Tuesday, April 15, 2008

You're kidding me, right?

One of the most fun aspects of the boys’ ages (almost 2 and almost 3) is how they are discovering their imaginations. With some kids I think this manifests as pretending one object is really something else – maybe that their toothbrush is a screwdriver. With my kids, at least for now, they’re really into invisible things.

They clean up invisible GeoTrax and pretend to fix their trucks with invisible tools they pull out of their pockets. At meals they reach their hands out to some invisible plate in the sky and snatch the mystery food off of it and jam it in their mouths.

This is cute and all, until they start bickering over the food that doesn’t even exist. Kyle starts whining because Grant took his whatever-it-is. I try to explain that there is plenty for everyone but despite my efforts, the “No! Mine!” back and forth ensues and screaming and crying break out.

I look at Dave and ask, “Are our kids fighting over invisible food?”

Dave’s response, “Why, yes. Yes, they are.”

Okay.

Just checkin'.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Bunnies, balloons and rainbows

I can’t believe it’s been four months since my last blog entry. The boys have grown and changed so much in that time – there aren’t enough hours in the day to share how they’ve turned into these little people. Kyle will be three this summer and has moved from being a toddler to being a little boy. Grant will be two next month so we can still pretend he’s a toddler.

They’re both still mooching off us incessantly and have yet to contribute to the financial position of the family. One or both of them are regularly (every two minutes) trying to wrestle control of our household away from me and become the alpha-king-supreme-everything-ruler of my queendom. Dave and I are holding our ground with no help from the short people. Wish us continuing good luck. Seriously, we went to a Love and Logic seminar last week that was awesome and we’re trying some of the techniques to reasonable success.

C’mon. Were you really expecting a soft-fluffy-bunny-balloons-and-rainbows kind of update from me? You were? Then I’d better deliver…

How amazing is it to watch language development in a toddler? Kyle’s language has ballooned over the last four months (balloon reference: check). He still comes out with stuff that I don’t understand, but that’s only about 20% of the time. His recollection of random, obscure things is ridiculous, and his ability to throw our rules back in our faces when it’s convenient is uncanny.

Grant is saying new words every day and is putting together two word phrases. A new milestone on Sunday was that he started saying, “Mommy!!! Mommy!” to get my attention when he wanted to show me something. It was cool for a minute when I realized this was the first time he had done it, but then it dawned on me that we were embarking on the phase I wrote about in this post.


Dave and I built the boys a big new sandbox since getting dirty is their all time favorite thing. We're using a cleverly secured tarp (don't ask) as a cover to keep it dry and keep critters out. Apparently it's not cleverly secured enough to keep out bunnies, as every time we've removed the cover there are about 412 bunny footprints. Either way, the boys love it and we had fun doing it. (soft fluffy bunny reference: check)


This pic isn't of the boys in the new sandbox but it's illustrative of their love of dirt and sand. They decided they should manually move the sand from the old crabbie sandbox here, to the new one, but they had to take a break for a sand bath. Nice, huh?


Well I don't have a rainbow reference to fulfill my update requirements. Oh. I know. We got cut off in traffic yesterday by someone with one of those rainbow bumper stickers on their back window. (rainbow reference: check)

So that's the soft-fluffy-bunny-balloons-and-rainbows kind of update you expected!

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Back to blogging!

Okay, so I’ve taken a bit of a break from blogging. A thanks to readers who have contacted me to ask if I’d been hit by a bus, kidnapped by aliens or plagued by a mommy breakdown. I really enjoy writing my blog and there isn’t a sole reason for exactly why I stopped but I’ve been thinking about it. I could just say, “I’ve been busy” or something equally vague and aloof, but I’ll share a few of the contributing factors.

1) When I decided to stop posting pictures and accompanying commentary an element of fun disappeared. I stopped with the pictures as a trigger reaction to a scare another blogger had when she found her daughters’ pictures had been used on a site without her permission by a cyber-stranger. Very creepy.

2) Some of you remember NaBloPoMo which was national blog posting month; the goal was to post an entry a day for the entire month of November. Well, I started November quite gung-ho. As November wore on I lost momentum and probably ended up resentful and rebellious because I had turned something I enjoyed into a chore. It reminded me of my success (not) on diets. I start all fired up and do great for a few days (okay, hours) and then rebel against the restriction and proceed to swear off diets and gain 16 pounds.

3) I’ve had seasonal depression for many years and the period from mid-November to February is often a dark one for me. A few factors exacerbated this last season and I was very unmotivated and blue. To be honest, this was probably the biggest factor.

4) I wanted to spruce up my blog but when I got frustrated with blogger I kind of said oh to hell with it. Very mature, I know. It’s not as bad as the time I couldn’t get the lids off the boys’ sippy cups and I let loose a stream of profanity then hurled them into the sink like a maniac, but in its own way it was just as admirable. Not to worry, the boys were in bed and didn’t see my display. Dave did and probably thought, “I wonder how much the jeweler would give me if I got back the engagement ring.”

So I’m excited to be back, having reminded myself of the things I miss about blogging. I’m reading some different opinions in the blog world on whether or not to post pictures and I may end up posting again. What are your thoughts? Is there much of a risk and if so, how much? Is it risky if no one knows our last name and where we live? I’m very interested in input on this!