he's back!

while playing with tristan's newly acquired hand-me-down "tato heads" this morning, tristan was dressing mrs. potato head up to go grocery shopping. this is what she looked like.

me: tristan, you put a mustache on the mommy potato, the mustache is supposed to go on the daddy potato.

tristan: no. mustache on MOMMY tato head.

me: honey, mommy's don't have mustaches; daddy's do.

tristan: (about 2 inches away from my face and peering intently at my upper lip) yes, mommy, you DOES have mustache.

yeah, i guess i sort of walked into that one. time for miss sally hansen to work her magic again.

well, my little big boy has turned the corner and is officially getting better! the 4th antibiotic (which was administered via 2 shots in his legs) must be working because last night was the first night in 5 days that he didn't wake up screaming in pain. we go back to the doctor today to make sure that the infection is improving. if it isn't he has to get 2 more shots, but i'm pretty sure he won't need those. i am SO relieved after all that he's been through to finally see my little boy almost back to his normal self. when josh picked up his last prescription at the pharmacy this morning, he brought tristan home a little gift for being such a trooper: army men. yes, they ALL have guns and i don't really know how i feel about that, but josh played with gun-laden army men when he was a boy and he didn't turn out half bad. so tristan is setting them all up and notices that some of them have extra appendages of sorts hanging off of them here and there. tristan kept bringing these poor soldiers to josh for plastic surgery and, after snipping quite the large brain tumor off of one green little guy, josh commented "wow, these soldiers must have been fighting near chernobyl." this, for some reason struck me as super funny and i could not stop snorting.



so we are all a happy family once again, the four of us humans, plus a mrs. potato head in need of a wax job and green army guys who are thrilled to be looking normal again.

update

we were planning on picking and tagging our christmas tree this afternoon (which josh called a compromise to me wanting to bring one home today). instead josh and tristan are waiting to be seen at urgent care...our second visit there and fourth doctor's visit within a week and a half. tristan has been on 3 antibiotics for his ear infection and nothing seems to be working. there's lots of detail i could write down, but that would be too emotionally draining for me right now. suffice it to say that he is still in an incredible amount of pain, which we are doing our best to keep at bay by rotating tylenol and motrin every 3 hours around the clock. josh and i are both very tired.

samuel seems to be going through another growth spurt, wanting to eat much more frequently than his usual 4 hour routine. i opened a jar of apples this afternoon hoping that some more solids would help his hunger. he really enjoyed them until he started gagging and then pooped himself awake 20 minutes into his nap. so i've got a grumpy little boy on my lap and am waiting to hear what the doctor has to say about my sick little boy. this has not been our ideal 4 day weekend that we were so looking forward to. praying for answers...

things that don't make me smile...

...hearing my sweet little boy scream with pain every time he stands up too quickly, coughs, or sneezes because his ears hurt so much. tristan has been complaining about earaches for about a month now. we started out with putting some homeopathic drops in his ears, which seemed to help for awhile. when he continued to complain, we brought him to the doctor who prescribed some antibiotics. that was a week ago and now he is in more pain than ever. i brought him back to the doctor this morning, got a different prescription for some more antibiotics and, while we're waiting for those to start working, tristan has developed a fever and sore throat. it was just heartbreaking to see him hungrily climb up into his chair at dinner time and eagerly take a bite of his chicken, only to dissolve into sobs when his chewing aggrivated his ears. yes, he is now on a constant dose of tylenol staggered with motrin, though i don't know if it is helping. i never fully knew what it meant to want to take someone else's pain onto myself until i became a mom.

if you don't mind adding my little boy to your bedtime prayers tonight, i'd be ever so grateful

things that make me smile

1. figuring out that samuel's afternoon nap will be MUCH longer if i don't drink my morning cup of coffee. decaf isn't really the same, but it sure helps when my favorite holiday coffee creamers are on sale at the grocery store. (and i actually have my dad to thank for telling me that the coffee may be affecting his sleep!)



2. when i told josh that i wanted to go cut down our christmas tree next sunday, he didn't say "no" outright. he did make a bit of a fuss that it won't even be december by then, but i have a feeling that it won't take much to convince him that its a good idea.

