You win some, you lose some

I smiled when I looked outside and saw Jack with his Batman jacket, black helmet and scooter and Hank with his Spiderman costume and Spiderman scooter.  Both with big boots on just shuffling along.

Today is Hank's last day to be two.  I have loved two year old Hank.  I am sad to see it go.  We are still having fun trying to understand what he's saying.  I asked him what he had been playing with upstairs. "Occa Occa" he repeated several times.  I finally figured out he was saying helicopter.  When he needs to go to the bathroom he puts his hand up and says, "Stop! Go right away." One phrase he says a lot is, "Alright?" Pronounced, "ah white", which he says at the end of asking for anything.  "I want fruit snacks, alright?" He also requests several times a day, "Come wif me."  If he needs help with anything, he doesn't say, come open the door, or I need something.  He just says, "Come wif me" and then he'll show you what he needs.  When he wants you to say or do something specific he'll show you and say, "like dat".

Jane was in the car and said, "Oh!  My head is spinning!"  I said, "Are you carsick?"  She said, "No, I'm just thinking, how was GOD made? How did He begin?"

Pete has been insanely clingy all month long. He is just SO unhappy and I can't get him to play by himself for more than a few minutes. I just assumed he was teething or that his new one-year-old personality just kind of stunk.    But then one day I noticed some crusty discharge from one ear so I made an appointment.  To my surprise he had an ear infection.  The doctor said the other ear looked like it could possibly have had a ruptured ear drum.  I started remembering how on Christmas day I suspected an ear infection.  And how on New Year's Day he had a fever and I thought we should take him in to urgent care but Matt and I were both too lazy to be the one to take him.  So a MONTH later I find out he probably had an ear infection all along.  Ooops, bad mother moment.  I had high hopes of him transforming into an easy-going, happy baby but he started his meds four days ago and so far he is still a pretty grumpy guy.

We finally made a trip to the library.  Jane got lots of books.  She came down at 11:00 and said she was checking her room for bad guys.  She had been reading, Judy Moody, Girl Detective.  She loves the mysteries, but they make her nervous.  She had to finish the book before going to sleep.  So I went upstairs with her and quickly read the last 20 pages of the book.  The next night she read another entire book.  We will have to get to the library again soon.

Jane told me that in the Girl Detective book that Judy Moody kept talking about books that sounded so good she was jealous.  Turns out they were Nancy Drew books and I had to tell her that they actually exist!

On Martin Luther King day I decided that I was going to be a fun mom and take the kids to Farm Country as we had gotten a Thanksgiving Point Pass for Christmas.  We decided to go right after Pete's nap.  The neighbor boy Scottie stopped by and wanted to play so I felt bad and ended up inviting him to come with us.  So I managed to get five kids in the van and we headed off.  Scottie said, "I can't believe this!  I've always wanted to go somewhere with you guys in your van and here I am sitting in your van!  I can't believe it!" We got to Farm Country and stepped out of the van.  Somehow in a ten minute drive the weather had gotten super cold and windy. The kids were devastated so we decided to go to the dinosaur museum instead and we got back in the van.  I attempted to herd the five kids towards the building.  Hank is terrified of parking lots and crossing streets so it always presents a problem when I have both Pete and Hank and have to carry Hank through parking lots.  So Jane managed to lift him two inches off the ground and shuffle her way across the parking lot.  She let him down at the sidewalk but all the kids walked down a grassy hill, now muddy from melting snow, instead of staying on the sidewalk.  I saw it was going to happen before it did, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.  Hank wiped out hard and was caked in mud from his feet to his shirt and all over his hands and arms.  I stared at him and he stared at me.  The other kids stared at me in fear.  I said, "I don't know what to do.  I don't think we can stay."  Jane's face looked like I had shot her and I decided the wrath of the children would be worse than the mess of the mud.  We went inside and I thought we'd check the gift shop for pants.  No luck.  I took all five kids into the bathroom and scraped all the mud off Hank that I could with paper towels. I tried rubbing the rest of the mud into the pants in an attempt to keep the mud from getting all over the museum.  I rolled up his muddy sleeves and we left the once-white-floored bathroom.  We made our way through the museum, the kids having fun and me just trying to keep everyone together and happy.  We finally made it to the end--a sand pit where the kids can pretend to discover dinosaur bones.  Pete's diaper was full to the brim with pee and was just starting to leak so I put Jane in charge of the kids and took Pete for a diaper change.  I took off his slightly wet pants, took off his slightly wet onesie and threw his diaper into a big lidded trashcan.  Then I searched my purse and remembered that we had used all the diapers up at church the day before.  So back on went his wet onesie and his wet pants.  I rushed to the kids and told them to put their shoes on NOW.  We had to get to the van, where I knew there was a diaper in the glovebox, before Pete peed his pants.  The kids didn't complain too much about the abrupt ending and we made it to the van pretty quickly.  But not quickly enough.  Pete and the stroller were soaked.  Off went the clothes, on went the diaper, in went the kids and home we went!  Phew!!!  Being a "fun mom" is way too much work!  But it was worth it.  Jack told me he would never wish for a different mom again.  But then again, two days later when I didn't let him eat candy right before lunch he told me he wanted a different mom.  Then he cried because he broke his promise that he would never want a different mom again.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Pete during a rare moment of playing by himself.  He is in the stage where he loves to put things in and out of containers.

