The Blog I Will Never Write

It is not December and so I cannot write the blog that I wanted to write.
I know this post is still dated in December- but it is a lie. Somehow December escaped my clutches with but one paltry post and that one was about November and now it is January, a whole new year, and far too late to go back to musings on what happened in December of 2010.
So here it is, the blog post that I will never write unless at some future date I happen to cross paths with a time machine.
I am sorry to say you will never read about the soft spot I had this year for the TV Christmas special "It's Christmas Charlie Brown!" as I surveyed my own gimpy wreath and tree. The wreath I made myself with real fir boughs, but it didn't turn out quite as I envisioned it so it hung inside our house and we enjoyed the piny scent. I could pretend that its humble, lop-sided appearance was on purpose in honor of the humble birth place of Jesus, but let's face it- I just can't make wreaths.
The tree, which I will not write about, was just fine, lovely in fact, until we decorated it. The twins helped me decorate it while David John just as quickly ripped off and destroyed ornaments. I had to keep moving the ornaments up higher and higher as David John devised new ways to reach them until the bottom 2/3 of the tree was completely bare and the top 1/3 suffocating with decoration. All of this majesty was topped by a homemade cardboard and foil star which frequently decided to flop over or threaten to fall off entirely.
David John seemed to notice the disparity in decoration, however, and tried to make up for it by shoving megablocks, dinosaurs, cars and dusting cloths into the bottom branches. This was truly a tree only a mother could love and you will never know about it.
I neglected entirely to write about the formal Christmas party for the Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital that Marc signed us up to go to. You might never know about the panic of trying to find something even semi-formal that would fit over my gigantic pregnant belly. I won't be able to tell you about combing thrift stores with all three boys in tow, about Elijah opening the dressing room door while I was changing or about the miracle of finding a very plain funeralesque floor length black velvet maternity dress for $7 which a team of fairy godmothers turned into a cute knee length little number with fabric flowers on the neckline and matching hair clips and beautiful pearl jewelry. Marc and I had a wonderful time with all of the fabulous people he works with. We played with the exhibits, ate, danced, watched an awesome IMAX movie about Alaska and came home to find that our boys did not destroy our neighbors' house or even their breakable Christmas village display.

My year of blogging will not include the cute quip in which I asked my boys about the nativity scene and the only three characters they seemed to think worth mentioning were baby Jesus, Jesus' mommy, and the cow. (Here is the picture that I would have included of our nativity set we bought in the Philippines. The boys loved watching me unwrap each piece and put it on the mantle.)
I won't get to write about Christmas morning and how Gabriel threw a tantrum about having to put on his pajama pants before he could go downstairs and declared that he did not want presents. Of course, he changed his mind.
I'll never tell you about the boys unwrapping presents to find a sealed box beneath the paper and calling out, "I got a box!" then tossing it aside without thinking that there might be something in the box. This fabulous picture of Elijah after having eaten all of his stocking candy with a smile only a dentist could truly appreciate might never see the light of day.
No one but my immediate family will recall how cute David John looked in his little red robe, or how he stood by the door with his snow boots just waiting for someone to take him outside.
I wish that I would have written about my husband who worked through the Christmas holidays without complaint and even made it through some very tough days of endless patients, long hours and heartbreaking cases without a family to come home to. I wish that I could tell you about my gratitude for him and how sweet it was to come home to him and to have our own little Christmas celebration on New Year's Eve. I wish I could boast about what a good job he did in surprising me with thoughtful gifts but I will never write this blog so I can't.
Oh, and I wish that I could wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year but this blog was never written. Maybe I'll remember to write one this year.

Gratitude

So, it might be a month late, but I still wanted to express our family's gratitude for the blessings big and small in our life. Let me first say, that I am grateful for family and friends who take fabulous pictures since I so often forget my camera or am too busy interacting with the boys to take pictures of them.

Gabriel is thankful for books, books and more books. This kid loves to be read to.

Marc is grateful for "help" with raking and piling the leaves by the curb so the leaf-sucker truck can take them away.

Marc and I are both thankful for 3 adorable boys and 1 on the way.

Marc (and particularly Opa) is grateful for massive amounts of free leftover movie theater popcorn. He scored this bag after we all went to see the latest Harry Potter movie on Thanksgiving.






























We are very grateful for Robert, Nancy, Oma and Opa who came to visit us during Thanksgiving and helped out so much with the cooking, cleaning, and child-wrangling.

