Terrible timing...

I’m having an “I’m the worst mom in the world” day, which probably isn’t the best time to be blogging, but I always remember the good stuff when I sit down to type about them. And when I remember all the good stuff, I think about how lucky I am, and I forget to focus on how frustrated I am with them. Make sense? Thanks for following!

Gavi’s vocabulary grows daily. His favorite things are shoes right now. He loves to put them on, take them off, throw them at his brother, etc. When I asked him where his shoes were the other day, he says, “I nunno. Find ‘em!” It was awesome! He’s a bossy little monkey, but man is he sweet!

Caleb is also a total crack up most days. He’s REALLY into the idea of getting a baby brother, and has started “practicing” on Gavi. We were playing in their room the other day when Gavi took a header into the corner of his crib. I was cuddling and kissing and trying to stop the tears when Caleb stands next to me and requests, “Give him to me, Mom.”

Now Caleb only outweighs Gavi by eight pounds on his best day, so I wasn’t sure what his intentions were. “Let me have him,” he reiterated. So I had him sit down, put Gavi in his lap, and I’ll be darned if that boy didn’t have his little brother calmed before my arms had fully pulled away. He rocked him, kissed him, and when the love fest dissolved into a wrestling match, hammered his head into the crib again. Sigh.

Then when we were at Safeway the other day, in one of their awesome fire truck carts, Gavi was starting to lose patience with life. Caleb pulled him over so he was laying across him, then started singing “Rock-a-bye Baby” to him. I swear, I started crying right there in the aisle.

Pregnancy hormones.

See, I’m already starting to forget that Caleb slugged me two times at the zoo this morning, and that Gavi has kicked me half a dozen times today. Oops. Remembering made me mad. On with the good stuff.

Gavi is getting really good with his manners. He’ll remember to say “please” for just about everything, “thank you” is “nana,” but he says it at appropriate times, excuse me is “mimi,” and he likes that one the best. He will literally squat and force little toots out just so he can say “mimi!” Oh, he gets the giggles! And eating with him is the best right now, because he’s really working on “May I be excused, please?” It comes out, “I be schcoo pease, may?” Oh, my little heart just swells a couple sizes.

Man, there are so many fun things I wanted to remember to get down, and now I can’t remember them! Caleb has his first dentist appointment on Monday – yay! We actually decided against going to the dentist the insurance assigned us and going directly to a pediatric dentist because… well, he’s kind of a wimp. But Daddy is going to take him, so I get let off that particular chore! And Grandma and Grandpa Fashbaugh are coming to visit next week, so that will be fun. And then Grandma Garmane is having knee replacement surgery the following week so that she can be up and about by the time Declan makes his appearance.

It’s funny, because I’ve still got seven weeks left of the pregnancy, but when I start looking at my calendar and seeing everything we’ve got going on, I start to wonder how we’ll get it all done! I’ve got doctor’s appointments starting to come more often now, VBS, where I’m the preschool director, visits with high school and college friends, Jonathan’s THIRTIETH birthday to plan – July 11th at our clubhouse if anyone wants to RSVP now! – the 4th of July, and a whole bunch of swimming to catch up on. I’ll be lucky to get to any of the actual house chores I wanted done before Dex gets here! But I’m okay with that! Push everything off to the last minute – maybe he’ll come early as a punishment!

Caleb’s big obsessions right now are space shuttles and sharks. I LOVE IT! I get to learn stuff about cool things, too! I was so tired of learning about concrete trucks and race cars that I was ready to have a book burning. (That’s a JOKE! I love books! But some of them did find their way to the top of the bookshelf where little boys can’t see to request them.) Let me know if anyone knows any good videos about either of them.

Gavi got his summer haircut! Jonathan did it while I was napping one day. Boy did THAT wake me up! My baby! My baby is gone! He looks like such a big boy! But you know what? He gets WAY more compliments now! Jonny and I agree that it just makes him look like Caleb – FINALLY! You can really tell they’re brothers! His hair is still that light wheat colored gold and Caleb’s is much darker, but since both their hair is short, the difference isn’t as noticeable. SO CUTE!

Speaking of so cute, my little Gavi just woke up from his nap and I have to go get him before he wakes up his brother. We’ve got SWIMMING to do!

Happy May!

I’m a little behind on my blogging again. However, this time, I’ve remembered to jot down a couple of notes to make sure that I get some of the cuter stories into my recollections. (Disclaimer: I’ve been up for three hours after less than three hours of sleep, so I might be a little punchy.) As I write this, Caleb, Daddy and Gavi are snuggling on the couch and watching Veggie Tales. Actually, Caleb is watching, Gavi and Daddy are challenging each other for authority. Gavi seems to be winning.

