HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM!

We celebrated Adam's 3rd birthday today instead of yesterday (his is the 23rd). We figured it would be more fun to have a day to himself, rather than split with Easter festivities. He had a bunny cake (carrot of course!) because this is the only time in his lifetime where his birthday will actually fall on Easter Sunday. (Something like 2160 before the next March 23rd Easter!) Pictures are always more fun - so here you go!

Lots of Presents!

Thanks Nathan!

I Like Books

Fun with my Presents

Just One More to Blow Out!

Post-Dinner Wrestling

Peelings - Nothing More than Peelings . . .

Okay - in all honesty, I will admit, I am not particularly attached to the wallpaper. The wallpaper in our kitchen I have no strong feelings regarding either way. However, I would prefer it to stay attached to the walls.

Just when I thought we were starting to outgrow the grafitti phase with Sadie - Adam comes up with a new developmental challenge to hearth and sanity- peeling. Adam has heard me telling Sadie that we only draw "ON PAPER" for well, years now. Her artwork having a cave drawing-ish sort of appeal. In our basement you can chronicle her development over time - the shapeless scribbles; contorted circles and other shapes; the gerbil people - amorphous looking blobs with limited facial features and then arms and legs and heads and bodies - asymmetrical, often with fingers and feet elephantine in proportion, but a person nonetheless. Once we got people down - we started drawing numbers and letters and then words. Not exactly "Kilroy wuz here" - but Sadie 4 with a backwards "S". Adam had just taken to scribbling on himself in the past few weeks. I took a deep breath and braced myself for a new crop of art to begin appearing on whatever surfaces he had a yen to decorate. Every day I looked for new ink or crayon marks. Each day that passed with no new wall art I breathed a sigh of lucky relief - thinking, hoping, maybe Adam won't be quite as prolific as his older sister. Then one day I walked into the kitchen and found a pile of scrap paper on the floor. As I bent to pick it up from the floor and transfer it to a more suitable receptacle (fancy word for trashcan) I noticed it bore a remarkably familiar pattern - varying shades of green ivy leaves and vine on a white scrubbable vinyl. Ugh. I looked and sure enough - I had a large patch of plain wall next to the fridge. Subject almost 3 year old child to the "We Don't" lecture. All lectures given to children under the age of five usually begin with "We don't" . "We don't hit" We don't stuff bread up our nose" "We don't scribble on our baby brother." "We don't <insert your verb here>" Lecture administered, I watch him like a hawk. However, at some point, the baby needs to be put down for a nap, or the phone rings, I need to change the laundry over, or pick someone up from school. Once mom's attention is diverted - even for a moment, when she returns there is a new pile of wallpaper peelings on the floor and a fresh patch of bare wall. Initially I think Matt just wanted to try patching. Now I think he is considering repapering. Myself? Personally - I am not so much a wallpaper aficionado in the first place. I'm all for peeling the rest and going with plain white like the rest of the house. Matt seems less then enthused with that idea as it will require spackle, sanding, texturizing, priming, painting and largely through his personal efforts. Fresh, new plain white walls may also prove to be even more temptation for our little budding artists in situ and we will be back to cave drawings again. I did proffer the suggestion of a chair rail and wainscoting below as a potential solution. Since Adam's vertical reach is rather limited by his age appropriate stature at the moment, this isn't that high. Though - Matthew did point out that a 4ft, 5 and 2/3rds inches high chair rail is generally not the norm. My response being "and since when is anything around here "the norm" comparatively speaking? The norm for us usually differing wildly from the rest of the world.

As any devoted artiste - Adam has his little personal quirks, one being the need to peel while scantily clad. (refer to photos) Yes - our peeling phase is occurring at the same time as our streaking phase. He is nothing if not thorough. We have a large eat-in style kitchen and he has quickly and efficiently peeled a goodly portion of it, all while wearing pretty much nothing more than a diaper, a few pen marks and a smile. Oh - and strawberry jam around the mouth acquired from lunch.

I truly hope he outgrows this phase before he ever gets a sunburn . . .

