Talk like a pirate day?

Guess what? I have gotten to sleep in my bed for FOUR nights straight!! Thanks to some "Monster Spray" (Thank you for the suggestion, Crazy Lady!!) and our dog, Apollo, whose bed we moved into the kid's room. His job is to now eat the Monsters that linger about after Emma sprays with her water bottle (monster spray formula = 90% water, 10% Febreeze, killing two birds, er, monsters with one squirt). Apollo takes his job pretty seriously. He will lay in his bed in the room until Em falls asleep, then he wanders out into the living room until we go to bed, then back into his bed until morning. Go, figure!

We spent Monday afternoon enjoying the sunshine in our marina. It was low tide so after snacks we wandered around under the pier looking for treasures. We came home with some cool shells that we hope to someday make into something crafty. The whole time we were on the beach I kept scanning the water for sharks. What the heck is wrong with me? Stupid Speilberg has ruined me for life! Thankfully we didn't see Jaws, but we did see a super cool school of flying fish jumping in and out of the water. Ben was his usual class clown self, running amok. My favorite part was him jumping around the wooden boat saying, "Aargh! I'm a pirate!" over and over again. (click on pic to enlarge)

1) I'm a pirate! 2) Snack time. 3) Treasure hunting!

The long and short of it...

The challenge with FACEBOOK vs this blog when you are baby buncher is: sometimes I just don't remember if I have blogged about something I put on FB, or if I have FB something I have blogged. What I need to remind myself is FB = temporary, and blog = permanent (because I make books yearly for my kiddos to "enjoy?" when they are 35 and having kids of their own...).

After reviewing my FB and Twitter accounts, I realized I am slacking on the blog and better get to writing. So, here goes!

Sunday! Sunday was a very important day here in the penthouse. It happens twice a year (sometimes 3 times because of playoffs). The Eagles played the Giants and our children needed, YES - NEEDED, to make a choice. Were they going to cheer for Mommy or Daddy? Emma, before the game began, decided she was going with Daddy's team. Ben decided that since the game was not taking place on the Island of Sodor, could care less! Two minutes into the first quarter, Emma, feeling guilty, changed sides and was cheering for the Eagles. 6 yards later, she was cheering for the Giants. This went on for the entire game. Whoever was getting the positive accolades from the prospective parent is who she felt would win. Good thing it was a nail biter game, it gave us lots to laugh at as she Charlie Brown'd all over the place!

FYI, this is POSSIBLY our Christmas card picture this year (from football day!):

 

Unless when we hit up our Groupon for JCPenney's portrait studio at the end of October and come up with something better!

That being said. I'm tired and will attempt to finish the catchup tomorrow!!! xoxoxo 

Manic Monday

Monday mornings are tough around the penthouse for poor Ben. After the fun of having the whole family around for the weekend, he is so very upset and snuggley needy when we drop Emma off at school and Daddy heads into the office. Seriously, all the parents know him as the kid who hates to see his sister head into the building in the morning. He does the patented, "EMMA! NOOOO!" as she walks away, stretching his hands out to her. He then either collapses in a heap on the sidewalk, or climbs up into my arms crying hysterically. It is oh, so endearing - who knew the kid loved his sister so much? Today was no different, the only thing that has calmed him down is an episode of Super Why, thank you, PBS.

On Friday it was my turn to kidsit the "Fabulous Four" (Emma, George, Ben and Christian). At one point I had taken 2 big loads of laundry out of the dryer and dumped them on my bed to fold. George and Christian immediately jumped onto my bed and were rolling all over the laundry laughing and saying, "Oh, it's nice and warm. I love laundry!" My kids saw them doing that, took a glance at me to see if I was angry or happy, and then joined in the fun. It took every ounce of composure (is that even an expression?) I had not to freak out about sweaty kids rolling in my clean laundry. They were having so much fun and saying the silliest things that it took me forever to get the laundry folded and I didn't even mind (well, maybe a little!). Amazingly, my OCD stayed at bay and I didn't freak out at the good fun. : )

Christian celebrated his 2nd birthday at their house on Saturday afternoon. The skies dried out for the day and we were luckily able to celebrate outside. When it came time for the Lightning McQueen pinata, Ben took one swing at it with the bat and decided that hitting the race car was not something he wanted to take part in. When the pinata finally broke, all the kids dove for the candy - except Ben - he went up to Christian's Daddy and asked for the beaten up cardboard race car and played with that for the next half hour!

