Snoween

It snowed on Saturday night. Not a HUGE amount - but a lot for this time of year. It was about 6 heavy inches. There are downed trees everywhere, leading to power outages (including our house). Cam and Maggie were VERY excited about the snow. Cam was out with his shovel helping me knock the snow off the trees:

We only lost one tree, a dogwood that was having issues to begin with, but Nora's tree was untouched. Thank god. Maggie had a blast watching Aaron use the snow blower. She was running around saying 'I Shovel!'

Thankfully, our Aunt who lives 3 miles away did have power, so the kids and I camped out there while Aaron cleaned up our house and friends around the street. He even managed to borrow a generator and get our house up to 64 degrees last night so we could sleep at home.

Which was nice.

But. I'm still sick with that damn cold (wondering if it's maybe broncitsis at this point) and by the end of the day yesterday fed up with Aaron helping everyone except ME. Which is bitchy and maybe a bit unreasonable, considering I was at a place where we had heat and TV - but hey. Aren't I allowed? I couldn't sleep last night because I kept thinking about what the heck I would do if daycare didn't have power. Because work is a bit of a disaster, and I really can't afford to be out. I had this crazy plan to bring the kids into the office with me - it would have been a disaster, I bet.

Maggie woke up in a panic this morning (it was super dark and quiet in her room, she usually sleeps with white noise and a night light), so I pulled her into bed with me and she cuddled with me for about 45 minutes. I called daycare, and they were open - so at least that was a good thing. Trying to get two kids dressed and out the door in the pitch black wasn't the most fun. Plus I had to get them set for Halloween too, which I at least remembered at the last minute.

Then, I stopped to get coffee, and they only could give me a small. They were out of medium and large cups. Son. Of. A. Bitch.

Friday Leftovers

• Maggie is potty training. I just went for it. We are using the cotton training pants. She isn't having any accidents - she's only had one pee and one poop accident. But she goes to the potty every 30 minutes. It's kind of funny.


• Work has been awful this week - big production problem kept me online all the time.


• The first time they called me with the issue, I was in bed at 7:10 after taking NyQuil. I was a wreck.


• The kids have a cold and I have the same one, but like 100 times worse.


• Cameron has a kazoo that is killing me. He insists on bringing it to bed, and then stays up for 2 hours playing with it. So I became Mean Mommy last night and took it away. After Aaron calmed him down, he was asleep in 5 minutes. I'll be burning the kazoo today.


• Tonight Aaron is taking Cam to the Science Museum and I don't know who is more excited - Cam or Aaron. Maggie and I are going to see my friend - who has 4 'big' girls (10, 12, 14, and 17) PLUS they have a dog. She is going to be in baby heaven.


• We turned the heat on this week. We like to try and wait until Nov 1st - but seriously. It snowed last night. It had to be done.

Cranky

I have a wicked cold. Wicked. I feel like crap. And the kids have it too, which is making them whiny. Which makes me EVEN MORE cranky.

Fun fun fun.

So I will bitch. And I'm going to bitch about something that many people tell me I should be happy about. Maggie is obsessed with potty training. Obsessed. She gets on the potty and does something pretty much every time. She is super proud of herself.

BUT. And here is the big BUT. She wants to be on the potty all the time. And maybe 80% of the time actually does something. A perfect example is this morning. I'm upstairs, trying to get something I need to bring to work, and Maggie followed me upstairs. She runs into the room I'm in and says POOP! POTTY! So I stop what I'm doing, put her on the potty and leave to finish what I was doing. And she starts crying. So Cam goes in, and then runs back to report to me that "Maggie no want me Mama. She want YOU." So I go in, ask if she is all done and take her off. I try to finish what I was doing. She is runs around yelling POOP POTTY again, so I try to whip off her diaper and throw her on the potty. But. The diaper is full of poop which is now all over my hand.

GOD. DAMN. IT.

So I try to stay calm and get her cleaned up (and myself) but of course there aren't any wipes upstairs because we don't usually have to deal with diapers upstairs anymore and the ones we have are dried out because they were left open and DID I MENTION I HAVE POOP ON MY HANDS!!?!?

Sigh. I know most of this is because I am cranky and tired from my cold, and I should have gotten up BEFORE the kids and gotten myself ready for work. But seriously. Poop on my hands before 8 AM?

I'm considering getting Maggie pull-ups, just to make this stage easier, but I just think they are dumb (basically fancy diapers).

Deep. Breath.

