This past couple weeks the kids have been pretty sick. Emma has/had strep throat and ended up in the emergency room due to dehydration. It took some time to figure out it was strep throat and a strain that is resistant to antibiotics. She had to get a shot of antibiotics in the bum cheeks and not even that worked. We are on antibiotic number five and this is after we thought it had gone away. She may be a carrier and that could be the problem. Just as Emma was getting better (we thought) John came down with bronchitis and an ear infection. He was coughing so hard he would throw up several times. So all in all I haven't left the house in a couple of weeks except for grocery shopping after Aaron came home. Needless to say, I was going a little crazy and now have many Backyardigan songs memorized. Fortunately though, they are on the mend and we can rejoin civilization. I even got to go to church today for the Christmas program. It was really nice to be there.
All this illness has made me realize that taking care of someone when they are sick is a not so fun experience but also a bonding experience. Emma let me snuggle her the other night when I put her down for bed. John views me as his preferred playmate (unless wrestling Aaron is an option). So, there is an up side to having sick kids, even if a little piece of sanity gets lost along the way. Perhaps by the time my kids are grown we will be snuggling all the time and my mind will be gone but we will be happy and a little crazy!
The other thing that I have thought about is our random acts of kindness that we do for our advent calendar. Turns out it is hard to be nice to people when you don't leave the house. Before we started our count down I had the thought that this year, I could include my family as recipients of the acts of kindness. Turns out, they have been the main recipients as they have been sick. I am going to count John being excited that he got to watch one more episode of Backyardigans and both kids getting grape gatorade. So maybe they weren't so random but they were acts of kindness.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Tape
Today John was home sick from church. We got to snuggle and watch church videos. I have to say that if I am going to miss church, snuggling with a small child is pretty much number 2 on my list. Emma came home from church with Aaron and wanted to play. John and I were fixing something with tape (because that is exciting for a 3 year old). Emma got a flash in her eye and said she wanted to tape me to the floor. So I let her. To be honest, I really wanted to be taped to my bed and left for an hour or so.
John was super excited for this. He announced that he was going to jump on me when I was taped up. I countered with "no jumping on people that are taped to the floor." Emma added another rule, "no taping our friends to the floor." I confirmed her rule. John then announced that since I was taped up, they could do whatever they wanted and I couldn't stop them He immediately proceeded to do something he wasn't supposed to do. John also added some curling ribbon to the tape to help secure me to the floor as his contribution. I should add that they taped me to the floor with painters tape.
After a while John came close and I jumped up to grab him and snuggle him and the kids were shocked that I could get up. I explained that I am super strong. They stood in awe of me.
John was super excited for this. He announced that he was going to jump on me when I was taped up. I countered with "no jumping on people that are taped to the floor." Emma added another rule, "no taping our friends to the floor." I confirmed her rule. John then announced that since I was taped up, they could do whatever they wanted and I couldn't stop them He immediately proceeded to do something he wasn't supposed to do. John also added some curling ribbon to the tape to help secure me to the floor as his contribution. I should add that they taped me to the floor with painters tape.
After a while John came close and I jumped up to grab him and snuggle him and the kids were shocked that I could get up. I explained that I am super strong. They stood in awe of me.
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Christmas Devotional
Tonight we made hot chocolate (for Emma) and frozen hot chocolate (for the rest of us because we live in Texas) and watched the Christmas Devotional from the First Presidency. I loved it. I got to snuggle kids and listen to the talks. My heart about burst. I can't think of anything better than family snuggles and celebrating Christmas.
Prayers
I was helping John with his prayers tonight and he threw in there, "that I can swing from your ceiling with a rope some day." I am just picturing him swinging from the ceilings of Heaven on a rope.
Social Anxiety
The other day I was waiting for John to finish pooping. One of the lovelier jobs of a mom, I know. He had not finished the job.
John: My poop is scared.
Me: What is your poop scared of?
John: People, but not me.
Me: Is that because your poop is used to being inside of you?
John: Yup.
Me: Doesn't your poop want to come out and join your other poop in the toilet? [We needed to move this along so we could get Emma from the bus.]
John: It doesn't want to be with the other poop. It doesn't want to swim in the sewer with the other poop.
So the lesson is, poop has social anxiety.
John: My poop is scared.
Me: What is your poop scared of?
John: People, but not me.
Me: Is that because your poop is used to being inside of you?
John: Yup.
Me: Doesn't your poop want to come out and join your other poop in the toilet? [We needed to move this along so we could get Emma from the bus.]
John: It doesn't want to be with the other poop. It doesn't want to swim in the sewer with the other poop.
So the lesson is, poop has social anxiety.
Repairful
Emma is home from church with a fever. So that means John is home too. They got together and decided they wanted to repair my ceiling.
John: I need you to tie a rope around me and throw me up to the ceiling to fix it.
