Trapped

It's official. We have movement. Chipmunk is combat crawling his way through our home and quickly invading areas of which we haven't re-childproofed. So we've resorted to blockades made of toy bins, chairs and the existing couches. Which makes me laugh at myself because before Bear was born, I was adamant about not having to cage in our child. Yet, once we found our crawling infant getting into places where dirty shoes lie or near electrical equipment, that notion was quickly reneged, just without the fancy gate. So Chipmunk has his little play area and all the more dangerous toys are located outside the "fence."

Now that he's getting some exercise, does this mean he's going to lose his Buddha like physique?

Parking Spot vs. Dignity?

Today the kids and I had a great morning at the Farmers' Market. We saw some friends, bought some fruits and vegetables, played at the playground and took a nice stroll in the sunshine. After changing a diaper and then feeding Chipmunk, we got ready to leave.

Packing the car is no easy task. Both kids need to be buckled in and made sure that all is comfortable. The stroller needs to be disassembled and packed back into the crowded trunk. All diaper bags, purses and such need to be placed back into the car and then last of all, I need to settle in before driving away.

All the while this was happening a young man in a sedan waited patiently for my spot. I felt bad for him having to sit there and wait. But I guess once you commit to a parking spot, sometimes you really want to see it through to the end.

Just as I was about to pull out, a woman in her SUV with what looked like a 4 year old sitting in the front seat (unsafe?) decided to try and swoop into the spot at the last minute. I felt bad for the young man in the sedan so I pulled back into the spot and tried to wave the woman in the SUV to leave. She instead pulled in further.

So the sedan man pulled up next to the SUV lady and told her calmly but firmly that she was unfairly seizing a spot that he so patiently invested his time into. The SUV lady looked at him and didn't respond. Since this debacle was happening at my back bumper, I couldn't leave, nor did I want to lest the SUV lady got her way.

He reasoned again and then the SUV lady pretended not to speak any English. What?! In any language you should get the point when cars behind you are blaring their horns and the person in the parking spot is waving you to move on. I was apalled at the gall of this woman, and even more baffled by the example she was teaching the four year old in the front seat.

The young sedan man then graciously backed off, and the SUV lady, to my chagrin, got her spot. Why oh why do people do things like this? It's just a parking spot for goodness sake!

So SUV lady, if you're out there I have to ask, was it worth it? Was it worth teaching your 4 year old to lie and treat others with disdain? Was it worth causing grief to that many people? Was it worth trading your dignity for a parking spot? Because you know, when that upstanding young man gave you the spot despite all you did, he showed that he had his head in the right place. He earned my respect and proved his dignity. You, on the otherhand, well...I have nothing nice to say, so I just won't say anything at all.

Last to Bed

It's late. I know. This is just how it always is. I'm always the last to bed.

I just need to decompress after each day, and it seems that the length of decompression increases with each child added to the family. So I end up staying up late even though my body so desperately needs the sleep to function the next day.

That's just how it is with introverts. It's nice to be with other people, but afterwards it's even nicer to just be by yourself.

So I read, or blog, or even sew for an hour or so just to unwind before settling in. Then I go about the house, pick things up, turn off lights and head off to bed. Even before I step into our bedroom I detour into the kids room and watch their sweet little faces as they sleep.

Then once I feel that all is well, I'll climb into bed, tuck myself into the covers, and close my eyes. And it's those moments before I fall asleep where I replay my day, analyze my actions, muse in appreciation and sometimes have creative swirls that develop into ideas and plans.

Then after all is said and done, I finally sleep.

Empty Tank

Chipmunk got his official 6 month weigh in today.

19 pounds, 9 ounces heavy (75%)
28 and a half inches tall (95%)
Working on tooth number 7, 8 and 9

Just as Bear did, Chipmunk has been getting some nice nicknames, too.

"Tank" "Little Linebacker" "Man-child" "Bubba"

He's been night-waking the past couple nights...a lot. The doctor concluded that he just wasn't getting enough to eat. I was just feeding him the proper amount according to the books. She said I needed to double it! So poor kid has been starving and going to sleep on an empty tank.

So when we got home I doubled his meal portion and he gobbled it right up! Now he is happily napping on a full tank.

Myself!

