Out of the mouths of babes...

My Kerrigan has the sweetest spirit. She is just precious. Tonight, she is up way too late, but no plans for tomorrow so I am just enjoying having some time with her alone while Quint and Kort are sawing logs. I try to spend some time with my kids alone when I can because I know they need that one on one time. Kerrigan and I have had some great conversations this evening. Here are just a few of them:

Kerrigan: When you have your hair pulled up, you look like Keri and when your hair is down you are momma.
Me: What about you?
Kerrigan: When my hair is up I am Kerrigan. When it is down, I am just KerrBear.

Kerrigan (holding a framed picture of me and Len at our wedding): Momma where is this bootiful costume?
Me: It is in the back of my closet.
Kerrigan: Can I see it?
Me: Sure, I will show it to you tommorrow.
Kerrigan: I want to see it now. You can just show me, you don't have wear it. (I had to laugh because my poor baby doesn't even realize that I would have to live on air and water for months to fit back into that thing!)
Me: No, baby, not tonight. We might wake up daddy if we got it out tonight.
Kerrigan: Where is daddy's costume?
Me: Well, he just borrowed his. He had to give it back after the wedding was over.
Kerrigan: Poor daddy.

Kerrigan: Lasterday (this is how she says yesterday) my dreams made me so sad. I had a sad dream about wishes.
Me: Wishes? Why does that make you sad?
Kerrigan: You know, cuz I am sleeping and sad wishes scare me.
Me: Well, you just need to think about happy wishes. What can you think of that makes you happy?
Kerrigan: My family. (How precious is this girl?)

And my favorite....
Kerrigan (palms out in front of her, fully clothed in princess attire): Mom did you know God is in your hands?
Me: He is? (I am thinking that she has been singing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" by the way she is holding her palms out to me)
Kerrigan: Yes, cuz we talk to Him like this. (she folds her hands like she is praying) And He folds His hands too so He can hear and He is in heaven and He says thank you.
Me: What does God say thank you for?
Kerrigan: No, silly, WE say thank you to him for everything (pronounced eb-uh-we-thang)

I love that girl!

Mornings...

I am not much on mornings. Once I am up, I am fine and in a good mood, but I really wish school started around 10:00 AM. I just think asking someone to get up before 7:00 in the morning is CRAZY. So, at my house, we don't get up until 7:00 most days. Len leaves at 7:30 and I am out the door to get to the primary school by 7:50. That doesn't give us a lot of time, but we have it down to a fine art...usually. This morning I grabbed Quinton's pants out of his drawer and decided to pick up his clothes that were still on the floor from last night. I threw Quinton his pants and stuck the dirty clothes in the basket, got him ready and off to school. Today was not a work day for me so I spent some of the day cleaning and doing laundry. Wasn't I suprised when I grabbed the laundry basket and Quinton's clean pants were lying on top. So, yes, I had thrown Quinton his pants from yesterday. I sent my son to school in the same pants two days in a row. Lovely. And, no, they were not jeans. Maybe I will set the alarm for 6:55 tomorrow. Oh, well, just another day in the life!

Friday the 13th update

Several of you have asked, so I need to let you all know that yes, I changed Kortlen's surgery! It will now be on Friday, March 20, a much more suitable day if you ask me. We don't have a time yet, but would love it if you would say a few prayers between now and then for Kortlen, the surgeon (Dr. Hunter) and ME! I know it is routine surgery, but he is cutting and reattaching the muscles on my baby's eyes, so needless to say I will be stressed. We are having to do both eyes but the healing time and pain is supposed to be minimal. I will keep you all updated on this.

Kerrigan gets her ears pierced. Mom eats a little crow.

Those of you who know me know that I am a rule follower. I think rules are set out for a reason, and even if one thinks a rule is less than wise, we should all just follow the rules. Also, I spent a lot of years before I had children saying what my kids would and would not do. I always said that my daughter would NOT have their ears pierced until they were at least 10 years old. I even gave my sister Kristi a hard time about getting Kayla's ears pierced at 3. At 3? What kind of mother would get her daughter's ears pierced at 3? The answer is.....this one.

So, in explanation of my great change of heart on this subject, let me get back to that rule following thing. Quinton was my first and therefore I followed the rules to a tee! Now, sometimes I searched for rules to fit my agenda and that is pretty easy to do in the 4000 sets of rules for child rearing! But I followed the basics: No baby food until 4 months, off the bottle at a year, no more pacifier at 18 months. I was a "Model Mom". Along came Kerrigan, and we were rocking along following the rules until....suprise! When Kerrigan was 13 months old, I found out I was pregnant with Kortlen. Shocker of all shockers! Still, that did not deter my perfection. And then, the blessed event of Kortlen's birth when Kerrigan was 20 months old ROCKED our world!! Now, do you really think that for one second that I was going to take that pacifier away from my 20 month old, deal with a kindergartner, and an infant. It wasn't happening. All rules were thrown out the window and survival mode took over. Did the pacifier make her happy? Yes. Then give it to her! I think it was somewhere around Kerrigan's third birthday party that I realized that my precious 3 year old still took a paci at night! Oh, my? What would Dr. Spock say?

