It Depends on the Point of View

My daughter is a little.....bossy.  Yes, I know most 3 year old kids can be, but Zoe really, really loves telling people what to do.  For now, people think it's cute (or so they say to my face), but I do worry that someday soon it's not going to be so endearing if she keeps it up.  It's an interesting situation to be in, because I know that I don't want to discourage her propensity to take the lead...that personality trait could definitely serve her well in the future, but I also feel like if she doesn't learn to reign it in, it could work against her in social situations.  I take comfort in the fact that if someone else is leading her, she'll usually follow along happily so I think it's just that she likes to play "teacher" or "mommy"...games in which she is the authority figure are her favorite and most frequent, but in her real life she can go with the flow as much as any other kid her age..sometimes more.  I know, I know--fine line but it's comforting to me right now so just let me have that much.  Plus, she's still so young so I'm not stressing it TOO much for now.  After all, it's pretty funny to witness.

I was telling her teachers that she is really going to miss going to school this summer, and one of them told me that means I have to make sure home is like school as much as I can.  It made me laugh because that is really ALL we do at home.  "Circle Time" is a regular activity and sometimes it can take place as much as 5 times in a single morning.  She has this hilarious, impossible to duplicate "teacher voice" that she uses when she is being a teacher or a mommy.  Once in a while, I'll find myself enjoying a relatively quiet moment during Owen's naptime, when all of the sudden there will be this booming voice yelling "CIRCLE TIIIIIME!!!"  Honestly, it startles me often and one time I actually jumped and let out a little yelp, it was so abrupt.  Although it makes me groan a bit, being told what to do (especially when what I'm doing at that moment involves closing my eyes and relaxing) but really it could be worse.  I mean, I can't blame her for wanting to PLAY right?  Of all the games she likes to play, "Circle Time" is the easiest to go along with because all you have to do is sit there (wherever she instructs you to sit, of course) and listen to her "read" books (which is completely awesome) and talk about the letter of the day and stuff.  She does make you participate but it's usually just as simple as repeating something she says (usually pretty awesome too...the other day, she was holding up an eraser saying "Repeat after me: wuh-wuh-wuh-way-sooooh").

Anyway, school is officially over for Zoe AND Nathan until the end of the summer so we are enjoying some long-awaited time together before Nathan has to find a summer job.  Today though, Nathan did work a bit in the morning and then I went to the craft store by myself in the afternoon!  I went completely hog-wild there thanks to a generous birthday gift from Nathan's parents (thanks Gary and Sandi!)...when I got home we had a blast being outside enjoying the weather and then Nathan grilled and we ate our dinner on the patio.  Yay!  Tomorrow, we're getting all dressed up again to go to Nathan's graduation--WOOHOO!!!  We are so proud of him and all the hard work he's put in these past couple of years here...so happy to have the chance to cheer for him and see him in his cap and gown!

I haven't felt particularly inspired to do much crafting these last couple of weeks, what with the sleep deprivation and the trip to Boston, but we have managed to fit in some fun activites:

I got this idea for Owen from TinkerLab the other day.  I was excited when I saw it because we go through so many of these big yogurt containers, and I happened to have a big bag of fabric scraps from The Lion King kicking around our apartment.  I brought them home for Zoe when she was a baby and I was working there, but since she grew out of playing with them they've been sort of sitting around doing nothing...

Zoe and I made some granola from this great kid-friendly cookbook my sister Emily got for me for my birthday.  It's called Salad People and it's written by the woman who does the Moosewood cookbooks.  It's so great and the granola was really really easy and soooo tasty!

I got some big balloons at the craft store and decided to fill them up with a little water (not very much, so they wouldn't break easily) and just gave them to her to see what she'd come up with.  It kept her busy for at LEAST an hour and I know she'd be happy to revisit them again at any time so I highly recommend this activity....

Throwing them down the hill...

Spinning and hurling them...

Talking to them like babies...

Catching them in her butterfly net...

No idea.

