Happy Halloween

Bee update

So apparently our bees reside in the changing table. A couple days after writing the last post, I randomly had the idea of covering up the area where Annika swore she saw bees with a towel and voila - no more bee fears. Granted, every night (or nap) she now says "Cover it! Towel on the bee!" but once I put the towel in just the right spot, she quiets down & goes to sleep. I wonder how long she'll insist on me covering up the bees....

For Annika, bossing around her parents must trigger sleep. Sort of like a bedtime story?

Annika's Bee

So about a week ago, Annika wakes up at 2am and starts screaming about a bee. We run downstairs and calm her crying, but she keeps insisting there is a bee and says it over and over. Finally she asks for her sunglasses (which she has not worn for 3 months at least) and when we put them on her, she calms down and goes back to sleep.

Every single nap or bedtime since then, right when its time for her to go to bed, she starts crying and saying there is a bee. Over and over and right now she is punctuating it with screams from her bed. Naptimes are easier, I just say "there's no bee" about 20 times and then leave her in there. She only cries 3-5 minutes. At night she'll cry for 15 minutes or more sometimes.

We've asked her where it is, many many times. Usually its by her door somewhere, but tonite she pointed at the top of her dresser, where there was quite clearly no bee, and said over and over "Bee!" "Bee!" "Right there!", crying and distraught. We've faked killing the bee, we've tried to reason with her, looked everywhere for it, all to no avail.

It is so frustrating and I wish I understood what was going on in her little brain. All I can figure out is that she doesn't want to go to bed and pins her emotions on the imaginary bee so that she can express herself. It seems like the bee is the worst on days I know she had a long late nap and might not be too tired.

We were having sleep issues before this happened too, she used to be the easiest child to get into bed. From about 7 mos - 2 years we just laid her down and she went to sleep as long as she had a teddy bear or some toy she had picked out. Ever since she's turned two, she's gotten super picky and has a list of about 10-15 things she wants before she can go to sleep. We've gotten tough lately and made her pick just 2 things, and kyle has gone in to discipline her when she gets out of bed crying. Then, just when we thought we were making progress....the imaginary bee appears.

Blech.

My New Job

In September, I accepted a part time job being the volunteer coordinator for a small, growing, non-profit called Giving Anonymously. (www.givinganon.org) I call it a job, but the entire non-profit is run by unpaid volunteers – so I am not hiring childcare and will be doing most of my work in the afternoons during naptime & “quiet time” and in the evenings. The beauty of it is that I can do almost everything from home during very flexible hours. Ideal for a stay at home mom!

Giving Anonymously (GA) is an organization that facilitates people giving each other anonymous gifts. You see a friend in need or a family member who is struggling and you can give them a financial gift with complete anonymity through the organization. Just go to the website, enter your credit card & the person you want to give to and GA takes care of the rest. A volunteer (maybe me!) contacts your recipient through email or phone and once they have confirmed their address we mail them a check with our name on it so they don’t know who the gift is from. If they want, they can call and leave a thank you message and we will forward it to the gift-giver as a voice file email. That’s it!

Friends of mine started Giving Anonymously in 2007 and the husband was managing the entire thing by himself in the evenings AFTER working his fulltime job, going to grad school for his MBA and managing his consulting company on the side. This summer, the NY Times found the website and did an article about it. NPR read the story and did an interview with him a few weeks later, and by August, NBC national news was sending out a film crew for interviews. NBC did two stories weeks apart and by then everything exploded and he was suddenly swamped with anonymous gifts, way beyond his capacity to handle alone. That’s where I came in….

Before I had kids, I spent my entire career working with non-profits. I loved it and managed to land my dream job at World Vision exactly 9 months before giving birth to Saben. Making the decision to stay home with him was so hard for me because I loved that job! When I heard Giving Anonymously needed help desperately I thought there was no way I could fit it in…but my heart yearned to help them and I felt absolutely giddy about working for such an amazing non-profit, using skills that had been inactive for years. So I offered a few hours and loved it so much….I got to call people and let them know we had money for them! It was a blast and next thing you know, I had become “volunteer coordinator” and was helping organize many aspects of the day to day responsibilities.

Giving Anonymously excites me because it is such a new way of giving. At World Vision, I was always fascinated by Child Sponsorship – how they take the time & energy to connect people with a real child, a face & a story. It would be easier for them to just ask for money, but World Vision wants to engage & educate donors, not just take their money. Sponsorship is one of the ways they do this. They take it so far too – if you are traveling to the country where your child lives, they will actually spend time & money to help arrange for you to meet your sponsored child. That would be such an incredible experience.

