Whoa!!

Wait, did that last post say October?!?!?!? Oh my!!! Well, a LOT has been happening, and at least I'll squeeze a post in before the new year, just to say that I'll make another soon, haha! I do have a lot of great pictures and stories to share, and I am committed to getting them out soon. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and I wish you all a wonderful New Year!

More food fun?

So the last post was about Christopher and food, and this one is too, because he's still having such interesting reactions to how others relate to his food. He's still being defensive (nicely and articulately, for someone his age!), and he varies between eating nothing and then saying he's starving and gulping down 5 bowls if cereal in 30 minutes. But here's the best funny thing to come from this so far:

So the other day, I come home from work, eat the nice dinner Bryan has made, he and I go to our room to sit down for a while, and Christopher follows us in. Christopher - completely ignoring me - walks up next to his Daddy, grabs his shirt sleeve, and looking earnestly up into his face asks, "Daddy, can I have some of that secret pudding you sneaked in here?"

Bryan looked up at me with that kind of "I can't believe he just did that to me!" look. I laughed and laughed. And Christopher held on to Dad's shirt, earnestly hoping he'd get some 'pudding'. What had happened prior to this was that Bryan had gone shopping that day, bought some ICING to eat, offered to share some with Christopher, and upon Christopher's declining to have any, Bryan had hidden it away in our room to eat it later in peace. Only to be exposed by his son.

Food is serious business!

For some odd reason, my grandmother has always had a strange way of teasing Christopher. It generally takes the form of "You can't do that!" in a mocking tone, so that of course he knows that she knows he can, but she's saying that he can't, presumably to reverse-psychology him into doing it. Which I find rather pointless because he's such a great kid that he just does what you ask him almost all the time. But she's always done it, and they seem to have an understanding, so I just smile and let it go on by.

One of the things she always teases him about is food. When we sit down to eat, she'll say something like, "You can't eat all that!!" or "Don't eat all that, then you'll grow and be bigger than me!" or "Look at how much you ate! I'm going to have to bop you on the head and make you smaller again!" He always laughs at her and eats away.

So a few days ago, she starts that as we sit down, and Christopher says, "Grandma, you shouldn't say things like that. I need to eat or I'll die!" I laughed out loud, it was so funny! She rolled her eyes at him, and we all had a nice meal. In which Christopher ate chicken, asparagus, rice, and cantaloupe. Yummy fare for a 4-year-old, huh? (More on the asparagus to come!)

Then today just me and my boys sat down for a family meal, and Bryan said something to Christopher about his food and how he shouldn't eat that because it will make him strong and smart. And Christopher clearly and calmly says, "Daddy, that was rude." I'm still laughing as I write about it!!! Bryan didn't think it was so funny, but I sure did! I think it's so interesting that people tease him about his food - not anyone else, just Christopher - and he's starting to tell people off (nicely!) about it!

Now about that asparagus: I made some with a meal a while back, and Christopher ate his whole plate, so I served him more. He ate all that. So I served him more. As I was serving up his third plate of food, Grandma pointed out that if I gave him any more of the asparagus, Bryan wouldn't have any. I said, "Grandma, if Bryan were here, he'd give Christopher as much asparagus as he would eat. So I'm giving it to him for as long as he'll eat it, and Bryan can have rice today." And so it was. Christopher at 4 helpings of asparagus, and Bryan didn't have any and he didn't mind a bit!

A while after that, Bryan made up a meal and he also cooked asparagus. Remembering Christopher's last encounter with it, he made a lot, and he added a few extra ingredients. When we sat down to eat it, the asparagus was nearly inedible! So I didn't serve Christopher any. When he noticed this omission, he told me he needed asparagus too. I told him it wasn't very good, so I gave him a tiny bit off the top and told him that if he liked it, I would give him some on his plate. He tasted it, made a face, and said: "Can I have some of the first one you made?" He's so much fun!!!

Happiness is a state of mind.

Wow! It has been a looong time since I posted anything! Things are flying by so fast around here. Working is HARD for me, not that the work is hard (compared to being a mother and wife, it's very simple!) but it is hard for me to be away from home. When I am here, I feel like I am always playing catch-up.... feeling like I'm behind on spending time with each of my boys, on helping out around the house, on doing anything that reminds me that I'm human too... I know that all my friends who are working moms are nodding their heads right now in exhausted sympathy.

Really, things aren't bad. I believe that Bryan and I, and thereby Christopher too, have a very upbeat view of life and it's.... difficult moments. Christopher seems much less needy lately and pretty happy with how things are. We started him on a "bathroom chart", wherein he gets a sticker of his choice (there are several kinds to choose from) for each bathroom-related activity during the day - provided it's done right. Cleaning up after him was getting to be irritating as well as unpleasant, and this is doing a fantastic job of training him in bathroom etiquette. Brushing his teeth at least twice a day, using the toilet properly, taking a bath, and cleaning up all his things in the bathroom, as well as not wetting the bed at night, earn him stickers. He has been doing a great job, and is VERY excited for when he gets his whole chart (a week) filled up with stickers and gets a big reward. What does he want? A visit with Caleb! I DO need to get on that, I suspect that Lisa and I could use some sane adult conversations. =)

Alexander is growing and growing. Only a few minutes ago I laughed out loud because he's tired but not wanting to sleep, so he's been flopping around in here -- on my lap, on the floor, on my bed, in his bed -- and I finally set him in his bed and just turned the lights off. I hear what we call "dinosaur scratches" for a while as he stirs around in his bed, not wanting to sleep, and then I hear what sounds JUST like a mechanical dinosaur growl! It was so funny I laughed out loud, and he sat up and looked at me as I laughed. Bad mommy, waking up baby! But it was hilarious! He does sometimes growl, especially when it's food-related (You have something I want to eat, I'm going to growl at you and see if you let me have it!), but this was louder, more irritated, and much funnier than normal. It's fun being a mom, usually.

On that "usually" bit, Alexander still doesn't sleep more than 2 hours at a time, but the night before last my mom took him overnight, and I was SO STINKING EXCITED!!! I haven't had a GOOD, FULL night's sleep (either one of those!) since before he was born! I am sorry to say I didn't get extra sleep that night (unlike Bryan who slept for 12 hours!), but I slept soundly and very well, and I felt fantastic the next day. It was so great. Even the remembrance of what it's like to sleep well was and is enough to keep me going on some of the rougher nights. Someday they'll be back... someday. And last night, having him back again, he slept a whole whopping 5 hours, so maybe we're on to something? Maybe?

Bryan's still in school, and it's going fine. Not great, it's harder for him this time around, but it's going along. And me working, like I said, is tough, but I have hope that it will get us through this rough patch.

On a different note, it's really great to be around so much family. Having my mom, my brothers (usually), and my grandparents around is really nice. I really enjoy this side of my family, they are very laid-back and everyone has their own fun sense of humor. It's nice to be part of a large group of people who get along and who you can talk to, play with, be with, and enjoy. I would say my only sad note is that we don't get to spend more time with Bryan's family. I really like them, and they're so far now that we've seen very little of them. We're also so swamped in just getting through life right now that going more than a mile or two to work, school, and the corner grocery store, is like an epic journey and requires more effort than we can usually muster. Quite a pity, in my own opinion. I miss friends and other family. But I know that this won't last forever. Right? ........

All in all, we are happy. I can't say that things are so good, or anything else that's concretely cheerful, but nothing's terribly awful, and we're happy. And I have a definite knowledge that while you can't always control your circumstances and things happen that are rough, each person can choose how they will act, and how they choose to feel about things. And my little family is happy, loves being a family, and is enjoying the things and people around us.

Updates

Just before I crash back into bed, I feel bad that I haven't been letting anyone know what's up with me and my family.

Bryan is in school. He's going back for another degree in accounting. Since he already has so many classes under his belt, it was something that he could get in a year and that he liked. Bad news was that since he has a degree, there are zero funding options available, so we had to pay for it ourselves, up front. Ouch. But obviously we feel like this is the right thing and will be worth the investment of time, money, and family effort.

Living. We are, thankfully. We're staying at my mother's parent's house on the far west side of town. It was a little crowded over the summer when my mom, my two brothers, me and my 3 boys, our dog, and my grandparents were all in the house. It was chaotic, but pretty fun. Having a lot of people around is pretty neat, I think. But my mom and her boys now have their own house - one house over - and we're settling in for the short haul over here until Bryan gets a job.

I have a job now. I applied at Michaels, where I've worked before, and was hired back. I always loved working there, and I still do. The people are nice, the customers are fairly nice, it's a pretty easy and enjoyable job. But! I work nights right now, and it's killing me. I get almost no sleep, and so I spend most of my days and days off sleeping. It's been really rough. And I REALLY miss being at home with my boys. It's NOT a break to go to work. Although I can say with certainty now that working is easier than parenting by a bajillion miles. My first day was a real doozy, and all my coworkers were asking "So, how are you doing?" And I replied very honestly that it was much easier than my other job -- Mom.

Alexander is an interesting child, shall we say. He's so opposite everything that Christopher was. He eats EVERYTHING he can find, but he's also a crawler and scoots amazingly fast all over the house. Keeping the floors clean enough to prevent him from eating/chewing at least one really bad thing a day seems to be impossible, and I have pulled several nasty things away from him while he was on floors I'd just cleaned, including a trip to the ER after he ate BOTH a piece of glass and a pill not five minutes after I'd scoured the floor he was on and I could have sworn it was perfect. He must have a radar for those things, either that or I'm blind. Other that than terrible habit, his only other bad habits are that he doesn't sleep for more than 2 hours, ever. Night or day. He eats constantly, leading me to surrender my plan to fully breastfeed for most of a year, and give in to giving him bottles and baby food. I still mostly nurse, but he'll just keep eating and eating. He loves those puffed crunchy things they sell for babies (something like flavored, mushy rice crispies with a fancy package and a high price tag), because he can eat them I suspect. He loves eating anything you let him put in his mouth. And he HAS teeth, they've been there for over a month, but they just aren't coming through. You can see them, they just don't wanna come out. Poor baby. And he crawls, stands up on everything he can, babbles, laughs at everything, and generally is very adorable. I love him a lot, bad habits notwithstanding. I'm very glad he came to join us.

