Donations

So, I received this email from a lady whose daughter is in BabyP's class. If you guys are interested in donating, drop me a line.

Dear Friends,

As you may or may not know my family and I will be traveling home to Cameroon in May to visit friends and family. I am in the process of collecting clothes, toys and shoes for 85 orphans who live in an orphanage about a mile from my parents’ home.

If you can imagine an orphanage in Africa, this is it. This institution is run by a woman who started it out of the kindness of her heart and runs it with very meager resources. The children have very little by way of food, clothes, books, toys. They are aged are as follows (approximately):

10 kids under 2 years

30 kids aged 2-10 years

40 kids ages 10-18 years

5 kids aged over 18 years

There are 4 adults traveling so we have a weight allowance of about 400lbs, which means we can carry lots of stuff! If you have any things you would like to give away or know someone who has things to give away I would greatly, greatly appreciate it, as will the kids.

There seems to be a lot of older kids so I went to Target to look at activities for them. Do you know how hard it is to buy for teenagers?! I am not looking forward to that stage.

Breast Cancer Awareness

I don't know how common this is, but I sure didn't know about it.

Still Screaming

There is still screaming, but this time, it is peanut. She has lost all resemblance of manners this evening. She is getting very demanding and frankly rude. So, tonight, when I turned off the TV, she had a fit. She wouldn't stop crying, so she lost a story. She kept having a fit and telling me she didn't want one story, she wanted two. Fine enough... She got no stories. Now she is having a monster meltdown.

Thank God it is Sunday. I wonder if it is too early to take the kids to daycare.

I am feeling under the weather this weekend. Mr. T. worked yesterday. It was cold and windy, but that didn't stop me from dragging the kids down to the river to wear them out. (I will go to great lengths to get a good nap). Peanut rode her bike while I ran along side her with the stroller. She is getting to be a very good rider. She rode maybe 1.5 miles. She would have ridden longer, but the wind was biting as we made our way back to the car. She crawled inside the stroller to yell at her brother for touching her things and maybe for little protection from the wind.

We went to Fort Worth this last week. I had a regional conference there. The service at the hotel (Omni) we stayed at was excellent. They had a 6 inch deep pool and a little backpack for peanut full of kid's things. My mom went with me to stay with the kids while I "worked". She seemed to have a good time. Peanut seems to be a great cure for insomnia because after sleeping with her for two nights, my mom went straight to sleep and slept well into the morning.

Peanut is still screaming. I am going to check on her again. I don't want to because my head hurts, and I really just want to eat my ice cream.

It only took about 5 minutes to coax her to sleep. She is so tired. While I was holding her I saw her little wrist and thought about how it used to have a line across it from fat. Now her hands are large and thin like mine. It is hard sometime to see these beautiful creatures grow up.

She is really into me telling her stories lately. I tell her stories about this and that, but generally she wants the story to involve Cinderella. I think she has a girl crush on her. My stories always talk about how Peanut is smarter and pretty than Cinderella. Today, they went on a adventure to Portland, Oregon. I let her pick parts of the story, and tonight their destination was Portland.

Peanut is really interested in words and reading. She asks us, "what does that say?" about 80 billion times a day. That and "why" are pretty much the top phrases. I bought her a book where she can start to practice writing her letters. I know at school, they discuss the letters, but I don't think they are writing them. She was trying to write her name the other day. She has the A down, but anything after that is pretty indistinguishable. I like that she is interested in learning and reading. It is pretty exciting for me.

BabyP is cutting a tooth. He barely napped today. He was so tired that he slept through his sister's meltdown.

He is getting better at standing with no support. He is also getting his wave down, but unfortunately, he waves only at himself. He is so awesome. They are so simple at this age. He also said "bye bye" again when we were waving to grandma and grandpa on skype. I don't know if that counts as a word because he was just repeating what we said. He does seem to be gearing up for talking. He talks little sentences to us about his day. He will also cut us off and say his piece. He finally made the mamama sound, but mostly these days, he says lalalala.

BabyP is full on into "rascal" stage. He LOVES the toilet. LOVES the toilet. I have been lucky enough grab his hand before he has pulled anything out. Today, while with his father, BabyP grabbed a nut cover off the base of the toilet and threw it in. I think BabyP has been planning that one for a while because I have busted him trying to do it before. Two days ago, in about 10 minutes, he bruised one eye on the window ledge, and then busted his other eye on the coffee table. The daycare is going to be suspicious of Mr. T because my lip is busted from nursing someone while he had a remote in his hand. That boy is strong.

Anyway, here is a little video of our toilet rascal.

I'm really tired

That might be the new name for my blog. Someone, right now, is crying because I give up nursing him ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT. I am a patient woman, but my button has been pushed.

I feel bad for him, I really do. But man... I don't even believe that him crying is going to do me any good. Did I mention that it is 12:30 in the afternoon, he faked napped twice and has already been nursed.

