RazNoggle

Today started out normal enough. Actually NOT SO NORMAL because I got up early!! Still 30min later than I had planned, but at least it was earlier than usual. It made a world of difference in my morning, let me tell ya! I know that time management is a weakness in my life and I’m honestly striving to have more discipline in that area. Qade has done well on the potty (mostly) today. I won’t tell you about the little incident right after lunch and mar that good feeling though. Ha!
I guess the weird part of today just comes from remembering. I remembered that today is Joey’s birthday! What a way to celebrate your b-day, in heaven with Jesus!! But we still miss him here and would love to celebrate with him as well. I “happened” to run into his dad at the post office this morning. Funny thing, I had just been thinking of their family and praying for their heart’s comfort when I saw him. God works things out, ya know. At least I was able to tell him in person that we’re thinking and praying for their family in a special way today. God is always good even when it makes us ache inside.
Then this afternoon I learned that a guy Stu and I had worked with at camp had been killed in a motorcycle accident this morning. He’s not someone that we were close to, but he’s still someone we’d say was our friend. That summer that we got to know him, it was so awesome to see God’s working in his life!! That’s why being a summer camp staff member is so great. You have weeks to learn about God and grow in Him in that scripture saturated environment. Anyway, to see this guy at the beginning of summer and at the end, you’d never have known you were even looking at the same person. God did an obvious work in his life, and he left camp with joy on his face. I know that he too is happy now in the arms of Jesus. My heart still aches for his family though. Sometimes God lets us know that loved-ones will be leaving us, but sometimes it’s sudden. Either way it’s hard for us to let go knowing we’ll have to wait to see them again. I’m so thankful that we have that confidence though! We WILL see them again!
So my mood today has been kind of low and thoughtful. It’s good for me to have times where I remember. I’m happy to remember Joey and the wonderful guy that he was. I’m happy to remember Troy and the wonderful work that God did in him. I hug my kids a little bit more, cherish the moments a little more. Even the “trial” times like potty training, and dealing with a tantrum become much more precious when I remember that my moments are also numbered. Pray today for the Merrill and Jones families if you think of them. I know they would appreciate it.

Ya know even we stay-at-home-moms have Mondays. It doesn’t always come on a Monday, but today it did. Grrrrr!! Of course Monday is always the day that you plan to do so much to recover from the weekend, get ready for the week, turn over new leaves and change the world! Yes, I’ll admit that I had some lofty goals for this particular Monday. Such as, clean the house. Ha! Seems I’d at least be able to do that, right? This Monday rolled around a little early for me actually, kinda caught me off guard. See, I’m supposed to be getting up earlier so that our mornings don’t end up being so rushed, however that hasn’t happened yet, and this morning was no exception. Maybe because it caught me sleeping in was why it decided to be a temper tantrum of a day, I don’t know. What I do know is that I did NOT have the mental fortitude to confront this kind of a Monday. *SIGH* It looked something like this. Late breakfast, get kids cleaned up, Qade has accident in unders, clean up. Myles decides NOT to take a morning nap, but I leave him in his crib wrestling with Otis anyway. I try to get the toys up off the floor so I can vacuum amidst Qade’s squallings of “Put it back, Mommy!” Hmmmm… sometimes language is not a gift. The whining persists and even grows as the vacuum roars to life. However, he needn’t have worried, the beast “over heated” before one room was complete. Arg! Meanwhile I was running a ‘test’ load of dirty dishes through the washer because I’ve been having a sneaking suspicion that it’s not doing it’s job well. Sure enough when I open it up, not a dish on the top rack has been cleaned. *HUGE SIGH* I loathe, hate, despise and utterly abhor doing dishes by hand. GRRRRRRR!!! Okay, I’m spoiled, I’ll freely admit it, so can I have a working dishwasher back, please??? But I break out the dish drainer, amidst my own grumblings and start washing the dishes that were in the dishwasher. I also got some chili on in the crock-pot, but still had to brown the beef and add to it. Add to these slight set backs SEVERAL crisis with Qade including, but not limited to, 2 wet accidents, and 1.. uh…. not wet accident. At one point today I thought, “I should just wear these beautiful yellow rubber gloves all the time. It would actually save me time considering how I have to move from one disgusting clean up job to the next.” Ha ha ha!! I know, I know, I’m being overly dramatic, but I’ll be transparent and confess. I have been the biggest problem in my own messed up Monday. The way I chose to “react” to the irritations and frustrations that came along, complements of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, were what really sabotaged my happiness today. So there you have it. The confessions of a not-so-perfect house wife. Glad that I can learn from these rotten days and continue to enjoy life, even if I have to wash the dishes by hand! I got some very sweet Myles snuggles before nap time (which he is again not taking- what gives?) and there aren’t many people in the world who get that privilege. I also get to help teach and train my older child in what is appropriate and not to say to Mommy or any other grown up. And even though Mondays are “recovery” because Sunday’s the boys don’t get enough sleep and their schedules are all off, and potty training takes a backseat, I’m happy knowing that Qade is learning the Bible in Sunday School, and that Myles gets to meet other babies, and that Stu and I get to have fellowship with God’s people. All of that really makes the mucky Mondays worth it!

