Leave to to the pros

Don't try this at home:

Don't try to stand on a soccer ball while holding onto the bathroom counter at the same time while your mom is trying to get ready in the morning. The ball might shoot out from under your feet. Then you might smack your chin really hard on the counter which in turn might cause your teeth to involuntarily bite through the sides of your tongue. Then you might start bleeding. A lot. And then you'll start freaking out at the sight of blood, and then the taste. So then you'll start screaming probably. And while you're screaming you'll spit all the blood out of your mouth. But it will be less like spitting and more like spraying a stream of blood anywhere within a 6 foot radius of you. You'll start wiping blood on your shirt, your mom's shirt, anthing you can get your hands on until your mom finally gets you a washcloth. You'll take turns screaming and spray-spitting for 25-30 minutes until you've stopped bleeding. Then you will stick your tongue out at anyone you see and say, "See? Ah Baw Mah Tawn". So, please don't try this at home. Leave it to us professionals to get the job done.

Pity party for me.

Last may we came out to Indianapolis to look for a house. We knew we only wanted to rent... so our options were limited. Well, we looked and looked and we finally found the house that we live in today. Yes, it's pretty cute with a sweet little cottage feel, but why didn't we look around the yard last year and think, "Wow. That's a lot of yard work. Wow". I don't remember the thought ever going through my head as we were signing the lease. Why oh why?

Now, I feel like a weeder by profession. Just "letting the yard go" is not an option. I can't stand to go outside and be surrounded by weed infested flower beds. I just can't do it. So, instead of playing baseball with the kids and going on bike rides, I find myself spending all of my outdoor time WEEDING. I'm done. I'm ready to Round-Up the entire yard; echinaecha (a cookie for the first person to spell it right: it wasn't in spell check), tulips, daffodils, ferns, lillies, everything. Anything to get rid of the weeds. Of course, we could always hire someone to come and do our yard work, but then there's A) the cost (which would not co-exist well with a resident's salary) and B) The yard care guy would never make it to other yards because ours would be so time-consuming. So here are a few pictures to enjoy of our beautiful yard. It is for once all weeded at the same time (well, almost).

FRONT YARD (small flower bed):

One more patch in the front yard:

Here's where the real weeding starts. I could spend (and have spent) 2 hours just in this section. When we first got here last July the weeds (you know those poky ones?) were easily as tall as I am.

More in the backyard. That big planter box used to have a pond in the middle. When we got here last year it wasn't running and there was a dead mouse in it. So, we took the pond out, threw it in the forest and filled in the big hole. With dirt from the forest. We love that forest. Our last Christmas tree resides in the forest now too, all shriveled and dry. So do all yard clippings, lawn mower waste, etc. As long as it's something plant-related, we throw it in the forest. I don't love the Poison Ivy and Poison Sumac in the forest.
Wild strawberries grow in here during the summer. Too bad they aren't bigger than my pinkie finger otherwise we'd eat them!
More in the backyard. See that cute little cobblestone walkway? It doesn't look so cute after you have sprayed Round-Up in every single little crack and crevice. Oh, and the moles think it's fun to dig tunnels under the rocks and move them up and down all the time. Hmmm, I wonder. Does Round-Up work for moles too?
There is a rose bush under our bedroom window in this picture (which you can't see). I have yet to see roses bloom from it. But then, we've only been here 9 out of the last 12 months. So maybe they'll bloom yet.

This flower bed is the longest in the whole yard. It stretches all the way to the road. And, no, I don't weed this one. It's too much. This flower bed divides the front yard from the backyard with dirt on either side of the fence. We plan to grow pumpkins along it this summer. Here's the flower bed on the other side of the house, the side that no one sees. I take the "If you can't see me, I can't see you" approach. It's never been weeded.Search's hair looks much like a weed also. How's that for bed-head?

What catches your attention?

The glorious wallpaper?
The fact that he's studying USMLE step 2?
The fact that he's reading it upside-down?
The fact that he now picks his own clothes?

Baby steps away from Babyhood

Last night before I went to bed I went to cover up the kids, and this is what I find. A white little bum staring my in the face.Ever since Search has been potty trained, he likes to take off his diaper or his underwear before he goes to sleep. Like last night. Yesterday when I went in to get him out after his nap he had taken off his pants and underwear, put them in a corner, peed in a different corner and was huddled in the opposite corner eying his mess while waiting for me to get him out. He tells me that he yells for me to get him out to go potty, but I never hear him. Maybe I'll have to get the good old monitor out again.

