All About Jenna

When I sit down to write these newsletters I try to give each child equal time. It doesn't always work out that way each week but I figure over the course of time it will. Most of what I remember this week involved Jenna.

GOOOOOD MORNING EAST ROBERTSON. At Jenna's school each homeroom class takes turns doing the morning announcements on the intercom. Jenna's class had its turn this week. She asked me to take her to school on Wednesday so I could hear her do the thought of the day which was "Speak kind words and you will hear kind echos." I was really proud of her as she read her part clearly and with confidence. But she should have had confidence because she has been practicing it for a week into her toy microphone. On Friday she introduced the moment of silence. I was glad I had a computer to repair at her school on Friday.

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. Jenna came in from school and began to tell Vicki about her day. At one point in the conversation she told Vicki she heard a bad word. "It was on the bus and it was the "s" word," she reported. She kept on talking about it so Vicki said, "You can tell me what it was. You won't get in trouble." So Jenna replied, "It was in a little rhyme and it went like this: 'Girls go to college to get more knowledge. Boys go to Jupiter to get more s.'" It sure is nice to know that for now the "s" word is "stupid" in her mind ("stupider" in this case).

ALL ABOARD! Ben got a motorized Thomas the Tank Engine railroad for Christmas in 2003. We didn't leave the set up very long because Nate was just learning to crawl then and kept crashing the set as soon as I would get it assembled. I put it away but the boys found Thomas, took him to Pauline's house and pushed him around on the carpet until they stripped the transmission.

Since then Vicki had been on the lookout for another Thomas set and found one at a consignment sale. Nate got this for his birthday. Friday evening we took his new set and the track from Ben's old set and combined them to make one large railroad on the floor. You should have seen the look on Nate's face when I turned Thomas on for the first time. Enthralled doesn't capture it. Thirty minutes later I announced it was bedtime. Talk about an emotional roller coaster! It seems like we go through a battery a day.

FEED THE BIRDS. We have two bird feeders that I have hung in the pear tree outside the kitchen window. It took a while for the birds to find it but now we have customers all day long. These include cardinals, blue jays, wrens, red-headed woodpeckers (Vicki's favorite), doves and quail. They are really fun to watch and there are several varieties we can't identify (we just found my old flash card set of birds though).

One day I went out to refill the feeders. This lady cardinal must have thought I was removing the feeders because she gave me a real talking to until she saw what I was doing.

Joe

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone enjoys getting these newsletters. Occasionally someone will email or tell me that they do. When I first sat down to compose this edition I had a bit of writer's block and wrote the following for the introduction.

This has been one of those weeks where nothing really unusual happened, our routine activities have kept us all busy and I can't believe its Sunday again. It's like I have traveled somewhere and when I got to my destination I felt like I was just here. On a positive note, I think I enjoyed the trip.

Now that I am finished and have reread it I realized that this week has been a good week and I really did enjoy the trip.

PROGRESS REPORT. If our kids ever survive us through their childhood.... What do I mean by that? The mid-term progress reports were given out at our schools this week. When Jenna came home Vicki got her report out of her "take home folder." After looking it over she read aloud to Jenna, "Jenna is progressing and is a wonderful student." Then, without missing a beat, Vicki added, "...but she picks her nose in class." You should have seen the look of horror on that poor child's face.

Vicki, looked up and continued the fun by asking, "Jenna, you haven't been picking your nose in class have you?!" Jenna looked up and the only answer she could manage was a slow, guilty nod of her head. Vicki felt terrible that her joke went sour so she apologized and gave her a big hug. But now we all know....

A CAR WASH. I think I have mentioned Scoop before--the back hoe character from Bob the Builder that we have as a riding toy. Nate has taken it over from Ben now (Ben has moved on to a plastic motorcycle Nate got for his last birthday). I got a good laugh when I came in from work the other day. As I was taking my coat off I looked into Nate's room. I could see that he was busy doing something to Scoop. He looked up at me and said, "Daddy!" and went right back to work. When I looked more closely I discovered that he had gotten into the wet wipes and was washing Scoop down.

SCARED TO DEATH. The other night after supper Ben came upstairs to play on the computer. There must have been a print job that didn't get completed when it was shut down because when he booted it up and logged in the printer came to life. He came running downstairs, eyes real big, saying, "Daddy, the printer just started printing all by itself. I didn't make it do that and it scare me!"

