Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Sprinkler Ball

We've had some heat this past week. Nothing compared to our home in Ohio or across the midwest in general, but enough to make it tough not to have air conditioning. Since the house we are in only had one little fan that worked, we decided to pick up one and ended up with a sprinkler ball as well.

Xander loved it and ran right in.


Josie was much more cautious.


Too close!


Use the bubble wand to see what happens.


Come on, Josie, it's cool for you!


Any minute now she will work up the nerve.


Xander enjoyed it.


Finally it's Aunt Trisha to the rescue!


Unfortunately, I think I hooked the hose up to the ball incorrectly and there is water in the air part of the ball that I can't get out. I should see if I can exchange it because the kids (at least Xander) loved it.

She Didn't Believe Him

So when Aunt Trisha visited last week, we were sitting around helping the kids play with the new Play-Doh set. At one point I felt a little woozy and headed into the kitchen for a drink of water.

Chris: Hey, you okay in there?
Amanda: Yeah, I just felt a little...dizzy.
Trisha: Pregnant!
Chris: *laughing* Yeah.

And not another word was said about it. I guess Chris just doesn't look honest.

Josie Turns 2!

Even after being in California for 10 months, it was hard to celebrate Josie's birthday without family and friends and a pretty birthday cake. We made the most of it with Aunt Trisha, Elmo and a barbecue at a friends house. I think Josie kind of liked getting presents spread out over a couple of days so that she could play with each.

The festivities began on Thursday with Aunt Trisha visiting. She was given a Play-Doh set which had to be played with at once (and Xander heartily approved). She also received a Princess backpack. She doesn't know much about the Princesses but seems to love the pink, frilly sparkly look. Xander seemed to like the backpack because it means he doesn't have to share his Diego backpack anymore. First thing Saturday morning he rolled both into the room and said "Here, Josie, here is your backpack."


Xander picked out a Princess bouncy ball for Josie. She loves it and carries it with her, although I think that is more to keep Xander from playing with it than anything.


Josie received new blankets for her newly converted toddler bed from us. She also received a tea set. She and Xander have had lots of fun with that, let me tell you. They serve tea, coffee and ice cream (oddly enough, the ice cream is dispensed from the DVD player). Today they figured out they could fill the cups with water in the bathroom, which resulted in a nice spill.


We celebrated her official birthday on Saturday with a trip to Elmo's Healthy Heroes, a Sesame Street Live show. Our seats were better than expected. We didn't have floor seats but there was almost no one in our section so we did move up a few rows. We were far enough back that the sounds and lights weren't a problem. When the show started, Josie had the most astonished look on her face. Of course, she became squirmy and I had to struggle to keep her from running off during half of the show. Xander watched the show with a surprising amount of intensity but didn't do much of the dancing or clapping along. Both kids were disappointed in not getting an Elmo balloon (unfortunately, the parking cost was a lot more than we anticipated). Overall, it was what we expected to go down.

That evening we were invited to a barbecue at a friends house. Nothing big, just four parents trying to have conversation while two 3-year-old boys, a newly 2-year old girl and a 22-month-old girl ran amok. They were nice enough to put up a banner and give Josie a paint set.




I brought over an orange sponge cake for us to eat. We all sang and gave Josie a chance to blow out the candles.



Josie received a couple more gifts on Monday. She put on a little fashion show just to make me happy and then spent the rest of the day listening to the musical card that came with the clothes.


I think that's all she's getting, but maybe I should check the mail.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Bowling for Father

Bowling is in our blood. Three of my grandparents were in leagues when I was growing up, my grandpa even toured. My parents have also played in leagues. I love playing but was quite the gutter ball queen when I was little. I was also stubborn and refused to use bumpers so I would regularly get scores of 50. I'm a little bit better now.

