TUMMY TIME

Nathan has been getting a lot of tummy time lately. You know, working on strengthening his neck muscles, looking around from a different vantage point, playing with toys and the like. And Miss Liv loves having tummy time right along with him, which would not be a problem if she didn't feel the need to be pretty much right on top of him while he practiced this fine art.

He tries to reach for a toy? Liv is right in his face trying to give it to him. He tries to turn his head to look at something, and all he sees is her little mug. He tries to turn his head the other way, and all he sees is the same, her little mug. He tries lifting his head up higher to see the T.V. or Christmas tree lights? She decides to give him a big old bear hug which results in him not being able to hold his head up and having his face smooshed into his blanket. This all results in him crying uncontrollably, and then usually spitting up all over the place. Poor little boy.

As you probably can imagine, tummy time doesn't last very long when she is around. So that is why I was so surprised when Liv actually kept her distance yesterday. Don't get me wrong, she was right next to him pretty much the entire time, but she was not actually on top of him, which was good. It's not much progress, but it's progress nonetheless, so I'll take it.

Turns out she decided to back away a tiny bit when she noticed he had indeed spit up. All over his blanket and all over his sweet little face.

After round two of the spit up, she was no longer in site. Turns out she loves her brother as long as he is not covered in spit up. And it seems as if Nathan is just fine with this. I take that back, he seems downright happy about it.

Not to mention, I think he is on to something - spit up, and my sister leaves me alone.

MAKIN' OUR LISTS, CHECKIN' THEM TWICE

Ava decided to be ahead of the game and get her letter to Santa done a little bit early this year. She figures that if her letter is one of the first to get there, that maybe, just maybe she will get every last thing on that list.

My girl has set her sights high with this letter - and to think it only took her all of 5 minutes to write it. No stopping in the middle of writing to think of that one toy she had seen on T.V. that she could not think of, no "hey Mom, what else did I want?" Nothing. Just a whole lot of pencil to paper action.

I have not sat down and really calculated what all of this would cost, but I am pretty confident that it would tally up to somewhere right around $500. Though I should not judge, as my list certainly is no better. Actually, to tell you the truth, I am a bit embarrassed of it.

Dear Santa,

I really, really want a new stainless steel gas stove. With a matching microwave to go above it. I would also love some new counter tops, and heck, why not put up a back splash while you are at it. Oh, and I would really love our basement to be finished too. And I would like a couch, a few T.V's some decor for the walls, and a stocked bar down there as well. And while you are installing carpet down there why don't you go ahead and tear out all the nasty-beyond- disgusting stuff on my main floor and upstairs and replace that too. I would also love some new dishes as my kids [lord knows I love them] have managed to break parts of my set throughout the years, leaving me with a bunch of mismatched crap. I would also really love a new wardrobe. After being pregnant for pretty much the last 7 years, the contents of my closet need to be updated in a bad sort of way. And lastly, if it's not asking too much, I would love for you to tackle that "honey do" list that the Mr. has not gotten to for the past 2 years.

I think that's all, but if I come up with anything else I will be sure to send you another letter.

Much love,

Maria [The one who has 5 kids under the age of 8, and a husband who is never home.]

The boys have yet to finish their lists. Hopefully theirs will be a little more down to earth in order to make up for us girls and our over indulgent ones.

NEEDED A GOOD LAUGH

This commercial makes me laugh.

Lately I have been feeling a bit ho-hum. Like I am crabby for no real big reason - I mean I am crabby for a lot of little reasons, but not one single big one. That sentence really did not make much sense now, did it? But you catch my drift, no?

Some of the many [many] little reasons:

My house is dirty - floors need to be scrubbed, toilets need to be scrubbed, bathrooms need a deep clean in a bad sort of way, but I have no time. I can't keep up. I have mentioned this fact to the Mr. about 17 times [no joke] and he has told me each of those 17 times that he would call those house cleaners he has been talking about and get them on a bi-weekly schedule to get over here and do that scrubbing I can't get to. 17 times later, still nothing.

