How to Scare the Crap out of Mommy, by Maya

First, go to bed perfectly, with all your buddies you need in your bed and your blanket.

Next, look cute and perfect when your mom comes in to check on you when she goes to bed. Gather your buddies around you at some point so she takes a picture. She'll move them when she's done.

Now is the fun part. At about 12:57 am, scream for Mommy. Don't make it too loud, but sound scared, this will get her out of bed with only one shout out.

Then, when you know she's going to get out of bed, you need to get out of your bed and disappear. You've got a little time, Mommy is probably a little out of it. She's going to notice your door is shut, and she left it open. She opens the door and you are not in your bed. She will blink her eyes to make sure you aren't there (she hasn't put on her glasses).

Now is the part where Mommy will start to freak out. She will say your name repeatedly, each time sounding a little more frantic. She will look in the office, out in the kitchen and living room. After about 4 or five times, Daddy's going to get up. He will ask, "you can't find Maya?" Mommy says, "No, she's not in her bed!" Daddy will get up. "Did you check Hayden's room?" Mommy will check your brother's room, nope, just he and the dog sleeping are the only ones sleeping away.

By now, Mommy's heartrate is probably higher than when she is upstairs at the gym. But it looks like Daddy sees something.

Daddy lifts up the bedskirt and there you are! With a quick tug and pull, Daddy will get you back in your bed, tell you nice job hiding, but not funny. Mommy will come over, call you "Stinkerbell" and give you a kiss on your forehead.

Mommy's heart will slow down as she gets back in bed. Mommy and Daddy will have a little chuckle and chat about what just happened. When you wake up, you may or may not remember what happened, because you may or may not have been sort of sleepwalking. But, Mommy will just be thankful you were still in your room.

What's going on in her lil noggin?

It's been a rough week. Some of this reasoning is the whole trying to teach Miss the whole going to the potty thing.

This is what I think is going through Maya's head about this whole potty-training fiasco: "Seriously, this whole going on the toilet thing is a joke. If I sit on the toilet, do what I am supposed to, I get praised, treats and cheers. But, I am going to have to wipe MYSELF, flush MYSELF, pull up my own pants and to top it off, get to the toilet on time. However, if Mommy or Daddy put a diaper or Pull-Up on me, they: clean me up, throw the dirty goods away, help me put my pants back on and I get clean drawers. Plus, I can do it anywhere, in any room, at any time and I don't have to make a mad dash to any toilet. I don't get the praise I do like. I don't get a treat, in fact they seem a little upset when I don't use the toilet. But it's so much easier and I just wanna play."

And me, I'm tired, worn out, completely just don't want to do this anymore. Maybe going to Grandma's will help.

The Big P T

We are potting training now. Have been for awhile. It's been slow going with this one. Very, slow, going.

Whoever says that girls are easier to train than boys did not meet my boy and my girl. Hayden was actually pretty easy. I chock some of it up to his best buddy doing it at the same time. I was also more forceful with it because preschool was coming up and Baby was on the way and there was NO WAY I was having two kids in diapers at the same time. Hayden's actual "training" was maybe a month. He loved hearing us say, "Good job!" and "I am so proud of you." This was a big influence on him. If we didn't say one of these when he was done he would say, "Say you're so proud of me!"

Once, after lunch at the Rainforest Cafe with my parents, we all went to the restroom before we left. Hayden insisted on going with Grandma. When he came out, he had a big smile. I asked if he went and he said, "yep." I said my, "Good Job!" When I came out, he asked if I went. I said, "Yes." He said, "Good job!" =) I haven't gotten a 'Good job' from Miss yet.

Maya doesn't really seem to care. By this age, Hayden was completely trained, in underwear during the day and Pull-Ups at night. Maya, is still in diapers at night, Pull-Ups day. She really doesn't seem to care. We do the "Good job!" and "So proud of you." thing with her too. She gets a big smile and says "Thanks" most of the time and then two hours later she's wet.

However, the last couple days, she has started realizing when she has to go, so I think we may be on the right track. My goal is to be done in two weeks because we are heading out of state for a couple weeks after that. Her goal is whenever, she just wants Minnie Mouse underwear.

Lil Miss Attitude

This little one has been a BEAR lately. My fingers are tightly crossed that this is being caused by growing pains/teeth/being two. My bet is on being two and since that is about to end in two months time, I will try to cope.

Maya is loving the word 'No.'

Maya is not eating meat, unless it's in the form of a nugget and even then it's a struggle.

Maya is pulling attitude with hands on hips, head going to and fro, and eye rolling.

