Life besides Christmas, birthdays & "our baby"

Contrary to what the last month of posts has suggested, we are actually doing things around here besides Christmas, celebrating a certain 3 year old & planning for our new baby boy. 

"One eyed" hat that he wore around all night. He is making bugs "hatch" with Brandon. I love a dollar section everywhere, especially when they are having the half price sale, and Michael's had those little capsule things that become animals/bugs/etc when they are in water. Took up a good hour; I recommend them.

 Birthday gift from Aunt Manda! He LOVES this! He seriously thinks he is legit and keeps telling us to put on our football pants and helmet when we play with him.

Baking soda, food coloring & vinegar volcanoes. This is about as crafty as we get around here. He does LOVE this, though. We play "volcano" very regularly. Thank goodness the supplies needed are very cheap.

"Hatching" his dinosaur egg. He LOVED the hatching part. The actual dinosaur was sort of squishy and fell apart, but he seriously stalked the egg for 2 days. He would talk to it and kiss it. He kept saying things like, "I'm going to be your big brother & take care of you."  Sweet, but also a bit worrisome as I am not actually going to deliver an egg. 

Because my parents are wonderful, they brought Anderson to Powell for a basketball game last week. I am really enjoying my new job, but it is pretty time intensive and some weeks I have 3 or 4 nights where I have to work late, so I miss Bug. While he attended quite a few basketball games as an Admiral, this was his first Powell game. I learned that 3 is not much better than 2 when it comes to sitting still in a gym for 3 hours. We played a lot of "office"  in my actual office where he said, "let me send one more email..." and other precious things.

Netflix is our friend. The streaming only plan is under $10 & it has even more than cable does! Here are his recent choices: Land Before Time (LOVE IT!! I totally used to love that movie), Fireman Sam, dinosaurs, volcano documentary (the boy is weirdly obsessed with fire) and a My Little Pony episode with a fire breathing dragon (seriously, at what point should I be concerned about the fire thing?)

Anderson started a new preschool 2 days a week and it was a rough transition (for me, mostly-I am NOT going to be ok with kindergarten.) He has a new firetruck lunchbox and backpack from Noni & they let him pick green for his nametag. The first day he told me I was gone, "berry, berry, berry, berry long", but now...I think he actually likes it!

Still enjoying the remnants of the birthday party festivities.

Seriously. Pantless. In a recliner. Eating doritos. Watching TV. Is this my future with 3 of these in my house?

Lily came to visit and these 2 are AWESOME! They were so, so excited to see each other. If you can't have a twin, a built in cousin BFF is the way to go.

Noni & Anderson came to my last ultrasound with me! Because I am carrying Max in my thighs basically, it is hard to see everything, so this round was for a head measurement. All looked good!! (I seriously asked if they could see cataracts in the ultrasound...) I loved that my mom could come with me because it is pretty cool to see a baby swimming around in there. I have a feeling ultrasounds 32 years ago were not quite as advanced.

Giant house at Noni's with a Lily living in it!

On his second day of new school, I had a meeting & was rushing to get there by 6. It was pouring rain, so lots of traffic and I went I got there I told him I was late because of the rain. I was worried the whole drive about him waiting on me, but turns out...he wasn't! He said, "Bobble! When it rains, the worms come out of their homes!" Apparently they had walked around outside that day & looked for worms! So, the next day Bop took him on a worm hunt and they found 7! When mom said they could feed them to the birds, she said he was traumatized. They must not have learned that fact about worms yet. Other things he has learned at school: how to hop on one foot, a teeny bit of Spanish counting and how to crack an egg with a spoon. Now, he keeps wanting to demonstrate that last skill at our house!

New dinosaur magnets from Aunt Paula! He loves them. He was playing with them at the doc appt. & he found a sunflower seed on the floor. He asked what it was and I told him and said, someone probably threw it there and it is yucky. He looked at me and said, "No, it is a dinosaur toenail!" LOVE him!!

He preoccupied himself for an afternoon with the wrapping stuff that came in a package. It was hilarious.

TO THE RESCUE!!

I just really love the fact that I am in charge of my kid's (kids' one day, but not yet) childhood and birthdays are a big part of that. Even though it was low key, I had so much fun planning his party and acting like he is the most important person in the world.

How cute is this invitation?? It is like he is actually pointing at YOU! ( he was making a hose to put out the fire, but whatever, it works)

*Note: There will not be a theme for the party next year because as soon as I finished the party planning, Anderson decided he really loves dinosaurs. Goober. He kept telling me, "I am NOT having a fire truck party, I am having a dinosaur party!"...the morning of the party....when I had already purchased a fire truck cake, firefighter hats, fireman plates and a large firetruck balloon...*

SPROUT lets you send in birthday cards & they choose some to show on the morning/evening show, so we made one for BUG! It was posted on the Sprout website and was probably on the morning/evening show, but we didn't actually watch them.

I really wanted to start some kind of tradition with this birthday because he is old enough to understand. So, I decided on a scavenger hunt to get a few little presents. Here are the 3 surprises. (My favorite is the dino egg because I rhymed it with our staple...patches!) He told my mom Georgie (the ghost) was bringing him a really cool surprise present (what??), so we told him this was Georgie's present. After he found the last one, he kept randomly opening drawers to see if there was anything left!

In a second year tradition, Brandon took him to Hobbytown to pick out a gift. He chose a huge bracchiosaurus. Then, we let him pick where he wanted to eat and he requested, "Zoe's Kitchen" even though he had never been there. He heard me talking about it (we ate at the one in Birmingham a few times). He ate a bite of pita and a grape, but sure loved his new dinosaur!

His picture with his bear! I cannot find the post to link to where he took his monthly pics with his bear and I have one at 1 year, 2 year and now, 3 years! Thanks, Aunt LoLo!

On his actual birthday, we had cupcakes to celebrate & he thoroughly enjoyed the icing.

Pretty good pic of the grandparents!! As Brandon pointed out, we are SO lucky that the grandparents live close enough that they can just drop by with on a Monday evening for a cupcake!

The party was the next weekend because I tried to stretch it at least a bit away from Christmas! I love nothing more than a goody bag. It was pretty easy/cheap to do because there were only 4 kids!

The firetruck cake! I got it at Ingles and despite the fact that he spent the 2 days before the party telling me that he wanted a dinosaur cake, he really loved it.

Pic from Bobble Cole.

Hanging up some decorations (aka .99 cent streamers). Also, we had BBQ that we got at Calhoun's and I will NEVER again attempt to provide my own food for a party because this was so easy. Let's be honest, I don't like to cook anyway and by the time I spend money on a bunch of appetizers, it is actually cheaper (and SANITY saving) to do it this way.

Lily, Sunny, Anderson and Jack!!

Some partygoers hanging out watching basketball.

Bop provided balloons for everyone, of course. I mean, is it real life that my dad is a balloon artist? Love it.

He took the candle situation very seriously. He was assessing his best plan of action in terms of attacking them, while we were singing.

Lots and lots and lots of presents! This boy is loved!! Thank you to everyone! He got all kinds of awesome dinosaurs, a soccer goal, a Matchbox garage, a tabletop air hockey, some new trucks, a LeapFrog writing thing, clothes (present for me!), books, a remote control snake (see below), an itunes gift card for dinosaur books/apps, games, these fun disk shooting things, parts for his Sonix city, etc. Loved, loved, loved! Lily was a true assistant and handed Anderson all of his gifts. She is such a good helper!

Uncle Curtis' gift was a hit! The kids were hilarious and kept chasing each other with it. How much do I love that Jack kept his fire hat on all day?? He is such a true BFF.

So grateful to have such good friends! *Pretend that Emily and Stella are in this pic, too...*

Bellies!! Clare is due in less than a month with Lucy!!! Nicole is due the end of Feb with Reese!! I feel so gigantic most of the time, until I stand next to them...ha, ha! Just kidding, guys!

All in all, it was a great day(s) and I am so appreciative that we so many wonderful people in our lives!

EBATES!

I am assuming that you all have Ebates, but if you don't, you must sign up. Now.

It is totally free & you just make $ for shopping online. I just received my latest check of $35.88 just for going through Ebates before I buy stuff online. It is super easy to use, FREE, pays you to buy stuff you are buying anyway AND you get a $10 gift card for signing up. It is my favorite.

Use this link to sign up for Ebates!

...to the MAX!

I mentioned in a previous post that we have had a name for Baby #2 for sometime. We keep calling him "This One" with a quick point to the belly, but the name has been around with us since the beginning (did I mention that I knew it was a boy from minute one?) For some reason, once he was officially a boy to everyone else, I started to get nervous. Suddenly this name thing seemed so permanent and official and intimidating and "How can I raise this kid when I can't even commit to the name?" thoughts. We were so sure of Anderson's name. Anderson is after his daddy, his GG and his Pappaw. His middle name, Vincent, is after his Bop. It was so perfect and I just started getting nervous thinking we would not be able to come up with another perfect one.

Whatever.

The name was there all along and I think I possibly was so overwhelmed by the sheer awesome perfection of it that I was fighting it for some reason.

But, the brief insanity has passed and we are back. His name, as I am sure you have gathered, will be MAX.

Because...

- It's perfect.
- How can a kid not be chill and friends with everyone with a name like Max?
- I really like the letter X
-I want a family name and , technically, Max is related to the Grinch who has been at everyone of my Christmas holidays since I was born
-His name will be Max. Not Maxwell, not Maximus (it was debated for a second....)
-We just really like the sound of it. Let's be honest, it just makes me happy to say :)
-It's a strong name-Max. Glover, CEO...Max Glover, Astronaut...Captain Max Glover...
- As an educator, I have literally known thousands of kids and I cannot handle remembering them when I think of my kid. I am blessed/cursed with a crazy memory, so even the random kids stay on my radar. Anyway, one of my favorite students ever (followed closely/tied with his sister, Tess) was a student I had named Max. He was everything you would want in a student and I am so lucky to still be close to his family. He was the student who started the tradition of bringing a Christmas tree to my classroom about 6 years ago and made sure that someone carried it on even after he graduated. So, of course he & his sister showed up at my office with a tree this year! If my kids turn out at all like these 2 sheer examples of awesomeness, we will have done something right!

But, Max is not all, of course. When I am angry (or just feel like balancing his name with his older brother's much longer name), I will yell, "MAX DOMINIC"!  Dominic was my grandfather's name and my uncle's name. Does it get more Italian than Dominic Garzoli? There must be an Italian part to the name. Plus, I like a little shout out to a Saint. ( Dominic is the patron saint of astronomy-perhaps "This One" will be into space stuff?)

The original Dominic with my Nanny! (My grandma would be insanely jealous that this baby is not a girl named Gilda after her. But, she would have still loved him fiercely, even if she would have told everyone his middle name and said, "If he was a girl, she would have been Gilda". That's just how she rolled.)

 Nanny, The Uncle Dominic (Uncle Bubba as we called him) and Pops.  *Please notice the giant plate of various kinds of olives on the table. Was that dinner? It was not uncommon to have a lasagna appetizer, so, perhaps, we followed that with olives?*

A clearance post Christmas buy. Oh, my. There are 4 plates-one for each of us to use next year! Happiness is Grinch Christmas plates.

While I am sure one day I will regret this connection, I love, love that he will be King of the Wild Things and ALL of the rumpus will start with him!

Because what the world needs, is a rumpus starter, I do believe. 

And based on his ridiculous movement in utero, he is clearly already starting the wild rumpus.

Seriously, I think this is why I have been drawn to monster stuff for this one. Does anyone realize the weird pirate thing I had when I was pregnant with Anderson? I planned his first birthday (pirates), had a bunch of pirate baby stuff and even called him Little Pirate in my pregnancy journal. 

We all know how that premonition worked out for us. 

So, to say that I am seriously angry at myself for attaching this one with monsters when my first pregnancy prediction came true would be an understatement. But, a Bobble cannot fight her instinct. I have bought a "Mommy's Little Monster" onesie and possibly already bought a monster Halloween costume because I am a ridiculous hoarder and it was less than $1.

I am pretty stoked about the mischief he will cause, telling him that I love him best of all (as in, I love him more than anyone else does, not that he is my favorite because they will both be my favorites, of course) and keeping his supper hot for him. ( if you have not read the above mentioned book, you will make zero connections from that sentence)

And, totally unrelated, but while I was looking for old pics, I found this one of my puppy Worms. Chloe was trouble from the start (she peed all over us when we first picked her up & then ate my shoe), but for some reason, we were drawn to her. Love that little face.

