And Butterpea Makes 3

I think I have a problem.  I am a mom.  I am a teacher.  I am a teacher mom.  Because I am a teacher, and because of my Masters in Early Childhood, Mally has some advanced skills that the majority of kids her age do not have.  I have known this for a long time.  I guess it really hadn’t been an issue until recently, but it has become a clear problem.  A week or two ago, I got a note from her teacher that she “identified initial letter in her name.”  I was so furious.  Mally has known her letters and how to spell her name for AGES.  Like, years.  Her class is practicing counting to 11.  Mally was doing that at 18 months old.  I understand that the teachers have to have a whole group time that teaches “to the middle.”  But I don’t have to like it. 

So I emailed her teacher.  She is going to hate me!  My email now means she has to have a conference with us and the preschool director.  She also had to deal with an aftercare issue.  That is now making me more irritated by the day.  My complaint was with snack.  It seems to rotate between Cheetos, Cheez-its, and cookies.  However, the aftercare worker told the teacher that she can only remember a few occasions that they had these items and that usually they have pretzels or goldfish.  The problem with that?  One, my child can TALK.  She tells me what they had for snack.  Secondly, I pick her up in the middle of snack almost every single day.  I see the snack.  I wait for her to finish while I sign her out and get her things.  I know what she is eating.  So now I am annoyed that they are acting like that isn’t the case.  Whatever.

So, back to academics.  What do I tell the teacher that I expect?  I never wanted to push her, but when someone recently asked me what Mally had actually learned at school this year, I had to admit that a few songs, some Spanish exposure, and Chapel, were really it for academics.  Of course, she has learned a lot of social skills.  She also has some to work on.  She will. not. respond. During circle time, she just doesn’t answer them.  I told Mr. K. it’s because she thinks they are asking her stupid questions.  And she doesn’t like sharing so much either. 

So.  What to tell her?  She has started pulling Mally and another child to do some small group work on letters.  But Mally doesn’t need work on that per se.  The note said something like “Mally recognized all of her letters today, and they weren’t even in order!”  Uh. Duh.  I tried to tell you this MONTHS ago.  This is my frustration.  I really do not think they get it.  She is ready to read.  I am 100% positive that if I were not working, she would be reading by now.  No question.  I will give you some examples of what she can do, and you will agree.  I love these lists.  And this is where I remind new readers that I do this more for my benefit than yours.  Feel free to skip past it.   I just want to know what she can do and this is a good record of it.

Math skills:

Identifies numbers at least to 10.  I will have to ask her the others.  She could i.d. to 20 in the summer, but that was a lot of thoughtless months ago.

One to one correspondence to at least 12.  I know this because she can count out 12 cupcake liners and count the spaces correctly.  You see, I do not want the skill and drill approach.  Just stick learning in where it is appropriate.  That said, I may resort to a workbook to catch her back up this summer.

Counts to 29, but still skips 16 and 17.  Drives me nuts.  Also bothers me that she could do this in the summer and has not progressed.

Knows all shapes, even hexagons.  Knows you have to count the sides to see if it is a hexagon or a pentagon.  Sometimes she calls pentagons “rectagons” which I think is cute. 

Colors: Knows all colors and is learning to spell them.  Spells ‘pink’ and ‘red’ with about 90% accuracy, ‘blue’ with about 50% (right letters mixed up).  Mally was pointing to correct colors since before she could talk, so this is not surprising.  She just loves colors. 

Reading:

Obviously, she knows, and has known for a year and 2 months now, every single upper and lower case letter and sound.  She will even tell you things like “Cecilia and City Park start with ‘c’ and so does ‘Claire!’  She can tell you, without their name symbols, the first letter of every classmate.  Actually, she can probably just tell you the first letter of any word that you tell her.  She loves that game! 

Words: She is reading basic sight words now.  She learned “play” very quickly since it is on the DVD player!  LOL .  I pointed out ‘go’ in a book last week and now she is looking for it on all the pages.  She is learning ‘the’ and realizes it is in lots of books.  I can also tell her things like “I see the word ‘Peter’ in this book.  Can you find it?” And she can.   She loves to spell.  She spells: Mallory, our last name, both of her parents’ first names, wow, no, yes, stop, and some colors (as stated).   She has expressed multiple times that she is annoyed that McKennon is too long to spell.  Haha! 

She can rhyme.  She has done that for years.   Mally has a set of My Little Pony readers.  These are little books that tell the parent the sight words and skill (such as short e) on the first page.  She insists we read that page and that I tell her each of the words that she is supposed to learn in the book.

Music: Mally loves to make up songs with new words to a familiar tune or change the initial consonant in words to make the song silly.

I am going to a curriculum meeting for a different school this weekend and will go to Mally’s conference with her teachers next week.  I hate these huge decisions.  Did I let her waste a year of her life?  I love the idea of St. Paul’s.  The Reggio Approach is what I wanted for her.  I wanted her to love school, and she does, but I overlooked a key factor.  Kids LOVE learning.  And she just…isn’t.