In my mind, Giving Anonymously is an extension of this. It encourages thoughtful giving, it lets you see need in your community and respond to it. It engages people in the giving process. So many times when you donate, you just let the non-profit take on all the responsibility of solving the problem with your money. There’s nothing wrong with this, and I wholeheartedly support non-profits. But I still love the idea of a more personal sort of giving.

So that is my story of why I am THRILLED to be volunteering for this unique non-profit, I feel like this “part time job” is a dream come true and I am so excited to have the opportunity to pursue it.

*I wrote this when I resigned as president of a local moms club, so if it sounds oddly formal, that is why. I am still involved with the club, just no longer president, which actually is a huge relief. : )

The Princess Dilema

It is official. Annika would sell her soul for a princess. Particularly, anything - anything at all - that has the disney princesses on it.

She's been saying "princess" for about a month now, but only in the last two weeks has she started shrieking "PRINCESSSSS!!!!!" every...single...time....that she sees one in the store. And I bet you never noticed (unless you have a daughter) - PRINCESSES ARE EVERYWHERE. They surround us.

Princesses stand for everything I don't like in life. Ok, that's a bit extreme, but relatively true statement. Let's try again.

I don't like princesses. I hate how they portray unrealistic beauty, I hate how they are helpless, I hate how ridiculous the romance with a prince is, and I hate how skinny their little waists are. If I could do exactly what I wanted with no consequences, my daughter would never see a princess and especially a princess movie her entire life. (ogre, I know)

BUT, I've always said "I won't encourage princesses, but if my daughter is into princesses and barbies, I won't forbid them". Because I know all about the allures of forbidden fruit. And they snuck into our house via birthdays - because I didn't want to be psychotic about it and never told anyone I didn't like them. (I promise, promise, PROMISE, I am not angry if you gave my child a princess. Promise.)

Unfortunately, two year olds LOVE branded characters. Saben loved Thomas the Train at this age. But somehow boys are offered a hardworking train to admire, while girls are offered helpless beautiful damsels. And more than anything, more than I even hate BRATZ dolls, I HATE how...commercialism? the media? THE MAN? gets to choose what my child will be into. By plastering those stupid smug faces on absolutely everything. What two year old isn't going to be excited to see someone she recognizes on everything from toothbrushes to pillows? It is such glorious fun having someone you recognize on all your stuff.

So I've given up. I will get her the princesses because her joy in them is beautiful. I know a couple princesses won't ruin her forever. Saben stopped liking Thomas, so maybe she'll outgrow the princess phase too? (of course he never got into superheroes either - an entirely different blog post altogether)

Did I mention that she wants to wear her princess nightgown each and every night? She squeals and dances around everytime I pull it out. Who am I to deny my child's happiness? Even if it does make me gag a little everytime I look at their stupid little starry eyed faces and teeny waists.

First Family Camping Trip

It's been quite the summer, the busiest one I have ever had, but so many wonderful times & great family memories created. I am going to work super hard to get caught up here on the blog because there are so many things I just don't want to forget!

So way back at the end of July, we went car camping on San Juan Island together as a family for the very first time. The campground was absolutely gorgeous, situated on the east side of the island where we could watch the sunset over the water & behind Vancouver Island.

We arrived late afternoon via the ferry. Even though the Islands are close, the trip ends up taking several hours because you have to get there so early to catch the boat you want. We had fun waiting though and ran around on the beach with Roxxy. When we got off in Friday Harbor, we ran down to the docks & bought ourselves 2 live crabs to cook for dinner. Because what says "camping" more than fresh crab? I know, not normal, but I will say it was easy, low clean up and nothing beats cracking crab while watching the sunset....

Of course the kids immediately started playing in the dirt. Very normal.
I seriously can't believe it, but I didn't take a single picture of our campsite or the campground. Anyways, 1/2 way through our delicious crab, the sun was about to set so we all ran down to the beach to watch. It was glorious. We put the kids to bed in our giant tent and then finished our crab by lantern light.

Kyle is super cautious about leaving food out in camp and I sort of got annoyed because he kept putting everything that I needed away. How many couples do you know that fight because the husband is too tidy? Well now you know one. I'd go for a knife and it would be washed & in the car. Chips? Buried in a tub that I have to unpack.

Anyways, my point is....about 1 am the first night we hear this racket outside and Kyle immediately thinks it must be our cooler - the only thing we left out. He goes outside and finds out its not our cooler, but these black foxes that are breaking into our neighbors stuff. So thank goodness for tidy hubby.

We also kept waking up because Annika was rolling all over and not staying in her sleeping bag or on the pad we put down. So she'd start crying because she was cold, we'd wake up and have to get her covered again.

The next morning was freezing. It had been 95 degrees in our house when I was packing, heat records were being broken all over the state. It was only supposed to cool a bit that weekend - into the low 90's for seattle. So it seemed absolutely insane to pack pants or sweatshirts. I mean, I hadn't worn either one for weeks. Bad idea, I was sooo cold and so were the kids. This fog rolled in, a breeze was blowing away our breakfast and so we loaded the car and went into town to escape into warm stores & look for some cheap warm clothes.

Annika had a breakdown as soon as we arrived in town, I did not find any cheap warm clothes and we barely survived until lunch. Annika napped on the way back to camp, the sun came out and we were much happier campers by late afternoon.

I was relaxing in the sun reading a magazine when I suddenly realized there were crowds of people down on the beach - ORCAS! I squealed and ran down with Saben - he was interested for about 3 minutes while I ooohed and ahhhed for a good 30 minutes as they slowly faded from site.

That night, our friends arrived to share our campsite. They have two girls, one who is Sabens age & one who is older. They had so much fun the next couple days, exploring, playing in the dirt, walking roxxy, etc.

That night we made our first Jiffy Pop and took it down to the water to watch the sunset again. We watched divers enter the water for a night dive and the kids climbed around & jumped off a giant log that was there. Divine.

That night went much the same way - Annika waking outside her sleeping bag, scootching all over the tent in her sleep. We had no idea what to do with her. Then at 6:30am our neighbors who'd ridden in on a LOUD Harley decided to warm their bike up before heading out. TEN MINUTES of a super loud Harley puttering away, then them riding out of camp. I'm sure the entire campground woke up.

Later I was complaining about it and our friend says "well, I figure it doesn't matter, I mean, sometimes our kids are really noisy & that probably annoys people too. It just happens." I replied that "Well, if I thought my kid was going to wake everyone up by crying or screaming, I wouldn't even risk coming camping". Please. Do not ever say anything like that to anybody. You will be sorry. Read on....

We headed out to American camp in the morning and once again it was pretty foggy, but a lot warmer. We had an amazing beach all to ourselves and spent hours exploring it.


I love how Allison just assumed she would be part of our picture when we asked her Dad to take one for us. So cute. We took 15 pics at least and never got a decent one of both kids. oh well.

When we got to the beach, Annika insisted on putting on her swimsuit. She quickly figured out it was too cold to swim, but wouldn't change back.

Saben & Allison spent a lot of time "building" this fort that was already there. They would take sticks and wedge them in or lay them on top....

As the afternoon wore on, it was clear the Annika was exhausted. (I mistyped that, but I can't bring myself to change "The" to "That". "The Annika" is so perfect....)

Went back to camp, Annika napped while our friends went kayaking. The whales showed up again and I took all the big kids down to see them. We stayed & played on the beach in the sun and it was relaxing & wonderful.

That night we decided to take a risk and try going to Roche Harbor for dinner. We had no idea what sort of restaurant was there or if they'd be appropriate for kids. It was late, we were all hungry - very risky. Amazingly, there was only one restaurant and it was absolutely perfect. They were super busy but happened to have a table for six open on the balcony overlooking the marina. Beautiful. Our food took forever, but it was still perfect.

Then...Saturday night. Annika was still having trouble sleeping and woke up sort of screaming/crying at about 4am. It took us a couple minutes to get her calmed down and she managed to wake our friends & their kids. I felt awful.

At about 8:30 am, Annika woke up and immediately completely lost it. Crying, screaming, shrieking - I had no idea what was going on or what was wrong with her. We tried everything - offering her food, getting her dressed warmly, but she was in complete hysterics. I couldn't even get her diaper changed, she was writhing and screaming so violently.

At this point the whole camp was pretty much awake anyways (before she started screaming) and we just were trying to make sure there was nothing wrong with her. Unfortunately the only people still in their tents were our neighbors, but I kept hoping maybe they were out somewhere else.....

She calmed down when we left her alone for a few minutes and we thought we were through. But as soon as I went back in to offer her breakfast, she lost it again. So I decided to take her down to the water for distraction and to get her away from everyone having to listen to her. As we were walking and she is screaming & writhing out of my arms, I realized we needed to get her in the car & out of the campground.

Of course, right at this moment a man walks up and I literally thought he might have some clue why my precious girl had suddenly gone beserk and offer me helpful advice. I was so upset at this point. Instead he goes "I know you don't want to hear this, but when my kids did this at a campground, we put them in the car and left so that no one else had to listen to them."

I of course broke down into tears. Because really, I was trying to get her away from everyone and the only reason I didn't stick her immediately in the car is because I didn't know what was wrong with her. And we needed to get dressed first. So I learned my lessons (1) 3 nights of poor sleep does not work for Annika at this point (2) Next time just stick her in the car, because ultimately, that is what calmed her down (3) Never complain about a loud harley again, you never know when you will be the one annoying the entire campground.

Angel or demon? (taken about 30 minutes after she calmed down)

All in all, it was a super fun trip and I LOVE the San Juans. I want to go there every year really.

he's getting hilarious...

Saben: Mommy, I know something that no one else knows about.
Mommy: What is that Saben?
S: I can't tell you
M: Please?
S: Well, I think that when you die, there will be cowboys.
M: Really? You mean in heaven?
S: No, not in heaven. When we come back to Earth. There will be cowboys here.
M: Why do you think that?
S: Well there used to be cowboys and now there aren't any, so they will be here when we come back I think.

Next day...
S: Mommy, I know how to keep monster trucks from driving on top of our car and smashing it.
M: Oh? How do you do that?
S: Just don't get in any accidents. Monster trucks only drive on top of cars that were in accidents.

Obviously someone was explaining (I think it was me actually, but a long time ago) that monster trucks only drive on top of cars that are junked up - ie. in accidents. I love the visual of getting in an accident and suddenly a monster truck appears to drive on top of your car. Run!!! heh heh.

finish line

Kyle has been in Europe for two weeks and today is our final day alone.

The dream: Annika takes a long nap in the afternoon, grab some coffee & cookie for the kids, go to the park for a walk, maybe fly our kites, stop by the store for some groceries & a fun $5 toy for each kid, get take-out on the way home, early bedtime, kyle home by 10pm.

Reality: Annika falls asleep in the car at 10am and only sleeps for an hour. There goes naptime in the afternoon - for the third day in a row. Ugh.

Go to starbucks for our coffee & cookie - Saben won't eat his half because it has yellow raisins in it. Annika enjoys the entire cookie herself.

Arrive at the park and it is really windy. Grab the kites, head to the beach, put my latte down....
Huge gust of wind, Annika starts SHRIEKING, kites are tangling, Saben's kite is about to lift him in the air, latte spills (I had about 6 sips of the entire thing - the rest into the sand). Boo!

Annika is still crying, kites still trying to escape, put the kites away, Annika is STILL CRYING. Everytime the wind blows at all she bursts into tears, screams if it gusts and clings to me like a bear is chasing her. Decide to leave the park.

Arrive at the store, put the kids into one of those "car" shopping carts. Its the only one and I have to literally lean my weight into it to even get it moving. Choice: Push & shove the broken cart around the store or take Annika back out into the windy parking lot to find a better one. Choose to use my muscles & haul the stupid thing through the store. The cart is definitely broken, by the time our trip is done, my arms ache & I am sweating.

Go to get the $5 toys I had in mind - they are out of the little lego kit Saben has been wanting forever. Of course they have a similar big one for $12. I cave & get it.

Get home & swear to not leave the house again until Kyle gets home. Except maybe for some thai takeout tonite. Why are the last days of Kyle's trips always the hardest?

Delancey

We arrived at 5:50pm on a Friday waited just over an hour for dinner at Delancey on Friday. I kept wondering if we should split & go somewhere else, but my wonderful cousin insisted we wait because she knew I had been very excited to eat there.

We got a chair at the bar where I struggled to watch each and every pizza being made so I could memorize exactly what they were doing. Nevermind that I don't have a giant wood burning oven...

We had the cimini pizza and it was so delicious that my eyes almost filled with tears - then again, I was starving & sort of tired - but it really was that good. I kept thinking about how something so simple could be one of the best tastes in the world. Better than aged steak, fresh crab, perfect tomatoes, oozy chocolate cake - in my mind a perfect pizza tops them all.

Perfectly charred salty chewy crust, cheese oozing with olive oil, bursts of fresh thyme & the light texture of thin sliced mushrooms. I think that's all that was on there, and it was mind blowing. The Padron chili pizza was also spectacular, but for some reason the mushroom one was my favorite. I am glad they had a pepperoni one for my picky-ish cousin's daughter, but it still seemed almost criminal to order it, the others were so much better.

Then the wine soaked peaches for dessert...mmmm......I already found my own bottle of wine so I can try making it myself.

color

This is very nice. In fact, I love it & all the other photos from this house. I often wish my house looked like this, neutral, bright and with pops of color everywhere. And yet....


For some reason, this excites me even more. Its like two halves of me fighting it out everytime I decorate. : )

Our good friends, Kevin & Kelley (Kevin is also Kyle's business partner) recently adopted a girl from Ethiopia. Tonite we babysat her and I finally got a chance to take some pictures of the kids together. She is completely adorable! She LOVES watching the kids and laughs everytime either of them gives her attention.

Annika's favorite part of the evening was putting the bottle in Ayda's mouth...then taking it out...putting it back in. I am not sure Ayda had quite as much fun as Annika did.

I have decided that I love babysitting babies. It is so fun to care for them for a couple hours and then give them back to their parents. Lots of cuddles without the screaming or night waking. Perfect.

Annika turns 2

I can not believe our little baby is two years old already! I will write more about her later, but for now, here is a quick rundown of the fun day we spent celebrating our sweet Annika.

I decided to give Annika her very first pedicure in the morning to celebrate being such a big girl. It was so fun and she loved it and all the special attention.

For Annika's cake we decided to do fresh raspberry pie - our bushes produced ridiculous quantities of berries this year so it seemed like a great way to use them up. Plus Annika loves raspberries, so it was fitting. To decorate, I bought a little doll & gave it a hair cut to make it look more like Annika. (This "toddler" doll had hair to her feet. Seriously?)

Annika's party this year was just family members and we had a BBQ at our house. I felt bad not inviting any little friends for her (actually I invited one who couldn't make it) but its such a full house with our entire family, so I decided to wait till next year for her first real "friends" party.

I made grilled pizzas and for some reason thought that sounded simple enough. I sort of misjudged on that bit, making pizzas for 12 people on the grill was a lot of work. But it was fun too and I had lots of help from everybody (especially papa ken). Annika actually doesn't like pizza all that much, but these days there isn't a lot that she loves that constitutes a true "meal". So we went with pizza.

After dinner, we opened gifts. Saben had picked out a special small jewelery box with some rings in it and then wrapped it carefully in a piece of paper which he colored himself. He was very excited and insisted on her opening it first. So sweet.

Annika loves animals, so I put a cat & dog on the pie to go with the "annika" doll. While I was cutting her a slice of pie, Annika managed to eat 1/2 of a candle. I thought she was licking off the whip cream....

I was in the kitchen cleaning up with Kyle and when we walked back out into the living room, we found the kids eating the remaining whip cream while the rest of the family watched and my mom & grandma took pictures. So much for letting grandparents supervise the kids!

Our first family trip*

One Saturday (July 12) we were chatting and I mentioned how I'd really like to do another family vacation this summer other than just the camping trip we had planned. As we talked, we realized that we were busy nearly every weekend until mid september. This was our last free weekend of the summer and so Kyle suggested we leave the next day for winthrop.

This is so unlike me. I always plan trips at least weeks in advance, but we came home from the farmers market, I found a cabin online that was reasonably priced, reserved it and then headed off for a bachelorette party that evening. Kyle managed to get everything packed while I was gone and we headed out the next morning. He said this is his favorite way to do trips - absolutely no planning at all. I guess opposites do attract.

We had lunch in Newhalem and the kids had "Lunchables" for the first time ever. I laughed really hard because Annika would not touch the cheese in them. This girl loves feta, begs for chunks of parmeggiano, adores fresh mozzarella and has eaten every sample they give us at the specialty cheese shop. But proccessed cheese product? No thanks. (she also hates lots of melted cheeses, so it may have been the soft texture)

We stopped a lot on the way over and I realized we could easily spend a long weekend in the Newhalem/Ross Lake area alone. We sort of researched what we could do there, drove over Diablo dam, got brochures on Ross Lake Resort and enjoyed the view. After that Annika fell asleep until nearly Winthrop and the drive wasn't bad at all. (maybe 20-30 minutes of fussing at the end and Saben was wonderful as always)

We arrived in the late afternoon, settled into our adorable Mazama cabin and pulled out some water guns & balloons. Saben loved it. Spraying us with water is one of his most favorite things to do, but he cries every time we retailiate. Stinker. That evening there was an amazing lightening & thunder storm which both kids loved watching from the deck of the Duck Restuarant.

Annika was perplexed by the "disappearing" of the balloons when she threw them

Day 2 - It was a lot colder than I expected & the storm wasn't moving out as quickly as I'd hoped. We decided to go hiking up by Sun Mountain Lodge after having lunch in their cafe with beautiful views of the valley. Lucky for us we eat lunch early so it was nearly empty and Annika's handful of screams didn't bother anyone.

New game "hay on the dog"

2nd new game "chew on grass like Daddy"

Annika spent 3/4 of the hike in the backpack, but Saben walked the entire thing

I loved these cinnamon colored trees with the white birches (er...aspens? I don't remember)

Our 2 mile hike was a blast and afterwards we went on a drive to Twisp while both kids took a little nap. We decided to grill steaks at the cabin for dinner and just relax.

Day 3 - Headed out to Perrygin Lake for some swimming before driving home in the afternoon. It was gorgeous sunny, but the wind was really blowing so it wasn't as hot as we'd of liked. Saben just went in to his waste, Annika got fully wet and played in the lake with Dad for over an hour while mom & saben laid in the sun.

Drove home while Annika napped & were back in time for supper on Tuesday night. Annika did scream quite a bit in the car during the trip, especially driving back & forth from Winthrop to our cabin in Mazama. But I have found those memories (the unpleasant ones) fade away quickly while the fun ones remain and I am so glad we did it despite our fears of a screaming stubborn toddler ruining the trip. : )


*Technically we all went to Hawaii last spring, but I am counting this as our first "weekend away" staying local sort of trip.

Mermaid

Ok, I take it all back. At Annika's 2nd swim lesson, she was perfect. Laughed and smiled the entire time. The teacher told me she thought Annika was ready to "go under" which terrified me, so usually I'd lift her out after only getting her mouth and nose wet for a second. She coughed up water a couple times and then started squirting it out of her mouth and pretty soon would just have her mouth wide open the whole time.

Finally, I let the teacher send her to me with her head fully submerged and she did it! A bit of coughing but success. I was so excited.

Then today. After Saben's swim lesson today, we went in the hot tub since Annika didn't get to swim. (We turn the heat down to 85-90 in the summer and it is perfect to practice swimming.) Annika started dunking her head under ALL THE TIME. She had on some water wings and was jumping off all the seats & shelves where I was waiting to catch her and seemed to just love going under, always coming up with wide open mouth and a huge grin. I think she just lets the water run out of her mouth, but its so hard to tell....

She got braver and braver and by the end of the evening was completely freaking me out because she'd just suddenly go under and stay until I pulled her up. So weird and now I'm thinking this is actually more dangerous because she's not scared to fall into water anymore. I wonder what she would do if I didn't pull her up. (she can stand with her head above water in all parts of the hot tub)

I am so glad we have a lesson on Thursday because I have to grill the teacher on how to handle her new "skill".

Saben is also doing great with his lessons, but still scared to stick his face in the water. Funny though, he put his face down in the water at one point tonite and came up sputtering. Then later he jumped off the seat into my arms and I let him go under and he was totally fine. Its like you have to trigger their instinct (by jumping) to hold their breath or something.

So much more to write about - Annika turned two on Saturday and a few days before that we took a spontaneous family trip to Winthrop. The weekend before that, we managed to actually move stuff (tv, couch, toys into the playroom) down into our basement because we are nearly finished! It has been such a busy month....

My little Mer-twerp

For those of you feeling jealous of our fabulous bed training skills (if sheer luck can be considered "skilled parenting") let me relate how Annika's first swimming lesson went today.

First of all, Saben has a lesson at 11am. At 11:15, Annika & I went to get our swimsuits on for our 11:30 class. As soon as Annika had her swim diaper on, she peed a ton, it leaked and I didn't notice till we were back out at the pool. (somehow her walking while grabbing her crotch did not clue me in) Luckily I had an extra swim diaper.

Saben's lesson ended & ours started 2 minutes later. I had to quickly get him dressed, whisk him to the gym's day care thing and then run back and jump in the pool with Annika, missing the introduction instructions.

As soon as we entered the pool, Annika started whining & gave a couple good screams as I gently splashed water on her. (as the teacher suggested we do) The next 30 minutes she pretty much whined and screamed the entire time. Sigh.

This is from a girl who absolutely loves water, runs through wading pools up to her chin in water and lays down with the back of her head wet in the bathtub.

My conclusion is that what she hated was me holding her & feeling powerless. I finally had her down in the water to her chin and I think she finally understood that she couldn't touch bottom and relaxed a teeny bit after that.

She did like chasing a ball in the water and did do some kicking and laying on her back. When I blew bubbles, she watched, then leaned down, stuck her face in and took in a huge swig of nasty pool water. Ugh.

But she would have none of the jumping in or even me lifting her up and down in the water. Of course her very favorite part was when I passed her through the water to the teacher and she had that split second of freedom where no one was holding her.

Big Girl Bed

Last night, Saben & Annika were laughing & screeching in their room after bedtime. They have some sort of game where they both stand up and then fall back down into their beds/cribs, dying of laughter. Then I heard Annika crying pretty hard. I ran in and she was walking around on the ground and Saben said "she fell when she was climbing out of her crib!"

So tonite we made the big move and brought in a matress we had upstairs for guests. Annika was sooooo excited. She was all grins and kept saying "Mine!" In fact, she wouldn't even let Kyle or I lay in it. So cute. And now she is asleep in her big girl bed. No crying at all and a big brother who kept telling her gently "stay in bed annika" We'll see how it goes from here, but I can't even imagine an easier, funner, sweeter first night.

lemonade millionaire

It all started four days before July 4th. I decided to draw the holiday out a bit and took Saben to a fireworks stand as a "reward" for some good behavior. While he was picking out his $3 pack of sparklers, he spied the BIG BOXES of fireworks. "Mommy! Woah! I want one of those HUGE boxes!" He was so excited because Fourth of July is his favorite holiday - well he starts asking about it in late spring and talks about it nonstop. He loves Christmas & his birthday too, but july 4th is right up there with them for sure.

Anyways, so he asks for a $60 box of fireworks and I say "wow, that's expensive Saben. You would have to earn money to be able to pay for that".

Saben: "How do I earn money"
Mom: "Oh, I don't know.... doing chores....or maybe selling lemonade in front of our house. Or selling some of our extra Raspberries? I don't know"

He latched onto the raspberry bit and next thing you knew, I had promised to help him with it on July 3rd so that he could buy his fireworks. Sigh.


Saben made this sign - I drew the letters, he colored them and added illustrations of Chitty (bottom), flowers and even a guy throwing a pop it. (top)

Lucky for us, lemonade/raspberry stand day was HOT. We prepped all morning and then opened the stand at 2pm when Annika took her nap. Amazingly, she slept till 5pm that day, so we just sat outside, enjoyed the sun, eachothers company & meeting all the neighbors who came by.

We have so many college renters in our neighborhood and they loved the lemonade stand. The raspberries sold ok, but everyone bought lemonade & even sold quite a bit of mint iced tea. College kids were coming and giving him $3 for a $1 cup of lemonade. Many just dumped a ton of change in his container. They were so sweet and almost every rental house on our block sent someone out to buy lemonade.

Grand total? Open from 2pm - 6pm and Saben made $50! I didn't charge him for the lemons this time around, so really it was only $40 profit. Still a lot of money for a four year old!

Fourth of July we headed out to the reservation to spend his hard earned cash and came back with tons of fireworks. I kept asking him "are you sure you want to spend all of it on fireworks?" and then I'd list other toys and stuff he could buy instead. But he was not tempted in the least, he just wanted the fireworks. So fun.

More Chitty Chitty

Whenever Saben is really focused on something like legos or drawing, he hums "chitty chitty bang bang" non-stop. NON-STOP. Over and over. For hours on end. Really - hours. I am dead serious and not exagerating.

If you think this occaisionally drives me batty, you are incorrect. It drives me always batty and I always find it running through my head even when he's not around. I shudder when i realize I am humming it to myself while weeding out in the yard. But how can you tell your son to quit humming happily while he plays? The only remedy I've discovered is turning on some music. Except then I get busy and we listen to the same CD 4-5 times in a row and that drives me batty too.

For the record, if I had a rapper name, I would want it to be "Chitty Chitty".

crazy neighbors

So last night, kyle is out cutting wood in our garage at 10:30 pm when he hears this banging outside. On the garage. He goes out into the alley and there are drunk kids there and a bunch of them are ON THE ROOF of our garage. It used to be a carport, so the roof is flat.

Seriously? Who gets drunk and then thinks it would be fun to climb onto the roof of someone else's garage? And why? Kyle was so mad at them.

Then another guy comes a minute or so later and tries to go into our garage to look for his friends. Kyle tells him to leave and then he tries to go in our gate to see if they are in our back yard. So I guess the next house project is sticking some barbed wire on top of our garage. Sheesh.

