7 Years!

Mike and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on Tuesday. He had the day off which was nice since he only gets one day off a week. We pretty much just stayed around the house because Emma Mae had been sick and we were half expecting her to have a fever at some point. Mike took her with him to wash his car so I could go to HEB all by myself. Because nothing says I love you like giving your poor wife an hour of solitude in the grocery store. It was heaven.

After that we all went up to Jake's school to have lunch with him. I am loving lunch time with Kindergarteners. This time I met a cute little one named Emma who managed to finagle some of my potato chips from me (but only after I made her eat some applesauce.) Emma is a character. She reminded me of our little Emma. In fact, the two of them spent some time together under the table doing everything but eating their food.

That afternoon I made an apple pie because I know the way to my husband's heart is through his stomach. I carved a little heart with our initials in it on the crust but they kind of faded during baking. It's the thought that counts, right?

 

 

We ended up ordering food from Chili's for dinner. It was pretty good, but I'm still holding out hope that we'll get to go out to celebrate sometimes soon. Jake took our picture to commemorate the evening.

Once the kids were in bed we decided to cuddle up on the couch and watch an episode of The Walking Dead. Very romantic, don't you think? After that it was on to a Daily Show episode. Not ten minutes into that show, our power went out. The house was black. That's a little freaky after watching zombies. So we sat on the couch for a couple minutes waiting for it to come back on. But it didn't. So I looked in Mike's general direction and said "um, should we be concerned?" And he was like "it's no big deal, sometimes the power goes off". And I was thinking "yeah, the power goes off when the zombies attack or the ax murderer is in your house or the terrorists are here." Because nothing can stifle my imagination.

So Mike got up and headed to the front of the house which I thought was a big mistake because there is a lot of space between our couch and our front door for a boogeyman to be hiding after he cuts the power off in your house. So I got up and walked the three feet it takes to get to the back door and looked outside. The entire neighborhood was black. It was so weird. I was pretty confident it was the terrorists by this point. We ended up in the front yard yelling over to our neighbors who were also outside and were freaking out because they had been watching Revolution when the lights went out. Just as we decided that somebody better call someone, the lights came back on. And just like that our fears were relieved. And I knew I wouldn't have to associate our 7 year anniversary with the night the Chinese or the Russians or the whoever's took out the power in small town USA and invaded the country.

MIA

We have spent the past three and a half weeks with one sick child or another. First Jake battled a sinus infection from which he is still harboring a stubborn cough. Then little sister tried to one up him and came down with pneumonia. So we have pretty much been staying around the house and Emma and I are going stir CRAZY. We've had to miss work/school for a week now since she has been running a fever for a solid week. Tonight the poor little thing looked at me and said "mama, when is this supposed to be over?" I felt so sorry for her. And I feel like the answer is NOW. This is supposed to be over now. So, we may be going back to see the doctor in the morning.

The morning, which will be my 7th wedding anniversary to beloved hubby by the way. I was planning to have the neighbors babysit the kids so we could go have dinner at some cool restaurant in Austin we've never been to before. But now it looks like we might just have to get something from the Chili's to go menu and dine in tomorrow evening. I don't know many people who are going to jump at the offer to come babysit a three year old with pneumonia! Oh well. We'll make it through.

At any rate, our lives have been pretty dull so I haven't had much to write about. Unless you want to hear about how I've had a headache for three days now. And how this morning I went to take two ibuprofin for it and then had a sneaking suspicion that I had already just taken two ibuprofin for it but I couldn't be one hundred percent sure because I have lost my ever loving mind. So I took two just in case I hadn't already taken them and thought what could be better than two ibuprofin? Four ibuprofin.

Or maybe you would like to know how my neighbor/friend Misty and I stood out in my driveway today for fifteen minutes talking about something her daughter found in the dog's poop. She thought it was a leech. So she brought it over in a jar for me to look at. Then she screamed every time I took the lid off the jar to get a closer look. Because really, this is the most interesting thing I've seen in a week. We both freaked out for awhile about how a dog could have swallowed a leech and pooped it out and the thing could still be alive. Then we talked about how gross leeches are. Then I looked really close at the thing and saw the two cutest little antennae sticking out of its head. Then I determined it was a slug that was probably just trying to eat the dog poop. Case closed.

Speaking of poop, you know things are less than exciting in your life when you hear your five year old boy shout from the bathroom "mom! you got to come see this poop!" And you go. Even though you know it's gonna be gross and it can in no way enrich your life to look upon such a sight. But really, what else do you have to do? Nothing. Except maybe go take some more ibuprofin.

Gems of the Day

I have two thoughts to leave you with this evening. Both of them are direct quotes from our children.

The first occurred this morning as I was getting out of the shower and Emma Mae came into the bathroom (shocking!) to see (bother) me. She looked me straight in the eye and said "mommy?" So I said "yes, baby?" And she said "I promise I won't ever laugh at you when I see you naked." And I went and wrote her into the will.

The second happened this evening as I was sitting on the couch with Jake and Emma. We were doing our before bed reading time. Emma was sitting on one side of me and Jake on the other. All cuddled up. Listening intently to my every word. Then I felt Jake poke me in the tummy. Then I heard him say "looks like you might have a baby in there." And I went and wrote him out of the will. The end.

My new bandwagon

I am completely hooked on this blog right now. I've been flirting with giving up or at least cutting back on sugar and white flour for awhile now. The problem is that I really love sugar. And sugar goes really well with white flour. Also, whole wheat flour just tastes weird to me when you put it in baked goods. And I love to bake. It's my therapy.

