July 15, 2010

With everything that I want to write about tonight, I'm realizing that I'm gonna need to start getting to this more than once a month. Bert just came in and rattled off 3 or 4 more things, too! Too much happens in a month to capture it in one sitting. Plus - I read my last blog....a bit long! I'll aim for at least a couple times a month. We'll see how that goes.

First, a story from today. Isabelle, my 4-yr old, talks.....a lot. She asks questions....lots of questions. On our way to daycare this morning, she was blasting away with question after question. At one point, the car in front of us turned into a gas station, so, naturally, she asked why the car went to the gas station. I've been attempting to deflect some questions by asking another question right back. My question to her was, "What do you think a reason would be for a car to go to a gas station?" In her sweet little voice, she said, "I knooooowwwwwww. To get some chew!" I couldn't help but laugh. Bert, honey, I think its time to give it up!

And then we've got Audrey, our 1-yr old. Precious little Audrey. Sweet little girl. Last Saturday, all of the daycare families threw a surprise BBQ for our AMAZING daycare provider, Diane. We've got this wonderful daycare family - it is the best. Anyway, I got myself ready for the BBQ, Bert was ready and Isabelle wanted to go get ready, too. I'd been keeping her out of the bedroom the girls share because Audrey was sleeping - so when Bert and I were all ready (cooler packed, food ready, diaper bag packed, etc) I told Belle she could go in and wake up Audrey....plan was Isabelle would get dressed and I'd get some fresh clothes on Audrey and we'd be off. So Isabelle goes in the room and I hear, in a perfect valley girl imitation, "Oh my god (we've been working on "gosh" - not quite there yet), Momma.....come here right now!" I walk into the bedroom and this is what I see:

Yeah - in case you can't quite tell what you're looking at here...that would be poop - all over Audrey and her crib. It was on her pacifier, on her face, covering her hands, her body, her "babies" in her crib, a stuffed animal or two, mashed into her sheet, some on the wall and two nicely formed balls of poo laying on the wood floor in front of the crib. I don't even know what to think. Then I hear Isabelle, again with the valley girl talk, "Oh my god....I think I'm throwing up." Then the humor found me. I laughed and laughed. Isabelle joined me. Bert was having a tough time with gagging, but he could appreciate the humor in it, too. I grabbed my camera, Audrey threw some poo against the wall, took out her poop-crusted pacifier and started blowing kisses - poopy hands, poopy mouth and all. It was the most disgusting and cutest thing I've ever seen. I'm laughing again just writing this. It was gloriously awful.

Let's see, what else have we seen in the last month? Well, Mike and Sasha got married on June 18. It was a wonderful, small, outdoor wedding. Sasha looked beautiful! Mike cleans up pretty well, too. It was such a happy day. I don't know what it is about weddings, but they get me every time. I don't know if I became this emotional wuss after having kids or what, but I cry at the first sign of someone else's emotion now. Commercials, cards, weddings, funerals - they all get me now. Anyway, it was a great night. Steve, a fried of all of ours, performed the short ceremony, then we all headed over to Mufeletta (sp?) for dinner. The following day they had an outdoor BBQ reception with a great band...Cadillac Kolstad. Other than my own, this was probably one of the coolest receptions I've been to. Everything was great - the food, the ambiance, the weather, the people, the music. Sasha put a lot of work into the planning and it paid off. It was WONDERFUL! Here's a shot of Mike and Sasha at the reception:


And here's one of me and Bert at the reception:


On June 22, we went to the annual Celebrate NE Parade. The girls had a good time. We went with Malachi and Nyah from daycare, along with their mom, Danielle, and Becky (both friends of mine - also daycare moms) whose daughter, Jolie was in the parade with her dad. It was hot, hot, hot that day, but these are the things we do for our kids, right? It took Isabelle about half way through the parade to become assertive enough to get to the front of the kid-mob to get some candy that was being thrown by the parade walkers. She is so shy and timid sometimes. I see so much of myself in her....I hope she doesn't allow herself to be held back by her shyness. She's such a great kid - I wish she could just be confident. At the parade, though, after missing out enough times, she made she that she wasn't overlooked anymore. That's my girl!!

We spent the following weekend (6/25-6/27) in Duluth with my brother, Dan, his wife, Jenny and their son, Benjamin. Jenny is pregnant with their second child - due in October. They live near Fargo, ND...I wish they lived closer - it would be nice to see them more regularly. Duluth was fun - a perfect balance of relaxation and activity. We stayed in the same hotel as them and met up for some stuff and did our own thing part of the time. Our room was perfect - a separate living room area (where the girls slept) with french doors that opened into our bedroom. I swear - that's the only way to do it with 2 young ones! Everyone had enough space and got enough sleep. Makes a world of difference when traveling as a family!

Friday we met up with "the Gwynns" in the afternoon by Lake Superior and went to the Maritime Museum - a big hit with the little ones. :) Then we walked out on the pier to the lighthouse and came back to throw rocks in the lake. As far as I'm concerned, no trip to Duluth is complete without these two activities....the light house and throwing rocks. They've just got to happen.














