Travelling Alone....Sort of

Our flight left at 6 AM, meaning we had to be at the airport at 5 AM, meaning I had to get my two children out of the house by 4:30 AM. Torture, but that's what you do for family. Plus, my daughter's excitement to see Grandma pretty much made up for it.

I had packed cereal cups to eat for breakfast and when we got through security I bought milk. We made our way down to the gate and I opened up Charlotte's cereal and got her settled as a man came up to gate check the stroller. He said we'd have about 20 minutes tops to eat our breakfast. I figured that would be fine. That is until Charlotte looks up to me and says the words every potty trained child inexplicably knows to say at just the wrong time, "Pee pee Mommy."

I look around at all the carry-ons that we had set down and rifled through to get breakfast out and wildly tried to think of a way to get all of them, our stroller, and us down one story to the bathrooms, have her go and be back up in time to eat breakfast before we had to board. My mind quickly ground to a halt, realizing that there was no conceivable way this could be done. I'm there mumbling, "pee pee...uh.....pee pee. Ok, hmm..." when a wonderful good Samaritan stepped in. A young woman sitting next to us heard the whole interchange and said, "I know I'm a stranger, but I can stay with your baby while you take her to the bathroom." Without even thinking I said, "Thank you!" Took Charlotte and ran. I got her squared away and back in enough time for her to finish her Lucky Charms and run right onto the plane. It wasn't until we were in the air that I realized I probably should have been a little more wary, but sometimes you just have to rely on the kindness of strangers and I am so very thankful.

Other than that our trip was surprisingly uneventful. Greg slept through over half of both flights and Charlotte only got antsy about getting out of her seat about half an hour from the end. Greg did like to do short, loud yells so that people would look at him, which was slightly embarrassing, but at least he wasn't awake for very long and also he wasn't screaming his head off.

So we're here at Grandma's house and settled in. Now if we could just adjust to the two hour time zone difference.

Pajamas

This Saturday my two children and I will be flying across country without the aid of my husband. Our plane leaves at around 6 AM. Any suggestions? Also, do I even worry about the fact that my two almost three year old will be in her pajamas all day?

Daddy's Little Girl

A while back a friend of mine whose hobby is photography asked if she could try her hand at photographing a family, our family. I said sure. We went out last Friday. She just sent me a link to the album she created for us. I think they look awesome and I'm sure we will use one for our Christmas cards. Then I got to see the last one in the album and my brain practically exploded with how beautiful it was.

Thank you so much Kara!

The Stats And Another Funny Quote

We had Greg's six month check-up.

Height: 26 1/2" (50%)
Weight: 20 lbs 2 oz (90%)

So he's not extremely tall, but boy does he pack a punch! The doctor said that what Charlotte had last week was most likely H1N1 which actually gave me a little relief from worry. I'll probably still vaccinate her, but I don't have to worry so much about our air travel during the holidays. (Note: If you are thinking of commenting on how I might still want to worry, don't.)

Dan is currently on family practice rotation which is an absolute dream for the family. He has breakfast with us and is home for dinner. He only works a half day Mondays (he spends the other half studying though). And get this! He only has to work every other Friday. AWESOME. So last weekend since he got housework in on Friday we all went out Saturday late afternoon and evening to the zoo. We let Charlotte pick where we went so we went to the bird house, which she has taken a fancy to lately. As we were going by each cage she would ask me what the bird was and why this bird couldn't get out ("I told you the last time. The wires keep the bird in.") Then we came up to some guinea foul of some variety and instead of asking the kind of bird she says, "That's a pirate bird, Mommy." Who knew?

Glad It Happened Now

Guess who turns into a banshee screaming zombie when he teethes? For a solid 48 hours nobody slept in our house. The only positive I can think to this situation is at least it happened now and not say on the airplane on the way to vacation.

Also, Dan put in light switches upstairs! Honest to goodness hard wired light switches. For all the lights. And he's in the middle of installing a fan light for the bathroom! It's amazing how much you appreciate the simple things.

Also, Dan uttered the phrase I have been waiting for a year for him to say a few days ago. After he finished the last light switch box he turned to me and said, "I think I'd be OK with buying a newer house next time." Yahtzee! It's a whole lot easier to do voluntary projects to give your home "character" than it is to fix plaster walls, re-plumb the bathroom, and wire and entire floor.

