wanted

so, anyone have a highchair collecting dust in their garage that you would rather have accumulating cheerios and cheese chunks in my kitchen?

we do have a high chair, which is being used by my adorable nephew. my sister of course will be horrified by this post and will most likely not even finish reading before throwing the highchair in her car and taking off across town to return it. she is just that thoughtful. really she is. which is why i had to ask to talk to her 7 year-old to get the real truth as to whether or not it was being used.

and truthfully, i'd really be happy to use a different one anyway. i'm not a big fan of the one we have. its wooden and looks really cool. however, its not "ergonomically correct" with straps that don't entirely keep a wiggly child contained. and it doesn't look so cool when you happen to see your son dangling over the side with nothing but his ankle hanging precariously in the buckled straps. yeah, that was bennett. he was like 8 months old or something and smiling the entire time. even after i screamed and ran across the kitchen to rescue him from certain brain injury/paralysis/death.

yes, it was that dramatic.

so, should you be looking to "store" your high chair for a brief period of time at my house, you know where to find me. right here, wasting time on my blog while currently, ella persistently begs me for a snack...

good times with nana and papa

our fun visit with nana and papa included swimming in february, cool new flashlights (which have already provided hours of fun), and stinky the bull (lucky you, i forgot my camera that day.) we love you, nana and papa!

watching my children soaking up as much fun as possible in the heated pool brought back some fond memories of my childhood... times my family would head down to phoenix for the weekend to stay at embassy suites when they had their killer deals. you know, those "summer specials" that would entice you to fill their vacant rooms in the absolute deadness of summer. when everyone else was heading to the coolness of the mountains, we were heading for the deals in the city. didn't bother us though, except for the feeling of our skin peeling off as a result of some massive sunburns.

but alas, there is not a soul in my family who won't smile at the mention of the "pool with the ledge." (and in all fairness to my parents, i remember many fun phoenix visits, not always spent in the blistering sun. after all, there was the time we spent the whole day inside air-conditioned mervyn's when the car died. good times, good times... thanks mom and dad)

"uh... what are you guys doing?"

"just getting our babies to sleep."

cha-ching!!!

(yes, its been thoroughly cleaned.)

fyi: post-1982 pennies are made mostly with zinc, which, if lodged in the stomach erodes quickly and causes some serious ulcers. so. please check the date on your penny before allowing your child to put it in their mouth.

bennett's penny was 2004. a bit of erosion, but no signs of an ulcer. yet. that will come later when he is old enough to see all his mom has shared about him with the blog world.

x-ray vision

mason has 2 goals: eat as much as possible and sleep more. ahhh... how nice would that be? he doesn't know how good he has it.

bennett has one goal: no more swallowing pennies.

when the kids' fantastic pediatrician greeted me with the happy news that mason has climbed to the 3rd percentile for his weight, i countered with the un-happy news that bennett swallowed a penny approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes before our appointment. awesome.

so... off we went to get a special x-ray. just what i wanted to add to my day. my first thought (after bennett's welfare of course) was "oh cr*p. i didn't shove enough lollipops/fruit snacks/sugar filled candy in my diaper bag to keep my kids happy in yet another waiting room." oh, and i also don't have anything to calm my fussy baby... but what else is new.

poor little guy. he seems to be feeling totally fine. when the well-meaning, very sweet nurses at the pediatricians gently "teased" him about "no more swallowing pennies you silly little guy!" i thought he was going to cry. such a tender heart, that boy. and in the parking lot before the x-ray as i attempted to pump my little man up for the adventure of an picture of his insides, he looked at me with these sad eyes, his chin tucked down and asked in a scared whisper, "is it going to hurt?"

i had envisioned quite a long wait (because it isn't always) and when the nurse had handed me the x-ray order and it said "STAT" all over it, for a moment i honestly thought she did that for my sake and not because of the possible seriousness of a foreign object lodged in the esophagus of a 2 year-old. so when i said, "oh, thank you so much for that" she looked at me like i had lost my mind. (and truthfully, i have, so its ok.) then the doctor around the corner hears this and roars with laughter. oh, he thought i was trying to be funny. of course i played along and didn't allude to my self-first mentality. i already have a way under weight baby and a child ingesting coins. i should really be more careful about giving them any other reason to report me to the proper authorities.

