What's the Quickest Way to Make this Mama Feel Inadequate?

Give the toddler play-doh. Technically it's not even "Play-doh," it's homemade sculpting clay. You'd think that in itself would make me feel adequate. I took the time to look up a recipe, read said recipe, mix the ingredients, cook, and then color the clay (staining my hands with food coloring in the process).

But here's the thing. Caleb is in that "Mommy can do anything" phase, which I guess I should be excited about. But his expectations are just too high! I handed him the dough and right away he started with the requests. "Mommy, make a hammer, make a screwdriver, make a crocodile, make a robot." I feel like I'm in an art class nightmare. I can't make those things. I admit that in the past I've attempted some of those things and Caleb is very gracious and pretty much accepts the blob for whatever I tell him it supposedly represents, but still. I know better now. I tried to steer him in a different direction. I made a snake, I made a ball. But nope, he couldn't be swayed.

It starts out with making a snowman, simple enough. I can do that. But then he wants the hat. Next up? He wants a train track, okay...that's doable. Then suddenly he wants me to sculpt Thomas the Train, funnel and all. Come on! The degree of difficulty only increases. I explained to him that I just cannot make these things. He wasn't okay with that. Finally, I just folded under the pressure. It was time to make dinner anyway. So I slyly suggested it might be time for a TV show and I had him quickly clean up the dough. It's now safely back in the cabinet...where it might stay until Caleb realizes I'm not Superwoman or not an artistic one anyway.

Nice Running Into You

...literally. After posting about Christmas, my husband kindly reminded me that I had forgotten to include a significant event from our Christmas travels. I was in a really good mood while writing that post and I think I kind of forgot about this little nugget of badness. So, in an attempt to accurately remember Christmas, 2011, here goes.

It was a day like any other except that we were in NJ visiting my parents, Matt had off work, we were able to leave the kids with my parents long enough to do some shopping and go out to eat. Okay, so maybe it was a day unlike any other. Anyway, we had just finished our romantic lunch at my hometown's new Sonic because we're fancy like that. I pulled out of the parking lot sipping on my grape slushie (first time having a Sonic slushie and it was awesome!). We approached a red light. Matt and I were having a rather sweet conversation about how cute Gideon is. I put my foot on the brake, looked at Matt, took a sip of my grapey goodness, saw that the person in front of me had inched forward, took my foot off the brake, looked down to put my drink back in the console, and then it happened...

I hear Matt say, "Heather, NO!" I look up to see the vehicle in front of me at a full stop. I slam on my brake or what I thought was the brake but what happened to have been the accelerator (possibly the dumbest thing I have ever done), then quickly slam on my brake again. We lurch forward, directly into the back of the vehicle in front of us. Um...oops?

My front end is crumpled. Matt is not happy, but he maintains his composure surprisingly well. I am not happy either but my composure is shot. I sit there just staring while Matt gets out to speak with the other driver. I hear her mention that this is the first accident she has ever been in and then I start crying. She looks through the window at me, I roll down the window. She says to me, "Am I mad? Am I yelling? Am I being rude? The important thing is no one is hurt. This kind of thing happens." Turns out the woman works in collision and "deals with this sort of thing everyday." I am still crying and I apologize to her a few times, telling her I have "no idea how I did that."

I buck up and stop crying then call my parents to let them know we'll be longer than anticipated. As soon as I get on the phone with my mom, I start blubbering again. The other driver sees me and lets Matt know that he might want to get in the car and talk with me because, "She's on the phone and she's crying again. She looks very upset."

Once I'm done crying again, I get out of the car and speak with the other driver. She recommends a repair shop nearby and talks to us about what will happen at this point. She remains calm and understanding and nice. It was weird in a good way.

While we wait for the tow truck, I list for Matt all of the positive things present in this event:

1. The kids weren't in the car. Not that they would've been hurt since the incident occurred at no more than 8 mph, but they would have been freaked out I'm sure and it would've made me even more upset.
2. The other vehicle was a large pickup truck with a steel-reinforced back end. So, she drove away with very minor damage.
3. I rear-ended the nicest woman on planet earth who was actually concerned about my emotional state.
4. We were in my hometown where my parents were only a couple of miles up the road and they were available to help us with the whole ordeal.
5. Matt was with me when this happened. Apparently, I freeze under this type of pressure. So, I'm really glad Matt was there to handle calling the insurance company, talking to the cop, etc.

