Aliens and Indians

Tyler drew a picture of a 3 headed alien and told me this whole story about how the alien grew 3 heads by eating worms.  I tried to convince him to write the story, but he didn't want to.  A little while later he was showing me his picture again.  And again I tried to get him to write it down.  I can tell that he must be learning about pilgrims and indians in his class at school by his response.  He said, "But Mommy, the indians wrote things by drawing pictures.  Like if they saw something coming, like a UFO, they would just draw a picture of a UFO to tell that a UFO was coming.  That's how they would tell the story, with pictures."  Nice excuse to get out of writing his story, huh?  At least he's applying what he's learning at school.  Funny little smarty pants!

6 Stories Tall

Last night while putting my kids to bed Tyler told me, "Did you know that bamboo can grow to be 6 stories tall?  That's a lot of words if you stack them up!"  I chuckled to myself & then asked him to explain what 6 stories tall means.  He said, "like if you take 6 books and stack them on top of each other."

That totally made me laugh!  It was so cute.  It sounds like something Amelia Bedelia would say.  I didn't explain to him what 6 stories tall means.  Maybe later I'll let him know what it means.  For now, I'm just going to enjoy my sweet little 6 year old!  If he was impressed with bamboo growing to be as tall as 6 story books stacked on top of each other, imagine how impressed he'll be with it being as tall as a 6 story building!

Balloon

So today I had one of those mommy moments that just made me want to crawl under a rock & die!  I took Tyler & Claire to the dentist.  While Tyler & Claire waited for their balloons at the end of their appointment, one of the dental assistants started talking to my kids.  Claire proceeded to tell the her, "You look like a balloon because you are fat!" I gasped!  I couldn't believe that those words just came out of my 3 year old daughter's mouth!  And once something like that has been said, there is no taking it back & no explaining it or fixing the situation!  The dental assistant, just said, "It's ok, it's ok.  And you are cute."  Then she walked away to finish what she was doing!  I was mortified!

When we got in the car I told Claire that it's not nice to tell people they are fat.  Her response was, "But she was fat and she was round like a circle just like a balloon."  While this fact was true, I explained to her that we just don't tell people they are fat because it is mean and it will hurt their feelings.

 I hope this never happens again!  Hopefully that girl is not working next month when I have to go for my dental check-up!  I will definitely be getting a baby-sitter for my kids that day!

Matthew or Houdini

I just wanted to give a quick update on my little Matthew.  He is just as adventurous as ever.  He climbs on everything.  I caught him climbing to the top of my piano last week.  He can slip out of the straps on any shopping cart, no matter how tight I strap him in.  And my biggest disappointment.... he turned a doorknob & opened a door for the first time today.  I guess we have to put those annoying doorknob covers back on for a while - especially on the bathroom door, because he still loves to unroll the toilet paper & play in the toilet!  Oh and in my bathroom, Tyler showed Matthew how to turn on the water for my bathtub.  So now every time Matthew gets into my bedroom, he just has to run to turn on the bathtub faucet!  Doesn't he know we're having a drought?  Ha-ha-ha!

But I am enjoying the fact that in the last couple days Matthew has decided to start communicating with some words.  He's so cute!!!! I love it.  His list of words includes: Mama (for me), Poppa (for Jeff & his Grandpas), sometimes he says Dadda (for Jeff), bubbles, hot (usually referring to his food), again (when he wants to be held or thrown in the air again), more (when he wants more food) , no, aaa (for yes), uh-uh (for no), Wa-hoo (for anything he's enjoying) and he's got the all-purpose "that" to use whenever he doesn't know the word for something.  I can't wait to hear what words he'll learn next!

Tyler's Name

Tyler just told me, "Mommy thanks for choosing the name Tyler for me.  I really like it!"  Awwww, what a sweetie!  I wonder if he'd say the same thing if he was named some of the other names Jeff suggested...  somehow I don't think he'd be a big fan of the name Magnus!

Slim in Six

I finally gave in & bought "Slim in 6" after seeing the infomercial more times than I can count.  After all, along with the joy of giving birth to 3 beautiful children comes an abundance of extra pounds on my once fit & trim frame.  I am so sick of being such a fatso, so I've decided to do something about it.
I just finished my first "Slim in 6" workout & all I can say is, "Boy am I out of shape!"  That workout kicked my butt!  One workout day down, 35 to go!  Maybe if I get some incredible results, I'll have the guts to post my before & after pictures.  Now I need to get my stinky self into the shower so I can pick Claire up from preschool on time.   Wish me luck!

Not My Sweet Baby!!!

Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon sorting through toys in Tyler & Claire's room - deciding what should be moved into Matthew's room and what should be packed away for a while. I had my Clorox wipes out to clean off a few of the toys that looked a bit dirty. I left the room for a while & Matthew snuck in there. Of course he found the Clorox wipes. I don't know what it is about those things - kids just love pulling them out of the container. When I returned to the room, he had pulled about 20 of them out of the container. No big deal, I just stuck them into a ziploc bag to save them for later use. He was not happy that I took them away from him though.

After I finished cleaning the room, I sat down on the floor in there with my kids. Matthew once again found the Clorox wipes so I took them away from him. He realized that I wasn't going to just hand over the object of his desire, so that sweet little baby took a major step into the sneaky world of a toddler. He actually came up with a scheme to get the wipes from me! Tyler was looking through a box of little stuffed animals. Matthew went over to the box and picked out 2 stuffed animals. He carried them over to me. As soon as he handed them to me & I began to pretend to play with them, he quickly reached in my lap & took the Clorox wipes from me! I couldn't believe that my sweet little baby was actually trying to occupy my attention with the toys so he could sneak the wipes from me! Holy Moly! I'm in for a wild ride with this little guy! If he's already coming up with such sneaky ways to get what he wants when he's 18 months old, I don't think I want to know what his teen years will be like!

*Oh, and just an added note... Matthew has now perfected the art of throwing a fit! When he doesn't get what he wants, he carefully lies down on the floor and then proceeds with the kicking and screaming. He's come to realize that there's no point in banging his head on the floor in the process of beginning his tantrum. He's smart enough to know that he doesn't want to get hurt! It's actually quite funny to watch!