Bear's latest rant usually involves her doing things on her own. She'll tell me, "no Mommy, I do it myself!" It's cute, but it reminds me of lessons that took me 30 years to learn...

I ran for student body president when I was in 5th grade. One of the things I wanted to do was fold a bunch of origami cranes and use them as handouts for my campaign. After folding a couple, I found it was too big of a task. My parents and my sister ended up helping me fold hundreds of cranes only after I cried in frustration. I remember my mom telling me, "why didn't you just ask for help?"

Chemistry was never my best subject (probably why I became a Biology major instead) and I remember how frustrated I was with my homework. I think I gave up half way down a worksheet because it just didn't make any sense...plus I had it in my head that my Chem teacher was nuts and didn't teach us a thing about how to work the problems. Instead of asking for help, I failed that chapter. Again I remember my mom helping me with the next chapter and asking me, "why didn't you just ask for help?"

In college I spent more of my time studying trying to learn how to work things on my own rather than use office hours to visit and discuss things with my professors, which probably would have been more beneficial. As a teacher I spent too much time muddling through trial and error rather than asking my colleagues for the best way they found to teach certain difficult concepts. Even when I'm toting around 2 kids and having difficulties, my first instinct is to try and find a way to deal with it on my own instead of simply asking a friend for a hand. That's just the way I am and I know it's not always a good thing.

Even my friends and family are keen to my problem. I often get told, "because I know you won't ask for help..." Of course I wonder if it's pride, fear or just plain stubbornness that makes me overburden myself so.

So it tickles a nerve within me when Bear makes her declaration to do things "Myself!" Of course, I always let her try because I love that she wants to learn, but my 30 years of "should-haves" always pushes me to tell her, "okay, but if you need help, just ask, alright?" And you know what? She does.

Yum Yum in the Tum

Avocado is yum. It makes a great face mask, too!

That's A Sport?

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how synchronized diving is an Olympic sport. Can anyone explain to me why they add this to the official roster but take away baseball and softball?

Food, Glorious Food

Here's Chipmunk getting his first few bites of rice cereal.



He's been waiting for this day for a long time.



Ah, finally. Real food at last.

In Over My Head

With 2 kids in tow, VBS is here again and I'm back in the crafts center leading 120 kids to glue, cut and color. It's been...well, it's been interesting. Perhaps I'm just a little bit crazy...especially since I've left my almost 6-month old in the care of a 14 year old. And I felt totally crazy as I was running from the crafts center to feed my kid quickly before the next group came in for instruction. Add on the stupidity that I've been feeling lately (I actually addressed someone by her husband's name today...how? I don't know) and somewhere I've found myself completely in over my head.

At least I feel like I'm floundering.

Besides that it's just been a crazy week...It's been emotional as I've been hearing about multiple painful events happening in the lives of my friends. There was a joyful wedding that I got to help celebrate. A goodbye party for my sister and a tearful send off as she drove off to her new home far, far away from here. A reunion with friends and catch up, seeing some visitors from afar who I haven't seen in over a decade, a quick visit for the kids with grandma and then headlong into a busy, busy week of VBS, all after barely recovering from our trip to Lo-Cal (as a friend of mine has dubbed it).

I won't even go into what's on our plate for next week.

But ya know, it is what it is...and despite my hopefully temporary insanity, it's being done and what I thought was going to be impossible with two kids, has moved into the category of somewhat doable. I'm there, I'm leading crafts, and so far neither of my kids have turned their heads to me and said, "you're such a terrible mom and I can't believe you're dragging us around like this!" Bear actually ran up to me in the middle of the day and gave me a quick hug and then ran off to join her little friends in a game of hot potato with the "big bouncy ball (she said with a face full of glee)." Chipmunk even managed to nap for over an hour despite the noise and many distractions.

It's been a validating experience. Despite a few of my fumbles (miscalculating numbers of craft supplies and forgetting my classroom management style) we made it to Wednesday of which I was imagining all hell breaking loose on Monday.

So I'm in a little deep, but thank God for that snorkel (um, metaphor). That's what seems to be keeping me going.

