I forgot to post this

This is how Jordan rides a bike:

28 Months Old!

Another amazing month of growth, words and INDEPENDENCE.

My goodness, I grow 'em independent. So independent, it's why Jordan got moved into the 2 1/2 and 3 year old classroom. They knew she could hold her own... But unfortunately, her teachers will have a lot of "breaking" to do. Jordan has ruled the roost with her previous teachers. Now she has to listen and follow instructions more. Her class is bigger. The kids are a lot older (a number of the kids are already three years old). Many of the kids are potty trained. It's kind of overwhelming to see her around these kids who seem SO much older. So things are going to change for Miss Boo.

This past month Jordan has turned the "two year old thing" up a very large notch. I build my kids loud and strong. I can't complain about that. She also started to hold her own a little better with her brother. Those things I've never seen before -- little shoves, little taps and annoying brotherly things -- are now being verbalized (or tattled) by Jordan. "Mom! Cameron hurt me!" Her brother isn't getting away with anything anymore.

Her swimming teacher today said Jordan would probably do better in the non-parent involved swimming class where older kids are taught... Since the Mommy or Daddy vs. Jordan experience isn't going very well these days. She is just THAT independent. But we love her. And darn are we proud of her. She's talking, she is trying to do EVERYTHING on her own. She's turning into a strong-willed, confident little person and I couldn't be prouder. (Or more exhausted)

What a weekend

It was quite a busy weekend -- Busy because I really wanted to spend time with the kids and have fun. In between the fun, I had many interesting challenges with Jordan. The battle over shoes, getting dressed and putting on the seatbelt continued.

It is tiring and at some points, I have to just get her dressed, get her shoes on and put her seatbelt on. I look forward to bringing in more concepts of logic for Jordan. I think she can make decisions with logic when she wants to -- But in most cases, she just gets so upset that I'm making her do something that she didn't choose to do, there's no chance in reaching her. Typical two year old stuff.

Jordan was a trooper when I helped coach Cam's t-ball team. Randy is out of town so I had some extra responsibility in helping keep the practice in motion. It was tricky keeping Jordan out of the parking lot AND Cam focused on the ball.

After practice and a challenging trip to the grocery store, both kids helped me cook egg burritos for dinner. Cam and Jordan helped me crack the eggs - something I'd never done with them before. Cam was super careful with the eggs. Jordan knocked the poopy out of the eggs. They both loved it. Most nights I'm rushing so fast to get dinner cooked that I don't get the kids involved. It was kind of cool to let them help out even a bit.

A number of big changes

You can tell that I'm swamped at work when I don't blog as regularly. It's so glaringly obvious.

Well, while I've been swamped at work, Jordan's had some big changes in her world.

First, she transitioned into a new classroom this week. She is now in a room with a majority of kids who turn three in the next month or two. It's kind of strange to see Jordan as the littlest kid after she's been very much in charge in her classrooms for the last 6 months or more. But the change is perfect for her. She's so dang verbal that in the last week, her speaking has improved dramatically because she can really talk to the kids in her new room. PLUS, a lot of these kids know how to use the bathroom. And that means Jordan was immediately motivated. We made some progress in that department - even though I haven't moved forward to an all-out training method just yet. (P*tty training bloggers, please do not leave comments, I have my own system thank you very much)

Jordan also officially grew out of her shoe inserts - it was a painful realization. I had noticed a red spot on the side of Jordan's foot, but it rapidly turned into a blister that bled. Randy noticed it when he dropped her off to school yesterday, so I immediately went on emergency shoe patrol. Before yesterday, Jordan had three pairs of shoes: sneakers, a pair of dressy/casual brown shoes and a pair of black dressy shoes. All three pairs had the insoles pulled out to fit the inserts. Well, without the insoles or shoe inserts, Jordan would NOT wear them. So I ran to Target and bought some new Dora sneakers. I also splurged and bought a pair of princess sandals. I realize Jordan will get new inserts and won't be allowed to wear sandals again. But in the meantime, I wanted to give Jordan the chance to play with a pair of sandals. She LOVES both pairs of shoes. She spent a lot of time at school yesterday and today telling the grown ups about her Dora shoes and how she had princess shoes. (By the way, Jordan's pronunciation of princess sounds like "penciss" and confuses people who think she's saying "pencil")

I'm thinking about really working on living a pants-free lifestyle in the house this weekend to get the real training underway. I'm feeling inspired... Even though I need to read three graduate projects and two graduate project proposals.

