More of "dad's way"

One more thing Trav did a little different than I usually do. I was at work again, and when I came home, I checked on both kids before I went to bed. Lauren looked fine in her crib, Ryan wasn't in his bed - must be laying in our room with Daddy. So I go get Ryan and pick him up to bring him into his own room. As I carry him, I notice he has his Spider Man top on and a different pair of pj pants - he must have had an accident, I'll ask Trav about it tomorrow. After tucking Ryan into bed, I head into the bathroom to get ready for bed. This is where I see how Trav handled Ryan's accident . . . there are his Spider Man pants and undies laying in the bathtub - why Travis puts the clothes in the tub, I have no idea. I decide to pick up the clothes and am surprised when I notice that his undies have a little extra color to them - brown! So he didn't pee his pants, he must have had a number 2 accident (his still has diarrhea pretty bad). Trav must think throwing the clothes in the tub will magically make the poo disappear- oh, if it really did work that way. I try to wash out the undies as best as I can, but the stain doesn't go away completely - set in poo is very hard to get out of clothes, why didn't he just wash it out when it happened, I'll have to ask him in the morning. So morning comes, and I ask him about Ryan's accident and tell him about the stain in his undies. Trav's response, "just throw them away." Gosh, why didn't I think of that! That is the obvious answer, one of the kids has an accident, just throw the clothes away - after all, we have money coming out of our ears so it's no big deal!

The "dad" way

I left for work at 5:30pm last night - no more incidents with either kid so maybe Trav will have a good night. I take my break at 8:00 and see there is a missed call from Trav - something had to happen with one of the kids. I listen to the message, and to my surprise, no mention of sick kids, instead, he tells me he has fixed the dryer - hallelujah!! So I call Trav to see what he did and ask about the kids. Turns out Lauren threw up again - it was all over her, the crib, and her blankets - that is the bad news, but the good news is that it only took 30 minutes to dry the load of laundry Trav did after getting Lauren back to sleep. Yes, I said it, Trav did a load of laundry by himself while managing both kids - I must be dreaming. Trav assures me everything at the house is fine, he got Lauren cleaned up and back to sleep and Ryan is in bed - sounds good to me. When I get home from work, I check on both kids. Ryan is tucked in bed sound asleep. I go check on Lauren next and have to laugh when I see what Trav did as "clean-up" for the crib and Lauren. Lauren is sleeping in a onsie even though it is 40 degrees outside - whatever, he has her heater turned up to 70 so she should be warm, but the real funny thing is what he decided to do to replace the bedding she threw up on. I would have put on her other mattress pad and sheets and finished it off with a new blanket, but Trav took the simple route - no mattress pad, no sheet, heck, he didn't even give her a blanket, nope, he opted a bath towel spread out on her mattress - not two towels to cover the entire mattress, just one towel at one end of the crib (just enough for her to lay on) - at least it was one of our nicer, fluffier towels. Oh to think like he does - life would be easier, but probably not as comfortable. I'm just happy he got through the night and even did a little cleaning along the way - I give him an "A" for effort.

Here is a picture of our poor little girl laying on her towel.

Ryan is feeling better - even good enough to try out his new (new to him at least) Spider Man pajamas. A lady my dad works with was nice enough to pass on her son's cool pjs so Ryan could enjoy them - we love hand-me-downs!

Oh shit!

I literally mean, oh shit, here it comes again. It seems both of the kiddies have picked up some kind of bug and the result is a house full of poo - so fun! When the kids woke up this morning, everything was as it usually is. About an hour and a half after waking up, Lauren started getting cranky so I gave her a bottle and put her down for a nap - nothing too unusual, but it was about an hour earlier than normal, and she only drank half the bottle - this IS unusual - the girl likes her food so I should have known something was up. When she woke up from her nap, I went to her crib to find it full of her breakfast - I literally had to scoop out mashed up bananas with a spoon from her crib - gross! After getting that little mess cleaned up, I went to throw all of her bedding in the washer, oh wait, the dryer is broke so this isn't going to work. Luckily I called my neighbor, and she was nice enough to let me borrow her dryer so I could get the mess cleaned up today versus waiting until Saturday (the day the dryer is getting fixed). Shortly after that, Ryan ran into the bathroom. Within seconds of being in there, I hear, "I got the sharts." Great, well at least he made it to the bathroom so the clean-up shouldn't be too bad. Of course it wasn't that simple, yes, some of the poo made it into the toilet, but the rest of it was in his pants and undies - fabulous - one more mess to clean up. After the activities of the morning, I packed the kids in the stroller for a short walk. Upon arriving home, Ryan was back in the bathroom - I'm assuming everyone can figure out what happened so I won't write it out again. Lauren was getting fussy again - thought maybe she wanted to eat - nope, just sleep - very odd. Both of the kids took naps without eating lunch -maybe they just need a little extra rest. After her nap, Lauren and I went downstairs to hang out until Ryan woke up. Unfortunately, she didn't last that long as she had a little (big) sharting incident of her own. One minute she is playing, the next, I hear a rather juicy farting sound - this can't be good. She starts crying, I pick her up, and there is shit everywhere - up her back, leaking out of her pants, everywhere (including the new carpet). Her clean-up takes a little longer as she needs a bath (or a hose down) to get rid of everything and a couple of towels and blankets need to be washed - time to call the neighbor again to secure some "dryer time" - thank god for nice neighbors! So that is my day so far (it is only 4:00pm). Luckily I have to work tonight so Daddy gets to take over the "shit patrol" - oh, how I wish I could be around to see his first clean-up. Somehow I could see myself getting a call at work to come home - we'll see.

