(4) Thu Mar 04 2004 05:50 A Rant of my Own: It's funny, life with young children. My apartment might be spotless, pristine, perfectly ordered before I go to bed. But by twelve o'clock noon the next day, you would never know it had ever been anything but a pig sty. Is there anything I can do about it? Not really, unless I want to a dreaded figure in the lives of my children.

The other issue that plagues me (or eludes me, depending on your take) is sleep. Dave shares this deficiency with me as well. Take last night, for example. I managed every activity so that we might have a decent bed time. Both of us were weary from a string of bad nights. The boys were in bed by 8:00, things were tidied up by 10:00, and I was under my covers by 10:30, waiting for slumber to overtake me. At about six after 11:00, Samuel began wailing, and come to find out, he had a foul diaper that needed changing. Dave changed the diaper, I rocked him back to sleep, and we were both back in bed by about 11:20. You're thinking this isn't all that bad, and an 11:20 bed time ISN'T so bad, unless you consider that we were already sleep deprived. Samuel woke up at 5:15 am, and wouldn't go back to sleep. We ignored him as well as we could, but an hour later, Atticus was in our room, demanding that we get up. One cannot ignore Atticus' morning demands.

These children of ours are relentless early morning creatures. We are lucky if they stay asleep until 7:00 am. It doesn't matter if they go to bed at 6:30, 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 or 10:00pm. They ALWAYS are awake by 7:00. Saturdays, Sundays, holidays and sick days are ALL included. In fact, the later they go to bed, the earlier they seem to arise.

I am growing accustomed to the dark half-moons beneath my eyes.

Fri Mar 05 2004 22:21 Story Time: I've always been pleased with the story time hour they do for three-year-olds at our Lawrence Public Library. Today, we met a new friend, a guest who read the story of Rainbow Fish in Korean. I wish I could remember her name, but she is here temporarily while she earns a Master's degree in English as a Second Language. She is from South Korea. She was wearing a traditional cold-weather dress and robe in vibrant yellow, hot pink, and red. Atticus leaned over to me during her reading and asked, "Mom, why is she saying those beautiful words?" We even learned a few words in Korean, like thank you, and octopus.

The library always provides a really fun craft after story time. Today we received a small baggie of cards with pictures of a few characters from the book along with scales cut from shimmery paper to be glued onto the cards. Each of the characters is labeled with Korean characters as well as the English letters describing the sound of the Korean word.

(6) Sun Mar 07 2004 20:44 A is for Atticus: Atticus can now recognize the letter "A". He is quite excited when, driving down the street, he notices the letter "A" in an advertisement, or on a street sign. He announces every time he notices an "A," "Hey, there's an 'A' for Atticus!!" For Dave and me, this new awareness of letters is thrilling. Now I am kind of grasping for ideas to make letters more interesting. Any ideas out there??

The other new development in our household is "why questions." Atticus extends all of our conversations to their limits by asking why. For example, tonight I told Atticus it was time to brush his teeth.

"Why," he asked.

"So that your teeth are clean."

"Why?"

"So that they are healthy and don't fall out of your mouth."

"Why?"

Etc., etc., etc.

Today, while loading up the car, I noticed Atticus was putting twigs and sticks into the muffler. That "why, Mom" conversation went on and on, too.

Mon Mar 08 2004 22:26 Jane Austen Got Me Through This Day . . .: Poor little Atticus is so sick he laid listless on the floor all day, moooaaning. He had a temperature over 102 (only slightly over), and he complained that his whole body hurt. Samuel is also in anguish over two molars that are erupting. I joined Atticus on the floor for a lot of the day (he needed lots of cuddles), and read Pride and Prejudice.

(2) Tue Mar 09 2004 08:28: I suffered last night from a disconcerting dream in which Atticus was poisoned by a snake. We were, as I dreamed, in the reptile house of some zoo when Atticus removed a small red snake from it's glass cage when I was not looking. When I noticed the snake in his hands and tried to safely take it away, he shoved it into his mouth, bit off and swallowed a large portion. This ingestion is what poisoned him.

It is silly of me to even remark on this dream. What is it about dreams that seems so poignant in the night? On the other hand, Atticus is well today, and Samuel is not gnawing his hand off as much as he was yesterday. I should check his molars to see if they've cut through.

Tue Mar 09 2004 20:35 A Mess Worth Mentioning: Today, while Atticus and I were uneventfully eating our lunch (Samuel had previously eaten), I noticed the eerie silence--the kind a parent intuitively knows means trouble--coming from the boy's room where Samuel was playing. I went right in to check on him, and things were just as I'd suspected. Samuel was very contentedly sitting on the end of Atticus' bed with a 42 ounce canister of oats. He happily continued dipping his small hand in for a scoop and scattering the oats on the bed and on the floor. When Atticus discovered this activity, he jumped in on it and expanded the mess to include the hallway, my bedroom, and my bed.

Oats, evidently, are difficult to vacumn--they break apart when they enter the mouth of the vacumn, and though most of the fragments end up staying IN the machine, a good amount is transformed into a coarse dust that is even more difficult to remove from the carpet.

In an effort to keep my humor and temper my frustration with the mess,(and as my dear mother-in-law, Betty, once told me she's done in the past on such occasions) I pulled out the camera and took a picture.

