Funny, we've started to get valentine's day cards here and they are all for JD and Katie. Which is as it should be, but very funny how the mighty (me) have fallen. (All the cards used to be for me! As guess as a 30 year old I should get over it.) Still super super busy. However, as I only have a short amt. of time, we'll start with the kids and get to me last if there's time.

Katie is still a gem of a child. Super wonderful. I can't remember if JD was like this - I wrote about him that he was good natured and all, but Katie just strikes me a the perfect child. She is so content! Her hair is finally starting to fill in. It's still more of a light covering than an actual head of hair. She also has simply unbelievable eyes! It's funny, everywhere we go people are always stopping me to say how cute she is. And she really is that cute. I think it's partially because her eyes are so big, and partially because she is a very intent baby. When something interests her she'll just sit and stare at it like she's trying to figure out how it ticks. I have to say she also has this fabulous, huge, open-mouthed smile --more of amazement mixed with delight with big twinkling eyes. God do I love kids this age! That look of love on their face every time you come into view? Sigh!

Katie now has 3 teeth. She is still teething, and I can report from experience that her teeth are painfully sharp. Unlike JD, she really isn't a drool baby. Another funny thing - she likes to suck her toes! It is so funny!! A lot of time she is wearing things that have feet attached to them, and Katie seems to have figured out that if she sucks on her toes through the feetsies, that she ends up with wet feet. Therefore, she waits until I have to take the feet and leggings off - IE, when I change her diaper. Well, the minute those toes are free - woosh, right into her mouth! Which makes it difficult to take a diaper on or off. It's also hysterical to watch, since she clearly anticipates that moment of freedom.

Let's see - the apple of Katie's eye is definitely John. She ADORES him. I know I wrote this last month, but it still amazes me the intensity of her affection. Every time she sees him he must go over and say hello and touch her or else she gets really mad. I mean, even if she's been up for an hour and he's just left the room for a minute! If John crosses her line of sight and doesn't acknowledge her, her face gets all screwed up and she lets out a plaintive yell.

Now onto JD. Well, he's hit a real problem area when it comes to attitude. He's now in a TOTALLY negative phase, which makes you want to kill him well over half of the time! Wow - the terrible twos just last forever. So that healthy streak of independence which he has always displayed has now transformed itself into outright defiance. What a huge pain. So, between yelling "NO" in response to innocent questions and throwing screaming tantrums when his authority is questioned, he's been a real joy to be around. (Not!) Everything is very much a control issue with him at the moment, and I never know what is going to set him off. (The bomb analogy is rather appropriate.) The other fun part is he's starting to whine. And if he's tired, he won't even manage to get his request into the form of words, instead he'll make whining sounds like a dog. So then I'll look at him and say, "JD, I have no idea what you want. Use words please". The only good thing is that he didn't have all the terrible two traits at once, because I most definitely would have killed him. J

Actually, I kind of feel bad for him. It must be hard to want to have control over your world and have your mother do things like turn the TV off and put you to bed. Boy has he been a little terrorist recently. Another part of the problem is that John has been travelling recently. John went to Utah last week (Mon. - Thur) which was his third week long trip since January 1. So three planets have aligned against me - Katie has become somewhat mobile and is touching JD's things, JD wants more authority, and his beloved Daddy has been disappearing for day's on end. All this leads to an unstable emotional environment and war for independence from the mother country. John and I discussed how JD noticeably changed since John's first trip in Jan. JD has become noticeably more clingy and very possessive of John's time and attention. (Give baby mama!!) JD has also recently begun carrying around a lovey - a (now semi) white rabbit. I think this is his mother substitute, and he must take it everywhere with him. When we go to daycare he takes it in the car, but I won't allow it to go into the actual building (never to be seen again) So we have a diaper bag in the car, and this is "Bunny's hole" and we stuff bunny in it to wait for John to pick him up at the end of the day.

The other day JD was super mad at me for who knows why, so he looked right at me and picked up Bunny and threw him in the garbage can! So we can guess that someone was a little irritated at momma.

Of course, JD is still a great little kid, but it seems like at least once a day we have a nuclear meltdown of some sort, so that's a prevalent theme to this letter. On a more positive note, the other day he decided he wanted to read me a story, so that was really cute. He sat in the reading chair and I sat on the floor and he turned pages of the book and told me what was going on. Too cute. He's also talking in leaps and bounds and starting to have actual conversations. "What did you do today JD?" "Go do daycare, play with Tessa" "Did you have fun JD?" "Play with Tessa outside" He's doing really well with colors, (his new favorite is pink.) and knows the difference between none, one and two. Actually, anything more than 1 is two, even if it's really 5.

Every now and then something happens to make me very pleased that I've enrolled JD in a Christian Daycare. Every night before bed we say our prayers, which to this point have consisted of singing "God our Father, Once Again, We will ask your blessing, Amen". However, the other night JD starts saying (very crossly, mind you) "Now I sweep!" I finally figured out he wanted to say the prayer "Now I lay me down to sleep." Of course, I HATE that prayer as it has the word "die" in it and I can even bare to think of that. However, it seems that this is the prayer they say before naptime at daycare so it is imperative we say it here at home. And you can just guess the one line he can say correctly, "If I die" (my mother will collapse with grief.) Another thing, I have a rosary that broke and I had the Jesus part of it lying around. JD came upon it and brought it to me saying, "Jesus! On the cross." So that is pretty cool.

