beanski

dear cameron

Dear Cameron,

I think I’ll always say it on your birthday, or at the very least always think it, but I can’t even believe another year has gone by and that you are now a three year old. It seems like just yesterday you were still a chubby little toddler in your diaper excited about excavators and your dirt cake. You still had rolls on your thighs and a mullet of curls. I miss them.

Now, you are a boy. You drive a tractor like it’s nobody’s business. Seriously, it is the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life and the one single part of your second year that I will absolutely never forget. You stand up when you are going downhill like my outdoorsy boyfriends did while driving their four wheelers in high school and that isn’t a learned behavior because you’ve never seen another person do it. It is just intrinsic to your nature. You shift that sucker into second gear and you get this look on your face like you are thrilled by the speed of it and you tear down the driveway, laying off the gas at the precise moment you need to in order to skid the tires out and spin 180 degrees JUST in time to not run into one of the cars. Your sister runs and hides when she hears your tractor because she is completely terrified by the way you drive it and to be honest, I think it horrifies your father as well. But, I cannot explain to you how much I love to watch you.

You love trains and big trucks and anything that has a trailer and a boat. Basically you love anything with wheels. You still love keys. Your fascination with keys is something that I will never ever understand. You will stand next to me and demand that I move the keys from one key ring to another over and over again. You put our keys in the weirdest places and it drives us both absolutely insane. But I love it anyways because it is just so YOU.

You cut dad and me a break and were potty trained in like two days. I hesitate to even put that out there for fear that all of the people that have promised me that you’ll regress as soon as the new baby comes will be right, but I don’t think so. You hate to have wet pants and you are absolutely disgusted by the thought of pooping in your pants. I think you had about a dozen accidents total in the first two weeks you went without diapers which pretty much makes you a potty training super star. You never made me scrape poop out of underwear like your sister did and for that, my son, I cannot thank you enough. It’s like you realized how big of a challenge you’ve been about pretty much every other big transition in your life and you just decided that you weren’t going to make us suffer during the whole potty training thing. Now let’s just work a bit on your aim, OK?

You are going to make us pay the ultimate price for ever even once letting you sleep in our bed. I have already resigned myself to sleeping in your bed with the baby once he comes because I know there is absolutely no chance in hell that I’m going to get you out of our bed without the biggest throw down in history. You had a cold last week and dad got your vaporizer hooked up in your room and then hooked up a vaporizer in our room as well anticipating your inevitable arrival and you looked at the vaporizer in our room on your way to the bath and said, “That’s for when I come into your room, right?” After I picked my jaw up off of the floor, I made your dad swear that he didn’t tell you why he was doing it and the only logical conclusion we came to is that you made that deduction yourself. It blew me away. It also made me laugh hysterically.

You have a knack for that. You make everyone laugh hysterically. You are absolutely the life of the party and you have always commanded the attention of everyone in every room you’ve ever entered. Becky at daycare has told me repeatedly that while you might be one of the most challenging kids she’s ever had at daycare, you are also the funniest. She said she has more Cameron stories than any other. You love people. Like any person. You love it when they look at you and you love to make them laugh. You turn into the craziest little thing on the planet when we have company running around like a maniac and talking a million miles a minute. Renee and dad and I are all pretty quiet people but you make up for it and this house is far from quiet with you living in it. When you are in a room, you won’t ever be missed. I hope you never lose that.

You are a daddy’s boy to the core and while there are glimpses here and there of you turning into a mommy’s boy, all it takes is for you to get a cold or for me to have a bad day and you go right back to clinging to him. When you are sick you want absolutely nothing to do with me and if your dad has the audacity to not be sitting next to you every single second of the day, you whine. You are the world’s best whiner. You have turned whining into an art form. Not a day goes by that I don’t tell you that "I don’t speak whine” and you know what? You just go right on whining anyways. You are three in every sense of the word three and throw a mean temper tantrum. You throw a mean temper tantrum every seventeen seconds it seems somedays.

But, at the core, you are a lover. You are compassionate and caring. You are a thoughtful little boy that watches out for the kids that are smaller than you at daycare. You cry every time Nena and Grandpa or Rama and Papa leave because you just want them to stay here with you. I fell down the stairs a few weeks ago and your concern and how you touched me on the shoulder and earnestly promised, "It will be OK, mom, I promise" as the tears flowed down my face and how you cried too just at the thought of me crying is something I won't forget. I love you, son, and even if somedays you pretend you don't, I know you love me too.

Happy Third Birthday, buddy, my bug, my little Bubba Dude.
Mama

the word busy doesn't cut it

I mailed out close to 800 busy bags yesterday. Once I got over the initial shock that the boxes I had asked $5 for return postage were going to cost me from $12-$20 each to send, I breathed an enormous sigh of relief that I actually managed to get them done. Renee has played with a few of the bags and she LOVED them. I'm excited for everyone to get them and to hear how their kids do with them. I was up with contractions all night long a few nights ago and was starting to seriously worry that my dining room would be covered in busy bags forever because I was certain I was going to go into labor before I got a chance to mail them out.

That isn't the case. I'm still pregnant. Hugely pregnant. Wearing my husband's shirts and cringing when I get a glimpse of myself in the mirror pregnant.

My friend Heather has been insistent on taking some maternity pictures of me before this baby comes and I have given every excuse in the book. The first being that I just don't feel or look at all cute, followed promptly by I'm just too effing busy to do anything except survive. But, I am going tomorrow morning and I'm going to own my fat face and my enormous, three times stretched to an oblivion baby belly. Because this really is it. These kicks to the pelvic bone that knock me off of my feet are the last painful baby kicks I'm ever going to feel. And I'm sure someday I'll even look back fondly on my three chins.

The baby has dropped, of that I'm certain. The heart burn has turned into pelvic pain. I honestly feel like he could fall right out at any moment when I'm walking down the street. I got the project I've been working on at work for the last five years done, saw my mom through a minor surgery and now I just have to throw a 3rd Birthday Party for my first son next weekend and after that, #3 is absolutely welcome to fall on out of there anytime. I mean, as long as someone is there to catch him.

Dear son, could we go into labor mid-day instead of the middle of the night crap your brother and sister pulled? Just once, I'd like to show up to L&D with a husband with the other kids at daycare and not racing around in the middle of the night waking up all of my friends and starting the whole birthing process exhausted. Work with me here, OK? Please?

I'd ask you to sleep through the night on our first night together and to try not to shred my nipples too bad when you're learning how to nurse but after the other two, I know those are unrealistic expectations. All I'm asking for at this point is morning or mid-day start to labor and for you to come out healthy and happy. After that, well, we'll make it work.

And if you do, by some act of God, manage to sleep and eat like a good little boy, I'll promise to buy you a pony. That your brother and sister won't be allowed to ride.

the guilt

You kind of forget about this part of pregnancy. At least I did. The part where you feel like time is ticking by too quickly and it is running out on your other kids. You watch them play and you soak them in and you hug them extra tight because you just know that you'll wake up one day a year from now and the baby haze will be lifting and you'll have a five year old and an almost four year old and you'll wonder where they went.

When he begged for me to lay down with him at naptime today, I did it even though I had a lot of work/cooking/projects already slotted for naptime. I laid down with him because he usually picks dad and has lately been picking mom and it is a wonderful change of pace for me. I laid down with him and I smelled his hair that is getting courser and courser by the day because I know. I know that in a couple of months I won't have the luxury of laying down with him for an hour. I know how much I'll miss him.