I also got her that butterfly net at the craft store, and although she looked and looked, she never found any bugs to chase and catch with it.  When we got home, I gave her a little shoebox and told her to set it up so that when she DOES catch bugs on another day she'll have a comfortable place for them to be....she worked on that for a while too and was really proud of the result...

She did end up dumping it after dinner when she realized it had gotten "all messed up", and was pretty upset but she recovered quickly and I know she'll be more than happy to do it again the next time we're enjoying being outside!

Have Baby Will Travel

I made it through another air travel experience with a baby!  Hooray!  We spent the weekend in the Boston area celebrating the recent marriage of my brother and sister-in-law, and it was a great time.  As you would expect, it was a complete whirlwind experience but totally worth the trip.  Got some much needed time with my awesome family, complete with bust-a-gut laughing, sweet niece and nephew dance moves and top-of-your-lungs singing to classic 80's tunes.  I have to admit, though that the weekend served as confirmation that having two kids has killed more brain cells than all of that irresponsible behavior I displayed in college and my early 20's.  It's a really good thing the party was in the same building as the room we spent the night in because every time I left our room, I had to look at (and repeat to myself, in an effort to memorize) our room number....and I had basically one glass of wine all night, so I can't even say it's because I was drunk.  I have no idea what the name of the hotel was, and I'm not entirely sure what town (city?) we were actually in.  I'm serious.  Thank goodness I had a crowd of people to follow around and/or tell me what to do and where to go so I didn't end up wandering the nearby mall looking for the dance floor.

Anyway, Nathan and I took separate planes because originally it was going to be just me and the baby going.  By the time we found out Nathan and Zoe could come too, tickets on the same flight were around $400 more expensive!  So, separate planes it was...the way there for me and Owen was pretty uneventful.  Not great, not horrible so not much to complain about but, I have to say the way home was....I can't exactly say "enjoyable" because I don't think air travel with babies is EVER that great but it was really okay.  I attribute this to a few things, and for future trips I plan on trying to repeat the things that were semi-controllable and cross my fingers for the things that we lucked out on this time around:

1) Instead of sitting in the back, in the window seat which is my usual preference I sat in the very front row, aisle seat.  (Extra leg space and close proximity to the bathroom.)

2) The people around me were really understanding and extremely friendly about the baby thing.  Usually, I find that people don't acknowledge me or the kids until we land.  It's almost like no one wants to jinx anything so they wait until the end to tell me how well my kids behaved.

3) No one made me feel like an exhibitionist for nursing.  This was especially important today because after a crazy weekend being woken up constantly and not having a good solid nap for 3 days, Owen's pattern on the plane was:  nurse for 15 minutes, nap for 15-30 minutes, wake up and be happy for 15-30 minutes, start to get fussy for 10 minutes, nurse for 15 minutes, nap for...and then when we were landing, his ears started hurting so he was getting really fussy, and the only thing that calmed him down was..you guessed it!

4) At some point in the middle of the trip, I asked the flight attendant how much time we had left.  I was hoping she was going to say 45 minutes or an hour but she said 2 1/2 HOURS!  So, I tried telling myself we had just taken off and that the flight was only 2 1/2 hours long (an amount of time on a plane with a baby that feels totally doable to me).  It (kind of) helped!

5) The flight attendant stationed nearest to me helped distract Owen and made him smile whenever she got a chance.  I attribute this to sitting up front, too...the attendant that is stationed up there can see you clearly and doesn't leave the front of the plane very often.  I think it's nice for them, too to have a baby to smile at (if they happen to like kids, of course).

6)  My friend Mariah picked me up at the airport.  Since Nathan and Zoe's plane came in a whole 3 hours after mine, it was nice to be able to just head on home instead of waiting at the airport for them, especially since I got home around bedtime for Owen.  Plus, Mariah and I got to chat in the car with no big kids interrupting us every 30 seconds!

So, although I was kind of dreading the trip home today we lived through it and I managed to stay almost stress free.  Yay!

Here are some photos from the party--enjoy!  Congrats Ike and Sandy!!