Christopher LOVES his brother. He's very helpful, and surprisingly trustworthy around him. He's not mean to his brother, and he's careful to make sure that his brother has safe things, and he keeps his own little toys (legos, etc) locked safely in his room on a closet shelf. I've been so impressed with Christopher and how responsible he is. And I never even asked him to really. He's LOVING living near his uncles and his "DeeDee" - my mom. Living at Grandma's is fun too, like a permanent sleepover at party central! He loves the big backyard, all the people around him, the fact that there's a TV here with kid's channels, how much room there is to play, all the toys.... it's great for him and he's having a blast. The only thing I'm sad about is that Christopher is a very schedule-oriented kid, he always wants to know what's happening when, and this place is pretty chaotic, so he doesn't have that and sometimes it's tough on him. But otherwise, he's having a blast. He's growing up so fast. He likes to do "school" with me, and I'm happy to see that he's getting a little better with his letters. He's great with numbers, he loves to count and he can add and subtract in his head with basic numbers. He really surprises me sometimes with what he can do with numbers. But letters don't seem to interest him. But a little "school", some fun home-made flash cards, and time with Mommy seem to be working past that aversion, and he's getting better with letters, although I don't know that he'll ever love them like he does numbers.

So, I waxed a little long-winded about the boys, but I'm a mommy who loves them very much, and I know that most people want to hear about them anyway, so I don't worry about it! I hope this little update helps everyone "catch up" with us just a bit. It's been so crazy (and exhausting!) that I haven't done anything with anyone for so long and I miss everyone. I hope you are all well.

The Joys Of Marriage

Today my dear sweet lovable husband was working out in the backyard with my grandpa. It was fun to watch him be the handyman. When he came in one time he handed me a cup with plastic wrap rubber-banded over the top.

"Look what I found!"

It was a little baby snake! I had caught one just like it the day before, and he was bringing me a second! If you didn't already know, snakes happen to be my most favorite animal. So this was a great present that I was happy about.

Later I was in the kitchen, and I hear him at the back door.

"Hey Hon! I've got something for you!"

I come to the door and notice that he's got his fist closed and dirt on it. I know he's got a critter, maybe a third snake. He gives me a kiss and drops a lizard into my hand. How fun!

Now, I know some people will go "EEEEEWWWW!!! That is SO GROSS!" Well, tough. For me, that was a very awesome thing for my husband to give me as a gift. In years past, he let me get a pet snake for an anniversary present, and was not exactly excited but still patient at another time when I showed up with 4 baby snakes after an "evening out". It's his way of loving me the way I like to be loved. And that kind of respect and courtesy goes both ways. I love my marriage. (Let me brag once in a while. =)

So now I have 2 tiny snakes and a baby lizard. And as I was looking at them, I thought how very interesting it was that Bryan would do that for me. When we first got married, I don't think he would even have touched those critters, let alone chased them down and brought them to me! And yet here he is, catching me creatures. As I thought about it, it amazed me how much our marriage has matured into something really fantastic. Each of us has grown and changed into people that the other person really likes and is happy with. Each of us does things for each other just because we know it makes the other person happy. I feel that we've managed to take the best of each other and make two better people. I love my husband, and I love our marriage. I'm so happy that my life is what it is.

A Trip!

Most everyone probably didn't know this, but I just went with my two little boys to Utah this past week. It was a great trip! I went to bid farewell to my sister Susan, who is leaving to serve a mission in Carlsbad, California for a year and a half. In spite of it taking 8 hours to do the 6 hour leg of the trip and 10 hours to do the 5 hour leg, I made it to Utah in time to see Susan get set apart, which was neat. My brother Joe, who is attending BYU there, and his friend Jessica was kind enough to watch my little boys while he and I went to that, so afterwards Joe, Jessica, the boys, and I went out to eat at this nifty little noodle place. It was exactly like Chipotle, but served noodles. It was yummy. Then the boys and I went back to our hotel, which for being a budget hotel was amazingly nice. It was a lot better than I had anticipated.

The next day we woke up and hurriedly got ready to meet up with Susan, with whom we spent a few hours. When time was up, we gave parting hugs and goodbyes, she handed over her cell phone and a few other things she can't take on a mission, and off she went! We didn't go to the MTC with her, a friend took her, but we did get to enjoy some time with her. She was happy that she got the chance to see Alexander, because otherwise she wouldn't have seen him until he was 2 or older. I realize that for some families that's no big deal, but in our family we're pretty close, so that seemed quite sad to miss out entirely on meeting one of her nephews for that long. Personally, I also enjoyed the drive, the trip, seeing my siblings, and visiting Utah. It was so gorgeous.

Afte dropping off Susan, we went back to the hotel and the boys and I miraculously all fell asleep together and had a nap! When we woke up we got ready and went out to meet Joe and Jessica at "the duck pond". It's this place on the BYU campus where there's a tiny pond filled with ducks, and you can feed them. The night before, I had stopped at a grocery store on my way back to the hotel and gotten, among other things, two loaves of bread. We used both loaves. Christopher (and admittedly myself) had a blast!!!! These ducks were completely 'people-a-tized' and would eat out of your hand. They also would walk up behind you and steal your bread from your lap if you were dumb enough to set it down momentarily. That was actually very hillarious, because once that duck stole the whole big piece of bread, the other ducks started what looked to be a game of full-contact football in their attempts to steal it. Also, Christopher wondered if the ducks would do tricks like Onyx (his dog), so he held up a piece of bread, and what do you know! One duck sized up the situation, jumped/flew up to grab the bread, and dropped back down with bread firmly in beak. It was awesome! We also saw turtles, and I picked one up to let Christopher/Jessica see it, but neither one wanted to really get too close or touch it, so I put it back. There were also some adorable ducklings, which we tried to feed with little success.

After that I ran around a bit with the boys, visiting the Provo temple, and a store along our way, eventually winding up at the hotel. Alexander cried for 4 hours that evening. I was glad that we were in a satilite room and the hotel wasn't busy, because I'm sure somebody would have been pretty mad if there was anybody near enough to have to listen to that. It was then that I realized how vital it is to have two parents, because the baby drove me crazy and there was nothing I could do and no way to take a break. In the end I lay him in his crib and let him cry until he fell asleep, which was two of the four total hours that he cried. Christopher doesn't like his crying, so I gave Christopher a bath so he wouldn't hear it so much, then I sunggled him to sleep with me.

In the morning we took it slow, watching morning cartoons, eating breakfast in bits when we felt like it, and cleaning up and getting ready to go at a nice slow pace. Joe came over after his classes to help me out by emptying my camera on to some disks so that I could take more pictures; I had filled up my memory card already. Then we went on an adventure to Bridal Veil Falls, where neither of us had been before. It was really great to spend time with Joe, he's amazing and I'm so proud to have him as my brother. We arrived at a trailhead, put the baby in the baby backpack, and started walking. Before we even started the walk, Christopher had found a hill, climbed up, slid down, and gotten covered completely (really) in brown powdery dirt. I was glad that we were going to find some water. I didn't want him back in the car like that!

We walked a ways and found the falls, which were beautiful!!! The water was very cold, but we played in it anyway. Christopher ran around for over an hour, climbing the falls, splashing in the water, playing imaginary games, and being cute. I sat with the baby mostly, but I really enjoyed myself. We eventually left when I realized that I needed to get on the road again.

The drive home was much faster than the drive up. The boys slept or were mostly good, so I didn't have to stop as much. All in all, even though the trip had it's stresses, it was fabulous and I was so thankful I got to go. I enjoyed the time with my siblings, doing fun things with Christopher, and being in such a beautiful place. But it's also great to be home!

Bad, Bad Days

Last Friday both Christopher and Alexander had a doctor's appointment, and they were both to get shots. But first Alexander decided to sleep all morning, which would have been FANTASTIC -- except for today, of course. I was supposed to get over to Mimi's house (from my other grandma's house, who is known just as Grandma, if you didn't know), and I was supposed to meet my cousin and her friend from Australia at the airport to spend an hour with them before they left. Long story short, I had to leave the baby with Bryan, take Christopher to the airport with me, had a nice visit with my cousin and her friend, met up with Bryan just in time to send him and Christopher to Mimi's while Alexander and I took the girls back to the airport. Nothing really "bad" yet, but it was a little bit of a flustered morning with just about nothing going to plan.

Arriving at Mimi's, no one is there. We go about grabbing the things we needed before heading back out to take the boys to the doctor. Bryan needed to get something from a store nearby, so he walked out the door to stop there before meeting me and the boys at the doctor's office. JUST as he turns on his car and starts down the street, I turn around to see Alexander head-first in the pointsetta bush chewing on a fist full of leaves. AHHHHH!!!

I snatch the leaves away, scoop the remainder out of his mouth, run into the kitchen to wash him off and wash out his mouth, and then I call Bryan. I request that he come back. I then call poison control to see how much trouble I'll be in when I arrive at the doctor's office in 30 minutes. They tell me that as long as he didn't swallow any, it should just be an irritant with some nausea and possibly a rash. But since I'd done exactly the right thing and washed him off right away, and since he (apparently) hadn't swallowed any, he would probably be just fine.

Bryan has now arrived (I love backup), doesn't see how he's going to help any since the baby's fine, and wants to go. I asked him to stay and prevent a repeat until I am ready to go. So he does. Then we load both kids into my car, he goes his way, I go mine.

For all of about 1 mile.

Almost as soon as I pull away, Alexander starts screaming. Can't say that it was a surprise. And it's not a "Waa Waa I'm Upset" scream either, it's a nasty "I hate this whole world and I can scream loud enough to break glass, or at least your eardrums!" kind of scream. And then Christopher tries to out-do him. Thankfully, Christopher didn't scream, he just made louder and louder noises. And in fairness, I know that when the baby cries it really bothers Christopher on a good day, and this was not a good day, because he knows where we're going and he knows why, and he's already been on the road running around with me for most of the morning.

I first directed my car to the location where I knew I'd find my husband, today known as backup support. Then I called him to warn him of his impending peril. He was nice enough to oblige when asked to take Christopher out of the equation, and I would just ignore Alexander's screaming as I went on my merry way. Thankfully, Alexander didn't cry the entire way, just most of it. He was a little happier when I took him out of his seat when we arrived. I knew that he'd be hungry by now, so after checking in I sat down to feed him. He was very happy about that. After a yummy lunch he perched happily on my lap. And then he threw up.

Long story short, I probably should have paid the doctor to have his carpets cleaned. Alexander threw up not once, not 4 times, but 7 times during the time we were there. He didn't cry any more, but I might have rather he cried. At least that is sanitary.

And then there were the shots. Christopher got 3, Alexander got one oral vaccine and 3 shots. With both boys adorned in Band-Aids, we exited the office none too soon, for everyone's taste. They were nice enough to give Christopher a good-boy award for a free Frosty, so we stopped by Wendy's to let him have it.

