Taking the Bed Back

These are the photos to go with the story I posted earlier today. :)

8 In the Bed... from left to right: Elena, Pizza, Macaroni, Spaghetti, Baby Jordan (who I failed to mention in previous pose, probably because her name is so not memorable), Lasagna, Other Baby, and Mr. Frog

I decided this was really getting out of hand, but Elena did not want to part with any of the babies. So we brought in the baby bed from the playroom and put it in Elena's room.

5 babies moved into the baby bed at naptime today. After a few minutes, Elena started crying really, really hard and yelling "I WANT LASAAAAAAAAAAAAGNA!!!" So we ended up moving Lasagna back into Elena's bed. Tonight she tucked all 5 of these babies (the 4 Italians plus Baby Jordan) back into the baby bed again. So far, she hasn't had any second thoughts.

Little Mama

Elena has slept with 2 babies in her bed since she was tiny. She has Mr. Frog, which Adaryll and I got her when she was about 5 months old. She has loved Mr. Frog ever since, and we have always referred to him as her official "lovey". Eventually she decided that she also wanted to sleep with a baby that was given to Elias when he turned one. (Thanks, Harris Fam!) This one is a soft, all-plush baby with a few short pieces of yarn for hair. This baby has been missing it's clothes for several years, so we used to refer to it as "naked baby". Elena renamed it "Other Baby" several months ago.
Then, when Elena was sick in January, she was given a ladybug baby doll. She immediately fell in love with it and insisted on sleeping with it, too. Eventually, she named the ladybug "Lasagna". So then there were 3 babies (and Elena) all together in her twin size bed. A few days ago, she started carrying around a baby doll that Adaryll's Aunt Sandra gave her almost a year ago. All of the sudden, she is obsessed with this baby (along with the other 3 still), and needs to have it with her or know where it is at all times. Including bedtime. Yesterday she told me this baby's name is "Macaroni" (pronounced Macky-Doh-Nee). At least we have a theme going, right? So, now there are 4 babies + Elena in the bed every night and nap.
She lines them all up across her pillow and tucks them in next to her. Which was fine when it was only Mr. Frog and Other Baby. But once we added Lasagna and Macaroni to the bedtime mix (that just sounds messy!), there was no room left for Elena on the pillow! So I did what any good Mommy would do: I found an old travel pillow with a soft, pink pillowcase and put it in her bed next to her regular pillow. Then I lined up the babies (really close together like sardines in a can) on that pillow, which left the regular pillow for Elena to have all to herself.
And, like any good Mommy would do, Elena proceeded to take all the babies, one by one, and lay them down comfortably across her pillow. And then she took the little travel pillow at the edge of the bed for herself. Oh, the sacrifices a mother makes! And how early we learn!
By the way, she decided to give names to 2 more babies (which she got for her 1st bday from my mom and grandma) this morning. Their new names are Spaghetti and Pizza. Girl loves her some carbs with tomato sauce! Or maybe she is confused about her heritage and thinks she is part Italian...

One-Word Wednesday

I made up a new game. This will replace Wordless Wednesday for the time-being, mainly because I have run out of funny pics and need time to build up my stash again.
Here's how we will play: I will post a word (thus the name: One Word Wednesday). Then you will post a comment telling me and the rest of the people out there who read this your thoughts and feelings about my word. Feel free to also comment on other people's comments and come back to check and see what others have said about your comment. Make sense?

Ok, this week's word is........................................ *drumroll*.............................................

SNUGGIE!

Wrinkled Maps

Last night Elena said something really funny. It took me a while to figure out what she was saying, but when I finally got it, I thought it blogworthy.
Let me start with a little background. Elias, our now-6-year-old, loved maps as a baby. He had a LeapPad that had a page with a USA map, and when he touched a state with the LeapPen (which is like a stylus), it would say the state's name. By age 2, you could ask him where any state was and he could point to it. Another testament to his crazy visual learning ability, I guess.
Elena has not shown as much interest in the LeapPad. Until Sunday. All of the sudden, she wanted to play with her own hand-me-down pink LeapPad, and that was pretty much all she wanted to do. She absolutely loved the map page! She kept touching Texas and Indiana and repeating their names. (which, by the way, are also the first 2 that Elias learned!)
So last night, after her bath, she was lying on her changing table while I got her dressed for bed. She looked at her fingers and asked me what they were. I told her they were fingers.
"Noooooooooooooooo", she said. "What's in them?"
"Ummmm, fingers?" I answered.
"Noooooo. What's this?" she asked, pointing to her thumb.
"Oh, that is your thumb."
"Nooooooooo, this." Finally I realize she is specifically talking about the pads of her fingers.
"Oh, those are your fingerprints."
"Nooooooooo. These are my *unintelligible word*."
"Your WHAT?"
"My *repeats same word and I have no idea what she is saying*"
I try to repeat the word back as I heard it. "Your tess-a-sis?"
"No. My *same word, still no idea what the heck she is talking about*."
"Your (try to guess again) tesasis?"
"No. my *same word, with a little more annunciation*."
"Your Texases?"
"YES! See?" (shows me her wrinkled finger pads from the bath)
"Ooooooooh. Those are wrinkles."
"Oh."
"Do you think they look like a map?"
"Yes!"
"And you see Texas?"
"YES!!!"

