Happy Birthday, Jackson!

I can't believe that my little boy is 5! 

Although we have had a small birthday party for Jackson each year with his grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, he's never had a party where he invited friends.  Five is a big birthday, so we decided that this would be the year to have a "real" party!  He's looking foward to his big party on Saturday, but we still wanted to make today a special day.  I hung up a Batman "Happy Birthday" banner in the kitchen.  He informed me this morning that he was not that surprised about the banner because he saw it in the middle of the night when he was on his way to our room because he was scared.  He may be entering "big boy-dom", but he's packing a few "little boy-dom" things with him, including his blankie.  =)  We had a popcorn party at his class during snack-time to celebrate with all his school friends.  Then after supper tonight, we all went for ice cream. YUM!

After ice cream, it was time to open his present from mommy and daddy.  Oh, let's be real...it was mostly from daddy.  He loved it!  Although Jackson practically had to pry it out of Jason's hands to get in a little play time before bed. 

He went to bed a happy camper...with his blankie.  Still not quite ready to give that up!  Happy Birthday, my sweet boy!

The Greatest Show on Earth

It all started a few weeks ago when we were at the Jamestown Public Library. Right there on the door to the room for children was a poster about the circus. The library was giving away free tickets for children, and all you had to was read 10 books to get them! Jackson was beyond excited! He had never been to the circus before, but had heard all about it (not sure where). Ten books? We could do that in a day! So, we grabbed our tracking sheet, checked out some books, and were on our way. We quickly finished the ten book requirement, but the library would not have the tickets available for pick-up until the week of the circus. I went ahead and ordered tickets online for Jason and me (which were more expensive that I thought they would be...but that's OK...Jackson was getting a free ticket and Selah was free anyway). Finally the day came. Jackson marched up to the check-out desk, tracking sheet completed and in hand, as proud and excited as he could be. Seeing the pride and anticipation in Jackson's eyes, the librarian's face fell. She said, "I'm so sorry. They only gave us 20 tickets to give away, and we just gave out the last one about 20 minutes ago." How could this be?!? I don't think I have ever seen Jackson more heartbroken. He had fulfilled his end of the bargain, and they/I had let him down. He tried to hold back the tears, but a few spilled out. I hugged him tight. I told him how I was so proud of him for reading the books (and writing most of them on the tracking sheet himself) and assured him that we would get him a ticket for the circus....especially since mommy and daddy had already spent close to $70 on their tickets. (Side note: Don't you think this was really the intention of the circus people anyway? To get the kids all excited about going, but then not giving away very many tickets, forcing the parents to spend the money? Well played, Bozo, well played.)

So, I ended up buying the cheapest ticket available and planned for both kids to sit on our laps. Not ideal, but workable. The big day arrived. After a big lecture to Jackson about how there would be lots of fun food and toys and things in there and that we were NOT buying ANY of them since we had to spend almost $100 to even GO to the circus we were off! The disappointment of the library catastrophe melted away when we took found our fantastic seats close to all the hoopla and on the aisle! Jackson had a great time and was truly enthralled by the show. His favorite part was the 12 clowns stuffed in a VW BUG dressed as superheroes. I'm not sure how I missed getting a picture of that part. Jason liked the trapeze act. It is truly amazing (and sometimes a little freakish) what these performers are capable of!

My favorite part was the elephant act. The elephants were what I remembered most about my trip to the circus with my kindergarten class when I was five years old.

I'm glad we went, even if that memory did cost me an arm and a leg. I'm just chalking it up to an early birthday present for my sweet birthday boy!

Experiments

The scientist in me loves to experiment. Since I no longer do that in a professional setting, I'm forced to design my own (not so scientific) experiments with my kids. Here are some of my recent exploits:

The Painting Experiment

We were stir crazy in the worst way. It was the third straight day school had been canceled for snow. We had to decline a play date invitation from our neighbor because Jackson had a terrible cough and runny nose. Selah, who is adding demolition expert to her list of possible future career choices, had pretty much ruined everything Jackson had tried to play that day: blocks, puzzles, computer games, even TV (kept turning it off in the middle of his program). She was pulling things apart and making messes faster than I could clean up the last one. Jackson was getting bored, and I was running out of ideas. In a desperate fit of insanity, I suggested painting. (Really, Kelley? Did you not just say that Selah had destroyed everything? Do you really think pulling out PAINTS is a good idea?) I said I was desperate! I put down a big beach towel on the floor, set up the easel, paints, and brushes for Jackson, stripped Selah down to her diaper, put a little bit of paint in three plastic baby food containers, and put a piece of paper on each side of the easel. I hoped to keep Selah busy with her own paints so as to protect Jackson's artwork from any "little sister" additions. The results were mixed. Jackson successfully painted 2 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (both Raphael) and Master Splinter.

