Making cookies

What do you do when there are a billion feet of snow outside and there are -30oF windchills? Well you do some shoveling that's for sure.  On Saturday there was also some present wrapping, Nerf gun fights, and a Dance Dance Revolution tutorial for my almost 4 year old son.  Then Saturday night we went over to my parents (only a couple miles away) and watched movies, played board games, and had pizza.

But now it is Sunday...it is too darn cold to do anything outside so what did we do?  Well...after the car racing, more Nerf gun fights, contest to see who can shoot down more Galactic Hero figurines with the Nerf gun, some housework, and some Lego building.  We decided to make sugar cookies...with icing and sprinkles.

This meant we need to take a quick trip to Target to get supplies.  One of which was butter flavored shortening...I am not a shortening person, but I was willing to give it a try to make perfect sugar cookies.

We forgot to take pictures of the doing, but we got some of the aftermath.  Keegan help me cut out shapes, Lyle did the oven baking coordination.  Then we all chipped in with the decorating.

Keegan started out as the sprinkler of sprinkles, but was making a huge mess.  After seeing I was getting frustrated with him, he suggested he be the icing spreader.  Well I was dubious, but he actually did a wonderful job spreading icing.  Eventually Keegan and Lyle were both icing and I was the sprinkler...I am picky about my sprinkle uniformity...

We decided to flavor the icing so the green had a little mint extract adding, the pink some almond extract, and the blue some orange extract.  The orange flavoring was definitely the yummiest, but Lyle enjoyed the mint ones a lot too.  See pictures below.

 The froster extraordinare

Tired Karissa cleaning up the aftermath (let me tell you all that shoveling really takes it out of you!)

The sprinkles only cookies.

The Lyle and Keegan frosted ones up close.

The frosted ones.

The icing aftermath....

The biggest thing we learned from this is that...it takes a lot of time and is a lot of work...oh and Keegan is a really great froster :-)

Snow

You gotta' have that post about all the snow we got on Saturday if you live in MN so here is ours :-)

We got a ton of snow.  Here is the view of our deck from our living room window.  That black thing in the right-hand corner is the grill...yes it is buried under snow.

This is the view from our bedroom which also goes out to the deck.  This was halfway through the day, by the end of the day it was a foot higher up the door.

Below is a little movie showing the storm midway through.  Yep, I love Minnesota.  Actually what I do love about Minnesota is that even with all of this snow it was business as usual by Sunday :-)

Mental Leaps

Every once in a while Keegan starts making some mental leaps.  It seems like in a couple weeks he starts doing things that he wasn't doing earlier, not gradually but in a leap type of thing.

I know developmentally they say children will make cognitive leaps throughout their childhood; supposedly this can leave them cranky and out of sorts for a while.

Well we have been going through a bit of this.  The last week or so Kee has been one cranky little boy...but he also started doing some interesting things.

1) Lyle and I can no longer spell words that we don't want Keegan to hear.  For example I said "Lyle don't forget Keegan needs a B-A-T-H tonight."  Keegan says "Mom I know I need a bath, I just don't want one."

Or I say "Keegan wants some C-A-N-D-Y after dinner, is that okay with you?" Keegan replies "I get to have candy after dinner?"

The same thing has happened with the word Santa, now Lyle and I have to spell it backwards in order to talk about Tanas's presents."

2) Coloring and drawing.  Keegan was the king of scribbles.  He would make a vortex of scribbles and call it a volcano.  Today at Green Mill he flipped over his paper placemat grabbed a red crayon and drew a very clear volcano with lava blasting out the top.  Then he drew something over the lava and something down the side of the volcano.  I pointed to the volcano and asked if the read stuff was lava inside...Keegan said "No mom, it's magma...geez.  The stuff coming out of the top is lava.  The cloud over the lava is the ash cloud and the stuff going down the side is the pyroclastic flow (seriously he knows what a pyroclastic flow is)."  I was blown away!  In a week we went from scribbles to detailed diagrams of volcanoes.

3) Dexterity.  Up to this point Keegan has needed assistance with Legos.  He is way young to be playing with them anyway, but he enjoys them so we help him put together stuff he can't do.  Then on Thursday night the item out of the Lego Advent Calendar was a skeleton with these tiny ball socket joints for his arms.  I was having a devil of a time getting it together.  Keegan took it from me and snapped it together in 2 seconds and then handed it back "Here mom, I got it."  I was like "Uh, okay...when did you learn how to do that?"

