Misc stuff

Yesterday the godfather was kind enough to go come over to babysit so Eric and I could go out ALONE for his birthday dinner. We had a nice time. It is nice to be like a couple without kids. Nate obviously didn't care that we left, it was after I put him down, Gwen was a little more sensitive to us leaving, but apparently only for less than a minute.
I haven't downloaded the latest pictures so I have no pictures to show again. I know, you are upset...maybe tonight or tomorrow I will get to it and we will have pictures again. We have had a relatively quiet weekend otherwise, so far. Gwen woke up entirely too early this morning, but we weren't rushed for Church, that is a nice change, although I am tired.
In exciting Nate news, one of his teeth is so ready to pop up, super exciting. I remember with Gwen getting her first teeth, I thought I would miss the gummy smiles and I think I will with Nate also. But, I didn't realize how cute just having a couple teeth are. Nate still doesn't seem much phased by the whole process, thankfully!

Eating

I am officially done trying to potty train Gwen. She still refuses to pee whenever I ask her and then I find she has peed on herself. So, I am thinking it is not worth the effort, right now. I will be getting some books on the potty training when I am next at the library to be prepared for when she does finally decide to be ready. But, I suspect when she is ready, I won't need any of the knowledge I have learned. This seems to be a lot like the eating thing. I haven't mentioned the eating thing here lately, since I don't want to jinx it. But, it has been a week or two and the improvement is phenomenal. I think the low point was when I was exhausted, tired from dealing with her crapola around dinner time and I told her "I don't really care if you starve, I am not going to give you cereal" or whatever she wanted, she didn't seem to care at that point either, but she knew she didn't want what I was offering. I had also noticed Gwen was not really drinking her milk, and I suspected she was drinking her calories instead of eating them, so I stopped offering milk to her. Since then Gwen has been eating dinner with us. She has been trying everything, she might not eat it all, but dinner seems so much easier and nicer and less stressful. She also might not sit with us the whole time, but one battle at a time! So one day, randomly in the future, sometime before she starts kindergarten she will be potty trained, I guess I will just have to wait for more signs that she is ready.

Happy Friday

We have I think a busy week coming up next week...ok maybe not all of us are having a busy week and the week might not even be considered busy. Next Sat is the best man's wedding (as in the best man at our wedding). The boys are going on a road trip next week, then there is the bachelor party, rehearsal dinner and the actual wedding. So, busy I guess is not the right word, but maybe insane or crazed. Probably like this.I have mentioned that we tried the potty training thing, here is Gwen in her panties with her new socks that she found, that she put on herself!
Of course she had to kiss and see baby Nate.
While I was vacuuming the other day I had to figure out what to do with the kids, this was my solution and it seemed to work out pretty well. Nate was happy to play and Gwen kept coming back to him every once in a while to keep him company and actually smiled for a picture.
So yesterday, naptime Gwen decided to take off her diaper and her clothes...my girlfriend had suggested I tape her diapers, but I don't really think I will do that, so I have decided to put her back in her night time sleep clothes (that we put on backwards that she can't unzip). I am still having an issue with her potty training. My problem is that she has some diaper rash issues that the not telling us when we poop thing is going to be an issue. Stay tuned for an update on eating, I don't have time for that now that both kids are up from their nap.