Hi everyone!  I know you must think I gave up blogging altogether.  Actually, this happens when you get a job.  You just don’t have time to do things like this.  But Mally has spent the last 4 days with my mom, so she is sound asleep since 5 this afternoon.  I thought I would sieze the moment and update everyone on what’s up at the K house. 

Mally is on Fall Break.  For a week.  Seriously.  I think she went to school for 6 weeks and then got a week off!  What a life!  My mom watched her the past 3 days and Mr. K and I will tag team the next 2 days.  She is having tons of fun.  They went to the Children’s Museum and the Monkey Room.  We went to the Aquarium this afternoon.  Last night, DeeDee bought her a Sleeping Beauty costume for Halloween, complete with shoes, wand, and crown.  She slept in it and wore it to the Aquarium.  Too cute!  And of course, M can’t say her l’s so she’s Sweeping Beauty. 

School is going really well.  My dad came and stayed a few days and my mother-in-law stayed a few days to cover the days when I started before M had school.  She had a blast.  They did all kinds of fun stuff!  Mally LOVES school.  Her teacher is Mrs. Stacey.  I like her.  We have had only a few problems.  M doesn’t talk at school.  This is a problem.  She is overly shy and does not tell S when she needs to go to the bathroom or have water…or gets bitten!  Yes, she was bitten.  A little boy was upset that she wouldn’t give him the teapot, so he bit her.  She told Mrs. Jeanie, an assistant, but she thought M said “hit her”, not “bit her” so no one told me.  It was the first think I saw when I picked her up, so I was surprised that J didn’t notice the marks when it happened.  But I have 33 students in my class and can’t promise you that I would have noticed.  She does have 18 kids, some part time though, and 3 adults at all times. 

That wasn’t the beginning of the biting./  Mally had been in trouble for biting about 3 weeks ago.  She was under the playground equipment and a little girl was bitten.  The girl said Mally did it, but she barely knew their names yet.  M told me for 2 hours that she DID. NOT. BITED. ANYONE.  (hehe) And then confessed to it.  But then, I wondered if it was like the police interrogation gone bad!  Did I coax her into admitting it?  On top of that, the mom of the child that was bitten told me she did not think M did it.  The bite marks were way too small and had to be from a younger 2 and M is nearly 3.  There’s that.  The third teacher, Mrs. Barbara, tried to tell us that children this age bite because they do not have the language to express themselves.  Uh.  Not my kid! 

The other problem I have had was with water.  Every day when I pick her up, she is begging for water and cries if I don’t have a drink in the car.  My child HATES water.  For her to ask for it, she has to be desperate.  I talked to Mrs. S and she offered M more water last week.  She told me she was shocked at how much M drinks, but I had a mom at a birthday party Saturday tell me that the only problem she had with the school so far was not giving her son enough water.  I don’t think she drinks some abnormal amount.

Speaking of birthday parties.  Holy smokes!  This weekend will be the third birthday party weekend in a row.  I am new at this.  So, if we decide not to go to one, we send a gift?  Or no?  And do we really have to go to ALL of them?  I am already dreaming up excuses for the next one.  I have to clean the bathroom or something.  Oh!  And some of the parents are just plain crazy.  At this last party, the mom didn’t have enough party favors for all the kids.  Another mom comes up to the table where Mally’s favor bucket is right in front of me.  And she reaches into it, takes out 3 or 4 toys and walks off.  Yep.  Just like that.  Bizarre, bizarre, bizarre.  At least there was free ice cream. 

My job is going well.  I love getting paid, but haven’t gone crazy spending all the money.  I have to share a classroom with another teacher, Mrs. P, but we get along well and I think it makes for less work somehow.  Of course, that means that there are 33 kids in my classroom.  Several of them are so completely clueless.  They have never been read to, and what would anyone read to them?  Many of them have few or no books at home.  I have given every child 2 books and I am hoping to give them at least one a month through the year.  I get them mostly from freecycle.  Our school has no library which is so wacked.  I send a “library” book home every Wednesday so they have something to read at home.  I have no idea if half of them are read, but I hope so!  It’s hard to deal with some of the BS that I am not used to.  For example, I am fairly used to everyone doing their job.  The elective teachers do. absolutely. nothing.  They take the kids to the bathroom for 20 minutes and let them drink water for 10 minutes and screw around doing n.o.t.h.i.n.g. for the other half an hour.  It makes me want to scream.  The P.E. coach told me that having kindergarten was like babysitting.  Uh, because you don’t DO YOUR JOB!  Kindergarteners can run, hop, skip, jump, throw, catch, kick, jump rope, hula hoop, do jumping jacks, play soccer, kickball, basketball, and about a million other things.  Idiot.  Hell, now I have to password protect this since I am bashing my coworkers.  Haha.  While I’m at it, the dance teacher wears about half the clothes I think she should!