Back to the earrings. My little prissy miss has wanted her ears pierced for as long as I can remember. She has begged and pleaded on several occasions. So, a plan formed. I promised Kerrigan she could get her ears pierced as soon as she was ready to give up that beloved "pappy". That was 6 months ago, and finally the day arrived. We were walking through the mall with Kelli, Heidi, Halli and Charliene and there was Claire's! She announced that she was ready to say goodbye to "pappy", hopped up in the chair, and got those ear's pierced! She was so brave! And we have not had a paci since! So, not only am I giving in, changing the rules, I have now resorted to blackmail! Like I said, survival mode!

Another funny story....We called MiMi to tell her about our earrings. I was dreading that call a little because MiMi thought she should wait until she was 10 as well, but MiMi was very nice and promised Kerrigan that she would buy her some diamond earrings. You should have seen the grin on her face. Well, the day after we got her ears pierced Len and KerrBear were wrestling on the bed and one of her earrings came out! We searched and searched and couldn't find that cute little pink daisy earring anywhere. Kerrigan didn't miss a beat. She just looked at me and said, "Momma, just call MiMi and tell her to bring my diamonds." How stinking cute is that? But we found the daisy and got it back in a few minutes later.

Diamond update: MiMi has purchased the diamond earrings and is bringing them next weekend when she comes. I will have to get picutres of that excited face!

Friday the 13th....strikes again?

Kortlen had a visit with Dr. Hunter, her eye doctor, this morning and we decided that it is time to schedule her eye surgery. For those of you who don't know, Kortlen's eyes drift out giving her a lovely "wall-eyed" look. It does not affect her vision, but we have know for awhile that surgery was probably inevitable. So after we saw Dr. Hunter, we headed to the surgery scheduler's office. Guess when it is? You got it, MARCH 13!! Friday the 13th? Are you kidding me?

So here is my dilemma, do I call and reschedule (of course I will have to lie and say I can't do it that day because I would never admit to a perfect stranger that I would not do a surgery on Friday the 13) or just suck it up and leave it where it is? I so don't want to be worried about it, but then after I blogged all that about next month's Friday the 13th I don't know what to think! Thoughts on this, anyone???

Friday the 13th...

I come from a long line of folks who can be quite superstitious. For example, to this day both of my parents have to exit a house from the same door that they entered. Ever heard of that one? I don't consider myself superstitious, but I still feel that little feeling of dread when a black cat runs across my path. And I will admit that if I spill some salt I do throw some over my shoulder, even though I can't remember which shoulder it is supposed to be. That being said, I am not sure that February, Friday the 13th is going to take away my superstitious tendencies.

Kortlen wasn't feeling well when I went to work on Friday (I teach for 4 hours every other day at the high school) so my Aunt Charliene kept the girls at the house instead of me taking them to Mrs. Erin's house. I went to Quinton's Valentine's Party at school so I didn't get home until about 2:30. I had been home for about 5 minutes when Kortlen ran into the living room obviously choking on something. Ok, she is the third so I wasn't panicked, I just grabbed her up, head down at 45 degrees and pats on the back...basic first aid for kid's under 2, right? Whatever is making her spit and sputter will be on the floor in a moment, right? WRONG!! No results. Just that crazy drool that lets you know that nothing is going down. So I flip her up and Charliene yells "HER LIPS ARE BLUE"!!! Now here comes the panic. Okay, so I start to try to do the Heimlich, even though I think that you are not supposed to do this on kids under 2 but I am thinking since she is almost 2 I should try and yell to Charliene to call 9-1-1. Let me just interject here that Charliene just retired from being a nurse at the hospital for 44 years and I, the woman who has NO medical training at all, am the one trying to dislodge the stuck item from the throat. Does that make any sense? Also, Charliene can't seem to dial 9-1-1 to save her life! Total panic! So then there are a few seconds of no sounds coming from Kortlen. This is when I begin to panic, plop Kort back over and a small part of pink heart jelly bean comes out with a small amount of vomit. Things begin to return to normal and the fire truck is now pulling into our front pasture. Hallelujah!!

We head out the front door to tell the very, very helpful firemen and tell that we think she is ok. They look her over and the ambulance pulls up. Now, the ambulance people don't even get out of the vehicle, they all drive away, and life is good, right? WRONG! They no sooner get to the end of the driveway, and here she goes again. This time she is really drooling, gagging, chocking and starting to vomit. There is a little bit of blood in the vomit. We call 9-1-1 again, and right after we get off the phone with them, she vomits a lot which includes a larger piece of a jelly bean, and then seems fine. So, here comes the fire truck and ambulance again so that, once again, I can tell them that we think she is fine. Now, the firemen are again VERY nice and helpful and listen to her breath sounds and check her out. The ambulance people at least get out of the vehicle this time, but never even touch my child. The lady stood there with her hands on her hips and the guy just said I might or might not want to call the doctor. Thanks a lot! I was not impressed by these ambulance people at all. I called our pediatrician and he said just to keep an eye on her. Luckily she was and is fine! Crisis averted! But still, quite the Friday the 13th!

