Eden gets his Bobcat

 

 

 

Eden Got his Bobcat. YAY! Its the very first thing you have to do in Cubscouts to start earning other patches. Its been slow going towards this first goal for a variety of reasons, but tonight he got a bit of recognition, a handshake from the NEW (THANK YOU!) Scout Pack Leader, and a Marshmellow Blaster. Thats the prize he chose for the amount of popcorn he sold. I'm reeeeeeeeeally excited about it. Really. Ok. No, I'm not.

Cubscouts has been a bit of a mess. But Eden REALLY wanted to do it, so we are trying our darnd-est to get involved and be good scouts or whatever. This is difficult when our "den" hasn't met all year, and now we are in some other "den" supposedly, but no one has ever called....blah blah blah. Don't even get me started on the whole Popcorn Sales thing. Its a nightmare.

The good news is we have a new Pack Leader who seems to be both organized AND interested in more then just decorating his own kids with so many patches and belt loops they can hardly walk upright. This is a major step up from the previous pack leader, who was one of those people who laughed at her own jokes. I hate people who do that. I am hoping this means things will start moving, and we can have, you know, activities to do. Which is why Eden is involved in the first place.

Yay for Bobcat Badge!

 

 

 

These are our cats. Zillah, otherwise known as "Kitty", is the big one. Patches, otherwise known as "pain in the a**" is the small one. I find them all over the house, sleeping in a variety of strange positions as demonstrated above. Patches for some reason does not sleep curled up like a "cat" She sleeps all stretched out, flopped over, twisted and folded and usually on top of some portion of poor Kitty. Lucky for her, Kitty is the most tolerant animal on earth. When we got her about 3 years ago, Jude was 2. Jude was not, and is not to this day what you might call gentle. Or careful. Or capable of slow movement. He used to also lay on top of Kitty as Patches does now, and when I would tell him not to his response was "But I hug kitty! She like it!" Kitty was not smart enough to protest, and would just lay there, with the air slowly being pressed from her body, not even attempting to escape. Not one hiss or arched-back or scratch or bite ever came. That is my kind of cat.

Patches, on the other hand, will bite anything that moves and frequently things that don't move at all. She is convinced they may move at some point in the future and so they should be pounced on and shredded NOW, before they have the chance. Pre-emptive kitten strikes. This applies to shadows, windows,and walls with absolutely nothing on them. And also the broom, because she has seen it move and she knows at any moment it could spring back to life and become a threat. Being constantly on guard means she is constantly on the move, darting from one end of the house to the other until she is so exaughsted she has to find Kitty to pass out on. Kitty who, by the way, has been sleeping peacefully for hours.

This morning though there was a strange scene. By our tv we have a little cat perch by the window. The cats usually jump on top of it to get behind the tv stand. They can also lay inside of it as it has two small cubbies. This morning though. Kitty was on top of the perch. Sitting completely upright. Behind the tv was Patches. She was trying to get out by jumping over the cat perch, but was getting repeated "smack-downs" by Kitty. Patches would jump, Kitty would smack, and Patches would hit the floor with a thud. After about 5 minutes of repeated attempts, Patches crawled through the tv stand instead and ran away. Kitty looked awfully proud of herself as she curled up for a nap, all by herself, on her well defended perch.

Don't worry, they made up later. That last photo was taken this afternoon a couple hours later.

How I feel

 

This is how I feel today.

Its not pretty.

I have a cough that sounds like a barking seal and feels like my lungs are going to vacate my body in protest. I am so congested I think my head might actually explode. Or maybe implode. Either way, it would feel much better then it does now. I have fever and chills, and general total body ache reminiscient of this one time I was run over by a college student on a bicycle...I think I was like 6 or 7 years old. But its a feeling you don't quickly forget.

Major props to Daniel though, who came down yesterday to pick up the boys for the weekend when I told him how sick I was. Its a long drive and I know he didn't want to, but he didn't complain about it and he even gave me some advice for how to make some soup which may make me feel better. OF course, that requires a trip to the store which I am not sure I am up for just yet.

So today its just me and Hannah and the Barking Cough. It totally sucks.

Spaghetti-O Madness!

Hannah likes Spaghetti-O's. As you can plainly see.

She is thrilled to be covered in orange, sticky, slimy goo. Contrary to what these pictures might indicate, she was not in fact using that spoon she is holding. She cleverly held the spoon in one hand, and shoveled gobs of ghetti goodness in to her mouth with the other. Occasionally she would shift the spoon to the alternate hand, to make sure that each hand got a chance to be completely immersed in the wonderfullness that was her dinner.

She liked them so much in fact, she didn't even share any with the dog! And that is really saying something because Hannah and Mac are like best friends. Its practically a rule that he gets half of whatever she is eating. Not so in the case of spaghetti-O's. The emptier her bowl became the more frantic he got, realizing there would be none flung to the floor for him. He whined, and circled her chair, but she just laughed and continued cramming.

I think he is still pouting on the couch.

Anyways, a dinner like this clearly required a bath afterwards. This may have been Hannah's master plan all along since every time we pass the bathroom during the day she says "Bath! Bath! BATH!" She had a bath this morning. She had another one tonight. She is very, very clean.

My Sister

This is probably the most recent picture of my sister and myself together. The sad thing about that is, this was Christmas 2004. And since this is simple math, I can do it. Thats 3 years ago.

How can it have been that long?

I miss my sister.

The thing about Shannon is....well, shes awesome. Shes smart and pretty, and fun to be around. She has lots of friends, and a really cool boyfriend, and I am sure she has a totally rad apartment, but I've never seen it. She always had fun games to play with the boys when she came to visit. We didn't talk on the phone all the time or anything, but she called me pretty frequently for advice, to share a story, or just to say hi. And I did the same.

