we have a new handyman

Daddy and Curious George put the lattice up under the front steps. Curious George enjoyed the whole thing since it's a new "job" for him.

manners and jobs

I have a great video to share (and I've been trying since yesterday!) but youtube is PMSing on me. So in the meantime, I want to share something about Curious George.

Curious George has learned to say "Excuse me" at school after burping. So now, he does it consistently. He even tells his Daddy to say it after he belches. And considering that my hubby is a man and most men just let it all out when it comes to bodily functions, this gets funny. Several times a day, the females of the house hear "blurpppppppp" and then a microsecond later we hear, "Daddy, say excuse me!" And this is true even if they are in the opposite sides of the house. Hilarious!

A few days ago, I gave Curious George the job of cleaning up the table after we eat. I have an all natural surface cleaner that I allow him to use. He loves the job! The first night, he was so excited. "This is my job", "I have a lot of job because I'm a big boy", "I have a job to do" he exclaimed the whole time he was cleaning.

curiosity

Curious George and a broken bird house.

Thing 1 lines up her rocks.

Thing 2 finds a feather.

backyard fun

It's been warm these past few days, the kids are able to have fun in the backyard.


Notice the way Thing 1 calls her daddy to come get her. "Da!," she says.


Thing 2 finds Curious George's bucket of rocks and plays with it. She tries to count, but says letter sounds instead.


Curious George wants to put a bird house on the tree. The problem is, it's broken. But it doesn't matter, I guess. He is in his full "builder" mode, complete with goggles and his very own pint size real hammer.


Thing 1 joins Thing 2 to play with the rocks. I say, "one" and Thing 1 says "two" and Thing 2 says "three". :-)

with friends at the botanical garden

Curious George and P were the leader and the rest just followed along.
(Thing 1 in blue, Thing 2 in pink)

It's not an easy task to get all these kids to look at the camera at the same time.

Building a sand castle that is complete with animal gardeners, butlers, and other workers.

Looking for fish (Coys, I believe they're called).

It was a great day at the botanical garden. The weather was unusually warm. The kids, ranging from 7 months to 5 years old all had fun being outdoors. Curious George and P was the leader of the group, always ahead of everyone. Thing 1 and Thing 2 did very well walking on their own. They even made the trek (uphill ramp) all the way up to the tree-house. Unfortunately, no sooner did they reach the top, the bigger kids were already on the way down. Oh well. But for such little Things, they kept up with the big kids very well.

oh knee, how you have failed me...

After having my arthroscopy with lateral release Dec. 5th, and after 6 weeks of physical therapy after the fact, my knee is still having problems. I am experiencing different pain, but it's a symptom of the same problem - my knee cap isn't staying in it's tract. My right thigh (the operated leg) has lost muscle tone from lack of use and looks different from my left, which has been over-used ever since the surgery. The physical therapy is supposed to strengthen the quads back to it's normal pre-operation function, but the pain in my knee is hindering the effort. I can't get pass the pain in order to build the quads back up.

The pain isn't constant. In fact, I can walk around without pain. The pain rears it's ugly head when I lift my leg straight up from a sitting position and when I'm lying down. And that's the most important exercise when strengthening the quads. Because my quad muscle is very weak, I have to lock my knee pretty much all the time to support my weight. If I bend it during normal walking gait, it gives on me. Nice, huh? No, not really. Especially when my 20 month old twins can outrun me without trying.

The creaking noise it used to make is gone, sure. But it's a whole different ball game. I feel like a cripple. After completing 6 weeks of post-op physical therapy, my doctor ordered 4 more weeks. And told me that the operation didn't help as much as hoped. If we were to leave things alone, being young, I am sure to develop bad arthritis. I already have arthritis, but I guess it was bound to go downhill from here. My orthopaedist has refferred me to a sports medicine doctor to discuss more aggressive surgery. Yikes. This on top of my dear husband's change of employment status and the lost of health insurance last Friday. Well. I will have to make due with being a cripple for a while.

In the meantime, where does this leave me? It leaves me having to propel myself up the stairs if I have to lead with the operated knee. Why would I want to lead with that leg? Well, to give my other bad knee a break, of course. And then hanging on for dear life when going down the stairs, hoping my operated knee doesn't buckle on me making me go down faster than I really want to.

If and when we sell this house, ranch style homes are looking more and more beautiful to me.

Oh well, enough about my misery. This blog sounds worse than it really is. Considering our current state of having no income, we must look for the bright side of things. At least I only have one creaking knee now, instead of two. And my children...what little miracles they are. My husband...well, he's just the best friend anyone could every ask for. We'll all be OK.

coin cars

Here are some pictures of the girls playing with the coin operated cars in the mall.

Thing 1 and her paranoid look.

Thing 1 drives like a maniac. (Curious George is in the background.)

Thing 1 and Thing 2 (green) fights over the car.