Monday, March 31, 2008

Since I last wrote about my sons weird and diverse music tastes, he has added to his repertoire three more musical pieces. We now welcome, "Move It" by Reel-2-Real. It's a dance techno song that I walked into my friends Sarah's wedding to when they were announcing the wedding party. It's catchy and just has kinda stuck around the house and now resurfaced.

We also welcome "I Love Rock'n Roll" by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts to our house. I think my husband's the source of this one.

And finally, I have watched the new movie 27 Dresses and they play another very catchy tune "Benny and the Jets" by Elton John. Needless to say both my husband and I can NOT get it out of our heads. It seems like we're not the only ones. (What have we created?!?)

Welcome to our home.

This is him busting out some dance moves at a wedding this past summer.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Is it possible for a second child with no younger siblings to already have characteristics of a middle child? Does that go away if you never have any more kids?

I find myself constantly awestruck by my daughters personality that to me seems so like that of a middle child. Attention seeking being the big one right now.

Today we spent the majority of the day going store to store scooping up the bargains that make up our groceries (just how I do it). I happened to notice several strangers staring at my load only to discover that my daughter was flashing smiles at whomever would glance her way. Upon even closer observation, she seemed to wait until they were looking to flash her toothy grin. Unbelievable! Once she got them all "ooohh-innng" and "ahhh-iiinng" and pining over her she'd throw herself back and laugh.

Meanwhile, my son, taking this all in of course, would stare until they noticed him and try to engage him in the same playful banter. He would immediately covers his eyes and play all mute and shy. Which is pretty normal for him when he meets strangers.

This is a very strange phenomenon to me.

This of course is just one characteristic of the typical middle child. I think its a little too early to tell if she's an underachiever or loner or unfocused worker.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Bathtime



Mommy to Son: Ok time to go give your sister a bath...
Son: I wanna bath too
Mommy: No not tonight. It'll be her turn to have a bath by herself. You had your bath last night.
Son: No I wanna bath too......

(silence as we walk up the stairs)


Son: Mom...I stink!
Mommy: lol alright then.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Today was a fantastic day. It was preluded (is that a word?) by my friend Lisa visiting last night while her husband and mine went to a work related meeting. We stayed up way too late...again. But this time for a legitimate reason-our husbands were out late.

After about 6 hours of sleep, I dragged myself and my son out of bed to go and meet up with my dad who happened to be trucking by our place. We met him at the local truck stop at 6:15am and proceeded to hop aboard to go pick up some cattle from a sale barn. He drives transport during the winter to supplement their income when their isn't any cash crop to bale or harvest from his farm. So today was a special treat for my son since my dad lives almost 4 hours away and it isn't every day that you get to travel in a big rig like his. Oh and I forgot my camera. I am beating myself up over this.

So we hopped aboard to accompany him to a local sale barn to load some cattle that he would be transporting to Pennsylvania. It was sheer bliss for both my son and I. My son was very quiet at the beginning, yet super bug-eyed and observing every thing and I was in my element. You see, we don't live in the country right now although, that is where my heart lies and that's how I was raised. Often I am compelled to take a drive north of the city to get my fill of the fresh air and scenery. I look forward to the day when I will return to my roots and once again relish in the country life. But for now this is what we can afford.

It had been a while since my last drive so today was the day. The smell of dead skunk and manure, bumpy narrow roads, lights on in barns as the farmer does his chores, small towns that were gone in a blink of an eye, good company and my son snuggling on my lap drinking it all in just as I was. I can't tell you how great it was to be able to see my dad and be out in the country both at the same time.

Once we arrived at the sale barn my son, by then, had become a little more talkative. He has watched the movie Barnyard numerous times and was so excited to see "Otis". *No photo ops this time* Only seeing that we were in a barn full of cows there were lots of Otis'. He then became a little concerned when he saw his friend Otis being loaded into the back of Grandpa's truck. "What they doing mom?", "Where's Grandpa?", "What's that noise?" and "MOOooooo-ooo!" were frequent words from his mouth.

