Pregnantly Plump

He's here!

2012-02-23T22:48:00.003-05:00

Introducing Baby Cheese Puff! He came a little early -- 6 on Wednesday morning. He weighs 8 pounds, 3 ounces and is 20 inches long.

He's also beautiful. At this point, we think he looks more like Baby Plum than Little Elvis, although some family members see more of Little Elvis in him.

One thing he hasn't shared so far? Jaundice. I'm really hoping that he won't have any issues like both of his older brothers did.

This delivery/labor was by far the worst. I had fairly painful contractions on and off for 2 or 3 days before they finally settled into a routine late Tuesday night. Some were so painful, they made me cry.

We decided to head back to the hospital at 4 Wednesday morning. I called my dad and he came to stay with the boys while Bob and I headed to the hospital.

Once there, they plugged me in and checked. I was dilated and was having contractions. The admitting nurse confirmed that I was indeed in labor and we'd be having Baby Cheese Puff that morning.

They didn't call in my doctor, and we had issues before finally getting up to the operating room. I was bawling at one point, and was so embarrassed about that.

Despite that torture, Baby Cheese Puff made a very noisy entry at 6 a.m. on Wednesday, February 22nd. He was not happy to be leaving his warm, toasty place for the cold, harsh operating room. He screamed and screamed. They took him to a little room to weigh him and clean him off and we could hear him screaming through the glass. It was funny. Baby Plum was the same way. Little Elvis was quieter during his delivery.

Everyone in the delivery room kept telling us how beautiful and big he was. I guess it's because the "babies" we are around are 5 and 2 1/2, we thought Cheese Puff was a beautiful, tiny boy.

He's snuggly, sweet and seems to enjoy cuddling. We all love cuddling him.

We adore our sweet new addition. He's the perfect addition to our wild (and noisy) family.

More pictures and details later.

Review of "The Rules of Inheritance"

2012-02-23T08:43:00.002-05:00

It's book review time again! I know the timing of this one is crazy, but it was an enjoyable read. I think there must be so many of us applying, and I'm always thrilled to get a chance to review.

Not many people can, or need to write a memoir in their early 30s. How much experience and knowledge do you have by then?

Claire Bidwell Smith has a lot. In the span of a few months when she was 14-years-old, she found out that both of her parents had cancer. She writes about her experiences in "The Rules of Inheritance."

The memoir covers the experiences and feelings she goes through in the aftermath of this discovery.

Both of Smith's parents are older, and she is basically an only child -- her dad had three adult children from another marriage when she was born.

Smith writes about realizing that by the time she was 30, she wouldn't have either parent. In fact, she lost both by age 25. She does an amazing job conveying the loneliness she felt.

This memoir is not written in chronological order. Instead, it's laid out with the five stages of grief.

"The Rules of Inheritance," while extremely well-written, was difficult to read at times. I was bawling about three pages in. The death of a parent isn't something that I want to even consider or think about. I'm so lucky that not only do I have both of my parents, but all four of my grandparents are also living -- most in reasonable health.

Even though I've never dealt with the level of grief and loss that Smith has, I still identified with her on so many levels. Possibly because we are very close in age, and came of age in the late 90s. More likely it's because she's a truly great writer, who laid everything out for this book. She holds no punches, especially when it comes to herself.

One of the most heart-wrenching moments came when she was in the Philippines shortly after her father's death. She's decided to do a deep-sea dive with sharks, and can't go through with it. She realizes once she's above water that she was really doing something so dangerous in hopes of connecting with her mother, who died six years earlier. This moment is when she really accepted that her mother wasn't there, or coming back.

Smith also writes about being thankful that her mother went first, because that gave her time to really get to know her father as a person. While he had always been loving during her childhood, her mother got more of her focus and attention.

This book is very well-written and engrossing. There were times when I didn't want to put it down. There were also times when I wanted to hug the young girl who had lost so much.

I recommend this book, but probably not when you're 8-9 months pregnant. I will say that reading about what Smith went through made me feel silly for the petty things I complain about on a daily basis.

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.

Contractions

2012-02-20T22:32:00.003-05:00

Last night, I really thought we'd have a new family member by now. I was having pretty intense contractions about 6 minutes apart from 2-4 in the morning.

Once I called the doctor on call, they all but stopped.

We decided to go in at 6 anyway, since Bob was literally working all day and both of my parents were out of town. If something happened, I'd rather not be stranded at home with Baby Plum, scared to drive.

They monitored me, and let me out around 9 I think. The contractions, while painful, weren't close enough. Plus, my doctor was off for the day.

My dad had taken Little Elvis to the cabin for President's Day, but they headed back once we called them. They were home shortly after we left the hospital. Bob went to work a little late.

I spent the day trying to time the contractions, but they have been all over the place. Ten minutes to 25 minutes. No rhyme or reason, although if both boys were being super-wild, that did seem to cause a contraction.

These are super-painful. I'm even more ready now, even though the timing would be more difficult for everyone.

My next appointment is Wednesday morning. I know it's only 3 days until the doctor-selected due date, but these contractions are no fun.

Plus, they seem to be making Little Elvis way more wild than usual. I'm glad tomorrow is a school day.

Raise the roof

2012-02-19T23:05:00.002-05:00

So, I realize that I am biased. But Little Elvis and Baby Plum are both so adorable. Seriously, they are.

This post will be about Baby Plum, and some of his truly adorable antics of late.

He's starting to talk a little more. He does lots of really cute animal impressions -- his roar for lions, tigers and bears is so cute, and I've taught him to rub his finger over his mouth to do the fish sound.

He says on, off, up, down, open (kind of), close, thank you (kind of), mama and dada, love, night night, ba ba for banana, and dat. He sometimes says Elmo. The thing about sweet Baby Plum is that he'd much rather show you what he wants than tell you.

He has two other new favorite words that he's been using a lot lately. "Yay!" and "Whee!" If I tell him we're going to Gram's, he'll say "Yay!" and sometimes he'll follow that up by raising the roof. Here he is raising the roof. We didn't catch them up in the air here, but he usually has his hands over his head.

He says "Whee!" whenever he's doing anything fun. Today, he climbed over the arm of the couch in an attempt to get Slappy. As he stumbled onto the couch, he yelled, "Whee!!!"

Baby Plum LOVES dancing to music. I've taught him the few dances I "know." He can roll, spin, chicken dance, raise the roof and air guitar. He will clap to the beat and try any dance move that you show him. He loves it so much!

We brought the iPod to Little Elvis' birthday party and had the boys' playlist going for most of the party. Baby Plum was so enthralled. It was the closest he'd ever been to the iPod, and he had the best time -- he almost broke the speaker thing, because he just had to touch it.

His favorite songs are "The Chicken Dance," "The Hand Jive," and "Intergalactic."

Baby Plum also adores ketchup! I'm fairly certain Little Elvis has never tried the red stuff -- he preferred mustard as a toddler. But Baby Plum could eat ketchup with a spoon. He thinks of fries as more of a utensil to eat ketchup than as the best food ever.

Speaking of utensils, Baby Plum loves them! He loves to pull out bowls and spoons or forks to eat anything. Orange slices? He tries spoons. Goldfish? Maybe a fork. He even pulls out the butter knives. This is odd for us, because we have to make Little Elvis use utensils.

Baby Plum also loves to help out around the house. He enjoys helping me with chores, and if Bob has pulled out any tools, then Baby Plum tries to get his sweet little hands on them and help. If we won't let him have the real hammer, he'll run and find his toy hammer to bang on the wall.

Meeting Elmo

2012-02-17T14:48:00.002-05:00

Baby Plum LOVES Elmo. This is funny, since he doesn't watch Sesame Street. I've tried a couple of times, and I've tried just putting on the Elmo segment at the end of the show, but he doesn't care for it.

Still, he loves the furry red monster. We have some Elmo books and he has several Elmo shirts, which he LOVES. (He also loves his Cookie Monster shirt, possibly because he loves one of our Cookie Monster books.)

Anyway, Elmo came to our mall for Valentine's Day, and we took the boys to meet him. When we first found him, I thought they had just put a costume on a bench. But it did move... some.

Baby Plum was thrilled, and ran right up to him. This is unusual behavior for him. He's suspicious of any tall strangers.

Possibly, Elmo's lack of movement helped our shy Baby Plum.
He even hugged the huge Elmo, without encouragement from his brother.
Both were fairly excited, although Baby Plum was much more into Elmo.
He couldn't stop petting him. I guess to make sure he was real.

Times like this make me feel guilty. Little Elvis is SO into Buzz right now, but we aren't going to be heading to Disney World anytime soon. By the time we finally make it, so Little Elvis could meet a lifesize Buzz, he will be over it I'm sure. We get Christmas cards every year showing little boys posing with Buzz, and Little Elvis makes it clear that he wants to go to Disney World and meet Buzz. I told him that I enter every Disney World contest I find. Maybe the mall will invite Buzz to come for St. Paddy's Day. I think I should suggest that to them...

Matchy-matchy

2012-02-16T13:36:00.003-05:00

I dressed the boys similarly for church the other Sunday. One of my friends has sons that are older. She gave us some cute dressy clothes that fit Little Elvis very well. And some of them kind of match his old hand-me-downs that Baby Plum rocks.

With the chance to sort of dress them alike, I had to take it. We are always super-rushed on Sundays, so I snapped this picture in the nursery right before Little Elvis and I headed to big church.

Baby Plum's holding his UPS truck. I'm not sure which car Little Elvis is holding, but they had to bring semi-matching toys as well. They are cute like that.

On Valentine's Day, Wal-Mart finally had some boys' sneakers on clearance. Both boys have been in dire need of tennis shoes. Little Elvis has flat worn his out, and Baby Plum has the sweatiest feet, and we've had to throw some away because they got so stinky. He has to go at least a day between wearing shoes, so they have time to dry out. No lie.

I got them matching velcro sneakers, and both were so excited! Me too, because I don't have to tie shoes right now. Poor things usually get hand-me-downs, or bought at the consignment sale shoes, so I understand their excitement. Yay for all of us. Both seemed to really enjoy showing off their new shoes yesterday.

Ready for Cheese Puff

2012-02-15T14:04:00.002-05:00

My main commitments before Cheese Puff arrives are done. Little Elvis had his birthday party and will definitely not have to share his birthday. The workshop series I was leading ended last night. It was family night and I didn't realize how loud that many kids would be. Thankfully, we were all parents, so they understood. I also didn't bring enough forks. I told Little Elvis that he didn't like to use untensils anyway, which suited him just fine.

Now that that's all done, I'm ready to no longer be pregnant. I hurt, I'm huge, and none of my long shirts really cover my big ol' belly. I have a knit dress thing that I may try to wear as a shirt tomorrow, although it will probably be pretty snug.

On Monday, when I took Baby Plum to speech, I told him that he couldn't look at the aquarium for long, because I'm sick of the comments that the elderly lady and her buddy make at my belly. He was fine with it, preferring to play with the train table in the back more anyway. On Friday they tsked me, and it upset me. I know I'm pregnant. It's not something that ever slips my mind. I don't need old ladies acting like I'm the size of 3 houses. Even if I were that size, I wouldn't need to be reminded.

On Sunday, some woman that I've talked to maybe once told me she'd been hoping I was going to have a girl. Really, woman that I don't talk to? You spend time thinking about my family and pregnancy and hoping that we don't have another boy? I somehow doubt that. I'm sure you didn't think about my pregnancy until you saw me that morning, and possibly you remembered that I had 2 boys.

All of the boys in Little Elvis' class were curious about my huge belly on Friday. One wouldn't stop hitting me, and asking how babies were made and delivered. I told him that the doctor put up a curtain and I had no idea how the baby would be delivered. I was so happy when the teacher pulled his fist away from my stomach.

Baby Plum sometimes hits at my stomach, and other times he'll kiss at it. He definitely knows something is up, and has been more clingy to me this past week.

Little Elvis has taken to grunting when he bends down to pick something up for me. That's all my modeling. I can't bend down or stand up with some sort of "ooof."

And I can't hold either boy in my lap comfortably. Needless to say, I'm ready.

I told Bob last night that I was planning to push furniture around, but he has something he wants to do on Thursday night, so I guess I'll wait until then to start pushing around furniture. Plus, we haven't put the car seat base in the car, and I need to set the bassinet up. I've also got to scrub the fridge and the chair that holds Baby Plum's high chair -- it's a mess.

I've had a few contractions, but usually just 2 or 3 at night. That's not bad. And none today, so far.

The big day!

2012-02-14T14:30:00.004-05:00

This year, we had Little Elvis' birthday party at a local fire house. It's a nice service that our town does for free. You just have to call and reserve.

Little Elvis had been so smoke detector and fire extinguisher crazy for weeks, that we thought it was a good option. He was also adamant that he didn't want his party at our house. None of the other parties he goes to are held at homes, so his party shouldn't be at home either. What if he's laughed at? Next year, I plan to go back to having it at our house if at all possible. They were always a hit. But I understand his need to be like others. I don't LIKE it, but I understand it.

Anyway, since the party location was outsourced, it was much easier to plan. I didn't have to clean or plan entertainment. The firemen and their firetrucks did that. Yay! All I had to do was bake a cake, send out invitations and get some balloons. And there was a time limit -- even better.

But before the big party on Saturday, we made cupcakes for his class on Friday. This was a sore spot for Little Elvis. He wanted to give out the cupcakes on his actual birthday, but since that was a Saturday, it couldn't happen.

By the time Friday rolled around, he was ok having the school party on Friday. He was excited about the cupcakes, and Mommy having lunch with him. But he was most excited about Baby Plum coming and then getting to leave before naptime.

Here are the smoke detector cupcakes. I'm not sure anyone who wasn't Little Elvis knew what these were, but he liked them. Bob drew the circles.
Here we are at lunch. Little Elvis is sitting between his two best buddies. Little Elvis' best friend has the same name. I think that was the start of their friendship. It's sweet. They used to play Transformers together, but now it's Power Rangers.

The little boys in the class adore Baby Plum. They won't leave him alone. Whenever we are there, all you hear is, "Plum! Plum! Come here Plum!" And that's just from the boys. Some are a little more aggressive, and they just get moreso with each trip. I love that Little Elvis and his friends love his brother, but I hate when they try to "tickle" Baby Plum's cheeks. This time, Baby Plum clung to me a whole lot more. Poor baby, can't say I blame him.

But the school party went well.

Little Elvis didn't want to sleep on Friday night, and woke up at 4 on Saturday morning ready to open all of his presents. But he went back to sleep fairly easily and waited until 7 to open his presents from us.

On Saturday afternoon, we headed to the fire station with our firetruck cake in tow. It was a Family Fun magazine design and it turned out pretty well.
The icing was a whole lot more pink than red, but Little Elvis didn't complain.

One of his buddies LOVED the gumdrops and ate them right off the cake! Four of the six kids invited came to the party and we had the right amount of cake, which was nice. We only took home the piece that Little Elvis didn't eat.

