Oh my goodness, is this week over YET???

I have not been blogging as much because this has been the most tiring and frustrating week. As you know, Karl has been working a lot of hours so I have been holding down the fort at home. Most of the time it goes okay, but this week has been horrible. I won't go into it all, but I have been repeatedly praying for the patience and energy to deal with it. On top of that I have spent the last two weeks throwing down handfuls of medicine for the headache that won't go away. Yuck. I do have a cute post about Annika that I need to write. So I will get to that after the kids are in bed.

Cheesy baby, Take 2

For Welcome

Pictures

Birthday Planning

Ian and I had an impromptu birthday planning meeting tonight at 10 pm. He had to get up out of bed to come talk to me about birthday plans, because you know, his birthday is in February (time's a wasting!) He would like to go to Shucky Cheese. Also, for his gift, he would like a giant Mickey Mouse doll that says "Welcome to the Clubhouse!" and then sings the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song and then sings the "Hotdog song." Then (and this is the really cool part) you push a button and he turns your room into the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. What to do? I am pretty sure you can't buy that just anywhere and I only have 10 1/2 months left to shop.

Putting the smart in smart-mouth

Today I was getting the boys a snack and Ian was complaining because he wanted juice instead of milk. When Brodie heard the word juice he brought up a new word- diarrhea. Neither boy knew what it meant but they (well mostly Ian) thought it was amusing to use it over and over again while they were having their snack. About the sixth time Ian said it I had had enough. I asked him to please stop saying that word. He told me, "Mommy this is a private conversation." I was surprised and asked if he even knew what 'private conversation' meant. "Yes," he answered, "That is when the two of us are talking and the other person (that would be Mommy) shouldn't be trying to talk to us."

Oh my goodness, how hard is it to leave things alone that DON'T BELONG TO YOU??? If it is not yours, you have no business touching it. The end.

Why will Ian not stop messing with things? He is not deterred by locks, baby gates or punishments. So far this week he has:

Dumped every single game we own out of their boxes and scattered them all around upstairs. Twice. Monopoly money, Sorry cards, Connect Four pieces, Clue Weapons, puzzle pieces...

He turned on the cordless phone and took it upstairs and "lost it." This means I could not push the page button on the receiver to locate it because it was 'in use' already. Also this means that I could not make nor receive any phone calls.

He took Karl's PDA/PalmPilot/Gadgety thing up to his room which is a big no-no.

Yesterday he and the little boy I babysit cut each other's shirt cuffs with a pair of scissors. Imagine the fun I had explaining to B.'s mom why his clothes were cut to shreds.

Seriously. Should I tether the child to me? He is four years old! When will this end?

We now have locks on Elizabeth's room, Alexandria and Annika's room (only when they are not in there) as well as the upstairs bathroom. We have two gates stacked on top of each other in front of the dreaded game closet (one gate doesn't work, he can easily scale it.) It is getting ridiculous.

Yay for peace and quiet!

Ian has fallen asleep earlier and slept through the entire night both nights since we moved him downstairs. There is no fighting and screaming. It is wonderful. We are trying to figure out how to do the bedroom shuffle so that he can have a real room downstairs. I think it will take a little remodeling (ie installing a door in the family room.) Neither Karl nor I have what you would call an inclination toward such things so we will see how it goes. Or doesn't go.