What's up?!?

Must be the Y chromosome

I have a theory about the Y Chromosome, well not really a theory, just a list of annoying behaviors that all men seem to partake in. At first I thought it was just my husband, but no, it is all men. One of those behaviors is their addiction to their "peanuts". Why they are so obsessed I will never know, but as a mother of two boys, I can attest that this addiction is embedded in their brain, and not a learned behavior.

Subject 1: Aedan, the 3 year old, can't, seriously CAN'T leave his alone if his pants are off. At least it only happens when he is naked, and not all the time, but seriously, it is like there are magnets in his hands that draw them down there.

Subject 2: Corbin, 5 months, is so interested in the toy between his legs that the second his diaper comes off he has to check it out. This makes diaper changing and crotch cleaning very difficult! You have to hold hid arms down while trying to wrestle the child in and out of his clothes. The day he discovered it, he was so proud I almost took a picture. But I wouldn't do anything that embarrassing to my children.

They really can't help it, it is part of their Y chromosome defect!

Happy Birthday Aedan!

Here he is the little monster/heart breaker!

Best big brother!
A year ago, turning 2!
Welcoming Daddy home from deployment at 18 months.
Gardening at 13 months...also known as eating dirt!

Happy first birthday little man! (This was taken just before his first birthday and I LOVE this photo-thanks Seth and Steph!)

His first smile.

Ahhh, me learning exactly what being a mommy is all about. I can remember thinking "I could stare at you all day"!

The trip home from the hospital, look at that little face!

From now to then...wow, I can't believe he is 3! My little baby is 3. It is totally amazing how fast they grow.

Happy birthday Aedan! Your momma loves you!

As promised, the renovation photos!

Old hallway (after the small bathroom was done): New hallway!
Old "big" bathroom:

It's pretty isn't it? Almost like 1970 puked all over it huh?

New "big" bathroom!

Old "small" bathroom:
(This was taken after the sink and toilet were out...they were old, the sink was white, toilet was pink...just so you get a good idea.)

New "small" bathroom!

The trim is no longer laying against the wall like it is the photo above. The daddy and Grandpa finished the trim last week. Considering my husband ripped the sink and toilet out of the small bathroom when Corbin was 2 weeks old (on Nov 1) and did almost all of it himself (our awesome friend Bill came and did some dry wall for us) not too shabby huh?

"Mommy, where's your peanuts?"

Setting-the small bathroom, at 6:30AM, "Mommy" has just been woken up by a curious little creature, and has stumbled to the bathroom with her eyes half open

Aedan: Mommy, where's your peanuts?

Mommy: In the kitchen

Aedan: Your peanuts are in the kitch-den?

Mommy: Yes, in the cupboard.

A: Then how you pee pee now, without your peanuts?

M (light bulb moment): Oh, where's my PENIS! Mommy doesn't have a penis baby, she has a vagina

A: A bagina? (a pause, as an almost 3 year old tries to make sense of the world) So you keep your pee pee inside your bagina.

M: Yup.

A: Daddy has a peanuts. He keeps pee pee in his peanuts?

M: Yup. (still not awake, thinking it is way to early for an anatomy lesson) All boys have penises and all girls have vaginas.

A: Oh. What does Corbin have?

M: A penis, because he is a boy like you and daddy.

A: What does June bug have? And Johnny cat? And Unlce Jay? And Aunt Sharon? (He then goes through a list of everyone he knows asking if they have a peanuts or a bagina.)

So that's right Grandma, by 7:00AM he knew you had a bagina. Good morning!

Worst blogger...EVER!

I know I know...where the hell have I been right? I swear I am fine, and did not fall into a hole, although some days I really feel like I have! With company (two weeks + during the last 4) and getting everything ready for school (buying books, uniforms, registration, CPR class, a physical, shots and a drug test) plus taking care of the monsters, I have been swamped. I have a ton of cute little stories though, which I will be sharing in the next couple of days. The daddy is working nights and I think I have the baby going to sleep when the older one does. (No, it is not in his crib, and I really don't care where he sleeps, as long as he sleeps! For now I am happy to have my hands free for a couple hours a night.)



