Things you don't really want to hear...

Yep, things you don't want to hear...yet I heard all three of them tonight:

"Moooommm, I pulled Trace off the bed and now his head is bleeding!"

"Moooommm, I dropped my chocolate ice cream on the carpet...oh never mind, Kaya is licking it up." (Kaya is the dog).

"Moooommm, Brady peed in the closet!" "What?!" was my reaction, to which Kalen replied, "But it didn't get on the carpet...I think he peed on the shoes."

Now I finally understand why you hear about the moms who lock themselves in the bathroom for a little peace. The good news was that Trace was fine, it was only a scratch-- I got the chocolate out of the carpet, before Kaya smooshed it all in-- and Brady didn't pee on the shoes...it was on the carpet, and that is MUCH easier to clean.

On another note, we had a fun family date to Epcot last week, and I wanted to post some pictures. It was nice to just spend time together, the five of us. :-)

We were so mean!! An M&M story

So, about a year ago we started trying to teach Brady his colors. He wasn't interested in learning them at all--some of you may remember an earlier post about Kalen saying he didn't know his colors just to get some m&m's. We used m&m's to teach Brady his colors, and we gave them to him if he got the color right. However, if he got it wrong, we ate them, right in front of him! We thought that would motivate him to try harder since he never really wanted to learn and since he LOVES candy.

I guess it was about two months or so ago when I realized he NEVER got red and green right. He was actually doing pretty well with the other colors. My friend Megan suggested we try teaching him other things to see if he picks up on them, aside from colors, so we taught him his shapes. I was super surprised with how fast he learned his shapes, especially because the color thing had been on-going for a year and he still couldn't learn them.

I was reading in a parenting magazine in the doctor's office one day and read that up to 10% of males (closer to 8%) are red/green colorblind and sometimes parents don't realize it until their boys are well into school and accused of being "careless" too many times. It hit me-- that could be the case with Brady, but when I went home and took his lego blocks and mixed the red ones and green ones, he was able to seperate them, so I ruled that out.

Until two nights ago. We realized that he is super enthusiastic to tell us his colors, but when it comes to red and green he is almost embarrassed to say it, and 9 times out of 10 he'll say red things are green, but he says it really quietly, expecting us to correct him. So we found these tests:

And, the results were, Brady couldn't see the red shapes at all. I know they are a litte hard to see, even for me, but Kalen could see them just fine. Maybe he just didn't know what to look for, but for now, I think he really is red/green colorblind. We can't really test for it officially until he's closer to four, but I think it's something to be aware of. And it turns out, I'm probably a carrier of the recessive colorblind trait--both of my uncles on my dad's side are colorblind.

So, the question is--weren't we so mean? ..."Brady, what color m&m is this?" and when he said the red one was green we would say, "No! It's red." and eat it in front of him...poor boy!

First day of school pics, finally

So, I know this is late, but I just wouldn't be a good mom if I didn't post about Kalen's first day of school (we finally put the pictures on the computer). He did soooo well!! I was so impressed with how excited he was, and more than anything I was super surprised--NO TEARS AT ALL!!

This is one in front of school--first day!

And here he is, starting the day--the girl behind him doesn't seem as happy...

Brady wasn't as happy--the entire three hours he kept talking about "Bubba" (that's what he calls Kalen, and we think it came from him trying to say "Brother"). The saddest thing was on the way home he looked at Kalen's booster and said (slowly because he's just starting to form words), "Bubba's seat...I miss bubbaaaaa." It was adorable.

Truly Southern

So, as often happens in my household, we were watching the food network. This time some show was talking about the "Southern Tradition" of eating Fried Chicken with Waffles. I told Brian I grew up in the south and never heard of that, but he assured me it was a very southern thing to do.

Thus, to help me enrich my true 'southern' intellect, we had fried chicken and waffles for dinner. Crazy, huh? Has anyone ever had it before, because if you have NOT, then I highly recommend it--really! We fried the chicken tenders and put them right on top of the waffles, then poured syrup over it all and it was really good! Needless to say, I was impressed--but I always am with Brian's cooking. :-)

Try it out and let me know what you think.

P.S--I did the "plating" and photography all by myself--Brian says I'm getting pretty good at plating. I should have ripped that extra corner of that waffle off though...