Baseball and a Goodbye

We enjoyed the nice weather today, since most t-ball days have been cold and windy.




My handsome baseball player


Myann hurt herself no less than 4 times in the course of 30 minutes on the playground. In her defense, she is determined to do it all, but sometimes gets hurt in the process.


After T-ball, we came home for lunch and I put the kiddos to bed. Brian was inflight home to us. I loaded up the car and got ready to go to a going away party for the Butterfields. Anders was taking a long nap, so I thought, so I had everything in the car and planned to just grab Anders from his nap and put him in the car. Well, as soon as I opened the door, the noxious odor blew me away. The odor was the best of it. As I turned on the light, I saw that Anders had painted his hands, face, hair, crib and walls with poop. Yep, you heard me right. I grabbed him, carefully, as poop was falling off of him. I placed him in the bath and stripped him down. In this moment, Brian came home and I asked him to tend to the other two while I dealt with this. Well I dealt with it, sanitized, scrubbed, and finally got us loaded in the car, 30 minutes later.

I tell ya, only love can get you through that. We did have a funny going away party, but said to say good bye to more friends.

What is the best way to eat a cupcake?
Study it and find the best route of attack

Then just dig in, no hands required.

Mother's Day

In the spirit of Mother's Day, I thought I would discuss the kids who made me a mother.

Shane, the one who taught me what motherhood is/was. He continues to teach me because each stage is new with him. I experience all the stages of mothering a child through him first and for that he is special. Everything is a learning experience and he is kind to me through the process. Except for tonight when he told me I was the stupidest mother ever after he lost the privilege of picking out a bedtime book because he was not listening before bedtime. So I got to practice my unconditional love by telling him that I love him even when he is mad at me, but those words hurt my feelings and I am obligated to discipline him for bad behavior.


This picture is of Shane with his breakfast concoction - bagel with yogurt and strawberries.

Myann, the one who makes me a better mother. She challenges me many of her waking hours. She is so different than the boys, but in many ways she touches my heart. With her, the affection does not always pour freely, but when she gives the love, it feels all the more special, as if I have earned it. With Myann I have to be creative, on my toes, and always thinking. She is so different than me and the boys, so I am learning how different is good and that we have to find ways to encourage our individual skills. I think Myann might have a future with the CIA, except her clumsiness may hold her back in the career field. I do not think our relationship will ever come easy, but I know it will be strong. After Shane, like most moms, I never thought I could love another child like him, but then Myann was born and she showed me that your heart makes equal room. I loved her before she was born, and when I met her, it was as if she had always been in our lives.



Anders, the one who makes motherhood easy. Seriously, Anders is so easy, so easy to love, so easy to get love, so easy to be with. Brian and I fight over who gets him because he is so easy, except for on airplanes, then he is not so easy. He is joyful, happy, loving, and kindhearted. More times than not, he may hit if provoked, but he will instantly follow it up with a kiss. He gets his feelings hurt and pouts, but immediately seeks affection for comfort. He makes me want 10 more babies. Hence the making motherhood easy part. Anders has taught me that affection is one of the most empowering actions, his hugs make a bad day good.


To the man who made me a mother, Brian, I love you. Thank you for our family.

To our mothers, stepmothers, and grandmas - thank you, everything I know about motherhood I learned from one of you.

And today's funnies:

Shane's quote of the day, "I am peeful. That means I am full of pee today." And he was, emergency pee run at Albertsons and as soon as we got home. Albertsons, a whole other story. I got lots of pity looks shopping with 3 kids going in different directions and we came home with lots of ice cream.

Myann's question of the day and when I heard it I knew I had arrived into motherhood. "Why is the sky blue? Did water splash into the sky?" Maybe tomorrow I will have to explain to her the wonders of light absorption and reflection.

Anders, "Doggie, doggie, dooogggieeeeeee." The whole drive today, but most of the time he was looking at horses and not dogs. So then Myann said, "Ahh, he thinks everything is a dog. Anders, they are horses, noooooot doggies." Poor guy can't get a break.

