Drive me to drinking - Super long post!

I either want to down an entire bottle of wine or start crying and since I don't really like to drink alone I will probably just cry. It is one of those days. It is only 1 pm and I already feel like I have lived through at least two or three days. This is a really long post, so be prepared. I need to vent and get out my frustrations or I will go nuts.

Let's start with yesterday. It was a beautiful day yesterday, as well as today, but Andrea and I thought it would be fun to take the kids to the zoo. Samuel and Taylor are old enough now to know all the animals and we thought it would be great. Well after being at the zoo for less then 30 minutes, I noticed that Samuel had a disgusting poopy diaper. It was actually the most disgusting one he has had in forever. Anyway, it was so bad it came out the sides of his diaper and it was all over his pants. I did bring an extra pair of shorts for him, but I left it in the car because he has not had an explosive poop since he was Joseph's age. We didn't go back to the car for his shorts and he was actually sitting nicely in one of the strollers, so we strolled around the zoo with Samuel only in a diaper. It was awesome. The kids were normal two year olds and it made eating lunch more of a fiasco then relaxing. By the time, we headed home around 1:15 I was so exhausted I could barely function.

By the way, I figured out why his poops are so bad. The medication he is taking for his ear infection has caused some disgustingly huge poops.

Now for today. Samuel woke up a little after 7 and was terrible from the moment he woke up. He did let me put clothes on him which was nice and a diaper, thank goodness. He wanted to cook all morning long and was trying to get into our pots and pans cabinet all morning. He was slamming doors, grabbing things out of the refrigerator, grabbing things out of the pantry and wouldn't listen to me at all. By 9 am he was already driving me nuts. He ended up eating a ton of food this morning, so I thought he would be great when we went to Music Class. Boy was I wrong.

After I got him all ready to get in the car, he looked at me and said poop. I asked him if he pooped and he nodded his head and indeed he did. We had to run upstairs to change his diaper, but at the same time he was trying to pull his diaper off, so I had to carry him kicking and screaming up the stairs and fight him while I was changing his diaper. So, I get him dressed and in the car and he screams for a while wanting to watch Toy Story, but I am so sick of that movie, there was no chance he was going to watch it. We ended up having a very quiet nice ride to music class.

So we get to music class and Samuel is obsessively trying to use the hand sanitizer which is located right outside the classroom door. I try to pull him into the room but he is screaming because he hasn't gotten enough hand sanitizer and at the same time Joseph who is normally quite and wonderful started screaming and going nuts in his car seat. Finally I get us into the room and get Joseph out of his car seat to calm him down and try to feed him a little before class started. Samuel has decided he wants to run around the room and get into all the cabinets located on one side of the room. Then he decides he wants to eat lunch and starts trying to climb on the cabinets to get to the diaper bag which he thinks has food in it. All of this happened within a 5 minute period of time. Finally class is about to start and I sit down in the circle holding a now calm and happy Joseph and being strangled from behind by Samuel who will no sit on my lap and for some reason is all the sudden shy and is trying to hide from everyone. We sing about two songs and then Samuel is off running around the room and crawling under the tables. Then I hear him grunting and I know what that means. So Joseph is laying on the floor in the circle and I am running around the room trying to catch Samuel who has clearly taken a poop because the room is starting to smell. I know gross. One lady that I know said that she would watch Joseph while I ran to change Samuel in the bathroom.

When we get back in the room Samuel has decided he has had enough and he keeps saying he wants to go home and honestly I wanted to go home too. But, Samuel actually sat down in the circle and was participating in one of the next songs, so I thought we were going to be okay. I was wrong. Next thing I know Samuel is headed for the door (he is one of the only kids who can actually open the door), he is working his way out the door and I am jumping up to grab him with Joseph in my arms and then Joseph throws up all over my back and pants and Samuel is out the door. By this time, I have had enough and we were being disruptive to the class as well. So I grabbed Samuel, dragged him back in the room, put Joseph in his car seat grabbed the diaper bag and headed out the door. We were at music class for only 30 minutes!

I wanted to kill Samuel and I didn't think he would survive until his nap time. We headed home and I decided we would have a picnic on the porch so we could stay out of the house. I got the blanket and all of our food outside. I ran in to get Joseph to bring him out and at the same time Samuel was grabbing at my food and throwing it all around the deck. Luckily he just got to the tortillas and not the other food. So he lasted about 2 minutes eating on the blanket which I was expecting. But then he decided to go throw dirt around the deck, throw the soccer ball in the air, all of his toys cars in the air and all were in the direction of Joseph. Then he proceeded to throw all of his toys off the deck. I didn't really care about him doing that but then he ran down the stairs to get them all, tripped on the bottom step and skinned his knees and elbows. At this point we headed inside.

