Highs and Lows - Romeo, where are thou?

My dearest husband abandoned me and ran off to the beautiful Pacific Northwest this week to be schmoozed by potential employers.  I begged him to let me come, but he said "NO!" 

Yes, that's him you hear yelling, "Lies!  Lies!"  He did want me to come but I was daunted by the prospect of bringing my three energetic shadows with me on a trip that involved fancy business meetings and dinners at nice restaurants, so I whimped out.  I wish I'd gone, though.  He sent me lovely pictures.  (sigh.)

Anyway, I thought I'd do a little Highs and Lows to sum up the week I had without him.

(Technically it's only been 4 days.  And three nights.  So far.  But it feels like it's been about a month.)


High:  Liam learned to walk!  Ok, this didn't happen while Jason was gone (which would have been sad) but it's a new development in the past couple weeks.  And it's very exciting.   His first birthday is Sunday, so he clearly realized he was on a time crunch. 

High:  Liam learned to point.  I believe I've mentioned before that any form of communication from my children is highly desirable.  I wish they popped out of the womb speaking in complete sentences.  (Actually, I wish they popped out of the womb period without surgical assistance - but I digress...)  So pointing is very good.  Yes, boy!  Point to what you want!  Someone will be sure to get it for you.  Whether Mommy wants them to or not.

Low:  Liam very carefully points directly at my face, takes on a look of euphoric enthusiasm and says, "DADA!" 

High:   Belle pooped every day.  I believe I've also mentioned before that the girl has a few problems with regularity.  As in I hope she's not going to grow up to be a hoarder.  I hear those people don't like to get rid of their crap either.  We've had a bit of a struggle here of late and even though I was beginning to fear that she had, shall we say, permanently sealed the vault, she has overcome her dilemma.  With the help of massive amounts of bribery from the "Big Poop Box" which sounds disgusting but is really just a clear bin set next to the toilet filled with a treasure trove of booty to be doled out when a substantial enough amount has been deposited in the potty.  Hallelujah.  That is not sarcastic.  I have never been so happy to see crap.  Repeatedly. 

High:  Dalton was fantastic while Jason was gone.  Really, the kid stepped up and was uber obedient and helpful.  I think I'll buy him a race car tomorrow.  A real one. 

LOW:  Alright, I'll admit that this is the real reason I wrote this post - this LOW.  It must be in all caps. 

I considered waiting until I know the end of this story before writing it, but I'm too horrified to keep quiet, so you'll all have to be kept hanging, just like me, in abject terror until some future time when the end occurs. 

(Please remember that my husband is two thousand miles away.)

Last night I was sitting in our basement putting the final touches on a big order of necklaces.  I was happily putzing around, the kids were asleep, Jason was off being a fancy doctor type in Oregon, when a little moth started to fly around my head.  Annoying.  So I killed it.  Yay.

A few minutes later, while I was leaning over some stuff, I saw some movement through my hair and thought, "Oh gross!  A big moth is flying around my head!" 

But when I looked over at it and finally got my eyes and brain to work together long enough to classify what I was seeing, IT WAS A BAT!  A BAT!!! Flapping around me in our little basement with its nasty flappy wings and its vampire eyes! 

The words I shrieked as I hurtled myself out of my chair, up the basement stairs and slammed the door behind me may or may not have been suitable for a family friendly blog such as this. 

A BAT!  And not a little bat.  No, this thing had the wingspan of a bald eagle.  And talons. 

Then I raced to the kitchen to call Medman.  Because of course he could help me.  From Oregon. 

But when I skidded to a halt in the kitchen my stomach sank.  The computer, the home phone and my cell were all down on the basement table.  Essentially the upstairs of my house might as well have been a stone age cave.  With electricity and air conditioning.  And I knew that before I could contact ANY HELP WHATSOEVER I was going to have to go back into the lion's den. 

So I went upstairs, put on socks, running shoes, and a hoodie - with the hood up - grabbed a big crate and cracked the door of the basement.  There was no movement so I crept down to the table and as smoothly and silently as possible, so as not to anger the beast that I knew was lurking about watching me, threw everything into the crate, tucked my butt and ran for the upstairs again. 

Since there were no knights in shining armor riding around my cul-de-sac and hubby on the phone from Oregon calmed me down a bit, I realized that if anyone was going to man up around here and try to get rid of the bat, it was going to have to be me. 

So I did.  Are you proud of me?   Hoodie and all I (after extensive googling) crept down stairs and shone my flashlight into all the corners of our basement.  Ok, into a bunch of corners of our basement.  Turns out our basement is all corners and nooks.  It's really a bat's dream house.  It's all bat colored wood panelling with bat sized holes everywhere.   I'm pretty sure the creature thinks it's living in the Bat Hilton. 

