Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Max the future architect?

Max is an interesting kid. (probably an understatement)

Wherever we go, he observes everything closely, and then when he gets home, he builds whatever he saw with his Duplo blocks.

You wouldn't think that Duplo blocks would be that versatile, but I have to tell you, it's amazing what that kid can build with those brightly colored, chunky blocks.

Take last week for example, in the last 7 days, he has built the following.

1. A very accurate model of his school, he even included the playground. (He built this so his pet imaginary birds would have a place to go to school, unfortunately, naughty bird wasn't in the mood for school, and knocked it over)

2. A model of the ice skating rink, complete with bleachers and a garage for the zamboni. He built this in the very center of his room and instructed us not to step in the middle because the ice was very slippery and we might fall.

3. The high school football field, including both the bleachers where we sat at the first of the game,* and the ones we moved to after we decided that we didn't like sitting in the visiting team's section due to the fact that we were the only ones cheering when our team made a touchdown. (one of MANY touchdowns I might add)
He did not, however, build any cheerleaders, which surprised me slightly, because they were jumping around right in front of us the whole first half. This however is the subject of a post that I was going to write, but have decided against, due to the fact that I might offend someone who knows the exceedingly cheerful cheerleader (from the visiting team) that I was itching to mock.

4. The big inflatable slides from the company picnic.
He built a remarkable likeness of these slides. When he went to bed that night, I noticed that he had knocked them down. A while after he got up the next morning, he had me come into his room to see the slides. Apparently, he had taken the air out of them before he went to bed because it was night and nobody would be using them, but now that it was day, he had put the air back in them. Sure enough, he had rebuilt (reinflated) the slides.

5. The Bingham Copper mine.
We took a family field trip to see the mine. It's the largest open pit mine in the world, and can be seen from space.
When Brielle heard that we were going to the mine, her first comment was "I don't think that Max has enough blocks for that one."
Sure enough, when we got home, Max headed straight to his room and built his rendition of the mine.

6. The new SUPER car wash we took the car through to after visiting the mine.
There are few things in life that Max enjoys more than going through a car wash, and this one didn't disappoint. It's the kind that has multiple brushes and waxes and foam, and then to top it off, UNLIMITED time for the vacuum.
He built a copy of the car wash, and cleaned many of his toy cars.

7. On labor day, we took the kids to a local burger joint downtown, then made a trip to the cemetery to visit some family grave sites.
Today I could hear Max building something with his blocks so I went in to see what he was doing. He had made neat little rows of blocks, some in small towers, and some taller towers.

"Look Mom" he said "I made a garden of for dead people!"




* I don't really like football, we actually went to see the marching band at halftime, because CJ is in the band, and because they are awesome.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Stupid virus!

All summer long, everyone in our house was healthy.

Extremely healthy!

School started a few weeks ago, and now we're all coughing, and sniffing and sneezing.

Coincidence?



:0(

Saturday, September 4, 2010

First day of Kindergarten (and other random stuff)

Last week was Max's first day of Kindergarten. 15 minutes before my alarm went off I woke up to Max's face, just inches from mine.........

"Hey mom! I'm awake now and I'm going to get dressed really fast so I can be ready for school!"

3.2 seconds later, he was back, completely dressed in his new school clothes.

"I'm ready to go now! Come on mom! Let's go! It's time for school!"

I talked him into waking up his siblings, who unfortunately, did not share his enthusiasm.

An hour later, I dropped the kids off at school. Max was so excited, he didn't even look back to wave at me.

3 hours later, I picked him up. As soon as he got in the car he said "Mom, I DIDN'T miss you, and I don't think you missed me either."

He was wrong. (I'm pretty sure he missed me)


------------------------

Yesterday I got an email from Twitter telling me that I had 5 new direct messages. It had a convenient link for me to click on so that I could sign in.

The funny thing is that I don't have a Twitter account.

------------------------


Yesterday a song came the radio and my kids freaked out "NO! NO! Turn it off, I can't stand this song!"

"Why?" I asked, don't you like the girl singing it?"

"It's not a girl!" they yelled, "It's Justin Beiber!"


Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The perfect storm.....

"Sure, I can have that project finished for you. I'll have it ready for you to pick up at 3:30."



"You'll be able to deliver the new refrigerator today? GREAT! Yes, 3:30 will be fine."



"You don't have anyone to tend the girls for an hour this afternoon? Sure, I would love to watch them! I'll see you at 3:30."

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Max, the king of Kindergarten

Max just went to bed. (by 9:30! High fives everybody!) He is SO excited to start school tomorrow that he got ready for bed the first time I asked him.

He even took a bath!
Woo Hoo!!!

However, he is really worried about something.