We met up again with "the Gwynns" after dinner for swimming in the hotel pool, then back to our room for some good old fashioned channel surfing. Ahhhhh, hotels. NOT being home, where there are always a million things to do. And it was good.

The next day "the Gwynns" went on a cruise and we went to Superior Zoo, which, in my opinion, wasn't so superior, but we had a good time. We spent some time relaxing in our wonderful hotel room, Isabelle and I swam for a bit, then we all drove out to Two Harbors to the famous Betty's Pies. I was really excited to try it, not too impressed, though. Maybe I got the wrong kind of pie. Coconut cream....it was good, but my expectations were pretty high. Damn those expectations, they will always lead to disappointment. I've learned that over and over, but they still creep in.

Sunday we drove home in the morning to get back to the cities in time for Grandpa Bob's 90th birthday party. Everyone was there - it was a nice little shin-dig. Grandma Dorothy shares the day - it was her 89th birthday.

Bert turned 38 on July 1st and we went to another Twins game on the 2nd. They won and the night was capped of with fireworks after the game. It was a pretty good display! 4-5 songs-worth of fireworks. Which made up for our 4th of July - which was pretty uneventful. The weekend as a whole was OK, but our typical "4th of July" events left us wanting.

The beach picture was from July 3rd. That was a fun day.

Isabelle, Audrey and I met my girlfriend Erica and her daughter, Mallory at the Mall of America during the day on the 4th. That was several hours worth of trying to keep Isabelle happy and entertained, while trying to keep the little ones (Audrey is 13 months and Mallory is 11 months) busy, peppered with several attempts between Erica and me to actually catch up with each other. Needless to say, it didn't work. We decided that next time we get together (which will probably be in 2012 at the rate we're going) that we'll meet at one of our homes. Then we will at least have a fighting chance of being able to talk a bit.

We planned on going downtown to watch the fireworks that night, but after several attempts at finding a decent parking spot, then going to a different location with only a view of the fireworks that are shot VERY high in the air (above the treeline) and no fireworks "noise" to accompany the flash of light because we were so far away....all the while dragging around 2 very tired little girls, we ended up standing on a bridge were we could see the last 5 minutes of the display. It was pretty pathetic. Bert and I were both pretty crabby by this point, as were the girls, so we drove home and I felt pretty crappy about the whole thing for a day or two. You know how sometimes things just don't turn out how you'd like them to? Well, that was our 4th of July. There's always next year, right?

Last Friday, July 9th, Audrey had her first bloody incident. Ughhh. These are the times that I hate being the adult. I want someone else to be in charge! Audrey was standing by our big brown chair in the living room - facing it with her hands on the seat of the chair. For a reason only Isabelle will ever know, she (Belle) decided to grab Audrey's ankles and pull them straight back, effectively pulling Audrey from the chair to do a direct face plant on the ground. I was in the bathroom cleaning up after the bath when I hear Bert say, "Oh my god! Oh my god!" I run out to find Bert holding Audrey - the shoulder of his shirt soaked with blood - blood running out of Audrey's mouth, soaking the front of her shirt and Audrey crying hysterically. I don't know what it is, but its like I turn into someone else. Someone much better at staying calm and taking care of business that the Mary I know is. Long story short: she cut the inside of her mouth with her teeth - it bled like crazy for a while, but she was fine. Isabelle was sent to her room. When Bert and I went in to talk with her, she really impressed me. I think she felt bad enough seeing how badly she hurt Audrey. Right away she apologized for what she did and said that maybe next time she should ask me or Bert to help move her. She's got a great heart, but she's getting a little rough with her sister. Hmmmmmm....parents out there have ideas to curb this kind of thing?? Hopefully this was an isolated incident and she's learned her lesson. I hope so...I feel like we all lucked out that it wasn't worse than a bloodied lip.

The next day, July 10th was the poop incident and the daycare BBQ.

Yesterday, July 14th, Isabelle had her last of 6 pre-karate classes. It was parent's night where they show us what they've learned. It was really cute. Right now she says that she doesn't want to continue on, but I hope she goes back to it at some point. I think its good for her. Right now, though, she wants to take another round of swimming lessons. We tried to get back into a round of music class (one of Belle's favorites), but they didn't have enough interest in the evening classes. We'll try again in the fall.

That brings us to today. Nothing too note-worthy today, but tomorrow we're off to the Ramsey County Fair to celebrate Isabelle doing such a great job with her morning and evening checklists. Yup, we had to do checklists. Things like brushing her hair, brushing her teeth, getting dressed, getting in jammies, etc were turning into power struggles all too regularly....until the checklists and sticker reward. A week worth of AM and PM stickers = something good. This week - the first week - its a trip to the fair. The plan is that the "something good" will gradually taper down to nothing - once these things become habit and non-power struggle issues. We'll start big and keep the excitement going for now. :)

All right. That's it. I'll try to get back here, for a more reasonably-sized update in a couple weeks!

Over and out,
Mary