Tanner's Favorite Book

Tanner loves stories, and loves being read to, and he also likes routines, especially when it comes to books. He gets on a kick and wants the same 2 books read every day at nap time and at bed time (he'd love more, but I've had to limit him or I fall asleep before I finish reading!) Currently, and it has been this way for at least the last 3 weeks, his 2 favorites are "Frank was a Monster who Wanted to Dance" and "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." Like I said, we read these books at least twice a day, but sometimes more (I think the most I've read it is 5 times in the same day, and 3 of those were right in a row)!

Knowing Tanner, this should come as no surprise that this is his favorite page:



And every time we read it - even when we're on the third time of a triple-header - he points out that Frank's eye has a plug on it. And he's delighted by that fact every time. I worry that Tanner now thinks his eyeballs are connected with plugs and cords! Oh well, in his world that is a good thing!

School is . . . Cancelled?

Thursday morning Nate and I woke up to something we haven't experienced in the 6 years we've lived here in southern Arizona - our pipes had frozen and we had no water (of course it would happen on the morning we all needed to be ready and out the door by 7am!). So Nate headed out, armed with new-found knowledge (isn't the Internet wonderful?) and my blowdryer and had the water running in less than an hour. Kiersten had a great time telling me every 5 minutes that we didn't have water because the water had frozen in the pipes, and then proceeded to turn on every faucet she could find to prove her point. I think she was the only one disappointed when Nate got the water flowing again!

When it was time to take her to the bus stop that morning, Nate checked the weather, and we saw another shocker . . .I think it has, on rare occasions, gotten down to the mid- to upper-20's, but this is the coldest I've seen it, and before this week I'd never seen it down to the single digits once you factor in the wind chill. Kiersten couldn't understand why we wouldn't let her just wear a cardigan sweater and a fleece jacket to school that day. We were really grateful that Grandma Berrett had a very nice wool winter coat made for her - one we never thought she'd actually need!

It sounds like we got off easy - so many of our friends had pipes burst in the middle of the day, and one friend was without water for the entire day. One of the Raytheon plants out here - unfortunately not the one Nate works at - had a pipe burst and everyone got sent home earlyon Thursday and didn't have to work on Friday since there wasn't water in the building.

That evening we got the news that school was being canceled on Friday "due to weather related concerns and reasonable foreseeability of continued conditions." The part of the announcement that got me was, "Therefore, in the interest of student safety and minimizing the chance for disruption of the educational process and causing a stressful situation for families, we have determined that this course of action, although less than ideal, is the reasonable and prudent course of action. " Does the school board think that having Kiersten home ALL day so she and Tanner can fight ALL day is less stressful than having to go get her in the middle of the day if there is a problem?

And I remember when I was growing up making fun of places that would cancel school when there was just a dusting of snow on the ground, and now I live in a place that canceled school when there wasn't even any snow!

LOST!

In November we went to the dentist for our semi-annual cleaning. The hygienist noticed that one of Kiersten's bottom teeth was loose and told her to expect it to fall out sometime in January. It was barely loose at that point - it was still several weeks until she could wiggle it enough for anyone to notice, but all that mattered to Kiersten was that it was loose. Apparently they keep track at school of everyone who has lost a tooth and who hasn't, and Kiersten was so excited to be able to see the day when she could move from the "hasn't" list to the "has" list!

For the last couple of weeks it was so loose it held on by just a string or two. She could push it forward until it was practically laying down flat which completely grossed me out. So I was absolutely delighted when she came home from school to tell me that it had fallen out at school. Yeah, she lost her first tooth, and I didn't have to be grossed out. Besides, I think my drama queen handled the blood much better there than she would have at home!

That night she made sure to put it under her pillow so the tooth fairy could come and get it. She even did all she could to help the tooth fairy - she only slept on one pillow that night so it wouldn't be too hard for the tooth fairy to find it. Thankfully she was willing to put the tooth in a zip lock bag under her pillow, especially when I explained that it would be easier for the tooth fairy to find the bag than just the loose tooth.

I have to admit - her tooth sure looked a lot smaller than I remember my teeth being when I was her age and my baby teeth fell out!

Catching up - Halloween

So it has been forever since I've been good about posting much about our crazy life, so here goes my attempt to catch up. In the past I've really gotten in to Halloween and Kiersten and I talk for weeks about costumes and what we're going to do (and of course, how cute she and Tanner will be!). But this past year it just wasn't happening for me . . . I didn't want to do anything that would cost much or require a lot of time. I lucked out with Kiersten - she wanted to be Ro from Barbie's Island Princess, and her dance costume from last year was perfect for that. At first I wasn't going to add anything, but at the last minute I felt guilty (why I'm not really sure!), so I decided to make her some peacock wings to go with the costume which she loved.

(All lined up for the Kindergarten parade at school. It was a LONG parade - there are 10 classes!)

