Questions About Mom

This post has been going around Facebook lately.  I decided to try it and post it here on the blog, so I can look back at their answers.  

Without ANY prompting, ask your kid (s) these questions. It's a great way to see what they think. Copy and re-post this with your kids ages.
Maggie, age 6
Bode, age 4

1. What is something I always say to you? 
"Be kind." (M)
"Be kind to the little ones." (B)

2. What makes me happy?
"When I'm kind." (M)
"When I obey the first time." (B)

3. What makes me sad?
 "When Brooks poops in the tub." (M)
"Puke." (B)

4. How do I make you laugh? 
"You tickle me." (M)
"Make silly faces." (B)

5. What was I like as a child? 
"You brought a salamander on the bus, and you were embarrassed because you can't bring animals on the bus." (M)
"Maggie." (B)

6. How old am I?
 "32" (M)
"I don't remember." (B)  "It's 32." (M) "No, it's not." (B)

7. How tall am I?
 "As tall as a baby giraffe.  Or like, the age of a Mommy giraffe, but the size of a medium one."  "Wait - change that cuz I actually know now...when I stand on a chair on my tippy toes." (M)
"Um...that tall?" (B, as he points to my head)

8. What is my favorite thing to do?
"Drink coffee at Caribou."  (M)
"Clean up the kitchen?" (B)

9. What do I do when you're not home?
"Watch babies."  (M)
"Um, I don't know." (B)

10. What am I really good at?
"Drinking coffee."  (M)
"Um, I don't know." (B) "Can you think of something?" (me) "My brain is going around and around and around" (B)

11. What am I not very good at? 
"Are you good at skating?  I don't know." (M)
"My brain is going around and around now." (B)

12. What do I do for a living? 
"You're a daycare lady." (M)
"You clean up the kitchen?" (B)

13. What is my favorite food? 
"Salad." (M)
"Everything?" (B)

14. What do you enjoy doing with me? 
"Coloring." (M)
"Building legos?" (B)

Back to ECFE

Now that the babies can occasionally skip a morning nap, we decided to get back into a parent child ECFE class.  Although Brooks attended with us when he was a newborn, this week was his first time experiencing the separate child play time, and he did great!  Bode, of course, is a pro.

A Science Experiment, Mom!

Maggie was playing into my love of learning and science this morning.

Maggie:  "Mom!  We're going to do a science experiment!"

Me:  "Oh, really?  What are you going to do?"

Maggie:  "We're going to take Bode's cars and paint them, and see if they change color!"

Nice try, Mags.  Nice try.

Jewels

I've been in survival mode recently.  Yes, it's been busy since I've been back to work after my maternity leave, what with the never-ending to do list, the baby that insists on being held almost every hour of the day, and the many activities we tote our family to and from throughout the week.  These past few weeks, however, the challenges have intensified even further with the onset of some major sleep disturbances in our four-month-old.

Brooks' six-hour nighttime stretch that I had previously become accustomed to, recently shortened to four hours and then shortly after he turned three months old, his first evening with a babysitter somehow set off a pattern of waking every hour or two.  Every night.  Exhausting.  Utterly and completely.

I've seen this poem here and there a few times during the last several months.  And I'm pretty sure it has made me tear up every time.

I remember the deep sense of loneliness in the weeks following the birth of my first baby; the feeling that the sleepless nights and constant crying would never end.

But they do and it does.

And with each tiny newborn baby, I have become more and more aware of the fleeting moments I have while they're young.

And so this morning, both fresh from the second consecutive night of only one night-time feeding, Brooks and I made our way downstairs before the other two got up.  Shortly thereafter, my sweet three-year-old shuffled into the dimly lit living room.  As we plopped onto the couch with Elmo on TV, I closed my eyes and relished his warm hug and cuddles for a few minutes, remembering the early mornings from a couple years ago when the quiet house would be ours.

I then tiptoed to the children's room and softly peeked inside.  My spunky daughter was just starting to stir.  I swiftly climbed onto the top bunk and curled around my still-sleepy first born as she giggled conspiratorially about our girl time.

I feel like I don't, or even can't, cherish these moments as much as I want to.  Life gets in the way.  Chores need to get done; work needs to be completed; each child vies for my attention in demanding and draining ways.  But on days such as today, armed with a good night's sleep (and coffee, of course), I am trying to treasure each special jewel of time that will be gone all too soon.

Four Months

The Wait

It's on.  Now that my official due date has come and gone, the contentment I felt a week ago has been replaced by annoyance that I'm "still" pregnant and uncomfortable.

As we've been waiting, we've tried to fill our time with memory-making activities as a family of four.