Wow, I feel better! 

On the home front, we are still looking for a house to buy.  So sick of renting.  So sick of looking at houses that either suck or are too expensive.  Yuck. 

What else has been going on?  I went to Jackson for my sweet Mamaw’s funeral since blogging last.  I don’t think I am ready to blog about that yet though. 

Now that you have been sufficiently updated, I am off to watch tv while I have 5 spare minutes. 

Well, I am going back to work in 2 weeks.  July 26th I start inservice training.  I don’t think I will get much out of the first week other than meeting my new coworkers.  School districts are horrible about making all teachers go to inservices that only a few might need.  My mother-in-law is coming to keep Mally that week.  Then my dad comes the next 2 weeks during his hiatus from his winter home in Rhode Island.  And then Mallory starts at St. Paul’s Little Saints Episcopal School.  We got her little uniforms this weekend.  They are so cute!  Cost a fortune, but cute.  Paw prints on socks and monogrammed nap mat and all that good stuff.  She seems really excited, but then, she really doesn’t get it that we are leaving her there.  All day.  With no mommy.  And no daddy.  So, we’ll see how that goes.  At least she has 3 weeks at home without us to adjust to the idea.  KWIM? 

My school opens the 28th of July.  Then we can move stuff into our room.  Only all of my stuff is in the POD.  Who knows when I will get that.  So moving into my room should be farely easy!  Ha!  Teaching kindergarten after all of these years should be a challenge, but at least it’s a decent pay.  Need to work to pay bills.  Yuck.

In the meantime, we went to OK to visit relatives.  Had a blast.  Now spending days going to zoo, museum, and aquarium until the middle of next week when I go to Jackson for my class reunion.  I am doomed to be the person with the most changed physique.    I am super lazy and horribly out of shape.  Double yuck.

Let me try to think up cute stuff Butterpea is saying these days.  She’s obsessed with “Kay” as in Okay, only more preteen like.  She coined a new term, broccomoli, last week.  Not that she would dare eat broccoli or guacamole.    She calls MK “daddy wabby” and thinks it’s hysterical.  She loves to make up rhyming words.  Her binky is now binka wink.  Sheepy is sheepy weepy.  Etc.  She says funny stuff all day.  It’s hard to keep up!

Hi!  It’s been forever since I blogged.  When I realized I kept going to other friends’ blogs only to find no updates, I thought, hmp.  That’s what they get when they visit mine too.  Of course, it’s summer so everyone is busy having fun. 

We have had lots going on here.  I accepted a kindergarten position at a charter school here.  I am excited, but ready to be done jumping through hoops to get it.  Drug test, background check, years of service from every school I ever taught at, update certification, 3 letters of reference (harder to get than I thought with it being summer), and more and more paperwork.  Ick.  So tired of all that.  I start work August 2nd.  Mally starts school 2 weeks later.  Pop Pop visits each August so he’ll watch her for the overlap time when I am at work.  She is sure to be spoiled with daily beignets and trips to every known activity within 20 miles.   

We are planning a summer visit for the Fourth of July to Muskogee to see Mr. K’s grandparents.  They haven’t seen Mally in 2 years, so it will be great.  Of course, the not great part is that we decided to drive to save the $1000 it would cost to fly plus rental car when we landed.  So, that part will not be fun.  But we are going to take Mally to the lake there and to the waterpark.  (She’s never been to a waterpark and will love it!)  And she loves fried fish, so she may never want to leave!  (I think G and G Taylor have fish about 4 times a week. 

In the meantime, we are trying to do some fun stuff this summer, but it’s so hard!  I am babysitting every afternoon for the next 3 weeks.  I am glad for extra money, but it is a constant struggle to get Mally up in time to go get E.  And then we can’t really go do anything because it’s only about an hour before it’s time to deal with feeding them.  And in the mornings, I have been dealing with house issues and all that getting a job business. 

