Sadie Says IV

Little Miss Sadie had a problem with biting over the weekend and unfortunately that meant Big Brother Caleb took the brunt of it.

After being put in time out- Daddy called Sadie over to talk about what she had done.

Daddy- "Sadie, why did you have to sit in time out?"
Sadie- "because I tried to eat Caleb"

very difficult to keep a straight face with that one... but the biting seems to have passed :-)

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Daddy also made the very daring attempt to grocery shop with the 2 monkeys while I was away on Sat. They did really well even though it was getting closer and closer to nap time. Eventually, Sadie had enough and stopped listening to Daddy which made Daddy have to put her in the cart (a punishment worse than death according to Sadie). Through many tears and sobs, she managed to plead with Daddy...

"but Daddy, I have to dance"

sometimes that's just how it is ;-)

Caught!

This is where I found the monkeys listening to music this morning.

NJ and Camp

So once again we're spinning. Just blink an eye and April is gone and we're in May. I can't believe how fast time is flying by. April was very busy with birthdays (Aunt Emily and Uncle Jason), Easter, photo sessions and an end of the month trip to NJ with a stopover at camp on the way home.

The trip was a little hectic made slightly more complicated by Caleb developing another ear infection Sat (we were leaving Tuesday for Jersey). We scrambled to get him into the Dr.s on Monday morning and after a quick exam, got our script and were on our way. Fortunately, Caleb has been such a trooper taking his medicine and aside from the fever, he's a pleasant little patient. We packed up and headed out Tuesday morning- with Caleb sick, it didn't make sense to send him to pre-school and then leave (the school doesn't really like that anyway). I was on my own with the 2 monkeys in the back seat. Oh, yeah, Andy had to stay home and work on saving the world from swine flu. :-) The trip out wasn't too bad but the kids did a lot of bickering and decided to ignore the bag of books between them. This made for lots of Mommy straining to stay calm and quiet them while not wrecking the car. We stopped for a quick lunch and then had to make one more stop for Tylenol when Caleb's fever spiked again. But we made it and the kids were so excited to see G'ma Jody and Papa Pat's.

In NJ we got to make a few trips to the playground and had a trip to The Turtle Back Zoo. It was very nice and the kids had lots of fun. Sadie was a little creeped out by the roaming peacocks but both kids loved the carousel and train rides. No breakthroughs in potty training for the week but Caleb and Sadie both continue to be more interested and willing to sit.

The week came to an end too quickly and Saturday we packed up for the journey home. This time with the addition of a DVD player for the car (the most wonderful thing for a car ride). The kids loved the distraction of Veggies in the car and I was able to manuever my way to I80 for the trek to Cross Fork, PA (aka Camp). It was a quick drive with the kids watching the movie and then passing out for the first couple of hours. Much easier than the drive out.

We got to camp and found everyone there ready for our belated Easter celebration. After supper, Grammie snuck out and hid Easter eggs throughout the yard. Then we released the kiddos to find them. The kids had a blast looking for the eggs and running around the yard.
It was lots of fun.

After the hunt, Uncle Sean, Aunt Emily and Cousin C had to pack up and head home. So we said good bye and then it was time to get Caleb and Sadie to bed.

Sunday morning started out fine. The kids were up around 7 and Grammie quickly stirred up pancakes. After devouring the pancakes, it was time to coax them into getting dressed. I went for Sadie first- she's smaller and usually puts up less of a fight. Took her pj shirt off and found a weird mark on her arm and then noticed the moving legs attached to it. I grabbed her and showed it to my dad. Then it was off to the ER. A tick had been snacking on her arm and with all the deer that are around camp, we didn't want to take the chance of pulling it out and having the head break off. Sadie was quite pleasant through it all- a 40 min drive to the nearest hospital, waiting another 15-20 min to be seen by the nurse and dr, then having to lay down on the table while the dr removed the tick. I couldn't believe how brave she was and entertaining to. She happily introduced herself and Pappap to the nurse and then was asking to see her usual dr. I told her he wasn't there but we would get to see his friend. That seemed to make her happy and then she got to play with some new toys. The nurses and doctor were really nice and took great care of her and reassured us that we were okay to bring her in. We left tick free and with another script for antibiotics all before 10:30.

After that adventure, I was ready to pack up and head home. The drive home was fine. A little less sleeping but not as much bickering either so I was happy.

Sadie continues to talk about her boo boo and is enjoying her medicine- we have weird children that look forward to medicine. And last night she informed me that I had a tick in my arm and we needed to go to the hospital. :-)

The bite seems to be healing well and we have a check-up next week with the drs- Sadie's 2.5 yr check-up and an ear check for Caleb.

And that's the end of April... :-)

Caleb Reading

I guess we all pretty much saw this coming last year when we started seeing the boy memorizing books. Well, it looks like he is bound and determined to teach himself how to read (even though, I would prefer him to be completely potty trained- I've learned that my kids and I aren't always going to have the same ideas). Through a combination of memory and figuring out letter sounds, Caleb has been able to read ZOO, CALEB, MOMMY, DADDY, and SADIE. That's more than enough for any 3 and a half year old to master but not our little man. Sunday morning, he got up with Daddy and dug out his huge Curious George treasury book. Now he's memorized all the stories, almost entirely (gotta give the little guy a bit of a break since he probably has around 30 books memorized word for word, I think) but he has been working on pointing to each word and saying it as he "reads." While looking at the book with Daddy, he started asking Daddy to tell him what the words were and eventually he started to remember some of the words. Now he recognizes THE, IN, TO, FIREMAN, MONKEY, INTO (he figured that one out from seeing "in" and "to"), THEY, AND, FIRE, and possibly more. He's starting to connect that every time you see "the" it's THE. It's been exciting to watch and he seems to be more and more determined to figure it out.

Now if only I could get him that interested in the potty...

Tid Bits

• At dinner this evening, we witnessed first hand Sadie "playing" with her food. She's been doing a lot of pretending lately with the Little People and other little toys. At dinner, it was the strawberries.

One strawberry says to the other "oh no, I lost my daddy"
The other strawberry says "oh, maybe he's in my tummy"
And then she eats both strawberries.

• Last week, we went out to visit my friend Kelly. I've known her since kindergarten and now she has a 2 yr old and a brand new baby. While out there, our friend Karen dropped by with her brand new baby so it was quite the houseful. Sadie and Miss M (Kelly's little girl) got along really well and seemed to have a lot of fun playing. As I loaded the car back up to drive home, the kids sat and watched out the window. At some point, they found a little thing of chapstick. Miss M happily showed Sadie and Caleb how to put it on and then all 3 kids were smearing chapstick all over their face. It was funny to watch. When we got home, Sadie ran to the book shelf int the dining room, where we keep all the art supplies and pointed up, saying "I need the gluestick for my face". Apparently the chapstick and gluestick looked a little too similar and now I'll have to keep both out of reach.
  

Easter Morning 2009

So the Easter Bunny thought it would be fun to do a little decorating for Easter morning. There were Easter eggs hung from the ceiling fan in the living room and over the archway to go in the dining room. He also gathered up all the stuffed rabbits and left the kids a little message on the chalkboard. Cute, right? Well, not if your Caleb. He didn't care for all these changes but Sadie seemed to enjoy Easter morning. Here's a bit...

And just to let you know, after church, Caleb was very excited by the Easter Bunny and was quite happy with the decorations. It just took a couple of hours to grow on him :-)

Sadie Dancing

Just like "Angelina" as in Angelina Ballerina. This is our little ballerina in her Easter dress. If she's not dancing, she's hopping. She only stops to sleep :-)