new year's

there is no way i'll get another post up here tomorrow or the next day, so to finish out the year i present a loose roadmap for the next year. a lofty proposition and i can assure you it will be a work in progress for the next 10 years: the happiness project.

my 3 big goals:
* spend less (um, or make more)
* cook a wee bit more often (and the meals cannot be 12 different variations of tacos-as an aside, you would really be amazed at what i can do with mexican)
* lastly, avoid the computer during non-allotted hours (hours still TBD, but they surely won't be all 16 waking hours)

the end.

christmas

john made a gingerbread house with the boys. good daddy. (i enjoy the windows with no panels myself).














jack watched forlornly out the window as daddy mowed the lawn and aidan got to be outside to help. he really stayed in the window the whole time.














all the kids spent christmas eve playing in a box. the age old 'why did i even buy anything for them for christmas?' crossed our minds during the second hour in the box.














more fun in a box. (patrick's chin had a fight with the floor a few days before christmas. i think he was bandaged with extra precaution on christmas. i'm not sure if that's because he was going to be spending time with my kids, but i'm thinking ... yes.)














ahhh ... and for my favorite moment of the afternoon. aidan kicked/shoved/somethinged the box while casey was in it and patrick jumped in to save her honor. a hot chase ensued and i caught a photo of the last leg. i particularly enjoy the smile on patrick and the look of sheer terror & horror on aidan. when aidan stopped running patrick did a little half tackle/half hug. very gentle retaliation in defense of his big sister. i think the real retaliation was in scaring the crap out of aidan for once instead of it being the other way around. good on ya patrick, it worked.

the shortest distance between halloween & christmas ...

... is reading this blog.

we camped at the ocean. it was really fun. it was also cold.

aidan took a good picture.

we picked out the christmas tree that smelled the best. it looked pretty good too.

halloween

it was an equal opportunity costume halloween this year. aidan was a horse until it was time to go trick or treating, he then opted for lion (presumably so he could roar). for his school party he was a clown. jack was a zebra. however being a part of 'team monkey see, monkey do', he too was a clown at some point.

you can't really read what i typed in the picture above, but aidan spent endless hours sitting on the pumpkins (trying to hatch a jack o lantern?) and jack just kept trying to eat them. what did i do for entertainment before kids?

some recent pictures

i love this picture so much. it's aidan with his best buddy emma. it just reminds me of being a child and being happy. not to spoil it, but john did make a point worth mentioning ... it's too bad they weren't feeding apples to the horses instead of carrots.






















jack's pictures either look super serious like this or (see below)





















and this kid just won't bloody pose for me. i wish i had the time to count how many pictures i have of a) his back b) his tongue and c) his eyes closed. it's a lot.

















... and following on from two pictures ago. you get my point.





















aidan & emma actually feeing the carrots to the horses. (they are wearing their casual post-hot tub attire consisting of a lovely purple swimming suit and no shoes on the lady and character underwear with sockless -black- character shoes on the gentleman).

"if you give a fish a squirt of soap ..." and other things i've learned this week

LESSON ONE

we experienced our first household loss due to aidan's obsession with soapy bubbles. i do have a photo of the bubbles percolating out of the top of the tank, but i'm going to spare you.

our disposal options:
1. flush it? no, too much like nemo. nemo went on his merry way down the drain very much alive. should probably make sure child knows fish has died.

2. bury it? no, will definitely try to dig it back up at a later date. no. no. no.

3. solution: put it in bag and take directly out to the big trash bin. not gross at all.

LESSON TWO

if you grab a hold of a cactus, it grabs back. it grabs your palm, the front of your fingers, around the sides and it may even try to get the back of your fingers too. tedious to remove. (i heard -too late- that you put duct tape on them and rip away ... someone also suggested letting elmer's glue dry on the hand, then ripping it away). good times.

LESSON THREE

when you go grocery shopping with two children and you let them ride in the car attachment thingy on the front of the cart, it is always best to keep an extra close eye on them to avoid conversations like the following:

"ahem, excuse me, ma'am? one of your children is trying to choke the other one."
"ah. thank you very much. --in an effort to fill the dead air-- does that mean that i may be leaving the store with one less child?"
awkward.

in the not too distant future i will be a paxilite. i will use this forum to tout its wondrous and magical abilities. i will see rainbows and butterflies. i will sing songs. i will skip.

the eternal attempt to photograph both kids together

interesting follow up

at some point during the day i'd like to forget (btw-after i posted aidan decided to try peeing on the carpet in the corner of his room. never done that before. it was awesome) i threatened aidan's pacifier if his mood (actions) didn't improve.

