The love affair continues

"Them have meatballs in Mexico?"

Andrew's Quote of the Day

(Andrew always wants to go everywhere with me.  Which turns simple errands into time-consuming, exhausting events.)

"Andrew, stop making that noise or you are going to make Mom go insane!" Kevin
"Mom, I go there with you?  Please?" Andrew

(As though "insane" is like a trip to target, the grocery store, etc. and not a state of mind.)

Baby Yoga - Cobra pose

Guest blogger Mae Malone - My Mom is an Amateur

My mom is a total amateur.  I am the third baby.  Third!  You would think she would have it together by now. 

I never have on a proper outfit.  Just a onesie.  I have a ton of cute clothes I would love to show off, but whatever.

My cute little booty is all red and sore.   She makes me lay around the house without anything on so I can 'air out'.  Then last weekend, she had our neighbor come over to look at my booty.  I mean seriously, she is a pediatrician, but it was humiliating.  I am not asking you to cure cancer Mom.  Its just diaper rash.  Figure it out.

She also puts eye drops in my eye a few times a day.  I do my best to give her a hard time.  She really needs to perfect her technique.  Mostly, she ends up completely missing or with three drops running down my cheek.
She noticed that I sort of smelled a little cheesy lately.  She finally discovered the ball of ear wax that has been stuck in my ear.  You see, I let milk run out the side of my mouth when I am eating.  I am too full to swallow, but I just keep eating and let the milk run out the other side of my mouth until my mom notices and stops feeding me.  You know how that is, just can't stop eating.  Anyways, obviously she should have figured out where that smell was coming from.  Stop cleaning behind my ear and clean in my ear you clueless lady.

She also does a crappy job taking care of my brother.  She let him hang out like this all day.  Dressed in his PJ shirt.  He got syrup on his face during breakfast, and it was never washed off, so dirt and fuzz collected there all day.  He has on a pink barrette.  She just fed him a few pieces of ham for lunch, which he balled up and ate like an animal.  And to top if off, he had pee pee in his underwear.  Mom made him take it off but then he just threw it next to my bouncy chair.  Gross.  When he finally put on new underwear, it was backwards and his plumber crack was showing.  And no one even helped the little guy out!  I would have.  If I could talk. 

Andrew was also sporting some seriously long finger nails. Mom would say, "Andrew come here so I can trim your nails." He would refuse. Guess what she did? You guessed it. Nothing. So his nails grew so long and he did this to my best friend, Gracie.

His nails have now been trimmed.  She also trimmed mine and succeeded in trimming off the top of my finger.  See what I mean?  Amateur.

At least my sister watches out for me.  She plays with me and makes me laugh.  She is hilarious!

Celebrating

Andrews 1st accident free day with a donut at cranky Al's. And they were actually nice to us!

If I never had children...

I did a post a while ago, called "If I never had children".  I am thinking this bit is going to be a new series on this blog. It will be fabulous, so stay tuned.

If I never had children, I would like to believe that I would not have spent Saturday night in the following situation:

So my car has had this particularly funky smell for the past few days. Like something crawled inside and died a particularly smelly, oozy death. Since "I" left one of the doors open last week, I was concerned that one of the garage's resident chipmunks actually did crawl inside my car and die a smelly, oozy death.

So last night I pulled the car apart. This means I uninstalled and reinstalled three carseats...which is always an awesome way to spend a Saturday night.  My neighbors think I am so cool.

I found a few hello kitty lipglosses (garbage), old stickers, countless animal crackers, and finally, I discovered the culprit. A baggie of chicken that Andrew had insisted he bring with him earlier in the week.

Ewwwww

The next day I told Little Buddy that we had figured out what caused the smell.  He said, "Yes.  I not want chicken.  I take chicken and put there."  While demonstrating how he pushed it in between 2 car seats.  I did not detect any remorse.

A quote from Andrew

"Andrew, please get me a wipe so I can clean that skittle juice off of your face."

"No mommy, I already cleaned it."

"really? What did you use?"

"I used my licker part!"

Aka his tongue. So funny.

Quit complaining about me

I slept 9 hours last night!

Recently 4

I have hit a bit of a rough patch lately.  My back is getting better, but it is pretty fatigued and I seem to have a lot of painful flare-ups.  Riding in the car is hard, and it seems like I need to drive the kids somewhere everyday.  Bending and lifting is particularly hard on me.  And that is basically all I do, so that's not working out so well.   This means I am approaching everything I do in a cloud of pain and exhaustion.

We also seem to have more going on than usual.  We have several house projects going on and the to-do lists keep growing.  There isn't even a good time to make a phone call!  

Andrew is potty training and he is doing a fabulous job.  He is basically potty trained, except he has some sort of GI condition.  We have to manage that with fiber and laxatives and finding that "sweet spot" with is diet and medicines is a challenge.  I have spent many hours lying in bed in the middle of the night with thoughts running through my head....."What if I give him 1 teaspoon of miralax and 1 tsp of benefiber every morning?  Or 2 tsp of miralax?  Or 2 tsp benefiber?"
"I could given him prune juice in a little tylenol cup!  It is his favorite color - purple! He loves tylenol!"
"Should I take him to a specialist?  What if he never is potty trained and he craps his pants until he is an adult?  He will never have a girlfriend!  And he loves the single ladies!"
(Please, please do not look at my google history.)

