These are the new digs. Yay! You made it!

I’m switching the site over to a new host.. and I am thinking it may disturb the feed. If this is the last post you see for a few days, you may want to go to http://www.crazymokes.com/ and resubscribe to the feed — be sure to refresh to make sure you’re at the new digs!

I of course took the opportunity to install a new theme, because I am nothing if not fickle. So if the side bar is on the RIGHT – OLD host. If the side bar is on the LEFT… congrats, you’re at the new digs 🙂

This was a few weeks ago.

Our usual dinner table configuration has me and james at opposite sides of our small round table, and jocelyn and ethan opposite each other.

On this night, Jocelyn had decided she wanted to sit in Daddy’s spot, and she also wanted her chair scootched over until she and Ethan were sitting right next to each other.

Crazy cute sibling cuteness ensued.

Just in case I mislead you with the previous post, I took the day off entirely and me and the kids had a nice day. It’s nice when you don’t have to try to work at the same time. I got some housework done, we played on the Wii, we baked cookies, movies were watched.. fun was had by all. I wasn’t REALLY misleading you – it was a classic mistake! But I didn’t mind, and staying home wasn’t the “chore” I made it out to be. I wouldn’t have let Ethan stay home, otherwise. I was playing it up bloggy style because hey, that makes for a more interesting post! Anyway, we had fun!

Which really came home to me tonight at dinner, when out of the blue, Jocelyn said, “Mommy, I had fun with you yesterday.”

Doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve been interupted for the 27th time while trying to communicate with your spouse and can’t get it out because of all the

“Mommy! MOMMY!!”
“what??”
“I want some more!”
“I’m done with my dinner now!”
“My bowl is in the sink now!”
“I’m leaving the room now!”

and that’s just the dinner related interuptions, we haven’t even touched the surface on school related, toy related, tv related, clothes related, fart related, butt related, doughnut related, wiener related and of course fart and butt related some more, because there’s a lot of fart and butt talk in our house lately.

So when she interupted me AGAIN:

“So I was trying to call him back when–”
“Mommy. MOMMY!”
“YES?!!”
“I had fun with you yesterday.”

It makes me realize that all the interuptions are a plea for attention, it makes me remember how these precious little souls just want to connect with me, and have me look at them, right into their eyes, have me smile at them and talk to them, and it makes me overjoyed that I blew off work and didn’t bother trying to work from home to spend a special hooky day with my kids, just cutting out paper dolls, baking cookies, watching movies, playing video games, reading books and being there.

So I stopped trying to finish my conversation with james (let’s face it, finishing that was like hoping an icecube won’t melt in hell what with all the poop-fart-butt interuptions) and asked her what her favorite part of yesterday was. It was baking cookies. Ethan’s was playing on the Wii and cleaning up.

Now to not make another classic mommy mistake — forgetting all this and getting all irritated all the time from all the interuptions and not recognizing the not so subtle pleas for attention.

-amy

I went into the kids room yesterday to get them up and ready for school. Ethan was awake and fiddling around in his bed and Jocelyn was still fast asleep. Her nose was stuffed up with dried boogers and her face was flushed and hot. In short, she didn’t look good.

I sat down next to her and she barely fluttered her eyes. I felt her head = hot.

“Good morning sweetie, how’re you doing?”

“Not good.”

“Tired?”

“Yes.”

— Notice right here, I start off with leading queries. Never, under ANY circumstance, ask if a child under 18 is tired, when it’s time to get them up and ready for school.

“You don’t look so good, are you feeling sick?”

— GAH! HAVE I LEARNED NOTHING IN ALL MY YEARS OF MOTHERING?

“Yes. I feel SICK.”

I make her sit up and try in vain to peer into her throat. I probe her neck and feel palpable engorged pea-sized glands.

I go and talk to James. I tell her that she is flushed with fever and looks like death. She’d better stay home.

I go back to the room and inform her that in my professional mother opinion, she should stay home from school today. And since Ethan is on spring break (no school, daycare only) and informed us yesterday upon arriving home that he was “totally bored,” I thought I’d let him stay home too.

30 minutes later, they are both running around like maniacs, Jocelyn looks totally normal (nothing that 10 minutes AWAKE and a good face washing didn’t cure) and I am banging my head against the wall.

I took her to the doctor anyway, but she confirmed that it was viral and nothing to worry about.

You would think I was a ROOKIE! NEVER diagnose a child when they just wake up and are known grumpy wakers! NEVER lead the child down the “you look sick, are you sick?” line of questioning! AT LEAST wait 20 minutes to see if they’re still pissing and moaning and to see if the fever sticks, and most importantly.. never… NEVER mention the “stay at home” phrase until you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that they need to stay at home, because once that one is out, THERE’S NO TAKING IT BACK.

Rookie mistake. I am ashamed.