Enough with that crap (literally), here are a couple of pictures of the kids. Ryan went on his first field trip yesterday to a local pumpkin patch where he got his face painted. Lauren is showing off her new pink sweater from her future Auntie Ann - doesn't she look cute!

I hope my kids don't read this someday and get mad at me for writing about their pooping issues. I just look at it as my right as I am the lady who gets to clean up after them - sounds about right doesn't it?

Enjoying the outdoors

The weather has been pretty nice lately so we are taking full advantage by getting outside as much as possible before it won't be an option anymore. Here are some random pictures during one of our backyard outings. It is so nice that Lauren can get down and play on the ground now - it is so much easier than trying to hold her and play with Ryan at the same time.
Ryan was loving the camera this day (as you can tell by the many poses he did for me) until Daddy came home. Then he had no time for it and hid until I put it away - can't blame him, the poor kid has a camera in his face almost daily. I can't help it, it is just too fun to stop.

Nurse Auntie

Auntie passed her Nursing Boards!! We are so proud of her. I'm not sure if she'll go by Nurse Auntie or not, but that is what Ryan calls her. When we found out (she called at 7 in the morning to tell us), we decided we would head to St. Peter for the afternoon to spend some time with her, and Grandma and Grandpa too. It was a perfect day outside so we took the kids to the park to run and play. Ryan found a "grill" to play with for a while and Grandma kept Lauren busy on the swings - it was fun for everyone. I of course brought my camera to get a few pics. My favorite is this one of Auntie . . .She is deep in thought here. She's probably regretting passing her test because now she has to get a job, pay her own bills, and be a real live grown-up. The caption should be, "oh, sh**, what have I done!"

Back to the kids. Here are a couple of action shots from the afternoon.

After a quick visit back at Grandma and Grandpa's house, we packed up and headed back home, had supper, baths, and went to bed. It was a fun way to spend the day - something a little different than usual.

WAY TO GO ASH!

Where's Ryan?

Is there such thing as too much camouflage? Not if you ask Ryan. In fact, the more he wears, the less anyone can see him - how cool is that? So today, he decided to really go all out. He wore his "army" pants along with his "army" shirt and socks, and to top off the outfit, he put on his matching "army" coat and hat - he was practically invisible. Luckily he was nice enough to let me get a few pictures before he disappeared into the surroundings - check it out.After I was done taking pictures, Ryan went back into "hiding" so we weren't able to see him for a while. But, it appears as though Lauren may have some kind of super power as she was still able to track him down in hiding and in full camo gear - simply amazing. Here are a couple of pictures of her when she finds Ryan "hiding" behind our bedroom door. She was so excited to find him - look how happy she is.
I had to put the last one in because that is her "signature" face. She breaks it out whenever things get a little out off control in her world, which is usually a couple of times a day - such a precious little girl isn't she.

"Act like a mom, Mom"

Ryan's mouth is still going . . .

A little background on things before I tell the story. Ryan has been a "big boy" at our house pretty much since Lauren arrived. He was no longer the baby, and he wanted everyone to acknowledge that. Seeing as though the "big boy" status is so important to him, he hates it when anyone calls him a baby. Unfortunately though, there are still days when he whines, cries, and just plain acts like a baby. During those rare (maybe not so rare) moments, I'll say, "quit acting like a baby." Regardless of what he is doing, his usual comeback is, "I'm not a baby, I'm a big boy" and then I'll comeback with, "well act like a big boy then." Our conversation usually ends after that and he gets over whatever is causing his issue and we get on with things. So there is the background for today's story.

So, the kids and I were down stairs playing today - Ryan and I were playing cars and Lauren was getting into whatever she could find - I seriously have to do some better baby proofing, she will crawl, grab, and pull everything in sight - nothing like her calm, cautious big brother was when he was a baby. Anyway, back to the story. So there we are playing our never ending game of cars - basically we raced around pretend roads, then parked in our pretend garages, fixed our cars, then did the whole thing over again about 100 times - needless to say, I was getting a little bored with it. So I decide we should do something else and Ryan has no time for it, he really wants to play cars still. I decide if I have to keep playing this little game, I'm going to spice things up a bit and make my car be super fast and do really cool flips in the air - none of this sounds remotely good to Ryan, but I just keep on (like any good mother would, right?). After a couple minutes of me not following Ryan's strict rules for the game, he grabs my car and holds up his hand at me and says, "Stop it and act like a mom, Mom." Really? So does this mean I'm a bad mom because my very own son is not pleased with my actions, or does it mean he is super lame and needs to loosen up a bit - you be the judge.

Either way, it was yet another new thing Ryan has picked up on and started using in his own vocabulary. I'm seriously going to have to start thinking hard about the things I say and what it could mean if Ryan starting using my own words against me - kind of scary.