Stud?

Kalee: "Mom, can we make my hair colors like pink, purple, blue or green?"

Me: "Um...excuse me?"

I thought these conversations wernt supposed to arise until years from now?!?!

Kalee: "See mom...like that girl" as she points to the TV commertial of hair accessory clips.

Me: ::sigh:: "Yeah we can probably arrange that"



I attempted to hang a shelf in Kalee's room today. Until I realised it was harder then using my handy-dandy shoe heel to hammer a nail into the wall. Oh c'mon, how many women use a huge hammer for such a small project...unless you have these nifty tools to do it. For the record the shelf still lives proped up against the wall. According to my father I have to find a stud...yeah-well, he is somewhere in the ocean floating on a magnificent piece of steel. The piece of wood in the wall? Well why didn't you just say that? I have yet to locate the equiptment that can X-ray my walls...it's probably in a box...I'm leaving it packed so we can be ready for the next move. I mean, we have been here for 2 months already....it'll save time I promise, I'm a little 'seasoned'.

Off to move boxes to the other side of the room unpack another box...

Then Scratch It!

Last night I was pleasantly awakened by my daughter telling me "Mommy you need to un-clog the toilet". HUH? I jump up thinking I'm going to walk into my bathroom ankle deep in toilet water. I responded "did you clog it?", "No Mommy", "do you have to go?, Kalee?" silence filled the air. No clue where she gets the sleep talking from...none whatsoever. I gather that she is not only afraid of public toilets that automatically flush but she's now looking at if the toilets at home clog. We have a 'clogged toilet' trend...and I am now a qualified toilet un-clogger. One of the many things Max had to teach me...after his restroom watch of corse. Amongst our running around today Kalee informed me in the car that her butt itched. What other then "ok scratch it" should I say? She said "I can't reach it. I cant itch it in public. I can't itch it on the street. I can't itch it in the store, or restaurant...and I don't want to go to to the stinky bathroom to do it." Oh-my-gosh?!?! What have I created? Then it dawned on me. "Um, is your butt itchy because you didn't wipe it? Because your afraid the toilet is going to overflow?" Good thing it was not what I suspected. I found the tag on the side of her panties to be the culprit. Wshew!

Then tonight, as I was bathing the little angels, Bear decided he didn't have to use the potty before getting in the tub. Nope. Instead he announced "Ah-Mah", I looked over, and with complete control thrusting his rear foreword he tried to fill up one of the buckets...but missed. It didn't take him long to figure out peeing on the front of the bucket made it float backwards in the water. The ear to ear 'are you proud of me' grin proved that.

So I have little Miss Manners and...and...um, well...I'm at a loss of words for him.

My Brother Did It!

Kaalleeee, what is this all about?

My Brother did it! ::smirk::

Are you sure, HE did this?

Uh.... Middle name on the oak....

You'll need a mirror for this one...

The rest of it....

I already asked 'Not-me' and 'I-dono' if they missed the paper, but forgot about 'My-brother-did-it'. I'll be sure to add them to the list for next time.

Who would of known my 2 year old could write his sisters whole name...and not his own?

Precious

This picture says it all. My days are worth it. I love finding them this way. Kalee is so eager to learn and teach her brother. Moments like these put a smile on my face after my eyes puddle while looking at the calender and realizing time is going 3x's slower then I thought.

Today I got the 29th degree because I bought a cream soda (I don't drink soda) at the Commissary. "Mommy, it's junk food....only Daddy likes junk food". I tell ya, one box packed with snacks he can't get on the ship and the girl thinks he's not eating healthy. I had to explain he eats meals THEN he has the snacks we mailed him. Who would of thought I created such a health freak? I will say it motivates me to leave the Valentines Day conversation hearts in isle 10 of Walmart...

We have a...

...pet ladybug.