But Tanner . . . I had absolutely no idea what to do for the poor boy. I was trying to decide if it made me a bad mother if I didn't do anything. I was pretty sure at 2 he wouldn't care, but it would hamper my scrapbooking! Then one day it came to me - he is obsessed with plugs and outlets, so why not do something with that. After looking at a few pictures on line of different costumes, I came up with a plan I thought wouldn't cost much money or be too time consuming. I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. While Tanner loved it, and loved that we were telling him to carry around a plug, he never really wanted to wear his costume. Thankfully he put it on long enough to get a couple of pictures.

(Here he is, showing off how to "use" his costume!)

So, thankfully my delima pretty much solved itself and both kids loved their costumes (even if Tanner wouldn't wear it he still carries it around when he finds it telling everyone that it is his outlet!), and I have something to scrapbook!

Letter to Santa

The other day Kiersten saw a mailbox at our community clubhouse collecting letters to Santa. She came home and sat right down and wrote the following letter . . .
(Sorry about the folds - I couldn't sneak the letter away to scan it until after she'd folded up, put it in an envelope and addressed it. Good thing she hadn't actually mailed it yet or I might be a felon!)
(To Santa; From Kiersten Merry Christmas)

(Dear Santa, I love you. My mom said not to bring a lot of candy but please do. Merry Christmas. Love Kiersten.)

Just before Kiersten saw the mailbox I'd overheard Kiersten telling Tanner how great Santa is because he brings lots of candy. I suggested that I might write to Santa this year and ask him not to bring quite so much candy. This is apparently what Kiersten thought of my plan! :)

Sometimes she cracks me up! Now I'd better get the letter back in it's envelope and reseal it so she doesn't know it's been tampered with!

I So Wasn't Ready for This!

With Kiersten starting Kindergarten this year, there were a lot of things I was psyching myself up for . . . when it came down to it, those weren't the things that ended up causing me the most stress!

I usually ask Kiersten about her day as we walk home from the bus stop or drive home (if it's a day I've picked her up from school). A couple of weeks into the school year she starts telling me about a boy in her class that she and her friends call "Kissing Alex" because he tries to kiss the girls all the time. That sets me into a panic - she's in Kindergarten, for crying out loud! I did learn that he doesn't necessarily try to kiss them on the lips , usually it was on the arm or even their backpack - just whatever he could reach!

She also told me that when he would chase them around the playground at recess she and her friends would try and hide from him (good girl!). But she also admitted that if he wasn't chasing her around the playground that they would go looking for him, and sometimes, she admitted, she "peeked" in the boys bathroom. WHOA!!! We immediately had a big discussion about how that is not appropriate and how she needed to stop doing that right away. I also emailed the teacher and let her know what was going on and asked her to let me know if the peeking continued. ( How did the aids miss that?) I realize it was purely innocent on her part, and she and I had never had a discussion about how that's not an ok thing to do (it had never been an issue before), but I wanted it to stop right then! Thankfully I haven't heard anything about it since, so I think we're good there.

Anyway, a week or so later when I was asking about Alex (he's become one of my daily questions!) and if he was still trying to kiss her she gave me this look that said, "Mom, don't you know anything?" and said, "No, he's my boy-friend!" I'm not sure if this revelation was worse than the "peeking" in the boys bathroom one, but another one that completely blindsided me! After several clarifying questions, and more looks that said, "What a dumb question. Don't you know anything?" I learned that he "became" her boyfriend because she gave him a hug (or maybe it was that she hugged him back when he hugged her), and now that he's her boyfriend he doesn't try to kiss her anymore, but he still tries to kiss all the other girls. In that case, I asked if all the boys in her class could be her boyfriends. She just laughed - I don't think she thought I was serous!

Sadly (?) that relationship didn't last too long, and within a week or so she told me that she'd "lost" him as her boyfriend, but she might "get him back," as if it was the same thing as saying, "I haven't exactly decided what I'm going to do - I might go run errands today."

One of the girls in Kiersten's primary class recently told her mom, "Mom, Kiersten isn't shy any more." Apparently she's come out of her shell as school, because she still is pretty shy when I'm around, but I'm convinced it's all an act!

All I know is that I can't wait for her to discover that boys have cooties, and I hope it lasts until she's 21 at least!

What does Tanner do all day?

I've had several people ask me what Tanner does all day now that Kiersten is in school I thought this picture captured the essence of our days together pretty well . . .


He loves to collect everything in the house he can find with a cord and "plugs" them into the couch (we try to encourage him to plug things into the couch instead of pulling out the "childproof" outlet covers and really plugging things into the wall). Then he "reads" the time on the clock - somehow it's always "40-clock." He likes me to sit down on one of Kiersten's chairs while he does my hair with the curling iron (and sometimes he likes to do his own). He also likes to make me pancakes on the griddle (for that he needs the "flipper" (spatula/pancake flipper) and real plates from the kitchen). He also likes to take left over pancakes or a piece of bread out of the cupboard(he never asks, he just climbs up on the counter and helps himself to whatever he'd like) and put it in the waffle iron to make "wavvles."

I'm not sure how my blow dryer, the vacuum and the carpet cleaner didn't make it into the picture - they are every day staples.

And how do I spend my day? Why playing pretend with Tanner and then trying to get him to clean up his mess, of course! It's no wonder I'm exhausted every day. :)