Giggling with Uncle Ben the morning of the party

After swimming snack

All gussied up!

Being silly with Jesse

Owen was such a patient little dude all night..had this funny look on his face for hours!

Dancin'!

Uncle Mike making all the kids dizzy

Dancing Queen

Sweet (and tired) Finn

WHOOP WHOOP!!

Alex's hilarious "I like big butts" dance moves

Zoe LOVED dancing with Dziadzu!

Dancing with Uncle Ben and Auntie Catherine

Me, Kristy and Jill

Dancing with Daddy

"First Dance"

Sign of a great night...passed out in her party clothes

Leeching

Confession:  I completely and shamelessly take advantage of the knowledge, skills and experience of my parents and siblings.  My immediate family is made up of smart, capable people and I suppose I can't be blamed for badgering them constantly with questions about how they handle life.  For instance, I constantly resist the urge to call my brother Wally to ask medical questions in regard to the kids.  He told me once (before I had kids) that I was the person that called him the most with random questions...how embarrassing!! I wouldn't be surprised if there was a required course in medical school entitled "How to Manage Clueless and Relentless Family Members" with someone matching my description on the cover of the text book.  Sometimes, though I just can't help myself and I give in and call him out of the blue.  I do my best to carry on a conversation to make it seem like I'm not calling to ask a question, but that the question I inevitably ask halfway through the phone call just happened to pop into my head.  I don't know who I think I'm fooling, but it's certainly not Wally.  If I were him, my eyeballs would be sore from the constant rolling following any phone conversation with me.  On top of that, I do the same thing to Ivan (math wiz who can answer any question regarding finances) and Ben (computer genius). Not to mention my Mom (of COURSE.  Need I explain??), Jill, Rachel and Emily (amazing moms and incredible people in general...any one of them can field the most random and/or rambling life question you can throw at them), my Dad (another amazing doctor), and all the sickly amazing people my siblings all married (and are engaged to--yay!!).  Talk about hitting the jackpot, being born into such a crew.   Thank you universe.

Speaking of random, but also of marriage...Zoe asked me today:

Zoe: When will I get married?
Me:  Not until you're an adult...if you even decide you want to, that is.
Zoe:  I do want to..why not until I'm an adult?
Me:  Because when you get married, you promise to be with someone for the rest of your life.  You have to be sure that's what you want.
Zoe:......Maybe just for the rest of the DAY.

Now that Owen is finally feeling better (thank goodness!!) I've been having a lovely time with the kids again..I'm still really tired, because sleeping is still a struggle around here but the older Owen gets and the more they interact the more fun we all have together.  Owen took AWESOME naps today, so Zoe and I had some time to hang out quietly.  I realized that since I've become more interested in craft projects, I had completely forgotten how fun and worthwhile just plain ol' coloring with crayons could be.  Zoe talked me into it today and I was so glad she did.  She wanted to make some pictures for Daddy and we worked at it for a really long time.  She's always shocking me these days at how much more she's capable of when it comes to drawing...here are hers from today:

This is a map of where we live.  The blue squiggles are Boulder and surrounding it is Brooklyn.

This was her take on what I was working on (below).  She said the colors in the middle are our house "See?  It's getting smaller and smaller and smaller?"

I found this idea on the Idea Box for abstract doodle art.  I thought there was a chance she'd be into it, and she kind of was.  She helped me pick out my colors and did her own version (above).  I think this is a great activity for older kids and it really relaxed me to sit and work on it for a bit.  I'm showing you a picture of mine, not because I think it's anything to brag about (seriously, though I am GOOD, aren't I??) but so that you can get an idea of what it can look like...

This afternoon, we had our friends Cameron, Leisel and Marisa over to play.  Cameron and Zoe are really great buddies and apparently for quite a while now, Cameron has been telling his parents that he wants to build a house for Zoe (such a sweetheart!!).  So, they found this cool dollhouse at the craft store that you put together and then can color however you want.  It was so thoughtful and sweet and a great gift because she can just keep adding to it as much as she wants.  They worked on it a bit together while they were here and then after they left, Zoe and Nathan dove into it even further.  Thanks for thinking of Zoe, Cam!!

