RazNoggle

I hear distant rumbles and although the sky is sunny at our house, there’s a pretty dark cloud just over the hill! I’m willing to say that we’ll probably be getting at least a tad more rain this evening. It’s been “storming” every evening here for a week! I like the rain, love the smell and sounds of a storm, but the higher humidity has me slightly miserable right now. Our cooler doesn’t work so swell when the air is already moist. But that’s okay, I’ll take the rain.

It’s FRIDAY, Friends!!!! Woo-hooo!!! I just love that “Friday night feeling!” Wish we could have it all week. Today we experienced a bit more grumpiness all around from the small people in the house. A little more bickering, teasing, and general rudeness as well. My children got “time out” for several of their behavior blunders, and the girls each got some firm words. I haven’t yet initiated the time out chair with them, but all in good time. I know they are adjusting to the fact that they’re going from a stay at home mom situation to a full-time babysitter. So I’m trying to give them a little space to fit into. Next week I’m hoping to start preschool with Qade and Danielle. Having some extra activities at regular intervals will help alleviate some of the drama that tends to occur when they are left to their own devices for too long.

Tonight I made a German pancake for dinner. It was yummy!! I was in the mood for pancakes all day so I was browsing recipes online to see if I could come up with something. We are out of bisquick so that wasn’t an option. I actually found several that I wanted to try. One was just an “old fashioned” homemade recipe, one was for Swedish pancakes, that to me seem to be kind of crepe like, and then this German one, which is basically a “puff” pancake. It was really good!!! There were 1/2 a doz eggs in the batter, but boy with a little maple syrup and some powdered sugar it was SOOOOOO good! Stuart told me that this meal made his top ten list, so that means we’ll be having it again sometime!! I’m a sucker for breakfast dinners anyway!

Well, I had a lot I was going to say about some of the struggles I’m facing with my oldest lad and his recent attitude issues, but this post doesn’t seem the place for that right now. I’ll “share” later. Right now I’ll leave you with a funny conversation I had with him instead. We were spending one on one time in the recliner before bed the other night when our conversation turned to our cat. I asked him what the cat’s name was, because typically we just call him ‘Kitty.” He told me he was “Wiam” he’s not so good with his “L’s” yet. Then he told me, “We can get another cat when Wiam pops.” !!!!! I cracked up so bad! I said what? and he repeated that when Wiam pops we would have another cat! My fat belly was jiggling so much from my laughing that Qade started laughing too! It was a sight I’m sure! Fun moments happen, even when daily life can seem like a struggle.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Tomorrow is the beginning of a new era in our household routine. It’s not going to be “normal” yet for a while since we’re kind of stuck in a transition holding pattern it seems. But it is a new beginning. That’s one positive thing about Mondays, you always have a chance at a new beginning…. any day really, but before I start waxing eloquent on that little thought I’ll move on….

The girls are coming over tomorrow. Their mom starts some extra first year teacher training and they will be here through Wed then not on Thurs and then “for real” on Friday! Wow!! I can’t believe summer is gone and school stuff is starting!!! It goes so fast, especially when they keep adding extra stuff to the school year, seriously!

We got back from Colorado and a quick visit to “Tiff’s house” as Qade would say, and we are minus one son!!! Yep, we actually left Qade behind to spend a couple extra days with his cousin and grandparents. Stu’s parents are heading back this way tomorrow with our Monkey in tow. Hope he does well in the truck for them. I imagine he’ll be just fine eating up all the extra grandparent attention he can. It was difficult for me to drive away and leave him there. Not because I don’t think he’ll be okay, I couldn’t imagine leaving him with people would be taking BETTER care of him, but just because he’s not supposed to be ‘big’ enough to spend weekends away from Mommy yet. Selfish, I know, but he’s just getting all grown up way too fast for my liking. *sniff sniff* Plus I’m exceedingly pregnant and subject to random emotions, so it was a bit of a twist on this lil mommy’s heart (heart is little, not the mommy) to leave her ‘baby’ behind. BUT I am still glad that he got to stay and I know he’s having way more fun than is good for him!! Myles misses his brother. He was extra fussy today and couldn’t seem to figure out what to play with when no one was trying to take it from him! Ha ha ha!!