so yeah, the wait was about 4 minutes. and everyone was really nice. especially the elderly couple smiling at us the whole time from the corner, all the while looking very sad. it made me think for a moment about the silliness of this visit, and of my life and the seriousness of things all around me. i don't know what tests they were facing this morning, but i had a feeling they weren't sitting there wishing they had remembered their camera. puts things in perspective and really, i am thankful that my "emergencies" involve pennies and laughter. my heart goes out to those suffering far worse days than me.


bennett was very, very still and looked very, very cute in his gown. instead of throwing the gown away, i realized it would make a super fun addition to our "playing hospital"... the still on-going obsession where my kids imitate c-section time and having babies cut out of their stomachs.

alas, the penny made its way to his tummy. and if all goes "smoothly", it should make its way on out in a couple days.

stay tuned...

now for the "slightly inappropriate, please don't report me" category...

had us a fun little bath time today. mason was a little unsure at first. most likely because his seat was more of a little boat since he doesn't weigh enough to keep it in place. he sorta floated amongst the other kids.

so tomorrow is the big day. i take him back to the doctor for a weight check. and if this double chin is any indication, i'm hoping he has climbed out of the .23 percentile.

so here's to gaining some weight! (mason, that is...)

nature calls

we had a glorious picnic at the park today. nice weather (if the sun is your thing), happy kids, un-fussy baby. green grass. yummy food. good times. i was just sitting there thinking to myself how nice it is to be out of the house and have mason happy all at the same time. and then:

ella: can i go pee somewhere?
me: yeah, lets go home.
ella: well, i really have to pee, but i don't want to go home.
me: sorry, we have to go home. there are no bathrooms here.
ella: i can just go pee over there. (pointing at the bushes)
me: ummm, no. we need to go home to pee.
ella: but why? there is no one around (dramatically indicating the absence of people with the swoop of her arm)
me: there are houses everywhere. and someone could be looking out the window at you. and i think its against the law to pee in public and you could get arrested.
ella: ok, lets go. (runs for the car)

and who says she's unreasonable?

we love the rain

hip, hip, horray!

poppa saved the day...

ella's prayer last night included the line: "and thank you poppa could come down and clean our house."

not only did poppa vacuum and clean our bathrooms (something that hadn't been done since the last time he was here... yeah, i'm not trying to hide anything. my house is a mess. why do you think i whine about wanting a housekeeper?), he took the kids to the park, put puzzles together, read stories, and most importantly for me, he held mason.

i'll be real honest (those of you sensitive to mommy honesty may want to stop reading here): i'm pretty much over the baby-ness of my life right now. yeah, i hear you saying i'm horrible, but i asked you to stop reading. i love mason, but seriously, i'm tired of holding him every waking moment of the day. i mean, a girl has got to brush her teeth... go to the bathroom... fill some sippy cups... waste some time on facebook... so it was nice to have poppa hold the fussy baby for me so i could do those things listed above as well as sit and do nothing at all. thanks for the break, dad. and really, he has the magic touch. mason is quite content with him.

i have moments when i think to myself, you might miss this someday. then i laugh out loud. i know about not rushing this stage and it goes so fast... blah, blah, blah. i agree with you. in about one more month that is how i will feel. but i am most certainly not wishing this stage to go on forever. seriously, let's sit on our own... hold a toy for 30 seconds... maybe eat a few cheerios. no wonder my house is a disaster and my other children are attention deprived. this little baby takes up my whole day.

some people tell me they miss this stage of babyhood because their babies slept all the time. ahhh... now there is the difference between them and me.

in case i sound ungrateful, i'm not. i feel very blessed to have 3 fantastic children. and maybe, maybe, when mason is a teenager i'll say, "oh, i wish i could just hold you in my arms." but even if i do say that, i won't actually mean that i want to do it all day, every day. maybe just a few moments here and there. and besides, when they are older i plan to make my kids hug me anytime they want the car keys, allowance, dinner...

and i have checked with the doctor to make sure nothing is wrong with mason. he assures me he is healthy and there is nothing to worry about. so what he is really saying is, its just his personality. lucky me.

he does have happy moments. they are generally when he is being held.

and in daddy news, as a result of a pretty crazy month and a half of very long, semi-stressful days, my hardworking husband informed me this week he has lost 15 lbs.

15 pounds, you say? yep, we are definitely trading places for the month of february.