T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

In the car last night I told Maddux that her friend, Sam, would be coming over for dinner this week. Her response?

Smile. "I gonna play doctor wiff him, Mommy..."

My Love

It's always interesting to me the things that I end up doing with one child, but not the other. Eli knew "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town" pretty much by heart when he was just two because I would always sing it to him before naps and bed. (I know...odd 'lullaby' choice.) Maddux knows the song, but I rarely sang it to her. No real reason; it's just the way it worked out.

One thing I have found myself doing way more with Maddux is a specific declaration of love before bed each night. I'll say to her, "I love you all the way up to the moon, all the way down to the swimming pool drains." Then she'll respond to me with "I love you all the way up to the birds, all the way down to the grass." And so on.... It wasn't even intentional on my part, but I love that it is a staple in our relationship. A few weeks ago I also said to her, "I love you more than ice cream." and a similar trend followed. That girl loves to love, and that makes my world go round.

Date Night

Crazy schedules have been the norm since we returned to school this month. Because of that, we've not been able to start back up our individual date nights with the kids yet. It seems that each night finds one of us home with the kids and the other at an appointment or rehearsal. Saturday night we had nothing planned, so we opted for a group date night: a Family Date Night. We picked a fun restaurant that the kids haven't been to in at least a year and played it up big. Lehr even took Eli to Harry's during Maddux's nap and bought flowers. Eli wanted to wear a work shirt, so we all got dressed up as well.

The evening started off great, but Eli tripped coming into the restaurant, landing hard on his knee. Since he'd been going strong all day, his fatigue set him off into a bit of a whiny spell. Luckily, the restaurant is loud, so his complaining as we waited for a table was totally unnoticed by anyone else.

Once seated we ordered quickly and then just enjoyed each other's company. We were sitting at a high table, so I worried about Maddux and her potential for injury. (She tends to not sit still. Ever.) However, she was great the whole night! She ate cleanly, sat pretty well, and behaved wonderfully! Both kids got hamburgers and we split some zucchini fries for the table. The venue we chose is known for their small specialty milkshakes, so we all had a little. The Nutella shake was topped off with flame-charred marshmallows. That made Eli VERY happy!

Scoot!

Eli and Maddux received razor scooters for Christmas and they are still a HUGE hit. More so with Eli, as Maddux has really taken to riding a bike recently. This weekend Lehr shot a few minutes of video as the kids enjoyed the sunshine and lack of snow and ice on the ground.

Swim Lessons

Last year I enrolled the kids in one swim lesson over the cold months, just to keep their swim 'skills' in their memory. Since it seemed to work pretty well, I did the same this year. Once a week the kids take lessons, back-to-back, so they each get to watch the other. So far so good.

Maddux loves the water. She can kick pretty good, but struggles to remember that her arms are supposed to come out of the water. And something she's done the last two weeks is stopping halfway down the lane to grab onto the side for a moment. Maybe she's getting tired? The video is pretty cute because it shows her working so hard to keep her eyes in the water, but she alternates that with throwing her head completely back to wipe the water and hair out of her eyes.

Eli is a fish. He loves the water even more than last year, and his progress is obvious even inside of a lesson. This last week the coach advised the boys to turn their heads to the side to breath...not a stroke passed after that without Eli moving his head to the side.

One area Eli has always struggled with is the kicking. He never seems to keep his legs together, moving them like a water polo player instead. This is very easy to see when it comes time to use kick boards. Without his arms helping him, Eli falls to the back of the pack quickly, pretty much swimming in place. One area he may have a knack for is diving. You can only see part of one 'dive' on the video, but over half of the time that he's asked to jump into the water, Eli leads with his hands in a stretched out dive/flop. No formal instruction has been given on that yet, he just sees it and mimics.

2011 01 Swim Lessons from Nicole Eliason on Vimeo.

