this is going to be a long one

ok, cleaning house a bit, a few lists:

andy stats:
he's sitting unassisted for a minute or so at a time.
he's up on all fours doing that thing where they sway back and forth and he sometimes does a little crawling in the backwards direction.
he's eating a load of cereal.
he had fresh zucchini from my cousin's garden while on vacation and fresh picked blueberries and some banana.
he will go down for a nap or to sleep at night without being asleep, i can put him in his crib and if he's sleepy enough he'll fall asleep in about 10 minutes. if he's not, he lets you know by screaming, i go get him we play for another 20-30 minutes then try again and he usually goes down the 2nd time.
he has become baptized to the religion of the lake goers.

max stats:
he is feeding himself really well with utensils. he has mastered the spoon for cereal and ice cream and other spoon friendly foods.
he is potty training himself.

yes, i said potty training himself. he's been peeing on the potty for quite some time. not at any really regular intervals during the day but before and after naps and bedtime and any other time we change a diaper (he doesn't always go when we put him on there but he understands that if he goes, he gets to flush! big fun!) so while on vacation we were eating a late dinner and he was giving us a hell of a time basically he didn't want to eat. we didn't fight it. we let him get down from his chair, he went to the other room to be private then quickly came back to let chris know that he had pooed.

it was just a little bit so chris put him on the potty to finish. he went some more and exclaimed that he was "all done!"
the next day the same thing happened except all of the poo ended up in the potty.
this was a few days ago, we haven't changed a poopy diaper since.
fastforward to today, we had lunch he started to play, i was cleaning up and he runs in and says, "mama, this!" and grabbed his crotch. so we went to the potty, his diaper was wet but not warm so i know he hadn't peed lately in it. i put him on the pot and leave the room (he won't do anything in there if you're in there with him). at this point i hear him trying to go. wouldn't you know it, i then had to go too.... so i leave him there and run to the basement. i go. (i know tmi) then run back upstairs to find him still going... so i stand outside the door and listen. then i hear a plop and he starts to whine so i go back in to find that he went a TON! i gave him a big kiss, cleaned him up and let him flush the toilet! big excitement! we aren't close to getting rid of diapers all together because he still pees there quite often. i'm fairly certain that i could train him if i took the time but i need chris to be here on a somewhat normal schedule and frankly that's not going to be the case until the end of august. so maybe we'll attempt it the week of his birthday.

vacation wrap up:
ahhhh the lake! we had some crappy weather, especially early in the week. it would be sorta clear in the mornings but by 10 or so it would cloud up and rain off and on for the rest of the day only to clear around 7 pm or so... then mid week there was one day it rained all day. then thursday and friday it was pretty nice and then saturday it was sunny until about 1 then got cloudy again just in time for us to pack up and leave. regardless of the weather we still had fun. and got a good amount of swimming and lake lounging done too.

andy make his lake debut!
here he is with papa! both look pretty happy to be there!

max played with his bucket and rocks! this is my favorite photo of the entire week!




i relaxed in a chair in the water....


we had a great time not doing a whole lot. my mom and i did manage to go shopping in a small town one afternoon, i found some great antique buttons. three pearly white ones that are square and are angular and 9 dark blue ones that are pearly. i also got some super cool antique post cards from around 1906 for chris. one is of the intersection of 4th and wood downtown (right where he works) and the other is a view of 1st ave taken from station square. both are pretty neat.

another day my mom and i also went to pick blue berries! we got there kinda late and they were going to close in about 20 minutes. but between the two of us we each filled a 1 gallon ziplock bag! we had enough blue berries for the week and we both got to take home about half a bag each! we're still eating fresh blueberries! for those two large bags, we paid $8! can't beat that! i can't wait to do that again next year!

i also made a lot of progress on my FLS. not quite done with the body yet. i did have to fix a mistake (thanks amanda for that technique! i did it all by myself! yay!) i am starting to worry that i need to buy two more balls of yarn...