Yesterday I asked him if he was excited for school to start, and he showed me how excited he was by smiling as big as his face would let him.

Then I gave him the news that caused him to worry.

"Max, I think you're going to miss me while you're at school."

He rolled his eyes.

"In fact, I think you're going to miss me so much that I should probably just come with you."

He shook his head "No Mom, the only grown ups there will be the teachers."

"Oh, I'm sure they won't mind, I'll be very quiet."

"No Mom, there won't be enough chairs there. You won't have a place to sit."

I thought for a moment then said "I know! I can sit on your chair, and you can sit on my lap!"

"No Mom, the chairs are too little!"

"OK, then maybe I can bring one of our folding chairs and just sit next to you."

"NO MOM! You can't come to school with me!"

"Max, I really think that you're going to miss me too much. I need to come with you."

Then he says "You should just drive me to school and drop me off at the front doors with the kids and I will walk in by myself!"

"I don't know," I said "What if I drive you to school, drop you off at the front doors, then park in the parking lot and walk in the school?"

Then he got a little testy.

"Look mom, HERE'S THE DEAL! You will drive me to the school and DROP ME OFF at the front doors, then you will GO HOME!!"

While he was saying this, he waved his arms around kind of like one of those guys who directs the airplanes to the gates. All he needed was the big flashlights. I might have snickered a bit, because really, it was funny.

Then he says "Look, I'm SERIOUS, see, I'm wearing my SERIOUS FACE!"

And he was indeed wearing his serious face, although in my opinion, it looked a little bit more like his "I just smelled something bad face"

"Hmmm" I said "So exactly what do you think I should do when I get home? I'll be there all by myself."
Max told me that I should get some work done.

"No, I think I should probably take a nap."

"Mom!" he said with a big sigh, obviously trying to hide his exasperation "You can't go back to sleep after you drop us off, because then you will just dream about missing me."

So then I asked him if it would be OK if I just stood outside and watched him through the window of his classroom.

He shook his head and walked away.


That kid is seriously going to miss me.


Friday, August 20, 2010

I'm too tired to come up with a title for this very short post

Best kid question of the week (by Max)

"What would be more dangerouser, if all the houses fell apart, or if the earth broke?"


Best kid quote of the week (by Aaron)

"HEY MOM! COME AND WATCH ME CLEAN THE BASEBOARDS!"




And yes, the baseboards are shiny clean :0)

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Hi, my name is Jill and I'm sleep deprived

I am not a morning person.

I have decided that the only sleep that really counts for me is what I get after 5:00 a.m.
My husband, on the other hand, is quite the morning person, he wakes up on his own around 5:00 a.m. and is actually awake!
This is a strange phenomenon to me, because my mom raised us to be night owls, she liked to stay up late, and let us stay up late too.
I remember one time in high school when on the first day of class one of the teachers had us fill out a "get to know you" questionnaire, then we went around the classroom, and everyone read their papers.
One of the questions was "What is your favorite TV show?"
Nearly everyone in the class said that M.A.S.H. was their favorite show (one of the local TV stations was airing it about 4 times a day at that time) but I answered "Late night with David Letterman"
The teacher looked at me in shock and said "YOU'RE UP THAT LATE???"

Honestly, it didn't seem that strange to me, at that time, Dave came on at midnight, and watching his show was what kept me awake long enough to do my homework.

Anyway.......

School started this week for Brielle and Aaron, (who I have decided are not morning people either) (pretty sure it's genetic) (from my side of the family, obviously)
The problem is that my alarm goes off at 7:00 a.m. (and again at 7:10. 7:20, 7:30..........) and I wake them up again, and again and again.

It would probably be easier to wake them up if they weren't awake so late at night, however, my husband doesn't get home until nearly 7:00 p.m. and after we eat dinner, watch the current reality show on TV, make the kids do the homework that they didn't seem to remember they had several hours earlier, make lunches for the next day and wrestle Max into his pajamas, it's usually after 11.

Max will be starting kindergarten next week, and get this......................





I SIGNED HIM UP FOR MORNING KINDERGARTEN!!!!!




WHAT WAS I THINKING?????



I had very logical reasons for doing this (I won't go into detail, just be assured that I did) the problem is that he likes to sleep in until 10:00 or later.

School starts at 8:30.

I've had discussions with him about how he needs to go to bed earlier because it will be hard for him to wake up for school if he's up too late and he agrees with me until it's actually time to get the pajamas on.

He is the master of stalling.

So this week, we decided to have him go to bed a little bit earlier each night, to get him used to it before school starts. We had good intentions, but as it's turned out, he's actually ended up going to bed a little bit later each night.


This is going to be a long year.





p.s. I told Max that after taking them to school, I would come home and take a nap. He told me that I couldn't do that, because I would dream about missing him.