Pregnancy Brain

Today we went to the mall for lunch and I payed with cash because I actually had cash on me. 

Then this afternoon was the boys' Dr. appointments. I had to carry them from their beds to the car to avoid the meltdowns of being awoken early from their naps. In the process of trying to keep them happy and subdued, I totally forgot my purse and wallet. 

I didn't realize I had forgotten either until I pulled up to the parking lot of the office. My purse had their vaccination booklets and my wallet had the money for Bram's last round of shots. 

David had to run home and pick my purse up. He brought it, we were the last patients of the day, literally five minutes before the doctor was about to leave. I pull out my wallet to pay for the vaccinations and to my horror I realize I used the cash for the shots to buy lunch earlier that day. I usually have loads of coins for the boys and we almost completely paid for the two shots with coins. We were about $1.75 short. I had the thought that I should just have David go to an ATM to get the cash and just forget about the booklets, but I never actually suggested it to David. This pregnancy brain is killing me.

Bram is 27 1/2 lbs. He is also really tall for his age. The doctor says Anders will be a least 6'1. Both are healthy and excelling in every way. Bram also figured out how to really run today. My baby is officially gone. I now have two toddlers.

I am loved

Just finished a photo book for Bram. Like his older brother, he will have his before bed "I am Loved" book to read before bed. Check it out below!

 



 

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Fifty-One

Me: "I love you infinity times the sun squared plus eleven!"

Anders: "I love you infinity times the sun squared plus twenty."

Me: "Well I love you infinity times the sun squared plus one-thousand."

Anders: "I love you infinity times the sun squared plus fifty-one."

(He has never said a number higher than twenty.)

Me: "Wow, that is a lot!"

Anders: "Yah, fifty-one is great!" 

Sense of Smell

Anders and Bram were in the bathtub tonight and David needed to use the toilet. Yes, we have two kids and still one bathroom. David finished on the toilet and started to walk out of the bathroom. I hear Anders say, "I smell something!" David responds, "I just pooped." Silence. And then uncontrollable laughter from me.

We changed the sheets on our bed tonight and as Anders climbed up to get dressed in his pajamas he explains, "The white sheet is gross." He then proceeded to try to climb onto my bed without touching the white sheet at all. That kid!

Quirks

Bram:

He is obsessed with picking at mine and David's cuticles whenever we cuddle with him.

He has this strong sense of fairness. It is really important to him.

If you ask him to smile he squints his eyes or pulls a face, but if you ask him to say cheese, he smiles perfectly for pictures. 

He has to have the lid of anything that is opened for him or he feels jiped.

Anders:

He has always grouped things by color. It's like programmed into him.

He adds "s" to the end of words. "That is mine(s)!" or "What you do(s)?"

Has an unbelievable memory. I have to be very careful because of this. I missed cuddling with him once, he was asleep before I got to him, and he remembered in the morning that I hadn't. He was mad at me for most of the day because that is such an important time for him with me.

He cannot relax. Whenever we throw Bram around in the air he goes limp and giggles with the sensation. Anders stays stiff as a board the whole time we try to swing him around.

Both:

They have to always be clothed, except right after bath time. They love streaking through the house after bath time.

When they do something they are proud of, they have to come over and hug or kiss me. (At home or out and about).

Woah!

I was putting a movie in for the boys and all of the sudden I hear Anders say, "Watch this and say 'woah'!" A few seconds later I hear Bram dutifully exclaim, "woah!" Then Anders reproved him, "No, not yet!" So Bram waits a few seconds and says with proper enthusiasm, "woah!"

This is what Anders was doing:

THey Are Growing UP

We have been looking for names we like for baby #3. We are pretty set on the girls name, have been for years now, but` we wanted to be prepared with some boy names that we like. It helps relieve my anxiety by allowing some sense of control. So we found a boy name we both liked and is strong like Anders and Abraham, the name is Axel. I told Anders about it and asked it him to say it. He said, "Ass-el." We tried again, and that time it sounded like a bad word. When Bram says it is sounds like "castle". Luckily, we have time to work on it. 

Bram is our little busy-body. He is my shadow when it comes to food. He has this sixth sense when it comes to me trying to eat or drink anything without him knowing. He also is always very vocal about what his brother is doing. Whenever he gets hurt by accident, or on purpose by Anders, he milks it for all it is worth. He comes to get kisses and cuddle and then he glares at Anders and yells periodically for the next ten minutes, "NICE!" 

This morning Bram added a new one. When Anders plays on our touchscreen computer, he is often way too close to the screen, so we are often telling him, "Too Close". So I was eating breakfast with Bram next to me, and all of a sudden Bram started yelling, "close! close!" He is too much sometimes. 

Four babies!

Anders kept changing his story about the baby. First, he was adamant that he was having a baby sister. Then he was convinced it was a baby sister and a baby brother, one green and one blue. Then, he was positive that it was a brother. So I had no idea what to expect with the ultrasound. Turns out, there is one baby. We still don't know if it is a girl or a boy. 

We paid to get a print out of three of the pictures from our ultrasound. I put them up on the fridge. Anders saw them this morning and asked about them. I said they were pictures of the baby. He is now convinced that there are four babies in my stomach because there are four ultrasound pictures on the fridge. His poor little mind is trying to grasp this allusive concept of baby.

A Child's Prayer

I had a really bad day the other day where I couldn't seem to keep food down. So then as I headed to bed I had a really bad hypoglycaemic attack. I was trying to cuddle with Anders, but was in so much pain, I couldn't help but moan and groan a bit. Anders was really concerned. He asked if I was okay. I told him I wasn't. So I then asked if he would pray for me. He sat up all official-like and prayed for me to feel better. The minute he finished, the pain eased. It was incredible! And I was able to tell him his prayer worked. Heavenly Father must really love it when children pray to him, because their hearts are so pure, he is usually able to answer their prayers immediately. It was a beautiful experience for us. 

