We did it!

Another accomplishment in my world....we made it to Gwen's 6 month pictures, took a few with Trevor, waited around for the pictures, picked them out, played for a few minutes at the mall, did a drive thru at McD's, and came home. NO meltdowns, NO wild disobedience, NO even real fussiness. I'm so proud of my kids. Gwen is on the mend from being sick and it could have been a horrible experience.

We had to leave before she had taken a nap. So I thought that was going to be the end of it. She was trying to sleep when she decided to poop. Which keeps her awake. And then the diaper change itself makes sure she won't go back to sleep any time soon.

So then we get to the portrait studio. And I recognize the photographer as one we have had before (when Trevor was younger) that I DID NOT like. Great. But I figured if she was still around, she had to get a few good shots. Now get this - I started getting the kids ready for the car at 10am. Our appt was for 11am. The mall is less than 10 minutes from our house. And we got there, and I got Gwen dressed and we were ready at exactly 11:00. It takes me a full hour to get everyone in the car and ready for a 10 minute car ride.

But anyway, score one point for mom for allowing enough time. We took a few pictures, and Trevor turned into a photographer himself. At least he tried to help with Gwen to get her to look at the camera. Now, I didn't note what time we were done actually taking the pictures, but I would guess like 11:20 or so. At that time, there was still just the one person working. She had to help with the previous family in picking out their pictures to order. Then another woman came in to look at frames. So she answered a few of her questions. Then Trevor was getting antsy so she helped him with a movie he could watch to keep him entertained. And as the movie was just getting started, a mom with a 3 year old boy (or so...I'm just guessing) and a 6 week old boy came in to pick up pictures. Only they were in yet. So she calmly expressed her frustration on our photographer. There wasn't anything she could do about the pictures not being in, but she did say that she would fed ex the pictures as soon as they came in. Apparently they just changed management and lost at least one of their photographers. Perhaps for more mis-haps like this one? In the mean time, her 3 year old son started watching the Thomas movie that Trevor was watching. So the new family was ready to go, and of course the boy didn't want to go. So the mom was quietly asking him to get going. You could see that he was another person that loved Thomas. The mom turned to threats....he brought along a Gordon train. So the boy walked with the mom out into the store. Not more than 2 minutes later the boy walked away from his mom back to the TV. His mom found him again, and said something like, "I love you baby, but we need to get going now. I'm going to take away Gordon right now. GET OVER HERE." It really wasn't the worst situation I've seen by far. He wasn't screaming or throwing any sort of fit, he just didn't want to get going. But he finally did. Of course, not more than another 2 minutes later, you see him tearing across the store behind the racks of clothes where his mom is unable to see or come near him with a big stroller. His mom is now screaming at him to stop. And he keeps going. That was the last time I saw or heard of him.

In the mean time, Gwen has taken her bottle and fallen asleep. The lady looking at frames comments to me: "Wow do you make it look easy". Now I have no idea how many kids this woman has, but I was thinking to myself...I just got lucky today. Or maybe it is because Gwen just hit the age that she is pretty easily consoled even if she is cranky. But I do appreciate that I looked like super mom.

So I picked out the pictures I wanted, we walked to the reactrix play area for Trevor for a few minutes. Gwen had woken up as we were going down the elevator. We did a quick drive-thru at McD's, and got home.

Now that Gwen is feeling better, I'm hoping that her span of staying up for a few random hours in the middle of the night. I'm still not sure her ears are tip top because I remember how Trevor did when having ear infections. He would require a few nights of tylenol before his ears finally felt better. But she is having trouble in those first few minutes (or hours later at night) before she can settle down and sleep or stay awake until later.

Anyway...we are off to the cabin this weekend, so I can't really start anything new until we get back. Maybe she'll solve the issue herself soon. Or maybe it is another touchpoint thingy going on. We'll see!

Backwards days

You know...yesterday, I was up for the day at 5:30 (not by choice), but got a TON done...laundry, vacuuming, a little exercising, organization and the such, and really didn't feel tired until the usual 8:00 or so. This morning, I was up for the day at 7:00 and haven't been able to get anything done and feel so yucky. And not sick yucky. And not really tired either. I wonder what it is.

