Sad.

Katie cut her own hair today. I thought I would be mad, but I wasn't. I was just really sad. She tried to blame it on Aimee again, but this time Aimee was taking a nap. I am also sad that she won't get to do locks of love for a long time, since my kids' hair grows so slow. I am reminding myself that it's not a big deal. And hiding all the scissors.

This is what Katie's hair looked like a few days ago:
And now after I cut it.
The arrow is pointing to where most of the damage was. It's still pretty bad there, but it looks a bit better now. I had to cut all the light part at the bottom off, and her hair looks so dark!

My wonderful mom is picking the girls up tomorrow, and taking them both for the weekend.

I am so ready.

They drive me crazy

Dolly gets a haircut

The kids. They drive me crazy. Crazy! I have an insanely long list of homework to do, so this will be short (but not sweet).

I came home from school this morning and Jon told me that Aimee had dumped valentine's day glitter/confetti in her room, and he hadn't had a chance to clean it up yet. It is impossible to clean up a mess in our house without finding a new one when you're done. Anyway, I was fine cleaning it up while he watched the kids. Except that he went and got the vacuum for me, and the kids got andes mints and shoved them in their mouths as fast as they could. Katie, with a mouth full of chocolate, said Aimee did it.

Fast forward 10 min, Aimee locks herself in her room. I run and open the door, and she is sweetly reading a book to herself. Fast forward 10 min, Aimee locks herself in her room again. I amble over, open the door, and silver glitter is everywhere. Glitter is now outlawed in our house.

Then Katie gets sent to her room until she's ready to wear pants. I am an ogre, I know. She beats on the door with a broom handle, rams the stroller into the wall, knocks over her easel, and I long for a padded room.

Then lunch. Every meal involves Aimee throwing her food on the floor at some point. Why would today be any different?

The girls go play in Katie's room, and I am enjoying the quiet so immensely I forget that quiet=an awful mess I have to clean up. Dolly got a hair cut today. Katie said Aimee did it, and I was so upset I sent her to the naughty corner. Then when I had calmed down, I was telling Aimee she's not allowed to touch scissors, etc, when she looked at me like she was wrongfully accused. It hit me that there is no way Aimee cut all that hair, she is not that proficient with scissors. Katie (eventually) confessed and got sent to her room.

Aimee is taking a nap now, and Katie is playing in her room. I have approximately 47 minutes until the little monsters are back.

On the off chance I ever talk about having more kids, please direct me to this post. Thanks!

They make me laugh

• Aimee likes to pee on the potty. She isn't trained (or even being trained) but she likes to get treats.

Here she is trying on underwear.

• We were talking about cutting Katie's hair (I was talking, Jon was objecting) and I thought she might like doing locks of love. So I asked her if she wanted to grow her hair, and then cut it and give it to someone who needs it. She very enthusiastically said, "Yes! Like Aimee!" Not quite what I meant, but Aimee could use some hair!
  
  
• Jon's mom watched the girls on Friday (thanks!) and all day Saturday and Sunday Katie called me Grandma-I-mean-Mommy.
  
  
• Aimee is a little parrot. Not only does she repeat what you say, but she gets the tone right. It's funny to hear her little mad voice telling me to go in the naughty corner.
  

The Car Seat Safety Enthusiast

Last term I wrote a research paper on extended rear-facing. Let's just say I became even more enthusiastic about rear-facing. I'm not going to ask anyone to read the whole paper, I'm just giving you the highlights!

• Most people have heard (and some doctors still say) that you should turn your child forward facing when s/he is one year old AND 20 pounds. This is outdated. Those are the absolute minimum requirements. The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that you keep your child rear-facing to the limits of your car seat (usually 30-35 pounds)
  
  
• "Children are 5 times safer than when riding in a forward-facing seat into the second year of life." (From the AAP's Pediatrics Journal)
  
  
• It is not true that children's legs are more likely to be injured when rear-facing, in fact the opposite is true. "Some convertible child restraints indicate in their instructions that a child should face forward when his/her feet touch the vehicle seatback, or alternately when the legs must be bent. This prohibition is not justified by any accident experience or any laboratory evidence, and we are hoping that these instructions will soon be revised." From this article. If you have time, read the whole thing, it is awesome, and not too long.
  
  
• The National Highway Safety and Traffic Administration has a list of every carseat produced in the U.S. along with ease of use ratings, and weight and height limits.
  
  
  A picture of what happens during a crash in a rear-facing car seat vs a forward facing car seat. You can see how far the head extends. It's possible for children to have their spine detach from their skull in frontal crashes.
  
