Swingset

Wonderful neighbors passed down their swingset to us and it has been such a lifesaver with being stuck at home with Eden taking naps in her crib.  Yay!!  Boys are on it constantly.  Owen is a little acrobat and can climb the 8 ft. rope like lightning, swing across the monkey bars, flip here and there...amazing.  New England winters are way too long with 2 little boys...they belong outside :)

HAIRCUT!!!

If you don't spend regular time with us, you will not know that Asher has turned into a shaggy beast.  He completely rejects all notions of hair-cutting.  The last time he was able to get one was just after Eden was born when we were still in the hospital and my mom and sis held him down through the ensuing tantric fit and the stylist went after him.  I have been trying the gentle approach ever since (because this kid has HAIR!  Tons of super-thick, fast-growing stuff).  But my approach has resulted in...a very long-haired kid.  The closest we got was playing a game where we all got to have a snip, taking turns (I lost more hair than I would have liked to that evening) and saving the hair to make a craft with it (gluing it on a picture of a hairy monster and adding google eyes).  That got the bangs done temporarily but nothing else.  Owen had started suggesting that Asher wear dresses because he looked like a GIRL (heaven forbid!), but Asher just smiled.  I have asked him about 3-4 times a week if I can give him a haircut.  I get a curt and polite, 'No.' and then he's off to do whatever he was busy with.  I offer many bribes, but not are tantalizing enough.  Until today!  I told him that Dad would take him to the Jelly Belly store and let him fill up a bag with jellybeans if he let me cut his hair.  He hesitated...then, yes!!  Miracle!  I've tried that very bribe before, but no cigar.  He did not like this haircut one bit and after about 5 minutes he was done and it got more difficult.  But he chose it, and that made it somewhat successful.  The result is a pretty awful haircut, and I wish I could have had more time (cutting one swath of hair is a challenge, it's so thick and long!).  But it's a step in the right direction.  He got his jellybeans and he looks a *little* more like a boy again.  I think it was a combo of sheer repetition of the idea, and finally a sufficient bribe.  Now...to pottytrain.  Been putting that one off, same reasons.  :P

 (Nice.  Bangs go short to long from left to right.  But if I cut them all as short as the shortest spot it will look worse...!)

This and That

Gardening ventures...

Part I:  The Easter Garden.  The kids and I made this based on something I'd seen on a blog.  Was supposed to grow grass.  The soil was only about an inch thick, which means that it needs to be watered about 10 times per day to stay moist enough to germinate the seed.  Didn't happen!  But we did enjoy telling the Easter story and putting a 'body' in the tomb on Friday, closing it up, and at breakfast on Easter morning the stone was rolled aside, the body was gone and the wrapping lying to the side.  Excellent visual!

Part II:  Bullied by Owen and Mommo into gardening (Ha ha!).  Black thumb as I am, my family members have somehow coerced me into gardening this summer.  We have sprouted seeds.  We have dug up the yard, and last weekend have planted the seeds.  I do believe that Asher's feet may be a bigger threat than weeds and varmints put together.  So I am trying to keep him off of our veggies.  The ones that made it into the garden were snow peas, green beans, chard, carrots, red peppers, squash, cucumbers, and perhaps radishes?  Who knows what we'll actually get.  Asher knocked our seed beds onto the floor at one point and it was fruit basket upset (vegetable seedling upset, actually).  So we may end up with something entirely different than we think in our neat little rows!

Dad and Eden after church:

Owen and Asher on the way to a Peter Pan-themed birthday party.  Boys were invited to wear pirate costumes if they had them.  It was a friend Owen's age, so he got to wear our pirate costume from the costume box.  Asher couldn't go without costume, so he went as the veterinarian...to care for the crocodile after he consumed Capt. Hook??

Free at last

Eden was put to bed tonight without her swaddle wrap for the first time.  It was a little rough.  She cried pretty hard for 10 or 15 minutes (heartwrenching!!), but then fell asleep.  I hope she'll adjust quickly; the boys did, but every baby seems to be different.  She has definitely been the one to like it the most, she's never wiggled out of it at all by the end of a nap or in the morning.  There just reaches a point where she is starting to outgrow our wraps, it gets exhausting to keep them clean and available, and she is at an age where she might want to roll (and Asher slept SO much better once he was rolling onto his tummy to sleep).  Time to ditch the swaddle.  Plus, who wants to spend TWELVE hours at night with one's arms pinned to ones sides...well, apparently Eden did :}  Reuel got home and went in to change his clothes and said she was sleeping with one arm straight up...that is, not up above her head, but perpendicular to her body axis, straight up in the air.  I looked in...yup!  So funny.  How do you keep your arm like that when you sleep??  Next, I have to get her sleeping flat on a mattress instead of in this little newborn nest that came with the pack 'n play.  I figure one change at a time.  The nest looks so cozy.  I'm nervous to take her out since she's doing OK in there!!