All the boys are thankful for birthday ice cream- Opa's treat.

Elijah is thankful for stickers.

I am grateful for movie night and my husband who watched our kids and our friends' children so I could go.

David John is grateful for his first kiss from a cute girl. Ava is quite the go-getter.

We are thankful for all the great friends we have here in Cleveland.

A Tale of Two Vans

Our van was dead to begin with..... dead as a doornail.

Okay, not really and I know that line is from A Christmas Carol and not A Tale of Two Cities- but remember last winter when our van had "irritable bowel syndrome"? We never did figure out the source of the IBS until it was too late. Apparently, in vans anyway, IBS can be deadly.
The estimated repair cost for a procedure that may or may not work was a minimum of $1500. At that point, the van was still running albeit in a scary vibratory kind of way. However, as I drove my little van home I had pretty much decided that we were in the market for a new vehicle. It was at that very moment that the van died for the first time. My van with the fatal IBS also had ESP.
Marc and I went to work at finding a replacement and located a 2009 Toyota Sienna for a good price. On the big day when we were to go trade our sickly van for a shiny newish one, Mr. Minivan refused to start at all- it clearly knew our plans- and had to be jumped. As we drove to the dealership, Marc made some comment about how this van only had to make it 2 more miles and then it would be out of our lives forever.
It promptly died.
After getting it started again, we finally made it to the dealership. Now, I am no expert on vehicles but I knew that this van we were trading in was something special. I mean, it wasn't going to work for us to keep it because we needed a vehicle that would, you know, go. However, I was sure that this van could be of use to someone since it clearly understood human speech and could even read minds. At the very least it should have been a valuable collector's item.
Would you believe that after we presented the dealership with all of anecdotal evidence pointing to our van's ESP abilities they actually lessened the trade-in value from the blue book price?
Anyway, for better or worse we traded it in and drove home in what the boys are still calling "the new van" even though it has been more than two weeks now. I love our new van, but kind of miss the red color and character of our old one. Oh, and the boys are definitely missing the built in VHS player. Our VHS tapes are missing it too since that was the only use we had for them. *Sigh.
It was the best of vans, it was the worst of vans.

Quotable Quotes

Gabriel: Mom, that's a lot of groceries.

Me: Yep. You guys eat a lot.

Gabriel: Yeah. I eat a lot and I drink a lot. It means.... I'm pregnant.

Elijah (referring to the baby in my tummy): Is he awake in there?

Me: Yes he is, he's wiggling around.

Elijah (holding a toy truck): I want to give him this truck. (He moves as if to put the truck down my shirt.)

Me: No, we can't do that.

Elijah: Why? The baby will eat it?

Me: No, there is just no way to get it inside where the baby is.

Elijah (thinking): Why don't you eat it?

Me: laughing too hard to respond

Gabriel (in response to me nagging him about picking up his toys): Mom, you are making me crazy!

Me: The feeling is mutual.

Gabriel: Yeah, the feeling is cereal!

Elijah (crying): Mom! Gabe take my truck!

Me (busy in kitchen): Just a second, I think you're okay.

Elijah: I am not okay! Gabe take my truck I said!

Gabriel (referring to the woman in the pew in front of us at church): Mom, that is a lot of hair. That it is a big head. Mom, I can't see.

Elijah: Mom, you okay?

Me: I'm okay. I'm just not feeling good today. My tummy hurts.

Elijah: Oh. Do I smell bad?

Gabriel (in response to Elijah refuting something Gabe said): Well, my name is Gabriel and I start with “G” so yes it is.

Elijah: P P P P P P Y spells puppy.

Half Baked

Happy 20 weeks of pregnancy today. Woo-hoo! Half way done! And I have the belly to prove it.

Boy oh boy oh boy...

oh BOY!
That's right folks. We are expecting baby boy number four! We had our big ultrasound yesterday, and while I will not post the picture proof believe you me that there was no question about the gender of this baby. Not shy, this one. :)
We had a really nice and enthusiastic ultrasound technician. She was patient with my wiggly and sometimes uncooperative little guy and gushed over every part. "Here's his femur- it's perfect!" "Oh, look at that humerus, looks great!" I think during the ultrasound we heard all of the following adjectives: perfect, wonderful, fabulous, great, beautiful, nice, outstanding and amazing. The doctor confirmed that our little guy seems to be the picture of health and is weighing in at about half a pound- right on schedule for his April 4th (or 5th) due date.
Here's a few pictures- keep in mind I don't have a scanner so there is a little glare from taking pictures of the ultrasounds:


This is the naughty foot that already keeps me up at night sometimes.


