This morning, James got up and hopped in the shower while I laid in bed wishing I didn’t have to get up for about 5 minutes.

When I finally got up, I got a couple of clean items of Ethan clothing from the heap of clean laundry in our room and headed over to Ethan’s room. I opened the door, and found Ethan standing right inside. I could see he was a little surprised to have the door opened for him by me, but he hardly glanced at me as he sped by, ignoring my cheery, “Good morning! Do you want to pick out some clothes?” and the items in my hands.

I continued on my way, deposited the clothes in his closet, and went to get Jocelyn up. Every morning, she is still asleep, and I (when it’s my turn to get the kids up) gather some clothes, scoop her sleeping form up from her bed, and go plop her on the toilet to go potty. She wakes up halfway with me rummaging around in her closet and dresser, and I hold her for a minute before putting her on the potty, but yes, I know what you’re thinking, it’s kind of an abrupt way to wake up, but hey, I don’t see YOU over here doing it a better way so just shoosh already.

As I was sitting in the bathroom with Jocelyn, I heard Ethan motoring around the upper floor. He crashed around in our bedroom for a bit, and I saw an Ethan-shaped blur rush past the bathroom door into Jocelyn’s room, and then another blur as he raced out again and headed down the stairs. I halfheartedly called out to him, “GO PICK OUT SOME CLOTHES,” but it didn’t do any good.

Jocelyn, fully awake with a newly empited bladder, danced around the bathroom insisting on dressing herself and generally being a cutie patootie. I got her toothbrush all ready for her, along with Ethan’s, and then left her to dress herself and went to search Ethan down. As I stepped out of the bathroom, I saw him scooting at a much slower pace from his room to mine. No words. Grumpy, sulky face. Gone was the happy motoring pace.

I went into my room and found him sitting in a corner on the side of the couch.

“What’s wrong, Ethan?”

Nothing but a sad face.

“Are you trying to find something?”

“Yes. I can’t find my Pookie bear. I looked EVERYWHERE.”

Oh dear. CRISIS MODE! CRISIS MODE! Ethan has had the same little white bear that I had as a little girl since he was an infant and I put it in with him in his crib. As a baby and a toddler, he liked it, but I would say that his baby blanket was more of his “attachment item.” Lately however, he is enamored with his pookie bear. He will take it to school, he will make the bear give people hugs, he even made pookie bear show his bottom to James once, and then put him (pookie bear, not James) in time out for the act. Every now and then, he’ll talk for Pookie bear, and then quickly tell you, “That was my bear!” He will tell me, out of the blue, “I love my pookie bear SO MUCH!” and then try to squeeze it to death. That bear is much much much beloved.

“Why don’t you go brush your teeth, and I will look for pookie bear.”

I was sure I would find him, but as I took my turn motoring around the house I got more and more worried as I thought about the possibility of a lost pookie bear. I tried to remember when Ethan had him last. I knew he didn’t take him to school yesterday, but DID have him that morning. Ethan came into our bed in the morning for a few snuggle minutes before getting up, so I started to think Pookie bear must be hiding in our bed somewhere.

I came back to the room, where Ethan was perked up but still very sad on not having Pookie. James was out of the shower and I explained the dilemma. We started searching the bed and bedroom, and finally, james let out a cry of discovery.

“Look what I found!”
Ethan RACED to his daddy and took his beloved bear in his arms.
“There’s pookie bear! He was HIDING!! I love my pookie bear SO MUCH!”

Crisis averted 🙂 These pictures are old ones, but still cute, and give you an idea of what Mr. Pook E. Bear look like:

Since I had some time in between working myself to death and staying away from all things couch and computer related, I did get a few things done on my SEWING MACHINE! My mom sent me some cute fabric for a blankie for Jocelyn with little rabbits on them, along with the 4 cute little stuffed animals, a rabbit, a froggie, a bear, and a mousie, and the story of Peter Rabbit. I set to work!

I machine quilted a simple diamond pattern, and then bound it with a store bought pink bias binding. The quilting was easy, but the binding was definitely trickier. I chose a scallop stitch, and found that the blanket was so thick that it needed to be pulled along lest the scallops get too bunched together. Like this:

However, that led to my next problem, of pulling it through too fast, leaving loooooooooong scallops:

But I got it worked out most of the time:

All in all though, I’m pretty happy with the job I did 🙂 Jocelyn received it with many hugs and kisses, and really, that’s all that counts, right?

(He’s such a good sport.)

Jocelyn: I’m going to be a DOG!
me: really!
j: yes! a PINK dog!
me: will you have a doggie name?
j: yes! I will be Jocelyn the Pink Dog.
me: will you do doggie things?
j: yes! I will dig and dig and ruff and ruff!

this morning, her hair was looking pretty crazy, so I brushed it, giving commentary like, “Goodness, look at all this CRAZY hair!” When I was finished, I announced, “All done!” and Jocelyn replied, “Now my hair is BEAUTIFUL HAIR!”

