Amelia's Prayer

Amelia said the family prayer tonight. I don't think I'll get it exactly right, but here is goes:

...Please help us not tell poop jokes; tell stories the right way not with real names instead of made up ones*; and we all know about pull ups**...
*Gary likes to substitute names of real people into the childrens stories and she does not care for this
**What we all know, I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine!
I guess you had to be there. She is just starting to say prayers for real. She used to say thank you for the food (whether there was food or not) and Amen. Now she goes on and on about all of the things she cares about. It's very sweet, and often times very funny.

Church Time

Today in church, Jimmy wanted to sit on the front row. Gary and I know that the kids need containment so we sat on the second row (using the first row as a baracade.) Jonathan loved being so close to the front and was attracted to the stairs leading to the pulpit. Gary was on his feet chasing after him most of the meeting (he's a great Dad). Toward the end, Jonathan climbed up on the box that the chorister stands on to lead the music. He took a moment to catch his balance, then he started to wave his arm like mad JUST LIKE THE CHORISTER! He is such a hoot!

Jimmy's News

Jimmy is really into math right now. He likes to know how much 3 sixes is and how many 2s are in 1000, etc. He likes numbers so much that he made up his own!
A thillion: the largest number
definition: It is so big that "a thillion plus one turns into a negative number"


He really likes school and plays karate and ninja turtles there all the time. (although he does not like ninja turtles best, he likes "rescue heroes") He says that his teacher Mrs Magoffin does karate too. At the end of class when they have left over time they have a vote on what to do and they always do karate. (How's that for a kindergarten fantasy!)

Amelia the teacher

Since Jimmy is in school, Amelia has been taking greater pains to get along with Jonathan.This means that she can sometimes be seen holding his hand and leading him off to make mischief. She is also imparting her vast 3 years of knowledge and experience to him, bit by bit. Here is one piece of advice she gave to him a few days ago:
"Take your Barbie, bend it over like it's a frozen gogurt (demonstrates by bending her at the waist) and you have a gun!"

Darn R's

In speech pathology, the letter R is often preceded by the word "darn" because it are so tricky for children and therapists to correct. (now don't worry, children have until they are 8 years old before /r/ is a concern) Amelia and I had a conversation the other day where this came into play.
Amelia: This is my brother Wocky.
Me: Why do you call Jonathan "Rocky"?
Amelia: Not wock, like the thing on the gwound. Walk like what people do.

I was impressed with her ability to clearly explain away my confusion.

Lion King

Jonathan didn't used to like sitting for books, especially not the one word with one picture board books. But last night, he listened to "Lion King" and loved it. I was reading it to the bigger kids for bedtime and he really liked the lion fights and the roaring sounds. He even roared back! Today, he sat on my lap and listened to (the abreviated version) of it again. I am happy to find a book that he likes to hear.

School

Jimmy started kindergarten this week at Newton Lee Elementary School in our new neighborhood. I am driving him there until we officially move in at the end of the month. The first day of school must have been enjoyable, but I really don't get what happened. He came home from school telling us all about how his teacher has a flashlight and they get to go through secret passages. AND only the kids in Room 1 get to know the pass word for the secret passage. When pressed for details, none were given. Jimmy raelly enjoyed the school library on the second day of school. He checked out George and Martha, Encore! I always love reading George and Martha with him. Jimmy dreaded the third day of school because a fire drill was planned and he was scared it would be too loud. He made it through just fine. I thought that he liked school, but the other day, he told me he wished that Amelia would go to kindergarten instead. He is jealous of the extra time she has at home. (so THAT explains behavior problems we've had lately!) I'm sure it will all balance out over the next few weeks.
I never knew that being a parent of a school kid was so much work. He comes home with huge stacks of papers for us to fill out (most are PTO fundraisers, what they need the funds for,they don't say.) But hardest of all to figure out has been the "kiss and ride" drop off for the kids. The first day of school, they decided to let the kindergarteners out 30 minutes early, to get the parents used to the carpool lane, but did not tell the parents that they let the kids out early. Jimmy and his class had to stand out in the rain until all of us uninformed parents showed up at the regular time. At the end of the week, they sent home a flier explaining all of the rules for drop off/pick up, but this was a little late for me. I had already been chewed out about a different "violation" each day. I look forward to our move, so Jimmy can take the bus instead. Thanks for hearing out my rant. AND thanks to MOM and DAD for all of their hard work putting me through school.

Chuck E Cheese

After a long day/week, we decided to have a fun family date at Chuck E Cheese, a fun pizza place with mini rides and arcade games. Jimmy loved the games and while Amelia prefered the rides.

Jimmy hit the jackpot at a SpongeBob Squarepants game, inserting one token and pushing a button. Out came the tickets. They kept coming and coming and were piling up on the floor! When they finally stopped coming out, Jimmy tore them off and brought them back to Mom and Dad. The chain of tickets trailed behind him. Amelia, in her excitement for Jimmy, kept stepping on the tickets and hindered his progress.