I don't know about you, but what do you tell an almost three year old when his new buddy Otis is being loaded into the back of a trailer to be taken to a slaughter house x-number of miles away?

I chose the easy route-"Grandpa is taking them with him on a big trip". End of questions. But wait. "Me go too!" My son pipes up. "Ummmm.....not this time honey". Did I mention I can't believe I forgot my camera.

Moving on. While we were waiting for my dad to finish up some paperwork, my son got a little more comfortable in the cab of the truck. He decided he was the new driver. Man I wish I had had my camera. For those of you that aren't familiar with the insides of a transport cab, there are loads and load of buttons and switch and electronics. My son is a button boy! It was mayhem.I finally convinced that only Grandpa is allowed to touch 99% of the switches and that my dear son could be in charge of signaling. Phew.

When my dad came back he let my son help him shift and gave him the job of telling him if the lights were green or red. We were returned to the truck stop, we said our goodbyes and my son had his turn at the big horn. Ok so he was allowed to touch three things.

Next on the agenda was stroller fitness. I had invited my friend Pam to come with her two kids. The one who has a son who shares the same name as mine and who also shares similar personalities (ie. loves running). We had decided that I would borrow a double stroller from the mall to keep the two boys in so that they could amuse each other and if they did take off running I could be the runner to retrieve them.

So to say the least, I got my exercise today. Once they both warmed up the idea of having a partner in crime they got really comfortable running around after one another. Praise the Lord for money spending contraptions located at each entrance of the mall where we stop to do our respective exercises. I am now in love with lockers, Coke machines, photo booths, pay phones, and mall information computers. If only I had remembered my camera!

I am also in love with Sears. They have parked their lawn mowers outside their entrance to the mall which happens to be where we do some abs. Of course, boys being boys, they were all over those things like bees to honey! Just priceless.

What a wonderful morning......that I payed for the rest of the day. Both my son and I were zombie's when we got home. Only to find out that my daughter had decided to sleep in until 8:30 this morning. What are the chances of that?

Since I was the loser who forgot her camera on one of the best mornings in a long time. Here's a picture of that side of the family at Christmas.

Back: My Great Aunt, Dad, Son & Husband
Middle: Dad's Wife
Front: Me, Daughter and My Grandma

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Fatigue



Oh to be able to sleep anywhere.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

My Helper

It is so cute watching my son nurture and love his sister. It makes me realize just what a blessing it is to be able to provide my children with a sibling. I am reminded daily how nice it is for them to have each other and be able to use their challenges of learning to be around each other to help them in relationships that develop outside the home.

I can't believe we've gone from this:

To this:

And this:

And of course to this...mommy's biggest helper:

As some of you have pointed out, the day will come when they will be 10 and 8 years old....perfect age for putting out the garbage don't you think?

Yes thank goodness for sisters and brothers and mommy's helpers.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Bubbles

My son discovered that this is what happens when you have a straw in your milk.I remember doing this when I was a kid.
We used to get scolded for blowing bubbles.
It's not good manners is what my mom would say.

And that's exactly what I found myself saying too (after of course I took pictures and laughed a little...ok a lot). Some things are just a rite of passage.

So ummm...we were invited out to a friends house for supper last night. My husband and I, since we don't have many close friends here, both jumped at the prospect of having some time with other people our age and with kids. Sometimes hard to find. At least we are finding it to be that way.

We packed up the car-playpen, pyjamas, sippy cups, and booster seats. We were super stoked about being able to visit with friends AFTER the kids went to bed. I don't know if its just us, but when eight o'clock hit it was like a sprint to get the kids off to bed so we could finally have some non-kid time.

Five hours later we were dragging our feet out the door wondering what on earth possessed us to stay out and up this late, knowing full well the kids wouldn't be sleeping in and waking us at who knows what ungodly hour.