The house.  We put an offer on a house in Bywater, but they countered at a number that is not even close to realistic.  The house just needs a ton of work.  And looking at houses in better neighborhoods is just depressing because we just can’t afford them.  Houses in our area where we are renting just don’t have what we are looking for.  I don’t ask for too much.  A yard, INDOOR laundry, at least 3 bedrooms, wood floors.  It’s the yard and laundry that we can never get in the same house.  Oh!  And off-street parking.  You suburbanites don’t know how good you’ve got it with your gigantic driveways.  So, to get all of those things puts us about $100k out of our price range.  And it sucks.  Truly.  I hate our rental house more every day.  When I want out a dish and have to move boxes out to even open the cabinets, I hate it.  When I have to go out in the dark through the back yard to do laundry.  Ug.  When I try to shove a shirt into the closet that Mr. K and I share that is half the size of the one we shared in Dallas, Ug.  The bike shipping container is in the bedroom (the only bedroom).  The bike goes in kitchen.  So does the only dining table.  And the kitchen is smaller than the one we had in Dallas.  And Mally’s room is where the dining room should be.  She has no dresser, only these gigantic mirrored cabinets that she still cannot open consistently without hurting herself.  Ok.  Done complaining.  I need a house.  One of my own.  With my OWN furniture.  And my DOG.  And I am at my absolute breaking point.  But with the house thing destined to fall through, we are back to the drawing board.  We’ll never be moved into a new house by school starting.  Which is awful.  The thought of Mally starting school and her mommy going back to work and her moving to a new home (if we can even find one) all at the same time is really a bit much.  I know, kids are resilient and all, but it is still not the way I would have it.  I would have rather have been settled into a new home for a few weeks at least before all the rest!

On to other things.  We are swimming with our friend, Cate, a lot this summer.  They have a membership at a great pool that is never crowded.  Milan and Mally are having tons of fun in the pool.  She has gotten a lot braver pretty quickly.  She’ll jump from the side and is actually a little too brave in that aspect.  She would certainly hop in without an adult and never think twice about it.  Needs to learn how to get back to the side of the pool by herself, but that’s a while yet I think.  We are just grateful to have a place to get out of the house and go have some water play time. 

On the learning curve:  Mally’s latest…

Loves singing songs.  Her favorite at the moment is that give a dog a bone song.  You know…knick knack paddy whack and all that nonsense.    She also loves skinnamarink. 

Loves dancing.  Tells me all the time that she is potty trained so she can take ballet lessons now.  Only she can’t because no place will take her yet because of her age.  Most start at 3.  Some at 2 and a half.  So, soon. 

Ah, potty training.  I would say we are done, but that would just be like shooting myself in the foot, right?  It’s been about a month of no day accidents.  Pull-ups at nap are usually dry too.  So, done.  Again.  Haha.

What else?  Learning stuff.  She knew every letter and sound by her second birthday and has moved on to words.  The ones she knows are “yes, no, wow, and stop.”  I am sure there are others.  If you ask her how to spell them, she will tell you.  N.O. spells NO!  Etc.  She also tries to tell you what things will say.  Such as, that sign says “You have to wait for the arrow” (sign at the stop light) And she “reads” books now with whatever words she thinks make sense.  And she will correct you with HER words if you try to read her the actual words.  Oh, that reminds me, she is saying funny words too.  Like “definitely, actually, probably…”  Always says funny things.  Told us yesterday “I don’t want water!!!  It’s grooooss!”  Yes, she hates water and will let you know it for sure.  Poor tortured child. 

She spends most of her days in a tutu and panties.  What a perfect life.  Now if I can convince her to wear brown (khakki) shorts and a yellow shirt for school, we may all witness a miracle!

Ah, our second ER trip.  Mr. K says we are now averaging one per year.  Very funny guy he is.  Mally fell off of a stool yesterday afternoon and went face-first into a Melissa and Doug play castle.  I swear that stool is only 5 inches off the ground!  Ug.  So, we were looking into her cabinets to pick out some shorts to go with her brand. new. shirt. that she was wearing.  Adorable, monogrammed shirt from RalphiePie that says “Mally” on it.  Got a tiny bit of blood on the collar, but I think I can get it out.  OxyClean works wonders.  Anyhow, I have a girly girl who hates shorts, so when I go to get out shorts, she hopped up on the stool to see what Mommy was going to torture her with.  She leaned forward to express her disapproval and show me what she wanted to wear (a skirt or dress, I am sure) and fell into the castle.  I picked her up and held her for as long as I could manage without looking at it.  You just know when it’s going to be bad. 

I took a look and off we went to the ER.  I called Mr. K and her pedi on the way.  Pedi confirmed that they couldn’t help at all if it needed stitches or glue, so we went ahead to Children’s Hospital.  Did I think to bring the shorts with us?  Shoes?  Binky?  Sippy cup?  Pull-ups?  No, no, no, no.  I am a complete failure in an emergency apparently!  Ha!  Anyhow, on the upside, if you take your kid half-naked with blood pouring down their face into the hospital, you will be seen lickety split.  No waiting for us, no sirree. 

They sent us right through check-in pretty quickly.  Mally was upset because she wanted to see the fishies there and was over the wailing from the fall already.  We went up to the second floor and were seen within minutes of getting to the room.  When the dr. came in, she asked Mally her name.  Mally didn’t respond.  So she said, “Well how old are you?”  “I’m 4!” she told her.  She’s been “four” for about a month now.  Just ask her.  Hahaha! 

