Friday, January 20, 2012

2 Year Old's Can be Butt Heads....

You've heard of "Hints from Heloise" right? Well Heloise, if anyone ever writes in about their 2 year old who got into the diaper rash ointment (when they were supposed to be sleeping) and then proceeded to put the ENTIRE tube on their head and rub it in so that there was a 2" layer over their entire head (so bad that she couldn't see a hair on the kid's head) and she needs to know how to get it out, simply tell her:

1. Don't panic.

2. Don't waste your time with kids soap and shampoo. And finally

3. Dawn dish detergent (and about 45 minutes of scrubbing) does the trick.

Just sayin', you know.........IN CASE this ever happens to anyone..........................................Else.

You see, even 2 year old's know they can be butt head's at times. Why else would they put diaper ointment in their hair? :-D

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Happy Birthday to my 2 year old

Every year, I write a letter to my boys on their birthday. Here is the baby's 2 year letter:


To my sweet, rambunctious baby,

How can it be possible? How is it that you have been bringing such joy (and at times, frustration) to our lives for two whole years? My beautiful baby, I am amazed by you each and every day.

First let me tell you how proud I am of you. For as challenging as it can be to keep your attention, you are obviously learning and not just your ABC’s and 123’s. You are really grasping the important stuff. When you bow your head to pray, my heart jumps. When you show compassion to your brother if he’s upset, I melt. When you say “peez” (please) and “tock ew” (thank you) and “welcome” (your welcome), I am uplifted. I love how you will just keep saying “tock ew” over and over again until someone says, “your welcome!” You want to make sure we all practice good manners. Your laugh has got to be the most infectious laugh I’ve ever heard and fortunately for us, we hear it a lot. I love how easily you laugh and your sense of humor. Even your big brother tries everyday to make you laugh because, according to him, “I love to hear my brother laugh, it’s the best laugh ever.” It’s a good thing, because it balances out the screaming you’ve been known to do from time to time.

My little one, your ingenuity astonishes me. I have never known a child who could take things apart and put them back together as easily as you do. I have never known a child who could so easily break thorough child safety locks. I have never known a child with such curiosity and lack of fear. Truly, my son, I have never seen you afraid. I have seen you hesitant, but after a few seconds, your curiosity takes over and fear goes out the window. Your lack of fear actually creates fear in me, but at the same time, it helps strengthen my faith. In so many ways you have helped me to grow as a Christian. For that precious gift alone, I could never thank you enough.

You have such a sweet and caring heart and not only for your family. Everyday, usually more than once, you will come up to me and say, “I wuv you” and give me a kiss and hug (you know how to make me tear up already). But, what really shows me your heart is how you are with others, especially when you see that they are upset. While in the nursery at church, there was a little boy standing at the door and crying for his Daddy. You went up to him, put your arm around him and kept saying to him, “is okay.” You have tried to comfort others on more than one occasion. You do this on your own, with absolutely no prodding from me. I love that.

As sweet and as fun as you are, I have to be honest. Sometimes, you are a challenge. Like the time you threw Mommy’s brush into the fireplace and almost burned the house down. I know you didn’t do it on purpose; you were simply done playing with my brush and tossed it. Unfortunately, it landed in the fireplace, right on top of the pilot light. Or the time I laid you down for a nap and you climbed out of your crib, pulled out the drawers of your dresser, flipped over your other dresser and pulled out every single toy, so that when I walked into your room, I could not even see the floor. EVERYTHING in your room was on the floor. Oh yes, you like to flip things over. I know it’s only so you can inspect them and see exactly how everything works, but it can be very challenging. Daddy has had to bolt everything that is light enough for you to flip over to the wall. Our dehumidifier downstairs, your dresser, etc. Yes, I know these things aren’t light, but you my son, are STRONG. You amaze us daily with the things you can pick up and the things you can do. Like the time you decided it would be fun to hang upside down on your swing. You were able to hold up your entire body weight with just your hands, while hanging upside down. You had seen your brother do it, and you want to do EVERYTHING your brother does.

