Time Flies Even When You Are Not Having Fun

We have had a hell of a weekend and week. Samuel got a little bit of a cold on Thursday evening (I think the change in weather) running nose and a little bit of coughing and he was up all night. Then Friday night, Joseph got a cold and it wasn't nearly as nice as Samuel's. He had a super runny nose and coughed a bit as well. This left both Dave and I with no sleep from Thursday night on. Joseph slept okay last night and I am hoping by this weekend they both will be sleeping great again. I desperately need sleep. Due to my exhaustion I have been a cranky "B". Not only that but Samuel has re-entered his terrible two stage. It hadn't really left, but he had a few good weeks where I thought we were moving past his terribleness, but to my dismay the terrible two's are back in full force. It takes all my energy. He has been spending significantly more time in "Time Out". The only time he listens is when I tell him to get and stay in time out.

He is still obsessed with my hair. I know I mentioned this before, but he HATES it when I wear my hair up in a pony tail or pulled back in any way. I don't know what to do. Yesterday when I woke him up from his nap I had my hair in a pony tail and he went into full on convulsions. Sometimes I over exaggerate, but I am not kidding this time. He started kicking and screaming and banging his arms on his sheets and yelling "Hair down." It is out of control. Not only is it with my hair that he has issues, but his hair too. I was combing his hair the other day and I spiked it up into a pho-hawk. I was just messing around with it (it actually looked really cute) and he started hyperventilating and crying. I mean full on tears streaming down his cheeks because he hated it so much. I quickly combed it normally. But seriously what the heck is wrong with him!?

Lastly, we will be breaking ground pretty soon on our house. We have so many more decisions to make, but it is coming along. As soon as things start moving I will let you all know the progress. I am excited and nervous. I just hope everything turns out the way we want.

I am off to wake Samuel up from his nap. I really don't want to, but I want him to go to sleep tonight.

Weekend Approaching

I survived Mother's Day out on Monday, but Joseph barely did. The ladies said that he cried almost the entire time, except during his 20 minute nap and then about 30 minutes after he played in his crib and then cried the rest of the time. Poor kid. He was so tired Monday evening that he went to bed around 6:45. Samuel had a great time and played very hard. He was also exhausted by the evening and asked us if he could go to bed around 7:15. It was awesome. Dave and I got to have alone time starting at 7:30. Hopefully this will continue because it would be nice to start off the week with the kids going to bed early.

After only one and a half weeks of Spanish school, Samuel said his first word this morning without being prompted. I took out his school uniform and he said, "I go to school and say Hola!" I think that is pretty good. The only problem is that Hola is about the only word I know in Spanish other then counting 1-10. Should be interesting when he starts really talking in Spanish because I will have no idea what he is saying.

Joseph is getting much better at standing, but he can't pull himself up and he isn't really interested in crawling yet. I am sure one of these days it will just happen. Here he is standing, he was pretty happy with himself:

Samuel was really enjoying his cereal yesterday:

Samuel has been going through a non-cooperation phase when it comes to pictures. He doesn't really like to look at the camera and won't smile on command like he used too. Well, yesterday I was taking pictures of Joseph and I asked Samuel if he would pose for the camera and these are the funny pictures I got of him. He actually put his hand under his chin on his own.

Lastly, I have been making some awesome food this week. I liked the curry the best and Dave loved the Ragu. Here are the recipes. They are super easy and very tasty.

1. Fall Vegetable Curry with Cashew Basmati Rice

2. Mushroom and Sausage Ragu with Polenta - I used spicy chicken sausage instead of the turkey sausage

3. Cider Glazed Chicken (I didn't make the rice even though it sounds really good). Instead I made cous cous with Feta Cheese, Tomatoes and Shallots. It was delicious.

It has been a great eating week and I have been feeling super healthy and satisfied. I only have about 45 minutes until I have to pick up Samuel from school, so I am off to do some house stuff.

Firsts

As I mentioned in my last post, the sexual assault training was pretty intense. Thank goodness we just discussed adult sexual assault and not children, because I think I would have had lots of nightmares. I only had nightmares one night and then I was just disturbed by the things they were talking to us about.

Anyway, now that I am training, I will be able to better help victims of both sexual and domestic violence.

This past weekend my wonderful friend Sylvia, her husband Ryan and son Jackson came in town for the weekend. Sylvia and I studied abroad in China our Junior year of college, which is surprisingly 11 1/2 almost 12 years ago. That is absolutely crazy how quickly time has flown by. We stayed pretty busy on Saturday. We went to World's Fair Donuts on our way to the Missouri Botanical Gardens, spent time at the Japanese Gardens and Children's Garden at the Botanical Gardens, we went to Ted Drewes, ate BBQ and just relaxed. It was a great weekend and it was fun to see our kids hanging out.

Today has been a rough day for me emotionally. Samuel and Joseph started their first day of Mother's Day Out. Samuel surprisingly remembered the place and went right in and started playing. No tears, nothing. That was such a relief because I don't know if I could have handled it if he cried too. I think his lack of tears were due to the fact that we have been discussing that when I drop him off at school I will always pick him back up. Last Thursday when I dropped him off at school and picked him up I told him "When Mommy drops you off at school, I will always pick you up again." This morning when he got up, I told him he was going to school again today. He started crying, which broke my heart. But then I asked him if he remembered what I told him, that when I dropped him off at school...then he interrupted me and said "Mommy will pick me up again." I am always amazed at the memory of children. Instances like these really remind me the impact parents have on their children and how children can really be comforted and influenced by their parents.

Anyway, after I left Samuel in his room, I went to drop Joseph off. Of course he went right into the room and was fine, but after about a minute he started screaming and crying. There are about 8 little kids in his class and they are all boys. Joseph is by far the youngest. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack leaving him, but I told them to call me if they couldn't handle him. We will see how it goes. I pick them up at 3:30 which is a super long day, but I need it and they need it.

