A trip to the museum

We did it. We escaped. We made it out of the house by 9:15 am. Bags packed. It felt really good to be out of the house. We ventured off to the Museum of Science and Industry. I think part of the reason we haven't gone anywhere is that I was unsure of what Mr. Man's temperament may be while we were out. He was amazing today. He sat in the stroller for nearly the entire time we were at the museum and it turned out we were there for four hours. He just chewed on his blankets/toys and watched all the people. 

We met Miss Helen and the boys there too. It was nice to be there with other people so Miss M could do everything she wanted to do without me either leaving Mr. Man hanging in a stroller alone (which I obviously wouldn't do) or having to take him out and put him back repeatedly.

 She drove the tractor.

 Played on a see-saw

Shot water at a floating ball and so many other things. She really enjoyed herself. She didn't complain about leaving or being tired since she walked almost the entire four hours.

There was an exhibit on Soy in the Farm area. They had this sign that essentially says "look around and see how soy has infiltrated your kitchen". It was amazing all the products that soy is in.  They did have a table regarding the breakdown of soy from it's original form, to the seed, to the oil, to a powder protein. It was informative. I think b/c soy is in everything I will just keep Mr. Man all lathered with lotion and feed him whatever he wants. There was even a sign informing the reader how soy is in a lot of bathroom products too from lotions to the coating on pills.

 The little guy fell asleep and slept through screaming children for almost an hour.

Tomorrow we have an adventure to the Children's Museum on the docket. I would say the excitement just doesn't stop around here but since I heard we are expected to have another 7 inches of snow by end of day Saturday I know the excitement is short lived.

Mr. Groundhog better have some positive news (even if his news is right less than 50% of the time). Per Wikipedia, (which is known to never be wrong) Punxsutawney has made 116 predictions. Of those 116 predictions he's predicted an early spring 16 times. His predictions have been correct approximately 40% of the time. That's pathetic.

Still a prisoner

While I think it's been four days since we've seen the white flaky stuff fall from the sky (with more on the horizon for tomorrow night) we've still had the pleasure of experiencing temperatures in the negative and single digits.  I refuse to dress the kids up and take them out. Especially if there's no where we have to be. They canceled school on Tuesday due to extreme temps (-30's with wind chill) so the kids haven't been out of the house since Saturday. It's Wednesday night.

We are leaving tomorrow. It's supposed to be 20 degrees. We might only dress in one layer. Probably not. It's a free day for IL residents at the Museum of Science and Industry. It's a massive building and unlike the aquarium you can see almost everything without needing to pay additional money.  Thus the only out of pocket expense. I am going to be really disappointed if our credit card bill is not below average this month since we've just been staying home. I haven't even been doing much online shopping.

Miss M has been continuing her exploration of kitchen creations. She loves to make "pink juice" which is crystal light. There comes a point each day where I can not in good conscience give her another glass of orange/apple juice so she either has to drink water or crystal light.  She loves to make it and recently she's learned she can play in it. She ladles it out into everyone's cups. She does a pretty good job of not making a mess. There also comes a point each day when I don't care if she makes a mess as long as she's not asking me to play with her.

Mr. Man hasn't been feeling well. His nose is a mess which then just gets smeared all over his face. It's hard to get him cleaned up b/c he just thrashes his head and screams at me. He's been very needy and clingy. He hasn't wanted to be put down. He just wants to be held all day. It's exhausting especially when Miss M is bossing me to do something or get her something. I also put him on the scale recently and learned he weighs in at a healthy 24 pounds.

I realized today that he has a few more teeth cutting in. Whoops. I missed that. I probably should have given him more medicine to make him feel better but with all his cold stuff I just thought he didn't feel well.

 Craig. This is for you. From me. I love you.

Miss M is notorious for climbing on the counters. She's like a cat. She gets into her learning tower then walks along the counters to get what she wants out of the cabinets. Usually she's not getting anything that is a problem but lately she's been getting glitter and tacky glue out. Not ideal. I was telling her to put the glitter away or at least not open it until I could help her. You can see how well she listened. There was piles of glitter everywhere, but to my point above, sometimes I don't care as long as she's entertaining herself. She isn't great at entertaining herself (she's actually terrible at it).

