Halfway to One

This monthly blah-blah is brought to you by Sleep Deprivation and WAAAAHHHH Pick Me Up/No Put Me Down so it will most likely lack any sort of cohesiveness and be short and sweet. Or not. {It is ME, after all.}

The first two and a half weeks of this month were spectacular for our mini-budders. Five months is one of my very favorite ages as it’s the perfect combination of smooshy adorableness and active {but not too active} baby exploits. And since my baby is already the cutest baby, like, EVER {truth} it was an especially fun time. I actually had to force myself to put him down or let him play independently so I could do things like sleep, feed my other children, etc. Then he started to get a little cranky two weeks ago aaaaaaaand BAM. Icky cold. Sleep and contentedness went out the window and were replaced by waking up 5-7 times a night and general whininess at being alive. I took him in for his 6 month check-up on Friday, thinking the doctor would check his ears, see an infection and we’d get something to help ease his discomfort but his ears were clear~ it’s just a gunky cold, so instead he was the proud recipient of three vaccinations which has NOT helped his mood any letmejusttellyou. His cold/cough seem much better this week, but after an absolutely AWFUL night last night I think some form of sleep training is in our near future.

So to hit all the major baby data points…

Sleep: SUUUUUUUCCCKKKS. {I think I covered this one already but just in case you weren’t super clear…} Naps are still going okay with 1.5-2 hours in the morning and 1-1.5 hours in the afternoon but it’s getting increasingly hard to get him down. Before I was swaddling him and gently rocking him for 5 or so minutes and sometimes he would be asleep and sometimes he wouldn’t but he’d snuggle in and nap either way. Now it’s taking 10-15 minutes of vigorous rocking and if he’s not all the way asleep when I lay him down he pops his eyes open and that’s it, there is almost no chance of him falling asleep on his own. He is too tall and strong for our swaddling blankets so we have had to phase them out in the last couple of weeks which also hasn’t helped sleeping matters because OMFG LOOK I HAVE HANDS!!!!! We are hoping some form of sleep training will help but until the last dance competition is over this weekend I just don’t have it in me to jump into that.

Eating: With both Rowan and Keaton the doctor encouraged us to start solids at 4 months. This time I listened to the hippies and didn’t start until 5.5 months and let me tell you, these hippies are onto something. Do you know how much easier it is to feed a nearly six month old than a 4 month old? A huge difference. WORLDS. The frustration of wasting food and the breast milk you mix it with as your child lets it just fall out of their mouth instead of swallowing was completely skipped this time. Ezra could sit up in his new highchair and within a feeding or two figured out how to take spoonfuls and swallow with much less of a mess. So far avocados are the only thing he’s completely rejected {Bill would be 90% sure Ezra could not possibly be his son due to this if not for the fact that everyone we meet says WHOA HOLYSHIT do YOU look like dad}. His favorites are bananas and apples. I gave him carrots for the first time yesterday which he liked but then woke up with a rash on his cheeks this morning so I don’t know if that’s related or not… we’ll see as Smooshy Stuff Taste Test Month continues.

Moving: This boy is a rolling machine. Historically my babies have been on the late side of normal for gross motor so I thought I had another 2 months before I had to worry about baby proofing but Ezra has proved much more active. We’ve already taken down his floor gym as he just rolls off of it or gets tangled. If I lay him on a blanket then get distracted by another of my lovely offspring for a minute, when I look back he’s under the coffee table or made his way to the patio door for a better view. He’s able to sit up assisted and has started to hold himself up on his hands for a few seconds before face-planting. He loves standing in his exersaucer and watching his big brother and sister.

Growth:

Weight: 17lb 3oz, 44%

height: 27 inches, 65%

head: 17inches, 46%

Ezra had another big growth-spurt in height considering at 2 months he was only in the 10% and is now in the 65th percentile. This has been the fattest month for all my babies, having spent the last 6 months building up their fat stores while being completely immobile. Ezra is the chubbiest of the three, though only a few ounces bigger than Keaton was at 6 months {and to be fair he’s also a full inch taller}. Rowan never broke the 10th percent for anything but was still at her own personal chubbiest at this age. It’ll be fun to see if Ezra planes out like his brother and sister did, both of whom were only around 20 pounds at one year and stayed that way for what seemed like EVER. In the meantime, this has resulted in much nomming of Big Fat Baby tummy and thighs and cheeks and oh just about any part of him I can get a hold of. It’s the best.

Loves: His favorite toys are his LaMaze Dragonfly, Pirate Piggens, Taggie Elephant and any loud rattle you shake at him.  He likes the bjorn but only if Bill is wearing him. He’ll tolerate the Ergo but only for short periods, which I hope will change because it’s my carrier of choice~ I am really hoping he’ll warm up to it so we can hit the trails this summer.

Honestly? I know he loves me {or my hooters, whatever} but this boy is all about daddy and his big brother and sister and ferchristssake even Fawkes and Luna. His big eyes follow his dad and siblings as they go about their evening business and he loves Saturday mornings when he gets to spend extra time with dad {Mama’s sleeping in. Don’t judge.}. During feedings the dog and the cat settle in, with Fawkes on the bed near the rocking chair and Luna at my feet. Every so often Ezra will break away from me, flail about in my arms until he has a good view of an animal and give them a sweet, toothless grin, which is sometimes rewarded with a wet puppy kiss.

