Not Me Monday

I did not burst into laughter when Ryan came down from Daddy's giving him a bath and proudly announced, "I pee in bathtub!"

I have not started taking steaming hot baths every single night since Duane turned up the temperature on our hot water heater. That would just be wasteful.

I did not discover that the sweater I was wearing one day was completely threadbare through the chest area (thank goodness I was wearing a cami under it). And I certainly didn't realize it shortly AFTER a conference with Wesley's teachers.

I was not super proud when the pet groomer said that my cat was "the gold star cat" of the day and kept telling me how well he behaved. That would be silly - it's a cat, not a kid.

Can We Talk?

This may be related to my earlier post about feeling the Winter, or maybe all those articles about people spending too much time on the computer are true, but I feel like I am losing the ability to carry on a real conversation with people. Put me in a situation where I need to make small talk - especially with other moms - and I am good to go. But a real, honest to goodness conversation? I'm lost! Maybe I'm inside too much. Maybe I don't have enough of a social life. Maybe my entire world revolves around work and the kids, but I can't seem to hold my end of a real conversation!

Do you want to know how bad it's gotten? Well, I haven't had an honest to goodness conversation with any of my three best girlfriends in months. We text, email and "talk" on Facebook, but speaking face to face or on the phone? Nope!

Even worse, Duane and I had a date night a couple of weeks ago and in preparation I clipped a magazine article that had questions for couples that didn't revolve around kids or work. Now I'll admit that I learned a few things about my hubby that I didn't know before and a couple of our answers were exactly the same, but how sad is it that I had to resort to a magazine article to carry on a conversation with my husband!?

Is it just me that has lost my ability to actually talk - especially talking about things that aren't work or my kids?  Does anyone else feel like this occasionally? 

Late Winter Blues

Twenty one days until Spring. Twenty one long days until Spring. I cannot tell you how much I am longer for warm weather and sunshine.

Wanna know what I'm going to do when Spring finally gets here?

• Hide the scraper in the back of my van. WAY in the back.
• Put the winter coats in a bin and toss them in a corner of the basement where I won't have to think of them until late Fall (or the house sells and I have to move them)
• Start painting my toenails so they are ready for sandal weather
• Eat lunch outside every day unless it's raining
• Open the windows and give the house a good airing out.
• Complain about the mud (well, even Spring has it's downside)

I think the only people looking forward to Spring more than me are the kids!

Cat Nap

Sometimes the need to nap just kinda sneaks up on you.

Little Perfectionist

If you had to guess which of my children is a perfectionist, I'm sure you'd guess Wesley. In a way you'd be right. Wesley doesn't like to try things he doesn't think he's going to be good it, which is a kind of perfectionism. 

Ryan on the other hand, is showing signs of being a true perfectionist. We have a workbook of letters and mazes and numbers that the kids can work on with a dry erase marker. Ryan has a real love/hate relationship going on with that book. He really wants to trace the letters on the alphabet pages. The only problem is - well, he's two. He doesn't have those fine motor skills developed for writing yet. But you can't explain that to a toddler. So what happens is that he'll start tracing the letters, go off the dotted line the slightest bit, get very upset and erase the whole thing.

I've tried helping him with it, but he wants no part of that. He'll do it himself thank you very much. So he tries, gets frustrated, erases it, tries again, gets frustrated, erases it and so on and so forth until Mommy feels so sorry for him that she takes the workbook away.

I hope he gets over that need for perfection - and soon!

Not a Morning Person

I am one of those annoying people who really enjoys getting up in the morning. Although I am more likely to sleep in a bit now that I have two kids, I am generally up by 7 or 7:30, even without the alarm clock. Of course I go to bed insanely early, but that's not what this post is about.

I am a proud morning person and I am apparently the only morning person in our house. Duane gets up earlier than I do, but he would sleep in much later if given half a chance. Wesley is a champion sleeper too and will regularly sleep until about 8:30 or 9:00 if we let him. He used to be an absolute bear to wake up in the morning (as I'm sure some of you remember from past posts) but he has gotten much better about it this year. Just in time for Ryan to take his place.

