Just some new pictures

The red ladybug thing is Holley's swimsuit this year and the others are just cute shots!

Dat! Dat! Dat!

I can see that the picture is not cooperating. I'm not trying to fix it anymore today. Caption it the "I can SEEEEEEE you" picture and just go on to read the post. =P



Holley is my little chatterbox.

Don't get me wrong, Joshua never shuts up now that he can talk. However, he was
a late talker. And even though he is not quiet anymore, he is mostly about
the repetition. "Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. See? Mommy. See?" etc is our day.
Although when the sentences do pop out, they make me laugh my head off!

Holley has a nice vocabulary. She won't always use the words, and she has
reverted half the time from "Bow" for "bottle" to "ba-ba" which I can't stand
and do NOT encourage. So now she replaces "bottle" with "milk", which is at
least better than the forbidden ba-ba reference. She picks up little words and
it is so funny when they come out.

Today, she got hold of the phone and kept waving it in the air and saying
"BUT-TON!" over and over. Finally I figured out that she does not think it is
called a button, she is talking about the actual buttons! She says the "T" as it
is appropriately pronounced, which Joshua doesn't even do, so that's funny.

She has a name for Joshua(das!) and daddy is usually just "Hey, Dad!" which also
cracks me up. I am mama or upupupupupup. lol. However she won't "up" anyone
else, just reaches and whines, so I'm not counting it as a word just yet.
She says "dod" for dog. She says "dat" for that. She will sit and point at a toy,
and shout "Dat! Dat! Dat!" and then roll over laughing. Apparently, identifying
things is just hilarious. There are a few others that pop up here and there, but
these are the most frequent. She made me laugh with a distinct "all done" last week
at the dinner table, but hasn't repeated it since. My favorite word she has?
Today while Joshua and Shaun were napping, I taught he to throw her hands up in the
air and say "TaDa!" She was doing her little flips and standing up, tossing her
arms up and shouting "DA!!!" over and over. Cracks me up.

She will nod, shake hands, clap, wave(especially if you hold the phone up and say
"say hi!" she just waves to the handset), do a little happy dance and wrinkle her nose
up as if something is just horribly stinky and awful. But she does it all in
total context. If you sit there, she will just jabber away, and answer your
questions, and it often seems as if she's asking me a question. Since Joshua was
a late communicator, having my 10 month old sit and communicate so clearly with me
is a bit of a change! It's totally awesome, but it also does NOT seem to bode well
for my future phone bills. Maybe we can give them back before they become teenagers
and suck the entertainment value out of all the conversations you have with them?

ATTENTION PARENTS OF BULLIES....

If you are the parent of a King-sized preschooler who likes to punch smaller kids for no reason and you are sitting on a park bench watching the goings on and being generally lazy, I'm not very happy with you right now.

Joshua met his first bully today. Joshua was running around playing with a four year old who was about the same size as him, we'll call this kid X. Then Bully comes over and starts running around too. Mostly these kids are just running in aimless circles and laughing their heads off. Bully looks to be 6 or 7 years old, but it's school hours and school is still in session here, so I'll give benefit of the doubt that this little bruiser is also a preschooler. In all honesty, I don't think he meant to be mean...He would shout "I'm Spiderman!" and run up and just start punching Joshua or X, whomever was closer to him. Things quickly evolved to Joshua and X running AWAY from Bully because they didn't like the way he played. Myself and the other parent tried to tell him to stop, when that didn't work, we told Joshua and X to just nicely say "Please don't play like that." or "Please don't hit me." Joshua said, "Dat not NICE!" to him a few times. Finally Joshua had tears in his eyes and said "Please Pick me up, Mommy..." Bully tried to stop him from walking to me. I had about enough. We took X and Joshua to a different playset(there are 4 at this playground) to play, but after a few minutes of casting dubious glances in the direction of Bully, they both just wanted to go home.
Where was Mom during all this? Mom was sitting on a park bench, watching everything and doing, you guessed it, nothing. Watched the whole thing, heard us disciplining Bully, did nothing. Said nothing when I made a snide comment to her as we were leaving.