The first dr. was a younger dr. who said no stitches but she really wanted a second opinion.  So she brought another dr. in.  The second one had  the immediate reaction of “Whoa!  That’s a lot worse than I was expecting!”  Great. Thanks for helping.  I feel much better now.  They checked to be sure her muscle wasn’t detached from the bone. Uh.  They said that it is common for that to happen when kids hit this spot under the eye (which took the brunt of the fall.)  Dr. #2 also wanted to x-ray it and they asked yet another dr. to be sure because they didn’t want to expose her unnecessarily to radiation.  But it was decided that because of the swelling under her eye, it had to be x-rayed to be sure the eye socket wasn’t fractured.  Which all freaked me out because I hadn’t even considered that she might have broken something.

So, in the end, the x-ray was clear.  She has abrasions to her eye and nose.  The skin at the nose is gone in one spot.  When they were discussing that part, I felt physically ill.  Ug.  No, no.  We would stitch that if there was skin left to stitch together.  Uh, thanks.  Ug.  There are 2 main cuts at the eye as well.  One on the outer edge of the upper eyelid and one about 1/2 inch below her eye.  It’s swollen and purple today.  Looks like a prize fighter…who lost for sure! 

When we were leaving the hospital, I told her she could have whatever she wanted for dinner.  As any 2 (or 4) year old would say for sure…she wanted candy!   We settled on Wendy’s, where she asked for chicken donuts and white ice cream.

Did I mention that Mr. K was at work that whole time?  He had ridden his bike to work, so I had both cars.   He could’ve taken the bus, but that would’ve taken forever.  I told him that if they had to do anything like stitches or something to get on over there, but there wasn’t anything he could do anyhow.  So Mally and I were solo on this one!  And we made it.

This pic is from Christmas.  She LOVES this dress, but I need to fix the hem because it was a little too long and kept getting stepped on.  (OK, it’s a size 4, but she HAD to have it!)

Some fun things Mally is doing:

• She wore her genie costume with her Birthday sunglasses to get ice cream the other night.  Everyone asked if it was her birthday and she said “Yes! I am 3!”  Little turkey!  We were standing behind her shaking our heads “noooo, not 3, she’s 2″ we whispered.  So funny!
• She continues to call me “Holly” and while that is my name, I would rather be Mommy.  Not sure how to curb this.  Usually it’s on the weekends or Mondays after Mr. K has been around a while.  But she never calls him “Mr. K!”
• I NEVER!  She has caught on to “never.”  Ralphie will NEVER take my purse.  Mommy will NEVER make me take a nap.  I will NEVER have to eat vegetables.  Etc.  She also is using similar words like ”almost, also, sometimes, yesterday, etc.”
• She gets so upset when we turn right on red.  “Mommy’s going on RED! Red is for stopping, Mommy!”
• Mally is adding -ed (called over-generalizing) to lots of random verbs now.  Kids do this as they learn that past tense verbs end in -ed and they try to figure out how that works.  She is also saying “I’m am.”
• Of course, she is not out of the pink phase.  She wants a pink dress on every day.  Well, it can be another color if it’s a dress-up dress.  But jeans, no way!  Actually CRIES when I try to put jeans on her!  (After my mamaw’s heart, I think!)  She does not want to have her hair brushed, but definitely wants a bow.
• She’s suddenly very into baby dolls and changing their clothes 70-11 times a day.  Which means that Mommy is changing the clothes 70-11 times a day.  Oh, she knows how to get them off, it’s getting them back on that is impossible!
• Potty training is going so much better.  She is having about 1 accident a day if we are home.  I am about to get brave and start getting out some with her in panties instead of a pull-up.  That first week I thought this was NEVER going to happen, but amazingly I stuck with it and it got better.  I swore on day 3 with a huge pile of wet clothes that I was D. O. N. E. but luckily I woke up determined again the next day and it has gotten easier every day.  She gets mad now if I tell her she needs a pull-up to go in the car.  So, I guess that’s my sign that she’s ready to move on.

As for myself, I had 2 job interviews this week for MWF jobs and got one offer so far.  It doesn’t pay a fortune and it’s an assisstant position.  Not too keen on that part, but it is more than I am making right now and has the flexibility I need to go get Mally from school.  Did I mention that we decided to keep her at St. Paul no matter where I am working?  The lead teacher in this class I interviewed for was bragging about how laid back the school is.  I looked around at kids that looked really, really bored with multiple activities out that were not age appropriate or in the least bit interesting.  Kind of thought laid-back might not be the best route to go.  Hopefully something else better pans out, otherwise I may find myself fighting the system.  KWIM?

