The Great Adventures of Jon-Jon

The following is a true story.


I had just finished bringing in the groceries and I was about to close the garage door. Jon-Jon was playing on the scooters in the garage. I pushed the button and noticed that Jon ran over to the door to check it out. I called to him to stop since I was worried that he would get squished by the door or at least get a finger pinched. I didn't expect the reality. He grabbed the bottom lip of the door when it was about to touch bottom. The sensor stopped. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then the garage door started reversing. Jon kept hold of the door. I was too astonished to do anything while the door lifted my two year old up to the ceiling. I thought surely the door would stop (it didn't), then I thought surely the boy would let go (he didn't), then I worried that he would let go and fall. I ran over and grabbed him. He looked a little wide eyed, but during the whole experience, he only called out, "Mom, Mom" in a tone that implied that he was a little unsure of the situation, but not at all in a panic. *sigh*

Halloween Preparation

We had our traditional "Get Ready for Halloween" night last night. Karen came over for dinner and Family Home Evening. We had a lesson on service, with a follow-up on Karen's humanitarian trip to Mexico. The kids LOVED the pictures she brought back of the kids who received our care packages. We also used Google Earth to find out where in Mexico they were. After the lesson, we did a scavenger hunt that Karen brought and set-up. The kids solved clues to find pieces of a skeletong named Dead Fred. It was cute, especially Braden's answer to one of the riddles. It rhymed... "It's Dead Fred.... you get up in the morning and make your......." Braden's answer was Breakfast. We then carved pumpkins. I will have to get pictures up soon. Emma did Charlie Brown and Braden did Snoopy. I was working on Bert and Ernie. Adam and Karen did a classic pumpkin.

The Left Hand of God

I was driving with my Mom and the kids this afternoon when the following discussion occurred. My mom was telling me about an experience that my brother's little boy had a couple of weeks ago. Gardner got in trouble with another 5 year old. She told him that he had to stop doing something because otherwise "he would be on the left hand of God."
Emma: "What does being on the left hand of God mean?"
Braden: "It means that you are the second counselor."

Since I'm the second counselor in the Primary, I guess that means that I'm on the left hand of God. *grin*

Fall Break Vacation Collage

Fall break is this week and we are in Idaho visiting my parents. Yesterday we took our kids and most of my nieces and nephews to Zoo Boise and the Discovery Center. The kids had a great time. Then we came home and ate pizza. After scriptures and prayers, Braden, Emma and Adam were invited for a sleep-over in my parents' new camping trailer. They thought that was amazing.

Today, we went to the mall in Boise and got some amazing bargains. We went to a little girls dress shop and found one dress that was on clearance because of a little stain. When Mom and I went to buy it, the shop lady mentioned how they had just sold a whole bunch of fancy dresses for $1. She also mentioned that she had a bunch of fancy dresses in the back that she couldn't sell because of flaws. I mentioned that my Mom was a seamstress so she brought them all out and we ended up buying 6 fancy dresses for $1 each and the yellow satin dress with a stain that will sponge right out for $13. Each of the $1 dresses is completely fixable with about 15 minutes of work. We figured that we saved $600 off of the original tag price. We went to The Children's Place where the clearance was all 50% off plus a 15% off coupon. I bought Emma the cutest boots for $7. Then we went to Sears where the clearance stuff was all on clearance for more than 75% off. YEAH. I love clearance shopping.

After shopping, we came home and got ready for swimming. Braden went to the Rec Center and got oriented on The Zone, which is a weight/resistance training center for youth 10-15. They work carefully on strength building not muscle bulking. We all went swimming at the Rec Center after Braden's orientation. Now we are getting ready for dinner. Braden and Emma went fishing with my Dad this morning so that Braden could earn the Fishing Belt Loop for Webelos. We are having the fish for dinner much to Braden's consternation. I told him that if he want to go fishing or hunting that he would have to be willing to eat anything he caught because I wasn't going to let him go out just to "kill".

Finally, Eric and I are going with my sister, Heidi, and her husband, Justin, to a 50s dance they are having in their stake. FUN!

GoodReads

One of my new favorite websites is GoodReads. I love being able to look up what my friends are reading, and I love being able to review books and get ideas for other things to read. Check it out!

Weight Loss Update

Well, we didn't do so good last week. We were both up two pounds. *Sigh* Recommitting is harder than I thought. Yesterday and today, I took Jon for a walk in the baby backpack. He is getting a bit large for the thing, and it's difficult to walk straight when he keeps throwing his weight from side to side and up and down. You might think I was slightly drunk because toward the end of the walk he's really getting bored and moves around a lot.