It seems that we never learn our lesson. We've been here before at late wedding receptions, family gatherings and the occasional invite to "hang" out with friends. So today we payed...again. We payed big time for forgetting that we have children. For forgetting that they wake up and need to eat. For forgetting that my son likes to take off his diaper first thing in the morning regardless of whether he's gone poo or not (you can probably guess which one it was this morning) and then jump into bed with us. For forgetting that no copious amounts of chocolate we consume will be enough. For forgetting that gone are the days when we can sleep in and lounge around in bed watching whatever we want on t.v.

Have you been here before? But you know what?


It was worth it!

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Artwork

Creative juices were flowing when my mom was here. Both kids enjoyed the new paper, pencils and stickers that she brought for them. Thanks Mom.






This was done by my daughter. The brown and purple strokes were hers.












My son's masterpieces.









Friday, March 21, 2008

Well my mom has left. So sad. My son has been acting up ever since she stepped out the door. I guess that's his way of responding to her parting.

We had a short but super nice visit. She arrived late Wednesday afternoon. The evening passed quickly. Lots of laughs and getting caught up. She brought some treats for the kids. Both kids loved the stickers, paper, and pencils. We all had fun trying to get the paddle-ball-bouncer working (not even sure what it's called now that I think of it).

Thursday we had beautiful weather here. So I took advantage of the extra body and we walked with the kids in two strollers to playgroup. I often tell my mom about different things the kids are doing there or the friends that they are meeting and playing with so it was nice to have her see first hand their limited social life.

That night we hit up Value Village (a large-scale thrift store in case some one's not familiar with those-are they pretty wide spread across Canada?). My son, we've learned has some pretty interesting tastes. He kept picking things from the racks that caught his eye. First is was some neon technicolor slippers. Then he was all over any kids paraphernalia (ie. ninja turtles, barney, mickey mouse, spider man...the list could go on). Then we moved to the hats and mitts section. There he found some lime green gloves, a big flowery sun hat, and a older mans drivers style hat. He then would proclaim "I want buy this" and would throw these choice items into the cart. By the end of the evening I had seen my fair share of odd colored slippers to random cups from the housewares section. Fun times.

My daughter on the other had was quite taken with the scarves. She would yell out "ughh, ughh"and point whenever we would drive by them. When I stopped, she chose one and stroked it. I guess she's a fabric girl.

To finish the evening off we were treated to an ice cream at the local dairy shop. Hmmm....sooo good. The end to a perfect day and time spent together.

When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not shouting 'I'm clean living'

I'm whispering 'I was lost, Now I'm found and forgiven.'

When I say... 'I am a Christian' I don't speak of this with pride.
I'm confessing that I stumble and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not trying to be strong.
I'm professing that I'm weak and need His strength to carry on.

When I say.. 'I am a Christian' I'm not bragging of success.
I'm admitting I have failed and need God to clean my mess.

When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not claiming to be perfect,
My flaws are far too visible but, God believes I am worth it.

When I say... 'I am a Christian' I still feel the sting of pain.
I have my share of heartaches, so I call upon His name.

When I say... 'I am a Christian' I'm not holier than thou,
I'm just a simple sinner who received God's good grace, somehow!

-Maya Angelou

Thanks to Valleygirl for posting this. I really liked this poem and wanted to share it as well.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Please pray for my friend Alyson's family over at Proud to be Country. Her father-in-law's dairy barn has burned to the ground taking all the livestock with it. This was his livelihood.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Tomorrow's the day. My mom arrives and we are so excited! We haven't seen her since Christmas. We talk at least once a week but it will be so nice to have her here in person. This will be her first visit since helping us move in way back in June. I'm excited for her to see what we've done the with the place.

On another note. I managed to make it out to our local mall walking thing today. Good times. My legs and triceps are sore. I guess that's the price you pay for taking a week off to care for your husband and getting caught up on a lack of sleep.