as for traveling with this kids. this trip was a little easier. we left the house about 5 on our way up. we stopped around 7 for breakfast then again about 2 hours later so that could feed andy again and so that max could run around a bit.
then about 30 minutes after that the kids were both having fits... so i crawled into the back seat and proceeded to read to them... all the while i felt like i could have yacked....

as for the ride home.... we were supposed to leave early sunday morning. chris has a job scheduled for about 3 pm that day so we had to hustle. we then decided late afternoon on saturday that we would just scrap that and instead pack up the car and the kids that evening and leave around 8 pm (aka bedtime). so i cleaned, chris packed the car, max helped us both ;) then we left! my parents stayed until the morning then traveled early. we got home about 2 am... we were very groggy. the kids slept through the whole thing. it was awesome! we didn't have to even stop to pee, we only made a quick stop at a T & A for a caffeinated drink for chris. then we kept going just like the old days b.c. (before children).

the lake

i'm swimming..... so is andy, max and chris.

be back in a week!

review: idlewild and soakzone

wow! really wow! is really what sums it all up!

yesterday we took max and andy along with chris's parents and his sister to idlewild and soakzone for a day of fun! and fun we had!

max was the perfect age. any younger and he wouldn't have really enjoyed it much. andy, obviously didn't do anything but ride in the stroller but that's ok. both kids, since they were under 2 were free.

first we walked through storybook forest, very cute, pretty dated looking and not too exciting. they did have some live animals that max liked. but that was the extent of it. they were having christmas in july though so that was sorta funny, santa was there and they had everything decorated for christmas. although most of the decorations were sort of lame and tacky...

here is max in storybook forest, this was a large pumpkin and i believe it was part of the peter peter pumpkin eater story:


next we had lunch, again, wow! lunch was awesome! best amusement part food i think i've ever had! everyone but me had bbq chicken, i tasted max's and it was really good! yummy sides too! i had a taco wrap and it was really good too! nothing was greasy, nothing was fatty, it was all pretty healthy.


after lunch we went to the part of the part that is called jumpin jungle. there was a huge pit of balls, max was in love! and a large rope wall thing that chris and max climbed up, some fun slides too!

here's max in the balls:after the jumpin jungle we went to racoon lagoon. it's the amusement park portion of the park for little kids. what a blast! max rode a ton of rides, but what seemed like not even half of them. then we took a ride on the trolley from mr roger's land of makebelieve. how cute! we sang a song, we had a party and saw all the characters from the show :) max was beat but he enjoyed it.

after that we headed over to soakzone to cool off. we got pretty wet, there are a lot of fun things for everyone to do. one cool part was this large thing that looked like a pirate ship with lots of decks and steps and stuff. on top there was a gigantic bucket that was constantly filling with water but when it got to it's tipping point it would dump a TON of water on top of the whole thing. however while this large bucket was filling it was constantly "raining" on this structure. there were hoses and spouts all over the place. it was a blast even for us big kids!

we then got ourselves dry and put the kids in the stroller and started to walk to the car. max was out before we even left the pool area. totally tuckered out!

we left the house a little after 8 am, and we didn't get back until 8 pm. max did great without a nap. i'm amazed! but expecting today's nap to be sorta long.... the entire park was fantastic. no annoying patrons. everyone was there to have fun and that's what we did. the funny part was how chris and i both weren't expecting a whole lot. the last time each of us were there we were about 13 years old. and we both remembered it sucking a whole lot. i'm thinking that was because when you're 13 pretty much everything sucks. but frankly, this place isn't for the older children, it's for the young ones. everything was geared towards them and that's what made it super special!

i can't wait to go back soon! and max said, "all done!"
to see more photos of our fun day click here.

awesome thrift store finds

chris did his usually errands around town this morning, and while there he found a few items that he wanted me to check out. there were two jogging strollers both listed for $20 both had their flaws.... and not worth the effort to purchase and resell. so if any readers are looking for some heavily used singer joggers there are two at the st vincent depaul in coraopolis today....

