The Anatomy of a Fit

Linus has been getting up a LOT at night and it is about to drive me batty. The other night he woke up so many times that we had to finally lock him in his room to keep him safe. He was not really appreciative of that and let us know! He threw a fit for 45 minutes at 2 am, it was amazing! It went a little something like this:

Jiggle door handle and cry
Start pounding on door
Scream louder
Cry for Mommy
Lie and say "I need to go Potty"
Kick door
Jiggle door handle and scream louder
Get quiet to see if that will work
Didn't work...scream louder
Throw train set on floor
Scream some more
Finally go to sleep

I can't believe it, but SD never once woke up during his entire tirade!

Cute Little Old People

At church this past Sunday as we were singing, a couple of rows in front of us, we saw the cutest thing, or at least I think it is cute! The older gentlemen were already in the row when their wives walked in. They were settling into the row and immediately he helped her get her coat off, without any prompting. I just thought it was so cute! Not to mention that they held hands the rest of the service.

To me it was a true representation of servant hood. He served her without needing anything back and without being asked. What I assume was one of their grown children and their spouse slid in the row a little while later as well. They were also very cuddly during the service. I can only assume that they say these outward displays of love and tenderness in their home and it influenced their relationship as well.

I hope that SD and Linus witness us serving each other and outward displays of love and affection and it affects their relationships in a positive way!

I know it

Chores are often not liked by kids, or adults for that matter. Our kids love breakfast, so BG thought it best to get them to do their chores before breakfast. I decided to give it a try. Sure enough, they made their beds in a hurry so that they could have their beloved cereal, but in the process, a funny conversation occurred. I asked SD if I could go check on her bed to which she replied no...which means she didn't make her bed all the way. I asked her to go do it again to which she stomped off mumbling and pouting. Then the following occurred:

Me: I know, I am mean, this is not a new concept, you should know this by now.
BG: I know it!
Linus: I know it!

BG and I were cracking up!

When SD was finally finished and back eating her cereal, she was all upset because I had put the Valentine's towels, that she had put as napkins, in their proper places...to which she said..."You have ruined Valentine's"

Kids say the funniest things!

Breakfast

I have really been focusing on breakfast lately with my kids.  I am a morning person and they are too, so it is a perfect time to really pour into their lives.  Not only that, I really think that it sets the tone for the day.  I am trying to also set a healthy example and habit for them.  One of our favorite meals right now is homeade oatmeal.  I found the recipe at Kroger when I was shopping in the produce department.  We have modified a little bit because SD is pretty picky.  I have also added protein powder with lots of vitamins to increase that in my kids diet.  Here is a picture and the recipe!  Enjoy!

2 cups of milk

1 cup of water

1 tsp of vanilla (it is supposed to be 2, but we use a much stronger mexican vanilla...really the only way to go)

2 Tbsp of brown sugar

1/2 tsp of cinnamon

1/4 tsp of nutmeg

2 Tbsp of Protein Powder

1 1/2 C of plain oats

I mix all of the ingredients (in a pot) before adding the oats, because it makes it a little easier.  Then add the oats.  Put on med-high heat for 13-15 minutes.  Let cool and enjoy.  I make it right when I get home from the gym and the kids love to help me out!  Then we add raisins and "sprinkles" (Pampered Chef Vanilla Sugar I think).  SD has actually started asking for this in the morning with is nothing short of amazing, considering she would barely touch it when I first served it.  Linus can eat up to two bowls, he is going to be a linebacker!  This recipe makes 4 servings, but we usually finish it off in a morning :)

Glasses

 

 

Boo!

 

 

 

 

Duck boy

Frog Girl

Sweet Moments

I know, I said I would blog and I didn't! I really want to get back on it, but just haven't found the time. One of the reasons that I started this blog is because I wanted to document things that my family was doing and going through. I post periodically on Facebook, and that has kind of taken place of my blog, but you can't take your status updates and make them into a book like you can your blog entries. Not only that, but I use these entries when I scrapbook and my memory is definitely fading with age, which by the way, I will be a year older this week! Yikes! How did that happen?

So, here are some sweet moments lately in my life.

