Pretty Hairy

Thing 1 was very rambunctious today. He was running all over, talking quite loudly during church, pretty much just wearing me out. Truth be told, he was being 3. This evening we went to Panera for dinner as Thing 1 wanted soup and bread. The only way we can get him to eat broccoli is if we buy him broccoli cheddar soup from Panera. While we were there, Thing 1 was acting the same way he had been all day. The Mr. was holding Thing 2. Thing 1 asked if he could touch Thing 2's head. The Mr. said that he could but he needed to be gentle. The conversation then when something like this.

Thing 1: "He doesn't have any hair."
The Mr.: "He has a little hair."
Thing 1: "He doesn't have a lot of hair like Daddy."
The Mr.: "Yes, I'm pretty hairy."
Thing 1: "Do you have a hairy penis?"
The Mr. then looked at me and said "Isn't wonderful when they learn how to talk?"

The Little One Is Getting Big

I feel I have not updated on Thing 2 in awhile so I figured that since he went to the doctor today, I would give an update. He now weighs 14 pounds 13 ounces and is 25 inches long. He is in the 38th percentile and has been there pretty much for his entire 4 1/2 months of his life. He is getting *this close* to rolling over. He rolls from his back to his side, sits there for a few seconds, then rolls back to his back. He babbles and coos often. He has the funniest giggle which often happens when he is tired. He so wants to sit up on his own but doesn't quite have the ability to do so yet. I don't think it will be too much longer and he will be rolling all over the floor and sitting up on his own. He started eating rice cereal with a little fruit in it at 3 months and now eats it twice a day. He has been sleeping through the night pretty consistently for just over a month. Occasionally we will have a night where he gets up to have a little drink but then goes right back to sleep. I have to say I have been pretty lucky with both of my boys as they both slept through the night pretty quickly and both enjoyed their food!

Here he is at 4 1/2 months sleeping in his swing while holding his most favorite toy - his hippo...

Talented

The other night, The Mr. tucked Thing 1 into bed. A little while later, we heard a noise coming from the boys' room. The Mr. went in to check it out and found Thing 1 jumping up and down on his bed. The Mr. told Thing 1 not to jump on his bed. Thing 1 proceeded to tell The Mr. "it's my talent." I didn't realize that jumping up and down on a bed could be a talent. I wonder what kind of career opportunities would be available to him with this talent?

Knights and Turkey Legs

We took Thing 1 and Thing 2 to the Renaissance Faire today. Thing 1 has been to Renn Faires before as we go every year. However, this year, Thing 1 was old enough to participate in some of the kids activities and enjoyed looking at everyone in costume. He rode the big slide twice, played on the playground equipment and ship, and he got his first sword.

Thing 2 enjoyed people watching and sleeping in the stroller. Anytime Thing 2 was awake, he had this idea in his head that he must be held and that sitting in the stroller would not allow him a good enough view of the many people at the faire.

Normally, The Mr. will dress up in his monk robe but because of the heat today, he decided against it. It wasn’t bad outside, really, considering it is August. Eighty degrees with not too much humidity and the faire is located in an area with lots of trees – much better than some faires we have been to.

We ate a lot of good food that is really bad for us. We had frozen lemonade, meat pies, pulled pork, hot dogs, fried macaroni and cheese on a stick, corn on the cob, apple cobbler a la mode, and, of course, the famous cheesecake on a stick. Starting tomorrow, we will have to begin eating a little healthier.

For those of you who haven’t experienced a renaissance faire, you are missing out. Look for renaissance faires in your area on the internet and then go! Enjoy the festivities. Huzzah!

50 Years

Fifty years ago today, they were married. They have had many ups and downs, raised 3 kids and worked hard. They have loved each other for more years and been married longer than most couples now-a-days. My parents’ 50th wedding anniversary is today. It is quite a feat I must say.

We celebrated with friends and family on Saturday. We presented my parents with a family tree plaque and had family photos taken, which hadn’t been done in years. It was amazing how many people came to share in the joy of an anniversary considering some were coming from a bit of a drive and some were much older (we had 2 that travelled about 2 hours and were both about 90 years old!). My parents had a wonderful time and were able to see people they hadn’t seen in years.

To my parents – Happy 50th Wedding Anniversary! May you celebrate many, many more.

Overwhelmed

I have been extremely busy and the slightest bit stressed this week. I am planning a 50th wedding anniversary open house that is to take place this weekend for my parents. We originally had a hall reserved and planned to have it catered, but with my Dad’s health issues and the surgery he had last month, we decided to tone it down – hence, the open house. Since I live halfway across the country from my family, I was only supposed to be in charge of the invitations; my brothers were going to do the rest (one lives in the same town as my parents and the other one is about a 3 hour drive from my hometown). Well, lets just say, brothers can be useless at times. Since they really didn’t plan anything, other than to reserve the hall then cancel the hall then tell my Mom about the surprise party we were having for her and my Dad but then cancelled, I took over the whole event. It is difficult and stressful to plan a party being so far away. I have been calling people to order food, cake, and gifts – hoping it all works out and people don’t just “forget” that I am in their books to pick stuff up. I have already spent tons out of my own pocket and I haven’t even paid for the food yet. My brothers are planning to pitch in a portion so we each pay a 1/3rd for the party and gifts. I am hoping they pay me before we fly back home on Tuesday as I don’t have much extra cash to pay for a party all by my onesies.

Luckily I have a great friend who is helping me out with the whole soiree. She recommended a place for me to get a cake for the party and even went to the bakery to take pictures of the cakes and e-mailed them to me. She plans to pick up the cake for me and drive it to my parents’ home. I also found out that my Dad’s side of the family is planning to use this party as their yearly reunion. It will be nice to see family that I haven’t seen in years although a bit overwhelming as I hope I will have enough food, seating, etc.

If the anniversary party wasn’t enough, Thing 2 will have his baptism this weekend. Yes, another party and family event. He will be baptized along with his cousin who is 2 months younger than him at their church. We are the godparents for our new nephew and The Mr.’s brother and his wife will be godparents to Thing 2. It is nice that we will be able to have both baptized at the same time and in the same church (we had to do some planning ahead of time and have our church write a letter stating that Thing 2 could be baptized in the other church – both Catholic, however). Also on the positive side, my sister-in-law is taking care of the lunch after the baptism at her home so I don’t have to do much for that except show up. I thank her tremendously for this as I don’t think I could plan two events for the same weekend without going crazy!

I will be sure to let you know how the parties go, unless I pass out from exhaustion beforehand!

Token Economy

We did not have the best of weekends starting out with Thing 1. I had previously written about my concern with him at daycare due to him deliberately pooping in his pants on Friday. Well, he deliberately peed in his pants on Saturday and had pooped in his pants twice Saturday morning. By this time, I put a pull-up on him as I wasn’t about to go through a third pair of underwear. After the last incident, I told Thing 1 that if he does not poop or pee in his pants for the rest of the weekend, he would get a special dessert on Sunday after dinner and we would put a token in his bowl (more on that in a minute). This seemed to work well. We also came to find out that Thing 1 was have a little difficulty going potty – probably because of too much cheese this past week. We decided to lay off the cheese and to give him some prune juice along with his regular daily dose of fiber. By late Sunday morning, Thing 1 had successfully pooped in the potty, was feeling much better, and had his special dessert.

Also on Friday and Saturday, Thing 1’s behavior was horrendous. He was not listening, throwing things, and just being a royal pain. After he got up from his nap on Saturday, I enlisted the token economy. We had these gold pirate coins that Thing 1 likes to play with so I told him that he could earn one of these coins for being good and that we would put them in a plastic bowl on a shelf in the living room. He was given rules on what was considered being good and what was being bad. He seemed to understand and we started earning coins right away. He earned one coin Saturday evening and 3 coins on Sunday but lost one on Sunday because of not listening. He has been told that if he is on the green at school (they use a stop light to show how good their behavior is at school – green means no time outs, yellow means one time out, and red means a challenging day) then he will get another coin. At the end of the week, he will then get a special prize based on how many coins he has earned. We are not yet sure what the prize will be but it may just be to spend quality time with mom or dad by himself doing an activity that he enjoys. The token economy is working so far. We shall see what today brings.

Thing 1's Terrible, Awful Day

Friday morning I took the boys to daycare as usual. After I dropped them off, I went into work for a couple hours. I tend to take Fridays off to do stuff around the house or run errands while the boys are at daycare. It’s much easier that way. On this particular Friday, The Mr. only had to work a half day so we met up for lunch and then went shopping to take advantage of sales. At about 4pm we went to daycare to pick up the boys to find Thing 1 in time out. The Mr. went to find out from the teachers and Thing 1 what had happened as I collected all of Thing 1’s belongings. Come to find out, after they completed their potty time at school, Thing 1 gave one of his teachers a dirty look and then proceeded to poop in his pants. He also kept taking his shoes and socks off and refused to put them back on.

