Ben has been at this since he walked in the door from school... we're going on 25 minutes now... Jonathan is having a blast. Ben keeps stopping to see if he wants to get off, but no... he wants to go go go!

Threefer...

* Someone somewhere must have gotten Jonathan to clap to turn on a fan. Now he wanders from room to room clapping at ceiling fans. This makes me laugh. ;) He also blows on lights, but that's my fault because I play with him with Ben's nightlight where I make him blow it on and off. Babies + cause and effect = hours of entertainment.

* Simon has been into planning parties lately. They are always themed and he is very thorough. Two weeks ago, he planned a Star Wars party in the basement for himself, his friend Quinn and his cousin, Anastasia. He laid out all the light sabers and Star Wars costumes we own, drew pictures to hang on the wall, made Lego R2D2 party favors and made me turn on my John Williams station on Pandora. He gets VERY annoyed if his "guests" won't go along with the theme. (Quinn, being a SW fan himself always does... but his my niece, who is not yet indoctrinated in the ways of the Jedi, notsomuch) LOL! We're working on being gracious to our guests even if they don't want to play what we want to play.... ahhh... the world of preschool social etiquette.

This morning, he is planning a Pokemon dance party in his room. My assignment is to find a radio station that plays ONLY Pokemon music. Hrm.

* Ben came home form school yesterday with THIS book checked out of the library. Go ahead. Click. I'll wait for you to come back.

Back? Are you giggling just a little? Because I was. His lack of self-consciousness is both adorable and heartbreaking though. He's still so innocent at 7-1/2. I hope he stays this way for a long time and doesn't let other kids get to him. I felt sorry for him when he told me that he got teased by some kids in the parent pickup line when they saw the book he was carrying. He's not alone... Simon picked out Pinkalicious and Purplelicious from the bookstore a few weeks ago and LOVES them. Not sure what I'm doing to these boys to make them like glittery pink girl books.... LOL!

I'm Late, I'm Late...

Still haven't taken Jonathan's 15-month photo yet. (sigh) Today. Today.

Things Only a Thirdborn Child Would Know....

Only a child who is third in line would know, at 15 months, what a Twizzler is and that he should want to eat it.


The second child had caught on to lollipops by this age and I remember we had to stop getting them at the bank because he would throw a huge fit in the backseat if Ben had one and he didn't. But at that point, we still hadn't really introduced BEN to any other candy, so Simon didn't know any better either. This one? he knows those Halloween buckets are (still) full of things both of his brothers want and he wants them ALL.

(and yes, this is a crosspost from Facebook) ;)

Ho Ho Ho!

Not the Christmas card photo (I don't like putting myself in the Christmas card photo, generally)... but a nice little preview and also the first family picture we've taken since Jonathan was born... so YAY for that.

Anyway....

Back from Thanksgiving break and throwing ourselves full force into Christmas. I added a couple things to the kids' piles... namely an "Ultimate Effects Lightsaber" (which is something Simon has had his eye on for a solid year now) I was actually finished with Simon's gifts and then I found these on crazy sale at Target a couple days before Thanksgiving. Of course, only getting Simon one was going to be a recipe for disaster and plus, one light saber is no fun.... who are you going to battle with? So Ben is getting one too. I also convinced my friend Beth to put them on HER boys' Christmas lists, so the four boys can now have EPIC battles after the holiday. ;) LOL! I have to admit, these things are pretty cool... the most "realistic" looking ones I've seen next to the $119 glass ones that are for adults who like to display them. (which is kinda weird, right?) I also still had one more thing to get for Ben to balance out the gifts and I ended up with a really cool remote control car for older kids. I think he'll like it a lot.

Against all odds, we got a pretty decent Christmas card photo of the three boys on the beach. I had the hardest time coming up with something funny to write on the cards this year.... settled for kinda cheesy funny, but the picture is so darn cute, I think it makes up for the poor comedic writing. Hee. ;)

Next up? Decorating. Decorating this house for Christmas is a little intimidating, but, I figure I'll just do one thing every day and eventually it will look festive in here. Not sure if we are going to get around to lights outside this year, but we'll see.

All I really have left to do is hunt down a gift for my oldest niece and figure what to get Tom. I have an idea that I've kept in my back pocket for two years now, which is a possibility... but I'd rather save it for when I really need it... like a birthday or anniversary or something. So going to keep thinking on that one... Hrm....

Jonathan is 15 Months Old!

