3 winning pictures

I have 60 or so photos of Clara within the last week. Of those 60 about 2 are good and one is of mild interest.

The smile. She's been charming us with her smile for weeks now and I finally snapped a decent photo of her smiling. It's not visible in this pic but she has a single, adorable dimple on her left cheek.


The red blob above Clara is Sam's swing that hangs in our kitchen entry way. It caught Clara's attention once after it had been set in motion and it quickly replaced the ceiling fan in the category of "coolest mundane household item in motion EVER!"


And this is her just looking cute.

The amazing, vanishing Sam

Sam fell out of bed the other night. Actually it might be more appropriate to say that he slid out since there was no thud, at least not that I heard. David had gone into work to fix some computer problem, so I was alone with all 3 kids. Jackson was asleep upstairs, Clara was asleep on the couch next to me and Sam was yangling in bed. You had to go back and read that last part again, didn't you? The word yangle comes compliments of my granny. I can't give an exact definition of the word but I know yangling when I hear it, and since Sam has no discernable words he yangles. After about an hour Sam got really quiet and I thought to check on him to make sure he was still alive. You see, Sam still has frequent apnea episodes while he sleeps and sometimes (and when I say "sometimes" I mean several times a month) we plug him into his monitor and then forget to turn the monitor on (and when I say "we" I mean David). This may sound horrifying, but really, it's not like we actually do anything when the apnea monitor alarms. If we're downstairs and the monitor alarms it usually stops (meaning Sam resumes breathing) by the time we get to the top of the stairs; so why bother getting off the couch, right? And if we're sleeping we usually don't hear it. Oh c'mon, how many of you sleep through the beeping of your alarm clocks? It's the same thing. But I always like to make sure the monitor is at least turned on; you can't accuse me of neglect. So I left Clara sleeping on the couch while I went upstairs to Sam's room. There was only a small amount of light from the hallway but it was enough to see that Sam was not in his bed. Well, what the hell? It's not like Sam can climb out of bed and walk away. I looked under the blankets and the many suffocation hazards pillows in his bed. What? His own brain fails to signal him to breathe - a few fluffy pillows are not a big threat in comparison. The pillows are there to prevent him from banging into the wall or the bed rail. And the bed rail is clearly supposed to prevent him from falling out of bed. It still hadn't occurred to me to look for him on the floor. I did, however, think to check his apnea monitor. The monitor was turned on and the display showed active heart rate and respiration so I knew Sam was somewhere in the room at the end of the long monitor cord. Then next to the monitor, hooked through the bed rail that was supposed to keep Sam in bed, I saw a foot. Sam's foot. And attached to that foot was Sam, upside down with the upper half of his body on the floor and lower half up against the bed. I quickly scooped him up into my arms and felt a mix of relief and absolute horror. I have no idea how long he was like that and, although he didn't seem upset or hurt, I felt like the shittiest mom to have allowed that to happen to my sweet boy. I held him for a long time and hugged him and kissed him and told him how sorry I was. I felt awful that not only had we failed to secure his bed for him but that he, this pure and completely dependent child, had to lay on the floor waiting for his mommy to get a clue and help him back into bed. Once I got him tucked into bed again I went back downstairs and ignored the beeping apnea monitor some more.

Rock, bounce, pat

Not to be confused with rock, paper, scissors which is inarguably a much more enjoyable game than rock, bounce, pat. Rock, bounce, pat is a tiresome game consisting of rocking the baby in my arms while bouncing her vigorously and patting her bottom all in an effort to induce sleep. How these 3 things work together to put her to sleep I have no idea. I can only guess that the chaotic combination scrambles her little brain enough to drown out the boisterous yells of Sam, the constant chatter of Jackson and deludes her into feeling like she's back in the safety of my womb. All I can say for sure is that within minutes of beginning this little routine her eyes roll back into her head and she quickly drops into a deep slumber. Which is really weird because if someone tried all these things with me I don't think I would feel like sleeping; no, I'm pretty sure I'd want to slap the person. Anyway, with all the rocking, bouncing and patting going on at our house I haven't had as much time for my blog. But I'm trying.

The happiest place on earth to die

Sunday morning newspaper story:

"Crap. Some 12 year old boy died while riding a roller coaster at Disneyland."

"How the hell does that happen?"

"Says he had some congenital heart abnormality."

"Random."

"Oh, well, the family is from Kentucky."

"That explains it."

"If you're going to have a medical emergency Disney's the place to be; it only took 6 minutes for paramedics to arrive."

"Get this: he was pronounced dead at..... Celebration Hospital."

Attack of the giant lizards

We have ants

We bought some ant stakes that kill the ants and their entire colony when they take the bait back to their home. This is how we get rid of ants...


... and this is how Jackson gets rid of ants...

Holding out for the big bucks

Jackson lost his first tooth the other night. It had been loose for several weeks and he began complaining that it was so loose now that it bothered him. I jokingly suggested that he pull it out so it would stop bothering him... so he did.

Later that night I found the special tooth fairy pillowcase which has a picture of a fairy and a special pocket sewn on for the tooth. We placed Jackson's tiny baby tooth into the pocket as Jackson began trying to determine how the tooth fairy was going to get into our house. He pretty quickly concluded that our house was impermeable and it must be the parents that take the tooth and leave the money. Because the idea that a lithe, winged fairy could get into our house is ridiculous but he can totally understand a big, orange pumpkin stealthily gaining entrance. I just shrugged my shoulders and told him to say goodbye to his little tooth. Then I began thinking about how sad it was that this tooth had been a part of him for 6 years and now he was going to just hand it over to some mystical pixie with a tooth fetish... and for mere pocket change. As if reading my mind, Jackson suddenly began to cry.

"I don't want to put my tooth in the pocket."

No, Jackson. Don't give in to the duplicitous enterprise of the tooth fairy. TAKE YOUR TOOTH AND RUN! RUN I SAY! HOLD ON TO YOUR SWEET TOKEN OF CHILDHOOD!

"It's okay sweetie. You don't have to put your tooth in the pocket. You can keep it if you'd like."

So we still have Jackson's tooth and it's not looking good for the tooth fairy. Jackson's plan is to keep each tooth he loses and individually wrap them so that we can indicate in which order they were lost. These are the moments in which it is revealed that children really are smarter than adults.