Kidisms

Kids are so funny. I love listening to them talk. Here are a few recent examples of kid-talk at our house:

Henry - Octopuses have technicals that will grab you. (Apparently he watches way too much basketball. See my Bracketology posts.)

Tessa - Let's talk together, Mama. About me and my princesses.

William - I love dinosaurs. And Ty Cobb. (He and Henry have been collecting baseball cards and have a few of the old-timers in their collection.)

I love the words that they make up when they are learning to talk. For example, root beer in our house is known as "bah bah boo" because William had a hard time saying root beer when he was smaller. Henry called a certain type of construction truck a "duh bah dee" - William still uses that word today. Tessa can't say the word "better" so it comes out as "berry", as in "We berry get my jacket on."

But my favorite thing the kids say is "I love you." You just can't hear that enough, can you?

Bracketology II

Well, if you follow the NCAA Basketball Tournament, otherwise known as March Madness, you know that the Final Four is set. Michigan State, UConn, North Carolina, and Villanova will be playing next weekend for the NCAA Championship.

As the games have progressed over the past two weeks, we've kept careful track of our brackets. All except for Tessa - she carries hers around the house coloring on it. But Henry, Jay and I have kept track of wins and losses and points. We tally points in our house in the following way - in the first round, you get 1 point for every win you predict correctly; in the 2nd round, you get two points for every win you predict correctly, and so on.

Jay tallied up our points today and, for the first time, I'm ahead of him going into the Final Four weekend. Unfortunately, I don't expect this lead to last, because only one of my Final Four picks is still in the tournament (UNC). Jay still has UNC and Michigan State playing, so he has a better chance of earning points next weekend than I do. If Michigan State wins their game on Saturday, I'm done. Boo.

But the thing that is really bothering me is that, so far, Henry is in the lead. Henry. 7 year old sports geek Henry. Henry, the kid who thinks he's a few months away from signing his big contract with the Utah Jazz. Henry, who filled out his very first bracket this year! I get that Jay knows more about me than sports. I can accept coming in second to him. I don't like it, but I accept it, especially considering the amount of time he spent on the internet researching his picks while I filled my bracket out the night before the tournament started about 10 minutes before I went to bed. But Henry? Really?

I'm never playing this game again.

Ah, Spring!

All together now - yuck! It's cloudy and snowy and gloomy and I'm not happy about it.

What's worse is that last week was just beautiful - temperatures in the 50's and 60's with sunshine - so the kids got a taste of spring. We played outside, we went on walks, we had fun outside with soccer and playing basketball and hunting for bugs. And now they are going stir crazy all over again. Yesterday it was windy and cloudy and in the 30's. William wanted desperately to go outside to play so I said OK. He didn't last too long and came in with a red nose and red hands. Henry had soccer practice (William's practice for today was cancelled - see above for the reason) and it was too cold to let the other kids play in the park while he practiced, so we went to the library instead. Tessa was mad at me for not taking her outside and she wailed forlornly and pressed her nose against the front window as she watched William run around with his friend Calvin. "But I want to see Calvin", she cried. "There he is, you can see him fine from inside where it's warm," was my reply. That didn't go over too well. Are all almost three year old girls drama queens? My sneaking suspicion is yes.

Anyway, now it's spring. Hooray. Wake me when it's summer.

Kindergarten Registration

Lost in the shuffle during the Two Weeks of Gloom while we were all sick was the fact that we signed William up for kindergarten next year. I filled out a bunch of forms while he had an assessment with one of the teachers. They asked him to identify some letters, colors, and numbers, as well as write his name and cut out a circle. He's been able to do all of that for a while now and we're confident that he's ready for kindergarten. I still worry about his sensitivity - he is very emotional and sensitive -but they have a time in April where you can fill out Teacher Input Forms and let the administration know anything that could be helpful in teacher assignments. I'm not going to request any specific teacher, but I am going to request that they assign him to someone who can be especially aware and sensitive to his, uh, sensitivity. I've never heard anything bad about any of the kindergarten teachers at his school, so I'm confident that they'll be able to find a good fit for him. We won't know his teacher assignment until August.

The boys have also started soccer. William has already had one practice and both boys have practices scheduled for this week. Yay for spring!

Bracketology

We love the NCAA basketball tournament around here. Basketball is fun to watch and it's fast-moving enough that even the less-sports savvy of our kids (William and Tessa) will watch and enjoy it. This year's tournament should be fun, as the Utes are a #5 seed (sadly playing in Miami). We even cheered for the Utah State Aggies (someone we like to see win unless they are playing the Utes since we live in Aggie-land and have lots of Aggie friends) who are playing in Boise. That might as well be a home game for them.

When Jay and I were first married we filled out our brackets and made a friendly wager on the tournament. Nothing big - just who got to choose the next movie or something like that - but it was fun to add a little competition to the mix. Unfortunately I always lost. Always. No matter how much I trashed talked, I always lost in the Jay/Rhonda Bracket Wars. Eventually I just lost interest and quit filling out a bracket.

