Super Seeger Galaxy

I went to pick up Seeger from preschool the other day (a rare treat) and one of his teachers made an effort to stop me and let me know how much she enjoys Seeger's stories about Mario and the Princess. Apparently during playtime, he pretends he's Mario from the Wii game, Super Mario Galaxy. He runs fast in small steps and his arms swing back and forth. Then his hand hits his chest and all of a sudden, he's paused. After a few seconds, his hand hits his chest again and he's unpaused and starts running around again so he can save the Princess.

I think it's time to cut back on the Wii.

Love letters to my family

Dear Seeger - While I was away on business, I called you, your dad, and your brother to check in and see how things were going. (And obviously find out how much you all missed me.) It's not cool that after talking to me for two minutes, you interrupted me by saying, "I don't want to talk to you anymore. Goodbye." It's even less cool that after handing the phone back to dad, you proceeded to walk around in circles. That's what you gave up talking to me for? I thought maybe you suddenly remembered you wanted to play with your trains or perhaps Spongebob was on tv or something. But nope, you just didn't want to talk to me.

I'm sure this was just a one time incident. Right? RIGHT?? You'll always make time to talk to your mom. Right?

(At least humor me every once in awhile, okay?)

Love,
Mom



Dear Nicklas - I love that you enjoy playing your Guitar Hero World Tour game. It's great fun and I understand this. I play too so you know I can appreciate your love of the game. But here's the thing. It's not okay to practice the vocals at 7am in the morning. Today, I was awoken to you belting out Beat It by Michael Jackson. Seven hours later and I still have the lyrics in my head.

You're an early riser. I get that. And you enjoy that time in the morning when everyone else is asleep and you have the house to yourself. I get this, too. But in the future, stick to the guitar if you're going to play World Tour before everyone else is awake.

Thank you and I love you.
Mom


Dear Freddie the Puppy - Unfortunately, you live in Indiana. This is where your parents have always lived. It's where you were born and it's where you'll be raised. Indiana often experiences dramatic climate shifts. We have definitive seasons which include days of rain, snow, sun, wind, ice, and heat. Get used to it. You WILL be expected to do your duty outside EVEN when the weather isn't to your liking. Don't worry, you won't be alone. One of us will help you through it. We love you.

(And no, we won't shovel the snowy grass for you.)

Love,
the woman who feeds you and plays with you and will always give you a treat when you potty outside



To my loving husband - Thank you for humoring me and learning to play Canasta. Thanks for the great time in Florida. Thanks for letting me choose the restaurant on Valentine's Day. Thanks for playing Boggle when it really isn't fun for you. Thanks for encouraging the Get Fit Challenge. (We both weigh the lowest we've been in ten years - yay us!) And I especially want to thank you for agreeing to install the garage door opener all by yourself instead of making me shell out $100 for installation. I'm sure you're cursing me right now (since as I write this, you've started this little home improvement project) but please know that I really, really appreciate it. (It will be nice to actually be able to use the remote openers instead of just the wall unit, right?) You rock!

Love,
Your very appreciative wife

Taking a world tour

After scoring money for both his birthday and Christmas, Nicklas has been thinking about what he wants to buy. He considered some Wii games but since we have 17 (yes, SEVENTEEN!) he realized he doesn't really need a new Wii game. Mike took him to Best Buy to look around and he told us what he really wants is Guitar Hero World Tour. Since it's $190 and he only has $115 saved (he's a lucky boy, isn't he?) he and Mike have been thinking about some creative ways to come up with the rest of the money.

First, he took back a few duplicate Christmas presents he received. This gave him about $45.

His next idea (which was suggested by his dad) was to sell our current Wii guitars on ebay. I'm not much of an ebayer but I have been successful at selling a few things. (And buying. I'm really good at buying things on ebay.) So I set out to see how much we could get for our wireless guitars. I posted the first yesterday with a goal of getting $25. I listed it at $20 and included a Buy It Now price of $35. It sold in four hours.

Since Nicklas has enough for World Tour, we've decided to keep the second guitar.

Needless to say, we are all looking forward to Nick's purchase. I'm sure Mike and I will enjoy it just as much as him!

Rearrangements

Hubs and I tend to get bored with our house easily - not enough for major home improvement projects but enough to occasionally rearrange the furniture. We've been in our house a little more than two years so it felt very natural to change things up. We moved our super comfy family room furniture to our living room (it's bigger so it's where the Wii is - more room to play), our formal living room furniture (not good for said Wii playing) to our dining room, and our dining room into our family room. Check out this photo of a recent family dinner. It's kinda cool having a fireplace in our dining room!

