Belated Easter Update

Okay, my last post for now, but wanted to update on our Easter this year since I've been slacking on here lately. On Friday (4/14) the girls and I headed out to Powhatan to color Easter eggs with Steven and Garrett. Jon was out of town fishing, so James stayed home. We were joined by their neighbor Eric and his two boys. We ate and colored eggs and overall everyone had fun. Last year, you may remember, Garrett - my cutie-pie Godson - ate one of the color tabs during our egg dying party. This year, he tried to eat my kids instead! Garrett is going through a biting phase and bit Steven, then Roman, then finally honked down on Bethany's arm really hard! There is actually still a light mark from it and it's been nearly 2 weeks. That one got him sent to bed early, poor little guy. He's just having trouble getting things out and bites when he gets frustrated. We're all hoping this phase passes soon, especially Bethany!

On Sunday we awoke to a sneaky Easter Bunny who hid all the eggs and baskets. The kids scored with lots of fun goodies, like jump ropes, magna doodles, bubble guns, new crazyons, sunglasses, goggles and of course, candy! Bethany was hysterical with the jump rope. She's hold onto the handles like a pro then turn into a Mexican jumping bean and boing around as fast as she could dragging the rope behind her. She was so incredibly proud of herself and James and I couldn't stop laughing at her!

After they settled down, we all got dressed in our Easter outfits and headed to DC. We picked up mom and Aunt Bonnie and went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Roman was in awe of everything, especially the dinosaurs. What a great age he's at right now! Bethany became very territorial over mom's chair which she let B ride around with her on. And Hope was happy as can be attempting to say hello to every person in Washington, DC! That's my little social butterfly. :) Mom had forgotten to charge her chair, which died towards the end of our visit and I had to push her back out, across two streets, and back to the car, with Bethany still riding along, of course. It was fun, and I'm sure really funny to watch us. On the way back home we stopped at the pond to feed the fish and one lone goose. The kids had a ball with that. Finally back to mom's house for Easter dinner before heading home. It was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed the wonderful day!

Re-addressing Concepts of Time and Age

I have posted in the past of Roman's concept of time and what is old. Well today is my 30th birthday, which means James just turned 35 three days ago. On James's birthday we went out to dinner at Ghenghis Kahn and Roman and I were discussing age.

How old is daddy? -- 35, he's old and no matter what, he will always be a lot older than mommy.

Well, how old is mommy? -- 29 and I'll be 30 in a few days.

That's not very old, you're still young mommy. You don't even have any grey hair, just all nice and brown! -- (does he know how to suck up or what?)

So, how old does that make grandma? -- She'll be 60 this year, that's twice as old as mommy.

OH man, she's ANCIENT!

Do You Understand Me?

There comes a time in every girls life when they stop and say, "Wow, I sound just like my mother!" For Bethany Nicole this revelation has already hit. Yes at just 2 1/2 years old, my beloved baby girl has already begun sounding just like her mother.

As we were settling in for storytime before bed the other night all the kids crowded around me on the couch. Hope sat just to my right and Roman on the left with Bethany butted up against him trying to see the book. Roman started pushing her away and telling her to move, she was squishing him and he didn't like it. So Bethany says, "Mommy said I could sit here, do you understand me?" Roman just huffed and Bethany says, "Oh no, you look at me when I'm talking to you, do you understand me! Roman? I said, do you understand me! I am not moving!"

Yes I about fell off the couch laughing. I have been using the "do you understand me" and "look at me when I'm talking to you" cards with Bethany frequently these days as she is getting old enough to know better with some of her behaviors, and you have to fully gain her attention to make sure your point is getting across. It was about as revelationational to the "children are like sponges absorbing everything around them" theory as the time Roman, at roughly her age, decided he wanted a drink of my coke and upon telling him no, he defiantly says, "And you said we're a sharing family!" LOL Hope had been just a baby and so the concepts of what it means to be a big brother and sharing were being instilled in him at the time. All three like to play that card even still today, and the ironic part is, the first time I told that to Roman was my "Wow, I sound just like my mother!" moment!

Hope's 4 year Stats

Hope finally had her 4 year check-up on April 17th. She too has grown signicantly and chunked up over the last year. Hope now weighs 39 lbs (75%) and is 40 1/2 inches tall (50%). The check-up went pretty smooth, no issues to report, she looks PERFECT! Then I brought up her speech issue. Hope still has trouble pronouncing certain letters and in a lot of ways Bethany is beginning to speek more clearly than Hope. We will keep an eye on her this summer and have the school evaluate her in the fall - though I'm going to talk to the school today to see what the process is for this and may move sooner on it. At first the doctor was surprised when I brought this up saying she had understood Hope perfectly through the whole meeting. Famous last words! I'm not sure she understood another word out her mouth the rest of the visit! We both agreed it's best to get this resolved or on it's way to being resolved before she starts Kindergarten.

