State of the Family #14

When I started off these SOF's I figured they would be in between other random posts that I made up time in my head that I had to type. . . now it seems I struggle just to get these in here for the preservation of my memories. I am finding this will be a good thing to have in the future as I struggle to remember just what we did over a week!

Miss Thumbsucker's sleeping habits have once again declined. . . but that is enough whining about that. I am sure you all get tired of hearing about my lack of sleep. She is now determined to figure out this mobility stuff. She wants to crawl and stand up so badly. She will lean over on her hands from sitting up and get to her knees, but that is about it. When she tries to go anywhere it usually ends in a nose dive and belly flop. Which her belly is still her least favorite place to be. It is quite comical to watch her in the process of trying though. She also really wants to be able to stand up next to something. If she gets your fingers, she can pull herself up, but hasn't quite got the strength to grab onto other things and get on her feet yet. Plus, if she did, she is still very wobbly and would probably fall over or smack her chin/face on the side of whatever she grabbed onto. She thinks whenever she is standing she is in her jumperoo and can just bounce. I guess she'll have to learn not to do that the hard way.

Miss Firecracker is totally into pretend play the last few weeks. Whenever she and her brother (or any other child) are playing, the scenario always starts off "I the mommy and you the baby." Or some other type of role assignments. She is usually the mommy though so that she can boss whoever she is playing with around. Every once and a while she will decide to be the baby so that they will wait on her hand and foot. She is ornery, but she isn't dumb. I tell you, this girl will be the end of me. I can't quite decide if she is going to be a princess girl or a tomboy at this point though. I really don't think she'll pick either. She is whichever the moment calls for. Princess factor: When getting ready to go to the fair last week, she made me get her a new pony tail holder because the one I had didn't match the bow that was going over the pony. Tomboy factor: She rocked the hay bale jumping at G'ma and G'pa's this weekend along with riding the horse that she refused to get off!

Noisy Man had a blast this last week while cousins Caleb and Lane were in town for the Gage Co Fair. There were cows and pigs and horses and carnival rides and ice cream and swimming and hay bale jumping and horse riding and doing chores with G'pa and daddy and so much more his head is probably still swimming! Speaking of swimming, this kid is going to give me a heart attack. Three days in a row this kid has had 3 different lifeguards on the edge of the pool or lifeguard stand, ready to jump in and get him. Until they see how calm mom is about it and wait just a second more before they actually jump. OK, so I shouldn't be calm about it, but when it happens almost every time we are in a pool and it doesn't bother him at all. . . I don't have too much to worry about when I know I (or someone) can reach him fairly quickly. It really does him a little good to be scared by it just a touch. Now if only he WOULD be scared by it. Lets see, Monday he jumped off the tot dock in the YMCA pool when the swim teacher was out swimming with his sister. I had to yell at her to go grab him. Tuesday, he tried to jump into his swim ring while it was in the water rather than wearing it while jumping in, and missed the ring. I was about 10 ft away so it took me a few strides in 4 ft water with Miss Thumbsucker on my hip to get to him. And Wednesday, he flipped the tot dock over while the swim teacher was once again helping his sister. This is why we are in swim lessons. The kid HAS to learn how to swim before he kills one of us!

Daddy had flashbacks to his very hot fair days this last week when G'pa started talking about Noisy Man showing lead line horses next year. But he had a blast riding the rides with his kids on the midway. . . once again, still a kid at heart when it comes to carnival rides. He has also surprised the heck out of me waking up 2 nights in a row to Miss Thumbsucker's crying and actually going to settle her down for me. It was a very nice surprise!

I have been trying to catch up on housework and laundry all week from being gone so much for the fair and other family activities since everyone from the VW clan was around this weekend. I still have a ways to go. I also majorly slacked in the workout dept. so I am trying to catch up there as well. I am TOTALLY loving my new Nike + system for my ipod though. It rocks! I have successfully upped my running pace to a 10 min mile though! This is up to a 5 mile run, so we'll have to see if I can keep that pace up for a 10K I am thinking of doing next weekend. I haven't done a 10K since the beginning of June so I am excited to get into it again.

Here are some pics from the fair!

State of the Family #13

Another 11 day break from the blog. . . maybe I am not quite up to this blogging stuff. . . or maybe I have 3 small children and don't often have time to sit and type! Especially in the summer when we are outside most of the time. Catch me this winter when I am stuck indoors with screaming children all the time!