Yesterday, because Trevor is off of school for the next two weeks, I was able to play Cars with him and the help of Gwen. For some reason Trevor was ok with it. Maybe because I don't get a lot of chance to play with him, so he is happy to get any time.

***Cut to the next day. I didn't get a chance to post this when I wrote it on Friday, so I'm continuing my thoughts today. So here goes attempt #2.

I'm trying more and more to try to get Trevor to get used to Gwen playing with us as well. Maybe (I'm thinking a year or maybe more from now) they will be able to play a few things together and Trevor will realize he can play with someone that has more time to play with him and absolutely ADORES him. Already, I can see it. And of course all of Trevor's toys are new to Gwen so she loves them.

But anyway, then I was trying to say that on Thursday, although I did not get enough sleep and was up early for the day, I did pretty well. But Friday, when I was up an hour and a half later, maybe I was just in a worse mood for some reason but the day just did not go well. Maybe it is a blessing that it happens that way because I'm more likely to be able to deal with the rough days with more sleep than on days I don't have a lot of sleep.

Anyway....on another note, I figure I'd also add a few updates to Gwen not involving her sickness. She can sit unassisted for a decent amount of time. I think she is also learning how to scoot with her legs. She knows how to scoot across the floor on her back by pushing her legs, but she really does this unintentionally. When she is on her stomach, I can help her along a little bit, and she seems to know that she can do it to move to a toy that might be out of reach. So while she isn't walking holding onto fingers or hands, she does like to observe from a standing position. And if I put her exersaucer a few inches out of reach, I feel like I can see the wheels in her head moving...trying to figure out how to get herself just a few inches forward.

For the record, Trevor was crawling at 7 1/2 months. I'm not sure how far off Gwen is, but I'm pretty sure it won't be much later than Trevor given what she can already do. I suppose I should start figuring out childproofing stuff soon. I know our furniture was dramatically different when Trevor was crawling around.

Update on Gwen

Unfortunately, it's not a good one. She now has two ear infections. So we are now focused on just getting better. I did just look at Trevor's first year calendar. He got his first ear infection at 5 months a few days...and Gwen is a few weeks older than that. So I'm happy that she made it as long as she could.

Funny thing though....she didn't have any fever. Now that I know, I see her signs though. Difficulty eating and pulling at her ears, giving me a pain cry. I thought the cry was for her throat though. And it could be, but she definitely has an ear infection.

Gotta run and try to catch some sleep!

Guess what the Easter Bunny left us?

I guess I should first start off by saying we had a pretty good Easter. Trevor keeps re-hiding the easter eggs so he can have someone else find them or find them again himself. Plus, when we went to brunch and they had a Easter Bunny character there, Trevor eventually wanted to give the bunny a hug, high five, or whatever. He had been steering clear of big characters. Not sure what started that, but it looks like it is finally wearing off.

Unfortunately, Gwen has gotten a cold again. This is her third one in her less than 6 month lifespan. This time, it has developed into a wheezing cough and I had to bring her in for a nebulizer treatment yesterday. She seems to be doing a bit better today, but it is going to be a few days until she is back to napping without waking herself up from coughing.

So any prayers for the little girl would be greatly appreciated. It is hard to see her so sick and nothing you can do about it.

Mom Stuff

So I've had a few fun things going on that I wanted to mention. So for you fans of stories about this kids...feel free to skip over this.

Almost two weeks ago, I went to the Bloomington Fine Art's Taste of Chocolate. I'm pretty sure I've been to 4 or 5 of them now. They have small portions of chocolate from about 15 "Chocolatiers" that you taste and the vote for your favorite. They also have official judges that vote on the best. Now, normally I don't complain about chocolate in any form. But for the second year, one company (I forget who it was....I just don't want to remember them) made raspberry balsamic vinaigrette chocolate and tomato basil chocolate. Holy cow. Yes, they named them correct because you could taste it very distinctly. But why? They didn't win people's choice awards nor the judges...so why bring it back two years in a row? My favorite was a hot chocolate brought in by the Napa Valley Grill. It was SOOOOO good. And it was light enough that you could drink the little cup they gave you and still eat more chocolate. That one was my vote. I know it didn't win, but the other ones that were there did do pretty well as well.

