A Few Words About WiggleMonsters

Yes, I know it hard to believe, but on Sunday, June 14, we had an extraterrerestial encounter. Here is a picture, with proof.

Now, to the casual eye, this may APPEAR to be a 10′ swimming pool with a cover, sitting on a pool dropcloth to prevent punctures. But the true ET expert will realize that our yard had actually been the landing site for gigantic blue mushroom men. Note they don’t move much, and started off very cold blooded, almost cold tap water temperature.

The landing was observed by the younger members of the household, and one even thought it would be appropriate to set up a chair and supervise.

Obviously this whole phenomenon will require close study, preferably from a floaty chair, equipped with tasty beverages and small person repellant.

Earlier in the day, we had noticed some strange activity with the tiny red landing beacon, drawing the the attention of the giant blue mushroom men to our yard….

Good grief am I behind!  There hasn’t been too much going on, but time still seems to get away from me.  Where has it gone?

Let’s see…there was the time spent taking the kids outside while we still had snow.  We’ve lost most of it now (although the weather isn’t really convinced its spring yet — the high yesterday was about 8, and it is supposed to hit 50 next week!), but while we had it, the kids were having fun playing it it.

     
James just digs using his “shovel”, Jenny brings home the biggest chunks she can find on the way from the bus stop, and Eric goes out just long enough to clear off the driverway…

On President’s Day, Jenny finally used the gift cards she got (at Christmas) for Build-A-Bear, and is now the proud owner of “Flower Bear” (sometimes also known as “Pink Bear”.  James admires it a lot, but even he knows it is Jenny’s “special bear” and he’d better not steal it the way he does with Brown Kitty. 

And then, of course, there’s Super Mario Galaxy.  The Mario Kart game was such a hit that I got it for Eric, for his birthday, in the hopes that he would enjoy playing it with Jenny.  No such luck.  It’s really a one player game, although a second person can run a second controller and help the main character.  The main player runs the “nunchuck” as a sort of joystick, and the “wii remote” controls jumping, attacking, etc.  Jenny has now taken over all of my free time, insisting that I play her character on Super Mario Galaxy, while she runs the 2nd remote to help.  Apparently she has trouble running the main character, because she needs both hands to do the joystick, and then doesn’t have a hand free for the main remote.  I know this, because when I complain that my thumb is just too sore to run the nunchuk, she’ll dragoon James into helping her….

“Push ‘A’ James! Jump!”

• Noticing a jar on the counter, James reads out “F.  I.  J.  That spells peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwhich!”  Yes, he spells left-to-right, but maybe that just means he wants to learn Hebrew or something.
• James greets me at the top of the stairs with an enthusiastic ”Mommy!  You’re home!”, and as I start to go up asks “Are you heading upstairs?”.  I hadn’t realized we used that phrase quite so much…..
• In response to a question asking what he wanted for breakfast, James replies “My friend grandpa will get me a cookie.”  I don’t remember any cookies being eaten at our recent visit to my folks’ house…. Is there something you’d like to tell us, grandpa?
• Waving his wand, or any handy wand-like-object (pencil, foam stick, etc.) James will frequently announce “Zzzzap!  You’re a polar bear!”.  I think he was watching Dora Saves the Snow Princess (which involves a witch turning a pile of snow into a polar bear) a few too many times.
• James does show his imagination by doing some variations on the wand trick — “Zzzap!  You’re a sock!”  or (to Eric) “Zzzzapp!  You’re a mommy!”.
• After watching Super Why! a few too many times (or possibly spending too much time on www.starfall.com ) James will ask “OK.  What letter makes the ddd sound?”  (or ttt sound, or hhh sound) The really scary part is that he knows the answers, too.

With a five-year-old, a two-year-old and 2 busy adults in the household, we have been having a problem keeping the house straightened up and clean.  With the start of a new year, we have decided to try some new plans.

• We bought another coat rack to hang by the front door.  Jenny can reach it, and it has room for her coat, snowpants, backpack and everything else that she tends to throw on the floor when she comes home from school.  There is even a rug on the floor beneath it where wet boots can be placed.
• We started a policy that Jenny has to make her bed every day, straighten her room every day and (with mom’s help) straighten up one of the play rooms (living room, computer room or TV room) every night.
• On condition that Jenny puts away her stuff when she comes home, and does her chores every night, she now gets an allowance every week.  It’s enough money that we can put aside some each week for her to give to church, and to save for larger items.

The allowance trick does seem to be working, because the house hasn’t seemed to be quite so trashed all the time, and Jenny does seem more amenable to cleaning up after herself.  But it is getting hard to remember to 1) have her clean a room every single night, and 2) to give her the allowance each week, and 3) take her shopping so that she can actually spend the money and feel like doing the chores are worth it. 

I think part of my problem remembering #3 is that I’m afraid she’s going to buy more stuff to clutter the house with and make it harder to pick up….