GweNate

I have a lot of things rattling around in my head today and I realize this might be the only 5 minutes I get to post. Gwen and Nate are both in their cribs, but I think currently Nate is refusing to sleep, which is odd, but I think he will go down soon. It took Gwen 1.5 hrs to succumb to the sleep gods, right when I was going to get her out I realized, funny she didn't yell out to me. Makes me nervous what I am going to find when she does actually wake up. After the poop incident, I began to wonder if it is time to potty train Gwen, mostly because my Mom told me it was time, but also partially because I got to the point where I think I am done changing diapers. For the last couple weeks I have had a stuffy nose, this is a blessing, but also a curse b/c I can't tell when Gwen has pooped, quite a problem because if I don't change her she will get diaper rash. So, we started putting her in panties when we are at home in the afternoons after her nap. The only problem is she won't tell me when she has to pee and doesn't seem to care if she pees on herself, won't even tell me (unless it spills on the floor). The other day during the afternoon panty time I said lets go sit on the potty and she said no and refused, and I don't just mean a little no, this was a crying very upset I refuse. I said ok then back to diapers and she preferred that to having me tell her sit on the potty. Have I mentioned yet how strong willed she is? I have said before this is going to be something we are going to do when she is ready, but I am just not sure how to tell she is ready. I think she has interest but no desire and I think at this point she get to involved in something and forgets. I had ordered some cloth training pants because part of me foresees this as a long process and I hate to spend the extra money on pull-ups. I guess I am going to have to get over to the library and get some potty training books and maybe that book my Mom has suggested to me. I am beginning to wonder if Gwen's personality is considered more High strung than strong willed and what does that difference mean to me...and if she is high strung, can I change her into low strung, because I don't think we will make it through the teenage years if she is high strung. Who am I kidding, we are not going to make it through the toddler years if she is high strung or strong willed! And I keep asking myself, was I really this difficult, because hearing stories about Eric's childhood I have heard that he was so low maintenance, and I have heard you get what you deserve. Maybe this trying time for me has nothing to do with Gwen though, the outside influences bringing me down and stressing me out could be causing these slight difficulties with Gwen into something else all together. Making mountains out of mole hills.
Baby Nate on the other hand is still struggling with those 2 bottom teeth, he is trying to get anything into his mouth in a 5 mi radius. So, don't offer him your hand, he will try to eat it. Now that Nate is 5 months and I am starting to feel less sniffly, I am thinking we will be starting him on "solids" I have picked Thanksgiving weekend for this momentous occasion since Eric will be home and we will have an extra set of hands for the camera, very important, but more importantly since it will be a 4 day weekend we will hopefully be rather calm around here and we will have time. I am not really looking forward to introducing solids, I get super nostalgic about the weening process and that I don't have to carry around extra food type crap for Nate. But, I think Nate is totally ready for solids that I probably should get started, because I like to go to the 6 month appointment and say yes we have started solids, and don't mention it was only like a week ago! Great, Nate is asleep also, back to house cleaning before the princess wakes up!

Happy Birthday

Today is Eric's birthday! Happy Birthday honey! I hope that we don't drive you crazy today! FYI Gwen is in her room singing you Happy Birthday, well maybe she is just singing to herself, but I have to think that she means for you.
I better go finish that cake!

5 months!

Happy Veterans day! Sadly, since none of us work for the government or are in school, it was business as usual around here. But, today marks baby Nate turning 5 months, wow, can you believe it? He is almost halfway to 1 and on his way to mobile! Nate is the sweetest, happiest baby I have had ever had. I know what you are thinking, you've only had one other baby, but I think I could have 10 babies and I would still consider Nate the sweetest! I am wondering if his personality is like my Dad's personality. I remember reading in my Dad's baby book that he was a happy and sweet baby. Nate is such a happy content baby. He spends most of his day smiling and chatting, and sleeping and eating. He just lights up when he sees Gwen and as I said yesterday Gwen feels the same about him!
He is still trying to crawl, which is so cute. He does get frustrated so he won't lay there for long, but he is definitely getting good at rolling front to back and back to front. It won't be long until he is moving around and getting into all our stuff. I am pretty sure that Gwen is going to not be happy then! For now though, he spends a lot of time "flying", working on strengthening those abs muscles!

We are getting Nate more into a routine with the days it has been lovely. It is nice that he takes naps often so nicely, without much fuss...I mean obviously he doesn't go down easily all the time. He is starting to get very distractable and likes to touch everything, and he seems to like to see how things sound when he scratches them. The distraction makes it awfully hard to feed him, I mean his sister is always offering distractions! (the picture Nate is next too is Eric when he was a baby, I am not sure when.)

Nate is still teething, which means everything is going in the mouth and he is drooling a lot! I feel like the teeth will be coming up very shortly. It doesn't seem to be bothering him a great deal, but he probably would be much less drooly which I would really like!

