Little Trash Can Helper

Sam is fascinated with trash cans.  He will point them out wherever we go, he loves to watch the garbage truck collect trash, and he loves putting things into the trash cans.  When we are out at a park and Sam sees some trash on the ground, he picks it up and immediately starts looking for a trash can to put it in.  At home Sam likes to help throw away his diapers and anything else that can go in the garbage.  He especially likes helping Daddy collect all the trash bags from the restrooms and dump them into the big trash bin to take out to the curb for garbage collection day. 

The other day Sam found a small plastic bag on the floor and brought it to me saying "trash can".  I happened to be feeding David a bottle at that moment, so I told him we would put it in the trash after David was done with his bottle.  Next thing I know Sam disappears for a little while to return with the full small bathroom trash bag.  I end up helping him throw that away, and later when I return to my bathroom, I see he has stuffed the plastic bag he found inside the bathroom trash can.  What a good little helper!  Too cute!

Chopped Liver

Sometimes I feel like my older boys are considered chopped liver to other people around us.  Now granted, if you were to ask these people if they felt that way, they would assure you up and down that depiction is inaccurate; however, actions speak louder than words.  Just be grateful James and Sam are not old enough (although they may be getting there) to understand the whole measure of affection and love poured out on baby David and how little they are getting in terms of attention.  I am well aware there are times when David requires more assistance (feeding a bottle, changing a diaper, etc.), and sure, most people love to hold an adorable little baby who smiles, coos, giggles and snuggles you.  There is nothing wrong with that.  I am not asking you to stop loving on David...of course not!  I am asking for you to create more of a balance between the affection you pour out so willing to baby David and the attention you begrudgingly (or so it seems to me) give to my sweet older boys.

It is okay to put the baby down and spend some time with the older boys.  David enjoys watching his brothers play from the bouncer or swing, and he also enjoys spending time on his tummy watching the world and rolling over.  If nothing else, hold David while interacting with the older boys...take the baby outside to watch James and Sam dig in the dirt.  Show them you do care about them...I know you do, but I also know sometimes you get too wrapped up in the newness of a precious baby and you forget about the two whom you have already formed bonds with.  If David falls asleep on you, hold him for awhile and then set him down, so you can love on James and Sam.  They also desire your attention.  They ask for you to play with them.  They ask you to give the baby to Mommy or to put him down and play.  They ask because they care and they want to spend time with you. 

If you always turn them down, eventually they will stop asking, and there will come a time you truly regret that.  I honestly believe so.

Living Room Forts

This morning after playing outside for awhile, the boys and I came in and built a couple forts in the living room.  One is an extremely basic drape sheets over the train table and call it a fort.  The other one was given to us by a neighbor with older kids, and it is a magnetic fort...kind of hard to explain...basically there are foam poles with magnetic ends that stick to this directional balls and bases to form a maze like fort with some clips to attach colored sheets as walls or pass-throughs.  The boys had a blast making and destroying the magnetic fort a few times.  We also read some stories together under the train table fort.  A rewarding bit of time with my two older boys (David was napping during most of this fun).

Cheddar Bacon Scones

My husband had to do another early morning firewall change this weekend.  Poor guy had to be at his office at 4 a.m.  He asked me to make something for him to take in and share...well, technically it was more like "Would you like to send something in to work with me?" which can be translated into "I really want you to make something for me to take in."  One of his coworkers had mentioned bringing in donuts (although I don't know any donut place open that early personally), so I decided to go with a savory item instead, so it wasn't just a bunch of sweets.

I found these Cheddar Bacon Scones on Annies Eats and thought they looked and sounded tasty, so I gave them a try.  This was my first time ever making scones in general, but the recipe was a breeze to follow.  I used nitrate-free bacon and fresh green onions in my scones.  The scones were delicious!  I am not saying they are healthy considering you crumble ten pieces of bacon into the batch, and you get eight scones out of the recipe...putting the count of bacon at over 1 piece per scone, but they tasted wonderful.  Next time I will cook the bacon a little longer making it more crispy because it looses a lot of that in the scone.  I am also thinking this would make a terrific addition to a nice corn chowder or other similar soups during the summer.

