Best toy ever

We've had some extra couch cushions hidden up in our closet for a year or two. Then a few weeks ago, we took the cushions to a foam store and got them restuffed with new foam that holds up better than the current foam. So we took the old cushions off the couch, replaced them with the newly stuffed ones and gave the kids the old ones to play with. I didn't think anything too much of it, but they have turned out to be one of the best play things our kids ever have had. Since we gave them to the kids, they have played with/on them for around an hour a day and are played with in all sorts of ways.

The boys jump on them, belly flop on them, slide on them, jump over them, somersault on them, build a "tent" with them and play under them, lay on them during pretend nap times, arrange cars and trains on them and even Abby gets to play on them and enjoys laying and rolling around on them. When Jason gets home from work, he makes Sam and Matthew sandwiches with the cushions which always produces plenty of laughter. Not only do they keep the kids happily occupied, but also are giving the kids some great exercise as they run and jump over, run and roll, run and jump on, climb and flop on and so on. Wow. What a great toy. Sam told me the other day that when we get new cushions we are to give the old ones to the kids.

As with any favored toy, they are also a source of contention like when Abby won't move off of them and the boys want to perform some daring acrobatic feats. And of course, the boys want both of them to themselves and don't want to each take one. Or they don't want to take turns. Or they have them propped up against the couch and flop down on them, and then they don't want to set them back up for their brother. But overall, the kids are doing pretty good at sharing and taking turns and making the most of our couch cushions.

Last year I had thought about getting one of those plastic indoor kid slides that are like 18 inches off the ground. Just something to give the kids something to play on and get some exercise during the long winter months, but I doubt that would have gotten as much play as the cushions. Who knew? Well, now I know. Best toy ever.

Here are the boys enjoying the best toy ever.

And then there's Abby making for the camera as I'm trying to take her picture.

Abby's rebellion

After the longest pajama-changing struggle I've experienced in recent memory, I finally got Abby settled down and ready for bed. The evening began with a bath and Abby is quite fond of baths. She especially enjoyed it as she got the whole bath to herself when she usually has to share it with her two brothers. She was frolicking, splashing, playing with toys and so on and then I gave her the warning that it was almost time to go to bed. At that point, she started her rebellion. She laid down in the bathtub and looked at me, daring me to pick her up from that awkward position. Matthew has mastered the bathtub-lay-down strategy as well as a way to prevent parental pick-ups and extraction from the tub from easily occurring. Abby has never seen this strategy as she is always in bed by the time the boys are finishing up their bath, so apparently knowledge of this strategy has been passed along in other ways.

So anyway, she laid out in the tub and I got her up, then she laid down again. Picking up a lying down, wet, slippery kid from the tub is not an easy task, but I finally managed and laid down a screaming Abby on the towel. She continued her rebellion as I tried to get her into her PJs. She kept on rolling halfway over and just screaming as I tried to prevent her rolling over. I was trying to put on her diaper at the time and would just get the diaper under her bottom, then I'd get the diaper cream out and she'd roll over, shifting the diaper around, so I'd roll her back with much effort, then replace the diaper, get some cream and she'd roll over and displace the diaper. So then with my fingers covered in diaper cream, I'd roll her back, replace the diaper, cream up her bottom and finally I got the diaper on. Goodness. What a loud, arduous struggle! And all I had gotten on Abby was a diaper!

Then came the PJs. Abby was still in a sour mood so I tried singing, tried giving her Sheep (which she disdainfully threw to the floor), tried giving her a comb and headband (which had fates similar to Sheep's) and finally she banged her head on the edge of the changing table and really started crying. After some cuddling she settled down and acquiesced to having her PJs put on. Wow. I don't know how long the struggle took, from extraction from the bathtub to getting on the PJs but it was much longer than it should have been. The rest of the bedtime routine went much more smoothly and now Abby is peacefully sleeping.

After getting the boys easily to bed, I came downstairs quite tired, but wandered around picking up the straggling toys that didn't get put away at pick up time. Every one chipped into pick up, including Abby. Matthew picked up puzzles, Sam picked up cars and Abby picked up her shoes which she had brought out from the laundry room and into the family room. I told Abby to put her shoes in the laundry room and to my surprise, off she went toward the laundry room. She came back and we found her other pair of shoes and off she went to the laundry room again. I was again surprised, but didn't think too much about it.

Then during my picking up, I wandered into the laundry room and saw Abby's shoes. Both pairs of them were in the washing machine. Awwww. All the exasperation I felt earlier from the bedtime showdown melted away as I looked at her two little pairs of shoes in the washing machine. I don't know why something like that is so touching and cute, but it sure is a blessing to be able to appreciate something as simple as shoes in a washing machine placed in there by my baby.

Abby's 15 mo.