So I’m not sure if I’m quite ready for tomorrow. It’s going to be atypical anyway because Qade isn’t home, and I have to leave in the afternoon for an OB apt. So poor Stu will be holding down the fort till I get back, but fortunately for him it’s during nap time!! Here’s hoping that the girls will settle down and actually take a good nap for him being in a different place and all. But hopefully by next Monday I’ll be able to start putting that great structure that I’ve been mentioning, into place and we’ll all ease into the new routine together. I picked up our preschool curriculum from my mom’s house last week, and just briefly glanced into it. It’s going to be so much fun, and I’m super-duper excited about what the kids will be learning!! I’m really going to try not to be too high pressure about it, especially with Qade since he is only 3. I do want to make it fun and something that they look forward to each day, so I’ll have to really be creative about how I package it for them.

Anyway, I have a half folded basket of laundry, a dishwasher that needs to be emptied, and a coffee pot to schedule for my morning cuppa since I now HAVE to get up! Yet, here I sit chatting away to you guys! Ha ha ha!! I’ve missed you though, so there you go! Hope that you all have a fantastic Monday. Wish me luck, I have to grocery shop tomorrow! Ugh!

Toodle-oo

Stu found this funny post on this blog he reads and shared it with me. I thought it was so funny and so terribly true that I had to share it with you all! My toddlers are making great strides in their sharing capabilities, but sometimes they still revert to this default. Ha ha!! Hope it makes you chuckle!

Toddler Property Law
If I like it, it’s mine.
If it’s in my hand, it’s mine.
If I can take it from you, it’s mine.
If I had it a little while ago, it’s mine.
If it’s mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
If I’m doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
If it looks like it’s mine, it’s mine.
If I saw it first, it’s mine.
If I can see it, it’s mine.
If I think it’s mine, it’s mine.
If I want it, it’s mine.
If I need it, it’s mine (yes, I know the difference between “want” and “need”!)
If I say it’s mine, it’s mine.
If you don’t stop me from playing with it, it’s mine.
If you tell me I can play with it, it’s mine.
If it will upset me too much when you take it away from me, it’s mine.
If I can play with it better than you can, it’s mine.
If I play with it long enough, it’s mine.
If you are playing with something and you put it down, it’s mine.
If it’s broken, it’s yours (no wait, all the pieces are mine).

That’s what I felt like yelling to my day as it apparently decided to take off without me this morning. Bah! Yes, my morning went something like this… oh wait, I should start with last night first: Memo to me, don’t watch scary CSI type real life crime shows before bed, thank you! Due to the fact that I was positive that the murdered woman’s husband was probably going to come in and push me down the stairs (never mind there were no stairs) my eyes were wide open when they should have been sleeping. I hadn’t realized just how much I rely on Stu to be my big hero, even when there’s not really any heroing that needs to be done, ha ha ha!! Anyway, that combined with Qade throwing his apendages all over the bed made for a less than restful night of slumber…. at least for me.

So this morning, early, I was still ready to be sleeping when I felt/heard the familiar stirring of children waking. Oh dear! It was accompanied by some very violent yawns though so I was HOPING that perhaps they’d just roll over and go back to sleep which is exactly what I was about to do. That is until the Grand-daddy of all leg cramps decided to attack!! OWIE OWIE OWIE!!!! I was doing my best not to scream, and not to eat the stuffing out of my pillow as well, because I didn’t want to ruin the chance (if there was one) of getting some more zzz’s. But this leg cramp was BAD, oh my! Finally I had to get out of bed and put some pressure on my leg for it to kind of ease up. It is STILL incredibly sore FYI, just thought you’d like to know. Once that sorta ended, I did crawl back under the sheet (it’s WAY too hot for covers!) and close my eyes again. The boys were still lying down and quite so I thought to myself, “Yay, they really did go back to sleep” and I relished the thought of more morning snooze time for me! Ahhhhhhhh!!!!

After awhile I thought I’d open one eye to peek at Qade and make sure he was really sleeping. Imagine my surprise when I noticed that he wasn’t even in the bed!! I popped up like a piece of toast and imediately noticed that Myles wasn’t in HIS bed either! Oh bother!! Here I was thinking in my head what wonderfully well behaved boys they were being for mommy this morning, and low and behold, the little scammers have figured out that if they want “loose” they just have to be REALLY quiet so Mommy doesn’t hear them!!! Well, of course I hopped out of bed, and hobbled down the hall (my leg is sore remember?). I found Myles quietly playing with machbox cars on the coffee table while Qade was helping himself to the bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup that he had routed out of the fridge. *sigh*

I won’t tell you exactly what happened next but for the next 1/2 hour we were all LOCKED in our room and I insisted that they stay just as quiet as they had been while I ‘rested’ HA!

