The 411 on 911

Do you remember being 5? I try to when my kids do things that don't make sense to me. I try to think what it was like to be small: to look up constantly, to be over-powered often, to sit in too big furniture.

Last night, the phone rang and Aaron and I picked it up at the same time. I was upstairs, he was downstairs. A distant sounding voice urgently said "Someone dialed 911 from this number. Is there an emergency?"

Aaron and I both said "No" at the same time.

"We have a recording of a child's voice." the woman said. We explained there was nothing wrong but the dispatcher said they are required to send a police officer to the scene.

So, while we waited for the police officer to arrive we had a little talk with Madelin. Here's her side of the story. She was messing with the phone, she reached 911, and when they answered she told them "I don't need you." and hung up. We both came down on her pretty hard about NEVER dialing playing with the phone again etc.. Then, we made her apologize to the police officer for having to come to our house.

This is where it gets interesting. When the door opened to reveal the uniformed police officer, I thought Madi was going to wet her pants. She apologized and then bawled and bawled. Why do I have this strange feeling this is going to come up in some therapy session later in life?

Stuff I think about

You are desperate for money and you must take one of the three jobs below. Which do you take and why?

A. The sole caregiver for 6 two year olds
B. The sole caregiver for 6 special needs kids
C. The sole caregiver for 6 geriatric patients

If you could choose one of these three men to be your uncle, which would you choose?
A. Warren Buffet (Did you know he does not give money to child relatives beyond an education?)
B. Mr. Rogers
C. Martin Luther King

100_1795.mov

Do you think we could get some electricity from this gerbil?

The More Things Change...

Hannah had a swim meet in Champaign this weekend. She is doing really well. Her 25 yard freestyle is down to just over 17 seconds and she is swimming in the fast heat in most events.

While I was over there, I decided to look up my nephew who is an EE major at U of I. We went to his favorite place for lunch and then visited for awhile. Some of you might know that I spent two years at U of I before transferring, in 1992, to ISU. The funny thing was that the kids seemed exactly the same to me. Its been 15 years and the boys still dress and look the same and the girls, although more obviously trendy, don't look that different either. I think the parents where better looking and seemed younger though. :)

My nephew is officially an adult. What a great person he's turned out to be. Hung out with his Auntie for several hours and didn't even hide his face with embarassment. He's doing well in school, good self-esteem, and seems to be generally happy and well balanced. I guess my brother did something right. On second thought, it was probably his wife.

Daddy's little girl

Madi and I were watching Mr. Rogers Neighborhood today. It was the show about good choices. In case you missed it, here's the synopsis.

In the land of make believe, the community decides to invest $3,000 to put in a pool. While they are digging the pool, they break a pipe. Repairing the pipe will cost $3,000. If they don't repair the pipe, there is no running water. They decide running water is more important than a pool, so they fix the pipe. Mr Rogers sums up the episode by saying that no one can have everything. This is why it is important that we make good choices about what we spend our money on. (Wow, don't you wish some adults could see this episode? But, I digress.)

So Madi says to me "Mom, what's 3,000 + 3,000?"

"6,000" I reply.

"If we had $6,000 we would be rich!" She says.

"Madi, if you had $6,000 what would you spend it on. What is it that you want?" I asked.

"I'd buy a job." She replied.

"Why would you buy a job?" I asked.

"So that I could go to work with daddy every day."

Everyone say together - Awwwww!

Princess and the Pee

Madelin and I have been having such a good time watching her new Gerbil. She is turning out to be a terrific pet owner.

Tonight, I pointed out to her that Jasmine had scraped all of her bedding into a big fluffy pile under her house. I said "look Madi--she made an extra thick mattress for herself. It's like the Princess and the Pea."

Madelin began laughing hysterically. She just kept laughing and saying "Princess and the Pea? - Pricess and the Pea!? Ha Ha HA.

I, then, realized she had never heard of the story of the Princess and the Pea and thought I meant the other ... well...Pee.

Oh well - for a moment I was a comedian!

Signs

Do you believe in signs from God?

Over the holidays, I began to struggle with the idea of Madi going to Kindergarten in September. When she goes, my current job of caring for her full-time will no longer exist. From 9am-3:45pm, both kids will be gone, and I am someone who needs to keep busy. As I see it, I will have three choices at that point:

1. Return to work full time, which means I will have to hire before and after school care and a summer nanny.
2. Return to work full year-part time which would mean I still needed a summer nanny.
3. Find a job that follows the academic calendar - like teaching, which would preserve my time with my kids but also provide some opportunity while they are in school.

I have been praying about this for awhile now but haven't felt sure about what I should do.

I am in my fourth year of a seven year Bible study and we returned today from our holiday break. Last night, I was completing my lesson and in answering question 15 found these references to guidance by the Holy Spirit:

• When we don't know what to pray for, the Holy Spirit will let us know (Romans 8:26)
• The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in accordance to God's will (Romans 8:27)
• The Holy Spirit will teach you what to say when you need to say it (Luke 12:12)
• You will recieve power when the Holy Spirit comes to you (Acts 1:8)
• All believers have access to the Father through the Spirit (Ephesians 2:18)
• The sword of the Spirit is the word of God (Ephesians 6:17)

Today, I was running late for Bible study for the first time this year. Because I arrived late, I went directly to my small group and skipped opening lecture. When I sat down in the empty room, I was surprised that a woman I hardly know was also late and sat down next to me. She asked, "How's your book coming along?" After surpressing my surprise that she knew I was writing a book, I told her I had finished the first draft and was editing now. She told me she used to teach writing at a college nearby. I responded that I had been thinking of taking my GRE and potentially going back to school at a local University to teach writing but I thought it was a long shot because my Undergrad was in Accounting. It turns out that she graduated from said University and knows of many people with backgrounds like mine that are admitted and do well. She went on to say she thought I would not have difficulty finding work in this area because there are so many schools looking for writing teachers.

