Time to Get Creative

With things being tight this year, I am trying to be creative about Christmas so that it can still be special. There was a big toy consignment sale coming up so I took advantage. I started with the idea that if I had all the money in the world, what would I want to get Tristan for Christmas. Well, I would want to build him a really great train table, so I set out to make that happen anyway. I watched Craigslist for two months looking at the lots of Thomas sets people were selling. A few days before the sale I pulled the trigger and put an offer on an awesome lot and since it had been listed for so long I offered a much lower price than was being asked and I got it!

Neil and I spent the next three days pulling out the pieces we wanted for Tristan's table and together we designed a table perfect for our little boy. I then sold the rest of the lot at the toy sale and made ALL my money back resulting in a FREE Thomas table... unheard of!!

Well, the last part of the deal was that Neil volunteered to work the breakdown of the toy sale in order to get me a higher consignor percentage. He was leaving around 6:30 this evening to head to the sale and Tristan asked me where he was going.

Me: "Daddy is going to do some work to make sure your Christmas is special. Say thank you to Daddy for a great Christmas"

Tristan got so excited and said with the most genuine voice:
"Thank you, Daddy, for the Big Kiss!"

iToddler Strikes Again

Lately Tristan has been watching Youtube videos on my iPhone. Some of the stuff is bizarre but all is harmless. A few days ago he started watching Thomas and Cars videos, but not real ones. They are videos of other kids playing with their cars. They line them up, go through all their names, drive them around and do dramatic play. At any other time in in my life I would have thought it strange that people would make these videos let alone post them on Youtube, but now I think it's brilliant! Tristan takes out the same toys he sees in the video, sets the phone down on the train table, and "plays" with the kid in the video. It's like he is setting up his own virtual play dates. What a kid!

iToddler

It's already hard to leave my boys and head to work, but today it got so much harder. I was working away when the land line at Starbucks began to ring. I saw my coworker pick up the phone, go through the greeting, and then give me a strange look. She put the phone up to my ear while saying, "this is weird."

Me: "Hello?"
Tristan: "MOMMY!"
Me: "Tristan? What are you doing?"
T: "Playing baseball. Miss you... lots"
Me: "I miss you, too. Does daddy know you called me?"
T: "Yeah. Love you, Mommy. Miss you"
(you could literally hear my heart break at this moment!)
Neil in the background: "Tristan, are you really talking to someone? Oh my, you really are. Sorry I didn't know he was calling."
(then you hear screaming as the iphone is taken away from him)
Me: "It's okay I'm just going to quit now."

Okay, so that last line didn't happen, but the working mom's guilt was thick tonight!

"Two, one, you you out" -Tristan

It is very apparent that Neil is enjoying fatherhood this week more than he ever has! After years of diapers, bathing, feeding, and getting puked on, Tristan has discovered Neil's true love. At Gymboree this week the theme was baseball and that's how this all started. Neil took him the other day to a class and Tristan came home talking about nothing but baseball and wanting to sing "Take me out to the ball game." I chuckled this morning when Neil was moving a little quicker than normal all so he could make it to Tristan's class with both of them wearing their Red Sox shirts. I thought it was adorable when he took Tristan to the playground this evening that was right next to the ball fields. Little did I know that they would let Tristan in on the action. While the team took a break from practice, they let Tristan retrieve all the practice balls which was heaven for him. Because he was such a good help "the guy", as Tristan calls him, gave him a real baseball! He would not let that thing out of his sight all night. If he was more than five feet from the ball he would start calling, "MY NEW BASEBALL, MY NEW BASEBALL!" It took some convincing him that putting the ball in the bath was a bad idea, but there was no convincing him that curling up with it in bed was not a good idea. Yes, my son took a dirty baseball to bed... and my husband could not have been more proud.

Coo Coo Cachoo

The boys are three months old and getting to be so much fun! They smile at us and coo all the time. This was the stage I have been waiting for, the stage that makes not getting sleep still worth it. When those babies look at me and smile not only with their lips but also with their eyes, I can't help but fall in love with them all over!

Thank you Firefighters!

This morning we had plans to meet some friends for a tour of one of the Arvada fire houses. Everything seemed to be going wrong while we were getting ready. I could not find what I needed, Tristan kept getting hurt and wanting to be held, and everyone seemed to be crying or on the verge of crying (me). I almost bagged it and went back to bed when both kids in my car were screaming as I pulled out of my parking space. Boy am I glad we didn't bail because Tristan had a GREAT time!

The firemen were so friendly and Tristan took right to them. When the other kids were too shy to get into the fireman's boots, I will give you one guess who was more than happy to jump right in. They let the kids crawl over the big ladder truck and the ambulance. The ladies that drive the ambulance were pleased that Tristan loved their rig, too. They said the kids are usually too interested in the fire truck to pay much attention to the ambulance. He was all over that thing playing with the machines, pretending the iv hook-up was a fishing pole, and even found some money that they had forgotten about in the back, haha.