After being out all of last week with the flu, I am finally getting back into the swing of things despite some lingering fatigue. Anyway, Abby had her 15 mo. appointment yesterday. The boys tagged along and we talked a lot about how to behave at the doctor's office as the last time they came with their behavior was less than ideal. Apparently the pre-appointment instruction worked as they were pretty well behaved, they didn't run and jump around, nor did they yell. The only distracting thing was that Matthew pretended to be a kitty the entire time and was meowing and crawling on the floor through the appointment.

Abby handled herself pretty well after crying upon entering the office and while getting her height and weight taken. During her examination she was completely fine and quite inquisitive as she grabbed the stethoscope and placed it next to her ear. Then came the shots which are never fun, but she handled them as well as any 15 month old does, she cried some but got over it after a few minutes. Sam covered his ears while she was crying, but was an otherwise supportive brother.

Apparently Abby is supposed to have 3-6 words at this phase of life and she has well over that. Let's see, I know I've listed these before, but here are some new ones she came out with lately: Matthew (Matt-ewww), please (pease), block and book. I'd say she has at least 20 words, so she's definitely on top of her language skills. As far as her other stats, here they are:

Height: 31.25 in., 75th percentile
Weight: 21.25 lb, 25th percentile

I just pulled out the boy's stats at that age and here they are:

Height:(Matthew) 33.25 in, (Sam) 33 in.
Weight: (Matthew) 26.25 lb, (Sam) 21.25 lb

All in all, Abby continues to grow, she happy and healthy and we are very blessed.

40 in January

Today it got up to 40, so we took advantage of the warm weather to get outside for a bit. Sam made the most of it by riding his bike and tricycle, while Abby enjoyed just walking around in the driveway. Matthew didn't want to join us at first, opting to stay inside and look at books, but eventually he got interested in going outside and drove furiously around on the tricycle. Then it started to rain pretty hard so our fun time outside ended and we went back inside for some more indoor play. I wasn't able to get any very good pictures as I was not sure about the best settings on the camera for all the snow, but I was able to take a few to post. None of the pictures of Matthew turned out as he just wouldn't slow down on his tricycle, but I got some of Abby and Sam. Abby, fortunately, tolerated her hat just fine after initially pulling it off. It's nice she doesn't scream about it anymore so we can go outside some.

Conversations

Lately Abby has been throwing around words like you wouldn't believe. For example, a few days ago I asked Abby, "How are you doing, Abby?" as I often do when I'm talking to her and to my surprise, she responded "Good." Every time I ask her now, she pretty much says "Good". I was so surprised and can't believe that she, at 14 months, responds to "How are you?". Today she came up to me and said "marble" and handed me a few marbles from a toy that the boys got for Christmas (and they are supposed to keep them out of Abby's hands).

Matthew is also doing very well with his words and we have some interesting conversations. Here's a snippet of a conversations we had at breakfast yesterday.

Me: Matthew, what happened to your pants? (he was in his PJs, but didn't have pants on)
Matthew: (Pauses and looks down in surprise) I took them off! I got all nice and cozy in my blanket in bed and I was nice and cozy. (Holds up his foot) But I have my socks on.

Not to leave Sam out, he is still quite good with his language. The other night after he went to bed, he came out of his room after a few minutes and asked, "Mommy, Jesus Loves Me is about to start, will you join me for it?" He listens to a CD at bedtime these days and the second song is Jesus Loves Me. And he said, "Will you join me?" What four-year old says that? How formal!

What's the most fun is when all of the children are talking and wanting to converse at the same time which often happens when we're driving somewhere. Our drives are quite lively with talk coming from everywhere and getting louder and louder as they like to have me respond to them before they quiet down and move onto another topic. Sometimes, though, the kids get into a conversation with each other and that's really fun to listen to. Unless it's the boys screaming at each other about things like "There's a bus!" "No, there's a car transporter!" "No, there's a BUS!" "Car TRANSPORTER" "AHHHHHH! (the Ahhhh would be Matthew screaming.).

And then at the end of the day, Jason and I have some time for adult conversation. If only we had the energy to converse.

Still sick

Well, we still have some sickness going around here. Matthew's cold is much improved, but he still has some hard times with it and tries to wipe out his mouth and apparently his scratchy throat. He has moments of extreme grumpiness, but they are not as frequent as they were earlier in the week. Then on Wed night Abby started sounding wheezy and having a barky cough, so we took her in to the doctor on Thursday and she has croup. Her breathing was never too bad, but now she has a fully blown cold. Her nose is running like crazy and she, like most little ones, hates having her nose wiped. You'd think someone was pulling her hair or pinching her as she screams and shakes her head around when someone tries to wipe her nose. In fact, when she sees Jason or I approaching her with a kleenex she takes off in the other direction.

