“Bedtime in one hour.”

“Bedtime in half an hour.”

“Bedtime in fifteen minutes.”

“Ok, brush your teeth, go to the bathroom, wash your hands, get your jammies on, and go to bed.”

A lot of instructions, I know, but he’s really got that bedtime routine down pat. The problem starts about 15 minutes after he’s been in bed.

“I’m hungry.”

“Hello? Mommy? I’m hungry!!”

“You’ve been sent to bed. Good-night.”

“But I’m hungry! I didn’t have dinner.”

He totally had dinner, whether he wants to admit it or not. Sometimes he gets a snack (contrary to what my size may show you, we don’t usually have dessert here). But he always has plenty of time before bed to tell me he’s hungry. There are times I’ve even asked him if he was hungry, gotten a “no” answer, sent him to bed, then *suddenly* he’s “hungry.” Most of the time I think it’s just a ploy to stay up later but I feel guilty thinking that I don’t want to deny a growing boy some food.

But this behavior has got to stop. Tonight I told him, “ok, you can eat your dinner left-overs but then to bed and this is NOT going to happen anymore. You have plenty of time to decide if you’re hungry or not and you will NOT be getting out of bed like this anymore.” We’ll see how it goes.

The thing that really grinds my gears, though, besides when he’s been offered food just 10 minutes prior, is that he throws an absolute fit about finishing dinner left-overs. I have been in his face about not wasting food but he just doesn’t seem to get it. Of course, I win there, because I say “it’s that or nothing, we’re not wasting it,” but it still frustrates.

This has been a rant, good-night. :)

It’s really been a ride to go through these entries, not even a year later yet. It’s amazing how fast time has flown. Where did it all go? I can’t believe 2009 went so fast. And really, my heart melts when I look at those pictures of K from April and May… how did I get so lucky that she would go from this:

To this:

In only a few short months?

But, again, apparently the war isn’t over yet. We’ll see next month (hopefully) if she needs kidney surgery and in March, hopefully the neurologist will tell us she’s just fine. We shall see what we shall see… But in the meantime, I’m not worried, I know things will be fine.

Though, I also wish I posted here more. Obviously, there are times I need those entries to remind me of things. :P

I have varying feelings ranging from “we’ll be just fine” to the staring into space “oh. my. gosh. What are we going to do?”

Applying for unemployment is a pain in the butt. Apparently you have to do this every week or at least within 2 weeks. We’d first applied almost a year ago when he had to take his first forced week off, right before my water broke. He had his waiting week then, or so we thought (the week you have to wait before you will start getting payments when you apply). We didn’t do anything with it again until this past fall. He’d had a couple of other weeks off in between then, but I think he took vacation pay then. Since it was longer than 28 days and no other claims were made, we were told we had another waiting week. Then we filed for the last week of the year and no payment ever came. Come to find out, the “case” went stale when there was no activity on it yet the site continued to take and verify his information, but nothing would progress. Steve talked to a guy on the phone and sorted it out, at least I think it’s taken care of. But unemployment… that’s going to be an adjustment. I need to sit down and budget it all out. And do my business sales tax. Ugh, I’m behind this year (but not late yet thankfully).

But as far as going back to work… he’s #755 on the books which means there are 754 guys in front of him waiting for a job. They estimate a period of 18 months to two years before a job would get to him. Unemployment lasts, what, a year? And the prices of things keep rising and the brains of the people running our country keep going down the toilet… it’s not going to get better. Two years is probably a best-case scenario.

It ticks me off, all the work and money leaving this country because of the morons we have in office who either can’t see or completely don’t care how this affects the little guy. Bring back the jobs, idiots, and the economy will pick up.

This sucks.

So, anyway. E is pretty competitive and he tends to get upset when he loses. It’s something we’re working on, really, but in the meantime, sometimes I just want him to win so he’ll be quieter. He now has full reign of the game with Worlds 1 through 8 unlocked and all but two levels beaten on the first 7 Worlds. Of course, every time his lives run out, his inventory is cleared and the mushroom houses reset themselves. So he heads there first.

The red mushroom houses have a little mini matching game. Does it make me a bad mother that I look up the cheats and tell him which boxes to pick so that he wins all the stuff and doesn’t hear the bad guy laughing at him? At least then he does the victory dance and that’s just way beyond cute. :P

This game was totally designed with me in mind, though, I know it. I am just not coordinated enough to play the truly 3D games out there!

This thing was so hard to do! Heh! I don’t know if they’re always like this or because it’s a year old, but the green icing meant to be the “glue” for parts was so thick! The directions said it would be toothpaste-like, but it was more like play doh! I finally got it put together though, and Elijah added the candy where he wanted. Silly kid always wants it to look just like it is on the box, so he put candy in a lot of the same places (some even using the same colors!) but of course, the one on the box is probably actually plastic, so it’s near impossible!

It was fun, though, and we will hopefully continue to make this a yearly thing. Elijah loves putting these together and he can’t wait to eat it. The thought of eating it really grosses me out, though it does smell good, but for his sake I’ll make sure I keep any dust from gathering on it HAHAHA

And, yes, I enjoy taking pictures of it with the 50mm lens!