Skateland!

Yesterday, Tim's relatives came to visit us. They have two adopted little Chinese girls, Erin and Hana. We decided to take them to Skateland and check that out. We've never been and thought Caleb might enjoy it. Caleb was kind of tired out and still not feeling super well, but he still wanted to go. Once we got there, Caleb went a little ways and decided he was done for the day. I got the chance to use my rollerblades that haven't been used in a while and I helped the girls make their way around the rink. At one point, I was in the middle trying to hold up both of them. Talk about a work out! It was an overall fun time. Apparently Tim hasn't skated since he was 10 so it was quite amusing watching him try to balance himself. hehe... I didn't witness his few falls though. Darn! Caleb saw them though and thought it was kind of funny. :-)

That's all for now.

Gonna sell Caleb to the zoo.... or maybe not

Caleb used to be my angelic, sweet boy. He never had temper tantrums unless he was really tired and had a long day. (Those don't really count though.) Even then, he would go to bed when it was time and not pull any shenanigans to stay up later. Ever since about a week or two before Sonya was born, he has had a few tantrums a day and has been talking back a lot more. It drives me nuts sometimes.

Simple things like: "Caleb, can you please get dressed?" are answered with,  "I don't know how".. or "I don't have any hands." Both responses are absolutely ridiculous because he has surprised me before by coming out of his room dressed all by himself without any help. Granted, he has put some of his shirts and pants on backwards, but still knows how to get them on.

Yesterday, I made him tomato soup for lunch because that's what he wanted. I had a plate with cheese and carrots to eat along with it. There were a few more carrots than I expected him to eat, so I took a few and started munching on them. He broke down completely because I took "his" carrots. Oh my goodness! I told him I'd get him more carrots once he ate the rest of his lunch, but he just kept bawling and said , "You're not respecting me, mom." (I had given him a little speech earlier in the day about respecting mommy. I guess it kind of sunk in a little.) By this time, I was steaming because of all the other little snide remarks he was making. Sure, he's only 3 ad a half, but that was no excuse to be talking back to me. I decided it was better to just ignore him for the moment. Then he went over by the living room and was staring out the window for a few minutes. All of a sudden, he came bouncing back to the table, a happy little Caleb, announcing, "I'm gonna be good now. It's ok that you took my carrots." My heart just melted. Why does he have to throw in those cute moments when my head is just about to explode from anger?

In the afternoon, he broke down again when I took him outside to play after Tim got home. I thought I'd be nice and spend some quality Caleb and mommy time with him so we decided to race down the sidewalk by our apartment building. All of a sudden, I ran a little bit ahead to hide like he and Tim do when we take family walks. He could still see me, but was obviously upset that I went "so far" ahead. I don't know why it was such a big deal for me to hide when Caleb LOVES playing that game with daddy. *sigh*

Then, last night, when Tim was starting to make supper, Caleb had another meltdown. We had some potato soup left from the other day, but Caleb wasn't crazy about it. He wanted more tomato soup like he had eaten  at lunch. I had eaten the rest though and we didn't have any more cans of it in the house. Tim told him it was all gone, but Caleb didn't want to believe him and said it wasn't. He insisted on searching the refrigerator. Finally, arguing with Tim for 5-10 minutes, he realized there wasn't any more soup and he'd have to eat something else.

I'm hoping this phase will pass soon. My guess is that the tantrums are a combination of trying to get attention  /jealousy of Sonya /being tired because he doesn't seem to want to take naps anymore even though he still needs them (he took one the day before../ and just his age has something to do with it. Welcome to the life of a parent with TWO children. :)

Adventures with Caleb

Today we had some fun with chalk. Check out what we did:

Tracing Caleb's body....


Looks almost just like him...


Writing his name....


Caleb Andrew Nikolai....


Playing Hopscotch....


On his way back again....

Crossing my fingers....

Sonya only woke up ONCE last night! She finally fell asleep a little after 10:30pm, woke up around 4:00am to eat, and then again at 6:30am this morning. I feel much better rested. It's also probably because I ate a healthier snack before going to bed. I found out that ice cream is not a good idea late at night. Although... it tastes SOOO good. I had been having strange dreams and restless sleep the past few nights and I have to attribute it to the ice cream.

Only 47 days before I go back to work....