Oh, I have started sewing again.  I love sewing.  I have no training whatsoever.  Last year when I got a sewing machine, I figured out how to thread the needle and do the bobbin by reading the manual.  Seriously.  Anyhow, I made Mally a dress yesterday from an old Polo shirt of Mr. K’s.  Pink, no less.  I am making a white one today with pink straps and some kind of pockets added on.  She loves pockets.  And not a lot of dresses come with pockets.   Mr. K said I should start a business, but I don’t think I have the professional touch to my sewing to do it for money.  And space.  Ug.  We have none.  So I have to move the PC every time I need to sew.  My fabric is on top of the scanner and it’s all in Mally’s room so I can’t sew at night and to sew during naptime means she is sleeping in our bed.  Maybe when we buy a house we can remedy some of our space issues!

Thank you so much, Lauren!  I love blogging.  I always wonder if anyone reads it, but now that the sitemeter is back up, it appears that upwards of 25 people a week are stopping by.  I probably don’t even know half of those people!    So, I am supposed to pass on the award, but I don’t read that many blogs, really.  But here are a few that I do read.  If I nominate you, the rules follow.

So the rules for this award are:

1. Pick 15 bloggers to pass the award on to.
2. Share seven things about yourself.

Ok, I love blogging and reading blogs, but literally just published on facebook last week that I am looking for new interesting blogs to read.  I go and look and read, but I don’t stalk very many of them.  Really, the only ones I read religiously are Lauren and Jennifer’s because I know them.  I go to others for ideas, but then discard them after a while.  I have lots stored on my CPU, so if I log on to that tomorrow, I will add some more to the list.  I know Angie’s and Alison’s are both on my other computer.  Here they are, in no particular order:

•  http://fourlittlemonkies.blog.com/
• http://wildflowersandmarbles.blogspot.com/
• http://www.cotaforemersonw.com/node/35  Not really a blog, but more of a journal of her struggles.
• www.mycharmingkids.net
• Does www.realtor.com count as a blog? 

Ok, so apparently I have to tell 7 things about myself.

• Currently, I am job hunting and house hunting.  Does life get any more stressful than that?  I want a part-time job where I can work MWF, the days that Mally will be at St. Paul’s.  I would love to actually work there, but they aren’t interviewing until the end of the month.  And they haven’t called me to schedule one, so I am not holding my breath.  I had an interview today at the Children’s Museum, but I was grossly underqualified so I doubt they call back.  Plus it was for full-time, now.  Which would help for the house qualification, but not so much for the childcare part!
• I miss my doggy.  Mr. K doesn’t really miss her that much.  I can understand why.  She is big and has to be walked and fed and watered.  She barks.  A lot.  And it’s deep and loud.  But I want to cuddle with my Chloe Dog!    For those of you who don’t know, Chloe is on an extended-stay vacation at the In-Law Kymes’ Kennel.  AKA my in-laws house in Madison.
• I suck at decorating.  I love it.  I read Country Living magazine from cover to cover.  I stalk Martha Stewart.com.  But I have NO decorating sense what.so.ever.  It is horrible.  I tell my mom that she kept all of those decorating genes for herself.  My cousin and I joked that neither his wife, nor myself, can hold a candle to my mom and her sisters.  They hoard and clutter in the most amazing cool ways ever.  Now part of it is this intense feeling that I have NEVER been able to shake…the feeling of needing to NOT SPEND MONEY.  I see some awesome pillow and then the pricetag.  Instantly, the idea of decorating is out the window.  I don’t have “decorating” on one of my lines in my Excel Spreadsheet Budget. 
• Was than only number 3?  I am not sure I am interesting enough to have 7 different things to say about myself.  We’ll see.  I am lazy.  Yes, that can be number 4.  My laziness drives me nuts.  I would rather watch tv than do the dishes any day of the week.  They pile up and spill onto the counter and spread to the table.  We have to move them to eat dinner.  Of course, we are in a rental with a micro-counter and no dishwasher, but still.  I grew up in a home where my friends would hide their drink cups from my dad so that he wouldn’t wash them before they were done drinking from them.  Seriously.  Can’t find your favorite glass?  Did you check under the bed?  So, am I this lazy BECAUSE of my parents, or inspite of them?  Neither of them are messy.  My mom does the dishes daily.  My dad (they are divorced) does them by the minute.  I do them never.  Now laundry is different.  Give me some towels, socks to sort, piled to the sky, and I will do your laundry all day and all night with a smile.
• 5.  I have to keep track now so that I know when I have finally said enough.    I used to be an athlete.  This kind of goes back to the lazy thing, but bare with me.  I used to be an athlete.  I used to play all kinds of sports.  I want to do that now and can’t.  I miss tennis, but when I play for fun with the girls (as rare as that was in Dallas), it isn’t all that much fun.  No offense meant to anyone, please.  I can only play with certain people, who play, well, really well, to have fun.  Otherwise, it is so. very. boring.  In D, the “coach” will give tips that I could either repeat in my sleep or contradict because they are stupid.  It is not always so great being really good at something.  I was told in D that I wasn’t allowed on the team my friends were on because I should have a higher rating than them.  I was so bummed.  Ok, I seriously digress.  About being lazy, etc.  First, I don’t play now because I can’t afford it.  I would need a sitter and to pay for courts and that just isn’t ever going to be a viable option.  So, I need some other exercise outlet.  On to my second endevour in life, the marathon.  I ran the Chicago Marathon once.  2004, I believe.  It was amazing and defeating at the same time.  I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to make it to 5 a.m. training runs with ease.  I loved it.  It made me feel good.  I lost weight, got in shape, and met some new friends.  But in the end, when I didn’t meet my goal of 5 hours, I was so defeated by that.  I lost my will to run.  I have tried to get it back.  I ran some after that.  Got hurt.  Bursitis in the hip that kept me out of work for days.  IT Band Syndrome that was awful. I ran a 10K in Shannon’s honor in the fall, but even though it felt FANTASTIC, I have not continued to run.  I find that running with the jogging stroller is a struggle and isn’t fun at all.  I LOVE the BOB, but I do not like running with a stroller.  I want the freedom to just run.  I feel guilty running when Mr. K is watching her because for some reason taking time out for just me seems wrong.  So, I do nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Blah.
• 6.  I am almost done now, right?  Yay!  How about this, I broke my finger in the 6th grade while jumping over a ditch.  Does that count?
• 7.  Yes!  I am near the end.  Wait!  This IS the end!  Super.  I love Manwiches.  Yep.  That’s number 7.  All the comfort foods my husband does not like to eat…spaghetti, stew, pot roast, Manwiches…I love them all.  So there.