My (lack of) figure

I was looking through pictures with Asher this morning.  Why, I ask, oh why, is it so hard to lose weight when I am nursing?  If my body is producing this...why could my legs not shrink just a bit in the process?  :}  This is Asher at 5 months.  I don't think Eden is turning out to be quite the chunk that her older brother was!!

Asher Milestone

Asher took a red sharpie marker to my white laminate kitchen cabinets today.  So he subsequently reached the 'learned what mommy looks like when she's *really* angry' milestone.  Props to cousin Hye for the winning solution when isopropyl alcohol wasn't quite cutting it...color over the sharpie with a dry erase marker, then rub off everything before it dries.  Brilliant!

More from the Jobber

Owen's jobber is back, and in a good mood.  The jobber has so far ordered cleaning up the living room toys, hanging up coats and placing the shoes in a straight line, all of which were completed!  Currently the jobber puts anyone in jail who doesn't comply with his orders.  I was just told that the jobber told Owen that Mom had to help, too, and I had better listen or I'll go to jail.

How can I say no to the jobber?

Good for the goose, good for the gander

Owen really likes money.  He is quite money-motivated.  I don't remember being very money motivated as a kid, but I don't remember much about being 4.  Maybe I was too at that age.  If you open up Owen's piggy bank (which happens every time the boys play a round of 'The Money Game'...a created game in which all contents of two piggy banks are poured into a pile and then there is a race to refill piggy banks and get the most money in yours as fast as you can!) you find quite a collection.  Plenty of coins, sure, but a surprising number of 5, 10 and 20 dollar bills.  *MY* 5, 10, and 20 dollar bills, thank you very much.  I am often wondering how I went through my cash so quickly, and reminding Owen that money he finds in the house is not necessarily his to take.

Owen gets coins here or there for participating in chores or doing special extra 'jobs'.  Anyway, after getting his reward he usually fondles it for some period of hours, putting it in and out of his pocket, savoring his treasure (think Gollum, "My Precioussss").  Then, he inevitably leaves it out in plain sight on a table or sofa, and is devastated when it is later scattered to the four winds or missing entirely.

I should have seen it coming.

Owen:  MOM, WHERE IS MY MONEY!!!  I CAN'T FIND IT NOW!!! (whine, sob)
Me:  Owen, I've told you time and again if you want to keep your money, you've got to put it somewhere safe and keep track of it.  If you leave your money laying around, it might not be there when you get back.  
Owen:  Like when you leave your money out and I take it and put it in my piggy bank?
Me:  [Pause.  Caught.]  Yep.  Like that.  :}

This too shall pass...???

Little Asher has been coughing at night for a little while now, some nights I don't hear him, other nights a big coughing fit.  Well, two nights ago it was really bad, and he woke up with some wheezing that got worse through the day.  To the doctor we went at 5:30p. 

Asher in the last probably 6mo-1yr has become increasingly resistant to any entrances into his personal space.  The list of things he absolutely abhors includes haircuts, hair-combing, and apparently...doctor visits.  He hadn't been since his 2 year old checkup (it's been a healthy year for us).  The moment he realized last night that we were there for him, it was ALL OVER.  He was an absolute nightmare.  Full-on otherworldly fear and tantruming, noncompliance, using every ounce of energy he had to fight.  And this was just for getting a temperature in his ear.  Once the stethoscope came out it got even worse if that is possible.  Two of us could barely hold him down for the basic inventory of vitals.  After a half-hour of this, he fell into an instant and exhausted sleep on my lap (6pm is his bedtime lately, so that wasn't helping).  Once he fell asleep he was able to be evaluated and treated (slept through an entire nebulizer treatment!).

So, I don't know if albuterol causes this, or if it was our little Asher, but when we finally left (he slept for almost an hour there!), he woke up, was right as rain (until he caught sight of the nurse, but he recovered) and as we walked out to the car through the long-deserted building he says, "Dat was a cool aventure, mom!"

