Supernanny and Sheepdogs...

I know - you're already wondering what in the world the two nouns in the title of this post have to do with one another - the answer is that both have provided amusement through the form of my children this month. I love watching Supernanny. I love her firm but calm demeanor when faced with any child's misbehavior. It's good for inspiration when spending too much time as a single parent. I decided we needed a "naughty stair" in my house for time outs. My son, whose favorite word is no right now, spent quite a bit of time there the first day we introduced it. On the second day, it was time to get dressed and I asked Brody to help me get his clothes on, he said no. In my best Supernanny calm but firm voice (sans the british accent) I said Brody, this is your warning. It's time to put your clothes on. If you tell mommy no, you'll have to go to the naughty stair. He then replied with "No, I do want naughty stair!" and promptly ran to the stair and sat down...completely naked and content...

As for the Sheepdogs...Alexa loves animals - all animals - and happily checks out books on different dog and cat breeds (as well as hamsters, guinea pigs, and whatever else classifies as a pet in the library) from school. Last night, we were reading the latest dog breed book about sheepdogs. Upon reading that sheepdogs require a quiet place to sleep, Alexa exclaimed oh no! Certain she was thinking about our own dog, Chance, I explained that Chance did have a quiet place to sleep in my room.

"Yeah," she said, "but Brody is still noisy, and when he wakes up, sometimes he goes in there, so its not really quiet all the time."

I said no, but I think it's working out ok.

"I think....I think..." Alexa contemplated, "I think that maybe if we didn't have Brody, we could have a sheepdog."

Hmmm...noisy preschooler, or 100 pound shedding nightmare...I'll keep the noise. While sheepdogs are adorable, I also learned in that book that they shed an average of 3 pounds of hair a year. 3 pounds!! I don't know if anyone has ever tried to weigh hair, but it's pretty light. And while I've never collected the massive amounts that accumulate in my vacuum bag from my 2 cats and one dog, I'm pretty certain we're not at the three pound mark. Now apparently having a sheep dog could be advantageous if I ever resurrect my knitting hobby. It seems that these massive amounts of hair can be turned into wool yarn. yep. Apparently wool comes from not only sheep, but also sheep dogs. This, I did not know...it's amazing what you can learn from a first grader's library book.

(BTW...I did explain to my daughter that we'd be keeping her brother and she was ok with it)

Sorry for the lack of photos with this post - I do have a few taken on my phone, but I haven't done all that well with taking photographs with a real camera while Billy's been gone. We've been to the zoo and the science center, and the indoor play area at the mall...we've survived the last month, but we are anxiously counting the days since he will come home October 10th for just over two weeks!! I'm certain I'll have quite a lengthy post with a plethora of photographs at the end of October!

Win A Free Bike!!

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August's End...

The end of August passed way too quickly and September 1st arrived before I was ready, not that I'm ever actually ready to spend time apart from my husband.

Alexa began 1st grade on August 24th and really enjoys it. After her second day, she told me that she had thought kindergarten was going to be better than 1st grade, but she actually thinks 1st grade is more fun. She's still my social butterfly, and seems to have already made a few friends and adjusted well to the new state and new school.



We took the kids to the zoo the weekend after school started, which also happened to be the last weekend Billy had off. I think we've finally hit all the main areas at the zoo, now that we've made a few visits, and we discovered on this trip that in addition to the pony rides and train rides, they also offer boat rides. We have a membership now, so I think the kids and I will be spending lots of time at the zoo while Billy's gone...



















The last weekend in August Billy had to drill, but we still crammed as much into our evenings as possible, going out for Korean food and to a park one evening, out to eat at a great mexican restaurant another evening, and just trying to enjoy spending as much time together as possible.






We had found a cute little mini uniform for Brody at the PX earlier that week, so I was glad to finally capture a few photos of my two men together, even if Brody didn't want to look at the camera!
















September 1st at 5:00am, Billy's bus headed to Ft. McCoy. He'll have 10 days home in October before returning to Ft. McCoy to complete their mob training and then head overseas.

We had told Alexa about the time we would have to spend apart and that it would be six weeks before we saw Daddy again. She could tell I was upset Monday and while going through our bedtime routine, she said, "Mom, do you know what tomorrow is?" My thoughts were, yes, tomorrow is the day I've been dreading since July, but instead of voicing them, I just asked her what?

"It's September! August will be over and Daddy will be home in October!" she said. "See? Told you time would go by fast!" I gave her a big hug so she wouldn't see me crying -again, and told her I really hope she's right.