Our Thanksgiving...

I must clarifiy my previous post. Eddie wears underwear all day, everyday. It is only during the overnight that he wears a diaper. It is when we put this diaper on him that he finally releases the poop he has somehow saved up despite copious amounts of miralax. Thus resulating in a diaper change in short order. Josie is still wearing a diaper most of the time--when we can get her to.

They are willing to pose together more than in the past (for now).

This is the back of the house now. Now we just have to do the landscaping and we'll be all set--this addition took almost 4 years for us to begin from the time we began looking at replacing the rotting porch, so it could be a while for the landscaping...

We had a busy thanksgiving. Full of getting the house ready for guests, cooking, raking leaves, playing with visiting relatives, puking, spending quality time in the smallest room of the house, shopping, cleaning up kid poop and pee, and getting out the Christmas decorations.

Everyone (G'parents Ohio, Aunt Lore', Uncle D and their foster son) showed up late Wednesday. Good thing too, as they helped with the kids while we finished putting enough things away for them to have a place to put their bags and lay their heads.

Den and I cooked most of the dinner, with lots of help from the guests when they wandered into the kitchen--I made 2 dishes, both without Den standing over me, as he was too busy with the 3 kinds of stuffing, mashed potatos, sweet potatos and turkey.

Apparently I was so busy on Thursday I must have forgotten to eat much (if you don't count a couple handfulls of chocolate chips). I either caught a bug or all that rich butter-soaked food did it, but Thurs. night was extremely rough for me. The next day wasn't much better. It might be a bug, as g'pa Ohio got sick Saturday night and Den is wondering if he is flirting with quality time on the radiant-heated floor of our new bathroom.

J meanwhile decided to take this potty training thing seriously. Everyday except the morning I was massively sick, she has pooped in the potty. She also peed once in the potty (purely by luck at having her sitting there at the time). She has also pooped on the family room rug, the kitchen floor and peed on the family room rug, the thick training underwear we got her to wear when she refused the diaper, and on the kitchen floor. I'm really torn. I want to neither discourage or encourage her. Basically I don't want to put any pressure on her, especially as she is just now starting to be able to communicate with us using words.

The City comes by on Monday for the last pass of picking up the leaves and Den was determined not to have to bag the leaves. In the above photo he stands next to 2 afternoons of work--thanks to g'pa and Uncle D.

I convinced Den to hang up some artwork on 2 walls of the family room. I know it goes against his sense of order and all that, but it looks great and the kids love to see their artwork. Right now it's a mix of preschool and Cookie-school work so includes both J and Ed pieces. Maybe I'll try and zoom in on a couple pieces before we switch them out.

And in a funny culmination to the weekend. We went to the 5pm service on Sunday (thank goodness there are about 8 different masses from which to chose). Den had taken a fussy J outside and as the Priest went through the list of apostles and saints as they always do, Eddie turns to me and amazed says, "he just listed all the trains!". As in all the Thomas trains. He's become a devotee of Thomas the Tank engine DVDs during his evening nebulizer--actually it's one particular episode on one of the three discs we have. I had to stiffle a laugh, but it has also become apparent I'm going to need to brush up on the ins and outs of my religion so I can field the questions with more than a mumble.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Repeat and Rinse

Josie pooped AGAIN today. Took Cookie right up to the toliet and boom. Meanwhile, Eddie tried sitting on the toliet, gave up and pooped in his betime diaper. I've offically entered that part of motherhood where the stories are no longer cute little numbers about baby's first words. Now I am trying to convince a nearly 4 year old boy that the potty is the place to poop.

I am also trying to convince him that when it is 30 degrees outside and I am not dressed to be outside, I have no desire to stand at the side of the car while he crawls through from Josie's side, then decides he wants to crawl out and back in on HIS side of the car. If that wasn't enough, he wanted to have a conversation about the pattern on his carseat, the various components of his carseat and life in general. All while I am standing in the wind. While it is 30 (okay 40) degrees outside. Perhaps this is why minivans were invented.

We are having 5 people stay at our house for Thanksgiving. Looking forward to it, actually. As I went grocery shopping this week, I stood in front of the turkey section. They literately had 5 different fresh and 5 different frozen kinds of turkeys. Everything from organic, to natural, to butterball. I chose the later, but the angst involved in knowing that 8 other people are relying on you to select the correct brand of turkey, that will be juicy, cook easily and more importantly be easy to carve was a little much.