What We Do For Fun Around Here

I found this interesting quiz site on the internet. There are quizzes on how much of a geek you are, chances of surviving a zombie apocalypse and this one - How Many Five Year Olds Could You Take in a Fight?

I have to admit I was very curious.

These are the results:

14

I figure that if you average out their ages - I might survive my 1 year old, 3 year old, 5 year old, 7 year old, 11 year old and almost 14 year old . . .

What do you think?

I took the Geek quiz for Matt - any surprise he came out 65% geek? I was a ladylike 35%.

My chances at surviving a Zombie Apocalypse were a paltry 31%. I had the food storage, but no weapons and a serious lack of physical ability. Run away! Run Away! See, there in lay the problem.

I should investigate further to see if they have a quiz on "How Many Mommies Does it Take to Get 6 Kids to Bed?"

There's a Chocolate Ring Around my Bathtub!

Do not take your eyes off the little ones for even one second.

Obviously it is not enough to just be in the house with them.

Someone wanted chocolate milk. Someone wasn't willing to wait for or even ask mom. Someone got out a jug of milk and the large container of powdered chocolate milk mix. Someone took the large container of chocolate milk powder and dumped it all over the baby who happened to be playing happily in the middle of my pile of clean laundry at the time.



The older Someone - because No One copped to it - got sent to her room and baby ended up in the bath. The younger someone who may or may not have joined in the powdering of the baby is going through a streaking phase. I dress him several times a day before I just finally give up and just turn up the thermostat.

After lunch when I put the baby down for a nap, I gave his neck a nuzzle and found a very sweet spot behind his left ear. Tasted like chocolate . . .

Invaders From the Planet SadieBug

Yesterday we were invaded. I am not quite sure how it happened, I turned my back for one second to change a poopy diaper and then there it was - an alien! Or at least, that is what she said she was, an alien. She had the antennae to prove it too.

The alien ran around the house causing all sorts of mischief as most aliens are wont to do. I had to be very careful not to become too inattentive or else this very opportunistic alien would find something to get into trouble with.

I had to stick my head in the dishwasher to find the model number so I could order a part to fix it with. While on the phone with the appliance store and trying to read the label which was applied sideways, the alien created a snowstorm! White shreds of toilet paper all over the livingroom. The boys were amazed -what a magical alien, an alien who can create white snowdrifts in the livingroom! They helped to turn the white stuff into even smaller shreds.

Little baby Nathan has been fighting an awful diaper rash for days and requires frequent baking soda baths to help soothe his poor offended skin. During bath time, the magical alien changed the color of the carpet - to glittery red gluey formerly green plush. This was after she created a special pool of hair creme for whatever alien rituals a creative alien such as herself would need a pool of hair creme to perform.

I found toys in the vaporizer in the baby's room. Most of the water from the vaporizer had mysteriously vanished from the holding tank and rematerialized in various areas, namely the top of the dresser and the floor. Sneaky alien. Apparently she needed parts for some alien invention too, because the cover to the tank and the vapor vent are now missing.

The alien joined us for dinner and enjoyed a hearty meal of Ratatouille and wild rice. She ate large helpings of tropical fruit salad. Afterward she performed gravity defying feats involving bouncing on the couch. The alien must have been too tired to return to whatever planet she came from because she fell asleep on the floor in the doorway to the little boys' bedroom.

This morning the alien woke up and must have returned home. When I put the boys in the van to make our Tuesday preschool run, the alien was gone and all I found was Sadie, sitting on the floor putting on her shoes.

She didn't even say goodbye . . .

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling - Keep those Wagons Rolling!

I've had a few people ask me if I ever got the van back. When we last met - the dealership was holding the van hostage for mass quantities of homemade Minestrone. Okay, so I made that part up, but you have to admit it sounded ever so much better than they were too busy to get around to it and so took a really long time to get it done.

Really - it was only a day or two, or a week and a half longer than a month without my primary source of transportation. Was the wait worth it? Well - I kind of miss the lime green splotch of spray paint on the back helping me differentiate which identical green soccer mom minivan was mine in the parking lot at Walmart. However - I have to say it looks pretty darn spiffy and immediately pressed it back into service.

