He's a funny little guy

"I'm dead," he announced.

 "Nice balloon," I said.

"Thanks," he said.

A week in the life

It's becoming increasingly obvious to me that this semester + regular blogging = not happening. So instead of the every-couple-days schedule I used to adhere to, I'll be posting when I have time. So there you go. And here's what's going on with us:

1. We went to our township's annual fall festival with my mom and stepdad and had a super time. This would have been a terrific picture if Gummy Bear could keep the stupid lei out of his mouth. Oh well. Then we went home and put the kids to bed and I went to study with a friend. My life is kind of a cycle right now that revolves around taking care of the kids, going to class, and studying. Poor Ry.

2. We celebrated Gummy Bear's half birthday. Happy 4.5 Bear! Because we went to the same festival mentioned above last year on his 3.5 birthday, his assumption is that the festival is for his half birthday. This year, he called it his "4 and a half festival" for the entire week before we went. Also, there was cake.

3. The boys are playing together. Actually playing. Together. Here Gummy Bear was reading Cheeky Monkey a book about ticklish animals. We've read it so many times that Cheeky Monkey starts giggling every time you turn the page, anticipating the tickling that is soon to come. It's crazy cute, and even cuter when it's his brother "reading" him the book.

4. More playing.

5. Duck feeding.

Quack

Of course, Monkey kept eating the stale crackers himself.

6. Ry is preparing for a monstrous bunch of traveling for work. He's gone 3 days this week and 2.5 weeks of October.  He may be in Hawaii during the week of Thanksgiving. We've been trying to figure out a way that I can accompany him. Sadly, I don't think we're going to be able to swing right now.  I'm glad that I'll (probably) be working again in a year.

7. I have finally hit a wall with nursing school. Pure excitement about my chosen career has carried me through the past 3 years. This semester, however, is a grind. I'm finding the material this semester particularly challenging (hello, endrocrine system?), and our clinical rotations are all on general medical surgical floors. I miss my boys. I hate being a drag on our finances. Blah blah, bad attitude, blah. I know I'll be better next semester, when we have rotations in Critical Care, School Nursing, Community Nursing, ER and have our "transition", where we shadow a nurse in our chosen nursing specialty for 60 hours. I just have to get through the next 3 months. With my sanity mostly intact. Mostly.

The first soccer game

One word: hilarious. OK, lots more words. Gummy Bear had his first soccer game of the fall.

He looks very dapper, doesn't he?

While I'm amazed by how far the kiddos have come in the past few weeks, it was still a lot of this:

Everyone ... after the ball!

There was a kid on the other team who was clearly the star player. He made several goals and was the only one who seemed to have a clue beyond "kick the ball." There was a kid on Bear's team who was pretty good too. He would get the ball away from the pack and dribble it all the way down the field ... into the wrong goal. Three times. They play something called "small-sided" games. What this means is that there are 4 players from a team on the field at any given time. The 5th sits the sidelines until a substitution is needed. Thank goodness for that, because at 4, substitutions are frequent ... for meltdowns over water, because they couldn't touch the ball with their hands, because they were "tired," and because they saw something distracting on the sidelines (squirrel!).

Doesn't he look like he knows what he's doing?

He had lots of support. My mom and stepdad were there, as were some old friends who had come to spend  the night with us. My voice was actually a little hoarse last night from all the cheering.

Go Bear, go!

While Bear spent the first half of the game in the pack, he spend the second half guarding the goal. Unfortunately, at this age the teams aren't allowed to have goalies. That didn't stop Bear though. He's a born goalie in the land of no goalies.

Ready!

Cheeky Monkey was a bit hard to contain. He ran out onto the field twice. Thankfully, Gpa was there to distract him with a muffin and a hat.

Puffy vests are very slimming.

When the game was over the kids all got goldfish and Capri Sun. I'm pretty sure this was Bear's favorite part of the game. Still, it was a funny, funny 45 minutes. I'm looking forward to next week.

Baby curls ... gone

This weekend I decided it was finally time for Cheeky Monkey to get a haircut. As cute as the baby curls are, his hair started looking messy all the time. It was also time for Gummy Bear's second haircut. Yes, he's 4.5 and this is only his second haircut. He was super excited. I think he was mostly excited because he got a lollipop when he was done.

The old pro.

Cheeky Monkey, on the other hand, was pretty unsure about the whole thing. The guy who cut the boys' hair is the owner of the shop, and a super nice guy. He was also lightening fast and gave the boys cute cuts. One of the things he said about Cheeky Monkey is that he wouldn't put the cape on him because kids his age tend to freak out if they can't see their hands.

It's something I never would have considered, but seemed to be good practice, as Cheeky never freaked out. He did, however, seem quite concerned about the whole thing. He got this look on his face as soon as we lifted him into the chair, and didn't lose it until a good 15-20 minutes after we left.

 Here's where I got all teary. Watching those curls fall to the floor was hard. The cut really changes the shape of his face and makes him look much older.


Still, I have to say that I have the two cutest boys in all of New Jersey.

Don't you agree?

The independent streak

My Gummy Bear is what you might politely call independent. He has unfortunately gotten the worst of my stubborn streak, and we often butt heads. My constant struggle with him is how to mold this independent, stubborn spirit without breaking it. My mantra has been someday I'll be grateful. 


For the first time, I'm starting to see someday.

Chatting with my girlfriends, I'm learning that kids Gummy Bear's age are beginning to get cliquey and exclusionary.  Apparently, most kids notice and care. I don't know if Gummy Bear doesn't notice or doesn't care. It doesn't matter to me, because he doesn't get his feelings hurt.

We went to a birthday party today for a friend who he is not close friends with. One of the other boys looked at Gummy Bear halfway through and said, "Do you even know [birthday boy]?" Gummy Bear looked at him like what are you talking about, and walked away to finish his mini golf game. He's far more interested in doing stuff than talking, being part of the in group, or worrying about what other kids think of him.

For that, I'm grateful.

Murphy's Law and small children

My child will ...

1. Poop as we're walking out the door to daycare 10 minutes late.
2. Wet the bed 3 hours after I changed the sheets.
3. Scrape his face the day before picture day.
4. Find the wettest possible chair to sit on right before getting into the car.
5. Take a 30 minute nap on the day I really want to get some studying done/clean the house/take a nap.
6. Pour the cat's food into his (full) water dish as soon as my back is turned.

Totally unsafe for work

Oh, but I laughed until I cried.
 

Lovely, and yours?

We had a really lovely Labor Day weekend. It was one of those weekends where we had some stuff to do, but not so much that you want another weekend to catch up on sleep at the end.

Ours included a little soiree at our house Friday, a pool party at a friend's house Sunday, and a lot of relaxing in between. Oh, and several hours of school work ... but I'm trying to forget about that. Lovely weekend. Sad to see the summer end. Sigh.

Before and Ahhhhh

Sometime in the last year, our fence went from being an eyesore to being a safety hazard. We had boards down, nails coming out, as as Irene proved, one good storm almost took it down.

Yuck.

But now? Oh, now I double plus heart our fence.

So clean. So straight. So not going to impale one of my boys.

Before

Erg.

And aaaahhhh.

So pretty.

It totally changes the way the backyard feels. Now I feel like we have a private, cozy little space.  We weren't going to install a vinyl fence because it's more expensive. We figured out however that if we're in this house for longer than 3 years it's cheaper to have the vinyl because of the maintenance required with a wood fence. Since this was our 5 year house and we've now owned it for 6 years I figure there's a fair-to-middling chance we'll be here at least 3 more years. And in the meantime .... Ahhhhhh.

Gummy Bear-ness

Gummy Bear is going to be 4 and a half in a few short weeks. I'm having a hard time processing the fact that my baby is going into Pre-K this year. Talk to me this time next year and I'll probably be a blubbering fool. 

Gummy Bear is a sturdy, quick, high energy boy. If I had a fraction of his energy ... I'd get a lot more done. He'll happily spend an hour chasing his brother around the patio and then run around the house for an hour longer.

Gummy Bear is fascinated with all things electronic or mechanical. He loves Mario, and right now he'd happily watch Wall-E everyday if I let him. He also seems to spend a fair amount of time pondering how things work. I overheard him and Ry discussing jet planes for a good 20 minutes one evening. "And what would happen if a bird flew in the engine?" I'm afraid I'll come downstairs some morning only to find that he's disassembled every remote, cell phone and electronic device in the house. At least we'll have tech support when we're old.

While Gummy Bear spends a lot of time tormenting his brother, he also has moments of breathtaking sweetness. He brought Cheeky Monkey's lunch outside for him. He also came and comforted Cheeky when he had a diaper rash; holding his hand and kissing his cheek, murmuring, "It'll be OK, Cheeky."

Gummy Bear is one of the most independent, outgoing kids I've ever met. He'll strike up a conversation with whoever he meets and often gets frustrated when people in stores or on the street don't notice him waving them down from across the room. When he started at the new school last week, he walked in without hesitation while tossing me a "Bye, Mama." His teachers have raved about how quickly he seemed like part of the class. They also told me how very polite he is ... so maybe they're just buttering me up.

And then there's this:



Taking out all those suppressed urges to beat up his brother? I'm already envisioning his starring role on "Robot Chefs Duel Supreme ... of Doom!" Whoever he grows up to be, I'm sure enjoying him now. Also, how stinking cute is his little voice? Not ready for the growing and the aging. So. Much. Love.

Scenes from Irene

There are a lot of people up and down the Eastern sea board will are still without power, who have feet of water in their house, and whose property has been destroyed. I am extremely grateful that our Irene experience was far less extreme.

We began to get tornado warnings last night around 10 pm. Because our area doesn't have tornado sirens, neither Ry or I got much sleep last night. We spent some time in our basement with the boys around 11:30 pm and then we all slept on the first level. Ry stayed up most of the night monitoring the radio, since we lost power sometime before midnight.

When the boys got up around 7, we got up and surveyed the damage. We lost some pretty big branches. The most devastating loss of course, was part of our beautiful stockade fence. Still, I have to count ourselves pretty lucky. 

We decided to start eating the perishable food from the fridge, since the estimate from the power company about when we would get power back was 12 hours to a week. We tried to be careful about how often we opened the refrigerator door. Because Gummy Bear tends to be a stand-in-front-of-the-open-refrigerator-door-and-survey-the-offerings kind of kid, he came up with this helpful "reminder".

He seriously told me to write his name on the tape and draw a big X on it.

We have a gas stove (HURRAH!), so Ry boiled some water and made us some french-press coffee. It was wake-you-from-the-dead strong, but ooooh so good after the night we had.

I cooked up a bunch of our eggs, and Ry cooked our bacon. Mmmm. Bacon.

We kind of spent a quiet day loading the stuff we wanted to salvage from the fridge into coolers and hung out with the kiddos. When our power finally came back on 17 hours after we left it, I tossed all the food that didn't make it and thoroughly cleaned my freezer and fridge. It looks new!

So, anyway, I guess the deal is that Irene treated us pretty well. The road below is about 6 blocks from our house. It was taken at dusk with a cell phone, so sorry for the quality. Still, it's an excellent reminder that things could have been much, much worse.

Cheeky Monkey-ness

I was told tonight that someone is tired of watching the race over and over. To that person, I say, how can you tire of such joy and happiness? Still, it has been a while since I posted and in fear of being chastised again, here's a post about my Monkey.

Cheeky Monkey is quite possibly the most charming almost-2-year-old I've ever met. He's bashful and cheerful and quirky and sweet and I'm completely head over heels in love with him. 

Also, he's delicious.

Right now he is spurning utensils, even though he knows perfectly well how to use them. I've taken to feeding him breakfast in his pajamas so he doesn't ruin his day's clothing before 9 am. That happens sometimes anyway, but I try.

Apparently it tastes better this way.

While he still isn't talking a lot, his vocabulary has expanded quite a bit in the last month. He joyously pokes your eyeball while screaming "EYE!!" and has mastered the two-word phrase "More please!" Of course, please comes out a lot more like "Oui" this days, so it's a lot of fun to pretend that he's speaking French. He also has a slightly disturbing fixation on Elmo. He can find an Elmo in a wall of stuffed animals, and cheerily screams "MELMO!", each time he spots the little red monster. He can't quite distinguish the characters though, so right now, anything with googly eyes is also a MElmo.

He also wants so badly to be just like his big brother. As you may have seen in the race video in the previous post, he Fred-Flintstones it around on the tricycle nearly as fast as his brother can pedal, he's started strapping himself into his high chair and carseat, and tries to brush his own teeth. Every night, we read him the "Goodnight Moon" book. For whatever reason he's obsessed with the mush. Maybe it's because of the spoon. Every toddler knows that mush is best eaten with fingers, not spoon.

The crab? His name is MElmo.

