Happy Camper!

This is what happens when a very cute 3-year old asks if she can have a tent and a sleeping bag in the front yard!

Kenna and I decided to stay inside - mostly because I wanted sleep without two children on top of me, and Mike set up his small tent. Of course this means that while Morgan is snuggling with her daddy, I won't be snuggling with my husband.

*Disclaimer: I know the picture of Morgan is really fuzzy. My camera could not see in the dark and was not able to focus on her. You have to admit the other picture turned out pretty well since I couldn't see anything on the screen while taking it.

Dirt, what dirt? I'm sure my children are acceptably clean.

Yes, I am one of "those mothers" who let their children run wild, play in the mud, and get really dirty.

Morgan's new Pooh and Piglet dress was broken-in by sliding head first onto the muddy ground. And true to her "mini-me" style, her feet were twice as dirty as her dress.

What you can't quite see here is the mud all over Kenna's face from doing just as her sister did. When she went down the slide head-first, she landed on her face. I enjoyed cleaning the mud out of her nose as she came and blew it on my jacket! Kenna is a shoe girl, like her dad, so the one place I didn't need to wash on her was her feet.

Let's just say the bath water was a nice shade of taupe this evening.

Oh for the love of penquins!

The results are in

And it seems that I won't have to figure out how to cram driving to grad school at UK (and all of that studying) into my schedule for the fall.

An entire day without the mole!

Morgan just asked her dad to go lay down with her for bed time. She often switches between the two of us for this honor. Usually she will only pick her dad if she's just finished touching the mole while we read the good-night books.

Tonight, she didn't even ask to touch the mole during book reading and she asked for dad to lay down. I don't expect that she's "done," but I'll take what I can get.

Era update and other things

Nope, it wasn't the end. But we're making slow and steady progrress. 2 steps forward 3 steps backwards.

On other notes, I am not very good at patience. I'm a bit frustrated that 1 month ago today I submitted the final parts of my application for grad school. I still have not heard anything. This makes me crazy!

Here's to hoping that I may find something out next week.

The end of an era?

Some of you may know my eldest child's facination, fixation, and attachment to a certain part of my anatomy (aka the mole).

For several months now, I have occassionally told Morgan that when she gets bigger she will no longer touch the mole. I've also occassionally asked her when she will stop touching the mole. Until about a week ago the answer was usually "When I am 5" or some other answer that made me want to cringe because it was not in the immediate future.

All of that changed about a week ago. One evening, while Morgan and I were snuggled down in bed for bed-time-routine, I asked her when she would stop touching the mole.

Momma: When will you be all done touching the mole, Morgan?

Morgan: When I am big, Momma.

Momma: When will you be big, Morgan?

Morgan: 5 days!

Momma: In 5 days you will be big and will not touch the mole anymore?

Morgan: Yes.

Momma: Should I write that on the calendar?

Morgan: Yes! Write it on the calendar.

Momma: Ok, we will write it on the calendar.

After this, I forgot to write it on the calendar; however, I did not forget the sentiment. So, everynight, I asked her how many more days she had to touch the mole. She counted down from 5. The night that left us with 3 more days, I figured I better make sure she knew what she was saying. So, I told her that we would have two more days, then one more day, then we would be done with the mole. She said that one more day made her sad. At that point I figured all bets were off for this whole weaning from the mole process.

But she kept right on counting down! At last we reached the day with no more mole. It was a Friday - I was home with the girls all day. I didn't figure this would bode well for weaning day. As it turns out, Morgan did pretty well starting the day. There was an obvious lack of touching as soon as she got out of bed.

However, as she was having a bit of a meltdown at the gym, she wanted the mole for comfort and said "Momma, I'm not big yet. I'm still little." "Drat!" is the only thing I could think at that moment. I told her that she was big in some ways and little in others, and that she could still touch the mole after we got our things together.

Friday total mole time: about 5 minutes (couple of touchings)
Saturday total mole time: about 2 mintues (over two times)
Sunday total mole time: about 45 seconds (one touch)

We may be in the home stretch friends! When she finally gives it up for an entire day, I will put it on the calendar!

It is funny. I've been waiting, wishing, dreaming of this end to mole-fixation for about a year and a half now. It is a bit sad to see it go, but I'm not going to stop this one.

The reduction in mole time, is coinsiding with an increase of "I want my Daddy!" Which is going over well from both parents in this house.

A relaxing day with the animals

You thought I was talking about the kids didn't you?

We headed to the Louisville Zoo today with friends of ours. The weather was great, the super bowl was on (so the zoo was deserted), the animals were active, the kids played nicely with one another - what could be better?

