growing up

So I go into Bubba's room (Ron's nickname)to get him up this morning and he was just as happy as can be, laughing and moving around. When I picked him up, he seemed so different to me. I changed his diaper and then took him down stairs to eat breakfast and as I sat him in his high-chair I thought to myself "Did you get taller overnight?" His feet were just a few inches from the footrest on the high-chair.
As I sat there feeding him I watched him and he was so intent on eating and watching the spoon and grabbing it, and feeding himself that I was in shock. He really was "growing up before my eyes".
I had forgotten those changes with Nancy, and it really wasn't that long ago, but I was so amazed at how much really does change in a few days. How quickly they learn to do things and then remember them the next hour or day. As I sat around with some friends last week, we were talking about how we wanted our kids to grow up and get a little more independant but I don't know if I want that right now. I think I will just sit back and enjoy these cuddly moments because as I have been told numerous times by numerous people "this will pass before you know it"

road trips

Anyone who has kids will know where I am going with this. Both of our parents live out of town, so we travel to go see them. We go to Portland more because we can shop and we lived there so we have friends. Nothing against my mother in-law, I like the eastern part of Washington, but for some reason it is harder to get over there.
Well Friday we left for Portland and I really try to leave close to evening so the kids will sleep in the car and relax and my husband and I can relax and have a nice trip down. Well, not this trip! Bubba was fed and ready to go, (Ron's nickname)in his P.J.s and fed and ready for bed. Nancy was up but because she is the night owl I figure why bother. So we get on the road after packing up the house and taking the kitchen sink, leaving just the couch and bed for the cat, and move out. Now I have to imput something here: I downloaded "Playhouse Disney" songs and Nancy loves it. Her favorite show is "Tigger and Pooh" and so we listen to the song all the time, and the other Tigger and Pooh songs that are on it. So we get into the car and she is ready for "Tigger" and she keeps asking for Tigger. So I find it and put it on, my husband is wanting to listen to the Mariners game and so he tolerates it for a little while and then I say "Ok it's daddy's turn to listen to his stuff" and I turn on the Mariner game. The crying begins, and the yelling and the asking for Tigger over and over again. After awhile I say "No it's daddy's turn and then you can listen in a little while" Now I am laughing. I usually let her listen to what she wants and it is no big deal to me, but my husband is learning to share.
We get over the Drama of the music and then it starts with now she is just tired and can't get comfortable in her car seat and has been sitting for a long time and wants to get out. I am driving and don't like to stop, so I just wait for her to get over it. Now we have a headlight out in our van, and we have known about this for awhile and my husband is the one who fixes that stuff. So I am driving down the freeway and everyone is quiet and Bubba has gone back to sleep (he woke up during all the screaming of his sister and dad talking loudly to her about the radio) and I pass a cop. I am not speeding but I see him pull out and I know that I am about to be pulled over. I keep driving and hope that it was the person right behind me that he was after but I see his lights and so I pull over. Now Nancy who has been quiet noisy the whole trip gets real quiet because we have stopped. The officer comes up to my husbands side and is very nice once he sees we are just a family driving down the road.
"The reason I stopped you is you have a headlight out"
"I know" I responded as I look at my husband
"Well just get it fixed as soon as possible and drive safe"
My husband replies with "We will get it fixed tomorrow"
"Ok have a good night and drive safe" as he starts to walk away
Now the window is still down and Nancy who was in the backseat so nicely shouts out
"Bye! Bye Bye! Bye Doggie"
Where she got doggie I am not sure but I was kind of waiting for the officer to come back and say something but he didn't.
My husband and I just sat there laughing and listening to my daughter continuing to say "Bye, Bye"
All I can say is there is never a dull moment traveling with children. I hope everyone gets to experience this!

