Funny kid moments

Shane asked why Sid's Grandma (as in Sid the Science Kid) picks him up from school. I said that she was helping his mommy. Shane asked why his Grandma didn't pick him up from school. I wanted to cry. I love Spokane, but a downside to being so far from family, is that our kids don't get the day to day experiences with their grandparents. I explained that his grandparents lived far away and couldn't but he would see them soon. So all you grandparents, your grandkids love you and wish you could pick them up from school.

Saturday morning I did our long haul to Idaho for haircuts. On the way back we stopped to order Myann's birthday cakes. We then saw a large bow up Santa, and Myann said she wanted to tickle Santa. This started last weekend when Brian and Tina took the kids to see Santa. To get Myann close, they told her to tickle Santa. This Santa visit was monumental because Myann usually cries when we take her to see a character, ie Easter Bunny, Santa, and even Elmo. So she must be outgrowing her fear, or this Santa was cuter than last years.



Most popular word in my house "TOO". As in "me too", "I want milk too", "I want a snack too", "my turn too", "I want cereal with milk in a bowl too". It started as Myann saying it in typical little sister role and now Shane has picked it up for when he wants what sister has.

Last week at school, Myann's teacher said she was the most polite kid in class. I refuse to back down that Myann can be an obstinate little girl at times, but she is pretty good with her manners. Always says her please, thank yous and your welcomes. Tonight was no exception as she learned "Excuse me". I was reading their bedtime book and Shane said excuse me to ask a question about the story. I answered and continued reading, then I hear Myann say, "Excuse me". However, she had no statement or question to follow with, she just wanted to say excuse me because Shane did. Then she thought it was funny and said it 5 more times. This sent Shane into giggles, which Myann caught on with and a giggle episode ensued. I did finally finish the story.

Myann LOVES saying prayers at meal time, snack time, drink time, you name it. Mind you, I love that my daughter is already proving to be prayerful and filled with the love for Jesus, but come on. I think even God is getting a little tired of our prayers before every single bite. I failed to mention that she wants to pray every time food or drink enters her vicinity, but then she wants to pray several times during the meal, like before every bite. Oh that girl, she cracks us up.

Long weekend

The long weekend has been spent mostly at home and involved very little shopping, in stores that is. I have done lots of online shopping. Of course I still have a ways to go.

Friday we got a break from the cold and ventured to Raptor Reef, an indoor waterpark in Idaho, for Harry's birthday. Shane loved playing in the water and finally became brave enough to go down the waterslide by himself. His first trip don shot water in his face so he was hesitant to do it again. After an hour, he went back and there was no stopping him. He was pretty well wiped out and slept part of the way home. The way home involved lots of snow. I had to remind myself of what it was like to drive in the snow, very slow and no sudden turns.

I then met my trainer for what turned out to be the onset of my weekend of misery. He worked my butt off literally, I had some serious butt pain that night and into Saturday. Now that it is Sunday, my hamstrings are throbbing. At least I feel like I am getting my money's worth.

Saturday, was supposed to be dinner and a show, Putnam County Spelling Bee. Well, my friend Rhenda, who was also joining us, had the forethought to look on the internet ahead and found out that the show was cancelled. Seriously, I know you have to confirm flight arrangements, but I never thought you had to check for your theater show. Since Tina and I were already downtown we decided to see the movie Australia. It was AWESOME!!! We really enjoyed it. Really, Hugh Jackman with no shirt or in tight cowboy clothes for 2 1/2 hours, how could it be bad.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We had a very nice and easy (for me) Thanksgiving. The Holbrooks invited some of us without family to join them for their thanksgiving meal. Linda was a wonderful hostess and cooked a great meal. Easy for me, because I only prepared a couple side dishes and a dessert. The kids had fun running around and us moms had a little chat time.

We also had our first real snow, lots of it and it stuck. Shane was immediately excited and said "Let's go skiing!". I share his enthusiasm, but told him we needed lots more snow before we could attempt skiing. Sadly, I did not take any pictures.

Pictures of the kids having fun. And gotta love Shane playing dress up with the girls' toys.