I also got some time to myself today. Went and bought my son some new running shoes which he desperately needs considering he too comes to the mall and spends most of the time running around. He grew out of his last pair within a couple of months. Probably will happen with these ones too. But lucky for me they were last years model and were on clearance so i bought the next size up as well!!! Two clearance ones for the price of this years model. Man i'm a good shopper. I had fun. It was nice not carting any kids with me even if it was just for an hour.

It'll be 3 for 3 when my mom gets here.

Monday, March 17, 2008



My mom is scheduled to arrive either tomorrow or Wednesday. My son is super excited! His eyes lit up when we told him she'd be here in one or two sleeps. That's if he gets any sleep at all.

We haven't told my son yet but there is a possibility that his Uncle Caleb might come this weekend. He adores his uncle Caleb.

We can't wait. We love you guys and hope to see you soon!

So time seems to pass very quickly here some weeks or months. Thursday the hubby went back to work and I went to playgroup with the kids. My daughter has figured out that my milk supply has been decreasing since she barely drinks from me during the day and prefers the sippy cup but has been frequently waking up at night now to suckle (a new habit that developed lately from some gassiness and teething). So it's been rough trying to break that habit. So thursday I was tired.

Thursday night was more awful than the previous night. Man that girl fights hard and is so persistent. After three hours of off and on whining and half sleeping she finally crashed and fell asleep only to wake up again at 6 for more milk. I gave in and gave her a bottle assuring her that she will get fed just not as much from me. Personally I am aiming to be done breastfeeding around a year so I definitely don't want her bolstering the supply. So Friday I was tired. So we went to playgroup again.

That night I knew I needed to get groceries done. I should of done them Thursday but just didn't feel up to it. So Friday was the night. There was no getting around doing it by myself. You see my husband got a promotion and so he is switching rotations at his work this past weekend. So he needed to do some back to back shifts which resulted in working four days straight (should of been five but he dropped one because of his back-which is feeling much better by the way). This meant it was inevitable that this task would be long and dreary. So Friday night after lying on the couch for an hour dozing in and out of consciousness, I finally got my butt in gear and headed to replenish our shelves.

Thankfully with two happy fed kids this ended up being one of our better times in the grocery store. I made it home with everything on my list and gave the kids an evening snack. An experiment to see if this might be part of the reason my daughter was waking up so often to feed. Perhaps she needed a top up before bed. And what a difference that made. She slept NINE hours straight!! Hallllleeelllluuuujaaahh!! So Saturday I was not tired. :)

Saturday became laundry day. I say became because I learned that my son no longer had any clean underwear and because after 2 hours of playing outside in the snow/mud/water I no longer had children. They had evolved into sopping, messy, muddy, drenched goblins. So laundry day also turned into bath night which usually turns into some sort of movie night. So that's always a nice treat. Plus I excitedly filled their bellies with fishy crackers and grapes hoping that history would repeat itself and we'd get another night of rest.

Success! Sunday I was rested again. So the kids and I went and visited a friend at their home church at which I proceeded to sprain my ankle running after my hyper son, who by the end of the morning was way too tired and hungry to understand, let alone obey me in any way.

Sunday nights we attend a bible study group so we did that and thankfully my son had had a good enough nap that he played very nicely and my daughter, too had slept long enough allowing me to leave her with the sitter in the playroom.

And so that brings us to Monday. Today was a restful day. My daughter didn't do too bad last night. She snacked before bed again and managed to sleep most of the night (not as long as before but still good enough for me to feel rested today). My husband is off work for two days so we get to have some family time. I also started to realize just how painful my ankle was and actually took time to look at it and discovered that one ankle is twice the size of the other. Who'd thought. At the time it killed when it had happened but I was able to walk and hadn't given it much thought, just ploughing ahead being a mom and doing what needed to get done to end the day. But today, now that things had slowed down and I had another man on board to help keep things moving, my ankle was sore and obviously I had hurt it worse than I thought.