SD is hilarious really! As I was explaining this story to a friend, she commented that SD had such awe and amazement with everything, which I think perfectly describes her. If you have ever heard her talk, she has a very sing-songy voice that is quite cute! Last night I was putting her to bed, she is sick by the way, and I lifted her up into bed. I don't remember (see what age does) exactly our conversation, but in the context of it, I told her that God had fearfully and wonderfully made her and that He thought she was pretty special. She looked at me with big doe eyes and said with such enthusiasm, "He did! Wow!" It was such a sweet moment and a total God-stop moment for me. It was awesome to put Him in the midst of our everyday conversation, just like instructed in Deuteronomy 6:6-8

Linus has also come into his personality, just like his Daddy, only a little more stubborn, hopefully it is just the age. If you ask him to do something that he doesn't want to do, he just goes and puts his forehead against a wall or piece of furniture and pretends not to see you or hear you. Lucky for him, his mama is more stubborn than a mule! No comments on that please! But, he is a momma's boy and cute as all get out! He has now learned about giving kisses and when you ask for one, he sticks his lips out like a duck and waddles to you! It makes us all laugh, and makes it really hard to stay mad at him.

Well, that is all for now! Hope you are enjoying your day!

Hospital Visits

Both of our kids have had to go to the hospital in their young little lives. SD has gone twice, and Linus once. On all three occasions, we have had GREAT experiences.

SD had to go the first time because she fell off the changing table. The hospital was great and the ER doctor that saw us, personally called us to check on her later in the day! What great service!

The second time SD had to go, was to get tubes put in her ears. The hardest part was not being able to feed her and her signing to ask for milk. The ENT and hospital were great and they gave her a little stuffed elephant at the end of it. And the miniature hospital gown was adorable!

Linus had to go for the first time yesterday. He had to have some x-rays done of his chest, just to make sure. The Radiology Tech was awesome, great with kids and very patient. Linus did a great job and the radiology student gave him a little race car when we were done.

I know people have had bad experiences with hospitals, but all in all, we have been very blessed!

Poo in the Tub

Okay, so I have experienced this 3 times in the past week!! Really, it had only happened once before when SD was a baby. It is so awful and what do you do? So, here are my three scenarios...

Poo #1 - I had gotten Linus out of the tub and let SD stay in there and play for a little while. Since their bathroom is in between their rooms, I can dress one while the other ones plays in the tub. So, I was getting Linus dressed and set him down and went back in to get SD. She was standing in the tub, leaning over the side looking at the water drip on the floor. I went to grab her and that is when I saw it, she had gone in the tub! REALLY! The child has been potty-trained for months now! Not to mention she had just gone potty before we got IN the bath! Thankfully she was not playing with it, or even in the water for that matter!

Poo #2 - The very next night, the kids were once again taking a bath and I had finished bathing them, so they were just sitting there playing. All of a sudden Linus started making that face, you know the one I am talking about. So, I grabbed him out of the tub when I realized what he was doing. My plan was to whisk him into his room and throw a diaper on him before he actually performed the deed. But no, not so much. As I lifted him out of the tub, out it came onto the floor! Yuck!!!!

Poo #3 - Once again, the very next night, Linus did it all over again.

Really, can I catch a break?

Is he Italian?

Linus has started eating finger foods, which is really nice because there is not as much prep work that goes into his meals anymore. SD had some leftover spaghetti from her lunch date with Nana, so I heated it up for him.

Needless to say he liked it! Thankfully he didn't have on any clothes to ruin. When he finished eating, he went straight to the bathtub. I had to change the water because there were spices and noodle pieces floating in it!
Maybe we should have hosed him off outside first. While I was bathing him, BG cleaned up the kitchen, we are still working on getting the spaghetti sauce stain off the highchair.

Just a Scootin'

Before Linus could crawl, he would push backwards a lot. One morning, I had him in our room while I jumped in the shower. When I got out, he had pushed himself under our bed. He was just happy as a clam and so proud of himself for moving so far! Of course, I had to take a picture before I rescued him.

But, even after I did get him out, he scooted himself right back under the bed!

A Glimpse into Our life

I have been really bad at blogging lately, I have a lot going on! Anyway, here are some of the things that have been happening:

On Monday, we registered SD for pre-school! I can't believe that she is going to be in "school" in the Fall. It is a great pre-school at a church down the street from our house and I am really excited about her going. I took her with me to register (BG and I had already toured) and they walked us around so that she could look at the classroom. She walked right in! She actually didn't want to leave and I didn't want to use my usual tactic of "Mommy is leaving" because I want her to like being there. Needless to say, I don't think she is going to have trouble going, I on the other hand will probably be a basket case!

Linus is getting big fast, 9 months old, still no teeth, 20 pounds and not yet mobile but he is trying! He also just learned to wave Bye-Bye the other day and is so proud when he does it.

SD is so funny these days! We were talking about her Sunday School Lesson the other day and I was so excited that she got it! Then she uttered, "Silly God, Silly Jesus" It was too cute!