Today Mr. Man's new car seat arrived. He's getting a bit big for the infant car seat and the combined weight of the car seat and him make it nearly impossible to carry him in it anywhere. Miss M was elated we got a package. She was determined to get his car seat out and use the box as her new pantry/fridge. She loaded it up with her "ingredients" aka play-dough and then cooked some soups with her "ingredients". She made soups for Grandma Delores and Daddy. Daddy always gets whatever she's making/creating. Always.

We make a lot of ranch around this house. It's a way for all of us to eat more veggies. It might be unhealthy to dunk them in ranch but who cares since we're eating our veggies and all. The recipe for ranch is the ranch packet, a cup of buttermilk and a cup of mayonnaise. Miss M's favorite ingredient when cooking is buttermilk. She's probably one of the few 2 year olds (almost 3!) who willingly cook with buttermilk in her pretend play.

She has been getting more into pretend play. She finds a book and makes up a story. Today she found a sleep book or infants and made up a long story about how it was Stuffy's birthday and his birthday party. She's a funny one though. There are so many ridiculous/funny/insane things that come out of her mouth that I can't remember them all. Today she made a card for Mimi (which she will not receive in the mail b/c she destroyed the envelope) and told me that Mimi said that it was annoying. I was confused at first until I remembered "annoying" was one of the lovely words she taught Miss M. At least she remembers it wasn't me who taught her such nonsense. It was just me who taught her to call me a lunatic.

And then there's days when I am tired and don't want to think of things for Miss M to do and I feel defeated by the weather and so we watch so many shows it's embarrassing to tell you about it.

Rough week

This week has been a long week.  I don't know if it's the miserable weather, Miss M nearing 3 years old and turning into more of a pistol, Andrew's late hours, Mr. Man being sick or if it's just me but it's been a rough week. 

Mr. Man desperately wants to stand up on his own. He would be so happy.  We need to move his crib down sooner than later because one day we're going to walk in and see him standing. 

 I had had enough one day and we were scheduled to go to the gym at noon. Mr. Man woke up earlier than anticipated and we had an hour to kill before we could get into the kids care at the gym. Chipotle is next door. I was hungry. We went for lunch. The best part (right now) about having two kids is one kid eats all the food the other one won't eat. Miss M got a quesadilla meal with beans and rice and chips.  She ate chips.  Mr. Man ate the rest.

The three of us loaded up and drove to the doctor on Tuesday to take Mr. Man in and determine whether he had pink eye or not. It was inconclusive because the goopy-ness wasn't spilling out of his eye but he still had goop. Thankfully the doctor took pity on me and gave me a Rx to fill anyway so I didn't' have to go back. I filled the Rx. It was $60 for a teeny tiny bottle of stuff. I used it one night and he seemed to not have anymore goop in his eye. Well that was worth the $60 I guess. We will be putting this away for next time.

On Wednesday we loaded up and went to the city to visit our old neighbors before heading to the allergist. Thankfully our friend volunteered to keep Miss M while Mr. Man and I went to the allergist.  I messed up and thought the appt was at 11:30am. It was at noon.  Mr. Man and I sat patiently in the waiting room for almost an hour before we saw the dr.  The dr. was really nice. He was also really practical and laid out everything in a manner that was understandable without being overwhelming. It seems like sometimes when we go to the doctor they leave me feeling anxious and more worried than necessary.

We were just killing time in the waiting room.

The doctor looked at him when we walked in and noticed his eczema. It's hard to miss. It's all over his face and hands. The doctor then noticed it on his arms, back, trunk and neck. It's not as bad on his body as it is on his face and hands.  The dr. told me that most of the time eczema is a precursor for allergies and asthma later in life. They did a test where they put 8 drops on his back. One drop was a histamine which everyone reacts to (it's the last spot in the picture that is the biggest). I guess it's kind of like the measuring stick for the other allergens.  We waited for 15 minutes to see what allergens he may or may not be allergic to. It was a long 15 minutes of Mr. Man trying to eat the paper from the doctor table.