Me: I don't have a rope.
John: You could use the hose.
Me: I don't think so.
Later, John ran into my room and said, "We need to be repairful. That means we need to repair stuff." Then he ran off.
John: I need you to tie a rope around me and throw me up to the ceiling to fix it.
Me: I don't have a rope.
John: You could use the hose.
Me: I don't think so.
Later, John ran into my room and said, "We need to be repairful. That means we need to repair stuff." Then he ran off.
Thanksgiving
We fortunate to have my parents and sister Emily over for Thanksgiving. Emily came in Monday night and on Tuesday the kids snuggled up to her and loved on her as she read them stories and played with them. Aaron went on the roof and I belayed him so he didn't fall down. We tied me to a tree so that I didn't go up while he went down. Emily kept the kids off the ladder and served as the communicator between Aaron and I since apparently the roof acts as an amazing sound barrier. Emily also helped John dig for worms. It turns out John loved this.
Emma asked if we could make tamales. I had mixed feelings about this. I love tamales but hate the work involved. I asked her several times if this is what she wanted to do. She said yes several times. So when it got to the assembly part Emma and John wanted to help out and they each made about 4 tamales and then John got bored. John asked to get down and then asked Emily to read him a pile of books. As soon as Emma finished the tamale that she was working on, she scooted off and snuggled up to Emily and listened to the book. She didn't want to miss any of the book. Emily got in quite a bit of snuggle time. John even snuggled up to her during dinner.
On Wednesday we went into Anderson food prep mode. My mom, Emily and I made a pecan pie, a pumpkin pie and vegetable preparations. My dad took John outside to dig for worms. They were having a hard time finding worms so my dad took John to Walmart to buy worms. They got Canadian worms. They came home and we put them in the fridge so that we could transplant them at another time. John was in love.
My mom also brought a ton of stuff to do crafts with Emma. Emma loved it. They made all sorts of stuff together. Emma even got to use permanent markers (outside of course) and felt super grown up using them.
At one point during the day Emma was trying to get my mom's attention and I think my mom was in the middle of a conversation and didn't hear Emma. Emma came up to me and said, "I want to lead Grandma into trouble!" I giggled to myself and the idea and said "ok" not knowing what that meant. As it turns out Emma pulled my mom and Emily aside and told them she wanted to cause mischief. So they made plans together. The background story to this is a few nights prior to this I was reading Emma some stories from our blog and read about how Nanny and I would talk about causing trouble. My mom and Emily didn't know about that and they were just surprised at Emma wanting to cause mischief. So they made plans together without my knowledge.
That night we went out to eat for Indian food. It was yummy. John ordered chicken nuggets but mostly ate naan bread. At one point he had a piece of naan in each hand and both pieces in his mouth. Emma actually ate from the buffet and liked it. She is my adventurous food kid. I have decided that if I am cooking Thanksgiving dinner, we are going out to eat the Wednesday before. It was a genius idea if I do say so myself because we came home tire from a day of food prep and the kitchen was clean and we could just enjoy the evening.
On Thanksgiving morning Aaron went to play turkey bowl. He lives for this. I was hoping we could watch him this year but everybody slept in. At some point in the morning I showered and came out and there were turkey foot prints all over the kitchen, the laundry room, the kitchen table... everywhere. Apparently there was a naughty turkey in out house and I suspect Emma, Grandma, and Aunt Emily had something to do with it. Then I was in the kitchen and my mom was on the other side of the pass through and we were talking about something when I notice that my mom is stuffing paper up her sweat shirt and crumpling it up. Because this is totally normal behavior, I wondered what was going on but I didn't think to ask about it. Suddenly Emily, in the middle of our conversation, blasted John Denver from her phone. I was really confused at my family's behavior and decided to go blow dry my hair. When I came out there was newspaper crumpled up all over my family room. Again, I was confused but it was explained to me in some nonverbal terms that this was a newspaper fight. So I proceeded to pummel Grandma, Emily and Emma in a newspaper fight. It was fun! Then we made plans to get Aaron. Emma made a sign that said, "These are your. We have ours, come find us." We left Aaron a bag of newspaper balls and we hid so we could get him. He came home to a surprise attack! It was awesome - a total dream come true. It was at this point that Emily and Grandma told me that Emma wanted cause mischief and explained the crumpling of the newspaper up Grandma's shirt. It turns out that Emily noticed that I had noticed the sound of paper crumpling coming from grandma so to distract me, she turned on John Denver. I just thought she was really odd. Everything made sense to me when they told me Emma recruited them to cause mischief. Everything made sense to them when I told them about reading the blog stories about Nanny to Emma. I have to admit that I was super proud of Emma for coming up with the idea of recruiting Grandma and Emily to cause trouble. It is the second generation of trouble making! Nanny would be delighted. I am just picturing her giggling up in Heaven. This alone made my Thanksgiving week!
