Oh no mouse!

Merry Christmas! We have spent a quiet day at home. Except for Alice upchucking all over me and the couch. Ah yes good times. She went back to bed and took a 2 hour nap before noon. This certainly makes us glad we did not travel.

We opened all our presents this morning and so far Daniel has shown the most excitement about his. I think Castlevania for the Wii is a hit. Daniel says he was trying to enjoy his presents. :-)

We are at least attempting a bit of a holiday by having homecooked meals. We had french toast for breakfast (too bad we ran out of syrup), taco salad for lunch, and we bought a pork roast to cook in the crockpot for dinner.

As for the title of this blog post...

Last night we were sitting on the couch watching a movie when Alice yells "Oh no mouse!" I wasn't sure I heard her correctly, so I asked "mouse?" and she replied "Yes. Look." Then grabs at Thomas (who was on the floor in front of the couch.

Eeeek!

Thomas had eaten a chocolate cookie and his face was coated. When you are barely 3, sometimes mouth is pronounced mouse.

Always playing catch up!

Its December!

Daniel has a week left of school. Yay!

Alice goes potty in the toilet...sometimes.

Its getting cold, but still no snow.

Thomas is walking quickly now. Not quite at running, but he is getting there.

I am knitting. Currently in progress, a red and blue KU inspired hat. If only I could find a button in the shape of a jayhawk. Also in progress. A crown for ALice. Its greens and browns so its totally a Wood Faerie crown. I only have 2 inches of it, so we will see if I get sick of it before I get the 18" or so done.

The spiffy fridge we got in a trade is almost clean of mold. I bought a hand steam cleaner thing to help finish it up. I still need to call and harass some ladies who are having babies this month to see if they want/need help from the ward. Pregnant ladies are hard to get hold of. Especially when the computer won't attach to a monitor...so calling back missed calls is hard to do. BUT! We got the replacement joiner thing, and its FIXED! Daniel doesn't know it already came because he is at work, and they had a team lunch so he spent his time cooking eggs on the griddle and talking instead of calling.

Oh and I have gotten ALice to expand her horizons in the world of food via a trick I read about. She gets her lunch in a mini muffin tin. Each hole gets something (a carrot stick, part of a sandwich, a slice of aple, etc). Today she ate everything except 2 pieces of cheese. That is a SHOCKER. The girl usually would choose cheese over most foods. I think peanut butter and honey was a much bigger hit than pb&blueberry butter or tuna sandwiches though. She actually ate ALL of the sandwich. I am glad about this because she has been begging less for treats (and eating less of them. Plus the fact that she is eating veggies without bribery is awesome! Carrot sticks or carrot coins are a hit. Celery isn't as popular, but she will eat it. And broccoli is always popular.

Daniel has a new-ish calling at church. He is the secretary of the Elder's Quorum. And he has officially been released from cub scouts. He pretty much rejoiced learning that.

Oops, catch up again

Everyone is sick! With varying degrees of illness. Nothing completely debilitating, but lots of fatigue, runny noses, etc. Daniel went in to work for a few yours yesterday and came back home. He has today apprived off, but he might go in for a little bot. He hasn't specified.

Thomas is starting to climb everything. He lept off the arm of the couch yesterday, unfortunately he can't fly. Head injuries bleed a lot. When We got him up we were sure if it was a bloody nose and smeared up, or a scraped eyebrow and smeared down. He is currently sporting a pirate look.

Relief Society did a service project making scarves and hats for the homeless shelter. I took home a LOT of fleece from that. I ended up with almost 3 dozen scarves at the end. And there were over a dozen made the night we met together, plus several other people took partly finished ones home to complete. It makes me feel good that we made so many.

In conjunction with the scarf project, I finally bought new bobbins. I kept having issues with crazy thread jams. And surprise! I was using the shorter (semi)universal bobbin and needed the taller one. Sewing with the proper equipment makes sewing so much nicer! The last dozen scarves went SUPER fast and ZERO jam ups.

We also got Netflix about a week ago. Netflix on demand is crazy. It has made borrowing movies from the library obsolete for us. Speaking of the library, the bill passed in the last election. We knew it would happen even though we voted against it. Whoever gets that construction contract is gonna be sitting pretty. $18 million dollars to add another floor to the library, make it more energy efficient and build a parking garage. Yes it will only be an addition of 2mills on the property taxes, but the loan they are taking for this is more than 10 times the state mandated limit (hence the vote). But, yeah our town really likes to vote in additional taxes for new/better public services.

Time to catch up...

- Thomas stands on his own for about 30 seconds to a minute at a time. ^-^

- Alice loves dresses. She hates pants. We need to get some knee high sock or something since its getting cooler. That and some more fall style dresses.

- I have been crazy busy with church stuff. Calling here, calling there, throw in some visiting teaching, etc.

- Daniel is going to be on call this weekend. O.O They are buying him minutes for his phone and he will get paid for an additional hour of work. He will get a call and have to be there within the hour. They are doing software testing or something.

- We are going to have the siding on the back of the house replaced. Siding and the gutters. We haven't got the price total yet, but I am expecting in the $2000 range. Maybe more if I decide we should replace the windows at the same time. Which would be nice. Just more $ for materials and labor.

No soup for you!

Alice is stingy. Like really stingy.

We popped pop corn this evening right around scripture time. I was holding it during scriptures. Both her and Thomas was swarming me, but she took pop corn out of his hand and pushed him away a few times.

Then she decided that he had broken her 'rules' too many times. (or perhaps I had)

She grabbed the bowl of pop corn and cuddled up to Daniel in the chair across the room. Every time he said to take the pop corn to me, she would grab a reasonable {tiny} piece and hand {throw} it to {at} me.

We thought maybe it was because Thomas was there. The next time she did it, I had Daniel grab Thomas. Well, I still was not allowed to have the pop corn.

Clearly 2 yrs 9 months is when you start holding grudges. High Five Alice for making us reference Seinfeld. Stingy good vibes for the pop corn thing though.

:-/

Cat, cat CAT! And colored string.

I am hosting a yarn co-op for a cloth diaper forum I belong to. If you are a string Luhvrrr and want to buy some Cestari yarn. Check out my order form here {I am a link click me}.

And...Alice finally figured out this is not a cat.

I have the doll partway assembled now, I just haven't take more pics yet.

She saw it and was Cat, Cat! Cat. CAT! CAT! (etc)
I finally let her have the doll because there are lots of pins and a needle in the rear and I knew a scuffle would have someone stabbed.
She lays it down in front of the TV then says...a baby? Awww, a baby. So the baby got bundled and shushed to sleep.

Our house is under an electrical curse

For real.

So the washer died and was replaced last week. The day we got the new washer the vacuum made a boom (ok it was a tiny boom since it was a vacuum) and gave up the ghost. So we shell out $ for a new one. (We got it yesterday and I am in love so far.)

Then today, while Daniel is on the desktop computer there is a crackapow! and the desktop starts smoking and won't turn on again. Its probably the power supply. But it might have also fried the memory.

I am so sick of spending $ on broken crap. I am trying to sew up a trade for an older desktop computer though. Thank goodness I have mad skillz.

I just sewed these for a trade and we are getting a crazy amount of crocheted play food in return.
And I found someone in search of froggy stuff, so I am going to be sewing her some more things similar to this: We haven't worked out the details like quantity, but it makes me glad I thought I would sew the family matching pajamas last winter for Christmas. Even though I soon realized that sitting on a harder chair to sew killed my pregnant hips. So yeah, we already have plenty of the fabric!

It's official!

The washer is dead.

It started making death noises in January. It now no longer spins out. Which explains why it seemed like sometimes we had to wash clothes several times to get them clean.

Daniel went to the store to buy disposable diapers. I hope we get the right sizes. And this means that the central AC will probably not be fixed this year. We are planning on getting a new set...and with the energy and water efficiency, it will pay for itself in a few years. But its still a big investment up front. Money sucks.

Let's hope Sunday is better. And I am sure FHE at the laundromat will be loads of fun. We have a non-spun out (and therefore not clean) load of diapers in there. Yuck. Cloth diapers are only ok when you dont' have to mess with the dirty ones.

Morning Activities!

We got up early this morning. Sort of. I needed the car, and Daniel went into work late.

Then we went visiting teaching. I noticed that the tire looked squatty. When we came out less than an hour later it looked worse. We immediately drove to the nearest gas station repair shop.

For $17 I got the screw removed and the tire patched. And for $2.66 I bought snacks to stop the kids from creaming. It took less than 20 minutes.

Then we came home and Alice ate watermelon...then stripped and pooped on the floor. I stuck her on the toilet then cleaned. Then I cleaned the rest of the living room and vacuumed. The vacuum sounded funny, so I emptied it and cleaned the completely white filters. They turned black once all the strange powdery stuff was washed off. ANd it stopped smelling like air freshener too. A major perk for those of sensitive nose...like me.

Then Alice turned a roll of TP into stair streamers...and sent it for a trip. Hooray.