This year, though, our whole family is getting in on the action. Henry overhead Jay and I talking about our past competitions and decided he wanted to fill out his own bracket. This led, predictably, to William and Tessa filling out their own brackets as well. Actually, Jay went through every single game with each child and let them make their choices. I admire his patience - it took quite a while. Henry knows more than is probably healthy for a 7 year old about college basketball so his choices weren't completely out there. Tessa basically chose the underdogs, for some reason. I think she just picked the last team that Jay said, which would explain her ultimate prediction that mighty Morgan State will be the NCAA champion this year. William didn't seem to have any rhyme or reason to his choices. He seemed partial to Robert Morris and Stephen F. Austin for some reason, as well as Clemson (he likes the color orange). His final four predictions were Utah, Northern Iowa, Clemson and Duke, with Clemson eking out a victory over the Utes in the championship game.

So if you hear strains of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year..." coming from our house, we're not trying to recapture the Christmas spirit. We're just enjoying March Madness. Go Utes!

Quarantine

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that is indeed the case, you should be able to easily tell how our weekend is going :

This is a picture of all the stuff we're currently medicating ourselves with. We have nightime cold and flu tablets (for Jay and I to take on alternate nights), children's Tylenol, children's liquid Ibuprofen, adult cough medicine, earache tablets (a homeopathic blend), children's chewable Ibuprofen, and eardrops. You can also see the handy dandy thermometer that we use - it's the kind you slide over your forehead to get a temperature. Best $30 I ever spent. Really. What's not included is the monster bag of 200 Halls Cough Drops that Jay and I have been sucking on since Thursday.

Henry and William were sick starting last weekend and have relapsed. They are both feverish and coughing, with Henry complaining of an earache, although that seems to be better today. Jay and I are coughing and congested. We're feeling better energy wise, but I forgot how hard it is to cough like this all the time. Luckily Tessa seems to have avoided getting sick so far. It's been over a week now since we have had at least one person in our household who has been ill, so maybe she's just been passed over this time. We certainly hope so.

Luckily the TV viewing is fairly basketball-heavy this weekend, so between basketball games and DVD's or Tivo, we're able to convince the kids to rest a bit. If only convincing them to take the appropriate medicine at the appropriate time was that easy. If you had dropped by our house last night around 7:30, you would have heard crying and begging and pleading from Henry and William as we tried to get them to take their medicine. What was originally a polite request from weary but oh-so-patient parents became a threat to sit on them and pour it down their throats. It wasn't pretty. But hey, I understand. That grape flavored liquid ibuprofen that basically tastes like grape flavored sugar is awful I'm sure. Perhaps next time we'll go with the bubble gum.

Edited to add that I just realized today was Pi Day. You know, 3.14159....? Well it's 3/14. I should have bought some pie for us to eat at 1:59 pm. Sigh. I'm such a geek.

Hey, You Guys!

My kids love the new version of the PBS show "Electric Company". I watched the original show back in the 70's. It was fun and colorful and had Morgan Freeman in it - what's not to like?

This show is a bit different but still charming. It features a group of kids (OK, they're teens) who belong to The Electric Company. They have a nemesis (I can't remember her name - it could be Jessica) who causes trouble for them. When they need to get together to solve the problem, one of them hollers "Hey, you guys!" and we segue into the fresh sounding theme song. It involves beatboxing, which is always fun in short bursts, and these kids (OK, teens) bopping along in the park. As my kids dance around the family room, The Electric Company exhorts them to "feel the power" and tells them that "you will see, you belong in the Company!"

It's definitely updated but still retains some of the same features, such as the closeups of two people in profile. Each person says a sound and you put the sounds together to form words - like this: C---UP---CUP. It's a cute but effective way to teach kids about sounding out words. Although Henry is a good reader, William is still in the beginning phases of reading so he enjoys learning how to sound words out.

Since Sesame Street is still on the air and they have now redone Electric Company, I can relive shows that I enjoyed as kid with my own children. Now we're just waiting for Captain Kangaroo, Part 2. Or maybe Zoom. No, even better, Mister Rogers. Those hand puppets get me every time.

Edited to correct myself - it's Francine who is the troublemaker in Electric Company, not Jessica. Jessica is, according to William, "the good one." I think he has a crush on her.

Potty Training for Dummies

1. Pick a day in the winter. It should be a day when your child most likely won't want to drink too much water so she won't be prompted to go to the bathroom too often.

2. Make sure that your older children are just getting over nasty colds/fevers/coughs and still need some extra TLC to make it through the day.

3. Buy a cute little gadget called a Potty Watch and set the timer to go off every 30 minutes. You won't get tired of hearing "Oh My Darling", "London Bridge", or "Are You Sleeping" every 30 minutes at all. You will, in fact, be so inspired that you can jump up and down, cheering your child on as they run to the potty.

4. Be sure and let your child run around the house in just her underwear. It will cause great distress in your 5 year old son because he "hates seeing Tessa's underwear all day", but his whining won't bother you at all.

5. Make sure that, about 2 hours into the process, you start feeling sick with what you assume is the cold that has had your house under fire for the past few days. Just lay on the floor in a patch of sunlight, listening to your son whine about seeing his sister's underwear and waiting, waiting, waiting for the Potty Watch to go off.