Not the best of days by any standards, but it was survived, and I'm sure it's not the last of it's kind. Alexander has energizer batteries and grabs more things than a NASA probe. And ALL of it goes in his mouth. The same mouth that makes so much noise.

But....
It's still lots of fun. Usually. =)

Was it really that funny?

When's Breakfast?

Yesterday Christopher did the funniest, cutest thing.

Let me preface this by saying that it's not entirely unprecidented. Last week Christopher said he was hungry, and I couldn't help him right that second, so he wandered off. A few minutes later I found him sitting at the table with a bowl of cereal. Since the only thing out was his bowl, I assumed someone else had helped him. When I mentioned to him that I was glad he got some cereal, he informed me that he got it himself. He described how he had gotten a chair to get the bowl from the cupboards, gotten the cereal, milk, and spoon, served himself, not even spilled anything, and then put it all away before sitting down to eat. I was amazed!

So now to yesterday. I was using my computer, and my Grandpa was beside me using his. I had Alexander on my lap. Christopher comes in to observe us and see if he will eventually get a turn, because he wants to play Pocket Tanks. I tell him that mommy and grandpa need their computers right now, so he will need to wait a while. Then my grandpa, in an attempt to induce Christopher to go do something else, turns to him and says:

"When's breakfast?"

Christopher tilts his head, looks quizzically and his grandfather, and says, "I can't cook!"

Grandpa and I both laugh and continue what we were each up to. Christopher wanders off. But then, a little while later, Christopher wanders back in. He walks up to his grandpa, places a little hand on his arm, and says:

"Breakfast is ready grandpa."

My grandpa and I both look at each other with a "Huh, wonder what he did" kind of look. I was thinking that maybe he got grandpa some cereal. I was on the phone at the time, so I didn't get right up to go see. With an amused smile, my grandpa got up and followed Christopher (who was holding his hand and leading him down the hall), and as they walked away I heard Christopher say what I was pretty sure was, "I made you some hotdogs."

Hotdogs???? I hurried off the phone and went to go investigate further. Upon arriving in the kitchen, I see my grandpa sitting at the table with a plate in front of him. On the plate is a hotdog in a bun, and grandpa is putting mustard on it. Then he takes a bite. Christopher is standing beside him in the cutest little pose. Wondering if grandpa is just being a good sport about the hotdogs on the plate, I ask him, "So he got you hotdogs?"

"Yeah, he really did. Cooked them and everything!"

"Are you serious???"

Christopher looks up at me and firmly replies that yes, he got them and everything else, and he cooked them in the microwave "and I didn't even burn myself!" Half of me admired his spunk, and half of me was concerned that he'd used the microwave without supervision and knowing that he could get burned! Besides which, I didn't even know that he knew how to use that microwave! It also dawned on me later that he would have had to have used the trash can as a stool in that particular spot, which was an 'interesting' mental picture.

So Christopher cooked breakfast for his grandpa. And later while telling Bryan the story, my final observation was, "I hope Grandpa's not going to ask him what's for lunch!"

If only there were time!

But time as in "available to me without other demands stealing it away" does not seem to exist. With 3.5 families pulling me every which way needing this that and the other thing, I'm quite content to still be sane. And I attribute that in large measure to the wonderful people who help me so much, firstly my fantastic husband Bryan, and also my grandma, my mom, and others who are there when I need them. As much as family demands, they are worth every bit of it in how much love and help they give back.

My little family of boys has moved on from our less-than-safe home of 4 years. Our things are safely tucked away at my Mimi's house, even if our hearts are not. Bryan and I are still furiously hunting for a job for him. My mom and my brother David have been here this summer, and Christopher has basically moved in with them. He LOVES his uncles! My brother Ben is also visiting here now, and Christopher adores him too. He might even be more fun than David, because Ben not only shares the computer, Ben shows him NEW games! What uncle could possibly be cooler?

Christopher and David did swimming lessons this summer. I'll have to put more up about that later on. It was ..... interesting.

Alexander is 5 months going on 6, and is already "crawling". He's got the whole idea down, and he does it for real once in a while, but more often he goes the easy route and flops and rolls around to anywhere he pleases. He much prefers rolling to crawling. He is also a chewing baby, and everything within reach goes directly into his mouth. You can use your wildest imagination to conjecture how much I look forward to this trait playing out....... He is also very into blowing raspberries. This feature enables him to spit pacifiers long distances, and usually into parentally-inaccessable locations.

He is also a loud and very vocal baby. Obviously he can't use words yet, but by the tone, volume, and modulation he is able to put into his sounds, and by his hand motions that go with the sounds, you can easily understand what he wants. For example, here's a favorite of mine: Open mouth wide and make loud random "AAAAHH" type of sound; grab mom's face and put howling open mouth on chin; blow raspberry; begin to chew. This indicates that he is hungry and I have waited too long to feed him, so he will now chastise me loudly and chew on me until I get the message. If initial message fails to be received, he moves down to my shoulder. He will continue the noise/blowing/chewing routine until my clothes are soaked, or until I feed him. If this too fails, he begins to wave his right arm and hit my face while making the "pay attention to me" noise. On the rare occasions I ignored him this long, he then resorts to outright crying and screaming, which of course never fails. There are, of course, other things that he does daily that are funny like this, and I am usually amused. I probably would always be interested, if I weren't still so sleep-deprived. =)

So there, I waxed a little long-winded over the adorable baby, but at least I gave everyone a brief update so that you know we are all still alive, and surviving moderately well. Hopefully it will not be forever before I can post all my adorable pictures, movies, and more stories. But for now, The Game is on, and the baby is indicating that it's my turn again.

Dinner makes a big difference

since we have nothing to eat and nothing to cook with if we did, we went out for dinner tonight. With everything that's been going on, none of us ate well today, so by the time I made the decision and got everyone out of the house, both children were crying, Bryan was trying not to scream, and I had a horrific headache and was trying not to cry.

Christopher fell asleep on the way to the restaurant, and Alexander fell asleep once we were inside. Christopher slept on my lap until food arrived, at which point I woke him up and he wasn't very happy about it. I had to cajole and demand that he just eat one tiny littke bite. But as soon as he started eating, an amazing transformation took place. Not only did he keep on eating everything available, but he was the kindest, most pleasant, most loving little boy in the state, I'm sure. Helpful, sweet, and complimentary. Quite a change from the boy who whined the whole way out to the car and "had" to be carried the right way by the right parent at only the right moment in order to arrive there. Once we were through with dinner he wanted to run down the sidewalk a few times. (This is a favored restaurant and he loves to run down a particular sidewalk there, don't ask me why, I don't really know.) So he got four rounds "because I'm four years old!" Now he is happily playing beside me waiting for me to finish this so I can read to him once he wins whatever game he's at.

In case anyone forgot or happened to not know, I love my boys. All three of them are fantastic and bring so much joy to my life. Oh, on a side note, I was called to be the primary pianist for my ward. I've had that calling before, years ago. I resented it back then because I couldn't attend classes with adults. Now that I have kids who are the joy of my life, I'm very excited to be able to play the piano and listen to them sing. And just today, while I was playing prelude, they all started humming along, and it was so sweet to hear them! Of course, Christopher won't do ANYTHING with Mommy nearby, I'm hoping he outgrows that or I'll never hear him sing! But I love being around the kids and I love being with both my little boys for all of church. My only small regret is that I don't get to listen to Bryan teach Gospel Doctrine. I think it's great that he got called to that and I know he'll do an amazing job. While I enjoy the kids in the primary. =)

I swore I would

I promised myself I wouldn't let this blog fall by the wayside. I am determined that I will continue to use it to keep all my family and friends up-to-date on what's happening with my little family. I just didn't count on this being REALLY HARD to fit in!

Moving is going. It's hard, it's tiring, and it's emotionally draining. For those who haven't been informed, instead of moving to my Mimi's house for the summer while she's traveling, she will now be staying and we will be helping to take care of her. She's taken care of me through the years, so I see this as being my turn to repay the favor. I look forward to the kids having a lot of room to run around, and Christopher is excited to have somewhere to plant his sunflowers. Remember a long time ago I posted that he was growing seeds? Well, a few tries later, we have successfully grown sunflower seeds, and they are several times the size of their pots, so they too will probably be happy for the room to grow up.

Alexander is rolling around. He's almost sitting up independantly. He loves his johny jumper (is that what those are really called?) and his catterpillar. The caterpillar is a long stuffed animal with the different segments having different textures, and the legs are just right for infants to chew on.

Christopher has been having a lot of sleepovers at Grandma's house because DeeDee (my mom) and David (my brother) have arrived for the summer.

Baby's crying, which will abruptly end my time to type since once I stop I will be besieged by the baby, Christopher wanting books read and games played, and Bryan asking for this that or the other. Lol. You know, I really love my boys.

Long overdue

I am very long overdue to post something on here. Just like I think of those who are reading this every day, I think of posting something every day. But just like I rarely call or visit, I rarely post. I'm really really hoping that when I start sleeping again I'll start being a real person again.

I just read over my last post. Good news: my toe is better, my head is better. The gash healed quickly, which is good because I delayed washing my hair for a day because I didn't want it to bleed again, and it hurt to touch it, and by the time I did wash it it still hurt a little but at least nothing bad happened.

On to other news: Christopher's adorable. The other day he HAD to do chores. He actually helped me clean the whole house. Granted, it was a major delay to his bedtime because he kept "finding" things he coud clean. But I'll take my blessings where I can find them.

Alexander, where to start. I have a lot of pictures and movies of him, and from Christopher, which I will eventually put up. They're way too cute not to share. But I don't think I have the brainpower to figure it out right now. Story of my life.

We're moving. That announcement probably should have been it's own post. I know all of you will be happy for us. We're actually going to Mimi's house because she's traveling this summer, so we'll be helping her (maybe?) and it helps us a lot. It was overdue for us to leave this house. It's far too small and far too dangerous, as we have ample proof.

No news on the job front. But that's probably to be expected. No one gets new jobs nowadays. Especially not ones that are very good and can provide for a family of 4.

On a related note to that: I spent all last Monday at the DES office. They're supposed to handle cases within 45 days. I didn't even get an appointment until day 47. And the case isn't finalized yet. Which is kind of a bummer. While Bryan is still getting unemployment insurance, it's pretty minimal. But apparently DES is so backtracked that even though I don't think we actually had any kind of coverage for Alexander's appointment this month, they allow any benefits to be retroactive to the date you applied, which means that I don't have to pay for it, and his shots. Which is great since we need to fix our cars, one of which isn't running and the other of which didn't pass emmisions. Oh joy.

