Vacation!!

I am on vacation for two whole weeks!!! I am not going anywhere in particular--I am just not going to work. I am paying our babysitter to come on her regular days, but with reduced hours, and I am going to do fun things for me. I have been really looking forward to this break. After returning from maternity leave after having Will, I have not taken any vacation days except for child care purposes. So, nearly 19 months later, this vacation is all for me! Yippie!

On the agenda so far is swimming lessons for the boys (I know that doesn't sound like vacation for me--but it is!), Luke and I have a movie date one day, lunch and pedicures with my high school pals, a special day with my friend Fara, a birthday bash for my friend Jamie, and a visit to the dentist. I may just go sit at Starbucks for five hours one day. Who knows? I love my boys, but sometimes I just need some "me" time. And I don't have to do any ironing!

I have also given myself a vacation style budget so that I can actually do these fun things. Maybe next year we will actually get to go on a family vacation, if we can coordinate the time and the money, but for now a mommy-cation will be just right.

They keep growing. . . and growing. . . and growing. . .

This picture was taken on the first day of school this year. . .

And nine months later, the last day of school.

He's grown an enitre brick in nine months!

An Willy keeps growing too. Here he is back in September,



And now. Not so much of a chubby baby anymore--although he never really was chubby--not like Luke was. Will is a lean, mean, climbing machine.  Doesn't sit still long enough to store chub.

This is where Luke took his nap last week. He was supposed to be in his room. He usually plays in his room for quiet time and rarely actually sleeps. He was waiting outside his door for me to come tell him he could get up and I guess he just passed out.  He slept this way for over an hour until I woke him up. 

And more of Will climbing on things. He loves light switches and figured out he could climb the shelves to get to this one. He was discovered when I was investigating the mysteriously flickering lights. 

Trying to get some food. Or attention.  Most likely both.  Standing in his chair doing the sign for "more." 

Luke in my boots 2009 and 2011. What does it say about my style that I am still wearing the same boots three years later??



A Line in the Sand

(Yeah! I finally found my camera cable! Funny, it was in my laptop bag. Who would have thought to put it in such a logical place. Surely it was not me!)

Since Will first became mobile, we struggled with the idea of giving Luke his personal space and a place to go away from the baby versus giving Will free reign regardless of where he chose to wreak his havoc. We initially decided that Luke's room could be his own private space where he could go and shut the door and be alone if he needed it.  However, this quickly turned into a lot of slamming doors and unnecessary drama as it evolved from a space Luke could go to be alone to a place Will wasn't allowed to go and wasn't allowed to touch anything. As Will got old enough to care he began to get his feelings hurt by the slamming doors and Luke started to stash toys in his room just to keep Will from playing with them. I became increasingly irritated with the situation as it escalated to Luke absolutely having a fit for the two minutes Will would be allowed to be in his room while I helped him get dressed. There were tears on all sides of this battle.

Back in February, when we had the blizzard of 2011, we were cooped up for quite a few days. Luckily, the first day I had to go to work. (Luckily? I don't know about that.) As I prepared to be home with the boys the next day, I decided I had had enough of this behavior. I started talking about it the night before to Luke--about how the slamming doors hurt Will's feelings and about how he should start letting Will come in and play. Luke didn't think I had any good ideas. So the next morning, I drew a line in the sand. I said no more shut doors and Will could touch/play with whatever he wanted. He could have his alone time with the door shut during quiet time and that was it. I told him it was too cold to shut the door. (I do have a reputation around here for coming up with abstract and inane reasoning to get my kids to do what I want--but this one had merit. Luke's room is the coldest in the house and it was 17 degrees outside.  I couldn't let the kid freeze!) 

This was initially met with resistance but I held my ground (silently giggling inside).

The door must remain open.

Nope, you can't block his way either. . .

. . . put your arms down. . .

You can't smush him up against the wall either. . .

And that was it. All smiles from here on.

 Luke even gave Will one of his most coveted toys.