Oh, I failed to mention there was a birthday party thrown in there! My sweet Aedan will turn three, yes 3, as in 1, 2, 3, on Sunday. We celebrated last weekend (the daddy wasn't working) with some family and two of his adorable friends. Here are some highlights:

The cake, that I am super proud of! I wouldn't have been able to accomplish this without the help of my mother in law-thank you Mary Ann!

I love that he has cake all over his face, and his goggles on funny. This was an improvement over the goggles being on upside down however!

The NEW workbench, which kept all the boys busy (see below)

He wouldn't smile while making pizza, apparently it is very important business!

All hands on deck! If you want to keep 3 preschoolers entertained at a birthday party, buy a workbench, not only can they play with it, but you can put them to work!

That is all I am going to share, like I said I have some hilarious stories to share (here are some teasers, they are all about the bathroom and my children's anatomy, you start imagining), and I promise to get to those this weekend. Some days I really swear I can't wait until school starts and I actually have some time to myself. Is that wrong?

We can budget an extra $4.13 right?

I was that woman today. You know the one...a baby strapped to her in a wrap carrying a sideways screaming toddler. The one who's toddler has one shoe off and half a jacket on. I was that woman. The one with a diaper bag and hat in one hand and a flailing toddler in the other, storming to her car from the mall. Oh yes, I was that woman today.

It all started innocently enough. We met friends at the mall so the kids could blow off some steam. Aedan wanted water from the play place, which I gave him. He wanted more water, which I gave him. As it was time to leave, he wanted more water, which I gave him. He said "all done", so I threw the cup away. Mistake number 1! As soon as we headed for the door, he proclaims "more water". I was not going to get him more water, since I figured this was an obvious stall tactic. "You can have more water when we get home, let's go put your shoes on and say good bye to your friends", I said calmly.

As we approached the door I could tell he was not going for it at all. Two minutes later he said "I am not all done" and he threw himself on the floor. Well, now I had to stick with it, mistake number 2. Seriously, pick your battles Melissa, does it matter if he has another Dixie cup of water? Too late...he was on the floor at this point, so there was no turning back. For the next 20 minutes I reason with him, try to rationalize with him, even bribe him with stickers, to no avail. He was still screaming "I am not ALL DONE!" Nice. Boogers running out of his nose, stomping, throwing his coat, the whole nine yards. Finally I realized that this was not going to end peacefully, and at this point I had set him up for another break down when he realized we weren't getting stickers.

I finally gave up. I threw my hands in the air, looked at the smiling baby (soo innocent now huh? Let's see you in 2 years), and said, "Here we go, I am so ready to be that mom". I then picked him up and escorted him to the car. Where this conversation took place:
Me: Aedan get into the car please, climb in on Corbin's side

Aedan: I waa aaantt annt to get in on my-yyyyy side! (Think toddler cry.)

M: Ok, you can get in over there, let me get Corbin in his seat.

A: Oka-ay.

M: Okay, let's go to your side so you can get in!

A: I want to get in on Cor or bin's si-ide!

M: No Aedan, you picked this side, now please get in your seat.

A: NOOOOOOOOO!

M: I am going to let you work this out. (shuts door)

Now I can't get him into his car seat because he is throwing a tantrum in the car. There I stood outside my locked car listening to my child throw himself on the ground of the car. After three minutes, he decided to get into his car seat and I buckled him in.

It was at that moment I decided I deserved a $4.13 cup of coffee. no, in fact I earned it. Budget smudget, I don't care, I needed that cup of coffee. Off we drove, toddler screaming in the back seat to the drive through and luckily through Aedan's tears they heard "grande white chocolate mocha please", and I did not feel guilty for spending $4.13 on myself for once. That is what it costs to be that woman.

Still cleaning!

I am taking a break in the cleaning, because I deserve it! Blogging is hard to keep up with when the daddy is home. We are so ready to be done with this bathroom project. Our house has basically been torn apart since November 1st when the daddy started ripping out the sink and toilet in the small bathroom. He guessed we would be done with the whole project by summer. He works fast, and doesn't take many breaks! I am finally to the point where I am putting things back in their proper place, and I love it.