We likely won't leave the rooms like this very long. We're hosting my mom's side of the family for Thanksgiving at the end of November and we'll be doing some major adjustments to fit all the tables and chairs needed for 35 people. We're so lucky to have the basement!

Updates

Instead of tackling a new post today, I thought I'd provide some updates on the life of Kubatski. These are all very random and in no particular order:

1. The Wii Fit is going well although it's annoying to log in one day and get scolded. "I see you haven't been back for three days. Use Wii Fit every day for maximum results." (How annoying is it to have your t.v. call you out on not exercising?!) I have lost 3.5 pounds in two weeks though so I can't complain. And the strength training exercises kicked my ass last week. My gluts were so sore on Saturday, I nearly cried every time I had to walk down steps. But that's a good thing, right?
2. Speaking of scolded, it's one of Nick's spelling words this week. He's taking his spelling test today and there are two words he was a little iffy on this morning - suspicious and delicious. (I know that doesn't relate to any blog posts but we practices his words so much yesterday, I can't get them out of my mind.
3. Thanks to my pal Stephanie, Seeger now has a bee costume for Halloween. She picked one up on Freecycle for me which is really awesome. Although it's homemade and I'd like to think I could do better reality is that I probably couldn't and now I don't have to try. (I'm actually a little bummed to not be making his costume but I do still have to do the antenna's so we'll see how that goes.)
4. I finally caught the first episode of Grey's Anatomy. I should apologize to abc.com for all my ranting as I've realized I was the problem. My work computer doesn't have the most current version of Adobe Flash Player which is why I couldn't get the episode to load. Unfortunately, I don't have administrative privileges and I'm too embarrassed to ask our tech guy to have it loaded onto the computer. (I mean really, why would I need Flash Player at work unless I was goofing off?) I have to say, I'm getting a little bored with Grey's however I did like the icicle in Christina story line. And is Hunt coming back for any episodes? That man rocked!
5. My mouth is finally healed from the wisdom teeth. I stopped taking my ibuprofen a few days ago and I can actually chew food on both sides of my mouth. Yay! I have to give a shout out to my wonderful hubby for putting up with me throughout the ordeal. He did an awesome job of not only taking care of me but running the household during my drug induced state.
6. The Charity Quilt is finished! MIL and I are traveling to Michigan this weekend to deliver it and help with the fundraiser. I'll post pics when I get them. I really liked how it turned out. Now I must think about a baby quilt for a friend who is due in December and another charity quilt for Nick's schools fundraiser. But not until I finish the orange, red, and yellow quilt I've been working on. (I bought the borders this weekend and hope to sew them on soon!)

That's it for the updates. This afternoon, I'm picking up Nicklas from school (half-day) and taking him to lunch with the gals. Then he's going to hang out with me at work for the afternoon. Tonight my gal Christy and I are going to see You Can't Take That With You. Christy writes news releases for the University so she gets comped tickets. Bonus!

Weeeeeee!!!!!!!!

Woo hoo - I got a Wii Fit! I've always wanted one and would occasionally ask store clerks if they happened to have any stashed away. That would usually result in a chuckle from the teenage boy with the name tag who would roll his eyes at the poor lady who actually had hopes of randomly finding a Wii Fit somewhere. No, he'd reply. We don't have any Wii Fits. Don't you know they're harder to find than an actual Wii?

After having this conversation several times, I decided to change my strategy. The ads in the Sunday paper would occasionally advertise Wii Fit availability at a particular store (minimum of six, sorry no rainchecks). My MO on Sunday mornings is to leisurely wake up, make a bowl of cereal and sit at the table and read the paper. I always read in the order of the paper, skipping the sports and classified. The ads are usually last. Once or twice when I actually saw the Wii Fit advertised, I'd throw on some clothes and dash to the store to find they had already been purchased (minimum of six, sorry no rain checks). Yeah, I could have gotten up early and been more diligent reading the ads first in case I came across one. In fact, I actually did that one Sunday - I woke up at 7:30, grabbed the paper, threw aside the news and scanned the ads. And nothing. No Wii Fits available. Totally not worth missing out on sleeping in.

Promising never to do that again, my new attitude was to take my chances and if it happens, then great but if not, that's okay too. No more asking the stock boys (sorry, I think associates is the PC term), no more getting up early on Sundays, and no, I wasn't going to pay $130 on eBay when the MSP is $89.99. And like those who get pregnant after finally giving up on getting pregnant, and those who get a call from the ex just after they'd finally forgotten about the ex - well I found my Wii Fit just as I'd given up my hunt. And yes, it was advertised in the Sunday paper. Lucky for me, it was at Toys R'Us and they don't open until 10am. Plenty of time to get the family fed and dressed and over there for some shopping. There was a moment of panic that we'd get to the parking lot to find a line of people but when we arrived at 9:35, the lot was empty. And when they unlocked the doors at 9:55, Mike, myself and two Purdue students claimed our tickets, paid our $89.99 and picked up our Wii Fits at customer service.

