I'm Just Saying

If I have read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Busy Spider one more time, I will go insane. I'm just saying ya'll.

Loving It!

I went out and bought the Dyson 07 low reach vacuum cleaner today! And I just have to say that I am absolutely loving it. After I put it together and figured out how all the gadgets worked, I used it on my wood floors and two area rugs. Oh my gosh, I can't believe how much dirt there was in that canister. I almost took a picture of my big dust ball to show the internet, but I didn't want you to think I needed professional help for my strange love of looking at my dirt in a canister.

I am also loving the fact that I bought it for way cheaper than the $429.99 that is advertised on the dyson webpage. HA! I bought mine for $299.99 at the Navy Exchange with NO sales tax. I was actually looking at the DC14 model, but figured that the 07 model was plenty fine for me and my new hardwood floors. LOVE IT!

Just to update you all on the latest discipline that is happening in the Jackaroo household. I have to say that the taking away of all the toys totally worked! The boy has been almost a model little citizen as of late. And if he starts to go down the wrong attitude path, all I have to mention is that he will not be getting a toy back that day, or heaven forbid actually take a toy away again, and he straightens right up. And I have to admit that he is so cute when he comes to me to ask if it is time to get another toy back and when I say yes, the pure joy on his face is priceless as he runs into my room to pick out another toy he can take back. I figure I have enough toys in there for another week or so. This was a brilliant plan if I do say so myself.

I think it worked

I think the whole taking away of the toys thing worked. Jack has for the most part, been a model little citizen around the house these last couple of days. He has gotten back his big fire truck and a dump truck so far. One per day is the deal. And he gets to choose which one he can get back that night. Tonight he has chosen his orange jeep to get back. Big decision.

And he knows exactly why the toys were taken from him. We have gone over it many times. This morning we were talking about it and I asked him if he knew why all the trucks were mine and he said "because I was screaming in the white car". I think he has a good handle on the whole situation. And when I asked how he can get back his trucks he says "I have to be nice to you and Daddy" and then he starts naming every single person he knows in his life, including Grammy and Papa who live in Michigan. So I think this was a learning experience for the boy. And it is great because if he starts to whine about something, all I have to say is that the fire truck is mine again and he whips back into shape. So far so good. We'll see how long this lasts.

Dreading

I am dreading today just because I have soooooo many errands to run and they all have to be run with the boy in tow. The boy that turned to the devil spawn in the last few days. The boy who decided to become a teenager at the age of three. That boy.

My list today includes first and foremost grocery shopping. When I say we have nothing, I mean we have nothing in the house to eat. We are out of milk, which is a baaaad thing with Jack around. Even the poor cats and dogs are out of food as of this morning. And as for toilet paper, we have three toilets with two rolls of toilet paper in the house. Not good math. So, yes a trip to the grocery store is in need.

I also have to shop for two toddler birthday parties that we are invited to this weekend. So a trip to the Walmart toy section is needed at some point before tomorrow.

I also need to see about my dead as a doornail cell phone. If anybody out there has been trying to call me, sorry not working. And the cell phone place just happens to be next door to the "train store" that causes complete and total meltdowns for the boy if we don't walk into. I am thinking I will save that little errand until Jim wakes up and is able to watch the boy. I am NOT interested in replaying last nights scene anytime soon.

Oh and sometime this weekend, I want to go and buy a new Dyson vacuum cleaner!!! THAT is a fun errand and am so excited about the possibility of a new vaccuum cleaner. Yeah how sad is that? My huge exciting plans for this memorial day weekend is purchasing a vacuum cleaner. But, people, it is a Dyson!

That Boy! GRRRRRRR....

I do not believe that I have ever been so angry at Jack as I was tonight. Ever.

We went out to dinner with the uncles, Grammy, and Aunt Ann to see them off as they are headed to Greece on a fabulous vacation. Jim was working, so it was just me playing parent tonight.

After dinner, I tried to go to the Cingular store to see if I could get my phone fixed since it totally died on me yesterday, but they, of course closed five minutes prior. As I was trying to get the boy in the car, he was fighting me big time because he wanted to go to the "train store" or Barnes and Noble as we know it. He did NOT want to go byebye and told me so very emphatically. He was squirming so hard that I literally had to sit on him to get him strapped into his carseat. He was telling me "NO" when I asked him to sit still. He even at one point reached up and scratched my arm with his nails or claws as I call them (I need to cut them tonight after his bath) and growled at me!!!!! Where did THAT come from?

