A little breakfast conversation

G- Do even dark sunglasses help you see?
Me- Well, they help protect your eyes from the sun's rays.
G- Or help you get cool!

Last weekend we were driving through the town of Motley, MN. There are a bunch of permanent "no parking" signs lined up on the sidewalk along the main street of the town, spaced about 50 feet apart. Gavin pointed them out to all of us in the car:

"Look, no P's allowed."

Remembering...

We have always insisted that necklaces should never be worn to bed. Emma's necklace was overlooked once, when she was just turning 4 years old. She went to bed, forgetting to take off her necklace. When she woke up the next morning, she was playing with her siblings and cousins at "The Wilderness Cabin" in the WI Dells. We were there celebrating a big Schulz cousin birthday weekend. When she realized that she slept with her necklace on, her eyes got wide with enthusiasm and surprise. She ran to me and said:

Mommy, I sleeped with my necklace on and I didn't choke, and I didn't even die!

I can still hear her voice in my head, exactly the way she said it. It was so sweet.

Worth an Argument

I wonder when the novelty of pushing the elevator button will wear off.

I have to mentally prepare the kids prior to riding in an elevator. After 4 years, I think I have it down to a science. It usually goes something like this:

"O.k. guys. We're going to get on an elevator. Emma, you push the up button to get the elevator here. Gavin, you'll push number 2 on the elevator panel. Lilah, you push door closed."

Sweet Dreams

I think Gavin was dreaming about his birthday last night. He crawled out of bed early this morning, eyes half opened and approached me to say-

G-Mommy, I just want to tell you 2 things I want for my birthday. (not even a good morning preceded this statement)
Me-What's that?
G-Um, a mote control hellercopter and a mote control dragonfly. And there's just one more thing, a Ben Ten watch. (all of this said from one breath)
Me-We'll see about that.

I'm a little worried about having a remote control anything-that-flies in our house. Is there such a toy for little kids? He said he saw it on t.v., but maybe these toys were just figments of Gabbo's dream.

Speaking of dreams, I dreamed of pokemon cards last night.

Ooh, Ooh, Ooh, Mr. Kotter...

Last night while reading Jack and the Beanstalk to the kids, Gavin had a question about the book. Instead of blurting it out, he started waving his hand inches from my face and said, "Mommy, I'm raising my hand!" Apparently, kindergarten behavior is transferring to home.

Yanker Doodle Dandy

Important background knowledge: Last night, we were looking at pictures of Karen and Bob's new puppy. The kids were really excited for Isabelle, and can't wait to meet Stella, the very cute Chocolate Labradoodle.


I was giving Lilah her backrub tonight and asking her for more details about her day. She told me:
"Today, I told everybody at school that my cousin got a Chocolate Yankerdoodle."

Worth an Argument

Typically, the Schulz kids get along pretty well. On occasion, they come across an issue that is considered argument-worthy. These issues range from understandable, to trivial, to completely absurd.

Following is an example of absurdity:
About a month ago, we were going to go to the zoo. The kids were getting into the car and I was bringing our lunches from the house to the car. When I opened the car door I heard high-pitched shouts and cries of tattling. Whenever someone is tattling, they draw out the word Mommy- like Maaaahmmeeee-
G-"Mommy, Lilah wants to use one of my motorcycles and make a voice for it, but it's a motorcycle and motorcycles can't talk!"
L-"But he won't let me be one of his motorcycles, and he has two. I can make a voice if I want!"
G-"But, it's a motorcycle, and motorcycles don't talk!"

This went on, despite my attempts at mediation- "Gavin, can't she just be one of your motorcycles? Lilah, can't you just think of something else to play with?", until, finally, I actually pulled the car over and said something like, "You two need to solve this (I wanted to add in ridiculus here, but didn't) problem in 10 seconds, or I might be tempted to take the motorcycles and throw them out the window." I can't remember what happened next, but we still have the motorcycles.

Last night, I asked Emma to get me a kleenex. I thought she didn't hear me, so I asked Lilah- o.k. I'm a little lazy, but I'm sick and I was in the middle of doing something. So, Lilah brings me a kleenex and Emma comes running around the corner beginning to cry- "You asked me to bring you a kleenex first!" My response to this- "I'm sure I'll have the need for both of the kleenexes- thank you." Trying to outdo Lilah in her act of cooperation, Emma brought me the enitre box of kleenexes. It's funny how compliant the kids can be when they see helpfulness as a competition.

