Sam's bed

Tonight before Sam went to bed we were watching an animal program on Discovery. The intro to the program showed animals such as elephants, cheetahs, lions and the narrator said the words, "Life...death...starvation....struggle....sex....birth..." and so on as the animals were shown doing various things. Of course, Sam picked up on the word, "Sex" of all the words. We're just wondering in what untimely situation he will reproduce the word.

Then I took Sam up to bed and I thought I'd talk about what Sam goes to bed with. We already know about BaaBaa and baboosh, which are the most essential and really only needed bedtime elements. However, over the past few weeks Sam has acquired some other things that he must sleep with. He has a number of other stuffed animals in his bed: a teddy bear, Mouse (from the If you Give a Mouse a Cookie book), Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Two fleece pillows with construction trucks on them from Grandma Verna. He took Matthew's two pillows for awhile but I returned those to Matthew as Sam's bed is only so big and the pillows were taking up too much room. Also, a Toy Story blanket. Then there are the miscellaneous items--a Valentine's Day card and the DVD case for one of the Wheels on the Bus DVDs plus the insert from the DVD which has pictures from the DVD and words for the songs in it. On occasion Sam will grab a book to sleep with too, but tonight he did not. He nestles into his pillows and stuffed animals, covers himself with his blanket and holds onto his card or the DVD case and goes to sleep.

As I mentioned, Sam has been getting up really early lately, usually between 5 and 6. Exhausted from his early risings, I perused Amazon for some toddler clocks and found a few that are like night lights and change colors when it's okay to wake up. However, the clocks were anywhere from $40-60 so I wasn't ready to spend that much money on a fancy color changing clock. So last night I told Sam while we were getting ready for bed that he was getting up too early. He said yes, that he understood. I then told him that I wanted him to stay in bed until Jason or I opened his bedroom door in the morning. He said okay, that he understood. Twice during the bedtime routine, Sam said, "You open the door in the morning." I was somewhat hopeful that it would work but realistically thought it would not. Anyway, by 6:30 when Jason's alarm went off, Sam had not emerged in our room yet. It worked! We'll have to see how it goes tomorrow! Sometimes Sam amazes me with his compliance. I wonder what Sam will wake up tomorrow? Compliant and obedient or non-compliant and defiant? You never know what your day will be like with a toddler.

Conversational tid bits

Sam's language is really exploding these days in terms of putting words together to make sentences. To give you some idea of what our conversations are like these days I thought I write a few tid bits from today.

Sam: What's your hair doing, Mommy?
Me: (How do you respond to that?) Do you like my hair?
Sam: Nope. You got haircut.

At the Children's Museum today Sam was talking to a little girl and looking out the window in the reading room.
Sam: Look at that! Daddy work! (pointing to Jason's building) Up high!
Little girl: Stares at Sam (she is much younger and doesn't seem to talk much).
Sam: Look at that! We eat french fries! (points to McDonalds across the street where we had met Jason for lunch earlier in the week)
Little girl: Stares at Sam

Me: How are you doing Sam?
Sam: Great! Mommy great! Daddy great! Matthew great! Grammy great! Papa great!

On the car ride to the children's museum:
Sam: Look at that! Parking garage! Look at that, bus! Look at that, excavator! Look at that, school bus!

I wish I could remember more but I'm rather tired from Sam's 5AM wake ups this week and my brain in not in top form right now. I'll have to write more later. To finish up, I included a picture of Sam and Jason building the latest parking garage. Notice Sam's new haircut.

Sam's rampage

I don't know what happened at 4:30 but Sam suddenly turned into a running terror. It was time for Matthew's bath. Sam had a wonderful day today and I was wondering if he was moving beyond the terrible twos into so other stage. I really had hardly any problems with him and overall, we had an enjoyable day. We did some laundry, mopped the floor, used the mop as a bridge from the Jumperoo to the table, played animals and all sorts of other good things.