Conflicted

Being a mom has been the most conflicting aspect of my life. Those who know me well, know I am incredibly indecisive (sadly Shane inherited this from me, more on that later). Anyway, I don't know what I want one minute to the next and I have new ideas that quickly pass. This has translated over to motherhood. Some mornings when I am driving both kids to preschool on Wednesdays, I can't get there fast enough, I am so excited to drop them off and have the day with just a baby, who can't talk back, hit me, or have a massive tantrum. Anders and I run our errands on Wednesdays and it is pleasant. The conflict is that the moment I drop them off, I miss them, and am sometimes tempted to run back in and pick them up. How crazy is that!!! There in lies the conflict, how can these little people make you so crazy that you want to go in a corner and hide, but in the same instant love them more than anything. Or yell at them for bad behavior and then want nothing more than to pick them up and give them a huge hug. It is so peculiar and makes me feel torn all day long. With work, some days I really miss working and the break it provided, but then there are days when I am so appreciative that I am around for all the little moments that I used to miss when working.

So on Thanksgiving, what will I be thankful for - thankful that I have the option to stay home with my kids and thankful that God gives me the patience to be a loving parent to them... most of the time.

Anders update: he was on the floor playing tonight and he was batting his toys. This is a new thing that he just started doing, the reaching and hitting toys. Now the little man calls for me, so time to put the computer away.

Happy Anniversary!!!

Brian and I celebrated our 6th anniversary today. He was really great today. I was in a crabby mood, ironic coming off a mom's weekend, but I started out my Monday disorganized and didn't get a shower and that always starts my day off bad. He was tolerant of my crabbiness and lack of interest in dinner. We finally settled on Steamplant Grill, which was not impressive, but we wanted low key and it was. Brian also wrote very sweet cards to me, highly unusual for Brian, and expressed appreciation for how I manage with 3 kids all alone all the time. He said he had a tough time with 3 in public, and he had help - Tina. Granted I have help sometimes too, but I do go out with all 3 and I just deal, some days are good, others are terrible. It made my day that he appreciated me, sometimes I think I make it look too easy for him, so he doesn't realize what a challenge 3 kids can be. I'm going to try to scan a picture from our earlier years later.

Mom's Weekend

So we are back from our AWESOME Mom's weekend in Tacoma/Seattle. We started out with a car ride that did not involve hours of packing or constant requests for drinks or snacks, ok, so Amber asked for snacks periodically, but she's pregnant with twins, so justified :). We stopped for lunch at the Yellow Church in Ellensburg and then began the shopping marathon at the North Bend Outlets. My score for the day was a Coach purse that I have been looking at for 3 years and I bought it for 1/4 of the original cost. Then we continued on to our hotel where the people watching began. Our Ramada Inn was filled with diehard fans and I mean FANATICAL fans. I felt highly normal amongst the crazy women. Off to the concert and here is a taste. I loved it and danced for 2 straight hours. The 5 guys were pretty impressive, performing for 2 straight hours and they actually seemed to be enjoying performing for the crowd of crazy women.

Kim, Beth and Amber outside the Tacoma Dome



Kim, Beth, Amber and I in our seats before the concert started.



Video from end of concert:

Siblings at play

Shane's favorite toy at Mobius. You move a blue ball around to represent the movement of water through the city and into the aquifer.


This morning we went to Mobius, Tina was with us, so 3 kids at a children's museum was manageable. Later, I took Shane to baseball. He did wonderfully, in contrast to last week's episode.





Myann being too cute to not capture on film

New Kids on the Block

Yes, I am going to see NKOTB in 2 days. I am excited to relive my junior high years, but I am more excited to have a girls weekend away, away in Tacoma. It will only be 34 hours, but that is still 34 hours of childless car rides, childless meals, and childless shopping. How wonderful for a mommy!!! I'm sure that I will miss the kids by lunch, but I plan to enjoy the time anyway. I am most nervous to be away from Anders, but he is a tough guy. I have pumped a ton of milk, so he should be good to go. I will post again when I get back from my trip.

Life with Kids...Gotta love it

I have really wanted to blog this week, but there have not been enough hours in the day. I have had a fun couple of days. Funny moments with the kids that is.