There are 2 laundry baskets full of clean clothes, one load in the dryer waiting to be folded and one load in the washer waiting to be put in the dryer. And I feel like I just put away three laundry baskets full of clean clothes yesterday - oh wait, I did.

The kids' playroom is an absolute mess. All of the time. I get it; it's a playroom and it should be played in, but they insist on dumping out each and every bin of toys onto the floor. And the worst part of it is that they play with it all for a matter of 10 minutes or so and then walk away. All done. No big deal. Except that this results in not being able to walk in the room without tripping or stepping on some sharp toy that makes you want to yell out every single obscenity known to man. So I clean it up on a daily basis, tell them to NOT dump every damn bin on the floor, but to instead play with one bin of toys, clean it up, then play with another, and clean it up. Seems simple, right? Not so much for the kids.

Nathan does not like to nap anymore, so getting any of the things mentioned above done during the day is bordering on impossible, which frustrates the living daylights out of me.

Liv is in the process of potty training, and while she is doing a fabulous job she seems to have an issue with the whole going #2 on the potty chair. So what does she do? She poo's in her pants, which you can imagine makes a huge mess and results in me having to bathe her on a daily basis.

Miss Ava's social life is getting a bit out of control. I realized this last weekend as I was on the phone organizing play date's and in the car driving her to and from events. She had a play date Thursday, went to a movie and had dinner with a friend Friday, had a play date and sleepover Saturday, and another play date all day Sunday. Seriously - she is 7.

The boys had hockey pictures last night which entailed me filling out order forms, dressing them from head to toe in all their hockey gear, hauling sticks, gloves and skates and both boys over to the High School, where I finished getting them ready only to have two picture taken of each of them. The whole getting ready thing took about 30 minutes, the picture taking took about 5. Thank goodness Grandpa came over to watch Liv and Nathan and make sure Ava got dressed and ready to be picked up for dance. Otherwise I would have been nothing short of screwed.

Speaking of dance and hockey... Ava has dance Mondays and Wednesdays and the boys have hockey every single weekend. Lucas Saturday and Sunday, Anthony sometimes Saturday, sometimes Sunday. 3 hours of hockey every weekend - and come January, Wednesdays will be added to the schedule.

I could go on and on.

And to top it all off the Mr. is off in Vegas for a long weekend, relaxing, drinking, gambling, sleeping in, eating good food, and hanging out with adults, having adult conversations. Lucky him.

Me? I am at home Cleaning, scrubbing, washing, putting away, running, going here, going there, doing this, doing that. I'm holding down the fort, per usual.

So all this, and much, much more, is what is giving me that ho-hum kind of feeling, that I-am- crabby-for-a-whole-lot-of-little-reasons-and-not-so-much-one-big-reason. And that is why I posted that video above. It has nothing really to do with this post at all, except for the fact that I have been crabby and it made me laugh. And I needed that.

It's the little things.

THE TRUTH ALWAYS COMES OUT

My day started as usual. I got Lucas and Ava off on the bus, and the Mr. out the door en route to preschool with Anthony. I finished my coffee, fed Nathan, got him up in his crib for his morning nap, and got Liv Grace comfortable on the couch with a Dora movie on. Then I picked up the family room and vacuumed it, did the dishes from breakfast and cleaned counter tops, got the dishwasher loaded and running, made my way to the laundry room, folded the stuff in the dryer, threw another load in the washer and got it running. Then I checked on Liv to make sure she was still watching Dora and not getting into trouble, and listened at the bottom of the stairs to make sure Nathan was still sleeping and not upstairs screaming his head off.

All was well.

