Mamadavia's birthday

Ah, it was my birthday this weekend and it was a wonderful day with a few lessons splattered amongst the fun.
I got a great gift from all the little chipmunks, a NAP! wow priceless! Dave was working and all three kids napped, it was great! By all my !! You can see my excitement and enthusiasm over this gift that i didn't even ask for, but so greatly appreciated.
We went to a wonderful Irish Pub for dinner. Lesson #1 Pack soft toys for Theodore to play with when we are out. Yes, she has learned to bang everything! She also is throwing things on the floor. While i know better then to pick these things up and give them back to her, Alvin does not. She had fun having him pick up after her.
Simon is our moocher, she ate all but one of the cucumber slices out of our salads. Then she just had to have a shrimp as well. Lesson #2 Don't feed a moocher, they just come back for more. Trust us, we know.
As we left (through the bar) Dave was carrying Theodore, and an obviously drunk young man says from across the room that she is "the prettiest girl in the world". OK, you're hitting on my 6m old? LOL glad Dave was holding her, it was a little weird but once we got out the door we laughed. Lesson #3 Um, keep my girls away from drunk men.

Once outside and laughing, Alvin says "i smell smoke" "who's smoking". Who is he, Smokey the Bear? So, as i am explaining laws and such i see the guy who is the offending smoker. He is having is smoke around the side of the building in a patio area. So, he says "hi" and at that point i am pretty sure he heard everything.

It is about that point i realize that we are no longer "cool". We pack up our minivan and now i am sure i am not cool.

Veggie Dessert

We all know the rules, eat your veggies.....finish your dinner and THEN you can have dessert. That's how is is supposed to work, but what do "they" say about the best laid plans?

Simon being the typical dramatic 3 year old girl, can go from smiles and laughing to tears over something in 10 sec flat. It usually takes 4 or 5 repeats before we can understand what the problem is over the heaving cries Then when she finally can articulate actual words we hear "i forgot to put on my make up" (on the way home from being out, and she only wears lip gloss) or "i wanted to wear my dancing shoes". We have found that girls really can create their own drama.

On our way home from eating out one night, she has one of these hysterical crying episodes and she says (you have to remember to heave at least twice when you read this) "I FORGOT TO EAT MY SALAD".  We assured her that there would be many other opportunities to eat salad but that one was over.

So, this weekend we had a party to celebrate both girls getting dedicated and Mamadavia made this fabulous cake

Simon was very excited to have a slice of this sweet delight. As every good mom would, i made sure she had a decent dinner that she felt was just a waste of her time. After coming up to me no less then 10 times, it was finally time to cut the cake and she was first in line. She promptly ate all the icing and filling and then left the cake.

Well, next thing you know she is having some chips and salsa (it's a party and all the food is still out) and then a huge plate (well huge for a 3 year old) of vegetable and dip. Then she was done and could relax.
I am beginning to think that i should just give her dessert for dinner and her dinner for dessert!

Counting and Driving

Alvin, when he was still my little guy..........today he reminded me a few times how grown up he is getting............or not.

He was spending time with his younger sisters and Simon was watching a PBS show. In the show they were counting and his looks at me and says "why are they counting my ones, it would be much easier if they counted my 10's or 2's or 5's"

Later in the morning he says "when i am 19 will i be able to drive" and i said "i sure hope so, where would you want to drive to?" he said maybe down town (okay "downtown" is 6-7 blocks away is a block long, not even a traffic light) then he said "maybe i will ask my friend (the neighbor) and we can go around the block". Ah, if his world would only stay that small.

Nicknames

You always have those little endearing names for your babies when they are little. They are such a bundle of cuteness their actual name doesn't quite seem to do them justice. So, we come up with all these cute nicknames..........and with each kid i have felt a need for them to have their own special nickname that i use only for them. There are others that i have called all of them but......

For Alvin it was doodle bug which was quickly shortened to "doodle"
For Simon it was Bug-a-boo which i shortened to "bug" or "bugga"
And lastly for Theodore it is "Boo Boo" like in Boo Boo Bear (we saw Yogi when she was really small) which, obviously becomes "Boo" when i shorten it.

What i didn't notice until tonight is that they piggyback each other "doodle bug a boo boo", how odd is that? That was me, not even trying.

OSHA and Zoo

Ah, spring has arrived! I wasn't sure of it until i noticed Simon's hair, the increased curl is evidence of the passage from dry winter air to humid spring/summer air. (if i had a dime for every time i was asked if i curl her hair)

 Other happenings at the Chipmunks house:

We have a new OSHA director, Alvin.      