She is dressed and the living room is mostly clean and Thomas is in need of a de-pooing of the diaper. Oh and I bought Daniel's textbook for school. And I found out if you buy videos from Amazon they now put them in a video on demand section in your account. Nifty! I did part of a yoga video I bought. Holy cow am I out of shape. My legs were tired in the first 4 minutes from the squats.

OK Alice is being mean to Thomas and he is really wanting changed, so toodles!

Dear Kansas

I know its August, but can we get out of a heat advisory already? When there was one posted Sunday to last until Wednesday at 9pm, I chuckled. When they announced Tuesday night that it was being extended until Friday I was not so jovial.

I look forward to balmy 70s at night!

Limited Phone

Our computer monitor went the way of all the earth this morning. Daniel tried to turn it on, and there was a light and then darkness. That is the computer I bought ages ago. About 8 years ago. And there has been someone as a student almost every semester since then.

Anyway, we are working on getting another monitor. And hoping for one of the free variety. Also, the battery on the laptop has drastically decreased its time it keeps a charge. So instead of a couple of hours of charge time, we get a little over half an hour. Sarcastic hooray.

Daniel starts classes next week. We should have things figured out by then.

Thomas crawled!

Well, first he stood up so he could try and get the toy above his bouncy chair. Then he crawled toward some toys on the floor. Daniel saw it first! (I was in the kitchen looking at the blueberry stuff.)

So yeah, 2 posts in one day! Our life is interesting in spurts.

Preserving Food!

Well, today isn't Saturday. Though it sure felt that way. Its a Tuesday.

Daniel took the day off of work and we got up early and went to the berry patch to pick blueberries. We picked a little more than 2.5lbs ourselves. But, I had wanted to try making blueberry butter (think apple butter but from blueberries) and that needed about 3lbs for a batch. So I bought a bag of the "We Pick" berries.

Yes, we bought $27 worth of blue fruit. And once I forced Alice to taste one, she didn't put any more in the bucket.

I currently have a 5 qt crockpot and a 6 cup crock pot filled with the makings of blueberry butter on the counter. I misinterpreted the directions and thought I should double the batch so it would fill the crockpot more. Um, it filled it all right. But there was no room left for the millions of cups of sugar. So I scooped some into the mini crock pot and called it good.

I also learned that 4oz jelly jars are 1/2c in volume. (Thanks Google!) So we will have a dozen of the 8oz jars and 2 dozen of the 4oz jars. Yes, slightly overboard. Guess I shouldn't have doubled the recipe.

And I bought a Blue Book from Ball, so I am thinking of all sorts of yummy things I will can! I took some pics...but I haven't taken them off the camera's memory card yet. I can't wait until the blue yumminess is done!

accuweather is a liar

I had Daniel open windows last night because it was 78 outside and supposed to get down to 72.

So why did I wake up at 3:30am? I felt stifling hot.

Our house is now 83 degrees and counting. It was cooler when we went to bed.

Outside? Yeah, its still 78. 'Real feel 82.' That is fine and dandy, but the house is now 4 degrees warmer than when we went to bed. So tell your lies Accuweather. I will still use your site for weather information. I am just up at 3:30am and sweaty because I trusted you.

Daniel's last day of summer class!

Is today! Yay!!!

He will be home in 10 hours. So I have plenty of time on my own to be driven mad by the kiddos.

On the to do list for today:
Get red nail polish out of the carpet. (I have a stack of things recommended by people on the internet.)
Wash diapers (The bins are PACKED!)
Vacuum the living room. Its not that bad, but that is where the nail polish is spilt. And a steam cleaner won't get nailpolish out, even if you clean it same day.
OK I am getting crawled on by Alice and thomas is cranky pants. So its food and then nap time.

Its 7 am

And the house is all awake. Thanks to Alice. And breakfast has been eaten.

Guess what I got....

A brand spankin new serger!

OK, so I have had it for a little while. But I haven't let myself play with it until this last weekend. You see I did a sewing trade for the serger. And man those things are exhilarating! Its like driving a really fast car on an empty road. Vroom!

I sewed a dozen of these bad boys. Itty bitty newborn diapers. The scissors arel ike 8 inches long for size comparison.




Of course, once I was done with some of them, I realized I had stuck the soakers in too low. But, the snap in soakers are in the right place.

So last night I whizzed through some flannel to make some baby wipes. Now that Thomas has started solids, we wipe faces and hands ALL the time. Most of them are smaller than I probably would use for bum wipes, but are good for face wipes.

The proud parent of...

My own Oompa Loompa!





And yes. Her hair is now 'strawberry' blonde.

The Heat Test Cometh

Sometime during the last week or perhaps more than a week ago our AC stopped working. So far we've had a fairly easy time of it, cause it hasn't been overly hot.

This upcoming week there are days where Accuweather.com is forecasting that it will feel like 111. The scary part is that some of those days are times when I without question need the car.

We'd decided that we were going to try holding out until after the summer to get it replaced cause it might be cheaper...

Does anyone know if it is cheaper? Maybe you should pray for Rebecca, she'll be a hot one!

Well today was worse than a Monday

Actually it didn't start out that bad. But by 5pm I was wearing thin. Here is a brief synopsis of the day.

While nursing Thomas I hear a noise that sounds like eggs hitting the tile floor. Unfortunately, I know what that sounds like. Leave Thomas and find Alice with about half a dozen eggs/egg shells on the kitchen floor and in a large bowl. Clearly she was cooking. Mop kitchen floor.

Decide to try and sew. Find out my bobbin is out of thread. Fill bobbin. Thomas wakes up screaming.

Attend to Thomas.

Come downstairs to find Alice with the empty pitcher that had held kool aid and 4 bowls of varying sizes with koolaid in them. Take the remainder of the kitchen towels out from under the sink and mop up the koolaid.

Find Alice unravelling some ribbon. Take it. Then see her unwinding a spool of thread. Twitch. Take the thread. Twitch. Lock off the computer/sewing room. Hear Thomas bellowing again (the boy had better have a tooth pop out sometime soon).

Change some diapers. Let Alice in the back yard. She picks 3 'bubbles' also called GREEN tomatoes to the English speaking world.

Try to ease my mental instability with the internet. Stop Alice from more destruction. Hold a screaming Thomas.

Take my mental pill. Wish Daniel were home. Finally beg Daniel to come home from class.

Then what happens after I am rescued from a certain demise?

The flipping cupboard holing all of our dishes crashes and falls. Yes, all of our plates, bowls and some cup are broken. Well, a few probably made it. Its not completely picked up yet. I am on child containment duty. Oh and when it fell, it landed on the george foreman grill and busted it. Who knows what else is broken. But Thomas fell asleep while I was typing this and Alice is locked in her room, so I should go help Daniel pick up broken glass.

We are going on vacation??

The title is really more of a wonderment than a definite. I don't know who Daniel talked to at church, or what he saw but out of nowhere he wanted to know how far away Nauvoo, IL is from us. (Its 5 hours 31 minutes FTR.)

So we might go up sometime in July. Like the weekend after Daniel's class is finished. As in the 30th and 31st because the class finished on the evening of the 29th. If we go, Daniel wants to go to all the shows he hasn't seen. Which might be hard to get tickets since its the last weekend. But, we have a month to get motivated enough to take a road trip and spend the night in a hotel.

As for other things...

Saturday we went to yard sales and found a Reel Mower! Wahoo! The back yard is mostly mowed. We did approx. 15 minute blocks of mowing since we have been under heat advisory. Reel mowers and too tall grass = LOTS of WORK!

We cooked up a bunch of meat and tried out several different grill seasonings. Pork and hamburger seasoning won hands down. Chicken seasoning was pretty disappointing. Steak was ok, but would have been better on steak (we used chicken and pork). I made up several lunches for Daniel and us home living folk for the week using the meat.

I also finished up cutting out my magnetic paper dolls for a stocking stuffer swap. Daniel helped a little when my hand started hurting. This project reminded me I am not a crafty person. I just don't enjoy getting an exacto knife out and cutting out detailed things. I still need to mod podge them and they go in the mail today. And I will be using a makeup sponge to apply mod podge. We don't have any of the craft sponge brushes. Oops.

I am sewing diapers for a lady in exchange for a serger! I finished cutting out almost all the fabric, but the solid color flannel I got pilled up pretty bad after going through the wash. So I have to run to the fabric store and find a print that coordinated with the print I already am using.

Oh, and the computer room has been emptied and is now my craft/sewing room. Its nice.

Plus today I do a huge mailing of the coop orders. (Yes I am running coops now. I like being busy.) I think I will have 8 packages going out today between the coop orders and the stocking stuffer swap. I think that is all I can think of at this time. Thomas is demanding attention. So I gotta attend to his needs.

Free Toddler for the taking!

I am sick of dealing with Alice today. She is just too good at figuring things out.

This week she learned how to open the fridge door. Yes I did vacuum up an entire POUND of shredded cheese from the just vacuumed living room floor. So I had Daniel stop at Walmrt on his way home from class yesterday to get a fridge lock It needs 24 hours to "cure" which means when she put her weight into it, she pulled the whole thing off this morning.