Now wait it isn't over yet, but almost. We had to wrestle to get him all cleaned up because he was full of dirt. Then I headed upstairs to put laundry in the dryer, Samuel followed me and I decided it was time for bed. I was getting him out of his dirty clothes and well what do you know, he had another explosively disgusting diaper. I got him changed and off to bed and it was a little after 12:30.

Holy shit. I know you think my son is an absolute terror, but he isn't normally this bad and I am not normally this impatient. Today he has almost pushed me to wanting to spank, but I held off. Time out wasn't as successful as it normally is and I am just pretty much drained.

I have written this whole post and I haven't started crying, so I guess I am going to pop open a bottle of wine and inject it directly into my veins. Anyone have an IV?

Nice Weather, where are you?

This rainy yucky cold weather has really zapped all my energy. We had a very busy weekend and I wasn't quite ready for the week to start.

We had our 10th year college reunion this past weekend. I surprisingly didn't get out my camera one time, so I have no pictures to share. I am really sad about that. My camera is so big and I just didn't feel like lugging it around, but I am sad that I didn't because now I have no pictures. Anyway, Oma and Opa came in town on Friday morning so that they could be here to help and watch the boys since we were planning to go out all weekend.

We did indeed go out both weekend nights. I am OLD. I can't go out like that anymore. Both Dave and I feel like we are getting sick because we are so damn tired from staying out until 12:30/1 am both nights. It was really nice to see some people from college. I thought it would be more awkward seeing and talking to people, but we are all grown up now and it was nice to hear what people were doing in their life. I recognized lots of people at the events, but I am not really someone that just goes up to people. I have to admit that I waited until people came up to me before I said anything to them. Now it is over and who knows the next time I will see some of these people.

In other news, Samuel woke up on Saturday morning and was super cranky. He was watching a movie and he started to stick his finger in his ear again. He wasn't really complaining about his ears hurting, but since he stuck his fingers in his ears the last time he had an ear infection we decided to see if we could get him into the doctor on Saturday. Luckily they had an immediate opening and Dave took him to see the doctor. Well, he had a double ear infection. He is acting 100% better now, but thank goodness we got him in when we did. We would have had an even more painful weekend.

I need help... Joseph will not take a bottle. He has taken two bottles in the past but it has been a while. When Dave's parents were here for the weekend he woke up at night and we weren't home and he wouldn't take his bottle at all. I have an event I have to go to next Thursday and I will be gone all evening long, so Dave will have to give him a bottle. What can I do? Yesterday and today we have been trying to give him a bottle. Yesterday he went ape-shit when Dave was trying to get him to drink it. I ended up breastfeeding him to calm him down and he worked himself up so much that he fell asleep for the night at 7:15. Today I have been trying all day to get him to drink out of the bottle. He did suck for a little bit. It is like he can't figure out how to use his tongue when he is drinking from a bottle. I also tried to pull a fast one and breastfeed him a little bit and then slip the bottle in. I think if I continue to try everyday he will figure out how to do it, but I am a little stressed. I can't have him not take a bottle. Dave and I need to have a life and he is going to have to learn to drink out of a bottle so we can get out of the house. Any advice would be so welcome!!!

I am going to relax a bit while Samuel is napping. I am still so worn out.

So tired

I am so tired right now. We had a super busy weekend. I am planning to post about everything about this weekend, but really I am too tired to write anything long. I am going to relax and hopefully I will have enough energy to post something significant tonight.

Spoiled

I am totally getting spoiled by how well Joseph is sleeping at night. Last night he slept from 8:30 pm to 5:30 am. Then I fed him in bed and he slept until about 8:15. It is so nice. The night before he went to bed at 7:30 pm and woke up at 4:30 am, I fed him and he slept until 8:45 am. It was amazing. I am still shocked that he is such a good sleeper. That makes me so much happier and in such a better mood.

I can't imagine functioning at this point on no sleep and dealing with Mr. Samuel. Yesterday I have to say that Samuel was awesome. I put him in his big boy undies all day and he had zero accidents. Well, it was pretty much all day. He woke up around 7:45 and he was in undies until 10:45. Then we went to a new place Monkey Joes. It is a place with huge blow up things that kids can jump in and climb and slide. It was only $5 for kids 2 and under. What a great deal. Anyway, Samuel was having fun until he found the arcade area that had a train you could ride. Once he sat in that he wouldn't really play on any of the other inflatable toys.

