In the Words of a Three-year-old

"Ouch! My nose hurts! I need crackers.  Crackers make it feel better."

"The pee is stuck in my butt."

"The poop is stuck in my butt."

"I got lots of babies in my belly."

"Wanna be a kitty?"

"Wanna be a puppy?"

"I the mommy, you the baby."

"I beat the bad guy!"

"I got a puppy in my tummy."

"Too many babies in my belly to fart"

"What I touch?" (when we told her to wash her hands immediately after touching cat puke)

"But I said please!" (when we told her she couldn't have candy because she ate dinner)

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In the words of an almost 7-month-old:

"mamamamama"

"Trrrrrr"

"Waaaa!"

I love this picture!

Can you tell Goober is going through a superman phase?

Poor Frog Face had an eye infection this week so that's why they are so red in this picture.  He is fine now though.

Yep, this is what we have resorted to.  Pictures are getting harder and harder to take.

The Love/Hate of Daycare

So I would say I definitely have a love/hate relationship with daycare.  I was raised by a wonderful stay at home mom (sahm) so that was all I had ever known.  I have come to the conclusion that I am a great mom, but would make a terrible sahm.  I go stir crazy and long for adult interaction.  I love my children but also need to feel like I am doing something else too.  I get frustrated when I am trying to do something like clean the house or cook dinner and I am constantly interrupted by diapers and crying and calls of “mommy!”   I have nothing but admiration for sahm’s because their job is incredibly hard.  I just knew it wasn't for me.

When I was pregnant with Goober, I struggled with the thought that she would have to go to daycare.  I was worried about her bonding with her care givers and wanting them more than me.  I was worried about missing all the important “firsts”.  I didn't know how breast feeding would go and if she would take the breast at home.  I felt guilt over the thought of paying someone else to raise my child for me. 

Now that we are three years into daycare and have #2 in daycare as well, I realize that although those fears were well grounded, they also did not prove to be true.   It was still hard to leave my not-so-little 10-week-old Frog Face when I first went back to work, but I had done it once before so the process wasn't new to me. 

I definitely have a love/hate relationship with daycare.

I love the fact that Goober has developed social skills and has lots of little friends.  She has had multiple play dates with them outside of “school” and loves spending time with them every day.

I love that when I was on maternity leave with Frog Face I had daycare as an option for Goober.  I was able to spend quality time with Frog Face when he needed it most and Goober was in a familiar place on a regular schedule, providing some much needed stability in those crazy first few weeks. 

I love that when the Weatherman or I are sick during the week and the kids are healthy, that we can put them in daycare so we can recover.  We don’t have any family around here and most of our friends have new babies as well, so for the most part we are on our own with very little help.  This past Monday I had a stomach bug so we put the kids in daycare and I was able to sleep and rest up. 

I love that on some days, like tomorrow for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, Presidents Day, and the Friday after Thanksgiving, daycare is open but I am off work.  I have to pay for the day anyways so we always have the option of putting the kids in daycare if needed.  Most of the time we opt for keeping them home (my belief is why have kids if you just want to put them in daycare all the time even if you don’t have to?) but sometimes it has been nice to put them in for half a day so we can get some things done kid-free.  Tomorrow for instance I am going to keep them both home with me in the morning, then put them in daycare for the afternoon (during nap time) so that I can get some shopping done and enjoy some much needed “me time”.

I love that the care givers at the daycare the kids go to really actually care about the kids.  It’s not just a job to them but something they are really passionate about.  This is really important to look for when finding the right daycare for you and your children.

I love that daycare fixes healthy meals and snacks for them, limits tv time, gets them on a routine, establishes good habits like picking up toys, washing hands, brushing teeth, etc. 

I hate though that we don’t have a lot of options for daycare in the smallish town we live in.  The daycare the kids go to is the only non-home-based one available.  So our choices were a bit limited.

I hate how much daycare cost.  We are actually fortunate that our daycare costs less than many other places.  We pay $140 a week for Frog Face since he is younger and requires more one-on-one care, and we pay $120 a week for Goober.  That works out to around $1,100 or so a month.  We are blessed beyond belief that somehow God works it out every month that we just have enough money. 

I hate that I do miss a lot of their lives during the day.  By the time we get home it is close to 5:30 and then Frog Face starts to get tired and ready for our bedtime routine around 6:30.  And in that small one hour window we are trying to fix dinner and get everyone fed as well.  In my perfect world, I would love to keep the kid’s home half the day and then work the other half of the day.  Obviously not possible, but something I still dream about.

