We traveled to the City this past weekend.  There were some folks we hadn’t seen in a while so we decided to make a visiting trip.  When we told the grandparents what we were doing they suggested maybe the big kids could have a sleepover at their house and what did we think about that?  What did I think?  I think grandparents rock!

Sister had a skate date to attend with a friend before we could leave town on Friday and though I wished we could have left a little earlier to accommodate Dora’s nap everything worked out all right in the end and it was worth it to Sister (and therefore to me) because she had a great time.  I love seeing the friendships she’s developing.

Arriving at the grandparents Friday evening we discovered presents and cake to make up for missed birthdays.  How fun is that?

After a bit of catching up, we left the kids in good hands and headed to our hotel to be alone. … Well, as alone as a couple can be with a toddler in tow.

The next morning we met the grandparents again to have breakfast (Why have I never eaten at Ihop before?  It was super yummy.) and spend a little Toys R Us time. (Because what good is having grandparents if they don’t take you to Toys R Us once in a while?  Ahem.)

With two more visits left in the day we said goodbye and began our 15 minute drive.  At least it should have been a 15 minute drive.  Almost 90 minutes later, between construction and ambiguous directions, we arrived for brunch … now lunch.  The visit was nice and all was well until we got in the car again.  From that point on we seemed destined for hazards and misdirection.  Twice we were almost sideswiped by completely oblivious drivers.  Both times only Will’s quick reflexes (and our guardian angels) kept us from disaster.

I’m glad to have made the trip because it was obviously important but so so glad to be home.

When I finally upgraded to a phone that could take pictures I was so excited.  This will be great!  I’ll always have a camera with me to catch those random moments of cuteness.  There was only one flaw in this plan.  I had no idea how to get pictures off of my phone besides emailing each one to myself individually and incurring a per kilobyte fee that I just wasn’t willing to cough up.

Finally, I got myself down to Radio Shack (which I love for all things electronic) and they literally hooked me up.  In no particular order, here’s a peak at the randomness and cuteness we found (You can click on a picture to see it larger but I warn you only a few of them are actually worth it.):

Pooh drinking from a cup … not sure why

After so much rain, when Sister just *had* to show me her “waterfall” and also the muddy mess she could become by slipping on a loose rock.

Fishing at Big Cedar after I dropped my actual camera in the lake.

Random park we stopped at on our way home from Big Cedar.  A picnic of leftovers and some time to run around improved everybody’s moods immensely.

Sister learns to mow.

Dora learns to climb.

Making S’mores with our very own solar oven.

Cute baby shots

Random cat in clothing

Random children in sunglasses.

Dora as Santa

You know how babies will sometimes just go and go and go and then, suddenly drop off to sleep without warning.  That pretty much sums up bedtime tonight.  Dora hasn’t been sleeping all that well and basically, that means that I’ve not been sleeping all that well.  At first I thought she was teething (and maybe she was).  Then I was sure she wasn’t getting enough to eat during the day (toddlers often don’t) and that she was compensating at night (and maybe she was).  Now I am camping on a completely different theory:  she’s lonely.  Even though her crib is in the same room with Will and I, this highly social creature wakes up and in her groggy, disoriented state perceives the dark around her as vast and empty.  And really who could go back to sleep with that thought in her head?  She is only just now one year old and thinking back to when Brother was that age I realize that I did not expect him to sleep alone.  In fact, we had a rather large family bed until he was almost 3.  I’ve only been trying to push her toward crib sleep because of the new baby’s impending arrival.  But it’s not right.  She’s not ready and I know only too well the sleep problems that arise from pushing a child too soon.

So, all of that leads to tonight.  We are fortunate to have a master bedroom with a rather large sitting area to one side.  This sitting area has been functioning as the “nursery”  But tonight we rearranged the our bedroom furniture from a very cute and ordered “master bedroom with a nursery” to a messy hodgepodge of “sleeping space and everything else”.  First Will removed the up/down side of the crib, then we jammed it up against the side of our bed.  Everything else was rearranged around that.  It may not be traditional but it’s necessary and I know in the long run we will all be better sleepers because of it.  All this change got Dora pretty wound up so even though she was extremely tired  it took a good 45 minutes for her to get to sleep but she did it eventually (and suddenly) and I think it is a good beginning.

*Side Note #1:  If you think that at one year old Dora should be sleeping all the way through the night every night then you either A) don’t have children B) got darn lucky with your own children or C) are lying to yourself about what your little one is doing at night all alone in that room way down the hall.

