Sunbeam Jack!

I can't believe that Jack becomes a Sunbeam this Sunday! For those not hip to the Mormon lingo, "Sunbeam" is the name of the 3-year-old Sunday School class. It's the first class where you're in with the "big kids," vs. in the nursery. Every January, all the kids who turned 3 that year head on up to the Sunbeam class. And Jack's goin' this Sunday! Yay, Big Boy! On another big boy note, Jack also had his first dentist appointment today. He did really well, although we were told that we should start flossing his teeth. Now, really, do I REALLY need to floss this kid's teeth twice a day? Come on, people! I need a Diet Dr. Pepper just thinking about the stress!

(BTW, apparently this dentist is the Mecca for overprivileged little ones - not only do they have a treehouse playhouse in their waiting room, and 15 X-boxes to play with while waiting, but the kids can choose from 100+ movies to pipe into their exam room during their visit! Man alive! I was lucky if my evil dentist gave me novacaine when he filled my cavities, and these kids have everything short of a chocolate river and oompa loompas at their beckon call!)

Merry Christmas (Post Mortem)

Hope everyone had a great Christmas today! We had a great one in the Sorenson household.

For Christmas Eve we had a traditional turkey dinner, after attending a Christmas Eve performance at Crossroads United Methodist Church (that's where Jack goes to preschool). We then made some cookies for Santa and watched a Christmas movie before bedtime. Miracle of miracles, we actually got Jack to sleep in his bed all night last night (a major feat), telling him Santa would only come to houses where all the kids were in bed. (Too bad that tactic won't work the rest of the year.) Then at a respectable morning hour, Jack came in and asked if it was morning, and if Santa had left presents. Sure enough, the crafty old elf had!!

The kids had a blast opening their presents - Jack's favorite was his R2D2 laptop (bought selfishly so Jack would leave Dad's laptop alone), and Ellie's favorite was her camera (ditto, so Ellie would leave Mom's camera alone). In a twist of "great minds think alike," Jared and Lydia both bought each other waffle makers, so now we can serve an army of hungry breakfasters if we want!

We spent most of the day lounging in our new jammies (Jared got some cool superhero jammies from Crystal, which Jack thought were the coolest ever) and playing with our new toys. Lydia, not surprisingly, managed to sample just about the whole box of chocolates from Guy and Linda before the morning was out - hey, that's why they invented New Year's Resolutions, right! Then off to my brother John and Remi's for a fun Christmas dinner (a traditional and yummy German viener schnitzel), before coming back home for some well-deserved rest for Santa's Elves.

Man, I love me some Yuletide!


We managed to get the kids to sit for one milisecond for a photo before diving into their presents


Notice that tube of lip balm that came in Ellie's stocking. She was obsessed with it, and half of the time Jack had to open her present for her, because she was busy running over to me asking me to open it for her - "Mommy, peeze, my lips, my lips!"


Jack loved his R2D2 laptop - we'll have to see if it truly meets the durability requirements of a 3-year-old


Jared, hard at work, manning the waffle makers we got for each other - me, I'm not sure I like waffles enough to have two of them, but Jared, he's picturing himself as a waffle-making machine! Watch out!!


Old School Part 1: One of Jared's presents was some old-school Lincoln Logs - he mentioned he had loved them as a kid. Jack loved them at first, then ended up making them into Army men, who eventually all perished in a twisted game of Ring Around the Rosie.


Old School Part 2: After playing with the fancy-schmancy toys, Ellie's favorite ended up being her coloring book and her new art easel


Merry Christmas, Otis!


Cheese! (That's basically all that Ellie understands right now about her new camera, but we're working on it)


Ditto on the kids' new Vtech bike thingie - Jack loves it, but is too lazy to peddle consistently, so Sucker Mom ends up moving his feet half the time


Sorry, Mother Earth - here comes a whole new addition for the landfills!

Caught Red-Handed

Guess who we caught red-handed (and red-suited) in our living room this morning, trying to give us presents!

Merry Christmas!!

Hope everyone has a FANTASTIC holiday and a wonderful new year!!!!!!

Mars vs. Venus

So, let's say that Young Jack (heaven forbid) passes gas or burps. What should he say?

According to Mom: "Excuse me"

According to Dad: "Take that!"

And by the way, Jack is NOT tired, and he does NOT need to take a nap. Why would you think such a thing? Silly.

Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens

Since I tortured you with talk of bodily waste last time, I figured it was time for happy-skippy thoughts. So I'll tell you about our fun weekend - and no feces involved, I promise!

So on Friday night, Jared's brother and sister-inlaw spent the night. It's always fun to see them - they're so fun and easygoing - plus it forced us to clean the house, which was much much needed.

Then on Saturday, my parents hosted their annual "Christmas Eve" party - it's no longer on Christmas Eve due to travel schedules, but hey, we can pretend. There were 60+ people in my parents' not-so-big house, which was a bit crazy, but it was great to see a lot of my siblings and all their kids and grandkids. And Santa paid a visit and all the kids got to sit on his lap. Jack, true to form, asked him for Spiderman underwear and guess what my friends - HE GOT IT!! Yes, Santa's Workshop was able to produce it just in time for the Big Man Himself to give it to Jack. Ellie of course didn't ask for anything, but Santa gave her a Tinkerbell doll just for good measure.

Now, on to Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Years! Yay! (And yes, what you're thinking is probably right - most of my "yay" surrounds the thought of yummy Christmas food)

What I've Learned

They say that you can learn something from all the little obstacles and pitfalls in your life. So lately, I've been learning a lot about .... bodily waste.

Like when Jack peed in the chapel at church, I learned that it takes a LOT of paper towels to clean up the contents of a 3-year-old's bladder.

And when, soon after, Jack peed in the play area at the mall, I learned that Lysol wipes are a mom's best friend.

And finally when Ellie pooped - and then reached in, extracted aforementioned poop, and smeared said poop on the play structure at McDonald's, I learned that, well, that's a lesson for you - if you live in my area, stay clear of the McDonald's play area, because I can't guarantee everything got cleaned up properly.....

So see? You learned something today, too!

Do they have rehab for 3-year-olds?

'Cause Jack needs it. Stat. This kid ingests practically nothing but chocolate milk. All he wants. All day long. Chocolate milk. It's so bad that he even turned down SNOWMAN PANCAKES! Now come on, people, who turns down snowman pancakes? That's just not right!

So in the festive spirit, Jared made yummy-for-your-tummy snowman-shaped pancakes this past weekend. (He also bought me a pre-Christmas present of snowman-shaped mugs and gourmet hot cocoa, so he's really earning the extra Hubby points right now.) But did Jack want some? Nope. Just wanted chocolate milk. So we put our foot down and said no chocolate milk until you eat your snowman pancakes. Do you believe we had to try and FORCE our child to eat pancakes, chocolate chips, colored sugar, and syrup? Yup. But he still said no. Instead, he sullenly retreated to the family room where he whined that "it's not fair!" that he couldn't have chocolate milk. So clearly our child has a problem. On the upside, though, I got TWO snowman pancakes. Score.


These looked a little bit better before the gooey chocolate chips and the sugary red mouth started melting - but trust me, they were yummy


Now Ellie knows how to enjoy some yummy pancakes


Stinker Pants Jack staging a protest regarding the lack of chocolate milk

Jack Attack

This was pretty much my evening:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlGRiAKvVVA

Except the babysitter handled it way better than I did.

Diet Schmiet. I am SO having chocolate tonight. Just try and stop me. Chocolate is the best friend of Single Mom with Hubby Far Away. Other best friends include -

(1) Curbside to Go - are you aware of this lifesaver? Just when I thought I couldn't eat another chicken nugget, I was saved by Curbside to Go - just drove on over to Macaroni Grill and parked (all the while with the kiddies happily watching "Shrek" in the car), and a nice young man brought me capellini pomodoro, a nice garden salad, sinfully delicious garlic bread, and chocolate ravioli. If he had brought me a massage and told me I looked skinny, I might have married him on the spot.

(2) Tivo - Tivo for kiddies and Tivo for Mommy. When kiddies are out of control, just call on the Great and Powerful Tivo, and poof, "Spiderman" or "Curious George" or "Max and Ruby" to the rescue. Ta-da. And then, once the kiddies are in bed, ahhh, Tivo Take Me Away, Mommy gets to watch "Law and Order" and "Bones" without interruption. Bliss.

(3) The Mall - yes, the suburban staple - but when all else fail, you can just let the kids run mad.

(4) Knowing that I'll only be Single Mom for another 2 days, 1 hour, and 34 minutes longer before Hubby comes home and rescues me.