Winded

This is Maddux's newest term: "winded". She doesn't use it in the context most people would, however. She uses it to describe something that has had wind go through it. For example, yesterday we were driving down the street and she asked why some trees had leaves and some didn't and some trees had MUCH leaves. I went through a quick winter temperature explanation for her, reminding her how the leaves fall in our yard each fall. She responded by telling me that the leaves that fell off of the tree in our cul-de-sac were due to her climbing on and jumping on the branches, and NOT because they were dead and fell off of the tree when the wind blew.

"Mommy, I climbed up the tree and jumped on the branches to shake it. I make the leaves fall off.....they didn't get winded."

All-American Man

Eli loves the American flag. Why shouldn't he, really? I'm not sure what started his adoration of it, but for months (at least six months now) he's been obsessed. He draws it, he wears clothing with it, he points it out every time he sees it... At one point over the summer, he wore the same flag shirt a solid week. (Since we were displaced at the time and living out of suitcases, I barely noticed.)

This Christmas I knit most of my gifts: hats and scarves mostly. Sometime around Thanksgiving, Eli asked me to knit him a hat. I was hesitant. I've knit him a blanket, two hats and two scarves and he uses NONE of it. But he kept insisting that he wanted a red, white and blue hat. So I told him after the holidays I would. We were iced in all week, so I had some time to make said hat. Eli loved it. Outside of the goofy stars, I'm happy with it too. So far, Eli has worn it 75% of each day, whether he's cold or not. I guess that makes up for the other projects that have gone unused!

Bobsled?

Eli went to rehearsal with Lehr this morning. This week Lehr was only playing in one song, so there was plenty of downtime before the service started. Our church parking lot was a huge flat surface of ice all week, but most of it has melted away. The shady spots, however, still have some frozen areas. Eli and one of his idols, Ashton, found a big icy section this morning. Skateboards, recycle bins and shoes were used to play on the slick surface. At one point, Ashton convinced Eli to get in the recycle bin and bobsled around the corner....good stuff.

2011 01 Eli and Ashton on Ice from Nicole Eliason on Vimeo.

Defrost

For the first time in a week, we were able to go outside today and PLAY! No big jackets, no three layers of gloves....just warm sun, temps above freezing, and a whole lot of energy to burn off. The kids had a blast with their bikes and scooters...they've been unable to use those for a full week due to the layers of ice over every surface. I was working most of the day, so Lehr was on full-time Daddy-duty. He tells me that angels were singing: the kids played TOGETHER for quite a while without arguing at all. They interacted without yelling, complaining, or bossing each other around. Of course that would happen when I'm not around, right?

Snow Days!

As predicted, we got a huge dumping of snow late Sunday night, resulting in no school for the kids on Monday. It was so much snow (for Atlanta) that we also had no boot camp, no work, no swim lessons..... The city basically shut down. The precipitation stopped around noon Monday, but the cold air lingered, freezing everything up last night leaving us home-bound again today.

Yesterday we went outside to sled first thing. A few boogie boards, some rain boots...we were set. After about an hour, Maddux was done, so I brought her back inside. Eli stayed out long enough for his fingers to get seriously numb, but he had a blast. We colored, played with new bead-crafts I bought the day before, listened to music, and read books all day. When the temps were the highest, we took a short drive up to the store, just to check out the rest of the world.

Shortly after dinner the snow/slush turned to ice and everything, including the snow, froze over. This morning we woke up to many many sheets of ice as far as thee eye can see. Eli still wanted to sled, so I took him back to the main hill we'd used the day before. Unfortunately many people had driven on that road at this point, so it was ice mixed with patches of just road, which was starting to rip up his board. After about 15 minutes I suggested we go back to our hill, which gets less traffic. The hill was not too great (TOO much snow coverage), but one of our neighbor's driveway was perfectly iced and sloped. Also, the hill in our yard worked, as long as you weighed less than 60 pounds. Eli and I spent a few hours outside before Maddie joined us. She lasted approximately 6.5 minutes. Just long enough to go down the driveway and yard hill one time each. And just long enough to fall, touch the ice, and fall again, resulting in tears each time. After the snowball that we found lodged in her boot yesterday, I think she's been 'scarred' by the snow. My girl does not enjoy the cold!