Caution: May Impair Judgement

When your six month old only takes a total of an hour and twenty minutes of nap in a day, then by dinner you may have this happen. I've entitled this one "fine then eat it yourself."

And this one Charlotte named "My project"

Wishing for Photographic Evidence

In my ongoing battle against the trumpet vine suckers that keep popping up into my vegetable garden I hit a new high and a new low today. You see after going to the botanical gardens last week and seeing how perfectly their vegetable beds had been cleared and readied for winter I decided I had better take the opportunity this nice weather is giving me and do the same. The more I work now, the easier it will be in the spring right?

So I started digging up the overgrown weeds and ends of the vegetable plants last week. Turns out we had loads of carrots in there that I knew nothing about. That's what you get when you let a two year old plant the seeds for you.

It's been pretty slow going. Not because of the leaves that have fallen on top of everything or the grass that has encroached the withered pumpkin vine, but because of the evil trumpet vine. You heard me. EVIL. They must have powers from the devil since they seem impervious to roundup!

Anyway, today I went out thinking I'd at least get another one foot strip done in the thing. I came upon five trumpet vine shoots coming out of the ground together. It has been my experience if I just dig deep enough all those shoots will eventually converge onto one root stem that I can then pull out. So I dug and I dug and I dug (or is it digged?) until I hit what I thought was a huge rock. I showed it to Daniel as he was leaving for work (he's in family medicine right now) and he said that it wasn't a rock, but the root and I should just try to wedge the shovel under it. Well, it took me another 15 minutes to get the right leverage, but then the beauty came up!

Picture this if you will: two feet long, three inches in diameter, a foot and a half underground. I had dug up a LOG! Well, not really a log, it was indeed the root for the trumpet vine. In my heart I felt victory, and defeat. I had truly unearthed a huge part of the problem, but if that's how big the root for five tiny vines was I am in real trouble. I will never win to this plant. It will eventually overtake the lawn, and then start creeping up the walk to the deck. Finally it will engulf the entire house and we will never be able to step foot out the front door. Good news, we're moving before that could ever happen.

Oh and picture this as well: Charlotte was delighted when I finally got the log out of the ground because she could then fit herself into the hole in the ground. She called it her chair. She sat in her chair and found a worm coming out of one of the clumps of dirt she covered her skirt with. She uncharacteristically picked the worm up and called it her pet. Boy was she really miffed when I told her that she needed to get out of it so I could fill it in.

6 months

Today my son is six months old. Can you believe that? I sure can't. In the future when people ask me how third year in medical school went I will say quickly.

Charlotte came down with a fever last Saturday night and it hasn't really left her yet. I thought it had, then she woke up from her nap today with a return of the fever. I waited an hour thinking maybe she was just hot from sleeping, but it never went away. YUCK.

Then last night when Dan went to get Greg so I could feed him before going to bed we discovered that he had been throwing up on himself. When he picked the little guy up we realized Greg wasn't asleep, he just wasn't wanting to move his body at all. He didn't want to hold his head up or lift his arms and he didn't want to nurse. Or have his pacifier in his mouth. Or take tylenol. When we got it in him he threw it up 2 minutes later. You could tell Greg was scared too because of the look on his face as his body was heaving. I was really scared and I knew it was bad because Daniel was really scared too. Turns out this morning he's fine, but that was pretty much the scariest thing that's happened with him so far. Nothing equates to the fear you feel when your infant is sick and scared in the middle of the night.

Chicken N Dumplings

Last night I made chicken and dumpling stew. It was wonderful. I love dumplings. love. love. love. Charlotte I thought would love them too since they're mostly just flour, which she has taken to eating all by itself lately (gross). She didn't.

Dan: "Charlotte you need to finish your dumpling."
Charlotte: "No I don't."
Dan: "You need to eat three bites of carrot and two bites of chicken then. And be done with that sass."
Charlotte: "I'm not done with the sass yet."

I'm pretty sure she wasn't really clear on what sass was, but it sounded much better than chicken or carrot.

