Life Lessons

Travis just got done playing me a song on the piano. He finished up, turned to me, and told me the song was called "The Rock" because "it rocks and rolls." That it does, Travis, that it does.

We had a fairly laid back night tonight, having a marathon of silly kids games.... Ants in the Pants, Scatterpillar Scramble, Hungry Hungry Hippo, Toy Story Kerplunk, and Cars Bingo. Most of the games involved me, Noah, and Travis crowded around the toy table, while I simultaneously focused on batting Sophie away with one hand to keep her away from the marbles, or the mini-aliens, or the ants, or the bingo discs.

But, wait, what's this? Is this all three of my children cooperating and cleaning up at the same time? With no fights, and no near-choking incidents? Ahh, the night was a success.

After our game session, Travis informed me he was "MAD!" at me, because I told him he could not play with iPhone (or the iTouch or the Droid). I told him that sometimes I get mad too... and what happens when I get mad is that I get sulky and snappy and I'm no fun to be around. And then I realize I'm not having any fun because I'm not being any fun. And if you can find a way to be fun, chances are you'll have fun. So, Travis, can you think of any way to be fun right now?

Travis contemplated this for a moment.

And then Noah licked me.

He had been sitting on my lap, absentmindedly playing with some toy, apparently heard my conversation with Travis, and decided the appropriate way to BE fun would be to lick Mom. On the cheek. All slobbery and slippery in its unabashedly slimy glory.

Well, as it turns out, its hard for pretty much any kid to be in a grumpy mood when Mom is being licked. Problem solved.

Dedicate THIS

In a testament to what a pitiful mother I've been, we had dedications at our church for Noah and Sophie this last weekend. Travis's dedication was performed when he was a sprightly 9 months old. Here's Sophie at 16 months...okay not so bad... and Noah, at a full 33 months (2 yrs 9 mo if you're trying to keep track)... certainly one of the oldest children there.

Its not as if I was on the fence about whether I would have Noah dedicated.

There was no 'principle' behind the matter.

I just procrastinated. And delayed. And forgot.

Not one of my finer moments.

At any rate, in her oh-so-Sophie way, darling Sophie spent the entire time trying to sneak her way under the seats or through my legs or some other crafty route. She can't stand being confined. And as we stood on stage while two-thirds of my glorious progeny were declared sanctified as per the tradition of the church, Sophie wriggled and struggled in my arms and implored the church officials "Up? Up?? UP UP UPUPUP??" (She says "up" to mean either "up" OR "down", or, more frequently, "DOWN to whoever currently has me and UP to whoever I'm currently trying to win over!"

So that's done.

In other news, I just put the kids to bed and Noah said, "I want to tell you about my dream" -- and I'm thinking, nice try kiddo, I just put you DOWN for bed, I might be a little daft sometimes but even I know you haven't had a dream yet. But I humored him, asked him to please tell me about his dream and he responded, "Maybe you and Dad and Travis can save me from my dream."

Hm. I wonder if he actually is having bad dreams. The kid is the most delightful pile of sunshine in the mornings that I have ever seen (contrast that with big bro, who employs his most pitiful whimper-y tone most mornings and is adamant that he just can't stand up, or walk, or eat breakfast, or get dressed.... you get the picture). Anyway, back to Noah, he rarely wakes up in the middle of the night, I just can't imagine that he's having bad dreams, but.... his plea for someone to 'save' him has me wondering. Maybe I can pry more out of him tomorrow.

And, finally, the legacy lives on. Tonight we hid hot dogs for Canada. He's got a long way to go before he is Maggie-riffic at the hot-dog search & recovery mission but I have a feeling he'll get there.

You're taking me WHERE?!?!

We had a pretty bad thunderstorm last night, and into the morning. Since this is our first week with Canada as our newest family member, we didn't know how he would react to the storm.

I think he did pretty good, I didn't hear any whining or whimpering or other such freaking out.

But, this morning, it was still going pretty good. And Ben loaded up Canada into the truck, in the pouring rain, thunder & lightning, to take him to the vet.

To get neutered.

So I have a feeling that Canada will forever associate thunderstorms with this horrible surgical experience involving emasculation. If he wasn't afraid of storms before, you can be darn sure he will be from now on.