Yeah. I'm crazy.

Speaking of crazy, Randy and I were both told we are getting promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor. That's a big honor and it's nice to be recognized for all the hard work we give to our jobs.

Playing with video

My newsroom has new cameras and I wanted to figure out how to use them. So I took it home and shot some video. I edited it together and here's some of the results.

First - Video the proves Jordan will say that she loves anything. Even poopy.



She also loves me.

AND some morning playtime with songs and a little loving message to my Aunt Jan -- you can kind of her Jordan says "I love you Aunt Jan" and "Get well soon" before she plays peek-a-boo with the camera.

I almost fell over laughing

The kids rarely take baths together... But we were going to bed late and I had to offer a two for one bath-time to save time. It was so dang funny to watch that I had to take pictures and video.

Our town held its annual Earth Day celebration... Giving us a chance to watch all of the locals pull out their hippie clothing ad dance to drums. I unfortunately blew the event after sending Randy to the car for a camera that I didn't leave there -- I left it at home. Then we had a hard time meeting up... Since my phone as in the camera bag. (nice one, eh?) Anyway, we were able to relieve the stress with the help of watching Jordan eat her very first popsicle. Oh my goodness. It was SO FUNNY. And messy. Add in some face painting and an Earth ball for Cam to jump on and things were better. Jordan was exhausted... I actually had to wake her from her nap so she could get to bed at a reasonable time (note back to the bath). The only challenge that we face for now is during Earth Day, Jordan fell down onto a sidewalk and cut her little arm just slightly. I'm a little worried about putting her arm into a prosthetic all day tomorrow. I guess I'll check to see how it looks in the morning and make a last minute decision.

Cool!

Look!! Look!! I dropped Jordan off at school during music time. The kids were banging on drumsticks to the beat of the music. The teacher handed Jordan two sticks, so my little girl dropped one of the sticks into her prosthetic hand and started banging onto the stick. I took pictures because it was so cool.

Long delay!

After a relatively long business trip, I'm home again with the kids. I hate being away for so long, but I did a lot of good stuff for my students and I got to see a ton of cool technology and ideas. (I was at the RTNDA/NAB conference in Las Vegas - such a silly town)

Jordan got to spend time with her grandparents while her dad and I worked and had fun. We stayed at the super trendy Palms hotel, ate amazing food and even got to see Cirque du Soleil's Love show as a way to celebrate our tenth anniversary. Those who know us are probably wondering if what happened in Vegas came home with us like Jordan -- I have high hopes that we'll remain a two kid family.

The kids and the grandparents left us a sweet note on the door when we got in. I think they missed us.

I'm trying to get Jordan back into the swing of life with Mommy. She's taken to screaming for what she wants. Unfortunately for her, I don't do things for screams so she's going to have to find her talking voice to get action from her mommy. It might take some time to work that out.

This morning we walked Cameron to school in the rain. I decided to put Jordan in the hiking backpack so we could use an umbrella together. At some point Jordan dropped her lamby on the sidewalk. So we hopped in the car and drove around to look for that precious pink thing. The entire drive Jordan was yelling: "Lamby! Lamby!" as if we were looking for a missing dog. It was so funny. Anyway, the wet little lump of pink was discovered on the sidewalk near the school. All is well -- and a cleaner, drier version is waiting for her when I take her to school for the day. It's bring a stuffed animal to school today - so she'll get to bring her new love: A little white Webkin she has lovingly named "Puppy." And no - we haven't gone online to plan with her cyber Webkin. We aren't like that yet in this household.

By the way - that's a picture of Jordan playing with a bubble maker I bought recently. She loves it and I had to play outside with the kids before work yesterday.

Super silly

Jordan is a kick. She is SO stubborn. She's so stubborn that you have to laugh. Her new thing is to take a stand. A loud and screaming stand. It is so appropriate since she's my kid. But today was a turning point.

She talked back at me. I was telling her that we were going to pick up Cameron at school and she kept saying: "No Cameron's school."