These are the allergens they tested him for. It turned out he showed an allergy to shellfish and soybean.   Andrew has a shellfish allergy so it's not really that surprising and it's not a big deal. The soybean is more interesting. I don't really know what this is going to entail. There is soybean in just about every processed food. Or so it feels like. The dr. said the eczema might be worse when he eats soybeans and to try keeping his diet free of soybeans for 2 weeks to see if we can tell a difference. This is probably the most ideal time in Mr. Man's life to attempt this since I have control of what he consumes without him rejecting much of what I put in front of him.

I was so excited to feed him scrambled eggs. They are easy to make and easy for him to pick up. I fed him scrambled eggs last night and this morning and he spits them right back out.  I will keep trying (because I don't mind eating the leftovers) but I am saddened.

On our way home both kids fell asleep in the car. It was quite delightful. After Miss M woke up I decided it was time to go inside. On my way to get her out of the car I noticed the Edible Arrangements truck pulling up in front of our house. I was very excited. It turns out Mimi took pity on my crap week and sent us a treat. Miss M and I sat in the kitchen (possibly without taking off our coats) and devoured our chocolate covered strawberries and apples.

I was talking to Mimi and Grandma D about Miss M not taking a bath (while I was sitting in the car with the kids sleeping). The night before I got so mad at her because she acts willing to take a bath on the way up the stairs and when push comes to shove she won't get in the bath. I am in a losing position because Mr. Man is already in the tub and I can't manhandle her into the tub without worrying about the little guy.

So when the babysitter came over yesterday (which I wasn't expecting) I used it as my opportunity to give Miss M a bath. And without having to worry about Mr. Man I was back in control. I do not like losing control or having no control to a 2 year  old. I offered to let her get in the bathtub with her floatie on. She was pretending to get in the pool with her floatie the night before so it was worth a shot. It wasn't easy but she did get in the tub by herself and with minimal tears she took a bath. I guess I will use my babysitter time now to have my child bathe. It's a guaranteed once a week she will get her hair washed.

 She loves to jump on the couch. And there seems to be so much static in the basement all the time.

The weeks almost over. We will make it. And we'll do it again next week. 

Stuff

Baby!!! He can't move on the popper toy rather I thought he might like to watch the balls pop around. He didn't care. He doesn't care about much or care about much for long. He doesn't stay in one place or play with a toy for longer than 30 seconds. It's exhausting at times. 

Miss M enjoys playing with play-doh. I think it's fun to play with play-doh but I don't like watching the play-doh colors get mixed up. Miss M doesn't care/notice that the colors don't come back apart after you smash them together.

We were playing in the basement and I asked her to make different faces based on how she was feeling:

Here's her Happy face

 Here's her Sad face

And here's her Thinking face. I laughed so hard when she did this. At first she clicked her tongue as though she were pondering life and then she looked up and off to the side. She can be so serious.

We also worked on the presidents on some of the bills. She knows three presidents. The first one which to her is Washing-George-Ing-Ton. Grandma Delores' favorite president which is Lincoln-Lincoln to her. The current president is Barack Obama. We don't really talk about the current president b/c he's not on any money or license plates! I contemplate having her learn more president names but I think I should probably stay focused on the alphabet and getting her to count without skipping 5 and 6.

We have had some issues with Miss M's sleeping lately. She doesn't nap anymore which is fine. I can't deal with it. When she does take a nap then it's really difficult to get her in bed (and to stay in bed) before 10:30 or 11:00pm. It's awful b/c I am so tired by 10:30pm. The other day she hadn't napped and I tired to put her to bed early (7:30pm instead of 8:00pm) and she was out of her room and in the basement with me by 8:05pm. I was sad. I just wanted to eat my dinner and watch junk tv without a toddler who talks nonstop. She insisted we watch shows. She ended up getting her way and watching a show. I took her upstairs to shower while she watched one last show. I told her it was time to go to bed and she then went on to tell me how she wanted to sleep with me. NO. Then she wanted me to sleep on her floor. NO. She told me I was so special to her and she needed me to sleep on her floor. I would have been flattered but everything is so special to her. She tells me things are so special to her when she wants something. When I need to cut her fingernails she tells me they are so special to her and I shouldn't cut them. When I ask her to clean up the mess in the kitchen that she's made she tells me she can't because it's so special to her.

