Bo's Opinion Of Dub

My kids still think of me as a playmate, but I'm beginning to realize I'm not the "hero" I may have used to be. We were playing outside one day, and Bo wanted to move a huge rock over to their clubhouse. He asked me to help him move it, but I told him it was way too big and we wouldn't be able to move it ourselves.

Bo said, "That's ok. We'll just wait 'til Dub gets home, and he can move it for us."

It's so sweet I'm not even offended!!  :)

Which One???

Bo, who is 4 years old, sometimes has trouble buckling his seatbelt. He's in a booster seat, so it's a normal seatbelt, but he tends to yank it, which locks it up, making it impossible to pull.

And he whines about it: "I can't get it to work!! Ugh!! Ugh!!" (half-hearted attempts)

Jason and I get so frustrated about it because normally he doesn't inform us that he's having trouble until after we've started driving off.

Last night after church my "motivation" for him to get it done included this: "Alright, Bo! Which one of us do you want to go to jail?? Me or Daddy? Because if you don't buckle RIGHT NOW, a police man will pull us over and take one of us to jail! So which one, me or Daddy???"

He chose Daddy.
Yay! :)  Obviously I really wasn't expecting him to actually choose. Of course, he chose correctly!
I guess he knows I don't need to get into any more trouble, right??

The Most Trouble I've Ever Been In My Whole Life

I will tell you up front that we're all home now and everything is ok...mostly. So keep that in mind.

Our precious neighbors needed our help yesterday morning ~ Mrs. D is in Atlanta for the weekend, and Mr. D had to be at work by 6am, so we helped by letting their girls come to our house at 5:00, then we took everybody to school. The time of day messed with my mind, since we usually don't have almost two hours to fill when getting ready for school. Well, before I knew it, it was "already" (haha) 6:45, and we wanted to leave for school BY 6:50. Hey, did you know that we have a baby (toddler, really)??? I COMPLETELY forgot about the sweet sleeping angel upstairs in her bed until 6:45. I was hustling everyone around getting backpacks, shoes, and jackets on, then I had to RUN upstairs and grab Little Lady out of her slumber. At least I changed her diaper, thank goodness for that.

Of course she didn't have time for breakfast, but I did grab a banana for her on the way out the door; we'd be home in 20 minutes or so anyway, and that would help keep her from screaming.

We got to school just fine, and then Bo, LL, and I went to take our books by the library. No big deal, right? Just chuck them in the book return and we're done. It should have been that easy, anyway. At the school, there had been a light on our dashboard indicating trouble with one of the tires. By the time we got to the library, the light was also blinking and beeping. So I got out to look, and sure enough the tire was F-L-A-T. I am completely helpless when changing a tire. Or at least, I've never done it, although I understand the concept (but who can think clearly when they have two little kids in the backseat asking what's going on and/or starting to fuss because she hasn't had a real breakfast yet???). So I did the next best thing ~ I called Jason at work. He was kind of irritated because I had called right in the middle of his teaching, but he told me to call AllState since we have some kind of roadside assistance deal.

The guy came with his big tow truck to help, thank goodness. But not thank goodness, we had to remove both of the car seats from the back seat (the third row) so that he could get to the spare tire. It was turning into quite a hassle. The man told me that there was some part on the wheel (I have no idea what...the kanooder valve???) that looked like it was corroding, so I bent down to look. Bo ran into my backside at that exact moment and I lost my balance...and use your imagination HOW, but SOMEHOW my hair got caught in SOMETHING down in the wheel area. And it would NOT come loose. The man tried to help, but I was holding on to LL, making her fuss, and since the situation was not getting better, I told him to just cut it free. That left a HUGE 4-inch CHUNK of my hair (4 inches from the BOTTOM) cut out. I was near tears, but fortunately I did not give in and cry.