For someone who doesn't cook--at all--I've started to get into the idea of preparing food. I don't have the German-esqe quality my husband does in ensuring everything is finshed within 5 minutes of each other. With all the distractions, I don't know how he does it, but if he has to blow-torch something, it is going to be done ON TIME.

More pictures soon...

A new level of sibling rivalry

Josie pooped tonight. In the toliet (the training one). Without any prompting. In fact, according to Den, he had just gotten her out of the bath and he was tending to Eddie when she peed by the bathtub, then scooted across to the little toliet (which has a flip down lid so as to double as a stool), flipped up the lid, sat down and POOPED.

Den, who usually handles bath/bedtime alone as his relaxing 'dad' ritual called for me with a slightly paniced, slightly excited panic in his voice. I thought something was wrong as I tore up the stiars. We were both excited of course that she had pooped, but more so because now it raised the stakes for Eddie (or so we hope). He is Mr. won't poop in the potty and Mr. holds it in, so is taking Miralx via the doctor. We really hope this doesn't backfire with him, but rather incentivzes him.

Josie has been expressing interest for a while, telling us she has pooped and sitting on the potty of her own volition. I brought up the potty when she started telling us she had pooped, just so she knew it was there. I'm not naive enough to think this is the beginning of potty training for her, and hope Cookie doesn't take it as a sign either, but...we'll not exactly discourage it either.

This is the turkey hat Ed made in preschool--pretty cute. What is really cute is when I picked him up that day, he said he made the hat for Josie. Melted my heart. He really did too. He really wants her to wear and enjoy it. Problem is that it's too big for her and she doesn't want to wear it.

So...tonight Den and I were playing the Eddie tittled, 'turkey game', whereby we take turns wearing the hat and running cirlces around the railroad track in the family room as we flap our wings and gobble like a turkey. We really need blinds in the family room!

Art and Music Class

Sorry about the sidewards picture. If I fix it, I'll never get this post done. G'ma Ohio bought these Halloween shirts and the kids have worn them lots. This is the first time they have both been worn at the same time and I wasn't even trying this time. Eddie was happy to pose with J, but she wasn't so much.

Den and I marvel almost daily at our luck in finding our nanny. She has taught us so much and teaches our kids daily. She loves doing arts and crafts with the kids and now she has started J on the path. This was the first time I was home to witness it for myself.

What you don't see is J bopping along to the kids music on in the background. She was dancing in her seat while she painted and pasted, it was pretty darn cute.

Enjoy the pictures dad in NO.

100!

For about the last 2 months, Eddie has been working on counting. I mean that he has been interested in counting and asking what comes after the last number that he knows. It's been fun. In Sept. he counted all the way to 40 with help and that was when he started to learn how numbers progress.

Something in him clicked in the last little bit and last night he counted all the way to 100 without any assistance. Then today, he was moving onto the 'hundreds' and after 900, I started him on 1000. Did someone help him with all this unbeknownest to us?

In not so fun news, I think he's got a kid version of seasonal affective disorder, or whatever it's called. He's been a PITA lately, following us around like the puppy he pretends to be. I actually stepped on him a couple times today because he was so close to me. Cookie reminded me tonight that last year he went through a similar phase in which he talked a lot about it being dark early in the night. And was very uneasy and out of character for a while. I don't remember when it resolved, but I do remember it happening. We've fielded lots of questions about bedtime, nighttime, the moon out during the day, etc.

He's got clocks and the like, I need to think of some kind of visual for him that shows the times of day and how they correspond to what the Sun will be doing and what he will be doing. Any ideas? Something similar to the visuals they print in the newspaper about the sun rise and sunset schedule--yet for a 3 year old? While I'm out there, I'm looking for a do-it-yourself responsibility chart. The experts all say we should make sure he has some things he's responsbile for (and we like the idea). Problem is, we forget to have him do things--set the table, clean up toys, etc. So the chart is really for us, but loosely for him.
Josie has been making some major strides, literately in the last couple days. I swear her regular vocabulary has exploded from about 20-30 words to easily 50. She is pointing to colors, objects, repeating new words and then using them later. Granted 90% of you would have no idea what she is saying, but we know.

