Mean Mommy

3 year old: "Mommy, those are mean alligators, like you."

Me: "Wait, what (I was only half listening to the previous 10 minutes where he gave the life and adventures of said alligators & pirates)?  I'm not mean."

3 yo: "Yes you are mommy, but only a little bit, like the alligators."

He runs off as I contemplate if this is a score in the good mom or bad mom column?  I choose to pat myself on the back for a job well done. Looks like I'm winning some of these battles.

My meanest act of the day had been not letting him eat a "cold treat" for breakfast. It was a good negotiation tactic, but no matter how hard you try to make ice cream sound healthy, it's just not.....believe me, I've explored this Avenue before.

Dog or Hydrant

Some days you are the dog, and some days you are the mom getting peed on by her toddler.....wait, I mean hydrant.

Zach has been fully potty trained for months. He does not sleep in a diaper and always tells us when he has to go. He hates when his undies are wet at all. 

Walking out of the ymca, on the way out to the car after running errands, I must have asked Zach 15 times if he had to go potty....more like 3, but it felt like a lot.  Ohio was having am awesome -10 degree day and I wanted to get to the car and get home before we froze.

All the way out of the building...."no mom, no mama, I don't have to go".  Liar liar pants on fire. I get Oliver buckled in his seat, Zach takes his coat off and starts freaking out...of course he has to pee NOW. 

We have one choice, drop your drawers and pee out of the door in the parking lot of the ymca....into the freezing wind chill. I run around the car and it is already too late. He started peeing in his pants as I'm pulling them down, I'm yelling "wait, wait!"  Apparently he did try to wait because as I get in front of him to get his pants all the way down his stream double times and he pees on me.  It was like I was being fire hosed.

I, of course, go "turn, turn!"  duh, now he pees all over the car door.

Everything is soaked.  Luckily I keep spare pants in the car for him and had a blanket to wipe everything down....as I'm freezing my ass off, wet with pee, standing in the ymca parking lot.  It was a sight to be seen.

Zach was thrilled he got to wear pants with no underware home.  I was thrilled no one that parked around us decided to come out during the pee incident of 2015.

Facing Fears

Some people are scared of spiders and snakes, I'm terrified of Zumba. Yes, Zumba the dance workout. The entire idea is a billion miles out of my comfort zone.  I'm missing a key element for dancing....rhythm.  My rhythm is so bad I can't even spell rhythm. Spell check had to take 10 tries to figure out what I was trying to say. I also fear embarrassing myself in public.  So, Zumba is the perfect set up for a panic attack.

Fast forward to yesterday. We joined the ymca and I figured I would try out a fitness class. Standing in the back I ask what class I've joined, really should do that prior to joining next time, and hear I'm in EXhilarate.....Zumba with hip hop instead of Latin music.  I tell this poor stranger, "well that's terrifying, I think I better go".  I'm not sure why I don't make friends with that sort if awkward appeal oozing from my mouth. 

She is chipper and alll, "just stay it's fun...blah blah".  Apparently my need to people please outweighs my fear of dancing in public.....or I didn't want to look like a giant pansy running out of a Zumba class full of ladies, many of them my senior by a good margin.

So here I was, facing fears, starting 2015 accidentally kicking butt and taking names.

I can just thank my lucky stars no one tapes these classes.  There was more booty shaking in that hour than my entire life combined. And guess what......I had a blast. 

Once I realized no one in that room, except for the instructor, had any sort of rhythm or idea what they were doing, I decided to throw caution to the wind and get down with my bad self. It's like singing in church, no matter how bad you are you sing loud and proud because you're praising the lord......when you're in Zumba you go wild and booty shake like only ever done when you're drunk, because you're working out.

Before this episode I also thought of myself as a decently fit person.  I've been running and can bang out 3-4 miles no problem. I've never had to take so many water breaks in 1 hour in my life....and I ran a half marathon. The sweat was so bad it looked like I just got out if the shower. Some poor woman was being so kind and told me as I was walking out of the building, "I just love your hair, wash and go styles are the best".  I didn't have the heart to tell her it was a sweat and go style.

So 2015, first lesson learned. Get out of my comfort zone and it may be fun. The women were all so friendly and it was a ton of fun. There were definitely a lot of moments where I just jumped around trying to figure out what the hell I was doing, but I'm looking forward to next week and perfecting my booty shake.

PS Turns out I don't have any pictures of myself on my phone, so I leave you with this.....you're welcome.....

Sleep studies by a 3 year old

3 year old: "Mommy, I'm tired but if I sleep I can't see anything.  It's hard to sleep when I can't see."

