The Westside Story

D. was cute tonight. She came into the kitchen with a little notepad and a pencil and said that because she had found several things lately, she must be a good detective and “Daddy, you know you have to get me a magnifying glass and a brown coat with pockets” because apparently that’s the gear of any good detective! She then asked me what I would like her to find. Feeling a little exasperated at the moment, I said, “an obedient child.” She took me seriously, but then trying to please her client, she upped the ante, “How about six obedient children?” “Sounds good” I said. Moments later, she was in interviewing Stephanie, asking her if she had been obedient as a child. When Steph said “sometimes”, D. noted it appropriately in her notebook. She also caught K. doing a chore and asked me whether I had been obedient. “Er, I tried” I stammered. Once again, she noted it in her notebook.

Now, she is only one child short to have “solved the case”! If you have an obedient child that fits the description, let D. know!

–Posted by Rick

D came up to me the other day and said, “I’ve got something sharp in my mouth. Can you look at it?” Thinking that she had a piece of popcorn left in her mouth or something like that, I looked at it but quickly realized she is getting her first adult tooth. Trouble is, it’s coming in right behind her bottom baby teeth and they aren’t budging. So, we have an appointment on Thursday to see the dentist.

We would like to know:

1. Have you ever had an adult tooth come before you lost your baby teeth?

2. If so, what happened? Did you have to have your baby teeth pulled? Did they loosen and fall out? Did it cause any problems with your adult teeth?

We’re really not super phobic about house fires or anything, but it may seem that way after K.’s answer in primary. When the primary president asked the children what they had been practicing at home this week (hinting at the upcoming primary program), K. answered “fire drills!”

Yes, that was the topic of family home evening a couple of weeks ago, and I guess it stuck with her. That’s a good thing!

I had forgotten about this comment from K until the other day I found the paper I had asked my mother to write it on. Soon after L was born, my mom came to visit and we were driving a long distance in the car. I think my mom and I were talking about when we would next stop and change L’s diaper when K interrupted and said:

“If he poops his pants we need to sell him back and get another one!”

Sorry, K, but brothers are not something we can just trade in for a better model.

Our first home

Well, it’s now 5:37 in the morning. I woke up around 3:45 with a bad dream. You know the ones where you’ve lost your child or something like that. I can’t remember it clearly right now. I just remember the panicked feeling I had as I woke up and then that led me into thinking about the things that are worrying me right now … like selling our house. My feelings on this change from day to day, week to week, even hour to hour. To sell the house or not to sell the house. That is the question. Actually, it’s really just when to put the house on the market and should we do it on our own or use a realtor. When we moved into this house, we decided that we would put it on the market “for sale by owner” fall of ’08. Well, that time is here. The house is looking pretty good. It better. We’ve been working on it ALL summer long. But this is a BIG decision. So, the questions running through my head are:

1. Should we put the house on the market this fall or wait until January/February?
If we do then we have to find an apartment and it is unlikely, if not impossible, for us to find an apartment as great as our house for what we are paying right now (and without a 12 month lease). If we wait until January or February then we may only have a few months to sell the house if we are lucky enough to begin a job at the beginning of the summer.

2. Should we use a realtor or sell it ourselves?
We purchased this without a realtor. I just don’t know if we’re ready to sell this on our own. I think I can handle the advertising pretty well on my own. I’ve got a million ideas of where and how to advertise. But can we handle the ins and outs of writing our own contract, etc., etc?

So, here I sit on my computer looking through apartments and wondering if we really want to squeeze back into a cheap apartment (that likely has cockroaches, yuck!) and looking at homes for sale in my neighborhood to see what the competition is going to be and then reading through all of my friend’s blogs to have something to think about besides selling our house in the hopes that maybe I will be able to go back to sleep … and I thought it was supposed to be the baby that keeps me up at night.

Well, if you have any suggestions, comments, advice, or consoling words I’d love to hear them. Unless you’re a realtor, of course, and then any advice you have might be biased.   And if you’re looking to buy a house, the one in the picture above will be for sale … sometime in the next year.

Ha! Ha! If you thought this was a post that I’m pregnant, you are VERY mistaken. Just a quick story about the funny things that our children say. During scripture study last night I was holding K on my lap while Rick was reading. I guess she wasn’t very comfortable, because she asked me if I could put my stomach down. “Sorry, K. My stomach doesn’t go down any farther right now.” Then she quickly came back with the comment that “I’m going to have a baby girl.” Apparently if you don’t have a flat stomach you must be pregnant and, in this case, it was a girl.

Well … I think I’ll go do some situps right now …

A letter from D. to K. that we found downstairs today:

“Dear K. I Love You. Even at hard times. Frum D.”

Now that’s sweet!

Picture by Alaina Enslen.

One of my favorite parts of having children is hearing them talk about grown-up topics like getting married, buying a house, etc., but then interpret these adult events through their child-like imaginations. Today as we were driving, D declared: “When I buy a house, it will have a balcony.” K got excited and said, “When you buy your house, can I come live in it … and be your servant?” Remember, this is the child that I cannot get to lift a finger to clean and who doesn’t like taking authority from her sister now wanting to be her servant. Why, you might ask? She told me it because, “I know about servants, they get to eat from the fridge . . . D. when I’m your servant, will you let me eat from the fridge?”

The girls continue to make exciting plans for this house. When discussing the bedroom, K. asked, “Can I sleep in your bedroom with you?” D. agreed and exclaimed, “This is going to be so much FUN!” I then asked, “Well, what about your husbands? Where will they sleep?” K. pondered this and replied, “Well, we could get two bunkbeds, and they could sleep on the bottom.”

Poor fellas!

Two sisters: One big house with a balcony. This picture was taken by Alaina Enslen.

Every parent knows the first big battle among parents with a new baby is to see whether the child’s first words are “da-da” or “ma-ma”.

Well score one for daddy this time!

The last couple of days L. has discovered his tongue and how it helps to make the da-da sound, and he spends a good chunk of the day saying da-da to everyone and giggling when you say it back to him. When Steph tries to get him to say ma-ma, he gets a sheepish grin as if to say, “Ha, funny one, Mom!”

And no, I haven’t been bribing him with candy to get him to say da-da!

This cute picture was taken by Alaina Enslen.

–posted by Rick

This is just a quick post to share some things we’ve learned this last week to help us have good, clean movies to watch. The first is I found the website http://www.kids-in-mind.com, which is like http://www.screenit.com, but better in my opinion. You can read detailed reviews of the nitty gritty details of movies (how many of each kind of swearing, how much sexual innuendo, etc.), as well as overall themes for a film. Cool!

Secondly, our favorite way to clean up movies is with ClearPlay, which won its legal battle with the movie industry because it does not change a DVD at all–but it does change the playback through some computer code you upload to your DVD player. Through a monthly membership, you can get new filters for movies the week they are released. We’ve used one for years and love it, and we just heard that they are doing a promotion where if you buy a ClearPlay DVD player, the year membership is almost free. If interested, you’ll need to call them at 8883030771 ext. 832

–submitted by Rick