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.)

Saben's first bike ride - 4yrs 2 mos old

First of all, I missed getting pictures of Saben's very first ride on a pedal bike with no training wheels because I didn't even bring the camera. I honestly didn't think he'd really get that far because he was whining about not wanting to do it. Obviously I was quite wrong.

We adjusted the seat and he pretty much just rode off down the hill. It was insane. Kyle just barely helped him back up the hill to home by pushing his hand on Saben's back when he struggled to get the pedaling strength. He mostly did it all by himself.

After a whopping 20 minutes of practice, he was riding through this mud puddle, no problem, not putting his feet down at all. Seriously, i was in shock. He was turning, pedaling through bumps, having a ball. Honest, he has never pedaled a bike without training wheels until this evening.

We are so extremely proud and excited for him.

I have to add that riding a glider bike is what taught him the balance & skills to just hop on a bike like that. He's been riding this one for two months and had a different one for part of last summer. He's ridden it up to 2 miles (to town & back easily), takes it down 5 ft. dirt jumps (just rides down the big dirt hill) and can do almost anything he wants on it. Uphill, downhill, it really gave him the confidence that he can ride & balance on a bike.

After our experience, it seems almost criminal to put a kid through the torture of training wheels. Seriously, go buy your kid some sort of glider or take the pedals & training wheels off the one you already had. The gliders are generally extremely lightweight, which makes them easy to get uphills, so I think they're worth the money instead of just taking pedals off a heavy one. Just make sure they learn to pedal on a tricycle or something and they should be ready to go.

Anniversary Weekend

This year, for the first time in 8 years, we stayed home for our anniversary. Scratch that...we've stayed home 2x before - when we went to Egypt a month before our anniversary and last year when we traveled to Hawaii and then Italy. (I can't believe now that we did both trips in one year. crazy) But this is the first time we've chosen to stay home but still do something special.... Usually we take a nice long weekend away someplace not to far away like portland, the methow valley, vancouver island, etc.

My parents took the kids Friday night until Monday morning and let me tell you, I really needed the break. It was so nice to just be calm for two whole days and do whatever we wanted. I love my children dearly, but the peace of no screaming, no fighting, no chattering, no complaining....it was heavenly.

The best bit was that I was able to clean & organize the house Friday because there was hardly any packing or planning to do. And it was so motivating to know that my cleaning was going to last TWO ENTIRE DAYS. I love that.

So friday we put the kids to bed at my parent's house and then drove home late when my parents got home.

Saturday morning we got up whenever we felt like it (ah.....) and then walked downtown for breakfast at old town cafe. Another nice perk of staying home is that you already know your favorite restaurants and don't feel guilty spending the money because you aren't paying for a hotel. I highly recommend it.

After breakfast we went out for my first time kayaking in puget sound - something I've always wanted to do. We borrowed the kayaks, strapped them onto a borrowed truck, grabbed sandwiches at old world deli and launched near the fairhaven ferry dock. The water was calm which is amazing luck since I throw up at the slightest wave. A kid & his dad came flying past me in their double kayak, but stopped long enough to point out that I was paddling completely wrong. Dang.

Along the way, we passed some small rock islands covered in seals. I paddled towards them but they succeeded in intimidating me. What if seals were notorious for tipping over kayaks and I just hadn't heard? They certainly had the aggressive glaring down....We admired them from afar and my fantasy of paddling with a smiling seal swimming alongside vanished. Almost.

We headed south all the way to Chuckanut Island, ran around a bit on the island and then headed back. Going back was painful and felt about 4x longer than the trip out. We rounded at least 4 different points that I thought were the last one before the launch dock finally came into sight.

In the evening, we did a couple more things that we NEVER EVER get to do. We rode bikes downtown, chowed some carne asada burritos at Casa and then rode to some friends' house who have kids our age (the kids were in bed already) for late evening drinks. awesome. So fun to be the ones out & about with no kids.

Sunday...slept in again, breakfast at Avenue Bread. Seriously, what is with that place? It is like they are so cool, they don't have to have decent service. We got our pastries, kyle got his cooked-to-order breakfast sandwich and then we waited ten more minutes for our tea & latte. Ridiculous. (But I only get that attitude at the fairhaven one, the rest are much better.)

Did a little shopping & kyle helped me pick out a dress to wear to summer weddings because he is such a sweet & patient guy. I think it nearly killed him. We were physically tired from kayaking and it was warm & sunny so.... we decided to come home & wash our cars. Weird, I know. But we NEVER wash our cars and it sounded sort of fun, lots of water to cool us down, etc. But of course kyle got freaky about the whole thing and ended up completely detailing his car from top to bottom so I had plenty of time to finish Eclipse finally and then do some gardening. So nice.

