Where were we?

Sometimes I worry that this blog will look like a visual version of a playgroup conversation. For those of you not familiar with “conversations” that take place when there are upwards of 10 small children ranging in age from one year to 4 where everyone is talking at the same time and disagreements can end in hitting are biting so they must be monitored very closely, let’s just say that many ideas are started never to be finished. Every Wednesday once I feed and get the children to bed after playgroup I sit and think about all the things I started to say to someone only to be interrupted along with all the what sounded like they would have been interesting stories I heard fragments of but never really got the whole thing. It is the same with the blog, in the evening when my mind is finally free to wander I find myself writing long posts with funny interludes and great stories. The problem is I am usually in the shower or already in the bed, no where that I could actually capture the thoughts and but them in a safe place for a later post. I need a voice recorder for my inner thoughts. Can someone invent that for me? Thanks.

There are a lot of things to catch you up on so forgive me if this is a hodgepodge list of accomplishments and stories.

Where to start…. how about swimming lessons? Otto has been taking swimming lessons every morning, this is his second week. He goes with eric which is a nice special time they get to spend together just the two of them. We were hesitant to sign him up for classes because he gets very overwhelmed in group settings and I was fearful of him getting scared of the water because he was scared of the class. Then we went to a pool party at a friends house and he was terrified of the water. That sealed the deal, he was going to be scared with or without the classes so I thought we better try. Learning to swim is something that i think you HAVE to do. The thought of an older kid who can’t swim scares me a bit. Plus, I am like a fish in the water and I am really looking forward to having many a long summer day with the kids at the pool and in order for that to happen they need to learn how to swim. I fully thought that Otto wouldn’t go near the pool and would be terrified in the class but he has surprised us and is doing great!! All of the other kids in the class have taken the class before which I actually think is good because he gets a chance to see the other kids doing stuff without being scared. Each class he is more and more brave but the best part is he loves swim class. He is excited to go everyday and tells me “it was GREAT” everyday when he gets home. Eric is pretty sure that if enough treats were offered he would swim underwater across the whole pool. I am fine with him being motivated by a piece of candy at the end of class from the teacher if it means that he pushes his boundaries and tries new things. After this week he has a week off then we will starts two more weeks of class to finish off the summer. I think that we will try a program over the winter as well to keep the momentum going. Perhaps Mette will try some too. Something tells me she would LOVE swim class!

In more Otto news, he a had a complete allergy testing done a few weeks ago. We needed to check his peanut levels so he had an appointment with the allergist but I also wanted to get him tested for seasonal allergies because he seemed to be very sniffly lately. There is a lot of talk that SPD can be caused by allergies or at least aggravated by them so I wanted to get any allergies he might have in check. Eric is allergic to quite a bit so it would stand to reason that Otto may be as well. He tested positive to dust mites, trees, grass, cats, cockroaches and ragweed. The allergist said as long as we keep the cats out of his room (which we have always done) that it shouldn’t be a problem. He asked what Otto’s reaction to the cats was, which is nothing unless he actually lays on them, then he wants to rub off the cat hair. He doesn’t get a rash, he doesn’t itch, he eyes don’t burn or run and his nose doesn’t run. So for now the cats are staying, but if his allergies become worse we will have to think about new homes for them. I am going to ignore that for now, good old Storb repression at it’s finest! The dust mites we can and have done something about. I have been washing ALL of his bedding down to his new allergy protective mattress and pillow protectors, along with Mette’s in hot water and running them through the dryer, normally I would line dry them. This includes blankies, alligator and mun-key which requires quite a bit of planning on my part. I order an all natural laundry additive so I won’t have to use hat water or the dryer which will be nice. I am all for killing dust mites, but the environmental impact of all that hot water and dryer time is a bit much. I also ordered a earth friendly, plant based spray for the furniture and rugs to use between steam cleaning that should kill dust mites as well as neutralize pet dander. Uncle Ben, all of this should be good for you too! 🙂 Just in case you were thinking you would google dust mites to learn a little bit more about them, I would like to stop you. Take a minute and think about how prepared you are to change how you look at everything in your house that is made of fabric. You also need to think about how you feel with bugs crawling on you all the time. If only someone had warned me before I started googling. There really should be a page that blocks you from learning too much about something that is totally going to freak you out. Needless to say, Otto’s bed is not the only one that is getting the FULL weekly cleaning. And I should add, I always changed the sheets every week, but I do so much more now. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Right now, while the grass allergies are high we are giving him children’s Zyrtek in the morning. It works great and makes a big difference. The allergist said when ragweed hits we might need something stronger but we will cross that bridge when we get to it. He also thinks that Otto may be growing out of his peanut allergy which 10-20% of kids do. That would be AWESOME!!! He is going to do a blood profile in 6 months to see if his levels are going down. We know now that small amounts of peanut don’t cause immediate anaphylaxis shock which is great, but the less I have to worry when sending him out in world, the better.