Den is in the Big Easy this week. He was supposed to go in Oct. 2005 and I was going to go with him. As you might recall, this was just about 6 weeks after Katrina hit. Needless to say, that was the second time I was supposed to go to NO and wasn't able. This time it just didn't work logistically, but then Den screwed up his flights so badly, maybe I could still make it. He accidently booked to come back the day after he left instead of Friday. Then his flight was delayed so badly out of our home airport that I brought the kids by for a 30 min. visit over an hour after his flight was to leave.

The photos were taken last night. Not sure I've posted many photos of the addition, but the top one is a good one that shows a lot of the room, right from the kitchen where there used to be a door. We do plan to put furniture in...someday. Right now, the kids are really loving it as a playroom and miraculously Ed's train set is still up. I'm not going to be the one to take it down. In fact, I look forward to building something more permanent when he gets older in the basement. I think I might know a couple relatives who would be interested in helping with that project.

He and Josie have been getting along really well and having fun together. There are still issues, but then they are siblings.

While She Slept

This is what Ed and I did while Josie slept. It's a train track combined with a car track/garage. Nifty piece that goes with the garage has train tracks, so you can basically create a crossing. I only had one splitter/'y' piece, so felt slightly limited, but it sure was fun. Then Eddie built a circle with the leftover track for Josie to use. We'll see how long it lasts tmr.

J is still feeling a bit under the weather which mean after multiple outfit changes this morning, she slept for 3.5 hours this afternoon. Eddie was a good sleeper then too. Too bad they both wake up so early. If one sleeps in, the other wakes up. It's like they communicate while we're not paying attention and agree to who will wake up early.

Someday we will be dragging them out of bed at noon---oh how I look forward to those days!

Happy Halloween

Taking advantage of the time change, in thinking it's later than it really is--and getting 4 posts out in one shot.
So I shouldn't admit this, but we took J out when she had a 100.6 degree fever (it was 99.7 all day). We had just planned to have her out for a short while and keep her close to us.

She was also supposed to be a yellow dog, while Eddie was a blue cat. Then we couldn't find a sleeper, sweat shrit, or anything to resemble a yellow dog. So she became an orange dog. Then, last weekend, she spied this dress at the Disney store, and SHE became Minnie Mouse.

Thanks to Aunt Sharon for using the found pink ribbon I'd saved and Den to making these felt ears, that while crooked in the photo, really made the outfit.

For Ed, it was a little more difficult to do a blue cat--how do you do fur when he really wants to be 'blue'--dye the fur (I did think of this, as you can find stuff that could resemble fur). It was a pretty lame costume and he didn't even want a tail, but he was happy, and that's what mattered. Fortunately for the real gig (treat or treating) we got them to wear their ears (with a little help from mom's head-band). We had put a bell on his collar, but he pulled it off and didn't want it back on. At the parties the previous weekend, he'd used blue and then green whiskers and nose.

This time, we got black...

Here Ed is applying his 'own' black nose and whiskers. J seems to be doing okay despite her fever. We had planned to just dress her up and not go, then just go for a short time and then she just got sucked into it all.

Waiting for the G'parents

This was actually taken a couple days before g'parents arrived, but Den had started a 'game' with the kids where we put them in a blanket and swing them back and forth. It's all fun until they both decide to be in the blanket at the same time, then it's almost 60 pounds of kids.

It really is fun, but this was what Josie had to say about it when we had to fold up the blanket and get ready for bed.

The rest are of the kids goofing around and yes, that is Eddie running circles around Josie. I believe that was the night g'parents were coming because Den thought he'd have her ready for bed and change Ed when they got home (after the kid's bedtime). I was at a meeting, but Den clearly wasn't thinking clearly when at just after 8pm, he says to Eddie, "hey, why don't you show g'pa the new family room'. That's a good way to wind down the kids from the excitement of g'parents arriving. Needless to say, Eddie was up until 10pm!

Misc.

Josie is really into playing hide and seek these days. A couple times I've actually kind of had that little panic set in as I search the entire first floor and come out of my room (which is about the least child-proofed) and see these little legs poking out under the chair in the living room. She thinks it's the most hilarious thing. She definitely has a sense of humor.

Here Ed and Den are working on their 'ears' for their Halloween costume.