To Be Human Again

Boy it's sad when the titles of your posts come from Disney. Oh well. I do feel human again. And you know why? I slept. I slept and slept and slept. And the family rejoiced. Or at least the husband portion of it anyway. I'm fairly certain the child portion doesn't register much in the way of the mommy portion. Except one funny conversation that my daughter had with a friend of mine who was watching her.

Charlotte: "What's wrong with your finger?"

Friend: "I burned it."

Charlotte: "When Mommy burns sheself she gets mad."

And it's so very true. So at least she notices some things.

Our Halloween went well. (I was going to try to segue that, but I couldn't think of anything. So I decided you could just follow me along.) Charlotte was perhaps the quietest lion you have ever seen and Greg was a ghost.

She wouldn't let me comb out her hair to be the mane which was the crowning part of the cotume, but she's two and a half so, whatever.Apparently the best part of his costume was his ability to eat it.

I'm the only one in the family not in a costume. Daniel went as a logger. When an hour went by and nobody asked him what he was I told him that proved you can't just wear your normal clothing and call it a costume (even if your clothing is a costume for other people).

And because I got such a great response (thanks Grandma Jane and Grandpa Mel) to the other two videos I posted, here's another little one. I like to call it Guarding the Pumpkin.

Conspiracy Theory

My family is trying to kill me. Do I have hard evidence of that? No. But I give you my reasoning:

Why would my sweet child, who had previously been sleeping at least 5 hours at a time if not 7, suddenly decide to revert back to 3?

Why would my husband have to work evening shift last week and then night shift this week at the hospital catching babies? Or is he just saying he has to work, but really he's in cahoots with the non sleeping child? Maybe he's going over to someone else's house. Someone who has a sleeping child. Then he comes back home at 8 AM and goes back to bed to sleep for six more hours just to throw me off the scent.

Why would my sweet older child decide to get sick right at the same time? Requiring me to wake up multiple times a night and get her water so she doesn't cough until she throws up. This means I have gotten no more than two hours of sleep at a time.

Why also would my sweet child decide that he no longer can self soothe when waking up too early from his afternoon nap? Then my dear husband doesn't know how to soothe him so I must then wake up from the only nap I've had in DAYS in order to get said child back to sleep.

Then to top it all off, I'm awake from soothing said child so I pick up the house. Dear husband doesn't want me to get too suspicious so he helps pick up the house. Then what does dear husband do? Goes to sleep!

You may say that I'm crazy. You may say that all of these just happen to coincide at the same time. But I know the truth. They're slowly but surely trying to kill me.

It's A Pack Pack

We went shopping on Saturday and Charlotte found another thing she's in love with. I took a video.

She wore it around Eddie Bauer for a good five minutes before we made her take it off.

Strange things my daugher loves:

• Unsharpened pencils
• Buckets
• Water bottles
• Rulers
• Pack Packs

The TV-Or Why My Kid Doesn't Sleep

After having my child for two almost three years now I've finally noticed a correlation between her sleeping habits and the TV. Contrary to what I would believe there does not seem to be any correlation between the total amount of TV she watches and her ability to fall asleep. The correlation happens between when she watches and when I want to put her down. I already had a sort of amount of TV limitation (nothing concrete), but recently I have enacted a time of day limit on TV and it has done wonders in our household.

1. No TV until after you are up and ready for the day (clothing on, hair done, teeth brushed, bed made)
2. No TV between lunch and nap time (Usually about an hour of time there)
3. No TV after dinner (About an hour and a half before bed)

It is amazing the difference in her ability to go down. With this and some other slight changes in her bedtime routine I have discovered peace in our home at bed time. So why did it take me so long to figure this out? Why the difference in bed time? Does the TV way over stimulate her for when she needs to sleep? I have no idea. All I know is that I'm so very happy with the result.

How To Cross The Street

There are a few perks to Charlotte being in Joy School. One of my favorites is hearing what she's learning come up at home. ("You mean milk comes from cows?") One day she went on a field trip to the park. While there, the mom that was teaching talked about crosswalks and what they're used for and how to be safe around the road. A few nights later Daniel took her to his school with him to pick up a book from a friend. When they came back he told me that they encountered a crosswalk on their way from the car to the library and this is what Charlotte told her father:

Charlotte: "Are we crossing a road in a crosswalk?"
Daniel: "Yes."
Charlotte: "And do I need to hold mommy and or daddy's hand?"

