Bye, Bye Binky

I gave Isabelle until she turned 2 to give up her binky.

Liam is a man, so therefore I only gave him until 22 months.

Just kidding that has nothing to do with it.

What happened was we were down to 1 binky, or so I thought.

It was bedtime the other night, actually it was 2 hours past bedtime and 

I was done being mommy for the day.

But oh the horror- where was binky?!?  He was no where to be found!!!

Luckily Liam just went to bed.  He was so tired he didn't even care about binky.

That's when I decided that binky would be banished forever.

The next day at nap time I found the lost binky and threw him in the garbage.

This is how Liam felt about no binky at nap time...

 

After screaming in his room for about 10 minutes 

I heard singing coming from his room.

What on Earth could have brought this on I thought.

It can't be good, I'd better go check...

What the????  He found another binky?

Is there I binky stash I don't know about.

That's how you know people have an addiction, when they hide extra ones in "special" places.

So for one last time, he got his sweet friend binky back.

I decided to be devious and give binky a trim.

When it was bedtime again Liam discovered that binky was broken!

At first he laughed, then he realized that broken binky is no fun.

 

This didn't stop him from going to sleep with it for about 5 more nights.

Sometimes he would just set it on top of his mouth.

Sometimes he would hold it in his hands.

Every time I would ask him if we should throw it away he gave me a resounding negative head shake.

About a week later he is doing great.

It was a pain free process for me, and just a little heart wrenching for Liam.

I am so glad that he is done with the binky phase of life.

On to the next phase!

He has discovered that when he is really upset picking his nose can be quite soothing.

 

This is a weird and disturbing new habit.

It's not like I can trim his finger or accidentally "lose" one of them.

I really hope this doesn't turn into a new addiction!

So this is why they say being a mom is challenging!  

I am going to have to get more creative!

How to Shave a Cat

I love our cat.

He is the best pet.

Very calm and loving.

Cute and mostly quiet.

But every spring the cat hair starts to make me crazy.

I've had enough and decided he needed to be shaved.

Usually I make Soungsik help me with this, but he said he's not going to do it anymore.

Why?  Because shaving a cat sucks!

I decided today that I would try it by myself, this sucks twice as much ad doing it with a friend.

Here are the directions if you want to shave a cat.

Step 1 - Put older child in charge of younger child.  Children DO NOT help in this process.

I put Isabelle in charge of William. No worries, she's on the ball! In fact in a couple more years I am just going to turn him over to her to finish raising entirely, because honestly I don't think I know how to raise him!

Step 2 - Clip the cats nails - DUH!

I learned this lesson the hard way a few years ago.

Step 3 - Shut the door - Double DUH!

Cats don't enjoy being shaved and they will run away the first chance they get. I learned this the hard way too.

Step 4 - Put on protective gear.

I forgot to do this.  A painters suit would be perfect if you have one - it will keep all of the hair off of your clothes.  A mask is a great idea too - unless you want a cat hairball in your throat.  

Step 5 - Cut most of the hair off first with scissors.  This will make your cat look freaky, but it will improve your coordination and mental focus so I recommend doing this to help postpone dementia and other mental illnesses. 

Step 6 - Break out the electric clippers.  We paid about $100 for our super powerful specialized cat clippers.  I don't think they work at all.

Step 7 - Do all of these steps above for at least an hour.  Then give up and decide to do the rest on another day, and you too can have a half shaved cat that is afraid of you.

Step 8 - Give the cat a bath.  Don't worry, cats just love baths!

Step 9 - You will need to clean the bathroom at least 3 times to get rid of all of the cat hair.

I am going to make Soungsik finish up the rest.

I think I did the worst of it - maybe!

As a side note - once it's done it is completely worth it!

Good luck and happy shaving!!!

Other People's Children

June is always a month that I love to hate, or hate to love.  

It gets pretty busy in our house this time of year.

Last Saturday was no exception.  

Soungsik had black belt testing.

 

This is Peter, one of our students and a family friend.

Overall it was a great test.  And I for one am very happy that Soungsik has other people to help him with testings now and I don't have to go anymore!

I had the home school convention the same day.

Thanks to Grandma babysitter I was able to go!

I like the home school convention.

It is always motivating and encouraging. 

Most of the classes are good, and there is always at least one that is just completely crazy and you wonder for an hour how you got stuck in there and if it would 

be rude to get up and walk out.

There are usually a lot of crazy people there too.

Oh sure normal people come, but they aren't as fun to watch.  I wonder if other people thought

I was one of the crazies?!?

I got Isabelle's math curriculum ordered and I am so excited to get started on school next year. I am sure Isabelle would appreciate a little time off first though.

After belt testing and the convention we had my 

niece and nephews baptism.

This was such an awesome event and 

we are so happy for their family.

 

Here's Cameron.

 

And cutie pie Elyssa!

Someone dropped the ball and didn't fill the font.

We had to wait for a while to try to get enough water in.

The sister missionaries were running back and forth with bowls of warm water trying to get it heated up.

Despite all of their efforts little Elyssa was turning purple after!  And because there wasn't a lot of water in the font she had to get "dunked" 4 times!  Poor little girl!

Now that the cold has worn off I am sure it will help them remember this day forever.

 

What would a baptism be without a plate of cookies?

Isabelle is counting down days until she can get baptized.

It's going to be a while!

That's how other people's children kept us moving and shaking last Saturday!  What a great day, and now I only have 3 more Saturdays to survive this month.

I think I can, I think I can!

BOOK REVIEW: PRINCESS ACADEMY

Title: Princess Academy
Author: Shannon Hale
Number of Pages: 314
Number of Stars: 2.5

This book was a New York Times Bestseller and a Newberry Honor book.  I think possibly our standards need to be raised.  I realize that this is a juvenile book, but it is ridiculously immature.  Hale's other book "The Goose Girl" was much better. 

Things I liked about this book...ummm, thinking, thinking, thinking...it's wholesome.  No bad language or immorality. 

What I didn't like about this book...I HATED the picture on the cover.  That girl is not at all how I wanted to picture the main character.  So her just staring at me all of the time was annoying.  This book was so predictable.  Too much so.  There wasn't even a faint glimmer of hope for a different ending.  A large portion of this book was spent on "quarry speech".  It really didn't make any sense, and I wish the author could have found a way to remove it from the story altogether, it was pretty lame.  If you are between the ages of 8 and 12 and you are a girl, you will disagree 100% with my review and you should read it.  If you are a mom, please, please go read something else!