Funnies from Ethan

On Mother's Day I was playing Mario Kart on our Wii...and as I was driving through the mall parking lot, I saw Dave's Mii and I kept running into his car. So I, without thinking, said "Dammit Dave" and Ethan turned around, looked at the TV and started "dammit Dabe, dammit Dabe" Oops! It was hard not to laugh.

Today, I was in a client meeting when my phone rang. It was Kindercare. I stepped out of the room and I hear "Hi Lori, this is Ms. Colleen. Ethan has something to tell you." At this point, the thoughts of someone being hurt/sick were gone, but then I went to worried thinking about how he had come home with two incidents recently of biting and now they are making him call me to tell me. Ethan gets on the phone and says "Mama. Potty" Apparently he'd used the potty! Ms. Colleen came back on and said they call the parents after the first time the kids use the potty for the first time. I was so excited and yet a little apprehensive to be talking on the phone in the middle of all the Target offices and saying "Great Job using the Potty!"

Not to be out down by his brother Aidan is soooo on the verge of walking! He's pushing our shopping cart all over and our Elmo walk-behind toy. He's even taken a couple steps between Jay & I.

Maybe Grandpa & Grandma will get Ethan potty trained & Aidan walking while we're on vacation!

Cleaning / Finding stuff

I dread the thought of cleaning our house, but we have to do it. With two little boys...we have to do it a lot! But it seems like not matter when we do it, it isn't half as bad as we thought it would be and it always takes twice as much time as we thought it would. And we always find stuff we forgot about.....this week a couple things have come back to us that we forgot about. When I took Aidan in for his appointment to check for stitches I put his shoes on the roof of the car while I was locking him in the car seat only to forget them up there and drive away. One of them flew off! This week when I took him back for his follow up ear infection....there it was on the side of the road! Crazy huh? Also this week I ended up working late because of a meeting and I ran into the cleaning guy Jesus from American Express. "Hola Amiga" He asked how many babies I had now and where Jay was working. It's so fun to run into old friends and he was so nice! I hope to run into him more. Well....back to the dreaded cleaning.....Cross your fingers the place will stay somewhat clean until we leave for Mexico! :)

Growing up too fast

These guys sure are growing up fast! Aidan is starting to climb the stairs. Won't be long now before he starts walkig. He's still cruising along anything he can pull up on and he's very much into stealing hotwheels from his brother. I can't believe we're already planning his big birthday #1. Poor guy - it's on Friday the 13th this year, but we'll celebrate it on the 14th. He's going to have to compete with Father's Day weekend this year too! Not to mention sharing his birthday with his great uncle Jim and two second cousins - Mark & Raegan. He loves playing with the toilet paper roll on Ethan's training poty and making the music start up. He also loves Ethan's Tiggy. He gets so excited anytime he sees it. He is a serious one though. Not as many smiles as his brother, but he's got the cutest facial expressions. He is a huge eater and usually wants anything you're eating. I haven't seen him turn away from anything yet! Won't be long now until he's walking around and chasing after Ethan.

Ethan figured out how to open his window in the back seat of my car the other day! Crazy kid. His latest favorite is to stay in the car after we get home. Most times I don't even let him out of the car seat. He just wants to stay in the car by himself in the dark garage and roll his cars around his legs/lap. His vocabulary is really coming along and I think I understand about 90% of it...Jay a little less than that. He loves to give hugs and kisses to everyone. This kid LOVES his dairy too....cheese sticks, milk, yogurt...that's practically his whole diet. He is getting a little better though and will eat pasta, pizza, peanut butter toast, bananas. Still not into veggies though and will gag enough to throw up if he finds he's eaten one. He can now reach all the doorknobs and light switches in the house too. He loves that!

They are just growing up oh so fast!
More pictures of them at: http://picasaweb.google.com/loriandler/April2008

Stitches?

