Nap Follies Again!

Ugh. D has been getting into some major trouble at nap time for the past couple of weeks.

I'm at a loss. Last week he started peeling paint off the walls! The walls are paint over wallpaper over paint. He's peeled off sections of the painted wallpaper. It started really small, and we were going to sand the little hole and paint over it. But now? He's gouged out two huge sections! We are nixing the painting thing and just going for some paneling. I'm not a big fan of paneling, but it seems like the best option at this point. Now in order to paint and have it look halfway decent we would have to go in there and chip off all the old wallpaper. I've seen how those projects go. It looks like it will come off real easy and then once you reach the point of no return - there are huge sections that just wont come off the wall for anything.

I'm so completely frustrated!!! Why does he have to destroy my walls at naptime??? I chewed him out good last time and what did he do? The next time I had to go in there he had the bed stripped. Then 10 minutes later back to peeling the walls!!!

I'd give up on the nap thing, but he's so whiny and grumpy with no naps. Believe me, I'm thinking about reinstating naps in the crib! And maybe putting some chicken wire over the top of the crib. (OK, that was just a joke...maybe).

Can't he just go in there and go to sleep???? It's so exhausting having to go check and see what sort of new mess he's made every 10 minutes for 3 hours!!!

Any suggestions?

Weekend Drive

So this past weekend, instead of our usual sitting around in pjs and watching movies all weekend, we actually went out and did something! And I'm just finally getting around to uploading the pictures!

First we went driving around the Chequamegon National Forest and checked out some of the campgrounds for future reference. Really we went out driving because I was anxious to get some pretty pictures of the trees changing.

While I'll be complaining this winter about the coldness and overabundant snow, it sure is damn beautiful around here in the fall.


After we drove through the national forest, we decided to go check out Copper Falls State Park and hike around the falls. It was beautiful! And it was the first time I and the kids had been there.

I carried baby B in the carrier and my husband carried D on his shoulders. D was too funny. When my husband first got him up on his shoulders he grabbed on tight and said "Don't you fall D, don't you fall." My husband said he had a death grip on his neck. Less than 10 minutes later he said "Don't you poop on my back D, don't you poop on my back!"















It was such a beautiful day! Even so, we only made it about a quarter of the way around the trail before we turned back. Two reasons: the adults were a little tired from carrying the extra weight up stairs and hills... and we heard a low growling coming from the woods... we didn't really want to stick around and possibly find out what it was.

After the hike, since we were pretty close, we decided to go up a little further to Lake Superior and do a picnic dinner. Amazingly, I didn't take any pictures while we were there. I should have because there were hundreds of seagulls in the parking lot and on the shore. We didn't really want to brave the flock, so we ate in the car. I'm glad we didn't get out - my husband rolled down his window and threw out a piece of his bread and about 40 seagulls swarmed the car! We thought they were going to bust in. It was a little like "The Birds" for a minute there.

It was nice to get out of the house and do something, and it was probably one of the last nice weekends left to do so. It could be snowing here next week. ;)

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Wordless Wednesday: The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers

The Whine Machine and other digressions...

My little man D has become the biggest whine machine. Please tell me this is just a phase. I know that you are supposed to ignore behaviors such as this, but is it just me or do you find whining almost impossible to ignore? It totally grates on ones nerves! It starts the minute he gets up, and doesn't end until he goes to bed. His last whine every night before bed is "don't you cry?" "don't you cry D?" (he is still telling us what he wants us to say to him). He will whine/repeat it until you say it to him.

Big time digression follows, but there is a point: Everyone has had colds here this week (and as I've been reading around it seems the entire blogosphere is also suffering the same colds). The snot completely runneth over here. I'll spare you the gory details for now. But incidentally (yes, I'm digressing even further) rubbing vicks on your/child's feet and putting socks on before bed works miracles.

The point of that horrible digression? D sneezed into his yogurt cup the other day at breakfast. For the next half an hour he whined/repeated "Did you blow your nose in your yogurt?" Lots of digression for little payoff. I know. We've been working on blowing noses. He has *finally* started blowing out instead of in! Yay! He was so upset about "blowing" his nose in his yogurt. Poor guy. I didn't know whether to laugh or whine along with him.

