Hiding

Von has learned something new: how to hide. This is something that he is very good at, and is getting better at all the time. Usually he hides when he wants to play with something he isn't supposed to play with, like his piggy bank. He quietly goes into my room, takes it off the shelf, goes into the closet and hides behind the door, where he takes the plug out of the tummy and dumps all the coins out. He has done this so many times that I automatically check there first.
Another place he hides is under his bed. I knew he liked playing under beds, and so I left a space big enough to play when I was putting boxes under his bed. The nice thing about this hiding place is that I know to look there.
The next most likely hiding place is in the sewing room. Currently the sewing room isn't very organized, so he crawls under the clothes drying rack, under the quilting frame and puts together puzzles. He loves it under there. I wonder what he'll do when I get the room organized?
A few nights ago I went to check on the boys before I went to bed, and Von wasn't in his bed. So I checked under his bed, and under Kaleb's bed. No Von. I quickly started freaking out and yelled for Karl to come help me. We turned on all the lights and looked everywhere we could think of. Somewhere during the search I realized that the front door was unlocked (which meant someone could have come in and taken him, at least that was possible in my frame of mind at the time). After a good minute or two of searching, and freaking out, and praying, I moved the door to the boy's bedroom, and there was Von, sleeping soundly on the floor behind the door. I almost started crying, I was so thrilled that he was ok.
So now I have a new hiding place to look at when searching for Von...

Small Changes

I've been a little frustrated lately that some of the changes Karl and I are trying to make don't seem to make any difference. On Saturday I got a boost when I realized that they ARE making a difference, I just wasn't recognizing the change.
The big thing we're working on is eating out less. This seems to be one of the biggest struggles we have, we just enjoy eating out. One of our favorite places to get burgers is Red Robin. 6 or 8 months ago this is what we would get when we ate there: a burger for each of us, endless steak fries, sodas or strawberry lemonade to drink, and a shake or piece of pie to share. This would end up costing around $35 when we added the tip, and we would both end up stuffed!
On Saturday we went trick or treating at the mall and one of the last places we went was Red Robin. Instead of candy they were handing out coupons for a free kids meal, so we decided to be done trick or treating and eat dinner. Karl and I each ordered our favorite burger and fries, but we didn't ask for more fries when the ones we had were gone, we drank water instead of soda and we didn't even talk about getting a dessert. With our tip we spent $23, and left feeling satisfied instead of stuffed.
I felt pretty good about the changes we've made, even though they're small, they are significant.
And Karl is loosing weight too.

Dropping the Subject

Lately Kaleb has had a really hard time accepting decisions of authority figures (aka Karl and I). For example: he really likes to be tucked in by Karl and I. So we both tuck him in, then he gets out of bed for some reason, and wants tucked in again. So he'll ask: Tuck me in Mom? and I say: No, I already did. So he repeats: Tuck me in Mom? again and again, for about 5 minutes, until Karl or I get frustrated enough to threaten that he will lose his privileges, at which point he stops, for at least a minute or two before starting again.
I find this really annoying and have been struggling with it, especially for the past week or so. Finally I realized what to do about it. I taught him the skill of "accepting no". This is how I taught him the skill:
1. Ask the question
2. Listen to the answer and accept it.
3. Say Ok.
4. Drop the subject.
Kaleb is doing great with this. He is having a hard time recognizing what the answer is, so I clarify: the answer is no. He says ok, and then holds out a fist, fingers down and opens his hand, so it looks like he's dropping something. I'm not sure where he got this idea from, but it works, and he doesn't bring up the topic again.
Kaleb is getting some awesome benefits from this. The first is that he has happier parents who aren't frustrated all the time, and the second is that I actually say yes more often because I'm not frustrated.
Awesome skill to have.

Gratitude

Last night something sad happened. Our TV broke. Our nice 50" TV. I was really sad, and frustrated until Karl looked up our warranty and found out that it was covered. The TV repairman should be here in a day or two, but we decided to bring our small TV out of our bedroom so we can watch TV until then. So after Karl brought it out and set it up I started watching the TV show I wanted to watch.
At first I was amazed at how small the 26" widescreen TV was. Then my attitude changed. I remembered the 20" TV Karl and I bought when we got married. We used that for 4 years and were happy with it. Even our small TV now is bigger than that one. It just made me grateful for the blessings I have.
What blessings do you take for granted?

