We headed out to the Garden State Discovery Museum on Tuesday morning. We picked up Trina and Jeremy on the way and decided to make a morning of it. Jeremy is an easy going 18 month old. (I'm so not used to that!) He's gets along with everyone and is very passive. He really likes playing with Jameson and Stellan but he stands back if they get too crazy. He's a sweet little boy and we love spending time with him and his mom. I have to wonder what he was thinking when he got in the van with my crazy boys. This was a particularly crazy day and it seemed to reach its peak during the van ride.
Jameson and Stellan typically do pretty well in the van now if they are well supplied with book and toys. They tend to prefer their books and a special toy. That day the toy of choice was their Dora and Diego magna-doodles. (They have been renamed "field journals" in honour of Diego's field journal that he carries with him on his animal rescue missions.) Jameson also had a spy scope, something else from his Diego obsession. Half way into the trip Stellan asked Jameson for his spy scope. Jameson wanted his field journal so I thought it would be a fair trade. I explained to Jameson that I would give him his field journal once he handed the spy scope to Stellan. Simple enough. But Jameson decided to be a stinker and dropped the spy scope by the door where it was impossible for me to reach. I told him that he was not getting his field journal due to that behaviour and he ended up ranting for several minutes. It got so bad that I told him to stop acting that way or we would pull over to the side of the road. He continued acting up so I merged into the right lane and warned him again. The unacceptable behaviour continued so I pulled over and stopped at the side of the road. I went to his side of the van where I proceeded to get him out of the van where we had a "talk". I told him that I would put him back in the van once he was calmed down. He quickly did and I put him in his car seat. No sooner was the buckle fastened when he started screaming again. Just as quickly I unclasped the buckle once again and pulled him out of the van. More "talk" followed and he eventually calmed down. We made it to the museum without further incident.
Now I only hope this lesson will stick. It's such a pain merging onto the highway again.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
So soon?
We had Hana and Aida over for a play date today. I love having them over because it's great for my boys to play with girls for a change. Besides, I get along really well with their mom too! It was at the end of the playdate when Hana came upstairs and said, "Jameson tried to take my shirt and pants off". Uh oh. I totally didn't expect to have to talk about that yet. I realize that Jameson and Stellan do this more often than I would like but I didn't expect him to ask someone who wasn't his brother, let alone a girl *gasp*, to take off her clothes. We went downstairs where we found Jameson clad only in a pair of pants. I briefly explained to him that it wasn't nice to ask other people to take off their clothes and you shouldn't try to take anyone else's clothes off for them. He got the basic point and then apologized to Hana.
I can't believe he's 3 going on 13 already.
I can't believe he's 3 going on 13 already.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
New Year Resolution
My resolution for this year was to go to bed earlier. Darn it, I failed again.
Good night.
Good night.
Big Boy Beds
We finally did it. It was definitely time but we finally took the plunge. The boys are now officially in big boy beds. I got them their mattresses on Monday but we didn't convert their cribs to beds until today. They did very well sleeping on the mattresses as they were set up on the floor. One night Stellan got scared (a whole story in itself; had to do with the smoke detector which is now known as the beep beep) so I ended up putting him back in the crib. The baby sitter also put him in their last night because Jameson instructed her that Stellan would fall out of the bed so he needed to go in the crib. Granted, Stellan did fall out of the bed twice one night but it hasn't happened since. He is quite the acrobat when he sleeps. Even though I had the mattress surrounded with pieces of furniture he still managed to find his way to the floor.
The cribs were relatively easy to convert to beds but it would have been much easier with the instructions. We ended up going on line to find them and managed just fine. We had to totally rearrange Stellan's room in order to accomodate the bed. I think that threw him off a bit and he didn't want to sleep in there at nap time. Well, there is no option now. He managed and didn't say anything at bed time.
Jameson loves his bed. He knows the rules and still has to call for me before he gets out of bed. I did hear little footsteps tonight but he quickly got back into bed. I'm assuming he dropped his train. He eventually fell asleep so I'm happy.
So, it took ages to get to this point but I'm happy with the results. They loved their cribs but now it's time for the next chapter in life. My babies are getting so big!
The cribs were relatively easy to convert to beds but it would have been much easier with the instructions. We ended up going on line to find them and managed just fine. We had to totally rearrange Stellan's room in order to accomodate the bed. I think that threw him off a bit and he didn't want to sleep in there at nap time. Well, there is no option now. He managed and didn't say anything at bed time.
Jameson loves his bed. He knows the rules and still has to call for me before he gets out of bed. I did hear little footsteps tonight but he quickly got back into bed. I'm assuming he dropped his train. He eventually fell asleep so I'm happy.