Speaking of sending him out into the real world, he starts preschool this fall! I can’t believe it. The week after Labor Day he will be going every Tuesday and Thursday morning. I don’t know what I will do with myself.

And now Mette. Mette, Mette, Mette my darling. First, she is scheduled for her plastic surgery to remove the cyst above her eye on the 3rd of August. We had the pre-op last week and she has been cleared for take off. We have to be there at 6 in the morning so my mom is coming the night before to hang out with Otto while we are at the hospital. It should be a very simple procedure and we should be home by lunch. There is a chance that she will have a black eye with some swelling for a while but other than that she will be the same. Let’s hope all of that goes well.

Mette is an adorable little stinker. She throws a temper tantrum complete with throwing herself on the floor screaming, tears, holding out her hand and yelling stop, the works, when you kindly remind her not to eat books. It is a bit intense here these days. I keep telling myself that it is just a phase and it won’t last forever, but WOW, she is a drama queen! She is also insanely charming and sweet so that helps her last through the day. She is in a big mommy phase and me leaving the room and/or other people looking at her is often enough to send her over the edge. In her defense she has cut three molars in the last two weeks and there may be more teeth coming but I am too scared to stick my fingers in there to be sure. These teeth are ones she has been working on, no lie, since last Christmas. It has been a long road. The past few weeks there have been many tears, some fevers and diarrhea but I think they are finally cutting through and not going back up, I hope.

The other news from Metteville is the potty. I am hesitant to write about it, but here it goes. I am also fully aware and fine with the fact that this may turn into nothing. For a while now she has been interested in sitting on the potty and she has pooped once or twice on the potty and there has been the occasional pee but really most of the time she sits there for one millisecond and pops up and announces “done!”. But as of last evening and this morning she has been peeing an pooping on the potty with only two small mistakes. I have just had her in a t-shirt and nothing else around the house to make it easier. A couple of the times she has said potty and ran over and peed. Often I ask her if she needs to go and when she sits on the potty she pees. She thinks it is very exciting. With Otto, he was 2 1/2 which was very early for a boy, but he still got it in a weekend. With Mette only being 17 months old I am sure that I will have to ask her about 100 times a day if she needs to go potty for it to take and it still may not. But regardless, I haven’t changed a stinky diaper in a while so that rocks!

As for me. I am doing well. A bit on the tired side, but who isn’t really. It has been crazy hot which I hate. It is cooler today but really anything above 75 I am not too fond of. I am already dreaming of fall. I have been working of a few small projects but mainly just trying to keep up with laundry and cleaning. It seems like a never ending quest.

So that’s the news from our side of town, how are you?

Weekends…

Weekends are fun. Daddy is home and we get to do exciting things, like play in storage bins and eat dinosaurs. Well, special weekends that is. This was a good weekend for getting stuff done, for me at least, and capturing some great shots of the kids. On Saturday Rachel and I spent the entire afternoon at the fabric store looking at patterns and getting material. It was awesome. The children stayed home with eric and nathan and we were FREE! We both came home with piles of things to make. Very exciting. I got some great material for dresses for Mette, skirts for me and pants and shirts for Otto. The only problem now is I just want to lock myself in the sewing room and play and there are things to do like, cook, clean, take care of children… I did however manage to make two pairs of pants for Otto. The second pair I even made with my own pattern. I took the pattern I bought and used to make a pair of pants and adapted it to fit more like a pair of pants he already has that I love. They came out fantastic and now I want to make a bunch more. I am also going to try my hand at making him some shirts. He is growing out of clothes like crazy right now so it is a good time to get in gear. I have pics of the first pair of pants I made but will have to wait until he wears the second pair again to get pics of them. Both kids have a bit of a snotty nose at the moment so we tried to stay close to home this weekend to give them a chance to get better. They seem to be fine today though still a bit snotty. Mette has a molar that is JUST about to cut through. As a result she is a bit cranky and very clingy. I am really hoping it cuts through in the next day or so as she does not seem to like it at all. And who can blame her!