I wish I could remember some of the cute funny things Ethan has said, but they have escaped me. They are this long involved stories of the trucks, and the cranes, and the excavators, and how he is a worker man.

one last story, with no children involved:

we’re both sitting on the couch, me with my laptop and james with nothing, all settled in after the kids are in bed.

me: crap.
james doesn’t take the hint and ask, “what?” he just sits there, watching tv.
me: oh shoot. james honey?
james: yes?
me: would you mind terribly getting me a pen or a pencil?
james frowns at me.
i try to give him my best puppy dog face
james: what will you give me?
i curse the weak-ass puppy dog face. must practice puppy dog face.
me: my eternal love?
james just looks at me.
me: my eternal devotion?
james: what else you got?
i just look at him. finally i drop all puppy dog faces and cut right to negotiation.
me: what do you want?
james: A backrub.
i frown.
me, starting to get up: Never mind. I’ll get my own pencil.*
THE END.

#epilogue: he laughed and got me a pencil. Two, in fact. but i thought the story ended better on that last line. Also, don’t you think this story would be better if something else were in place of “backrub?” I wanted to replace it, but I stuck to the facts. Because I’m a fact-sticker-to-er. I’m nothing if not truthful. Also, I am the best backrub giver in the world, so of course he wanted a backrub. Hey. Don’t read anything into that. BACKRUB giver, you sicko! I need to stop while I’m ahead. TOO LATE!

It’s been so long since I wrote regularly I’m trying to get back into the swing of it. It doesnt’ help that our internet at home is sporadic at best. The internet people are going to come to the house tomorrow to check our gateway to the series of tunnels and tubes (the gateway is called a “cable modem,” who would have figured!) and take some readings and hopefully we’ll be back to blazing lightning superfast internet soon!

-amy wishes for warmth and sun

It’s not in-store, which would ROCK! because then I could check it out. But FLOR! At TARGET!

So awesome! The awesomeness is overwhelming!

CHECK IT OUT!

I’m only 15 days late! But here is a new banner:

Jocelyn turned three years old last Saturday. We invited her everyone in her class, and her neighboring class, and had about 8 kids attend. We had some cute little crafts to do which I think were actually a little too old for them, but they did pretty well anyway, and mostly, they played with all the toys and then had pizza and cake. Much fun was had by all, and Jocelyn had a blast. As requested, she got her “four balloons” (she changed it from three to four). Daddy picked out Ariel, Dora, Clifford, and Elmo mylar balloons for her, and she was so excited it was just too cute. She particularly loves the Ariel balloon (it’s still floating about) which she walked around holding to her body as if it was an oversized doll. I had bought her a cute little dress to be her “birthday dress” and she happily twirled about in it. We noted on the invitations, “Please no presents” but a few of the parents asked to bring something anyway which I had a hard time saying no too 🙂 I think she got just the right amount of presents to not really set a precedent so she thinks birthday = STUFF, and it wasn’t overwhelming to her, which was what we were aiming for with the no presents thing. (Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a no-presents-at-all birthday, she got family presents, so we just wanted to limit the amount, and take any pressure off of our guests.)

Looking back over the last year makes me so sad and nostalgic. This year she changed from baby to girl. I always use a certain criteria to cling to the belief that my kids are still babies:

1. sleeps in a bed (not a crib) and sleeps pretty normally. IE: when you go in to check on them, they’re not sleeping in crazy positions, they pretty much stay in the middle, head on pillow, etc.
2. is potty trained and diaper free during the day

Um.. CHECK AND CHECK. SNIFF!!!

In this past year, Jocelyn has moved from her crib to her big girl bed with a rail, and a few weeks ago, I took the rail off. I took it off while making her bed and left it off with the intention of putting it back on by nighttime, but she insisted on it staying off, and we haven’t looked back. Ethan fell out of bed a few times when the rail first came off his bed, but so far, no bumps in the night from Jocelyn. AND, every time we go in to check on her, she’s in a fairly “normal” sleeping position. She is also diaper free during the day, though she wears one at night. MY BABY! NEXT SHE’LL BE GOING TO COLLEGE!

This struck me even harder as I was looking at pictures of her over the last year. So without further ado, I present a year of Jocelyn: Baby to Little Girl

March 2006

April 2006

May 2006

August 2006

December 2006

January 2007

February 2007

March 2007

or at least better.

My back is A-OK, I must say. It’s not back to totally normal, but day to day activities are now able to take place without feeling like there’s a knuckle driving into my spine. I can’t just sit on our couch in the evenings though. Most nights I spend sitting on a stool, and for some reason sitting in my car gives me that knuckle in the spine feeling as well. It is getting much better though, and I was even able to sit on the couch last night for a whole 20 minutes! The arm pain was not nearly as well as I would have liked on MOnday, and so I did take Tuesday and Wednesday off to make sure that situation was totally under control. Sucks to be using this much sick time so early in the year, but I don’t think it was avoidable.