After that memorable begining to the day that I couldn’t quite catch up with, I had a gloomy presentiment that it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day all around. It started to come true as BOTH of my lads had fits during breakfast and had to be removed from the table. I was begining to turn into the wicked witch of the west, but things actually did get better! First I went to the chiropractor and had a very very needed adjustment. Sounded like a 21 gun salute in my head when he cracked my neck! THEN my mom called and suggested we go shopping for the little girl! Yay!! There’s this great mom/baby consignment shop here and we found, probably more than she’ll need, adorable gently used baby clothes! That was fun, and the lads went with us and were very good shopping helpers right up till we were walking out the door. So I was able to deal with those fussies without my hair going all frizzy!

This afternoon while the lads were recharging napping, me and mom went and got pedicures! Ahhhhhhh!! Happy, happy feet! Plus the calf massage felt really good on my sore leg!

So even though the day started without me, and I was playing catch up for part of it, I think I finally DID catch it, and it’s turning out mucho better!! I really miss my man though. This has been the longest that we’ve been seperated since we were married, and it’s not fun! I know the boys miss him too though they aren’t able to communicate that really. They’ve both enjoyed talking to him on the phone, but their behaviore is certainly hurting for some Daddy influence! One more day!!!

Hope you all are having groovy days and they haven’t taken off and left you in the dust! You have to be careful with those things ya know. They can be tricky! Ta ta for now, Friends!

That’s my boys! Oh yes, bundles of perpetual motion! I’m sure if I turned them in for science we could be done with our energy issues in no time. Ha ha!! Nah, I’d never do that of course! Guess I just have to wind my own spring a little tighter these days. That’s not an easy thing to do as I’m quickly aproaching the 8 month mark in this pregnancy. My energy is depleated by the most simple taks like, getting the lads changed and dressed in the morning. Okay, actually that is NOT a simple task that’s monumental, but still…. I shouldn’t need to take a nap after that!
Right now we are enjoying some extended family time with the grandparents. It’s nice for me to be able to drop off the lads and take some time to enjoy a toffe nut frap from Starbucks and get some errands done without two little ones in tow! Living where we do this is a rare and very enjoyable treat!! I love being a SAHM to my monkeys, but a little mommy-me-time is very valuable for a mentally stable mom who can function in her family unit much better. And if that makes any sense to you that means you’re a mom too, and you know what I mean!

Speaking of monkeys, our littlest monkey had his first trip to the ER this week. I had just arrived in town and spent some time with the grandparents, much to the delight of the lads. We were trying to settle in at Oma’s house which only really consisted in setting up the pack-n-play for Myles. He had been wriggling around on the bed “waiting” for me to change him into his jammies. Guess he got a little impatient because he ran out of the room to go discover what his big brother was doing. Not 30 seconds later Oma and I heard the big thump and the wailing that usually goes along with those noises. I didn’t think too much of it as I headed that direction to “fix” the problem. I met Qade booking it down the hall as fast as he could away from the scene of the crime, so I’m pretty sure that he was culpable in some way with what happened. But I quickly had other things on my mind that turning CSI to find out how or what Qade did. When I got to the living room, Myles was on the floor with blood already running down his face! Head wounds do that, and it’s always freaky, but generally once you get to the boo-boo, it’s not that bad. That was the case with Myles. Qade finally told us, after Oma found him hiding in the closet, that Myles “fell of the chair and hit the table” which we assume was the coffee table, but not 100% sure. He had a little slash on his forehead less than an inch long, but it was pretty deep and gaping. *sigh* So much for getting to bed early. Myles is our tough kid, and was very brave the whole time. He was more upset about me holding ice on his head than anything.

Anyway, mom and dad came over, and dad took me and the boy to the ER while Mom got to put Qade to bed. I’m not a huge fan of ER’s, who is? but this one did a good job, and I have to say that we were there less than 3 hours, though at the time it seemed long! When the doc finally came in, he was pretty positive that Myles owie could be glued instead of stitched. That made me VERY happy!! I was dreading the trauma of him having to get stitches!! Can you imagine? Being that little, not knowing what was going on and being restrained so someone can sew your head?? Scary! So God took care of that detail for me, and I was SO thankful!!! Myles did great during the gluing. He cried some because I”m sure it stung, but as soon as they were done, he was running around and trying to monkey on everything again!! I suggested that he stop since it was his monkey tendencies that got us there in the first place!! As we left Myles was smiling and laughing and generally making friends with everyone in the ER. He was saying “See ya” to everyone as we left, and I was adding “I hope not!”