3. my little brother will be coming home from africa in just one week! (now, by home, i mean my old home in canada, not my new home.) he has been doing missions work with YWAM for the past 9 months or so and he is thrilled to be flying home in time for christmas. of course, the fact that he has a very sweet girl waiting for him will make the homecoming ever so much sweeter. :)

4. the nights have been cold enough to warrant an extra quilt plus socks and warm jammies. the days are starting to get cooler as well, which i LOVE. i'll never forget the year that i bought a brand new christmas wreath to hang on our door only to discover a few days later that the heat had caused the pretty red berries to melt all over the greenery.

5. our friends trish & jim have finally (after a decade of waiting) received a baby! i got to meet little thomas at church yesterday and he is so adorable. you can read a bit about their story here.

6. i am 99.9% finished my christmas shopping. all i have to do is pick up a couple of stocking stuffers for josh and i am SO DONE!



7. my husband actually consented to sit down and watch "little women" with me last night! of course, the foot and back massage that he received while watching said movie may have helped sway him, but i was so happy because i'm not the kind of person who enjoys watching shows by myself, especially movies. i just finished the book, "march" by geraldine brooks, which is a novel based on the character of the father from the march family, and i've wanted to watch "little women" since then, partly because of the book that i just read, but mostly because its sort of a christmasy movie and one that i have always loved.

8. i've got a delicious meatball stew simmering away in the crock pot, one little boy napping, and the other one talking to his trains. (he just asked me the name of one of the trains, and when i answered correctly that his name is donald, he said "good boy, mommy!") thanksgiving is only a few days away and i've so much to be thankful for this year. God is good.

angels-in-law

today was supposed to be josh's first saturday void of work in a LONG time. he used to work over at a friend's house doing landscaping and yard work for a few hours every saturday. then our friend had to sell her house and the same job didn't quite work out with the new owners. so, last saturday was his final day of working there and all week i've been looking forward to having an ENTIRE day with my husband home. we didn't have any great and amazing plans, just things like going to costco and getting tristan's haircut. josh has had a lot of work lately, (thank God!) and after a seemingly longer work week than normal, he called me yesterday to tell me that he had been offered a job for today. the thing is, when you've gone for months just scraping by, praying every day for work, there is absolutely no way you can say no to a job, even when you really want to.

the day started super early since josh had to leave the house at 5:45 and both boys were awake by 5:30. the long hours ahead loomed in front of me as i struggled to think of things to do to keep us all busy. at 7:30am the grocery store is a pretty empty place, which is a good thing, especially if you have an almost three year old who decides to throw a temper tantrum for no good reason at the same time your baby decides he's had enough of sitting in his car seat. i managed to get the kids and groceries home, get the baby down for a nap (you know its gonna be a long day when his first nap begins at 8:15am) and get the bathroom cleaned before the phone rang. on the line was the voice of an angel, also known as my mom in law. she wanted to know if we'd like to come over and hang out, to which i answered a resounding "YES!" seeing that it was only 10am, and the stir-crazy bug was already biting all of us. any other day of the week i'm content to be a homebody, but for some reason on saturdays, i just feel like i've GOT to get out of the house.

so we head over there and tristan is immediately having a blast playing with grandpa and samuel is cooing and drooling all over gran and then she asks me if i'd like to head into town ,( just me all by my lonesome) to get a few things done. and then, as if that deal wasn't sweet enough, she handed me her starbucks gift card and told me to get myself a special drink. didn't have to think long about that one! i had fed the baby and was out the door before he had been properly burped. i ordered a deciously christmasy tasting peppermint mocha, got a couple things off of the dollar menu at mcdonald's and then parked my car in the library parking lot in some shade and savored each and every bite and sip. (i must add that i didn't find the combination of peppermint mocha and cheeseburger quite that tasty. individually they're fine, but together....not so much) it was heavenly not to have to gulp my food down in between wiping spit-up off the floor and re-filling sippy cups. oh, the little things i took for granted before having kids...

i picked up the book that i had reserved for myself at the library and leisurely perused the dvd's without the little hands tugging on my leg nor the not-so-quiet little voice saying "mommy i gotta go pee pee in da POTTY!" and then i drove back to my in-law's house while this song came on the radio. and even though i've heard it over and over, i let the words wash over me and it brought tears to my eyes. again.

