Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

I can't tell you how much that saying bugged me when I was little.  My mom would spout off this gem every time my little sister did something to imitate me, which was like, everyday.  Actually, it probably wasn't all that often, but it sure felt like it.  I think what bugged me most about that saying is that it basically said, "Deal with it.  Your sister is going to wear the same clothing as you or say what you say.  And you had better be grateful because she likes you, ok?"  What I was looking for was some age-old way of getting her to stop.  Anyway, yesterday a couple of things happened that reminded me of that saying.


Number 1:

My kids were playing with one of those stretchy, sticky toys. You know, the little plastic string with a small loop in one end and a hand on the other end that sticks to everything. Only this one had jellyfish tentacle things instead of a hand. It came out of a 25¢ dispenser at a doctor's office. Anyway....

Katherine would hand the jellyfish end to Logan and pull back on the toy until she was several feet away. Logan would let go of his end which would recoil and smack Katherine in the leg. They did this over and over and over, getting gigglier each time, until the toy broke. It was mid-stretch and the string snapped back and whacked Logan in the face, which he did not appreciate. Understandably he started to cry. Then Katherine started to cry because her beloved toy was broken.

I was hugging both of them, trying to console them and Logan started calming down. He sniffed a few times and then noticed that Katherine was still crying, so he started up again. Then Katherine started calming down and noticed that Logan was crying again and she started up again. This went back and forth for a bit before I just started laughing. Soon, all three of us were cackling.



Number 2:

I was in the kitchen, and Katherine came in with her baby doll wrapped in a dish towel.  I asked her what she was doing and she said she was rocking her baby to sleep and that I needed to be quiet (she whispered, "be quiet").  So, I quietly asked what her baby's name was.  She told me it was Katherine.  I said that it was funny that she and her baby had the same name.  She said, "Oh no, Mom.  I'm not Katherine.  I'm Kirsten the Mommy."   D'aaawwwwww!!!!  I don't mind being imitated so much anymore.

Mama's Boy

Logan was born 4 weeks early.  When I was 32 weeks pregnant (2 months-ish before my due date), I stopped growing.  My pregnant belly just didn't get any pregnant-er.  My doctor thought maybe I was having an off appointment, but put a note in my file to double check the baby's growth the next time around.  My 34-week appointment came and still my belly was the same size.  My doctor decided that something was not right and had me go in for non-stress tests twice a week and ultrasounds every other week to see what was going on.  The first non-stress tests showed a wiggly, happy, normal baby and the ultrasound showed a healthy, although rather skinny baby.

This was 7 days before Logan was born

 Then at my next ultrasound and non-stress test appointment, the nurse noticed that Logan's heart rate was dropping at odd intervals.  She thought it might be that because it was around lunchtime that I was hungry and so was baby and his little baby blood-sugar was low.  They gave me juice and that seemed to help.  Then at my ultrasound the technician noticed that Logan had not gained any weight at all and worse yet, my amniotic fluid was too low.  Logan was starting to starve.  He was ingesting the fluid, but not peeing it out like he was supposed to.  The heart rate drop was caused my him leaning on his umbilical cord and because there was no spare fluid to cushion things, he was starting suffocate himself.  The consensus was that my placenta was just not doing its job anymore, so Logan had to be born.  They sent me downstairs to Labor and Delivery for a C-Section that afternoon.

Notice the lack of feeding tube...little stinker :)

When Logan was born, he was 4 pounds 11 ounces, several ounces smaller than his NICU neighbors, a pair of twins born at 34 weeks.  The doctors there assured me that he was a healthy little guy and just needed to learn to regulate his body temperature and wake up enough to eat his own food.  He was a trouble-maker in the NICU because he liked to pull out his feeding tube and kick off his blood pressure monitor.  Eight days after he was born, Logan came home.

They warned me that because he was born early and apparently hadn't been growing that he might be a little slow developmentally, but not to worry unless he was still behind by his 2nd birthday. 

Logan has been a little on the slow side.  He rolled over for the first time at 4 1/2 months and never really did roll the other way.  Once he rolled over a few times, he just didn't do it any more.  I imagined him thinking to himself, "Okay, that was rolling over.  I don't get what the big deal is.  It's not that great, but laying here on the floor and kicking my legs, that's pretty fun.  So, I think I'll just stick to that."

