- Ok, so I'm playing catch-up again. I've been writing thoughts for the last three weeks, but with traveling back and forth between here and Seattle for both Christmas and New Year's, and Bryce's birthday, plus Primary stuff and sick kids, it's been hard to stay on top of my blog (again). Hopefully now that the holidays are over, I can stay up-to-date. Anyway...
- This is how great of a husband I have: on the Tuesday before Christmas, I had spent a few hours researching and reading and deciding what Christmas traditions I wanted to start. I had made up my mind that I wanted to incorporate some traditions from our ethnic heritages: Swedish, Scottish, and English. And one thing I actually remembered having when I was a child was an angel chime. So I got it in my mind that I wanted to get an angel chime, and I wanted to get one that night. One of the ladies I serve with in Primary is actually from Sweden and she said that the only place to get an angel chime around town was in Leavenworth, about 20 minutes away. So when Bryce got home that night, a little after 5:30, I sprang the news on him that I wanted to go to Leavenworth. He was all on board until an hour and a half later (which was only half an hour before our kids' bedtime), we were on the road to Leavenworth and Bryce asked me if I knew where we were going. The answer was no (Camilla couldn't remember where in Leavenworth to get the chimes and I couldn't find anything online). Then he asked me if I knew if the shops were still open. I said no. Some heavy sighs. I sweetly explained that I realized how late it was and that really, we didn't have to get the angel chime that night, that I might be able to find it cheaper after Christmas and we could start the tradition next year, but Bryce kept going. So then I switched tactics, and told him that I genuinely would be ok if we didn't go and that I didn't want to get there and have the shops be closed and have him be mad at me. He looked at me, softened his expression, and sweetly promised me that it was ok, we could go and that he wouldn't be mad. And sure enough, we got there and most of the shops were closed. I was pointed in the right direction for where I could probably find some angel chimes, when the shop is open, but no luck. However, the kids loved the lights and Bryce enjoyed seeing the lighted Bavarian town again without all the crowds. And we even stopped and got an ice cream cone and some fries on the way home. Bryce wasn't mad...and in fact, he even suggested we come back on Christmas Eve day and get the chime. Isn't he a sweetie? I don't even need to mention that when we got home he put the kids to bed, despite having gotten up at 6 AM to deliver papers (yes, once a week Bryce delivers some adds for some extra cash - have you ever seen a cuter lawyer?), so that I could work on the blog. Ah, I love him. I think he's a keeper...
- As I've mentioned in previous posts, we've been traveling a lot lately and so Mattie has gotten used to having our portable DVD player in the car. So now she thinks we need to "watch a foo-fee (movie)" every time we go anywhere. And if you ask her want she wants to do, it's almost always the same, "watch a foo-fee." She even likes to carry around the DVD cases to her favorite movies, like Toy Story and Finding Nemo and Bolt. I feel like I'm doing something wrong as a parent when all my kid wants to do is watch the boob-tube!
- CJ's favorite Christmas songs were/are Winter Wonderland, Jingle Bells (especially the Barbra Streisand version), and All I Want for Christmas Is You. Every time he hears them he ask me to turn them up. We all - including Mattie - like to sing and dance to them (dancing especially to All I Want...). But here's how much CJ loves them: we met Bryce for lunch a few weeks ago at McDonald's (it was the week before Christmas). It has been snowing all day and the kids needed to play, so don't judge. Anyway, CJ was so upset to leave McDonald's that he pretty much had a meltdown. As we were in the car about to drive away, and CJ's cry was at it's peak, I turned on the CD player, and good ol' Johnny Mathis came ringing over the speakers. Within seconds (probably as soon as CJ's brain registered what song was on the radio), CJ stopped crying...and not only stopped crying, but started singing Winter Wonderland right along with Johnny! It was classic!
