$15 baby!!!

That's right - I got all this at Harris Teeter for $15.43 - I am a coupon superstar!!!!

Scrub-a-dub-dub -- my three boys in the tub

Ben is in a transition stage where he is getting too big for his baby bathtub (and he keeps trying to pull himself up to launch himself out of it) and yet too small for the big bathtub. But, for the Sunday bath, we thought we would stick him in with the big boys and see how he did. He seemed uncertain of such a large body of water, but he was definitely into the toys.

Josh's First Day of School

This morning at 8:30 we all walked down to the bus stop. Where we waited for 20 minutes for the bus. Hopefully, the wait can be attributed to first day of school slow ups because 8:50 is when school starts. Josh, as you can see, was pretty excited!

He rushed onto the bus before Jason could get a picture of him.
And poor Michael was left standing all alone.

Six days and going strong

We started potty training Michael (for real this time) last Monday. We have played around with various techniques, but haven't been consistent at all. However, preschool looms on the horizon and Jason has to go back to work soon. I make it a point not to have to potty train a child by myself. So, Day 6 and he hasn't had any accidents today. Those first couple of days, I wasn't sure he was going to do this. Our technique has involved both negative consequences for peeing/pooing in his underwear (and we have gone through many a pair this last week) and positive for using the toilet. On the negative side, he has to spend 10 minutes in his room with no toys when he pees in his pants. On the positive side, he gets to pick a toy or piece of candy from a reward basket when he uses the toilet. And lots of love and games and hugs in between. We didn't see much of Michael those first couple of days. But here we are and I am fully confident that he will be ready to start preschool next month.

On a more general note, I have decided that one of the difficulties of parenting is that for a child to learn a new skill that will make my and his lives easier, first our lives have to get much, much worse first. I hate potty training and often long to keep the kid in diapers during the process. But, having a potty trained child is both easier and cheaper - once we suffer through the learning process. Same thing with walking (bumps, bruises and frustration), talking (screaming, pointing and mumbling), and eating solid foods (spitting, throwing and constipation). Clearly, these are all skills that we have to have. Of course, the other key is not to let them see my frustration. That is a mommy skill I still struggle to master.

Two days and counting

On Monday, we will walk our firstborn down to the gazebo at the end of our street and watch him climb onto the school bus for the first time. This feels like it should be momentous. Which means it will probably be anticlimactic. But it is a great milestone. Hopefully, we have survived, loved, taught, raised and cared for a human being who is ready to enter a public setting...by himself. It was hit or miss that first year when I kept a countdown of how many years and months until he would go away to college, but it has been getting steadily better since. I remember a sweet old lady at church one time telling me when Josh was a mere colicky babe, that those were the best years of my life. I almost started to hyperventile and drop to the floor and curl up into a little ball right on the spot. Fortunately, she was just plain wrong, because Josh now is a million times easier to live with than Josh then. (In the meantime, Ben is just the easiest ever, but this post is not about him.)

Last Thursday Josh and I went down to his new school to meet his teacher and teacher's assistant. If you ask him, his teachers are Miss Rice and Miss Breakfast (Byvik). Being quite shy of new people, he kept his head down and didn't speak very much. But after we left the room, he decided he wanted to go back and take a closer look. There are 14 students in his class, one of which he already knows from church. The class theme is puppies. His teachers are both lovely women and I was impressed with both of them. The teaching assistant showed Josh the reading nook and I had to make myself comfortable because he just settled in for a good review of all the books.

I really hope that Josh likes school. If not, we have a rough 13 years ahead of us.

Lesson Learned

So, backing up to my cousin's wedding a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to record some wisdom I have recently gained. Mainly, because I am sure to make this mistake again.

For the family BBQ the night before I made these yummy jalapenos filled with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. Serious yummage. And every time I make them, I slice the jalapenos in half lengthwise and scrape out the ultra-hot innards so you just get the flavor. The finished product has a little bit of heat, but even the wussiest of my family members will eat them. And, every time I make them, I handle the jalapenos with my bare hands with no problems.

This time things turned out a little different.

I made them as usual. As I was taking them off the baking rack, I snuck a bit of fallen cream cheese. My mouth burned with the flames of a thousand fires. I figured I just got an unusually hot one.