I didn't find it.  Nor did I find it this morning when I went down again to look.  (Can you all believe I slept last night with it in the house?  I can't.)  I am NOT going down there this evening after dark.  Oh no.  As I write this the creature is probably swirling around down there glorying in its bat cave. 

The door of the basement is staying firmly shut (with a towel blocking the bottom of it) until Medman returns home tomorrow night.  What he will do at that point, I do not know.  That's his problem for being born with extra testosterone.  Bats are clearly man problems.  If it's heroic and dramatic I'll let you all know what happened.  If he happens (in un-Medmanlike fashion) to see it and screams like a girl, I'll make up a heroic and dramatic story for you.  

So that's where our story stands, people.  THERE IS A BAT IN MY BASEMENT.  Eww. 

Tune in at some future date for some sort of conclusion to the story.  I hope.


(On an editorial note, I was going to put a picture down here of a creepy bat, but trust me, don't google images of bats if you know there's one in your house.  The images make it ten times worse.)

Playing Catch up - Highs and Lows

It's been well over a month since I posted.  I'm fairly sure I could sum up everything that's gone on, but that would bore everyone (even me) to tears.  So I think I'm just going to pick out select highlights of the last month of our lives.  (Probably based on the photos I can find in my phone.) Should I do it as highs and lows?  Ok, if you insist.



The high that is on a different scale than the other highs:  Medman finished residency!  This is very exciting.  It is massively more exciting than graduating from medical school.  At that graduation you troop across the stage in your fancy cap and gown as they say, "Congratulations!  You are officially a doctor!"  Then they dive behind the podium snickering and snorting hysterically because even though they now call you a doctor, you still have to put in years of indentured servitude benignly called 'residency.'  But that is now done and Medman is a free man.  It is very exciting.


Colorado Mountains
The last week of residency Medman had a conference in Breckenridge, Colorado.  

High: Hello beautiful mountains, hikes, lakes.  Rural Missouri would be greatly improved if it had the Rocky Mountains in it. 

Low: Hello 10 month old baby who decided he wanted to play newborn and that it was impossible to sleep for more than 3 hours at a time.  Every night.   In hotel rooms where he was sleeping 2 feet from me.  Every night.  Every.  Night.

High:  Resort with a play room for the kids with arcade games and super simple mini golf.

Dalton was in heaven.  He must have played 300 holes of mini golf in 3 days.

Look who's so big.  Standing up and wanting steaks and spirits.

The obvious problem arising from having mini golf in the same room as arcade games...Does under the NASCAR game count as in the rough?

Liam really increased his 4 wheel drive crawling.  (FYI- face plants on pokey, fake, putting green grass make the baby cry, but are sort of funny to watch.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Show of hands - who here is amazed that situations like this NEVER ended in injury? 

 

 

 

 

Belle had no interest in the putt putt, but she rode this motorcycle about sixteen hundred times.  Not with any money in it, of course.  I'm fairly sure she didn't even know that was a possibility. 

And dancing, dancing, dancing.  The girl jammed out on the dance machine for probably several hours, all told.  Which is extra funny when you know that it wasn't even turned on.  Luckily for her the cheapo claw game next to it jingled out some electric banjo music. 

Not high or low - just super weird
I saw this thing several times before I processed what I was looking at.  Off in a dingy corner of the game room was a life sized plastic cow.

Yes...it was a milking game.  See?

We did not play this game.



All in all we had a lot of fun in Breckenridge.  Not that there weren't some moments of boredom in the hotel room...

Watching Myth Busters for 13 consecutive episodes.

Hiding in weird nooks.

Low:  I may not have mentioned it, but Liam didn't sleep.    I don't want to add up the number of hours I stalked angrily around  gently carried him around dark hotel rooms alternately humming soothing music and hissing dire threats like, "Jason!  I am going right now to pack the car and we are LEAVING.  NOW!  At 2 am!  Screw your conference.  And I'm driving for FOURTEEN HOURS STRAIGHT to get home.  NOW!  And you're a doctor!  Prescribe this kid some freakin' sleeping pills!!!!"


Visiting in Denver:

High:  We got to see family and friends around Denver.  I sucked at bringing my camera to things.  And anyway I spent most of the time hovering over Liam who's dearest desire was to put the most lethal thing he could find in any given room into his mouth.  So just imagine happy faces of aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends smiling at you.  (And if we visited you and you have good pictures, please send them to me!)

Friends and fudgsicles.  What could be better?