- Speaking of McDonald's, CJ was so excited to go play at McDonald's, and cried so hard when we left, but what would surprise you is how much he cried while he was actually there! When we got there, he immediately climbed up to the top, at which point the only way down is to either take the slide, or go back the way you came. CJ didn't like either option, so he sat for quite some time at the top, looking out the little window in the tube at us wondering what he should do. After several minutes, he worked himself into a cry, so I crammed myself into the children's play gym to help him out. Once to the top, I helped him over to the slide, but mean mom that I am, I made him go down by himself hoping he'd see he could do it. He was happy when he got down and thought it was fun. So it didn't surprise when he headed back up. I guess what really shouldn't have surprised us is when CJ repeated the behavior all over again, except his crying started even sooner this time. And this time, I wasn't so willing to go up there. If we had been the only ones in the place I wouldn't have, but since I didn't want my child's crying to agitate the other patrons, I headed up there again. So the third time it happened, Bryce could tell I was annoyed and he headed up there, in his suit and all. After that, we left. Now don't get me wrong, I love CJ and want to help him when he needs it, but that's the thing: he didn't need it! I wanted him to figure that out on his own. I felt like if we had just let him continue to cry, he would have eventually realized he was going to have to figure it out on his own, and since we had already shown him the way the first time, I wanted him to use his experience to build on. Ugh, it's frustrating. I want CJ to be more independent in those situations, trust himself, and try new things. But I also like to think that CJ has qualities that most kids don't have and that maybe his quirks like that are indicative of character that will serve him well in later years. I know, I know, enough over-analyzing already. I'm moving on...
- It's been almost two months since we went to Disneyland, but CJ seems to remember the Nemo ride, the Toy Story ride, and the Monsters Inc. ride, because he's still talking about them. He still talks about Whinnie the Pooh, but not about the ride, and we're pretty impressed that he remembers that too considering he has absolutely no exposure to Pooh here at our house :)
- 12/24 We went to dinner on Christmas Eve and while we were there, Mattie looked at the ice in our drinks and said that is was "fishies" in water :)
- 12/26 I was putting Mattie to bed the night after Christmas and helping her say her prayers. She's still at the stage where she just repeats what we say, but she has just recently started adding her own things...to every one's prayers (ex: she always insists that CJ add "Cam" to who he's thankful for :). Tonight, she added, all on her own, that she's thankful for "fun toys" and her "pillow pet" and to bless her pillow pet as well. It's remarkable how much she is learning and growing! It's like being able to physically watch time...and it's too fast for my taste.
- Mattie has also recently started to develop an opinion about her clothes. It started by me giving her a choice of what shirt to wear - I like to give my kids choices in a lot of things, but I usually just narrow it down to two. I gave her the choice between her shirt with a purple design that includes butterflies, and another - I don't even remember the other one because she chose the butterfly shirt. So the next time I started to ask her which shirt she'd like to wear, she blurted out "ennafly" (butterfly) before I even gave her any choices. The thing is, I'm not sure if she really has an opinion or just likes her butterfly shirt because she likes to say "ennafly."
- And as of late, Mattie's favorite song is "Mango" (Bingo). She could sing it 100 times ins a row, if we let her (or should I say, she could have us sing it 100x).
- Christmas was hilarious! Let's see...to sum it up: half an hour spent on stockings alone, Mattie refusing to put down the new movies they got (she just carried them around all morning - we had to distract her and hide them from her to get her to open any more gifts), prying the kids away from their new kitchen to actually open wrapped gifts, Mattie being scared to go in to her tent, taking just as long - if not longer - to clean up, CJ telling everyone he got a toothbrush for Christmas, Bryce surprising me (which doesn't happen very often) and getting me to cry on camera, me trying to scare Bryce by planting fake cockroaches in on of his gifts, and Bryce getting the gift of a lifetime (at least, the best gift I've ever gotten him).
- Oh, before I forget, I love how Mattie says "look." We often hear her, especially as we're driving, saying things like, "Yook! A snowman! Yook! Yook!" or "Yook at the baby!" and half the time the "baby" is a toddler her age :). The way she says "fireworks" is pretty cute too: "fy-da-work!"
- So Mattie pretty much knows her colors: red, yellow, green, blue, orange, purple, and definitely pink!