We also saw baby #3 today. Beautiful and healthy and wiggly.

Friends

We went to the park this morning and there is a group of five kids under five that are part of a home daycare. We have seen them there before, and this week we were prepared to play by bringing balls for the boys to throw down the hills too. The daycare group LOVED my boys, even though they couldn't really communicate with each other because the kids are all French only. My boys would throw their balls down the hill and one of the five of the daycare kids would rush to get it and bring it back to whoever threw it. Not a shabby deal for my boys. 

When we got home and were having a snack, we talked about the fun morning at the park.

Me: "Was that so fun at the park today with your new friends."

Anders: "Yes! They are MY friends. My friends are great!"

Colors

The boys were coloring on the window with window markers. Bram likes to frequently change colors. He handed the purple back to his dad, demanding a green one. So David hands him the green one and he cheerfully exclaims, "purple!" And when he had the pink one, he insisted it was green. He knows a lot of names of colors. Now we need to work on him matching the name to the correct color.

Anders wore my shirt as his pajamas the other night. There was so much excessive material, he didn't know what to do with it. So every time we looked at him, he was doing something different with my shirt. This was probably the funniest experiment he tried.

Three Going On Thirteen

So we were at a restaurant this morning for breakfast. I had a small orange juice with mine and both the boys begged to share. Of course, the next thing I know, they have finished it and I had one sip. So I send Anders up to the counter get another orange juice. I hand him a five-dollar bill. He waits in the line. It took forever because they weren't very efficient. It was finally Anders' turn but he didn't realize it, so I shouted to the cashier that he wanted an orange juice. He handed her the money. I told him to wait to get money back. He gets it back and is ready to charge back. I remind him to wait for the juice. He gets it. And promptly comes back to the table. Without being asked he hands me the change and happily hands the juice over to Bram, allowing him the first sip. He was so pleased with himself that he had to give me a kiss. So my three-year-old already thinks he is mister independent. And to tell you the truth, in a lot of ways he really is.

Okay?

So David asks me over and over again every single day, "Are you okay?"

On a family walk the other day, Bram finally clued into this and every minute or so would yell, "k?" and look at me. He would repeat it over and over, "k? K? K? K?" until I would answer in the affirmative that I was indeed okay! I then am required to ask him if he is okay, which he responds to with a very enthused head nod. 

Then he has to ask Anders if he is okay. To which Anders often grumpily replies, "No!" Bram doesn't know how to respond to this answer so he will ask Anders again. When he gets a second grumpy, "NO!" I tell Bram, "Say what's the matter?" So Bram will say, "matter?" and is generally satisfied by that point.

This conversation is usually repeated several times until we get Bram distracted with puddles or storm drains. 

The Exciting Discovery of Hair

Lately, Anders has noticed that he has arm hair. So today while we were reading a book I mentioned it to him.

Me: "Anders, you have hair on your arms!"

Anders: "Yes. I like it, like Daddy dos it."

Oh, to be young and proud of the simple things in life. Today he realized for the first time that he also has hair on his legs like daddy. He is trying to show me In the picture below.

Picky Eaters

My kids are the only ones I know who LOVE the following foods:

Cucumber

Peppers

Zucchini

Banana squash

Carrots

Celery

And HATE the following foods:

Kraft Mac-n-cheese

Corndogs

Hot-pockets

Alfredo sauce

Skark

This conversation was part of my nightly routine with Anders.

Anders: "No monsters, no alligators, no dragons. We safe mom."

Me: "What about spiders?"

Anders: "No spiders."

Me: "What about snakes?"

Anders: "No snakes."

Me: "What about sharks?"

Anders: "Um, no sk...sk...ar...sk...?"

Me: "Sh-ark."

Anders: "Skarks live in the water mom. Our house not water. No Skarks."

This picture captures David's nightly routine with Bram: (They LOVE watching Wipe-out together)

Xylophone

When Anders plays our little xylophone, I usually dance or sing along to whatever rhythm he plays. But he has a rule for me singing or dancing along. Since red means stop, when he plays the red key I have to stop singing or dancing. And then I cannot start singing or dancing again until he plays the green key because green means go. 

Lesson of Motherhood

My biggest goal since becoming a mother was to do everything in my power to make sure my children always felt loved. How to accomplish this has been a learning process. 

Part of that process has been coming to understand that fun days create fond memories, but not lasting feelings of love. Love stems from the consistent and seemingly insignificant or repetitive moments from day to day. 

It has always been important to both my children that I cuddle with them for ten to fifteen minutes before nap-time and bedtime. As I recognized the importance of this for both my children, it adds up to an hour a day that I spend cuddling my children. An hour that doesn't allow for multi-tasking or productivity. So what makes it worth it to sacrifice an hour each and every day, over and over again? Well, an obvious answer is the precious one-on-one time that I will never get back. Also, the beautiful conversations I get to have with Anders. He has started telling me during the past few weeks, during our special cuddle time, that I am beautiful. He also cannot tell me enough how much he loves me. And neither can I.

Another benefit of this time sacrificed, my boys don't demand or scream at me at all. Like ever. They feel loved, completely. My one hour a day fills almost all of their needs from me. Don't get me wrong. They eat up every minute I play with them, but they don't demand it. Which is beautiful when I am all-day "morning sick" and really don't have a lot to give.

Could I be doing more as a mom? Always. But my number one goal of my children feeling loved is accomplished in a daily, one-hour sacrifice of my time. And every minute of that hour is worth it.