I've been wanting to write for about a week, just haven't been able to get to it. So I've worked on it bit by bit, here and there. I got my videos uploaded one day so that would be ready to go, then I got pictures uploaded another day so they'd be ready to go. Then I just had to wait and wait to find an opportunity where I could fill in the text. Still not sure if I really have time now.
I've been horrible at writing in my journal, so I don't know entirely what the last 2 weeks have been like. We've still been cycling through colds and other stuff. Got a taste of pink eye last week. Shad called in sick yesterday and then obviously didn't take on any overtime today. We've been drinking lots of warm lemon-honey-cinnamon-ginger water. It's delightful and really helps. The lemon breaks down mucus in the throat, honey coats and soothes the throat, cinnamon in combination with honey is helpful in curing many ailments, and drinking herbal ginger tea is an old Chinese remedy for sickness. Hence, our concocted tonic.
Since Shad's been Young Men's President at church, we've been going with him to Phillipsburg the past 3 Wednesdays. The first one was simply because I was desperate to get out of the house after missing a day of church and being stuck in the house for a week playing nurse. I had already taken a day of domestic explosion--decorating a baby nook in our bedroom and putting up decorations on walls in 6 rooms that I've been wanting to get to for months. So that Wednesday ended up being anti-domestic and I needed out of the house. Tom had so much fun playing in the gym the whole time, that I decided we'd probably just make a habit of going on Wednesdays so we get more Dadda time and have social and fun time out of the house. Aside from that, Phillipsburg has better shopping options for retail and grocery. I had a blast in the produce department and ended up getting $30 worth. That finished my month's food budget.
We've had a few days reach up into the 50s, so we've had fun playing outside, going for walks and even braved the park that still had snow on the tire shreds. Tom couldn't have been happier. Last weekend there was a gun auction at the National Guard Armory. We had fun going to that and having something different to do besides, "Which store are we going to go play in today?" The kids loved it. Katie is interested in guns just as much as Tom is. She got excited over each one, pointing and saying, "Guh! Guh!" Oh, and flirting with all the men. She's into that, too. We did buy a Marlin .22 rifle and then hurried to find a babysitter to come over during nap time so we could get out and go shoot it at the range.
Most days, we really do just go to a different store in town to play. At Kowpoke, a hardware store, they have snacks that Katie likes to pull off the racks. She's able to sit on the shelf in the picture here because she unloaded 28 (yes, I counted them as I put them back) bags onto my lap.
They also have fun John Deere and truck toys that make sounds.
Here's Tom playing with a hat washing rack at the thrift store. He knew immediately seeing it that it was for baseball hats.
So there was a crate at the gun auction that Katie kept walking over to so she could sit in it. She'd try on her own and then ask for help. She finally got it once on her own and Tom and I were so proud of her. Gave her a good cheer and applause.
Tom's face in this picture just makes me laugh! He's telling me that Katie had climbed into this cabinet. Katie is eating a McDonald's chicken nugget that she got from a lady because she's cute. Big brother got one, too.
One Friday, we hung out upstairs and mostly in my bedroom for the whole morning and after lunch. I finally caught loads of videos I've been wanting to catch, and some that were new experiences for me.
Tommy has been vaguely interested in The Hulk for a while since he got a 4 page cardboard book from Uncle Jimmy for Christmas 2 years ago. But then when we watched The Avengers a few weeks ago, he got a good taste of The Hulk and really liked it. Since then, any time he's bare chested or Katie is bare chested, he tells me that he or Katie is The Hulk.
Tom being The Hulk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lTLnIyy0ZA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TTmD5vvo8k
The first video was a little blurry (fingerprint on the lense), but better portrays how Tommy is The Hulk. As a result of Tommy pretending to be The Hulk, we decided that a movie night was in order for Tom to watch The Incredible Hulk. Since then, he tells me that Katie is the Green Hulk, and he is the Yellow Hulk. He even told me the other day that I can be the Pink Hulk. This reminds me of a kindergartener, Dylan, when I worked at the elementary school in Colorado. He and his group of friends at lunch were the Justice League. Dylan himself was Batman, Superman, a Green Lantern, and Aquaman. He inducted me into the League as a Green Lantern and had some little hand thing and sound effect that he made so it was official.
Anyway, after The Hulk, then I got Tommy to sing Manamana for me while I had the camera on.
Then we went to my room for me to go through a bag of maternity clothes. Tom and Katie always like to play on my bed after I get it made. It's just super exciting to them for some reason. But Tom and Katie really love each other and it's so sweet to me to see them give hugs and kisses to each other, and hear Katie spontaneously say, "I love you!" to Tommy. She's such a sweet girl.
Tom started this game a while ago of talking into the lamp on my headboard, pretending to talk to Shad. Last week he and I were standing at the foot of my bed as I was getting dressed and Tom told me to say, "I love you, Dadda!" I said it kind of quietly, and Tom told me, "Be so youder (louder)." I said it a bit louder, but not sufficiently for him. He demonstrated, "No, Mom, yike dis: I YUV YOU, DADDA!!!!" Funny kid. Katie playing the game, though, let alone initiating it, was new.
