Quick, before I get Sidetrack'd

So, I have a bunch of posts I need to catch up on. Like S’s 2 year old post, M’s 5 month old post, general happenings posts, thankfulness posts; the list could go on and on. But while I’m here now I thought I’d share a couple of funny things that J has said lately.

A couple of weeks ago J was at basketball practice with Matt and E. Matt was helping a group of the kids practice shooting. After a few minutes, J walked into the middle of the group and said, “Stand back…the master is here!”

Last night he said to Matt: “Daddy, one time you almost got flickered by lightning.”

The other day in the car he asked me if our car has “hot wheels” or “cold wheels”. I had no idea what he meant and said, “Well, I guess they are kind of warm right now but will get hotter if we drive more.” And the conversation ended.

That same evening he asked Matt, “What are slow, Daddy, cold wheels?” Of course, Matt had no clue what J was talking about. After going back and forth for a minute trying to figure out what J meant, J said, “Are hot wheels fast?”

Matt finally realized that J was thinking about Hot Wheels cars and relating them to race cars, thus, going fast. So, in his 3 year old mind, if Hot Wheels are fast, then if it’s slow, it must have cold wheels.

And here I’ll throw in a funny little snippet from Matt not too long ago. He was telling a friend that it’s about time the friend and his wife have another baby. The friend asked why. Matt said, “For entertainment.”

Oh yes, it is definitely entertaining around here!

I asked each of the big kids to tell me five things for which they are thankful.

E
1. Daddy
2. M
3. Barney the armadillo (littlest pet shop toy)
4. My suitcase
5. Mommy

J
1. Mrs. Burks (BSF leader)
2. Dinosaurs
3. Flowers
4. Mommy
5. M

My children call fishing poles “fishing wands” and root beer “root beard”.

I wish I could record all of J’s speech right now to have when he is older. His enunciation, age-related speech “impediments”, tone of voice are just so cute (and often hilarious). I know that all too soon he will talk like a big boy and I love the way he speaks right now.

S is coming into her own in the speech department. She comes up to us and jabber, jabber, jabbers. Sometimes she points emphatically, sometimes she smiles. We know she’s telling us something, but have no clue what she’s saying. She does have a lot of words, though, including “ha-bow” (hairbow), “to-bus” (toothbrush), and the sweetest little “peese” (please) ever.

The other night after dinner we were discussing (at E’s prompting) what to do in the event of fire. J said that if your clothes are on fire you “stop, rock, and roll”.

J says “choke” when he means “joke”.

Any time a question is asked (such as, who wants dinner?) S raises both hands and says “Meeeee!”

J uses the word “usually” in place of “used to”. As in, “I usually tooked a paci when I was a baby.”

E is getting old enough that she doesn’t have many mispronounced or incorrectly used words. She often brings a smile to our faces with her phrasing or use of certain words, but most of her funny “baby speech” is long gone. It’s kind of sad. However, she currently uses the word “okay” like she’s a grown up. She will tell J or S something and then say, “okaaaaay?” in a high pitched voice.

Oh how I love “kid speak”. I’m really going to miss it in a few years when our kiddos are older, but right now I will smile, laugh, and soak it up (and record as much of it as I can).

This morning we went “out to the country” to visit my friend Lindsey and her gang. Apparently, while we were out there, Lindsey’s son was telling my kiddos about biting lizards. This is the conversation in the van on the way home…

E: I sure hope we didn’t bring any biting lizards home with us.

Me: I’m pretty sure we didn’t. Unless someone brought one home in their pocket.

J: I have one in my pocket. And it’s biting my leg!

That boy makes me laugh!

I want to write, but I only have a very few minutes before the littles emerge from rest time. So, I’ll give you a few outtakes from our day.

~ I am 23 weeks pregnant today. We have a lot to accomplish in the next 17ish weeks.

~ I wore a pair of non-maternity pants to my meeting this morning. I’m wondering how I kept them on my body pre-pregnancy.

~ S got her first busted knee this morning. J was trying to be helpful and hold her hand. He pulled a little too much.

~ We left home this morning in the rain. J had rain boots and no rain jacket. E had a rain jacket but wasn’t wearing her boots. I was wearing sandals. How’s that for prepared?

~ I’m trying a new recipe for dinner tonight. The listed prep time was 20 minutes. It took me almost an hour. And 3 pots/skillets. It’s a slow cooker recipe.

~ J’s birthday is this week. He’s requested a blueberry cake with chocolate icing. And Buzz and Woody on top.

~ E is singing a song to J about “never, ever play with matches.” At least we have fire safety covered.

~ In the car this morning, E was pretending to be a cat named Rainbow. She told me I could call her “rain” or “bow” or “rainbow” or just “cat”.

Hope you are all having a great Monday!

I’m going to do something today that I haven’t done in a while. (It could be because I haven’t really blogged much in a while, but let’s not rehash that.) I am going to participate in Chelsea’s fun little weekly link-up/meme known as Ten on Tuesday.

This week’s questions are all about names. Those who know me well (and know the difficulties we have choosing names around here) know that I have some issues peculiarities quirks about names. So, I thought this one was just too fun to pass up.

1. How did your parents decide on your name?
Here’s how the story goes (correct me if I’m wrong, Mom): Mom wanted to name me Sarah Melissa, but I had an aunt who wanted to use the name Sarah for her daughter. Mom deferred, and neither of my aunt’s daughters are named Sarah. My understanding is that my name (Jana) was some kind of compromise between Mom and Dad and has some basis from Jan on The Brady Bunch. I could be wrong, but that’s the way I remember it. My middle name is my Mom’s name and my Grandmother’s middle name.