We also spent some time outside today. Sunny but crisp. The kids are loving this weather and so am I. I find myself yearning for a double stroller more and more. Oh the places I could walk without going mental stressing and obsessing over the possibility of my son getting loose from me on the streets.

Tonight we did a family movie night. Which again is a nice treat and time well spent all cuddled together on the couch.

I guess that just about brings you up to speed on what's been happening around here.

Here's some pictures from our time outside today.

This is my follow up post from this past Wednesday. After I had posted earlier that day my computer decided to go on the fritz. So finally after five days of waiting to get everything back to normal, I can finally give you the low down on the remaining events of our chaotic day.

Tonight (Wednesday night) after a long walk and play time at the park, my husband decided he needed some of my mom's oatmeal chocolate cake. It is super yummy, super moist, and super good. So I made a deal with my husband: you keep our daughter happy (it was 7:30-her bedtime which makes for a cranky baby who just wants to feed from her mommy and hit the sac) and our son and I will bake him his super yummy, super moist, super yummy oatmeal chocolate cake.

On a side note: The kids and I have been nursing my husband back to health and also been busy supplying him with yummy meals and treats over the past four days. You see, when he gets bored, a certain 'tooth' in his mouth starts hurting and so we end up either running out to pick him up some chocolate or baking to satisfy that sweet tooth.

My son, in case you are interested, is turning into quite the little chef. He is now a master at stirring and dumping ingredients. He is also very keen on cracking the eggs open and dumping their contents. His specialty, of course is licking the spoon at the end and cleaning out the bowl.

Voila!

P.S. No more Mr. Cranky pants. I guess the walk did him some good. My son seems to have finished his two-day retribution against me for cancelling his ice cream stop. We asked him to go to bed tonight and wake up happy and he kindly obliged. I guess we'll see about the happy part tomorrow.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Monday I took the kids to playgroup so that my husband could rest in a silent house (the meds he has been taking for his back make him drowsy). Since it is March break around here, playgroup was super quiet which is a nice change from its usual busyness but it also meant my son had a limited choice of kids to play with. In other words he had no boys his age to play with. But he did decide to make a nice St. Patrick's day hat during craft time (which he doesn't usually stay seated long enough to participate in). I meant to take a picture of it but his sister got to it before I could. She's teething again. And also waking up more than usual at night making it very hard for me to pry my head off the pillow in the morning. I'm sure you can sympathize.

Tuesday was a housecleaning and laundry day. The kids seemed to be in one of those independent play day moods which are perfect for getting things done around here. I like to capitalize on those especially when my son has no clean underwear left and my husband (who has now been off for four unexpected days in row and is going a little stir crazy) is asking about his bummy pants. Tuesday's is also cheap day at the local movie theatre so my husband thought it might be nice for me to get out for some one-on-one time with my son and take him to see Veggie Tales:Pirates Who Don't do Anything Movie. Conveniently, I also had some points on my Scene card, so our afternoon of fun wouldn't cost me anything (I can be cheap).

So that's what we did. But then things took a turn for the worst. The movie didn't manage to capture my son's attention like Ratatouille did (which was his first ever big theatre experience with my husband). So about half-way through the movie he started asking to go home. But I wanted to stick it out. You see, even though it was cheap day the theatre still charged me full price on my scene card because they had no way of only deducting half points or whatever the equivalent points would of been. So I didn't want to waste all those points for nothing on a movie we'd only seen half of at this point. I know I was a little bitter.

But anyways, if you haven't seen the movie, after that half way mark is where things start to get a little scary, at least for my son. So now he's on top of me and my leg is going numb and we're just not into the movie. But we made it through and as another mom said "Thank goodness it wasn't any longer". Amen.