I HAD to get my hair cut to make it even since we were supposed to be running errands all morning. I didn't know what would be open at 7:30 in the morning, but I drove by SuperCuts, and fortunately they were open and not busy at all. Bo and LL were mostly ok while we were there, but LL was getting more and more disgruntled about not having any breakfast. In hindsight, I should have stopped somewhere to get her something, but I kept thinking we'd be going right home. :(

Now I have a 4-inch shorter haircut, which isn't so bad. But on the way home from SuperCuts, I was feeling some better about the insane morning. I decided to text Jason an update (some of it, anyway). Did you know that texting while driving is ILLEGAL in Tennessee??? Oh, and I wasn't exactly going the suggested speed, per say. And then there was the traffic light that I could have sworn was yellow when I went under it. AND the police car that was in the Publix parking lot as I whizzed by, that I did not notice until it was way too late. He pulled me over. Of course.

I actually did cry then, not to get out of trouble, but because I felt like I was due a few tears. I tried to explain what we'd been through, but he was not relenting. Part of the problem (probably) was that LL's car seat had been kind of rigged back in, since I also don't know how to install them correctly (I was planning to have Jason call on his planning period and walk me through it).  He asked me to step out of the car, but I wouldn't. I had two babies in the car...I wasn't going to get out and leave them in there alone! Well, the cop (SO SORRY if that's disrespectful, but I'm kind of mad at them right now) called for backup, and they ended up taking me into custody and took me downtown to the police station (we happened to be in Davidson County at this time, as luck would have it) in the back of the patrol car.

The other cop had stayed with Bo and LL until Jason could get there (if he thought he was irritated before...). Then they were allowed to come and get me after the "mandatory" two hours holding time.

The bad news is...I am not allowed to drive for two weeks.
The good news is...none of it is going on my record.

Especially since this was all made up.
April Fool's, y'all!

I Love Pictures!

McDISASTER!

This has been Dub's Spring Break. He gets two weeks, only one of which corresponds with Jason's Spring Break. Last week we did all kinds of cool little "family" things, including taking another trip through Mammoth Cave. But this week we've kind of struggled with how to occupy our time. Playing outside is always a great option...when the weather cooperates, that is, but even that can wear on their nerves when they only have each other to play with. If I had said that out loud, you might have heard all the sarcasm dripping from those words. We tell Dub and Bo all the time, "We had more than one kid so you would be playmates! Now be quiet and go be playmates! Nicely!"

Since today was cold, or at least colder than we've been spoiled to these past few days, I decided to take the kids to an indoor playground. The most convenient one?...the McDonald's down the road. I really thought I had blogged about this McDonald's before, but I guess I haven't because I couldn't find it. Y'all, out of all the "classy" McDonald'ses in the world, this one takes the cake. Something goes wrong every time we visit there. It varies as to type and severity of misfortune, but we have an extremely bad rapport with this specific McDonald's.

Today was no exception.

Little Lady is 20 months old today; I know the signs on the PlayLand say it's for ages 3 to 12, but we were the only ones there at the time (we went before the lunch rush) and she's pretty good at following her brothers around and copying them...so I let her go up by herself.

Here's Dub and Bo trying to coax Little Lady down the slide (the EASY way)

Here's what happened as a result of Dub and Bo's efforts.... Need a close-up?

They pulled her arm out of her sleeve!!!
Oh, and did I mention that she had a messy diaper???
Well, it was time for a search-and-rescue. Those signs also say that parents can play in the PlayLand too, although they probably were thinking of Munchkin Land Mommies when they wrote that, which definitely doesn't describe me. Fortunately I don't have any pictures of the rescue. Unfortunately, the lunch rush was just beginning - it seemed like the entire world had decided to have lunch at this particular McDonald's, including construction workers from apparently all over Tennessee, maybe even the entire Southeast. Oh yes, my friends, I had quite an audience. Little Lady didn't want to cooperate, even though I was the one helping her this time; she was fine with coming on down out of there, she just wanted me to carry her. I can't imagine that it was a pretty sight. I tried to make myself as graceful as possible (snort!), knowing that I will most likely be on youtube sometime soon, but I was wearing my low-rise jeans which decided to ride reeeeeeaaaaalllllyy low during my performance. NO, I DID NOT MOON ANYBODY!!! But I did have to adjust them once I got out so that they wouldn't fall completely to the floor. I thought about taking a bow since I knew everyone was watching, but I decided to try to play it off like I had no idea anyone was looking.

We left pretty soon after that.