This little guy can eat a lot of food. If he sees you eating and you're not sharing he will squeal like a pig until you share or give him something of his own. Babies are supposed to be able to regulate their intake and not consume more than they are hungry for. I am not sure if he doesn't have the ability to regulate or if he's really just that hungry. As long as you feed him he's so happy.

Trying to survive winter

We, like many, are cold and snowed in.  There's so much snow that it doesn't feel worth dressing us all in our winter gear and going outside. I don't really know where we'd go but I am starting to feel stir crazy. I am not sure I can watch another show or clean up another mess.  

Miss M is a creative soul who loves to use her creativeness to make a mess.  We were going to make a cake one day. I put a cup of flour in the mixer and before I knew it she and the rest of the kitchen was covered in flour. She was rubbing it all over her. I don't really care if she makes a mess when she's quiet and when she's not just throwing stuff around but playing, if the difference makes sense. It's more the quiet that I enjoy.  

Yesterday, I went to make a snack for myself. I was going to eat cottage cheese and tomatoes so I got them out of the refrigerator and she wanted to play with the tomatoes. I struggle with whether to let her play with things that aren't toys or squash her creative spirit and tell her tomatoes aren't a toy. At the end of the day I don't really care if she smashes a few tomatoes (we went to Costco - so we had plenty) but I didn't want a big mess or her to be a mess since we had preschool and I actually had her clothed. She took each of the tomatoes out of the package and then took the vines off each of the tomatoes. She then wanted a bowl with water. This is the point where I got nervous. She informed me that tomatoes can't grow without water. She had reasonable logic so I gave her the bowl with water. She then needed another bowl of water and a lot of towels because she needed to give each of the tomatoes a bath. Surprisingly, there were no destroyed tomatoes. It was a win for everyone.

It's amazing how she is okay with giving the tomatoes a bath but you bring up the idea of giving her a bath and everything goes downhill. As I have mentioned before, it's a disaster. She usually ends up in time-out and in her room for an early bed. She doesn't care. I can't figure out what she's scared of. I know she doesn't like the water in her eyes but come on kid. I bought a pair of goggles for her bath time based on the recommendation of a few people. It went better but getting her in the bath is still a task.  Last night I got her in the bath with bribery. I told her she could watch a show after the bath and she insisted she watch 3 shows and she wants to list which shows/episodes/order.   I guess once a week I can handle this.

Andrew got up with the children Sunday. Woohoo.  After I got up (45 mins later) he suggested we go somewhere or do something. We had been trapped inside for so long it was a great idea. He suggested we go to the aquarium. We sat through part of the dolphin show. It's a slow show especially for a 2 year old. Mr. Man was happy and playful.

Miss M, however, was bored. She took her book bag full of who knows what was in there. She didn't watch the show but rather pulled out a few books and read while the show took place. We toured the rest of the aquarium and then headed to the outdoor mall for some shopping/returns/food. It was a fun day. We need to be more thoughtful with our weekends and not letting them just go by while we sit home and do the same things. We need to go places and do things when there's two of us to man the children.

Andrew forgot his work bag at home yesterday so after dropping Miss M off at school we headed to the city. We were able to go to lunch. Mr. Man enjoyed some hot beef sandwich and french fries.

Mr. Man is 8 months old

I didn't forget that 1/8/14 was Mr. Man's 8 month birthday rather I just didn't get my camera out in time to take good pictures. So I snapped a few camera pictures. Poor kid. So neglected.  

Andrew asks me everyday what's on our agenda.  My response: survival. I should get my camera out more but usually someone is demanding a snack or our house is in such disarray I can't even imagine taking too many pictures and letting people have a peek inside the chaos that is our home.