Poor baby, I said to someone that he wasn't a "sweet person," meaning that he really prefers salty snacks to sweet ones. He overheard, and said that he was indeed sweet. I had to try to explain to him that I meant he didn't really like sweets all that much, but that he was indeed a very sweet little boy.
The firemen were a big hit. They dressed up in their fire gear. Showed us around the firehouse, and went down the firepole.
They also let the kids play in the firetruck.
I love this shot of Little Elvis. I have no idea what he's studying, but it's cute.
Here's a shot of most of the guests. See poor Baby Plum? I know he's thinking, "Stop petting me!" But at least his cheeks weren't being "tickled."
We invited 6 little boys this year -- one more than usual. Two were kids of our friends, and the other 4 were from Little Elvis' class. None of the ones in his class RSVP'd, so I was a little worried. But 4 little boys showed up -- our friends' kids and 2 school buddies. And one of our friends brought their daughter as well (whom Little Elvis proposed to last fall.) So, he had five friends at his birthday party, which was just right.

He had a great time, and did a great job at the party. No fits were pitched and he obeyed pretty well. He just had fun running around with his friends. We were so proud of our 5-year-old.

He's 5!

2012-02-13T14:02:00.002-05:00

Little Elvis turned the big 5 on Saturday. I know I should have written this post earlier, but we had a rough week going into the big day. But then, he was great on Friday and Saturday, which was such a relief.

Baby Plum dragged the spaceship all the way through the house and back to his bedroom the other day. I couldn't get a great shot of both boys at the same time, but I love this one of Little Elvis.

He's getting so big. He doesn't look little anymore, and his hair is pretty much light brown at this point. It might lighten up in the summer, but then Little Elvis is very good about wearing hats, so it might not.

He's a lot like his Daddy. Long legs, pretty slim, big brown eyes and very, very outgoing. (Bob will swear he's not, but trust me, he is.) He's also extremely smart like his Daddy. Little Elvis has been reading for about a year now. We're not sure if it's true reading, or if he's got an astounding number of memorized words in his little head. People will look at me like I had anything to do with it. I didn't. When I try to help him sound things out, he gets frustrated with me. But he does a good job for his teacher. And he loves her so much. He's reading some 1st grade level books, while the rest of the class is mainly pre-K. But his teacher doesn't make a big deal about it, which I love. The other kids probably don't even notice that he's reading more... although, knowing our little attention hound, that might not be true, either.
Bob did a great job getting this "jump" shot. Little Elvis also has a good bit of his Mommy in him. He's been into movie production company's for a while. When I was younger, the production company intro to a movie was one of my favorite parts. Oddly, my favorite, was HBO's from the 80s or early 90s -- the music, the lights. I loved it.

Little Elvis likes Pixar and Disney, obviously. But he also knows about Amblin Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Tri-Star, Universal, Columbia, etc. He'll gladly tell you which production company makes which movie, if he's even only seen a commercial. He's not a fan of 20th Century Fox, and says when he makes a movie, it will be for 50th Century Fox. He also made up the name of his own production company last night, and I've forgotten what he said. (He didn't, trust me.)

And he also loves to watch his favorite movies over and over again, but he'll cover his ears and hide when it gets to uncomfortable scenes. He doesn't like when Doc and Lightning have the confrontation over/discovery of the 3 Piston Cup wins. Doc scolds Lightning, and it makes Little Elvis uncomfortable. I am this way. I can watch "The Office" reruns, but when Michael Scott starts to do something really stupid/zany/bad, then I'll have to go to the bathroom or divert my attention. I'm pretty sure I've never done this in front of Little Elvis, or that I discussed production studios with him before he showed an interest.

He's already developed several movie ideas for Pixar/50th Century Fox. His current screenplay is titled, "Agent Explode!" and it's about a superhero named Super America. Pixar would have to work on this movie, because Super America's sidekicks are the characters from Toy Story. They like to thwart bad guys who try to steal everything from a Mommy, Daddy and Baby.

And then there are his constant jokes and made up words. He's saying cootie now for everything, because we got tired of the constant booty references. He calls everything some sort of cootie, and then asks us if it's funny. Sometimes, he uses so many made up words that I have no clue what I'm supposed to think is funny.

For the most part, Little Elvis also really loves his partner in crime - Baby Plum. I think Little Elvis (our chatterbox) would prefer it if Baby Plum would talk to him more, but they play together very well. They love to destroy our bed while listening to the iPod. Little Elvis chatters constantly, and occasionally asks Baby Plum's opinion. Baby Plum usually says, "Unh-unh." Bob thinks that Little Elvis will be some sort of entertainer and Baby Plum will be the critic. He's proving to be a very tough audience.

Oh, how we love the creative spirit of Little Elvis. The smartness and creativeness are tied in with a huge dose of perfectionism -- which is hard on all of us -- and a bit of a high strung nature. Our lefty doesn't like writing or drawing very much -- they don't come as easily as reading. Some days he will shock us, and color for about 3-5 minutes. Then, he's done for weeks. We've been told we have to work on his fine motor skills, though. So, writing is one of our biggest battles.

We are so, so lucky to have this sweet, friendly, outspoken little guy in our lives.

One more story -- Most people think Baby Plum is a girl. Just like they did with Little Elvis. Baby Plum is usually dressed in blue or green, but he has those pretty blond curls. A woman at Sam's the other day (most of our stories come from Sam's, don't they?) offered the boys some cheese. Well, she offered the boy and girl some cheese. Little Elvis snapped, "He's not a girl, he's a boy!" The woman didn't hear, and I was trying to get away before she did. Little Elvis wouldn't stop, though. He was defending his brother's honor. He just kept on, "He's not a girl! She called him a girl, but he's not!" The woman finally heard, and apologized. She said that Baby Plum was just so pretty that he could be a girl. I was a little embarrassed, (I tried to get him to stop) but understood. I want to say the same thing everytime someone calls my baby boy a girl.

The microwave has been discovered

2012-02-06T22:34:00.002-05:00

Baby Plum and Little Elvis couldn't be more different. Little Elvis, while he loves to make a mess, doesn't really mess with things in the kitchen. He prefers to strew toys and pillows everywhere.

Baby Plum loves the kitchen. Loves it! My shower time is his happy, fun, raid the kitchen time. It's always something different. One day he took all of the silverware out of the drawer and took it to the playroom. He usually takes the melamine stacking bowls out and lays them in different formations. If I've left a box of cereal in his reach, he'll pour cereal in each bowl.

If I've left the cat gate open, then his real fun begins. The cat's food and litter is also located near our pantry. The cat gate doesn't keep Baby Plum from the cat stuff -- he doesn't care about that. It's the goodies in the pantry that he loves.

Last week, I got out of the shower and the kitchen smelled strongly of honey. I sniffed and searched all over, but couldn't find any sticky surprises. Then, I noticed the microwave blinking. Apparently, Baby Plum took our huge Sam's jug of honey and defrosted it in the microwave. I'm not sure how long he defrosted it, but the bottle is about one-half to one-third it's original size. Somehow, it managed to not melt and spread sticky honey all over the microwave.

I told Baby Plum not to play with the microwave, but it's too strong of a temptation.

Today, I decided to put off my shower until naptime. But I still needed to change out of my pajamas. Baby Plum thought I was taking a shower. I heard the pitter patter of little feet and the beeping of the microwave and ran out telling him NOT to touch the microwave.

So glad I skipped the morning shower, because he had put a box of Jell-o in the microwave for 20 minutes! I stopped it 10 seconds in.

I went ahead and took my shower this evening. I'll just have to grow out the bangs I guess.

The thing is, that although Baby Plum enjoys making huge messes in my absence, he's also more than willing to help me pick up the mess.

No pictures. I should have documented these messes, but it's kind of getting old at this point. A video would be much better, I think.

He's 60 and he knows it

2012-02-02T23:19:00.002-05:00

I heard on the radio the other day that a reality show mom is suing some tabloid for showing video of her young daughter singing and dancing to "I'm Sexy and I Know It" by LMFAO.

The day before, on the drive home from school, that song came on the radio. Little Elvis (and I) loved the "Party Rock Anthem" song. This one's not as good, but it's still fun. Both boys bop their heads to it. And I don't change the channel.

That day, when it got to the chorus, Little Elvis started singing, "I'm 60 and I know it!" and I laughed. So, he kept doing it.

Bob kind of laughed when I told him about it. Not because of the content of the song, but because he's a music snob, and LMFAO is definitely not on his playlist. (Although the next time we get a free download, I may get the "Party Rock Anthem" song for Little Elvis. He requests something different every day.)

Stay in there

2012-01-31T22:59:00.003-05:00

Cheese Puff is due in 24 days. My main goal is still to make it past Valentine's Day. I'm aiming for 15 more days. I think he can make it.

This baby feels so huge! He's cramped. And I'm fairly certain he's not happy about it. He kicks under my ribs, pokes my bladder and who knows what else in there. He really seems not to like it when I bend over, rock Baby Plum, pick up Baby Plum, etc.

Tonight I wanted to get Bob to feel what I think might have been Cheese Puff's knee. I was trying to show him where the knee was (near my rib) and Bob scolded me about pressing too hard. He didn't want to hurt the baby. I told him the baby had no problem hurting me. Kind of kidding. Kind of.

I've been co-leading some workshops as part of a program I signed up for this summer. They end on Valentine's Day. That's my main reason for wanting to make it past that day. My co-leader didn't even bother to read the stuff tonight, and then she left early. Good news? I was able to get the rest of us out on time.

The people in the class are also super nice, and that's good. The final session, on Valentine's Day evening, is a celebration. Bob and the boys get to come along. I'm planning to bring leftover cake from Little Elvis' birthday party (maybe.) Little Elvis is thrilled. Tonight was the first night that he didn't want me to go "teach," but hearing that he'd get to go to a party in 2 weeks sounded like a good idea to him.

That's where we are tonight.

How to make our boys smile

2012-01-30T14:55:00.002-05:00

We're still at the stage where simple things make for the happiest little boys. Our grocery store had some chocolate pudding on sale the other day. As a treat for finishing supper, both boys got some that night.

"Ahhh, that hits the spot!" He had to make sure the bowl was licked clean, but forgot to get all of the chocolate off his face.
Even his big brother forgot to lick the evidence from his face. I don't think Little Elvis shared any of his pudding with Buzz. That's pretty big, since Little Elvis doesn't have as much of a sweet tooth anymore, and he prefers vanilla (plain) to chocolate.

FYI, that was not inherited from me. I love sweets and prefer chocolate above all else. Baby Plum's chocolate face? That comes from me.

He still loves Buzz

2012-01-27T14:07:00.002-05:00

Little Elvis' 5th birthday is coming up. We've sent out invitations to 6 friends. Normally, we do one friend for each year, but since I don't know most of these kids, I figure some might not show up.

He's excited about his birthday party and has been offering lots of suggestions. People used to ask me what to get him, but they don't anymore. Which, judging by the turn of events this week, is just fine.

His party will be held at the fire station here in town. Up until recently, he was very into smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, fire exits and the like. But that is waning. He still likes smoke detectors and fire extinguishers, and is excited about having a party anywhere buy his home.

He did say he still wanted the tin "FIRE EXTINGUISHER" sign to hang up in his room. (Yay, my grandmother is getting him that.) But he's decided that he doesn't need CAUTION tape anymore. (I'm fine with this, because I had no idea where we were going to hang up a whole spool's worth of caution tape.) Or any other street signs. He's got a couple, and says he might want them for his birthday next year.

Transformers are not even mentioned anymore. That's also fine.

What is mentioned? Toy Story. He's been dressing as Buzz most days. His little costume is almost too small and is definitely super-stained. But Bob says he thinks we shouldn't waste our time looking for a costume in a bigger size.

He told us he wanted Zurg -- that's the bad guy in Toy Story 2. He said he wanted the one that shot balls. That one doesn't exist. Luckily, he saw one in Wal-Mart that he loved. It's not as big, doesn't shoot balls, but he swore that was the one he wanted. It was the last one, and I snuck back to get it. Thankfully, it wasn't huge.

Now, he wants a glow in the dark Buzz. His very beloved Spanish-speaking Buzz doesn't glow in the dark. The one he saw at Wal-Mart doesn't glow in the dark either. It flashes bright green when you press a button. It's $40. Other than the green lights, it's just like his current Buzz. He had to count all of his money when we got home after viewing this new Buzz. He doesn't have enough. I told him he'd get birthday money in a couple of weeks, but that didn't help. In his mind, his birthday is 2 months away, since it's still January. And months are long!

I'm attempting to find a just plain glow in the dark Buzz on ebay. Not much luck yet, but I will hold out hope. I told him that it might be cheaper if I find it online. He was intrigued.

If anyone RSVPs and asks, I think I'll tell them green Army men. He loves those little plastic guys, and we've stepped on and destroyed most of the ones he had. Baby Plum accidentally destroyed Little Elvis' much-loved helicopter last night. I keep telling him that he if he leaves those things out on the floor, in the middle of a doorway, that's what will happen.

The other item he's told me he wants for his birthday? An iPad. I just laughed. He definitely won't be getting that.

What about Mommy?

2012-01-25T15:20:00.003-05:00

Little Elvis spends as much of his weekend with my parents as possible. Today, he got out of school early for teacher workshops. I took the boys out to eat at Sam's, and then dropped some eggs off for my mother.

I should have known better. Once we got there, Little Elvis refused to leave.

It hurt my feelings, because I was excited about an afternoon alone with him while Baby Plum napped. Little Elvis and I don't get much alone time anymore, and I feel like all I ever do is fuss at him.

This morning, he'd been planning fun stuff for us to do, and he seemed to really love a little book I made him last night.

But once he got to Gram's, he decided he would rather do anything than be forced to spend time with me.

It's the same way once Bob gets home from school. Usually, I'm ok with this. I have to get supper cooked, or some other chore done.

But today, I just wanted to play with him.

A future in music?

2012-01-24T14:13:00.003-05:00

Sweet Baby Plum is feeling better. Here he is playing my parents' piano. He was singing along with the banging today, which is really cute. He actually picked out a tune on one of our little keyboards the other day.

His love for music continues to grow. He's figured out how to get into our spare guitar closet (Doesn't everyone have one of those? To hold spare guitars, banjos, cases and accordions?) so he can access the soccer ball guitar Bob bought when I was pregnant with Little Elvis. Baby Plum can get the guitar out, and even manages to put the strap around his neck. He can strum, and tries to carry it around while playing.

It's funny how different the boys are. Little Elvis hated music at this point in his life. (He still doesn't like monotonous noises, and has taken the batteries out of several of Baby Plum's toys.)

Little Elvis also has no interest in practicing. If he's not automatically good at something, then he doesn't want to do it. We think Baby Plum will be a practicer. He seems to like monotony.

Most nights, Bob will pick out the same notes on the mandolin, banjo or guitar. I think Baby Plum will be like that. Little Elvis gets the no-like-to-practice gene from me.

Bob is still hoping for a family band. If their personalities continue at this rate, we think Little Elvis will be the lead singer (wow, does he love an audience) and Baby Plum will be the lead guitarist. Cheese Puff is a mover and a shaker. Maybe he'll be the drummer?

Baby Plum isn't napping

2012-01-23T14:41:00.002-05:00

Baby Plum isn't napping. He isn't going to nap today. He's spoiled me since the days of forcing Little Elvis to nap. So when Baby Plum does fight naps, I'm thrown.

