on "fired"

I love to watch Tyler button his shirt. His cute little fingers that still have a little bit of pudge remind me that he's still my little boy, but their ability to actually button all the buttons on his shirt also remind me that he is growing up.
I also love the proud look on his face when he's done it all by himself! I should have taken the band-aid off his face before taking this picture, oops. And I know he really needs a haircut, but Jeremy wants to keep growing it out. In fact, Jeremy wants to cut a mullet again, but I don't think I can let that happen this time. Once was enough. I'm not sure it'd be as cute on a kid as old as he is, plus he's missing one of his front teeth now which would only add to the look. Back me up on this, I need support!


Meanwhile, I'm babysitting a 3 year old boy today and he and Tyler are playing great together. He is very well behaved and cute, but about every 30 minutes he comes to me with a toy phone and tells me, "My house is on fired! Call my mom!" So I pretend to call his mom, though I'm not exactly sure what it is he wants me to say. After I hang up with her I usually tell him, "your mom said she loves you and to not go in your house when it's on fire!" That's the best advice I could come up with, and he seems satisfied with it until his house catches on fire again.


Lastly, for those interested parties, the whole Ryan sleep situation is not getting much better. For three nights over the weekend he slept for over twelve hours, only waking up once to eat! It was super awesome, but...as I explained to Jeremy last night, the fact that he did that makes me even more upset now that he's not. It's amazing how looooooooooooong it takes to get used to waking up several times at night, yet how quickly you can then readjust back to "normal" sleep. The thing is, Ryan knows how to sleep. He puts himself to sleep every night and for every nap and oftentimes when he wakes up at night, but he can only sleep like that when nothing is wrong with him. And since the beginning of December, something has basically always been wrong with him. Either ear infections, a cold, teeth coming in, or congestion. Right now he's got a lot of congestion, and I'm afraid maybe now another ear infection. I'll probably take him to the doctor tomorrow to see, and if the fluid that was in his ears has turned into an ear infection we'll be on our way to an ENT to see about tubes in his ears. I hate the thought of that, but at least then we'd all get some sleep. And if he's this happy and pleasant when he's got all this stuff going on, then imagine what he'll be like when he's perfectly healthy!

See! He knows how to sleep!

And so does Alexis! I love her and her rosy cheeks.

raise 'em up

Raise your hand if you're tired of seeing the backsides of girls whose pants are too low, their shirts are too short and their midsections are too large.

(I'm not complaining about midsections, I've got no room to talk, I'm complaining about visible midsections.)


Now raise your hand if you think this same low pants/short shirt/large midsection combination is adorable on babies.


Raise your hand if you think I need to clean my refrigerator.

And raise your hand if you want to be the one to clean it for me. First one with their hand up, wins.


Raise your hand if you think it's gross that I have a container of worms in my refrigerator.

I do, that's for sure. But Jeremy insists they stay. Compromise--that's marriage, folks.

I wish I could see when you're raising your hand.


Raise your hand if you think it's funny when your baby gets trapped between the legs of a chair, and then stays there for 15 minutes, perfectly happy.

I'm teaching him that there are consequences to his actions. Also, it was the only time in the last 2 months that he's stayed in the same spot for longer than 30 seconds (when he's awake, that is).

On a related note, I'm not typically able to change a diaper (especially not a poopy one) in faster than 30 seconds. Which explains the scene upstairs 2 minutes ago where Ryan was naked from the waist down, mid-crawl and reaching for something, while I was holding him back by one of his legs with one hand and simultaneously trying to grab a diaper out of his drawer with my other.

I don't even have to tell you to raise your hands if you've ever done that, I know you already are.


Raise your hand if you think it's funny that when the baby is under the chair, his toy falls just out of his reach and he cannot figure out a way to get to it.

Raise your hand if you think this blog post is going nowhere.


Raise your hand if you wish I would learn how to use my camera so that instead of a blurry picture, I could produce a picture that actually shows Ryan's new tooth.


Raise your hand if you are tired of snotty noses and gunky eyes, and are just ready for spring to show up.

I'm going to assume you are all in agreement with me on all of these things. Especially the last one.

Raise your hand if you never want to hear the phrase "raise your hand" again.

Lucky for you then, that Ryan is crying and in desperate need of his mama.

today I learned how to spell "chronicling"

So, maybe you've all figured out by now, but I'm kind of a boring person. I don't much care for parties and I generally do my best to not ever host one. Which, of course, is why I was sent a child who has grand ideas for a party she'd like to throw at least weekly and is constantly begging me to let her have one.

Go ahead and feel sorry for her. I do.

This weekend Jeremy is going to snowboarding with most of the boys in his family, so the girls decided to get together and have a "girls night", plus nine kids, held at my house. Alexis caught wind of this yesterday and has been going nuts ever since. You see, Alexis is the oldest cousin, loves to plan things, and has a million ideas racing through her head at all times. This makes her a "triple threat". Last night she asked if we could make a list of things to do on Saturday night, and I knew there was no way she'd sleep until we did it, so I sat down with her to brainstorm. And boy did she ever have some ideas! The first idea she introduced to me was a 3 legged race, which she was calling a 2 footed race. I tried to sway her from this idea since there's not a lot of room in my house for that sort of thing, but she already had ideas for how to get around that hang-up.

I took a picture of the list she came up with because it's so funny to me. After each item on the list she drew a box, and then after we wrote down all the ideas she went through and put a check next to the ones she wants to do for sure, and any ideas that fall under the "maybe" category, she drew a check in half the box, and then colored in the other half. There were no "for sure no" items, no matter how hard I tried.

Because this way of thinking is so foreign to me, it takes a lot of energy for me to not get annoyed by this and brush her off. And a "planning" session like this can be exhausting for me, especially at the end of the day. BUT! But, I love who Alexis is and I don't want her to ever feel like she should be different. If anything, I should be more like her. She is determined, she is prepared, she is fun to be around, she is full of good ideas, she is a leader, and she has a zest for life! And I always want her to know I think she's the most special girl I've ever met, so if that means that I will be participating in a 3 legged race in my living room on Saturday night, so be it.

This kind of leads me into the next thing I wanted to talk about. You may have noticed my blogging has seriously slacked off lately. Life seems to have grabbed me by the wrists and started running, with me bouncing and dragging behind. As a result I've discovered lots of things that I DON'T want to be (mostly by becoming them), most especially in regards to the type of mother I am. So I sat down and thought about the kind of mom I DO want to be, and figured out what kinds of things I need to be doing to become that mom. This is all well and good, but it doesn't leave me much free time, so my blogging will probably continue to be slow for awhile. I'm not going to stop blogging because I love chronicling this fleeting time of life, but I just don't have as much time as I used to, and it's not top on my list of priorities. So you will most likely be hearing less from me, for awhile anyway.

Now for Ryan's adoring public:
I put him in a swing at the park for the first time, and he loved it. Though most of the time he just laid back like this:

Now, a few quick tidbits to round up this long post:

-Alexis, since Saturday, has been snapping nonstop. She snaps while talking about something, she uses it for emphasis, she snaps while dancing, she snaps while using the bathroom, she snaps while eating (or when she's supposed to be eating), she snaps while reading, doing homework, and I'm SURE she snaps during school too. It is incredibly cute, and it's always with both hands, never just one.

-Ryan has another ear infection, and I can't decide which is worse: the ear infection and subsequent lack of sleep, or the medicine I have to give him and the never ending, foul smelling diarrhea that results. Amazingly enough, he is still his happy charming self throughout the day, no matter what is bothering him.

-Tyler is still misusing the word "heck" and if I have paper nearby I write down some of the things he says. Here are a few examples:
*Does this thing heck come off?
*Are you heck sitting here?
*Is this heck a movie?
*Is it heck okay if Ryan plays in the laundry basket?

Believe me when I say, it is the cutest heck thing.

See you in a few weeks. Or tomorrow. You never really know.