Lest I sound sad and depressing, I'm enjoying life. I love my boys. While I was at DES there was this horrible mother who did just about everything but beat her poor little kid. It was a little boy that was Christopher's age. When I got home, I hugged Christopher, told him I loved him, and played with him the whole afternoon. Nothing like a bad example to show me how good I have it. I love having Bryan around as well, and while it's sad that he doesn't have a job, it feels great to see him with the kids, and I enjoy his company.

I'm sure I have more interesting tidbits lying around here somewhere, but I'm too tired to remember what they are. Or did I mention that already?

Ouch, that HURT!

Today was an OWWIE day!!!! I got up early this morning when Alexander decided he was through sleeping, and I was SO TIRED! Both boys hadn't gone to bed early... well, they DID go to bed early, early in the morning, the rotten stinkers! So I was tired, tired, tired. Current story of my life. I hung in there, trying so hard to stay awake with the boys, because I knew Bryan had gone to bed even later than me, and I wanted to let him get a little more sleep so he'd be willing to let me have a nap later. I managed until about 10:30, at which point I went in and started to wake Bryan up. He eventually got up a little before 11. By which point Christopher had brought it to my attention that Onyx for some unknown reason had pooped in our living room.

Onyx is housetrained, well housetrained, and accidents are extremely rare and usually induced by fear (bad storms) or if we forget him inside (has happened maybe once?) when we go out. Christopher informed me of this issue by running across the room, stopping suddenly, then backing up with a terrified look and hollering, "Mom! Poop!" Now, we're having issues with him pooping in the toilet, so I was definitely concerned, and I hopped up hoping that this wasn't part of that problem. And it wasn't. It was definitely the dog's fault, and (sorry, it's gross, life is sometimes) he'd obviously eaten something he wasn't supposed to and it hadn't done his little doggy digestive system any favors. It didn't do the carpet any favors either. I was SO not about to handle that, so I cleaned the poop off of Christopher (yes, I'm sorry to say that's how he found it) and sat in the chair next to the hall, patiently waiting to ambush my husband. When he came out, I told him what happened and what I wanted him to do. Then I went to bed. Muahahahahaha!

Alexander and I took a little nap, and when I woke up I found that Bryan had cleaned the dog mess, shampooed that area of the floor, banished the dog (at my insistence), and was now through cleaning Christopher's room and was preparing to shampoo that carpet as well. He's so great. And he wasn't even upset with me for sticking him (no pun intended) with the poop mess.

So that was an interesting morning. And then the afternoon was basically uneventful. Bryan played hide-and-seek with Christopher, and Christopher took more pictures with my camera until the batteries died (this is his new-found love, and it makes me fear for my camera's already questionable existence). Both things had been promised to him, so with that and food out of the way, most of my parenting responsibilities had been fulfilled for the day. I say most because I think that - technically - getting clothing on your child is also expected, and that I didn't do. He put his own underwear on (backwards), found a "playshirt" and put that on backwards, and by the end of the day had on only the shirt, in spite of repeated requests for him to make himself decent.

The owwie part included several owwies. They were "nice" enough to come at me one at a time. (Doesn't that only happen in movies???) First, my shoulder HURT the whole afternoon, so badly that I took alternating Excedrin and Ibuprofen every two hours, put a hot pack on it, and Bryan rubbed it, and it still hurt enough to make me feel sick to my stomach. I had Bryan do all the baby-lifting and bring me drinks. Eventually it calmed down, but it's not 100%. I blame baby-holding over long periods of time, but it's a half-hearted blame because the shoulder that's killing me isn't the side I hold the baby with. That side's just fine.... thankfully?

Bryan cooked an awesome lunch that was really yummy, but my shoulder hurt so much that I was a little nauseous and I only had a nibble. Then later he cooked a great dinner. I was feeling better then and ate that. But a few hours later, I was curled miserably in a chair hoping I wouldn't lose my dinner. I have no idea what caused me to get so sick all of the sudden. Bryan was just fine, so I don't think it was dinner. I was so nauseous, I was breathing deep breaths to see if I could keep from throwing up. Yucky, I hate being so miserable. Nausea for me is one of those things where I hate to actually throw up, but sometimes not doing so makes you wish you could just have it over with so you won't be so terribly sick. Bryan brought me a drink that I didn't drink, and eventually I sucked on a popsicle, and that helped a lot. A few popsicles later, I was feeling much better.

At which point, I got up to help Christopher pick a movie that he could watch before bed. I couldn't find the one he wanted, so I opened up the doors to the entertainment center to check if - on an off chance - the movie was where it shouldn't be. It wasn't there, and I was suddenly sick to my stomach again, so rather than put the case back where it belonged and closing the door, I just dropped to the floor and finished helping Christopher from there. Once I was done and the movie was set, I went to stand up to put away the case and close the doors. And then came the BIG OWWIE!

I hit the top of my head very hard on the bottom of the door as I rose up. I gasped in shock. I knew I was hurt, and was so stunned by the force that I slumped to the floor again and was too out of it even to cry. I pressed my hand to my head, and my boys ran over to see if Mommy was ok. I just sat there for a minute or two with my hand on my head. I thought, "It's got to be bleeding, it hurts too bad to not be that bad." I eventually took my hand off my head and looked at it. No blood. But my head was still throbbing, so I put my hand back. I still hadn't gotten off the floor, and by this point Bryan and Christopher were standing by watching me cautiously.

I took my hand down again. It just had to be bleeding. No blood. I pressed my hand back to my head. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that the fact that I'd been pressing my hand to my head is what made the difference. Putting pressure on it had prevented it from bleeding. When I took my hand down a third time, I saw blood. Eventually I let Bryan look at it. I had a 3/4 gash on my head, and it was bleeding. After the shock of it wore off, I finally started to cry. After all, it HURT! I sat for a long time thereafter in a chair with a rag and an icepack pressed firmly on my head. It eventually quit throbbing and bleeding. It still hurts, but not enough to be a real bother. I don't, however, look forward to combing my hair. (Insert grouchy face here.)

In addition to the things above, I have a toenail that randomly decided to swell up and start bleeding back on Sunday, and I've been keeping it clean, bandanged, and with antibacterial on it just in case. I stubbed that toe twice today, and I hit my shin.

It wasn't my finest day. It was, however, a day when my wonderful husband showed off his best side, my older son was adorable, and my younger son was a little bit difficult but still as cute as ever. I love them very much, and I was especially grateful today that Bryan and Christopher were so loving and kind to me. I really appreciate them.

My fantastic family!

I have an awesome family that I absolutely love and adore. My dear husband has been a super-spouse these past few days. He helped out tremendously as we prepared for family to visit in conjunction with the baby blessing on Sunday. (Which was wonderful. Several babies were blessed that day, and he was the only boy. Cute little girl, cute little girl, cute little girl, HUGE baby boy! His outfits was labeled "9-12 months".) Bryan also has done all the dishes, cooked dinner, helped with the kids, cleaned the whole house, shampooed the carpets, and a myriad of other wonderful things. In addition to which, he has given me several backrubs, which are one of my most favorite things in the whole world.

Christopher has been well trained by his father. In spite of telling his daddy, "You're the best parent in the whole world!" today (after which Bryan called to me and said, "Did you hear that? I'm the BEST parent!"), he has been offering me a constant stream of, "Mommy/Mother, I love you." A lot of times, I'd even say the majority of the time, he calls us Mother and Father. I dont' know why, he just started it. We like Mommy and Daddy or Mom and Dad, and we call each other that in front of him, but he still uses Mother and Father. Strangers look at us (and him) like we must be really tough parents if he uses such formal titles, but of course everyone who knows us laughs about how silly it sounds, especially that he's so serious about it!

Back to how sweet he's been, he helped his Daddy clean all day, ran errands for me and the baby, and this evening came over and kissed me and told me how wonderful I was and that he loves me and he'll love me forever. He's so fantastic. (And Alexander loves me too. I just know it, because he threw up on me and laughed. You can only get away with that when you really know the person loves you. And of course I do. How can you help it when someone lights up and smils and wiggles happily the moment they see you???)

So yeah.... I love my family. They're amazing. I'm in love. =)

The kindness of strangers

I'm tired, but this makes me happy and very, very grateful.

I went to spend the day with my friend Sarah, who also has a newborn. We just sat at her house all day, her with her new baby girl Jolee, and me with Alexander. I arrived early in the morning and left in the evening. When I got to my car, I couldn't find my keys. I looked inside the car. No keys. I thought, "This is silly! I drove here, I had the keys!" I hadn't so much as touched my purse at Sarah's, so I was certain they hadn't fallen out there, and if they had I'd have noticed because they'd have been the only thing on the floor.

I set Alexander down and continued searching my car, wondering if they had slid under the seat somehow, or maybe some passerby had found them and tossed them in somewhere. I even searched my trunk. Then I started to panic, realizing that if I'd dropped them on the way in, someone else must have them. And I realized that it was completely possible that someone out there had my keys and could just drive away with my car. The glove box has the registration, with our address on it. And I was surprised that the car wasn't actually already gone, if someone else had taken the keys.

I called Bryan and told him I didn't have the keys and couldn't find them. His car is dead, so there was no way for him to get to me or for me to get home. The only other option was to wait for Sarah's husband Randy to get home and take me home and then back again with another set of keys. Provided the car was still there. I was about to walk back into Sarah's, and as I stood looking at the car in frustration and worry, I saw a tiny slip of paper tucked under my wipers. *GASP*

I snatched it out. It was just a scrap torn from what was probably an envelope, and some numbers that had been written on it were scribbled over. In nice, feminine handwriting it simply said, "I have your keys." Then there was an address. I looked around, found the address, and walked over there. As I approached the door I hear keys jangling inside, and the door opened before I knocked. A lady looked out and said, "Are you coming for the keys?" "Yes, I am," I replied. "Can you describe them to me?" she asked. I did, and she smiled and handed them to me.

I was so appreciative that not only had she done such a kind and honorable thing, but she had ensured that only the person whose keys they were would have gotten them. I thanked her profusely. If I hadn't had Alexander in my arms, I probably could have hugged her I was so grateful. She said that she had thought there was a baby involved, because she'd seen the carseat when she picked up the keys, which apparently had fallen out of my purse or I had dropped. She said she understood how it was with kids, we don't always notice things. I thanked her again, and overwhelmed with gratitude and relief, I went home.