So now its supper time and my son gets really cranky when he's tired or hungry. Did I mention he didn't have a very big nap this day? So I have both things working against me. After dragging him from the arcade section of the theatre, which if you ask him, was his favorite part of the movie, we make it out to the car with his feet barely moving. To make matters worse, we still need to stop quickly at the grocery store and pick up some milk. Those poor people at No Frills. The defiant, cranky, sassy side of my son came out. The little bugger even tried biting me which he has re-discovered since a friend of his did it to him. Sigh* But we made it home with my ears only bleeding ever so slightly in the car (from his yelling and screaming) because I took away the ice cream stop that we had previously planned to do after the milk stop because we didn't do popcorn.

I don't know if he's still mad but ever since then its like he's been seeking retribution. Tuesday night was also bath night. (Note to self-water and a spiteful child do not go together) His poor sister has been suffering from most of his wrath. As a result, he's been practically living on the stairs and if this continues may not come out of his room except to eat and poop. I hope this doesn't last too long.

So that was Tuesday.

Today, we had planned a play date with my friend Pam and her son (the son who bit mine a couple of weeks ago) who coincidentally shares the same name as my son. Coincidence that they are almost mirror images of each other personality wise? I think not. Who ever said there's nothing in a name was wrong! We had a nice time until that same cranky, nasty, sassy, defiant, side of my son came out. Maybe it had something to do with the 10 timbits he devoured when we weren't watching and his body was overloaded with sugar and excitement at our first official play date in our new house. I don't know. But he decided today was the day he was going to bite his friend back, a second time (did i mention he already got his friend back from biting him the first time-on his face!! ya that's a story for another time. One of my most embarrassing parenting moments). At the first sign of conflict today my now not-so-lovely firstborn decided to latch onto his friends shoulder. Not so nice.

After some serious consequences he was allowed to come back and play and we were able to salvage the rest of the morning. It was busy yet fun. Pam also has a daughter who's a little younger than mine so the kids each had a playmate. Fun times.

Let's hope we have a nice evening. Will report back later.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

As I mentioned before, Friday night began what I would describe as the biggest dump of snow we've had all winter. Let's do a before and after look:


Here we have a shot from the other day (and yes we bbq all year round-hmmm steak and sauteed onions).

I thought i'd throw in a cute shot of my daughter enjoying the snow.
And here's our new snow covered back yard. Not sure if you can really tell but the snow is now up to my knees.
You can see the mound in the centre...well there's a kids Adirondack chair buried underneath there somewhere.



To add to the madness around here my husband put his back out shovelling snow at work. So now he's all hunched up and on drugs to control the muscle spasms going on in his lower back, i'm the lucky one who gets to shovel ourselves back into the world and take pictures of him crashed out and high (I use that term loosely-no drug abuse going on here) on the couch.





And lastly, I now have two running children!! This is exciting but frightening all in one. My daughter is now OFFICIALLY walking. She has been taking steps for the past several weeks but today was the day that she decided she was going to use her new found skill as her preferred method of transportation. I managed to get it on video...so here she is for your viewing pleasure(sorry it's sideways):



So that's the news around here! If you think of it, pray for my husband's back to get better and pray for me as I now have two children to chase. Enjoy the snow or lack of for those of you in warmer climates!

P.S. Gotta love the time change too. That definitely upsets the internal clock. The whole day seemed to go by fast but for some reason i'm super exhausted tonight. But the kids did go to sleep earlier so what am I complaining about?

Saturday, March 8, 2008

More snow!

If you live in Ontario then you'll be aware that last night began the start of a large accumulation of snow. I'm not sure how much we have gotten so far but its been some pretty intense precipitation. But as usual when the snow falls our son wants to get outside. So here he is enjoying the snow as all our neighbors curse these winter months.





I don't mind. Its almost like a free babysitter. Plus its an excuse for me to get outside and get some fresh air ( code for there's shovelling that needs to be done).

Thursday, March 6, 2008

It's my friend Cory's birthday this week. We met in 2000. My first year and his second in University.


Halloween 2000

Cory showed up down the hall from me in our residence. For some odd reason we became friends (seeing as we were total opposites) and have managed to stay that way.


