Extra Digits, Throat Possums, and Kissing Fairies

The last week has been quite busy between tutoring extra hours as the end of school approaches and Chad being in Minnesota for five days. Friday we had a follow up appointment to re-x ray Braden's arm. Thank God there are no breaks and the ugly bruising is subsiding! Chad had his own visit to the dermatologist, where he was going to have a small wart removed from his finger. When I asked him how his visit went, he dropped a shocker on me, revealing that instead of having a wart, he indeed had another digit growing out of the side of his finger! (I'm NOT joking!!!) They had to surgically remove the thing! What the #@%&*? A couple of years ago he informed me that the dentist had told him he was "more highly evolved" due to the fact that he had no bottom wisdom teeth... and now he's self generating new fingers... WHO AM I MARRIED TO???

In addition to the very busy week, we all came down with some kind of nasty throat-sinus-cough crap... perfect timing for my job fair on Saturday morning, where I had to compete with a hundred people in a loud, echoing high school gym with almost no voice- whatever... I digress...At any rate, after a day of driving to Durham and then driving around in the car wrapped in a down blanket while our house was being showed, coming home and basically passing out, waking up intermittently feeling like my throat was on fire all night long, we went out to get some throat drops. I had gotten goldfish for the kids and Braden offered some to Chad. Chad told him "No thank you, I have a throat lozenge in my mouth." About five minutes later, as we pulled out of the shopping center Braden says, "Hey Dad, can I see your throat possum?" I knew exactly where he got it from, but Chad said, "You want to see what?" Braden very seriously answered, "Your throat possum..." I was laughing so hard I went into a coughing fit that just about choked me. "Your throat LOZENGE...you know that kinda sounded like POSSUM when you say it fast..." I answered. I love a good laugh!

Then last night before bed time, Braden let me pull out his front tooth. I have to figure out a way to post pictures on this blog, because he is SO cute with that front tooth missing! We read the story Tooth Fairy Rules and I gave him a special tooth fairy pillow with a box to put his tooth in. (Last year, when he lost his first two teeth, he swallowed the first one and the second one almost got lost too...) So I thought I had solved this problem. Of course when the tooth fairy went to get his tooth, and the lovely picture of Iron Man Braden had drawn for her, inviting her for a play date and signed "LOBE BRADEN," the tooth was missing! I think Ashlyn must have gone to look at it after they were supposed to be in bed and it's probably on the floor in there somewhere. Anyway, the tooth fairy had mercy and left quarters in the empty box. This morning, the kids came flying into our room where Braden announced, "I do believe in the tooth fairy! Ashlyn told me all about her daughters, the kissing fairies who come and give you kisses while you are sleeping. I think they were in my room last night!" What a great imagination. Ashlyn also informed me that the tooth fairy's name is Karen! She cracks me up.

Brunch for Two...

This morning I was heating up left over pizza for breakfast, when Ashlyn caught wind of what I was up to. "I WANT PIZZA!" she screamed with delight. (Never mind the fact that she had already had a stellar breakfast of salami and cinnamon muffin...don't ask.) I raced off to try to finish cleaning for the showing we were supposed to have in an hour. As I grabbed all of my freshly ironed shirts (I'm so proud of myself...) I turned around in the TV room to see Caed and Ashlyn dining on top of the sub woofer. She had taken the liberty of getting a glass plate out of the dishwasher, used a fork to pull the pizza out of the toaster oven, and bring it up to share with her brother, who was completely delighted for pizza to magically appear at 9:30 in the morning!

Oh No You Didn't!

This phrase could apply to so many situations from the past few days... so where do I begin? Hmmmmm... how about with the most recent incident. Tonight I had two hours of tutoring at our house. I started talking to the kids at 7am about how I expected them to act while I taught. "Remember, Daddy's not going to be here... you HAVE to be quite... NO fighting...NO yelling...NO picking... NO whining...etc." I reminded them of these things on the way to and from school and during dinner too. All went very well, they watched ET and were very well behaved. (not bad for a 2, 4, and 6 year olds!) I was so impressed and whispered a prayer of thanks to God. Then I walked back to let the dogs out of their crates, which I had stashed in my closet. There, on the bottom of Andi's crate was my sweatshirt and undershirt. Andi looked up at me happy to have a nice "pad" to lay on... as I tried to figure out how she could have possibly gotten my clothing into her kennel, I noticed that not only had she drug it in around the bars, but she had also peed all over it! AHHHHHHHHH! If it's not one thing...it's another... and that's the truth!

