Meganisms and one Jackism

A few items from today . . .

If I don't wake up before Rob is able to turn off the alarm, he tries not to wake me at all. He gets ready, then gets Meg up and the two of them tiptoe around so as not to wake me. This is very sweet of both of them and very helpful on nights when I am up until the wee hours of the morning with crying children or now schoolwork. They have developed a tradition (which I only recently found out about) for mornings when they don't wake me. Megan always wants to give me a kiss before leaving for school and Rob kisses me before he leaves for work, but if I am asleep, the give me "foot kisses", where they kiss the blanket under which my foot rests. I think it's very sweet :)

I picked up Meg from school today and as we were walking home, I asked her how lunch went (we started the gluten free diet last night, so it would have been her first day not buying lunch in a while). She said it went well. I asked what she had for lunch. She said "strawberry milk" (we still have a credit at the school cafeteria, so I thought she might have used it to buy a drink) and then "garlic bread - without wheat" . . . No, the school cafeteria does not offer gluten-free bread. She bought lunch and thought that by announcing the bread had no wheat, it would make it ok :) Granted it was not even mostly her fault as although her lunch was packed, the lunch bag somehow ended up on the kitchen counter instead of in her backpack, so she didn't have lunch and had to buy it. I just found her approach to the gluten free diet amusing :)

Tonight, after the kids had their baths and had been put to bed, I came downstairs to work on a paper that is due this week. A few minutes later I hear the pitter patter of little feet on the stairs and Meg comes trotting over to me. She handed me a note on a random piece of paper (that was actually a worksheet from school) telling me she needed a snack. She writes notes fairly often now. At least two times a night a slip of paper will be slid under our door with some comment or request. I don't know why she doesn't just ask or tell us, I guess she likes writing notes better? Anyway, as she had finished dinner less than an hour before (we had dinner after baths and right before bed because the kids wanted to play outside as long as possible), I gave her a hug and her medicine that we had forgotten to give her earlier. As I hugged her, I noticed her hair felt weird. I thought she just hadn't washed all the soap out of it, but when I mentioned it to her, she said not to get mad at her, but she put Mary Kay in it to make it soft. I was a bit baffled, but from experience, I know that after comments like those, it is best to have them show me what they mean. She took me up to her room and produced a tube of hair gel stuff (any aunt want to fess up to leaving it in her room? I certainly never bought it!) that she had found in her closet and coated her head with. Megan had to take another shower to get it out of her hair.

And now a Jackism ~
Tonight was a UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship - where mixed-martial artists fight each other - not WWF; this one is real) and since it was shown on cable rather than pay-per-view, Rob was able to watch it between helping with kid's baths and dinner. After getting out of the bath, Jack realized it was on and got very excited. He growled at the tv with a huge grin on his face and put his fists up, pretending to box with someone. Anyone who tells you there is no difference between boys and girls never had kids. Our girls NEVER did that or anything like it. Jack LOVES watching the UFC or watching Rob work out on the heavy bag. He grabs Rob's boxing gloves every time he can and trots over to me, gesturing for me to put one on. Then he puts the other on one of his hands, backs up and runs, banging the gloves together and laughing and laughing. He will do this for hours. If he can't find the boxing gloves, he uses my oven mitts. At any point if I say "hey Jack! Wanna fight?" and put my fist up, he gets a huge grin on his face and gets very excited, raising his little fists in the air and going at it. He is very careful though not to hit anything other than my fist. He also loves to bring over two toys - dinosaurs, fisher price people, dollhouse dolls, whatever - hand one to me, and have the two of them box with each other. I've got to get some of this on film - it's one of the funniest things I've seen :) After three girls, we definately got a boy!