Journal Update

I have been jotting down little notes to myself when the kids do or say something noteworthy. I have been doing this particular list for so long, some of the Maggie milestones are old news. The last time I typed up the things I'd been listing in a sort of journal entry, I didn't publish it. I wanted to write how amazing my kids truly are without feeling like I was bragging to everyone! (It is still sitting in here as a draft.) If people won't mind, though, I'm going to publish this one. So be warned - I'm going to write all of the funny and completely impressive things my kids have done and said in the last six months! Or at least the things I remembered to jot down. (I just finished writing this post, and it really will be annoying to anyone but my mom.)

Maggie:

-Before Maggie had the tubes put in her ears, she took antibiotics multiple times. When I'd say she needed her medicine, she'd come running, saying, "Me-ecine - Yay! Me!" They must put some sugar in that stuff.

-When I would start to say, "Who wants..." She'd raise her hand and say, "Me!" before she even knew what I was asking.

-When I would look for something like Maggie's shoes with her, she'd say, "Shoes - are you?" She'd also say, "Hmmm...," as we'd look, because I say that. (I remember Jonah did that when he was little too, in case I forgot to mention it then.)

-When the kids were doing their homework, she always wanted to write "E - S" on their homework pages. Now when she wants to write something, she'll say "E-F-G" as her letters of choice.

-She used to try to cover her eyes (but really put her hands on her forehead or the sides of her face) and say, "2 - 9... uh come!" to play hide and seek. (Her "I" sounds like "uh" to me.)

-Sometimes she'd say or do something she thought was clever and then recap it for us in kind of a laughing voice. For example, she'd roar and then say, "Uh said this: Rawh!"

-She still adores Barney. She used to sing his theme song, "Uh na new, New na knee." Now she sings it fairly clearly (for a baby). She likes to belt it out on our bike rides. Unless someone looks at her.

-I read books to her before I put her down for her nap and at bedtime. I also sing to her, but she prefers the books. She loves The Five Little Monkeys book (she loves to sing it) and Ten Little Ladybugs. She also likes any animal or baby books.

-She can count to ten if I count with her. Then she claps and says, "Good job!" to herself. (If she counts by herself, she jumbles the first few and gets going in a loop with three and four.) She can also sing a lot of the alphabet song. She is a very verbal baby.

-She can be feisty and cranky. The kids adore her and always want to be cuddly with her, but she's often not in the mood. She'll yell "No!" and push them away or scream her high-pitched scream. She's especially hard on poor Eli, probably because she senses that it means so much to him. He'll sometimes be reduced to tears when she kisses one of the others but won't kiss him. Tori also will come and report that Maggie's "being mean" sometimes.

-Maggie's most common word is "mine" - or she'll say "all mine." Everything is hers. They say she does well in nursery, but it's probably because she's too new still. :)

Jonah:
-Jonah still says hilarious things. I've just got a few here. Some time ago, he started crying and saying he didn't want to go to Cracken. He often doesn't want to go places, but I kept telling him we weren't going anywhere. He told me that I had said we were "going to Cracken" and I was at a loss. I finally figured out that I had said something like, "Let's go - we've got to get crackin'!" Poor boy whose mom uses archaic, confusing phrases.

-A while ago, I burned my finger on a pan. While I was reacting, Jonah said that he'd say a prayer for me, and he did it right there. After a minute, he said "If you ever burn your finger again, just call me and I'll say a prayer for you." I thought it was very sweet and must have given a pretty positive response because a few days later when I stubbed my toe on a chair, he quickly said, "I'll say a prayer that your stub will come out."

-In every prayer Jonah says, "Thank you that Daddy can get a new job." Jonah is always remembering to pray when things are lost - even in a quick temporary situation. Also, we do the kids' bedtime routine all together, so now when the others say their personal prayer, he wants to do his silently, but he's too young to know how, I guess. He gets in position, then immediately says, "Done!"

-Jonah and Eli have gone though a lot of phazes lately with things they like. Eli usually leads the move to the next thing, but not always. Jonah recently wanted to watch a Power Rangers show, and now they are both playing Power Rangers again and dusting off the old action figures. (I've nearly given those to the DI more than once. I thought that was very old news.) Then today, Jonah picked out a Ben 10 omnitrix watch at the DI and I think that we may be starting on Ben 10 again. They never stop liking Legos and Bionicles. Jonah is surprisingly good at creating things for his age. I need to take some pictures. It means the world to him when Eli praises what he's made. He once told John, "The things I make are cool, but the things Eli makes are awesome. And awesome is bigger than cool." But really Jonah's things are awesome.

-Last Sunday, Jonah wanted John to make a Lego ship for him. As John was working, Jonah kept asking, "Is this a special ship, Dad? How special is it?" He has a funny way of wording things.

-One day John was wearing an old t-shirt and jeans to work outside. Jonah came up to him and said sincerely, "I like your clothes. I wish I had some like them." It was just such a Jonah thing to say.

-Once when we went to the library, Jonah started to tell me that he had picked out a book that I would love, but that it was a surprise. He continued in the car on the way home: "Mom, this will be your FAVORITE book ever!" I asked if it was one I had read before and he said it was, but then he made it sound like it would be new to me. We kept chuckling at all his superlatives: "You will LOVE this book most." "You will think it is the best!" When we got home, he showed me. It was a book about a dog. I started reading it to him and he lost interest after a while and went to play. And that was all he ever said about the book.