Benny is doing GREAT in the toddler bed. What was I so afraid of? Oh, yeah, I would like to sleep in my own bed for 8 hours straight more than once a month. Emma is so "scared of the dark" that I end up in their room almost every night at 3 am. Daddy and I spoke this morning and we decided tonight is the night we break the cycle. We are going to have to let her "cry it out" whether she wakes up Ben or not. Wish us luck.

Ketsup, continues

In order to remember all the good stuffs that I want to blog about I utilize the services of Twitter. I basically "tweet" something and check the list the next time I have 30 minutes to blog and attempt to plow through the list. Well, apparently I haven't checked my tweets in a while because I have a bunch of kiddo-goodness that I have yet to "chart" for their future enjoyment. I've got a few minutes so here we go...

1) Sometimes when I need to sweep the carpet but the toys are EVERYWHERE, I simply vacuum around the toys (pushing the bigger ones out of the way with the vacuum because they cannot be sucked up).

2) Now that both children are talking, we realize that they sound EXACTLY the same. I cannot distinguish a "Mommy!" call whatsoever - I literally have to walk into the room to figure out who needs me. It happens 20+ times a day. We parents are often saying to each other, "Was that Ben or Emma?" CRAZY!

3) Times have changed. I often get automated calls and matching emails from the school pertaining to events that were/are going down. For example: On the first day of school (the day after Hurricane Irene blew threw and knocked out power to everyone but us!!) I got a call at 6:30am saying the school is powered up and ready for day one. Today, because of heavy rains, I got a call saying tonight's homecoming bonfire was cancelled and that I should expect a call tomorrow at 7am to give me the heads up on the back to school parade tomorrow. This technology is fun and fancy and, to be honest, I knew nothing about the bonfire and was slightly cranky because it sounded like it would have been FUN!

4) Times have also changed because on the first day of school I had to send Em in with over $60 of self purchased school supplies for the class to put to good use. My memories of the first day of school in my childhood are: I show up, the school gives me a pencil and a small tablet. SERIOUSLY, State budgets being what they are, I had to buy crayons, lead pencils, color pencils, crayons, paints, sentence strips, tissues, folders, primary notebooks, and so much more... (BUT, to set the record straight, I am BLESSED to have the opportunity to do this because our preK, five half days a week, is FREE because it is built into our school district's budget.)

5) The "class clown" synapse in Ben has finally fired. All this kid wants to do is make EVERYONE laugh. This results in some fascinating yet sometimes painful physical comedy...

6) EVERY morninging I ask Ben, "What do you want for breakfast?" and he replies, "Cookie! And, bacon!" Cookie = meaning waffle, and bacon meaning BACON. (This is Daddy's fault!)

7) Last Sunday, Benjamin fell asleep on my chest while we were watching the NFL after dinner. These moments are waining and I need to remember to APPRECIATE them.

8) Benjamin is now "trained" like a good little monkey to put his finished drink cups into the sink - NO MORE CRAZY SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS FROM UNDER MY COUCH.

9) Yesterday at the park, the kids were taking turns quite nicely on the monkey bars. (And, yes, that does mean I do the brunt of the muscling as they fake hand over hand across the bars...). When I was ready to move to another piece of playground equipment (read: my biceps were blown out!) Ben didn't like the transition and had a hearty tantrum. Emma and I "ignored" him by pushing an EMPTY swing back and forth over and over talking up how fun it was to play with "Pretend Ben!" Soon after hearing this, pretend Ben turned into REAL Ben because he didn't want to miss out on the action.

And that, my internet friends and family is the silliness behind the silliness of the past few weeks...

FL in review:

Abuelita treated us to a day at the Miami Seaquarium last week while we were in FL. It was crazy hot and humid, but that didn't stop us from seeing some fun shows and enjoying the fish in the giant aquarium. If you ask Emma what her favorite part was, she will tell you the "dolphin show". Ben pretty much couldn't sit still through the shows and I was constantly "correcting" him so he wouldn't ruin the fun for the other guests. He had a short tantrum or six here and there, but otherwise he was happy to be pushed in the stroller from show to show because he had used up all his energy rolling around the floors of the stadiums during the shows. Awesome.