So I then went on to my next task of cleaning up the play room. I picked up the Little People, Star Wars guys, and Legos and made sure to put them all in their appropriate bins. I picked up the blocks that were thrown from one end of the room to the other in what looked to be some sort of "block fight" the boys had entertained themselves with earlier. When everything was sufficiently cleaned up and put in its place, I turned to leave and something caught my eye. Woody was laying on one of the chairs - this was odd as Anthony always puts Woody somewhere safe before he leaves for school. Somewhere safe meaning a spot where Miss Liv cannot get her hands on it.

I walked over to Woody in order to bring him to Anthony's room, where he would most likely want him to be store while at school. But when I picked him up I noticed something was not quite right.....Woody was wet. Very wet. So wet that it if I didn't know better, I would have thought he had just taken a bath and forgot to dry off.

Not good.

Worse yet, when I pulled the string on Woody's back to see if he still yelled out his standard myriad of phrases such as "Howdy Partner!" or "Reach for the sky!" nothing happened. I shook him a bit and tried again. Nothing. I messed with the batteries in his back a bit. Nothing. Woody was deader than a doornail.

My first thought? Liv had something to do with this.

"LIV!"

Within moments she was in the doorway.

"Did you do something to Anthony's Woody?"

"No, Coley [Anthony's nickname] did!"

"Liv, Coley [Anthony] is not here. Why is Woody all wet?"

"Coley washed him Momma."

"Liv Grace, don't you lie to Momma."

"Did you put Woody in the toilet?" I only ask this as we have had more than a few unfortunate circumstances where I had to fish toys out of the toilet after she had decided they needed a bath or were going to go for a swim.

"No Momma."

"Are you sure?"

Insert long pause.

"Yes, Momma, I did put it in the toilet."

"We are going to have to buy Anthony a new Woody doll now. That was naughty!"

"O.K. Sorry Momma."

Later that day, we made our way to preschool to pick up Anthony and give him the bad news. Knowing how Anthony reacts to news such as this, I was not looking forward this. I explained to him that Liv had put Woody in the toilet and that she was sorry. I told him that we would go to Target on the way home and buy a new Woody doll as his did not work anymore. He simply said "O.K.. turned to Liv, gave her a dirty look and snarled "I get a new Woody doll at Target and you don't get anything 'cause you broke him!"

That was pretty much the extent of it, which honestly surprised me a bit being that Anthony tends to get extremely worked up over things such as this. But who was I to question his reaction? It was a much better one than I had expected, so I left it alone.

We arrived home after our trip to the store for a new Woody doll and I began the arduous task of getting the damn thing out of the box while Anthony waited patiently. When he was officially free of all the cords, tape, and other crap I handed him to Anthony and he ran off into the playroom to get his other closest buddy, Buzz.

Liv and I had one last talk about how we never, ever, ever put things in the toilet. She promised to never do such a thing again, and let me know one last time how sorry she was. I ended it there and headed off to the kitchen to start dinner.

About 10 minutes later Anthony ran up to me with his new Woody doll in hand and an excited look on his little face."Hey Mom, now I remember what happened to Woody! I actually sawed [saw] something on his head this morning befow [before] sklool [school] so I washed him off in the sink."

I was speechless. Liv was telling the truth originally. I guess me grilling her like I was some cop and she was a suspect in an interrogation room caused her to give in, and tell me she did do it, when in fact she didn't. My girl took the fall for something Anthony did to his own Woody doll. And Anthony, of course, went along with it.

I wonder if this was his plan all along: He made the mistake of dunking Woody a little too far under the water, figured out he did not work anymore, placed him strategically on the chair in the playroom for me to find while he was at school, knew I would blame Liv, which would result in him getting a brand spankin' new Woody.

The only part of this plan that I don't quite understand is why on earth he decided to tell me what really went down after all was said and done. Maybe the guilt was eating up my little 4 year old up inside? Whatever the case... I know one thing is for certain - I sure have my hands full with this little boy.

HER ARTWORKS SAYS IT ALL

I was cleaning out the car the other day and came across Miss Ava's artwork from the other weekend and I had to laugh.

