Mother May I

Griffin is learning some good things in school. The latest is that his teacher is having them ask for things by saying, "May I....?". We can't take any credit for that. He has learned how to use it to his advantage and milk it for all it is worth. So he does use May I pretty often. He also says, "May you get me some milk, mama?" when he wants us to do something for him. The hard part comes when he uses "May I" and the answer is no. He can't understand why he doesn't automatically get things if he is polite.

On the other hand, we had his parent teacher conferences at school on Thursday. He is doing well overall. Over the past two weeks his teacher has noticed that he has started hitting kids more and says that he is "spanking" them. I have noticed it at home too. When he gets frustrated, his first response is to just swat at whatever is making him mad. Not sure what to do about it. He rarely gets spanked at home so that is not a regular occurence. I hope he grows out of this phase soon.

Yes, we kept the curls

Gray got his first haircut yesterday when I took Griffin to Pigtails and Crewcuts. Brent has been dying to have Gray's hair cut since it is a little unruly at times. But the opposing team (Mimi and great-Grandma and Mommy) want to keep the curls. While we were getting Griff's hair cut, I asked the stylist to look at Gray's hair and give me her opinion on whether it would curl up more or not. She was kind of ambivalent but said she could always trim it up around his ears to make it look neater. And a bonus might be that the curls may start to come out more. This is a shot of what is left of the curls in the back. Most of them are still intact.Here he is after the hair cut playing at the train table. He didn't cry a bit and he didn't want a lollipop. Not a dramatic difference but hopefully it will please Daddy.

Cat Rescue

Success! After efforts to locate Emme this weekend, I finally captured her this morning about an hour before her vet appointment. It rained pretty hard on Friday and part of Saturday, so she was MIA. I was pretty worried about her. Then we found her under our porch on Saturday afternoon but she never came out. Brent tried to corral her in the crate one time and she took off. So I wasn't too sure that this cat rescue effort was going to work out. But I put some soft cat food in her crate and watched at the front door. When she finally crawled in to eat, I snuck over and shoved her tail in and locked the crate. YES! We made it to the vet okay and got some more info on this supposedly feral kitty. She had been spayed in the past so she was most likely a pet that someone left behind. She tested negative for feline leukemia and AIDS and got a rabies shot. She is now on antibiotics. The vet said she had a good disposition and she didn't give them any trouble. So now she is at home resting in the grass and recuperating from her injuries.

Party Weekend

We had a great weekend- Brent's parents were in town for Gray's birthday party. They got in town on Friday night. Luckily they left Indy early so they could miss most of the snow that hit the midwest. I read that some parts of Indiana and Ohio got 13-20 inches. Glad they made it:)We had the party on Saturday afternoon. It was kind of crazy (as always). We had about 14 adults and about 12 kids under the age of 4. That is always chaotic. The good part was that the kids were from playgroup so they are used to being together and having it be loud and crazy. They have learned to tolerate each other pretty well. We had a frog theme party. I made some frog cupcakes that were adorable (if I do say so) and had a frog cake and frog lollipops.

Here is a closeup of the cupcakes. The kids also made their own sundaes. As usual I overestimated the amount of food we would need for the party. So we had a ton of ice cream, sundae toppings, sprinkles, whip cream, and a huge container of cherries left over. We will be eating sundaes for the next few years. I think that is a challenge we will happily take on.

On Sunday we took the kids to the Children's Museum. It was fun to see Gray appreciate it more. He loved the dinosaur slide and playing in the model of the James River. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon with the kids. Later in the day Linda and I went to a few open houses in the area. They were both pretty big homes in beautiful neighborhoods. But both would need work in different ways. One had wallpaper in almost every room, but it had a great price because it was a foreclosure. The other one needed some updating- lots of pink subway tile in the bathrooms. We are not ready to move anytime soon but it is fun to see what it out there. Especially since it is supposed to be buyer's market.

Here Kitty Kitty

So the latest dilemma involves Emme, the cat that lives under our porch. She basically "conveyed" with our house, and according to the neighbors, has lived under the porch for several years across a few families. When we closed on our house, the realtor told us about her and we agreed to feed her. We think she is feral, but she is DEFINITELY an outside cat. Regardless a few days ago her food did not seem like it was eaten as quickly and she wasn't waiting on our front porch in the morning. I got a little worried about her and saw her limping a bit. Yesterday morning she did not touch her food or water. So I went on a hunt and found her curled up in a little ball on the side of our house. She had a dime-sized open wound on her paw and seemed to not be feeling well. The thing that worried me most was that there were flies (yuck) all over her. So after much consultation (Meghan- thank you, SPCA, etc) I called Animal Control to come get her. Hoping that they would try to treat her with antibiotics and maybe put her up for adoption. Well I took the boys to church last night, and Animal Control must have come while we were gone. We had a notice on our door saying that they could not catch this cat. I was kind of surprised by this info, but figured that they must not have tried very hard. Last night at 9, our neighbor came over asking about the cat and the AC visit. The guy said that he watched the AC person chase the cat for about 45 minutes before giving up. He gave us the name and number of an agency called CARE that helps rescue cats. So I called them this morning and they have agreed to get her checked out, vaccinated, and give her antibiotics for her paw. Then I guess we can see if she is truly feral or may be adoptable. If she is feral then I guess she comes back to living under our porch. If she is adoptable, then she may have a nice home coming her way. Great resolution, huh? The ONLY CATCH is that I have to catch her and get her to their vet by 9:30 AM on Monday. So this should be interesting. I do have an old crate that we had used with Elvis so I guess I will put some blankets in it and some tuna and see what happens. It should be entertaining. Picture it...Monday morning with me, a 3 year old, and a 1 year old trying to capture a feral cat in a crate and drive it to the vet. Not sure it is going to happen but I will try. Who says the life of a stay-at-home Mom is boring?

Teenager in the works

Nothing much to post today. Griffin has come up with a few more interesting comments lately. The first is saying, "Whatever", with just the right amount of sass. The second is calling his trains "stupid" when they fall off the table. He said that a kid in his class was calling people "stupid" today. So I had to launch into a lesson about not using that word to talk about other people.

Other than that, not much is happening. Brent's parents are coming in town this weekend to celebrate Gray's birthday. We are having a small party with the kids from playgroup so I hope it is fun. We are doing cake and ice cream sundaes so it should be a great sugar high for them all.

Birthday Boy

It is hard to believe that Gray turned ONE yesterday. Last year he fit on Brent's hand, and now, that aint happening!
We had a fun day yesterday. We went to Kitchen 64 for lunch and the food was great. Then we just hung out all afternoon. The weather was nice so we were outside for a little bit. Then at Griffin's insistence, we came inside to open the presents. This "sharing" concept is a bit hard for him. Gray got a Tonka ride-on toy, a cool ball, some jammies, and a water table for outside.

I made a little Oreo cake for dessert after dinner. He loved it!

This morning this is how I found him playing with his new toy.