I knew something was going on with Gracie and took her in to the doctors to get her ears checked. As long as I’m dragging two tired, sick kids in with a $15 co-pay I really think it I could have used a little something more from his bedside manner classes in medical school. They do have bedside manner classes, right? If not, I’d be glad to teach the basics:
1) Act like they are your only patient that day, even though they aren’t.
2) Commiserate with all complaints for at least a good 10 seconds
3) Smile and say, “You’re pretty good at what you do.” or “Way to be in tune to your child’s needs Mom!”

Waiting forever for the prescription at Costco with James deciding to wonder off was miserable as well. There’s got to be a faster, easier way. Maybe I could get an otoscope and check kids ears for $5. I’d just have to figure out how parents can get their antibiotics on the black market. Hopefully she will feel better soon.

Someone (I think it was my VT) left Oreos and a paper with a picture of a ghost outside our front door. They were Halloween Oreos so the middle part is orange rather than white. Anyway I left them on the counter and somehow Gracie kept coming into see me all messy covered in cookie. It turns out James kept sneaking Oreos to Gracie this morning and finally admitted to it. I guess that’s the hard part about being the only bigger kid in the house when Jonathan is gone, no one else could have done it.

James will occasionally decide Gracie needs to be in the same room as him so he’ll just come in and grab her under her arms (thanks Mike for teaching him to stop carrying her around her neck) and take her into the other room saying, “Gracie, I want you in here”. She usually just smiles and goes along for the ride.

To get James to nap I will often go through a list of kids and people who are also taking naps. I’ll say, “Grandma and Grandpa take naps, list of kids from nursery, Gracie, and Mommy take naps and so forth. Last week while getting James to nap he asked why Daddy doesn’t take naps and I told him I’d have a talk with Mike about it. He’s usually up late with school and would love a nap. At what age do naps become something you want?

Mike emailed that he found a library Thomas the Tank Engine DVD in his laptop. Ha, ha, so nice that Thomas can join him for his trip in Brazil.

When we dropped Jonathan off I school, I put Gracie in a fluffy pink coat. It was quite adorable. Jonathan fed her fruit snacks since she could move her arms- ha, ha. Jonathan’s teacher opened the classroom door with a cowboy hat on he couldn’t stop smiling looking at her wearing that hat. Funny boy. I guess yesterday he told his class a story about visiting Grandpa and Grandma in Utah, sledding, building a snowman with Dad, and James and drinking hot chocolate. I wonder what other stories he tells. ;)

He and the primary were singing, “Do as I’m Doing” in primary while I was watching in from the hall the other week. Jonathan raised his hands and had them do, “paying tithing”. It was actually quite a good teaching moment for me on being a good example for our kids- so tough to be sometimes!