my boys were both happy, not having missed me one little bit and, after checking the chickens' coop for eggs and running around the backyard saying "buzz yiteyear to rescoooo" tristan started calling for grandpa to come play football with him. the baby was ready to go home and have another nap, so it was time to go. my angelic mother in law then suggested that they keep tristan for awhile and bring him home later on. by this point, she had a visible halo glowing over her head that i was admiring very much. i kissed tristan goodbye and sped off for home with only one child in my care. one child! how could i have EVER thought that one child was hard work?

samuel is now napping. i have the windows open, allowing the cool breeze to flow through the house and i have decided to ignore the call of the dirty dishes and unfolded laundry. i am about to curl up in bed, crack open my new book and read until my eyes get heavy. and then i am going to take a nap.

thankful for my in-laws today, who made a potentially disappointing saturday into something marvelous.... :)

what little boys are made of

i remember this nursery rhyme from when i was young, but i never stopped to really think about the words until now. what in the heck are snips? i'm thinking of changing it to say "capes and snails and puppy dog's tails" because my youngest has already decided that he is super hero in training. despite my best efforts at keeping his bib turned around and facing the proper direction, he repeatedly insists on squirming until it is facing backwards, just like a cape:



which does nothing in the way of drool-catching, but really makes him look ever so much cuter during tummy time. tristan hasn't really been into capes so much, but he is a big fan of one super hero in particular. for the longest time, whenever he'd see a question mark anywhere, especially on the computer keypad, he'd point to it and say something that sounded like "soopawhee". i would correct him saying "that's a question mark, honey", but he would pay me no mind and continue to call it a soopawhee. i finally got it one day when he was watching one of his favorite shows on PBSkids.



aha! the show is called "superwhy" and the main little caped hero has a question mark on his pen. "super why's" and "Jesus' crosses" (the plus sign) are his favorite symbols to type in his "letters" to daddy and gran and grammie and auntie sis. every day he asks if he can write them all a letter, so i allow him to email one person every day. he's already getting good at remembering to press the "shift" key in order to get the symbols he wants in his message.

though tristan's words have become increasingly easy to understand, there is still one word (or phrase?) that he says that has both josh and i stumped. when he's all playful and pretending to be buzz or a dinosaur, he'll often say something along the lines of "baby sam not to happen!" at first i thought he was saying "not too happy" but he told me he isn't saying that at all. this morning at the grocery store it was "mommy not to happen maybe not." what??!! i do love it when he says "maybe not" though, because he uses it almost in the correct context. the other day he was looking for his "noculars" (binoculars) and i told him to look in his toybox. when he came to me empty handed, i asked, "were they in your toybox?" to which he responded. "no....maybe not."

speaking of groceries, i just realized that they are still sitting in my car. got to go unload them...bought a few things to make my cousin miranda's delicious looking potato corn chowder recipe for dinner tonight! my mouth is already watering.

speaking of pacifiers....

...did you know that in england they're called dummies? and that where i'm from they're called soothers? and that my youngest son is absolutely A-D-D-I-C-T-E-D to his?

but before i get into that whole topic, thinking about how they're called soothers in canada caused me to remember this mouth-wateringly delicious snack that i've been missing out on for the past 5 years in all its stuck-to-my-teeth glory:



sour soothers!!! seriously, now that i think of it, i can't even come up with the american equivalent of this delicious treat. we have sour patch kids, but they taste nothing like the way i remember sour soothers tasting. (*note to my mom: this would make a great little birthday present!*)

so yes, samuel cannot live...er, i mean sleep without his pacifier. tristan never had this issue. he cried no matter what, so constantly pushing a pacifier into his mouth seemed sort of useless and then, at around 5 months old, he wouldn't even allow one near him, so that was that. trust me, though, he's had his share of sleep vices that i won't get into on this post, but you can read about here.

at first i was super excited that samuel not only took a pacifier, but that he was fashionably inclined enough to graduate from the big, honkin green thing from the hospital (that looked like his face had been swallowed by it) to something a little more tasteful and cute. it was so easy to get him back to sleep after a night waking because instead of the long, drawn out process that tristan used to need, all samuel needed was a re-plug of the paci and ta-da! all of his dreams, hopes and desires were fulfilled and back to sleep he went.