So, I was caught off-guard on Tuesday of this week while at work, I got a call from kindercare telling me that Aidan had fallen against a table and split his chin open. They asked me to come up to see if he needed stitches or not. Hmmmm...like I was supposed to know? I hurried off to my car, almost going to my regular ramp when I'd parked even closer that morning to make it on time to our Tuesday 8:30 client meeting. Oops! I called my mom on the way knowing what she'd say anyway "You'll know if it needs stitches when you see it." Well, I arrived and Aidan was playing with the other kids...no tears, nothing. I didn't even take the band-aid off, I just grabbed a diaper and scooped him up and drove over to the clinic. The receptionist told me they don't do stitches there on the face. But I asked if someone could take a look anyway. Dr. Jahnsen didn't even bother to come out and look at him when reception called, but the triage nurse did and couldn't tell for sure, so we went back and then they tell me because he's so little, they'd have to send him to children's and have him sedated. A doctor came out and said it was superficial and steri-strips would fix it. So after two nurses and myself held him down, a third nurse got the strips on his chin. Back to kindercare and I dropped him off. I was back at work 2 hours after I'd left (that included travel time) and I didn't even miss any of the other meetings I had that day. This little guy is going to make me worry and give me trouble. I can tell already! :) But he sure is darn cute!

Pway

Well, it's been an interesting weekend....Friday night nothing much happened besides both boys getting up during the night. I think Ethan lasted until 4am, but it was still way too early. Saturday we got up and went to gym class. Jay took Aidan to his 2nd gym class ever and I thought it might be fun to watch for a bit, so Ethan & I came a little early to watch. BIG MISTAKE with a 2 year old. All he wanted to do was go in. So keeping him entertained was trying, but all worked out in the end. Ethan ended up doing some good jumping on the air track and other than that tried mama's patience, but this week's theme was "Patience" so I just let it go. We all took a trip to Best Buy and Jay got his tires rotated and I even took my car in for its own oil change appointment. I'm pretty proud of myself for lining that up and going on my own. I made it home within about an hour and found two messy boys hanging out with daddy. I decided we had time for a quick bath before Dave & Aaron (Aidan's Godfathers) showed up for game night. We had our first poop in the bathtub experience - AIDAN!. Thank goodness Jay has had dogs. He got the luxury of scooping out of the tub! All is well and we were all cleaned up and ready by the time the guests arrived.

We all went to Davanni's for dinner on Saturday prior to the Wii-fest starting and all in all the boys were pretty good. Ethan wanted to "pway" on the video games after only a few bites, but Dave was a good sport and sat in the turned-off racing game with him and pretended to steer and race for a long time. We sent Jay after them and he joined in the fun too. Lastly mama got the pleasure of racing on the out-of-order machine before we went home. Wii was fun once again and I think everyone won at least something in all to games we tried. The boys went to bed fairly nicely and slept through our madness.

Both boys were up early again this morning, so we made it to church BEFORE it started! Even before Grandma & Grandpa got there! So we got our seats in the 3rd row and Ethan decided he needed to go for a walk. I thought, let's get it over with before the service starts. So we walked around and I followed him. He found the closed door of the nursery and turned to me and said "Mama, PWAY!" He opened the door and I told him "Ethan you can play. Mama will go to church and come and get you in a few minutes" He ran whole heartedly for a tractor and started riding it. I signed him in and came back and said "OK, you play with this nice little girl and mama will come and get you in a bit" I got a pager from the nursery attendant and went back to sit down just as my parents were arriving and the service started. I whispered to Jay that Ethan was staying in the nursery and put the pager on the pew. I happened to look over to the side door of the sanctuary and who walks in? Ethan! I handed Aidan back to Jay and dropped my hymnal and ran over to him. The usher had gotten to him before me and said "Does this belong to you?" I thanked him and took him to our seat. I asked Jay to bring the pager back and handed Ethan off to grandma. I sure am glad I saw him. Apparently the nursery attendant was in the hall looking for him and told Jay "Oh I turned and saw the door open." I think this will be the last time he goes to the nursery...for some time anyway.