I could not believe that this same child, who was acting so lovingly toward his grandmother and aunts and uncles just 10 minutes prior, was practically abusing me, his own mother, now. He would not do what I wanted him to do. Period. I tried the swat on the butt thing to no avail. He didn't seem to care. I tried to threaten the taking away of toys, but he didn't care. So finally after I got him in the car seat strapped down, I told him that all of his trucks were now mine when we got home. And sure enough, while he sat on his bed screaming and yelling at me, I cleared his big truck shelves and put all of them in my room and told them they were now my trucks and not his. He even had the audacity to run down the hall and open my bedroom door to try to get them before I could catch him!

So now I have a room full of trucks (oh yay, just what I wanted) that will stay there until he can be good to me. I have no idea where this latest attitude is coming from, but I do not like it one bit. For the past few days, everytime I ask him to do something, the first thing out of his mouth is "NO". And he has been very disrespectful to me in telling me "I told you not do that". I tell you the three year old stage is MUCH harder than the two year old stage. That boy is going to cause many many wrinkles and gray hair on me before he is even four!

Voila! ... Almost

Well after four days of mess, dust, and strange men traipsing through my house, I finally have my wood floors that I wanted. Of course to get the floors looking all shiny and clean, I had to get on my hands and knees for about two hours and scrap off all the little glue pieces that the strange men left behind. I am sure that I will be scraping glue up for the next month! But, I am beyond thrilled at this point. I love love love them. Now I just can't wait for the strange men to show up and do the kitchen hopefully in the next week or so. The kitchen is looking really yicky now with that yicky vinyl floor that is half ripped up cause it was never glued down properly in the first place.

And yes, Stefanie, I was whining hehe. I am good at that :).

Notice that lazy cat laying there getting orange fur everywhere!

Here is a short video of what the boy thinks of the floors. However, right after this was taken, I noticed a scratch in the floor that made me sick and it came from the boy riding his bike. His bike is now an outside only toy and who cares if he is upset with that latest development.

My Husband, My Hero

Our neighbor knocked on our door a little while ago. She was almost in tears. She was scared. She had a snake in her backyard! She called the cops and said that animal control could come out tomorrow since they were done for the day. Poor thing didn't want a snake in her backyard until tomorrow.

So she knocked on our door hoping my cop-hubby could help out with the snake. Now let me just tell you that I hate HATE snakes. They should not be on this earth whatsoever. Period. And especially in a yard that is only one yard away from my own! No way!

We went over to her house and sure enough, coiled up on their go-kart is a huge king snake. I mean this thing was about 4 ft. long! And it was next door to me! So my brave husband, with no shoes on (okay brave and stupid husband) went out there with a shovel in hand. He pokes and pokes at this THING to get it off the go-kart. It hisses at him. The two females in the house were screaming, yelling "Kill It!" He is out there a good 10 minutes with this evil thing and he finally gets it into the grass where he kills the offending creature that should not have lived in the first place. Yay! He is my hero.

Now you do know that I will never ever walk out of my house without thinking about that evil creature. And going barefoot outside? It is over. Oh and keeping the door open for more than 10 seconds? That is over also. Yuck Yuck Yuck.

Babies, Babies, Babies Everywhere

Leslie, of Mrs. Flinger status had her baby boy on Saturday. It was a bit early and it sounds like he is still in the NICU, but hopefully with a lot of prayers, they will be able to take him home soon. We are praying for ya Leslie.

I tell ya, there is a baby explosion going on ya'll!!!! I went to a baby shower on Sunday for Holly, my pastor's wife, who is due in July. I will be taking care of him when he decides to come into this world.

Then my neighbor is due in September. She found out a couple of weeks ago that she is having a little girl, which shocked me, cause I had her pegged as a little boy. I think they were shocked as well.

Erin, of tale of a baby human fame, had her baby about two weeks ago and from the sounds of it, she is doing really well. From her posts, it makes me think how much of a hard time I had with the end of my pregnancy and birth and dealing with Jack that first month. But then again, she is 10 years younger and there is a big difference in those 10 years I guess. Congrats Erin, you are looking great!

Oh and yeah, another couple at my church just had a baby boy and I got to hold him when he was 8 days old a few days ago. Wow, they make em tiny don't they. Hard to believe that Jack was ever that little, but in fact, he was smaller than the 8 lb 10 oz baby they had!