except then he got a cold. and, because he couldn't breathe through his stuffed-up nose, every time i'd pop the paci into his mouth, he was forced to spit it out just to get a breath....and then he'd cry because he wanted to suck on his paci again. those were some very loooong nights. so long that i contemplated weaning him from the pacifier all together. but then samuel's nose cleared up and i banished the ridiculous thought of paci weaning from my head.

until last night. what started out as an interruption of my enjoyment of "dancing with the stars" continued into an all night marathon of "lets see how many times i can wake mommy up tonight." tristan has a cold and he really loves his brother and he hasn't quite figured out how to share that love without sharing his mass of worms....i mean germs with him as well. so now i've got 2 snotty nosed little boys, one of whom is going to see the doctor this afternoon because the worms have somehow reached both of his ears.

after i'd get out of bed to re-plug the baby, i'd stumble back into our room, fall into the sweet warmth of pillows and blankets and sleep, and have just crossed over the divide between awake and asleep before another wail would echo to me from down the hall. when that happens enough times in one night, i've discovered that one's mind can go a little crazy, concocting strange inventions such as an elasticized piece of fabric to put around the baby's head with a pacifier sewn on the front, keeping it ever near him. of course, weaning the darn thing made perfect sense in those sleepless hours, but i have to say that now that i'm fully awake (with the help of a strong cup of coffee) and the sun is shining, the thought of going through the pain of paci weaning seems a bit drastic.

so tell me, those who have had a pacifier-addicted child, do you have any regrets from not weaning it earlier, or do you have success stories from doing just that? i'm not yet convinced that i want to go down that road because i know that it can come in SO handy most of the time. when i stick that little piece of plastic magic in my baby's mouth his eyelids immediately start to get heavy and you can just see him getting ready to fall into sleep. its quite miraculous and i'm not sure if i want to give that up just yet. but i'm interested in reading others' pacifier/soother/dummy stories.

the results of too much reality tv

i'm downstairs watching "dancing with the stars" (oh, be quiet, you have NO idea how addicting it can be.) josh is upstairs working on his Bible study lesson for wednesday night. i hear samuel (who is teething like there's no tomorrow) starting to cry through the monitor. and i actually have the nerve to sit on my butt, waiting to see the judges' scores, hoping that josh will get up and put that darn pacifier back in the baby's mouth. of course, i quickly came to my senses and realized that my husband's study of the word of God is exponentially more important than my finding out if the dancing couple got a 10 or not. however, as i trudged up the stairs to soothe my wailing baby, all i could think of was, "he's just lucky i'm not watching "the bachelor!" "

bad mommy!

tristanisms

this morning i stayed home from church with both kids since tristan has a runny nose & a cough. i pulled out a hand-me-down toy that i've been saving for when he is super bored just so i could get a few moment's reprieve of constant whininess. its a remote control caterpillar truck thingy. he LOVES it. after playing with it for a few moments and realizing its utter coolness, he ran up to me, threw his arms around my neck and said "my cool truck so beooful! mommy, you so beooful too!" as my heart melted, i kissed his head and said, "tristan, i think you're so beautiful too." he replied. "no, mommy, me no so beooful. me tistan." oh. okay then.

not long ago i was trying to teach tristan about germs and why we wash our hands (especially before putting them in the baby's mouth). i was explaining to him that when he is sick he has germs in his nose and in his throat and we don't want to pass those germs on to other people, which is why we wash our hands. a few days later he was complaining that his throat hurt him and told me that he has worms in his throat. it took me awhile to realize that he thinks germs are worms. i didn't bothered to correct him because i figured if he wanted to visualize germs as worms, then it may help him understand the whole idea. a few days later his lips were getting pretty chapped and cracked. i asked him if they hurt and he said "yes. worms come out of my throat and bite my mouth!" then, just yesterday, i gave him some yogurt for a snack and afterwards he complained of a tummy ache. he told me, "ho-gurt yucky, mommy. ho-gurt put worms in my tummy! worms go round and round and round, hurt ME!" i'm now re-thinking this whole worm-germ business and am wondering if i should set him straight.