Dear Jonathan,

Today you are 15 months old.

I'll cut right to the chase. You FINALLY sleep through the night and, my small friend, life is AMAZING now.

It seems that you are still someone who just plain requires minimal sleep to function. This will serve you well in college and in your career as a highly successful doctor. Very rarely do we see any nap that lasts more than an hour, two hours MAX. And often, you only take one of these lately. But, again, you SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT for 12 full hours, so I will keep my whining to a minimum. (still, why all of my children seem to be pre-programmed to not sleep through the night for 14 long months, I will never understand...)

You are still my little lover of danger and I guess you always will be. (Skydiving doctor!) Our house is finally just about Jonathan-proof though. I dread taking you other places because I just never know what you will find to hurt yourself with/on. It's almost easier to just stay home where I know you can't do yourself all that much harm.

Not much happening on the words front, although you understand absolutely everything we say now, point to things and can follow directions, so I guess you are just a late bloomer with actually talking, much like your biggest brother. You heard me say that Simon's Leapster needed new batteries the other day and you waddled over to the kitchen drawer, opened it up, got out some double A's and the little screwdriver and plopped yourself down with all those things and the Leapster. On a sidenote, perhaps I need to babyproof that drawer soonish.

You give the best hugs these days. I call them "huggles" and you wrap both arms around when you do it and squeeze repeatedly with your little fingers. SO cute. Huggles are rare because usually you are just using big people to get you closer to something you want to play with, but when they happen, Huggles are the BEST.

You are bottle-free and loving it. I reclaimed a nice chunk of cabinet space when I chucked them all the other day. I did save one because I thought it might come in handy for measuring "ounces" for recipes once in awhile. LOL. Hard to believe we have seen the last of baby bottles in our house forever! Someday, I'll celebrate saying goodbye to diapers and binkies too... but that's a little further down the road. ;)

You have two favorite books right now -- The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton and the LoveBug Book. Actually, these are the ONLY two books you will tolerate being read to you and are a must before bed every. single. night. If we try to skip one, you pitch an absolute fit until we put you down so you can go find it and bring it to us. You also demand we take your finger and point out all the pictures in the stories. You definitely love your little routines and are kind of bossy, frankly.

You eat just about anything and want to try everything. Interestingly, you are my best and most adventurous eater (as our babies have gone) and I think it's because my approach has been one of total indifference (mostly due to lack of time at mealtimes) as to whether you actually eat or don't eat what I put in your tray. Wish I'd known about this approach this two babies ago. Live and learn, I suppose. But truly, you eat everything from regular toddler fare (yogurt, cheese, fruits, crackers, bananas, mac and cheese) to more interesting things like cottage cheese, bits of lunch meat, beans, bagels with cream cheese, any kind of veggie... really pretty much anything is fair game and it's especially in demand if it's on OUR plates. You love to scavenge your brothers' plates after they've left the table. LOL!

You still love your marshmallows and will scale the pantry shelves to find them, bring them to us and then desperately sign "please" until we give you one. Can't resist you... it's impossible!

You are a handful... possibly two handfuls. But you are fun and happy and you make us laugh. You love life and just do such a wonderful job of rounding out our little family.

We love you!

Love,
Mommy

p.s. Forgot to mention that two new teeth snuck in when I wasn't looking! One is a bottom incisor and the other, I think, is the beginning of a molar, which is really odd because you don't yet have the little pointy teeth on the other side!

Little Baby One Nap...

FRICK.

Jonathan has only taken one nap for almost a full week now. It's awful. It wouldn't be So awful if he'd make that one nap a nice, long one... but no, he takes it from 10:30 - 11:30 a.m. And then? It's a Jonathan marathon the rest of the day. I have dubbed this "The Jon-a-thon".

I've been in denial all week and I keep trying to put him down for that second nap. In fact, as I type this, he's whining in his crib. I was hoping for him to sleep for an hour before I have to go pick up Simon. After that, his next chance is at 4 after I get Ben. And THAT nap, if it happens, results in ONE CRANKY LITTLE DUDE when he wakes up.

HATE HATE HATE the nap transition thing.

The positive side is that I now have more flexibility to run errands during the day. But I'm not entirely sure this is a good trade-off as I have plenty I could be doing around the house if ONLY HE'D NAP.

(sigh)

On a side note: This is my 4,001st blog post! WOW!

Christmas Shopping...