The good news is that today was the last day of the awful medicine. And his bottom's been looking a lot better, although his bottom is the cause of the missed nap today.

I have a houseful of chores to do anyway, and should just free him from his room, turn off the computer, and get to work.

Bob brought down all of the boys' old baby clothes for Cheese Puff. While they were put up clean, I feel the need to re-wash them and organize them. Our living room really is full of plastic bags full of baby clothes. And I have a feeling we'll be getting even more soon. It's hard to resist cute, little baby clothes.

Time to go free my big baby (Little Elvis calls Baby Plum the biggest baby in the world! and sometimes Scary Baby) and get my lazy self to work.

Since this post has been so random, I've been reading several thought-provoking posts on motherhood, C-sections, and politics. My mind is swimming with crazy thoughts. Maybe Baby Plum and I can discuss them while we work...

Waste of time

2012-01-20T13:34:00.002-05:00

Little Elvis wasn't sick. He was full of energy and happiness when I picked him up from school on Wednesday. No fever, no headache, lots of energy.

After more than an hour of being locked in a 4 x 5 waiting room with both boys, I was exhausted. They completely depleted my snack reserves, spilled water everywhere, and fought over the most ridiculous things. Little Elvis still doesn't understand that his brother doesn't feel well, and has no patience with the things he usually takes in stride.

In my defense, I didn't think Little Elvis had strep. But the nurse thought we should come in anyway. The doctor thinks he might have had a virus over the weekend.

Baby Plum is still taking his first prescription. He's got 3 days left. If we switched to a new one, he'd have at least a week of more issues. His little bottom still looks bad, but the mostly dairy diet has slowed him down some. We're doing a combination of diaper creams, and I've come to realize that when he starts walking like a cowboy, I need to corral him and change him.

I'm frustrated that the doctor's office gave Baby Plum such a tough antibiotic for his ear infection. She said it was very early in the infection and didn't look that bad. I wish she'd given him amoxycillin. We had to go to a different doctor for this appointment. Next time, I guess we'll wait until our doctor can see him. Although I now know that he has a strong reaction to this medicine.

When the cure is worse than the problem

2012-01-18T13:50:00.002-05:00

There's a chance both boys are sick now.

Baby Plum's reaction to his ear infection medicine is heartbreaking. He currently has the worst diaper rash I have ever seen. Granted, I'm just a mom of two, but it's awful. He's in such pain and it literally took both Bob and me several minutes to get him in the shower this morning. The poor baby goes while sleeping and would rather stay in the dirty diaper than have us clean him. He's walking around like a bowlegged little cowboy. I've been stuffing him with dairy, and experimenting with myriad diaper rash ointments. I think I've stumbled upon a winner, and the doctor's office supposedly called in a different prescription. What a mess.

While Baby Plum suffers with his bottom, Little Elvis has been having headaches. He started complaining about his head this weekend, but seemed to rally. Yesterday, when I picked him up, he got into the car crying about his head hurting. He said it had hurt all day, but he didn't tell his teacher.

He woke up in the middle of the night with a headache and a slight fever. We tried to let him sleep in this morning, but the battle to get Baby Plum into the shower woke up Little Elvis.

He had no fever, but didn't want to go to school. Instead, he wanted to stay home and watch TV. School is apparently too long. I took him to school. And he was happy when we pulled up.

I called the doctor's office when it opened. I mentioned that Little Elvis' breath smelled funny, because I was assuming sinus problems. The nurse immediately suspected strep, even though he didn't have a fever this morning. She said it was fine that I took him to school, but he has an appointment this afternoon.

Bouncing boys

2012-01-17T14:17:00.002-05:00

Little Elvis has become obsessed with the trampoline. This isn't always a problem. Except that it's January, Mommy is very pregnant and can't jump, and Baby Plum has been sick and doesn't always feel like jumping.

But for decent weather weekends and afternoons when Daddy gets home, Little Elvis gets to have a blast jumping.

I took these pictures last week before Baby Plum's ear infection and possible 2-year-molar cutting blues. Normally, Baby Plum wants to do whatever his brother does.
See that big grin? We love that he wants to do something so active. It's just difficult on cold, rainy winter days. It gets dark at 5 right now. So if he doesn't jump as soon as he gets home, then fits will ensue come supper time. And I'm dreading this afternoon, because it's a yucky, rainy day.

Wonder what Bob would think about getting a mini trampoline for inside the house? That would probably just be an invitation for lots of injuries....

Good to know...

2012-01-16T21:31:00.003-05:00

This weekend Sam's provided some free health screenings. They offered cholesterol, blood pressure, glucose, BMI and something else.

Being pregnant, the BMI and other thing were off limits. But I had my blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol checked. Not such a good idea.

My cholesterol was through the roof and I was so worried! The technician told me it was really high and to talk to my doctor. I have a family history of high cholesterol, so my worrywheel kicked into high gear. After a nice weekend of worry, I read that you shouldn't test your cholesterol when pregnant or nursing.

My doctor confirmed that tidbit of news today.

Just thought I would share -- don't get your cholesterol screened while pregnant!

Typical morning

2012-01-13T14:54:00.000-05:00

A typical morning for us, includes me constantly reminding Little Elvis to eat, and trying to keep Baby Plum out of whatever he finds most interesting that morning.
This morning, he decided to explore the drawer in our TV stand. He found a remote control and two old cell phones. How did he reach all the way to the back? By pulling the chair over and tossing the pillow to the floor before climbing on top to dig into the drawer. Once he was through, he closed the drawer and pushed the chair back to the appropriate wall. He forgot the pillow, but I was still impressed.
Little Elvis had to have his picture made as well. He's kind of eating while holding Buzz and admiring Buzz's new utility belt. We made the belt the night before. It's a blue ribbon with a big blue button that I drew Saturn on with a white paint pen. Surprisingly, he loves it. He rarely likes anything that I do, so I'm proud of that little belt.

"Why Women Need Fat" - finally, a diet book I can get into

2012-01-12T08:00:00.001-05:00

It's book review time again! Over the Christmas holidays, I got the chance to read Why Women Need Fat - How "Healthy" Food Makes Us Gain Excess Weight and the Surprising Solution to Losing It Forever by William D. Lassek, M.D. and Steven J. C. Gaulin, Ph. D.

Normally, I do not choose to read diet books -- I can't even make it through most magazine articles about weight loss. But I found this book really interesting and easy-to-read.

The authors believe that American women are so much bigger today when compared to 40 years ago, because of our super-processed, pre-packaged diet. The convenience foods we buy that are "healthy" might not be.

The authors mainly blame our weight gain, especially around our middles, on the huge amount of omega-6 in our diet. A lot of the omega-6 comes from certain shelf-stable, very processed vegetable oils like corn and soybean. Omega-6 can lead to weight gain in our waistlines.

The increase of omega-6 comes with a decrease in omega-3. Omega 3s not only help our brains, but also can help us maintain a more natural weight. The increase in omega-6 and decrease in omega-3 combined to lead to our bigger waistlines.

According to the book, if we change our diets, our weights should be more like those of Americans 40 years ago, or more like those of European and Japanese women.

How to do that? Cut back on the products with things like corn or soybean oil high on the ingredient list. This includes margarine, mayonnaise, salad dressings and lots of other prepared foods. Instead look for natural products like butter and those made with canola and olive oils.

I have to admit that I really bought into what the authors wrote. We are already working our way there.

One of our biggest problems will be dropping the salad dressings. I had no clue they could be so bad for us! I mentioned the salad dressing issue to two friends who had lived in Europe and both said that people over there made their own salad dressings. Guess I'll have to start doing that.
They also said that food is a lot fresher over there.

The authors mention other issues, like our meat and eggs that come from animals fed a steady corn diet, instead of the more natural diet of grass. These products are also high in omega 6 because of the corn diet.

The best thing about this revelation for Bob? I'm no longer fussing about eating the deer he killed over Thanksgiving. I figure that meat was definitely grass-fed and a lot better for us, and cheaper than grass-fed beef.

Our food budget may have to go up some, but I think the bigger adjustment for us will be changing the way we think about foods.

Any of you have thoughts about this? I've been trying to discuss this book with my extended family members, and they don't really want to talk about it with me.

*This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club, but the opinions expressed are my own.

Shower time is mess time

2012-01-11T14:40:00.003-05:00

Baby Plum's favorite time of day is my shower time. He gets free run of the house, and enjoys making as big a mess as he can.
I bake healthy muffins for Little Elvis' lunch, and Baby Plum "ate" three during my shower last week. (He also pulled several books off the shelf and toys out of the bins.) See the bigger muffin chunk by the giraffe bag?
Here's a closer look at the big chunk and several smaller crumbs.
There are several books, a cow, a screwdriver and another big chunk of muffin.

Lots of little muffin chunks, a hanger and a ball.

Some more chunks and his shoes, Rex and a tractor.

He does like to help pick up his messes, and LOVES dustbusting all of his crumbs.

Today, he brought me the bags out of the Rice Krispies and Corn Pops cereal boxes. I asked if he made a mess while we walked to the kitchen. He said, "Apm." (Yes in Baby Plum language.)

Surprisingly, the mess wasn't all that bad. There were a few Rice Krispies on the floor along with the box. All of our melanine bowls were laid out on the stove, with a few Corn Pops in each bowl. Whenever he gets a snack of raisins or orange sections, I put them in a bowl. He was obviously serving someone Corn Pops this morning.

I have to remember to put the cereal boxes up before I take a shower from now on, and I don't think my showers are that long. He knows he's only got a few minutes, and knows how to make the most of them.

He is such a funny little boy.

Confusing comments

2012-01-10T22:30:00.002-05:00

I'm 33 weeks pregnant, and every day I hear one of the following comments:

"You are so BIG!"
and
"You're so small!"

I prefer the small, but I realize this is my third. I was pooching out before I even tested positive. My weight at my last appointment was my heaviest with Little Elvis.

I'm bigger. Tying shoes is difficult, and I've stopped wearing my tennis shoes. Getting on the floor to read to Baby Plum or change a diaper -- not fun. I grunt when I get up. It's almost impossible for either boy to sit in my lap.

Little Elvis, my shutterbug, snapped this picture while I made muffins for a meeting this evening. Usually I try to avoid the camera.

Someone told me yesterday that I wouldn't make it to February 23rd. Then she made some comment about how some women get too big when they're pregnant and should only have one child. She's elderly. I just shrugged.

While I don't appreciate the big comment, one I got this weekend upset me.

A woman from our church saw us at Home Depot this weekend for the kid's building workshop. She said I looked "harried." I wasn't! For once, Little Elvis wasn't fussing over every little thing. Bob was with us. Baby Plum shunned the shopping cart, so I was keeping him out of the paint and away from the hammers. But it wasn't bad. I feel I was calm. I don't remember having to raise my voice or level any threats, though Baby Plum did get his hand in the blue paint.

I just told the woman that I wasn't. I kept my thoughts about how her spiky hair wasn't flattering to myself.

To me, telling me I'm harried when I'm a month and a half away from having boy #3 is much worse than telling me I'm the size of a house and should have just had one child.

Dining out with littles

2012-01-08T22:33:00.002-05:00

We very rarely (although we have more of late) dine out--meaning at a place other than Sam's or McDonalds or Chick-Fil-A.

But my parents took us out to what turned out to be a very popular "family restaurant" last night. Little Elvis wanted to eat at Wendy's, but said he would settle for a family restaurant. He made up the name of one, but we couldn't find it.

Baby Plum has decided that he doesn't like high chairs or shopping carts. We tried a booster seat. It went alright, although I miss the ease of belting him into a seat.

Here, he discovered a love of lemons. He's sucking the sour goodness out of one here. He did eventually make a face, but it didn't deter him.
Here he's smiling about the tasty lemon. Forget the big bowl of macaroni and cheese! He dined on cherry tomatoes from a salad (we had no clue he loved those!) and lemons... and ketchup.
Little Elvis sat on my parents' side of the booth, but did over to our side for a snuggle and a picture. Poor Little Elvis was stung by a wasp yesterday afternoon. I had no clue they would be out, or able to sting! It's early January! He was pitiful, and his little finger was very swollen. We gave him Benadryl, and it was just starting to make him tired.

It's a lot of work eating out with our boys. I'm glad it was a very noisy restaurant, and our noise wasn't too distracting for others. Our two boys are very, very noisy. And a little wild.

What do you do with extra toys?

2012-01-06T13:30:00.002-05:00

Do you get toy duplicates at Christmas? Or just toys that you know your kids won't play with? We have and do. I put these toys away to regift or donate.

I'm not sure if that makes us bad or not. Last year Little Elvis got this huge super cheap transformer wannabe. He didn't even know what they were, so we just socked it away. By that November, he demanded it. He remembered getting it. We opened that thing, against our better judgement, and it broke in less than 2 minutes. Oh the fits that thing caused. And now I've got a broken fake Transformer taking up my hiding space.

This year, Little Elvis got a 5 pack of Hot Wheels. I'm not exaggerating when I say we have more than 100 little cars. While he likes cars still, he's not nearly as into them. So, I put them away. And gave him some of his old cars to take his Thank You picture with.
He was not happy, and would not dictate a thank you for me about these cars. He did not get those cars for Christmas. Just getting him to sign his name to that card was a hassle.

I still don't feel that guilty, though. He didn't need those cars, and they'll be a fine birthday present for someone else. He also got a Power Ranger. He doesn't even know what those are. It's socked away until that becomes the cool thing among his buddies. Then, I'm sure we'll open it.

Do you think that's bad? We have a whole playroom that is overrun with stuff. Seriously overrun. The boys don't know what to do with all of their toys, and only play with about 10 percent of them. I need to go through and cul, but whenever I do that, they automatically miss the removed toys. A big baby sale should be coming to the area in March, and I have big plans to get rid of some of our stuff.
Despite the fact that Baby Plum got tons of toys for Christmas, we bought him this musical Mickey at an after Christmas sale. He loved it for a few days, but now it's going up with the rest of the Christmas decor. I think he'll love rediscovering it next year. Over the past two years, our neighbors have given us musical Christmas decorations, and Baby Plum has adored getting to play with them at Christmas. The fact that it's Mickey and musical, well, there was no doubt he would love it.

Copycat

2012-01-05T13:39:00.002-05:00

Baby Plum is a huge fan of both his daddy and his brother. For Christmas, he got a rock n roll potato head. He loves this toy, but not because he's a fan of potato heads (he does love to take them apart and scatter the pieces around, though.)

He specifically loves the glasses and guitar part of the toy.

He tries to squeeze his little face into the glasses (they're already bent) and then "strums" the guitar. It's very cute, and it also makes him like his daddy. Daddy wears glasses -- though his aren't cool purple spiky glasses -- and plays the guitar a lot. I think Baby Plum is just trying to be like Daddy when he plays with the glasses and guitar.
Daddy's not the only one Baby Plum emulates. He very seriously does whatever Little Elvis does. Yesterday on the trampoline, whatever Little Elvis did, his shadow tried to do. It was very cute. And I'm so thankful that Little Elvis doesn't mind having a shadow. I think he likes it.

