremerton, is a fantastic carpenter, drives Harleys, and has a penchant for strange animals that he likes to bring on vacation when he drives said Harley to Spokane to visit his family. 
The kids got in the car Sunday afternoon and started telling us about the goat that was at the family reunion.  All of the stories matched up; Uncle Bruce had his goat at the family reunion, if you hold onto the horns, it thinks it is playtime and will start butting at you, they had the goat on a leash by a pile of rocks so it could climb around, a video was made and posted to YouTube featuring the goat and the men of Brandon's family, etc. 
This was all just fine.  Except for one thing:  Uncle Bruce brought his motorcycle to Spokane for the family reunion.  He has a sidecar, I know.  But I just had this crazy picture of a goat in aviator goggles with a scarf tied around its neck riding along in the sidecar of a Harley all the way from Bremerton to Spokane. 

It turns out, Uncle BRI-AN, who hosted the reunion this year, is the one with the goat.  Which is probably a much safer way to have the goat appear at the family reunion.  But I still can't stop laughing about that damn goat in the sidecar riding across the state.

Maybe like this?

Croquet...the gentleman's sport?

Since we moved to a new place in a new town with a new yard, which does not feature the ability to use the hose or have any playground equipment, we have had to become creative in our outside time.  Especially since it's hotter than hell out here in Walla Walla. 

One thing our new place does have is a pretty, thick, luscious lawn in a decent size yard.  So we got some Splash Bombs that we use with a bucket of water.  We found the kid pool at the park that only charges a buck per kid for four hours a day and lets parents in for free.  We found shaded parks with awesome playground equipment.  And after living here and whining about it for a month straight, I wore Aiden down and we got a croquet set.  (He's the budget-monger and I am the spender.  It's what happens.  I like to buy things.  He likes to throw things out.  We balance pretty well.)

Soooo, I brought home our new croquet set and we played it that very night.  All the kiddos did alright but Aiden really stomped all of us by winning when the next closest person was only halfway done with the course.  Once I got over my major loss (because, really, it's all about me), we played again.  This time we started to notice a couple of things.  First, the grass here is SO long and healthy that the croquet balls get stuck in holes and it sometimes takes several good whacks with the mallet to get the ball to even move out of it's home. 

Annie-inspired "Inspirational" Poster

Annie's attempts look a little like a lumberjack aiming for a tree.  I can see that we may go through several sets of croquet mallets by the time she learns to not "high stick" them anymore.  The fourteen hundred practice swings are always slow and careful and exact.  And are always followed by the actual hit which has a 20% rate of contact with the ball.  When those contacts actually take place, she is more likely to hit the ball and send it 45 degrees off-course than to get it anywhere near where she wants it to go.  We have tried to coach her through this by having her stop the golfer's stance and try the position that resembles the granny bowling stance.  Then we watch her go through another round of wind-ups and misses, reposition her feet CLOSER to the ball (because the whole pendulum effect is clearly lost on Annie) and she still misses. 

In a moment of clarity tonight, she realized she was still on the second wicket while the rest of the family was almost done with the game and she took her turn by taking the granny stance and hitting the ball blind-backward-and accurately!  Only my child could find better success without looking at what she's doing and by doing it backwards than to be conventional and actually control her movements!
In all fairness, the both Aiden and I, besides being adults and having the thinking skills required to hit the ball hard but not too hard and with aim, grew up playing croquet.  Alex is horrible at the game, but he has a great time being awful.  He keeps saying "This game hates me!" so finally I suggested, with all the love a mother can proffer, that maybe it's because he sucks so bad at it.  (This is how it is in our house, we are not flowers and sunshine and unicorns.  Just the rainbows, if you please!)  Luckily, he just laughed and laughed.  This is because we giggle and tease a lot in our house.
Ashley got a little further than Annie but I think this owes to her figuring out that she can sort of shuffle-board/sweep the ball where she wants it to go.  This begins with turning the mallet sideways and then sweeping it along.  But at least she gets contact with the ball, unlike Annie.  Unless she does it like a backwards old woman.

