My three year old’s favorite Bible story these days is the story of Samson. We’ve been reading to him from the toddler bible and he thinks Samson is great because he has really big muscles and fights lions. Today we read to him from the Picture Bible which goes into more detail. We got to the part where Samson meets a Philistine woman at the well and wants to marry her. Jude looks at the pictures for a few a while and finally asks — “Samson likes the girl because she has pretty earrings, doesn’t he?”
What a day! The good news is that after attending my little girl’s open house at school, I found out that besides enjoying her school and trying her best to get all “E’s”, she’s quite a friendly little things and has made friends of most of her classmates. That was nice! The “not so nice” side of things is that I found out I don’t have all the paperwork I needed, so V may end up having to sit out of school for a few days to a week until everything gets sorted out. Ah, well… I was close to tears trying to sort all this out and making multiple trips to V’s doctor, only to find that there is a lot of red tape involved with the paperwork I need. Justin saved the day with his sensible solutions and level headed… “It’s not the end of the world” encouragement. Lesson learned (of do your research). Live and learn — Arg!
With all the news you hear about obesity these days, one of my big concerns with V starting school has been that she will be exposed to a lot of unhealthy eating habits and sugary foods and drinks in particular. While the school breakfast menu does leave something to be desired. (they served pop tarts the first day and apple pie the next) I took a peek at their lunch menu today. I was pleasantly surprised to see to that most plates involved whole wheat products (pizza, hamburger buns, pasta). It turns out our school is one of ten in the area that are participating in a special nutrition program. Anyways, that was good news and it makes me happy that something is being done on the school level to help children eat healthier and be educated about healthy eating. Now… if they started having PE 5 days a week, I would be even happier.
Someone should get the word out in the medical community that doctors need to take their online reviews and presence seriously. And, it would be very helpful and probably good business sense to encourage (happy) patients to post reviews on them rather than having that one unhappy camper slandering your practice and being the sole review on you. When looking for doctors for my kids, I google each one on the list my insurance gives me and I will typically will go with one that has a few good reviews, good info on their education AND a picture. I’ve been amazed at how few of them actually have any helpful information or reviews on them.
And while we’re on doctors… dentists are worse! I got a list of three pediatric dentists and they all 3 have horrible reviews. I have yet to find a dentist that has good reviews. Either all dentists in Houston are “horrible, money mongers who are to be avoided until your teeth fall out,” or they need to get to work on some online reputation management. Crazy stuff!
I get home a few days back after being gone for a few weeks and what do you know… my two year has learned to argue! Of course, I should have expected that sooner rather than later being as being Paones, it was just a matter of time before they started to partake of the family tradition of huge debates at every family barbeque or gathering. So I’m putting my kids to bed and my daughter ticked her brother off somehow. His response?
Him: “I’m going to break your clothes!”
Her: “If you do that, I’m going to lock you out of the room and rip up ALL your clothes!”
Him: If you do that, I’m going to hit you with my bat!”
Her: Then I’ll hit you with the light saber”
Him: “But my light sabre is lost.”
Her: “Then I’ll hit you with the piggy bank”
Him: “Then I will poop on you.”
This is when I realized this was just going to go down hill and corrected them for being mean to each other. Anyways… so much to look forward to.
My 2 year old is going through that phase where he revels in anything that gives him a little more power over everyone else. Right now that just happens to be door locks. He will run ahead of you into a room and quickly lock the door. He’ll sit on the other side and “play” while we try every trick in the book to get him to open up. While visiting family in Austin last week, he pulls his lock trick just as we’re packing up and trying to get on the road. Justin and I tried everything we could think of for about 10 minutes. The only thing that worked was when I call out to his sister… “You want to watch a video?” He immediately threw open the door not wanting to miss out. My daughter just cracked up that the technique worked and kept going on about how smart I was… heh. (Yes, I’m enjoying it while it lasts) 
Anyways, so fast forward a few weeks. My mom now how a litter of newborn puppies which she’s keeping in her room for safe keeping. Well, what do you know, Jude decides to lock himself into her room to play with the puppies. Justin and my mom are freaking out, again trying everything. My 5 year old strolls up and offers to try. She call out… “I think I’m going to go eat all the Cheerios!” Sure enough, the door flies open within a few seconds. My smart little girl. We’ll see how long this tactic lasts.
