It's A Boy

Ultrasounds are the greatest. They make your baby look a little bit monsterish, but it's amazing to see them moving and to see what amazing growth has occurred in such a few short weeks. I went in today for my "First Study" test where they determine whether or not the baby has Down Syndrome and while I was having my ultrasound, the tech asked if I wanted to know the baby's gender. Of course I did, because I've had suspicions all along that it was a boy. So, she completed her necessary measurements and then checked for me. Within moments she had the perfect between the legs, from the bottom facing up shot. "That looks very much like a boy," I said. "I was about to say the same thing," she replied. She got a few more shots from different angles, but each time the evidence was pretty clear. I decided in good taste, to not post an image of it. :) Of course, this early, they give no guarantees. It's really at the 20 week scan that they're more confident, but I knew with Isabella at this age, so my chances are good. It's fun to be able to confidently assign a pronoun to the baby now, rather than calling him "it" or simply "the baby." Plus now I can move on from calling him Cletus the Fetus and start seriously considering a name. Only problem being that Kelly and I can't seem to agree on one. Oh well, she who goes through labor gets final say, right?

A Great Way to Wake Up

My kids wake up at insane hours of the morning. They always have and likely they always will...until they're teenagers and have early morning seminary. In any case, mornings always come way too soon for me and I'm usually not very happy about it. Today, though, Benjamin woke me up in a way I couldn't get angry about. As he came into my room pre-6am as usual, he jumped into my bed, laid on top of me and said, "Mommy! I just realized, you haven't had a hug yet!" Then he proceeded to give me a big, tight squeeze. Ahhhh...that was worth waking up for.

Crazy Kids

As my kids age, their personalities are so fun to watch. My kids especially seem to make a good team. Isabella is always the first to approach people. She'll walk through a store, library, gym, church, etc. waving and smiling at people, saying hello to friends and random strangers alike. If she has a coat or shoes on of which she's particularly fond, she'll approach anyone she sees and point these items out to them. In the case of shoes, she'll hold out one foot to them,"shoe!" she'll triumphantly declare (sometimes many times until they acknowledge her). Then she'll hold out the other foot, "Mehr Shoe!" (more shoe!) she'll proclaim, in her half German, half English combo. Benjamin, of course, acts completely uninterested the entire time. He would never have approached this stranger and still seems ambivalent at first. However, once the ice is broken and the stranger has proven a kind person, he'll jump right in, "I have shoes too!" or any other random comment he feels impressed to share, "I made a snow man and a snow dog in our back yard!" At this point I usually make some brief comment to release this poor unsuspecting stranger who would likely really like to get on with his/her shopping and we're on to the next person Isabella sees.

We went grocery shopping yesterday and spent some time in the toy department. Isabella approached no less than 7 people to show her the various balls, dolls, or other toys she found interesting. Each time Benjamin would wait to see their reaction and then join in. At one point his excitement to share resulted in a beach ball to the head of the innocent stranger who wasn't ready to "think fast." Such a funny team.

Isabella is also very quick to learn people's names and knows not only her own friends, but Benjamin's too. She can point to his class picture and name people in it. She knows the names of my friends as well. I went visiting teaching today and on the way there I said, "We're visiting Julie." I only said it once and yet 45 minutes later as we were leaving, Bella said, "Bye Julie!" Amazing. Benjamin on the other hand still thinks that my friend and her daughter are both named Annika because he has never picked up on what I call the mom. How different they are.

To lend credit to Benjamin, however, he's incredibly physical. He was invited as a guest of a friend to a toddler gymnastics class yesterday and after 10 minutes in class the teacher came up to me asking how old he is. When I told her, she said, "Well, then he isn't technically old enough for the next class, but if you'd like to register him for it, I would allow you in. He's by far ready for a more advanced class." Make a mother proud. :)


Here's a picture of the crazy pair and their friend Annika, who had an entire playground to enjoy but found the driveway up the street far more interesting. Nothing like a some puddles of slushy, dirty water and some sticks to make an afternoon enjoyable.

Now I Am Officially Pregnant

Yesterday as I stared into my fridge feeling nauseated by everything in there, including the smell, I thought how yummy some pickles would be and wrote them on the grocery list attached to the fridge door. As soon as I'd written that I laughed out loud. Truly, pregnancy has begun. The only thing funnier would have been if ice cream had followed on the list.