I think I'll regularly post some of the interesting argument-worthy topics of our household.- Anybody have a better title?- maybe I should just call it Crazy People

Relatively uncorrupted thus far

The kids went to a birthday party a few weeks ago. After I picked them up from the party, we were talking about all the things they did. I asked if everyone at the party was nice. Emma said that a boy said a bad word. Here's the conversation that transpired from this comment:

Me- What did he say?
Emma- I can't say, because you'll be mad at me.
Me- It was that bad?
Emma- Yeah.
Me- What did the word start with?
Emma- I think F
Lilah- Yeah, it starts with an F
Emma- It's kind of like a fluffer, but you don't like when we say that word.

We must cherish these precious innocent moments when the kids think that the bad word that begins with "F" is fart!

Fashion Queen

Emma has been dressing (and undressing) herself since she was about 18 months old. She really has a unique sense of style- one might call it eclectic. She likes a lot of action and pizzazz in the outfits she wears. She especially likes stripes and flowers, and if you put them together, that's what the girl is all about. She is very determined when it comes to picking out her clothes. She adamantly refuses any help from me or Mike. I just hope that it is apparent to the general public that I am not responsible for her ensembles.

Emma wanted to wear this Captain Morgan visor to school the other day. I denied her of this, for obvious reasons.
Emma likes to wear random accessories around her head. Shown above is actually a belt for a pair of Lilah's pants.

Stripes and butterflies

Accessories are an added bonus to any outfit.

Sun dress in the cold, no problem. Just stick a sweatshirt under it.
There's nothing wrong with wearing a swimming suit for carving pumpkins.

She even likes to accessorize D-money.

Bedtime Conversation

We have a bedtime routine that always ends with backrubs. Lately, I've been doing Gavin's backrub, and he's been talking my ear off. He starts most sentences with "Guess what" and "You wanna know what?"

Tonight, Gavin was rubbing his chin and started a conversation-

G- Mommy, am I growing a mustache?
Me- No.
G- Feel it.
Me- That's your chin, and men grow beards on their chins.
G- Will people laugh at me because I'm growing a beard?
Me- Well, you're not actually growing a beard. I think you have something stuck on your face.
G- Oh, guess what? You wanna know what? Somebody got in trouble at school today, and it was a girl and she always gets in trouble.
Me- Why is that?
G- Her brain doesn't tell her the right things to do. And guess what?
Me- Hmm?
G- My teacher read a story about a vulture and a crocodile and other animals. (starts to crack up remembering the story) It was really funny when the crocodile tried to eat the tiger. Do crocodiles eat tigers? How do crocodiles eat tigers?
Me- I'm not quite sure they do. - Did you play with anyone today?
G- I don't remember the guy's name, but he's the guy with the red coat and we played power rangers.

At this point, we ended the backrub with a guessing game.

A Calgon Moment

As boredom settles in during the middle of August, it becomes increasingly obvious that the kids are ready to go back to school. Either that, or they snuck into the liquor cabinet.

If you're wondering about the annoying squeaking, that's the incessant squeezing of Duncan's toy, brought to you by Lilah.



(Video taken on Aug. 8, 2007)

Persistence

Gavin has been a snugglebug since he was born. He wanted to be held and snuggled all the time as a baby. He slept best snuggled up next to someone. To this day, he'd prefer to sleep in our bed, disrupting our sleep, crammed up tightly next to one of us. Don't get me wrong, I do love to cuddle with the boy, I just can't take a night of sleep, or lack there of, getting kicked in the head and squashed until I'm barely holding on at the edge of the bed. Last week Gavin tried to convince me of letting him sleep in my bed.

Can I sleep in your bed?
No.
Why not?
Because you move around too much, and it's just too crowded with 3 people in the bed.
I promise I'll be very still.
No, honey. You need to sleep in your own bed.
Pleaeaeaeaease....
No.
Please. I promise you can sleep by yourself tomorrow night.
No, honey.
I promise I'll give you some of my candy.
No.
I promise, tomorrow you can sleep by yourself, and I'll give you some of my candy.
No, but I'll lay with you in your bed for a few minutes.
O.k. (with a frown)

Last night, after getting everyone tucked in their beds, I went to bed and started to read. After a few minutes, I heard Mike through the intercom telling Lilah to go back to bed- she gets out of bed a lot to tell us she can't get to sleep- A few minutes later, I saw a little head pop around the corner, and heard Gavin's little low voice say-

Mommy, can I sleep with you? (as he's climbing up into my bed before hearing my answer)

How did you sneak by Daddy? Speaking of Daddy, you'll have to go downstairs when he comes up.

Why?

Because it's too crowded.

(ignoring my response) Promise you'll let me sleep with you all night.

Gavin, please just lay down and go to sleep. I think Daddy might be upset when he comes upstairs and sees you in our bed. He's already talked to Lilah about staying in bed.

Will he yell at me.

No.

