Pictures, packing, prayers

PICTURES:

My blog is going on hiatus as we're leaving tomorrow for Fargo. Because of my burnout, I have been light on pictures so I thought I would share some from the boys' birthday that I forgot to put up here: the annual height measurement.

We had originally thought about doing the boys' height measurements in the house, but when we were looking for houses, we saw many houses on the market with height measurements in them :( Fortunately I found this beautiful wood height chart on clearance (!) at Pottery Barn Kids right around their first birthday.

Alex was up first and while his face looked like he was lining up for a firing squad, this was the first time he didn't go into hysterics over getting measured.

Nate was all, "It's my birthday! Take a picture of me! Measure me! Me! Me! Me!" Well he didn't say it exactly like that but it was his third birthday and that's pretty much how 3 year olds roll.

Three years old!

PACKING:

When we did the height measurements, we were not surprised to learn they had not grown much during an entire year. As they are on the short side, they still wear 2T shirts and pants. Last night I checked the weather forecast in Fargo and the average daily highs are in the low to mid 70s. While that doesn't seem so cool, that is TWENTY DEGREES cooler than our highs. And the overnight lows are about as low as we go in the winter here.

So for our summer vacation, I need to pack some fall clothes for the kids. Fortunately I still had their long-sleeved shirts in the closet and put one on Nate just to double-check it still fit. IT DID NOT FIT. I then got the pleasure of playing "fashion show" with the boys (who were NOT interested except via M&M bribes) to try on every shirt. Over half of the shirts that fit in April (!!) do not fit now.

So... Jon and I have a lot to do tonight after work. Or rather, I have to hope Jon's flight from Calgary is not delayed or else I will have a lot to do tonight.

PRAYERS:

I know a lot of you reading this post experienced infertility. My very good real-life friend Heather is doing IVF transfer today so prayers and good thoughts are appreciated! Normally I would not share this news but she publicly blogs so send some virtual hugs her way. Positive IF stories are always appreciated!

Burnout

Have you ever had that feeling that it's been too long since you had a vacation and your life has been really stressful and there's too much on your to-do list and you realize having two three year olds is REALLY HARD and all you really want is to get on a plane to a place where you can sit by a lake in a hammock and drink a big glass of wine and think about nothing except just enjoying life?

Oh wait, that's me.

Burned out.

I've got no cute stories about the kids today, sorry. You'll have to make do with the previous 1100 entries.

I found a sliver of inspiration this week. I stumbled upon a college acquaintance's photography blog (Caltech is only 800 undergrads, you kinda know everyone) and he had some stunning photographs taken from his iphone. It led me to an entire website dedicated to iphone photography.

After seeing the Phone Photo Friday pictures, I've decided I'm going ahead with the Friday play-along. It won't be this Friday or next Friday as I'm dedicating those two days to unburning out on vacation, but get your pictures ready. You might surprise yourself with the quality of pictures you can take from a camera phone.

The other nice thing about cell phone photography is that it is fairly easy to snap pictures of people who are generally not interested in being photographed. Like Jon.

What happens when I do not listen to my kids

For about a week after Alex potty trained, he would wake in the middle of the night and cry for a few minutes. This is par for the course with Alex. Any developmental leaps cause night wakings. In this case, all we needed to do was go in, put his blanket on him, and he went right back to sleep. I find it so interesting that when he is going through these huge changes, he needs extra comfort throughout the day and night.

One morning he woke up crying that his belly hurt. I told him it was because he was hungry, so he had some breakfast and was fine. At bedtime he said his belly hurt again, so I gave him some food. Nate is very good at watching Alex and then using tactics to manipulate us. A couple of days ago, Nate said his belly hurt and we ignored it because he lies to us to get attention or stall at bedtime. In the meantime, they both have rivers of snot coming from their noses and Alex has a serious cough.

I woke up yesterday with my belly hurting SO BAD, and I feel a cold coming on. Yes, I know this is karma.

But dang karma, why you gotta give me my first illness in 8 months right before we go on vacation???

The deep end

We had a buttload of stuff to get accomplished this weekend. Jon was gone all week and frankly, I had a horrible and stressful week. Then Jon leaves tomorrow for a trip to Charlotte and then Calgary. Yes, Calgary CANADA. For a day. Only 5000 miles roundtrip! Then we leave Friday for a week's vacation to exotic Fargo.

After the week I had, I was insistent we also get some family time to do something fun. After getting our chores done on Saturday, we spent some time at the pool. Before we left, Nate told us he was going to jump off the diving board into the deep end. This is our fault because we told him he couldn't go off the diving board until he could swim. And after his fourth swim lesson, the kid can swim. It is CRAZY.

