naughty girl

brynna is currently sitting on the couch, screaming and crying.  she was drinking her milk then started to hold her cup upside down (it's a sippy but it still leaks a little bit).  she has been told repeatedly not to do this but insists on spilling her milk for whatever reason.  dave scolded her and slapped the couch next to her hand so now she's crying. 

earlier today she was refusing to hold hands with me or dave while walking.  refusing.  like she had a choice.  started throwing a fit when i finally picked her up and carried her instead of letting her walk because she wouldn't hold hands.  

last night she and caleb were playing on the couch, jumping off the arm.  the next thing i hear is the sound of a slap.  i look over from the kitchen and ask caleb what happened.  he starts crying loudly with real tears.  i thought he might just be scared that he was going to get busted for hitting his sister.  when i got over there i noticed a wet spot on his shirt on his upper arm.  brynna bit him.  hard.  that's why he slapped her.  she got slapped and yelled at and surprisingly, she was remorseful.  when dave told her "no biting", she actually said, "okay."  and when he told her to tell brother sorry, she agreed and went to the bedroom and said "sorry brother" (omg, cutest thing ever) and gave him a kiss.  i was shocked. 

this girl...my payback. 

phases

both of these little ones are in some somewhat irritating phases right now...

brynna is my little opihi all of a sudden...to the point where the other night she stood outside the bathtub and screamed her head off while i showered...it was by far the most un-relaxing shower ever.  she was always dave's little girl, but all of a sudden she's mommy's girl, especially when she's tired.  tonight when i was trying to talk to caleb because he was put on time-out (for his irraz phase, which i'll discuss next), brynna stood there screaming at me because she wanted to be carried.  during her opihi times she won't go to dave at all....so when it happens when i need to do something like cooking and can't have  her on my hip, it gets a little bit nutts. 

caleb is in a phase of wanting to do everything himself...and if he doesn't get to do it, he does the irritating whining and crying and irrational behaviors...."caleb can do it...caleb wants to do it."  today he was sleeping when we came home from school...so when he woke up and saw that we were home, he was upset because he didn't get to open the door for us.  he proceeded to stand by the door and whimper.  if brynna wants her milk and we get it for her, he gets upset because he wants to get it.  when i was warming up food in the microwave, he realized it was on and pitched a fit because he wanted to press the buttons (that's the one he got put in time-out for because he was just being ridiculous).  yes, it seems like his helpfulness should be appreciated...and it is and we usually indulge him in doing these things...but when it's done already and he's screaming because he didn't get to do it, it gets old real fast. 

thankful for...

hmm...never do one post on what i'm thankful for so now that i have some "free" time, let me think about this...

• thankful for a husband who deals with my irrational behaviors, is agreeable to pretty much anything i demand, has unending patience but lets me know when i'm beyond ridiculous, is a wonderful daddy...and everything else that he does for me and our family that i probably show no appreciation for...
• thankful for healthy, happy, loving babies who i can look at and truly feel like i've accomplished something good in my life
• thankful for a mom who up and moves to oahu because i don't think i could trust my kids with anyone else and who lives with the four of us in a tiny little apartment even when she has a house all to herself on maui
• thankful for in-laws who take our kids almost every sunday so dave and i can do what we need or want to do
• thankful for a completely non-traditional family that helps me to understand my kids at school and their non-white-picket fence lives better
• thankful for best friends who keep me sane and on the right track
• thankful for my kids at school...after feeling a bit burnt out these past two years, these kids remind me of why i really do love teaching and connecting with my kids
• thankful for a career i love, coworkers (for the most part) i enjoy, and a teaching situation that is pretty much all i could ask for
• thankful that fantasy football will be over in a few weeks and my husband promised me that this is his second to the last season...bwahahaha 

little miss

brynna is talking more now...hope she starts to enunciate a little bit better, though, because i think we understand her cuz we know what she's trying to say, but i don't think most people would understand what she's saying. 

she's in the phase where she wants you to kiss every little part of her that gets an owie...i remember caleb going through that phase too. 

she's so destructive...if the books are nicely placed in the bin, she finds nothing more pleasurable than flinging them all out of the bin. 

she does not like to have her hair put up in ponytails and would much rather have her wild mane making her look like a crazy girl. 

she has the sweatiest head imaginable, which makes her crazy hair look even crazier. 

her devious little smile is funny...her sassy face is ridiculous. 

she rarely gives out kisses and doesn't like to cuddle...but she loves to have her foot touching you to let her know you're there. 

she's the wildest hard head ever, and even though i never wanted to have a daughter, i'm soooo in love with this little miss crazy. 

talk talk talk

hard to imagine that at one point we wondered if we would have to have a speech therapist for caleb.  he started talking a little bit later, but boy, since he started, he sure hasn't stopped.  it's so interesting to have actual conversations with this little boy and to hear the things that seem to come straight out of left field. 

a couple funny examples...

• my mom cleaned the fan, and when she put it back together he remarks, "It's so beautiful!"  
• we often say to him..."Mommy love Caleb?  Daddy love Caleb?" and so on, and he often comes back with "Papa love Baba"...which, if you know my family, that's hilariou

his favorite song is the alphabet and he sings it incessantly...and somehow, i notice it most when we're watching sports.  we were watching our kids play basketball one day and he stood there for pretty much the entire second half singing his abc's.  last night at football he kept singing and singing...seriously did not shut up for the whole second half again!  hmm...maybe he sings when he's bored...cuz he does sing before he goes to sleep sometimes. 

the most irritating things he's saying recently is his whole trip with, "I can do it, I can do it," while whining and starting to cry every time we do something that he wanted to do (for example, today he pitched a fit because i put his doodoo diaper in a plastic bag, which he wanted to do).  he also says, "No!" when i tell him not to do something, which comes out sounding like he's being defiant but i'm not quite sure if he's really trying to be defiant or just doesn't know what else to say. 

it's always interesting to see just what will come out of this little boy's mouth. 

solving the night probs

since brynna's nightly outbursts, dave and i have tried to get creative in terms of what could help it.  we tried having her sleep on the bed...that's hit or miss.  tried just giving her the milk when she starts crying...sometimes it helps, sometimes if she's in her funk she still screams and has a fit.  now dave and i switched sides of the bed again so that we could see if she sleeps better with me next to her...again, hit or miss.  the sucky part, though, is that for some reason, sleeping on that side of the bed means that the ceiling fan is blasting me in the face and now my nose is messed and my ears are getting all plugged.  today i couldn't get my ear to pop for about ten minutes and it was driving me freakin' bananas. 

i was reading online that night terrors could possibly be caused by lack of sleep...so maybe putting her down to bed earlier or making sure she naps well.  problem is, she naps like a champ.  she can easy take one two hour nap and another short nap during the day.  still, i told dave maybe we should start putting them down earlier.  the only bad part about that is that the earlier we put them down, the longer caleb is in the room bothering my  mom whie she's watching her korean.  lol. 

night terrors = terrible nights

seriously...brynna was JUST starting to sleep the whole freakin' night through...four days straight and then we had to evacuate our house for three nights and sleep at dave's parent's house because of the fumigation of our building.  of course, the sleeping arrangement up there was different, so brynna ended up on the bed with us...and ever since then, she's been waking up SCREAMING bloody murder in the middle of the night.  out of the blue, she'll sit up and start screaming and if we try to touch her or console her she just gets more pissed off and screams louder.  eventually she'll stop and go back to sleep, but then she'll have little whimper fits at random times after that.  last night i told dave to let her sleep on our bed to see if that would help.  she woke up screaming, but was more easily consoled and went back to sleep quickly.  however, sometime in the night she kicked dave in the face pretty hard and he got super pissed.  don't know how we're going to sleep tonight.  we also had her not drinking milk during the night, but we're back to giving her some milk to try to help calm her down.  we gotta figure it out...my mom insists that it's cuz we give in, and i know it is, but when your baby is freakin' screaming bloody murder, it's hard to roll over and ignore her. 

caleb's gonna get chomped on...

one of these days, brynna is gonna chomp on caleb a good one...and looking at the way he's been with her lately, he deserves it.  he's been getting meaner...sneaky mean...tumbling onto her, squooshing her out of the way, taking things she's playing with.  she gets sooooo mad at him and her only defense thus far is to try to bite him and scream. 

brynna is getting to be a big girl!

brynna is so interesting.  she's just our wild child.  she runs instead of walks, jumps and flies herself all over the place, refuses to keep her hair up (she's mastered pulling her rubber bands off), and doesn't want to cuddle.  she can pull a mean fit, like today at fabric mart, when she doesn't get her way.  she's also funny and silly and likes to test her limits. 

she's almost 20 months and her words are starting to pick up.  they aren't clear yet, but she can say the following words:  milk, carry, ball, jump, moon, yes, no, one, two, three, welcome, read, book, pig, (ba)nana, shishi, hi, bye...i'm sure there are others, but i can't think of it.  of course, she learned baba first (for my mom), then daddy, and for a day she was saying mommy, but hasn't since then...suckah.  caleb also didn't say mommy for a long time after mastering baba and daddy.  guess i'm just not a priority for these two!

i'm not sure who brynna takes after.  i know i'm anti-social, but i can fake it and be very social when i want to.  dave is pretty social too.  caleb, he's our social butterfly, talking to people even when we don't want him to.  brynna, though...she really has to warm up to people before she shows them how charming she can actually be.  she won't say hi, won't even smile at people she doesn't know.  she gives a mean stink eye and sassy face.  i dunno if she's shy or just sassy.  :-)   

fall break

after the shortest (but longest) quarter of the year, i was soooo grateful to have the one week break.  my mom went home friday and came back thursday, so during that time one of us slept in the room with caleb.  he always sleeps on my mom's bed until she moves him back to his or he falls on the floor, so i got to sleep with him for most of those nights.  usually in the middle of the night i'd move him back to his bed cuz it's just too hot sleeping on a twin bed with the little one clinging to your side.  i sure do love falling asleep with him, though!  he's my little cuddly baby...i force him to cuddle me since bryn doesn't wanna cuddle.  :-) 

staying home with them is always fun.  we didn't do a whole lot this break...the cloudy/drizzly weather made for just going out weather, but we did get to go to the discovery center and zoo one day.  discovery center is just a little bit too nutts for an anti-social person like me, so once it started getting hella crowded, we headed to the zoo.  i know we went to school a couple days, but i don't really remember what else we did. 