When I took her last week to for her well child visit (three months late) and the doctor wanted to get her caught up on her shots and I agreed to let her have four shots at once, something I never ever do with the kids because I'm so afraid of pumping them full of all that crap at the same time and them having a reaction and me not knowing what it is from and she cried so hard and made desparate noises that I never hear come out of her, I totally took her straight home and curled up on the couch with her. I felt so motherly, so protective of her. I just couldn't bear the thought of sending her to preschool after that. I couldn't bear the thought of being away from her after that. I took her home and I let her watch 14 episodes of Scooby Doo and I let her eat her lunch in the living room and then took her to the mall for new books and make-up and few dozen rides on the carousel. I let her do what she wanted for an entire day because I know that it won't be long now and I won't have the option of spending an entire day with just my favorite girl. 

After a week of panicking about not getting enough done, not being ready for the baby to come, being angry and annoyed with everything going around me, I stopped tonight for a few minutes to look through the pictures I've taken in the last two weeks and I realized something. I am getting something done. I am spending time with my children. I am soaking them up and I'm taking them out for breakfast and then to the Rose Garden to play and then to Great Harvest for cookies after because right now I can and in a few months I know I'll have a newborn's schedule to contend with. I'm using my vacation time to make sure my girl knows how much I love her instead of sewing crib skirts and I'm getting down on the floor to play trains and legos and Polly Pockets even when it hurts because in just a couple of months I'll have arms full of a baby and I I know that I won't care what isn't done in the nursery, I'll just miss my big kids.


I realized today that I do have control over what is going on around me and I'm making the right choice. I'm choosing my kids. And for the first time in weeks, I think I'll sleep OK tonight.

first annual camping trip

Everyone has a friend like Lindsey, I suppose. Or if they are lucky like me, they have a handful of friends like Lindsey. Friends where the loyalty never runs out, where time never changes the friendship, where you can sit down for a drink or a dinner after a year of hardly talking and have a ton of things to talk about. Where there isn't judgements or hurt feelings or childish games ... there is just a mutual understanding that you both care about each other no matter what. Time or distance or divorces or not becoming sister-in-laws like we once planned or three kids under four can't change the history, can't ruin the friendship. When things slow down, you'll pick up where you left off. It's the way real friendships work.

When she mentioned that she and Steve were going to take the kids camping on Rainy, I jumped at the chance to go along and knowing that my sister and her kids would love it as well, I invited them along. It was our First Annual Kid's Camping Trip on Rainy and I can't wait for next year. 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 4, 2 were the ages of the kids that went and they all got along so great. The big kids helped out with the little kids and the little kids watched in awe as the big kids did things like surf behind the boat.

Charlie and Andy became fast friends and spent most of the weekend racing up and down the trail in the lastest form of extreme sports. If you can make it to the end without falling and cracking your skull open, you're tough.


Katie helped out with the little kids and with the cooking and putting the tent up. And I realized what it's going to be like to have one girl and two boys. Loud and busy with a touch of drama thrown in for good measure.


And Chris tied fishing lines for the little kids without complaining even once and showed us that it is indeed possible to surf behind a boat (and wake board, tube, and any other trick that is possible to be done behind a boat)


We played UNO during the rainstorm that dropped down buckets of water and left us all with wet feet and wet clothes. No one even cared.



I got to spend time with my sister and my niece and nephew and it felt so good to see them all smiling so hard.


We spent hours on the boat, watching the kids on the tube or swimming until our toes were almost permanently pruned. My little girl told me every 10 seconds that she wanted to swim all day every day. She's going to be an Aqua Bronc in no time.





We fished. Or at least pretended to. The boys did catch a few Northerns off the dock.


And we slept in a tent for the first time as a family, me halfway pregnant with number three. It rocked my world and my little girl LOVED everything about it.

We sat by the fire and we made s'mores and we told stories.

And we enjoyed the beauty of Rainy Lake.



I think it's safe to say everyone had a blast. We can't wait for next year.

mommy days

The first words out of Renee's mouth almost every single morning are "Is it a Mommy Day today?" She's a homebody just like Ski and I. Her attitude gets more and more rotten the more weekends in a row we are traveling. She needs down-time. When I went down to 32 hours a week, Cameron was still an infant and most of those Fridays were just plain hard. I would wake up and beg Ski to stay home and help me and not a Friday went by that I didn't ask myself why on earth I was giving away hundreds of dollars a month to do this.