SERIOUSLY??  I just grew about 60 grey hairs...not my definition of a cool adventure.  Then we get in the car and he is flying high.  "I LOVE dis music, mom."  "Wow, look at all the cars!! I love them!"  Me:  "Asher, next time we go to the doctor you do not need to cry so hard.  That is a no-no."  (Do I think this instruction has an effect?  No, of course not.)

Getting him to take the nebulizer treatments today has been quite a battle.  Not nearly as bad as last night though.  So here I am torn between many thoughts.
1. I feel bad that Asher is so terrified of these things...poor guy.
2. Why is there not a level of trust with his parents that he receives no comfort or confidence from our presence and attempted comforting?
3. We do not have a great discipline handle on this kid because he's always been 'easier' and we just haven't had to lay down the law as much as we did with Owen.  Also, we're too busy to train him as much as we did Owen.  However, that's showing now.  I think a lot of the behavior would have been milder if he would respond to my instruction and [said sheepishly] threats more readily.
4.  The whole thing was just awful.  I can envision a scenario where he would really need treatment for something and would not be able to receive it because of his behavior.  That's not a place I want for him to be.
5.  It's interesting to consider that one of the places it might be most important for your child to comply with your directions (i.e., TAKE THE MEDICINE!) is also one of the places I absolutely cannot spank him or threaten to spank him.  That would be a no-no in the medical establishment, at least here.  Although in all honesty, with as much fear and tantruming as he had going, a spanking was not going to stop it anyway...probably would have just accelerated the crazy.  Though generally Asher is very good about changing his tune for threat of a spank...in normal life.

This too shall pass?  Oh, I hope so.  Also hope he doesn't end up with asthma or something, but too early to tell that yet. 

Easter snaps

Rock-lifting

We were digging up a patch of yard for a vegetable garden yesterday.  As we were removing some biggish fieldstones from the excavated dirt, we were talking about the stone in front of Jesus' tomb, and how it was super heavy and no person could move it by themselves.  Then it went like this:

Owen: [gruuuunt] Wow Mom, look at how heavy of a rock *I* can lift.  I am SUPER strong.  Yeah.  Am I the strongest guy?
Me:  Not as strong as Daddy!  Daddy can lift heavier rocks than that!
Owen: (always obsessed with competition and being the best) Can Daddy lift up the biggest rock in the yard?
Me:  Well maybe but probably not.
Owen:  Well I know who could.  GOD could!  God could be the winner of lifting rocks around here.
Me:  Well, yes he could, you're right!  But you know what?  God doesn't care about being the winner about that.  He cares more about loving people.  He even died on the cross and it seemed like he wasn't winning. 
Owen:  You mean that even though he has those superpowers he might NOT USE THEM to lift up the biggest rock???

Nor to get down off the cross.  Prayers for my boys to know the incomprehensible love that sacrificed for us.  Happy Easter weekend!!

Sugar and spice

...and all things nice.  Eden is no great sleeper, as we know.  But oh my, what a difference at her current stage vs. the boys.  She almost never cries when I put her down to sleep, even if I'm too early, and only a little if I'm too late.  (Unfortunately, sometimes that means she'll talk to herself and stay awake in there for 30 or 40 minutes if my timing isn't great!!  If I made that mistake with Owen, he would SCREAM the whole time.  Asher not too much better.)  And here's the kicker.  Just now she was starting to drift off in the car (a rare event) and we were so close to home that I hurried her inside, wrapped her up, got her right back to drowsy and put her down.  Of course, she protested VERY loudly.  Picked her up again, tried to put down again...scream.  So instead of picking her up, I just leaned down and put my cheek right next to hers, touching, and said Shhh.  Lo and behold, stopped crying, calmed down, drifted off.  Moved away, she stirred and wanted my cheek back, which I did, and she was out.  What an experience!!  I was never able to pull off a maneuver like that with the male counterparts!!!!  She's a sweetie pie, all around.

Public health warning

Real-time eavesdropping from the next room:

[Owen to Asher:]  DON'T put coins in your mouth!  Don't DO it!  You will CHOKE on it.  If you swallow it, you will have to get an X-RAY!!!  You will have to go to the hospital!!!  You will even get SURGERY.  Surgery is WORSE THAN THE DOCTOR!! At the hospital they will stick a needle in you.  So just don't do it.  Don't eat the money!