Weekly Winners (June 28)

I missed last Sunday because we were traveling, so this post is loaded. I hope you don't mind. More importantly, I hope you enjoy them.

For more Weekly Winners, head over to Sarcastic Mom. She's a great hostess, so give her and the other participants some love.

This big guy was floating in our pool of stagnant rain water (a real smart idea in the muggy south and you love mosquitoes). I showed him an idea that would have worked out better.

Last weekend we went to Annapolis (and surrounding area) to see family and friends.

Stuff Kids Say

I had to document this before it fell to the wayside.

We were driving to Annapolis last weekend and solely relying on GPS to get us there. Garmin knew to route around Washington DC, but just barely. We followed the turn-by-turn directions. We cross the bridge and realize we are going to hit traffic and see DC. We made the most of the situation and start pointing out landmarks.

"Nicholas, see those cool three metal pointy things." (Really, I don't know what they are except giant metal tusks sticking out of the ground.) And the we point out the Washington Monument - described as the tall white thing with a pyramid on top. The Capital Building. And so on. Whatever sites we could make out from our vantage point and still pay attention to the dense traffic without getting too frustrated.

Then Nicholas says, "Are you guys thinking what I'm thinking?"

Our reply in unison, "Probably not."

He says, "I think we're in Washington DC."

I asked how he knew that. I don't remember his exact wording but it had something to do with watching the inauguration and that Washington DC is "Obama's town". I felt so proud. And we were fortunate to be snowed in on inauguration day so that we could watch as a family.

Dental Karma

It really does exist. I promise.

Last week Adrian was going to town on some Laffy Taffy. He announced that he broke a crown. Being the supportive wife I am - "why would you eat Laffy Taffy when you know that you have a crown? you know that's going to be expensive." His defense, "I was chewing the candy on the other side of my mouth." Weird. How does a crown on the other side of your mouth break?

Several days later, I was sharing some DD Munchkins with the boys because that is a good choice when you're raising healthy kids with good teeth. I bit into a nice cakey powdered sugar Munchkin. Then I discovered something hard and crunchy. Strange and unexpected, I thought. I worked out the biggest piece of mystery object I could. It was the size of a pin head and white. Hmm. Then I realized it. I chipped the tip of a molar. Since Adrian wasn't present I had to imagine his statement - "how do you chip a tooth eating a donut? who does that? really? a donut?"

I have my regular cleaning on Wednesday and will ask them to file it down. It's kind of bothersome the way it is. And I'm sure they'll ask how it happened. Hopefully I'm not the first donut incident in their office.

Let's Be Roomies: Follow Up

After the first night that didn't pan out, we persevered. The next day Travis took both of his naps in his big boy bed - by choice. I asked which room he wanted to sleep in and he pointed to the new room. Ever since then he has slept in his bed with no issues.

Well, except for one night last week when he managed to fall out. There's an opening about 18 wide down at the foot of the bed. He had to have wiggled all the way down and arranged himself just right. I checked him out and he pointed back to his pillow. Beyond that he has stayed in bed and slept at the appropriate times.

Nicholas has gotten over the giggles trying to slink into his bed quietly. And he wakes up earlier than Travis - everyday. He can exit the room and come downstairs to watch TV without waking his little brother. Travis sleeps right through all of it.

This change worked out so well that on our recent weekend trip we all shared a hotel room. Travis slept in a crib around the corner by the bathroom. Nicholas slept in one of the queen beds with me. Aside from Travis squeaking the metal crib all night and having a few Goldilocks moments (this bed is too small), he did just fine going to sleep on his own while in a room with everyone and a TV on.

The novelty of sharing a room seems to have worn off. And now they are just boring roommates who will occasionally disturb each other in the name of love and fun.

Tough Decisions

I got up this morning at my running time (a very dark 4:30 am), ate a light breakfast (waffle with cottage cheese, seedless strawberry jam, and a glass of OJ), surfed the web (checked my fave blogs). 5 minutes before I was going to change into my gear - the sky opened up. It was pouring. Wind was whipping around the south side of the house. According to the Doppler 5000 Radar, it was not going to stop anytime soon. So what did I do?

a. Suck it up and run in the rain. Maybe a shower wouldn't be required afterwards.

b. Go downstairs to the elliptical machine and still get a decent workout in.

c. Get the day started for reals and take a shower. Look like a good employee showing up extra early.

d. Lie down on the couch and take a nap for the amount of time that I would have been running.

Weekly Winners (June 14)

So I said I would try to get outside and take pictures of something. Well, I tried. Not much was going on - except her! Yep, you see that red spot on the underbelly? The very healthy, but fatally venomous Black Widow was making herself right at home with her egg sac on the flower basket by the front door. It would have kept the traveling salesmen away, right?

That's all I have this week. Please go check out more photos linked through Sarcastic Mom.

Let's Be Roomies

We have this brilliant plan for the boys to share a bedroom, and for Travis' room to be a playroom. It's taken several weeks to get to this point and is almost there. Nicholas' new bed arrived yesterday. The furniture was rearranged and new sheets picked out (Nicholas - Batman, Travis - cowboys). The boys scoped out their new beds. All seemed grand. Travis has an earlier bed time so the selected routine for Night One of Roommate-dom was to keep bed times the same. I tried to get Travis settled into a new bed in a new room - probably a total shock when you're less than 2 yo.

