magical pizza

jason has been gone most evenings this week, so dinners have mostly been pbj or cheerios. but since that is what hiba and matthias had for lunch and breakfast yesterday, that wasn't going to work. we were having a little bit of a rough afternoon, so dinner needed to be a distraction and something that wouldn't cause a fight. so i thought we'd make pizzas.

i told hiba and she was SO excited. she loves helping me with anything, so when i told her that she would get to make her own, she was pretty thrilled. she asked if they could be magical pizzas. sure, why not? (i'm not sure what made them magical. of course, i'm not sure what made them pizzas either since they were really just slices of bread, cheese, and olives. but hey, whatever works.)

hiba was very careful and concentrated.

you may or may not have noticed that matthias isn't in those pictures. is this because i thought it would be easier to do one at a time? or because i wanted to spend quality time with them separately? 

no, not so much. it's because at this point, he is in his bedroom in time-out, where he has been for the last hour (not even joking) because he didn't want to pick up the books he threw all over the living room. i would put him in time-out, get him up, ask him if he wanted to pick up the books or go back to his bed, he would scream at me or just flat out tell me he didn't want to pick them up, and we'd do it over again. for an hour. 

so many books. i totally understand his opposition. 

the pizzas finally lured him into cleaning up, and i finally gave in and helped him (although i did make him start and do most of the books). so then he got to make his magical pizzas too.

matthias was not so careful about spreading the cheese. he just dumped out the whole bowl.

hiba at a lot of her olives before we actually cooked the pizzas. 

so magical.

maybe we should go to india first

hiba (as we are on our way home from the zoo, in the late afternoon): hey mom, can we go to china today?
me: um, no. i don't think we'll be able to fit that in today.
hiba: why not?
me: well, china is very far away and so it takes a long time to get there.
hiba: but i told marty and yaqin that i would come see them at China with you. so we need to go to china.
me: i hope that someday we can go see marty and yaqin in china with you and matthias, but i just don't think that we'll have time for that today. it takes a very long time to get to china because it is very far away.
hiba: oh. little rock is far from china? *pause* well, what is close?
me: what do you mean? what is close to little rock? or what is close to china?
hiba: what is close to china?
me: um, india is close to china.
hiba: well, maybe we should just go to india first do then we would be close to china. will that work?

christmas recap

we had  a pretty great christmas.

well, as long as you over-look the fact that matthias was sick, which meant he was sad and pathetic and didn't sleep, which meant i was stressed for him and didn't sleep. it was seriously like having a newborn again. up every few hours at night. for four nights. i don't do well when i am sleep deprived.

but, other than that minor detail, things were great. this is the first year since we've had kids that we could do christmas at our own house. hiba's first christmas was spent in the US while we were here for a visit. we were living at jason's family's house for matthias' first christmas. and last year, we split the time between my family and jason's, so we didn't do anything at our own house. we didn't even have a tree.

so i was pretty excited to do christmas at our house, start our own traditions, etc. and it was fun. it lived up to my (pretty low) expectations and i think the kids really enjoyed it. christmas is so fun with two little kids. they are still at the age where they are grateful for almost anything, so getting all those presents, in hiba's words, was magical. (also, according to hiba dishwashers, making cake, playing matching games, christmas lights, and a whole list of other things are magical. but i still think she loved presents the best.)

yay for decorations!

my parents, rachel, and daniel came down to our house on the 23rd and stayed the night. we had a birthday dinner for rachel on christmas eve eve (also a magical day), and then did christmas on christmas eve. it was fun to host and great to see them all.

birthday girl!

new children from grammy and oscar

opening a present from uncle daniel

gifts from uncle nate and aunt kristin - we missed them!

"ooooo, trains!"

a new "finding" book from nate and kristen. 

hippy grammy and hiba

christmas morning, we had christmas with our little family. the kids got to open their stockings (magical) before breakfast. they were pretty excited about stockings.

then we had breakfast and read the christmas story. in my head, this was going to be a really sweet time, with both the kids listening attentively, while jason and i explained the reason for christmas, the mystery that is Christ's birth, and the depth of God's love for us.

in reality, matthias refused to sit and listen and spent half the story turning our christmas lights on and off, while hiba listened, but interrupted every other sentence to interject comments that may or may not have had anything to do with what i was reading. but hey, that's how our life is, and we got through the story, with matthias even joining us at the end. and really in my head, that is exactly how i thought it would go.

then on to the presents. by this point, the kids had it down pretty well and there was no taking turns. there was lots of hiba and matthias helping me and jason open presents though.

a microphone!

princess stickers!

a new basketball goal - their big present for both of them

hiba got a shopping cart and reusable bags

matthias got a tool bench. now he can hammer to his little heart's content!

our big presents from them came from our church building, because we sold the building and were cleaning it out. some people may call that being cheap. i think of it as being green. i was pretty excited and all three things have been a huge hit the last few days. i was a little hesitant to give matthias that encouraged him to hammer, since he hammers everything with anything, but it's actually worked out well, because now he just hammers on his tool bench. all the time.