Now is when you all tell me to relax and be happy that Maggie WANTS to use the potty. Or tell me funny diaper training stories so I can laugh a little whist MISERABLE and snotty. Begin.

Friday Night Leftovers

On a Thursday.

But hey, Aaron and I are taking tomorrow off together, so I doubt I'll be on the computer.

• The firetruck bed is a huge success


• Cam is currently obsessed with a kazoo that my mom gave him last weekend. Funniest story on that front was the other morning, he got out of bed and declared that he had to pee. So he ran to the bathroom. While be peed, he was playing the kazoo. I may have laughed.


• Tuesday night, on a whim, I took the kids to a local pasta supper. I reluctantly bought raffle tickets. I won a free loaf of bread every week for 6 months from Nashoba Brook Bakery! I'm crazy excited about it.


• When Cam was learning to talk, I avoided a lot of tantrums with him by asking him to SHOW me something when I couldn't understand what he was trying to say. Until now, all attempts at that tactic with Maggie have ended in a HUGE tantrum. This morning, she kept telling me something and I really couldn't figure out what she wanted. I told her to show me. She gave me a look, turned around, ran and got what she wanted. She was SO proud of herself!


• Aaron was supposed to go away this weekend to CA, leaving Friday and coming home on Monday. The trip got canceled, and he is still taking Friday off of work - so we are going to do take it together. Bonus!


• Another cute Maggie story. This morning, we stopped and got donuts on the way to school. As we left the store, I told everyone to hold hands. Cam wanted to hold Maggie's hand - so Maggie was going to end up holding my hand and Cam's - with no hand left over for the donut. She moved the donut from hand to hand - trying to figure out what to do - and then just shoved the whole thing in her mouth and grabbed our hands. Cutest thing EVER.


• My mom is visiting this weekend, and for the first time in 2 years, I'm letting her bring the dog. Pray that it isn't a disaster with 3 huge dogs, 2 toddlers and 3 adults all weekend.


• I have won the Birthday Party Debate. We will have the party in the room that I thought it would be, with the rules being 20 kids. Parents won't be included in the count. I'm very, very, happy about this.


• Currently obsessed with the idea of making Maggie hair clips. I blame Jen. I'm planning on trying to make some on Sunday. We'll see if they are the success I'm thinking they will be.

The Firetruck Bed

This weekend, Aaron installed the firetruck bed. It is so much more amazing than I thought it would be (and I already thought it was going to be pretty amazing). A while back, I found a blog showing off the firetruck bed that someone made for his son. I emailed it to Aaron right away - and he totally was into making it. We measured Cam's room, and figured out that we couldn't do one with the stairs, and after much convincing on my part, decided that Cam could handle a ladder. So, we used the plans from Ana-White.com for her Easy Playhouse Loft - but Aaron made many changes from there.

I was really nervous that it would total overwhelm Cam's room, as it's not a super big room and our house only has 7.5 feet high ceilings- but it just fits perfectly.

The big additions that Aaron made the first firetruck bed was a driver's seat for the steering wheel:

And a toy box/back seat at the back of the truck:

This was pretty much all Aaron. I helped with a little bit of painting (as did Cam) and some of the precision cutting on the diamond plate vinyl but every night after dinner Aaron would head down into the shop and work on it. He came up with all the cute additions, figured out the best way to make the lights work (Christmas lights), and angled the ladder in the best way so toddlers can go up and down with ease.

The first night, Cam asked to read his books inside the firetruck. With Daddy. The man couldn't have been happier.

And because I know people are going to ask:

• Yes, he does sleep in it. Amazing, but true. Aaron was nervous that he would be to excited, or play all night, or even maybe be too young to sleep up high - but it's been three nights now and he LOVES it.




• It cost about $500 total. That includes wood, paint, bolts for the wheels, lighting, and even the mattress that I got at Ikea. I got a little firetruck rug (secondhand) to put inside the playhouse part and a little firehouse print to put on the wall. Only thing not finished is the window treatments.




• No. Aaron will not make these for sale. Besides the fact that he has a backlog of personal projects for our family (next up is refurbishing an awesome dollhouse for Maggie), the man works full time in technology. He isn't quiting his day job! And imagine the liability for bedding beds for kids? I think not.

Anyway. Pretty awesome, huh? Cam is one lucky kid. And so many thanks to Jeff and Kristin McClure for posting their son's bed - we would have never come up with this on our own!