On the horror-scale of this McDonald's, it was probably around an 8.5. Maybe some other time I'll go into some of our other experiences, but not today. I'm just going to sit here and check youtube every few minutes for my 5 minutes of fame....

Mammoth Cave

Our family took a trip this weekend. Actually it wasn't a trip, it was an adventure. :)  We drove an hour and a half to Cave City, Kentucky, to visit Mammoth Cave.  W-O-W!!!

Let me stop right here and just disclose that I am an EXTREME claustrophobic. Two years or so ago I had to have an MRI; I was TERRIFIED, and I was in the "open" (yeah, right) MRI machine. I had to have a Valium just to be able to do that. So why in the world am I agreeing to go inside a cave for TWO HOURS on a 1-mile hike???



The entrance to the cave on our tour (not the original entrance)



Tight spaces...narrow staircase...deep breaths, Misty...deep breaths...



Down 280 stairs (no joke), 250 feet below ground



Little Cave Men





Dub and Bo were fearless, of course




W-O-W, was it worth it! Even with all the tight spaces.



Yes, Little Lady came also ~ she did great!

The bus ride was one of the best parts, according to Dub and Bo

We stopped for a snack, then headed home. Little Lady didn't make it (she didn't even finish her sucker first!).

I'm so glad we went. It was awesome! We even plan to go back, maybe over Spring Break.

Love, The Kirby Adventurers

One Of Those Mornings

What a wonderful, lazy morning. Jason had to go to work, of course (which is weird anyway because we've had so much snow he hasn't had a full week of school since early December), but the boys and I were laying around, watching cartoons, thinking about what we might do to pass the time today. Little Lady was even still asleep, and I was going to let her sleep since she wouldn't have to take such an early nap because we wouldn't have to pick Dub up from school today.

We lazily came downstairs at about 8:00, a full two hours after Dub and Bo usually get up on a school day. Dub started playing on the computer, Bo started playing with cars, LL was still sleeping...and I happened checked my cell phone.  Our next-door neighbors, who carpool with us to school ~ they take the kids to school, and we bring them all home ~ had texted me at 6:52 this morning, asking if Dub was going to school today. What?, I thought. There's no school today! So I texted her back. Surely she had discovered that she was mistaken, there actually wasn't school today. I even felt kind of bad for her because she has a full-time job and would have to figure out what to do with her kids since she hadn't realized there was no school today.

Oh, no, she replied, there IS school today! They had come to get Dub at about 6:50, just like normal, even rang the doorbell and beat on the door, and when we didn't answer, she texted me but eventually went on without him. We never even heard any of that. We were too busy laughing at Curious George, I guess.

I still thought something must be wrong because I was so sure there was no school today.  I looked at the only school calendar I had handy, the February lunch menu. Sure enough, it looked like today was a normal school day. My head started to spin. It just couldn't be right...it was supposed to be parent/teacher conference day! But according to that calendar, the conferences were scheduled for this coming Tuesday. Still thinking that I was right and the world was wrong, I tried to find the paper that told when our conference appointment time would be ~ and even it actually had the nerve to have Tuesday's date on it.

Coming into the realization that maybe I was the one who should be pitied, I told Dub what was going on. Talk about devastation. That poor boy was the saddest little guy in the world at that moment. He actually cried, and I don't mean crocodile tears or a whiny cry, a genuine heartbroken cry. I felt so terrible for building up our day of non-stop play, and playgrounds, and bicycles, only to have to tell him "Never mind, you have to go to school." I was heartbroken for him.

So he got ready, although the entire time he was kind of begging me to let him stay home because he didn't want to go. "Well, I'm sorry Dub, but you have to go. Even Daddy doesn't want to go to work sometimes, but he has to." I had to grab LL out of bed, and give her a half a banana to eat on the way, still in her nightgown. She wasn't phased in the least, by the way. Dub was "only" an hour and a half late to school; our excuse note said the truth ~ that we really thought there was no school today. Jason thinks I just assumed there would be snow days today and tomorrow, which actually also makes sense.

To kind of atone for my big, fat mess-up, I promised to come eat lunch with him today. At least that put a smile on his face. By the time we saw him at lunch, he was over his disappointment that today was not a free-day. He was his usual goofy self, thank goodness.