Maya does not allow others to pick her clothes.

Maya likes to tell us, Hayden included, that she doesn't love us or like us. Depends on the degree of trauma apparently.

Maya is addicted to Mickey Mouse and pals, meaning not just the show. Fit upon fit is thrown when it has to be turned off mid-show.

Maya insists on: buckling herself in the car; she's not strong enough. Closing her door from the inside; she can't reach. Putting the cover on her sippy's; it takes a while. Getting herself dressed; she's just a tad on the slow side when I need her on the speed side.

Maya is kinda mean to her brother. This girl hits. Hard.

I know these are all things that most kids and parents have to go through, I just don't remember Hayden being like this at 2. He was fun at 2! He loved to help, was kind, didn't care what he wore, ate everything, went with the flow of things. It has been a rough couple of weeks with the Shirley Temple twin. She is still so fun, does fabulous things, brings smiles to our faces every day, but the bad is kind of outweighing the good lately.

This too shall pass, but please pass quickly.

Class of 2011

Hayden graduated on Friday! Okay, he graduated from preschool, but it was still a big thing for us! The class had a little ceremony for which he got to wear a hat, got a diploma and a little trophy, each child gave their mom a rose, and this momma got a little choked up. It was just like a high school graduation. Just on a waaay smaller scale.
So The Dude is going to Kindergarten in two months. AAAck! I knew he'd grow up, just didn't realize how flipping fast it would happen. He is very excited about going to a big school and I am too, it's a big thing. *Sigh*
My tough little man and the rose he gave me. This kid was the biggest in his little class by a couple of inches and by far the most handsome. Fact.

Memorial Weekend Campin'

It was just us for the Memorial Weekend camping excursion this year. My brother, sis-in-law and niece came for one night. We had a fun time with just our little family. It was quiet, so we did get to bed at early hours. It was a great, although windy, time in the pines! First, a pitstop in Payson to fill up the RV with water and start the kids on their sugar.

Once arrived, unpacked and set up, Hayden wanted to take his quad for a spin. This is a MAJOR thing for us!! He's never wanted to drive it, only wanted to ride on it with Buddy. He used this thing more in one weekend than he has ridden it with Buddy in the year and a half we've had it.

He's a natural.

Miss Maya, innocently posing in front of the pines while Prada does some investigating of the land.

Hayden. Looking like he's about 7. He's 5.5. My giant boy.

Taking off on a little adventure.

The kids love taking pictures. I am liking this because when they are older, they will know that I really was there.

Maya does pretty good for just shy of 3, huh?

The first Rhino ride of the weekend. Maya would live on this thing if it was possible. She loves riding. What I really don't like about riding with her: I have to brush her hair at the end of the day. It's worth it though for the smiles and screams (happy ones) we get to see and hear from her!

My favorite part of camping; the FIRE!! Seriously, I'm a pyromaniac with the camping fires. Buddy cuts the wood, I stack it up, then build the fire and stoke the fire. I want the fire going all day and night. I may have a slight problem.

We have to get wood somehow. Tie a rope to a dead, fallen tree; hook it to the Rhino and pull. Viola! Firewood. With help from the chainsaw of course.

A nice break to play in the dirt. Only camping to I not mind the dirt. There is alot of dirt.

We went for a ride to find the lake. We did have to hike a little bit to get to the lake.

Just about there. Maya showed her independence a little and wanted to walk. She did pretty well considering the terrain.

A few from below of what we walked down. Then we had to walk back up.

Made it to the lake.

The kiddos threw rocks in the lake. That was about it for the lake. We did have that truck back up you know. Relaxing by the fire. See? Told ya I like fire. It's still daylight. Close to dark, but not that close.

Me and my Boy!

Buddy likes the chainsaw. He got a little bored and needed something to do. Why not get the power tool and make something in the forest?

A little chair for Miss.

Maya had fun riding on the quad too. She rode with me most of the time, but hopped on with Hayden for a little (slow) ride.

Earn it!

Hayden has been begging, BEGGING for this Ninja Lego set thing for about 2 weeks. I am not one to just give in and say okay, let's get it. He typically has to earn it, by being good, listening, helping, etc.

Yesterday he brought it up again. Suddenly a light went on in my head (doesn't happen much these days), I thought hey, I should start paying him like a quarter to do little things around the house for him to be able to buy it himself.

I suggested to him maybe start making your bed every morning, clean the playroom when you are told, help clean up the dinner table, help take out garbage and recycling, help with some yard work and any other thing we could think of for him to help. He was so excited at the idea could buy himself something and earn the money by helping! Fantastic for me too!