4)  Money. As I think I detailed in a earlier entry, a couple months ago Keegan asked for chores so that he could make money of his own.  Today he asked if he could count the money he's made so far.  He wanted to take it to Target and maybe get a toy with it.  He was kind of sad that he's done all this work and has nothing but money to show for it.  Lyle and I are all about teaching him to save, but at his age he also needs to equate his hard work with reward (because face it I wouldn't go to work if I didn't get money and was able to use the money for things I like).  So we decided he could take the money and go to Target.  Keegan was surprisingly mature about it.  We told him how much money he had and he looked at a ton of different toys always asking how much they were.  When something he wanted was more money then he had he didn't whine, he just put it back on the shelf.  We explained he could save up his money and get it later, but he wanted something special today.  So he looked until he found a couple smaller things he had been wanting.  He was very pleasant about the whole thing and it really impressed me.

I am sure there are other things he has done that I just can't think of now.  For example he has started becoming more concerned of what people think of him; which is interesting too.  He is kind of hard on himself about certain things.  When he brought home a paper of letters he had traced I praised how good they all looked and he immediately pointed out all the ones he thought looked bad.  When he brought home a colored picture and I said how  much I liked it and put it on the fridge, he wanted to take it down because he said it was too scribbly and it looked like a baby had done it.  (It's still on the fridge anyway, because I like it and I think he should be proud of it).  I hope he is not too hard on himself in the future; but I know I was always very hard on myself so it's not too surprising he's like that...  

Anyway it is interesting to see him grow :-)  He is developing into a very interesting and capable individual!

Firetruck Santa

So last night was the night when Santa comes by on the firetruck and the Fire Station collects food shelf items.  Keegan was very excited and so was I :-)

Only this year it was a bit more complicated.  Santa was supposed to be by between 5:30-8:30pm.  Quite a large window, we knew that previous years he has come by around 7:30-8pm...so we figured this year would be similar.  What complicated this all was that we had swimming lessons until 5:45pm and then Keegan wanted to get tacos at Zantigos.  So we didn't get back home until 6:30pm.

At this point we had no idea if Santa has already been by or not, but we assumed not since we didn't hear sirens in the area.  While Lyle was getting Keegan ready for bed, I was scavenging through the pantry trying to figure out what we had to give to the food shelf.  I had meant to pick up some stuff earlier but forgot.

Then things got more complicated.  I wanted to get something out of my purse.  Hmmm...where is my purse.  Then I districtly remembered leaving Zantigo with a feeling of emptiness despite having just had tacos.  A couple there distracted me when they started talking to Keegan about Santa on the fire truck.  He of course had walked up to them to tell them all about how he had to eat his tacos fast so he could go home to see Santa.  So apparently my purse was enjoying a night at Zantigos.  Off I go to Zantigos to pick up my purse.  Which I found, with everything intact.  Yay for me :-)

I rush back home and Santa still has not stopped by.  It is now 20 after 7pm.  Keegan is in bed, Lyle and I are alternating freezing as we stand by the storm door and listen for sirens. 

Well Santa decided to take a different route this year.  He came in the back way, the way we can't see from our house.  So suddenly there he is trucking down the street.

Of course, for the first time in weeks, Keegan fell asleep by 7:15pm.  So I throw my coat on, race downstairs and grab Keegan.  He is very asleep.  He really wanted us to wake him up if Santa came.  So I am yelling "Keegan wake up Santa is here, he is here!"  Lyle throws Keegan's winter coat on and Keegan and I race down the driveway with Keegan in arms in the extremely cold temps.

Santa is already past our driveway but you can kind of see Santa and you can definitely see the fire truck.  So I am like "Keegan Keegan do you see santa!!!"  He mumbles "NO".  I am like "Keegan Keegan do you see the fire truck!?"  He mumbles "Yeah".  We get candy canes and give canned goods and run back inside.  We are freezing and my arms are about to fall off from lugging around a 35 pound toddler who is a half-asleep dead weight.

We get inside Keegan says "Mom, why did you do that? I want to do back to bed."  I carry him down to bed chattering the whole way about "Wasn't that exciting? You got to see Santa!!"

The majority of the night was wasted looking for Santa, stressing about missing him, and trying to get Keegan out to see him.  But we did it, we got out there to see him so it was all worth it.

Then what is the first thing that happens this morning?  Keegan wanders into the bathroom almost in tears, "Why didn't you guys wake me up to see Santa?"

I just stared at him.  Took a couple of deep breathes and said "We did Keegan, you saw him and I have the candy canes to prove it."

He says "No I didn't get to see him, you guys are so mean."  I walk him out and show him the candy canes.  He says "Oh...mom those are mint candy canes...I hate mint."

Thus began my morning...

Keegan and his cutie babies...

Last weekend (or was it the weekend before?) we cleaned out the storage room in the basement.  It was a lot of work, but Keegan found some interesting things.  One was a box full of my old beanie babies.  We went through the beanie babies and Keegan wanted to keep some of them.  Mainly he wanted all of the cats, a snake, a greyhound, and some other misc ones.  He lined them all up on a bookshelf in his room and there they sat for a couple days until he decided he needed some of them to sleep with him.

