If you have to have a dinosaur running around your house, it might as well do a few chores now and then.

(check out the length of the legs of his costume)

(he is very serious about his work)

(and the screens could always use a good cleaning!)

(ewwwwww)

Jayden has always had anxiety about doing things by himself.  To this day, he will hardly play in the basement if I’m not there with him.  Putting him in the church nursery was always a headache.  We’d get called out of the service every time because Jayden would be in hysterics.  It wasn’t until about 6 months ago, when a woman who is in our small group started teaching his Sunday school class, and she ripped him off our legs and kept him with her the whole time and kept him occupied enough that he made it the entire hour without a melt down.  He still freaks out every once in awhile when we go to church, but at least we get to sit through an entire service now!

So, the idea of him going to preschool has always made me a bit nervous, because I don’t want to deal with the meltdown before class everyday.  Most of the people I know put their kids in preschool when they turned 3, not me though, it was never a serious consideration at all, because I knew Jayden would flip a lid.  But Jayden will be 4 in April and next fall, Royal and I are seriously considering putting him in school (homeschooling would be the other option - not just because of Jayden’s anxiety, for other reasons as well).  So, in preparation for that, I decided to test the waters with Jayden.  I signed him up for swimming lessons, since he’s now old enough to be in a class by himself.  We chose to put him in lessons at the Wichita Swim Club, because from what I have heard from other people and read on their website, they don’t let kids cry their way out of swimming.  They take crying kids out of their parents arms and take them to the pool.  Even if they are sitting on the side of the pool crying, the teachers pull them into the water and make them do whatever skill the class is working on.  The parents aren’t even allowed to be in the pool area, we can watch through windows on the side, and if your child is having trouble being able to see you, the teacher asks you to stop looking.  They are hard-core and this was totally what Jayden needed, someone who wasn’t going to give into him if he started throwing a fit!

I started prepping Jayden for his swimming lessons a full month in advance.  We’d talk about him going to a class all by himself and he’d started out saying he wasn’t going to swim without me or Royal.  Then he’d change his tune and started waivering and every other time he’d be okay with it, then he wouldn’t.  So, by the time this Monday rolled around, he knew what was coming, and he was excited to go swimming, he just wasn’t sure about doing it alone.  Jayden totally exceeded all my expectations and I am just so proud of him.  When we were sitting in the room before the class started and his teacher came in and called his name, he looked at me with a bit of a shocked look on his face, but I told him to go with his teacher, and she grabbed his hand, and another little girl’s hand, and headed out the door.  I actually didn’t get to see any of this first lessons, because I had to sit through an orientation thingy, but his teacher told me after class that Jayden did great.  He started out kind of crying on the edge of the pool, but as soon as she got him in the water he changed his mind and started having a great time and did great the whole class.  And the best part was that Jayden loved it.  He talked about it all the way home, he told me he cried a little, but that he started having too much fun swimming, and he couldn’t wait until Wednesday so he could have another swimming lesson.

Today, I managed to bring my little handheld video camera, which I can take pictures with.  It’s just to hard to keep Willow contained and take pictures with my good camera too.  (Royal’s had basketball games this week, so he hasn’t been able to come with us yet)  Not to mention, I can’t get inside the pool area until Jayden’s last class of the session, so I’m trying to take pictures through a foggy, water spotted window.  So, these pictures are not very good at all and are pretty blurry, but Jayden just looks so cute in his goggles and fins sitting on the edge of the pool.

This video is of Jayden trying to learn how to do a flutter kick. When he gets on his back, he has a tendency to just start flinging his legs trying to make the biggest splashes possible. And who wouldn’t???