After his nap I put him in his undies again and he went from 4 to 8 without an accident. He was also peeing about every 10 minutes. He did a great job. Today we are trying it out again and I am going to run a quick errand to see if he can make it without peeing. We have to start at some point.

I am off to take the dog to doggie day care and it get groomed. She is so stinky and we can't stand it any longer.

Time passing

Once again the days have flown by and I have failed to post anything. This past weekend was so busy. I don't feel like I had time to really even relax. Friday we loaded up our PODS and got a lot of junk out of the house. Saturday morning it was picked up and then Dave and I went and ran tons of errands.

We checked out a pre-school for Samuel this past weekend: International Schoolhouse. We really like it a lot. He is going to start off two days a week for the first semester and then he will go five days the second semester. It is a total Spanish immersion school. From the moment he walks in the door they only speak Spanish. I am so excited about him being in an immersion school. I think it is really important for kids to be exposed to a foreign language at a young age. This is only a pre-school, so he can attend for the next two years. I hope we like it and he likes it too. He will start in September.

We did a garage sale on Sunday and it was terrible. We had barely any turn out. I think just three people came by. Each person bought something, but still it was terrible. In the future we will only have a garage sale on Saturday. I think the turn out would have been better. We weren't about to bring in all of our junk, so we donated a ton of stuff to three different charities. At least we get a tax right off.

I am starting to be more adventurous with the boys. I am feeling more comfortable getting out and running errands. Usually I just take them together to the park or to the mall, but I have only gone twice to the grocery store with both of them. Joseph is so easy and he pretty much has a consistent schedule of eating, being awake for about an hour and a half and then takes a nap. So I try to leave right when he is about to nap, so he sleeps in the car and then in his baby carrier. He is the easy one. The difficult one is Samuel. He is never easy. He wants to get into everything and is so loud. Today I was buy some fake lemons at Target (in preparation for putting our house back on the market). Anyway, Samuel opened up the package of lemons and tried to eat them. When I told him they were fake and he couldn't eat them, he smelled them again and told me "No mommy, yuck poop". Everything still smells like poop to him.

The best part of getting out today was my wrestling match with Samuel when we got to the car. He would not get in his car seat. He wanted to sit in the middle and buckle up. I told him no and he needed to get in his car seat. Anyway, he wouldn't have it. We were wrestling like crazy and he was screaming at the top of his lungs. A mom walked by my car and said "I feel your pain." Finally I got him halfway into his seat and I strapped one side around him and got him buckled so he couldn't move. He was screaming the entire time and I was ready to kill him. He is trying so hard to show his independence and it is really frustrating for me. Once I finally got Samuel in the car, he wanted to watch a movie. I total him absolutely not. He isn't allowed to watch a movie when he didn't do what I asked him to do. I think he actually understood me because he cried a little bit but didn't ask to watch the movie again.

I just realized how long this post is so I am going to head off to find recipes for dinner tonight.

Reinforcements

This week has been a pretty good week. I have been productive and I haven't wanted to kill either Samuel or Joseph at all this week. Samuel has been his normal self by testing limits, showing his independence and expressing his 2 year old tantrum throwing behavior. That being said he has been very enjoyable. He has a developed this kind of fake laugh. I think most of the time he is actually laughing, but then he over exaggerates it and makes it super loud. It is pretty funny.

Joseph has had a great sleeping week. He slept through the night both Monday night and Tuesday night from about 8:15 until 6:30 in the morning. It was amazing. I was up before him both days because my boobs were killing me and I had to pump. Last night he passed out at about 7:30 pm and woke up at 3 am. He was back asleep at 3:30 and woke up at 7 am. I love this sleeping pattern. I really hope it continues. Life is so much more wonderful when I get my sleep.

Today I had or babysitter come in the morning and she stayed until about 1:30. It was awesome. I was able to bake some banana chocolate chip muffins, do two loads of laundry and fold one load, clean every bathroom in the house (I even scrubbed the guest tub and our shower. I still need to do the floors, but it is pretty much cleaned) and not have to entertain Samuel. It is amazing how much stuff you can get done.

