Pictures

Playing nicely for a change.
I know he can't breathe under that thing, I can hear him wheezing. But he refuses to take it off.
Must be comfy in there. (Man, look at their socks! I need to mop).
Proof of hygiene. (Aren't they cute in their PJs?).

More Hamster Trauma

Last night, we put Hammy in the ball again and let her roam around a bit. We weren’t watching the boys close enough, because next thing I know I hear the hamster ball comes reeling down the hallway like a bowling ball (while the boys laughed uproariously).

We stopped the ball immediately and checked her out, and she was very, very still. We thought for sure she must be badly shaken, if not seriously hurt. I felt horrible about it. I should have been watching the boys closer. We had a long talk with the boys about living creatures, and how we had to always be kind and careful and make sure never to hurt our pets for any reason. We tried to make them understand that Hammy was small and scared and possibly hurt.

It broke Stevie’s heart when he figured it all out, and he had a good cry. David didn’t really understand, but he did understand that more spanks on the booty would follow if it ever happened again. I felt unreasonably sad too, strangely enough. I guess it just brought back those horrible feelings as a child when I knew one of my pets was hurt and might die. It was weird. We said a prayer that night and asked Heavenly Father to help Hammy feel better.

The next morning I walked into the office, and lo, and behold, there’s David sitting on the floor amidst the disassembled cage. He’d somehow figured out how to A) get to the cage and B) open it and take it apart. He looks up at me and says, “Where’s Hammy?” Where’s Hammy, indeed.

Since she was nowhere in sight, I figured she’d probably recovered from the previous traumatic evening and made a desperate attempt at freedom while David was taking apart her cage. And I have to tell you, for all my weepy feelings for her the night before, the thought of her crawling around unseen somewhere made me shudder (see previous post).

Anyway, after some frantic searching, I found her cowering behind the guitar case, and somehow managed to get her, once again, safely secured in her cage.

Good Grief, this is only the first week.

Hamster Capers

Meet Hammy

Steven struts in on Friday night and brings home this little prize. The kids were floored, of course, but Mommy was not initially as ecstatic. Steven explained that he had gotten it for free at work (cage and all), and had decided the kids needed a pet.

Well, Hammy's cute and all but let's face it, she's not much of a pet. She's a Russian Dwarf hamster, which means she's basically the size of a peanut, and I bet she's spent her entire miniscule life burrowing into cedar chips the second a huge, bulbous face started knocking on her cage. But hey, we were excited.

Anyway, Steven went to PetCo yesterday and bought an adorable TINY little hamster ball for Hammy to climb around in. So today the boys and I put her in the ball and had a hilarious time.


That is until Hammy hurls herself at the wall and her ball busted open. The force of it sent her sprawling on the floor. For a moment we all looked at each other...Mother...boy...hamster...and then insanity ensued. She's tiny, but she can RUN! I kept having horrible thoughts of her meeting some fella from the neighborhood and filling my walls and attic with mice/hamsters progeny. So we all three began chasing her wildly, screaming with abandonment the entire time.

After scuttling around for at least 15 mintues, we finally trapped her under a bowl and put her back in her cage. Mommy has told the boys that Hammy's "resting" and that can't get back into her ball right now.

So....I'm off to clean the hamster droppings off the dining room floor.

Disjointed Catch Up

Wow. That’s actually two Family Home Evenings in a row! Don’t laugh, that’s a record. Hopefully we’ll keep this up. Incidentally, if anyone has a hard time explaining the scripture stories to their little ones, you can go to the church website and get the scripture stories in video format. They’re lifesavers.

Stevie went to a skating party last Saturday, and had a really great time. He wasn’t necessarily a natural, but he was willing to strap on those skates and give it a whirl. And though he hung onto the side for most of the time, he had an absolute blast and has been asking when we’ll go skating again (eek!).

It rained like crazy on Valentine's Day. We love to look out our big back window and watch the rain. The boys will just crawl up in the recessed window sill and sit and sit.

It's Crane Fly season. I hate crane flies. They are constantly getting in the house/car, and bobbing spookily up and down, casting weird shadows on the wall. They're just freaky (especially because their uncanny resemblance to enormous blood-sucking mosquitoes.

David, however, has a love/hate relationship with these creatures. Some days he'll run in the house yelling "BUG! BUG! BUG!" in a terrified voice. And then other days, he'll do this:

I guess curiousity prevailed.

So.....

I wonder which one of my boys was planning on nuking this melody bell? Hmm.