Otto fits perfectly. I can just keep him like this and he won’t grow any more, right!

“No Mama, TAKE the dinosaur!”

She totally figured out how to get on and ride this bike in no time at all. It was Otto’s and he outgrew it so I put it away. I just brought it out for Mette a few days ago. She likes it, but Otto loves it. He rides it all over. That is really when Mette wants it most, when Otto is riding it.
Otto has also mastered balancing on his “motorcycle” as he calls it. He was riding so much all over the house this weekend I moved the dining room table out of his way. He can start in the kitchen by the fridge and go all the fast the couch and has his feet up most of the way. Once it gets warm he is going to tear up the alleys and the parks on this bike. Should be a lot of fun.
Otto’s monster pants I made him. He really wants to read the names of the monsters so I put the pattern upside down. This way he isn’t twisted around trying to read the letters.

A tale of two stories

The first story of the evening really isn’t much of a story. There really aren’t words that do justice to how fantastic this outfit is. Rachel bought this tank-underware combo for Isaac a long time ago and when it became apparent it was not going to fit him, Otto scored it. He was kind enough to model it for us this evening. It is perhaps the greatest thing I have ever seen.

Action Shot

For the second half of this evening’s post we go to Mette. Poor little girl. She is teething again. It explains the sudden regression in sleeping. She has been stuffy at night, clingy during the day and chewing on everything while drooling up a storm. All signs point to teething. I don’t know what teeth she is working on now but I hope they cut through fast, or stop for a while. It’s funny with teething she really seems to be most bothered by it at night. Which makes us all tired. During the day she can often be distracted though sometimes it is all too much and she just needs to be held. This afternoon was a time like that. She didn’t take a great nap and was pretty cranky when she woke up. There is only so long I can hold her before my arms start to give in so out the ergo comes. That thing is a life saver. We were dancing around the kitchen to some good music on Pandora having a lovely time. I tried knitting while holding her, but my arms get sore. So I read magazines and straighten the kitchen. All the bouncing and music made her tired and she finally fell asleep to catch up on some much needed sleep. It is hard some days to have someone literally attached to you all the time but it is important to remember that she won’t be this little for long. Before too long I won’t be able to hold her all afternoon. So even though it isn’t always what I had planned for the day, it is always a nice treat. Besides, she is really snugly and smells so sweet.

Fang

Mette has been super busy lately. With teething that is. On Tuesday of this week she cut her second top tooth and fourth bottom tooth bringing the grand total of teeth up to 6. I thought Otto got teeth fast but she is putting him to shame. Thankfully, now that the teeth are in she is much happier. She has not really been her happy self for a while now and we can see why. She still has some nasty teething diaper rash to get over, but it is looking much better already. With her new chompers comes a desire to eat more things she can gnaw on herself. I got her some of the Earth’s Best little ABC’s crackers as I remembered Otto loving them. Well they are a huge hit with the girl. They also keep her occupied for a while which allows me to get dinner on the table which I love. One drawback, they make a HUGE mess. Well, actually it isn’t the crackers making the mess, it is really Mette smearing them all over the place. Good thing a bath is always next on the agenda after dinner!

You may be wondering why if I am giving her something so messy to eat I don’t have a bib on her. Good question. The answer, she just pulls them off. Ugh. Otto did this too so I can’t be too surprised, but still. Soon she will be ready for the straight jacket bibs from IKEA that were the only thing to stay on Otto but they are just too big right now. So I just strip her down to her onesie and let her go at it. We start meals with bibs, but they only last a bite or two.