First was Hissy the snake, then Scat the cat.  For a few more days those two were his "cutie babies" and he took them everywhere.  Then he decided Scat was lonely; so he got Prance the cat and Meow the cat added to the mix.  Then while out at Macy's this weekend he fell in love with a small stuffed reindeer which he dubbed Rudolph (even though his nose is black we are supposed to pretend it is red because maybe it just got dirty).

So now he is walking around the house with Hissy, Scat, Prance, Meow, and Rudolph...quite the armful.  He has been taking care of them with his vet kit, building them houses out of tinkertoys, and generally making sure they get taken care of...he even had a picnic for them all.

The yesterday he decided they needed to come with us when we left to run errands.  Lyle and I were like, pick two to bring along the rest can stay home.  Keegan got all tearful and said the ones that got left behind would be lonely.  Finally I got his Transformers backpack and told him he could bring them all if he stuck them in the back pack.  Keegan then said he was worried that people would think he was funny because he had a backpack and wasn't going on a trip.  I told him no one would think he was funny, I carry a purse so he can carry a backpack.  Issue solved.

Then when we got to Best Buy he had to bring the backpack full of cutie babies in the store with us.  We had to zip up the backpack before we left the car so that they wouldn't get too cold.  It was getting a bit crazy, and although I don't mind accommodating some strangeness from Keegan; getting the backpack of cutie babies set every time we got in and out of the car was getting a bit bothersome.

Thank goodness Keegan decided the cutie babies were tired when we got home, so they needed to go stay in bed when we went to Keegan's friend's bday party in the afternoon.

But that wasn't the end of it.  That night Keegan made sure all his cutie babies were in his bed all tucked in and I was cleaning out his dresser drawers of old baby stuff he doesn't use any more.  I asked Keegan if he wanted to keep any of the small blankies or wash cloths for his cutie babies.  He scoughed at me and said "Mommy all my cutie babies can use the toilet, they don't need diapers."  I explained that these weren't diapers but washcloths and blankies.  Keegan brightened up and said "Oh, yeah.  My cutie babies are kind of dirty and they do need a bath!"

We read some books and then Keegan climbed in bed.  He lined up his cutie babies and then picked up Hissy and wrapped him in a washcloth.  Then he said "Mommy, I am wrapping up Hissy because he has a cold and I don't want him sneezing on me."  Stifling laughter I said "Okay, that sounds like a great idea.  Now are you done with your cutie babies so I can tuck you in?"  He looked at me very seriously and said "Well mom you don't need to tuck me in.  You see I have to wash my cutie babies."  I said, "okay but make sure you get to sleep soon."  He said "Okay, I'll try to be quiet, but you might hear some scrubbing down here..."

He is so funny.  Lyle and I listened for scrubbing over the monitor that night, but if he did scrub he did so quietly because we didn't hear much.

Childhood Screening and Conferences

I will start with my usual apology for being extremly negligent with this blog.  We have a great trip to Disney World and I haven't blogged about it...maybe I will get to it this weekend.

I thought I would write quickly about last night though.  We took Keegan for his Early Childhood Screening (ECS) (required by the State of MN before age 5) and had conferences with his teachers at school. 

I wasn't sure what to expect for the ECS; in fact to be honest I was a bit anxious about it all.  Would Keegan listen to the teachers during screening?  Would he do what they asked?  He is kind of headstrong and, though I am sure he is developing fine, I was not sure he would cooperate.

As usual I shouldn't have worried.  First he went through the ability screening.  They looked at if he could stack blocks, memorize things, do basic motor skills etc.  One of the most impressive parts was a part where he had to do analogies.  They started pretty easy with a color analogy something like "an apple is red, so a banana is ___"
Then they went on to harder ones.  The hardest one was "a table is made of wood and a window is made of __"
Keegan did both types flawlessly.  The teacher was impressed and told us that the second analogy is aimed at 5 to 6 year olds; 3 year olds never get it right.  She was also impressed with his memorization skills, his adding ability, and many other things.  She got a bit excited that he was doing so well...probably just to keep him interested in things :-)

After all was said and done with the ability screening part, well, Keegan did an excellent job.  He ended up scoring a 24 on the testing; he needed a 16 to be on track.  The girl that came out before us was five years old and scored a 21; which was on track for a 5 year old.  So basically we have a 3.5 year old that is thinking at a 5-6 year old level.  Kind of neat; I wish we could take credit for it all, but Keegan is just a good boy and tries really hard.