My parents are coming in town this evening and we have a very busy weekend planned. We are getting another PODS to fill up because we will be putting our house back on the market pretty soon. We are having a garage sale on Sunday. We have two birthday parties to go to, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Our weekend is just going to full of things to do. Thank goodness we will have help.

If I don't post again, have a great weekend everyone.

Good and Bad

Yesterday Joseph was miserable after his shots. He was cranky all day and screamed if anything touched his legs. Finally around 4 we gave him a little Tylenol and it helped him so much. He actually start smiling and cooing again after the medicine kicked in.

I had a meeting last night, so I left both boys for the first time with Dave. He was super nervous, but he did great. He tried to give Joseph a bottle, but he wouldn't take it. I don't think he as that hungry, hopefully it doesn't mean that he is going to refuse bottles. That would be terrible. He has only had two bottles of milk in his whole life, so he probably doesn't have the hang of sucking from a bottle yet. I was gone for only a couple of hours and it was so nice to get out of the house and not have to drag one of the kids around with me. I felt free!

So we have been putting Joseph in his crib this week and he has been doing great. He is a great sleeper and I feel so lucky. It is such a change from Samuel, who woke up every 2 to 3 hours until he was like a year old. However, I do remember after Samuel got shots he would sleep much better at night. The same thing happened with Joseph.

Now here is the good part: Joseph slept from 8:30 pm to 6:30 am. I can't believe it. It was pretty amazing. My boobs were killing me this morning, but it was so nice to not get out of bed for an entire night.

Here is the bad or concerning part: It freaks me out that Joseph slept for so long after his shots. It is like his body is trying to absorb all the vaccines that were just injected into his body. I know he was cranky and uncomfortable all day and he didn't really nap all day, but it just seems like every time Samuel was injected with a vaccine he slept so much longer at night. Now don't get me wrong, I am a fan of getting vaccinations. I wouldn't go without giving them to my kids, but there is also a reason why I don't want to give 5 vaccines at one time. I think it is way too much. Anyone else feel the same way?

On to Samuel...yesterday he did great at Mother's Day Out. He didn't cry when I dropped him off which hasn't happened in two months and they said he did awesome. They even mentioned that they think he is ready to be potty trained. They said that he told them all day when he peed and pooped and needed his diaper changed. That is really reassuring to me, because last week I tried to keep him in big boy undies as much as possible. We are going to try to do that again for the rest of this week. I need to run to the grocery store this morning, so he will be in a diaper, but when we get home big boy undies it is.

Well, Samuel is up now and I am going to suck down my cup of coffee and go and get him.

2 month shots

This morning Joseph had his 2 month appointment. I dreaded this day with Samuel and also with Joseph. I just don't look forward to the first shots. He got a shot in each leg and an oral vaccine. They wanted to give him 5 vaccines today and I said no way. I think that is way too many at one time. We have to go back in a month for the remaining two, but I don't care.

So I looked up Samuel's stats at 2 months and I am shocked. Joseph weights more then Samuel did at this time and is also pretty close in height too. I just always think of Joseph as being so much smaller then Samuel, but I guess Joseph is trying to catch up.

Okay, so here was Samuel stats at 2 months:

Height: 24 inches

Weight: 13 lbs 14.5 oz

Here is Joseph:

Height: 23.25 in (64%)

Weight: a whopping 14 lbs 4 oz (95%)

Head Cir: 40.4 (62%)

I seriously can't believe how big Joseph is. I vaguely remember that Samuel's head circumference was like in the 30 something percentile, which I was shocked because I always thought he had a big head.

Anyway, Joseph was a little cranky after his shots and now he is screaming at me, so I am going to go get him and hopefully he will take a little snooze.

Flown By

I can't believe that this week is already pretty much over. We have been really busy, like always I guess. I worked out 3 days already this week and hopefully if the weather is still nice tonight we are going to go on a long walk.

I am feeling better working out, but I haven't lost really any weight. I can tell I am getting more tone by all the weight classes I have been doing, but the pounds are not dropping yet. I am going to try to get motivated to do more cardio. It is just difficult to find the time, especially when Joseph isn't really napping so great during the day. He is awesome when we go out, but at home he just wants to stay awake.

I think Joseph is going through a growth spurt because he wants to eat non-stop again. It is like he can't get enough. This has been happening every two to three weeks and it makes me super tired and hungry. It is worth it though because now every time I am feeding him he is looking up at me smiling. It is the best feeling. He is so happy and cute. We go to the doctor on Monday, so I can't wait to see what his statistics are. I bet they are going to be really close to what Samuel's were at 2 months, but we will see.

