cluster of craziness

Whenever I fall off the face of blog universe, I tend to have a pretty good reason. This time my absence is caused by two major events, 1) having a baby and 2) moving.

Violet Clementine joined our family on March 12 at 1:12 pm. She was born at home in the water, and it was a very relaxed, easy going labor/delivery. V has been a fairly easy going baby and has slept all night long pretty much since birth. Daytime sleep is a different issue though and she fights it like it's her job.

Last weekend we moved 10 blocks down the street and that whole ordeal went fairly smooth, aolthough it was still a pretty big pain in the ass. Lilah and Miles were spared the stress, and spent the entire moving time at the grandparents. They got back last night, and were welcomed into theur new house today by spending some time in the basement hiding from tornadoes.

The kids have adjusted okay to their new house with the exception of Miles waking like a newborn last night, up every two hours. He complained of various things like the monster decals on his walls (which he picked out,) his guys being on the floor, yada yada, but never once complained about being in a new house.

Lilah wasn't upset at all las night but was very sad when she came home yesterday. She wanted to go play in the classroom but she didnt know where it was. then Lilah got lost upstairs and couldnt figure out how to get downstairs. this house is a bit disorienting i suppose. Lilah has since found her way.

Hopefully now that we are a bit more settled, I will be able to update more often. I dont get on my computer much because Violet prefers to be held but i have gained access to the blog on my phone, that I use more than the computer.If my posts are littered with typos, and punctuation/capitalization errors, blame my phone keyboard and autocorrect, not my lack of skills.

Month in Review

This is probably my last blog post as a mother of two I'm guessing considering that I can only manage to get with this blog thing on a once a month basis...

I am operating on a base level of brain cells at this point, at 39 weeks pregnant, so my ability to recollect what this last month has entailed will probably be a bit of a failure, so I'll just stick to the highlights:

*Lilah has stopped napping, which is totally fine because she willingly stays in her room and plays for over an hour. I guess she must really enjoy getting away from me? :)

*Miles wants to stop napping, but this is not as acceptable to me, because he still very much needs it, and he's not so pleasant about having "quiet time" in his room.

*Now that Lilah knows where babies come from, she keeps saying that she thinks the new baby wants her to be her mommy. I can't help but take offense to this. I mean, I'm at least as competent as my 3 year old as a mother on most days, right? There are some days that I know I can do a better job considering that Lilah regularly puts her babies to bed under about 5 blankets, an endeavor that surely a newborn would not survive.

*Miles is talking up a storm, and he's mastered the art of being condescending. He will purposefully answer the opposite of what's expected to every single question I ask him, and he even manages to conclude his answer with a confident snicker.

*Lilah's starting to learn to write her name

*Miles is obsessed with the letter W because of it's capability to be the letter W, and the letter M if it's turned upside down. He also really loves the letter U for some reason. I have no idea why. The letter U is one of the most boring letters of the alphabet. I bet he likes it because it sounds like a grunt when it's enunciated.

*Thanks to Jade, the knock knock jokes are a big hit around here, and are told ad nauseum. Up until recently, the only punchline they'd use would have to do with pooping. For example: Knock knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Banana pooping.
These jokes go on all. day. long.

*Miles has taken to being a dinosaur for at least 50% of the day, and will respond to everything with a roar.

*As of tonight Miles is in a toddler bed.

*Baby #3 has yet to make an appearance and I waver between feeling patient, and at least 50% insane.

That about concludes the last month I think... Next month's update will either be REALLY interesting since we will then be a family of 5, or the post will be non-existent.

The Talk

So today Lilah asked where babies come from, and not in a generic kind of way that I could easily throw pat answers at... Her line of questioning was very specific and required some high caliber answers.

It was very interesting and sweet how the conversation began. Lilah started by asking me if there were ever any babies without mommies, which kind of confused me. After asking her about what she meant, she explained that she would like a baby of her own (woah, slow down kiddo!!) and that maybe she could have a baby without a mommy. Awwww... That totally melted my heart!!! Without going into all of the reasons why a baby or child wouldn't have a mommy, adoption, etc., I explained that babies all have a mommy and a daddy in the beginning. Then she asked when she could have her own baby. Well, please consider waiting until you're an adult Lilah... :) Which then led into a line of questioning about how she would find a daddy for her baby. Good grief kiddo! I haven't even had my morning coffee yet!! Well, I explained, you would probably find a husband, like mommy has daddy. I was hesitant to say this though, because I don't believe that all families have to look like the typical mommy/daddy combination, and don't want my children to think that other family constructs aren't significant or possible. BUT, she's 3, barely 3 for cryin' out loud, so I figured there was no need to get into all of that right now.

