Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Sibling interaction

I think what has struck me the most about the kids recently is how much they are interacting all of a sudden. Not playing together per se although that is certainly happening more (they were both in their room for 10 min today playing-it was strange but nice) but just talking and being and well interacting! Robert keeps telling Mary in the car that she can't talk (I guess it interupts his discussion of every.single.car/truck/van/ambulance/construction vehicle that he sees) :) But he will hand her stuff and I THINK that I have gotten him to stop hurting her on purpose in the car to get attention. He would bend her hand backwards. Where do kids get these ideas?

Speaking of Robert talking I have to post a couple of his Robert-isms to keep them for future record
-sheet = sheep. He can say sheet and if you correct him he'll say sheeeeeeeeeet which doesn't really sound right. But if he is just saying it it is always a sheep :)
-person = purse. (R)Mommy's person. (me) No, mommy's purse. (R)OK, purse. Mommy take her person to the store. (me)I don't take persons to the store unless I have to but I always take my purse :)

Mary is starting with some putting words together. "Want _____" I think was what she said today. Her vocabulary of words like pez, chips, etc is quite detailed. She loves her junk food! And strangely enough eats yellow tomatoes like they might be going out of style but doesn't generally like red ones. She even picked them out of her turkey wrap at costco twice! She almost has Wesley convinced to try a yellow one :) I bought her new shoes this weekend at walmart and she is quite enthralled with them-2 pairs, a pair of pooh sneakers and a pair of brown slip on shoes with pink sparklies. She likes the sparklies better :) Which means I can only ever find one. Ugh when will it end? And it doesn't work to put things up anymore. She just climbs or stretches to get stuff. Robert has mastered the pull the chair over but Mary isn't there yet. I think he's working on showing her how to climb out of her crib though. sigh. Robert got new undies-he had pretty much outgrown his and was unhappy when they pinched his parts so he is very happy with his new undies. I sent Wesley with him to pick them out while I took Mary to look at shoes :) I figured if Wesley would prefer to go shopping with the kids then stay home with them while I went he could do some of the work too!

This weekend was good but busy. Friday I cut Robert's hair and then we went to a friend (Sib)'s house for supper and then I canned salsa while Wesley worked his way through more of the coins from his grandparent's house. Yum. Home canned salsa rocks! Sat I made meals and froze them, played with the kids etc while Wes finished up with the camper (which is now sitting out for sale-yeah!) and brought over the canning jar shelves (of the cement brick and board variety) to set up in the crawl space for my empty jars and then we went to grandma R's for supper. She taught Robert hide and seek and the kids had a blast with that, ring around the rosey etc while Wesley worked on her computer. Sunday was church, and then during nap I baked (to freeze) and Wesley mowed and then we all went to walmart then it was time for supper, baths etc. Mary decided to put Robert's new rescue hellicopter-that makes noise etc (that he got for finishing the 2nd (and last) poop chart) in the water when she was done with bath/dressed and I left her a second to find a comb. It seems to be doing OK which is a relief!

I work 36 hours this week so I am doubly glad for some time this weekend to make some meals ahead and I was able to start laundry on Sun so I was able to finish it Monday after teaching all day. yeah! So today we just kinda hung out. We played outside some, had lunch/nap (I wasn't able to sleep-I tried but just couldn't), hung out some, went to the gym and then dropped my trooper off to see what is going on with it-it just is missing some umph. I'm off tomorrow and then work 3-11 thurs and fri. Thurs am Mary has her 18(!) month appointment and both kids will get their regular flu vaccines and Friday I have a haircut! It's time for my shorter winter haircut-I like it long in the summer so I can put it up and shorter in the winter so it dries faster, lol. So far tonight is going OK. There are like 3 people hospitalwide that are potentially going to die tonight so we'll see what happens. That's the news from B'water... :)

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Robert

Saturday

Oh my big boy! He is getting so big. It's been a crazy week with lots of time at the doctor (Robert had pneumonia Wed and then they both had rechecks on Friday and Mary still had hear ear infection from last week so she's on a new abx).

Robert totally cracks me up. He's starting to say "sure". If I ask him to go potty, help me with x y z he pipes up with "sure!" or "ohhhhh kay". Today he helped me move a ton of canning jars from the trooper to the lawn and then from the lawn to the crawl space and helped Wesley wash the old camper. "I put the camper in the bath". lol. I wonder how big of a bathtub it would take to wash a camper.

Sunday
Robert did well picking up toys and listening-for the most part. I hear he didn't nap (I sure did-I slept great!). We're still working on whining and he melts down pretty easily especially if he is hungry or tired.

The weekend at work was really good. And then today I got groceries, slept a few hours, went to the dentist and came home and worked on laundry and housework

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Mary-isms


Mary... oh crazy baby Mary

Loves all things nursing related (thermometers, stethoscope, my shoes...
Talks like a blue streak. Hell-copper anyone?
Eats almost anything
Loves, loves, loves anything having to do with dogs, especially pugs. And the Dog book. Oh how many times a day are we reading the dog book?
Sleeps with 2 stuffed puppies
Loves her doll babies
Takes her doggies for walks in the stroller
Sings constantly-recently the theme song for baby signing time complete with the sign for baby
Destroys train tracks like no ones business
Loves to get into trash cans.
She's my crazy baby girl! I can't believe she's almost 18 months old!