Yes, you are reading that right. A ladybug lives in my bathroom. I have seen it inspecting it's underside on the top of my mirror a few times. Figured "the Japanese say it's good luck" was the perfect excuse for my laziness of not taking him outside. I kinda found it to be funny because my childhood friend was a ladybug keeper and she has been on my mind. She had one of those huge ice cream buckets with holes poked in the lid full of thousands ladybugs. Good times. We fought just as much as we were friends but made some good memories....20 something years later (yeah we have known each other that long) both of us are married to service members and live on the opposite coast we were raised on....probably only a handful of hours away. I have thought about trying to catch up for a visit....sometime. Anyhow, tonight the kids were in the bathroom and Bear kept saying "hot poo-tase" Huh? "Ah-Mah, hot pooooo-tase" pointing to the cinnamon toothpaste. Ohhhh! I'm learning, slowly the sibling language is coming back to me. Then I hear "bee-bug". Now the only thing I got out of that one was bug and well.... upon my freak attack Kalee was trying to convince me "Mom, it's a cute ladybug. It won't hurt you, look!" as it crawls all over her hand. Sure enough pictures of my childhood friend flashed through my head. Now the pet bug has been on a sponge, Bob the builder hat, Eeyore's ear, the bottom of a toy horse shoe, and is now zipped in a purse being carried by my son. Humm? Looks like it's sleeping with us tonight and going to the commissary tomorrow. Any suggestions on what to feed it? Hello, Shawna?

It's in the hoof...and he's kissing it. I pictured it flying up his nose and trying to explain that one to the staff in ER.

Not lettin' go. Nevermind Mr. Independent's choice of pajamas. At least they are turned inside out so you can see the ballerina slippers. But hey, the dump truck sweater overrules. I'm at the 'choose your battle' stage...and that's not one of them.

She was teachin' him it was red. Her choice of PJ's are better then his...but the hair...she proudly did that herself!

Junk

We taught her to be honest.....and boy was she honest today. I threw Bear in the carrier on my back since I knew we were pushing into nap time and didn't want to fight him climbing out of the cart. Wow that was a run on sentence. Ran into Walmart for nothing other then laundry detergent to send Max. The lady that checked us out stuck a starlight peppermint candy into her mouth...but wasn't sneaky. Kalee said "Your eating junk food! Candy's not healthy!". GULP! Al bet my face turned the color of a pomegranate. My first thought came out of my mouth "Yes Kalee, but their are lots of other unhealthier things, every now and then candy is okay". As we walked away I apologised and the checker gave me the 'yeah whatever, she's just a kid grin'. I got the impression she may have been weaning herself from cancer sticks. Imagine our conversation in the car on the way home. It ended with "Drinking alcohol makes people get in car accidents huh Mommy?!?!". WOW!!!

...since he was still sleeping in the car I was determined to get all the petrified pretzel sticks out of the back seat....with the shop vac (yes he slept through it in his car seat)...that I had to get out of the garage....and accidentally knocked a new package of florescent light bulbs to the floor...and you guessed it...POP! "Dang, I think those have mercury in them!" I'm turning into a professional messer picker-uper! Lightbulbs, paint, Kalee's room...

Tomorrow. Kalee's room will be cut in half tomorrow...

Ice Ice Babie

Am I showing my age? Your probably singing right along with me. Huh?

I decided since the snow has melted off the road I would venture out of hibernation mode and head to Target. I have received the ".....and I need this, and this, and don't forget this" e-mail so I wanted to get it all together today to get it out tomorrow. As I sat in my car to warm it up and remembered what exactly that defrost button was for. Much to my surprise after 5 minutes I discovered the snow that once was, is now ice. Sooo, tell me, how do you get ice off of a windshield? In California a minute of defrost and windshield wipers with fluid does the trick. Here, the windshield wiper was stuck to the window with about and inch thick of ice. Is that why Lowe's has weird scrapers at the entrance of the store...along with the funny looking 'Home Alone' shovel? I fixed it. Eventually. I used my nail and peeled it off. But last night the news said to let our faucets drip when we went to bed. Why? I called Max's Aunt Angie who lived in Wisconsin for several cold years and asked her advise. I had no idea pipes froze INSIDE the house. I guess a steady drip will keep the water moving and prevent further issues. Once again, I'm from Southern California....I can teach you to that beach sand is a natural pumice for your feet.

You know, this time last year Max is where my brother was, and Bub is where Max was. Kinda. Weird how that happens.

White, Wet and Cold!

So he made it. Not when expected, due to some 'technical difficulties' but he's there. Wshew! Now if only I was able to catch his phone call....I hate when that happens.

I'm slightly wordless today. Hard to believe huh? I'll just post some pics of what we did this morning until I realized my eyeballs were frozen.

Some call it 'powder'. This Californian calls it snow because it's white and cold. The kids had fun even though most of it melted by the time I took pics. By the way, aren't our kids adorable?

