Here We Are

We're still here.

We had a slight change of plans... originally our flight itinerary was that we would have flown home this past Thursday, but then we spent a week and a half being sick and miserable.  My brothers didn't want to come visit and be exposed to our nasty yuck, so they stayed away and offered the foot the bill for us to stay a little longer so they can visit when we're not so snotty.

When I talked to Nathan about this plan, he decided that he couldn't stand it anymore and bought a ticket to join us for a few days.  (I was able to transfer Evan's return ticket to Nathan and buy Nathan a one-way to get here!  Yay!  Now Evan is Nathan's "lap child".)

Isn't he sweet?   It's not really about seeing anyone else. I mean, that's a bonus of course, but it's mostly about me.  He misses me.  Sure he has lots of work to do, but he's lonely bumping around in that big, quiet house.  His boys are here and he has no one to play with.  

So we're finally starting to feel better, but now the chickenpox are looming.  We shouldn't actually be coming down with that until after we get back home, though.

And my nights have been... unspeakable awful.  I've never had such a long run of bad sleep.  It's so bad it's almost non-existent.  I mean, Evan slept terribly for his entire first year, but now this is double. Dealing with not one but TWO very poor-sleeping little guys by myself is so stinking hard.  What is wrong with my kids?  I know babies are notorious for disrupting sleep, but this is beyond ridiculous. Am I doing something wrong?  Is something wrong with them?   People ask me if Andrew sleeps through the night and I want to laugh in their faces.  Seriously.  Don't ever ask me that.  I would be happy if he only woke up twice (or even three times) and went back to sleep easily each time.  He wakes up a lot.  A lot a lot. He won't even lay still and nurse or let me sleep while he nurses.  He's just weird about it.  It makes me crazy.

Evan usually sleeps well, but with this horrid cough that he has, plus being in the same room with me and Andrew, he's waking up too.

I'm giving up on the idea of sleep ever again.  Sleep, I'm talking to you, bite me.

Sorry.

But!  Aren't they cute?  How blessed am I to have two cute and adorable little stinkers?

It's a darn good thing they're cute.  God knew what he was doing, is what I'm saying.

Evan is becoming more and more of a trouble-maker every day.  Right before my eyes he's gone from baby to TROUBLE in a few short weeks.  Today he helped himself to a big hunk of bread and hid behind the couch to eat it.  He had a pretty good idea of what I'd say (isn't the answer to every request "no" in a toddler's world?) so he didn't bother to ask.

He operates an iPhone like a pro.  He also did something weird to the TV and we had not idea how to fix it.  He makes the computer screen go wonky.

He got together with a similarly sized second-cousin and together they plotted to rule the world.

Actually, they mostly bickered about who gets to rule the world.  Same difference.

Evan was introduced to Sesame Street yesterday.  His mind was completely blown by the sheer possibilities of entertainment from the flickering screen.  The concept of "it's over" meant nothing to him, so he did what he does best-- pitched a huge tantrum.

Ya know, I think I would feel ever so much better about the frustrations of life (LIKE NOT GETTING TWO CONSECUTIVE HOURS OF SLEEP EVER EVER EVER) if I could just throw myself on the floor and scream.  If I didn't have to deal with all the self-control garbage I'm trying to teach my toddler, I might just plain be happier in the long run.

But I don't get that option.  So instead, I'll vent it here for you to read.

BUT THEY'RE CUTE!  That's my mantra.  That's what I repeat to myself as I fall in to bed over and over and over each night...

Whatever get's me through the night.

We've Got Cabin Fev-ah!

You may have wondered what happened to me.  You may have wondered why I haven't posted here.

You may not even be here any more.

Are you here?

Well.  It's been... something else around here.

I haven't been able to write here because I haven't been able to come up with a humorous spin on the non-stop ordeal of sleep-deprivation and sickness that I have encountered.  I was actually afraid of what vitriol I might spew about the injustice of it all if I started a post.

So much for my "vacation".

As I write this, I still have two children with fevers.  And I'm still coughing up a lung or two.  We're ALL coughing up lungs around here.

Lest I continue to bore you with tales of our woes, I'll stop.  Suffice it to say that I've been feeling a little unbalanced.

 

We came up with a plan to help us feel a little more chill.

 We went to a garden show!

Just me and Mom and a snotty (but fairly cheerful) baby.

 It was lovely, though slightly artificial and WAY too crowded.   Apparently there were many others in need of the same therapy.

Flowers and green and beauty in the winter? 