• We sat in the rocking chair with just the nightlight on and looked at a book.
• Put him in the bed and he crawled right out.
• It took three tries of laying him down and rubbing his back for him to be relaxed and stay there.
• I said "night, night" and left the room. I went to the playroom to fold laundry so I could hear him. He got up and went to the door to jiggle the handle and let out a few "mommy" cries. And then went back to his bed. I checked back 20 minutes later and sure enough he was sleeping with his head on the pillow like a big boy.
• Another 20 minutes later it was time for Nicholas to go to bed. We read a story in the play room and then tried to sneak into the bedroom. He kept giggling with his hand over his mouth.
• Travis woke up and cried. I picked him up and told him it was time for night-night. They got hugs and kisses and I left the room. It all sounded good for a while.
• "Mommy, mommy". Nicholas had to go potty which of course woke up Travis, who had fallen back asleep.
• Did the hugs, kisses, night-night deal again. This time it was quiet for a lot longer. We heard a couple of bumps and decided it was the cats.
• "Mommy, mommy". I go investigate. Nicholas woke up to find Travis getting in his bed. I put Travis back in his own bed. Everyone seemed fine.
• Again with the "mommy, mommy". This time Travis had pulled the cubbies out of the shelf and had them in his bed. (Nothing is in the cubbies but they are still interesting) Put them away and told the boys to go to sleep.
• Without much surprise, "mommy, mommy" again. Travis had pulled the cubbies into his bed again. Nicholas said, "he's been doing this all night!"
  

We waved the white flag. By this time it was after 10 pm and both of them were not going back to sleep easily. Travis went to his crib in the playroom. He's been sleeping peacefully ever since. And Nicholas slept in his new bed and still got up at his regular 6:30 am.
We're going to keep trying. Eventually this will work out. It has to.

Random Thoughts

I keep coming up with ideas for a partial post, but then I never get a chance to sit down and write.

The other night I peeped on Nicholas brushing his teeth. He has become very independent as of late. And I was curious what he does when he thinks no one is watching. This is pretty much how it went down:

• Looks at himself in the mirror and makes different silly faces for his amusement
• Gets the toothbrush wet and promptly turns off the water
• Has difficulty squirting toothpaste - this requires getting off the stool and going over to the tub to squirt it
  
• Returns to the sink and puts the toothpaste back
• Begins to brush his teeth - this also requires getting off the stool and going over to the tub and general pacing around the bathroom
• Returns to the sink to spit/drool the foamy toothpaste down his chin
• Rinses the toothbrush one time
• Brushes his tongue
• Rinses the toothbrush again
• Wipes off his chin and all done

The need to go over to the tub was peculiar, and making faces at himself was hilarious. Four year olds are just plain odd sometimes.

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Travis has learned some more words. The past couple of days is "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy." No reason, just to say it, so it seems. He doesn't get a chance to talk very much and is usually silent on our daily commutes. Nicholas has many nicknames: AM Radio, Chatterbox, Sir Talks A Lot. One day a while back Nicholas took his knight costume for show-and-tell. I was picking up the boys early that day and Travis and I were lucky enough to witness show-and-tell. Nicholas put on his costume and answered questions about it. The teacher asked if he had a knight name. He said, "I'm Sir Talks A Lot and Travis is Sir Poops A Lot." I almost died from embarrassment. I just blushed and let them laugh at our crazy family. Thanks kid.

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This morning I was determined to take some photos after my run. I thought the rising sun would be a good back drop. When I got home I looked around the yard trying to find inspiration but there wasn't much. Until I saw a huge spider hanging from a basket by the front door. She was black and bumping her rear end purposefully on an egg sac bigger than herself. I grabbed the camera and took some shots. It's hard to get a spider in focus against a brick wall. The camera goes all crazy - foreground, background, confused. I realized as I was looking from different angles there was a red spot on her underbelly. Uh oh. I Google-imaged (yes, that's a word) black widow spider. And there was an identical image of one with her egg sac - which can contain between 100 and 400 babies. Nice. Just what we need. 400 baby fatally venomous spiders and 1 huge mama fatally venomous spider. I did what any woman would do, I sent Adrian outside to take care of it. He stomped the big bad mama and took the egg sac to the sewer drain. The thought of stomping it and potentially having 400 teeny tiny babies at his feet didn't appeal to him.

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And stay tuned for a big weekend update. Nicholas is getting a regular twin bed without side rails delivered tomorrow. He promises not to fall out - on to the hardwood floor. I think we'll build a landing area with pillows and stuffed animals.

Why, I Oughta...

I came back from my morning run and was checking on my plants out front. One of the tomato plants is showing positive signs of developing, it has a long way to go though. The pepper plants are still alive in their cup, a really long way to go on those. Wildflowers still chugging along. I keep hoping for spontaneous super growth. I get to the sunflowers that were so carefully grown from seed and transplanted. Aaacckk! Mowed over! Someone mowed over the precious sunflowers. Granted they didn't look like much and there wasn't a big sign that said "precious sunflowers growing here". So for the second year in a row we will not have sunflowers despite our (my) best attempts. It's still nice and early, I should go wake up Mr. Lawnmower Man and give him a boatload of guilt.

Weekly Winners (June 7)

It's that time of the week again. It was a busy week so we didn't get out a lot to take pictures of the weeds we're growing or dead plants we attempted to grow. Maybe this week we'll sneak over to the neighbor's yard and take pictures of their pretty landscaping.

If you want to see some more awesome photos, go check out Sarcastic Mom and the other Weekly Winner participants.


Below are candid shots of the boys from this week






And I let the 4 yo take over the camera for a bit.

So You Think You Can Help

Please see our friend's post --> here <--. We encourage you to support the funding for Early Intervention and Medicaid. These programs assist more people than you realize. And we'd hate for them to lose the care they're receiving. If you have a few minutes, please take the time to call.