Jason's Vocabulary

Okay... I'm not sure if it's just me and feeling like MY kid is SO smart or what, but damn Jason has a vocab on him. :)

Just now while we are having dinner he saw my purple pen on the table and said, "purple crayon", two seconds later Phoebe sneezed and he said, "bless you Phoebe.".. not "phoebe sneeze", but "bless you" in the right context. He's not even two! :) Am I unduly impressed w/ my kid or is he advanced? ha His new thing is to say "mama hug" when he's in trouble or when he's supposed to be going to bed. He knows a lot of his colors like yellow, blue, purple, red and black. He can count to 3 on his own and will count to 10 with assistance. He can identify many foods like carrots, apples, avocado (both in whole form and cut), bananas (in peel and out), oranges, broccoli, milk, water, blueberries (though you might need a translator to understand that one), tomatoes (called "yucky tomato"), rice, beans, grapes (starting to say grapes instead of beeps), hot tea... there are others I'm sure. ;) Because he's just THAT talented. ha :)

I really wanted to post this just to document his verbal skills... but come on... you are impressed! ha :)

Lily is saying more and more as the days go by, but Jason is definitely leading the charge.

-25 with wind chill! WTF!?

Awesome midwest weather! It was about 40 in the car when I left yesterday morning. My car registered -6 this a.m. WHAT!? I just heard on the news that it was actually -8 and -25 with wind chill this a.m. Holy Crap that is COLD!!! Things were melting like crazy yesterday so I can only imagine the ice rink underneath the 1 inch of snow we got last night.

As Tom and I were bemoaning the freezing temps outside we heard the people on the Today show say something about how marriages are better the colder it is outside. Tom and I about laughed out loud. They clearly did not include Tom and I in any such study. It's not that I love Tom any less, but I am certainly much crankier and a whole hell of a lot less lovable in the cold cold cold times. I guess the theory is that in the colder darker months you hole up together and What? cuddle? Ha ha How about putting on almost every piece of clothing you own and huddling up in a damn mummy bag while bitching b/c you can't even go outside w/o gloves on or your fingers will immediately freeze and fall off!? Okay, maybe that's just us!

I had a great workout yesterday. Finally figured out the whole swimming while kicking thing! NICE! Followed by a good 30 minute run.. today.. not so great. I was pretty tired yesterday and we had a maxed out emotionally day. Jason was hitting the wall and we were all pretty unhappy. ugh! I hate being stuck in this house. I long for the days when I can throw babies in the stroller and head to the park when we get too cooped up!

Anyway... enough of my whining about the weather.. I'm going to go have some chocolate. Anyone want to come over and drink coffee and watch TV all day while the kids wreck the joint?

THIS is the life I want!

As you know I spend a great deal of mental energy thinking about what my life will be like in the years to come.. like FIVE years from now. I think of what I want it to be like and where I want to be. Since having kids that's a bit harder for me to do seeing as have no clue what they will be up to and how that will impact my life. :)

Anyway.. as I drove home from the gym this morning it occurred to me that THIS is the life I want.. this life that I'm living right now. I've got it pretty damn good. I get to go to the gym every day to work towards goals and dreams of my own. I don't have to worry about getting back to work (my work travels w/ me. :) ) and I don't have to worry about the money to pay for my frivolous need to push my limits. I am SO lucky to not have those worries.

I have to great kids that bring me so much joy! Lily and I took a trip down to Chicago (well Highland Park) this weekend to visit with Kelly and John Michael. It occurred to me about 20 minutes into the drive that I had forgotten to pack any toys. EEK! I thought I was in for a HELLISH 2.5 hours down to Kelly's, but Lily was a dream. She was content to play w/ gloves, hats and her coat. We sang some songs and talked a bit. She did get restless here and there, but who can blame her. At Kelly's she was also amazingly good. She ran around the house with John Michael or by herself. For the first part of our visit she watched him as he played then joined in. She fell in love w/ his magna doodle and drug the little one all around the house with her. She even sat quietly coloring on it the entire time I made dinner the second night we were there. I was amazed. She slept really well the first night and napped well. The second night she did well aside from a 2 hour party in the middle of the night. She talked up a storm too! I just couldn't believe how self contained she was while she explored and played. We even took the kids to the book store and she just ran around there looking at the stuffed animals and pulling down the occasional toy. I have to say I was also amazed at how well John Michael did. He shared his toys really well and though he is a super active 4 year old he was great with Lily. He would do his spazzing out and running around all without knocking her down.. that's more than I can say for Jason. :) It was so fun to watch them play together. They followed each other all around the house.

