Mostly Caroline's latest

Anderson:  Broccoli?  What's broccoli?  OH, Broccoligreentrees!

Caroline's current understanding of winter:
There are socks on our fireplace.
She loves "snow boats" (snow globes)
The first thing she said to me the other morning when she woke up:  My eyes are cold.

Also, she brought me some gloves and said, "Dad, here's your lady bugs!"
Me:  Thanks, they're called gloves.
Caroline:  OK, glumps.

File under miscellaneous:

• 1 - the most goats I've ever seen in the back of an Oldsmobile Silhouette.
• Political correctness displaces intelligence.  I heard on the radio the other day that a car dealership is giving away a free "Holiday Ham" with a test drive.  You know, so as to not alienate their Muslim and Jewish customers.
• That reminds me:  We went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch yesterday and they had a Christmas tree in the waiting area.  I said to a co-worker, "A Christmas tree?  They're Mexican."  He bit.

Name That Food

Okay, here we go.  See if you can guess the foods, as Caroline says them:
1. Wugoo
2. Chewie
3. Ochie
4. Betchoo
5. Mo
6. Choooo
7. Cheeee
8. Cukoo

Also, in case we haven't documented this yet, her names for her siblings are:
"Day" - Walker
"Baby" - Ellie
"Bye" - Anderson
Don't ask us why, we don't know.

A few new memories

You know how sometimes you're holding one of your kids and then you put it down and forget you were holding it and a little while later you're like "why is there poop on my arm?"

Recounting vacation before a cup of coffee:
So we just got back from as much of a vacation as you can take with a 7, 5, 3, and 1 year old.  Ellie asked me 9 times in 2 hours if we were almost there and said "this is the second most bored I've ever been in my whole life".  We spent Sunday and Monday nights at Great Wolf Lodge, which is a nice place to go if you don't care if your kids get stolen or drown in recycled bathtub water.  There's plenty of room on the floor for kids to puke, and your admission comes with a you'll-see-at-least-14-fat-people's-butt-cracks-or-your-money-back guarantee.  Tuesday, we went to Kelley's Island and got ice cream, played putt putt, and ate dinner (you know, things that we couldn't have possibly done save for the fact that we spent $70 to be surrounded by seagulls and polluted water).  And Wednesday, we spent 6 hours walking around in the sun from one giant animal toilet to the next, listening to and reading left-wing propaganda about deforestation and poaching kangaroos.  Walker hated it, Ellie loved it, Anderson tolerated it, and Caroline basically stared at people's butts all day, I guess.  We topped all that off with an Indians game, where Caroline got a cup of beer spilled on her right before she peed all over Carla, where Anderson kept kicking the guy in front of us until he left, where Ellie sat and colored and asked who we were playing in the 4th inning, where I fought off a migraine, and where a fat guy sat beside/on me the whole time.

Recounting vacation after a cup of coffee:
So we left Sunday morning for vacation, stopping at Cracker Barrel on the way (that's right, vacation from Jesus, too).  We all ate 'till we were stuffed full of eggs, french toast, bacon, sausage, biscuits, and greeits, then we headed out to Great Wolf Lodge, where we spent Sunday and Monday nights.  That place is really nice for little kids.  There are a bunch of giant, twisty water slides that almost everyone can go on, even Anderson.  He loved them, by the way, even the pitch-black tunnel ones.  There's a swimming pool/basketball court, a water/tree house thing, a baby pool with a couple of "weesides" for Gracie, a boring lazy river, and a "warmtub" that whole families are allowed to use.  There's story time for the kids every night in front of an animatronic forest thing (which Walker hated, Ellie loved, Anderson tolerated, and Caroline slept through, I think), and there's a pretty good (but expensive) breakfast buffet, where the wait staff just keeps bringing you food.  There's also an arcade area where we earned enough tickets (122) for a few handfuls of tootsie rolls.  We were only 16,878 tickets away from earning a Wii. 

Tuesday, we took the Jet Express, which the kids really enjoyed, from Sandusky to Kelley's Island.  Ellie especially liked it when we sat outside on the top deck so she could "see the views".  We rented a golf cart on the island, which was really nice.  Carla rode on the back with Walker, Anderson, and Caroline for the grand tour.  All three of those kids fell asleep on top of Carla while Ellie stayed wide eyed up front with me.  We visited the glacial grooves, which we decided Curious George would have loved because it looked like a giant bowling alley.  Then we played putt putt and went to dinner at the Kelley's Island brewery where we got great local perch and great local beer.  We made it back just in time to catch the Jet express back to the mainland and then drive to Cleveland.

Wednesday, we went to the Cleveland zoo and walked pretty much the whole thing.  We were there for a long time and saw just about everything.  Walker was the only one who really had a rough time.  He's not terribly interested in animals so he mainly complained about walking.  Ellie, on the other hand, could have run from one exhibit to the other for another couple hours.  She loved seeing all the different animals.  Finally, we went to the Tribe game, where we saw them crush the Tigers, where Jason Kipnis went 5-for-5 with a home run, where we got ice cream, saw Slider like 2 rows away from us, got to watch the car shoot T-shirts our way, and even got Gracie a cute little Indians cheer-leader outfit ('cause she peed all over Carla).  Best of all, I'll be the only one who remembers the horrible traffic/construction on the way home.