today we went hunting for halloween costume supplies...decided they are going to be spam musubis, which is just a slight variation of their tamago sushi costume.  got foam board at ben franklin, white shirts at target, and fabric from fabric mart.  we lucked out and found just the right shade for the spam.  my sewing skills straight suck, but i managed to put their costumes together (eh, as along as nobody can see the ugly stitches and the thing no fall apart, it's good enough!). 

tomorrow it's back to the grind...hopefully this quarter will go by just as quick as first quarter and the kids will still be on track! 

exercise!

i wish i had a better video camera to record it...but my words will just have to suffice.  watching caleb and brynna "exercise" with me is soooo classic.  caleb uses his blue plastic bowling pins as his weights (and they must be the blue ones, since mommy and daddy have blue weights too).  he grabs his material book to use as his "towel" on the floor (like the ladies have their mats on the ground).  both kids are pretty good at jumping jacks and copying the ab exercises.  caleb is getting more and more coordinated  using his "weights" and doing squats and other moves.  he hasn't really gotten the hang of high knees or running in place, but will run around while that exercise is happening.  brynna's attention doesn't last for much of the workout, but caleb can stay engaged (sometimes) through the whole thing.  it is the funniest, cutest thing ever. 

anyways, we're finally on level two of the workout and it's kicking my ass.  i'm sitting here in front of the computer cuz i just finished the workout and my legs are jello so i no like move and go bocha. 

a helluva day

yesterday was the nuttsest day of my life.  and though that may not be a real word, it's the only word to describe my day.  and because of that nuttsest day of my life, i ain't doing jack crap tonight...just chillin'.  bought mcdonalds for dinner.  never open my backpack.  checked engrade and responded to a parent, but that's it.  caleb crashed out at about 6 p.m., so i'm hoping he stays sleeping...which means one less thing for me to do since i no need put him to bed. 

the day started out early cuz i had to stop at longs to buy ice since i forgot to chill the capri suns for the incentive students.  it was study hall day, so i taught period six, had packed study halls for period one and two, taught period three, then had another study hall during period four, which is usually my prep.  never even get to eat lunch cuz a kid wanted to work through lunch and far be it for me to say no when the kid really wants to work and needed some help.  right after school had an iep meeting, then straight after that headed over to kapolei for the dreaded monthly hsta meeting.  got out of that at 515, headed to the store for our second gallon of milk of the week, then home and straight to cooking.  seriously.  bocha'd caleb, corrected some papers, and frickin crashed out hard.  

i really hope for not many days like yesterday.  but at the same time, when i look at days like that, and see that i never just die, it makes other days feel not so bad.  lol.  gotta see some kind of positive in it, right?  

randoms

here we go, starting another LONGEST WEEK OF MY LIFE.  i swear i thought i'd be getting the hang of everything by this point in the year, but i'm still not.  oh well.  maybe i'll feel like this the whole year through. 

here's some random bits that i've been thinking about writing about but haven't had the time or energy for...

brynna's love language is NOT physical touch...and for a mommy whose major love language is giving and getting lovies, that sucks big time.  she does not like to be cuddled at all.  today i was trying to put my arm around her and she kept pushing my arm away.  so sad.  i feel like i give caleb way more lovies, but that's cuz he actually lets me.  i wonder if we didn't cuddle her enough when she was a baby or if she was just born that way.  nutts.  hope she gets more cuddly as she gets older because i love to cuddle.  :-)

caleb is now super bolohead because of a mishap with the clippers.  had to go with the super short guard cuz he had a rat-bite at the back of his head.  it's growing on me, but his head looks HUGE for some reason.  he told me one day that he had an ugly haircut and needed a new one.  hehe.  wonder who taught him that?! 

brynna is so mean to caleb.  of course, most of the time it's because he's being a botheration to her and trying to give her lovies, which she absolutely doesn't want.  he's often caught belly-bumping her, which is his main way of being mean to her. 

it's so cute to see them having conversations with each other.  caleb will talk to brynna, and she'll respond with either a yes or no.  it sounds like they are really communicating...so cute. 

taught caleb five words finally.  i was amazed at how quickly he picked them up.  tried to add three more words today, but he wasn't as into it.  so far we've mastered:  to, in, on, we and me.   we're working on:  up, go and no.  it's frickin' funny cuz when i was teaching him "in" I over-enunciated the "n" part, so he says it, "innnuh" like I said it.  bwahaha. 

two sleeping kids

so it's almost 8:30 and both kids are sleeping. caleb put himself on the couch at about 630 and passed out. brynna went into her crib around 7 and went to sleep.

instead of staying up, i should go bocha and get in bed too. tired as hell. for a short week, it's been hella long. field trip tomorrow...hope everything runs smoothly. then a short weekend and back to the freakin' longest weeks of my life again.

weekend fun

i LOVE weekends. i LOVE weekends a hundred times more when i have longest weeks of my life like i've been having. however, i HATE how time flies during our weekends!

yesterday we took my mom to eat at tsukiji for her birthday. not bad...not as much selection as makino, but much better quality and atmosphere. brynna made out cuz my mom bought her crocs and earrings! little girl has shoes that are more expensive than shoes i'd buy myself! i have a hard time spending $20 on a pair of shoes, and i'd rarely ever spend $30 on a pair. but crocs for the kids are worth it...that's all caleb ever wears and i'm sure brynna will be in her crocs all the time too.

last night dave had his oh-so-important fantasy draft get together so we took the kids to the aiea bon dance. they enjoyed it...we only were there for about an hour and a half, but that was the perfect amount of time. they ate noodles, watched the dancing, got to hear the taiko drums...good enough.

today after church the kids went with their colmenares grandparents (we're so lucky to have both side grandparents to help watch!) and dave and i ate lunch, cruised around pridge for a bit, then came home, washed clothes, changed bedding, took a walk to office depot, and he even helped me with dinner (he cut mushrooms and bell peppers, oiled and mrs dash'd them...that's amazing!!!!).

right now caleb is sitting on his potty watching oobi (no shishi yet...it's been about twenty minutes). he's making funny faces and i think he has to pee but he's being his stubborn self and not doing it. gosh. i showed him a picture of a cars potty and asked if he would use that potty...his answer, NO. tonight i only got him to sit on it because i put brynna on it first and then after he saw her sit on it, he decided he wanted to. i think we will have to resort to all kinds of trickery with this guy...

lazy sunday

today was a grrreeeaaaatttt day. even though i didn't get to sleep in until 715, which was when my alarm was supposed to go off, it still was wonderful. we got to church early so we got to choose seats we actually wanted to sit in and the kids behaved like champs and even got into their grandparent's car with little fuss (we usually have to drive them up to the house cuz they no like get in the car). dave and i had a nice lunch at ichiriki then headed to ross, where i found two dresses and two shirts and dave got a shirt and an underwear, all for $50. we came home, lounged around, ate some ice cream, watched criminal minds, did a little bit of work, and even went to the pool and bocha'd before heading up to his parents' house for dinner. so relaxing...so needed after such hectic weeks and a killer week up ahead.

twins

caleb is now 2 years 8 months and brynna is 18 months.

it never fails that when we go to costco and the two of them are sitting side by side in the cart, someone will ask us if they're twins. hehe. then we have to smile and say, "no, they're 14 months apart...hehe." if i didn't know any better, though, i'd think they were twins too because sitting down, they look like they're the same size.

it's so cute to see them running around and playing with each other. caleb still loves to hug and kiss her and brynna is getting a little bit better...she'll even hold his hand once in a while, though she still often lunges at him trying to bite him.

it's also cute to see brynna trying to copy things caleb does...like pointing at the animals in the book and going, "roooaaarrrr." so funny.

we thought that because caleb is so verbal, brynna would pick up quickly...hasn't happened. in fact, we sometimes wonder if caleb holds her back from learning stuff because when we're trying to teach her things, he automatically jumps in with his smart guy self and answers whatever we're trying to ask her. with all the talking he does, she'd have to fight to get a word in anyways.

her lack of verbal skill is overshadowed by her daring nature, though. she is constantly jumping on the couch, even though she's fallen off several times...the thrill of the fall is worth it, i guess. that's one thing she's definitely more adept at...jumping around. caleb wasn't able to two-feet jump for a while, but this little girl is a really good jumper.

i really like watching their relationship with each other develop...it's so cool since i didn't really live full-time with any siblings who were close in age to me.

this little girl...

is nutts. i don't know where she gets it from, but she has a TEMPER. i always knew that having a daughter would bring me my own special kind of payback for being the b-yotch i am, and brynna is definitely my payback.

she doesn't talk much...well, not at all really...but when she's mad, she needs no words, just her high-pitched, loud-ass screech. and she gets mad for the most random things...irrational like her mama. she gets up from sleep pissed off at the world and having a fit. if caleb takes something away from her, a common reaction is to headbutt or attempt to bite. she hasn't gotten him yet, but he sure does piss her off.

i'm hoping that when she's able to talk she'll be less pissed off because she'll actually be able to communicate with us. on the other hand, i'm quite sure that if she continues to be my payback, i won't like some of the things that will come out of her mouth. i sure am interested to see her grow up...

