week ending dec 30, 2007:

Week ending Dec 30, 2007: The kids are enjoying all their loot. They got so much stuff that much of it has only been used once or twice although they play only with new toys. This week I noticed the gender discrepancy in the toys. Alex got mostly toys that let him build things and send things flying, and Chloe got mostly dolls and toys that require her to invent an imaginary world. Those are exactly the kinds of toys that they asked for, but I worry that Chloe is getting short changed and that she will feel disadvantaged (as I did) when she gets into the “real world” and has to start building things. In college I was much less confident about picking up tools and trying to fix things than my male peers and I always figured it was because of lack of experience on my part. If, as a child, my friends and teachers and family had presented building and fixing things as something equally expected of girls and boys, I think I would have been better prepared. Or maybe I wouldn’t have been interested. Who knows?

Since this is the last KTW of the year I felt obligated for a “year in review” kind of entry, but I’m really not into it. I always review their year shortly before their birthday and doing it again would just feel redundant. What I have been thinking about is that with the passing of Great PopPop, an era in my life has ended. The story I’m about to tell isn’t about the kids at all, but some people have pointed out to me that this journal provides a historical record for the kids to look back on later, so I was thinking about history. When I was growing up, my grandfather and 5 of his sisters all lived on the same street. His parents owned a big piece of land and the land was parceled out in ½ half acre lots to many of the siblings who each built homes on the lots, and the street was named Half Acre Drive. When we’d visit for Xmas, we’d visit with my grandmother and grandfather, and then we’d walk from house to house and visit with each of my Great Aunts who lived on the street and then we’d see even more extended family “up home” which was what everyone called the big house where they grew up. At one time the big house faced the highway, but as the area became more commercial and property taxes went up, the family sold the lot that faced the highway and physically moved the big house further down Half Acre Drive, away from the highway. The walls in the big house were never quite straight and I always liked trying to imagine the house being moved and the walls bending. Anyway, none of the original Half Acre Drive folks live there anymore, and PopPop was the last of those 6 siblings to pass away. I always thought it was pretty unusual for family members to live on the same street like that until I met Casey and learned that a few members of his father’s family have built homes on their family land. Anyway, that doesn’t seem to be a tradition that our generation will be inheriting except as a memory.

I wish everyone a happy and safe New Year with lots of happy memories of this and other years past!

new (to us) car

Today Casey bought a 1995 BMW 325 convertible. He's been wanting a convertible ever since he bought his first new car in 1995 (I talked him out of the convertible then because I said we couldn't afford it) and since we recently came into some money we decided that it was now-or-never for the convertible. He really likes the way it handles, it has lots of bells and whistles and is in really good shape for it's age. It was 45-50F here today and we both drove it with the top down already. We decided on the 325 because it has a back seat and the kids can ride in it. Now all we have to do is figure out how to install 2 car seats back there (the kids climbed in the car, but haven't gotten a ride yet). Casey pointed out that it is easier to work on the car seats back there with the top down ;)