All this baby business, makes one's mind wander and say we could do it again. And then I wake up from the hazy baby dreams and laugh and remember those days. HA!

I Want My House Back!!!!

I am tired of these people being in my house! They have been here since Thursday and it is time that I get my house back, of course with really nice new wood floors.

Here is the final product, well if you can imagine it without all that blue painters tape all over the place, which hopefully will be going today. They only have to finish up the long hallway and then put all the base molding back on and they will be done until they come back in a couple of weeks to do my kitchen, which looks pretty bad next to the nice new floor in the family room.

So hopefully by tonight, we will have our furniture back in place and cleaned off from the 6 inches of dust that is everywhere in my house right now. I feel like I need to take a shower all the time because I feel the dust everywhere on me and all around. I know I am crazy.

Jack thinks the wood floor is now his personal race track for his bike. I have a video of him riding his bike through the house yelling that I will post later when I get back on my desktop (this laptop was not made for uploading video in my lifetime). But the boy is having so much fun with the new floors and having a place to race his bike and all the trains, cars, trucks, and tractors. A new toy for the boy!

Check back later to see if I have lost my sanity in all this process, cause I feel like I am on the brink ya'll.

TGIF

I made it to Friday. What a week it has been. It has been full of emotion and happiness.

This week was the last week of Jack's school until Sept. Last night they had their little graduation and boy oh boy was that emotional. First of all, they had all the kindergarteners dressed in cap and gowns and they couldn't have been cuter. They were graduating from the school and moving to the "big kids school" of first grade. Then they had all the other students get up on stage and sing songs. And yes, of course, I was crying. I was smart and did not wear mascara that would run all over the place! At the end of the program, they had a slide presentation of the pictures they took of the kids over the past year. It ran a good 10 minutes or so and I can safely say that there was not a dry eye in the whole place.

I love that school and have watched Jack just flourish while there. I have also made some pretty amazing friends myself and will count Jack's teacher, Kelsey, as a very good friend forever. We did get her good last night. All the mother's got together and presented her with a cookie jar that we had made at a pottery store. First of all, we had all the kid's put their fingerprints on it and then we commissioned an artist to make each fingerprint into an animal. Jack's fingerprint turned into a monkey. It was a jungle theme with the saying "we are wild about Ms. Kelsey". She started to cry and I was so happy that we could do that for her.

It has been more than a bit crazy around the house in the last couple of days. Our wood floors are going in, slowly but surely. For the past two days, they have been working at installing them and they still are not done. They are coming back tomorrow to hopefully finish it up. But as with everything that happens with us, they messed up the measurements. Or I should say, the guy who took the measurements in the first place did not understand that we wanted to put the floor in the kitchen and decided to leave off that square footage from the total. Well to make a long story short, the total cost of this little venture went up another couple thousand dollars and we will be getting the wood floors in our kitchen hopefully in the next couple of weeks. I don't understand how he could imagine that I would want to keep this ugly cheapo vinyl floor while putting the wood floor everywhere else. Oh well. As long as it gets done. And I am beyong thrilled about the color and the look so far. It just makes the whole house look so much more elegant.

I will post pictures and of course video of the boy graduating later when I actually get access to my desk.

Having a toddler who is active in school and sports can keep you running all the time!

We have been super duper busy around here. And will continue throughout the week (that sounds like a weather forecast doesn't it?)

On Sunday we managed to get to the water park after church to sign in and get our season passes with our pictures on them. It was cloudy that day and as we were walking up to the entrance, they made the announcement because of lightening in the area, everybody had to get out of the water. I told Jim that we should just go ahead and get out passes and come back again. It took a good 30 minutes of standing in line to get the passes and just as we were finished they let everybody back in the water.

So in the water we went and let me tell you we are going to be there a lot this summer. Jack loved loved loved the water park. And fear? No where to be seen from that child. In the small kid section there are three sets of slides that I thought he would be afraid of, but nope he just climbed the stairs all by himself, sat down and went. He was laughing so hard at the bottom. Even the bigger slide that he had to have me or Daddy with, he did just fine.

The weather that day was pretty weird and as we got home, a huge thunderstorm came through and within 10 minutes of being home, we lost power for about 2 hours. This of course, freaked Jack out and he was very disconcerted when he tried to turn on the light and nothing happened. He yelled out "what is wrong with this house?!?" But it wasn't as if we were missing our air conditioner because that is still out waiting for our lovely builder to get back to us on that issue. Yeah this builder is not impressing me at all.

