Jen's Mental Scribblings

in fifteen minutes,
( Clicky for piccy )


I am now recognizing that allanh should love this post...their birthday is in 3 weeks love!

I just discovered that Elli is asleep. She did the desired behavior of going to her own bed, pulling the covers up and go to sleep. I just wish she had waited another hour before doing so...it may be a long night...I'm not sure.

I'm hopin' she stays asleep.

Not only has she already been let out of the cage (by Elli and Gwen), she's already sharply nibbled Ike and me (when we tried to pick her up from the ground), she's a good girl, she didn't even break skin.

Ike is now afraid of her, but is mollified by the idea that she bit him because she was very scared. I've convinced him to let her be for awhile because she has been through a fairly traumatic experience.

I've impressed upon the girls that if they let Harvey out, not only will they break Ike's heart, but that Magic would eat her. And they don't want that.

Everyone is now happy eating Cheetos and watching Wiggles.

I'm not sure what I did but, my left arm is screaming in nerve pain. I couldn't fall asleep with the pain until extra late and now I'm awake and can't go back to sleep because of the crowd in my bed. I got woken up by Elli and just hurts too much to go back to sleep.

And unfortunately, she's awake. I'm hoping she'll fall asleep watching TV on the couch. I'm not holding my breath.

Since I've blogged about how cute Ike is being lately. I decided to share what cuteness Elli is up to.

So recently she's been pretending to be a kitty. Fine, whatever. I encourage this. She even has a name when she's a kitty. Her name is Crackers. Here's how she came up with this.

So I'm drying Elli off after a bath and she starts meowing.

E: "Meow, mew, mew"
M: "Oh. Are we being a kitty?"
E: "Meeeeeow!" *big grin on face*
M: "Okay, Kitty. Lets finish drying off and getting ready for bed"
E: "Meow!!!* points at wide open mouth
M: "Are you hungry Kitty?"
E: "Mew" Nods
M: "Okay. What does Kitty want to eat?"
E: *adopts classic Pooh bear "I'm thinking pose"* "Crackers!"
M: "Fishy Crackers?" Elli nods. "Hrm. If you are going to be a Kitty for a long time, you should have a Kitty name. What should your name be?"
E: *goes back to thinking pose* "Crackers!"
M: "That works. Crackers it is!"

Gwen thinks this is hysterical and is trying to think up a good name for when she pretends to be a dog.

So I have an alarm clock that has the option of putting a CD in to wake up to, and I've been playing with different CD's trying to find a wake up tune that will wake me up and not be excessively obnoxious.

My current (and so far favorite) is Daffy Duck's Rhapsody on Dr. Demento's 30th Anniversary Collection.

Last Sunday (Saturday?), the alarm went off and since it wasn't too loud...I let it run. Elli starts to wake up a bit and snuggles. I get out of bed. The music moves to the next song, which is Yoda by Wierd Al. Elli woke up totally for that and tried to sing along.

When the song was over and as the CD moved onto The Elements by Tom Lehrer, she looked at me, frowned, and said "Hey! I want more Al!"

I've made Al Gal's out of my girls. Sweet.

I'm sitting in the rocking chair, while the girls are very nicely petting Scooter.

All answers by Elli and Gwen are chorused.

"Girls, do you guys want a dog?"
"Yes!"
"Do you want a little dog like Scooter?"
*nodding of heads* "yes!"
"Or would you prefer a big dog?"
*wide grins* "Big Dogs!"
Joe from other room
"Size Queens!"


I thought it was cute.

So this weekend, I decided that Joe needed jumping early in the day while the kids were awake. Normally when Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is on the babble box, we can count on 22-24 uninterrupted minutes to ourselves. Not this time.

*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*

"Mommy!" *opens door* "Hi!"

"Go watch TV Elli. Mommy and Daddy are cuddling" "Okay!"

*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*

5 minutes pass

*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*

"Mommy?" *opens door* "Are you here?"

"Go watch TV Elli. We are having Mommy and Daddy time, no kids." "Okay!"

*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*

5 minutes pass

*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*patter*

"Mommy?" *opens door* "Mommy?"

*sigh*

"What now Elli?"

"I'm poopie" *proceeds to pull diaper off*

"No!" *grab Elli, change her, send her back to TV, rejoin Joe*

Needless to say by the time I got home Sunday night from work, Joe installed a latch on the inside of our door. Now, nobody's gettin' in!