Mr. Man is a happy little guy for the most part.  He is generally very smiley.  He has been rather needy the last few weeks but as long as you're holding him, holding him in a standing position, or feeding him he's generally okay.  I think the neediness is a combination of his top teeth coming in, getting/getting over a cold, wanting desperately to crawl/walk to get places. One tooth on top has popped through and the other is almost through.  He is getting pretty good at going from a seated position into a semi-crawling position. He's not crawling yet but you can see the beginnings of it all getting ready to start.  

It does seem as though he's finally gotten himself on a schedule. He is generally taking naps around 10 and 2. It's nice to kind of have an idea of when he's going to sleep as opposed to just waiting for him to freak out (every 2 hours).  He's sleeping all night usually from around 7:30-7:30.  It's a nice schedule that's working for all of us right now. 

Miss M was most likely watching tv.  And she is a stinker when you ask her to take a picture. Picture taking needs to be on her terms. Actually most everything we do feels like it needs to be on her terms.

Mr. Man loves food.  I have been considering feeding Mr. Man more 'real' food during the day but laziness usually gets the best of me. You can't start a diet on any day but Monday so I started feeding him a third meal on Monday. He enjoys eating and feeding himself. Regular foods in his diet include toast, fruits, most veggies (including frozen peas - obviously cooked), yogurt, O's, baby puffs, shredded cheese and anything else you put in front of him.

Yesterday I left him on the floor while I was taking our coats/shoes off and he moved to a crawling position on the floor and the next thing I know he has a stale piece of toast from the floor shoved in his mouth. It was so hard. Who knows what meal it came from. I guess it's time to start sweeping the floors regularly again.

Surprise!!!

We finally ended up making it to KC on Friday. It was no small feat.  Craig and Jessie picked us up at the airport and we drove straight to the restaurant where we had planned on meeting for the surprise. We sat in the bar area and waited for them to arrive. Dad and company went to the bar to order drinks when Craig yelled that he needed a drink too.  Dad turned around and, without missing a beat, told him to buy his own (insert expletive) drink.

He was surprised. We succeeded. It made all the time, money and stress in getting there worth it for everyone.

We ate dinner then went to another establishment and just hung out.

We got up the next morning and met for an early lunch at the Peanut. We devoured wings and BLT's. We kept asking Dad what he wanted to do as though we cared about his opinion since his big party was planned for later in the evening. He suggested we go to Aunt Sally's (which is amazing b/c that's where the party was so we didn't even have to convince him to go there - he volunteered we go anyway)!

The boys (and some girls) watched the Chiefs game on the big screen in the media room. Look how cozy the media room is. I want a media room. They have a popcorn machine too! I love popcorn.

The boys didn't move from the basement until the game was over and at the time majority of the guests had arrived and the house was decorated. It was time for the party to begin. Dad came upstairs and was stunned yet again. He was speechless for awhile as everything registered. I don't believe he cried but he was genuinely surprised.

The night was spent hanging out together, catching up on life with those we haven't seen in ages and those we saw last week. There were stories told by many. There were new stories. There were stories we've all heard a hundred times and we continue to laugh about them. There were a lot of memories wrapped up into an evening to celebrate a guy everybody loves.  Congrats Big Papa. We love you.

Dad was sad the kids didn't come. The kids parents however were not sad the kids didn't come.

And yet once again Andrew and I are happy the kids aren't here. Our flight was anticipated to take off at 12:55pm. We arrived at the airport around noon knowing there was about a 45 minute delay. We walked in and saw a line which was probably a half of a mile long. I panicked thinking it was the line for security but it was the line for ticketing. I was again so happy we are efficient packers and didn't need to stand in the ticketing line to check luggage.  We found our security line. There was no one in it. We got right through. Our flight was still expected to push off 45 minutes later.