i took the boys to the store the other day to get them out of the house for a bit. i told tristan before we left that we could look at the toys, but we couldn't bring them home, just to avoid the tearful scenarios we've been encountering once in awhile. tristan was delighted to see all of the decorated christmas trees set up and he had a ball pushing buttons on various singing & moving ornaments. once we got to the toy section, he saw me looking at the prices on a few things and felt the need to remind me, "mommy, you hook at toys, but no taking home, oKAY??"

while going through my wallet (which, for some reason, he loves to do) he came across my driver's license. after staring at the photo for awhile, he exclaimed suddenly, "that's YOU, heidi!" upon further inspection he added, "mommy, you have pritty ears."

every few months or so josh and i will remark to each other how the age tristan is at now is our favorite age. we've been saying this since he was about 6 months old, but it really just keeps getting better and better. i love my baby samuel to bits, but i don't think i'd mind too much if i woke up one morning to find out that he has learned how to talk, walk, feed himself and play independantly. i know, i know... all of you mothers out there are gasping with horror right now to think that i'd wish away these baby moments that pass all too quickly anyhow. in all honestly i don't think i'd want to skip all of the next year or so, but a fast forward button to push every now and then wouldn't be half bad ;)

counting down

tristan has recently been quite enthralled with counting things. he's gotten good at pointing to only one object at a time, while saying the correct number and he does quite well until he gets to number 12...he skips 12 and goes straight to 14 and then the rest of the numbers after that are a jumble of 14's and 16's....we're working on it. but anyhow, i still think he's doing pretty well for an almost 3 year old. (of course i do, i'm his mommy.)

now, for as long as i can remember, i've been pretty enthralled myself with counting down. i think i get it from my mom. she's the one who strung fruit loops on a thread and ate one every day that she was engaged counting down the days until her wedding. i remember taking her idea and stringing cheerios on a thread, eating one each day until my birthday. the only thing i didn't account for was the fact that the cheerios got really stale and, after a day or two, were no longer very appetizing. advent calenders were also quite a big deal in our house growing up. my parents, being quite frugal, would purchase one chocolate filled advent calendar, and one with Bible verses telling the christmas story behind every window that was opened. my 3 siblings and i took turns each december morning before school, one of us opening a window and eating a chocolate, and one of us opening a window and reading a Bible verse. then, when i got engaged, my mom bought me a pretty glass bottle and filled it with chocolate covered almonds; one for every day until the day of my wedding.

reading some of my friends' facebook statuses lately has admittedly got me feeling a bit jealous. in canada, thanksgiving occurs at the beginning of october. once halloween is over, the christmas season pretty much begins in full force. down here in the states, since thanksgiving isn't until the end of november, its isn't nearly as common to decorate houses for christmas any earlier than the day after thanksgiving. this morning, while helping tristan count circles and squares in one of his storybooks, i had the brilliant idea to make a countdown paper chain with him, counting down the days until thanksgiving, christmas and his birthday.



i set to work cutting strips of colored paper (orange for thanksgiving, red for christmas and blue for his birthday) while tristan set to work drawing in a toy catalogue. then, after i had set pieces of tape at the edge of the table, tristan helped by putting the tape on each paper chain link and....voila! our masterpiece.



i'm SO not the crafty, artsy type of mom, so don't laugh at my lame attempt at creativity. still, i was quite proud of myself for thinking of a fun little project that we could do together. now, every morning after breakfast, tristan will break off one chain link and we'll have the opportunity to count down how many more sleeps until the next big day. the biggest challenge for me will be not to let on that i'm actually the one who is the most excited about the whole count down process!

wings part II.....and a hat

last night while tristan was taking a bath, i was putting clothes away in our closet and came across a little woody doll. i had picked it up in the 15c bin at the thrift store with the intention of giving it to tristan on one of his waking-up-before-the-sun-comes-pop mornings. since he has been sleeping really, really well lately (please don't let me just have jinxed it!) i thought i'd toss woody into the bathtub as a fun little surprise for tristan. well, from tristan's perspective, this was no cheap little gumby toy. this was "pritty coool" as he told me later. woody's arms and legs are bendable, and soon tristan discovered that woody can sit pretty well on the back of the zebra he aquired a few days ago from the wild animal park. there was only one thing missing: woody's hat. this particular woody obviously didn't come with his trademark cowboy hat, but tristan couldn't seem to understand this. he kept asking about woody's hat (sound familiar?) not at all distressed about it, but definitely a bit concerned.