Steve and I were able to go on our first date in two months thanks to Steve's parents being in town last weekend.  His love affair with sushi started last spring when we went out with some friends, and now that he has brought me on board, I was more than happy to accompany him to Ichi Tokyo in Rochester.  California rolls - yum!  We finished our date with Caribou Coffee.  I have treated myself to a mocha more often these past two weeks than I care to admit...

Steve took this super flattering photo of me using baby as a drink holder.

Later in the week we went to Applebee's on a family date, knowing that we might not be going out for a leisurely dinner for a while.

My girl.  We've had our share of confrontations recently, but she's still my sweet princess.

They wait so patiently at restaurants now.  Bode brought cars to play with on this occasion.

Cubbies  Bible character night.  We realized this was the dress up theme at the last minute, so quickly tried to put together an Egyptian princess costume, per Maggie's request.  That's Moses in the basket.  Oh, and Moses is her newest idea for a baby name.

 And then came Halloween.  Steve was helping to coach the Stewartville Tigers to a Section Championship victory, so I loaded Maggie and Bode in the minivan to go trick-or-treating at just a few friends' houses.  We came back home to watch It's a Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters that came to our door.

Ariel and puppy.

And on Halloween, as I put this shirt on, I realized I looked like a snake that just ate a very large rodent.  So there - I dressed up, too. 

Today while I was at a baby shower, Steve took Maggie and Bode to a volleyball game.  Maggie was asked when she thought baby would arrive.  And apparently this is what she said, "Well, I was thinking Halloween, but now I'm thinking Valentine's Day."  Thankfully, I KNOW that will not be the case.  He'll be here soon.  :)

The Fourth in Stewie

As mentioned in my previous post, we arrived back in Stewartville at around 11:00 am, just in time to take part in Stewartville's Summerfest (4th of July) activities.

On our list was the carnival, so even though we were travel weary, we walked over to the park to do some rides with the kids.

After a much-needed nap for all of us, we were rested and ready to attend

• The parade.

And to top it all off,

• Fireworks

We only had 4 days before we all took off for our family vacation to Colorado, but we did fit in a few more summer activities during our days of preparation:

• Banana splits.

• Rochester Honkers game (baseball).

I plan to post some photos of our trip to Colorado as soon as I can, but with Steve at Bethel for the next week and a half, I will have to wait until he can send me some of the snapshots from his phone.  Thanks for bearing with my blogging binge after my absence. 

Summer List 2014

School is out for me!  Just a couple more days with students for Steve.

We created such fun memories last year with our Summer List, that we once again came up with 100 activities to complete before the start of fall.

 We checked off our first one yesterday - no bake cookies.

Today was pretty low-key after finding out the baby's gender, so we chose to play hide n' seek before bed.

First one checked off - making no bake cookies.

Gender Reveal

Today was the big day - the day of the 20 week ultrasound!  I couldn't sleep, so was up very early to walk to Kwik Trip for a special doughnut breakfast for the kids.  Steve stayed home from work this morning, so after dropping Maggie and Bode off at a friend's house and chugging my 32+ ounces of water, we drove to the Rochester clinic for my appointment.

We wanted to do something kinda fun and different than our first two, so decided to do a gender reveal with just our family.  Steve and I were planning to have the radiology tech put the gender in a sealed envelope, but she accidentally let it slip.  Oh, well.  It was fun to find out anyways.

After stopping by Party City to get a balloon filled with gender-specific confetti, we pick up our kiddos, and let them pop it to discover the surprise.


As you can see, Maggie was less than pleased.  We let her mourn for awhile, and then she was ready to "ooh and ahh" over the sonogram photos.  I counseled her, reminding her that she is still my special girl and that we'll continue to have girl time together.  I also told her the story of when MY new sibling turned out to be a boy when I was 5 years old, but that he was pretty cool after all.  She was still feisty for awhile, telling us it was a very bad day and calling all of us boys and wanting to get rid of Steve, Bode, and the cat (also male), but by bedtime she and Bode were back to hugging and kissing baby and telling him they love him.

Now on to a name!

A scary face photo.

A cute profile pic.

Right arm.

Adorable little feet.

Our Snow Day

No school.  Lots of snow.  Fun.

And the only way I could get them inside without a second major meltdown from Bode.  Hot chocolate.

Together with some fun baking and a very productive cleaning day...  Thank you, presidents, for today.

And Breathe

Christmas break is here!

After Thanksgiving, we had just three weeks of school as we charged full speed ahead towards Christmas.  Now that it is the first official day of break, I can sit down, relax a bit, and share some of what we've been up to.

I decided to try something new this year.  I used a Pinterest photo as inspiration and crafted our own advent tree.  