And she made scrambled eggs. All. over. the. carpet. Of course, she was kind enough to bring the bowl of what she didn't dump all over the living room carpet upstairs to me while I was feeding Thomas.

Did I mention that we just cleaned the carpet a million times in the living room because the house flooded? Well, now it needs cleaned again.

I put her down for a nap after Thomas had a complete meltdown (because she REFUSES to let him sleep...ever...never ever). She came out 30 minutes later after she took off the doorknob safety cover. Thomas had just fallen asleep. She woke him up by being loud. And she had no diaper.

I decided if she can take her diaper off, she can wear training pants. So I put a pair on her. As I pulled the pants in her, I smelled it. The rank odor that I knew was poo.

All.
Over.
Her.
Back.

Washcloths and scrubbing of the poo and stripping of the poopy clothes. Training pants pulled up. Daniel walks in just as I am washing my hands. He got to clean up her room. (except for the poo on the carpet that needs to be steam cleaned).

Fast forward to this evening. Daniel went to Cub Scouts (lucky guy) and I stuck her in the tub. Then I start nursing Thomas who was at that time SCREAMING at the top of his lungs because he was exhausted. And what happens just as he is falling asleep? I see her in the mirror holding the only lipstick I own. A frickking $20 one at that.

Put Thomas down, Thomas begins wailing. Try to grab lipstick, Alice hides under my bed. Finally get her out and see she is covered in lipstick. As is the carpet. The lipstick is destroyed and she is dirtier than when she got in the bath.

So I get several wash cloths and scrub her down, put a diaper and pajamas on her and stick her in bed. When I did this I made sure to fix her curtain so it was dark and put the doorknob lock back on.

I then returned to Thomas wailing. Only to step in a blob of lipstick on the carpet. Within 3 minutes of me starting to nurse him, she was in the hall again.

So Thomas will be up every frickking 2 hours all night...again...because he is too interested in the demon child to sleep in the day. Or the demon child finds a harmonica. Or a recorder. Or her lungs.

Its only Wednesday. I still have a million things to do today before I can get to things I WANT to do. I don't know if I am glad we have a carpet cleaner or pissed that every carpeted room in the house needs cleaned.

Its Broken! Words of Wisdom from a 2 Year old

It has been a week since my last post. I even took updated pictures of the garden. But, the SD card reader in the laptop is broken and the SD card reader in the ancient desktop also seems to not work. Plus we don't have the cable to attach the camera to the USB drives. So no garden pics. The green beans are getting tall and some are climbing the tomato plants as planned. With my luck tomatoes and beans will hate each other and neither will produce crops, but that is a story for another day.

The diapers we sent away for repairs came back Monday. The snap conversions are fine and all, but oh my the rainbow snaps she did are P.R.E.T.T.Y! I took a pic using the laptops built in camera. Yes, its a horrible dark picture, but I am sure you can see the prettiness that is on the diapers. Alice sees them and asks for a diaper change.

Half of them are rainbows without pink, one is just shades of purple, and the others are are rainbows with pinks. I admit, they are the first to get used. Like I might try to sell or trade my diapers for more white ones that have not been snap converted just to get some more rainbows. Nothing like a little pretty in the pants.

Alice also had her first toilet reading session yesterday. I caught her pooping in the corner and fetched the tiny toilet seat. She acted fine with just sitting on the toilet (once I got her to sit ON it and not step into it), but once I handed her the Hancock Fabric's mailer ad she was in heaven. Well, I guess. Either way, she sat there for a good 20 minutes before deciding to climb onto the sink and get things. She didn't poop any once she was on the toilet though. But hey, baby steps.

Let's see, I don't know if anything else has really happened. I somehow twisted my ankle so it hurts to sit cross legged. Thomas slept HORRIBLY last night. Namely he went to bed around midnight. Yeah, it was fun. Alice went to bed early though and has started sleeping really well. Daniel has things planned for every day this week (school, scouts, school, scouts pool party at the city pool, cannery). And since he is gone so much I clean. Well, I did until I somehow hurt my ankle yesterday. Its not like its hurt bad, just enough to convince myself i don't need to clean. I guess the only important thing left is that my birthday is in 9 days.

Guess what!

Our garden is growing! That is right, after not planting anything except the tomatoes, eggplants, and herbs I started from seed...we finally got things in the ground. On Memorial Day. Slightly late, but the week before that was pretty wet and chilly. Over the weekend I took pictures of the plants that are sprouting. With a little luck they will grow fruitful. The plants are much bigger now, but its rainy again and I have been dealing with a screaming crying Thomas all day and frankly I don't want to go take pictures. SO here they are (click on pics to see them better):

First are the cucumbers. We have lemon cukes and another kind (forgot the name, but its similar to an english cuke).


Next are the melons. These will be tiger melons - small orange and green striped watermelon type things. We also have a few other variety of hierloom melons including some cantelope/musk melon types.


Next are a few container plants. The left is wild strawberries. The right os cilantro and oregano.


And finally the plant I can grow like a pro...tomatoes. We have lots more plants. And they look lots better now (I had just pruned these). If you look closely you can see some geen grass like things in the corner...that is Onions! Grown from seed no less. Go me. And if you look close and use your imagination you can see the start of the Purple (green) pole bean plant at the base of a tomato plant. I am going to see of they will grow up the tomato plant supports. We have quite a few more that have grown since and some ate 8 inches tall now.


Other than that, Thomas has been teething and not sleeping well for the last week or so. We are both suffering. Alice things Hylands Teething Tablets taste good (I tried one they are not yummy). Thomas has his first cow milk...courtesy Alice and her sippy cup. Daniel's summer programming class starts tonight so I won't see him until 9ish pm. And I have started making things for Christmas. [I am in a stocking stuffer swap. I am making magnetic paper dolls.]

Hump Day

I have no reason for this post. Except that it's Wednesday.

And both kids are napping.

And I have all the clean laundry folded and put away. Except the ginormous pile of diapers on the bed that need stuffed and sorted into Alice only and Anyone diapers. (Though Daniel puts Thomas in pink diapers, so really I just need to sort out the sized diapers.)

We bought a grill this weekend. Its 'strange' according to Daniel. I think he says that for 2 reasons. One, its a smoker so it is one of those pod shaped grills. Two, its electric. We ate steak for dinner last night. It was ok. We need to delve into the world of rubs and steak seasonings. Supposedly I need to look for this stuff called "Pork Chop Seasoning." But, it was NO effort to cook the meat, and we cooked it all at once. To me that means, stinking awesome.

So the other strange thing, is that it has pan you can put in for steaming things. And it has lava rocks in the bottom. But hello, much cheaper than gas and much more even cooking and easier clean up than charcoal. We can grill, roast, smoke or steam. Its a multifunctional pod of glory. And its RED. What more can I say.

So that means the next thing we try cooking? Smoked turkey. That is right, we will smoke the whole bird. It will only take a week to thaw the sucker. Maybe it will happen by/for my birthday. How do we celebrate getting older? With meats.

Alice is growing out of 2T clothes all of a sudden. Half of her shirts are snug on her. Same with dresses. Thomas is filling out 9mo clothes with style. And he is almost 5 months old! Go him. I suppose at some point I will have to drag myself to yard sales to find some 3 T stuff for Alice.

I guess I should have titled this something to do with meat. Since that is all I talked about. Oh well. So long random rambling blog post.

Thomas had a milestone!

He sat up on his own. It was on our bed and he looked like he was going to fall over, but he stuck his arm out to prop himself up and locked his elbow.

And our house is unusually clean. At least parts of it are unusually clean. I have several completed meals in the freezer, and several parts of meals in there. I think these skillet meals will be freaking awesome. But they take forever to prep since everything needs frozen before you combine it all. I am going to cook some pasta today and see how long it takes to freeze it individually. Hopefully it freezes fast.

Food, fighting, and diaper fluff

So its been a while since I posted. Oops. Last weekend we went over to my cousin Synthia's apartment to celebrate graduation with her. Alice terrorized the cat and got to eat cake with frosting that turned her mouth blue. Thomas practiced graduating from KU.

I am currently cleaning the house so I can spend tomorrow cooking meals for the freezer. Most of them are just assemble and freeze meals. To make things easier. I would rather spend time waiting for things to freeze before throwing them in freezer bags than have the oven running all day. We aren't using the oven at all. I nixed pizza to avoid it.

The cleaning was slightly interrupted by the vacuum making noises like it was a dying animal. One that screams. I took it apart and found two 3" bolts in there. They were put in the machine through the tube where the vacuum bag goes on to collect dust. Thanks Alice.

Speaking of Alice. She has been hitting kids in nursery. Daniel or I will be joining her in nursery for a while. Lucky us. I don't really know what to do about it either. She has started being a terror at church anyway. People all say she is cute, but she drives me bonkers running up the aisles to the front of the chapel, climbing under seats, screaming. Daniel sat with her on his lap in the hall most of church. He got pretty sweaty holding her still. I just hope this is the terrible twos you hear about.