Cravings

I think cravings are really interesting. I've heard of people who crave pickles or ice cream while they're pregnant, but I haven't had those cravings. The interesting thing about them is that I always thought that you craved something and then when you had it the craving went away. Maybe that's the case for some people, but not for me.
When I was pregnant with Kaleb I craved steak. I wanted it ALL the time. We would buy roasts and have the butcher cut in into steaks so it wouldn't be very expensive. There was awhile during the pregnancy that I would eat steak 3-4 times each week. The funny thing about this is that I really didn't like steak, either the texture or the taste, but I WANTED it!
Von's pregnancy I craved 2 things. For the first 4-5 months I craved Panda Express Chinese Food. I had some from other places and it didn't satisfy me at all, it had to be theirs. During this pregnancy I was working, so each day I worked I would have Panda Express for lunch. It was delicious. Eventually this craving wore off and I started craving vegetables. I wanted lots of them. The one I wanted the most was carrots, or steamed cauliflower.
So far this pregnancy I have had 2 main cravings as well. The first was fruit. Mostly mangoes, apples, dried apricots and grapes. There are still few things that satisfy me like a big bowl of red grapes. For the last month or so I've gotten a new craving: Water. Not just out of the tap though, it has to be COLD. So I fill up my water mug with filtered water, and put it in the fridge overnight. During the day I put a bunch of ice cubes in and wait for them to make the rest of the water cold.
This craving has a negative side effect, especially since I'm drinking at least a gallon of water everyday, most of which happens to be in the evening. So I wake up a lot in the night too.
At least this craving is inexpensive, all it has cost so far is $1- for the new ice cube trays that actually let the ice cubes out.
What crazy cravings have you had?

Honesty

Karl and I took the boys to get new coats at Sears today. Kaleb's coat from last year had a tear in the lining, so I was planning on taking advantage of their kid-vantage program. This is a program they have that if you buy something and it wears out, you can get another of the same size, for free. I thought it was only valid for the same kid that you bought it for in the first place, but had decided to pretend the coat was for Kaleb, even though it was for Von.
After trying on coats Karl said we really should just buy each of them a coat and forget doing the kid-vantage. I really didn't want to buy 2 new coats, but I thought he was right. So I decided to clarify my understanding of the program.
I asked the cashier if the kid-vantage had to be for the same kid, and she said it only had to be the same size. Hooray!
So both my boys have new winter coats, and we only had to pay for one. I'm glad we were honest about it, and that it worked out to our advantage.

BTW, as we were leaving Sears I saw Melanie Farnsworth. She's in town for her son's wedding next week. How often do you randomly run into someone you know that happens to live in a foreign country?

Learning from Experience

Throughout my life I have learned a lot of things from experience. The first thing that comes to mind is cars. This is what I've learned from my experiences with cars:
-Running out of gas is embarrasing, but causes no damage to the car.
-Running out of oil is NOT like running out of gas. It is not only embarrassing, but it also turns your engine into a really expensive piece of useless metal.
-Running out of transmission fluid is bad for your transmission, if your car isn't shifting gears smoothly, check the transmission fluid.
-Using expensive window cleaner that has a lower freezing temperature is worth the price. It really stinks to have to pull over every five minutes to throw a snowball at your window because your windshield is dirty and your windshield cleaner is frozen.
-If your car is rocking up and down while you drive down the street, you probably have a flat tire.
-It is important to have a jack in your car, and a 4 way lug wrench. The 4 way part is mostly just important if the nuts were put on too tightly.
-Highway patrolmen are really nice about changing your tire for you when you don't have a lug wrench (at least the one that helped me was).
-Having your car looked at occasionally by a good mechanic can save you some serious money and frustration down the road.
-Maintenance is less expensive, and better timed than getting stuff fixed is.

So that is most of what I've learned from experience about driving cars. The important thing about all of these is that I learned from them. I am probably more careful about checking oil than any person I know.
While it's important to learn from your own experiences, there is something more important: learning from other people's experiences. These experiences usually don't have as huge an impact on your own life, and as such they are harder to remember, but if you try, you can learn a lot from other people.