Grocery shopping with Abby

Now I generally prefer not to take Abby grocery shopping with me, but Jason offered to keep the two boys so we set off for a trip to Cub Foods. I decided that since Abby was sitting up so well it was time to try her sitting in the cart. As we already know she doesn't care for riding in her car seat while grocery shopping, I generally 1) go grocery shopping when she's in bed and Jason is home or 2) put her in the sling for our shopping outing. She really seems to like the sling and it gets a lot of use these days, but it's a little difficult shopping with Abby in the sling, so I'd prefer she sit in the cart. So we gave it a try. We got to the store and I surveyed the carts for one with an operational buckle. I then put her in the seat and buckled her in. Here's the short ending: it didn't work.

Here's the long ending. When I placed Abby in the seat and buckled her in, she became completely stiff as if to say, "What the heck is my bottom and legs touching?" She then looked at me, shocked and incredulous, and started shrieking. Those who've been around Abby when she's not in a good mood know what noise I'm talking about. I had brought the sling with me and had thrown it in the cart so I decided to end the bout of shrieking and quickly put the sling over my shoulder. I retrieved her from the cart and she quickly quieted down, then I got her into the sling and as I was going to tighten it up I realized, in my panic, I had put the sling on backwards. I had no option other than to put Abby back into the cart seat, have her resume her shrieking even louder, adjust the sling and pick her back up and get her in the sling and tighten it up. So much for my idea of having her ride in the cart. She happily rested her head on my shoulder and sucked her thumb after the incident and I quickly amended my grocery list to items that could be collected with 1.5 arms. Although slings give you both hands free, it's really impossible to pick up a watermelon or bend down to grab and 12 pack of soda with a little one strapped to your hip. So I ended up getting mostly what I needed and also someone offered to bag my groceries. I don't know if they witnessed her outbursts or just realized the difficulty I would have with bagging with a baby in a sling, but I was certainly grateful. I guess we'll have to try the cart some other time. Abby certainly has her preferences and isn't shy about making them known.

Trip to IA

This weekend Matthew, Abby and I went to IA for my cousins' graduation party in Des Moines. Jason and Sam stayed in MN. I was a little concerned about the drive as sometimes Abby isn't the best in the car, but we gave it a go anyhow and it went pretty well. On the drive down both kids took short naps and with about an hour to go, Abby was making things very lively so we had to stop at a rest area and take a break. Matthew enjoyed the opportunity to walk around and play some and Abby enjoyed her freedom from the car seat and being with Mommy.

Matthew especially liked being in IA and when we drove in Grandpa and Grandma's yard he yelled, "We're in Iowa!" We played with kitties and tractors, petted Dee (the dog), ran around outside and took a trip down to Des Moines on Saturday for the graduation festivities. Abby was in usual form, only happy (i.e. not crying/screaming) when being held by Mommy. She's in that phase these days and has been for some time. And she's got two teeth coming in so that's making her more crabby than usual. Seriously, she's really a calm and fun kid when she's not surrounded by people she doesn't know. Really, she is.

We headed home Sunday afternoon and Matthew quickly fell asleep while Abby was sometimes quiet and sometimes not until about Medford, then unfortunately she just lost it and I had to take a break at the Medford Outlet Mall. After she calmed down and we walked around for about a half hour we continued on our way. A half hour later Abby again was having difficulty so we had to take another break. Now, if you think I stop whenever Abby makes a peep, you would be wrong. I give her maybe 10 or 15 minutes to calm down, but if she's continuously crying for that duration I pull over. Believe me, it seems like the longest 10 or 15 minutes ever. Poor Matthew, he's used to her outbursts, but it still must be trying for him too.

So we stopped again, hung out in the car and went to Target. Then after a 10 minute break we were back on the road. The last 40 minutes of the drive were mostly uneventful. Abby cried out every so often, but nothing major. Most of her outbursts occurred after Matthew would scream, "Look, big buildings!" And he frequently screamed that as we were driving into and through Minneapolis. And I mean scream. Or maybe screech. Either way, it was difficult to hear, made me cringe and admonish and made Abby cry. To calm Matthew I put on the Muppets movie soundtrack and then he would yell, "Ma nah, ma nah!" as he wanted to hear the "Mahna mahna" song. Occasionally he would yell about whatever vehicles he would see and I would sometimes correct him when he said the wrong color or something like that. To which he would reply, "It's naw ot! It's naw ot" (it's not), turning "not" into a drawn out two syllable word. He is quite opinionated about things these days and will really fight you if he thinks his interpretation of the situation is correct. Anyway, we had a fun trip, everyone slept well and the driving was really not too bad. Here are some pictures of the weekend.