this is one of my favorite mom mistakes. threaten with something you really, really don't want to follow through with. how about - no cartoons tonight ... or no books tonight ... or no play time in the bath tonight. there are plenty of things to put out there that i would be happy to follow through with. the binkie, though, is a treasured calming object in this house--for all of us.

i work every day to follow through with my 'promises', both good and bad, so aidan knows i'm serious. so, bedtime comes on the bad day and i'm trying desperately to think how i can get out of taking the binkie away so that i don't have to deal with the tears and probable no sleep until midnight, then waking up at 3am wondering where it is and screaming again ... and on an on and on. my compromise--if you can go to bed and stay in your room to show me that you're a good listener and a big boy, then i'll bring the pacifier in to you in 1/2 hour. wait, wait wait ... "okay, mommy" and hops into bed.

1/2 later i go in (very proud of him for being quiet and staying in bed) to bring him the binkifier and he's passed out on the floor in front of his door--no passie, no blanket. he's NEVER fallen asleep without the pluggifier.

hmmm ... okay, now we might be on to something. next day was school and he happily agreed to only bring his blanket for naptime and to leave his dummy (that's what they call it in australia, i think it's funny) at home. i figured there was no way he'd nap and that he'd probably throw a tantrum. nope, he slept & didn't pitch a fit. okay, now we're really on to something.

SO, to come out of the really yucky awful day, my 3 1/4 year old has now spent three nights and two naps with only his treasured blanket (which i will let him keep until he goes to college).

i realize this was a very long story for really nothing that anyone cares about. i need you to understand what an enormous deal this was though. we fight over that damn pacifier every morning, noon and night. he's constantly trying to sneak back into his room just to suck on it. really, i was harboring resentment toward the plastic and silicone object of aidan's affections.

happy days. (now i need to make sure i hide jack's binkie every day before aidan can get to it!) *sigh*

today. seriously, i'm not rolling three days into one. just today.

i'm working on about 4 hours of sleep (dumb, dumb, dumb).

we start out with play doh. they both ate it. we subsequently put it away.

i watch aidan drop a toy on jack's legs just to see jack's reaction. he cried, because that's what he does. timeout.

i am upstairs. i hear a noise. i ignore it. i hear aidan, "yeah jack! let's get it all out!". i look down the stairs and see they've dug about a bucket full of dirt out of my plant and it's sitting in my entryway.

my dad hung up on me because he didn't want to listen to me telling aidan 6 times (with zero acknowledgement from the child) to get off of the pool cover roll-up mechanism thingy. he thought i would find humor in the hang up. i didn't.

aidan wouldn't nap. aidan wouldn't even stay in his room. aidan took everything out of his bed and put it on his floor. he also tore apart a book. ironically the first piece i pick up from the book is about picking up and being nice to your little brother.

they keep hiding auntie joanie's clean clothes.

i go outside to check on both boys after about 2 1/2 minutes of leaving them alone. aidan is eating a flower and jack is eating chalk. both are completely unfazed by the taste or texture of either of these items.

at this time aidan also has a chair under the pomegranate tree. he was attempting with the child's chair to reach the fruit 8 feet above his head.

we go back inside after jack steps in something unknown, but very yucky.

back inside. aidan hands me something wet and says "what's this?". "oh, aidan, that is somebody's CHEWING GUM!" it was bubble gum flavored, i smelled it. no one here has that. it must have come from the kids next door. since it was wet, pretty safe to say aidan was chewing on it. he informed me a bird had it in its mouth and accidentally dropped it. i made him sanitize his hands and drink a glass of water.

some hitting, kicking and spitting has occurred along with a total of 4 time outs.

the highlights:

nothing they ate appears to have any immediate effects of being poisonous.

there has been no biting.

all pee has made it into the toilet today.

i made a to do list (nothing got done, but the list exists, so that's a start)

i was somehow able to cut aidan's fingernails at some point.

it's 4:00, dinner is on the table. they will be in bed by 5:45 and asleep by 6:15.

this boy is fantastically wonderful

the big guy has decided that he would now like to pee standing up. his aim is about 80% accurate. i therefore have a new job similar to that of the guy who walks behind horses at a parade doing clean up. the other day i told aidan to go ahead and wash his hands while i cleaned up the wet toilet (and floor). as he climbed up on the stool to turn on the water he looked over at me (with my trusty toilet paper and disinfecting wipes in hand) and said, "mama, you really need to get a bigger toilet" ... ahhh, so true aidan, so true.

