Kiersten’s Blog

This morning London woke up complaining about her ear hurting.  In my experience that can only mean one thing: ear infection.  I called the doctor and got her in this morning.  Surprisingly, her ear was clear.  Not surprisingly, that darned tube is still in there.  It’s been over 4 years.  It’s just hanging out, not in place, but being held in by ear wax.  The visit with the doctor was quick and we were out of the room sooner than Ashton wanted.  He threw a fit (because he couldn’t play with the toys anymore) until he got a car sticker.  We dropped by the pharmacy because Taylor had a refill waiting.  As I was being helped, my kids both took off running out the door.  I chased them down, gave a short but stern lecture, told London to sit down, and held Ashton.  Of course London didn’t want to sit down so the whining and crying commenced.  I started counting and the screaming escalated.  Mind you, I stayed calm, but I was still the one being helped.  A line was beginning to form.  London let out a loud scream, angering an old woman in a wheelchair.  I started thinking about this story.  Finally I was done and turned around to leave with my screaming and flailing children, when I slipped on somebody’s spilled water and landed on the hard floor, injuring my knee and my ankle.  At this point I just wanted to cry.  I was hurt and I had one screaming child and another who just wanted to run away who I had to carry as I limped out of the pharmacy.  My only consolation was remembering that I was not only on my way home, but would get to drop London off at school for somebody else to deal with for the rest of the day.  She’s probably being a perfect little angel.

London just before leaving on her first day of school. Notice the flip-flops. We had to go buy new shoes after school yesterday since flip-flops are against the dress code and that's pretty much all she has.

I love kindergarten already.  So does London.  Today’s the second day and already it’s turning into the greatest thing!  Let me just mention a few of the reasons.

First of all, I really do have some extra time to get things done.  Right now Ashton’s napping and the house is at peace.  Sure, it could use some cleaning, but where’s the fun in that?  I’m blogging instead.  I spent much of my free time yesterday trying to figure out how to get rid of ants and cleaning up after them.  Not so much fun.

Secondly, I love that I get to have one-on-one time with Ashton.  We very rarely get that so I think it will be a nice break for all of us.  I have all sorts of plans: story time at the library, trips to the park, walks around the neighborhood, maybe take a mommy and me class.  The possibilities are endless.  Yesterday we just played.  It was fun.

Third, I have six hours every day that I don’t hear ANY whining.  Usually in those six hours, I would hear six hours of whining.  Now, nothing.  No whining.  I LOVE it!!!  I’m sure she’ll be able to fit all that whining in before and after school, but I still get six hours of daily peace.  Did I mention that I don’t hear whining for six hours every day?

London working hard at her desk on her first day of kindergarten.

Another thing that is great in this whole kindergarten realm: we walk to school.  Today it took us about 6 minutes, which included going to the garage and getting out the stroller, loading Ashton in the stroller, folding the stroller to get through the gate (that isn’t even wide enough for a pregnant woman to walk through, I’m sure), and walking at a kindergartener pace for a half a block.  That’s right, we live a half a block from the school.  And it’s a good school.  People transfer from all over, just to go to the school that’s a 5-minute walk from my front door.  I love school!

London and her teacher, Mrs. Bradshaw, after a learning-filled day.

Now if you’re wondering, there were NO tears shed on either of our parts on the first day of kindergarten.  Big.  Fat.  Zero.  We were both very excited about this new adventure.  I remember how my sister, Jana, would cry every day when we left her at her classroom door.  Not so with London.  She doesn’t care when I leave.  I am more than happy to leave, although I’m sure I’ll volunteer.  I do want to be a part of her education.  Anyway, she had a great first day and there are many more great days to come.  Did I mention no whining?

London went to the dentist on Friday.  Last year when I took her, she kept spitting the thing out of her mouth so they couldn’t get x-rays.  This time, that wasn’t the issue.  They got x-rays all right, and boy do I wish I didn’t know.  I’m not sure how such a small child with such small teeth would need so much work done.  It turns out that we need to force her to floss, I guess.  Or maybe I need to check and see if our water is fluoridated.  Or maybe it doesn’t matter now.  The damage is done.  She needs $3500 of dental work done.  It’s a good thing our insurance will cover a lot of it, although we’ll still have to fork out a pretty penny.  Apparently London’s four top molars are so decayed in between the teeth, that they all need to be cleaned out and capped.  It’s getting so bad that the cavities are close to hitting nerves.  Now, I have cavities every time I go to the dentist (remember this?).  In fact, I just went a week ago and have 2 more cavities, but I’ve never had anything even close to this extensive.  I can’t believe how bad they can get in four short years!  I’ve seen kids with caps on their teeth and wonder how in the world they got to be so bad.  Now my child is one of those!  We brush every day.  I just hope her permanent teeth are more hearty than her baby teeth.  And, speaking of teeth, remember that loose tooth I mentioned about a week ago?  It fell out today.  That’s right.  My four-year-old daughter will go to her first day of kindergarten on Monday, missing a tooth.  How is this possible?