It's days like today that I'm glad he is a curious little boy asking questions and exploring everything. I think the firefighters that he was dragging around had fun, too. He had hugs and high fives for them all as we left. A big thank you to the Arvada Fire Fighters!!

Day With a Toddler

You watch funny sitcoms or movies about life with a toddler and you think "well, it's not that bad," but sometimes it is and all you can do is laugh. Tristan's day today pretty much started and ended with showers. In the morning he found my pump shampoo and rubbed it all through his hair... shower. He would only eat my breakfast and not his own, stole every paci he could get his hands on, and walk right behind me as I picked up toys and pulled them back out. After a less than stellar nap he made a few calls on my phone, colored on the kitchen floor, and I found him "brushing" his hair with my bic razor. I tried to give him a treat of fruit snacks which are his favorite and I even put the dog on the porch so he would not eat them and send Tristan into a melt down. Well, Tristan decided he would eat the fruit snacks right in front of the window to the porch and taunt the dog. If that was not enough, he then left three lined up on the window and left to go play. I only noticed it when I heard the dog scratching at the window and making a snotty mess for me to wipe up. To round the day out, in the evening he fell into a VERY stinky pond and came home in nothing but his diaper... shower. Before bed, Neil let him run outside to burn off that last energy. A toddler running barefoot up and down the sidewalk in Christmas pjs was quite a sight, but not as big of a sight as the amount of rocks he could carry in and drop on my kitchen floor. After the kiddo was in bed and Neil and I found a wet wipe clogging up the tub drain, cheerios covering many of the bristles of my hair brush, and little plastic Lion King toys in my bed, we could not help but laugh. At different parts of the day we would be laughing so hard with Tristan and in the next breath want to research toddler boarding schools. Yes the "twos" come and go sometimes within the same day, but we find at the end of most days we have laughed more than we have scolded and had more good times than time outs. These days with little ones are sometimes long, sometimes hard, and always very full! I know I am going to look back and miss these times someday, so I try to remind myself of that during these difficult days and try to laugh now about the things I would have only been able to look back and laugh at. Tristan is one funny little kid!!

Day Out With Thomas 2010

Today Grandma and Grandpa Trexler took the boys to see Thomas the tank engine and man was it a hit! The twins were so excited they could not stay awake so Tristan had to do all the exploring. The day was set up with lots of fun things to do at the Colorado Railroad Museum with the highlight of the day taking a ride on a real Thomas train. Well, for most kids the highlight was the train ride, petting zoo, train table tent, fire engine, or even food, but not my kiddo. While he loved most of those things, Tristan could not get enough of the very large fenced in model trains. To be honest, I have never seen so many little boys in one spot just staring and quiet. At one point I noticed the absence of screaming and crying and found it a bit strange. They were all lined around the fence as if it was the most magical thing they had ever witnessed. At one point I tried to take Tristan to see the fire engine and the petting zoo, but as soon as he was more than ten yards from those trains he was animate that we go back. It's cool, I didn't want to pet the sheep anyway.

He was so taken by all the trains there and we all loved the train ride. My favorite part was watching Tristan right in his element. I love that the museum is only 20 minutes away and most everything that Tristan loved is there all the time! What a great place for little boys to play and have picnics. We will be going back there for sure!

If Your Happy and You Know It

I have heard from a lot of people that they see more pictures of Finn than Ian and they were wondering why. Well, under one theory Ian is the third child and as the third child I know there are just less pics of us out there. That's not the real reason though. Whenever the camera comes out, Ian turns into a bit a a party pooper. I thought at first that he was just a little stinker who just wanted to ruin good pictures, but it turns out that when he is laying down he has trouble breathing... my bad. Now a days he has trouble breathing in any position, but he should grow out of that. We let him sit in a steamy bathroom about three times a day and have bottles of saline with in an arms reach from anywhere in the apartment. Keeping him close by so we can hear his breathing at all times is the norm.

Tonight I brought down the bouncer and put Ian in there. We got a smile!!! now he can play AND breath!!!

The only thing missing from an east coast parade

What a perfect day! The weather was cool but sunny and there was a parade on the schedule.. a

real parade! Out here in Colorado a good parade is something that I have not seen too much of. Usually they are kind of odd and really short. Well, this one had it all (except for a fife and drum band). BUT... I had never been to a parade back east with a Mariachi band!!! They were so much fun. The costumes and music were good, but I could not get enough of their dancing horses. They would make their horses dance to the mariachi music!

Tristan had a great time and quickly made friends with the people sitting next to us. He spent the majority of the parade on that guys lap. His wife told us that all their grandkids lived far away, so this was really nice for him. The twins did amazing! They slept most of the time and when they were awake they were as happy as can be. We left the parade a little early and made our way over to the town picnic and had some fun in the bouncy castle before the crowds came. We headed home for lunch and I even got a two and a half hour nap in. Best Labor Day in years!!