- Every time I lie Mattie down to change her diaper or get her dressed or whatever it may be, she looks at my desperately-needing-some-TLC-and-a-fabulous-pedicure feet and says, "Mommy has owie" :)
- Mattie is such a mystery of a little girl: she is so impatient that the second she asks for something, if it is not in her mouth or hand immediately, she starts to meltdown; however, she definitely minds her manners, always being sure to say "thanks" when she gets said item. And she is getting so great at saying prayers, so much so, that she likes to tell us what to put in our prayers, like "Cam" and "toys."
- Oh, and I love how Mattie calls candles "happy birthday," or just "birthday," and I love even more how she adds "the" or "a" to things, like, "Go to the-bed," or "take-a the bath." She cracks us up and we can't imagine our family without her!!
- Last Tuesday, I was on the phone with Bryce and I asked the kids if they wanted to talk to him. CJ, of course did, and as he closed the conversation he kissed the phone. Mattie, on the other hand, didn't want to talk to Daddy on Mommy's phone...she was busy having an important conversation on her play phone. Excuse me, for interrupting, Mattie. :)
- Speaking of Bryce, he had his first city league basketball game on Monday. I have mixed feelings. The selfish side of me was kind of thinking now that we're not in school anymore, or living by any of our friends, that the many, Many, MANY hours spent playing sports - intramural, city league, church, spring, summer, fall, winter - were kind of over...and I was kind of ok with it (ok, more than kind of :). But the more generous side of me is glad that one, Bryce has made some friends here who think enough of his basketball skills to invite them on to their team (and it was sponsored by a local business, so it only cost him $20 to play), and two, as much as I gripe about it taking time away from our family, I'm glad that he has a healthy outlet that he can continue to enjoy, and honestly, I hope he can enjoy playing sports for many years to come. It's a passion of his, and he's pretty good at them all (and my inner teenager, who thinks athletes are the bomb, thinks that it's pretty HOT that Bryce is so good at sports :).
- And just to brag about Bryce for a sec, yesterday Bryce stayed home with Mattie and I went to church with CJ. In between Primary and Sacrament meeting, our ward clerk, Mark Anderton, was talking to us about our budget. After the conversation he went to leave, and one his way out, he asked me if Bryce had told me about their ward basketball game a few days earlier. I told him Bryce did tell me about it and sort of repeated to him what I knew. He then piped up about how Bryce is by far the best player they have on their team. I kind of brushed it off (and Bryce brushed it off even more when I told him about it later saying it wasn't true), and told him I'd tell Bryce what he said. What Mark may not realize is that I totally know Bryce is probably the best on their team. See, what they don't know is that Bryce was pretty dang good in high school and even had some scholarship offers. Unfortunately, those offers were not where he wanted to go to school, so he left the jersey behind for his academia (so cheesy that I just said that). So does it surprise me to hear Mark say that? Not at all. Will Bryce ever let me tell anyone anything even close to what I just wrote (in fact, Bryce will probably want me to take this off the blog when he reads this - seriously)? Not. at. all.
- I mentioned earlier our sick kids. It's been kind of rough, especially at night. CJ woke up Thursday night with a fever, so he missed school and laid around on the couch all day. His fever had passed by Saturday, but now he has a killer cold, and is all mucousy and stuffed up. He slept horribly last night and so I kept him home from school again today. He doesn't know how to handle being stuffed up, so it's a lot of whining and we hear a lot of "My nose!", "I can't breathe!", and "My nose is bleeding again!" after which I have to correct him and say his nose is not bleeding, it's running. He wants us to wipe it, and we have him blow it, but I feel his pain. When I'm stuffed up, blowing doesn't help. I just have to find the right practically-vertical angle to sleep at and ride out the cold. Poor guy!
Then there's Mattie. She was fine, until late Saturday morning. Then her fever kicked in. Except she never really had a measurable fever. She was really warm and irritable and not eating, but she was also pointing to her teeth and tongue, so I think she may just be teething (she has a few more teeth coming in). Let's hope; better than a virus...I think.
