Sam: our favorite 3 year old

Sam had a birthday a while back, and ever since has been doing his best to live up to his full 3 year old potential, which is encompassed in his motto: "Chaos, panic, and disorder- My work here is done." His current skills involve going from sweetheart to monster and back in about 6 seconds flat, provoking his sister to hysterics with almost no perceived effort, and the delicate art of saying "Mia hit me!" with the perfect combination of indignation and injury. Thanks to Sam, there is nothing that we own that hasn't been chewed on, ripped, broken, drawn on, thrown, dropped, or at the very least, covered in something sticky.

The flip side of being 3 and being Sam is that he has about a million ways of making me smile each day, often at the same time that I want to scream. When he "colors" he holds the picture up for me and says "ta da!" I just love that. He has this funny ear trick where he can tuck both ears inside of themselves. Sometimes I find him walking around with both ears folded in and I just love that even more. You should see this kid getting on and off the bus for preschool with his little Thomas the Tank Engine Backpack-- melts my heart every time. Even though most every day from the second he wakes up I can't wait until he goes back to bed, once he's finally asleep again I usually can't help but go in to stare at him, being STILL.

Sam:

It's ALL about trucks, and cars, and tractors, and motorcycles...

The famous ear trick.

His most beloved and abused trucks.

Never judge a 3 year old until you've walked a mile in his imitation Crocs.

Happy Birthday Buddy! Hope you make it to 4!

*(Every time I have tried to work on this post, I've been interrupted by Sam making some kind of trouble. I guess I should actually pay attention to my kids rather than trying to blog about them-- ah, the paradox of being a mother in the Information Age.)

Opposite Day

I'm sitting here eating frosting straight out of the tub, ignoring the mess, bills, and everything I was supposed to get done days ago. But in my dream world...

Sam has pretty much potty trained himself. He's such an obedient and compliant 3 year old.

I decided to sew all the kid's clothes for school. SUPER CUTE. But 50 outfits each might be a little too much, so I sent some off in our homemade care packages for refugees from the war in Georgia.

I took some time out for me to meditate today. It's not hard to get in the 3 hours a day that Oprah suggests when your kids just entertain themselves and play sooooo nicely together.

I wrote all my government representatives, with homemade cards I made myself of course.

I started to train for another triathlon, but I was so fit, I just went ahead and did one-- all while pushing/towing/carrying 3 kids. Whew!

I almost forgot about the extra nutritious dinner I made from scratch this morning, just waiting to go in the oven at precisely 4:30. That way when Mia comes home from school I can just be there for her.

Well, the day is still young-- guess I'll get started on Christmas 2009 (I'm already finished for 2008 silly!).




Ahhhhh, who says adults can't use their imagination?

Random

Things I've been meaning to post:

• Ahhh, the Olympics. For a long time I couldn't bring myself to watch any Olympic Games because I would get so depressed for everyone who didn't get a medal, but now I've found the silver lining: ridiculous commentators and reporters. Our favorite so far was a woman interviewing Ryan Lochte and asking him what is was going to take for him to beat Michael Phelps. Ummm, how about... swim faster?
  
• Mia has become obsessed with REM's "Stand." It was cute for the first 10 times that we had to listen to it in a row. Now I'm begging her, "can't we just listen to 'Wee Sing' again?"
  
• A few weeks ago we were sitting in church (Stake Conference), when Sam found some mints that I had bought while pregnant. On the package it says, "ENERGY" in huge letters, so you can imagine how I was feeling when I bought them. I had one, thought is was disgusting and forgot about them until Sam found it in the bottomless pit that is our diaper bag. So I gave him one. And of course Mia wanted one too. Then I started reading the label to find that they were sugar-free (lesson learned: never buy sugar-free mints or sugar-free anything again for that matter), and that they had caffeine. WHO PUTS CAFFEINE IN BREATH MINTS?! Basically, we had just given our small children the equivalent of half a cup of coffee in the middle of a meeting where they were supposed to be quiet and calm. I might has well have given them Red Bull. So, I did what any other ghetto mom would do-- gave one to the baby too. Just kidding. No, I doped up myself. I mean, if they had half a cup of coffee, I might as well have 3 to keep up with them right?
  