Really, my post is all over the place today because my brain is full of whine-mush.

I need to make post-it notes for the kiddie movies. I think about that every time he asks to watch a movie. He doesn't call any of them by their name. It's "wanna watch Boog" (Open Season), "wanna watch Roddys" (Flushed Away), "wanna watch Lightning McQueen/Tow Mater" (Cars) "buzz wyker" is the first Toy Story, while "yee-haw" is the second Toy Story (I'm guessing because of the girl and the horse)... on Thursday he whined all morning to watch "monster truck." I had no idea which movie this was? I couldn't think of any movie we have that has a monster truck in it. I tried putting in Monsters, Inc... that just brought about more intense whining. I asked if it was Shrek (Shrek and truck are pretty close in his speech)... but nope. When M got home from school that day I asked her if she could think of any movie that had a monster truck in it. After much thinking and questioning, she discovered that it was "Herbie."

Anyway, I just hope this whining thing is a very short lived phase. Otherwise, you will find me locked in the bathroom.

Car Seat Follies

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

These aren't quite the greatest pictures, but they go along with my Wordless Wednesday (photos of baby B having fun tearing apart the visor part of her car seat).

I've been pretty disgruntled with this car seat for a while now. Ever since B started realizing she could tear things apart and put them in her mouth... she discovered that there was a stash of fuzz on the underside of the fabric on the car seat.

Now baby B is quite the fuzz connoisseur, so imagine her delight at finding such a stash! The first time she got a chunk of it and started choking on it I was going to get some duct tape and fix it up. But then I realized that the entire backing was that way, so I didn't want to ruin the car seat. Anyway, just prior to her destruction of the visor, I had to pull over and fish fuzz out of her mouth. And of course when we got home and I took the photos of her, there she is trying to hand me a chunk of fuzz that would have made it to her mouth had I not been standing right there.

Needless to say, I went out the very next day and bought a new car seat! And I made sure that this one's fuzz was better contained! :)

Wordless Wednesday: Action Shot: Car Seat Destruction

PottyTraining Follies...

We have been working on some potty training around here for the past couple of weeks or so... It's not going all that great really. I think he's gone in the potty chair twice now out of the hundreds of times he's sat on it.

It's not that he doesn't want to sit on the pot. Its quite the opposite problem. He's always game to sit on the pot when I ask if he wants to.

After 20mins of sitting there waiting for him to do some kind of business, I get a little frustrated... He just wants to sit there and play. I hate to make him get off the potty... I don't want him to have any negative associations with the potty chair. What am I supposed to do? Here is what happened today when I left him alone in the bathroom for like 2 seconds to get him a fresh pull-up...

At least he managed to wipe himself, although he did not do any kind of business.

Now, I'm headed over to Rocks in My Dryer to read her post about Potty Training...

OK, I'm back. Great post! Enlightening and lots of good information. If you're trying that potty training thing, go read it!

In the meantime, I'm still taking advice on how to get him to *do his business* or get off the pot!

Toys, Toys, Toys

Ever have these kinds of toy troubles?

Empty Toybox

Living Room full of toys

I think this happens just about every day. D just doesn't play with any one thing for longer than a few seconds. Everything just comes out of the toybox and he plays with it long enough to throw it. Then he might climb in the toybox and hang out in there for a while. He's got baby sister in on it too.

I'm really fed up with it. I know we have entirely too many toys. A few times now I have gone out and bought some totes for toy storage, with the intention of switching out toys on a regular basis. But in all honesty, I'm lazy. So the odds of ever getting around to switching out toys aren't good at all. And even though he barely plays with anything, there are some things that he will play with once in a while... and there are things that I can't bear to put away - things that cost a lot of money, things that were gifts... etc... now we have B's toys (which most are D's old baby toys). I'm really bad when it comes to deciding which toys to put in storage. I start out meaning to put away quite a few toys, then it ends up to be much fewer than I'd hoped.

How do you handle the toy situation? Found anything good that works?

Thursday Two-fer! :) An award and a meme!