Wow. This girls is either really, really smart, or she has absolutely NO clue. Or maybe seeing Texas in your finger wrinkles is something akin to seeing Mother Mary in your PB&J sandwich. It is Texas, afterall.
Let's hope she's just REALLY smart.
To quote Home Simpson, "I am so smart. I am so smart. S-M-R-T. I mean S-M-A-R-T." :)

Unloading

I have had this sinking feeling for several weeks every time I do laundry. It is like a guilt-ridden sickness in my stomach. Because we have so much. Seriously, I think to myself, "How can we POSSIBLY have this many dirty clothes, PLUS all of these clean ones that are waiting to be put away from the last time I did laundry, AND STILL have a closet full of clothes in each of our rooms?!?!?! Part of the answer is that I have totally slacked on keeping the kids closets cleaned out to just the size they are wearing, so they each had a lot of clothes in there that were too small. But a HUGE part of it is that we just plain have waaaaaay too much! I mean, really, even if you wear all of your t-shirts and like all of them, how many can you possibly actually need? 5 maybe? 10 to be generous? Anything more than that seems like a complete waste to me. It's not like we don't have a washer and dryer right downstairs!!!
Aaaaaaaah. That was a big, giant exhale. Because that feeling I would get when doing laundry actually carried over into some action. Which led to MUCH purging of the wardrobes. And I think it is pretty much done. Again, I just sit back and think about all the clothes I just got rid of, and I STILL can't believe how much is left in all the closets!!!
And then that led to cleaning out the playroom. Wow, I am completely ashamed to tell you how much I got rid of (a giant LAWN bag full!!!), because if you came over and saw how many toys we STILL have, you would think badly of me for actually having had MORE!!!
Anyway, I am glad I got that whole process out of my system. Now I can breathe.

Blahs

I kind of have a case of the blahs the last couple of days. Not sure why. Have typed and deleted and typed and deleted and typed and deleted because everytime I read what I typed I realize how crabby I sound.
Here's hoping for a healthy week for all 4 Jordans. Surely cedar season is almost over, right?!

No Pain, No Gain

It isn't exactly gain, per se, that I am looking for. Actually, it is just the opposite. You all know what I am talking about. We've all, at one point in our adult-lives, committed to exercise, be healthier, lose weight, etc. In my attempt at dropping a few (ok, a few more than a few) pounds, I have officially started "working out".
Wow- I feel like such a grown-up saying that. When did it happen that in order to stay in shape I had to "work-out"? I can remember when those types of activities were just part of a normal day of being. In high school that included sports, rollerblading, running, etc. In college there was the normal hauling myself and all my books across campus, but that's when exercise for the sake of exercise started to creep in. Going walking with friends was not just a leisurely stroll, it was for the intent of getting my heart rate up. I can't express to you how much I despised that type of stuff. While all my friends loved going to the gym, it just didn't seem necessary to me and wasn't something I enjoyed at all. The thing is, I didn't really have a motivation to do it. I was happy with my natural weight and could pretty much eat whatever I wanted and maintain it. What reason was there to exercise? (nevermind that I might as well have needed CPR after running up a flight of stairs to get to a class on time because my cardio system was so out of shape!)
Fast forward 14 years and 2 babies later. Ok, I still pretty much eat whatever I want, but my natural weight now is a far cry from what it was in those youthful days. And now my cardio is so bad that I might need CPR just from walking up the incline of our church's center aisle. I haven't been happy with my overall physical fitness in a long, long time. Plus I have been at the mercy of a painful post-surgery foot for 14 months (that sounds like a reasonable excuse, right?).
No more excuses! We joined the YMCA last week and I signed up for a 12 weeks to Fitness program which basically commits me to working out 3 times per week for 3 months. I started yesterday on a recumbent bike and an elliptical machine. (I'm trying really hard to avoid weight-bearing or at least stick to low-impact because my foot is still not healed properly) Yesterday it all felt great- I had all this extra energy. Today I did the same machines and am miserable. I tried to read while I was on the elliptical, so I only held onto the machine with my right hand while I held my book in my left hand. Tonight all the muscles in my right shoulder and neck are cramped and knotted as a result. Ooooooh, the pain!
I know they say no pain, no gain, but this seems a little ridiculous. I am officially taking tomorrow off and sticking solely to the ipod from here on out.