Side Note #2:  Some people buy those co-sleeper contraptions that fit on the side of a bed but unless space is an issue I suggest saving your money because first of all those little beds cost an arm and a leg and second they are so little that past 9 or 10 months they are completely unusable.  A regular crib works fine and lasts much longer.   In our case, the crib we have converts to toddler bed so it was easy to take the side off but with Brother we used a regular crib and fastened it to the frame of our bed and it worked well too.

You will remember from this post that we had these.

Well thanks to this industrious pair we now have blackberry jam.

Lots of jam from the Sure-Jell freezer recipe inside the box.

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Let me help you out.

From the time the kids are able to put on their own clothes I tend to let them pick out their own clothes (unless we are attending some super special event like a wedding or some such).  Letting kids be autonomous means that sometimes you get shoes that don’t match, stripes with polka dots or sweatshirts in 90 degree weather.  And while I occasionally catch the sympathetic “tsk, tsk” from some well meaning stranger I just smile and shrug because I like having children who think for themselves.

Do you suppose he thought they were real flowers?  Maybe Dora is just too sweet to resist (Certainly, we all think so.)  Whatever the reason, this little butterfly hung out for about ten minutes and in all that time Dora never even noticed he was there.

P.S. About the stain ~ greasy chocolate ~ finally, got it out with this.  Good stuff.

Brother is addicted to Legos.  In addition to actually building with his own collection he spends time on Lego.com not only playing the games but watching the videos where the creators tell why and how they built particular sets.  He’s five but they interest him to no end.

All of this is well and good as far as creativity and engineering skills go but the Lego disaster that was his room had reached a critical mass.  He wouldn’t let anyone in for fear they would “mess something up”.  Even he would only go in to sleep or to quickly pick up a piece for play elsewhere.

This picture (where I was really trying to catch our visitor from the other night) doesn’t even begin to capture the amount of pieces on the floor and in the bed and in every available nook and cranny (including the closet).

Last night, Will made the suggestion that perhaps Brother wasn’t being obsessive as much as he was overwhelmed and trying to deal as best he could by simply spreading the Lego’s out into groups which to us seemed like a mess but to him was order.  Hmm.  I pondered this and today the room looks different.

First, I asked Brother to pick out 15 of his very favorite creations.  He immediately burst into tears.  I immediately backed off. 

Take two, I waited until Brother was absorbed in a game elsewhere; then I stealthily entered his room and began to place his best, most elaborate creations in a small box.  I took the box to him and returned to the room to stuff every remaining Lego in a large bin for storage.  I worked as quickly as possible because I knew if he caught me there would be much weeping and gnashing of teeth.  But no, he came in at one point to ask for a rock monster, which I dug out of the growing mass, and then left without a word.

Later I set up a small table and arranged the best creations on it telling him, “Now you can have all you Lego’s out at one time, k?”  His response, “This is the shiniest room ever.” followed by a sigh of relief.

It took 45 minutes for him to notice that the rest of his collection was missing and while he briefly looked for it he quickly settled in to my explanation that they “are on vacation until we can figure out a way to organize them.”

Now, he’s playing with his trains which haven’t seen the light of day in many moons.

Amazing.

Brother:  I can’t eat the rest of my ice cream.

Me:  Give it to the cats, then.  They’ll like it.

Sister:  NO!  Don’t give it to the cats.  It will make them sick.

   Discussion ensues on cat health and cream during which Brother sits his remaining ice cream outside.  Just as Sister is about to make her final point ….

Brother:  Look!  They’re eating it and they’re not dying.

Case Closed.

Tonight I asked Brother to go get in his pajamas and moments later he emerged from his room with this to share.

“Mom.  There. is. a. bird. in. my. room.”

He’s been telling knock-knock jokes all day and I think that he’s stepped up his joking to include trickery … anything to postpone bedtime, right?

Wrong.

It was a real bird and it was really in his room.  (Later we determined it must have entered through the entrance to the attic which was slightly ajar.) Much excitement followed but in the end Dad was able to open the window and the bird flew out unharmed.

Sister’s comment?

“Maybe tomorrow I can have a bird in my room.”

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Does your library do a Summer Reading Program?  Ours does and we love it.  Today especially we loved it because after braving torrential rains and being too late to attend the overly full first show we got into the nearly empty second show and because of that (probably) Sister got chosen as a helper from the audience and this happened.

Sister is a cat lover to the core even so she didn’t seem to mind too much about being part of a dog show.