I told her yes, we were going to to get her brother when she yelled, screamed: "NO CAMERON!" There was a tone of disdain that I'd never heard before.

Ah life with a two year old. She's also taken to throwing an all-out tantrum when I try to get her dressed or when I need to buckle her into her car seat. Traditional stuff to try and test my will to live.

It's all good. And exhausting.

Busy day

We started the day with an awesome hike. The four of us headed to the nearby state park and enjoyed my favorite two mile trip. Jordan had fun - especially at the end of the hike when she got to get out of the backpack and walk on her own. She was having so much fun at one point I had to remind her to look where she was going -- it was a good idea to walk onto a bridge instead of into a creek.

The evening, we got to go to Cam's first t-ball practice for the season. Last year's practice was while I had to work, so this time around I get to meet the parents early. That was kind of nice. The most interesting moment: A little boy named Jordan (who happens to be 3) asked about Jordan's arm. His mom started talking about his friend who has a little hand. I thought that was really exciting. Apparently there's a little girl who has malformed fingers in his pre-school. Hooray! A new person to meet! The mom said she'd look to see if there's a way to meet this little girl. Go team! The more friends, the merrier!

Party girl

Jordan had a BLAST at Cameron's birthday party. She had to connect herself at my hip when she woke up from her nap (30 minutes into the party)... But once she warmed up to the huge crowd of kids and parents, she was very happy.

There are a couple of really funny things going on in Jordan's world outside of the eye drops and two year freakouts. Jordan has picked up on a sentence her brother says all the time. He often say: "Let me tell you something." Because he ALWAYS says that, Jordan's new thing is "Let me show you something." (It really sounds like "Let me tell yah sumptin') She always grabs my hand, pulls me in the direction she needs and says it. It's a bit challenging when I'm trying to shoot video or take pictures during a birthday party. She also breaks into an "I love..." conversation. She just starts listing off things that she loves. "I love mommy. I love daddy. I love Cameron. I love elephants. I love chocolate. I love shoes" It just pops up into her conversation. The best was in the car on Friday. It just went on and on. She loves a lot of stuff (and people).

One other thing: Boots. Cam got rain boots for his birthday and that inspired Jordan to want a pair of boots of her own. So we went through her winter boots and she's madly in love with a pair that will fit her in the Fall. They are warm. They are cute. She won't take them off. She wants to sleep with them at night. She wants to wear them with every outfit. They are at least one or two sizes too big! Super funny.

Ten years ago...

I had no idea what my life had in store for me... But I knew I wanted Randy to be a part of it.

Ten years ago, I thought I knew it all... But I was only just getting started.

Ten years ago, I promised to share my life with my husband and we've been on a wild ride.

Ten years later, I am so lucky. I have a husband who loves me, puts up with me and helps me take time to enjoy life. Who knew we'd be newsroom managers and professors. We had hoped to to be parents, but we could have never guessed the amazing roller coaster we'd ride with our kids. We had hoped to own a home, have a dog or two... We have it all. We are so lucky and exhausted.

Ten years later I love him as much as I did on April 4, 1998. We know each other better. We love each other deeper. In some ways we're still figuring each other out... But that's the only way to keep things interesting, right?

Happy Anniversary my love!

A party and goop

Yesterday was Cameron's big birthday - and Jordan had to learn what it's like to not be the center of attention. It's the first time when she had to watch someone else open presents. Someone else got balloons. Someone else had songs and cake. She tolerated it pretty well... Except for the beginning of present opening. She didn't like it at all. Eventually she was really happy with the wrapping paper. It's the little things.

At the same time, I started to notice Jordan's eyes were getting SUPER goopy. It was really gross and Jordan was complaining about her eye hurting. I knew that she wasn't going to be able to go to school today. I called the doctor and after a VERY uncooperative two year old experience, she was given eye drops to deal with conjunctivitis. No fun. They actually think she has a virus in her eye that's turning into a bacterial problem. Poor baby. She's doing great with the eye drops - she actually just stayed on the floor and let me put them in. I don't know if that will continue when she starts feeling better.

**UPDATE** She's already feeling better. I'm keeping her home with me today - but I know she'll be back to normal tomorrow and uninterested in these eye drops.