The pouches were filled with various activities to complete each day.  I'll admit there were some days we just didn't get to whatever activity we had planned, but it was something to look forward to this December.  In the future, I would love to include advent verses leading up to Christmas Day.  Here's what we had this year:

• Make “Grinch cookies” and watch “How the Grinch stole Christmas.”
• Make salt dough ornaments.
• Decorate ice cream cone “Christmas trees.”
• Write letters to Santa.
• Make reindeer food.
• Red and Green dinner.
• Go to the Live Nativity - Dec. 14th.
• Bring cookies to neighbors.
• Make footprint reindeer.
• See Santa.
• Write notes to each other and put in Christmas stockings.
• Drive and look at lights.
• Winterfest - Dec. 7th
• Go sledding.
• Go Christmas shopping.
• Have hot chocolate and watch the “Polar Express.”
• Decorate cookies.
• Make paper snowflakes.
• Make Thank You notes.
• Make a snow angel.
• Make a cotton ball Santa.
• Make glitter.
• Wrap presents.
• Christmas Eve service at church.

We've also had various Christmas activities here and there for small group, junior high, etc., middle school concerts, a dance recital, and a teething four-year old, the latter which has made for some rough nights this month.

Greatly looking forward to our time with family soon as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior!

My Entertainment

I love listening to Maggie and Bode interact when I'm not in the room. That is, when they're getting along.

This morning as I make breakfast, I can hear them singing their own rendition of "Any Dream Will Do."  Maggie is singing Joseph's part and Bode is the "Ah-ah-ah" chorus.  Future Donny and Marie?

Skip ahead to 2:20 and picture my little sweeties singing.

Sibling Love

This morning when Bode woke up and called out with his usual, "MOMMY! MOM! MOMMY!" (Stewie anyone?)  I wasn't very quick to get out of bed. I had stayed up past my normal bedtime, grading papers, and was definitely feeling like a couple more hours in bed would be nice. 

Well, even before Steve could get up with Bode, I heard the little pitter-pattering of Maggie's feet running into Bode's room. And then:

"Good morning, Bode! Do you want me to get into your crib with you?"

"Depp!" he responded. (Yep!)

And there they played quite contentedly until Steve went to check on them.

Between the screaming and squabbles, it sure is fun to see them enjoy each other. Maggie is such a good big sister, and Bode clearly looks up to her so much. 

The End of Summer

The house is (mostly) clean, my freshly-bathed babes are nodding off in their bed (well, Maggie is in our bed) after their s’more sugar-high around the bonfire, and my work computer is charging in anticipation of the first day of school tomorrow.  Steve has pretty much been back at the daily grind since the beginning of August with hiring staff, football, etc. etc. and I had on-site staff training that I drove an hour to and from Monday through Wednesday of last week (thanks to Steve’s parents for staying here with Maggie and Bode – they were amazing help!), but tomorrow starts our first days with students and the beginning of the normal routine. 

Learning about our new phones at inservice.

Bode helped me help out at a cross country meet Thursday.

To end our summer/start the fall, Steve had his first football game of the season on Friday (yes, he’s back to coaching after a brutal one-year hiatus), and my summer running culminated with a half marathon that I was able to participate in with my mom.  After my full marathon last October, I wanted to have something to work towards again this summer, but to be able to complete it before the busyness and stresses of the new school year started up.  I found the Women Rock half marathon in St. Paul on August 31st and persuaded my mom to sign up as well.  I was working on my sister, but no luck there.  Maybe we’ll try to ease her in with a 5k one of these days.   I’m so proud of my mom, and it was fun to have that memory to share together. 

 

We ended our time together on Saturday by joining up with Stephen, Annie, and Grey to celebrate Aimee’s and Steve’s early September birthdays at the Olive Garden.

 

Maggie and Bode love their cousin, and can't get close enough.

Just chilling on Sunday at home.

These kids.  They are strange. And cute.

Being Labor Day today, we checked the last activity off of our summer list since, in my mind, it was the last official day of summer.  Bowling! 

 

 

It was Maggie’s and Bode’s first time, and I believe they enjoyed themselves…that is, until the end when Maggie figured out she hadn’t won.  That girl doesn’t have a chance as the oldest child of Steve's and mine – competitiveness and perfectionism is in her blood.  We once again explained that we congratulate the other participants, and that we still have fun no matter if we win or not.  Just now, as I sat here typing in Bode’s room, I heard her reciting our reminders to Steve, “Mommy didn’t win her race and Grammy didn’t either, but they still had fun.  The other football team (that played Stewartville on Friday) didn’t win, but they still had fun.  One time when we played Duck, Duck, Grey Duck, I didn’t win, but I still had fun...”  I hope it sinks in one of these days. 

Marking off the last item on our summer list.  We edited as needed, but did complete 100 summer activities.

For the most part, I am now done mourning the end of summer, and ready for the routine of fall, and for the cooler temps, sweaters and boots(!), everything pumpkin, football, autumn colors, and the start of new activities.  Oh, and tomorrow is Steve’s birthday.  What fun! :)