A week of birthdays

Paul is three. His birthday week began with a celebration at daycare on Tuesday. We made cupcakes the night before, and when Paul woke up Tuesday morning he proudly announced, "Today is my birthday!" The following morning, when it was actually his birthday, he had to be reminded. But he was very excited at the prospect of "two cranes" which is the gift he has been asking for since January. Grandma takes care of Paul on Wednesdays, so I left work at lunchtime and met them at Friendly's. Paul was very excited when the waitresses all came to the table to sing. That night everyone met at Grandma's house for dinner and ice cream cake. The "two cranes" (a Lego construction set) was presented along with a new bike and some other cool gifts. (Pics of Paul on the bike coming soon... my camera was dead on the one nice day we've had so far since!) My favorite part of the day was on our drive home when he said, "Mommy, what a nice day. Grandma turned the lights off and sang happy birthday to me." Seriously, could he be any sweeter? Friday night we began preparing for the big party. Paul enjoyed another opportunity to lick a beater full of cake batter (the boy has a stomach of steel so I am not too worried about salmonella) and proudly displayed his chocolate face for the camera. I am happy to report that my bulldozer cake was a success - despite some icing setbacks.

Saturday... Paul had a great time at his party - he loved having everyone over and being the center of attention. The kids enjoyed themselves and we only had one injury (a bloody lip). They had some trouble busting into my homemade pinata, but luckily Mitch was there to beat it with a 2x4. Seriously. And no, I did not capture that on film - I was trying to make sure no small people got in the way. Once I get all of the pictures organized and labeled, I'll send out a snapfish album.

"That's me with no pants on"

Paul went outside this afternoon to help daddy clean up some sticks. I was upstairs sorting through my winter clothes when I heard, "Mommy? Mommmmy??!?!" I went to the top of the stairs and saw this: Apparently he had gotten into some mud outside, and CJ had stripped him of his boots and pants before sending him inside for new pants. I just had to snap a picture; he looked too darn funny. While showing Paul the pics I took this past week he proudly announced, "That's me with no pants on!" Indeed.

One more step

My handy-dandy husband has completed another home improvement project!! Once again I neglected to take any "before" pictures, so for those readers who haven't been to the house, let's just say that our stairs were UG-A-LY. The spit-up colored carpet was totally worn out, stained and fraying. CJ ripped out the carpet, tore out the stairs and replaced them with oak. He did it all this past week and was able to get the stain on over the weekend. We stayed with my folks while everything dried and are now happily back home enjoying the beautiful new stairs.

What's happenin'??

A quick update on our lives:

• CJ has completed his Master's program and now has his MBA. Woo-hoo!! He has one final class to go to earn his Project Management Certification & then we plan to celebrate with a night of unlimited sushi. (For him anyway, Paul & I will eat unlimited noodles!)


• P is almost three. Yikes! He is progressing at an incredible rate in all areas but one... potty-training. We continue to work on it, but I have come to accept that it will be on his terms, not mine.


• I will be starting my next long-term substitute assignment on Monday. I wasn't supposed to start until after spring break, but the teacher had to begin her leave early in order to rest before the baby arrives. I will be teaching 10th & 11th grade Global and US History.


• The latest adoption timeline suggests that our referral will arrive sometime in the late summer/early fall. We are hoping that things remain steady in Korea and the wait time does not get extended.


• Last night we celebrated with Kim & Josh after a ceremony joining their two families. We had a lot of fun eating and dancing. Here's a pic of P appearing to have stylin' breakdancing moves, when in reality he just wiped out.

Language expansion

Paul learned his first knock knock joke, and I have been trying to upload it to the blog with no success. So my faithful readers will simply have to imagine it in their heads until I win the battle against technology (translation: upload it on my dad's computer and post it from there; he has FIOS).
In the meantime, I will share a bit of Paul's ever increasing vocabulary and the widening realm of his creative thought. When passing the new construction site between home and daycare where there will inevitably be yet ANOTHER strip mall (recession? what recession?), Paul was very concerned about the construction vehicles. After they carried away all the trees and flattened the land (pardon my social commentary, but heaven forbid we have any woods around here), the diggers were gone. Paul postulated that perhaps they were all "sleeping in their garage" or "taking care of the baby diggers."
Speaking of construction equipment, we are approaching the big THREE, and Paul has taken it upon himself to request very specific construction related gifts. When we tell him no or my favorite, "We'll see" he tries a new tactic. The gifts are not for him see, they are really for blue blanket. Example: "Mommy, blue blanket wants a bulldozer for his birthday." I was unaware that we were celebrating such an event. Blue blanket has become Paul's alter ego, something to handle the more unpleasant emotions like greed and fear. I am told this is a normal process for preschoolers. Still, it's a bit weird.
Other than that, I am constantly reminded to watch what I say because it often gets thrown back in my face. Example: "Mommy, you're a pain in the butt." At the dinner table: "I need to stop screwing around." Was I this sassy at his age? I mean, I know I was sassy as a teenager, but that is a long way off for us. Sigh.

That's Mrs. Teach to you

I survived my first week of per diem subbing. Woo-hoo! It really isn't all that bad so far and I have actually been able to do a pretty significant amount of reading. My first day was for a 6th grade reading teacher and I wanted to be as helpful as possible to the students, so I polished off The Whipping Boy and half of Hoot during lunch and free period. The students were impressed with this fact and took me seriously (for the most part anyway - one girl tried to convince me that she was allowed to rifle through the teacher's drawers and eat her snacks, while another suggested we spend the entire period playing a game). Wednesday was ELA scoring day and I enjoyed the time off with Paul. It was the first time in four years I didn't have to be cooped up in a hotel conference room grading tests for eight hours. (Giant sigh of relief and kudos to all of my teacher friends who had to suffer through it.) Thursday I had a half day teaching kindergarten, and Friday I was back in the high school teaching freshman. The worst part of this experience is waiting for the phone call the night before. The sub system is automated and if you don't get to the phone on time, it automatically jumps to the next person. When you do answer, you have to decide quickly whether or not to take the job, and there is always risk involved. If it is a crappy sounding job, do you reject it in hopes of something better? Or take it for fear of having nothing? I cringe at such rapid fire decision making, and the idea of not knowing whether or not I will work each day is quite stressful. The students haven't been too bad as long as I appear to know what I am doing and refuse to be played the fool. They get a kick out of my last name and only once have I been called "Teach". My immediate thought was: Am I in one of those movies where the idealistic young teacher ends up in the ghetto classroom and manages to turn a classroom full of delinquents into bright shining students? No? Then, "It's Mrs. van, thank you."

Paul's view of the world

Paul got a digital camera for Christmas and has been happily taking pictures of just about everything in the house. I finally downloaded them tonight & thought I would share some of his best shots.

Proof that Daddy actually smiles.