Christmas 2007

Christmas 2007: Christmas for us this year was a 3 day marathon. Sunday night we had dinner and gift exchange with my friends from high school and their families. Monday (Xmas eve) morning we had brunch and gift exchange with Casey’s Dad (the kids call him Big Daddy) and Bubbe, and then we had Xmas eve dinner with about 20 people from Casey’s Mom’s side of the family. On Christmas morning the kids opened presents from Santa, then Grammy Carole and Granddad brought more gifts, then Uncle Dan and Natalie came over with more gifts, then Grammy Barb brought more gifts, then we had sit-down dinner for 19 at our house and opened even more gifts! Notable activities at Xmas Eve brunch were when Daddy taught Alex how aim his Nerf Stomp-Rockets at people and Alex got this evil grin and proceeded to gleefully shoot everyone in the room while Chloe sat quietly in her party dress and played her new board game with Bubbe. I got a great picture of Alex running gleefully away as Big Daddy pretends to try to get the Nerf rockets away from him. Notable activity at Xmas eve dinner was that I left the party to go visit with my brother and sister-in-law in the hospital because SIL’s water had broken at 2:30am. I arrived at the hospital at 6pm and the baby was delivered by C-Section at 6:23. Talk about fortuitous timing! He is named Aidan and Mom and baby are now home and doing great. Here are some pictures http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/BabyAidan, and a link to their blog http://thesmithfamily-danielle.blogspot.com/ We didn’t get the kids in bed until after 9p on Xmas eve (over an hour late) and they got up just after 7am (pretty close to normal). It took them over an hour to open the presents from Santa. They’d stop in the middle to play with one toy or another and since it was just the 4 of us, there was no pressure to hurry up and get it done. The only present Alex asked Santa for was a remote control helicopter, and the only present Chloe asked Santa for was ballet shoes. Luckily Santa came through with both of those and a whole bunch more. Chloe wore her ballet shoes with her new tights and leotard for the rest of the day and didn’t even put on a party dress for dinner (wearing party dresses is one of her favorite things in life!). Alex played a bunch with the R/C helicopter and I got a great picture of Granddad feigning alarm and Alex giggling as the helicopter is “coming to get Granddad”. By the end of the evening the kids were so wound up neither of them could get to sleep. Alex doesn’t usually fall asleep right away and we’ve taken to letting him play in his bed with the light on for a few minutes before lights-out time, so while Alex was winding down, I lay with Chloe and rubbed her back to help her calm down. Then I turned Alex’s light out and a few minutes later he complained about not being able to get to sleep, so I went and knelt next to his bed and lay my head next to him and he wrapped his arm around me and talked quietly. Even though I was very tired and I usually prefer than that they go to bed the first time I leave them upstairs (which they do successfully a remarkable percentage of the time), this time alone with Alex and Chloe ended up being my was favorite part of the day because between and getting dinner ready and put away, and cleaning up the endless waves of packaging that kept coming into the house so we’d have room to have dinner for 19, I found I hadn’t made much time to really enjoy the kids. They really enjoyed their Christmas and are still saying that they wish we could have Christmas every day. Here are some more pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/Christmas2007

week ending Dec 23, 2007:

Tasting cookies they made themselves


























Week ending December 23, 2007: This week I’d like to start off with a heartfelt apology to my parents for all the times when I was a kid and I said “He’s on my side!”, “He’s touching me!”, “He’s looking at me!” (in reference to my little brother, of course). I hesitate to even bring it up since many people have real problems during this holiday season and we are so generously blessed, but man the kids squabbling is annoying! It used to be that their fights were about problems that were solvable like they both wanted the green Happy-Meal toy and I’d find some alternative that would satisfy them, but the fights lately aren’t about anything and have no end (save for the rare extreme when I put them in separate rooms). They aren’t bad fights and no one is in danger or even doing anything that is really wrong except fraying my already jangled nerves as we scramble to get ready for Christmas. Maybe I should have just written about all the joy we’ve had this week making cookies, going to the Christmas party at school, going to the Bounce Zone and making Christmas trees out of an ice cream cone decorated with green icing with various colorful candies stuck on, going to Lights on the Bay (3rd annual visit!), etc. But, I’ve been so busy this week that I only notice the kids when they are doing something joyful or fighting, so that our week feels like it has been one long grouch-fest punctuated by moments of joy. I was listening to the kids’ latest argument-turned-screaming-match and I had a sudden clear image of my brother and me riding in the back of my parents’ station wagon. In the back seat we each had our own space conveniently and visibly divided by the seam of the seat. It was decided that if one of us intentionally crossed over the line in the other’s territory, the other had the God-given right to whack the intruding appendage as hard as we could, and thus we developed a back-seat version of the arcade game Whack-A-Mole. We’d each gradually ease a finger toward and then over the line until the other noticed and then we’d try to pull away before WHACK! the other came crashing down with a fist. Of course if one of us actually got whacked we’d wail and I remember my Dad in the driver’s seat getting so frustrated that while keeping his eyes on the road he swung his arm about the back seat trying to cuff one of us. It was with this memory that I realized that Casey and I have about 14 years of this bickening-for-no-reason to look forward to. I guess it is something I’ll adapt to in time. When the kids were first born I was pretty unhappy about being thrown up on and cleaning up poo, but now those kinds of things are par for the course. I guess I’m looking forward to a little holiday magic. Here’s wishing you peace and good will this Christmas, I know I could use some!

week ending dec 16, 2007:

Week ending December 16, 2007: This was a week of ups and downs.