So we took them to the BBQ where I unleashed them on my unsuspecting family. I am surprised that all of them still talk to me. While my "bring on the hot stuff cuz I have no nerve endings in my tongue and mouth" cousin and husband loved them, from my aunt and sister-in-law I heard muffled shouts as they ran (literally - they jumped up and ran, holding their mouths) in the house to the kitchen for some milk.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. I woke up and thought I had some nerve damage in my hands. They burned with the flames of a thousand fires. Are you familiar with Dune? With the Gom Jabbar? I literally had to look at my hands to make sure that the flesh was not burning off of them. Apparently, that is why you wear gloves with jalapenos. Turning to my mother for help, her comforting statement was, "that is why you wear gloves with jalapenos." Clearly, I had to go somewhere else to ease the burn. Incidentally, ibuprofen does nothing for this kind of pain. Searching the website/blog where I got the recipe, I discovered that she had done the exact same thing and also went crying to her mom. She recommended rubbing the affected areas with a lemon. So, I grabbed the lemon juice out of the fridge and poured in on my hands. Brief relief. Feeding Ben was killing me since anything that made my hands physically warmer increased the intensity of the pain. Ultimately, I held an ice pack with my hands in the car all the way to the temple. The pain of the cold was a blessed relief from the flames of a thousand fires.

The Beach

Here are some pictures from the beach. We loved the beach. We spent about 3 hours a day there. I slathered the Josh and Michael with SPF 50, more so in some places rather than others. Consequently, their chests and backs are still quite white, their arms and legs are quite tan, and their cheeks are rosy burned. Can't win them all. Nana is lobster red and I am very tan, but you can tell I wore a short-sleeved shirt the whole time.

The loveliest surprise of the week was Josh. Two years ago when we came up to Sauble Beach, we discovered that Josh didn't like sand or water. You can see the dilemma. We weren't left with a lot of options. So our beach time ended up with Josh on a beach towel playing with sand toys as long as none of his skin had to actually touch the sand. This year, much to my surprise, he literally jumped right on in and even took his sandals off so he could feel the sand on his toes.

No way.

Way.

I took the kids down Monday evening just to look at the lake (Mom and I took that day to recover from the drive). Not sure of how much luck I would have with it, I left towels and swimsuits behind. Josh begged just to get his feet wet. Michael followed suit. Next thing I knew, Josh was wet up to his armpits and Michael's diaper swelled up to 10x its normal size. Still doubtful, I was sure this was a fluke. But we spent 5 days at the beach and they loved every minute of it.

We even initiated Ben to the icy waters.

And I do mean icy. We had to institute a Blue Rule: any part of you turns blue, you have to get out and stay in the sun until it turns pink again.
Luckily, the boys had just as much fun in the sand.

After all, t-rexes like sand, too.

But, I tell you what, the beach can be exhausting.

Sauble Beach

We spent last week at Sauble Beach on Lake Huron in Canada. My aunts own a cottage about 1/4 mile from the beach. My mom and her family went their every summer and I have been several times. Yes, there are other beaches closer (this was a 15-17 hour drive), but nothing quite like it. The sand is amazing, the water freezing (until you lose feeling in your skin), and the weather sensational (especially for someone like me who abhors the humidity). So Mom and I were intrepid travelers and drove up with the kids for a week for relaxation.

Behold, the ravenously hungry and unsuspecting seagulls. They have learned that people will feed them. I doubt they were expecting the price they would have to pay to be fed by my children.

Every day we brought bread to the beach to feed the birds. As soon as they could sense the food, they came and cried pitieously for the bread.

My boys loved it.
And fed them every chance they could get.

And then would chase them away pretending to be dinosaurs (sorry no pic). Because t-rexes love to eat seagulls.

The Beast

Most people just laugh politely when I tell them that I have named my hair "The Beast." You know who you are. So, here is proof. This is why you don't want curly hair. Here is my hair in all it's untamed glory. Scary, huh?

First Saturday Fun

Sticking to my tradition of posting events only after a great deal of time has passed, here are some pics of the fruits of our labors at Home Depot on the 1st. We have heard for a while about the fun (and free!!) crafts they hold for kids on the first Saturday of every month. This was the first month we dragged ourselves out of the house by 10am (as if we haven't already been up for 4 hours) and went looking for some fun with hammers and glue. Much to my chagrin, the craft was held outside (it is August in VIRGINIA, y'all) but the kids really seemed to enjoy the opportunity to work with tools and put together these message boards. And once Jason and I wiped the sweat from our eyes, we saw a neat project. The Michael/Jason team finished first, but the Josh/Irene team put all the pieces in the right place and direction. With the added bonus of tool aprons, balloons and pins, I am sure we will be headed over on September 5th. I recommend it if you haven't gone.

On becoming an Author

I recently borrowed the book "The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" published by LLL from the library. Just reading it made me want to vomit and quit breastfeeding simultaneously. The book mentions several times what a relaxing and wonderful experience bf is and how fantastic and sensual it is for the mother. I have my reasons for bf Ben, but that is not even on the list. It also says that plugged ducts (sorry to any males reading this) are the body's way of telling the mother to relax and slow down. Or, from my experience, that your baby slept a blissful 10 hours and if that isn't normal for you, baaaaaad things happen. Painful things happen.