Me: my usual blank stare, then pull some bs out of my butt....."we will go on adventures tomorrow & there will be lots to see, but you have to sleep and rest first"

Told you, complete bs.  I did start calling everything an adventure early, so Zach is no Lewis and Clark.  An adventure to Zach is going to the grocery store and getting to walk down the toy aisle.  It's either evil or genuis, I'm not sure which one. 

One man says buying stamps & mailing bills, another says adventure.  Clearly the one who says adventure is one of my children & needs to visit a therapist for this & a whole lot of other weird issues.

10 months old

Hi, remember me?  Remember when I was confident & all, '2 kids, I got this'.....hahahaha.....feel free to join in laughing. 

I'm back, finally, to give this blog neglected second child an update. I seriously have no idea how my mom has any pictures of my little brother, the 4th child, in a time without camera phones.

Ok, Oliver.

10 months old & still growing at an alarming pace. His weight is 22 lbs and height was 30" last month at his checkup.  He dropped to 87% for weight & jumped to 97% for height.

We just transitioned to 18 month clothes & he's been in size 4 diapers for sometime.

This last month has been big on moving milestones. He crawls, pulls himself up, cruises furniture, jumps in his crib, and now stands for a few seconds on his own. His first steps aren't far behind.

He is still the happiest baby ever. He's all smiles & laughs, unless he's hungry.

He eats everything....except baby food from a spoon. He'll still take pouches of food, but mostly eats finger foods.  He likes all food. He has 3 meals & 1 snack.  He still takes 2 bottles & formula in a sipppy cup at breakfast. He also drinks water.

He is a terrible sleeper.  You can't have it all.  He's an excellent day napper & a terrible night sleeper.  He's been getting up for an hour or 2 at night. He gets super excited & wants to play at 2am.  He sleeps through the night just enough to know he can, he just chooses not to. 

Chomper has 3 teeth.  2 bottom & 1 i tooth on the top.  It looks like the other i tooth is coming in, so he'll look like vampire baby in no time.

The only thing he loves more than eating is his brother.  He now wants whatever toy Zach is playing with. He wants to be touching Zach at all times....this, as you can imagine, is a problem for the 3 year old. 

Ollie is just a cute happy guy. His hair keeps coming in blonder & his eyes keep getting bluer. 

He waves (usually 2 minutes too late), claps his hands, loves to pretend cough, & says mama, Dada & what sounds like hi.  He signs more, but we're pretty sure he has no idea what it means still. 

We're blessed beyond belief with these little guys....even if they give me all the gray hairs.

First skate

It was a big day for Zach....well, as big as days can get for a 3 year old when it'd not Christmas or his birthday. 

Zach went ice skating for the first time last night and it was equal parts hilarious and weirdly emotional.  I mean my baby isn't a baby anymore. He was ice skating, without me, such a little man. It just seemed like such a big kid activity and I'm clearly feeling hormonal.

Don't fret, I was not feeling this lovey dovey towards my toddler as he was yelling and refusing to put his skates on.  I did what all defeated mom's do and I bribed the crap out of him.  If he put on his skates, then we could walk over and check out the race car game.....if he stood in the circle with everybody, then we can ride the toy car on the way out.....then swooped in an angel in ice skates. She was a peppy 20 year old who conveniently looked like queen Elsa from Frozen and has clearly taught classes of the uncooperative beasts known as toddlers.

To get him in the ice she let him color on it with special ice markers (who knew there was such a thing?) And then slowly had him up pushing a bucket around and walking on his skates.  There were a few tears, but when it was time to go I got, "no mommy I'm ice skating....I like skating ". 

Considering I didn't think I'd even get his skates on, it's a small miracle he took a few steps out on the ice by himself.  There were definitely a few moments I was really glad it was a free trial thing and I didn't waste money since it looked like we were going to leave screaming. 

Another fun fact, I don't know how to tie ice skates properly.

I doubt Zach will be the next (insert famous hockey player/inserts skater here) but we may have found something to wear him out during the winter.

Just call me Indiana Jones

Do you ever have moments when you're by yourself but stop for a second just to think, "it's a good thing no one can see me right now"?

I have many crazy, ridiculous moments like that...dance parties, singing all the Disney songs, the conversations/bargains that happen to get Zach to do anything....but by far one of the funniest things has to be watching someone try to set a baby down without waking the child up.

I firmly believe no one can do this gracefully, but everyone who has attempted has done so with the concentration as if they were handling a nuclear bomb....because, well, it's a fair comparison.

It is truly a feat that rivals Indian Jones moves in the Temple of Doom movie. You move carefully, not to make a misstep...then find something that can pass as your arm to put the baby against....slowly place the package (almost lose your balance)....keep one hand on the treasure to ensure success then back away slowly to do your victory dance....which wakes up the baby...DAMN!

I would like the putting down babies YouTube channel.  It would be like my very own America's Funniest Home videos, sad pathetic mom edition.