The evening I picked it up though - it didn't look or feel quite like what I remembered. The seat was not as comfy as it use to be. Probably because I was a little out of practice, it took a few days - but me and the seat are kindred spirits once again. The front end looked very odd to me and I couldn't figure what was wrong with it at first (aside from missing the big pink splotch of craft paint and not being completely caved in). The next morning it occurred to me - I use to have a bug deflector! This was literally about the only thing on the front of the van that did not break in the collision. I went back the next day to the dealership to a) retrieve my Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness ribbon car magnet, b) inquire as to where I was supposed to attach my front license plate to (new bumper - no mounting bracket) and c) request my bug deflector be reattached. I suppose I should not have been surprised to find they had tossed the deflector, said "oh yeah" about the license plate and had stuck my magnet to the wall in their shop. I mean, these are after all the people who gave me a set of keys to a loaner vehicle clearly marked "Chrysler Sebring" on the tag and actually belonged to a vehicle clearly marked "Dodge Stratus". I pointed out that their loaner vehicle was having a bit of an identity crisis and they just shrugged and said "it's the same thing - they're both white." Uh - okaaaaayyyyyy . . .

Oh the pain in having to hand over the keys to my newly reacquired van for more work! Since I had to take it back in - I asked if they would also replace the back window motor. Might as well get it fixed too right? They had four days before the scheduled appointment fully knowing what the van was coming in for. They dropped me and the two littlest boys off at Walmart, I told them I had to have it back in 2 hours and 15 minutes in order to be on time to pick up my daughter. Two hours and ten minutes after being dropped off, they call me on my cell phone and say they are ready and on their way to pick us up. I wait for 20 minutes and am now late for Sadie. (whose preschool teacher probably seriously wonders if I know how to tell time since we are usually always late). They finally show up with the van and I note two things right off the bat - there is no bug deflector on the front and my front license plate is still on the dashboard. They did nothing! They didn't order the deflector, a mounting bracket OR a window motor in preparation. I ended up having to take it back in again after the parts they required holding my van for 2 hours and 10 minutes while I wandered aimlessly around Walmart with two small children to order finally came in. With parts in hand - it took them one hour and five minutes flat to get it all done, including ferrying me and the kids back and forth between the dealership and Walmart (which are only about half a block away across the street from each other). I suppose I could have saved a fair amount of time waiting had I just walked - though the task of crossing a large busy street and then pushing up a fairly good sized hill 2 kids in a double stroller with all our groceries and dragging a 4 year old along all by my weency lonesome seemed a tad bit daunting. There was also the slushy snowy stuff all over the place issue as well. My double is a great ride - but it is not an all terrain double. Plus, I am still kind of limping around on the mangled foot and hopelessly out of shape - so that also kind of spoiled any thoughts of fresh air and exercise right there. Those who know me also know that my theory on exercise is pretty much this - I don't run unless something is chasing me and it better be pretty darn scary, because I might decide it isn't worth the effort otherwise.

So there you have it - the van is back! Round 'em up, move 'em out - yee haaaaaaaaaaa!

I should probably post a picture of the newly refurbished mode of transportation. I figure it will probably take me 1 month, 1 and a half weeks, 2 hours and 10 minutes to get around to it and will probably be a picture of Matt's Neon instead. Hey - come to think of it - his Neon still has lime green spray paint on it!

Ah yes, good times, good times . ..

A Year in the Life

Happy 1st Birthday Nathaniel Bryant!

Opening presents is fun!

Piano Man

The best part of turning one is the cake!

Yum Cake!

All Clean!

Twelve months; 52 weeks; 365 days; 525, 600 minutes of baby smiles, poopy diapers, new teeth, crying jags, lullabies, walking the floor, cuddly moments, fuzzy pajamas, warm milk, binkies and blankies, first smile, rolling over for the first time, sitting up, standing up, saying "ma-ma", "da-da", "bye -bye" and "Uh-oh". Nine months growing inside of me to spend the rest of his life growing up and away . . .

Happy Birthday beautiful boy.

These sweet beautiful beginnings . . . .