In Need of Brain Food

The hardest thing I've been dealing with since Chipmunk has been born is this feeling of stupidity day in and day out. It's an "oh-my-gosh-I-can't-believe-that-slipped-my-mind" kind of stupidity. I used to "tsk" at people who I thought were lacking common sense, but you know what, somehow I've found myself right there, being that of which irks me. I used to pride myself for being organized (mentally, not physically) and being able to remember the lists of things I needed to accomplish. I was the go-to person in our house when things were lost. Somehow I always knew where things were.

These days, I am constantly slapping the heel of my hand to my forehead because of something else "stupidity" made me do.

I know, I know...I have two kids. I have an excuse for being scatterbrained, or at least that's what people tell me...Or they say, "but you just had a baby," like that's supposed to make me feel better for the fact that I said "Ooops" one too many times in a 24 hour period.

It's not just the dishes(count is at 8 now), it's the shopping trips where I take written lists with me and I come home with only 75% of the list because I forgot to look at the bottom of the paper (yes, the lists were written by me). It's the way I search the house up and down each day for my keys and find that I already retrieved them and put them in my pocket. It's when I change one of the kids diapers twice because I thought I changed the other one first. Stupid, stupid, stupid (currently hitting forehead with palm).

"I feel like I can't do anything right," has become my number one complaint to Matt these days. This being said as I've forgotten to pay some bills, bumped the car into a pole, or burned dinner to a cajun crisp because I thought I turned the burner off when I actually didn't.

See? Totally lost it. And it's driving this semi-control freak a little batty.

So please, if you see me and I've become the clueless woman walking down the street with toilet paper stuck to her shoe, just kindly slap me upside the head and tell my brain to "wake up!" I do miss her.

Joy

Ah. The joy of 2 kids. Other parents have been warning me that the time will come when Bear and Chipmunk won't be like this...but rather fighting over toys, over food, over everything.

Let's just enjoy this for the time being. I'll deal with the fighting when it comes.

San Diego 2008

Apparently this is becoming an annual thing.

On to the picture show...

After feeling like we were never going to get there (big, bad accident - jammed for 20 miles) we finally arrived, a little frazzled sitting in a car with one complaining toddler and one crying baby. Thus our weekend began.

The zoo was our first stop.





It was a little chaotic traveling with about 13 kids, but somehow we made it around the zoo. If you ask Bear about her favorite part of the zoo she will probably tell you about the "Pah-das (Pandas)" or the "Jee-raffs (Giraffes)."

My favorite part was visiting the Security office, asking to use the phone, and leaving Matt a message that sounded like this, "Hi, uh, I don't know where you are, my phone is dead, and I'm in the security office with Chipmunk who pooped, by the way, and needs a new change of clothes." Matt came to our rescue 20 minutes later. As we were changing Chipmunk, a couple of women walked by, pointed at our naked baby and laughed saying, "oh my gosh, that looks like the baby in the email!" It's unfortunate that I knew which email they were talking about.

The next day, I stupidly forgot the camera, but had a blast with some good friends who live in San Diego (Thanks again!). Matt on the other hand spent his day elsewhere.

Sunday we went to Sea World. Bear was excited because all week we told her how we were going to have breakfast with Elmo. She seemed a little nervous when we got there though.



She was okay in the beginning...



But after a while, those larger than life characters started to freak her out.



Here's Bear climbing up onto the table to avoid getting hugged back by Elmo.



With some tears, but okay with Zoe.



Not too happy with Grover.



Absolutely unhappy with Ernie.



Chipmunk on the other hand was quite happy.



He was a little annoyed though that Daddy wouldn't share his food with him.

Bear was fine once all the characters took their leave. So the rest of the day she was happily telling us all about dolphins and whales that "Spyash." We made sure to visit the turtles more than once (because she kept asking to see them) and cooled off in the Polar Bear exhibit (Boy was it hot that day!). Chipmunk decided to take a 2 hour nap in the wrap sling while Bear played in the kids play area.

We closed our weekend the way it began (stuck in traffic - listening to crying and complaining) and now we are home and all excited about sleeping in our own beds again. Until next year!

The 2nd Floor is Always Better...

I don't remember who (it might have been my mom) told me that 2nd floor apartments are always better. As I've lived in various places, I'm beginning to see why.

