Weird and Rare Pretzel

Today Mikey found a weird pretzel. He said he wanted to have a picture taken with it, so there he is. It has a lot of salt on the bottom (the pretzel, that is, not Mikey). He's now saving it in the pantry.

mikey: hi i found a cool pretzel! cool ist it? i saving it in pantry.
aj: are you ready for soccer season to start?
mikey: OH!!! YEH!!!
aj: LOL, Mikey fell down on the chair.
mikey: THUMP!!! ow me head me robot boy.




the end

UFOs and birds

Mikey tried a new fruit today: UFO peach, kinda flat and spaceship-looking.

He says he liked it.

Our baby swallows are flying!
After the first hatchlings didn't survive their first week, I've been worried about these little guys, but they have made it. At first they are so tiny that you can only see the tops of their head but now they are so big that the four of them just don't fit in the nest.

Paranoid, but in a Helpful Way

So I'm looking out the window this morning and see a small moving truck outside my neighbors' house. They've moved out, but still had some stuff stored in their garage while they are vacationing. Hmm. Kinda strange that someone would be moving this stuff now, but it's probably okay.

I keep watching, though, and the guys are behaving a little oddly for movers. They are going through the stuff--two are while one stands around--and picking out one or two little things and putting it in the truck. That is just weird. It's almost like they are picking through the stuff and finding one or two things to take. Actually, it looks EXACTLY like that and what good reason could there be for that? Well, maybe there is a good reason, but what if there isn't? Should I stand by and watch these guys take what they want?

I had my neighbor's cell phone number, so I called, but it went straight to voicemail. Well, now what? I don't even know if he's still using that phone, since it's a local number and he's moving far far away. After watching more, I decided to call the police. If it's okay, then I'll feel a little silly, but it just looks off and I'd feel horrible if I were wrong.

I call 911 and one of the questions the dispatcher asks is "do you want the officer to let you know what happens"? NOOO, don't come walking over and let them know it was me!! Either way it turns out, don't say it was me.

Two cars come and talk to the guys, make a couple phone calls and eventually drive away. Oh well, I guess it was okay.

Finally, my neighbor calls back. They had given a friend power of attorney to have some of their stuff put into storage. He's amused that the friend had to answer to the police, lol. I explained what had looked so strange and he said, yeh, that's weird and we're very glad you're looking out for us, etc. And I offered to have the garderners take care of his lawn since the weeds are growing like crazy.

All's well that ends well, I guess. I was worried for nothing, but I just couldn't let it go. Now there's someone else there and the guys are actually working and putting things in boxes!

Busy morning in the neighborhood. There are now 5 houses for sale on our block. Both on the corner, one next to the corner that's been for sale for months and the two across the street from us. The one directly across from us has what appears to be the appraiser at work with 3 other cars parked on the street for the realtor and whoever else, there's the moving truck and two other trucks at the house next to that and then someone digging up the yard in the house next to that! I'm not sure I could get out of the driveway if I tried...

I didn't tell the kids any of this. I didn't want them with their noses against the window watching the police come, however it turned out. I'll probably tell Mikey about it later. Maybe. Ah, I can tie it to that commercial about teaching your kids not to talk to strangers, which is so silly when we talk to strangers all the time. It's not the stranger part that's the problem, it's what they do. If someone is doing something strange, don't ignore that feeling.

Beef Olives

A big - really big - part of my job deals with communication. What I am talking about now is not in the technical side of computers and telephones and the like, but making sure everyone understands what everyone else is saying. This can be difficult even when everyone speaks English, but is even harder when the people I deal with have trouble understanding English. Here is one example.

This morning I had a problem with our generators. We have two big generators and a smaller one. The smaller one can provide enough power for all the buildings in our complex during the winter months when the load on the system is not as high as in the summer. Today the engineers from one of our contractors needed to take both of the big generators offline for maintenance. This left us only the smaller generator, which can not handle the total load we get in the summer. So, the engineers asked if they could turn off the power in two buildings to lighten the load while the big generators were getting fixed. I said they could this time, but tried to explain to them the importance of keeping the power running all the time. I gave them two examples. First, we hold classes in one of the buildings, and we would have to cancel those classes with no power for air conditioning or lights or computers. Since our job here is to train the Iraqis that has a direct, negative impact on our mission. Second, we have a laundry in the other building. With no power the laundry could not work and people would have to wait longer for their clothes and linens to be cleaned.