Monday night was a creative night for mommy. It was bedtime and time to pick out PJs. Well I have had mounds of laundry clean but not put away. So I didn't want to dig through the laundry to find matching tops and bottoms. Shane is pretty insistent that his PJs match. So I found a Spiderman top and Superman bottoms. Shane was not pleased, but I convinced him that now he was a DOUBLE superhero. That pleased him, but now he wants to be a Double Superhero every night.

Tuesday morning I was changing Anders and Shane came over and commented that Anders had a strong peepee. I believe I've commented before that Shane is a tad bit penius obsessed - must be genetic. Anyway, I asked him what exactly was a strong peepee, he said that Anders had a strong peepee because he ate asparagus in my tummy. (BTW, I ate asparagus when pregnant)

Later that morning, I dropped Shane at school and took Myann to her My Gym class. Oh the fun began there. Myann was loving class and doing all the activities. Then Anders let it rip and I mean explode, I'm not supposed to talk about poop, but it is inevitable. The moment the events occurred, I knew it would go in the blog. I had Anders in the Baby Bjorn and took a peek down his back and yep he EXPLODED. So I grabbed extra clothes and headed to change his diaper in the back of the gym. Myann was being my helper and handing me diapers, diaper after diaper. I guess she got bored and I was preoccupied with all the poop, I looked back to see she had taken off her pants and diaper, and then threw her diaper in the trash. I planned to deal with her in a minute but had to get all the poop off Anders (it had gotten in his hair when removing his soiled clothes) and into new clothes, mind you, he is screaming at the top of his lungs and proceeded to pee all over while I was wiping him down. Suddenly, the lights went out. I turned to see another mom coming over to turn the lights back on and there is my naked little girl (AKA stripper according to Uncle GG) playing with the light switches. Fortunately I was in a kid friendly place with parents I knew, so I'm sure I had more of their pity than annoyance. So I got Anders and Myann both dressed and back to class we go. Just another day in the life...

By the way, Myann is living up to her stripper persona, she has taken off her diaper and clothes several times this week. Mostly at home, right before bedtime or right before leaving the house - she has impeccable timing. And she loves to go peepee in public, she doesn't actually do anything, but she strips down and goes through the motions, probably just another excuse to get naked. No naked pictures, since it is a public blog, but here is her smiling - see Grammy she does smile, just not often in pictures.


Later Tuesday, yes the day was not over, I dragged all 3 kids to the pediatrician. Shane was due for his 3 year appt and Anders was having his 2 month. Nothing gets you more attention than carting around 3 kids 3 and under. EVERYONE says wow you got your hands full. I want to get a shirt made that says "Yes my hands are full." The kids were pretty good at the doctor's, they were preoccupied with snacks, even though the sign in the office says no food - yeah right. Upon one look at Anders, the nurse said "Wow, he's a big boy". He officially is gigantic.
Anders 2 month stats
25 inches long 95% percentile
14 lbs. 11 oz. 95% percentile

Shane 3 1/2 years old
39 inches
37 lbs.

Here is the big man. I took this picture yesterday morning, he is in a swaddling sleepsack, but the swaddle part gets scooted up around his shoulders. He is so cute!



BTW, that night was a fluke. Anders is back to waking between 1-2am and again at 5am. I know he is close, because he falls fast aslepp when nursing at the 1am feeding, so I am optimistic.

Anders is 2 months

Yesterday, Anders hit his 2 month mark, his appt is next week, so I'll update his stats then. But...last night Anders slept from 9 pm to 4 am. Yes, he slept 7 straight hours and I slept for 5 1/2 of those, it was pretty awesome. Let's hope this is a trend and not a fluke. I would really like to start getting some more sleep.

So we dance...

I LOVE to dance, but I haven't done it in a while. I don't mean going dancing, I like that too, but those days are long gone, so I dance at home. It makes me feel good and happy. Well today I really needed to feel happy, so we put on Fergie and danced. And it provided me a solid 30 minutes of happy children on a day when Shane was anything but happy.

