The Mouths Of Babes

Sick Summation

    4 sets of sheets
    3 different medications
    2 thermometers
    3 boxes of tissue
    8 cool cloths
    8 ice bags
+  7 middle of the night wake-ups
    1 sick little boy

Forgive me if I babble.  It was a rough night.  Teddy has a bad cold which started yesterday.  At its apex, his fever reached 105 degrees.  The lowest we've been able to get it is 102 degrees.  The poor little man is so miserable. 

His sore throat is by far the worst symptom.  He yelled,  "Help!" so many times last night it broke my heart.  We'd go in his room and he'd start crying and saying is throat hurt SO BAD.   We have Chloraseptic numbing throat spray but it took many hours to talk him into letting us spray his throat.  No matter how many times we told him it wasn't bad and would help his sore throat feel better he wouldn't let us spray it.  We finally resorted to bribery -- a new Bionicle (assemble yourself robotic-like creatures made by Lego).  As soon as I said 'Bionicle' he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue.  He then agreed that it wasn't so bad and did help his throat.  I barely resisted saying, 'I told you so.'

A few times during the night he was either talking in his sleep or was delirious from fever.  I've convinced myself he was dreaming when he said the following:
            "Erin!  Erin!  Where are you?!?  Clear out of here, now!!"
            "Mom, don't go away forever!"
            "Mom, why is your face blue?"

I was so frightened at 4 am - his fever was at 104.6 and the tylenol was not working yet.  I told him if his fever didn't go down in a half hour, we'd need to give him a cool bath to help lower the fever.  He did not like that idea.  Earlier that day he asked why we got a fever.  We told him that it was his body's way of killing the virus - by 'cooking' the virus germs.  I explained that even though a fever cooked the virus germs, if it was too high for too long, it was dangerous to his brain and a bath would lower his fever.  He used transitive logic to determine that I was telling him the fever would 'cook his brain.'  He then started flipping out saying, 'I want a cool bath NOW!  I don't want my brain to cook!  PLEASE!  I DONT'T WANT MY BRAIN TO COOK!!' Ted came in the kids room and said, 'Did you tell him the fever would cook his brain?!?!?'  Oh, geez.  How do I get myself into these things??

I'm still alive

Wow, I can't believe how long it's been since my last post.  It's just been a wild few months.  Lots has been happening, including some internet problems.  I finally was able to get my wireless router working again which has made having computer time much much easier.  I was also just plain not in the mood to write posts.  I got a little burned out, I think.  I'm now looking forward to writing posts again.   I've certainly had no shortage of material.  :)

I'm going to give my best effort at writing some posts in the near future.  Check back soon...

Mega Star

On Monday Ted took the children to get their Halloween costumes. Teddy chose the blue Power Ranger. The 'blue' is very important. You cannot say, "Teddy, you make a great Power Ranger!" You must say, "Teddy, you make a great Blue Power Ranger!" If you leave out the 'blue' you will be admonished. Severely.

Erin chose a costume called "Mega Star." The picture on the costume bag looks just like Brittney Spears - exposed midriff and all. When she first put it one my eyes nearly popped out of my head. I told her there was no way she could were it to school with her belly hanging out. I suggested we get a leotard to wear underneath. She agreed since she really wants to wear it to school.

That evening Ted brought to my attention the fact that Erin was a little sad at my reaction to her costume. He pointed out that I didn't tell her how she looked great or what a great costume it was. He was right. In my shock at seeing her belly button I forgot that she wanted to be told what a super rock star she was. I knew I had to correct this.

So yesterday I got her the leotard - a shiny one. I also got her really wild hair bows, a rocking belt, and some glitter make up. When Erin came home from school I showed her all of her new stuff. Then I helped her get on her costume with all of the new accessories. She was thrilled and even liked the leotard. I made sure to tell her what agreat rock star she was. I told her that she could really be a super star.

She spent a half an hour prancing around and singing and looking at herself in the mirror.

The best part about having a great husband is the way he helps me self-correct.

Pay to Play

Last Saturday night Erin and Teddy spent the night at my Mother's house. When we were dropping them off, Teddy found his old wallet in the pocket of his coat, which he hadn't worn since last year. When we looked in the wallet, we found $7. Obviously this was a moment of pure joy for Teddy. Seven whole dollars!

Erin took one look at the money and said to Ted, "Since he found $7 he should share it with me, right? It's only fair that he share it with me, right?!?" We decided to give her $7 as well - mainly because she had helped clean her room that day. Both children were very happy at this turn of events.

Teddy had brought his most recent favorite PS2 video game: Crash Bandikoot, Wrath of Cortex. I explained to Teddy, and to my Mom, that he was not allowed to spend the entire time at my Mom's house playing video games. I told them he could play an hour that evening and an hour the next day. Teddy was not happy about this.