I could also make a post about Caed showing Ashlyn Daddy's (matchbox) car collection...and finding unmentionables... but that's just TMI! But it definitely belongs under OH NO YOU DIDN'T!

mmm mmm good!

Tonight Ashlyn made dinner. She called her creation "cereal soup." It consisted of playdoh and Littlest Pet Shop animal. By far the best LPS chinchilla cereal soup I have ever encountered. The only down side is, since she cooked, I have to clean up!

Braden has four teeth that are very loose. The tooth fairy brought him a new pillow box and he is ready to use it. He spends most of his free time reconstructing bionicles with multiple heads, weapons and arms. Right now he is "creating his own form of karate" and describing step by step his homemade process, which includes leaping from the steps, kicking bins of toys and announcing boom-chicka-wow-wow while flailing his arms. Quite humorous. He is wondering if I think the karate routine is "long enough," and naming people he could teach it to. Admittedly, he says, "it's not real karate, it's fake karate, but it's still dangerous (as another toy bin goes flying through the air)."

Caed is going through this phase where he talks out of the side of his mouth. I wish I had a picture, because he actually only opens one corner of his mouth and talks- very funny in person. He also notices every clock everywhere and points and says "clock" repeatedly, increasing in decibels until you repeat, "yes, a clock!" My favorite phrase these days is, "I so super mad..." Which could be about anything from not going to the car wash to the fact that his "cheddar cheese" is gone. He loves taking apart all of his brother's legos and still carries around a hotwheel or two. I love that he still gives me lots of hugs and kisses, and meets me at the door after work announcing, "MOMMY, I missed you so much!" And the sweetest of all little boy sentiments, "Mommy, your hair smells beautiful!" (Braden used to say the same thing.) He still loves piggy back rides and loves to be held. Thank goodness for a youngest child who still gives lovies freely.

I'm sitting here in a sea of papers about double deeded land, old Realtor flyers, tests to finish for my online class and cover letters for the job I need for next school year. Caed got up this morning begging to go to "his school" which doesn't start for almost 5 more months. I tried explaining that a few things needed to happen like, we needed to move, he needed to turn three and I needed a job. But as you can guess he just looked up at me with his big blue 2 year old eyes and said, but I want to go to school...

I tried offering playdoh or coloring, but he and his sister had other ideas, like climbing on the headboard of my bed and leaping off and jamming themselves into the end of the bed until they were stuck... which was fun until the panic of being stuck sunk in. So much for getting in a load of laundry, which was interrupted by screams for help.

As I went upstairs and thought to myself, "I'll just involve them in the chores... then no one will get hurt, trapped or otherwise hurt the house, themselves or any of the household animals..." (Last week I found them in the aquarium netting the fish and throwing out the decorations they didn't care for on one day, on another adding wads of toilet paper to it and on another setting the hermit crabs free, which the dogs later found and chewed up...) Anyway, as Ashlyn complained and acted incompetent in helping me take the sheets off of her bed, I saw Caed with his pants off. I knew he wasn't coming out of the bathroom, so I rushed to his room to check out the damage. Not only had he peed his pants... on the carpet... but he had dumped a huge box of k'nex parts on the floor and had been standing on them as he did so. I couldn't even make him clean it up because the pieces had to be sorted as to "dry and wet." He sat on the bed asking if he was "out of big trouble yet" while I sorted and grumbled. After washing the toys I thought, you know, it's about time I started writing this stuff down because, I don't think you could dream it all up.

And as I write this, I just remembered, that I really came up here to get the carpet cleaner, so I guess I better go take care of that, before the next entertaining moment of the day takes place.
I definitely think preschool will be good for these two munchkins next year, I guess all of this craziness lessons the guilt of going back to work.