Wordless Wednesday

After several weeks of neglecting this crowd favorite (and a friendly reminder from a member of the Pink Mafia), I am bringing Wordless Wednesday back! If you are new to Texans and Hoosiers and don't know how to play, I post a picture and you post a caption in the comments. Pretty simple. Sometimes, if I am particularly impressed with one caption (or am just in an unusually good mood), I will declare a winner the next day. Have fun!

The Hill

Does anyone else out there own a bed with a hill in the middle? Our king mattress is almost 9 years old, and it is one of those "no flip" mattresses. You are supposed to just turn it every 6 months so that your head is where your feet were before. The thing is, you still have 2 bodies lying in the same ruts as before. Eventually, you have what looks like an un-plowed, 2-day-old snowy street in Indiana. Or a muddy farm road in Texas. There are 2 dips- one where we each sleep- and a hill in the middle.
I discovered this phenomenon about a year ago when I inadvertently rolled over after Adaryll had left for work early one morning. You wouldn't believe how much more support there is on that hill! It is like 8 inches of brand new mattress! Of course, I have to lay perfectly still or I roll to one side or the other. Still, those 30 minutes on the hill each morning are so nice.
I guess it is time for a new mattress. Ok, maybe it was time a year ago when the hill first appeared. Blah.

Jump Rope for Heart

At school this month, Elias has been learning about living a heart-healthy lifestyle by eating right, exercising, and living tobacco-free. He has also been given the opportunity to raise money for the American Heart Association through Jump Rope for Heart. He has set a goal of raising $300 by this Friday and is already one-third there! If you are interested in donating, you can contribute online at Elias' donation page. (donations are tax-deductible and many companies offer matching-gift programs)

From Scratch

Ok, I am now admitting publicly on the internet for everyone to read that I am NOT a very good cook. Maybe even "not very good" enough to land me in the "bad" category. "Oh", you say, "It can't be that bad." Yes, it is.

The problem is that I don't taste individual ingredients. If I am eating chocolate cake, what I taste is chocolate cake. I don't know whether there is too much flour, too little sugar, not enough salt, etc. Hey, if it is chocolate cake, who cares?!

But seriously, since I don't taste all the parts I can't discern by looking at a recipe whether or not it will taste good as a whole. So I pretty much go by the titles. (note to reader: most recipes that actually make it into cookbooks, whether they are amazing or disgusting, have catchy yummy-sounding titles). So, if there are 2 different meatloaf recipes, one called "Meatloaf" and the other called "Tasty Mexican Meatloaf", I will probably choose the second. Because what sort of a Texan doesn't love Mexican?! This is not a good way to decide which kind of meatloaf to make for dinner. Unfortunately, it's all I've got.

All that to say, I am working on this problem. At this point, it is kind of trial and error. I find a bunch of good-sounding recipes (ok, titles) and plan out the meals and shop. And then it is total hit or miss whether dinner each night is going to bomb or be awesome. (sorry now to my poor family having to endure this growing pain with me. Papa Johns is just a phone call away when it is too awful to endure.)

Tonight I asked the kids to help me snap the ends off green beans. Who knew it would be so much fun for them?! (and they LOVED hearing the "snap" they were able to make each time) I can't believe I had never thought of this before. When we were done, Elias stood up and said, "Thanks for letting us do that , Mom. That was really fun!"

I have memories of being as young as 4 or 5 and snapping beans with my Meme (dad's mom) out on their farm. Thankfully, she was a much better cook than I am, and everything she ever made was incredible.

Maybe the beans tonight will turn out ok. Really, how bad can I screw that up, right?!

My Pretty

A couple of weeks ago I decided it would be fun to blow dry Elena's hair straight. I had only done it one other time, and that was about a year ago. (I think I actually posted pics on the blog when I did it, but I am too lazy right now to look for a link) Anyway, it turned out adorable. She looked WAY older than she is, and I couldn't believe how much hair she has now! So today, while at Target refilling her Pulmicort, I picked up a flattening iron. Wow! I have never used one in my life, but it definitely did the trick! Her hair went from super curly to completely straight in a matter of minutes. I still prefer her beautiful curls, but it is nice to know she's got options!

