While we were in Wisconsin last week, my grandparents took the kids and I on a train ride!  My grandpa is very interested in trains and had been showing the kids some videos of trains, so they were really excited.

We got there early and went through the train museum.  I don’t think my grandpa is used to going through museums with kids.  They charged right past everything, barely noticing what was in there, and left Grandpa in their dust!

Next it was time to get on the train.  It was pretty hot outside, so it was hot in the train too (it was an old train….no modern furniture or air conditioning in there).  Luckily all the windows were open so it was more bearable once the train started moving.  Ava entertained our entire car by yelling “All aboard!” after the conductor.

I’m not sure that Kelvin even realized we were on a train.  He was busy jumping back and forth from seat to seat.

Halfway into the trip, the train had to turn around so everyone got off to walk around while the engine drove around to the other side of the train.  In the picture, that’s my grandpa talking to the conductor before he turned the engine around.

The ride lasted about 50 minutes, which was just about the perfect amount of time for the kids.  They were ready to get off, but not crazy from being cooped up in their seats.

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That’s right….our family grew this week!  We decided it was time to add a pet to our household.  We’ve had dogs before and with our lifestyle, dogs are just too hard.  So we settled on something a little smaller….a guinea pig!

Meet Sammy!

Before we got him, I was a little nervous.  I was worried about how he’d react to the kids, if the kids would even be willing to hold him, how much work he’d be, how guilty I’d feel if we had a day where we couldn’t spend much time holding him, if his food would attract mice, etc.  Yeah, I worry a lot.

Luckily, it seems that all that worry was for nothing!  The kids are crazy about him.  They want to hold him all the time and he’s completely fine with it.  He’s not hard to take care of.  I have to change his food and make sure he has enough water every day, and clean his cage once a week.  I can handle that!  He’s low-maintenance when it comes to attention.  The kids hold him 3 or 4 times a day and he’s totally happy with that.  He spends the majority of the rest of the time hiding in his igloo because that’s his “special spot” and they can’t get him out when he’s in there.  And I got a rubbermaid container for all his food and bedding, so that should keep the mice away.

In addition, he has a great temperament.  He never tries to bite anybody, even when Ava holds him a little too tightly to protect him from Kelvin.  The kids do have to be wearing protective clothing (nothing special, just regular clothes) just in case he gets nervous and needs to hold on tight.  But he never scratches to be mean.

And the best part of this is that Ava has finally stopped asking for a baby cow, baby buffalo and baby coyote!  She’s got her Sammy and she calls him her “baby”.  It so cute. 

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For the last five days, I’ve had a pretty sick kiddo.  Amid nearly-non-stop diaper changes, changing puke-y pajamas and bedding, mountains of laundry, an ER visit, doctor appointments, and now another kiddo that seems like she might be getting sick, I’m barely keeping my head above water here.  Definitely no time for browsing sites like carinsurancelist.com! This morning, I looked around the house and saw things that needed to be picked up, put away, cleaned, or otherwise taken care of in every single room.  Even with Kelvin in the Moby Wrap, it’s still hard to do clutter control since it’s harder to bend down and get back up.  What to do?!

I remembered something I’d heard awhile ago.  I don’t remember if I read it on a blog, or if someone told me this, but it’s become very valuable right now.  They said that in times of stress like this, just focus on the three D’s: Dinner, Dishes, and Duds.  I would probably make that 4 D’s for our family, since we have Diapers, too.

Focusing on the three D’s isn’t something that you can do all the time….during normal times, the bathrooms still need to be cleaned, floors need to be mopped and clutter needs to be controlled.  But during a time when you’re barely keeping your head above water, these things will keep your home running smoothly until you’re able to get back into a normal routine.

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Happy New Year (better late than never, right?)!!!

I don’t really like to make resolutions, but I like using the beginning and ending of the calendar year as a marker for making goals.  I’ve made a few goals of my own, but I’m going to tell you about the ones I made for my kids!  It’s always easier to make goals for someone else than for yourself…just like it’s easier to find New York jobs that someone else would be willing to take…oh never mind.