I was a little surprised. He put up a good front initially, but once he gave it, there was not a single problem. The whole day went smoothly as did the next, and the next, and the next.  A little surprised is an understatement. I was actually stunned that this worked. But it did and now the two are playing together like peas and carrots.

As for the rest of the wintry weather--

Well, it was 17 degrees outside. I was not taking anyone outside who refuses to wear mittens and hats . . . ahem, WILL. I stood outside in the wintry weather waiting on the train for long enough to get my fill of the snow.  Luke didn't really ask to go out, so we didn't. 

But we did try on funny hats! I love funny hats on kids! They just make me smile.

But it didn't last long, as I knew it wouldn't.

Will was permitted to look at the snow. (I know, I'm such a good mom, right?)

And once the weather was above freezing, I bundled them up as much as they would allow, and we went out for an afternoon at the boys favorite park!

a little lost. . .

I really want to share about Luke's 4th birthday! I can't find my cable to upload the pictures. It is a month since his birthday party and the cable is no where to be seen. I am losing a ton of mommy points for each day that passes and I have not posted about my baby turning 4!

I am not above bribery when it comes to my children

Luke has been going to preschool for three years. Every spring, the school has a fundraiser event where the kids get to sing. The past two years, Luke never made it on stage to sing. One year he was sick and the next, he chickened out right at the time to get on the stage.  It was actually pretty pitiful because he was real excited about it, and hyped up to do it. He even walked up to the stage to line up, but when the time came--he got stage fright.

Since Luke came of the age in which it was time to develp social skills, he has frequently had stage-fright-like expereinces. He gets overwhelmed at big parties or in places that are new to him. This usually ends up in a shut-down where he refuses to participate--often refusing to even go into the room where the party is. This past year, we have really been working on this.  We have been encouraging him and giving him lots of time to talk about it and work through it in his head before the big day. When we can, we show up early, as he always does better if he can acclimate before the crowd gets there. He really has come a long way in this past year.

The past few months Luke's class has been preparing for the school's ArtFest fundraiser. We wanted to help him get prepared to get on stage this year. When we learned from his teachers that Luke was (not surprisingly) not participating in music class and not singing the songs we realized it was time to take action.  Luke's favorite place to go for a treat is TuttiFrutti, a little frozen yogurt shop that is self-serve with tons of yummy toppings.  We went the noble route and decided a little bribe was just what he needed. So we told Luke that if he got on stage at ArtFest and sang that we would take him to TuttiFrutti afterwards. We made him practice at home and let him stand up on tables for a "stage." The most important part is that we withheld any trips to TuttiFrutti for this time. I think it made him want it even more when we decided to go out for ice cream one night and Daddy chose Braum's and said N-O to TuttiFrutti. Did it work? See for yourself. . .

Blogger wouldn't load it for some reason.  Try it here. . .

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WonderWill

Poor little neglected blog. These boys just keep me so darn busy--its hard to keep up lately.

Will just turned 15 months. He is into--well, really, on top of--everything. He walks, runs, tries to jump, but mostly, just climbs. His physical skills amaze me. He is on the go every waking minute of the day.  True to his namesake--he is very strong willed. If he is being made to do something against his will, for example, leaving the grocery store today, he will fling himself to the ground. The flinging is usually a backward move and I aim to protect the head. Occasionally, the back bend is so severe, he gets his legs, bent at the knee, stuck behind him. Thanks to his strong will and mobility he is no stranger to injury--generally, head injury.

Check out these shiners:

This picture doesn't do it justice because the protruding goose egg was really impressive and this picture just didn't catch it well.

 And here he has a shiner on the other side and is missing a bit of skin on his nose and lip.

Our collection of places-he's-not-supposed-to-be pictures, as debuted in Mommy's Little Overachiever, continues to grow.

