Family Encouragement

Due to google's weird new mailboxes, I lost this picture for a bit. Thankfully, I discovered it and got it saved!! Here is the crew at Great Papa's 90th birthday celebration!

Also - last night, after telling Wm that his screen time was up, he grumpily shut everything down. Then said, "if I ever become a Minecrafte Master and they ask me about 'family encouragement,' I am telling them that you did not support me." I told him I was OK with that and he goes, "You can't come and live in my mansion with me either! Daddy can, because he plays Minecraft with me sometimes. But you'll have to live in a nursing home." I said, "Burn. But, it's still time to turn off screens and do something else now." About 10 minutes later, he comes up to me and goes, "Mommy? I was just kidding about the nursing home. You can come live in my mansion." [pause] "But I'm still telling them there was no family encouragement." Zing! 

Winter :(

It's frigidly cold AGAIN and Wm is off school AGAIN. He's back at Clubhouse, so hopefully he uses the potty if he has to go this time!! I'm about to lose my mind.

Wm sleepily eating breakfast and reading

Wm finding out there is no school

This last burst of winter is absolutely killing me. We got a bunch of snow on Saturday and Wm's STEM club tour was canceled (secretly pretty happy about that one!) and we just loafed around shoveling and trapped all weekend. Our neighbor, an art teacher, did make a giant snow dinosaur that was pretty awesome.

This morning, while Wm and I were sitting at the table eating breakfast, we heard Let It Go playing upstairs. I said, "uhhhh…is Daddy listening to Let It Go just all by himself?" Wm said, "Get that on video!" So I tried to sneak up and record him jamming out. But he thwarted me by being in his underpants. Still…I have proof of Steve's secret love of Frozen (also notice how he tries to attack me at the end of the video - and nearly got himself on camera in his skivvies):

Nighttime Horrors & Barf

Wm has been in school one day this week. ONE. DAY.  He went to Clubhouse yesterday and it was a hot mess (way too many kids...and something else that would become apparent later). When he got home, all seemed normal. But, then at about 11pm, Wm woke up crying and saying his "waist hurt." We got him some water, eventually gave him some Motrin, but he kept getting up and crying and saying his side and waist hurt. I was getting panicky and actually considered taking him to the ER at 1am. The frigid temps were the only thing that kept me from hauling him out. Eventually, I broke out the heating pad and he managed to fall asleep.  I slept with him for a while, fearing his appendix was going to burst or something, but eventually morning came and we were all still alive. My fitness tracker also tracks my sleep - each little green or pink line indicates when my sleep was interrupted. Here is how often Wm disrupted my sleep:

I crawled out of bed this morning, exhausted, and set about canceling my whole day. Emailed students to cancel appointments, canceled my lunch plans with a friend, canceled a meeting - then emailed my boss, the HR admin, and asked a coworker to stick a sign on my door that I was out. I spent my morning putting out crazy fires my absence would cause. My only consolation was that this trouble was SO worth it since I would likely be at Urgent Care with my extremely sick son. Only - at 7:30am, Wm bounded downstairs, fully dressed and singing. I was like, "SERIOUSLY...WHuT." He was like, "Oh, the bathrooms at Clubhouse are gross and I had to poop yesterday, so I just sucked it in all day. I woke up 10 minutes ago and took a GIANT poop and now I feel all better. What's for breakfast?" He just had to poo!!!!! All that because the kid is a timid pooper! 

The cat was yowling crazily and I noticed I hadn't fed him since I got up because I was busy with other things. I filled his bowl and then got Wm his breakfast. While I made Wm's breakfast, Schroeder proceeded to stuff himself so full of food that he puked everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. As I was cleaning up a giant pile of cat vom, I happened to look inside my shoe. INSIDE my shoe. There wasn't like a little bit of barf that had gotten in there. It was like he actively thought, "I am going to fill up this shoe with my barf." And it was the super expensive insulated Merrell mocs I had splurged on because they would "last forever." Now FILLED with cat puke. I called Steve in a psychotic frenzy, wildly yelling about the cat, puke, and my shoe, and eventually just screamed, "I HAVE TO GO TAKE CARE OF THIS VOMIT!" and hung up on him as he tried to decipher what the heck was going on. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say, it was just as disgusting as you imagine. Now my shoe, soaking wet inside and out, is propped over a heating vent airing out. And the cat has been circling me all day, begging me for more food! He clearly does not understand just what thin ice he is on.

I guess there are positives: Wm is totally healthy, I have an unexpected vacation day and don't have to go out in the cold, Wm found the shoe of barf HILARIOUS, and he feels so bad for me that he is being insanely nice and helpful. But I am so ready for spring. So so so ready for spring.

Bacon

Yesterday was pretty fun! The highlight was probably my friend Melanie giving me a bouquet she made out of bacon. That's love, man.