getting in the groove...not

i can't adjust to school this year. i don't know what it is. i keep making the stupidest mistakes, can't manage my time the way i thought i used to, and i'm always feeling like i'm two steps behind. i find myself coming home from work late, pulling work out as soon as i get home, and still not feeling like i'm catching up. today i made a conscious effort to NOT pull out any work as soon as i got home. luckily we have had leftovers for two nights and tomorrow i'm making a slow cooker meal which i partially prepped today, which will give us leftovers for thursday too. last week seriously felt like the longest week of my life, and this week will probably even feel longer, with open house on thursday evening. gosh. maybe by the end of first quarter, i'll get the hang of it.

ball problems

so a couple weeks ago we were at sam's and needed diapers. i don't like the sam's club brand (and they were out of the size we needed) and i don't like the huggies snug and dry, so we bought the pampers, which i used before with no problems.

after a few days, we noticed that caleb was touching down there a lot and then he developed a rash on his inner thigh, which we had seen before and just used hydrocortisone to calm it down.

the hydrocortisone did not work, then his dingding, balls and butt hole started to get rashy too. it was a different kind of rash...red, swollen, and rough feeling (kind of like what i imagine an elephant's skin feels like). caleb was in pain, asking to be changed as soon as he pees and walking like a cowboy. bocha time and diaper changes were torturous for him...screaming in complete pain.

took him to the doctor yesterday and doctor said it looks like a yeast infection (jock itch?) and gave us two creams to apply. started applications yesterday, and this morning it looks way better and he wasn't quite as squirmy with his diaper change.

not being an owner of a dingding, i didn't realize how sensitive that area can be. i mean, the chingching scares me cuz i'm always afraid brynna's gonna get crap in there and cause an infection, but i always figured that cuz a dingding is outside, it's not as bad. boy was i wrong. the issues we've had with the boy's man parts are pretty horrific...with not pulling back the foreskin enough and having to have doctor "rip" it at visits (ouch!!!) and now this massive rash down there. gosh. ball problems, i tell you.

poor second child...

so yesterday i realized that brynna has two new teeth coming in on top. actually, they're pretty much in already and i never noticed it until now. sometimes i feel like we are so neglectful with things with her...new teeth just aren't as exciting or noticed, i guess, the second time around. of course, maybe it's also cuz caleb is a big wuss and made it very much known when teeth were coming in cuz he had fits...brynna, on the other hand, wasn't different at all so we didn't even know teeth were coming in.

another note about bryn...last night we moved her crib so that it's now up next to our bed, kind of like a co-sleeper would be. dave and i switched sides so that he's nearer to her...and for the first time in forever, she slept in her crib the whole night. granted, it as after 11 hen we finally went to sleep, but she also only woke up once for milk, which was wonderful.

right now she's playing with dave, laughing her head off...such a cutie.

summer coming to an end...

the last week has been a whirlwind of activity for us.

dave was gone for a week, and i can't really remember much about what we did. i know that brynna and i enjoyed snore free nights, though. lol. the most hectic time was bedtime, since dave usually puts brynna to bed. all in all, though, pretty painless since my mom was here. i missed dave a lot, but once he was back, the grumbling returned...lol.

my dad came for the weekend, and since my sister and her family were visiting and it was her birthday, we had a dinner at my house. six kids and and six adults in our little house was hectic but fun. the last time everyone was over was when caleb was just born, and needless to say, that wasn't as fun for me as i was in pain, tired and frustrated with breastfeeding and new mommyhood. this time i was much more relaxed and it was a lot more enjoyable. we spent a lot of time with my sister and the two kids and dave thinks caleb developed a crush on alexis...lol.

this week we tackled the zoo (woohoo, made enough trips in the summer to make up the cost of our year pass!) and sea life park. my mom went with us to the zoo and for the first time we actually walked pretty much the whole thing. the highlight of the trip for caleb was getting to watch an excavator at work...it actually was really cool. sucky thing was that when we were in the koi pond a girl was crawling in behind us and caleb turned around and kicked at her, kind of like he does at birds when he's shooing them away. gosh. i was mortified. he didn't hit her hard, just knicked her with his toe...but goodness, to be that mom, with that kid that's kicking other kids! he got busted and we left shortly after that.

sea life park...hard to find it impressive after many trips to sea world. for the price, though, it was okay. most impressive were the turtles, least impressive, the penguins. the shows are so-so...no as much action as i'd like, but what can you expect. i didn't realize how far away sea life park is...don't know when we'll ever make it back out there. going to hawaii kai used to be like nothing when we lived in town...now it's like traveling to a different dimension. we had to go to kapolei after that so we got to drive through waimanalo to get to the h3...nice drive...pooped as heck afterwards, though.

today we're just chillin'...gonna drop off the kids to their colmenares' grandparents before dave and i head out to celebrate our anniversary dinner with an asian buffet at kahala mandarin. i've been waiting for this night for a long time...can't wait to stuff myself silly with all the ono food. and i think for celebration's sake, imma drink a mojito too. lol.

ear-piercing...

no, not the kine with earrings. the kind that rattles your bones...and that of the neighbors and anyone else within a hundred yard distance.

caleb is loud. we've known that from the beginning of his life.

brynna's loudness, on the other hand, snuck up on us.

she has developed an ear-piercing screech, which she will use whenever she's hurt, upset, or angry...especially ANGRY.

today we went to simply organized and she wanted to run around, which would inevitably lead to her bumping stuff over or falling and hurting herself. when i attempted to pick her up, she did the throw-herself-on-the-ground, shriek at the top of her lungs fit. grrreat.

when dave gets back we're going to put the side of her crib back on and attempt to have her sleep on her own bed throughout the night. i anticipate a lot of shriek-filled nights...grrreeeeaaatttt.

daddy-less

dave left saturday for a conference in sacramento and will be back saturday evening. a week without daddy. i don't know that the kids notice much, but i sure do, especially at bedtime.

our routine generally includes both of us bathing the kids, feeding them and putting them to bed. dave puts brynna to bed by reading to her, turning on her lullaby doll, and playing on his ipad in front of her bed until she falls asleep. i put caleb to bed by reading him (the same freakin' books every night...though i'm trying to insert a few new ones with some old since it's really boring...)...while my mom was gone i'd stay in the room with him until he fell asleep, but now that she's back i leave him in there with her.

my mom is here, so that helps a lot, but i'm still responsible for their bochas and putting them to bed. the baths aren't too hard since i can take them one at a time with my mom watching the other one. bedtime, though, is another story. brynna doesn't go to sleep as well with me as she does with dave, for whatever reason. after i read her books and put her lullaby doll on, i sit in front of her bed just like dave does. she proceeds to kick me in the back of the head, play with my hair, and attempt escapes.

the other night we had to pick my sister up from the airport at ten, and since both had taken late naps, they went with me. i figured, easy night, both are gonna pass out on the car and all i'll have to do is throw them in bed. not so. brynna fell asleep on the ride home, i put her in her crib, and then i got into bed with caleb to read him his books. not five minutes later the little girl walks into caleb's room, a smile on her face, ready to play. dangit. both of them ended up not sleeping until 1230 or later.

we'll see how tonight's bedtimes go...three more daddy-less nights and then i have my helpful husband back.

good grief

so my obsessive ways have transferred to both of my children...

i thought brynna might be free of it, but apparently she caught some of it too.

tried to give her a sippy cup that was not "her" color...pink or purple...and she refused it.

tried to giver her a sippy cup that was a pink cup with a purple top...she refused it.

are you freakin' serious? lol. i'm sure many people have said that about my compulsions too, though...

fight fight fight

just caught brynna trying to bite caleb's finger...because she was playing with a toy, he came over and started taking it over and grabbed her hand hard...so she brought the hand up to her mouth to bite.

this little boy is starting to be a bully to his sister. he will walk by her and "accidentally" nudge her or throw his hand out to hit her. when she's playing with something, he wants it too.

he still is very loving to her, giving her many kisses and hugs, but they're starting to fight more and more. i have visions of us being in the car with the two of them fighting with one another...and pulling the car over to smack both of them, or crawling into the back of the van to lay down the law. it's inevitable, i'm sure, for them to have some mean beefs since they're so close in age....

so farkin pooped

sleeping with brynna sucks. lol. dave and i switched rooms last night and i swear that little girl got up about four times. she drank a hella lot of milk and this morning her diaper was hella full. my cousin suggested something really smart (lol...cuz i couldn't think of this on my own)...give her water instead of milk throughout the night and hopefully that will curb her wakings. then we can just leave the cup of water in the room and don't have to get up and go get milk from the fridge. much better for her eight teeth too. gosh.

put caleb in bebs today. he peed in seven of um before i put him in a pull up. try again tomorrow. fricka. i just feel his dingding and ask him if he gotta go pee and the next minute, he pees in his pants. i thought he wouldn't like the feeling...nope...he just tells me he peed like it's no big deal. he did cry when he peed the last time, though, cuz dave had just told him to tell us when he wants to pee. when we put the pull up on him, he thought we were taking him swimming since it's kind of like the swimmy diapers. lol.

rice should be pau steam now. teri miso fish, rice and artichokes for dinner. let's see how much of his artichoke dave eats.

furlough friday

yay for furlough friday during summer school!!! and yay for no basketball on a furlough friday so we could spend the whole day together without interruption!!! :-)

we decided we'd better make use of our yearly pass for the zoo, so we made a point to get up early enough and get ready quickly so we could get to the zoo at 9 when it opened. parking was wonderful, the zoo was empty, and it was as good a time at the zoo as i'll probably ever have, being that the zoo is SO not my favorite place. the only junk thing is that the elephants weren't out yet and we lost brynna's slipper.

after the zoo we headed out to waipio to pick up lunch and go to see baby and leish. em fed and slept for the whole time we were there, which was amazing because caleb and brynna definitely acted like a couple of loud monkeys...they had recharged their batteries with a power nap after the zoo!