OK, so I've been a bad blogger/blog buddy as of late. I've been consumed with getting things organized and prepared for teaching a class this semester. I know, I know, I'm supposed to be a stay at home mommy... but in reality, I still am mostly a stay at home mommy. I was supposed to be teaching 2 classes, but as I blogged/bragged about it ;) one of the classes got canceled... not quite enough students enrolled. So now I'm only teaching one class. So I'm only away from home two nights a week for maybe two hours.

Have you ever noticed that if something really exciting happens or is about to happen or is going on and you blog about it - it falls apart or stops happening? It seems to happen to me quite often... I blogged about my son sleeping all night in his big boy bed. And that was the last night it happened... there have been many other such happenings, but I won't bore you with all the details... but I will not blog about D peeing in the potty twice!! Instead I will complain about him just wanting to sit and play on it for hours on end with no results... he will tell me he has to pee and poop, but usually won't do a thing but sit there. At least he is comfortable sitting there.

Anyway, on to what I really started this post for! :) I'm totally one for beating around the bush and never quite getting to the point ;)

Last week, during my last minute flurry of getting my stuff together for teaching, one of my good blog buddies, Jen, tagged me for this award: The BFF gold card Award!


Needless to say I was completely thrilled! Who doesn't love to get an award?? Unfortunately I didn't have the time to think about who to pass it on to! :) this one is a little different, you are supposed to pass it on to 4 people who have been following you for a long time and then a new follower from another country. Sadly, I don't think I have any followers from another country, so I will just have to pass it on to a new follower...
So, I will be passing this award on to:
Suzie from Up The Hill Backwards she just continues to be one of my favorite blogs and one of my favorite followers :)
Nut Nut from Nutty Tales who is one of the most prolific and hilarious bloggers I visit often and who reciprocates the visits :)
Missy from Bees and Boo-boos cause she's so sweet :)
MamaGeek from What Works for Us cause she's got some mad photo skills!
And the new follower that I will tag for this award is Honeywine because she tagged me for this meme! :)

So... onto the meme:

Here are the rules:

1. Link the person who tagged you.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

My 6 unspectacular quirks? I have too many quirks... but aren't they all pretty spectacular? ;)

1. I hate, hate, hate touching raw meat. And despite that complete and utter hatred I actually, for the first time in my life, cut up a chicken and put it in the crock pot! Man was that gruesome!! And very difficult. I guess I need some real kitchen knives or swords or whatever it is that best cuts up a chicken!

2. I have to chew food equally on both sides of my mouth... which leads to #3

3. I have to get an even number of food items, so that I can properly chew evenly ;) (ie.. 4 oreos, not 3 or 5, it must be either 2 or 4).

4. If I don't have to go anywhere, I won't.

5. If I don't have to go anywhere, I will stay in my pjs all day.

6. I absolutely hate making phone calls. Which is probably why I do not retain friends ;) I will never call them.

So there are my 6 unspectacular quirks in all their glory...
on to the tagging... the first 4 are easy - I tag the first 4 people I tagged for the BFF gold card award! :) Suzie, Nut Nut, Missy, and MamaGeek (linked above - I'm too lazy to link again) and I will also tag Jen and Kelli from Gohn Crazy. Have fun!!

Wordless Wednesday: My Cheeky Little Monkey

Guess who got a job?

That's right ME! Kind of funny that when my husband got a job I said that "we" were employed (meaning him/the family). Because now "we" really are employed! The cool thing is that we are working at the same place! And my husband can flex his schedule around mine, as I will be working part time.

Yes, as you all are suspecting, my husband got me the job ;) And mostly you would be right. Although, my qualifications certainly stand on their own. He was in a meeting with the Dean at the community college where he works, and she asked about me. He told her that I had an MA in English and had taught at community colleges before. And she said that I should get my application in asap as they might be adding some English classes yet this semester - some were pretty overloaded. So long story short, I spent all day Wednesday getting my stuff in order and emailed to the college... went in to meet with the Dean on Thursday and got hired to teach 2 classes later that day.

So now I've been spending most of my time getting ready to teach these courses. It's very last minute, which is a little nerve-wracking ;) I haven't taught in a couple of years now - not since D was born. At first I was really nervous about it and full of self-doubt - I have not been in an "academic" frame of mind for a couple of years. But once I started looking through the materials and gathering myself up - I started finding my confidence. I am just really excited about teaching again and really looking forward to the experience!