He's finally beginning to grow out of the All-Mommy-All-The-Time phase. At our trial day at the new school last week he did beautifully. About an hour in, he gave me a kiss and told me "bye-bye." The boys officially start their new school tomorrow. While I'm happy to have found them a school that they (and I) like, it's a little bittersweet to know that my time as a stay-at-home mom may now be over forever.

It's a race!

I'm winning!

Unenlightened Ukulele Friday

One of my favorite old songs. What? Didn't you follow the lyrics to score your man?

Moving right along

We found the boys a new daycare for the fall. It's not cheap. We're spending more for 3 days there than full time at the other school we looked at. Thankfully, we can send them just 3 days a week and my mom has agreed to watch them Monday afternoons so I can go and do my clinical research. I can't rave enough about how much it rocks to have my mom here. While I'm sure the other school we looked at would have been safe and fine, I just didn't feel great about it. Now we can send them someplace I feel good about and they get to spend every Monday with Neena. Double super awesome bonus!

Gummy Bear got to spend his very first night at the grandparent's house last night. It was awesome, until he threw up at 2 am. Meanwhile, back at Casa T, Cheeky Monkey was also throwing up. Fun times. Both boys seem to be on the mend today. They still don't have much of an appetite, but are otherwise OK.

I have 2 weeks until school starts for me again. While I'm excited to be done with school, I am not looking forward to going back to school. I have to be so on top of everything during the school year. We have a strict schedule to keep. I have to make sure there are supplies for lunches. My days are often long and my reading list is longer. Still, the material is engaging and I'm excited to be a practicing RN soon. I have heard from several of my friends from last year's graduating class who have found jobs in their areas of interest, so I am hopeful for a job in Labor and Delivery at this time next year. Hope with me people!

And that's what's new in my little corner of the world. What's new in yours?

Canned

Last week we received 20 pounds of tomatoes from the farm. Now, I like tomatoes as much as the next girl (probably more) but I couldn't conceive of a way to get 20 pounds down. Since our garden is ramping up its production this week, I already have tomatoes coming out my ears. 

And so, like any good domestic housewife, I begged my mommy to help me can them. I've always been too afraid of botulism or spoilage to do it myself. As it turns out, canning is really pretty simple. Also, as it turns out, 20 pounds of tomatoes = 6 quarts of canned tomatoes.

Pretty

Now we'll have delicious farm tomatoes for stews, chilis and sauces all winter (or at least into the fall). This week, I think I'm going to make pasta sauce from my 20 pounds of tomatoes and can it. I figure I'll get fewer quarts if I make sauce and 1 quart of sauce will equal one really easy dinner.

Yum.

Ocean City Adventuring .... Aaarrrggghhh!

We've been beaching down in Ocean City, Maryland this past week. It's been great fun and I have lots of pictures. If you're my facebook friend, you've probably seen some of them. At some point I'll do a big vacation post with our whole adventure. I also got the unwelcome news this week that because of some state regulations our boys' daycare doesn't have space for Cheeky Monkey in the fall. Now I'm scrambling to find an acceptable situation for the end of August. Ry tends to be anti-nanny, which leaves us with daycare centers and in-home centers. I know we'll figure it out, but I'm not looking forward to the process.

Anyway.

This morning we hopped aboard the Duckaneer for a pirate adventure. Lemme tell you, a good time was had by all. Gummy Bear was suitably attired.

Although he did keep calling his spy glass a stethoscope.

And thar she is, the Duckaneer.

The treasure map was ever so helpfully painted on the ship.

I included this picture mostly because it's one of the cutest picture of Ry and Cheeky Monkey, EVAR!

All the l'il pirates got their mustaches and tattoos.

Confused baby pirate is confused.

When the captain was inking Gummy Bear he said "You've very large ears pirate, what's yer name?"

I think he'd make a very handsome pirate.

We enjoyed the open seas.

And then we were attacked! Of course, we had to defend the ship. Sadly for me, the attacking pirates seemed to target the women with their water cannons and I ended up a very very waterlogged pirate.

We got to see the wild ponies on Assateague Island.

And after our victory, the pirates each got a share of the treasure!

Y'arrgh!

Y'aarrggghh!

We tipped our pirate captain and first mate because they were fun but also because "pirates need tuition money." And took the bus back to our condo.

Because even pirates ride the bus.