I am NOT on the ball this year with the Christmas gifts... this is the second year in a row I've been all out of sorts with it. I blame Jonathan. But anyway, I finally buckled down yesterday and spent some quality time with Amazon after having the boys write Santa letters.

Unfortunately, Simon was the only one who actually wrote one. Ben got as far as "Dear Santa, I would like...." and then drew a Pokemon guy and wandered away. LOL. I managed to come up with all but one of his gifts though... need one more thing to balance out the piles.

WIthout further ado...

Simon: (he was the easy one this year)
* a Dr. Seuss treasury
* a Yoda costume
* a karate uniform
* a DS game
* the camera attachment for his Leapster
and ... his number one requested gift...
* a kid-size violin (Ben used to have one but it suffered from some seriously heavy use and we pitched it before we moved... Simon hasn't stopped asking about it)


Ben:
* a set of Magic Treehouse books
*a Pokemon DS game
* Sports Illustrated 2011 Football Almanac
*A set of miniature football helmet with all the teams
* a stuffed Pokemon (pained me to purchase this, just btw)
* ? I need one more thing that is equivalent to Simon's violin in price and size ($40 or so).... currently stumped... he has asked for a microscope he saw at Lakeshore, so I might go check that out.

Jonathan:
* Cozy Coupe (scored this months ago with a Walmart coupon thing... $36!!!)
* Little Tykes Slide
* Step 2 Roller Coaster (like the one they have at Kiddie Crusoe... I seriously can't wait for him to see this!!!)
* Leapfrog Fridge Letters
* possibly one more small toy

Jonathan was easy too because his first three gifts are things I always wanted to get the other boys when they were babies but couldn't because we had NO SPACE. This roller coaster thing is going to be so awesome in the basement. I think even the older boys will play with it. I do need some stocking ideas for Jonathan though because all I have so far is:
*marshmallows

LOL!

Books and Covers and All That...

There is this little boy I see every, single day at Ben's school. He goes by in one of the bus lines while I'm waiting for Ben to come out. He LOOKS enough like Ben (same face`, same hair/haircut,,, just taller and with blue eyes) that I almost always do a double take. Needless to say, I think he's adorable, seeing as he looks a lot like my own kid and all. ;)

So, when he showed up at basketball yesterday, I was pointing him out to Tom. Then I realized his mother was sitting two chairs away. She's the kind of mom I see a LOT around our new zip code. Older than me, full makeup, totally together. These are the kinds of moms I tend to avoid because many of them are not all that friendly or they just don't seem to like to small talk with "the younger mom." probably because the child who is my child's age is their 3rd, 4th, 5th (I'm noticing a decent number of big families around here for some reason) and they've just been there, done that. But annnnnnnyway.... I just couldn't resist starting a conversation with her when both of our boys were out on the court at the same time.

"Your son goes to Jacksonville, right?" I asked.

"He does! Yours?"

"He does. Just started there this year in second grade. So, I just have to tell you... I see your little guy every single day in the bus line and he looks so much like Ben that I always end up doing a double take! He's so cute!"

I kind of expected a nod and smile, some small talk and then she'd move on. But instead, we ended up having the best conversation about our kids, sports, the preschool (turns out Ben and this little boy were in preschool together), elementary school and having little boys. She was so nice!

I love being pleasantly surprised by people and having my own silly pre-judgements be wrong! :o)

Another Reader in the House...

Simon's motivation to learn how to read has jumpstarted since the school year began. He has started sounding words out left and right all on his own. I actually got him to sit down with me long enough to catch it on video today. He's doing so great! Next stop, kindergarten. What happened to my baby?! ;) Oh wait, I have another one of those. Okay, this is all good.

Update: Just discovered while he was showing Tom what he can do that he can also sound them out backwards. A Dibel-ee in training!

Three-Fer Update....

(I have used that title before apparently, because it filled in automatically)

I'm a few days behind, so here's the latest...

1) Jonathan is basically sleeping through the night now all the time. (and the chorus of angels sang!) The only catch is that he sometimes wakes up around 11 and can't find his binky, so one of us has to go on a rebinking run. I'll take this over what we had before though. Eventually, he'll find it on his own, I'm sure. He has about 40 of them in the crib, after all. Maybe we need a glow-in-the-dark one?