Will he yell at you?

I don't think so, but please go to sleep.

O.k.

Kindergartners Extraordinaire

Wasn't it just yesterday that these two were tiny little babies?

Emma and Gavin started Kindergarten on Thursday, September 6. The twins are really amazing kiddos. They are so confident in every situation, no fear at all. They rode the bus without any reservations. I even had to call Emma back to give me a hug and kiss goodbye. I followed the bus to school and watched them walk to their class and start their routine. They did everything like pros. Lilah was a great big sister, and proudly showed them the ropes of walking through the hall.

I'm interested in what my kids are learning in school and about what they experience during their day, so I ask questions. In the past, my conversations with Lilah about school went something like this-

How was school?

Fine.

What did you do?

I don't remember.

Can you think of one thing you did during the last 6 hours?

I had lunch.

In an effort to elicit more information, we're going to have "tea time" after school each day to talk about some of the things that they do at school. In our first little pow wow, they all said they really like school and they all like their teachers. Gavin had the most to report. He told me that his tower got knocked over and that 2 kids had a time-out. From his perspective, he didn't get to play enough. He also told me that he broke his leg. I'm happy to report that he didn't actually break his leg.

After tea time, I helped Gavin and Emma with their "homework." I interviewed them about their day. They were supposed to tell me about their first day of school by filling in the blanks of a questionnaire. One of the sentences to complete was- I played with _______. When I asked Gavin this, I said, "I played with blank," and expected that he would tell me the name of a friend. Instead he said, "Who's blank?"

Lilah Schulz- Second Grader Extraordinaire

Lilah started 2nd grade yesterday. She's growing up before our eyes. Our little girl is more like a pre-adolescent than a child. She acts so sophisticated. She's into things like Hannah Montana and High School Musical 1 and 2- (Her backpack sports a picture of Troy Bolton with "I heart Troy" written in small print. I was in a nice mommy mood when I allowed her to get that one) She's into clothes and friends. She wants to pour her own milk, no matter how much I protest.

Norman has been staying with us over the past few days. He is even aware of her grown-upness. In the past, Norman has always kept his distance from the kids. He's what one might call "skiddish" around children, and avoids them like the plague. He not only tolerates her presence, but actually seeks her out for love and attention. Here he is laying on Lilah's bed.

Lilah hasn't grown up so much, though. She still enjoys some of the finer things of her childhood. She loves dramatic play with Emma, including playing house, Barbies, dolls, and dress-up.

Monkey

This is how Gabbo typically sits while watching t.v.

Insanity

And now, for the State Fair:
We have made it a family tradition to go to the State Fair each year. We end up doing the same thing, eating the same foods, and seeing the same things every year. We even have pictures of the kids doing the same thing each year. I can't quite get the same effect from the barbeque booth as I got from 2005This would be our first year of going to the Midway to play any games. Yesterday, at Valley Fair, after 3 continuous hours of being asked to play another game, Mike told Gavin he would lose his opportunity to play a game at the State Fair if the question was asked again. He has trouble remembering even the most explicit directions when it goes against his plan. Lo and behold, Gavin couldn't stop himself from asking, so he incurred a loss of privilege. This LOP didn't sink in for him, since it wouldn't come to fruition until the following day. Today, as we were getting ready to go to the Fair, Emma felt compelled to remind Gavin about his LOP. It still didn't sink in for the boy. I was worried about the ramifications of the LOP once we got to the Fair, so Mike and I decided to discuss the situation with our son, reminding him about his behavior at Valley Fair, and reminding him about his consequence. I was mostly an observer in the conversation, since this was really Mike's battle with G. When G realized that we were actually going to follow through (or not), his eyes started welling up with tears, despite his efforts to fight them back. I almost started to cry, he was so sincere and so incredibly sad. I was waiting for Mike to cave, because I certainly would have. It's hard to say if it was the sad face or the prospect of having to listen to constant pleas and attempts to persuade Daddy to change his mind. Whatever the reason, Mike said, o.k. under the condition that he didn't talk about games until it was time to actually play the game. We came up with 3 agreements for Gavin to make. 1. Don't ask to ride any rides (we rode rides all day yesterday) 2. Don't ask to buy anything- unless you're hungry 3. Don't talk about playing games- we'll each play a game at the end of our State Fair experience if you remember about our agreements. I made sure that Gavin looked at me and could articulate each of our agreements. He got so good at it that he was able to teach agreements 1, 2, and 3 to his sisters.



After spending a lovely day at the Fair (5 hours), it was finally time to play a game. Gavin and Emma both chose the water shooting game, almost the same game Gavin won yesterday. I helped Gavin and Mike helped Emma- can you see where we went wrong here? I couldn't believe my eyes, but Mike and Emma won the game- there were about 10 other people playing the game, including adults and ambitious teenagers. Emma got to choose a large stuffed dog. (by the way, we acquired 5 new stuffed animals over the last 2 days!) Gavin became completely hysterical. He was pacing around. Tears streaked his very dirty face while he yelled at me, telling me why he should get to play another game, and how it was unfair that Emma won, and so on. I kept my cool and sat holding him, trying to console him, then finally, in a very calm voice, told him to sit down in the wagon. I noticed lots of people staring, I'm sure thinking, thank God I'm not her. After a few more minutes of insanity, a girl of about 9 years came to us with a big neon green stuffed dog and asked if she could give it to Gavin. At this point, I didn't care what lesson he was learning, I could have kissed that girl's feet. I talked to the mom of the girl, because, I really didn't want to take the girl's prize, but I just wanted Gavin to stop. I guess somebody gave her a life-sized gorilla to carry around for the rest of the day, and they wanted to share the love. Gavin did, infact, stop crying, and thanked the girl.

Here are some things we learned from all of this:
1. Mike always helps kids play the game
2. One family member playing a game at a time
3. Make your kid eat something more than a giant lollipop and some corn while spending a day at the Fair
4. LOP's must be immediate
5. Avoid the Midway at all costs

We did actually have a great time, tantrum notwithstanding. Some highlights:
*The Miracle of Birth Center (baby farm animals)

*The Giant Slide, The Sky Needle, and the Trampoline (those were the 3 rides we agreed to do because they're part of the tradition)

*Corndogs, cheesecurds, scotch egg, roasted corn, cotton candy (Lilah), Lollipops (E & G), chocolate chip cookies

*Little Farm Hands

*Again, the general enthusiasm toward EVERYTHING

*People Watching

*Big Neon Green Stuffed Dog

Thrillseekers

We might be clinically insane, but, we went to Valley Fair all day yesterday, then got up this morning and headed to the MN State Fair with about 200,000 other people.

Valley Fair highlights:

*The general excitement exhibited by the munchkins about EVERYTHING at the park

*Seeing Lilah ride on her first real rollercoaster

*A conversation between Gavin and Uncle Joe just after the Octopus ride-

J- Did that make your stomache feel weird?

G- No, but it made my private parts feel weird!
J (trying not to laugh)- Oh, why's that?

G- That's because I was holding them.

*Emma getting totally soaked on The Flume a.k.a. the log ride

*Daddy helping Gavin win a stuffed wolf (or maybe this is a lowlight!) with his quick draw McGraw water gun shooting skills

*Riding on the Sky Scraper ride with Hannah- it's much crazier than the picture shows

http://www.valleyfair.com/public/attractions/rides/thrill_rides/skyscraper.cfm

The kids had a blast. Everyone got along splendidly, and there was almost no whining. The day only started to unravel for Gavin at the very end of our adventure. He really wanted to try to win a stuffed animal with the giant claw. He became very distraught. He already played a game and won the stuffed wolf. I missed this whole tantrum, but Mike felt the full force of it. Gavin is a very persistent boy. He also became upset at the close of the park. He was promised a ride on the Ferris Wheel, but by the time they all got to the ride, it was closed! As you can imagine, this did not sit well with the boy.

I started my new job last week, so the kiddos went to Stacy and Joe's house for four days. It was the longest that we had both been away from the kids at the same time. I had mixed emotions about the separation. I knew I'd miss the kids tremendously, but, then again, there's so much that we could get done around here. The time flew by. I was surprised at how little we accomplished. The one thing that we did do in the absence of our packrats, was to clean out the basement. We donated a bunch of McDonald's toys to my classroom prize box. A bunch of stuffed animals and babies went to ARC, and a big bag of broken toys and toys with missing pieces went in in the garbage.

It was really strange, and extremely quiet around here for those four days. I don't think they missed us very much. Although I feel a little underappreciated and saddened by this, I'm glad that they feel so comfortable and at ease that they don't pine for us while we're gone.

They were a bit Playstation crazed from my understanding, during their time at the Groves' house. We don't have video games, so they wanted to play all the time. I reminded them that that's a toy for older kids and that you have to be at least 10 in order to get one. I just can't put myself through the pain of all the battles that will arise- between children and between parent and child. I'm standing my ground on this one.

It was great to see them finally on Thursday. They were so excited to tell me about everything they did. I think they all got along very well, much better than they do at home. The only battles were, of course over whose turn it was to play the SpongeBob game on the Playstation.

Cousins, Hannah and Rachel came to our house when I picked up the kids. It's so fun to watch them all interact. The Schulz kids really love their cousins!