Second (and almost more important than the chocolate) is the silent auction. It doesn't take long to sample the chocolates, and that's good because the auction ends at 4:00. There are probably close to 400 items to bid on. Maybe more. I didn't count. I won 4. The kids got some musical instruments, I got some gift cards to Snuffy's malt shoppe, Bubba Gumps, and the family now has 20 passes to the local YMCA so we can all go swimming together. A very good haul I'd say. It is something I look forward to every year.

Then, last Sunday, I went with some of my mom friends to play Bingo. It has been TOO long since I did that. A lot of my da-BOINK's were so dried out, and one of my favorite pink ones had a crack in it, so I had to throw it out. That made me sad. But then I won a game. $50 even. So I was much happier. And it made me want to go back. But golfing will be at least kicking off, if not starting next month, and I can't WAIT. It is hard to believe sitting here in the midst of a late March snowstorm. YUCK. And this was just after yesterday, Trevor was finally able to see his outdoor Nascar track all dried out (aka our basketball court).

Just for fun

There are a few ways I could go with this post, but I figure I'll catch up later. (We'll see if I actually do) I wanted to post about what I think Gwen is thinking at this time, since it has been back when I was pregnant that I did it last.

I am already noticing her difference in temperament compared to Trevor. I thought it was going to be a lot more demanding than it has been so far because of her temperament, but maybe it is just because she is going through a good patch. I'm guessing the terrible twos and more horrible threes are what's really going to be testing for us.

So the set-up is as follows: We can either be in unfamiliar (to her) territory, or at our house. If someone is holding her that she is comfortable with, she loves to look around, smile and play games with anyone that will smile back at her. As in: "I'm good with this. I wanna have some fun. Let's see who I can get to tell me I'm 'So cute'."

There are a few exceptions to this scenario....if she is tired or hungry, and she is being held, but someone she isn't immediately familiar with enters the room, she can start to cry out. As if to say: "Go away. I'm tired. I just want mom. Not in the mood."

Sort of similar.... if she is in her carseat, being brought somewhere, it is pretty hard for her to distinguish a familiar place. So if someone peers in at her, she usually cries out. "I don't know you. I don't know where I am. I don't want you to look at me." Not unlike her brother's daily complaint of "Don't look at me Gwen." -Insert eye rolling icon here-

Traveling with her has finally become doable. At least for the distances I need to travel. It can only get hairy if she is over tired or hungry and it isn't the first car ride of the day. If it gets to be upwards of 20 minutes in the car and no face to look at, she starts her: "Where are you?" cries. To which we have found a solution to. Her favorite song is "Wheels on the Bus". Trevor has even been singing it at preschool and knows some good verses. He will even chime in. So as long as she isn't over tired or hungry, and we keep singing verses of Wheels on the Bus, she then knows. "Oh....ok. They haven't left me. I can't see them, but they must be here somewhere. Could you please get me something else to play with? I'm bored."

Gosh, in two weeks she is going to be 6 months old. And I'm pretty sure the real fun is going to begin. Stroller rides, crawling, more teething (blech).... she is getting to be a cute little girl!

I'm trying

to get back on the wagon but the kids are either sick or not sleeping or both. I have asked Tracy for her permission to use this video she made of Trevor and Caribou Coffee. I think it is pretty darn cute. GREAT JOB TRACY!

Well, it is getting better

She's napping better, at the expense of her nighttime sleeping. But I'm hoping she is trying to figure it out. I have a hard time believing that she will continue to need less sleep than Trevor. He still hasn't given up his afternoon nap. But if Gwen gets a good afternoon nap, it results in a span of time in the middle of the night where she is awake. I know I'm probably getting more sleep with her than I did with Trevor at this age so again, I shouldn't complain.

She is not eating cereal yet, as she isn't a fan of finding food on her tongue. But we'll try that at least once a week until she is ok with it. She's almost sitting unassisted. She loves to be in her snugli carrier so she can see what is going on. But she does not like to be left alone for any amount of time.