We do have some exciting news, we took advantage of me being unable to work by going car buying yesterday. We bought James a 2006 (so, used) Subaru Impreza WRX STI. (Read: super super sporty-fast-maniac-huge-spoiler-car) I did all of the legwork, which I kind of got a thrill out of doing and totally enjoyed, by calling around to all the dealers in a 250 mile radius to try to get the bottom line price. I managed to fanagle the price down while James sat looking out the window at his soon-to-be new car and drooling. I must say, it’s a very pretty car. So shiny! So fast! So pretty! I told him we should name it. He kind of laughed, and said he’s never named a new car before, so the rest of the day I kept dropping girl names.

“Don’t drive Miyoki through too many slushy puddles!” (she is a subaru, after all)
“Little Katelyn is soooooo pretty!” (I don’t actually like that one, because I think of a little toddler girl for some reason)
and finally, I’d open the garage door and call out, “Good night, Natasha!” before going to bed.

So yeah, congratulate James on his new baby, and condole with him on the departure of the very first car he ever bought, the ford contour SVT (it never had a name.)

Other names I can come up with (or came up with):

Shirozaki
Kirusawa
Miyzaki
Suzuki
Hiroshima
Natalie
Natasha
Katelyn
Mae
Totoro
The older sister in Totoro whose name I can’t remember
Mawazaki

Here’s the from it’s listing photo (ie: not a photo we took) It has silver wheels though instead of the gold (we made them switch them) Click to see a bigger version:

Anyway, it’s back to the grind now. Jocelyn’s birthday is on Saturday, we’re having a little party for her, and she has informed us that she wants THREE BALLOONS. Every time we ask her what she wants for her birthday, she says THREE BALLOONS!

So she’ll be (at least) getting 3 balloons on Saturday! Yesterday morning, she looked up at me and asked, “Am I three now?”

Not yet sweetie! Oh I wish it would be never! Ok.. maybe not really. But she was a baby such a short time ago. Sniff sniff!

more updates later. yeeee-haw, it’s good to be back!

still not updating.

getting more and more worried about my health. i’m unable to sit on my couch.

my arms hurt most of the day.

this sucks.

was going to go to work tomorrow. now not sure.

not sure if staying home will help either.

wah.

hi there.

i just want to say i haven’t forgotten you, internet. i was all excited to start posting again this week. however the grueling schedule of working day and night and even weekends and holidays (and birthdays, i’m 33 now) seemed to have taken a toll on my body. specifically, my back and my arms (carpel tunnel) are leading a revolt against me. chiropractic care and wrist braces are my weapons of choice.

as anyone who has ever felt the twinge of CT knows, the only real way to get rid of it is to stay away from a computer. i fudged at that earlier this week, but today i drew the line and took the day off. i’m not planning on working much tomorrow either. hopefully a good 4 days away from keyboards will be enough of a gesture for my arms to forgive me and come back to health. once theyre in the fold, maybe my back will follow suit.

anyway. long way to say, sorry, but i won’t be playing catchup like i said i would. sniff sniff.

someone remind me never to beat myself up like this for WORK again. so so so so not worth it. i’m in PAIN, internet, PAIN.

hopefully i’ll see y’all next monday.

bye.

I love playing sudoku. It started with the washington post express when I had a temp job working in DC. I’d get the express, skim through it, and do the puzzle on the train into town. When I stopped doing that, my habit tapered off a bit… ok, I stopped completely. but that has all changed now that I have sudoku on my phone. I always thought I could never do that, I always thought I HAD to have paper and pencil to do a puzzle, but no. The verizon sudoku program is a good one, and I will often carry my phone to bed with me to have one more go at the current puzzle (and maybe start another one) before calling it a night.

Lately, I’ve noticed that I do some weird things while I work out a puzzle. Sometimes, I’m concentrating and everything is clicking and there’s just nothing going on in my brain to distract me.

However other times, when I’ve run into a dead end, I start talking to myself. (Not out loud, becuase that would be crazy.) No, I talk to myself in my head. I tell myself that the 2 can’t go in that column, or I’ll make note of where the 9 is in that other cube, or I’ll just mumble stuff as I stare at the puzzle and try not to be too tempted by that “hint” button.

OK.. so while talking to myself in my head may not be crazy, I’ve noticed that.. well… ahem… sometimes it isn’t *my* voice that is talking to me. The first time it happened, it was a deep throaty man’s voice. and not any man’s voice… the voice had a jamaican accent. Maybe it’s just my own way of amusing myself (and it worked. I was amused.) but it *was* fun to hear, “Ya cyan’t put that 2 there, mon. Think, wooman! think!”

Then it wasn’t anything for a while. Just me. My own voice. Until recently, when I’ve been hearing a man’s scottish accent.

So, yeah, the jury’s still out on my mental stability. But when I’m stumped with the sudoku puzzle, it’s always nice to have someone talk to me about the validity of whether that 2 is eliminated or not. Especially in a sexy scottish accent.

– amy