while there, i did find a few other items that were totally worth the drive down there.

here's one:
we have one of these already but we have two kiddos... so i was in search of another. $2.99! score! and doesn't andy look sooooo damn cute in there!? he's such a good little model! i had to hose it off and take a few clorox wipes to it and some goo gone but it's good as new now :)

here's purchase number 2:
again a few clorox wipes later and it's in perfect condition.... and it even makes firetruck sounds!

and for the crafty readers:
there's bias tape, seam bindings, rick rack and some other seaming covers. all in some fun retro colors! 3 for $.49! now i need to dust off my machine again soon!

i spent less than $8 there and got a whole lot of fun!

firsts: pineapple and cereal

andy had his first taste of food today. he's been clamoring for food ever since he's been sitting with us for meals which has been a few months now. i of course got the go ahead to start them when i was ready at his 4 month check up. i wasn't ready and frankly didn't think i would be for another month or so but apparently i wasn't the only one to make this decision. andy had to weigh in on it too.

yesterday i decided to make this yummy treat but we didn't actually have the treat until tonight. man was it goooood. andy was ready to nurse and go to bed but we were having our snack so i decided to give him a little taste. i mean really it's just pineapple. no added sugar or anything so what can it hurt? he licked it up like he's never had food ever in his life, oh wait... he hasn't! i didn't give him much just little bits on the tip of my spoon. but once we finished he got really angry and demanded more food. so i made him some baby oatmeal, it's all i had on hand... i made him about an inch or so in one of those small take n toss bowls... he ate all of it! then i took him upstairs, changed him into his bedtime clothes and he nursed for a full session. he wasn't asleep though when he was done which is about normal for the past 4-5 days. i put him down, gave him his binky and walked out the door. he fussed (hardly) for a few minutes and then..... quiet.

he's also been sleeping through the night like a champ lately. it's morphed a bit in the past few days but it's super in my opinion. he goes down between 8 and 8:30 then wakes up between 5:30 and 6:30, nurses and goes back down for about 3 more hours. it's lovely.

his naps are still hit or miss and not very consistent. but i usually get at least an hour sometimes two in the afternoon when both boys are napping. it's just not at the same time daily and sometimes doesn't happen at all.

now i'm on poop watch. i remember with max when we started cereal there were a few long no-poo spells in the beginning. then when the poo came... holy crap... literally. fun times area ahead :)

people are for the birds

i wasn't going to blog about this but annie sorta left some readers hanging on some details as to what happened on our last outing with the kids so i'll share what happened. personally, it had me so worked up and so pissed off about our society that i really just wanted to forget all about it. but the more i thought about it, i think i really did need to actually talk about it here because well, damnit not everything is peaches and cream and not all parenting situations are perfect either and well, frankly not all parents are perfect either and especially myself but after thinking about it some more i realized that one doesn't have to be perfect, who the heck should really be all that perfect except for the one and only perfect one Himself, ya know? but instead of being perfect we should all strive to be just good, decent, loving people who pay attention to what we're doing in the world and not act like animals in public and not act like our poo isn't smelly and not cause caustic situations for others who are just trying to get their kids out of the house as to not have a tantruming toddler on their hands at 10 am in the morning due to boredom (ok, that got a little deep for my normally very light blog) so onto the story....

as annie mentioned we took the kiddos to the national aviary on monday. it was a fun outing except for the other PEOPLE. have i ever mentioned my dislike for most other humans? well, here's how it went down...