Sunday night we finally went to Prospect Street Cafe, which is absolutely our favorite place in town. We walked again (kids really make you appreciate the freedom of taking long walks together) and had a nice long dinner.

So seriously, staying home was the most fun ever. It was so relaxing and I loved having the house clean, not much unpacking to do, low stress nature of it. The kids came home at 11am Monday so I even got to go grocery shopping before they arrived.

The ironic part of all this is that we are also doing a weekend in Seattle - I realized it would be super awesome & convenient if Kyle's parents watched the kids the weekend of a wedding we are going to (in Seattle) and then I was able to book the westin for super super cheap. woo hoo! Since those are our only vacations planned (so far) this year without the kids, I didn't feel super guilty.

But then...On Monday my friend emailed me about tickets she found to Madrid for $388. And I could get one at that exact, insanely cheap price, for immediately after Kyle's bike show in Germany. He'd just have to meet me there two days after the show. What to do, what to do.....

Lastly, in case you haven't noticed, we have the most amazing parents ever. I am so very grateful, from the bottom of my heart, that both sets of parents love our kids and are willing to invest their time and energy in relationships with our children. Not only that, they are willing to watch them for us so that we can get breaks and strengthen our husband/wife relationship. It is one of the best gift I've ever recieved. (and I'm not just saying that cause I want to go to madrid.)
: )

This made my morning...a kids album by the Presidents of the United States of America frontman, Chris Ballew. You can preview the entire album on the website. Thanks Todd & Betsy! I can't wait to listen to more great kids albums that I am sure you'll unearth. : )

We had a most fabulous weekend celebrating our anniversary by staying home without the kids. I really really want to write about it soon, but between the garden, basement projects & fun park dates it might take a day or two. Or maybe I'll do it this afternoon if it rains.

This weekend annika was running down a hill FAST and suddenly tripped and fell. This is nothing new, but when she stood up, her leg kept buckling under her. We tried to pick her up, but she wanted to keep running. But then her leg would buckle and down she went tilll we forced her, screaming, into the stroller.

Seriously, is this a second child thing? Impervious to pain? She limped the rest of the evening, but no swelling and was fine the next morning. Sheesh.

How do you teach a child that there is a direct correlation between the painfulness getting your hair brushed and running your gooey food covered hands through your locks at dinner time (rice dreads), lunch time (jelly gel) and breakfast (cornflake mats)?

Annika

Screams a lot.

Definitely entering the terrible twos, albeit a few months early. She has an opinion about how everything should be done and if I don't do it exactly right....she screams. (and by scream, I mean full on SCREAMING. Not fussing. screaming.) If I've done something to particularly offend her, such as say....put away the milk before handing her her milk cup - she shrieks, lays down, kicks her feet and screams some more. Or if I forget to immediately zip/button up her jacket - another fit. Definitely her first stage of trying to assert herself and the last couple weeks have been exhausting.

Laughs, runs, falls down, jumps, dances. You name it, she loves it.

Loves to copy her brother. Yes, they fight a lot, but they also are playing more and more "games" together with Saben telling her exactly what to do. Sooooo cute.

Climbs onto my lap with a book everytime I sit down. It took a while, but Annika definitely loves books now and would spend all day reading them if she could.

Makes a huge mess a million times day by poking, pushing, grabbing & spilling everything. She is always getting things off the kitchen counter (saben hardly ever did this) and is just a bundle of exploratory mess making energy.

Is definitely the clown, she tries to make us laugh all the time and loves it when we laugh at her.

Saben

Loves preschool & playing with kids his age

Talks constantly about absolutely everything, especially Chitty Chitty Bang Bang & rockets.

Asks questions about absolutely everything I say or do or that he sees.

Copies his sister whenever she is making a fuss so that he can get some attention too. (yes, he screams too)

Sings Chitty Chitty Bang Bang all day everyday. Even loudly as we go through the grocery store.

Is getting really good on the glider bike he got for his birthday. He loves going down the huge (5 ft tall) dirt jumps at Daddy's work and is so confident on it. He rides it all the way downtown with us and back home with no problem. (1.5 miles roundtrip) We love that thing.

Has eaten Salmon, salad shrimp, pork pupusas and steak in the last couple months. He also likes green beans, which mommy has almost never offered him because it was the vegetable I hated as a child. However, even I enjoy fresh ones sauteed with garlic.