Also, I am going to be a co-op host. Scary right? Its a cloth diaper co-op and the person that was going to host had to have back surgery and won't be able to deal with stacks of packages. I want a couple of things, and no one else volunteered to host, so I am. It might be insane. BUt hey, if you want any cloth diapers, let me know. They are Kawaii Baby diapers. If you are local you can get an even better deal because you won't have to pay shipping to your house. I am still seeing if we can meet the 60 item minimum, but I don't think it will be a problem at all considering the previous interest on the forum where I am running it. And if we are lucky we won't get hit with customs fees. Oh, did I fail to mention its for an international shipment? Yeah. This might be tres complicated.

Fixed the photo links.

Garden!

Alice, Thomas and I just spent over an hour on the garden. First I turned the dirt in the garden box. Then I planted 5 or 6 plants in containers. We have 2 tomato container plants, 1 basil, 1 strawberry, 1 cilantro, and 1 something I don't remember.

Then I broke down some of the dirt clumps in the garden box and added 8 bags of organic compost/humus. Yum. Alice and I planted the rest of the tomato plants, the two eggplant plants and the 3 onion plants. She also lined up several of the plant starts up along the edge of the garden box.

Thomas watched from the bouncer.

We quit when he pitched a fit and Alice pooped her diaper. Then it was into the tub for Alice, onto the boob for Thomas, and taking a pile of pills for me. (I didn't forget! Go me!)

Thomas is now passed out, Alice is having naked booty time on my bed watching Castle in the Sky, and my back and shoulders are sore. Digging with a shovel uses muscles I am not used to.

Now I gotta go think of something to cook for dinner. We are taking dinner to a family that just had a baby.

Guess what!

We are going to be Vegetarian this month. We have already cheated. Its May 3rd. Go us.

The cheating is excusable. We had some things like lunch meat in the fridge that needed eaten. I took one for the team and had a ham sandwich for lunch.

Also, refried bean soft tacos on fresh cooked corn tortillas = delight.


This morning Alice and I cleared out the garden box. Its funny writing that because a few weeks ago we cleaned out the remains of last year's plants. Since then about 500 weeds have sprouted. That and maybe 30 volunteer tomato seedlings and one marigold.

I pulled 28 of the 30.

I have tomato plants I grew from seed that need to be planted (hence the cleaning of the box). And I think the strawberry seeds finally look like they are growing. Maybe.

Feeding a kid. Gotta go.

Look! 2 posts in one week!

Amazing, right?

So Thomas was super cranky Monday. Like screaming until he lost his voice and was all hoarse and sad sounding. Naturally Alice fed off that energy and was a bit of a terror.

Tuesday night Thomas pooped. When that happened we realized maybe he had been constipated. Not sure from what since they aren't supposed to be able to get constipated while breastfed. Maybe it was from the sugar in baby tylenol.

Wednesday morning he had another giant poo. Then slept most of the day.

This morning, I go to chane his second wet diaper of the morning and find out its also poopy. I bet he sleeps well today.

Now to wash the blankets he was on before I knew he was poopy. *sigh*

Just another Manic Monday

Well, I guess its not so manic around here. And now I have the song stuck in my head. Figures.

I decided last night that I am super sick of 80% of our diapers. Yes. Go me. Initially I was like, I will sell all the ones with velcro, then buy more. Until I realized that the majority of our diapers come with velcro. Yeah, it would not be easy to get by on 8 diapers for Alice until I buy new ones. Then I considered paying someone to convert my diapers to snaps. (I have done a few, but I just don't have the child free time that I am willing to dedicate to seam ripping velcro and marking and adding snaps. I have done it on several diapers, and they are great and we love them. But yeah. Not so enthusiastic about spending my free time putting snaps on poo catchers.

Instead of that, I have been working on some embroidery work. For a baby quilt, well technically 2. I am doing 2 squares. One for the baby boy quilt, one for the baby girl quilt. The little green panda I free hand embroidered is looking awesome. And I only had to pick out a few stitches. (I meant to trace a picture onto the fabric, but I forgot to buy a transfer pen when I was at Hobby Lobby, so I choose to free hand it.)

We went to Target on Saturday. They had a bunch of decorative baskets marked down to half price. I bought 4 for the diaper shelves. It helped motivate me to actually put the diapers up on the shelf again. The shelf is about 5,000 times better than a giant rubbermaid bin in our room.

Today I should be cleaning. Alice, Thomas and I all got nasty colds last week. ALice seems all better. Thomas and I have stopped sneezing and coughing. I am still congested, but its less than it was. The house though, has suffered from lack of routine tidying. Not that I feel any major motivation to clean. Motivation is easier to have when you expect visitors. But I would like to vacuum some today. Just to get the tiny pieces of crushed stuff (crackers? Chips? cheese? clearly I have no clue) off the floor.

My eyes hurt. I think I will take a nap if Alice will let me. Thomas is asleep in the crib in her room. I wish to be asleep also.

Things I am good at!

I was inspired to do something positive. Because of someone awesome. You should check her out.

I am an awesome cook. Baking, cooking, etc. I can follow a recipe to a T, and modify it if I desire without making a total flop.

I love helping and serving others. And I think I am good at doing it in non-obvious ways.

My thumb is so green, there is a plant growing in it. I have successfully started many plants from seed, and if I had the space I could have a garden 4 times the size of mine with all these plants.

I can clean like a whirling dervish. Dervish in, mess out!

I can read those instruction sheets that come in assemble it yourself boxes like a pro. It comes from all those years reading labs for chem class.

And yeah, I would say more, but I have children that demand more attention from this awesome mom. I guess I am good at being the most relied on one in the house.

Things I don't understand

Sometimes when Alice comes up to Thomas and screams, he giggles. Other times he cries. Its hard to get her to understand that screaming isn't nice when he giggles.

Alice acts like she feels better than she did over the weekend, yet her nose is running like crazy and she wants to lie down all the time.

How getting up at 6am can ever be desired.

Why my house is messier with only Alice around than with bunches of Daniel's family in town. Looks like she is the vortex of destruction.

Boo on you Bank of America

So we were considering refinancing our house to a 10 year loan. Then about 2 weeks ago they said...oh our bad you need to pay $400 to get your house appraised. We said, screw that and asked them to close the account. Fast forward to today and we get a notice in the mail that we were denied credit and could get free copies of our credit reports.

Daniel called Bank of America and they stated that we were denied because we were trying to increase our monthly payment by more than 20% of our current payment. He told them that we asked them to close the request, and the guy said he would email our mortgage broker.

I sent them a pissed email. I mean really. If there was no way we should have been able to get the mortgage, why did you mess with us for a month and make us get copies of our tax returns, bank balances, etc. Ugh.

I want to refinance to another lender just to screw them out of the interest they are currently getting from us. Jerk faces.

Even Daniel felt offended when he was on the phone, and he is the one that stays calm in these situations. We might have to refinance to make it so they don't get any more interest from us. Insulting.

Thomas is Famous!

Well, he has entered the world of Facebook. Not thanks to us or anything. Thomas and I went to a baby shower a couple of weekends ago. Thomas was the youngest baby there, and so he captured the eye of the photographer quite quickly. And ignore my un-ironed shirt. I had a baby 2 months ago and can't be expected to iron for at least 4 more months.

In other news...this week has been a lazy one. There are green things popping up from some bulbs I planted last year as well as the tulips. We had a bunch of crocus bloom that I didn't plant near the trees, but I had not seen before this year.

Alice has started climbing things, experiencing peril, and falling. It leads to bruises.

She has also been iffy on sleeping at night lately. Though last night it was only 15 minutes of silent return before she climbed in bed and slept. Though she hasn't been getting enough sleep and I sometimes want to strangle her and her tantrums. Two year olds are trials.

Oh and I was the speaker at our Relief Society Birthday Party...for all 4 wards in town. It was pretty intimidating. Plus I was the first part of the program. It was me, a musical number, then a short video. Yeah, when I found out the details I was a little scared. And I got a new calling. But it won't be official until Sunday. So there might be lots of objections. Teehee. If that happened I would laugh.

Welcome Spring!

And welcome snow. Oh yes, its a winter wonderland out there. We are supposed to get another 2.2 inches in the next 24 hours. Fun Times!

This week Daniel fixed Alice's dresser. I finished cleaning and organizing her room. And, she has started taking naps again. Ah the beauty of sticking someone in a crib and letting them cry until they fall asleep. Of course that means she thinks bedtime can be a nap and will wake up at 10pm ready to play with toys. *sigh* One step at a time.

Our room is almost completely pretty. I moved some things around ti give the seeds we planted a sunny window out of Alice's reach. Daniel has an entire drawer full of shorts. He wore shorts to work on Friday because he has so many pairs of them.

I cleaned behind the washer and dryer this week. The vent hose fell off when I was pulling out the dryer, so I cleaned that out as well. Two words. Grape skins. Nasty. But I vacuumed them all up and cleaned out the lint in there as well. I think I found about 20 tiny baby socks under there. Plus 5-10 pens under the dryer. I moved it back after I mopped and Alice immediately started putting some 'treasures' under the dryer including a pen. At least I know why I find these pack rat things.