Teamwork!

Nathan helped her start getting all the accessories put together

I love all the eyes!!

Thank you Easter Bunny!

So, we just finished a parenting duty that's caught me by surprise in a great way.  I discovered last year that being the Easter Bunny is really really fun!  I'm not sure why I didn't expect it to be, because I love that kind of stuff, but it's just the best!  This year was even more fun because Zoe is totally clear on what is happening.  Poor thing had a terrible time getting to sleep because she was so excited. ("How is the Easter Bunny going to get up the stairs?  Oh, I know!  He'll just hop!", "How will the Easter Bunny get over our gate?  He'll hop over it?  Oh yeah, cuz he's a bunny!")  We told her the Easter Bunny (just like Santa) has magical powers and can tell the moment you go to sleep, and waits until you are to come to your house.  That, along with the fact that she took a nap in the car today resulted in an hour of attempting to fall sleep before she actually did.  She kept trying to fool Nathan into thinking she was asleep by saying "Daddy, I'm asleep now."  Somehow, Nathan was able to see through the trickery, and we waited until she was snoring away to start stuffing eggs, hiding baskets and writing treasure hunt clues.  Fun!

After we were done, we started exchanging Easter morning memories with each other and I was relating a story about a dream that one of us kids had when we were little about seeing the Easter Bunny in our house and how he tripped on a pillow while hopping down the hallway.  I remember it as a very dramatic, scarring dream (even though I'm not sure anymore if it was me who had the dream or one of my 6 siblings) for some reason and recall it every Easter.  Nathan trumped it by a thousand, though when he told me about his recurring nightmare from when he was a kid.  Apparently he dreamed (8 or 9 times) that the Easter Bunny came to his church every year to kill everyone.  He looked just like a person in a bunny costume would if they were also holding a machine gun.  No one was frightened, they just knew that he wanted them to line up youngest to oldest, and since Nathan was the youngest he knew he was going to be killed first.  So, he went into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet mirror and found a box of heart shaped chocolates.  He grabbed them so he could give them to God when he saw Him.......WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT??????????????  Now, THAT is dramatic and scarring.  I feel quite sure it has something to do with his present-day outlook on religion but feel too tired to analyze it.

Anyway, we had a fun day today with our friends the May-Ostendorps.  We took a day trip to see a sculpture park they go to often in Loveland and to take a tour of the New Belgium brewery in Fort Collins.  It was pretty gray and cold but a fun day all the same...the sculpture park is really cool and pictures don't do it justice but here are a few attempts:

Wishbone

Two right feet

Then before dinner at home, we dyed Easter eggs.  For some reason, I don't like doing this but luckily, Nathan does.  I love the way they look but just don't like the process.  It most likely has something to do with heightened expectations, but feel too tired to analyze that as well.  Nathan is usually the one to rally us and get it done (along with cooking Thanksgiving dinner and decorating for Christmas...what would I do without him??) but this year I wanted to find a way to involve myself and have fun with it.  I was reminded by a couple of blogs that if you draw on the egg first with white crayon, your design shows up after you dip it so I did that (which I enjoyed).  My favorite, though was this technique I saw on Pink and Green Mama where you use a colander and food coloring and just sort of swirl it around.  Really fun and easy and I love how they came out!

Zoe put the finishing touch on all of the eggs by adding as many stickers as she possibly could to them, and just to see if she could trick the Easter Bunny, put a bunch on a clementine and put it in the egg carton along with the eggs.  Can you spot it?  :-)

Happy Easter!