Bed Time

I know that I am a night owl. I live for being up late, watching whatever is on t.v. and working on projects. Before kids I could stay up late and work on projects, clean my house and read. When Nancy was born she came home from the hospital sleeping thru the night. She was the perfect baby! I have a friend that calls her "the perfect baby". She would tell everyone "your baby is cute but you should see my friend Rhonda's baby, she is perfect. She never cries, she is so tiny and cute she is perfect" I had to tell her "umm she is not perfect but she is close".
Nancy would go to sleep at about 8:30 or so and then she would sleep in until about 9 am or so, I mean she was my dream baby. God knew that I needed a child that was going to sleep so I could get used to this whole parenting thing. We would hang out and chill in the evening and she was so relaxed and mellow that it was great, I could work on projects and get stuff done and she would be happy to hang out and watch and play and then she would fall asleep and then I would put her to bed and then work some more and then go to sleep and then when she woke up we would start our day. Life was good!
When I got pregnant with Ron it was great because I was tired a lot and then I was able to lay down relax and sleep and take it easy. Well when Ron came along Nancy decided that she wanted to sleep with mommy and daddy. (I have to admit that this started with nap times because I would lay down with her and we would nap together.) So now Nancy is in her "big girl" bed because she was a climber and I didn't want her climbing out of the crib and I didn't want to spend money on another crib and a friend gave me her toddler bed so I took it and had a bed for Nancy.
Well now she figured out that she could get out of bed and sleep with mommy and daddy and crawl into bed with them.
Well now we had some issues to overcome because mommy was to tired to deal with them at the time now we had to face the consequenses of it. It took a few weeks but we overcame the whole sleeping with mom and dad and now we are dealing with just going to bed. This is an issue for most kids I believe. So now we are into the whole "Bill Cosby" bed time routine. If you have not seen "Cosby Himself" you should it is soooo funny and the majority of it, is about raising kids. I laugh because when it does come to bed time you have to go thru all of the steps. I find that this is very helpful if you tell them what you expect and then they will know what to expect. I laugh because I know as Nancy gets older and starts doing more things on her own, I will have to tell her "turn on the water, use soap and dry off". For now the routine "You will be going to bed in a few minutes", at this point the tears start flowing, and she is crying. After the few minutes she forgets and I say "ok lets go brush our teeth" she replies with "no" not demanding but saying no I don't want to do that now but thanks for asking. When I tell her we are going to bed she starts to cry and she starts up the stairs to go to bed. She knows that she is going to bed but just wants me to know that she is not happy about it. Once she is in bed she pats the pillow as if to say "you need to lay here with me" and so for a few minutes I will.
The amazing thing to me is, Ron loves to go to bed. He starts to get tired and he fusses and I put him down for bed or nap and he is happy as can be that he is in bed. He gives me a big smile and sucks his binky and laughs. I turn on his mobile and say goodnight, as I walk to the door. He smiles and then watches me leave. He will play for a second and then he is out. I hope that this continues, because I would love to have one that is easy to put to bed, but if not maybe they could alternate and one year it will be Ron's turn the next year Nancy's. My friend who says I had the perfect baby, now child her middle daughter will just come up to her mom and say "goodnight" I watched her she was like 9 and we were over for the evening and this happened and I looked at my friend and said "She just decided to go to bed?" My friend replied "Yep she knows when she is tired and decides to go to sleep" To that I reply "Thats the perfect child!"

Independance

So the other day I was cleaning my bathroom while Ron was down for a nap and Nancy was just hanging out playing quietly in my room. A few minutes into cleaning she came into the bathroom with our old computer keyboard and showed me that she could pick it up. "Oh that's nice, can you go put it back please?" She walked away back into my room. After a few minutes it was really quiet and so I thought that I would poke my head in and see what she was doing. She had all on her own set the keyboard on the stool and put her legs under it and was pretending to type away. It was soooo stinken cute I ran to get my camera. I had to laugh. There are times that I am blown away by her creativity and her sense of helping herself out.
A few days ago we were at Target and we ran into some friends there and so we were walking around the store and she was the most well behaved child I had ever seen. My friends even commented on it. She would pick stuff up and I would make a comment and then ask her to put it back, to which she did. She did this all thru the store and I was a proud mom, thankful that for once we could go out and not end in a screaming fit. We got to the check out and she was looking at DVDs and she walked away and one of them fell on the ground. Just then another clerk walked by and saw Nancy pick up the DVD and put it back in the correct spot. Everyone was so proud of her and I said "Wow she did learn to pick up after herself"
It's these moments that I am so greatful for because it helps balance out the times when we leave the store screaming and yelling because she didn't get her way. I love those moments and I know God knows that we as parents have to have them, or we would be so discouraged. I can laugh when the screaming fits happen in public only because I know everyonce in awhile I am graced with a few times of the best behaved little girl around.
I really have to wonder what Ron is going to be like? I know he has his own personality and that he will grow on his own. I just hope he sees more of the good moments of Nancy than the "fit" moments and wants to be more like that.
For now I will just have to enjoy each and every moment and have a smile no matter what, even in those difficult times when I want to yell and scream with her and say it's not fair!

personalities

Well my son Ron who is 7 months old is my over achiever. Can you give them that personality this early? If not then I did. My daughter who is 2 and just a bunch of fun now. She is the late night party animal. She loves to sleep in and stay up redicuously late. She is just like her mom, and Ron is just like dad, does the best in the morning.

