If you choose to let your 4 year old watch "Home Alone"...

More on that funny story to come.  We'll start with a story about sleep.

Anyone who has known our family for a while knows that sleep has not come easy for Elijah... or for us since Elijah's arrival into our family.  As a baby, I feel like sleep more or less just didn't happen.  After the age of about three though, we have had things pretty well figured out.  We know that he has some 'special sleep needs' (as his doctor classified them for us) and we are very well accustomed to making those happen.  He sleep walks occasionally and we are used to that as well.

For roughly the past 18 months he has slept in a tent on top of his bed.  He is getting too big for it, so for about a month now he has been all on his own, exposed, in the big bed.   The transition has actually gone fairly smoothly and we even recently moved Gavin's crib into Elijah's room, so the boys are sharing a room.  :)

This weekend, Gavin was up bright and early as usual.  When I went to get him, I quickly noticed that Elijah's bed was empty.  After a second of shock, I reassured myself that he had just climbed into our bed on my hubby's side and I didn't notice.  I picked up G and took him back to our room - only to see that Elijah wasn't there either!  My instant thought was "How can our kid just disappear in the middle of the night?!?"  I woke Marty up to let him know that Elijah was not in his bed.  We all went into the boys room and just stood there for a moment staring at the empty bed where our 4 year old should be fast asleep.  He is NOT there.

Enter in roughly 30 seconds of shear panic (which of course feels like an hour) and we find him.  Fast asleep, underneath of Gavin's crib.   Amazingly, I had not thought to look for our child under the crib.  In the future, I now know.   Goofy kid.  "Special sleep needs" noted.

Not the best pic, but he is there, You can just barely see his little face under the blankets.

Now for the story about "Home Alone".  Classic movie really.  Not the best as far as language choices go (little things like 'shut up' and 'jerk' that we don't say in our house) but I didn't remember that part of it and I KNEW that Elijah was going to think it was HILARIOUS.   Last weekend when it was cold and rainy we sat and watched it as a family.  Good times and Elijah laughed uncontrollably.

Fast forward to Wednesday of last week.  When I go to pick him up from preschool, his teacher pulls me aside.   She says "During morning circle today, Elijah told a story about a little boy who shoots a bad guy in the penis."  Huh.  Sure enough, just as the robbers are trying to break into the house, the boy shoots a BB gun through the dog door and gets the guy right in the crotch.  Being only 4 years old, he only knows the anatomically correct word for 'crotch'. 

I cracked up a little bit and I think his teacher was very relieved when I was able to explain exactly where the story was coming from.  Uhm... without knowing the context or where he got it from, I am sure that it sounded pretty concerning.  It was a really good teaching time for Elijah about telling appropriate stories - which has to just be SO hard to understand as a 4 year old!

Something to think about if you choose to let your 4 year old watch "Home Alone".  :)

Happy Monday!

Wacky Wednesday #16: Bikes, take 2

I know "Wacky Wednesday #8" was already all about the crazy bikes we've seen since moving here.  Now we actually own one of the crazy bikes and words can barely describe how much I LOVE this thing.  It helps that both the kids absolutely love it as well.  Now that it is FINALLY warm-er (well aside from snowing most of the day on Mother's Day), we've been out on the bike A LOT.  Gavin just expects that if we are going somewhere it is going to be in the bike.  He pitches quite the fit when he needs to get in the car instead - and he'll be pointing at the bike the whole time.  It is pretty stinkin' cute.... well, aside from the pitching a fit part.

I digress.  The wacky part.  If you follow the blog, you might remember "Wacky Wednesday #12" was all about cars stopping for pedestrians - anywhere.  Well, cars also stop for bikers!  Not just if you are in a crosswalk and acting as a pedestrian, but when you are riding in the road with traffic.  It is wild.  One of the first times I was biking with the kids, I was stopped at a stop sign waiting for a break in traffic so I could cross.... no big deal.  I was very confused when the cars stopped and waved me to go.  What?  These cars did not have a stop sign, yield sign or anything else and I was not waiting in a crosswalk.  I've always thought bikers are supposed to be treated like vehicles.  It was wacky. 

I continue to ride the same route on a regular basis going to and from preschool and cars regularly stop and wave for me to cross.  It always makes me a bit nervous - first off that the car behind the randomly stopped car is going to rear-end them and secondly I feel like I really need to boogie and get across the street..... all while hauling 60 plus pounds of small children on my super sweet bike. 