Here's the story.

2 weekends ago, we were blessed with an ever rare family day. A day for all 7 of us [wow, it's crazy seeing that typed out - 7 of us] to spend together. On this particular day the Mr. and I decided lunch out and a trip to the Mall for a ride on the carousel followed by a treat sounded good.

I think it goes without saying that the kids thought this was a pretty great plan as well.

Excited and ready to go, the kids barreled their way into the car with the standard banter that comes with getting ready to go someplace "I was getting in first! Don't push me! Ouch that hurt! MOOOOOmmmmm!!!!" which was followed by my standard reply "Stop it. Everyone quiet down, get buckled and be nice." Followed by the ever surprising result of them not listening to my requests by keeping up their fighting while buckling, backing out of the driveway and right on through the entire drive to our destination. All of this resulted in me being incredibly grouchy and feeling the need to say "screw it" to the whole idea, and turning the car around to go home and spend our one of very few family days at home picking our butts instead.

But instead of going the whole "screw it" route, I decided to take the higher road by taking a deep breath calming my nerves and going over the you-all-know-how-we-are-supposed-to-act-in-restaurants-and-if-we-can't-behave-we-will-have-to-leave speech before unloading everyone and heading into our restaurant of choice; Acapulco.

And to my surprise, the experience was not as bad as I had thought it would have been after the car ride there. The kids all sat nicely, found their way through the mazes on their kid menus, played tic-tac-toe with each other and were generally well behaved. Everything was going well until my Nathan decided he needed to fill his pants. And when I say fill his pants, I mean fill his pants to the point where it comes out the sides of his diaper, up the back of his diaper, and slowly runs down his legs and into his socks. Yep, it was that bad. And this all happened right as our food was being put on the table.

So I grabbed the diaper bag and headed off to the bathroom not only with Nathan, but with Liv and Anthony in tow as well. This was going to be interesting. While I situated Nathan on the changing table to assess the damage, Anthony decided to lay down on the not so clean bathroom floor, as Liv inspected the toilet seat while attempting to flush the toilet over and over again. After my comments of "please don't touch that! Get up off the floor! Yucky!" finally got through to them, I had finished cleaning up Nathan and needed to wash everyone's hands. This took a good 10 minutes to accomplish, but it was safe to say that when we finally left that cesspool of a bathroom, the kids' hands were clean and they were ready to eat.

As we sat back down at the table, Ava very proudly showed me her artwork. "Look what I made for you and Daddy while you were in the bathroom Mom!" It said I love Mom and Dad up to the moon, and was accompanied by some pretty fabulous looking stars and a moon to boot.

After lunch, we headed on over to the Mall and did some walking around. Ava immediately started in with "you said we could have a treat! I want a treat now!" We told her we would get a treat, and that she needed to be patient. A few minutes later it turned into "you told us we would ride the carousel!" We told her we would, and that she needed to be patient. Apparently the fact that she could not have a treat or ride the carousel right that second was just too much for her to handle, so she started to whine in a bad sort of way.

I ignored it, the Mr. ignored it.

We made our way into Old Navy where I went in search of a new outfit for Nathan being that he was currently sitting in a poo filled onesie and pants. This still did not seem to deter Ava from wanting to ride the carousel and have a treat right this second, as she kept right on whining. The whining stopped abruptly when she came across a big bin of balls to play with. The Mr. told her to put the ball back. Ava? Oh, she just looked right at him and kept on bouncing that ball. He told her again to put the ball back, and again she looked right at him and kept on bouncing it. He told her if she did not put the ball back she would not get a treat. She bounced that ball a few more times, put it back in the bin, gave the Mr. a look that said, "Hah!" and walked away.

Not very smart.

