Thanks for your input. . .

So Jr. thinks that he is a full fledged member of the decision making body in our family. That would make it a three pronged democracy of decisions. We try to let him know that it is more of a benevolent dictatorship with either Ed or I at the helm depending on the moment. Jr. he doesn't see it this way, therefore Ed and I have to put up with his constant comments, demands and suggestions on how we should do everything. The part that makes it funny is that he understands about 75% of what we are talking about.

For example - the other night I was asking Ed what his work address was so I could have his phone shipped to his work. He was hmming and hawwwing and I said - JUST GIVE ME YOUR ADDRESS. Jr. piped in with "845 Granite!"

Ed and I were discussing how Jr. must have been raised by the labs because he is ALWAYS under foot. Ed said something like "I blame Selma." I added that it could have been Miles too because he was around during Jr.'s formative years. Jr. piped in with "Miles is dead. He is in Kevin." Ed: "Heaven?" Jr.: "Yes, Kevin!" When asked what Kevin is like Jr. describes him as a guy, because he doesn't have any legs.

And lastly is the story of the BBQ. When discussing the new BBQ I suggested Ed take his old one to work. He said - no go, there is no place to store it. I suggested the breeze way between the two buildings and Ed explained why that wouldn't work because he once had to kick a bum out of sleeping there. Jr. wanted to know what a bum was and his dad told him it was a homeless man. Jr. wanted to see a homeless man. His dad assured him that next time they saw one he would point it out. Later in the day, Jr. was on the phone with my mom and told her that we were getting a new BBQ because there was a guy sleeping under our old one. He is big into "liking" or "not liking" things lately. "Like Selma" "I don't like Selma anymore." Same with Mom, Dad, Baby Graham, baths, dinner, naps, Aimees, playing outside, reading books, etc. He uses it to manipulate us into letting him do what he wants. Crafty little wizard.

So then there is Graham. Happy little well Graham. So giggly and sweet. His new favorite thing is to roll under his crib and laugh hysterically at the bottom of his mattress. He kicks his legs and makes little fists and laughs and laughs. That is pretty much a good example of how he is all day. Man he can eat too. He loves to feed himself. I still get amazing smooches complete with hair pulling and teeth. He has 4 up top and 4 on the bottom. No wonder he got so sick, the flu plus two or three teeth. It was a rough month.

Welcome back Mr. Sunshine. We missed you.

Photo credits - Kim Moog and her super cool iPod camera. I love love love these girls.

Hi Uncle Brian!

Countdown to the big birthday bash - Easter Day 4 PM. Easter egg hunt. MIL, FIL?

**before you ask - photo editing in Picnik. It rules and I think I will pay for the professional options. Now that I have a job on Monday. Sigh. So many amazing plans laid to waste - thanks a lot congress. I was going to go fishing, play video games and maybe hang some art. . .

Sick of Sick

Well just when we thought it couldn't get any worse it did. Baby Graham got SOMETHING, we just don't know what it is, but it is bad. That kid is SICK. He even had to go to the hospital go get x-rays on his chest. I don't know if I will ever get over the image of Ed and the x-ray dude holding my little naked baby up against a x-ray film while he looked over at me desperately crying. His little eyes said HELP ME MOM! I haven't slept since Tuesday so I could watch him breathe.




It makes me remember bad things from when Jr. was born. Memories I want to put behind me forever. Shudder.

Jr. is finally better - I mean his cough is gone, he is in a great mood and is back to Mr. Spunk. I was reading this article the other night about a 2.5 year old terror and I thought the woman was writing about my boy as of 6 months ago. She nailed it. I don't know what has changed in the last 5 months, but I have a totally different boy on my hands. He is still sassy, but he is SO charming. The sass is much less. He told me the other night that I was beautiful. I told him that he was beautiful and he said that we were BOTH beautiful even though he was a boy. He is full of hugs and kisses and is really for the most part sweet sweet sweet to his brother. He is starting to mind, he listens and he helps out around the house by picking up his toys grabbing things for me that I can't reach and entertaining his brother when I need 2 seconds to run upstairs or downstairs.


He is great. I mean really great. He told me the other day that he wanted to play an instrument, I asked him which one - hoping for piano. He declared - "The DRUMS MAMA! I WANT TO PLAY DRUMS!"