 Logan was well over 7 months when he finally sat up on his own. 

So, I was really surprised when he waved to himself in the mirror last week. 

I was even more surprised when he called me, "Mamamammm" today when I came into the living room. 

It's his first word and he hasn't really babbled much.  The most surprising thing is that he said his first word before Katherine did (She said her first word at 9 1/2 months.  It was "Nggkee'eee" which translates to "kitty").  I have those Mom-worries that Logan would fall behind his peers because of his rough start in life, but to beat out his sister--who had the benefit of a fully-functional placenta and a full nine months to bake in the oven--is reassuring.  So, I have to admit that my husband is right and Logan is totally fine and I don't need to worry.

But I think the best part of this whole thing is that I, ME, Mama, was his first word and not that stupid cat.  In your face, Lily!  Hah!

Twelve Days of Christmas Katherine-Style

Even though Christmas is way way over, I had to share this gem.

And in case you don't get the subtle references, here's some help.



You can skip to the last minute or so on this one.

Playing Catch-up

We've been in our new (and.....oh let's say "Quirky") apartment for about a month and a half.  I have successfully survived Thanksgiving, Christmas and unpacking.  So, now it's time to do all the other stuff I've been meaning to do, including update ye olde bloge.

If you're not into looking at pictures of other people's kids who are probably not as awesome as they claim they are, you can go ahead and skip pretty much this whole thing (except this time, you'd be wrong because MY children are at least twice as awesome as I let on).


Back before we moved we took a little trip to visit some of Casey's family.  We ended the weekend with a birthday gathering (I say gathering because there were no hats....It's not a party unless there are hats.  There are also no other sugared-up four year-olds, which is also a requirement.)  at Great Grandma's house for Miss Katherine who is now a whopping four years old!  Here we have a selection of photos from that momentous occasion. 
 

 The drive was a little long for Katherine.   That wood thing is an extremely beautiful chess board Casey's brother gave him, but you're looking at the bottom.

I don't want to bore you with all the presents that she got, so I'm just putting in the important ones:  The Grandma presents!  Casey's Mom gave Katherine the embroidered pillow which Katherine now sleeps with every night.

 My mom gave Katherine this one.  Strawberry Shortcake is now best friends with tiny Cinderella and tiny Sleeping Beauty.

Birthday girl decided I wasn't taking enough pictures, I guess, so she took this one of me.

 And this one....

and this lovely self-portrait.

Oh, and this is a still life of Great Grandma's ceiling.

Casey's mom and dad were here, but they had to leave early, so they missed out on the whole family picture.  And I am a complete moron because I didn't take any photos of them while we were there.  I'm just so used to seeing them whenever we want that I didn't even think to take pictures *Smacks forehead*  So, whenever it is that we save up the money to fly all of us out there, we will be taking photos......lots of them.

....

Next up, Logan's first "real" food.  It's not exactly real, since no self-respecting grown-up would eat that slop, but it's a step in the right direction.  Casey said feeding Logan that first time was like applying joint compound to our recently-repaired wall.  Same shlocky texture, same procedure: apply compound/cereal, wipe away excess, apply compound/cereal, wipe.....

....

And now I present you with Halloween!  Casey had left for his new job by this point, so the kids and I had Halloween by ourselves.  Too bad, because I FINALLY convinced Casey to dress up this year.  He was going to be his evil twin.  Anyway.....

 Presenting Her Majesty of the Realm of the Living Room, Princess Katherine Sleeping Beauty!  She will be signing autographs in the kitchen following the evening's celebrations.

And here we have Logey the caterpillar.  Don't let his sedentary appearance throw you.  This guy can eat through a one piece of chocolate cake, one ice-cream cone, one pickle, one slice of Swiss cheese, one slice of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake, and one slice of watermelon.

 

Here we are at the church's Halloween party.  That's my lame attempt at a butterfly costume.  Butterfly, caterpillar, get it?  I know!  I'm so totally clever, right?

And that brings us up to the end of October.  Tune in next time for whatever it is that I feel like posting.