Then we went in for the hearing/seeing portion part of the test.  He passed both well.  His sight is in the 5 year old range in one eye and the 4 year old range in the other eye.  His hearing was a bit off cause he has a bit of a cold.  He was less patient with this part, he thought it was boring and was ready to leave.

After that we went to LeeAnn Chin's for dinner.  Keegan's pick; we had a deal going that if he listened well at the screening he could pick dinner.  While at LeeAnn Chin's we ran into his buddy Henry from daycare.  Then it was home to feed the animals and back in the car to go to conferences.

I was going to go to conferences by myself but Keegan really wanted to go, so we all went.

His teacher again had nothing but good things to say about him.  She told us lots of interesting things.  Him and his best friend are the two leaders in the class and lead most of the activities.  He mainly hangs out with a group of five or so boys; but also plays with the other kids some.  She talked about how smart he is and how helpful he is. 

She also mentioned that he comes up with good stories, and can be strong-willed.  Which we are well aware of.  Lyle and I told her to be sure and let us know if any issues comes up.  We want to know right away if he is causing or having any trouble.  She said she would, but didn't foresee any issues.

She also gave us his journal, which was super cute.  They sit the kids down individually every once in a while and ask them some questions and write the answers down in their journals.  I didn't know they did this, so it was a fun surprise :-)

Overall it was a very good day for us.  Everyone had nothing but wonderful things to say about the Keester.  As a parent I can tell you that it feels wonderful to have such a smart boy that everyone seems to like.  I am happy he has a good group of friends, that he is happy, and that he can sit down and listen to instructions well when he wants to.   I am just so proud of him and so amazed at what he can do.

Hopefully this entry doesn't come off as too bragging; I am not trying to brag about my son...but I am very proud of him and want him to come back someday and read this entry and know how very proud of him I am.

Let's talk about Lyme's Disease

So haven't blogged for awhile.  While I could talk about our trip up north or our upcoming vacation to Disney world, let's talk about the past weekend instead.

My husband spent this past weekend in the hospital with heart block from...Lyme's Disease.

Here is how things unfolded.  Last week I was out at the plant for a manufacturing run.  The run was brutal with a ton of problems, but in the end we got done what we needed to get done.  I had been concerned about leaving Lyle and Keegan because Lyle had been struggling with what we thought was a virus the last couple weeks.

Lyle kept getting these high fevers at night and was sore.  He went into the doctor they ran strep, flu tests and told him it was just a virus.  A week later he started feeling better and then these huge abstract shaped red spots appeared all over him; we are talking spots inches in diameter that look a lot like big hives.  So, he goes back into the doctor, the doctor determines he has a strange strand of mono.

I have to leave to go to the plant so I do.  With instructions to my mom to call Lyle a couple times a day to make sure he is okay.  The night before I leave he gets a bad fever again; needless to say I do not feel good about leaving him and the little monkey alone together.

Things seem to go okay while I am gone.  Lyle is tired and still struggling with a fever, the red spots are still there, but he is doing okay.  He is working from home because the mono diagnosis has everyone worried about how contagious he might be. 

Then while I am sitting in Salt Lake City, waiting for my flight back to Minneapolis to board, I call Lyle.  He says he is having trouble breathing, his heart hurts, and he is going into the emergency room.

The emergency room doctor, cardiologist, and infectious disease doctor decide he probably has Lyme's Disease pretty much right off of the bat.  He has classic symptoms and apparently heart block happens to about 10% of Lyme's Disease victims.  Since his heart rate is dropping into the 30's he is submitted to the hospital. 

I actually made it to the emergency room before he was transferred to the hospital.  It wasn't a great 3 hour flight back for me cause I was pretty worried.  Then I had to get to my car at the airport and take the 45 minute drive back up to Fridley where he was; it seemed to take forever.  Meanwhile I am also a bit worried because Keegan is still at daycare.  Luckily we have very supportive family and friends, so I had multiple offers to pick Keegan up and take care of him should I be stuck at the hospital too late.

Not trying to whine here...but I will add that while I was out at the plant I was averaging maybe 3-4 hours of sleep per day and eating eratically...so I wasn't in the best shape when I got back to town.  It usually takes me a day to recover from the sleep deprivation, lack of eating, and irregular hours I work when we are coating at the plant 24 hours a day.  So I think the whole thing with Lyle being admitted to the hospital was a bit more overwhelming than it would have been on a more "normal" week.

Anyway, they transferred Lyle to the hospital.  He was put on a 24 hour heart monitor and they started IV antibiotics.  Needless to say he was a bit grumpy about it all, but seemed in good spirits.

I was able to pick up Keegan and we ate dinner with Lyle in his room.  The most horrible part of the day was going to bed at home without Lyle and not knowing how he would be the next morning.