I stinking love my little sponge!

Definitions

A few nights ago Charlotte was getting out of the bath. Mixed in with her constant verbal commentary on everything in her life she said,

"Greggie is Mommy's little guy and Daddy's son."

I thought that was really cute.

Solidarity

I had to run to the grocery store today, which I hate. Mostly its just annoying because I wasn't planning on going to the grocery store until tomorrow, but we ran out of milk. Our house without milk is probably the worst thing that could happen. Right up there with flood, fire, and not enough sleep. So I took my kids to the grocery store in the middle of the afternoon without a shopping list against my better judgement. Charlotte hadn't had a nap so I knew things weren't going to go well. Things went just about as well as I had predicted so when we got to the check out I told her that no I wasn't going to get her any treat. This leads me to ask why to grocers want to torture mothers? Candy? Where I can't have any distraction? This forces me to make the decision every time whether I'm going to fight that fight. Also? Why on earth would they put out the car shopping carts? Because if they don't happen to have a car cart handy then my daughter throws a fit. And if they do have a car cart handy she spends the entire time hopping in and out of the thing. I think they should have a wide load sign on them too since they can't turn right when you want them. So you end up running into things when you don't mean to.

Anyway, I had told her that she couldn't have a treat and that was pretty much the last straw for a no-nap little girl. She hit me. Which is never OK so I picked her up and held her until the checker was finished with all my items. Why are checkers always slower when your kid is acting up? Are they trained to go slower with the idea that you will finally give in and buy that stinking candy? Raising sales? It didn't work with me. I was holding her and she was screaming and I could feel my face getting redder and redder and then I look back at the couple behind me. They are both smiling. I'm pretty much just trying to escape Schnuck's with my food to get this screaming, scrambling, snot flinging mess back to our house and they're smiling. Then the couple behind me made my day. They said, "We know that face. We have twin two year olds at home." In case you missed that: Twin. Two Year Olds. Sometimes it's great to just know someone else understands.

Just Say Thank You

There are many lessons I clearly remember my mom and grandma making a point to teach me. Make your bed when you get out of it. Wash your hands. Look both ways. Read books. Lots of books. Always keep learning. Hot water takes out chocolate, cold water to take out blood. Little things that I learned to lean on. One of those lessons I have found particularly important in my life. That is the lesson of how to graciously accept a compliment. Not many people do that and sometimes it can be hard.

For instance when I was growing up and would play my violin at a recital. People would come up to me later, no matter how well or poorly I did, and compliment me on my performance. Some of the time I would be thinking, were they actually listening to what I was playing? That doesn't matter though. What matters is that person enjoyed your performance and is letting you know that. The appropriate response is always thank you. Nothing more, nothing less.

In life I can be presented at times with situations where it is hard to accept other's compliments of myself without bravado or dismissiveness. The lesson that I was taught is that in complimenting me a person is graciously giving me a gift. One that they most certainly did not have to give. My responsibility in that situation is to accept that gift with the same grace and sincerity in which they gave it. I'd like to think that this lesson has been thoroughly learned.

Even though I feel I have mostly learned this lesson, there is a situation that I'm acutely aware of my lack of ability to accept the compliment. That is when people compliment me on the kind of mother I am. (Which my sister does quite often.) I wonder why I can't just smile and say thank you when someone gives me such a wonderful gift.

There are a few reasons why I think I have trouble with this. The first being that my job as a mother isn't done. How can I possibly know how well I've done on a job that's not finished? My children are so young. There's so much of their lives ahead of them. I have so much to teach them and so many, many pitfalls to avoid. The last notes of the sonata aren't ringing in the air yet.

Another reason is that nobody sees the mistakes I'm making quite as acutely as I do. Nobody sees when I lose my temper. Nobody sees when I'm lazy and let my kids do things that I told myself I'd never let them do. Nobody sees how amazingly my children bounce back from a mistake that I led them into. The sharp and flat notes I make as I play the song seem to be more amplified in my ears.