For some reason, London is obsessed with Spanish.  Maybe living in Southern California will do that to a kid.  We have a number of children’s books that have both English and Spanish text.  She constantly asks me how to say things in Spanish.  Of course I never know.  So she makes up words and tells me that’s how you say {enter random word or phrase here} in Spanish.  She never really remembers the word she makes up, but she has used one specific word (or it may be two words, I don’t know) consistently.  That word is “elenationkwokeemoncho.”  Apparently this word means just about anything.  It means, “I’m done pooping.  Please come wipe my bum.”  It means, “I’m hungry.”  It means, “Are we there yet?”  It means anything London wants it to mean.  Maybe she’ll be a linguist when she grows up.

This evening we discovered, while eating Rice Krispy Treats, that London has a loose tooth.  She’s four.  That’s right, my four-year-old daughter has a loose tooth.  Tonight she prayed that her tooth wouldn’t be loose anymore because she doesn’t want to grow up.  I guess she knows how good she has it being a little kid.  My poor baby is growing up.

We went to the beach today with a bunch of moms and kids from our ward (church group).  We had a lot of fun, even with London screaming at her friends.

Building sand temples. That's what London told me.

She was really cranky.  Usually that means she’s really tired.  And she was.  She fell asleep in the car on the way home and slept for almost 3 hours.  This is very unusual.  It is very rare that London ever naps anymore.  After 3 hours we decided it was time for her to wake up so she would go to bed tonight.  Usually bed time for the kids is 7:00.  That time is too early for London on the days she naps, so today we kept her up and let her watch a movie.  We chose Home Alone.  I was sure she would think it was hilarious.  I was wrong.

London may have thought the movie was funny and really enjoyed it if she was really watching it and not asking question for the entire 103 minutes.  Instead, I spent the whole movie trying to convince her that it wasn’t real; that the burglars weren’t really real.  I kept telling her that everybody in the movie was just pretending.  It’s a difficult concept for her to grasp.  Now it’s 10:00.  I already spent a good half hour “sleeping” with her, in which I was sleeping and she was not.  She won’t go to sleep.  She’s totally freaked out about the “bad guys.”  Note to self: only cartoons for this girl for a long, long time (unless it’s a musical).

I recently bought two new cookbooks.  One is Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld.  The other is The Sneaky Chef Returns by Missy Chase Lapine.  I thought these would bring some great ideas into my normal cooking.  You see, the problem is, London doesn’t like vegetables.  At least she says she doesn’t like vegetables.  I try everything I can to trick her and make her eat them, but the fact of the matter is, if she thinks it might be a vegetable, she won’t eat it.  When I found these books, I thought it was the perfect solution.  And it would have been, except that it doesn’t work.  Somehow, that girl can identify vegetables in ANYTHING!  She doesn’t even know it’s vegetables.  She just knows that she doesn’t like it.  I thought it would be a no-fail with stuffed shells.  London loves cheese.  The vegetable (cauliflower) was hidden in the cheese, so even if she didn’t eat the rest, at least she would eat the cheese.  Wouldn’t you know, she announced after one bite, that she didn’t like that kind of cheese.  Okay, maybe I was a little too overzealous with that one.  I tried mozzarella sticks How could one go wrong with mozzarella sticks?  That cheese was no good either.  I have tried a number of concoctions with ideas from those two books.  Not one has worked.  Today was sweet potatoes in grilled cheese sandwiches.  I didn’t even like them.  For the record, Ashton loved it.  I just told London to cover it with ketchup and she wouldn’t taste it.  That’s what I did.  At least she ate it that way (and she got nutrition from tomatoes in the ketchup, which was probably more than she got from the sweet potatoes in the sandwich).

There is another reason these books don’t work for us.  I think the recipes are good ideas, but really, how much vegetable puree can one hide in any one thing?  Not much.  London would be better off to just eat two bites of sweet potatoes.  It would probably go down a little easier (at least faster) and it wouldn’t have to ruin her otherwise moderately healthy meal.

Verdict: it’s probably time to post the books back on Amazon and give up trying to get my 4-year-old to eat her veggies.

After church on Sunday, London came running up to me with a card.  She was so excited to give it to me and couldn’t wait for me to open it.  I guess they were learning about being grateful in their primary class, so they made cards for their parents.  According to her, it doesn’t say, “Thank you bear Kiersten,” it says, “Dear Kiersten, thank you.”  I think it’s funny that she decided to use my name, rather than something more appropriate, like, “Mom.”  She thinks she’s so clever.  Oh, and by the way, I’m pretty sure she spelled that all on her own.  I’m sure she didn’t need any help.

I think this picture is so cute!  This is what they looked like on Sunday.

We went to a birthday party for one of London’s friends yesterday.  Recently I have decided that we should do more homemade gifts.  I have loved to make gifts for baby showers but this was my first attempt at a birthday gift for one of London’s friends.  I found this great tutorial for a cute little magnet doll.  London named her Lucy.  It looked easy enough so we decided to try it out.  We made two because, of course, London needed one for herself.  She really loves it.  I hope her friend loves it as much as London does.

It was a pretty simple craft.  London did all the coloring.  In fact, she had to color an extra couple sets of clothes because she decided to paint, using the paper with the doll on it as the scrap paper underneath the paint.  Of course there are little tiny pieces, mostly teeny tiny shoes.  I’m pretty sure they won’t last long.  In fact, I think we’ve already lost two pairs and we’ve only had the thing made since Friday night.

This was my first attempt at using Mod Podge.  What a great thing!  I’ll have to use it for more projects.  I’m sure London won’t mind.  We’re excited to have a new toy to take to church today.