Run With The Fishes

Allison has been on a roll with the funny comments the past few days.

Greg has been learning how to play the harmonica for a few months and carries it with him on road trips. Over the weekend we drove an hour to a bigger city for school clothes, haircuts, and supply shopping. During the drive Greg pulled out his harmonica and started playing. Allison piped up from the backseat, “While we are shopping can we get some earplugs so I don’t have to listen to Dad play?”. When I turned around to look at the little imp, I noticed that she had her hands over her ears.

While waiting for Nathan’s turn with a hair stylist, the kids were looking at a magazine. Nathan pointed out a style that he liked (long and shaggy just like all of the other boys his age). Greg came in from the car and the first thing Allison told him was, “Dad, Nathan wants to get his hair cut like a dork!”, and gave a little laugh.

Tonight was meet the teacher night at school. Unlike last year, there were no social mishaps. Zoey moved campuses to the same school with Nathan so he took us on a tour. He pointed out various rooms like the Library, the Math and Science Lab, and the SAC, room. Allie misheard the name of the last room. “I sure hope there are people in that room so I can slap them!”

I apologize for the lack of posting. I’ve just been lazy the past week. I have pictures, but they are not uploaded to flickr yet. There may be a video or two in the works, but I had to free up some hard drive space on the kids’ computer (it is the one we use for video editing since they don’t need all of the space videos take up). There is also a point to be made that there just hasn’t been anything worth posting.

During the summer when my brother and I were little, I think we spent almost every day that we could at the city pool. There was a deck for bathing in the sun’s evil rays that was the prime spot to put your towel if you wanted it to stay dry. It never failed that someone had a portable radio that would be drowned out by the sound of everyone splashing and swimming. We would have contests to see who could dive off of the high dive and swim the farthest towards the shallow end without coming up for air, or who could do the best cannon ball and splash the life guards or try soak the people on the upper deck.

This picture is of the newly renovated pool (ok last year) but it looks like they took out the high dive and the slide. The kids who swim there now don’t even realize the fun they are missing.

Because there isn’t a community pool here in our little town, we were lucky to find a lady that offered swimming lessons from her own pool the first summer we moved here. Last week was the last week for swimming lessons and Greg took the video camera with him so that I could see that Allison really does swim like a fish.

Because they have been taking lessons for the past 5 years, Nathan and Zoey just work on perfecting the strokes and dives they have already learned.

Zoey still usually jumps in because on her dives, she goes in knees and belly first.

During “free-time”, the kids take turns surfing across the pool on a boogie board.

How did you spend your summers when you were growing up?

A little grossness from the mind of a 3 year old.

Allison and I were hanging out watching TV and talking in my room.

Allie – “Hey mom, Ratatouille sounds like rat-a-poopie. Why would anyone eat something that sounds like that?”

Me – “Yuck! I would never eat rat poop!”

Allie – “Yeah, me neither!”

- a few seconds go by, then Allison whispered, “Dad didn’t say, ‘Me neither’, he must like to eat poop”. Then rolled around on the bed laughing herself silly.

Allison has been yelling a lot lately. When she gets frustrated instead of talking to us she will just start screaming. We’ve pretty much been telling her that we can’t understand her and aren’t going to pay attention until she calms down and uses words. It has helped.

The other day, she was standing by our bedroom window, which is right next to Greg’s desk and just started yelling for no reason. “AAAAAAGHHHHH!”, repeated over and over. After the first few times, Greg realized that every other yell was not Allison, but that she was talking to a bird outside of the window.

Allison was laying on the sofa Friday night, kicking something over with her feet. “Hey wow, I didn’t know my feet and legs were that long. I’m growing.” She said this starting out in a contemplative voice and finished in a sort of “aha!” tone.

Then she very excitedly rushed over to where I was sitting and sang/yelled out, “Hey Mom! I’m big, I’m big, I’m really big! I’m all grown up now, just like you!”

Occasionally, when I drop Nathan off at school, I will call out, “Bye, Nathan! I LOVE YOU!”. Yelling out the last part before he has a chance to shut the door all of the way. It’s pretty fun. Is it cruel that I get a kick out of slightly embarrassing him?

I guess it’s not just me. Yesterday, I found out that when Greg picks Nathan up from school sometimes he has Allison yell out the open window that, “Nathan has a girlfriend!”. I can only imagine that for an almost 10 year old boy this must be horrifying. When combined with his mother professing her love in the mornings, therapy will no doubt be in his future.

When the family was replaying the story for me, Greg told me how Allison decided to change it up a bit and yelled out, “Allie has a boyfriend and his name is SPIDERMAN!”

She decided that she absolutely needed a belt with this outfit. When Greg went to take the picture she insisted that he wait for her to get her ring. A girl’s got to have the right accessories.

For the past week we have been doing various Valentine related things, picking out and signing cards for school, getting treats, decorating card boxes. Allison thought it was all pretty cool. She even got to pick out cards to fill out and give to her friends at the library. There was a slight misunderstanding when we told her we were getting ready for Nathan and Zoey’s school Valentine’s parties.