Then it was 4:30. I got Matthew's bath ready and he shivered while I got him undressed. The bathroom was really cold so I got the space heater out to warm it up. When I went into the guest room where I keep the heater Sam was rummaging through one of the desk drawers. I told him to get out of there and come play in the bathroom and he grabbed the WhiteOut and ran out of the room. Ugh. Then he started jiggling the gate trying to get it opened. I wasn't about to let the little guy destroy our new and costly gate. So I grabbed him and took him into the bathroom. Then Matthew was undressed and the bathwater was ready. In went Matthew and he started splashing about, playing with rubber duckies and other toys and sliding around on his belly. He loves his baths. Sam then left the room and asked for me to open the gate. As it's just a few paces from the bathroom, I obliged thinking he would go into his room, but instead he went into our room. I could see him grab my pink tinted chapstick and draw on the picture of Jason and I that I keep next to my bed. Sam must have known that I was incapacitated and couldn't leave Matthew. Aargh! I shouted something and stomped toward him a few steps and he ran into our closet. He then came out carrying a clothes basket. Empty, but he carted it down the hall and called to me to open the gate. No deal, buddy. Matthew was happily playing in the tub, completely unaware of the power struggle going on around him. Sam started shaking the gate. "No touch!" I yelled and he stopped. I also asked him to put away the basket and he put it in Matthew's room.

Matthew's bath was done, so I wrapped him up and put on his PJs. Sam was downstairs by that time. We joined him and I started making dinner. Sam grabbed the Lowry's seasoning salt which I used on some chicken and seasoned the floor. I was frantically cutting up tiny bits of food for Matthew so I was a little distracted and Sam again took advantage of it. When Matthew is hungry he needs food immediately and it's a big problem if you are unprepared. Then Sam took the used K-cup out of our Keurig coffee maker and poked his finger into it and dumped out the coffee grounds on the floor. He then went into the pantry and attempted to shut the door. That's a clear sign that he's getting into something which he knows he shouldn't. Seconds later I hear something shattering on the floor. Fortunately it was just some Reeses Pieces and it wasn't anything breakable. I frantically tried to grab them so Sam wouldn't be rewarded for he deviance but he managed to get a few. I then told Sam to get out of the kitchen and Jason walked in the door. Sam ran over to him, "Daddy! Daddy!" and acted as it everything was normal. Well, everything was pretty normal. Just another day in the Kirchhoff house.

Guest Post - Jason

• Public employees should not be allowed to unionize.  Unlike private unions, they have no concerns about their employer going out of business. If private employees are overpaid the company they work for may no longer be competitive and they lose their job.  In the public sector the taxpayers just pay more.  
• Sam has recently started loudly proclaiming that he has defecated when in fact he has not.  I think there is a childrens book in this somewhere with the title "The boy who cried poop".
• Is there any chance that China's economy is for real?  The last time they tried to expedite their economic growth they wound up killing roughly 40 million of their citizens (see Great Leap Forward). 
• Ally has given me instructions on how to order a happy meal.  Apparently I need to tell the person working the counter that I would like a "boy toy".  This make me somewhat uncomfortable. I also find it ironic that due to overactive legislators in San Fran - it is now one of the only places in the country where you cant order a "boy toy".
• Matthew is one tough kid - at church tonight a metal folding chair fell over and hit him on the head.  He hardly made a peep.  Maybe he has a future in pro-wrestling. (I believe metal folding chairs play a pivotal role in the WWF)
• For the record - I did get a lot of work done in the basement this weekend (tile on the bathroom floor, baseboard installed and window casing completed) and I even took time to stop to eat.  In fact I had several three course meals (popcorn, ice cream and animal crackers)  How did I survive my bachelor years?

       Thank you for indulging my ramblings - hopefully I haven't done too much damage to the brand.
       (the views of this post do not necessarily reflect the view of this blog)
 

Snowed in!