Well I shouldn't have worried.  Each day that passed found his heart rate closer to normal and his heart beats more regular and not so erratic.  After 24 hours on antibiotics his leisons started going away, and apparently itching like crazy.  They wouldn't let him out of the hospital though until his heart rate got into the 40-50's and was fairly regular.  I feel lucky that Unity specializes in heart care and is so close to our house.  Also lucky that they know how to deal with this now; later Lyle and I were talking about how not so long ago he probably would have died from this.

The worst part about this whole time for Lyle was boredom and irritation at having to be in the hospital; oh and being stuck with needles a million times.  The worst parts for me were being exhausted, trying to explain this to Keegan (who was already upset that I had been gone all week), trying to run back and forth to the hospital, and going to sleep alone every night wondering what would happen in the 8 hours I slept.

The best part about all of this was how our family and friends were so helpful.  My parents watched Keegan in the afternoon so I could spend some time with Lyle in the hospital (hospitals and three year olds aren't all that compatible).  My parents also helped us out with a lot of other stuff.  We got multiple offers from family/friends who wanted to help us out with stuff (doing laundry, mowing the lawn, watching Keegan).  That was just so awesome; it almost brought me to tears.  It was so comforting to know that so many people care about our family and were willing to help us out when things weren't going all that great.

The great thing is that Lyle got to come home Monday night.  Also taking care of Keegan and everything by myself wasn't all that bad, so I didn't need a lot of help.  It was a bit overwhelming the first day when I got back from the plant, but things kind of settled down after that.  It helped that Lyle was getting a lot better every day.

So now Lyle is at home.  He has to spend an hour to an hour and a half administering IV antibiotics via his PICC line every night.  After that he will have 4-6 weeks of oral antibiotics.  Then he has lots of follow-up appointments; EKGs to make sure his heart function is still improving, blood work, and afollow-up meeting with the infectious disease doctor.

We are hoping he won't have any lasting affects.  Things are actually working out pretty well because his PICC line comes out  right before we leave on vacation to Florida.  So, that should be okay and we are hoping we can still go to Florida because we have been looking forward to this all year.

Just dealing with his short stay at the hospital, I can't imagine how hard it is for families to deal with loved ones that are in the hospital for a long amount of time and not getting better.  On the other hand, we dealed with it and I am always amazed at how adaptable people can be when they need to be.

So, I guess the lesson is...check for those deer ticks and use lots of bug spray.  We never did find the tick that bit Lyle; the doctor mentioned a lot of time the ticks are never found.

Anyway, so that's the Lyme's disease story.  Hopefully Lyle will continue to improve and the antibiotics will do what they are supposed to.

It is worth mentioning that Lyle's stepbrother is going through some rough times right now.  They found out he had a brain tumor last week and operated on it Friday (around the time Lyle was admitted to the hospital).  There have been complications and last I heard they had done three operations and he had yet to gain consciousness.  So, we had planned to visit him this last weekend (which obviously didn't happen).  Anyway, keep him in your thoughts...hopefully he will make a full recovery but it is going to be a long recovery.  Lyle's poor parents were trying to run between the two hospitals keeping track of their sons; luckily Lyle wasn't in critical condition or anything, but they had a rough weekend of it.

Discussions with a three and a half year old

After swimming lessons this week we let Keegan pick where we would go to dinner.  He picked Zantigo's and while he and I picked out a table Lyle stood at the counter and waiter for our order.  Keegan sat in his seat and then looked at me quizically.
Keegan: "Mom what is groovicy?"
Me: "What?"
What followed was a few seconds of me guessing words and him getting frustrated with me.  Finally my brain started working better and I said.
Me: Gravity?
Keegan: Yes gravity?  Daddy told me it holds things down.  Does it hold me down?
Me:  Yes, it is also what makes things fall. Without gravity we would float away.
Keegan: Would we float to the moon?
Me: Not exactly, did you know the moon has different gravity?  If you were on the moon you could jump farther because there is less gravity to hold you down."
Keegan: "So if I were on the moon I might be able to jump all of the way back to earth?"
Me: Laughing, "Well probably not quite that far.  But you could probably jump to the top of Zantigo's if there were Zantigo's on the moon."

Keegan and I have had discussions about a number of things that surprise me.  Death was the first one, others have been what makes the seasons what they are (why is summer hot and winter cold), and if we can travel to space.  I don't usually think about three year old kids and think "Hmmm...I wonder if we will be discussing physics today?"  Mostly I think about teaching him to read and to do math and in general trying to explain the world around us in terms that he will understand.  We've talked about why the colors of the rainbow show up like they do and what makes it rain, etc.

