daddy dinners

Kyle came up with a little proposal to make my life easier and happier: a Monday night kitchen take over. The plan is that while he slaves away at the stove, I will sit around and relax. We gave it a try on Monday, and our first daddy dinner night was a success. He looked through cookbooks and found a meal that looked good, and then he went to town. The final product was impressive. After Noah took his first bite, he exclaimed: "I LIKE it!" It really was restaurant good. And he even did the dishes. What a man.

There's always something

Seems like with parenting, if it isn't one thing, it's another. I mean that in the most positive way possible. I love a good challenge. Lucky me, being a mom gives me plenty of them. One week ago the task at hand was weaning Noah from his pacifier addiction. We had been only giving it to him at nap time and bed time, so the transition was less of a cold turkey thing. And during our Kentucky vacation, we made sure to prepare the poor little addict with repeated reminders: "When we go back home, you are going to say goodbye to your chupon, because you are a big boy and chupones are just for babies like Jake." I was so worried. The first time I put him down for a nap, he said so desperately: "I NEED my chupon!" I told him he was a big boy and he didn't need it anymore. The look on his face was heartbreaking when started begging: "Pleeease, mommy? Please!" I tried to be strong and said: "No. You'll be okay, you can sleep without it." He started crying and said: "How about the green one?" That made me want to laugh and cry. Then when I said no, he tried again: "then how about the the blue one?" Poor kid going through the Kubler Ross stages of grief. Anyway, I was firm even though I wanted to be a pushover at that moment so badly. I left the room, and he was still crying. But after just a couple of minutes, the crying stopped, and I felt relieved and gave myself a good pat on the back. Success is so sweet. And then when I went into his bedroom to wake him up, I found him knocked out on his bed, sleeping so peacefully, with a big blue pacifier stuck in his mouth. That sneaky little thing. Apparently he still had a secret stash under his pillow. And that stash came in handy at his most desperate of times. But since that incident, he has been clean for a week and has shown great resilience and fortitude in overcoming his life's addiction.

(Noah in his huge big boy bed. It is an awesome thing seeing your little baby sleep in a queen sized bed.)

Next challenge: Conquering Bedtime Fears (in the words of Noah: "I'm scared of all the scary things, Mom! I want to sleep in Kyle's room!"). It's filling our nights with serious drama. And so, feel free to leave some insights on how to handle childhood bedtime fears/reluctance to sleep alone in a perfectly safe and night-lighted bedroom. The sooner we conquer this one, the sooner we can move on to other exciting challenges. Thanks.

Halloween, revisted

Forget New Years and Christmas, I'm still stuck back in October. Today I finally made the boys get back in their Halloween costumes so I could take a few pictures.


Things went smoothly until the horse got attitude and the jockey got thrown.

but jockey jake didn't give up

he conquered that wild stallion

nice job Jake

what we've been up to

Thought I better take a minute to document what we are doing before I get too caught up in everything else. We pulled out the Christmas decorations to get us in the Christmas spirit.

We have done a little bit of traveling, and have enjoyed all the time spent with family. We had a happy Thanksgiving with the complete Campbell family, and my 3 BYU-going siblings joined the festivities too. Auntie "Yars" and a studious looking Noah.

Jake has been dabbling deeper into the world of solid food. During family meal times, if he isn't participating he gets all riled up and entitled. He loves peas and sweet potatoes the most. I just can't believe my baby is old enough to eat solids. He seems so little. The high chair practically swallows him whole.

Noah is growing up too, and is getting a little attitude-y in the process...but it is surprisingly cute and hasn't gotten old yet. He likes to bargain to get his way. When I ask him to do something, when he used to say so sweetly: "okay mommy" now he answers: "just a second Mom!" or "one more minute!" So our little 2 year old is finding ways to assert his independence.

The brothersThey are just starting to have fun together. Every so often, in between the pushing, blankets over the face, body slams, and timeouts, the boys have a little moment of peaceful playtime and I get a taste of that happiness of a mom watching her kids play together like friends.

(How cute is Jake's face, looking at his big brother!)

I love that Jake is big enough to sit in the wagon. Thanks Grandma--it is getting a lot of use. A week ago, we took the wagon out for a walk to the elementary school where a helicopter was visiting. Noah loved it and still talks about it. He says: "the helicopter went up in the sky with the airplane. it blowed noah and mommy and jakey bean's hair and noah said 'wowwww.""

Jake got another haircut courtesy of Kyle.

Check out those side rolls. There was five, I think. It's even more significant considering how he came into this world as such a skinny little thing. It must be all those extra calories he is consuming after 8 p.m.!

