Eliana's Journal Entry

11-27-2008, November

Thursday, we are going to my Grandma's house for thanksgiveing and we are spenting the night there. Olivia is going to woch the moovy of tinkerbell there. Me Eli I whent strat in the house and played it was really fun.

11-28-2008 Day after thanksgiveing. Olivia stabed me with a pen and it pealed my scin and it made a pen marck and it hert really bad my sister did it on perpis.

Paybacks

So, I have been having great sympathy for my parents lately. Eliana is reading chapter books, and she REALLY gets into them. Last night she was reading on the couch before and after dinner, and every time I said something to her, I had to repeat it three times before she responded, sometimes threatening to take her book away. (I know, my mom is smiling right now) At dinner, she barely participated in the conversation, and as soon as she had eaten the bare minimum requirement, she left the table to go back to her book. We had to call her back three times before she came to clear her place, and I eventually had to confiscate her book before she would do an acceptable job. Then she stomped and stormed her way through the job. Steven finally told her she couldn't have her book back until she changed her attitude. He modified that to her smiling. And after a twenty minute battle of wills between the two of them and a number of tears on her part, she finally managed a smile to earn her book back. We're such harsh taskmasters. It brought back some uncomfortable memories of being on the other side of this situation. So all I have to say is, yes Mom, this is paybacks!

What do campsite, earwax, and doorknob have in common?

Eliana has been learning about compound words at school. At dinner tonight, she was explaining to us what a compound word was: two words that are put together to make one word. We asked for an example ... and she promptly told us, "Thanksgiving!" Impressed, we began a discussion of other compound words: backyard, butterfly, catfish, into, campsite, hairbrush, sweatshirt, basketball, volleyball, cheerleading, schoolhouse, icebox, doorknob, dishwasher, birthday, wallpaper, earwax, eyelid, lipstick, bookshelf .... and there were many, many more, most of which Eliana came up with on her own. 

As we're coming up with all these compound words (and plenty that aren't) Olivia was trying to help. She came up with lipstick (which was actually pretty impressive), and then she pipes up, "How about stay-in-your-boundaries?"

Bedtime Prayers

At bedtime, we pray with the kids every night. Each family member gets a chance to pray, and if one of the kids doesn't want to pray, we always tell them, "you can pray for two people." For Eliana, this isn't usually an issue ... she wants to pray for everyone we know. Olivia, on the other hand, usually prays for herself and mommy ... since that qualifies as two people. Corbin has been taking a turn ever since he was old enough to understand that it's something he can participate in. The caveat of this is that often we don't understand what he's saying. So we chuckle at what he says and move on. Lately he's been praying a lot for "Mommy, Daddy, Pee-po ...." and we have no idea what "Pee-po" is, but it's cute, and he's very sincere. Until tonight, when it just clicked. We remind Olivia almost every night that she can pray for two people. And so Corbin prays, "Mommy, Daddy, too pee-po ..."

Like WHO?

Corbin is in this stage of everything being very negative. His favorite answer is "no!" His comments are all presented as dire and upsetting, even the ones he's excited about, like the "po-ise car!" And if he's talking and you're not listening, he's yelling at you to pay attention to him. So in the car today, he's yelling because I'm talking to Eliana and not him, and I sighed and said, "Corbin, you're impossible." Eliana asked what that meant. I replied that it's kinda frustrating how everything he says is complaining or yelling. And Eliana replies, "Oh. Kinda like Sharpay!"

Sick

My sweet Eliana is very sick today. I think the saddest part is that she's so brave about it. Fever, headache, runny nose, cough, with some barf thrown in there during the night. I think the barf is cause she gets too much phlegm in her little tummy.

So after I dropped Olivia off at school today, we went to the grocery store because the only thing she wanted to eat was strawberries. How could I resist that? While we were there she also decided she wanted yogurt and chicken noodle soup. She sat in the cart, wrapped in a blanket, giving her sick-voiced little comments and questions. So pray that she gets better, 'cause she makes me feel so sad! Even right now she's curled up on the couch reading to Corbin because she felt bad that I was refusing to read to him while I was on the computer. I know, I'm a mean mom. And she's very sweet.

On the positive, today is my first prenatal! We get to hear our baby's heartbeat for the first time. I'm just praying there's only one!

Halloween pics