Turn around

Today I decided to give Sophie some cereal in her very own bowl. With her very own spoon. As compared to me literally spoon-feeding her and slapping her hands away as she tried to take over operations. I will let her try feeding herself but we've never ventured so far as to try the really sloppy stuff like cereal or applesauce or pudding.

I envisioned a huge mess and was fully prepared to bat clean-up (meaning, I had Canada on stand-by). But, to my surprise, she did awesome!! She actually got a fair amount of it on the spoon, ate it without too much spillage, and I barely helped at all. I actually left her alone for the last half instead of hovering over her shoulder, and came back to the bowl still intact on the table as opposed to tossed on the floor with Honey Nut Cheerios (I mean Honey Nut Spins) strewn everywhere.

Good job Sophie!

In other Sophie news, she is now forward-facing in her car seat. Yes, she is over 16 months old, but she just recently topped out over 20 lbs which is the one half of the required benchmark for turning around. But she was starting to get a little squished with her little legs unable to stretch all the way out unless she stuck them straight up in the air. Good things she's flexible.

So, now she's turned around, like the big kids. Its kind of a metaphor for her life. She's leaving babyhood behind, where everything just happened to her without her having any control. And she's heading full speed forward as a toddler, ready to take the world by storm.

And finally, I just now got around to making the birthday video for Travis. Behold....

Monday's child

Sometimes I wonder what Noah would have been like had he been the first child.

He and Travis are light years apart in terms of personality... and some of that was perceptible from infancy, so there's parts of it that I'm sure have nothing to do with birth order. But a lot of who Noah is has to do with how he sees Travis reacting. Not that they react the same way, but Noah's reaction is somehow gauged by what his big brother does.

Sometimes, I think he purposefully reacts exactly opposite of Travis, because there is an opposite there for him to see....unlike Travis, who had to traverse that territory all on his own.

Noah's a bit more rambunctious than his older brother, a bit more willing to break the rules. But he also has a crazily infectious smile, and its impossible not to fall in love with his sparkly eyes and sense of humor, and the way his whole face lights up when he's happy.

Anyway, I got to thinking about this, and thinking about how dramatically different his life would be if he was just born at a different time.

This got me thinking about the miscarriage we had just before getting pregnant with Noah (and when I say just before, I mean just before....we got pregnant with Noah well before my doctor advised it was safe to do so after the miscarriage and before we even thought it was possible for us to conceive again). I remember how it felt back then, like my life was caving in on me. It was such a sad, forlorn, empty pain that I felt. There is something about feeling like I failed my unborn child, like I couldn't provide it with the safe haven it deserved and thus its life was not allowed to continue. It was an early miscarriage -- but my motherly instinct kicked in for that clump of cells just the same as for any other baby. That was MY clump of cells and I fully intended to develop that clump of cells into a beautiful, nurtured, well-loved bundle of joy.

I remember after losing that pregnancy, Ben trying to cheer me up and saying, "Don't worry -- we'll get pregnant again." And my tearful response, "But I don't want to get pregnant with another baby... I want THIS baby!" I still remember with clarity how that felt, how unfair it seemed that God was asking me to let go of that child that I'd already connected with, and that I was supposed to replace that with some eventual baby that we'd probably have. How could I replace that baby? What kind of mother could do that? I felt it was important that we not get pregnant right away because it seemed disrespectful to this lost child...like all I wanted was a baby and I didn't care what baby it was.

But, alas, we did get pregnant right away... and as it turns out, I was dead wrong. I most certainly DID want to get pregnant with that other baby, because it has turned into my darling Noah, who I could not imagine life without.

There's still a little part of me that mourns for that lost child - even though we've been so blessed and our lives have turned out so well. I think of it as God's way of saying He had hand-picked Noah especially for us, and we just needed to be a little more patient so that we could have Noah in our lives.

Fun Fair, indeed

Tonight was the last meeting of the Holy Cross Fun Fair Committee. I joined this year because a woman that works with Ben and lives in our neighborhood is heading it up and needed some volunteers. Being that this is Travis's first year at that school and I really don't have any other dealings with the Holy Cross community, I'm a little clueless as to what on earth I could possibly contribute to this group.

