We’ve been talking up our trip to utah to the kids more and more as the Big Day approaches. First it was broken up by what event is between it and us.

“First is Daddy’s birthday, and then is Ethan’s birthday, and THEN we go in an airplane to visit grandma and grandpa.”

Since Ethan’s party last week, nothing stands in between us and our trip.

Jocelyn asks, “Are we getting on a plane today?” just about every day. Sometimes every hour.

She also often asks us, “Is it wake up time?” I think she does this because she gets out of bed when it is supposed to be bed time or nap time or quiet time that she wants to check and make sure she’s actually allowed to be running around playing.

She also often will do silly things like hold her shoes over the trash can and say, “In here?” with that look in her eye. “YOU KNOW..” I say to her in a silly voice, and she will reply, “SHOES DON’T GO IN THE TRASH!”

Ethan has a bit better idea on when exactly we’re actually going. We count down the days. Yesterday, he knew it was only 3 days away.

So yesterday morning, I knew they were going to be getting excited, because we were going to buy some luggage and actually get some packing done that day. I decided to guide their obsession in a singular direction instead of letting them careen about willy nilly. I got their attention for a little talk about what to expect on the plane.

“So guys, I know the plane ride is going to be very exciting. First we’ll get on board, and then it will take off and it will be really cool watching out the window and we’ll be able to look down and maybe see clouds..”

“I CAN’T WAIT!” — this is Ethan’s general response to anything plane/trip related.

“… but it is going to be a long plane ride, and even though it’s exciting and this seems very unlikely…. we might even get bored.”

“No, we won’t mommy. Jet-planes are VERY VERY FAST.”

“Yes, they are fast, but we are still very far away from grandma and grandpa’s. It’s going to take a while even for a very fast plane. I think maybe we should think about what we can do while we’re up on the plane so we won’t get bored. Like maybe we should bring some coloring books, or..”

“I KNOW!” Ethan exclaimed, and he was off like a shot. Jocelyn and I looked at each other and followed after, to see him digging through his bin of cars/trucks/things that go.

“Which one are you looking for Ethan?”

He just made a clamping motion with his hand and kept on searching.

I had gotten my point across and James showed up so I headed upstairs to hop in the shower and get dressed for the day.

Imagine my surprise when I got back downstairs to hear Ethan announce, “I’m all packed, Mommy. I’ll just put my backpack by the door.”

He really was. ALL PACKED. I convinced him to show me everything he packed. Here is the inventory:

• toddler leapfrog computer thingee
• book about clampy construction machine
• toy construction machine with clampy thingee that came with book
• helicoptor
• snow speeder
• snow speeder plastic snow bank
• snow speeder luke skywalker
• luke skywalker’s light saber
• several small matchbox-sized cars/trucks

I was impressed. The computer wouldn’t work on a plane though, I searched for headphone jacks, didn’t find any, and then broke the news that it would be rude to use it on a plane, where other people might be trying to read, or even sleep, and wouldn’t want to hear it. Off he scurried, got his leapfrog book thingee (leap pad i think) that did have a headphone jack. He blithely exchanged the one for the other and then zipped up his backpack.

“I’m ready mommy.”

Ready, indeed. Maybe he could do the rest of the packing for James and I.

More testing. with these two cuties can you blame me?

or is it guy? first of all, i’ve always liked to assume that the term “guys” in the plural includes both genders. I have no problem if I’m standing with a small group of people, and someone else refers to the small group as “guys.” It’s a non-gender group term.

Just thought I’d get that out of the way.

So hi guys. Or is it just like, one lonely person out there by now, in the cobwebby land of crazymokes? Of course not. No one stays in the cobwebby land of 1 site. No, the feed in the reader just never has that little bold style or a little (1) that shows that look! amy posted something! SHE DIDN’T DIE IN A DITCH SOMEWHERE, WHO’D A THUNK?!

The strep had a better chance of wiping us out, but we PREVAILED! Jocelyn had the last case, and then 3 days after her last dose of antibiotics, she came down with it AGAIN. On the day of Ethan’s birthday party. Poor girl. We caught it very early though and a scrip of zithromax nipped it in the bud.