I am very thankful for the kindness of strangers.

Nuttiness

Not sure if Nuttiness is really a word, but if it isn't that's almost more fitting, considering the content of what I'm about to post.

I just wanted to "run my mouth" (or my fingers) on a couple of random thoughts.

For those more experienced with Bleach, I think you will chuckle ruefully at what I'm about to say. I have discovered that one should not use products containing high amounts of bleach while one is wearing clothes one likes. I think I've said enough on that.

Completely unconnected with the previous statement, I tried on some shirts today. While I am absolutely loving being a nursing mother, I was very sad that only half of each shirt fits. If the bottom fits, the top won't. If the top fits, the bottom looks like a tent got stuck to my tummy. Perhaps I shall count my blessings some other way: If I were fatter I wouldn't have this problem.

I heard from both of my sisters today. I think they're awesome.

When I was doing a paper route a few years ago, I discovered that caffeine and I aren't very good buddies. At the time, it wasn't even very effective in keeping me awake, and I'd still get the crash. I found eating an apple to be fantastic however, so I would try to down one when I could. (Something about real fruit sugars, and I personally believe that I was blessed by trying to closely follow the Word of Wisdom.) However, apples and I don't get along well either. I've never really liked them. So after turning my nose up at an apple or two, I've come back around to caffeine. And in case anyone was about to, I don't want to hear lectures or opinions. Anywho. In my sleep-deprived state, it's been moderately effective. I hate carbonation enough that it's not a first resort, but I'm considerably more fond of Mountain Dew now than I used to be. And I actually appreciate that the crash helps me sleep when the baby sleeps. Amusing side effect.

Tomorrow is Alexander's baby blessing. Sure took us long enough. I'm looking forward to seeing so many friends and family. Some time I'll have to put up pictures of Christopher's blessing outfit in comparison to Alexander's. It's a real shocker.

Exaustion is creeping up on me. I think I've done enough blabbering for now. =)

Language Skills

Alexander can't actually USE language yet, but it looks like he's got a pretty good idea of what to "say" when he's not happy.

Here's a happy baby:

Here's an expressive expression. from both boys:

Apparently the little guy thinks brotherly snuggles are OK if the big one is unconscious.

Cute giggle boys

So I mentioned already that my boys seem to have a special connection between each other. One of the things that affirms this to me is how much of a bond Alexander and Christopher display. Christopher almost unfailingly can make Alexander laugh.

The other day, Christopher was goofing around on my bed, and Alexander could NOT stop laughing! Everything Christopher did, every sound he made, sent Alexander into a fit of giggles. Another time, oddly enough, the dog did it too. I was playing catch with Onyx, and suddenly Alexander -who was watching from my lap- started laughing so hard that only the first part of the laugh could get out! I've never heard him laugh so hard before or since.

Christopher also continues his daily moment of "Can I hold my brother right now?" Usually it comes when Alexander has just gone down for a nap. Sigh. Such cute boys they are!

I couldn't help it

I couldn't help but write this. Two posts in a day, woohoo! But I had to.....

You see, if you read the preceding post, you'll know that I just told all about how much grief Alexander gives his father. And you'd know that I had to stop writing because the offending party woke up. And I HAD to write this because now you need to know what happened next!

Apparently the few moments the baby was fussing while I wrote "Speaking of the devil...." were too many moments for Bryan, because as I rose from the keyboard to retrieve my youngest, my husband walks out into the hallway, child in arms. And I laughed out loud. Quietly, mind you, because Christopher was still asleep, and if you'd seen the awake two you'd have been quietly laughing too. They both looked COMPLETELY miserable, both scowling, both bleary-eyed. Still giggling, I took the baby from Bryan, who did an about-face and collapsed back into bed. I wonder what time HE went to sleep....

I sat down with the baby. Within the next 2 hours, he did EVERYTHING to me that I had just written that he does to Bryan. I couldn't even get one thing all cleaned up before he threw up or pooped or slobbered on the next thing. It was a few hours of a perpetual cycle of stinky mess cleanup. And in spite of the fact that I changed my clothes 4 times today already (and it's only mid-afternoon at the moment), I laughed all morning. It's like Alexander was in there asleep and telepathically knew what I'd been up to, and noting my amusement had said to himself, "Wow, Mom really likes that. I think I should share with her!"

So even as I was cleaning the drippy poo off my legs and shirt, and while I washed all 5 loads of laundry (No, I didn't do a load for each messy thing, that just prompted the loading of other things I should have washed anyway), I laughed to myself. I am of the opinion that "It's better to laugh than to cry", so while some things cannot be laughed at, if there's an option to see the funny side, I like that one better. I also like the saying "Those that can laugh at themselves will never cease to be amused." So I laughed at the irony of my circumstances this morning, and was thoroughly amused the entire time.

I still have a HUGE pile of laundry to fold and put away, but I have NO intention of doing it today. I did a bajillion (yes, really a bajillion, I'm a Mom) other things today, and the finishing of the laundry is going to wait until tomorrow when I can pawn my kids off on their great-grandmother. However, I've washed my hands, done the dishes, and used cleaning wipes several times, and I still can't get the smell of baby poop off my hands. Yuck. I have slightly more sympathy for my husband now. Slightly.




P.S. Among my bajillion other things I did was play hide-and-seek with Christopher, with Alexander in my arms. Let me tell all of you inexperienced or otherwise unwarned mothers out there: Do Not, EVER, hide yourself and your newborn in a dark closet. In spite of the fact that he was digging his fingers into my arm, could smell me, and was chewing on my collarbone, the kid has no comprehension of the fact that I still exist when he can't see me, and he panicked. Thankfully the dog gave us away by trying to get into the closet with me. Oh well.

I have not forgotten!

I have not forgotten you all! No, indeed I think of you every day. And it's true: if you're reading this, I probably do think about you every day, because the only people who read this are people I know and love very much. And chances are good that I miss you, since I see people so seldom, so here's for you: "I love you, I miss you." And I haven't forgotten to update you on my life. I just haven't updated myself! Every time I am not dreadfully busy, I think "I can write on my blog, or I can sleep." And as you can tell, I never write on my blog, I always sleep. BUT! There is light at the end of the tunnel. Not the "Look out for the train!" kind, or the "You're too young yet!" kind, just the "I'm almost there and I can almost see the end!" kind. Because Christopher has been sleeping. Oh my goodness gracious sakes alive! Hallelujah!

It's been an interesting week for me. I recently heard from a good friend in Virginia who is expecting her second child, her first being a girl and this one being a boy. And my sister called to say she got her mission call - to California. And another friend of mine called the next day to say she'd just had her baby - a long-awaited first, and a girl. So that has been a lot of fun news.

There's nothing new with Bryan's job hunt. Lots of finding not much, and lots of "Sorry, we already have enough applications", and lots of no calls and no interviews. I think it's considerably harder on him than on me. Luckily - well, not luckily, blessedly - our finances ironically seem better now than they used to be. Part of that I'm sure is tithing, because the same $40 seems to hang out in our bank account in spite of the fact that I still pay bills and buy groceries. Also, Bryan's unemployment insurance finally kicked in, so while it's minimal, that helps. And even though DES hasn't gotten back to us yet, when I called to see why they aren't responding to our application for benefits, they said that they have given them to us pending a decision, so we are still able to go to doctors visit, and get food stamps (which they no longer call that, they call it some weird acronym). So both those things help too.

But part of it is also that since Bryan's not working, we just stay home. We're all homebodies, and if I want to go out I have to either convince or force Bryan and Christopher to come. Like father, like son. And being at home is cheap. When Bryan and I were talking about this interesting phenomenon, he said, "Imagine if we lived like this AND I had a job." To which I replied, "But we wouldn't. You'd have to get gas to go to work, you'd need lunches, I'd be lonely at home so I'd want to go places and see people, so I'd need gas in the car, and I'd be out and about. So it would never really happen." He conceded that I was right. But in the meantime, it's nice (usually) to be home as a family. And personally, I like that Bryan gets so much time around his kids. I felt like he missed a lot with Christopher.

Speaking of which, I have a funny story about Bryan and the kids. Well, Bryan and Alexander actually. Alexander seems to really have it out for Bryan. Hold on, let me back up. I have become convinced that my boys and I knew each other well in our heavenly home. I have never really considered it before, but it seems apparent now. Alexander LOVES Christopher, and vice-versa. Even though Alexander usually has a fit when Christopher holds him, from a safe position in Mommy's lap, he thinks Christopher is the best thing in the world. Christopher's antics almost always make Alexander laugh, and Christopher is always anxious to help us with Alexander. (Jeepers, I have to do a lot more typing when I can't just say "he" and "him"!) Whenever Alexander's blanket or pacifier falls, or when I need something for the baby, oftentimes Christopher will race to pick it up, or if he overhears me asking Bryan for it, Christopher will rush to get it before Daddy does, because "it's for Alexander". It's amazingly precious, and I love him all the more for it.

So back to Alexander and his daddy. Alexander OBVIOUSLY has some predestined desire to torture his father, and then laugh at him. Being so small, it's cute and very funny, but it definitely reinforces my feeling that they knew each other well before arriving here. On Mother's Day there was the infamous poop-on-dad-and-make-us-both-leave incident, after which Alexander cried in his father's ear for hours until I arrived home. And then at church one Sunday, I had fed Alexander and then been rocking him, and when I handed him off to Bryan, only then did he throw up - completely covering the front of Bryan's Sunday clothes. It looked bad, smelled bad, and since Bryan and I both snapped at each other over it, was in general just bad bad. But we kissed and made up later, and I think that those incidents were the start of realizing that there's nothing we can do: Alexander just saves the worst for Dad, no matter how hard Mom (and Dad, and Christopher) tries to prevent it.

The funniest/worst example of it was one day last week. I was really exhausted and Bryan was trying to help me get some sleep, so he was doing a lot of baby holding. He got pooped on not once, not twice, not even three times, but four times that day. And one time I was around for it, and I could not help but laugh because we heard the loud and dangerous sound, and Bryan lifted the baby from his chest as quick as a flash, but it was too late. A large stream of baby poo was running down his chest. So I plucked the offender from Daddy's hands and walked to the changing table. I plunked him down and told him how mean he was being and that his daddy wasn't going to like him if he kept this up. Alexander laughed at me. He seemed to think this was hillarious. I heard Bryan grumbling from the bathroom as he turned on the shower. So I open up Alexander's diaper to change it, completely expecting to find additional disasters awaiting me after such a stunt. When I pulled back the diaper, I gasped. And then I laughed. Alexander hadn't only pooped on his dad, he had somehow completely skipped the diaper and ONLY pooped on Dad! The diaper was almost completely clean, and yet Bryan had somehow been hosed. We have no idea how he did it, but that incident, in addition to the other 3 attacks that day and the several times he threw up on Bryan that day as well, cemented in our minds that there's nothing we can do about it: Alexander has it out for his dad.

