The last day of September

Shawn informed me this morning that today was the last day in September. You know what that means don't you...Star Wars the Clone Wars starts this Friday on the Cartoon Network. I told him a few days ago when it started after seeing a comercial for it but we haven't talked about it since then. Obviously it's been on his mind though, lol.

I found a couple of old Star Wars ships at Goodwill last week. They were cheap so I bought them for Shawn. One of them even came with R2D2 and a Luke Skywalker figure. They make noises too so it was well worth the $6.00 I paid for the pair. Joshua likes them as much as Shawn does. It's killing Shawn not to be able to wear his Halloween costume yet. The other day, he was filling out a Super Me book and the page asked him to draw 3 wishes that he would wish for. His first wish...to be a Real Jedi, lol. Isn't it funny how the same toys that were popular when we were growing up are still popular?

Toxic Bubbles

Some of you may know that I volunteered to help out with religious ed this year. I'm the kindergarten teacher's helper. Next year, I need to volunteer earlier so I can get the teachers position because I've realized that I have serious control issues, lol. It's very hard for me to keep my mouth shut. It was even harder this past Wednesday when the religious ed subject was water. The teacher brought in a project to make your own bubbles. The recipe called for dish detergent so she brought in automatic dishwasher detergent. Hello, can you say toxic??? Where has she been the last 10 years? Her son is in the class so it's not like she doesn't have kids. How can you be so clueless? I would never want my 5 yr. old to be playing with automatic dishwasher detergent. She didn't even buy the environmentally safe kind either, she bought walmart brand. She still did the project even after I expressed my concerns. I was watching the kids very carefully to make sure no one put the lips too close to try and blow bubbles. Thankfully the project didn't work and she brought out the store bought bubbles for the kids to play with.

What color?

I really need to pick out a color for the daycare room and get the room painted but I have no idea what color to paint it. Obviously I don't want white but what color? The room will probably have a mix-match of different educational type decorations with primary colors.

I asked a friend, who is an interior decorator, for advice. She said to paint it a pale/light yellow. What do you think? If you have another idea, please let me know.

Getting ready for Halloween

It almost seems kind of early to worry about Halloween but it really isn't that far away. I saw a super cute costume for Joshua a couple weeks ago in an Oriental Trading catalog but when I decided to go ahead and buy it last night, it was sold out :(

Of course I was able to find it somewhere else and if you want to see the costume, click here.

Shawn keeps flipping back and forth on whether to be a Storm Trooper or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Right now it's Obi-Wan which I'm happy about because he won't have to wear a helmet. I'm just not sure what size to get him. It comes in sizes 4/6, 8/10, 12/14. He wears a size 6 clothes but I wonder if the 4/6 will be too small. I definitely think the 8/10 will be too big. Where is the size 6/8???? LOL! That's the size he needs.

It's a goner!

Shawn now has a hole where one of his baby teeth used to reside. It fell out yesterday afternoon. Good thing too because he was having a hard time eating and told me it wasn't fun having a loose tooth, lol. I thought it came out pretty quick since we just discovered it yesterday. Anyway, Shawn put his tooth under his pillow and the tooth fairy left him a dollar. He was very excited about it this morning and kept telling me that today was his lucky day. Here's a picture of the missing tooth:

Shawn's exciting news...

We are very excited in the Taylor household because Shawn finally has his first loose tooth!!! We discovered it today when he was eating an apple after school. There was a little blood around the tooth and I thought Shawn was going to freak out about it but I made a big deal about him having his first loose tooth. He was more excited then anything and didn't even mention the blood when he looked at it in the mirror. Apples...they do the trick everytime!

Always Remember...

Where were you when you heard/saw the news about the World Trade Center? I'll never forget.

I was pregnant with Shawn and had some horrible morning sickness. That day, I called in sick from work. I had been napping on the couch while the t.v. was still on. When I woke up, they were showing the crash of the first tower. I thought it was a movie at first until the second airplane crashed into the second tower. I was stunned! I was glued to the t.v. When they reported about another airplane hitting the pentagon, I was really scared. See I was living in MD and the pentagon really isn't too far away. I didn't know how many more airplanes were out there and I was worried about Don. He used to travel near D.C. for work so I immediately called him to make sure he was ok and then told him what happened. He came home soon after that and we just watched the t.v. all night.

How did the events impact us? Well, I wondered what kind of world we were going to be raising our kids in. It also led me to be a stay at home mom. I was working at Martin State Airport and we were in the no fly zone. Well, if no airplanes are flying, then they aren't breaking. If they aren't breaking, then we weren't fixing them. My company started letting people go. Ironically, they offered me a promotion or a lay off. If I took the promotion, I would have to go back to the avionics shop and take the place of one of the new guys that they would ultimately lay off. I couldn't afford to quit but a lay off sounded pretty good to me, lol. I didn't really want to go back to the avionics shop. I just had a new baby and I couldn't imagine coming home from work each night tired, grimy, and sore so I took the lay off and we've been poor ever since, lol. No, we are not poor but we've definitely had to change our style of living and we've had to do without for a very long time. It will be nice when we can stop worrying so much about money.

I will never forget that day. I'm proud to be an American. I support our troops. I can't wait until election day!

My potty training dilemma...

I'm not sure if Joshua is actually ready for potty training but he loves to sit on the potty and will usually pee when he sits on it. He hasn't pooped on it yet though. He doesn't tell me when he has to pee but if I ask him if he wants to sit on the potty, he always gets excited and answers yes. He can squeeze out a few drops even if he doesn't really have to pee. Here's my dilemma...he's too darn skinny for pull ups or training pants!!!

With Shawn we used pull ups. I know not everyone agrees with using them but we just had to with Shawn. I tried the training pants with Shawn but the plastic cover was too big and would leak the pee so I was having to clean up the floor after he peed and I didn't feel comfortable letting him play on the carpet. I tried letting him go naked but that ended up in frustration after watching him pee on the floor right in front of me even after asking him constantly if he had to pee. So we went with pull ups and he eventually got it. He was 3 yrs old before we even tried to potty train.

I think Joshua would do good if we had pull ups or training pants but the smallest pull up will slide down his little butt. Most of the training pants I found online goes by weight and Joshua doesn't fall into the smallest weight size so I'm scared to spend the money on them to find out that they are too big. What to do? What to do? Oh, and I don't want to let him go naked because I have witness him get out of the bathtub, run into the hallway (which is carpeted) and start peeing. I'm not the kind of person who has the patience to clean up pee all day, lol.