I know there is a lot of glare on that picture, but Nate and Eric look so cute. I am not sure he looks like either of us really, but I am not the best person to ask who someone looks like. Unless it is blatantly obvious, I have no clue. I am unable to discern if someone has someone else's nose or whatnot. But I do wonder who baby Nate will look like, will he and Gwen look anything alike and is he going to keep those blue eyes. There has been some discussion on the color of his hair, will it be blond, it does look slightly red in pictures but I think when you are looking at him it is blond, very blond. Gwen's hair also had some red about it, but she is definitely a brunette.

Nate can sit in high chairs now while we eat if we go to restaurants. But, since he is in that random screaming/squealing phrase still so in some instances that is not so kosher. Nate seems to have substituted the squealing for fussing/crying. Once you get him and his sister going there is not enough space in the house to get away and it is headache waiting to happen. But, how can you not love that shiny, chubby little sweet face? LOVE HIM! (Of course, I am all gushy about him now, I guess we should check back in a year to see if he drives me crazy!)

28 months

Today Gwen is 28 months old. This month has brought a bunch of mischievous kind of behaviour. I think we all remember the poop incident, you don't, don't make me bring out the pictures! Ok, so maybe not everyone vividly remembers the poop incident as I do, but frankly you would too.

So what else is knew with Gwen you ask? The conversation and memory skills have improved greatly! She tells me the stuff all the time, like last night she did...and amazingly enough, she did! You can actually have a conversation with her, sometimes about nonsense. Her language skills are much improved and most of the time I don't need to translate for her, except for now that she has a runny nose, makes it harder to understand her. But, I have found a benefit to Gwen's chattiness, she works as a spy. She will tell me important bits of her father's conversation so I know the right questions to ask when he gets off the phone so I know what is going on in our lives!

Gwen has been taking swim lessons again this "semester" and has been doing really well, participating, listening and generally making me proud. It is nice to see her start to develop into a little kid that actually can and does pay attention, of course she doesn't always pay attention to me, but whatever, I'm the Mom, that will likely continue to be the trend!

Gwen's house chores are expanding also, just recently she has really started actually vacuuming by herself, it takes about 3 hrs, but you can't rush a 2 yr old when they are trying to help you. Gwen also loves to help with the dishes and the laundry.

Gwen's love of DADDY has not diminished this month. Neither has her love of baby Nate. It has become rather difficult because she can now open doors so as soon as she hears a peep out of baby Nate she runs to his door and opens it! If she is in her room and Nate is making any noise she yells "Mommy, baby Nate's awake", over and over until I get him; as I have said before, helpful!

Happy Birthday

Today would have been my Dad's 60th birthday. I am not sure what to say about that. On many levels I still don't like to think about it and apparently I don't have much to write about it because I have written and erased stuff about 10 times and I am just staring at the computer. Dad we love you and we miss you.

Old stuff

Eric has apparently decided while he is moving stuff out of the cave for me to sell on eBay, this might be a good time to organize/condense some of his/our stuff into some kind of smaller fashion. What am I doing during all this you might ask, why getting all my stuff ready for scrap booking this week. Wohoo! I think I am in the final push to finish up Gwen's album. Now I have to organize all the pictures I am not using and put them in albums or toss them. That will definitely be a load off! Unfortunately during Eric's process you can hardly walk in the basement, much less sit! In my process of organizing I found some pictures I don't think I have posted. I could have about a hundred pictures of the following. When we put Nate on the floor, Gwen likes to face him, sometimes too close.

Gwen also likes to crawl under us when we get on the floor to play with baby Nate.

This is actually a picture Gwen took, not bad, huh.

Mom sent these wings to Gwen I think hoping Gwen would wear them for Halloween, Gwen wanted nothing to do with them...most of the time she still doesn't...
but I got some pictures.