Ezra, you watch everything, you take it all in. I can see you inching further and further away, even while you are seated right there on my lap, pulling yourself toward the activity and watching, delighted, with a curious gaze. You are so ready to jump in and be a part of all of us, all of this, all of the action, and all I can do is gently gather you in to me, placing my cheek on your blonde fluff and say, soon, Sir. You’ll be a part of it all before we know it but for now you’re stuck snuggled in my arms. Right where I want you.

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Big Fat Five

I’m really hoping I can get to a place where I will be able to use this space for more than just a monthly update on Adorable Baby but with costume –um– I mean dance season in full swing, I really don’t see that happening anytime soon. So without further ado, here is Ezra’s five month monthly blah-blah…

Firstly: Hands. The source of all enjoyment, the bane of our existence. While my sweet boy discovered his hands somewhere around the two month mark, he didn’t develop a full on obsession until this month. Last month he’d grab at toys and such when we’d wave them in front of him but the look on his face of complete and utter surprise when he’d realize something was attached to his fingers was pretty priceless, like “AHHH, MOM!!! Something’s on my hand getitoffWTF!!” Or “Hmm, this looks promisingly tasty, let me just try to shove it in my mouth, no! get out of my nose you stupid thing! not in my ear again aaaaand now I dropped it, why won’t you get in my mouth WHYGODWHY?!”

So he’s pretty adept now at grabbing what he wants and bringing it to his mouth to sample the various nuances in the taste of Plastic Crap. By six and a half months he’ll be an honest to god connoisseur of the subtle bouquets of LaMaze versus the bold tang of First Years. He also has developed a keen interest in chewing on human fingers which sounds mildly disturbing until you realize that he doesn’t have any teeth so it’s mostly gross in the baby slobber way which is decidedly better than the cannibalistic way. Still though. I really tried to discourage this habit since the kids love him so and do you know how many gross things a five and seven year old touch during the course of a day? I VERY SERIOUSLY have avoided thinking about this, because EW. I try to keep everyone’s hands as clean as possible but if you get your fingers anywhere near Ezra he is cheetah-fast and has an iron-clad grip and if he catches you? That shit is going directly in his mouth and you are POWERLESS against him.

Which leads me to another issue which I like to call the Baby Venus Fly Trap. Only he’s not catching flies, he’s catching humans so I guess I should call it the Baby Venus Human Trap but it just doesn’t have the same ring. ANYWAY. This little trick entails him laying on his back with a bare tummy. He lures his prey in with smiles, coos and probably some sort of wizard’s spell he picked up listening to Rowan read Harry Potter, or maybe something vaguely more satanic. The spell doesn’t even matter because that chubby baby tummy alone has done the trick and the unsuspecting victim moves in with the sole purpose of planting one thousand kisses and maybe blowing a few raspberries on that delicious baby skin and BAM! he has you in his evil baby clutches, his hands are clenched around fistfuls of your hair which impossibly but inevitably become twisted and tangled immediately in his fingers and you trytrytry to gently pull away but that just tightens his grip and further entangles you and now he is lifting his hands full of your hair to his gooey baby mouth and OHFORCHRISTSAKESGROSS, BABY. And it’s done. You have been trapped and eaten by a small human, and now you just have to wait for him to finish dining on your hair and to release his power grip on you. Afterward you vow, never! again! will I be so foolish as to fall for a small child’s tricker— oh my gosh, do you see that chubby baby tummy? Imma gonna kiss you, baby!! And so, on it goes…

The good news is that hands are quickly being replaced by the coolest new thing in baby anatomy: Toes. Holy shit, guys? Did you know about these things? They are like a built in baby-sitter, for real. He is completely taken with the things. Since cloth diapers are so bulky he can’t lift his legs up high enough to grab his feet so when I want to do things like shower, eat or spend uninterrupted time with Rowan or Keaton, all I have to do is throw that child in a disposable or an uncovered prefold, set him in his crib and VOILA! He is captivated by his own feet; capturing them, talking to them and desperately attempting to shove them in his mouth. So YAY toes! Functional and seemingly limitless entertainment value in the under 6 month set.

Sleep: Remember those two months where I had a baby who reliably sleep through the night? That was nice. And over. {And here is where I talk about those Stupid Hands again, which UGH, why do babies even HAVE hands? I do everything for him anyway, honestly! Sure, I know one day they might be useful for him to have, but for the time being they seem more like a luxury than a necessity so why can’t babies just grow them later, like teeth?} Ezra has been happy to be swaddled every night since his birth until Hands ruined everything. Once he realized their existence, he went from viewing the swaddle as a peaceful, snuggling, sleepy device to an unholy prison for his hands. So the tears come when we wrap him up at night which we totally ignore, for we are cruel and heartless people who value sleep, but he submits relatively quickly and drifts off with a few minutes of humming and rocking. The problem is when he wakes up at any point he begins the arduous process of trying to break out of the swaddle and you guys? Houdini would have trouble breaking out of Bill’s swaddles, those mofos are ridiculously snug, but squirmy baby wins every time. We tried leaving his hands out of the swaddle but to Ezra, Hands = PARTYTIME BITCHES! He immediately pulls his nuk out, sucks loudly on his fingers, whaps himself in the head a few times, talks to them, flails them around until he accidentally turns on his crib soother, scratches himself and then gets mad because he’s just realized it’s 1am, he’s tired and WHERE’S MY NUK THAT I PULLED OUT AND FLUNG ACROSS MY CRIB, HUH? So not an option. After a few weeks of waking up multiple times trying to bust free, he has mostly given in until about 45 minutes before we have to get up in the morning which, while not ideal, is a vast improvement.

