Christmas Festivities

I have a lot of catching up to do, blogwise.  Our Christmas, will, therefore, be broken into a couple of blog posts over a couple of days.

Papa and Lala came to visit us for Christmas, and boy was T excited.  They also sent us this giant tin of popcorn, which was delicious.  T was a big fan.

F is smarter than is good for him.  He can turn on the TV, and change the channel to get to the right input.  If he could figure out the receiver we'd be in really big trouble.

T's very first Christmas pageant was also last week.  Here the kiddos are lining up to go onstage.

We're waiting breathlessly for the concert to start.

And this is pretty much the entire school.  Pre-K is on the left, 3/4s are in the middle, and Toddler 2 are on the far right.  The Toddlers pretty much cried or looked around for the entire thing.

And once again, Lala is T's favorite person. Hold a hand? Lala's. Read a story? Lala will do it. Get ready for bed? Lala to the rescue!




Here's the entire concert.  Unless you are particularly bored I wouldn't waste time for the whole thing.  If you have a few minutes tho, skip ahead to 8:00 and listen to Felix Navidad. It'll give you a good feel for the event, and the little girl in the middle is just precious.

An un-fun morning adventure

My key chain snaps apart so I can go warm up the car and still be able to close and lock the house with the house keys.  This morning, I grabbed my key chain and the kids, pulled the door shut and took everyone out to the car.  As I was getting the kids settled, I realized that I only had the car keys part of the key chain. Doh.

Oh well, I thought, I'll just get the spare key from our spare key location when I get back. And so I went. And came back.  I tromped through the 15 inches of snow we received Sunday and went to our spare key location to find .... no key.

See, here's the thing. Since I was only going to drop the kids off and come home, a 12 block round-trip, I didn't grab my cell phone or purse.  You know what I had?  My jacket, my un-snow boots and half of a key chain.

So. I tromped over to my neighbor's house.  She usually works during the day, but since she works for the school district, she's off on winter break.  She answered the door in her pajamas, looking quite concerned. "J, what happened? Is everything OK?"

I shame-facedly explained what happened and asked if I could use her phone. I called Ry, who, thankfully, answered the phone and asked him where the key, which, heretofore had always resided in the spare key location, had got off to.  There was a moment of silence on the line. Um, it's in the dirt in a spot in our yard.

And so. And so my friends, I tromped back to our yard to the new spare key location. I pushed away the 15 inches of snow over the new spare key location and found ... that the ground was frozen freaking solid.  Tromp tromp tromp to the shed where I got a garden spade. Tromp tromp tromp back where I jammed the thing into the ground repeatedly. Each time I was rewarded for my efforts with a tiny little flake of earth flying happily away.  After 10 minutes, I still hadn't located our key.

Tromp tromp tromp. "Hi neighbor." I double-checked the location with Ry and took the offered pot of hot water from my neighbor to try and loosen the frozen dirt. Tromp ... tromp ... tromp. This is probably also a good time to mention that I didn't have gloves.  That was another thing I didn't think I'd need for my "quick" trip to drop the boys.

I poured the water, and there, glimpsed the silver of the keychain! Success!  I dug it free, tugged hard, and almost sliced my finger open because the damn thing was stuck like ... well, like a frozen key buried in frozen mud in the middle of December under 15 freaking inches of snow!!!!!

After another 10 minutes of digging, I finally liberated the key. I went and tried it in the door, just to make sure it worked (because wouldn't that just be perfect?). Then I returned the empty pot to my neighbor, made a cup of coffee, and thawed my poor, frozen fingers.

And how was your morning?

Little drummer boy

It's a little grainy, but totally worth the ending.

Weaning: A Tale of Two Children

I weaned my older son, T, when he was between 12 and 13 months old.  He didn't really seem to notice.  As long as I continued to feed and water him, he was a happy guy.  Stupidly, I thought that was just how weaning went.

F is between 13 and 14 months, and I have started actively trying to wean him.  I am going to my sister's for 5 days in January, and I want to be done before that.  I figure slowly weaning him now will be better than just stopping cold-turkey in January (for both of us).

Anyway, the only time he nurses now is before sleeping.  Last week, I dropped the nursing before his nap. Oh, the tears!  He cried, and tried to go down my shirt, and threw his head back, wailing and making the sign for "drink." Honestly, I'm torn between feeling really sad for him and laughing at the drama.  The first day, he did it for about 15 minutes.  Today, it was more like 5. He's still none too happy.  I'm going to drop the nursing before bedtime after Christmas. Then, we'll be done.