after naptime, we headed over to jason's family's house for more presents and dinner. yaqin made chinese food for dinner, which was delicious. i forgot my camera, so no pictures, but we had a great time. the best moment was when matthias opened his present from marty and yaqin - a bag of cheetos! weeks ago, when i asked him what he wanted for christmas, he said "chips". and that was all. so he got chips. presents at the pollack's was right at the worst time of his sickness - fever, runny nose, coughing a ton, watery eyes. he looked terrible. but when he pulled the cheetos out of the gift bag, he eyes got so big and lit up. it was awesome. apparently, he knew exactly what he wanted. 

a birthday present for Jesus

i'm going to take a break from writing about potty training. mostly because right now matthias has a pull-up on. and we have no clean towels left.

anyway.

this morning, i was talking to hiba about christmas. i really want her to know that christmas is about Jesus, not about presents and getting stuff. so i was telling her how it is Jesus' birthday and that is why we get presents for each other. then i asked her what she wanted to get Jesus for his birthday.

she stopped and thought for a minute. i couldn't wait to hear what she said - a new toy, some cookies, a car - really, these were the answers i was expecting.

but instead, she looked at me and said, "sharing. i want to get Jesus sharing for his birthday".

she then talked for about five minutes about how Jesus is happy when we share and how she should share with matthias and all her friends and this is what she wanted to give Jesus for his birthday. she even talked about how we should share with people if they need things and we have a lot.

i don't think i've ever been more happy hearing something come out of her mouth. i know that some of what she said was just repeating what i've said the last few weeks. but she's hearing it. she has such a tender heart, so much love and care for people. it's fun to see this in her at such a young age. hearing her talk about how to love Jesus by loving others is just about the best present she could give me. 

the train has left the station

so on a scale of success to fail, i would put potty training yesterday on the epic fail side. in all fairness to matthias, it was not the best day to start. more about that in a minute. but really, he is ridiculous. so stubborn. so dramatic. SO whiney. and then also so cute. so cooperative. so excited.

the day started out ok. he sat on his little potty while they watched a tv show, with no real results, but hey - points for trying. then he put on his big boy underwear and ran around, playing. then i suggested about a half hour later that he try again - something that i thought was a reasonable request and he had been relativiely excited about moments before. well, this suggestion brought the response of throwing himself on the floor, whining, and absolutly refusing the idea of sitting on the potty.

ok, plan b. i asked him if he wanted to change underwear after he sat on the potty. his response was more fussing, grabbing new underwear and wanting to put it on right then, without trying to go potty. i said no, which resulted in more screaming. literally. screaming.

ok, plan c. i break out the treats. all he has to do is sit on his little potty for two seconds and he can have a treat. that's it. pretty simple, if you ask me. well, apparently that was to much to ask. he just wanted a treat. for being. and for his stellar behavior up to this point. i said no. more screaming.

so that was a great start. i finally just ignored him, he went back to playing and literally less than a minute later, i hear "oopsy, oopsy, oppsy". and he's standing in a puddle.

awesome.

but i didn't give up. the day did get a little better. no success, but only a few accidents and less fits. at the end of the night when i was changing him into his bedtime diaper, he actually wanted to sit on the potty. so we're trying again today and tomorrow, when we really don't have anywhere to be or things to do, and then we'll reassess the situation. this morning has already been better, so i have hope.

on to a new topic - as i said, yesterday may not have been the best day for the potty train to arrive. and that's because jason, marty, and alan (jason's brother and dad) spent the majority of the day tearing apart our kitchen, installing a garbage disposal and dishwasher, and putting the kitchen back together. so it was a little hectic around here. i obviously didn't have my full attention to devote to matthias and we went out several times to get the kids out of the way.

so now we have a dishwasher. the house didn't have one when we moved in, which wasn't a huge deal to me. i've never had a dishwasher. my parents don't have one, we didn't have one in our first apartment, we didn't have one in palestine, so it didn't really phase me to not have one here. the is a place where there used to be one in our kitchen (and now there's one again!), so we always thought that we would put one in. well, someone gave us one, so the guys decided to install it. and a garbage disposal. it took a little longer than expected, but they got the job done.

i've never really minded doing dishes, but it's not one of my favorite things. and i especially hate waking up to a pile of dishes. on a good day, there are a few dishes from the evening before and a lot of dishes from jason's breakfast in the sink to greet me as a wake up. often there are dishes from dinner the night before piled in the sink, on the stove, on the counter, mocking me viscously as i wake up.

this morning - there was hot coffee in the coffee pot and zero dishes out. and my kids slept till 8. and matthias happily sat on the potty while watching dora. i felt like i was in an alternate universe.

so potty train fail + successful installation of a dishwasher = not such a bad day after all.