A Chopper for Linus

As you know, SD has a Barbie Jeep! Well, the god of motorized children's toys is smiling on us, once again. Last night, BG had to run to Home Depot to get a part to continue fixing our sink, and on the way home, he went through the neighborhood, instead of the main streets. When he got home, he told me to come out and look in his truck. Low and behold, there was a Motorcycle! Someone had put it out for their trash, and one man's trash is going to be a little boy's treasure! It is in great condition, better than the Barbie Jeep and even had the charger in the saddle bag! BG charged it overnight and was going to see if it works later today. If not, hopefully it is just a new battery or something that BG can fix! I can already see the fun and craziness in our backyard next summer when the kids are playing with them!

Sometimes you just have to laugh

So yesterday I took a personal day to recover from my scrapbook retreat! I was so glad I did because it is always hard to jump right back into the swing of things after being gone. And I hate coming back on Sunday night feeling rushed. So anyway, I had scheduled an appointment for Linus to get his monthly picture taken. First, we were running late because Linus was still sleeping, so I called to move it an hour. They said no big deal because there was no one scheduled yesterday until 4, so to take my time. So we get there and for some reason we still had to wait. So I got busy changing the kids clothes and all of a sudden I look over and SD was doing a little dance. Mind you I had already asked her no less than 5 times if she needed to go potty. So then she yells out, Mommy I need to go potty, then proceeds to squat and start peeing on the floor. Yes, she peed on the floor of the Picture People. I kept telling her to stop, and threw all of our garb on the stroller, grabbed Linus and scooped her. She stopped, a little, and finished when we got to the bathroom. Thankfully, I had already changed her into her dress, so she didn't get any on her clothes, only their floor! So, our pictures were delayed, again, while the nice lady in the store mopped it up, I had offered, but evidently they are prepared for this sort of thing. So then we finally get the pictures taken, not easy since Linus was crabby and SD did not want to smile. It takes them 15 minutes or so to pull them up so we went out to watch the fountain and to finish feeding Linus. As SD was over near the fountain, she yells out again, Mommy I need to go poop, while she is starting to crouch over. You have never seen a lady with two small kids move so fast! Thankfully my weekend away left me refreshed and missing my sweet children or else, I might not have laughed. I probably would have been crying! But really, what else can you do in a situation like that!

#2 is Mobile

Okay, not yet, but it is coming and coming much faster than I would like. Linus is already starting to try and do the army crawl. SD did not crawl until she was 9 months old, and Linus is not even 8 months old yet! I am sure it will take him a while, but the second one being mobile is a much bigger deal than the first.

When it was just SD it was no big deal, we put the little outlet covers in and really anything she could get to was okay for her to play with. Now we have a 2 1/2 year old who has toys that are not fit for a baby. Not to mention that she loves to share, which also includes giving her little brother choking hazards! I am going to really have to go through stuff and make sure it is Linus-safe because you just can't watch them ALL the time!

Any advice would be welcomed!

Bath Time Funnies

Last night I was giving the kids a bath, thankfully since they are still little, I can bathe them together. Here is just a little glimpse into our life, kids are funny!

Linus - I am used to giving girls a bath, and evidently boys are very different, even at the ripe age of 7 months. This is how our bath process goes..I turn on the water and as it warms up, I get Linus undressed. Then I put him in his bath sling and start helping SD, who has already started to disrobe on her own. So as I am helping SD, I look over and what is Linus doing, well he is making sure his manhood is intact, just in case some crazy monster came and stole it from him since the last time he checked. And what caused him to notice his manhood, well peeing of course! I guess the self-made water feature caused him to be very entertained by its source!

SD - While I dress Linus, SD gets to play some more, or as she calls it swimming! I glance over and she has her head on Linus' bath sling and is just relaxing, I can see it now, she will do what every normal Texas girl does in college, spend most of her afternoons on a raft at some apartment complex pool! So, I get her out and in to her room to get her dressed, and well, she is 2, so she wants to do it herself. It almost made me pee my pants watching her try and pull up her panties when her little two year old rear end is still damp from the bath! I had to hide my smile because she was very proud of herself, never mind if I had left her panties as is, it would look like she had some sort of padding back there, because they were all rolled up and that can't be comfortable!

This is like Rocks

That is what BG said as I walked out from giving SD a shower. He was talking about the cereal that he had just made for Linus, and tried to feed him. He asked where the powder stuff that we had given SD was.

Let me explain, he was talking about rice cereal for babies. I have made all of the baby food for our kids, which I started with SD. But the rice cereal seemed too complicated and since a box was not that expensive and they didn't eat it that long, I just used that. Well, when Linus came along, I already knew how to do all of the other food, so to make it interesting, I thought I would try out the cereal to see if I could. So, I went to Sprouts and got some brown rice kernels. Then I took it home and ground it all up into little pieces and stored it in jars. BG unfortunately thought that it was just like the box stuff, and you just mix it with water. But no, you actually have to cook it! I had cooked some earlier in that day and it was in the fridge, and that is what I was referring to when I asked him to give Linus cereal! Oh well, you live and learn!