Today I am proud to report, Qade used only one pair of unders!!! Which isn’t to say that he conquered the pooey in the potty, he just waited till pull-up at nap time. STILL I’m very happy with his progress and that the wet accidents didn’t happen today!! I’m almost a little depressed that tomorrow is Sunday though, because it will mean that he has to wear a pull-up all day, and that probably will cause a ‘relaps’ in a way. But progress is progress and if he can keep this up, I’ll ditch the plastic pants altogether next week!! Woo-Hoo!!!! Better not count my chicks till they are hatched though.
Starting Monday, I’m going on a Facebook diet! Those of you who are on there may know how addicting it is. I enjoy it because I suffer from a lack of adult interaction WAY out here in the middle of no where, and its a great way to keep up with people that you may not otherwise. Still it also has the potential for being an enormous time waster. I have heard it referred to as a “soft addiction.” As in, not one that will cause you harm or is unhealthy, but still something that has a certain control over you. Kinda scary!! I’ve realized that I waste too much time sitting here trying to ‘connect’ with people while things around me that need attention are being neglected. SO I have to take myself in hand and exercise a little more discipline. Besides I have a bunch of stuff to get done before the holidays hit, and if it’s gonna happen I’ve got to get on it! No worries, I’ll still be checking up on you all on FB, but not multiple times a day.
There it is.
Today was a good relaxing Saturday, just the way Saturdays are supposed to be. Stuart was trimming up some of the trees out back with the chainsaw this morning while Qade watched out the window. I asked Qade what Daddy was doing and he said, “Makin’ noise.” Ha! I love my speaking lil son! I’ve also discovered very recently that Myles LOVES lasagna, green beans and corn. Yay! He’s getting to be so big! He ate a HUGE dinner tonight! Hope it doesn’t give him a tummy ache. He’s loving his milk too. Doesn’t seem to notice a bit that there’s no formula in it. I’m sure it’s actually an improvement based on how nasty formula smells!
Must be going. Stu and I are going through our massive photo library and deleting pictures that aren’t worth keeping. Hopefully we’ll get it done sometime soon. So far we’ve only made it through our first year in Greenville, and that was before kids, so we’ve got a LONG way to go. Have a swell Sunday!!

During dinner last night, which was yummy lasagna by the way, Qade picked up his “muffin” (aka bread) and asked for “Butterfly on it, peese” (????) Oh yes, he wanted butter on it. I just about died!! Too funny! I tell you what, kids might give us gray hair, but the add a lot of laugh lines too!
We’ve been working on Qade’s sleeping habits lately. We moved Myles out of their room for the time being. Qade gets up WAY too early, and has a hard time settling down for the night as well. Once we get those things worked out *sigh* then they can be roomies again. Poor Myles was just not getting good night time sleep because of his big bro. So one thing we did was to get this switch lock to go on Qade’s light switch. His method was to get a book, slide it up the wall and turn the light on. Now with the lock on it, you have to press a button on the side in order to make the switch go up or down, and then it it locked in that position. Yesterday morning was Qade’s first experience with the switch. For some reason I was only half asleep at 5-whatever when I heard the sound of a book sliding up the wall, several times, followed by wailing and screaming “LIGHT!!!!!!” Ha ha ha!! It kind of cracked me up actually, but I did feel sorry for him too. Poor lad. Stu got up and comforted him over not being able to turn on his light any more and put him back in bed. We believe he went back to sleep too. Yay! Believe me, Qade would benefit from getting more sleep at night as well! So now to work on the going to bed thing. He howls and screams about it like it was the end of the world. It’s the one time that he’ll actually ask to go potty, though I well know it’s a stall tactic, so to no avail. Tonight I’m going to institute a new bedtime routine. We will brush teeth, both boys, Myles will go to bed in spare room, then Qade will have story time for a few minutes, the we will walk CALMLY to his bed, tuck in and go to sleep! At least that’s the plan. I’m going to tell him before it all starts that we’re going to go to bed in a little bit, and hopefully that will help him be mentally prepared. One day at a time…. Now that it’s getting chilly it would be nice to have them back in the same room so that we don’t have to heat an extra room. The spare, where Myles is sleeping now, is the coldest room in the house too, and I don’t like that! Plus he’s using OUR space heater, so now we’re cold!