Bacon flowers!!

Steve made dinner and cleaned the kitchen, which was awesome! And Wm was even pretty nice. Miracle!! He is at school today, but we have wind chill warnings for tomorrow, so I have a feeling he will be off again. This winter hasn't been too bad - but, it's last gasp is TERRIBLE. We are all reeeeeally ready for spring!!

I was reading on the couch next to Wm and I looked over and saw this:

Super cute.

Glasses just get in the way! 

I am leading a tour of Wm's STEM club this weekend. They are coming to the Biomedical Engineering labs. Wm is pretty excited!!! I….am not. Luckily, our newest and awesomest professor is going to give the tour (and, I owe her a million zillion thank yous for coming in on her weekend to talk to a bunch of tots!) and she is really good with kids. So I plan to just herd them towards her. My BME student assistant will also be there and he is AMAZING with kiddos, so I will fade into the background….at least that's my plan. 

Frozen

I'm officially 37! Which I guess is super old? I don't feel old, but everyone else keeps telling me 37 is old. Soooo…they can suck it. Wm, however, is on the nice list because he wrote me a super sweet card. He woke up at 6am and snuck in and left this on my night stand.

I can't explain how many times I've thought: "she's the best mom ever!"

I love you infinity forever!

I think you deserve a better card, but I was afraid I would wake you up, so I wrote you a VERY NICE card HIDDEN IN MY ROOM.

The card he made me was hidden in his room and had a random drawing of some dude and presents all over and it switched back and forth between wishing me a happy Mother's Day and happy birthday (apparently difficult to keep straight) and also mostly focused on the fact that he deserves more screen time because he's so nice. Nailed it.

We took the day off yesterday and went out to a nice a lunch, then dumped Wm at Mimi's house and went to see 50 Shades of Grey (Steve actually really liked it, I was pleasantly surprised based on how awful the books/reviews were - and it cracked me up how the lead actor kept lapsing back into his Irish accent at random times throughout the movie.) Then we got home and it snowed. And got really cold. So Wm is off school today and at work with me. He is, of course, thrilled with this development. 

I read a really good book yesterday that I got for Wm called The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Everyone should read that book. You can easily read it in one sitting. Steve even sat and read a quarter of it at once!!! Made me cry. Wm, however, is being evil about reading it for some reason.

Lastly, here is Wm singing the heck out of Let It Go:

Conversations You Never Thought You'd Have

Wm: I think something is wrong with my butt. I am going to go potty.
Me: Are you feeling sick?
Wm: No. But something is not right.
[pause]
Wm: MOMMY! I found a terrific sticker in my butt!
Me: Uhhhhh…what?
Wm: I felt something in my butt. And it was a terrific sticker.
Me: What is a "terrific sticker??"
Wm: A sticker that says "terrific" on it.
Me: A sticker was stuck…in your butt?
Wm: Yes!
Me: Did you eat a sticker for some reason and then poo it out?
Wm: NO! It was just stuck in my butt.
Me: OK. Let's back up here. When you say "in" your butt…what are we talking about here?
Wm: Like it was stuck IN my butt.
Me: Like INSIDE your body?
Wm: No.
Me: Just stuck…um…in your buttcrack?
Wm: [insane laughter] Yes! The terrific sticker was stuck in my buttcrack.
Me: I don't…I don't even want to know how you got a sticker in your buttcrack.
Wm: I have no idea! There was a STICKER IN MY BUTT!!! [more insane laughter]
Me: Wm, this is very important -- what have you done with the terrific sticker? You're going to give the entire family cholera or something.
Wm: I threw it away.
Me: Thank god. Please wash your hands in very hot water for like 15 minutes.
Wm: Mommy?
Me: Yes?
Wm: THERE WAS A STICKER IN MY BUTTCRACK!
Me: I heard.

And thus ends a conversation I never thought I'd have.
(The origin of the terrific sticker remains a mystery.)

Heartthrob

Wm came home from school yesterday and told me that there is a group of 4-5 girls who like to "pet his hair all day" and always tell him how soft and nice his hair is. I said, "I think they liiiiiiike you!" And he yelled, "Girls are GROSS!" and ran up to his room. But then, at dinner, he goes, "feel how soft my hair is…the girls love it." Haha!!! He is the tiny hair heartthrob of 3rd grade.  

After his shower last night, he stood in front of the mirror and "did" his hair. I walked by and ruffled it and he goes, "Don't do that!! I like my hair to be a specific way!" Sadly for him, he went to bed with damp hair and woke up like this:

Not the "specific way" he likes it.

Rear shot of the chicken feathers

He said, "what are you doing?" and when I told him I was taking pictures of his funny morning hair, he goes, "Let me see!!!" When he saw the craziness, he was all upset and immediately began his Campaign of Hair Flattening. 