Since I last wrote, I’ve had three friends with babies born – Welcome to the World, Jackson, Peyton and Lukas! – been to Hawaii, gone through round two of chicken pox, and had countless other exciting and not so exciting things happen. But as this is generally about my monkeys, we’ll start with cute story number one:

Caleb asks me one evening as we’re getting dinner ready, “Did you know I love God?”

My heart swells with pride as I say, “Yes, sweetheart. I know you love God.”

“Does that make God happy?”

“I can’t think of anything that would make God happier!”

“Yeah, and it also makes me have heartburn.”

Tremendous! Later on, he touched the edge of the pan we were cooking on and shouted, “Ouch! I’m starting to get ankles!” What man can know the intricacies of the three year old mind? When I asked him to quit chewing on his toenails and he responded quite reasonably, “But my toenails taste nice.” I’m not really sure what to do with that one.

Gavi has gotten quite involved with his own independence. His favorite is to “put on” his own socks. He’ll place them gently over his foot and applaud himself for his ingenuity. Actually, he applauds himself quite obsessively. I don’t think we do it for him too terribly often, but he’s apparently gotten the impression that it’s what you do. Honestly, the kid is so dang cute that I just want to applaud him constantly.

Mother’s Day was a lot of fun this year – we rounded up our brood and headed to our friends’ house where the menfolk took care of the kidfolk and let the mommies go out for an adult lunch and a movie. We’re going to do the same thing for the boys for Father’s Day. It works out pretty well ~ not only is the celebrating spouse enjoying themselves, but the left behind one at least has someone to commiserate with (whilst taking care of four children).

Oh, another Caleb story: the boys woke up WAY too early on Mother’s Day, and I don’t live with the kind of husband that would get up to take care of our kids unless I was DEAD. (Bitter much?) So I was feeling a little cranky and underappreciated, which doesn’t lead to a good morning with hyper little boys. So after about a half an hour of being snappy with them, I realized that the day wasn’t a celebration of ME, but of the OFFICE! I’m only a mom because of THEM! So I was trying to psych myself up by singing that childhood staple of “This is the day that the Lord has made.”

Caleb interrupted me almost immediately with this helpful suggestion: “You can sing to someone who likes your singing, Mommy!” (In retrospect, I should have said that Jesus and Gavi liked my singing – while not sure if this is the truth for the latter, I know that the Lord appreciated any efforts on my behalf to acknowledge his blessings in my life. And no matter how cute that little booger is, Jesus trumps Caleb.)

Hawaii was loverly. Jonny went for work, and I was able to tag along pretty cheaply. I had thought I was too pregnant to go on a plane, but apparently you’re allowed to fly until 32 weeks of pregnancy. Mom Fashbaugh came to take care of the boys, and the three of them had a fabulous time. I would have had a more fabulous time if I’d had them with me, I think, because I spent the whole time MOPING because I was so homesick for my sweetnesses. Plus, Jonny had to work the majority of every day we were there, so I was all alone.

Before I go feeling too sorry for myself, I should mention that I read ELEVEN books while laying on the beach of Waikiki. I can’t be too mopey, because that in itself is the kind of vacation most people would kill for. And we did get to go snorkeling for half an hour at Hanauma Bay. Ohmigoodness was that amazing! We didn’t really even cry over the brevity of the trip, since it was our last day in Hawaii and just wanted to relax.

While we were on quarantine for GAVI’S chicken pox, my sister came and spent a day with us to help me deal with the world. I had seriously broken down on the Saturday before Easter when those stinking spots popped up all over him. Not only had I just finished my quarantine with Caleb, but Jonathan was leaving town AGAIN, which meant that I was on my own taking care of two housebound and shackbatty little boys. Did I say again? Anyway, Meggie took a day off work to give me some company and relief. Not only did she give me some time out of the house to get to the store and the library, but she showed up with a present! She and my folks had both pitched in to send me to a pre-natal massage! Hooray! It was absolute heaven, and I will appreciate them forever.

While she was over, we were getting ready to pray over a meal. I always ask Caleb if he wants to pray, and our guests if we have them. But this time I asked Gavi as well, who was the only person to say yes. So we all joined hands and I sneaked a peek at Gavi, who closed his eyes, then said, “Ahhhmen.” It was awesome!