Chloe’s tummy: Lab Corp lost Chloe’s poo. So we were supposed to get another sample, but she had her appointment with the gastroenterologist before we got that done and the doctor said she doesn’t see a need for the test since Chloe’s biopsy last year showed no evidence of H Pylori. Our doctor had been out of town, and it was another doctor who had ordered the test. How annoying. Anyway, our doctor was unconcerned with Chloe’s “break-through symptoms” (her term for Chloe’s pain and vomiting despite the medicine) and suggested trying to take Chloe off Prevacid. I didn’t understand why that was a good idea since Chloe seemed to be under-medicated, not over-medicated and Chloe’s physiology isn’t likely to have changed to eliminate the cause of her reflux. The doctor either wasn’t able or wasn’t willing to try to explain it to me. In the end she agreed that Chloe could stay on Prevacid for 6 more months and then we should do a follow up. I think our follow up will be with a different doctor. I’ve always stuck with doctors who go the extra mile to explain things to me because in the end I’m the person making day-to-day decisions about healthcare.

The twins haven’t been getting along very well for a couple weeks and this week they all of a sudden starting playing nicely again, maybe due to feeling better (getting over colds and such) and getting more exercise. So I decided to help them get more exercise even though we are house bound because it has rained what seems like every single day for FOREVER. We set up an obstacle course in the house and had the kids jump from carpet square to carpet square, run around the dining room table, climb under a chair, and climb over the arm of the sofa, etc. They had a blast and ran the course at least 8 times. At one point Chloe said “this turned out to be a fun night after all!”

Alex needed a new hat and gloves and he picked camouflage. I guess this is the beginning of the kids making choices that aren’t the ones I would make. I really hate camouflage, but he got a pair of hand-me-down camouflage pants from his cousin Blade and he LOVES them. Both kids love the hand-me-downs from friends and family. I let them pick out their own sheets with their favorite characters and then they received hand-me-down sheets with Bug’s Life characters and Batman. They don’t like the Bug’s Life movie (too scary) and they’ve never seen Batman, but the hand-me-downs are their favorites because other kids chose those sheets, so they must be great!

Chloe made me feel good this week. I bought a new sweater for her while I was shopping alone, and Chloe loves it. She pets the sweater and comments on how soft it is, and she’s said over and over that she loves the color (lavender is her new favorite color), and she’s thanked me and told me again and again that she loves the sweater. She even slept in it one night. It is so nice for me to get some recognition for a small part of the work I do for the kids since so much of what I do goes unnoticed or is down-right resented (giving them medicine, brushing their teeth, etc).

The “downs” of the ups and downs was that Chloe threw up 5 times last night, evenly spaced in time so that I’d just get her cleaned up and back to sleep and I’d drift off for a while, then we’d do it all over again. She threw up one more time during the day, but has started to get better. We had tickets today to see a local production of the Nutcracker ballet, our first. I decided that sitting and watching the ballet at the Chesapeake Arts Center wasn’t any harder on Chloe than watching videos in our living room, so we went despite the throwing up. We made it through without incident and Chloe had a cookie at intermission that was the first food she kept down all day. Alex also went and he got really bored. By the middle of the 1st act he was complaining that he wanted to go home. By the middle of the 2nd act said “I’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting!” So I started to tickle and mock-punch him which amused him until it was over. Fortunately the music was over a very loud sound system, and there was no one sitting directly next to us, so I don’t think we disturbed anyone. Afterwards I asked Chloe if she liked it and she had a HUGE grin and said she loved it. The parking lot was full of twirling little girls. I asked Alex if he liked it and he said “yeah, but it was too long”.

One of Alex’s funny lines from this week was “yum, I love peas!” (he actually was not kidding, he really likes vegetables). Here are the pictures from a birthday party that the kids attended on Friday (Abby is a friend from pre-school): http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/AbbySBday

week ending dec 9, 2007

Week ending December 9, 2007: In my last entry (below) I forgot to write about the funniest part of decorating the Christmas tree. After we were almost done Alex stood back and looked at the tree and said “I think Santa will see this tree and he will say (imitating a deep man’s voice) ‘This is a fine nice tree!’”. Casey and I both had a good chuckle over that one.