They're both dressed in State gear here. The other day Little Elvis wanted to wear a Toy Story shirt. Baby Plum decided that he had to wear one too. He didn't have one, though. So Little Elvis let his brother borrow one. Baby Plum was so excited to be dressed like his brother. And Little Elvis thought it was funny, and also that it made Baby Plum look like a big boy.

Baby Plum's also started crying whenever my parents take Little Elvis somewhere. Normally, he's too scared to let Daddy or Mommy out of his sight. But now, he's worried about letting his brother out of his sight. They both went with my parents to visit my grandparents last weekend, and did very well. Baby Plum didn't miss us at all.

Reflections on the third pregnancy

2012-01-02T21:44:00.002-05:00

We're definitely well into the third trimester now, and this pregnancy has been a good bit different from my first two.

This doctor picked Cheese Puff's birthday -- at least for the moment -- and he's set it for February 23rd. Little Elvis was the emergency C-section, and my doctor for Baby Plum let me pick his birthday. This doctor (I've had a different one for every pregnancy) picked the day. I have decided that the baby will come earlier, and I think the baby will pick February 17th. As long as the baby waits until after Little Elvis' birthday on February 11th, we will be fine. Little Elvis is thrilled for this baby, but I think he will have issues with anyone who messes up his birthday party.

As for the differences -- the biggest was the massive sickness at the beginning of the pregnancy. But I've also developed some vericose veins with this baby. I screamed last night when I realized what the pain I've been feeling actually was. Bob came running and acted like I was being ridiculous. I realize now that he thought something was wrong with the baby, and I was fretting because of a huge bumpy, lumpy, sort of painful vein. But I wasn't happy that he thought it wasn't a big deal. Vericose veins are a huge deal! At least to me.

And I'm frustrated with the ultrasound woman. How hard is it to take a decent picture of my baby? She blames him, and then does this crazy shocking thing to my stomach. It's not his fault. We finally got to see his profile at the last ultrasound, and he's got Baby Plum's profile. She attempted to do the 3D ultrasound, something we've never had before. What do I have pictures of? His bottom and what might be a hand. My mom wasn't able to be there, but I haven't bothered to show her the pictures. I can't make them out, and I was there. (Full disclosure: I've never done her job, and it might be really hard, but why do I want a picture of a butt?) That's also why I'm not putting the ultrasound pics up on the blog.

I'm also a lot more lethargic with this pregnancy. I was tired at the beginning of Little Elvis' pregnancy, but got over it by the second trimester. I'm no longer sick, but I am tired and just feel lazy all of the time.

And my feet have grown with this pregnancy! My ankles were a bit swollen with Little Elvis, but my feet didn't change. My mom doesn't think they'll go back down. I hope they do, because I like my old shoes.

I also learned a very important lesson last month -- when you're 6 months pregnant, don't just decide to cut yourself some bangs. It's been about a month now, and my fringe is finally a respectable length. Surprisingly, I didn't cry when I gave myself super short, lopsided bangs. I just laughed and clipped them back for a few weeks. I think this reaction surprised Bob more than anyone else.

The biggest difference? I'm not constantly eating ice! With both boys I could not stop munching ice and drinking super cold ice water. I know I had to be so annoying.

There are some similarities between the pregnancies. The best? I don't have to shave my legs! Seriously, I didn't have to with the boys either. It's not out of laziness. My body just seems to want to spend it's energies doing other things than growing leg hairs. Fine with me. Tying shoes is difficult, shaving would be a huge pain. I do have to pluck my eyebrows some, which I didn't have to do with Little Elvis, and barely did with Baby Plum.

Sleep is difficult. I wake up several times a night. I somehow manage to wake poor Bob up at least once, although it's really not intentional. I promise! I think it's the oof noise I make trying to crawl over my pregnancy pillow and pushing Wally out of the way so I can get up. Then, when I get back into bed, I have to readjust myself, the pregnancy pillow, the other pillows, the blankets, and make room for Wally, who loves the pregnancy pillow as much as I do.

Cheese Puff's nursery is now painted and ready (although Baby Plum will still be in there for a few more months.) We haven't brought any of the clothes or other baby gear down. The car seat is out, but it's not strapped in yet. We've also picked out a name, although I'm not as excited about it as I was when we first decided on it. This poor little baby. I may just call him Cheese Puff forever.

Getting back into the swing of things

2012-01-01T21:43:00.004-05:00

We've pretty much recovered from Christmas. We're sort of back to our usual routine, minus school and plus Daddy. Little Elvis is once again covering our bed with every single pillow and stuffed thing in the house for a "party." Wally enjoyed the fluffy party more than anyone else. Little Elvis also rediscovered our camera, and took several pictures. This was my favorite picture of the "party."
We're also taking pictures for thank yous. Baby Plum's playing the guitar from his rock star potato head. I will write more about this thing later.
Here the boys are posing with their Pillow Pets, and Buzz. When Little Elvis began his whole Transformers obsession this fall, we both figured it had more to do with his buddies than anything else. With just two weeks away from his pals, he's rediscovered Buzz and doesn't even touch the Transformers he insisted he wanted for Christmas. Glad we didn't get the fancy, expensive ones.

Baby Plum just loves everything. He hugs on the stuffed toys he got, and plays the musical/noisy toys constantly. He's also put lots of new stickers on the sticker door.

Baby Plum's favorite thing he got for Christmas? Spending so much time with his daddy and brother. I think he will have the hardest adjustment once school starts back. Little Elvis can't wait for school to start, though. He's been telling me for days that he misses school.

Remembering Christmas

2011-12-30T14:10:00.002-05:00

We had a fun Christmas. Both boys got way more than they asked for, and for the most part, behaved pretty well.

Baby Plum showing off the outfit Mommy made him for Christmas. I made Little Elvis a smoke detector pillow that he also loved, but I didn't get a picture of him with it... yet.

Santa brought Baby Plum 300 stickers to put on our sticker door! He also got Baby Plum a very preachy musical recycling truck. We are those annoying green people, and even we think the truck might be a little heavy handed. Baby Plum likes it, though.
Little Elvis trying to get to all of his presents. He got two Transformers from Santa -- Optimus (octopus) Prime and Sentinel Prime. One is a Rescue Bot and is way easier to put together. The Sentinel Prime (the firetruck good guy one) was listed as a level 1. Santa made sure to get a level 1. They should make a level 0.
Little Elvis helped us bake cookies for Santa before Christmas.
He was ok with the cutting out, but really enjoyed eating the raw dough that Mommy slipped him. Daddy is not a fan of letting him eat raw cookie dough since it has egg in it.

Last year, the trampoline we got both boys was a huge hit. They both still love it. This year, we debated, and decided to get them an Xbox Kinect (the one without the controller.) We knew it would be more for Little Elvis right now, but figured Baby Plum would grow into it. We got a dancing game and a sports game to go with it. Little Elvis prefers the adventure game that it came with. I tried out the dancing game, and really liked it -- despite the big belly. Little Elvis had fun goofing off, but didn't really understand it. Bob hasn't really gotten a chance to figure out the sports game, yet.

We wanted to get them something that would be active and require communication with others.

Silly boys

2011-12-23T14:29:00.002-05:00

The Christmas holidays are upon us, and they change our schedule dramatically! Not only is Little Elvis out of school, but so are Bob and my dad. So we're busier I guess. And I just feel guilty getting online when Bob's home. Also, something's up with my computer.

The boys love having Daddy home. My bedtime and nap services aren't needed right now, which hurts, though.

Little Elvis got these silly glasses for Halloween. He put them on the bathroom sink the other day and made a funny face. I thought it looked a little like Gonzo from the side.
Baby Plum got into the Christmas spirit last Sunday morning by giving himself a marker makeover, complete with red lips and a green goatee. You can't see it, but he did the most damage on his neck.
He cleaned up well, and I dressed him in Christmas cutest, complete with his Chuck Taylors. I love those little shoes, and we never hit the right size with Little Elvis. So glad Baby Plum gets to wear them. Thankfully, most of our markers are washable.

The boys are both getting wilder and rowdier each day. They seem to really enjoy each other's company, though.

Like Mommy, like boys?

2011-12-20T13:46:00.002-05:00

My mom saved just about every one of my dolls and stuffed animals from my childhood, as well as most of my baby clothes. Obviously, it was for naught.

But she sometimes tries to get the boys interested in my old toys. She brought out my Kid Sister (Cindy) and my My Buddy (Mikey, I believe) this past weekend. I loved those dolls. I remember asking Santa for a Kid Sister for Christmas that year and making him very uncomfortable. He said I'd have to ask my parents about that, but they assured him that it was fine, just the name of a doll.

I was so happy that Christmas morning, especially when I saw that my doll had a little brother to play with!

Alas, aside from this picture, neither boy was very interested in the dolls. Little Elvis read their names and pointed out the TM (trademark symbol) on their overalls. I think Baby Plum took off Mikey's hat and shoes.

Too bad I didn't like to play with cars or legos, or something more interesting for boys. At least they seem to enjoy some of my old books.

From what I can gather, Bob spent most of his early childhood destroying his toys. I think he just wanted to figure out how they worked. So we don't have any of his toys. I have a feeling they would appeal to both boys more than my dolls and Carebears.

Two more down...

2011-12-17T23:25:00.003-05:00

It took a few days, but Baby Plum's bug made it's way to Little Elvis' system early Friday morning. It hit me a couple of hours later.

Bob is a man who can eat anything, and he often brags about having a stomach of steel. I'm thinking he might be right. At least I hope he is.

Poor Little Elvis was super pitiful, and the first stage of it lasted a whole lot longer for him than it did Baby Plum, or me for that matter.

We think both boys should be back to 100% tomorrow. Little Elvis ate supper this evening, and drank plenty of PowerAde and water today. Baby Plum is also back to eating... and eating... and eating... and eating.

Now if Bob can stay healthy.

Sweet, sick baby

2011-12-13T22:32:00.002-05:00

Baby Plum had his first stomach bug last night. He's a little over 2 years old. We expected him to get one a whole lot earlier, thanks to an older brother in school and that penchant for sucking his thumb.

He woke up sick, and we cleaned him up and brought him out to the playroom with us. He played and smiled, and then got sick. Played, smiled, got sick. We thought it was crazy that he wasn't lethargic. Then, it caught up with him. Poor little guy.

The first stage finally stopped around 2 this morning, and I was able to put him back in his bed.

He had other tummy troubles for most of the day today, but they didn't seem to bother him. He would drink some, but I wasn't able to get him to eat until late this afternoon.

The oddest thing? So far, Little Elvis is fine. I keep asking him how he feels. He'll say fine, and then ask if I'm happy. Silly boy. They are making gingerbreadmen in his class tomorrow, so I hope he stays fine. He's been looking forward to this for at least a week.

Afternoon with Gram

2011-12-11T22:09:00.002-05:00

The boys and I went to play with Gram this afternoon.
They had lots of fun. Baby Plum, while very different from his brother, is also a lot like him. Both like to have their pictures taken.
They both also really enjoy playing with Gram's iPad. Little Elvis impresses me with his mad skills. I'm not sure what this game is, but he can arrange little animals on a background. He can make them bigger or smaller, and gets very frustrated if you help him. Baby Plum did a pretty good job just watching. But when he would have to reach out and touch the screen, Little Elvis would growl and huff and move the iPad away. Funny little boy.

Christmas card pic and 2 very different boys

2011-12-07T14:29:00.002-05:00

We managed to get our Christmas card picture made this weekend.

The boys enjoyed breakfast with Santa, and neither cried or kissed Santa on the mouth. (Last year Little Elvis gave Santa a big smack and Baby Plum bawled at the old, fat man holding him.)

Keeping both boys seated made all the difference. The turnout wasn't very good this year, and that might have helped as well.
After our visit with Santa, we took both boys to the play area. Little Elvis, who can't keep socks or shoes on his feet, kept trying to make friends with the other kids. He went up to all of them saying, "What's your name?" When that didn't work, he'd tell them his name, and point to Baby Plum, saying, "That's my baby brother, Baby Plum."

He managed to find a few willing to play. But they wanted to play more silently. No need for introductions. Many stuck with their siblings. I know Little Elvis will be thrilled when Baby Plum can have conversations with him.

While Little Elvis did his best to make buddies, Baby Plum decided to shove another kid. Baby Plum is our more aggressive child. Where Little Elvis' first inclination is to hug and love --even on kids who hurt him -- Baby Plum will push back. His usual target is Little Elvis. We've never heard or seen him pushing another child, until then.

The weirdest thing was that a little girl had just pushed Baby Plum, and he left her alone. Then the poor little boy showed up, and got the heave ho. I have a theory. I think Baby Plum can already tell who will give in, and who will push back. That little boy wasn't going to do anything. That little girl would have.

When Little Elvis was getting bitten at school, I was told by other parents that it's so much worse to be the parent of the aggressor. I didn't believe them then. But I have a feeling that we'll get to experience both sides of that coin very soon.

A very creative Little Elvis

2011-12-06T13:47:00.003-05:00

Little Elvis wrote a story during the Hanging of the Greens service at our church last Sunday night.

It's not his first story, but it's the first where he's dictated with words and drew illustrations as he went along.

He's not focusing on plot yet, but we enjoyed the story. (It also kept him mostly quiet during the service. Baby Plum had to be taken to the nursery.)

We used 2 programs to write and illustrate the story. I left the title page out.

Super America: Illustrated by Little Elvis.

This is a moon that transforms. This is a flower that looks like a square. (Mommy drew the flower, and apparently didn't do a good job.)
This is a stop light. Red means stop. Yellow means slow. Green means go.

(On an interior page that isn't pictured.)

This is a window that blows all day.

These are tornadoes that hurt people. (Daddy's a meteorologist.)

(Another not pictured page. He told me, "Just write the words I say. These are just words.")

Woah! Save all things in the worlds. And beaks can do everything. This is an 'inator' that shoots bad guys.

The End.

In case you're wondering, Super America has taken over for SuperDog. We no longer speak of SuperDog, and I'm sure I will have to make a new cape. Super America will become a movie with a great soundtrack, featuring songs by "The Who," and one original written by Little Elvis about buildings. At this point in time, he wants Columbia Pictures and TriStar to produce his movie.

He's 4.

When it was the SuperDog movie, it was going to be made by 50th Century Fox. For some reason, Little Elvis doesn't like 20th Century Fox. (This is not my doing, although my dad swears that it is.)

Busy boys

2011-12-04T22:14:00.002-05:00

I try to keep our schedules pretty open and flexible. We're not usually that super busy family that's always on the go. The boys seem to enjoy the open play time and I like to not be super stressed. (Judging from the other people I know, I am in the minority.)
But the holiday season really books up our calendars. While I love the holidays, I'm already spent.

And I think this week may be just as busy as last week. It's ok when it's just me that's run ragged...

but all of the events are taking their tolls on the boys. Kind of. Baby Plum had a 5 - 10 minute nap on Friday. He slept well that night, but both boys were up 2 hours past their bedtimes on Saturday, and they were up an hour late this evening. Tomorrow night promises to be more of the same, and I fear that I'm setting Little Elvis up for bad days at school.

If Baby Plum is cranky, I know why. But Little Elvis' teachers have 19 other kids to deal with, and don't know that he's been kept out late because his mommy can't say no.

"I picked this out!"

2011-11-30T13:15:00.000-05:00

I always said I would let my kids dress however they wanted. I meant if I had girls, because most of the men/boys I knew didn't care anything about clothes.

For the most part, Little Elvis doesn't care. But when he wants to wear his Buzz costume or SuperDog cape out, I let him for the most part (not to school.) Same goes for Baby Plum who loves some Elmo PJs he got for his birthday. He's worn them in public and that's fine with me.

So, when Little Elvis decided to wear his tie with his t-shirt and track pants to Sam's the other day, I let him. So glad I had the camera.
He loves to make this quasi-squinchy face these days. He makes it all the time. Baby Plum just loves getting to sit by his brother in the Sam's cart. This is post haircut, so the curls are still really cute when it's humid.
This was the best smile picture I got. Silly boys. Since the t-shirt was so busy, I don't think the tie was all that noticeable.

Another car fan

2011-11-29T13:10:00.002-05:00

I love this picture. Baby Plum has become quite the car fan of late. He loves sitting in my seat, pushing buttons, and trying to put on the seat belt.
He's so like his brother with this, except Little Elvis would turn everything on and leave it on. Baby Plum will turn things off as well.
He also stays away from the rearview mirror, which is a good thing. Little Elvis broke the rearview mirror off, along with some of the window -- the guys that sold us the replacement mirror had never heard of that happening! -- on my other car.

The tooth, the whole tooth, and ...

2011-11-28T21:55:00.003-05:00

I got the opportunity to chaperone Little Elvis' first real field trip before Thanksgiving. AND I remembered to bring my camera.

We went to the local kids' museum. Here he is dressed as a tooth.
And getting properly brushed.

Thank goodness he got selected to be a tooth. He was very close to a meltdown because he got passed over the first two times. Then, after being a tooth, he was ready to pitch another one because he wasn't selected again. Oh, my sweet little fit pitcher.

He's called by his initials, but some days I threaten to change his name to FP for Fit-Pitcher.

Still, he's normally super-sweet, super-inquisitive and super-cute.

Like today's adventure: Little Elvis took his new pet ladybug to school. He found the ladybug in our house last night and named it "Dodge." That poor creature slept in his bedroom last night, was somehow found this morning, and made the trip to school in a plastic container in the bottom of Little Elvis' bookbag. Apparently, he and his friends played with it at school, and then he brought it back home.

While I worked on supper, the poor ladybug managed to get himself wedged into a limousine. Once rescued, I talked Little Elvis into letting that poor bug rest. I haven't seen Dodge since.

Little Elvis has two cats he could care less about, but tries mightily to play with a defenseless ladybug. Judging by today's antics, the cats are lucky he's not that into them.

Happy birthday Coachpa!

2011-11-27T21:44:00.002-05:00

My dad's birthday was several days ago, but I've been really bad about downloading pictures. (I don't remember being this lazy with my other pregnancies...)

Poor Coachpa ended up with a "celebration" fit for Little Elvis. That's because Little Elvis gave us lots of input, and my dad said he was fine with all of Little Elvis' ideas.

First, we made him an octopus cake. Little Elvis was dead set on this. He understood that we didn't live by the sea, and couldn't get a real octopus, and he seemed pleased with my 8-legged Tootsie Roll concoction. Little Elvis wasn't as happy with the "healthy" carrot cake I made, though. (I don't think Coachpa liked it very much, either.)

We also took Coachpa out to eat for his birthday. He said he was fine with Chick-Fil-A, so that's where we went. His present? A fire extinguisher. Little Elvis discovered that they didn't have one last month and insisted that we get Coachpa a fire extinguisher for his birthday.

So, this was more of a celebration fit for Little Elvis, but Coachpa said it was great. I think it was very sweet of him to be ok with a 4-year-old planning his party.

Rough week

2011-11-20T23:14:00.002-05:00

It's been a rough week in our house. Little Elvis and I have been having a really hard time. Maybe I've forgotten (although we're also currently in the 2s with Baby Plum,) but I think the 4s may end up being harder than the 2s and 3s.

So, I'm not writing very much right now. I try to not write when I'm full of complaints.

This picture was funny, though. The other morning as we were getting ready to go to school, Little Elvis ran and stood with his back to the door. Baby Plum had to do it too. And it was so cute, but once I got out the camera, Baby Plum ran to me.

Baby Plum and the 2s

2011-11-16T14:28:00.002-05:00

The squeals have returned to our house. Baby Plum is once again testing his voice. I'm thinking that if hair metal bands make a come back, he could do very well for himself, what with the beautiful golden curls, cute dance moves and amazingly strong, high-pitched scream.

He mainly does it when he's frustrated with me, and the frustration comes from the fact that "neh" stands for just about everything. If he's not in his high chair, he can go point to what he wants, or get it for himself. But, if he's "trapped" then he just screams at me while I try to guess what he wants. I forced him to say "da" for down yesterday. He wasn't happy with me, but finally did it. Why? Because Daddy was on the phone. He was saying "da" for Daddy.

But the squeals are usually just at night. During the day, he's a very happy little boy.

Still, he's very cute. Here he is pulling stickers off the sticker door.
And putting them in other spots on the door. He likes to redecorate the sticker door.
He's also very helpful. Here, he's helping Daddy pick up leaves.
And he LOVES it when you fake sneeze. Daddy put in the extra "ah.... aH... AH... Choo!" last night, and Baby Plum had a blast. He was even doing the build up to his fake sneezes last night.

And the hair? I trimmed it right after the pics. His little bangs were in his eyes, and even though they were pretty last night (thanks humidity!) the hair in the back was really long and stringy on non-rainy days -- down to his shoulder blades. I didn't even trim an inch, but it looked a lot shorter this morning. Still cute and curly, though.

Baby Plum beat Little Elvis, who was 2 1/2 for his first hair cut. Baby Plum was 2 years, and almost 2 months.

Thanks to my boys' hair, I'm like Eddie Rabbit, I love a rainy night.

Neediness

2011-11-14T15:08:00.004-05:00

I was in a meeting this weekend where one woman told me she missed the "needy stage" with her children. Another woman said she definitely didn't.

At this stage, I'm agreeing with Woman #2. We'd had a rough morning getting out the door to school. We usually have rough mornings. Not only is Baby Plum needy, so is Little Elvis. He can dress himself, but it takes lots of battles to get that done. He can do lots of things by himself, but he chooses instead to fight me on just about all of them.

Our current biggest battle is buckling the seatbelt. He's done it once. It was a battle. Now, we're going in stages. He's gotten to where he pulls out the belt, but he maintains that he absolutely cannot put the belt between the armrest and the seat. Once we're there, he just has to buckle it.

I want this done before Cheese Puff is born. Little Elvis doesn't.

I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on several of our battles. He usually puts his dishes in the sink, will dress himself, will put on his shoes, will brush his teeth, rinse out the brush and sink and turn off the light. We're getting there.

And obviously Baby Plum is needy. But he seems to be trying on lots of fronts. He tries to help me dress and undress him. He lies down for diaper changes. It helps.

But with two super needy kids and a growing belly, I'm tapped out. This is bad news for Slappy. She used to just be a normal cat who preferred Bob to me. Now, she will not leave me alone. She will pet at me until I pet her, and I can't keep her away. It doesn't help that my allergies get worse during pregnancies.

I do love our cat, but wow do I wish she would be more content with me petting her while doing other things, and with the boys petting her. She's just a little too much for me most days.

An offer that's easy to refuse

2011-11-10T13:26:00.002-05:00

I've been bad about taking pictures again. Both boys are still cute. Baby Plum is in need of a haircut, and I did a bad job with Little Elvis' last haircut. Maybe that's why I've not been taking pictures?

It could be pure laziness. I'm not sure if it's the pregnancy or not, but I don't want to do much of anything these days. Yes, I cook and clean (although I really fuss about it.) I'm in a few clubs/groups/organizations. Some frustrate me, another just wears me out. I shouldn't have agreed to do it. The people are nice, but it's lots of work. And it's about to be a lot more. I should be doing "homework" and somehow recruiting people to be in next year's class. But no one I know wants to do all of the work.

And, I have to admit I don't exactly blame them. The people I know have young ones, too. My mother and grandmother have been keeping Baby Plum on meeting days. And Bob is able to keep the boys on the weekend meeting days, and the upcoming evenings that I'll be "teaching." My dad had to pick up Baby Plum from Mother's Day Out the other day, because I was in a meeting. It's a lot more of a commitment than I thought it would be. And it's a commitment for my mom, grandmother, father and Bob.

I'm a little worried that I'll be in trouble, because I haven't recruited anyone and I really have no desire to do it. I'm going to blame the pregnancy, but I think it's just me. Recruiting/sales aren't my thing.

So, anyone want to join my club? It's location specific, time-consuming, and kind of daunting for a person like me.

Family of five

2011-11-07T13:09:00.002-05:00

We've always wanted three kids. That's been our plan, and we've been lucky enough that we're about to reach that goal.

But it seems that many others don't agree with having more than two kids, and feel the need to offer me their opinions and sympathy.

Some of the sympathy is because we'll have three boys. Apparently folks with girls must have absolutely no problems as parents. They would have me believe that girls just sit politely and don't run, scream, jump or make odd demands. I don't buy this. I have friends with girls. Girls aren't easier. It's more of a personality thing than a boy/girl thing.

It makes me mad when people apologize to me that I'm having boys. I knew that we would be more likely to have another boy, since we already have two. Although Little Elvis and Baby Plum are very different, we already have an idea of what to expect. And we don't have to buy anything new.

I expected the girl pity, but have been shocked at the comments from people who think three kids are too many. The weirdest thing is that I get these comments when the boys are both behaving themselves.

Last week Bob, Baby Plum and I went to visit my grandfather at his nursing home. Baby Plum was happily dancing to the music playing (they had a bluegrass band there!) One of the nurses asked if he liked Lightning McQueen, since he had on a Cars jacket. I told her that he just liked regular cars, and that the jacket was his older brother's. She said, you have another one? And one on the way? Then clucked, but thankfully didn't ask the "Why?" that I could hear in her tone. I'm sure I would have been polite, but I would have been angry.

A woman at Wal-Mart pitied me for having three boys yesterday. And had the nerve to do so after calling Baby Plum a girl and clucking that he looked like a girl with his curls. He was wearing a hunter green turtleneck with navy blue sweater vest.

Basically, I'm saying that if you know someone who's about to have baby #3 or more, boy #3, girl #3, then say congratulations and move on. Especially if you don't know that person. They might be just like us, very happy that their family is about to expand.

Guess who?

2011-11-03T14:41:00.000-04:00

Even though I took this picture, I did a double take when I downloaded. That's Baby Plum lying in Little Elvis' bed, reading one of Little Elvis' current favorite books. I think it's precious, and love that both boys are so into books.
We have a catalog outlet type store here and got Little Elvis this super-cool Bumblebee costume for $1.

The first day he got it, he spent a long time just gazing at himself in the mirror. He's informed us that he will be Bumblebee next year. That will be easy, especially since the costume is a size 7/8. It should fit him better by next year.

Stickers!

2011-11-02T14:35:00.002-04:00

While Little Elvis loves all things smoke detectors these days, Baby Plum loves stickers!

My mom gave him some stickers for Halloween. I gave them to him yesterday morning and said he could put them on the sticker door. Yes, we have a sticker door. It's the playroom door and I'm very optimistic that they will all come off when we tire of stickers.
Instead, he covered the map rug with them.
But he decided that wasn't a good idea when they didn't stick very well.
So, he moved them to the glass on a non-sticker door. This would have been the cutest picture if the cats hadn't started a duel right as I snapped the picture.

Those stickers will come down at some point. I'm not cool enough to let him cover every door in our house with stickers. One will be just fine.

Prepping for Daylight Savings

2011-11-01T14:25:00.002-04:00

I helped out with Little Elvis' class party yesterday. While surrounded by buddies, cookies and crafts, he said something about smoke detectors. I told him that one of ours was beeping and that he and Daddy could change the battery that afternoon.

He became so excited! Forget the party, he wanted to change batteries.

He finally gets to really hold a smoke detector!
Daddy shows him how to get the battery out.
We ended up re-batterying the wrong smoke detector, so he got to do it again this morning!

We got my grandparents the requested smoke detectors for Christmas. He's already told them, and was very upset with us for not giving them to them last weekend.

We also got my dad a fire extinguisher for his birthday. He's been prepped, so he knows as well.

I'm thinking if this fascination sticks around, then his birthday cake will be super simple -- a round white frosted cake with chocolate lines drawn on it and maybe a redhot for the light. Baby Plum celebrated Halloween by donning his first pair of big boy undies. He's still not quite sure what all the fuss is about.

Like brothers, like Transformers

2011-10-28T12:40:00.002-04:00

It was unintentional, but Little Elvis' 2 transformers happen to be brothers. They don't look all that much alike, but they are Transformer twins (and the orange is impossible to make back into a car!)

Last night we ate out with my parents and grandmother. The boys were wild, as usual. I'm not sure what they were doing that was so different, but my grandmother made the comment that they were about as opposite as you could get.

This is something Bob and I talk about, although we think they do have some things in common.

Baby Plum isn't as outgoing as Little Elvis, especially around adults. But Baby Plum is more physical -- he loves to wrestle.

They both love music now, although when Little Elvis was 2, he was not a fan.

They also both love cars, but Baby Plum plays with them in a completely different way from his brother. Little Elvis parked and arranged his cars. Baby Plum rolls them all over the house making a vrrroom noise.

Possibly the biggest difference between them as 2-year-olds? Nap and bedtime. It was always a battle with Little Elvis, but with Baby Plum it's not. Sometimes he fights it, but for the most part, he is more than happy to take naps and go to bed. He can admit when he's tired.

Little Elvis, shutterbug

2011-10-25T13:40:00.003-04:00

If I leave the camera out, and Little Elvis can reach it, he morphs into a little shutterbug. This new interest started last week, and I'm so thankful we don't have a film camera.

Here's a shot of our new "entertainment" center. It holds our TV, so it's an entertainment center, but I think it was built as something else. I think he did a pretty good job framing it.
Here's a close-up of the hutch. He's really into close-ups, although it could be because I had the camera zoomed in...
We also recently bought a new chair for the playroom. He ran back there yelling, "The new chair! I have to get a picture of the new chair!"
My favorite shot of the bunch -- Baby Plum chewing on my watch while gazing at Sprout. That one isn't zoomed in, so I think Little Elvis knows how to use the zoom button. (Also, I keep Baby Plum in sleepers in the winter when we're at home. He can't take his diaper off as easily and his feet stay warm.)

Two years ago we got him a camera for Christmas. It was our biggest present failure. He couldn't really figure it out, and the batteries didn't last. It was a complete mess. I'm thinking we should see if there's a better digital camera option for older kids for this year. Although, this newfound interest could vanish as quickly as it appeared.

Halloween Egg Hunt

2011-10-23T22:13:00.004-04:00

Ever heard of a Halloween Egg Hunt? We hadn't either, but our local Park and Rec had one this weekend. It was a great chance for the boys to debut their costumes. They went as Agent P and Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb. It's a show on Disney, and we all love it. Seriously, Bob and I are huge fans. It's funny. I recommend it.
Little Elvis was Agent P, the secret spy alter ego of mild-mannered Perry the Platypus. See how happy he is? He seemed pleased with his costume for the most part. Until he saw the Transformer costumes at the egg hunt.
Here's his platypus tail. The tails are attached with buttons. We can remove them when it comes time to play in a bouncy house.
Baby Plum was NOT a fan of his Perry the Platypus hat. He screamed and put up a huge stink. Bob wore the hat while carrying Baby Plum during the costume parade. I realize that Baby Plum's pants are way too high. When I measured for the hem, he didn't have clothes on under the costume and he wasn't sucking his thumb.
Little Elvis having fun at the park. He was so happy to play chase with other kids. It helped that the kids kept calling him "Perry." They had a costume contest, and Little Elvis didn't win. He was very upset. The judges were high schoolers who didn't have any clue what Perry the Platypus and Agent P were. They also made some comment that even the homemade costumes were so cute. So, obviously, our homemade costumes weren't even considered. Oh well.

The photographers that were there loved the costumes, though. Little Elvis will be in a special section of the paper on Thursday. Bob and Baby Plum (as a combined Perry the Platypus) will be in a county paper whenever it comes out.

While Baby Plum didn't like his hat, he did show off his cute little duck/platypus walk for us while wearing the bottom half of his costume.

He must have the strongest little legs.

We have a few fun events planned for this week and weekend. Hopefully we'll get to do most of them -- I'm worried that Little Elvis might be getting sick.

Cheese Puff update - I might be hormonal

2011-10-21T13:08:00.004-04:00

I realized it's been a while since I wrote about the pregnancy. All is going well. I'm finally feeling Cheese Puff's kicks and stretches. He's still not quite strong enough for Bob to feel, though. His busiest time is in the early evening, around 7 p.m.

I'm not positive, but I think Cheese Puff has it in for my bladder. Sometimes he treats it like a punching bag. On Sunday it seemed like he was pinching it. I don't know that's possible, but man he was hurting me.

My biggest complaint these days, other than being the size of a house, is the heartburn. I'm also getting a little bit of restless legs syndrome at night. It's not nearly as bad as it was with Little Elvis. Comparing the pregnancies, this one is a lot more like Little Elvis'.

The pregnancy might also be making me more sensitive. I'm involved in a couple of clubs that I've been in for a couple of years, and I'm fed up with them. The new president of one makes decisions, asks for input, and then completely disregards the input. She's rude about it IMHO (in my hormonal opinion) and I'm beyond frustrated with her. She doesn't think about the other people in the club, she just does what she wants. And her buddies go along with her, possibly because she's a little scary. My mom's in this club, and she says she's frustrated as well. But she might just be agreeing with me, because I'm the crazy hormonal one.

In the other club, most of the members have known each other longer and talk all the time when not in the meeting. I don't have relationships with them outside of the club. Whenever I try to do anything, like offer to make snacks for a meeting, I get a yes. And then I get this whole (use a whiny tone,) "Well, such and such said said she wanted to make the snacks, and blah blah blah." It's like it would seriously hurt this woman's feelings because I offered to make snacks. Would it? Really? This has happened several times. I really don't care about making snacks, I just feel like I should offer, because they'd fuss if I didn't. There's also the very real possibility that they don't like my cooking. I typically bring some sort of pumpkin or fruit muffin. I don't bring anything unhealthy. This adds to my whole feeling of not being a part of the group. I would like to not be a part of this group, but I have to be at the church when they are meeting. It would be very obvious -- and passive aggressive -- if I stopped showing up. Maybe things will get better.

There's a very real possibility that this is just hormones. I have no idea if it's not. These things also happened before I was pregnant, but they're only ticking me off now.

Happy baby

2011-10-20T13:13:00.002-04:00

Baby Plum is a happy little guy. As long as I don't leave him with strangers that he doesn't like.

He loves the nursery people at our church. He never fusses, and whenever I pick him, I get a great report on how happy and sweet he is.

But, I go to MOPS at another church, and he doesn't like it there. He starts screaming as soon as we get into the parking lot. He bawls and cries and I feel worse and worse. I don't have to go to those meetings. Last week he bawled for 20 minutes while we found the right place to go -- it was like slowly pulling a Band-Aid off. And after I finally left him, he cried for another 30 minutes. I felt very selfish.But yesterday, at our church, he walked right in and started playing. Didn't cling or fuss. He loves it there. I think he just knows it better, because he's in the nursery every Sunday. The nursery worker there gets to see the very happy boy that we see everyday.
He discovered his brother's construction helmet the other day, and loves wearing it. This is very funny, because Baby Plum does not like hats of any sort.
The Frankenstein sings the "Monster Mash" and dances. Baby Plum loves him. Our sweet neighbors buy the boys special treats for every major holiday. They got Frankie last year for Halloween.

Our own little Fire Marshal

2011-10-18T14:22:00.004-04:00

Little Elvis isn't just into Transformers (and Buzz, who made a huge comeback this week!) He's also become very, very interested in fires and fire safety.

He's been interested in/concerned about fires for a while. But over the past few weeks, the constant fire questions have morphed just a little bit.

He's now very into smoke detectors, fire alarms and fire extinguishers. He's scoped out all of the smoke detectors in our house, and my parents' house. He's inspected our fire extinguisher. He pretty much understands why we don't have fire alarms.

We've also inspected the smoke detectors, fire alarms and sprinklers at church. He likes to look for any sort of fire emergency signage whereever we go.

For those of you who know me, you probably know that I'm already thinking about Christmas presents. Most of my family presents are secured, with the exception of my parents and grandparents.

I had been looking at a weather radio for my mom's parents when Little Elvis informed me that they needed smoke detectors for Christmas. He actually said that! He was inspecting their ceilings during his last visit and discovered that they didn't have any smoke detectors! (Apparently, they needed batteries and instead of replacing them, they just took them down.)

So, they are getting smoke detectors.

My parents don't have a fire extinguisher, and I have a feeling they will be getting one of those.

Just a warning, if you live near us, Little Elvis will most likely want to go into your house, inspect it for fire safety gear, and then want us to buy you whatever he thinks you are lacking.

Christmas presents for family will be easy this year.

Why Transformers? Why?

2011-10-17T13:19:00.003-04:00

It's been a weird, funny time around our house with Little Elvis. The Buzz obsession is mostly gone, although he did wear his costume on Saturday.

He's replaced Buzz and friends with Transformers. He hasn't seen the movies or the original 80s cartoon. But he's still obsessed. Why? Because all of his buddies in school are. He talks about Deceptacons and bad guys all the time. My favorite character? Octopus Prime. (We know it's Optimus, but we love that he calls it Octopus.)

His newfound crush is more frustrating for me than his other obsessions. He spent the last bits of his money on one of the toys. It said 5+, and I thought a 4 1/2 year-old could handle it. I was wrong (I'm way older than 5 and I can barely do it.) It's been one big source of frustration for us.

He can make it into a robot by himself now, but the car is way too hard for him. It makes him fuss and scream and we usually end up taking it away. The transformer always seems to be in timeout, and he usually is as well. I don't see how he can enjoy a toy that makes him so miserable.

Anyway, I would like to let the folks who decided to make and market Transformers know that I do not like them. Those toys are hard! They fall apart easily, and I'm sure our child isn't the only one who gets frustrated by them.

Santa did get Little Elvis a transformer stocking stuffer, but found one that's an easy level. It doesn't become a car, but it's something I know he can do all by himself. I can't see him getting frustrated with it, except when it doesn't become a car.

Picture comparison

2011-10-13T22:33:00.004-04:00

I know there's a way to do side-by-side pictures, and that anyone with even a small knowledge of photo things could figure it out. Obviously, I am not technically, or photographically minded.

People have been telling us how much Baby Plum now resembles his brother. It's funny, because we think they look less alike now than they used to. I'm fairly certain it's the hair, although as the pictures will show, Little Elvis had a lot less hair when he was two.

Just for fun, I threw some pics of me at that age. Baby Plum's coloring is different, but he's really a little version of me.

Baby Plum rocking the overalls at 2.
Little Elvis showing off his socks at 2.
Pensive Baby Plum at 2.
Thoughtful Little Elvis at 2.
Me at two with my father. The picture's a lot smaller here than the others. Again, a photo thing. Not my area of expertise.

My mom and grandmother have been really noticing similarities between baby me and Baby Plum. He's apparently got a lot of my expressions.

I don't really have many pictures of little Bob, and the ones I do aren't scanned. If Baby Plum is a mini-me, Little Elvis is a Baby Bob. They have the same eyes and expressions. They both even squint the same eye when in the sun.

Wonder who Cheese Puff will look like?

Guess who dressed him?

2011-10-11T12:41:00.002-04:00

Since this was a holiday weekend, Little Elvis went to the cabin with Coachpa. It was kind of last minute, and I called Bob to ask him to pack an overnight bag.

The weather's been confusing me, and I had put up most of his shorts and t-shirts, though some were still on the floor of his closet (waiting to be put up.) I told Bob to get some of those.

He picked out Little Elvis' Sunday shorts (yes, I designate his clothes, at least in my mind they are designated) which are bright blue with little green frogs on them. He picked out a Toy Story 3 army men camo and orange t-shirt to go with them. My dad, who really can't match either, couldn't put Little Elvis in that mess, and left him in the long sleeve shirt he'd been wearing the day before.

And he wore his Sunday shoes with the whole ensemble.

Bob was in the midst of doing something else when I called, and I'm fairly certain he just grabbed and stuffed.

My parents said that Bob wasn't nearly as bad as me, though. Apparently, I let my 4-year-old go to school on Friday morning with his pants on backwards. I'm the only one who makes him dress himself, and he knows which way is right. Usually I catch it when he puts them on backwards, but it wasn't obvious on Friday, and we were in a hurry.

I don't think either of us scarred him with our clothes calls.

Enjoying presents

2011-10-06T13:40:00.002-04:00

Baby Plum (and Little Elvis in a way) really cleaned up at his birthday party. He got all sorts of fun things. Here are pictures of him enjoying some of them.
He got some cute new books.
A very sturdy garage with cute cars. I bought Little Elvis one for Christmas last year that broke immediately. This is one is so much better. And Little Elvis doesn't like sharing it. Baby Plum doesn't mind watching.
He got an Elmo cell phone, which he loves. He chatters on it a lot.

And he got some super cute Elmo pjs. He had to wear them to his speech therapy session on the Monday after his birthday. We bought him some little Elmo socks to go with them, and he loves them, too. It's so funny. He loves Elmo clothes, toys and books, but has no interest in Sesame Street.

Beside him was the biggest hit of the party. It's a remote control dump truck that plays music. Little Elvis likes to drive it around, Baby Plum just likes to play the song.

Daddy's biggest fan

2011-10-05T14:35:00.002-04:00

On Baby Plum's actual birthday we went to a church-wide picnic. The weather was beautiful, and both boys had fun playing at a playground before the eating commenced.

At one point in their play, Bob disappeared to play with the string band. He started playing with them last year, and really enjoys it.

Little Elvis didn't notice, but Baby Plum did. While Little Elvis played with a friend, Baby Plum and I went off to look for Daddy.

This is what happened when we found him:

He stood right by his Daddy's side while Daddy played the banjo.
This never would have happened with Little Elvis who was so sensitive to noise and music at this age. But Baby Plum loves music and noise of all sorts -- the louder the better. Mostly, he just loves his Daddy.

After we all finished eating, Bob played a little more with the band, and Baby Plum sat in a folding chair by the band.

Baby Plum is so much like me -- not just in looks, but in personality as well (except for the deep love of music, he gets that from Daddy.) It makes perfect sense to me that he would love his Daddy so much.

A-maze-ing!

2011-10-03T21:16:00.003-04:00

My mom took the boys and me to a corn maze this weekend. It was really cool and the boys had a good time.
Bob had a previous engagement, and couldn't go. Mazes are much more his area of expertise. He asked how we did, and I told him that my decision to let the 2-year-old lead us through the maze might not have been the best, but we still found about half the clues.
Neither boy wanted to pose with the pumpkin.
But they did a good job with the farm faces.
After a busy morning trekking through the corn maze, we went to a Red Robin and the boys had a good time "playing" in the arcade. I love how at this age they are content to steer the wheel without me putting any money in the machine.

We had a great time Gram, thanks!

Baby Plum - Big 2-year-old

2011-09-29T22:19:00.002-04:00

Baby Plum is officially a 2-year-old. This was taken right before his birthday, and I haven't downloaded the birthday video yet.

He had a big time at his birthday party. Little Elvis asked before the party began if he could blow out the candles and open the presents, and Baby Plum said, "Apm."

They both loved all the toys and played well with the other kids. It was a small family party.

What to say about sweet, sweet Baby Plum. He's a mostly happy little boy, although the two's are starting to make an appearance. He's a squealer, and the much louder of our two boys.

Baby Plum has a funny sense of humor, and seems to understand so much. He likes to watch Mickey Mouse when we get home from dropping Little Elvis off at school. Mickey asks questions, and Baby Plum always answers, "Apm."

It makes sense, because he is the most helpful little boy. He puts his dishes in the sink, and sometimes dishes he pulls out of the drawers he can reach. He throws trash away. He turns off the TV. He brings us things we ask for. He shares with his brother. He tries to open the stove and the fridge (thankfully he can't yet.)

He's not as big a hugger or kisser as Little Elvis was, though he is much more clingy. He hugs when he feels threatened by suspicious adults. He's been trying to figure out kissing. He's moved from nose sucks to open and closed mouth kisses. For a short while, he would kiss my mouth, nose and both eyes.

Yesterday after I changed his diaper, he grabbed my face and I thought he was trying to kiss me. Instead he tried to blow a raspberry on my mouth. I blow raspberries just about everytime I change his diaper, so it makes sense. My lips aren't Angelina Jolie size, so he didn't get too much of a sound.

And he loves music. We got him a little mini-drum machine thing for his birthday. It plays some standard beats and he's already worn out one set of batteries. My parents got him a keyboard with built in sounds, and he also plays it a lot. He doesn't play the drums or the piano, though. He just likes to play the pre-programmed beats and songs.

My mom also got him a little blue elephant doll that sings ABCs and 123s. There was one at nursery that he loved, and we found one like it at the last baby sale. He loved that thing for 2 days straight and it went everywhere. It's so cute when he hugs it. He's replaced it with the drum machine, but I think he'll go back to loving it soon.

He is the sweetest boy and we all love him so much.

Picture of Cheese Puff

2011-09-27T21:39:00.002-04:00

We got to look at Cheese Puff today. Unlike Little Elvis and Baby Plum, this baby was not cooperative. We didn't get to look at the profile. But there are ten toes, ten fingers, and he's a boy!

Little Elvis wasn't very happy, and cried a little bit. He had his heart set on a sister. I told him that when he's older, he's going to be glad he got another brother. I also offered to let him help us pick out a name. He suggested Order. I had been floating August. I think Bob would prefer Order to Auggie -- the woman who did the sonograph said the baby was hiding his profile because he thought we were going to name him August.

He did give us the rocker sign with one of his hands. Bob didn't get to see that, but he thought it was funny.

Soccer star!

2011-09-22T13:09:00.002-04:00

Little Elvis had his first real soccer game on Tuesday night.
Here he is pretending to kick a soccer ball in his uniform. That's about the extent of his kicking. Little Elvis did his best to avoid the ball during the game.
I told the coach he wears a 5. So we got a youth small. We probably should have gotten a youth extra small. He was sagging at one point and I had to run on the field to pull his shorts so the other fans didn't have to see his transformers undies.

They play 3 on 3. Here he is with his coach and two other players. Oh, sweet Little Elvis. We spent most of the game yelling, "Little Elvis! Little Elvis listen to your coach!!" "Little Elvis follow the ball! Keep your eye on the ball! Follow the ball! Kick the ball!"

When they switched out players, I tried to get him to watch how they followed the ball and kicked it. His response? "No way!"

I remember playing soccer when I was about 6. We played more people then, and I was a defender. I remember standing in my spot for most of the game, pulling my pigtails, picking flowers, and doing anything but watching the ball. Can't fault my 4-year-old for his lack of interest in the ball.

He loves running around the other players, though. And he loves playing with them between actual plays. So, he's having fun. And I'm so, so glad the coach doesn't get upset with our little space cadet.

Oh, one of the players on his team is also in his class at school. Little Elvis won't tell me anything about school, but that little boy does tell his mother things. She asked if Little Elvis' daddy was a weatherman. Apparently, Little Elvis gives his class a weather report everyday. I told her that he doesn't talk to his daddy about the weather, so the predictions are the work of a 4-year-old. Bob was thrilled and thought it was so funny. It's so something our little boy would do.

Baby Plum and I went to visit him at school today. His teacher was much more welcoming this time, and Little Elvis loved showing his baby brother off to his buddies. For the first time, the boys were way more interested in Baby Plum than the girls. Both boys played, although Baby Plum got overwhelmed a few times.

Little Elvis played with several different little boys, and seemed to get along with them very well. Not once did he get into anyone's face (except for his brother's) and they seemed to enjoy playing with him. I am so proud of him.

Almost 2!

2011-09-19T21:31:00.002-04:00

Baby Plum is almost 2! He's so, so big. And it's just now kind of dawning on me that he's almost 2. Which is weird, because every day Little Elvis asks if Baby Plum is still a baby, and if not, what is he?

We tell him that Baby Plum is our baby and always will be, just like Little Elvis.

But, really, he's not a baby. He's a toddler I guess. And he's very into everything. I mean everything.
Wow, is he a cutie, though. He's got the best laugh. Seriously, it's a great laugh. He had speech therapy this morning, and although he won't talk, he does laugh the entire time. His laugh is loud and beckoning, and a graduate assistant came by just to see who had such a great laugh. He laughs with wild abandon, just throws himself into it.
Here's the winning photo for the birthday card. Since it's football theme, we wanted to write that he was "going for 2."

I think he'll have a blast at his party, and we can't wait to see what he'll do with the candles. Baby Plum loves to blow on things that are hot, warm, lukewarm, tepid, cold. He blows off his food, and sometimes blows on the oven when I'm cooking. We think he'll love the candles, which will upset his brother. Little Elvis wants to help his brother blow out the candles.

Curse of the camera forgetter, part 34

2011-09-16T12:34:00.002-04:00

I keep on forgetting the cameras, and while my cell phone can take pictures, I have to buy some sort of cable to get it onto the computer.

This means that I have no photographic evidence of Little Elvis' first two soccer practices.

Here he is cheesing it up in his Buzz Lightyear costume. He'll go for a period of about a month without wearing it, and then want to wear it for a week straight.

Back to soccer.

He's in the under 5 division. There are 6 players on his team, and they play 3 at a time.

The coach warned me before the first practice to not take it seriously. I didn't need to be warned. But, I wish he had said, "Bring your camcorder, or at least your camera."

My dad coached high school soccer for most of my life. He's won 4 state championships. Bob couldn't make it to these practices, but my dad has been able to go. We've enjoyed laughing, because it's very funny.

The first practice was fun, but not super memorable. One of the players is in Little Elvis' class at school. He was thrilled and ran around and around.

Last night's practice was also a scrimmage. I was crying at one point, because I was laughing so hard!

Little Elvis can hustle. He runs all over that field. He doesn't really follow the ball, and usually runs in the opposite direction. During one play, the ball went one way, most of the other players followed, and Little Elvis ran straight for the net on the opposite side and tied himself up in it.

There's one player on the team who knows what he's doing. He's got a good kick and seems to have an understanding of the game. During one important play, Little Elvis grabbed that little boy and they both went to the wrong end of the field to watch an airplane. That left one lonely player on our team versus three on the other team. They scored.

The first game is next week. Bob will be able to go, and hopefully one of us will remember the camera or camcorder.

And the coach? He's great. He's very patient with his little team of not-so-attentive ballplayers. I would think many would get frustrated at their antics, but he just laughs it off.

Birthday preps

2011-09-14T23:10:00.002-04:00

Baby Plum will turn 2 in about 2 weeks. We're kind of "prepping" for the party. By that, I mean I'm taking pictures for his invitations.

We're not having a farm party, but this was definitely the best of my picture attempts. He looks so sweet in his little overalls.
We're having a football party. Little Elvis had one and I have all the stuff still. I asked Baby Plum if he was fine having a football party, and he said, "Apm." (That's his version of yes.)

This was not the winning picture, but I thought it was sweet. Plus, although the thumb is pretty much always in the mouth, I don't have many pictures of it. His teeth are pulled out because of the thumb, he's sucked a sore on the area between his thumb and pointer, and he's pulling off his little thumbnail. I know the doctor said not to worry, but I'm thinking that we may need to start trying to wean him off the thumb. We'll wait until after his birthday.

Hands off the baby!

2011-09-12T21:40:00.004-04:00

Camera's out of juice. It's been out for a while. It is charging right now, though.

Last week was busy. It was one of the rare weeks where Baby Plum and I had something going almost every morning.

On Wednesday, I had a meeting at my church and he went to the Mother's Day Out program. He likes our church and seems to really like the nursery lady. He was happy, sweet and got rave reviews.

Thursday was a different story. I went to a different meeting at my parents' church. He's been there before. He's stayed with those ladies before (although never too happily,) and he was not having it this time. He bawled, and clung to my shirt before we even got through the door.

When I got back more than 2 hours later, he was crying. The ladies said he didn't cry the entire time, but when other mothers showed up before I did, he started crying.

This poor little baby who spends his entire day stuck with boring, tired, old mommy is convinced that she will abandon him given half a chance. I wish I could somehow communicate to him that he's going to have a hard time getting rid of me.

My dad watched the boys while I went to Open House at Little Elvis' school later that afternoon. Yes, kids are not invited to the Open Houses around here. So frustrating, although I guess I understand it.

Little Elvis was thrilled to hang with Coachpa, but Baby Plum went nuts when he realized that I was abandoning him for a second time that day.

He had fun once I left.

I thought we had gotten over this whole going nuts when mommy leaves a room, but he's regressed a good bit recently. I blame a big portion of this on the little (10-year-old) girl that picked him up at church last week and tried to carry him away from us. He was bawling and she didn't have the sense to put him down. Craziest thing? She's got younger siblings who can't even go into Sunday School, because they cry so much when their parents leave.

She's done this before. Next time I'm going to have to say something about how he doesn't like to be picked up by strangers.

Little Elvis, outdoorsman

2011-09-06T12:39:00.002-04:00

Little Elvis spent the holiday weekend with my parents at their cabin. He informed us several times that we were not invited. (We=Mommy, Daddy and Baby Plum.)

We showed up on Saturday afternoon anyway. He wasn't all that impressed, until Daddy took him swimming. He also enjoyed playing in the sprinkler with Baby Plum.

Once those events were done, he quickly told us to leave. He was not happy that we stayed for (a very early) supper before leaving. He kept telling us that it was time to go.

I didn't realize we were such wet blankets.

On Sunday afternoon Little Elvis called to make sure I had "everything under control." He was pleased when I informed him that I did.

We missed him, but I'm glad he had a good time.

Brusha, brusha, brusha!

2011-09-01T13:56:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure why, but Baby Plum loves toothbrushes. We keep ours out of his reach, but he can access his and his brother's toothbrushes.

He brought them out to the living room yesterday and was so proud of himself! He thinks he's being naughty.

I snapped a picture, put up the camera, then forgot about the toothbrushes. I found them right before we headed out on some errands.

Silly, yet very helpful, little boy.

Announcing Cheese Puff

2011-08-30T21:42:00.002-04:00

The name of the blog fits again! We are expecting baby #3 -- due in late February.

We don't have a scanner, so I don't have the first ultrasound to show. I do have a surprisingly big belly for only being 14 weeks, but I would rather not take a picture of it.

We have decided to nickname this baby Cheese Puff. It's a little out there, but Little Elvis actually had a hand in it.

Several months ago, he told me that he wanted to give Baby Plum to my parents and have a baby sister instead. He said he would call the new baby Cheese -- which is sweet, because cheese is favorite food.

We attempted just calling the baby Cheese, but it didn't feel right. Bob decided that Cheese Puff sounded sweet, and the baby was about that size at the time.

Little Elvis is excited. At first, he kept saying he wanted a girl. I told him there was a chance the baby could be another boy. He took this news pretty well.

Anyway, that's my excuse for being very sporadic these past few weeks. This pregnancy has been much, much harder than my first two. It's getting better, though.

Just like Daddy

2011-08-27T21:47:00.002-04:00

Baby Plum love, love, LOVES his daddy. He will put up with me during the day. But if Daddy's around, he doesn't have love for anyone else.

He's been running around with Bob's shirts for a few weeks now. He likes to carry them around the house, and leave them for me to trip on. Well, I'm sure that's not what he intends...

Last week, he upped his game: he wanted me to put Daddy's shirt on him.

"How do I look?"

Baby Plum really wanted to wear one of Bob's clean shirts that he wears to work. I talked him into the t-shirt.
He looked like a little monk to me. It lasted for about 3 minutes. He's done this a couple of times since then, but he seems happiest wearing his big brother's t-shirts. They're easier to move around in.

Football fans

2011-08-26T13:15:00.002-04:00

Football season has begun, and both boys seem to enjoy the games.

Although you probably couldn't tell by this picture. Little Elvis is so expressive! I forget why he was fussing. This is typically how the backseat of the car looks -- Little Elvis fussing (and me fussing right back) while Baby Plum sucks his thumb and takes it all in.

About 2 minutes later, if that. Oh to be little again, and get over my anger so quickly.

They get to play with other kids at the football games and usually have a blast. They also usually sleep so well.

At the last game, Baby Plum kept running up and hugging Little Elvis from behind. Little Elvis, being the affectionate child that he is, had no problem with this. I wish I had my camera handy for these moments. But they wouldn't last long enough for me to pull it out, turn it on and wait for it to be ready to take a picture.

Little Elvis says "plenty" about school

2011-08-23T13:46:00.002-04:00

Little Elvis will not tell me about his school days. He will answer at most one question -- usually pertaining to lunch -- and then he informs me that he will not talk about school anymore.

I've been told it's a boy thing. On the first day of school, he told me, "I've told you plenty, and I'm not telling you anymore."

He still talks about other things though. A few days ago, he was all about buried treasure, so we buried some "treasure" and drew a map. Here he's digging in the garden bed.
He found the treasure! I sealed in a zipper bag, because I figured having dirt on his treasure would not be good.
He's also rediscovered Buzz Lightyear again.
He had to dress up to watch his movie.

I did get something out of him about school last night. He told me that he didn't have any friends yet, but that he would. I'm not sure what to make of it. I would think he would have buddies, but I know that he can be overwhelming in his excitement for things. I would love to talk to his teacher, but I don't have a number. I hate to be THAT parent that worries over everything, but I guess I am. I always had issues making friends when I was older, and I hate for him to have those problems. Especially since he's not shy.

Baby Plum mugs for the camera

2011-08-22T12:56:00.002-04:00

Baby Plum loves the camera as much as Little Elvis used to. It's a lot of fun to have smiling of pictures of at least one of the boys. (I'm tired of the cheesy face!)

Baby Plum enjoying a snack of a banana and a juice box we got in the mail. He loves to sit on our step stool when he eats. (To me, his hair looks like Trixie's from the comic strip Hi and Lois.)
This is a kind of action shot. I'm pretty sure I have one of Little Elvis around this age that's similar. I will have to do some digging to find it.
Baby Plum is very into clothes these days. He picks out his shirt and shoes most mornings. His favorite shoes are his Sunday shoes. I'm letting him wear them, though I do try to dress him a little more nicely. He also loves to wear his big brother's and Daddy's shirts. He picked out his cape for this ensemble. I made it for Little Elvis' birthday party back in February. It barely fits now.

He's a funny little boy. We're having a good time together.

Random photo catch-up

2011-08-18T13:48:00.003-04:00

I've been so behind in posting. Here are some pictures from a few weeks ago.
Both boys enjoying snacks at our little table.
This would have been the best picture, but he looked away right when the picture finally snapped.
"What do you wanna do today?" Climb on Mommy and Daddy's bed and listen to NPR. Don't understand why Phineas and Ferb haven't tackled this fun project yet.

They don't have many matching outfits, so I decided to enjoy the last day before school by dressing them alike. Little Elvis was so pleased he wanted to wear the outfit again 2 days later. Baby Plum likes to wear his brother's shirts when he can, so I'm assuming he enjoyed it as well.

Another book review is posted!

2011-08-17T13:40:00.002-04:00

Another review that I've done as a BlogHer Book Club Reviewer has been posted!

This review is about "The Kid," the follow-up novel to "Push" by Sapphire. (The movie "Precious" was based on "Push.")

This was a hard book to read, and a hard review to write. Please let me know what you think!

Security blankets

2011-08-15T13:46:00.003-04:00

Baby Plum has his thumb, but he's expanding his repertoire. The picture isn't doing the crying fit justice.

He's standing guard at the washing machine, because he saw me put his blanket in the washing machine. He took his diaper off during bedtime the night before and his blanket was soaked the next morning, and I had to wash it.

Baby Plum's holding the stuffed car that he also sleeps with, but it's not nearly as important as the blanket. Little Elvis tried to offer Baby Plum another stuffed car. It didn't work. Thank goodness, a fluffy, dry blanket was ready by naptime.
Baby Plum has also decided to start taking toys on trips. He just rediscovered Tad the Frog, and had to take him in the car, and then into Sam's. Tad also went with us to Kroger this morning. I'm fine with this, but wish he would pick a smaller toy. It's hard to buckle his car seat when he's holding that big frog.

This was 100% my fault

2011-08-12T14:19:00.002-04:00

Yes, I did let him go to bed with a coloring book and purple marker. What was I thinking? I'm not 100% sure.

Although he is getting into coloring and drawing a lot more, the idea that he would turn it on himself didn't occur to me.

Until I walked back to his room an hour after bedtime to see what was going on. I didn't even have to turn on the light to see that something was up.

