Just a couple of pics

Looks like Alex, but it's Little Jimmy (19 months old) with his grandfather. Now we know where the blond hair came from.

Here's a good one of Alex taken out at the Nature Center a few weeks ago. 

MY child would never do that...

Luckily those words never came out of my mouth. There was an "incident" in Grace's class where four of the kids one day decided to all cut their bangs with the safety scissors. Scissors are now no longer used in the 3-year old class because of that. Of course my kid didn't participate, and I was so proud because when I would ask her if she would ever use scissors to cut her chair she parroted back that "no, we only use scissors on paper".

So you can see where I'm going with this...

I thought I'd just done a crappy job trimming Grace's bangs last week, or maybe a wacky curl popped up. No, she admitted today that she cut her hair ("I'm sorry Mommy"). She also cut her eyelashes, but I don't think that was on purpose. We've now added a few more rules for using scissors in the house.

First time uttered

Kathy's post made me laugh because I have a "first time that sentence has been uttered" statement I was going to post tonight too.

"I like ham water" (said after we noticed that Grace had put her leftover dinner deli ham into her water cup and was drinking the cloudy water with her straw).

"Broccoli and ham water is even gooder" (obviously said after the broccoli was added, though quickly retracted once she actually drank some of the water).

And if you said "Yuck" with a screwed up face upon reading that, you had the exact same reaction both Jim and I had tonight.

Happy 9th Birthday...

...to the one who made me an aunt.

This was the earliest picture I had of Emma on my computer - I think she is about 2 1/2 here. Grace currently has this dress hanging in her room. I love looking back at some of the old pictures of my sibling's kids and seeing the outfits my kids are currently wearing!

Happy Birthday, Emma!

New shoes

Alex got his second-ever pair of shoes today. Went from a 4 1/2 Medium to a 5 1/2 Extra Wide. I bet those little Fred Flintstone feet breathed a big sigh of relief when they were put into those new shoes.

Jim is quite happy because he's out of his little white high-top walker shoes and into some groovy Stride Rite's that actually look like little running shoes.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...

Poor Alex. He is just so confused about the Christmas tree. We got in the habit of saying "Night Night" to the tree on our way up the stairs for either nap or bedtime. Now every trip up has him turning to look at me multiple times with his little hands in the "Huh?" gesture. And every time I tell him "Mama put the Christmas tree up." He will also periodically run into the front room to look for it, running back to me once again with the "Huh?" sign. I'm afraid that by the time it finally sinks in that the tree is gone it will be time to put it up again!

Not as funny as my sister's story about Emma's first (or second?) Christmas. Coming downstairs on December 26 only to burst into tears because there were no presents. And Kathy and David having to explain that the wonderful, exciting morning she'd had the day before only happens ONCE a year. Poor kid.

I love Fisher Price

I love it when I get good customer service. We proudly buy our kids Fisher Price toys. Yes, they are usually big hunks of plastic, and yes some of them may be questionable on the educational side. But the kids love them and many of them are quite innovative.

But I was sorely disappointed that the two big gifts Alex got for Christmas have already stopped working in some capacity. The Roll Arounds Jungle Treehouse spinning wheels quit spinning, and the Peek A Blocks Incrediblock wheel on the top also quit spinning. So I called FP this morning. I need to try new batteries in the Incrediblock (it still works randomly so chances are that is the problem). But since I'd already tried new batteries in the Jungle Treehouse, they are dropping a voucher in the mail for me to purchase a new one. No shipping back, no faxing receipts (as long as I was willing to accept a $25 voucher - I figure it's close enough to what I originally paid that I'm okay with that). Quick and painless solutions. Love it.

Plus my customer service gal sounded like she was in the Midwest, versus someplace overseas with an accent impossible to understand. And she didn't have random pauses throughout the conversation, so I figure she wasn't getting prompts from her computer screen about what to do.

New blog friend

I've got a new link over on the right for everyone to check out. My friend BlogTrog has Trogvision up and running. Sure to spout out all the wonderful liberal venting that I thought I'd be doing until I dissolved into all-kid posting mode.

First sign of Spring?

No, just a freakishly warm January in Texas. 

Sickie

You think once you have one kid that having the second will be a relative piece of cake because even though you may have forgotten it over the short couple of years, most everything you deal with will be something you've already dealt with before. But don't you know Alex is here to throw me some curve balls. Even though he is (and always has been) literally a big ol' baby, he seems to have a knack for getting hit with viruses that bypassed Grace (RSV, Rotavirus, etc). We've been dealing with what seems to be the granddaddy of them all these past couple days. Yes, Alex has been hit with croup.

Now, for you uninitiated readers out there, croup is an inflammation of the voice box and the airway just beneath it. A tell-tale sign is a dry, barking cough (like a seal). Combine that with the wheezing from the restricted airway, and you have one scary sounding child. And the poor little guy gets so freaked out himself - who wouldn't when you wake up in the middle of the night having a hard time breathing. Since crying makes the situation worse, I've had to jump up at the first whimper to make sure the episode doesn't get out of control. It's a virus, so medication doesn't typically help. Home remedies include sitting in the closed up bathroom with a steamy hot shower running, or going outside to inhale cool night air. I think we did the bathroom option last night at least 5 times, and went outside twice. I realized that last night was probably my hardest "child" night experience, except for when Grace was a tiny newborn who still had her schedule mixed up and had me crying in the middle of the night rocking her because she just wouldn't go to sleep.

Oh yeah, and you need to watch out and make sure your kid doesn't get breathing that is too restricted, then you get a trip to the emergency room. So in addition to being worried about my little guy in general, I'm also really freaked that I'll miss the signs that his breathing has gone beyond the point of no return. I just ask for everyone's prayers that this is a 3-day croup rather than a 7-day one.

This is it for my post, since I got a max of 4 hours sleep last night in small increments. I keep finding myself closing my eyes with my laptop sitting in my lap.

Before anyone brands me a liar, note that the two UT tower pics on Kathy's blog were posted last night at 10:11 and 10:15, while mine was being posted at 10:12. So when I checked her site couple minutes before I posted on mine, she actually DIDN'T have a tower picture on it.

I can't believe my burnt-orange-blooded sister didn't post this picture on her blog. So I will. Hook 'em Horns. 

Trip to the mall

I took the kids to Valley View mall today. This is a mall that I used to go to as a kid (ahh...Farrells, with the plastic monkeys on your food and the awesome old-fashioned candy store you had to wind through to pay). Sadly, it's kind of a skanky mall now. But I started going to it again because it had the closest Old Navy to East Dallas. I also discovered that it has a great kid's play area (very low to the ground so you can easily see the urchins run around) and has a carousel that both my kiddos love.

And today we saw the coolest new form of out-of-home advertising. Maybe this is already widespread and I just haven't seen it since my mall-going is usually restricted to Northpark, but it's called Reactrix. It's this neat on-the-floor interactive mat. Grace loved it. It has 30-second ads that rotate on it. One was a hockey game that you "kicked" the puck back and forth into the opposing goal. And the one I liked the best had popcorn kernels that roll into the middle of the mat, and when you run through it the kernels you step on turn into popcorn. Fascinated the advertiser in me.

But unfortunately the Old Navy in Valley View is closing. They had only about 1/3 of their stock in the store, which was NOT priced to sell like you would expect in a store that was closing. So I could get Grace some socks and slippers, but couldn't buy any basics like jeans or tees for Alex. And now I've got to make another trip to an Old Navy that is even further away. Jeesh.