 

(pictured: Em was not too fond of the Orca Whales. They were big and "too scary." I was shocked to see them performing with the dolphins in the same tank, apparently they are related and get along quite well. She did enjoy pushing random buttons in all the educational exhibits and, of course, checking out all the fish in the giant aquarium.)

Not sure what kind of teeth those are! & a tuckered out Ben on the ride home.

Abuelita also got the kiddos some Halloween costumes. Of course, Emma could not wait until Halloween and has been requesting to wear it on a daily basis. We even wore it to the mall the other day and she got lots of compliments. While wandering through Macy's she kept stopping to look at herself in EVERY full length mirror saying, "Oh, look, Mommy! There is another princess in the store. And another and another and another!"

Lastly in FL news, no trip to Abuelita and Grandpop's would be complete without the morning feedings of the ducks out the back patio. If you recall, last visit in May, Ben simply ate the popcorn and did not want to share it with the ducks. I am happy to report that this time he did a great job tossing the popcorn out to the hungry beasts!

Great job, Ben!

Spoiled rotten and we like it!

While vacationing in FL last week we were treated to some good quality eats. So good that Benjamin is back to his "I'm not eating your sub-par foods now that I have tasted the good stuff." Case in point: Every night for dinner for the past 3 or 4 months (?) Benny has eaten steak for dinner. He refuses any other protein - no eggs, no chicken, no fish - so what's a Mom to do? I buy top round for pretty cheap in bulk at BJs, portion is out, freeze it, thaw a portion a day, season it up (with Montreal Steak spice ONLY, no other will do for this kid!), chop it into tiny bite size pieces, flash stir fry it for about one minute (medium rare only for this kid, too!) and serve it up. He eats it up and I feel good to get some protein and iron into him. Well, in FL, Abuelita - who is very aware of Ben's eating preferences, bought him steak to eat while he was there! (Hooray, Abuelita!) The challenge is, she bought this:

Click on me to blow me up and read what I am!

Yes, you read it right! Nothing but the best from Abuelita!!! Ben got himself a taste of Filet Mignon and now refuses my cheap 'ole top round! He simply pushes it around his plate refusing to eat it. I have been saving it as leftovers for Emma for lunch the next day... Does anyone know a local beef farmer that will give me some cuts at cost for him? : )

Big Ben

Well folks, the time has come. Both of my children are free to roam the penthouse as they please throughout the night. Ben tried to crawl out of the crib while I was reading him stories Sunday night before bed, got his ankle caught in an impossible place, fell backwards and was dangling there until I could stand up and rescue him. Luckily no broken bones, but it scared him and scared me enough that we decided to convert the crib to a toddler bed giving him the freedom I was so trying to avoid until he was, say, five. I had a parent thingy at the school last night so Daddy had the pleasure of putting him to bed his first night and dealing with the ability to escape and guess what, he fell asleep immediately. I came home to the pic posted and would you believe he slept all night not even attempting one escape? My big boy is growing up.

School schmool!

Yes, it is only the second week of school and I have already pulled Emma out for two days so we can travel on an "educational" field trip. What we have learned so far:

1) Ben will eat peanuts if they are in little airline packets.
2) Armed policemen boarding your plane after it returned to the terminal when it was just about to take off will make your heart jump.
3) Emma really is a bottomless pit. This kid can eat!
4) Killer whales and dolphins are related and will perform together in a show at the Miami Seaquarium.
5) Ben will not eat regular bread for breakfast, only waffles.
6) Emma is big enough for one of those backless car boosters, but I am not sure how safe they really are.
7) Emma is a HUGE help in a giant airport pushing Ben in the stroller so I can carry all the bags I am too thrifty to check.
8) Florida is still deadly hot and humid in September.
9) My kids are really good flyers as long as the batteries in our various electronics (mini dvd player, iphone, leapfrog2) can last the duration of the flight!
10) Never ever pack any clothes for Emma when I come to FL because Abuelita loves to spoil her granddaughter and she doesn't wear even one piece of clothing I bring because she wants to wear all the new pretty dresses that Abudita / Adubita / Aboodeeda (all the attempts Ben has made to pronounce Abuelita correctly - too freaking cute!!) bought her! (And we thank you for the clothes and shoes, Abuelita!)

Back to school fun.