I had to pack away Corbin's small clothes today though, which is always super hard for a mommy! I don't know if there will be anymore baby birds, so it may be last time I see it! So sad, course I think there will be more, but you never know! Like mothra says "they grow up if you stop having them". I do look forward to them interacting more and being able to do more things for themselves, but it doesn't mean I don't want them to be babies anymore! Heartbreaking!

I will post more afters as I get more done. The dining room and kitchen have had their deep clean, they just need their quick "spruce up" before company comes. (I broke and took the x-mas wrapping paper downstairs!) I have given up on my whole house being clean at once. It just isn't going to happen with 2 little ones and a puppy. I would post a photo of what my living room looks like now, but it might make people think twice about having kids, and that would be a shame! Everyone should get to experience this roller coaster!

Sick baby today, so that is today's update. I am hoping I can teach him to tolerate a bottle while his nose is stuffed. The daddy and i could go out on a date, while company is here. A real one with a glass of wine and no children. Wow!

Progress....

I am sure it will stay this way.....

My mother is coming, my mother is coming!!

A week from Thursday, my mother, also known as mothra (not because she is a bad person or anything, just because that is what we call her), will arrive. This means I have one week and a day to clean my house, and more importantly organize this place. Due to the bathroom remodeling, the baby's room/guest room has become the "catch all room", and our room is now/baby's room. I am posting the before pictures, just so everyone can appreciate my efforts.

Don't judge, I have two tornadoes and a baby...well four tornadoes and a baby if you count my husband and I, who fail to clean up after ourselves some days!

I have already picked up the living room today, because I need to not only vacuum it, but steam clean it. Why? Because it has blue marker all over it. Why? Because if your toddler is coloring quietly with markers, he is not coloring on paper! At least he was quiet right? I am not cleaning right now, I am typing this instead. Why? Because this is what my living room looks like at the moment:

That's right, I already cleaned this room...and look what happened!! The "popper" is out because he thinks that is his vacuum and when I told him we were going to keep the living room clean to vacuum he interpreted that as "dump my cars out so I have something to vacuum". I don't know why the naked baby doll is in the middle of the floor, but you never know when you will need one of those.

The Dining room is also a mess:

Notice the Christmas wrapping paper in the corner. My wonderful husband was going to bring that downstairs for me, but "I wanted to see how long you would leave it up here if I didn't". Gee thanks! We made Valentines this morning too, which was actually me trying to get him to do anything but play with the glue stick. He is not ready for arts and crafts.

Our room:

At least it is almost picked up, minus that pile of crap on the floor in front of my dresser and of course the baby's things. Notice the cute munchkin on the bed! That is a basket of clean laundry...I wonder if it will fold itself?

I told you our room doubled as the baby's room:

Gotta love the piles of clothes on my 1970's night stand. Something needs to be done about this before mothra gets here! This is also the diaper changing station, so it is a total disaster!

Aedan's room:

WAHOO!! This one is clean! Well as clean as it is going to get for now. There are some misc. things on the dresser that will need to be put away, but for the most part, it is clean. WAHOOO! (Gotta love the dancing toddler who followed me around the house room to room trying to get into every picture!)

The rest of the house isn't bad, well except for the "catch all room"/guest room/supposed to be baby's room where daddy is sleeping right now (he is working nights, he isn't really that lazy). The nice thing about remodelling the bathrooms, is I know those are clean, they are new! I will have to post pictures of them with my afters....ahhh now I have to get off my butt and clean so we have some afters!!

Whoever said "No use crying over spilled milk" was not the one cleaning it!

We packed up all of Aedan's sippy cups this weekend, and he is now drinking out of a "big boy" cup. I did a little happy dance as he proudly threw them in the garbage, because I despise sippy cups for the following reasons:

1) They don't always work! They give you a false sense of security that the liquid you place in the cup is actually going to stay there, but it doesn't! In a sleep fog at 6am it is easy to put the top on wrong, or not secure the white "stopper" so it falls out allowing your toddler to spill juice all over the house!

2) They are easy to lose. Because you are letting your toddler roam the house with the cup it is easy for them to end up odd places, only to be found at a later date and time. No matter how hard I tried to keep track of all of the cups, we constantly had a "rogue" sippy lost somewhere in this house, and it is never fun when you actually locate it!

