Before I Forget

1.  How a 4 yr old views the world:
Mr. A: "Mom, when will you be home?"
Me: "In about 5  minutes.  I went to see the dr. today so he could check on the baby."
Mr. A: "Oh, Mom.  That's great!  Which sticker did the dr give you??!  Spiderman or Dora?"

2. Miss M likes to take off her pajama pants after she's been put to bed and falls asleep in her crib pants-less.  Good thing we check on our kids before retiring for the evening.

3.  While running around the house the other day I asked Mr. A what he was doing.  Came his reply: "Mom, I'm just running errands." 

4.  My Miss M is as mischievous as they come (and probably deserving of her very own mischievous post).  Unlike her brother, Miss M delights in stealth trouble...getting into my makeup and putting it on her eyes, drawing on everything possible (my house is her canvas - walls, furniture, windows, cupboards, you name it) with crayons and the occasional stray marker that she finds, carrying her name stool over to our dresser so that she can reach my jewelry box and take out every piece of jewelry and scatter it on the floor.  And today's lovely mischief: closing herself in the bathroom, unrolling all of the toilet paper, putting it in the toilet to wet it, and then removing it from the toilet and plastering it like beautiful paisley wallpaper all over the bathroom wall.  She is a true delight, but she is an independent, feisty, opinionated, high-energy, antagonizing, mischievous little girl.  I have no idea where she gets it from.

Dear Friends

I have been blessed with wonderful friends throughout my life.  I really feel so lucky.  I have one friend, however, whom I have known since we were 5 years old.  This might be normal for some, but since I never lived anywhere longer than 3 years growing up, I had to make new friends quite often and work to keep in touch with others.  Many I lost touch with, but this one I did not.  Almost 29 years later and we only ever lived in the same city for 5 of those years (once in California and once in college).  Pretty amazing and pretty stinkin' lucky on my part.  Love you, Darce. 

Miss M's Big 2

Miss M now has 2 whole years under her belt.  More to come later, but here she is yesterday getting ready to start her festivities and telling us she's two.  Love her.

Fighting the Bad Guys

There's a good pre-summer lightning and thunder show raging outside.  Rumble.  Rumble.  Craaash!

In preparation for the storm, Mr. A decided he needed to fight the bad guys tonight.  The weapons: light sabers (aka unsharpened pencils).  The venue: in front of his mirror.  His assistant: his 7 months pregnant mother sitting on the side of his bed (because standing to fight the bad guys just isn't as easy as it used to be) with her two light sabers as well.

"Mom, sing me my song, while I fight the bad guys."

"What song do you want tonight?"

"Freckles."

I proceed to sing Freckles, the same sweet tune that my Grandpa Barlow sang to my mom and me, that my mom and dad sang to me, and that my Mr. A now loves and has taught to his dad.

I finish the song.  "Ok, Mom.  The bad guys are all gone."

Rumble.  Rumble.  Craaash!  Goodbye, bad guys.  We gotcha!

Mother's Day

I love my babies.  I love being their mother.  I loved my Mother's Day cake with the most delicious frosting from my favorite bakery.  I loved the black raspberry Handel's ice cream that I ate with the cake.  I loved that they went to sleep after this picture...and so did I.  I loved that my sweet husband let me sleep for a long long time while he made his super burgers...which I love.  I love that he took a picture without my double chin (there aren't that many of them these days).  I love that I got to share the day with my own great mother, my sister, Nancy, and the 2nd mother to us all - Lola Fely (those pictures didn't turn out so cute - sorry).  Thanks to all of you for a great day.  Love you!

Whatever

Mr. A has a new favorite phrase - "Whatever, Mom."  He likes to use it when I ask him to do things such as picking up the pillows he's built into a fort on the floor.  He replies with "Sure, whatever, Mom."  Smiles.  And then watches for my reaction. 

Tonight he even followed it with, "I'm not whatevering you, Mom."

I have decided that I will not react or respond to this phase (or phrase), and am hoping that's the right course of action instead of correcting him everytime.  All you super-parents: am I doing the right thing??  Opinions welcome.

PS - on Saturday night, he used "whatever" in his prayers.  it went something like this, "Dear Heavenly Father, whatever."  again, i said nothing, but couldn't believe it had seeped into the prayer vocab!  who teaches him these things??!!

Papa Came to Town

And this was the thanks he got...