Then three years ago, it all stopped. Rather suddenly. I made a decision she didn't agree with, I hurt her feelings by not telling her about it ahead of time, and she got so mad she said she never wanted to speak to me again.

I guess I didn't think she really meant it.

I guess I thought that old "Time heals everything" or whatever, would be true. That eventually she would forgive me. Because, hey, we're sisters. Right? Isn't that what sisters are for? Hadn't we been through worse? Wouldn't she be able to see, once everything calmed down, that nothing had to change between us? That I was still the same? The same sister who defended her as a little kid, who shared a room with her till we were practically teenagers, who never fought with her or called her names, who was always glad to help her out, share my things, and have her around. Who she could call crying from New Zealand and be comforted. Who she could ask for advice about boys. Who was always, ALWAYS proud of her.

I still am.

I hear about things going on with her through my parents, and I wish that I was hearing it from her. I hope that someday she will call me. That she will remember the good things, instead of focusing on this one thing that upset her. Big sisters aren't perfect, but I was a pretty darn good one. And I still could be, if she would let me.

I love ya, Shannon.

Eden and his Glasses (or: I can't believe my baby is so grown up I want to cry)

Here is Eden. Here are his new glasses.

First of all, he LOVES them.

Second, I love him.

Third, Jude wants a pair just like them.

And fourth, Eden looks so grown up I want to cry.

It was obvious from the very beginning that at some point he would need glasses since both his dad and I have terrible eyesight. When he was 4 years old he decided to give us all a good scare by walking around smacking his hands together in front of his face and saying "Look Mommy! Don't you see the colors? They're everywhere!" I promptly freaked out, as only a mother can, and took him to the eye doctor. The eye doctor examined him and proceeded to tell me that I had a very imaginitive child, with perfectly good eyes, who was probably getting a good laugh out of telling everyone he was seeing spots. At that point, Eden began giggling uncontrollably. Not only were his eyes fine, but his sense of humor was well developed for a four year old. I think this may have been only one of a handful of times I would have called Eden "mischevious", because thats normally not his nature. But when he does pull a prank, its a good one.

So, now here he is in the third grade,eight years old, with his first pair of glasses. Hes turning in to such a big kid. Notice also the tight-lipped smile. He refuses to smile with his teeth showing since two of the top ones are missing and his very front teeth are now those akward too big for his face grown up teeth that he will someday grow in to, but which for now make him feel self-conscious.

How can such a beautiful child feel self-conscious I wonder?

I wish he could see himself the way I see him.

Disney

Disney-fied

We went to Disney, and it was very, very Disney-like.

Eden had taken a map of the Magic Kindgom the night before and planned our route through from one end to the other. It ended up being so crowded that we didn't do everything exactly in order, but we did get to all the rides he had marked wanting to do. Plus one or two that Jude saw and we added in "spur of the moment." Very Jude. Very Not Eden. But Jude wanted to ride the carousel as we walked by, so we did. And Jude wanted to ride the Rocket ships when we saw them, so we did.

There was a new attraction since the last time we were there called the Mosnsters Inc Laugh Floor. Its a "live" show, ev nthough its animated. The animated characters interact with the audience when a spotlight comes on certain people and the characters ask questions. The last person who got picked was......Eden! The little monster on the screen asked him what his name was. They both had Mickey Mouse on their sweatshirts and the monster said "Uhm, you have some kind of rodent on your shirt. That must be your brother because he has a rodent on his shirt too!" He asked Eden what he wanted to be when he grew up and Eden said "A Scientist." The monster said "You better start drawing up your plans now....oh wait, that would be an engineer." Eden was so thrilled to be up on the big screen though, and have the monster talk to him. It was very cool.

We managed to not see a single Disney Character though. Which was odd. I guess we just weren't in the right places. The kids didn't seem to mind. Hannah really liked riding the Winnie the Pooh ride, she clapped her hands and shrieked to the music.

We also spent lots of time at the pool, but not as much as we would have if the weather had been more like Florida is supposed to be. Like, you know, warm instead of cold.

We are home now though, and it feels really good. Thomas drove the whole way again. Which was good because Hannah was fussy basically the entire drive. Now all the kids are sleeping and I am having chinese food with Thomas. Yum. Im going to post a few Disney pictures, if I can choose just a few.......

Traveling with Kiddos

We made the drive from Columbus to Florida, as it has become a tradition with my husband's family to visit Disney after Christmas the last 3 years. Its a bit different this year of course, because he isn't here with us, but everyone thought it would be a good idea to do it anyways since the kids look forward to it so much.

And who is going to complain about spending a week in Florida swimming at the pool and spending a day at the Magic Kingdom and Disney Quest??

Not me.

So, here are the kids in the car. They proved once again that they are actually the best kids in the entire world. Hannah slept at her nap times, just like at home. One of her naps was cut short by Jude yelling. Just like at home. And the boys basically entertained themselves and kept the whining to a minimum. Eden read and Jude played VSMILE and sometimes they even played with their toys......TOGETHER!

Uncle Thomas drove the whole way. Thats right. The whole way. I think maybe part of it was he knew the baby was less likely to cry if I sat with her when she was awake. Which was true. Still, I really appreciated it.

When we stopped at a random gas station for snacks and potty breaks, we got some funny looks. I do tend to get these looks anyways, but Uncle Thomas is a few years younger then me and clearly people thought we were "Mom and Dad". Except for that to be true he would've had Eden at 12....... Anyways, he found the looks mildly amusing. I call it the "Teenage Parent Stare", and I've been getting it for 8 years so I don't tend to pay attention to it anymore.

The middle picture is Hannah chewing on her Daddy's sweatshirt that he left for me. She was using it as a blanket and to attempt to floss apparently.

This last picture is the boys being super good. Super, SUPER good. And I love them.