Tiny Tyrant Trainer

Now that the big girls are back in school I can get out for a walk every morning with the littles in the stroller. They usually do pretty well but today Patrick kept yelling at me about something and I just couldn't figure out what he was saying. He couldn't think of another way to explain it to me so he just kept saying it louder and louder. I finally understood... he was saying "faster". A few weeks ago he got a bloody nose during a stroller ride so I had to run home to clean him up, can only imagine what people passing us thought as he was a total mess. So now he wants me to run the entire time and after I figured out "faster" he then went on to yell, "run, Mommy, run" the rest of the time. I tried to explain what retired from running means and how if he and Emily wake me up no less than 8 times each night, then I can't possibly have the energy to run and push a very heavy stroller up and down hills. When I mentioned this to Sean he asked if I felt like I was on the Biggest Loser. Who needs to hire a trainer when you can just give birth to one?

Let the record show that after waking up at 4:30am and dashing to the couch to "sleep" and/or repeatedly come into my room and demand TV, the Tiny Tyrant is now taking a long nap on the couch. I'm thinking I need to call the sitter so we can go out tonight and let her put him to bed...

Extra Energy

Patrick insisted on some fruit smoothie this morning that I later realized contained "energy boost". So not what an almost 3 year old boy needs. He burned some off doing tricks on Emily's jumpy thing (my apologies to the kind person who loaned it to us, we'll buy you something new!). She was quite entertained. Good news is that he still went right to bed at 7pm and was sleeping like an angel when I got home from a meeting. So deceiving...

Letters to a 4th grade about nothing

My sister Andrea sent me letters that her 4th graders wrote recently and I am working on my responses to them. They were obviously working together to come up with questions for me to answer because a high percentage want to know if I live in a ranch or two story house. I cannot wait to blow their minds with my answer.... ranch in the front, 2 story in the back. It's like the mullet of housing. One girl wants to know what kind of house Andrea lives in and she guesses not a ranch because she doesn't seem like that type of girl. What the what? What exactly is the reputation of someone who lives in a ranch house? Someone with bad knees who can't handle stairs?

They are also quite curious about my favorite animal. I have to admit, I haven't ranked my favorite animals since well, 4th grade, so this is a tough one. I have no problem discussing all my favorite foods though and how they can acquire them on a trip to San Antonio if they beg their parents. I wonder if I will get any letters back from parents? Almost every letter mentions that they heard I am funny so the pressure it on to come up with a way to work in some 4th grade humor. Time to go google jokes about bodily functions....

Future Attitude?

Probably a teething thing but somehow I have about 85 pictures of Emily sticking her tongue out. Not as cute in a few years but for now we love it.

Full Set

Put them together and they have a full set of teeth.

Long week?

Megan asked us if she could sleep in tomorrow since it's Saturday. Hmm, I don't know, I love to get everyone up and fighting at O' dark 30, set that alarm. Anna choked her tonight when she tried to take a piece of her popcorn and even worse, tried to justify her actions to me. Naturally the punishment for taking a piece of the popcorn that they are supposed to always share is to choke the thief. Anna might be small but she rules with a big stick (and a quick scream). Megan allows her reign to continue in exchange for nighttime body guard duty, aka: be the wolf bait.

Update on Tiny Tyrant:
He insisted on bringing his bike inside this morning and I convinced him to at least take it to the back porch. He was very businesslike and rode it round and round the table, thankfully he didn't demand that I chase him like we do during "play squirt gun with me". I get so dizzy. When it came time to go pick up the girls from school he wanted to bring the bike in the van. I resisted but then gave in so we wouldn't be late. Never occurred to me that he had a bigger plan in mind, which was to get it out of the van and ride it up and down the sidewalk full of people while we waited for the girls to come out. I held firm which meant that instead of running into people with his bike, they merely had to listen to him cry for his bike for 10 minutes. I made the mistake of getting the bike out when we got home, of course HE had to get it out, then drag it back into the house and out to the porch. Apparently the P90X is working for him, freakishly strong. I should have given him a protein bar for dinner and now that I think about it, I don't think he had any dinner other than the baby food that he begged for. It's expensive but at least it's better for him than chocolate chips and goldfish, but it's still not really dinner. Disorganized night here.

Pet Peeve of the Day:

This is the strip you peel off the Netflix envelope when you mail a movie back. Someone is unable to put them in the trash, perhaps likes to flaunt his accomplishments and leaves it around for me to tidy up. Another movie off the queue, good job.

I'll try to be more cheerful tomorrow, but no promises. Sean is on call and is reluctant to leave the house. I should have planned a trip and taken advantage...