Long story, somewhat shortened:  The cop comes does his cop thing, my dad shows up so we can transfer stuff from my car to his car, the tow truck comes and takes away my car, we go back to my parents' house, Matt and Dad drive to Enterprise to pick up a rental car. We have since returned the rental and are trying out the one-car-family deal while we wait for my car to be repaired. It wouldn't be half-bad if the one car we have remaining wasn't a stick shift that I'm not confident enough to drive solo.

Oh and it turns out my reckless driving is beneficial for my son's verbal development. Caleb has added another few sentences to his word bank:
"Mommy crashed the car."
"Car gotta get fixed."
"They will fix it with a screwdriver."

I never got her name but it was nice running into you ma'am. You made an unpleasant experience pleasant-ish...if that's possible.

A Year of Lessons

Gideon turned one year old today. I feel I've learned quite a bit in the past year. Having children is like being a perpetual student. As a parent, there isn't a day that has passed that I haven't learned something. Sometimes they're vital life lessons, other times it's less important stuff, but there's always something. Here's a brief list of some things I've been taught since having Gideon.

-A mother's heart can indeed be stretched to welcome and love an additional child just as much as she loves the first.
-The newborn sibling makes it way too clear how non-newborn the older sibling is.
-As a couple multiplies their family, their love multiplies as well.
-Having a second child makes it very evident that all children are different and that being a mom does not equip me with the knowledge necessary to fix other people's kids. This is certainly a humbling experience.
-When there's a fussy baby to be soothed, we're willing to takes risks to soothe him.
-Once an especially trying phase of babyhood has passed, the feelings of gratefulness do not fade! I'm still throwing praise up to my main man JC (that's Jesus Christ for those of you not on a first-name basis with him) for getting me through Gideon's first few months.
-Older siblings start using younger siblings far earlier than one might imagine.
-That seriously, even when you think you're having the WORST day ever, there's someone out there having a much worse day. Count your blessings people!
-Everything about being a parent is much less able to be controlled than I had hoped it would be. I'm learning to accept that.
-If there's something special you want to do with your children, don't let the potential stress involved get in the way of sharing the experience with them.
-The magic of Christmas is totally reborn when you have children.

Happy Birthday Gideon! Thanks for being such a great teacher. I'm hopeful I'm returning the favor!

It Came and Went

So, Christmas came and went and I promised myself I'd update the blog with a Christmas post. Then New Year's came and went and I told myself that the first week of January is still sorta-kinda, technically, not really, but excusable enough of a time to do a Christmas post. But that week came and went and I neglected to post...again. So here we are the day before Gideon's first birthday and I'm determined to record this Christmas appropriately since I know tomorrow requires a birthday post. Because in all reality this blog is mostly for me. It's sort of my baby-book/photo-album/memory bank. I apologize that I'm all late with this since you're most likely over the Christmas holiday and now you're shopping for Valentine's goodies or something. But I can't not immortalize my children's Christmas via the interweb, right? Right.

Here are my 2011 Christmas memories:

We decorated for Christmas at our house in mid-December. I was wary of doing so, thinking that both kids would be all about un-decorating the tree. We didn't get/decorate a tree at all last year which was lame and depressing. Turns out, having a tree wasn't so bad. Caleb is becoming a better listener and amazingly, Gideon is not nearly as persistent as Caleb was at his age, so we were easily able to deter him from taking ornaments off the tree.

Caleb decorating with Daddy. 

Matt did an awesome job decorating the outside of our home but I wound up never getting any photos of it. I'm bummed about that. The lights looked great though and as it became dark each night, Caleb would peek out the window and declare, "It's kri-miss!" (rhymes with "Grimace," the purple McDonald's character). He loved looking at the neighbors' lights too and I really looked forward to his nightly excitement.

