Bizarro World

So tonight wins in bizarro world. Drew was in the tub and Addi was in her crib and started crying, then louder, and then outright screaming. I tried to calm her down but she would have none of it. She wasn't thirsty, didn't want her blankie, so I chalked it up to being tired so I put her back down....crying.

At the same time, I hear Drew start crying in the tub asking Patrick for MOMMY to wash him (mind you, he generally prefers Daddy.) Patrick insists on finishing up the bath with Drew...so we have two kids crying.

The weird part is that after Patrick gets Drew out of the tub, Drew is so upset that I didn't give him his bath that he INSISTS on getting another bath (huh???) and me to wash his hair (?????) He hates having his hair washed. What is going on?!?!?

So I say fine and start to give him his bath with requisite second hair washing. Meanwhile, Patrick picks up Addi and figures out what she wanted all along....a barette in her hair. That's right, there's nothing like dolling up your hair go to go to bed....when you're 1!!!

Very strange. At least Addi didn't stick anything up her nose tonight. That's an improvement over last night....

Germs, Germs Everywhere

Over the past two days, I've battled the flu. Luckily, it was the good ole 24 hour flu, not H1N1, but still...felt pretty darn lousy yesterday. While not feeling well, I wouldn't let the kids climb on me and kept telling Drew that I was sick. So naturally, as any 3 year old would do, he kept asking "why are you sick?" and "How did you get sick?"

So while picking him up from daycare today, he asked again "why are you sick?" I decided that this is a perfect opportunity to give a little education about GERMS!

So I told him that I got germs and that this is why we wash our hands before eating - to get rid of germs because we don't want to get sick. (See, just trying to reinforce the necessity of hygiene.) So like a good 3 year old, he asks "why didn't you wash your hands?" And a woman who washes her hands quite a bit, I was taken aback. (I mean, who wants to be accused of not washing their hands???)

So I respond that there are a lot of ways to get germs. Some one could have coughed on me and that's why we cover our mouths when we cough...because coughing on other people can put germs on them. (Again, trying to tie the reasoning into why I nag him to cover his mouth.) And once again, he says, "Why did someone cough on you?"

Gotta love a 3-year olds sense of logic.

Luckily he decided to stop asking questions once I told him how germy the toilet is. I can only imagine how he would have followed that one up.

Running in the Dark

Over the past few weeks, I've noticed that there is reason to get out the door and do some exercise. Namely, that little flat piece of metal on the bathroom floor tells me numbers that I don't particularly care for. And last week it hit a number that made me go "uh oh."

So, I made myself get out the jogging stroller and jog over the weekend. As I thought back to my marathon days, I begrudgingly reminded myself that I have to run during the week too. Back in those days, I rolled into work around 9:00 (or later), so to go running beforehand, I got up around 6:00. Not so these days! Doing the math, I realized that I had to get up around 5:00 to get a short run in.

So after procrastinating the run for a few days, I got my rear out of bed at 5:10 and was outside by 5:15. As I looked up in the sky, I was amazed to see all the stars. It was incredible. It didn't take much effort to see the big dipper...and that's when I realized that perhaps it was a little early to be running. I mean, are we really supposed to be picking out constellations?

Of course the kicker was when I got back home (just before 6:00) and Patrick (still in bed) asks me where I went. (Exactly whereall could I have gone at 5:15 in the morning?) After he said that he heard the front door open, I laughed. It probably didn't matter if it was me opening the door or a burgler, there was no way he was getting out of bed!

Now, we shall see if I am able to repeat this tomorrow morning...

What Drew Says

Had to laugh tonight cause Drew was at the table and out of blue he started saying "Humpy Dumpy." And while I tried to correct him, he just couldn't get the "t's" in there. It's just wrong on a few levels...but all I could do was laugh.

And of course there was last night when he uttered, "I don't like macaroni & cheese, feed me green beans." Well, when a kid demands his green beans I guess you just HAVE to give in.