I bring this up because Xander has suddenly become obsessed with bowling. I think it was because of an episode of Curious George where they went bowling. Next thing we know, Xander is getting out our bottled water to set up pins and trying out different balls to see which is better at knocking them down. He's very serious about it. If he could write I think he would be taking notes. "When bottles are close together and the Hershey ball is used, the bottles won't get knocked down." (The Hershey ball is a souvenir from Hershey, very small and padded so it doesn't do much but it remains his favorite ball to bowl with.)

Chris decided that for Father's Day yesterday he wanted to bring the kids bowling. Only one game and only the kids would play so that we could supervise.

First, I have to tell you, seeing kids in bowling shoes is pretty darn cute.


Josie found it fascinating at first. She would carry the six pound ball over, set it down and push it. Chris would try to get in an extra push.


Then Josie would check with Dad to see what she was supposed to do.


Then we'd watch some more.



Then Josie would start to get bored and would look around for things to do.


Then she'd realize that something was going to happen and would pay rapt attention.


By the end of the game she would push the ball and then run away and I'd end up chasing her out of the arcade.

Xander was incredibly excited to bowl. He took it very seriously would throw the six pound ball with all of his might. It went a little faster than Josie's ball.

He was pretty upset when the game was over and we only narrowly avoided a meltdown.

While we didn't stress scores, I did try to show Xander how he got points when he knocked down the pins. I didn't mention to him that he and Josie tied at 72. Those bumpers make all of the difference.

Trio

So this was taken last Thursday night. Chris and I had our typical reaction of deep breathing followed by "Ok, this is happening, we can do this."

About an hour later I had a minor meltdown. It was a moment where every stressful, painful memory of the past pregnancies came bubbling to the surface. Horrible rashes, back pain, heart burn (the never ending heart burn), insomnia, nausea, constant trips to the bathroom, etc. And that was just thinking about the pregnancy. The hardest is that I'm finally working out and eating better but can't seem to lose any weight and now I will likely be putting on more weight. They were all very selfish thoughts but that didn't stop me from blubbering on Chris's shoulder.

Meanwhile he'd already used the phrase 'knocked up' at least twice, which did not help me at all.

We decided that we'll wait until we return to Ohio before we tell anyone. The big reason for waiting this time is that we don't have any regular doctors here and I do want to get a check up before we announce anything. The timing is about right to be towards the end of the first trimester, I think. The due date I estimated (with the help of savvy internet due date calculators) is February 17, which I would also like confirmed by a doctor before shouting from the rooftops. So I will be keeping these posts hidden for a few months.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Too Soon

When you have two children it is hard not compare milestones. For instance, how much did Xander weight at one year old versus how much Josie weighed at one year. Or how old Xander was when his first tooth popped through compared to when Josie's first tooth made an appearance. But things can make a difference such as the differences in boy tendencies (harder to potty train) versus girl tendencies (loves pink and sparkles). And don't forget how birth order makes a difference, such as the first born being constantly watched over by a helicopter mom versus the second born who readily follows the older sibling up onto the big slide at the park.

Now that Josie is nearly two, there are two milestones that I knew were on the horizon but I kind of wanted to put off. The first milestone is potty training. I'm in no rush because I figure moving in two months will just throw her off and make us start over. Besides, looking at the milestones, Xander didn't start until he was two and took nearly an entire year to become completely potty trained. So why rush?

Unfortunately, Josie did not get the memos. Or maybe she just couldn't read them and instead drew on them and then balled them up to throw them around.

We've had a toddler potty in the bathroom here the entire time we have lived here and a few months ago she started showing interest. There were even a few deposits. Then she lost interest.

I did invest in some Pull-Ups for her and she loves them. "Princess Pull-Ups!" she will loudly insist. And she does like to put them on and change them herself.

I was going to wait until her birthday and get her some training pants and underwear but Chris said "Why wait?" and picked up a pack. She loves them. She is much more willing to sit on the potty when wearing them. Well, there is the raisin incentive that we've again instituted. There isn't a lot progress but it's a start. An early start.

The second milestone is converting Josie's crib into a toddler bed. We had such a good routine for nap time and bed time that I didn't want to mess with it. Also we will be moving back to Ohio in a couple months where she would have to sleep in a Pack'n'Play for about two weeks before her bed returned. So why get her used to a bed just to to put her in a crib?

I put her down for her nap on Monday and within minutes she was giggling and opening her door. What? I called fluke and put her back to bed. Again she got up. She never does it when I am watching but she is quiet as a mouse. There's a reason we call her a spider monkey. Anyway, I considered letting her stay up but she clearly needed a nap (and I clearly needed a break).

So began an hour long process of trying to get her to stay in her crib, sleep in Xander's bed or even sleep in my bed. All to no avail. I finally put the door lock on her door and stuck her in Xander's bed. She'd knock on the door and I'd tell her to go to sleep. Repeat for about 15 minutes. She finally listened and went to sleep.

Repeat this for bedtime, except she had to stay in her crib since Xander was in his bed. Repeat on Tuesday. Repeat for Wednesday nap time. Finally I grabbed the allen wrench and pulled off the front part of the crib. There is supposed to be a cross bar but it's in Ohio, so she'll have to make do.

We had to put her back to bed repeatedly last night. There were also a few fights between the kids involving Josie being in Xander's bed and Xander not returning Sparkles. Finally they both fell asleep and slept blissfully until 5:30 am. Ugh.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Castles on the Rug

It all began with a gift for Christmas 2010.


Nothing fancy was built in the beginning. Sadly, those bright blocks were left in Ohio.


So an investment was made into plain wooden blocks. And soon Xander would begin running up to me to ask "Mom, do you like my castle?"

"Why, yes, I do like your castle."


"Why, yes, that is a nicely balanced castle."


"Why, yes, I like how a little man lives in that castle."


"Yes, nice castle. Did Buzz help you build it?"


"That's a pretty awesome castle, Xander. How on earth did you do that?"


"Wow, that is an amazingly precise castle!"


"Xander, do you want to take architectural designs next year in preschool?"


Then, just to mix it up, Xander started building more with his Mega Blocks. He's had them forever and plays with them all the time but only recently started building castles with them.



Now the best part of building a castle is knocking it down, in case you didn't already know that. Usually Xander will knock down his own creation. Sometimes Josie will get in there and destroy it, causing hysteria. Occasionally Xander will run up and ask "Mom, do you want to knock down my castle?!?" Somedays Superboy or a ball will knock down the castles. Here's an example of a truck doing the deed.



Xander loves to ask for me to help build his castles but I never seem to do it right. "No, Mom, that doesn't go there!" And I'm afraid I'll stifle his creative spirit because I would never think to build some of those castles.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Yosemite - Day 3

We woke up Sunday morning of our Yosemite trip to the pitter-patter of rain. Have I told you about our hotel room? Well, we stayed at a local hotel and somehow ended up in a 'room' that was it's own little .... cabin, I guess. It was a separate building and was a basic two bed room and a surprisingly large bathroom. So we could clearly hear the rain on our roof in the morning.

We packed up and headed out for one more, though short, trip to Yosemite Valley. And as we drove along the curvy road we realized that all of the cliffs and mountains were high enough that it wasn't raining but snowing.

We arrived on Friday needing to turn on the air conditioning in our hotel and left on Sunday surrounded by snow. Seriously.

It was breathtaking to see the snow and frost, the wispy clouds and the blue sky. Our point-and-shoot camera had broke at that point, so we resorted to our iPhone cameras. The pictures turned out well but I can't imagine how much better they could have been.

And let me tell you, this turn in the weather brought out every camera in a ten mile radius. Professional photographers showed up with their tripods, zoom lens and decked out in winter jackets. Tourist jumped off the bus in their capris. Here's some of our shots.





After driving around for the view, we headed to the Visitor Center. They had a museum section where the kids ran around and touched buttons and looked at the displays. Then we headed to the gift shop and where I tried to keep the kids entertained while Chris looked at books (see him in the background?).


After that we gave up and headed home. The end.