beanski

"ice fishing"

Sort of weird to be posting pictures of my kids in snowpants with snow on the ground when it was 70 degrees outside today and I have moved on to worrying about getting the lawn raked as opposed to getting the driveway shoveled. But I'm behind. On pretty much everything. I've been exercising at night instead of doing other things. I'm happy about my new pant size but sad about the fact that I'm processing pictures from almost a month ago. Such is life.

We went up to see my parents a few weeks ago and planned on taking Renee and Cameron ice fishing. I hyped it up all week long and then when we got there the ice conditions were questionable and actually driving a car on the ice was deemed stupid. So we took the minnows, got each kid a scoop and a bucket and let them go to town. Yes, my sister and I both had some moral objections to what could be considered torturing those poor little minnows but I can assure you that the kids were properly instructed to be nice to the fishies and they were. Well, unless you count Cameron falling head first into a bucket of ice cold minnow water. But that totally wasn't on purpose! So we're good!

Papa giving a lesson about chubs


We had a picnic lunch in the sauna and I think my son only broke two or three things while he was in there. Miracle!




I snagged this picture of Charlie when we were down there. Are you kidding me with those freckles, kid? CUTEST. EVER.

Charlie and Renee had fun playing together.
 
Until she fell in the snow and couldn't get up. Cousin to the rescue. Except he couldn't lift her. I sat there and laughed and took pictures.
 
I really love this picture of my mom talking to Cam. I'm certain whatever he is showing her is FASCINATING. Probably something like a spatula.

I also really love this one of my mom and my baby. SIGH.

the social life is never going to happen

Friday
5AM - Cam wakes up with a slight fever. I change his wet PJs and he snuggles in and goes back to sleep.
7AM - Renee and Ski wake up. Ski is sick and we wonder if Cam is too. We discuss whether we should go to the cities as planned or not. We wonder if Cam is sick or teething.
3PM - We put the kids in the car to head south. We can't find Simon The Cat so we spend 30 minutes looking for him.
3:30PM - In route. We spend the trip on the iPhone reading reviews about our friend JP's new restaurant. We talk about how excited we are to go out to dinner. I vow to get an appetizer in addition to my meal and dessert. Screw Weight Watchers.
6PM - We arrive at Nena and Grumpa's. Cam clearly has a much higher fever. I run for Panera and muse about how Weight Watchers has clearly brainwashed me when I order a salad and not a French Onion soup bread bowl. OR a chocolate chip cookie.
6:30PM - Take Cam's temperature. 102.9. Pretty clearly not teeth and I'm pretty sure I may have said the F word. More than once.
7PM - Urgent Care check-in.
8PM - Sitting in an Urgent Care chair that is hard is a rock with a desparately wanting to fall asleep baby.
9PM - FINALLY see the doctor. Ear infections in both ears. Antibiotics prescribed.
9:15PM - Fill prescription. Wonder how much this whole thing is going to cost us.
10PM - Administer antibiotic.
10PM - 4AM - Hold squirming, miserable baby begging for sleep. FOR SIX HOURS.

Saturday
4AM - Wake up husband to hold squirming, miserable baby for a while and crawl in bed with thrashing big girl.
7AM - Breakfast. Uneventful despite the fact that no one actually eats anything. MIRACLE.
9AM - Big girl wants a bath RIGHT! NOW! Run bath. Notice little red bumps all over Cam's body.
10AM - Ski takes Cam back to Urgent Care. Nena, Renee and I head for the Mall of America.
11AM - Nena spoils Renee with new outfits, legos, balls. We eat at Noodles for lunch. Clearly the highlight of the trip.
11:15AM - Urgent Care says he's allergic to the antibiotic. OBVIOUSLY. They prescribe another one.
12PM - Clearly no one is napping so I run to Old Navy to try to get something acceptable to wear to dinner with my friends tonight. Ski still thinks we might be able to go.
1:30PM - Serve yet another lunch that no one eats.
3PM-5PM - Walk 27 pound feverish baby to try to get him to nap. No dice. Arms HURT.
5PM - Administer Benadryl because he's scratching his rash and clearly miserable.
5:15PM - Try to shower and get ready for big night out. TRY meaning with two kids climbing the bathroom cabinets going through my makeup.
5:50PM - I take Renee to the potty to find ANOTHER wet pull-up. She's been dry at home for a couple of weeks and decided a weekend away was the perfect time to quit potty training all together. I have to bite my tongue to stop myself from yelling at her.
5:51PM - I notice water on the floor on my in-laws' 4 year old house. Then I notice water dripping from the ceiling.
6:45PM - Nena takes Cam up to try to get him to sleep because she thinks we should still go (despite the whole water dripping through her ceiling thing). He SCREAMS. Then he pukes all over the place.
6:52PM - Ski goes up to sit with Cam.
7PM - We are clearly going to miss our dinner reservation. I'm pretty sure I shed an actual tear about this. I've been SOOO looking forward to it.
7:30PM - Take a very bratty Renee up to bed where she talks back about everything. She says she's "not tired" for the 700th time despite the fact that she is CLEARLY tired.
7:31PM - Page 2 of the book and Cam starts screaming again.
8:30PM - Cam back to sleep. Ask mother-in-law to open a bottle of wine. I reluctantly agree to let her have a glass of it. Ski runs to Chipotle because we're starving.
9:15PM - Five bites in to my burrito and the baby is awake again. I sit with him for a while and then come to grips to the fact that the wine and the burrito are going to sit downstairs without me tonight. I go to sleep without even bothering to brush my teeth. 
10PM - 4AM - See previous night complete with waking the hubs up at 4AM to try to grab a bit of sleep for myself.