Well Ron is the best baby. The first few months were a challenge because I think he had a little bit of Colic and so he cried a lot. Nancy on the other hand came home from the hospital sleeping thru the night and was the easy going infant. Ron is now the most easy going. He loves to hang out and just watch his sister. Ron will be the child that will spend hours in his room or the play area and build a cool something out of lego's and then finally get it finished and his sister will come and knock it down. Maybe not, I feel she may be a little more sensative than that. I call Ron my overachiever because he does nothing small! At seven months he out weighs his 2 year old sister, he is not just cutting one tooth at a time but working on 3, when I change his diaper it is not just in the diaper, you catch my drift.

I love the fact that God created us all with different personalities and that we as parents get the privalege of watching them grow up. I just think that this is a cool thing that we are blessed with. I am amazed at how much I see of myself in both of my kids and I see my husband in them as well. I see the bad stuff and I see the good stuff, and suddenly all those times when my mom would say "trust me on this one" I get it, I truly get it. I love to laugh and I don't look forward to the heartbreaks that I am bound to have, but I will charish and cling to the good times.

So I look forward to making more posts about my darlings personalities and how much they will grow and change and make me laugh and smile at all thier little things that make them them.

Opps

I am a neat freak! I will just start off with that! Before I had kids my house was spotless when I went to bed. The kitchen clean and everything in it's place, laundry out of the dryer folded and the beds were all made. (even if I made it just before I went to bed) I had one child and well that was a juggle but I still managed to make it so that everything was picked up and my bathrooms got a total cleaning every week with out fail. By the time my second one came, I was well if I don't get the clothes out of the dryer who will know? My husband says "I would rather have you in a good mood with a messy house rather than a bad mood with a clean house". However if my house is messy I feel like it is a reflection on me and that I do this for me, this is my identity. Well with a lot of prayer and a little persistance from my husband I am learning to relax and not worry about always having a spotless house. When I know people are coming over I like to have it picked up and looking presentable, if I don't dust I don't care cause that is the one thing I hate doing.

Well once a month we have a meeting at our house for the AWANA club directors and I usually have a light snack and try to have the house looking somewhat clean. Well last Monday was our meeting and Sunday we celebrated Nancy's 2 birthday. We had family over for a small get together and opened some presents and then everyone left. Monday I went shopping with my mother in-law, and forgot about the meeting. Well about 1pm my husband calls me to see if I had sent the reminder e-mail out and of course I hadn't 'cause I forgot. So I called everyone while I was at the mall letting Nancy play in the play area. I got home and was really just to tired to do much of anything. I figured they had all been to my house they know I can clean it and I just ran out of time so they can deal with it.

Well it's about time for everyone to show up and my daughter found my drink on the table and thought that she would bring it to me. By this time a few people are here and I am holding the drink and she takes it out of my hand and because the drink was a big one it spilt right across my floor. Well I was really glad that I had not put much effort into cleaning because it was a mess.

I really think this was God's way of telling me "relax, there is more important things to having a clean house". We all had a great meeting and my friends all still talk to me and they still come over even if my house isn't clean. What a breath of fresh air.

I have cleaned up a little since then and had stuff put away but then it all comes out again. But really it is clean other than the stuff that gets pulled out of the toyboxes and rooms and shelves.

Broken

So I was giving my daughter Nancy a bath the other night and she was laying down on her tummy playing and splashing, while I was doing my Sudoko, and she says "Broken". Now at first I did not understand what she was trying to tell me.
"What??" I asked
"broken" She replied
"HuH??" I asked again, "I don't understand"
"broken" she replied a little frustrated
"Open?" I replied
"broken" she replied a little louder
"broken?" I asked
"broken" she replied finaly relieved that I was saying what she was saying
"What's broken?" I asked back
"broken" she said pointing to her backside
"What is broken?" I asked again
"broken" she replied again pulling her little bottom cheeks apart
"Oh no that is not broken, it is suppposed to be like that" I said smiling back trying not to laugh
"broken"
Now this continued on and on for about five minutes and she was getting more and more frustrated that I was telling her that is was supposed to be like that. She was starting to get very upset and I could tell that she was going to break down and cry that her bottom was broken and no one was doing anything about it. Finally I said " do you want to go look in the mirror and I will show you that it is not broken?"
She quickly got out of the bathtub and was ready to have her towel around her as she was going to walk over to mirror and find out why her bottom was not broken.
Now Ron is asleep and daddy is just relaxing watching sports and sees us coming into the bedroom and wonders what we are doing. I hold her up in front of the mirror and explain to her that her bottom is supposed to be like that so she can go potty.
"See this is how you are able to poop"
My husband then looks up from the television and says "What are you talking about?" After telling him the story he looks at my daughter and says "well you want me to glue it together?"
Nancy just replied with "broken"
We laughed and then we had to call grandparents and tell them that their grandaughter was broken.
We all had a great laugh and if you ask her now (a few weeks later) "Are you broken?" She will point to her bottom and say "broken"

What can you do but laugh?