I've discovered that it's getting harder to find time to exercise during the afternoon because Adam's bus schedule is different and Jon takes a shorter nap. So I'm hoping the walks with 30+ pounds of weight might do some good. Of course, now the weather is supposed to be changing. Snow is coming. I'll figure something out

Jon-Jon and sleeping update

Jon was very cranky last night, but I put him in bed and warned him about the time out chair. Eric brought up one of the stools for emphasis. I left the room to check on the others kids and I came back and he was lying off the edge of the bed. I warned him again, and he pulled his legs up and went to sleep.

OK, so I thought it might have been because he was so tired. This afternoon, I put him down for a nap a little early. I warned him about the time out chair and left the room to read my scriptures. I sat on the stairs in the hallway to read just in case. In the time it took to read two chapters of the Book of Mormon, he was asleep, with no attempts to get out of bed.

HURRAY! This is so much better than having to sit there beside him, repeatedly putting him back in bed.

Jon-Jon and sleeping

We are working on getting Jon to bed at night. When we moved him out of the crib, we thought that it would 0nly take a couple of weeks for him to get the idea that he still needs to stay in bed even thought the bed doesn't have bars to keep him in anymore. Well, it's been 6 months and we are still having to sit on the floor beside the bed to keep him from destroying the house.

Jon is probably the most inquisitive of all of the children. He can also make a mess faster than any child I've ever seen. The other problem is that he responds different to discipline than the others. Nothing that worked with the others works with him. Restraining him on our laps doesn't work. Spanking REALLY doesn't work. (I spanked him once and he turned around and hit me back. Since we were also working on the "no hitting" idea, I didn't feel like I could tell him "no hitting" if I had just swatted his bottom.) So I have discovered that the Time Out Stool (it has to be one of the tall kitchen stools, the lower chairs don't work) is the way to go. I simply place him on the stool after the offensive behavior and then ignore him for a couple of minutes. Then I come back and reinforce the correct behavior. This has worked wonderfully well, as for some reason, he doesn't just climb off the stool, which he is capable of. So I decided to try that with his afternoon nap since I am tired of maintaining my post by the bedside. I brought up the tall computer stool and after about 3 or 4 times of getting out of bed, he finally figured out that I was serious and stayed in bed. I was able to leave the room and read my scriptures. I came back in and he had fallen asleep.

I will have to update you as to how this works tonight.

Women's Conference

Somehow, I keep forgetting to mention some of the most important items of my life. Our stake was invited to attend the Relief Society General Meeting at the Conference Center. It was amazing. It makes me wonder why I didn't pay more attention to this meeting in the past. President Uchtdorf's talk was wonderful. On the commute, I had a great time visiting with friends from my ward. We talked about people, our kids and mostly books. It was a spiritually and socially uplifting time.

General Conference

On Saturday, my friend Karen and I took Emma to the Conference Center in Salt Lake to attend her first live session of General Conference. It was a wonderful experience. She loved the children's choir and she had such warm feelings when the Prophet came into the room. There is something thrilling about standing in a room with thousands of people and realizing that God does have a living prophet who directs us today. I was also touched by the Spirit of God that afternoon and was so grateful to share the experience with my only daughter. After the intermediate hymn, the lady sitting in front of us turned around and commented that Emma sounded like an angel. She is my little angel.

Jon- Jon (not for the queasy of stomach)

Maybe you have read my entry a couple of days ago about Jon's exciting adventures. Well, today is the sequel. He comes into me saying, "Mommy, nose. Nose." I look at his nose and he has rammed a Cheerio up his left nostril. I try but cannot get the cereal out with my tweezers. So I dropped Adam off at the neighbor's house and drive to Orem to the doctor's office. I pull in, get Jon out of his car seat and he rubs his nose again. Then he sneezes a big cereal booger out. He's been running a slight clear runny nose the last few weeks, which I think is allergies. So the combination of moist insides with the porous texture of the cereal combined to save me a $100 trip to the doctor. The doctor's office was kind enough to cancel the appointment. The most expensive part was the fact that I had to drive 20 minutes each way to the doctor's office. The best comment was "Wow. He's giving you a run for your money lately."

Weight Loss Program

Just for those interested, Eric and I have re-committed to the weight goals we set at the beginning of the year. The summer was rough, but at weigh in this morning, I have lost 29 lbs and Eric is down 15.