Tori:

-Lately, Tori prays in each prayer that we can have fun at various upcoming events. A couple of months ago, she said a lengthy prayer listing everything: "Please bless that we can have fun at Mother's Day, and that we can have fun at Jonah's birthday, and at Cinco de Mayo, and at Heritage Days..."

-A while ago, Tori asked, "Would you like my lips to be light pinker?" She loves putting on make-up. Oh, and she has just figured out how to do her own ponytail - sometimes on top, sometimes on the side.... She was already wanting to brush her own hair, but now with this new development she suddenly doesn't want me to touch her hair at all. I need to take some pictures and post them. She spends a lot of time in the bathroom and then comes out saying, "Don't you think my hair looks pretty?" (We'd already agreed to get her hair cut short soon, so that may be my salvation. I prefer it long now, but we'll give her time to hone her skills. :)

-Tori likes to write in her cute phonetic way. She's always making signs, menus, and lists. On the back of some used poster board, she made a sign that said, "Wipe And Flush and Wosh. never cofe And Snes with wot cuverin youer molf."

-Tori is still shy at school. I don't remember if I mentioned this before - on yearbook day, she came home with a little signature book that had the teacher's signature and one other student's. I asked if they didn't have time. She said they did, but she was "shy of the morning class." They had combined morning and afternoon kindergarten and she'd been so nervous around them, that she apparently just sat at her desk until they were done. My sweet Tor. I'm praying that she can make a good friend this year. You really only need one.

-Tori loves the Webkinz stuffed animals. She plays with them all the time and sleeps with them at night. She has never really gotten into any toy before: she rarely gets out her dolls and princess things. But now she has these little stuffed animals and the website versions that she can feed and decorate rooms for, and she loves it. She does a lot of imaginative make-believe with them, so I'm happy about it. (In the kids' bathroom, there's a little cardboard bathroom that she made for her Webkinz pets.)

-Tori did very well at school this year. She got straight A's and had no trouble with her homework. (I didn't want to make a big deal of the grades with the kids, but Eli's little friends get money for A's and so Eli and then Tori started noticing - then wondering about the lack of reward. That reminds me: When school was out, I heard Tori telling her little friend that she got straight A's and then she said, "I think that means that you have a good class.") Anyway, while I'm bragging.... the kindergarten aide came up to me on the last day of school and said she had to tell me about testing Tori's reading the week before. Tori had read up to some high level, and then when the aide acted excited and said, "Should we keep going?" Tori said, "No....I'm too tired." The teacher thought it was pretty funny and said we'll never know how high she might have gotten. Maybe that's better, because I can assume it would have been A LOT higher. :) She can read the scriptures pretty well and is reading her first real chapter book.

-I also wanted to mention, since we may end up moving and attending a different school, how much I have loved the curriculum at this charter school. Tori came home with daily math homework that included story problems, adding double-digit numbers, telling time, counting money, etc. At the first of the year, I had to help her read the math problems, but by the end, I'd just check her work. They also use a good phonogram system for reading and spelling.

-I wish I could have another baby, because Tori LOVES them. She always wants to see them, hold them, etc. We've gotten together a few times with a friend who has a brand new baby, and Maggie has really loved him too. Both Tori and Maggie just hover around and touch him whenever they're allowed.

Eli:

-Eli sometimes does things that just make me so proud. For example, we had a babysitter a month or two ago. At bedtime, she took the three older ones back to the room they share and told them good night. I found out the next day that after she went upstairs, he got the Book of Mormon and read to the others and then had them say family prayer. It made me so happy.

-That reminds me, we went to the church to clean a couple of months ago. I can picture other people's kids happily doing good work, but I didn't have much confidence that mine would willingly do much, given their spotty record with our clean-ups at home. I confess that I nearly bribed them when we first arrived, but I thought that it would send the wrong message. Anyway, someone there gave them some spray and paper towels and told them to do all of the handles in all of the rooms and halls. They raced in and out of the rooms cleaning the handles really well (with occasional arguing when someone took someone else's turn or whatever). I underestimated them.

-Eli really is talented with Legos. (I once heard David Letterman says his son is a Lego genius, so maybe Eli's and Jonah's talent isn't that uncommon, but it's still pretty cool.) My favorite thing Eli does is create little scenes with Lego minifigures on a base. Once he did a playground with the guys playing on all of the playground equipment. His latest thing is that he looks up instructions for Lego sets online and then recreates them using pieces he already has. He made a cool space shuttle today.

-Eli is very excited to get baptized in a couple of weeks. They came and brought scouting info. and his Faith in God book. The next day we left for Moab, and he spent the whole drive there reading it, writing his testimony in it, memorizing the Articles of Faith and passing them off, and saying which goals he wanted to work on. I told him that he could only do two goals a year and that he'd have to pass off the Articles at the end again, but he didn't want to stop. I don't mean to say that he's always an angel. I should do another bullet point about the teenager-ish things he's started saying to me so people don't get the wrong impression. :) But he's a good kid.

-Eli also got straight A's at school. Again, I was very impressed with his math curriculum in particular. He learned his multiplication tables (do they still call them that?) this last year (2nd grade). I swear I didn't learn them until 4th grade, but John thinks I'm just remembering the review of them. Maybe so.

So there's my journal update. John and I are doing well. John has had some good interviews lately, but still no job. But I feel like we're about there.