The kids and I drove down to IA on Saturday for my niece's second birthday party. We came intending to return Sunday, but knowing full well that the weather may not cooperate until Monday or even Tuesday. Well, here we are, snowed in in IA. Actually, IA isn't too bad, but the roads between IA and our house in MN are pretty bad and not really appropriate for traveling upon with a minivan and two small children. So here we are and Jason is in MN in a very quiet and lonely house. He stayed home as I gave him the instructions to "Finish the basement while we're gone". Not really, my instructions were more like, "Make sure you eat, drink and sleep while we're gone." Whenever Jason works in the basement he gets in this mindset that he cannot stop and will not stop until he feels light-headed and dizzy from lack of eating, drinking and/or sleeping. I really don't want to return to a passed out Jason in the basement.

We've been enjoying some extended time with Grandpa Don and Grandma Sue. Sam and I sleep in the upstairs guest room. To be more specific, Sam actually sleeps in the upstairs guest room closet and I sleep in the guest room. The closet is a walk-in, lest you think I am a completely awful parent. When we arrived Sam ran up to the guest room closet and excitedly said, "There's my room!" He apparently likes having his own space, however cramped it might be. He's been sleeping very well, as always, and Matthew is doing fine too as he gets his own room on the main level. It's actually a bedroom and he doesn't sleep in the closet so he's quite a spoiled child. Sam doesn't bother me too much during the night as he only a few times has said, "Mommy?" in the middle of the night. In the mornings he says, "Mommy, get me!" and I do if it's after 6:30 or so, otherwise I tell him it's the middle of the night. The white lies parents must tell to survive toddlerhood.

We've played lots of cars and animals as Grandpa and Grandma have a plethora of farm and zoo animals. Matthew enjoys pulling up and looking out the windows which are less than a foot off the floor so they're very easy to pull up on. He also enjoys trying to get to places he's not supposed to be like near the stairs and computer cords. My little Matthew is becoming quite independent too these days. I offer him my hands to help pull him up, but he'd rather crawl/slither his way over to a structure and pull himself up. Once he's up, he lets go with one hand and turns around and waves then switches hands and otherwise shows off his skills.

I keep looking up the MN road conditions and they pretty much remain pretty yucky. Now about the southern quarter of the trip appears to be decent, but the remainder is classified "difficult driving conditions." We'll have to see how it progresses as the day goes on, but it appears that we may be enjoying another evening at the farm.

Random stuff...everywhere

Having kids results in a house full of stuff and a lot of that stuff ends up in random places and these days, it stays there for some time. I've mentioned Sam's tendency to "drag and drop" stuff around the house and this just contributes to the random displacement of random items on a regular basis.

For example, there was a 3 in. long yellow block which ended up in the laundry room. This particular set of blocks didn't come in a special box or anything and as such, there is no special place for this particular block. So it was in the laundry room because of Sam's drag and drop. I eventually kicked it under the edge of the cabinet with the laundry sink so I couldn't really see it. It then migrated to under the washing machine and since I've spent a lot of time on the laundry room floor lately with Matthew I spotted it and retrieved it. I then moved it to little locker area where we keep our coats (3 feet away) and there it is now. It's in a much more visible spot now so it probably won't stay there as long as it was in the laundry room (maybe 6 months or so? it's been so long I have really no idea...). Although the coat locker ends up being an abyss for random stuff too, so it may just stay there for awhile too.

There's usually stuff in the upstairs hallway for awhile too. Sam's drag and drop is in full form on the second story and it's amazing the stuff he finds and leaves around and since I'm often carrying Matthew when I'm going to and fro upstairs I don't often remember to pick stuff up. And then there's the problem of the items not having a home of their own. If I don't have a home for something, where am I going to put it when I pick it up? So it remains in the hallway, or bedroom, or closet or bathroom. So there's a picture in the hallway which Matthew pulled off the fridge and carried upstairs (Matthew is picking up some of Sam's bad habits). And there's some random toys, some bath toys and some toys which Sam brought upstairs. You see, Sam likes to go downstairs and grab an armful of toys when I'm getting ready in the morning so he has something to play with in the bathroom. He grabs a bunch of cars or books or little animals and drops some on the way up, gets upset at dropping the toys and cries for assistance. The procedure repeats upon returning downstairs, although often some of the toys remain upstairs. They either remain conspicuously in the hallway or migrate to places where they are better hidden like under the bed or dresser and there they remain for some time.Then there's my travel toothbrush which Sam took out of my travel bag (which I though was hidden) and dropped behind the closet door. I just can't keep up.