Low:  Did I mention that baby-not-sleeping problem we were having?  By this time in the trip his exhaustion had overcome his white hot fury at being asked to sleep again somewhere besides his own beloved room and he did start sleeping through the night, but he was still reluctant to go to sleep.  Like the night he sat up as long as possible, finally just toppling forward face first. 

Yup, that's his right foot across in front of his stomach.  And both hands weirdly positioned with the palms facing up.  It is a testimony to how much I wanted him to sleep that I did not try to move him out of this position.  Just left him sleeping.

Fear not, all you soft-hearted readers, he did eventually get his limbs sorted out all on his own.



Dalton's Birthday

High:  My big boy turned six!  He seemed unimpressed when I told him that as the anniversary of me spending 28 hours in labor with him, I should be the one getting presents.  

For his birthday he wanted to go bowling.  So bowling we went.

No pictures of me, of course.  But I'll have you know I won both games.  The second game I even broke 100. 

Let's pretend these pictures are blurry because of the amazing amounts of action they are attempting to capture.  Not because kids are constantly getting fingerprints on my camera lens. 

Liam ate nacho chips.

 

Belle heaved around a ball that was exactly one quarter of her body weight.

Dalton hurled his ball with his own kind of style.

And Medman looks good, but he still lost.  To me.

Ok, that exhausts my phone pictures unless you want to see an inventory of the printers available at Walmart.  I'm leaning toward a wireless one, don't you think that's a good idea? 

Hope all of you are well.  It was lovely to see so many of you in Colorado!

xoxoxo

Solar Eclipse on Sunday!

Just in case I'm the only rocket scientist you know and you haven't wandered across a news story about this already, here's a little space news for ya...

On Sunday, around sunset, there will be a solar eclipse.  (Where the moon butts her way in between us and the sun, for those of you who haven't had astronomy classes in a while...)

annular eclipse - photo credit

Even when the moon has moved directly in front of the sun it won't completely cover the sun, it will just cover the center of it leaving a "ring of fire" eclipse ('annular eclipse' for you linguistic nerds.)

The western parts of the US should see the full eclipse.  Those of us in the Midwest won't get to see it all because the sun will set too soon. But we'll get to see the beginning of it.   It will probably look something like this...

...sans the beautiful ocean....

Here's a useful site that will show you what time you'll see the eclipse depending on what state you're in...( or country, my Canadian friends...)

Solar Eclipse by State

 
Wanna know how to watch it?  It's quite easy.

Please don't just look at the sun.  For some reason we have actually had to make that rule with our two older kids and I can't imagine Liam will completely develop without needing it too.  We'll just be riding in the car, look back and see a little one staring wide-eyed at the searing ball of fire that is our sun.  You can practically hear their rods and cones frying.  "NO LOOKING AT THE SUN!"



But it's easy to make a little pinhole viewer.  I'm making one for us, so here's a little tutorial:


You will need:

• Part of a cardboard Eggo's box.  (Yes, I suppose any sort of cardboard would work)
• White cardboard or very stiff paper (really anything flat and white.  A paper plate, a white notebook...)
• aluminum foil
• a pin
• a solar eclipse

 1) cut a little window in your cardboard.  (Do not mock my cutting skills.)

2) tape aluminum foil over the window.  (No, I don't know why there's that extra piece of tape along the bottom.  It's bothering me, too.)

3) Put a pinhole in the middle of the aluminum foil.

4) Go find the sun.  Put the white paper down facing the sun, hold the pinhole between it and the sun.  move your pinhole closer and farther from the white paper until...Viola!  An image of the sun.

 

Yes, my image right now is round since the sun is looking pretty round today.  But during the eclipse it should look like the giant smile you're by now very excited to see.   And if you're far enough west then you may get to see the entire "ring of fire".


Here's a link to SpaceWeather.com's website with a couple extra ideas for how to view it:

http://spaceweather.com/sunspots/doityourself.html


Or stay inside, ignore the outside world altogether, and check out one of the dozens of websites that will be showing it. I'll leave it to you to google one.



And, if you're feeling lazy, don't worry.  God made you millions of solar eclipse pinhole viewers.  

Go stand under a leafy tree and find something white to let the leaves' shadows fall on. The spaces between the leaves act like pinholes and you'll see dozens of little eclipses. 

photo credit

Now, if we could just keep clouds away on Sunday night.....



 Happy space watching!

Our Trip to Chicago - Highs by person

Last week we got to go to Chicago for a quick trip so Medman could re-certify in some sort of hero course.  Since Medman and I lived there during our dating years, we were excited to go back.

It was a little funny going back there after living in a small town for seven years, though. We used to giggle at the country folk who came to downtown Chicago, rubbernecking and snapping pictures.

I sometimes forget that our kids have never lived anywhere but our little town.  I don't think we have an escalator anywhere in town.  Do you know how excited they get about them?

D (dashing through the upscale snooty shoppers in Water Tower Place) : Let's take the excavator!  C'mon!

Belle (squealing with delight):  THIS IS SO FUN!!!!

Jason and I handled it with the disdain and boredom appropriate to grown ups who have spent most of their lives in cities.

He declared, "Let's race Mommy to the eighth floor!"

To which I maturely answered by racing off as fast as Liam's uber-cheap umbrella stroller could go to the elevator, pushed the button about a hundred times then yelled down the escalator from the eighth floor when they finally came into view that we'd been up there for hours and how did it possibly take them so long???

I'm fairly sure that the looks we were getting from the professional city slickers around us was one of love and appreciation for the fact that we were clearly a family that knows how to have fun.

I do think we have lost some "city skills."  Apparently seven years of waving cheerfully at friend and neighbor alike as you drive down the road has erased our ability to make "city face."  That face that looks serious, important and a bit detached even though you are surrounded by millions of people, most of whom are invading your personal space. 

We even saw a woman navigating Michigan avenue while reading a book.

I have skills. I can feed a baby while cooking dinner, convincing Belle that "tsunami" really starts with a t, not an s, and follow a convoluted story about race cars closely enough to ask educated questions at the right moments.  But I could not have made the trip she did unscathed, zig-zagging around people and cars with nary a glance up from her page.  Actually, the only time I saw her glace up was when she passed us.


So here's the highs and lows of the trip from each person's perspective. (No, I didn't ask any of them.  I'm just taking it upon myself to declare their highs and lows.  I believe that is within my maternal rights.)

LIAM:

High:  This was tough seeing as he thinks eating grass is a high, but probably the high for him was that he got held a lot because there were lots of floors I didn't want him crawling around grazing off of. 

Low:  He was unhappy but resigned about the hours in his car seat. 

BELLE:

High: Belle loves a good park.  She often comes up to me and says in her most excited voice, "Mommy, I have a grrrrRRREAT idea!!!  We could.... GO TO A PARK!!!"  This is always her great idea.  Morning, noon and night.    And boy did we find a good one.  Near our hotel was one with...

...a very cool playground...

...fountains that shot out water in the most unexpected places.  And by "unexpected places" I mean nailing Dalton right in the wazoo on more than one occasion...

...and the coolest little kid sized maze...

...the hedges were exactly one Belle tall...

 

Low: I don't think she had one.  The girl just had a good time. 

DALTON:

High:  This is easy.  While we were at this swanky little outdoor shopping area we happened to park next to a Lotus.   

And D sweet talked the owner into letting him SIT IN IT!

The boy could not be any happier. 

Low:  He had to get out of the Lotus. 



MEDMAN AND ME:

We had fun.  We ate at the Cheesecake Factory, 

got to window shop at cool stores like the Lego Store,

Are you wondering what Belle is looking at?

Yup, a Lego dragon coming out of the ceiling above her.

 And we got to get some good pictures.   We have a picture of ourselves that is at least 15 years old from the courtyard of a beautiful church on Michigan Avenue.  Well, we happened to walk by it and we still love this church.  Here are some of our pictures.  This peaceful place is literally feet from the bustle of Michigan Avenue.

Here's us 15 years ago.  Is it sad that I still own that coat?

And thankfully our oldest can work a cell phone, so here is us this weekend.

And the little family we've acquired since the first picture.

Oh, and a trip to the park bench where Jason proposed.  He brought me ice cream that day instead of flowers.  So of course I said yes.  Wise man. 

Lows:  Ummmm, there wasn't much.  A little antsyness on the way home when we were all ready to be out of the car, but overall a fun trip. 

Oh, and Medman is certified to be heroic again, so that's good too. 

Highs and Lows - Road trip to the beach

Medman had a conference near Orlando.  He approached me a couple months ago to see if I wanted to make a family vacation out of it.  We scampered to the computer and googled the drive time.

Twenty hours.

Each way.

We've been married a long time. I don't even think I said what immediately sprang to mind at the thought of 40 hours in the car with two little kids and a nursing baby. He just said in a resigned sort of way, "Well, it would be more fun for me if you came."

Medman is the luckiest man on earth.  Do you know he won $60 in about five minutes playing WAR at a casino in Las Vegas?  War.  You know, I flip a card, you flip a card, highest wins?   Yeah, he's lucky.

And he's lucky because it turned out that we did go to Florida with him.  All of us in the car.  Three days down.  Four days there.  Three days back.

So here's snapshots of the trip in Highs and Lows form:



Highs

Honestly, the trip was a lot of fun.  Even though at first you might not think it sounds fun to take very young children and a nursing baby on an long road trip. 

Belle and Dalton seem to like long road trips.  I'm developing a theory on the effect eye contact has on whining and fighting.  When positioned next to each other, both facing forward, they don't fight, they barely whine, they just sort of sit there and chatter.  Dalton chatters about cars.  Belle chatters about heaven knows what.  That girl is a bit odd.  But it is in a funny way.  She kept us laughing.

See how crammed in they are?  They almost can't  look at each other.

Liam was the one I was worried about, but he did great.  It helps that he's semi-mute.  I think he may be training to be a ninja.  He would often sit quietly and stare happily at Dalton 'til he fell asleep, then sleep, then wake up silently and stare happily at Dalton 'til one of the kids noticed.  I think he wishes he could have silently dropped from a rope in the ceiling to peer secretively at what the big kids were doing.  Except then he'd probably do the little chortle that he does when he's excited and give himself away.  Little cheerful ninja. 

I saw an alligator.  This is only a high because I saw it from the car moving at highway speed.  But it was clear as day, lurking in a little lake by the road.  Alligators are very good lurkers.  Did you know there's a $1000 find for feeding alligators in Florida?  I understand this is to protect the other Floridians, not just the idiot who fed it.  But I do think anyone dumb enough to feed an alligator deserves to have a hungry alligator following them around nosing in their pockets for more. 

I saw a unicorn.  Again from a fast moving car somewhere in Tennessee.  The farther south we drove, the farther we got into spring.  By Tennessee the woods were just starting to burst with that unearthly green of early spring.  (Unearthly? What planet should have that color green?) And a bit back into one of these emerald woods stood a perfectly white horse.  It was so picturesque that I told Medman about it immediately.  There's no way he was mocking my enthusiasm for seeing "a white horse in the trees!" when he said dryly, "It was probably a unicorn."  OF COURSE IT WAS!  And I do realize how lucky I am to have seen the elusive Tennessee unicorn.  I kept my eye out for more the rest of the trip, but that was just greedy. 

The Beach.  We got to go to the beach two times.

 Trip #1

• Parked at a meter that after putting all our change into gave us 20 minutes of beach time. OK, twenty minutes.  So we left our junk in the car and went to play in the waves.

• Medman took Dalton into the waves. Dalton quickly decided that they were intimidating  and he started wanting to go back to the car. Medman began the herculean task of convincing a skittish boy that the ocean was actually fun. I'm not sure it worked right then, but something must have clicked because from then until we went again he was excited about the ocean.

• And Belle? Well, she decided that she didn't like to touch the sand with her feet. No problem there. How much contact do feet have with the sand at the beach, really? Knuckle head. So I stood there in the tiny waves with Belle and Liam while Medman waded out into the deeper waves with Dalton.  

• It's been a long time since we've been at the ocean.  So even though the kids we a bit unsure of it at first, it was fun.  The weather was warm, the water was much warmer than we were thinking it would be. And we immediately planned when we could go back.

Trip#2

• was a full day at the beach.   It involved the proper equipment - giant umbrella, chairs to keep sand-eating babies elevated, etc.  There were turns taking older kids into the water, gorgeous weather, kids who decided that the waves were actually very fun and that sand in your toes is not really that bad, ("Daddy!  I walked in the sand all by myself!  And it didn't hurt me!!!")

• It was lovely.  I have to agree with Dalton's first impression that the ocean is intimidating.  So huge and powerful, even when you just dip your feet in the very edge of it.  But it also gives you such a good feeling of being alive and being part of some great big planet where parents have taken their children for years upon years and lifted them up over the biggest waves.

The house we rented rocked.  4 bedrooms, 3 baths, private screened in pool and playground across the street.  How lovely to have everyone spread out to sleep.  You families with the family bed, I have no idea how you do it.  You have amazing powers of sleep that I do not have. 

Old Friends: We got to see some old friends of ours, Lisa and Toby.  They're friends from our first two years of medical school and it was great to reconnect with them now that this whole medical school/residency marathon is almost over.  And Toby deserves a medal because we met them at a Red Lobster and while we talked he became a human jungle gym for my kids who decided that they loved him.  Well, first Belle decided he was terrifying, but then suddenly she loved him.  And told him so.  (She also regularly tells checkout people she loves them.  This morning she said it to a dead spider.  Sorry to cheapen her declaration, Toby.)