God never denies us our hearts desire except to give us something better

I read this quote today on another blog I read and it spoke to my heart. Not because I have many unfulfilled desires. Seriously we are blessed, except for the obvious, my brother's health. I would trade anything for his health. Outside of that, I have really been in a place of contentment lately. I remember a friend in college saying the same thing to me when we were lamenting about wanting children one day and how it would be if we never had children. Silly now to think that at 21 years of age I was concerned about whether I would ever have children and here I am with 3. But I think it is only silly now, because I am on the other side. I can not imagine what it is like to be my brother right now. If his heart's desire is health, what could be better? How many different definitions of better are there? So that I struggle with, but at the end of the day it is his struggle. But I can hold tight to what I know to be true and that is that God never denies us our hearts desire except to give us something better. Even if we don't realize it is better at the time.

Anders - the late night show

Myann and Shane are in bed sleeping and we are letting Anders play. He is just having so much fun, how could we possibly put him to bed. Plus he has so much to say and laugh about. He happens to think he is pretty funny. This side of him is overshadowed by Myann and Shane all day. So I love to see him in his own siblingless world for just a few hours. Because he would miss his siblings. He LOVES Shane and Myann. Last week when we dropped Shane off at his classroom, Anders kept running up to Shane and giving him a kiss and a hug. We would get halfway down the hall and then Anders would run back to Shane's classroom and hug and kiss him again. It was pretty sweet and melting the hearts of Shane's teachers watching the display. Anders also loves to console Myann when she cries. Since she is all about the drama these days, Anders is hugging and kissing her many times per day. Really the sweetest boy ever. His vocabulary are tripled in just the past 2 weeks. He knows so many words and repeats about anything I say, at least he will try to say it. He loves to say "I did it!" He is a proud one.

Then there is the matter of his hair. Anders' hair is getting long, quite long and I keep saying that I will get it cut the next time we go for Shane and Myann. Which would be in another 2 weeks or so. But I am rethinking that decision. He has beautiful thick hair with those gorgeous ringlets at the end. I know that when we cut them off, those curls are gone forever, it happened to Shane's and I did not appreciate them long enough. Brian wants his hair cut. Last week Anders brought me Myann's hair stuff and insisted I do his hair. He even tried to spray detangler, comb it and stick a ponytail in his hair. He was so precise and determined, that I had to do it for him. So I put his hair in a ponytail and it was adorable. So, so, so cute. Brian was out of town, that is the only way I pulled it off. Ooops, except I then took him to the mall and took pictures, so daddy found out. The picture is terrible because he would not slow down, but you get the point. So now I am thinking of letting it grow long, as long as we can manage without it getting too messy. And I may just have to put in a few pony tails this summer.



Other feats Anders has discovered this week. Climbing on to the couch with something to assist him. He can use a pillow, toy giraffe, or just about anything that gives him an extra few inches of height. He also learned how to climb into his high chair and does so whenever he wants to eat. Now if only he could learn how to attach the tray to the high chair and get his own food, now that would be helpful.

Oh my goodness and the wrestle mania that goes on in our house nightly. We could be our own pay per view special. The only problem is that Anders does not realize that wrestling is not a sport that all 19 month olds engage in. We started music class together 2 weeks ago. This is a full on toddler music class at a real music school and he is still getting used to it and the fellow classmates are patiently waiting for him to get into the rhythm of the class. Well last week, Anders and another boy his age were chasing each other around the circle of moms. All fine until Anders gave the boy a full on hug and body slammed him to the ground. I mean he grabbed the kid, threw him to the ground and then jumped on top, just to horrify the boy all the more. It was devastating for me to watch and he was smiling and squealing with delight. The boy's grandmother was calm, but equally horrified and quickly tried to console her grandson who was crying with full on huge tears. Obviously he had never been bodyslammed before. I did my mortified apology, trying to act like this was unusual behavior. I guess I may need to approach the right time and place thing with Anders.