John and my Dad transplanted the worms to our yard. My Dad wasn't sure if the worms would make it but John was thrilled about the transplant.
For dinner we had our friends the Blodgetts over for dinner and it was nice because the kids had friends to play with. Dinner was delicious if I do say so myself. I have to confess that I believe my mom has the world's best pie recipes between apple, pecan and pumpkin pie.
On Friday we got up and went for a hike in the Huntsville State Park. This is our annual tradition. It felt nice to get out for a walk after the gluttony of an Indian food buffet and Thanksgiving back to back. We ended up walking for about 4 miles. John actually walked/ran for a good portion of it and was motivated by having to go potty but refusing to use a tree. Later that day we pigged out on left overs and chilled. I love Thanksgiving left overs. It is almost better than the actual dinner.
That night we took Emily to the airport. I was sad to have her go. We all were. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with her and my kids loved to play with her.
At some point my dad and John took a peek at their worms and discovered that they were still there and living. They decided not to name the worms.
On Saturday my mom, Emma and I went to see the Nutcracker Ballet. We snuck in some treats for Emma and I think my mom and I had a couple of naps against our will. My Dad and Aaron had naps while John watched Backyardigans. Their naps were more intentional.
On Sunday we decorated our Christmas tree. It was super fun for me to watch the kids get excited over their ornaments. They hung all of their ornaments at the bottom front of the tree. It was awesome. It was wonderful to have the help of my mom and to see the kids get involved and have fun. John spent the afternoon pulling a sled ornament with a wagon ornament.
On Monday Emma was sad to go back to school while Grandma and Grandpa were here. Grandma helped Emma with her homework after school. During the day, Grandma helped me hem a bunch of pants that Mary had given me. John helped Grandma with ironing and sewing. I enjoyed watching my mom work with him and enjoy the experience of ironing with John. It was truly a grandma moment.
On Tuesday, my parents and I went to look at counter tops and then went out to lunch and to Costco. It seems all Anderson get togethers have to involve a Costco trip at some point. Then we went to Emma's ballet class and Aaron showed my parents his work. Afterwards we went to Jason's deli for dinner. As part of the kids meal, they got chocolate milk. John dropped his straw into the chocolate milk box. My mom got him another straw to put in there. John was horrified and said, "I am not going to drink this chocolate milk! I am not a raccoon!" He thought that if he drank from the new straw he would drink up the first straw and it would go down his throat. He knows raccoons eat garbage and he didn't want to eat the straw. We poured his milk into a cup and he drank it straw-free that way.
Grandpa had John as a buddy this trip. At times John would try to play with Grandpa just like he plays with Aaron - pretty rough. My dad was a good sport about being a jungle gym and being ram-rodded by John at times.
It was sad to take my parents to the airport. We had so much fun with them. I have a lot of fond memories from this trip.
Emma asked if we could make tamales. I had mixed feelings about this. I love tamales but hate the work involved. I asked her several times if this is what she wanted to do. She said yes several times. So when it got to the assembly part Emma and John wanted to help out and they each made about 4 tamales and then John got bored. John asked to get down and then asked Emily to read him a pile of books. As soon as Emma finished the tamale that she was working on, she scooted off and snuggled up to Emily and listened to the book. She didn't want to miss any of the book. Emily got in quite a bit of snuggle time. John even snuggled up to her during dinner.
On Wednesday we went into Anderson food prep mode. My mom, Emily and I made a pecan pie, a pumpkin pie and vegetable preparations. My dad took John outside to dig for worms. They were having a hard time finding worms so my dad took John to Walmart to buy worms. They got Canadian worms. They came home and we put them in the fridge so that we could transplant them at another time. John was in love.
My mom also brought a ton of stuff to do crafts with Emma. Emma loved it. They made all sorts of stuff together. Emma even got to use permanent markers (outside of course) and felt super grown up using them.
At one point during the day Emma was trying to get my mom's attention and I think my mom was in the middle of a conversation and didn't hear Emma. Emma came up to me and said, "I want to lead Grandma into trouble!" I giggled to myself and the idea and said "ok" not knowing what that meant. As it turns out Emma pulled my mom and Emily aside and told them she wanted to cause mischief. So they made plans together. The background story to this is a few nights prior to this I was reading Emma some stories from our blog and read about how Nanny and I would talk about causing trouble. My mom and Emily didn't know about that and they were just surprised at Emma wanting to cause mischief. So they made plans together without my knowledge.
That night we went out to eat for Indian food. It was yummy. John ordered chicken nuggets but mostly ate naan bread. At one point he had a piece of naan in each hand and both pieces in his mouth. Emma actually ate from the buffet and liked it. She is my adventurous food kid. I have decided that if I am cooking Thanksgiving dinner, we are going out to eat the Wednesday before. It was a genius idea if I do say so myself because we came home tire from a day of food prep and the kitchen was clean and we could just enjoy the evening.