Speaking of the devil, he's awake, so I shall depart, and if I ever get caught up on my sleep, I will write again soon.

Additional Sleep Deprivation

I'm loosing valuable sleep right now, but I have to loose it sometime I suppose, if I'm ever to post again.

My boys have been tag-teaming me again. All of them. Grandma came home, and for the two days thereafter I got 12 and 10 hours of sleep, respectively. It was great!! But then the boys changed their minds. (Insert tears, real ones.) Alexander has - ironically - been the one to sleep more. Christopher, however, has been driving me crazy. He seems to have developed some phobia of sleeping or something. When I have been successful in getting him to sleep, it's after hours and hours of fighting with him over it, and him begging for me to sleep with him or for more food or one more movie or one more..... you name it. Whatever he can think of to avoid sleeping. And if you think just leaving him in bed works: It doesn't. I've tried that too, and he honestly will just stay there awake until unfathomable hours of the morning, like 4 and 5 am. And the problem with this is that I hear him and I therefore don't sleep, or if I doze off I dont' sleep well because every little sound wakes me up. I'm not a light sleeper, except when I hear my boys. I've slept through Bryan sleep-talking and I can sleep through the racket the neighbors make, but when the boys stir, I'm up. Dratted that mommy-sense!

I realized last night that I have reached the dreaded stage of hating to go to sleep. I'm so exhausted that I actually don't WANT to sleep because it WILL require that I wake up! And I dread waking up because I'm never ready to wake up, so I dread going to sleep in the first place. Granted, I still go to sleep of course, but I don't really like it right now. It's not a respite, it's a survival mechanism.

After two days in which I got a grand total of about 3 hours of sleep in 30 minute increments, yesterday I ran out of rocks. "Rocks?" I hear you ask. Well, for those of you who know about the rocks, I hope you're laughing. For those who don't, suffice it to say that it's a parable for having enough emotional reserves. And I ran clean out of rocks yesterday. I felt it set in about 2pm. Alexander was screaming his head off (he screamed so much that he went hoarse by the end of the day), and I picked him up and just stood there. That was when I knew it: I was out of rocks. I'd spent them all on others and I didn't have a single one left. I spent the second half my day trying not to cry. Around 1am I cried anyway and Bryan came to my rescue. He let me put noise-canceling headphones on, turn on the BYU radio station, and ignore the crying baby and Christopher's incessant train of "I want"s. It wasn't pleaseant, but man was it necessary!

Why was Alexander screaming, you wonder? And why was Christopher still up? Alexander sleeps overnight, waking up every 1.5 - 2.5 hours to eat. During this time I put him in an oversized diaper because changing him wakes him up, and I don't want that. This only works because he doesn't poop until morning when he wakes up. And yesterday for some reason he didn't poop at all the whole day. And he was mad about it. I bounced him, patted him, squeezed him, bathed him, gave him a massage.... and then I ran out of ideas and just let him cry. He also threw up on me a ton yesterday. But he was eating normally, so we figure he wasn't hungry, and that he was probably just uncomfortable. Today he's eating normally, and he pooped on me 3 times in thirty minutes. Oh well.

As to why Christopher was awake: He went to bed nicely at about 9. He slept for.... ready for it? .... He slept for 30 minutes and then woke up. And would NOT go back to sleep. He lay down when asked, but he wouldn't sleep. And he wiggled. And eventually he got up and I didn't stop him. When I finally gave up and went to bed at almost 4am, he was still awake. Bryan, by the way, was also awake and helping me all this time. And this is not the first time this week that Christopher's done this. Both of us are exhausted. And if you think that he's doing this because we let him nap or sleep late, think again. I've tried getting him up at 7-ish in the morning, wearing him out during the day, stuffing him full at night, and he has still done this. I still love him, but boy oh boy is it frustrating! Not to mention that it adds to the previously mentioned problem of dreading to go to sleep because I know he'll be up again.

Oh, and one last thing about sleep deprivation. Actually, more than one thing. First thing: It's really bad for you. Ok, there, got that out of the way. Second: One of the other things I hate about it is that if I'm not in the room with the baby (like, if I don't sleep in my own bed) he doesn't hear me and therefore sleeps deeper and longer. If I sleep in my bed, he hears me and wakes up MUCH more often. It frustrates me that he'll sleep through Christopher in the other room screaming and crying, but he won't sleep through me rolling over in my sleep. I still love him, but I could use some infant earplugs I think.

I was going to make this post about all kinds of random things, but it turned into this instead.


**Addendum: It's a few days later, and I asked Bryan if I could pretty please nap today. So at about 10:00 I put the baby down for a nap and told Bryan I was going to sleep. Assuming that I was actually going to get some sleep, I crashed HARD and was sleeping very deeply..... for about 30 minutes. Between 10 and noon, I was woken up 4 times. And then I admitted defeat and got out of bed. No naps here.

A cute link

Someone sent this to me for Mother's Day, and I liked it enough to forward some copies on. The baby made me laugh.

http://news.cnnbcvideo.com/?nid=vqfSSIsNGDx_JjOetilo3jE0NjE1&reffered_by=16142678-9TqDDXx&p=moveon

More on my "haircut"

Last night Christopher comes running up next to me. I reach over to pat his head. And when I move his hair, I discover that he's missing some! I can't tell if the original hair was his hair, because mine is darker, so I'm pretty sure it's not his. I am suspcious that there is an incoming scissor ban in my house, because after realizing that he's missing hair, I also realize that I'm missing scissors. I can't find them anywhere. Kinda like the time he brought me a picture that he said he drew with crayons, but I could tell for certain that he'd used my paint pens because the paint on the paper was still wet and shiny. But I couldn't prove it because I couldn't find the pens. And then the next day Bryan found them tucked way back in a cupboard where Christopher had hid them.

Today Bryan was sitting with the baby, and I looked over at them. I was so shocked that all I said was, "Bryan, poop!" He looked down in horror to see what I was seeing. The baby was covered from his toes to his chest in poop, and Bryan's lap and chest had poop all over them too. I picked up the baby and walked off, while Bryan sat there with his arms up looking down at the mess, probably trying to figure out how he'd get out of those clothes without getting even more poop on him. I cleaned up the baby. And it wasn't his diaper's fault he'd made such a mess. I think he'd been saving that batch all last night and this morning just for Bryan, who always seems to be the one to get thrown up on or pooped on. After I changed my clothes, taken Bryan's clothes, and cleaned up and redressed the baby, I put stain remover on all the above and the changing table cover, and threw them all in the wash.

On a related note, I have never used this much stain remover and laundry detergent before. This baby produces more dirty laundry than I thought that we own. And more than once I've thought of my friends who use eco-friendly cloth diapers and said to myself, "I'm so grateful right now that I'm a wasteful, disposable-diaper-using mom, because I'd never make back the amount I'm spending in laundry expenses!" I'm already doing a load or two a day out of necessity, I can only imagine what it would be like if I had to wash as many diapers as I throw out each day. And on a related note to that, I'm SO grateful that when Bryan's family had a baby shower (I think it was at least in part just to get to hold the baby!), they all gave me diapers. It's such a relief to not have to be buying diapers right now. And I have suspicions that the Lord is secretly restocking the supply that Bryan's family gave me, because in spite of Alexander's talent for making messy diapers, I've used less than two bags, which is a small portion of what I have.

On another semi-related note, when I tossed all the dirty laundry in the washer, I tossed in a few other clothes to fill out the load. One of which is a shirt of Christopher's. This particular shirt is amazing. I now suspect that it actually has permanent stains, but they only show up once I put the shirt on him. The reason I think this is that every time I go to wash it, I look at how dirty it is and say to myself, "Well, I'll try to clean it, and if it doesn't wash out I'll throw it away." Each time I wash it, it comes out clean, in spite of looking like Christopher did a mud derby, and a painting contest, and a food fight in it. So I put it back in the drawer. And the next time I go to wash it, it looks as bad as the time before, so I repeat the process. It never ceases to amaze me. Like my kids.

A last memory to store away: I was already in bed, but was thirsty so I came out to grab a drink. I had thought Christopher was already set up and going to sleep on the couch (yes, I still haven't cleaned his room, but I take chunks out of it every day, it's that bad) but when I came out I saw him standing next to his daddy's chair talking to him. I walked into the kitchen and got my drink. I hear the mumble of Christopher's voice from the living room, then I hear Bryan say, "A hot dog?" I hear Christopher mumbling again. I walk out and see a blank look on Bryan's face, and Christopher looking up at me earnestly, like I know something. I ask "Does he want something to eat?" (Christopher always gets voraciously hungry right at the moment we want him to sleep, and we usually just plan that he's going to ask for food and juice.) Bryan says, "Yes, but I already asked him if he wants all the usual stuff, and he said no." I look at Christopher who is still looking at me. I think through the list of foods that we usually offer him at bedtime, check those off my list since Bryan said he already asked, and tried to think of something different that Christopher would like and was fast. I said, "How about peanut butter bites?" (This is peanut butter on graham crackers.) Christopher, still looking up at me, smiles and says "Yes!" Then he bounces happily over to the couch, and as he bounces up on it he cheerfully proclaims:
"She always knows what I want."
I walked right over, hugged him, kissed him, and told him he was the most wonderful boy in the world, and I love him! What a perfect thing to say!

I'm a blabbermouth

I've been informed that I write too much. I replied that if someone doesn't want to read this, they don't have to! I know there's a lot of my family that's missing all this and likes to read it, even if it is long.

Besides, this actually isn't for everyone else. The Stories were started as a way for me to create a more effective diary, and to share my day-to-day happenings with someone special. I just decided that instead of only emailing them and having one person read them, I'd share them with everyone. I'd be typing just as much and getting twice as much done!

As I have looked over The Stories this evening, I admit that I do type a whole lot. But I knew that before. I go to great lengths (literally) to translate the visual and verbal goings on of my day so that when I look back over these Stories years from now, I will fully remember what it was I was writing about.

