First Day of Second Grade!

...and he's off! Hope it's a good day. The first day always seems so very long... I can't wait to hear about how it went! :o)

Still Going...

So, the pumping... well, I haven't stopped yet. I'm at two pumps a day. I could easily be at one, since I only get between 4-7 ounces a day TOTAL right now, but honestly? The quiet time between 7 and 7:30 (sometimes 7-8 depending on how distracted I get and how long of a day with the boys it has been) is too hard to give up. LOL!!!

I'm not joking.. it's SUCH a respite to just go hide out in the bedroom in the comfy chair with my laptop and the tv remote. Bonus, Jonathan gets a fresh bottle right at bedtime. (and a small one before his morning nap)

I'm not sure how long I can hang out at this amount... but, I might just attempt keep it up through flu season just so he gets SOME kind of protection from all the various things his two older brothers will bring home from two. separate. schools. (sigh) Part of me thinks it would be nice to be completely free... but on the other hand, the 20 minutes in the morning and the 30-45 at night don't really bother me and, like I said, I find the me-time relaxing and rejuvenating.

So we'll see... I'm anxious to post an "I'm FREE!" post... but I think the quiet time and potential immunity boost for Jonathan is winning right now.

Apparently, He Skipped Over 4 and 5....

Simon has been going around telling everyone he is six. He totally believes it too. I'm now a little concerned he's heading out into the world telling anyone and everyone who will listen that he's six and they are going to be all, "Umm... really? Because you kinda seem four... "

He also will tell you that he has lost a tooth and has another loose one.

Observe.

Big Fat Birthday Post!

Okay, so we had a first birthday party here on Saturday! I'll add to this post throughout the day... I am collecting pictures from everyone else since my camera went AWOL three minutes into the party and I didn't find it until everyone was leaving.

First off, there was this --














Irene kept my grandmother and my aunt and uncle away since they have a longer drive than everyone else. It also meant I needed to move the party to a couple hours earlier than planned to make sure everyone could be on the road when it was still safe to drive. So yeah... that was exciting! ;)

It wasn't a huge deal though, and didn't real stop any of the fun, except that it all had to be inside. Thankfully, our basement is a fantastic holding tank for a dozen kids on a sugar high.

Here was the setup before everyone arrived. I found little coconut tree straw cups for the kids and the goodie boxes had a whole host of random stuff in them that I'd been collecting for a few months since I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do.



















My mom helped with all the decorating... she rocks. If it were up to me, I would have just tossed the appetizers out on the table and called it a day.



















My sister-in-law, Krystyna, made Jonathan's cake (and actually was the initial inspiration for the Chicka Chicka theme). Chef Duff, eat your heart out. This cake was amazing... and tasted equally so. It was chocolate on top and yellow cake on the bottom... there were ridiculously yummy fillings in both. She wont' tell me how many hours it took her make this, and she has two kids of her own, so it was truly a labor of love for her nephew!!



Everything on it was edible except for a toothpick that held the coconut tree on the cake. And those letters? Matched the book EXACTLY in size and color. OMG.

















She also made Jonthan his own little smash cake with a lowercase J to go along with the theme. :) More on this later. To say it was a hit with J would be an understatement.


















Aunt Debbie created oodles of fantastic games for the older kids downstairs!!!


























A good friend of mine from high school makes pinatas for fun and I begged her to make Jonathan a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree for his birthday. She agreed and this was result. She subsequently got three orders from teachers after she posted it on Facebook. Thankfully, she's charging for them now because she said it took HOURS upon HOURS to create it!!! Seriously, do I not have the most creative friends and family ever?



Jonathan, of course, got the first whack at it. Ultimately, it took two entire rotations through the ten or so kids and our friend John, one of the seven-year-olds, was finally the one to take it out. The chaos the ensued when it broke was too quick to capture on camera.

























I had to rush caketime a little because Jonathan started looking like he was going to pass out from exhaustion. See exhibit A below.























And exhibit B.



