Okay.  So I promised the "not so proud" conversations with Ethan.  But some of you are still gonna laugh.  That’s okay.  This is mainly to prove I don’t think my children are perfect.

        1.  A few weeks ago when I picked Ethan up from Sonshine School he proudly told me that he’d gotten to eat some sour gummi worms at recess.  "Oh wow!  Who gave them to you?"   "No one!" he proclaimed. "They were just on the ground!  Just right there!"      

        2.   On the same day he got in trouble for staying up and messing around at bedtime.  The final straw was when he told Tim he needed to talk to me about a name.   (What?)  Tim said, "Do NOT go downstairs and talk to Mommy about a name.  Go to bed."   So he came down instead to ask me to rub his back.  I did not know about his conversation with Tim.  Tim heard our voices & came down to get onto Ethan.  Tim was "grilling" him on his intentions and reasons for disobeying when I got a hunch.  "Ethan, did you think, well Daddy told me not to ask Mommy about this name, so I’ll go ask her to rub my back?  Then when she’s doing that I can ask her about the name?"   He put his head down as he grinned and said, "Yeah, that one."   Aaaahhhhhh!!!!         At least he’s a terrible poker player like his father.         

        3.  Finally, one from last week.  And this one’s a bit graphic — sorry.  He had finished going to the bathroom and required some wiping assistance because, in his words, "It’s kind of gooey."  (blech)  Anyway, I was wiping him and decided it would help to use one of those flushable moist wipes they make now.  All of ours had dried out, so I got one wet under the tub faucet.  Then Ethan proudly told me that one time when he was wiping himself he needed to re-wet one of those too.  "So how did you do it?  Just waddle over to the tub and take your chances on making a mess?"   "No, Mommy!" (as if that were silly)  "I didn’t want poop to fall on the floor!"  {"Oh no," I thought. "What other water source is there?"}  "Well, what did you do?"   "I just put it down there in the water."  (of course)  I did later applaud his desire to do it himself, and acknowledged that he was still going to wash his hands so it kind of didn’t matter.  But there’s just some mental issue (at least for me) that makes that a bit too icky.  So I reminded him that it’s okay to call for help; even if I just re-wet the wipe for him.  

Even as I write this, I keep putting my head in my hands.  Ahhhh!!!!  How do any of us survive childhood — or parenthood?   

I forgot to mention in the last post that not only did Steven and Kristi get to deal with the nasty weather that slammed OKC, but Noah (the 2 yr old) got his first ear infection!  Poor baby.  You should hear the tale of how they finally got him drugs.  Goodness.

Anyway!  Spider tales (one, actually).  We’re still in Colorado mostly having fun.  But Caleb had a fever most of yesterday, and woke me up about 4 times last night.  Of course the children still woke up "on time" and I wanted to keep sleeping.  This morning I remember having some sense that they were up, but just couldn’t drag my carcass off the bed.  That is until Ethan shook me and with an urgent voice declared, "Mommy!  You need to come quick!  There’s a spider in the bathroom!  A black one!  A BIG black one!" Quite a few questions later I decided that I was, in fact, going to have to visit the scene.  I knew Ethan was worried about it being a black widow, even though I was sure that’s not what we’d find.

So up I got, and drug my feet up two flights of stairs from the basement to the upstairs bathroom.  Ethan went ahead of me the whole time going on and on about how big it was…. "You’ll see, Mommy.  You won’t believe it."  Caleb trailed behind with, "Bwack widow.  Baf – oom."  Sure enough, there was a HUGE spider (at least half dollar – size, legs included) on the floor by the sink.  I stopped short with, "Holy COW!"    Being grateful that I’d thought to grab one of Tim’s tennis shoes from the main floor, I crept forward, arm slightly raised.  Then I realized the thing looked upside down. And when more of the sleep- haze cleared from my vision I started laughing.  "Oh Ethan, I’m glad you didn’t get close to it since you didn’t know what it was; but it’s plastic!"  