And then they wanted to play with the mirror that I brought into the room. Tom said we needed to sing the "Up Down Song," which is the stoutness exercise song that Pooh sings in front of his full length mirror. I've never seen Katie act along with it before. That was fun for me.
After lunch, we wanted to Skype with my dad for his birthday, but he was on the phone with my sister and nephews. Tommy was quite okay with that. He understood that Grandpa was talking to Bode and that it was Bode's turn, and then Tommy's turn. Unfortunately, he couldn't stay awake long enough to wait for his turn. He turned me down when I asked him if he wanted to go take a nap, telling me, "No, we're all done with that." But he went ahead and grabbed his blanket and laid his head down in my lap and was out in a matter of minutes.
This was not a sick time, but a time when I had just scolded Tom so he sought Dad's comfort. He was asleep in a matter of minutes.
We've got new friends at church that we've gotten together with twice after church so far. They live in Phillipsburg, which is where church is, so we just go over after church and have dinner and games. I brought my crockpot over before church to plug it in when I brought dinner. They have a boy who is just a bit older than Tom, and a five-month-old daughter. Tom and Wolf play so well together. Seriously, I've never seen Tommy play so well with someone so close to his age. He just loves playing with his friend Wolf and going to Wolf's house. Robert and Amanda (the parents) have a pack-n-play, so Katie can take a nap and Tom does just fine skipping his nap so long as he's playing with Wolf. Otherwise, they have accommodations for Tommy to nap as well. So we've been able to stay til 7:45 the first time and 5:30 the second time because Tommy woke up from his nap and didn't feel well. It's just really fun to be able to stay so long because the kids don't force us to go home for naps.
Despite her face (she's wanting to get cleaned up and upset that I'm taking the time to get her picture first), here's a picture of how Miss Katie always has to be pretty. This was a Sunday and she picked up a head band with flower all on her own and asked me to put them on her. Then when she saw that I was wearing a necklace, she needed one, too. Hence the orange plastic one. Then during church she ended up taking my red necklace. After church, we were at Robert and Amanda's house for dinner and games, and she acquired two jingle bell Mardi Gras necklaces. She just loves to play dress up and be pretty.
Here's the baby nook I created in our bedroom. I put up a shower rod and sheet to close it off. I still need to even out the length of the sheet. It's missing a square that was cut off for Katie's Dobby rag.
We were given this framed picture for Katie when she was born, and I've never put it up. And as I tried to decide how to decorate the walls of the nook, I was inspired by the bears on the mobile. But then my mind thought about how babies see bright colors first, not pastels, so put some bright colored bears on the wall. From there, it was easy to figure out what to do. Any kid can have teddy bears on their wall, but not any kid can have dancing Grateful Dead bears to make Grandpa proud.
The technique I used for the bears was the same that I used to decorate Tom and Katie's room...which I guess I've never put up pictures of that. But they're fabric. I found the bear pictures on google and put the fabric over the computer screen so I could trace it with Sharpie. Cut it out, spray with spray starch and slap it up on the wall. It's a peel-n-stick decal. I can take them down at any time and reuse them elsewhere. Awesome!
Just yesterday Tommy read Brown Bear, Brown Bear to himself. I was very impressed.
Katie has added many new words to her vocabulary: pop (from The Very Hungry Caterpillar "...the warm sun came up and -pop!- out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar."), caterpillar, peanut butter, jelly, bear, bean, cheese, quesadilla (yes, she says, "dee-ya"), hot, necklace, pants, down, downstairs, Shopko/Kowpoke (her word is the same for both), library, Mary (our favorite librarian), Barb (our favorite employee at Shopko and the grocery store), Haddie (the 3 year-old-daughter of our Thursday game night friends), please (signed and vocal), and thank you. Ruth and I worked on Katie one day over Christmas to teach her please and thank you and she picked them up far faster than I'd ever expected her to. She says thank you spontaneously for everything! Even when she hands something to me or Tommy, she'll say thank you after placing it in my hand. And please just started to be more prevalent yesterday when she watched me make quesadillas and was begging for beans and cheese. A fun little game that she played yesterday while I was trying to get food from the fridge was pulling out the jellies from the bottom of the door. She'd pull the two jars out one by one and give them to me, saying thank you, then put them back one by one. Then repeat the game. She and I were both so proud of her for being able to maneuver the jars in and out of the door.
She knows can identify head, eye, nose, mouth, tongue, ear and hands. She likes to hold my hands so that she can walk up the stairs, which she takes one foot per stair, not stepping both feet on a stair before progressing.
Tom has been coming out with more and more complete sentences. "Mom, where's your water? I can have some your water?" "May I please have pretzels?" "Katie's not awake." I don't know if I've written about it yet, but a while ago, he made popcorn by himself. Yep, my two-year-old made popcorn in the hot air popper all by himself. He scooped the popcorn, poured it in, placed the lid back on, plugged in the cord. I reminded him to get a bowl. Not gonna lie, my kids just impress me all the time.
