New sleeping arrangements

The boys got bunk beds two weeks ago. We were needing to get Matthew a bigger bed, since he was still in his crib/toddler bed from when he was a baby, and decided to get bunk beds rather than a separate bed for Matt. Reason being that Sam and Matthew would often sleep together (either in Sam's bed or Sam would sleep in Matthew's room on the floor) because Sam has a bad case of the "scares" in which he's scared of everything and doesn't want to go to sleep. The boys enjoy each other's company and don't keep each other up too much, so we thought a bunk bed would be fun and maybe alleviate the "scares". So we got the beds put together to much fanfare and got the boys off to bed a few weeks ago. When we checked on them on that first night, Matthew had moved his blanket and pillow up to the top bed and was sleeping with Sam. Sam's head was on one end and Matthew's was on the other. There was also a jumble of books between the two of them.

In the morning I asked Matthew why had slept with Sam and he told me he had a bad dream. I then said that he could sleep on his own bed that night, rather than with Sam as his bad dream was done. He then replied that he hadn't finished his dream and would need to sleep with Sam again. So he slept with Sam again and that has been the arrangement these past two weeks. They get to sleep probably a little later than they did before sharing a room, but the disruption isn't really too much and they get up at about their normal time. However, now when they get up, Sam doesn't come in our room and Matthew doesn't (always) scream for us, they play with eachother until their clock turns yellow. Mostly they're quiet with they're playing, so it's really been quite a good deal for everyone involved.

But the "scares" have returned for Sam, despite Matthew's presence. He has fears of the closet, of certain books, of dark rooms down the hall (like Jason and my bedroom), and of other random house noises. It doesn't seem to be quite as bad as before, but I guess that's just the age he's at for now. Regardless, they boys love their "new" room and sleeping arrangement. We wonder how long they'll want to share a bed, and even how long they'll want to share a room. For now, they love it and it makes all of our lives a little bit happier.

What do we do?

During the summer I always wonder how we manage to make it through the winter when we spend 4+ hours a day outside in the summer. What do we do with those extra 4 hours of inside time in the cold winter months? Well, somewhere we manage and it really isn't too bad. We get outside if its over 20, although it hasn't gotten that warm too often lately. All the kids love to go outside and although our yard is flat, we have quite large piles of snow on the sides of the driveway these days, so the kids sled down those. One day last week, Sam ventured out further into the yard and got quite scared when he sunk into the snow up to his thigh. The boys do a pretty good job of holding the sled on top of the snow pile, so Abby can climb on and go for a ride with them.

On days when we don't go outside, the kids manage to find all sorts of other diversions for themselves. There's lots of fort building and jumping on cushions, blankets and pillows in the basement. There is also a lot of running around in circles through the kitchen, around the dining room table, around the couches and around and around again. The purpose of the running is varied, sometimes they're pretending they are planes racing, other times they are cars and other times they are cheetahs or monsters. All of the kids like to join in the racing fun and it is pretty much a daily ritual that the circle-running occurs after dinner for about 10 minutes or so, but it also occurs randomly during the daytime.

They also find lots of fun things to do with the stairs such as riding Matthew's mattress down the stairs, lining up 3 couch cushions end to end from the top of the stairs to the bottom and using them as a slide, and making a blanket into a cocoon around them and sliding bumpity-bump that way. I remember bumpity-bumping down the stairs in blankets as kids and wow, I have no desire to try that anymore, although the mattress and cushion sliding is a lot of fun.

We also do a fair number of art projects, puzzles, coloring, science experiments, reading and playing on the computer and playing other games (Sam is into Chutes and Ladders, Yahtzee, and Chess these days). We've played Yahtzee four times over the last week and in every game Sam has gotten a Yahtzee. How does that happen? Really? Four Yahtzees? He has beat me mightily in every game and now thinks he's a Yahtzee master. Well anyway, somehow we make it to the end of each day and we haven't gone crazy (at least not on most days), no one has gotten too hurt and we are fine. And the days are getting longer and soon the snow will be gone and we'll be outside for hours once again. But for now, we resume our winter activities.

Snowboarding

Despite the flat topography of our back yard, the grading away from the house provides just enough of a slope to allow the kids to try out snowboarding on their sleds. And the path from the house to Jason's backyard is a perfect track for their endeavors. I think real snowboarding might be in our future soon.