So far I have ran two errands, vacuumed the entire house, ran on the treadmill and have been working on the computer for the last 30 minutes. I can't believe how much I have already gotten done. I have so many things on my "List of Things To Do." I know I will not nearly everything done, but it is nice to make a big dent.

Samuel had a "first" as well today. I was putting Joseph down for a nap this morning and I could hear Samuel moving things around downstairs. I was wondering what damage he was doing because it sounded like he was dragging chairs around in the kitchen. Once I put Joseph down in his bed, I ran downstairs to find Samuel in the bathroom, filling up his potty chair to rinse it out. I looked at the toilet and he had his other potty chair on the toilet (that one is used on the actual toilet seat). I looked in the toilet bowl and there was poop. I said "Oh my gosh Samuel, you went poopy in the potty alone?" He replied, "and pee pee too mommy." I can't believe it. Oh how my little boy is growing up.

I am off to shower and run some more errands. The new Cooking Light magazine has amazing looking dishes, so I think I am going to try several out this week. Need to make a grocery list and head to the store alone. It will be so nice and quick!

Here the boys are this morning before heading to Mother's Day Out:

All the boys, Joseph, Jackson and Samuel. This was the best picture I could get of the three of them:

Joseph's 7 month picture (meant to post this a long time ago):

Busy

Time has really flown by. We have been super busy the last few days and I have had no opportunity to post anything.

Samuel is doing well in school. However, today when I dropped him off he totally flipped out and was screaming and crying when I tried to leave. It just kills me when he is crying. His eyes were so red and tears were streaming down his cheeks and he just kept saying "One more kiss mommy." I can't explain the pull I feel in my chest when I have to walk out the door. I know he calms down shortly after I leave, but it is still terrible. They said today he was fine but acted really tired. We have been trying to adjust his bedtime because I think he may be slowly phasing out his nap. He still needs a nap, but he has trouble going to bed at night. So I am cutting down his naps and we are trying to get him to go to bed earlier. We will see how this pans out.

This week (Monday through Wednesday) I am in a SANE nurse training. SANE stands for Sexual Assault Nurse Examination. It is a training for nurses that specifically want to deal with rape and sexual assault victims. I am doing this training because I am trying to do additional work for Woman's Place and they are seeing victims of domestic and sexual violence. In order for me to help out any victims I felt like I really needed to be more educated on sexual assault. This has been a very difficult training so far mentally. I just completed my second day today and last night I had nightmares all night. I anticipate have terrible dreams again tonight. It is just overwhelming to me to hear stories about victims because I don't encounter these situations ever. Anyway, I have been very drained by the end of the day.

Luckily, Oma and Opa have come in town and they are watching the boys this week while I am in the training. Joseph has been difficult eating wise. He really will not take a bottle. He is luckily eating solid food and I know he isn't starving, but he will not take a bottle. I guess he is just going to be a completely breast fed baby until he is a year old and drinking real milk. Should be interesting. I am so glad that the grandparents are here because I am just pooped by the end of the evening and barely have enough energy to do anything, so it is nice to have them playing and entertaining the boys and giving both Dave and I a nice break.

Okay, well I am super tired and going to bed very soon. I will post more later.

First day of Preschool

Samuel started his first day of preschool today. He was pretty excited. I wish I was able to get a better picture of him, but he doesn't really cooperate with photos anymore. Of course of all days he didn't wake up at his normal 6:45/7 am wake up time. I had to wake him up at 7:40, get him ready, eat breakfast and then we left at 8:10 to pick Dave up so he could come with us on his first day.

Here is Samuel before we left:

Here he is in the car. The school requires the students to wear a uniform and we were supposed to put them in it before we showed up, so there would be no arguments or meltdowns with the kids (in fact we saw one boy having a meltdown when we arrived). Samuel was excited to put it on (luckily).

He was a little nervous at first and wouldn't let go of Dave:

Then he saw the kitchen play area and attacked. He zoned in on a frying pan and grabbed it from the little girl that was playing there first. I had to tell him to share, but I was sure he was going to whack the little girl in the head with the frying pan. That would have been a great start to preschool. I began to feel nervous that my son was going to be that mean kid that bullied everyone. That is my worst nightmare. Instead of continuing to panic, Dave and I decided to head out and let the teachers deal with him.

Here he is about to attack:

It was early release day, so I had to pick him up at 10:30. When they brought him out to me they said he only cried for a little bit when he realized we had left, but then he was easily redirected. Then they said when they tired to get him to bring him to me, he ran back in the classroom and didn't want to go. I asked him if he liked school and if he was ready to go back on Thursday he said very enthusiastically "YES!" I take that as a good sign.

Today Joseph is 7 months old. I need to get some good pictures of him, but I will try later and post something. While Samuel was at school, I ran to the gym and put Joseph in childcare. They said he screamed the entire time (which was about an hour). He was crying so hard when I got him that he was doing that hiccuping thing, when you can't catch your breath after crying so long. I felt terrible for him, but at the same time I am not going to stop going to the gym. He needs to get used to going. I am normally gone for an hour and a half max on most days. Poor kid is starting to have some serious mommy separation anxiety.

Here is a picture of the boys from this weekend:

My mom came in town this past weekend. The boys will not see her again until the end of October. We had a really nice time hanging out a relaxing. This was a cute picture of my mom and Joseph.

Lastly I wanted to say a big thank you to Megan and Donnie for coming in town this past weekend as well. We had so much fun hanging out, going to the baseball game and drinking WAY TOO MUCH wine. Of course I didn't take any pictures, so I can't share any.

Now I am going to relax because I have a rare moment when both boys are sleeping.