Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Last evening after dinner, Megan and Matthew were off in another room playing together nicely (or so we thought) when Matt comes down the hall crying. Bill intercepted him and proceeded to ask what was wrong. Matt told him that Megan had bitten him.

By the time I walked out to see what was going on, Bill was already talking to Megan. Her response to this was, "No, no Daddy. I didn't bite him. Matthew fell and bumped his head!"

Well, we were both convinced by her response so Bill decided to humor Matt a little by playing along in order to calm him down. When he asked him where Megan had bitten him, Matt calmly held up his hand and said, "right there". Well sure enough - little teeth marks could be seen right above his knuckles. Unfortunately, that still wasn't enough to entirely convince Bill and I as Matthew has recently begun a little habit of biting his fingers when he gets mad about something.

So as I'm looking at the bite marks, I'm trying to decide if there is a noticeable gap between the teeth as that would surely be a sign that Megan was the culprit. Unfortunately I still could not say for sure, but in the mean time, Bill had asked Megan how Matthew got the teeth marks on his fingers. Her response? "I don't know Daddy. Maybe the kitty cats did it." (In the most innocent of voices I might add.) 'Nough said kiddo.

Bill took Matt to another room to calm him down and I sat down with Megan. When she realized that she wasn't going to get into too much trouble for this, she did come clean and admit that she bit him. She said that it was because she had told him to stay in the TV room while she got a toy but he didn't listen to her and followed her into the other room.

After explaining that Mommy and Daddy always know when she's lying to us (AHEM - does it hurt that I lied to her while explaining why it's wrong to lie in the first place?) and that if she lies she'll get into bigger trouble than if she had just admitted that she did something wrong, I had to come up with a "punishment". At this point I didn't want to make it too brutal as she had come clean and it wasn't the worst thing that could have happened. So I told her to apoligize to Daddy for lying and that Matthew would need an apology too. But I added on to the Matthew part of it. I threw in a punishment that my parents used to do me and my siblings when we would fight. The one that we all hated with all our might. In the eyes of a kid, I remember thinking that it was the worst punishment of all....she had to kiss him and tell him she loved him.

After we put the kids into bed, Bill and I were sitting with our own thoughts when we both started to chuckle at pretty much the same time. We were both thinking about what had happened. Megan was so convincing that had there not been teeth marks on Matt's fingers, we would have believed her in a heart beat. So how many other times has she lied to us about something and gotten away with it? When did this start? Of course we both want to believe that this was the first time, but damn, she was good at it! I guess we'll both be paying closer attention to the details when Matt tells us something like this in the future.

Baby Baker #3

I went today for the regular ultra-sound on baby #3. (I've had 2 so far, way back at the very beginning due to some "potential" complications which turned out to be nothing. And unfortunately, the baby still looked like a lima bean back then.)

Anyhow, I promised Megan that she could go as a special treat in order to "meet" the baby in Mommy's tummy. I tried to prepare her as best as could because as we all know, if you're not used to looking at those darn things, arms look like legs, umbilical cords look like male genitals in the making, etc.

Last night when we were getting ready for bed Megan asked me if the doctor was going to be taking the baby out of my tummy in the morning. Again, I tried to explain things clearly in order to let her know that the "bun" was not yet done "baking".

So we arrive at the doctors office a few minutes early. Early enough to place a phone call to Daddy in order to portray her excitement and another one to Grammy in PA to do the same before being ushered into the office.

I'm sorry to say that it was a bit of a let down for Megan. I kind of thought it might be but was hoping that it wouldn't. Oh well...not only did she get to take a picture of her new baby brother or sister (no - we did not find out!) but she got to count it's fingers and toes, see them wiggle, watch the heart beat and lots of other things that she may or may not have understood. And the rest of the time, while the technician continued doing the tedious measuring of the limbs and checking out the bladder, heart, brain, kidneys, etc., Megan sat quietly coloring in a Peanuts coloring book that they handed her. She honestly seemed more into that than the baby.

And in two more weeks, I'll get to see the baby for at least one more glance before the end of this pregnancy. The technician could not get a good view of the spine as the baby was laying with it's back against my spine. They also could not find it's right kidney. No worries though...I'm sure it was just the position it was in...and hey - who needs two kidneys now-a-days anyhow?!

Skating 101

Back when I was home with Matt one day during his days of off and on fevers and just plain nasty colds, Matt broke out the hockey skates and wore them around the house for the majority of the day. He took them off long enough to take a nap and run to the school to pick up Megan. So Bill decided that it was time to take him to Hamden's public skating to see how he would make out on the ice.