Before he got sick, Graham was learning to clap. I think he is too chubby to crawl just yet, but he tries SO HARD. That is the hardest part about his illness, my sweet happy little baby is gone - I get small glimpses of him, but this crab pot baby boy is so hard to mke happy. I feel so bad. He doesn't really eat a lot and gets meds every 2-3 hours. Poor belly.

I feel respondsible - recently I was running my mouth off about how we hadnt been sick all winter. Me and my big mouth. . .

I want my sweet baby back.

**I am a video**

**Me too!**


Sunday update - I wrote this sometime last week but couldn't make time to get photos in. Pretty much same. Graham is still running a fever and is still coughing. Jr.'s cough has returned. Sigh. My sinus infection is gone.

It is APRIL GOD DAMN IT. Time to move on out of this winter illenss month. Hello!


I promise next post, more positivity and hopefully good things to report. We will be getting ready for the birthday party royal. I can't wait for his birthday party. I can't wait. He is so amazing and I want to celebrate.

Tricky

Being a mom is really hard sometimes. When you have sick kids (again - yes again) and don't feel well yourself it seems like it is give give give and very little receive. I need something to change around here. The nurse Coleman bit is exhausting. That coupled with zero spring break is murder on the soul.

It is the little things that keep you going. Like family hikes and planning a 3-year olds birthday party. It is a month a way people. What should we do? Right now we are thinking Easter egg hunt. Boring. Maybe fishing derby?




Baby Graham feeds himself now. So cute. He is eight months old and says dadadada and yayayayaya. I say to him "mama" and he happily replies dadadada. Stinker.




Jr. is all about "outside" and "compost". Oh and Astro Boy which may be in my opinion Nicolas Cage's worst performance EVER.



I tried to replicate this photo:



With this:


Check the picassa photo stream for some sweet vids.

6 A freaking M

Up at 6 AM. Tossing and turning all night, nursing every hour. I am running on like 45 minutes of sleep. Every time I would try to put him in his crib, he would wake from a dead sleep the second his head hit the sheets! Damn it!

Normally he is not like this, asleep around 8, awake around 8 with one or two minor wake ups in the middle of the night to check in, but something is going on this week that makes him flop around, cry and demand to nurse every hour.

Teething? Maybe. Who knows. I ask him and all he says is ma ma ma ma ma. Or uh uh uh walala.

At least his naps are back to normal. Two one hour + naps during the day. Lordy, how I wish I could join him.
Yeah, I know, this photo has nothing to do with the above post, but I love it. Here is another one that is totally irrelevant, but oh so cute. Jr. LOVES his auntie Liesel.

Gear Junkies

Today while I was dropping Jr. off to hang with Adrienne I had a moment to read Pregnancy Magazine, it reminded me of simpler times. While I was prego I read every pregnancy book, magazine, website, scrawl on bathroom walls. . . While I want to say that I was looking for enlightenment on the path to motherhood, I am going to be brutally honest I was looking for that magic gear that would make baby rearing practically the easiest thing I have ever done. Those magazines are full of those product promises.

Today I was laughing at my pre-baby self, pouring over those magazines, thinking about my upcoming bundle of joy and just waiting for my super gear to kick in and make it good.

There is no such gear, but there are some things that we couldn't have lived without. The first is nursing. I love nursing that baby. It is the best thing I could have ever done for him or me. No bottles to heat up, no hauling formula around, all of the nutrition he needs, I dropped weight like crazy and best of all, it is free. It is our time to be close, snuggle and love eachother. I love it and no I don't know how long it will go on. I get sad thinking about the day we no longer nurse.

Ed cut the top off of our changing table and mounted it to the top of the dresser. That gave me an extra foot of height so I don't have to bend over to change Jr. This was the most fabulous move Ed has made. My back was completely messed up from after birth, and the changing table height was completely what the Dr. ordered.

That brings me to another piece of gear I couldn't live without, the orthopedic Dr. that diagnosed my back issues and the physical therapist who got me back into shape. Every time I would leave the PT office, I would want to hug the physical therapist I felt so good and after a little over a month, I am pain free. Plus once she fixed an almost migraine.

Bob. We live for the Bob. Ed Sr. is particularly fond of Bob. It makes short work of the 2 hours he babysits in the afternoon. Bob to the Moogs, Bob to Doos, Bob to pick up mom from work. Bob is a noun and a verb.

The exercauser or The Office. Although I feel like spending time in there may be holding him back from crawling. I think I am the only person that isn't anxious for him to crawl, but it is not like I sticking him in the office him to keep him from crawling, but to take care of him just long enough to do the dishes, or put my shoes on.

