Kinder kids

What was I thinking - having two boys with summer birthdays.  Thankfully, I got it right by the time the third one rolled around - he's a March.  No questions about going to kindergarten when he's 5.  Our first child - he's a June.  We did the kindergarten readiness and screening that is required by the school - he of course was very ready.  Our second child - he misses the cutoff for entering kindergarten by ONE DAY. 

ONE DAY.  So now we have to go through some extra hoops if we want him to go to kindergarten when he's 5.  Yes, he would turn 5 the month he would start school.  So now we apply to early admission.  Because he misses by ONE DAY.  In addition to the regular school screening, he also has to go an extra screening through the county. 

It's such a hot topic among parents (and grandparents apparently, yes, mom, I realize you're triyng in your own passive-agressive way to get me to keep him back until he's 6).  The thing is - he's ready.  He can do all the things that the school says he should be able to do by the END of the kindergarten year.  So I know he's ready. 

My only concern is that during his testing/screening - what if he frickin chokes?  What if he starts messing around?  Screening happens well before he's 5 - it starts in March!  Ack!  I do NOT want to pay for daycare for another year for this kid. ;)

Mobile

Hot Sam and Cheese started crawling on New Year's Eve.  And now he won't stay in one place.  EVER.  He's popping up all over, I've never had so many doors closed in my house before. 

The kid is fast.  He's not walking yet, but he's pulling himself up all over and basically irritating the bejeezus out of me.  Why can't he just stay put?  Why does he need to sneak into the slightly open pantry door and pull all the swiffer dusters out of their box?  Why does he have to pull open the drawer that has plastic baggies in it and strew them all over the kitchen?  Why does he have to spot an open door and proceed to go into my room, into my bathroom and dump the bathroom garbage over?  (please note, amazingly enough, I had just emptied the garbage in there and so there was one toilet paper roll in the garbage - nothing else.  That has to be a miracle and totally reduced the ick factor).  But still.  The only way I can get him to stop moving for a minute is to start clapping - he'll immediately stop, sit back down on his bottom and start clapping along.  :)

Just STAY PUT.  But he won't.  And soon he'll be taking those first steps away from the safety of holding onto the couch.  And then he'll run.  And my mind will run straight out the door as well. 

*I feel I must put a disclaimer here.  It's not that I want him to end up being the lazy people like in the movie Wall-E, but my baby is growing up too fast here people.  And since he's the last one, I'm a little....let's say "overly emotional" when it comes to him doing these big things.  He's 11 months as of yesterday.  Argh.

Nom nom nom

Just thought I'd share some of my cake creations of the past couple months.  :) 

Blah

This has been a looong week. 

Samburgler was up in the middle of the night two nights this week.  That is sooo not what I like.  Especially when I take some nyquil before hitting the sack because I'm not feeling well myself.  Wednesday  night, he woke up at 11:00.  And I was sooo out of it, I have no idea what went on.  He got up again at 2:00 that morning and I was more awake at that one than earlier.  DH and I were kind of alternating staying with him and making sure he was ok. 

Here's what I discovered though.  I might as well be the one who gets up.  Because while I may stay in bed, I am awake until I don't hear Samboni anymore.  On the other hand, if I'm up with him, DH can completely be snoring away and oblivious to the world. 

This disturbs me.  Come on - I want to sleep!!   Why the sleep double-standard??  WHY??? 

Baggage

How many of us have held on to friendships that have in actuality run their course?  I'm sure we all have them.  Just as we all (hopefully anyway) have those friendships that can stand the test of time - no matter how little or much interaction there might be.  You can pick up the phone and start up right where you left off. 

I think you have to make a concerted effort in order to keep those relationships thriving.  Case in point - we moved from ND and when we moved back over 6 years later, some relationships just picked right up again.  Because there was email, myspace, facebook, actual travel to visit each other, etc.  There were weddings and babies - times to rejoice and those friends were there.  And now we're planning a vacation back out to Colorado to keep the relationships we built out there thriving as well. 