Here are some photos from the trip. All from one day when she was playing magna doodle. Oh, I tried to put this super cute outfit on her that we got from Karen, but she WOULD NOT wear the dress part so here she is before I got some pants on her.







While I was gone Jason was home with Tom setting his own records... like sitting in the tent for an hour stacking blocks and coloring quietly all morning! REALLY?? MY Son? While I was gone he seems to have grown by leaps and bounds. This morning he requested a cup, I handed him his cup of milk and he pushed it away and said, "No, Wawa cup." WHAT? uh, okay. Thank goodness for developing vocabulary. In days past he would have just screamed and continued to ask for a cup while I continued to try to hand him his milk. I was so surprised.. and excited! ;) Then this afternoon he got upset b/c Phoebe was eating the O's he dropped so I told her no and to go to bed. He then said, "Phoebe bed." and pointed to her bed. He then kept bossing her around. They learn so much so quickly. I also got proper kisses today. I didn't even ask for them. I changed his diaper and stood him up and he leaned over, puckered his mouth and kissed me right on the mouth.. a couple of times. So adorable!

After Lily fell in love w/ John Michael's magna doodle I ran over to Toys R Us and picked one up for Lily for our return trip. I thought for a moment of buying two to hopefully avoid fights at home and then decided that was excessive.... uh, we ran to Target yesterday partly to get Jason his own magna doodle. They both love them and haven't actually fought TOO MUCH about who has which one.



So back to my original topic. Life is great.. I am happy.. and that is good. :)

Daddy's home!

Yeah! He even got an earlier flight and was able to dig the truck out of the snow in the -6 degree weather! ;) We got to play with him all afternoon! :)

He brought some gifts from vendors. Apparently the lady thought the kids were either 6 or amazons... and the pants for Jason are CLASSIC. Yes I believe these are meant to go together???





We're all happy to have the house back to normal... well, w/ daddy home. The bathroom construction has begun so it's not normal at all.

Hardest job in the WORLD!

Never again will I feel a shred of embarrassment or inferiority when I say I am a stay at home mom. This is by FAR the hardest most challenging job EVER!!! If only I could drop these kids off somewhere every day for 8 hours and let someone else deal w/ them and teach them manners, how to clean up, how to go potty on the potty, how to read, sing, dance, spell... blah blah blah. No disrespect intended to those of my mom friends (or anyone else that might stumble upon this site) ... I can't even IMAGINE trying to get my poop in a group in the a.m. to get the kids ANYWHERE on time much less then only have the few hours in the evening to squeeze in quality time, dinner and baths.... I'm just saying.. DAMN!!! This job is hard. It's hard whether you work or not, but I'm not just running around having fun play dates, enjoying coffee and scones w/ my friends while the kids are happily playing. I won't lie... when Karen (my SIL and first friend to have a kid) had Liam and started staying home I truly had the coffee shop/scone scenario in my mind. Oh how wrong was I!?

Today parenting was like trying to tread water w/ weights on my ankles or taking a turn in the washing machine.

We are at that age / stage where it's time to stop just being a parent and start parenting. No more letting the kids do whatever.. Well, not WHATever, but you know ... no more turning their little table over an crawling all over it, no more giving them their cups w/ straws and lids w/o the lid bc that's the way they want it (there is a lid there for a reason!!! Scream all you want!), no more scattering toys every which way all day w/o having to clean any of them up, no more moving the dining chairs into the living room, no more throwing stuff all over the kitchen then leaving it there to move onto the next disaster! NO MORE acting like a hurricane running through the house w/ me in the wake cleaning up. I need mommy boot camp!

Frankly I don't really mind my laze fair approach to parenting, but I know it's not doing them any favors. I'm starting to see it at other places... I let them explore and do whatever which I think is good to a point. NOw that they are getting bigger and more capable they need to understand that not every table can be flipped over and climbed on. Today I had flashes of 2 years from now w/ me on Super nanny wondering how it got so bad. HA! Really the kids aren't that bad at all, but I'm feeling like they can use some 'direction'... wow, it's a lot of work. Jason got many time outs today. I found that I had a hard time figuring out where to draw the line. Like should he get a time out for not listening when I've asked him nicely to come HERE and he has sat in the tent ignoring me w/ a little smirk on his face (when I finally popped my head in to see if he was doing something and ignoring me or just sitting there intentionally ignoring me). It's absolutely exhausting disciplining all day...

This a.m. was fine... because we hit the gym by 8:15am, but the afternoon really pushed me to the edge. I so miss the days of being able to just drop babies in the jogger and head to the park when we all start feeling a little cooped up. I find myself at a loss for things to do w/ the kids. I guess all they really want is for me to get on the floor and play silly games w/ them, but I, uh, get bored. :( I try to do little dances / games w/ them but I think they get bored. Anyway....