I thought this was a clear and simple explanation. Perhaps something got lost in the translation. Later the boss of the company that provides the laundry service was wondering why I was mad at him. He had heard I was upset because the laundry was not working!

I was shaking my head about this while eating lunch, then I had another such experience. During lunch I ate something which I thought was rice pudding (if it was, and I think it was, it was great although very different than any rice pudding I have ever had. Yesterday's bread pudding was absolutely awesome!) Before I left I took a look at the lunch menu to see what it was. I saw no mention of what the desserts were. Then I looked at the menu for tonight's dinner. One item listed was "Beef Olive." I am not sure what a "Beef Olive" is, but I guess I will find out tonight!

Video Test

Well, there's my first video blog attempt.

Evening Outing

Went to Quizno's after 6:30 last night, so it was dark. We saw about 10 deer over at the Baptist church, so we pulled into the parking lot to take a closer look at them. They cooperated by running, but not too far, so the kids got a good look. I was suprised at how many there were so close to our house. I guess that explains what happened to all our roses last spring...

Mikey asked, in the car, "do you think Santa is nocturnal?" We discussed the difference btn a species being nocturnal and a person having a night job! Do he and the elves make toys during the day or at night, hmm?

Caroline had something to say on the way home and so called out "excuse me, may I have everyone's intentions?" So we gave her our full intentions.

Dinner and then quite a few games of Tetris with Mikey. Last year, he couldn't play hardly at all, but he's really starting to get it. I almost threw the controller at Papa when he started "helping" me by telling me where pieces should go. When I think of all the hours, days, weeks I've played that game...whew. I tried to explain to Mikey what it was like Back in the Day when we didn't have the choices of endless games on endless websites and we just had one or two games to choose from. Not sure he can even comprehend such a dark and dismal world, lol.

Too Quiet

It is now officially too quiet. I'd expected us to be busy enough, with ballet and gymnastics for C and gymnastics, TKD and the drama class for Mikey. Unfortunately, the drama class got canceled and gymnastics is a no-go for now. The Youth Center didn't call me when the class started back up--just like they didn't tell me the class was canceled--and now it's full. Plus, the classes are Tuesday or Thursday. We couldn't make it on Thurs. at all and Tues. would have to be from 4:30-5:30 and then TKD at 6pm or not at all. Mikey's certainly got enough energy to do 2 classes in one evening, but it would be a pain.

I didn't sign the kids up for Kindermusik because of the time and money we were planning on spending on the jewelry making class, drama class and gymnastics. Grrr.

So now I will look into the gymnastics place in town, Cub Scouts, Kindermusik for January, etc. Maybe the creek waters have gone down and we can go to the playground on the creek again without fear the kids will get washed away if they fall in! (yeh, it's not very deep but when you see white water it's hard to let the kids-who-don't-swim play near the edge). And we can try the playgrounds on base and see if Evan plays or just runs for the street constantly.

I've been avoiding the library lately because I got tired of Evan running and yelling the whole time. Plus, I'm still not used to the small-town-everyone-knows-your-name thang. The librarians know us by name which I can't consider a good thing when the kids are always noisy and our DVDs are always late! We can try the county library, but the kids section is NOT in a separate room which means I'll be shushing like crazy. Maybe I'll take Mikey after TKD today...

Mikey is super excited about the Secret Santa at TKD. He just asked again if it's today. No, one month to go, we still have to get a name, try to find out what that person wants, get a gift, etc. He very sweetly checked with Miss R (the teacher) to make sure she was putting her own name in!

