i’m finally sort of starting to see the humor in sick week. I mean, it’s funny that Leva threw up in two different beds at my parents house and they had to clean up the mess. It’s funny that she told me later “Gummy said that if I have to throw up, to hit him in the head. So I HIT him in the head and he got me the bucket and I threw up in it!” It’s funny that after throwing up every 20-30 minutes for 10 hours straight, Hattie seemed to think the bowl we stuck under her chin was making her throw up, so she’d scream NO!! when she saw it and try to swat it out of our hands while writhing away from it (at which time she’d usually throw up down your back or on your chest or other such lovliness). It’s funny that she’d throw up with her nookie in her mouth, spitting it into the bowl and then throwing up all over it – and then want to stick it back in her mouth. It’s funny to hear Brad yell “OH NO!!” followed by a splat. Curdled milk dripping down the walls is kind of funny, right? The dried chunks in Hattie’s hair when she woke up this morning? It’s sort of funny that Geert was ultimately empowered by his puking – “Mom, I threw up in the BOWL! I did it!!”. And thank goodness, I was never throwing up at a time when a child needed to be cleaned up. It’s been five days of a lot of barf. The only man left standing, once again, is Brad with his freaky iron clad immune system. We’ve gotten very little sleep, a LOT of snuggling, and watched every available episode of Fireman Sam and Pingu. I think, rather like coming out of the dark hole that was our maternity leave with Hattie, we have a greater appreciation for sleep. We’re thankful that despite it all, we have healthy, usually sweet smelling children, a house of good eaters, and kids who are loud and active and laughing. Even when they drive us crazy. It’s good to be reminded of these things, just hard to be forced to be reminded under such putrid circumstances.
Thu 29 Dec 2011
December
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One should bear in mind, while reading this post (or the blog in general) that I’m possibly one of the worst casual bloggers of all time. I skip really important life events and then try to catch things up retrospectively, after the luster has dulled and i’ve forgotten most of what happened. But then I feel obligated to write down something, honestly, more so our kids can pull it up and remember one day or we can reminisce about it. but i have to say, by that point, it doesn’t really make for a great story. So feel free to just look at the pictures and move on.
Although, even worse, I don’t have ANY pictures of what was undoubtedly the biggest event of the month, nay year – my long awaited (dreaded) 40th birthday! We had dinner and cake at my parents’ house in Springfield (no pictures), dumped the kids off tucked the cherubs in bed, and came back for the first party at the new pad. 40 very good friends joined us and packed the house to the rafters. There was more food than anyone could eat, music that couldn’t be heard over the noise, and friends that I haven’t seen in a long long time. And I don’t have a single picture of any of it. Sports medicine folk and the Davies lasted the party out, and then Brad and Chad played XBox while Kelly and I danced and cleaned so I could wake up to a neat and tidy house full of a zillion ziplock bags of nuts and crackers and cheese that we’re still eating to this day. Brad and I slept in until the luxurious hour of 8:30, showered alone (a big deal when you’re used to tripping over small children playing in the water at your feet), and went out to breakfast to enjoy hot coffee and hot food. Best birthday ever.
And now, my attempt at photojournalism:
Santa at the Grandview library. The last time we did this I was pregnant with Hattie and both Leva and Geert screamed their heads off. Now, two years later, L and G actually told him what they wanted while Hattie screamed her head off. Not bad!
Our neighbor, Granny Vi, has started what we hope will be a yearly tradition of gingerbread house making and inviting the kids over to decorate. Here’s Leva with Gwen and Marlo Davie trying to stick as much candy onto the side of a house as humanly possible. Gotta hand it to Granny Vi – the kids LOVE it and mom and dad get an early start on holiday excess. (The mice nibble on the houses at night)
The preschool Christmas program. Hattie stole baby Jesus (thankfully before the program started, so we could get him back to his display), and Leva and Geert did two separate shows. G even sang and did arm motions! Well, at least until he got bored and started giving wet willies to the kid next to him, who would then swat and yell at him during the performance. Leva and Judah did a great job with all the songs, even if Noah was too oblivious to sit next to them (Leva tried to call to him, but the kid was seriously oblivious. Maybe it was stage fright.) In this picture, the kids are “tugging on their heartstrings”. Quite aggressively, I must say.