2) Simon learned the word "dammit" at preschool. He used it (correctly, I might add) after losing his ball under the deck stairs yesterday. I interrogated him until he told me learned it from his friend David. UGH. David has been the source of LOTS of fun things Simon has learned this year, including every potty word under the sun and the accompanying mouth noises. Needless to say, I am NOT sad that David will be going to a different elementary school than Simon. (though I'm sure there is another "David" waiting to take his place in Simon's future Kindergarten class) I mean, "Dammit", really? You let your four-year-old just let that fly like it's no big thing? C'mon, dammit (couldn't resist)... let's step up the parenting here. At 7-1/2, BEN doesn't even know that word yet. (sigh)

3) Today was Ben's visitation day for American Education week. As usual, he had an entourage. This morning it was my mom, Tom's mom, Aunt Debbie and me. This afternoon Tom and his dad are heading up to watch math class. Always fun to see how he spends his day! I kept thinking how next year I'll have TWO kids at the school and visitation days to attend. Weird!

Karate Kid

Simon is thoroughly enjoying his little "karate" class. (as far as I can tell it's really just another regular old Gymboree/Little Gym-type class that is tailored to little boys and there are some kicks and punches worked into the usual activities.) He loves it though and takes it VERY seriously. I was sad to find out what the fantastic male instructor who teaches the class is leaving. He is SO good with them and I thought it was great that they had a male teacher for the little guys. He's being replaced by two girls... blah. I hope Simon enjoys it as much!

Anyway, I took a couple little snippets of video yesterday. They took turns punching paper to tear it in half, which was SO funny to watch. All the little boys "HIIIII YAH'ed" their way through it. I got my phone out JUST in time to catch Simon's turn!!!


Then I got video of the part during the class where the instructor attacks them all with these foam things and the kids have to fight them off. It never fails to make me chuckle.

School Stuff...

LOVED these little notes that came home from school with Ben today. They had a guidance lesson on using kind words and "filling peoples' buckets". So sweet. I love what his friends said about him. :)

And lastly, the school pictures are in... and are sort of disappointing, as usual. (which makes them "as expected" and not so much disappointing, I suppose) Next year, I'm doing the preschool sibling pictures because, frankly, I give up on Lifetouch, the public school photographer of choice. Simon's pictures were great!

Simon....

I'm sitting here waiting for it to be time to go get Simon and school and pondering how much I love that little curly-haired, dimpled lunatic.

He may be CRAZY challenging sometimes (gah!) But he is also the most loving, demonstrative kid ever.

Every morning, he comes downstairs and runs right over, throws his arms around me and proclaims "Good MORNING mommy!!!" When I pick him up from preschool, he comes leaping out of his cubby (or out of the line coming in from the playground, depending on how early I arrive) and does the same thing, "Hi Mommy!!!!"

It absolutely melts my heart.

It also makes me marvel at just how incredibly 180 degrees of different my two oldest children are. They are definitely living proof of the huge influence of the "nature" side of the nature vs. nurture argument. LOL.

I also have to wonder what the little one will bring to the table. :) Hrm...

Signs, Signs, Everywhere Are Signs....

We have a communication breakthrough with Jonathan! He waves bye-bye now and signs "please." I've been working on "please" for about a month now and he has always looked at me like I was nuts. Yesterday, it finally clicked. Of course now, I am completely powerless and at the mercy of the total cuteness. Hide the marshmallows!

Thoughts On Me...

The following are some thoughts I've been noodling on for awhile now. A conversation I had yesterday inspired me to finally try to get them down in writing. There is an essay in here somewhere. I'll get to it someday... probably when the kids are in college. ;)

Anyway...

So when I was in college, I took a class in essay writing. I loved every last minute of it and, I'm not ashamed to say I was really good at it. I don't often have the confidence to say I am really good at something but writing? I can do that! I wrote some of my favorite pieces that year and had an amazing professor who saw potential and inspired me to keep writing.

These days, I often lament that I have so little time to really sit down and write the way I WANT to write instead of just stream of consciousness ramblings about the goings on in our everyday lives. I have SO many ideas for essays but just so little time to gather my thoughts. Still, I try to write *something* every day... keeping up the practice in hopes that someday, maybe years from now, I can go back to aspiring to be the next Anna Quindlen or Anne Lamott.

One of the things my professor taught us that has always stayed with me was, if you want to touch people with your writing, you should always be as specific as you can and as honest as you can. It is something that seems like it would narrow the field of people who can identify with your writing, and, while that may be somewhat true, it also serves to draw your audience in in a much more meaningful way and really helps you to connect with people on another level.