Jump he did, over and over and over. When the big kids lined up to go down the slide, Nate was right there in line with them. It was so cute to see the big kids helping spot Nate as he went down this slide:


Yes I am a brave mom to let my 3 year old go down an 8 foot slide by himself into almost 10 feet of water.

Of course, the problem is that either Jon or I had to be in the deep end to help Nate get out of the way for the next kid. It was actually a good workout to tread water for TWO HOURS while Nate jumped and slid.

I also got an unexpected workout when Alex decided to go down the slide too. He patiently waited in line, climbed to the top, then sat at the top bawling hysterically as he chickened out. He wouldn't come down so I had to climb to the top and carry him down while tons of kids stood in line waiting.

For a brief moment at the top, I considered giving Alex a big shove to make things easier for me but Alex is such a people pleaser. The reason he climbed up there in the first place was because Jon and I were encouraging Nate. So the best thing I could do is make it clear even if he doesn't do everything Nate does at the pool, we still love playing with him and are so proud of everything he has accomplished this summer so far.

Phone Photo Friday: play along!

I'm considering creating a weekly play-along where people post pictures from their cell phones. If you're interested, post a picture from your cell phone on your blog and leave a comment here. If there's enough interest, I might start something weekly! With everyone using phone cameras, I want to encourage people to download those photos and do something with them! When your phone dies, the pictures are gone too.

Over the 4th, we flew Southwest to Florida. The revamped Tampa Southwest terminal has a play area for kids. I have never been so happy to see a public play area. Jon and I got to RELAX in the terminal while the boys ran around and pretended to fly planes.

Two signs your children are photographed too often.

SIGN 1: the posed arm

SIGN 2: posing + cheese face

And I would be remiss ending the week without mentioning a milestone from swim class:

NATE CAN SWIM ON HIS OWN!!!

More on this next week!

A quick scene

Scene opens onto two 3 year olds in wet swimsuits sitting on towels on a kitchen floor.

Suddenly a very long, loud fart breaks the silence.

Laura: Nate, what happened?
Nate: I burped.

Pan to confused look on Laura's face

Nate: But it came out of my butt.

End scene.

The next step in bathing

You know how when you're having a hard time, your kids sense that and give you a break by acting like angels? Yeah, not happening at my house this week. Jon's gone all week and the last two nights have been terrible.

Rather than go on about the gritty details, I thought I would share the next step up in bathing two kids. You ask, what next step?! We have been bathing the boys together since they could sit on their own. It makes bedtime logistics easier, particularly since I'm on my own quite a bit. Still, after a long day, it can be exhausting to fill the tub, get their cooperation for soaping, shampooing, rinsing times two, then drain the tub and pull them out.

With Alex's success on the potty (two successful days at day care! woo hoo!), he had a little boost of confidence. He decided he wanted to take a shower. This weekend we used the walk-in shower at bedtime and it was a HUGE HIT. The two of them stood in there playing, giggling, and talking. Nate provided constant commentary, "We're doing okay mommy! Don't open the door! We're fine!"

It sounds so minor, right? But now they walk in by themselves, I soap them, they rinse themselves, then they walk out. No more bending over, stooping, and getting them to stop splashing. No more fights over sides of the tub. If I've had a long night (like the last two nights), I shut the shower door and let them play while I take a Mommy Time Out. It's HUGE people.

My favorite part is something I can't share here. Alex likes to stand pressed against the glass door. The image of his little buttch.eeks pressed against the glass is unbelievably adorable.

Love

I have never been a deeply religious person but I have always believed that you get back from the world what you put into it. While some days I fail miserably in my attempts to give more to the world than I receive, I try every day to put out love. I do this because I have seen what love can create. I have proof of it:

This family is the result of the love between my grandparents. Over 56 years, this love created 5 children, 12 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren. Nate and Alex exist because of this love. It is in this very large family that my grandfather's spirit will live on.

When we visited my grandfather last week, he was not feeling well. The most remarkable thing was that he said he hoped he felt better the next time we came to Florida. These are two things I hope to pass down from him to my kids: optimism and love. Passing down his liberal political leanings as well would be great, but I'd be content with just optimism and love.

Rather than feel sad about over his passing, I choose to focus on the positive. I got to have my grandparents at my high school graduation, my wedding, and my baby shower. He got to meet Nate and Alex. He had a huge family that provided years of joy. He lived a long life with one of the most remarkable women I know. He had the most important thing you can have in your life and he had it in excess: love.

Grandpa Joe, you are missed already but will always be in our hearts.

THE POST THAT WILL BE ALL SHOUTING AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Hey Alex, what's that you're pointing at?