Okay, now here is where I tell you that within the hour after all this happened, I knew that I would have to blog this. I also even had the thought and said aloud to Charliene how I can't believe that all this happened to my baby and I am thinking now how I wish I had at least one picture to post! Oh, my goodness, I am HOOKED on blogging already! This is when Quinton piped in that he had taken some pictures of the events with my cell phone because he knew that I would want to remember this! I love that little man! He actually did pretty good....

Here is the fire truck! Thank you Lindale Fire Department!

And here you can see the hands on the hips! Thanks a lot!

And the great news is that since February has 28 days this year, we will have another Friday the 13th next month!!! Let's hope next month's is better than this one. We might just hide out that day just in case!

Side note: Friday was mine and Len's 10th wedding anniversary. I should have know when he took me on our first date to see the movie "Dumb and Dumber" that maybe the 13th wasn't the best day for us to get married. It never dawned on me that every so often we would have to celebrate that day on the 13th! Oh, well...it is working out pretty good so far! Happy Anniversary, Len! I love you!

Quinton's New Glasses

We went to Tyler last Friday to get Quinton new glasses. Let me preface this story by saying this will be the 4th pair in a year. We got 2 pair about this time last year, both of which have been broken beyond repair, and one pair last summer, which I bought the insurance on but have been lost so that we can't get them replaced! So, off again to the eye glasses store we go with the girls in tow mind you! This, however, is the first time that Quinton seemed to have an opinion as to what he would like his glasses to look like. The first pair he picked looked like this:

His favorite part of these where the cool tiger stripes on the frames. Oh, my! And here is what he looked like shortly after I told him that a very warm place would get really cold before I let him wear those glasses to school:

Those eyebrows crack me up!! Of course I can't let him know that they crack me up because I can't let him think it is okay to look at his mother with this face. Now, I didn't get a picture of the splotchy face he had after I reamed him in the store, because that is the moment that Kort picked to ram her stroller that she had wriggled out of into the rack of frames. Fun times, fun times. So after a huge discussion which resulted with me putting him in time-out in the store with one lady looking at me like "why don't you spank that child" and another looking at me like "touch that child and I will call CPS" (don't you love that?) I had finally conviced Quinton that the Grandpa frames had to go. At this point I was about the break out in that sweat that us moms know so well. It is that sweat that happens when you are in church and your kids are screaming during this huge emotional prayer. Or when your child decides to state in public that the lady in front of you has a fat bottom. You know what I am talking about! So, Quinton then decided that the only other pair of glasses he could live with in the entire store were these:

Oh, my gosh. Now, I feel that these are lovely for Sarah Palin, but a 7 year old boy, not so much! At this point my patience was wearing thin, and the sales girl's bun was beginning to break loose from stress (bless her heart), and the girls were getting tired. So, I quickly picked a pair of frames that looked almost identical to the 3 other pairs we have had this past year, wrote a check and got the heck out of Dodge.

I would post a picture here of the new glasses, however, 2 days after we picked them up I walked into the kitchen to find that Kortlen had popped out both lenses and twisted the frames into something resembling modern art, so they are in a zip-loc bag ready to be taken back to the store. Thank goodness I bought the insurance. Just another day in my crazy life!!

Kortlen Jane...

I know that everyone has that child. You know, the one who keeps you hopping. The one with whom you never know what to expect. For us, that is Kortlen. By far. Before Kortlen, I had 2 of the easiest babies this world has seen. I mean, they cried and fussed occasionally, but pretty much went with the flow. I never even slowed down with the birth of either of my first 2 kiddos. Just throw them in the carrier and go! When Kort came along, life as we knew it changed forever. She was not an easy baby. She only wanted me and a few select others to hold her. She had opinions about life and the way things should be from birth! When she turned a year old, the fog that had encompassed my brain began to clear and I truly began to enjoy her quirky, unpredictable behavior. That little girl gives us so much JOY!! She is so funny and you never know what she is going to say or do....

Speaking of which, this is what I saw when I walked into the living room the other day:

Not only had she stripped her pants off (not a shock to those who know her), she had gotten out markers and given herself several tattoos as well as some nice lipstick! That girl! She just said, "Mama, I got me-cup (make-up)" and then grinned and started posing for the camera. What a blessing she is. Can't imagine life without her. Here she is with the camera...Just try to get that away from her and watch that little temper of her's flare!!

And I had to add this picture just because I am loving those beautiful eyes. Of course, notice the underlying dirt that was on that face before the "me-cup" was added!! And, yes, I do believe that is a little blood coming out of her nose...who knows?