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

canning

just a few pics of my recent canning escapades. Dunno why I'm canning but I will say it makes me happy :)

what doesn't make me happy? Sick kids. I am REALLY tired of sick kids.... my own that is....

my vintage canner



the roasted tomato and garlic spaghetti sauce



the green beans from my friend Crystal- like 13 lbs of green beans... it took me about 24 hours just to snap them all (intermittently with small child care of course!)



and after canning (there are also 2 bags of beans in the freezer-3 batches in the canner was all I could manage in a night-it took me from 7:4pm to 1 am to manage that!

Martha and Me Mondays (yes I know it's Tuesday and a week late)



I did last week's project on time but didn't get around to uploading pics until tonight. The project was to make pom poms

http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/article/pom-poms-and-luminarias?&rsc=cf_link&comments_page=1&&showComments=true&#conversation-container

Mine didn't turn out like Martha's but they are cute and the kids love them. I hung small wood decorations from Michaels from them and they add to the beach theme.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

another night and a stack of tissues

I'm sitting at my desk in the coordinator's office with a pile of snotty tissues all around me and my nose red from being blown (ugh, I hate colds!) listening to spirit fm on the computer and well enjoying the quiet. And drinking hot tea and cold water. The ED is humming and I've placed several admissions and started an IV but am in a lull at the moment.

Today was a pretty good day-the house is still a wreck-it's hard to want to clean the kitchen when there is a huge box with a crib in it in the middle of the floor. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So sat/sun we picked up the rest of the stuff from Granny's that we're taking (we paid for some of it but wow-a steal!) a bed, dresser, dressing table and china cupboard plus other misc stuff. To make room for all this stuff I finally got around to returning Robert's crib that had been recalled. So, got that returned just fine (they gave me back full price!) and bought Mary a new crib (her crib and Robert's were identical except for the finish and have BOTH been recalled). Sigh. I bought this one and I LOVE IT

http://www.amazon.com/Stork-Craft-Tuscany-Stages-Espresso/dp/B002A9IZ0Q/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1251865889&sr=8-3

and no, I didn't pay that much! Walmart had them for $150 (on sale, normally $190!). This crib is solid. Amazingly sturdy. No drop side-just solid wood. Love it! So does Robert "I love Mary's crib". So yes, Wesley and I put it together before I went to work this evening. Complete with 2 whiny kids and a drippy nose. It was a blast. So now we need to take apart her old crib and return it. It will feel SO good to have this done. And to get our money back is just crazy-I've used a crib for 3+ years and you're giving me all the money back? So Rob, instead of hauling a crib to you whenever you get to that point we'll just send you a nice gift card to some store you actually have. Next we need to get the upstairs together before I have to work a weekend or mom and dad come. Cause they're ain't no way anyone could get near a bed right now!

Yesterday evening I started roasting some tomatoes-some fresh, some that I had frozen, skinned and thawed. I let them go most of the night using the time bake feature on the stove and wow-fabulous. Today I pureed them using a stick blender and heated them up and canned 4 quarts. It is so yummy. Thick and rich and wow. It's going to taste fantastic this winter! I was able to can them while the kids ate (after doing devotions with them again-today was Noah and the flood) and played and it went well. They processed while we played outside. I felt pretty good until lunchtime and then felt horrible-chills, achy during naptime and rested most of the afternoon. Now I'm just sniffling! and sneezing, and blowing my nose and sniffling.... when the people that you're starting IV's on start reccomending cold meds to you you know it's getting bad!

Wow, I wrote most of that around midnight and it's now 6 am and I'm just now settling back in. I've earned my keep tonight (and hopefully the box of tissues I've used!). The ED was hopping and then there was a death and a bunch of IV starts....

Mary has turned into quite the daddy's girl-mainly when it comes to her love of pez. She says/signs "please, daddy's peh". Or just signs please and says "that's daddy's". The kids know I don't dispense pez-that's a daddy thing. The other day Wesley refilled ALL (like 6!) pez dispensers so they should have a lot of bonding. Of course Robert is the origional pez addict. He just comes and sit's on Wesley's lap and starts asking for them and then wants to "hold them" ie eat the whole canister. I can't figure out how they stand them but whatever! Give me chocolate any day (and not the chocolate pez-double yuck!). It's also funny to hear Mary mimic Wesley. She'll go around and point to stuff and say "noooooo that's daddy's". Apparently EVERYTHING is a "no that's daddy's". It's hilarious because really everything is really a NO (at least everything Mary wants to be into). I'm trying to think of what is going on with Robert. I've been working some with him on leters/writing/coloring and he is definitely improving. Still no attention span but oh well. And I don't think Mary will ever stop eating crayons. It makes it really hard to work with both of them! Well, almost time for the next nursing coordinator to come in. I'm all set :) Can't wait to get home and to bed. It should be nice and cool and quiet today.