Caring Kids and Pups

It's not that unusual for kids to be afraid of dogs, but we have a dog who is afraid of kids. Max is, and has always been, terrified of our kids. Thankfully, he mostly manages this well by simply running away from them, and he has a bed in the living room and a bed in our bedroom that are his safe places to "hide" from the kids.

Despite his fear of the kids, he still takes good care of them. A few weeks ago, the kids all came down with a stomach bug. Leon seemed to have a particularly nasty case, and he spent most of one night running to the bathroom. On the bright side, Leon is now big enough that he runs straight to the bathroom when he's not feeling well, and he doesn't come get me first. Knowing this, I slept on the couch that night, so I could run in and take care of him if I heard him get up. Unfortunately, this had been going on with the other kids for several days, and I was pretty groggy and slow moving. That didn't stop Max though. Every time Leon got up, Max ran to the bathroom and stood guard in the doorway, protecting Leon until I got there.

Last Sunday night, Max woke me up in the middle of the night. I figured he wanted to go outside because the backyard squirrel brigade was planning another uprising, or some other matter of importance to a dog at 1am. No, that wasn't it. Then (I was groggy again), I realized that Mike was having a nightmare and talking really loudly in his sleep. Max wanted me to go take care of Mike. Max waited dutifully by the boys' bedroom door while I calmed down Mike, and it was an exhausted Max that slumped back onto his bed when I left the boys' room.

My kids, both the biological children and the adopted furry children, are all pretty good at taking care of each other. I definitely saw it in the human kids this weekend. For years, Ree had no interest in her siblings, especially her little sister who steals her toys and hogs Mom and keeps her up all night. But lately, Ree has had a lot more patience for Natalia, and I've even seen them playing together. On Saturday, I took the girls to the fall festival at the big kids' school. Ree played one game just because the prize was a bracelet she already had. She wanted to win another one (which she did) to give to Natalia so they could have matching bracelets to wear.

While the girls were at the fall festival, the boys were at a birthday party at a place like Chuck E. Cheese with all sorts of games that you can play and win tickets. Leon is the luckiest kid ever. The first time he went there for a party, he won the jackpot on one of the games. Something like 500 tickets. Saturday was his second trip there, and he won another jackpot. But Leon never even considered what he wanted. He just turned to Mike and began negotiating what they would get.

Adding to Leon's crazy luck, on Sunday, the boys happened to go there AGAIN for another birthday party. We typically go to about 3 birthday parties a year, so that was kinda nuts anyway. While he was there, Leon won a 1,000 ticket jackpot on a game. The next game he went to, he scored some points, and then won another jackpot. He got good prizes to share with his brother that day!

Halloween

Back when we lived in Athens, and way before we had children, we used to host an annual New Year's party. It was the one time of year one group of our friends all got together. Most of our guests came from out of town and stayed at our house, and the party usually lasted until at least January 2nd. These days things are much tamer and kiddo centered. Yet, despite that, there are many aspects of our annual trick or treat party that are rather similar to the old New Year's parties.

We start by just inviting a few good friends. There are many great things about good friends, and one of them is they never care that our house looks like real life.These are the kind of friends who will step over the giant dog fur balls that pile up and who will happily cart the huge pile of clean laundry from the couch to our bedroom so they have a place to sit. So we could completely get away with not cleaning. But the irony is this is the one group of friends that we actually want to clean the house for. For our old New Year's parties, we were often in the middle of a last minute power-clean when the guests started arriving, and I have distinct memories of the vacuum being the focal point of our living room for the first hour of our party one year. This year's Halloween gathering was no different. Despite having to leave for the boys' soccer game at 10:00, I still managed to sweep and mop most of the house on Saturday morning before we went. (And I folded and put away the several loads of laundry that were on the couch and even cleaned up the dishes in the kitchen from dinner the night before and from breakfast. Who said nothing good came out of the kids getting me up at 5:30 every day?)

We were always at the store at the last minute buying food and drinks for our New Year's parties. This year was no different, and after the soccer game the whole family made a trip to Costco to stock up on food. We came home, I put that away, and then I headed back to Walmart to get a few more things. And oddly, the food is about the same. For the trick-or-treat party, I served a fancy menu of chicken nuggets and french fries. I usually prepared about the same for drunk people.

