Watch me, Daddy!

Well, we had a lovely 4th of July. Melanie and Mark came down with Noah and we took all the kids to the KC zoo. (Thank you DOD and Marilyn!)

The kids loved the carousel, the train rides, kangaroos, tigers, sheep and I can't even remember what other animals we saw. (We spent a lot of our energies herding Abby, Connie and Devlyn who seemed to think they could just wander where and whenever they wanted unattended...)

After a lovely picnic in the parking lot, the kids passed out as we headed over to Aunt Beth's for some YUMMO bar-b-q, courtesy of Uncle Doug!


It seems Wy was the man of the hour with all the young ladies. I don't know how it all shook down, but here he is hangin', watchin the toons with the chicks...

I was trying to cook dinner one night last week and asked John to take the kids outside just to get everyone out from under my feet. John gave the kids sidewalk chalk and out they all went. A little while later John came back in the house with a cranky face. I asked what had happened. John told me that he was drawing trains and numbers on the sidewalk for the kids when Wyatt walked up to him and hollered "Watch me, Daddy!" John turned to see what Wy was doing just as Wy threw a good sized rock. Wy doesn't have any aim to his throws just yet and clocked John right upside the head with this rock.

John said he saw stars and he started bleeding just over his eyebrow. Then he told me that Wy realized something had happened to his daddy. Wy put his hand on John's shoulder, bent over until he could look John in the open eye and said "Oh, Daddy! What happened?" John now has a luscious black eye and backs away three paces whenever Wy says "Watch me!"

My sister-in-law Jeanette gave the boys a few books about a dog named Otto. One of the books is Otto has a birthday. In the book, Otto bakes a cake. His ingredient list includes flour, mud, a bone, shoes and a cootie bug. The cake explodes when Otto tries to take it out of the oven and the whole place stinks to high heaven. Well, Wy is in love with these Otto books and asks for them every night. (Either the Otto books or Come Along, Daisy.) Now, whenever Wy finds some small little thing, he brings it to me saying "Look Mommy, a cootie-bug!"

You know you are a parent when: The fellas and I went to a baby shower for one of my colleagues. After a little bit of swimming, John and I took the boys into the bathroom to change them back into their clothes. As soon as I got Wy's swim diaper off of him he looked at me and said "Look, mommy! Penis!" and promptly started to pee on me. Now, this party just happens to be at my boss' house. And here we are in the bathroom with Wy peeing. Without thinking I shot my hand out to catch the pee so it wouldn't get all over my boss' bathroom rug. Does it occur to me that life happens and you can throw a rug into the wash? No. I can't think beyond - "Oh dear God. Wy is PEEING on Jeff's rug!" And there I am like an idiot trying to catch it. Like my hand is the perfect receptacle. Pee is splashing over the sides of my hand and leaking between my fingers. Inches away from the toilet and I kneel there with my hand out like an idiot.

Since my mom was a little kid, she has had a thing for satin ribbons. You can find 8 inch strips of ribbon all over our house. she uses them as book marks. You can find her reading and rubbing the ribbon between her fingers. She has started to use these strips of ribbon as bits of special grown up magic. The kids love to go to sleep with one of gammy's special ribbons. Wy now has to go to sleep with a train, his passer, his Pooh and a ribbon.

I took Jack, Devlyn and Wy for a walk this morning. (Abbie and Connie didn't get to go because they had been fighting and causing chaos this morning.) On our way home from the park Wy tripped. As soon as he was down he looked back and me and said "I fine! I fine!" but he was having trouble getting up. Just as I made it over to help him, he stood up, lost his footing and fell again. This time his face hit the sidewalk and I swear it sounded like someone had just dropped a bowling ball! He has a nickel sized knot on his forehead and it looks like someone scraped half his cheek off. Can you believe I didn't have my camera with me? Cuz you know I woulda taken a picture. You can see me now... "I'm so sorry Wy. Take a breath baby. Hang on a sec, let mommy get a picture."