Wed Mar 10 2004 10:31: It seems to me that the zoo would be a better equiped place for my children to live, and a zoo keeper would be a better supervisor than myself.

(3) Wed Mar 10 2004 13:42: I was tucking Samuel in his bed for nap time when I noticed a green stringy mess all over his blankets. I knew that his nose was a little runny from all of his teething, but I had no idea it was THAT bad. But then I saw underneath all the covers a ziploc bag of leftover guacamole that one of the boys had fetched from the fridge and squirted all over Samuel's crib. Well, I'd rather have a guacamole mess than a snott mess on my hands.

(1) Thu Mar 11 2004 22:08: Tonight was our Enrichment Night talent show and dinner in celebration of the birthday of the Relief Society. For the show, I memorized "Jabberwocky," by Lewis Carroll. It was fun to recite, but I was surprised how nervous I was during the presentation.

Fri Mar 12 2004 19:54 My Boys are Growing: Atticus is now recognizing the lower-case letter a, which is fun. And Samuel figured out how to reciprocate a hug. He started patting my back in response to my squeeze. Both new skills were heart-warming to witness.

(1) Sat Mar 13 2004 19:51 Freshly Shorn: We buzzed both boys today. Now, one can't help rubbing their little heads as they toddle around.

(2) Tue Mar 16 2004 22:22: Dave has been slaving away studying for an advanced statistics exam that is being given in two parts. The first part took place Monday, and tomorrow he will complete the final half in class. In order to give him a break and let the boys see their beloved Papa, I picked Dave up from school around 4:00 and we went swimming.

Samuel was doing a great job manuvering around in his life jacket, and with a little help, he was flipping onto his belly, putting his mouth in the water and motor-boating. It was a great day at the pool.

On the way home, Atticus had an emergency need to go to the bathroom. We were on the very edge of town with pretty much fields to the west of us, so we pulled over and Atticus had his first experience peeing in the grass. You can only guess how much this new awareness thrills him. When he got back into the car, he informed me, "The grass is a really good place to pee." And then added in afterthought, "When there's not a potty."

Wed Mar 17 2004 22:31 St. Pat's Day: Atticus, Samuel and I went to a little "green day" party at our friend Julia's house where we decorated shamrock cookies and threw yellow bean bags into a "pot of gold." Then we went to the St. Patrick's Day parade which was great. Parades seem to be one of those events where the idea of it isn't really all that fun, but somehow, once you get there, sitting on the side of the road watching floats, horses, fire trucks and such drive by is enjoyable.

(4) Thu Mar 18 2004 19:31: I made lentil soup for lunch, and sneaky little Atticus went to our neighbors and asked to eat with them.

Sun Mar 21 2004 21:24 Busy Weekend: On Friday we walked to the nearest park, Samuel riding in the Kelty on my back, and Atticus walking. It was a great, warm day, and the boys really played hard. In fact, they both took naps in the afternoon, which meant more Pride and Prejudice reading time for me.

On Saturday morning, all four of us took off for Omaha, Nebraska to visit the Children's Museum and the Winter Quarters Temple. It was a rewarding trip, but the 7 hours worth of driving alone made for a long day, not to mention everything else we did while in Omaha/ Winter Quarters. Those boys LOVE the Omaha Children's Museum, and I wish so much that we'd remembered to pack the camera. Oh, well--next time!

(1) Thu Mar 25 2004 15:28 Get me out of here!!: We all suffering from acute cabin fever. Yes, this is the week of KU's spring break, but that has meant Dave leaving by 7:00 am everyday to drive to Kansas City to teach ethics classes to various government employees until 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening. Most of our friends are home with their daddies/ husbands, so we haven't played much. The weather has been gloomy and rainy most of the week, and without a car, we have spent almost every day inside trying to make the best of our time. I will be very glad when spring break is over.

(1) Sun Mar 28 2004 19:39: Atticus was invited to give the opening prayer for Primary today. He was so excited to do such a big boy thing. He sat on the chair with the "prayer" seat cover so reverently before Primary began, and was so pleased with himself as he stepped up to the microphone to pray. He is surely the sweetest little Sunbeam I know.

(1) Sun Mar 28 2004 20:19 Adventure Lurking Everywhere: This morning I was dicing a jalepeno pepper to go into a crock pot of chili and I got a splatter of jalepeno juice in my eyeball. Dave promptly called the poison control center, and they advised that I keep flushing my eye out with saline solution to soothe it and minimize the chemical burning. So, for future reference, if you ever get peppers in your eye, just rinse it with saline solution (apparently tap water has chlorine and all sorts of other chemicals that would further irritate the eye).

Mon Mar 29 2004 20:53 A Celebrity On Campus: Dave said he saw James Carville running across campus today. I asked him, jokingly, if he was wearing jogging shorts. He was.

Tue Mar 30 2004 07:17 ASL Attitude: Samuel is doing really well with his sign language. He seems to have undergone a language explosion; he is learning one or two signs a day, and mostly needs to see a sign demonstrated only once in order to remember it. He discovered a new use of his signing one day when he signed "baby" and pointed to Atticus. Atticus was incensed that his baby brother would taunt him in such a way, and Samuel, in return, was amused at the powers of communication. Teasing in our little family is no longer a one way action.