And another thing that is important to me is that I record these silly little day-to-day things before they disappear into my memory bank. After I hit the pillow, exhaustion tends to wipe away most of the previous day. And I feel that cute things such as my children do should be recorded now so they will be remembered later.

There, my last thought for the day. Pillow of Oblivion, here I come!

Go go Inspector Gadget!

And keep going! Further.... further.... Is he gone yet? No? Oh, of course not. Because it's not Inspector Gadget, it's my son, Christopher, pretending to be Inspector Gadget. Why does this matter? Oh, it matters!

Tonight after we had a really nice sit-down dinner together (I've been actually doing it, go Mom!!) I collapsed into my chair, baby in arms, expecting to rest for a minute.
When what to my wondering eyes does appear, but lockets of hair, and some scissors quite near! I rose from my chair to see what was this matter, and when I found out I made quite a clatter!'

"Bryan!!!" I exclaimed.
He takes off his headphones and completely flatly says, "What?"
"LOOK!" I thrust my hand toward him, the clump of hair clutched in it.
He's slightly interested now. "What is that?"
"It's hair. More to the point, it's MY hair!"
"How did that happen???"
I turned around and looked at my oldest son, who's behind me watching, of all things, Pink Panther. I look back at Bryan, who looks from Christopher back to me.
He asks, "Are you sure it's your hair?"
What woman doesn't know what's her hair and not? Silly boy! And besides, no one else in the house even HAS enough hair to loose that much. But I just say, "Yes, I'm sure it's my hair."
My dear sweet probably well-meaning husband asks "When did that happen?"
My eyes about popped out of my head! I looked at him in disbelief and my jaw actually dropped. I just shake my head, and when I get my bearings back I reply, "How should I know!"
(Mind you, I'm not mad at him, or Christopher. I find great amusement in how different (and weird!) boys are in how they think.)
It doesn't look like my husband believes me, so I walk over to Christopher and check his head. I ask him "Christopher, did you cut your hair?"
Without even acknowledging me he responds, "No." Then he suddenly seems to 'come to' and looks up at me like 'Uh oh....'.
I turn back to Bryan. "It's my hair."
"How could you loose that much hair and not notice?"
[Insert repeat of eye-popping, jaw dropping, mind boggling moment as described above.]
I flip my foot-and-a-half of hair around to the front, fan it over my hand, and say, "With this much hair, how COULD I notice?!?!?"
(Remember, I'm not upset, but I am in a state of shock about the sudden realization that we have a hair-nabber in our house, and disbelief and mild amusement over my dear husband's response to my loosing a decent chunk of my hair.)

Now we turn to Christopher, who has obviously realized that we have found the hair, and the tell-tale scissors, and he suspects we may be on to him. Now obviously, I didn't cut off my hair and drop it on the floor next to my chair with the offending scissors. And as we can obviously deduct, unless my husband is a better lair than I give him credit for, he didn't do it. And there is a guilty-looking, worry-faced someone else over on that couch who is now watching his parents with a wary eye.
Bryan asks, "Christopher, did you cut your mommy's hair?"
His eyes dart back and forth between his parents as he gives a firm, "No."
I'm walking into the kitchen to throw it away now, and his eyes are glued to me.
Bryan says, "Christopher, it's ok, you're not in trouble, we just need to know what's going on. Did you cut your mommy's hair?"
A more hesitant voice says, "No."

I realize he's not going to confess, so as I'm coming back in I say, "Christopher, did you cut your hair?"
I get an immediate and earnest, "No, I didn't."
"Did you cut mommy's hair?"
"No....."
"Did someone else cut mommy's hair?"
"Um, maybe."
"Who do you think cut mommy's hair? Did mommy cut her hair?"
He gives a half a smile and says in a scoffing way, "Nooo."
"Well then who do you think did it?"
"Maybe some other little kid."
"Some other little kid did it?"
"Yeah. Maybe... when you were a little kid... you were sitting on your chair and some other little kid cut your hair."
"Oh, ok." I see how it is! I still have the baby in my arms, and he needs a pacifier from his bed, so I walk out of the room snickering to myself. Christopher follows me into my bedroom. He doesn't say anything, he's just following me with a curious, worried look on his face, like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

After a minute I say, "Christopher, if any sneaky hair-cutters get into our house again, can you please protect me from them and keep me safe?"
"But they didn't hurt you."
I smile when he can't see. This is funny! "I know hon, but I don't want them stealing any more of my hair!"
"Oh, ok sure. Go Go Inspector Gadget hair-saver protector!"

Ah ha!!! I suddenly realized EXACTLY what happened. I am certain that earlier today while I was sitting with the baby, and probably looking down and away, some secret Madd agent, or an Inspector on a mission, snuck up and cut off my hair, then almost instantly dropped both it and the scissors, either because the Inspector realized his mistake, or because the Madd agent got caught and had to leave it behind. I can't prove it, but I'd be willing to bet a lot that I'm right.

Besides, I don't miss it. I'd never have known if I hadn't seen the evidence. And I even made my little offender mini muffins later, which is a funny story in itself!

More about Mother's Day

Ok, so Mother's Day did NOT AT ALL go as planned. In fact, rather than being a pleasant, or even special day, it was just about downright terrible with little tidbits of nice.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not actually upset. Because my Mother's Day was FULL of mothering. Oh yes.

It all started last night. Albertson's has crab legs on sale for $4/lb. Bryan and I LOVE crab. So we got a lovely meal for two of steamed veggies, wild rice, and crab - for under $15. (Christopher hates crab (yes he's tried it, every time) and wanted soup, lunch meat, and soy sauce. Yuck!) I cooked it up, we all sat down at the table (a rarity in itself!) and began to eat. No more than 5 minutes in Alexander decides he doesn't want to be in this awful swing a moment longer and starts to cry. I get up to hold him (Bryan hates hearing him cry, and Bryan is sweet enough to do an awful lot of holding in spite of it) and I try to find something I can eat one-handed. Rice & veggies, yum yum. I eat all of them, and I wait for Bryan to finish so he can take the baby and I can eat.

Well, after just now discussing it with Bryan, neither of us can remember what exactly it was that prevented me from eating, but I didn't get to back to my crab for about a half hour. And it was my kid's fault. My sweet husband really did try to facilitate my quest to get some dinner, but we were foiled at every turn. So after that break from my food I went back and sat down - alone - to my now-cold crab legs. I started to shell them, got about half a set of legs shelled, and was again interrupted.

About an hour and a half after I had first begun eating, I sat back down and realized that I still hadn't eaten everything I had initially served myself. And it was all cold. And I was actually MORE hungry now than when I started because every time I ate a little bit, I'd have to get up, and the whole time I was taking care of the kids I was thinking "Wow, that was so good, I want more." So in the end I was more hungry than when I started, even after having a nice sized dinner. Eventually I got the baby to sleep, Christopher playing, and Bryan doing I don't know what out of sight, and I sat down and ate until I wasn't hungry. Sure, I had to tell Christopher to stop attaching yarn wings to my arms while I was eating, and I had to ignore the sounds coming from the closet as someone dug around for whatever it was they wanted, and I had to say "Not right now" about 50 times, but I DID get to eat until I wasn't unpleasantly hungry.

And then nightfall came. To prevent any unnecessary bad feelings toward any one boy, I will simply call them Boy 1, Boy 2, and Boy 3 for this part. Boy 1 fell asleep at around 9:30. Boy 2 fell asleep around 11:30. Boy 3 kept me awake until 4 am. At that point Boy 1 woke up and decided that he didn't want any more sleep. Now Boy 1 and Boy 3 are both awake. Boy two is now also awake because everyone else is. I got one boy to go to sleep, but one would not. Bryan offered to stay up so that I could get at least a tiny bit of sleep. So there it was, 4:30 am, and everyone's awake. I gave up and went to bed, although I still had to wake up twice during the next few hours to feed the baby. That was NOT how I wanted to spend my night before Mother's Day. Or any night at all, to be honest.

Bryan came to bed around 7am. Christopher was then awake. So I got up. Hurray for about 3 hours of sleep. I felt nauseous from so little sleep. I got out everything I would need for church. I decided that even though it was obvious none of my boys would be coming, I wanted to go at least for a little bit of church. Christopher was on the couch looking drowsy. I decided to not move until he went to sleep, as that would prevent him from getting any sudden bursts of energy while trying to discover why I was getting dressed. Church starts at 9am. At 8:50 Christopher closed his eyes and didn't open them again. I literally threw on my dress, clipped up my hair (I had to redo it before walking into church), and snuck out the door.

At church I slid in the back door just as they were starting. I sat on the back pew right next to the door. Suffice it to say that I don't remember all of church. I struggled very hard to stay awake and not throw up. But I was determined to stay at least until I could talk with the bishop. I could always come back after I fed the baby and slept for 30 minutes. I found the bishop, and he assured me that we could bless Alexander the first Sunday in June, and it wouldn't be put off any more. I also paid our overdue tithing from Bryan's severance. Due to various mishaps and miscommunication, we haven't been able to get to the bishop before now, and both of us felt much better today once I'd given it to him. It seems that having tithing set aside isn't the same as actually giving it to the Lord. (Duh.)

I escaped (not a term I usually apply to church) and weaved my way to my car. I say "weaved" because I certainly didn't walk in a straight line. For anyone who may need to know in the future, high heels and sleep deprivation are a terrible combination. I stopped for a minute to do a mental check and see if I really thought I could make it home. I decided that I could. And I did. As soon as I got home, I realized that EVERYONE WAS ASLEEP!!!! AH! I ditched my clothes and landed in bed. Ah, sweet oblivion. For a whole thirty minutes........ Oh well.

After having to get up to feed the baby, he was kind enough to go right back to sleep! So I did too, of course. I actually got a few hours in the middle of the day. I really had meant to go back to church, but I slept not only through church but until 2pm. I had planned on going out to deliver all my mother's day cards to my "moms", but I slept through that window of time too. And you know what? I really didn't mind. I needed that so badly.

When I did get up for real, I ate a little something to stave off additional nausea. Christopher and Alexander were up by then too, so I fed them too. Then I took care of kids until about 4, when Bryan was supposed to leave to get in line at Pinnacle Peak. Oh, and for those of you who don't know, my side of the family isn't LDS, and I decided back when I was younger and living with them that I'd rather not make them think any worse of the church (they don't like it) by making an issue out of skipping Sunday Dinner when spending money was happening. It's rare, and it's usually over something special, so I decided to not kick the bucket on that issue with them. So back to today.

