Operation "Get your finger out of your nose" is underway

My name is Mommychick and I have a nose picker.

BLEH.  We've told her that if you pick your nose, you'll get sick and can't go to school/Disney World/outside.  For a few weeks, reminding her that "Princesses don't pick their nose," worked.  I even made up a song.  Wanna hear it?  Ok, to the tune of Laurie Berkner's clean up song:

Pick your nose!  No, no, no!

Use a tissue or a wipe, 

Keep those boogers out of sight!

Pick your nose!  No, no no!

You gotta wipe them away,

wipe them away, wipe those boogers away!

But my future songwriter re-wrote the lyrics to say, "Pick your nose, yummy yummy," so that doesn't work now either.

And because she has a cold, and it's snowy, I know her nose itches, but come on.  It's gross.  So I did some googling this morning (parenting skills and medical advice, there's no better place to get it!), and found that thumb sucker girls would keep their thumbs out of their mouths if their nails were painted.

Princess costume of the day today is Sleeping Beauty, pink, sparkly  and wonderful ("Actually, I'm Snow White.  I just LOOK like Sleeping Beauty because I have yellow hair and a pink dress on, but I'm really Snow White").  And the other night, I came across some nail polish that a WONDERFUL friend gave her before we moved.  

We applied the special keep-your-finger-out-of-your-nose polish just now, and so far so good.  We'll see how long this lasts, but I  have a good feeling that I'll soon have a nose picker that likes to eat paint chips.

Ok, I get it. Lay off dessert.

When I was little, I was the kid in the bubble.  I was allergic to everything except for peanuts.  And thank goodness because I LIVED off of peanut butter sandwiches and apple juice for a good 12 years.  

One of my fondest allergy memories is of  Thanksgiving.  We normally did a turkey and a ham (because that's normal and I couldn't eat turkey), but one year, we decided not to get the ham.  No one really ate it, and it's not like I LOVED ham, so my Thanksgiving dinner was going to be a HAMburger.  With all of the cooking excitement, my hamburger ended up being burnt to a crisp so my mom made me a peanut butter sandwich in the shape of a turkey with a little help from a cookie cutter.    

(Eggs are the devil.  Don't you just love google?!)

My egg allergy was so bad that I couldn't eat pancakes, so my pancakes were simply bisquick and water (no milk, no egg).  I know, yumm, right?  Thanks to allergy shots, drugs and time, I outgrew MOST of my allergies.  At my last scratch test 10-12 years ago, the only foods that showed up were chicken and eggs, but chicken was super light and egg wasn't that  bad.  So I was told chicken in moderation and don't eat an egg by itself, but eggs in things would be fine.

Fast forward to last night.  Hubs has some farm people in town for work and was in a meeting all day Monday and meetings and a dinner last night.  The dinner was at a nice little Italian place, and knowing I LOVE tiramisu, he brought a piece home for us to split.  I haven't tasted that fatty goodness in a while because it has raw egg in it, so I tried to avoid it when I was pregnant, so I was doubly excited.  

There I am, facebook chatting with a BFF, watching Biggest Loser and eating my cake (hee hee).  End the chat with my buddy and take my last savory bite.  As SOON as I put the fork down, I feel my throat swelling.  I grab the children's benadryl because that's all we had  and down it.  Nothing.  Meanwhile, I'm googling throat swelling (because I turn to google for all of my medical advice) and the only thing WebMD will tell me is "Seek medical attention immediately."  I get hubs to call the hospital that is right next to our house to see if they have an E.R.  They probably thought we were nuts, but I thought it was just a maternity hospital and didn't want to roll up into Labor and Delivery with anaphylactic  shock.

I told hubs not to worry, that I would probably get there, have to wait for an hour or seven and be fine and they would think I was just a drama llama, so I (the idiot) drove myself.  By the time I got checked in, the nurse had run out to get me, slapped me on a bed and they were going nuts.  Three nurses trying to get my vitals, poor lab tech guy blew my good vein while he was trying to start and iv, I started to rash all over my neck and chest and my blood pressure was something outrageous like 162/115.   They started pushing drugs and got me stable and my bp started to drop little by little, but told me I would need to call someone to come get me.  I felt fine, but they said I would be a little loopy (they were right).

I'm assuming that it was the raw egg in the tiramisu, but I really thing it was God slapping me in the face because not only did I skip my workout today, I was eating dessert really late while I watch people working their butts off to lose weight.  Next time, I guess I'll snack on rice cakes.

Time outs just don't work in this house

The kids just love each other too, darn much.  Most of the time, if Nugget has to go to time out, after apologizing to me (or hubs), he will go hug the dog too.  Why?  Because the majority of his first time outs were for sitting on her, eating her food, trying to get her to play duck, duck, goose by slapping her on the head, you get the idea.  So now he just goes over and say, "Chorry!" and gives her a kiss.

When Strip is in time out, Nugget will just go sit with her until time's up.  Take for example today.  We were in the laundry room, and Nugget was helping me change over loads.  He was then, super pumped about getting to toss his big boy sheets in the washer.  Woo hoo!  Movin' out of the crib!  

So what could Strip could have possibly done to get

 sent to time out?  It started by her trying to slam Nugget's hand in the drier, multiple times.  She was given her warning, and she did it again, so she was banished from the fun of doing laundry -- oh the horror!  But she came back in and managed to swing the washer door closed just as Nugget was standing up so, WACK!  Right in the head.  I channel SuperNanny

"You are in time out because you smacked your brother in the head with the washing machine door.  You are in time out and cannot come back in here for 3 1/2 minutes."

Tears, screams and drama follows. And here's Nugget:

Please excuse the boot, pile of towels (they were going in next, I swear!) and the Pampers Crack Nugget is sporting.  Sigh.  At least they love each other, right?

Wow. I was WAY off

So last night, I posted about the dvd player.  Today hubs decided to free the dvds.  Let's take a look through pictures.

1.  A look through the vent:

Care to guess how many there are?

Time's up!

2.   The top is removed and we can now see...

Wow.  I thought there were no more than three.  Let's spread them out and count, shall we?

11, plus two things that aren't even dvds, but are kind of shape like one.  I'm telling you, that kid is good!

When in doubt, check small spaces

We recently got our cards for our awesomely awesome library.  This thing is HUGE!  Love it.  The day we went, it was me and the kiddos, and it was WAY too close to lunch.  So after signing up for the read-a-thon, we grabbed the closest 5 books and got out of there.   Hubs went by after work to get his card and picked up a couple of dvds for the kids.

Strip was really excited to get Bambi, but because it was the library's and it was a double disk and I didn't want to replace it, I put the dvd in the player in the basement and kept the other pieces upstairs.  So a week goes by and we are gathering our books to return and we cannot find Bambi disk one anywhere.  We tore the entire house apart, but nothing.  That's ok, we'll just renew if for another week.  It has to be here somewhere.  It never left the basement!  We start to put the house back together and reorganize, but still no Bambi.  I go through every dvd case to make sure it hasn't been put away in the wrong place.  Still nothing.  But, I did have a nice little stack of cases that were also missing dvds.  Great.

Tonight, I convince hubs to do 30DS with me (more on that in the next post), so we head to the basement with the kiddos, toss them in the bounce house and get ready to work out.  The dvd player is hooked up to the kids little tv, so hubs unplugged it and handed it to me so we could hook it up to the big tv.  As I set it down on the tv stand, I look through that little grate/vent on top where the dvd spins and see Cars...and about three other dvds.  Think we found Bambi!  We have to pop the top off before we get the final count, but I'm guessing at least three and placing the blame solely on Nugget.

Kids are the best

There is a really good sale on furniture at a local store.  We went in Sunday to look around and decided, tonight, to go back and buy Nugget his big boy bed.  Why?  Because I need something to write about :-)  Anyway, we ended up getting a great deal on a nice bed, but by the time we got the bed, picked up dog food and got some oatmeal, it was going to be waaaay too late for me to make mashed potatoes for Shepherd's Pie and get the kids to bed (and they were already loopy!).  So we decided to just have sandwitches and cook tomorrow.

We get home and plop the kids at the table, and I open the kitchen for requests; toasty cheese or peanut butter?  Strip's response:  You mean we get to have lunch for dinner?!?!?  WOW!  But wait, there's more!  After they finished their five star dinner, Strip went to get the ice cream out of the freezer, but because they were relatively clean and bedtime was fast approaching, I said, "No, no!  I have something else for you!" and extracted the organic bunny chocolate chip cookies that were in the back of the pantry.  Strip's response:  "WOW!  This must certainly be a special day!!"

I just love my kids :-)

I. Am. Tired.

Ugh.  I cannot stay up until 2 a.m.,  and I certainly can't GET up at 2 am.  But for some reason, Nugget decided that 2 is the new 7.  I do not agree.

I love looking back at Strip's pictures when she was his age.  In fact, I was thinking about this last night before I went to bed.  Here is Strip at Nugget's age:

Hang on while I dry my tears.  Sniff sniff.  Who is that sweet baby?! Ok.  So here's Strip at 21 months.  She is sitting on her big girl bed which she moved into with very little issue.  She was a good sleeper, and did really well.  

So I was thinking that Nugget's a great sleeper, doesn't really get up in the middle of the night (unless he's teething), and although he hasn't climbed out of the crib yet, the kid is part monkey, so it's only a matter of time.  Maybe we should go ahead an put him in a big boy bed...

Wrong.  2 am, he starts crying.  He's getting a new tooth, so I gave him a little tylenol and hoped for the best.  2:30, still crying.  Pick him up and he cuddles up, but I don't want to take him into our bed because he will see the dog and want to play, so we go into the guest room where I swear it is 8 degrees.  I somehow manage to keep him still, but then he sees the "hm-no" outside and wants to play.  He hops out of bed and RUNS to the door.  I decide this is not working, so at 3:30, I go down and fix him some nice, soothing, warm papaya juice, tell him mommy's tired and put him back in his crib where he cries, "Oh!  Mama!  Oh Dadda!" all while hubs is reminding me that he has to work in the morning.  I tell hubs that there's nothing that will calm him down, he just wants to play.  I remind him that if he comes in to our room, he'll see June and want to play, then I roll over, and HELLO! Strip has somehow wormed her way in to our bed.  Awesome.  We can't stand it anymore, so hubs storms in and tells Nugget "I have to work in the morning!!!" which, really, I don't think Nug cared, but he curled up and fell right to sleep.  Little stinker.

So we all slept in one bed, which I guess was ok because it was pretty cold last night.  I was really glad Nugget was in lockdown, because unlike Strip, I think he would be down in the basement with the bounce house blown up just a hoppin'.  

And if that night weren't good enough, the kid took no nap, and now has a puncture wound on his forehead where he ran into a wall that has a rough finish.  

On a lighter note, we had good snow in the backyard, so I promised the kids if it got above 0, we would go outside and play.  I think it took us 20 minutes to gather gloves, scarves, hats and boots, get bundled and get out there.  I purposefully wore no hat so when it felt like my ears were going to fall off, I said it was time to go back inside.  "Noooo!  We're having fuuunnnn!"  I get them on to the screened porch and am peeling off the layers when I notice the drool that has dripped onto Nugget's jacket has frozen.  Wow.  That's cold!

I'm hoping that the 4 hours in the bounce house and the 6 minutes playing outside wore them out.  We'll see.

And now I'm getting fashion advice from a 3 year-old

Because having your son pee in your ugly shoes isn't bad enough.

After spending the afternoon making my meal list for the week, writing a grocery list and clipping coupons, Strip and I headed over to do our weekly shopping.  I just threw on some grocery store grubs (jeans, t shirt, jacket and uggs), and put some comfy warm clothes on Strip which she hated.  If it were up to her, she's wear a dress every day.  AND, she comments on how I don't wear a dress and it bugs her (especially to church).

Anyway, we're on the way home, and it was starting to get dark.  One of the neighborhoods had lights, wreaths and lighted garland all lit up.

       Strip:  Ooohh how stylish!

       Me:  giggle

       Strip:  What?  Stylish is a fancy word for fancy.

 

       Me:  O0ooh.  Well, Am I stylish?

       Strip:  Not in that outfit.

Nice. 

      Strip:  Mommy.  Remember when it was Christmas, and 

                   we went to church, and you wore that black dress

                   and the tights and the neck-a-less?

