Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!

Clara made this poster for Chris. I am so proud of her, she did a great job.

And the kids got 'Dad Tattoos'

I am very fortunate to have married a man who is such a wonderful father to our children. He's a natural at being goofy and works hard at being a better dad all the time. I'm no longer offended when Clara makes a comment alluding to the fact that Chris is the fun parent, or even the nice one. I know we both play roles that are important in raising our children right, and I'm just glad Clara and Jonathan know Chris so well, even if he does have to be away from us more than most men are away from their family. Whether he's here or not, Chris is an involved parent and I hope our kids are always proud of him and appreciative of the sacrifices he makes, both as a father and a serviceman.

Happy Father's Day Chris, We love you!

Friday the 13th

So, aside from Jonathan drinking from the toilet we had one other strange happening around here yesterday for Friday the 13th. When I got Clara up from her nap yesterday she had this huge red bruise on her arm. She was wearing a sleeveless dress yesterday, so I was sure it wasn't there when I put her down for her nap. It was brighter yesterday, I didn't take the pic until this morning once I knew how it came to be.

I was really worried. It's one of those times when you wished you could say for certain you were the only one who had cared for your child so you can automatically rule out any wrong doing. But seeing as how she was at Tiny Tots for 4 mornings last week I immediately started asking her questions about how the bruise came to be and if anyone had been hurting her. I really wouldn't suspect the lady's that teach her Tiny Tots class of anything, but when a large mark like this shows up on your child, you have to cover all the bases. I went through a long discussion with her about how no one is allowed to hurt her and she should tell me if anyone does even if they've told her otherwise, I won't be mad. She simply told me, "No one's hurting me, Mommy".

I could only take her word, but still when I got into bed last night it wore heavy on me how such a bright bruise could happen without her remembering even running into something. Then it dawned on me -- the orientation of it, which I had thought earlier was a perfect match for a thumbprint if someone had grabbed her with their right hand --was also the perfect placement for her to put her mouth. That's right, a hickie. I almost wanted to wake her right then to ask her if that's how it happened.

Sure enough when I asked her this morning, she admitted that's what she had done. At first she told me, "no", but once I told her I wasn't going to be mad I just needed to know -- she admitted to it. So today when anyone asked how she got that bruise, I got to explain that my 4yr old had a hickie! It's probably the only time I'll ever be relieved to see my daughter has a hickie!

Cool Drink of Water

Today I took Clara to her Tiny Tots class and then Jonathan and I went on our walk. I wore my pedometer today and was a little disappointed to see that it's only 3 miles that we walk, but by the end of it the pedometer said I had taken just over 6600 steps -- a good start for the "10,000 a day" a lot of people advocate.

Anyway, I got home with just enough time to shower before picking Clara up. When I turned off the water, Jonathan showed up in the bathroom (in that seemingly magical way kids always do at that age) to greet me as I opened the shower door. First thing I noticed was that he had one of Clara's little bathroom cups in his hand. I recently bought one of those dispensers with the little 3oz Dixie cups for Clara to be able to get to water whenever she needs it. So I saw Jonathan with the cup and thought, "Wow, he figured out how to pull the cups off." Clara still struggles with it sometimes. Then I realized it's full of water - and that hoping he had also learned how to work the faucet was perhaps too ambitious. So where did he get the water?

You guessed it! I went into the kids' bathroom hoping to find their step stool in front of the sink and the toilet seat closed, but no. The step stool was actually in front of the toilet and there was water all over the toilet seat and floor. As I was taking all this in, it dawned on me that there was a cup in the trash can (Clara is allowed one cup a day, she sits it on the counter after the first use and then at the end of the day, throws it away after brushing her teeth). So I looked in the bathroom trash to see no cup was in there anymore.

So in recap, while I took a shower today, my son took a cup out of the trash and used it to drink water out of the toilet --

Does this take me out of the running for Mother of the Year?

Tumbling Tykes

Today was Jonathan's 2nd Tumbling class and just as I suspected, he was ready to go for it today. As soon as we got there he was ready to climb. He even tried some new things today.

Like hanging on the bar...

and climbing on the mats...

and walking on the balance beam...

and going through the tunnels...

and even getting ON the parachute!

He had a great time running around like he ruled the place today.

Tiny Tots

I didn't get the chance to post this pic of Clara the other day. She and Caroline were getting ready to head over to their first Tiny Tots class on Monday. Clara's not constipated, that's just the face we get when we ask her to smile for a picture. I try not to make her pose for too many pics anymore because I either get this face or the mean face after 5 minutes of me trying to get her to stand still, look at me, and not grimmace!

Tuesday they made kites and did water play. She got to bring the kite home today.

Today they made windsocks. I told Clara I may try and stick around for a class soon to see how she interacts and get more pics. The sheet they handed out on the first day said parents were welcome. She seemed to like the idea of me 'coming to school' with her.

Dance Class

After Sesame Street Live, we had just enough time for Jonathan to get a nap and then head across the street for Clara's 1st dance class. We had a slightly unsuccessful search for dance clothes the other day. We found shoes and a skirt, but no leotards, so Clara insisted on wearing the skirt over her shorts. I was relieved to see that no one was wearing dance clothes when we got to class.

2 of our neighbors are in Clara's dance class as well. Here's a picture of her with Emily again before class began.

Here they are doing stretches and warm up exercises

They were supposed to walk across that line on their toes

Clara couldn't wait to try those tap shoes

Like a pro! (The little boy is our other neighbor, Brady)

Marching around the circle

I had a hard time keeping Jonathan away from his sister. He didn't quite understand why he couldn't do what she was doing. As soon as she took off the tap shoes, he put them on (I tied them so he wouldn't trip himself) and once the instructor told everyone to stretch out on the mat, there was no stopping him.

Clara doing sommersaults on her own!

Clara loved the class, but later she told me, "They didn't teach me how to dance like a ballerina." I guess she wasn't impressed with all the little details, she just wanted to dance!

Sesame Street Live

After a frustrating morning dealing with Comcast, I am back online. I was not able to access the internet all day yesterday and most of the day today. It took a lot of time and a lot of frustration to get someone from Comcast out here to find the problem, but the man who did show up was wonderful and stayed until it was fixed, even though the problem had nothing to do with their service. We had a really busy day yesterday and I took lots of pics, which made not being able to log on and share them all the more frustrating. Thankfully it was a brief interlude and I can share today instead.

First thing yesterday, I loaded the kids up in the car for a short drive to Bakersfield, CA to see Sesame Street Live, When Elmo Grows Up. Bakersfield is about 1.5 hours away, but with Chris gone, I look for anything to make a day go faster, so off we went.

Clara and Jonathan dressed for the show

Elmo and Dorothy

At the show

Intermission

Making music

Finale

Leaving with their loot

It was a good show. Last year in VA we made it to see their other show Elmo Makes Music. I preferred that show, but that could just be because I didn't have to drive so long to get to it :) Jonathan really enjoyed the show. He does a Cookie Monster impersonation that's hard to describe, I should try and get it on video sometime. So everytime he saw Cookie Monster, he did the impersonation, and everytime he saw Elmo he yelled, "la la la la" in reference to the theme song for Elmo's World.

We had really good seats, front row center. Technically we were in the second row, but no one sat in the front row so that the characters could come out into the crowd throughout the show and shake hands with the kids. Clara got high fives from Rosita, shook Grover's hand, and the purple monster with the horns helped Clara bonk his nose to make his horns blast. It was so cool to see her face light up each time a character interacted with her!