Myles has become a champion head butter recently. You have to watch out or you’ll get your face, or knee or whatever smashed by his very tough little head! It’s pretty cute though how he does it! He’s always been a nuzzler. He loves to put his face on mine and nuzzle it in. He also burrows in pillows, and piles of stuffed animals too. Cute little monkey! He’s little mr. big-stuff these days and you can tell that he’s totally getting ready to walk. What will that be like??? Two running boys in my house?! Oh my! Qade’s world changed quite a bit when Myles started crawling, but he’s going to have to adjust all over again, when Myles can actually keep up with him!
Well, I’m off for today. I’ve been chasing Qade around all morning trying to get him to do “pooey” in the potty. He seems nearly as determined to NOT do it, so we’ll see how it ends up. I’m adding a video that I found from someone on Facebook. It’s really amazing. It says that these little girls are 6,7 and 8, but they sound amazing!!! Have a great Friday and a fabulous weekend!

My son has me pegged. We have a magnet that Stu got me when we were living in Greenville. It has a caricature of a 1950′s is lady on it with a big cup of steaming coffee, and the caption says “Coffee! You can sleep when you’re dead!” Well the other day the boys were playing with the magnets and Qade pointed to that one and said “Mommy.” Then this morning as I was brewing up my own little pot of Santa’s White Christmas coffee, he looked on the bag which was covered with “picaso” kind of people drawings. One was a lady and he pointed to it and said “Mommy” again. Guess my little lad knows that Mommy and coffee go hand in hand. Ha!
Myles is just way too big these days! I put him in 12mo clothes for the first time on Sunday and almost cried when it actually fit him! Well, I did have to cuff the pants, but the shirt fit. Awww.. He does look much older in his fall clothes with long sleeves and pants. I even got him to wear socks yesterday! Myles is my picky eater, amazingly! The way he started out on baby food gobbling down everything in sight I thought for sure he’d be an easy eater. This is the tricky stage of eating though, in my thinking. Going from baby food to actual table food seems to be a tricky transition. Myles has this hilarious crunched up face that he makes whenever he doesn’t want to try something. Ha! I think it’s more of a matter of getting him used to the textures than anything at this point. He LOVES crackers like soda crackers or Ritz, but try to give him Cherios or Teddy Grahams and the end up thrown all over the floor. Weird! I thought all babies loved Cherios. Anyway, this morning at breakfast I gave him a piece of regular graham cracker and he started to do the same deal with it, till I broke off a little piece and fed it it to him. He does like to eat bananas, and he’ll even hold it himself and chomp away. So maybe it’s not picky so much as just trying to get used to textures. I tried to feed him some soggy corn muffin the night we had beans, and he wasn’t thrilled about that at all, but then about a week later I again mashed up some corn muffin with a little milk and he did eventually eat most of that. Today will mark his last day on formula. I’ve been slowly adding milk to it over the past week or so and he’ll be out of formula after today. I don’t think that he really cares or notices at this point. But I’ve already really noticed a difference in how fast the milk is gone!! Qade still isn’t wild about milk. He’d much rather have juice. He does get some “regular” milk at breakfast and then he’ll usually drink a cup of chocolate milk with dinner.