(5) Chocolate. Yes, I mentioned that first. Thought it would be nice to mention it first and last - you know, like nice, chocolatey gooey bookends. Ahhh....

It makes me wonder...

(1) At what point did I start looking like Mrs. Claus? Because I swear, the resemblance is there. I'm thinking it's time to look into some contacts and some Oil of Olay.

(2) Is it just me, or does ol' Santa look like he's led a HARD, HARD life? He too might want to dip into some of the Olay fountain of youth.

(3) And speaking of that ol' rascal, do you think he'll sue me for pain and suffering after having my big ol' booty crushing his poor little old man leg?

(4) And who do they think they are charging $20 for a picture with Santa? I almost had a heart attack when I heard that price, but I didn't want to be the Mean Mom in line who didn't buy photos of her kids

(5) And by the way, why is it so hard to explain Santa to kids? Jack has not let up with all of the questions - all of the reindeers' names (and their friends' names and their wives' names), where the elves come from, and how it is that Santa is supposedly making toys at the North Pole when really he's talking to kids at the mall. This is COMPLICATED!!

Now, Really, Is That Necessary?

Now that's just wrong, isn't it. Sweet, sweet Ellie - so cute and dainty....until you give her a morsel of food. Then she is literally the messiest eater I've ever seen. It's just disgusting, frankly. The other day, we were making chocolate chip cookies, and I gave her a handful (an Ellie handful, not a Big Lydia handful) of chocolate chips. A minute later I turned around to discover that, like the loaves and fishes, the chocolate had somehow multiplied and she had gotten it on her face, her hands, in her hair, and, I kid you not, in her EYES. Now really, how does that happen with 5 chocolate chips? It's just wrong I tell you.

Now, the upside to all of these is that photos like these (taken by Aunt Robyn at Thanksgiving) will provide a wonderful blackmail opportunity when she decides to start dating. Of course, if these eating habits continue, Ellie dating may not be something we need to worry about.

Conjunction Junction, What's Your Function

It's always amusing to watch toddlers learn grammar. Jack has recently discovered the joy of conjunctions - and, or, but - and uses them anytime he possibly can. But apparently he's concentrating so hard on it that he drags out every conjunction while he determines what should come next. It's cute, but when he gets on a roll, it could look to the casual observer that he's having a mild stroke:

"Anddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd.....Anakin Skywalker started as a little boy, butttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.....he turned into Darth Vader, Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnddddddddddddddddddddddddd Yoda is green, and he has a green light saber, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutttttttttttttt Boba Fet's dad is Jenga Fet, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutttttttttttttttttt Darth Vader is just pretend, soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Ellie can watch it too orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I can watch it in my playroom because I'm big andddddddddddddddd I'm so strong"

Cute at first. Painful after that.

But it reminded me of the "Conjunction Junction" song from Schoolhouse Rock - ok, so most of you probably aren't old enough to remember those, so just humor the old lady, ok? You can see it on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkO87mkgcNo

It's awesome!

And the "Crawl in a Big Hole and Die" Award Goes To......

Me, after today's "Otis incident." I'll explain it, then we'll speak of it no more.

So, in the past, Otis has had a tendency to escape - run out the space between your legs when you're opening the front door and head off into the wild blue yonder. And of course this afternoon - the very day Jared leaves on a trip - he does it as we're heading out for a quick grocery store trip. I tried to catch him, to no avail. So I put the kids in the car, and try again to catch him. All I manage to do is look like a moron chasing a 10-pound fuzzball around. So after about 10 minutes of this, I start the car up, hoping he'll chase the car and want to get in. No dice. So finally, after making a spectacle of myself for about 20 minutes I say, screw it, and we head off to the grocery store, hoping the 15 minutes will calm me down enough to go after him again. We come back and he's gone. We go out looking for him. No luck. I go home to make dinner but feel guilty, so I bundle the kids up and we go out looking for him again. No luck. Cold. Dark. So I bring the kids home. And the phone is ringing - caller ID says "Animal Control." Lovely. So here's the deal. My dog RAN INTO SOMEONE'S HOUSE. Oh, but it's better - these poor people happen to be TERRIFIED OF DOGS. So they call Animal Control, who go into the house to capture the rabid beast, and then hold him in their van until I get there to pick him up. He's clearly traumatized, you know, having to sit in the warm Animal Control van and eat cookies. Me, I'm mortified, and will most likely have to change my name and my appearance and flee town.

Let's speak of this no more.