I hate not being able to raise my child the way I would like because of daycare restrictions.  For instance, as you probably have realized my kids have sleep issues.  At daycare all the babies nap in the swings.  They have cribs for each baby, but they let them all sleep in the swing because it is easier for them.  It’s not a battle I wish to fight, but it does frustrate me sometimes when we try to get Frog Face to nap in his crib and he doesn't like it.  They are good at respecting my wishes on the really important things though, like breast milk and delaying solids, potty training, and things like that.

I hate the daycare germs.  My kids are constantly sick because of all the diseases spreading around that place.  I feel like they do a good job cleaning and disinfecting, but kids will be kids so if they go to daycare they are going to get sick.  I am a pro at how to handle illnesses though.  I still hate the stomach flu and freak out a bit with vomit (although I am getting better with this) but after all the daycare germs, illnesses don’t bother me quite as much anymore.

Ultimately, daycare is not the evil I had thought it would be.  It really has been good for my kids and for us and I don’t regret our decision to put the children in daycare.  Goober has learned a lot and much of that is credited to the teaching she has learned at daycare.   She loves all her little friends and also loves her teachers.  Frog Face does great too.  He smiles and gets excited to see his care givers each morning.  But he gets more excited to see me when I come pick him up.  I am still his favorite person. 

And for that, I am grateful.

It was Pajama Day at daycare!  

Doing better with solids

First bath without a bath seat.  Such a big boy!  

Pajama Day at daycare!

I had a different dress picked out for her today for church, but apparently it wasn't good enough because she picked this one out for herself instead.

You know you're a parent when...

You know you’re a parent when….

Child-size clothes hangers look normal and normal-size clothes hangers look huge!

You find random kid items in your pocket (baby socks, hair ribbons, toys, half-eaten granola bars…)

You don’t hesitate to pick a booger out of a nose with your bare hands.

Wiping another person’s butt is a normal part of your day.

You purchase glasses based on durability instead of style.

You purchase everything based on durability instead of style.

You forget if you shampooed your hair before you even get out of the shower.

You forget that you showered a few hours after you shower and only remember when you realize your hair is wet.

Everyone asks what you want for your birthday but the thing you want most is 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep in a bed by yourself.

It’s 9:00pm on a Friday night and all you want to do is go to bed.

You find yourself humming along to kid cartoon songs while in public and you are not even embarrassed or ashamed.

A pony-tail is your go-to hair style.

You wake up in the middle of the night thinking “Have I fed the cat today?  Do I still have a cat?”

You are more excited to watch your kids open their Christmas presents than you are to open your own.  (this is only partially true: I still like opening presents)

Every nook and cranny in your house is taken over by toys.

Every nook and cranny on your fridge is taken over by priceless scribbles and drawings.

You can do practically anything with one hand and one foot because you always have a child on one hip and another attached to your leg.

You try to write a blog post but only can write one line at a time because your 6-month-old is teething.

You know you’re a working parent when….

You try to cram balancing the checkbook, paying bills, showering, making lunch for the next day, cleaning the house, etc. into the wee bit of time between the kids going to bed and you going to bed.

You rush to make the kids dinner after work only to realize at 9:00pm you didn’t get around to eating dinner yourself.

You become an expert at getting yourself ready for work in 30 minutes and pray the kids stay sleeping for those 30 minutes.

You become an expert at getting ready for work despite the kids waking up early.

You have an extra shirt at work in case you acquire spit-up between leaving the house and dropping the kids off at daycare.

You put more money into daycare each year than into your car, your house, or anything else you own really.

When you feel overwhelmed, all you have to do is look at those little faces and it reminds you of what you are working so hard for.

Guess who started solids?

Frog Face sitting like a big boy!  He still topples occasionally, but does really well.

Love that Goober!

Ready to go to daycare!

Home again home again jigitty jig!

I have been meaning to write this post for awhile but lately it has been non-stop running and I have barely had time to sit down!  Last week was our trip back to visit family for Christmas and this week I jumped feet first into the zoo's very first winter break camps.  Then with the kids and myself being sick and Frog Face teething, it has been crazy!

The trip back home to visit family was definitely interesting!  The kids both traveled well and for that I am grateful.  We arrived Friday night and then that next day there was a major ice and snow storm.  Both of the kids were tired and so that means poor mommy spent the entire night going from one child to the other before I ended up on the couch holding Frog Face while Goober slept curled up next to me.  It really didn't get any better since then and now almost two weeks later I have yet to get a good night's sleep.