Yesterday the boys ‘helped’ me sort and organize their clothes. I’ve been putting it off just because I knew it was going to be a big job. Their Grandma Noggle keeps them supplied with great clothes at amazing bargains. I mean, before I met her, I didn’t even know you could get Old Navy clothes for like 48 cents!! She’s amazing! But I had a bunch of clothes that needed organizing that she had given me. Then of course, I needed to put away all the 9mo clothes for Myles, and all of Qade’s summer clothes. Thank goodness for rubbermade bins!!! At least I have them marked and can go through them easily, well as easily as two little pint-sized helpers will let me! They think it’s great fun to empty the bins and get in them, arg! Ha!! But eventually we were all done, and everything was stowed away. Qade is all set with clothes till he’s 4. We even have a bin with a few 4T’s in it too. Qade loves new clothes too, it’s funny to watch him get excited about clothes! Myles, as you know, would rather not bother with clothes, but I think he’s getting used to having sleeves on though. Poor little nudist boy. Ha ha ha!!
This morning Qade helped me rearrange some of the furniture. His contribution was to “ride” on whatever was being moved. I’m sure I couldn’t have done it without him though. We’re still doing the two-step with potty training. He made me mad today because I caught him in the “act” of a pooey, and rushed him to the potty. He did a tiny one in the pot and then as soon as I got his unders back on he dumped in them. Oh man! Grrrrr!! I informed him that he would get a time out if he did that again. Seriously, he knows exactly what he is doing if he can “hold it” till he gets his comfy unders on. Oh well, one more experience to make me a wiser person, right?
Anyway, hope you are having a fabulous Thursday!! I’m so glad we get one every week! Yesterday was relaxing for me because Stu had a half day of work. I got to go for a run, and then be lazy. It almost felt like a Saturday!! I made these egg muffin thingys for dinner and we watched part of Ratatouille while we had dinner. Fun! I want to learn to make that dish by the way. See ya!

When my bros and I were growing up one of our favorite things to do to amuse ourselves in boring situations, like when mom and dad would drag us out every fall to drive around looking at “dead trees” (ha ha), we’d quote from our favorite movies. As we got older we changed it into a game. One person would say a random movie quote and the others would have to try to guess where it came from. Let me just say that our family was “blessed” with an abundance of memory when it comes to movies. We probably should have applied it differently, but guess you have to fill your brain with something. I never realized that this trait was genetic until last night. I was taking Qade potty after our family walk and he was just cracking me up! We were playing with bubbles and just having a grand time. Well, when he was finished, he gets so excited about moving his stool and washing his hands. He knows that M&M’s are forthcoming. But this time, while he was moving the stool I distinctly heard him say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Who’s touching me?!” Just as clear as that! I began to laugh hysterically when it dawned on me that it was a line from his favorite movie in the whole wide world “Cars.” Who’d have thought? Obviously Qade has inherited my talent. He doesn’t get it from his dad, let me tell ya! Stu’s side of the family has a hard time remembering what a movie is about let alone the lines in it. Anyway, it made for a very funny moment for me, and convinced me that I should begin teaching Qade to memorize something else as well, like scripture.
I forgot to tell you about Qade’s little drama on Sunday. Ha!! The church we’ve been attending doesn’t have a baby nursery, so one of us usually sits in the loby with Myles and listens to the sermon over the speakers. This was Stu’s Sunday. I was sitting peacefully in the service when I heard Qade’s familiar, hysterical, screams filling the lobby. This was unusual because he has been doing so well going to Sunday school. So I ventured out to see if Stuart needed help. He had taken him outside because of the noise. What happened was that Qade told the S.S. lady that he needed to go potty, so she let Stu know and he took him while she watched Myles. Once in the bathroom however, the drama commenced. Qade isn’t used to balancing on a potty without his seat, so while they were working this out, he uh… went and it ended up all over his pants and the floor and well, everything. So poor Stuart had to deal with all of that. Qade’s pants were out of the question for reuse at that moment, but when it came time to go back into S.S. he freaked out about going in without his pants! Poor lad! I should be a more prepared Mommy and have a change of clothes ready, but alas, I didn’t. So Qade got to spend the rest of the service, which wasn’t long, in the lobby with Daddy and Myles. But he never did wear pants again for the rest of the day, and it didn’t seem to bother him to go into Home Depot without them. Guess it was just peer pressure.
Anyway, those are the funny Qade stories from recently. Myles is getting to be quite the little ham as well. When ever I bring out the camera, he get’s this silly little “cheese” smile on his face. Cracks me up every time! He is learning to sand up unaided, and can do it for several seconds, till he realizes it. He is also getting very good at entertaining himself when he plays. Qade and Myles play together often, but need some solo time as well, so this is great! I love listening and watching them play together in their room. They find the best fun in rolling around on Qade’s big-boy bed!