38 days

It's 38 days and counting until our vacation to Mexico.

http://www.excellence-resorts.com/all-inclusive-resorts/playa-mujeres-mexico/all-inclusive-resort.htm

I'm getting excited to go, but the more I think about it now and I'm starting to realize that I have to leave my boys for 6 nights. It hit me while I was working from home today with Aidan. He was running a temp because of his new teeth coming in so I picked him up from Kindercare and brought him home. He snoozed on me while I worked and I just love his little snuggles. I hate the fact that he's growing up so fast and I don't want to miss anything. My baby is getting too big too fast! Even my big boy is getting too big. Ethan's really starting to become an independent 2 year old. He wants to open his own juice box, climb on the furniture by himself, and open/close the garage door when you drive up/down the driveway. He even likes to direct your driving. When we leave for school in the morning he says "Mama - that way" (usually whatever way he can see a big truck driving). He's started talking about his friends at school when you ask him who he's played with and he will sing Happy Birthday with you. I really am going to miss them.

Green Machine

Well, Jay got to use his "green machine" yet again today. I agree with his sentiments as he pulled it out "the best investment". If you ever have kids...especially two boys you're gonna need one. There's nothing like cleaning up throw up to put a little liveliness into your evening!! WHOO HOO! Poor Aidan. Actually Poor Jay! I usually end up with the sicky and he's left to clean up the mess. I guess in a way that makes us a pretty good team. I clean the boy and the clothes and he cleans the carpet and furniture. :) I'm pretty lucky.

Big game

It's the NCAA finals tonight. Jay and I are about even in winning bracket by bracket. Tonight though is for a Wii/Xbox game. We have bought "game" food and are enjoying the game. Of course we thought both boys would be in bed, but as I type, Ethan (Big E) is on the couch next to me. He's so cute. Plus he's a mama's boy, so I have a hard time getting mad at him. Tonight he started saying "love you" back when you say it to him.

Tonight when I got home from work, it took a little prodding (Barney was on), but Ethan ran over and gave me a hug & kiss. Then as I was getting my coat off and shoes off, I see Aidan crawling over to me too. I think it's the first time he's crawled over for a hug. The wait was worth it as he moved his little crawlers on over. He's becoming a snuggle bug too (I hope).

aUI

Not good at this

I'm not very good at regular blogging, but when you have 3 boys in your house, you're pretty busy at doing anything but blogging. I'd love to write that all of the things I've been busy doing have been interesting, but sadly, no. We do a lot of picking up hotwheels, videos (that Aidan pulls off the shelf), pouring milk and making bottles, and entertaining the 2 little ones.

Ethan's not so little anymore and with every day that passes he gets a little bit better at verbalizing what he wants rather than throwing himself into a pile on the floor and just laying there. He's such a caring and curious little boy. He loves Aidan very much...until Aidan decides to play with the cars. Then Ethan could pretty much ignore him. But he still enjoys giving Aidan hugs and occasionally giving him a car or two of his own to play with. He's just starting to talk about his friends at school when he comes home. His favorite is Mercedes (sounds like "say dees"). Apparently he's quite the ladies man at school. We are trying to get him excited about moving into the 3 year old room soon at school. He'll move up about 6 months early, but I think he'll enjoy being with some of his older friends that have already moved up. That and Mercedes is moving soon, so hopefully the transition and her moving will coincide closely with each other and he won't be as sad as he would be in the same class without her.

Aidan, who's supposed to be the little one, isn't so little either. Just took him in for his 9 month check up and he's 20 lbs, 6 oz (39th percentile), 29 inches long (65th percentile) with an 18 inch head (54th percentile). So he's pretty average even though we still think he's going to be a bruiser. He's not as big of a fan of Ethan as it works the other way, but does still enjoy watching Ethan play and I think he learns so much from it. He's cruising along the furniture as much as he can. He's also getting 2 more teeth and unlike Ethan, we hear ALL About it! He's got a temper on him. (Another thing he got from his mama I guess) He has a great little smirk though so you know he's devious and he is pretty easy going if he's got a full belly. (LOVES his food!)