Now he has always made a sign saying "wet floor" when he helps wash the floor, and to his credit the floor really is WET when he is done. This week he took it to a new level and made this sign

I interpret it as "stop or you'll slip", evidently we have moved to more universally recognized signs in our home.

"Family Fun Day" destination was the Zoo

........felt a little bad for the giraffe i don't think licking the pole will satisfy his hungry belly.
We saw lions and tigers and bears (polar bears to be specific) and monkeys too. We have a picture of those monkeys that Alvin took, unfortunately it doesn't meet BCC (blog communication comission) standards.

Theodore was pleased to showcase her purple stroller and her animal sounds as well.

 Ever been in a monkey house when they are all going crazy? On the way home i feared a monkey may have made it's way into our van, but the sounds were truly only coming from one source.

One more picture to share, a few days before mothers day Simon brought me some "special flowers" as she called them. I offered to hire her out to a friend who wanted to get rid of some weeds, but we really still need her here.......we have lots more "special flowers" for her to pick.

Blinking and Shatows

Theodore is quite social and she was visiting with a "girl friend" the other night. This young girl decided to stare her down, and see who would "win". It was quite comical to see Theodore win and the young girl say "she hasn't learned to blink yet".  Eventually she got Theodore to blink by clapping her hands. I wouldn't want to be in a staring contest with her, it's like some sort of super-hero power....."the power to stare"

Alvin's "war wounds" are almost totally healed up (and it's been less then a week), and he had a friend tell him his stitches were gone now.....so he was checking the accuracy of the information his friend gave him (something i hope he does for a long time). I told him yes they were dissolved now, and told him that mom had the same kind of stitches when she was a kid. First question he asked was if i got a matchbox car when i got my stitches. Well, no i didn't.....oh you didn't act like a big girl? Staring and maturity, something not inherited from the X chromosome.

Out walking with all the chipmunks (and friends) today and Simon found her shatow. She was excited and kept following her shatow, but there was a flaw in that logic. She walked around in small circles and got nowhere. Finally, i let her in on the secret that her shatow would follow her wherever she went.  We could probably find deeper spiritual meaning in this story, but i just thought "i wonder what it means when a preschooler sees their shatow, 6 more weeks of ?

'Perfect Record' broken

"Family Fun Day" ended on a bit of a sour note. Alvin fell off a platform/stage area and broke the fall with his mouth. We had what looked like a crime scene that we quickly cleaned up and off to the urgent care we went....
Alvin was very upset about having to see a doctor when he was hurt, we've never been to urgent care or the emergency room. We got there and he seemed to calm down, they gave him toys to play with and a dvd player to watch a movie and all was better. The doctor examined him and said he needed a few stitches, and then the child life specialist explained what would happen and they told him "no surprises" and all seemed well. The nurse came in every 5 min or so and applied the topical gel to the area to numb it. The doc came back and stitched him up while Alvin whined a bit cause it wasn't totally numb but it only took a few minutes and we were on our way home.

Yes, i am the kind of mom to take pictures of this.....

As we walked out of the Urgent care Alvin says to me "i thought they said no surprises", he was quite annoyed. When i thought about it i felt bad for him cause i try to prepare him for what will happen and instead of me doing it, the child life person did it.......why would they tell kids no surprises if they fail to tell them about any pain? Poor kid they lied to him. What did that child life person know........
Next day over lunch i talk with Alvin about the previous night and asked him "would it have been better if they told you they were using a needle"  He says "yes" I ask him "how would that make it better" He says "i would have run right out of the building into the van". Ok, maybe the child life person knew what they were doing.........
He is almost all healed up now, it's amazing how much better it looks today......maybe i should do a re-take on the easter pictures. On the down side our 7 1/2 year record of no stitches/emergency care for the kids is broken, guess it had to happen sometime. Rest assured we still are working at the no broken bones record.

UPDATE ON PREVIOUS POST:
On Easter morning as the kids are checking out their baskets, i tell Simon that the real name for bunny turds is jelly beans and that i was being silly when i called them bunny turds. So, when Dave gets home (yes he had to work on Easter) i am eager have her show off  the knowledge she gained.
I say what is this (holding a jellybean) and she says "a jellybean" and then follows it up with "yeah, bunny turds are made out of jellybeans".