Jack had on quite the awesome outfit while doing homework the other day.

Are my kids less funny or am I less observant?

Man, I feel like I used to have so much material for this blog back in the day.

Hank is in that fun stage of learning what it means to smile for a camera.  Here's what we get now.

Hank is so patient when we can't understand him.  He just keeps saying it over and over until we get it. He never gets frustrated or embarrassed.  I'm always guessing the most ridiculous things, "The mountain is really high?"  Turned out it was "Chris and Martin" from Wild Kratts.  Or when we kept guessing, "You want a computer?"  "You need a computer?" "You lost a computer?"  "Oh, you want to be Darth Vader!" 

Jack played Super Smash Bros at his cousin's house.  He loved it.  So at our house he found some old video controllers and ran around pretending to play Smash Bros.

Hank was playing with an Iron-man arm blaster thing and when he pushed the button it said, "I am Iron-Man!"  Hank looked up startled, "What?  I'm not Iron Man!  I need to get Iron Man costume!"

Pete's favorite food right now is scrambled eggs with salsa and cheese.

Jane has really been into reading this week.  We don't have too many chapter books and really need to get to the library.  But she finished a Ramona Quimby book and then I found an old Judy Moody book and gave it to her one night when it was already late.  The next day I noticed she was on page 102!  I asked her about it and she said, "I know!  I stayed up until 11:00!"

Jack's old primary teacher told me today how much she missed having Jack in class.  I asked, rather incredulously, "Oh, is he good in class?"  She told me he was the best in class.  I could hardly believe it!  He really is a great kid.

Well, that's that!  I didn't take a single picture this week so I lazily made all the kids come over to me as I wrote this blog and took selfies with all of them.  :)

Jane can do this pretend-angry crazy face and make her head REALLY red but we were both majorly bummed it didn't look red in the pic.

Nearly losing my mind

Pete has really started to love walking this week.

Well, we are 11 days into January and I am nearly losing my mind.  Matt is working on a project that we both would really like for him to finish so we decided he would just work late until it was done.  I was thinking like, five days or something.  Well, that started on December 26th and he's been home maybe three nights? (New Year's Eve, Sundays and Tuesday when I had a meeting).  At first I was doing ok.  And then Pete started teething and school started and chaos ensued.  I am lucky to get homework done and kids to bed by 10pm.  At which point I am so excited I just crash on the couch and wait for Matt to get home at midnight before I go to bed.  I am hoping to get in a better frame of mind this week though.  And by better frame of mind I mean, my goal is to have fewer tardies, like maybe not the 4 out of 5 tardies that Jane got this past week.

Jane really has loved the Little House series.  She struggled with Farmer Boy to which I said, "Oh, everyone skips that one."  At least I did.  I always thought it was boring.  But I've noticed that book four or five, I can't remember, has been sitting on her nightstand for a super long time.  I asked her if she was reading it and she said, "I don't know.  I can't really get into it.  All of a sudden there's a baby Grace, and like, Mary is blind....."  So funny.  Baby Grace and Blind Mary really do come out of nowhere.