At any rate, the Fun Fair is in a couple weeks, and I believe will turn out quite nicely. The organizer, Lisa, assigned everyone a nice little job, and I hit the jackpot of jobs by being asked to coordinate the outside games. These are the big, fancy games that we hire a vendor to handle -- so there's not much to my job other than finding a good vendor and picking out what looks like fun. Lisa knew I would be likely be overwhelmed with anything that involved actual work, seeing as how this was my first experience with the Fun Fair, so she set me up nicely.

So I called around and talked to a few vendors, and then one name that came up was one that I see every year when one of my largest clients has this large annual festival that I help coordinate the insurance for -- and this vendor came well recommended. So I get their prices, ask if they could offer us a discount because its "for the kids" (as if all the other events they do involving big inflatable toys aren't for the kids -- no, I'm sure these get rented out for office parties and hunting clubs all the time), and its a church and we don't have that big of a budget and so they offer us a discount and I gather all the info and present it to Lisa.

And she flips out. Turns out, the pricing I got is about half to one-third of what they typically spend on this event each year, and the stuff is better too. So we have a bouncy house, an inflatable slide, an inflatable obstacle course, and a gigantic rock wall all to be set up in the parking lot of the elementary school for the kiddies to enjoy.

So, now, my job is done, it was super-easy, my volunteering experience for Holy Cross was incredibly enjoyable and not stressful at all. I intend to tell Lisa that, as she did a phenomenal job coordinating the whole thing and I am terribly impressed by what she was able to get done. But I have a sneaking suspicion that she's swindling me into thinking it is always this easy so I'll be on board for future committees.

I'm just kidding. Kind of.

T-Ball

Tonight, Ben and I decided to 'divide and conquer', as is so often the case nowadays since we are outnumbered. He took Noah out to do some grocery shopping, get a haircut, do some cell-phone shopping (Ben is much better at shopping than I am... that's another blog post altogether). I took Travis and Sophie to T-ball practice.

It was such a nice night, I thought it wouldn't be too difficult to hang out at the ball park for an hour or so, let Sophie toddle around as we watched the 5- and 6-year olds tackle each other while racing to field the ball, playing with dirt in the outfield, and other random goings-on of a typical T-ball practice. I wouldn't say it was difficult, although Sophie is quite the busybody.

She started off by depositing her stuffed duck and plush baseball and purple hat in the lap of Travis's teammate's mother. She spent about fifteen minutes going back and forth between said mother and whoever else she could find in the stands to charm with her wily ways. She got bored with that fairly quickly though, and decided she most definitely deserved to be out on the ball field with the big kids.

I so wish I would have brought my camera... I wanted to get a picture of Travis at practice, and it would have been fabulous to capture the memory of Sophie rushing home plate with soft stuffed baseball in hand, looking for all the world like she belonged on the baseball diamond in her 16-month old glory.

But, of course, I forgot my camera.

I forgot something else, as it turns out. I forgot to remove my keys from the car before locking it. Which means, when practice ends, and I'm digging through my purse for the keys, I all of a sudden realize they are most certainly not in there and then it dawns on me where they probably are. Crap.

The kicker... Ben had misplaced his cell phone so had taken my cell phone for the day because... well, a) he needs a phone for work, and b) I suck at using / charging/ talking on / and otherwise taking advantage of the technological capacity of cell phones. Travis's coach let me borrow his phone but to no avail... I left a message at our home number but of course he wasn't there, and he wasn't answering my phone (left it at the house, oops).

So I'm stranded at the ball park with a 5-year-old and a 1-year-old and we're all getting a little grumpy and tired and ready to go home. But, seeing as how I'm so resourceful, I realized that a friend of mine just so happened to be on the other side of the park watching her son playing his baseball game. I tracked her down and she was able to give our sad little stranded family a ride back home.

So, all's well that ends well, we did end up having a nice night. But, I'm as forgetful as I've ever been and its starting to catch up with me. There was something else I wanted to say but...I forget.

Our new best friend

Ben tries to train Canada into a Frisbee dog. He might have his work cut out for him.

Our sweet little puppy -- we love him!

Playing in the backyard. Is she cute or what??

Travis doesn't want to be overlooked. Take a picture of me too, Ma!

I don't normally lock my kids up in cages. (I am tempted to sometimes, I have to admit.) But they insisted.

Oh, Canada

Well, our family just can't seem to stop growing. We decided to get a dog. I always knew we'd get one eventually but for a while its just seemed like to much to add to our lives. But for the last few weeks I've really been itching for a dog, it just seemed like the right time for the kids and all.

