Passive Aggressive Child

Tonight, I was having B2 do a numbers chart, where he adds up the column and row headers, to practice his addition. He really does not like math, and wasn't very happy when I told him this is what he was doing for homework. After some time complaining, and some time re-doing number he got wrong, he gave up entirely and chose to go to his room instead of finish his homework. So, when I walked by while cleaning up the kitchen, I saw this and almost died laughing.

In case you can't read his writing, he wrote "I don't like this." Awesome!

Christmas, and a new visit

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas. Surprisingly, there's no snow on the ground, which I'm actually kinda sad about this year. It would really help hide the fact that we have a pretty poorly decorated house. Apparently, the three strands of Christmas lights which so fully light our condo porch look pretty sad on a house. Sorry neighbors--our plan is to buy a bunch of Christmas stuff on the 26th when it goes 50% off.

But, lack of Christmas lights or otherwise, we are getting in the Christmas spirit around here. The inside of our house has our tree, and a new little visitor. His name is Legolas (because yes, we are awesome like that), and he's Santa's nark...er, helper. He came to visit this year and reports back to Santa each night about all the good, or not-so-good, things my kids do each day. And, since you wouldn't expect anything less from a person who eats from the four major food groups each day (candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup), he also gets into some mischief. His first night here, he missed the snow so much that he made snow angels in (what else?) sugar!

Not terribly mischievous, except for the fact that I didn't clean it up right away and D decided to play as well, thereby getting sugar all over my floor. Unfortunately, D also touched Legolas to move him off the oven, and that's a big no-no. Elf magic can't be tainted by human hands, so Legolas only had enough magic to get back to Santa the next night, and had to "lay over" a day in the North Pole and get his magic recharged. He loved his overnight stay in my luxurious sock drawer, with a view of nothing.

The next night he came back--he couldn't miss the BYU basketball game! Not only is Legolas an orc-butt-kicker, but he also supports the Cougars!

Tonight, Legolas has decided he liked spending the day way out of reach, so he caught an updraft and has a birdsnest perch in a chandelier. He'll be fine--he brought along a snack.

B1 and I are having fun with Legolas. It's worked well on B2--he keeps reminding D that the elf is watching, so they better be good or Santa will give them coal. D doesn't quite get it. He can't seem to understand why it's funny when the elf gets into things, but when he does he gets time out.

I love Christmas! One of these days we'll start buying real trees again, but until then this one does nicely.

Funny Things B2 Says

B2: "Alright everyone, who here likes.Thanksgiving?"
Cousin L: "I don't know what that is."
B2: "It's when you go to school and eat FOOD. And make leprechauns."
Cousin L: "I don't know how to make a leprechaun."
B2: "It's easy. You just cut on the black line."

A the Midget

Yesterday we took A in for his four month check-up, and he's completely fallen off the charts. He's offiically in the zero percentile for his weight. It still weirds me out to have a child that's so skinny. Not that D or B2 was terrible chunky, but they were just big all around -- tall and appropriately heavy. So, to have this kid that's short and skinny is odd. Don't get me wrong--I love having a baby that stayed a baby for more than a week (I swear B2 could officially pass as a toddler at 2 months old), but I can't help but worry about A constantly. The pediatrician isn't terribly worried--developmentally he is on track or even advanced; for example, he's been rolling front-to-back and back-to-front since shortly after he turned two months old. However, the dr did recommend that we try to fatten him up by introducing rice cereal now. So far, A loves it! Today was his second day, and he's already discovered that if he removes his hands from his mouth (which he rarely does at any time of the day, but especially when feeding as he uses his hands to create suction so the food can go down), Mommy will put in the spoon with more food! I was so proud of him to discover this fact so quickly!

So, the pediatrician's plan is for us to try and fatten A up with some rice cereal. In 4 weeks we will take him back to the doctor's office and re-weigh him. If A has gained at least a pound, that will put him back on track (I think that will bump him back to the 5th percentile). If not, the doctor said there are a few tests he'd like to run, just to make sure we don't have anything to worry about. He said that 90% of the time, skinny kids are just skinny because they burn more calories than they consume. And since my brother's kids are also skinny kids, our pediatrician is fairly sure that A just got that high metabolism. Here's hoping we see a whopping 11 pounds, 4 ounces on that scale come mid-November!

Incidentally, shortly before the doctor's appointment, D decided to give A a nickname--"A the Midget!" Quite apropos, D!

Funny Things D Says

Mom: "Hey, can you run upstairs and get Mommy's iPod?"
D: "Sure, just a minute."
A few minutes pass...
Mom: "Can you go get my iPod now?"
D: "I can't! It's invisible!"

Project: Table

Now that I finally have a yard/garage where I can work, I decided to try my hand at refinishing some furniture. So, I sanded down this table and painted it with a fun new design. (Sorry, I apparently lost the "before" picture. It was just your basic wood table.)

I think it fits nicely on our porch.

It's the best day ever

If you watch/listen to as much Spongebob as I do, you'll recognize that the title of today's post is from a Spongebob song, and you'll probably hate me for getting it stuck in your head. If you aren't as familiar with Spongebob as you ought to be, you can listen to said Spongebob song here. But, that's really not the point of this post.

About a week and a half ago I read Stephanie Nielson's book, Heaven is Here. If you aren't familiar with Nie Nie, then seriously go to her blog and start reading it. She's amazing. But again, I digress. After finishing her story, I started thinking about all the different ways I complain--I'll text B1 when I'm having a rough day (sometimes even with pictures, just to prove it's as bad as I'm making it out to be); I'll blog about things that frustrate me; I'll post status updates on Facebook about the obnoxious things my kids do; I'll talk to other moms and try to out-do them on how awful my day has been (though I'll convince myself that I'm just trying to make them feel better about their own struggles). Now, granted, I'm not always complaining or saying depressing stuff, but as I started to think about it, I realized that I complain much more than I realized. And I wondered if people reading this blog, or people who have friended me on Facebook, think that my kids are evil nudists who do nothing but destroy, destroy, destroy!

So, I think I need to change. Nie Nie has inspired me to focus more on the positive, to choose happiness. I'm not saying that I'm never going to say another negative thing again--I know that's not a realistic goal. Rather, I want to focus on the positive. I want to look at all the good things that happen each day, and not the negative. I will put this on a new blog, in case you don't want to read it and just want to skip to the random, funny stuff my kids do. The new blog is TodaysTheBest.blogspot.com. Don't go there just yet--give me some time to put up some content before you decide if it's worth reading.

Okay, random post over. I still need to post some more pictures from B2's first day of school and other stuff, so don't worry--more fun stuff to come!