This week is so busy for us. Yesterday was school and then last night was the last night of T-ball, where he got a trophy. He was so incredibly proud of that trophy, he was absolutely beaming with joy. I will take a picture of him with his trophy for ya'll later.

Today is the big Luau party blow-out bash at school. I was in on the planning committee for this thing and from what I can tell, it is going to be a big deal. I will take lots of pictures. And of course, Jack will be wearing a luau shirt himself, while I am wearing on of Jim's very loud Hawaiian shirts today. Should be fun.

Tomorrow is Jack's last day at school. I am grieving entirely too much right now about that fact. He starts back up in September in the 3-year-old class. We are having a little party tomorrow just for his class and I am going to try to get pictures of his class with Ms. Kelsey, who is such a great teacher.

On Thursday, is going to be a great day. It is the day that they come to install my new wood floors. I can not wait. But there is a lot of work to be done to get it all ready because we have to move all the furniture, so we have to get all the knick knacks up and out of the way and such. But it should be fun and they say it will take about three days to finish. Geesh. Three days where my house will be torn up and dirty. But it will be worth it.

And Thursday night, Jack is having his little graduation program at school. Another time to be all teary.

So if you don't hear from me in the next few days, that is what is going on.

Of Course

Yesterday we hit a record high of 90 degrees for that date in history. It was also the day that our air conditioner decided to quit. Of course. The emergency 24-hour number to the builder for such things as oh say your air conditioner going out on the hottest day of the year yet was not working. Of course. Looks like we are stuck in a hot house until Monday when hopefully the "non-emergency" number is working.

And I just want to welcome into the world Baby Too who is also known as Baby Simon. Go over and take a peek at him. He's adorable. And read her live blogging entries of delivering a baby. She is a blogger through and through. Congrats Erin and family!

Mother's Tea

I just want to start this post off by saying that I love love love Jack's preschool. It is simply the best. Today was the annual mother's tea where all the mother's were treated to a nice little lunch and were sung to by our kids. Of course, the emotional part of me was blubbering through a portion of it, but I managed to keep it together to take these pictures and video of the boy singing.


All the mothers got one of these bouquets made with the outline of our kid's hands. So precious.

Mother's Tea


Best Friends - Jack and Kyle

The Handsome boy

I have to apologize for the poor quality video, but I didn't feel like I could stand up in front of everybody to video since there about 50 other video cameras there all doing what I was doing. Of course, as you will notice, there was one woman who felt no guilt about stepping right in front of my camera. Grrr. But it still is cute.

My Son - The Tempter

I have been trying to be good on my diet... for the last 24 hours. I started back up weight watchers AGAIN yesterday after a 6-week hiatus. I actually had only gained a total of 2 lbs, which isn't bad considering the pounds of chocolate I ate over Easter and the fact that for the last two weekends, I have eaten out at restaurants and did not go lo-cal in the slightest. So, only 2 lb weight gain isn't that bad, but it is a far cry from the 15 that I wanted to lose.

So tonight as we watched Daddy get ready for work, Jack came up to me and very coyly said "you want to go to Sonic". It was not a question. Jim said it was a Jedi Master mind trick thingy trying to get me to get in my car and drive us both to Sonic for a 3000 point dinner. Jack is the devil. And no, we did not drive to Sonic. (However we did 3 nights ago which spurred the getting back onto WW in the first place.) He is right now eating cereal for dinner. Ha! Now where is that ice cream :) hehe.

Five Minutes of T-Ball

Jack playing T-ball. It is controlled chaos, but fun to watch. Actually, I am quite shocked at how well they have progressed in the 5 weeks since they started playing. Not nearly as much chaos as those first few practices. If you make it to the end, it is quite cute with the big handshake between the two teams. Very cute.

More Daily Stuff

I realized yesterday that I had to get my butt in gear. And the realization came from the fact that my three-year-old son's room was the cleanest room in the house... by far! And that is a sad sad fact. Also there was the fact that nobody had any clean underwear in the house and Jack was wearing dirty shorts because his clean shorts drawer was empty.

So for about five hours yesterday I cleaned and laundered until everything sparkled. Well maybe sparkled isn't the word, but let's just say less dirty. I had to clean Jack's tub with bleach it was so gross and dirty, but now I can say that his tub does indeed sparkle. Yay Me! And all laundry baskets are empty and all closets are now full of clean clothes. Yay Me Again! It always feels good to sit in a nice clean house.