       Me:  Yes

       Strip:   That was stylish.

Point taken.  I'll try to look a little better when I drop you off for preschool tomorrow and not embarrass you in front of the other three year-olds.

He either really likes them, or is giving me fashion tips

When I was super pregnant with Nugget, I flew to my parents house for a bridal shower I was co-hosting and my cousin's baby's first birthday.  Because of flying restrictions and the fact that my bellybutton had turned inside out, I decided to treat myself to a new pair of shoes.  I didn't want to teeter around in heels, and the thought of lacing up tennis shoes with  a 20 month-old running around the airport just did not sound like fun.  So, I strolled in to Target and bought myself a lovely pair of black ballet flats that hubs has hated since I pulled them out of the bag.  It did not matter that they were on sale for $8, they were the ugliest pair of shoes he had ever seen.  They were, however, really easy to take on and off for security check-in and great for work, so I think I got my money's worth in that first month. 

So here we are, two years later, and I still have the same pair of (ugly) shoes.  Both kids were starting to smell, so I tossed them in the shower for a good scrubbing.  After a nice, relaxing tub, I let them have a little naked time while I got ready and dried their hair.  We have a nice sized bathroom that has a walk-in closet attached, so they get free reign over those two rooms and can entertain themselves for hours playing dress up in my heels.  That's what was happening today, until Nugget clomped into the closet and got quiet.  Strip walks in behind him and I hear, "Ooooooooooh mommy!"

"What is it?"

"He just tee-teed in your shoe!"

"Are you sure it's tee-tee, or is it drool?"

"Nope, it's tee-tee!"

Sure enough, in the middle of my closet was my poor little black ballet flat with a nice yellow puddle.  I've got to hand it to him, he has great aim.  As Strip was filling her dad in tonight, she added that she knew it was tee-tee because "there was a line, just shooting out of his body, into the shoe!  And I knew, it was tee-tee."

So, he was either claiming those as his own, or not-so-subtly telling me that the shoes were horrible and it was time to let them go.  They have now been retired to the garbage can.

Things you hear yourself say as a mother Part 1

I label this part 1 because I am sure there will be more sometime soon.  These are just a few of the gems I've caught myself saying since becoming a mom:

• It's oatmeal, not hair gel
• Please don't stand in the refrigerator 
• No table dancing
• I know your panties are cute, but please keep your dress down
• Don't ride the dog
• Don't eat the dog's food
• please don't wash your face in the dog's water bowl
• Yay for poop!
• Jesus can still see you pick your nose, even if you're under a blanket!

He speaks!

Strip was a talkaholic very early on.  I joke that Nugget doesn't talk much because he can't get a word in with Strip around.  I finally started teaching him signs so he wouldn't just scream at everyone.  He's doing pretty well, and is adding to his vocabulary every day.  

He now says the following: mama, dada, ma, papa, "Strip", woof woof  (for the dog), snow, mo (more), please, thanks, sorry, car, choo choo, eat, oats, cookie (for cracker), Mickey, boo, water, bock bock, duck, mooooo, uh oh, ho ho, teeth, raisins, and I'm sure there's 'mo' I just can't think of them all right now.  

He loves to sing, and both kids love the Wicked soundtrack.  Strip's favorite song is "One Short Day," and Nugget's is "Popular."  We get in the car Wednesday to pick up Strip from school, and Nugget was fussing.  I asked if he wanted to sing and he nodded yes, so I put on his song.  He was still fussing, so I turned it down.  He was shaking his head no the whole time.  I said, "You don't want this, buddy?  What's the matter?"  and he said, "Sing, MEEE-EE-EE DOWN!"  Which would be "Gravity."  His first sentence is a request for show tunes :-)  Love it.  Oh, and Strip's first sentence was, "I want that." while pointing to something.  I love my kids!

I'm sure it will taper off in first grade

This applies to two things.