We had a pretty good Christmas this year.  No major drama.  No major fighting among any of the kids (cousins or siblings).  No major illnesses!  I wouldn’t say it had all the magic that Christmas used to have when I was a child, but it was really a pretty good holiday this year.

I had made a rather determined effort to get done what I could, but not to stress about everything.  As a result, we did get Christmas cards out, and we did get gifts for everyone we needed to get a gift for, but a lot of other things slid by the wayside.  And once some things slide, it’s hard to pick them back up again, including blogging.  So I apologize for the long hiatus.

As usual we went to Rochester for the holiday — Christmas Eve Day at the Swearingen’s, Christmas Day at my family’s.  And in addition, Santa made a special stop at our house the night before Christmas Eve, and dropped off some new sleds and a few toys for the stockings.  There’d been a rumor that he wasn’t going to be able to stop at the Tracy’s this year, but he managed to find a fill stockings there, as well.  The elves must have been working overtime on the stocking stuffers.

We had made a request not to get a lot of “clutter” this year, but I think we were too late.  Jenny loves the art supplies bag that she got, but still has a problem putting it away where James can’t reach it.  And James loves the foam blocks with letters and shapes that come out, but for some reason feels the need to separate all foam items immediately and then throw them around the room.  If asked to specifically put a particular letter or shape back in its spot, he is quite willing to do so.  But then you have to hide the finished square/puzzle section as quickly as possible, before he takes it apart again.  Oh well.  The toys do keep the kids busy, which is a very good thing.

Probably the gift that everyone has used the most is one that was given to Eric.  He got Mario Kart for the Wii, and so far everyone except James has put in a lot of time on it.  Even James likes to watch Jenny driving, so everyone’s happy.  And that makes me happy.

Planning, and giving, a “friend” birthday party for Jenny this summer was rather stressful, and not really an experience I enjoyed.  But I have recently discovered that I don’t even enjoy it when Jenny attends a friend party someone else is hosting.

I hate having to convince Jenny she will enjoy a party at a gymnastics center even though she can’t “do gymnastics”.  (Come on, Jenny!  It say’s you’ll get to jump on a trampoline and play in a foam pit.  It’ll probably be a big trampoline.  I’ll bet you can jump really high!) 

I hate arguing with Jenny over what present we should buy for her friend, and what we are NOT going to buy for Jenny while we are out.  (No, Lauren does not need a mommy doll AND a stuffed animal, AND every game that you see.  And when I say No that we are not buying it for Lauren that does NOT mean that we are going to buy it for you.  This is not a trip to buy presents for YOU!)

I hate arguing with Jenny over who should wrap the present, and how it should be wrapped, and how much Jenny can color the card, and who is going to write the name on the card. (Please, Jenny, can I help you cut the paper?  It’s ripping.  No, Jenny, we don’t need quite that much tape.  Jenny, you do NOT need to burst into tears because I wanted you to write your friend’s name on the card — I was going to spell it for you!)

I hate having to fight with Jenny over what clothes she is going to wear to the party. (No, Jenny, you may NOT wear one orange Halloween sock and one magenta sock with hearts on it, to match peach-colored leggings and stripped shirt.  Yes, Jenny you HAVE to wear your coat!  It’s snowing!)

I hate having to try and figure out how much insulin to give when her blood sugar is high, but I know she’s going to be playing hard at the party, but I was planning to take the pump off (so no background insulin) while she’s playing….(What do you think, Eric?  She’s at 350, and ate 15 carbs for lunch.  The pump recommends 1.2, but she’s going to be playing in an hour.  No, I don’t know why she’s at 350 — I did set her pump to the weekend basal pattern this morning.  Yeah, she was 50 this morning before breakfast, so I did back off on the breakfast bolus.  I don’t know, how about giving her .3 for now?)

I hate having to rush home and back to the party to grab the gluten-free cupcake that Jenny insisted on carrying herself, and then left on the steps.  (Yes, Jenny, I’ll go get it.  No, you don’t have to cry.  Lauren’s mom, here’s her testing kit — if she thinks she’s going low, give her some sugar.  No, not cake, but just icing is fine.  Or one of these glucose tablets.  Here’s my cell number, I’ll be back as fast as I can — probably about 40 minutes.  Shoot, I forgot to take her pump off — I hope the tubing doesn’t catch on anything.  mutter, mutter, mutter)

Yes, Jenny and I both survived the party, and Jenny even had fun.  Jenny actually ate half her hot-dog and wasn’t the only girl being a picky eater.  We narrowly avoided a balloon crisis (the balloon at her spot at the table was green, but she wanted purple), and she wasn’t the girl who accidently popped her balloon and burst into tears.  (Moral of the story - don’t use a fork to play with your balloon.)

I probably need to lighten up, and Jenny probably needs to grow up a bit.  But I still don’t really like birthday parties.

