Bicycle trailer built for two (but I got three in there anyway)

Crammed all the kiddos into our new bike trailer today. I wasn't prepared to attach it to my bike just yet, though -- I think I'll need Ben for that part. But, it doubles as a stroller, so we took a nice stroll complete with dog on leash.

The kids were a little cramped (and, yes, I shoved them in there despite the warnings all over the box about a "MAXIMUM CAPACITY" of 2 -- at least we were still under the weight limit), but they loved it, Canada enjoyed running alongside them, and it was a decent workout for me.

First Blog

I feel a little like Doogie Howser, as I update my blog. I notice myself thinking of my day in little blurb-y paragraphs, with the perfect combination of wit and reflection.

Was Doogie the original blogger? Who knew?

So, I'll leave you with some immortal words of wisdom from Doogie himself.

MONDAY, JUNE 11, 1990

Why am I busting my butt as a doctor while Wanda is strolling down the Champs Elysees? Maybe if I knew a little less, I'd have time to live a little more. Even when you're a genius, life's a mystery.

A Photo Montage of Fun Fair 2010

Noah playing Plinko - yes, he's back there somewhere.

Travis playing basketball

Uh -- this is Travis going down the slide. I was too slow with the camera. You can see Noah heading for the steps in the middle. I learned my lesson this time, though, yessirree, I'll get a good picture the second time around.....

Nope. Too quick on the trigger this time. Those are Noah's shoes getting ready to make their way down.

Sophie's favorite part of the Fun Fair -- eating.

Noah

Travis cheesing for the camera.

Okay -- not nearly as cheesy as Dad.

And here's me.

More eating....cake this time.

Eat some cake, ma!

Of COURSE I'll have some cake!!

Swoop shows up at the fun fair! Travis and Noah are crowding to get a closer look. Travis loves Swoop. Noah's a little unsure.

Sophie's not unsure at all. This is right up her alley.

Sophie trying to give Swoop a hug. Travis trying to help.

Noah got a little shy. I absolutely love this picture, because, even though Swoop's facial expression is perpetual and unchangeable, it totally looks like he's thinking, "Gee. Wonder what's wrong with that kid?"

Travis going through the obstacle course.

He made it all the way through! Tougher than you might think. Can't you just see the pride on his face??

Bean bag toss

Noah's turn. This was his "starting" position, then he inched closer and closer as he extended his arm, until he was essentially dropping it into the hole. Hey, whatever works.

Please let me out of the blasted stroller? PLEASE?!??!!!?

Finally. Thank you.

The boys LOVED the cake walk. They did it probably ten times. Noah even won us a plate of chocolate chip cookies!

Showing off his loot. Hey, he worked HARD for that!! He walked in a circle, like, a bunch of times!

Travis getting in on the action. You should have seen him when Noah won the cake walk. They were standing on consecutive numbers, so Travis was right next to him. I wondered if he might be disappointed that he didn't win. Oh, no, my friends, quite the opposite. He was jumping up and down and giving Noah high-fives. And that was before he realized that cookies came with the deal.

Okay, I love this picture, because, well, who couldn't love this picture?? This sums up our Fun Fair afternoon quite well.

Lost

Tonight, Travis and I made a book. We've been talking about doing it for a while, so sat down tonight and finally got it done. Its called:

Grumpy Bear goes to the Beach for the very first time

Travis dictated, and I wrote. I take no credit for any of the content within in the book, as it all came from his little imagination.

Part of the story was about Grumpy Bear's secret keys, which are invisible and also presumably magical, since they move by themselves and go wherever Grumpy tells them to go.

The purpose of them being invisible is apparently so that other Care Bears don't accidentally grab them, as is explained in the book.

I think this comes from Travis's understanding of how pitiful both of his parents are at keeping track of our keys. There is not a week that goes by where we're not bickering about who was the last person to use whose keys, or contemplating about where one might have put one's keys after coming in from the grocery with arms laden, or haggling about who gets to use which keys since the other keys are lost. Couple this with Ben's tendency to stick anything in his pocket that lingers in his hand for more than fifteen seconds, and it leads to an awful lot of discussion about the whereabouts of key rings.

Oh, to have invisible magical keys like Grumpy Bear.

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.