  
  
  
  Here is Aimee still happy in her rear-facing car seat. She's about 31 pounds, so she still has about 4 pounds until we turn her around. Which if you know how much she eats, you would think it would be soon!

You are free to think I am weird for being adamant about rear-facing. I don't care, at all. My kid will be safer in a car accident than yours, and I try to be "better safe than sorry". Honestly, the "convenience" of forward facing is not anywhere near the added safety of rear-facing.

*Now I am done. I will resume using my blog for posting pictures of the kids.*

Cute pics of the kids

to help remind me that they are sometimes very cute.


Somehow I thought it would be fun to make food for the birds: peanut butter covered pine cones with millet and sunflower seeds.The girls had fun, but I had peanut butter on everything, tiny little millet all over the floor, and bugs from the pine cones to clean up. Plus no bird has come anywhere near them. This was a one-time project.

Happy New Year (and decade)

School has started again, and the poor blog gets neglected. But happy belated new year! I'm not sad to see 2009 go,

In the last ten years (2000-2009):

• Jon went on a mission to New Zealand
• I graduated from High School
• We met and got married (in 6 months!)
• I was a nanny for my niece and nephew for nearly 7 years
• We had two beautiful daughters
  

It's crazy I can sum up 10 years in five bullet points.

At the end of the next ten I will get up to 35, Jon will be 40 (holy crap!) Katie will be 14(!) and Aimee will be 12(!). I'm kind of hoping we'll have a 7 year old too. But we will see.

I don't have any pictures because I am on the computer that doesn't have any working USB drives. It's so convenient :) Hopefully I will still post pics from Christmas sometime.

The best dollar I ever spent

was on this present for Aimee.

My little baby

is two today!

She woke up grumpy, and got upset if you said it was her birthday. Later we stuck a candle in a banana (her favorite) and sang Happy Birthday, and she loved it. She blew it out before we even finished singing.

I can't even tell you how much we love her. She is the most trouble I have ever seen, in the cutest little body ever. She loves to hug and kiss and make the biggest mess ever. She'll hit you right in the face, then immediately smile and say sorry. No means absolutely nothing to her. If you say no to her she'll say okay! and keep right on doing it. She is so so funny.

Aimee reminds me of my brother Danny in certain expressions. She has the Danny smirk, which I totally love. She also has my tendency to get really angry, then get over it really quickly. It's funny how fast she can go from grumpy to happy and back again. And she knows what she wants, and will not stop until she gets it or gets distracted by something else.

It may sound like complaining, but it's not. I just wanted to make sure I remember her personality, the good and the difficult. And we all love her so much. I can't imagine life without my little Aimee.

Happy Second Birthday Aimee!

So Happy

Christmas threw up on our staircase

We have a gate at the top of the stairs. So the kids can see the Christmas tree, but not touch it!

Today I am happy: listening to Neko Case, taking a break from the kids and chores, and I might even be eating cookies. Okay, I totally am. And I'm going on a date soon. With the most wonderful guy ever. Who was nice enough to marry me.

Want to know something? I complained for weeks about not wanting to read my textbooks. I just wanted to read something fun. Now that school is done, want to guess what I read today? Yeah, a textbook. I skipped a chapter in my education class, and I really wanted to finish it. I am thinking about being a teacher. Anyone have any thoughts? Would I be totally awful? The thing is, I'd love to work at a hospital. I love them so much, and if I got to wear scrubs every day, my life would be totally awesome. The problem is, I'd have to take anatomy and physiology. Which to you may not seem like a big deal, but to me it is. Animals freak me out, and dead ones are worse. I stopped eating meat partially because I just find most animals creepy/disgusting. So that kind of takes care of that. So what on earth am I going to do? I have to decide!


And this is back-up for my friend Morgan. Blogs are so much better with pictures. Especially toddlers.

Tomorrow is a very special event! Check back!

COLD!

Did you know that here in Oregon it is cold? Well it is. It's freezing. Below freezing. Pipes are bursting, ducks are walking on top of ponds, and fountains and small waterfalls are frozen in place. It is so weird.

The other day I went to bed with flannel sheets, a fleece blanket plus two other blankets, socks, long sleeve shirt, and GLOVES.

When I woke up at 7am on Monday to go to my swimming class it was 11 degrees outside. 11! I honestly debated going because I thought for sure they'd close the pool.

They had not closed the pool, despite the fact that the heater stopped working. The pool was still heated, but the air was not. That was not very pleasant. The water had so much steam rising off it you could only see a couple feet in front of you.

They still hadn't fixed it when I went today. But the good news is, today was my last day!

I am officially done with school!