GIRLS NIGHT OUT. Thursday night Vicki went to a Girls Night Out meeting at Springfield Baptist. Some 550 women were there to hear Kay Dekalb Smith speak. Smith is often billed as the Carol Burnett of Christian comedy. Vicki said she laughed so hard that she cried and really enjoyed the evening.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO NATE. Nate is two years old today. We celebrated his birthday with a trip to Hollywood's in White House for supper. They have a tabletop train set for kids to play with in the dining room and Nate thoroughly enjoyed playing with it. He was really sad when he had to stop to eat.

Ben and I played a game of air hockey. He got so excited whenever he scored that I wished I had the camera with me to catch his expression. Afterwards we went to Pauline's for cake and to open presents.

SCRIBBLE. If you have never tried to read Aunt Mar's handwriting you will not get the full implication of this story. The kids at East Robertson are allowed to receive mail at school this month (up to five letters). Partly for Valentine's Day and partly to teach about correspondence or friendly letters. Aunt Mar sent Jenna a note. When Jenna brought it home Vicki looked at it and asked Jenna if she was able to read it. She replied, "Parts of it but I think she wrote it in a different language."

GOOD NEWS! I got an email from Brian and Melissa Whaley the other day. They are friends from our UT-Knoxville days and are in the process of adopting a girl from India. Their paperwork has moved through the system faster than anticipated and they are now getting things set so they can travel. They still don't know when they will be leaving to get Morgan but it should be sometime in the next few months. Please keep them in your prayers.

Joe

So Where's the Snow?

Winter is halfway gone and we've only had the one snow at Christmas so far. Now I'm not trying to be insensitive to others but when you work for a school system and have snow days built into your calendar you kind of want to use them. If we don't we lose them. I'm tired of all this rain. If that groundhog saw his shadow I want to know where's the snow? We sure don't get it like we did when I was a kid.

HOW COULD YOU? So with Vicki's illness keeping her in the house for five days and Jenna being sick on top of that Vicki was getting a little cabin fever. On Tuesday I suggested we go out to eat without the kids. Since we had a gift card we went to Cracker Barrel.

Wednesday morning, while the kids were eating breakfast Jenna asked, "Mommy, where did you and Dad go out to eat last night?"

"Cracker Barrel," replied Vicki.

Then Jenna got this really incredulous look on her face and exclaimed, "Without us?!"

"Yes. Daddy wanted to have some alone time with me. Wasn't that nice?"

Jenna, still in her state of disbelief, retorted, "For you!"

DO I GROW UP YET? The other day Ben, all out of the blue, began talking to Vicki about his bear. Ben took up with his bear some time before he was two. It has been his companion ever since. I remember soon after Ben started walking he would carry it in his mouth by an ear or a paw. The best way to describe Bear's condition is "well loved."

So when Ben started talking about Bear the other day Vicki was surprised to hear him discussing whether to give up sleeping with it. What really clinched it for Vicki was when he said, "But Bear is sooo soft." That's when she broke in on Ben's thoughts and said it would be alright to keep on sleeping with Bear for a little while longer. One of these days Bear will retire, Ben will move on to other things and these days will be a fond memory.

THE WONDERS OF A STOOL. Nate has discovered the usefulness of a stool. We have two little plastic foot stools we bought so that the kids could reach the bathroom sink.

One of Nate's favorite things to do now is use a stool to flip a light switch. He especially likes to catch you in the bathroom. You'll be sitting there reading a magazine as you take care of business and here he comes packing his stool. Click! It does not matter how much you protest. He knows you are in no position to get up and enforce your commands. And there you sit, wondering how your magazine article ends.

PARANOIA FOR DESSERT. Vicki and I usually sit at the table and talk after the kids get done eating supper. The other night I decided to eat the last three peanut butter balls for dessert. Being a little selfish when it comes to these treats I hid them under the table when I heard little footsteps coming down the hall. Vicki really laughed at me as I was sort of nervous until I had finished eating.

FIRST SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT. On Friday night Ben went to a birthday party for one of his friends in his class at Mom's Day Out. This is the first time he has been invited to a party (not counting invitations from cousins where we were all invited) and he has been excited about it for weeks. He was so excited when Vicki told him to put his shoes on that he climbed up on the bed and started jumping up and down. I am so glad his day had come because it has been very hard for him to see Jenna get to go to parties by herself in the past.

PREPARING FOR EASTER. Easter comes early this year and our choir is working really hard to prepare for it. The calendar has not left them much time for rehearsals. Yesterday they had an all morning rehearsal. Since I don't sing and Brent knows I can cook pancakes I was asked to cook for the choir's mid-morning brunch. You can get a lot of pancakes going with three griddles!

The choir performed on of their pieces from the Easter musical at church this morning and they were great! The musical will be performed the evening before Easter and Easter morning (March 26 & 27).

Joe