So I picked it up and showed it to him.  We talked about it a while, and then turned to leave the bathroom.  This is when I got upset with Caleb.  He had BUNCHES of toilet paper on the loft floor!  I said, "Caleb!  What in the world!?  Why did you do that!?"  Then I noticed his t.p.- filled outstretched hand, and his proud "helping" face, as he said over and over, "Paper tow’l.  Bwack widow."   I started laughing again as I scooped him up for a hug and said, "Oh, Baby!  You brought ‘paper towels’ so I could smash the spider!  You sweet thing!"    It can be so cute (and potentially problematic) when a 2 yr old is pro-active.

Ethan and I had another laugh as we came down the stairs and realized that Caleb had gone to the utility room toilet on the main floor, grabbed the end of the toilet paper roll and RAN through the dining area, down the entry hall, and around the corner to go up the stairs.  I measured how much t.p. he had trailing behind him in his effort to help: 52 feet.  

So… that’s ONE way to wake up. 

Merry Christmas all!  It was a busy day (as Christmas always is), but we really just hunkered down in my parents’ house all day.  It was pretty nice.  There was gorgeous sparkly snow outside covering the fields, trees, and mountains.  Inside we had family, good food, warmth, showers, "A Christmas Story" on TBS, and of course presents.  What more could you want for Christmas?  Oh!!!  And yesterday we started a snowman (the snow was too fluffy to make a good snowman), made snow angels, and slid down the snowy slide.  Tim and I also got into a pretty decent snow fight, with some participation from Ethan.  Caleb was so adorable tromping through the knee-high (to him) snow.

So back to today.  Ethan and Caleb were amazed at Santa’s generosity: he didn’t eat all 4 cookies that were left out. Instead he left a thank you note, explained that he really didn’t need all 4 cookies, and that they were welcome to the others.  Oh BOY!  They were both quite pleased with their Santa gifts, as well as all the rest of the "haul."  Later my grandparents came out for supper.  It was pretty fun to hear the stories that the two older generations had to tell.

All in all, it was a very good day.  We DID notice the absence of my brother and his family.  We couldn’t even talk to them on Skype cuz the internet connection was lousy.  And we really hated knowing that they were dealing with much more unpleasant snowy conditions in Oklahoma City.  So to all friends and family in OKC — we’re thinking about you!  

In fact, Tim’s family (last I knew) was canceling the Family Christmas Lunch — for the first time EVER as far as Tim knows!  So again…. thinkin’ of y’all!

Merry Christmas anyway!  (I do have a pretty bad headache, so don’t know how coherent this is!)

Ethan:  Mommy, I have a hypothesis.

Me:  Oh really?  What’s your hypothesis?

Ethan:  I think I know why we have some flat teeth and some poinky teeth.  I think we have flat teeth like Apatosaurus so we can eat plant things — like vegetables.  And I think we have poinky teeth like T. Rex and  Velociraptor so we can eat meat. 

Me:  Well, that’s a very good hypothesis.  I think you’re right.  

And I want it to be known that we did NOT teach him the word hypothesis.  One of the little dinos on PBS’ "Dinosaur Train" has a hypothesis every episode, and both kids are huge fans of the show.  But it cracked me up to be having this conversation with him.

Coming soon:  A conversation that did NOT make me crack up and did NOT make me especially proud.   

At Sonshine School Ethan made one of those cute little candy cane decorations using pipe cleaners and "tricorn" beads (that’s what I call them anyway).  He was so proud of it, and of course I made a big deal about it.  He wanted to put it on the tiny Xmas tree in their room which was fine, especially since that tree is only adorned with lights.  A few hours later we were getting them in bed.  He glanced at the tiny tree with its single ornament, then he looked at me very seriously and said, "Mommy, I think the big tree downstairs has waaay too many candy canes on it."

He was too cute and it cracked me up, so you get one guess.  Where do you think the real candy canes from downstairs are NOW?