And have I mentioned that Drew likes to "make" guns and "shoot" them? By making guns, I mean that he will put 2 pieces of train track together and call it a gun, or pick up a stick and call it a gun, or even just use his hand in the gun shape. Needless to say, when he did this at school, and "shot" at a teacher, he got in trouble. (An "office" time out mind you.) So now he is well aware that shooting is not allowed...which is why whenever he "makes" a gun, it's now a squirter. And no, neither Patrick nor I told him this, he came up with the water gun loophole all on his own. I don't know whether to be proud of his ingenuity or shake my head because I am in for some crazy years ahead.

And Another Thing

So after many moons of wondering how Drew's speech was developing, we started taking him to speech therapy through the school district (hey, it's free and my tax dollars pay for it, so why not.)

He's been going two days a week and despite the fact that he is doing much better, they keep finding sounds for him to work on. For example, last week one of the words was "mule." Seems pretty easy to you and me, right? Nope....let's sound it out: me-you-ul. Then I have correct him on musicbox (no, it's not mu-stick box). No wonder it's hard for him to get.

So as I pull the sheet out to work on with him tonight, full of one & two syllable words, Drew insists on playing with his dinosaurs. "No mommy, I need to put the stegosaurus next to the tyrannosaurus rex. That's a velocirapter. I like the triceratops." My mouth just about dropped. (Patrick was laughing at me.)

Verdict: Ostrich - hard and boring 2 syllable word for a 3 year old
Tyrannosaurus Rex - way too cool to not learn how to say

I guess we'll be able to drop out of speech therapy once we hit the dino words.

So You Say It's Been Too Long

Okay, I've gotten the harrassment about not posting, so I am sitting here and I am writing. (I would officially like to blame Pher for quitting his posts as the loss of my inspiration. After all, he had some interesting insights...but I digress.)

I have to share a funny story, but I will warn anyone who does not have kids that you may not appreciate it.

We have been working with Drew on potty training. So I'm sitting with him in the bathroom and I remind him that he needs to wipe. So he balls up a lot of toilet paper into a decent size ball and proceeds. Next thing I know both his hands are empty so I realize that the TP has gotten stuck in his backside. He turns around and says, "Mommy, I have a tail" and sure enough the ball of TP makes him look like Peter Rabbit.

Where does he come up with this stuff??

On another topic, I must say that despite the frustration that comes with being a UCLA fan, there was one huge benefit on Sunday night....I knew where to get us to park in the Rose Bowl for the U2 concert. We got to use the "super secret" south side entrance and parked in front of the aquatic center (rather than the dreaded golf course.) Can I tell you that we were on the freeway only 15 minutes after we all got in the car? And when I say 15, I'm not sorta rounding down, I mean, literally 15 minutes! It was fantastic. Yes, I'm a total freak for getting excited about our Rose Bowl parking space, but it's all about the little things in life.

The Black Eyed Peas opened and they were actually pretty good. I had bothered to buy their CD a week before to be familiar with their songs so I knew every single one that they sang. The coolest part was by far when Slash (yes, from GnR) came out and the whole stadium was singing "Sweet Child of Mine". Very cool.

U2 was good, but not as great as the previous times I've seen them. Their new stuff isn't catchy enough and they didn't play enough of the their old stuff. And Bono decided that he was going to sing the songs at a different rate then you usually hear them.....sure he's tired of singing "With or Without You" the same way after 22 years....but I want to hear it done proper. Overall, I think that my expectations were set too high. (I saw Depeche Mode a couple months back and I really liked the concert and I think part of it was that I had lower expectations compared to U2.)

But you better believe that I will be at the next U2 concert when they come back to town. After all, I just can't hear enough of "Sunday, Bloody Sunday."

Pavlov's Children

I sometimes wonder if Pavlov ever had kids. If he did, they would probably be like mine....

When I'm in the kitchen, I often find myself going into the pantry. It just dawned on my why Addison sometimes gets upset that I'm in the pantry....it's not that she wants to be in the pantry or doesn't want me in there, it's that she wants to be in her high chair so I can feed her a snack from the pantry.

Yep, it turns out she is very aware of where the graham crackers and goldfish crackers are kept...so when I open the pantry door, she hears the bell in her head and thinks "SNACK!!!" and makes a beeline for her high chair.

It only took me a few episodes to figure out what was going on....