The moral of the story - Coffee makes everything better.

Anderson's latest (plus a bonus interpretation guide)

Anderson:  Mommy, there's a spider on the wall.
Carla:  No, that's just a fly.
Anderson:  Oh, is it gonna put it's lights on?
Carla:  No, flies don't have lights.
Anderson: Well, what about that one that's shaped like a cucumber?
Carla:  I'm not sure what that is, Anderson.
Anderson:  It's a night bee.
It was a fire fly.

Walker, playing Wii baseball:  Dad, I just got a grand slam!
Anderson:  And he got a home run, too!  I heard about that!

Anderson, riding in the car with Carla, put a green beaded necklace across his lap.
Anderson:  I put my safety on.  It's green?
Carla, not looking:  What?
Anderson:  I interviewed it on my list.
Carla:  What?
Anderson:  I X'd it up.
We still don't know exactly what he meant, especially about the interview.

Bonus Section:  Interpretation guide

If Anderson tells you that you look skinny he really means that you have too much skin showing somewhere on your body.

For example, If you were walking around the house in your underwear, he might say, "Mom you look skinny" because you have too much leg skin showing. 
                                                      OR
If you just shaved, he might come up to you, grab your face, rub it, and say, "Dad you look really skinny today."

So 2011, welcome to the new "skinny."

Adenoids, tonsils, and tubes. Oh my! Part 1

Well, these were the pre-op pictures.  All smiles, of course.  Post-op we were too busy to take pictures.  Walker got shipped off just as Caroline was returning, and boy was she agitated.  They warned us that most kiddos are fussy for 30-60 minutes after the surgery, but they did not warn us that she would be violently screaming in a way we have never heard our sweet Gracie cry in her life.  They also didn't tell us that we wouldn't be able to console her for 50 minutes until she wore herself out and collapsed on my shoulder.  Aside from feeling sorry for our pitifully confused, aggressive, screaming child, we were humored by her on more than one ocassion.  At one point, she actually kicked Kurt out of the room by screaming in a shrill voice, "No, no Dada.  No, no Dada" over and over again until he left.  Then she cried for him to come back.  She also wagged her little finger in my face, repeating the same thing to me.  We tried everything we could think of from milk, pretzels, cookies, Dora books, and suckers to the bubbles and stuffed animal that the nurse gave us.  Needless to say, it was a long 50 minutes.

After she woke up from her 30 minute nap, she was the same pleasant Gracie that we know and love!  It was like nothing had even happened.  I guess she just needed to get all that yucky anesthesia out of her system.  The doctors and nurses were great, and I can't say enough about Alliance Community Hospital.  We felt very involved, informed, and well-cared for.  There was even a time when her oxygen levels dropped significantly, and they had to page the anesthesiologist while he was getting Walker ready, but he took great care of her and they came right back up without a problem.  We also know that we had lots of people praying for us, and the power of prayer is a mighty thing!

Today, a day and a half later, I am truly amazed at what a rapid and significant difference the tubes have made.  She has been blabbering all day, repeating almost everything I've said and putting together a few short sentences as well.  Here's what I've written down as her brand-new, post-tube words for the day:
How are you?
I'm good.
Come here.
Ribbit
Move back.
Let's go.
Nice ears.

A big, big thank-you to Dr. Kanagy :)

More about Walker tomorrow . . .

Happy Birthday, Uncle Bill!

We had a blast celebrating Uncle Bill's bday, 60's style!  The boys wore "Old School" tees with records on them.  Kurt (because he's such a cute nerd), opted to go as Gene Kranz, Flight Director of Apollo 13.  (Steph also said he looked like a TV character from "Mad Men.)  Ellie had a long, hippie-ish dress with braids and wavy hair.  Gracie and I had go-go type dresses.  I think I looked more like a flight attendant, but Caroline sure was cute.  The highlights of the night were Aunt Steph's yummy cakes and Uncle Bill playing the piano for us.  It was a lot of fun!  The last picture is of my sisters, Ellie, and me at the annual princess tea party at The Amish Door.  My mom was there, too.  She was the photographer!

Caution!

Kurt has been working some crazy hours lately, and today he had to work his regular hours and then come home and sleep so he could go in for third shift.  He was in bed at 7:30, so I told the kids we all had to be super quiet.  I put Caroline to bed and took the boys outside for haircuts.  Ellie stayed in to color.  When I came in an hour later she had put Anderson's orange caution cones up in front of the bedroom door, along with a magnadoodle sign with the word "NO" and pictures of people yelling & noisy toys and a picture of Kurt sleeping.  She was so proud of herself!  Ellie has always had a heart of gold and would do anything to help someone.  I think she'll be a nurse someday :)

In other news of caution, Anderson had an interesting conversation with Kurt last night about a "flang shinger."  "A what?" Kurt said.  "You know, a thing that you brush your mouth off with," replied Anderson.  A.K.A a razor!

Nothing much new.  Walker is in basketball camp this week, baseball camp next week, and tomorrow we find out when he will be getting his tonsils out!