We headed down to North Carolina to spend Christmas with Matt's family. This includes his mom, dad, two older brothers, future-sister-in-law, his maternal grandparents and Theresa who is a dear family friend. We spent several days there and had a great time! The boys thoroughly enjoyed being completely spoiled and doted on by their relatives. Matt and I even squeezed in some one on one time to do last minute shopping since we had grandparents available and willing to watch the little ones.

Matt's mom had a Power Wheels Jeep for Caleb to play with while we were there. It took Caleb some time to figure out the steering but then he mastered it enough to go in circles and he did so for a while. Future Nascar racer? Perhaps.

Christmas Eve at the Pladna household involves a big Italian meal. Dee-lish! Shortly after dinner, it was bath/bed time for the kids. The boys got matching Christmas jammies from Matt's parents. This is the best picture I have of that. Clearly, they weren't very into the pictures that evening.

Christmas morning, our family was up before anyone else in the house (no surprise there). Nonna Rose woke up and allowed Caleb and Gideon to open a couple of items before the rest of the family woke up. 

One of the things Caleb got was a little pair of real glasses (with plain lenses). He looks SO adorable wearing them.

I was pumped that Matt gave me a new camera, so just for fun, we spent some time doing this:

I got some cute shots of the little guys in their Christmas outfits, courtesy of Nonna Rose.

Nonna Rose and her grandbabies.

I'm thinking he'll be an engineer.

Gideon finally sprouted his upper teeth while we were down there. He literally got his two front teeth for Christmas. Funny.

Gideon took is first steps during our visit. I don't have any photographic or video evidence of that but I wish I did. There are witnesses though. Anyway, he was standing up without holding onto anything and took one step toward me, later he took two. Right foot then left foot then a graceful fall into my arms. He's been working on that ever since. 


Matt and I actually wore real clothes as opposed to the uber-casual look we typically sport . See?

Brett and Kristi brought their new puppies over for everyone to see. Caleb LOVED the puppies, not sure they were very into his eager affection though.

And this is just my husband being himself. I love this man!

Caleb got his first professional haircut while we were there. Thanks Nonna Rose!

Before

After

My absolute favorite picture from our Christmas trip. Gideon with his great-grandfather.

Representing the 1st and 4th of 4 generations.

Wow! After typing it all out, I realize we had quite an eventful holiday in NC. I'm not done yet though and if you're still reading, bless you! We headed home two days after Christmas. We stayed home for a night to recuperate and then headed up to NJ to visit my family. I have some really cute pictures of my kids with their cousins (my sister's three kids) but I'm 98% positive that my sister would prefer I not put pictures of her children on the internet. She's paranoid protective like that. Just trust that they're cute pictures. Other than those, I didn't take any others. Therefore, I have none to share with you. We spent a couple nights in NJ, did the gift-opening thing again, ate a ton of food again, and basked in the joys of being surrounded by family again. It was a great Christmas! I hope your Christmas was great too!

Fibber McGee

As Caleb gets older, his creativity becomes more apparent. A while ago, I wrote about Caleb's attempt to outsource his clean-up task. Well, now he has taken to telling fibs. Last week, Caleb was sitting at the table with a bowl of dry cereal. Gideon was in his highchair eating his own portion of dry cereal. I look up to find Caleb with a tipped bowl of cereal, a naughty look on his face, and the unacceptable action of swiping all the cereal onto the floor. I demanded that he stop doing that and that he pick up the cereal immediately. He started to do so then refused then required a time-out for further convincing. After he served his time, I asked him what he did to get in time-out (the usual question he gets after an offense). He looks up at me wide-eyed and says, "The baby knocked it off the table." Gideon wasn't even in arm's reach of the table.

Yesterday, Caleb followed me into the kitchen. When he spotted a box of Band-Aids sitting on the counter he told me he needed one. I let him know that he did not. With that, he starts hopping up and down and convincingly fake-crying while yelling, "I need a Band-Aid. I have a boo-boo on my foot."

I thought children didn't start telling fibs until they were a bit older. While the act itself is not acceptable, there's a small part of me that's proud Caleb is able to formulate little stories. I've read that it's a sign of intelligence. Or perhaps it's a sign of future sociopathy. I choose to believe the former. Either way, the kid is stinkin' cute!

He's 11-Months-Old. A Month Ago, he was 10-Months-Old.