1) The 2nd floor is SAFER. It's mostly the apartments on the bottom floor that get burglarized. One time while living in San Diego a neighbor was telling my roommate and I about how some random guy broke into their livingroom window (on the 1st floor)and walked upstairs into their bedroom in the middle of the night. They woke up, the husband yelled and the guy fled. They theorized that he was looking for some apartments with females(scary!)...we always made sure our livingroom window was closed and locked after that.

2) The 2nd floor has LESS WILDLIFE. During college I lived on the 5th floor of our on-campus apartments. The only wildlife we had in our apartment was Cocoa, the hamster who liked to escape and greet us at the door. It was much too high for ants and mice. Meanwhile, downstairs on the 1st floor my future husband was setting up glue traps and spraying bugs that would crawl in from the nearby canyon.

3) The 2nd floor (if it's the top floor) has LESS NOISE. When you live below you tend to hear a lot more noise. Living on an upper floor, you forget how much the people below you can hear. Our 5th floor apartment during 2nd year of college was smack dab below a bunch of rowdy boys. Their bathroom was right above our bedroom...sometimes in the middle of the night, my roommate and I could hear things we really didn't want to hear...Gave new meaning to Eine Kleine NachtMusik.

4) The 2nd floor has GRAVITY. Okay, so all apartments have gravity, but when you have a leak on the 2nd floor, it runs downstairs. Case in point.

5) And finally, the 2nd floor is FARTHER FROM THE GROUND...and farther from sewage leaks! I know, yuck, right? Apparently, gallons and gallons of sewage have been blocked and pooling underneath our apartment. Ugh. They cleared the blockage and the sewage has moved on, but the smell still lingers a little. Ew! Perhaps I shouldn't have been so quick to complain about the crazy van man and his incense. We could use that sandalwood smell right about now.

***Update: So the plumber came back and poured bleach all over the place. The sewage smell is gone, but man, the bleach smell is overpowering. I've got the world's worst headache right now from the fumes. That can't be good.

Sibling Love

This picture sums up the relationship between Chipmunk and Bear these days. Bear has this proud "little mama" look like she's actually helping her brother out by patting his head and telling him in a high pitched voice, "good boy, little baby!" Chipmunk just looks like he can't wait for the day where he can do unto his sis what his sis has done to him. Ah, sibling love. Ain't it grand?

Lessons Learned

Curiosity is a good thing, right? I've been trying to tell myself that even though in the back of my mind I know what happened to the cat.

Bear has been quite curious lately...she's apparently following too closely after her television idol, Curious George. I find myself putting out fires (metaphorical, not real, thank goodness) and surveying the damage to make sure that (1) no one needs to be rushed to the hospital and (2) the damage isn't permanent. It's getting exhausting.

Some of Bear's curiosities:

- Finding out what happens when you stick things in keyholes. I've had to pry a few things out.

- Finding out what happens when you take things apart...like our camera tripod...she managed to unscrew a few pieces where it just fell apart when I picked it up one day. We're still looking for some pieces...

- Finding out what happens when you push buttons...anywhere. We all know what happened to our DVD player. She's also been leaving lights on in our car, turning on the vacuum unplugged (so when you plug it in...), reprogramming alarm clocks to go off in the middle of the night, recording random things on TiVo, and changing preferences on Matt's computer.

These are all relatively, minor though. Some more recent occurrences have had me a little more on edge lately.

- Climbing onto unsturdy boxes in order to explore what's hanging out where she can't see. I tend to hear the aftermath of things crashing to the ground (Lesson Learned! It hurts when you fall and things fall on top of you).

- Putting cds and dvds into the vcr and frustratedly ramming them in while yelling, "don't work!" (Lesson Learned! Breaking the VCR and the DVDs isn't a good thing)

- Climbing under our car in order to get to the other side (Lesson Learned! You get your clothes all dirty and mommy freaks out when she finds out where you were).

- And this morning...coming up to me with a gaping hole in her pajama shirt, of which she announced, "cut scissors...fix it!" (Thankfully, she only cut the shirt and not anything else...phew!...although she was a little sad because it was her favorite shirt - Lesson Learned! Don't play with scissors because sometimes the damage can't be fixed!)

Of course, when all of this happens I always ask myself, where was I when all of this happened? She's so sneaky. She actually waits until my back is turned, when I've stepped away a couple of minutes, or looked in the other direction before she runs for some forbidden object. Even when I put things away, she watches me to see where I put it and comes for it later.

