One of those days

I am tired. Because it has been one of those days. This morning Nathan woke up with a huge poop in his diaper accompanied by a diaper rash. To quote my good friend Jill - "sigh". I tried to avoid inhaling as I dealt with this wonderful start to the day. Then the boys proceeded to trash the house complete with strewing my cds everywhere and leaving tiny plastic soldiers all over the house specifically for me to tread on. By the time I had cleaned up the mess I needed some stress relief and so I turned, naturally, to Hobby Lobby and Target for said relief. However, once arriving at Hobby Lobby, I discovered that Nathan had a wet backside. Why did you not anticipate this I hear you ask. Well only because this was the third diaper of the day and it was only 11am. I changed him in the car but was assailed by the aromatic fragrance of pee soaked jeans for the rest of my outing. I had a temporary moment of "ahhhh" when I found something that Leia would really like for Christmas but then it was right back to business. After lunch I sought a quiet few minutes by laying Nathan down and putting Spencer in his room for some quiet time. I had literally closed the door on him when he yelled through the door, "Something fell off my glasses". Now this is a truly ominous statement - one that strikes fear into my heart. I opened the door to see his glasses bent into a truly unrecognisable state with one lens popped out of the frame of course. Now he has popped out the lens and bent the frame before and we have managed to fix it but one look at this mess told me it would amount to a trip to Beavercreek. So by the time Gary arrived home, Spencer was truly sullen because of the disciplining I had to implement. Off Gary trotted to Lenscrafters at my worst time of day. Leia is tired from school and Nathan is grumpy. Not 20 minutes after Gary has left the house, Nathan is walking like he is saddle sore and crying. Whilst I am dealing with poopy diaper number two which has inevitably worsened the diaper rash, I reflect on why it is that my son sees the need to poop twice, sometimes three times a day. Perhaps it has something to do with the two or three bananas he eats daily??? If any of you have never experienced what an almost three year old's poopy diaper is like, I will let you in on it. It's the same as if you pooped in a diaper and then had to see it up close.

Maybe later on this evening, I will wax lyrical about how wonderful, gorgeous, and good my children are. No doubt the clock will read 11pm and my children will be asleep at that point!

Cousin Lukas

Kari and Lukas came by to see us this evening. The kids loved seeing their cousin whom they adore. And he is enjoying them much more as he is getting older. It's hard to believe he will be one soon. And I'm not one to miss out on a photo opportunity!

Thanksgiving

We had a fun Thanksgiving this year. We travelled to Illinois to visit family. When we arrived we went to see Grandpa call a square dance. On the day itself we went to see a movie and what else but eat! Friday we had a busy day that included Leia throwing up and both Leia and Spencer getting somewhat injured while geocaching. To round the visit out, we met up with an old friend of Gary's from his High School days for an evening out. Enjoy the pictures!

A new Mommy

Yesterday Spencer told me he was going to get a new Mommy after I had to discipline him for another one of his many infractions. I was very upset for a while, not just at that but at the whole confrontation beforehand. He is hands down the most difficult of my children so far. When Gary got home from work I just had to shut myself in the bedroom for a few hours and try and banish the bad feelings. And then today came around and one look at my boy just banishes the blues. He came home from school with his Indian Brave hat on and we chatted about what he did at school. Mostly he told me he ate "pup cakes" meaning cupcakes. It was his Thankgiving Feast at school. He just has to look at me with that Spencer look which he has been wearing on his face since day one and I am so thankful for him. He has always had this uncanny ability to tug at my heart strings, and now he has to wear glasses which for some reason pulls them even more. The other picture is of when he was only a month old.

2007-2008

So here is Leia's school picture. I'm very pleased with it!

Spectacles

Well today we took Spencer to Children's and got his eyes tested and examined. We have been worried about him for some time. His letter recognition and writing his name have been a real struggle at pre-school and he also has had some discipline problems as you will know if you've read previous posts. Sure enough he has astigmatism but much worse in his left eye. That explains why his head is always tilted when watching TV and why he has been unable to focus on letters/writing. He now has glasses and we are optimistic he will soon catch up. Hopefully he won't have to end up wearing an eye patch which is something the doctor brought up as a possibility as his left eye has been neglected in favor of the better right eye. I think he looks very cute in his new specs! Although his poor eyes are still dilated in the pictures.

I love first grade!

Today after school Leia wanted to draw a picture for each member of her class at school. When I saw her about to grab 24 pieces of my paper I stepped in and divided 6 sheets into four and she was off. She wanted me to write down all the names of her class mates so she could spell them correctly on their pictures. An easy task you may think until she started to name names. I can honestly say I had no idea how to spell them and was left scratching my head. For example (Phonetically of course), Dee-mat-aeyo, Jay-lon, Tar-eek, Sam-air-a. Here in America it seems that people love unusual or even made up names. It's certainly different. While she was drawing she was chattering away to me and at one point she said. "I just love first grade. I can do math like 4 + 4 is 8. And did you know that the bald eagle stares at you and its wings are 7 feet long?" It's so great to hear things like that. A six year old girl is absolutely the most fun. I recommend them to anyone!

Paccie gone?

Recently we couldn't find Nathan's pacifier at bedtime. Gary suggested that we just put him to bed, tell him it was gone and see what happened. Well we told him and he went to sleep without crying or fussing or anything. The next day at naptime and at bedtime and again today at naptime and bedtime he has said the same thing to me while staring at me with his big blue eyes. He said "Paccie gone?". It sounds silly but it makes me really sad. I want to go and find it and give it to him. He is accepting it so well but why shouldn't he have his comfort object? Leia still sucks her thumb and why not? Because the boys sucked on pacifiers we have felt the need to take it away at some point but it is so comforting to them. It is like me reading every night before I go to sleep. That's my pacifier and I'd be very upset if I couldn't have it. All I can say is that he's a trooper and growing up so fast. On another note, Spencer has been sneaking Leia's Leapster into his bedroom every evening. He is so good at it because when I go in to read him a story I can never see it anywhere. Tonight after I had tucked Leia into bed, I was cleaning up downstairs and she came running down the stairs. She says to me, "I just tried to find my video game and it's not anywhere. I bet that pesky little brother took it. Can you go and get it for me?". So I snuck up the stairs and opened Spencer's door. Sure enough he was laying on his bed with her leapster. I'm not sure if he is just fascinated by it or whether he can understand and play it. I guess I'll have to allow him to use it supervised to see if he is ready for his own. It was quite funny. Especially that Leia already sees him as a "pesky little brother".

This is so much fun it's insane!!!

Monsters

Since I had nothing else to do this morning except bake bread I decided to indulge the boys in a little game of monster hunting. It basically consists of creeping around upstairs armed with a coat hanger or two and maybe a hose to the vacuum cleaner. We go from room to room talking in whispers and every so often I'll growl or scream and then Nathan will fling himself in my arms and say "I scared". This time Spencer got in the laundry hamper and so me and Nathan launched an attack on him. And then there were the sharks in the bathtub. Oh boy, it was quite a morning!