I really should be…

Doing any number of things other than this post, but quite honestly, this is what I can handle right now. Plus I have been meaning to get these pics up for so long now. The past few days have been a series of things going wrong last of which was Mette today refusing to take a morning nap and only going to sleep this afternoon at 2 with quite a struggle and Tylenol because I was out of ideas. So, yeah, posting seems like just the thing to do. I don’t dare put away the laundry in our room which is piling up all over for fear of waking her up. I got dinner going in the crock pot so that doesn’t need my help. I could put away dishes, but they will still be there after dinner and I might feel more inclined then. Probably not, but we can pretend. I REALLY could deal with the toy explosion that is our entire downstairs, but again, can also be done later, so here I am.

Enough of my complaining, let’s get down to what you really want. Kids, photos and info. Otto is doing great. I know I have said it before, but I really can’t say it enough. I love this age. People go on about the terrible two’s and while, yes, they can be very challenging, they are also wonderful. Otto is hilarious. At times like a crazy midget dictator, but overall very funny. While he has been talking for a long time now, it is really conversation form now. You can even almost, sort of, maybe a little, reason with him. You can at least have a discussion about the problem at hand. The discussion may take many turns you weren’t anticipating, and never actually get you anywhere, but if you look at that as progress (which I obviously do) then it is great. He is such a sweet kid. He really loves Mette and is beginning to love playing with her. I think he is starting to see how much fun it is to always have another kid around. He mentions how she will talk soon a lot. Perhaps he needs someone to talk to more. Funny since he doesn’t ever really stop talking to me all day. I had that coming though fair and square. Still I love spending my days with him and all his quirks, both annoying and cute.

Mette is darling. Truly adorable. She could however work on a few things. One, sleep! The girl has been getting up every hour, sometimes two and EVERY once in a while, three hours at night for way too long now. I am really starting to notice it in how I feel each day. Some longer stints could really do me some good. That being said, she has good reason for not sleeping, I guess. She got a bad cold along with the rest of us which for her turned into a sinus infection, which required antibiotics which you will see later, she “loves”. On top of that she cut one top tooth and has an additional bottom tooth coming in. That brings her grand total of teeth up to 4 with one more coming soon. Not only that, but the crawling, teething and cold have brought on the first major bout of separation anxiety. The separation anxiety is totally by the books for her age, but I forgot how intense it can be at times. She went through a phase of it really being rough. The world was fine if seen from the safety of my arms, out of my arms it was a scary, scary world. One where screaming and reaching for me is the only thing to do. Of course this had to really set in while eric’s dad was here. Normally she would have been happy to have him carry her around all week, but not last week. Oh no, firmly attached to mommy’s side was the only place to be. The last two days have been a bit better with that, but I know we are not in the clear on that. As for tricks, she has mastered pulling up and now is starting to let go. She of course lands on her nice cushioned cloth bottom so it doesn’t hurt or bother her much but it scares the crap out of me.

So that is the news from the burg, where all the children are growing and all the parents are tired… and without further ado, I bring you pictures!

Mette rocking some fantastic sunglasses.

The weather has been super crappy here a lot lately and eric had the great idea of getting some rackets and balls and taking Otto to the racquetball courts at the University. It was a huge hit! No pun intended. I think it will be something we do a lot this winter. How can you go wrong with a giant room where nothing can be broken and two kids, a few balls and some weapons???

Mette getting in on the action

Papou came to visit and brought this cute outfit for the girl.

After spilling many doses that she spat back in my face or drooled out while I was reloading the syringe, I mastered this technique. Lay her down on the floor and sit on her. I don’t sit hard enough to hurt her but I pin her kicking legs down and flailing arms to her sides. Then I can hold her head with one had and inject with the other. It works great. I only have 15 more doses to go, but who is counting?
This past Sunday the University held a Halloween event for kids. They had lots of tables with crafts, games and candy. We took the kids and I really think Otto had a good time. He was a huge fan of the make your own cupcake and getting candy. He also really liked all the undergrad girls who thought he was too cute and wanted to talk to him.

Mette knocked ’em dead in her Tiger suit. Did I mention she can wave?? It is awesome. She can stop traffic at the grocery store. She does her biggest grin and reaches out with her whole arm. She is working on moving her fingers, but no one who sees it doubts for a second she is waving.

Kimi as he insists on being called when wearing the suit, loved the leaves outside just as much as the fun and games inside. It was the perfect day for playing in the leaves.