Make-Believe

After picking them up from the child play area at the YMCA the other day, Stevie launches into this spiel about how he and David were pretending to chase bad guys and they were the “nice” guys and they were using shoot-guns and David was pretending to drink Sprite and Stevie was drinking root beer and yes this was all in one breath.

And just today, Stevie, David and some random kid were running around purposefully, every now and then pretending to change outfits. When I questioned Stevie about it, he told me that he was “Ball Guy” and David was “Pie Guy” and that his little friend was “Fire Guy.” He told me that his power was 1) turning into a ball (which he then demonstrated) and 2) throwing water balls at bad guys. (Personally, I think Fire Guy probably had the most useful superpower).

Anyway, I just love to see them using their imaginations and playing pretend on their own like that. It takes me back to those days of riding my bike around the neighborhood with my next door neighbor Mary, playing “Cagney and Lacey”—(presumably because they were the only female detectives we’d ever heard of at the time). Good times.

Baby Blues

All's quiet on the southeastern front...no stomach upsets since Saturday. (Oooo, I hope I didn't just jinx it)!

Steven and I have been trying to add another member to the Grundberg family for sometime now. It's been about 9 months with no success. I'm getting so discouraged. Every month my heart breaks.

We're so anxious to add to our family. But I have to be willing to accept that the Lord is in charge. His Will, not mine. Never mine. He's tried to teach me the lesson time and time again, but I guess I still haven't got it.

I've made an appointment to see a doctor. Hopefully she'll at least be able to shed some new light on our situation.

Saddest Valentine's Day Ever

Remember awhile ago, when I wrote about how Steven and I had signed the kids up for the "Parents' Night Out" at the YMCA for Valentine's Day? We had planned to drop the kids off, and then go have a fun-filled evening together at t-he Stake Valentine's Sweetheart Ball. I've been so excited about this. My friend Amber loaned me an adorable little red dress that actually looks good on me (a feat in itself), I bought some adorable 4-inch matching pumps and some accessories to go with it. I've been just dying to get all gussied up and have a night of care-free dancing and romancing with the hubby.

It just wasn't to be.

The kids had been sick earlier in the week, but were 100% normal yesterday, with no fever, no up-chucks, and no peakiness. They were bouncing off the walls like normal kids. We went out to lunch around 2pm to "La Brisa," our all-time favorite restuarant down here. Stevie was acting sleepy, but I just attributed it to the fact that he had spent the morning at a skating birthday party and had an amazingly hyper time.

Not so.

At five o'clock, as I had just finished packing their dinners, snacks and diaper bag, Stevie throws up not once, not twice, but three times in a row (in three different areas, mind you). He seemed fine after that, but we just couldn't let him go and spread it to all the other kiddies (though I struggled over this for a few minutes, mind you).

I feel like punching someone. But instead I'll spend yet another night watching Blues Clues, cleaning up puke and trying to keep my kids from killing each other.

Boo-hoo.

At least the YMCA gave us our money back.

Makin' Valentines

This is Chassy.

Just a little plant we picked up at Walmart in order to fill up my incredibly bare bookshelves. Stevie decided to name it "Chassy" (reference unknown). Recently Chassy has been losing a leaf or two lately, due to the fact that though we were in raptures when we found him, we now consistently forget he's there. Anyway, when these two leaves fell off (actually, one fell, the other was pulled...that's another story), they looked vaguely like hearts to me.


I thought to myself, "Well, we'll just dip them in paint and use them to make little hearts for valentines!" Sounds like a perfectly crafty-mom idea, no? Well, unfortunately, when we tried to use them, they really just made huge red and pink splotches. Que Sara. The kids still had fun making a mess and gluing stuff (oh, how they love to glue).

This was seriously the first time I've done a project with the kids where the mess wasn't so collasal afterwards that I wanted to burn the house down. We actually (all) had a lot of fun. I just let them go crazy. And the cards turned out kind of fun, too. A tad abstract, but still cute.

Double Sick

This morning as we were getting ready, Stevie told me he was sick and he didn't want to go to store. He also happened to be watching his favorite TV show at the time (Blues Clues) and seemed deeply immersed. Because this is a constant complaint with him, especially when he doesn't want to do something, I brushed it off and hustled the kids out to the car.

Big mistake.

Right in the check up line, Stevie lets out a strangled cry and pukes all over the floor. Bless his heart! I was torn between the mortification of a public-vomiting and heart-breaking sympathy for Stevie, all covered in sick and looking worried. I felt so bad. I cleaned him (and the floor) up as best as I could and rushed us out to the car. And though he assured me, "I feel better now, Mama," I gave him a couple of plastic bags for the ride home--just in case.

Wrong kid.