Our days together (the one's without John, anyway J ) have fallen into a nice routine. On Thursday we get up at 6:30 with daddy and perhaps wave him goodbye. Maybe we play in bed a bit, or perhaps go downstairs and build a fire and watch either Tellietubbies or Lion King II (for the 10 millionth time, ARGH) At 8 am JD and I get in the shower while Katie plays with the tub toys on the floor. I get out of the shower and "fill" the tub so Katie and JD can take a bath. Katie absolutely loves the water and seems utterly delighted when she manages to splash herself in the face. Katie takes a morning nap at around 8:30. So I get her out of the tub and put her in bed and then I can blow dry my hair in the bathroom with JD (who would sit in the tub till he dissolved, if possible.) I don't know yet how long Katie's morning nap takes since I always get her up around 9:30 to start our morning activities. (None of this is true on workdays, where I don't even get home till 6, we don't sit down to dinner till 6:30, and Katie falls asleep at 7. Again, on Sat. and Sun. somehow things all get messed up between John and mass and JD running around like a mad man.)

Back to Thursday and Friday routines. At 10ish we usually leave the house for some activity. On Thursdays we go to "playgym" at the local Recreation Center. They have this enormous gym the size of a soccer field. The Rec. center fills it with toys - balls, big wheels, mats, slides, etc, and for 2 bucks a kid (for 2 hours) you can let your toddler run wild. Great idea on rainy or snowy days. Last Thursday I took JD's little friend Kenny with us because I feel bad that he stuck at home while his mom works. (How does she get work done?)

We get home at perhaps 12:15. I deliberately keep Katie up while at playgym (some of the rare time she gets me all to herself) so then both JD and Katie sleep at the same time and take an afternoon nap together. JD will get up at 2ish. We have lunch. All the other kids get home from school at 2:40, so by 3 we are outside with the neighborhood kids. On cold afternoons I'll take the kids grocery shopping instead of playing outside. Katie often takes a later afternoon nap from 5:30 to 6:30. John gets home by 5.

On Fridays I often do something with my buddie Kathleen. We went together to get our kid's photos taken and then we attempted to go out to eat. (Always fun with a 3 year old, 7 month old and 2 month old!) Anyway, it was a Friday and a total of 4 other people - 2 of whom were women and 2 of whom where men that were obviously delighted with our kids and making faces at Katie so she would laugh at them. Definitely NOT a rough crowd. Anyway, Kathleen and I spend a lot of time in my basement beside a fire watching JD go wild for his audience. Unfortunately she has to go back to work starting in March. I'm really going to miss having her around. I would love for her to have Thursdays off and come to playgym with me! On the 26th I've got to go and pick up Katie's photos, and as Nick's will be ready at the same time I'm sure we'll go together and make a day of it.

The last few days have been really mild - yesterday it was 72 degrees - so we've been having a great time. Some of the other children have rollerblades (the modern version of roller skates) and I mentioned that I have them too. So of course they begged me to put mine on and come one with them. (I dare say all the other kids think I'm one of them, just much larger and with crows feet around my eyes) So, I put Katie in our "hiking" stroller (the one with shocks), strapped on my 'blades, and around the cul-de-sac we went; JD on the bigwheel, Kenny on JD's bike (of course) and Me, Amanda, James and Brock with our rollerblades. It really was a ton of fun. Of course today it's snowing! What a change!

A tiny bit about me. (I'm sitting on a camp stool at the moment as John is using our single office chair at the computer behind me. But this is really bad posture and my left arm is hurting. So a quick bit) Friday Feb. 5 we had hockey tickets with our neighbors the Willis's. Anyway, John and I totally forgot about it until Thursday night when they came over with them. Well, Bill and Sharron have been to a roaring total of 1 hockey game, and that at John and my insistence (and with us, of course). The first game was great fun so they became hockey fans (as long as John and I are there) and this was to be their second ever hockey game. So we couldn't not go! Have you ever tried to get a sitter for a Friday night on a Thursday? Thank God for my buddy Karen! I called her at work on Thursday and was like 'I will do ANYTHING you ask of me if you will spend Friday night at my house and watch my kids' So bless Karen's heart for finding me amusing if pathetic and agreeing to babysit. The hockey game was totally fabulous, lots of scoring, huge fight, Bondra (John's favorite player) got a hat trick (3 goals in one game) and some drunk fool threw their motorcycle helmet onto the ice. (*After a hat trick the fans throw their hats on the ice, get it?) So Karen spent the night and in return the next day John watched JD and Karen, Katie and I went shopping and I bought her 30 bucks worth of stuff. Actually we spent 200 bucks together and then went out to lunch, so a fabulous time was had by all!

Well, my arm is killing me and Katie has been asleep since 10 (it's now almost 1) so I've got to go and see if she doesn't feel well. Change in plans for Mother's day. Turns out Mom couldn't get off that weekend so we are coming up the next weekend, May 13, 14, 15 and 16. This is a definite go as Mom has already asked for the days off, so be prepared to be invaded! Can't wait to see you guys!

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Last updated: February 13, 1999