Alex is getting to be quite confident in his speaking. In September when Sunday School started back up our pastor started calling all the kids in church up to the front of church for a mini-sermon about 15 minutes into the services before the pastor released the kids to Sunday School. At first Alex wouldn’t go up to the front with the other kids, I guess he didn’t like being in front of the rest of the congregation. Today, however Alex ran right up with the rest of the kids. Pastor Dave noticed that Alex was wearing his “fire fighter boots” and asked Alex if he was going to be a fire fighter when he grows up. Alex said “No, I’m going to be an astronaut”. Pastor Dave said “you’re going to be an astronaut?” and he said it loud enough so the congregation could hear. Alex said “yes, I’m going to fly to Mars”. Pastor Dave said “you’re going to fly to Mars?”. Alex said “Yes. But first I have to learn how to fly the space shuttle.” I thought Grammy Barb and I were going fall out of our seats laughing. Pastor Dave said “I hope your dream comes true, I’d like to see you fly to Mars”. Alex told Pastor Dave he could come along. The sermon today was about how we might be better off if we were wild-eyed dreamers who saw the possibilities in life with child-like simplicity. Of course Alex doesn’t think that becoming an astronaut is a dream, he honestly believes that he will fly the space shuttle to Mars, but that’s what makes it so beautiful.

Chloe’s funny question of the week is “Mom, do snails have birthdays?” I told her they do, but they don’t have hands so they can’t make birthday cakes to celebrate. It turns out that earlier in the week one of the kids had asked if everyone has bones and I’d answered that all people have bones, but snails don’t have bones, so they got Chloe wondering, if they don’t have bones, do snails have birthdays?

Also this week, we made snicker doodle cookies. Alex didn’t want to touch the dough, so he wouldn’t roll them around in the cinnamon sugar mix, but he did count the cookies as we put them on the cookie sheet. Each time a new cookie was placed on the sheet he’d start over from 1 and count each cookie all the way up to a dozen. The kids have known for a long time the order of the numbers one to ten, but they had trouble “tracking” or making sure to assign only one number to each object without skipping objects, so this was a milestone. Throughout the week Alex counted several other things correctly and even counted the 12 Christmas cards that I’ve hung which I find especially impressive because they are up high so Alex couldn’t touch each card as he counted.

The kids went to 3 parties this week, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, one party was hosted by a family who had 3 daughters and each daughter invited 5 kids. I don’t recall ever having been in a house with that many kids at one time in my life! It was fun though because all the preschool kids sat at one table and decorated gingerbread houses and Alex kept saying “my house is the yummiest!” and then another boy said “my house is the yummiest too!” and Alex said “oh yeah, yours is too”. And then all 6 preschoolers decided that they ALL had the yummiest house and we all had to agree.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas:


On Sunday we went to our first party of the holiday season, the annual Gingerbread House Making Party at the house of some friends from college. There were 4 other little kids there so Alex and Chloe had a nice day of playing and Casey and I got to catch up with some grown up friends.



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On Tuesday we put up the Christmas tree and this year let the kids help with all the decorations instead of relegating them to the non-fragile ones. Of course they could only reach the lower half of the tree, so I decorated the upper half. They thought the tree was beautiful and were very enthusiastic about the ornaments especially ones with their names on them, or ones they’d made last year. The next morning the kids wanted the lights on the tree turned on as soon as they came downstairs and then we realized that it was snowing!

The rest of the day felt like playing hooky, even though we didn’t have anything scheduled, we just played hooky from daily life. The kids sat in front of the glass door for a while and just watched it snowing, and then Chloe wanted to make something Christmas-ee for breakfast and asked what we usually eat on Christmas. I told her about the egg casserole and the sticky buns. She didn’t like the idea of the eggs, but the rolls sounded good. The rolls we make on Christmas have yeast and take a long time to rise, but I remembered a recipe I made a long time ago that uses Bisquick. The kids stood on chairs next to the kitchen counter and helped me dump the ingredients into the bowl and then helped me roll out the dough and sprinkle on the cinnamon and sugar mixture and roll it up like a jelly roll. Alex said “I wuv making these rows (rolls)!”. While the rolls were baking the kids decided to move the kid sized plastic table into the den so they could look out the glass door at the snow while they ate their breakfast. When I made the icing for the rolls the kids insisted on putting food color in the icing.















After breakfast we bundled up and went out to play in the snow. They jumped on the trampoline with the snow for a while and then realized that the snow was just the right consistency for making snow balls and we had a pretty good snow ball fight with lots of giggling.


Then we made a mini-snow-girl (we decided it was a snow baby) with dried basil for hair.
Afterward we got the sleds out and they pulled each other around the yard and then went inside for hot chocolate and lunch.









