Addie's got

For real... is this 1700? She's got scarlet fever, as in strep with a rash. You'd never know if by looking at her or talking to her. She feels fine. Can't go back to school til 24 hours post first antibiotic dose, which is about 11:00am tomorrow. But then we're supposed to have more horrible winter weather starting tonight, so school may already be canceled by then, not to mention the fact that Wednesday morning is supposed to begin with a half-inch thick coat of ice on everything--so school will probably be close then too.

By the way, that was really fun making that montage of Scarlett quotes. Ben just couldn't quite get it right on his lines.

Snowman making2

Perhaps the nicest family time we've spent together in quite a while. Something positive came out of the freaking 12 inches of snow we received.

*To respond to Onkteb's comment: If you notice, the camera stops just as Brian puts the head on top of the second snowball. That's because I had to stop filming to grab the back side of it and put it into place so we didn't have another "whoops." It's moments like that when I wish we had an extra person who could have filmed it. It was tons of fun.

Exciting week

I neglected to mention previously that Miss Addie is the Student of the Week again! Keep in mind there are 17 kids in her class and you can count how many weeks of school there have been, so you realize that they'll all get picked twice. Actually two classmates didn't get it the first go-round. Poor L and A-- they just can't keep it together. Nevertheless, Addie said to me on Monday morning, "I hope I'm Student of the Week" and when I got home on Monday night she said, "I'm Student of the Week! I just had a feeling!"

So she found out on Aunt Amanda's birthday, which she thought was pretty special. Then she got to wake up on Brian's birthday and be SOTW day 2, so that was really special too.

Melt-down follow-up

Haha, I like that title. Very visual.

Anywho, lots of people (ok, like 4 in total, really) have been asking me about that certain 5.5 year old's meltdown on Brian's birthday. I feel the need to explain something MAJOR....

One week ago while Addie was sleeping, I put a little bit of that anti-nail biting polish on her thumbnail. She's been trying to stop sucking her thumb for a long time now. She doesn't do it at school at all, for fear of being embarrassed (really, isn't that sweet/sad?). She did, however, have that bad boy in her mouth at home the second she became bored/calm/anxious/tired, so as you can imagine it was quite often. She would particularly suck it overnight. So when one considers the fact that the thing that she has self-soothed with for her entire life is gone, it's not hard to realize she may have a harder time than normal in calming herself down over something.

That was the case with Brian's birthday dinner. She got herself so worked up that it seemed virtually impossible for her to realize how she could calm herself down, so it took quite some time (and lots of sassy talk to boot-- from her, not us!).

She's actually been really good without her thumb. Well, she still has her thumb, but you know I mean without having her thumb to suck. The first night she woke up a few times saying "i need water" and smacking her lips like something tasted bad. Then that morning it dawned on her what had happened and we really haven't heard much about it since then.

So, that's why the meltdown happened.

Why Ben loves Brian's birthday

Because I made chocolate icing for his cake and let Ben "lick the spatula" which apparently involved all aspects of his face, not just his tongue. How is that possible?

Happy birthday to my dear husband, who unfortunately had to have a certain 5.5 year old have a major meltdown over having to eat meatloaf for dinner, which turned into a not so nice dinner and almost cake-eating. Luckily eventually she pulled herself together.

Happy birthday, Aunt Amanda!

Ben's wisdom

They are both throwing fits right now because (wait for it, wait for it, ok...) I asked them to clean up the floor which is full of toys. You would think someone murdered another person with the screams and horrific sounds that are coming from the carpet.

Ben is actually the one who is focusing on cleaning, while Addie is writhing on the ground in absolute misery. Oh the nerve. She's busy screaming and yowling when Ben looks at her and says, as plain as day, "Just take a deep breath. Come on now, just breathe in and out. There you go." He's such a sage, isn't he?

Happy Birthday to Aunt Amanda today too. Yeowzers, we're talking a big birthday!!!

Oh my, and now she just said, "I wish every day was my birthday." And looked at her and said, "Well if you eat too much cake, you'll get a belly ache." Again, wise.

Morning ritual

When I leave in the morning to go to work, Muddy is here getting the kids ready to take Addie to school. Typically breakfast is being finished, teeth are getting brushed, etc. It's a little hectic.

I say my usual, "bye. I love you. Use your manners" to Ben and he says he loves me back. Then I head toward the back door and he usually rushes after me to give my legs a hug. Then I go out the back door and lock it behind me. I get about 10 steps away and I hear a knocking in the window and see Ben looking at me waving. Then we both sign I love you and he runs back to whatever he's doing and I head to my car.