Night Shift Entertainment

Sean is always appreciative of something new to read when he's working a night shift but since we just had weekly date night, I'm kind of out of new material. It's our only night to finish a conversation and tonight Sean was finally able to explain the finer points of the looming helium shortage (good news for those of us not fond of balloons). Now, I did insist that he tell me this in the car for fear that someone would overhear us at dinner and mock us. It's a small town, you never know who is listening in.

Of course if he needs to tell me something in public and not have anyone else understand he just goes into dictation voice which is very fast and monotone (punctuated with agitated swearing when the voice recognition software- or me- doesn't pick up on a word). He has a lot of preset dictations saved so he can just say, "power scribe: old brain" or "power scribe: normal chest". I suppose the day is coming where he will power scribe a conversation with me. "Power scribe: random army task day not related to real job" and "power scribe: list of places I want to go golf". Trust me though, he will still have to listen to me discuss in great detail the antics of the Tiny Tyrant. If I have to suffer through the OCD demands, then he needs to hear all about it. Or at least look at me and pretend to listen while he dreams of Pebble Beach.

ps Of course a Tiny Tyrant eats his bubble beard.

9 months

Okay, 9 months about a week ago, sorry 4th child. Oh the neglect, feel free to chime in, Stephanie and Leo (our siblings who are #4). Anyway, Emily is advanced in her eating skills (gets that from me) and is already demanding my bread. I don't want to even think about how much bread I'm going to be making when they're all eating sandwiches. I did start training Megan recently but then realized that if I don't have the 45 seconds it takes to throw the ingredients together, well, I have bigger problems to deal with. Emily is now doing army low crawl and loves to join in the noise and chaos here with the occasional random squawk. I can't imagine why she was desperate to get those skills, perhaps because Patrick's hobby is hugging her violently when she plays on the floor?

Sidenote: I was reviewing recent posts and I feel I should assure everyone that I talk about drinking way more than I actually do it. Frankly, I do not have the time nor the energy... and as you are all aware, they do not sell it at Target.

Looks like a good 1st day

I took this after school due to morning rain and not wanting to embarrass them in front of their new classes. Anna is goofy as usual and when I reminded her that this would go on the blog for grandparents to see she then did her creepy eye roll back thing that Nana finds hilarious. I gave up at that point and started plotting how to acquire a hard cider for the evening shift that didn't require me taking 4 children to a liquor store. Oy, the damage they could do...

3 out of 4

3 out of 4 of the godmothers are pregnant and due this winter. My mom wants to know if the 4th is aware of this trend. A very fertile time apparently, even for the old chimpanzee at the zoo. Congrats to all and we can't wait to spoil all the new babies! I for one am so happy to never wear maternity clothes again, we are ready for this next stage.

Hmm, also get to have hard cider this fall and with the cool day we are having I would love to go pick some up (if only they sold it at Target). Good way to celebrate the 1st day of school! Sorry no photos of that, too rainy to get one outside and I didn't want to embarrass the girls in the school. Almost time to pick them up and find out how it went. No tears from 3 of 4 kids at drop off. Only Patrick was crying because he wanted to jump in the big puddles and I wouldn't let him. He yelled at me the entire way home. Serenity now. Child Day Out program starts in a few weeks...

The Final Countdown

My arms are very sore this morning which I thought was from carrying Emily too much, but that just didn't seem right. My left arm is freakishly strong now so I have no problem carrying her, so I knew it was from something else. Warming up for a quick game of Stair Ball this morning I realized that was what caused it. Apparently it is a workout for me too, the question is: how many cookies does that burn off?

Well, as it is the final official day of summer for the girls I am letting them do whatever they want today. Nothing can ruin my good mood! The girls got some new Polly Pockets courtesy of poker last night and Anna decided they needed to be broken in with a good old fashioned play bath. I had a hard time convincing Patrick that he could not join in because there was no room in the tub. 2 big girls and 78 Polly Pockets, that's a full tub. He stripped down and had his diaper half off in about 1.5 seconds so I had to quickly think of something to distract him. I had to agree to tennis on the porch and now I am all out of tricks. 10 hours until bedtime...

ps Sean, no napping during the witching hour tonight, it's going to be a rough one. "You might want to take a nap at work today. I always do." (name that show!)

You're Back in Kansas, Sean

Ah, nothing like picking up right where you left off... Prince Patrick was up to his usual demands and there is to be no varying things like the driving route. We were headed home tonight and Sean takes a different route into our neighborhood and Patrick was not pleased. Why yes, we did do a u-turn and do it all over again, the "right" way. I think that was about the time Sean suggested I fire up the (much appreciated) Margarita machine when we got home and in exchange he would wrestle the Tiny Tyrant to bed.