I'm behind on blogging. Sorry. But here I am ready to record Gideon's 10th and 11th month birthdays.

The past couple of months have come with a bunch of milestones for my little one. It's awesome to watch him grow. It seems like things are happening faster for him than they did for Caleb (at least motor skills-wise, the Gideon is still bald and almost toothless). People tell me that's because Gideon has Caleb to emulate. Whatever the case may be, I wish the kid would SLOW down just a little bit. He's becoming less of a baby by the day and that is bittersweet.

So during month 9 (between October 12th-November 12th) Gideon started crawling on all-fours as opposed to his favored army-crawl. He also started pulling up to standing. I walked into his room one day after his nap and there he was looking like this:

   Yes, of course I lowered the mattress after realizing he mastered this skill.

Note the proud smile.

Midnight snack? (I know he's not doing anything
special here but I thought it was cute.)

The same month marked the eruption of his first tooth and then almost immediately, his second tooth. Finally! I was beginning to think the kid might need dentures. You have to look closely but you can see them here.

Two bottom teeth.

Gideon at 10 months.

Now, month 10 through 11 (we're talking November 12th-December 12th, is this confusing anyone else but me?) was eventful too. It wasn't long (as in only several days after pulling up) before Gideon started cruising. Then those two bottom teeth were two real-deal teeth, not just little nubs. See?

He looks a BUNCH like Matt here.

Gideon celebrated his first Thanksgiving and Matt somehow convinced me to allow Gideon to have some pumpkin pie (perhaps my neurosis is waning). He was very into the pie. It was actually really cute to watch him anticipate each bite. He seemed to enjoy the turkey as well. A couple weeks later, he had his first PB & J and loved it. It was only about a quarter of a sandwich torn into small pieces but he was all about it. He's becoming more adept at eating in general and has started to eat a bit more solid food. He still much prefers what my body serves up and nurses quite a bit. That's fine by me. It's cheaper than solid food, less messy, and it's served with a side of snuggles. Not to mention the perfectly balanced nutritional content, immune system boosters, and the other countless benefits. Can't really beat that.

Gideon's temper has definitely started to show itself recently. His disdain for diaper changes continues and as he gets older and stronger, it becomes markedly more difficult to control his thrashing during said diaper changes. He's also a screamer. When he doesn't get what he wants (picture crawling baby going toward dangerous object and dangerous object being swept up before he gets to it) or when he's done being in the carseat or highchair, he lets us know. Loud and clear.

While we haven't spent nearly the amount of time signing with him as we did with Caleb, our lazy attempts have begun to pay off. He seems to have the "all done" sign down, or at least his version of it.

He babbles a lot and pays very close attention to everything his brother does. This could prove scary when Gideon is more able to imitate Caleb's behavior. He still likes playing with things that spin and roll and he enjoys being turned upside down and being tossed gently into the air. He also now lets go of things after pulling up and can stand on his own for several seconds at a time.

Here's Gideon's 11-month picture. He looks like a toddler already, doesn't he? Ah! Stop growing up so fast baby boy!

Gideon at 11 months.

And in case you're wondering how Caleb is with Gideon now that Gideon is older and more present around the house (i.e. interested in Caleb's toys and food). This picture pretty much sums up what a day in the life of Gideon is like:

Gideon's expression is priceless!

Outsourcing

Caleb becomes more and more clever as the days pass. Recently, he decided to outsource one of his tasks. He had just finished naughtily tossing bits of cheese all over the floor. My response of course was to tell him that this is unacceptable behavior and that his options were to either pick up the cheese or to have a time out. He dutifully got out of his chair and knelt down with me as I directed him to each cheese crumb and instructed that he pick it up and put it in the nearby bowl. After retrieving about three cheese bits and depositing them in the aforementioned bowl, he looks up and says, "Mommy do it," to which I tell him I will not be cleaning up his mess, that he must do it. During this exchange, Gideon has crawled his way over to us. Caleb looks up at me a second time, places a piece of cheese strategically in Gideon's path and says, "Baby eat it." While not the most compliant response to my directions, Caleb did derive two logical solutions to his predicament. I suppose I should be proud.