So we did a little searching, found one we liked at the Humane Society in our neighboring county, took the kids for a visit, we all loved him, found out we were 2nd on the list to get him as some other family had already put a "hold" on him. Ben figured this would be just like all the great deals he finds on Jeeps or boats or what-have-you on craigslist, where he finds a phenomenal deal only to find out it slipped out from underneath him and sold two minutes before he contacts the seller. Which is to say, he pessimistically assumed we would not get this dog and worried about how the kids would take it since we'd already taken them to meet him. I figured the kids would love whatever dog we decided to get, so not a big deal.

But, lucky for us, the other family did not get this dog for whatever reason. So Ben called this morning, found out he was still there and ours for the taking, I went over after work and officially adopted him.

Oh -- one part of the story I left out -- Ben made me watch the movie "Marley & Me" before we started picking out dogs. He wanted to test me to make sure I really wanted one. Yes, we will be sad when we lose this dog -- but that doesn't mean I want us or our kids to miss out on the joy of having a beloved dog, particularly for our kids in their formative years. Plus, like I tell Travis when something happens that he doesn't like, losing a pet builds character. (As does having to eat a bit of pineapple when you don't like pineapple; and having to turn off the Wii when you don't feel like it; and a whole host of other unfortunate events to which my poor offspring are subjected.)

Anyway, so far, Canada is turning out to be a fabulous dog. He is a Sheltie mix, 6-months old, playful but not obnoxiously so, pretty mild-mannered for a puppy, handles the kids very well, is lovable and reasonably social but not overwhelming. The kids adore him. Sophie spent the evening just about ready to explode with excitement; Travis played fetch with him; and Noah laid on the floor and tried to have a conversation with him. (All I could catch of this conversation was "Canada, you need a vacation. Have you seen my vacation?")

the Sophie show

Every Wednesday, Travis has speech therapy in the afternoons. Since I'm off Wednesdays, I round up the whole brood and we all travel to the hospital for his 45-min appointment. Noah and Sophie and I wait in the waiting room, and I generally try to bring a few things along for them to do... the Glodoodle (always a big hit, in fact that toy is now essentially permanently reserved for speech appointments), a magazine or two, the iPod Touch, etc. There's a few sad little toys in the waiting room, and a coloring book or two, really a pitiful setup for a pediatric therapy waiting room in a brand-new, state-of-the-art hospital. But I digress.

As Sophie gets older, more mobile, and more aware of her ability to charm anything with a heartbeat, she is completely disinterested in my pathetic attempts to distract her. She disdainfully mocks me with a look that says, 'Really Mom, you think I want to look at that silly shapes puzzle again? When there's people here to love on me? PLEASE." Then she trots off to some poor unsuspecting stranger in the waiting room and insists that they adore her. And, pretty much without fail, they do.

She has a remarkably effective technique. Her first step is to silently make her way to her next "mark", stand a few feet back, and just watch. Generally they are otherwise engaged and don't at first notice. They might be flipping through a magazine, talking on the cell phone, checking their calendar.

She waits patiently until they glance in her direction. Then she breaks into a huge grin, complete with crinkly nose and snorty giggle. Invariably she gets at least a smile in response....essentially only stone-cold heartless jerks and/or blind people can resist her.

Once she gets that smile, she's convinced she has won them over, toddles her way over to them and tries to make conversation. Sometimes she tries to get them to pick her up so she can snuggle on their lap. Her next favorite thing to do is to bring them 'presents'.

Today, for instance, she brought three coloring books and her stuffed leopard to a very friendly lady and her pre-teen son. When they left, (after nearly following them out of the room to their appointment), she turned her eye to a quiet, unassuming gentleman and his teenage son who were paying no attention to her. She deposited the leopard, the shapes puzzle, and Travis's sunglasses on said gentleman's lap.

Needless to say, most of my time at speech appointments is spent following Sophie around the room, picking up stray items she has left with strangers, and apologizing if she's bothered them. (She doesn't bother anybody though. Everyone loves her. Even "non-kid" people love her.... although thankfully, we mostly only run into "kid" people in the pediatric therapy office.)

I thought Noah was a charmer. This one is gonna be trouble.

