They Call Him Sticky Fingers

Yup ... Kadin - a.k.a. sticky fingers.

I think I made a fatal error. I recently attended the BEST parent-teacher conference EVER! And not only did I attend the best parent-teacher conference EVER ... did I mention EVER (even though this was my very first one, I can't imagine it getting any better than it was) I then proceeded to go home and let Kadin now what a great kid he was. I gushed ... bad. I praised and kissed and hugged and cried - yes I actually cried.

I think all the praise went to Kadin's head - or I possibly scared the crap out of him. I think he went to school the next several days and caved under all the pressure of being the smart boy, the good boy, the boy with great manners.

We were at the Christmas Parade on Friday night. Brian absolutely loves this time of year. I think he waits all year long for this parade ... the official kick-off to his favorite season of all. He was more than pumped for this event.

Well the kids were trying their hardest to spoil Brian's fun. They were just out of sorts. They were hyper, crabby and their mood was quickly transferring to our own and suddenly the joy of attending the Christmas Parade was just turning into a chore.

The parade finally starts after listening to Kadin ask 80 times if it was going to start yet. We did have to wait about 20 minutes GASP for it to begin. Kadin pulled out some money from his pants pocket. He started muttering something about going inside after the parade and buying something with this money.

Now, first clue that something is amiss ... my children do not regularly carry money with them - ever. So of course Brian begins questioning him as to how and why he has come to have this money.

Turns out ... he took it ... from another kid's mailbox at school. Yup - Kadin is officially a thief. I was shocked. I never thought Kadin would steal ... I mean what could he possibly want that he doesn't already have???

So, it appears I have officially entered the world of learning how to punish my child for making quite a large mistake. And if I were a single parent ... I would be screwed. I honestly didn't know what to do ... What do you say to him??? I didn't want to come down too hard. So I did what any good mother would do ... I let Dad handle it! And he did a great job ... thanks Babe!

So, Kadin is not allowed to watch any television for 1 week and he has already written his apology to the student whose money he took. I'm pretty sure he feels really bad about what happened ... or at least he's a good enough actor that he has Brian and I snowed.

I guess only time will tell ...

I Gave In - The Tree Is Up

At least one of them anyway. Last year I finally convinced Brian to get an artificial tree. So as a compromise, I get to put my nice clean fake tree downstairs in our family room and he gets his messy stinky real tree upstairs in the living room.

We went to Menard's the other day to look at all the Christmas stuff. It was great ... the kids loved it and ever since I've had this itch to get all the Christmas stuff out. Today I finally caved ... well partially caved. I put up the artificial tree ... and got two little trees for the kids to decorate for their rooms.

I am beat. It was just me and the kids today and I feel like this is the first time I've sat down all day. Between running errands and putting up the tree(s) and playing games I'm pooped. I just want to curl up in a blanket and fall asleep to the soft glow of my freshly decorated tree. Aaahhh ... there is a blanket calling my name ...

Making A Mental List

There are so many things floating around in my head. A list of things that I don't want to forget. It seems these days my children are growing up in the blink of an eye - Kadin is working on his second big boy tooth already! Didn't he just lose one for crying out loud?

So here it goes .... stuff I need to write down so when I'm 80 and my grandchildren ask me when their parents stopped peeing the bed ... I can look back at this blog and tell them.

1. Bella is obsessed with band aids. At any given time she is wearing at least three of them ... on "boo-boo's" that only she can see. I've even caught her putting one on and five minutes later trying desperately to rip it off. When we go to Sam's Club we buy the ginormous box of 10,000 and it lasts us two weeks. We seriously need to look into stock in band aids - maybe I could retire off the earnings.

2. Kadin's obsession is numbers. His new thing is counting by two's and ten's and five's. He counts ALL. THE. TIME. I seriously mean all the time. Just tonight we were eating dinner and he was staring at his place mat. "Kadin - what are you doing?" He replied that he was counting the dots on Patrick "by two's". (he has a Sponge Bob place mat) OBSESSED!!! He reminds me of Rain Man. The kid is like a savant with numbers. And it's not just counting ... he's constantly asking what 8+4 equals or what 9+3 equals. I'm to the point where I want to hand him the damn calculator and tell him to figure it out on his own.

3. My weird children have never slept under their comforters on their beds. They've always slept on top of the comforter with a fuzzy blanket. Just recently we've convinced them to try sleeping under their comforters ... since it's getting chilly in the house. They love it. It is now an officially exciting thing to sleep under their comforters instead of using just their fuzzy blankets. So why am I telling you this? Because Kadin continuously calls it a comfortable. So, we'll be getting ready for bed and he'll say - "Mom ... can I sleep under my comfortable tonight?" It just melts my heart ... he's obviously not as obsessed with English as he is with Math.