It did give us a good laugh though.

Obligatory Santa Pic

We have learned that going during the week, at night, is a great time to see Santa! We only waited about 20 minutes and after the pic we had dinner at the mall. It is a great date night for the whole family and a refreshing change in our routine. SD was all sorts of excited leading up to the event..and then, not so much. Linus of course had no idea what was going on! I love the picture because although they are not both smiling, or even looking at the camera, but it captures their experience with Santa at this time in their life.

Just for fun and comparison's sake, here is the Santa pic from last year too!

One thing, I totally don't get, is the dressed to the hilt to see Santa. While waiting in line, some people came up behind us, and I am not lying when I tell you that the 5 year old little girl not only had on a party dress, that I am pretty sure had a petticoat underneath it, but her hair was curled and piled on top of her head making a beautiful backdrop for her tiara!

Little Linus

Well, our little chunker is growing up! He is already on a 4 hour schedule and we just dropped his late night feeding (9:30). I was really feeling like he was ready and so I looked back to see when we dropped it for SD, it was almost at 6 months old. I remember my friend Lindsay telling me that she was ready and when I told her this time, she reminded me that we had taken a really long time to drop it for SD. Linus is a lot bigger than SD was at his age, actually, she was about the same size around 6 months or so! Anyway, he did great and has for the past couple of nights. Every once in a while he wakes up around 5 and talks, but we have gotten him to go back to sleep and hold him off until 6:30 or 7. The cool thing is, my nights feel like they have been given back to me! I don't have to wait up to feed him, I can actually go to bed before 9 if I want! It also means that I can have a glass of wine with dinner (as long as it is after he eats) and I don't have to worry about it. I can't believe that he is already getting so big, he is just a week away from being 4 months old! I am hoping that we will be starting cereal soon, I think he will like it!

Running with an Audience

This morning we went out for a 5 miler. I probably should have done 6 since I missed last week and need to do seven next week, but it was all I could do to get my hiney out the door! Since Hurricane Ike's rains and winds were going to hit the metroplex, we got going pretty early. Thankfully, we made it home before it started raining too badly, we just got sprinkled on a little. The good thing is that it wasn't hot and the rain really cooled me off. The bad news is the wind was pretty strong. BG didn't go with me and that made it much harder, I really enjoy his company and the ability to trade off who is pushing the stroller.

Anyway, I took the kids, although SD through a fit at first, about what I am not really sure, she really enjoyed it once she got in the stroller. She chatted like normal and was cracking me up. At one point, we ran by a house that had been "papered" or as some people call it, TP'ed. She was kind of confused as to what it was, but in the end decided that they were noodles hanging from the trees! Then, when it started to rain, I used a blanket to cover the kids more, SD thought that was so much fun and told me it was a flag! She made it a little difficult to keep them dry because she kept playing with it. Then she said "I got wet Mommy!" well yeah, you kept moving the blanket! Linus, he just relaxed and enjoyed the ride, talked a little and slept a little!

I am glad that I went for my run, but man am I tired today! Running long runs is a lot harder when you have two little ones that still need lots of attention!

Linus Update

We have switched Linus to a 4 hour feeding schedule and so far it is really working. He was sleeping through the night and then started waking up again. I think it was because I was waking him up at 9:30 to feed him and I think it was disrupting him. I tried it on Tuesday when I worked from home, and he did really well. Tuesday night, he slept from 8-5!!! Then my MIL was with the kids yesterday and she said he did a great job. We upped his ounces from 5 to 6, but reduced the number of bottles he gets. Of course, I am not sure how much he gets when he nurses, but I don't think he is lacking in food! He has moved to a longer schedule before SD did, but I think it is because he is so much bigger! We will see how he does today, but I have high hopes already!!

I can't believe that he is almost 3 months old! He is getting so big and a lot more interactive. SD of course has really taken to her role as big sister and tells everyone that she is a big sister. I love seeing her love on her brother, it just doesn't get much better than that. I know that she is very anxious for him to be old enough to play with her, she repeatedly brings him toys to play with and is very good about sharing, I just hope it will continue.

Tomorrow I am leaving them for the first time overnight, well at least Linus for the first time. My baby sister is graduating from college and I am going to see the event. Thankfully, I got a flight for pretty reasonably and don't have to drive the 5 hours to Texas Tech!