Ava

By the end of 2010, I want Ava to know her colors, shapes and be able to count and identify numbers 1-10.  She already knows some of this, but I want her to have a firm grasp of it.  I also want her to be able to sing the whole ABC song (without the gibberish she uses now LOL).  I definitely want her to be off the Nuk (actually, I really want this by her birthday).

Kelvin

My biggest goal for Kelvin is to sleep through the night!!!  Seriously, Mama is tired of getting up 2-5 times a night every night!  I’ve been doing it since Ava was born and I want a break!  Sorry, that turned into my own little vent session there.  Anyway…I want him to learn how to jump and master identifying all the basic body parts.

Sound reasonable?  I think so…especially since I know they’ll learn and accomplish so much more than this in an entire year’s time!  These are just the things I want to really focus on…I bet they’ll surprise me and have them down within the first six months (at least on the sleeping through the night thing, please!!!)!

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When I got pregnant with Kelvin and realized I was going to have two kids only 18 months apart, one of my top concerns was sibling rivalry.  How would Ava react to having a little brother coming along and kicking her off of her only-child-throne?  How would she exhibit her jealousy?  Would she ever learn to love him?  Would they ever get along?

Thankfully, I never had to deal with any of that.  Ava has been awesome with him since Day 1.  She’s never showed any jealousy towards him and she just told Daddy the other day that she’s glad she has a Babycake (her nickname for Kelvin).  Obviously, I breathed a sigh of relief that I had dodged that bullet.

But I shouldn’t have let my guard down so soon.  Because it appears Kelvin has developed some sibling rivalry towards Ava!  He’s always been a really needy baby and he still wants to me to be within arm’s reach at all times.  But lately he’s been really nasty…he wants me holding him ALL. THE. TIME.  Heaven forbid I even think about setting him down, or worse, walk in the other room!

I finally put it all together when he started getting up a little earlier than Ava the last few days.  He doesn’t want to eat breakfast first thing because he’s used to eating with Ava, so I take him out by his toys and sit on the floor with him.  Let me tell you, it’s like a breath of fresh air!  He sits there and plays independently (even though I’m right there, he ignores me) and there isn’t even a hint of fussing.  But as soon as Ava gets up, he throws a fit when she sits on my lap and he insists on being held again.

Am I the only one who thinks this is weird?  I’ve never heard of this kind of sibling rivalry on the younger sibling’s part.  But I have no idea what to do…I’m about ready to take off in a motorhomes just to escape the 24/7 fussing!

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My two little people are moving into new beds tomorrow!

I think I just might be even more excited than they are.  Well, more excited than Ava is, I mean.  Kelvin has no clue what’s coming, of course.  But Ava has been waiting for quite awhile for that truck that’s bringing her bed…and tonight she told me that it was her last night in her “baby bed” (crib converted into a toddler bed).

A few months ago, we went shopping for preschool furniture and ordered Ava a twin-over-full bunk bed and it’s finally being delivered tomorrow!  She picked out her sheets today (a solid pink set and a pink and purple polka dot set) and we were going to buy her a Disney Princess comforter, but Walmart didn’t have it in stock in the full size.  So we’re hoping we’ll get lucky at Target tomorrow.

And Kelvin will finally get to use the crib bedding that my mom bought him before he was born.  We’ve used what we can (he’s been in the pack n play since we stopped co-sleeping about 4 months ago), but a lot of it is still in his closet waiting for the crib.

Hopefully these big changes for them will go smoothly and I’ll have some great pictures to share with you in a few days!

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My baby man turned a year old yesterday!!  I’m still kind of wondering how this last year flew by so fast.  How is it possible that it’s been a year already since I became the Mommy to the most handsome little boy in the world?  This year has been so full of love, laughing, and growing.  I can’t imagine our life without him!

We had a small party for him last night (just a casual gathering…no tuxedo needed!).  We had family and some friends over and I made ziti (his very favorite food in the world), garlic bread, salad and cupcakes.  He made a total mess of himself with his cupcake, but it was such an adorable mess!  Everyone needs those cake-covered 1-year-birthday pictures!  I got plenty, but can’t upload them here so I’ll have to post them when we get home.