The good news is that naps have improved greatly. Whether it’s due to the regression in night sleep or not is unclear but instead of 2-3 30-45minute naps a day, I am getting at least one solid 1.5- 2 hour nap out of him with an additional 1 hour or so in the afternoon and usually a 20-40 minute catnap in the evening. This has been super great as I feel like I can get stuff done when he’s down so I’m not constantly trying to pacify him while doing chores or having to do things one handed all day which can get everybody frustrated. It also allows me more one-on-one time with Keaton during the day, instead of constantly having to tell him “not now, buddy” so lots more quality time for all involved- keep it up, Baby!

A HUGE success this month is that we finally seemed to figure out the terrible, awful cradle cap. After being sentenced to hell {uh, I mean Ezra being diagnosed with a dairy allergy SAME DIFF}, his rash improved greatly… only we didn’t take into account that he was prescribed an antibiotic at the same time {because the rash had become infected}. Turns out dairy probably had very little to do with the rash on his cheeks which seems to have been a byproduct of the infected cradle cap, which came back nearly full force a few days after the antibiotics were done. On the FOURTH trip to the pediatrician, this is the secret, mystifying cure we were prescribed: Selsun Blue and .2% hydrocortizone. Yeah. Not really so secret. In fact 10 different google searches told me the same thing but I didn’t want to try anything without the doctor’s blessing and she was VERY certain it was dairy and why treat the symptom when I can figure out the source and fix it, you know? Alas, it was in vain as 24 hours after the first shampoo and application Ezra’s head was 90% healed and the reintroduction of dairy didn’t flare it up again. Now we use regular hydrocortizone sparingly and only need the shampoo 2 times a week to keep his head mostly rash-free. I’m just glad my Great Dairy-Free Ordeal is over and I can eat cheese and cream as baby jesus intended.

Things Ezra loves:

His big sister and brother. He smiles so huge for these two and his eyes follow them as they bounce around the room in the evening, studying their movement and smiling at them and wow it won’t be long until he’s chasing after them on all fours and then on all twos. To say his infancy is going fast would be a gross understatement.

TV. GAH! I don’t know what to do? Bill and I don’t watch any TV until all kids are down for the night and our weekday viewing is pretty light because of school and activities but we do let the kids watch some downloaded episodes and movies on the weekend and Ezra is completely rapt. I try blocking his view but he squirms until he can see just what Leonardo and the other turtles are up to this week. I’ve sort of given up so, you know, feel free to judge away.

Talking. We’re big into the YAYAYA’s and the DADADA’s. It’s where it’s at, Folks. {I am really encouraging the MAMAMA’s so I can quickly claim it as his first word/profession of undying love for me, but he’s not falling for it. YET.}

Being upright for play. He graduated from all floor play to the exersaucer which is nice because we can gather round him easier and sit him up next to us at mealtimes which makes him feel much more a part of our little family unit.

Other stuffs…

Like the older two, will roll side to side but adamantly refuses to roll onto his tummy. The Tummy is NOT where it’s at.

Loves to chew on lovey blankets and fingers and is drooling up a storm. We’ve now entered the Kiss This Baby At Your Own Risk stage as 80% of his face is covered with drool at any given time.

“Ooo, what’s this in my mouth? My nuk! I love my nuk! —Pulls nuk out with own hands— WHO TOOK MY NUK? —cries, mama replaces nuk— Oooo What’s this in my mouth? My nuk! I love my nuk! Pulls nuk out…

Ezra, you are filling our world up. From your shrieks and giggles to your snuggles and smiles, I can’t count the number of times in a week I pull you in close and just let the feeling of gratefulness wash over me. I am so thankful for you, Baby. And love you with all of my heart. Even your stupid hands.

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I've got nothing…

Seriously. Not one thing of substance. Bill and I talked about how we were operating with such choppy, low amounts of sleep and we agreed that we were okay as long as we didn’t acknowledge how much sleep we’ve lost the last 5 weeks~ equating it with the whole Don’t Look Down mentality. Bill confessed he had started to look down over a week ago and Internet? I’m looking down right now and it is not a pretty sight.

So here, have some Adorable Baby while I stare off at the wall trying to remember how to spell my own name…

Good thing these cheeks make it all worth it, huh?

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Turns out I never worry about the right things.

So you know when, against all good parenting sense, we were really smart and let the kids watch Lord of the Rings? And I was so worried about the disfigured Orcs and bloody battles giving them horrific nightmares?

Well, Rowan had a terrible nightmare last night. I heard her sobs over the monitor around midnight and with a sinking feeling that this was all coming back to bite me in the ass, I ran up to her. Normally once she sees that I’ve come in the room she calms right down, but not this time. She climbed down the ladder and flung herself into my lap, still shaking with sobs of the remnants of whatever invaded her mind.

I always ask what her bad dream was about so we can talk it over and I can try to make her feel better before tucking her back in but I was a little hesitant as I was sure she was going to recount Gandalf being engulfed by a fiery flaming monster or Gollum biting off Frodo’s finger and that was going to make me look really, really bad, Internet.

But I made this Orc-filled bed so I sucked in a breath and said, “What was your bad dream about?”

And with a still trembling voice she replied, “A mean strawberry.”

“Oh, sweetie, mama’s so sorry she let you watch that mov-…Whaaa…What?”

” A mean, giant strawberry that was trying to smoosh me.”

“A …strawberry?”

“That was trying to smoosh me. It was really big.”

“Smoosh you into jelly?”

A smile crept across her face, “Yep. Rowan Jelly.”

“That is a bad dream. You’re pretty sweet but I wouldn’t want to eat you on toast.”

After she was done giggling, we sang Castle on a Cloud as we rocked in the glow of the nightlight and then I said it was time to snug back into bed.

Before climbing back up she said, “I don’t think I’m going to color in my Strawberry Shortcake coloring book for a little while. I colored so many pictures yesterday that it gave me bad dreams.”

Freaking Strawberry Shortcake, you guys. And not even a show with the sinister Purple Pie Man…a COLORING BOOK. Filled with smiling, glee-filled fruit people. I have to be perfectly honest. I… just…I just don’t get this parenting thing sometimes.

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Bright and Early

So daylight saving time ended, which was…fun. I’m a big huge fan of that one extra hour of sleep for that one night, but the whole waking up to the blaring sun and it getting dark around 5pm kind of blows at first. I actually can’t complain too much about the time switcheroo. Save that first year of each kid’s life when one minute of change in a schedule could be catastrophic, let alone adding or subtracting an entire hour from the delicate balance of infancy, our kids have been really pretty easy to dupe into sticking with their regular schedule.

At the risk of getting punched by my sleep-deprived friends, since Keaton hit about 15 months we have had it VERY easy in the sleep department but I promise this happened mostly by accident and not by our own careful devising. Rowan was really the happiest little baby on planet earth. I’d have to consult the baby book to be sure {and upstairs is too far away from my couch and my warm coffee} but I’m pretty sure that by five-ish months she was sleeping through the night, and even when she was still getting up for night feedings before that, for the most part she was the dream-baby you could shove a boob or a bottle into for 20 minutes, swaddle her up and lay her back down in her crib for the rest of the night. And she would wake up smiley and happy to entertain herself with the sound of her own magnificent coos for as long as it took me to get up, get dressed and get ready to feed her.

Once she was close to a year old we would put board books and a few toys at the bottom end of her crib and when she woke up she was happy to play, getting put out when I’d come in to change her diaper. My chest still gets that warm feeling of happiness rushing in when I think of her little voice coming through the monitor, so thrilled with itself at all the different sounds it could chime. I think this contentedness she had to just play independently is what set us on such a great path as far as mornings go but when she moved to a toddler bed to make room for that usurping baby brother when she was 24 months, we thought that would change. Or more accurately, we thought we had screwed ourselves.

It was sort of a tricky thing because we live in a town home where the two bedrooms are on different levels so for safety reasons, fearing our tiny two-year-old would come up to get us, miss a step in the dark and go careening down the stairs, we told her to just call for us and we’d hear her over the monitor and come to her. We did not predict how awesome this would end up being for us until we started hearing horror stories from other parents about being bombarded by a tiny little person demanding juice and Cheerios at 5:30 in the morning.  Rowan was so used to waking up and playing quietly in a contained space that she happily kept it up. She’d wake up, turn on the aquarium soother we’d rigged to her bed and hum, sing and talk to herself and her stuffed animals until we came into get her.

This bliss all ended three short months later because if you remember, Keaton’s babyhood was slightly different. There was no sleeping in because there was no sleeping PERIOD for the first 8 months. Keaton never greeted the new day with happiness or smiles, instead opting for heightened indignation {read: SCREAMINESS} that he had been awake 4-6 seconds without having his personal milk-maid and diaper-changer attend to him. It got better after we sleep trained at 8 months but we shared a room with him until he was 17 months so there really was no point in teaching him to play quietly as there was NO ESCAPING HIM.

When Bill and I decided to bunk the kids together in the master bedroom in the spring of 2009, we knew it could go one of two ways for our One True Desire of sleeping in past 7am on the weekends: terrible or more terribler. Keaton had long since given up breastfeeding, and his screaminess had finally dwindled away but he was not the independent being his sister was. He was slightly more clingy with me. {And here slightly means OMFG CAN I PLEASE JUST PEE ONCE WITH THE DOOR SHUT, SON?} But lo and behold after a short adjustment period of 6am giggle-fests, Keaton took his cues from his older and {in this case} very wise sister and began sleeping in later and later. Then when he got his big boy bed, he followed Rowan’s lead again and besides some normal kid shenanigans, they both stay in the room and {for the most part} even in their respective beds until I come in for them.

These days the kids go down just before 8pm every night and wake up just before 8am during the week. The weekends are a mixed bag as far as betimes go, they usually stay up until close to nine but then will sleep to close to nine the next morning. We are NOT a family of early-risers, if I haven’t made that abundantly clear yet, so with preschool and Kindergarten not starting until 9:00 and 9:15am respectively, we’ve carved out a pretty sweet deal.

Until this morning that it is, when 6:30 rolled around and I was awakened by a chorus of giggles and thumpity-thumps, indicating the time change has had its intended effect of screwing up everyone’s sleep cycles for the next two weeks. After mildly panicking, I remembered that an early wake up time for an almost 4 and 6-year-old isn’t nearly the death sentence it was with a 1 and 3-year-old. I walked into their room fully intending to tell them to goooooo baaaaack toooooo sleeeeeeep, but when they peaked their smiling faces out from under the covers I could not help but cave.

So they got themselves ready {which just started happening and they think is the coolest thing shhhhhh suckers} and I delivered room service for breakfast which they enjoyed while I took a shower. It was a unrushed, laid back morning and although I am sort of partial to their normal 7:45 wake-up time, this bright and early business might not just be for the birds after all.

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Um…so…

Hi. Sorry about that sort-of-but-not-really intentional extended blogging silence. Part of it was due to the gearing up to and going on of our annual cabin vacation and part of it was due to the Extreme Cabin Vacation Hangover and subsequent onset of a very ugly case of Beach Withdrawal, suffered by at least 3 out of the 4 members of my family.

I have now resigned myself to the fact that we are back home and that our reality, while more mundane and considerably less gin-soaked than I would like, is not so terribly bad after all, as it contains a clean shower and a bed that was not hand crafted by the ghost of Hitler in the reddest, hottest fires of Hades*.

{*Okay, that may be an exaggeration. The bed we slept in was actually pretty comfortable but for the fact that it was two small  but very annoying inches too short for me. At 5’5” {when I strain my neck high enough}, I am not a tall woman and think it ridiculous that a double bed does not adequately contain my slumbering person. Also, on the third night I found a teeny, tiny spider crawling up my leg when I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night which may have largely shaped how I felt about the bed. No decent bed would house miniature spiders, amirite? Of course I am. It also didn’t help that on the first night Rowan had a hard time being away from home and to ease her fear I selflessly offered her my own pillow, which always accompanies me on overnights.  I was pretty confident she would rather sleep on her unicorn pillow pet so I was fairly sure she wouldn’t accept the offer, but no, her greedy little paws wrapped themselves around it and my own head did not touch it again for 8 looooong nights.

Me, unabashedly optimistic on the second night: “You’re probably ready to give mommy her pillow back, right?!”

Rowan, lips tightening from a relaxed grin into a taught, thin line, brow furrowing down, threatening to crush her eyelids out of existence, faint but unmistakable storm clouds, gathering about her small, bebraided head: “I think not.”

I didn’t ask again. And the pillow was not offered back up to me. }

{Wow, I really had no idea I actually felt this strongly about all this until this writing. I did know I hated that motherfucking tiny spider though. It has brought out my passion for the right to unarachnied sleeping arrangements. Stay tuned for the creation of some sort of grassroots movement with it’s own facebook fan page regarding this.}

Anyway this whole post is actually not a post at all but instead a sort of a promise of a post. I have been busily sifting through the 500+ photos I took {Aside!: With my penchant for hyperbole I feel I really do need to clarify that this is not an exaggeration. The exact number was 548. I know. I have a problem- but I’m pretty sure I took even more last year, so progress? I think?}

Now because I’m not cruel, and certainly don’t want t0 keep any of you awake at night, wondering in unbridled, nervous glee about what ridiculous shirts Bill picked out for himself and Keaton, I will mercifully show you this picture, which I’m sure will be the fodder of many a therapy session for my second born in the coming years.

{For those of you new here, 2008 was Bass Attack {scroll down to the 9th picture}, 2009 was the year of the Wolf Pack, 2010 brought with it the Galloping Wild Stallions and this year…

The Majestic Eagle.

Frighteningly majestic, I know. Or maybe just frightening. With a heaping side of lame, but you know it’s the GOOD kind of lame. And there’s so much more to come, Internet. So very much more.

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This is a story about a crib…

Once upon a time there was a lady who was really, really pregnant.

Her mother gifted her and her husband a beautiful white crib. The pregnant lady told her husband to put it together so that the baby could have its own place to sleep instead of sharing a bed with the dog or 3 cats. {No photographic evidence exists of the putting together of the crib but the bassinet was put together at roughly the same time and I assure you that the husband's face looked very similar to this so you get the gist...}

After a lot of puking and general be-moaning of her pregnant self, the pregnant lady became a mama. Just like that. And she had the most precious girl in the whole world and that girl slept safe and snug in the beautiful white crib.

Then seemingly right before her parents' eyes, the baby girl grew a little bigger...

And a little bigger. Then the lady who was just a lady, went back to being a very pregnant lady and the beautiful white crib had a spectacular metamorphosis from pink...

To blue. And the sweetest baby boy came to sleep snug and tight in the beautiful white crib. {But not until he was eight months old because strangely enough, during the previous seven, the boy was convinced the crib was covered in molton lava and screamed his wee, precious little head off any time the lady tried to put him in it.} But he figured it out! And...

Similarly enough, he grew bigger...

And bigger. Until one day the baby boy wasn't a baby anymore and he wanted a big boy bed of his own.

And so the beautiful white crib went through another transformation from crib to toddler bed...

And the tiny blue stars were traded in for pink once again, as it was returned to its rightful owner. And for 21 more months the girl and the bed were together, but a funny thing happened...

That little girl kept right on growing. And even though she loved the beautiful white crib, she was ready to say goodbye.

The boy too was sad to see his toddler bed go, but excited for his very own big kid bed. And so the new bed was ordered and the delivery men came to put it together...

They tried to wait patiently but that's a pretty hard thing to do when something as exciting as bunk beds are being erected on the floor above and the lady won't let you go and ask the workers if they are done yet. So they just kept right on waiting..

and waiting...

And waiting some more.

And just when they didn't think they could wait any longer...it was time to go and inspect.

And the boy and the girl were really high up!

And really happy.

And down, down, down came the beautiful white crib. And the lady, the mama? She was sad. That beautiful white crib had been where she laid her babies' soft heads down for nearly six years. It was a fixture, a part of their little family and now it was gone. But the mama, and the daddy, are happy for this next chapter to start anew.

THE END.