Now I know I can hear somebody muttering "Well, why didn't they lock the door?". Well smart-ass, if the door lock worked we would have. But it doesn't. The door doesn't close properly so you can just push the door in even when locked. Hence the installation of the latch.

HA!

I ran into a friend at the gym this morning and made arrangements for us to meet at the park after she got her son from pre-school. I was looking forward to visiting with her, playing with her baby and generally liking the idea that the kids would wear themselves out playing.

And the universe said? NO WAY!!! Hahahahahahaha!

About 30 minutes after feeding everyone, I'm watching Gwen on the monkey bars from a short distance, munching on the last of my lunch, when I hear screaming and another mom bring Elli to me. She's got blood all over her face and down her shirt.

Oh shit, not again. Yep, she did, she fell down and put teeth through her lip. Third time this year she's done this to herself. Since I didn't see the fall, I'm not sure how it happened, but I could see it was a clean, but long gash across her chin.

I loaded everyone in the van, called another friend to come pick up the other two and headed off to Kaiser's "Minor Injury Clinic" formerly known as "Urgent Care". Now normally when I go to this area, its a 3 hour trip. Which is why I called my friend C to come get Ike and Gwen. We were in and out in just over an hour. In fact, as Elli and I were walking out of the building, I saw her pull out of the parking garage.

But, back to Elli. They cleaned up the wound, got out some sand, and glued it together. And she sat still for the whole process, no need to Papoose her like last time. I think she's getting used to it. =/

She's fine now, I gave her some Ibuprofen, she ate a snack, and is happily watching Dora. Nobody has had a nap today and we have guests coming over for dinner. Going to be an interesting night. At least dinner is on the stove and ready. Soup! Yum!

So last Saturday, we invited several people over for dinner, allanh, kineticphoenix, riseorbleed and our friend R.

It was a good dinner. But Elli gave us the big laugh for the evening I think.

Elli has this personal dance move. It consists of an adorable smile and this too cute fanny/hip wiggle. She does this when she is happy and feeling frisky. So at one point after dinner Elli climbs into her Uncle R's lap, stands on his legs, shoves her diapered fanny into his chest, and proceeds to perform her happy butt wiggle. We giggle, she proceeds to wiggle more, Uncle R starts turning red with embarrassment, we bust out laughing, she smiles and wiggles even more.  kineticphoenix(I think) then pipes up "I think we just witnessed Elli's first lap dance"

I think we'll have to install a pole somewhere in the house.

Much funnier in person, but I wanted it written down to remember at some later point.

Man that went fast!

Here's one of just the girls



And my favorite shot

So I'm outside reading a book, and I notice there are no kids in the back yard. I put the book down, and start to walk inside. As my foot hits the living room carpet I hear a large THUMP and then shrill screaming. Shit.

I'm met in the kitchen by a screaming and possibly bloody Elli. Hard to tell, they had pizza for dinner and there's sauce all over her. So I take her into her room, plop her on the changing table, shine the light on her lip. A little cut, no biggie. I clean her face up. I change her diaper 'cause she's there. I then shine the light closer onto her face and take a closer look at the cut. Not to big, oozing a little bit of blood. I look in her mouth to make sure she didn't chip a tooth and I discover a matching cut on the inside of her mouth. She put tooth through her lip again!

At least this time it's a clean cut and not the hamburger it was last time. And since she's got a current tetanus (2 weeks ago) so no trip to the hospital this time. Yea for me!

Quiz time!

At any point yesterday, did I chase around the house in an attempt to catch:

a: two naked little girls
b: two drenched little girls covered in mud
c: two little girls who swiped frozen waffles from the freezer and were attempting to eat them at the same time
Or
d: all the above


If you answered d  You are correct! Congratulations!

Well, she didn't break anything this time.

*snicker*

Last night while attempting to copy Ike's jump, Elli fell down from the top of the play structure's ladder. She landed pretty good, arms out to protect her face, but of course lots screaming occured. I picked her up, gave her lots of love and when she calmed down a bit, put her back on the ground. Big mistake! Screaming renewed. After determining that she was protecting her right foot, I called Kaiser and got her an appointment. After taking X-rays nothing obvious is broken. Doctor told me to ice it down (uh-huh) and keep her off it (yea, right!). I've kept her doped up on Advil since and she's walking, with a limp, all over the place, and she even climbed back up that ladder.

That's my girl!

Its been a trying day.