Jayden and I started planting some seeds for the garden tonight.  Last year, our garden didn’t fare too well.  Well, parts of it didn’t anyway.   We had basil and some other herbs growing out our ears, but our peas, beans, carrots, tomatos, and pepper plants all got eaten away by what I thought were bunnies, but turns out were probably field mice.  We got some advice from a neighbor, who just happens to be a dirt expert that seed companies seek out to try their stuff, to plant cloves of garlic around the edges of the garden and that will keep the mice out.  I also plan on letting Scooter loose in the yard every night, since she’s probably going to kill something anyways. :)  I’ve been thinking about doing a weekly post this summer, with pictures of course, of all the killings Scooter leaves for us.  Sometimes bodies, sometimes guts, sometimes there’s just a blood spot left, but the head, the head is always missing.  I guess that’s Scooter’s favorite part.  Mmmm, brain!  Let me know what you think!

So, anyways…tonight, Jayden and I planted seeds for parsley, chives, basil, oregano, and cilantro.  And I forgot to save room for our lavender seeds, so I’m gonna have to get another little start pod for them.  Oops!

We have finally had a nice break from the horrible cold that is the winter here in Kansas.  We actually got up in the 50’s.  It was so nice, and it actually felt like spring was coming.  Although spring here, while it is a bit warmer comes with some pretty scary storms, and I did watch the movie Twister last night while ironing Royal’s work clothes, and I’ve pretty much freaked myself out about tornados again.  I’ve been here for a little over a year and a half, and I’m still not sure I’ve found a Kansas season that I like the best.  :)

Here’s some pictures of the kids swinging in the backyard, taking advantage of the warmish evening. I can’t wait ’till we can play outside after dinner again!

And on a side note, Willow has learned that she does indeed love cherry dum-dums.

The kids and I went to a fundraiser for the YWCA today at MyGym.  If you brought package of pull-ups or diapers, your kids could play for only $1.  Sadly, I didn’t even have a dollar on me, and not really wanting to charge $1 on the credit card, I raided Jayden’s piggy bank for it.  He caught me too, and then said, “It’s alright Mom, you can borrow it”  Thank goodness, or we would of just been stuck at home today!  And that just wasn’t going to work because Willow had a race to compete in!

Jayden and Noah burying themselves in the ball pit.

Willow tackling some stairs.

I was starting to think that Willow wasn’t having much fun.  I couldn’t get her to smile for me and in all the pictures she was looking so concerned.  And then I stuck her on the trampoline.

Spring Loaded…

BOING!!!

And from another angle…

Good thing I got her on the trampoline because we had to get her legs all warmed up for her race.  She was going to have to be scooching her fastest today because she was going to be competing against a walker, because, well, most kids are walking by the time they are 15 months old.  Not my kid though!  And you’re not gonna believe it, but Willow won!

Her competition got a little distracted and went off course for a bit.  See the little girl in the brown pants and blue shirt?  That’s Joyce, Noah’s little sister, and Willow’s competition.  The race started at the red taped line and Willow sure enough came scooching across the floor to get a ball, while Joyce turned around and started going the other way.

WINNER!  Willow made it to the red mat first.  There’s Joyce behind her, she started coming the right direction, but just a little too late.  Slow and steady wins the race, right???

Today a major, and I’m talking major, disaster happened around here.  The dinosaur costume got dirty enough that I wouldn’t let Jayden put it back on.  Jayden is in his dinosaur costume all. the. time.  When we get home from StrollerFit, he puts it on.  When aren’t going to StrollerFit in the morning, he puts it on.  When we make him take it off to go to church, the minute he gets home he puts it on.  He’s worn it to the grocery store a few times, to the paint store, to our life group, riding bikes, riding scooters, taking walks, checking the mail, pretty much for anything except sleeping.  Luckily we have dinosaur pajamas for him to wear to bed.  And he’s grown like 2 inches since Halloween so the costume is getting pretty short in the legs, not to mention the crotch area.  I just try to avoid my eyes.