Anyway, so the smash cake... he took it down!!! Seriously, he ate half the cake!!!!





























So that was the big day! The birthday boy hung in there all day despite repeated attempts to put him down for a nap.... he's such the little extravert, that one. (sigh)


Happy birthday to my little guy!

Simon.

This about sums it up lately. I ran across this cartoon yesterday actually just shortly after Aunt Sarah spent some one-on-one time with him and said he was fine that way. It inspired me to try to spend some significant time with JUST him yesterday. It really does make a huge difference. Have I mentioned school REALLY needs to start soon? (so my mom to kid ratio can decrease enough that I can do this much more often?)

First Year Slideshow...

Almost didn't do this but realized I couldn't NOT do it... so my house is trashed right now, but Baby Three has his own first-year slideshow. All is right with the world. ;)

Today You Are One!

Dear Jonathan,

One year ago today, at 8:50p.m. eastern standard time, you came rocketing into this world at a hardy 8 pounds, 4.6 ounces. I figure at least two pounds of that was comprised of chocolate snowballs and Rita's italian ice, being the summer pregnancy that you were. (also to be noted, I had to go back and look up your birthweight...because I didn't remember. gah. You are such a third child. Sorry!)

With your arrival, we became a party of five, which, as we have discovered over the last year, is a harder number to seat at a restaurant and is more kids than most people like to babysit on short notice.

Most importantly, you completed our family. Eight years ago, I wondered how it would all pan out and now I have the answer. Three boys. Whoulda thunk it? Certainly not me. But now? I'm not sure WHY I never thought it or hoped for it because I wouldn't change it for anything. I am definitely cut out to be a mom of boys... And life? It is definitely never dull... or quiet.

You are a wild one, for sure. I thought I'd learned it all with your two brothers before you. But you have been a completely new experience. You've been on the go since practically day one. You need very little sleep. I don't think you've napped more than two hours at a stretch more than a handful of times and as of today? You STILL haven't slept through the night. (sigh)

You are rough and tumble and always looking for trouble. You can very nearly keep up with your two older brothers and get SO frustrated when you are left standing behind a gate or a closed door after they have run off to play.

I am sort of ashamed to say that we have nicknamed you "Bad Baby". It's a joke, I swear... born of the fact that you can ALWAYS find the one thing in a room that will hurt you... not only that, but you KNOW when you shouldn't touch something and you will look over at us while you reach your little hand out to touch it anyway. You toddle over to us and open your mouth wide to show us the latest Lego piece or bakugan you've jammed in there in an attempt to choke yourself.... you climb everything in sight and you have the distinct honor of being our first baby who has needed the five-point harness on the highchair.

I have no doubt that you will forever be my daredevil. I'm sure will hold my breath for the rest of my life as you climb mountains, jump out of airplanes and off cliffs. At only a year old, you already like to jump off the side of the swimming pool, go under water and go right back for more. OH what am I going to do with you?!

You are not particularly cuddly and never have been. You are too busy for such silliness. You've never snuggled against my shoulder and been rocked to sleep and you've rarely fallen asleep in my arms. I admire your independent spirit, but I do kind of wish you'd stop once in awhile for a cuddle! I do have to add that that just in the last week or so, you have started "checking in"... you'll stop what you are doing, come find me and throw your little arms around my neck, rest your head briefly on my shoulder and then just as quickly as you arrived, you are off again.

We (kind of) rooted for you to learn how to walk quickly so you'd stop hurting yourself trying and so you could keep up with your big brothers. Thankfully, you got the hang of it fast and you were off to the races. The bumps and bruises are become less frequent now. Whew.

You are just all-around happy and silly and definitely do not take life too seriously. You'll probably get into lots of trouble for this aspect of your personality as you get older. But, for now, we are just enjoying your endless giggles and smiles.

You have made us the family we were meant to be and, as long and challenging as this year has been, we wouldn't change a thing!

Happy first birthday, Baby Three!

Love,
Mommy

Followups...