Oh INTERNET! How I’ve MISSED YOU!

But enough about that. Let’s get right to the birthday business, shall we? This post has been waiting for a long time, but I’ve finally got photos up on flickr, so let’s getter posted!!

Jocelyn wearing her fairy dress up clothes given to her by the Danforths

The birthday party was a smashing success. And I was not stressed! That has NEVER happened, people! However, I need to stop having birthday parties at 10am, because that’s just a smidge too early. The balloon place didn’t even open until 10 (but the order was ready RIGHT THEN, so it was ok) and we were getting a bit close with the pizza and cake as well.

Jocelyn with pizza sauce on her face.

Despite the fact that we put “No presents required,” everyone brought presents, but I am happy to say it didn’t seem to be an overwhelming amount, and there were some really cute crafty things (stamp set, and necklace making kit) and games (dora dominoes) that evened out all the brightly colored plastic (lots of which I was responsible for getting her, so I’m not blaming anyone!). She was over the moon to have her friends there. We did a paper doll craft which held the kids attention for a while, and then it pretty much turned into kids running everywhere and screaming with delight.

Jocelyn opening presents.

HITS: the paper doll craft – everyone did one, I used up some old fabric I didn’t really like, and googly eyes bought at JoAnns were a huge hit. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of these 🙁 But here is the paper doll I printed and the kids used.

MISS: carrot cake from costco – had nuts on the side, nuts & raisins in the cake, and honestly, just really wasn’t all that good. It almost tasted like a spice cake rather than carrot cake, and several of the kids just did ice cream with no cake, and james and I weren’t even tempted to have some more of it later. When I made carrot cake for my birthday, my kids couldn’t get enough. This cake – they ate off the frosting and didn’t touch the cake. Next time we’ll be sticking with the generic chocolate or white cake.

The kids were all super cute and sweet, and we only had one girl get weepy becuase she wanted to open a present too. She became my “helper” and handed the presents to Jocelyn and cheered up a bit.

I must say, the funniest part of the entire party was near the end. Andrew, Tamara, Adora and Leia all came as the party was winding down, and Leia, who just turned 1 in January, got an adoring fanclub kneeling at her feet, before she got out of our entryway.

Leia with her entourage in our entryway.

Even my son Ethan continued to follow her around trying to make her smile for a while. It was nice to send everyone on their way and then be able to relax with our friends, chat, play with Jocelyn’s toys, and watch Leia being cute as a button.

More gratuitous cute Leia pictures.

So the birthday party was great, and Jocelyn thoroughly enjoyed herself.

It’s hard to believe my little baby is so grown up.

Jocelyn at 2 days old.

I realize that I haven’t written in forever. And I even have a jocelyn birthday post all half-written waiting for photos to accompany it. But I’ll just do a quickie here before I forget the whole thing (as James relayed it to me).

About a week ago, the toilet in the master bathroom broke. Easy fix, it was just this piece of plastic that hooked the flusher up to the suction cup thing that lets the water out and flushes the toilet. So after a few days, James got the part, and I sent the kids in to “help daddy fix it” while I worked on dinner.

I don’t know about your bathroom, but in my bathroom, the *ahem* feminine hardware goes on the back of the toilet for those certain times of the month when they are needed. So all that stuff is on the floor, along with the toilet cover, and the kids and James are peering into the tank to hook up the new chain, when Jocelyn gets bored and wanders over to pull a tampon out of it’s box.

She examines it for a minute, and then asks, “Daddy is this a popsicle?”

I am officially throwing in the towel on Photo 366. (Sorry Anna! Sorry Tamara!) I am just not cut out for getting those suckers up every day. Oh well.

We are busy. Making PLANS! For someone’s BIRTHDAY!

Imagine this folded into thirds.

You didn’t think I left the boys out, did you?

I found these (AND OTHERS!) darling paper dolls on the invitation at Teri’s Paper Doll Scans page.

So cute. SO CUTE!!

We’re going to be busy the rest of this weekend, and the week, for that matter.

But we got the important things out of the way. Jocelyn has a new “party dress”!

Which I’m sure you will see soon enough 🙂

-amy

I lost 3.5 lbs in February.

Yay me!

While I did not make my goal of 5 lbs a month, I am happy to say the crack down in the last week made this month at least respectable and not abysmal.

This makes a grand total of 18.5 lbs. I’ve also updated my project skinny chart (link on the side).

Now to keep up the momentum into March 🙂

This one was a present for a boy in Jocelyn’s class.

I need to learn to get these things done way ahead of time, as when you rush and finish it the day of the party, no amount of oohing and aahing (which there is usually not much) makes up for the stress.

This is the second time I’ve finished something for a gift way too late (was a joint baby shower last time).

Still though – very cute, don’t you think?

Yeah… too cute 🙂