We eventually boarded the plan an hour and a half after we were scheduled but we were at least moving. We sat down on the plane, buckled our seat belts when the captain came over the intercom to tell us that our airport is on "minimal operation". Therefore it wasn't closed rather it wasn't letting planes in or out. I don't know what the difference is. The pilot told us he would wait 20 minutes to see what transpired so we could go when told to go. We de-boarded 25 minutes later. He told us as we were getting off the plane that the good news was we should leave by 5pm and the bad news is that we won't be leaving before 5pm.  The two flights before us were apparently canceled and ours could still be canceled. We will see how this transpires. We have 54 minutes before we are supposed to board/take off again...the suspense is killing me.

Post holiday travel delays

Drew and I are sitting at the airport. It's the second airport we've been to today and we haven't even been on a plane yet. Amazing. I know.

We are trying to get to Kansas City (sans kids) for the big retirement party for Big Papa.  Today is his last official day of work. His last unofficial day of work was probably considered years ago.

We had a flight scheduled to leave airport #1 at 11:55 am this morning. It was minutes before we were expected to leave the house that we learned our flight was canceled.  Drew spend 30 minutes on hold with SW to determine what the next plan of action. We got confirmed for a 7:00pm flight and continued on to the airport in hopes of catching a stand-by flight. It turned out all the other flights to KC were canceled also.  We resorted to Grandma's former business travel agents. She's now officially retired too...but her big party isn't a surprise and it's not until next weekend.

The wonderful, miracle working travel agent worked magic and got us on a fully refundable flight on American airlines. Let the fun begin. We have 3.5 hours to get out of airport #1 and into a cab to drive 40 minutes to get to airport #2. We made it.  We got here and learned our flight was 20 minutes delayed.  And then it was another hour delayed due to not having a crew.  You'd think they would plan ahead for a crew for each flight right?!?!

So in the meantime I am going through pictures on Andrew's computer and thought I would share a few.

Our little buddy

 Look at her pure joy

 And then when you ask her to smile for a picture 1 minute later she acts like she's ticked.

Look at that face.  Don't you want to just eat him.  I have never seen a kid suck down a juice box faster than Jack.  I really don't think he took a breath before he finished.

These two play so well together. All things considered.  Who needs toys when you have rocks, sunshine, warm weather, and some kitchen supplies.

Uncle Craig got some exercise.

NYE Festivities

I was in the middle of making my grand NYE grocery list because we were going to have a few friends come over and spend the night. We were going to celebrate with the kids, put them to bed, and enjoy some adult time.  I never made it to the grocery store because a certain someone came down with the stomach bug. He had chills and so he spent most of the day under a blanket complaining he was cold. We had to cancel our plans to ensure we still had friends after NYE because we didn't want to infect anyone. 

We all watched excessive amounts of TV yesterday.  

Miss M wanted to feed Mr. Man his bottle this morning. Thankfully he was almost done with it when she decided she wanted to help out because she wanted to help for about 10 seconds. When she was finished helping his she essentially rolled him off her lap. He's lucky I was there to catch him!

One of my new year resolutions is to feed Mr. Man baby food more than once a day.  I fed him yogurt for breakfast. I normally take his clothes off to feed him in an attempt to save his clothing from being destroyed. I noticed a rash/hives/red blotches all over his neck.  Mimi thought it might be because I put him in a new unwashed shirt yesterday. I thought that seemed reasonable so I went with it.

And by the end of the day he looked like this.  I don't know what's going on.  I don't think he's in pain. I think the pain and neediness we're experiencing is from his top teeth coming through. Or from the cold he has which makes him cough a lot. When it rains it pours I guess. There's too many factors to say. 

It snowed a few inches last night and it was still snowing when we woke up this morning. Miss M and I got all dressed up in our snow gear and went and played outside for about 7 minutes.  It was long enough for me. My face was cold.  Miss M was ticked off the snow was in her face since it was still falling. She looks ticked off but she was really excited. She's ticked off because I wanted a picture. Typical. 

Can you see the little guy's teeth? His teeth are SHARP. He insists on using my face as a teething ring.  He grabs/pinches my face and starts gnawing on my chin and with the top two starting to come in there is so much sharpness I just want to cry. He also pulls hair and tries to rip out eyeballs. He's kinda violent.  I tell him no, but he just laughs.