I'll Be in the Powder Room

He's crawling! I would probably call it official since Friday. I'm in for it now. They can officially take off in three different directions. Prior to Friday, Elijah was "migrating." By lunging and turning and sitting, he would get around a little bit.

His last chemo visit went well. His blood counts were basically normal and he had another dose of  IVIG. The doctor said his levels were rising enough that he might not need it again.

You'd think I was intentionally averting my attention from my 2 and 3 year old, just to see what interesting thing they'd do, based on the stuff they accomplish. That's tempting on some level, but, no. They have plans ready to execute, the moment I nurse a baby or take a shower. The other day, while I was holding Elijah and folding laundry (doing neither very effectively), Isaac got the baby powder out of  the changing table pocket, and powdered the entire kitchen and himself. I sent him upstairs to play and, planning to clean the kitchen when Brian came in from mowing, I sat down to nurse the poor, famished baby. Ian sneaked in, and thinking Isaac's project hilarious, he snitched the baby oil and painted over top of the powder. I only caught him when he poured the oil all the way to the living room and started shaking it on Elijah's head.

Usually, I'm good about waiting until the last minute to mention plans to the boys, but this time, my mixture of excitement about Disney and wondering if it will thrill or terrify them, has weakened my resolve. Now, every time we pull into a parking lot, Ian asks, "Is this Disney?" Last week, he put on a Handy Manny costume from 2 years ago and vowed to wear it to Disney. After two straight days, I was starting to think he was really going to leave it on until our trip. It wasn't until I got him pirate and fireman pajamas that I convinced him to take it off.

I'd like to take the boys to the Bodies exhibit. I went before and it was really amazing. Since Ian has been asking all about bones and muscles and all, I think he'd really get into it. I tried to get Brian to go last weekend, but he came up with lots of reasons not to. It turns out he just doesn't share my fascination.

Two Steps Cleaner, One Step Disaster

I turned on my computer and Ian announced, "It's time to plaay FAM-il-y Feud!" Am I addicted?

The boys had a lot of fun today, but in the way that mom...well, not so much. While I prepared Elijah's dressing change supplies for the home health nurse, I hear the boys sounding dangerously happy. I entered the kitchen to find Isaac pouring water out of a bottle I had left on the counter and Ian was stomping in the puddle with his galoshes.

While I was preparing some black beans, I saw Ian grab some grapes out of the refrigerator.  I didn't see Isaac grab the strawberries. Now I have a carton full of strawberries with one bite taken from each of them.

The ultimate offense took place as I was putting Elijah down for a nap. I had spent hours folding about two years-worth of laundry and stacking it on the ironing board, my most recent attempt at keeping my folded laundry out of "their" reach. Yes, they dumped it over and were playing Pirate Ship in the pile.

Yesterday, Ian renamed everyone. Of Elijah, he said, "I'll call him Flapjack." Isaac is Captain and Ian is Luckie. That must've been only yesterday's names. I haven't heard them again.

Brian tried to round Isaac up for a change and Isaac ran off bellowing, "You'll never find me now!!"

Elijah is preparing to join the fray. Whilst he cuts teeth 3 and 4 on the bottom, he is trying so hard to crawl. He goes from sitting to reaching out to just barely on his hands and knees before he either returns to sitting or lands on his belly. He's also pulling up on things to his knees or feet. Oh boy, I'm going to be in trouble!

Well, the house is creeping into presentability, in spite of them, and I can't wait for my date on Thursday!

Eureka! I've found my floor!

Here we are, home again, with three merry iterations of Christmas sadly behind us. I've finally found enough of my floor to justify stopping to update the blog. It was so fantastic to be around family again for a week. We wish we could always be a part of our 'village.' Perhaps some day, everything will line up so that we can live near family again. Ian seemed to remember and be almost immediately comfortable with most everyone. Isaac too a little warming-up, as expected.

Poor Isaac. He will leap off of nearly any cliff, but is afraid of anything cute:  puppies, kittens, bunnies. It took him a hard part of the week to re-acclimate to my parents' dogs.  They were particularly scary (i.e. cute, cuddly, friendly).  Both boys surprised me with their self-control around the Christmas trees. For the most part they left them alone and otherwise remembered their 'one-finger touching' rule. It was rather hard to get to the trees in the first place with all those tantalizing presents in the way, but they restrained themselves there too.

A couple days before Christmas was my husband's niece's birthday dinner/party at his parents' house.  Ian has a particular love of all things party.  Any reason to celebrate, really.  He knew what was going on, and we could tell by the way he wasn't eating his dinner that he was saving plenty of room for cake.  Brian requested of him that he take one bite of his dinner.  Ian refused the many attempts, until Brian finally made it clear that no bite, no cake.  Ian's mouth shot open to accept the spoon.

I'm not sure the boys quite knew what to make of Christmas.  It was like a toy wonderland.  They were so fascinated with each thing they got, they didn't quite want to stop checking it out to open the next one. My family has always celebrated Christmas Eve night and Brian's family does Christmas morning, so it works out great. Some of the toys, we knew we'd better keep boxed up and our precious little boys wanted in so badly, but were very patient. When the car-packing day arrived, we truly thought it would take a miracle to fit everything in.  We did leave a couple old ride-on cars and Brian's new globe (to be shipped or brought up later), but somehow everything else made it.  It was like super-mega Tetris.

Ever since we've been home, it's like the boys' imaginations have been unleashed, surrounded by their new trains, puppets, a gourmet kitchen, ride-ons, a wooden castle, etc. I get such pleasure out of watching them work at playing and how they combine toys from one set with another.

The boys quickly transitioned back to our normal 'schedule', if you can call it a schedule.  The other night, after a bath, Isaac was crying about something. Ian, with his shirt still off, squeezed his 'breast' and said, "It's O.K., Baby, you can drink my milk." As I mentioned before, Ian has been weaned since about 2 1/2, but since he's figured out about the new baby on the way, he keeps reminding me that "Baby is making more milk for me." Finally it came out different this morning.  Ian woke up and said, "Mom. Baby is making more milk for...Baby. I'm going to have a new baby soon!"

Brian came home the other day and Ian approached him about a snack.  Ian said, "How about pizza?" Brian replied, "How about yogurt?" "How about s'ghetti?" "We only have yogurt." In his final attempt, Ian cheerfully proclaims, "We only have birthday cake!"

I ought to get back to unveiling more floor space.  I got an amazing Dyson vac for Christmas.  Before we left, I did an aggressive clean on the floor with our old vac.  I tested a strip of hallway with the Dyson and had to stare in amazement, excitement and disgust at all the stuff it sucked out of our "clean" floor! Vacuuming never sounded so fun - I'm actually looking forward to doing more. Is that the depths to which SAHM-hood has brought me? Hi ho, a derry-o, a vac-ing I will go!