Matthew refused to wear both a bib and clothing other than a diaper for breakfast, so he was well covered with syrup from his pancakes which required a bath.

Abby, during one of her better moments of the trip, fascinated by a spinning top.

Matthew, although he loves tractors, still takes some time warming up once inside them. He had fun after awhile but none of the pictures where he was smiling and enjoying himself turned out. 

Here's a baby kitten which lives in the bean head for the combine. I suppose it will vacate it's home well before the fall comes around, but for now it's a cozy, dry place to call home. We saw 10 kittens on the farm this weekend, all black and white.

Grandpa Don got the kitten out so we could see it up close. Matthew is more of a dog person than a cat person (he laid on Dee and gave her a big hug more than once), but he still had fun with the kittens.

Vacancy in the nest

I have kind of a long story to tell, but if you make it to the end you will be rewarded with a cute picture of Abby. Anyway, a robin built a nest under the corner of our deck. I had noticed some dried grass on the rocks under the deck and when I looked above the grass there was a little nest. From then on, we noticed the mother bird would swoop out of the nest when we went to play in the backyard and she would chirp at us from the fence, then swoop back to the nest when we went inside.

Last week when we were playing in the sandbox Sam said that he wanted to touch an egg. It came completely out of nowhere, so I had no idea what he was talking about. We went back and forth a bit as I tried to understand his seemingly incoherent statement. Then finally he said, "Mommy I dropped two eggs". It finally clicked for me. Uh oh. He had apparently grabbed two eggs out of the nest and dropped them. I had warned and scolded the boys about getting near the nest, but Sam's curiosity got the best of him and he, at least he said, that he broke two eggs. I felt awful about it and told him that was naughty and that we needed to leave the eggs alone. A few minutes later I had to go inside to get some water for the boys so I took a quick look at the nest as I hadn't seen much action from the mother bird lately and I feared that Sam may have destroyed all her eggs or she had abandoned them. To my surprise I saw two little heads peeking out of the nest. I was quite relieved and in my excitement I told the boys there were two baby birds in the nest. I told that I was going to get the camera and take a picture so they could see the birds without getting too close.

I ran in the house and ran back outside to witness a few robins swooping down at the boys and raising a ruckus. Then I saw two little robins who couldn't fly more than a few feet skittering/flying away from the nest. They would run, then attempt to fly and get a few feet, then run some more. One ran over to the sandbox, tried to fly and collided with the fence and the other ran alongside the house until it ran into the canyon which would be our window well. It gripped the edge of the window well and didn't move. The boys didn't seem to know what was going on, so at least they weren't scared by the robin attack and all the commotion. I quickly shooed them inside and felt even more awful about the bird situation.

I started dinner and the boys got to watch their evening tv show. I kept a look out for the birds and a few minutes later I saw the mother robin on top of the fence and right below her was one of her babies. I assumed it was the one from the sandbox collision as it was maybe 20 feet or so down the fence from the sandbox.  I didn't know where the other one was although I couldn't see it near the window well anymore. The mother seemed to be leading the baby down the fence. A few minutes later I saw the mother, hopping on the ground, with two babies behind her, crossing the fence in our backyard into our neighbor's yard. I watched them as far as I could, then they went over the hill in Karl's yard and I could no longer see them. I hope they found a better home.

And here's a cute picture of a very tired Abby.

Weekend water play

On Saturday it was pretty warm so we had some fun playing outside in the little swimming pool. Matthew first enjoyed some snack. I made funny noises trying to get him to look at me but instead he just laughed and continued looking straight ahead...

 Then the boys helped fill the swimming pool. No one got seriously wet from this part of the festivities.

 Abby watched on. She was less interested in swimming than she was in the boys' snack. When food is placed in front of her she really shows off her mobility skills--a combination of bellyflopping, lunging, worming and crawling.

 Then Jason started making showers of water for Sam to run under. Matthew didn't really want to get wet so he just watched. Sam was lovin' the "sprinkler".

 Sam ended up getting pretty wet which is a big change for him as he usually likes to stay fairly dry, especially his head. But he is growing up and getting brave and took lots of water in the face.

 Jason then set up the sprinkler for the kids (and himself) to run through. Matthew again didn't want anything to do with it, but Jason carried him through the sprinkler. Matthew wasn't too happy about it.

 However, Sam loved the sprinkler and went back and forth through it. He and Jason would "race" through the sprinkler, both getting pretty wet but having a lot of fun.

