madness, oh so much to update about

[mamajoan]

Whew, where to begin? How about at the end? :)

This morning was an adventure. Ice -- lots of it. Deceptive, because you look out the window and go, "oh, it's just a little rain, no biggie," but then you step outside and discover that in fact the sidewalk is a solid sheet of ice. The kids and I got about five feet down the sidewalk and they both went down. (Brian had put down some rock salt, but clearly it wasn't enough.) I ended up taking the terrible, awful, no-good, Department-of-Child-Services-worthy route, namely, put the kids back inside the house and went to get the car by myself.

Unfortunately I neglected to consider the fact that if the sidewalk was coated with ice, so would the car be. Yikes. So I chipped the side windows enough to get them open, chipped off a small circle on the front windshield, and peered through it anxiously while driving verrrrry slooooowly around the block to the house. Put the kids in the car and then finished the ice-chipping.

Just walking from the car to Isaac's preschool and back, and then from the car to Ruthie's daycare, was treacherous. I saw quite a few other pedestrians slip and fall. The part where I had to cross the icy street while holding Ruthie was the nerve-wrackingest of all, but thankfully, I made it without falling. Whew!

They say it's going to have cleared up in time for the evening commute. I sure as hell hope so, because not only do we have to get home, but then mom and I have to drive (possibly also with pekmez and zubatac) up to Andover for the dress rehearsal for our chorus concert.

pekmez and zubatac are planning to bring their daughter, age 2+, to my house to be watched by my babysitter tonight while we go to rehearsal. That ought to be, ahem, "interesting." I have the utmost confidence in our babysitter, but still, Kata and Ruthie are both toddlers, if you know what I mean. And if you don't, count yourself lucky. ;) Also, we'll be getting back after bedtime, so wish our babysitter lots of luck getting all three kids to sleep, yikes.

Ruthie spent the weekend working on her two-word phrases. She's getting a lot better at them -- it's really neat. She loves to observe what colors things are, although she can really only say a few colors, but she tries. She's VERY pleased with her purple jacket ("Dack-ee! Puh-puh!") And she's starting to talk about actions, e.g. "jacket on" or "shoes off" and so forth. The other night she saw me taking another piece of pizza out of the box and she observed, "Mama more pizza." (I love the way she says "more" -- she makes it two syllables, like "mo-wah.") I ate four pieces of pizza, but that's a post for another day. ;)

Oh, and Ruthie has the cutest way of saying her brother's name too. It's kind of like "ah-goo." LOL!

Isaac had a good milestone and a bad milestone this weekend. The good one was that he slept overnight in underwear rather than a pullup, two nights, and woke up just damp the first morning and completely dry the second morning. Yay!

The bad was when he used the computer after I had specifically told him not to -- and when I asked him what he was doing he said "nothing," and then when I said "did you touch the computer?" he said no even though he obviously had. Sigh. So I gave him a big lecture on the importance of a) not doing things that I've said not to do, and b) not lying to me. I know that this stuff is developmentally appropriate for his age, and the concept of lying is *so* hard for a kid his age to grasp and he isn't doing it deliberately or maliciously -- but still. I also didn't let him have his usual "screen time" for the day.

I'm definitely thinking that it's time for me to come up with some real coherent rules about computer usage in our household, and start enforcing them consistently. Possibly this might involve acquiring some sort of computer-like device for Isaac. I'm not sure about that though. It seems like a lot of kids his age are getting "Leapsters," which is a kind of computer meant for kids, but I don't really know anything about it and am not at all sure I want to go down that path. So I'm conflicted, sigh. But clearly something has to happen because that genie is out of the bottle (Isaac has tasted of the pleasures of using my computer, and cannot go back again into innocence, alas) so something has to be done.

Which seems to lead naturally into the topic of gift-getting, but I don't have the energy to type about that now. oy.

Oh, and as for our actual weekend activities: On Saturday we went to the Children's Museum with Isaac's friend Hi'ia who is leaving for Hawaii tomorrow. That was super fun and I'm really glad we managed to do that before Hi'ia leaves. Then on Sunday we went to mom's house where Isaac helped her bake a cake for metafrantic, whose birthday is today. A friend of mine came over and stayed with the kids while mom and I and metafrantic and sandykidd went out to dinner (a nice leisurely dinner and conversation! zomgwtflol!), then we went back to mom's house and partook of the cake. That was nice. Happy birthday to my "baby" brother!

And now I have to go eat a second lunch / early dinner in preparation for the aforementioned chorus rehearsal tonight. Maybe I better have some extra caffeine for that too. *headdesk*

Oh wait, one more thing -- while we were lunching at the children's museum Isaac asked for juice and I gave him The Look, so he said "please," and I gave him the juice, and he turns to his friend and goes, "Did you know, sometimes when I say 'please,' she says, 'oh, well that's a whole nother story!!'" LOL!! So true....

Comments

[downwardlashes.livejournal.com]

Ice while carrying a toddler! Yikes! I'm pretty glad to be living in California.
My niece was Isaac's age when her dad set up an old computer for her. It connects to the internet, and has desktop icons that only go to two websites that she enjoys. It works pretty well for them. I think her time on it is limited each day. They spend so much time on the computer, I guess it's just natural for their daughter to want to too.

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

I'll keep my eye out for any more computers being retired this year where I work. Next one I find has your kids' name on it.....

[mogwar.livejournal.com]

Kidlet slipped on the stairs coming down from our front porch. Even though he is much older than your kids (ten! today!), he was in a pretty hefty panic over it. He's far too big for me to pick up easily, especially when we're both loaded down with stuff-to-take-to-school, so I tried to sit him down on one of the convenient steps right there, but it just made him hysterical. He was terrified that he'd fall right off the step, too, even though I was right there to hold him up.

Ultimately, once I got him calmed down, it wasn't so bad. I dropped him off at school, then ran over to the drug store around the corner, and gave him some tylenol when I got back to school. By the time he got home tonight and called my mom, he'd forgotten entirely.