headed home and i had to take a nap...i closed caleb into the room with me hoping that he would nap too, but he didn't...just screamed for a good fifteen minutes, then played his damn trucks and used my body for his road, so i wasn't able to really take a good nap. after my non-nap, dave said we should go to the pool since it wasn't too sunny but wasn't cold either. for the life of me i don't know where my tummy covering bathing suit is so i had to use another one, and i don't have any swim shorts, so thank goodness we were the only ones at the pool. brynna didn't like the pool much at first when i was carrying her, but once we put her in the floatie thing, she was just chillin. caleb kept telling dave to, "be careful!" when dave was carrying him around the pool. he much preferred sitting on the step and splashing water. it's actually really cute, though, to see caleb get into a mild panic when dave would put his head under water..."daddy, daddy, be careful, be careful!!!" lol. at least he doesn't want dave to drown. lol.

we all bocha'd when we got back from the pool, ate an early dinner, and now it's 8:20, dave's watching a movie, the kids are playing, and i'm thinking that it's gonna be an early night for us.

staying home

i've enjoyed summer a lot so far. i made a list of chores for me to do from monday to friday and that helps me stay focused and get housework done. there are still some areas that need deep cleaning, but for the most part, i'm satisfied with a lot of the cleaning that i've done. my living room still looks like a hurricane hit it by 9 a.m., but that's easily fixed by throwing everything in the right bins at the end of the night. i really need to find more chores to do because if i don't keep myself busy during the day, i get hella bored and grouchy and take it out on dave when he comes home. lol.

caleb has not been taking a good afternoon nap lately, a lot of it due to the fact that i like to go holoholo after dave gets home and we eat lunch, so we're out and about when he should be sleeping. he'll take little catnaps in the van, but that's it. it makes for an easier bedtime, but he'll be grumps in the evening.

brynna's first line of defense is her mouth...she's often trying to bite caleb when he takes something or pushes her out of the way. we keep scolding her about it, and hitting her mouth, but it hasn't set in that she shouldn't do it. she hasn't gotten him a good one again yet, but it's just a matter of time, especially since it's hot and he usually isn't wearing a shirt.

potty training

so i just looked up some information on potty training because my goal for this summer was supposed to be to get caleb potty trained. i really don't think it's going to happen this summer. first of all, caleb does not have an interest in his potty...in fact, he says no everytime i ask him if he wants to use the potty. also, he doesn't pull up or down his pants on his own, which is supposed to be one of the signs. he's in a relatively obstinate stage right now, so we'll see.

even after reading some stuff, i'm still not sure how i would proceed with training him. i've heard things like let him go naked or just in bebs and he'll soon learn that he doesn't like peeing on himself and will learn. actually, this might work for him because he's not big on being "dirty." i've seen kate use m&ms as rewards for going in the potty. i heard about putting a cheerio in the toilet so it becomes like a game where he aims for it while peeing.

i'm kind of scared to even begin, but i should also remember that things like taking away his paci and transitioning him to his bed were relatively painless, so maybe this will be too.

maybe for the hell of it i'll do brynna at the same time. bwahaha, yea right.

fighting

the fighting between the sibs has begun. caleb is becoming a big bully to his sister, shoving, pushing, poking and boxing her out, and brynna is crying more and more. she also bit him today. he must have been trying to kiss or hug her, because she got him on the back of the neck. it must have been hard because he cried and you could see teeth marks. dave scolded her and at first she just looked at him, but when he pointed his finger at her and said, NO, she started to cry. caleb has started to say "sorry sis" whenever we scold him, but it's very insincere. i spanked his hand hard and he immediately said, "sorry sis," at which point i had to turn around and laugh, while dave cracked up across the room.

picnic at the playground

gyoza, rice balls, tuna tofu patties, roasted veggies

tried to do a picnic at corp today, but it didn't really work out. first of all, we went right next to the playground, which was a bad idea because the kids didn't want to eat, they wanted to play. dave and i took turns trying to eat, but we had to rush and just decided to finish up when we got home. at least they had fun...we chose the playground with the least amount of kids, and caleb ended up playing with a set of triplets about his age. brynna, of course, charged everywhere and didn't want to hold hands.

prior to the park we took the kids to see emily for the first time! i didn't want the kids to touch her, but at least they got to see her and i got to carry her!!! it seems like so long ago that these two were that little!

remembering

i'm really not good at remembering things. i seriously sometimes feel like lucy in 50 first dates. yesterday we were watching a movie and i was acting all surprised at things (cuz i honestly was, even though i've seen the movie a couple times) and dave was asking me if i was being serious because he couldn't understand how i couldn't remember what had happened in the movie. i'm re-reading a book that i just read earlier this year, and so much is new to me all over again. my memory sucked prior to being a mommy, and now that i am a mommy, it sucks even more.

anyways, now that my bff just had her baby, i wanted to go back and remember what the first few weeks with caleb were like. i knew they sucked, but i didn't remember every single detail...so i went back to look at what i wrote...whoa. as momentous and wonderful as having caleb was, it sure did suck!

comparing my experience with caleb to my experience the second time around with brynna...wow again. it was soooooooooo much easier, physically and emotionally, with brynna. the pregnancy with her wasn't as easy (with morning sickness and gestational diabetes that i didn't have with caleb), but the birth and afterwards were a million times easier. gosh.

i watched caleb's birth video with tash today...and it was sooooo funny to see her reaction. she was squirming, screaming, burying her face in a pillow...she said it's a good thing she wasn't actually there cuz she probably would have gotten thrown out of the room because of making too much noise. i texted her after we dropped her off and told her i was still laughing to myself about her reaction and she said that she thinks she'll just be a virgin for life cuz she doesn't want to go through what she saw! woohoo, plan worked! hehe. i told her she doesn't have to be a virgin for life...just until she's 30...lol!!!

stuff i notice now that i'm at home

my mom taught brynna the sign for milk...caleb never picked up any signs, but she picked it up pretty quickly. the problem, however, is that she asks for her milk about a million and one times a day. and the irritating part is that she will sometimes ask for her milk, then run away from you after you go and get it for her. she's just being a bossy little thing and trying to see if she can get her way with you...lol.

brynna also has the cutest facial expressions ever. her only words thus far are "no" and "wow". oh, and "mum mum". whatever you are eating, she'll come over and want to have some too. she's very adventurous and risky...her favorite thing now is to climb up on top of the horsey thing and bounce on it. she also thoroughly enjoys throwing her head and body backwards while standing on the couch. and she likes to sit on your stomach and bounce hard, or stand on your chest and jump, or sit on my neck/chest and squeeze my face with her thighs...she thinks that's hilarious.

caleb is still thoroughly obsessed with trucks. if given his way, he'd be on the computer watching trucks from the time he wakes up in the morning so we have to keep the computer off and tell him no until later on in the day. he also loved watching a dora episode i had dvr'd which was about rescuing an ice cream truck...but somehow the stupid dvr thing erased it...actually, i'm glad cuz i was tired of that one. the books we read every night are non-fiction (boring!! lol)...super size, about all the biggest trucks there are, power lifting, about the machines that can lift a lot, and if i could drive a dump truck. so not entertaining to me, but whatever. he's pretty adept at using his loader and lifting "rocks" (rolled up little balls of paper) into his dump truck. that will seriously entertain him for long periods of time.

i gotta find some fun stuff for these guys to do this summer (and for me to do too). we should start taking some walks or something, but it's kinda hard cuz i don't trust leaving the safety of our area and venturing into the ghetto. i wish we had some kind of playground here on our property too. i should actually get some bubbles for them cuz they love playing with that at their grandparent's house.

another thing i love about being home during the day is getting so many chores done. so much to clean after neglecting it all year long. i told dave that it's actually much better that he go in to school because if he were staying home, no chores would get done at all.

summer sleeping

so since my mom has been gone, our sleeping arrangement has been altered. dave sleeps in our room with brynna, and i sleep in my mom's room with caleb. caleb falls asleep with me on my mom's bed and then i move him over to his own bed (when i remember, which is usually when he falls or nearly falls on the floor...lol). when my mom was here, caleb would fall asleep with her and she'd move him. i actually really, really like falling asleep with caleb next to me. it's much better than trying to fall asleep with a hella loud snorer next to me. bwahahaha.

dave puts brynna to bed in her crib...but by the morning she's usually in bed with him. she still wakes up at night to drink milk and if we don't catch her before she crawls out of her crib, she'll stand at the edge of the bed and scream until she's let up. my mom wants us to fix this situation before she gets back...i just don't know how to fix it. brynna is like me...i think her love language is physical touch...even if it just means her feet touching our face...lol.

since dave is the one going in to teach this summer (i'm supposed to go in, but these smart math kids intimidate me...not-so-smart math kids, i can handle...smart math kids...nope), i should actually be with brynna so i can wake up with her, but she seriously will not sleep in her crib if i'm in the room. she'll yell and scream and put up an intense fight if i'm in the room while she's going to sleep. if dave's in the room with her, though, she'll go to sleep in the crib. i guess we could switch after she goes to sleep...but i'm not going to suggest it...hehe. i guess i could also leave caleb after he goes to sleep...but i'm usually asleep before him most times so i dunno how that will work.

i must say...i do feel a lot more rested thus far...lol!

naughty boy

i need to start reading up on disciplining two-year olds. caleb's "terrible twos" seem to have started...with the throwing himself on the ground (though we laugh because he picks his spot pretty carefully and doesn't throw himself so hard that he'll hurt his head), throwing objects, and just being a little butt every so often.

of course, a lot of times it coincides with being tired because of not taking a nap or being told NO or ENOUGH. his addiction with trucks often fuels his tantrum, either when told to put his trucks away, that he's had enough of watching trucks on the computer, or that he can't watch his dora episode with trucks for the five millionth time.

he's also started to be a bigger bully to brynna. he'll elbow her out of the way, grab her hand roughly, or push her...again, most often when it relates to her taking or playing with trucks that he doesn't want her to have.