More reading, coloring, dance-partying, and bead-crafting today. We made bagels when the kids go up...blue, red, pink, purple, all in a tie-dye fashion, due to the way the kids 'mixed' the color in. In a few we will turn on a movie...we're about stir-crazy though!

2011 01 Snow Sled from Nicole Eliason on Vimeo.

That One's A Keeper!

Haven't blogged yet this year and I thought this was the perfect reason to start. We've been boxed up in the house for two days straight with no school, no boot camp, no work, no photo shoots, no swim lessons.... My last 'fun' idea today was to paint Mad Dog's nails. Eli declined, but Maddie and I spent a good 20 minutes in my bathroom being all 'girly'. At one point she pointed to the trail map on the counter.
"What's dat, Mommy?" I told her it was a map from the last time Daddy and I went snowshoeing, before she was born. I told her she may have even been in my tummy. (Upon further thought, she wasn't.)

Maddux asks, "Was dere toys in dere?" I could barely stop laughing long enough to answer her. She didn't get it, so she then asked me, "Well, was my blanket in there? No??? Then what did I do?"

I told her she was just growing, but she grew so fast she didn't have time for anything else.

"Well, how about clothes...was I wearing baby clothes?" I told her she was naked but it was roasty toasty in my belly, so she wasn't cold.

"Yay!! Roasty Toasty!!!" That girl makes sure I never go a day without a good laugh.

Eli's Heart

I know it keeps coming up, the kids' heart 'conditions', that is, but we've had some moments lately. And as much as I wish sometimes that Eli would care more about his sister and friends in moments of unexpected hurt feelings or physical discomfort, what I've seen out of him in quiet moments this month blows me away.

About a month ago I started talking to the kids about Christmas gifts. We talked about why we celebrate, and why we may want to give other people gifts, even though it's a birthday for Jesus, not us. The main point of our conversation was for me to get the kids thinking about what the friends and family in their life might find joy in. I reminded them that they've seen me working on knitting projects and photo projects for our family, because I was trying to make something that they'd enjoy and remember. Also we talked about how most of our friends and family have so many things that they don't really need 'stuff'. So we brainstormed some ways to give. It came up that people like Pkemei, the little boy we sponsor in Kenya, would enjoy anything we could get for him: clothing, toys, books, blankets... But people like our Grandparents and friends at school already have all of those things, so something handmade, some time spent together, or something picked out that signifies a bond would be a better choice. Then I told them that we wouldn't be buying anything for at least another week: I asked them to think about the people they would be giving to and what those people would cherish.

Eli had already made a gift for both Grandmothers at school, he made something for Grandpa Ed and Sandy in Art, and we'd made small magnet crafts for most of our friends already. For the remaining gifts, Eli and I set out on a Saturday with him leading the way. We went to Target first because he really wanted to get Maddux a Hello Kitty toy. He didn't know specifically what, but he knows how much she loves Hello Kitty, so he was set on something in that arena. What he picked out was perfect; she loves it and has already misplaced the pieces several times due to overuse.

Originally he wanted to get Lehr a Christmas Tree shirt (because he doesn't have one), however, no holiday shirts for men were to be found. Midway through our Target run he found a replacement Christmas themed gift, which was great. But my most favorite thing was what he thought of on the drive to Target. From the back seat I heard, "MOM!! I know what I need to get Daddy! A drum key, cuz he lost his!" Apparently the previous time they'd worked on drums together, Lehr found himself without a key; it had been misplaced. I thought it was so cool that Eli remembered that and realized that was something that Lehr definitely needs and would value. So even though it added another store in our errand list, in the totally wrong direction of course, to the drum store we went.