Or at least afternoon.

I dropped Ike off at KidsPark at noon so that I could, hopefully, get the girls to take a bloody nap at the same time so that I could get some housework done. I fed the girls lunch, and let them play outside for a bit. I went back in to help Gwen get something to drink. I hear Elli start to cry, but it doesn't sound deathly, so I yelled out to her and asked if she needs some love. She comes whining into the house and she is covered in blood. Ack! I clean her up and figure out she has, yet again (!), bitten her lip badly. Although this time, she didn't bite through. Thank goodness. I didn't relish yet another trip to the ER to get someone's face stitched up.  I think she fell off the ladder to the top of the play structure. She does that, alot. After this, she's ready for a nap. I get her down and try to get Gwen to go down too.

No go. Sigh. Oh well. So I tried to entertain Gwen while trying to pick up the kitchen and the house a bit. After a bit, Elli wakes up in a good mood. (Yea!)

I loaded the girls in the van at about 3:15, I wanted to get Ike and encourage Gwen to sleep. (She has a tendency to pass out in the car). So I drove around a bit before getting the boy. Just as I'm heading to get him, my phone rings. Its KidsPark asking me to come pick Ike up because he isn't behaving. Grrr. I hate it when he gets kicked out of places. Makes me so embarrassed. Turns out he was throwing stuff and not letting them change his stupid pull up. (Long story involving Ike's house-breaking drama.)

So I pick him up, tell him I'm not happy, and take him home. Gwen, obligingly, fell asleep, and I get her successfully into bed without a bottle. (Yea!). When Ike came in he notices the brand new 1 gallon jug of bubble solution on the table that I stupidly left out. I told him to wait, and I would open it for him. I put Gwen to bed, did something else, look for the kids as its awfully quiet. Ike comes into the house. He's splattered with something from shoulders to knees. "What's that on your clothes?" "Bubbles!"

Oh no.

I go out to the patio and he has dumped the entire bottle onto the outside table (did I mention that this thing, although very battered, is almost 100 years old?), there's a lake and river of bubble solution forming on my patio and out the door. And Elli is standing in the middle of it, soaked.

I take a deep breath, turn to him and calmly say "Go to your room Ike, just go to your room." And he did. (Never let it be said that Ike's not a smart boy)

I grab Elli, strip her, leave her in a diaper, give her some graham crackers to entertain her and shut her in the living room. Go to my room and grab the dirty towel hamper.  In the middle of cleaning off the table, the phone rings and I go in to answer it.

I forgot to shut the door behind me.

I come back, and Elli is in the middle of Bubble Lake, slipping and sliding, while bawling her eyes out 'cause she just can't get her feet under her and falling down every half second. (Think small piglet in a puddle of oil.) She's almost completely covered from head to toe in bubble solution. She somehow managed to not get any on her face, but her hair is plastered to her head. I gingerly pick her up, hold her out in front of me and rush to the bathroom. She gets an impromptu shower, which she didn't like (man her hair is getting long, when wet, its between her shoulder blades), but at least she's no longer ready to be the star attraction of the local pig wrestling contest.

After awhile, I got the mess cleaned up.

Eventually, Ike was let out of his room.

Oy. What a day. Thank God for the hot tub.

Yesterday I was sharing my Jamba Juice with the kids. Elli and Gwen were standing right in front of me and doing the baby bird bit. Then Gwen started to get impatient, and started to push Elli out of the way. I told her "If you keep pushing Elli, I won't share any more Jamba Juice with you."

That satisified her for about 30 seconds. She starts pushing Elli again. I stop, repeat what I said before and add "And besides its not acceptable behavior to push your sister, you need to say sorry to her" She stops pushing, looks at me, seems thoughtful, and then turns and kisses Elli. That's so cute!

(Giving hugs and kisses after apologizing is the SOP around here, and that was the first time I told either of them to say sorry for their behavior. Man, they are paying attention to what I say and do aren't they?)

Elli!

Okay, so we've been wondering who would be the first to get stitches in this family.  Last night Elli knocked a kitchen chair over and stopped her fall with her face. And put her lower teeth through her lip. Blood went EVERYWHERE! She was covered, I was covered. Teeth intact, oh look holes in face, time for the ER.  Eventually, after about 3 hours, she got three stitches on the inside of her lip. The outside is fine and will heal nicely, but the inside needed repair. We finally got home around 1.

Poor thing!