Party Animal

So every night Jack goes upstairs around 8:00 and is allowed to watch some tv in our room before going to sleep. The rules are:

1- He has to be quiet ("if you are SUPER quiet we might forget you are awake and think of how much Nick Jr. you will get to watch then!" You have no idea how well that works. And seriously sometimes we really do forget he's still awake)

and

2 - He can only get out of bed to go to the bathroom.



Sometimes he gets a little crazy up there and we have to have "a discussion" about it - but lately he's been really good about listening and following directions. The night before last I was *so* proud as he was being especially quiet .... until ......

Jack: Mommmmyyyyyyyy! MOMMY! You HAVE to come up here.

Me: What? Are you okay? What do you need?

Jack: You HAVE to come up here and see my hat!

(Hat? What hat? Where the heck did he find a hat? He's not supposed to be out of my bed and I know for a fact that I left NO hats in my bed.)

Me: (Ascending the stairs) Okay Jack but you know you are *really* not supposed to be playing up here and .......


And then I saw this:



Yes - those are lampshades. BOTH of the lampshades from our night stands. I immediately forgot all about the lecture I was about to give and ran back downstairs to get my camera.

In Jack's defense he did NOT get out of bed since the lampshades were right on our night stands within reaching distance. Well, he didn't get out of bed until I made him get out so I could take the picture.

Keeping the kiddos safe ...

Ever heard of the SafeAssured Child ID System? Neither had I until our local police department offerred it today for f-r-double-e! What is it you ask? From the SafeAssured website:

_____________
SafeAssured ID is a turnkey family safety program.
....
With SafeAssured ID, parents don't have to waste those first frantic minutes searching for high quality photographs or estimating their child's physical characteristics for law enforcement - they already have it all, stored securely on a SafeAssured encrypted disc.

The SafeAssured privacy-protected mini-CD offers a single repository of important information:

All ten electronically imaged fingerprints
Digital photograph
Streaming video showing mannerisms and gait with linked audio file providing the child's voice inflection and accent.
Private information (general physical description, street address, date of birth, life-threatening medical conditions, identifying scars or marks, and tattoos)
Ability to create missing person poster from the mini-CD
Families also receive a full-color photo data card and a Parents' Guidebook with prevention tips, written in conjunction with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
_______________________________

Of course this is something that NO ONE wants to ever think about - the possibility of actually having to put this cd/information into use - but if GOD forbid it should come to that I'll be thankful we have all this information at our fingertips. Basically should your child go missing you can simply hand the cd to law enforcement and it helps them expedite the Amber Alert/search process. Also you can use the cd to automatically create MISSING posters, flyers, etc. And all the personal info - like fingerprints and home address is encrypted.

We got one id package for each child. Looks like this:

See? Nice and small. You can keep it in your purse. Take it easily on vacations. Etc. Etc.

The cd is in that little envelope along with the child's id card:


During the process they will take a still photo for the id card. They also take video to record the child's mannerisms/voice etc. Here is Jack making his video.


And also they do fingerprints. DIGITAL fingerprints that are scanned directly into the computer and encrypted on your childs information disk. No muss, no fuss! Let's hope this will be young JGif's first AND last time for fingerprinting.

Well it was no muss, no fuss for Jack. For Kate it was another story. Her fingers were kind of wet. Combine that with the teeny tinyness of her actual fingerprints and it made it nearly impossible to record a print for her. I think they might have gotten one. They tried very hard - but then Kate cried very hard and they stopped. Poor kiddo.

They did give both kids a pencil, bookmark, and police badge! That made Kate somewhat happy.


And it made Jack very happy. He was all "I'M the SHERRIFF and SHE IS THE DEPUTY!"


I believe the SafeAssured program is typically sponsored by local law enforcement and/or other community organizations at no cost to you. If you haven't seen it offered in your area perhaps give your local boys in blue a call to suggest it. And THANK YOU Mima and PoPo for finding out when/where this was taking place and suggesting it to us!

Stunning

I don't have much to say right at the moment - but I simply could not wait until I DO have something to say to share this picture. So this is a wordless post. Well mostly wordless. Unfortunately for Mike I am never completly wordless.


Voila.


Stunning, ain't she??

THIS kid!!!

So this morning upon leaving the house for work I only had to run back in ONE time because I forgot something. ONE time! Usually it's 2-3 minimum run-back-ins so this is quite a Major Accomplishment. YEY me!! As I'm pulling out of the driveway ...