But in the last six months, it has shifted. I crave the time at home with my kids as much as they do. I look forward to what we're going to do and checking the weather on Thursday to make our plans for our Mommy Day is one of my favorite parts of the week. My job has been very uncertain lately and we've been looking around at alternatives, both in the area and elsewhere. And while it is really fricking tempting to pack up and move ... especially on a day when it has been SNOWING ALL DAY IN APRIL after SEVEN LONG MONTHS of winter ... I just am not sure I could ever voluntarily give up my Mommy Days.

Some days we run errands. Some days we clean the bathrooms (which they love to help with, by the way). Some days we go to the Aquarium or the museum. And some days we stay in our pajamas all day and eat frosting right out of the jar. We're lucky like that.
 
 

bath-time

 
Seven seconds after this picture was taken my son pulled my daughter's hair and tried to push her under water. No lie. Just goes to show you that one picture can tell a story or a thousand lies.

the nuk

I have a confession. Just last week I was one of THOSE moms. 

The mom who lether two year old son wonder around Target with a Nuk hanging out of his mouth. The mom who would tell her son to take his Nuk out of his mouth when he was trying to tell her something and it wasn't because she couldn't understand what he was saying, it was because she allowed him to have that stinking thing hanging out of his mouth at all moments of the day. I was the mom that I judged so many years ago. Taking away a Nuk or teaching a child to put his/her pee in the potty or breastfeeding exclusively for the first year sounds a lot easier when you aren't the one having to follow through on it every single minute of every day.

Last week he started biting holes in his Nuks. He's getting his two year molars and I'm sure it felt good to chomp down on them. I told him that when he bit a hole in his last Nuk that we weren't getting anymore. I shot down the idea of just going to Target (can't you just go to Target to get ANYTHING, mom?) and I told him that he was a big boy now. Every time I said the words, I shuttered. Cameron doesn't calm easily. He's a high energy kid and that damn pacifier was the only thing that gave me five minutes of peace and quiet during the day. How on earth was I going to live without it?

I sent him to daycare for two days without a Nuk and haven't had any lying around the house this week and my boy curled up next to me to read his books tonight and he didn't even ask for it. When I tucked him in to bed without it tonight, I mourned the last sign of my baby and I felt a tad guilty that I've been shoving that thing in his face for so long when he didn't even need it.

But, more than the guilt or the sadness, I'm proud. I'm proud of the little boy he's become and I'm proud that the two of us handled yet another transition together.
 

winter wonderland

One of my many attempts at a Christmas card picture. This one involved dad throwing snowballs at them from over my shoulder. It wasn't exactly what I was going for to put on a card but I love it for a lot of reasons. The way Renee scrunches up her nose when she's giggling. The way Cameron shouts at the top of his lungs when he thinks something is funny. I love the two little goofballs.
 

happy birthday, baby

Don't ask why he's only wearing a diaper and socks because honestly I have no idea. I do know that the moment when he ran to me for reassurance when we started singing Happy Birthday may go down in history as one of my favorite moments ever. The way he plastered his shy little head to my shoulder and peeked back at everyone there to sing to him. He was so excited about his day that not even a blizzard or an incredibly stressful week leading up to the big day could put a damper on his happiness. My baby boy is two...one day I'll wake up and he'll be 15. I will hang onto moments like these and one thing is absolutely sure: I need to take more videos.

Sorry that the video is sideways. Turn your head and shut up. I don't have the energy to even try to fix it.

dear cameron

Not a day goes by that you don't give me a run for my money and today on your second birthday I want to take the time to set the record straight and tell you a secret: Your enthusiasm, your feistiness, your complete refusal to do a single thing you don't want to do is my absolute favorite thing about you. The way you throw your little body on the floor and kick your feet and scream NO over and over and over again when you don't get your way. The way you refuse to accept that you're too little to do some things and manage to keep up with every single thing your big sister does. The way you aggressively wrestle yourself to the floor in the middle of the night and then look up at me through eyes that are still half of sleep and say "MOMMY, LAY DOWN FLOOR." I try to tell you that you need to sleep in your bed and mommy needs to sleep in her bed and well, you don't really care what I say. You just do whatever you want anyways.