The Tadpoles (my Uncle Tad's family) wanted to go to Pinnacle Peak. It's kind of a traditional family gathering place for my side of the family. Bryan was going to go down and get us a place in line because they don't take reservations. But when it came down to it, he and I decided that I would take Alexander and I would go. It actually turned out rather nice. I got to walk around holding my lovey-dovey baby for about 30 minutes. He is so adorable, and I love him tremendously. He was so sober the whole time. Except for when he saw one lady who looked like a perfect mix of Grandma and Mimi, and then he lit up like a Christmas tree. He wiggled, smiled, talked to her; it was so adorable. And of course she was completely charmed. I enjoyed just holding him and looking at all the neat things in Trail Dust Town - where the restaurant is.

Eventually everyone showed up - except Bryan and Christopher. As they were seating us I called him. Apparently there had been some issue with clothes, and they were running late. I didn't ask for details. I don't know that I wanted to know. He arrived just as the waitress was taking orders. And just in time for Alexander to melt down because he was worn out and hungry. So I ordered and left to the ladies room. They had a nice - although very old and rickety - chair I could sit in, and I thought that was nice of them. I fed the Alexander, but he was so cranky that he continued to cry after he was done eating. Which was actually not so much crying like babies usually cry as it was howling and screaming in fury. He doesn't really do "cry". He does "I'm upset and I'm giving you a chance to fix it fast" - which is little fussy pouts followed by looking at you to see if you're responding, or "I'm out to get you" which is screaming but not crying. So this was a bad case of the latter.

I finally resolved that there was nothing that would stop it, and I had tried, so I walked out with him and headed to the car to find a pacifier. Why me and not Bryan? Because he didn't want Bryan. Incidentally, this was the second nice meal in a row that I was missing because of my kids. And yes, as I left my plate of steak and salad to get cold and slimy, I did recall that this was looking more and more like a repeat of yesterday. On the way to the car Alexander was quiet and looking around with a solem look. I retrieved the pacifier and stuck it in his mouth. He breathed a deep breath, dropped his head on my chest, and fell asleep instantly. Oh brother.

So now I go back in the restaurant, and Bryan takes the baby. But all our food is here. "Lindy, how about we get the baby's seat so he can sleep in it while we eat?" Bryan offered to go get it, but he didn't know where I'd parked, so I decided it would be considerably faster if I just went and got it. I didn't run, but I thought about it. My feet were starting to hurt, and I was hungry. I just wanted to sit down! Is that too much to ask, on Mother's Day no less?? (The answer, by the way, is "Yes." Anything is too much to ask if you are asking anyone under the age of about 21 who is related to you by blood.)

I bring back the seat, put him in it, set him behind us, and do I get to eat? Nope. Christopher needs me to get make his food edible. What? You ask why? Because the corn on the cob at the restaurant doesn't have nails or corn holders to hold it with. So I get another fork and solve that. Mom, hot dogs in buns are NOT ok. They need to be cut up. And I need ketchup mom. And can I have some of your food mom? Eventually, all is well, and I start to eat. I ate about half of my now-lukewarm steak. It was yummy! Yes, in spite of not being hot-off-the-grill. And in spite of being a little soggy, my salad tasted good too. However, I harbor some suspicions that my hunger and exhaustion level had something to do with how good the now-less-than-fresh food tasted. But I ate it, and I loved it. I love steak. And it was perfectly done too. Yum yum!

But if was shortlived. I never finished it. Shortly after being put down, the previously dead-to-the-world baby woke up. He was quiet for a minute. After Bryan (who had had a considerable head start) was finished, he picked Alexander up. Not five minutes passed before Bryan elbowed me and said, "We have an issue." I say calmly "What?" (Secretly "What now, for heaven's sake, can't you see I'm finally seated and eating something?!?!?!") Bryan wiggles a little, motioning that it's something about the baby. "What?" I ask. Bryan wiggles a little more and reveals that the baby has pooped, not only in his diaper, but on Bryan. Oh great. So I get up, instruct Bryan to come sit with me on some chairs away from the group, and I'll clean him up. Once he removed the baby from his chest we see the full extent of the damage.

You'd think the kid hadn't been wearing a diaper at all! Bryan was covered with poop. Lots of it. There was no solving that. He'd have to go home. No, wait! The extra clothes in his trunk, that we'd put in there when we went to Phoenix, could he wear those? He said he'd go see. So I vanish to the restroom again and he goes out to his car. I'm cleaning up Alexander, who is also covered in poop, and my phone rings. I know it's Bryan. Yes, it is, and no, there are no extra shirts he can wear in his trunk. He said he was going home and offered to take the baby so that I could enjoy the rest of my meal and my family. I think that's a nice idea, so I finish up and meet him out in the parking lot.

I get back inside and realize that I just sent him home with the diaper bag - which has all the Mother's Day cards in it. Doh! *Slap forehead with palm* My dinner is now stone cold. Everyone else is finished. The waitress is clearing places. I sit down and scarf up as much as I can before everyone leaves. Steak isn't very good when it's room temperature. In fact, it was nearly unpalatable now. So I eventually just tossed it in a take-home bag, along with the t-bones for Onyx. (Who loved them, by the way.) Mimi was too tired to stay awake, so she and John went home. But the Tadpoles and I stayed. Kids can't leave a place as cool as Trail Dust Town without doing a lot more fun stuff first!

Christopher had been bugging me all day, and all while we were at the restaurant, that he wanted to go look for treasure. Trail Dust Town has lots of Old West shops, props, and amusements. One of which is panning for gold. I take Christopher and my little cousin Thomas (who is 5). I show them how to use the pans, and this old guy walks up and starts grunting at us. I finally realize that he's in charge of this little booth and he wants us to pay to use it. That's news to me, and new. It's always been just there and you just do it. There's never anything to find, just little flecks of gold-colored paint at the bottom. And everyone knows it. Why would I pay to let my kids stick their hands in the water and pretend to look for gold? Well, the guy's insistent in his grunty growly way, so I give him a dollar for each kid so he will stop making them get out of the water. Then he shuffles off. I start thinking I should talk to a manager about the fact that this guy might LOOK very authentic, but he's a jerk and he's scaring the kids. He shuffles back a minute later and "helps" the kids learn to pan for gold. Wait, isn't that what I was doing? Then I notice that he's not actually "helping" them, he's holding the pan and shaking it like he is, but what he was really doing was dropping little gold rocks into the pan for them. Ok, so now I get it. He is actually stationed here, he actually has a job, and I'd actually pay for having someone sneak real treasure into the kids pans... but he was still scaring the kids and being very gruff to them. Eventually he left them alone after apparently doing his job, and they were much happier to dig around in the dirt and water unmolested and find little bits of this or that.

We soon had to leave to go to the wild west show that goes on there every evening. It's slapstick Old West comedy performed by stunt people and includes lots of explosions. Perfect for little boys. The last time Christopher was there with us he was so scared we had to leave (it was a very funny story, ask me sometime), but since he's been watching Inspector Gadget and some Bugs Bunny, I knew he'd love the explosions this time. I stayed out and talked with my uncle. I've seen it, he didn't want to. When the kids got out we decided to ride the train. They have a little train that runs around the town. But the train was full, so we waited for it to come back. Incidentally, there were a lot of mothers walking around carrying tiny new babies, and every single time I saw one I wished I had mine. I love Alexander, and I get baby-hungry for him when he's not around, really quick. When the train got back and unloaded, we all got on and rode around. It was great fun, and Christopher loved it. He asked if we could ride again, and was a good sport when I said no. He asked if we could walk and see the places again. I said no, only the train can go to those places, but we could walk by the indian village on the way to the car. That appeased him.

Then we split ways with my cousins. They were planning to go home, and Christopher wanted to investigate the ferris wheel he saw from the train. We found that you could ride it, and it didn't cost an arm and a leg any more. (It used to cost about $5 per person, per ride, and you had to go with your kids because the thing was made in the 1920s and looks like it.) This time it was a dollar. I can handle that. Christopher LOVED it. He apparently thought it would just go around once, because when it kept going around and around, and started to speed up, and the horse went up and down, he got so excited. He had a great time. I loved seeing how much he enjoyed it.

Then we went to the novelty store. They have all kinds of old, special, and interesting toys, nicknack's, and doohickeys. Christopher especially liked the wind-up walk-around toys and the finger puppets. He asked to buy a rubber band gun (they had all kinds of amazing ones, I have firm intentions of making one with Grandpa because they were awesome, and very simple in design), and he was a really good sport when I said no to that, and the finger puppets, and the wind up toys, and the pen and pencil as big as his arm, and the overpriced candy. He just said, "Ok." He's so great!

Then we actually went to the candy shop. Like the novelty store, this candy shop has old, special, and interesting candies. If you want it, they probably have it. If they didn't, I'd bet they could find it for you. They have almost everything you can think of and a lot of things you wouldn't think of at all. As part of Mother's Day all mothers got a free chocolate. Another couple that didn't have time to wait in the line gave me their ticket and so I got two. Which actually means that I got one and Christopher got one. I also bought Bryan his favorite candy because they had it (it's hard to find here), and I bought Christopher a candy that he loves and never gets, and I bought me a rootbeer and a cinnamon candy stick, because I love those. I had them all put into a bag, and we all got our special treats later at home. Yum Yum.

As we headed home, Christopher got to see the indian village, and he got to ride in the front seat next to me. I enjoyed spending time with him, we both had fun together.

I arrive home to discover that Alexander has screamed the whole time I was gone. He was so happy to see me. And so was Bryan! I had missed Alexander (I blame all those other cute babies), so I was happy to see him. Yes, I know, I was only gone like 2 hours, but still! I'm a mother, after all, and I love him so very much. So even though he was a cranky brat all evening, I didn't mind. Although it did cross my mind that it wasn't very nice of him to be so fussy on Mother's Day. He eventually went to sleep, quite a long time after everyone wished he would.

I decided that the last thing I would do before I crashed in bed tonight would be to write about the insanity that was my Mother's Day. As you can tell, that wasn't a short endeavour. Most of the time I've been writing I've also been stapling papers shoved at me by my oldest as he makes airplanes, rockets, secret notes, surprises, and other things that 4 year old minds can create with wads of paper, tape, and staples. About halfway through I started laughing about something, and Bryan said, "Hey, don't laugh!" I laughed more and said, "It's Mother's Day, and I haven't done anything that *I* wanted to do, so I'll laugh if I darn well please and no one is going to make me stop!"And you know what? For the first time all day, I did!