last night woody "slept" next to his zebra on tristan's dresser. and at 6:45am tristan came into my room with pillow creases pressed into his rosy little cheeks, woody in one hand and the zebra in the other. it was like christmas morning. he was running around the room, telling me it was time to wake up and then, when he'd get a little too loud, he'd say "shhhh! baby sam SWEEPING!" he wanted me to "come DOWM stairs" so that we could look in the toybox for woody's hat. oh dear.

after pouring myself a cup of delicious coffee, thanks to my husband who had already left for work, we opened up the toybox and i rooted around in there until i found what i was looking for: tristan's other woody doll, another 15c thrift store find from years ago. this woody has a hat. and so we talked about how sometimes woody likes to wear his hat (just like tristan wears a hat sometimes) and how sometimes woody likes to take his hat off. and then i saw a little light bulb go on in tristan's eyes and he said "buzz take off his wings, put them in mommy's car CRASH? woody's hat TOO?!" the simple answer would have been to just say "yes, honey. buzz's wings are wearing woody's hat and they're flying together up to heaven to be with Jesus." but i really didn't want to add anything else to that whole can of worms.

soon, toy story was playing on the tv and tristan was holding woody up to the screen, pointing and saying, "woody, that's YOU!!" and showing woody his reflection in the bathroom mirror and sharing bites of his cereal with woody. i just love how such a small thing brings my little guy such delight and happiness.

this weekend, josh and i are going out on a much needed date night. since there are no movies playing that we're interested in seeing, we're going to go do some christmas shopping instead. i don't know what exactly we're going to get tristan, but i'm pretty sure that it will have wings (though i'm still trying to convince josh in this matter). since tristan's birthday is only one week after christmas, i'd really like to get him another gift as well. it probably won't be wearing a cowboy hat, but it just may answer to the name "bullseye".

Italian Sausage & Vegetable Soup

i am totally laughing as i post this picture because it SO does not look appetizing to me. if i had known earlier that i would be blogging about this soup, i would have taken a much more appealing picture. the soup in this photo is the leftovers from dinner already in its tupperware bowl, ready for the fridge. i decided to blog about this soup not because i thought it was delicious....i knew i'd love it just from reading the recipe. i decided to blog about this soup because my dear husband thought it was delicious. and that's saying a lot!

it was simmering away on the stove when he came into the kitchen and asked, "is that what we're having for dinner?" something in his face told me he wasn't particularly excited about the prospect of eating it. when i asked him if it looked good, he said "it looks like it has a lot of vegetables in it." indeed it did.

i got the recipe from my friend j'lene who has never shared with me a recipe i didn't like. in fact, her chicken enchilada recipe is probably one of our family's favorite meals. when josh got up for a second helping of soup, i knew that this one is going to be made over and over as well. the thing is, i totally didn't make it according to the recipe. i skipped a few ingredients and didn't cook everything exactly as the recipe asked. but that's the beauty of cooking vs. baking. you can fudge a whole lot with cooking, while with baking you have to be very precise (which is, i think, why i'm no good at baking)

here is the recipe:

Italian Sausage & Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

-1/4 cup olive oil
-5 links sweet Italian sausage, removed from casings (i didn't use sweet sausage, just the regular Italian sausage)
-1 cup thinly sliced onions (Josh won't allow onions in our house, so i minced a few cloves of garlic instead)
-1 cup diced carrots
-1 cup diced celery
-2 cups peeled, diced potatoes (I prefer to keep the peel on my potatoes...makes them healthier)
-2 cups diced zucchini
-1 cup diced green beans
-3 cups shredded curly cabbage (I used the regular kind of cabbage)
-6-8 cups chicken broth
-1 cup canned diced Italian tomatoes w/ juice
-2-3 cups water
-1 1/2 cups canned cannelloni beans
-salt & pepper
-1 cup rice
-pesto or grated Parmesan cheese

Method:

Heat oil in very large soup pot. (mine almost overflowed!) Add sausage and saute over high heat until meat starts to brown.

Add fresh vegetables in the order listed, cooking over high heat for 3-4 minutes after each addition. After adding the cabbage, cook for 8-10 minutes.

