A Bunch of Random Things

First, let me just say that I have things to blog about - a lot of them! But between being a bit busy, and not getting very many comments at all, lately, I've been taking it slow. Sometimes when I have time and have only gotten 1 comment, I decide not to write another post, just in case there are really that many people who haven't come by to check for updates. But pretty soon, I'll stop taking that into account, mmkay? ;)

So, instead of staying 2 weeks behind, permanently, I'm going to throw a bunch of random things into one post. Don't you just love those??

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We really did take down the Christmas tree and decorations! A whole week ago, yikes! The house looks so bare now. It doesn't help that I never did hang up all of our pictures from the old apartment. Wishful thinking, I suppose, that we would be moving soon, and therefore I shouldn't bother putting a bunch of holes in the walls. Oh, well. I really do love Christmas decorations, and it's always so sad to put them away.

The kids helped Jesse take down the ornaments and the tree while I worked on garland and other things in the house. Alex was too funny, he actually started grabbing ornaments from the box and taking them back to the tree, and just setting them on a branch. What a smart little guy! Amazing that I was so worried about him tormenting the tree to death, literally.

Melinda looks really freaked out in this one... I think I just caught a startled face, as she was wiggling the pole a lot and probably afraid she was going to drop it.

Alex was following me around so I could pick him up. See the raised hands? He was also happy, don't let this picture fool you. He's been walking around, clacking his tongue for the last week or so. That's what he was doing here, too.

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We had 3 different pine cone bird feeders hanging from our porch around Christmas. Two we made at winter-themed activity/lesson with a friend, about what various animals do during winter. The third was given to Melinda at church one week. We hung them each on a hook on our porch, but I don't think birds ever found it. Guess who did, though? Squirrels. Acrobatic squirrels.

Seriously. It was hanging by its back feet, dangling 2 stories high, grabbing the pine cone. A couple seconds after I took this picture, I looked away. When I looked back, it was gone, leaving just the string behind. I have no idea if the squirrel pulled it back up to the 3rd floor porch, or if it fell down to the ground. But it was sure a sight to see! Before this happened, one other pine cone had gone missing, though I had guessed that the wind blew it down (string and all). Maybe I was wrong. And, it wasn't long before the 3rd one was gone, as well. Oh, well. At least one sort of winter animal was getting some food. I guess the birds had better sources.

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New Year's Eve, we went to a party that our friend Natalie from playgroups invited us to. It was a family party, so if you left before midnight, it was understood. Good thing we had that part planned in, because the kids started melting down at 10:30. Actually, I'm surprised they lasted that long, since they had no nap that day - neither one! We left as soon as they started acting overly hyper/crazy (our cue that they're tired ... why do they get more energy as they get more tired, huh? Is there ever a point where they'll just stop getting worse, and actually crash and fall asleep??). Still, Melinda had a world-class meltdown when we got home and tried to put her in bed. Oh, my, it was astounding. Kicking, blood-curdling screaming, whole-body flailing, refusing to do anything associated with bedtime.

And they didn't even sleep in the next day. A word of advice to myself for next year: Don't expect the first day of the new year to be a pleasant one if you allow your young children to celebrate New Year's Eve with you. Because seriously, New Year's Day was one of the worst on record, just a nightmare all around. Cranky, crabby, uncooperative children. Who napped and then repeated the whole terrible bedtime process that night.

But the New Year's Eve party was fun. Company was fun, children were amusing (Alex even learned how to dance! I'll have to get a video of that sometime soon, it's so cute!), food was so yummy. Definitely fun. Except for the part where Jacob peed all over the hosts wood floor. And I had no backup underwear and pants, since, um... isn't my son potty trained? Oh that's right, he is! Except for when he's at New Year's Eve parties, apparently.

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But that actually brings me to another point. Jacob's been having a lot of accidents lately. Going through a lot of underwear and pants. Pooping in them, even, claiming he can't come and tell us ("doesn't know how") that he needs to go potty. After weeks of being almost accident-free. I think I'm beginning to see that it's a problem mostly when he's tired. This is a frustrating conclusion, however, because I have a problem with naptimes. If Jacob takes a nap, he won't go to sleep until 10:30pm. Without fail. If he doesn't take a nap, he gets really crabby, and apparently pees and poops like he's forgotten all about the potty. Also, if he takes a nap, and doesn't go to sleep till 10:30pm, obviously he'll need a nap the next day, throwing us into a viscious cycle. What do I do?? I don't think I can really compromise on the nap thing - he is a poor waker. If I go in and wake him up, he is completely crabby and prone to meltdowns for at least an hour. So I either give him a full nap, letting him wake when he's ready, or wake him after a short nap, see what it does to bedtime, and deal with the crabby boy all afternoon. Again... What do I DO???

Also, along the lines of Jacob and napping... I gave him a nap today after he pooped in his underwear for the second day in a row. I fell asleep on the couch while Melinda watched Peter Pan next to me. When I woke up, I went to check on Jacob (because I could tell, before I fell asleep, that he wasn't going to sleep right away). I was scared by what I found there: Jacob had pulled his blanket up over his head, and tucked it between his head and pillow, so it looked like he was in a cocoon. He was laying face-up, head completely covered, with no breathing room. His face had been pressed right against the blanket. And who knows how long he had been like that. Maybe an hour? I was so glad he seemed to be breathing normally and unaffected, other than the sweat.