As crazy as it sounds, I keep this philosophy in mind when I write here and when I post on Facebook. The thing is that Facebook, for me, after all, is really just an extension of my blog, which in turn is an extension of me, a pretty extreme introvert, in the same way glasses or an artificial arm are extensions of those who need those things to be whole and to get along in the world.

That sounds extreme. And maybe it is. But really I am just NOT good at expressing myself by speaking. It's one of the things I wish more than anything I could change about myself... but it is what it is. When e-mail came along, I adopted it readily. FINALLY, a way I could communicate with people in an intelligent way without stumbling all over myself.

Facebook. I embraced it quickly. And even better, so did everyone else! FINALLY everyone can speak my language. More than email or blogging, it was a way for me to build relationships with people I probably wouldn't otherwise connect with. It's been a bit of a social experiment for me... who to friend, who to stay away from. Is it okay to friend your child's teacher? How about your doctor? Old teachers? People you haven't talked to for 15 years but remember fondly? How much should you share? Honestly, I've decided everyone is fair game on Facebook... it's a level playing field. I've friended people from all seasons of my life and from all of the categories I just listed. My feeling has always been that it can't hurt to ask and people always have the choice to respond or not.

Interestingly I've never had anyone say no. I do always make a point to respect professional boundaries if there are any and I think the those people for whom that applies who I choose friend trust that I'll do that. If I friend my child's teacher during the school year, I would never email to ask how my child was doing in class. There is a time and place for that and it's not Facebook. Similarly, I would never ask my doctor for medical advice on Facebook or touch base about something we discussed at an appointment. Again... time and place. I don't comment often on other peoples' walls. I just continue to be who I am and write about life and try to relate to people on a very honest and human level. It's been kind of interesting to reach out into this weird world of the internet and see how friendships unfold and also to get to know people outside of their usual places. People are interesting and everyone has a story.

I have found, just as with all other types of writing... the more specific I am and the more I share, the more I build on the relationships. I'd like to think sharing my foibles and shortcomings makes others feel better about their own. I like that I know I sometimes make people smile on a bad day with a funny status or even a little note saying why I value them, or that I can be of comfort to someone through a random status update or a quick comment or private message. Some people can do all these things face to face and I envy them; but Facebook and blogging are my relational comfort zones and this works for me. Perhaps it's elevating Facebook to a level that is beyond what it deserves; but to me, writing is writing... and you never know who you are going to touch. And THAT is what I love about my favorite way of communicating.

Behind this computer screen, I can be completely ME. It used to be that hardly anyone got to know the real ME and that has changed some these days. There are days when I want to just shut it all down and go dark on the Facebook thing and the blogging. There are times when I wonder if living my life so "out loud" is really a good thing. Then, out of nowhere, I'll get comment from someone who reads all the time and says it's a bright spot in their day or they thought a photo I posted was funny or that they love reading my stories about the kids. I almost feel like it's something I'm meant to do like maybe this is how I am meant to do good in this world... which may sound strange and sort of lofty, but it's hard to shrug off. So I keep up the writing... both for myself and for others.

I should probably take actual pen to actual paper more often than I do. But for now, at this ridiculously busy season of my life, this is my outlet and I'll just keep doing my best try to use it for good. :)

What are your thoughts on Facebook? On blogging? On how much to share and where to draw the lines? Do you relate to people better this way or in person? Discuss...

And the Angels Sang....

We took Jonathan's bottle away cold turkey after our road trip this past weekend. It wasn't intentional, although, I'll admit it was long overdue. He didn't want it at all during that awful night he wouldn't fall asleep at the hotel, so we figured we'd already endured the worst of it after that.

We are now two days bottle free and he's basically sleeping all night now. He woke up last night around 10 and cried for a minute and then I think I got up and gave him his binkie in the 1a.m. hour. We replaced the bottle portion of his bedtime routine with a story and he seems okay with that.

Could it be that I am finally done with bottles... for GOOD?

So, now that he's sleeping all night, I just have to make sure I don't fall into that, "Hey! babies are easy! Let's have another!" trap and it will be smooth sailing. ;)

Monday, Monday...

Today in bullets....

*For some reason, I chose to undertake the Lego organization project today... in the living room... right before i had to leave for a doctor's appointment. Really, I don't know what is wrong with me. I also don't understand what we are doing with 50,000 Legos. SHEESH. Anyone want some?