On the way home from daycare, I attempted to get out of Thing 1 what had happened that caused him to poop in his pants instead of asking to go back to the bathroom. Since I was speaking to a 3 year old, I didn’t get a response that made much sense – other than he didn’t like that particular teacher. After we got home, I spoke to him again and we practiced what to say to someone if they do something we do not like or if we are upset with somebody. We also discussed that under no circumstances is it ok to poop or pee in our pants. He seemed to understand and did the role playing rather well.

Later that night, after bedtime, Thing 1 kept getting out of bed saying he had to pee. He was up every hour until finally at 2:30am I put him in bed with us. We talked for a few minutes at which time he stated that he was scared and upset. I didn’t figure out what exactly was bothering him, but he did calm down and finally fell asleep.

I laid in bed thinking about the events of Friday afternoon. Then it dawned on me that Thing 1 was in time out one other time this week when I picked him up and, on both days, it was the same teacher that had put him in time out and it was on the days that she stayed late. Knowing Thing 1, it just didn’t sound like him to deliberately poop in his pants. Yes, he gets upset and angry when put in time out or to have an activity taken away from him when he is bad, but he doesn’t glare at us and then poop in his pants. He may yell and say some not very nice things, but nothing like that.

So, now, also knowing that this particular teacher has only been working at the daycare and in his class for about 2 weeks, I am a little concerned. It is possible that Thing 1 was being a pain in the butt and deliberately pooped in his pants on Friday. It is also very possible that earlier in the week that he was not listening to his teachers and wrestling with another kid in his class that put him in time out. There just seems to be something about this whole thing that doesn’t add up (which may be because I am getting my story from a 3 year old). I spoke to The Mr. this morning about my feelings and stated that I may do some unannounced visits at the daycare this coming week to observed Thing 1’s behavior and how the teachers respond. I kept asking if I was overreacting and The Mr. said that if it bothered me, I should check it out. So, I will probably be taking my lunch at weird times this week so I can pop in at daycare to put my mind at ease.

It's That Season Again!!!

Well, I have to admit that I am a football fan. I really enjoy sitting in my living room on a Sunday or Monday night to watch football with my husband and my son (this year it will be with 2 sons, how exciting!). I am not a die hard fan of any particular team. If you asked me the team I root for, I would probably tell you either the Patriots or the Bears. Those are my teams. I also would tell you that as a person who grew up in the Midwest, namely Illinois, I am not a Packers fan. I loathe the Packers. It is just not a team someone from Illinois likes. Honestly, I think people from Illinois despise the Packers more than the Packers despise the Bears.

Anyway, I have been reading some of the coverage of Brett Favre and his retirement – or no retirement. I have to say, since I am not a Packers fan, I am also not a Brett Favre fan. My biggest pet peeve with the entire thing is he needs to make up his mind. If he plans to retire, then retire already and let someone else have a chance at the limelight. If you are not going to retire, then don’t make a big speech about retiring and cry in front of millions of people about leaving the game.

Despite this Packers/Brett Favre issue, I am looking forward to the regular season starting. If you wonder where I am on a Sunday or Monday night, you can find me on my couch with my family, eating food that is really bad for me but tastes oh so good, watching the best sport of all time.

30 is old?

I didn't realize that once I hit 30, I would be old. Not that anyone has ever said this to me, but my body has said so. Once I turned 30, I threw my back out. Never had I done this before the age of 30. I also find that I can't keep my eyes open past 10pm - although this may be because of motherhood more than age.

Not only have I now thrown my back out, but last night I pinched a nerve. I have never had a pinched nerve before and would prefer to never have it again. I spent the entire night trying to get comfortable enough to sleep with no avail. I tried sleeping on my right side, on my left side, and on my back. I, then, moved into the living room to try to sleep on the chaise sitting up. Nothing worked. The pain in my back was so bad that it turned my stomach. (For those of you who have weak stomachs do not read the next sentence.) I even spent part of the middle of the night in the bathroom throwing up. I remember thinking, "I have given birth, I should be able to handle this pain." I took pain meds and they didn't even help. I was finally able to fall asleep sometime after 3:30am but had to be up at 5:30am for work. Needless to say, I did not make it to work today. Instead I spent the day nursing a sore back and catching up on some much needed sleep.