Halloween 2003

Now some eight years later (my goodness its gone by fast), he's grown up and married and no longer dressing this way.


July 2007-braving the Drop Zone ride

Hope you had a good one Cory. Sorry I couldn't help myself. You have nothing to be ashamed off- you totally pulled it off.

Happy 28th!

Letting Go

I can't hardly believe it's Friday already. This week has just flown by. As life gets back to normal around here, meaning no one is sick and we have regained some sort of routine again, i've been finding myself unmotivated to clean the house (partly because we were sick). For those of you that know me its a bit of a strange phenomena. I usually like things tidy and the floors clean (with out dust balls). But lately I have found myself watching those dust bunnies grow and it hasn't bothered me too much. Well it did get me to clean and wash my floors today. But trust me when I tell you that I hadn't touched them for the last two weeks (I might have swept once to be perfectly honest).

Anyways, my point being is that I have been challenging myself lately, yes in the area of floor cleanliness, to not obsess so much about those small things. Meaning mostly that I won't get frustrated when I have just cleaned the floors and my daughter decides to lick it(did you know saliva leaves a weird mark on the floors when dried that you can see when the light hits it just so), or when my son decides that his dinosaur needs a shower from his juice cup, or when my husband picks a crusty booger and freelances it to the ground. Ok not really on that last one. These are all logical reasons to be irked the wrong way but I found myself being irked not because they just shouldn't be doing that but because my precious floors were no longer in their pristine state.

So i'm trying to let go and stick to more of a general cleaning schedule than constantly fixing and picking up all day. Turns out i'm a much happier person and better mom this way.

I'm also trying to beat these winter blues and incorporate more physical activity into my days. The dance excercise video i have just isn't cutting it. Plus its lame. I should have known. So thursday morning was a special morning. I left my daughter at home with my husband and my son and I went to the mall walking thing. I really feel that lately I haven't been setting a good example of a healthy lifestyle lately so I really wanted to include him in this. Plus he seems to enjoy a good ride in the stroller occasionally jumping out to run. He likes to hop in the photo booths or try the games at Toy's 'R Us while I'm doing my work out.

When we came home, my husband reported having spent a nice morning bonding with our daughter. She tends to be quite the momma's girl but I think we're slowly working the extreme part of the obsession out of her system. A characterstic that's in the gene pool i guess.

So as the blogosphere as my witness, I, Erin do pledge to exercise more, obsess less, and make sure I read my Bible and brush my teeth twice everyday (some other things I want to work harder on).

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Today the kids and I tried out the local mall's "Stroller Mall Walk". For an hour we push our kids around the mall stopping at each entrance to do various exercises (ie. lunges, push-ups, some weird ab work out). I died but It was great!

While we were there I happened to hear one of my sons latest favorite songs playing. So I thought i'd share with you the songs that have captured his interest lately. I am working really hard on being able to get him on film singing along. He knows all the words and melodies. Its priceless.

The first one is "I Won't Back Down" by Johnny Cash (off of the Barnyard Movie). Click on the link to listen to part of the song online.

The close second is "Apologize" by Justin Timbaland. Just picture him singing the high notes at the top of his lungs. (You'll need quicktime for this one. You can downloade it FREE here)

The final top song is "Jingle Bells" by Diana Krall. His Christmas favorite.

For those of you that can, here's a video that I did manage to get of my son singing the first song until I got busted for filming him...




Enjoy.

Monday, March 3, 2008

This morning I decided to try and beat the rush in the emergency room at our local hospital. You see, my daughter, although super happy during the day, has been having this weird puking situation at night. She has had one vomit per day at approximately the same time every night for the past 6 days. Very strange and bizarre. My son had, two weeks ago, first voiced a complaint about a sore ear that I thought was just water in his ear from his bath that evening. Last night though he complained again and my husband found a bit of clear fluid. So all of that to say that since our family doctor is an hour away, I figured i'd brave the emergency room and see what the doctors had to say about my daughter and hopefully confirm our suspicion about an ear infection in my son.