I know what could be better, a camera with batteries. :) Just know that we had a great day.

The Highlights

I've tried to include enough pitures to hit the highlights of events since I have not posted in a long while.


What were we thinking when we decided to buy a tool set with more than 4 pieces? Not sure, but Kenna loves it!



Kenna as a "workin' woman"

Morgan enjoying her new sleeping bag.



Michael or Uncle Jim? Hard to tell.


Morgan assists Kenna with gifts after her stack is depleted.















The best part of Christmas day....


Playing in puddles in new clothes.




Don't you agree?













Toasting in the New Year in Washington, DC.


Morgan is a pilot at the air and space Museum. She's flying us to Florida so we can go to Sea World - humm maybe instead of the cold Washington, DC we should have gone to Orlando.


Here's how we got to the Metro station ... once. After that it was just too much to expect the kids to endure after being out all day.









Abe Lincoln, look out! They're on their way up!











Kenna hanging out with the Giant pandas.












A dino ate Michael while we were at the Zoo!











Closing with a cute shot of Kenna.

Alas I've returned

from Washington, DC, my office, no where...

So many things have occurred since I last wrote. Christmas, a trip to DC, my birthday, New Years, museums and the zoo in DC, the trip back from DC, back to work for me, back to pre-school for Morgan, Kenna falls asleep on her own. The list could go on, but then I wouldn't have time to get to what I wanted to tell you.

Breaking the silence to share a cute story.

Mike went to his parent's house today. While he was there, his parents successfully convinced him to bring home their unused dog food, dog biscuits, and water bowl. The dog food was in a short metal trash can. It looks just like the one we use as a diaper pail. I don't think the dogs would actually mind if we confused them.

Since Kenna learned to take the lid off of our old dog food container a few days ago, Michael decided to put all of the food into the trash-can to try to keep her out of it for a few more days. I think it took about 25 seconds for Kenna to casually stroll over to the container, remove the lid, extract a few pieces, saunter over to Hyena's bowl and deposit them with a gleeful giggle.

As she excitedly returned to the can to do the trick again, her father realized his defeat!

As if that were not enough, she also found great delight in the new dog water bowl. The old bowl, was just that a bowl. Nothing fancy about it. We pick it up, add water, and return it to the floor - unless Kenna is awake in which case we put it on the counter. The new water bowl has a reservoir that will only need filling occasionally. The downside is that it's a bit big, heavy, and awkward to put on the counter. After only a couple of growls (from Dad) Kenna was willing to leave that alone.

So what gems can be gleaned from this experience...never assume that anything is safe with a toddler in the house.

Happy Birthday Morgan!

(*look closely and compare this cutie to her on her birthday last year, same PJs.)

She's 3 now. That means that instead of two books every night she's decided she should get three because she's three! Three strawberries, three this, three that.

I think she had a great birthday. It started with gifts for breakfast.

Then we moved on to a penguin party with friends after dinner.

Thanks!

If you saw the dogs and told them to come home, Thanks!

They arrived at 6:30 this morning. They're a little smelly and dog tired, but doing well.

If you see them, tell them to come home.

Hyena and Lester have been missing since last night. Basically, it's my fault because I didn't check to be sure the gate was closed when I let them out. I also didn't realize that I hadn't let them back in before I went to bed.

They have still not come home. Lester would run for a week without looking back until he was good and tired and good and hungry, but Hyena is not that type of runner. She's happy to run, but she likes to check back in every so often. That we know of they have not been home (we were at work today, but left the gate and door open for them).

We're heartbroken to think of what has become of our furry friends.

It was bound to happen

I'm sure many of you have done it, though you're likely to willing admit it.

Michael and I both left Morgan and Kenna today! OK, really I lost track of time and didn't go to pick Morgan up from school. Luckily when I called Michael to see if he picked her up he was already on his way home with her. He was planning to pick her up and was not phased by the fact that I did not.

Although he was a bit quick to get off the phone with me, I assumed that was because I told him I had been in a meeting and lost track of time. Later when I talked to him again he revealed the hidden reason for quickly hanging up.

He had been at home this morning working on household projects and when he noticed the time it was 11:25 (5 minutes before time to pick up Morgan). He quickly hightailed it to the truck, drove to school, jumped out of the truck and rushed in the door to Morgan's building. It was about that time that he remember that Kenna was napping in her bed at home! So, when I talked with him on the phone at 11:31, he was hurrying to get back home before Kenna woke up and realized that she was alone.