Oh that's your sticker chart? For potty training? And it's completely full!

ALEX WENT ALL WEEKEND IN UNDERWEAR ONLY! That means....

WE ARE DONE WITH DIAPERS FOREVER!!!!!!!!

(except for naptime/nighttime pullups until he is sleep trained)

(and we still use swim diapers in case of accidents because we've been at the pool when a "potty trained" kid shut the pool down for eight hours a la Caddyshack. so not worth being the parent who has to do the ultimate walk of shame as the pool closes and everyone goes home)

(Three years of diapers with two boys and NOT ONCE did I get peed on. That has to be some kind of record, right?)

YAY ALEX!

And again, someone pinch me because we are done with diapers FOREVER!

Pay It Forward winner & more on the funk

Thank you to everyone who entered! I love all the meal ideas! Random.org picked lucky #32 as the winner. When I counted entries (taking out disqualified people and double counting some people for two entries), I came up with Shawn from Between the Lines. Yay! I love her writing and her girls are freaking adorable. Shawn, email me your address and I'll get a package in the mail to you.

But wait, there's more!

I thought I would share an embarrassing story from recent memory. It involves a trip to the local post office and I wrote a post two years ago about it.

And more on the whole funk thing. At the end of last year, I had a mini-meltdown because life seemed so overwhelming (wrote about it here). Much of it revolved around Jon traveling so much. Then we had a spell where Jon did not travel much for work and things eased up. Now he's back to traveling a lot. Jon and I spent a lot of time talking this week about how to better manage our to-do list.

Back in December, I was the one managing everything on the list and I was overwhelmed. It felt like I was constantly nagging Jon to do something. We decided to break it up - Jon responsible for some, me responsible for some. With Jon traveling, me working full-time, two kids and a life, it seems nothing on either list is getting done. So we're going to consolidate our lists into one big honking list. And every Thursday, we'll figure out what needs to get done in the following week and how we can accomplish that with Jon's travel.

The end goal is to keep on top of the to-do list but also not feel like we are spending all of our non-working hours doing chores.

Through all of this discussion, I couldn't help but wonder how other two working parent couples manage this? So please, give me some strategies!

Thursday gumbo

* Swim lessons continue to rock. When Nate keeps his head down, he can paddle his arms and legs and SWIM. I told him if he wears floaties, he can go off the diving board. We'll see if he does it this weekend.

* Our evil plan of separating the boys appears to be working. Alex has been staying dry all morning at day care. We're going full steam ahead on a booty camp this weekend, starting tomorrow afternoon.

* The boys officially have separate rooms now as we moved Nate's toddler bed into the guest room. Alex has required less sleep lately and has been keeping Nate up way too late, which in turn makes Nate super cranky. The final straw was Tuesday as Alex made fake choking noises. I ran into the room in a panic thinking someone was choking, and I woke up a half-asleep Nate who said, "Alex won't stop talking to me and I'm trying to sleep!"

* Today's the last chance to enter my giveaway! You know I love me some summer frappucinos so a Starbucks gift card will definitely be in the package. Please enter!

Sweet, I did it. Managed to write about poop and sleep, the only two topics parents ever seem to discuss with regularity.

My version of Little Red Riding Hood

The boys are very interested in long stories and long books lately. They have been requesting particular stories and on our Florida trip, Nate asked me to tell him Little Red Riding Hood at bedtime. I only vaguely recalled an outline - Red goes to meet her grandma and the Big Bad Wolf tries to eat her. I didn't remember the rest, couldn't google it, and really had no interest in telling Nate a potentially nightmare-inducing story. So I made up my own, much better, 3 year old version.

Red decides to pack a picnic so she goes to the grocery store. Grocery shopping is Nate's favorite pretend activity so I ask him what Red buys for the picnic. Then Red goes to the movie store to get a movie to watch with Grandma. The popcorn store is next and she buys all kinds of crazy popcorn - chocolate, cheese, vanilla. Red goes to Grandma's, finds Wolf in bed, and convinces him that all three of them should have a picnic together, watch a movie, and eat some popcorn.

Some may disagree with not telling the "real" version but if they'd see Nate's face listening intently and see him excitedly yelling out crazy popcorn flavors then laughing, well, they'd probably want to join in the fun and tell this version to him also.

(Don't forget to enter my giveaway! I know plenty of regular readers who did not enter, so enter today!)