I can safely say that today was Shane's worse day ever. I'm partly to blame. The day started fine, beautiful weather, so we loaded up and went to Manito Park. Shane screamed for 10 minutes of the ride because he didn't like any of the 3 hats I grabbed for him. It was a bit cold and I didn't think to pull out the gloves yet, so Myann's poor hands turned to blue popsicles. So after about 30 minutes we went home. I put Myann down for a nap and let Shane watch a movie for an hour before he had lil' sluggers. 15 minutes before it was time to go (1:00pm), Shane started melting down. A smart mom would have skipped class and put him down for a nap, even though he doesn't nap much anymore. I tried to say no baseball, but the tantrum got worse at that. So rather than staying home with a screaming child, I gave in and woke Myann up and loaded Anders and off we went to baseball. My hope was that Shane's mood would improve - boy was I wrong. We showed up to class late, naturally, and Shane refused to participate. At this point Myann is being good as I give her raisins, which she is spilling everywhere. Anders is screaming, he had been asleep for 3 hours and woke up very hungry. And Shane is sulking and loudly complaining. So I said I was not going to sit here and juggle all 3 if he was not going to participate. After too many chances, I head out the door with Shane screaming at the top of his lungs. I wrestled him into his car seat and I mean wrestled. He likely has a few bruises on him, but it seeemed better than a toddler bouncing around a moving car. How foolish of me, because no sooner did we get down the road, Shane had undone his car seat and is in my ear screaming at me. Why again did we teach him how to get out of his car seat? I tried to safely pull over, did, and then yet again began the wrestling match. This time I lost, and knew it didn't matter because he would just undo it again. So to calm the tantrum I called my mom and thought maybe Grandma could reason with him. It took a while, but he calmed down and got in his seat. He stayed there for the ride home, but he also fell asleep. The rest of the night consisted of off and on tantrums. I think I need to finally read the book Redirecting Your Child's Behavior. I took the class after Myann was born, but Shane was so good, I never practiced what I learned. I need to review my class notes apparently.

When Brian got home he went to talk to Shane about the day. They had a good talk because Shane told his daddy that he didn't like baseball because he was only 3 1/2 and the rest of the kids are 4 and bigger than he is. He said they were doing sliding and he couldn't slide yet. Shane gave a lot of details to Brian. Why couldn't he have told me all this today? That info would have helped, but it doesn't explain all the tantrums, just the one. Starting next week, I will take him alone, so hopefully that will help him feel more comfortable in the class.

I've been a bad blogger

Sorry I haven't been much up for blogging. Brian has been out of town for most of the past 2 weeks and the weather has been dreadful, so I have been preoccupied with the kids and keeping myself sane. My Dad left town, the rain arrived and has not stopped. Good news is that the rain is saving all the plants my dad planted, since I probably would not have watered them like I should, so the rain has done the work for me. But being confined to the house has been tough. Daddy comes home tomorrow and I am so happy about that, I know the kids will be happy too.

I will update later with kids stuff and pictures, but my brain is not working well enough for that right now.

Ok, now adding:

Shane relaxing on Maddox on Saturday morning


Myann playing dress up - she loves putting on hats and shoes


Shane and Anders


Ever wonder what a 3 yr old does on a rainy day? (No animals were hurt in the filming of this episode)


As for me, I broke down and joined a gym and hired a trainer. This is a huge splurge for me. But...I know this is the only way for me right now. As many know, I LOVE chocolate and chocolate is my drug of choice. When the kids make me crazy, I eat chocolate. At this time of year and after having 3 kids, my body is just not what it used to be. I used to be fortunate enough to have my weight evenly distributed, so I could hide my extra weight, but after 3 kids, the bulk of my weight has found a new home in my gut. Since I am nursing, losing weight will never be easier than right now, so I am going to get to work. Having a trainer weigh me and periodically check my measurements will hopefully be motivation enough to avoid my chocolate breaks throughout the day. So please, no gifts of junk food for Christmas. Wish me luck!!!

And I know, no one wants to hear poop stories, but I must say that Anders is so like his sister - he likes to poop in a fresh diaper. Myann was notorious for not doing her business until immediately after I changed her diaper. Anders has been doing this now. I must cut him a little break, since he still poops like 8 times per day, but most of those times seem to follow a diaper change. It is so frustrating, but Pampers should thank me for giving them LOTS of business.

Myann has not been a happy girl lately. We are thinking she is maybe teething and getting her 2 year molars. Not sure, but she has been really whiney and putting her fingers far back in her mouth.

