Haircuts

I finally won the battle with Eric and got the boys little boy haircuts. They don't even look like the same kids. And their hair looks so blonde now. Handsome fellows if I do say so myself!

Made me laugh

Turner is 27 months old. Still nursing - a lot. More than I'd like for him to be, but I'm not really ready to forcefully wean, and I'm lazy, so we're still going. He's still two months younger than Guthrie was when I weaned him. And I'd like to try child-led weaning, although I'm not sure what my limit is. I guess we'll see.

He just climbed up on my lap to nurse, and who knows why, but he pulled off, looked at the nursies, and said, "Icky. Sick." I told him the nursies were yummy and good and wouldn't make him sick, and then he looked at me, pointed to the nursie, and said, "Compost."

I totally cracked up, and now he keeps saying it.

Apparently, I need to compost the icky nursies. *sigh*

For all those people who think babies *MUST* be weaned by one year, or whatever other abritrary age, and are definitely too old to nurse when they are old enough to ask for it, they just don't know the fun they are missing with a baby who is able to tel you how much he loves his nursies, or, even, that they should go in the compost.

Crash! Bang! Boom!

That's what the back of Guthrie's head looks like right now. He has 4 staples in his scalp. Yes, they were put there intentionally. Oh, yes, we paid good money to have a doctor put staples in our son's head.

Yesterday started off normally enough. The house is total chaos, and really has been for weeks, with the girls visits and then the hurricane, so we decided our mission was to get things under control. And to start with the kitchen. And so, we spent hours cleaning the kitchen, and if you looked at it right now, you couldn't tell.

Okay, back up: Late Saturday night I got a call from my almost 17-year-old niece asking me if she should go to the Emergency Room for her injured wrist. Not quite sure how she injured it, but something about a ledge and her cat. She didn't have her insurance card, couldn't get ahold of her grandparents, and so she called me, thousand miles away that I am. And I didn't know what to tell her, so I spent the night worried sick about my poor injured niece.

Ah, yes, the kitchen. And the boys acting insane because we were ignoring them so we could give them a clean house, a hot meal, a nice home. Fighting, tantrums, the normal for 2- and 4-yo boys.

I napped with Turner. Things felt hectic but okay. I was scrubbing fingerprints off wallpaper when I realized it was about 5 o'clock, time to call Samantha.

She answers, says she's home alone, and that it's stormy. I was at the computer anyway, so I pulled up the weather channel for where she is, and - TORNADO WARNING!!! Anyone who knows me knows I HATE tornadoes, and Samantha freaked out (just a little bit) too. Home alone, going to the basement, sirens going off.

While I'm on the phone, Eric's making dinner, and I hear Turner cry. Eric says Turner broke his piggy bank. (This bank - it's a bear holding a honey pot, and I think actually belongs to Rosalind - has become Turner's "lovey" lately. He calls it "Puppy." It's hard and not cuddly, big and unweildy, but Turner insists on sleeping with him.) Fortunately, it was a pretty clean break and fixable, but Turner was pretty upset. He kept kissing it, holding both pieces, and saying, "I sorry," over and over again.

I'm still talking Samantha through the tornado warning. Asking her when her dad will get home, trying to find local (for her) news stations to see what they are saying. And then -

BANG!

Guthrie was playing on the exercise tower I got for my birthday. He was hanging by his legs off the bottom bar, swung backwards, and BOOM! cracked his head on ... something. I'm not sure if it was the bottom bar of the tower or a wooden block on the floor. He screamed and cried, but, you know, little boys bang their heads all the time, so I was still on the phone with Samantha, Eric was still trying to make dinner and comfort Turner with the broken "Puppy." Guthrie climbed into my lap, and then we found the blood.

Oh, the blood.

I've never before seen that much blood come from one of my children, and I hope to never see it again.

I told Samantha I had to go, slipped on my shoes, and we took off for the ER. Eric was in a panic. There was SO. MUCH. BLOOD. We had a wet towel on Guthrie's head, but by the time we got to the ER I had blood all over me (and my purse and my cell phone), and Guthrie's hair was pink. He was crying, more in fear than pain. Eric's crazy driving there and his sense of panic probably didn't help much.

And then, 5 hours later, we left the ER, Guthrie with 4 staples in his head. Yes, staples. The doctor (she was really, really awesome, and really helped keep Guthrie calm through it all) said staples are better than stitches because they are much faster. Guthrie thought it was all awful, and I'm not sure how much the topical painkiller did to ease the pain of his head BEING STAPLED. And the thought of taking those staples out of my son's head? Not looking forward to Friday when he gets them removed.

Today, things are more normal. We didn't get much sleep. Eric fixed "Puppy," and Turner was distraught he couldn't sleep with him, but Puppy sat right next to Turner on the bed, and that's how he fell asleep. Samantha survived the tornado warning without any problems. Stacia, my niece, has some kind of fracture in her wrist and can't work for a week.

