Knowing one's limits.....

Last Thursday, the kids asked me on the way home from their babysitter's house who was going to watch them next week (because Meme Bean is away for a couple weeks). I jokingly said that Kaitlyn was going to watch everyone. She seemed on board with the idea and thought she could handle feeding everyone, giving the babies their bottles and changing the babies' diapers....

Last night before bed, Kaitlyn came up to me with a worried look on her face and asked me where we going tomorrow. When I said Meme Bean's, she had the saddest look on her face and said "and I'm going to be by myself to watch everyone?". I felt so bad that she took me so seriously and that 4 days later she remembered what I had joked about. I told her that of course she didn't have to watch everyone, someone else would be there and she could just have fun being her normal 3- year old self. She immediately burst into a smile and gave me a hug and kiss.

So my question is this- why do kids take you seriously when you are being sarcastic but yet ignore you when you really mean what you say- like "stop hitting your brother"..????.. One of life's many little mysteries.......

WHY?!?!?!

It's hard to understand what goes through the mind of one 3 year old- let alone 3 of them. Today after a morning of bickering and whining and arguing, I decided we needed a change of pace so I surprised the kids by setting up their indoor blow-up playhouse that they got from Uncle Steve for Christmas. They LOVE this house so I hoped that they would play happily together. Well, they did something together and they obviously had fun doing it but I just don't get it......





It took them about 5 minutes to stockpile these toys into their house- and it took me another 20 minutes during their nap this afternoon to put it all away. But you know what? Those 5 minutes without any bickering or whining or complaining made it all worthwhile :)

Food, Glorious Food......

Emma has just started taking an interest in table food over the last couple weeks. She inhales her Gerber puffs, does ok with Cheerios and loves mashed potatoes. Every time I've tried to give her meat however, she has spit it out. Today she decided that she no longer wanted to be a vegetarian and thoroughly enjoyed some ham for lunch. She couldn't eat it fast enough..... Then later this afternoon, JP climbed into Emma's play area to eat his lunch and Emma raced over to get some more ham from him.

Happy Father's Day

Today JP got one of the best presents any parent can ask for......
to sleep in! He made his grand appearance at 9:30am and was showered with "Happy Father's Day" wishes, hugs and kisses from Ethan, Kaitlyn & Kylie. Emma greeted Daddy with a big, gummy smile :)

We went out to lunch at Applebees and then drove down to a friend's house to drop Jacques off for a night with the boys. (They all went to see a RUSH concert).

On the drive down, Jacques opened all his cards and I read them to him. The kids picked their own cards out and were so excited for Daddy to see them. Kylie's card was from "Daddy's Little Princess"- complete with a little girl in a castle, Kaitlyn's card was from "Daddy's Little Girl" with pictures of a girl with a helmet riding on a skateboard and then kicking a soccer ball. Two of Kaitlyn's favorite things..... Ethan's card has a little blue dog flying in an airplane. Emma's card has a cute pair of red baby Mary-Janes on it. Ironically, Emma's feet are still too small to wear any of her cute little baby shoes so she'll just have to live vicariously through the card.....

For a gift- we are buying Daddy a family tent of his choice so we can take the kids camping later in the summer. Unfortunately, I have yet to come across one that has indoor plumbing.....

Ready or not- the kids are growing up.....

Today was a bit of a milestone for us- while Kylie was watching a Princess movie, I let Ethan & Kaitlyn play outside in the yard for the first time unattended. Mind you, although I was inside doing things, I was running out to check on them every 2 minutes and was watching for them out the window every minute.... OK- So maybe they weren't unattended but still I wasn't right there like I usually am. They played happily in their sand box and were gathering buckets of water from a wheelbarrow that had collected water from the sprinklers. It was very sweet and I was really excited for this bit of independence.

Strangely, on that same note though, tonight after their tubby (bathtime), all 3 of the kids got themselves out of the tub on their own and insisted on drying themselves off without any help from me. For some reason, this bit of independence made me really sad.... Playing outside alone-no problem! Being able to dry themselves off unassisted with a towel- a tragedy! I can't figure out why it bothered me so much but it just did.

Who's Liam?????

Last night after I tucked Kaitlyn into bed, she started talking about her friend Liam and how he was sleeping in Emma's crib so I had to be quiet. Mind you, the only Liam we know is from our Mom's club and I can guarantee he wasn't in Emma's crib......So apparently, Kaitlyn has an imaginary friend. Why she needs someone else to talk to is beyond me, but that's ok.....



This morning while we were driving around town killing time (per previous post), Kaitlyn began talking about Liam again and how he had gone home and was now busy shopping with his Mommy. Kylie, who has a fantastic imagination and can play Princess with the best of them, asked Kaitlyn who she was talking about. Kaitlyn replied "My friend Liam, he slept over last night- didn't you see him?". I looked in the rearview mirror and burst into laughter at Kylie's priceless expression. She was staring at the back of Kaitlyn's car seat with a truly perplexed look on her face, crinkled eye brow and all. Apparently Kylie can't grasp the concept of an imaginary friend and why he would be sleeping over our house.

Are we too early or really late????

Last night the thunderstorm that moved through knocked our power out just after I went to bed at 11:30pm. Of course, I slept fitfully for it to come back on so I could reset my alarm clock for work. It finally came on as I was nursing Emma a few hours later. When we finished things up, I checked JP's battery operated travel alarm clock which said 4:33. I set my clock to 4:33 and the alarm to 5:45.

The next thing I remember is waking up to daylight and looking at the clock which said 7:27---- we overslept and the alarm never went off! I nudged JP to start getting the kids dressed while I jumped into the shower. After we were all in the car, a half an hour later, I picked up my cell phone to call the babysitter to let her know we were running late. I started the engine at the same time and the car clock read 6:50am..... I just stared at it- mind you we don't leave for work until 7:30am. So now we are no longer late- we're absurdly early!

I hung up the phone quickly- good thing- because Cristi would have thought I was crazy calling so early while apologizing for being late.

We ended up running some errands to kill time. I deposited my paycheck, bought the kids a box of Munchkins to share with their friends at the babysitter's house, picked Cristi up an ice coffee and swung by Starbucks for an early Iced Chai.

We arrived at the Bean's right on time........

Lesson learned: It's a good thing that nursing a baby isn't too complicated or else Emma would be in grave trouble since I apparently have no technical ability so early in the morning.