She says some funny stuff, and while I don’t write down nearly enough of it, here are a couple of things she has said lately.

Sometimes I call her my little Ragamuffin if her hair is all crazy or her clothes are dirty.  So she told her daddy last week “Daddy, you are a Dragon Muffin.”  And then she patted him on the back. 

The very next day I told her she was having chicken nuggets for dinner.  She replied, “I love chicken donuts!”  She has called them that for a couple of weeks now.  It’s so funny!  We try hard not to feed her junk all the time, but when we do, she certainly remembers it!

A few weeks back when we went to the doctor for her croup, she promptly puked all over the waiting room floor.  Then she said very determinedly, “I am NOT puking on the floor at the doctor’s office!  No.  I not.

She is just so much more verbal than the last time that I posted things that she was saying a few months back.  Today at lunch she told me “I need some milk now, Mommy.  I am all done with my juice.  It’s all gone gone.  Mommy can throw it away for me.”  She has prepositions now which makes her sound so much older than she is.  At the dentist yesterday she told the hygenist that the flouride smelled like gum.  I told them that I had told her she had to be 3 to have it.  And the lady said I would have to change that to age 4 if I didn’t want her to have it yet…because she thought Mally was 3.  It blew her mind that Mally just turned 2. 

I haven’t updated on what kind of stuff she does lately, so bare with me and here goes.  You can skip this if mommy-bragging bothers you!    This is mostly for her grandparents and uncles who don’t see her nearly often enough.

Academics:

• Since January she can count to at least 25.  Occasionally she skips a number or counts higher.  She loves numbers and Chicka Chicka 123 is one of her favorite books.  She wants me to count to 100 at the end when it shows those numbers.  She can tell you things like “the 30 is pink” or pick out numbers I name.  I am not saying she knows them all, but she knows a lot.  Especially the pink ones. 
• She has 1 to 1 counting to about 5, give or take.
• Letters.  She knows them all and loves to play “What’s _______ start with?”  Last night she was asking “What does Avery start with?”  Followed by “What’s Avery’s mommy’s name?  What does that start with?”  She also loves to ask you the sounds of the letters which goes like this: M: What does o say? o.  What does D say? d for dora and daddy.  What does a say? a like apple.  She wants to ask the questions but doesn’t wait for me to answer!    Last night I went through the entire alphabet asking her to tell me the sound for the letter.  I have never done it before, but best I can tell she knows these letter sounds: a,b,c,d,f,g,j,k,l,m,o,p,r,s,t,w,x,and z. 
• Days of the week in order
• Can’t quite spell her name aloud yet.  She will tell you Mllory or Malory or something close but rarely says them all.  She can tell you that she is Mallory McKennon Kymes and her birthday.  At the grocery store one night, she was a few steps away from me and a person asked her “Who is your mommy, sweetheart?” and she said, “Holly Kymes!” I told you it was the mommy paranoia that was why I made sure she knew our names.  ;)   Oddly, she can spell my name, just not her own.  I guess because it’s shorter.  Now if I can just teach her my phone number or 911.  She will repeat me on 911 but is no where near dialing it…especially on a cell phone, which is all we have now.
• Still knows her shapes and colors.  My mom gave her a box of 64 crayons for Christmas and she wants to know EXACTLY what the color is and where it says that on the crayon.  Ex. periwinkle, maroon, sea foam green, aqua, etc.
• Words.  She constantly tell you what things say.  For example, at McAlisters she points to the sign and tells you what it says.  This is not just with signs, but with things like food.  ”This says Sponge Bob macaroni and cheese.”  Or her favorite, “These pants say Princess! Princess starts with P!”

