Lectures from children

I hate it when The Little Green Monster lectures us, because he’s nearly always right.

He likes to lecture us about lot of different things.

How we brush our teeth, if we are driving correctly, being to loud watching anything remotely scary on TV, even if we are eating too many sweets. Of course, sometimes this works in my favor like getting Papa gears to always wear his seatbelt.

It goes like this:

Monster notices that his dad is unbuckled

“Dad, dad AMEMBER what we talked about?”

“No monster, what did we talk about?”

“If you’re driving a truck, or a car, or a bus, or a jeep …. You gotta wear your seatbelt.”

“What if you’re not driving?”

“Then you need to wear your seatbelt.”

“So if your in  car and it’s moving you need to wear your seatbelt.”

“Yeah, but sometimes it’s ok to just hold on really really tight.”

Oh boy, looks like we have some talking to do still so we can Amember what we talked about.  What do your kids lecture you about?

Where is the love bed time?

 This is what bed/nap time used to look like

Ah peaceful isn’t it.

I hate bedtime lately, I usually have a love/hate relationship with bed time it isn't very fun BUT eventually the children go to SLEEP. But not lately.

Bet time is taking 4 or more hours every night for two kids!

Around 8 we start The little green monster's bedtime routine, he brushes his teeth to our little dance party (where I make up a 2 minute song and dance)

we get him undressed because he hates pj's and sleeps only in his undies , we read him a story . We say sweet good nights, we leave the light on so he isn't scared.

8:30 At this point I’m thinking “SWEET tonight this is going to work!”

8:32 monster is out of his room he's “hungry” this is a god possibility because he didn't eat his dinner, he never eats his dinner.

First threat “If your not chewing you have to go back to your room."

9:00 2nd bed

 time- more hugs and kisses.
9:02  little Monster, out of bed again. We have been advised to make punishments bed related so we start to take away bed time related things, if he stays in his room then he can earn them back 5 minutes at a time. This time we take away his stuffed animal

9:04 – bye bye blanket
9:05 – The little princess who has been crying for about a half an hour finally falls asleep.
9:08- He made it 4 minutes! And then came out again now he thinks this is fun.
9:15- ah blanket got back
9:16- bye bye blanket
9:18- bye bye pillow
9:19- bye bye sheets

Now I'm thinking uh-oh this isn't going well, what else do I take away?

9:22- bye bye Mattress
9:25 – bye- bye umm... board under his mattress
9:28- bye-bye crud what do I take away now? He's been lying on the floor. So I turn off the light he turns it on I tell him to leave it off, her turns it on. So I debate do I tape it off? Nah, I take his light bulb.

9:30 – now I have been taken away and the door has been shut Papa gears is sitting right outside the door standing guard.

9:40 – doing better a few tears were shed but he has earned something back.  Papa walks away from the door

9:45 – he has to pee. So we let him, he spends way too long in there and makes a mess, so he has to clean it up he cries. This wakes up princess because her room is next to the bathroom.

GREAT now BOTH kids are awake.

 

10:00- 11:00 an hour of earning his things back 5 and ten minutes at a time we have to set a timer and we often get small bouts of crying  but things are looking up well unless you ignore the fact that it has been THREE HOURS of bed time but finally The little green Monster is ASLEEP.

But remember he woke up the little princess, who after sleeping for about 45 minutes thinks it’s PLAYTIME!

So for the next hour or so we try feeding her, both nursing and solids. I will do anything to make her fall asleep and stay asleep.

We try just putting her down but she cries and cries until both mommy and daddy can’t take it anymore 7-15 minutes.

We try holding her  with all the lights off, sometimes this works but not on this night.

So  papa or I walks around holding her, sweet she rubs her eyes this means she is finally tired. 

 I feed her again barely breathing and she finally falls asleep and we carefully put her in her bed hoping that doesn’t wake her up… and we look down it is 11:56 

Just shy of four hours for bed time, just 6-7 hours until we have to get up. 

(^ not sleeping on vacation)

I hate you bed time.  Where is the love?

A letter to 3, who can suck it.

In a few weeks Monster turns four and  I should be felling like my my baby needs to stop growing up, but honestly I have only one thing to say to 3...

" SEE YEAH! I hope the door dosn't hit you too hard on the way out."

OK  I might add

"Please don't come back. Well for at least a few more years, in fact if you want Princess to skip 3 all together and just go from 2-4, I'd be OK with that.