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Jesse and I had a fun little Lord of the Rings DVD marathon last week. We pulled out all our special, extended edition versions of the DVDs, which we hadn't watched since we got them, and watched one per night. Those things are about 4 hours long each, people!! Two DVDs!! We'd start them right after putting the kids in bed, and they wouldn't be over until right around midnight or later. It was so much fun, though. I have a feeling I'm going to have to re-read the Lord of hte Rings books really soon, I enjoyed it so much.

I hold a pretty firm opinion that the LotR movies are the best-made movies ever: The casting, special effects, transformation from book to movie, music, everything is just so extremely well done. I wish every book I love could be made into a movie of this quality. Jesse and I talked a bit about what our favorite parts are. It's so hard to pick, when you've got about 12 hours to choose from. But some of my favorites:

-In the Two Towers, Gandalf comes to the rescue at the Hold, cresting over the edge of the mountain with a legion of Rohirrim behind him, with the breaking light of dawn illuminating them just as they reach the orcs. Love that effect. It gives me such goosebumps!!

-Eowyn facing the Witch King in Return of the King:

Witch King: [taking Eowyn by the throat] You fool. No man can kill me. Die now.
[Merry stabs the Witch King from behind; the Witch King shrieks and falls to his knees. Eowyn rises and pulls off her helm, her hair falls down over her shoulder]
Eowyn: I am no man.
[she thrusts her sword into the Witch King's helm and twists; he shrieks and implodes]

I just love the way she says, "I am no man", and how simply the fact that she is there, and acting in her bravery, she essentially wins the battle. Even Gandalf couldn't defeat him!
-Also in Return of the King: Aragorn's speech at the Black Gates:

Hold your ground, hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you *stand, Men of the West!*

Again... this is one that gives me goosebumps every time. I just love the way Viggo Mortensen says this part, the different inflections in his voice, strategic pauses and tilts of the head. It is a masterpiece, in my not-so-humble opinion. Simply perfection!

Despite two of my favorite parts being in Return of the King, I think The Two Towers is my favorite overall of the three movies. Return of hte King has a lot of darker elements, which I wouldn't take away... but the Two Towers seems more evenly balanced to me, and also has a lot that I love.

Anyway... movie marathons are fun. :)

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Jesse will be going to Grandma Lewis' funeral alone. He started looking at airfare last night, and what we saw was shocking. The lowest we could find was $638. SIX HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT DOLLARS!!! We began to worry about just him going, even, for that much money. And immediately ruled out any possibility of the whole family going. Nope, that'll definintely have to wait for an official family get-together. Anyway, in the end, we were able to use some credit card reward points to get a $325 credit towards a flight, and we also crinkled our noses and grudgingly took the opportunity to have him fly out of the Washington Dulles airport to further decrease the airfare. And once you add fees onto the ticket, we still had to pay a lovely $360... what I was guessing he might have to pay originally. Ugh. He'll be gone Thursday through very late Sunday night. I just wish I could go with him. Or at least have a child go with him for free. But no, the only child young enough to be eligible for free air passage can't be separated from me that long. ;)

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Take a deep breath, we're getting close to the end of our random things, now!!

Last week, our dishwasher started acting up. It was washing the top rack very poorly, and eventually started looking like it simply wasn't getting any water up there at all, the dishes were still so dirty. I was just reaching the end of my rope and determined to call apartment maintenance when I decided to run one more load, just to make sure it wasn't my fault. Well, that last load I ran, the powder soap in the dispenser wasn't even wet/cleaned out, the dishes were definitely not clean, neither top nor bottom, and at the end of the cycle, the water didn't even drain out of the bottom of the dishwasher. Yup, something definitely is wrong. I'm not-so-secretly hoping that instead of trying to fix it, they'll just give us a new dishwasher. Because this dishwasher is ancient, I can't turn off the heated dry (which makes the dishes too hot to even touch if you try to empty it too soon after it dries, and I can't always be there to stop it after a rinse), and overall, it could really just stand to be replaced.

In the meantime, we're waiting for maintenance to show up. I was hoping they'd come today, but maybe tomorrow? I certainly hope it doesn't take longer than that. Because as long as I have no dishwasher, I have to wash everything by hand! I know, I know, lots of people do that... but I haven't had to wash everything by had for such a long time. In fact, the last time I did, it was when I was in college... and then, I was only cooking for one. Now, every time we eat there's practically a whole sinkful of dishes.

Anyway, today I finally cracked down and washed all the dishes that were sitting in the dishwasher, dirty. That was.... definitely not fun. But partway through, Melinda and Jacob decided they wanted to try to help me, so I let them. Can you believe this was the first time I'd let them have a crack at dish washing? Maybe I should have done it sooner. They didn't do a half-bad job, really, once I explained to Melinda how you have to get the whole dish, and rinsing only takes a dunk, not 5 minutes of swishing...

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If you got this far, I saved the best for last. :) A cute little Alex video!

He's been shaking his head back and forth (no-no-no!) for fun recently. He actually does a whole series of copy-cat-like motions, now, in a pretty fun little game. He'll sit and look at you pointedly, then clap his hand. You clap your hands in return. Then maybe he shakes his head, then you shake your head in return. Clap hands again! And maybe even throw in some raised arms (like, "so big!" or "throw it in the oven!"). But here, in this movie, I took not long after he first started to shake his head over and over again in that sort of copy-cat game. I love it. :)