Halfway down the street, DAVID quietly yaks pink milk (i think?) everywhere. So quietly, in fact, that I wouldn't have known had Stevie not alerted me to the fact. So I pulled over, tried to scrape it off of him the best I could, and sped home before anyone else erupted.

When we got home, I stripped them both down, threw their clothes in the washer and plopped them both in the tub for a quick bath. Now, all bundled up and cozy, they lay on the couch watching (of course) Blues Clues. David just dozed off and Stevie hasn't made a sound.

If only I'd just listened to Stevie in the first place! I'll try to have more faith in him next time, poor kid.

For Some Much Needed Validation

Read THIS.

Why My Kids Make Me Laugh

1) As I listen in on my husband and Stevie playing the Wii, I hear this little interchange:

Steven: I think I’m going to win.
Stevie: I don’t think so, I’m pretty tough.
Steven: Nope, I’m gonna beat you.
Stevie: No, you’re goin’ DOWN.

So I guess its never too early to learn trash talk.

2) David was running around the house in circles yesterday, raucously singing at the top of his lungs. After a few minutes of listening, Steven realized he was singing “Chocolate Rain.”

3) On Tuesday, I heard the boys laughing uproariously, so I went to check it out. Turns out they had found a drum stick, and were taking turns pulling each other across the floor with it.

4) A few hours after putting the kids to bed on Friday night, we hear their door start to jiggle. Because no little boys came running out, we figured maybe it was just a false alarm. We forgot about it for awhile, but then decided we’d better check anyway. Here’s what we found in the dark by their door:

5) And even though they were put to bed 45 minutes ago, I can still hear them intermittently shouting out nonsense words—just for the sheer joy of making noise.

My Idiotic Evening (More reasons why Steven is awesome)

After having an absolutely lovely day running around with a friend, I had 2 cavities filled at the dentist. It actually wasn’t too bad, but I’m looking forward to not going back for awhile. No matter how pain-free you are, it’s just never comfortable to have strangers poking around in your mouth.

Steven was practicing with his pianist friend after work today, so I had offered to make dinner for my Dad down in Galveston. I called my dad to see if I needed to bring anything, and he listed off a few things. So after I hung up I went to fetch them from the pantry. While reaching for a bottle of canola oil in the back, I tipped over a GLASS BOTTLE OF OLIVE OIL and broke it all over our kitchen floor.

This sucked for many reasons.

1) There were now tiny, transparent pieces of skin-piercing glass all over the floor, just waiting in malevolent anticipation to stab me in the foot.

2)Do you KNOW how hard it is to clean OLIVE OIL off of ANY SURFACE, let alone an entire kitchen floor peppered with teeny pieces of glass (which, by the by, were practically impossible to extract from the oily, gooey floor)?

3) My dad is a stickler for time, and this already made me leave 30 minutes later than he expected me.

4) The kids were trying to kill each other in the back seat of the car.

So here I am Mormon-cursing and weeping away when Steven walks in the door. He takes one look at me--in my oily blue jeans and a paper towel stuck to each foot-- and calms my hysteria by banishing me from the kitchen with promises to clean it all up, and sends me on my way with a hug and a kiss. (Did I mention he just gotten home from a 10 hour work day)?

Well, we fortunately got down to my Dad’s place without incident. That is until we got there and I slammed the car door shut, realizing I'D LOCKED MY KEYS IN THE FRIGGIN' CAR!!!

So now I had to call up Steven and ruin his evening by asking him to come unlock the car. And do you think the man even gave a SIGH of impatience at my never-ending stupidity? No. He immediately says “It’s okay, Sweetie, I’ll just call Ben up to cancel and then come and get you.” And he did.

Can you believe this guy? Is he for real? He’s too good for me.

Tidbits

Stevie got another bloody nose today at the YMCA. This is the 2nd time, and the workers naturally FREAK OUT when it happens. Little do they know that he constantly gets bloody noses, and so I wasn’t too concerned. And I forgot to put Vaseline in his nose today (doctor’s recommendation). But it did pretty much blow my workout. Stevie wanted to go home so I figured we should.

But on a MUCH BRIGHTER note, Steven and I have……dum, dum, duuuuuuuuummmm---SIX WHOLE HOURS TO OURSELVES ON VALENTINE’S DAY!!! They have this wonderful “Parent’s Night Out” program at the Y (for a small fee, of course) and you bet I signed the boys up straight away! 4:00pm-10:30pm of completely child-free playtime! What will we do with ourselves???? Seriously, SIX HOURS! I’m sure we’ll think of something.

Have I mentioned how much I love the YMCA?