The final gift that Eli chose was for Grandpa Jim. While my parents visited over Thanksgiving, Grandpa took Eli ice skating. When I asked Eli what he wanted to get for Grandpa Jim, he immediately told me, "A hockey ice skater ornament." As cool as that sounds, we couldn't find exactly that. In fact, for the longest time we couldn't find any kind of ice skating or hockey ornament at all. Finally, the day after we mailed out our gifts, we found a solitary ice skate ornament hanging randomly in a Target store.

Eli really enjoyed wrapping all of the gifts he picked out, especially the drum key for Daddy. He wrapped it in a large box full of Lincoln Logs, to try and trick him. When I put Eli to bed on Christmas night, I asked him what his favorite gift was that he gave and without hesitation he told me "Daddy's drum key", with a HUGE smile on his face. I think Eli really enjoyed the giving part of this holiday season.

Sing It, Girl!

Complete with a repeat refrain or "coda" (please correct me if I'm wrong, music people), here is Mad Dog giving her new microphone (and dress up clothes) plenty of use.

2010 12Maddux sings again from Nicole Eliason on Vimeo.

Snow Day!

What are the odds?!?! I lived up north for many Christmas seasons and often did not have snow on the ground for Christmas day, let alone falling from the sky. This year, in Georgia, we had snow for Christmas! It snowed late in the day and continued for the next two days. Unfortunately, the first half of the snowfall turned to water and/or slush when it hit the ground due to some warmer temps the few days beforehand. The kids didn't care though, they were just happy to see white stuff. When enough had accumulated, we bundled up and headed outside. Eli was the first to run through the yard, picking up snow and throwing it as he went. It wasn't the greatest snowball or snowman making material, but we made it work. Maddux liked it a little less, not wanting to have any snowballs thrown at her. After much running and playing we ventured over to our neighbor's yard where their new trampoline was covered in ice and snow. Once all sharp edges were removed, the boys jumped like crazy. (Maddux was thoroughly cold at this point and i had to bring her inside to 'put fire on her feet'.)

2010 12 Snow Day from Nicole Eliason on Vimeo.

Puppets

We are really enjoying this break from school and 'schedule'! Another thing I've been wanting to do with the kids is take them to the Center for Puppetry Arts. October ran a great show, but we had no days off, and November's show may not have held the kids' attention. This month was Rudolph, based on the old-school cartoon/clay-mation we've all watched for years and years. Even though I could not secure tickets online, I figured we'd give it a shot. When we arrived, all of the box office windows had signs reading 'Sold Out'. But I had to ask anyway. The attendant informed me that they were indeed sold out, even all of the way through the end of the week (3 shows a day too!). I had a back-up plan for the day, but we really wanted to see the show. The awesome attendant told me that from time to time they have a few unclaimed tickets, so if I gave her my cell phone number and stuck around the lobby, she'd call me if that was the case. We still had thirty minutes until the show, so we did just that. And as luck would have it, five minutes before curtain, my phone rang. Three tickets were ours!

Eli and Maddux loved the puppets, the show, and the songs. And I could not get over how well-done everything was. The puppets looked EXACTLY like the cartoon, only better! The show lasted about an hour and then we got to go upstairs and make a craft. The craft for this show was a reindeer puppet. Although I did 99.4% of all constructing, the kids got to decorate their own reindeer, which was so much fun. Maddux, of course, tried to glue 34 pieces of foam on her reindeer, all using a pound of glue each time. Eli, on the other hand, matched each side, making sure they followed a pattern. He even asked me to help with hooves and antlers when we got home.

Like A G6....

So the kids and I have been dancing to this song (thanks to Zumba) for a few months. Recently the song about an airplane came on the radio while Eli and I were running errands. Of course I started car-dancing and Eli began his air drumming. He told me that when he had room time later that day, he was going to write the music for the song on a piece of paper so that we could dance and sing and drum it later. He even told me the parts where I snap to each side would be shown on his music with "X".