A shot in the dark

Took Travis and Sophie for check-up appointments last week. Each involved vaccinations (3 for each of them, for goodness sake), and Travis got ear and eye exams to prepare him for Kindergarten.

I did not want to lie to Travis, so I informed him that morning that he had the doc appointment and that he would be getting shots (it was the first question out of his mouth). I didn't want him to dwell on it and worry about it at school all morning, so I quickly distracted him by talking about something random like what if our car could fly. We made up a great story about feeding our car magical gasoline that came from carrots that would make it fly over everyone else's car, and how great it would be not to have to stop at red lights or drive over railroad tracks.

Anyway, on the way to the doc appt, I told him I needed him to get his shots first so he could be brave for Sophie, since she had to get hers as well. I figured it would be better this way than to have Sophie get hers first and be all screamy and traumatized and then say "your turn, Travis!"

So, the doc come in, checks everyone out, they are good and healthy and growing well. Travis is 39 pounds (about 50th percentile) and 44 inches (about 75th percentile). Sophie is 21 pounds (about 10th percentile) and 30 inches (about 50th percentile). That's a lot of numbers that just says I've got reasonably tall, skinny kids. No surprise there.

Anyway, doc leaves, says he'll send the nurse in for the shots. It took 20 minutes before she got there. 20 minutes of Travis trying not to freak out, forgetting every so often what we were waiting for, then remembering and whimpering and trying to be brave. When the nurse came in, he was hiding under the table.

But, he did good, I held his hands and made sure he didn't move as he lay on the table (once we pried him out from underneath). He cried but he didn't kick and scream, and when it was done he calmed down nicely, and he got suckers and stickers for his trials. Noah, bless his heart, was clearly concerned about his big brother's ordeal, because as we were finishing up the last shot, he snuck his way between me and the nurse and offered Travis the stickers we had given him to distract him.

Then it was Sophie's turn, she was mad at me afterwards, as evidenced by her furrowed brow and her accusatory look as I picked her up. She also calmed down relatively quickly however, and the worst was over.

Its always been a little tough to watch my kids gets vaccinations, but this was the hardest. I can't pin down exactly why. Maybe is because when they are younger than two, I can assume they won't remember the ordeal after an hour or so. Maybe its because there is no need or expectation to explain ahead of time to a baby what is about to happen, and the anticipation is the worst part of it. Maybe its because I actually have to look Travis in the eye afterward and I'm concerned he'll hold it against me. I told him he wouldn't have to get another shot for a long long time (thank goodness for flu mists) and he appears to have forgiven me.

This morning Noah and Sophie and I took Avery to the vet for her rabies and distemper vaccines. I've had quite enough of the needles this week, thank you very much.

For Your Viewing Enjoyment

Since I've done such a pitiful job recording our activities of late, here are some pictures of the last month or so.

Curious Kids' Museum.... Travis on the volcano slide.

The kids 'eating' at the museum

Sophie admiring that beautiful baby! (And yes, that's Ben taking a picture and me recording video of the momentous event.)

Astronaut brothers

The four of trying to launch a shuttle. Its harder than you might think.

Travis the news anchor. He's a natural!

The Davidson brothers on TV

Coloring Easter eggs. Call me terrible, but Sophie was napping during this time and thus did not take part. Sometimes its just easier that way.

Travis getting ready to storm the field.

Waiting in line for the Easter Bunny, after the egg hunt. Sophie did good, she loves collecting things so this was right up her alley. She did try to put a few eggs in other kids' baskets, and at one point plopped onto the field and decided to take her eggs out one by one.... other than that, she hung with the big kids just fine.

Bowling night with some folks from work....is she cute or what?!?

Travis helping a co-worker bowl

Noah's first time bowling. He was extremely proud of himself. He also bowled in the wrong lane or on someone else's turn at least three times. Maybe a little over-zealous.

Sophie, Me, Ben, Megan, and a beer bottle shaped like a bowling pin.

Sophie's Vocabulary at 16 Months

"Mom" -- which she uses for me, dad, ya-ya, and anyone else from whom she wants attention.

"Up" -- when she wants to be picked up, which is generally all the time, and by any random stranger.

"Shoe" -- which she says repeatedly while I am putting her shoes on, or when she finds a shoe lying around that she can clutch in her little hands and parade through the house with.