Pay It Forward GIVEAWAY and two kids in two rooms

First up, I wrote a post today on HDYDI about our growing pains with two kids in two different day care rooms. One of the advantages of twins is doing day care dropoff and pickup in one room and we've felt some growing pains as that advantage is gone this week. We're strongly considering another booty camp with Alex this weekend. If it fails, well I already have a massage scheduled with a friend on Sunday. (Side note: when considering gifts for moms, massage gift certificates are always welcome!)

Next, I am doing a BLOG GIVEAWAY. I have been in a serious funk lately on all levels. Blogfunk, personal funk. Too many things to do and not enough time. I don't feel like I'm giving 100% to anything. It happens and I know it will pass, but in the meantime my blog has not been nearly entertaining enough.

Last week, I received a package from QuadMama, as a winner of her Pay It Forward Challenge. The box contained a Starbucks gift card, a notepad (because if it's not written on my to-do list, it's not getting done,) some lotion and potpourri. Very nice! Now it's my turn to pay it forward by giving away a little package of some of my favorite items to a lucky reader.


The rules:
* Enter here by commenting and telling me your favorite family meal. We're in a meal funk too.
* Bonus entry by commenting with an embarrassing story.
* Deadline to enter is Friday, July 10 at 9AM EST. I'll use random.org to announce a winner on Friday.
* If you win, you must agree to pay it forward by sending a little something to someone else.
* Only open to US addresses.

Please oh please, regular readers, I'd love to put together a package for you. So if you're reading and you rarely comment, now is the time to do it!

4th of July visit to Florida

We spent 4th of July weekend visiting my family in Florida. While the boys are getting to be seasoned travelers, they never tire of watching the activity on the tarmac.


As the boys get older, it is interesting to see what fascinates them about a new location. This trip, lizards and squirrels were highlights for them. I'm not as adept as my sister at catching lizards so I never managed to snatch one for the boys. They still had a blast feeding peanuts to the squirrels in my dad's backyard.

We also visited my brother's new house. It is a true bachelor pad as there was a stack of sombreros in the dining room. Of course it screamed photo op to me. (We also visited grandma Jen but forgot pictures. It was a whirlwind trip.)


As everyone across the country celebrated our country's independence, the true highlight for me was getting to spend time with one of my heroes, my grandpa Joe. Both of my grandpas were in the military, fighting to keep our country's freedom. I can't imagine a better way to spend the 4th of July.

One of those nights

After visiting the 3s room, Nate didn't want to come home.

He was overheated but didn't want anything to drink.

The boys didn't want what I cooked them for dinner.

They took an hour to eat, repeatedly getting sent to time out for "throwing food to the duckies", spitting, and shouting.

After dinner, their shirts were dirty with pasta sauce. I sent them upstairs to get them by themselves, thinking it would distract them from ALL THE CRYING. Within 5 minutes, World War 3 broke out. Four broken hangers! Nate had the worst tantrum I HAVE EVER SEEN from my kids. The fabled 3 year old tantrum.

Nate wanted to wear Alex's orange shirt so badly he was hyperventilating and screaming. He was so distraught and out of control that all I could do was hold him close and pat his back while he screamed over and over.

I pulled up a picture of Nate on my iphone and drew an orange shirt on him in the picture. This did not amuse Nate or make him feel better. At least I tried.

Jon's flight was delayed.

Nate really really really did not want me to take this picture.



Keeping it real y'all, keeping it real.

After reading this, I bet all our relatives in Florida are going to be very excited to see us tomorrow!

Have a happy 4th!

Swim class and a new class

Swim class went great. I am very impressed by all they learned! The teacher said Nate could easily be swimming above the water IF he were cooperative and motivated. So now we need to figure out what will motivate him enough to cooperate. Alex made great strides, even learning to do a dead man's float on his own. Scary but awesome.

(Too bad the batteries were dead in my little camera or you would be seeing pictures of the lesson.)

We have other big news this week as Nate is transitioning to the 3s room at school. They have to be potty trained to move up and we did not want to hold back Nate waiting for Alex. Part of our plan is hoping this will motivate Alex because we have tried everything and Alex is still not trained. Nate spent time there yesterday and came home with SO MANY stories about the new room. I have never heard him talk so much about one topic.

In response, Alex spontaneously asked to sit on the potty at bedtime. He sat there for 15 minutes while Nate told him everything about the new room. Nate told Alex he would cheer when Alex started using the potty and could go to the new room. I think this plan may actually work! Although I hate to write about it publicly because then it will fail!

With this big change, the most surprising thing happened at pick up. Alex and I walked to pick up Nate. When they saw each other, Alex and Nate ran to give each other full body hugs. I realized this was the first time they had been separated at school for more than an hour.

Seeing that hug made me happy they'll have the next two years together before they start "real" school.

Seeing that hug made my day, my week, my month, my year.