week ending september 30, 2007:

Week ending September 30, 2007: This week we had the kids’ birthday party. I spent weeks getting the house ready for the party including pressure washing, wiping baseboards, and cleaning everything in the china cabinet. It is the only time of the year when everything in the house is clean all at the same time, but of course the kids don’t care a lick about how clean the house is. Grammy Carole and I spent almost all day Saturday baking and decorating two cakes. It took over an hour to mix and tint 9 different colors of icing before we even started the decorating. At least this year we managed to not break any of the cakes (like I did last year). The party didn’t start until 4pm on Sunday, so Sunday school was a nice distraction, and then we had to eat lunch, and then we took the kids to pick up the balloons, and then we spent an hour hanging streamers and other decorations. After that the kids started asking “when are people going to start coming here and bringing me presents?”, so we killed some time by setting up Daddy’s new hammock, and letting the kids open one present. As people started to arrive Chloe was really disappointed that she couldn’t open the gifts right away. Not explaining the order of the party events further in advance was poor planning on my part. After a while the kids settled into playing with 2 of their cousins and had a great time swinging on the swings and bouncing on the trampoline. I did some face painting on the kids. I’d been practicing all week on Alex and Chloe. For the first couple of days they thought getting their faces painted was great, but today Alex decided he didn’t even want to have his painted. Two of Chloe’s balloons escaped during dinner and she was really upset even though she had three left. She’s lost balloons before and not been particularly upset. Maybe the anxiety of waiting all day for her party wore her out. Anyway, it wasn’t long before it was time to sing Happy Birthday and cut the cakes, and then we did a piñata, and then opened presents, so she had plenty of other things to think about besides the balloons. All told the party went very well. We only invited family to the party because the kids didn’t ask to invite their friends and the family group is usually 24-30, but I think next year we’ll be able to handle inviting the whole family and some friends. Here are the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/4thBday2007

One other interesting story from the party involved my friend Claudine. Alex and Chloe don’t see Claudine very often (maybe 3 or 4 times a year) and Alex is usually very shy around Claudine, so much so that he will hardly say a word. Well this time Claudine was the first to arrive at the party and Alex ran right up to her and said “Look at my birthday ribbon! Do you want to see my cake? It is Lightning McQueen!”. She commented how good it was to hear Alex talking so much and I realized that she is at least the 3rd person to say that in a week and a half. Perhaps going to school has allowed Alex to practice talking with people he doesn’t know very well and this has given him confidence. Or maybe just being a little bit older has caused the change. Whatever the reason, I’m glad to see him making strides!

Walt Disney

Walt Disney: Our neighbors have a plaque in their kitchen that says “House Rules: If it is hungry, feed it. If it is dirty, clean it. If it is sad, love it.” And there are some other rules on the list, but these ones really stuck with me. I like the no-excuses, no complicated who’s-turn-is-it, no who’s-fault-is-it manner of these rules. Life should be simple. If something needs to be done, do it. Then the other night a stray cat came to our back door and I couldn’t help but think of these rules. This was one hungry and sad cat, so I put out food and water, but the cat wouldn’t stop crying until I sat down and pet it for a while. The animal was nothing but skin and bones, but it took a break from eating to get a little love. Our first meeting with the cat was after the kids had gone to bed for the night last Friday. The next morning the cat was still there on the back patio and the kids were very excited to see a new cat. At first the cat wouldn’t get within 8 feet of the kids, but after a day of patience, the cat will let them pet it if the kids stay sitting down (as soon as they stand up, the cat heads for the hills). I talked with the kids about how the cat has to stay outside because we already have an inside cat, and our inside cat has no claws and the outside cat has claws (so I really can’t see the two coming to an equitable arrangement for dividing up territory inside the house). Then I asked the kids what we should call the cat. Their 1st idea was “Sydney”, but we have friends who have a cat named Sydney, so that didn’t sound like a good idea to me. Their 2nd idea was “Wanda”, but that is the name of our cat who lives inside our house, and I tried to explain (again) that it would be confusing to have two cats with the same name. Their 3rd idea was “Walt Disney”, and that is what we’ve been calling the cat ever since (7 days now). Walt Disney comes for food and love every day, and we’ve treated Walt Disney for fleas. Soon we’re going to have to take Walt Disney to the vet to see about other parasites and rabies shots and reproductive sterilization. The kids have been asking for a new pet, everything from hermit crabs to dogs, so maybe Walt Disney will be the answer to their prayers, although I’m already worrying about how Walt Disney will weather the winter and what to do with his/her food and water when the weather turns. I guess we’ll just figure it all out one way or another.