For every moment I've spent worrying that I'm steering you wrong, there are twice as many moments that I have been so incredibly proud of how sure of yourself you are. I usually try to pawn your bull-headedness off on your father and he usually chuckles a little under his breath because I think we both know that you get your stubbornness from me. I'm proud of that.

You have the greatest laugh on planet earth and I've told your dad more than once that you could bring world peace with that laugh. I can be having the worst day and be at the very final end of my rope with you and you laugh and everything melts away and I smile and I forget all of the problems.

You love my (eggless) banana bread more than anyone has ever loved anything I've ever baked before and it makes my heart smile to watch you jump up and down next to the oven screaming "BANA BED! BANA BED!" when you know I'm making it for you. I know the recipe by heart, son, that's how often I make it for you. Watching your face light up after you get that first sweet bite and hearing you demand MORE! makes me just keep right on making banana bread twice a week.

I'm fairly certain you are going to eat us out of house and home. It blows my mind when you take town six chicken nuggets to Renee's two and then ask for more avocado. You can eat as much cereal for breakfast in the morning as your father does. You'll usually try the main course of anything I make but you avoid the vegetables like the plague. I'd really love to know how you knew that you didn't like the beets I made the other night having never had a beet before. It's like your vegetable radar went off and you were like "Oh hell no, lady, get that healthy crap away from me." That, my dear, you get from your father. I just want to be clear that not everything is my fault.

You're built like a Full Back. I sometimes say that you are built like a Linebacker and your dad corrects me and tells me you're more like a Full Back. I don't really know what a Full Back is but I know you are BIG. You have a broad chest and huge feet and hands. I love it when people call you "sturdy" and it happens a lot. Your feet and hands are bigger than your sister's already and you totally have her by weight as well. If you're all grown up and reading this, call your sister and tell her you're sorry for all of the times you hit her like a Full Back, okay? Poor little thing takes the brunt of your aggressiveness.

You love cords and trying to figure out how to plug everything in. You REALLY love keys. We currently only have one key to each car because you take them and you put them in the ignition and you "DRIVE IT" and then you forget how awesome driving it is and you lose them. You will once in a while play with trucks and cars. You really, really, really love the vacuum. I mean, like ANY vacuum. The shop vac, the regular vac, the little hardwood floor vac. You just lose your mind when I tell you I'm going to vacuum. You LOVE to help me clean. You got so excited when it snowed a couple of weeks ago that you went running downstairs at 5:50AM screaming "BOOTS! COAT! HAT! SHOVEL!" because you just couldn't wait to get out there and clean it up. I cultivate this in you because son, you are my only hope to get out of cutting the grass and shoveling the snow. Sure, your dad does it if he has to but he makes it clear how much he hates it. Not you. YOU CAN'T WAIT! I hope you never, ever lose that. Mommy needs you, my boy.

You love to be laughed at. You will tell the same joke at the same time every single night if it gets a laugh out of us once. We got through the "Who's turn is it to read books to whom?" game every night while you guys are in the bath tub and when it's my turn to read your books you ALWAYS say "NO, DADDY'S TURN. Daddy read my books night" And then you get this sweet little grin on your face that tells me I'm not so bad afterall. Thanks for tolerating me kid, I need the snuggles. You're growing up too fast.

You pat me on the back when I pick you up or when you're hugging me and you like your kisses on your forehead. Those are two of my favorite things you do. I hope I never forget the sincerity in those pats because it is in those I'm certain that you're telling me that you love me as much as I love you. And son? That's an awful lot.

Happy Birthday, Bubby, Bug, Roonie, Bubba, C-Man, my baby boy. You'll always be my baby boy.
Mama