Ok so it is really late and I am tired but I really wanted to get this post on before I went to bed.

So I went grocery shopping with my two adorable children who are the most well behaved kids in the whole wide world. (Please I hope you pick up on the sarcasm) Ok maybe not the most behaved but really and truly they are pretty good. I really can't complain cause I always wanted a child like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbs, they are just a great cartoon that you can sit down and read and enjoy the imagination. So I would pray saying "Lord I really want a creative child who has a great imagination" Well I think that I got it. Nancy is great she has an imagination and I could tell you stories and I am sure that I will as the postings go on. She also has her moments where she can have a complete melt down and you just have to say Hu?! and move on, I really try not to pay attention to the tantrums cause that just feeds it.
Well we went on our weekly trip to the grocery store. Sometimes if I am tired I will wait until my husband gets home and then we go together just to have an extra hand, other times I go and it makes no difference to me. Well we went to WINCO, (If you don't know what WINCO is, it is a grocery store where you have to bag your own items, and they have a great selection of bulk food)I was checking out the bulk food and they had gummy clown fish. Now Nancy has been a Nemo fan for like the last six months, so I thought oh for a special treat I will get her a few of the gummy clown fish. She was excited but I did not plan very well, as I still had more shopping to do. So we set off down the isles getting other items on my list and she kept asking me to open the fishys so she could have one and I would explain that Mommy has to pay for them first and then you will be able to have one. She would say ok and then ask again. This went on for about 5 minutes and then, she was not satisfied with "Mommy has to pay for them and then you can have one" Now Ron is just sitting in the cart hanging out looking around and could care less what is going on. (God knew I needed a mellow child after Nancy) The screams are begining to get louder and louder and she wants to get out of the cart. "Ok you can help mommy put stuff into the cart" (we have done this before and it works great usually) So we set out and she is happy once again to start putting items into my cart and as we go she does well, but then for some reason she wanted marshmellows. Now I have never given her a marshmellow and and I don't believe that she has ever had one but she decided that she wanted marshmellows. I said "no we are not getting those, Lets go" Well that was it! THAT WAS THE LAST STRAW in her little mind. Major melt down in the store where she decided that she was going to lay on the floor and cry. Now I have to tell you that when she decides to do this she is a riot. She threw herself on the floor one time and it hurt, so after that she VERY carefully lays herself down and then puts her head on the ground and then begins crying like you have seen children do. I said " Oh well" and pushed my cart a little further. Now as a Nanny and a preschool teacher I would see this and say it is part of being a child, some do this more than others but it is a natural thing that they will grow out of Lord willing. But as a person shopping before kids when I was younger I would look at this and go "Take your child home". I try to be sensative with my kids and I don't want to be in a store because I know it is really annoying to hear a child scream all the way thru the store, it just is. However most people with children understand.
So as Nancy is laying on the floor crying and kicking and decideing to lick the floor (Ummm gross) I see this 20 year old young lady walk by us and say "Oh My God". Now I am just laughing at my daughter, and saying "I hope you are having a great time". I start to walk and she looks up and sees that I am not paying attention and then decides to come walk with me and keep going.
I didn't say anything to the young lady who said what she said but I mumbled under my breath. "Oh honey just you wait, your turn will come"
So that is my grocery store story. She has not decided to have another melt down like that yet in the store but we will see. Perhaps now that she is turning two she has outgrown it. Hehehe.
The fact of the matter is I love her and I really love the personality that she is developing. Wow one more year and her personality will be pretty much developed and I can't wait to see my little Nancy and how she will be like Calvin!

first timer

Ok so my friend told me I needed to start blogging and that people would read it. We will see. I guess I will start by saying that I have 2 lovely adorable children that I love with all of my heart. My daughter is going to be 2 on Monday her name is Nancy and my son is going to be 7 months on Saturday his name is Ron. (names have been changed to protect the innocent, until proven guilty)
Ok so today I will start by stating that both of my children though they can't communicate well with me have decided that when I am in a hurry that they will decide who is going to poop their pants and have the messiest one. I will have just changed both of them and am getting ready to go out the door and while I am getting the diaper bag Nancy will say to Ron "well I had a big blowout this morning now it is your turn, make it as messy as possible preferable up the back" I come back and as I load one in the car the other starts grunting and then I smell it. Great back into the house change not just the diaper but clothes as well. Ron could care less what he wears at this time but however Nancy has oppinions on what she will be wearing. So I think that she makes a big poop just to get into a different outfit. I don't quite know how they seem to get this down but it never fails and when I think that I am going to make it out the door on time and both have done their duty, the cat will bring in a bird or something that keeps me from getting out on time. What do you do but laugh and know that by now all your friends know that you will be running late and they all understand.