32 hours...

...of travel he should be at his final destination...but I don't know for sure. See how that works? The only for sure thing I know is he made it to one of his 7 stops...which was not the ship....but close. When we got to the MAC terminal late Tuesday night we found out how straight his flight was. Surely it was as straight as a circle. Hopefully he is getting some sleep, he'll need it after that mess. This was a tough one for the kids. In turn made it tough for me seeing them upset. I'm thankful our family is strong! To keep the kids going I took them ice skating last night. They love it! Now I am doing research on what is in the area so I can fill our calender to stay busy and make time go by fast.

My brother is next....Tomorrow very early morning. Strange that he is going to where we came from. Love you Bub and stay safe!

All in a Days Work!

I have two of the best little helpers. Kalee helped by not following me around while we completed our touch up painting in the entry and on the stairs. Bear helped by watching for me to go upstairs and follow with a full gallon of paint just when I was out of his line of sight. I herd a "(thump-thump)......eeeeh, Ah-Ma" and I ran...to find he made it 3 steps from the top before he and the paint can tumbled. Lid popped off and out pored the paint on to the landing of my stairs that we JUST had new carpet installed. I yelled for Max as I tore through the kitchen to find the nearest towel which scooped up about half of it and thought "What would Mom do, what would Mom do??" Then the light bulb turned on...FLUSH IT! "Max grab the shop-vac!" I got a huge pitcher of water and poured and sucked all at once...gallons of water...hours of work...until it was all up. Lesson learned...God gave us Bear to teach ME patients and give us a sense of humor.

Some words of wisdom form this military wife.... Always remind the ones you love that you love them....that love may be what holds them over for long periods of time.

Big bum

How come chaos strikes when I plan to go get pictures made? This morning started of with my boy illustrating a series of lines some refer to as 'tattoos' on his body. Good thing he was wearing long sleeve and the damage was hide-able. Then I realized I had clothes picked out for everyone but myself. How did I manage that one? The box I needed was sitting right on top of all the other unpacked ones...lucky for me I recovered quickly. Then we arrive at the studio (no I didn't shoot these ones...but I probably should have) and Bear was asleep. No nap all day...until 4:10, the time of the appointment. Schedule? What's that? I do routines, not schedules. For as many times as we have traveled amongst different time zones (a day apart) my routine has payed off. Today? I dono what happened. Despite Kalee's best efforts to manually open his right eye, she was unsuccessful. Daddy managed to awaken him and we got some cute ones of all of us. Then I tried to get Kalee in for her 5 year old pictures and she chose against cooperating in that evolution...which resulted in us not taking her to the favorite treat place, Aunt Annie's Pretzel (funny how my kids choose pretzels over ice cream...who would have guessed). Bear on the other hand went crazy over a prop...the latter. With all this painting recently I leave them up while I go wash the paint brushes...well that was until I found him on the second to top step. Yup, we gotta climber....a proud one that calls himself "Bob the builder". Speaking of Bob the builder, Max was missing his drill today. We kept asking little 'Bob' where he put it and he brought Max down to the garage...several times...and told us "Daddy's tools". Ok so he is not like his sister. At this age Kalee walked us straight to her hiding place when we asked what she did with Daddys wallet...Oh thanks sweetie, who would have thought about putting it in the back of the nightstand? ...and that is also where we found the missing remote, cell phone and watch.

As I was making dinner I had two little helpers putting clean dishes away. I knew something was not right when I felt a sawing action on my bum. NOT to my surprise my smallest helper was trying to chop my butt off with a knife....ok it was a butter knife but with his strength IT HURT. So tell me, how many of you had kids try to saw into your bud-doo-pa?

WATER?