The two older boys had followups on their yearly physicals today. Ben, for a weight check and Simon for his allergies and related excema.

Ben, thankfully, is back on track after his back-to-back stomach bugs that dropped him off the charts for his 7-year well visit. He was 38 pounds just after those. He's up to 44 now and back comfortably in the 10th percentile. (LOL) I KNOW he's shot up vertically too, though they didn't measure that. He looks SO much taller to me and most of his pajama pants are super short now.

Simon's, who was weighed just as a matter of course, came in at 43 pounds. (gah!) The main reason we were there, his excema, looks a lot better, but his allergies are in full force right now, which we expected because it's the end of August. I think, if I remember correctly, it's leaf and tree mold or something that is bothering people right now. He has had a really horrible allergy-induced hacking cough the last week or so and I had started him on the full doses of all his allergy meds. It wasn't enough though and the pediatrician said he was wheezing some which means he's back on the nebulizer for awhile after TWO FULL YEARS of not needing it. (sigh) Now, of course, he won't let me near him with the thing, so I have NO clue how this is going to work. The last time I had to use it, he was little enough that I could just kind of bear hug him and rock him until it was over. Now he's nearly stronger than me and frankly, holding him down is a dangerous endeavor. I think we will be enlisting the help of daddy later on that one.

So that was our followup. Back in September for J's one-year well visit and flu shots all around. THAT will be fun. ;)

Like Peas in a Pod....

That's my new relationship with Peapod. Seriously. Love. My goal is now to enter an actual brick and mortar grocery store as little as possible with my children in tow. This will improve my life ten-fold! (happy dance)

Working on my second order now. I'm working it this week so they'll deliver tomorrow morning between 7 and 9a.m. I have all day now to perfect my grocery list and this week's menu. This is awesome.

But I digress. The real reason for this post is this little giggle I got this morning from Peapod.

So, I searched for cilantro and up popped two different options --


Here we have the ORGANIC cilantro:


And here? The regular, pesticide laden, probably genetically modified and possibly altogether created in a lab cilantro.


You can tell the second one MUST be inferior because look how dark and sad it looks compared to the perky and bright green ORGANIC stuff, which is a mere 30 cents more.

LOL!!!

I giggled to myself as I added the evil non-organic variety to my cart. I'm sure over at Peapod when they were doing the website there was a big meeting about which picture to choose too....

Cooking with Simon....

Simon remains my eager assistant chef. We haven't cooked much together this summer but that hasn't stopped him from asking to make something every other day. On Sunday, we made some cinnamon chocolate chip muffins though. He was busy stirring the dry ingredients on one end of the counter, and I was reading the next steps outloud.

"Next it says to add the eggs, milk, butter and vanilla and then stir."

He looked up from his work and without missing a beat said:

"And then after that, does the next step say to enjoy?"

LOL!!!

I guess we've read one too many recipes that throw that in as the last step. TOO funny.

He was very anxious to "enjoy!" them. And enjoy them he did... times three! ;)

Jonathan-ese...

I think we are getting the beginnings of some first words! Just in the last two days, I've been hearing some of the same "words" always directed at the same things.

Here's the current Jonathan to English translation guide --

* "Namnamnam!" - Yum yum yum. Usually uttered while licking the powdered sugar shaker in the pantry.

* "Bah!" - Ball

* "Eowwwwwwwwwwwww" - answer to "What does a kitty cat say?"

* "Raaaaaah!" - answer to "What does the tiger say?"

* "ooo awwwww!" - said while pointing to something he finds interesting, especially soft and fuzzy things that resemble cats and most often, Davey the Cat, who takes this sound as his cue to get up and relocate.

* "Ho?" - said while holding anything resembling a phone up to the side of his head

Oh, That Simon....

We walked past a little girl at the grocery store the other day and Simon literally GROWLED at her while giving her his "angry eyes".

"Simon! That was very rude! Why did you do that?"

"Because I don't like GIRLS!" he answered, crossing his arms and continuing to give me the angry eyes.