I spent many hours today trying to wear TT out in anticipation of an early and successful bedtime. In addition to so called tennis on the porch, we now do Stair Ball. Feel free to spread the latest sports sensation.... you just take a ball and throw it up the stairs and let it bounce back down, hitting your child in the head. Never fails to amuse. Now, if you are feeling like your child has too much energy like TT, then you throw it all the way up the stairs to the landing so the child has to go retrieve it. Do that 20-30 times, it's a good workout. For the child! Finally, something that wears the child out, but not you! I was trying to make up for this morning when TT strapped himself in the suitcase and demanded that I zip him up and spin it around. People, I had to do this for over 10 minutes. I was dizzy just spinning my arm, I don't know how he didn't throw up in there. He did get rather sweaty though. BUT, he did not get tired, so what's the point?

Tomorrow we are on deck for back to school so the girls wanted to try out their new wake-up time. I am trying to think of ways to keep them all very active so they will fall asleep at the designated bedtime for the school year. I KNOW, I should have started getting them on this schedule a week ago but it takes a lot of effort and planning and for what, to have them up early the last week of summer, whining and spitting on me? No, I will take whatever peace and quiet I can get, when I can get it...

In unrelated news, I recently saw a poster that said "Education: It's a jouney, not a race." That's right, some people missed spelling class on that journey and then they made a poster that they sold to a school who then posted it. And yes, I did place in a proofreading competition for Business Professionals of America in 1991, thank you for asking. I suddenly don't feel like my entire education was a waste, although judging by the amount of laundry I had to do today, you wouldn't know it. This scullery maid better get to bed because the fighting and spitting starts at 6:45am tomorrow.

Tag Teaming

It rarely happens but Emily slept 10 hours straight last night. So of course Patrick was yelling for me around 1am and I released him from his room to keep him from waking her up. This week he has been doing this a lot, banging on his door until I open it and then sprinting to the couch and falling asleep immediately there. I just make sure all the doors are double locked and the gate is closed and figure he will be okay. I got this photo of him there the other morning when he continued to sleep after everyone was up and making noise. A rough night for him apparently. He kept his pajamas on though which is unusual.


Oh so last night not only did Patrick wake me up but so did Megan. She had a bad dream and I still don't know what she wanted me to do about it. She apparently noticed the prince sleeping on the couch and then took him back downstairs with her so then this morning when I couldn't find him at 6am, I found the 3 oldest sleeping in the same bed. Megan in the middle of course, surrounded by her wolf bait... I am pretty certain that we have not had a night where everyone has slept through in 8.5 years and Sean's phone does not help. I'm back on real caffeine though so that does help at least! We are cleaning the cesspool that is the basement today while Emily naps. Yes, I am allowing the girls to skip church since I can't handle all 4 by myself when one needs to be napping and is no longer fitting in her baby carrier. Just wait until they find out how often they will be going at school to make up for this, ha!

Baby Patrick

As most can attest, around age 3 is the most annoying stage of child development. So we are in the thick of it now and the only thing worse than Sean's trip to Vegas right now would have been a deployment. I want my combat pay. Patrick is definitely a Tiny Tyrant and he rules the house with spitting and yelling. He also doesn't know if he wants to be a baby in the high chair or a big boy who plays with the girls downstairs. He did finally pull out his underwear today and was delighted to recognize all the characters now that he is deep into movie obsession stage. He isn't about to start wearing it but it's a small step. He does at least wear himself out bossing everyone around and went to bed without much of a fight. Well, he did manage to delay bedtime by an hour by demanding to watch a movie first. My other option was for him to go crazy in his room and thus wake Emily up. She is teething and needs her sleep.... priorities here.

What the what?

I just got this info in an email from our zoo:

Sunset Zoo is pleased to announce that Susie, the 56-year old chimpanzee matriarch, delivered a healthy baby Wednesday, August 18, at 4:45 pm. Mother and baby are doing very well and have been under observation by trained volunteers and staff since the birth. Julian, Sunset Zoo’s sole male chimpanzee, is the father.

In the wild, chimpanzees live 40 – 45 years on average. Susie is the third oldest chimpanzee among Association of Zoos & Aquariums accredited zoos and has been under the medical care of the Kansas State University veterinary team since her pregnancy was confirmed.

“Susie was removed from birth control because of medical concerns. The feeling was that she was too old to get pregnant and while this was certainly unexpected, we’re very happy that both Susie and baby appear to be doing well”, said Scott Shoemaker, Sunset Zoo Director. “We’re glad K-State played such a vital role in a healthy pregnancy and invite people to come to Sunset Zoo and watch the baby grow.”