One night, must have been back when I was actually getting the kids to bed around 9, I heard some noises upstairs at about 10:30.  I peeked into Jack and Hank's room and Jack was asleep but Hank was nowhere to be found.  I looked into Jane's room and Jane was asleep on the bed and Hank was bouncing around her.  What a nut.

In addition to Pete's amazing hugs he also likes to give kisses.  Only his kisses are open-mouthed and he insists on his tongue being involved.  So, obviously, I try to get away with just kissing his cheek, or giving him a quick kiss on his top lip before he can french me.  But he will have none of it.  He will not give up until tongue has made contact.  Love him, but, eww.

One night Jane was reading a book called something like, "The December Dog Mystery".  It was nighttime but I had to sneak upstairs to ask her a question.  She was startled when I came in and then told me, "I'm at a scary part.  Their dog is missing and they don't know what happened.  But, and here's what is spooky, they found a snowy footprint outside their door."  She was legitimately spooked.  Cracked me up.  She asked me to sit with her but I said, Sorry, girl, I've got a date with the couch and Netflix.  You'll have to brave that snowy footprint all by yourself.

Jane and Jack have been playing Barbies together and I LOVE it.  Jane has never really even been into Barbies but now that Jack is Ken/Prince Charming/Gaston they are having fun.  I heard Jack, being Gaston, ask, "Do you think I'm handsome?" In this video he says something a little different.  He also crushes Gaston with Prince Charming and plays with Barbies in a more stereotypical "boy" way.  :)

A New Year

Oh, new year's resolutions.  I'm a sucker for them every time.  My goal is to blog once a week this year.  Since there is no sense trying to catch up on the past I'm just going to have to move forward.

*I have officially weaned Pete.  Since March of 2011 I've only had three months that I wasn't pregnant or nursing.  So, yeah, it was a little bit sad to be done--to realize I'm all done ever being pregnant or nursing, but I'm pretty excited, too.

*Speaking of nursing, (sorry Clair, I promise this is the only crude one) when I was nursing in the family room when Pete was a little baby, and after switching sides, Jack asked, "Are you having fun with the other boob, Pete?"

*Jane and Jack have been playing Trouble on repeat.  It's cute.  I'm glad they are both old enough to be able to play board games now.

*Christmas break has been great.  It is so much easier for me to just have the kids at home, sporadically having to bathe them, not doing any homework, and not trying to get them anywhere on time.  There has been the run of the mill sibling arguing but there has also been a lot of good playing.

*A long, long time ago, when Jack was still in preschool he told Jane that his preschool friend TJ told everyone at school about how he fell in the water and a dolphin pushed him out to save him.  Jane said, "There's something you need to know about people in preschool.  They lie."

*Jack has, unfortunately, learned that the term for a tummy ache is not, "stummy ache".

*Jack started kindergarten.  He didn't like it too much at first.  He said, "Mom, you have to sit there with your lips like this (closed). And your arms like this (down). And your legs like this (crossed). You can't touch anybody....THE WHOLE TIME."  But he is starting to like it more.

*At first Jack was disappointed with the amount of friends he was (or wasn't) getting.  When I would ask why he wasn't making friends he said, "Nobody looks good."  I never got clarification on what, exactly, he wanted them to look like.  Eventually he started branching out but he had the hardest time remembering anyone's name.  But I knew he was asking them because he told me once how he goes about getting friends. He explained, "I go up to them and say, Do you want to be friends? Then they say yes or no.  If they say yes I say, We should tell each other our names."

*Hank and I survived potty training pretty well.  He is not perfect by any means but he is diligent about the poo.  I can handle the pee accidents as they come.  We have our toilet sticker charts that he loves and the toy he is working towards getting on top of the cabinet above the toilet.  If you ask Hank how he will get the toy he will point from his butt to the toilet and make hilarious and horrible-sounding poo  noises.

*One time Jack told me about his dream.  He said, "I was dreaming about heroeing and hugging the sun."