"Talking" on the phone amidst the trains. Will loves Thomas the train. He has his own sign (as in sign language) for Thomas and his own dance for the Thomas theme song. Everything with buttons gets tried out as a phone. Remote control? It's a phone. iPod? It's a phone? Cereal box toy with buttons? It's a phone. You get it.

 He's been working up to this one for a while. It first started by climbing up in the lap of anyone who might be sitting in this chair.  Then he would try to stand up on the arm. We just stopped sitting in that chair. Recently he learned how to get up into the chairs on his own. I think he had fallen once before I got this picture because while I was in the other room, I heard some piano keys plink followed by a whine. When I went to investigate, this is what I found.

 I moved the chair away so that he wouldn't be tempted again. Sweet little Luke, a man after my own OCD heart, couldn't tolerate the way I had left the chair all askew in the playroom. He drug it back into its appropriate position later that afternoon. The next day, Will was at it again--this mountain to conquer.

 He really does have good balance. I decided to wait this one out to see what exactly it was he was after. Did he want to fling the pictures around? Was he after middle c?  Nope, I guess he had just spied a good "sittin' place."

And, for the grand finale, he will attempt a feat of amazing skill, balance, and coordination for you. Once again, the whining gets you caught every time.

With all this work on physical strength, he has fallen behind on verbal skills. Luke was behind at this point, too, so we are not terribly worried.  He is being followed by ECI (Early Childhood Intervention). It most likely is related to all the ear infections he had during his first year of life. He basically had constant fluid built up behind his eardrums for the whole first year. Someone told me once that it is basically like hearing underwater. They removed his adenoids and placed tubes in January, and he has not been sick once since then! (keeping our fingers crossed on that one!) He is making leaps and bounds now. He first started mimicking the sounds for "Thank-you." Word-wise it didn't sound like thank-you, but he had the timing and intonation down. It has progressed to "Da-doo" and he uses it appropriately--when he wants something or wants to give you something. He uses baby signs and has the signs for "more," "please," "all-done," "bye-bye," and we have been working on "cup" and "milk." He knows the hand motions to this song Luke has been singing called "Gimmie Ice Cream" and when we had ice cream tonight, I handed him his cone and he started doing the gimmie, gimmie sign in the song. And, as I mentioned before, he has his own special Thomas sign.

We were outside on the patio one night and I was doing something on my phone. I was holding it up, looking at something, and I heard this sweet little angel voice. So I had to switch to video and catch it.

It's basically his first real, understandable, sounds-like-what-it-is word. CHEESE! And it has so many uses for him as cheese is one of his favorite foods! (Sorry for the crazy lighting--I had to convince him I was really taking his picture by making the camera flash.)

And, lastly, on to my favorite game--Luke vs. Will!

In corner one, we have Will in an honestly unstaged photo moment:

 And in corner two, we have Luke, pulling the same shenanigans years ago!

What is it about the crunchie can that makes them want to put their cup in it? When I saw Will doing it I had to get a picture!

Just around the corner--Luke's 4th birthday! Stay tuned. . .

A study in hearts. . .

Getting crafty for Valentine's day. I heard this idea and thought it would be fun to try out.

The pictures didn't come out exactly as I thought they would but I think it is because it was so wonderfully bright and sunny outside today!  We may have to try this again sometime though, because I really like the way some of the pictures came out!

Step 1:  Find empty paper towel roll.

Step 2: Mold towel roll into a heart shape.

Step 3: Hold heart shaped towel roll in front of camera to shoot through.

Step 4: (This is the one we had trouble with) Convince your kids to cooperate! Because there was such a small area to shoot through, any wiggling really made it a strange picture.

Cooperation came to a standstill, so I thought I'd take a few shots of things that were NOT moving targets.

Like grass. . .

and brick walls. . .

and the fence.

And then I thought, "I kinda like these shots, too!"

Finally, I got some shots of Will when he was at a moment of less movement.

Then we took our paper towel roll heart and turned it into a stamp by dipping it into a cup of paint to make some Valentines for Daddy.

Happy Valentine's Day!