Midnight Attack

David was sleeping on the couch with Astrid because she was having a rough night with gas and congestion. I had finally fallen asleep around 11pm, because my post-pregnancy hormones had me on a roller-coaster all day and it took me awhile to settle down. 

I was awakened from a deep sleep by a blood-curdling yell. It sounded like Anders was being attacked. I ran out into the hall and David was crouched down with a frantic Anders. David tells me Anders just went his pants and to brace my eyes because he was going to turn on the light. 

David had just finished getting Astrid all the way to sleep. He heard Anders come out of his room and called for him to come to the living room so he wouldn't wake me up. Anders came down and David asked him if he needed to pee. He was standing, clutching his crotch and didn't reply. He just took-off, screaming down the hall and ran smack into the bathroom door. He was running like a cowboy that just got off a ten-hour horse ride, but on his tiptoes. When he smacked into the bathroom door, he turned around and screamed frantically running back towards David. David was waiting for him at the end of the hall and was able to stop him, where he then peed his pants on the carpet and was screaming the scream that woke me up. (David is pretty sure he would have still been running around and screaming if he hadn't of been there to stop him).

So David turns on the light and there are drips of pee all down the hall. I go to the kitchen and get cleaning supplies and work on cleaning up the hall, while David takes Anders to get changed and cleaned up in the shower. 

Apparently, through all of these events, Anders was never really fully awake. Even when David was washing him off and changing his clothes. So he may have been having a nightmare while all of this was going on. It was so strange and terrifying, but this morning it is just super funny.

Kie-ming

Bram says "kie - ming" instead of crying. Every time Astrid cries he tells me this and it never gets old. As I was putting the boys down for their nap today, I had to set Astrid down to take care of a few things. She was on the bed with the boys and started throwing a fit. Bram told me she was "kie - ming" and I thanked him for telling me. Then he gets close to her and says, "I'm here. I'm Abraham." It is always a joy to see the boys mimicking me in their interactions with their sister. 

Bunny Rabbit Poops

Anders has been doing a sound book as part of his reading program for over six months now. Bram thinks he can do it by himself because he had watched Anders for so long. David was overseeing Bram correctly saying what each picture was, since he doesn't know how to do the sounds. He got to the rabbit page:

He says, "Bunny rabbit." Then he points to the tail and says, "Pooping!" 

Silly Juice

We were at stake conference on Sunday, and Anders decided he wanted to help clean up the chairs afterwards. He stuck to it and put away at least seven metal (and quite heavy) folding chairs. It was such a proud moment for me as his mom. He's not even four and he was the only kid under twelve helping. 

Today, Anders called Bram a "silly juice". It took me a minute to realize that he thought he was calling him a "silly goose," something I call the boys all the time. 

Can you tell what their favorite colors are? They dressed themselves this morning. And I can't complain because at least they match.

Dressing Themselves

Note the basketball shorts over the pants and Bram is borrowing a pair from his brother. Bram would wear his monster shirt every single day if he could. The same could be said for Anders and his green shorts.

We were about to say family prayer tonight and Anders expelled gas for quite an extended period of time. We all exclaimed, "My goodness!" with amused smiles on our faces. He turned to me and said with a giggle, "I need to take another bath." 

Brammy-kins

Bram was trying to throw balls into an empty toy container and kept missing. Each time he missed (which was the majority of the time) he would dramatically exclaim, "oh my gosh."

I bought Anders his summer shirts and one of them says HIGH 5. I was showing the shirts to the boys and David when I got home and when I showed the HIGH 5 shirt, Bram came over and gave the shirt a high-five.

Today, Bram expressed his first ever absolute disgust for a food. David pulled out a big jar of pickles to snack on as part of his lunch. Bram was beside himself as he insisted David not eat the pickles and would scream for him to put them back in the jar as he pulled each one out. Then he would gag with each bite David would take. After each bite he would say, "yuck!" while pulling the face shown below. It was hilarious for us to watch. Especially since we didn't even offer any to Bram from the beginning. 

The Harder Days

Two weeks ago the boys and I had a very special day, but not in the positive sense of the word.

I had a horrible sinus infection that felt like someone was simultaneously jumping on my forehead and the back of my neck. If I tried to bend down at all, it felt like my head was going to explode. On top of that, I hadn't slept through the night in months. This did not make for a very patient or cheerful disposition that day. I tried to keep my calm as much as possible, but as we all know these are the kind of days when everything goes absolutely wrong.

Like Bram spilling his entire glass of Gaterade all over the kitchen floor. It was totally an accident, but with the worst possible timing ever. The best I could manage to clean it up was grabbing a beach towel and throwing it over the wet area.

Then, Anders pooped his pants for the first time since he has been potty trained for over six months. He came running down into the living room while I was nursing his sister, his underwear in his hands, to show me the poop and ask if he was supposed to put the underwear and poop in his dirty clothes hamper. Again. I am a sleep deprived mom with a pounding sinus headache in the middle of nursing trying to determine the best course of action. I asked him to out his underwear on the bathroom counter for me to deal with later. He turns to run back down the hall toward the bathroom and a few steps in yells to tell me he dropped the poop on the floor.