Search is now past the 2.5 year mark. So for the past couple of weeks I've been telling him that he is too big for his binky and that we need to give it to the garbage man. He tells me, "No, it's mine, not the gawbage man's". So yesterday, it being trash day, I decided once again to find a way to part with the binkys. I began telling him of all his little friends who grew too big for their binkys and gave them to the garbage man. It didn't take much persuasion before he decided that he was ready to take the next step to be a big boy. We heard the garbage truck rumbling back down our dead-end street and dashed for the door with binkys in hand. We ran out towards the garbage truck in the cold, Search in his jammies and me in my shorts from exercising. We flagged the garbage man down and I told him what we were doing. Search, without hesitating chucked the last two remaining binkys into the truck. The driver gave him a thumbs up and we headed back inside after watching the truck turn the corner. Search was pretty excited about giving the garbage man his binkys and kept telling everyone how he was officially a big boy now.

I was interested to see what would happen at his nap. This was our conversation at nap time:

1:00
Me: "Ok buddy, even though you don't have your binky anymore, you still have your blankie. So cuddle up and close your eyes."
Search: "Mommy, is the gawbage man coming back?"
Me laughing: "No, he is taking your binkys to the dump."
Search: "I don't want the gawbage man to dump my binkys".
Me: "You're a big boy. You'll be ok."

1:30
He screams at me to come change his sheets because he has peed in this crib

2:00 He drops Lightning McQueen and needs me to get it for him

2:30 He has to go potty. Again

2:50 Finally falls asleep

3:30 Wakes up

So maybe soon he will take the last remaining step toward big-boyhood and cut out the naps too. But for now, I will still force him to nap, for my sake if nothing else.

Up to Date

The past few days have been pretty busy? But, seriously, who isn't busy at this time of year? I finally finished shopping, sewing and wrapping yesterday so we are good to go for Christmas. The only other reason that I should have to go to the store is if someone spills the entire carton of milk or we run out of chewable Tylenol. On Monday we went to the zoo with our friend Alli. This is Destroy in his favorite place in the whole zoo, curled up in a ginormous pretend snake. The "Deserts" is his favorite exhibit in the whole zoo. Well, and he really likes the rhinos. Speaking of rhinos, the other day Destroy told me that he wanted a Rhinoceros (or "Nacerous", rhinoceros without the rhi, as he calls it) and a hippo for Christmas. When I asked him where he would put it, he was a bit stupefied, so he decided he'd rather have a spider instead. I told him there was no way we were going to have a spider in our house (that I knew of). He told me that he would make the spider have a happy face and he'd take out it's teeth. Well, that's great news. I'm pretty sure Santa won't be bringing us a spider this year. Or any other year. Destroy also had his preschool Christmas program. This picture is really bad because I was trying to film on the video camera and hold Jeremy in my lap at the same time (Aaron was at work). If I ever emerge from the stone age I'll learn how to post videos. They dressed up as snowmen and angels and sang a few songs. It was awesome. Destroy is the one with the orange gloves.
Search has potty trained himself this week. He doesn't need reminders from me, he can hold it for 3 hours or so and doesn't need pull-ups for his nap. He's even held it all night! I can't think of a better Christmas present. Merry Christmas to me! On the downside, he's come down with this funky virus that I can't remember the name for. Aaron could tell you but he's not here. He has a whole bunch of sore in his mouth that look like canker sores. His lymph nodes are outrageously swollen and this morning he threw up. But since these sores in his mouth are so painful that he literally hasn't eaten anything but a cookie and 2 granola bites for the last two days, the only thing he puked up was water. Makes nice for the clean up I guess. Besides not eating, he's up all night like a newborn (at least every two hours) whining about his mouth so we are both pretty tired. I feel really bad for him but I don't know how much more whining and crying I can take. This morning he woke up with red bumps on his arms. So, what's next? So this is what he's been doing: watching movies. It's the only thing that stops the whining.
He have hosted a couple of playgroups this month and made gingerbread men and sugar cookies. We did one playgroup for church and one for some of the medical resident's wives. I finally cleaned off the yellow frosting from the kitchen window yesterday after Search pointed at it and said, "That's from playgroup!" I figured if it was bad enough for one of the kids to notice, then it was really bad.
Here's Ethan and DestroySearch, Destroy, their friends Taylor and Brandon and their mom (and my friend:)) Jenni. The candies and frosting for the gingerbread men didn't quite make it to the gingerbread man. They detoured into Search and Destroy's mouths instead. Aaron has just started a month in the ICU so we won't be seeing him much. He's on call every 4th night. But somehow he got Christmas day off so we are pretty excited about that! We hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Take That!