I wonder how long the tempest will rage?

This is why

This is why my children are often sock-less (and pant-less, and shoe-less, and shirt-less).

"Uh-oh!" he says.  I keep trying to explain that it's not "uh-oh" if you do it on purpose, but since that's pretty much all he says, it doesn't seem to be sticking.

Aaaaand, done.

Ahhhh. My semester is finally over.  I finished the semester with a strong grade, a good clinical experience, and extreme thankfulness for my husband and daycare providers.  I am amazed by how much I learned in such a short time span. I'm also awed by how much I still have to learn.  I'm glad that we got into the hospital for clinical this semester, it really cemented what we learned.  There is so much about nursing practice that really needs to be hands on to make it stick.

My experience is also reinforcing for me that I don't want to do general medical/surgical nursing.  I had a good experience and enjoyed my clients and the floor, but can't see myself making a career from it.  Next semester we have rotations in the operating room, labor and delivery, and pediatrics. I'm beside myself with excitement about the L&D rotation!

In the meantime, I am taking deep cleansing breaths, wrestling my house back under control and enjoy my very long winter break.

Somehow, over the past few weeks we also managed to get a tree.

Put it up.

And decorate it. T was a really big help this year.  He got a kick out of hanging the ornaments.  We have an overabundance in the back, since that was T's favorite spot to hang.  They have also all migrated upward, juuust out of F's reach.  I didn't really hang anything breakable this year, but F has still done his best to destroy what's there.  He's been leaving the tree alone for the most part, but when he decides to play with it, he's very determined.

We had a floor picnic or two.

And got some super cute matching PJs that my mom made.  Seriously? Could they be any cuter?

We're looking forward to D & L coming next week.  It's going to be a busy 6 weeks.  I'll also be going to CA to visit my sister (for 5 days ... all by myself!!!!). Then M & G will be coming for a nice long visit.  After they leave, I'll have about 4 days before spring semester begins.  Bring it!

Holy Stereotypical Christmas, Santa!

This year, T is really starting to get into Santa.  His school has talked quite a bit about Santa, and Friday he came home in antlers and a red nose.  Tonight, we decided to watch Charlie Brown's Christmas.  We pulled it up on the TiVo, and decided, just for giggles, to see what was on Netflix.  Well.  They had a group of 1940s and 1950s Christmas shorts.  Let me tell you that I wish I had pre-screened.

Santa's Surprise, the little gem above, was among the milder of the racist stereotypes we saw.  I'm glad T didn't really catch anything strange.  Let's just say that this particular series of Christmas cartoons won't be on our must-see list for next year.

Numbers

• 7 and 2: Years and children it takes to break enough of your stoneware to make it almost useless.
• 3: Tests I have in the next 8 days.
• 3.5: Harry Potter books I'm going to finish when my final is over next Tuesday.
• 3: Christmas light strings that didn't work this year.
• 10: Christmas light strings my husband bought because "They were on sale."
• 2: Christmas light strings it took to decorate our Christmas tree.
• 1: Christmas tree toppers we had to return because it made the top of the tree droop sadly.
• 1: Christmas present boxes sent so far this year.
• 0: Christmas cards mailed.
• 5: Steps F can take without toppling over.

Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither

Seriously? Glad to know that we're hunting down and detaining those dangerous breastfeeding mothers. I can't wait for my flight in January.

Holiday Dance Party!

I love the all-Christmas music channel!

Our future Frank Lloyd Wright

T has been making these gravity-defying towers lately. He does it all by his lonesome, and seems especially motivated to make new creations because we let him photograph the results.This one reminds me of one of those Easter Island heads.

And now it's a parking garage!

Yet again.

And finally. A church, perhaps?

Holiday Happenings

When we first moved here, Ry and I were wandering around and happened upon this house. We marveled at the sheer Griswald-ness of it all. Every Christmas season, we talk about that house and make noise about going to see it again. We never have, until this year. Apparently, it's been a tradition for this guy for many many years. It almost didn't happen this year due to a pretty nasty yard accident.

We decided that T was old enough to appreciate this house this year. And dude, he did!
He thought this was just about the coolest thing we'd ever done. So much so, that he quickly confiscated our camera and didn't give it back until we were getting back in the card. Most of the pictures from here out are courtesy of T.