Once Ethan’s party was out of the way, I’ve had time to kind of focus on the next big event coming — our vacation. My folks live in Park City. We leave on Wednesday and will be gone for a week and a half. We’re flying out to utah (4 non-stop plane tickets to SLC = we are now broke.) I can’t really remember how it got started, but idle talk of going camping in Moab has grown to epic proportions involving my entire family. Out of all of my family, we are the farthest away, so it was relatively easy to get others involved. I have a sister coming up with her husband and 4 kids from southern utah (cedar city), a brother coming over from Colorado with his wife and 4 kids, another brother coming down from Oregon with his daughter, and my other siblings are in Salt Lake. It’s going to be so much fun! I have 6 siblings, and between the 6 of us, there are 12 cousins, ranging in age from 14 to 3 (Jocelyn is the youngest, but only by about 5 months). So there’s going to be a gaggle of us swimming, biking, hiking, keeping small children from hurling themselves to their dhoom off the arches, roasting marshmellows, and digging holes for our own poop (because campgrounds? with facilities? THAT’S FOR WUSSES. We’ll be out in the DESERT THANK YOU VERY MUCH.) (I actually have no idea, but there’s been talk of an outhouse and if that’s correct I think I might prefer digging my own hole.) We’ll be camping in Moab for 4-5 days and 3-4 nights, and I can’t wait.

So, to that end, I got my mobblogging plugin working again so that I may plague the internet with blurry photos of the various events of our trip. Those of you who tuned in for this last August may wish to turn their feed off – I hope you won’t though. I think it’ll be fun.

I’ll try to post more before our departure wednesday, but lately, the blogging bug hasn’t been biting. I don’t know if this just means that my mental health has improved, because generally, I blog when I have shit to get off my chest, or I have just been busy living and enjoying life. Either way, I need to write more because I love to have things here to look back on. I look back now and laugh at the things about the kids that I’ve already forgotten.

Anyway. More later. I definitely need to give a hair update.

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I wanted to wax a bit more eloquent on the wonder that is my son in my post yesterday, but it was late and my eyeballs were about to drop out of my head and turn to dust on the floor.

So I postponed the mush until today.

MUSH ON!

Where do I start? When I think back to the early toddler days of Ethan, I remember the cuteness (he used to walk around and “drill” everything with his outstretched finger) but I also remember the moments of screaming, kicking, hitting, gouging, violent temper tantrums. Oh my, they were bad. They weren’t TOO often, and it wasn’t anything that wasn’t typical of a strong willed, very stubborn boy, but they required a lot of patience and cool-headedness. Things that you can only dole out so much of before it’s all used up and you turn into the Mommy From Hell. We had problems in school where he would sit in the office because of hitting another child, or his teacher. He would let his emotions rule him and once they ruled, he would do anything violent. Part of the problem was his teacher, while a sweet sweet lady, was a bit too nice. He needed a firm knowledge of the rules and the consequences for breaking them. It also didn’t help that there were a couple of other boys in his class that were just as strong willed as he was – the sum of those three boys was greater than each one alone.

I think back to those days because they are SOOOOO gone. He has matured into such a delightful boy. Strong willed, absolutely. Stubborn, hell yes. Plays super hard? Oh my yes. The boy can motor around a room pretending like he’s Lightning McQueen like nobody’s business. He comes home covered in dirt and tales of the playground, “WE FOUND A CATERPILLAR!” “WE BUILT A ROAD!” “WE RACED AND RACED AND RACED!” He is no longer ruled by his emotions. He can control his disappointment over something and totally knows how to rock a negotiation to get a decision overturned in his favor.

What constantly amazes me is the concern and empathy he shows for others. He shows such sweet protectiveness for his sister, sharing his toys and looking out for her behalf. Even as a toddler, when Jocelyn was a baby, he never showed the usual jealousy toward the new baby.

Shortly after Jocelyn turned 3, she moved to a different classroom. The 2 year olds have their own playground, and this change meant that she would be playing on the same playground that Ethan played on, with the big kids. A few days ago when I arrived on the school playground to pick them up, instead of running at me like a freight train, Ethan first ran over to Jocelyn to let her know I was here. So sweet. (Then he ran at me like a freight train.)