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I don't know where to begin. Surely this is good news for the tourism industry of Manhattan. Susie did seem rather annoyed by all the attention the other chimp mom and baby have gotten the past 2 years, looks like she has one upped them. Don't want to think about what sort of birth control they had her on all those years...

$10,000 buy in tournament?

Sean, you're going to have to move to a bigger tournament to hit my goal:



Thanks for the reminder, Andrea. I think this photo hits both ideas.

Poker Goals

Sean has the uncanny ability to win enough to cover whatever situations arise when he goes to Vegas. A couple years ago the dryer died when he was gone and I ended up with a new washer and dryer when he got back. Another time I needed some retail therapy to get me through the weekend and ordered my camera gear, and he covered that. Just got me thinking that perhaps I need to aim higher and involve the children too. So this is for Sean: focus on their little faces before you sit down at the table.



TUITION


TUITION



CHILD DAY OUT FEES



DIAPERS

Crabby Week

The last week of summer is always the worst. Everyone is crabby and tired of summer but not yet ready for school. The only thing that helps is going away on vacation which is what I planned. Before they pushed the 1st day of school back a week. So here we are, fighting and spitting at each other (okay, that is just Patrick). Doesn't help that it has been rainy and muggy and thus no pool yesterday. The girls didn't even get dressed, nor did they brush their hair which was looking awesome since they didn't even shower after the pool on Monday. I let them take a pass because I thought we'd be going right back to the pool on Tuesday. So this morning was looking crappy out and I figured the pool would be off again, so off to the showers they went. And now it is nice and they don't want to go because they just showered.

Do you have a headache just thinking about this? I do and the muggy weather isn't helping. I am trying caffeine to perk up, no luck. I even went to level 2 sugar, Cheesecake Factory, which I store in the freezer for dire emergencies. I don't know how many more days of this I can take, trapped inside with the tiny tyrants. Even worse, Sean is off to Vegas tomorrow. He is no fool, he planned HIS vacation for the last week of summer as did my babysitters apparently. Well, that just gives me more time to try and clean this disaster of a house. If only I'd had time to open the window to the storage room before the storm hit last week... it could have all been sucked out and scattered over town. I guess I will use the trash bag method of cleaning instead.

Deja Vu

No, not the Michigan strip club chain, I'm talking about that feeling of sitting in the safe room with a 9 month old and wondering what is going on outside. Patrick was the exact age Emily is now and while I never did hear the tornado siren I did see the sideways trees and immediately remembered the lessons we learned from last time around. Wasted no time wondering if it was for real, I snatched Emily from her crib, remembered to grab my cell phone and then screamed for the rest of the kids to run to the safe room. We couldn't hear much of what was going on because the a/c ran the entire time but we had a lot more water rushing down the walls this time so I knew the wind was strong (93mph according to facebook). Power only flickered a few times so I knew the house was still standing above us. We finally ventured out, luckily not needing the shoes (now moldy and nasty) we stored in there after the last time when we didn't have any and realized they would be helpful if we had to pick our way out of the wreckage. We did have some "branches" down but again, happy to live in a neighborhood with no big trees. Nice to have power when it is so hot. I found some friends so desperate to cool down (and power their DS game thing) that they even ate our "fancy nacho dinner". Most pathetic dinner party ever but the a/c was lovely and it's always nice to have adults to talk to after a full day of children.



This branch just made me chuckle. I hear some bigger ones fell elsewhere. The weirdest thing that happened to us was my cushions on the front porch ended up down by the hot tub under the back porch. Just glad to find them.




We were just on the edge of another storm system a few hours later and luckily did not have to visit the safe room twice in one day.

Big Racket

Patrick has become obsessed with tennis ever since the girls went to a very brief tennis camp this summer. So yes, I had to buy him a racket too and he often dictates that I join him on the hot screened in porch for a tennis match. I don't know much about tennis other than their outfits are the best of all sport outfits (I know, hard to beat volleyball...), but Patrick quickly determined that the goal of tennis is to nail me in the leg with the ball. Nothing like being beat by a 2 year old wearing nothing but a diaper, sticking his tongue out to concentrate on serving. I am certain that he was much more impressed by this racket at the resort, than he was by Pike's Peak. Our cottage was right by the tennis club and the kids loved sneaking off with the balls that escaped the courts. Somehow 4 of them came home with us too, I'm sure they will find a way to bill us for that. So now I can pay two ways... that many more balls for Patrick to hit me with too, if only it would wear him out so he would nap. But no, he just makes a big racket when I try to put him in his room to nap. (har har, I couldn't resist!)