Today was digging in the dirt day for the Jackaroo house. Jim roto-tillered the flower beds and put cow manure (yes ewwww) down and then we planted roses in front of the house. I also planted pretty petunias and impatiens in flower pots. So now we have pretty color in front. Yay Jim and I. Oh and yes Jack because he was digging with his own shovel. I will have to post pictures when the roses get in full bloom.

Other than that, not much going on here. It has been warm with the temps near 90 degrees. I am in the countdown mode to when my wood floors get installed - 7 more days! I so can not wait until this carpet is gone out the door forever.

I have been trying to deny that Jack's school year is almost over. Next Wednesday is his last day and then it will be trying to find stuff do 7 days a week instead of 5 days. I know right now that we are going to be hitting up story time at the library every Wednesday and going to the children's museum alot more. Also there is the pool where he can jump in another 5000 times. That kid has absolutely no fear of the water and that reminds me to look up about swim lessons for the boy and fast.

Today's Life Lesson

Never let your three-year-old be the one to rub the suntan lotion on your back.

After 2 1/2 hours in the pool this afternoon, my back looks very much like a lobster. Ouchie. I didn't have anybody to do my back and so I told Jack to rub it all over. Um not such a good job. Oh well. We had fun. We were joined by our neighbors and Jack had fun splashing with Allison. Even with this being the first time in a pool this year, he was so not afraid of the water. In fact, he had to be lifted out about 78 times in order to jump back in. He is my little Jack fish.

Grieving

Say it isn't so! My favorite show of the last seven years is going going gone! Only TWO more episodes of Gilmore Girls left and I am grieving. Goodbye Lorelie and Rory and the rest of Stars Hollow. You will be missed. It was fun while it lasted.

My New Toy or Expect To See A Lot More Pictures Forthcoming

I got my early mother's day present yesterday. It was totally unexpected, but something that I have been wanting for some time now, but would never get for myself because of the money. But Jim, my wonderful husband, saw this at Best Buy and brought it home for me yesterday. It being a new Sony Cybershot DSC H5!!!! And I love love love it. It takes such awesome pictures, it makes me feel like more of a photographer than I really am.

Below are a sampling of some of the pictures I took yesterday. Yeah, um, expect more pictures. I will probably be a picture taking fool in the next few days.

My New Toy!

There is a family of geese living in the little lake behind us. The little baby goose has really grown in the last couple of days. I tried to take their picture with the old camera, but all you see is blurry fuzz in the picture. So. Much. Better.

Picture taken with old camera of Jack playing T-Ball. Notice the difference?

Jack and his new Thomas bike and Thomas helmet. He graduated to a new 12" inch bike when he started to pedal the tricycle the neighbors let us use.

Jack and Allison on bikes

I call this one - Jack Eating Orange Aftermath

Tosha Dog

He has come a Long Way

About a year ago I wrote This Post about Jack having a complete and total meltdown because I put his beloved Foo Foo (He named him, we didn't) Dog in the washing machine and dryer. I really believed that he was so traumatized over the whole episode, that he was for sure going to need therapy when he got older telling his future psychologist or psychiatrist all about the time when his mother did the unthinkable - put Foo Foo in the washing machine and dryer. It was that bad.

Well flash forward to today. Foo Foo has been looking really really bad lately. The poor dog has already been restuffed and resewn a few times. He is very very loved and so loved that I have not been able to get the dog away from the boy. The dog goes with us Everywhere! It was the walk we took the other night with some neighbors that brought me to the edge of sanity of deciding to put Foo Foo in the washing machine again. He was playing in the dirt with his "two girls" as he puts it (neighbor girls Maddie and Allison). All three of them were extremely filthy that night. So bad that when I took Jack into the bathroom for his bath that night, everything he touched had a dirt spot and when I took his shirt off, the dirt went flying all over me. He was dirty.

And that included Foo Foo. Because you see, Foo Foo got to play in the dirt also. Lucky him huh? So this morning I was very determined to wash Foo Foo. So I brought it up casually with Jack at breakfast saying that Foo Foo needed a bath. At first, he said an emphatic NO. But with a little bit of reasoning within 20 minutes, I had the boy putting the dog into the pillow case himself for a good cleaning in the washing machine! No future therapy needed here. He was very willing to put him in the machine. Go Me.

Here is a picture of Jack staring intently as Foo Foo is "going for a ride in his bath".