Add broth, tomatoes and water. Bring to a simmer and then add the cannelloni beans. Simmer, uncovered for 2 hours. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (I started the soup too late and only simmered it for 1 hour)

Add rice, cover and simmer until rice is cooked, depending on type of rice used. Check seasoning and serve with pesto or grated parmesan sprinkled on top.

that's it....let me know if you decide to try it!

good nite!

i find it amusing to think back on how my definition of a good night's sleep has changed over the years, especially since having children. last night samuel woke up 3 times (once to be fed, twice for his pacifier) and then was up for the day at 6am. and i considered that a pretty good night, in comparison to some we've had recently...

i've no idea how i missed the memo, but i completely forgot about daylight savings this year. this was probably a good thing, since i have come to dread the fall time change at least a month in advance. in previous years the "keep a strict routine" fanatic in me has started preparing a week early, pushing tristan's bedtime forward 10 minutes every evening until he is going to bed (and hopefully waking up) an hour later than normal by the time we change our clocks. i had a sudden moment of panic when, as we were driving home from a very fun harvest festival at our church, i turned to josh and said "is tonight daylight savings?" oh, good heavens, it was and i hadn't prepared myself nor tristan. the routine fanatic side of me nearly had a hernia while the more rational side of me decided to stay calm, focused, and keep breathing.

of course, it didn't turn out half bad as far as tristan was concerned. samuel, on the other hand, (who i wasn't nearly so worried about) is Completely Messed Up, but that's not the focus of this post. as josh as i were getting ready for bed, after peeking in on our angelic, sleeping little men, i realized, "oh shoot! i forgot to change the time on tristan's good nite lite!" and so, his little glowing moon turned into a little glowing sun at 4:30 the next morning (which felt more like 5:30 for him) and out of bed he came springing and telling us that his sun came "pop!"






oh, have i not mentioned the sun popping thing before? basically, after i had ordered the night light and it was on its way, i totally started bringing tristan's attention to the sun and the moon and how the sun means its time to be awake and play and how, when the moon comes out, it means its dark outside and time to go to sleep. well, the book "the very hungry caterpillar" by eric carle illustrated the whole thing perfectly. i'd read him the first two pages where the moonlight showed a little egg on a leaf and then the the next page shows the sun coming up and the egg opening to reveal a caterpillar. i believe the exact words are, "one sunday morning the warm sun came up and pop! out of the egg came a tiny and very hungry caterpillar." well, i believe that the author intended for the word "pop" to indicate that the caterpillar had broken out of the egg. tristan, however seems to believe that the sun comes up and goes "pop". so every single morning he tells us that his "sun came pop" and for some reason he has to take one of us by the hand and show us the sun, just in case we don't quite believe him.

in actuality, when the blue moonlight changes to orange sunlight, the night light makes no noise at all. which is great because there have been a few days (not many, but still!) where tristan has slept past the time that the sun starts to glow. there have also, unfortunately, been a few too many days where he is awake much too early (like 4:30am) and when we tell him to wait for his sun to come out, he does for awhile, but then gets bored and starts to cry. i can't blame him...i think that sitting around for an hour waiting for a light to change would bore me to tears as well. at first i had that stash of toys from the thrift shop that i'd hand to him when he awoke too early. that worked for awhile, but even those can get boring when you're holed up in your room all alone. that is why we haven't set the sun to glow past 5:30 yet.

and so, because i am The Queen of Asking for Advice, i became a fan of the good nite lite on facebook and posted a quick question on their wall. and what do you think i received in response? not a computer generated reply referring me to page 30 of the FAQ's. not even a human generated email. i got a phone call. from the founder of the company. who apologized to me for not calling the previous day as arranged because he had just come home from china on a business trip to find out that his father had passed away. i totally felt like saying, "um, your father just passed away, why are you on the phone with ME??" but i refrained and let the man talk. he was super friendly and seemed like just a regular guy. he created the nite lite for his son who was an early riser, so he had some great tips for me on how to get tristan to stay in bed longer. i think that once we are completely done potty training and no longer need to give tristan "poop treats" we'll start with either a sticker chart for staying in his room, or else do a small treat every morning that he stays in his room, whichever works out better.