My type-A-ness really gets overwhelmed by all the stuff and sometimes I just get on the verge of craziness and want to go buy totes and organize. But then I would put stuff away or make homes for things which would find their way out of and I have to decide it I want to fight with various entities in our house to put things in their proper places or just let it go. Ideally, all the proper places would be over 4 feet tall, so they couldn't be easily accessed by the little ones. However, if things have proper places that means that I usually have to retrieve them for the little ones since they are no longer easily accessible. It's easy now to distract Sam or Matthew with whatever toy or random object happens to be within reach because it's been dragged somewhere by little hands. So there's this battle...organization and more work for me to organize, retrieve and put away or disorganization and easy toys within reach and maybe some less work. But then I have to deal with the craziness at the random disorganization of my home. How do people manage?

Matthew's so cute

Yes, I am one of those annoying parents who thinks my child is just so cute and talks about it. At least I talk about it to myself and Jason a lot and now, to whoever reads this. Today Matthew decided he didn't want to nap much and I decided it was time to learn the finer features of our Canon EOS camera which has many settings beyond the "full auto" setting that I usually use. Matthew was my model, of course, and I tinkered around with various settings and features. I really have a lot to learn but I already was more pleased with my pictures than I normally am so I'm on the right track. Here are a couple of my favorites and as you can see, Matthew is just so cute.

Silly Sam

We went to our church playgroup this morning. When we were cleaning up at the end everyone was helping carry toys from the classroom we meet in back to the nursery where the toys are kept. Sam and another little girl were in the nursery when I walked in with some toys. I overhead Sam say to the little girl, "Play at my house sometime?" He repeated it as she didn't respond. So Sam was hitting on an older girl (she's 3) and inviting her over to our house already. This incident starts to add new meaning to the term "playdate." We'll see how things progress from here but you can bet we won't leave those kids unsupervised again.

Later in the day Sam was having a bout of diarrhea. His demeanor was good unless he was having a BM which caused some crying and a tearful, fussy, "Mommy, I'm poopy!" and he would then walk awkwardly to the laundry room to clean up. After a few diaper changes in an hour I told Sam that sometimes when kids don't feel good it helps to lie down and nap. He responded, "That might work." We tried it, but it didn't work and I told Sam that Daddy was bringing home some medicine (i.e. Pedialyte) so Sam anxiously awaited Jason's return.

After eating some dinner (very little for Sam, very much for Matthew, of course) Sam excused himself and was running around the table singing. The song went something like this, "Lightening McQueen! To us be blest! EE-I-EE-I-O! Papa Don's Papa Don's!" 

Anyway, Sam also had a runny nose to go with his other runs. He had it all day and today was the first day when he wouldn't let his boogies run down out of his nose. He started crying, "Runny nose! Runny nose!" whenever it would even start to run and immediately want his nose wiped or he would do it himself with his sleeve which resulted in smears of boogies across his cheeks from just below his eyes to his chin and all over his shirt sleeve. Yuck. I think I prefer it running down his nose until we wipe it with a kleenex. So tonight Sam was complaining of a runny nose and I told Sam not to wipe it with his sleeve but to blow his nose into a kleenex. Apparently he understood the "blow your nose" part of the command but not the "into a kleenex" because he then pulled his shirt collar up over his nose and blew into his shirt. Double yuck. I'm sure he's seen me sneeze into my shirt collar before and misinterpreted my actions to be blowing my nose. We'll have to work on correcting that one.

Lately Jason and I have been mulling over the idea of another child and so tonight we asked Sam if he would like another baby around someday. Sam said, "We have Matthew." As in, one is enough. We talked about it some more and Sam said, "I want a kitty. And doggie." But not a baby. For now, Baby Matthew is enough and, no, we will not be getting a kitty or doggie anytime soon. Sorry Sam.

Vacation!