As we were on our way to the carousel, the Mr. whispered to me "no treat for Ava." After their ride, we walked around a bit more, then headed to get a treat. The kids excitedly shouted out their requests. After Ava gave hers the Mr. said "but you don't get a treat, remember?" No more than 2 seconds after hearing this devastating news, her bottom lip started to quiver, her hands slowly went up to her eyes, and the tears started to flow. They flowed while the boys and Liv chose their treats, they flowed while walking back to the car, they flowed the entire car ride home, and they flowed for a good 20 minutes after we got home.

After getting everyone situated and in the house, I sat down with her to talk about why it was she lost the treat - she seemed understand, but was nothing short of pissed off that Daddy followed through with the whole if-you-don't-put-that-ball-down-you-won't-get-your-treat thing. Learning the hard way is never fun, is it?

A few hours later, she came to me with her artwork from earlier that day. It sure looked a lot different than her original piece.

"Ava, what happened to your picture?"

In the best sassy voice she has "I changed it."

"Why?"

"Because I don't like Daddy anymore."

"Ava, Daddy loves you. He was trying to teach you a lesson. You were whining a lot and you didn't listen when he told you to put that ball down."

"I'm Mad. I wanted my treat and he never gave me a warning before he said no treat."

"Yes he did Ava."

"No he didn't"

"Yes he did."

Insert long pause....

"Well I don't remember!"

"I think he would be sad if he saw you ripped his name out of the picture you made."

"I don't care!"

Later that day, I saw Ava and the Mr. chatting and, dare I say, she was laughing and smiling.

I asked her if she decided to change her mind about the whole not loving her Dad anymore thing.

Her response? "Yes. But I am still mad at him!"

That's my Ava - looks like we have our hands full, no?

POWER OUTAGE AND LOTS OF SNOW

It snowed, and snowed, and snowed some more yesterday. On top of that the power went out. And then it came back on. And then it went out. And then it came back on. And then it went out again. Seriously, it made for one very unhappy Momma.

Luckily my unhappiness did not rub off on the kids. In fact, they felt just the opposite - they thought the lack of power was kind of fun and ran around the house playing games with flashlights and my battery operated candles to busy themselves. Once they bored of that, they suited up in their winter gear and ran outside to play. They pretty much spent the entire day outside, playing with the neighbors, building forts, making snow angels, having snowball fights, eating snow, and making snowmen.






They played and played until their cold rosy red cheeks, runny noses and the pure exhaustion of it all got the best of them.

As far as the kids are concerned, it was pretty much the best day ever.

BROTHERLY LOVE

Anthony has been begging for months for me to buy him and Nathan matching pajamas. Not sure what the obsession was with this request, but he seriously asked me an insane amount of times before I finally gave in and bought them. Thank the heavens above for Carter's - the one store where you can manage to find matching footy pajamas in 6 month [yes, my 3 month old wears 6 month old clothing] and 5T sizes.

Anyway, Anthony is just thrilled with the purchase and can't get over the fact that he and Nathan match. I recently found him chatting with Nathan as they both sat on the couch clad in their matching P.J's.

In his signature high pitched baby talk type voice [seriously so sweet], I overheard him saying,

"Look at us 'Nafan', Mommy bought us the same jammies. Isn't that soooooooo cool!"

Nathan seemed less than thrilled by his brothers in your face I- am-so-excited-I- can't-handle-it attitude, but fortunately that didn't wane Anthony's excitement.

NECTAR OF THE GODS

I caught a certain someone getting into the Nutella.

Uh-oh.

And it wasn't just any run of the mill getting-into-something-she-shouldn't-be-getting-into episode. After looking at all of the evidence, I had figured out that she had pushed a chair up to the countertop, climbed up on the countertop, opened the cupboard, fished out the Nutella, pushed the chair she used to do the climbing back, sat her booty down, opened the jar, grabbed her favorite spoon, and went to town. The Hazelnut goodness was found on the floor, smeared on the table, all over her face, hands and pajamas - I even found some in her hair.