• While we're talking about questionable parenting, I was with the kids at a McDonald's Playland last week and found myself telling them something along the lines of, "If you don't eat, you can't play." It suddenly occurred to me that I was basically telling my children, "eating this trans-fat-full, cholesterol-laden, pathetic-excuse- for-food is way more important than exercising." What the? I feel the same weirdness at Costco when I tell them they have to eat their hot dogs before they can have their churros. I mean really, is the hot dog that much better nutritionally than a churro? Who am I kidding?
  
• Mia is learning how to ride a bike without training wheels, so I've been spending a lot of time running behind her while holding on to her bike seat on the sidewalk in front of our house. The whole time I'm singing the song from the old Mormon commercial, you know the one. Sing with me now, "You know you never played ball very well/but mother you never failed me/You gave me the best you had/and if you feel bad/missing your masters degree/well I hope you know at least/that I'm your masterpiece/mother you never failed me!" Classic.
• I went to a baby shower for a friend recently and one of the other guests happened to be one of the nurses assigned to me after I had Nate. In fact, she was the one on duty when I passed out in the bathroom and everyone thought I was bleeding to death. We laughed about it, chatted for a while, and then it was a little weird when I realized, "man, this lady took my catheter out." Awkward.
• Last week when I was putting the kids to bed one night, it got a little...tense. I heard Mia yell out, "Sam, we have a mean mom, huh?" No, you have a mother who needs a vacation. And speaking of...
  
• It was one year ago that we took our vacation to Hawaii without our kids. I feel a little cheated that since I hadn't started this blog yet, I didn't get to post about how super AWESOME it was. And seriously, it was. I didn't even know the meaning of the word "incredible" until I ate at Mama's Fish House on Maui. In memory:
• 

Nate is 12 weeks!

When it comes to Nate, we're half seasoned parents (note: that doesn't mean good parents, it means much of the time we forget where he is, he hardly gets bathed, and the binky doesn't get cleaned when it drops on the floor), and half blubbering, goo-goo eyed, "isn't this the cutest baby you've ever seen?" variety of parents. The kid is 12 weeks old today, which means he is more baby and less newborn now. It means he is sleeping 10+ hours at night, but still needs a little help with the binky and swaddling, and he smiles and coos at us, but also demands a little more attention and cuddling too. It also means he's entered the blow-out stage where, rather than multiple episodes of minor seismic activity throughout the day, he experiences major Mt. St. Helens size eruptions every 1-2 days that leave him literally covered head to toe in poop. (My apologies to John Young for such graphic descriptions of #2, and my apologies to Nate for putting such personal details on our public blog-- when you're a parent you can do the same buddy). And finally, it's been enough time since his birth that the complex process of insurance claims and medical billing in our behalf has come to an end, and the result? Over $2000 out-of-pocket. Ouch. I figure, with Mia we paid about $300 total, and Sam was a freebie from the state of Washington, so the average is about $800 per kid. I doubt we'll ever spend that much on any of their birthdays again. Too bad for them. And since we no longer have enough money to plan our master bath remodel, I guess I have some time now to post some recent pictures of him. So here you go: 12 week old Nate.

Costco: the game!

Are you ready to play?

We start off with "Spot the Mormons." It's easy during the summer. Just look for knee length shorts and cap sleeve shirts, a minimum of 3 kids hanging off the cart, and a cart full of diet coke. It's fun and wholesome!

Next we move on to "Shopping Cart Traffic Jam", thanks to Elderly Couple Stopped in the Middle of the Aisle, and Bottleneck at the Free Samples.

Speaking of the samples, it's time for "Demo Derby": how many times can you hit each one without getting caught? Careful, those old ladies can be feisty!

Oh no! It's the dreaded "Toddler Tantrum/5 Year Old has to go Potty Right Now!" obstacle. Remember to smile, you're on camera.

You made it to the check-out line! Let's play "Pimp my Total!" Will it be $135? $189? No, it's $270, and half of that is for diapers. Hurray for almost 3 year-olds who aren't potty trained!

