Wait...why am I doing this again?

Kid 1 likes grilled cheese sandwiches, but not tomato soup. Kid 2 loves tomato soup, and will eat grilled cheese but usually just nibbles at them and throws most of it on the floor. Gave kids 1 and 2 their preferred meal items for lunch. Kid 1 refuses to eat anything and wanders off. Kid 2 sips at his soup until he spots kid 1's abandoned sandwich. Kid 2 decides grilled cheese sandwiches are now his FAVORITE FOOD EVERRRRRR and pulls the tablecloth toward him in order to obtain said sandwich. In the process the now neglected (and rather large) bowl of soup hits the floor in such a dramatic fashion that it could have been recorded and played in slow motion in a paper towel commercial. Kid 1 of course must investigate the crash and wanders straight into the soup mess while I'm scrambling to clean up.

Stick a fork in me, I'm done!! Of the past 21 days, I've been sick for about 19 of them. I'm pretty sure I managed to pick up another virus literally a day after I recovered from the last one. I was starting to improve but I'm feeling worse today. I'm just tired and cranky and apparently about to send kid 1 off to preschool with an empty stomach. Sigh...

Mr. Simpson? Gary spilt his ear medicine.

Man, have we been a family of "Gary"s lately. James and I have been miserably sick for the past 4 days and we've been shelling out for all kinds of pills and potions promising to subdue our misery for a few hours. James has discovered that combining Sudafed with his daily dose of ginseng tea gives him the kind of euphoria normally reserved only for those on speed and 12 year old girls at a Justin Bieber concert. I've discovered that using a Neti Pot (go ahead, google it) is quite effective, although a little awkward and highly unattractive.

Emmett has managed, miraculously, to avoid this plague, but Seth is suffering along with us (and without the aid of OTC meds). To add insult to injury, he's rashy from head to toe and now has 4, count 'em FOUR, different ointments that need to be applied at various times throughout the day. For a child that can barely stop moving long enough to eat, you can imagine how well all that "greasing" is being received.

I'm not really sure what the point of this post is, other than I haven't blogged in awhile and have absolutely NOTHING going on in my life right now other than trying to keep my sinuses from imploding and trying to make sure the right cream is going on the right parts of my toddler. We've got to get better eventually, right?

13 going on...13

My mom brought over a big bin of my childhood and teenage keepsakes yesterday, and I just went through it. The items ranged from the adorable (my little brownie uniform, complete with sash, belt and dues pouch!!) to the absolute cringe worthy (various diaries from 1993-2000, the worst of which was the one from 8th grade). I discovered that I was just as naive, shallow and overly dramatic as any other 13 year old. My best friend was Stephan, who I apparently had a bit of a crush on! ("Stephan and I are going trick or treating as an old married couple. It's going to be so wicked! PS. I (heart) Stephan. I hope he (heart)'s me back.") My family was investigating the church at the time, and I ranked all of the missionaries who taught us according to hotness...how deeply spiritual of me. ;) Oh, and every time I got punished or my parents wouldn't drive me to the store, my life was ending.

Some of my favorite excerpts:

August 1994: "I had a bad dream about school starting last night. I dreamed that my math teacher was Hitler."

July 1994: (on vacation) "There was a cappuccino stand, and they wanted $1.25 for a pack of gum...what a ripoff!!"

January 1993: "I learned that they have clear Pepsi now. To be honest it doesn't really taste like Pepsi but its still pretty good."

Ah, memories. ;)

I have a short memory.

Short memories can be useful, on occasion. They say, for example, that women purposely forget how painful childbirth is so that they may actually decide to go through it more than once. I can attest to the truthfulness of that statement, as I distinctly recall having an "Oh, right. This is what agony feels like." moment during my labour with Seth. I seem to also have a short memory when it comes to being wronged by others...occasionally some moment from way back when in high school will come up in conversation and someone (usually my mom) will say "Remember when so and so did/said ______? You were SO upset.", and they answer is almost always no. I figure that's a really good thing, as we're supposed to forgive and forget. Clearly I've got that going for me. ;)

I also seem to have a short memory when it comes to eating at a restaurant with my small children. I haven't been feeling great the past couple of days, and my kitchen is a mess as my sink has been backed up (with what turned out to be long dark hair. HAIR. In the KITCHEN sink. I don't even know what to say to that one.). So when James got home I announced that I wanted to go out for dinner, and he obliged. Now, normally when we eat out it's fast food, preferably in the car where the kids have no choice but to remain strapped down, but for some reason tonight all common sense left my brain and I decided that we were going to eat at a REAL restaurant, with menus and real cutlery and everything!!