recently he pushed a bowl of soup i was going to give him over, which resulted in him getting whacked and put in his bed (where he fell asleep). he also pushed over my computer, which resulted in another whack and being put in his bedroom. i'm not the pacifist, no hitting kind of parent...if he deserves a whack, he's going to get one (though i haven't quite polished my hit, and it often ends up being an ineffective pat on the hand...have to work on that). i haven't implemented a true time out yet either. i just need to stop his insolent behavior before it gets out of hand. i haven't given him a full-of-rage yell yet, cuz i'm afraid that it will scare the crap out of him..lol. any suggestions welcomed.

diarrhea

diarrhea is never good, but baby diarrhea is probably the worst thing ever. we were wondering if the kids would catch the stomach bug that we had last week...and it seems that although they didn't get a full blown case of it, it did affect them a little bit.

brynna usually has doodoos that are like little marbles. very hard balls that are incredibly stinky, cuz even ONE of those little balls permeates the air with stinkiness.

her bout with diarrhea consisted of one regular consistency (not hard as rock) poop.

caleb had three diarrhea diapers, and his was yellow, soupy, almost watery yuckiness. the first one consisted of some solids, like popcorn husk thingies, then the next two were just watery. it was kind of nutts cuz the second one, i heard him make a wet fart, and sure enough, watery doods had squirted from his butt.

the rest of the day has been fine, though, and he's acting like his normal self and eating and drinking okay, so hopefully that's the end of their bout with the stomach bug.

sibling rivalry

from the moment we brought brynna home, caleb has been extremely loving to her. he'll hug her spontaneously, cuddle next to her, kiss her and tell her he loves her. brynna often pushes his face away, squirms, or runs away.

in the beginning, when brynna would bother caleb and tak away a toy he was playing with, he'd just move on to something else. she could basically get away with anything...

not anymore. caleb's obsession with trucks is enormous. if he's playing with a bunch of trucks, he'll usually offer one to bryn if she comes and bothers him. if she isn't content with that one truck, though, and tries to get more, he'll get upset and take them back from her or grab her arm roughly or push her away. brynna, being the bully that she is, often fights back or screams loudly.

today, for the first time ever, we saw the rumblings of future fights. brynna was trying to mess up caleb's trucks and he wasn't having it...so he pushed her away, and she came back at him, growling and aiming to bite him on the shoulder. dave got to her before she got her teeth in, but if he hadn't, i'm sure she would have bit him and he would have hit her.

gosh. it will be interesting to see how their relationship progresses as they get older.

i dunno why...

i dunno why i let myself get pissed off by other people's laziness and apathy. every time we have a dance and i'm assigned to the dance floor, it blows my mind how people think that monitoring the dance floor means standing on the side, or better yet, sitting on the side, doing jack shit. you know, if peeps going be okay with 7th and 8th graders grinding themselves on each other, then make the damn policy that that shit's okay and let everybody stand on the side doing jack crap. but that shit ain't okay, and these same damn lazy asses who sitting on the side would probably raise hell if they saw pics or video of their kid doing the same damn thing and they would say, why aren't the teachers watching the kids and monitoring their behavior. shit, do i like walking through the sweaty stinkness of kids and pulling their asses off the dance floor for grinding each other...no. but is that better than letting them do that shit, then having pics of it on fb and elsewhere and the public getting all futless for our lack of supervision of their kids...yea. i'm venting, then i'm gonna take a deep breath and be done with it...cuz i can't change how f'n lazy peeps are.

stomach pains

so last week wednesday i thought i had a major case of gas from eating chili and drinking soda.

thursday i thought i was pregnant cuz i was nauseous and tired. (i am NOT. for sure.)

friday i didn't know what the hell was wrong with me...but i had a sneaking suspicion it was more than just something i ate.

saturday i felt better...until the evening when my stomach started getting nutts again.

sunday i was down again.

today i started feeling better...and hopefully it stays this way.

dave is also not so good. his started friday night.

having stomach issues sucks butt. beyond just the going to the bathroom (mine was just doots, dave had doots and vomiting), it's just an overwhelming feeling of yuckiness and exhaustion that nothing can cure. then, after a while, you feel super hungry, but whatever you eat forces you to the bathroom again.

i've subsisted on a diet of chicken noodle soup, crackers, and ginger ale...and today i just couldn't take it anymore. ate some hot/sour soup that made me feel like crap. all i could think of all day was fries smothered with brown gravy. ate some fries for dinner (hehe, couldn't take it any longer), and so far, so good.

tomorrow we have field trip and we gotta walk our butts to the theaters...yay.

i just pray the little ones and my mom don't get whatever we had...

feeling like crap

yesterday at lunch i ate leftovers...chili...which was probably super stupid cuz from the night before i already knew it upset my stomach.

after lunch was over i headed back to my super duper hot and stuffy classroom. i immediately felt crappy. my stomach was sore, i was getting those crazy sweats, and i felt like i might pass out or barf or both. went to the bathroom and took a crap, but that didn't help. went back to the bathroom and dry heaved some, then felt even worse. by the end of the day, i knew i had to go home. luckily it was fac meeting, which i was excused from, and dave drove me straight home and then came back to school by himself.

i went to bed...and took a nap for a good three hours. my stomach was still sore, but i felt a little bit better. ate some tofu soup for dinner, took some tums, then had sore stomach and cramps and diarrhea for the rest of the night.

this morning i felt better. so far (it's 1030) i haven't had any diet coke and only ate crackers. i'm scared to eat or drink more and then feel like crap again. i'm starting to have that feeling like i can't focus, though, so i know i need to put some food in me. blech. we'll see how the rest of the day goes.

end of the year-itis

i'm soooooo dang tired. my back is sore. i got heartburn. i just wanna go sleep. got some bk 4 assignments to grade, but i don't wanna do it tonight. i wanna read my book and sleep. i got end-of-the-year-itis. bad. good thing only get two more instructional days. oh wait, today is tuesday. three more. sheesh.

gotta watch what i say

so caleb has been exhibiting signs of being a little punk. he's been throwing rager fits about random things...not wanting to go with his grandparents after church, not wanting change his diaper, not wanting to put on a shirt when we're about to go out...

today's fit was about putting on his shirt. we were going to eat dinner at ramen-ya, so as we're about to leave, we tell him to put on his shirt. he throws a fit. a throw-myself-on-the-ground screaming kind of fit. i let him get into the car without his shirt on. we get to the restaurant and we tell him he has to put his shirt on. he refuses. now at this point, i could have wrestled him to the ground and put his shirt on, but i kinda didn't want to get arrested for child abuse. so we go inside, where i figure he might agree to now put his shirt on. no luck. he tells me, loudly and in the i'm-about-to-freak-out-in-front-of-all-these-people voice, "NO. TOO HOT." really...it's too hot for your moke butt to put on a shirt? how freakin' embarrassing.

so he eats dinner without his shirt on.

as we're eating, dave proceeds to spill his whole cup of water on the table. i say, "good job." caleb says, loudly and repeatedly, "good job, daddy. good job, daddy." OMG. sheesh. i gotta watch what i say.

all i ask...

for mother's day is a good night's rest...so it's 8:37 now, and imma go brush my teeth and get in bed, and pray that both kids sleep through the night.

pretty sure it's not gonna happen, seeing as how bryn still gets up and caleb went sleep this evening with no dinner or bocha cuz he never take one nap today...

still, i can hope...

latework

i've had a lot of interesting conversations and thoughts recently about why kids are the way they are, and what we as teachers are supposed to do to help them. with the recent news regarding upping instructional minutes and reading the comment strand on a recent article, i have many, many thoughts on this...and many, many things i'm still trying to work out for myself.

last week i was pissed beyond belief at the fact that 40 of 101 students turned in their book assignment, which i had assigned a week prior and given them class time to work on. i laid into my last class, using words like "pathetic" and telling them that they were "setting up life habits." many looked remorseful, but not many had the assignment to turn in the following day. however, after our study hall day yesterday, all but six of my missing assignments have been turned in. i had to hound them, put up a list of names on the board so all the students would know who the delinquent students were, and use our in school full day of study hall in order to get it from them, but they did the work and for the most part, it wasn't just shirty, rushed work.

so am i coddling my students by allowing them to turn it in late? am i teaching them bad habits by making them do it even if it's late? it pisses me off to no end that these kids can't do their work on time, and i'll bitch and moan to the moon, but when i really sit down and think about it, there's no way i'd ever succumb to the no latework policy. it's against my belief system. it's against my understanding of what kids at this age, and kids with these kinds of family lives, need.

it's easy to say, "damn these kids and damn their parents. if they no care, i no care either." it's much, much harder, to make yourself care and push the students to do their work. i have a hard time caring about some of my kids, and i lose my patience daily with them. but i didn't get into teaching to fail kids. i didn't get into teaching to wield my power over them. i didn't get into teaching thinking that everybody came from the same kind of place/background i did. i've seen kids whose parents don't give a rip still succeed, and i've seen kids whose parents do everything possible for them still fail. i've seen many, many kids with shitty home lives who struggle everyday and don't give a rip about my work...but they'll do it if they know that i give a shit about them.

so what's my point? i don't really know. more posts to come on this touchy subject.

long night

so caleb took a nap at around 6. brynna took a nap around there too. grrrreat night ahead of us, i'm thinking. it's 10:23p and neither of them seems ready to go down just yet. we'll see how it goes.

someone's waiting for you

so when dave started listening to this song from "the rescuers" with caleb, i thought, gosh, what a sappy song...so dave. i made fun of him for listening to it over and over and getting all gushy about the lyrics.

then i listened to it. awwww...so sweet. so sad. so touching. i now love it too!

and hearing caleb sing it...that's priceless. i gotta get video of him singing it...but just imaging..."be brave lillo one, hold your head up though no one is near...always keep a lillo prayer in your pocket..." soooooo freakin' cute!