*Jack asked me (while I was taking care of Pete), "You can do whatever you want with your baby, right Mom? But you don't want to kill him."

*Jane told me, "Mom, I draw and sing like a teenager.  I'm really good at those two things."

*I just checked and can't believe I didn't write about Hank at all last year.  Oh man, he has been adorable too.  He was pretty late at talking.  He has gotten much better now but the sound of his voice and cadence is still pretty awesome.  Did I ever talk about how he loved drinking from tiny little cups.  I'm talking TINY.  Like a lego cup that only holds a drop.  He would sip it and give a satisfied sigh.  And for some reason "mamoo" meant help me.  But he's much bigger now.

*The other day I was sitting with Hank in his room and he was getting into his wild and crazy hyper mood where he yells in a raspy voice.  So he climbed onto his changing table dresser and found his money jar.  He yelled, "That Hank money!"  He excitedly got out a dollar bill, looked at the picture on it and yelled, "What?! That's not me!"

*Hank is the sweetest kid.  Matt and I talk often about how we hope we don't ruin him.  He's so polite, always says please and thank you.  And he shares all the time.  Even when I would rather he not, because the sibling he's sharing with doesn't deserve it because they are being jerks, he will still share.  

*Hank gets tired of feeding himself sometimes.  He would just rather we do it.  It's annoying because, you know, I have another baby to feed.  But sometimes Hank will grab a toy or something and hold it in both hands and protest, "I have no hands!" meaning he has no hands with which to be able to feed himself.  So, that's cute.

*Hank is so funny about the little names we call him.  I'd never noticed just how often you refer to people as something other than their name.  But with Hank calling us out on it every time it's gotten pretty funny.  "Goodnight, son"  "I not son, I Hank."  "Ah, Hank, I love you, man." "I not man."  "Come here my little baby."  "I not baby."  "You're such a sweetie." "I not sweetie, I Hank."

*For awhile Jane and Jack were getting along really well when they were their alter egos, Sasha and Bronson.

(Time for facebook status reposts.  This is what this blog has come to:)

*Sometimes Jack gets super grumpy and A LOT of things bother him. Like just now, when he came down the stairs with a scowl on his face (and not eating anything). "Being a kid is so dumb!" "Why Jack?" "Because! Because I have to just keep swallowing and swallowing!" (Demonstrates a couple exaggerated swallows). "I swallow once and I have to swallow again. And again and again and again! Being a boy is dumb." 

*Jane loves birds and put together a bird watching costume for Halloween. She was so excited. After school she said, "Mom, I look like a boy." 

"Who said that?" 
"Two kids." 
"Oh, that's sad. They don't have parents that have taught them that girls can be whatever they want to be? That they can be a girl without dressing like a princess? They haven't been taught that boys can look like girls and girls can look like boys because we are all so much alike?" 
Jane was silent so I asked, "What do you think?"
She said, "That's true. That worked." And she ran off to look at birds.

*Jane and I procrastinated her optional Reflections school project until the last possible minute when she drew something as fast as possible. After reading it needed to be mounted on something hard and have a mission statement and with school starting in just two minutes I asked Jane if she REALLY wanted to turn it in. She said yes....and that everyone who turned something in would get a Rice Krispie treat. I laughed and said that was such a silly reason to do it. And she said, "Why? Who doesn't love a good Rice Krispie treat?" Touché.

*During the first week of school Jack came home with a blank piece of paper and a note for me to make him a "kissing hand" for him to take to school to have when he misses me. He handed it to me and said, "Let's just throw this away. I DO NOT need to put a piece of paper next to my cheek."

*Jack is always trying to process dying. He asks a lot of questions about it. When my parents were visiting this summer we saw him looking at my dad's arm when he started singing, "Guess who's going to die soon? Not me. Not me." I don't think my parents quite knew what to make of it but I knew exactly what he was getting at. So I asked him later why he was thinking about who would die soon. He said, "Cause I think grandma and grandpa are going to die soon, but not THAT soon." "Why do you think that?" "Cause they have a lot of cracks and lines in their skin."  And then after kindergarten started he told me after having a sub, "She was really old.  Good thing I didn't sing, "Guess who's going to die soon?"

