Deer!

Adelaide has really been freaking me out lately. Anytime we are in a room and there's a dark corner, or if she's looking INTO a dark room from the hallway or whatever, she'll look intently INTO the dark, point her little finger, and yell, "Deer! Deer!" I wasn't sure what the heck was going on... did we have ghost deer in our house or something? I knew she wasn't just meaning "dark" because sometimes she'll say "Dark! Deer! DEER!" The other night we came downstairs into the family room and she froze on the landing, got this scared look on her face, pointed her little finger into the dark corner of the room, and cried out, "DEER! DEER, MOMMY! DEER!" I walked over to the corner with her to show her that there was no deer anywhere around, but she was inconsolable. Weird.

I finally told Jesse about it, knowing that he would say I was goofy for thinking about this at all, but it happened over and over and over again! He informed me that he and Adelaide sit at the big picture window in the living room at night and look for deer out in the back yard in the dark. Adelaide always points out there and yells, "Deer!" when she sees one. Apparently, she has an active imagination since now she's seeing them INSIDE the house. At least there was a reason, though!!

Funny Girls

Sadie, after I said she was kind of a homebody: "I am NOT a homey!"

Josie, worried about her friends trying to tame a squirrel: "And squirrels can carry diseases PLUS!" Plus what, we'll never know. :)

Josie decided the best nickname for Baby Ben would have to have part of her name included. His new name around our house? "Benjo."

Adelaide's favorite things to say these days: "Nack! NACK! NAAAAACK!" meaning "Snack."

You say "Chugga chugga" she says "Choo choo!" This is Daddy's favorite game with her.

Well, at Least You Have Your Beans.

On Thursday we went to lunch for a joint Jesse/Sadie birthday celebration... at none other than our favorite Mexican place, with none other than some of our favorite people - Deanna, Baby Ben, and Lydia. Sadie has begun trying to look on the bright side of life. When Deanna's food was late arriving to the table, Sadie piped up, "Well, at least you have your beans." We all think this has the makings of a good family 'saying.'

Sadie has been obsessed with the Little House on the Prairie stories for about 2 years now, ever since Grandma Beth got her some books on CD for her birthday. She would listen to them non-stop (if Josie would let her. Adelaide now copies Josie and if she sees me going for the CD player in the car, she shouts, "NOooooo!"). Jesse introduced them to the TV series a couple of months ago (against my better judgement), and they LOVE them too. The other day, Sadie was contemplating the dreaded Nellie Olsen, her terrible brother Willie, and the awful Mrs. Olsen. She said to me, "You know what, Mom?" Mixing in her vast knowledge of fairy tale lingo, she informed me that "Out of the whole Olsen family, Mr. Olsen is the fairest of them all." I laughed, agreeing with her that indeed, all of them are pretty UNfair except Mr. Olsen.

Weasel

Josie, who has been giving me a really hard time lately, made the following statement when she didn't do what she was told: "I forgot that when you do something wrong, you gotta do the consequences."

In a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, Josie informed Adelaide that "You are so dramatic." Then she looked at me, rolled her eyes and said, "She is such a drama king. I mean queen."

Grammie tells the story of HeddieBell and Weasel, two people she knew in the NC mountains 'back in the day' when she was little. She and Sadie and Josie completely cracked themselves up one day when they decided that if HeddieBell and Weasel had kids, they would be named "WeaselHeads." After much sidesplitting, tearful, knee-slapping laughter, Adelaide picked up on the joke. She now goes around all day saying, "Oh WEASEL! Oh WEAAAASSSSEL!"

Space Savers

This is why I don't let my kids watch TV. Sadie (after a day that obviously included some commercials at Grammie's house) came home and quoted, "Mommy, you really need some super Space Saver Bags. They fit right under your bed, and you can squeeze the air completely out of them, mashing them flat and storing up to 12 sweaters all at once! It's just so convenient!"