Now, normally, I would say to him if there was a fight, "He hit you? Well, you have two options. A, you could tell him you'll pray for him and walk away or B, hit him back, he started it. Defend yourself, boy!" But, really, he's two years old. He's just starting to understand the we-dont-hit-the-baby-no-matter-what rule. To tell him to hit back would have been counter-productive at this stage.

Kids fight, kids hit, and boys will be boys. I get all of that, but this is MY baby we're talking about! MY little boy who was punched, hard, several times. MY little angel who went to bed still confused about "little boy hit me arm" and called his daddy in Seattle and his grampa in Ohio to tell them. Seems like a man-moment to me... LOL.

The part that really bugged me was that mom just didn't seem like she cared. She said NOTHING during all of this happening. If my kid was randomly hitting someone half, yes HALF, his size, I would haul his happy butt back home and punish him. I would NOT continue to allow him to play and have fun. I don't care if boys fight, you don't teach yours to be the one to start the fight. No matter the situation. And I feel really badly for the boy because obviously nobody is teaching him these things. He was clearly confused as to why the other boys didn't want to play any longer. I told him, "If you are going to keep punching kids, they're not going to want to play with you." I said this after having told him several times to ease up and settle down, we don't hit etc etc.... He seemed dejected and sad. Mom clearly needs to step up or this kid is going to have problems later on. And that bother me. A lot.

At any rate, my angel-boy is fine, just had his first playground friend that played too mean for him. And it bothers me. But it should be bothering Bully's mom more.

The grass is always greener on the other side(or, The Food is Always Better From My Brother's Bowl)

Shaun is away this week. He left Friday morning to go to Seattle, and won't be home until next Friday morning. Considering the trouble that we have been having with both kiddos lately, I am already feeling overwhelmed--usually my weekends are my times that I get to have a helper or get a couple hours away! I cannot sleep well without Shaun here, so I am running on very little sleep and not a break in sight from my ADORABLE kids.

I am not complaining. There are so many who have it worse, and really, it's a handful but not un-do-able and not impossible. I am the Kim Possible of Mom-dome. Yes, we've been watching Kim Possible movies. Joshua loves her.

I explained this situation to use my Get Out Of Jail Free card on this: I'm not doing dishes as quickly as I should. I mean, I'm on it and there's not mold growing on anything and nobody is eating dirt or anything, but without a helper, we've gone from dinner table to bathtub to living room(to say goodnight to the cars on the street before closing the curtains) to bed without me taking a moment to clear the table. Which wouldn't be so bad if I got up bright and cheery in the morning but I'm sooooo tired at the moment I'm dragging my butt.

So this morning I hear....wait for it....drum roll, please...... "MINE FOOD! MINE FOOD! MINE FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!" as I rush out of my bedroom where I was begrudgingly getting dressed back to the kitchen, the thought did cross my mind... Have I fed them breakfast yet today? Answer: no. They'd only been up for five minutes.

As Joshua is standing in the kitchen acting as though someone just cut of his leg and he's drowning in blood, I see Holley has gone to his side of the table, climbed up the chair just enough to snatch his plate from dinner last night that still had the mac n cheese he refused to eat sitting on it. Now, usually when Joshua refuses dinner, the plate sits there until bedtime because that's the only food he's allowed to have until he eats it. No exceptions. Last night I didn't clear the table after bedtime. I got out sewing instead. I'm just cool like that. So Holley sits on the floor chowing down on old mac and cheese and just revelling in Joshua's misery. Don't forget, she's lactose intolerant. Sigh.


Take away the old plate and give them each a nice fruit and cereal breakfast that is fresh and clean.

Later, as I'm sitting on the couch with Joshua, who incidentally had just finished a big bowl of pineapple and had asked for me to read him a story, who should walk into the living room but baby Holley. What does she have? The empty fruit bowl. Licking the leftover fruit juice residues. Laughing her head off and refusing to take the thing off her face.


At this point, all I can ask is.... Really? Really? At ten months old, she won't eat much of anything placed on her high chair, but the second her feet hit the ground, she will go to Joshua's chair and eat same food, only as his droppings from his meal. Really? REALLY, HOLLEY?

Clean Milk

"Don't like shocklat milk. Joshie want CLEAN milk." I thought I'd reward Joshua with a treat and get him some sweet milk about 2 weeks ago. I only bought a quart because, well, soy milk is insanely expensive and to buy it in chocolate is just like tossing money into the candy well. I still have most of that quart. In an effort to be rid of it without being wasteful, since he HATES chocolate(recently got a clean allergy test for it, and we've been offering it in small doses now) we have been putting a splash of chocolate in with his regular milk. Literally, maybe 5% of the cup is actually the chocolate milk. Sometimes he notices and othertimes he is so busy with other things he just drinks it anyway. Today at naptime he asked for milk. I splashed a little bit of chocolate in there, but since it was naptime, I used so little the milk was still white, just to paint the picture.
The boy literally takes a sip and throws the cup at me. "Don't like shocklate milk!" "You don't like chocolate milk? Was that chocolate?" "Don't like shocklat milk. Joshie want CLEAN milk." "Clean milk? Does that mean you want plain?" "Mommy go get CLEAN milk." He has spent the rest of the day in a "milk mood" and emphasizing that it better be the clean milk. I could die laughing at him sometimes.

Tonight I set him on my knee.
"You did not listen to Mommy. What happens when we disobey?"
the correct answer would be "A spanking." Joshie's answer?
He covered his butt with his hands. "Don't like it don't like it don't like it!"
"I know you don't like it. That's why it's a punishment. If you would listen to Mommy and do what you are told, you would not get a spanking."
"Mommy needs panpan(spanking)! Mommy turn!"
Hmmmm. My lessons on taking turns and sharing appear to be sinking in......

Another recent Josh-ism, is in numbers and letters. He knows his letters and he sees them and knows to call them his ABCs. Today he wanted me to sing his counting song with/to him. So he thinks about it and says, "Mommy, sing ABC---no.....sing..sing four-five-sixes. Mommy? Sing four-five-sixes?" I told him that is called counting. He looks at me and says, "well, do it, den."

Holley doesn't really have any -isms yet. She is 8 months old now and says "Mama" and "again." Shaun swears she called him "daddy" the other day but on grounds of principle I refuse to acknowledge this.

The American Museum of Natural History

We took Joshua and Holley into the city to the American Museum of Natural History today. A friend gave us free passes, and it was a good weekend to do it! We did not get to the upper 2 levels, which included the planetarium and the dinosaur sections, so that was sad, but we went through the three lower levels and were exhausted by the end of our day. Joshua loved it just as much as he loved the museums in Cleveland and Columbus. I think he is an information hog, he soaks it up and then it comes pouring out of him at the funniest moments, just when you thought he wasn't learning anything.
I have a friend whose little boy at the age of three was telling me all about a butterfly chrysalis, and I didn't even know that was the technical term for a cocoon, he thought I was crazy. Joshua saw the Indian arrowheads and old stone tools and told me those were "Old hammer." It took me a moment and a slew of words out of him before I figured out that he meant that before people had hammers and tools, they used stones! He just about had me in stitches.
When looking at the history of man and civilization displays, we passed one diarama that had an African tribe and while they left off the genitalia, they did do some nice butt-work on the naked people. Joshua noticed immediately and informed us that there were "BUTT! BUTT! Mommy, look! BUTT!" Shaun found this hilarious and showed him a National Geographic type woman with boobs hanging out, hoping for Joshua to take it and run, he just looked and nodded and went off to look at the ancient music stuff.
Joshua also knows all of his letters, but not in order. That's Okay with us, but the fun part is that he thought they had ABCs at every display. "ABC?" he wanted me or Shaun to read him the signs explaining the display. So cute!
This is Joshua showing me some stuff, and telling me all the details about what he was looking at.




This is the "fun box" filled with "funny people." I think it was filled with voodoo dolls or something, they all looked like people and were in the religion display of India. But Joshua thought it was hilarious.


Holley got squirmy, and wouldn't you if you were in a stroller or a snugli all day? So she checked out some displays too. She was particularly fond of the dustball that fell inside this display of stuff.




Here is Joshua trying to read the word Rhinoceros and Holley looking at me for confirmation that the rhino was really behind glass...and stuffed.


I made Shaun stand underneath this Jellyfish to show the massive size of it. The stringy leg thingies went on for about 20 feet or so.


Joshua and Shaun in front of a massive slice out of a sequoia tree. Joshua keeps looking at this picture and telling me that it's a "dead tree."


We got to go see the butterfly conservatory too. They have over 500 butterflies just flying around in here and they land on you, and you can look at them and watch them feed. It's kinda neat, and I've been meaning to do something like this with Joshua for a while. A gentleman holding an orange slice had one eating the orange slice off his hand and showed Joshua. He was super excited on the outside, and when we left it he was very sad to leave, but inside he was very serious and just observing it.But it was cool to get that close.






And Joshua weighs .042 of a pound on Halley's Comet!



It was an exhausting day, with freakin' construction on the train lines that turned a 45 min/1 hr subway trip into 2 hours in and 2 hours back, plus they cut some lines because of the construction so it was elbow to elbow inside the trains. Joshua seemed very irritated with the choo choo train and came home happy enough to play with the toy trains instead, ha ha ha.

So Tired I'm Not

Between travelling for the holidays and the rsv virus, Holley got WAY off her routine, which was too loose in the first place, and has decided that her crib is poisonous, and what the hey, so is sleep in general.

We've spent this week in sleep training hell, but she seems to be responding well to it, so onward I plug away. I did like this from her bedtime two nights ago. This is how she fell asleep.

Who said that?

Let’s all play a game. I call this game “Who said that?”

“Shoot BOOBS!”
“Mommy do it!”
“Cook BOOBS!”
“ewww, nasty!”
“Uh-oh, Holley cry again!”

There is no multiple choice answer key, because all of these statements were issued by my toddler. Boobs, by the way, are birds. He turned 2 last month and since then, has become the king of silly phrases. He’s not very sure what “silly” really is, though, so his breakfast cereal could be silly, or Mommy could be silly when she’s putting him to bed. He has mastered the fake guffaw, when he thinks he’s supposed to laugh at something silly, though. And it’s hilarious. Like every mother, I think my two year old is funnier than most.

Joshua antics lately, though, get me going. For instance, if I say to him, “Look me in the eye when I’m speaking to you,” Joshua simply MUST grab both of my cheeks and put his nose tip to mine, and stare wide-eyed into my eyes. Now, I ask you, how do you punish THAT without laughing your head off?

Today I thought he had a slight fever and he was acting very mean toward his sister, very unusual behavior for him. Sure, he’s ignored her and fussed about her but not cruel like today. So I asked him, “Joshua, how do you feel?” I didn’t really think I’d get a straight answer, but without even a thought, he put his palm on my cheek, wiggled his fingers and said, “Like that.”

Over our Christmas holidays, enough people called Shaun by name that Joshua figured out that “Daddy” will answer to a different name! He puts a funny emphasis on it, and only does it to call Shaun’s attention, so it is shouted loudly. “Shaw-oon!” “Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy….*insert foot stamp here* SHAW—OON!” We have a little photo snowglobe that was given to us as a gift back before we got married. There is a picture of me and Shaun on both sides of it. When Joshua looks at it, he shows me, “Mommy, Daddy.” Then he turns it to the other side. “Mommy and Shaw-oon.” He will flip it back and forth repeatedly, “Daddy, Shaw-oon, Daddy, Shaw-oon.” The pictures are nearly identical, so we are not very certain why he thinks they are two different entities!

Holley started crying today. Joshua leaned over her and sighed a great over-dramatic sigh. “Holley, just stop.” He sounded just like his daddy. In the mornings it is usually, “Uh-oh, Holley’s cryin’!”

Over our holidays he enjoyed playing detective with my mother’s magnifying glass, so she gave it to him. I don’t usually approve of giving him everything he smiles at, but in this case, it has given us a lot of laughs around here. Holley was playing on the floor yesterday, and Joshua leaned over her with the magnifying glass and said…. “Hmmm…..wong you?” As in, “Hmmm, what’s wrong with you?” And in a completely bewildered voice that just had me rolling.

Just tonight, I was saying his prayers with him, and instead of watching him, I actually closed my eyes. Right between “Bless our family” and “Thank you for sending Jesus to us” he reached over and told me, “Mommy! Wake up! Prayin’!”

The last thing that makes us think, rather self-importantly, that our two year old is sillier than most? He got some trains for Christmas that absolutely MUST be tucked into the box and kissed goodnight now. Good for a laugh or two.

Christmas 2008

Honestly, I don't have it in me to do emails and individual stories to everyone so here is my photo-blog of our holiday travels.

the night before we left, Joshua thought he'd show Holley who has hair and where. It was pretty cute.


Holley goofing off the morning we left....ha ha ha she didn't know the road trip in store for her:


Christmas Eve, they got to open Gramma Gerry's presents to them. Joshua got some matchbox cars,and HAD to show everyone in the room.



"this was Holley's but I opened it, want to play with it with me?"


"This isn't reading? I was sure I was supposed to use my tongue to read it..."


"Yeah....my way was more fun!"


I love this shot because not only does it show Holley deciding that crawling would be a fun thing to learn to do on Christmas, but it also shows where Joshua's buttered bread wound up at.



Christmas morning, the kids opened their presents from Mama and Daddy. Things like a Thomas letter laptop, a ball popper, new diapers, a first baby doll, a sipper in the stocker, a mini potato head in the stocking, new wooden trucks and a curious george doll with some bath soap and squishy sponge thing(loofah) for bathtime all came in from us. We were so grateful that we shopped ahead of time and were able to do this for the kids. They......didn't seem to care who it was from. Naturally.

Mama, I mean Holley opening her sipper stocking stuffer.


Joshua's driven by edible things. Holley's just hooked on the drink. The doll was tossed to the wayside in order to keep our hands on the cup. Mustn't lose the cup!


Showing Daddy the power button....


Showing Holley how to use her ball popper and not-so-secretly having a blast himself:


Holley chose her favorite new diaper. I love all of them, but this was not my absolute fave. She rarely lets go of it if I bring the box of diapers into her view.



Later Christmas morning, Uncle Greg and Aunt PollyAnne, Aunt Carol and Uncle Dean all came over to Gramma's house and we had a huge breakfast of homemade waffles and berries, and egg casserole, bacon and sausages, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember because it's late. It was yummy. Joshua actually ate. Big deal since he hardly ate a thing the rest of his vacation. The kids also got presents from their aunts and uncles, and the dogs seemed rather enamored of a few of them, as well. I was too busy eating to take many pictures at that time, but here is one of Joshua apparently telling Dean that he will be in charge of opening all of his sister's gifts.



From Penn State, we drove to Stuebenville, OH, to spend a few days with Shaun's mom. The kids got some neat presents, like the Spud Buds potato head kit, and a little hand puppet that looks like a hippopotamus plus lots of cute outfits were there to be opened. Not to mention a million, I mean a few, cats that Joshua thoroughly enjoyed chasing down to torment, I mean pet.
Crystal showing Joshua the nutcracker mouse. Joshua looking at her like she lost her mind. Of course, as soon as she set it down, it was his and we never heard it stop the rest of the trip.