This, my friends, is why I never see anyone and why I may never have a social life again.

sixteen months

The biggest change this month has been Cameron's language TAKING OFF. He can hear us say a word a few times and he's saying it in no time. I posted a couple of videos of him talking last night...that can be seen here and here. They make me smile. Like, I watch them on my lunch break at work because I miss him terribly. Right now I feel like I'm missing out on his life when I'm at work. He's changing SOOOO FAST. His favorite words by far are NAE! and Sasha...he says NAE! in an excited tone every single time and he calls both of the cats Sasha. He loves them. For the longest time he called both Ski and I Mama but he started saying Dada recently.

He is unabashedly a Daddy's boy. He's gotten better about accepting that it's my turn to do things for him once in a while but he mostly would prefer for Daddy to lug him around all day every day. He still dives at everything on the counters and my back just can't take it so I put him down and he goes back to trying to scale my legs saying UP! I still haven't gotten him in for his 15 month well baby visit (FAIL!) but the scale at home says he weighs about 26 pounds. He's still wearing mostly 12-18 month pants and mostly 18-24 month shirts.

He's standing right there in the window with Renee yelling MAMA! and jumping up and down when I pull in to daycare to get them and I literally sprint out of the car waving and smiling because they are just so happy to see me. It is so weird to have both of them up there, so weird that I have two of the big kids now and not a baby.
Renee is really starting to include him in her games and it just KILLS me. When we're outside playing she'll ask if Cameron wants to come up on her playground and go down the slide. When she's playing in a tent or riding bikes she wants him right there with her. It works out great because he wouldn't want to be anywhere else. He WORSHIPS her. They still have their moments where they fight and argue about who gets which toy but Cam is starting to understand when I tell him that it is Renee's turn and she's getting better about accepting that she just has to wait for a few minutes for her turn.  

I love how he picks up the phone and says HELLOOO and how he doesn't really care if he has a phone or not...he'll just pretend with his hand. He'll say Rama! or Papa! because sometimes I let him talk to them on the phone. He gets so excited when he hears a voice on the other end of the line saying his name.  

He still doesn't eat much...just grilled cheese sandwiches, grapes and avocados. I'm still giving him milk out of a bottle a couple of times a day. Shh, don't tell anyone. He really doesn't like milk out of a cup and will throw it on the floor and say BOT! requesting a bottle. I don't get too worked about it because he's such a busy little guy and those few minutes a day when he settles in and drink his milk are literally the only minutes of the day that he sits still. And Mommy wants to hold him. SO THERE.

He love, love, LOVES to be outside and throws Category Five fits when we try to take him inside. He likes to push around the little lawnmower and ride in his car. When we get home from work and I try to make a move to go straight into the house, he acts like I am torturing him. The other day I was right on the border of peeing my pants and I tried to tell him that we were just going to go in while Mommy went to the potty and he threw himself on the floor of the entry way and screamed for ten straight minutes. He stopped the INSTANT we walked back outside.
I just love him, every single thing about him. He's so particular and funny and stubborn. We were walking down the street yesterday enjoying the warm weather and he kept letting go of my hand and running away and I would catch up to him and insist that he hold Mommy's hand on the road and he would giggle and run away again. I told him that he's stubborn just like his Mama and then I looked around at the snow melting and I watched Michael up ahead with Renee on her trike and all I could think was that life just doesn't get any better than this.