Today was one of those days where I wonder how any parent regains there ability to be a functioning contributing adult after they have kids. My mind is so full and distracted with the kids. I guess I do feel a bit of clarity after the yelling and screaming goes to bed.

It's funny lately they are mimicking each other all the time. If one gets hurt and starts to cry the other will mimic whatever happened then pretend to cry, when Lily starts to scream b/c she wants her pacifier Jason will follow suit though he has no interest in a pacifier, when one makes a big loud obnoxious (not crying / screaming just playing and experimenting) sound the other will do it too and if I tell them to stop they laugh and do it again and again. The joys! ;)

Yesterday Jason pushed Lily down and I made him take a time out and when it was over I asked him to say sorry to Lily and give her a hug. He said, "Sorry Sissy" and gave her a big hug. It was very sweet. He did it again a few minutes later... the pushing down, time out and sorry, but not the hug.

They had their 18 month check up the other day and I keep meaning to post their stats:

Jason: Height 33" (60% - wow and almost exactly half my height... could that be right?), Weight 25lbs10oz (40%) and head: 46.9" (20%)

Lily: Height 31.5" (30% much higher than her previous 15% or so), Weight 22lbs12oz (20%), Head 46.3" (35%)

They did a great job at the FOREVER long appt and only got one shot. We decided to delay the next round until they are 2 (the MMR, Chicken pox - which I hope to not do at all, and some other thing). They did get the Hep A just b/c Tom travels so much. This way if he brings something nasty home they are protected.

Things are well here... except that it's snowing and Tom is gone... but he'll be back soon and this year will start to fly by... :) Enough of my drivel I must MUST sleep!

My theory still proves true.

In case you were wondering... yes it is snowing again. Tom left for Taiwan at 5am on Saturday a.m. He reports that when he left it WAS NOT not snowing, but when I woke up at 7am the car was covered and it had snowed about 2 inches. It is snowing again today.. we should get around 4 inches. Temps are set to drop back down to double digits this week too. Thankfully this is only a week long trip so it won't be able to snow every other day for two weeks straight. I think today is supposed to be the last day for a while, but honestly I try not to look b/c it bums me out. ha

We lost the tent from gpa larry and gpa lynda. It is finally broken beyond repair I think. (We'll let Tom take a look at it when he gets home. I'm sure we could find another plastic dowel to replace the broken one. I set up the other house which I think will have an even shorter life span w/ TW around. TW stands for trainwreck ala Papa Mills. ha :) It's been up for a couple of hours so far!


(note the remains of the beloved tent in the foreground)



Also note worthy from today... Lily put her big snow boots on all by herself today. The wrong feet and all.

Proud of myself..

Okay, so not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty proud of myself. My friend Kristi emailed me about this great kids thing they do locally. This time it was music today at 9:30am and it's free. My initial reaction was, "Crap Tom leaves at 5am that morning we can't go"... then I decided that I couldn't let that be an excuse to sit in the house all day and be miserable so I decided to give it a shot.. worst case I just get out of there early. Well, it was definitely fun and a little challenging, but I was able to keep my cool. I spent a lot more time as part of the main attraction than I would have liked. I spent a lot of time on the stairs of the stage keeping Jason and Lily from running up there.



We sat with our friends Rebecca (my friend), Avery and Colette... at least when we were sitting which wasn't very much.


Lily was kind of doing her own thing.


I'm pretty proud of myself for just going and trying it and for enjoying it. :)

We even went for a run after naps... I was wonder mom today. Speaking of I should go play w/ the kids before dinner and bed time. :)

Look how big they are in this thing now!

What a difference a year makes...

Lily Jan 07:


Lily Jan 08:


Jason Jan 07:


Jason Jan 08: (okay don't have a good eating shot of him...)


and some videos too:
1/07:

12/08:


I love to go back and look at the old stuff.. though it makes me realize how quickly they are growing up. I cried when Lily sang the ABC song. :)

I leave for under two hours...

and Lily starts to do something new:

(for those of you that can't decipher she sings the ABC's up to G) :)


Earlier today she was carrying the Leap Frog learning magnet thing that sings the ABCs and playing it over and over. She would only let it get to about K before she would replay it - over and over and over - guess she was learning it and only got to G before she got bored, side tracked or annoyed w/ Mr. Frog. :) So I guess those things work. :)

We had smoothies as dessert tonight and Jason kept insisting that I put his cup down and let him eat it w/ his spoon or fork. He "ate" it all by himself... and of course Lily had to do it too! All in good fun. MAKES me give them a bath even if it's late so it's a good thing!

All I got right now...

wanted to share some pictures!