I didn't bring it up anymore yesterday. I wanted to see what he would do today, if he would remember. When he got dressed today, he made his bed. I didn't even tell him. He just asked if I could check it and make sure it was right. Quarter number 1.

Before we left to go to the mall today, he asked if I could come downstairs and check the playroom to make sure it was good. Um, I didn't even ask or tell him to clean it up. 2 quarters for that.

When we got home from the mall, he asked when we were going to pick up sticks so he could get another quarter. Um, not an afternoon project, but good effort, Dude!

When I came home from getting an oil change, he had helped Buddy clean his truck. Bud gave him 2 quarters. I asked why 2? He says, "because he kept helping and asking to do stuff!" Saweet!

He really wanted to go pick up sticks for some reason after dinner. We just don't really have sticks to pick up and it was 100 degrees today, not really wanting to go outside. Ah ha! Go pick up the fruit that fell off the tree. Couldn't get his flip flops on fast enough. The excitement was burned quickly as he discovered how so not fun it is to pick things up off the ground in heat. With Buddy and Maya's (sort of) help, one more quarter.

The Dude earned $1.50 in his first day of allowance. And I am sitting here thinking I should have started with dimes cuz we'll be going to Target by Wednesday at this rate.

It may be time for a change...

Miss is getting bigger and her bed is not. She has yet to ask for a big bed. Nor has she done the game of getting out of bed once put to bed. However, based on recent body positions, I am thinking it may, perhaps, be time, perhaps, to move on, perhaps, to a full size bed.

Peaceful with her new toy from Grandpa. (about 10 minutes after falling asleep)

What I walked into when I awoke about 6am.

And about 7:30am.

*Sigh* My baby girl is growing up.

"It just takes patience."

At my Grandma W's wake in 1993, my dad got up to share a little story. (If you know my dad, you are not suprised he got up to tell a little story.) Anyway, I remember this one well. He was talking about how hard it was to teach my brother how to ride a trike when he was 2-3 years old. Andy (brother if you are wondering) would wear out the toes of his shoes because he would drag his feet.

When my parents went on vacation, Andy and I would stay with Grandma. When Mom and Dad returned this one time, Andy was pedaling his trike. He asked Grandma what she did to get him to ride it and all she said was, "Patience, Jim. It just takes patience."

I've often looked back on this story for guidance in trying to teach my kids to pedal, balance, steer, etc. Hayden is stubborn, wants to go at his own pace. Maya tries, figures it's not going to work and finds it easier to go a different route. I admit to getting frustrated while trying to get H to ride his bike without training wheels, I am in the mindset that he's 5 and should be able to. In my head I try to revert back to Grandma. Patience, Jennifer, patience.

Maya has become taken with the trike lately. She just used her feet to walk it, not pedal. I kept telling her, put your feet on the pedals and push. She'd try and realized her feet walking worked better. Patience, Jennifer, patience.

Hayden has become one with the bike. Although the training wheels are still on, they are bent so he has to lean awkwardly to use them. He is doing great balancing and riding!! He has trouble on the turns, but that will come soon enough.

Maya took off this weekend on the trike! All of a sudden she's pedaling like mad and going.

Just a little patience, some time, a little bit of frustration and a little more patience.

He's ready, I'm not

This came in the mail yesterday:

He's all registered and has seen the school, but now it seems more official. We've gotten the invite to come and look at where my baby boy will be spending half days, every day for the next year and then year after year after that.

As much as I love and enjoy this guy:

I so wanna have this guy back in my arms:

Hold on to them tight. It goes by in a flash.

Miss Maniac

A fun afternoon was not had on Tuesday. Maya, in all her adorableness, became a devil.

She looked so pretty in her Springy floral bubble dress that she has been begging to wear. She decided to color on it. With pen. Not all over, just a few choice spots on th chest.

Later on, she wanted something to drink. Particularily Grandpa's juice. This is what we call the Crystal Light concoction of lemonade and iced tea w/ lemon to create a diet Arnold Palmer, that was discovered at Grandpa B's long ago.

Before I could get to the fridge, Maya decided a drink was not good enough, better to take a shower in it.

She's a warm water kind of girl, so this wasn't the batheing experience she was hoping for. And yes I let her stand there crying while I got the camera.

Since I now had the chore of cleaing the floor and then cleaning out the refrigerator, the kids had to get outside. Just about done cleaning the fridge, on my last couple of door shelves, I hear a blood chilling scream.