4. We were eating dinner at my parents house a few nights ago. We were having steak on the grill ... the meal we always eat at my parents house because no one makes steak like my dad. I hope my kids remember how we always like to have Grandpa's steak on the grill .... hmmm ... so good! So we're at the table and we were discussing a fillet mignon that my dad had grilled. Kadin - the sponge - was trying to figure out what we were saying ... "Who's eating a flaming onion?!?" he blurts out. We were speechless ...

5. Bella is my sensitive child. Her feelings are easily hurt ... her ego easily bruised. If she gets in trouble and you yell at her ... she will look at you stone-faced and then slowly her little mouth starts to turn down and her face crumples. Then she will cry and cry like you just crushed her soul. Those crocodile tears run like the kitchen faucet and although I try to be stern ... that little sullen face gets me every time. Kadin is the exact opposite of sensitive. He is strong-willed and short-tempered. If you yell at him ... he yells back. Or clenches his fists like he's going to pound the daylights out of you. Just today he was frustrated with this game ... so in true Kadin fashion he threw it across the room. Brian went over and had a few words with him ... when Brian turned to leave the room ... Kadin proceeded to make faces at him behind his back. He's only five ... and already he's mocking us. I'm so looking forward to the teenage years ...

6. In kindergarten they sing. A LOT. I'm sure it gets the kids interested in learning things. There are songs about the days of the week, songs about the months of the year, songs about the weather, songs about the letters of the alphabet, songs about songs about letters. BLAH!!! There are more freaking songs than I can keep track of ... and you know what? As obsessed as Kadin is about numbers ... he's equally as obsessed about those damn songs. He sings them A LOT. I've reached the point where I truly can't stand these horrible songs anymore. And tell me this kindergarten curriculum creators ... why is every freaking song to the tune of "Jingle Bells"???? Hmmm ... there are plenty of other songs out there. Seriously. Oh wait ... he does have a song to the tune of "Reuben, Reuben". Yeah - I didn't know that song either ... so I had to look it up on the internet ... great idea!!!

7. Aahhh ... the joys of school-aged children. When they come home saying things that you know you've never said in your home. I still get Kadin dressed every morning. I know I should make him dress himself ... I mean his sister does and she's only three. So I'm a bad mom ... so I'm getting him dressed one morning and Kadin had to change his underwear. I'm going to put his underwear on and he turns to me and says "Mom! Don't look at my balls!" Yes, balls. I've never referred to Kadin's testicles as balls ... ever. So I asked him where he heard that word from. He said Parker, his friend at school, calls them balls. I told Brian that story because it cracked me up ... his reaction ... "I understand now why people home-school." HA!

8. Bella ran past me in the hallway holding her butt. I asked her where she was going in such a hurry ... "I have to take a dump really bad!" I wished I hadn't asked.

9. Bella LOVES to color. I think she loves coloring almost as much as she loves playing Barbie's. In fact she colors so much ... I think she might be better at it than Kadin. And I love her coloring because she uses colors that don't make any sense. She'll color a person's face orange and one arm purple, the other arm green. She'll ask me if I like it ... I say "That is so beautiful!" When I was small my grandma told me that I could color people whatever color I wanted. When I got to kindergarten I would color my people with purple and green hair. The teacher would give me frowny faces because that wasn't an acceptable hair color. To this day I still think that lady was wrong ... so Bella ... color on girlfriend! You want your person to have red skin (because it's a sunburn - as she would say) ... you go for it!

10. I'm pretty sure my kids genuinely love each other. That makes me feel good. When I see Bella bring home two cookies because she wanted to give one to Kadin or when Kadin saves some of his popcorn from school so Bella could have some ... those are the moments when I know we've done something right. I'm not going to dwell on the times that Bella has screamed for Kadin to leave her room ... or told him that he can't play with her. There's no need to mention how many times I hear Kadin yell "Bewwa ... NO!" Or how many times he corrects her when she says something wrong or doesn't do something right. Nope ... right now I'll just focus on the times when they wake up early in the morning and I can hear Bella run into Kadin's room to ask him if he wants to play. They sit in each other's room and play ... just play together ... no fighting or arguing ... just playing. It's awesome.

So, there you have it. A giant data-dump of my brain. Phew ... who knew there'd be only 10 things??