You wouldn’t think it to look at this post, but I really do have things to get done today. So I’ll leave you for now. Ta ta friends!

I ran across this blog post and it totally cracked me up. Sounds like a great idea for Mondays. But it’s called “Not Me Monday” and you should read it, it’s not long, but it’ll make you laugh! My not me for this Monday is while standing in a ridiculously slow moving line at Wal-Mart I did not break out the toddler snacks and give one to my screaming child before paying for them. NOT ME!
Okay, I confess, I did. Yesterday was not as relaxing of a Sunday as the previous one for me. Probably do to the fact that I had to get Myles pictures made AT Wal-Mart, which I despise doing!!!! But he had to have his 11 month pics, what’s a mommy to do? So we got that out of the way fairly painlessly. I worked really hard at NOT having great expectations for it, so I wouldn’t be disappointed…. almost worked.
Then to add insult to injury I actually had to shop, ugh! I didn’t even have that much stuff to get. I got through the store itself pretty much without incident, but then when it came to the check out line! ARG!!!! Why do they have 50 check out stands when at any one time only 3 seem to be open???? Well, I picked one that seemed the lesser of the evils, but I was wrong. The cashier was the slowest in the country, I’m quite positive. Of course, standing in line with a baby who has decided he is DONE with this shopping experience, makes everything seem slower. Honestly though, she was the slowest of the slow. So I did break out the biter biscuits before I’d payed for them, but that’s not that big of a deal. I’m sure everyone around appreciated the peace it bought them for at leas a couple minutes.
Today I have to “recover” from the weekend. Basically that means the house is a wreck and I get to be the magic fairy that puts it all back together. Ha! So I’d better get to it or the magic won’t be accomplished today. Hope you are all having a spiffy Monday. I have another question for Monday though…. why is it that my potty training toddler waits for the 3 minutes that I’m putting the baby down for a nap to have a “pooey” in his big boy unders?????? Hmmmmm?

Qade’s plastic pants came in the mail yesterday!!! Hurray! Today he’s been wearing them over his “unders” and I have to work on not cracking up every time he moves!! We were playing outside, and at one point I thought, it sounds like it’s raining, but the sun was shining, weird. Then I realized I was hearing Qade’s pants as he ran across the yard. Ha! They work great too! Contain the mess quite nicely. In fact he’ll be swimming along in nice little puddle, but at least it’s not on the floor!!! So far it hasn’t made him ask to use the potty FIRST yet, but I know the time will come. We’ve been through 3 unders and 3 washed out plastic pants today, but we’ll keep on trying. Practice makes perfect!
Today I’m feeling very lazy. I don’t want to do anything but sleep. THAT however isn’t on the schedule. Bummer!! I did get some laundry done, and dishes and all that fun cleaning jazz. I worked outside some fixing up the dog’s dog house. He had some kind of rodent family living under there this summer, and tried to dig them out several times. I got a shovel and leveled the dirt some and moved his house a bit. I’m also airing out his old blankets that sat in a heap all summer. He dragged those out thinking that he could somehow pound through the floor to get the thing under his house. Pretty funny. I figure since it’s getting chilly he might need to sleep IN his house at some point. Right now though, he’s locked OUT of the pen because I don’t want him digging under there and messing up all my nice renovations!
I’m thinking about frying chicken for supper tonight, but like I said, I’m feeling pretty lazy, so we’ll see if I can find the motivation to do it. Sounds good though doesn’t it?
So do you have any fun plans for the weekend?? Potty training is still on my list, so that narrows it down quite a bit. I’ll be so happy when this boy decides that he wants to be trained. I’m sure the new pants will help because no one likes to feel icky, wet and cold. Once he figures that pull-ups are history except for nap and bed-time, I think he’ll be quick to get it together. He did ask for a pull-up today, but the funny thing is when I told him to get one for nap-time, he came back with underwear instead. Oh, and something else he’s figured out is that when we put him down for nap or bed, he says he needs to go potty. Do you think he really does??? No, of course not, because I take him right before anyway. He’s just trying to postpone the bedtime deal. Smart kid!
Well, Myles is chirping at me that it’s time for him to get up from his nap, so away I go. Have a fabulous fun weekend friends!