And then he was off to school - to be petted all day. I hope he enjoys this while it lasts since, in a few years, it's not going to be the short guy with glasses who has all the girls after him! ;-) 

Book Review: Treasure Island

Wm was NOT a fan of Treasure Island. I asked him why he didn't like it and below is Wm's book review:

It started out good, but then it seemed like the author was just jotting things down to make the book longer. It got boring and not interesting. I did not like it.

He has started Watership Down and is having a better time with that one! Here is what he says so far:

I like it. It's about bunnies. I have nothing else to say about it because it's too soon to tell.

So, there you have it - Wm's thoughts on his latest books. He said last night that he wishes he could be Asher from The Giver and get all the memories. He REALLY liked that book!  He is also reading Letters from Rifka with his book group - which he likes a bunch. He gave me the whole entire rundown of the plot last night in pain-staking detail. He was most horrified when the main character got typhus and ringworm and kept circling back to that.  Wm is very concerned with cleanliness and the maintaining of good health. He blames Steve for his earlier tummy trouble and yelled at him, "YOU HAVE TO WASH YOUR HANDS, DADDY!!!" Ha! When Steve insisted he does wash his hands, Wm goes, "I have seen you touch things and then touch your face. You touched the disgusting grocery cart handle and then rubbed your eye. I SAW YOU!" William: Health Inspector.

Boring Weekend

Steve left work early on Thursday (which NEVER happens) because he didn't feel well and had weird GI things happening. Then, Wm came home from school on Friday and had the same issues that evening. So all my weekend plans were scrapped and it was a lazy weekend of laying around the house. We did get Wm's Valentine's box all made and decorated for his class party:

AND, we got all his Valentine's Day cards done too!! At his school, they only have parties for holidays that have no religious affiliation (like Halloween and Valentine's Day), so he is super pumped that he finally gets to party down!! Sadly, they also mostly have healthy food like grapes and stuff - he has NO idea what he's missing! I'm sure it's easier for the teacher as well has being good for the kids, though. I still have fond memories of stuffing myself full of Valentine's Day cookies, candies, and tiny hearts, and then running off my hyperactive kid sugar high for the whole rest of the day - before crashing painfully. What is childhood coming to?!? They also drag the kids in for indoor recess if it gets too cold out. We are raising a generation of lightweight children who have no idea how to party. 

Read-A-Thon

Wm is a reading fool! He read for 2 hours last night and has almost finished 3 novels in the last week! He said The Giver is his favorite book he's ever read. AND, he's finally really talking with me about the characters and motivations, etc. I guess he just has to be really jazzed about the book!! Next up: Treasure Island.

And, in bigger news, Steve says he is going to start reading too!! Watching Wm knock it out has motivated him. He says he is going to read the same books Wm is reading because YA books are "his speed." Haha! I told him he should definitely start with The Giver - that is a great book!

Conference #2

We went to Wm's second, and final, parent/teacher conference for 3rd grade last night. It was the best ever! His teachers said Wm is "well-liked, polite, and friendly." His real strength is reading/writing - where his assessment put him in the 99th percentile and he's reading at nearly a middle school level. But he likes Math better, he says (and is in the high 90's there as well, so not too shabby!) His favorite thing is Art. His teachers said Wm is outstanding in everything - even his behavior!! He is never still, but they don't seem to mind that because he's always paying attention. Fingers crossed he has outgrown his disruptiveness!!

His math teacher was showing us the math that Wm's group is doing next and it's crazy geometry, like using pi and all that jazz! So I was like, "Seriously? 3rd grade? I don't even know how to do that stuff anymore." His teacher was like, "Well - this is 5th grade Math, but, yeah, you do." And I was like, "No, I really don't." And he goes, "Uhhh…aren't you a biomedical engineer?" I was like, "NO!" He said Wm told him I was a biomedical engineer! And then when I explained, he seemed all disappointed. Sigh. I'm BETTER than a biomedical engineering. I MAKE BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERS HAPPEN.  But in all seriousness - that math was on the GRE! It's not me, man! (OK…maybe it is…)

I also have a suspicion that Wm is nice at school and contains all his evilness so he can unleash it on us when he gets home. Because he has been a real pill recently. It's those damn screens!! I am tempted to throw the iPad out the window. I actually told Wm I was going to throw it out the window about a week ago, and the result was that he was SUPER nice for about 24 hours.

Last, it's Read-A-Thon time!! Anyone that wants to donate to Wm's reading (to benefit his school), please let me know!! Warning: I would suggest donating a set amount instead of a per hour of reading amount since Wm is KILLING it. It's only Week 1 and he's already finished Hatchet and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and is well into The Giver! I can't get books in from the library fast enough! 

And just for fun, here's a picture of Schroeder enjoying the Super Bowl with Steve: