In A Pickle

DO YOU LIKE CUCUMBERS?

WANT SOME?

Apparently, my garden decided to produce an entire year's supply of cucumbers and...well...I'm kind of tired of cucumbers. Seriously. How many times can you make fried cucumbers in a year? Take my cucumbers...please.

RIF: Random Irrational Fear

Random irrational fears...*sigh*...what a pain in my butt. To be honest, I really can't complain too much. My kiddos have very few fears. This can be a good thing and it can be a very very bad thing. They both enjoy trying new things. Especially things that make my heart jump into my throat. They are little dare devils. I've come to believe that they truly do enjoy the adrenaline rush they get. My kids will be the ones begging to ride the upside down roller coaster in the near future. The typical things that you hear most kids/babies are afraid of, are not really a problem for them. They got the typical stranger danger where they would merely spend the majority of their time hidden behind my legs in new places. But things like water, heights, animals, vacuums, bugs, etc...they could care less about. (Alex actually walked up to me with a wiggling brown recluse spider in his fingers the other day...ugh). Sooo...when I pulled out the hair trimmer for our monthly hair cut last week, I didn't expect anything out of the ordinary. Alex has had his hair cut pretty frequently (yes by me...I'm a total pro). He never gave me much trouble...until now. Apparently hair clippers are the devil and to have one anywhere near his head is pure undiluted torture. He kept covering his head with the towel and screaming, "IT'S HURTING ME! IT'S HURTING ME!" (please keep in mind that it wasn't even touching his head yet). So now he has this lovely little irrational fear. For two days, he walked around with a nice big bald stripe up the back of his head because that was the only swipe I could take at it. In the end, it took a lot of bribing to finish the job. What does it take to get through a moment of torture for an almost three year old? A Fun-Dip candy, a Bug Juice (sugar drink), and watching A Christmas Story. I fear that Alex will soon resemble one of the Beatles if he doesn't get over this new fear.

Abby on the other hand only really has one random irrational fear. Her Uncle Aaron. Why? We truly have no idea. And honestly, she is starting to warm up to her wonderfully patient Uncle Aaron. As of recently, he had a job that had him sleeping during the day (3rd shift...poor guy), so I keep telling him that she thought he was a vampire. But he luckily got promoted to 2nd shift and now is among the day dwellers again so when she sees him, she no longer screams bloody murder in his presence. She will occasionally give him the ol' stink eye, but she's come a long way. She used to shake uncontrollably and scream like she was being tortured when he came in the room. It's nice to see she is finally warming up to the guy. He's so good with the kids when they are around him.

But these two random fears do make me wonder what is next in the fear department. I have an RIF of crocodiles in dark water and also one of june bugs. Odd, don't you think? I guess that's why they call the fears random.

It's Wiggle Time

Okay...so let us get the awkward conversation over with.

Blog followers: "What's up Jessica? Why the blogging hiatus?"
Me: "Oh, you noticed that did you?"
Blog Followers: "Uh...duh. So what's the story? Givin' up on the Little Monkey bloggin'?"
Me: "No no...not at all. I've simply been too busy to blog. But I'm back now so let's put this little week long blogging hiatus behind us, shall we? Forgive and forget...I always say."
Blog Followers: "Forgiven...now if you don't mind...start typing!"

Alrighty then...let's blog, baby!

The past week has kept me a tad on the busy side. I've been painting in every spare moment I have and the reward is a beautiful house. (well...beautiful on the outside at least) Of course, it still is far from finished, but I'm getting there. Then the weekend came and I got to drop the wee ones off with Grandma and Grandpa for a nice time out to the movies again. I am proud to say that I got to go see Transformers 2. Yes...again. It was FANTABULOUS! But I shan't bore you with the details again. And naturally this week, thus far, Josh has been out of work. So I've been painting again. Lucky for the blog, I am nearly out of paint so I had to give up on my house for the day.

Things with the kids have been a bit nutty lately. Their best bud, Wesley, got a nasty little cold and so he has been on play-date-quarantine for the last 10 days. Hopefully that will end next week. The kids need play-dates with each other to keep their sanity in check. So we have spent our time in new avenues. Alex, over the last few weeks, has taken a liking to a new thing. Ever heard of The Wiggles? Yeah...they are huge in Australia. When Alex does his breathing treatment, he watches uploaded songs from The Wiggles. So we took a trip to the library and lo and behold, they had an old VHS copy of one of their compilation music videos. He's a bit smitten with them now. Wants to watch it all the time. And, hey...it's better than Elmo, right? Actually, their songs are quite catchy and I find myself singing them a good majority of the time. And the best part of it is that it gets Alex (and Abby when she's not tired) to start dancing all over the place. Excercise! Woohoo! Due to my poor blogging, I am trying to make amends by uploading a video. He's dancing to "Hot Potato" by The Wiggles. Very catchy song, if I do say so myself. Enjoy!

(LOL...Captain Feathersword...too funny)

Bye Bye, Rock-a-bye

A new era has begun in our house. For what seems like forever, I have been rocking kids to sleep. There has always been some form of crutch when it comes to getting my kiddos to sleep. At first, we had the pacifier with Alex and that worked for the most part. Then we moved on to just waiting until he fell asleep in our bed when we went to bed too. (That one was really annoying) Then miss Abby came along. We moved on to utilizing our second-hand rocking chair/recliner to its fullest ability. That chair has been rocked more than most chairs are meant to be rocked. Over the last month, it started to fail as a successful rocking chair. The poor thing doesn't really rock very well these days. However, this is not the reason for my recent change of pattern. You see, rocking two children works...in theory. Don't get me wrong. It is possible. But when one of those kids is nearly three and the other one is embarking on her ornery times, it makes it...well...difficult.

Abby spends the majority of her time in the chair making silly noises while Alex laughs. When they aren't laughing and being utterly silly, they are slapping each other or wiggling around so much that I can't even get a good rocking pattern started. Soooo...last week I said enough is enough! I got up, took them into their beds and said, "Night, night!" They fought it for about half an hour. I sat on Alex's bed and told him that he is a big boy now and that he needs to sleep in his bed like one. I gave them each a couple of books to entertain themselves, kissed them good night, and went to go read on the couch. Now, I am proud to say that they both go to bed like a charm every night and sleep on their own. It has changed my evenings drastically. I have more time to enjoy the quiet mama-me-time I so desperately need at day's end. Alex wakes up nearly every morning since talking about how he slept in his bed like a big boy and Abby has actually started sleeping through the night (mostly). Abby, of course, has never really had a problem going down for her nap by herself, so I knew that she would adjust fairly well. It's strange and new to me to have two happily sleeping children. But I can honestly say that I love it! This must be how all those normal parents feel, eh? Now, if only I could get them to eat their vegetables...

The County Fair

It's the end of the summer and 4-H clubs all over are having their county fairs. I grew up in 4-H and loved it. There were very few projects that I didn't try at least once. I am very excited to get my kids involved in it someday. For now, though, we have to settle for just visiting the fair every year. This year, Mandy and I packed the kids up into the van and headed to the fairgrounds. It was fun. This year, all three of the wee ones are walking and old enough to enjoy themselves. I tell ya what. It sure is a walk down memory lane. Here are some of the pictures of the day.

The kiddos enjoying a drink in the van.

Abby checkin' out the piggies.

Me and the monkeys strollin' through the barns.

Pettin' the pigs.

They all got a kick out of being in the pens.

Someday My Sleep Will Come...

Sleep. Is it overrated? Do we really need as much of it as we think we do? Or have we become a lazy society where sleep is more of a luxury than we take it for? I'm not entirely sure, but I miss it nonetheless. I notice the tell tale signs of black that have slowly become more obvious underneath my tired eyes. I told my friend earlier today, that I haven't slept through the night since I was pregnant with Alex. Even then, I didn't sleep through the night due to early A.M. bladder calls. Alex is actually not as much of a problem these days. I had my massive sleep battles with him and was hoping that Abby would skip that nasty little blip in the radar. Apparently my hope failed me yet again. Figures. Hope, it seems, can be overrated as well.

These days, Abby is the cause for my nighttime battles. I've mentioned it before, but her latest case of croup caused the worst of it. Now that she feels like she has to be with me 24/7 (literally), I get very little sleep at night. REM sleep isn't even an option anymore. I believe that part of my dilemma is that Alex and Abby have to share a room. I would let her cry...or rather scream...it out, but it wakes Alex up and then he starts screaming as well. So then I have not one, but two kids screaming and wanting to sleep in bed with me. Just FYI, a queen size bed does not fit four people easily. Especially when two of them are prone to rolling and kicking constantly. So I am forced to go rescue miss Abby from her woeful nighttime fits. She also has taken to throwing herself back from a standing position and bonking her head on the rails. Naturally, this only prompts her to an even larger scream fest. I've spent most of my nights going from my bed, to the kids floor, to the couch, to the rocking chair. My back is so thrown out of whack now that I can hardly stand up straight without feeling the aches and pains radiate up and down my body. My friend suggests that I move her to the laundry room, but in fear of her being infested with brown recluses, I simply won't even try that. So I suppose that when they are older, (you know...ten, twelve...twenty-five...*sigh*) I won't have to worry about my sleepless nights. It's getting hard to drag myself out of bed these days, but I manage it even on the hardest nights. Here's hoping that my kiddos finally figure out that sleep is a lovely thing...in their own bed. Until then, I will simply continue to 'hope' that someday, my sleep will come.

My New Bed

I think starting this posting out with a huge groan would be appropriate. so...

***Uuggghhh***

Now that that's out of the way, I shall explain the literary sound effect. I have a new bed. Isn't that exciting? Well, actually, it's not exciting. It's a pain in my neck...and my back...and my legs...you get the point. Back in March, Josh and I decided it was time to get a new mattress for our bed. Our old one was a hand-me-down from a friend when we got married and it was starting to show signs of it's imminent death. Springs were popping out all over it and it felt like we were sleeping on a board. So we headed out to our local mattress mart and picked up a new one. I was so excited to have a new comfy bed to sleep on, as my back was sore nearly every morning I woke up. After the initial polyurethane smell wore off (gag me), it was a better option than what we had previously slept on. Josh, of course, thinks it's super comfortable. I, on the other hand, can't tell a huge difference. My back still hurts when I wake up. But at least I don't have to worry about a spring shooting out in the middle of the night and impaling me. Just as I get used to the new bed, Abby got a nice case of croup. She got a little taste of what it was like to sleep in 'the big bed' and now she always wants to be in there. I was okay with it up until the point that she started waking up every night for two to three hours at a time. She wouldn't go back to sleep. Turns out that she wants to sleep on my chest. What?!? I thought that those days were over when she was 4 months old. Obviously sleeping in the bed with a wiggly one-year-old isn't the best scenario. (she has fallen off the bed once already) So I have been officially sentenced to the couch. We spent money on a nice new mattress and I'm back to sleeping on the couch. Greeaaat. Until she learns that mommy is not her new bed, I will have to suffer with the the ol' couch...my new bed.