Birthday party season

I had been very excited. Over 6 months ago, we had a service auction at church. People auction off goods and services and the proceeds go to the church. One of the things auctioned off was a birthday party for up to 18 kids in the Fellowship Hall. Which is a nice, big space. I envisioned a party with both Maggie and Cameron's friends - with the parents standing to the side, the kids having fun. A nice, relaxed space for the kids to have fun and the parents to relax.

I gave them the date I wanted to do the party, and gave them pretty much full rein on the planning - theme and whatever. As the date approaches, the head of the group doing the party has started talking to me about the details. We were thinking a music theme - with one of their friends to come in and play to the kids. I mentioned that I was hoping I could use the big, industrial ovens to cook pizzas for everyone, and she gave me a little strange look, and said 'Right, food wasn't included'. Then mentioned that they were planning on having the party in the basement of Fellowship hall.

Which is a basement. A small room that they use for classes, and I don't see all the parents fitting with the kids and being comfortable in any way shape or form. There aren't even grownup sized chairs down there. It's a preschool classroom. So I kind of looked at her funny and said, what about the parents? And she was like, I'm sure a total of 18 people will fit there.

And I was like 18 people total? Which, at a birthday party for 2 and 3 year olds equates to maybe to 4 friends, with their parents. Which is not at all what I want. Forgetting about Cam and Maggie's adult friends. And I certainly don't want to have two separate parties (like a small friend party and then one at home for family or whatever) - we do this birthday thing ONCE.

So I wrote a (hopefully) innocent sounding email:

I’m a little confused after our quick conversation on Sunday. What I thought the deal was for the party was for 18 kids, and use of fellowship hall. Since my kids are so young, I envisioned being in the big space, with the kids having a blast with the activities (maybe some kids that are way too shy to even be WITH the other kids) and the parents (who have the more adventurous kids) chit-chatting on the other side of the hall. I had expected that I would provide most, if not all food, decorations, etc. plus help you all out with child herding.

Is your understanding different? Because kids as young as Maggie and Cameron are going to probably have one, if not two parents attend. So we would only be able to have maybe 4 kids besides mine. I’m thinking that it will be more like 14 kids + parents (invited, with less attending, of course)

Let me know

So. If she comes back telling me that yes, she meant 18 people total and they were are to do it in the basement, I'm going to say thanks, but just take my money as a donation to the church and Aaron and I will do the party in my house.

Annoying, but it will all work out.
ETA: I just looked it up. The certificate I got says 'up to 20 guests' and 'at your house or in fellowship hall'. So we'll see. Because it's all up to interpretation, right?

What a difference a year makes

This was a long weekend for the kids and I (Aaron had to work on Monday). I don't know about you all, but for me, it's easier to handle the kids alone at some sort of 'event'. They are both so excited (and a little nervous about the crowds) that they hold hands and just have a blast. When I saw that a Day out With Thomas was this weekend - I decided to take the gang.

We went last year on Labor Day weekend, and the kids had a blast. It's at Edaville - an old train-themed amusement park for little kids. Each year they threaten to shut down (I'm sure it's expensive to run) but they decided to keep it going this year.

When I was saving the pictures from this trip, I noticed the ones from last year. Look at this craziness. Here is Maggie last year on the train ride:

And then this year:

Would you even recognize her? She is such a big girl now.

On the way home we stopped at Ikea and got the mattress for the firetruck bed. You guys are NEVER going to believe how awesome that thing is. It's amazing. I have no idea how Cam is ever going to actually SLEEP in it.

Dolls

Maggie doesn't have any dolls. I didn't think it was a big deal, because she happily plays with whatever Cam is playing with. But. For the past few weeks, I keep getting reports from daycare about Maggie and her friend J sending the whole afternoon covering the dolls with quilts and rubbing their backs, sitting them in the kitchen and feeding them and basically just carrying the dolls around. So I started looking into a doll for Maggie.

I hate the plastic ones. The combo plastic/cloth ones seem a little creepy. And then, last night I went to a friends house who has four girls and she showed me the Waldorf dolls that her kids used to play with. Oh. My. God. They are SO tactile and sweet and PERFECT. So I started looking around to buy one - minimum $100. Not happening. (But of course, shopping around made me want them more - look here and here and here).

I called a crafty friend of mine, and it turns out she LOVES making dolls and used to teach a class! So I'm buying a pattern and we'll embark on this journey together.

I then started looking a sweater patterns for the doll. I have a feeling I may need to make myself a doll too.