Standing Up

Here's Scott, just starting to stand on his own holding on the the ottoman. Gotta love this ottoman, that's where Addie learned to stand too!

The "Apple Juice Incident"

Do you ever have those days? The ones that start out so normal and then, in one moment, change into the kind of day that live on in family history? I had one last week, and it will always be called "The Apple Juice Incident."

The day started so calmly, that I was actually wondering what I wanted to try to accomplish as I started the morning. I was making breakfast for Addie and myself, when I pulled a pitcher of apple juice out of the fridge, and it slipped out of my hand. I watched in horror as it toppled over, pouring juice all over the bottom of the fridge, myself, and the floor. It poured into the vegetable drawer, over the plastic bags of produce, into the crevices of the fridge shelf above, into the bottom of the fridge under the veggie drawer, on the inside of the door, my pajama pants, my leather slippers, the outside of the fridge, the trash can, and most horridly- went UNDER the fridge. No man's land. I froze in disbelief, wondering if I closed my eyes if it would go away.

I started with the paper towels, then Scott started crying. While I was changing his diaper, Addie has a crying fit because she didn't have any juice. While I was disciplining Addie for that, Scott was SCREAMING, I still had on juice pants, and the thought of going back in the kitchen and tackling that huge mess made me consider just burning down the apartment instead. But I prayed aloud, Addie joining me, asking God for help to deal with it all. I put Scott down for a nap, helped Addie finish breakfast and watch some PBS (thank you God for PBS!), and realized I really should take some pictures of this.
Here is the mess after paper towels. You can still see some juice on the floor by the trash can. There was a lot of juice under the fridge, where you can't see it.
Here is my leg, pants rolled up. No use changing, because I was just going to get nastier, but I put on old plastic flip flops because I thought they'd be the easiest to clean afterwards.

I started with dis-assembling the inside of the fridge, taking out all the veggies and fruits, cleaning the drawers and shelves thoroughly. *sigh* That was just the beginning. I cleaned the door, moved the trash can out of the way, cleaned it outside, cleaned it inside, cleaned it's underside.

Then it was time to deal with the floor- the floor under the fridge.




With a great deal of determination, I pushed and shimmied the fridge out of the way. I will NOT show you what I saw at first underneath. So gross. But after a sweep and a little Swiffer mop, this is what it looked like.

Still nasty, but I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of what I found at first. A lot of cat hair. So much so, that I had to get out the vacuum and suck the cat hair off the back of the fridge.






This is what I found UNDER the fridge:
4 magnets, 3 marbles, a hair clip, a wooden block, and a golf ball.












Here's the fridge, in the middle of the entrance to the kitchen.

Behind the fridge you can almost see every counter covered in vegetables, paper towels, cleaner, and more. (Yes, one side of our fridge is covered in pictures- a lot of you are probably on there).









Watchout sticky mess! My powerful sinkfull of suds will dominate you! The floor was mopped and mopped, then it was all put back. Whew! What a huge job! In the end, I was glad to know that under and behind the fridge was clean. When else do you clean back there unless you move?

I was thankful that Addie and Scott rolled with the day, that Greg brought me lunch home, and that God graciously gave me strength for the day. And now, I know that it is clean under the fridge. Very clean.

Being a Parent

So.... Greg and I decided this year that we would celebrate Valentine's Day on the night after Valentine's. We figured we didn't want to miss evening church, and everything would be less crowded the day after, and it would be easier to find someone to watch the kids, etc. This was going to be our first date night since Scotty was born. It was just going to be dinner, but we were excited nonetheless. Everything looked great until lunchtime today , when Addie broke out with a raging fever. I called Greg, who was wonderful about it, and then the friends who were going to watch the kids. I was bummed, but we decided to bring Chinese food home instead of going out for it, and just love on our girl.

I thought how funny it was that Addie would come down sick out of the blue, on the one night we were finally going to go out. I thought "That's parenthood for you." Greg and I both decided though, that we would just go another time and reminded ourselves that this was yet another opportunity to show love to our daughter, and model for her compassion and kindness.

Here she is, all pathetic on the couch, fever at 103.
Here is the fortune in my fortune cookie tonight. I got a big kick out of it.