It is wacky.  Speaking of more wacky things, we saw a group of 'young adults' sitting behind some bushes with a hookah on the bike ride home yesterday.  I laughed.  Then Elijah had roughly 1 million questions about what was going on and what was funny.  Thankfully we see a lot of funny things on our bike rides so it is easy to distract him with something new.

Happy Wednesday!  :)

Wacky Wednesday Guest Post by Marty! "I Work In A Trailer Park"

Ok, I don't really work in a trailer park, but that is the running joke at my place of work.  This is because, in reality, all of the office-dwelling folk like me - whom would normally inhabit cubicles in most comparable companies - actually do have our "offices" in temporary trailers.  Last year, the company I have worked for since 1998 acquired this smaller company up here in Oregon.  During the course of 2010, the Oregon facility experienced explosive growth in business and so all of the offices were cannibalized and turned into more space for Engineering, Manufacturing, & Warehousing, and all of the offices were moved into trailers!  It just reeks of class.  Actually, the really funny thing is that after having been here for 5+ months now, it just seems totally normal.  Some of the highlights of trailer-dwelling office life include:

• The drain pipes from on top of the main building dump water into the parking lot in which the trailers reside, so in the winter when the sun would melt the snow on the roof of the building, the water would pool on the asphalt and then freeze overnight, creating an incredible sheet of ice I had to traverse to get into the trailer in the mornings.
• To add fun to the winter-time hazards, as snow would melt and loosen up from on top of the trailers, it would slide down in large chunks and was regularly a threat to dump right on one's head upon entry to or exit from the trailer.
• Each trailer is locked and monitored my a security alarm system at night.  First one there unlocks the door & disarms the alarm; last one out locks & arms.  Those of you who know me (and my propensity for forgetfulness) well can imagine how often this results in me being locked out of the trailer or after unlocking the door, standing there listening to the alarm sound while wishing I had remembered my card key to disarm it.
• The heat is kept at about 60 degrees overnight and 68 during the day.  Usually when I get there it is still around 60-62 so I have an hour or so to sit with my coat on while it warms up.  Even when it gets to 68, the insulation in the trailers is not great so my feet are usually numb.  I wear wool socks or double up regularly.  However, it is handy because my lunch usually stays nice and cool.
• Once in a while I will see a herd of white-tail deer out my window (on the other side of the barbed-wire fence). That is actually very cool.
• Probably the most popular thing I have done since arriving is approving the acquisition of a 'Deep Rock' style water cooler for our trailer.  I was a hero the day that thing arrived.  You would have thought I just gave everyone a huge bonus.  Everyone was so stoked that they no longer had to walk 1/4 mile each way just to get some water.  Of course, now we all walk that far even more often because we all have to go to the bathroom more frequently.
• We have taken trailer life to all new heights.  You have no doubt heard of the 'double-wide' trailer.  Well, that wasn't good enough for us.  As our latest addition to create more office space, we have actually bolted together four trailers to create a 'Quad-Wide'.  And, we did this twice.  Actually, the space inside is quite nice - carpeted, some offices, a conference room, two bathrooms, and a bunch of cubicles with new office furniture.  Oh, and bars on all the windows because apparently our property was recently highly populated with homeless gents who might want to help themselves to the various items inside the trailers were they accessible.   Pics below.

As much as I poke fun, I really enjoy the working environment here.  The willingness of everyone to just move into trailers to enable the business is indicative of the entrepreneurial spirit and drive that resulted in the growth they experienced last year.  The people here are great and have really welcomed me to the team. 

Below are some pics to go along with my descriptions of my new workplace, along with some pics (that don't do the view justice) of what my drive to work looks like these days.

Laura, Elijah, and Gavin came to have lunch with me at work a while back.  E eating his lunch in our "Board Room"

E at my desk in the trailer

Trailers (mine is on the right) with the open space behind where occasional wildlife is spotted

Driving to work

Mountain view on the drive to work.  A little cloudy on this day.

G at lunch

My daily entrance into the trailer park...except the boys usually aren't with me

Another conference room.  Note the lack of things like a ceiling or carpeting.

Our surely-soon-to-be-famous "Quad Wide" trailers. 

View outside the window in my trailer.  It looks like we are in the middle of nowhere but in reality there is a subdivision just over the hill

Mountain view leaving work

View of the facility from the road.  This is the opposite side of the building from the trailers; you can see the field of solar panels to the left of the building.

Mountain view on the drive to work.