Oh, and he finally, FINALLY got to spar. He joined TKD at the end of July and this is the first time he got to do it!!!!! And I missed half of it while doing the Thursday Main St. Shuffle (back and forth on Main St. to drop off C, pick up C and drop off M, take C home and go back to pick up M--not too bad, except for the day the Homecoming parade was on Main St). Still, it was a good thing. Miss R noted that they don't have enough pads for everyone and people are welcome to buy their own, on sale now for $100. Eh, maybe not. Hmm, maybe just the gloves for him to use against me when we spar...those little knuckles can hurt!

Changing Seasons

It's November and it feels like it. I'm seeing numbers like "59" on the thermometer. Of course, that's at night and it goes up to 75 or even 84 today!

The days are shorter and the kids are older. Evan says "let's nuggle, Mommy" and (s)nuggle we do. Mikey is very pleasant to be around. He's doing great at Tae Kwon Do and not bouncing around the room talking during class. He's happily reading chapters of The Lion, the Witch and the Waredrobe with Papa at night. Last night, I got very grumpy and instead of Mikey trying to make it worse, he got super nice and sweet and took care of stuff and tried to help with Even. Suprised me right out of my grumpiness!

Caroline is slowly coming out of the post-illness grumps. It's hard when that lasts for 2-3 weeks. Really hard. I'm finding little ways to connect with her. She got her costume for the Christmas show yesterday: red leotard, red tights and a big Santa hat. She and I oohed and ahhed over EVERYTHING in the Hanna Andersson catalog. We trying to read books together, but Evan jumps in almost every time with his favorite Thomas books.

There shall not be kids other than Evan in Mommy's lap!! Unless Evan specifically gives permission because he has more important things to do...like jumping on the trampoline. Until last week he only ran on it but now the jumping has begun! Changing from a toddler to a kid right before my eyes.

Soccer Wrap Up

Today was the last game of the season for the mighty Thunder. They played a great game against a team that had easily beaten them earlier in the season. The game was scoreless until near the end, when the Geo team scored three unanswered points.



Caroline and I took Mikey for the start of the game and Papa brought along Evan during half time. Mikey was on the field ready for the game to start when he noticed everyone was there. He got a laugh from the parents when he yelled "My whole family is here!!"



Evan was in shorts, which was fine at first, but it suddenly got windy and Evan got very snuggly! Right as the game ended, it started to rain. And then it started pouring. Caroline and I were making a tunnel with the other parents and when we finished that I turned back to Papa and Evan to find the little guy holding tight to Caroline's chair and crying his little eyes out because the rain was scaring him! Everyone was heading to the concession stand because it was covered, so I yelled for Caroline to follow number 8 (that would be Mikey) and I scooped up Evan.



At first I tried to get E to let go of the chair, but he was hanging on for dear life, so I was running along laughing at the absurdity of it all. We finanlly made it to the concession stand. Some of the kids, including C, had cut across a field that had a game still going on, but the ball was fortunately out of bounds at the time. When I tried to put Evan down, I found out he was not only clutching the chair, but still holding half a hot dog! No downpour is going to get between that boy and his lunch.



Got to the covered area just in time for the rain to let up. Evan was shivering like crazy, so Papa took him on home while C and I stayed for The Official Post Game Ceremony: kids got medals on ribbons, Coach got a plaque. Then we had pizza. Except for that one kid in the bunch who doesn't like pizza.



I got him a hot dog.



Mikey didn't play much of the game, but was a forward when he was in. He's definitely improved a ton since the beginning of the season. He still looks like he's trying to play the part of a soccer player more than he's really going for the ball. It's tough for a lot of the kids this age to be aggressive. The few kids that are aggressive really control the game.



I enjoyed the soccer season. Lots of 10:30 games, so it wasn't horribly hot and we didn't have to be dressed and out the door at 8:20. I won't miss driving down to the border for the games, though. That road through the industrial park is bumpier than many dirt roads. The bull poking his nose through the fence at the first practice was pretty charming, though.