WTF! It's Hayden. With H you kind of have to feel around the crying to see how serious it really is. I got him to calm down a little and notice a little scratch near his eye. I had heard Maya's name mentioned in the sobs, so came to the conclusion she scratched him. He already has scratches on the other side of his face from her last weekend. A scratch was not worth the scream I heard. THEN, after hugs and calming words, I look again at his eye. Not just a scratch, it was puffing up. I looked at Maya who is standing there holding an iron rod!!

Where she came across this is beyond me, but I finally figured out what the scream was for. She had whacked him with the rod right near his eye.

This is two days later, the lid is purple now, and the scrapes are healing. Thankfully it wasn't the actual eye and nothing was broken.

I have a rambunctious little diva on my hands.

Silent Sneaker

Maya has a small checklist of things that have to occur for her to go to bed: lamp on, Scentsy night-light on, sound machine on, sippy with a little water and ice, and lately, she wants her slippers with her too. We don't have to put them on her, she does that.

Tonight was no different, except for when I went in to check on her. I don't shut her door completely, just close it to where the latch hits, but when I got to the door, it was completely closed. Upon opening, I didn't hear a thing; the sound machine was off. Okay, maybe I didn't turn it on, but could have sworn I did; I turn it on, again. I then head towards her nightstand to shut off the lamp, which is the second reason I check on her, and I noticed her feet were bare and her flip-flops were nestled by her. I turn and see her slippers placed neatly on the floor and another glance up and her nightlight is off.

The little darling got out of her bed, quietly shut her door, turned off her sound machine and nightlight, took off her slippers, placed them quite neatly on the floor, grabbed her flip-flops and got back into bed. All by herself, without a peep.

Stinkerbell

This is my name for Miss Maya lately as she has been quite a big stinker. I am having a hard time coming up with specifics, but here's a rundown:

She has an attitude, a big one.

She throws fits, almost once a day. Throw down, lay or sit on the floor crying fits. 2 last week were because I got the pop-tarts out of the box, not her.

She wants to dress herself. This takes forever!! Mostly because everything has to be done twice because it's backwards.

She is constantly taking my shoes out of my closest and not the flat healed ones.

She does not tell us when she poops and then gets her normal butt rash because it's been sitting so long and we haven't smelled it.

She refuses to potty train. We are not forcing it, but geez, it's time. And she wants to wear underwear. Just over her diaper or on her head.

She touches the TV screen constantly!! Man is this annoying!

Clean up? What? What's that?

She wants to be carried at unreasonable times. She will just sit herself down in the middle of: a parking lot, hallway, sidewalk, store.

She is addicted to gum.

She has stopped napping.

On the plus side, I think we are done with the Nuk. She refused it last night because they are now "too hot." She fell asleep just fine. (I'm using Thum on her Nuk's. It's a bitter tasting liquid used for nail biters, thumb suckers, etc. Did it w/ Hayden too and it worked great!)

She is very sassy, fun and becoming more outgoing. She is starting to like "dress up" and gets into her tutu's and legwarmers often. She is tough and dainty all in one.

You're Awesome

Buddy and I moved a tree today. This involved digging a hole, digging up a large tree root, moving the friggin heavy tree to the newly dug hole, filling in around the tree and filling in the old tree hole. Both kids "helped".

As Buddy dug the new hole a little deeper without my help because the ground was really hard. I mean really hard. My weight jumping on the shovel barely cracked the surface. Anyway... As Buddy was jumping onto his shovel and breaking up the dirt Hayden said, "Daddy, you're awesome."

Buddy says, "thanks Bud."

Hayden: Is that why you became a Dad? So you could be awesome?

Buddy: Yep, that is exactly why I am a Dad.

Hayden: Cool.

Yesterday, Hayden told Buddy that he didn't love him anymore.

Apparently I am not awesome.

How did you grow so big overnight?

Have you heard this song? I have known it since November and I still tear up when I hear it. I first heard it in the slideshow our photographer put together with our family pictures along with a few others. The refrain started up just when it was flipping through pictures of Hayden.I completely started to bawl. Not cry, bawl. Luckily Buddy wasn't home so I didn't have to explain myself. I have since put this one and others on my ipod. The kids enjoy them as much as I do. I do have to keep my composure when listening to this one.

Now, before you click on it, get some baby pics of your first born or second, third, forth, all of them, whomever, and start flipping through them. You'll see what I mean. Seriously, I tear up every time. Every. Single. Time.

http://new.music.yahoo.com/frances-england/tracks/you-me--187707912