I'm sure Jay's nervous I'm going to blog about Ethan's new haircut, so of course I will. For the first time (in all of 9 haircuts he's had so far....we have a punch card..that's how I know how many...don't think I remember each one), daddy took Ethan to get his haircut alone. Let's just say I've always wondered what our little blonde haired boy would look like with a buzz cut. Now I know! It is funny too because I'll ask Ethan "What happened to your hair?" and he'll rub his head and say "Daddy"

Aidan had a big day on Saturday...started his first class at "The Little Gym" It's definitely not "My gym" that Ethan was lucky enough to attend, but I think he really liked it. At first he was a little apprehensive and wanted to just sit on my lap, but he started crawling around and liked to hang on the bars and he even participated in shaking the bells at the end of the class. I think he just enjoys being out with one parent the most, which is great because I know I enjoy the time as well.

I suppose....I've babbled on about nothing for awhile now. Someday I'll have to share this blog with some friends or family or something, but I haven't yet. Maybe once I figure out a regular routine to it. Oh - we lost the volleyball championships last week in game 3 by 4 points. Sad night. Now I have to wait until fall to play again. I'm hoping to play in Mexico...countdown to our trip.... 41 days to get skinny!

So good.....

This morning the boys were so good while we were getting ready for school. It's amazing some mornings how good they can be and how disasterous the mornings can start on other days! Luckily this was a good day (even with a few mishaps). Ethan's so cute when you try to wake him up he says "No No Mama. Nigh-Night" But if he'll let you get him dressed without complaints, you know you're sitting pretty. Waking up Aidan can be scary too, but for the most part if Ethan's in a good mood, Aidan will follow suit. Today he was more interested in Ethan's Tiggy (one of Ethan's most prized possessions) and Ethan didn't even seem to mind. Tiggy became a good distraction to getting Aidan dressed. Once we got to school, Aidan turned on his personality though. Just sitting in the high chair looking cute and innocent and next thing you know he's pulling pictures off the wall. His teacher thinks he's going to be the bully and need "time outs". We've always thought that he would be bruiser...time will tell I guess. I hope not, but so far he hasn't been the smiley, attention grabbing, emotional (sometimes over-emotional) one like Ethan. Ethan got hugs all around from his buddies Dezarion & Mercedes when he arrived in his classroom and then strutted around the room like he owned it. Quite the character he is! It was a great start to the day and I sure wish there were more mornings like this....but I'll enjoy the thought of this one for awhile.

Easter 2008

Well, we survived Easter 2008. Jay's parents came down a day early and spoiled the boys with necessities (diapers, formula) and goodies too. It was great to have them visit. Today we ventured out to church without our usual 3:2 or 4:2 adult:child ratio....all in all it went alright. (I say that because I had Aidan and he was in a good mood....Jay and Ethan did some exploring around the church during the service. Afterwards it was back here for a day full of "Brain Challenge" on the Xbox for us. Ethan did his usual playing with cars while jumping on all the furniture and Aidan did some prety good crawling. He's walking along furniture a little bit now. Shouldn't be long now before he starts chasing after Ethan and then we're in trouble. We predict he's a bruiser! :) Time will tell. We visited our old neighbors this evening. Ethan's always good for a few laughs when he's around their dog. I think he thinks all dogs are named Halley right now. He's pretty cute with them. But not as cute as he and his brother are right now in bed. Happy Easter to all!

JAY HATES THIS!!!

Hi all.....
Just a quick entry right now....as Jay & I are in the middle of a Wii "Cookin MAMA Cookoff" (Thanks Jeanne!), but I had to start this thing off by saying... JAY HATES Blogs! He even wants a shirt that says "I don't care about your blog" I'm guessing he will be ordering one soon now that I started my own. :) HEE HEE.... But I think it'll be fun for Aidan & Ethan to read someday and hopefully others will read and enjoy our boring lives too.

Enjoy your Easter everyone!
Love to all -