Tuesday morning Emma started her preK adventure, from 8:50-11:30am five days a week. That means 6 days a week I now set my alarm (I work Saturday mornings). For 4 years now I have had the privilege of sleeping until my kids wake me. Sometimes that meant 6am, but sometimes it meant 8:45am. There was no rhyme or reason to it but setting an alarm was rare and it was kinda nice - I didn't really realize how lucky I was! This week my alarm has gone off for three days in a row at 7:15am. Now, 7:15 is actually a pleasant time to wake. The sun is out, the birds are chirping (if it isn't raining). 7:15 really isn't all that early compared to many parent friends of mine whose kids are starting school at 7:15 am (!!). I don't know why I am even writing about it. But I guess it fascinates me that Emma has grown up so fast - FOUR years has flown by since I was a "working" mom (I still work - we simply now own our business and I don't have to punch a time clock!). I digress, FOUR years has flown by - that is what being a parent does to you. It speeds up time.

So far, Em 'seems' to be doing great in school. She 'seems' to like it. Why "seem"? Well, she doesn't talk about it much. I try to get her to tell me about her morning and she brushes me off with one word replies. I asked a few of the other parents what their kids are telling them and they say the same! It's like our kids joined some secret club and aren't aloud to talk about it - "What happens in preK stays in preK!"

Before and After

Who knew?

Quick observations from the first week of school:

Ben cries hysterically when Emma and I leave to drop her off at school.
He is clingy all morning long.
He is beyond happy when we pick her up from school shouting, "Emma! Emma!"

I thought he was crying because I was leaving and not bringing him along for the drive. I thought he would be excited for one on one time with me and Daddy. He is not. He just latches onto me and hardly wants to play, just wants to snuggle. (Today we even went to the supermarket, just me and him. He usually loves this because I let him race up and down the aisles on foot. Not today. He MADE ME carry him the entire time. Can you say bulging bicep?) I thought he would enjoy his time away from his sister who does nothing but boss him around, speak for him, sit on him, torture him incessantly... NOPE. It turns out that Bennyboogleheimer LOVES his big sister and misses her terribly. Who'd a thunk it.

Not I.

Sleepy time!

We partied up a storm on Saturday with our pals who live around the block. The kids had an absolute blast and did not want to go home. There were tons of kids their age to play with and everyone got along so well. The favorite part of the day for the kids was the time spent in the hot tub. The pool was freezing so Emma kept saying, "I don't wanna go in the pool. I'll stay in the bath tub." Benny kept calling it the "hot pooh" as he hasn't quite perfected the "L" sound at the end of a word.

We woke up Sunday to another beautiful day and decided to take advantage of the sunshine with a ride out east on the island. We had no particular destination in mind, just started driving and figured we would pull over when something caught our eyes. The first thing was Harbes farm stand near Jamesport. They have nice sized grounds for the kids to run around and that they did! From there we drove by our favorite apple picking farm. We were not expecting them to be open for another few weeks and were delighted when we saw cars parked along the orchard. We parked, hopped out, grabbed a bag and set off through the trees. What a difference a year makes - last year we had to drag Ben in the wagon and I have a pic of him drinking from a bottle. This year the little man was all run run run and had a blast trying to pull the apples off the trees. Emma was much more conscientious in her picking of the good apples and we made it off the "corechard" (as she kept calling it!!!) with a bag of nice looking apples (as opposed to the Charlie Brown looking ones she picked last year!).

 

We immediately came home and Daddy cooked up one of the yummiest apple pies yet. So yummy it is already gone and it has only been 24 hours (and the kids didn't want any). Yes, I ATE 1/2 of a PIE in 24 hours. FINE, I lied, I ate 1/4 last night and the other 1/4 at about noon - BEFORE I ATE LUNCH.

Needless to say, when Daddy got home from the office this afternoon and suggested we go for a hike, I was happy to oblige. I had Saturday's BBQ and that dang pie to work off so we packed up the kiddos and hit up Avalon. We decided to try a trail we have never hiked and thoroughly enjoyed it. Ben is proving to be an excellent hiker, and attempting to keep up with his speed was a good calorie burner for me!

 

As always, Emma "dressed" for the occasion. And, our favorite quote from the hike came from her about a third of the way into the walk, "Gee, this new trail sure is hikey." 