Look at that handsome profile!



And here is a little hand waving hello. When Gabe and Elijah saw this picture they pointed to my belly and asked, "You have a monkey in there?"

Our boys are excited about the new baby as are we. I guess maybe we should have one more boy so we can have a whole basketball team. Marc thinks we should anyway.

Happy Halloween

from our little dinosaur, tiger and dragon.

Distraction

Has this ever happened to you? You get a phone call and you are distracted for like five minutes when you realize your children are eerily quiet and you discover that they have relocated every moveable object on the main level of your house to their beds. No? Well this is what it looks like:

Are You Toddler Tough?

Sometime I feel like a pro when it comes to being the mother of three under 3, and other times I feel like I need to go back to basic training. I often think about all of the crazy things that toddlers do (at least mine) that I just wasn't really prepared for. As a result, I've prepared this little quiz for those of you who are planning on having children, those who have a baby but haven't experienced toddlers yet, or for those empty-nesters to see if you've still got it. If you pass this written test, but would like some practical training I have three toddlers that I am prepared to let you babysit. Just let me know. :)
All test questions are based on actual events- some questions may have more than one correct answer. For answers, please see the comments section.

1. You are missing some sippy cups and bowls last used by your toddlers. You are most likely to find them
A. in the kitchen sink
B. on a shelf
C. in the dirty diaper pail after which they will need to be bleached and run through the dishwasher three times

2. You had a great day- mostly. You took the kids to the zoo and the library, but lost your temper in the afternoon when they wouldn't stop fighting for 45 minutes straight and refused to take a nap. You raised your voice, but then had a good evening and even let them watch a movie. When asked what they did today, your toddler will respond
A. I went to the zoo
B. I got a book at the library
C. Mommy yelled at me
D. I watched a movie

3. Your toddler may wake you up in the middle of the night because
A. he developed a sudden and urgent fear that a light bulb in his room could burn out at any moment and leave him in the dark
B. one of his stuffed animals is not properly tucked in
C. he needs a hug
D. he decided this would be a prime moment to have a dirty diaper
E. he's sad
F. he wants to know if it is too early to get up

4. You take your toddler to a religious service at a historic building. You toddler spends his time
A. whispering questions in your ear the entire time
B. sitting quietly on the bench and attending to the speaker
C. cramming the crayons you brought to keep him busy in between the historic floorboards which are wide enough to allow crayons to enter but not to fish them out
D. dropping the books you brought him to read so that the bang sound echoes repeatedly in the acoustically amazing building

5. Your toddler will find the following things amusing
A. knock-knock jokes
B. bodily function sounds
C. locking himself in his room so that you have to use your skills from your former career as a thief to get him out

6. If you need to use the bathroom while watching a toddler you should
A. put up gates up in every stairway
B. lock all of the doors
C. tip chairs and other climbable objects over (unless your toddler has already mastered righting chairs, or climbing on tipped chairs)
D. secure all valuable and dangerous objects

7. If you fail to take appropriate precautionary measures, when you exit the bathroom you may find that your toddler has
A. climbed on the counter and taken all of the knives out of the knife block
B. emptied drawers of their contents
C. played independently without making a mess
D. used your cell phone to make a number of calls- you'll be getting "return" calls all day from numbers you don't remember dialing

8. You say a lot of things to your toddler during the day. He is most likely to repeat
A. Dang it!
B. I sure love you.
C. High fives for you!
D. You're making me crazy!

9. Toddlers seem to have a behavioral code all their own. Which of the following activities, which are not accepted by society as a whole, might be labeled by a toddler as "acceptable"?
A. attempting to shut a brother or playmate in the closet
B. painting the walls with a non-paint substance such as lotion, peanut butter or lipstick
C. tearing up books and shoving the pieces of paper into the heating vent
D. dangerous couch acrobatics
E. talking about controversial politics

10. You will love your toddler because
A. despite all the naughtiness (or maybe because of it) he makes you laugh until your sides hurt
B. he does go to sleep sometimes and then he is the most adorable, angelic little person you have ever seen
C. he loves you unconditionally (except when he's in time-out)
D. you can't help it, there is just something about those little hands, little face and winning smile
E. there is nothing like a toddler hug