Me: Man - all the lights in the house are off, I remembered to check to make sure the fan was turned off, I remembered to grab a banana for breakfast on the way out and I only had to run back inside ONE time! I am *REALLY* on the ball today, Jack!

Jack: Yes but remember, that could change at any time.

You gotta love him. Even if sometimes you are secretly wishing you could pinch him. KIDDING! I never do that. Well, hardly ever.



(I handed Jack a marker to sign a thank you card this morning - walked out of the room for 5 minutes - and this is what I come back to. "I HAD to" he tells me "I'm a water bender!". Well then - that explains everything.)

That's our PoPo!

So as you might know PoPo has been working as a volunteer with the Fairfax County Police Department for quite some time now. He goes in on a weekly basis (as Jack will allow. Jack HATES it when PoPo has to go to work.) and does some top secret work for their Criminal Investigation Unit. I can't tell you exactly what he does because if I did, I'd have to kill you. Okay okay actually I can't tell you exactly what he does because I do not know *exactly* what he does. Suffice it to say it's some pretty cool stuff.

Case in point - for the past four years (I said FOUR years!) PoPo has been assisting with the production/publication of a book entitled "The History of the Fairfax County Police Department". He was in charge of perusing through the departments photo library (We're talking LOTS of photos here people. Thousands. Seriously.) and also through photo submissions from former members of the department. He then decided which photos he thought would be a good fit for the book and scanned them into digital form for use during the book-making process. If credits were rolling I am pretty sure his credit would read as follows:
PoPo - Visual Mastermind

Recently all that hard work paid off as the final product has come to fruition! This past weekend there was a book signing so the kiddos (PLURAL. Why does that still shock me?) and I went to the signing to surprise Popo and get our book signed by all the authors. The Paparazzi (me) were out in full effect!

The man of the hour in action ....

Ahhhh - I can say "I knew him when ..."

Jack was completely star-struck.


Another fan (A police officer! Jack thought that was way cool.) getting his book signed. I swear Jack and Kate were way more excited then they appear in this photo.

Click on the photo to enlarge - you must see the expressions on those little faces.

Some of the historical items they had displayed

Note the book in this photo.


That book dates back to 1941 and is a log of all police call activity at the time. Horse in the road? They wrote it in the book. Traffic accident? They wrote it in the book. Check out the call they had on 12/10/1941 ..

"Trouble at Happy Hour"! Some things never change. For those of you paying attention, trouble-at-happy-hour occurred on my birthday! Well, on my birthday 32 years before I was born. They must have known I was coming.

The "About the Authors" page at the end of the book. Who is that handsome gent second from the top on the right??

Popo! The only non-officer involved (all other authors were retired Fairfax PD officers). SO cool right!?

Also SO cool (but not quite as cool as Popo) - CAKE!

We were there right at the end of the book signing so they let me take the cake leftovers home "for the kids". Had I know that having kids would score me free cake I'd have started having them at age 15. Hmmm .. probably a good thing I did not know about the free cake thing back then.

CONGRATS to Daniel P. Courtney (the main author), PoPo and the rest of the committee who spent countless hours researching and working on this book. All that work has certainly paid off. You have created a stunning piece of historical literature that will be appreciated by so many people for so many years to come. Give yourself a pat on the back! And also let me know if there will be any more book signings where there will be cake present.



More information can be found here:

CLICK ME!

The proceeds of this book will help to establish a Fairfax County Police Museum. What a GREAT cause. If you'd like to purchase a copy please let me know. I can arrange to get you a signed copy. Connections people - it's all about the connections.

Making a list and checking it twice ....

On Saturday Jack spent the morning following me around the house with a piece of paper and a pen. I asked him what he was doing - and I quote - "Oh I'm just writing down when you do bad things like you know, spend too much money and stuff. I'm making a list for my daddy since he's not here right now."

Seriously! Here is what I saw everytime I looked behind me.


That face = serious business



A few minutes after he started following me around...

Jack: I am STARVING Mommy I really need some breakfast.
Me: Oh reallllly? Well it's too bad your BFF Daddy isn't here to make it for you!
Jack: (pause) I'm totally writing that on the list, ya know.

Tummy Time!

Just LOOK at that head control!!


SO strong.


SO determined.


SO done.


I know that 3 months might be a *little* early to call it ... but I'm gonna go ahead and declare her a genius. You heard it here first, folks.

THREE months

I love this picture. LOVE.this.picture. Because this picture shows exactly who my little baby is 99.9% of the time. Oh so happy. Oh so aware. Oh so beautiful. And she's growing up OH so fast!!!



We love her oh so very much.