For almost 2 weeks she has been asking for a specific toy.
For the past week she thought we were getting ready for her “Silly Vacuum Party”

Allison: So, it’s my silly vacuum party day?
Greg: No. It’s Valentine’s day though.
Allison: So, I’m bigger today?
Greg: No. It’s not a birthday. It’s just a day to tell people that you love them.
Allison: oh.

She was slightly disappointed, but is still happy it’s a holiday.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

So, It’s been a few days. You guys probably thought that Allison had gotten the best of me. Ha! I say to you. Poor soul who doubted me.

The new routine seems to be working. We started on Wednesday (same day as the first post). I was going to wait for the weekend, but Allison had a friend over for the afternoon and didn’t have a nap. She was exhausted by the end of the night. Everyone brushed their teeth, got kisses from dad, then marched to their beds. Since Zoey had to listen in, I read the first half of the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Then it was lights out* and time to sleep.

This has worked for the past 5 nights! She was getting out of bed a few times before settling in (now with cries of “I’m not Sleepy”, instead of, “I want my mommy”) We had a slightly rough time on Friday night because she did not want to sleep. After she got out of bed for the 5th time, I gave her an ultimatum. She still asks if I will sleep with her when I come to check on her. I told her I was not going to check on her and would certainly not sleep with her if she got out of bed one more time. She stayed in her bed.

We should have totally started doing this earlier. Here’s hoping I haven’t jinxed anything.

*When she’s in her room, Allison can’t sleep without total darkness. She gets creeped out by the shadows, even though she knows they aren’t creepy. We also don’t usually close bedroom doors at night. This means all of the lights that have any chance of shining into the girls’ room have to be turned off, at least until she falls asleep.

It’s been almost a year since I’ve talked about our sleeping arrangements so I thought I would give you an update. That whole routine we were trying didn’t work. Allison is clearly the boss of me.

When we try to get her to lay down by herself in her own bed, she will get back out as soon as one of us leaves the room. Not once, not twice, not even just 5 times. We could go through it for a full hour with her crying about how she isn’t tired yet and just wants. “her mooooommmmmmyyyyyy”, and it wouldn’t make a difference to her.

If we lay down with her in her bed, she will talk, non-stop until Greg or I fall asleep beside her. She can snuggle with me in my bed, fall asleep and then Greg will move her over to her own bed for the rest of the night. By rest of the night, I mean 4 or 5 in the morning when she will meander into our room, crawl into our bed and sleep the rest of the morning away with us.

The past few nights we have been putting her to bed, in her room. We will tell her a story (usually about super heroes), tuck her into her blanket, and then exit the room. When whichever of us leaves, we tell her that I will be in to check on her in a little while. The plan being that she will fall asleep before I make it back in to check on her. She always asks, “After you check on me, will you sleep with me, Mom?” She is always hopeful, always sure that her mom won’t let her down.

The first night it worked ok. The second night, Greg fell asleep with her. Last night, the plan flew out the window when she asked in the cutest way ever (as she was crawling into my bed and under the sheets), “It’s ok if we snuggle a little bit first in your bed, right Mom? I feel like I need to snuggle with you.” What parent could possibly turn down the request to snuggle with their child? All she wants is some love, who am I to deny her that? Yeah, the kid clearly has my number.

I think a big part of the problem (besides being unable to listen to Allison cry for an hour) is that she and Zoey share a room. There is really no way to change this. Since Zoey is in school, a decent bedtime and actual sleep during the night are pretty important. So when Allison does cry or talk or whatever I am afraid she is going to wake up Zoey. Allison generally goes to bed later than her older siblings. She sleeps later than they do in the mornings and sometimes takes a nap during the day. I thought this would be a good routine to keep up because it lets Greg sleep in just a little bit longer also. They usually wake up right as we are heading out the door in the mornings, so it’s not like they are sleeping in that much later than the rest of us. So, bedtime is going to change.

We’re going to go back to how we used to do it when Nathan and Zoey were much younger. Everyone is going to brush teeth, pick out things to sleep with, then head to bed at the same time. We are going to read stories out loud in the girl’s room then turn out the lights. Hopefully, Allison will see that Zoey is doing the same things and it will help ease her into a routine where she doesn’t need us in bed with her to fall asleep.

Anyone else have suggestions?

Do you know the feeling where you dread the answer to your question, but you already know what it is?

Last night after going to the bathroom, Allison walked into the room with wet hair.

“Allison, why is your hair wet?”
“Because I put it in the potty chair”,followed by some giggling.

I thought to myself that it was pretty bad in itself, but maybe not so disgusting. Cats and dogs drink out of toilet bowls all the time right?

“Did you flush the potty chair first?”
“No”

“Ugh, that’s disgusting!” Followed by reasons she should NOT EVER put her head in potty chairs and a bath with big sister scrubbing her head.