Daddy and I are ready for bed. It's not just the sugar rush, or the constant out and aboutness of our social calendar. It's our kids. They are not sleeping at night. They go to bed pretty easy by 7:30pm, but the past week, both of them have been waking up in the middle of the night wanting to PLAY. It's like they have insomnia but don't know to be annoyed by it. Last night they were up from about 2:00am to 4:30am and no amount of shushing, or threat of discipline would get them to lay quietly. They went the entire day without TV today because of their antics and Ben lost the use of his trains for the day. If they don't sleep through the night tonight I may have to separate them again (I finally made Emma lay on the couch so she couldn't egg Ben on while he was jumping around the crib).

Emma starts preK tomorrow. I wonder what she'll want to wear...

Modesty

Dear family, Our modest daughter REFUSES to wear anything but dresses that come to BELOW the knee. If you see something cute that you simply know she will love that comes to ABOVE the knee, do not waste your money. I am exhausted from the daily struggle of getting dressed. We are down to about 3 outfits that she will wear. ARGH + ARGH = aaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Mayhem

As expected after a hurricane, we have been having spectacular sunshine weather with low humidity. We have been outside all day every day since Monday and I am happy (and tan!) and my kids are sleeping good (although I somehow end up in Emma's bed for 20 min - more if I fall asleep, which is often, every night). School starts next Tuesday and we have been sucking every last minute of enjoyment our of Summer "vacation". Now, Em is only going into pre-K, 5 days a week from 8:50 to 11:35am, which leaves us with plenty of time to play with our pals in the afternoon now that I have pretty much forcefully eliminated Ben's afternoon nap (they simply just didn't fit in with our busy social calendar!), so it's not like my life will change all that drastically. The only thing that stinks is five days a week I am actually going to have to set an alarm clock and have a potentially cranky girl out the door by 8:40 every day. (No buses for pre-K, I have to drop off and pick up at the elementary school.)

That being said, I am excited to have one on one time with Benjamin, who now that he has been approved for free Early Intervention speech therapy, is practically quoting Shakespeare. But the challenge is, and the therapist agrees, he parrots everything and uses phrases he hears often in context, but he has yet to elaborate on his words. Case in point, while sitting with the State Social Worker and the Speech Therapist Wednesday trying to come up with a game plan prescription for Ben, he wandered up to the table saying, "Emma naughty! Emma naughty!" with tears in his eyes. When I asked him why Em was naughty, what did she do, he only said again, "Emma naughty." It was a source of negative energy between the State gal and the therapist because the State is hearing him speak (!) but the therapist is trying to explain to her that using phrases he hears often is one thing, but being able to expound is a skill he should have by now but doesn't. The State gal is seeing $$ wasted on a kid who can speak, but the therapist is seeing a kid who will absolutely benefit from therapy! It was fascinating to watch the two go at it, and I was simply happy that he had already been approved for 6 months of therapy and she couldn't take it away. Whether he continues to qualify, whatever! If he doesn't, that means he is on track and ready to sign up for the debate team.

The other day at a play date, all of the sudden Emma was screaming bloody murder and clutching her head. I ran over to her to see what happened and she was in so much pain she couldn't get the words out. I turned and saw Ben walking slowly up to me with his fists clenched and full of hair looking VERY sad and saying, "Head hurt! Emma crying." Apparently they were fooling around and Ben stumbled and grabbed a hold of Emma as he fell to the ground unfortunately taking a chunk of her hair with him. The adorable part came in when I took the hair from Ben and showed it to Emma so she could comprehend why her head hurt so much - she grabbed the hair from my hands and tried to put it back into the ouchie spot!

The real reason one has kids (especially girls) is so they can play with your long hair relaxing you into a quickie sitting up nap in the afternoon. My dream finally came true the other day when Emma, after watching Elmo's world when Dorothy was thinking about Elmo having hair and needing to go to the barber, grabbed a hairbrush and spent a good 15 minutes brushing my hair. I was in heaven! When she was done she announced, "I'm a hair brusher saloner!"

I have successfully kept off the 25 pounds I lost all Summer long!! Even with pizza and barbeques galore! Turns out the 'ole "in moderation" suggestion has merit. Just to make you giggle, my husband called me "Mayhem" - as in the hot girl jogging in the Allstate commercials wreaking havoc on some poor dude who crashes into a telephone pole or something. I'll take that as a compliment.