* Jonathan is cranky today. I think he's still recovering from the combination of daylight savings time and having his bottle taken away. Yep. I think we are finally bottle-free. Took this one longer than that other two. I think this is due to the fact that I'm just lazier than I was with them. It's so easy to toss a bottle to the backseat when he's crying in the car. Not sure what I'm going to throw back there now. A bottle of Benadryl, maybe?

* Simon has been happily building Lego people all day from all the newly unearthed Lego people parts. He said, "Won't it be nice when these are all organized and I can build stuff?"

* Ben announced this morning oh-so-matter-of-factly that he'd like to quit school, thankyouverymuch. "I just don't think school is for me." AHAHAHAHAHAHA... that's funny. Enjoy the next 14 years. Now please get your coat on and get in the car.

* I was pleased (sort of) to find out from my doctor this afternoon that the annoying pain in my left side I've been kind of worried about lately is probably just a result of carrying Jonathan around and bad alignment. So now not only do I pee when I sneeze, have stretch marks and no boobs left to speak of (not that that part bothers me all that much... was never much a fan to begin with), but also my hips and back are now crooked. And you think all the damage babies do is over once you recover from labor and delivery. HA!

So that's Monday so far. Off to get Ben from school and see if he is still interested in being a second grade dropout. ;)



*

Over the Mountain....

We went to Cumberland to visit Tom's extended family on Friday. The car ride was shorter than I remembered, which was a pleasant surprise. We also took a quick side trip to the Hagerstown outlets, where I hit the jackpot at Carters for some jammies for Jonathan and various things the big boys needed since they won't stop with the growing out of their pants nonsense.

Anyway, so Cumberland....

We had company because Uncle Taylor, Aunt Sarah and Audim decided to come along. So that was fun!

Our first stop was Tom's grandmother's house. The kids had more fun than I think they thought they were going to. Lots of running around in the backyard and eating of cookies and playing with a box of ancient pre-Lego Legos that Nan had.

The kids were great about taking some nice photos with their Great Nan, all except for Jonathan, who wanted nothing to do with being held down. He just wanted to continue to snag cookies off the cookie tray and play with Nan's battery operated candles! "Candles I can touch! NOW It's a party!"

Tried for a group shot of the boys on the patio. Only partially succeeded, if you count the fact that they are all facing the camera sort of.

Tried for a group shot of all grandchildren and great grand children who were present. Succeeded only in actually getting everyone in the shot. Good enough.

Tried to get a photo of each of the kids in the gazebo. FAIL. Ben was the only pseudo-cooperative one.

Simon would cooperate ONLY with Ben and NOT sitting on the ledge. He was deathly afraid he was going to fall off. Forget Jonathan. He only wanted to leap from it.

I did like this accidental candid shot of Jonathan looking at Nan.

After our visit, we went over and checked in at our hotel. THis was when I realized we might be in for a long night. I had booked a suite, thinking we could sort of put Jonathan in a separate room to sleep. The "suite", while VERY nice (the whole hotel was totally great!!), was TINY and the "other room" was basically part of the bedroom. We set the big boys' air mattress up in there and moved some furniture around to put the pack and play in a corner of the bedroom. I knew we were trouble though...

Onward to dinner. Tom's grandmother had made dinner reservations for 6p.m. I lamented to Tom that they were not just even a HALF hour earlier. But, dinner reservations for 16 people on a Friday night are difficult to come by, especially when there is only one place in town to eat. So off we went, with our baby who had napped a total of ONE hour on the car ride up... and we hoped for the best. It went surprisingly well, even though dinner lasted until nearly 8p.m!!!! Jonathan ate and socialized and really was quite the trooper, as was his younger cousin. (it goes without saying that the older boys were great too. They happily slurped up bowls of butter noodles and root beers) I was starting to panic though because I KNEW J could lose it at any second on that little sleep. So, as soon as everyone was finished eating, we thanked Nan for dinner and took off for the hotel.

Back at our room is where things got dicey. Jonathan wanted OUT of that Pack and Play, even though we knew he was exhausted. He screamed and wailed for an hour. Normally, this would not be a problem... we'd just close the door and it would take 15 minutes for him to get the message and pass out. But he could see us, so that complicated things greatly and prolonged the wailing. UGH. Painful. He passed out eventually, but was up a half hour later. And a half hour after that. And a half hour after THAT. Then he slept until 2 a.m. and then got up and wailed some more. Finally, as a last-ditch effort, I put him in our bed. This has NEVER EVER worked with him. Thankfully, this time, it did and he slept until 7:30 in the bed between us. (sigh)

Somewhere around 2a.m. was when we ditched our plan to stay at another hotel on Saturday night and come home Sunday morning. Instead, we decided to head to my family's thing in West Virginia as planned and just drive home in the afternoon.