He is cutting yet another molar. His sister wasn't this irritable with the molars. Oh well. I guess I will go back in there, nurse, and try to move him into his crib before I pass out from being so tired. It has been 20 minutes afterall.

Who, but my sweet boy, cries this much about taking a nap that he so desperately needs?!

Maybe later I will update on our week in Fort Worth, my exciting lottery winnings, and a million ways to spend that tax return. For now, it is back to being the human pacifier.

Spring - in not a bit late

His name is Mr. Nursey Suckels-a-lot and being a nursling is his game. I don't know if he is sick, the antibiotic is ripping him a new one or if his teeth are coming in, but he is up every two hours nursing. Last night he was inconsolable for about an hour. It makes mommas very tired. He also, just for good measure, has a pretty nasty diaper rash. We have been in paper diapers (sposies) all weekend because they are better at wicking away any moisture near his bum. Poor bear.

Can you see the bruise on his head? Can you see the busted lip? He is into cruising and trying to stand on his own. He also has a cut under his chin. He sure does have a reassuring smile though, doesn't he?

That is fig newton all over his face. I have given up on baby food. He gets a little yogurt, but that is all he will eat off the spoon. With the baby food he will yank the spoon out of my hand and throw the food off the end of it. If I take the spoon back, he yells at me. sigh... so he wins. It is for the best, really, but he still isn't a champion eater, so we are eating a lot of soft foods these days. (pasta anyone?)

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Peanut is doing okay. She is as bossy as ever. We had a special day the other day where we made bakalava. I don't think she had any because I think that was also the day that she let herself out of the house. AGAIN!!!! I was pretty angry. I sent her to her room, gave her her pajamas, and told her to put them on. She was going to bed. "I WANT MY DADDY." So she got her daddy, who told her the same thing. She was pretty upset and cried off and on for the next hour and half with us going in to talk with her. On one occasion she said, "I just didn't see that far ahead." and on another occasion, "I don't want to go outside without an adult."

I would like to say she has been minding better, but she really hasn't been. The chart is helping though. On the bright side, she hasn't let herself out again.

This is her Easter outfit with accessories. She loves necklaces and headbands. She is so fancy.

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Today, as I was "pee peeing on top of her pee pee", she asked me "do you have hair on your pee pee". "Yes I do." "I don't have hair on my pee pee." "no you don't, but when you get older you will. You will also have it under your arms." "No, I am going to be Cinderella when I grow up, and she doesn't have a hairy bum."

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We went to Wye Mountain today. I think we missed the peak of the flowers, but we still were able to see lots of them. A lot of the shots I had of peanut were from her back because she loved running through the field of "daffodillys". It is a pretty glorious day today. Too bad we are all too exhausted to really enjoy it. Mr. T. is on his third hour of sleeping and peanut and baby P are on their second. I was enjoying a nap until people kept calling us.

It is hard being the nightwatchman.

I like this one of her in the tree.

This is how it goes. A girl is trying to be serious, but her father is torturing her. I like the look on her face and also how babyP is plotting to get back into my arms.

Who knows what he was pissed off about at this point. This was right when we got there.

Mom jeans look better when you are standing up. (Must keep doing sit ups.) I have been really good lately and have been exercising almost everyday. I just need to keep toning up my stomach area because tucking one's stomach into their jeans just isn't attractive.

Everyone's happy.

Drum Roll Please!!

Here it is. THE SWEATER!! The sweater that most of my knitting friends have watched me knit since October 2006. The only thing they have ever seen me knit.

And it is done.

Well kinda. It still needs a zipper. Mr. T. put it on tonight and it looks really good on him. It fits him really snug across the chest. It is going to look great when I either put the zipper in or have someone do it for me.

HURRAY!!

(don't mind the pot belly or the unwashed hair. Geez, I never put pictures on my blog when I actually look good)

I did mess up on the back when I was incorporating the sleeves. Somehow, the stitch count got off and one taper is a little higher than the other. It makes the sweater sit kind of wonky on shoulder, but that is okay. He still likes it.

You can see where some of the yarn I got was bad so it is all weird in one spot. That is okay though, we got it straightened out.

The shoulder.

I really like the neck. I like how it stands up.

The sleeve with some handsome little man thrown in for good measure.

Nightmare

Peanut had another nightmare last night. She woke up around 530 yelling "NO NO NO". Mr. T. was a little hard to get up, and she sounded like she really needed someone. I got up and went to her, hugged her, and told her I would protect her. I told her no one is going get her and had her lay down with me. She quickly fell back to sleep.

She woke up about an hour later. I asked her if she had a nightmare or a bad dream. "ah-huh, I did."
"What was going on? What happened?"
"I wanted my momma. Someone was eating all of my pancakes."

Oh the horror!

Belated Love Letter to a 10 month Old

Dear BabyP,

You are no longer my favorite. See, I would have like to have written this letter sooner, but I can't seem to focus long enough to write a letter of any length because I am too tired. Are you curious why I am too tired?

You just wait.

This morning you got up at 445. This is after you had been up 3 other times. I can see another tooth coming in, so maybe it is the teeth. Maybe it is because you have an ear infection after your tubes were checked out last week and "looked great." Maybe it is just because you are a big baby, and you need your mommy. Whatever it is, I am slowly going crazy with the lack of sleep. I think my friends count it as a good conversation if I go 5 minutes and complete all the sentences I started.

You gained some more teeth this month, I don't know how many. I thought, at one time, as many as three, but that might be wrong. It is so hard to tell because I can feel four teeth right below the gums. I thought they were here, but I may have been wrong.

You love to pull up and cruise. One of your favorite things is to get into the drawers while I am cooking. You drag stuff out, chew on it, and put it back in the drawer. You are a pretty tidy kid. The other day at the park, you were picking rocks up and putting them in a little bucket that someone had given you. You put a few in your mouth, but your main goal was to put the rocks in the bucket.

Since we have gotten the antibiotics, you have been feeling much better. This letter is being written over a period of days, so the sleep last night was much better than when I started this letter. I love having my happy sweet boy back. You are such a joy.

You have started to notice when I am not there. For some time, you have perferred me, but now, when I leave the room, you get a little whiney and start to cry. I also have to pick you up as soon as you see me. You speed crawl over to me and pull up on my pant leg. You wrap your gummy little arms around my neck and smash your cheek to mine. It is like a little slice of heaven to have someone so sweet be so happy to see me. No one is ever that happy to see me. You make me feel like I hung the moon.

Lots of Love,
your mum.

Funniest Video yet

Usually, I say that my videos are boring if you are not family, but this one is really cute.

That is, if you like infectious laughter.

2 minutes in our house. - by BabyP

Play Play Play. Play Play Play.


Uh-oh. I pulled too far back.


Must get out.


What is this thing?


Tastes Good. What is Daddy doing?


I'll go see. Hey, What's that in there?


Don't do that. I just got here.


What else can I get into?


Don't you think i am handsome?


Eat the dog.

Sleeping babies

Gardening

Peanut helped me start our seeds today. We planted 2 types of tomatoes, eggplant, peas, beans, and brussel sprouts.

BabyP is perfecting the art of being a little brother. We started gardening with him out there. He was fine for a couple of minutes before he crawled over peanut, grabbed a big handful of humic material and shoved it in his mouth. Peanut asked "Why is he eating dirt?" I told her "it is soil." (engineering joke that not many people get.)

Peanut and I eventually had to go to the park and wait for daddy to get home to watch BabyP before we finished up our planting.

BabyP is getting pretty testy these days. He doesn't like things to be taken away from him. He wails when you take an object, say dogfood, out of his hand. It is funny because mostly he is pretty happy, but man, he likes to have things his way. I don't know if this is a birth order thing or if he is just born that way. His sister has learned to distract him with another toy or something when he goes off. Luckily, he is easy distracted.

I can't remember what he is mad about here.

See the snot pouring out of his nose. That is also pouring out of his ears. YUCK!! Luckily, he has tubes or we would be in for another round of antibiotics. As it is now, we just drop them in his ears.

Weekend

Saturday was a whirlwind of Parties. The kids went to a party in the morning. In the afternoon, BabyP came with me to a baby shower. Mr. T. was working, so my father was called to watch peanut so I wouldn't be chasing her around my friends house yelling at her to put things down.

Today was chore and family day. I managed to get a lot of the outside things done. I love yardwork. I haven't worked in the yard for over two years. Peanut is old enough now that she can actually help me. She held the bag and made sure that I always had something to listen to. She also changed her outfits periodically throughout the day to be sure that I had enough laundry to do.

We are going to put a vegetable garden in this year. Our trip to the hardware store also brought back some blueberries and raspberries. I want to plant them at the edge of our patio, but first I need to pull out the privet that is there. I hate privet. Our garden this year is going to be small because I don't know exactly what I want to do with it, nor where I really want to put it. Our yard looks so different than it did last year. It makes me a little sad because all my beautiful grass was destroyed when the hauled the trees out.

Peanut is really into her clothes. She puts on the most ridiculous outfits. She is so proud of herself. "Do I look beautiful?" "Do I look pretty?" I don't want to tell her she looks like a crazy bag lady, so I say. "You look really pretty, but you don't really match." Matching is hard. I still have problems with it these days.

Today she put on a "bra" (tank top), her dress, and two shirts. She said "I look styley". We went to wal-mart, and she was complaining about how hot she was. She was saying she was really sweaty. Only then did Mr. T. and realize that she was walking around in 4 shirts. Man, she must have been hot. We wore her out today. Here is a picture of her on the way home.

Notice the crayons in her hands? She is such a lunatic. I could just eat her up.

Baby P has been crying off and on while I write this. Hopefully, those teeth are coming in completely so he won't be so testy. He is starting to not want to eat anything off the spoon. I wonder if the finickiness has to do with his teething. I can see two big molars making his gums looks white. Poor bear. He just wants his momma.

I was looking at him in the exersaucer today. He is starting to look long and lanky. He is 22.25 pounds. He is at the 75% for weight. He is still off the charts for height at 31.5 inches. His head is in the 90%. He is a big fella, who is on the move. He is really trying to stand on his own. He pulls his hands completely off and can hold it for a couple of seconds before he crashes down in tears. He is getting pretty good at cruising.

it won't be long now... sigh...

Deleted Post

You guys might remember that I had issues with a particular fitness center last year. I wrote a post about it. Evidently, they found my post and wrote a long dissertation about the incident saying I wasn't being fair writing about it on my web site. (ah-hum)

I was more than fair. I stuck to the facts and only talked about my own personal issue, not the issues of my friends. I didn't do any name calling (except for the billing agency who I referred to as sleazy). The owner of the gym posted my post to his website. I have no idea what happened over there, but I do know that someone posted the link to my site then complained when he removed it.

Anyway, I have no idea when all the posting and name calling and using bad grammar (hi pot, i'm kettle) took place, but I only found out about it today.

I deleted the post.

Mostly, because the post had run its time. When you searched for this gym's name, then my blog popped up. I really didn't want my blog to be associated with the gym (mostly because I am not a gym blog) and frankly, I just don't care about the issue anymore.

BUT BOY DOES IT FEEL GOOD, to know that the little guy can still have a say. I felt really pushed around by that gym.

Hopefully, the takeaway lesson for everyone is figure out exactly what is in the contract. On my end, that means knowing what "extend my membership" means. On their end, I hope if they extend someone's membership, they tell that person that they are agreeing to be billed for X months and think, even if only for a second, "would I want this on the internet?"

A long wrap up

My mom called me today and told me I haven't posted in a while. She was insinuating that I needed to get on it. She sees the kids every couple of days, so I took her suggestion seriously.

I don't have to explain that things have been busy. I just haven't felt like posting. I am not sleeping much (although, he did sleep through the night one night, but that was after crying for 2 hours the night before (and oh ya, i did nurse him after 2 hours)). I have also been worried about some tests that I had done today, which came back perfect. So, hopefully, this is the end of "when I do XXXXX, then I will have it together."

Peanut has been saying some pretty funny stuff lately. We joined the Museum of Discovery over the weekend. When we were there today, she told me, "momma, you watch the baby while I cook dinner." I guess play does mimic real life.

I was pulling out onto Kavanaugh from the grocery store. I had to make a left, but the person next to me kept pulling forward and blocking my view. When I finally saw that I could turn, it was too late. I said something about the man being a jackass. "What is that jackass doing mommy." "We won't let him come to our house. He is a jackass. He is a boy. We don't like him. If he comes to our house, I will hit him with a wooden spoon. He is naughty." By this time I am audibly laughing. I mean, where does she get this stuff. I tried to tell her it wasn't funny. "It is funny. He is a JACKASS. HE IS A JACKASS. JACKASS JACKASS JACKASS." Okay, by this time, I am rolling. Because, no matter how tacky it is, I think three year olds cussing is funny. I was trying to be the good mom by saying it wasn't funny, but she could see right through me.

BabyP is doing pretty well on the cruising. He is by no means the master at it, but he can get from one point to another. It takes concentration, but he does it. He amazes me. He was trying to put the shapes in the shape sorter tonight. I don't think Peanut got that until she was over a year old. He was matching up the shapes, but couldn't quite get them in. It amazed me that he even tried it.

He is all about his sister, which means he follows her to and fro taking things from her. Luckily, it runs both ways so she can't be too angry. I am trying to empower her to make him happy by giving him something to play with if she is going to take what he has away. My bear is a sweet boy, but lord help us all if you take away something that he wants. He lets out an awful cry like you just poked him the eye.

Today she was on the potty when I heard him crying. I heard her yell out. "it's okay. Your sister will be there is just a minute." When I went to go get him out of his crib, I tripped over her step stool. I guess she was going to get him.

Do you like their Easter outfits? I bought Peanut's last year. I love it and have been waiting for her to wear it. I only today decided what BabyP would wear. I wanted him to wear a sweater vest, but this shirt seemed to match her dress really well. This is one of my Rhea Lana (second hand sale) buys from this year. It is a 2/2T. I will put him in it with a pair of Khakis or something. He will look preppy and cute. it will be a nice contrast to the skull shirts I just got in the mail for him.