If you haven't heard the song...it's pop-y, it's kinda annoying, and it talks about partying, but it's a FUN dance song, so we go with it. Eli was true to his word and 'composed' this music when he got home. (If you don't know the song, the chorus goes, "Like a G6, like a G6, na-na-na-na-na...".) Eli obviously got the words down fine and even wrote in the snaps (with arrows!) for me. Love it!

Christmas Day

What a blast, but it went way too fast. Eli woke up around 6, but Lehr got him back to sleep until about 8AM. We went down and turned the tree on and then let the kids come down to see what Santa had left. Their three gifts were in a corner (unwrapped with only bows) next to the fireplace: each got a kid's umbrella, a book and a board game. Maddux was ecstatic about the umbrella, of course. Actually both kids really enjoyed that; they'd been asking for one for quite some time. Eli went to see if Santa had eaten the marshmallow, and he saw the Coke and the note. When we went to start the fire, he saw the glitter..... Eli was totally into the awesomeness of Santa this year and I love it. (Speaking of which, I asked him this morning if he remembered me in his room last night: negative.)

We opened a few gifts and Jesus stocking notes and then had a delish breakfast of Dutch Babies. A few more gifts and then I ushered the kids upstairs to get dressed. Matching reindeer shirts (by choice) and they were ready to come back down. I told them to wait for a minute because Daddy and I wanted to give them our gift now, but it wasn't wrapped. When Lehr gave the all clear, we came down and the kids saw their razor scooters. Eli was soooo excited. Maddux was, but she seemed confused. "I didn't ask for a scooter though" was one of her responses. However, as soon as we got outside and she rode it, she turned around, looked me in the eye and said, "Thank you, Mommy, for getting me a scooter." That is my awesome, grateful girl. I do love her heart!! Eli couldn't get the smile off of his face; he LOVED the scooter, of course. He kept riding over bits of carrot left over by the reindeer...the magic continues....

More gifts, more Jesus stocking. Eventually we opened our stockings, which held a few small gifts the elves had slipped into Santa's pockets. The best part for me was Eli's gifts to people. He got Lehr a drum key and he helped Daddy wrap some PJ's for me. He was so excited to give those gifts.

Dinner was homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs, and we had a birthday cake for Jesus, which Maddux helped me make. The hits of the day were the scooter for Eli, TWO chests of dress-up clothes for Maddux, courtesy of both Grandmothers, and legos for Eli. Those kids are certainly surrounded by people who love them!

Christmas Eve

Such a great time had by all. Mom-Mom visited all week, so she was able to join us for Christmas Eve service and waking up the next morning with the kids. Early on in the day, the four of us ran a few errands for dinner the next night. We knew it would take long, so Lehr and I decided to make it special for the kids by popping in a Christmas movie in the car. That is something that is strictly reserved for long car-trips, so Eli and Maddux loved it. We chose the Grinch (Jim Carrey version), which they'd never seen. They had a blast.

My favorite part of the day was before church when I asked the kids to pose for a few quick photos in their fancy clothes. Maddux wore the same dress she wore last year and Eli wore a spiffy red 'work shirt', jeans and his Vans. He was pretty good about standing still for a few pictures; that's not something he usually does for me. And when I asked Maddux to kiss him, Eli avoided it totally. The funny part is, he was more than happy to plant one on Mad Dog's cheek.

Our church does the service on the early side and the kids are included. Thankfully the service is no more than an hour and includes much music and media. Eli and Maddie did great, not even requiring the paper and pencils I brought along to entertain. Maddux wanted to dance in the aisle each time the music started. That would be fine except after a minute of dancing she usually wanders up towards the stage, so we had to keep an eye on that.

After church we drove by several of our favorite holiday houses and snacked on some pretzels. When we got home we changed into our matching PJ's, courtesy of Grandma Cathie, and had a quick hot cocoa while we followed our tradition of letting the kids open their gifts to each other. Maddux loved her Hello Kitty play set from Eli, and Eli was over the moon for the match-box car holder-truck that Maddux picked out for him. They even hugged for a few pictures.