The snow was fun though and Goober got to go sledding for the first time.  Honestly, I think I enjoyed it more than she did though.  I have fond memories of sledding down the hill next to our house as a child.  Although I swear that hill used to be a lot bigger.  I think it shrunk in the last 20 years...

It was really important to me that Goober go sledding since there are NO hills where we live in Kansas so sledding isn't really a possibility here.

Among other things, we visited my grandfather (the kid's great-grandfather) who is currently in an assisted living facility.  We actually stayed at his house while we were visiting family and it was nice to have the place to ourselves, although it felt very empty without my grandfather's presence there.  It was sad that he didn't remember us when we visited but I was glad he got to meet Frog Face for the first time.  One of my favorite memories from the trip was the look of dumbfounded awe on Goober's face when great-grandpa took out his teeth.  She just stared and stared at him in open-mouthed wonder!  I am especially close to this particular grandfather so it broke my heart to see what alzheimer's has done to him.  I was glad that we got to see him though.

The trip was further saddened when we received the news on Christmas Eve morning that the Weatherman's Grandmother had passed away.  She was 96 years old and while her mind was as sharp as a tack, her body was failing.  We were sad that she was never able to meet Frog Face before she passed but at peace with her death at the same time.  The funeral was lovely and while it was a sad occasion, it was nice to see family and have everyone together for a bit.

  

The kids received so many toys from loving relatives that we were actually seriously considering renting a U-Haul trailer to get everything back home.  Somehow we were able to cram it all the car and use a top carrier to get everything back.  It is amazing all the stuff we fit in there!  Although, there was one stupid noise-making toy that talked to us the entire way back home.  We didn't know which toy it was so we couldn't turn it off.  It was rather annoying.

All the stuff we crammed in our Pontiac Vibe, including two kids, two car seats, and two adults

Then of course there was the milk fiasco at the rest stop.  We paused for lunch on the turn pike and we finally get our food and sit down.  I pull Frog Face out of his infant carrier (which the chunkers is almost to big for) and hold him next to me so he can stretch a bit.  But that speedy baby turned and grabbed his sister's milk and spilled the entire thing all over Goober and myself.  I jump up and sit Frog Face back in ther carrier (that promptly flips over...oops!  Don't worry, I caught him in time).  Thankfully I was a prepared momma and had a change of clothing for Goober in the easily accessible diaper bag (the rest of our clothing was packed in the top carrier of the car).  I was not as lucky.  I had to do the old wash it off in the bathroom and then pelvic thrust under the hand dryer routine.  I couldn't help laughing at myself as I danced under the hand dryer thinking I looked a lot like an episode I had seen of Mr. Bean (if you have not seen Mr. Bean, you need to go watch it.  Now.  Stop reading this and go watch Mr. Bean.  He is fantastic!  I think he is on Netflix.  You are welcome).  

All in all, it was good to be home.   We arrived home on Sunday (the cats and fish were still alive thank goodness!) and I had to wake up bright and early to work at the winter camps that I designed for the zoo on Monday.  I had hoped to have Sunday to recoup and that we would drive back Saturday, but the funeral was Saturday so we had to drive back Sunday instead and there was no time to rest.  We finally finished unpacking on Tuesday and I was grateful for Wednesday off.  I was sad that I crashed before I could ring in the new year. I really did try to stay awake, but I had caught the fun RSV bug that the kids had (did I mention the kids were sick the entire trip and didn't sleep hardly at all?) and with everything else I just couldn't last until midnight.

So that is our trip in a nut shell.  I used the last of my vacation days so we probably won't be back to see family for a while.  It was good to see them and the kids loved being spoiled by their family.  Now back to the grind!  But first, some more pictures.

I love this picture because it seems like the Weatherman is floating in mid air

adorable princesses

Chillin' in great-grandpa's chair

One happy grandpa!  Nothing like a babe in each arm

Goober didn't want to cooperate for her picture with Grandma

But she loved posing with this big sucker!

She struck a pose when I asked to take her picture

Cousins!

The obligatory children-in-front-of-the-tree picture

Goober was done with pictures at this point

Tired kiddo's

First tractor ride!

I would often see people post pictures of their child sleeping in weird positions and wonder "how do they do that?  My kids usually sleep in their beds" but then I got my kids tired enough and threw off their schedule and didn't give the Goober a nap and this is what we get.  She fell asleep while coloring with the marker still in her hand.

Trying solids for the first time.  He was not a fan.