The Big Game and a New Game with Old Friends

When we got together with some old friends to watch the big game (NFC Championship against the Bears), although Sam kept yelling "Go packers," the kids were much more interested in other games.

TT Visits

What Happens When You Mess with Me

Painting Saturday morning

"Get in the car, Mommy. I'm driving and we're all packed for our trip to TT's."

“Please!!! I want it.”

“No.”

“But candy makes you big and strong.”

“No it doesn’t. It makes you big and fat.”

“I want to be big and fat. I want to NOW!”

Sam and the birthday girl

This blog post is likely to be a mess. This is one of those weeks where I have to decide once again what type of blog I want this to be.

Do I want to share the story of being the mom of two great kids who enlarge my heart everyday? (“Mommy, I love you as much as a train is long.”)

Do I want to use the blog to record the hilarious dialogue of an inquisitive 3-year-old? (“Mommy, what are those flags on that truck?” “Those are mud flaps. They keep the mud from flying up.” “Those ones are covered with skunk poop.”)

Real Little Men Eat Quiche (and help make it)

Do I want to use the blog to share with the world the transitions I’m going through as a choice mom doing it on my own? (I’d forgotten how really isolating those first few months with a newborn can be.)

Do I want to talk about the great lesson I learned this week about how my child’s peanut allergy, though scary and huge and real to me, is not really (and shouldn't be) a blip on the radar of other parents who have their hands full taking care of their own children? (Duh, Barb, though it seems YOUR life revolves around your children, the rest of the world has another center.)

Play-doh

Making Ornaments for next year's christmas tree

Life with children is messy and complicated and challenging, but every single day I navigate the mess and endure the treadmill of domestic chores (just a tip, if you put ricotta cheese in the microwave to heat it and plop it onto your child’s noodles to stop his i-must-have-cheese-induced meltdown before it escalates, cover the bowl) and try to block the incessant whining of an overtired 3-year-old who is still, I’m sure, adjusting to this “Baby Sister Thing.” And in the midst of all that messiness I frequently find moments of pure joy (“Mommy, I think there’s a spider on my leg. Can you do that spider on my leg thing?”) and incredible gratitude (“Mommy why are you mad at that guy?” “Because he is driving really, really slow down the middle of the road.” “It’s okay, Mommy. He can do that. He can.”). So this week I am so overwhelmed with how to tie together everything that is spinning in my brain that I am just sharing some pictures of the messes that Sammy and I made and cleaned up during this past weekend. After all, that’s what being the mother of a 3-year-old is all about… making and cleaning up messes.

Making some art for TT

Building shelving for the playroom

What Eva does while we're making messes

What happens when Sam doesn't nap at daycare

Ready for a New Year

Eva looks as if she already knows how the game will end

I’m not going to lie to you. Despite the entertainment value of having a 3-year-old hold his funnel-shaped flute up to his chest and say he is “pumping milk” or insist that the coffee he is making for you is from “fresh beans from Florida” or ask you whether “the gum store can deliver like the pizza store does” or tell you that “beans are yummy but they make you toot” (thanks, Grandma), the end of 2010 was not exactly easy around our house.

Some New Year's Eve Painting

I’ve been told that living with a 3-year-old is in itself challenging…the sudden independence and refusal to do anything they’re asked to coupled with the incessant whining about what they want or need. (“Mommy I need popcorn for breakfast. With cheese. I need it, Mommy. Mommy, I NEED it. Mommy can I have it? Mommy? Mommy, please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). And I know from experience that the first 3 months with a newborn is challenging (I had forgotten that they need 10 diapers a day). And going back to work after a few months of maternity leave isn’t necessarily an easy adjustment either (Oh how I miss those afternoon naps.). Mix all that together and toss in a few routine-altering holidays, and you have a month of challenging transition. We’re all adjusting here…. Sam to sharing his mommy with another little one, Eva to being outside the womb, and me to being pulled in two directions at once as well as living with another post-pregnancy body and the hormones and lack of sleep that go along with it.

Magneatos

Sam helps roll out of the carpet pad for the new basement playroom

We didn’t ring in the New Year. My children’s New Year’s gift to me was that we were all sleeping at 8:30pm on Friday night, and we were all still asleep when the bells rang at midnight. We woke to another Saturday morning of toddler chaos and newborn sleep-deprivation and Mommy backaches, but I fed the baby and played magneatos with Sam and washed 600 mg of ibuprofen down with 3 cups of coffee, and we started the year with hope that the Badgers would win the Rose Bowl and our new playroom would help to contain the chaos and we’d survive another weekend before the kids went back to daycare. We enter 2011 hopeful that things can only get better from here. With moments like what you see in the video below, how can they not? If you watch no other videos here this year, this one is worth 20 seconds of your time.

Baby Eva's First Christmas

Good Things Come in Small Packages

Definitely a White Christmas

Guitar Playing Hockey Man

Despite the fact that neither of the kids slept particularly well during our three nights in Green Bay, all three of us loved being with family.