So the next morning, we were up and out by 8 to eat breakfast downstairs and then meet up at Nan's house one more time to say goodbye...

Once we told the rest of the gang our plan to just come home that night, they decided to join us for the second leg of our trip! Such a fun surprise! It was Homecoming Day in Cumberland and the rest of the family was gearing up to start all that at noon, so, with nothing else left to do, we headed off...

Next stop.... Wild, Wonderful West Virginia!

Coming Soon...

I have OODLES of photos and posts coming soon... but first, I need a good night's sleep. Jonathan kept us up a good bit of the night in a hotel room last night and I can't wait to put my head on my pillow tonight. I will be enjoying every last minute of the "extra hour". :)

Broken Card Reader + Halloween = Frustrating!!!

I took a ton of pictures yesterday, but I can't get at them until later today when my new card reader shows up. GRRR... Anyway, here are the ones from my cell phone that I took at Ben's school parade/party.

So THAT was an interesting experience on so many levels...

First off, let me say that I have to admit that our new school does the Halloween parade thing better than our old school. The kids line up outside the doors of their individual classrooms and then parade around the entire perimeter of the school. This makes it MUCH less chaotic and WAY more spread out. At PGE, we were all crammed onto the grass and sidewalk in the busloop... Pre-K - 5th. That's a LOT of parents and kids in one place. I was always ending up with someone's elbow in my face while I was trying to take a picture. LOL. On the other hand, I saw WAY less of the kids/moms who were not in second grade BECAUSE of the fact that it was so spread out. So, there were positives to the old way too...

Here is a picture of the outside of Ben's classroom:


At this point, every class in the entire school was out and lined up EXCEPT for Ben's. which I know because it took me awhile to orient myself outside and figure out which corridor/classroom was Ben's) The parents were starting to get a little riled up. I went and peeked in the classroom window and reported back that they were still at their desks working. That seems about right. Anyway, eventually they appeared....


Ben decided AS we were walking out the door that he was going to be a zookeeper. That kid drives me nuts with the Halloween costumes. He NEVER wants to be what he originally chose. Anyway.... there was the usual smattering of ninjas, kitty cats, witches, Nintendo characters and princesses... also, an angry bird. The angry bird costume makes me laugh. I think the most original costume I saw while I was looking around was a jellyfish. It was pretty darn awesome. (not in Ben's class... I think it was an older kid)

Then there was the party. These classroom parties make me claustrophobic, but I hung in there as long as I could. It was the first time I've been in there since school started. I discovered several things including....

Ben's desk is front and center. He says he's been there a week and it is because the boy who was sitting there was getting distracted by the boy behind him. Not sure if that's the whole story or not... but anyway, there he is.

Also? His desk? Is a disaster. It was all I could do not to unload it and clean it up. I ultimately decided the Halloween party was not the time or place to do this... but it nearly killed me. LOL.

Also? 95% of his school supplies have, to put it in his words, "just disappeared!" He has NO idea where his crayons are. NO idea. WTH? What did he do with them? Do they ever leave his desk? D'oh. Just for kicks, I opened his pencil case, which I sent to school with him in September FILLED with everything on the checklist. The contents as of yesterday are:
* One brown marker
* One pair of scissors (which I just sent in Friday because his old ones vanished)
* A gluestick

OMG. WHAT does this kid do to school supplies?!?!?! So, anyway, I'm off to Target sometime today to replenish the pencil box.


So yeah. Enlightening experience, the Halloween party. His friends all seem nice. The other moms that were there seem nice too... although one was *all* fired up about something going on with her kid's costume and the teacher and she honestly kinda freaked me out with her angry tirade. That's a whole other story entirely though....

Stay tuned for more pics later of the parade and of last night when I can get to my pictures!! :)

Oh, and in the meantime, here are a couple video snippets: The first is of the kids getting a class photo taken. They all yelled "Frindle!" which was amusing.


This one is just a quick look around the classroom and me asking Ben how long he has been in the front row seat. ;)