Last night, her awake time was right after she went to bed, thankfully! So she came into Trevor's room while we were reading stories. So after the story, both kids were playing on the bed together. Gwen was practicing her sitting up, and Trevor was mimicking her. It was very cute, and both kids were having a lot of fun. Gwen was loving looking at Trevor not more than two inches from her face while they were laying on the bed together. It was a very nice family moment. It's nice that he can back away from his jealousy for a little bit.

Just when you think you day is going to turn out horrible

It doesn't. Last night was DREADFUL. Probably the worst since Gwen was born simply because it kind of came out of nowhere. Neither child is sick anymore, but Trevor was up after Gwen was up at midnight, so after Trevor was settled down, Gwen was up from 1-4 and although she drifted off to sleep, she couldn't stay asleep long enough to even be put down.

I'm guessing part of her deal was teething, or maybe just resetting her sleep schedule, but OUCH...when she was up for the morning at 7am, I thought I was doomed today. Trevor was barely up before 8am, so we had to get moving to get him to school by 9. I came back home where Gwen was waiting for me to put her down for her nap. She had her bottle and went down by 9:30. I went back to bed just hoping to catch an hour of sleep. She didn't get up until after 11! YIPPEE!!! So I got a few winks.

Then, today was just a wonderful spring day. I couldn't help but let Trevor take his trike up to the church parking lot and ride it around. Gwen was in the stroller. She lasted about 15 minutes and Trevor was happy just to get out of the house. So we came back home, had lunch and now Gwen is napping again.

SPRING IS COMING I'm telling you! And we all are looking forward to it here in our house! I'm sure last night was the worst of it...KNOCK ON EVERYTHING! I'm not expecting it to be perfect tonight, just hoping for a little improvement.

Finally...the hotel stay

Ok...where to start. I guess I'll start at check-in. The room was "guaranteed" by 4pm although we were welcome to use the waterpark when we got there around 12:30. Trying to change our clothes, find a locker only to have to come back out to move our stuff into a room just did not seem worthwhile. So of course the room was not ready until 3:30. So we had lunch at the restaurant, and then played in the game room.

So I have to tell you about this guy in the gameroom..... he was either fixing or regulating or something a few of the games. So I just thought he was a fix-it guy. But then he started playing Dance Dance Revolution. Oh holy heck. The guy must have been training for something because he had a towel wrapped around his neck that he used to dry off between song, as well as a bottle of water that he was drinking. He looked about 6ft tall, and maybe 150lbs. Very lanky. But MAN did he know how to use the game. He was on the expert setting, and while he wasn't perfect, the thing was flying by so fast.... it was just mesmerizing to watch. I really have no idea what he was doing. He did develop an audience. Played probably for maybe a half hour? Then went back to plugging away on another nearby game. Obviously there have to be people that are experts at that game, but I never thought I'd see one. I hope he wins whatever thing he was entering....because I have no idea what else he could be doing.

Ok...so anyway....onto the water park. We were able to play for a good few hours. It was such a perfect temperature in the park. I'm not good at determining what it was, but it felt like a good 80 degrees. Probably because it was so humid. This was perfect for Gwen because she had a bit of congestion so we were able to take off her sleeper and just have her nap in her onesie.

Trevor found a friend right away. Unfortunately, that first night was the only time we saw her. No one caught her name, but Trevor would not leave her side. She was probably 6 years old or so. I think she taught him all about the playground that we stayed at. There were small slides, and longer slides. But there were signs posted that said that no one over 100lbs were to ride on them. So either he had to go down them or watch someone else do it. All of these did not have a tube covering them so he could see where the slide went. And he went down them again and again. The water was never above his thighs so he could wade around and go wherever he wanted. Although he never saw the girl after that night, he was still able to play around the gym and have a great time. It was always hard to get him to leave. And by the time we left on Sunday, he was physically so exhausted.