3) They are impossible to clean. Anyone who has ever had the pleasure of cleaning them will surely agree with me. Could they come with anymore small hard to clean parts?

4) My son used it JUST like a bottle! Nothing like watching an almost three year old suck back a bottle in two seconds. He was using them for comfort, and at three, he should be able to comfort himself by other means.

Ok, rant on sippies is over, I am just so happy they are gone, although we have a new problem. I am sure you can guess by the title of this post what our new problem is!! It isn't that he can't physically drink out of a normal cup, he actually does a great job with that, our problem is that he can't remember not to knock it over. When he sits down we remind him that he has a big boy cup, and to be careful. As he is eating both Chris and I move the cup out of harms way at least twice. Then at some point during the meal, while the two adults are not paying attention, he activates his go go gadget arms and manages to knock the cup over. Every meal. After the first couple of meals we started filling the cup only half way, and now he gets about three sips in his cup at a time. The kicker is that our dining room is carpeted (yeah who thought that was a good idea?), so it isn't an easy clean as you can imagine! I am hoping his gets used to this new cup thing soon so I can clean the carpets. Until then, my house will smell like sour milk. Sigh...

The Daddy

Ok, so he didn't get a very good intro did he? The cat and dog upstaged him really, and that wasn't very fair! He is laughing at me in this photo of the bathroom that we are remodeling, and by we, I mean him. I will have you know this picture was taken less than a week ago and we already have the tile down on the floor, and the vanity, medicine cabinet and light bar installed. Almost done, WAHOO! Oh, back to the daddy...

He is a great daddy, because not only is he a truly great daddy, but a great husband as well. Don't get me wrong, this is no fairytale...we both do things that piss the other one off, but at the end of the day we love each other. We really do. I know that can't be said for everyone, so I really do appriciate that. He is a great man, and I respect him for everything he does for this family. Not to mention the fact that he is pretty hot, and not so bad to wake up to every morning! You may think I am saying this only because he reads this blog...but he actually doesn't have time for "my silly internet games"!

The rest of the family

As promised, the daddy (Chris) and the kitty (Johnny). Don't let the picture of the pets fool you, they do not happily coexist at all. Most of the time June Carter Cash chases Johnny Cash (the cat in black) around the house, or vice versa. One day I am sure they will work it out, but for now it is just more chaos! You know you live in a busy house when you are excited for the animals to chase each other, because that means the dog has stopped annoying the toddler. (If you are ever here when the dog is annoying the toddler you will know why I say that! There is always a screeching "Noooooooooo June bug" every time the dog does something Aedan doesn't like.)

A proper introduction

I thought I should introduce my cast of characters. These three trouble makers keep me busy all day, every day.

I will start with the furry one! June is the golden retriever puppy, who will turn one in May. A word of advice, no matter how much your husband whines you should not agree to go "just look" at puppies, unless you really want to take one home that day. She was his "getting out of the Navy" present, and has been a hand full, but is actually a very well behaved puppy. However, if you take her and a toddler and put them in the same room, it is very much like having two toddlers.

Speaking of toddlers...that brings me to the big one, also known as Aedan. He will be three in March and is the sweetest almost three year old around, most of the time. He does know how to throw tantrums and loves to whine, but then again, what three year old doesn't? It is amazing how smart he is already, and I am sure it won't be long before he is out smarting me. For now I still have the advantage, luckily!

Then there is the little one. We like to call him Corbin. He was born last October, which makes him 3 months old. He is an "easy" baby, which is the only reason I am surviving this stay at home mom thing! There is something wonderful about second babies, as a mommy you have already gotten used to living for someone else, so that part comes easy and you are just able to enjoy them.

I tried to find a photo of just me, but I couldn't, and I thought this one would do just fine:

That was taken right after Corbin was born, but not much has changed since then! Taking care of them is like three full time jobs! Sometimes I do them all wonderfully, and other times I am sure they would like to fire me, but they can't!

There is a husband and a cat, but since they take care of themselves and I hear a baby calling, I will introduce them in another post!