"Why don't you like girls?" I asked.

"I don't like girls because girls are mean and they TRICK me into doing things I don't want to do." he replied, indignantly.

"What do girls trick you into doing that you don't want to do?" I asked, my curiosity now piqued.

He growled again and paused before answering...

"They trick me into dressing up like a PRINCESS."

(snort)

I'm guessing this occurred at school this past year, though he won't elaborate. Whenever it was, it REALLY sealed the deal as far as his opinion of girls is concerned.

Of course, now we are having nightly bedtime chats about how it's important to be nice to girls even if you'd rather not play with them all the time or do the things they want to do. I'm terrified he is going to go back to school and be nasty to every girl in his class. Ugh. SO did not have any of these kinds of school concerns with Ben. This is a whole new arena for me. (sigh)

Every child a new learning experience, right? ;)

Really?

Jonathan often plays in the pantry while I work in the kitchen. I've made it pretty much baby proof on the bottom shelves. He pulls the baby food down and plays with my wooden salad bowls and sometimes the swiffer. It's really a nice, safe place for him and I actually sort of wish he'd stay in there all day sometimes. LOL.

Well, it WAS safe, anyway...

Today he spotted the marshmallows on the second shelf. (we let him have a bite of one last night to placate him while we finished dinner) Up up up he went, smacking his lips the whole way. (no lie) I didn't get a picture of when he was strategizing how to inch to the right and let go with one hand to reach the bag. This was on his second attempt. Ultimately, it ended with him falling over and landing on the floor with a the bear-shaped bottle of honey. (which occupied him for awhile after that)

Good times with this one.

If the Bowl Fits...

Ben at 15 months and at 7-1/2 ;) He found this old pic of himself and wanted to recreate it. Too funny! :)

I Can Taste Freedom....

I have been down to two pumping sessions a day for the last three days. To say it has been fantastic would be an understatement. I have gotten so much done in the afternoons without that 30-minute afternoon session hanging over my head.

Now... how to get from two to one and then finally free altogether? I have two weeks to figure this out. I'm thinking it's just going to work itself out because I seem to be getting a little less every morning... down to about 14-16 ounces total now for the day and only 4-6 ounces of that is in the morning. Hrm...

Two Wheels!

On Sunday, we were playing outside with the boys in the driveway and I suggested to Ben that maybe we should try taking his training wheels off of his bike again. (we've tried at least twice before in years past and it has NOT gone well)

He's been playing with our neighbor a lot lately who is a year older and who zips all over the place on his two-wheeler and I could tell Ben was kind of wanting to keep up. He hesitated, but then I suggested maybe, since Simon was tall enough for BEN'S bike now, that we try taking the training wheels off the smaller bike and maybe he'd feel a little safer.

This line of thinking seemed to click with him.

"Okay!" he replied, enthusiastically.

In 30 seconds, Tom had the training wheels off of the smaller bike. He held Ben's shoulders and the bike seat two or three times as Ben pedaled back and forth across the driveway. Tom stopped to help Simon with the other bike and the next thing we knew, Ben was off...

Guess when they're ready, they're ready! (reminds me so much of potty training... and is another reminder to me of the "when they're ready for something, it's easy and quick and painless" mantra I need to keep in my head in the coming years with Jonathan)



Not sure what to do about the bike size situation now. Simon doesn't want to go back to the smaller bike. But I'm hoping to convince him to want to try two-wheels too on the smaller bike so Ben can get back on his slightly taller and more age appropriate bike. LOL. We'll see how that goes. ;) I think he has a little more natural coordination than Ben, plus there is the motivation to keep up with his big brother, so I think if he really wanted to, he could definitely do it. (but again, if he's not ready, he's not ready.... which means we have a bike conundrum... new bike may end up having to be his Christmas present)

Motivation?