And is she ever grumpy! Wow, her opinions are quite strong when she's well, but when she's sick, you'd better watch out because she is a grump. This afternoon when Jason and Sam were out running errands both Matthew and Abby took bad naps then were up at the same time. I had gotten Abby up first, so when Matthew got up I brought him downstairs and held him for awhile. As we all know, Abby does not like to share Mommy, so she screamed and pulled at Matthew. So after a minute or so I told Matthew it was Abby's turn and picked her up. Matthew was in a grumpy post-nap mood, so he cried and cried and cried. So then I tried to hold both of them, one on one leg and one on another. Abby went crazy. She was trying to hit Matthew and push him away with her legs. And screaming. So I laid her beside me and held Matthew for awhile. She continued to scream and kick at Matthew with her legs. My goodness. At the moment it wasn't amusing, in fact, I was ready to cry, but looking back it was just another moment with small children.

Moving to another topic, our dishwasher started leaking copious amounts of water the other night. I walked into the kitchen and said, "Whoa, water, water, water! Get towels!" and we quickly got 3 bath towels and wiped up the floor and Jason got some pans and put them under the dishwasher. We've been watching for the dishwasher to leak as it apparently had overnight a few weeks ago and warped our nice hardwood floors. So Jason took off the door of the dishwasher and did some investigating with the help of the boys. In the picture they are running a test cycle and checking for leaks. Throughout the day, the boys would stop by the dishwasher and update us on the leak status. Using some foam and aquarium caulk, it is now believed to be fixed and we will run another test run tomorrow.

Opinionated Abby

We all know Abby has some strong opinions. We knew from the beginning. At first her opinions were relatively innocuous. She hated the car seat. She loved Mommy and only Mommy (most of the time). She loves cheese. She hated the baby swing. She hated pacifiers. She loves sucking her thumb.

Well, other opinions have developed over time While she still prefers Mommy, she seems to enjoy some others, but she doesn't enjoy when another child is with Mommy, including her brothers. When one of the boys sits with me she starts fussing (screaming sometimes), hitting at them, pulling at them and otherwise showing displeasure.

Abby has very strong opinions about food, although she is fairly open to trying different foods too. She loves cheese and would eat cheese for every meal. If she sees cheese in any form, she immediately wants it and loudly lets you know. She doesn't care much for cereal and when given it in the morning she picks at it, then starts sweeping her hand back and forth or dropping it piece by piece on the floor, or her newest move is to put food she doesn't care for  in her seat. She will pick it up and set it beside her rear.

She also wants to be free or held on her own terms. We went to Barnes and Noble on Monday (since Matthew was starting to have a cold and I wanted to stay away fro the Y) and she was walking around grabbing books and dropping them, so I picked her up and she screamed "No!" and started thrashing about.  But then when I'm trying to get dinner ready she only wants to be held and will scream at my feet until I'm able to do so. Opinionated Abby. Life on her terms or else.

On a different note, Abby is learning a lot about how to get a rise out of her brothers. She has learned the fine art of the "grab and run" and will often grab a particular toy of the boys, take off and then the boys start screaming and run after her in hot pursuit. Goodness, she is almost ready to run on her little toddler legs and manages quite a pace in her toddler speed-walk. When they catch her, they take it back or she stops running around, sticks out her little arm and hands the toy back to her disgruntled brothers. Matthew is especially a target of her antics (and he really loses it when she takes his toys) and I think we will have an interesting future before us. The kids like to play chase on fun terms too, but Abby really enjoys the unexpected grab and run.

Bringing in the new year

Well, we spent New Year's Eve in bed, of course, as we have since having kids. Who would willingly stay up until midnight when our nights are so punctuated and unpredictable on a regular basis? Willingly submit myself to tiredness and lack of sleep? I don't really need to help myself along in that department so we went to bed around 10:30. Matthew came down with an icky cold on Sunday which progressively has gotten worse and was downright icky today. The poor kid. He was spared the stomach flu, but now has a whopper of a cold. And he doesn't really know how to blow his nose, so he instead cries out for someone to wipe his nose or he uses his sleeve or in more gross instances, grabs a blanket and wipes his nose. He seems to have a sore throat as his voice is very raspy and he just looks and sounds miserable. So after dinner tonight I had to take a picture of my little two year old with a drippy nose and red-rimmed eyes.

Sam didn't want to be left out of the action so he popped his head in front of the camera too.

I've been talking to the kids about germs and washing their hands a lot lately (especially when we return from the Y) and this afternoon Sam grabbed Matthew snack and was about to eat it, so I told him that he could get Matthew's germs and get what he has. He immediately washed his hands and washed them well. I think the germ concept is starting to get through although it is very abstract for children. After some individual pictures, the kids got into the mood to take a picture together and make grumpy faces.

I hope Matthew is doing much better tomorrow. He is really quite grumpy and his stubbornness reaches new levels when he isn't feeling well. And I've washed my hands probably 50 times today. And I hope Abby doesn't get it. Regardless, Happy New Year!