annie and i had our double strollers in a narrow hallway looking at some birds with our little guys. when around the corner we heard quite a ruckus. not sure if it was sparked by a bird attack or what... but shortly there after a heard of wild buffalo, err about 5 or 6 7 year olds acting very unruly came racing past us (all still screaming at full volume) while one child tripped on my stroller, knocked max's cup out of his hands and pretty much landed right in the middle of my double stroller and on top of andy. she quickly got up and kept. on . going. i about lost it. i yelled at her (there was no adult insight right away) told her to NEVER run in a public space and basically said it was very rude and totally uncalled for to be acting like that! then when an adult appeared i yelled at her to control her kids and how rude she was too! the adult was a counselor of sorts, the kids were with a YMCA summer camp group that was also touring the aviary. she pretty much looked at me like i had four heads and kept on going. max was crying because he was stunned that he had been run into and because his sippy cup was knocked out of his hands.... andy didn't really know what just happened and my blood pressure was probably 170 over 100. i got everyone back together and calmed down and we left the hall. annie was all like "whoa...." then i told her that she didn't need to be worrying about getting into a fight at dave matthews a few weeks ago but instead she should have been concerned with ME getting into a fight at the aviary...

i saw this counselor a few more times throughout our visit and she did give me the stink eye a few times... i just couldn't believe that she didn't have those kids under some sort of control. i realize that taking kids out in public is always an adventure but why didn't these kids know that they shouldn't run in public places like this? why haven't their parents taught them this? i knew not to run in places like that when i was that age. i knew to apologize if i did something wrong.... why has this country turned into a large breading ground for ill behaved people, children and adults alike? is it due to drugs? is it due to single parent homes? is it because our society has lost all ability to act like reasonable humans? is it because our society has turned into a cushy place where we all just turn our heads and ignore issues that should be addressed? is it because we, as a society, believe that in t-ball everyone should get a trophy and that there aren't any losers? and that everyone gets a pat on the back and told they did a great job even when they did a terrible job... thus just making their mediocre work seem stellar in their minds?

i'm glad that i yelled at that little girl and the adult minder. i'm glad that the whole thing didn't render me speechless like it normally would have. i think becoming a parent has loosened my usually tight lipped nature to just let things go. i think the mother instinct kicked in and i needed to protect my kids and that included reprimanding the others involved. maybe that little girl took a minute to realize what she did. maybe my yelling at her made her stop and think for a split second that maybe she should not run and act like an animal in public places. i hope to think it might have. but i fear that it just went right on past her and she'll just end up doing something just as hideous in the future because she just hasn't been taught the right way to be a good citizen by her parents.

ok, rant over. this blog will be back to it's usual lightheartedness by the next post.

tagged

annie tagged me last week and i'm just now getting to it... here's the criteria:

"Name five things that you can't live without. It can't be a person, it has to be something material that actually makes your life easier. It can't be something in general, it must be exact. Also, it can't be the obvious like a cell phone or computer."

1. napping babies. if everyone takes a nap in a day's time, i'm happy! double bonus points if they both happen at the same time. i can't live without them though because grumpy babies makes for grumpy mama and no one likes those.

2. my loveyduds.com baby carrier. i love this thing and frankly couldn't take both boys out of the house alone without it.

3. my new mp3 player as mentioned below.

4. sorry to glomb on but our DVR. srsly, how did we ever manage before this thing!?

5. my key fob for my car... i know it might sound lame but i hate fumbling around for keys and then sticking it in the key hole to unlock the car doors. this is my first car that has the key fob thingie and i'm very glad i have it especially now that i have kids. now my back only gets mildly damp while i put them in the car instead of soaked (if it's raining of course) now that i don't have to unlock the front door, open the door, unlock the rest of the doors, go around the other side, blah blah blah, you get the picture...

i tag, uh... i dunno... jen and michelle. hopefully you haven't been tagged yet?

this century

i have joined the masses. i have a new mode of music and it's called a trio clip and looks like this.



mine is kelly green. chris loaded it with all of our anti-corporate sounding music that we dig and i put a few dmb, beatles, old school beach boys and abba on it too. i love music and love listening to it loud. i like to hear everything IN the song, not just the main parts that are usually the only thing you can hear when in the car. yesterday i got to use it while i relaxed on the deck. both kids were napping, and my chores were done so i got out my knitting, relaxed in a deck chair and listen to some tunes on my mp3 player :). it rocked!

now i'm off to do the same thing!