sibling rivalry?

although i have two brothers and two sisters, i am an only child. hehe. makes sense, right? i am the only child of my mom and dad...they both have two other children each. i know i was meant to be on this earth cuz god had to work some special magic to get my mom and dad together...til this day i still can't even imagine how they were attracted to one another to begin with. lol.

anyways, since my older brother and sister are much older than me, 11 and 13 years, and i only saw my younger sister and brother every other weekend, i basically was an only child. my older brother moved out when i was still in elementary school, so i didn't really have the real sibling in the same house experience.

i wonder what caleb and brynna's relationship will be like. for now, he totally loves on her, and she mostly just pushes him away like he's just a pain in her okole. he's always been very loving and nice to her. she's always been indifferent or irritable with him. lol.

lately we've noticed that caleb is getting less tolerant of brynna. before, he'd just walk away and find something else to do if she came and took his toy or invaded his space. now, though, he'll pull toys back or even grab her hand roughly. he's also realizing that his size puts him at an advantage and will bump her on occasion. we've had to scold him recently for that.

brynna, though, is a bull, and will loudly screech when caleb takes something away from her. she also hits, but at this point it's harder to scold her for it because she doesn't truly understand yet.

i really hope that they have a close relationship...and i hope that they take care of one another...and i hope that brynna doesn't have to beat people up for caleb. lol.

daddy's bad...

on sunday night dave wanted to eat ice cream...mocha almond fudge...and everyone knows that if you try to eat ice cream in front of the kids, they want some too. he ended up giving brynna a few bites (he says three, i think it was probably more). that night, she REFUSED to go to bed. she usually goes down at around nine with little problem. that night, not even close. caleb ended up coming to our room for some reason, so he was also lying in our bed, which i thought would end up making for a terrible night. caleb, though, was tired and just lie there with us, watching the little one go nutts.

when i say "go nutts," i mean GO NUTTS. she would energetically climb out of her bed and think it was the funniest thing ever. after many, many, many times of putting her back in, i gave up. she ran out of the room and straight to the lanai door, which she pounded on a few times. then she ran to my mom's room, which she thought was hilarious. back and forth, to the living room, back to our room. at one point she was literally spinning in circles.

finally we put her on the bed with us (well, dave body slammed her a couple times cuz he was getting so futless...but she just thought it was playing and funny!). eventually, after i dunno how long, she fell asleep...she and i with our heads on one side of the bed, dave and caleb with their heads at the other.

thankfully she slept well last night...finally...and we're hoping tonight will be another good one.

dave is banned from giving her ice cream ever again!!!!

sad

last night we went to wal-mart and i ran into one of my most memorable students yet. he was from one of my first years of teaching and i just adored this little pain in the butt. he's blackanese, and i think my being japanese and little reminded him of his mom so i became a surrogate mom in school. he was such an immature, emotional little guy and i spent many after school days helping him with science, math, english, whatever. we'd often drop him off at home, and stop at mcdonalds on the way to get him something small to eat since sometimes his mom wasn't home yet. he didn't want to go home one day after tutoring and i had to call my counselor to help me figure out how to get him home.

he's 21 now. isn't that crazy??? he ended up at job corps to get his diploma, and has finally settled himself in a job at home depot, which he seems to enjoy. it's sooooo weird to see this little guy bigger than me, and i think it's a trip for him to see me and dave married with kids (he had dave for pe and says that dave bullied him and he has repressed memories of dave's torment...lol!).

it was so nice to see him...but it also got me a little bit sad. i don't have that kind of relationship with my kids anymore. i dunno if it's because he was in a small class that i bonded with because i had them for two periods. i dunno if it's the two periods that lent itself to being closer to my kids. i just feel sad that i don't have that kind of relationship with any of my kids anymore...and it feels like i haven't had that kind of relationship with any kids for a while. the last class i feel like i kind of had those kinds of relationships with are the kids who are seniors now...that makes me sad. it really makes me want to cry.

it's something i gotta think about more...why don't i have that kind of relationship with my kids anymore???

lazy song

yesterday bruno mars' lazy song was on the radio...you know, the one that says, "today i don't feel like doing anything, i just wanna lay in my bed, don't feel like picking up the phone, so leave a message at the tone, cuz today i don't feel like doing anything, nothing at all..."

i really wonder when i will have a day like that again. just stay in pajamas, lie around, nap, watch tv, eat whatevers, just chill.

i don't really know if i had days like that pre-babies, but a day like that sounds soooo nice...

naps

caleb and naps. not happening regularly. and if it doesn't happen, the night is a disaster.

okay, maybe i'm being overly dramatic because last night sucked....but really, caleb needs a nap and his stubborn butt sometimes refuses to take one, which causes him to be an even bigger butt.

yesterday he refused to take a nap. he fell asleep for maybe ten minutes on our drive to sam's club, but then didn't want to sleep any more after that. he fell asleep at around 9:45 p.m. as i was reading to him, which tells me he was tired because he usually relishes his time alone with baba in the room after we read to him and close the door.

of course, though, this meant that he was up at 245, asking me for milk, thinking it was time for everyone else to be awake. he climbs into bed with us, drinks his milk, and moves around. i can't remember in what sequence things happened, but eventually he and i wound up in the living room because i didn't want him waking bryn. then he was in the living room alone because i left him to go back to my bed since lying on the couch with him is totally uncomfortable. then i was back in the living room with him as he whined for his blankie. got it for him, then he decided he wanted to be in bed with daddy. put him there and left them to go back to sleep on the couch, cuz at this point brynna was also in our bed after falling out of her bed.

needless to say, i am tired.

and i have a freakin' iep again today. blech. tired, tired, tired. i wish it were a long weekend all over again this weekend!

things i miss

don't get me wrong...mommyhood is wonderful. there are, however, some things i sometimes miss...

• lounging around all day without a care in the world...reading my book, watching tv, taking naps.
• leaving the house with just my purse...and not a purse stuffed with diapers, wipes, boogie wipes, toys, snacks, etc.
• eating dinner at the same time as dave
• showering with dave
• sleeping next to dave
• watching a movie at home, all the way through, with dave

i'm sure some of these things will happen again once the kids are older...

parenthood...

i just read an article about seven things they never tell new parents and it got me to thinking...

i can't really remember how dave and i felt before caleb was born....like the anxiety and excitement. i know we felt pretty clueless, and still do most of the time. if i could go back to that time, i wonder if anything anyone said would have made any difference.

everyone says that nothing can prepare you for baby. it's true. nothing could have prepared me for the sheer panic of having this little baby (okay, caleb was never a little baby, but you know what i mean) that you are solely responsible for. leaving the hospital is scary...you wanna stay there where you at least have the comfort of trained professionals helping you along.

nothing prepares you for sleeping no more than an hour straight for days on end. nothing prepares you for an incessantly crying baby who you can't console. nothing can prepare you for the pain/frustration of breastfeeding, or the feelings of guilt/failure if you can't and have to bottle feed. nothing can prepare you for the hormonal imbalance you go through after birthing a child. nothing can prepare you for the pain of childbirth, or the afterpains of childbirth.

sounds so scary, right? it is. and although i haven't magically forgotten the pains, like so many moms say is what happens, i would gladly go through all of those pains to have these two in my life. that first time baby smiles at you, when you realize that nothing but your touch/smell/sound can soothe your baby, holding your sleeping baby and looking at their calm, peaceful, contentedness...it's all worth it.

watching the development of these two little people, who started off as little fuzzies in the ultrasound picture, is awe-inspiring...having them is the best kind of scary ever.

empty nest...

so my 18 year old nephew officially left for his basic training today. we thought he was leaving yesterday but apparently the flight was pushed back to today. he called from the airport to say he was leaving...bittersweet because we know he wanted to do this and we know that in this economy, the military is a good option, but it's still sad.

when we dropped him off at the hotel the other night and said our goodbye's, i was surprised that i got choked up. when we drove away i actually teared up and felt that soreness in my chest. i didn't think i'd be emotional at all, but he's my youngest nephew (wait, not really, but my youngest nephew of the three that i used to spend a lot of time with) so i guess it's understandable.

it got me to thinking...how in the heck will i be able to stand when caleb and brynna leave for college? how does any parent function when their babies leave? i still get sad when the kids go with their grandparents on sundays! my sister has been torn up about my nephew leaving...he's her baby and now all three boys are out of the house. my sister had my first nephew when she was 19...i told my mom that she's never had a life without them so it's going to be super hard for her. man. i better treasure these 18 years because i'm sure they'll fly by and soon i'll be bawling my eyes out when they leave for college!

togetherness

spring break was a lot of good togetherness time. being with the kids all day is interesting and fun. i should have written about things we did during the break, but i just didn't feel like it...and now my post-preggos memory fails me yet again. lol.

i do remember that we went to the doctor because both kids had runny nose and an ugly cough. brynna had an ear infection again and caleb also had some kind of infection so both are on antibiotics right now.

my nephew came to stay with us for a little bit and it was cool to see how quickly brynna warmed up to him because she usually takes a while. he got to see firsthand what life with two kids is like, so i hope it serves as birth control for him...hehe. he didn't much like hearing brynna cry for twenty minutes at 2 a.m. lol. since my nephew is army-bound (he just left for basics....i'll talk about that in another post), he wanted to go the army museum in waikiki. who goes there? tourists and nobody, and for good reason. caleb enjoyed himself, but my nephew and i were less than thrilled. good thing it was free.

we invited ourselves over to aunty leish's house for lunch one day and caleb got to show off his new truck toys while brynna showed that she can eat a nerf basketball...lol. after lunch we headed to town for dave's dentist appt and i attempted to peruse crafting stuff at ben franklin with the two kiddies...not really a great experience, but luckily they were semi-well-behaved.