- Speaking of CJ missing school, we finally got CJ started in another preschool. For the same price as his old preschool, it's three days a week, instead of two, and it's three hours each time instead of two hours, so we're excited about that. I'm a little bummed that the class has 16 kids - his old class only had 5 - but there are two teachers, so hopefully he'll get the attention he needs. Also, I'm not too thrilled about the fact that they combine 3-6 year olds all together, but the teacher assured me that they put them in groups according to their skill level, so that made me feel better about it. I'm also excited that they offer music/rhymes, and stories - CJ's old class didn't really do that. However, CJ has only been to one day - he started last Wednesday and has missed the last two days due to being sick - and the first day when I went to pick him up I asked how he did and they said he was fine, that he kind of did his own thing. What? Um, isn't he supposed to be doing all these structured activities and whatnot? I didn't say that, but that's what I was thinking. The teacher, Miss Heather (there is also Miss Cheryl), said that they usually let the kids do that for the first few times so they can get used to the structure and routine. Ok. All I know is that CJ was really learning at his old preschool and so if in the next few days he doesn't start coming home with letters he's colored and stories to tell of what he's learning, I'm gonna be really bugged. This is supposed to be preschool, not day care. Anyway, we'll see...
- Yesterday was CJ's first day of Sunbeams. And he did better than I thought he would...I guess. Sister Curry, his AMAZING Sunbeam teacher, slowly transitions the kids into Primary by only staying for Sharing Time/Singing Time for a little while before taking them to class. Each week she stays a little longer until after a few weeks, the Sunbeams stay the entire time and by then, have hopefully had enough time to adjust to the Primary setting. Isn't that great?! And she's so patient with the kids. CJ wasn't feeling his best yesterday, as we've talked about, and so he was kind of whiny and just wanted to sit with me. She quickly saw what was going on, and was great at just picking him up and having him sit on her lap, and he did just fine. He was a little whiny when they left for class, but when I went to pick him up, he was so happy! He said he had fun in class and was very sincere in his thanks and goodbye to Sis. Curry. And we were sent home with a CD, a puppet, homemade play dough, two lesson plans, and several cut-outs and pictures to use as well...and it's only the second Sunday! I guess she used to be a Preschool teacher and has been teaching Sunbeams for years...and every week she sends the kids home with these incredible things she makes, along with lessons to do at home and ways to use what they made in class to reinforce what they learned. It's like she's planned all our FHEs for us already :)!! All the parents rave about her and so I'm super excited that CJ gets to have her this year. I hope she's still around for Mattie too.
- One more thing about CJ, we were at a friends' house yesterday (I know, I know, our kids weren't feeling well, but we debated about going for quite some time and in the ended decided to go because our kids weren't contagious and really needed to get out, and we really needed to get out, plus it was a great missionary opportunity because there was supposed to be a non-member family and a non-active family there as well), and came home feeling like nobody is ever gonna want to play with CJ again. I don't know if it's because he was feeling under the weather a bit, or because he was tired, or because he's got some complex because he's the oldest child, or because there were no kids his age there, or all of the above, I don' t know, but CJ was not playing like we'd like. If he wasn't playing by himself, he was bugging the other kids. We tried to play Rock Band with the adults and kids, and when it wasn't CJ's turn, he was bugging the other kids as they played, and he was even taking toys away from kids too. Anyway, it was kind of a disappointing night and I'm just really hoping that preschool is going to help with these issues. Obviously, we need to work on them harder at home, but I hope that by being around more kids on a regular basis, kids that are both his age and older, will help CJ learn how to play with kids. Ugh. I'm beginning to see what Bryce's dad is always talking about when he tells us that you don't ever stop worrying about your kids, the worries just change.
- But let me end on a positive note about CJ. Last Christmas, when CJ was not quite 2 1/2 yet, we were visiting my parents in Utah. In order to keep CJ in the pack-n-play that he was sleeping in, we stayed in the room with him until he fell asleep. Fast forward an entire year, and we were still doing that, staying with CJ until he fell asleep. It just became a habit, and honestly, it was easier for us to just lie down with him for a little while then constantly be putting him back in his room. Anyway, the good news is that a few weeks ago, thanks to Bryce, CJ has decided that he is a big boy and doesn't need us to stay with him anymore. He's ok all by himself...as long as we leave the door open. Welcome back evening freedom!!
Happy Monday!