Amelia really liked the rides. Her favorite being a high top shoe shaped one. She brought me over to a large light up high top shoe shaped basket ball game and proceeded to climb up into the hole where the balls come out. She said she wanted a ride! I think she was too short to see what the ride was all about. I had her get out and put in a token to show her what it did. Out came the basketballs. She tried and tried to shoot them at the hoop, but again height was an issue. I lifted her up and held her over the hoop so she could drop the balls in (she missed.)

Jonathan enjoyed a toddler area with stairs to climb and a platform area with slide attached. He even learned to go down the stairs backward (for safety) I was really impressed. Going down stairs will be very important as our new condo will have 2 flights.

Jonathan's Post

Since Jonathan doesn't talk yet, I haven't included him in my blog postings (which are primarily funny things the bigger kids say.) I realize this is not fair to my youngest, so I'd like to rectify that.

Jonathan started taking steps about 10 days ago. He is now venturing around taking half a dozen steps at a time before crawling to complete his journeys. He enjoys pushing large balls up the slide in our living room and when he finally makes it to the top with the ball (he is persitant) he cheers for himself! Then we all clap too and tell him what a big boy he is. He really likes clapping, more so than the other kids did/do.

Jonathan also had his first big boy time at the park. For the first time yesterday, he wanted to climb and slide at the park, just like the big kids. He crawled from play structure to play structure and then went up the stairs to play with the steering wheels, go down slides, hang on the the bars like a monkey in a cage. He really is a lot of fun for everyone.

Pool Party

Our apartment complex had an end of summer pool party, complete with DJ and burritoes. We thorooughly enjoyed swimming with the kids. They really are quite confident in the water now.

At the party, two competitions were held; one was a hula hoop contest and the other was limbo. Jimmy and Amelia eagerly participated in both. Neither kid has used a hula hoop. Jimmy watched the other kids begin to spin the hula hoops around their middles and decided to give it a go. He held on tight to the hula hoop and ran in circles as fast as he could to create the illusion of a spinning hula hoop. Amelia decided that the best way to make the hula hoop go round was to hold on and twist her waist from side to side so that both she and the hula hoop did quarter turns in either direction. While they didn't win (and 9 year old girl one, and paraded around the pool spinning the hoop the rest of the evening, even eatting and drinking while making it go) I gave them points for creativity. Jimmy has done the limbo before and stayed in for the entire song. Amelia cheated and went under ducking forwards everytime. (Although there were times she didn't need to duck to clear the bar)

The Flag

I never realized how many United States flags are flying around town until Amelia became infatuated with them. Every time we pass one (driving, walking, etc) she bursts into song (which she made up herself, mostly) and while it doesn't really have much of a tune, it makes me feel patriotic!

Amelia's Flag Song
RED WHITE AND BLUE!
My country too!
My flag my flag my country's flag
Everytime I see my country's flag
I have to sing a song about my country's flag
RED WHITE AND BLUE!

Jimmy's job

Jimmy wants to be just like his Dad (and who wouldn't?!) and he often tells us of the antics at his work "GSRI." He is not sure what Dad does at his job, so he often includes the names of Daddy's coworkers in his stories and makes up the rest.
Jimmy: I got in trouble at work the other day.
Me: What happened?
Jimmy: Well, I am a lumberjack for GSRI and I chop down trees... well, I accidently chopped down a tomato plant instead of a tree. I didn't know it was a tomato plant instead of a tree. I hope I don't get in trouble at GSRI.

Baseball game

Last week we went to Frederick Maryland to catch and Keys game. The Frederick Keys are a minor league baseball team. As we walked up to the gates, Amelia sang for us:
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out to the crowd!
(missing a few lines here)
I can't ever relax cause it's
Woot! Woot! Woot! for the home team
If they don't win its a shame,
For it's one, two, three strikes your out at the old ball game!

Road Trip

What summer would not be complete without a road trip? Our family took a road trip across Southern Pennsylvania last month, visiting Valley Forge, Hershey Park and Gettysburg. It was an enjoyable trip with a lot of pretty countryside, mostly farms and rolling hills covered with trees. Pennsylvania also has a nuclear power plant or two. The stacks were visible for part of our drive. As we left the area, Jimmy said in a very disappointed voice:

"Hey I can't see the nuclear power anymore!"

Jimmy's discourse on Kilts

I was folding laundry with the kids earlier this summer when the following conversation took place.
Amelia, teasing "Jimmy, here's your skirt!"
Jimmy frowns
Me "That's silly, boys don't wear skirts!"
Jimmy "Well, boys do wear skirts. They are called kilts and men wear them with big heavy purses. They wear the purses so that when they sit down their private parts don't show. I don't think I want to wear a kilt. I think that the big heavy purse would be too heavy for me."

I have no idea where he learned about the sporan, or even if that is REALLY the reason they wear them.

Third times the charm?

Hi All! I am giving the internet another try. I filled up my first website, can't log on to my second one and am hoping the third time is the charm! With this website, I intend to post the funny or otherwise unusual things that my kiddo diddos say. Uploading photos was a little complex for our computer/internet connection to do reliably, so I'll stick to words this time. I hope it will amuse you and help you get to know them a little bit better!