And then, as I was brushing Addie's hair before bed, she looked at me and said "When I'm a grownup, I want to be just like you." After I got my breath, I asked "What do you mean honey?" and she replied, "I want to be a nice Mommy."
What an amazing moment. It put it all in perspective. Yes, being a mommy might include poop and tears and endless laundry, and not going out to dinner alone with your husband for a long time sometimes, but then you have this little person say something so precious, you never want to forget it. And that is the main reason I chose to blog this event, so that next time one of the children gets sick, I can go back and read this. :)

I Don't Want Your Stinkin' Green Beans

We've now begun introducing Scott to solid food, and he isn't too thrilled about the whole thing. He really didn't want the rice cereal, but he'll just tolerate the oatmeal. Carrots make him cry, sweet potato sent him into a full tantrum, and this is what he does when we feed him green beans.
THIS is a good reaction.
This is Greg, wearing a gold medal on his head, trying to distracte Scott and get him to eat more than three bites of green beans.








I really hope that Scott outgrows this dislike of new flavors! We've tried explaining to him that we really like our food in this family, and he's going to need to learn to be adventurous. Addie was a very happy little eater, right from the beginning, so this is new territory for us!
Speaking of Addie, here she is with pizza sauce on her face, wanting me to take a picture of her with the flowers Greg got us for Valentine's Day.

Olympics Happiness

There aren't that many things that Greg gets excited about, so when one comes along, I really enjoy it. And Friday night was opening ceremonies of the Olympics, one of the things Greg REALLY enjoys!
So we surprised him when he came home from work with a sign, balloons, a gold medal for him to wear, and matching new shirts for us. I think Addie and I had just as much fun putting it together for him as he had in coming home to it.
I made Olympic pizza- using yellow pepper, zuchinnni, tomatoes, olives and red onion to make the olympic rings. Under it all was Canadian bacon, because, well, it was the only Canadian food I could think of. We've been eating very carefully for the last month or more to shed some pounds, so pizza- even veggie pizza- was a thrilling treat.

This is Greg's face when he found out we were having pizza. He liked the rings too. :)

And for dessert? Graham crackers, yogurt, and fresh fruit making more rings. I know, I'd already done it on the pizza, but I had tapped the depths of my creativity by the time I got to planning dessert.
The Kropfs joined us and we all enjoyed watching the opening ceremonies- more for the fun company and watching the parade of nations than anything else. Now Greg is happily enjoying the competitions!

Settling Down

We feel like things around our house are finally settling down!
After Scotty's first 4 months (which any first 4 months with a baby are a blur), then sickness, the holidays, and more sickness, things are finally almost normal around here!

We've been working with Scott on some sleep training- helping him learn to sleep through the night- and are seeing some progress. He's now sleeping 8pm to 6am, but we're still aiming for 7am!

He is growing like a weed! He's 18 lbs, 26 inches long, and just outgrew his infant car seat and got promoted into his sister's seat this weekend. She got herself a new "big girl" seat, and our backseat of the car is FULL!

Scott and Timmy are madly in love with each other. Scott loves to grab and pull at the fur, Timmy loves to be grabbed and have his fur pulled at. Seriously, it makes him purr. He comes looking for Scott each morning for a little wrestle-love time.
There is still a lot of brother-sister love too. Addie is a great big sister, very helpful and sweet. She is newly in love with Lego Duplos, since getting a set from my sister for Christmas and a bunch from a family at church who had outgrown them. She plays with them for a loooong time each day, which delights her mommy.








The only interesting thing that has happened lately is Scott scaring his parents half to death last weekend. After having an allergic reaction to Amoxicillin and breaking out in hives for days, he also then quit using one arm. He didn't seem to be in pain, and I thought it might be the hives bothering him, but after several hours Greg and I discovered that he wasn't using it at all, just letting it hang limp at his side. Of course, this was on a Saturday afternoon when the doctor's office was closed. We called the on-call pediatrician who had us take him right in to a pediatric urgent care (thank the Lord we didn't have to go to the ER). We were imagining the worst case scenarios all the way there (stroke? seizure?). But after the doctor examined him and was very doubtful of a break, he decided to try a quick fix before sending him off for x-rays. He told us it could be as simple as a partially dislocated elbow, and performed a special little handshake to reset it, just in case that's what was going on. Sure enough, Scott started using his arm right away. Greg and I almost fell down on the ground out of relief! The doctor told us some kids just have loose joints, and it was very likely that Scott would do this again. It was so easy to reset, the doctor even taught Greg how to reset it, so we can fix it at home and be the ultimate "do-it-yourself"ers now! What a relief to drive home that afternoon with two healthy kids in the backseat. It was a good opportunity to thank the Lord again for their health, and for "normal" family life!