Listening to the ocean

When Ken and Cheri got back from Florida they brought the kids some shells. So last night I was attempting to diffuse a Sam tantrum as he had some privileges removed because of bad behavior and I decided to try the distraction technique rather than ignoring or active engagement. Anyway, he was crying and tantruming so I picked up a shell and listened intently. Then I said, "Sam, I can hear the ocean!" He quickly stopped tantrumming and wanted to try it out for himself. He did and after awhile he said, "Mommy, what's that noise?" "It's sounds like the ocean," I said. Then he said, "No, I hear a whale!" I exclaimed that was amazing, then asked him what else he heard. He then made a hiccuping noise and said, "Mommy, someone is hiccuping in the ocean! There's a shark too!" I asked if there was a hiccuping shark, to which he replied that there was not. I then listened again and made a hiccup noise myself. "I hear someone else hiccuping in the ocean!" I said. Sam replied, "Mommy, that was you!" And we laughed. Tantrum diffused.

Matthew's appt and more

Matthew had his two-year appointment today. He really didn't handle it too well. I coached him ahead of time about what would happen (he would get weighed, see how tall he was and the doctor was going to look in his ears, nose, poke around his tummy, etc.) so I thought that would alleviate some of his apprehension about it, but alas, it did not. He really handles trips to the doctor much worse than the other children. He cries (and that boy can produce a flood of tears in a second), screams, thrashes about--and that's just when the nurse is trying to get his height and weight. 

When the doctor came in, Matthew would not look at her or talk to her for at least the first 5 minutes. He eventually warmed up and responded to a few of her questions, but mostly he kept to himself. He was at least tolerant of the exam, but the shots were another story. Just putting him down on the table was quite a challenge, but the nurses seemed accustomed to the difficulty and it went "well". Anyway, here are Matthew's stats:

Height: 37 in, 95+ percentile (again, what does that mean?)

Weight: 31 lbs, 90th percentile

And here are Sam's from 2 years old:

Height: 35 in, 75th percentile

Weight: 27 lbs, 25th percentile

The remainder of this post includes pictures from our afternoon activities. We had Popsicles on the deck, then played in the driveway and off to the sandbox. I got a new lens for the camera, so I wanted to try it out. Sam felt that BaaBaa needed to be in a lot of pictures, and here is the best one. 

Matthew was being his non-shy self, singing, shouting and playing on the kids' picnic table. Matthew is like two different kids: kid one won't look at anyone or speak around people or places he's unfamiliar with. Kid two is crazy, boisterous and funny.

And Abby was entertaining herself on the blanket when Sam stopped by. Take note of Abby's dark streaks of hair on the right side of her head (left side for us).

Here they are up close and personal. Those brunette streaks are all that's left of Abby's dark hair. The rest has all fallen out and she's gone blonde. The streaks are really quite striking--women pay lots of money to have such beautiful streaks in their hair. Pretty soon they will be all gone and I will be the lone brunette in the family. So much for blonde being a recessive trait. 

Here are some other pictures from our afternoon.

Parenting wisdom-This too shall pass

I've been a parent for 3 1/2 years now and I have acquired some wisdom over the course of that time period that I'd like to share. I'm sure my wisdom (well, I hope) will grow in the coming years, but I wanted to explain a bit about it now. I'm going to write out my current list, in no particular order, and chip away at them one at a time for a few posts when I don't have pictures or other stories about the kids over the next few weeks. Anyway, here goes.

1) This too shall pass. This is a saying I learned from Dennis Prager who said it's from King Solomon. With kids, things change so quickly. It's hard to remember that when it seems like you've gone for weeks without things improving, but before you know it, the kids reach a developmental milestone or something just clicks and they're over whatever challenge you were facing and on to another. Like I remember when Abby was horribly difficult to get down for a nap and bedtime. It seemed like I would spend sometimes 30 minutes or even 1.5 hours rocking, patting, holding her and bouncing and she would just scream. And this happened for every nap and every bedtime. And the boys would be going crazy in the hallway outside her door. And I would cry. And my wrists hurt from all the patting and my knees ached from marching around her room and bouncing around. But guess what her nap and bedtime routines are now? Naptime: take her upstairs, change her diaper, put her in her blanket sleeper, pat for 5 seconds and put her in her crib--awake--she does the rest. Total time: 2 minutes. Bedtime: go to her room, walk around saying "night night" to her pictures and stuffed animals. Read story and bedtime prayer. Change into PJs and blanket sleeper, pat for maybe 30 seconds and into her crib. Total time: 7 minutes. So this too shall pass. Now I don't get to spend as much time with Abby preparing her for bed, but I sure enjoy the time we do have together.