Miss Thumb Sucker continues to do decent on her sleeping. She is pretty consistently sleeping until 5 or 6 am! Except for last night when she was up at 115 and 445, but she must have known I was going to blog today and wanted to give me something to complain about! ;) She also has another tooth! #2 broke through this last weekend but didn't seem to give her quite as much trouble as that first one. She is determined to figure out how to get to things out of her reach lately. Watch out world, she will be crawling soon! For now, she tries to scoot around on her butt and reach for things. Most of the time she reaches too far and ends up falling flat on her face, then in true infant fashion, tries to 'crawl' to the item, but as she is just learning usually ends up pushing herself backwards with her arms instead of pushing forwards with her legs. Then she gets mad cuz she is even farther away from the item she wanted in the first place. Either that or she reaches with all her might and falls smack into a table, doorway or some other piece of furniture and has to be rescued. Poor thing has a few battle bruises on her little forehead. Maybe one of these days mommy will remember her tendency to do this and sit her down far enough away from these things so she doesn't hit them when she falls!

Miss Firecracker is cracking me up. Her vocabulary never ceases to amaze me. And so often it all comes in complete sentences. For example she just told me, while lion and bear hunting this morning with 'clubs' (aka plastic bowling pins) that, "Mommy! There are lions all over the place!" Not just all over, all over the place! I need to keep a piece of paper and a pen in my back pocket to write these things down because I can't ever remember what she said an hour after she says it. Yesterday, I do remember that when I first walked into my dad's house to pick her and her brother up, the first thing she said to me was "Mommy, I didn't do anything naughty!" To which grandpa replied, "Not very many things anyway." She also uses words like actually, probably and not quite! I could be in trouble with this one and stories to come!


Noisy Man needs some Ritalin lately! Holy buckets the kid has been wired the last week. It isn't like he has been eating much sugar either. His diet mainly consists of cucumbers and tomatoes with a side of corn on the cob, zucchini and squash. Is there some sort of natural caffeine in these foods that I don't know about. So, naturally he has been quite 'regular'!! (He'll love that I posted that statement 15 years from now!) And, of course, when he is hyper he needs his name changed to Super Noisy Man. I just about can't take it! While quite energetic lately, his behavior has improved due to the full incorporation of our quarter system. We were using one before, but the system just wasn't consistent or visible enough. So now we have decorated jars on our banister and they have to pay quarters for offenses to whomever the offense was given and get to receive quarters if they are helpful, good and remember their manners. It has really seemed to work smashingly with Noisy Man and is slowly catching on with Miss Firecracker. We'll see how it progresses!

Daddy doesn't really have much to update, except that he is itching to go fishing but the weather, working on our deck (that would be and update I guess) and other weekend activities have prohibited him from getting to go. As for the deck, the wonderful man has probably spent more that 50 hours working on refinishing it. A few years ago we put on a color-tinted water sealant. Within 6 months it started peeling off and looking worn. Now, if any of you know my husband, you know that these types of things do not fly with him. So, after a year of dealing with it, he had finally had enough and started the process of trying to fix it. First came the power washer. . . that didn't work so he tried a deck stripper and power washer combo, no luck. Then the poor guy ended up using a belt sander for the entire thing. He even took the entire railing off and sanded it completely off. This guy never does anything half way. I love and hate that about him! :) Then, thanks to our neighbors, we found a paint for the deck that has a lifetime warranty, so he will never have to spend any more time tearing apart his deck. (Hopefully!) It has a funny finish to it, almost like that stuff they put in for pick-up truck bed liners. We are almost done! It really looks great too, almost like composite decking.

I am in toy heaven! Been loving my new ipod touch and just picked up my Nike + system for it yesterday. I ran last night, but didn't have a little pocket thing to put the sensor in so I was too afraid to take it with me and lose it. I ordered a pocket today and will be checking the mail 4 times a day until it comes. I am contemplating running the Omaha 1/2 marathon with the same friend I ran 1/2 of the Lincoln 1/2 with, so the craziness might begin again. I am not sure if I will do the 5 am thing again or not, as the evening runs have been working pretty well for me. It is just a matter of getting my dog into good enough shape to get her up to the miles I really want to be running. My dear, sweet, protective hubby won't let me run by myself. The dog is a requirement.
Until the next time I can escape from my children. . .