Low

There was really only one low, and it turned into a high.  Somewhere in Tennessee on the way down there, we hit a pothole bigger than...than...than our car.  I'm surprised we made it through in one piece.  Well, technically we didn't because the car started shaking a bit, then shuddering, then wiggling and by Florida it could definitely be called jerking.  With every revolution of the tire.  We wiggled and jiggled our way through most of northern Florida.

Since it needed to be dealt with and we had no tools we found a nearby mechanic that had gotten good reviews and he was able to get our car in immediately.  On my birthday.  I was afraid that this was going to be the most expensive birthday every. 

It took him 20 minutes to diagnose our separated tire (and here I thought tires were together for life), remove it, put on the spare.

And the High?  Besides getting us in right away, he only charged us TWENTY DOLLARS.  I wasn't there.  I told Medman to kiss them all for me.  Come to think of it, I don't know if he did.  He should have, though.


So that was our trip.  We all survived and really did have fun.

And when asked what they liked best, both kids answered immediately "the play area in McDonald's!" But with a tiny reminder that we had also visited the beach, they both recanted and declared that the ocean was way better than McDonald's.

Highs and Lows - End of February

Highs

For my first high (which is actually from a couple weeks ago) doesn't my blog look cute?  I befriended the blog designer Fairy Blogmother without even knowing she was the Fairy Blogmother and she very sweetly helped me out of the mess I had made of my blog because I have no clue what I am doing. So a million thank yous to Erika.  (Yes, those of you who never click through to look at my actual blog from your email, click here.  Really.  Then tell me how pretty it looks.)

• Dalton started taking violin last year.  The first song the munchkins learn is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  Very sweet.  And of course learning a song on the violin involves tremendously more than just learning notes.  There's things like squishy octopi, highways and sandwiches. So he has finally mastered Twinkle and we were able to begin the next piece.  It was exciting to see that Dalton has learned so much that he could sound out most of the song himself.  It's fun to see him not only learning to play an instrument but really getting a feel for music.
• Lizzy is this sweet girl in our violin class with Down Syndrome.  She is infallibly kind to all the other kids and they all just adore her.  I don't think her mom was sure at first how much she would learn, but last Thursday we were able to hear her play all the way through Twinkle by herself.  She just makes the most beautiful noise when she plays.  I'm so grateful that her mom put her in lessons so we could meet her and my kids could become friends with such a great person.  
• I had a funny conversation with Dalton that went as follows:
• Dalton: "I did a decrescendo.  Did you hear it?"
• Me: "Yup, great job.  Do you remember what the opposite of decrescendo is?"
• Dalton: "Umm...night crescendo?"

Lows

Vacuum:  My vacuum sucks because it doesn't suck.  At least not well.  And this week it stopped sucking all together.  Which sucked.

And of course, it was not actually broken so that I could tell Medman, "I NEED to go buy a new vacuum that doesn't suck!  'Cause mine doesn't suck!  So I can't vacuum!"  To which he would have replied, "You know how to vacuum?"

But it wasn't broken.  Just clogged with grossness.  And by grossness I mean cheerios and hair.  Blech.  So I had to clean it out.  Which sucked.  And now it sucks again.


Urine:  If only children could see the big picture.  Like if they started having an accident in their big brother's room while standing on a big stuffed animal the decision to then run across his room, down the hallway and across the bathroom to the potty while continuing to have said accident is not really helpful.  Yes, I know I say you should try to get your pee to the potty.  But a close second is to keep your pee localized.  Thanks for trying to help, sweetie. 


Biggest Low of the Week:
The biggest low was this dreadful night with Belle last week.  Well, it was mostly Belle.  I also had a friend in the ER who might need a ride home at midnight, a husband on call who had to run off to help deliver a baby or some such rubbish and a six month old who decided he was incredibly hungry all night. 

The friend, the husband and the baby are pretty self explanatory as to why I missed out on sleep, but Belle was the kicker.  She was up at least once an hour crying for me but then when I appeared she was fine and would look around the room saying, "Ummmm..." until she could think of a reason worth having me in the room.  A reason like, "Do you want to read me that book?"  It was like she was just awake and bored.  Until 3:30 am. 

The only time there was actually a crisis she screamed bloody murder.  I ran in to see her trying to claw her way up the walls because, "THERE'S A LADY BUG ON MY PUSH LIGHT!"

Belle's developed a phobia of bugs.  Poor thing is terrified of them.  And especially those menacing lady bugs.  I've been letting Belle have this little light you push to turn on in her room as a nightlight and of course the bug is going to be attracted to the light...