Caleb has just informed me that he has a new job. “I’m the gravity man! I make sure everyone has gravity!” And the other day he announced that the United States was the new Antarctica – the old Antarctica is closed. So if you were planning on visiting the trendy vacation hotspot of Antarctica, you no longer have to look any further than your own backyard. Phew.

Catching up on blogging, dang it!

My Gavers is SUCH a boy! Not only do body function noises send him into a fit of giggles, but we’ve had to ban him from the bathroom while Caleb does his business. Gavi is just a little too up close and personal with the action. One of the cutest things he does though is make fart noises any way he can. The best way he’s found is to use a rubber duckie or whale on his tummy while in the bathtub. He can sit there and do that for twenty or thirty minutes, and the hilarious thing is that he’s cracking up the WHOLE time! Watch out for armpit noises from him in the near future…

This morning, day six of our seclusion, we were reading another fifty trillion books. Gavi, who is way more of a reader than Caleb was at this age, finally got bored, and used me as a ladder onto his brother’s bed, where he would smash his head on the wall and then throw himself over my shoulder to get down again. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. (Seriously, it must be a boy thing. Ramming your head into the wall to hear the noise? Girls don’t do that.) Finally, I got a little weary of it, and said, “Sweetie, Mommy isn’t a jungle gym.”

“That’s right,” piped in Caleb. “Uncle Chris is.”

I don’t know where it came from, but the quicker Gavi decides that Uncle Chris is a better jungle gym than Mommy, the quicker I can actually grow my hair without it being ripped out by baby feet.

Caleb used an incredibly advanced word this morning, and I can’t remember what it was. It was “capable” or something of that nature, because it was something he was able to do on his own because he was a big boy. It was his first sentence of the day – which explains why I can’t remember, since it was one of the first things I had to process for the day. Whatever it was, it’s worth mentioning if for no other reason than to show that he’s incredibly smart. Even though we talked baby talk to him. So raspberries to all you snobs who insist that your children are intelligent because you refused to coo at them. = Þ

I’m looking forward to Jonathan coming home. It’s really been difficult for me on this trip because I haven’t been able to go to the library to get new books, and we had a mix up on Netflix so we didn’t get any new movies. Six days of house arrest with only my own books and movies? Sure, I’ve got hundreds of each, but none of them suit when I need a distraction. Wah. I went so far as to work on a six year old cross-stitch project that has been sitting in my closet for five years, eleven months and three and a half weeks. THAT’S how bored I am. Plus, I can’t make myself go to bed when he’s gone ~ how ridiculous is that? My one chance to go to bed right when the kids do, but I refuse to give up my “me” time. Crossing my fingers that tonight is the last night I wallow in my own self-pity!

 Terra replied...

I always stay up too late when Kyle's gone too!

 

Playing catch up!

I thought of dozens of things I’d forgotten in my uber-long post last week, but now that I have time to sit down with them, most of them are gone again. Pregnant brain AND mommy brain ~ double trouble!

My MOPS girls threw me a wonderful baby shower a few weeks ago. Another girl from my table and I are due about a month apart, and the rest of the gals put on a wonderful tea luncheon thing with fun games and great presents. I’m not going to need any more newborn diapers, that’s for sure! What a blessing! People brought packages of diapers, and a couple of them pitched in to make a beautiful diaper cake complete with bibs, onesies, socks, pacifiers, spoons, towels, etc. I do have pictures, but Jonny’s just been so busy that he hasn’t been able to get them loaded.

Gavi has started being very attached to “lovies.” His baby is the doll my First Horizon peeps gave me when they had a fake baby shower for me two years before my first pregnancy. (I just found a stash of newborn diapers from that same shower that will come in handy for Declan!) Her name is Lola Monet, but we just call her “Baby,” and she’s wearing a green outfit. I’m not worried about gender confusion or anything, it’s just that we only have boy clothes! When we can’t find Baby, a bear will do. Caleb has two biggish teddies, and they have pretty much become Gavi’s property. Caleb just never took to stuffed animals or blankets or anything.

Well, he might have gone through a quick phase. This has really only been going on for a couple weeks, and if Caleb did that, I might have forgotten it. It’s just an issue now because Gavi has to have Baby for his nap and night night, and he goes straight to sleep. He still doesn’t sleep long, but he never fights it!

Caleb has just informed me that ALL his friends have chicken pops. So they should all be able to come over and play. He's very concerned about their health, but still wants to play. I let him try power bowling on the Wii this morning, just to have a change-up, but he just drops the ball. Of course, now MY arm is ready to fall off!