I also sent through all my sewing fabric stuff and put a huge bag of it together to give away. Including that we have several boxes of stuff, a crib that has drop sides and needs bolts, a box of dishes, and all of our VHS tapes. I plan on adding the VCR and tape rewinder and getting rid of the whole thing. We never use it, and it takes up space. Plus if we don't have the VHS tapes we have more room for DVDs which I am currently into buying. A lot.

Thomas had his 2 month check up yesterday. He is more than 2 feet tall! And sticking with the 80th percentile for length. However his weight was only 12lbs 13oz. I know that my SSRI's have a side effect of decreasing milk production and if the babies stop gaining weight you have to adjust dosage. Lets hope this weight thing is a fluke and he will get back up into his weight curve at his 4 month appointment.

We moved a bunch of food storage upstairs and under Alice's bed. Today we will move the stuff from the computer room up. Then watch lots of movies. And be snowed in. That is the life of one that lives in flat states.

We got Spam!

Oh yes, its true. On our previous post some random 'bathroom sprayer' company left a spam message. I left it up. It makes me feel popular.

I have started spring cleaning. To the extent that I am purging our house. Our closets are more empty and organized. I almost have all the maternity clothes put away (I need to check the dresser one more time for any hiding t-shirts). I even cleaned the dishwasher a few days ago. Yes, the house is getting more clean/organized. Though the main living room has suffered. I have spent the better part of the week upstairs going through closets and dressers and Alice has had free reign of the living room. 'Tis the down side of only owning one TV. She has spent time upstairs as well, but she has had plenty of toy time in the living room with me not stopping her.

Some crocus bulbs I planted 2 years ago are up and blooming! They didn't really grow last year so I thought they were dead. Looks like i was wrong! Yay. Also, the tulips are poking their heads out of the leaves in the flower beds. I cleared the garden bed of all the remaining dead plants and a few (live) lettuce plants. I am moving the lettuce, so it had to go. We also started our seeds this week. We have 2 varieties of tomatoes, onions, eggplant, cilantro, basil, spearmint, wild strawberries and some other herbs. I am pretty excited for the wild strawberries. They are supposed to be perennials and I know they are somewhat shade tolerant since I have seen them growing in wooded parks in town.

As for Thomas, he is getting bigger and can now hold his head up for quite a while. He is still a champion sleeper which I appreciate. Alice thinks he is awesome, and sometimes I think he just cries out of fear of her shrieks rather than because she has hurt him. I am sure that will pass.

I am working on building up our food storage again. We are moving it from our computer room to Alice's room under her bed. That will give us more room downstairs, and use a space that currently just accumulates books, toys, and other junk she hoards.

I think that sums up the week. So long recently ignored blog.

March Madness!

Ok, so this isn't about basketball much to the chagrin of many Lawrence residents. But, is this blog ever about anything but us? Its a rare, rare, thing.

We ran out of bread this morning, so I am making rolls. While I was measuring away in the kitchen getting coated in flour, Alice was measuring cheese in the living room. Oh yes, all over the carpet.

You see, Alice has this problem. She is really bad at getting things out of the container. She just can't grab them and get them out very successfully.

So, she dumps.

No worries that its going to waste. I am letting her eat it. Perhaps, I should retitle this "Bad Parenting 101." I will vacuum after she starts throwing it around. Hopefully I notice before she puts a handful in the clean and folded diapers. Nothing makes things get unfolded like shaking out cheese.

Meanwhile, fat Thomas (who went through 4 diapers in an hour this morning) is passed out in his crib upstairs. Don't worry, he has his own share of messes. Namely a 3 wipe diaper change yesterday. It would have only been a 2 wipe poo, had he not decided he had more poo in him. Oh yes, the wonders of a breastfed baby regulating their system. It is a mighty thing to behold.

Speaking of poo, we LOVE our diaper sprayer. LOVE LOVE LOVE. And the new diaper detergent I ordered online. Rockin Green. If I could laud the wonders of that stuff for $ or detergent I would. Instead I shall pay for it and still laud the fact that diapers only take 2 hours start to finish. Rockin Green rocks my socks off. And with that, the perfect child has awoke. Most likely wet again. I think I shall start laundry with Rockin Green.

"Hun!"

Alice has a new way to get people's attention and request help. She calls me 'hun.' Thanks to Daniel calling me "honey" so she won't call me "Rebecca."

Of course, she also calls Daniel "hun" when she wants something.

Here is a brief example of when calling out "hun" is appropriate.
I want a drink, but the cup is empty... "Hun! Wah." (wah is water)
Man, opening this pack of cards to spread them around the room is hard... "Hun!" (shove cards into hand)
Look at all this loot I took out of the desk drawer..."hun, look."
Man, I could use some cookies..."hun, here you go." (while beckoning to the kitchen)

Thomas has a bit of a cold and an eye infection. The doctor was out of the office yesterday, so we saw the physician's assistant. I didn't like her. I kind of wanted to attack her for being all "ah baby" and holding Thomas and sticking her hair in his face. He is already sick, stop touching him. She sent us home with some sample medicine. I looked it up and its seasonal rhinitis medicine. I decided to skip that. Plus its use by date is March 2010...as in its almost expired. I know it doesn't really mean anything except that it might be a little less efficacious. The PA also wanted to weigh him. I think its partly cause the ladies at the front desk were guessing how big he was. He weighed in at 12lbs 2oz. Yes, we have officially crossed the 12 pound mark. At 7 weeks.

He started throwin up this morning. He got the bed once. Then me once. Then Alice cause she wanted to snuggle with him. That one was pretty funny actually.

But, he is sleeping and he is still wetting plenty of diaper and eating. So I am hoping that it was just a one time thing. Yesterday, he didn't sleep much and spent the majority of the day crying unless he was held and then he would drift off to sleep for a little bit.

I baked brownies. But I don't want Alice to know. I will hear way too much "Hun!" if she find out.

Money, money, money

We might be refinancing our house with our tax return. At 3.85%. For a 10 year term. The monthly payment will go up about $300. But, I have been paying at minimum $100 extra a month to the mortgage. And we will pay a lot less in interest. Plus, we will be guaranteed to own the house in 10 years. Of course, we won't be paying my student loan off this year if we do refinance. We are still on the fence, but leaning toward doing it. Especially since we were all "Oh noez! What if we don't qualify?" *panic panic panic* OK maybe its not that bad. We were really concerned about the value of our home. All the houses on our street that are for sale, have been for sale for a LONG time, and we are up to 4 that are just down the block from us. So even though they are listed at 105K+ they might be selling for much less or not selling at all. Plus we looked into refinancing out home equity loan a year ago, and a drive by appraisal said out house was worth only 82K, and we need it to check in at 95K. Which doesn't leave us with warm fuzzy feelings.

We have been so wishy washy about it, that our mortgage company is now saying we won't need an appraisal. WE are gonna get a quick and dirty loan. They have a more technical term, but really it means we show that Daniel has a job, and that we make as much as we do, then wham bam, thank you Ma'am. We have a new mortgage loan.

The down side. My student loan will not get paid off this year. And the interest rate on that is higher than our mortgage rate is currently. I find it a thorn in my side, Daniel thinks I am obsessive. I hear the phone, so that's probably him.

The verdict is...

Thomas is a FATTY. Well, he is technically just large. Weighing in and measuring in at just under the 80th percentile. The kid is just under 12 lbs at 6 weeks. Fatty-pah-tatty.

Alice got round 2 of her flu shot. She has been up every 2 hours. Partly because Thomas has been up every 2 hours. The cries of Thomas are a siren to Alice's ears. I even went and lied with her at 1:30 when she refused to be consoled by Daniel. I explained that Thomas was already asleep so she didn't need to worry about him. Cause she kept saying his name between the wails.

I am on drugs. I am taking pills that make people happy. I am taking supplements that are also like happy pills cause they make people happy. I am on vitamins and such because I am feeding a parasite. I am on more drugs so I can poop because other pills turn that into a dramatic event. I am a walking pharmacy. 5 weeks 6 days until I can expect to know things really are right.

Today we find out

What wrong with us!

Oh yes, doctor appointments for all. First one is at 10:15am. Daniel went in for 2 hours of work before we start the drudgery of multiple doctor appointments in a day.

I am just hoping for a solution. Everybodys gotta have a body; (apostrophe key is not working, strangeness) there aint no promises they they will work right. Its too bad we didnt have the option of buying an extended service plan. I would have totally been sold on that. Even if I had to lose something else to make that happen. I would gladly give up a couple of fingers or toes, just not the big toes.

In other news: We bought ourselves a bed last night though. So hopefully I can get a better nights sleep. (UGH This apostrophe thing is driving me nutso!) Its gonna be one of those memory foam things. Courtesy of Overstock.com and their 89% off plus $2.95 shipping. Daniel is sad that it will be slightly smaller than a regular queen sized bed since we bought the RV sized queen bed...it was 30% cheaper than the regular queen sized foam beds...and we are not too tall for a slightly shorter bed. Plus I dont expect to have too many problems losing 2 inches, maybe thats because I wont lose any inches, only Daniel will.