Epilogue

It’s spring break for us this week and we are running around like crazy people cleaning out dressers and closets and trying to fit a ton of fun stuff in for the kiddos. That being said I will try to get another, less schmaltzy, nostalgic piece up, including pictures of the finished product and give, in full detail, with my full arsenol of swear words, an account of just how fucking fun it is to change the bedding on that top bunk.

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Zombie Sleepover

One of the things that really sucks about the timing of whatever {most likely deadly} disease I’ve contracted is that Bill took this whole week off and we had a ton of fun things planned to do with the kids. Among them a hotel stay at a waterpark, Nickelodeon Universe, an indoor jungle gym and a big group playdate with Keaton’s preschool. I might have sucked it up and tried to do some of these anyway but unfortunately Keaton’s in his own epic battle with lots of green snot and unlike most jerks out there we choose NOT to spread our wealth of germs even if it means giving up the salvation of a few hours out of the house.

I did leave the house for the first time since Christmas last night as it was Bill’s brother Brian’s 30th birthday and I felt I needed to celebrate how OLD he is now with a beer at a Mexican restaurant, and I’m so glad I did. Not because I selflessly wanted to support and celebrate the passing of another year for Brian but because that cold beer felt so freakin good on the nuclear war field formerly known as my throat. You see? It’s all about me.

Anyway I don’t know if it was that beer or guilt over our abandoned vacation plans but after we put the kids to bed and we could still hear them giggling I suggested to Bill that we let them come out and have a slumber party by the Christmas tree. Bill, who is infinitely wiser than his wife when it comes to the trust levels placed in our children, thought maybe I should just be quiet. Obviously there’s no point in building suspense here, we all know I’M not going to be quiet and a few minutes later we were hauling down blankets for our squealing children who, unsurprisingly, thought a slumber party was a great idea. And so it began…

8:21 Explain rules of sleepover. Tuck them and all 847 toys and stuffed objects apparently required to slumber by a tree. Kisses goodnight as Bill and I head into our bedroom to start The Walking Dead.

8:23 Lots of giggling. Remind them it’s still nighttime and that they can look at the lights but they must be quiet.

8:25 Shit. This show is sort of scary. I don’t really like zombies. I mean on a scale of 1-10 0f Unholy Supernatural Creatures, standing alone I’d only place them at like a 4, but if we’re talking zombie apocalypse and there are zombie children? FREAKY.  Rowan bursts in. Thankfully she is not a zombie. “Keaton’s bothering me, I’m just trying to look at the lights and he’s BUGGING ME.” I want to say that unless he is a zombie and bugging you SHUT IT but I think Bill might yell at me for this so I just walk her out, remind them of the sleepover rules and snap a few pictures of them all snuggled in. NOW GO TO BED.

8:27 NO YOU CAN’T HAVE MORE WATER.

8:28 NO BUZZ LIGHTYEAR CAN’T SLEEP WITH YOU.

8:30 Bill calls out, “Do I hear you?!” We don’t get an answer but the stifled giggles lead us to believe that in fact yes, we can hear them.

8:46 Back at the zombie apocalypse Bill is freaking out because zombies score way higher on the Unholy Supernatural Creatures scale for him and confesses, “I don’t know if I can watch this show”. WUSS E. PANTS. Although the pitter-patter of little feet outside our door does eerily compliment the shuffling zombie sound effects on the show.

8:47 Blatant disregard for rules and regulations as giggling and footsteps get louder. And blatant disregard for internal organs as zombies devour them with little to no tact.

8:54 Hear loud crash. Find Keaton in the bathroom with large scratch on his cheek. Keaton says Rowan bit him. I’m beginning to wonder if the zombie apocalypse is closer than we think.

8:55 Bill puts on angry dad face. Scares pants off kids. Says the words “last chance” like 72 times in 3 minutes.

9:01 Giggling starts again. Wow. Clearly we need to instill more fear into our children. Maybe we should invite them in to watch the show with us?

9:35 Last sip of water. Some yelling. Last hugs and kisses. Turn all the lights but the tree off.

10:05 Asleep! Victory!

11:52 Done watching first 3 episodes. Attempt sleep.

12:07 IS THAT A ZOMBIE IN THE CORNER? I’M PRETTY SURE THAT’S A ZOMBIE IN THE CORNER.*

*Repeat 12:07 every 4 minutes for next 2 hours. Also, live in fear that one of your children will come in the room to ask for a drink and you will mistake them for a zombie and kick them in the teeth. Then you will have to explain to the ER what happened and they will call social services on you and you will try to tell them that DUDE, I THOUGHT SHE WAS A ZOMBIE, IT WAS AN HONEST MISTAKE but my guess is they’re going to be largely unsympathetic to this line of defense and crap I’m going to lose custody of my kids over this shit aren’t I?

Epilogue~

I eventually fell asleep and was thankfully not devoured by zombies or arrested for battery. The kids slept soundly to 7:51am when Rowan burst in announcing that Keaton had hit her. Despite the bloodshed, both kids claimed to have a blast. It was neat to see them all snuggled up and despite our threats I loved that they were whispering and giggling together. I would however, probably recommend an adult viewing choice with 94% less exposed intestines and 62% less zombies. Just a suggestion though.

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The Last of the Two Blah Blahs

Budders,

I think there were maybe 2.73 days this month where your nose hasn’t been pouring snot so you know what we did a lot of? THE SNUGGLE. We were so active all summer and fall that damn if it wasn’t nice to throw in a movie and wrap you in my arms under a blanket.

If I sit on Banky you say OUCH, like he’s one of your proper limbs. Sometimes you say it without even seeing me sit on it and son? That creeps mama out.