Parenting dilemias

One of the major issues I have with this whole parenting thing, is how do you keep from laughing. Yes, yesterday's incident was nasty, but I just couldn't help but to laugh (which is why I had to leave the room!) Yes, she was covered in poop, but she was so unaffected by it. There was just something about her attitude that just made you laugh, although maybe that was because it was so disgusting that if I wouldn't have laughed I would have had to cry. I think she was just bored and showing us a little bit of the stubborn streak that we already know she has. What kind of discipline should I use for this kind of behaviour? I have no idea. You can't force someone to nap and really I think this was just a "crime of opportunity". Fortunately Mommy is smarter than that and we put her diaper on backwards, she pooped but she couldn't get her diaper off, yet! I think it is only a matter of time before she figures that out. But in exciting news, Gwen can take off her clothes by herself, ok so maybe she has been able to do that for a while, but you have to celebrate the little things when your daughter is 2. The nice thing about Gwen being 2 is that Nate is younger and still a baby. So whatever "crap" I have to put up with Gwen, I have sweet smiling, drooling, laughing Nate to bring me back to center. I can see why children have more kids, it is nice to have one going through a really sweet phase while the other is going through a cranky panky stage. Of course, more often than not the stars are not aligned so as that works out, but in theory it is good. In other news, do you have any idea why my husband has at least 20 Pez dispensers from his youth in our storage space that he thinks we can sell on eBay. I certainly don't think they will sell, but I am looking at about 3 HUGE Rubbermaids full of toys from his youth. Do you think they will sell? If they do sell, do you know what that means...yes, 3 empty Rubbermaids I can use for the kids old clothes! YAY!

Naked baby Friday!

This post as it was started has taken a completely different form as the day has gone on. It has caused some internal debate with should I or should I not post a specific photo. I have chosen not to post the photo because if it's nasty graphic-ness. If you would like to see it I will email it to you, but I have chosen not to post it, you will understand why, when I tell you about my day! Today was a rather normal day, by our standards. Things were going well, I hoped. Gwen I thought had decided to nap, until I heard her when I took baby Nate upstairs for his second nap of the day. Just as I was finishing with Nate I got a phone call and answered it and then decided to get Gwen out of her crib, it had been 2 hours of "quiet time" so I went to get her. I was NOT prepared for the scene ahead of me. The first thing I noticed was the stench...of poop. Then I looked at my child COVERED in POOP! COVERED...I don't think even if I could put that in large font it would begin to allow you to understand what this means. She also decided to cover her crib in poop...(Have I mentioned today I am SO HAPPY she is still in her crib, can you imagine the nastiness of if she could have walked around her room!). First, I left the room, called Eric and left him a message, then I called my girlfriend and got the camera. (I mean if she is going to paint herself in poop, I might as well document it for her 1st date!) Then I took pictures and gave her 2 baths. One that took all the poop off, the second just to make sure. THEN I pulled out the bleach, have I mentioned that I am thankful that even though I try to be green about cleaning, I still have bleach, just in case, also I am thankful it was 70 today so I could open the windows, bleach + poop, nasty smell. I then proceeded to wipe down the crib twice, maybe 2 times. Oh, did I mention Nate was kind enough to also poop on his sheets, fortunately our washer has a sterilize setting and a stain wash cycle, dude, I did not have to pre-treat the sheets and it got everything out! AWESOME! Now, I think I am done, and I leave you with the previously planned photos for today!

Everytime Nate is on his back he likes to grab his toes...this makes it incredibly difficult to change his diapers, there is a lot of fat rolls and I almost have to put some pressure on him to get into the creevices. But, isn't he the cutest!

BTW-I still smell the bleach, thank goodness I no longer smell the poop!

What is today?

I have no idea what to write today or how to start this post. I have some time so I thought I would take this opportunity to write something...but I don't know what to write about. Strange, I usually have several things going through my mind to write down, but as I sit her nothing!

The last 2 days have been rather quiet. We had a tough night the other night so we ended up not making it to class, I have a cough and realized if I don't take it easy I might actually end up getting really sick. Today we were going to go to class but it was canceled because of illness! So we went shopping. I am finding that I have a very limited time to do errands in my estimation. Nate and Gwen's schedules often conflict...one is waking up while the other is just going down for a nap. We are still working out Nate's schedule and he is at the age I have to figure out when to fit "solids" in the schedule for him. I am starting to lean towards a trial run during Thanksgiving. Eric will be home, we'll see, I think he is ready, but I am not ready. I love the ability to just run off and do whatever and not have to worry about Nate eating also. He is definitely grabbing at stuff and you have seen pictures of him sitting.