On New Year's Eve we would stay at our house until midnight and then head uptown to the bars. Because of this, the women, at least, would dress up for the occasion. (No comments on the male attire!) Of course, Halloween is no different. You gotta dress up! Even the grown ups dress up to take the kids out. This year Ree was a girl from the 80s, Leon was Luigi from Super Mario Brothers, Michael was Michelangelo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Natalia was Anna from Frozen.

Finally, on New Year's Eve, after all that fun, somewhat always passed out in a crazy place. This year Halloween was no different.

Atlanta Trip

Yesterday the kids headed back to school after fall break. For once, I was really happy for them to be going back to school. It's not that I was trying to get rid of them (really!), we just need to get back on schedule. It was a fun break, but it was crazy!

The first week we headed to Atlanta. We had tried planning trips to two other places, and the plans just weren't working. Then we realized that a long weekend in Atlanta would work well with our schedule and our budget. As a bonus, when we mentioned to my best friend's parents that we were heading there, they invited us to stay with them in Atlanta. We had a great time, and it was the perfect mix of fun activities and relaxing. It was exactly what we needed.

The kids had very few requests for the trip, so we tried to accommodate them. They wanted a variety pack of the little boxes of junk food cereal. (My mom always got them for us on car trips growing up, and that tradition lives on with my kids.) The boys wanted to go to Legoland. We couldn't quite fulfill that request, but we did make it to the Lego Discovery Center. They loved it. Ree wanted to go to an American Girl flagship store. Again, we couldn't quite accommodate, but we at least went to American Girl regular store in Atlanta. She really liked it. Natalia loved it. The mall with the American Girl store also had a Lego store, a traveling Lego exhibit with national monuments built to Lego scale, a carousel, and a food court with a Moe's. I am pretty sure that trip to the mall was the real highlight of the trip.

The kids also insisted on staying at a hotel, at least for one night. It was another one of those things that took several tries to find a plan that would actually work, but we ended up staying in Newberry, SC for the night. As it turns out, we were practically the only ones staying in Newberry, SC for the night, so we were able to score an amazing deal on a room at a Holiday Inn Express with an indoor pool. We had the run of the pool and the hot tub in the evening and again in the morning. In between the kids zoned out and enjoyed watching all the "forbidden" shows on Cartoon Network and we got more than our money's worth out of the breakfast buffet.

We got home on Thursday, October 1, right before The Big Rains came. The heavy rain started the next day. We were grateful that we only drove in light to moderate rain, and we were really glad we got home when we did once we found out the section of interstate we drove on  washed away that weekend.

Pumpkins

Normally, I love fall. I love all four seasons, and I love the change of seasons. But this year, I haven't been very excited about fall. I think I still want to squeeze in more summer!

That hasn't stopped us from doing fall activities, though. One of our favorites is our annual pumpkin painting. I'm not quite sure how it came to be, but for the past few years in lieu of carving a pumpkin, the kids have each painted their own little pumpkin. They even have a favorite pumpkin patch they like to go to, and they know to look for the "pie pumpkins." 

Over fall break we went to Stone Mountain near Atlanta, and they had pumpkins painted like all kinds of characters - Star Wars, Frozen, and lots and lots of Minions. Leon must have been inspired, because as we were planning our painting this year he said, "I'm going to take it up a notch. Each year I've just painted a design, but this year I'm going to paint a face."

After buying out most of the craft paint at Walmart, the kids spent last Sunday afternoon engaged in some serious pumpkin painting. The pumpkins turned out cute, even if they weren't quite as fancy as the ones at Stone Mountain. 

Oh, and we managed to get a beach trip in this Sunday. I realized it was the first time I felt sand between my toes since we had friends visit in mid-September. It was wonderful. And now I'm almost ready for fall...

Kure Beach

Always looking for different and inexpensive things to do, last Saturday we headed to Kure Beach to check out a kids' music fest sponsored by the library.

Kure Beach is only about 20 miles from our house. It did not occur to us until we were driving, but that means it is about a 40 minute ride. With the Master Complainer.

If it wasn't so annoying, I would give Natalia credit for truly taking complaining to a new level. Aside from running errands, that child will start complaining the minute she gets in the car, and she won't stop until we reach our destination. She has actually complained all the way from our house to Ohio. Continuously. My throat gets a little achy just thinking about it.

Impressively, after complaining the whole way there, she managed to still complain while we were in Kure Beach. Thankfully, despite Natalia's best efforts at being miserable, everyone else had fun. They made crafts, got fake tattoos, got crazy color hair, played on a new-to-them playground, danced with bubble machines, and even listened to some of the music from the festival.