My quick trip to 'emerg' ended up being a half day affair. I don't usually carry change with me so we had to park a block or so away and hike it back up the hill to the hospital (note to self...park uphill next time or bring change or petition against building hospitals on hills). We then proceeded to get all settled in. It wasn't until after a lady came in complaining of chest pain that I noticed a sign that said "for service pick up red phone". Which is exactly what this woman did and she was taken in right away (note to self- read all signage before getting kids comfy).

And so began our wait all the while prepping my son for what's about to happen. Now honey, the doctor is going to want to look at your ear and see what's inside. He will probably take your temperature so you need to be a good listener and sit still for him ok? And when it's your sisters turn you need to wait your turn to talk because mommy is going to have to tell him about her being sick.

Pep talk complete.

Then starts the questions. Mommy how come he has to take my temperature? When is it our turn? Is that lady done yet? Oh I hear my name can we go now? I'm hungry. Ok so that's not a question but thank goodness for fishy crackers and sanitary wipes. (Note to self- get over paranoia about children getting more sick from gross looking kids table and ripped hospital chairs)

Eventually the nurse sees us and thankfully both kids behave fairly well for having been there for about an hour . We communicate the necessary information and get registered. We get re-settled in the waiting room.

We/I watch as a broken arm, a sprained ankle, a shoulder pain, a woman walking like she has hemorrhoids, and several pee samples later pass by my view all the while making small talk with my son who was climbing over the chairs as if he was on a jungle gym and playing bouncing games on my knee with my daughter trying to keep her happy cause there is no way I letting her crawl around on those floors. Oh and watching some crime show about a woman who's trying to catch a serial killer who wants to bury her alive. (Note to self-bring better entertainment options)

I finally manage to get my daughter asleep and work up enough guts to change the channel on the tv to Barney for my son WHEN they finally call our names. So we load up again and set up shop in another room. The next 45 minutes were pure torture. Now I am in a room alone, no tv, lots of expensive equipment, with a sleeping baby and a toddler who has decided he's tired of waiting and begins demanding to go home. On top of that, this room must have been heated for a hypothermic 90 year old. We were so stinkin' hot my son had stripped off his shirt and shoes and was trying to escape through the only door that promised cool air and his way to Barney. (Note to self- bring a fan and more water and better entertainment)

By the time we saw the doctor all of our cheeks were super red and rosy and they questionned me about all other sorts of unrelated ailments to make sure there was no other root cause to my kids' bizarre conditions.

So, one prescription and a firm "not sure what's going on with your daughter but she's not contagious" from the doctor three hours later we were free to leave.

All I could think was FRESH COOL AIR! FREEDOM! It was then that the exhaustion set in. My sons legs decided they couldn't hold him any longer and he too needed a ride on the stroller. (Note to self- scratch what I said before- never park uphill. Save the easy downhill roll for the end as the stroller now has an extra 35 pounds added to it)

So finishes another day in this household.

I'm off to bed. Good Night.

P.S. They catch the bad guy in case you were wondering.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

So I decided today was going to be the day where we'd get a better look into my daughter's mouth...

Notice the progression (click on any of the photos for an upclose and personal look):

"Hey Sweetheart! Can you smile for mommy?? Come'on i know you can do it?"
"Daddy can you hold her mouth open while I take the picture?....yah just like that...that should work....ugghghgh"



"Ok now....smile.....Daddy...you're not holding her right....ughghg she's moving too much...sigh"



Alright plan D....distractions...gotta love the car. I've traumatized her enough...oh and lost some clothing....let's see what happens now...


"Now we're talking...or smiling rather...good girl....now just a little bit wider...I want the whole thing..."


"Good girl!!! now we're talking.....pretty teeth....make mommy proud....now if only i could get a little closer"


"That-a-girl! We're done now....you can stop smiling now...."


If only i'd tried the car the first time...