Thursday afternoon through Sunday morning Jason and I were on vacation. As in without-the-kids-vacation. As in no-responsibilities vacation. As in sleep-in-do-what-we-want-anytime vacation. My parents watched the kids for us and we rented a nice lake home in Clear Lake, Iowa. We jokingly would tell friends that we were going south for our vacation and got a lot of laughs when we mentioned that it was Iowa. What's so funny about Iowa? When we were deciding on somewhere to go we thought about Mexico, maybe Cancun or someplace like that. But then we considered how much travel time it would entail and decided that somewhere closer to home and my parents would be a better option. I told Jason that I could vacation almost anywhere, I just wanted to sit around and do nothing. So we settled upon Clear Lake.

We got to IA in the morning and visited Jason's great aunt Norie in Clear Lake, then went back to Forest City to have lunch with my grandparents, then off to Grandpa Don's and Grandma Sue's. Sam had been asking to go to Grandpa Don's for weeks and all morning while we were visiting and lunching he was insisting upon going to Grandpa Don's. He was actually pretty patient for a two-year old.

The plan was for the kids to play a bit, then nap some at which time we would leave. Well, Sam had other plans. He did not want to nap and rather wanted to play. He was pretty much hyper from being at Grandpa Don's and Grandma Sue's. So Sam missed his first afternoon nap ever. Can you believe that? He's never missed a nap. And actually over the course of his visit he missed two naps! Yesterday was a little rough for the kiddo, but today he seemed back to normal and not too sleep deprived.

Anyway, Sam was playing with cars when we left and barely looked up. He said something like, "Grandma Sue come play with cars" when we were saying goodbye. Matthew was napping. And we were off. I've been away from Sam overnight one other time and haven't been apart from Matthew for much over 6 hours maybe.

Our vacation time was filled with a lot of knitting (by me), reading (by Jason) and watching bad movies. I can't believe how many bad movies are out there. We sat in the outdoor hot tub plenty and watched the snowmobiles race by as there was a big snowmobile race in Clear Lake that weekend. We did some antiquing (didn't find anything), wandered around the Mason City Mall and Menards and ate pizza for dinner all three nights. We went out for lunches, but there was a really good pizza place just down the road so we ordered out and enjoyed some stellar pizza in our nice rented lake home.

The kids were stellar too, apparently, although I don't know if my parents would tell me the truth if it were otherwise. Matthew slept all night every night and Sam did too. The napping situation for Sam was a little different as I mentioned earlier. Matthew did his usual short, long or no nap routine...in other words, he was unpredictable. I gave my mom a "typical day" timeline for the kids and included two naps and their "usual" duration for Matthew but I forgot to explain that the timeline was my ideal and not his reality. He wasn't unpredictable about eating, however, as he amazed my parents with his ability to eat large quantities of food.

When we got back Sam greeted us at the door. Well, not exactly. He came to the door but didn't really even look at us, opting instead to excitedly point at the dog. "Dee!!! Dee!!!" he yelled. Matthew was napping and when I went to get him up as we had to leave for church I found him napping while sitting as I described in a previous post. He was rather dazed upon awaking and was a little more clingy that usual so at least we were missed by one child. After church and during lunch Sam often said he wanted to return to Papa Don's and we carried him crying to the van after lunch. "Papa Don's! Papa Don's!" He was quite sad to leave and also quite tired. Jason and I, however, were quite refreshed in mind and body and were ready to deal with a crabby Sam. He fell asleep within minutes of starting our drive home and Matthew too slept a good portion of the trip home. I wonder if my parents took a good nap Sunday afternoon too?

Cute pics

While the kids were at Ken and Cheri's last week they snapped some good pictures that I had to share.

Terrible twonesses

Lest we all forget, Sam has been repeatedly reminding me that he is indeed two. Yes, of the "terrible twos" phase. Now I know some parents deal with really terrible things, and I can't imagine how they do it, but Sam has some really annoying tendencies right now that make me want to...I don't know what they make me want to do but sometimes I think I'm going crazy.

