The Johnson's: Oct 12-18: We Forgot My Skates!

So, my thankfulness last week that I wasn't still sick with a cold while the kids were sick totally came back to haunt me! I woke up Sunday morning with severe stomach cramps that progressed quickly to icky symptoms. I was sick all day; it was an absolutely dreadful day, even though I was able to lay around in bed all day! On the bright side, it was only a 24-hour bug and I was able to get up and resume my Mommy duties on Monday. Kent should be thrilled that I was so considerate and got sick on the weekend rather than a weekday!! We have been super fortunate that I was the only one that got sick - thankfully, no one else has gotten sick.
Side note: Of course, just as I finished writing the above paragraph, I heard Elin coughing and when I glanced at the baby monitor, I saw that she had thrown up in her sleep and her crib was a mess. Yuck. I've gone 3 1/2 years without having a child get the flu and puke (I'm not counting the infant spit-ups and picky eater gagging here). Poor little Elin was so tired that she just sat calmly through the entire process of me cleaning her up and changing her pajamas and then stood patiently next to me as I cleaned up her crib and put a new sheet on her mattress. Every once in a while, she would give me a sweet little smile and sway a little bit, but I couldn't get her to sit or lie down. Kent came into the room just as I finished and he sat down with her and rocked her back to sleep. That was her only incident, so I think she might have gotten an upset tummy from something she ate for supper.

Looking back on the rest of the week, I can't really remember what we did that was out of the ordinary. I took both kids grocery shopping on Tuesday as I didn't feel quite up to par on my normal day for grocery shopping (Monday). We all survived that only thanks to the power of modern technology and YouTube videos! Thankfully, we can find Baby Einstein videos to watch, which both kids enjoy and I feel okay about letting them watch. All the Beginner Bible videos have been wiped clean from YouTube so we can't watch those anymore; I thought they were wonderful and miss them greatly. I've tried to find them on Amazon and am a bit shocked that I've not been able to find them there or anywhere else yet. If you know where I can get some, let me know!!

We also had swimming lessons on Monday & Wednesday afternoons this week. Yes, yes, I know, it is October but when you live in Florida even the outdoor pools can stay open through the end of November! Both Erik & Elin seem to really enjoy their lessons and rarely fuss or cry before or during the lesson. Now, if Erik would only listen to his teacher and follow instructions! He gets a little distracted during his lessons and starts saying really random stuff, such as "My shorts have flowers on them" and "That guy is swimming" and "Where is Miss Sasha (Elin's teacher)? Oh, there she is!" and "I hear sirens" and so on. You get the idea!

I did shore up my courage and took the kids to the library on Thursday. I've found it is so much better if I can get Erik out of the house and doing something each day. Otherwise, he ends up in time-out, Elin ends up crying a lot and I end up yelling a lot and then praying for forgiveness & patience! However, library visits are always a bit scary since both kids love to explore the various shelves (aka hide from Mommy) and Elin figured out recently that yes, she can pull books down faster than Mommy can grab them to keep them on the shelves. The kids' section of the library also has computers at cute, little kid-sized desks - a positively dreadful thing for my little angels! They both love to sit in the chair and see how they can crash the computer. A few weeks ago, both Erik & Elin worked in tandem to nearly destroy one machine - Erik froze the screen and then Elin pushed a few buttons which restarted the computer in Safe Mode. Thankfully, I was able to get the PC working again and I've learned to never let their tiny, little fingers touch the keyboard without me standing over their shoulder guiding them.

Friday this week was my Mommy day! Earlier this year, Kent had gifted me a day where he would keep the kids all day so that I could do anything I wanted! Our schedules finally worked out so that I could take my day and I was out the door by 8:30AM! I ran quite a few errands, had a chiropractor appointment and met Amy for lunch. It was very nice to be able to zip in & out of stores or linger over the clothing racks, depending on my whim!! Kent had a good time with the kids; he played with them at home and then took them to his office for a little bit so he could pick up some things he had forgotten on Thursday. We ended the day by having supper with the Zbaraschuk & Cochran families. Kent got lucky on that one as I was going to insist he do all the cooking & cleaning as well on my day off!!

And now, an entry from a guest writer - Kent!:
On Saturday night, I took Erik to his first sporting event - a Solar Bears ice hockey game. My boss gave me two of their season tickets. We sat mid-rink 10 rows back so we had really good seats. Erik was pretty excited about it considering he didn't really know what he was going to see! He sat on my lap whenever he was sitting down, as the movie style chairs proved to be a very unstable experience for him. He wasn't heavy enough to prevent it from being more like a teeter totter than a chair! He was very attentive for the pre-game introductions and most of the first period. We had chips and popcorn to chew on so that kept him occupied. He got scared twice when the canons went off during the starting line-ups. At the end of the first period he asked me if we could go back. I'm not sure where "back" was, but we went up on the concourse and walked around and bought some souvenirs (little hockey stick and a puck) and a refill on our $8 drink. We were well hydrated! We went and sat back down for most of the 2nd period and about half of the third. I let him watch some videos on my phone to keep him occupied. I brought headphones which proved to be a good idea. I couldn't believe the number of fights at the game. After we got home he informed us that he & Daddy had forgotten his skates and helmets! The ticket attendant at the game gave us a free knitted stocking hat for him to wear at the game. It wasn't actually that cold but he did wear it for most of the evening. He was excited by the whole experience and is anxious to learn how to ice-skate now. RDV Sportsplex near our house has skating so we will see what he thinks of that at some point.

Erik at the game (love his spiky hair!)

Trying out the seat

Wearing his free hat

Showing off his cool souvenirs

Okay, back to Kelli:

Erik had a funny moment this weekend that showed how my "parent-isms" can come back to get me. We were all getting into the car to go somewhere and Erik asked that I sit in the back between him & Elin. I normally comply with his request, but this time I said that I wanted to sit up front with Daddy and that Daddy wanted me to sit with him. Erik looked at me and said very clearly, "You are going to sit in the back with me and you are going to be happy about it!" I sat in the back and didn't fuss at all about it!

In the World of Elin, she has learned how to shake her hand for No-No. She now loves to do something that she's not supposed to do (i.e. drop things off her highchair tray, hit my arm, try to remove the book cover from library books) and then tell us No-No with the hand motion! Elin has also adopted a very cute mannerism this week where she will just start to giggle or laugh. If you giggle back at her, she will just keep going & going. I've never figured out what sets her off initially, but it is hard to resist a giggling baby!

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