You don't have to look too far back in our recent history to know that Sam has been a challenge at bedtime too. Just look at posts from a year ago or so. I remember reading my book in low light just outside Sam's bedroom door so when he peeked outside or tried to come out (for the 20th time of the night) I was right there to redirect (for some reason he would skitter back into his room if a parent was right outside). And I remember sitting there for an hour and getting maybe 10 pages read in my low light. And sending him back again and again and again to his bed. Now we rarely have a problem with him. We have our routine and he can keep his light on and read for awhile if he likes and he happily entertains himself until he falls asleep. This too shall pass. It's the nature of kids.

Here are my other bits of wisdom:
2) Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
3) Love your spouse.
4) Have reasonable expectations.
5) You can't (and shouldn't) make your kids happy all the time.
6) Keep up your own hobbies/interests/diversions (to a certain extent).

I know there are other floating around in my head, but remember things these days isn't a great strength of mine, so I may add or amend others down the road. I'll explain more about the other items in future posts.

Rainy day fort

Sunday was kind of rainy and dreary so Jason decided to have some fun with Sam in the afternoon and build a super-fort. Sure beats my "throw a blanket (or two) over the dining room table" fort and the kids have spent considerable time in the fort and destroying the fort over the past few days. They are too little to adequately reconstruct the fort by themselves so I am called upon to help them often, but have so far said I will only reconstruct it once a day. Here are some of the details. It's main support is a small table made for me when I was in college by Grandpa Don. A small storage ottoman is on top of the table. The back of the fort is supported by 2 folding chairs and a basketball hoop. The blankets are supported on the right side by the futon cushion. All these supports have created a split-level structure with a main level, upstairs, attic and basement. Sam enjoys playing with cars on the main level and taking fake naps in the upstairs (which is where he is in the above picture). Matthew enjoys playing cars on the main level and destroying the roof. Actually, both boys enjoy destroying the roof as can be seen from the picture below.

The boys also decided they wanted their pictures taken with doggie. So here they are with doggie.

Favorite photos of Friday

Here are two of my favorite photos from Friday. Abby and I were enjoying some time on the blanket on the deck while the boys were making a mess in the sandbox and otherwise causing destruction in the back yard. I didn't get any pictures of the boys as they were just a cupcake/sand mess from their snack and play activities. Anyway, Abby is just so darn cute.

Our afternoon and evening

I decided to work on my photography again, so pulled out the camera and a white sheet and shot away. Only Sam and Abby were awake at the time, so they were my subjects. Not exactly ideal subjects as Abby rarely sits still for more than a split second and she especially doens't like to be on her back, preferring to roll over on her tummy almost immediately upon being placed on her back. Sam also isn't the greatest subject as he is in the phase of fake smiles and he always wants to look at the pictures instead of holding still for them to be taken. Anyway, I got one that was relatively decent of Abby and Sam and here it is. 

 Later in the evening after we had supper, Jason decided to mow the lawn as it was growing like crazy with all the rain and warm weather we've had lately. Matthew always likes to take a turn on the mower when Jason is done and throws a complete fit if he believes Jason is putting the mower away before he's had a chance to drive. Jason has gotten to the point of turning over the wheel to him and so he steers by himself although Jason usually has to intervene before Matthew runs into the fence of deck. But he sure enjoys himself. Pure joy.

The quiet game

Sam has become quite the talker these days. As in he can talk almost nonstop for long periods of time. He often starts his statements with "You know what, Mommy?" then goes on about whatever happens to be passing through his 3 year old brain. And then a second later, "You know what, Mommy?" then on to another seemingly random thought. His mind must be going a mile a minute. The constant talking is a little tough on me at times, but especially when driving. We were driving through a construction site the other day and Sam kept on pointing out construction equipment and talking about what he was seeing. He not only talks about stuff, but he wants to engage in conversation about it and get louder until I acknowledge what he's talking about. Not a good combination when I'm driving in traffic through a construction site. I just need to focus on driving!

Anyway, on the way to the Y the other day I was seeking a little quiet for a few minutes of the 7 minute drive so I decided to try the "Silent game" with the kids. I know they are rather young for the silent game, but I really needed to try. So I explained that we were going to play a game and you needed to be quiet all the way to the Y. (We were only about 2 minutes away, so it shouldn't have been too tough). Then I said, "Ok, let's see who's going to win." There was silence for about 3 seconds, then Sam said "I'm winning, Mommy!" I was still in game mode, so I didn't say anything, and again he said, "I'm winning Mommy!" He clearly didn't get the game. I guess he's too young. I tried again explaining the game, but to no avail. Sam still thought he had won and kept saying so. Matthew wasn't saying anything for most of the trip which is unusual, and Abby was babbling away, so I guess Matthew was the winner.