Anyway, the drama has been immortalized in song now and it is a house-wide hit.  "Lady Bug on a Push Light" is sung continually around here.  It's really catchy.

You want to hear it?  No problem.  Show up at Walmart while we are there.  Dalton must like the acoustics there, because he belts it out non-stop and pesters every employee we see with, "Excuse me, lady.  Can I sing you a song called Lady Bug on the Push Light?"  

***

So, dear friend, have any highs or lows you'd like to share?  Feel free to leave them in the comments or email me.  It'd feel like we were chatting. 


Linking up with Jen.

Highs and Lows - One month 'til my birthday edition! (and my Weekly Goal)

Ok, so most people are focusing on how Tuesday is Valentine's Day.  Some of you know that I don't really like Valentine's Day.  Something about the day irks me.  So Medman is always off the hook.  I don't know if people believe him when he says he's not doing anything for Valentine's Day because I don't want him to, but it's true.  If he stops on the way home on Tuesday and buys me flowers for triple the normal price, I'm going to call him an idiot.  If you want to buy me candy, do it on the 15th when it's half off.  And please don't buy it if it has both pink and red on it.  Pink and red should not sit next to each other.  Blech.

Oops-Insensitive Rant Alert...uh...I hope you all have lovely Valentine's Days filled with flowers and pink and red chocolates...

Anyway, I choose to find significance in the fact that February 14th is EXACTLY one month before my birthday.  Thus my title.

And now...Highs and Lows by topic:

SLEEP:

High:
Liam is working his way up to Favorite Child status.  He sleeps through the night, every night.  12-13 hours of uninterrupted sleep.  He goes to bed before 7 pm and gets up between 7-8 am. Sweet, beautiful child.

Low:
Belle has decided she does not want to sleep through the night any more.  Lots of nights it's just issues like a twisted up blanket that she can't straighten, or more often nothing intelligible.  Just needs a hug and to be put back to bed.

But one night earlier this week I woke up to hear her shrieking in her room.  It took a while to understand that she was saying, "My bed is opening!  My bed is opening!"

My response to this was a hazy, sleepy, open-mouthed stare.

I think she had some sort of nightmare about the back of her crib opening up. Not sure what happened once it opened but the result was that she was terrified of her crib.  Her entire little body was shaking.  She kept insisting it needed medicine.  I admit I was at a loss here, and since the only medicine I had in her room was butt paste, I pretended to wipe that on her crib.  But it didn't work, I guess, because the crying continued.

It took 3 hours that night to get her to go back to sleep.  I'd like to say that I handled the whole three hours with grace, patience and creative parenting.  But it was from 1:30 am to 4:30 am.  Let's just say that time period had its ups and downs.  Thankfully I had just made her this little pillow bed thingy that she could sleep on so she didn't have to sleep on the floor.  

Until now she has loved her crib.  Just hangs out in it and sings or talks or whatever.  But no more. 

That was 5 days ago and she still won't go back in her crib.  We'd been planning to get her a big girl bed sometime sooner or later, so I guess we're doing it sooner.

Funny part: The next morning at breakfast she told Dalton the following,
"Dalton, I got to sleep on my pillow bed!  I was very, very scared because my crib was opening and even the butt paste didn't fix it."

He looked at her like she was crazy, and behind her back I twirled my finger around by my temple and rolled my eyes around in the universal sign for craziness. 

NAMES

Low:
I commented here that Belle had started calling us Mom and Dad instead of Mommy and Daddy.  This unfortunately has continued.  And now that they are pretending to be pteranodons, it's just getting worse.  You see, the pteranodons call their parents Mom and Dad.  I'm terribly afraid that Mommy and Daddy are a thing of the past.

sigh.

High:
HOFFENPFEFFER!
Our very favorite TV show is Psych.  Endless hours of fun, there.

The other night we were watching an old episode and a woman yelled "Hoffenpfeffer!" at another character.  She yelled it very fast in an angry German accent.  It's really fun to do.  Try it.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.  One more time, faster and louder.  Good.

I've decided I'm going to start yelling it when the kids are driving me crazy.  It will help me blow off steam without yelling anything that will be emotionally scarring to the little tykes.

Weekly Goal

My friend Erika posts weekly goals on her blog and she's started making it a little party where people can link up their own goals.  Last week I picked a goal and it was really helpful to remember to be intentional about something. 

I decided that it would be good to have some one-on-one time with Dalton.  The biggest change about having three kids is how I never seem to have time for any kid individually.  I'm always juggling two or all three of them.

So I kept Dalton up a little longer at nap time (which was a huge deal for me in and of itself) and we did a little craft that involved melting a crayon over a candle and using the melted wax to make a picture.  It came out cute and we really did have a good time.