On Thanksgiving morning Aaron went to play turkey bowl. He lives for this. I was hoping we could watch him this year but everybody slept in. At some point in the morning I showered and came out and there were turkey foot prints all over the kitchen, the laundry room, the kitchen table... everywhere. Apparently there was a naughty turkey in out house and I suspect Emma, Grandma, and Aunt Emily had something to do with it. Then I was in the kitchen and my mom was on the other side of the pass through and we were talking about something when I notice that my mom is stuffing paper up her sweat shirt and crumpling it up. Because this is totally normal behavior, I wondered what was going on but I didn't think to ask about it. Suddenly Emily, in the middle of our conversation, blasted John Denver from her phone. I was really confused at my family's behavior and decided to go blow dry my hair. When I came out there was newspaper crumpled up all over my family room. Again, I was confused but it was explained to me in some nonverbal terms that this was a newspaper fight. So I proceeded to pummel Grandma, Emily and Emma in a newspaper fight. It was fun! Then we made plans to get Aaron. Emma made a sign that said, "These are your. We have ours, come find us." We left Aaron a bag of newspaper balls and we hid so we could get him. He came home to a surprise attack! It was awesome - a total dream come true. It was at this point that Emily and Grandma told me that Emma wanted cause mischief and explained the crumpling of the newspaper up Grandma's shirt. It turns out that Emily noticed that I had noticed the sound of paper crumpling coming from grandma so to distract me, she turned on John Denver. I just thought she was really odd. Everything made sense to me when they told me Emma recruited them to cause mischief. Everything made sense to them when I told them about reading the blog stories about Nanny to Emma. I have to admit that I was super proud of Emma for coming up with the idea of recruiting Grandma and Emily to cause trouble. It is the second generation of trouble making! Nanny would be delighted. I am just picturing her giggling up in Heaven. This alone made my Thanksgiving week!
John and my Dad transplanted the worms to our yard. My Dad wasn't sure if the worms would make it but John was thrilled about the transplant.
For dinner we had our friends the Blodgetts over for dinner and it was nice because the kids had friends to play with. Dinner was delicious if I do say so myself. I have to confess that I believe my mom has the world's best pie recipes between apple, pecan and pumpkin pie.
On Friday we got up and went for a hike in the Huntsville State Park. This is our annual tradition. It felt nice to get out for a walk after the gluttony of an Indian food buffet and Thanksgiving back to back. We ended up walking for about 4 miles. John actually walked/ran for a good portion of it and was motivated by having to go potty but refusing to use a tree. Later that day we pigged out on left overs and chilled. I love Thanksgiving left overs. It is almost better than the actual dinner.
That night we took Emily to the airport. I was sad to have her go. We all were. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with her and my kids loved to play with her.
At some point my dad and John took a peek at their worms and discovered that they were still there and living. They decided not to name the worms.
On Saturday my mom, Emma and I went to see the Nutcracker Ballet. We snuck in some treats for Emma and I think my mom and I had a couple of naps against our will. My Dad and Aaron had naps while John watched Backyardigans. Their naps were more intentional.
On Sunday we decorated our Christmas tree. It was super fun for me to watch the kids get excited over their ornaments. They hung all of their ornaments at the bottom front of the tree. It was awesome. It was wonderful to have the help of my mom and to see the kids get involved and have fun. John spent the afternoon pulling a sled ornament with a wagon ornament.
On Monday Emma was sad to go back to school while Grandma and Grandpa were here. Grandma helped Emma with her homework after school. During the day, Grandma helped me hem a bunch of pants that Mary had given me. John helped Grandma with ironing and sewing. I enjoyed watching my mom work with him and enjoy the experience of ironing with John. It was truly a grandma moment.
On Tuesday, my parents and I went to look at counter tops and then went out to lunch and to Costco. It seems all Anderson get togethers have to involve a Costco trip at some point. Then we went to Emma's ballet class and Aaron showed my parents his work. Afterwards we went to Jason's deli for dinner. As part of the kids meal, they got chocolate milk. John dropped his straw into the chocolate milk box. My mom got him another straw to put in there. John was horrified and said, "I am not going to drink this chocolate milk! I am not a raccoon!" He thought that if he drank from the new straw he would drink up the first straw and it would go down his throat. He knows raccoons eat garbage and he didn't want to eat the straw. We poured his milk into a cup and he drank it straw-free that way.
Grandpa had John as a buddy this trip. At times John would try to play with Grandpa just like he plays with Aaron - pretty rough. My dad was a good sport about being a jungle gym and being ram-rodded by John at times.
It was sad to take my parents to the airport. We had so much fun with them. I have a lot of fond memories from this trip.
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