You’re still being a stinkerpants at bedtime. Some nights you’ll stay up for an hour and a half after we lay you down. I’m beginning to think you are the unlucky recipient of mama’s insomnia genes. Rowan is just like her dad, which is head+pillow=HONKSHOO, you not so much. I’m sorry, boy.

The biggest sticking point this month has been your continued refusal to pull your pants up after going to the bathroom. You are a totally independent peer, meaning you go to the bathroom on your own, pull your pants down, lift the toilet lids and do your business. Then all of a sudden you come shuffling around the corner with your pants around your ankles, weiner hanging out for all the world to see and you start shaking your butt as you sing “Mo-o-om, please pull up my pa-a-ants, I shakin my bo-oo-ty”. I’ve tried showing you how to pull them up, and also assisting while you do most of the work but you’re just not getting it. Most the time it leads to a comedy of errors where you manage to get your undies up but a vital piece is still sticking out the top and this starts a whole new version of the song about your weiner being stuck. Related: Boys are gross.

Not helping this is the fact that you’re definitely in the middle of a developmental leap which means more intense tantrums and an unwillingness to do anything without HEEEELLLLPPPPOHMYGODI’MDYING. Frequent phrases in our house “I can’t take my shoes off”, “I can’t pull my pants down”, “I can’t go potty by myself”, “I can’t walk up the stairs”, “I can’t get my own bite.” “I can’t breath on my own.” Most the time these are battles I just don’t have it in me to fight but just know, kid, that when mama’s arms are full of bags and papers and backpacks and snack bowls and sippy cups and a freaking partridge in a pear tree, it is never a good time to shout “CARRY ME”. Mama might quite literally explode right there on the spot.

You love to build with blocks which you’ve become quite adept at. You make roads for your cars to drive on and tall walls that your cars can very violently smash through.

Your attention span for books has taken a big leap. You now love to sit for longer stories and are beginning to track them better. You’ve also started parroting stories back to us which makes for some very interesting plot lines.

Can we talk about your hair? I love your hair. I guess that’s really all I have to say other than don’t listen to that mean old blue-hair at the voting place that called you a girl and then corrected herself immediately with a roll of the eye and a “Oh, I suppose that’s a boy”. I don’t care how old you are, a spade’s a spade and that lady was a big fricken spade. {You all know that here spade means asshole, right? Good.}

Your on-again off-again love affair with the church nursery has shifted back to off-again. For some reason wiggling in mom and dad’s arms and being told to SSSSSSHHHHHH 8,645 times in one hour is way more exciting than playing with bright shiny new toys while watching Dora episodes.

Now that we’re more than half done with the busiest class schedule ever, we’ve decided that we need to shave things down even more. Music class has always been one of your favorite things to do but since our summer session you’ve been struggling to get into it. The second and third sessions of last year you were the star pupil, always singing along and keeping a surprisingly perfect rhythm. The instructor would frequently use you as an example of how successful kids can be in the program. You had trouble with the summer session but I just chalked that up to you having to share my attention with your sister. I really thought things would come back into place this fall but unfortunately you’ve been completely disengaged, choosing to wonder off, ask for 17 drinks of water in 45 minutes and general misbehavery. The plan is to give you a break, skip the winter session and maybe join back up this spring.

You now have two little playmates that are actually boys. Between me, your sister, all your aunts, girl cousins and your love of tu-tus, we were a little worried you weren’t getting enough BOY time, but this fall we managed to find a couple of little fellas to hang with which has been great for you. You still love tutu’s though and that’s OK, son.

You probably won’t believe me {and LORD they certainly weren’t without their challenges} but I have LOVED your twos. The last eleven months have been filled with so much hilarity, so many shenanigans and so much in your face BOY. I have to be honest. Three is sort of scaring the bejesus out of me. I sort of want to stop time. But maybe after you learn how to pull your own pants up after going to the bathroom because that shit’s just getting old.

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It’s Friday, have some words…

Lord help me, Internet, I don’t know what I have done. I started joggerwalking up again a few weeks ago but I found that my fear over getting another injury was really holding me back from pushing myself in any meaningful way (and by meaningful I mean that I look behind me and my giant butt? STILL THERE.)

There is just not enough time every day for me to do a lot of strength/core training and go running. The choice to work out at 6am is NOT because I love to get up and watch the sun’s first rays light up the summer sky or because I love the dulcet songs of the MANY MANY red-wing black birds, swallows and robins that chirp outside my window. (I fucking hate morning birds. They had better thank their hollow little bones that I’m a gun-hating hippie because I would blow their chirpy, twittering heads off if I weren’t). No the reason is because I can’t/won’t fit it in at any other time of the day.

So getting back to the “Lord help me part”, Bill and I started up the 30 day shred again. For we are idiots. I think it’s important for me to get my body strengthened and in a more confident place before I can throw myself into running and because this DVD was just sitting upstairs it became the most logical choice. It takes less than a half an hour to complete so the alarm goes off at 5:50am and by 6:30 Bill’s in the shower getting ready for work and I’m typing on the internet about how I wish I’d never been born. We’ve just completed day 5, but plan on taking weekends off so it will take us 6ish week to complete it. I’ve only ever made it to day 17 so outlook? Dreary. But still. We’re trying.