"Thank You" -- which sounds more like "tinkyu", and generally is said when she is handing me toys one after the other. She offers me a toy and says "Tinkyu!"

"Here" -- used in situations much like Thank You. The two are practically interchangeable for her.

"Gog" -- meaning dog. Usually is followed by fits of pretend barking, normally while she is staring out the window of the front room, or playing in the backyard when the neighbor's dog stops by.

"Bye Noah" -- for some reason, whenever I tell Sophie to say bye bye, no matter to whom, she says "Bye Noah". Its one word to her. byenoah.

"Uh-oh". pause. "Oli-oli-o" -- This one is courtesy of Ya-Ya, who regularly says "Uh-oh, raviolios" to the kids. They all get a big kick out of it, but funniest is Sophie's rendition.

"Buh" for book. She loves books. In fact, right now she is lying on a pillow in the living room reading a fuzzy animal book and giggling. I tried to take a picture of it but, as per usual, as soon as Sophie saw the camera she shot up and did everything in her power to get it from me. I tried to get her back on the pillow and reading, but the moment was over. Noah, however, saw that I was not able to get the picture, so offered to act as a stand-in. Here's the scene, as re-enacted by Noah:

That's mostly it for now. She's constantly blabbering, but I can't tell what the rest of it is. I think its just nonsense, but in truth she's probably explaining Einstein's theory of relativity, or perhaps reciting Shakespeare.

P. S. Travis has a gigantic vocabulary, so obviously I can't list it all here, but he asked me to mention that he says "Cuckoo" a lot even though he is not a cuckoo clock. It's true.

Better Late than Never

Yes, I know. I have not been blogging much lately. I've done a pitiful job of maintaining this log of our family happenings to be recorded for prosperity. Fifty years from now I will look back on the winter of 2009/2010 and assume we just sat around in our pajamas eating popcorn for about four months with little to no activity of any import.

Which is not the case, of course. I'm not a person that likes to overwhelm myself with activity... I don't belong to a book club or a scrapbooking group or a softball league. I'm much more content with my low-key life and minimal schedule fillers. Right now weekly speech therapy, workouts at the gym, Fun Fair planning committee for our elementary school, and Travis's upcoming Tball practices are enough for me. With spring coming on I might start some occasional playdates again. Anyway, I'm kind of rambling here, but my point is that although I don't have a lot of organized activities that I and my family are involved in, we manage to keep fairly occupied.

Travis had his Kindergarten assessment test last week. We don't have the results yet but his teacher said he did well. Academically we obviously had no worries (I don't want to brag but this kid is on the road for mathematical stardom), but his extreme reservedness is something we want to consider when determining whether he's ready for that next step. He's an odd hybrid -- he's shy, doesn't necessarily initiate a lot of conversation, but participates in class, answers questions, gets involved. Its not like he's totally withdrawn, so that's a good thing, but he does need to work on his assertiveness.

Noah is going on three (although he insists he is five if you ask him...and no other answer will do), about four months until his third birthday. His terrible twos are subsiding somewhat, he's a little more amiable when something doesn't go his way, and at the very least his temper tantrums are getting shorter, fewer, and farther between. He's not yet potty-trained, I probably need to start that back up again, but I'm a firm believer in not pushing that process, purely for my own sanity. I don't have the energy to bribe my kid to use the darn potty, if he's not willing to do it himself that's his loss. Diapers are annoying, but more annoying is accidents at home and accidents in public and I just don't have the desire to deal with that. Thus, I'm waiting.

Sophie is still growing, still exploring and getting into everything, still melting hearts left and right. She is about as lovable as a toddler can get, she's got the absolute sweetest temperament combined with a stubborn insistence that people adore her. Plus, she's sweetly sensitive...gets her little feelings hurt when the boys don't want her to play with them (read: take their stuff and slobber on it) and melts into a puddle of Sophie on the floor when I tell her that no, she cannot chew on the iPod charger or eat that quarter.