I think he’s a little confused about what age he turned, though.  This morning, he seems to have started his terrible two’s.  He woke up at 5:30 am (even though he was up late celebrating) and has been disagreeable and totally high-maintenance all day.  Someone needs to tell this child that he can’t start that for another year!!

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Wow, how can it be that I’m writing a post about Feast gifts already?  I can’t even believe it’s September yet!

But Ava got her first Feast gift for this year already.  My mom ordered her 3 Caillou DVD’s and said not to make her wait until the Feast.  I think she’s afraid Ava won’t be obsessed with Caillou anymore, but as the person who has to listen to Caillou in the background several times a day and has to listen to Ava talk about it the rest of the time…I don’t think this obsession is going anywhere anytime soon!

Here’s a video of her opening them.  She doesn’t seem ecstatic in the video because she had already peeked while I was grabbing my camera and the thrilled screams had already subsided by the time I started taping.  Those screams were too shrill to want to preserve forever on an sd card or anything anyway!

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Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

And especially to my husband Chad.  He’s an awesome dad to our babies and he makes it possible for me to be the kind of mom I want to be.

He’s the ultimate fort-builder and nose-wrinkler (he and Kelvin go back and forth wrinkling their noses at each other.  It’s the cutest thing ever).  He’s great at building block towers and sipping pretend tea.

I’m so lucky to be married to him.  He is so supportive of me…there’s never been anything I’ve wanted to accomplish that he hasn’t supported me in.  He helps me keep it together every day.  He tells me I’m an awesome mom when I feel like I really stink at this whole parenting thing.  He goes to work every day so I can stay home like I’ve always wanted to.  And he’s been a big part of me losing all the Kelvin weight, too (without effective diet pills of course!)…he goes with me to the gym every single time and we keep each other accountable.

What more can I say?  He’s our rock.  Happy Father’s Day…we love you!!

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I have a theory about mommy guilt. Maybe it’s something everyone else already knows and it’s just taken me this long to figure it out, but no one told me this, so it’s still my theory! It is that mommy guilt is a direct result of anticipating how other people will judge you.

Let me tell you how I came to this conclusion.

This morning, the mailman knocked on the door to give me a package. I answered the door in my pajamas…for the second day in a row! I instantly felt guilty and thought, “He must think I never get dressed and just lounge around in my pajamas all day every day!” See how the guilt came along with assuming he was judging me?

Then I realized I should not be feeling guilty! Even if he was judging me for still being in my pajamas, he had no idea that I’d been up 3 or 4 times the night before with an inconsolable baby who woke his sister up every time he woke up! He also didn’t know that I’d spent the morning changing diapers, making breakfast, washing diapers, and cooking a meal to bring to a family who’d just had a baby! And he didn’t know that when he knocked, I’d been in the middle of doing Ava’s alphabet flash cards (one of her very favorite things in the world!) with her! So even if he was judging me, who cares? I hadn’t done anything wrong! I’d just been so focused on my family that I hadn’t had time to get dressed yet (or even have a cup of coffee…yikes!).

That got me thinking how often I’ve judged other mothers without really knowing their situation (and I know I’m not the only one!). OK, some mothers deserve to be judged, but when it comes to a mom who’s really trying her best, we ought to cut her a little slack! We’re all in the trenches together!

Besides, I’ve found that a lot of the things I’ve judged other mothers for, I’ve ended up doing myself. For instance, I’d always judged moms who had their kids on “leashes”. Yup, you guessed it! After Kelvin was born, it became almost impossible to keep both kids under control in a store by myself, so I had to buy a cute little harness for her (which she loves, by the way…she’s always asking to put her puppy backpack on).

Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent there, but I guess my point is that we need to not worry so much about what other people think and just concentrate on what we know is true and cut other mommies a little slack, too! After all, we don’t want to contribute to other people’s Mommy Guilt, do we?

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