3 you are 2 with intent.

3 you took the ability of a two year old to make a mess and turned it in to a tornado. A vicious level of  destruction that sometimes out paces my wildest dreams. I mean i didn't think you were capable but i was wrong.

3 you saw to the end of naps, but not the end of need for a nap just the ability to take one.

3 you have reduced the number of foods that my son will eat to a handful, of course that is just for me he'll eat a lot for everyone else. 

(yeah that's cake he FELL ON IT great way to start 3 no?)

now don't get me wrong 3 your not all bad, 

thanks to you my little monster is potty trained.

He interacts socially much better.

those fine motor skills are coming along nicely he wants to color and write now!

and he can think about others before himself he doesn't like to but he can. that's all on you 3.


But overall, I'm ready for my sweet boy back so 3 you can shove it!

Here's to FOUR and the hopefully more reasonable child that move's in with it.

A Princess and a Diary

“MOM She said Diary!!” 

“Really? Why would she say diary?”

“ I don’t know. Maybe she has diary…"

“ um…”

Why you in my face bro?

Happy 100 veiws!

Conspiracy

The other day my kids were playing and I started to listen

“CRAWL MY MINION CRAWL!! WAHAHAHA”

Uh oh, he’s training her already! What am I going to do when they gang up on me?

Perhaps there is some horns hidden behind that crown.

The OTHER reason we shouldn’t go anywhere

This week we went to go visit my grandmother in Utah while we were there we visited a college roommate of mine who has a precious 4 week old newborn boy, her first. We decided to meet up at a park so the kids could play and no one had to worry about clean up.

They are new parents still in that wonderfully protective he’s so tiny and fragile stage.

The Little princess ate grass, every time I looked away, a lot of grass.  Oh but this story isn’t about her, nah this is about The Little Green Monster… who lived up to his name.

First  he disappeared a lot as three year olds are apt to do luckily we kept an eye on him but not close enough because during on trip around the corner papa gears walked over to find him PEEING on the wall of the restroom.  AHHH! That’s right pants around his ankles just peeing on the wall; I swear he’s never done that before. I apologize to our friends and try to laugh it off something about boys will be boys, right?

This is a good time to mention that there was a family reunion going on at this park, Monster disappears again,  and we start to call for him and he bounces out of the pavilion with a desert in hand very happy “I GOT DESERT MOM!!!”  I’m pretty sure I died right there.

the evils of parade candy

 I hate parade candy.   There is way too much of it and not enough at the same time.  Little monster is still well little,  so he doesn’t run as far in to the street(thank goodness) or as fast as the other kids, leaving him to cry because he isn’t allowed to grab that piece of candy just out of reach.

It’s sticky and hot what is eaten makes the overly hot kids thirsty. What isn’t eaten is put in to the diaper bag where it melts in to a sticky mess. On a related note does anyone know how to get melted candy out of a diaper bag?

Once I tried to bring a bag of candy along because I knew I was going to be at the parade without papa Gears, it didn’t work the candy I bought must have been of an inferior quality or something because when that one green tootsie roll flew near enough to him that he could have picked it up but a older faster child swooped it up it was all over.  So a POX on parade candy! (On the candy, not the kids who eat it)

On a funny note Grandma Knows-it-all  told the little monster that if he waves, he’ll get more candy so he waved at everything for an hour or so weather we had people in front of us or not .

Isn’t the parade wave awesome!

And also one of Princess Urp because well she’s cute and underrepresented here, can you believe my six month old will not pose for me? The nerve.

Transformer

Monster likes to make “transformers” I’m not sure what it transforms in to, but maybe it’s the laundry fairy?  I can only hope. What do you think?

why we can't go anywhere

We can’t go anywhere. I think for the safety and sanity of the rest of the city we should just stay home.  You see earlier this week we ate at our local taco bell with friends from their family not one drop was spilled. Us well…

First Monster spilled RED FRUIT PUNCH. Why oh why would papa gears give a three year old such a stainable drink?  Well he dropped it and then tried to clean it up with napkins, we asked for a mom but they were busy so they said not to worry about it but it was EVERYWHERE.

So while directing Monster I set Princess on the chair next to me I was ho ding on to her with one hand but I wasn’t watching those sneaky baby hands. And she grabbed a taco spilling it all over.

Unfortunately, I saw this and tipped over my drink during an attempt to catch it….

Sigh we should have stayed home.