So - GRE here I come.

Madi's Birthday

It seemed simple enough. Madi wanted a pet for her 5th birthday. We talked it over and decided a Gerbil would be best. After all, Gerbils are contained and easy to care for. As a bonus, they are inexpensive ($10).

Madi picked this very pretty, black, female. (Somehow, once the guy at the pet store walked us through the care of the Gerbil, our $10 pet became an $80 pet but I digress. ) So, we brought her home and Madelin spent the evening thinking of names. She settled on Jasmine from Disney Princess. We talked at length about caring for her pet and then we put both of them to bed.

The cool thing about Jasmine was that when we woke up in the morning she had completely rearranged her cage. Apparently, she is very particular about her furniture and she stayed up all night making her cage exactly how she likes it.

Last night was Jasmines second night in our house. The very uncool thing about Jasmine is she can jump high and run fast. Madi decided to bend the rules a little bit and tried to handle her pet while Aaron and I where sleeping. Jasmine escaped and we spent the first hour of the morning chasing the little bugger all over her room.

Luckily, Aaron was able to catch her and she is back in her house. Madi swares she will never let her out again. We'll see. :)

She is awefully cute. You can't see it in the picture but she has a white strip down her chest.

Oh No Mr. Christmas Bill!

Every year, on Christmas morning, I make pancakes in the shape of reindeer heads. This tradition started when Hannah was very small and wildly enthusiastic about these types of things. That first year, I decorated a cooked pancake with chocolate chip eyes, a marricino cherry nose and a whipped cream smile. I carefully dripped the batter into the pan to make perfect antlers. Hannah was so thrilled with the creation that I decided to do this every year.

Well, times they are a changin' and in all of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I forgot to pick up the cherries. I thought stawberry jam would make a good substitute, being red and all. I also decided I wanted to try to bake the chocolate chips into the pancakes instead of adding them at the end to save time. This is the result. Do you think he got a look at our Credit Card bill?



These are my kids with my nephews. The older ones are so helpful with the younger ones.

We got the little guy at the top a TMX Elmo for Christmas. If you haven't seen one work yet you are missing out. I think the adults liked it as much as the kids.

There's something about a bright and smiling face at a Holiday Program.

Christmas Program

She's got a great right hook...I think the boy in the green striped shirt is afraid of her.

Dancing at Wedding

Seems that the young ones never have a problem with dancing.

Meeting the Guy in Red

It almost looks like she is going in for a job interview. Instead of the 4 points of why you should hire me, she's is thinking 'I gotta make sure he gets my list and he has me on the Good list.'




"Santa, here's my list..."















We get a picture of her in this every year...just as cute as ever.
















She's only going to be 5 in January... 

Madi's First Pulled Tooth

Madi surprised us the other day by claiming she had a loose tooth. We thought it might be a little early for the Tooth Fairy, and we were wrong. Sure enough, the lower two teeth were loose. I told her it might take a "long time" for either of them to fall out...wrong again. Not a few days later, we were tieing the traditional tooth pulling knot with the dental floss and singing the ABC song. You can see the video on Google Video by searching "Madis Dad." What neither the video nor the picture shows is the BLOOD that gushed out. It took Madi by surprise...that's why she shed a few tears...not too many.  

School Book Fair

After several weeks of planning, calling volunteers and creating the decorations for the school book fair, it all came together today with the classess coming through spending their hard earned allowances for the lastest 'Charlie Bone' or 'Captin Underpants' story. Gen did an awesome job of coordinating the event and I am especially proud of the creative way she decided to decorate the cafeteria...see monkeys and paper vines. I can only wait to see what we have in store for the Spring event.

 

Scarecrow Production

This was Madi's class production of Scarecrow...I think...I'm not really sure. 

Daisy the Rat

Okay, I guess technically it's a hampster, but they're from the same family, right?


I caught Madelin "cleaning" her room the other day. When asked, "why," she grinned and said, "I want a pet." Well that goes back to a conversation we had a while back when I told the girls that we wouldn't even consider a new pet in the house until they started picking up after themselves. I guess they do listen.

Below, I'm doing my best Tom Green impression.




 

Halloween

Aaron and I on Halloween. He braved the cold taking the girls around. I got to hang back and hand out fists full of candy to the trick or treaters.

Here's Madi as the Little Mermaid and Hannah as a Pirate with the two girls from next door. As you can tell from the photo, there was plenty of girl power going on in our house on the 31st.

Video of Hannah Swimming

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7985783027245027696&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4071009426599055548&hl=en

Peoria Spooktacular Day 2

Hannah did fantastic again today.

She took first in her heat during the 100 IM. She also took 3 seconds off her time for a final time of 1:47.07 which was 9th over-all.

She took second in 25 fly with a time of 24 sec and 13th overall.

She took third in 25 free with a time fo 19.45sec. We don't know her overall standing for this event.

Now its back to the practice pool. The next meet is in Olympia at the end of November.

For the video of Hannah's Backstroke and IM, go to Google and select the video tab. Search "Madis Dad"