Search has been doing a great job of potty training himself. I feel at times that he is more potty trained than his brother. He rarely goes #2 in his diaper anymore. Why is this, you may ask? Well, besides the obvious discomfort that comes with a dookie in your pants, is the sure fact that he knows he gets two skittles every time he goes on the pot. So, with this in mind he controls his bowels and runs to the potty when he has to go poo, screaming, "I get two skittles, I get two skittles!" So we keep a fully stocked pantry of skittles. After potty training Destroy, I deserve this kind of child. The kind that potty trains himself. Being the sweet little child that he is, he almost always chooses to share one of his two skittles with Destroy. Destroy usually does the same for Search.

Tonight as I was getting dinner ready, I gave them their food first and got mine ready as they were eating. Search plowed through his grilled cheese and tomato soup, but Destroy was having one of those I'm-not-hungry-even-though-all-I've-eaten-today-was-a-cracker nights. He still had half his food left but wasn't giving up on negotiating with me because he knew he would get a brownie if he "finished". I repeatedly tell him that he won't get a brownie until his food is gone.

Just as Search is finishing his brownie, and (of course) right as I'm about to take my first bite of grilled cheese, Search decides it is the opportune time to go numero dos on the potty. So we rush into the bathroom. After he's finished with his business, he gets two skittles. He picks a pink one for him and a yellow one for Destroy. As he walks around the table to give it to Destroy, he stops, looks at Destroy and says, "You can't have this 'till your sandwich is all gone and your oranges are all gone". Silence. Me? I'm laughing and celebrating inside. Destroy? He's stunned to silence, a rare event, and wondering what has happened to the world. Search? He's eyeing that second skittle while chewing the first, wondering which will take longer: Destroy to finish his food or the skittle to melt in his hand. I guess he didn't wait to find out. He popped that little skittle right into his mouth and pranced off.

Shiner

Toddler + hands in pockets + running downhill after brother = hitting cheek on rock resulting in black eye.

Day after (day 2) Day 3

Day 4

Looking forward to seeing the greens and yellows of days 5, 6, 7 and 8.

What a Corny Kid!

As many of you know, my children have a prejudice against vegetables. If there is a green speck of anything in anything they won't touch it. I'm convinced that green candy would be their last choice as well. Search isn't quite as bad as Destroy who won't even eat food that is on the same plate as a vegetable (thank goodness for multivitamins!). So you can imagine my surprise when a couple of months ago while we were visiting my in-laws, Search decided that he wanted to try some corn on the cob. I was even more surprised when he decided that he liked it and devoured the whole thing.

So now we have corn quite often so that I can gaze at my child with corn all over his face and think to myself how happy I am that we've had a vegetable breakthrough! Who knows, maybe there will be more in the future!

Search's first kiss. I guess it didn't go too well because now he pulls her hair and bites her all the time.

Happy Birthday, Search!

Search turned two yesterday (crazy, I know). Last week I asked Destroy what kind of cake we should make for Search and Destroy told me we should make him an "I Dig Dirt" cake. "I Dig Dirt" is Search's favorite movie. Search was pretty excited that there were trucks on his cake but the first thing he did after he blew his candles out was to start picking off the trucks. Thanks, Mom, for the idea for the dirt (crushed up Grasshopper cookies), it turned out really cute. His friends B, M, Ella, Julia, Ella (again), Blake, Brad, Sam, Tommy and of course Destroy, came to sing for him. While trying to blow out his candles he left a long streak of 2-year-old drool on one of the pieces. I guess he was marking his piece of cake. Yesterday I decided that I would let Search do whatever he wanted... so he got to blow bubbles while eating his cereal, wear his rainboots outside even though it wasn't raining and he even wanted to take a nap. So I let him do that too. But that wasn't too hard for me to do.