Here's the highlight reel:

-Seth CHUGS a large (almost adult size) glass of chocolate milk in literally less than 5 minutes. I ponder whether it's too late to cancel his dinner order. His food came like 2 minutes later, so yes.
-Seth reacts to me trying to feed him ravioli like I'm trying to poison him. We're talking flailing around in the high chair, howling and trying to throw anything within his reach to the floor for full dramatic effect.
-Seth decides he's too full for food, but still has plenty of room in there for crayons! Not unlike Smarties, red ones are his favorite.
-We take the ravioli away, but not before he has a chance to dip some of the crayons in the sauce, and then paint his colouring sheet with that.
-Since I finish my meal first, I offer to take Seth for a walk to burn off some energy. Cue Emmett meltdown. So now I'm trying to herd both of them around in the same direction while James finishes his meal and orders some previously-promised ice cream.
-Seth discovers if he takes a spoonful of ice cream, holds it in his mouth until it melts a bit and then leans his head back, he can make a melted ice cream volcano out of his mouth!! He is VERY please with his new discovery. Thankfully, Emmett was way to engrossed in actually eating his ice cream to notice or copycat.

Yeah, I think we're going to go back to solid diet of Wendy's, in the car. Just for the record, we DO correct the bad behavior when it happens, and the fact that Emmett sat nicely, ate his meal, said thank you to the waitress and was completely fine other than the "Mommy can't go somewhere without ME!!" upset gives me hope that someday going out to eat won't be a freaking circus.

Waning Summer

I love this time of year. It's getting cooler at night, school supplies are front and centre in all the stores, and every once in awhile you'll see a few yellowing leaves. Summer is on its way out, and it's time to get ready for fall! I'm not a huge fan of summer...I'm a big wuss about the heat, being out in the sun for even a couple of hours makes me all useless and sleepy, and the mosquitoes have been brutal this year. But there's something wonderful about the last couple of weeks of August - canning, pickling, buying new school clothes and supplies. I love this time of preparation.

Of course, I haven't done any canning or pickling this year...that would require me to have my crap together, which I don't. Maybe next year. Oh, I have big plans for next year...I'm going to do some container vegetable gardening, and hopefully I'll end up with something worth canning.

Emmett heads back to preschool in a couple of weeks, and I can't wait. Emmett/Seth cat fights are now happening with much more frequency...everyone is bored and cranky. It will be interesting to see what Em thinks of having afternoon class and taking the school bus from our new place. Hopefully he'll have the same teacher so something remains the same. Fingers crossed!

Random Cute Kid Stuff

I figured my facebook friends may be getting tired of my constantly kid-centric status updates, so I'm putting this here.

Seth has recently become a huge fan of "Blue's Clues"...Em loves the show so we watch it quite a bit. When Seth realizes that I'm putting on an episode, his face lights up and he says "Boo Coo!!!" while doing the "Blue's Clues" hand motion. Soooo stinkin' cute. I'm going to have to start hunting for some BC themed party decorations for a certain someone's 2nd birthday (yes, I'm already thinking about the kids' birthdays. Just ask my mother how party planning obsessed I was as a child...I haven't changed much!)

Emmett's latest obsession is Rhett and Link - a couple of guys who make up catchy songs about everything from velcro to Facebook. He especially loves this one, where they took the "Sham Wow" infomercial and made it into a song:

ShamWow Song

Now if you come to my house you can hear Em singing about how the sham wow "holds 20 times its weight in liquid" and that "the Germans always make good stuff", pretty much all day long. It's hard for him to sing the whole thing because he can't talk fast enough, but he sure tries! I usually sing along with him, which he looooves.

So there's my random kid cuteness for today. :)

Twenty-nine!!!

Twenty nine years ago today, my very scrawny (4lb 12oz), rather purple, and decidedly bald self entered mortality. Woo hoo! (Thanks for that mom, and sorry I was born before epidurals were readily available. You ARE the woman.) I've gone from "pushing 30" to "REALLY pushing 30", overnight. ;)

I remember years ago when a co-worker friend of mine turned 29, I thought that was sooo old and that I would probably feel as depressed as he was about the "big 3-0" being right around the corner. I was 23, I think...and you know what? You couldn't pay me to go back to 23! Sure, my stomach was still intact, I could go out whenever I wanted, and I even got to sleep in (I think I remember that...),but I am SO into the whole established, boring, responsible adult thing I've got going on now.

I think I'm going to thoroughly enjoy the last year of my twenties...life is busy but really good and I'm enjoying it.