One of D and E's teachers has a frozen pond. They have invited us to skate three times but Jeff wants to go every day. Both big kids have made amazing progress on skates. We actually played a broomball game on hockey skates where each "left it all on the ice" so to speak. They each fell at least 50 times. Many very painful looking spills with legs caught underneath, impaling themselves on brooms, helmeted heads bouncing off of the ice, but they each got right back up to battle for the ball. After the first day we were smart enough to get them all geared up with full hockey equipment and they were ready to fall 1000 times without pain. The large drawback was that each had to go the bathroom multiple times. I contemplated just telling D to go ahead and pee her pants. It was about 5 degrees and she had bib snow pants with hockey pants and full shin guards over top. On ice skates in an open pond. However, they both did great so I guess we are now ready for the most dire potty emergency. As the afternoon wore on, E's confidence level soared as he ran across the ice on skates, flinging brooms and arms and legs everywhere wreaking havoc on opponents. D's positioning was inspired as she learned the art of cherry picking, calling to her Dad "Daddy, here I am!" She never stopped swatting even after she hit the ice. Many proud parental moments. The other adults present made comments like "wow, your kids are resilient". What an understatement. L slept through most of it, except for the ride across the ice in her car seat. Sledding/snowboarding on the sled hill today with Dad produced a thumbs up from D who reported, "it was so funny when I almost ran into the pole." and a thumb partially down and partially up from E who said, "I was good on the small hill on my snowboard, but I didn't like when I fell off the sled and the snow was all over my skin so I cried."

Still pumping, but almost fell off of the wagon yesterday. I envisioned smashing the pump into tiny pieces and then lopping off my searing boobs. There is a statue in Cochabamba Bolivia dedicated to the brave women of that town who fought off the Europeans with frying pans and when that didn't work, they chopped off their breasts and threw them at the invaders. I forget exactly how this ended but it couldn't have been a good outcome for the women. It was either really brave or really stupid. I think it was probably both. Brave and stupid. That's a good way to describe what I am doing to myself. Flan, I am ready for the pep talk about all of the health benefits this is going to afford to me and L.

spaghetti

spaghetti
Originally uploaded by Mary Young.

L is really rolling now. I need to take some video of her awesome core strength and send it to an infomercial scouting agency. She does crunches all day long, thrusting her little legs to and fro, holding her toes in her hands, then balancing on only a small portion of her stomach while "swimming" across the carpet. She continues to be a sleeper but we still haven't learned to go to bed with her so that we actually get the sleep we need. The thrush/yeast is still hanging on for dear life, but my boob status is much more liveable. L has increased her consumption twofold, so the pumping continues.

D and E had two "cold days" this week due to -10 degree (without the wind chill factored in) weather. I pulled up to school on Monday and remarked, "hmmm, no one is here." I never even thought to check since there wasn't much snow. The kids were delighted. "Yippeee!!!!" they screamed from the back seat. Then I had to bring them back home and wake Jeff to tell him they were back and that I would be continuing on to work. The had inside recess all week before that and negative temps the previous weekend, so Jeff took the opportunity to create an indoor plyometrics course for them to work out a little energy. They couldn't get enough of it. Leaping, spinning, jumping onto mats, punching and kicking mats, hopping over blankets, wheelbarrows. Then they started timing themselves. Jeff has big plans for future courses.

D achieved her first good hygiene dinner choice reward and chose spaghetti. She even prepared it for the whole family and was so proud. E has yet to achieve his PB and J dinner, but is trying valiantly.

A Title for This Entry? Is This How I Title Each Entry?





OK, just enough time in the day to post some recent pictures. I am not lying, L smiles and giggles LOTS of times each day. When I try to take her picture though she gets the crazy, double chin, zombie red eye picture each time. The flash pisses her off. We have at least 100 pictures with this one expression. I even tried to imitate her to get her to smile, but that didn't work wither. I did manage to get a couple of her slightly smiling after realizing that with enough natural light the evil flash won't scare her into the dreaded Winston Churchill pose.

She found her feet today and is grabbing for her toes. Soon they will be in her mouth and one more part of her body will be covered with a nice sheen of slimy, dripping saliva. She is teething and loves that frozen ring for a late night snack when the teeth start a' hurtin'. She chews on that thing like a crazy woman, moaning and slurping with relief and ecstasy.

In other news, positive reinforcement technique just put into play in our household: when certain hygienic practices are maintained for a whole week, said child will get to choose whatever they want for dinner one night that week. No complete crap allowed. Both kids were ecstatic when the idea was proposed. E immediately decides that he'll be working for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (note: he eats this for at least one meal every day). The bonus is that he plans to eat this TWICE IN ONE DAY. D will be working for frozen ravioli. And to think I was afraid they'd actually want something that would take some effort to prepare. I'll be kicking myself if this is all it would have taken all these weeks for said hygiene practices to become habit.

Other parenting news, E brought home two pages from a coloring book from his music class at school and stated that the teacher said the his parents would have to sign the one page where he colored the composer's face blue. He says that the teacher told him that people's faces could not be blue and to re-do it, discuss his misstep with us and return the blue composer. E was pretty relieved when we started laughing hysterically and let him know how ridiculous this was to us. My God, has this woman never heard of the Smurfs? We might not have been as disrespectful if we had had more initial respect for the teacher whose curriculum includes coloring, watching movies with music in them (usually DIsney) and repeatedly singing the school anthem.