My son gave me kisses this evening and...Um, why do you smell like Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo? For the record I don't use that product on them (a conversation I just recently had with a friend) so where did he find it? Reminder, I'm a Mom...my sniffer is as good as a dogs...but unlike them I don't go around smelling others butts. Well secretly, I do...I prefer the smell method rather then the diaper finger dip method. After doing some investigating he found the only half full...or half empty depending on how you look at it...travel size bottle of baby shampoo somewhere in the 8 dozen boxes left to unpack. Fortunately it was used as finger paint only on the tub! Wshew! I can imagine the amount of soft water needed to flush that out the new carpet. Yes soft water, opposed to hard water. My Mom and Dad had a water conditioner and Reverse Osmosis (RO) system in their whole house shortly after I moved out. Yeah until I moved we got blue kool-aid with half the sugar and double the water to disguise the Moreno Valley sewer...I mean City water. I know Mom had to of eventually mastered the water/sugar/food coloring mix. ;) (Don't worry Mom I have pulled the powered milk for cooking and refill Mrs. Butterworth with the cheap sale syrup thing too) I have always loved water but I am hard to please with what kind I drink. I'm a RO kinda girl, so Aquafina it has been. I do not drink soda or any artificial juices or punches. I dilute my 100% juice. I'm weird! I know! BUT I have finally realized Max learned something from me...how to save money! A sales guy came over this week to test our water...long story half as long, customer service did a follow up call and Max being the honest (some would say...@$$) kinda guy he is gave his opinion on the guy pressuring. Max and I don't buy on impulse. We like to research, sleep on it, talk about it, pray about it, collect info form others who may be knowledgeable in that area and make sure it's meant to be. Well at the price and perks this was meant to be! Go Max! We now have water that filters out ohhhhh, EVERYTHING!!! This system can turn sewage into drinking water...it's that awesome. Ok the real reason I wanted it....I only have to clean the tub like once a month. Sounds weird I know but the less I spend in cleaning the more I get to do things like read Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Blog.

Well, I'm trying to go to sleep but my nose is draining like a faucet, I am sneezing with every blink and my throat is sore. I might take the "so you can sleep medicine" if this continues.... but I hate medicine. I'm open to any 'drink-tea-upside-down-while-doing-jumping-jacks' kinda suggestions.

Dinner Entertainment

"No son that's not measuring tape...it's dental floss!" was my first sentence this morning...followed by "No Popsicles for breakfast". Dad let Mom sleep in an extra few minutes and I still haven't figured out if cleaning 60 minutes worth of mess was worth the 20 minutes of laying lazily in bed. How does that balance out? OK, OK in his defence he was working on reimbursement paperwork since the Navy owes us $$$. Or better yet $,$$$.$$

So an update. The Navy needs Daddy to fly on an airplane to the big boat....oh wait, adults are reading....can you tell I have spent time preparing the youngn's for whats next? Yeah, I'm in a funk. As if the past 3 years of sea duty hasn't done me in as a Wife and Mom...here it goes again. Max flys out the beginning of next week to meet the ship. No it's not a straight flight either. Nothing is ever straight and easy. Without compromising OPSEC (operational security) he has a couple days of travel to get to his final destination of a magnificent piece of steel somewhere in the deep big blue ocean. We don't anticipate this being a quick round trip either....maybe he can help with swimming lessons and see the explosions in the sky. Get it? Got it? Good, cuz' only the sharp ones (or military dependents) put it together. OK enough playing of my harp....

This evening was....loud. Well I guess that is what happens when a bunch of kids are running around at this place called Chucky Cheese. I forgot what it was like. We didn't have that in Japan. All Bear keeps talking about is the big mouse with a big nose and big ears. It made a big impression on him because he actually allowed us to bring him within 15 feet of Chucky while doing the chicken dance. Kalee got the idea of those tickets and kept asking for more money....is this a prelude of her teen years? Cuz I gotta start teaching her how to bargain shop. This evening did teach me something.....I'm getting old! I tried to climb up in the tubes like I did...er hm, wow has it been 10 years since I was in high school...oh, just a few years ago. I went to the top platform where the tubes start and boy my knees hurt now. I used to whip through those with my little sister and now she may be whipping through them with my kids next. I should blame the colorguard captains for doing 'across the floors' 45 dozen times for the bad knees. Guard did teach me how to count to 8...very well!

For some BIG news... my brother proposed to his girlfriend...and well, girlfriend is no longer "the girlfriend" but replaced with fiancee. My Bub is planning on getting married! But sad news is that he leaves about the same time Max does for deployment....and this is the fiancees first deployment (his second) so please keep them in your prayers. She's sweet and puts up with his crazy sister....and passed my one question test...can you guess what it was? "How do you feel about breastfeeding my future niece or nephew?" She had it in the bag.

OK so the entertainment will pick up again.. ;) I promise....especially after Max leaves. Heck I won't have another adult to talk to daily so I gotta talk at someone...or type...it's my sanity.