took them to the playground a couple times and they both love it. once the weather starts cooperating more we'll be able to go more often.

took them to discovery center, which they both loved. we have to look into getting a yearly membership...at this age, that place is the bomb for both of them so we better take advantage while we can cuz after five years old i think they'll be over it.

besides that we just cruised and enjoyed the time with them. they were happy to have their baba back at the end of the week and have adjusted faster than i thought they would (or hoped they would...hehe) to us being back at work.

youtube addict

caleb is a youtube addict.

he was very into watching this stupid "mad cow - i love to moo" video.

then it was basketball trick shots.

now it's watching construction equipment. soooo entranced by these things. and he's telling us, "look, an excavator! no, a backhoe. ooh, a loader!" really, really excited by construction machines...we have to read him his danny dozer book about a million times a day. what a weirdo. uncle mark, take him to that place in mapunapuna and he'll be your best friend forever!

shopping

today i told dave that i wanted to go shopping because my clothes suck. most of what i wear is at least a few years old, minus maybe two new pieces from this year. i have also resorted to wearing tshirts to work a lot, which is something i never imagined i would do.

so we went to old navy because i kept seeing the commercials for $9 dresses. i found one. nothing else.

went to charlotte russe, guess, everblue casuals...nothing.

i have several problems when it comes to shopping. first of all, i have a hard time spending money on clothes. if something costs more than $15, i totally don't want to buy it. sizes are a problem. having post-baby fat is also a problem. trying to shop with two kids in tow also doesn't help. being 31 and not feeling anne taylor-ish, but knowing that forever 21 isn't really age appropriate either is another problem.

shopping just used to be a lot more enjoyable ten years ago. oh well.

baba-less

lol. my mom went home for the week so we're baba-less. caleb has been trapped in her room with her after we read to him for the last couple weeks, so i'm not quite sure how bedtime is going to work tonight. after we finish reading and close the door to their room, i can hear him laughing up a storm and always find him in a different sleeping place than the one i left him in the next morning. he seems to quite enjoy the time in there with baba and often doesn't sleep until after dave and i are sleeping.

i'm thinking i'll read to him and put him to bed...and bring my binder in there and correct some work until the boy falls asleep. we'll see.

brynna had her first dentist appointment today and handled it like a champ. i wasn't there because today was tash's junior prom so i took her to get her makeup done. dave took bryn and said that she didn't cry at all, and totally let the doctor examine, brush and scrape her teeth. dr said that brynna will probably need braces since she already has buck teeth. her jaw is just too small for all the teeth that need to go in there...she has dave's mouth, caleb has mine. so his teeth may not need braces like hers, but his jaw and alignment will probably be all jacked up. i think the buck teeth and braces are better than what caleb will probably have.

another difference between caleb and brynna....caleb is deathly afraid of my oldest nephew. i'm not sure if it's the size, tattoos or what, but he seriously gets frightened when my nephew is around. brynna, on the other hand, marched up and examined him upon seeing him to day...and even smiled at him. lol. so funny.

my omg for the day...i was in the kitchen with caleb and he was at the fridge looking at his letters and pointing them out...which is normal...except that this time he was saying, "z, zzzz", "v, vvvvv," "i, irrrr" (kay, i dunno where that one came from). we have not started phonics with him so all i can say is, yay tv and yay alphabet toys. lol.

talking and formula

so i finally found the post about caleb's first word....it was from february 2010. that means caleb was already 14 months before he said his first word. he didn't progress very quickly with talking, but thankfully he didn't need to do speech or anything like that.

i'm wondering when brynna will start talking. i don't know if "no" counts as a word for her, because she says it randomly, even though it often does seem to fit the situation. she also says "mummum" when she sees her food, but i don't know if that counts as a word either.

we're thinking she'll start talking sooner than caleb did just because she has his example to follow and she's a girl (naturally smarter creatures...lol). my mom said i started talking at 14 months (and wouldn't shut up since then...). i'm not sure how old dave was when he started talking.

we're almost done with the last of our formula. if i really wanted to, i could go back and find all the receipts and figure out the staggering amount of money we spent on formula. sheesh. thank goodness we're done with buying formula. now we just have to figure out how to have enough room in our full fridge for two gallons of milk...one whole milk, one 2%.

on a much happier note...

we took the kids (and tash and my mom) to windward mall today. okay, not the smartest idea seeing as how rain was predicted and the windward side is always extra rainy anyways, but we hadn't been there in a long time and it's always good for some cheap fun.

ate lunch at the food court and then headed to the pet store for some free entertainment. tripped out at the fat hairless guinea pigs...a couple must have been pregnant and it just looked beyond nutts.

then we headed to the play area, where about a million and one kids were playing. brynna actually stayed in there for a lot longer than caleb did...caleb was much more interested in looking at and sitting in the mechanical car thingies and looking around in fun factory (or whatever that game place is called). my mom and tash cruised around in borders until we met up with them again.

before leaving i wanted dessert so we stopped at ben and jerrys and i got to eat some ono coffee ice cream (even if it ended up in me having sore stomach, it sure was worth it!). brynna and caleb got to eat ice cream too, which they were thrilled about.

here's what's hard with brynna these days...she loves her independence and is not scared of leaving us behind. caleb would always turn around and look for us and make sure we weren't too far behind. brynna, on the other hand, turns around to look at you but with a sneaky smile on her face and then she turns back and jams it as fast as she can away from you. and when you try to pick her up or grab her hand and lead her where you want to go, she isn't having it. she wants to go her own way. goodness.

anyways, windward mall, like always, was fun, cheap, and entertaining. i love it there.

dammit, kid!

last night, after not taking a nap during the day, caleb fell asleep while eating his dinner...literally. he hadn't taken a bath or brushed his teeth, but i put him in bed and prayed he would sleep for the rest of the night.

he woke up at 2 a.m. brynna also woke up at this time and it was my turn to feed her so i was up. caleb and dave left the room and i distinctly heard caleb telling dave that he made stinkies.

sometime after that, caleb is back in my room, at my bed, telling me he wants milk and that he made stinkies.

dave is passed out on the couch.

i change caleb's diaper and get his milk and go back in my room, leaving him in the living room with dave.

soon caleb is back at my bed, asking me for more milk. i tell him to go tell daddy and roll over.

he comes back, asking me for milk. i tell him again to tell daddy and he says "NO."

frick. get him more milk, and also wake dave up and give him a piece of my mind.

of course, by this time, i'm no longer able to go to sleep.

finally, at 5, caleb falls asleep on the couch and leave him there to go back to sleep in the comfort of my own bed, where dave is, of course, passed out.

then brynna freakin' starts crying again. i put her on our bed and she goes back to sleep and so do i...finally.

let me tell you, i'm praying hard for a much better sleep tonight.

new stuff

brynbryn is drinking half formula, half whole milk now. doctor said she might start drinking less now that she's on the whole milk, and to continue offering her solids, but maybe more "gravy-ish" stuff since she's not loving the dry stuff yet. she is definitely not the eater caleb was, and it shows in her size. for the past two nights she's done a better job of sleeping...well, she still wakes up twice to drink, but that's better than 3 or 4 times, which she was doing when her tooth was coming in. hopefully when she's on whole milk fully she'll dwindle down to one waking, then none.

holy smokes, the rain just started coming down...choke!

caleb is getting more aggressive with his sister...he used to just give up whatever toy he was playing with if she came around and bothered him, but not anymore. now he hits her hand away or pulls the toy from her. he's always been very gentle and loving, but now we can see him start to get annoyed by her and he doesn't realize how little or unbalanced she is so it's kind of scary. of course, brynna wreaks havoc on him a lot too, so i guess it's "fair."

caleb has abandoned his bed for the past week or so. he's now sleeping on the folding mattress on the floor between his bed and baba's. he was having difficulty with staying in bed and exhausting us by having to be returned to the bedroom a million and one times, so one night my mom just closed the door to her room with the two of them inside and made him go to sleep in there. he cried, knocked on the door, and had a little fit, but eventually he fell asleep. now we read to him, say goodnight, and close the door. for a couple of days he cried and pitched a fit, but now he's getting used to it and knows the door will be closed.

tomorrow's friday and i'm exhausted. monday and tuesday i felt pretty good and rested, but from weds on i've been tired again. too bad it's not a long weekend...but at least next week is a short week...

what to do?

so the same gouge my eyeballs out kid from the last post drove me to the point of utter frustration again yesterday.

he comes in to class, the period after lunch, and asks me to use the bathroom.

i ask him what he was doing all during lunch and tells me, "i was at the courts!" with a look on his face like, duh, what else would i be doing, that's why i couldn't use the bathroom, let me go now!!!!

i look back at him with what i'm sure is a pissy, incredulous face, and tell him no.

he continues to ask us again and again if he can go and we continue to tell him no.

we get into doing our classwork and when there's about ten minutes left he asks again. i tell him to do one more part of his assignment and then i'll let him go (after all, when we talked to his mom about his frequent bathroom use, she told us that he has peed his pants in elementary because of not getting to use the bathroom...whatever...). he finishes the part i told him to and i tell him that he has until the big hand reaches the 5 to be back and if he's not back by then he'll never be allowed to go to the bathroom again.

he runs there and back and gets to the class in time....with a wad of new gum in his mouth.

admin has been making announcements about no gum chewing so i've written big on my board "NO GUM CHEWING!!" the other kids, of course, are quick to point out that he's chewing gum. i'd had it already so i just take out a referral and start to write a very detailed account of his behavior the entire period.

seriously...i dunno what to do and how to handle him. he's gotten cracks from his stepdad to try to get him to behave, his mom is informed of his behavior, he's supposedly on meds...i dunno. i'm sure a big part of it is me...i'm tired of him and so everything he does gets me completely riled up. thank goodness i don't have that class today so at least i have a little reprieve.

on another note....a kid in that same class kept piping up and making inappropriate comments to this kid cuz he's so irritating. so as i tried to talk to him and tell him that he's only getting himself into trouble for making inappropriate comments, he proceeds to tell me that he's in english class, and he's speaking english, so how can i scold him. for real????

this is why pins classes DON'T work.

gouge out my eyeballs, please...

i am having such a difficult time maintaining my patience with a certain student. grrr.

he's in here at recess right now and i want to strangle him, so i had to walk away.

right now he's complaining about mosquitoes.

they're doing a dialectical journal, which is basically two columns; one side for a quote from the book, the other side for your thoughts/questions/reactions/feelings/connections regarding that part in the novel.

he wants me to help him. i've explained to him about fifty times what the assignment is and we've gone through examples of how to do this.

i keep telling him that he has to show me what he's thinking about. i can't help him because he has to show me what he's thinking. i am not his brain...he has to think.

the sad part is...there probably really aren't a whole lot of thoughts going through his brain that are even remotely related to the book we're reading.

first cake experiences...

wow. brynna made one yesterday.

being the big celebrators we are (sarcasm...lol), we had the exact same celebration for brynna as we did for caleb. us, baba, grandpa and grandma colmenares, and uncle mark and aunty leish for dinner at our house. nothing fancy...shoyu chicken, hot dog, noodles, pasta salad, rice, and yummy cupcakes and ice cream for dessert.

seeing the difference between brynna's first cake experience and caleb's just highlights the differences between the two. brynna mushed her cupcake all up, getting both hands dirty, then shaking her hands and flying cake, which was all i could handle (lol). in the bathroom she proceeded to stuff cake in her face, inhaling some through her little nose. she LOVED cake.

caleb's first cake experience was a lot less messy. in fact, while brynna mushed her cake up, caleb said, "no, don't do that" and "sister, wash hand." his first cake experience was pretty much just sticking one finger in the frosting and licking his finger, but not wanting to get his whole hand dirty.

i know a lot of it is hard-wired in their brains, but i also wonder how much of the ocd-ness that caleb has versus the easygoing-ness of brynna has to do with us being way more uptight with caleb and waayyyy less with bryn. it'll be interesting to see how those differences continue to show themselves as they grow up.

perma eye twitch

for a few days now i've had an irritating, constant eye twitch. it's bothering the heck out of me. it feels ridiculous. i know that the only thing that will end it is some much needed sleep, but unfortunately, i don't rule my sleeps...caleb and brynna do.

dave is hella tired too. we thought this long weekend would make it better...but due to caleb's weird sleep patterns, it only made it worse.

last night was actually nice for the fact that my mom "locked" caleb in their room until he fell asleep. hehe. i think he shut the door to their room (that's his new thing, closing our doors) and then he couldn't get out anymore. i could hear him knocking from the inside of their room, then crying loudly, but my mom didn't let him out and there was no way in hell i was going to get him. lol.

it's 720, brynna's pau bocha and i'm gonna bocha caleb soon. unfortunately, both took naps today so i'm thinking an extra early bedtime isn't going to work tonight.

whose job?

so today, for the first time that i can remember in 11 years of teaching, a parent actually followed through and shadowed his kid. she was screwing up royally with her grades and at the parent conference last week her parents were pissed. she didn't know he was coming today, and wasn't very happy to have him there. by the time she got to my class, the last period of the day, she seemed better. i asked him if he wanted to sit by her but he said no so he sat at a table away from her. lol.

anyways, we often have this conversation about whose job it is to make the kids do what they're supposed to do. is it us as teachers? is it the parents? what happens when the parents aren't making the kids do what they're supposed to do? do we say, "well, they no care, i no care too", do we bend over backwards to make them do it, do we do something in the middle? i think the lengths i go to now, as opposed to before caleb and brynna, are different. i had no problem staying until 4 or 430 in the past for tutoring...now, the kids know they have until 330...so i also make sure that in that time they have, they do as much as they can. i treasure my lunch time, so i rarely stay in for kids at lunch, but if they truly needed it, i'd do it. but when kids don't show me effort and aren't caring about their grades, i'll rag them about it, give them the pissed off and disappointed speech, but after a while, it's their choice.

i think that since most of us (teachers) had parents who made us do what we were supposed to and since we were fairly smart, this wasn't an issue for us so it's hard to see why it should be an issue for anyone else. it baffles us that parents can't look at the planner, or check the kid's engrade, or make them do their homework. at the same time, though, i gotta remind myself that not all kids have the white picket fence home life. i mean, sheesh, looking at my own family, there's vast difference educationally between my older siblings, me, and my younger siblings, and we all in the same family (kind of...lol).

i often wonder how dave and i will be as parents, especially when caleb and brynna reach that middle school/hs age. we think we'll be two steps ahead of them and that they'll be model students, but who knows. my aunty, a teacher, was on my cousin choke and he still managed to set himself on cruise control and drive her crazy. so when he wasn't doing his stuff in school, was that her fault? no. was it the teacher's fault? no. it was just him, being him, and i bet he worked for teachers who pushed him and ragged his ass and didn't for the ones he didn't really like.

so i guess i have no answer for this never ending conversation. it is interesting, though, to hear opinions from all different kinds of people.

tgif

man, this week has been a long one.

i'm thankful that last night, caleb stayed in his room. he made some attempts to climb in our bed, but in the end he went back to his own room. found him on the floor this morning when i went in to wake up my mom.

i must have gotten a pretty good sleep...at least long enough spurts to actually dream. lol.

brynna woke up this morning screaming. i wonder if she was having a bad dream, or if she was having a hard time breathing cuz she has hanabata nose again.

i'm going to love this long weekend, even if i know it will fly by and even if i have a million and one papers to look at.

you know what's kinda cool...even though reading out loud to five classes tears my voice/throat up, hearing the kids excited to keep reading is soooo cool. it still pisses me off when they read ahead and try to ruin it for the rest, but that they're excited about something for once is nice.

romance after two

no, not romance after two in the morning, lol.

romance after two kids.

i'll be brutally honest here...doesn't happen! lol. seriously, i'm not sure how we got pregs with brynna so fast cuz i swear we had no time or energy for baby making but it must have been one of those five times it happened after caleb was born. hehe.

so valentine's day. i can't remember if i was ever really big on valentine's day. i know dave and i got engaged on our valentine's date in 2004, and that we went out to eat at dk's for valentine's another year, but beyond that, i don't really remember much.

so this valentine's day, doing nothing wasn't a big deal.

the week before valentine's we went to longs and i told dave to go find me a card and i'd find him one too...so i found one, but when i saw it cost $4, i couldn't bring myself to buy it and just told him to read it in the store. hehe.

dave did end up getting me a card...at times when he was sent to buy some groceries. he said even though i said not to buy cards, he didn't know if it was a trick so he just bought one in case. lol. who me, play mind games like that? never. hehe.

maybe someday when the kids are older we'll find that romance in our relationship again. as long as i get lovies (cuddles) on demand, i'm good, so no matter if it's valentine's day or not. lol.

sick again

yesterday caleb had fever, runny nose, and his hacking cough doesn't seem to be getting better. we're taking him in to dr. sumida today so we'll see if he goes on antibiotics again. the cough syrup we have doesn't seem to be helping too much...it sounds like he has a lot of yucks in his chest that he can't seem to get out.

now i'm worried that brynna will get sick too. caleb loves to kiss and hug her, so i figure it's only a matter of time...

i just pray that me, my mom, or dave doesn't get sick too!

what a week ahead...

this week is gonna be kuh-razy. tomorrow i'm flying to maui for the day for my grandpa's funeral. that in itself should be interesting, what with new family dynamics and all that.

tuesday is a no-prep day. gotta give out progress reports. not in my own classroom cuz we're switching for testing so that should be interesting. tuesday evening we have a class to go to for brynna's baptism, which happens on sunday.

wednesday is the critical reading presentation. wish i could tell you i know exactly how it's going to go, but i don't yet. i have the outline, just gotta fill in exactly what i'm gonna say and do to make it flow well. lots of pressure to not screw it up.

thursday is tutoring and i expect to see a lot of kids cuz they'll finally realize that they're messing up since they're getting progress reports. you know, cuz they don't already know cuz they're lame and don't check their engrade.

friday...i think it'll be a thank GOD it's friday kind of a day. as long as i don't do any "shut the hell ups" by the end of the day, i'll call it a success.

at least i've planned out fairly easy meals for the week. tonight we had baked mac and cheese (yay for finally making something i saw alton brown do on food network!), tomorrow we have baked french toast for breakfast and leftovers for dinner, tuesday i'll do pasta with tomato cream sauce (woohoo deena and pioneer woman!), weds is hamburger baked beans and thurs is chicken stir fry. hopefully friday we'll have some leftovers and i can just chill. either that or i'm making dave buy us dinner. lol.

cuddling happiness

i haven't really read much about the benefits and/or consequences to be had by having your children in bed with you. i know everyone says, "don't do it," because once they're in there, you can't kick um out. i get that. i don't want the four of us sleeping together when caleb and brynna are in their teens or anything like that...

but there's nothing i like more than being in bed, caleb to my right, brynna to my left, dave next to brynna. i love weekend mornings when caleb crawls into our bed, then brynna comes into bed after a feeding, and we all go to sleep together. when i wake up, i feel happy.

last night caleb woke up at 230 because he went to bed at about 530 since he hadn't taken a nap in the daytime. i got up with him, he wanted milk, and after drinking a little bit he wanted to get in our bed. i drifted in and out of sleep while caleb quietly entertained himself and dave slept soundly. after a while, caleb got tired again and he asked to be carried. there was no way in hell i was getting up, and luckily he was content to just snuggle and hug me until he fell asleep. that is bliss...to cuddle with my babies! my overwhelming love language is physical touch, and there is nothing better than to snuggle with caleb and brynna.