He was SO proud of himself. And since the marker was washable, I decided to just wait until the morning to clean it off. (I have experience washing marker markings off, since I've been known to let my coloring averse child color on me.)

Waiting until morning was a terrible idea. The ink sank in. We scrubbed, and he bawled. I told him that when he does this again (we all laughed at him, and I know it will happen again) to not draw on his eyes. Even though he tried to keep his eyes closed, it still seeped in. He was fine for the rest of the scrubdown.

Little Elvis looked like what I assume a leper might look like when we headed out that morning. A leper with a really bad case of pink eye. The people who asked seemed to really enjoy our crazy story.

Thank goodness we had a couple of days before he had to go back to school. I wrote a note to the teacher, because the backs of his knees are still pink, as are his armpits and belly button. Not sure if the teachers would see them, but they might be alarmed if they did. I didn't mention that I let him go to bed with a marker, or that I have been known to let him color on me. Figured they might think bad things if they knew that.

As for the coloring on me, I think that's over. He seems interested enough in coloring on his own now, without my encouragement.

What to do without big brother?

2011-08-11T22:46:00.002-04:00

Baby Plum had his first real day without his big brother on Tuesday. He wasn't quite sure what to do with himself.

First, he picked out his outfit (ok, just shirt.) It's a nightshirt that I'm sure is too big for him. He loves this shirt. He loves an Elmo guitar thingy that we have. He loves all of our Sesame Street books. We attempted to watch Sesame Street that morning. He is not a fan. We lasted about 5 minutes. I think I should try to tune in at the end for just the Elmo part. Maybe he'll like that.

We read. A lot. We also tried to re-enact some of the silly things he does with Little Elvis. Hiding in big brother's closet wasn't nearly as fun without him. Neither was listening to NPR (I'm quite serious. They like to lay in our bed and listen to the news.)
Then we found a small sheet of lots of little stickers. That was pretty fun.
Especially when Mommy added a Post-It to the mix.

First day!

2011-08-09T12:45:00.002-04:00

Today marks Little Elvis' first day of pre-K!

Doesn't he look big? Our area has a special pre-K program. It's a small program, so Little Elvis had to be assessed at the beginning of the summer. We were kind of excited when he was accepted.

I've had mixed emotions about the whole thing. There are pluses (it's free!) and minuses (all day, 5 days a week.) He's only 4. But, he LOVES school, and I've heard nothing but praise for the program.

Baby Plum and I walked him to class this morning. Little Elvis was very interested in the science center. (Daddy will be very proud!) His teacher seems super nice, and excited to have him in class.

One odd thing -- Little Elvis doesn't have THAT common of a name. Well, his actual name is pretty common, but we use his initials. There's another boy in his class with the exact same initials, and two other boys with very similar initials. Oh, that poor teacher. She asked me this morning if she should use Little Elvis' whole name, or if she could call him by his first name. I told her would be more likely to answer by his whole name, but would be confused if she called him by his true first name. We thought by going with initials that he wouldn't encounter this problem. Oh well.

Little Elvis' big vacation

2011-07-31T22:03:00.002-04:00

My parents took Little Elvis on a trip to see a big train in a nearby bigger town.
I'm not sure my parents were really impressed with the train, but Little Elvis was.
See? It's a BIG train!
All of the train watching wore him out! Little Elvis and his Coachpa are the biggest of buddies.

Little cow comparison

2011-07-28T21:06:00.002-04:00

One of the pictures we took of Baby Plum during the Cow Appreciation Day this year reminded me of another little cow a few years ago.
Baby Plum '11
Little Elvis '08

The hair is different, and Baby Plum is older, but the squinchy face is the same. Both boys loved doing the squinchy as a toddler.

I realize the angle is all wrong, but I still see it. Will need to find a better representation of their similarities.

Catch up with Little Elvis

2011-07-25T21:33:00.003-04:00

I'm still feeling pretty crummy, so no new pics. This is a picture of Little Elvis from VBS at the beginning of the summer. I'm assuming he's a guard.

He's been a funny little guy recently.

My birthday was Thursday, and my parents took us out to eat at Olive Garden. While we were waiting for a table, Little Elvis plopped down beside me and said, "How's your life?" I'm assuming he picks these things up from us, but I don't think either of us say this. Still, it was funny watching him pretend to be a grown up.

On Sunday we were sitting in the pew at church and I pointed to a word I thought he would know, and asked, "What's that word?"

He pointed to a spot in the bulletin where the word "Word" was. It impressed me.

He went on to have a complete meltdown with the teenagers who take the little ones during the service. We had to go home early. Not so impressed then.

Regular morning at our house

2011-07-23T16:03:00.003-04:00

Can you think of a better way to start the day than by covering your stomach with stickers and donning Mommy's shoes?Little Elvis can't either. Even though he's been out of diapers for a while, he still prefers to spend his summers around the house in nothing but his Calvins (or OshKoshes if you want to be specific.) It's better than last year when he spent the summer in nothing but his birthday suit.
Baby Plum also likes the just a diaper option, but prefers to be naked. He doesn't get that chance very often. Yesterday, he bolted out of the bathroom after taking a shower with me. By the time I dried off, he had reappeared. I asked him if he peed anywhere and he said he did. He wasn't lying -- he peed on my purse. Nice. Guess he's marking his territory. That money is his, all his!

See him brandishing the toothbrush? I'm pretty sure he's asking Bob if it's ok to hit Little Elvis with it. Baby Plum loves to whack his brother on the head with random objects. Books, cars and hairbrushes hurt! Balloons are ok, though.

Book reviews

2011-07-19T22:16:00.002-04:00

A few months ago, I signed up to be a book reviewer for the BlogHer Book Club. So far, I've read two books, and I've discovered that being a critic is a lot harder than I thought it would be!

My first review was for a young adult book called, "What Happened to Goodbye" by Sarah Dessen.

Here's a direct link to my review. Please feel free to read it and let me know what you think.

Little Elvis' little people

2011-07-15T16:33:00.002-04:00

Little Elvis is not quite 4 1/2. Today, he sat down beside me while I wrote a book review, and started drawing pictures of all of his friends from pre-school last year.

To most people this might not be a big deal, but for Little Elvis it's huge. Little Elvis hates drawing, writing, or doing pretty much anything with a writing instrument. (I believe it's because he's a lefty in a home with two righties.)

But once he started drawing his friends, he didn't stop.

Here he is making his "cheesy" face with all of his drawings. I think they are really good for someone who doesn't like to draw.Here's a scan of two of his favorites -- Electric Man (this is a new character to me) and his best friend from school last year.

Cow Appreciation Day

2011-07-14T21:29:00.003-04:00

I know, Cow Appreciation Day (aka free food at Chick-fil-A) was almost a week ago. And I'm not sure how long it's been since I last posted. I've been sick, but am starting to get better.

Grandpa Stew came down for a visit last week, just in time Cow Appreciation Day. He and Bob wore special outfits. The boys and I wore ears stapled to our hats, yarn tails and spots. The boys looked a lot cuter than I did, though I did have a pink hat and matching pink tail. (Bob made them, because I've been so out of it.)
Here are all of our cows dressed up for the big day. We were told that we were the best dressed, and the best family. People came over and took our pictures. We were stars. All of the males went to play in the play area, while I watched our stuff. The Chick-fil-A cow sat with me for a while. We chewed our cud and stared at each other.

It was a lot of fun, and Little Elvis made a new buddy in the play area.

Both boys had a great time playing and reading (it's getting to be both boys' favorite past time) with Grandpa Stew.

Which direction?

2011-07-05T21:37:00.003-04:00

Little Elvis spent the holiday weekend with my parents. I believe he's spent more time with them than us this summer. But he loves it. The fresh air does him good.

Last night our little explorer came out of the bathroom right before bedtime with a handtowel. When I asked what he was doing, he replied, "Wiping the pee off of the step stool."

I get into the bathroom, asking him why he pee-peed on the step stool, which is nowhere near the toilet. The stool, the floor, the wall, the side of the sink, and a little drawer thing were dripping.

It took me several tries to get him to finally answer my "why" question. His reason? He was peeing to the north and the west.

Our little navigator was trying to draw a compass with pee I guess.

We had a hard time keeping straight faces while we cleaned up the mess.

Oh, how he's grown

2011-07-01T14:51:00.002-04:00

Last weekend was not the first time Little Elvis posed with gold lame Elvis.

He posed the first time when he was 3 months old.
Look at the difference!

Here's a closer shot of the snarling 4-year-old. The eyes are the same, but that's about all.
I don't have a 3-month-old shot of Baby Plum with the Neighbear, but here's a closer one of him as well. Baby Plum looks so different from even just a few months ago. It's mostly the hair, but maybe it's having more of his teeth in as well.

This morning he pouted at me, and I swear it took me back to Little Elvis circa 21 months. I'll have to do a picture comparison of them next. And my mom sent me some pics of me at 2 which I'll put in as well.

Baby Plum, funny eater

2011-06-30T12:25:00.002-04:00

Baby Plum is becoming a very picky eater. I'm not sure he can exist on fruit and peanut butter alone.

But sometimes he likes to pretend to eat a wider variety of foods.

We went to a Chipotle restaurant while in the "big city" over the weekend. Baby Plum pretended to eat Little Elvis' rice. He thought he was hilarious, as did our dinner guests. I'm sure the people who had to clean up our mess did not think it was so funny.

After noshing on only applesauce at my parents' house, my mom gave Baby Plum a piece of chocolate. He shoved the whole thing in his mouth and when he smiled, chocolate oozed out.

See the new knot on his noggin? He fell off our bed and hit my nightstand. It's pretty much the same spot where he hit his head last month.

Poor, sweet little daredevil.

Fun at the movies!

2011-06-28T23:31:00.003-04:00

Little Elvis has been counting down the days to Cars 2 for several weeks now.

Added to his excitement was his chance to go see the movie in another town -- one with a Target. Yes, our child loves Target.

One of my mom's best friends from elementary school is a State Farm insurance agent. And State Farm has an ad campaign with Cars 2. (Mater even says, "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there." in the movie!)

My mom's friend rented out a theatre in the "big city" to do a screening, and we got to go watch the movie in the bright lights of the bigger locale! Little Elvis got to pose with Lightning McQueen on the big morning. He also got a cool t-shirt, and played hide-and-seek with the Good Neighbear. While Little Elvis liked Mater in the new movie, Finn McMissile is now the coolest car ever.
After the movie, we went back to my mom's friend's office to drop off some supplies. And to get Baby Plum to pose with a stuffed Good Neighbear.
Little Elvis attempted to snarl with the real Elvis.

We all had so much fun! The movie was fun, and completely different from the first Cars. I guess it was more violent, but Little Elvis didn't seem to pick up on it.

Baby Plum handled his first movie experience very well. He slept for the first hour, drank a whole lot of fruit punch for the second half, and started humming right at the end. It was a quiet hum, but Bob and I enjoyed it.

And Little Elvis spent all of his dollars at Target. We once again realized the futility of explaining bargain-hunting to our Pixar-loving child. He had money, and he wanted Cars 2 cars.

Onion rings!

2011-06-26T12:51:00.001-04:00

Little Elvis has discovered onion rings. I think they top french fries on his list of favorite foods.

My parents took him to Hardee's the other day after he helped them pick and shuck corn.

Poor baby

2011-06-25T22:44:00.002-04:00

Baby Plum had strep throat the other day. He didn't act like he hurt, but his fever was pretty high.
Here he is enjoying a fruit leather while we wait for the result of the strep test.
He was too fast for me to get a shot of his cute face, so instead I got his pretty curls.

Poor baby got a shot for his strep. The doctor didn't think I could manage giving antibiotics to both boys, so she said he should get a shot. We've never done that, and I didn't know it would be one of those super-painful ones (like tetanus or Rho-GAM.)

Baby Plum bawled and bawled, and I was so mad. He loves his daddy, and has no desire to have anything to do with me if Bob is near. But I was the only one in the room, so I had to be the one that held him for the shot. Bob got to be the hero when we finally got back to the waiting room, because it took me several minutes to calm most of the screams. The second he was in his daddy's arms, he quieted to snuffles.

Best brothers

2011-06-23T15:25:00.002-04:00

How cute are they? Little Elvis was watching a video we rented at the library, and Baby Plum just had to sit beside him.

Baby Plum is getting to be a pretty big fan of his older brother.

Whenever Little Elvis is in timeout (at least 1-2 times a day,) Baby Plum will stand on the outside of the door, crying and trying to get in. Little Elvis will be on the other side crying, and trying to get out.

It's fun. And usually Little Elvis is in time-out for something he did to Baby Plum.

I'm still glad they're pals. At least for right now.

House of owies

2011-06-21T20:06:00.002-04:00

It's been a rough week around our household -- at least for the littles.

Last Thursday night Little Elvis started running a fever (of course, it always happens when the doctor's office is closed.) It got up to 103 around midnight, and I had him an appointment for 10:30 Friday morning.

He woke up on Friday with no fever and feeling fine. I pushed his appointment back to the afternoon, and watched as he played and had a blast all morning. By the time we got to the doctor's office, he had a slight fever. By the time the doctor got into our room he was rubbing his left ear.

Poor guy had an ear infection. He must have a pretty decent threshold for ear pain.

He was feeling much better by Sunday, and we were hanging out at my parents' house. My wild child tripped while running over pillows and fell headfirst into a wooden rocking chair.

Though he was screaming bloody murder, he found the strength to smile at the camera. Don't worry, he didn't bruise. So the cries were probably more from being scared.

As for Baby Plum, he started running a fever after supper (of course...) and he was rubbing his ear when I put him in his crib. Guess I'll call the doctor first thing tomorrow morning.

Late talkers

2011-06-20T21:08:00.002-04:00

Little Elvis was a late talker. He didn't really start saying anything more than dada until he was 22 months old. It had both of us worried, especially since he was tall for his age. We'd be at the playground and he would tower over kids that were speaking in sentences! (Turns out he was a year younger than both of them, even though he was an inch taller than both of them.)

Despite all of the fears, we constantly heard from others that we shouldn't worry -- he would start talking and wouldn't stop. Those people were right. Once he started, he really didn't stop.

This child can chatter through an hour and a half car trip.
Onto his younger brother -- who isn't saying much at 20 months. We've been trying to encourage more words, but he's not into it yet. His pediatrician scheduled a 21-month check-up to check on his speech, and it's in just a couple of weeks.

Since his brother didn't really take off until 22 months, we hadn't been worrying.

And Baby Plum amazes us with what he understands. He follows commands better than his brother.

Still, we've been pushing 'banana' and 'book' on him this week.

Little Elvis and Baby Plum playing together

2011-06-16T12:36:00.004-04:00

The boys fight and squeal/scream at each other, but they also play pretty well together at times. I love the sound of them giggling together, and we attempted to catch that last week while they played chase at Sam's. (Seriously, Sam's is like our own version of the bar from Cheers. "Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name...")

As is usually the case, the huge case of the giggles stopped as soon as we brought out the camera, but they still played pretty well together.

This is also my first attempt at posting video straight to Blogger, instead of downloading it into our editing software, saving as an appropriate file for youtube, and posting to youtube first. It was way, way too easy, so I'm hoping it worked!