By 3pm we had enough snow to cover the grass so we headed to the neighbor’s hill for some sledding. The kids rode the sleds by themselves and pulled the sleds up the hill by themselves, so all I had to do was stand at the top of the hill and hold the sleds still while they climbed in. The next day was a school day and after school the kids sang a song that they had learned. I’d never heard of it, but as we were driving home, we heard the song on the radio, it is called “Come on, ring those bells”. The picture below is a video of Chloe singing. Click the arrow to play.

The Biggest Loser

The Biggest Loser: I lose everything. My Mom used to say “you’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached” and I think she was right. I’ve lost everything from socks to diamond rings and everything in between. There is an upside to being an experienced “loser” and that upside is that I have a lot of experience tracking stuff down and getting back. One time we lost Chloe’s shoe in the parking lot at Home Depot and drove back there later in the day and actually found it. One time I was in a restaurant and threw everything in my pocket into the trash can not realizing that my wedding was one of the things in my pocket. We actually finished our meals and left the restaurant before I realized the ring was gone. With my expert loser procedure in place I thought back to what possibly could have happened to the ring, determined that it must have been thrown in the trash, contacted the restaurant and asked them to save the trash from that specific trash can, they volunteered to look through the trash for me (I guess it is unseemly to have customers picking through the trash), they found the ring and I went back to get it. Casey is so used to me losing stuff and getting it back that he didn’t even yell at me for doing something so stupid. This is why I was baffled when we couldn’t track down Chloe’s bunny. I knew that we’d emptied their school bags as soon as we walked in the door and that was when I discovered Bunny was missing. The two places we went that day were school and Burlington Coat Factory, so went back to those two places 3 times in as many weeks and searched and asked around about Bunny. Even after 3 weeks Chloe was asking when we were going to get her “Real Bunny” back and I kept saying we’ll keep looking. When the kids can’t find a particular toy I always tell them that if you want to find something in the house, start cleaning up and it will show up. Turns out I should have taken my own advice because I was cleaning when I discovered the missing Bunny. What I didn’t realize was that Bunny had been stuffed into Chloe’s hat, and the hat had been put away in the proper hat place, also as soon as we walked into the door on the fateful day Bunny went missing. Anyway, Chloe was overjoyed to be reunited and Bunny has hardly left her side since. When Bunny first went missing I did tell Alex and Chloe that it was not a good idea to take Puppy and Bunny to school anymore. We’ll see tomorrow if Chloe finds it more important to keep track of Bunny by leaving her home, or to have Bunny by her side even at school.

week ending dec 2, 2007

Week ending December 2, 2007: This week Chloe has spent a lot of time practicing writing her letters. She already knew how to write “Chloe” and “Alex”, but this week she had another word she wanted to write, so she practiced her “N’s” and her “P’s”. No “N’s” and “P’” in “Mommy” and “Daddy”, you notice. Yup. The next most important word in Chloe’s world is “princess”. She tried writing “princess” and got frustrated that the letters didn’t look quite write so she decided on her own to write a page full of “P’s”. I asked if she wanted to learn the some more of the letters and she said “maybe tomorrow”. Sure enough, the next day she sat down and wrote a page full of “N’s”. It is really amazing how kids get the urge to learn something and are willing to put the work into it.

Also this week we started reading a book of Shel Silverstein poems that I had read when I was a little girl. The poems are much stranger than I remembered, but the kids really liked them. There is a poem called “Hungry Mungry” in which a boy named Mungry eats all the food in the house, then eats his parents, his house, his city, the US Army, the world, the sun, the universe, and then there is nothing left so eats himself starting at his toes and then there is nothing left except teeth. Chloe said “what do you think the sun tastes like?” I admitted I didn’t have a guess and asked what she thought and she said she thought it would probably burn your mouth.

My Alex story for this week starts at bedtime. Alex said “what if you turned into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”. I said “then I’d lay all over you and get you sticky with peanut butter and jelly” and I pretended to use my belly to smear him. Instead of laughing he started to cry. He balled “if you turned into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I’d be really upset!” I said that I’d never really turn into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and that I’d never be anything except his mommy. Then he cried “what about when you die and go to heaven?” Then I realized the problem was a discussion that Chloe had started earlier in the day. Out of the blue she asked if she’d die when I died. Then she asked if Daddy would die when I died. I asked Chloe what made her think about me dying and she said “PopPop died and went to heaven and now he isn’t here anymore”. Anyway, at bedtime I talked with Alex about how I expected to live a long time until he was old enough to have kids and grandkids, and I reminded him of all the people we know how who will love and take care of him. He eventually stopped crying and went to sleep.