Andy & Jessica

This weekend at the wedding reception, I put Jude in charge of watching over Levi during the movie they put on for the kids.  My sister went up to check on the boys and saw Levi running for the door.  Jude jumped up (as a good big brother would do) and said, “Wevi, do you want to go see Mommy?”  Apparently another kid at the wedding was also called Levi so the other kids were trying to verify if our Levi was really Levi or Wevi.  Apparently they asked Jude if his name was “Levi” and Jude said, “yeah, Wevi.”  Then a kid younger than Jude put his tongue on top of his mouth and in slow motion rolled out a “Levi” for Jude.  Jude shrugged him off and said, “Yeah, Wevi.  L-E-V-I.”

I’ve been pretty horrified looking at what I thought was Jude’s dirty head the past few days. I thought that it had been bald for so long that it was collecting dirt and that we weren’t going a good enough job cleaning it up during bath time. Well, it turns out it is not dirt at all. Andy described it as a 5 o’clock shadow, like men get on their shaven faces by 5 o’clock in the day. That is super exciting. In a few months, I bet we’ll be back to the way it was, where just a 1 inch strip 6 inches long is missing. That’ll be almost unnoticable compared to what he has now. I’m so excited for Jude to get his hair back again!

Today is Andy’s birthday. It appears he celebrated by giving himself a day off from any clean up at all. Wow. The place looks like a tornado went through it. It worked out good that I had an client presentation at the end of the day so I had my car (instead of a bus ride home) and it also worked out good that I called my mom on the way home. She reminded me about Andy’s birthday and I was able to swing by Dairy Queen and got Andy a super cute shark ice cream cake. Jude was thrilled with it. Andy wants to celebrate at Red Robin with what he calls his “free” birthday hamburger. By the time the boys and I buy our meals, it will be far from free. But, at least I won’t have to cook.

After Jude’s karate class on Saturday, we headed to Fargo for a weekend with my sister’s family.  It’s always great to see them.  Our boys had a great time playing with their cousins and no one was injured so it was a great success.  On Saturday evening, all of us went to a wedding reception for a mutual friend of Andy’s and my brother-in-law.  I’ve never been to a wedding reception that was so kid-friendly.  They had endless supplies of chocolates and activity bags for all the kids.  On top of that, during the meal someone announced that there would be 2 babysitter volunteers who would watch the kids and that they would be playing some movies in a separate room.  Immediately after the movie was announced, in a brief period of silence, Jude yelled out, “Okay.  Let’s go!”  Everyone at the reception heard him and it was pretty funny.  They had about 20 kids sitting mostly still watching Madasgar 3.  It was pretty remarkable.  Jude later told the bride that it was the best wedding he had every been to. 

Tomorrow is Andy’s birthday and Katie made a delicious chocolate cake with even more delicious chocolate frosting.  Our plan was to eat it after we ate some pizza.  The guys went to town (West Fargo) to get the pizza.  2 hours after they left, they were still gone and we were starving, so Katie and I got busy eating the frosting.  We ate so much of it that she had to make another 1/2 batch of frosting.  Thankfully the guys finally returned with the pizza and we were able to enjoy Andy’s birthday lunch and cake.

It turns out that Jude was right to be scared of my germs because I got sicker and had pretty much lost my voice as of last night.  I was really dragging today but was able to sneak in a nap this morning while my sister watched the kids.  Tomorrow I have a presentation for work in front of a number of clients and I’m a little nervous since my voice sounds very unpleasant and cracky.  I hope it’s better by tomorrow afternoon. 

 

 

Jude takes after Andy in being a germaphobe. He was terrified when I told him that I was feeling a little sick last night (with just a sore throat). Jude said, “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch anything by me and don’t kiss me!” Then Asher, who I’m sure I couldn’t resist kissing and was thus contaminated, started chasing Jude. Jude hid in the closet to get away from Asher.

Last night (Halloween) was a really busy night where we were all on the go, going in opposite directions.  Andy nailed it by describing tonight as exactly what he doesn’t want his life to become.  All we did was run kids.  I left work early to get home to take Jude to karate.  I brought Asher with and we arrived just in the nick of time.  Asher sat still on my lap, totally fixated on watching Jude do karate, and wanting nothing to do with me, although he hadn’t seen me all day.  He’ll be a karate kid someday.  Jude had a blast at karate.  I was thinking of heading straight from karate to Jude’s bible memory club, but decided to swing by the house.  When we pulled into the driveway, I realized Jude had almost 15 minutes before we had to drive to bible memory club.  I asked him if he wanted to go trick-or-treating and if he wanted to be a doctor (as he had planned) or a karate kid (since he was already wearing his karate uniform).  He opted to go as a karate kid, which was the easiest option.  Andy took him to 5 houses and he scored a quart of candy.  I then dropped Jude off at bible memory club and then went out trick-or-treating with Levi and Asher (it was their first time out, as it was Jude’s).  It was just a total last minute decision to even go.  Thankfully the neighbors had given us some free costumes for boys that fit perfectly — Levi was a stuffed Tiger and Asher a stuffed dragon.  Levi had a blast and didn’t want to quit.  We did most of our block and then headed home, since I thought I had to pick up Jude from bible memory club.  Andy decided to pick Jude up and we were all reunited at about 9 p.m.  Then when Jude realized how much candy his brothers had gotten (more than 2x the amount he got), he thought it would be a great idea to pile it all together and sort it out.  He ended up with over half of it, as I expected he would.  The night was fun, but a little too busy.

Giving Jude his twice daily anti-seizure medicine was always a chore. He’d take it mixed with about 3 ounces of Kool-Aid and it often took him forever to drink it. Often he’d run away from the table several times before drinking it and a couple times Levi intercepted it and drank it or spilled it. Levi’s 3 year old friend, Sofia, who we met at Jill’s House, had to take lots of oral medicines daily and administered them to herself from the syringe. She was a pro. We have been able to convince Jude for the past several weeks to take his medicine “straight up like Sofia.” He gives it to himself quickly and then trails it with something better tasting like orange juice or chocolate milk. It is really going much better.

Little Levi is starting to talk!  And, now he’s even getting his first quote of the day recorded.  Little Levi is quite animated whenever he talks.  He pointed to a cracked tile on our kitchen floor tonight and said, “My house broken!”

Jude, like most children, enjoys eating his boogers.  He calls them, “slimy, but good.”  I figure he’ll grow out of it so I don’t really give him a hard time about it.  I’ve never heard of kids eating eye boogers, but I guess Jude gave it a try.  He told me, “Eye boogers look like boogers but they taste like ear wax.  So, never eat eye boogers.”  I think I’ll take his word for it.

Jude:  “I love you so much!”

Me:  “I love you so much too!”

Jude:  “I was talking to Asher! (with a laugh)  I love you so much too!”