Now that I have successfully made these savory scones, I am excited to start testing out some sweet scone recipes...especially since I have a read a tip that scones can be frozen before they are baked, and you pull them out the morning of and bake them a few additional minutes.  That sounds convenient, but it does take some prep work, so we will see if I get that ambitious. 

Selective Coloring

Yesterday I went to my doctor appointment and then did some grocery shopping without kids in tow while my husband stayed home with the boys.  Both James and Sam play nicely in James' room together quite often.  Well...my husband had run to the restroom and returned to the kitchen to begin dinner prep, and the boys were playing in James' room, so he didn't think anything of it.  It turns out they had grabbed a couple markers out of the junk drawer (I use them to mark items on our calendar...just regular Crayola washable markers) and had colored on items.  We lucked out that the entire walls were not decorated...instead they were very selective in their coloring.  They colored on their wooden play kitchen, their dresser, and the door to their bedroom.  James came out and said to my husband "Come see my drawing.", so in a way he actually tattled on himself.  He was proud that he drew on the door "like Daddy" (because my husband marks James's height on the inside of the door).  My husband handled the situation well...having them help wash off all the marker and then have a time out.  Later on we found a little marker on our bedroom door and some writing on the top of our toilet seat.  Like I said, we are extremely lucky they didn't mark up everything in sight.  Everywhere they colored was easy to wash, so that was a nice relief.

As we were getting ready for bed, we noticed there was also marker on the sliding glass door, but it is on the outside.  It must have happened under my watch when I was letting the boys color outside earlier in the day.  So both my husband and I were fooled by selective coloring.

Another Dr. Visit

I have a doctor appointment scheduled for myself this afternoon.  I am having some intense abdominal pain, and my doctor would like me to come in to be seen.  I had this problem a few months ago (maybe 3 or 4), but this time it is different as the pain isn't so centrally located.  Last time I had a CT scan and an ultrasound performed, and I have an MRI scheduled for next week.  I almost didn't schedule the MRI since I have been doing so well without any issues for awhile.  It took me a little while to get the appointment scheduled because baby David joined our family and life has been pretty busy.  I called a couple weeks ago and finally set up the MRI.  Now I am glad I did because hopefully it will shed some light on what is happening with my body.

I don't really know what to think...all I know is this is not pleasant, and I will be happy when it is resolved.  I am also hoping whatever is going on doesn't require any surgery as I already did that recently for my appendix, and I would rather not repeat the process.

David's First Camping Trip

This weekend we went on an overnight camping trip.  We couldn't have asked for better weather, and we had a wonderful time.  We were concerned that David's nighttime bottle feedings would wake up the older two, but that wasn't an issue at all.  We used our larger tent which allowed us to set up a play pen for David to sleep in.  The rest of the family slept on sleeping pads on the ground like we normally would when we go camping.  The older boys had a tough time initially falling to sleep because they were so excited to be in the tent and wired off their smores.  : )  My husband did have to get up and put the rain fly on the tent in the early, early morning hours because it was sprinkling, and we were worried about the possibility of good rainfall getting us all wet.  We didn't need to worry about that either, but if he hadn't gotten up and put the rain fly on, it probably would have poured.  The bug shelter was most helpful during our lunch before packing up camp because all the bees came to investigate.

Some lessons learned:

1) Toddlers and fires are unpredictable, and you must be right on them at all times.  I hadn't thought it through, so I didn't have David in the Bjorn but was instead carrying him around while the fire was prepared....meaning I only had one available arm.  When my husband made our little fire (only big enough to roast some marshmallows before bed), the older boys sat in their camping chairs, but then they started moving around, and we tag teamed them.  It was getting dark, and Sam tripped over a stump and almost landed in the fire pit.  Thankfully his nose just scraped against a rock, and that was the worst damage done.  That could have been a horribly terrifying situation.

2) Lighters and BBQs are not friends.  In the morning we had a simple breakfast of bagels and cream cheese.  My husband heats the bagels up on the bbq to make them more enjoyable.  He accidentally left the lighter underneath the bbq while we were eating, and we got a small show of a fireball during our meal.  Thankfully no one was hurt and no serious damage was done...we are just minus one lighter which is easily replaced.

I thought there was more, but right now my brain is not pulling any other lessons out.  If I remember something, I will add it to this post.