Poor lil dude’s face has really got the brunt of his accidents this summer! We made an agreement that the next boo-boo would NOT be on his face! Oma got him some mederma and I’m pretty confident that his head won’t have much of a scar. His face is looking so much better from his steps incident, only to have this happen. Oh well, I’m just very happy that it wasn’t worse and that I had family here to help me with the whole thing. Mommies need a little extra support when their babies are hurt!

So now we are concentrating on enjoying our time and not having any more accidents!! Hope you all are having a great weekend! For some reason the spell check isn’t working on this WINDOWS machine, and I’m too lazy to go back through and fix the typos. Sorry about that, you’ll just have to imagine the correct words for me! Toodles!

There’s a Michael Buble song called Home that we discovered while we lived in Greenville. It’s been one of my favorites ever since then. Of course at that time we were thinking of home as in the West. Now I can be a little more specific. IT’S GOOD TO BE HOME!! Camp was good, the staff were great, and we were glad to be there. Still there is nothing in the world like coming home and knowing you really are HOME!!! We will be going hither and thither still for the next few weeks, but somehow it still feels like we’re back! Yay!

Qade told me the day after we got back, “I’m glad to be home!” It was cute! But really, it did seem like the lads realized something was different this time. I’m sure kids pick up on things more that I give them credit for, but sometimes I probably project my own feelings onto them as well. Either way, they were happily running around the house getting reacquainted with their toys and room. We do have quite a bit more space here for feet that just must move! Plus our dirt here isn’t as “dirty” if that’s even possible! I have to get some good stain fighters for our next few loads of laundry to remove some of those ground in camp experiences.

I spent the day Saturday unpacking and getting resettled here. As much as possible. With the baby coming we’ve got quite a bit of organizing and redistributing to do with some of our rooms. But that will come. I have ideas of how I want to fix the little girl’s room, and am anxious to start, but it’s going to be busy still for awhile, and I need to pace myself. Pacing or not, I have been in a “nesting” mode somewhat since we got home. Yesterday and last night we had the camp staff stay with us before they started out on their Canadian trek this morning. It was good to see them, however briefly, before they start out. We miss going this year, but know for sure that it’s the best thing. My hip/back probably wouldn’t hold up well with that many hours in a vehicle. And again, it’s really good to be HOME!! We had a couple of sick staff members struggling through this weekend, though. I feel pretty bad for them! Road trips are not fun when you feel icky. But just to make sure that the ick didn’t stick around here I wiped down every wipeable surface with clorox wipes today. We have nicely cleaned and sanitized door knobs and light switches among others.

Hopefully that’ll help. The lads already seem to have a touch of a cold or bad allergies. Noses are runny and voices are scratchy, but it doesn’t stop them from playing full tilt that’s for sure! I’m super excited because today my Dad is brining us an outdoor play set!!! I’ve been looking on and off on craigslist for a used one that we can have, especially since I’ll have extra kids here this year. Well we found one, well used, but in good condition and in a doable price range. That’s the biggest key! So Dad is hauling it out for us, and this afternoon/evening, we can sand it down, and hopefully get some wood sealer on it. I’m excited for the lads to get to play on it. There are 3 different swings and a good sized slide plus plenty of climbing surfaces. Good to have when you’re kids are monkeys like mine! I’ll be interested to see how brave they are with the slide. I tried to get them to the park a few times this summer, but while they like to climb up, neither of them is terribly keen on sliding down. Myles is a little more likely to give it a go than Qade. But you can still see that momentary look of terror in his face as he slides down! Ha ha ha!! It totally cracks me up! Now that they’ll have one in their own backyard, I’m sure they’ll get confident with it!

So I’ll post pictures of our “new” fun play set sometime soon! I’m probably more excited about it than the lads could ever be! Ha ha ha!

Lunch time calls, and so do 2 rather fussy lads, so I’d better start fulfilling my real responsibilities instead of just chatting with y’all.
Toodles!