Three: Active, Curious, Consistent.

*Selfish post, so I can record my Bug. Will NOT make for interesting reading. You have been warned.*

THREE: In an attempt capture A Bug's Life at 3, I have been stalking him over the last 2 weeks, taking pics of him doing routine things. These moments make up SO much of our life & I want to really remember who he was at this point. 

I have really tried to choose only 3 words to describe him at this point. It was hard because I tried to avoid the most obvious ones (awesome, hilarious, best thing ever, etc.). I landed on:

ACTIVE: Holy smokes. Since he was able to roll over both ways by the day he turned 3 months & crawl across the floor and pull himself up at 6 months, ACTIVE has definitely been this Bug. It is why he doesn't require a lot of sleep, why we do so many activities and just one reason why he is awesome. He climbs on everything, flips/jumps/attacks all things/furniture/people/dogs/etc. All of his playing involves running around acting like race cars, running around acting like emergencies, running around attacking the dogs, running around just to be running...

CURIOUS: I give credit to the EYE and the fact that he is awake for longer than the average kid his age, but Anderson has always been so curious. He is such a good talker (except for pronouncing his Ls like Ws),and he remembers EVERYTHING. We have to explain every, single thing to him. I love it. 

CONSISTENT: In an effort to not use "stubborn", "angry when things don't go his way" or "toddler terrorist", I have selected "Consistent". Anderson has always had a preference.  He knows what he wants and will let us know what it is and, my favorite part, why he wants it. (Usually the reason is irrelevant, but whatever). He is routine kind of kid and I have to always prepare him for what is coming next. I have started making him a calendar with a pic of each day (school, Noni/Bop, Bobble/Daddy, something fun we are doing/etc.) to prevent total meltdowns. 

One of his FAVORITE things ever is the ipad. Not to play games, or anything, but to watch YouTube. Specifically, "I want to watch trains derailing on the ipad." or"I want to watch real dinosaurs on the ipad." We hear this hundreds of times a day. He is sort of ok at navigating the videos, but he gets frustrated when he can't find what he wants and the videos are so short it makes me long for the days of the 9 minute Fireman Sam episodes. I do like his early introduction to technology because, let's be honest, it is the future reality.

 Sleep continues to be our favorite thing ever....HA HA HA! Seriously, I have to laugh at this point. If you have ever read my blog, you know that from basically day 1 this kid has just not required sleep. We made him cry it out the day he turned 12 weeks and it worked for him, but he still just did not require a lot of sleep. Our downfall in the slumber department was his mobility. Due to his monkey acrobatics, he could crawl out of the crib entirely too early in his life (too much before 2), so we had to switch to the toddler bed. That was last fall (as in 2011. A year ago) and I can tell you the 2 times he has slept through the night since then. I am not even going to say, "I can't remember the last time he slept through the night" because I can. It was beautiful. I won't go into the details of everything we have tried to get him to sleep better over the last year (including reversing the lock on his door so we could make him cry it out, me sleeping in out close to ignore him, etc) because it is all documented somewhere on the blog. Here is where we are now: We begin bedtime about 8 (some milk, teethbrushing, book reading, snuggling, etc.) and he is in the bed about 8:30 on days he takes a nap (we don't even pretend to try that early on days he took a nap). Then, Brandon or I just lay on the floor next to him for 30 minutes-2 hours until he falls asleep. (This is one reason we have been hesitant to take the patch off during the day-we never know how long it will take him to fall asleep & he is just laying there patchless) He wakes up BY 6am, which is actually a big improvement. I don't care about the early morning wake up call because I am already up then, and I have embraced the late night laying there because he is so darn sweet, but what I have just finally become accustomed to is the middle of the night! He wakes up at least 2 times at night, sometimes as many times as 5. Just appears next to my bed, staring at me, kind of grunting/asking for goldfish. More than once, I have woken up with him actually in the bed and I don't remember him getting in there. (I'm just a teensy bit exhausted, myself). Anyway, we go back to his bed and Brandon or I fall asleep on his floor, until we are awakened by the pain in hip/arm/etc. that comes from being old/pregnant and sleeping on the floor. Then, we go back to our bed until he appears about 30 minutes later. Most days he sleeps between 7-9 hours total all day, which would be great, but he is GRUMPY pants pretty much all day on the 7 hours sleep days.