So our Wii Fit is ready to go (my mom gladly accepted the second one for herself) and after six months of pining for one and shelling out the $100 (there's tax and the service plan, you know), I know realize that it's my responsibility to USE the Wii Fit. $100 is 3 months at a gym so I need to get my money's worth out of it. Oops, I sort of forgot about that. I got caught up in the chase! And now it's time to get fit.

A key to a happy home is... organization?

With the start of school, I've been trying to be more organized with things. I feel like organization is the key to running a smooth household and maintaining a purposeful routine will be good for the boys. (We had a routine this summer but it consisted of lounging around, playing Wii, and the occasional visit to the pool.) My goal is to have all my dinners planned out for the week so I can instruct hubby on getting it started while I make my way home during the work week. (I feel like last year we spent a good portion of the evening deciding what to eat and if we had any activities outside the house, we usually ended up with fast food because we didn't know what options we had at home.) I've also created a daily schedule that outlines play time, dinner, homework time, reading, with some other activities sprinkled in. I want to make time for activities like game night, visiting the library, doing family sports activities, and visiting the park so I feel like having a schedule will help make this happen. It's only been a few days but so far it's going really well. Nicklas loves having a schedule to go by. I wasn't sure how hubby would like it but so far he's been great at playing along. I think he likes having carved out time for fun things too.

the power of NO

I have to share a quick story about Nicklas. Hubby and I are so lucky to have Nicklas as a son. For the most part, he makes parenting easy. He was an easy baby - he slept through the night, rarely was sick, and was generally happy. As a toddler, he was easy going. He shared his toys and listened well to instructions. I can only think of one "tantrum" he had that ensued with a quick exit from WalMart.

Now that he's school age, his incredible intelligence and sensitivity guides him in life. He rarely challenges hubby and I and we expect a lot from him. (I know we probably expect too much as he's only seven but his maturity levels leads us to forget his young age.) I'm sure there are some that would say we're too hard on him. (The MIL made a comment once.) Maybe it's the fact that he's the first born. Or maybe it's because we're afraid to let up on him for fear he'll revert backwards. I'm not sure but balancing our discipline and parenting styles with his age and maturity is becoming increasingly difficult.

Anyway, back to my story. Last night we were getting ready to sit down for dinner and Nicklas was shirtless (he and Seeger had been squirting water at each other outside so he took his shirt off). Since we had a guest over who was joining us for dinner, I asked Nicklas to put a shirt on. His response was "no".

For those of you who know Nicklas, I'm sure you're surprised. He is typically well-mannered, helpful, and although he doesn't always appreciate my requests, he does them with little complaining. So the "no" thing is something new for him. He's getting older and learning he can make his own choices. And now, I think he's testing us. Or maybe he's just testing me because this is the fourth time he's responded in that manner - but always to me, never to hubby. (We're both tough but hubby's definitely tougher!) Every time he's said no, it's been with an air of uncertainty. He'll say it quietly or as he's turning his back to walk away. He learned at a young age that it isn't appropriate to say no to a parent; that if he's asked to do something, he's expected to do it. So this change in him has been a bit surprising. The first time was a few weeks ago. I don't even remember what he was responding to but as soon as the no came from his mouth, I gave him a warning, "Nicklas, you don't say no when I ask you to do something. This is a warning and if it happens again, no Wii for a week." The second time (about a week later) he said No and quickly apologized when he saw the look I gave him. (I let it slide, since he went to do whatever it was I told him to do right away.) The third time was not long after and since the no was tentative and barely audible, I didn't follow-thru on the original threat. I probably should have since my number one rule in parenting is to ALWAYS follow-thru. But we were on vacation and it didn't seem like the time or place. But I did give him a second warning, telling him I was serious about losing the Wii for a week if he said no to me again. And then it happened last night. So of course, I had to issue the punishment. When he told me no, I responded that he lost all electronic media privileges for a week. (We limit his total combined time on of watching tv, playing Wii, or being on the computer to two hours a day.)

The good news is he quickly apologized and was a sweetheart for the rest of the night. I know he felt bad and I'm sure it will be awhile (hopefully LONG while) before it happens again. I feel sad and bummed for him because I know he's sad and bummed but I also know he'll quickly get over it and it will be good for him to do more reading, outdoor time, and playing with his toys. Of course, he has all sorts of questions about his punishment. Does it apply when he's at other people's houses? Does it count when he's playing Harry Potter "Scene It"? He's not yet a teenager but he's already honing his negotiating skills!