She was still sleeping peacefully when he got home. Potentially she could live her whole life not knowing that she was left home alone at 13 months old - except that her momma is writing it in the blog for all of the world to read (not that I actually have a readership, but you get the idea)!

500 and 560

These nubers are supposedly the measure of my potential to succeed in graduate school.

I'm fairly certain that I'm not the only one who thinks that my potential to succed is higher than my ability to remember and apply all of those geometry and other random theories from high school math (I didn't have to take anything except statistics in college). Over 6 years ago when I toook the GRE I had a 600 hundred on the math. A full 100 points higher than now.

I do have to agree that verbal ability is an indicator of something academic. Heck, you do have to know words to read millions of obscure articles and then to write an even more obscure dissertation. ;)

I'm not thrilled with the scores, but I'm not so disappointed that I'm going to shell out another $140 to see if I can improve by a few points.

In case you didn't know. I'm applying to a doctoral program in Communications at UK. Should know by the end of February if I am accepted. At that point we'll actually decide if we can make this happen. If I do go, this blog may turn into how to survive grad school while mothering - or something similar.

Maybe she really will ...

be a tatoo artist.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This is the infamous question that gets asked of kids, probably more than needed.

Morgan's preschool teachers recently asked all of the kids this question and then posted the answers in prominent locations around the school. I scanned the entries looking for Morgan's response knowing that the answer would likely have something to do with what she was doing when they asked her.

I found it. Morgan H. wants to be "an artist." I thought "how sweet; she wants to be like her dad." I was sure to tell Michael that Morgan wanted to be an artist like him, to which he immediately replied that she should reconsider.

Here's the conversation I had with Morgan about her future career plans.

Momma: what do you want to be when you grow up?

Morgan: an artist

Momma: like dadday? what kind of art will you make?

Morgan: the kind where I make art all over me

Momma: you want to make art on your body?

Morgan: on my body (with giggles)....a tatoo artist.

Since this conversation she has added a "nice diver - not a mean diver" and "mommy" to the list of career aspirations.

Morgan's first word!

You're probably thinking that I have a typo in the title, but I don't. Read on to learn more about Morgan's first word.

Several months ago Morgan was very "into" writing things - not drawing. She was "writing." She would write on anything she could get her hands on. She continued that stage for several weeks. Then, suddenly, she wouldn't write anything. When I would ask her to add something to the grocery list (which previously she would jump at), she would say, "momma I don't know how to write."

I knew that we were moving forward in development from knowing what writing is and what it is for, to knowing that the shapes have to be "right." Since the writing phase stopped, she has become more interested in letters, what they look like, what they sound like, etc. She has been asking me to read specific words (i.e. "Momma, what does this say?"). She takes my finger and places it on the word she wants to know. Sometimes, she runs her finger under the (memorized) words and reads them to me, to herself, to her sister, to her dolls, etc.

In the last couple of days she's back to writing things again. She uses left to right scribbles (you know the kind that look like doctor's writing). She usually can tell me what it says - which is probably better than most doctors. Often she writes the names of people at school, or our sitter's kids, etc.. She has an interest in making letters, but her fine motor skills often frustrate her. The activity books that she picked out do not give incentive for writing - just for copying letters (if you see the difference) and that doesn't interest her enough to practice writing.

This evening she told me she wanted to write a letter to Eli (sitter's oldest son). So, we went to the desk to get some paper and a pen. I asked her if she wanted me to show her how to write his name. She said yes. We talked about how it might be spelled (luckily his name pretty much sounds like each letter). I wrote E l i on the paper. Then she said "I will write it." Please see the images below for Morgan Jo's first word. She wrote his name legibly (for a not quite 3 year old) three times.

A day is..

a very long time

when you're

waitin' for

a pumpkin

to grow

Yes I realize that I am horribly late

for Kenna's birthday post. Don't worry I didn't forget her birthday!

Here's to Kenna!!!

We had a quite party at home late in the day, then headed straight to bed for the big trip the next day (read more about Sea World on another post). Here's a cute picture of her playing peek-a-boo with Daddy.

And here we are enjoying the book that Morgan choose for Kenna's birthday gift. I had a bit of a hard time convincing Morgan that she did have to let Kenna sit with us to read the book.

About a week before her birthday, she decided that walking was the way to go. She stopped demanding to be holding a hand at all times and she stopped crawling. Says "Hi," "Hello," (a social butterfly) "Dada," "Go" (means Morgan Jo) and dog (by panting and barking). Notice how there is nothing, and I mean nothing about "momma."