Regardless of those reasons though I should take the compliment as it is given. With love. Just like the songs I would play on the violin. When someone comes up to me afterward and says how much they enjoyed it, even if I think they're only saying that to make me feel better, my response should be to smile and say thank you. And you know what? It does make me feel better. There are too many times when I hear negative thoughts and actions about motherhood. Why not gladly receive any positive that may come along?

So to all you moms and grandmas out there that are trying your best to be good role models, WAY TO GO. I think you're great. I think your kids are beautiful, smart, loving, and gifted. You are amazing. Keep up the good work.




PS. In no way am I trying to fish for compliments. I've just been thinking about this lately and wanted to see if anyone else had similar thoughts on the subject.

Or Maybe Not

Last night was the worst night sleep I've had since I had Greg. Then this morning I accidentally tore the front bumper off the car. Great. Just. Great.

The Tide Has Turned

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, but I've been having a sort of string of bad days lately. Charlotte and I are butting heads it seems like at every turn and it's starting to wear me down. Also? She has found a noise that she makes constantly. A noise that I'm sure she has practiced specifically to drive me up the wall. Because kids do that right? Actually when it started I recognized it as the girl version of the the angry sound one of her cousins made. The only difference is that when her cousin made it I thought absolutely nothing of it. Now every time I hear that sound I want to hurt something. On top of that we're trying to get Greg to sleep constantly through the night. It hasn't been that bad actually. Compared to his sister it's been a dream. But he does wake up, make noises for about 10 minutes and then go back to sleep about two times a night. Dan thinks he's sleeping through the night, but that's just because Greg's sounds aren't waking him up at all. At least half of us are getting a good night's sleep. And last but not least we're fighting the nap time fight. Charlotte's almost three and I don't know how much longer these days are going to last, but that quiet time in the afternoon is priceless for me. I either get to nap myself, be productive around the house (if hallelujah my kids are napping at the same time), or spend the time making Greg smile and laugh. I treasure that time and I don't really care if she's sleeping, so long as she's quiet, in her bedroom, and doesn't come out for an hour and a half.

Anyway, my string of bad days culminated on Monday when I had to deal with poop on the outside of the toilet, no nap toddler, and stepped in cat puke on my rug. Then I got a call from the husband of one of my friends and my outlook shifted. She's 15 weeks pregnant and hadn't kept anything in her stomach for a day and a half. NOTHING. They were worried about taking her to the hospital because you have to be 16 weeks pregnant to go to the women's triage unit so she'd have to go to the regular emergency room crawling with the flu. The flu that kills pregnant women. So anyway, he was asking if I'd watch their little girl Tuesday. I, of course, said yes and thanked my stars I wasn't puking my guts out.

Tuesday morning came around and I wasn't worried. I got us up and started the laundry and changed the sheets on the beds and cleaned the kitchen (I always get a shot of productivity right after breakfast. Does that happen to you?). Then we went over and picked up my friend's little girl. The worry about the day hit as I had the three car seats strapped into the back of my car and was heading home. I had three kids for the WHOLE DAY. I could just see my daughter getting fed up with the situation and trying to punch her friend in the face. I could just see the little girl wanting to go home at lunch time so she could take her nap in her own bed and then proceeding to cry until she was picked up. I could just see Greg being woken up from his naps and then wanting to be held the rest of the time. I could see the house turning into a disaster zone. My husband comes home to a crazy wife and two angry children and no dinner. Not so different from the previous days, but that's life sometimes.

With all that set up, yesterday went fine. Actually it went amazing. Charlotte played with her little friend really well. And I got all three children to sleep at the same time. That's about as common as a solar eclipse, but it happened, oh did it happen!

So I thought I'd pass this little idea along to those of you struggling with nap time. I put a CD player up on the landing outside the kids room and told them they didn't have to go to sleep, but they did have to stay in bed until the pretty music stopped. Then I played the CD, when it got to the end I just went up and started it over until they had slept a hour and a half. They all fell asleep and slept for 3 hours. It probably wont work for too long, but I did it again for Charlotte today and she went right down.

Giggles

A few nights ago I had to get the dishes done. I put Greg in his highchair and he was fussy, but I just ignored him. His fussiness was coming to a crescendo when it turned into belly laughs. I turned around and my heart melted. I ran and got the video camera to show everyone what happened. Also, did you see the new highchair cover?