Those Isolated Thunderstorms

Weather.com said we'd have isolated thunderstorms every day, just never said when...

Tiny Tyrant Travel Tips

1. Bring extra adults along to help.







2. Dine someplace where the children can roam while waiting for food.



3. Let them nap whenever they want. This was on the floor of the train down from Pike's Peak.

Off the Grid

We just took a brief vacation to Colorado to see how long we could live off the grid. We stayed in some very primative cottages



next to a wild and raging river



where we fished for our dinner and




bathed the children.






The guys found ways to entertain themselves





and the kids found some waterfalls to play in.



No one was quite ready to come back to civilization.

CSI: Manhattan

Update: the Manhappening police already caught the intruder! A teen who lives in the area, just looking for cash and drugs. We'll all sleep better tonight, especially after a few celebratory drinks!

Okay, one valuable item...

We are in the midst of the summer of small appliance replacement, as so many have died on us recently. Toaster, bread machine, iced tea machine, margarita machine... Well, one was an upgrade, thanks to a very generous houseguest who most certainly deserves the title of Mo Mo the Great. We are still in awe of this fabulous gift and busted it out in a time of need on Monday; made a comfort drink for our dear frazzled friend who had the intruder (fyi, nothing was taken, but alarming nonetheless). Anyway, it definitely does the job and I already came up with some new recipes, including one for an amaretto stone sour smoothie. Sean celebrated his week of call being over and heck, I was celebrating too!

Another cause for celebration: Netflix rewarded us for finally watching that documentary and sent us Hot Tub Time Machine. Exactly what you expect, give your brain a break. Awesome (said in a very high voice).

Lucky again

Well, 2 years ago the tornado passed over our house and on Sunday night some thief hit 3 of our immediate neighbors but skipped us. Most likely they went through our back yard, doubt they were so bold as to walk down the street, and our yard connects the houses that were hit. We have a glass door in the back that goes into the lower level and I know that night the room there was trashed. It looked like we had already been robbed! Or else the thief didn't want to have to find his way through all the junky toys, it is quite the obstacle course. Someone here turned off the motion detector light that floods the backyard, so I have resorted to putting tape on it so that doesn't happen again.

After being broken into in Indy we have always been paranoid about locking up, even though our builder assured us that we didn't need an alarm and that no one in Manhattan has one. Not true on either count so maybe we will get one too. Or just keep up the junky toy chaos defense? The kids don't know any of this, no point in freaking them out. They are still scared of wolves and monsters, I don't want to add a real fear to that list. Let me assure any thieves who are reading my blog that we have nothing of value in this house, certainly no cash (which leads to trouble when we go to KC and need to pay tolls!) and no drugs, unless you count all the baby Tylenol that was recalled. Hey, if you get sick on that, well, HA HA, that's what you deserve.

Survey Says!

Army likes to send us the patient satisfaction survey after every single visit, even though "only a small number of patients are selected" to fill one out. Since I had 4 of them sitting here and we love the doctor the kids see, I figured I would boost her numbers and give her some good reviews. At the end, there are questions about how satisfied you were with the pharmacy, lab and radiology, if you went to those areas. Well, we do end every appointment with a stop in radiology to pick up any children we left in Sean's office, so I had to rank radiology service as excellent. I can't wait to see that reflected in Sean's next pay check. Oh wait... like all government funded jobs, performance in no way plays a role in salary.

Oh look, another month down... 3 years, 11 months.

Drinking Games

Of course this is not the drinking games you are expecting. Patrick's favorite is to drink directly from the pull out faucet, Anna taught him that. This is a close second, drinking from a toy cooking pot, like a dog. Delicious! And never makes a mess.

New Trend

The girls obviously picking out their own outfits here, complete with chunky winter socks. I just saw in Family Circle that chunky, casual socks with dressy, strappy sandals is the new trend. So, if Family Circle is reporting it then that means the trend is over and thankfully, we have missed it. Apparently jcrew started it, no doubt they were punking America.

Puppet?

This always cracks us up and Sean jokes that it is a sock puppet. She also likes to wave with it, very casually, as if to emphasize that this is a natural position that anyone should be able to do. That's going to require yoga more than once a month...

Nap Time

Just so we can end the speculation that Sean is a vampire who doesn't sleep, here is proof. He fell asleep trying to get Patrick to nap. Patrick woke up first and then just sat in his chair being quiet, no doubt confused by the situation. As usual, the tiny tyrant wears only a diaper.

Getting to Know the Camera

Emily is getting used to living in the limelight. Here she is noticing that the camera is out.



And here she is cheesing it up.