Rocks and Hard Places

I went to the dentist.  I hadn't been since we were trying to get pregnant the first time around and Zoe is now three, so...I know a lot of people go a lot longer than that, seeing how UNcommon it is for people to have dental insurance, but the last time I went was because I was concerned about a sensitive tooth and I was supposed to go back 6 months after that for a follow up...four years later and halfway across the country and I finally went.  The verdict is somewhere in between my best case scenario, which I figured was that my sensitive tooth was something I couldn't do anything about and was going to have to live with (in other words, $100 for a cleaning) or worst case, at least one root canal or cap or something (several thousand dollars).  The result was middle of the road....a cavity (a few hundred dollars). She also recommended that I get my WISDOM TEETH PULLED.  Ugh!!  Thought I'd dodged that bullet when we decided I didn't need them pulled as a kid....Anyway, I paid few hundred dollars for the full mouth scan (xrays) and a consult and I was sent on my way with an estimate for the cleaning and cavity filling.  I didn't make an appointment right then so that I could talk it over with Nathan and figure out a good day and time for me to go get that done.  What's crazy is that, considering the cost I actually didn't want to go back for ANY of it...even though my tooth has been bothering me for at least 4 years, and I am definitely due for a cleaning.  Not to mention the fact that getting a cavity filled isn't exactly FUN (am I the only one whose childhood dentist didn't give them novocaine until they were old enough to ask for it??) Why is it that dental work is so easy to sweep under the rug?  Even more mysterious and frustrating is why it's so rare for people to have dental insurance, and when they do have it, it's usually crappy?  At any rate, I'll go back and shell over the cash for the cleaning and filling but will just have to wait on the wisdom teeth and hope for the best.

On the kid front, we've had some interesting bedtimes lately.  When Zoe was an only child, she--for the longest time--insisted that ONLY MOMMY could put her to bed.  It was frustrating, but I kind of just went along with it because I didn't feel like dealing with the tantrum that ensued any time we tried to let Daddy do it.  Okay, looking back, I can admit that it probably made me feel good that she wanted ME so I obliged....When I got pregnant though, all I could think about was how that was not going to fly when the new baby came.  For the past couple of months though, Nathan has been putting Zoe to bed in her room and I've been putting Owen to bed in our room and she's barely complained.  Then when we started the sleep training with Owen, Nathan and I switched kids, and now that both kids are in one room, Nathan and I decided we should take turns putting them to bed.  On Daddy's first night of this, Zoe threw an absolute FIT.  I was at a complete loss as to what to do because, unlike when she was an only child, I have absolutely no interest in being the bedtime parent every single night, but it's a huge challenge making that a reality.  It's not that I feel bad for her when she's melting down, it's that she makes it impossible to ignore her...she follows me around screaming and crying and won't lie down in her bed.  So, anyway after some great advice from a friend, Nathan and I decided to go the route of not letting her get to us (which will involve Nathan physically restraining her, safely of course, in his lap while calmly reading and pretending everything is normal) and finding the humor in it all, which is why I took the following video at bedtime last night (by the way, the little twinge of guilt I feel when watching this today is attributed to the fact that we discovered today that Owen has ANOTHER double ear infection...ugh!):

In case you can't understand her, she is saying "I WANT MOMMY TO PUT ME TO BED!! I WANT MOMMY TO PUT ME TO BED!!"  Ah, these little buggers keep us on our toes that is for sure.  I've never had a more confusing job in my life.  Of  course, if it weren't for all of the entertainment they provide they would be in big, big trouble.  Zoe has been into putting on shows for us lately, and she teamed up with her friend Hunter (who is another show biz at heart kid) the other day...

I don't know if you can make out anything they are saying, but my two favorite parts are in the beginning.  Hunter tells Zoe they have to take a sip of water, so they do and then he says "Ready, steady GO!"  So silly.

Here they are checking themselves out...

Anyway, it took a really long time, but our little glue and bead sun catchers finally dried and are hanging in our window.  I'm really happy with the way they turned out and recommend the project to children and adults of all ages.  I enjoyed making mine and it was simple enough that Zoe stayed interested the whole way through and I didn't help her with hers at all.

Mine

Hers

Finally, I just wanted to share this picture of our patio because it makes me so happy.  Spring has sprung and even though we are still getting the cold weather mixed in with the beautiful, you can't ignore the flowers that are popping and the fact that I can almost always hang my laundry outside these days..  Yay!