There were also probably 8 or so adult sized waterslides. Either to be ridden by yourself or on a tube or raft of some kind. They had one called the toilet bowl. My oh my. I haven't gone on any roller coaster type rides for a few years, and I had forgotten how much they were like roller coasters. Completely pitch dark, really fast, then it dumps you into the water. Makes you feel like you are having fun at least.

We got Gwen in the tot sized play area and the water was nice and warm for her. I think she was a bit confused that she wasn't due for a bath, but I also think she enjoyed it.

What I do like about going to this place was that it was so nice and warm in the park, and the water was also nice and warm, but that if we had gone somewhere warm for vacation, I would have been constantly worrying about putting enough sunscreen on the kids. Assuming it would have been nice enough to go to some kind of warm weather waterpark.

Another aspect was the food and service we got at the hotel. All I'm going to say is that the service was horrible and the food was average. Does anyone know if it is a Wisconsin thing or a Dells thing to make sure they draw out E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G to take at least 2 hours to eat a meal. Not fun.

And last but not least, the time we spent after the kids went to bed. Kevin and Kelsey got introduced to Dominoes. We had a late night on Friday and only a semi-late night on Saturday, but had a good time playing! Add to it, some alcohol and it can get pretty silly. At least it doesn't cost anyone money if they lose. So you can't complain too much (AHEM). It has been interesting to think about all the games we have gone through over the years. Granted, it has only been 3 or so....there was a Trivial Pursuit era, overlapping with and continued by Guts - a poker type game involving money, and now it is Dominoes. Happily, we can even get my dad involved, assuming we don't start too late.

So that was our trip in a nutshell. Trevor wants to go back and stay for 41 days (although now it is 90 days). I'm happy to have had him enjoy the trip. Hopefully we can plan for a Disney trip soon!

Going back to school

So this Monday, I started a "Parenting your infant with Older Children" ECFE class. I have taken all the infant classes and toddler/separation classes with Trevor and had expected that this infant class would be with a "teacher" I had had before.

I received a call a few weeks back saying that this class moved from one site to another so I did knew that it wouldn't be the teacher I had known. I also tried to schedule the class with "Julie's mom" who just had a baby a few months ago. Unfortunately, it is during a time where Julie has preschool and it didn't work. So I was by myself in that I didn't know or had met any of the other parents before. But it was nice because none of them were first time moms.

Trevor is in another room during this time and almost everyone in the class brought their "older sibling". Turns out, Trevor is the oldest, and Gwen is the second youngest. A mom brought her two WEEK old baby to class. YIKES. Kudos to her. But I guess, some people want to get out of the house.

I, of course, fell into the introverted wallflower person. I answered questions simply and for the most part listened to everything. I'm guessing it will be next school session before I'm comfortable enough to get to know some of the moms better. I'll be doing plenty with my "old" mom's group this summer to keep me happy.

Gwen had a great time. She loves looking at faces and it was cute to see her watching other kids her age. Of course I also have to compare her and her strengths. There was a 9 month old, a 7 month old, and a 6 month old. None were crawling or sitting upright. I was telling Russ, I think she is about 2 weeks away from sitting by herself. She is a lot stronger than I remember Trevor being.

Hopefully Trevor will enjoy his time to play while we are in class. It's only a 12 week program, and then it will be SUMMER BREAK!!! Can't wait for this darn snow to melt!

Riding the train

So the first and last part of our trip was riding the train. If we ever ride the train, the only options are daily trips leaving MSP at 7:50am arriving at the dells at 12:05pm. Coming back we leave the dells at 5:50pm and get into MSP at 10:30pm.

Going down, Trevor was excited about the fact of being on a train for the first half hour or so of the train. He then realized that it was pretty similar to riding on an airplane. He was able to run up and down the aisles, sit and watch a movie...I guess there were a few differences - a dining car and an observatory car. Those held his interest for a few minutes. So did the conductor. He has watched a movie called "Thomas and the Magic Railroad" that has a few conductors in it. And they kind of look like the ones we saw.

But the main reason we rode the train was because of Gwen. She needed to be walked around, held, let out of her carseat to kick around, etc. He also learned a new card game called "Golf" through Kevin and Kelsey. Of course he had to chime in and offer his own rules and comments to what was going on. Kevin or Kelsey was often "not in the lead" because one of them "Lied the game." He is learning about lying via Pinocchio so he likes to use that word.

