False Alarm

Today Adam picked up Gopher basketball tickets for Jan. when my parents come. He got 2 tickets (Opa and him) and was pretty proud of where the seats are located. [We looked online in Oct when my parents were here and there were not very good seats available at that time.] He lucked out going to the box office. I'm pretty jealous myself, but excited for my dad to finally get to experience a game in 'the barn'. Its against Ohio State which will be a nice change for my dad as he has season tickets to MSU. Anyways, I told Adam to call my dad with the good news before dinner. Its not very often when Adam calls my parents - usually I'll call and he'll talk to them or when they call, he talks to them.

So you can only imagine what went through my mom's head when she answers and it's Adam! He had to quickly explain that there was no baby or one coming in the near future!

When he talked to my dad, my dad said he had to pick my mom off the floor!

We all had a good laugh and I'll laugh even harder if Adam doesn't get to go to the game but my mom does! Either way, my dad will experience the barn on Jan 9. They can come to the hospital after the game if necessary and I won't be offended!

So There ARE a Few Out There

When we found out we were having another boy, I was a bit disappointed - for selfish reasons of course. Having a girl would be easy b/c we had a name, plenty of cute hand me downs, and I had a slew of great patterns I'd been 'saving' to knit for my little girl (and not use as gifts for others). I am ok now with having another boy and realize for many reasons it will be easier having 2 of the same. I was able to find a few new knitting patterns to make for the new guy and the above is one of them.

What little boy doesn't look cute in Chuck Taylors?

The other items I made will have to wait till the little tyke can model them himself! :)

A Step Closer

Tonight before Gerrit's shower, I asked if he needed to go potty (my lame attempt at potty training) and he said yes. So he sat on the toilet and went a little. Then he hopped down and said he had to go - standing up! It cracked me up - he could barely get his penis above the toilet let alone aim properly! (He didn't end up going, but at least knows what he needs to do.) We may not need to work on sitting and going potty - he'll just go straight to standing up. Now if only he would tell me when he had to go....

PS - sorry no photo of this incident - I'm not that mean of a mom! (Deep down, I did want to grab the camera, I'll admit. Plus, I still have the above photo which I'm sure I'll hear about when he's older and cares.)

Seasons Change

Most people know the seasons changed based on the temperature, and nature - leaves change color, snow falls, thunderstorms, etc.

In our home we know that the season changed in a different way:

Yep, we had to bring the basketball hoop to the basement so Gerrit could shoot hoops while watching a game on TV. Yes, football is still on and depending on what is on TV at the time Gerrit will tend to want to play that sport. I am pretty excited bball is starting so we watched a lame OSU game to get us in the mood for the season and Gerrit followed suit.

Photo Update

I posted a few entries last night but it has been a while since I had posted pictures. Here are a few from the last week or so:

Gerrit is into 'coloring' as he calls it. He is very particular how he holds a pen and scribbles quite small. He often says he is writing the letter "A" - it looks nothing like an A though.

{Somehow when I went to make the collage the above photo wasn't included.}

Top left: The gift Gerrit was given from his sponsors on his baptism 2.5 yrs ago. Its Playmobile's Noah's Art - a reminder of the promise God made to us. We left it in the box until tonight. Gerrit saw it and wanted to play with the animals. It says for age 4+ but I opened it anyways and put it together. It was like Christmas - he didn't want to eat dinner and played with it all night - even fought off bed time. We decided we would open presents on Christmas morning so we don't have to fight him to go to bed!

Bottom left: he has show a lot of interest in his Little People's farm. He often lines up the animals so they are looking out of the window and are "looking at Gerrit" as he says.

Middle: Sat. Gerrit spent the day at Dahlen's while Adam and I helped the Rockne's move. Gerrit fell in love with this car (sorry Uncle Jeff - you'll have to get him an F1 car for Christmas!). He took it to Rockne's at the end of the day where we all met up for dinner. He insisted on taking it home too. (The boys didn't care b/c it's broken and they really don't play with it anymore). From there it had to go to bed with him. This is what we saw when we went to check on him before we went to bed.

Right: Friday he fell on some toy at Julie's. It was swollen all day Sat. too. He loved showing people and telling them he got hurt. He even scraped the tops of his hands in the fall. Luckily he did not damage his teeth or cause them to loosen either.

Why I Love My Job

Many people cringe when I tell them I teach middle school. Ya, they are hormonal and you never know what you are going to get, but they make me laugh! Here are a few examples:

1. I have a few siblings in various grades and at the beginning of the year I was the talk at the dinner table. At the beginning of the year, the girls couldn't figure out what was different about me. Finally a few weeks later, one of the sisters came home and told her mom that she figured out what was so different - I was going to have a baby (I mentioned it in class)! The sisters felt much better knowing they figured it out - they were a bit distraught as to why I didn't tell them though. (I thought the kids would figure it out when I was getting a pretty big tummy.)

2. At 6 months pregnant (and looking very pregnant), I mentioned to a class that I didn't do too bad at demonstrating the sit and reach fitness test for a pregnant woman. A 5th grade boy sitting near me said: You're gonna have a baby? I said: do you think I just ate too many Ho Ho?

3. Today I was talking to another teacher who became an Aunt last night to a new nephew. I asked about the name and mentioned a name I liked but Adam didn't. A student sitting in the principals office overheard our conversation and asked: Mrs. Stremler-Birr, did you get a new dog? I asked why? He said: well, what were you talking about names for? My response: I was talking about the baby I'm going to have! The other teacher, a secretary, and I just busted out laughing at the comment by the student! I thanked the student for giving me a good laugh today and he asked if he still owed me a pencil (he broke one of mine for no reason before taking a written test today). I said: yes, you aren't getting off that easily!

How can you not think middle school is fun? Such innocent comments/thoughts like the above few make getting up for work worth while (it has its bad moments too - but what job doesn't?).

Bedtime Nightmare

Gerrit usually goes to bed quite easily for us. It could be because he has a slew of toys/books that he has accumulated in his bed that he tends to play with until he gets tired. Tonight Adam put him to bed as normal and a few minutes later he was screaming bloody murder! (It sounded like bloody murder b/c he rarely cries at bedtime.)

Adam ran to his rescue to learn that he had broken his bike! He has a little bike (from Luke/Paul) that is in bed and the handle bars snapped off. Luckily they snap back on so Adam fixed it and all was silent once again.

We thought he was bit by something or seriously hurt the way he was crying! Thankfully it was just a minor issue but to him it was a nightmare!