Now Mikey can get back to Tai Kwon Do 3 days a week and take his yellow belt test in a couple weeks. I still feel bad that I didn't let him take the test in October, but I had this silly idea that he actually had to be able to do all of form 1, like they said. They passed everyone who took the test, even the kids who couldn't make it to step 8 (out of 20) without 3 mistakes. Stupid grade inflation. I've read that TKD is more about making money ($30 per belt test) than the art. Maybe, but I think they just really believe in praising and encouraging the kids. For real accomplishment or just showing up. Not something I like, but overall, the class is really good for him



All the parents know him as the kid who asks questions or interrupts to ask to get water. They all think he's soooo cute. We keep talking about not interrupting and he's getting better. He did 2 full classes on Thursday because he wants make sure he knows all of form 1. Can I just say I love that he want to do it right even though he knows he doesn't have to? Awesome.

Halloween

What a fun evening we had! I was not looking forward to it. It was so overwhelming last year, plus most of us had a cold that had kept us from going to 2 or 3 different Halloween parties.

Evan didn't want to wear either his Pablo the Penguin costume or Mikey's old Thomas costume, so I put him in the double stroller and put Thomas next to him. Off we went, down the street. Mikey and Caroline were both (still) afraid of the decorations at B's (friend from soccer) house, so his mom was kind enought to walk down the driveway to give them the goodies.

It was still light out, so we started off by going to every house, since no one had their lights on! One older woman let the kids take a handful of candy from a bowl and Caroline burst out "I LOVE you!!"

The kids didn't want to stay out long, so we headed home and set up camp in the driveway to hand out candy. Sure was hot this summer, but you just have to love sitting under the palm trees watching the sun go down while it's 70 degrees out. Rough life, doncha know?

The annoying things happened again this year: bumper to bumper cars as people drive along while their kids walk. (Why on earth do that instead of parking and walking around??? Esp. when there's one parent walking with the younger kids and one driving the car.) The kids (pre-teen and teen) with no costumes. Adults taking candy 1) in costume, 2)not in costume and with a tiny baby and 3)sometimes just an adult or two not in costume. Oh, and since Mikey, Car and I were all handing out candy, some kids tried to take some from all of us. At first M and C handed to them, but I said they didn't have to! Just because someone asks for something, doesn't mean they need to get it. So Mikey started saying "You already got some."

Caroline was Snow White and Mikey was Spiderman. We saw lots of those costumes on other people, including a family with one of each! We told 'em they obviously had good taste. The woman was wearing BDU's but hers were much, much shorter than Papa's. (Actually, they were indecent and the glare off her white cheeks was harsh. Children's holiday. CHILDREN. Ah well.)

We had more than 4 GROCERY bags full of candy and it all went by 8:30.

The kids are most of the way through their candy since they didn't get much.

Thursday Caroline and I got a scarecrow for the front yard. It's really cute, but I keep thinking someone's out there. It's lurking, I tell you!

Whew

Well, seven days after it went missing, we found Mikey's brand new Leapster. I was starting to get worried; it was not cheap. He'd put it in a good place so Evan wouldn't play with it.

E and C are almost well. They actually ran around yesterday without much coughing. That was a nasty cold. Papa still has it, but is improving also.

Evan has a new trick. He pulls...something...out of his diaper and then stares in glee at it. Pulls his shirt up, looks at it, tucks it back in the diaper, repeats. Boys and their toys, huh?

Still hot here. Highs in the upper 80s and hitting 90. Glad only one of Mikey's soccer games was at noon. That was brutal.

The soccer team lost again. Mikey I think was playing the part of a soccer player. He knows how the game works and runs to almost the right place, but tries to stay just out of reach of actually taking the ball away from the other team! Sometimes he does get in there and get the ball, but it's about one out of every 5 opportunities. The other team played rough. First time I've seen elbows flying and pushing like that.

Ah, the Halloween decorations have come out of hiding. Halloween is scary here. Last year we went T 'n T-ing on base. When we drove home, it took 10 minutes to drive the last 3 blocks because of bumper to bumper traffic. A good portion of the kids don't even bother with costumes, esp. the teenagers. It's hard to enjoy giving candy to people without costumes.