First, is Strips height.  She has ALWAYS been in the 75-95th percentile for height.  I have no idea why, neither of us are tall, in

 fact I was always the kid sitting in front of the sign in class pictures.  Ohh, how I wanted to stand on the back row of the risers.  And her feet!  Thank goodness we lived near a Stride Rite outlet because the kid went up a full size every month at one point in her life.  We just had to buy her new shoes, and check out these skis:

I remember the first day of the first grade.  I had on my brand new pair of white keds.  I felt great.  I went to school, where everyone made fun of my little, baby feet.  "What size are those?"  "11's"  "HAHAHAHA, baby feet, baby feet!"  Everyone else had a size 1, at least.  :-(  At the rate she's going, she'll be wearing MY shoes by kindergarten.  

Anyway, the kid is also an elephant and doesn't forget a thing.  One of her favorite books as a little baby was "Brown Bear, Brown Bear," and she learned all of the animals.  So PaPa and Ma come with us to Disney World for Strip's 3rd birthday.  We walk in to Animal Kingdom, and Ma says, "Ohh!  Look at the parrot!"  to which Strip says, "Ack-ully (actually) that's a Scarlet Macaw."  And she was totally right.

We are doing the library reading challenge right now and the kids have a chart to fill in when they read, and a penguin that they can color.  It's a little die cut card stock thing.  Well, hers had a little stringy piece of paper that didn't quite get cut off.  It almost looked like her penguin had hair.  Rainbaby (as we use to call her because of her ocd tendencies) noticed it right away, but her response?

"Oooh!  Mine can me a marconi penguin!"  

For those of you not up on your animals, here is a visual so you don't have to google it:

And she colored it yellow this morning, and I cannot tell you the last time that kid saw a picture of a marconi penguin.  Crazy.

That wasn't exactly even...

Do I look different?  Hubs went all out for Christmas this year.  We just bought a house, so we sort of agreed that we would just call that Christmas to each other, and maybe just get a couple of things to open on Christmas morning.  

So after decorating the Christmas tree, he stuck an envelope in it, surprising me with tickets to Wicked and a weekend in Chicago.  Not cheap.  And even though it was my Christmas present, that man loves a good musical, so it was kind of a win win.  After house and Chicago, we agreed that we were really done with Christmas.

So Christmas morning, the kids and family are opening presents.  Hubs gave me a card with a sweet little note from him and some cash.  I have to share this part because it cracks me up:

                             I was going to get you a gift card to get some coffee, but then

                            I got in the wrong lane, so I said screw it, I'll give her cash.

Hee hee love you, too!  He also gave me a new lap desk, which I was over the moon about.  My old one was made by my sorority big sister and had completely fallen apart over the years.  In fact, this year, I had actually thrown it away (sorry, Em!), but dug it out of the bag when it was time to address Christmas card envelopes, then thrown it away again.  I figured he saw me dumpster dive and didn't want me to keep fishing it out of the can.

After the kids were in bed, I plopped down on the couch with his work laptop.  He came over and closed it and put it away.  I was ticked!  HellO!  I was in the middle of something!  He said I had one more present to open.  And my loving wife response was, "Well, don't shut that down.  I need to finish what I was doing."  Open the last present and there in the box, shining in all it's glory, is a new MacBook.  Woop woop!  That was the real reason he got me the lap desk.

So last week, I'm video chatting with one of my best buds and she asked what all I got for Christmas.  After rattling off all of my great stuff, she asked what I got him. 

Ummm.  A sweater.

We both died laughing.  He did get some nice pjs from Target, too and some new face wash and shave gel... yeah, I think I came out on top.  In my defense, he did get a nice PS3 with extra controller, games and blurays last year.  I just couldn't top that.  Guess we'll just alternate big Christmases for each other.  Good thing I have a full year to try to come up with something!

Not quite a poker face

Santa gave us Candy Land this year, and strip loves it.  All in all, she plays pretty fair and is encouraging of others.  

The night after Christmas, my brother and I were playing it with her, and we both had drawn at least one special candy piece allowing us to move up faster.  Strip had sighed and moaned how she was NEVER going to get a candy card.  Two turns later, I pull Jib the Gingerbread boy and have to go all the way back to the beginning (and I was up by Princess Frostine, I'll have you know).  So trying to show Strip how to be a gracious looser, I say,

Me:  Awe, man.  I have to go all the way back to the beginning now.

Strip: Awww huh huh huh ha ha hahaha.