Yes, my precious and precocious toddler, you are strong, funny, kind, sweet, fearless, wild and sensitive, but you are also smart. You know how to recite your ABC’s and can even recognize several letters already when you see them. I was shocked the first time you saw the letter S in a book, pointed to it and said, “S”. Or the time you were having your picture taken and the photographer asked you to go stand on the “X.” You walked right over to it and stood over it. You know how to count to 10 by yourself, can recognize the numbers as well and you know shapes and colors.

You are also so much like your father. When he plays with Lego’s, he likes to keep all of the colors together. You do the same thing. While building a tower with you the other day, I made the mistake of building my tower with several different colored blocks in a random pattern. You took my tower apart and then put it all back together with each color together. The tower was striped with colors. Each color together, the bottom was yellow, then green, then blue and finally red. You recognize patterns, wow.

There are so many more stories to tell, but for that, I would need to write a book. You and your brother inspire me so much, that I may do that one day. I love you my faithful gift from God. You complete our family and your Daddy, brother and yes, even Maximus, love you to the moon and back. We thank God for choosing us to be your family, you are a true blessing.

Love always,
Mommy

If you'd like to see last year's letter, here you go.

I also do a birthday video for each boy every year. Here is the baby's.

Oh, and here's my little firefighter's 2nd birthday party.



Thursday, January 12, 2012

So the Baby Almost Burned the House Down...

No, I'm not kidding.

So it all went down like this:

The baby and I were in the kitchen fixing dinner. I know what your thinking, "OKay, so this is where the fire happens."

Nope.

As I stand over the kitchen sink I suddenly hear the fire alarm going off. My first thought, "Hey, I didn't realize those things actually worked."

Then it hit me, "Those things actually work!"

I turn around and down the hall see a big orange glow and smoke. Oh no.

I run through the kitchen, through the dining room, around the corner and into the foyer where our gas fireplace is. There are huge flames shooting out of the fireplace about 3 feet. Crap.

At this point the baby starts screaming, he is obviously terrified. The dog also starts crying. Well, doing that whine/whimper thing dogs do. Anyhow, I'm frantically looking for the remote control to turn off the fireplace and find that it happens to be on top of the fireplace. Sweet, so now I get to dodge flames to turn the fireplace off. I yell to the baby, "Stay back, run away!" Amazingly, he does. He runs to the other side of the living room, ducks behind the chair and peeks over the arm of the chair, still crying.

I grab the remote and turn the fireplace off. The flames go down, but not out. Oh no. I look closer and realize something else has been thrown into our fireplace. The gas logs are out, but whatever is in there is still burning. I tell the baby to stay put, run into the kitchen, drown a few towels in water and run back. I then grab this blob of plastic and metal to get it away from the source of gas. I do this with my bare hands. I know this wasn't the smartest move in the world, but all I was thinking was that I could deal with a burned hand, not too sure about a burned house or child. My cousin died at the age of 5 in a house fire. I have no desire to relive that.

After pulling the plastic and metal blob off the pilot light, I drown it with water and towels. All the while smoke is everywhere, the alarms are going off, the dog is still crying and so is the baby. The dog is now hiding with the baby behind the chair.

Finally, the fire is out. I pick through the mess and find a piece of metal and plastic. I figure out that it was my large round brush. The baby comes over to me still crying and physically shaking. The poor thing really was terrified. I'm assuming at some point, he got my brush, tossed it into the fireplace (I mean, what else would you do with a brush?) and then came into the kitchen. I figure it had been burning for a while because he was in the kitchen with me when the alarms went off. There also wasn't much left of the brush. There may have been something else in the fireplace with it, but all that was left was piece of the brush.

So now the tip of my pointer finger and the tip of my thumb are pretty burned. I'd say 2nd to 3rd degree because what isn't blistered and black is white. Where it is white there is no feeling whatsoever. I guess the nerves are burned. But, don't worry, the blistered part and the red part make up for it in pain.

You know, I was a firefighter for 15 years. Not once did I ever receive a burn. I have been a mother for 6 years and the baby's mom for only 2 and I have already received 2nd to 3rd degree burns.

I think this proves that motherhood is way more dangerous than fighting fire.