On the way back from the Dells, Trevor was obviously very tired. He was able to nap on Saturday, but we kept him up on Sunday. The train got in at 6:00pm. We were able to upgrade to a sleeper car. But the train conductor didn't know before the train had left for the day, so they were informed just before we got on the train. Throughout both of the trips, the workers on the train seemed very protective of their train. I felt the evil eye more than once. We had planned on going to the dining car to eat dinner right when we got on, but it was pretty packed. We got our name on the waiting list, but it wasn't called until almost 8:00. By that time, we had scrounged for snacks in their little cafe area.

By 7:30 Trevor was asleep in his bunk bed. Gwen took a short nap a little before then. But Trevor slept all the way until we woke him up a few minutes before 10:30. Just as Gwen was going to sleep. It was completely dark, so not much to see outside and not much to do either. But it was also nice to have someone else be responsible for getting us home.

Anyway, the train was the train. Russ doesn't think we will be doing it again due to the riff raff we saw on the train. Although it is nice to know that it is an option as a last resort. Hopefully Gwen will get a little older and take to the car in a few months. Otherwise we'll be making a lot of our trips overnight.

It's his STAR week!

So Trevor is the star at preschool this week. He has been asking about it, looking forward to it, counting down the days on the calendar for it. And it's finally here! I don't have the full understanding of everything that happens, but he was really excited to get to school today. We were there early, so he was able to get ready and ran in, put his name in the basket, and he RAN over to the special star chair which is right next to the teacher for story-time.

He didn't see anyone without saying he was the star. He ran over, sat in his chair and literally BEAMED with happiness. I stood back and watched him. The teacher even had a turtle puppet for the day and Trevor had no idea until he finally looked at her. He was just sitting in his chair, hands in his lap and didn't even know what was going on....other than he was the star. He cracked me up.

Although at the tie, I was wondering why they didn't put his star day on his birthday week, I'm now glad they didn't. He already was looking forward to his birthday, and now this way he could look forward to being the star on a separate day.

His big day is Thursday. He gets to start the day off with family at school and read one of his favorite books. I'll have to update you on what happens then.

Welcome back to the land of the living

Well, this weekend was a blur. A wonderfully fun time, with some bumps in the road, and I'll have to split this into a few posts. Trainride, Waterpark, hotel and eating...as I see it now.

Today is my thank you post. Oh my goodness....I'm sure I could have done it without help, but WHO THE HECK WOULD WANT TO? At the cost of my own sanity, that's for sure.

Thank you to my dad for coming out and joining us, and bringing all the extra stuff that wouldn't fit on the train. And then for driving back the other stuff that we wouldn't have wanted to take back on the train.

Thank you to Kevin and Kelsey for making the train trip and the vacation with us. Trevor loves to play with you both, and you helped distract and keep him entertained when I was trying to get Gwen to sleep or just in general whatever.

Thank you to my mom for getting excited and going along with the vacation. It amazes me the things you remember to think about like packing a TON of yummy chocolate chip cookies for the train ride and having dad bring extra "rations" for the hotel. Thank you also for taking the kids home with me on the train and entertaining Trevor and Gwen so I could have a little fun of my own.

And finally....thank you to "the dad" for going along with this whole thing. I hope you were able to have a little fun. Trevor keeps saying he wants to go back and stay for 41 days this time (where 41 came from, I have no idea). It was great to be able to share some good family time outside of our usual Bloomington stomping grounds. And while we aren't going anywhere warm this winter, thank you for helping with everything on the vacation.

I suppose I should also say a little thank you for the kids too. Trevor did pretty well..he finally got over his little fear of people dressed in a full costume. The hotel had an elephant which he started out scared of, but by the end of the trip he gave him a high-five.

Poor Gwen got a cold right before we left, so unfortunately, she did not sleep well. But she still had a pretty good experience...I think. Too bad there is no chance she'll remember it.

Ok...be back soon with more. One more time to the above listed: THANK YOU!