Selah got to experience paints for the first time, and had fun. I managed to keep most of her paint confined to her paper, her body, and the beach towel, save two long brushstrokes on the living room carpet when I had my back turned. Overall, not bad.

After paint, we killed some more time in the bath, which they both love. We survived the day!

The Using-the-Camera-as-a-Video-Camera Experiment

On Tuesday, all the primary students at Jackson's school performed for the PTA. It was so cute. I wanted to capture this "first" on video, but our video camera's battery is shot. I knew it wouldn't work unless constantly plugged in, and I wasn't sure we would have access to a close enough outlet to pull that off in the school's gym. So, I used my camera. I only videoed small sections of the program, but it worked. In another experiment, I think I may have figured out how to post that video on here....we'll see if it works (the first 30 seconds you can see he clammed up, but then he started singing and smiled and waved when he finally saw us):

The Nap Experiment

The hypothesis: Giving Selah a very consistent schedule of 11:00 lunch and 11:30 nap will produce a longer (goal: 2 hour) naptime and have a cascading effect of a happier evening baby. I'm trying to help Selah make that transition to one long nap instead of two (or sometimes one) short naps. It is very difficult to isolate my variable, though since there are uncontrollable influencing factors like illness, doorbells, and big brothers. So far, my hypothesis is proving false, but like any good scientist I am persevering with my experiment until I am sure my results are reproducable...or until my hypothesis yields to my stubborn WILL for it to be true.

The Bow Experiment

Last Valentine's Day, my mom got Selah this adorable socks and bow set. Being practically bald at 6 months of age, I saved the bows thinking "next year we'll be able to use these!" So, "next year" has arrived, and we're still a little short on hair. But today I decided to give it a try. It was hilarious. Battling against my own ineptness of bow placement, Selah's refusal to leave the bow in her hair (too curious), and her hair's inability to hold a bow for any reasonable amount of time, I did finally manage to get her to wear it for about 15 minutes. It was cute!

But you could still see her rooster spike sticking up in the back!

These experiments keep things from being so "same" around here. They challenge my patience and creativity and certainly keep me laughing....even if it's in the mad scientist way!

Tough Day At Work

So far today has been a pretty hectic day at work. I had great plans of accomplishing a few tasks today. My agenda included doing a workout DVD at some point, showering during break-time, picking up my pre-ordered Toby Mac CD immediately before picking up one of my subordinates, and then treating both of my subordinates to an afternoon library trip. Dinner will have to be a quick one since one of my subordinates has been working on a group project tonight with some of his peers from other local companies, and they will be giving their presentation to all the CEOs and shareholders tonight at a meeting they have decided to call "PTA". However, some of my plans have gone awry already since the subordinate that is with me in the office is being quite whiny and uncooperative. I have tried all the great leadership techniques that I have learned from books and other managers, but they are not producing great results. A few things, like books, cars, blocks, and rocking while singing and rubbing her back have been temporary successes, but her generally unpleasant disposition just keeps resurfacing. It doesn't help that she is sick (I think a major source of her whining) and apparently has not completed the communication continuing education class that I recommended for her at her recent evaluation. She continues to cry uncontrollably occasionally muttering a barely distinguishable word like "boo boo" (while pointing to her nose). We attempted a group project called "lunch", but she emphatically rejected all the ideas I brought to the table. And I thought they were solid ideas! Right now she is taking her break-time, and I hope when she returns she will have a better attitude. We still have lots of work to do today. Right now, I'm going to try to accomplish one task without her: a shower.

Friday snow again!

It has been many years since we've seen two big snows in the same winter, but it has happened this year! It started snowing Friday night and snowed all through the night changing to sleet Saturday morning. The snowflakes were so tiny, I couldn't believe we would actually get the amount they were forecasting (8 inches, some said 12 inches), but it all piled up to be about 6 inches here. Both the kids were up early on Saturday morning and camped out in front of our dining room window for most of the morning. A few snowflakes landed and stuck to the window, so we could actually see the amazingly intricate detail of those tiny flakes. They look just like the typical pictures of snowflakes!

We went outside Saturday morning to check it out, but it was so bitterly cold, that we didn't stay for long. We settled for hot chocolate and snow cream instead.

Sunday was a different story. Sunny and much warmer outside, we gooped our faces with sunscreen and Aquaphor and headed out to find a good sledding hill. We ended up joining several of our neighbors on a great icy hill that was perfect for sledding. Jackson had a great time.

Jason did too!

Selah even had a turn with the boys.

There was so much joy and goodwill in the air, several of the neighbors worked together and completely cleared the driveway of an elderly couple. It was a great day!

Here's our hilarious family picture. Jason and I are happy, Selah is her typical stoic self, and Jackson is crying because he had just slipped and fallen on the ice. I was comforting him when one of our neighbors offered to take a picture.

We finally got around to building a snowman today. It is so warm today, he is already melting! Bye-bye, frosty!