Well we already knew he would do well on the rubber mat area (see the picture above) where skates are put on because he was running and jumping on the carpet in our TV room. (Megan wanted absolutely nothing to do with it, despite the fact that my mother-in-law had come with some nice white figure skates just for her. She was content to watch and drink hot chocolate.) But the following pictures show just how well he did on the ice and the best part of it all - he was so happy to be doing it!

Stepping out onto the ice for the first time

Happy as can be - and not holding on!

Nikole - trying to help, brought out the "walker". Matt's response: Get it away!

1 second before falling down

Ending on a high note!

Got any sick days to spare?

We've been sick - oh so very sick. It all started back before New Years with regular colds that just never seemed to want to go away over the past few weeks. Then last week Matt started getting wholloped with fevers and we started the vicious cycle of fever vs. Motrin. Bill and I would take the day off from work and wonder why we did as he would play around the house as if nothing were wrong other than the non-stop snot that ran from his poor little nose. Then he'd wake up from his nap with another fever and we'd start all over again.

On Thursday we finally took him to the doctor. As I said to Bill prior to doing so, if I were a stay at home mom we'd be able to let this run it's course and not think twice about it. But it had been going on since Monday night and we were both feeling pretty guilty about skipping out of work all week long. So I sat in the doctor's office, feeling like an idiot while the doctor proclaimed that there was nothing wrong with him, just a strain of cold which carried the fevers with it. However, Amoxicillin was prescribed!!

And then just when we get Matt back on course with a regime of antibiotics, Megan got a fever Friday at the end of school and I had the pleasure of ending the week off with what must have been the worst sinus infection ever along with aches and pains and WAH!! So I slept. From the time I got home on Friday, all day Saturday, and into Sunday morning.

And in his attempt to avoid getting this fantastic sickness, Bill quarantined the 3 of us to one bedroom Saturday night (thanks - I did NOT get a good nights' rest) and he decided to sleep on the couch. I guess sleeping in a separate bedroom was not far enough away - he had to go to a completely different floor!

Needless to say, Bill hasn't been feeling very good for the past 2 days now.

Holiday Update

The holidays flew by this year. I've made the same observation for the past few years at Halloween, "before you know it Thanksgiving will be here, then Christmas and then the New Year". And every year I'm always surprised by how fast it really does fly by. I remember being a kid and how long a year felt. Waiting for Christmas back then felt like 2 years in today's time.

We always spend Christmas at home in Connecticut. (Santa can't find us if we leave town you know!) And this year was no different. Christmas Eve was spent with the Baker family followed by Christmas day with the Cole's.

After an overly successful evening of opening gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Christmas Eve, I was beginning to wonder how Santa would ever live up to the array of presents they had just received. The kids and I rushed home to get into their PJ's, sit out milk and cookies for Santa along with the obligatory letter reminding him that they've been good all year (ha), picked out and hung their stockings (we kept them down for fear that the cats would tear into them before then) and placed reindeer food (oatmeal and glitter - glitter helps them fly, did you know?) outside on the back deck. I then reminded them that just because they were getting into bed didn't mean that Santa would come just yet. They had to be ASLEEP for Santa to come.

From there they both made varied comments about Santa getting into the house, putting gifts under the tree and NOT coming into their rooms. Of course being the good parent that I am I reassured them that Santa would not have any reason to go into their rooms and kissed them good night. I then immediately told Bill about this and we decided to have a little fun. Additional stockings were located, stuffed with a few gifts and placed underneath the small trees that they each had on their night stands...

Christmas morning arrives and Megan is the first one up (at 8am!!). She comes into our room and the first thing she says is that Santa put a stocking under her tree and it's NOT the one that she hung the night before. "He went into the closet Mommy and got out the other stockings!! And he came into my room!" Yes, mission accomplished, she was a bit freaked out about that. Of course we then reassured her that it was ok.

At 8:30am we finally caved in and allowed Megan to wake Matt up under the orders that she do so "nicely". It wasn't until later that she confided that when he wouldn't wake up, she made her finger wet and stuck it in his ear - two times! Ah - sibling love is a wonderful thing.

Baby Hugh Heffner - with his morning face

Nothing beats a Barbie doll

Tearing into the gifts (ah - there's the smile we were looking for.)

4 1/2 foot tall Barbie doll house

Jammin' to his new Fisher Price head set