The difference between boys and girls

I wouldn't consider Elena a girly-girl. Her favorite color is green (pink and purple are much farther down the list); she hates having her hair done; and currently dresses are only worn on very special occasions. Still, I would say she's far from being a tomboy. Sam is pretty much your stereotypical boy, but he has no problem throwing on a dress if that's all he can find in the dress-up box.

We don't really designate much in our house as "just for boys" or "just for girls." Elena has just as many bats, balls and golf clubs as Sam (although hers are rarely touched and Sam would play ball for hours on end).
Sam plays dolls with Elena (although he usually gets quickly distracted with figuring out how the buckles work on the doll's carrier).
If Elena gets toe-nail polish and Sam wants some, I'll put it on him (Seth's not a huge fan of this, but he tolerates it :)
I've read books about trucks to Elena since she was little, but she rarely asks for them again, and I had never heard a real "truck sound" in our house until we had Sam (if I did, it came from Seth).

I recently bought a box of antique cowboys and Indians for the kids at a garage sale. The only reason I got it was because it included a horse and detachable rider that I knew Sam would love to play with (he loves horses). Anyway, they haven't played with them much - Sam will occasionally have the people on horses run around, but that's about it.

The other day, Elena pulled out the box and decided to play with them. And what does a little girl do with a set of cowboys and Indians?

Well...they do make a great rainbow.

Moving!

The reason I haven't updated this in so long is because the last 2 months have been tied up with putting our house on the market and getting a new home. We're just waiting on the appraisals, but as long as they go well, we should be moving at the end of the month.

Fortunately our house was only on the market for about 6 weeks before we got an offer, and our offer was accepted on the house that Seth has had his eye on since he was a kid. It's quite a bit bigger than our current home. While I will miss the coziness of this house, we could really use the extra space to accommodate for Seth's in-home office. Not to mention we hope to have more kids and are seriously considering homeschooling.

At one point this summer I started to have second thoughts about getting a bigger house, the minimalist in me thinking we could just cram all of our kids in one room for awhile longer. Afterall, we have a great back yard with tons of room for running, playing and gardening throughout the summer.

And then I remembered about winter. It's funny how quickly one can forget in the summer about those 6 months of the year we Minnesotans spend cooped up inside. All day. With excessively energetic children. Some extra running space would be nice. The next 4 weeks will be filled with packing, followed by who-knows-how-many weeks of unpacking - so my blog posts may be few and far between but I'll do my best to keep everyone posted.

I overheard the following conversation today:

Elena: You are a jellyfish, Sam!

Sam: And you are a peanut butter fish, Elena!

It took me a couple of seconds to catch the connection.


This is completely unrelated, but here's a picture of the kids in front of Grandma Mary's irises.

Learning to "Read"

It seems one of the kids says something every day now that just cracks me up. Elena had another one the other night. We met for our marriage enrichment group, which happened to land on our 7th anniversary. One of the other couples was nice enough to bring a cake for us that said, "Happy 7th Anniversary."

Elena saw the cake, and when I told her it was for our anniversary she asked, "Does it say 'Happy Anniversary' on it?"

"Yes, it does." I replied.

Then she said, in a somewhat shocked voice, "I'm learning how to read from a cake???"

Ice Age

I love how kids say things that are close to what they mean, but not quite right. Elena is getting to an age where that doesn't happen as often, but they still pop up once in awhile. Here are some recent examples:
- Yesterday, she asked me to get her a "place mattress" to go under her plate.

- She calls our back yard the "back yarden."

- Skunks are "stunks" (I'm not sure whether the pun is intended or not)

- And my favorite was when she recently said she wanted to play with Ice Age. I didn't know what she meant and asked her who or what was Ice Age. She said it was the neighbor's dog.
The dog's name is Sage.

7 Years!

As of today, we've officially made it through the "7 year itch" with hardly a scratch. Happy Anniversary, Seth!

The Power of Advertising

“Advertising may be described as the science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it.”

We make an effort to limit the amount of TV our kids watch. We are especially careful to keep them from watching commercials since watching them is a complete waste of brain power.

This morning, however, I turned the TV on to see something and Elena saw one commercial. It was for a dog hair brush that was basically a mini-vacuum which sucks the loose hair off a dog. After watching the commercial, Elena said:

"Mom, we should get one of those for our dog." After thinking this statement over for a few seconds, it apparently dawned on Elena that we don't have a dog. Then she said, "We should get a dog so we can get one of those brushes."

And that's why we don't watch commercials.

Singing Sammy

For those of you who haven't seen Sam in awhile, I thought I'd share with you some of his singing talents:

That's one I haven't heard before

Elena and Sam had strawberries and cream today as a treat. Elena finished hers before Sam had gotten his and was trying to talk Sam into sharing his with her. Here is how their conversation went:

Elena: Sam, can I have some of your strawberries and cream?
Sam: No.
Elena: Please?
Sam: No.
Elena: Pretty please?
Sam: No.
Elena: Handsome please?
Sam: No.

(In Sam's defense, the only reason he kept saying "no" was because he didn't have the strawberries yet - and for a 2-year-old, the only logical response was "no" since he had nothing to share. Once he had his strawberries, he gladly shared them with Elena...not the cream at the bottom of the bowl, however.)

Three

That's how many times I've slept through the night in the last 4 1/2 years - twice I was out of town without the kids.

I'm not a fan of the cry-it-out method so Sam still comes in to sleep with us sometime between 3:00 and 5:30 in the morning every night. Since we don't have nightlights, he usually can't find his way on his own which means I have to get up and help him. Elena sneaks in with us occasionally, too, but she's quiet about it and we usually don't notice.

It's not so bad really, and not sleeping through the night is a sacrifice I'm willing to make for my children - I love having them cuddle with us in the morning. But still, a solid 8 hours sleep would be nice once in awhile. Last night I came so close.

About once every month or two, Sam will sleep straight through the night in his own bed. Also about once every month or two, Elena will wake up crying for me from a bad dream or she'll urgently need to go to the bathroom and want help. In such cases, I usually have to be up for a little while to calm her down and get her a drink. Seth can help her, too, but I still lie there awake until she's back asleep....plus, he takes a lot longer to respond.

Unfortunately, those occasional nights when Sam sleeps perfectly and the few nights that Elena wakes us up always, without fail, land on the same night. I think they plan it ahead of time when I'm not listening. Last night was one of those nights. Fortunately, I have a loving husband who lets me sleep in until 9:30 when that happens so I really can't complain.