motherhood is so glamorous!

Once you become a parent you resign yourself to the fact that you will never again be able to leave the house with completely clean clothes (on you or on your kids) and that, at some point during the day/week, you will look down and find some sort of substance that has been smeared, soaked, sneezed, spit, barfed, coughed or drooled on you.  Last Friday, I experienced all of this within a matter of a few hours.  I came home from work and picked up my baby girl to give her a big hug only to have her soaking wet diaper soak through my shirt.  YEAH!  Then, mommy's shirt and Harper's pants changed, I caught Cayden trying to poop in his pull-up.  I excitedly grabbed him, stripped off his pants (he's going to be so happy the day he realizes that I am telling this story to the world) and took him in the bathroom.  He was not happy and after a 45 minute stand-off I got him distracted with the bathtub and looked down to see my clean shirt now covered with tears and snot from our stand-off.  Opting not to change this time, I stayed in the bathroom in hopes that Cayden would decide he still needed to poop while in the tub.  He did!  While getting him on the toilet to poop, he peed on my arm.  I guess that's what I get for making him go on the pot.  As I was in the process of cleaning up the bathroom and myself from the pooping incident, Harper decided to crawl in the bathroom to see what all the excitement was about.  I grabbed her to keep her away from the mess I was cleaning up and got puked on.  Luckily most of it ended up on the arm I had just cleaned the pee off of.  The rest of our night continued like this...Cayden went stayed in tub for a total of an hour and a half before deciding he needed to shower for 20 minutes, during which time Harper bit my toe as I was sitting on the couch and then got mad at me for moving my foot.  After his two hours in the bathroom, Cayden told me he was now hungry for supper and then proceeded to choke on his macaroni before he finally ended up in bed sound asleep.  I sat down on the couch after both kids were finally in bed, looked at my extremely dissheveled appearance and all I could do was laugh!

Here is our weekend in review:

Harper's newest ability to pull herself up and to get into anything and everything (like the curtains) definitaly took center stage this past weekend.

picky eater my you-know-what!

For the past, I don't know how long, Cayden has not wanted to eat anything.   What I mean when I say that is if we can get him to eat some fruit snacks or a handful of cheerios in between his sippy cups of chocolate milk, it's a good day.  However, in the last few weeks he has started eating more and more.  Choosing to eat chicken nuggets (I found some really awesome ones made with whole grain breading..that makes them healthy, right?), more cheerios than normal and eggs (see previous post about the incredible, edible egg).  This past week it seems as though we have made even more strides in our struggle to get him to eat and it has been pretty impressive.  Not only did he eat beef stew, homemade bread with butter and honey, and egg bake that has olives, mushrooms, onions, artichoke hearts and tomatoes but he actually liked it.  I started to realize that maybe he is NOT a picky eater as we once thought he was but that eating like a normal human being is just one more thing in the short life of this incredibly challenging, too-smart-for-his-own good 3 year old that he has to decide on his own to do or it just won't happen.  Unfortunately for us, it looks like his little sister may be following in that same trend.  At least she's still little enough to need me to do way more for her than she can do on her own (for now)!

Here is our weekend in review:



The baby gate went up after Harper took a little tumble down the stairs.  We knew she was fine when she stopped crying and smiled at everyone doting on her.

Cayden makes sure that the bathtub toys get lined up nice and neat before we get out of the tub.  We get lots of practice learning the names of the animals since he has decided that he needs to bath twice a day, every day.  I was hoping that his OCD would translate into keeping his room clean, but that is not happening, even with my labeled buckets for keeping everything separated out nice and neat (wait,is that my OCD or his?).

the best idea ever

Living in a climate where you have to stay inside for almost 6 months of the year, because it's too cold to go outside, with a very active 3 year old can make for an incredibly long winter season.  Thankfully, we decided (and when I say we decided I mean I decided to do it, looked into different lessons around town, signed Cayden up and told Jake about it) to sign Cayden up for swimming lessons.  As a 3 year old he is now considered preschool age and is too old for the parent/child class which means that not only does Mommy not have to get into a bathing suit (YEAH!!!) but he has to swim alone for the first time in a body of water other than the bathtub.  This was some cause for concern because he is such a Mama's boy but I went ahead and signed him up anyway.  He was so excited to go swimming the day of his first lesson that we couldn't even put pants on over his swim trunks, despite the below zero windchill.  I got really nervous as I was getting his coat on because my sometimes sweet little boy looked at me and said "you want to go swimming with me" (with his voice rising at the end in the cutest, most heart-melting way he has).   I told him that he would be going swimming with the other kids and with his teacher.  He looked slightly confused as to why I didn't just say "yes" but seemed to be OK.  Needless to say, my worries were completely unfounded because as soon as he saw the other kids sitting with their feet in the water he went right over to his teacher, sat down with his feet in the water, let her strap on his floaty belt and got right in.  I was both incredibly proud of my big boy and a little sad that he was such a big boy.

He LOVED his swimming lesson so much that when it was time to go, we had a complete meltdown.  He wanted to keep swimming and did not want to go home.  I am extremely glad that he is going to be swimming twice a week, every week, for the next 5 weeks. 

hey dude...the name's mommy!

In case you haven't heard this a million times before, kids grow up way too fast!  Case in point...Cayden has started calling me "Mom" and it makes we want to cry thinking that I'm not Mommy any more.  I have no idea where get got this whole "Mom" thing but he seems to like the word and even places extra emphasis when he really wants something.  All of my nagging corrections when he says it have had absolutely no impact whatsoever.  I know this is just what happens but I can't help complaining a little bit and wishing that he was still my sweet, baby boy who wanted nothing more than cuddle time with Mommy instead of this mouthy, demanding, too-smart-for-his-own-good, 3 year old with an attitude who thinks that Mom is ridiculous.  Yes, he actually told me this weekend that I was ridiculous. 

Here is our weekend in review: Harper trys to chew on the dogs, particularly Gracie,       

when she sees them laying anywhere she can get to quickly.  Molly moves away just as fast but Gracie, being the good sport that she is and the perfect dog around kids, just lets her baby crawl all over her and chew on her head.

Cayden may have a slight touch of OCD and his perfect line of left-over Christmas Hershey's kisses that Mom was instructed not to touch is a shining example of this.

You know that you had a good weekend at home with your kids when they are playing nicely together!

bathtime and bedtime

Bathtime and bedtime are two things in our house that I look forward to and dread all at the same time.  I love seeing the kids interact with one another when they are in the tub, that is when Cayden agrees to get in and with his sister in there too, but it can sometimes turn into more of an adventure than I wanted to have to deal with that night.  Our latest involved the inflatable ducky tub, a plastic cup, the iPad and Facetime with the Uncles.  Cayden decided that he wanted to see Addy and Bun so we tried to Facetime with them on our iPads but, of course, they didn't answer or call back until we were in the middle of bathtime.  During this bath, where I did answer the Facetime and have to hold the iPad the entire time so Cayden could see the Uncles and himself while in the tub, but we also had to maneuver the ducky tub at the same time.  The inflatable tub was purchased to move Harper from the infant tub but also to keep her slightly more confined than she would be just in the big tub.  That was a brilliant idea...not so much!  Cayden discovered the duck behind the shower curtain and felt that it was not only a good idea but completely necessary that he get in the ducky tub (which he outgrew about 2 1/2 yrs ago).  Pretty sure both kids don't fit in there together so poor Harper had to be removed from the duck into the regular tub, only to have her wonderful big brother decide to poor a big cupfull of water over her head and then tell me to get her out when she started crying.  Here are a few pictures to give a visual of what our bathtime was like.

Bedtime is another adventure that usually involves Cayden instructing Mommy that "you have lay down with me" and Mommy then lying to him saying I have to go potty, put on my jammies, take my eyes out, etc so that I can sneak out and he can fall asleep.  Lately, however, he has been so tired after long days at daycare that he has been falling asleep really early and staying asleep all night (most of the time).  That is why I decided that it was time to start getting Harper to fall asleep on her own and hopefully, getting her to sleep through the night.  I have been laying her down with her fuzzies (very important in our house), her blanket from the Uncles and her ladybug nightlight on shining purple stars all over her room.  She has cried a little and I have had to go back in there a few times to hold her for a minute or two but we have been successful and now have a baby sleeping through the night.  YEAH!  I say this to everyone but when it comes to the game of getting kids to sleep at night, Mommy always wins in the end!

hug your kids

Yesterday, as I was driving home after picking the kids up, I got a phone call from a dear friend of mine.  What I thought was going to be a fun catch-up call turned into a very sad one.  She told me that she has cancer; some type of lymphoma and they aren't quite sure where all it has spread too.  Over the next few weeks she has to undergo a battery of tests and procedures so that her doctors can find out where the cancer is and what their next steps need to be.  I wanted to jump through the phone and hug her.  After our conversation ended I went in the house and told Jake what was going on but didn't even get to finish talking to him about it because one of the kids needed something.  The rest of our night progressed as normal and it wasn't until everyone else was in bed that I was able to really think about how strange that whole evening had been.  Here was a very important person in my life having to deal with an unthinkable situation while simultaneously, my life was moving along just as it always does.  I'm not sure what I quite felt about all of that other than how grateful I was that I told my kids "I love you" before bed and that I made sure to say it to my family members the last time we talked.  People always say this but it's so true...time flies and life is fragile.  So, anyone out there reading this (if anyone is reading this) hug your kids and hold them a little longer, kiss your spouse, tell your loved ones what they mean to you, be thankful for your health and the health of your family and pray for those that aren't.  And to my dear friend...I love you, I am thinking of you and I am here for you.

our first solo weekend at home

We have now officially been in our house for just over two weeks and it's starting to look and feel like home.  I spent all weekend continuing to unpack boxes, of which I prioritized the ones labeled "home decor" over those labeled "groceries."  Priorities!  We have had a few hiccups hanging shelves, like when my wall anchor went all the way through the wall in the bathroom and created a big hole instead of a nice spot to place my screw not once, but twice; or when I found the spot on Cayden's wall to hang one of his shelves that would let me hit the back of the microwave vent (again, not once but twice).  Oops!  It has all been worth it though and my thought process is that I better put all my extra holes in the walls before I do paint touch-ups rather than after.  Thankfully Jake has stayed surprisingly calm during all of my drilling and hammering and only looks midly nervous each time I pick up the cordless drill.  I know what I'm doing and, in my own head, feel that I am completely capabale of hanging just about anything anywhere.

Here is our weekend in review...and yes, that is Cayden wearing no pants in January.  He

took them off at daycare (at 10:30am) and refused to put them back on.  I also have to mention that they were Vikings sweat pants and he HATES them!

Harper has also discovered that she can see her reflection in the bottom of the refrigerator so as soon as she gets down on the floor, she makes a bee-line for it and spends half her time bumping her head trying to get over to that baby and the other half sitting in front of it talking to herself.