So, after grousing to Jason a bit, we decided that we should write our own book. I think this is what our table of contents might look like:

Breastfeeding Sucks; a book for the rest of us

1: Intro: The baby is going to do what? where?

2: If labor wasn't painful for you (epidural notwithstanding), then neither will breastfeeding (and no, they won't give you an epidural to help you breastfeed).

3: Attached at the hip, and other more embarrassing places.

4: If she feels like a cow and makes milk like a cow, give her chocolate to make her feel better.

5: Things that crawl across the floor in the night and other sleep-deprivation hallucinations.

6: For larger chested women: A fortress of pillows may be your only hope.

7: For your husband: If you want my body and you think I'm sexy, get a number and stand in line because that is how we got all these kids in the first place.

8: Mythbusters:

Breastfeeding is NOT a free pass to fit into those jeans you wore in college.

You can breastfeed and still be sad.

Some geniuses were fed formula.

9: Breastfeeding will be difficult and painful, so if you choose to do it you will have to just suck it up.

Clearly, I am a little bitter about this whole thing. And I may be even more so this afternoon when I try on the dress I plan to wear to my cousin's wedding tomorrow. But much of my frustration is born of false expectations. If so many people, books and web pages hadn't constantly been touting the benefits of breastfeeding (which only happen for a few people and in reality not for many that I know), and just told me, "breastfeeding will be difficult and painful, just suck it up," I might have felt less betrayed by the entire experience. After 4 1/2 months, I haven't lost a single pound from breastfeeding. Ben is still covered in eczema like Josh was/is. I still had to go on antidepressants for PPD. And, because of my dimensions, there is no real way to do this in public discretely.

I am, however, just utterly amazed that we have made it this far and if I ever write a book (not really going to happen), I would have a whole page of people to thank for their support (no matter what my decision is) and love. So, we'll keep trucking and stick to it until I decide to quit.

Food!

Not that breastfeeding Ben every 2 hours isn't an absolutely delightful experience, but we decided to start him on some cereal yesterday. Here is the before picture.

Going in for our first rice taste.
We got mixed results:

Peer Pressure

Josh's fiancee came to spend a couple of days with us this week. We loved having Ella here. The boys loved playing with her and I loved the fact that for two whole days the boys didn't feel the need to "go dino!" so I had three human children playing around the house. It was a nice break.

However, as is true with even the best of friends, they did get on each others' nerves. Josh has this irritating habit of laughing manically at nothing when he gets tired. He will move a body part or a toy or make a strange noise and this will set him off into a strange giggle that gets tiring after the first five minutes. And, naturally, those first five minutes are just him warming up. At one point, Ella came upstairs and told us that Josh was bothering her. He followed giving us a good demonstration of the noise she found irritating.

And this is where it gets good.

Ella turns to him and says, "You better not laugh too much or you will break your laugh box." This stops Josh immediately. He becomes very concerned and they go downstairs to continue to discuss Josh's potential "medical" problems. I figure our problem is solved. Hallelujah Ella!

At dinner that night, Josh, ever the skeptic, asks Jason if he really has a laugh box. And this is where Jason destroys a beautiful thing. Always an advocate for the truth, Jason tells him (get ready for this) the truth!!! Ella, however, insists it exists and shows Josh where it is. Under cross-examination, Jason discovers Ella's source to be SpongeBob SquarePants. Jason reassures Josh that he has no laugh box and it can't be broken, but now that Ella has produced empirical evidence of the location of the box, Josh is beginning to believe her. I, in an attempt to support my husband (even though he is ruining our chances to get Josh to stop doing this constantly), am keeping out of the discussion, but silently rooting for Ella.

Fun in Winchester

I am a Northern Virginia snob. I admit it. Although intellectually I know there are other places in Virginia to go and do fun activities, I have a difficult time accepting that. But, when we got free passes in the mail to go to children's museum in Winchester (which is closer to us than DC is, but I have never been there), I figured I should broaden my horizons. So, we drove an hour to get there only to be a bit disappointed when we saw the museum as it seemed kind of dumpy and small.

Then we got a lesson in not putting too much into a first impression because this place was GREAT and we spent 5 hours there.

They had a simple machines area, building tables, puppets, costumes, hospital playroom, a pretend ambulance, a Native American room, a climbing wall, a craft area, a ball room and much, much more!!

In the words of the great scientific mind, Bill Nye the Science Guy, "Science Rules!!"

Roly Poly Ben

A couple of weeks ago, Ben decided that it was high time he took this body for spin and see what it could do.

Using his mighty baby abs and still keeping fingers in his mouth, pulled himself over onto his side.
Not satisfied with the view, he continued the motion to its logical conclusion.
Ta da!
And, boy, was he mad.