Dinner - Kids choice

I went upstairs today to look for Myann, surprised she had not gotten up from her nap. I found her watching tv in the play room. I asked her why she did not come get me when she woke up and her response, "I woke up cranky and came in here." She was a mess and looked cranky, so I turned and walked out. Felt it was safer to let her be. But seriously, if my 3 year recognizes she woke up cranky and hides out, what am I going to do when she is 12 and hormones are involved.

As for dinner, Shane asked if he could pick his own dinner tonight. Daddy was gone, so I thought sure, but I told him I had veto power. I did not need it. Myann of course had to get the same food.


If you can't tell from the picture, they had yogurt, 2 boiled eggs, raw broccoli, and mini oranges. My kids are freaks. These really are some of their favorite foods. Shane of course had to coat his eggs with lemon pepper, yuck. But don't let me mislead you that my kids are total health nuts, they still sneak candy any chance they get, so we still lock the pantry door every night. I quit using the bike chain on the refrigerator/freezer, but then again we do not buy ice cream any more, so there is nothing worth sneaking.

Anders is verbally following Myann's cue. Not a whole lot of talking before 18 months old, but now he is taking off. As soon as I started blogging his words, he felt the need to show me that he could talk far more than I realized. Tonight he even tried to say blackberry. It sounded like "b-berry" but a good try. He also has mastered outside, I sit, cheese, candy, and more that I forget.

Opening Day in the Majors

An outsider might have thought it was opening day for the majors and that Shane was the starting pitcher. That is the fanfare we were making out of Shane's first day of Teeball in Little League. Grandpa Jo even asked Brian for a play by play of Shane's 3 "big" plays in his 30 minute expo game. Yes, it was not even a real game and every kid was able to run in to home plate and I do not think there were any outs. So it was soooo not a real game, seriously, it was a meet and greet with the coach and team. But we were beyond excited. In our excitement to get Shane dressed, I did not take any pictures of him alone. I did get some team pics though.





Shane and James are on the team together and Myann and Bree are the unofficial ball girls. They are much more interested in catching balls than being cheerleaders. Anders just wants to be in the mix. Brian is going to be the unofficial assistant coach. The boys have a female coach who played softball for 14 years, so Brian is pretty excited to have someone who knows about the game. Of course Shane introduced Brian to his coach as, "My daddy used to make moms cry." We have no clue what that meant, but we assume it was meant to imply Brian was a good ball player in his youth, and he was. Shane also told his new coach that his daddy was the best coach ever, very sweet, but not so nice to say to your coach who you met like 30 minutes ago, and is volunteering her time to coach a team of 5 year olds.

This morning, Brian told Shane that he should practice with mom for the week. Shane's reply, "I am the best one on the team, so I don't need to practice. " Wow do we have our work cut out for us, and for the record, Shane is NOT the best on the team, not even close. Some of those boys can catch and throw really well, much better than Shane. So we must kindly explain that he is not the best and needs to practice, without discouraging him because he apparently has a false sense of his skill level. Gotta love the confidence of the Johansen men, they certainly do hold themselves in high esteem.

For the baseball fans, we still do not know if Shane is a righty or lefty. He is batting both. We thought he was right handed and bought him the glove, but he has been wanting to throw with his left, so we may have to get another glove. Also, Shane is number 3 and his team is the Mariners.

Anders' stats

Today was Anders' 18 month appt, though it was 3 weeks late.
Weight 30 lbs 11 oz (95%)
Height 34 in (90%)
Head circ 90%

This was coming off of 5 days of tummy problems, so he probably was over 31 lbs. To think I actually thought he was slimming down. Oh how I love my big boy. He does not say a lot that we understand, but he talks often, and he seems to think we all understand him prefectly. These are the words that we understand: momma, dadda, shoes, Katie, doggie, puppy, cereal, milk, mine, Shane, up, and NO! I am sure there are more, but that is all my brain can remember at this late hour.

More words he can say: cookie, please (though he has to be coerced into saying it), thank you, poop (he points at the toilet and says pooped), of course ball (how could I forget ball since he screams it with delight about 50 times per day).

Even more words: Yesterday Anders dropped an almond and picked it up handed it to me and said, "Dirty". So add dirty to the list. Booboo - he points to any mark on my body and calls it a booboo.