Whenever I take these kids for a walk they love to race. They know the rules. They can only race to the next driveway which is where the have to stop and wait for the ok to race to the next driveway. They also know that they cannot race from the last driveway on the block to the corner. I don't want someone to trip at the corner and land in the street - or get carried away and keep running. Anyway - the kids love these races. It doesn't matter who gets to the driveway first, they each turn to me and chant "I WINNED! I WINNED!" Devlyn really doesn't like to lose. If she can tell early on in the race that Jack is going to win, she stops running and says "I will just walk." I think it is because she never wins with her sisters, so she is determined to win somewhere else. Wy doesn't care, he will blow past her and holler "I beat you!"

Oh look, the kids broke the shower door - again. And they were just having a party in there.

We have a few rules in my house. We don't run in the house. We don't hide food in or under our beds. We don't stomp up or down the stairs. We go up and down the stairs like ladies and gentlemen. We answer when we are called for. We don't leave our shoes lying around, we put them away. We don't break the shower door...There are a few others in there. It seems that I am constantly yelling "We don't run in my house!" "We don't leave food on the floor in my house!" "We don't lock the bathroom door in my house!" Well, Mom yelled at Devlyn this past weekend "We don't run in my house!" She said Devlyn looked at her and said "It's Amy's house."

Jack has been out to see U:BUG:ME three times so far. He went opening night. He came with me and watched from the booth a week ago Saturday and this past Sunday. He wakes up every day and asks "Can I go to your work, Mommy?" After a few days of this I finally asked why he wanted to go to my work. He said "To play with the trains on the Thomas table." Now I understand: he is willing to suck it up and hang out while I got things ready for the show. He is willing to watch the show over and over again if it means he can go to the toy store after the show and play with the Thomas play set. I think he is just using me...

I was driving the kids to Beth's house earlier this week. I had the windows down a bit because it was nice out. Just after we pulled off the highway it started to rain. Without thinking about it, I rolled up the electronic windows. Then I heard a breath and screaming. It took me a few seconds to realize I had closed the window on Jack's fingers. After freeing his fingers and apologizing repeatedly I finally asked if he would forgive me. He took in a ragged breath and said "Well..."

The family Jess visited in Omaha the other weekend has said they would be happy to host her during her freshman year. They would like for her to come for another weekend visit before school starts. The family has 5 kids (4 girls and a boy). When they enfold Jess into their ranks they will have a 15, 14 and 13 year old girls. My heart goes out to them... One of my sisters-in-law works with foreign exchange students and has graciously given us a few tips on getting thins started - so we are going to work up some lists and start a dialogue regarding things we are worried about, rules, how to handle homesickness, disagreements, fitting in... It won't cover everything, but it is a great place to start. And, Jess has the added benefit of getting the opportunity to meet the family a few times before being thrust into their midst.

Jess has one more week of summer school math class. She missed one day last week due to a migraine. I have scheduled an appointment for her to see her doctor. I hope we can get a prescription for her. (Actually, John has the migraines too. He has been in and the Dr. has given him a few sample pills to try out over the month. They will meet again to discuss results etc the first of August.)

Abby & Connie presented the gifts at Mass last weekend. They did a great job! I just happened to get this picture because I was in the back room with Jack, Devlyn and Wyatt, none of whom could stop talking, yelling or crying during mass that day.

Abby & Connie have just finished up their swimming lesson sessions through summer day care. They think they are bona fide, qualified swimmers and are not happy when they are told they have to have an adult with them in order to get into the hot tub.

Connie is extremely upset that we are making her read every day over the summer. She keeps telling us "School is over, why do I have to read?" I have finally decided to negotiate; instead of reading the whole book each day she has to read 5 pages and NO CRYING. We spend about 30 minutes each day with Connie's crying jags. She gets herself worked up into a fit and then cant' calm down. So I have decided to set a shorter goal for her - leaving less time for her to work herself up into a frenzy. We'll see how that pans out.

On to the big news - Daddy turns 60 this week. John turns 38 and I am having a peanut sized lump removed from my left breast. My doctors believe and the mammograms show this is a benign mass. However, you don't know unless you get it under a microscope. I was given the option to monitor this thing with mammograms every 4-6 months over the next few years or do a biopsy. I jumped on the biopsy option. In talking things over with my doctor we decided that if we were going in for a biopsy, we might as well just get it out. And so, that is happening Monday morning.

Send me some good karma and I'll tell y'all more about it next time around.

love, hugs, peace and blessings to you all.
Amy & the Owenland Park Gang.