The Girls

The Boys

Sam was so excited to bake with TT and to follow Sarah around and to wonder at what games Zachary was playing and to listen to Scott talk about jellyfish and boating in Florida and to dance and sing with Auntie Annie. It's been too long since we were all together for Christmas.

Brother and Sister

I wish I had the energy to write down all the details, but Eva IS still only 10 weeks old and my 3-year-old has recently started resisting sleep also. When the babies don't sleep, Mommy doesn't sleep. I'm lucky I can form coherent thoughts, so writing eloquently about our family holiday would be pushing it.

Our Family

But there are pictures. Lots of pictures here.

And these two cute videos...

I Like He

Guitar Hero

Lego Carousel

“Don’t go in there,” Sam said. “It’s messy.”

He was standing in the hallway in front of my bedroom in his alligator pajama top and his penguin pajama bottom. I had put him down for a nap in his own room half an hour before, and I had just awoken from 20 minutes of sleep on the couch, Eva snoozing on my chest.

I looked in my bedroom and it looked exactly as it had when I left it an hour ago.

“Not there,” he said. “There.”

He pointed to the sliding walk-in closet door, and I pushed it open.

What I found were dozens of important papers strewn about, the cardboard box that used to contain a small portable sewing machine torn to pieces, clothes throw all over the place (not all his fault), hundreds of little pieces of shredded Styrofoam, and the plastic parts and bobbins and other pieces that somehow fit together to work the sewing machine that I bought years ago and have never used.

I have to say this was perhaps the first time since I have become a parent that I was completely speechless. I had spent nearly an hour and a half patiently putting him back in to his bed when he fought his nap earlier in the day, telling him over and over again that if he didn’t lay down and nap we were not going to go to my friend’s house, my friend with the Legos.

“I guess we’ll have to stay home,” I had told him, knowing that I didn’t dare bring him to Dave and Stacy’s if he didn’t nap. That had finally worked and he had settled down to nap.

Or so I had thought.

As I stood there looking at the mess, I really didn’t know what to say. I took a deep breath.

“Sammy,” I said as I looked at him, my voice conveying my disappointment.

“It’s messy,” he said.

“That was naughty,” I said. And I calmly sent him to his room… where he stayed while I cleaned it all up cursing under my sleep-deprived breath.

Sam's Christmas Present

Considering that’s how the afternoon started, and considering Sam didn’t actually nap, it’s a wonder that our evening at The Lego Lair turned out to be so successful. I don’t know if Dave and Stacy enjoyed having us there, but Mommy enjoyed a break from the monotonous battle-with-a-three-year-old weekend, and Sammy found a new BFF. Legos. Trains. Nerf Guns. Guitar Hero. Fraggle Rock. Sponge Bob. What more could any 3-year-old ask for? My favorite moment was watching Sam sit behind Dave with his hands up over Dave’s shoulders as they watched Sponge Bob on the flat screen. I had a hard time getting Sam to leave. (I’m having a hard time getting Sam to do anything these days.)

Nerf Gun Heaven

In the end it was Dave that convinced Sam to get his coat and boots on so he could help take Ali (their dog) outside.

Sam's New BFF

“I like he,” Sam said after I had him buckled into his car seat and we were pulling out of the driveway. “Can we go there again?”

Oh Dave, if only you knew what you have done.

How Sam spent his Sunday morning, post visit

THREE!

Dec 17, 2010

Dec 17, 2009

Dec 17, 2008

Dec 17, 2007

The Big Storm

Things that came out of Sam's mouth during our weekend in Green Bay:

"Don't. Talk. At. Me. Like. That!"

"No!"

"You're being naughty, Mommy. I'm telling Santa. Don't be naughty at me."

"No!"

"I have told you a hundred times not to do that, Mommy! Listen. To. Me."

"No!"

"Why don't you just listen to me, Mommy? I am really tired of you not listening to me. I'm telling Santa that you're not listening to me."

"No!"

"Focus, Mommy. Focus."

"How many times do I have to tell you no?!"

"Get your butt over here, Mommy James!"

"Don't talk at me like that. I do not like it when you talk at me like that. You will go on the naughty mat if you talk at me like that again."

"I said NO!"

"You are not the boss of me!"

Making cupcakes

Sammy's first 3-year-old birthday celebration (a few days early)

Helping with TT's tree

I was prepared for the weekend trip to TT's house to be a little challenging, our first trip to her house with Baby Eva, the first weekend in which Sam would test the boundaries with the new family, the first weekend in which Sam would see just how much he could get away with. But I really wasn't prepared for how constantly he would challenge me and how exhausted I would get by it all. Thank God his Baby Sister was relatively content.


And, oh yah, it snowed. A lot!

TT and Sam watch Roger clear out the driveway

Sam tries to get in the front door

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