One more thing that I just had to write, especially with everything going on in Haiti and the inherent increase in gratitude it's given me for my own charmed life: It was 9pm tonight and I remembered that I never bought grapes for nursery snack tomorrow. Church doesn't start until 1pm, but I'm not going to go shopping on a Sunday so I put on my big coat over my pjs and went to the store. On my way home I thought how amazing the whole trip was. I was able to decide at 9 pm on a Saturday in the middle of winter that I wanted green grapes. So I put on a wonderful warm coat, got in a heated car and drove a mere 1.3 miles to a beautifully stocked, warmed, well lit, and safe grocery store which is open 24 hours/day 7 days/week, and within 2 feet of the front door, there was a table covered in bags of sweet, plump green grapes for a mere $1.89/lbs. I purchased them with a swipe of a plastic card and within 10 minutes of when I'd decided I needed grapes, I was back home enjoying them. God bless America. May we never take beautiful stuff like that for granted.

Announcement

Now that both sides of our family are aware, I finally get to post this picture.


We're excited to announce that we're expecting our third child on August 14th (our wedding anniversary). That puts me at 9 weeks right now and deep in the the throes of morning sickness (although it always hits at night) and overly-hormonal weepiness. So if you catch me sobbing at odd moments or every time I watch Oprah, you know why.

Bella is unaware of what's going on, although she was the only one with me when I took the pregnancy test and started jumping up and down and laughing. Benjamin, however, is excited about a new baby in the house, as long as we name it Lucas. I told him the names we're thinking of and asked if he liked them and he said, "sort of." So I asked him what name he wanted and he firmly and immediately replied, "Lucas. How about we name him Lucas? I like that name." Kelly and I aren't so sure. We really like the name, but there are a few too many boys named Lucas in our life already. We'll see if Benjamin's strong will wins out or if his fickle 3 year old desires come around to our side in the end.

Milestones

Benjamin just keeps growing up. He entered the Sunbeam class on Sunday in church. He was so excited. He's in primary now! I finally get to see my little boy in the primary programs and help him with talks! Wow! I worried that Bella would be upset in nursery without him, but she seemed completely unaffected. She even walked herself in there because I was busy finding out to which room Benjamin was supposed to go.

Then he celebrated his 3 and 1/2 birthday at school yesterday. Since all summer birthdays would miss a school celebration, the teachers let those kids have 1/2 birthday parties. So, I had to be very clear that it was not his 4th birthday, but rather his 1/2 birthday, so he wouldn't get too confused. (Of course, he still pointed to various toys at the store that day and said I should buy them for his birthday and mentioned to several strangers we passed that it was his birthday.) He had a great time, though. I got to stay for part of circle time during which the teacher presented him with a crown and let him put candles on a felt board cake. Then he sat on her lap while the class sung Happy Birthday and all the kids tried to blow the teacher over while she held the cake in front of her.



Lucky me also got to bring the snack for the whole class. And of course, being me, it wasn't cookies or cupcakes, it was blueberry muffins and cheese cubes. But I have to say, there were several cries of "I love muffins!" when the kids heard. And one cry of "I love cheese!" which was Benjamin. (And of course, one cry of, "I can't eat muffins or cheese!" from the kid with an allergy to gluten, dairy, and all types of nuts. I am so happy my kids are allergy free!!) Benjamin really loves his school and apparently so does Bella! She had come with me and was so devastated when we left after the birthday portion of the day was over. She screamed and cried to be let back in and even started to pound on the door crying, "School! Go school!" (Of course it sounded like "Go Shoo.") Who wouldn't love a room full of brand new toys, food, and your cool older brother?

Christmas Recap

Hopefully everyone had as good a Christmas as we did. We were able to celebrate with family and friends on both Christmas eve and Christmas day and we all had a lot of fun. Here's some pics to show it.

I was greeted on Christmas Eve morning by a sobbing Benjamin because his "mural" had just been detected by daddy. He had taken a pencil (thank goodness only pencil!) and drawn all over the basement walls, doors, and toilet seat while Kelly was in the shower and Bella and I were still asleep. So, our first Christmas activity was to scrub off all the drawings. Things got better after that, though. He later told me, "We only draw on paper, not toilets." Glad that seemingly obvious nugget of knowledge had finally sunk in. Or well, let's hope it has. Only time will tell.


After that we played around until our family and friends came over to eat, read Luke 2, open presents from each other (Santa's presents only came the next morning), and finally set up our much anticipated tree and lights.



I am so glad I didn't put them up any earlier, because 3 ornaments were broken within the first 24 hours. But it sure was fun to set it all up together and admire it. (Until I took it down at 8am on the 26th and heaved a big sigh of relief that I could stop saying, "That's an ornament, not a toy, put it back!") That night Benjamin got a changeable racetrack with battery powered cars and Bella got a doll and stroller. They both got a new bedtime story book and a giant floor puzzle. Their excitement knew no bounds. They were entertained the rest of the night. (And finally left the tree alone for a few hours.)