Literal

Kids are so stinkin' literal about everything, aren't they? It amazes me how often they just don't get a joke or a prank because they are so focused on the exact words used and what they ought to mean. For example:

Me: Elena, do you want to come upstairs with me? I need to fix my hair.
Elena: Oooooh noooooooo! Mommy! You hair is broken!? (yes, sometimes she says "you" and not "your"- it is quite cute)

Or how about this one:
Me: Elias, you didn't find your coat at school today?
Elias: No. We can just buy a new one.
Me: Well, that costs money.
Elias: But you have two hundred dollars! (he knows this because I bought $200 worth of groceries Saturday and he was very concerned about whether or not I would be able to foot that bill. At the cash register, I proudly told him that, yes, I did have $200 for the groceries.)
Me: But I spent all that on groceries, remember?
Elias: Oh. Well, we can order it online then. (I guess he thinks we don't pay for things we order online that just magically appear in boxes on our porch?)
Me: We still have to pay for that stuff honey.
Elias: oh.
Me: Maybe you should get a job at HEB and earn some money. You could be a cashier.
Elias: Noooooo, I already told you, when I grow up I want to be a worker. (he recently told me that he wants to be one of the guys that fixes roads and builds bridges)
Me: Well, then maybe you should get a job as a worker and earn some money to buy a new coat.
Elias: I can't. I am not old enough. And I don't know how to build stuff yet. (man, this guy really should be a lawyer, shouldn't he?)
Me: I know. I am kidding. Maybe I should go be a worker.
Elias: Noooooooooooooooo! I want you to me my Mommy!!!!

Roadrunners

No, this is not a post about an old cartoon. My son's basketball team actually named themselves The Roadrunners. Because they are so fast. And because they are five and six years old. And because no adults told them how silly that sounds. Actually, maybe the joke is on us and the kids all knew how ridiculous we would sound yelling "Go Roadrunners!"

So this is Elias' first season of basketball. Having been born a Hoosier, he has ALWAYS loved to shoot a ball in a hoop, so we were excited to find this opportunity through our local Y. He is having a great time and learning a lot. Really, the improvement in the first 4 weeks (especially considering that we missed 2 weeks with ear infection and trip to IN) has been tremendous.

Here are some pics and videos from his practices and games.

(Note that his team wears Texas A&M maroon. No, we were not thrilled about this. Yes, we are happy that it isn't burnt orange.)

Running down the court

Pregame Warm-up shot. (Elias is #21)

"Gooooooooooooooo Roadrunners!"

Pregame Warm-ups

Practicing shots

Practicing dribbling

Explanation for Lissie :)

In an effort to help my friend (and Elias' Kindergarten teacher) on her quest of having blog posts named after her, I thought I would write about something funny that happened last week. Something so funny that, when it happened, I looked at Adaryll and said, "Oh, that is SO going on the blog!" I kind of forgot about it until I read Elias' version on Lissie's Blog. And now, an explanation is definitely required.
One night last week, as Elias was getting his pajamas on, it became apparant to both Adaryll and me that he was stalling. He was moving ridiculously slow and watching t.v. out the corner of his eye in our room. Adaryll told him to get his pajamas on.
In that 6-year-old-boy, I-know-everything-and-can-do-no-wrong voice, he answered, "I AAAAAAAM!" It was not quite the tone or the volume acceptable to Jordan parents. :)
So, Adaryll asked, "Did you just yell at me?"
Elias answered yes.
So, Adaryll (joking) says, "Well, then come over here and I am going to give you a spanking."
Apparantly Elias didn't get the joke. He immediately starts crying and pulls down the pajama pants that have now taken 7 or 8 minutes to get on. He pathetically walks, barebutt now, over to our bed where both Adaryll and I are sitting. Adaryll and I both start to laugh.
Elias looks at us confused.
I say, "Elias, Daddy is not going to spank you."
Through giant tears, Elias begins to laugh HYSTARICALLY. I can't even begin to explain to you how funny this scene was. All of us laughing and Elias crying at the same time.
Adaryll turns to me and says, "Well now, that is not in the parenting books..."

Elena's Interpretation

Elias has been a big fan of The Lawrence Welk Show (PBS Saturday nights) for as long as I can remember. A couple of weeks ago, Elena decided to get in on the fun. Her dancing went on and on, and I finally just had to capture it in a video. I love the way she "feels" the music. It reminds me of her own version of modern interpretive dance. And how she applauds so enthusiastically at the end. Not sure this could be any cuter. (ok, maybe if she were wearing a tutu and leg-warmers)