 

(Yes, we will have those ugly counters....someday they will be honed granite...someday.)

On the other hand, he is soooo proud of himself which is adorable.  We sing "Go Andrew, go Andrew, go go go Andrew!"  while he goes.  And he likes to say, "Here it comes!" with a big smile on his face.   He loves his rewards, skittles for #1 and his beloved goldfish for #2.  Goldfish are now only a potty training reward.  (Because we just cannot control ourselves around them unless there are strict limits.)   Of course Andrew has an elaborate hand washing routine and loves to run around pantless....which means I have little piles of shorts, undies and diapers all over my house and we have to say things like, "Get your penis off of the ottoman!". 

Grace is great.  Her activities have died down, which is nice.  However, her constant exuberance and inquisitive nature (she asks questions about everything, all day) coupled with my lack of patience, are not the best fit.  We have conversations that go like this...
"Grace please do not ask me any more questions for the next 2 minutes.  Please."  (I plead in a desperate voice.)
"Huh?  What?  No more questions?"
"Yes!"
"So you don't want me to ask you ANYTHING for the next 2 minutes.  Right?"
Continue this basic pattern until I lose it and send everyone to their room.

Poor Mae has numerous benign, yet annoying conditions that require management.
1. She eats constantly.
2. She cries a lot, unless she is being held.
3. She does not sleep through the night.  She has 3 times so far, and I am being generous as she really just slept from 10-4am or 5am. 
(Yes, I do know she is a baby.)
4. She has a blocked tear duct which requires eye drops and frequent massages of the duct, which is super fun.

 

(Here is my dining room table, now a changing table.  Yes, that is a poopy diaper next to a crystal bowl.)

5. She has persistent diaper rash that precludes the usage of wipes, necessitates multiple creams, and now we trying weird bleach free diapers.

I am going back to work in a few weeks, and I think I am ready.  Actually, I know I am ready.  I think I need a little exposure to something other than taking care of my house and kids....you see, I have been having dreams (well, lets call them what they really are, fantasies) about the following:

1. A minivan with auto close on the rear hatch (it won't hurt my back to close my trunk then).
2. A pantry, so I can actually see what is in my cupboards without climbing onto a chair or getting on my hands and knees (again, hard on my back) and a normal size refrigerator.
3.  That I wasn't insane and actually allowed myself to hire a bit of cleaning help.  
4. A trip anywhere without having to buckle three kids into three car seats.  And I don't mean like a vacation trip.  I mean like a grocery store trip.  Right now, going to Walgreens alone feels like I just went on a 5 star spa vacation. 
5. Spending money on something other than visits to the doctor, physical therapist, the chiropractor, weird SI joint lock belts, lumbar pillows, prescriptions and various OTC laxative medications.   
6. A day where the only poop I have to deal with is my own.

Think I need to get out a bit????

Playhouse Progress - Little Helpers

The playhouse is being painted this week, and we have been shopping for all the finishing touches to finish it off.  Now everyone keeps commenting on how amazing my dad is.  Which is true.  But what everyone doesn't understand is that he has a little bit of help.

From these little guys.

And one of them is actually a super hero. 

He even has a cape!

Without Andrew's precise measuring and Gracie's smiley leveling, who knows what the house would look like.  

More backseat dancing

The kids were quiet and pretty subdued in the car...until this song came on.  I turned around to see this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE1xplDMPqg

A little long, but I don't have time for video editing.  Agree that the music, "SexyBack", is a bit inappropriate, but you can see they like Justin Timberlake just as much as their mom!

Playhouse progress - almost done

All we need now is a paint job and the carpeting!

Mae's Baptism

On the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend Mae was baptized at St. Jude and we had a party at our house afterwards.  It was a classy event, complete with paper plates, donuts and red solo cups. 

Every time the priest said Mae's name, Andrew would turn to someone and say, "That's my Mae!".  He is such a proud big brother.

With Mae's Godparents Aunt Katie and Uncle Brad!

Grace was super excited that Mae was joining the Catholic church!

They look like naturals, don't they!

Grace enjoying a well rounded meal, 3 donut holes.

We had a great time will all our family and friends that joined us.  Thank you for the gifts, I am officially crossing "thank you notes" off of my to do list.  Realizing that they are just not going to happen.  So if you are reading and you gave Mae a baptism gift.  Thank you.

So there are like no pictures of Mae from this day.  Poor third child.  But she had a great time sleeping through the whole mass and party.

Mae Passport Attempt #3: Success!

We recently received Mae's passport in the mail.  She is ready to make a run for the border!
Now all the kids have passports, here are their photos....

"If you take me on vacation, I promise I will be good!"  Mae, 6 weeks

"Thank you mom.  For capturing me at my most ridiculous."

Andrew, 4 months

"Why yes, I am an international threat."

Grace, 20 months

Girl time!