So, it took ages to get to this point but I'm happy with the results. They loved their cribs but now it's time for the next chapter in life. My babies are getting so big!
Windsor
The boys were super excited to be back in Windsor. Even though they didn't sleep as well as usual, considering their sleep was in a car, they still insisted on staying up and playing. They remembered where everything was at Nana's house and couldn't wait to play with all of the toys. It's amazing to see how much they remember. James and I slept for a few hours and then started our day and our busy vacation.
We were busy for the whole time. We were able to visit with a lot of family but unfortunately weren't able to visit with all of our friends. We fit in a trip to Auntie Allison's and the boys still talk about the trucks she had in her basement. She made them an amazing collage with the pictures from their train ride when she visited us here in New Jersey. Stellan looks at it every day and wants the train to go. He's having issues distinguishing between pictures that don't move and video of trains that do move. He'll understand one day....
We spent Christmas Eve with James' family and then Christmas day with my family. We had a great time. The boys got some new geo trax pieces from Auntie Chris and they couldn't wait to come home and play with them. It wass at that point that Jameson started to ask to come home to Moo Jersey. I found that he started to ask that a bit more each day.
We stayed at my parent's and, for reasons still unknown to me, Stellan decided to get up at 3:30 in the morning. He didn't end up getting back to sleep until 6:00. I was not impressed! I'm sure no one else was either, no one could sleep. Actually, Jameson slept through the whole thing. It was on the way back to my in-laws after that night that we decided to cut our trip short. We were ready to come home. We would have probably left on the Saturday but we had a few things to take care of. We know that next time we won't plan to stay for more than a week.
We were able to get together with Dan and Kathie and the kids. We had a great dinner and the boys always have a great time with Hannah and Christopher. They got the boys the cutest pj's; they look like little jailbirds in their stripes.
My mother in law asked Jameson if he wanted to stay longer and he said, "No, I want to go home to Moo Jersey". I'm so impressed with how mature he can be at times. He knows where home is and he knows where he wants to be.
We left for home on New Year's day and made a pit stop at my sister's in order to break up the trip. The boys always enjoy playing with their cousins. We headed out the next day to go home. It was still a 7 hour drive so we were a bit worried about how the boys would handle it. I didn't drug them since it was during the day. Instead I let them watch way too many videos. It worked though, they did very well.
We got home, what relief! There's no place like home!!! It was so good to be in our own place with our own stuff. The boys couldn't wait to go in the basement and play with their toys, they missed them even though they had a ton of things to play with when we were gone. Go figure!
After we got the boys to bed the first thing I did was take down the Christmas decorations. I love putting them up but I can't wait to take them down. It's always amazing that you can never quite fit the tree back in the box in came in. We managed but it's never the same.
We were busy for the whole time. We were able to visit with a lot of family but unfortunately weren't able to visit with all of our friends. We fit in a trip to Auntie Allison's and the boys still talk about the trucks she had in her basement. She made them an amazing collage with the pictures from their train ride when she visited us here in New Jersey. Stellan looks at it every day and wants the train to go. He's having issues distinguishing between pictures that don't move and video of trains that do move. He'll understand one day....
We spent Christmas Eve with James' family and then Christmas day with my family. We had a great time. The boys got some new geo trax pieces from Auntie Chris and they couldn't wait to come home and play with them. It wass at that point that Jameson started to ask to come home to Moo Jersey. I found that he started to ask that a bit more each day.
We stayed at my parent's and, for reasons still unknown to me, Stellan decided to get up at 3:30 in the morning. He didn't end up getting back to sleep until 6:00. I was not impressed! I'm sure no one else was either, no one could sleep. Actually, Jameson slept through the whole thing. It was on the way back to my in-laws after that night that we decided to cut our trip short. We were ready to come home. We would have probably left on the Saturday but we had a few things to take care of. We know that next time we won't plan to stay for more than a week.
We were able to get together with Dan and Kathie and the kids. We had a great dinner and the boys always have a great time with Hannah and Christopher. They got the boys the cutest pj's; they look like little jailbirds in their stripes.
My mother in law asked Jameson if he wanted to stay longer and he said, "No, I want to go home to Moo Jersey". I'm so impressed with how mature he can be at times. He knows where home is and he knows where he wants to be.
We left for home on New Year's day and made a pit stop at my sister's in order to break up the trip. The boys always enjoy playing with their cousins. We headed out the next day to go home. It was still a 7 hour drive so we were a bit worried about how the boys would handle it. I didn't drug them since it was during the day. Instead I let them watch way too many videos. It worked though, they did very well.