But, enough of the documenting, look at the precious sleeping boy. Scout continues to be a hit. He has recently taken to cuddling with a bunch of his "babies". And, look at his snuggling with the Lorax!! He has 3 blankets: soft blanket ( made by Lily's grandma), his tractor blanket (that is really a crib blanket) and a giant soft snowman blanket (awesome Kohl's deal by me). He will not sleep in pants anymore, hence the hanging pair on the bed. We still use the sound machine, night lights and we HAVE to leave the door open. His imagination is too much and if the door is shut, he gets hysterical because of all kinds of random things. (Llama Llama Red Pajama has traumatized him because the llama doesn't see his mama for like 2 seconds, the Grinch doesn't have a mama, "Sharp Tooth" the T Rex lives in the curtains, "Something ate Bobble", etc.)

Hmmm. A little different than the previously mentioned, "Sweet/precious". While we are working on controlling feelings, sharing, communicating instead of throwing a fit, he is still most definitely a toddler. This particular tantrum was because I was not making the correct fire alarm sound. Seriously. The biggest grumpy pants times are when he wakes up, when he thinks someone is looking at him, when we try to get him to eat and in public, in general.

 Goodness, the skin issues. This is another constant theme for Bug, as he has struggled with eczema since he was tiny. These are a few of our latest products that we are using to battle the skin itching. He is just getting over a bacterial infection on his skin (we have officially won the Triple Crown, as he has had a staph, yeast and bacteria infection on his bottom -I'm waiting for the trophy), but the eczema has definitely improved.

He is not spoiled at all, so that is nice. Seriously, he has quite a few toys, but what I love the MOST is his imagination. He loves to create elaborate scenes/situations/emergencies with his toys. He is always asking, "Play trains with me, Bobble" or "Let's be dinosaurs!"

Eating is in the same category as sleeping & skin issues....always has been a constant battle. Once he started talking, I stopped worrying about him starving to death, and he definitely eats way more than he used to, but he is just not a huge eater. (If it requires sitting at all, he is not interested!)

He wanted 3 biscuits that morning and promptly ate one bite and pronounced, "I'm done." We have started making him take a certain number of bites of things, which I hate because I don't want him to grow up and not know how to gauge if he is full, eat just because it is there, etc. But, whatever. 

 His favorite foods are: plain (graham) crackers...and I think that might be it. Oh, he loves lemonade, too. 

Check out my Gabs in the corner :) Chloe is under the table because she has discovered most of the bites come from him making crumbs and that is where they go. Always a scavenger, that one. 

He went to the dentist and was so good! ("too wiggly for xrays, which means he is a smart boy...they are expensive!)

I don't have any stats on him because his check up is not until April (even though I called to schedule it in Dec.! They are that booked up!), but I am sure I will share them when I find out!

FAVORITES:

• constant motion
• playing emergency, trains, dinosaurs 
• watching Team Umizoomi, Fireman Sam, YouTube on the ipad
• eating "plain" (graham) crackers, lemonade
• anything with fire or the idea of someone being hurt or in time out (sounds awful, doesn't it?)
• being sweet when he thinks someone is hurt, he loves to play Mama/Baby dinosaur 
• bossing us around, telling Chloe & Gabbi any of the following: don't eat your sister (when they are playing), your breath stinks (to Chloe), fireworks are not scary (to Chloe), plastic bags are not scary (to Gabbi)
• climbing all over me/Noni
• "Yilly and Jack are my best friends!"
• talking about "Our Baby", which is MY favorite! Whenever he sees a changing thing in restrooms, he says, "That is for our baby!" and he told me he is going to share all of his trains with him (right...) and "I am going to love him so much!" 
• I love when he says something like, "It sure is chilly out here" or "Sure is getting dark, Bobble", "I think I will play for just 2 more minutes." 
• He still loves to hold my hand all of the time. (Is this turning into my favorites? yes, I think it is)

NOT SO FAVORITES:

• eating
• sitting
• sleeping
• not talking
• not getting in the car himself, turning on/off lights, opening the garage, opening the door, etc. 

In short, ( or long, based on the length of this), he is perfect, wonderful, the best thing that ever happened to us and the reason that I knew I wanted another boy the second I found out I was pregnant.