To me it is just odd some of the things he comes up with.  Sometimes I am in awe of how his little brain works to figure everything out.  I am also in awe of how much he has to learn and at how much I have learned that I take for granted.  I am also greatful that I am as smart as I am, because I think this kid would think circles around me (and probably will do that in a few years) if he could.  I think I will be hard-pressed to keep up with him.

Another example of his strange deduction skills.  We were thinking about going out to Kelly's Farm. 
Keegan: "So we can see volcanos."
Us: "No to see a farm."
Keegam: "There are volcanos on farms."
Us: Look at him puzzled.
Me: Going Ahhh, "Keegan are you talking about the volcano book where the farmer had a volcano gradually appear in his farmland in Guatemala?"  Geez I had to search my brain for this.  We had read the book once, a month ago.
Keegan: "Yes, mommy.  All farms have volcanos."
Me: "Keegan do you remember when we went camping and drove by the fields of corn and soy?  Did those farms have volcanoes?"
Keegan: "No they didn't." looking a bit sad "So farms don't have volcanoes?"

You just never know what will come out of his mouth.  You also never know what it will be in reference to and how hard you will have to search your brain to figure out what he is talking about. 

Another conversation we had was about money.  Keegan wanted to know when he could start working to make money to buy toys.  Lyle and I stopped and stared at each other.  We told him we'd think about it.  I never thought about Keegan getting an allowance until he was older.  But Keegan brought up a good point.  How is he supposed to learn the value of things and to manage his money if he doesn't have any or earn any beside holidays and birthdays.  So Lyle and I discussed it and decided to give him a list of chores to do each week.  If he does them without complaining he gets $5.  The chores have to be pretty simple; but Keegan sets the table, feeds the cats, and picks up his toys every night.  He's been great about it.  Lyle stuck the $5 on the fridge as a reminder to Keegan what he is doing the work for. 

The last point isn't about discussion but just an amazement in my part about how kids grow in general.  Keegan is getting to be a big boy.  He has his own friends, his own personality, and is getting really good at picking up nuances in conversation.  He knows when people are happy or sad.  He works at making people feel better.  He is also starting to read some.

He advanced to Littles 2 for swimming and started while I was gone last week at the plant for work.  So I hadn't seen what they do in that swimming class.  I was amazed to see this week that not only can Keegan swim a good 10-15 feet without any assisstance; the teacher was letting Keegan and the other girl in his class have races.  Boy can those kids swim!  Boy is Keegan competitive :-)   Then the teacher was having the kids swim, flip onto their back and float, and then swim back to the other side of the pool.  No problem at all for Keegan or his classmate.  I just can't believe how much he has learned in such a short time.

Well that's more than enough blabbing from me for today...  I just can't wait to see what Keegan does as he grows and to hear the things he comes up with!  I should mention that last night Keegan also wanted to have a contest to see who could eat their applesauce fastest.  His exact phrasing was "Mommy, I'll beat you with my applesauce!"  I know he wanted to have an eating race.  But Lyle was in stitches; he was all like "Wow, it must be really messy to be beaten with applesauce..."

The mind of a three year old...

Keegan has been having trouble deciding on extra-curriculars.  He wants to do everything, but we won't let him do more than one or two things at a time...because we just don't need an overbooked three year old on our hands.

So a couple weeks ago I told him he had three more swimming lessons left and then we would take fall session off so he could do something else.  His response "I want to keep swimming.  I don't want to do ice skating, I want to keep swimming."  He was adamant about it and almost in tears at the thought of halting his beloved swimming lessons. So I said "Okay I will sign you up."  $200 some dollars later he is signed up for Littles 2 swimming lessons.  Then I remember the other reason we skip sessions it is because it is so freaking expensive.

Fast forward to last night.  I pick Keegan up.  "Mommy, do I have to go to swimming?"  I tell him yes he does, it is his second to last session and darn-nit he is going to finish up these last two lessons.  He complains and whines about how he hates swimming.  I am thinking "Geez, we just signed him up for another whole session of it!"  He stomps into the swimming school with his arms crossed and his face all pouty.

Finally Lyle and are are like "Dude, why do you hate swimming all of the sudden?"

Keegan: "I don't like doing the Humpty Dumptys"
Me: "What don't you like about Humpty Dumptys?  When you go under water?  When you swim back? When you jump in?"
Keegan: "WWeeellllll....I uh, don't like sitting down to fall in the water?"
Me: "Have you asked your teacher if you can jump standing up?"
Keegan: "WWeeeellll, maybe Humpty Dumptys are okay."
Me: "Okay, so then why don't you like swimming?"
Keegan: "Well swimming is okay I guess."

Keegan proceeds to have a great time in swimming class.  He tells his teacher he would like to stand and jump into the pool instead of sitting to fall in.  She thinks it's a great idea and lets him.  Then it is after class.