I'm pretty sure Ryan is a night owl. It's hard to get him to go to sleep at night and sometimes Duane leaves Ryan in his room looking at books or talking to himself. It's not entirely uncommon for me to fall asleep before Ryan does (like I said, I got to bed insanely early).  But getting Ryan up and out of bed is starting to be more and more of a chore.

Ryan starts to stir when he hears me take the gate down from his doorway. Usually there's a little groan and very often some crying when I turn the light on and open his closet doo to get his clothes out. This morning was the best though. I took down his gate and turned on the light. Ryan immediately grabbed his blanket, pulled it over his head and shouted, "Go away!"  I couldn't help but laugh at him. Guess he isn't much of a morning person.

When I Was Kid....

Wesley managed to make me feel really really old the other night. He has "silly rhymes" set that allows him to put pictures/words together like puzzle pieces to make sentences. Of course, being Wesley, he had to use the pictures to decorate the house. He put the picture of the pet next to the cat's dishes, the picture of the rug on the carpet, and so on and so forth.

But then he came to picture of this

AND HAD TO ASK ME WHAT IT WAS!!!!

"Well, Wesley. That's a cassette tape. It's what we used to listen to music back before CDs and iPods." 

I'm pretty sure he thought I was making it up.

Not Me Monday

I did not snag my "new" (thrift store find) sheer blouse on the velcro of Ryan's coat. And it certainly didn't happen more than once. And even if it did, there is no way I accidently cut a hole in it when I was trying to remove some of the threads that the snags pulled.

I did not tear up when Wesley presented me with a heart with a picture of he and I drawn in the middle of it after I picked him from an overnight at his grandparents.

There is no way I offered Ryan a piece of candy to try and keep him awake between dinner and bathtime on a day he skipped his nap.

Weekend Wrap Up

It's been another nice weekend in the W. household.

Yesterday I woke early and did a little breakfast baking before heading out for an afternoon with my sister-in-law. Susan and I don't get to spend a lot of time together just the two of us and we had a wonderful time. We went to the library to hear a program about CSA (community supported agriculture) and found a CSA we want to split a share of with my mom. After hearing about all those healthy, organic veggies, we stopped at a cupcake bakery for a little indulgence, then went to Target for a bit of shopping. The evening was just hanging out at home with friends, which was exactly what I needed.

We had to get up really early this morning because our hot water heater had sprung a leak and a friend of Duane's from work was going to be here before 8:00 to help replace it. They were done by 10:30, with no major problems. WHOO-HOO!!

Duane and I thought we'd do something special for the boys today and take them to a dinosaur exhibit that was at the fairgrounds, but my Facebook friends that went said it was terrible and the online comments at the local newspaper were scathing. The boys opted for COSI instead, which was at least cheaper.  It was REALLY crowded though. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen it so crowded. But, we spent $7 including parking and a bag of popcorn to share, so there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours.

I don't know what I'm going to do next weekend. It's going to feel weird to work after having two great weekends in a row.

Power Shopper in Training

Ryan is apparently a little power shopper in training. When I picked him up at his grandparent's house yesterday, he was carrying around a Fisher Price catalog. He immediately showed me a car ramp, a construction set (he called it a bowling set for some reason) and a golf practice tee. "Want that and that and that for birthday," he said.

Ryan didn't want to leave the catalog at Grandma's and I had a hard time covincing him that we had the same catalog at home. Once he got home, it was the same thing though. He look at the same pictures over and over and say he wanted those toys for his birthday. He even took the catalog to bed with him!

Poor little guy doesn't get how far away his birthday is - five whole months! Think he'll still want them then? He seemed pretty determined to have them.

More Big Questions

The other morning at breakfast, Wesley asked me if I was ever going to have another baby in my tummy. I told him no and he asked why not. “Because I already have two little boys that are perfect for me. I don’t want another baby.”

“Not ever?” he asked.

“Nope,” I replied with the utmost certainty.

“Well, what if you wanted to have one to give to someone else?” Wesley innocently asked.

WHAT!? I told him that I wasn't going to have a baby to give to someone else. He seemed happy enough with that answer and went on eating his breakfast. I did too, but secretly I was wondering “Where did he come up with THAT!?”

Kindergarten Stress

Hey, remember me? I'm the lady who keeps a blog here. I guess I've only missed a day of posting, but it feels like it's been much much longer.

I've been stressing a lot about Kindergarten lately. More specifically, I've been stressing about sending Wesley to Kindergarten. See, the school in our neighborhood is really bad. Not just bad, but REALLY bad. There is no way on earth or any other planet that I will be sending Wesley there. Yes, our house is still on the market, and yes, we are hoping to be moved into a decent school district before he actually starts Kindergarten, but there are no guarantees. We have to come up with some kind of plan.

February is when all the school applications are due, so it's the time for parents (or at least parents like me) to start freaking out about sending their kids to school. Plan A is to send Wesley to a better school in the school district we live in. Last night we attended an open house where all the elementary schools were represented and where we could turn in our lottery applications (total of three schools).What a mad house! Our plan was to go in and talk to representatives from the French immersion school, the Spanish immersion school, the informal school, and the school that is close to Grandma's and where some of his preschool friends will go.

The French school was first. We decided to talk to them because they had good test scores and I like the neighborhood the school is located in. However, after about 2 minutes, it became clear to us that we would not be putting a lottery application in for that school. Kindergarten is taught ENTIRELY in French. I don't know why I was so surprised - after all, it is called an immersion school, but I had to fight down total panic. We wouldn't even be able to help him with his school work. So that was a big no.

The Spanish school was next. Yes, it is also an immersion school, but I can read a bit of Spanish and Wesley is learning some basic Spanish at his preschool, so it wouldn't be such a shock. What bothered me the most about the school was a) where it's located and b) the Kindergarten teacher we talked to said that they have a number of native Spanish speaking students and she wasn't sure how well some of them spoke English because Kindergarten is taught 100% in Spanish. So that was another no.

Next up was the school that is close to Grandma and where some of Wesley's school friends will probably go. The problem?  It's not an alternative school, so they have to fill openings from the surrounding neighborhood first. Last year they took four kids through the lottery and the year before they took none. We decided put in an application for it anyhow. You never know, luck could be on our side.

From there, we talked to representatives from the informal school. It's a public school, but it's very Montessori-ish. A good friend of ours sent her daughter there and they loved the school. And a funny thing happened as we were talking to the teachers. We calmed down. Several times we looked at each other and said, "That sounds like Wesley." It just sounded like the kind of environment he'd do really well in. Needless to say, we put in an application there too.  

So we had one empty space and could apply for a third school (really a second, since there is almost no way he'll get into the one school). We walked over to the table of another neighborhood school near Grandma H. This school draws from a very very small community and ends up taking about half it's students through lottery. That bodes really well for us. The school has a small class size for a city public school because they concentrate on integrating students with physical disabilities into the classrooms with the children who do not.  It's a unique set up, but again, the people we spoke with made us feel like Wesley would probably do very well there. Third choice made.

Now it's a waiting game. We won't know the lottery results until April. There is no guarantee he'll get into any of the schools we applied for. So we are going to start Plan B this weekend. Plan B is sending him to a private Kindergarten. There are two we will probably submit applications for, although again, there is no guarantee he'll get in - even though a friend of the family is going to pull some strings for one of the schools and assures us there will be no problem.

We'd rather not have to pay tuition if we can avoid it, so we're really hoping for one of the public schools. Ugh! How am I going to make it until April and stay sane about all this!?

Happy Belated Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! Yes, I'm a day late, but the heart day fell on "Not Me Monday," so you'll just have to deal with it.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone who knows my hubby or reads my blog that I had a wonderful Valentine's Day.  Duane has deemed Valentine's Day "my day" and will do whatever it takes to make sure my holiday is positively perfect.

My Valentine's Day actually started a couple of weeks ago. I was trying to plan a girls night out with a couple of my friends. Duane was all ready to step in and play babysitter or designated driver that night, but then he discovered that the night we were planning on our girls night would seriously interfere with my Valentine's Day gift - so he had to let the cat out of the bag a bit early. He got me tickets to go see Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith  in concert! What is extra special about this gift is that Amy Grant was the first real recording artist I saw in concert.  I can't wait!!

I figured that since I already had my gift, we'd have a pretty low key Valentine's Day. But then Duane went and surprised me again - this time with a box of truffles from Vosges delivered to me at work last week! Talk about decadent!  So I really wasn't expecting anything on Valentine's Day other than the nice dinner we planned to cook at home. Imagine my surprise when I got out of the shower this morning to find a dozen roses and a gorgeous necklace waiting for me! Does this guy know how to do Valentine's Day right, or what?

Luckily for their future loves, Wesley and Ryan are learning from the best. While they were at Grandma and Grandpa P.'s they made a very sweet card for us.

They also made us Valentine's cupcakes - with some help from Grandma!

When we got home, Duane had Valentine's dinner all prepared: Cornish Game Hens, gnocchi with fontina cheese, balsamic veggies, sourdough bread and the mocha mousse I made yesterday. Even better than the delicious dinner was that he wouldn't let me touch the dishes and suggested I go take a hot bath and read instead.

I'm telling you, a girl could get used to this!

Not Me Monday

I did not feed my children chocolate cinnamon rolls with chocolate milk to drink one morning for breakfast. No way would I encourage such bad eating habits. Especially not first thing in the morning.

I did not get up extra early one morning because my cat was way too affectionate and my two-year-old was way too squirmy.

I did not have a little temper tantrum after learning that the gift card rebate I was planning on using to buy an iPhone got LOST through FedEx and we have to file a claim to see what happens next. And I wasn't extra ticked off because the iPhone was supposed to be a Christmas present that I already had to wait for my phone contract to expire to get.

I was not seriously disappointed when they sold out of adult T-shirts at a children's recording artist concert before I made it to the front of the line. That would have been silly.

Family Day

Despite the fact that the W. family spent almost a week cooped up in the house together due to sickness, I don't feel like we've had any real family lately. Today changed that!

After a morning of baking (me) and scrapping (Duane), we actually had a wonderful family afternoon. We went to the grocery store, tried a new restaurant for lunch and went to COSI for awhile. Nothing horribly exciting, but it was just what I needed today.

Ta-da! Here's Wesley!

Ryan is fascinated with his tongue and with spitting. Great.

What happens when you ask my boys to pose for a picture.

Wesley hard a work.

Ryan behind the wheel - literally!

For an extra treat, Uncle Kirk and Aunt Susan came over for a while this evening. We just ate pizza and watched a movie, but it was so nice to have a low key evening with them. Well, low key for the adults - not the kids.

I  hope tomorrow is equally as wonderful.

Playing Cupid

Wesley spent part of yesterday making Valentines with his Grandma H. When we left her house, he put them all in a little bag and said we could give them to whoever we wanted. "Whoever we want" ended up being complete strangers at a Barnes and Noble.

Wesley gave one Valentine to the woman at the Nook counter. She thought it was very cute.

Wesley have one Valentine each to three college-aged girls who were sitting at a table in the cafe at the bookstore. Nothing like interrupting a study session by saying, "Excuse me. I'm sorry to bother you, but my son would like to know if he could give you each a Valentine." They absolutely melted! They asked Wesley if he made them all by himself and what his name was and just cooed over him. As we walked away I heard one of them say, "That was the most adorable thing ever!"

He also gave one to the woman at the check out who was very impressed by the drawing of the dog.

On the way out of the store I told Wesley that giving his Valentines away was very nice and that he made five people very happy. "Yep! Valentines make everyone smile," he answered. I think he's right.

True Love

The other night we were in the car when Wesley said, "I know who we should love the best."

I wasn't sure I should ask who, but decided I wanted to know, so I asked "Who should we love the best?"

"God!" Wesley said.

We continued to drive with the radio tuned to a contemporary Christian station I listen to.

"Hey!" Wesley said. "This song is about Jesus. Maybe we should love him second best."

Perhaps he pays attention in Sunday School after all.

Brothers as Frenemies

The thing about siblings, is that they can be best buddies one second and at each other's throats the next. Trust me, I know this from my own experiences with my brother, as well as from watching my sons.

Take yesterday morning for instance. Wesley and Ryan were sitting on the couch together. Wesley was reading an alphabet book out loud to Ryan and they were the picture of brotherly love. Ryan looked up at me and said, "Wesley my friend!"

Wesley whipped his head up, wrinkled his nose in disgust and replied, "Not all the time!"  Bet Wesley changes his tune when Ryan outgrows him!

Toddler Hammock

Going....

Going.....

Gone!

Not Me Monday

I did not wish that the weather would keep a vendor from making it to the library for some training. That just would've been mean.

I have not started to dread the hour before bedtime because my children get so wound up I can barely stand them.

I have not started suffering from cabin fever so badly that I routinely look up vacations I'd like to take but can't afford.

I did not make pizza dough one night because I was feeling grouchy and wanted to take my frustration out on something.

Brother Bear

Any of you who read the blog regularly know all about Bear/Carr and the occasional lost and found we play with him. You also know that there is a Not So Stinky Bear that Wesley wanted nothing to do with, gave to Uncle Kirk, got back when Carr appeared to be lost for good, then relegated him to the top of the dresser.

If you spend any time with the W. family, you may know that Ryan likes to steal Carr for no reason other than to bug his big brother. You may also know that Ryan has a Bobo monkey  (actually 2 Bobo monkeys in case one gets lost). And finally, you might know that Wesley is slowly starting outgrow Carr. He will occasionally leave him at home when we go someplace.

Now you have everything you need to know for this story to continue.

A week or two ago, Not So Stinky found his way into Ryan's room. Not So Stinky sat on a shelf for awhile, kind of checking things out and getting the lay of the land. Somehow this past week Not So Stinky has become Ryan's bear. And Wesley is more than OK with it, because it's not Carr. "He can have that bear," Wesley will say if asked about it.

Ryan has been more than happy to adopt Not So Stinky. In fact, a couple of times I have seen him try to suck on the tag like Wesley does with Carr. Thankfully, this does not seem to hold the same appeal for Ryan as it does for Wesley.

And please don't worry about the Bobo brothers being replaced by Not So Stinky.  Ryan has enough love to go around. In fact, he woke up early this morning calling, "Where's my Bobo? Where's my bear?" They had gotten lost in the covers.

Paper Boy

Yesterday I was sitting at the table eating breakfast and getting ready to read the paper. Ryan was sitting next to me picking at his breakfast I started flipping through the sections of the paper, looking for the "Life" section so I could read the comics and the celebrity "news."

All of a sudden Ryan reached for the paper saying, "I want the cars! I want the cars!"

I looked at the front of each section, but didn't see any cars. "What cars?" I asked Ryan.

"The cars! The paper cars!" he cried.

After another minute of looking, I discovered that the back page of the Sports section had a full page ad for one of the local car dealerships. The ad must have had a couple of dozen cars on it.

I handed Ryan the section and he happily walked around the room while looking at it. "I like this!" he said. I hope he meant looking at the paper and wasn't picking out a car.

Making It Better

You know how when you are a kid a kiss on a boo-boo makes it all better? Turns out that kids have that same magical power too.


This has been a heck of a week for the W. family and last night kind was kind of the last straw. I tripped on some toys, stubbed my toe on the table leg and broke the chain on the door - all in about five minutes.

"I HATE THIS HOUSE!" I bellowed.

About half an hour later Wesley presented me with this picture.

The blue thing in the upper left corner is my cat Sanders.

A little further down on the left side is a flower.

Wesley drew himself in the upper right corner and Ryan is below him. I am in the circle at the bottom.

"Can you tell me what the green is, right next to me?" I asked.

"It's an stove because you like cooking so much!" he answered.

I told him how much I loved the picture.

"Do you know what my favorite word on it is?" Wesley asked me.  "It's 'Mom' "  Awwwww....Then he said, "I'm glad you like it. Maybe now you won't hate our house."

Isn't that the sweetest thing?

Winter Whine

I HATE winter. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.

I hate struggling to get heavy winter coats on the boys in the mornings.

I hate chipping ice off my car in the morning.

I hate having to pack shoes to wear when the boots come off.

I hate driving in the snow and ice.

I hate the fact that kids (and their parents) get cabin fever - especially when they've been sick and we've been confined to the house.

I hate that once one of us gets sick, we sure to pass it around because we're stuck inside together.

I hate that I can't sit outside to eat lunch or read.

Of course, I don't hate it enough to move someplace warm and be away from my family. 

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

"I have a problem," Wesley said at dinner the other night. "I like to make my brother cry, but I don't like the noise he makes when he's crying."

Gee....what's a brother to do?