at any rate, i was thrilled that the dude called me and he made sure to mention that if the nite lite doesn't work out for us, we can return it and get a full refund. now, i don't have one of those fancy giveaway blogs where bloggers review products and get paid for it. i'm honestly just "reviewing" this nite lite because it is such a cool and unique product and because i am super impressed with the company. i've had a ton of other moms ask me how the nite lite is working out for tristan, so i suspect i'm not the only person who has had to deal with early wakings on a constant basis. it isn't cheap, but the whole money back guarantee thing makes it pretty worth it.

these days

these days tristan's favorite color is green. he painted this dinosaur himself... i thought he did a great job of the stripes. he asked me to paint "Jesus cross" in red all across the top. he has been spotting "Jesus crosses" all over the place, from telephone poles to church steeples to the letter "t" printed just about anywhere. he loves that his name has a "Jesus cross" in it.

these days samuel has been a bit of a grizzly bear. he isn't quite fussy...he still rarely cries, but now if he is upset or hungry or just plain bored he sort of shouts. he can actually get quite loud and it starts to get annoying after awhile. when tristan was his age, i'm sure i was able to entertain him a lot more. with samuel, i do spend time playing with him, but there is always something else going on, something else that needs to be done and i just don't have as much time. he does love his little "jump & go" door jumpy and he tolerates the exersaucer for 10 minutes here and there. just yesterday i tried sitting him up on his own with the boppy pillow behind him and he did quite well before folding in half. i've noticed 2 little white teeth under the surface of his bottom gums, but there's no telling how close they are to breaking through. he still has a gigantic morning nap and then one or two wimpy little naps after that. i've tried waking him early from his morning nap so that he'll be tired enough to take a longer afternoon nap, but it doesn't make a difference, so i just let him be.

these days i've been enjoying the very chilly nights and growing impatient with the very warm/hot days. i used to enjoy taking a walk after dinner with the boys in the cool evening, but now with the time change, its too dark after dinner to do that. still, i'm going to attempt a walk to the library this afternoon with the kids and i'm hoping that i don't sweat too much. i've realized that however slowly i lost weight after having tristan, i'm losing it even more slowly after having samuel. i was so proud of myself for not gaining as much weigh in my second pregnancy despite being nearly bed-ridden with a broken leg. but that pride has led to disappointment as clothes that fit me when tristan was 5 months old are not fitting me now that samuel is the same age. the more slowly i lose weight, the more of a need there is for new clothing which isn't quite at the top of our list of priorities right now. to be completely honest, i feel just so disgusting right now wearing the same maternity tops and pants that i've worn for the past 10 months. because of my weight, i take no pride in my appearance and rarely wear makeup or do my hair. its depressing. i know that my self esteem shouldn't come from the way i look on the outside, but sometimes when i catch sight of my reflection in a mirror, or see myself in photos, i feel deflated and sad. i'm not writing this in hopes of ego-boosting comments; i just feel the need to be real and open about the way i feel right now. i know i went through this sort of phase after having tristan and it eventually passed, so i'm sure that it will pass again. in the meantime, i'm going to continue to take the kids on walks because exercise is not only good for my body; i know it is good for my mind as well.

these days i'm very much looking forward to the christmas season that is just around the corner. tristan is turning 3 the week after christmas and i think this year he is finally at the age where he'll be able to anticipate and understand what we're celebrating. we wave hello to all of the christmas trees at the christmas tree farm we drive past when we visit gran & grandpa's house. the last few times we went to costco, we made sure to gaze upon baby Jesus, happy upon his bed of hay in the nativity set they're selling. we've discussed santa claus somewhat and how all of the reindeer fit into the picture, (its so fun when kids believe anything!) but my plan this year is to keep his focus on the true meaning of christmas as much as possible. materialism and greed will find their way into his life more and more in the future, so i'd like to use his semi-innocence to keep all of that at bay for as long as we can.

these days i'm finding that i need to take josh up on his offer to stay home with the boys while i go out with some friends or something. the thing is, introvert that i am, i know that i'd find myself much more relaxed and refreshed if i just go somewhere all by myself. i'm the type of girl who's idea of a good time is sitting with a book in a coffee shop, sipping a hot chocolate while reading. of course i do enjoy the time i spend with friends, but tonight its just going to be me, myself and i. i've no idea yet where i'll take myself, but i'm already looking forward to it :)