Mr. A needed a little cheering up after his surgery and Papa happened to just be a few hours "down the road."  He popped up for the weekend and we're so glad he did (although looking at the pictures we're not sure he'll come back)!  He helped us find a new, even better patio set, sell our old, very much broken one, make his yummy pancakes, and even trimmed a few trees.  Thanks, Papa! 

The Circus

Mr. A is a trooper.  Dr. Joe pulled the ear fluid out (that he told us was the consistency of Elmer's Glue..nice), removed the tonsils (although we began to really wonder when Mr. A was asking us to eat things like pretzels and cereal on Day 2 - that's changed, though), and tossed the adenoids.  Mr. A wanted to swing on the swings on Day 1 (not allowed), run around like a crazy person on Day 2 (Loritab makes you sleepy?  Says who?), and crashed big time on Days 3, 4, and 5.  I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and it did.  The popsicles, ice cream, and water ice novelty only lasted so long.  This morning he asked for a banana muffin and string cheese at 6:15 am.  His eating's been erratic (with sores like his in his mouth, I guess mine would be too), and his nighttime sleeping even more so.  I wasn't quite prepared for him to spend many a night in our bed (while we were lucky to have so much as a cheek still on the bed - in case you're wondering, we usually have a very strict 'no children allowed' policy in our bed...it's brutal) and waking up so often, but that throat hurts.  Poor guy! 

I will say, however, that the decibel level in our home has decreased significantly and I couldn't be more pleased.  He hears beautifully and even gets annoyed and covers his ears when Miss M launches into one of her high pitched squeals, screaming, "Miss M!!  That hurts my ears!!!" 

But, that was just part 1 of our circus last week.  My poor (or lucky, depending on how you look at it) sister and her husband got "stuck" on their vacation in Europe because of the Icelandic volcano.  Their child coverage had to leave 5 days before they were going to be able to make it home.  So, we popped over and picked up Baby David to do a trial run on having 3 children at our house.  It was nutso!  Mr. A needed his juice, soft foods, restraints, etc.  Miss M needed her mouse, mouse, her Nemo, her sippy, or her snack at any given moment, and poor Baby David needed to be held and loved and fed (and wasn't so keen on the sleeping part).  Even Miss M couldn't entertain Baby D all the time, even though she tried and was actually pretty good with him (giving me a little hope). 

We had 3 adults in the house and were shocked to find that we couldn't always keep up.  Sleep was scarce, needs were constant, and survival was our mode. 

However, I learned a very valuable lesson: if I ever tell anyone reading this that I think I'd like to have 2 children 14 months apart - please send me straight to a hotel by myself and far away from my husband and tell me that that is a very bad idea.  I cannot even imagine what asylum I might have to be committed to! :)  Ok, so maybe it wouldn't be THAT bad (I know there are many who have done it and lived to tell the survival stories), but if at all possible to avoid...I'd like to do that.

On Friday, Baby D left our house and we miss his contagious smile and ginormous baby blue eyes!  But, his mommy missed him even more!  DH's dad came to town for a much welcome visit complete with homemade pancakes (his specialty).  We worked to restore order to the Big Tent again (is that possible?), and now we just need to get Mr. A sleeping through the night (scabs on throat, be gone with you!).  All in due time. 

Say a Little Prayer

Mr. A is getting his little body fixed already.  He needs tubes in his ears to clear the junk that causes him to say "what?" and "huh?" more than most normal 4-year-olds (and caused him to completely bomb his hearing test at his 4 yr check-up), he needs his adenoids removed to help all that fluid drain, and he needs his very large tonsils removed so that the Darth Vader breathing can abate. 

Monday morning at 8:20.  Would you mind throwing up a little something to the heavens on his behalf (well, maybe mine and DH's too - we're a mess)?  Would sure appreciate it. 

On a good note, our dear friend is performing the surgery.  Thanks, Dr. Joe, for taking my house calls and random questions at 9 pm on a Monday evening.  We'll be praying for you, too! :)

Happy Easter 2010

I wish I could say that I had something better.  This is it, folks.  Best of the best.  No music was involved in this picture-taking exercise, but you wouldn't know it from these poses.  So, I went with it.  Happy Easter all the same! (And, Mr. A, I'm sorry I forgot your belt.  I wish I'd known you would strike a pose that would remind me of it every single time.  My bad, but you're still one handsome 4 yr old!)