Me: "So how did you like swimming?"
Keegan: "It was fun mom, I love swimming!"
Me: "So you like swimming?"
Keegan: "Yep!"

Then what was all that complaining about?  I am confused.

A similar thing happened with soccer lessons.  For a fee Keegan can attend soccer lessons at daycare once a week.  Last week was his last session, so we had to sign him up for 4 more lessons if he was going to attend this week.  Not wanting to waste money on something he hates we had the below conversation.
Me: "How do you like soccer?"
Keegan: "I hate it, I don't want to do it anymore."
Me: "But you loved it last week.  Do you want me to sign you up for more lessons?"
Keegan: "NO, I never want to do again."

Okay...so I email the soccer teacher and let him know that Keegan will be sitting out this session.  Time passes, now it is Tuesday, the day before normal Wed soccer, which Keegan will not be attending. 

Keegan: "I get to do soccer tomorrow right?"
Me: "No you said you didn't want to so we canceled your lessons."
Keegan: "Why are you so mean to me?"
Me: "Do you want to do soccer now?"
Keegan: "I love soccer, I am not talking to you anymore, you are so mean to me, why did you make me stop!"
Me: "Umm...so you want to sign up for more soccer?"
Keegan: "What did I tell you?!  I told you I love soccer!"
Me: "Maybe you should talk to you dad about soccer when we get home."

Then Keegan had a similar conversation with Lyle in which Lyle was a "mean person" for not letting Keegan play soccer.  Geez, I can't keep up with the kid's sudden changes.  If this is a premonition of what he is going to be like as a teenager shoot me now!

So I e-mailed his soccer teacher to let him know Keegan has had a change of heart and he should pick up Keegan for soccer lessons.  I went online to purchase more sessions; their website was down.  I e-mailed his teacher to let him know that really we were going to pay for more sessions, but we couldn't because their website is down.  I check over and over, finally two hours later (9pm) it is up and running and we are golden.  Keegan has his soccer lessons reinstated...I am exhausted by all this changing and all of this emotional trauma we are apparently putting my son through. 

So you guys tell me does this get better or worse as they get older....???

We got paid!

Lyle switched jobs to Medtronic in July and for me it is always nerve-wracking while we wait to see when we will actually get paid when he switches to a new contract...so when I came home last night to find a check from them in the mailbox earlier than expected I was estatic.

I did a happy dance and jumped around yelling "yay, we got paid!"...to absolutely no one.  Then Lyle came home and I told him and he was like "uh, yeah, of course we did".

Anyway, I am excited and feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.  Especially since the remainder of our Disney trip is due next week and Lyle is talking about ripping out the carpet in the playroom...

So Yay to Medtronic for being prompt and having a finance department that is functional!

Crazy weekend...again

We love to fill our weekends full of lots of fun things.  It keeps us moving and prevents too much vegging out on the couch (which is hard to do anyway with a 3 year old around).

This week was a wonderfully fun yet crazy weekend.

It all started on Friday.  Keegan and I stayed home together, we only have one more Friday together until I go full-time, so we decided to make the most of it.  This involved doing whatever Keegan wanted to do with the caveat that we had to fit grocery shopping and laundry in there somewhere.

So, Keegan wanted to build a mini-golf course with his duplos around the house.  No, I don't know where he comes up with this stuff...  Well that's what we did for a number of hours.  Then off to grocery shop.  After that we did the next thing Keegan wanted to do, go to the Adventure Park...a wonderfully air conditioned play area that makes me feel like a large gerbil.  After all of that we stopped by the library and then came home for lunch/nap.  Yes we did all of that before 11am.  Keegan was kind to me and took an extra long nap.

Saturday was even crazier.  We meet some friends for breakfast and then went mini-golfing with them.  Saturday morning was dreary but actually kind of nice for mini-golfing.  We played both courses at the Spring Lake Park Amusement Park; totaling 36...yes 36...holes of mini-golf.  It was fun.  After that we skipped lunch and took naps.  Then it was up to run down to Whole Foods to recycle our number 5s (yogurt containers mainly) and pick up some of the less necessary but oh so yummy items we can't find anywhere else.  Then over to my parents' house to play games.  Keegan is into games right now, I think I mentioned that in my last post.

We were pretty wiped out after all of that so then it was bedtime...at least for Keegan.  Lyle and I had some obnoxious things to blow-up in the latest Borderlands expansion.

Sunday morning was more craziness. We went out at 8am to start doing yard work, finished that up and then had to come in and build some cars with Keegan's new Lego set.  Then off to Alec's 1st birthday party.  Keegan had an absolute blast at Alec's bday party.  There were a lot of other kids there his age and Alec's parents gave out inflatable swords as a party favor to all the kids.  Keegan ran and was crazy forever (almost 4 hours) and ate cake and then played some more.