This morning the same thing happened (a little like Groundhog Day), but this time as I looked at the window and cutie Ben is smiling back at me. We do the I love you sign and then I see him close his eyes, and start shaking his hand, then he throws a "scissors" from rock-paper-scissors and I realize he wants me to play too. So we both look at each other, he closes his eyes (which always makes me laugh), we each shake our fist three time and then throw scissors. Knowing that Ben will always throw scissors, no matter what and knowing that I had to eventually get to work to actually do stuff, I resorted the next round of fist shaking three times and then throwing out "paper." He got a huge grin on his face, promptly motioned to cut my paper and ran off.

It was a good way to leave for work.

Accidents

Addie really likes accidents. She'll tell you that if you ask her. Nope, she hasn't developed an affinity for the morbid. She likes accidents, you know, like "good'aye mate." and " 'ello, jolly'o."

Yes, she believes accents are called accidents. No matter how many times she's corrected, she always goes back to accidents.

What the Tooth Fairy brought

People have been asking me like crazy what Addie received from the Tooth Fairy. Well, Addie's Tooth Fairy is pretty cool, especially compared to the one who used to visit Brian, as I'm told. Brian used to receive a Ziploc bag full of random change. Addie received a letter from the Tooth Fairy explaining that losing her first tooth is quite a big deal and that she deserves something for an older girl now. She also received a dollar and a little kangaroo (read on).

The deal was that Addie had to go to bed in her own room (which is an issue). If she woke up in the middle of the night and her tooth was still under her pillow, she had to go back to sleep. If the Tooth Fairy had come, then she could come into our room.

In the middle of the night, she woke up and came into our room saying "There's nothing under my pillow." I took her back in her room and we looked under her pillow to discover the note, the dollar and the kangaroo. I suggest putting it aside until the morning to be able to see what she got. Addie agreed and then explained that she already knew what she got. She said, "a message, some money and a kangaroo rattle." When I said, "a kangaroo rattle? Why would the Tooth Fairy give you a kangaroo rattle?" "I have no idea."

So it turns out in the morning that Addie looked at her kangaroo and realized it was a box that opened up to reveal a kangaroo necklace! She's had it on non-stop since then.

When looking in her mouth, we can now see the new tooth coming through her gum, and we can see the tip top of the adult tooth directly next to the one that just came out, so that means that the second tooth can't be far from falling out too!

Major milestone for Addie

After approximately 30 hours walking around like this:

at 12:28am Addie woke me up saying, "It's gone! It's gone!" Half-awake, I said, "what is?" And she said, "my tooth!! Here it is!" as she proudly held it up to show me. She is beyond giddy with excitement. It has been soooo loose, but she was hesitant to pull it all the way. Two nights ago I was trying to get her to take it out for fear that she'd swallow it while sleeping. But she survived the night and managed to have a whole snowday with that tooth just hanging on. She thought it was pretty cool to suck air in and move the tooth around with her tongue.
Last night Brian told her that she couldn't lose it on Thursday, because he'll be in New York City and won't see her awake and he wants to see her when she loses her first tooth.
She went to bed with that tooth still hanging there. Next thing I know, she wakes up just after midnight announcing its loss. Then she couldn't get back to sleep. She is so excited. After about 30 minutes of restlessness, she asked me if she could wake Brian up to show him. She did, and he was equally excited for her. I explained that since it was overnight, she will have to put it under her pillow tonight. She understood.

Her picture this morning on the way to school. It's amazing how big the hole looks. It was just one little baby tooth!
On a one part funny, one part sweet empathy note: Ben was terrified of Addie's very loose tooth. He didn't like to see her touch it at all. When we were wiggling the heck out of it the other night and there was some blood, he freaked out. He rang around the house with his ears covered (apparently so he couldn't hear something, I dunno what.) and he was hiding behind all of the furniture to avoid seeing it. Yesterday morning Addie purposely walked up to him and opened her mouth with the dangling tooth exposed and he was horrified. I think he thought it hurt her, which it didn't. Even after she explained it didn't hurt, he still wasn't interested.
This morning she woke him up to show him and he was really amazed by it.
Pretty cool.
This is one of those "only once as a Mommy (per child) experiences." My baby girl lost her first tooth!!

Addie and King Martin Luther follow-up

So I've gotten a few comments about Addie wanting to be black, etc. I thought I should respond on here, so you all know the part of the conversation that I didn't blog about last night.
During the conversation about discrimination and inequality, I also reminded her of the fact that women didn't use to have the same rights as men. We had discussed this back during the election, so I brought up some of the equal rights discussions from then too. We discussed further how it doesn't make sense for any group of people to singled out as better/worse than any other.
She understood and wasn't totally disgusted by whites, just some whites. We talked about how there were some white people who supported Dr King Martin Luther and tried to help too.
I ended it with saying something happy and inspirational like, "We don't have to worry about that today. Today we have equal rights and all people are equal." I didn't want to completely squelch her belief bubble of what a fair and just world we live in. She'll have plenty of experience with that as she gets older. For now, she's a young girl who believes inequality is not right, and I'm a-ok with that.