week ending sept 23, 2007

Week ending September 23, 2007: One week left until their 4th birthday party. Chloe tells me that she wants to be 4 RIGHT NOW and then says in that really whiny-complaining voice that she’s been 3 for such a LONG time. I think she’s implying that it is somehow my fault that she’s had to be 3 for so long. I guess it is confusing about which events are under parental control such as bed time or how many cookies are allowed for dessert, and which events parents are not in control of, such as the weather or how old they are (although one could argue that a year is of arbitrary length and that gauging age based upon the number of trips the earth has made around the sun IS something that I have DECIDED to adhere to rather than something completely out of my control such as the weather, but that is not within the scope of this document). Anyway, when the kids turned 3, they were wearing diapers every day, sleeping in their cribs, we took the stroller and diaper bag with us wherever we went, and waking a sleeping child was considered by both parents to be something of a tragedy. Now diapers and cribs are a distant memory, and the kids are sleeping great almost no matter where we take them. When Alex was 2 he used to have a lot of trouble getting back to sleep if something (or nothing) woke him up. Sometimes I would end up in his room for hours trying to figure out how to get him back to sleep. Now he WANTS to sleep at night. One time a few months ago I could hear him coughing non-stop in the middle of the night and I went into his room to see if he needed a drink. He said he didn’t want to sit up and take a drink, he wanted to sleep. Finally after I wouldn’t leave him alone he took a drink and then I asked him if we wanted me to stay with him until he got to sleep or if he wanted me to go back to my room. He said “go to your room”. It was music to me ears! It was during this year that he gained the confidence that he could get himself back to sleep, and during this year that I started to get a lot more regularly scheduled sleep myself. Potty training was every bit as difficult as it sounded and then some, but hopefully it is a milestone we can put behind us. As their 4th birthday approaches their personalities continue to grow. Chloe has boundless enthusiasm and loves to spend all her time interacting with people, although she’s sometimes short of temper. Alex displays an affinity for problem solving of the visual-spatial variety, he’s gaining confidence in tackling new situations, but he is sometimes stubborn. This year the kids also started riding bikes and going to school, Chloe had an endoscopy, they did their first trick-or-treating, and had their first dental appointments. Next stop driver’s ed and college. At least I can still pick them up and carry them, although it has been a few months since I’ve picked both of them up at the same time. What will the coming year bring? I can’t even guess, but that’s ok because we’re just taking things one day at a time.

week ending sept 16, 2007:

Week ending September 16, 2007: This week Alex seems to have gotten over his fear of school. Tuesday was his first full day (2.5 hours) and he was still nervous, but by Thursday he was saying that he is not afraid any more. Chloe is still pretty blasé about school, she doesn’t seem to care if she goes or not. She hasn’t had much luck getting the other little girls to talk to her yet, so I’m hoping that once the kids get more used to each other, Chloe will like it better.

Grammy Carol had a coupon for a free sitting and discounted prints at a portrait studio, so we took the kids. They said they didn’t want to go, and didn’t want their picture taken, but the photographer was so funny that in the end they were sad when he was done. The studio will send us a link to an on-line copy of the proofs and I’ll send the link around when I get it.

We took the kids for a sleep-over at Mr Rob and Miss Tina’s house on top of a mountain in Frederick. The kids were immediately excited about going and they grabbed their bags and started packing. While I packed the clothes and toiletries the kids each packed a bag of toys. I have to limit them to one bag each or they’d keep going until every toy they owned was in a suitcase or backpack. Alex said “I wuv sweeping at Miss Tina’s” (he’s still pronouncing ‘l’s as ‘w’s). The next morning we drove up to the Catoctin Wildlife Preserve http://www.cwpzoo.com/ which is a small zoo and petting farm in Thurmont. The kids loved it, especially getting to feed pellets to the animals. They fed deer, goats, donkeys, and lamas. Actually, I’m thinking they would have enjoyed Clarks Ellioak Petting Farm http://www.clarklandfarm.com/ just as well and it wouldn’t have cost nearly as much, but hindsight is 20/20. Pictures from the zoo are at http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/CatoctinWildlifePreserve

The image below is the first frame of a video of Alex and Chloe singing Jimmy Buffett’s song Volcano. Click the triangle in the lower left of the picture to play the video.

week ending sept 9, 2007

Week ending September 9, 2007: This week we went to the Renaissance Festival and took the kids fishing again. The kids had a great time at the Ren Fest. We rode an elephant, got face paint (on their arms), watched the joust, watched a pirate show for kids, ate dinner, played at the pirate playground, and went on a pony ride. Here are the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/RenaissanceFestival2007 Alex’s favorite part was the joust, which surprised me, and Chloe’s favorite part was the elephant ride. Going to the Fest with kids is a whole different experience than going with adults. Everywhere we went people made eye contact and smiled and many of the actors working the fest talked to us. King Henry came over to us at dinner and told us some jokes, and later as we were walking by the Queen and her Ladies in Waiting, we were invited to sit with them and be serenaded. Chloe felt like a princess!