Still trying to poop. This is quickly becoming a nightly ritual at our house. Jason REALLY wants to sit on the pot after dinner. :)



Showing his friend's Kate and Coco how to still look like a man while sporting a pantsless, girl's boots wearin' look. :)



The look:


More coloring!


Lily loves this elephant.. see will get going so fast that she flips it.

good times..

Gosh... I don't have a lot to say, but here are some photos to make up for my lack of words.

Super babies:




Lily's favorite activity lately. This photo reminds me of photos I've seen of myself
- I loved to color.


Jason really prefers to organize and reorganize the crayons than he does to color. ;) He's mr. safety/things in their place. When we wake up in the morning the first thing he does is run to the kitchen point to the bathroom door and say "uh oh" b/c it's open over the night so Phoebe can get to her water, next is the dog door "uh oh" to remind us to close it. If we aren't right behind him to close it he will come running out of the kitchen w/ the door saying "uh oh" or "help". It beats him going OUT the dog door, but hey, the kid is smart... it's cold out there. I bet he'll go back to crawling out of it when the weather is better! When we get home from being out he immediately races over to the basement door, not so he can escape into the no mans land of our basement, but so he can slam the door shut tight! :) Good for me! ;)

I'm trying to quickly acclimate to my new training schedule. This weeks was just okay.. I missed a couple of work outs (shh, don't tell Andy, though I'm betting he's missed a few too). Tom and I hit an hour long cycling class today (Yes, Kelly more stationary cycling in a room full of people where no one goes anywhere!) and it was hard! :) I've got some work to do!

I also had my mentor meeting for Team in Training this weekend and am excited to meet my team (won't be until April) and get started w/ some out door workouts and fundraising.

We are awaiting the beginning of our house remodel as well. Hopefully this week, but our contractor is snowed in on his family vacation in CO so it might be next week. We apparently have 2.5 weeks after start date until they cut into the roof and tear out our bathroom. At that point we will all be staying at mom and dad's condo. Thank God for that place or we would have some cranky (no naps) babies and some smelly adults!

Okay.. I had a few things to say.

Unsolicited endorsement ala Kelly Bryant

So my buddy Kelly bought the Shaklee Get Clean pack and I just saw that she made a blog post about it that I just had to share! Click HERE!!! I didn't ask her to do this.. she did it on her own. Thanks Kelly for spreading the word! Happy cleaning!
!

More on Phoebe and our new potty chairs

Phoebe has been taking her meds - reluctantly - and they have definitely got her eating again. She has been spoiled by Tom. When she wasn't eating he was making pork chops and /or chicken for her and now she won't eat unless there is some meat in it. Not canned dog food meat, but meat cooked on our stove. Her energy is definitely up and her personality is back. Her tumors have decreased as well. We'll see what happens after her roids run out.... that will be the test.




The kids have been talking about poop a lot and are really curious about it so I got some potty chairs for them. We aren't by any means potty training yet, but I am letting them sit on them when they want to. Today after dinner Jason HAD to sit on the potty chair W/O his diaper. So I let him. This is after we spent some time on it this a.m. After breakfast I was changing his diaper and he ran to the bathroom screaming to poop so I ran over and let him in. We all sat on the potty together... Lily in her diaper and pants. I was surprised at how long we all sat there. When Jason got up he had peed in the potty. So funny. He was pretty proud of himself... it was definitely just b/c we sat there for so long... anyway back to tonight. We had to drag the potties into the living room this time. Jason naked again (well except is socks) and Lily in her diaper again (she had already pooped her pants). Jason sat there for at least 20 mins. He would read a book then ask for another one - he didn't even try to stand up. Then he wanted some blocks so I brought those over and we stacked blocks, he would knock them down then ask me to bring them back never moving. When he was done w/ it he said, "All done." and let me wipe him. He had pooped just a teeny bit. I put his diaper on him and about a minute later he pooped for real. ha ha So I guess he gets the concept, but I know he's not ready to do the full deal. I really can't believe how long he sat there! Lily likes to sit on the potty a lot and likes to stick wipes in it (see pic above) like mommy. :)

Happy 2008!!

I can't believe it's 2008!!! Just wanted to say happy new year and welcome to the world to .http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif I know all of you already blog stalk my sister in law's blog so I'm sure you already know, but there's the link anyway. I can't wait to head out in February to meet the newest member of the Mount clan!

Here are some pics from the first day of this new year!

Playing mummies




The kids love the tent and Lily likes to be nakies so she is always taking her clothes off.


We got some potties to start the familiarization w/ the potty concept and Tom taught them to make a poop face... here is Jason's. They only do this if asked to make the face or if asked if they have pooped. :)