I can hear Isaac upstairs still crying. It's quieter now. Oh, wait, wait, no louder. This is how my night has progressed:
Put kids to bed the first time by tucking in, singing songs, kisses goodnight.
Leave room.
Small Isaac whimpering turns into full out wails.
Go back in room, lay down said child and kiss/rub back/tuck in a second time. Natalie has pillow and blankets over her head complaining "It's too loud!"
Third time rock crazed child, tuck older child into my bed where nice and quiet, re-tuck child-who-shall-not-be-named for I've lost count time into bed.
I'd like to say this was also the last time.
It wasn't.
He's got some strange funk going on where he WON'T go to bed peacefully any more. So here I am. Listing to the ups and downs of his wailing as he cycles through crying, talking to himself, loud wails, crying... He's on his own at this point.
And so am I...oh, he's good, he's pulled out the "mamaaa" cry. Must...not...succumb...
I've had the best week this week. Make that BEST. Three good packages came.
One from my grandma full of books for Natalie. She has a great series (www.iseesam.com) for emergent readers she offered to loan me and I will send back and forth as we move through them. We've tried to keep them as pristine as they were sent. These are wonderful so look into them if you know anyone learning to read. This books are the real deal. They've been around for decades and are actually fun to read even for the adult who is helping. You don't have to know anything about teaching reading because it's all in there. Plus there are sets all the way through third grading reading level. Talk about scaffolding.
Natalie is eating them up and just loving reading real books all by herself. This new found confidence has spilled over into her drawing and writing. She wrote a story tonight and read it to Isaac and I. It went something like this:
"Aaa t hhh iii mmm nnn ooohhh "
Okay, that was a strange attempt on my part at capturing a child sounding out letters. But she had written "words" (a jumble of random letters) and was sounding them out. The best part was she would stop and ask me what they meant! "Uhhhh..." I've seen countless kids learning to read and heard about the joy from other parents. It's just different when it's your own.
Also the UPS guy dropped off a package filled with graduation photographs from my sister-in law Carol and she also sent a beautiful wooden box with Ohio State art on the front as a little gift. Hooray! Oh and our favorite movie, Waking Ned Devine we lent them. Double Hooray!
Lastly Santa apparently forgot a gift and it arrived surprise, surprise via UPS. A new kitchen knife! Embarrassingly, all of our knives have come from All-A-Dollar. What are students to do? I've nearly lost a few fingers because I'm not used to washing and cutting with a sharp knife. It's dreamy and anything that can be chopped, sliced, or diced has been.
This is a photo of my neighbor. One day he plowed pretty much everyone's driveway and sidewalks. How nice! People just take care of each other on our street. There are two elderly ladies across from me. One is probably in her 70's, the other 90's. The seventy year old takes out the other's trash every week. I see her and a couple of other neighbors regularly visiting, shoveling, mowing, whatever-ing. You can't go outside without waving and chatting to someone. We had a wee mushroom infestation in our front lawn this summer. I had no clue how to get rid of them and was out there digging them up. A woman who lives down the street was walking by and said, "You aren't really trying to dig those things out are you? This is what you've got to do..." No fence sitters on my street regarding sincere, going out of your way kindness.
I try to get up early enough to shovel before the kids are awake. Lately I do it while they eat breakfast or even later in the day while they play in the snow and I break a sweat. Here's a photo of Isaac watching me.
And another. He thought the snowballs were so funny.
Jared generally leaves early enough that if he shoveled before he left it would be snowed back over by the time I got up. So last Sunday I saw this out the window and was overjoyed. He knows how Sundays are a little hectic trying to get out the door on time and I usually completely forget about shoveling or scraping car windows until I'm already running behind, so he shoveled two long paths for the car tires and scraped my windows, too. So thoughtful also because he knows how much I hate having compacted snow to shovel later...
He had a day off this week and spent it frolicking. This wasn't much of a slide for him. What a fun dad.
He took the kids to the park via sled (our wintertime choice of transportation). I snapped this when they got back. Isaac completely wiped out and Natalie is under his coat trying to keep the frostbite at bay. Last night he took Natalie on the sled to the grocery store to buy hot dogs of all things because earlier in the day I had mentioned in passing how I had a strange craving for hot dogs.
Sundays can make for looong days with little kids, so today I took some whole wheat buns that have been sitting in my freezer too long, dried them out in the oven for about 20 minutes on 400 degrees until nice and crispy and afterwards the kids cut out heart shapes using cookie cutters. Smoothed on some peanut butter, sprinkled on birds seed and make some early valentines for our favorite feathered friends. And then sat at the window waiting for partakers of our gift...how many birds did we see: none. We will definitely be doing these again on Valentine's Day. And it killed a few hours.
First thing in the morning she pulls out paper and a pen. Isn't it amazing we have access to writing supplies at such a young age? We really do live in an singular country and time. How many countless people never held a writing utensil, never learned to write their own name, never learned to read or write or just fill up notebooks with whatever he or she could dream up?
You may not be able to see very well in these photos, but Natalie's taken to wearing her jammies, coat, and jeans backwards. Just those three things. It started with the jeans because jeans are boring otherwise (well of course they are) and that was the compromise to wear them at all. Then it was the coat and jammies. No boring here. And she also likes her coat backwards so she can have a pillow (her hood) in case she gets sleepy. I love childhood. She's also become particular about her hair: one ponytail on the very top of her head so it sticks out all crazy with a bow that has long pieces hanging down. Also, her hair is "light reddish brown" so make a note and whatever you do, don't forget.
Whatelse? A passerby pushed me out of snowbank. I read in the newspaper our city has the number one ranked Post Office in the country finally beating out Honolulu (that's so funny to me). Had a great time sledding at the park with some other resident wives and kids. Received a long, chatty email from a friend I haven't talked to in a long time. Talked with a lady at a quilting shop for a long time about all the new colors this year. Purple (eggplant) and a blue in between teal and turquoise. I knew you were wondering.
Lastly, Jared sent me on a morning by myself. Post call and all and he sent me away to do whatever I wished and he sure didn't have to tell me twice. So I stopped at a quilting shop I've been wanting to, but wasn't going to wrangle my kids in there. Found some great fabric to finish a few projects which I will post when done. Made some other random stops I've been putting off because sometimes the thought of bucking and unbuckling two kids over and over and hauling them around is overwhelming to me and a bad day for them. Found a couple of great buys at the thrift store. Oh and our water is not floridated (sp?) here, so I went to fill a flouride perscription at Wal-mart only to find out they do it for free! Otherwise it's $4, but still $4 x 2 kids x 12 months = just enough to make me happy.
Natalie also made pictures and signs for them to know they eat there. She hung them on the window. We turned our couch around to face out the window and spent quite a bit of time there with a big pile of books and blankets.