Usually while I am nursing Nate before his nap Gwen runs around downstairs. The area is baby proofed and usually not a problem, but one day I came downstairs to find this!

Yep, that is Gwen with her non-toxic finger paint, painting her face...great! I guess she is able to open flip-tops now. Poop!

I can only assume she was trying to use it like makeup after watching my Mom put on her makeup!? Because unfortunately when I ask her why she did something, she still can't tell me why...like what possessed her to take off all her clothes and her diaper yesterday when she was napping. She then wouldn't let me put any clothes back on her, well, I don't really force the issue unless someone is coming over.

Halloween wrap up

I know, it is like almost a week late, but dude, I just downloaded the pictures, sorry. Here is a picture from Gwen at the party, that she was so excited about!
Here is Gwen and her little friends during "storytime" on Halloween. One of the Moms was reading them stories while another Mom was cutting up cake.
Gwen and Nate...as you can tell Gwen is way more interested in the story!

I thought Nate might be too hot in his costume, so I took him out and sat him down while his sister ate her cake...
I gave him my water bottle to play with, he seemed to enjoy that!

Halloween night...Eric lighting our pumpkins.
Gwen and Brooke getting ready to trick-or-treat. I don't know why Gwen brought the car to Nate's exersaucer outside, but she promptly put it down when we told it was time to go trick-or-treating.
Ready to go!
These shots are all taken by someone else...I was passing out candy at our house. All reports say Gwen went up to houses by herself and asked for candy.

Ben & Jerry!

Things around here are changing, and I am not talking about the election, I am talking about in my house! Nate is super close to being a real pain...I mean crawling. Watching him today, I keep thinking, man am I in trouble. The lovely thing about having 1 child is you can pretty much keep track of that one child without any worries. But with 2 and 1 of them crawling while the other has a complete disregard for the fact that the other wants to eat anything he comes into contact with means huge problems for me! See, now I can leave the room for minutes to pee, now I am going to not be able to pee unless 1 or both of them are sleeping. Also, this could be the end of Gwen loving Nate, 'cause now he will be able to get to her stuff! Of course, it could be another month or so before he gets it all together, I will let you decide what you think.

This series of photos taken yesterday are just snap, snap, snap and sums up how thing go around here, I think.



We went to vote today as a family, that seems to be our MO. Gwen kept asking us where the vote was. I thought she said boat and kept explaining to her I didn't know where the boat was. Oops! When I finally figured out what she was saying we had to explain to her we were walking to the voting place and Eric told her it was a verb. We thought after dinner we would go to Ben & Jerry's and get our free ice cream, but apparently many others had the same idea and we left...they only had 3 people working! But, rest assured, since we promised ice cream, Gwen still got her ice cream "comb". It wasn't free, but we still celebrated!
The voting in the school makes me nostalgic for CA were we voted in some old lady's garage. Seriously, every time there was an election I voted because how many people can say they voted in a garage...ok, so maybe a lot of people; Cali. is a big state, but it is funny that you have to map quest your way to the voting place and then they have handmade signs directing you and don't think they have a house right on the main road, nope way back in the neighborhood our place was! The lady's garage had 2 electronic voting booths and we never had to wait in a long line, of course Eric and I can't remember if we voted during a presidential election while we were out there, so I don't know if it is the same, but really why wouldn't it be? It is California after all!