By the time we got back from the party it was too late to put Keegan down for a nap so we did the logical thing to wind down from it all and packed up and road our bikes to the beach.  At the beach we swan in the lake, shot each other with squirt guns, built a castle, built a dams, and splashed in the splash zone.  It was again fun but exhausting.  To top it all off we ran over to Green Mill for dinner because I was too tired to think about making anything.

Finally Keegan went to bed and Lyle and I got to do other things that involved more sitting than running.

It was a wonderfully fun, but exhausting weekend.  And just the first of many exhausting weekends to come.

Let the games begin...great games for preschoolers

There are only about a million things I could blog about...I could blog about home much fun we had at the Minneapolis farmer's market on Sunday and how much fun we had at the outlet mall.  But instead let's talk about games.

Lyle and I love games.  We love board games and video games and just games of all types.  So of course we want Keegan to love games.   Well this last week or two he has been totally into games.  It is awesome.  It beats chasing each other around and slaying dragons (although that is fun two) or capsizing the pirate ship (clothes basket) and drowning at sea...although that also has its place in playtime.  But to sit down and play a good game as a family...well nothing beats that.  We have a ton of kid games and keep getting more.

So what great kid games are out there for preschoolers (and younger)?  Let's start with the mediocre ones and go to the ones that are awesome for everyone.

Well we have your typical mediocre ones....
- Candyland: I know I loved this game as a kid and Keegan does too, but it only lasts one playthrough and then he is bored.  Not a great game for parents, I need my coffee when I play this one.



- Hi Ho Cherry-o : This one is a little better than Candyland.  The novelty of taking the cherries on and off the tree is fun for a while.  The game can get long though and it gets boring.


- Cooties: Love this one and I still like it...although the new version has Cooties that don't stay put together as well as the original set did.


- Silly Faces: This is a cool concept but the colorforms work like crap so it ends up being kind of a bust.


Then we have the ones that are more fun:
- Cariboo: Love searching for the little balls and opening up the treasure.  Not a ton of fun for adults but it helps kids learn letters and counting, shapes and colors.  It also has an advanced way to play (which at 3.5 yrs old Keegan finds a little challenging but can do, so it's not that advanced)


- Polar Bear ABCs: You go fishing for letters and spell words.  Again tons of fun for Keegan and comes with a ton of word templates.  Not much fun for mom.


- Hungry Hippos: Okay I have to admit this game holds a special place in my heart and is fun for the whole family.  Does it teach you anything...well maybe how to smash those hippos around as fast as you can but that's about it.  Also the new version of it has cheap hippos that get jammed a lot.


- Memory: There are so many versions of this out there for kids.  And it never gets old.  It is something kids and adult can play together and it is interesting.


- Elefun: This is another one that is fun for everyone but it is way to short and really only teaches you how to run around like a crazy person catching butterflies.  Great for winter!


- Can You See What I See?: A game based off of the books.  Super easy to play and pretty fun.  Gets boring after playing it a couple times.


Then there are the ones that are a blast for everyone:
Hisss: You put together different colored snakes.  Super easy to play, Keegan started playing this around 2 yrs old, fun for everyone.  You can spread snake parts on the floor and make it more active.  Teaches color matching, order (need one head and one tail), and taking turns.


Animal Upon Animal: We play as adults all the time.  Keegan is still a little young for it because it requires a lot of coordination, but we take it easy on him and it is fun.


Wild Wool:  The only Lego game Keegan is old enough to play.  This is a lot of fun.  You build the sheep and wolf and then take turns adding wool to your sheep.  We have a blast and Keegan can fiddle with his sheep the whole time....


Hullabaloo: This is Keegan's all time favorite game.  He loves it.  It is awesome.  You place pieces all over the floor and have to run, jump, swim, etc, between them.  Think Simon Says crossed with Twister.  Helps Keegan learn shapes, foods, musical instruments, animals colors and how they are spelled.  It is fun for adults too because everyone has to act silly...


Zingo!:  Like Bingo with Zing!  This is probably the adults favorite kid game (tied with Animal Upon Animal and Wild Wool).  Has a cool little machine that puts out plastic pieces that you have to place on your bingo card.  Super easy, super fun because it is a free-for-all when the pieces come out (the quickest to grab them gets them).  And the adults get to sit down and not contort on the floor like we have to for Hullabaloo.


Flapdoodle: This one is again a bit old for Keegan, we have to read the cards for him and some of them are just too tough (it's meant for ages 6 and up).  But it is a crazy fun game and I highly recommend it if you are up for some craziness.



What do you guys think?  Do you have any games that you love playing with preschoolers or older children?  Any recommendations?