Bday #7

It was an interesting day. First Mikey woke up at 4:30 and watched tv by himself before Papa woke up at 5:30. Everything was great and wonderful...for a while. Then he wanted his presents. I tried to dole them out slowly, but that didn't work. He started off saying he wanted cake and presents and party games in the evening. Great, I explained the cake would be ready at 3pm, Papa would be home around 5pm, etc. Then he wanted the presents earlier and he kept asking for the cake NOW and talking about having friends come over.

I'm truly worried about how he kept insisting people were coming over, despite the fact that they weren't. He wouldn't go to the auditon and I tried really, really hard to change his mind. Usually I don't push an issue like this--it's his choice and trying to change his mind will just make him dig his heels in. But he misses having friends who come over, so I talked a bunch about how it would be a great chance to see people he already knows and maybe meet new people. He just insists that he has plenty of friends and that's that.

(Now this morning he is talking about how maybe Tutu is bringing a present for him despite several conversations about it coming in the mail. I'm not sure how to handle this...)

The day was saved by the mail! I checked the mail and he had two cards with $$. So we picked up the cake and he spent about half his slush fund on 3 toys. He only picked out two and then was happy! I thought we'd be there for a long time while he tried to spend all the money. I reminded him of one other toy he'd been asking for, so we grabbed that too.

We tried to look at Halloween costumes for him. I wanted to take a quick look at the decorations to see if there was anything we could get. Unfortunately, there was a life-sized mummy that made scary noises when we walked by. Mikey and Caroline started screaming and crying. I shouldn't have laughed. It was wrong. But they were screaming at the top of their lungs and crying and nobody noticed at all because it sounded like all the Halloween noise makers! I was pulling them to safety while laughing, so I'm not all bad.

Dinner and cake was great. I got over my funk at him skipping the audition. He'll go to Tae Kwon Do and soccer this week and we'll just keep rolling along.

Caroline in September

She is quite the artist. She's drawing pictures of animals...and asking me to do the same. I keep biting my lip to stop from saying "I can't do it, I'm no good at drawing!" It's true, but being afraid to try something I'm not good at...not the kind of example I'm trying to set!

She is learning the sounds that letters make and how to write letters and numbers. Papa bought a Princess thingie that has addition and subraction flash cards and a workbook, plus a reading workbook. She's doing great at the math. We're reading the stories together and she's pretty vague on the questions about what happened and who did it.

It's so different working with her. She'll happily sit down and work with me for 45 minutes. Lots of times she gets distracted and I ask if she wants to go on. Yes, please and on we go.

She's coming out of dance class happy, but then when I ask her about class, she complains about different things. Then the next day, she's happily doing her dances around the house. I don't know what to think. She's excited about going, she's amazing at how well she does the dances already. So much expression. Not the least bit hesitant, just like Mikey with sparing: this is what I am ready to do and watch me go!

Caroline has been saying she's bored a lot. I'm not sure how to respond. We've been doing crafts more and that's been great. All the stuff I tried to do in the past and had go so badly, now we can just do. Mikey and Evan join it at their own level and leave when they want and it just flows nicely.

I'm going to make an effort to read more with her. She likes it, but doesn't ask much and I have not been suggesting it much lately. (We seem to either be going all out or resting, with not much in between.)

I love how she'll ask for the meaning of words or phrases. She wants a long, thorough definition. (She is sooooo related to her Papa!!)

Stomp, Stomp Like a Fairy

That is what Caroline has been singing, having learned it at dance class.

Or so we thought.

Turns out it's the Strawberry Shortcake theme song: "Straw- b-b-b-b-berry..."

I like her version better.

The Thunder won the soccer game! They only had 6 players, so they had to play the entire game. Mikey was on defense the first half. At half time, he asked the coach to play offense. We were all suprised, but Coach said, "if you want to, you can". He did okay. He ran to the right places, got the ball sometimes. He still hesitates to go for the ball when the other team has it. I tried to talk to him about it afterwards, but he just started arguing. I said we won't talk about it if you don't want to and left it alone. He knows what he's doing in the game and eventually he'll get more aggressive and/or be ready to talk about it.