2. Do your initials (First, Middle, Last) spell out anything fun/funny?
Nope. I grew up JCW and am now JCG. Nothing funny there.

3. Did you take your middle name from childhood or did you take your maiden name as your middle name? (If unmarried, what do you plan to do?)
I kept my middle name from childhood. I love my middle name, and it is part of my family history (see answer 1).

4. Are you or will you name your children thematically (ie. same first letter, all of same origin…)
No themes here unless you consider the fact that all of our children have traditional first names as a theme. I don’t.

5. Did you decide on baby names as a little girl? Did you stick to them or change your mind?
I had a bunch of names that I liked growing up. We have used none of them. I am just fine with that.

6. Does your family have any names that have been passed down through generations?
My middle name, as mentioned above. But, more impressively, J’s first name is a family name in Matt’s side of the family that goes back hundreds of years. Like to the mid-1500′s if I remember correctly. E and S also have family names, but not ones that have been used generation after generation.

7. Do you look at the meaning of the name or just the name itself?
Both. Biblically, a name was considered to encompass the fullness of the person (personality, traits, etc). I believe there is some truth in that.

8. Do you name pets with human names (Sally, Henry) or with pet names (Fluffy, Mr. Bo Bo)?
We don’t have pets with names. I mean, we don’t have pets, so no names.

9. Are there any names that you have an affinity or dislike for based on a childhood experience/someone you once knew?
There are a few, but Matt has a bunch. That’s one contributing factor in the difficulty we have naming our children.

10. What are some of your favorite names? Why?
I love our kids names (both first and middle). They are strong names with meaning (either familial or the actual meaning of or history of the name). Here are a few more that I really like but I doubt we’ll ever use for children – Annalise, Ellen, Audrey, Claire (or Clara).

So, after writing about not being sure if I want to write, here I am again. However, I’m making a list because this is a bunch of random stuff.

1. I’m tired of the kids “blog names”. I have several reasons: Little isn’t so much my “little bit of girl” anymore and I’m realizing it more and more as we approach Kindergarten in the Fall. Boo – the boy received his name in utero before we knew whether he was a boy or a girl. We’ve never called him Boo; however, Boo (or Boo-Boo) is Baby Girl’s real-life nickname. Sometimes it gets confusing (to me) who I’m writing about. And then there’s Baby Girl…since we don’t know the gender of baby number 4 yet, Baby Girl may or may not be the “baby girl” anymore.

So, what am I going to do about it? Instead of changing their nicknames I’m going to go with single letter designations. Henceforth, Little will be known as “E”, Boo will be known as “J”, and Baby Girl will be known as “S”. And, for now, baby number four will be known as number four.

2. S is walking now! She decided about 3 weeks ago to let go and take a few steps. She’s been building up her “endurance” since then and is on her feet most of the time now. She looks so cute as her tiny little body toddles around.

3. S goes to the doctor again this morning to discuss her weight gain “issues”. At 13 months she weighed 16 lbs. 14 oz. and the doc was really wanting her to be at 17 pounds by then. We’ll see what we find out this morning.

4. I’ve turned that 16 week corner in this pregnancy and am feeling much better. Today is doc appointment day, and I am really looking forward to hearing baby’s heartbeat. I’m hoping we’ll have the big ultrasound 4 weeks from today and find out whether this tiny one is a boy or girl.

5. E and J are doing great. They are constantly making us laugh, making us smile, and making us question our ability to parent. Just as it should be with little ones, I suppose.

I think that’s all for now.

In an effort to get back to writing, I’d love to know if there is anything that you guys would like me to write about. Any questions for me, any ideas, anything you’d like to read about?

I think I’m going to start using Friday (at least this week) to post 5 random out takes from our week. So, what’s been going on this week?

1. Monday started with a trip to the doctor for Little. She had been running fever off and on (but mainly on) since Thursday night. She ended up having ear infections in both ears.

2. To continue with the sickies, Baby Girl has had a runny nose and congested cough (when she’s laying down) since Tuesday. And now I’ve caught her cold and it looks like Boo probably has as well.

3. Moving on to happier thoughts…we put up our Christmas trees this week. The first one went up Sunday evening; it’s a smallish tree in the kitchen with snowman ornaments on it. The second tree went up last night; it’s our big tree in the living room. I love having the tree lights on!

4. We’ve been in the house A LOT more than usual this week. It’s been both good and bad.

5. We are really enjoying the Jesse Tree the last few days. Little asked several times yesterday about our Bible story, and she took the “stump of Jesse” ornament for show-and-share at school. I hope this becomes a meaningful tradition for the kids.

Happy weekend!

So, last week’s conundrum and down-in-the-dumps has passed thanks to a conversation with a very wise friend and many chats with God. I think I’m on the right track again now. Thank you to all of you who checked in on me. It wasn’t anything life altering, just something that was weighing on me.

So, we’ve been keeping busy of late, but there really hasn’t been much exciting to report. One thing that’s kept us smiling around here the last few weeks is Boo’s prayers. He’s to the point where he wants to pray anytime we do, but he doesn’t have a real grasp on the whole thing yet.

A few examples…

His dinner prayer a couple of weeks ago: “Bless, bless. The end.”

And at bedtime the same night: “God is good, God is good, God is good, God is good, God is good, God is great, God is good … um, the end.”

And then tonight at dinner: “Bless, bless, bless … what comes next?”

That boy sure brings joy to our lives! I love you, Boo!