So- how did you do?
9-10 correct = Toddler Tough
7-8 correct = Wee-one Wily
5-6 correct = You'll Survive
3-4 correct = Need a Nanny
1-2 correct = You Want to Go Home and Rethink Your Life (at least about having kids)

*Bonus Question in honor of our recent babysitter*
You give a toddler a glass milk. He asks for a refill. You should
A. tell him you'll give him 1/2 glass more but that's all
B. tell him to ask his parents when they get home
C. believe him when he says that mom and dad let him have as much as he wants right before bedtime and give him 5 refills causing him to flood his room overnight

Punkins

Before...





... and after.
From left to right, that's David John's, Elijah's and Gabe's pumpkin. They are made with potatohead-like pieces that push into the pumpkin to create the faces. The boys choose the pieces and where to stick things. I just help push them in. I highly recommend this method of decorating for those of you with little kids- or those of you with lazy husbands who don't want to carve. :)

The Week: Ricks Edition

Our Top Stories of the Week

Toy Story 3 Arrives at Dollar Theaters- Smallest Critics Applaud
Last Wednesday, Marc and I took the boys to see Toy Story 3 at our local "dollar theater" (it deserves quotation marks because the price is actually $1.50). Marc invited several colleagues and their families so we ended up with 19 people planning to come. Since it is a popular movie and we had such a large group we took the precaution of driving out to the box office early in the day and purchasing all of the tickets. We are not in Utah anymore, Toto. In Utah, this movie would certainly have been sold out. In Utah, sometimes you have to purchase tickets days in advance for the dollar theater and/or wait in really long lines. In Cleveland, we needn't have bothered. Number of other families who showed up at the theater for the movie: 1.
We all had a really great time. Gabriel and Elijah were completely engrossed although they asked far too many questions. Anytime a main character was off-screen we heard "Where's Woody?" "Where's Buzz?" or just random other questions "Where's Woody hat go?" "What that guy doing?" "Is Woody sad?"
David John was content to sit on a booster seat and eat sickening amounts of theater popcorn for the first hour before he became wiggly and fussy. No one minded, we were in a room full of pediatricians, and a binky fixed the problem. It really was a great evening. If only they had slept in the next day after getting home at 10 PM.... I guess we can't have everything.

Blue Man Group Comes to Cleveland: Marc and Sarah Leave House
Thursday, Marc and I got to go on a rare date to see the Blue Man Group at playhouse square. Fellow resident Stephen Mac watched our boys for us and by all accounts they all had a great time. We really enjoyed the drumming, black light effects, humor and total randomness of the show. It was highly entertaining and we definitely recommend it with only a small disclaimer: Some of the humor is definitely aimed at boys in the 10-14 age range. There was an entire song devoted to the various names for "bottom". Also- do not come late. You may be spotlighted and mocked. You've been warned.

Twins Discover Tether Ball
We walked to the playground after school on Friday to discover that someone had left the tether balls out on their posts. The boys were all fascinated by the concept and enjoyed hitting the ball back and forth. Some unusual moves were tried including hanging on the ball and swinging around the pole like Tarzan and walking the ball around the pole while holding onto it. I even played a game with my little brother Sam. It was very nostalgic including the part where I lost in spectacular fashion.



Doctor to Balloon Man, "Yous Gots Skills"
Our Library (the charming brick building in the background of Gabe's picture) held a family fall fest on Saturday. This included a maze, a beanbag toss with prizes, a puppet show, cookie decorating and the most amazing balloon artist I've ever seen. This guy could make anything. Pictured is Elijah with his dinosaur, Gabriel with Thomas the train complete with three train cars, a simple balloon toy made for David John and three other creations I snapped pictures of- Tinker Bell, Sponge Bob and a horse. When Marc saw the balloons (he was on call during the festival) he immediately said "I need an apprenticeship with this guy!" We'll keep you posted on Marc's possible midlife crisis and career change.







Primped Progeny Pose with Pumpkins
The boys got haircuts on Saturday, so I wanted to have a little photo shoot with their new hairdos, the pumpkins they chose earlier in the week and the pretty fall leaves. As evidenced here, it did not go well. I was unable to get all three of them sitting at the same time much less looking at the camera simultaneously. None of the pictures really turned out great but I thought these three examples of my efforts were pretty amusing.