On Wednesday, his actual birthday, we took some cupcakes in to his class for birthday consumption at snack time. There were 12 cupcakes, and only about 9 kids. When I arrived to pick them up, there was one left. One that he had insisted be saved for Jocelyn. Every teacher I passed on my way to the playground to get them told me about how he had saved a cupcake for her.

When Jocelyn was sick with strep the weekend before last, he was so helpful and offered her everything he could think of to make her feel better. He ran to his bed and fetched his “warm blankey” and even gave her his pookie bear (most prized possession ever) to cuddle.

He loves to run at me like a freight train and knock me over with a big bear hug. However, once I was sitting on his bed, and bonked my head on his headboard in the process. So now, every time he does it, he slows down at the end and instead of putting his arms around me in a hug, he lifts one hand to hold the back of my head to make sure it doesn’t get hurt.

Last summer, we had a fun finger/toenail painting party that both kids enjoyed. I think he must have heard something about his pink fingernails at school, because every time I paint nails and offer to paint his, he refuses and says, “That’s for GIRLS!” I didn’t really make any comment, but I worried about his self image and any damage it might suffer from other kids’ comments. He is such a stubborn, strong willed guy that I want him to be able to do what he wants and who cares what anyone else thinks, and over the last year I’ve seen more and more signs that that is the case. He lets me paint his nails again now this year.

As we were leaving school once, someone called him a baby for carrying a stuffed animal (pookie bear) and he didn’t hardly blink. “I’m not a baby. I love pookie bear.”

Since my hair’s been pink, pretty much every day I pick up or drop off, I get other kids saying, “Your hair is pink!” or more commonly, “Why did you make your hair pink?!” One day Ethan turned to the questioner and stated, “Because she WANTED TOO!” in an exasperated tone.

Ethan has decided he loves pink, even though it is, as he says, “a girl color.” He doesn’t wear it or anything, but when cups and/or plates are handed out, he loves it when his cup/ bowl/ plate is pink, and we have to alternate who gets to have the “all pink” sippy cups between him and Jocelyn.

It is so wonderful to see him growing up into such a sweet, secure, caring individual, just like his daddy. I hope the next five years don’t come too quickly.

– amy turns the mush off now.

Yesterday, my baby turned 5 years old.

I still can’t beleive it.

I don’t think I’ve detailed all the strep that’s gone through this house. First Ethan got it. Then 2 days after his antibiotics was through, he was crying and holding his side so hard one evening that we phoned up the ambulance for fear he had appendicitis. They laid our fears to rest and said that it was probably still the strep. Sure enough, it was. I think he went into the doctor on a Friday for the second prescription, and by Sunday, we made a trip to the urgent care place to get a diagnosis for James, who didn’t want to move from his bed.

They both are healthy and well now, I think they finished their antibiotics early last week. But then last Saturday, James brought both the kids home from a birthday party and Jocelyn was crying and running a pretty high temperature, which continued to run into sunday. So last Sunday, Jocelyn and I spent 2-3 hours at the urgent care place to get a culture for her. Positive. Poor girl.

Jocelyn is particularly hard. She won’t tell you what hurts, ever.

“Here?”
“No!”
“Here?”
“NOOO!”
“Where then?”
“NOT ANYWHERE!”

Suuuuuure. Not anywhere. Sorry, kid, I’m not buying it. she always strings those “no’s” out as long as she can, so they sound more like, “noooooo-wuh!” “nooooooo-wuh!”

Daddy stayed home with her yesterday and she’s doing much better. but then last night, I felt those tell-tale prickly feelings in my throat. I got myself to a doctor this morning, and now am on augmentin.

CAN’T WE ALL JUST STAY HEALTHY? LEAVE US ALONE STREP!

LEAVE! US! ALONE!

Now if you’ll excuse me. I have to go pass out in hopes of the getting the throbbing in my head to stop and the dislodging the jagged glass that has somehow found it’s way into my throat. the worst part is knowing that this is what my kids felt when they were sick. Poor little guys.