6. Wake up in the middle of the night after your first day of potty training with a horrible cough and a fever, ensuring that there is no way you will feel like continuing the potty training process the next day.

7. Check your stash and see that you only have three diapers left.

8. Smile as you remember that you probably have two in the car that you can use.

9. Smile even bigger as you remember the Princess Pullups you bought several months ago when you first thought about potty training but were quite frankly too lazy to attempt it.

10. Hope you haven't messed up the process by starting and then skipping a day (or two or three, as motivation for this particular parenting process is hard to come by in your house).

There you have it. The Wright Family's Guide to Potty Training for Dummies.

Good luck with that, Dummy.

Make It Stop!

Why Do I Like "Springing Forward"?

Because it's the only day out of the year where my kids will all sleep past 7:30 am. It's kind of cheating to count it, I know, but we'll take what we can get. Plus we don't have church until 1 pm, so we aren't up and out the door early.

On the down side, Henry is sick so we're home from church anyway. And since the Jazz are playing an early game today, he's hunkered down watching the end of the 4th Quarter as we speak.

Anyway, now that we're back on Daylight Saving's Time we'll be able to actually play outside after dinner. Assuming we can ever get out of the 30's around here. Forecast for the next few days: Snow. Good times.

Spring Fever

Boy, have we all got Spring Fever. I wonder if it is officially classified as an illness? Because it should be. It makes me sick to have warmth and sunshine one day and cold, wind and snow the next. But welcome to spring, I guess.

This is what springtime in Northern Utah looks like:


It can take a while for all the snow to melt. We start to get optimistic when bits of grass are actually visible, as they are here. If we can go outside without jackets, all the better. The problem with spring is that it is so wet and soggy. I love the warmth and I love watching everything turn green, but it seems like it's May before everything is nice and dry after a winter of being snowed under.

I guess the bigger problem is that I (and most people I know) have Spring Fever and it's not even officially spring yet. Intellectually I know that spring doesn't begin until somewhere around March 20th or so, but it just seems natural to label March 1st as the start of spring. Just like I always think of autumn as starting in September when really it's closer to October.

Tomorrow the forecast is for partly cloudy and 31 degrees for a high temperature. If you need me, I'll be wrapped in a blanket, reading a good book. Call me when it's spring. Or 50 degrees. Whichever comes first.

Golden Ticket

Henry got a Golden Ticket at school today. What, you may ask, is a Golden Ticket? My understanding is that it is a reward for good behavior. Basically, the kids are caught being good. The Golden Ticket earns them a mention during afternoon announcements and a trip to the school prize box.

This is Henry's third Golden Ticket this year. When I asked him what he received the Golden Ticket for, he answered, "for walking in the hall." Since I assume he walks in the hall every single day at school, I'm guessing that he was walking instead of running or maybe walking without punching the kid next to him. Or something that is considered good behavior when you are in the 2nd grade.

However, what makes Henry truly Golden Ticket-worthy is the prize that he brings home. Every single time that he has won a prize at school this year, he brings home something for William and/or Tessa. Twice he has brought William little plastic eggs with dinosaurs in them. Today he brought home a multi-colored plastic "slinky" for the two of them to share. I realize that this isn't altogether because he's so generous - he mentioned once that there wasn't anything that he was interested in the prize box so he figured he'd get something for his brother. But the fact that he takes the time, at school, to think of what his siblings might like and remembers how excited they get when he gives them something is wonderful. And definitely worthy of a Golden Ticket.

You've Got Mail

I know I listed this as my favorite chick flick in my blog entry entitled "75 Things About Me", but this entry isn't about the movie. It's about getting mail. Because there is just something fun about going to the mail box and checking the mail. Sometimes there's a huge letdown - like when I get the electric bill in mid-August when I know we've run the air conditioner pretty much non stop for a month and it's going to be huge. Or when all we get are on Tuesday are the ads, because even though we like to look at what William calls "the good deal papers" for, well, good deals, it's just not personal. But most days the mail can be fun. The kids crack me up - if they are with me (and they normally are) when we check the mail, they always ask, "did I get anything?" Sadly, the answer is normally, "I'm sorry, no." Actually, the answer is closer to, "No, you didn't get anything. And quit complaining about it. Do you want to use your allowance to help pay the electric bill? Because if that's the case, I'll give it to you." I'm not very sympathetic towards the kids and their lack of personal correspondence. Soon enough they'll get credit card solitications and all the fun mail that comes with being an adult. But, for now, Jay and I are the recipients of most of the mail that arrives on a daily basis.

Today was different. Today, not only did the kids get mail, they got a package. From Grandma. And of course packages from Grandma generally bring treats and fun things. Henry received some baseball cards and M&M's. Tessa got some dress up beads and bracelets and M&M's. William got some new play dinosaurs and M&M's. Here they are with their gifts. Thanks Grandma!

Ignore the marks on Tessa's face. She face planted on the sidewalk yesterday on the way to church and scraped up her nose. They should fade away soon enough.

I even received a CD with pictures of the kids that Grandma took during one of her summer visits. Sadly, no M&M's for me. Hmmph. I guess we see where Grandma's priorities are.