It all started as we were planning our vacation.   The biggest concern wasn’t whether or not we all had the right swimwear, or how to set up someplace for James to sleep.  No, the biggest concern was, what was Eric going to do about his computer game while we were in the Dells? 

The solution resulted in us purchasing additional RAM for my laptop, and Eric doing a lot of grumbling about the speed (or lack thereof) in the resort’s wireless network.   At least it meant that Eric didn’t mind staying in the rooms while James napped and the rest of us stayed at the water park all afternoon.

Eric was really looking forward to using his computer again.  Once we were home, one of the first things he did was go and push the power button on his system.  And then he waited.  And waited.  And did a lot of internet surfing on his secondary system.  And finally ended up opening up my (desktop) computer to swap parts in and out to determine that yes, his motherboard had died after being powered off for a week.  So it’s off to UPS to ship the year-old motherboard to the manufacturer and ask for a repair. 

Now, the big dilemma is, does he wait for the repaired board to come back, or does he get a new board?  If he gets a new board, he can use the repaired board as a spare and eventually build up a better system for the kids.  But with a new board, he’d need a new video card as well, since his current card isn’t compatible with the new board he wants… Decisions, decisions…

Of course, it only took the memory of the previous night’s gaming session, played on my laptop, for him to decide to spend the money on a new board right away.   The laptop IS older, and it isn’t fair to your online friends, who count on your contribution to killing monsters every night, when your computer causes your character to be too slow.  So, the new motherboard and the new memory gets ordered.

The new parts arrived on Halloween, and in spite of the holiday, Eric manages to get everything installed.  Only to discover that the sound (or maybe just the driver for it) built in to the new motherboard didn’t play nice with the sound (or the driver) built in to the new video card.  So Eric has a nice fast computer that displays really pretty graphics, but no sound.  **sigh**

Luckily he had an old (stand-alone) sound card lying around that he was able to install in his system, so we didn’t have to spend more money.  But even if we get the original motherboard back soon, I think it’s going to be a while before we spend the money on more parts to build up another system.  

We haven’t had a real “away from home” vacation, that wasn’t just visiting family for a holiday, for quite a while.  I’m not even going to try and remember when our last one was — I think we’ve been since Jen was born, but I couldn’t tell you any closer than that.

Part of the problem is that with 2 kids, especially since one of them needs extra supplies (gluten-free food, plenty of blood glucose test strips, insulin, etc.), it’s really just easier to stay home.  But the other part of the problem is that we are just not very good at planning vacations.  In fact, I’m not sure we’ve ever planned our own vacation — we’ve visited the Mediterranean, Hawaii and the Gunflint Trail by insinuating ourselves into others’ vacation plans, but I don’t believe we’ve ever made our own plans. 

The record of non-planning continued this fall, but we have managed to add a trip to the Wisconsin Dells to our list of shared vacations.  Our friends Dave & Marie, who have 2 girls slightly older than our kids, invited us to share their return trip to Great Wolf Lodge in the Dells.  They’d had fun at the water park last year during MEA week (in their school district they lump together several teacher workdays/conferences into one full week) and thought that we would enjoy going with them.  We agreed, and unfortunately discovered later that in our school district, the kids only had Wed-Fri off.  But we took Jen out of school at noon on Monday and joined our friends in a shared “condo”.

Parts of the vacation were just like being at home….

But there were a few differences.  Like long hallways to run down …

water slides…     and the wave pool where Jenny spent most of her time.    

James wasn’t quite as enamoured of the water, but he and Jenny both enjoyed participating in the Halloween activities the resort had planned. 

At the beginning of the week, the kids practically had the place to themselves, as you can see by the number of children at story time in the lobby.  We were even personally escorted to all the Trick-or-Treat stations the first day.  But by the end of the week they were standing in line to get their treats, and Batman even ran out of glowy necklaces before they got to the front!

But also by the end of the week, we had some other activities to participate in.  Jenny and I joined Dave & Marie in some horseback riding (and a petting zoo), and later we all went on the resort’s horse-drawn carriage ride to a pumpkin patch.  Jenny had fun decorating her pumpkin, but it was a struggle to keep James distracted enough he wouldn’t get paint everywhere.

I think Jenny would have preferred to stay, but on Saturday we managed to pack everything pack into the van and hop on the highway.  It was fun to be away, but it’s also nice to be home.

Ever year in the Community Education flyer I see a notice for a tour of the fire station near our house.  I keep thinking I should sign us up, but I never do.  This year, however, Jenny told me that we were going to the party at the fire station — apparently the firemen (or whatever the politically correct term is these days) who came to Jenny’s class this last week made a point to mention the Open House.  So we went.

I think Jenny enjoyed it more than James — she went up and down that slide several times, and crawled all over the fire engines.  James didn’t like to be inside any of them, even in the driver’s seat, but he was willing to stand on the front bumper.

I finally remembered to bring my camera…