Anyhow, I've been reading the 100 Days of Unprocessed Food blog and she has some really great ideas and lots of menus to give you ideas about how to eat whole, real, unprocessed foods. So I told the family that we were going to try this out for a week to see how it goes. And Mike was like "um, ok, I might cheat when you're not around." And Jake was like "Yeah! I want to eat healthy! Do you have any cookies?" And Emma Mae was like "these pants are itching me!" And I was like "whatever. you guys will eat what I cook."

So we started on Monday. I made these delicious whole wheat cinammon waffles. Everyone ate them but Jake. Then for dinner that night I made whole wheat crust pizza. And Jake said it tasted funny. Apparently his taste buds are highly sensitive to the whole wheat flour thing. He hasn't been happy with anything I've made where I've had to substitute it for white flour. Very frustrating. Then today I made Emma Mae some mac and cheese with whole wheat pasta and she totally rebelled. Hmm. So far I feel like this is not going so well.

I actually don't think it's that bad. I made it sugar free/ white flour free all day Monday and Tuesday. And guess what? I lost two pounds! I also didn't feel the need to take a nap at noon! Then on Wednesday, I cheated and had a piece of Papa John's pizza at work and then one of the mom's in our class brought Jana and I a big chocolate frosted brownie as a treat. I was totally sabatoged. Sure, I could have given Jana the whole brownie and not said anything to the mom. But do you really think I'm strong enough to turn down a frosted brownie? The answer is no. My flesh is so weak. And that brownie was so good. Alas, I gained back the two pounds. And I had to lay down for awhile when I got home from work.

I was really hoping to see if the lack of sugar would make it easier for the kids to focus. Unfortunately, Emma Mae was given Goldfish crackers at a play date and Jake's class got rewarded for good behavior yesterday with ice cream sandwiches. Why do we reward ourselves in our society with sugar filled  processed goods? Oh yeah, because they taste good. But we are going to try to make it through four more days of cleaner eating. And then we will probably reward ourselves with a trip to the ice cream shop.  

The Wonder Years

Well, we spent the last four days with a sick boy and an overly emotional little girl. It's been wonderful. It's times like these when I look back at my young, idealistic, completely unrealistic twenty something year old self and I laugh at her. In the face. Because that girl thought that having small children was gonna be so much fun! Every day! Because we were going to spend the mornings together coloring pictures, blowing bubbles and possibly having pillow fights. Then we would go to Chick Fil A for lunch and come home and take naps. Long naps. Every single day. Then the kids would play nicely together or with their imaginary friends while I made dinner from scratch. Every single night. Then after dinner they would sit at my feet and read books while I watched reruns of The Cosby Show on TV. Oh, twenty something self. What were you thinking??

That girl had no idea she would be in a full body sweat first thing in the morning after spending 45 minutes trying to get that cute little angel dressed. Because Emma Mae cannot pick out her own clothes (it's too hard!) (and her legs don't work!) (and she's so tired!) But she also cannot wear anything we pick out because those clothes are too long! or too tight! or too loose! or, and this is my favorite, too itchy!

That girl didn't know she would still be getting up three or four times a night with sick little ones who are coughing and/or are afraid of the dark all of a sudden. Of course, that girl didn't know how much she could love those two little munchkins she would have someday either. So I guess that's the trade off.

Last week in school Jake was chosen to be the Star Leader. So that meant we got to make a poster board all about him and he got to take something for show and tell every day. Unfortunately, he had to miss school on Friday because he was sick so he didn't get to show off his beloved Shamu. He saved the best for last. (Don't worry, he opened with Crabby). He also was at risk for not being able to bring home this guy the last day. The Star Leader gets to bring home their class mascot for the weekend. Isn't Kindergarten fun?? I want to go! It's kind of how I pictured parenting would be back when I didn't have a clue what it would really be like.

So even though Jake wasn't feeling great we went to the school to pick up Skippy Jon so we could take him on some adventures so we would have pictures for the journal that Jake (and I totally mean I) had to fill out to take back to school tomorrow. We went to a pumpkin patch.

I'm pretty sure in each of these pictures that Emma Mae's saying "I'm itchy!" "These pants are itching me!"

Conference time

On Tuesday Mike and I went up to Jake's school to have our first parent/teacher conference of the year. I got my hair done that morning so I could make a good impression. I was excited and a wee bit nervous to hear what his sweet teacher would say about him. Basically, it seems that he is pretty much on track with the average Kindergartener but time management may be a concern in the future. I can totally understand this considering it takes him about three hours to clean up his room because he gets distracted by things like playing with the toys he is supposed to be picking up and shiny objects and things he can stuff down his pants.

I was relieved to hear her say that he is a sweet boy who doesn't have a mean bone in his body because you may remember he had some aggression issues in pre-school. She also confirmed our suspicions that he and another sweet boy at his table may think it is their mission in life to crack people up. They may find themselves sitting at different tables in a few weeks. The word "firecracker" was used several times in reference to our boy. I can totally understand that too. Mike and I both said something to the effect of "wait till you meet his little sister in two years, she's a stick of dynamite." Emma Mae's reputation may precede her to Kindergarten.

His teacher told us one other thing that had me cracking up. But now that it has been pointed out I can totally understand it as well. She said that the other Kinder teachers and first grade teachers call Jake "little Matthew McConaughey". Without the bongo's of course. What do you think? Ok, maybe when Jake's hair is a little longer and the curls are going wild. Still cute.