Magical thinking...

...is alive and well in our house, courtesy of Ashley. So what if she's going to be 6 in a couple of months, she's still happily buying into the idea that things happen by magical power.
Yesterday she was trying to enjoy some cherries for snack. As she munched along, she commented that it would be "funner" if cherries didn't have those "seeds" in them. I think they slow her down.
All of the kids are really into the idea of planting all the seeds they come across in food and her remark made Annie remind her that when we buy a house, we can plant those seeds.
Ashley kept eating her cherries and said "well, what if it could be funner by having no seeds -BUT- if you ate all the cherries you bought at the store, you get seeds!"
Um, yes, that would be neat. I have a couple of questions, though. First, where would these seeds come from? Just magic? And how do they know when to show up?
Second, where does the idea of having to eat all of them come from? We are not "clean your plate" people. We have been known to say you have to eat at least a certain amount of the fruit or veggie pieces but never ALL your food. It's just a question I have about her motivation for the magic to kick in and make the seeds show up.

In other Ashley news...
I asked her what we should have for dinner the other day while we were at the pool. She said "fish sticks! No, Mom!". I wondered what the last part was all about so I asked. "We should eat YOU for dinner" was the explanation. Then she pretended to take a bite of me, chew it up, make a face of ick, spit me back out, slap it back onto my face, pat it in, and say "nope, you don't taste good. Fish sticks!" And then swim off.

That kid is one funny ball of giggles.
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1 bathroom woes

We have moved to Walla Walla, in case you hadn't heard. We really like our new place, for the most part. We have only 1 bathroom in our new house.
Why the people building 3 bedroom homes thought 1 toilet would be enough is beyond me, I think they should get to live in one of these units for a week, with 3 kiddos, and see just how impractical it really is.
Some of the things we have learned in the last couple of weeks:
1. Yes, it is okay to use the bathroom while someone is in the shower or bath, as long as the curtain is pulled. I claim the priviledge of taking a bath the other day and had to amend this idea. It is still okay to use the toilet when someone is in the bath or shower, with the curtain pulled, but if you have to poop, and if mom is the one in the bath, with a good book and a long soak going on, do not feel the need to have a conversation with Mom whilst you do your business. The book, I promise you, is enough to keep her entertained. She'd really like to pretend that you're not actually taking a crap 6 inches away from her, anyway.
1a. Courtesy flushes are a great idea. Employ them.
2. When no one has to use the bathroom for over 2 hours, suddenly, and at the end of the movie, all 3 children will magically go from "no need to pee" to "peeing their pants right now" in approximately 2 minutes. The child who also has to poop will be the first one in the bathroom while the other two dance in the hallway. Prioritize between the 30 seconds of movie lost and the 25 minute pee-pee dance and subsequent bladder pain.
3. Knocking is all the sudden not just a neat idea the parents have talked about for 10 years but is, in fact, a courtesy that each user of the bathroom wants extended to them. Even if they have never done it for anyone else. Ever.
What fun stories can you add?
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Want to laugh?

We taught the kids to play Charades.  It was funny.  I wrote out cards like "washing your hair" and "Cinderella".  Alex got the card that said "ballerina" and decided to dance an arm-flailing head-shaking dance.  Amazingly, no one could guess what he was.  When I suggested he could end the charade by doing some of the "right" dance moves, he put his hands above his head and spun in circles.  Right away the girls knew he was a ballerina. 
Ashley got "Cinderella".  After 5 full minutes of prop planning and putting on her "fancy" shoes, she walked from the kitchen to the living room, kicked one of her shoes off, and kept going.  She was utterly successful which was made even more perfect by the fact that our friend, Rob, had already drawn that card and didn't know how to do it.  Way to show up the grown ups, Squeak!
Annie was fantastic in the entire game.  She remembered the rules of no talking, she acted with ease and flair, and she guessed right off the bat and with gusto.  We may be finding ourselves with an actress on our hands.  Keep your eyes peeled for Annie starring on the silver screen.