Diabolical, I tell you. Or just curious...

Utterly Incapable

Today I hit my breaking point...literally.

I broke my 7th dish since Chipmunk was born.

I've been saying we needed to make more room in our cupboards, but this is not what I meant.

It's things like this that make me feel so utterly incapable.

Apparently, parenthood just has a way of doing that.

Sigh.

Summer Breezes

Summer is hot. Summer is fun. Summer is busy...

Summer continues to breeze on by...

Bear has been taking an art class. Her favorite pastime in class is using the scissors. Perhaps it's because we don't own any kiddie scissors at home so she's been deprived that she makes a bee line for those colorful plastic cutters. Occasionally she'll glue, but most of her artwork just has this fringe around the outside where she went scissors happy.



Well, except the windsock which was supposed to have fringe...which she happily snip-snipped.

July 4th we spent the day with some of my longtime friends (minus one who we missed terribly)...We tried to get some good pictures of the kids together...but if you know anything about taking pictures of multiple kids...it just never works out...especially with five of them...

At night we went to view the fireworks. Bear enjoyed her corn...



...and Chipmunk was a little fussy, at least until the fireworks started and then he was mesmerized for the whole half hour show.



Until next post...summer will continue to breeze on by.

A Thin Line

Fun and torture have a thin line drawn between them when you're a parent. Sometimes you have to carefully weigh your options before and ask yourself, "will we have fun or is this going to be more trouble than it's worth?" That's what we ask ourselves every time before venturing out.

This past weekend we went to our annual church retreat. After throwing half of our worldly belongings into the car and driving a little ways, we ended up on a local university campus unpacking into a dorm room. We ate meals in a cafeteria, crowded with people from other on-campus events, and spent most of our time walking from one place to another to make sure we made it to events mostly on time.

With two small kids in tow we made sure to come prepared. Naps were short or non-existent, mealtimes were chaotic making sure all were fed properly, and my mind was racing with lists making sure we were appropriately ready for all things.

Sometimes there were meltdowns and bouts of inconsolable crying. We witnessed falls and spills that resulted in bruises and bumps. There was separation anxiety, rebelling against the unfamiliar and constant complaining and whining.

So was it worth it?

Absolutely.

Although the moment we came home we were cleaning up oodles of poop that the kids stored up over the course of the weekend, we had a weekend of wonderful memories...the great conversations we had with old friends and new friends, the smile on Bear's marker covered face as she showed us the picture she created, the wiggling excitement of Chipmunk as we ventured from one place to another, learning and reflecting and being refreshed...

There's just something about coming home and realizing that we actually made it through the weekend. Even when you're standing over the sink oxy-cleaning playdough stains from shorts and pondering how to put sleeping schedules back in order, you have to smile and be thankful for the joys that outweigh the trouble.

4 and a half months

Chipmunk still amazes me with his massiveness...

17 pounds 13 ounces (95%ile)
26 inches long (90%ile)
2 teeth (and 2 more on the way)



Whoa.

Bear's Latest Antics

...roaming around our home flapping her arms yelling, "Cockle Doo!"

...singing medleys of all her favorite sings..."Twinkle, twinkle, little dar, how I know my ABCs, Itsy pie-der falling down, Where thumb-pin, here am, E-I-Ooooooh..."

...purposely pushing her brother while he is propped up in a sitting position on the couch and then innocently asking, "oh what happened? Brudder fell down?"

...pointing to the moles on my arms, saying, "mommy hurts" and running to get a wipe to apparently try to wipe the spots off.

...when asked where Chipmunk's chin is she says, "here, here, here...three chins!"

...coming out to the livingroom after her nap and poignantly announcing, "I woke up" (Yup, it took her a whole month before she figured she could get out of bed herself).

...sitting at the dinner table and roaring like a dinosaur, laughing her head off and saying, "oh no, dino-door (dinosaur) table!"

...running up to Chipmunk speaking in a high squeaky voice, "Hello Baby [Chipmunk]...good boy you! Eat milk! Pay(play) toys!"

...while climbing stairs, "Yook mommy, I up-ping da stairs!"

...spinning, spinning, spinning until she runs into something, laughs and says, "whoa diz-zee."