Now I know why I couldn't find a used play house on craiglist. They're all here! Each house has a little display inside.

The train room.

Anyone who has been around me during Christmas knows about my love of giant, inflatable, lawn art. As such, it was only appropriate to get my picture in front of this particular display.

Ree. Ree. Ree.

And T's last picture, on the way out. Seriously, I've never seen anything like this. I can only imagine the power bill in January. Also, it's an electrician's nightmare. Everything is strung together with extension cords plugged into each other and dangling precariously above and behind the displays. Still, you have to give him an A+ for holiday cheer!

Thankful

I know it's a day late, but we had a busy day yesterday. I'm not any less thankful today than yesterday however, so here we go.

I'm thankful:

• To have two beautiful, healthy, sweet boys.
• To have a loving, kind, thoughtful husband who is both my best friend and an amazing father.
• To have a adoptive family who takes us in for all major holidays when we're not traveling or visited by our own.
• That I didn't have to cook a huge dinner yesterday.
• To have supportive, loving parents, siblings and other assorted family.
• To be able to talk with my Dad about precautions for people "who used to have cancer."
• To be excited about my future career.
• To have a snug little home.
• To have more love in my life than I rightfully deserve.

It's funny how things work out

When I decided to go to nursing school this year, many of my friends and family asked what would happen with F and breastfeeding. My answer? I'd start school and then see what happened. Secretly, I always thought that meant that F would likely end up weaning around 9 months instead of 13 like his big brother. Certainly, he was nursing a lot less often once he started daycare and I started school.

Somehow though, I think that my being away from F for 3 - 4 days a week is going to prolong our nursing relationship. He's been nursing 3 times a day for the past several months. We dropped the morning nurse two weeks ago, when I decided that extra sleep was more important for him than the milk.
I mean, seriously, the kid doesn't need the extra calories.

We'll probably continue on with the twice a day schedule for a while. I don't feel the overwhelming desire to be done like I did with T. To be fair, T was never a comfort nurser. He was a "get on, get full, get moving" kid of baby. He didn't seem to notice that I stopped nursing him. His belly was full ... so life was good.

F on the other hand, likes the snuggling and the cuddling. It's part of his routine and I think he'll be much more resistant to stopping. As much as I'm ready to wear bras that don't look like they came out of the 1954 Sears catalog, I'm in no hurry. I am also going to visit my sister in CA for 5 days in January. Pretty sure the well will be dry upon my return. The clock is ticking.

Tableau Tuesday

Just another day

I turned 31 last week. For the first time, it was really just another day. I had the boys until noon, when I dropped them at school, got a hair cut, and went to the hospital to do my patient look ups. We are assigned a patient for our clinical days. We have to know everything about that patient for the next day's clinical. I got to the hospital around 2:30, and since the nurse had my chart, I started in the computer.

Ninety minutes later, I went to grab my chart, only to find out that my patient had just been transferred off the floor. Totally awesome. I called my instructor, who gave me another patient. After another 90 minutes, I got done with the hospital part of my look ups and headed home. It was pushing 6 pm when I got there and Ry had made dinner reservations for 7 pm. My sitter, being one of my classmates, was also running late, and I heartily considered calling off the whole affair. Instead, when she showed up around 7:15, I put F to bed and away we went to dinner. We had a lovely time, but I had to limit myself to a single glass of wine, since I had several hours of work ahead of me.

I finally got into bed around midnight. The alarm went off at 5:45 the next morning. Truly, just another day.

My stepmother got stuck in my head at 37 years old for the first 5 or so years of her marriage to my dad. She had another big birthday this year, so she'll probably get stuck there for a while. I find it interesting that this phenomenon is beginning to happen to me as well. T and I went to a birthday party this weekend. I was chatting with some of my friends when someone asked how old I was. "30," I responded without hesitation. "Wait, I had a birthday last week. I'm 31!"

T was a big confused by the whole thing. After all, he had made me a birthday card, and helped me open presents, but there was no cake.

But hey, I got some great artwork out of the deal.

Happy 30-something to me.

Have I mentioned that I love Fall?

It's by far my favorite season. I love the cool days and cold nights. I love the sound of the leaves crunching under my feet. I love fires and s'mores and Thanksgiving and gorgeous fire-hued trees. And I love that my family loves it too.