The fishing trip went great, and this time we’d brought Grammy Carole, Granddad, Uncle Dan, and Natalie along. Natalie LOVED pounding through the waves and she shrieked and jumped up and down every time we got going fast. We caught 11 fish in an hour and Natalie got to reel a few in. Alex is still really excited about fishing and has the greatest laugh when we are boating a fish. Chloe didn’t want to do any reeling this time, but she ran over to see each fish as we brought them out of the water.

We had an interesting situation earlier in the week. Chloe came to get me and she was crying something unintelligible about her toy kitty called Marie. She led me into the bathroom where I found Alex holding a dripping Marie over the toilet. I roared “Alex what did you do!” and he immediately started crying so hard he couldn’t talk. I decided to put him into time out (so we could BOTH calm down). Every time I put the kids in time out I explain, as simply as I can, what the transgression is, so I said “you are NOT allowed to put Chloe’s toys in the toilet.” Chloe then said “he didn’t do it, I did.” Now I’m really confused. Chloe’s still crying and she says the “Marie is DIRTY!”. I say “you put Marie in the toilet because she was dirty?” Chloe says “the toilet is always dirty!” What? After much more question and answer I find out that they’d been throwing rubber worms at the ceiling (a favorite past time) and one stuck, so Chloe threw Marie at the worm to knock the worm down and Marie fell in the toilet. I apologized repeatedly to Alex and thanked him for helping Chloe get Marie out of the toilet and we had a group hug.

first day of school

First day of school:
2 hours before school:
Alex- I don’t want to go to school. I don’t want new friends, just old friends.
1 hour before school:
Alex- I need you to go to school with me.
Chloe – No! I don’t want you to go school!
½ hour before school Alex decides he can do it by himself
When picking the kids up from school the teacher walks the kids to the car and says – “They are going to be very easy, they can do everything I asked”
After we pull away from school:
Chloe – “we only read one book. It was about pancakes. It wasn’t very fun”
Me- “the book wasn’t very fun?”
Chloe – “yeah”.
Me – 20 questions
Chloe – There is a girl named Natalie in my class. 2 of them.
Alex – Mom, I made friend! I have race car shoes and he has race car shoes.
Me- did you talk about your shoes?
Alex – Yes!
Me – did you ask the boy his name?
Alex – No
Chloe – The teacher said we had to take a break from playing and have a snack.
Me – What did you eat?
Chloe – Graham crackers, but only one and it wasn’t sugary race car ones.
Me – Did you paint and color?
Chloe – yes, I brought a project home
Me – I’m so excited!
Chloe - It is a surprise for Halloween. (She still won’t let me see it, it isn’t Halloween yet)
Alex – I wanted to paint but the teacher said “no”
Me – today was a short day, there may not have been enough time. Maybe next time there will be enough time for everyone to paint. Did you need me today at school? (I had told them earlier that the teacher can do everything I can do and they wouldn’t need me)
Alex- I was a little scared
Me – Do you think you will be a little scared next time, or did you learn today that school is not scary?
Alex – I think I’ll be a little scared next time.
Later that evening Alex and talked again about his being scared. I told him that doing something scary is brave. He insists that he was scared, not brave. I asked him if his teacher gave him a hug would he be less scared. He says he would be less scared. I asked if hugging the teacher would be scary. He says no. I asked him if he wants me to put a note in his tote bag to tell the teacher that he is a little scared and would like a hug. He says that is a good idea. We talk a little more and he says he’s afraid he’ll get lost at school. I can understand that. Tomorrow we’ll try to think of ways to help him worry less about getting lost. Maybe we’ll go over to school as the Friday kids are leaving and let him get used to walking the halls.