Books. That kid LOVES books. His favorite book is Brown Bear. He loves to read books, play with books and chew on his books. Even if you don't have the book and you recite "brown bear brown bear what do you see? I see a red bird looking at me" he chills out instantly and looks around for his beloved novel.

Finally, there is Cissie. Ed and I work and fight incredibly hard to keep Jr. out of daycare. We are mostly broke and Ed has to get up ungodly early, and we need babysitting coverage for about 2.5 hours a day and that is where Cissie comes in. We knew how awesome she is, but being without her for a month has made us appreciate her aven more. Hurry back Cissie we miss you. It is so great to have her show up and Jr. smiles and yells for her to pick him up. He loves her and she him. She is awesome and we adore her.

HAPPY New Year!

Happy 2009! 2008 was a riot, but 2009 is going to be bigger and better! Crawling, walking, talking, solid poops. We are so excited!

We rung in the New Years in Clinton, MT with all of our good friends. It was perfect, Brian and Angela's house was able to accomodate four families - that is 8 adults, 4 kids and 4 dogs. Huge thanks to the Vibberts for opening their house to all of us. We had SO much fun!

We partied like crazy all weekend and even enjoyed some of the record setting snowfall.

I put all of the New Years photos into their own set on flickr. Luke took many of them. He is quite the photog for a 3 year old. No culling, no editing. I wanted you all to live the experience.

On Sunday, Ed Jr. showed off his brand new skill, clapping. Brian and Angela were there for the first big moment. Very exciting. That is how it goes, one minute you are trying to get him to clap and then suddenly after his nap, there he goes clap clap clapping away. Ed and I figured that if he was going to crawl, this would be the weekend he did it - you know to keep up with all of those kiddos. But no, no crawling, only rolling. He would roll across the world if we would just let him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!

Happy Birthday Granny Shelia! We miss you and love you! Have a blast on your trip to Panama!

Baby's First Christmas

We have one ornament commemorating Ed Jr.'s first Christmas. Thanks MIL and FIL!

For the rest of his life, we will tell him the story of his first Christmas and here is what he will hear:

On Christmas Eve, when you were just barely 8 months old, we hauled you over to Strega Nona's FABULOUS Christmas Eve party. The house was decked out in FABULOUS decorations and filled with FABULOUS food. Not only was it Christmas Eve, but it was also Festivus, your Grandpa Bill's favorite holiday. You absolutely loved the Festivus Pole and used your walker to chase the Festivus Pole around the house. Your Uncle Julian was there with his papa Genaro, they helped you open gifts. Unfortunately, you were asleep before you could witness the greatest of all of the Festivus events, the pinning of the head of the household. It took both your mother and father to get it done, but before festivus was over, Grandpa Bill was face down on the kitchen floor. Some might even call it a Festivus Miracle. Your dad beat Josie in the feats of strength and the airing of grievances occurred primarily between your mother and grandpa Bill, but when doesn't that happen?

Christmas morning, it was just the three of us, mom, dad and baby Junior. We opened presents and you enjoyed all of them except the penguin from your Uncle Bill. It scared the pants off of you. You would look at it sideways and crawl up your mom for safety like a little monkey. Even though you were just a little guy, you were very good at unwrapping your gifts. Your favorite gift was a cardboard tube that your mom's new ice fishing pole was wrapped in. You liked it even better than the wrapping paper.
Then after breakfast and a Christmas daddy and baby nap, we loaded 10 thousand pounds of gear in the car and braved the icy roads to Great Falls to see Nanna, Papa, Uncle Ian and Faith. Your daddy protested your Christmas outfit, but your mom insisted on dressing you in your Christmas Poindexter finest. You were adorable. Christmas with Faith was a blur of wrapping paper and you terrorizing us in your walker with your new musical bongo drums - Thanks Uncle Ian. You got your very first Radio Flyer Red Wagon from Nanna and Papa. We even took you out for a ride in the cold icy Great Falls wind. You made it halfway around the block before daddy had to carry you the rest of the way home. Faith got a motorized four wheeler for Christmas, and you in your walker chased Faith on her four wheeler all around the house. After helping mom eat turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans and some pears, it was off to slumber town for you.
And that, my little man, was your very first Christmas. Days later your daddy and I are still recovering, but are ready to take off to Missoula to celebrate your very first New Years!