Wild lights at the zoo!! This was, by far, the best trip to the zoo we’ve had as a family EVER. Seriously. We got there early (surprise) and played with the polar bear exhibit for a while, rode the train and the merry-go-round, had some nasty zoo food dinner, and checked out the lights in our stroller without one tantrum, one complaint, or one lost child. We even stayed LATE. And yes, those are Christmas lights in the stroller. We’re that cool.
The Christmas train display at Union Station in Kansas City. We came to this for the first time last year and Geert about had a heart attack. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of model train displays set up in multiple areas that kids can explore. I’m more into the displays than the trains – the detail is amazing – but G was in heaven. Even better was riding the old kids’ train in the main station. Until Geert had a total meltdown outside when a REAL TRAIN blew its whistle at him, while the engineer happily waved at him out the window. “Daddy, it too WOUD!! WAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”
Christmas in Kansas City with Oma, Poppop and the Gordon clan. Too many pictures to post, but the kids had a terrific time. Favorite presents were Hattie’s new dolly and Poop Poop bear (how could we not get her a Pooh bear when she calls him Poop Poop?), Leva’s doll (whom she named Strawberry. Kinda weird.) and Disney XBox game, and Geert’s Radiator Springs town and Tomica train set. Wow. And a new family tradition was started: Almond tarts.
Bubbles outside at the park with Oma. What a way to end the day.
Sun 11 Dec 2011
Playing in the alley
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Since our back yard is a mud pit, and now a frozen mud pit, the only place to really play outside is in the alley. It’s good place for bigwheels, bikes, trikes, and a sort of good place for running. What would we do in the yard at this point anyway? It’s FREEZING outside!
Wed 7 Dec 2011
Mom, guess what?
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“Noah’s my boyfriend. He’s in love with me. He’s crazy. Maybe we’ll get married.” This from Leva. Now, some may remember the little romance that erupted two years ago in preschool 1 between Leva and Noah. As three year olds, they’d stand next to each other in music class, hold hands, and he’d fall on the ground to make her laugh. Now, two years later, they stand next to each other in music class, hold hands, and he falls on the ground to make her laugh. I even have word from the inside – her teacher from last year, Mrs. Perry, pulled me aside a few weeks ago to tattle on the liaison saying “Leva likes the bad boys. So do I.” Noah, is, um, rambunctious. He and his buddy Judah apparently run into walls and fall down dead, and hit themselves in the butts and fall down dead (high class acts in preschool 3), and are loud. Very loud. And very much boys. And while Leva will talk about every girl in the class being her friend, if prompted, she only tells stories about Judah and Noah. Judah and Noah were my dogs today. Judah and Noah were crazy today. This year’s Christmas program is going to be great – even if only to see how the kids interact. Video cameras will be rolling!
Leva at school
Noah, with him mom Taryn, and baby brother William
Tue 6 Dec 2011
Off the wagon, AGAIN.
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Or would it be on the wagon, since I’m actually posting today? Not that I feel like I have anything interesting to say or any good pictures to share. I think coming down off of a very busy month makes us appreciate our lack of interest these days. We’ve moved into the new house, but have no pictures of it, though it’s finally starting to come together. We put up a rather sad Christmas tree with the few ornaments we have (it still twinkles), but we haven’t gotten around to putting up outside lights yet because it hasn’t stopped raining in what seems FOREVER and we’re lazy. We got blinds for the front windows so all of Grandview wouldn’t know our bidness anymore (this was actually noteworthy to us, hence the mention in the family blog). We just parked in the garage for the first time two nights ago and it finally feels like we live here. Yes, it’s coming together veeeeery slowly, but I think this house is going to suit us well. If only Santa would bring me a finished basement this year.