Evan is still sick, but in a good mood this morning. I'm sick but frightened by the state of the house, so I'm going to push myself to clean.

Auditions tomorrow afternoon. Here's hoping...

Thursday and Thursday

Well, at least soccer is back to Wednesday nights. T0day we just have to get C to ballet, Mikey to TKD and meet up with someone who's going to take my old double stroller. She has 3 mo. old twins, so it will be used.

Mikey did great at TKD and soccer this week. His team is finally learning the pieces of the game--passing and moving toward the goal--that the other teams seemed to know already. I don't know what to think. I'm glad that the coach isn't strict and I understand he coaches another team, so it would be hard to have 2 practices a week...BUT I don't think Mikey and the other kids enjoy the games as much when the other teams can beat them so easily. For 6-8 year olds, 1 vs. 3 hours of practice per week can really make a difference.

Tomorrow starts off the Mikey Birthday Extravaganza Week with a picnic on base...

Evan is napping after waking up in the night with an awful sounding cough. I think it's allergies, because I'm feeling it, too.

Mommy, I stopped crying

Almost every time Evan starts to feel better after an upset, he explains (in a suprised but pleased tone) to me that he has stopped crying. I tell him I'm glad he's feeling better, he smiles and nods and we move on. It's a good ritual.

Quiet day today after ballet, Tae Kwon Do and soccer last night. I didn't get back to TKD until after class had ended and found Mikey outside crying. Ugh. I thought we'd had the "stay inside until I get there" talk, but I'd only been telling Caroline that repeadly. Mikey "explained" that he went outside because he just didn't know if it was going to be a long time until I got there.

TKD had belt tests last night, but Mikey wasn't ready. He's been very nervous about going to class, worrying about the belt test, then Tues. he decided he wanted to take the test and then Thurs. we agreed that he wasn't ready yet. I'd wanted him to watch the test, but that didn't work out. He's still disapointed that there's been no real sparing since he started.

Evan is speaking in full sentences as of yesterday! Not all the time and he is still hard to understand, but wow! "Mommy, I see the garbage truck." Once again, he woke up quietly and started wandering the house. I heard footsteps, assumed they were Mikey's and 3 minutes later heard a whimper and found Evan in the bathroom, scared. Last time he was sitting in the dining room crying.

Hello again

Two days in a row now of not being sick and having air conditioning! For the first time in almost a month, I'm raring to go and getting things done. What a nice change.

Evan had a much better night, at least partly because I slept beside him the whole night. He started to fuss a couple times, but I didn't need to get up with him at all. That's good. He still was very upset when Papa left the house today. I think he'd like it if the whole family spent a couple days in the same room! I'm trying to get as close to that as possible...We need to rest up before next week anyway, what with soccer camp, swim lessons and gymnastics on the schedule.

For soccer camp, I'm supposed to review some topics with Mikey to prep him for class. I think I'll print out the list and go from there. Need to refresh the British trivia questions, too! Here's hoping it doesn't rain much between now and next Friday so that the kids aren't playing in a swamp.

Vet

Survived going to the vet. Only trama was after we got home and Evan stuck his head in the kennel. That was fine, it was getting it back out that wasn't so easy.

He let out the most amazing squeal of delight when a puppy came in. The tech had taken a puppy out for a walk and Evan saw them come back in. She came back out to comment on how happy Evan had been and said that she would have let them play, but the pup was sick.

No, really

Evan was telling knock knock jokes tonight.

They were pretty funny.

Dentist

Really not fun.

Evan was cranky the whole time. Caroline was fussy. Kids have cavities. Dentist has no appointments before the end of March, so we have to wait. Don't know when we'll get back here, so can't schedule something now. We were there for almost two hours. They aren't organized. Spent 15 minutes getting a prescription ready for Mikey in between x-rays and cleaning his teeth! And so on.

Tomorrow, the vet! Trying to get a babysitter. Would be nice if someone answered my emails, but, no.

All set for going to San Antonio on Friday!