Dad

Has been gone a ton - 4 out of the last 6 weekends including a 6 day trip to colorado.

Won his first ever downhill bike race and placed 3rd in the next one.

Is so hot and good looking.

Mom

Taking care of the kids by myself a lot

Declared "taking a break" on our basement remodel to protect our bank accounts and sanity

Planting our veggie garden & coddling my tomato starts

Helping others with veggie garden plans and my parents with a new landscape design.

Planning all the family vacations for this summer & some fun stuff for our anniversary. So sick of looking at calendars, cabin rental sites, camping reservations and hotwire. blech.

Joined a gym (in february) and loving it

Dreaming up crazy ways of making money (that would be fun for me), now just need to pick one and go for it. (write a book? become a professional blogger? garden consultant?) Or not.

waffles

Tonite Saben & I were praying before bed. Usually I have to sort of prompt him to think of things to say and do most of the praying myself. As I was leaving Saben calls out:

"Mom, I have one more thing to ask God. I want to ask him to make our waffle machine make waffles faster."

We haven't even had waffles in a couple weeks, so funny that this is what he thought of and especially that its one of the first "prayer requests" he's come up with on his own. Last time we had waffles, we did talk about how we'd need another machine soon so that we could make waffles faster. Still....

In the last photo below, Saben was saying something like this:

"Annika, you need to get these things on so that you won't get hurt when we go to fight. Come on, put the hat on. Ok, now here is your weapon....No put the hat back on. We need to go in our tent now so that we don't get wet, but keep your weapon..."

My two little warriors in their battle outfits.

10 on 10

Not super inspired, but the day got super busy around noon and I spent all afternoon cooking....

Find out more about 10 on 10 here.

clothes

First, there was the raincoat Grandma Young gave her. She always seemed to want to wear it, but I ascribed this to her love of puddle jumping that usually took place in the coat. Then there was her ballerina skirt. She always seemed to pull it out of the drawer when she went to find something to wear. Give a little hop & dance when I pulled it up over her leggings. Smooth her hands down over the tulle.


Then last week, we got some serious joy from these saucy pink silk pajamas. They had been in the drawer for a while, but I hadn't let her wear them because they are so light-weight and it was winter. This particular night, mommy was out shopping and Annika came running out with the terribly light-weight pajamas at bedtime and handed them to Daddy.

Thinking nothing, absolutely nothing, about the flimsy warmth giving qualities of the pajamas, he helped Annika into them. And she went nuts, smiling, laughing, touching them. Sooooo happy. Now she always pulls them out if they catch her eye and often throws fits if we don't put them on, even if its the middle of the day.

Last night, I bought Annika her first pair of dressy sandals so she'd having something to wear with her Easter dress. This morning I wanted to try them on to see if they fit, and they did not leave her feet for the rest of the day. She was running, jumping, laughing, pointing at them, saying "shoes!" over and over. It was so adorable and she kept at it for an hour.

Then I tried to take them off before going to the park. It quickly became apparent that this was NOT going to go over well, so I quickly gave in figuring they had to get broken in sooner or later. I tried again at nap time, and gave in again as she screamed and wailed. Decided it was worth getting a picture of the princess napping in her precious shoes.

We did finally remove them tonight before bed, but she was screaming, wriggling, writhing even, huge sobs of despair. It was heartbreaking. Trying to get out the door to where they were, we could barely get it shut.

The annoying part is that the sandals are already looking scuffed from just one day of wear. Stupid cheap target shoes.

The amazing part is that she has never been this attached to anything - no toys, dolls, stuffed animals....

Speaking of dolls, she has been playing with this doll I got her a lot and seems to really like it, but its so funny....some nights she wants it in bed with her & on other nights she screams and holds it out to me yelling "doll! doll!" and I have to actually remove it from the room before she'll calm down. Just had the throw that tidbit in there.

My son has reached that oh so sweet stage of a boys life where spending 20 minutes running around with a friend shouting "Dog Poop!" is the funniest fun thing ever and sober stories about Christ's death & resurrection lead to games that involve the phrase "I'm whipping you!".
(not to mention "I'm going to punch you in the face!")

And yet he is still sweet, thoughtful and innocent and generally his testosterone is under control. I am so proud of him & sort of enjoy his little bursts of potty talk/violence because its a sign of him growing up, being a boy and he does a good job listening when I explain things that are innapropriate. He's so careful & measured in everything he does, its fun to see him let loose sometimes with these things. But mostly, it's just plain hilarious.