Thu 27 Oct 2011
How’s about some house pictures?
Posted by admin under House
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We bought this house. This rather unfinished, but pretty house. It’s more finished now than it is in the pictures, and hooks are up and appliances are installed and blinds are hung in the bedrooms, but at least this will give you a little idea of what it looks like in it’s semi-finished state. And now that it’s finally upon us, I have to admit, I’m bittersweet about moving again. Despite the skunk house infestations and the longer commute and the lack of sidewalks, I’ve grown to like our little rental corner of Upper Arlington. Our neighbors are good to us, the kids can play on Chevington Dr., an essentially dead-end street where they ride bigwheels like maniacs in folks’ driveways and they actually come out to watch and enjoy it. Where neighbor kids come over to play in the big driveway and pick-up games of tag ball happen after dinner. It’s definitely a different lifestyle – much more suburban, with a lot more space than Grandview, and thus a longer commute and the inability to walk anywhere interesting besides one park, but it’s been nice. I hope returning to Grandview is as good to us as living here has been!
The new Fischer homestead
Kitchen sans appliance and plus mess (which is what it’ll probably look like most of the time anyway)
Luxurious Dining Area
Back porch for after bedtime vacation relaxing without needing a babysitter
The Christmas room – hopefully we’ll use it for a lot more than that…
The stairs. Boy do I love them.
Geert rockin’ the green room!
Leva unveiling the princess pink cloud room
Hattie, obviously impressed, says OOooooo!
The master retreat, for more after bedtime without a babysitter relaxing (until 2 or 3 children join us in bed and kick us in the back or chest all night)
Wed 26 Oct 2011
Leva’s belated birthday
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I’m such a bad mom. In all of the commotion of buying a new house (I guess I’ll post on that later), and getting it cleaned, and freaking out about going to Kenya (again, another post), I haven’t written about Leva’s big five year old birthday party. Bad Mama. But Leva did indeed turn FIVE! Five is big! Five is true little girl status! Five is somewhat independent! (sort of) One thing that we didn’t get to do, was go camping, something Leva really wanted to do and something that we had planned to do, but got away from us. There’s no way we’d camp in our backyard here in the skunk house, it’s just too creepy and you just know some animal encounter would occur, and we didn’t plan far enough in advance or have enough “time” to get it together for a family trip. But we did the next best thing – a pool party!! It was great. Leva’s friends Maggie Malone, and her sisters Emily and Erin (even baby Evan came along), Maggie Wessel, her new friend Abby Talarzyk from preschool and her new friend Natalia Alessi from ballet came. Unfortunately, the weather was terrible that night and with the rain and traffic accidents, new friends Gwendolyn and Marlo Davie got stuck in traffic and had to turn around. And of course, G and H swam like fishies. Pool parties are fantastic – the kids play and get exhausted without any organized games, then they actually eat their pizza dinner and sit in a chair long enough to eat their birthday cookiecake, and then there’s only limited time for presents, so we get to whip through those, and then, voila! it’s time to go! Favorite presents included, at the top of the list, a Rapunzel dress from Uncle Pete and Aunt Heather (with the slippers), and a decorate by number box that she got to stick rhinestones all over to hold the most coveted gift of all. The gift she’s been waiting for for TWO years and that I had really really hoped she would forget about over that time but certainly didn’t – GUM AND MAKEUP. The best part is that Leva had a BLAST and is still talking about it. And it turned out to be the perfect party for a perfectly miserable day. Happy birthday, Leva. Words can’t express how much we love you and love having you in our lives. Thanks for making us parents.
Starting the day off with palmiers
The birthday bunch
That’s what I’m talking about!
Uncle Pete gets the party started
Homemade cards are the best!