And last but not least...

a little sleep essay (written under sleep deprivation)

You know that feeling you have if you are an insomniac or a mother of a newborn? Even though you are exhausted, you dread nighttime. Something about being awake in the middle of the night not by choice is just so sad. I remember being a little girl and crying at night, not because I was scared of monsters or anything like that, but because I couldn't fall asleep and there was something terrifying to me about not getting a good nights' sleep. (Yes, I was a bit of an up-tight, worried little child.) Lately I have had many opportunities to relive that part of my childhood. Sometime during the last couple of months, my sweet little Jacob baby has turned into a sleep-hater...which has serious implications for my own sleep issues. He's not a newborn, but he's definitely more opposed to night sleep than any newborn I have had in my home. At first I blamed it on teething, then I blamed it on being sick, then on learning to roll over, and now on learning to crawl. You'd think I'd run out of things to blame it on. But don't worry, I can always start to blame myself, and the lack of sleep-training I've passed on to the little guy. Will I ever resort to letting him cry-it-out? Will I ever implement some other strategy of sleep-training of which doctors and "sleep experts" and people who want to exploit poor sleepless mothers write lengthy chaptered book expositions? Will these sleepless nights be a passing stage? Will I ever get a good night's sleep?
I don't know. But the good news is that there are always cupcakes. And those cupcakes go on sale for 1$ after 7:00. So you know where I'll be tonight. And I'm not talking about sleep.

Big Noah is 2

The last week of October was one big crazy party. We celebrated Noah's birthday all week long, with lots of cake. In art group we had monster cupcakes and made paper monsters. Then on his ball cupcakes, at Noah's request.

On Halloween, we had a little Halloween party with a big green many-eyed monster.

He got a lot of practice blowing out candles. The first time he stood in front of burning candles on a birthday cake, I said: "Blow them out!" and he blew with his nose. (because most of the blowing he does is into a kleenex!)
That should explain his nasal-y expression in this picture.

Noah loved all the festivities. He can now sing Happy Birthday, the whole song, all by himself. And when I tell him stories before bedtime, Noah always asks me to include birthday cake, presents, or the birthday song. And during story time, when he requests a "knock at the door", he specifies that the visitors are either Kurt and Papa or Yars, Choo-Choo and Kenton. (who were a big part of his real life birthday celebrations.) But even with all this birthday talk, I don't know if he knows his real age. When we ask him how old he is, most often, he says: "Five." Sometimes it is one or three, and occasionally two. However old he is, he is growing up so fast. His vocabulary is growing too, and can be pretty funny.

• When he carries something heavy, he says all manly: "I'm STRONG!" When something is out of his reach or too high for him, he grunts, stretches for it, gives up, and concludes: "it too reach!!"


• Sometimes when Jake cries, Noah commands: "Jakey, be happy!!" When Noah cries, I ask: "Noah, why are you crying?" He loves to answer: "cuz." and sometimes he adds pathetically: "cuz...I SAD."


• He doesn't give me much opportunity to sit around during the day. Yesterday I was typing something while he watched Sesame Street, and he kept repeating: "GET UP!" I tuned him out for a minute, until I gave him my attention and asked "What?" He said: "Get up...and DANCE!" He also has started demanding this: "Mommy, Exercise!"


• When he wants to play hide and seek, he says: "Mommy find you?" (He hasn't fully grasped the proper usage of me's and you's.) Then he commands: "mommy's turn!" and he goes through the routine of looking in places he knows I am certainly not: "mommy in drawer? No. Mommy in box? No. Mommy under pillow? No." Then I pretend to sneeze and he says with great surprise, especially considering we do the same thing every time we play: "Oh! [some]Body sneezed!!" and finds me in the place he knew I was hiding all along (usually under the table).


• He also loves to do puzzles. He has a 25 piece puzzle, which he does at least 3 times a day. It is adorable to watch him talk to himself while he puts it together. While he holds up each piece, he says: "Where this goes? I know! Goes right here!"
  
• And the sweetest thing he has ever said (on his own, out of the blue): "Jesus love Noah."

The boys in costume

We are planning on an after-Halloween photo shoot, because this tiny cellphone picture is the only one of them together! I was too busy hosting a party (we celebrated Noah's birthday on Halloween) to be playing photographer, so this is the best we got. You can't get the full effect of the costumes unless the boys are together. In case you couldn't tell, Noah is a racehorse and, as Noah said all week long, "Jakey be a jockey." (a little throw back to my Kentucky roots). The boys had a decent time, despite the fact that Noah didn't like wearing the horse head

and kept trying to ride on Jake. Now that would have been a good picture!