So today, Annika & I have all her dolls around our little kids table in the kitchen and are pretending to serve them lunch with her toy food, dishes, etc. After a while I realize its now time for our lunch. I get hummus & pita out for annika and set her at the table with all her dolls & their plastic food. Then I decide to really quickly call a glass company before I eat my lunch.

After about 5 minutes of phone conversation, i return to the kitchen to find hummus mashed all over the dolls faces, clothes, heads....Like someone had tried to murder them with a spoon full of hummus. "Eat the hummus dollys! Eat it! Don't make me shove it in your mouth, in your eyes, rub it on your head.... Come on, why aren't you eating this, its delicious!"

Its also in all of annika's tea cups, smeared like frosting on a plastic donut and is now all over the couch pillows we'd used to prop the dolls up to table height.

Will I ever learn? I just thought it'd be fun for her to have lunch with the dolls.

Just like Daddy

Saben: Mommy, will I be like Daddy?

Mom: Sure Saben, you'll probably be like him when you grow up. Do you think you'll be like Daddy?

Saben: Yes, I will.

*Pause*

Saben: I'll have really really long hairs all over my body, just like Daddy.

What I love about Saben

I am so completely in love with my sweet boy. I love his curiosity, the endless questions about absolutely everything. I love how he will one minute be struggling to understand the concept of adoption, asking deep questions about why some people aren't ready for babies and then, when he's had enough, suddenly switches to something mundane like "And...why is our rug brown?"

I love how he always tells me that papa Ken knows A LOT of things, he knows everything. "I'll ask papa Ken, he knows....you don't mom." I love that I can teach him absolutely anything and he'll be excited and into it. This morning we watched a youtube movie about how bees make honey and he watched the whole 7 minutes enthralled.

I love how Saben loves collecting bugs as much as he likes picking flowers. Lately he has spent hours outside, searching for potato bugs, beatles, "ear pinchers" and anything else creeping in our garden. He puts them in his cage and I love how he has such great pride in the fact that "I take really good care of my bugs mom". He always puts the cage carefully back in our closet (an outdoor one) so it doesn't get too hot in the sun, gives them spoonfuls of water & fresh leaves. But he also likes to step on ants or anything else I tell him to smoosh and giggled uncontrollably when he got two ladybugs to crawl on his arms simultaneously.

Saben is holding a hollow stick "tunnel for my ants to play in". They also have access to balance beams for their amusement.

Looking at Saben's bug collection

I love it when Saben makes bouquets for me. Most of them are dandelions & buttercups, but when I let him, he loves using flowers from our garden. The other day, we had picked one bunch of purple lilacs on a walk and Saben told me he wanted to go outside and pick a few more flowers from our garden to go with it. We have flowers of every color out there, but somehow he came back with this ridiculously beautiful combination. I couldn't believe it.

I love love love how much Saben loves to draw. For quite a while, he's been just drawing rockets with occasional family portraits, etc. Then suddenly he started busting out cars on his drawing board. These are a few of the first ones I took a few weeks ago, but they have gotten much more elaborate since then.

Race car number "101" with another car following it

Race car "21" with a driver and smoke billowing out the pipes in back.

More elaborate pipes with smoke. I have no idea where he got this idea of pipes with smoke on race cars but it is awesome.

I love Saben's attention span (what mom wouldn't) and how he can spend hours building with his "new" lego set. We recently pulled down Kyle's old legos, which just happen to be a bunch of space rocket/moon explorer themed kits. Him & kyle have built a ton of them. They make a mess, but he loves it.

I love Saben's hugs goodnight, his special nose kisses and the way he still loves to cuddle in my lap. I even love how he still insists on describing each and every bowel movement he takes to me. "Look mom, its in an "S" shape!" I love riding bikes with him and how excited he gets when he makes skid marks from braking fast. I love watching him workout how to get along with other kids, especially ones older than him who hurt his feelings. I love watching him be ridiculous with his preschool buddies, singing the "Daddy Pusher" song, pushing eachother and wrestling around .

Don't worry, plan to do Annika too. Might take a while, its been busy. Two weddings, an anniversary and a family reunion in May - we were gone 4 out of 5 weekends. We are also rolling on our basement again - working hard on getting everything ready for carpet by the end of the month. Well Kyle's working hard, I'm actually writing in my blog for once. (so much for taking a break till fall, the carpet went on sale, so we plunged ahead.)