We then set out a few things for Santa. Eli wanted to roast a marshmallow for him, so we had that and a few treats given to us by a neighbor. (We ran out of time to make cookies.) We asked what they wanted to leave SC to drink and Eli replied "Coke". He said he'd seen Santa drinking Coke when we went to the aquarium (the Coke Museum is right next door), so he must like it. Luckily we still had a few Diet Cokes in the fridge leftover from Grandpa Jim. Finally it was time to put food out for the reindeer. Eli wanted carrots, which we luckily had a whole bag of. Off to bed!

Lehr and I poured some coke in the glass, ate the marshmallow and broke up a bunch of the carrots and scattered in the driveway and front porch. Then I sprinkled some ash and glitter around the fireplace and dropped a few pieces of white cotton ball fluff nearby. I also wrote a quick note from Santa, mainly to help Eli cope with a possible disappointment. He had it set in his mind that Santa would be bringing him a razor scooter. Eli assumed if you asked for it, you'd get it, and that's all he had really been asking for. While Lehr and I did get the kids razors (from us), we weren't going to 'unveil' them until after breakfast, to allow for the Santa gifts to have their place, and because we knew the kids would want to rush outside as soon as they saw the scooters. In the letter we told Eli that the scooter was too big for his bag and sleigh (which is the story I'd already been telling Eli all week).

One last thing, since Eli was hook, line, and sinker for Santa this year, I wanted to play into it one more way. Even though our boy is a heavy sleeper, I wanted to wake him up in the middle of the night with jingle bells. My plan was to get him a bit woken up (loud noise or something) and then shake the bells outside of his room. Of course that didn't work the way I'd hoped. First I went into his room and banged around a lot, planning to ask him, "Did you hear that?" when he woke up and saw me. No go...the boy snored and snored, even when I shook his bed. So I finally jostled him as i made a noise and he opened his eyes. I asked, "Did you hear something? Were you making noise?" He yawned and shook his head. I left and we shook the bells loud. Lehr saw Eli sit straight up, so he high-tailed it back to our room in case Eli came out and questioned us. Not a chance. Eli went right back to sleep. Guess we'll have to try this on Mad Dog next time...

Myrrh

Lots of talk over the holidays surrounding Jesus, the manger, and of course, myrrh. Maddux can correctly tell you the three gifts from the wise men every time. However, one day last week she got a little confused.

Since Eli loves to read all types of informative, non-fiction books, we have learned about many things from hurricanes to dinosaurs to Native Americans. Since our trip to the aquarium last week, Maddux has pulled out a few of our penguin books. The other night we were reading about the waterproof-type fur some penguins have. The next morning when the subject of myrrh came up, Maddux said, "Myrrh, like on the penguins." Gotta love that girl!

Bagels!

About a month ago Eli started asking for candy cane bagels. Last year or the year before, our usual spot for Sunday bagels had 'candy cane bagels', which were regular old bagels, but dyed red and twisted with regular (white) dough in the shape of a candy cane. After two failed trips to score said bagels this year, Eli and I asked if they were just sold out. Apparently they were not big enough ticket items to warrant a return. Given our new, fancy dancy kitchen, and some help with childcare this week since Lehr is working less, I told Eli that we'd make our own bagels the week before Christmas. As fun as this sounds, I am not always the best with baking. Cooking I can handle, but I don't have a lot of confidence where baking is concerned. Nevertheless I found a recipe and this morning my boy and I set out to the store to get the necessary goods. Eli helped me mix the dough and roll it out. We divided it in half and mixed in some red food dye (that's when Maddux entered the equation). After some more rolling, we had 16 long 'snakes' that soon turned into eight candy cane bagels. So much easier than I thought and they turned out pretty good!