Hello 2009!

Goodbye 2008. It was nice while it lasted. Man, you were quick. 2009 means that my BABY will be two in August! That can't possibly be. Can it? Oh well. C'est la vie.

It took me awhile to get back into the swing of things after winter break. When the boys were out of school we were sleeping in every day, eating breakfast at 9:30a or 10a, lunch around 2p and then all of sudden it would be dinnertime and I would have gotten zero done that day. While it was relaxing it was also unproductive. I dislike unproductive days. They make me feel useless and lazy which leads to feeling overwhelmed at trying to catch back up. So while it was fun while it lasted, I'm glad it's over and the routine is back. Routine is good for me.

Christmas brought a couple of hand-held games to our house. These things can be very good and very bad. They can be good on the occasions when you need the kids to be occupied and quiet such as on a long car ride or on a plane. But they can be bad because they're addictive and the Os ask to play them EVERY SINGLE DAY. I don't let them, of course. And I usually limit their play to 30-45 minutes when they do get to play. Also, playing the hand-helds are in lieu of any TV or computer time that they might otherwise have. But out of the bad comes another good: because they want to play every day I have a powerful bargaining chip. I can tell them they need to finish all their chores before they can play the Didj or the DS (clean their room, take out garbage and recycling, help pick up after Elliott, etc.) I can tell them they have to be on their best behavior while we spend 3 hours going to the grocery store and Costco. It doesn't always work -- 3 hours is a long time for a kid to behave perfectly. But it's okay because I don't really want them to play those games at all.

Elliott has learned to climb. Bah! He climbs onto the couch and onto the end table or tries to get onto the windowsills. He stands in the middle of the coffee table as if it's his stage. He smiles one of those devilish grins that says, "Look what I can do even though you don't want me to." He climbs from the dining chairs onto the dining table. One morning, while I was at the gym, he even climbed onto his changing table and laid there waiting for someone to change him! Brian was getting coffee downstairs and when he went back upstairs to check on him, Brian found Elliott lying there giving the sign for diaper change. Funny kid.

He's also saying many new words: baby, cheese stick, bear, pear, outside, yogurt, cookie, shoes, moon, eat, belly button, bath and book. It's all very cute, of course, but the cutest is when he wants to say thank you. He signs 'thank you' but says "OK."

Oliver and Owen started basketball a few weeks ago. Neither of them have ever played before and I don't know that I'll encourage them to play again. They struggle with the basics and get angry that traveling is allowed in their age division and stealing the ball is not. I don't think they're sure about any of it yet. Brian may take them to a local college game soon so they can see how it's supposed to be played for real. That might get them more excited about it and answer some questions for them.

The snow finally melted when it rained and rained and rained. Then we got a WHOLE WEEK of dry. I think I even saw a bit of blue for a minute or two which is practically unheard of this time of year in Western Washington.

I was feeling spontaneous last Sunday when I got up and told Brian we needed to go for a hike and take advantage of the dry weather. He wanted to do a river-type hike down low. I picked something that was closer to home and easy-to-moderate. What I did not realize was that it was in the foothills of the Olympics. We were surprised when we arrived to see snow still on the ground everywhere. We should have just gone back home. But as is usually the case when the Watkins step out, we did not do the smart thing. We got out there anyway. It was crazy! We were all stepping in snow up to our knees at times and had snow filling our boots. Brian forgot the hiking poles and had Elliott on his back in the pack. So he was constantly worried about toppling over with a baby on his back. Poor Owen has no hiking boots and was out there in regular sneakers. They were SOAKED. I felt so badly for him but he was tough. Fortunately, we took a wrong turn and got off the trail. We ended up on the main road toward our car and it saved us about 45 minutes of further misery.

Ah, but the story does not end there, no. As we are walking on the road, Oliver picks up a rather large stick -- about 3 feet in length or so and about a half-inch in diameter. He proceeds to stab the stick into the snow with every step he takes. I was walking behind him when I suddenly see him lurch forward with his face toward the stick. He stumbles, throws the stick down, and covers his eye with both hands! He wails. I grab him and turn him around expecting to see blood running everywhere and the remaining vestiges of his deflated eyeball oozing out from between his fingers. There was no blood but I had to see behind his hands, for the love of all that holy!

He wouldn't take his hands away so I ended up throwing him down on his back in the snow attempting to pin his arms. Meanwhile, Brian casually strides over and tells me to stop panicking. I looked at him all wild-eyed with blood rushing in my ears while sitting on top of my injured 7 year-old and yelled, "I'M NOT PANICKING!!!"

Hey, I'm his mother. What can I say?

It turned out okay after all. His eye was very red and injured looking for a couple of days. Like hand-held video games, the snow was both good and bad. Oliver probably wouldn't have gotten hurt if not for the snow. But since he did, it was good that I was able to scoop some into a bag so he could hold it on his eye.

And a couple of other funnies:

Oliver was shivering one morning and I asked him why he was so cold. He replied, "I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm so thin."

The boys asked to watch at TV show one weekend morning and we told them it had to be educational. Owen asked to watch The Backyardigans. We told him The Backyardigans was not educational. He retorted, "Well, it teaches imagination." Nice try, buddy.