Blankets and other things

Yesterday, we went to get Gwen up from her nap and I noticed she had taken off her crib sheet. When I asked her why she did that she said "my toes were cold", almost like, duh Mommy! Eric has been teaching Gwen that blankets are used to cover your toes when they get cold. I am not sure she gets the concept because today she told me her toes were cold and I had just touched them and they were warm. Eric thinks that getting her to think this way will help her want to put a blanket in the crib with her to cover herself with...it hasn't helped so far, but he is hopeful!
Nate seems to be out of sorts today, I don't know why. I am not sure if he is not adjusted to the time change, if he is coming down with something, or what...he would take like an hour nap wake up ticked and then want to go back down for a nap an hour later. No problem...except that he woke up Gwen. Did I mention we moved Nate's crib out of our room? They are not in the same room, but they might as well be as little insulation there is in the walls. Nate had been getting up 3 times a night, Eric and I felt like it might be because he was starting to hear us, so we moved him. Now he gets up once a night (or 2x if he is too exhausted at bed time and he falls asleep while nursing) but life is much better, I am able to get some stuff done in our room during the day and not disturbing night and nap schedules. YAY!
Gwen had swim class today and she is doing so well. I am so proud of her, she does almost everything the instructor says and she has started to blow bubbles instead of drinking the water! Today we went from the big pool to the little pool, the hope was the wading pool would seem warm compared to the big pool, unfortunately someone forgot to tell the man in charge to turn on the pool heater and so Gwen and her little friend stayed, but everyone else couldn't handle it. Gwen was so excited to ride on the frog float and get a fish toy that she could have cared less that the pool was freezing, ok, not like lake Michigan freezing, but cold nonetheless! So we went back to the big pool and finished out the lesson, just the 2 girls!

Day 2

Today is the 2nd of Nov, can you believe it? I have a hard time considering yesterday, since I was sick. UGH! I would say it was too much candy, but I only had maybe 1 piece of candy, so that wasn't it. I think it was the food from our neighborly block party. Halloween is the only day of the year that we associate with our neighbors, Eric makes some spiked cider and this year we decided to add other food stuffs to the menu, something didn't agree with me and I don't know what! I am feeling better today, thankfully. I am also glad that I only appear to get sick on weekends, that is very convenient! Eric was kind enough to take the kids out (when they were not napping) since yesterday was such a gorgeous day.
Today is the 2nd day of NaBloPoMo, I am member 8445, I don't really know what that means, but I suspect it means there are 8444 other people signed up to post everyday this month. Fortunately I had already started the corn maze post or I would have likely already have missed a day. I can't promise that the content around here is going to be worth reading, but I guess it doesn't say anything about being interesting, it just says you should post everyday. Wish me luck!
I'll leave you with a video that I haven't posted yet. Part of it contains Nate and Gwen squealing at each other. I mentioned before that Nate often sounds like a pterodactyl to me, we thought he had grown out of that phase, rest assured he hasn't. He is apparently also becoming a mimic. Once one of them gets started making noises the other follows and I am sure to have a headache by the end of the day!

Corn maze

Last weekend we went to a corn maze. The one thing Eric has been talking about forever. With the 2 kids and the crazy schedule of the weekends I was wondering if we were ever going to make it, but we did, I think right before the end of the corn mazes. The godfather and girlfriend joined us and I think we had a pretty good time. I haven't discussed it with the godfather and girlfriend, but we had a good time, I hope they did also! I, of course, remembered the camera, so we have pictures! This corn maze has a bridge incorporated into it, you would think that would help us find the mailboxes, but it doesn't!

Here we are at a mailbox stamping the map. They break the corn maze up into 12 sections and each section has a mailbox to help you find your way around. Unfortunately we are still not skilled enough to get the stamps lined up correctly, you would think after 4 yrs we would figure out, but we can't!

Look, Gwen walking under her own power!
Nate in the corn maze!
Our corn maze cohorts, posing for a picture.

Look, Gwen running through the corn maze (and Daddy trying to keep up!) She really had a good time.

Gwen was interested in this corn that was on the ground, Eric broke off a small piece for her and she carried it around and pulled off the individual pieces.

Nate offering some advice on which way we should go!
We actually finished the corn maze this year, all of us...Gwen had to be taken out last year. We finished just before they let the snakes out! Eric ran up ahead to get to the slides and I handed Nate to Brooke so I could take some pictures.
The big slide. This was a big hit with everyone.

Just finishing up the slide.More slide fun.
Apparently this was a real tractor that they put a slide in, Gwen was telling me all about the steering wheel.