Yes!

 The problem with this is that it makes me want things. (Like, um, spring.)

 A cute little french garden with an outdoor stone oven?

Want!

Ginormous clay pots with water flowing out of them into crisp little blue pools?

Want!

A cute, smiley baby with a snot-crusted face?

Want! (Um, hold the snot crust!)

Wait, I have that!

Great!


It also made me want to make things.  I came away with a few dreams and ideas.  We'll see if I can put a few of them into practice this winter and spring.

Like these adorable miniature gardens. 

 

They're just so tiny!

I've always admired these miniatures and I would love to try my hand at making them!


Also, some day I want to learn to weld and work with metal so I can make awesome little sculptures like this:

I've always loved metal art.  Ahhh... someday...

 

So we got a got our spring fever ramped up a few notches, and got a little break from being house-bound.  We also managed a little "retail therapy" but that was severely frustrated by the traffic.  Oh, city life is not the life for me. 

It has it's perks sometimes, though... like little doses of spring in winter...

Snip Snip!

Evan got his first haircut at Grandma's house!

At 19 months old, it was time.  It was getting pretty long in some places and his mohawk has long since been laying down.   With his constant hair-twirling habit, the back was getting pretty tangled, too.

Getting him to stay still was a trick...

In fact, he didn't, really.

Once he saw that first cut, he was determined to get the heck outta dodge.

So I bribed him with cheese while his Grandma cut a moving target.

It worked, and my Mom has a lot of experience cutting little boys' hair.

And now he looks like such a big boy!

The double swirly is quite visible again, and that middle part will stick up whenever he gets a haircut for the rest of his life, I'm sure.

He's just extra cute now!

Ka-blooey

I traveled without my camera. 

Le gasp!

Yes, I did.  I've never done it before.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, that time being packing.  My camera would be one less bulky thing to carry along and I figured it would be nice to minimize the bulk what with three kids and all their accompanying gear.  Besides that, my camera has been around and around and around and it's really showing it's age.  I want it to hang on as long as possible, and a trip is unlikely to help that.  AND, my Mom has a fancy new camera that I can shoot with here.

But I miss it.  That camera is like an extension of my person and it feels like I'm missing a limb or something.  Also, I missed so many good photo ops along the way.  Scenes like Evan zonked out, spread-eagle, on the floor in the very crowded Denver airport, or Jonah studiously following along in the safety information card during the in-flight safety demonstration.  ("Mom!  Did you know that the seat bottom cushion is useful for flotation?"), or the big stroller that carried my babies and randomly dropped a wheel once in a while along the way.

However, even though I am short actual photos of the actual event, I have managed to find a few stand-in images that will help to illustrate my journey from Michigan to Oregon alone with my three children.

After arriving at the airport at oh-dark-thirty in the middle of the night and getting my progeny and stuff through security, we boarded a fairly average jet-liner, something like this, but with Carl the Coyote (and later Jack the Snowshoe Hare) on the tail and wing-tips.

We found our seats waaaaay in the back of the cabin.  ("Walk, Evan!  Keep walking!  Go!  Evan... keep goooooing!")

We settled ourselves.

The plane took off.

Then this happened:

I've always sort of prided myself on being the Mom that has it all together.  On never leaving even so much as a peanut wrapper behind.  That's actually not too hard with one kid.

I got my comeuppance when I had no choice but to walk (or rather, drag my crew) off the plane at the end  of our flight with our seating area looking something like this:

 

I was wishing I had packed a neat little Dirt Devil hand vac.

Sigh.  No camera, no Dirt Devil.

And then we got on another plane and did it all again, same song, second verse, a little faster and a little bit worse, and left the aircraft in ruins.

"Your kids have been so great!" the stewardess said.  Then she narrowed her eyes and looked at Evan and said, "Well.  YOU are a little boarder-line."  (Someone else said, after asking the ages of my kids, "Well!  You have been a very busy lady!" which is actually very different than saying "You ARE a busy lady" if you catch my drift.  Just sayin'.  I got a lot of interesting looks and comments yesterday.)

But we made it!  We're here, and I could happily sleep for several weeks, but I don't get to because I have to join in the game of Mommy Ping Pong (Mommy's the ball) that my little guys have initiated. That's okay, though, because if I slept I would miss out on so much fun with my family!  It's gonna be great (if I can keep my eyeballs propped open).

Jeffrey!

You know this routine, don't you?

Yeah, that was me.  Times 3.

More about that to come...