The Sweet Little Things D Says

It's unbelievable how grown up my little D is getting. His vocabulary is growing everyday! And everyday he is talking more and more. Its amazing how much he talks - nonstop from the time he gets up until the time he goes to bed. And seriously, he talks himself to sleep every night. And he repeats absolutely everything. Bad and big words alike.

Last weekend, my daughter M had a friend stay overnight for the first time ever! She is usually hot to go to someone else's house to get away from us ;) So it was a special event. And I had to try really hard to be on my best behavior language wise. I have a horrible potty mouth. I'm trying to work on that anyway, because of D's repeating... I did a great job with her friend over and only slipped up once. But what happened at the dinner table?

D: Ass, ass, ass...
M: Is he saying what I think he's saying? (cheeks turning red)
Me: Oh no, he's talking about the letter S.
D: (right on cue) D, d, d, d.
That's my boy :)

Our conversation 5 minutes ago...
D: Are you pooping? (he says this when he's pooping).
Me: Do you want to go poop on the potty?
D: No! I.. just.. pooping.... Need diaper change. Need diaper change.

He calls his Iowa Hawkeyes coat his brain coat. ;)

And Birthday Cake? It's birday cake woo-hoo! Want some birday cake woo-hoo! We think he got that from "Open Season." They call those chocolate bars woo-hoos.

Milk is moo. Want some moo cup. More moo cup. I'm sure because we have called it moo juice. He used to say moo ba for a bottle :)

We all had some Birthday cake woo-hoo last night to celebrate D's Birthday! Thank you all for your happy birthday wishes :)

Wordless Wednesday: Birthday Edition!

Look who's 3 on the 3rd!!!

My baby boy D who is getting all growed up :(

Check out this Oreo-stache

Kind of matches his Oreo-goatee from last year!
Happy Birthday D!

Wasps Be Gone!

Before I start, let me just point you to a hilarious post about Bees from a blog I just stumbled across called Rimarama. You're going to want to bookmark/subscribe to this one. And I promise you, this post won't be as funny as hers. ;)

I'm not so much afraid of bees, or wasps or hornets... or spiders for that matter. No, that was not me flipping out yesterday because my ponytail brushed my neck and I thought it was one of our wasps out to get me. I just don't want to get stung or bitten by one. I'm fine as long as they aren't on me (or too close to me).

My husband on the other hand... let's just say he's been known to scream like a girl at the sight of one of the above mentioned pests.

For the past few weeks, every day there has been at least one (most of the time two or three) wasps hanging out on our enclosed back porch. We couldn't figure out how they were getting in. Everyday my husband would be standing at the door to the back porch, armed with wasp and hornet spray. The back porch has become a wasp/hornet spray spa. It's probably quite toxic out there, as you can see the remnants of spray on every surface (we've gone through 2 cans!). And here is the evidence from just one spot - notice the dead wasps and the foggy window?
The very day that I read and laughed hysterically at the above mentioned blog post - we decided to go outside and spray the wasp nests. There were about 4 of them hanging from the eaves out back.

Before I go on, let me just share with you... when my husband and I had first started dating, he had just sustained a shoulder injury. At first he gave me some story about how it happened. It wasn't until we had been dating for a while, and his fear of bees, wasps and spiders had come way out into the open, that he confessed his shoulder injury had been a wasp incident. He tripped over himself trying to kill a wasp.

He took a spray at the first nest and out zoomed 5 or 6 that hadn't been hit by the spray. And they were mad! Two of them came at my husband. And there he goes swatting around his head, shrieking and running backwards. He was running so fast backwards that he tripped and flipped over twice before landing. Where was I? Standing way back from the house watching his back.

I have to say the man is pretty brave. As soon as we recovered from the hysterics, he went right back at it and sprayed the other three without much incident. He sprayed and ran really fast, while I watched his back from afar.

We thought that was going to do it. But nope, not even close. They started coming in with a vengeance the next day.

But as it would happen, the next day we finally found out where they were coming in. Hubby looked out and saw like about 10 wasps gathered at the top corner of our "extra" door on the porch that we don't use. A little foam/caulk stuff solved that problem. And we haven't had any new visitors on our porch since. Now lets just hope they don't find some other way to get in.