Not knowing how long J would stay in size 18 months, I bought her this adorable dress and then got the sweater so she could wear it in the winter. It's really meant for warmer weather, but given at 18 months, she is just now outgrowing 12 months clothes, she might make it through til spring.

In the Days Leading up To Halloween

The weekend before Halloween we had been invited to 5 parties in about a 4 hour block of time. Needless to say, we were only able to 'hit' 2 of them. One was the local neighborhood Association party, for which I had been assigned to bring a 'sweet'. I took my responsibility seriously and so the kids helped me with some sugar cookies and icing. This picture you see of Den, he 'helped' for about 2 minutes until he grew tired of the help he was receving from kids egar to help taste test as well as work their magic on the cookie cutters.

Even Josie punched out a couple cookies. No one became ill from the raw egg, either. They were quite good if I don't say so myself--and I even add libbed a bit (which I NEVER do when cooking). Next, I'm going to take a cooking class so I can move on to some of those receipes calling for egg whites).

Wow! Don't you just love this photo! I sure hope they stay this close through childhood (and adulthood).

Down for the Count

When g'parents Ohio came to visit in the first part of October, we warned them not to come--the whole house is sick, we said. Feeling guilty about cancelling earlier in Sept., they came anyway. I don't know if they ever got sick, but we sure got worse the longer they were here. The kids had already been sick at least 2 weeks by then and Den and I both caught horresndous, lie-in-bed colds.

Thank goodness for g'parents. They helped with the kids--and helped with us.

Fast forward to this weekend. G'parents Wisc. came to town. We knew a norovirus was circulating at the local school, but had told our nanny to steer clear of her usual neighborhood buddies for the week until it passed. So I was pretty miffed when I got home on Wed. to find her telling me that she had 8 kids over that afternoon doing craft projects and making cookies. Normally I wouldn't think anything of it, but not this week....

Friday morning after the most delicious dinner date night at a local resturant, complete with wine pairings, I woke up feeling ill. I figured it was the red wine that had done me in as I felt better by the afternoon. We went to a Halloween party, went on a marathon trick or treat session and even Josie got one piece of chocolate for their efforts (and Thank Yous).

Then at 11:30 that night Eddie woke up. I got him back to bed until he woke again at 12:30, kind of whining out. Upstairs, I find him standing next to his bed, filled with puke. Poor kid. As I rush him to the bathroom, he pukes in the hallway and again in the bathroom. Eventually Den woke up and tended to Ed while I tended to the mess. Let me just say, not only was Eddie a trouper ("kinda funny, Josie threw up on my bed, and now I threw up on my bed" [that was from last winter when she had a bad cold and I'd gone with her to tend to Eddie]). But Den was a champ too. He can tough it out through just about anything but puke--it's is achielles heel. He made it though. I on the other hand began feeling ill and continued to feel ill the rest of the wee hours of Sat. morning until I woke up Sun. morning.

So Den hung with Eddie all night, as he puked every hour, on the hour. Poor kid. Poor dad. I went up to help with one more sheet change and then after 2 sheet changes and about 6 pj changes, they were fine. Ed was pretty okay by morning--after sleeping in until 9am. Meanwhile J woke up and after a robust cup of milk puked all over Den. Meanwhile, I began my day sleeping on the bathroom floor. All I have to say is, thank goodness for radiant floor heat, it actally felt kind of good to lay there (all things considered). We told g'parents to go home, so if they got sick, they would at least be home and not en route. They refused and helped both with the kids and with me. I of course hope they don't get it, but if they get it, I hope it isn't while traveling on Monday.

J continued to have some challenges during the day and by the time I began to feel like I could sit up, she came to lay in bed with me and promptly puked all over our bed. I was basically sick all day Sat. and when I woke up on Sunday morning with Eddie standing next to our bed (at what I thought was 6am, but was really 5am), I was feeling much improved. Den brought J out later and went back to bed with a migrane that seems like it has started to turn his stomach. Hope it's just related to the migrane.

J continues to have some diaper challenges and is downing the pedialyte while Ed seems to have bounced back fine. I'm mostly better, but Den seems to be on the cusp off the illness. G'parents think they have a shield on and won't get it--hope they are right.

So....Halloween pictures soon. As well as a couple pre-Halloween ones...