I still have no idea why in the world I thought there was no school today. And I still feel so disoriented. I think there really actually was no school today, it's just an early April Fool's Day joke. An elaborate one, granted, but a reeeeaaallllly good one! Way to go, MJ Elementary! You got us good! I'll be thinking of a good one to play on them....

Let It Stop! Let It Stop! Let It Stop!

Can you believe how much snow we've gotten this winter???  Metro Schools, where Jason works, had four built-in snow days.... Today marks snow day number 11. At least I think so, I really quit counting weeks ago.  Dub gets so frustrated whenever he hears that school is out because apparently he's heard that these days will be made up in the summer, and he's worried that he won't have much of a summer break (me too, actually).  We've had snow cream so often that it's starting to be as annoying as vegetables at supper time: "No, you cannot have a banana until you finish your snow cream!" Well, that's not true, but we've had it a LOT.

And we used to have a snow day "tradition" ~ whenever snow would be forecasted, when everyone else would hit the grocery stores to stock up on milk, bread, etc., we would go and get chips and ingredients for Ro-tel dip, or some other mutually agreed-upon treat like that.

This year, Jason just hasn't been in the mood for this tradition. In the beginning of this winter (or actually, the end of the fall when all this snow started), whenever I mentioned it, he would just say, "Nahhhhh...." Now I don't even mention it.  It was bothering me at first, like he was sending subliminal messages that I really don't need to eat that stuff. But today I got to thinking, if we'd had Ro-tel dip every snow day this year....

This would be me!!!

Unfortunately, it almost is anyway, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Here's our recipe for snow cream, in case you were wondering.

About 6-8 cups of FRESH, WHITE snow :)

1 can sweetened condensed milk (like Eagle Brand)

1 tsp vanilla flavoring

Mix it up, divide it up, eat it up...it's so good! Oh, and you can add chocolate syrup if you'd rather have chocolate. We're a vanilla family. :)

Y'all have fun with your snow, whatever way you choose to enjoy it! And stay WELL!!!

"One-Zero-Zero"

Oh wow, has it really been more than a month? It's been a busy month, I guess! All those snow days and Christmas holidays...wow, I've really been working super hard.  :)

I write in a journal every night because I want to remember the fun parts about raising all these little crazy monkeys. I thought about making a post about some of the highlights from that journal, but Bo and I just had the funniest miscommunication, so Bam!- just like that, I have a new post! Yippee!!

Bo is 4 years old, and I still make him take a nap every day. He does not want to take a nap, and honestly, he doesn't always need the sleep. But trust me, he needs to have a nap time every day. Actually, I'm the one who needs the break, but it's easier and safer to make him stay in his room than it is for me to lock myself in my room. And since Little Lady takes a nap, Bo goes when she goes. Serenity, at least for a little while.

Since Dub is a car rider after school, we've had to adjust our nap schedule to work in going to pick him up. Bo and LL eat their lunch at about 10:00 (YES, I am aware how early that is! But it's not so bad since they get up at 6am), then they go to nap around 11. We have to pick Dub up at 2:00, so that's plenty of time for a good 2 hr. nap, plus and hour or so of wake-up time. LL usually sleeps til almost 2, anyway.

So anyway, since Bo is learning his numbers and has the numbers "1" and "0" down pat, I tell him what to look for on his digital clock. The problem is, it's 11:00 when I put him down...

Me: When the clock says, "One-zero-zero" (1:00), then you can get up.
Bo: But it says "one-zero-zero" now.
Me: No, it says "one-ONE-zero-zero," not "one-zero-zero."  There has to be only ONE "one."
Bo: There has to be "one-one?"
Me: There has to be only one...."one." Not, "one-one," but only one..."one."
Bo: Mom, it says "One-one-zero-zero!" Can I get up now?
Me: Not until there's a "one" by itself, and then "zero-zero" after it.
Bo: Oh, so it has to say, "one-zero-zero," but only one "one."

Yes!!!  Wow, it felt like that conversation went on longer when we were actually having it...I guess my mind compresses things.

What's so funny is, we go over this almost every day. Not quite the same dialogue, but the same explanation.

My little Space Cadet. :)