I think it's too easy for us to get caught up in our own lives and our own activities to actually work on relationships.  And to me, that's just sad.  Too many times you hear about friendships ending, but there's no real reason why, other than time and maybe distance.  New friends come into the picture, that you might see more often because of school activities or work, etc and it is just more convenient to call them up instead of your old friends. 

Now to question the other side of the situation - how long do you keep fighting for a friendship without getting anything in return? 

I'ma Baack!

If you don't know, that's what Luigi says when you re-up on his lives in Super Mario Brothers for the Wii. 

I've become addicted. 

And it's painful.  The painful part(s)?   A) Playing with a 6YO who is still getting the hang of video games.  Mario Kart - he can beat me 7 ways from Sunday.   Super Mario Brothers?  Who knew that my junior high/high school/college days would come in handy?  Seriously, WHO KNEW??!   Oh and B) my poor left thumb. 

So far, I am impressing my DH and my kids with my Super Mario Brothers prowess.  I'm hopping on the bad guys and bopping them on the head.  It's great!  My competitive spirit has been revived.   I take more joy in beating my DH, but I'll take the victory over a 6YO too.  Whatev.  Don't judge.

So I reach out to my college roomie (who I'd been friends with since kindergarten) on Facebook.  She reminded me that not only did we play, we would have tourneys AND we would pause the game to go to class and then resume when we got back.  Man, were we cool or what??!?  ;)

SNOW!

I guess, if there's any time to be snowed in, it's after the "traveling" holidays.  If I gotta be stuck at home, thank goodness there aren't relatives stuck here too.  :) 

I'll admit, usually I don't really believe the meteorologists who predict these "massive storms" and whatnot.  Half the time, they fizzle.  Sure, there'll be snow, but not quite what they predict.  So this past week, they predicted a one-two punch of storms (btw, I feel sporty when I say "one-two punch!").  First storm was a winter storm warning.  Second storm had a blizzard warning attached.  Ended up, they were right. :)  Like, it was bad enough to close interstates and you were ca-ra-zy for trying to go out in it. 100 car pileup. They rescued stranded motorists using snowmobiles. Um, are we in the Antarctic? Seriously?

I went to work on the eve of New Year's Eve, but took DH's pickup just in case the weather did take a turn for the worse.  The girls at work convinced me to take off at 10:30 since visibility was crap and we live 15 miles north of the metro area (yes, Fargo is a metro area).  I stopped at the grocery store for some essentials (pizza, milk, bread and eggs).   Then a quick stop to Cake and Candy World to buy some flowers to put on a cake because I felt lazy and didn't want to make my own flowers.  So then I get to the boys' daycare at 11:30.  DH calls and says that if I don't leave town now, I better have packed an overnight bag.  Oh crap.  If he thinks it's bad, then it's B.A.D. 

I strap the boys in and get on the road.  It takes me an hour and 15 minutes to make it 15 miles.  All of that is on interstate except for the last 2 miles.  I've NEVER driven in anything like it before in my life.  I can't even remember being a passenger in a vehicle that bad in my life except for one time in high school coming home from Grand Forks and we had a big bag cell phone in the car that we turned on to call my friend's parents to let them know how crappy it was outside and then we promptly turned it off.  And got yelled at when we got to her house because they were trying to call us and make sure we were ok.  HA! 

Anyway, so I make it home with the boys, and we settle in for a LOOOONNNNG weekend stuck in the house.  Thursday afternoon until Sunday.  I've done it before, but not because I was forced to - as in we can't get out of our driveway.  And if we could, we can't get out of our development.  And if we could, we can't get onto the highway because it's CLOSED people. 

I impressed DH and my kids at my Super Mario Brothers skills, baked a cake, took down Christmas decorations and did the minimal amount of cleaning I felt I had to. ;)

And it was GREAT to get out of the house on Sunday afternoon for brunch and a matinee with the girls.  I've never been so happy to escape see my friends.  ;)