We got home, what relief! There's no place like home!!! It was so good to be in our own place with our own stuff. The boys couldn't wait to go in the basement and play with their toys, they missed them even though they had a ton of things to play with when we were gone. Go figure!
After we got the boys to bed the first thing I did was take down the Christmas decorations. I love putting them up but I can't wait to take them down. It's always amazing that you can never quite fit the tree back in the box in came in. We managed but it's never the same.
The Holidays
I'll try to be concise. A lot happened but I'll only include the highlights.
We decided to skip out on James' work Christmas party and go to a nice dinner with just his co-worker friends. We had an excellent time at Medi Terra with great food and great friends and an insanely pricey bill. We won't be doing that too often. :)
Before we left I had the boys prepare for Santa. I wrote a note to Santa with some help from Jameson. I asked him what he wanted to say and this is how it went, "Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year." How funny is that? When I told him that Santa was going to be hungry from his long trip we decided to give him some cookies. I asked him what he thought Santa's reindeer might like. He thought for a second and then decided that they should have some chicken nuggets. Where did that come from? We settled on a carrot.
The boys got up at the regular time (early) and were ready and excited to see what Santa brought. We all headed downstairs and the boys were so excited to see all their presents. The first thing Jameson wanted to do was find Henry. It was the only thing he asked for and he was eagerly anticipating it. Of course, I dragged it out to the end. The only problem was that the other presents took quite a back seat to Henry. He was thrilled when he pulled Henry out of his stocking.
Stellan was having a great time opening all of the gifts. It was the first Christmas where he was able to do it all on his own and actually appreciate what he was getting. He was thrilled to get Annie and Clarabel. I'm not sure if the excitement was for the gift or for the fact that Jameson was so excited that Stellan got Annie and Clarabel. Whatever, it worked.
The boys immediately put on their Princeton t-shirts and wore them all day. Cute. They had a great time playing with their new toys while I was busy getting ready for our trip back to Windsor.
We left that night around 8:30. I slipped the boys each a half a Dramamine before we loaded them in the car. All in all they did very well. There was a point where Stellan woke up crying and we had to pull over to get him calmed down. Otherwise, no problems. Jameson would wake up and say, "We're going to Nana's" and then he would fall back to sleep. How cute, he was so excited.
We got to Windsor about 6:30 in the morning. We drove around a bit and visited our old neighbourhood. Then we headed over to James' parents where we would be staying for the next two weeks.
We decided to skip out on James' work Christmas party and go to a nice dinner with just his co-worker friends. We had an excellent time at Medi Terra with great food and great friends and an insanely pricey bill. We won't be doing that too often. :)
Before we left I had the boys prepare for Santa. I wrote a note to Santa with some help from Jameson. I asked him what he wanted to say and this is how it went, "Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year." How funny is that? When I told him that Santa was going to be hungry from his long trip we decided to give him some cookies. I asked him what he thought Santa's reindeer might like. He thought for a second and then decided that they should have some chicken nuggets. Where did that come from? We settled on a carrot.
The boys got up at the regular time (early) and were ready and excited to see what Santa brought. We all headed downstairs and the boys were so excited to see all their presents. The first thing Jameson wanted to do was find Henry. It was the only thing he asked for and he was eagerly anticipating it. Of course, I dragged it out to the end. The only problem was that the other presents took quite a back seat to Henry. He was thrilled when he pulled Henry out of his stocking.
Stellan was having a great time opening all of the gifts. It was the first Christmas where he was able to do it all on his own and actually appreciate what he was getting. He was thrilled to get Annie and Clarabel. I'm not sure if the excitement was for the gift or for the fact that Jameson was so excited that Stellan got Annie and Clarabel. Whatever, it worked.
The boys immediately put on their Princeton t-shirts and wore them all day. Cute. They had a great time playing with their new toys while I was busy getting ready for our trip back to Windsor.
We left that night around 8:30. I slipped the boys each a half a Dramamine before we loaded them in the car. All in all they did very well. There was a point where Stellan woke up crying and we had to pull over to get him calmed down. Otherwise, no problems. Jameson would wake up and say, "We're going to Nana's" and then he would fall back to sleep. How cute, he was so excited.
We got to Windsor about 6:30 in the morning. We drove around a bit and visited our old neighbourhood. Then we headed over to James' parents where we would be staying for the next two weeks.
Back Online
Sheesh, I didn't realize how dependent I was on the Internet. We were out of town for a week and a half and then when we got home our Internet did not work. We tried everything and had many lengthy conversations with the cable company. We eventually reconfigured the lap top and that brought us back online. Needless to say I was having withdraw issues. I also lagged behind in my blog but I'll try to do better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)