So this weeks goal is to spend one-on-one focussed time with each of my oldest two.  It seems like a stay at home mom shouldn't have to be intentional about that, but its very easy to let the busyness of life take over and suck up time that could be spent in better ways.

I'll try to remember to tell whether I met my goal or not next week.



Linking up to

Jen

Highs and Lows - Late January edition

The usual.  My list of Highs and Lows from the week.

'Cause I know you're all dying to hear about the exotic adventures we had this week...


High: Liam slept thirteen hours straight the other night.  Thirteen.  This blows his previous record of ten hours out of the water.  And he might have gone longer.  I woke him up at thirteen hours.

Low:  Liam didn't nurse for thirteen hours the other night. For you girls who have never nursed - or you boys who never will - let me give you a quick medical lesson:

Mammary glands are full of little milk fairies.  These fairies just love babies and they really want to make babies happy.  They know that babies like milk.  So these milk fairies study the baby closely and get a good feel for how often he wants milk.  Then, when it's about time for him to get milk, even if he's no where to be seen, the milk fairies start getting all in a twitter and start jabbering at each other things like,

"Is it time yet?"
"Has anyone seen the baby?"
"What if he's been kidnapped?"
"Do we make milk yet?"
"Poor thing must be starving!"
"I'm starting some milk!"
"Me too!"
"Me too!"

And so at approximately the time the little fellow would usually wake for a nip to eat, the mammary fairies produce milk.

When junior doesn't appear, the fairies don't think, "Huh, guess we don't need milk."  Instead they get all in a tizzy and start fluttering around in a panic yelling, "More milk!  We need more milk!  If we make it...he will come!!!" 

And as there is only a finite amount of space inside the mammary fairy house, things get crowded.  To the point where the fairy house is about to explode.

Did you know that mammary fairy houses stretch all the way up to the collar bone and around into the armpit?  And the entire house swells painfully if the baby doesn't come drink milk. 

Thus the Low.



Low: Medman had a conference at the end of the week and was gone for a couple days, livin' it up in the big city.  Drinkin' Starbucks, shopping at World Market to see if he could find me some mugs (good man), eating at Chick-fil-a and Red Robin.  And we were here.  Bored.

High:  After the first day of feeling aimless I planned about a thousand projects for the next day so I would stay entertained.  And it turned in to a fun day of doing stuff with the kids that I wouldn't normally do.  We painted sun catchers...

(No the playroom wasn't ransacked by ruffians searching for something very well hidden.  Why do you ask?)

...played in the snow...

Well, they played in the snow.  I stayed warm inside and took pictures.

...and made race car boxes so we could do Family Movie Night and watch Cars.

Yes, I know they are pretty pathetic cars.  Lame little half-wheels, small circle with a number on the side and headlights.  But my kids thought they were cool, so I instantly stopped suggesting improvements.  And may I highly recommend this?  They thought was cool and do you see how contained they are???  It was divine. 

No, I'm not letting my 5 month old watch TV.  The American Academy of Pediatrics tells me this will turn his brain to mush.  Well, maybe that's not what they say, I don't really know.  I just googled it enough to make sure it really was the American Academy of Pediatrics instead of some other arrangement of those same words.  But it's frowned upon.  So, uh, this is the first time Liam's even seen the TV.  Yeah.

Side note High - Liam is big enough for the exersaucer.  (Please, all my friends who have degrees in child development do not tell me it's bad for him.  If he reaches his second birthday and can't walk yet, I'll admit it causes him some problems.  Until then I plan on continuing to use it.)


High-  Liam has learned to suck his thumb!  Once again I do not want to hear any nay-sayers about this. I'm talking to you, Walmart checker-lady who always tells me Belle's teeth are going to grow in three rows one behind the other all from thumbsucking.   Thumbsucking is a gift from God.  It may be the real reason He gave us opposable thumbs.  It's not for grasping tools, people.  It's so babies can self-sooth.

High - Liam started solid foods.  What a big boy!

Low - This picture is proof that his olfactory sense does not work at all.  Because he started solid foods and the stench from this kid's diaper at this moment was unbelievable.  No, I don't know why I decided that was a good time to snap a picture.  I'm surprised it didn't fog up the lens.

Alright, that's all I got.  Super kid-focused and rereading this I can see that I don't seem to want anyone's opinion on my parenting.



Except here are two more cute pictures that I have hanging around and they are whining to be posted.

Dalton proudly displaying Belle's hair which he "made beautiful." And maybe strangling her too.

One of those adorable moments when all three are happy.