Christmas

Well, almost a month after the fact, I'm finally writing about Christmas. We had a great holiday except for traveling down to Iowa which was snowy, slippery, stressful and much longer than it's supposed to be. This is the third bad Christmas travel to Iowa in five years, so we just aren't having good luck with that (other than we've safely arrived every time). Christmas Eve was at Ken and Cheri's and after church (where Abby wasn't the best behaved, but the boys were exceptionally good), we enjoy appetizers and plenty of presents at Grammy and Papa's. We decided to spend the night over there and that was a fun change. Everyone slept pretty well and it was a nice, relaxing way to spend our Christmas Eve and morning.

Then it was the drive to Iowa which I've already mentioned, and Christmas dinner and festivities at Grandpa Duane and Grandma Verna's. This is the first holiday where Abby has been okay with being away from me for a period of time and doesn't throw a fit when someone other than our immediate family tries to talk to her or hold her. How far we've come in the last year. We opened more gifts and had dinner with Grandpa Don and Grandma Sue the next day and with Grandma Sue's side of the family the day after that. It was a whirlwind of Christmas activities, and fortunately it was nice enough for some playing outside in the snow too (although there wasn't too much snow, just enough for riding around on the sled behind the four-wheeler which Matthew loved, but Sam wouldn't try).

Here are a few pictures from our family Christmas at home.

Observations on laundry

Today I did a lot of laundry and I noticed some peculiarities in our laundry which I've had on my radar for awhile. The first peculiarity is that when I'm done doing laundry (and I'm very thorough), Sam has maybe one (or no) pairs of underwear and socks in the clean laundry. The other thing is that Matthew has an inordinate amount of underwear and socks in the clean laundry. I have a few ideas on what is going on. My first idea is that Sam is not changing his underwear at all or very little between launderings (which generally happens every four days or so). The second idea is that Matthew is changing his underwear and socks more frequently than what would generally be considered normal. Another idea is that Sam is changing his underwear, but hiding it somewhere where I'm not finding it on laundry day. Hmmm. Usually his laundry is in plain sight (strewn across his floor), but perhaps he's hiding some of it for some silly reason. Another idea is that Sam is wearing Matthew's underwear which would account for both unusual laundry observations. As of now, I'm not exactly clear on what's going on, although I have a strong inkling it's idea #1 and I need to be a bit more aware of Sam's changing habits.

Tub terrors

Although I have lots of pictures and other things to write about since Christmas just passed, I had to write about our latest events during bathtime. The events mostly pertain to Abby being afraid of the bath, and the source of Abby's fears is Matthew. A few weeks ago the kids all took a bath together. We haven't been doing that much lately since they're getting so big, but we were short on time and I decided they could all go in the big bath (in Jason and my room) together. So they all happily got in, then after a few moments we noticed there was, um, stuff, floating around in the tub. After a few moments, I realized what it was (lets just say that Matthew, while he likes to take care of his own wiping on the toilet, is just not very good at it...) and we all got quickly out of the tub and took showers.

So fast forward to now and Abby is terrified of anything floating in the tub (other than toys). Anything. Hair. A speck of lint. And I mean speck...like the size of a grain of finely ground pepper. She gets in the tub and refuses to sit down, asking and pointing at every little thing in the tub, "What's that?" Then I try to scoop it out with my hands or a washcloth (which is not an easy thing to do), while she becomes increasingly terrified and shakes and starts crying as she says, "It's coming closer!" I try to tell her it's just lint from her feet, but she will not be persuaded that it's anything innocuous and continues to basically freak out when my efforts to remove every little bit of lint fail and they come closer to her. She won't even sit in the tub anymore. She used to love the tub. And now it's just a source of terror. Poor Abby. Oh how she cries and cries until I finally take her out of the tub and we decide to take a shower. By we, I mean that she and I take a shower and she's so distraught that she doesn't want to take one by herself and will only take one with me. (So I do feel that I'm being a little manipulated in the showering thing...but will deal with that later). Fortunately, she also likes showers and doesn't mind getting her face wet, so we shower up and she's happy and more importantly, clean.  I hope this phobia doesn't last long, but for now we're dealing with aborted baths and relying on showers.

Winter fun

We've been enjoying the cold and snow lately, and when we haven't been able to go outside much we've been enjoying making cookies. I gave each kid a batch of cookie dough to cut out cookies and the boys really did a good job. Abby mostly pushed her cookie cutters in lightly and repeatedly, not quite making a thorough cut, but she did do a thorough job of eating a lot of dough. In fact, she threw a fit of all fits when I took the dough away and told her she couldn't eat anymore. I had never seen her throw a fit like that, it was extensive and very loud. I have since experienced another fit when I made cookies again a few days later and limited her consumption of cookie dough. That girl really likes dough.