What she is into these days:

• Dora still rocks the house!
• Puzzles galore.  She is doing the 24 piece puzzles Elizabeth gave us.  (Thanks a million!)  She does need help with the boring pieces that don’t have a lot of design on them, but can put Diego or Dora together like nobody’s business!  She actually has more trouble with the fine motor skills of the puzzles than anything else.  She still LOVES her MALLORY puzzle and her princess puzzle, but pretty much all the peg puzzles are too easy.  She adores the 4 piece animal jigsaws, so today I bought a set of 26 letter puzzles that are 4-6 pieces that make a picture like A is for Apple or whatever.  Hopefully she will like those too!
• Drawing, painting, chalk, coloring books.  I remember being a teacher and hating the idea of coloring books, but dog-gone if she doesn’t love those things. 
• She loves her kitchen and cooks every day.  I still haven’t given her the items I hand-made before Christmas.  I guess I will give them to her at Easter or some rainy day in March.
• Her belly button is still her go-to when she is tired.  Zip-up jammies make her crazy. 
• Food: macaroni, pizza, chicken donuts, real donuts, hot dogs, blueberries, string cheese, raisins, MILK, suckers, juice, pancakes, eggs, bacon, crackers, and anything that might be bad for her.
• Everything girly.  She loves princesses and wants a dress on every day.  She insists on a bow every day.   She wants pink everything.  I tell you, if they would just make EVERYTHING in pink, she would be so happy.  She wanted pink cereal, but we went with Froot Loops because Avery has Froot Loops. 

In other news, potty training is awful.  I think we take half a step forward and 2 steps back.

What else?  I am on a mission to find a vacation Bible school for this summer.  Did I say that already?  The French school here does a 2 week camp for her age but it’s expensive and all day.  Another place in Metairie has a 2 week camp, so we’ll see.  Unfortunately St. Paul’s does not have one for kids her age.

She got a new Dora toothbrush and Sponge Bob toothpaste.  The dentist and hygenist both have older 2 year olds and said that Mally is more mature and articulate than both of them.  I swear that I do not solicit these comments!  And she really has her meltdown moments, but with Dora, Skinerella, and SB, what’s not to like?  She has perfect teeth.  No cavities, no trouble spots, no teeth touching so no need to floss yet, and a perfect bite.  Yay!  She did NOT want to leave.  They gave her a token to get a toy.  She wanted it back after it went in.  So I gave her a penny.    They also gave her a pink t-shirt.  She told them she didn’t want it because she knew that meant we were all done.  Then she saw the street car on it and changed her tune.  In the end, a perfect first appointment! 

Some old news that I never got around to…Mally did get into St. Paul’s, the school we love.  So she goes MWF starting in August.  I am looking for a vacation Bible school to send her to in the summer so she has some idea of being away from me during the day.  I am looking for a job for those days.  I have gotten several emails back from schools so this might be a possibility. 

We are looking at houses to buy.  We had fallen for a house on 8th St. that is a double, split down the middle, in a great neighborhood.  But there is no off-street parking and a little yard, a busy-ish street, and would be hard to seperate.  So, we found another house we like better.  It’s in the Audubon neighborhood, which has less crime than the other one.  It’s a slow street where there are kids riding bikes in the street.  The backyard is huge by NOLA standards.  It is also a double, but is a top/bottom version that could easily be converted by opening the stairs.  There is a basement apartment.  We could, in theory, rent the basement and one of the double units, and live mortgage-free for a while.  We could use the money to fix up the place, redo the kitchen, pay off bills, etc.  Mr. K wants to change it to one big house ASAP, but I am leaning towards leasing for a little bit.  It may not matter because we may not get financed for it.  Since we leased our D house, it counts against us more than if we were selling it.  Doesn’t make sense to me b/c it could sit on the market for years, but whatever.  So we need it to appraise at 30% equity, or $210K.  It would have a year ago, but the market has dropped.  Lindly sold hers for $200 in a matter of weeks, so we are hoping that works in our favor.  Don’t know what our options are if it comes in short.  We’ll see.  It’s a great house.  Great school area.  Great year, street, and a much better lay-out.  It also is 3900 sf…1700, 1600 sf rental, and 600 for the basement rental.  There is about 1000 sf left of basement that we could finish out as well.  Additionally, the attic is huge, big enough to also finish out.  So, it’s better because we could do a lot more with it.  Wish us luck!

Now I have to go!  Mr. K scored some free tickets to the Hornets tonight…$175 tickets.  Yay!  We are going with Lynn and Bryce.  Should be a blast!