Another Trip to the ER

I can not believe it's been nearly a month since I last updated. That just goes to show how insanely busy I've been this month. The kids are doing well overall. This past Saturday while James and i were working on spring cleaning the kitchen the kids got this brilliant idea! Underneath the girls' bunkbed would make the perfect fort. Once we noticed all was more than a little too quiet, we stopped and started the hunt for where the kids were and what they were doing. We discovered them in their "fort", where they had removed one of the drawers (they have 3 drawers under their bed, but because it's a full size bottom bunk, half of the bed behind the drawers is all open space) and crawled back behind the other drawers. Roman had snagged James droplight and rigged it up so they could see under there and all we heard to tip us off of this secret hide out was tons of giggles. They were so cute and proud of themselves. Roman came out to talk to us, then Bethany while Hope remained "inside". We laughed, told them they were crazy and that it was time to get out now. Of course this in Bethany speech translated to 'get back under there where they can't reach me as fast as I can!' When she did, she cut her wrist on the metal support glider bar that the dresser drawer rests on. It was a big gash about 2 1/2 inches long which is HUGE on a tiny 2 year old. We feared it may need stitches, put a basic bandage on it and told her to keep it up in the air - which she did and was just too adorable, such a little trooper! And off to the ER we headed. She was seen very quickly and Dr. Sang laughed at the fact that this was her 2nd trip in just over a month saying, "With a kid like her, we expect to be on a first name basis with you!" GREAT! Just what I wanted to hear. LOL He said in an older kid he probably would have stitched the deepest part, but in one her age the emotional damage would outway the benefit of the stitches, just not worth it. So he put butterfly closures on it and sent us on our way. They told us that the closures were waterproof and next to impossible to pull off, that they would fall off on their own in about a week. We just needed to keep the area clean and bandaged. On the way home we stopped by WalMart to pick up some gauze and tape and really big bandaids that would help cover the area - after all she IS only 2 and a total dirt magnet and we definitely don't want it to get infected. I also picked up 2 boxes of butterfly closures. Why? They assured us they wouldn't come off for a week. Well, by now anyone reading this blog should understand just how extremely stubborn and strong willed this daughter of mine is. And yes, before bed that same day she had two of them pulled off and by morning she had all but one from the hospital's pulled off. We have been through one of the two boxes replacing pulled off butterfly closures so far!

Oh, and she gained THREE pounds in the month between ER visits according to their scales! I have to remember to check her weight at home. How on earth could my little scrawny girl with the buddha belly full of fluff go from the 25th percentile to the 82nd percentile in 6 months?!?

The Thunder Cake

So, Monday night we headed to Don Jose's after Hope's soccer practice for dinner. During out time there it began to thunder, lightening, pour down rain, hail and all. James volunteered to go get the car and pull it up to the door for us, but I had just recently read an online post about running through the rain and how cleansing, satisfying and refreshing it can be and how all people should take a few seconds to just run through the rain. As adults we forget that simple little joy we all faced as kids. So, the 5 of us held hands, Daddy, Roman, Bethany, Hope, and Mommy, and took off through the pouring rain giggling and hooting the whole way to the car. It was awesome!

But, that's not really what this post is about. LOL See, once in the car on our drive home Roman starts carrying on and on about how we need to go home and bake a thunder cake. A thunder cake? So, I offer up a lightning cake. I can handle cutting a cake into a bolt of lightning and icing it yellow. NO, a THUNDER CAKE. Okay, so what's a thunder cake?

A thunder cake is a really yummy cake you make during thunder storms. You need flour, eggs, milk, and tomatoes. (yes, you read that right). And still, he goes on.... Some icing, any flavor really, lemon would probably be best, and the cake flavor could really be anything, chocolate, vanilla, lemon, strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, or tomatoe. "Tomatoe would be best!"

So, stiffling hysterics, James and I inquire further. "Are you SURE you mean tomatoe? Like the round red vegetable that your sisters fight over all the time?" YUP, tomatoes! You squish them up and pour in some tomatoe juice and that makes a really super yummy Thunder Cake!

James volunteered to help him make it one day... I am not that brave! LOL