The next morning Santa did not disappoint. In addition to the usual stocking fare, he brought Benjamin a rocket! All month long whenever anyone asked Benjamin what he wanted for Christmas, he said the exact same thing, namely, "I want a rocket. Not a plastic one, but a real one, that I can get in and fly to the moon!" Every single time. So, naturally, we realized we'd better get this kid a rocket! So Kelly bought $30 worth of insulation board, wood, duct tape, etc. and made him a 6ft tall rocket that fits 3 people inside. It's really quite impressive. It's got windows, control panels, steering wheel, a door that open and shuts, and inside are various pictures made to look like windows showing constellations, planets, etc. so in addition to being able to look out into the room, you can look out into space. Benjamin loved it.



The cutest thing was that he was also nearly equally excited about the banana and oranges that Santa left in his stocking! I love kids at this age. Bella wasn't quite sure what to make of this present deluge (book, Mr Potato Head, etc.), so she sat contentedly aside as Benjamin emptied her stocking and handed her items one by one.



Oh, and of course, you can't forget the new Christmas pajamas!


It was a great couple days. In addition to all the fun at home, we also went to a Christmas party at a friend's home (to which I forgot to bring my camera), ice skating (also forgot the camera), and bowling (remembered the camera!!)



This was really a fabulous Christmas. Now we just wait patiently for some snow so we can use the sled that Santa brought. :) It rained all day on Christmas and washed away everything we had. Something to look forward to!

Merry Christmas

I thought I'd post this now because I know I won't get a chance in the next couple days. I'm very excited about Christmas coming. It's been an incredibly busy December but I've tried very hard to keep focused on what really matters. A friend of mine emailed me this picture yesterday and I think it so aptly portrays what I'm trying to achieve in my home.


Santa is fun, but let us remember what he's really a symbol of (and not the other way around.)

We've been having fun around here, despite the hectic. Benjamin has been taking a swim class and has loved it. We've been playing in our newly fallen snow. And I had the chance to drive a friend to the temple when her car wasn't working, so I took the kids along and took some pictures. Sadly, Isabella has had a cold and was sound asleep by the time we got there. Benjamin enjoyed it, though. My funniest picture (not posted) was when Benjamin, with his face contorted in urgency, grabbed himself, calling, "I have to pee mommy!" How many people have a picture of their son grabbing themselves in front of the temple? I didn't take a picture of the next moment when he prepared to deal with his need right onto their finely manicured lawn. I'm so glad there's a stake center right next door!




So, that's our life right now in a nutshell. Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Squeaky Clean

Bella is addicted to foaming hand sanitizer. They have a dispenser of it beside the door to the child care at my gym. It's a fancy automatic one that dispenses a large glob every time you put your hand under it. Needless to say, Bella manages to grab 7-10 globs at every entrance and every exit. Well, as an unfortunate coincidence, we have a foaming soap dispenser in our bathroom that puts out a substance identical in color and appearance to the sanitizer at the gym. Immediately Bella learned a new word. "Soap!" she'd proudly call, as she squirted large globs onto her hands. I tried repeatedly to explain that sanitizer and soap are very different, but when that failed, I put it away. Until Kelly decided to wash his hands, and forgot about my warning. I came into Benjamin's room to put away some folded laundry and smelled the overwhelmingly strong smell of soap and heard a little rustling noise coming from the closet. I quickly opened the door to find this:


It's hard to tell in the picture, but she'd shampooed her hair with it, rubbed various spots on her clothes with it, and had large handfuls of it, prepped for various new locations. She was not very pleased to see me. Seeing as how she'd sequestered herself in the closet with a closed door, it was obvious she knew she was breaking a rule, but she seemed to have been having a grand ol' time. The carpet was soaked with it too. The room reeked of artificial soap perfume all day long. What a crazy girl. I just took a picture, hosed her off, and thanked my lucky starts it wasn't finger paint again (as we experienced with Benjamin a while back). However, the soap has once again been put away (for good, this time, I hope.)

Quick cute quote from Benjamin: I picked him up from school on Thursday and he asked, "Why did you come back?" "To pick you up, sweetheart, so we could go home," I replied. "But I don't want to go home," he stated matter-of-factly. I'm so glad he likes school so much. I won't take it personally. :)

Why My House Looks Like We're Out of Town All Month

Last year I got really excited to set up our Christmas decorations and the tree and make a whole big fun day of it with Benjamin. That didn't work out. After much screaming and stressing and multiple breakages of formerly precious items, I vowed I'd never do it again. So this year I decided we'd put up all our decorations on Christmas eve and take them down on the 26th and save ourselves a lot of stress. However, as we've been driving around, Benjamin has noticed how festive other houses look compared to ours. We pass house after house with lights, over-sized candy canes, reindeer, and the oh-so-classy blow-up Santa in a hammock between two palm trees, and Benjamin asks, "Why we not have that, mommy?" So I compromised and decided to just put up the lights. How bad could it be, right? It's just some lights? What could go wrong? You would think I would no longer ask such a stupid question.

I got the box of lights out of the basement and the first thing the kids did was start playing tug-of-war with them. Then Bella tried plugging them into various outlets and Benjamin started running around the house with them banging against various walls and items of furniture. When I convinced them to leave the lights alone, they started to attack me while I attempted to put them up. I had kids on my back, kids playing tag around my legs, etc. I was ready to be done right then and there, but I'd committed and I was going to see this through. After an hour of stress and frustration, the lights were up. They looked okay, not great, but good enough. Then later on I started making dinner and the kids played in the living room. They seemed to be happy and were laughing, so all was good, right? Then I noticed Benjamin speaking as if he had something in his mouth. I went into the living room to see what he was eating and discovered the room was noticeably dimmer than it had been before. Then I noticed Benjamin had green color running out of the side of his mouth. "What are you eating?" I asked. "This," he said, as he spit out a bulb from the Christmas lights. He had unscrewed an entire set of bulbs and sucked off the color coating!!! "They didn't work right, so I fixed them," he declared matter-of-factly. After a stern discussion over the danger of playing with an electric string of lights and the danger of putting glass bulbs in your mouth AND the danger of eating synthetic color, I ripped all the lights off the walls and windows and put them back in the storage room. So much for Christmas cheer. Maybe our neighbors will just assume we're out of town. So although I'd love my living room to look like this:


In reality, it feels and looks more like this:

Everything Okay Officer?

Another adventure in Isabella's life - she was rescued by a cop yesterday. We decided to spend the sunny (although cold) afternoon at the playground. Benjamin rushed into the garage to get his bike and then jumped into the car to pop the trunk and get out the stroller for Bella. Bella saw him in the car and followed him in. But then I told him that we weren't taking the stroller that was in the trunk, so he jumped back out and slammed the door. As I took the correct stroller off its hook on the wall, I heard the "click" of the doors locking. Bella was still inside and had just locked the door. Not a terrible thing if I didn't have the bad habit of leaving my key in the console when the car was in the garage. I searched the house for a spare key and called Kelly if he knew of one, but there wasn't one besides the one Kelly had with him at the office, and he was many hours from coming home.

Benjamin and I spent the next 30 minutes trying to coax Bella to unlock the door. She continued to lock it over and over again instead. When she tired of that game she started to take apart my cd case and play with each and every cd, throwing them around inside the car with great delight. I plead and screamed and banged on the window - anything to get her to try unlocking the door again, but she saw it all as a silly game mommy was playing. She banged back on the window, she tried the door handle, and she continued to lock the door again and again. Finally I told Benjamin we needed to pray. So we knelt down in the garage and prayed for help in getting Bella out of the car. Then we tried talking to her again. It didn't help. At this point she'd exhausted her attention span and was asking to be let out of the car. When I couldn't do that, she started to cry. That's when I thought, "God helps those who help themselves." I got out the phone and called 911. They told me they'd send over the next available police car. I didn't know what that meant - 5 minutes? An hour? By this time I had two impatient kids. She was in the car crying and Benjamin had decided to drape himself on the hood of the car and moan, "I want to go on a walk" over and over in a pitiful, whiny tone. But the answer to my prayer came in the form of a very helpful police officer who arrived less than 5 minutes after I called.


The funniest part of the story were my two neighbors who suddenly had mail to check the instant the cop pulled into my driveway. (The mailman hadn't arrived yet.) One stood in her driveway and stared, while the other called out, "Everything alright over there, officer?" I had to laugh. Was she planning on coming and backing him up? "Everything's fine ma'am; thanks," he said with a smirk that showed he was probably wondering the same thing. Then he took a wedge out of his car, smashed it into into the edge of my door, put an inflatable bag next to that and pumped it up, so the door was even further open, and finally took a long, thick wire and flipped up the power lock. Within a few seconds the door was open. Bella had stopped crying the minute the large, uniformed man had appeared in our garage and when the door opened, she burst into a huge grin. I picked her up and told her to thank the nice officer, which she did with a "Danke" and a wave. Before he had even driven away, both kids were on their bike/in their stroller, and we were walking to the playground, another adventure behind us. (While our neighbors stood at their windows suffocating with curiosity as to why he'd come because they're both on our side of the street, so they couldn't see inside our garage.) By the way, I will now always keep my key with me, and not in the car.

On the way to the playground, Benjamin and I discussed what had happened and I emphasized to him how God had answered our prayer and how thankful I am that he sent the cop to help save Bella. Benjamin's answer, "I knew God could do it."

Let the Potty Training Begin!

This little cutie was standing in front me this morning as I stepped out of the shower. She was pulling on her pajama pant with one hand and pointing at the toilet with the other and saying, "Poop." I assumed she either had just gone poop in her diaper or was just telling me what she has seen others do in the toilet. However, she has sat on the toilet a few times in the past after seeing one of us use it, so I decided to set her on it anyway. Far be it from me to discourage the use of the toilet!! Much to my shock and amazement, the instant I had her diaper off and sat her on the toilet, she pooped! Then she signed that she was all done and said, "done." My big girl! So exciting! After we praised her, she went into my room and got out a pair of Benjamin's underpants from the laundry basket and put them on. She was so upset when I made her take them off and put on a diaper! I really never expected to start this so early, but I think I'm going to buy some pull-ups tomorrow and see how far we can take this!

By Popular Demand

I've had several requests to post a picture of Benjamin's wall destruction. I initially didn't post a picture for two reasons - 1. I didn't want him to see me taking a picture of it, for fear he'd think I'm impressed by his masterpiece and 2. a picture really just doesn't do the level of destruction justice. I wasn't sure how to take this picture to give you a good view of it. However, to appease my fans, I made an effort today while Benjamin was in school and here you go.

Benjamin's wall 'smiley face':


Here's a picture of the holes he'd made a week prior to the smiley face, using the corner of his "Return with Honor" picture that was on his dresser. (It was immediately removed, along with all other hard objects. Which unfortunately gave me a false sense of security that there was nothing else he could use to damage the walls. Ha! Never underestimate him.)

Too Stunned to Take A Picture

It's always an adventure with Benjamin around. He's gotten in the habit of picking Isabella up and taking her where he'd like her to be whenever it suits him. I've tried to get him to stop since she's far too close to his own weight for this to be safe. However, the other day he did it again, and I warned him to put her down, but he ignored me and immediately thereafter accidentally dropped her on her head. So, he went straight into time-out while I calmed her down. While I was holding her I heard a lot of banging in his room. This is not unusual when he's upset about being in time-out, but the strange thing is that I recently cleared his room of all hard, breakable objects which he was in the habit of hurling in anger. So I listened carefully in an attempt to identify the source of the sound. BAM! It went again. BAM! again. After another bam, I heard Benjamin say, "Another hole!" That's when I set Bella down and threw open his door. He had turned the glider's footstool upside-down and was smashing the leg of it, systematically, down the length of the wall. "What are you doing?!" I shrieked in horror. There were already 6 or 7 holes, evenly spaced in a line and he was gearing up for the next one. "I'm making a smiley face," he calmly responded, "See?" (pointing to the holes), "Can you see it?" Needless to say what happened next need not be recorded for posterity.

So, what we're left with now is the question of how do we get him to fix that without turning it into a terrible mess and a lot of fun? I mean, it's putty and paint - that's supposed to be a punishment?

And as a follow-up, a more harmless adventure - I got out of the shower, to see a toilet paper trail that started in his room, went down the hall, into the living room, and so forth, throughout the whole house, including the basement. The entire roll was empty. "Why did you do this?" I asked. Why do we as parents always ask why? Do we really expect a good answer?? This time the answer actually made me laugh, though. He said, "I asked you if I could do it. I said please." (Of course, I'd been in the shower at the time and never heard him utter a single word.) "What did I answer?" "You didn't say anything. I don't know why." How convenient. Again, I forgot the camera at the time. I'm sure there will be more opportunities.

Window Art

One of my favorite things lately are our window crayons. So much fun and so easy to clean up. However, you have to keep a careful eye on Isabella whenever they're out. Coloring on the windows is just too similar to coloring on the walls, the furniture, and the floor. Before we began tonight, I knelt down in front of her and said very clearly, "Only widows (pointing to the window), not walls, not chairs, not floor (pointing to each in turn and violently shaking my head). Only windows. Promise?" She gravely nodded her head and then reached for the crayon in my hand. Sadly, I got distracted during the creation of the masterpiece, and I had apparently neglected to specify one other key location. Must be more specific next time.