julie

senior pictures on the cheap. i realized when taking these that it might very well be the first time i had a willing participant in the photo taking relationship ... julie didn't try to eat the camera, blow raspberries at it, close her eyes on purpose, turn her back, or scream "no pictures!" and run away. good job jules.

overheard at the fair

(i was resting against a building visiting with a friend while watching two men in handcuffs being questioned by various security and police 30 yards away ... also watching a couple a few feet away watching the same scene as us while smoking a joint ... but the story isn't about either of them ...)

a hippie-with-money-and-i-surf type guy (longish, curly, blond hair; sunglasses; flip flops) was sort of walking in circles outside the door of the building obviously trying to get a hold of someone because the cell phone was up & down to his ear every few seconds.

a group of 3 girls walks out of the building. the one pushing a baby stroller has a tattoo on her neck with someone's name in cursive, a tattoo on her arm "in memory of..." and various other cursive writings on her body. she also appeared to have no eyebrows, but rather ones that were drawn on. i was so sucked into her various shades of scary that i couldn't even tell you what the other two girls looked like.

the conversation:

surfy guy: "hey, did you see a wiener dog and a blond walk into that building?"
tattoo lady: "no, have you seen my earring?" (she lifts up her hair to reveal the no earring)
surfy guy: "no"

and they go on their separate ways. meanwhile guys are out of handcuffs writing statements to the police and the pot smokers lost interest and moved on.

true story.

and ... we have a walker!

i think we can officially say jack is walking. i measure this in a child by whether they get up to walk again after they fall or if they sigh heavily and resort back to crawling (until put back onto their feet by an adult (or all-too-happy-to-help brother)). by this measurement, he's a walker. flipping finally! what's up with my kids wanting to live forever in a stroller and pack n play?!

he also insists on a banana for breakfast everyday. this means he screams 'nana' while contorting his face into some sort of whiny twist. of course we give him the banana, so we repeat this scenario again the next morning. i, in fact, do not even believe he particularly like bananas over anything else we might give him. i just think that because he can say the word he feels he must then have the item. every morning i remind myself to move the bananas to the pantry so that he doesn't see them on the counter for every meal. (the whining (screaming) is not limited to breakfast, it's just at it's worst then). alas, the bananas are still on the counter as i type.

he has a lot of other words down -- dada, mama, hippo (his blanket, which he actually calls ho-po), outside (his version, of course), night night, bye bye, moon, ball, elmo (thanks to the diapers), aidan (his version), no (prounounced ney-o, sort of a spanish version of the german niet ... we hear this one A LOT) ... he will try to mimic just about any word we throw out at him. i think he's just trying to make up for starting to walk so late. he knew he would have to show me some improvment in some developmental area or i might put aidan on the job of gently nudging him forward in one of said areas.

i LOVE the child's interpretation of the adult

oh, sweet aidan ...

"ha, ha, ha-ha-ha, you'll never forget me" (you'll never catch me)
"froggywogs" or "frollywogs" (pollywogs)
"i have to tell you a question"

they are doing construction on the freeway and we can hear it from our house. last night it was so loud it woke aidan up and scared him, so today he kept talking about it. i explained that they were widening the road so that there wouldn't be so much traffic. he then explained right back to me that he didn't like traffic and he thanked me for fixing it. i just said "you're welcome honey".

he has also taken to giving me a very placating, high pitched "of course, mommy" when i ask him a question he deems silly ... apparently he deems a lot of them silly.

super-cool-one-notch-above-a-zoo-fake-safari

air museum

happy 3rd and 1 month birthday aidan!

(reason #452 why i was better off having boys ... odds are, aidan will not be insulted when he's 25 years old and sees that a 3rd birthday blog post went up a month late)




we decorated a cool dinosaur cake


















we (after a little more work than i-anyone-thought it was going to be) broke open a pinata















we let some balloons accidentally fly away (one of our favorite games to play when there are spare balloons laying around)















we got some really cool presents (a camera, a bean bag chair, a sleeping bag, lots of dinosaurs, a beach towel, sunglasses, clothes ... and lots more!)















we went to bed early

my three boys

"children are contemptuous, haughty, irritable, envious, sneaky, selfish, lazy, flighty, timid, liars and hypocrites, quick to laugh and cry, extreme in expressing joy and sorrow, especially about trifles, they'll do anything to avoid pain but they enjoy inflicting it: little men already."
-jean de la bruyère les caractères

i would like to highlight various adjectives above and assign them to their respective boy, but i'll refrain ...

i went out with the girls last night

before i left for dinner



















when he woke up this morning