*****

Rowan has spent the last two weeks at Kindergarten Safety camp. The point of this is to teach the kids about SCARY! DANGEROUS! situations in a safe, fun setting. They teach them how not to get run over by a bus, how not to get hit by a car when riding their bike, how not to poison themselves, how to react when getting attacked by a rabid pitbull and how to roll around in agony if they should ever get lit on fire. These are very important lessons for kindergartners.

My favorite part is that they actually pulled out a blacklight and showed them the germs on their hands and BOY HOWDY did that little trick work wonders on my obsessive compulsive child. She now sits at the sink for 45 minutes, s-l-o-w-l-y singing the ABC’s while washing her hands after ANY activity that may have mildly dirtied her. I also really like that she brings home pictures of “poisonous things” like medicine pills and tarantulas. Such precious, beautiful works of art. Are tarantulas even poisonous? Either way, this camp has totally warped her and to that I say THANK YOU because that is usually MY department and I was getting a little backed up and lazy and they really picked up the slack for me.

*****

Keaton’s transition to the big boy bed has been pretty seamless. However on Monday night, I had a board meeting for Rowan’s preschool so Bill put the kids down for the night. I sneaked in at 9:30 to give them a kiss and as I walked over to Keaton’s bed I tripped and nearly landed on top of him. In the dark I didn’t see the herd of stuffed animals he had pulled out of the bin next to his bed and flung across the room as booby traps for unsuspecting night prowlers and loving mothers. He’s also gotten out of bed repeatedly because he has a fascination with the (alcohol free) hand sanitizer Rowan uses during the night after she’s gone to the bathroom. He races to the bathroom, takes it back to his bed, puts it on his hands and then cuddles up with the bottle. Boys are weird. Or maybe? Keaton’s just weird.

*****

Rowan has finally gone two days without waking up crying in the middle of the night which is a nice change. I was getting a little tired having to explain to her at 3am that mama and daddy would never put her to sleep in a room that is occupied by giant, furry monsters hiding in the closet or gorillas under the bed. Children’s Protective Services would never approve of this and most likely have us arrested, silly 4 year old! Therefore you are safe now COUNT SOME DAMN SHEEP OR SOMETHING.

She still gets really nervous when I leave the room at night, insisting she doesn’t know how to sleep or that she’s too scared to so I’ve taken to calming her by promising to check on her in 20 minutes. Here’s the thing about 4 year olds: They have no idea how long 20 minutes is. So by the time I check on her between 45 minutes and an hour later she’s honk-shooing away peacefully. Is this kind of a dick move? Probably. But honestly she probably falls asleep within 15 minutes anyway and I don’t want to go in there and accidentally wake her up after she has just drifted off.

*****

Keaton’s temperature is back to normal but he’s still having a rough time energy wise. All week he’s been insisting that I carry him everywhere and if I can’t he throws himself down on the floor and flops around with impressive jellyfish form. I’m sympathetic because I can tell he is frustrated by the hard knox of 2-year-old life but I refuse to carry a nearly 30 pound human everywhere he goes when I know he can do it himself. Am stubborn. And freaking sore from that stupid workout. Carry yourself kid, Mama’s not sure if her arms will stay attached to her body much longer. (Hmm, I wonder where he gets his dramatics from?)

Yesterday we went to a morning play group and then had to go to Target after dropping Rowan off at her last day of safety camp. I knew Keaton was hungry and tired and cranky but I just wanted to get this chore done. I should have aborted after the first few minutes but Internet I was out of deodorant and I don’t want to be the Stinky Mom. So I let him win the battle of him wanting to help push the cart instead of ride in it. [ROOKIE. MISTAKE.]

We went to get Rowan a new toothbrush and he wanted one too, so I kept pulling them down to let him pick but he was getting belligerent about having to choose between Lightening McQueen and Mater and did I mention they are remodeling our Target so none of the merchandise is set neatly in proper holders, it is just set out on shelves? Well, Keaton takes his Mater toothbrush and knocks over a tube of princess toothpaste, only it’s not in its normal little spring-loaded holder device, it is just standing there next to 400 other princess toothpastes and they all go down in a magnificent wave. I grabbed the toothbrush out of his hand so as to prevent another domino affect and he starts screaming “I WANT IT! I WANT IT! I WANT IT!” at the top of his lungs. Meanwhile the fucking Disney toothpaste didn’t stop on its own shelf, it toppled over and fell to the lower shelf to the left creating another domino effect with the freaking kids’ mouthwash, which went down just as magnificently. Aaaaannnnnd he’s still screaming “I WANT IT! I WANT IT!” as I try desperately to stop oral hygiene products from taking out other customers, in some freak suburban Indiana Jones accident.

In retrospect I should have let the Target employees clean up the mess but I always feel like such a jerk when my kid made the mess, so I quickly tried to place things back to their upright position (for the next asshole two-year old) while I should have been calming Keaton down. Once we did finally roll away from The Aisle We Shall Never Speak of Again, Keaton was calmer but exhausted and I thought I could finish up my list.

To get him to cooperate (ie BE QUIET, STAY PUT) I handed him what I thought was a clear lip gloss to entertain himself with while I picked out a new pair of sunglasses since mine mysteriously broke a few days ago. I was preoccupied with this task and Keaton was quiet in the cart behind me so I took my time. Then when I turned around I saw this:

Not clear lip gloss.

I know the picture isn’t great but the shit was pink and it was everywhere. I think I did what any other mother would have done in this situation. I complimented him on his beautiful make-up job, went to the check-out and completely ignored the very strange looks we were getting. I should write a parenting manual, huh? And also put Bill in charge of all Target trips because this shit never happens when he takes the kids.

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