I think it is safe to say that my girl likes Nutella; no?

R.I.P NUKY'S

I decided today was the day to rid ourselves of Liv's nuk habit. Not sure why, I just woke up this morning and felt like I could tackle this miserable task.

Seriously, the girl has one in her mouth and one in her hand - or at least in a place where she can get to it- at all times. When she is sad she asks for Nuky, when she is tired she asks for Nuky, when she is watching Dora or Diego she asks for Nuky, when we are driving someplace she asks for Nuky, at bedtime she asks for Nuky.

You get it, she liked her nuky. I think she is actually an addict - her nuky is her very best friend. But she is 2 now, and she needs to kick the habit.

So this morning I spent quite some time searching around the house for every single nuky I could find. Under the beds, in the beds, under the couches, in the couches, in the playroom, in the toy box, in the toy bins, in the car, in my purse.... I looked everywhere, and it paid off as I came up with quite a few of the tiny little treasures.

Then I took out the scissors, and with a very heavy heart, cut off the tips of each and every one of them.

Soon after, Liv came looking for her nuky and I gave it to her. Right off the bat she knew something wasn't right, took it out of her mouth, began inspecting it and continued to do so for quite some time.

"Mommy, nuky is broken. It's broken, look!"

"That's alright, you don't need a nuky anymore. You are a big girl!"

"Oh. I'm a big girl."

Insert long pause....

"Moooommmyyyy!! My Nuuuuky's are broken!"

I consoled her for quite some time as she cried due to the fact that every single nuky I gave her was "broken." I must admit, my heart broke a little being that I was the one that caused the damage.

Throughout the day she came to me in search of her nuky, and each time, as much as I hated doing it, I give her a "broken" one. She wined a bit, I felt like crying, she went back to playing, I went back to whatever it was I was doing.

I am wondering how long this whole process will take. A day? A week? Here's to hoping it will be over sooner than later as it is turning out to be quite difficult for the both of us.

Tough love stinks, doesn't it?

GIVING INTO EXHAUSTION

My Liv Grace has recently decided she does not need her afternoon nap any longer. When Liv napped, the stars would usually align and Nathan would as well, making it a perfect opportunity to get some things done. Like catch up on laundry, do a quick "surface clean" of the house, scrub toilets, put dinner together, take a shower, or sometimes even get a little cat nap in myself.

Needless to say, having Miss Liv awake all afternoon makes it very difficult to get this stuff done, and this makes for one unhappy Mama.

Now, instead of my quiet afternoons filled with getting things accomplished around the house, and sometimes even fitting in a little "me time", I get a 2 year old trying to help scrub the toilet and splashing toilet water all over the floor I just washed. Or I get her hand prints all over the windows I just cleaned. Or I get her dumping out the HUGE box of Little People I just finished cleaning up. Or she decides to walk around the house eating her goldfish and stepping on some along the way right after I vacuum.

You get it, she pretty much undoes everything I do.

And forget about taking a shower or getting a nap with her up. Shower time? She decides to pull out my box of tampons, unwraps each and every one of them and pops them out of the applicators. Or she decides to lather her body and hair in my lotion. Or she decides to dump out all of Daddy's floss sticks and licks each and every one of them. 20 minute cat nap? She jumps up and down at the bottom of the couch. Or she jumps on my head. Or she yells in my ear, "Mommy! Wake up!!!"

Don't get me wrong, I love my girl, but this behavior pretty much drives me all sorts of crazy. So on the rare occasion she plain old wears herself out from playing Little People all morning, or pushing her dolly around in her stroller [oh, the life of a 2 year old], and passes out on the couch, I thank the heavens above.

Just the other day I was going through some paperwork and noticed that she was especially quiet. Which is never, ever a good sign. So I went in search of her and found this:

Book on the floor, Dora purse filled with her Little People by her side, legs crossed, asleep on the couch. Only my girl.