Nice Try

We have three simple rules in this house that cover just about any infraction:

1. Obey.
2. Show respect.
3. Be kind.

So Wyatt just came out of timeout and we were reviewing the action that put him there and I said, "what are our three rules?"

He looked at me with a glimmer in his eye and said, "Behave, show respect and be smart."

Perhaps he meant smart aleck?

On Saving Face

Wyatt is having a little trouble lately with sharing the family room (he wants all the space to himself for playing football) and apologizing. Am I raising a man or what?

So this morning, he was serving a timeout for throwing a fit about Natalie occupying the center of the family room and, when time was up, I asked him to please apologize to his sister for pushing her. He stalled. I gave him another chance and reminded him that saying "sorry" is part of the deal; if he was unable to muster it again, I'd be allowing him to spend a little more quality time on the step thinking about his choices. He opted to test me. I opted to send him back to timeout.

He cried, again, loudly. Then he settled. Then he shouted, "Mommy, I followed directions last night for Alese!" We said nothing. Again, "but Mommy! I followed directions last night for Alese!"

Well fantastic. Perhaps I'll just start having the sitters stay over.

No Paternity Test Required

Not that there was any doubt, but seriously. Check this out.

There's a little of me in there, but lucky for Wyatt there seems to be a whole lot more Jeff. I love my boys.

Sentenced

Jeff will be serving ten months (hopefully) easy time in school at Ft. Leavenworth beginning in February 2011. I never imagined the Air Force would actually send us home, even if it is for such a short time. We're already imagining lots of fun times with family and friends as well as some serious KU immersion training for the kids.

Life is good!

Shareworthy

I thought today's car conversations should be documented as evidence as to why I might eventually go completely batty.

Me: Wyatt, look at that 18 wheeler!

W: that one?

Me: yep.

W: the one with brown on the back?

Me: yep.

W: the one with all those wheels?

Me: yep.

W: the one that has the R on it?

Me: yep.

W: the one right there?

Me: yep.

W: the one that has blue and green writing, too?

Me: yep.

W: oh, I see it.

**************

upon presentation of the cut-out person from Kidville which has blue and green scribbles and blue googly eyes and says "God Made all People" on the back.

W: I made that Mommy, and it's for yooooouuu!

Me: Thank you! I love it.

W: It has blue and green.

Me: I see that. What does it say?

W: the teacher wrote my name on it.

Me: And what were you learning about?

W: It's me! And it's for yoooouuu! I missed you, Mommy!

Me: I missed you, too. Did you learn about people today?

W: I don't know.

Me: Do you know what this says?

W: no.

Me: It says, "God made all people."

W: It's me! God made me!

Me: That's right. Did you talk about that at Kidville today?

W: I don't know. God made me.

Me: That's right.

W: And God made yoooouuuu, and Natalie and Daddy and Millie and trees and those signs.

Me: Yep, God made all people and animals and trees.

W: And those signs.

Me: Well, God made the people that made those signs, but he didn't make the signs.

W: Oh. (pause)  How about those signs?

Me: He made people and animals and trees, and people make those signs.

W: Oh. Then I think he made that truck.

Jackpot

I knew this day would come - I've been waiting for it my whole life. I put off cleaning out the final road trip remnants from the truck and thank goodness I did. For this morning, as I was nearing the drop-off point for preschool, I handed Wyatt his bag and saw the "it's my turn for show and share" tag attached to the handle. As in, TODAY it's his turn. As in, I didn't see that tag Tuesday when I picked him up or last night when I got out the bag for today or this morning when I put his lunch in there. That damn butterfly tag was hiding until we were in cue for him to go in. Panic set in until I looked around at my pit of a car and thought, hey! There's got to be something in here that will work! So the first thing I grabbed was a book for the Tag reader. He was thrilled with that idea until he realized we only had the book, not the reader part. Yeah, good point since the book alone is nothing special. Scramble again, dig a little and...school bus! Yay! Here's the school bus Grandma gave you! Isn't that perfect for show and share? Yes? Oh, good boy.

Thirty four years and my procrastination is validated. I love it when a plan works out.

Stop, Thief!

Dear Father Time,
Why are you moving at breakneck speed? Wasn't it only a month or so ago that I was lazing around in the afternoons, baby in my belly and Wyatt asleep in the chair with me? It's so funny to think that we didn't know that was Natalie back then because now...well, now we know our Natalie! At seven months she is (still) a delightfully happy baby.

She is so easy. No nap? Okay. Three naps? Okay. Schedule shmedule, that's what she says. Wyatt's having a tantrum? She laughs. She apparently took note of Jeff saying only one child is allowed to cry at a time because man, she followed that rule to a tee while we were in the car for thirty hours last week. And she is so easily amused by Wyatt, Millie, her parents, random people in stores, doesn't matter. If you acknowledge her in the slightest, she'll beam at you. If you're lucky, she'll give you her little coy smile where she tucks in her chin, turns her head and bats her (thankgodthey'relongerthanmine) eyelashes. She's just 17.5 lbs. of joy, that one. Such a chunk of love. That's my girl.

Her latest trick is that she can get from sitting to tummy and back to sitting without assistance. Though she's not crawling yet, she is definitely on the move. We've padded the bricks on the hearth in anticipation and it's a good thing since she can cover the spread of the family room in about ten seconds with her combination of rolling, double-knee scooting and forward lurching. Crawling will come quickly, I'm afraid. And she seems to be a baby on a mission. I swear she's studying Wyatt while he runs with a look that seems to say, "how can I make my legs do that?" She's officially had her first cheerios and only gagged once, so that was good. Millie is getting back in the groove of hanging out around the highchair. She spends her entire bath splashing and shrieking, she loves her little loveys at bedtime and greets each and rarely gets upset. And when Wyatt and I sing our special little Natalie Sarah song to her, she starts smiling and bouncing on about the third note.