I had to put Astrid down in the middle of her feeding, resulting in an immediate screaming fit, and get Anders to guard his fallen poop so Camrose (our dog) won't eat it and Bram won't step in it. I run to the kitchen to grab Clorox wipes and suddenly hear screaming and pounding footsteps up the hall. Anders had discovered he had poop on the arch of his foot from pulling off his underwear. So he tracked barely visible footprints up the hall and down the hall that I had not been aware of. So Anders, Bram and I had poop on the bottom of our feet, my poor head…and feet. I used Clorox wipes with my feet to try to mop up the floor as best I could. I had Anders stand and wait in the shower while I washed Bram's and my feet in the bathroom sink. Then I showered Anders off. I was so ready to pass out after all this, but I still had a screaming newborn to finish nursing,

So today was another special day. Astrid hardly let me sleep last night so I was pretty ornery when I got up this morning.

Bram was in an extra destructive mischievous mood, which usually happens when I can't give him as much attention as he wants. Astrid wouldn't let me put her down. She is usually asleep by ten or ten-thirty so I can shower. Today she wasn't asleep until 12:20. I didn't get to shower until 1, but hey, I showered! With both boys. (It's all about celebrating the small achievements, right?)

Around 11:30 I heard Bram playing in the kitchen sink. I told him to turn it off and headed to the kitchen to make sure he listened. When I got to the kitchen there was water all over the floor and spilling down the counters. He had moved the faucet way back against the wall so the water was flowing all over the counters instead of into the sink. We had a creek of water on our floor. I hadn't know that was even possible. And he hadn't turned it off when I asked him to, so I had to rush through the water on the floor to turn off the faucet.

It's a lot to handle when you haven't gotten any sleep.

I want to hold her

The boys said they wanted to hold her because she was so pretty...

Balls and Apples

Anders: "Mom, look at this. I have this. I think maybe it is a ball." (He was playing with his ankle bone)

No matter how many time I correct him, Bram still insists that I feed Astrid out of my apples.

More Andersisms

Me: "Wow, you are so big Anders!"

Anders: "Ya, I think I am four."

Anders has this major aversion to washing his hands after going to the bathroom. It is an issue each and every time. He comes running down the hall, we ask if he flushed the toilet and washed his hands. Here are some of his usual responses:

"I flushed the toilet with my mouth. I don't need to wash my hands."

"I didn't touch anything, I don't need to wash my hands."

"I not going to tell you any-sing [anything]."

Sleep, Or Lack Thereof

Anders was frantically screaming in the night. It was a jarring way to be brought out of a deep sleep, especially being a sleep deprived mom of a newborn. I stumbled into his room and found him half way out of bed. I asked what was wrong, he replied, "My nose won't let me breathe." I tried not to giggle. I helped him back in bed, got him a cloth to which he whimpered a request for tissues. I set him up more verticle with his pillows and told him he could breathe through his mouth. That seemed to finally help him relax. Then I explained he didn't have to scream like that at night and wait for us to come. I told him he could come into our room and ask for help. The concept was completely foreign to him. When I crawled back into bed I couldn't help but giggle over his panic at not being able to breathe through his nose. I whimsically thought how wonderful it would be to have the worries of a three-year-old again. 

My sister sent a great package to us today. She sent some Reese's pieces for the boys. I told them they could each try one because I knew they weren't going to rest until they did. David put one on the table for each of them. Anders exclaimed, "What in this world, it's orange!". Bram's little voice parroted, "What in this world, orange!" Then they plopped them in their mouth and thoughtfully said, "I think it's chocolate." My sister who sent the package is always saying, "What in the world!" Anders picked up the phrase when they visited last St. Patrick's Day. It was fitting he would use the phrase when trying the candy she sent. 

Kid Dates

I had the opportunity to take Anders on a mommy-son date yesterday, and Bram on one today. They were in HEAVEN being with just me. Anders and I got to take pictures together in a really old photobooth. The backgrounds were two curtain choices behind us, and we had to decide if we liked how we were positioned in the glass covering the camera. It was ancient. But oh so fun! Anders carried the photo strip all the way home and insisted on taping it to his wall by his bed. We also got giant gummy bears as a treat.

Bram and I went clothes shopping for summer clothes. We went to an Oshkosh/Carter's store. I love this store. They have toy stations set up everywhere so your kids are entertained while you take care of shopping. Bram didn't want to leave. We also picked up Krispy Kreme donuts and listened to his favorite song, over and over again in the car. He kept telling me he was "happy". My other favorite thing he told me was when I was buckling him in the car. He said, "Mom, your hair is windy!" I started laughing and said, "You mean you see my hair blowing in the wind?". He replied, "Yeah. Your hair is blowing." It was so cute. I love my little men!

Minion Fire

Anders has been playing the Minion game for iPad for a few minutes everyday the past week. We have also been fighting extreme coughs/colds this week. The coughs were bad enough that we had to put the humidifier in the boys room. 

Tonight, David had finished cuddling with Anders as part of our bedtime routine, and had joined Bram and I on our bed. Anders voice from the other room goes, "you forgot the minion-fire Dad!" David and I both were confused, and I was thinking "why was David playing the minion game with Anders during cuddle time?" Then it hit me that he was talking about the humidifier. I started to giggle immediately while David was still trying to figure out what Anders was talking about. It took a while to explain through the laughter. 

Bram turned off the television for me yesterday. He was so proud of himself, so I asked him to come give me a high-five. The request caught him off-guard, which resulted in a pretty awfully timed fall into the wooden part of our couch. He has a nasty bruise under his right eye, and that is AFTER we iced it for a half-an-hour immediately after it happened. Poor guy. Kharma. That's what he gets for wanting a high-five, greedy boy. (I joke.)