A few days ago when I was changing Matthew's diaper, Sam was playing on the kitchen counter with some of his cars. I wasn't too concerned that he was getting into anything as he had been innocently playing for maybe 10 minutes already. However, when we returned Sam had opened up our new container of strawberries, taken one bite out of each one and lined them up on the counter. What's that about?

He really only has a good tantrum (screaming mostly, no thrashing about) every other day or so. They generally last less than 5 minutes, and often they have to do with BaaBaa (not getting BaaBaa when Sam wants him) or other picky preferences that Sam doesn't communicate very well. Like he needs to get his own glass and water these days. Don't you dare try to help out. And he must look at the cereal box after pouring cereal into the bowl. Don't you dare try to put it away or at the other end of the table. Or a few days ago it was laundry. I accidentally unloaded the dryer...Sam got extremely upset as he wanted to do it. Oh well.

Other terrible twonesses are more frustrating and annoying like when Sam refuses to get into his car seat. It goes like this. It takes a minute or two to get Matthew into his car seat and during that time, I expect that Sam will climb into his own car seat and be ready to be buckled. Except that he rarely does it and I must get into the van, retrieve Sam (screaming and thrashing about) and force him into his car seat. And this goes on while it's -3 outside, like it was on Tuesday. Not fun or pretty. I only wonder what people think in the surrounding cars. And Sam has figured out how to turn the dishwasher on and off, despite the "hidden" controls. So he will randomly walk by the dishwasher and turn it on, or randomly walk by and turn it off. He does the same thing with the clothes washer, I'll go in to check the laundry and find that the machine has been shut off. Ugh. Isolated incidents of this sort wouldn't be so bad, but being a toddler, Sam does it over and over and over. Despite my best efforts there is regular pushback...I feel like I have a teenager in a two-year-old body. I've read this is completely normal, though, and parents are just to be consistent and know that their kids will outgrow the rebellion eventually. I can only hope.

I get more cars, okay?

Almost every evening for the past few weeks Sam and Jason have made parking garages with megablocks and then Sam drives his cars in and out of the parking garage. The past two days I also decided to build a parking garage with Sam during the day. No matter who is building, though, (whether it's Jason or I) Sam periodically will come stand next to the builder, lean in close to the builder and pat his/her back and say, "I get more cars, you build the parking garage, okay?" Then he proceeds with getting more cars and we proceed with building. I have no idea where he picked this up, but he does it whenever a parking garage is being built. Jason pointed it out to me sometime last week and I witnessed his very gentle, paternal act. Then yesterday he did it to me the first time and I felt his little hand patting my back and heard the gentle words, "You build the parking garage, I get more cars, okay?" The words really don't change much, it's always some variation on that theme. Anyway, mid-way through building the garage today I decided it was time for Matthew's nap so I left Sam downstairs and when I returned he had embellished the parking garage with all sorts of towers and spires.

 

Look at what Matthew can do!

Today as I was getting Sam ready for his nap Matthew was playing on the floor in Sam's room. This has been our new routine for naps. Matthew plays while I read Sam some stories and sing to him before his nap, then it's Matthew's turn for pre-nap activities. In fact, Sam won't let me leave Matthew downstairs or somewhere else for pre-nap activities, he must come with us. Matthew was playing on the floor by the window in Sam's room while Sam and I were looking for Goldbug in the Cars, Trucks and Things that Go book. After a while, Matthew reached up, grabbed the window sill and stood up. Goodness! I held my hand behind the teetering little one and tried to focus on Goldbug too. Not an easy task. This is the first time Matthew has pulled himself up unassisted.

After the kids' naps (which were blessedly long!) Matthew pulled himself up repeatedly on the drawers to the ottoman and enjoyed reaching for and grabbing toys that he normally can't even see. He was quite proud of himself and I know that my motherly role is becoming more challenging now. He didn't fall at all as he was able to settle himself to sitting easily. I could just envision him taking a header into whatever he pulled himself up on, but that didn't happen yet. As can be seen from the picture, Matthew also decided to try stairs today. He wasn't able to make it past pulling himself up to the first stair, so we are still safe when it comes to stairs.