Joint Compound is the Handyman's Other Secret Weapon

Once upon a time there was a crack in our living room wall.  It was just a little crack.   We didn't pay much attention to it.  We assumed the building had just settled at some point and the previous owners just did a poor job of patching the crack.

When we painted the living room, we patched the crack ourselves and thought it was over.  But no, that crack would never EVER really go away.  Over the years that crack reappeared numerous times and eventually reproduced, so that a 18 inch-wide expanse of our wall from floor to ceiling was a series of interlaced cracks.  The cracks also appeared in a similar pattern on the adjacent wall in the kitchen.  The paint started flaking away and both sides of our wall was looking pretty horrible.  We had no idea what was causing it.

This is the "crack" in the kitchen

And here is the "crack" in the living room

We had a few possible explanations: 1) the dryer (which was on one of the damaged walls) was shaking the crap out of the wall and making it crack and lose paint, 2) the enormous cottonwood tree outside had somehow burrowed its roots under our building and was pushing up on the foundation, causing the cracks, 3) aliens, 4) some other thing we hadn't thought of.

After much hand-wringing and fretting, I decided that I had had enough of that ugly, flaky wall.  I put on my tough lady hat--which I also wore when I fixed our digital piano--and decided to figure out what was causing it and fix the darn thing once and for all.  I called upon all the powers of physics, math, architecture, sudoku and a little divination to solve the problem.  Actually, what happened was that I put my hand on the wall while the dryer was running one day.  The wall was unusually hot.  It turned out that it was the dryer after all, but not in the way we thought.  At some point in the history of our condo, the dryer duct had come apart inside the wall/floor and the dryer was venting into the wall instead of though the duct to the outside.  Casey confirmed this by sticking his arm in the wall and taking a few photos.

  (That would be the disconnected dryer duct choked with lint)

(This is the duct under the floor also disconnected and choked with eons of lint.  Good news though.....lots of insulation!)

Casey's parents quickly came to the rescue, bringing their van and arsenal of tools with them.  Casey's dad has a background in construction so we knew we were in safe hands.  He taught us how to fix the cracks in the wall with a putty knife, joint compound, a wet rag and lots and lots of scraping. 

 Dad in-law assessing the problem

 

 After scraping off all the old flaky paint

Look at that handsome, handy husband of mine!

Then Casey and his dad attacked the problem of the dryer duct.  They created a trapdoor into the floor and reattached the pieces of the duct, securing it with......duct tape!  That's what duct tape is actually for!  I didn't know that!  I always thought it was for tricking out your car!

The trapdoor

All this happened with just a few casualties.  My in-laws' NEW van suffered a primer spill in the back and the blade of my dad in-law's jigsaw broke.  The primer was (mostly) cleaned up with our steamer vac (I guess it can be handy to have a kid who regularly pukes on the carpet).  The jigsaw though was a total loss.  Apparently the size or style of blades the saw needed were no longer made.  But the main thing is that nobody lost any fingers.  We also discovered stratification of our kitchen floor and found evidence of an earlier, groovier civilization.

By the end of the weekend, most of the work was done, but our kitchen was virtually unusable.  Having tools and supplies covering the counters and a major appliance blocking your sink and dishwasher will do that.  But somehow my mother in-law managed to wash dishes anyway.  I didn't see her do it, but I'm pretty sure she went to Hogwarts and is hiding it from us.

After my in-laws went back home, all that was left was to finish the walls.  When it came to re-texturing the wall, Casey's confidence wavered, so I did that part.  I had a pretty good time smearing and splatting (is that a word?) joint compound on the wall to match the original smears and splats.  Then we primed and repainted.  We discovered that our white kitchen was not exactly the same as the white paint we bought so we ended up painting the entire wall, and that required moving our fridge out of the way.

Look at that professional-looking splatting!

All done!  I should totally become a wall plastic surgeon!

 So, I guess the moral of this story is beware of little cracks.  They can be a huge pain to fix.  I think the worst part of this whole experience is that Casey and I don't really get to enjoy the fruits of our labors, since our condo is up for sale and we don't live there anymore.  Speaking of which......Anyone want to buy my newly spiffed-up condo?  You know you do.  Blog readers get a discount!