Joshua cleaning up his pee. :)


Aunt Karen reading to the little silly-head:


If the boy won't cooperate, grab the baby cuz she can't get away yet. This is my personal philosophy and as evidenced, held true overall.







From Crystal's home in Stuebenville, we headed south to a place called Shadyside. It's on the Ohio side of the river, across from Wheeling, WV, and I think Shaun's dad's family are the only folks that live there. We were surprised to have a Christmas to-do ready for us when we arrived, including a nice handful of people from that branch of family. Since it was after Christmas when we arrived, we did not anticipate dinner or get-together!
Shaun's Pop, who I don't think was allowed to put down the etch-a-sketch after Joshua discovered that he could make a tractor picture on demand.


Joshua playing "If I hide in Perry's blankets and pillows, maybe they won't find me and put me back in that ol' carseat...." Otherwise known as "When granddad gets out of the potty, you scare him before you get on the road."


Feeling the need to report his every action to Vicki:



From Shadyside, we traveled into Columbus, where the kids went to church, and Joshua got to see his old teachers from there. He was sad to leave Miss Kathy, Miss Sue, Miss "Missa"(melissa) and "Pad-dor Dad" (pastor dave). I heard about them for a few days after that. We also spent the afternoon that day with some friends, whose boys have grown insanely huge and smart and not little like I remember and that makes me sad. Also my friend picked up Joshua a train track for his trains and such and got Holley some really cute outfits. Joshua is having a blast with his trains. I didn't get any pictures of this day. Mostly because I was tired.

That night, we headed up to Oberlin area. The kids got their Christmas presents from there, and by that point, Joshua was beginning to think if it has paper on it, it must be for him and it must be for tearing to shreds. Holley was just starting to get ticked off that there was even more paper she wasn't allowed to eat.

Finally getting the hang of things:


That's my boy. He actually asked me where was the stuff inside the thomas bookbag. Sigh. Be happy with what you got and fill it with love, boy! He's now putting cars and trains in, by the way.


Joshua got the tools he wanted!


Holley got some paper wrapped around some stuff and that was exciting to her. The stuff she didn't so much look at.



There were more trips for visiting and many more people seen than were mentioned here. And to prove it, Holley got the wardrobe for the next 2 sizes that she was in need of(ok, desperately in need of), and Joshua got several clothing items. This picture is JUST the toys that came from EVERYONE. We had to unpack everything in order to repack it and we laid it all out. This is just so much generosity from our family members that I think I want to cry when I think of it.
Here are the toys they recieved. We counted over 50.


Holley was one pound shy of hitting her weight limit so we took our Christmas gifts and bought her new carseat. Merry Christmas Mommy. ha ha ha. (It's ok, I also got an electric skillet, so there. lol).


New Years Ever, I forgot to buy any decent boomers, so Joshua got some poppers and he did some sparklers with his daddy. He LOVED it. Naturally, since my little pyro likes fire in general. Although, he did try to eat it, also. I didn't try for a great shot, because I was really really cold.



Then we went home. Home. Where our own beds are! where our favorite jammies are. Where I have to be the mom and watch my kids again. Crap.
This is how much stretching room I had in the van after we packed everything the kids got into it.



Yeah.


After we got home, the kids were so happy to be around their own things again! Joshua took his new toys and introduced them to his old toys this morning, and Holley learned to pull up to stand using her granddad's filing cabinet so she practiced that at home on the gate. Escape is imminent, escape is imminent!!!!

She also found a new place to poop while I cleaned and unpacked today. This happened more than once.




Everytime I tried to take a picture of Joshua's room and his trains he was like a superstar caught in the midst of a scandal among the paparrazi. Ran at me yelling "No picture no picture no picture!" I am sure we will have an entire blog coming up regarding how my sanity has gone up and down the tracks and I'm pretty sure Duncan or Thomas the engines have it locked up in their boilers.


That's our photo-vaca. Stories to come.