Wed 26 Oct 2011
Geert II
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One of Geert’s teachers, Mrs. Gilliam (the other is Mrs. Coleman, since we’ll all forget one day), came out to talk to me about Geert after class yesterday. Oh no, I thought, here it comes, as visions of “incidents” ran through my head. Who did he bite? Who did he hit? What kind of tantrum did he throw? Did he hurt anyone? No, oh no, it was none of those things. Geert, apparently, has been sitting on the little urinals during the class’ potty breaks. So let me preface here, that we have taught Geert to pee sitting down. This was relatively easy, since it’s how Leva pees (that’s obvious, i hope), and I’ll be completely honest, I didn’t want to clean up the purported mess that moms and dads who let their little boys use cheerios for target practice have to clean up. I didn’t want the toilet seat left down. I didn’t want him peeing down his legs and on the front of his pants. But apparently, Geert refused the polite offers of actually using the one mini-toilet in the tiny boys bathroom, and has been sitting on urinals, already covered in pee by the little boys before him who can’t hit it and Mrs. Gilliam is grossed out. Yesterday she had to tell him, again, his preschool teacher had to tell him, to turn around and point his penis AT the urinal and go pee that way. And he refused. So she felt the need to talk to me about it, while I’m doubled over laughing, and she’s telling me, albeit with a smile, that she’s seriously concerned. So today we worked on peeing standing up. And he missed the toilet and peed on the rim and dribbled down his legs and on the front of his pants and I really do have to ask myself why, WHY on earth does anyone teach their boys to pee standing up or have the audacity to put tiny little urinals in tiny little bathrooms? WHY??
Sat 22 Oct 2011
Geert
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Mom: “Hey Geert, what do you want for dinner?”
G: “I’m a bear and I eat fish… and play with cars.”
Tue 4 Oct 2011
I don’t want it! You!
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Time to write down all of the hilarious and not-so-hilarious things that Hattie says for posterity. At 19.5 months, she’s quite the talker, and, I must say, quite the ORNERY talker. At least 50% of what she says starts with a mad, pouty “I don WAN it!” She’ll then clarify, by adding a subject at the end, typically a family member. “I don WAN it! Daddy.” “I don WANT it! Mama.” She can say Leva (Fa Fa), Geert (GG), Mama and Daddy. She loves to eat see-ree in the morning (cereal) with Ju. She love Kiko’s (cookies) and will string them together “Kikokikokikokiko!!” which eventually will sound like Koki koki! and be pretty close to the word cookie. She will scream “BUS!!!!!” at this incredibly high, grating pitch and I always wonder what she’s so mad about until I see a bus go by. She knows digger and truck and car and the differences between them (thanks G). She loves to dance and wear dresses and skirts, and plays with her babies. She asks constantly to be “ousside!” She thinks she’s five and will bulldoze her way into a group of children twice her size and not even flinch. She’s getting really good at saying “sowwy” because she has to say it all the time. We’ve recently started putting her in time out (for all of 30 seconds) because she’ll get mad and hit you in the face, hard. At first we tried the firm “no no! hattie, that’s not nice!”, but she’d look at us grinning. So then we pulled out the louder “NO!” to try to get a response. Didn’t work. Now we put her in the red time out chair and she sits there smiling and kicking her little fat legs, actually staying there until we release her, and then she’ll toddle over and say “SOWWY MAMA!” and give big hugs. She loves to brush her teeth and her hair, hates to have her diaper changed, likes to sit the in rear row of the mini-van next to Leva so they can hold hands between car seats. Throws so much food that I can’t keep up, but is the only child we’ve ever had who can chew and not choke and die. She even eats apples and prefers them whole. She gets so mad that she lets out the silent scream until her little lips turn purple and you think she’s going to pass out as you encourage “take a breath take a breath!” until she finally wails and pinks up again. And she gives the best hugs – hugs like her Uncle Chad used to give at this age. The other morning, as she woke up in her crib, she started calling out “DO-NUTS! Where ARE you?!”. Of course, i got up, and we hit the Tim Horton’s drive through in our jammies.