Jayden was making a normal pit stop in the bathroom, where he normally strips down to nothing to go pee, but sadly, today, something went wrong.  He came out almost crying and said, “Mom, I couldn’t get my penis in the toilet and my dino costume now gots pee on it”  Oi vei.  While he was trying to clean it up with a towel, I told him he wasn’t going to be able to put it back on until I got it cleaned.  I’m not sure how I am going to clean it because it has a little dinosaur roaring button in it that I’m pretty sure will get ruined if I stick it in the washer.  And then there’s the problem of shrinkage, and if this costume gets any smaller, there is no way Jayden will be able to pull it on. So, I guess handwashing is the way to go.  Awesome.  I love handwashing.

I told Jayden to go into his room and find some more clothes and I’d help him get them on.

This is what he came out in.

Thank goodness for backups!

Me and the kids went to a friend’s 2nd birthday party today at Pure Entertainment.  The kids both had so much fun.  Jayden went buck wild around the place and kept running by me saying, “Mom, I’m so sweaty!”  He was all red in the face and out of breath, but that wasn’t going to slow him down.  Thank goodness they were serving chicken fingers for lunch, a personal fav of Jayden’s (he asks for them for breakfast), or I don’t think I would of got him to take a break and cool off.

or, as Willie and I always called it, Happy Singles Awareness Day!

For part of the kid’s presents this year, I decided to make them something.  For Jayden I made him a flannel dinosaur pillow case, which sadly has already gotten a lot of use since it was opened this morning.  Jayden has been real sick for the past few days.  He had the flu on Thursday and then Friday the flu seemed to turn into a cold, and now he’s all laid up on the couch.  Poor kid.

For Willow, I made a little valentine dress.  And for the 5 minutes she had it on today so I could try and take some pictures, she managed to get food on it!  How the heck did she find food????  I figure she’s got a secret stash  around somewhere…

For lunch, I made the kids and Royal some heart shaped sandwiches.

And then I finished up my heart sugar cookies by frosting them with some chocolate royal icing, Royal’s favorite.

We went to the Museum of World Treasures this afternoon because we had heard they had some dinosaur bones and we wanted to go check them out with Jayden.  Come to find out, the dinosaur display here is the #1 dinosaur display in the world, because it is the only one with an almost complete (60-70%) skeleton of a T-Rex and a Daspletosaurus.  Ivan, the T-Rex, is the 3rd most complete skeleton of a T-Rex in the world, and the first one to be on display with all it’s vertebrae being actual fossils.  Who knew?  Another reason to come visit me in Wichita!  So I can show you Ivan!  :)

There was lots of other things in the museum as well, like 2 mummies, lots of world war stuff, lots of American History stuff, 42 presidental signatures, but as most museums go, you can hardly take pictures anywhere, and really the only thing we (we being Jayden and his bossy self) were interested in were the dinosaurs, so somehow we kept coming back to that display.

Here is the Daspletosaurus killing another dinosaur

Here is Ivan and the Daspletosaurus - the buddy dinos who make Wichita more than just a dot on the map!  (Can I get a woot woot?!?)

Here is the skull of a Triceratops

Jayden managed to find the video screen playing a BBC show about dinosaurs.

It was a tad graphic, and Jayden was bothered for the rest of the day about watching an Ornitholestes eat a baby Diplodocus right after it had hatched out of it’s egg.  I mean, who wouldn’t be??? At least we stuck around long enough so Jayden could see all the dead Diplodocus’s brothers and sisters hatch out and run for cover in the bushes, so the “bad little meat eater” couldn’t get them.
Are you wondering how I know the name of all these dinosaurs?  I read dinosaur books daily people, over, and over, and over.

Here is a concerned Jayden.

Good thing I steered him clear of the Civil War video that was playing, because as we walked by and I hurried Jayden on, I watched some confederate soldiers shoot some farmer and then hold his family hostage as he burned their house down.  Glad I didn’t have to explain that one!

Here is a Xiphectinus Fish

And finally, a view of Ivan the Terrible T-Rex from the 2nd floor!