I love that baby girl and I love this age. So Father Time, if you have any heart at all, you'll slow it down a notch.

Thanks,
Stephanie

Back to Life

Yep. I really love vacation. I like lots of lazing around on the beach or poolside with many extra, loving hands to care for my kids. I like the way my laundry shows up clean and immaculately folded, I like the yummy dinners, I like the evening glasses of wine and I like having the time and free hands to take about two thousand pictures so I can experiment a little more with my camera. I like reading two books in a week. So you can imagine how sad I am that it's now over.

Reality was slow to creep in since the kids were bordering fantastic in the car on the way home. It should be said that it's a long drive from Virginia to Florida. There are many interesting things to see on that drive but there are many more miles of fairly uninteresting surroundings. I'd like to think Wyatt learned a little more about our (really rather amazingly diverse) country, but I think that's overstating things. We all made it home and it was good to get back. We have 1.5 new bathrooms and the kids took their first joint bath together tonight in their new tub. Both found it hilarious.

We've spent our day unpacking, cleaning, running errands, doing yardwork and just generally recovering. Jeff seems to be bouncing back well. I might be having a slightly harder time adjusting from the balmy temps of the beach to our chilly fall air. There was a conversation in the night about how if he thought Natalie needed a bottle he was going to need to get up and fix it because I'd already been up once with her and had turned into a popsicle. And since there was plastic taped over my dresser, I couldn't quite (in my sleepy stupor) figure out how to get some warmer pajamas. So he fed her and I hunkered down. He's a prince. Wyatt is very happy to be reunited with his drum set and his own bed; Natalie seems to be looking for the other people. You know, the ones who kept entertaining her and feeding her and making silly faces to make her smile - the grandparents. Wyatt also keenly observed that the leaves are starting to turn and that there are acorns everywhere. Yep and yep. And after pretty much not eating for ten days, Millie has made quick work of every bit of kibble since we've returned.

So. That's that. Time to start figuring out the next trip.

I Love Vacation

We've arrived at the in-laws' beach chalet in one piece (or four pieces, really, since there are four of us. Oh, five. Millie made it too). Things looked a little dicey on Thursday when we overshot our departure time by two hours and Wyatt was having a tantrum about something before we even left the driveway. Did you know he can tantrum for 43 miles? It's a skill. Truly a gift.

So we drove to Gastonia, NC on Thursday, arriving around 9 pm with two sleeping children who promptly quit sleeping when we got to the room. After explaining to Wyatt that we would have to sleep in the car if he kept up the loud crying (what? you never lie to your kids?), things settled down for the night. We enjoyed our free breakfast at the hotel the next morning and then headed out for Montgomery to see some great friends. It was super-fun when Wyatt spent the first 30 minutes of that drive crying, too. Somehow he managed to get himself pulled together and the rest of the day was pretty smooth sailing. It was great to get to Johnny and Tara's so Wyatt could play with Jack and so Millie could play with Buckley. Of course the adults enjoyed our time together, too, and we are trying to figure out if and when we'll be stationed together again. We are so lucky to have so many good friends, which was reinforced by our lunch with our other friends and their baby. Good times and 24 hours of good behavior from Wyatt. Whew.

The drive from Montgomery to the beach was a quick two and a half hours with sleeping kids (turns out Wyatt will settle down for his car naps when he's told he'll get a lollipop upon waking. Stop judging my parenting techinques!) who woke up about 30 minutes before we finally got to Grandpa and Grandma's. Jeff and I were excited as soon as we turned south of 98 and Wyatt was, too, though he certainly didn't know why. I remembered all the times my family drove down here for vacations and it made me so excited for him. So we opened the sunroof to see if we could smell the beach yet, just like I used to like doing. He was sure he caught a whiff of the salt air. That's my boy.

Fun with his cousins began immediately and, courtesy of Matt and Kyle, Wyatt's parents are getting a true break. They have entertained him constantly for the last 24 hours, even being patient with him when he woke them up during the night. Today is overcast but it hasn't stopped the fun. Grandma bought special pancake pans for each boy, so breakfast was prepared by the three youngest chefs in the house.

Somehow breakfast for the kids was followed by a trip with Uncle Joel and Daddy to the donut truck at Rosemary an hour later. As if that weren't enough, Grandma, Aunt Aimee & I set up cupcake decorating stations while they were gone so they could do that craft when they got back. We would have put it off to another day, but Grandma has enough Halloween crafting (all involving food, mostly sugar) for more than our week's vacation. The boys had a grand time.

At that point, Wyatt was well-sugared and realized he was at the beach, therefore might enjoy getting out in the sand. So that's what he did. As Aimee & I cleaned up the cupcake debris, the men and boys ventured to the beach.

Have I mentioned that Matt and Kyle are awesome with Wyatt? They are so good at making sure he's doing what he's supposed to be but also showing him the ropes a little. Wyatt is having such a great time with them that it (of course) makes me wish we didn't live on opposite sides of the country. Beach time included digging

and some pouring

and some sandcastle building

followed by some sand-dwelling

crab-catching

kite-watching while standing

kite-watching while sitting

face-planting

beach-walking

and boardwalk-strolling.

Then he ate a monstrous lunch and took a looonnnnnnngggg nap. Go figure.

Oh, and Natalie's here, too, busy being held by grandparents and aunt alike. It's lovely.

And while Wyatt's busy exploring the wonders of the beach, Natalie's busy spending a lot of time on all fours. Someone tell this baby that crawling can wait just a while longer, please.

Days two through six to follow. But seriously, how could it get any better?