We stuck around the festival for awhile, but then decided to explore since aside to going to one beach access area in Kure Beach for my brother and sister-in-law's wedding, we've never been there. And parking was free (yippee!) so we were in no rush. (Aside from Natalia being STARVING, of course, despite breakfast before we went and snacks while we were there.)

Everyone liked the fish markers on the ground and on the benches.

We took a quick walk on the beach just so everyone could say they did it.

Then we checked out the bait shop and walked out on the pier. I liked this sign at the entrance.

It was the first time we've ever taken the kids on a pier, and I was nervous. Thankfully, they were even more nervous than me, and then insisted on walking EXACTLY in the middle of the pier where they were as far from the edges as possible. They enjoyed meeting this very friendly pelican.

Everyone enjoyed seeing the shore from the other side, too.

We then headed back inside where they "played" video games and foosball.

After leaving the bait shop, we checked out the little boardwalk, and the kids swooned over the super-fancy Hi-Tech Arcade. (It doesn't take much.)

We stopped for lunch at a favorite restaurant in Carolina Beach on the way back. And although she may claim otherwise, I think even Natalia actually enjoyed the day.

Talia

Natalia hasn't slept much over the past week. As in, even less than usual. She has been finally passing out between 9 and 10pm, she wakes up between 5 and 6am, and she doesn't always sleep all night. And, of course, she rarely naps. It's been fun. We assumed that she was just having a tough time with her siblings returning to school after three weeks off for spring break, but she provides a different explanation. "My body is still 'regular' but my brain is nocturnal." Well, not much we can do about a nocturnal brain.

In other fun Natalia news, she has been obsessed with how babies are made. Our other kids have always been okay with a generic explanation along the lines of when moms and dads are grown up, they can have babies when they are ready. With Ree we had to get into the details of how babies make their entrance into the world, and after marveling at the wonder of it, she was done asking questions. Not Natalia. This line of questioning will stop for awhile, but just this morning while I was working out to a fitness DVD, she choose to spend more than half the workout painstakingly asking me as though I was a complete idiot, "But, MOM! How does a baby get INSIDE your belly???"

There was also this evening's existential crisis. During dinner Natalia asked if everyone dies. We simply said, yes, all living things die. Suddenly faced with her own mortality, she then spent two hours lamenting, "But I don't want to die!" We have no idea where this is coming from. She doesn't know anyone who has died, she's never been to a funeral, and she has recently seen her two great-grandmothers who are 90 and 94. As this went on and on and on, and it became clear that there was no way to reason with her, I alternated between sympathy, frustration, and amusement. Thankfully, she was finally distracted by multiple flavors of Goldfish crackers for snack. (Thank you, Harris Teeter BOGO sale.)

At bedtime tonight, I was prepared for another round of questioning either about babies or death. Nope. Just the usual stalling. Thankfully, about 30 minutes after I tucked her (and after checking in with me 7 or 8 times) she simply announced, "My brain is no longer nocturnal." I congratulated her, she headed back to bed, and she went to sleep.

Phew.

Palindromes

In case I had forgotten what wonderfully nerdy offspring we produced, I got a nice reminder this morning. Easter morning is a sugar free-for-all in our house. In fact, Halloween and it's relatively controlled sugar consumption (at least for us) pales in comparison. The candy filled eggs start early, and today we followed them with doughnuts. Wheeeeee!

As they were finishing breakfast, I could clearly see the kids' blood sugar spiking based on the speed with which they were talking and the fact that Leon was all but levitating over the table from the sugar surge. (He can eat an entire breakfast with neither his bottom touching his chair nor his feet touching the floor. It is a very unique balancing skill.) In this crazed state, my children decided to...frantically compile a list of palindromes. What are "palindromes" you ask? They are words that are spelled the same forwards and backwards, and my children took immense pleasure in giddily naming them off (and compiling a written list) as quickly as possible.  It helps that "poop" is on the list, but it still seemed like an awfully odd use of all that chocolate and sugar. It wasn't too much later when we headed to the park and the kids begged to run laps around a pond. We did not stop them!

It was actually a pretty eventful weekend. Some of our highlights include a visit from Jeff's parents, an egg hunt at Natalia's school (that the big kids were able to join), the first real beach trip of the year (although it was a bit chilly), park trips, Easter and my mother-in-law's birthday. 

I am happy to say everyone is now passed out after all of that. Another holiday without a serious injury. Phew!