Now I stop writing because the desktops keyboard is driving me batty with some of the keys not working. At least I have all the letters and most of the punctuation.

Hot diggity

Its about 6am. Alice got up at 3. Hot diggity.

You would think with how little sleep I get, the house would be cleaner. I am visiting teaching at my house at 9am. Maybe the next 3 hours will be more productive. Shoot, I would settle for getting the living room vacuumed and everything else tossed in the computer room.

Screaming Alice in her room. Poopy Thomas getting changed.

At least we have clean diapers. Hot diggity.

Positive Thinking

Too many of my blog posts lately have been ruing the fact that I have 2 kids at home. But its not all bad. I just am really bad at the whole 'think positive' idea when I get royally pissed off. So the blog is a better place to leave everything than Alice. Plus screaming would probably wake Thomas and then BOTH kids would be angry. So its time to focus on the good things that have happened today. You know before I get hung up on the bad.

1. I got the trash to the curb before the trash collectors came by.
2. Alice ate all her breakfast and only managed to spill a little.
3. I washed whites.
4. I washed the cushion covers on the couch.
5. I washed diapers.
6. I cleaned up some nasty random crumb action that was crusted onto the pull out couch frame inside the couch. I also found out that the crappy innerspring mattress included with the couch wore away the pain from the frame...and we got some rust. Let's chalk that up to experience. Sleeper sofas are not meant to be the primary seating location in a home.
7. I put the covers back on the cushions.
8. I organized the shelf above the washer and dryer and only found one spider.
9. I brought the couch slip cushion from the shelf above the washer, and put it on the couch; stained side down.
10. I let Alice choose things from the fridge for lunch. She choose cheese and spinach. I gave her a whole wheat tortilla to go with it and some chicken sandwich meat.
11. I heard Thomas have a blowout style poo, and was able to change him before it actually blew out of the diaper cover.
12. I have had a little time to work on my freezer cooking menu to enter into Once a Month Mom's contest. I don't expect to win at all. But, this way I have all the recipes I think would be good to try in one place. If I win that will be $250 of mad money. Mad money is always exciting.

23 Minutes

the time it takes to change Alice's nasty poopy diaper.

23 seconds. - The time it takes her to climb onto Thomas's FACE with her stinky poopy butt. Why she feels she needs to kneel on his head is beyond me. I can understand her covering his face with a pillow when he cries since it makes the noise quiet. But, standing or kneeling on a head? What is wrong with the girl?

Just when I thought things were leveling out after bringing an attention grabbing baby into the house, Alice decides to play power struggle with me.

While filled with orange scented feces. I hate feces.

The diapers that should have been done washing, put feces on me when I started getting them to go into the dryer.

Thomas took a poo the moment I put a clean diaper on him.

Luckily, no one has been throwing poo...except me. The diaper missed the pail.

And to think, until about 2 pm, things were looking pretty up. I did dishes. I thought I had the diapers clean. I stepped on glass in the kitchen (last night Alice decided Pyrex was for toddlers...let's just say its not). I searched for the broom. I found the broom. I swept the kitchen. I discovered the freezer door open because someone put the pail of ice cream in there instead of the deep freeze. I even picked up Alice's toys and replaced the trash bag in the can Daniel left empty.

All that, and I can't manage to change an Alice diaper without letting Thomas cry for 20 minutes while I chase her and pin her onto the floor with my leg. I left her watching Ice Age. The library's DVD rentals are one small moment of relief.

Things I didn't know about having a kid

(and to think this is my second. How much of a haze was I in with Alice?)

- While breastfeeding, I reek. Perhaps its a physiological response so the baby will always know mom is near, but DANG I am stinky.

- The all natural deodorant really does help stop the smell. Too bad it lets the sweat flow.

- Onions + me = oh dear stinky! In several ways. All recipes including onions will now need to be modified so I can stand to be in the same room as myself.

- Pre-fold cloth diapers really are the way to go with an infant. I just thought they were the cheap option. Nope, they stain less, fit better, and make an excellent burp cloth. If I could stand a toddler in something that didn't velcro on, I might only use the cheapo diapers.

- I really don't need naps. Yes, everyone says sleep when the baby sleeps, but that's impossible with a toddler that refuses to nap. I do however go to bed (and lately even sleep) around 7pm. And yet I write 3am blog posts.

- An infant will always choose 3am as the ideal time to have an active period. Perhaps its because the demonic toddler attacks during the day. I am just waiting for him to wet a diaper so he will eat again and go to sleep. Gotta make room for more.

- Sometimes violence is the answer. But before you call CPS on me, the real answer is a nap, or removal from the situation.

- Infants are more durable than they appear. Or let's all pray that's true. Cause with as many times as Alice as (sadly, literally) danced on Thomas' head with her feet I will not be surprised if he has brain damage.

- You can have a heavy baby that isn't fat. Don't believe me? I have an 11 lb kid who has abs of steel.

- Daniel will never get sprayed with explosive poo / pee showers while changing a baby. I have been showered a few times by Thomas, and Alice up and shot poo across the room at me once when I was changing her. Daniel thought the flying poo incident was hilarious. I am waiting for justice.

- Speaking of poo, having a kid will make bowel habits an oft visited topic. And its not just the baby's bowels that get attention (though he has started having phantom poo, so its harder to know when to change him immediately)

- Some babies are just easy. Its too bad they have siblings that are not.

Hey Daniel

This is your blog emailing you. Can you check the settings, please?

Thanks,
Da Blog

Its [almost ]Thursday!

Today was nice. Well, except for Alice waking up at 5:30am and insisting the day was starting. Plus the bowl FULL of cereal and milk that she knocked all over her high chair and the floor. As a note, she was hungry and didn't relinquish the bowl until she hade emptied the remainder into her gullet.

But other than that it wasn't bad.

My friend Mary came over and entertained Alice for a couple of hours. That means I did dishes. And laundry. Though lets be honest I didn't get all the laundry done. But we do have clean towels and diapers and a load that's in the dryer of...something. I have no idea. And yes, I also have more diapers in the wash.

Diapers are never ending in this house. Diaper wipes are finite however. That is the main motivation for washing so often. That and the bins get full.

Daniel went to scouts, and woke me when he came home. But then Alice woke up. And Thomas did. And I got him back to sleep just in time to stare at the food ads for the week. I am planning a freezer cooking day again sometime, and I am watching the meat sales. Plus we NEED hamburger in the house. We are out and its a necessity around here.

Oh and anyone that is still reading my drivel and wants to do some freezer cooking some weekend with me...even if its just for a couple of meals...let me know. The assistance will be enough to get yourself at least a few meals for free. Plus I need recipe inspiration for a 20 lb turkey I want to thaw and use. So tell me what you like made from turkey.

Dear Thomas,

It's cute when you wake up at 7am. Until you wake up Alice.

But then you show the beginnings of a true smile when she gets all excited.

Unfortunately, she sees that as an invitation. That's why she wants to lie next to/on you.

But keep up the smiling. Its cute.

Love,
Mom

P.S. Next time m9 vb vcvvvvvvvvvvvvvfgdsazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacbvnv
That was the toddler advocating for herself.

My advice would be to sake the poopy diaper for 8am and never smile with a pacifier in your mouth.

Ugh, It's Monday

I want to put myself on bed rest for my boob pain. It also makes it so I can't sleep. And i don't know if its because I am sleeping in strange positions to avoid boob pain, but my hips are freaking hurting like i am still pregnant.

I don't think I have a high enough fever to be considered mastitis, but who knows. I refuse to use the butt thermometer. Its the only one i know where it is off the top of my head. And its funny shaped for taking butt temps.

Nursing hurts. Even when its not hurting, Alice comes along and tries to pull Thomas off by his head. Its probably her fault I am in pain at all.

Daniel shouldn't come home from work because he was literally the ONLY person there at 7am. All the 7am and 7:30am people called in. The house is a freaking dump. None of the rooms are clean. Most of teh laundry is clean, but it needs folded or sometihng. The dishwasher never got taken care of by Daniel (like the last few times). The baby is crying, and probably needs changed because he has a freaking blistery butt rash. Alice is flipping out because I won't let her play with the Thomas (the cries are really just a summoning call). Oh and she refuses to wear clothing, then is cold all the time and drives me nuts with cold hands and feet down my pants.

I LOATHE mondays.

Sanity with Children

If this has been a test
I cannot see the reason
But maybe knowing
I don't know is part of getting through
I tried to do what's best
But faith has made it easy
To see the best thing I can do
Is to put my trust in You.
"You Know Better Than I" from Joseph: King of Dreams


We had our first monthly Relief Society meeting this week. The topic was on mental illness, depression, and really just ways to keep sane even if you don't have chemical excuses. One thing that was brought up was how to treat your kids.

And since I have sort of lost my sanity (or at least all compassion) in the last few weeks due to lack of sleep, I figure it needs to be a goal. Its not like I have been physically punishing Alice, but sometimes when she starts literally jumping on Thomas' head then covers his face with a pillow when he cries I react in a less than loving manner.