As a preface -- Simon is my kiddo who seems to have ZERO motivation to learn anything...can't tell you how many times I have sat down with him and tried to teach him how to write/paint/playdough letters or sound out words. He *has* managed to absorb a TON just by being Ben's shadow and thankfully knows all of his letters and their sounds (somehow).

However, it seems something, dunno what, has lit a fire under him, which I plan on taking FULL advantage of in the next few weeks!

Anyway... so as I was tucking him into bed last night, he sighed loudly.
"What's wrong?" I asked?

"It's just that... I don't know how to read ANYTHING!!!"

(I stifled a giggle)

"Well, would you like to learn?"

"Yes!"

"Okay then! I have some cool books that helped Ben learn how to read. We'll look at them tomorrow, 'kay? What do you think?"

"YAY!"

(then I reminded him that he DOES actually know how to read a few things.... like his name and both of his brothers' names and "mommy" and "daddy". This seemed to send him off to sleep feeling a little less hopeless. LOL)

White Fang...

Ugh. Jonathan is cutting his second fang and has been an even worse sleeper than usual lately. Hope this is over soon!!! Plus, I can't wait to see him with his two little fangs on either side.

I dug up a photo of his cousin, who is the only other baby i know to ever get teeth in this order. LOL. It's so funny and weird!!!

So yeah, this will be Jonathan's smile in a couple weeks. Hee! (I can't help but giggle that I dressed him as a bat for last Halloween)

Gates, Gates, Everywhere Gates....

I have finally created a gating system, at least a partial one, that allowed me to get SOME things done (on the first floor). The kitchen is now entirely gated off from the family room with one of those flexible corral gates we have, since that's where we spend so much of our time. (in the kitchen, that is). And then the dining room is blocked off with a pressure gate. Just in case he manages to bust out of that somehow, we also make sure the basement door is closed and there is a segment of another of our flexible corral thingies at the bottom of the other stairs which wouldn't stop him, but would slow him down until I realized he busted out. The secondary stairs are right next to the main corral (on the side he can't get to) so those aren't gated. It's so close that even if he were able to escape and start up those stairs, that I could grab him before he got more than a step or two up.

UGH.

Hate baby gates. But they are necessary evil right now.

The kids and I watched a Tom and Jerry cartoon the other day and we laughed until our sides hurt because the baby in this clip? Yep. That's Jonathan. And Tom and Jerry saving the baby from everything imaginable? That's how I feel like I spend my days....



Hence, the need for gates. Lots and lots of gates.

Portrait of an Artist....

Simon is definitely my arty kiddo... he loves all things creative and is not afraid to dive right in and create a masterpiece.

He does not really have the fine motor skills yet to really enjoy creating with colored pencils or even crayons (still just scribbles, for the most part) and has NO interest in learning to write his letters. But give the boy a paintbrush and he's a budding Michelangelo.

I have taken to leaving the paints and paper out where they are always accessible because he seems to find this activity particularly calming and will just paint and paint and paint for hours without a care in the world. He paints with purpose too, knowing exactly what it is he wants to create before he starts and will tell you what each thing in his painting is. (even if no one else can tell what they are) ;) Most of his paintings lately he says are of light sabers and scenes from a Nintendo game he and Ben enjoy. This morning though, he painted a picture of the storm we had last night, complete with black storm clouds and blue lightning flashes.

This is in stark contrast to Ben. Though he also enjoys painting and creating sometimes NOW (and is actually quite creative and has amazing attention to detail) at Simon's age, he would mostly just fill up the paper with one color and then get bored and paint the paint tray. LOL.

SImon's paintings are numerous and fill the tables and ledges while they dry. He notices when one is missing too, should I dare toss one in the trash that I thought he didn't care about. Oops.

I've even started framing them (and some of Ben's recent ones too) to hang on the wall between the boys' bedrooms. They are all so colorful and interesting!!!

The Weird....

I just got an email that included the following, amongst other teaser blurbs...

"Placenta Encapsulation: If you're considering consumption of your placenta after birth, look to this helpful thread for the best methods."

And I got on this list, how, exactly?