*Jane combined the words fine and lucky to describe how she was feeling. The resulting word was vulgar+y. Now she just told me she combined the words shiny and glitter to name her new ball. We had a fun discussion on appropriate and inappropriate terms for toilets.

*Jane was SO nervous for Jack to go to kindergarten this year. "What if he doesn't make friends? What if there's a bully? What if he gets in trouble? Or what if he gets HURT! I don't want him to go to school! I just want him to stay at home and have fun!" Poor girl.  

Jack turned 5 1/2.

At the splash pad.

Pete's blessing day.

We visited Provo and American Fork canyons a lot this summer.

Out for a bike and stroller ride this summer.

Jane's first day of second grade.

We also went to Seven Peaks water parks just about every Friday night this summer.

Cute Hank efficiently eating from two spoons.

Oh, Hank.  Ready to help make pizza.

Pete turns one!

I was feeling so sad and depressed about not being able to remember Pete's little baby days and about how I never wrote about them.  And BAM! I surprised myself with having written about him at four months old!  Sweet!  I think two blog posts in one year is perfectly acceptable for a fourth child, right?

Pete.  He really is sweet.  I am telling you right now that he is THE.BEST.BABY.HUGGER.IN.THE.WORLD.  When I (or Matt, he doesn't discriminate) pick him up in the morning or from his naps he wraps both arms around my neck and squeezes tight.  He makes sure to press his cheek right onto mine and will be perfectly content with a 1-2 minute hug. One morning I picked him up, got my tight hug and laid back down in bed with him.  We laid there on our sides, my arms around him, his arms around my neck/shoulder with his cheek pressed on top of mine for probably ten minutes.  I started to get a kink in my neck so I moved my head out from under his and looked at him.  He smiled at me and then moved to put his cheek back on mine. We laid there for a few more minutes until Jane came in.  It was HEAVEN.**  Sometimes he will instigate hugs at other times.  When he wants to be held he will stand up holding on to your legs and reach up on to his tippy toes trying to get you to pick him up. Often he just needs a few moments to connect and then he will let you put him back down.  

He was our first (and need I mention he is also our last?:) baby to not walk at ten months.  He has been taking just a few steps here and there for about a week now.  Then he either dive bombs with complete trust that the person in front of him will catch him or he loses confidence and gets down to crawl the rest of the way.  I can't really remember when he started crawling. I think it was around the normal age.  He slithered forever using just his arms.  I tried it once--that is hard!!  But eventually he started going on his hands and knees.  He has started clapping and will play the, "How big is Pete?" game by lifting his arms up with a big grin.  

So far he is a great eater.  Well, I don't know about great.  He's good.  He likes a variety of flavors but he is picky about the texture of his finger foods.  He pretty much still likes to be fed with a spoon.  But he LOVES cubes of pear.  And freeze-dried strawberries.  He could eat those all day.  

He doesn't really have any favorite toys yet.  Unless you count my iphone, ipad, and remote controls.  His favorite room in the house is the bathroom.  If that door gets left open he will crawl to the bathroom in two seconds flat.  He will open the cupboards and pull everything out.  Then he will go the bathtub and knock all of the shampoo bottles and toys into the tub.  He will pull on the toilet paper and he will even open the toilet lid and play in the water if he hasn't been caught yet.  He absolutely hates it when someone spots him making his break to the bathroom and shuts the door before he gets in there.

He also loves to unload the dishwasher as fast as you can load it.  Surprisingly he hasn't taken much of an interest in the Christmas tree.  He does climb the stairs (our very steep and dangerous stairs).  We have tried to instill major fear into our kids if they were to forget to close the gates at the top and bottom of the stairs.  But really it's only Hank that consistently remembers.  Hank gets very nervous about it and will check it a few times if Pete is around.  Hank is even better than Matt and I at remembering to shut the bathroom door.

Pete really is so sweet.  We are so lucky to have him.

**This has become our morning ritual.  I'm never ready to jump out of bed so cuddling with a one-year old is pretty much the best.