Picking up a laughing and as far as I can tell completely EVIL 2 year old and dropping them on the floor seems like a good solution. Until she hits the corner/leg/blocks and gets a bruise on her face...or bites her lip and bleeds all over me...or just cries and its not "you took my toy" tears.

Then I realize that I am abusing my child. Because I am bigger than her. And that will not make her stop jumping on someone smaller than her. So I have stopped all moving/removing of Alice. I simply move Thomas.

We also watched a little slide show I made when Alice was 3 months old with a compilation of photos. She LOVED it. "Awww." "Baby." "Ooo, baby." She was really sad when I insisted I needed to go to the bathroom and stood up and left her on the computer chair. We talked about how we treat babies and we are gentle with them. Then I let her hold Thomas...until he cried.

Line upon line.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through


This is the song that went through my head when I stood in front of the mirror this evening wondering how things would end up.

No we aren't at a major intersection in our lives, and I had no deep philosophical thoughts on my mind. But I was standing there staring at myself with scissors in hand thinking, my hair needs a trim.

Four inches seemed like a good trim to me. Enough to feel like I cut my hair, but long enough to wear a pony tail.

Then it happened.

CRAP

You know. I think those kids I spit on just came along and decided to change things.

So I reverted to my typical "I need a change" most and cut the hair short. Not boy short, but chin length bob short. I would take a picture, but I can hear the rumblings of my second born's rear, so I know my time here is numbered.




*I also applied mousse (for the first time in years, ha).


** Oh, and I saw a white hair. And not a 'I fit in one.' This bugger was shorter, curlier and sticking straight up in the part. I think that's a sign of old people white hair. I think. Or maybe it's stress hairs that change texture.


*** Must research this.

**** Must stop this thing with the starred notes. But I have to note. The best part about today, I got a shower.

Ugh sickness

I hate having them in my home. Alice had a runny nose last week. Thomas got a stuffy nose. Now Alice is hoarse and freaking obnoxious. Thomas is crying constantly (for him). And I am so sick of getting snot rubbed onto my shirt/arm/Thomas. Even worse, Alice really really wants to hold Thomas. I doubt its because she wants to kill him, though it appears that murder is on her mind. Instead I assume she wants to go to sleep, and she wants to sleep with him. But it took me all morning to get him to sleep, so I don't care what she wants.

Oh, and I am super sick of changing poopy diapers. I mean for real. Save it for an hour people. That is all I ask. In one hour, Daniel will be home to take over diaper patrol.

I blame Daniel's co-worker who has been out with a sick kid since Friday...and probably passed the virus to him who came home and touched Alice and she decided to get sick from it. For the record, Daniel is not sick. Of course not. Only the one that gets into things and the one she attacks are sick.

I think a 6pm bedtime will happen tonight.

Its almost been 3 weeks!

This was our first week without Daniel at home to help out. I admit there were a couple of days that were pretty yucky. One involved Thomas hitting the 2 week growth spurt leaving me with virtually no sleep. Daniel took an hour of unscheduled paid time off that day. We also have eaten out WAY too many times this week. Its called, I made WAY too many pasta freezer meals. Plus there are a few of them that we really don't care for, and even the ones we like we don't want to eat twice in the same week. Looks like we might need to actually meal plan. Then we won't run out of milk, forcing Daniel to wake up at 4am and getting milk before work tomorrow.

This week we bought a WiiFit. So far we all like it, and its motivating us to do something in the way of moving. I know the WiiFit it not a real fitness routine, but its better than nothing. Plus, it is sort of fun to do as a family. Even though you have to be 3 to actually do any games, so Alice can't really do anything. She still likes running around and 'playing' with us. Oh, and the fact that they weigh you all the time...yeah that might be motivation as well.

Perhaps that also leads to the idea that I should make us a menu for the week...as a rule. Or follow one that I already have. That makes me sound really lazy huh. I even have weekly menus that I paid for, and haven't really used. There are other medical reasons to do things. But, we don't go into that.

Today I got told I was getting officially released from working with the cub scouts next Sunday. Sweet! So is Daniel, but he is getting another calling, so its not like he is calling free. I am, fortunately, down to only TWO callings. Oh yeah. Calling freedom.

Oh and we weighed Thomas on the WiiFit last night. Without clothes, but with a light flannel blanket, he was weighing in at over 11 lbs. I don't think Alice was 11 lbs at 3 months. There is another large baby in our ward (he was born at 10lbs and it was all natural! of course the poor mom was in labor for almost 3 days). I was talking with his mom in the mother's lounge and he is about 2 months old and weighing in at 15 lbs. I think Thomas is trying for that as a goal.

Umbilical Granulomas

Ever heard of one? Its sort of common. No one knows the cause. Its supposedly easy to treat.

What happens is that after the cord stump falls of there is a tiny tree of baby in the hole. That wouldn't really bother me. Its the oozing. And the inability to use cloth diapers (because they come up too high and cover the stump risking infection).

Disposable diapers stink. Literally. It's a combo of baby powder and chemicals. Yum. Plus they are expensive when we already own diapers.

Anyway, we called the doctor and had Thomas' gut looked at. Then they put silver nitrate on it. He cried. Dr. Riorden said the granuloma/tree is pretty large and we might need a follow up treatment in a week. Yeah. We will.

The gut was oozing when I changed the 1:30am diaper. Some oozing should be normal in the first 24 hours. Its still annoying.

Thomas might be a real expensive child if this turns out to be something else. Like oozing from his bladder or GI system. The kid did have a super fat cord. It would make sense that the giant knot in it affected things as well. If that is the case he will need surgery. I don't know how much I want an infant in surgery. So lets hope the oozing is the "might have gray oozing in the first 24 hours" and not a sign of expen$ive thing$ to come.

*At least I have had more than 4 hous of sleep so far tonight. Yesterday was a different story and it was torture. Not to mention that all I ate was sugar until dinner...and that was pizza. Alice was also sleep deprived, so it was a cranky achy day.

Fitness plan for Moms

But a watermelon in the winter.
Allow the toddler to eat a fair bit of it.
Commence the changing marathon.

Lugging around an infant also helps.
As do the dang it's that result in the carpet needing steam cleaned. We have had one of those today. Because I didn't get the diaper back on quickly enough. Dang it.
I think its time to start laundry again.


I wonder if Daniel will be working until 7pm like he asked. I told him to try and get someone else to volunteer first. He told them he had to talk with the Mrs. I told him he needs to convince the other girl to stay since she missed yesterday.

Our First Day Out

It was torture to say the least. Here is the rundown.

Saturday night Alice screamed yelled and cried until super late at night (maybe midnight, maybe later its hard to know). Inconsolable toddlers are not my forte. Nor are they Daniel's but he has to deal with her mostly since I have my own parasite.

Sunday we tried going to bed at our 'normal' time of 6pm. Alice took a 2 minute bath, then tried to crawl into bed with me. Daniel took her to her room. Alice crumples into a ball and wails.

Monday morning we all get up at 6:30 to take Daniel to work. Alice crumples into a ball crying because we woke her up.

We pick up breakfast on the way to Daniel's work. She refuses to eat it. She crumples as much as possible into her car seat crying because she is holding her shoes instead of wearing them. I put her shoes on.

We drive home and go inside to let her eat her usual breakfast while I feed Thomas. We have to be at the doctor's office in 2 hours. Change everyone's diapers. Change clothes. Stop Alice from the pounce attack on Thomas. Alice crumples on the floor crying.

Feed Thomas again.
Change diapers again.
Grab the diaper bag, car seat, and Alice's shoes.
Get everyone prepped and leave.
Find parking spot.
Get Alice's right shoes on again.
Put her hat on her.
Carry Thomas and hold Alice's hand across the wet drippy parking lot.
Find the elevator out of order.
Alice crumples on floor crying.
Walk across hospital to find another elevator that is working.
Alice falls down wailing in front of this elevator.
Other people get in line for the elevator.
Patience thin.
Get on elevator.
Alice stands up from floor and leans on my leg, still crying.
Get off at 3rd floor.
2 steps off elevator, Alice crumples to the floor and starts crying.
Wish Daniel's work number were programmed in the cell phone.
Vow to never take both kids to the doctor with me again.
Repeat every 3 steps to the doctor's office.

Temporary reprieve. The doctor's office has a water dispenser. No wailing, small mess. Time to calm down.

Go back to visit. Feel stressed out. BP looks great.
Bring up birth control.
Consider happy pills, but decide to give it another day or two without Daniel before getting some.
Alice tries to jump on Thomas. Well, succeeds really.
Hold Thomas.
Pass Thomas to a nurse and shed clothes for a peri check.
Alice gets mad and grabs my shoes and coat.
Alice cries because Thomas left and we didn't.

Get things stared at. Alice enjoys it (freak).
Get dressed.
ALmost forget car seat.
Put Thomas in car seat.
Walk to lobby.
Pay front desk.
Begin walk back to car.