King Martin Luther

Addie told us tonight that she's learning about "King Martin Luther." She asked when his day would be and I assured her that King Martin Luther's Day is next Monday. Then I started asking her what King Martin Luther was known for. She explained he was black. She started explaining how life used to be and was thrilled that I knew who Rosa Parks was. I chimed in with more details about how some white people didn't think that black people should be allowed to drink from the water fountains and how there were some white people who said white people shouldn't be friends with black people. I talked about how King Martin Luther is famous for his speech about his dream. Addie said, "then someone killed him" and she was genuinely sad.

Next thing I know, she says very seriously, "I wish I was black." When I asked her why, she said, "because I don't want to be the same as one of the bad people."

Then she mentioned that her skin is actually orange, not white. I said to think about her friend Hyltin's skin and what color her skin really is. "Brown, not black."

By the end of the conversation, Brian told me I'm never allowed to teach history to a child again, because I made white people sound so awful and now Addie is traumatized that she's white. I was just trying to make sure she understood how horrible prejudice and discrimination is. I think she got the point.

And yes, we did correct her several times that his name was actually Martin Luther King Jr.

Ben's key to his expressions

Benjamin has a very expressive face. He's known to make the most obvious-meaning expressions known to mankind.

Tonight at dinner, he told me, "When I do this up and down with my yes means 'yes'. When I do this side to side with my eyes that means 'no.' And when I roll my eyes it means 'I'm frustrated.'"

It just took me aback because hearing this little man say he's frustrated and totally know what it means is just funny to me. I'll have to video him one day demonstrating, just so you all know what a frustrated Ben looks like.

2nd time ice skating

Today Addie and Ben took Aunt Wendy ice skating for her birthday. Last Sunday was Addie and Ben's first time skating. I have a video compilation that's been trying to load all week, but it's apparently too big. So, just imagine last week as much more full of falls and fewer independent glides.

Ben does really well. If he falls, he gets right back up and doesn't even flinch. His goal is "to go fast and to beat people" meaning, skate faster than them. I can't begin to tell you how many shots of him I have "overtaking" the man on the right. He's a hoot.

The big purple dude is named Reggy and he's the mascot of something local. The big blue bird is the University of Delaware's mascot, YouDee. We were at the UD skating rink. Enjoy.

Happy birthday, Aunt Wendy!

Sneaking

This morning while getting ready for work/school, Addie and Ben got into a tiff. The whole event was over the fact that Addie apparently kicked Ben near the groin, because she's sure he wrote "B" on one of her pieces of artwork. After the obvious, "don't anyone, anywhere, but especially not a boy near his penis" comment, to which she replied, "I didn't know it was near his penis." (insert eyeroll here), I asked Benjamin if he had written on her artwork. He immediately denied it. She was adamant that it was hit handwriting, so I asked him again. Again, he says he didn't do it. So then I tell them that I don't like it when someone lies and that I'm going to give whoever did it another chance to tell the truth without getting into trouble. Then I basically hear crickets. I'm looking at Ben's face and he genuinely looks like he has no clue if he did it or not. Addie, on the other hand, is pointing fingers are fiercely as possible at her brother. So no one steps up and admits it. I tell them since no one has said anything, I'm going to have to go to my video camera and watch who did it. I explained that I'll also be able to see every other sneaky thing they've done that I don't know about, like sneaking candy without asking permission, etc. I again ask if they want to admit to it first and Benjamin said he doesn't remember doing it. I ask Addie when it happened and she says "the other night." Ben chimes in with, "it wasn't the other night. It was the other day." So you see my confusion. Who could've possibly done it? :) I tell them that I'm going to have to go check my camera at which point they both start confessing everything to me! Like seriously, everything. Ben says, "I ate some of the candy yesterday out of the drawer and didn't ask Muddy first." Addie goes into the dining room and points saying, "One time I ate some chocolate mints from Olive Garden that I put under here." It was hysterical. They ratted themselves out so much!
I'm going to have to use "my camera" again when I need the real details!
Ultimately, we decided that Ben probably had written on Addie's artwork a while ago and doesn't remember doing it. It doesn't mean it is ok to hit her brother, no matter what. Ben apologized for making her upset and all was right with the world. And I learned all about how my children willingly sneak things from me! It was a tough conversation to keep a straight face through!

The best surprise of Christmas

While ringing the bell for the Salvation Army on Christmas Eve, Addie was belting out those tunes as usual. Then this happened....
That's the NBC station for Philadelphia. The reporter said there are a million viewers for the 4pm news. Who knew?