Flashback Friday

A blog I read does Flashback Friday and I am stealing the idea because I think it is awesome. These photos were taken last year around Oct. 21st at the Arboretum.



Because I had them available, I also decided to post some baby pictures of Brian. I recently became aware that some coworkers of Brian's read the blog, so I thought I would embarrass him a bit. Look fast, because he might delete these soon.

Hey Tina

Monday we picked Tina up to bring her to our house. The whole way home the kids were competing for her attention in the car. Myann repeatedly said , "Hey Tina, hey Tina." Shane then thought it was funny, so for 10 of the 15 minute drive we heard Hey Tina and lots of giggles. Tina and I couldn't help but giggle too. I told Tina that this was payback because she worked for months to get Myann to say her name, now it was a curse. Kind of like mommy. We work for months to have our babies say mommy, but mommy quickly becomes nails on chalkboard when a toddler whines, "Moooommmmmmmyyyyyy."

Myann loves men - everyone who spends any time with Myann knows she LOVES men. I mean LOVES men. She has her select few woman that she likes, and you know who you are, but it is rare. This week was no exception. At My Gym, there was a visiting man leading the class and Myann stuck to his side the whole class, to include doing gymnastics activites that she normally doesn't like to do. She even told the ladies no and to not touch her - that's my opinionated girl. Then Thursday at soccer, she tried relentlessly to get the attention of one father. It took her a while, but she finally got him to play with her for bit.

Anders 7 weeks - I took a clothesless photo so you could really appreciate what a chunk he is. I love his chub, he is so snuggly. And he started giggling this week, but only when he is sleeping. He must have some funny dreams.


Shane and north pole - Shane came home from school Wednesday very concerned about where the north pole was. He told me to drive there now because he wanted to see Santa. I explained it was a bit far, but he didn't understand. When we got home I showed him on the globe where the North Pole was. Unfortunately on a globe, the north pole doesn't look that far from Spokane (that was a scary wake up call for a Texas girl). So Shane still insisted we go there, I told him we weren't allowed.

Myann loves her bears - So thanks a lot Grandma Jo and Popi. Shane and Myann have never been attached to anything, blankets, animals, pacifiers, nothing - until now. Grandma Jo brought a soft polar bear for Myann when she visited and Myann has slept with it ever since. She has to sleep with it every night and drag it downstairs every morning. Then Popi bought her a monkey during his visit, and she now takes both the bear and the monkey to bed every night and we bring them downstairs every morning. Last night I heard Myann up at 3am talking to the monkey, she is officially attached. I'm ok with it as long as we don't have to start taking it on trips around town.

Show and tell - I have been a terrible mom. Shane has been talking about show and tell at school A LOT. I pretty much disregarded Shane's comments, so I don't even know what he said, but he talked about it. I didn't pay attention because I knew, or so I thought, that they did show and tell Wednesday mornings a 8:30 am circle time, well we never get to school until 9am. I didn't bother to drag a toy to school. Since Shane kept talking about it, I decided on Tuesday to confirm that we missed show and tell. Miss Joanne informed me that they did it after playground time at 10:30am. So for 2 months, poor Shane has sat there at Show and Tell with nothing to show. I felt absolutely horrible. Wednesday, he took his prized green shaker car and was so thrilled. Hopefully I am slightly redeemed.

Popi left last weekend and this week was an adjustment. Particularly since the weather has been dreary, so we didn't get out as much as usual. The kids and the dogs missed his attention, I missed his company - I love hanging out with my dad. Today I was frustrated with the kids whining and they were frustrated with my scolding. Shane was mad at me, so he dumped salt all over the counter. I told him I didn't like messes and why did he do it. His response, "Well you left it here so the kids could get to it." I couldn't argue with that.

Daddy got home last night and graciously took Shane to baseball this afternoon so I could have a little down time while Myann and Anders napped. Then they picked up Shane's skis. Shane is so excited to have skis. We had our first snow yesterday and Shane asked if he could go skiing. I told him we had to wait until the snow actually stuck to the ground. Woohoo, maybe Shane will be my ski buddy since Brian isn't a huge fan.