So Lilah was now aware that she needed to be a grown up, then she needed to find a daddy for her baby (and no, I didn't use the term baby daddy, although maybe I should have...) Then what, she asks? Where does the baby come from? Sigh... I hate pat answers given to this question. I have extensively thought through all of the answers I DON'T want to give to this question, but have never really nailed down the answer I would like to provide. I thought I had more time? At least a few more years... So back to the question. Where do babies come from? In my mind I'm hearing the track "when a man and a woman love each other, blah blah blah blah..." Okay, that's not what I want to say... I am also not terribly interested in giving the textbook sex ed answer complete with all of the scientific terms. Not that I have an issue with that, it's just not my style per se. Um, well, mommies and daddies have seeds, I end up saying. Seeds? Lilah of course wants to know more about these seeds. Well, when the seeds come together, they make a baby. She accepts this, but wants to know more of course. So how do the seeds make a baby? Um, they come together, I repeat. She moves on, thankfully I'm off the hook on coming up with more information on the "seeds." When the seeds make a baby, then what happens? The baby grows. How does the baby get in your tummy? It swims to the uterus, which is the baby's house. How does the baby know how to swim? Hm, well... I guess it floats. Because babies don't really know how to swim... Why does the baby have to stay in its house so long? So that it grows big and strong and healthy. What happens if the baby comes out of its house too early? Well, the baby might die. Doh!! Scratch that!!! Uh, the baby might be a little bit sick and would have to stay in the hospital. So how much longer till the baby can come out of your tummy. Four weeks! Okay, good, now we're on more stable ground, talking about when our baby will be born. I can handle that!

Even though that conversation with Lilah was incredibly exhausting (I'm worn out all over again just typing it all!!) I'm actually really proud that I have such an introspective, intelligent, caring, loving 3 year old that would be interested in having such a conversation. I'm constantly amazed at how loving Lilah is with babies, and find it so sweet that she wants a baby of her own. She is constantly talking about how she wants to be the new baby's mommy, and wants to give her milk from her boo boo's, and wants to put the baby nite-nite, and cuddle the baby. Lilah is such a good big sister, and I'm incredibly excited to give Lilah a little sister that she can love and care for in her own way. And maybe, if I'm lucky, Lilah can just give all of her siblings "the talk" so that I can avoid it in the future! She can just do all the hard stuff and I'll do the fun things!

Better Blogger in 2011

So I'm thinking about promising to be a better blogger in 2011. I'm not sure if it's really going to work out, but I'm going to give it a shot!

I was doing maybe, C- quality work at the blogging until I got pregnant, then I became a big fat F at it. It didn't help that at the start of my pregnancy my mom passed away after her long battle with illness. After that, I didn't feel much like blogging, or reflecting, or thinking. I just wanted to exist without regurgitating, it was my way of processing everything.

New year though, fresh start, and it's a good time to refocus and rededicate myself to the process of documenting my life or at least just reporting the most humorous, or perhaps embarrassing details of it for your amusement!

I look back on the last year and I'm amazed at what my kids have become!! Lilah just turned 3 the other day, but it seems like she's 13 or 30, depending on the moment. She's full of energy and attitude, intelligence and persistence. Keeping up with her on a daily basis is exhausting, fun, and punishment for what I put my own mother through! Haha! Miles is mellow and easy going. He's got the most amazing attention span, which is a marvel to me considering that Lilah and I have the combined attention span of a gnat. He is the diffuser and always keeps Lilah and me laughing. He also has the profound ability to keep Lilah screaming, because he's definitely got a mind of his own and will not be bossed around by Miss Thang. He likes to take a moment to irritate her by taking her doll house babies, positioning them methodically on the train tracks, and move the train so they get ever so close to running the poor plastic babies over. But then, just before the gruesome end, he decides to be sweet to Lilah (or wants to end the shrieking that I have long ago gone deaf from) and hands her back her babies unharmed.