Elevator functional.
Take elevator down.
Walk outside.
Alice refuses to hold hands.
Alice hold hand behind her to avoid me.
I steer her down the sidewalk and not into the parking lot.
Alice wants to play in some rocks at the curb.
Alice crumples to the ground.
Alice gets coated in black sand/salt/exhaust muck.
Alice flips out because she is dirty.
Drag screaming Alice across parking lot to car.
Car follows us for our parking spot.
Put wailing Alice in car.
Put Thomas in car.
Put self in car.
Drive home imagining what sanity must feel like.

Rude Baby

Growth spurt #1...7-10days old. For us this happens only in the middle of the night.

We tried to go to bed at 8pm. I have gotten maybe an hour of sleep since then. Its 2:30AM. For real man. My body my choice.

Daniel is getting dressed to buy a baby bottle so I can try and sleep at night.

For real. Why can't he cluster feed at a time when Alice is awake. Punk child.

Dishwasher Disaster!

Its been a long day. Alice has made it clear that for her to be tolerable during the day we have to put her to bed at 6pm (well at least start bath time then). This way she can go to bed and sleep until 7-8am and not be a total terror all day from tiredness (she refuses to nap any more). Thomas and I did nap on the couch. During Snow White. That is one freaky movie in my opinion.

Anyway, I noticed a smell like melting plastic after the movie was over and Daniel was starting to play some Zelda Twilight Princess. I sent him to investigate. There is one thing we DO NOT need, and thats a fire in the middle of winter with a brand new baby in the house.

So he goes to the kitchen and after a bit I hear him putting dishes away, so I assume he found nothing that was the source of the strange smell. I have this super power of smell still, so for all I knew it was coming from the neighbor's side of the duplex and we wouldn't know until our side was on fire too.

After a bit Daniel comes back in holding the silverware rack that goes inside the door of our dishwasher. It had come apart somehow while the dishwasher was running and it fell down onto the heating element in the dishwasher.

Thank goodness for my super scent capabilities! If it had gone the entire heated dry cycle we might have actually had a fire. We would have at least had some noxious fumes to deal with. Luckily its above freezing, so we left the front door open for a bit to air things out.

Disaster Averted! And, I think the silverware rack is still usable. Just sort of mangled at the bottom, so it won't stand on its own on the counter.

A Baby Story

Remember that show on TLC, if its even still being shown I haven't had cable since before we were married. Anyway, this is our non-videographed, non-photographed week. SO here we go...

He finally showed up at 10:12pm and I was stitched back up before 11pm. Lucky.

In brief, we went in to get my water broke at 7:30am. They didn't break it until almost 10 though. Then several hours and many many laps of the floor later, we were dilated from a 4 to a 5.

Several more hours later I started getting tired, and we had regular contractions so I chose to get some happy feeling drugs. Stadol - a fancy opiate that makes you feel floaty and hear giggly happy ladies in the hall (Daniel says he didn't hear them). Then I asked to try the jaccuzi tub since I knew we couldn't have any more of the floaty drugs within 1 hour of giving birth, but i was dilated to an 8 and they told me no way. Those were the most painful 2 cm ever.

Anyway, we started pushing and the contractions started getting farther and farther apart. Plus we were making no progress. All that was happening was I was pushing his head into my pelvic bone which caused main for me and bruising for him (he still has bloody eyeballs, though the facial swelling is gone).

The doc said we needed pitocin to get the contractions coming faster and stronger, and asked if I wanted an epidural at that point so I could get 30 minutes to sleep and recover some energy.

Well the epidural didn't take, and then time was just a blur. I know the nurse gave me some more stadol at one point but mostly I wimpered in pain as the anesthesiologist gave me 2 booster doses and they had me lie in my left side. Once the pain subsided I slept a little which was awesome. Right around 10pm they had me try pushing again to see if it looked like anything would happen. And yay it did!

Thomas came out head, ball of cord, then body. He had the cord wrapped around his body 3 times and had a true knot in it to boot (hence the ball of cord). He weighed 9lbs 2oz and was 20 3/4 inches long and aside from the war wounds, he passed with flying colors. He also got his cord and placenta sent to pathology thanks to the knot. Go him.

We have pictures here.

http://www.our365.com/NewbornPortraits/BabyDetail.aspx?birthid=63496161-c3ce-4447-a330-9b0825ac4f8a

He is mostly not puffy in these and we haven't gotten around to taking more. Yes lazy. Well, I think we got a couple on the digital camera, but the battery died, and I haven't recharged them yet.

Oh, and I might change the date on this post to make it seem less lazy. Then again, meh its only been a week since we got home from the hospital.

We are home!

No energy to give the detailed post Daniel promised of me. Wasn't that sweet of him :-)

Anyway, we saw the snow start around noon and high-tailed it out of the hospital. I guess it was about 2pm when we got home. Partly because we left the cake behind, and we needed that cake. Alice ate about half of it when we got home. Then after a couple of temper tantrums from Alice after I gave Daniel a list of everything to buy from the store so we could hole up for the weather tomorrow everyone took a nap.

I woke up around 5 and Daniel had already woken up and spent a good 30 minutes on the phone with the insurance asking about the prescription coverage and got info for adding Thomas to our insurance as well.

Then while he was gone Thomas woke up crying. I started trying to feed him and Alice woke up and got VERY loud asking for Daddy. Finally I figured everyone needed diaper changes (myself included because lets face it I am essentially in diapers at this point). So I carried Thomas to Alice's room and I told her to get in bed with me.

I am supposed to try and avoid stairs if I can. This should be interesting to say the least. At least I have Daniel at home for another week.

Its sort of crazy to think that Thomas isn't even 48 hours old yet. Life seems pretty chaotic with Alice wanting TONS of attention from me and trying to snuggle or something with Thomas' head. He is sleeping in our room in the co-sleeper right now. We will probably be heading to bed soon, but I figured Alice wanted some parental 2 on 1 attention. So she got it.

P.S. We bought Zelda Twilight Princess for Christmas(ish) and Daniel has already commented that its very engaging. I think the sword play is his favorite so far. And I can see our house getting super clean in the next few days. Having 2 kids will force us into more structure in several areas in the house.

A New Chapter

Greetings from the one who doesn't blog much...

At 10:12 pm today, Rebecca gave birth to our son Thomas Ryan Cook. Weighing in at 9 pounds 2 ounces. He is officially more that 20% larger than Alice was when she was born. He also has hair... that's dark and a completely different nose!

He looks like a grumpy man with a bruised face... we'll work on getting some pictures soon. I suppose...

So, if you're followers of us, you will know that we were unsure of the name for quite some time. But I've been pretty confident about the first name ever since I had a mental vision type thing that told me his name would be Thomas. After I thought that, it just seemed right then I thought... Oh noes, people will accuse us of naming him after an Apostle, thinking Bible... It later occurred to me that that is also the modern prophet's name.

Anyway, I just want to make it clear that he is not named after anyone. He is Thomas because it is his name.

So... I'm not much for details, but I'll give you some. We went to the hospital to get induced. Arriving at about 7:45. They took awhile to get us started and Rebecca wanted to try going a more natural route than we did with Alice. After the ordeal, we've pretty much been convinced that Rebecca's body doesn't like to let children be born without pain killers at least... The umbilical cord was tied in a knot, and wrapped around him 3 times... Woot.

Anyway, I'm sure Rebecca will tell the story much more interestingly... cheers.

News on the Baby

1. We are still pregnant. We have started getting phone messages checking on us though. Sorry to disappoint, but this kid did not want to be born in 2009 or on New Years. Lets all hope his goal isn't Chinese New Year. Seriously, we have had all these 'signs of labor' and then nothing. I am sure part of it was his sensitivity to the forced family togetherness in a bona fide blizzard (we were declared a disaster area by the state, lucky) since he had dropped at 37 weeks and had moved back up some at 38 weeks just before Christmas.

2. We have successfully completed 5 days of a 'bedtime routine' with Alice that has ended in her sleeping in her bed, alone, for a good 12 hours. She does seem to be more tired looking in the morning, so we wonder if she is restless, but since she goes to sleep between 7:30 and 8:30 each night and sleeps all night I figure she is ok.

3. We spend 3 hours wandering around stores yesterday. Add walking a lot to the list of things that DO NOT induce labor. Alice loved it. She has had a little cabin fever lately since its been freaking cold, Daniel hasn't been working, and with church canceled too, we haven't gotten out of the house much in a few weeks now. We bought some thermal curtains to cover our front door. It need some weatherstripping added to it to stop the drafty areas, but due to procrastination, we just needed something to make it feel less cold in the house. So $50 later we installed curtains over the door, and threw a blanket on the floor to boot. (I will actually make a door snake when I don't have a baby in my butt any longer.)

So yeah. As I told my RS president (who left us a message and has been checking the baby announcements in the paper) I fully expect to be at church today. Especially since its in less than 3 hours. I am not sure how much we will like 9am church. It might be awesome, but having to wake to an alarm is the down side. Well not now, since i wake up at 5am or earlier, but once the child is here. I think I want biscuits for breakfast. Yum. Food.