Then after dinner Matthew was playing on the floor by the table and chairs. The rest of the family was still eating, but Matthew wasn't too keen on the beans and enchiladas I had made. He unsuccessfully tried to pull himself up using the chair and took a hard fall down, but fortunately didn't hit his head on anything. I gasped when he fell, but was quite relieved to see he did not get hurt. That relief did not last, however, as the next time Matthew tried to pull up on the chair, he wasn't able to make it and his head ran into the corner edge of one of the chair legs. He got quite a bump and bruise on his head and cried a lot for him. At first he just had a dark blue line, about a quarter inch wide and 1 inch long, on his forehead, but it gradually grew into a dark blue lump sticking out about a quarter inch. Poor kid. I tried to put some ice on it but he wouldn't have any of that and I didn't want to force the issue. I am going to have to watch the kiddo very closely these days.

Superbowl Sunday

Tonight we went to Ken and Cheri's to watch the Superbowl, at least part of the Superbowl. We had a nice dinner around 5:30, then Matthew hit his wall so I changed him into his PJs and put him to sleep in a pack-n-play in one of the guest rooms. I knew we'd have to wake him when we left for the evening, but at least it bought us some time beyond the first quarter of the game. We did that with Sam a few times with great success and we'll see how it goes with Matthew. I just put Matthew to bed again (it's 7:45 and we just returned home) and I can hear him talking/fussing to himself on his monitor.

Anyway, Matthew went right to sleep and slept pretty well for about 45 minutes. Then he started crying. We let it go and after a few short minutes he stopped, apparently back to sleep. We continued to watch the game and decided we'd leave at half time. Sam played and played hard. He was actually acting a little crazy as I think he was tired from getting up so early today (5:45AM) and not napping too terribly long. He was just bouncing from one activity to another and doing things that he normally doesn't do like trying to press the buttons on the alarm panel.

Shortly before we were going to leave Sam took one of the large dump trucks that Ken and Cheri have and drove it into the room where Matthew was sleeping. Jason quickly followed and got Sam out of the room before Matthew awoke. When Jason returned, he informed us that Matthew was apparently sleeping while sitting up. Not exactly sitting up, more like slumped over, as he was on his bottom and leaned over so far forward that his head was almost touching the bottom of the pack-n-play. But he was motionless and it seems that he had fallen asleep while crying and sitting up. Interesting.

We eventually got both kids in the van (Matthew was wide awake by this time) and Sam sung incoherently for most of the ride home. Matthew was pretty quiet, but made a few little coos here and there. We got home and went through brief bedtime routines with the kids. As of now, Sam successfully went to sleep, while Matthew apparently is wide awake despite our best efforts. We'll see how the rest of the evening goes.

Pizza party playdate

Yesterday I hosted a playdate for some moms and their kids. I thought it would be fun to have the kids make pizzas and eat them together. There ended up being three moms and five kids, which was a good number for our house. Each family made their own pizza as I had prepared dough for everyone ahead of time and the other moms brought toppings to share. The pizza preparation went fairly smoothly. The eating went fairly smoothly. The "play" of the playdate was a little crazy.

Two of the kids were almost 4 years old and those two along with Sam went from one "no no" to another. We didn't have a gate on our stairs, so the kids went up the stairs and came up with various strategies for getting down including feet first on their butt (a very bumpy ride), feet first on the stomach (probably the fastest), sideways (Sam's favorite, but not very speedy), head first on the belly. The moms took turns getting their kids, but then they'd move onto another "no no." Another favorite was couch climbing and jumping (neither of which Sam is allowed to do). Somehow Sam's stool ended up behind our loveseat and the kids would tumble over and jump on the loveseat. The moms again took turns getting their kids, saying no, attempting to redirect and so on, but they just fed off each other and were downright unruly and crazy.

Matthew, bless his little heart, and one other little child (just over a year old) were the best behaved of the bunch. As long as Matthew had his food he was in a good mood and played happily on the floor amidst the chaos. The older kids then took turns fighting over Lightening McQueen (at the end, one child asked to take him home), the digger and John Deere and the beach ball. The beach ball was a big hit...or a big kick, whichever the kids were in the mood for.