As for me, I got back last week from my much-appreciated vacation in Italy. Ben practically qualifies for sainthood for agreeing to let me go (or more accurately, arranging for me to be able to go) on this trip with an old friend, while he stayed at home and handled single dadhood for 10 days. All survived and appear to be none the worse for wear. Ben might appreciate me slightly more, and I certainly am grateful for the whole lot of them. Sometime in the middle of the week I got a little emotional about being away from them for so long, and it was difficult to be on that fabulous vacation knowing that Ben would have so loved to have been there. Every so often as I was skiing down a mountain I would think, "if only Ben were here, he would totally love this" -- and that was tough to deal with. But, we'll have our chance. The trip was organized by the Ohio Valley Ski Council, most of whose members were in their 40s and beyond and had regularly gone on these trips for years and years on end. There was one couple in their late 60s, had learned to ski when they were 50, and had been going on these Europe trips ever since. They were such a fun couple, I just kept thinking, this will so be me and Ben.

Work remains a challenge, but for the most part a welcome one. Still loving my part-time schedule. Looking forward to camping season coming up... now that Sophie is another year older I think some parts of camping will be better -- others harder, but I'm ready for it nonetheless.

Well I guess that's it. See you in another four months.

Holy Crap its March

Well the month of February has come and gone. No blog updates in February, sorry about that, I'm just not sure where the time has gone.

So, for an update on the family, Travis is doing well in pre-Kindergarten, still somewhat shy but has developed a friendship with a couple kids in the class, and I think overall its going okay. He's sharp as a tack and reading like crazy (he read "Multi-Purpose" on my contact solution bottle the other day, I'm pretty sure that's above Kindergarten reading level), adding and subtracting easily now (the other day he told me if I had $100 in my bank account and bought something that cost $2, I would have $98 left..... he is SOOOO ready for those stupid story problems in elementary math textbooks) - he's fully grasped the concept of negative numbers, his vocabulary is just insane (last night he told me he heard some noises that "distracted him from sleeping" -- I mean, what 5-yr old says that?). So, I just need to get him a little more comfortable with interacting socially; I plan on getting him together with his little buddy Evan from school, and hopefully that will develop over the next few months or so. His eating is improving, he still struggles but will try new things more frequently now at least. Speech is still developing, vowels are still his primary issue, so jaw and muscle development are the primary focus.

Noah is mid-way through his terrible twos and on his way to being a seven-year-old. (By the way, he will not admit that he is two, he INSISTS that he is five just like his brother. "NO MOM I'M FIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!") He's not quite reading yet but I think will be an early reader like Travis was... he's very in tune with letters and all. Noah is my jokester... he is constantly trying to find ways to make people laugh. He's also perfecting the art of the temper tantrum. Last night, for instance, he was mad because he wanted me to read the book he picked out for bedtime story before I read the book Travis picked out. So he lay square in the middle of the floor, screaming. Now, my parenting philosophy is, as long as you're not hurting things or people, feel free to throw a tantrum and I will happily ignore you. So I did, and read Travis his book, and Noah starts screaming "MOM! You're making too much noise for me to cry!" In other words, I'm only crying because I want you to hear me and feel sorry for me. Talk about giving up your strategy, kid.

Sophie, bless her heart, is desperately trying to be one of the big kids. Her little feelings get so hurt when the boys won't let her take their puzzle pieces, or steals a checker from the checkerboard. She's very dramatic, tears streaming down her face, full open-mouth wail, melts on the floor in a sad little pile when she feels she's been slighted. The boys do a fairly good job of trying to include her, but she still slobbers on stuff a little too much for their liking. She's now big into dancing, she loves music. The sound of anything remotely resembling music (Noah banging on a few keys on the piano, a TV commercial in the background, the dishwasher) causes her to start nodding her head and bouncing up and down in her little dance-y way.

Ben and I have been enjoying the winter; went on our annual ski trip to Crystal Mountain last month which was a blast, a weekend minus the kids (who I love dearly but make quality ski trips a little difficult), excellent ski weather and good friends. I'm battling through the guilt of leaving him for about 10 days while I go on a fabulous trip without him -- one of my best friends and I touring and skiing in Italy. It was his idea that I go, his birthday present was to me was to pay the deposit for the trip, and he insists that I'm not a horrible person for going. You see, we are not the kind of family to vacation separately. In fact, Ben is my favorite person to go vacationing with. So, this is difficult for me. But, I'm moving past that, the trip would have been nearly logistically impossible if we were both going and having to worry about leaving the kids for that long; so now I'm just thankful that Ben is so unselfishly letting me do this and I fully intend to have a super-fabulous trip. I leave in three days. I should probably be packing.