Where to start....
Children. Sheesh. Who knew?
Saben is hilarious these days. He talks up a storm. And talks some more. And really, he never stops talking. At the very least he's making noises like pig grunts or talking about who the heck knows what. Most of the time it is adorable, sometimes its difficult to concentrate and every now & then I want to scream.

Pretty much every action I perform or noise I utter is met with questions from him. the notorious "WHY?" being a favorite.

Mom: "Come one...."
Saben: "Come on who?"
Mom: "I want that car to get going"
Saben: "Which car?"
Mom: "the blue one"
Saben "Why should it get going?"
Mom: "the light is green and its not moving"
Saben: "Why is the light green?"
Mom: "Because it is time to go."
Saben: "why isn't the car going?"
Mom: "well it is going now"
Saben:.....you get the picture, just continue for another five minutes until I say something else fascinating that begs for 20 questions.

My biggest joy is that Saben is finally nearly potty trained. It is still unbelievable to me that it finally happened and really, I have to agree with everyone else.... no magic tricks, it just suddenly clicked. Well, maybe one magic trick, but it is so gross that even I won't post it here, you'll have to ask me if you're ever struggling with potty training yourself someday.

I can't believe the days are over when I will drop human feces out of underwear and almost fall down as I accidentally step in it and slide across the hallway. How I will miss those days.

Speaking of gross, today they played the song "Mister hanky the christmas poo" in my exercise class. I've NEVER been one to laugh at poop, fart, pee, or other sick jokes. Really. But for some reason it made me giggle uncontrolably even though it was absolutely disgusting. It was really embarassing actually because I could not stop laughing and I was the only one losing it in the middle of doing our squats. (part of the hilarity was the fact that we were doing these squats & listening to a song about pooping.) I blame it on potty training.

We've reached an incredible milestone with Annika too. She actually made it through MOPS & a church service last week in the nursery! The first times ever! Honestly, we've been pretty sporadic at church lately because it is smack dab in the middle of her nap. And its the only service at our church that has Sunday school for Saben. Every single time we attend I spend half the service in the nursery. Then she's grumpy & our whole "schedule" for the day is completely screwed up.

Not to mention the fact that Saben generally throws a fit each week as we are leaving because there are DONUTS at church and he desperately wants one. It all adds up to a gay old time with plenty of good cheer by the time we leave in our car. But last week was awesome, and I actually got to hear the entire sermon. Because I like sermons. A lot. They always get me thinking.....

It actually amazes me how pastors always seem to include one point that is special, just for me, to mull over during the week. Even last week, when it was all singing & sharing time, they put in a special hymn for me that included the words "break me". As a mommy, singing those words makes me feel like I got punched in the gut. It takes my breath away for a moment.

I'll be honest, it scares me to death to sing those words. Which is why I decided to read our book club selection "the shack" this month. At first I was excited by "Theologically Controversial". Then AFTER I bought it, I read the back and realized it was about a young girl who gets kidnapped & murdered & how her Dad finds peace with God afterwards. Generally I avoid all movies and books about children dying.....But seeing as how it was in the context of something serious & spiritual I figured I should suffer through it. See how my book club picked a book I needed to read? Wasn't that nice of them?

So that's what's been on my mind lately. We still have men banging around in our basement every day and tons of important decisions to make like "which of these 30 toilets is the one for us?" as we remodel our basement. Seriously, is there anything worse than being stuck at lowes at 7:30pm with two cranky kids trying to make heads or tails out of toilets that range from $70-$300?

Oh, and Annika & Saben have not napped at the same time for a couple weeks now which is why I have been remiss in updating my blog.

Random Annika

Annika loves to eat paper.

When she is excited she bounces up and down, whether it is a delicious tidbit of food she has spied, or she just happens to like the music that is playing.

She gets very angry when we eat things and she does not get to try them. The other day at lunch I had some gyoza and she had peas & rice. She was screaming mad until I finally finished up the gyoza and then she went ahead & ate the peas & rice.

Annika stands for 10-20 seconds at a time without holding on to anything, but does not like to practice walking.

Annika still loves ripping up my flowers & plants. The other day she was ripping leaves off a garlic plant. Luckily I have a ton of them so I was just watching out of the corner of my eye. When I went to pick her up, she had the worst garlic breath ever and I realized she had been chewing on the leaves.

When she is not teething, Annika goes to sleep very easily. I just lay her down after she's nursed a while and she drifts off. Saben never did that, he had to be rocked & sung to.

Annika loves LOVES to be hung upside down, but going up in the air scares her a bit.

Annika is really a pest to Saben and loves grabbing everything he is playing with. This causes conflicts, to put it mildly.

Boot Camp Instructor (who also happens to be our pastor) trying to encourage us as we sweat our brains out during class: "

When I was in the Marines, we had to do this run on the beach once, and it was so difficult that only 6 of the 12 guys made it. I was running with one of the guys and suddenly he turns, pukes and then just kept on going. It was so awesome, I was so impressed, blah blah blah."

Kari (at the end of the particular thing we were doing):

"Once I knew this woman, she was in labor for 32 hours, and she just turned and puked and kept right on going. It was amazing."

I am madly, passionately in love with this book, "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" by Steve Solomon. It is one I've known about for a long time, but it is thick, with almost no pictures and sort of intimidated me. Finally I checked out a copy at the library and 3 days later ordered my own, it is that good.

Now I just wish I had 1,000 sq ft to garden instead of 72 sq ft. (actually I've always wished that) His techniques are perfect for a larger garden, but will translate somewhat to the tiny one I have. The best part is that his techniques actually make the 1,000 sq ft seem possible. He is all about saving time & finding the most effective ways to use your time & energy. And all his writing is backed up by science, his own years of extensive trialing and is very particularly suited to our climate here. (west of the cascades) Did I mention it is also all organic?

This could be an overwhelming book for complete beginners, but if you are really excited about growing lots of veggies for food, year round and have no idea where to start, give it a go. If its just overwhelming, try getting a few years under your belt first and then go back to it. Or just skim to his charts to give you an idea of where to begin & skip all the nitty gritty details.

I could go on and on about how this book challenges everything I thought I knew about growing vegetables, but I think you should just read it for yourself.

praise

Saben: " Mommy, I pooped!"
Mom: "Woo hoo! That is so awesome Saben! I am so excited!"
Saben gets up to look at it & points
Saben: "You like that big poop mommy?"
Mom: "uh...yah, I really like it"

What exactly am I teaching him again???

First words

Annika has said "mama" & "dada" for a month or so now, although not particularly discriminantly. I never know when to count first words because its so hard to tell with mama & dada, which are always first.

So second words.....
I started trying to teach Annika sign language for "All Done" and "more" during mealtimes. She really liked "all done" and soon would say "Ah Da" and wave her hands around. Not always sure if she really meant it, but this week she also started saying "Ma" one day when she was really hungry. No hand signs, but definitely wanted more food.

Thankful

So much to be thankful for these days.

• Seven years (today) married to my amazing, funny, sweet, very clever husband.
• Wonderful, awesome, fantastic friends who babysat the kids this weekend so that Kyle & I could celebrate our anniversary. We were able to go to dinner two nights in a row and take a short hike saturday morning.
• Spending all day working on our yard/garden for my special mother's day treat. I know, I'm weird, but I loved it.
• Annika sleeping through the night the last four days & taking some longer naps. I think the worst of the teething is over although she has one more bottom one that I haven't seen yet before she has 4 on top and 4 on bottom.
• Saben FINALLY pooing in the toilet as of last wednesday. Absolutely amazing. We've had some help from a Nemo pez dispenser and some luck.
• Started our basement remodel, finally. We are paying a friend who is out of work for a month to do a bunch of work on it and I am so excited about that. So glad for every moment that we will not have to be slaving over the remodel.

Pickin

Saben is sitting on the toilet and starts to pick his nose.

Babysitter: Why don't you let me get you a tissue to wipe your nose Saben.
Saben: No, this is how Daddy does it!
Babysitter: Well let me get you a tissue to wipe your fingers on then
Saben: No! Daddy does it like this all the time! (proceeds to wipe his fingers off on his FEET)

For the record, Daddy does NOT always do that despite Saben's claims.

Neighbors

A lovely small dogwood tree festively decorated with cans of Ranier, Olde English 800, some Miller Lite and one gorgeous bottle of microbrew.

Ups & downs

Annika has THREE teeth that are just breaking the surface right now and two that are barely poking through. So that is FIVE teeth all at the same time. And she has a cold. We all do. Needless to say, we are all a wreck. She is awake at odd hours every night and clings incessantly during the day.



Saben got into our top choice preschool! Woo hoo! I was feeling so depressed about trying to find one because I knew all the best were filled up. On a whim, I called anyways, and lo & behold, they were deciding that day whether or not to add an extra class. So he got into the extra class. Hurray!



I went to get my passport last week and managed to show up when no one was in line in front of me. We got right in! Definitely a miracle when you have two kids in tow.



I got a stomach flu yet again this weekend, threw up all day on Sunday. While we were in Wenatchee & needed to drive home that day. No one else has it yet, thank goodness.



I am starting to see changes from my boot camp class! Hurray for fitting into my old pants!



Saben has been pooping in his underwear for 2 1/2 weeks straight, going on months now if you ignore the times we took "breaks" and just wore pullups. He just does not even try and goes at random times every day. He often goes 3-4 times a day, just tiny bits, so I give him prune juice....but that makes such a huge mess, it is 10x harder to clean up. Usually he decides to go while I am nursing Annika... How am I supposed to "catch" him when I am frantically nursing, cooking, cleaning & still trying to find time to play with them? Sigh.

Winner!

Congrats to Ailie for winning my little contest, it is so fun to hear from someone new who reads my blog!

One more...

First person to email me their address gets a free subscription to Wondertime. (Apparently I have to buy 3 to get the good deal)


I'll let you know when someone wins....