State of the Family #12

A little behind. . . things have really not been that busy I have just been productive and other things and just haven't sat down to type! Now to try and remember 2 weeks worth of stuff, that could prove challenging!
Miss Thumb Sucker has been on a upward slide the last couple weeks which is fabulous for all involved. I decided to start letting her 'cry it out' at night and see how miserable it would be. To my surprise it was not bad at all. The first night she woke at 1230 and I let her cry. She didn't even really cry! It was more of an intermittent cry/whine type of thing. After 12 minutes she was back asleep. When she woke back up at 330 I decided not to push my luck and fed her. Then she slept for another 3 1/2 hours til 7 am! I gave her a week of not feeding her before 3 am then pushed it again and now I won't feed her until 5 am. The first night or two she would wake up 2 times before 5, but the last few nights she has only woken up once and both times she 'cried' for less than a minute! Hear the Hallelujah chorus in the background! Why didn't I do this sooner? She has also started this cheesy smile thing that cracks me up. She tips her head back, scrunches her nose and eyes and cheeses it up. I will have to try and get a picture of it, it is adorable! Her first 4th of July also surprised me. She wasn't phased at all by the noise and rather enjoyed watching all the lights.
Miss Firecracker got to experience her namesake for this 4th of July! She really enjoyed all of the fireworks and doing sparklers and all the sort. She claims she didn't like the noise, but for the most part it didn't seem to bother her much. She is proving to be quite the girly-girl/tomboy mix though. As she loves to keep up with her brother and is not afraid of getting the least bit dirty and playing with the boys, but she LOVED her festive pony tail holder I got for her for the 4th and wanted to wear it all weekend. She also insisted on having her toes painted after she realized her last 'pedi' job was wearing off. On a more concerning note, she has been to the dr. 2 times in the last 4 weeks for her ears, both to turn up with another ear infection. I pray we are not on the route back to another set of tubes. I am just hoping we can hold out long enough for her to outgrow it now that she is almost 2 1/2.
Noisy Man is a pyro at heart just like his father. He was all over the fireworks and firecrackers and would have totally been out there with a punk had we let him. He is going to be one of those boys that is going to have to be held with tight reigns over fireworks seasons in years to come or he will end up in the ER due to some experimental thing he tried with the explosive contraptions! I fear for my child, I tell you! Also to my sleep deprived amazement, after the late nights required by summer's hours, darkness and fireworks, my normally up by 645 am little boy has slept until almost 8 am (2 times even after 8) every day this week! (Again, insert Hallelujah chorus here). I just about don't know what to do with myself with all this sleep! Our garden has now started producing 'pickable' produce and Noisy Man is out there daily scoping out the hopefuls. He is not-so-patiently awaiting the 'reddening' of the tomatoes however, which I am afraid he might have another week or so to wait. He is loving the zucchini, squash and cucumbers. Get this! We went to a friend's birthday party the other night and the boy turned down ice cream cake to finish off the sauteed veggies we had brought from our garden! He is a gem I tell you!
Like I said, Noisy Man gets his pyro tendencies from his father. Daddy was like a 12-yr-old boy with the fireworks we had. Which really wasn't that many, but he was having a blast nonetheless. I was pretty much playing parent by myself while there were fireworks going on. Which is fine by me since fireworks really aren't my thing. Daddy has also been enjoying an evening out with friends every week for a while now to go shoot skeet at the gun club. Last week he didn't get home until after 11 pm (btw, if I had been out this late, I would have been in trouble!), but this week he was home by 915! I asked him if all the other guys got in trouble for the lateness of the week before and his reply was, "No, they forgot their beer this week, so they all went home." Too funny. No beer and guys won't stick around to chat and 'shoot' the breeze (sorry couldn't resist that one!). Thankfully, my man is not one for the stuff and would chat with you whenever! I am a lucky woman I tell you!
Like I said before. I don't know what to do with myself with all this sleep going on! I have only had to take a nap once this week. It is amazing how much you can get done during nap time when you don't have to sleep yourself to keep your sanity! I have steam cleaned my floors, caught up on laundry (yes, once again insert Hallelujah chorus), and kept the sink in my kitchen pretty much dish free all week! No small task for the mother of 3 small children and 2 other daycare kids 3 days a week! I have however caught myself up in a book and wasted a couple hours stuck in that. . . It is why I try not to pick them up in the first place. I am terrible at being able to put them down once I get into them. I LOVE to read and really miss the time to do it, but motherly duties call and I don't have enough self discipline to pick washing dishes and folding laundry over reading a great book. I also have that problem with my computer, but that is a subject for a therapy session I haven't been brave enough to schedule yet! ;) My other accomplishment this last week was the 5K I ran in West Point with a friend up there. I ran it in 27 minutes and 26 seconds!! That is just over a 9 minute mile if you didn't stop to do the math! I was thrilled! And that was in the rain to boot!
Here's to hoping next time I don't have to make up for 2 weeks and make this so long that no one has the time to read it!!