During the commotion of 'dropping off the children' I noticed Teddy looking into his wallet at his newly found $7. I heard him say under his breath, "Maybe I could give Googy money." I wasn't sure what he meant. A minute later he walked up to my Mom and said, "Googy, if I give you a dollar, can I play video games longer?" She laughed and said, "No, honey." Teddy got a sad look on his face and looked down at his wallet again. Then he reached into his wallet and pulled out the five dollar bill. He handed it to my Mom and said, "What about FIVE DOLLARS? Will you let me for FIVE DOLLARS??"

A Good Dream

Teddy came into our room this morning. Children are so sweet when they first wake up. Everything is goodness and love. They are subdued and loving -- wanting to hug and tell you they love you. Today was no exception. He must have told me 5 times how much he loves me. There's nothing sweeter.

After the abundance of love, he said, "I had a GOOD dream last night!"

Me: You did? What was it?
Teddy: I was watching TV and football was on TV. Then they started throwing the footballs. The footballs came right out of the TV and I caught them!
Me: That is a good dream. Did you catch all of them?
Teddy: Yes! I did!
Me: Then what happened?
Teddy: Then they were handing out trophies and I got a trophy!
Me: Cool! For catching the footballs?
Teddy: No, for watching so much TV!
Me: Oh. Um. Well.

I really didn't want to congratulate him for winning a trophy for watching TV. I also didn't want to not congratulate him for winning a trophy. It was another one of those "darned if you do, darned if you don't" parenting moments.

EverGirl Dot Com

Erin saw a commercial yesterday for EverGirl.com. It is a site for young girls. It is a very girlie site. It defines the word girlie. There are girlie games and girlie activities, girlie girls and girlie girl clothes. Well, you get the point. It is just the type of website she'd love. She is definitely a girlie girl.

Of course the site requires that you sign up with a username and password. At first she wanted her username to be 'EverJoy' (her middle name is Joy). She couldn't have that one because one of the 'Ever Girls' (there are 4) is named Joy. So she ended up using her first and middle name (plus some numbers). Then she came to me to tell me something was wrong. Every time she typed in the password it typed stars instead of letters. I told her that it was supposed to do that so no one else could see it.

I took a look at the sign up to be sure it was 'safe' (i.e. no personal information). Then I asked her what was her password and she told me it was her password and I wasn't allowed to know. When I looked at the 4 stars in the password box I said, "Is your password 'Erin'?" She huffed and puffed and said, "MOM! Now I'm going to have to pick a different password!" hahaha Moms are omniscious. She ought to know that by now. :)

The Rain Button

Driving in the car:

Teddy: Can we call God and tell him to make it stop raining?
Me: You can pray and ask Him. He's very busy so he may not have time today to make it stop raining.
Teddy: I know what happened! He accidentally pushed the rain button!
Me: (chuckling) You're probably right.
Teddy: I know why God made it rain!
Me: Why?
Teddy: So all of the flowers could have water to drink!
Me: That's right.
Teddy: Maybe if everyone watered all of their flowers it wouldn't have to rain. Everyone could go outside and water their flowers and then it wouldn't rain.
Me: Hmm... But what about the flowers in the forest? They don't belong to anyone so who would water those?
Teddy: I know! People would go hunt for those flowers!
Me: How would they get the water there? A hose wouldn't be long enough.
Teddy: I know! They could use a watering can.
Me: That sure would be a lot of trips into the forest because you can't carry much water in a watering can.
Teddy: (thinks about that for a few seconds then mumbles) It was just an idea.

New Title

I decided to change the title of my weblog. It was 'ET' which represents the first initial of each of my children. I've gotten emails over the life of this blog asking what ET stood for. I admit it wasn't very descriptive. As most of my posts are about the funny comments that my children make I thought this title might be more descriptive. What do you think? Do you like this new title or should I go back to 'ET'?

He IS Cute!

My husband, Ted, has been doing some carpentry work for a friend of the family that lives about 10 houses down the street from us. When he doesn't have a lot of tools to carry he will walk there. One day last week I was sitting in our enclosed front porch while Erin and Teddy were doing chalk drawings on the sidewalk that leads to our house. I was watching them and I heard Erin say, "Daddy!!! Hi Daddy! You're home!" I saw Ted walking up the sidewalk toward us. About a minute later I walked outside and couldn't see Ted anywhere. It turns out he was across the street talking to a neighbor where I couldn't see him.

Me: Erin, I thought Daddy was home. Do you know where he is?
Erin: I don't know. He was walking down the sidewalk just as cute as can be but I don't know where he went.

I was laughing so hard at that. There's just something humorous about a 7 year old saying her Dad is 'as cute as can be.' Just then Ted came across the street. He asked me what I was laughing at so I told him what Erin said. He chuckled a little and then said, "Well, I am pretty cute."

Missing in Action

Sorry that my posts have been drying up lately. I have lots to tell, just no time to write. I'm sure I will purge it all soon and you will all be sick of hearing from me.

In the meantime, check out my new article at DotMoms: It's Howdy Doody Time!