So wish I had an audio, but as you can imagine, she starts out with the genuine "Awe, that stinks" but realizing that she can now win the game, breaks out in to an evil laugh.

P and I try our best not to wet our pants laughing.

The big brown hound

 My brother has a reindeer, er dog that came to stay with us over Christmas.  He rode up in the rv with my parents and hung out with our dog, June Bug, until P could get here.  Did I mention he's huge?  Sweet, but large.  Here's a visual:

Bless him.  I should also note that we have squirrels here bigger than cats.  So one day, I let the pups out, and Tay runs full speed toward a tree, jumps, and I swear almost landed on the second row of branches.  That dog has ups.  Fast forward to Wicked weekend.  Sat. morning, I call to check on the kids, dogs and PaPa, and my mom starts talking to the dogs, then my dad about how the dogs want to go outside.  The last thing I hear is my mom saying, "Well there's someone walking by and they want to say hello!  Oh Lord!  *click*"

I knew it.  I wait about 8 minutes and call back.  I asked mom if Taylor had jumped the fence and her response was "like the cow jumping over the moon."  And he went through not one, but two fences, as my mom is standing in her pjs on our porch shouting, "It's ok!  He's really sweet!  He just wants to say hello!" and runs after him.  I just wish I could have been there to see the other person's face as this giant, brown horse comes shooting out of our house toward them!  Priceless!

Dinner Conversations

We are exactly 6 months from our next Disney trip.  I know, because I have been obsessing about it for the past week, and now that it's planned, we can just get excited.  When I was setting everything up, I asked Strip if there was anyone special she wanted to eat with while we were there.  Big shocker, she wants to go to Cinderella's castle.  

We've been three times before, so we know the drill.  The first time, it was our last day at Disney and the only character dining, so we thought what the heck.  Kids loved it.  So, I called like a madwoman trying to get a table for Strip's birthday.  I was finally able to get a seating for dinner during a Pirates and Princess party.  So, Nugget was dressed as a pirate and Strip was dressed as Cinderella.  Third time was another, last minute, they were open, why not, but because we weren't there for a party, we were just in our normal Disney clothes.  We stand in line to be greeted by Cinderella and Strip is all kind of excited.  It's our turn, and the photo guy takes Strip's autograph book and hands it to Cinderella, totally throwing her off.  She looks at her shoes and bursts into tears (and if that weren't bad enough, we still had lunch to sit through, and it's not cheap but it IS pre-paid, so it's not like we were really going to leave).  Cinderella was super gracious and said we could come back after lunch to try again.

I take Strip to the bathroom where she calms down.  I finally ask if she's sad because she wasn't dressed up and she shook her head "no," but I still kind of thought that was the problem.  I assured her that not everyone was dressed up, and she was still a princess even in her normal dress.  She said ok, and we left the bathroom just as a gaggle of 6 year-olds came in all decked out princess style.

So, tonight we are talking about Disney, chatting about Cinderella and she asks if she can wear her new Snow White dress that day.  I said sure, and she says, "That's why I was crying that day." 

Me:  When were you crying?

Strip:  The last time we were at Cinderella's (the kid is an elephant, she forgets nothing)

Me:  You were crying because you didn't have a princess dress on?

Strip:  Yeah.

Me:  Awe, sweetie, I'm sorry!

Strip:  That's ok, Mommy.  Everyone makes mistakes some time.

Three and a half and already blaming her mother for all her problems.  The teenage years are going to be fun.

Everyone's a critic

We are doing the nighttime ritual, teeth are brushed and pjs are being put on.  I  have Nugget in his room, selecting  some rockin' Thomas pjs and Hubs has Strip in her room selecting a story.  Apparently, he made the mistake of picking "Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You?"  Why?  I have no idea, but she comes in to Nugget's room with the book and says,

 

"Mom.  Dad wants to read this book, but it's freakin' terrible.  It's horrible, just horrible."

Wow.  Ok.  Who would have thought that such a sweet little face could have such a strong literary opinion.  

Long time no blog

Whew, it's been a crazy Christmas!  As soon as my little chickens are tucked in, I'll try to get caught up on everything.  Right now they are having way too much fun throwing blocks down the stairs.  Hope everyone is off to a great new year!  Scroll back in a few hours!