This year we embarked upon our homeschooling journey and started participating in a preschool co-op that both kids seem to enjoy equally. Miles seems equally interested in the work that I'm doing with Lilah, so we all do it together! I guess that's one of the benefits of them being close in age, it makes my teacher job easier! I'm hoping to not lose momentum with the birth of the next little girl, but I will cut myself some slack too.

So what's to come in the Kerr household in 2011? Well, basing my prediction off of current data, it looks like there will be plenty of noise, a bit of chaos, probably lots of fun and learning too. And yes, for those of you wondering, Miles and Lilah will both receive college credit for attending the birth of the next baby! The class is called "icky things that happen in a birthing tub but then end up with having a cute baby."

Well, that's it. That's my update and my challenge, to be a better blogger. We'll see how well I do, and no friends, you cannot grade my work. Unless you're going to tell me how awesome I am, no feedback please :)

Don't Wake Me

I've been an absentee blogger. I think of things I need to write about on here all the time but the truth is, I'm just too exhausted to write it down.

Miles, formerly known as "the easy one" has taken up the hobby of torturing us. The most significant damage is done in the form of sleep deprivation, since Miles has decided that sleeping is for wusses, and he's no wuss, so he likes to wake up at 5:00. 6:00 at best. Every day. No exceptions. Weekends shmeekends! That boy waits for the first sign of dawn and starts screaming like a banshee until we get him. I have tried telling him that roosters don't scream, they cock-a-doodle-do, and I've also reminded him that he's not a rooster, and it's not his job to wake us up so damn early every day. We're going on at least three weeks of this madness. Jade and I are making pouches with the bags under our eyes. They're so deep we can store a hand full of cheerios in them.

All sleeplessness aside, Miles has also decided he'd take up the personality of a cantankerous 90 year old man. He complains about everything, and when he doesn't get what he wants, he throws toys like they're empty beer bottles. In a last ditch effort to get us to feel sorry for him, he collapses in a pile on the floor, screaming and red faced. Usually sitting, he folds completely in half and rams his head against the floor in protest.

Aside from not sleeping, and constantly complaining, Miles has decided he needs to scale every piece of furniture, every toy, every wall, in our house. I'm pretty sure he'd climb to the roof if we'd let him. The routine is climbing up, getting down, climbing up, getting down, climbing up, falling down, climbing up, getting rescued from another fall, climbing up, being removed from the piece of furniture, throw a screaming fit until he finds something else to climb. He needs a trapeze harness I think, because I'm tired of serving as his bodyguard all day, every day.

In the small chunks of time that Miles decides to take a break from climbing, he's engaging in a love/hate/but mostly love relationship with Lilah. If she's sleeping, he's pretty obviously bored and unhappy until she wakes up. He wants to go "up" to get her, and when he can't, he is insanely unhappy. I try to explain to him that Lilah doesn't get up at 5:00 am, and that she will sleep for another few hours, trying to convince him that sleep is awesome (everybody's doing it!,) but he doesn't care. When I get him from his room in the morning, Miles frantically points to Lilah's door, shouting "that, that, that!!!!!!" and when we pass her room without entering, he reduces to a pile of shrieking tears. For the next few hours I have to work diligently to keep Miles entertained enough that he doesn't pace the stairs, which is usually a fail. Once Lilah wakes up, Miles is immediately happy and vibrant, and gets right to violating her personal space as much as possible, which Lilah usually enjoys reciprocating. The next few hours of my morning is spent refereeing them as they proceed to attempt to sit on each others' laps, steal each other's food and drink, and get in front of each other's TV view. With all of the angry screaming, you'd never know that Miles loves Lilah best of all.

Last but not least, I can't sum up my dear son without explaining the many hickeys, fang marks, and bruises that decorate my arms, legs, neck, shoulders, and various other parts of my body. Miles is a biter. He bites constantly, for every reason. He bites if he's excited, if he's happy, sad, angry, bored, tired.... Not only does he have a nice mouth full of teeth to make a decent sized chomp mark, but he's also got a razor edge on his front tooth to amp up the pain factor. A while back, on a climbing endeavor, Miles managed to chip a tooth, and the result was a pretty uniform razor, jagged edge on his front tooth, that helps him deliver quite the bite. I believe I'm his most frequent victim, but he does enjoy dolling out an occasional bite punishment to Lilah when she gets a little too heavy handed with him. So when you see me, please know, I'm not a junky, I do not have anemia, I don't have a relationship with a vampire, and no, they're not hickeys. They're simply artifacts to demonstrate how much I hold my son these days and serve as his pin cushion. War wounds from the battle I'm losing against the much dreaded toddler bite.

After many discussions of how our easy going Miles managed to turn into a high maintenance hellion over night, Jade and I often wonder if we'll ever get our easy guy back, or if we just don't make easy kids. Of course we love Miles and are enjoying him more than ever. He's walking, talking, and has a really great sense of humor and vibrant personality. But he's keeping us on our toes these days, and keeping us very surprised! At the end of the day, we'll keep all of these new facets of Miles we've recently discovered, except for the sleeping thing of course. Because waking up at dawn at this house, is truly unacceptable.

Do I Love Poop?

Interesting notes from today...

Lilah: "Mommy, do you like my poop?" I was unsure of how to answer this. I wanted to say no, because I'm definitely not a lover of poop, but I was afraid to say that because I don't want her to think there's any part of her I don't love.

_____

Miles has been attacking Lilah at every opportunity, and it's been a slight annoyance because every time I turn my back, my sweet Minels is crawling, pushing, or chewing on his sister. I've been seeing it as an aggressive act that I must correct. Mostly because Lilah shrieks so loud my eardrums burst every time he lays a hand on her. To her credit, that's probably because his touches kind of hurt. Miles is quickly becoming stronger than Lilah, even though she has a good 16 months of growth on him, it's clear that he has the upper hand when it comes to physicality. Today I noticed something that I've not seen before, and I felt ashamed that I've never taken the time or had a clear enough eye to notice this. Right before Miles is about to pounce, he looks at Lilah and gives her the sweetest smile, not the mischievous smile that prefaces something naughty, but a smile that illustrates true happiness. I was shocked to see this, and couldn't believe I've never paid attention to such a detail. It illustrated clearly to me that Miles' attacks had nothing to do with asserting his new physical strength, or even just being a playful baby/toddler, he's just wanting to touch Lilah. He genuinely loves her and sees her as his buddy. He reserves his most special playfulness for her. He wants to interact with her and get her attention, and this is his way. When Miles is being especially sweet with me, he butts me with his head. That's his way of bein' like, "hey, I love you!" The fact that Miles can hardly be around Lilah for five seconds without engaging with her physically, shows that Lilah is his teddy bear. Today I realized for the first time that they had a relationship, one that existed completely without me, outside of the bounds of my refereeing. That this special relationship between Lilah and Miles has already taken on a life of its own, and that it will define our family dynamic is such an amazing way. This doesn't mean that I will allow Miles to chomp Lilah every chance he gets, but it does mean I will approach it differently as a parent.

Bye Bye Baby

One year ago today I was celebrating Mother's Day and had no idea that I was going to have a baby in a matter of a few days...

My baby turns one this week and is soon to be an official "big boy." Most moms would be sad about this, but not me. I love for my kids to grow up! I don't feel like you sacrifice sweet moments with age, you just trade them for different kinds of sweet moments. Instead of rocking and nursing Miles for hours, he's crawling over to me so that he can give me a big hug and cuddle. Miles is still the ultimate sweetness, but has also learned some survival skills too. He is constantly letting Lilah know that he is a "big boy" by pulling her hair, clobbering her, pushing her over as he reaches for a toy, screaming and pulling as she tries to take his toy. His affinity for climbing at the moment is far more important than walking, although he has taken some steps while on break from scaling the furniture. I'm not sad as I take inventory of all the ways Miles is growing and changing, I'm proud that I get to take part in raising such a wonderful boy.

Miles may be turning one, but Lilah is turning 30, I'm pretty sure. I will let these quotes illustrate my point...

"Mommy, you have to share with your friends and your family." (said on a daily basis, usually when I don't want to hand over my drink for both of my kids to backwash in)

"Don't worry mommy, just leave it. We'll get it in a minute. Now turn around and sit in your seat." (said after Miles dropped his toy in the car and I attempted to retrieve it)

"I just need a little water in my hand. Because I'm thirsty. Very thirsty." (just need a little water in her hand?)

"Oh dear!" (after dropping a toy. Oh dear? Who the heck even says that? Has my daughter been hanging out with Miss Manners?)

"I look like a fraggle, except that I have skin."

I wish I could remember more, especially the extra funny ones.

On this Mother's Day, I celebrate my two incredible kids, the sweetness and the sillies, who should take a great deal of the credit for making me the mother I am today!