On the Samuel front, he is totally obsessed right now with the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. Everyday day he says "Chipmunks". If we owned Toy Story he would be watching that too. He asks to watch "Buzz" all the time. I rented that movie close to 6 weeks ago and he still remembers it and wants to watch it. He settles though for his Buzz big boy undies. Yesterday and today he is obsessed with wearing big boy undies and they have to be his Buzz ones. Good thing we have two because he peed in one yesterday. So far he has been great today. No accidents. My goal is to have him potty trained by the end of the summer. Hopefully sooner, but we will see. Also, Samuel and I had a great morning together. I made some eggs for breakfast and I had my coffee. Samuel said he wanted coffee too, so I got him out a small coffee mug and put some water in it. I had my plate of scrambled eggs and he got a fork out too and we shared (actually he ate about 1/2 or 3/4 of my eggs) them. He was eating the eggs and then got his coffee mug and lifted it up, looked at me and said "Cheers". It was the cutest things ever. I love mornings like these.

Lastly, here is the picture that I am using for Joseph's two month. We have a picture frame that is broken down into months, so I try to take a really good picture each month and this is the one I picked. I couldn't get a good one of him smiling, but I think this one looks pretty good.

Sweet Joseph

My sweet little Joseph is 2 months old today. I can't freaking believe it. The time has just flown by. He has been absolutely wonderful. (I am knocking on my wooden dining room table right now and hoping that this continues).

So here are some updates on Joseph:

1. He consistently sleeps at night from between 8pm-9pm until 2-3am. He then gets up, eats and goes back to bed until about 6:30. Sometimes he is up and other times he snoozes for another hour.

2. He takes regular naps (at least 2 a day). He takes them in random places though. He loves his bouncy seat and prefers to nap there. We are still working on him napping in his crib.

3. He hates the swing just like Samuel.

4. He is smiling and cooing like crazy. I can get him to laugh and smile all the time.

5. He rolled over today from his tummy to his back. I can't believe it. Samuel did the same thing on his 2 month birthday and I am just shocked. He just flipped himself over this morning.

6. His cranky time is from about 6 to 8 every night. But then he falls fast asleep.

Dave and I were talking last night about how nice it is to have a good baby. I am so happy that I had Samuel first and had to deal with his cranky out of control behavior, because having Joseph is such a nice break. I have to admit that when I had Joseph I was worried that I wouldn't love him the same because I was so in love with Samuel. But I can't explain how much my heart has grown, I love them both so much. I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful family.

I was looking through some pictures and here is Samuel and Joseph at 2 months in the same position. I think they look totally different. Amazing how Dave and I could produce such different looking kids. I looks like Samuel's eyes were starting to turn blue at this point and Joseph's are still very brown. Their skin coloring is so different too.

Easter Weekend

We had a really nice long weekend. The weather was beautiful, except for Saturday when it rained a bit. It seemed like the weekend really flew by and we were just busy busy busy.

Dave and I had a date night on Saturday night. Our wonderful babysitter is back for just a week and we are trying to utilize every minute she can spare. Anyway, we went out for drinks and appetizers. I wanted to put Samuel to bed and then Joseph goes to sleep anywhere between 8 and 9, so I figured we would just head out when it was close to Joseph's bedtime. It made it easier for me to leave Joseph for the first time with someone other then family.

We went to Bravo and split a bottle of wine and Dave had two flirtini's. Yes, it was Dave who drank those. He loves those fruity drinks. Dave ordered the drink and when the waitress brought it to our table she tried to give it to me, but we told her that it was really for Dave. Anyway, it was delicious. We had a great night out together.

Sunday we went over to Jonathan and Laura's for Easter dinner. It was so yummy. We ate way too much food. Samuel participated in his first Easter egg hunt and he LOVED every minute of it. He was so excited when he knew that the eggs had candy, he couldn't wait to find more. After he found them all he looked up and said "more eggs". Jonathan threw some more around the yard, but Samuel wasn't so excited to pick those up because they didn't have any candy in them.

We took so many pictures this weekend, so here are a few favorites:

At the park:

Joseph is so good in the stroller. He lasted all afternoon, smiling and sleeping:

My boys:

Easter:
Samuel Easter egg hunting:

Here is Samuel learning to blow bubbles:

Here is he, so excited and in mid-jump:

Aunt Lala teaching him what to do:

Family photo: