Saturday... another "nice" day! ;D

Not much happened around here again today! ;D I DID get the validation I needed regarding Jack and snack time! Turns out he REALLY benefits from eating around 8, then again at 11, 1, 4 and 6. It makes an enormous difference to his personality if he gets regular meals and snacks. The kid is build like a brick house and he's solid as rock, but he is a carb hound and I have read that children with Down's may lack the hormone that tells them they are full, so I want to try and watch he doesn't get enormously large! Anyway, I forgot to get him snacks today as I was working on getting the house straightened around... and BOY did we notice a difference! Phew !! ;D

As a follow up to yesterday's post... Mum is fine now, though still bruised and tender poor woman. :( She slid down the stairs due to wearing slippers with no grip, and she seriously banged her coccyx which she had fractured in the '80's and it had never been right since. Thank you so much to everyone who asked about her!

Also the Hunt the Timer game... we get a timer and set it for 10 seconds. Someone hides the timer and pushes start when they have found a great spot, they then have 10 seconds to flee the scene before the timer goes off. The other players hear the timer beeping and have one minute to find it before it quits beeping! It's surprisingly fun, cheap and easy entertainment! ;D

The house is getting back to "normal" now, I believe I have all the decorations put away. The laundry is almost all handled ... just one or two loads to do and one to put away..! Getting there!

For tonight I am going to make a nice, hot cup of tea, put on my PJ's and sit under a blanket on the couch. It's ccccccold out there folks! ;D

'Night night~ ;D

A good day.

Well we had a nice day today! You know it's been a nice day when you look back on it and nothing much stands out in your mind!!! I mean it's been a GREAT day if you look back and had lots of exciting things to do, or friends over, or you did something spectacular and it's a terrible day if you look back and all you can think of is yelling and crying, wet pants, dog poop and cat barf! Today was a nice day. The kiddies and I were once again home all day thanks to ridiculously low temperatures and an innate desire to not go anywhere for any reason! :D Jessie DID venture to the mailbox TWICE bless her, but other than that we were in for the duration! We started to take down the Christmas decorations, I did some work on the computer, we played several rousing games of Hunt The Timer, the kiddoes watched PBS, I chatted on the phone to Lisa and my Mum ( who fell down the stairs today, bless her... :( She really hurt herself... ) I had a long nap.. honestly I'm sure other things were done but I truly can't recall any of them!! Jack had a bath tonight and as I was tucking him up in his bed he snuggled into his pillow and said "good day, Mommy...." He's right. It really was.

Christmas stops here…. Or does it? :D

Today was the day we were supposed to be taking down all the decorations, putting away the little houses, throwing out the gingerbread houses and generally erasing all evidence that Christmas was ever here… Happily we didn't get around to it and Christmas gets to stay for at least one more day. I LOVE Christmas. I love our beautiful trees,



I love making Gingerbread houses,







I love the decorations all around the house but mostly I love the spirit. I love the happiness, the excitement, the joy and kindness you feel from strangers on the street, shoppers in the stores, neighbor greeting neighbor…. I love the magic of Christmas Eve… the letter to Santa, the cookies and sherry, Hot Buttered Rum, log fires and mince pies, fudge wreaths, Holiday Open Houses, Christmas cookies, finding the perfect gift. I love Christmas lights, touring neighborhoods in the car with the kids in their pj's, the Christmas parade,





picking out the tree,




Christmas cake, singing Christmas songs, the Christmas dinner table with candles, the best silver, fancy glasses and all that food.





I love the children's excitement, the wonder and thrill at seeing their bulging stockings on Christmas morning








and the excitement of our own as we search for those things that would make our children's eyes light up. I love Christmas memories, Christmas past. I love it all. You can imagine then, it's with a heavy heart I begin to pack away our decorations and with a sense that each year Christmas seems to come faster and go quicker than the year before. I remember the Christmas before I had Jessie. I packed away my decorations thinking that next Christmas we could have a baby to share it with us…and so we did. I remember packing away the decorations the year before we had Jack and thinking the same thing… wondering who else might be a part of our family next Christmas.

So.. tomorrow for sure it's goodbye to Christmas 2009 and welcome to 2010. Who knows what will happen this year and what I will be thinking as I unpack my decorations once again. ..327 days to go !!!

Snow joke!

I know everyone is sick and tired of hearing about The Snow, but here at the Baker house we just love the stuff!! Today we were treated to a "Feather" snow storm, you know what I mean, where the snow flakes are HUGE and look like feathers slowly falling from the sky! That's the good stuff, the sort of snow that accumulates quickly and often is wonderful for snowballs and snowmen..! In Nebraska it's usually too cold to get good snow. Really! It's true! The BEST temperature for a good snow with beautiful flakes and enough moisture for a good snowman is between 30 and 32 degrees. In Nebraska it's usually waaaay below that and too dry. We get snow that resembles polystyrene pellets, the stuff they make bean bags out of! Sure, it's white and yes, you can sweep it off the steps with a broom, but, meh, I like a good, heavy, WET snow personally!! ;D

Anyway, I'm rambling. The snow was beautiful. It lent a calming hush to the day which was sadly lacking this morning. We sat in the window and watched the snowflakes tumble down and I was filled with a mad urge to go out and play in it… which of course we did!! Bundled up in our snow suits the children and I ran and played, caught snowflakes on our tongues and just listened to the hiss of the snow falling to the ground.







Of course it wasn't ALL peace and quiet…… You may be able to spot the glint in Jack's eyes…… Yeah…. He thought it was necessary to pelt his POOR MOTHER with snowballs…..




Rotten child!! ;D

Jessie decided she would like to play Arctic Wolves so she dug herself a snow cave …..






Good to know she'd be able to keep warm if she for some reason got locked out in the yard…! ;D ( PS, please note the fence in the background. That's a four foot fence people…..!! )

So anyway, that was our day, or at least a big chunk of it! We also had hot tea and cookies, watched a movie on the couch, did a jigsaw puzzle and even got some work done. Jack is learning to tell the time and Jessie learned all sorts of things about various cultures and their celebrations. What a perfect day. No joke.

:D

Cold turkey.....

Nope, not the leftover kind, the "going without something" kind. I've been wondering if I could go cold turkey and quit the internet...! I know if I am traveling or even just away from home for the day I don't miss the computer at all, but as soon as I get home I check the phone for messages then I turn on the computer to check for messages there too. Facebook is my biggest time drain.... I LOVE keeping up with everybody, checking out the photos, playing the games ( well, just the one game, but a LOT ) but really, is it life? Is it LIVING? Do I want "She played a mean game of Bejeweled Blitz but sadly never learned the guitar" on my tombstone?? ( Metaphorical tombstone, I plan on being cremated and made in to diamonds...! 'D ) No. No I don't. I'm going to give it a try. I'll have to do some preparation first. I'll have to have an end date in mind I think... the thought of cold turkey makes me nauseous ( no, literally this time!I really ought to throw that stuff OUT !!! ;D ) but I bet I can do it!!! Give me a few days and I'll see what I can do!!! Really! Really really!

A little heartwarming on a cold winter's night.

Today we had the pleasure of looking after my friend's two children for the afternoon. Will and Charlotte are lovely kids with friendly personalities and sweet and generous natures. They came around lunchtime and left after dinner and that's about all I saw of them!! ;D The children all played together ALL DAY LONG! Even Jack managed to spend the day with them and NOT drive them crazy by climbing all over them or beating up Jessie! Jack has a hard time expressing his desire to play and most older children want to play with Jessie and don't want much to do with Jack at all. He gets frustrated by this and since his verbal skills aren't good enough why he goes with the physical instead. People get the point really fast when he knocks them to the floor and sits on them!! To be fair he only really does that to Jessie, but it sure shocks the heck out of her friends! And when I say that they get the point, they don't. Not really. They think "Wow. That kid is mean, and weird...! Best stay the heck out of his way...!! " and it's not a rare thing for me to find the children all running, screaming away from Jack as he runs after them growling and being a "monster" at least happy to be in the game whilst not realising what his actual part is. It breaks my heart.

We do have some friends who have children who play nicely with Jack. Alicia's kiddoes are wonderful with him and JackSTER and JackFELLA get along swimmingly the more they get together. Of course, with them living in Minnesota, it's not as often as we'd like. *sigh*. Truthfully all of the children who come here are kind and considerate to Jack for the most part and the onus falls on ME to make sure Jack learns how to play with others. It's a learned skill, not something that always comes naturally. As he is out of sync behaviour wise with his peers sometimes it's frustrating for us all. Jack wants to play with the big kids but he is closer, mentally, to the smaller ones.

Eh, he'll get there. I shouldn't worry too much about it all I'm sure. I'm just saying it warms my heart to see him playing WITH other children and to see others playing with him.

That's all. Just a little heartwarming.

Realizations

I had an epiphany this morning, which seemed appropriate though a couple of days early!! Anyway, I lay in bed, listening to the kids squabbling, again, and cursing them under my breath. WHY can they not just get along in the morning??? WHY do they not just get up, get dressed, quietly skip down to breakfast and sort themselves out whilst keeping quiet so their long suffering parents can sleep in on the weekends?? WHY?? WHY??? Why? ( and this is where the epiphany comes in ) Because they are children. Because it is NOT Jessie's JOB to get Jack up and dressed and ready for the day. It is NOT Jessie's job to take care of him, to worry about him, to make sure he eats so he is not CRAZY in the morning. It. Is. MY. Job. Raising Jack is really hard work. Really Really. Sometimes it's easier than others, but it's still hard work. He can be stubborn, he's immensely strong and he will fight like the dickens with Jessie. Because Jack IS such hard work I have tended to avoid dealing with him whenever possible. I hadn't done it intentionally, but I grew aware this morning that I have been pushing more and more responsibility away from myself and onto Jessie. The poor girl. She is such a sweetheart towards him. Sure, she gets fed up with him but he will sit on her, throw things at her, yell at her, slap at her and she rarely loses her temper with him. The other day a show he was watching ended and a new one began. He was angry the show had finished so he threw the remote at Jessie's head. *sigh* Anyway, the epiphany. I realised I wasn't PARENTING him. It is MY job to get him up and dressed, fed and loved. No one else's. I got straight up out of bed, took his little hand and helped him get up and through the bathroom routine. I took both children downstairs and made them breakfast for a change. I spoke kindly to them and told them that I would be making efforts this year to be the Mummy. They really responded to it and the funny thing is, it felt right. It felt good and it felt right.

Stepping up to rather than side stepping my responsibilities. Look at me, I'm growing!