more than you ever wanted to know about superglue

I know this is called "kids this week", but this one is all about ME! This morning I got Superglue in my eye. How did I manage that? I was trying fix Chloe's broken heart by Supergluing her Cinderella gem back into her tiara. I squirted a pool of glue in the empty space in the tiara (I used quite a lot because lets face it, the stuff only sticks to skin anyway) and when I tried to place the gem in the space, it wouldn't quite fit so I pushed until it popped into place which forced the Superglue to squirt out of the tiara into my eye. I had flashbacks to one of those scare-the-life-out-of-you lectures in 8th grade shop class (I still avoid using powertools whenever possible because of the fear inspired by those lectures) and began to panic. My eye with the glue in it was so uncomfortable that the other eye started to water and as I raced over to the computer to look up what to do I realized that I couldn't see well enough to read. So I called Casey at work. "Hi, do you have a minute?" Yeah. "I've got Superglue in my eye, what should I do?" (stunned silence) "I should call poison control, right?" Yeah. "I can't read the number, can you look it up?" Yeah. So I hang up with Casey thinking I'm blind with my eye glued shut because I didn't bother to tell him otherwise. The guy at Poison Control doesn't ask me for my medical history or put me on hold (as the Ask A Nurse line always does when I call about the kids) before he tells me what to do, but he does inform me that having Superglue in my eye won't poison me. Thanks. Anyway, since my eye is NOT glued shut the procedure is to flush my eye with water for 15 minutes and call him back right away if it feels like some of the glue hardened into granules which can scratch my eye. I realize that this isn't going go to go over well with two 3 year olds, so I explain as simply as I can what's going on to Alex and Chloe, set a timer for 15 minutes and cross my fingers that they don't try any of those things that 3 year old inevitalby do like "look Mom, I can climb to the top of the TV!". After about 30 seconds of flushing my eye it felt like I imagine running sand paper over my eye would feel like, presumably just because I'd washed all the natural lubricants out of my eye. 15 minutes is a long time to hold your head in the sink and contemplate going to the ER with two kids. After a few minutes I get bored and decide to call Casey back with a status update. He says that some website confirms the advice to flush the eye with water for 15 minutes. If he hadn't said that I'd have quit with the water, because really, what could get rinsed out that didn't get rinsed out in the 1st 30 seconds? After the 15 minutes my entire eye is bright red and it hurts uniformly, but I can see, so I decide it is fine and take the kids on the bike ride that we'd been preparing for before I got the glue in my eye. After the bike ride the pain from the flushing has subsided enough that I can feel 2 or 3 granules in my eye so I start to do my own research. http://www.supergluecorp.com/removingsuperglue.html says that the glue bonds to the protein in my eye and granules will come out on their own in a few days and that there are no know cases of anyone losing sight because of Superglue (presumably they'd know because they'd have been sued). Interestingly enough it also says that it is almost impossible to swallow Superglue because it hardens once it touches your saliva and bonds to the inside of your mouth before you could swallow it. Good to know. I think that also means that the glue bonded to my eye well before I began the flushing and the 15 minute water torture was for nothing, but who knows?

week ending sept 2, 2007

Week ending September 2, 2007: This week the kids had two great visits, one with each of the Grammies. Grammy Carole brought art projects from the craft store and each twin got to make their own soft foam castle. They followed directions pretty well and the projects kept their attention through the construction and decoration. Grammy Barb brought ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies. Each twin stood on a chair at the kitchen counter and Grammy Barb would measure out the ingredients and the twins would dump the ingredients out of the cups or spoons, and then they helped with stirring and dropping the cookies onto the cookie sheets. The cookies turned out great and we’ve been eating them all week. Also this week we took our first stroller-free trip to the mall. The kids made it through nearly 3 hours of walking the mall without too much complaining. Toward the end of the trip they wanted to stop and sit down at every chair or bench that we passed, but I think that is understandable.


When we were at the grocery store this week Chloe got chatty with the bagger, so the bagger decided to try to draw Alex into the conversation by asking him his name. Alex told her his name and then he turned to me and exclaimed “Mommy, I wasn’t shy this time!”. It happens quite often that Chloe chats with strangers and Alex doesn’t want to join in so Chloe or I will tell people that Alex is shy. Alex was so proud of himself for not being shy this time and I wish I had thought quickly enough to tell him that *I* was proud of him, but I guess as they go off to school and spend less and less time with me, it is more important for them to be proud of themselves than for them to do things to try to make me proud.

On Sunday we took the kids for their second ever fishing trip. I can’t believe it has been since mid-June since we took the kids out on the boat. The summer just seemed to fly by. The trip went great. The weather was perfect and we caught 16 fish in 2 and a half hours which was plenty to keep the kids amused the whole time we were on the water. We were using blood worms for bait and bottom fishing so 15 of the fish were very small spot and white perch, but our last fish was a 12 inch croaker that we got to bring home and eat for dinner. Grammy Barb had told the kids how fun it is to catch croaker and listen to the funny noise they made. The kids kept asking when we were going to catch a croaker, so I’m glad we got one at the end. The kids giggled and squealed and hopped up and down every time we had a fish on. Casey held the fish so Alex and Chloe could touch them. We used the kids-sized Sponge Bob and Barbie fishing rods that we’d given the kids for their 3rd birthday, so they could do everything from put the lines out to setting hooks and reeling the fish in. When we got the 12 inch croaker on the line I reeled it in and on those little tiny rods it was like fighting Moby Dick! The picture of Alex and Chloe in thier life vests is the first frame of a video of Alex reeling in a fish. Click on the triangle in the lower left corner of the picture to make it play. This is the life Casey's been dreaming of!