Make sure to treat yourself to a Costco Dog on your way out: 5000 calories in 10 bites-- you deserve it!

But wait, the fun doesn't end there! When you get home you get to play "Where am I going to put all this crap?" (also known as "Time to Buy a Deep Freezer").

Thanks for playing-- Hope you won!

For all you English majors out there

I recently read a book that quite honestly has me afraid to ever talk or write anything again. It's called Literally, the Best Language Book Ever: Annoying Words and Abused Phrases You Should Never Use Again, by Paul Yeager. Three words: fanatical language purist. I don't think this author thinks that language should change or evolve, let alone be fun or amusing. However, amidst the mildly annoying ranting, he did have some valid and thought provoking points about language and communication, and embarrassingly it was a little educational. His main point is that we tend to use trite or trendy phrases and words without thinking about what we really want to say, and the result is ineffective communication. (I just had to look up "ineffective" in his book to make sure it wasn't on the blacklist-- it's a pretty long list, almost 200 pages. Like I said, kind of makes you afraid to talk.) Yeager's laundry list of offenses include grammatical errors, redundancy and repetition (long litany), illogical phrases (that's nothing to sneeze at), trendy expressions (don't go there, wow factor), nouns used as verbs (google it, text me), cliches (Rome wasn't built in a day), inarticulate language , incorrectly used words (empower, literally), overused words and phrases, and non words (irregardless). My biggest language crime: hyperboles. Big time. I also said "supposively" for years (that's not in the book, but I just feel the need to confess it). Here are some more examples of things that, according to Yeager, should be banned from our language:

I could care less
freaking
it's all good
my bad
whatever floats your boat
bang for your buck
bring it on
what's up
I gave 110%
chill out
back in the day
war on terror
pop
think outside the box

Some of those things I just don't know if I can give up. But one thing I absolutely can agree with is ginormous. Yes, we get it-- gigantic and enormous, but unless you want to sound like you never passed the 2nd grade, please do not ever use this word. Ever.

So, what's your language pet peeve?

Made it through the day

So I am resisting the urge to apologize for that last post (you know the perfunctory "sorry for being so negative" rider following a downer of a post). Thanks to everyone for the sympathetic comments. I had a bad night, and they happen to me more often than I would like. There are worse things than not being able to shut your brain off at 1, 2 or 3 am, but when you're in the middle of it, oh, it's beyond frustrating and it's hard not to throw yourself a big pathetic pity party. So I captured the moment and sent it out into cyberspace. And then woke up the next morning (eventually), and muddled my way through the day like I always do. All in all we survived the day fairly well. It's a good thing we're still in the middle of life with an infant and my kids have learned not to expect much from me, so they weren't too disappointed. But here's a moment that needs to be recorded:
Note: for security purposes I have decided that from here on out my kids will be referred to as Abcde, (pronounced Absidee), LeVoyd, and Miracle's Precious Gift, (or MPG for short).

Last Friday I woke up completely motivated to potty train LeVoyd (we were out of diapers). After about 4 hours I was pretty much out of momentum, and had eaten most of his potty treats anyway, so I gave up. Abcde however, still had the drive and tried to pick up the pieces of my ridiculous attempt. Over the course of the weekend, the 2 of them would have potty parties and I would overhear snippets of the most hilarious things, such as Abcde saying, "and then you'll have to earn some money and get a job OK?" Not much progress was made despite the valiant effort, but luckily no accidents either. That's why today when it was quiet time and LeVoyd wanted to have some potty time, I (in my sleep deprived state) just brought his potty into his room and let him have at it. I'm pretty sure I meant to check on him a few minutes later but I got caught up reading some really important blogs and then took a shower and did some other stuff. Eventually I went in his room and found this

and more specifically this

Don't look too closely, but there is a suspiciously yellow liquid in the bottom of that potty. I'm not sure when the cars ended up taking a dip, but there they were. So of course we celebrated, and promptly cleaned all the cars. I'm hoping his big sister will have him potty trained by the end of the week.