Gavi made the elephant “sound” for the first time this morning! He’s got the majority of the farmyard and ALL of the roaring animals down, but the elephant was one of his holdouts. He also correctly identified a mouse when he saw the picture. He LOVES books!

And from that same book comes the reference for my next quickie tale – we were watching Planet Earth on Thursday night when we saw a jaguar hunting. “Oh no,” says Caleb, “that chinchilla is hungry. Poor chinchilla!” Apparently the jaguar and chinchilla are close enough in the picture book to confuse when seeing them out of context. It was super cute though!

Okay, the roaring of the dinosaurs, lions, tigers, bears and even puppies is calling me away. Happy Monday!

Dyeing Easter Eggs

Remember how Gavi likes to crash glasses? It turns out that an egg will make NEARLY the same sound. Dyeing eggs this morning took a tragic turn when my eighteen eggs became a dozen due to my overestimation of Gavi’s artistic abilities. Or rather my UNDERestimation of his love for destruction!

On the flip side, this is the first year that Caleb’s are true works of art. He’s doing watercolor eggs with a paintbrush, and I think they’re exquisite. True works of art from a three year old brush...

Untitled...

This morning I missed MOPS. Yesterday, I missed a lunch outing with my former co-workers and a much anticipated trip to visit my Gram. Tomorrow, I will miss a baby shower. As I sat around, moping, trying to figure out how to make lemonade out of poo, I realized that it was the PERFECT opportunity to update my blog! It’s been too long!

Caleb has the chicken pox, hence the complete social overhaul. Poor baby – it’s definitely worse today than it was yesterday, and he keeps hollering for a leg-scratcher. I’m actually starting to dread scarring on his face, since I can’t keep him from clawing at himself. And while I don’t wish sickness on my children, I do sort of hope that Gavi gets it now so we can double up on our quarantine time. More bang for the buck, you know?

I’m trying to think of all the things I’ve missed writing about, so please pardon my rambling. First of all, we’re having ANOTHER BOY! Jonathan and I were the only two people in the world who thought it would be a boy. Near strangers were certain we were having a girl, and grandparents galore were POSITIVE. Of course, it was tough to hear the disappointment they weren’t able to hide when they got the news, but still – WE WIN!

It took us a couple weeks to run through our name choices and narrow it down. After much deliberation, discussion and prayer, we have tentatively named our son…Declan Angus Zakai Fashbaugh. We will call him Dex for short. (Although, DAZ has been suggested, and Jonathan and Caleb insist they will call him Angus. As for myself, I suspect I will fall into my old habits and call him Declan Z.) Declan means “full of goodness,” where Angus means “one choice,” followed by Zakai’s “purity.” And Fashbaugh means “breath of life,” so it’s a pretty stinking good name for a little boy!

Let’s see, my boys are still just the cutest, coolest things on the planet. Gavi is growing by leaps and bounds, and is really starting to struggle to make himself understood. He’s big on “B” words – ball, bubble, baby, bath, etc. And even words that don’t actually start with b get the treatment: juice is now “booze.” That’s the funniest example I can think of, but there are many such instances of words sounding like OTHER words.

Caleb is ridiculously smart and sweet. First of all, his favorite book right now is the one that I learned to read on – The King’s Tea. I hadn’t realized how ANGRY that book was until we read it a dozen times and I realized that there’s a lot of rage. Regardless, he now knows every word, and I can stop reading for a minute and have him continue. Which is how I learned to read on the same book. It’s a generational thing! It’s actually Gavi’s favorite book right now, too. Caleb just mentioned it after lunch one day, and Gavi ran to get it off the bookshelf.

The weather shifts wildly between shorts inducing and snow-suit needing! We’ve had some fun in both kinds, lately. Right now, it’s God’s grace that the weather is close to the sixties, because the boys and I can sit outside and not feel quite so housebound. It’s supposed to be giant snow again tomorrow, so we’ll be able to get out for a little snowman building. (Last time, we had to tame Gavi's desire to throw snowballs at every person and animal that passed us!)

Jonathan is out of town on one of his four trips this month. The great thing about that is that I get to go on his last trip with him this month…to HAWAII! I’ve never even thought about being able to go, but his assistant talked us into it and made all the arrangements. Grandma Fashbaugh will come and stay with the boys, and Jonny and I will wing our way to the islands. Ha! What a funny thing to say in my life! (And at 28-29 weeks of pregnancy, I'm not even going to get to go sailing!)

Oh, and we had pictures taken again, so expect to be inundated with images. Seriously, they are so stinking cute that it takes my breath away sometimes. Gavi melted down at the studio when we tried to take one of his three stuffed animals away, so he didn’t get to be in all the pictures. But they still turned out pretty cute!