The playdate was about a hour and a half, and I was certainly ready for it to be done after that hour and a half. The chaos and noise was exhausting. I've been to other playdates that were much more mellow, so it must have been the mix of kids that made it so crazy. We had fun making pizza and eating pizza (using a great pan pizza recipe from America's Test Kitchen), though, and the Sam settled quickly down afterward and took a fairly good nap. Matthew took a good nap too. And I took a nap too. Today we put a gate on the stairs.

Matthew's 9 months

This morning Matthew woke just before 5 for an early breakfast. He ate then went back to sleep until 8:30. 8:30!!! Wow. I had fallen back asleep after feeding Matthew and was woken up by the sound of doors slamming. My first thought was, What is Jason doing? Through my fuzzy vision, I saw Sam coming into the bedroom. He had apparently excitedly opened his door (slamming it into the door stopper), then opened our bedroom door, also slamming it into the door stopper.

Sam and I had a leisurely breakfast and playtime while Matthew slept in. When we heard Matthew stirring on the monitor, Sam said, "Matthew awake! I get him. You stay here, drink coffee." Hmmm. What does Sam think he's going to do when he says, "I get him"? The last time Sam said, "I get him," he went upstairs into Matthew's room, jumped into Matthew's crib and gleefully jumped around while Matthew grumpily cried. I was not going to let that happen again, so we both went quickly up the stairs and I got Matthew up while Sam opened the shades and shut off the white noise machine.

Matthew's 9 mo. appointment was at 10AM. His stats were: 22 lbs (75th percentile) and 30 in (90th percentile). This means that he is now too big for his infant car seat. I was hoping it would last another month through the cold winter as getting a baby in an infant seat and keeping him warm is so much easier with an infant seat versus a larger convertible car seat. Ugh. It is not to be, though, so this afternoon before nap we went car seat shopping. Now I have to get Matthew and Sam both dressed in hats, mittens and winter coats before going out anywhere whereas I used to be able to pack Matthew in the car seat, cover him with a blanket or the insulating cover, pop him and the seat into the base and we were off. Getting Sam into his seat in an entirely different challenge--in fact, it's probably my most frustrating toddler challenge at the moment. Now errands and such will become a new challenge as I have to transport and strap two little ones into their seats. Such is life with small kids. We'll see how it goes. Anyway, after picking out a new car seat, Matthew fell asleep on the car ride home and when we returned I carefully carried him and his seat up to his room where he could finish his last car seat-to-crib transition nap ever.

Toddler scares

Yesterday evening we had a little scare when Sam grabbed a bottle of hand sanitizer and took off the top (twisted off the cap, not just opened the cap). Before I noticed what was going on, it appeared that he had taken a swig of it. Jason anxiously searched the internet for what to do if you child eats hand sanitizer and I tried to figure out it Sam had actually eaten any or not. He didn't make a nasty face or anything like he does when he tastes something icky, but there was also a good portion of the bottle empty. But I couldn't remember how much was in the bottle to begin with. Jason read something about a 2-year old eating some hand sanitizer and acting obviously intoxicated afterward (and the parents then took her to the ER), and we watched Sam for awhile and he acted...like himself. Running around, jumping, spinning, falling down. We both wondered how a drunk toddler would be different from a normal toddler. Fortunately, Sam seemed to be himself, so he must not have eaten any and he was fine.

Then tonight Sam was running around with a plastic bag on his head and calling it a helmet. Really, Sam? A plastic bag on your head? I've started reading the warnings on products like toothpaste to Sam to deter him from using them (a twist on a tip from John Rosemond) and now I have to tell him about plastic bags. What will be next? There are all sorts of warnings on products and it makes the world seem like a very scary place especially for children. "Keep out of the reach of children" and "If ingested, call poison control center immediately" and "Contents are hot" and "Not for children under age 6" and "For underarm use only." I digress. In the end Sam is happy and healthy.