It was after 10 p.m. when we got home from the hospital last night, so too late for any treat. But today, to make up for the horrible owies Guthrie had to endure, the decapitated piggy-bear-puppy bank, and the general chaos of the day, I did what needed to be done: We went to Cold Stone. YUM!

And how was your Sunday?

You might be a mother to a toddler if ...

You hear yourself saying, "Do NOT put a bean up your nose!"

Yep, we got beans from our garden. And yep, Turner put one up his nose earlier. Thankfully, it popped right out, since I didn't put 2 and 2 together right away. (He was walking around laughing and saying "Bean. Bean. Bean." while putting his finger up his nose, and I finally asked, "did you put a bean up your nose?" to which he responded by laughing hysterically, causing the bean to fall out of his nose.)

That wasn't, quite, the point of the garden.

Bad Mommy! Bad!

We'd bought a bunch of limes since they were cheap, planned on making limeade and some other things. We finally realized they needed to be used, so Eric and Guthrie started squeezing. I asked him to keep some back so we would have lime juice to use in cooking, but the only bottle we had handy was an empty water bottle. Eric filled that up with lime juice, used the rest for yummy limeade.



Well, Turner's gotten creative and independent lately, and opened the fridge to get himself a drink. He saw the bottle, and I guess he thought it was water. I couldn't resist the opportunity and grabbed the camera, just as he took a big swig of straight lime juice.



I know, I know, it's cruel. Don't worry, I rewarded him with a little piece of dark chocolate after, and he seems to have forgiven me.

How does my garden grow

So the totally insane and brilliant idea I had to try to grow a garden might be going much better if Turner was not frightened to death of the shovel. Yes, the shovel. What was I doing with it? Trying to dig a hole to plant some tomatoes. Pretty scary stuff.

Yes, the kid has some weird fears. At Wal-Mart (don't ask - we try to avoid it, but sometimes we just have to - plus it's the only place we've found that carries the kind of cheese we eat) in the Garden section they have these enormous fans on the ceiling. Those are so scary he had to cling to me - while still sitting in the cart - whenever they were in view. The vacuum he thinks might eat him. Same with the leafblower that was being used at the park. The street cleaner? Might as well be a monster from Mars. Lizards are not at all scary, but flies cause screaming hysterics. The mop - the MOP - at the restaurant last week had him jumping out of his seat.

Otherwise, Guthrie and I planted some flowers while Turner took his nap. Eric dug up the nasty rose bush (that didn't bloom, and housed an enormous black bumble bee) and the tiny oleander in the front yard. I planted two cherry tomato plants in barrels, and as soon as Eric can dig the hole (because I'm not going to try again) I'll put the other tomatoes in the ground.

We have a TON of seed packets, because the boys (and I) went a little nuts at the store, buying everything that seemed interesting. I have to figure out how much space I'm actually going to have and prioritize what I want to try. I've always had black thumbs, but I figure it's worth a shot. Wish me luck. And hope Turner gets over his irrational fears.

Our lazy Sunday afternoon

We walked out this afternoon and looked at the outside of the bedroom window to see this:


As I have two young sons, they were of course fascinated by the lizard on the window. Which proceeded to be terribly frightened by the two tow-headed two-legged creatures which so desperately wanted to touch it that it jumped right onto Guthrie's head and now his back, only to hide under a table, where it was much easier to get to.

We spent the next 45 minutes or so watching it,

squealing with joy at it,

curious as to what exactly it was

whether it was going to get us,

and why it didn't understand our repeated explanations that we were, in fact, people, and not a predator going to get it, and why wouldn't it just let us give it a kiss or hold it for a minute,

before it finally got away.


And such is life with Guthrie, Turner, and our various and sundry lizards and other wildlife here in the Rio Grande Valley.

Santa!!!

Guthrie liked Santa.

A LOT!!!

Turner ... didn't.

I think we're *almost* done shopping. One more gift to get, and Eric is insisting he get some money to get me a gift (which I'm reluctantly agreeing to, after being unable to stop getting him gifts once I started). Oh, stocking stuffers too - that could get expensive. Maybe we're not quite done after all ...

This was a very good Santa too. Not quite the one I grew up with, who is the *real* Santa I am certain, but he was still very very good. But oh, if only the threat of "behave now, or we'll go back and tell Santa that you are not minding" would work all year long. It works so very well.

Fun with stickers

Turner has fallen in love with stickers. He will play with them for hours, decorating whatever we give him. So we decided to wrap some of our gifts in plain brown paper and let the boys decorate them. Turner loved it - wouldn't stop when it was time. But he got tired of decorating the paper, and decided to decorate me instead. So. Much. Fun.

(PS - I saw that this is my 200th post. Missed my 100th, so we're celebrating 200 instead)