Josie is the queen of all drama queens these days. I think we're going to have to send her to a fine arts academy. If she's in trouble or mad about something, she'll cry like the world is just falling to pieces, and she will SOB like her heart is just breaking. If I tell her to stop it, she'll breathe heavily and sigh and say, "I'm twying but I can't! I really just can't! I don't know how and I JUST CAN'T DO IT! Wahhhhhh!!" and she'll burst into tears again. It's so hard for me not to laugh at her (which only makes it worse because she says "EEEHHH! It's NOT FUNNY!"), but she's so DRAMATIC. The other day she worked herself into a worried frenzy while we were out shopping for Easter dresses because she just couldn't decide between the two that she liked. If I were THAT kind of parent, I probably would've gotten both of them for her. Luckily, I'm not that kind of parent. But I'm wondering: what in the world do the teenage years have in store for us?

Adelaide is continually cracking me up these days, trying out her new words (she picked up a little rat finger puppet that Grandma Beth gave her for Christmas and said, "WEASEL!"), her new skills (bouncing a ball, jumping, riding her little riding tractor, blowing bubbles, etc.), and her emerging conscience. I remember the other two doing this too, but I think it's so fascinating. She'll look at something she knows she's not supposed to do or touch, like the stove or the gum in my purse, and she'll say under her breath, "no, no... no, no...." like she's talking herself out of messing with it. I love that!

Hide-n-Hoot

Today during a rare spell of non-coughing, we all ventured outside into the (dare I say it?) sunny, spring-like weather! Josie was so excited to be outside that she zoomed off on her hot wheels, head thrown back, laughing hysterically. Sadie zoomed off on her razor scooter that she got for Christmas (that hasn't seen ANY action since we came back from NC) and Adelaide ran around stomping her feet on the ground... the poor kid has only seen tile, carpet, and snow for going on six months now. No wonder she was stomping... probably trying to figure out what the heck this hard stuff covered with green stuff is. Anyway, the girls made up a new game called "Hide and Hoot." Yes, it is played exactly the way it sounds. Somebody goes and hides while the other one counts. Then the hider turns into the hooter, and the hooter hoots until the finder finds them. HOOT HOOT!

Sick Sick Sick

It has been a TERRIBLE week for us. Last weekend when Jesse, Josie, Adelaide, and I got back from spending the weekend at a marriage conference with our friends Sonya and Rick, I got SICK. It hit me out of the blue... we had picked up Sadie (she stayed with Grandma and Grandpa so she wouldn't have to miss her first week of basketball classes), had dinner, and come home. We were putting the kids to bed when it suddenly hit me... then I proceeded to throw up 17 times in an 8 hour period. I literally thought I was going to DIE. I even called Mama in the middle of the night to tell her goodbye. She asked me if I'd been drinking! Do you believe that!? I slept on the bathroom floor, curled into a fetal position. Jesse kept the kids (and himself) sequestered from me. He slept upstairs, oblivious to the fact that I was croaking, "Help! Help!" downstairs, because making it to the kitchen for some ice chips was a completely insurmountable obastacle. Long story short, it was AWFUL. Over the next week, Jesse got a sinus/respiratory infection, and all three of the kids (first Adelaide, then Sadie, then Josie) got either one or a combination of both of these maladies. Poor Sadie was really sick... she's a trooper, though, and would just throw up and keep on going. She ended up on the couch for 2 nights so I could come and help her when she got sick... Josie was only sick for a couple of days and she acted completely fine except for throwing up a few times. She enjoyed the babying and the lounging around watching TV and sipping Gatorade part of being sick. My kids have watched more TV in the past week than they have watched in their entire lives! I just gave up and chalked it up to a bad week. I mean, if I wasn't helping one in the bathroom while she was being sick, I was cleaning up boogers and rocking someone else while they coughed their head off. I am longing for spring to GET HERE ALREADY so I can throw open these windows and get rid of all these disgusting germs. Or at least trade them out for new ones!