This post is kind of a recap of the past week or so. I am both too lazy and too busy to separate these into individual posts. So, here you go.
We had more raking fun. This time, since Ry helped out, it was actually productive and we got the backyard cleared. Of course, we had lots of leaf fun first.

Look who's so proud of himself! Of course, he couldn't go anywhere, but he was still very satisfied.

Thank goodness for big brothers. They actually help a brother out, instead of just laughing and taking pictures.

And then tonight, after an impulse stop at the grocery store to buy s'more makings, we broke out the hats and jackets and enjoyed a gorgeous fall evening.

T showed off, and broke, his newly acquired helicopter.

And there was much s'more-age.

Ok, there was wine in juice glasses first, but there was definitely s'more-age.

And the whole family got in on the fun. Mmmmm. S'more-age.

Bouncing Big Boy

F had his 1 year check up Monday. As predicted, he's a bit on the large side. He weighed in at 24 pounds, 10 ounces and 31 inches long. That puts him in the 75th percentile for both. For reference, T was about the same height and two pounds lighter at a year.

He's right on track developmentally. He's still *this* close to walking, signs like a superstar (mostly that he's hungry) and want to do whatever his brother is doing. He's the sweetest boy I've ever met and I can't wait to see what kind of little person he is going to become. Boyhood, here we come!

He works hard for the money

We were walking into Target the other day. As we crossed the parking lot, T started spelling. "T -- A -- R -- G --." A woman standing in the door, stopped to watch him finish. "E -- T! That spells Target!" She gave him a big grin, reached into her pocket and handed him a dollar. "You earned that!" she said. It made my day.

Birthdays and other milestones

My baby turned 1 Wednesday. *Sniffle.* How would I describe F at this this moment? Joyful. He is ready to laugh, ready to smile, ready to play and ready to love at any moment. My little F is just beginning to hero-worship his big brother. T is also learning to love to play with him. I am beginning to see how two kids may be less work than one in the next year or so. They entertain each other! Who knew?F is my snuggler. He'll stop what he's doing, crawl over with a big smile on his face, and bury his chubby little face in my shoulder many times during the day. Yesterday morning, after his morning nurse, he snuggled in bed with me for a good 45 minutes. He laid on his back, side, belly, other side, and finally on my chest before dozing. Ahhhh, baby snuggles.

F has taken a step and a half, from the couch into my arms. He doesn't seem in a huge hurry to walk, but has gotten really good at standing on his own. He also doesn't say much, but is a baby sign-language champ. We always know when he's hungry and when he's done.

This may surprise you, but F is a champion eater. He chowed a slice of quiche that his brother gagged down yesterday. He hasn't met much that he won't eat, and even tried the pumpkin guts during our annual pumpkin lobotomy day. Tomorrow we'll find out what percentile he falls into, but since he's just shy of 25 lbs, I'm guessing "big."

He shares his brother's love of all things electronic. One of his favorite toys is the TV remote, which he grabs, points at the screen, and then looks at us, as if to say, "What's the deal?"

I'm in love. I look upon the end of his infancy with melancholy. I look forward to seeing what kind of child my chubby cherub is going to become, but I know my arms will feel empty when he's off running after his brother. Happy Birthday my little love.

And, now, some gratuitous cake pictures:

Want. Want.

Um. Yum.

Heh. Cake.

Get. In. My. Belly!

It's how we roll

Mommy, I want to rake!

The other day after I picked up the boys from school, T had a request. He wanted to rake. Why? Well, to put the leaves in a pile to play in of course! So, rake we did. And he had a blast. He kept insisting the pile wasn't big enough, so I had to bury him, just to prove that it was (and to keep my hands from blistering).

He lost interest in the pile pretty quickly, but we played outside some more. Doesn't he look sweet and vulnerable and beautiful in this picture? It's the un-posed pictures that best capture our boys. He was explaining a game they had played that day at school. It's pictures like these that remind me that he really is just a little boy.

Then, he had to play in the leaves some more. It's a good thing it was bath night, because I found leaves in places they ought not be.

F woke up, and wanted to join in the fun. Yes, he's barefoot. The school took his shoes off for a craft involving bare feet and green paint and it was 78 degrees out. So sue me.

He chased T's soccer ball all over the yard. He's this close to walking, but I don't think we're going to get there before his first birthday Thursday. That's OK by me though. He's slower on the ground.
Much fun was had by all. If we didn't exactly help Ry rake, we did make a few areas in the yard that will need a bit less raking. Maybe not. But we definitely had fun.