I’m finding it’s absolutely ridiculous how much damage these kids can do in less than a minute. I would literally have to have eyes in the back of my head AND a bladder of steel to keep up with them all the time. So I just try to limit the chaos, and remind myself that just about everything they destroy is just “stuff.” For instance, Gavriel is a glass-breaking junkie. For a while, I was losing one a day until I figured out that it wasn’t an accident – he was throwing them on the floor to hear the shatter. Now we use plastic cups around him, but I still love glass, so I keep it out of his reach.

He uses my plastic cups to THROW at the glass to knock them over. I kid you not. And we were out with Grandma F, Uncle Chris and Auntie Sisa last week at Beau Jo’s when he got ahold of a glass cup and threw it under the table at the only metal available that would allow it to shatter. He’s kind of a SMART little stinker!

And Caleb recently pulled one of my all time nightmares – my roll of 100 stamps now decorate his cement mixer and recycling truck. Not kidding – I was getting the bills paid and in two minutes flat, the stamps were removed from my sight and plastered all over his toys.

Okay, my duties as a leg-scratcher are being called for again…

 Terra replied...

Oh girl! You have got your hands full and yet maintain such an attitude of gratefulness. I'm amazed! Hang in there! :)

 

Growing wise, Growing WELL!

This morning, when I took Gavi out of the bath and was getting him ready, Caleb used my absence as an opportunity to see how far across the bathroom and into the hallway he could splash the water. I came back to the bathroom, and expressed my irritation in a loving way. (“For crying out LOUD!” I believe, was my exact phrasing.) Caleb asked, “Are you frustrated with me, Mommy?”

“I’m just a little frustrated, because you’re doing things that you know are naughty,” said I, as I wrung out the bottom of my pants that were wet to the ankles from the plush carpet pool I’d just walked over. I cleaned up the floor as well as I could with the only dry towel I could find, as Caleb thought on this.

“Mommy?” he said in the smallest voice EVER. “Am I going to jail?”

Talk about breaking a mommy’s heart! Since I was already soaked through, I scooped him out of the tub and cuddled him. “You’re not going to jail, sweetness! Why would you think that?”

It turns out that in our quest to read all of his books by March 11th, I’d been reading for accomplishment and not for pleasure. He hadn’t been asking all the questions he usually does, and so certain fears weren’t being addressed. When Curious George accidentally dialed the fire department in his debut story, he was thrown in JAIL! What kind of lesson are those Rey’s trying to teach our children?!

It taught me a valuable lesson, too. Even though it’s fun to have goals – especially ones that are accomplished when we can’t play outside – I need to leave room for all the little interruptions that keep my little boy confident in his interpretation of the world.

Gavi is really working on some words. There are some that are easily recognizeable – “bah” for bath, “buppoo” for puppy, “fuh” for fish, and “NAH, NAH, NAH, NAH, NAH” for gimme milk right now before I chew your leg off. He’s so much fun. He tilts his head to the side and grins for “please.” It’s precious! He’s also so cute when he makes animal sounds – in Gavi’s world, kitties say “oooooow,” without the “me.” He’s seriously adorable! We’re still really having to work with his violent tendencies, though. His hitting, kicking and screaming when he’s thwarted need to cease. He’s biting a lot less, which is a real blessing! As the sole recipient of what bites he still hands out, I’m still crossing my fingers that it’s going to stop all together.

Yesterday, we went to the McDonald’s play place after our playdate was cancelled. We walked in, and there was a little boy about Caleb’s age with his mom. Caleb looks over at me and stage whispers, “He’s a cute boy!” I agreed, laughing, as we made our way to the table. As we sat down, he said even more loudly, “That boy is SO cute!” I was totally cracking up. It got worse though – after the two bigger boys climbed up the whole twisty maze and made their way down the slide, Caleb throws his arms around the boy, and says, “You are SO CUTE!” I was DYING!

Ten minutes after that potentially awkward interlude, the other boy asked Caleb to climb up the slide with him. Caleb didn’t even pause. “My mommy says I can’t climb up the slide.” Then he ran to the stairs and met the little boy at the top. I was so proud of his obedience, even though we hadn’t talked about it that day! Again the little boy asked him to climb up. This time Caleb did look at me, but then looked back to the kid and said, “Nope, my mommy says I can’t.” Granted, I was right there, but in this first public display of peer pressure, my sweet little boy did what was right, and I was so proud of him.