The thought of going back to work and leaving my baby with someone else is hard to think about. I'm trying to take it one day at a time and enjoy every precious moment that I do have with Sonya and Caleb. It's such an amazing gift to be able to stay at home for 12 weeks while some new moms can only afford to stay home for 6 weeks.

For now I'm planning to go back to work and try to breastfeed as long as I can. The second part of that won't be easy either. There's not really a nursing room or a whole lot of time for me to pump at work. My boss said I could work longer hours if I needed to extend my breaks or 30 min lunch to accommodate. I'm not a big fan of that idea because I would be gone even LONGER from home and my family each day. I just did a little research and there's no law requiring an employer to give longer breaks or lunches while still allowing the employee to work their scheduled hours. Darn.. I wonder if they'd let me combine my lunch and break times so I have 2-25 minute blocks of time. Also, I wish the private bathroom was on our floor... it takes at least 5 minutes of my break time just to travel to and from the lower level of the building. There's a little closet-like room that I could use, but I'd still need a sink and would end up going to a bathroom anyway.

Right now, the plan is for me to at least work through August or possibly until the end of the year, since my insurance premiums are considerably lower and we already met our deductible with Sonya's birth. I'm hoping we can figure out a way for me to stay at home until Caleb goes to 1st grade so that we'll only have to worry about paying daycare for one child instead of two at that point. Maybe I'd find a parttime job too....

*Sorry for the rant... just stressing out a bit about this a little.*

Men can still be romantic... even after they're married

Yesterday evening, Tim had mentioned that he had a "surprise" for me after the munchkins went to bed. I figured it was food (probably chocolate...) since he went grocery shopping while Sonya and I napped in the afternoon. So, we got Caleb in his bed, prayed together and sang his songs. I was sitting in our room nursing Sonya and heard some banging around in the kitchen. I had no idea what Tim was doing in there. Then I heard Caleb say something about food and a blanket. He must've gotten up and was spying on Tim. (He's been a bit of a punk lately while taking his sweet time to go to sleep and constantly getting up to go to the bathroom ... even if he doesn't really have to go... and then getting drinks of water).

Anyway, I was finally done feeding Sonya and went out to the living room. Tim had laid out a blanket and had a tray of different foods: strawberries with fruit dip, bagel chips with Port Wine cheese spread, and 2 Reese's peanut butter cups. Plus, he had bought some Door County Apple Wine and had 2 wine glasses sitting out. Of course, Caleb had to peak around the corner and ask if he could have some chocolate. We sent him back to bed with the promise that we would save a piece for him. Sonya was pretty good for the most part. She actually took her pacifier for a little bit.

We played Valentine's Day checkers. It was a special version that Tim bought me for Valentine's Day, but we've only played once before. There's different activities that your opponent has to do when you skip one of their checkers: Give neck rub, Tell a joke, Kiss me, Do something silly, Talk about 1st date, etc.. We also read through the Bible passages that we had read at our wedding and discussed areas that we could improve our love.


After we cleaned up our picnic, Tim gave me a foot rub while we watched a movie, "Last Chance Harvey," with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson.

I love my husband. :-)

Lack of sleep

Sonya was a bit crabby last night after we returned from the Wild Game dinner at church. She was fed with a clean diaper, but still cried. I guess she was tired, but didn't want to miss out on anything. So she stayed up until close to midnight and then woke up at 2am. I was hoping it was a lot later than that, but no.. it was only 2 hours after falling asleep. At least she slept until 6am after that and then dozed again until 7:30-ish. I couldn't sleep very well last night because of weird dreams and I didn't get that beautiful R.E.M. sleep that I would've liked. Plus, I'm a light sleeper so whenever Sonya wiggles or talks in her sleep, I become alert and don't fall asleep again until I know for sure that she's not going to fully wake up and want a snack or a diaper change. Oh well... it's all part of being a parent. Some day, probably when I'm 90 and in a nursing home, I'll be able to sleep all I want. :-)

Late Nights...

So last night Sonya stayed up until 11pm which seems to be her norm. Even though it was late, she was so precious; cooing and smiling at Tim and I while looking at us with her big eyes. We think she'll have blue eyes, but it's so hard to tell at this age yet.

In the middle of the night when I was up during one of Sonya's feedings, I also ran to the bathroom quick. The bedroom door was shut all the way... and I noticed Caleb's bedroom door was wide open as well as were the bathroom door and the closet doors that connect our bedroom to the bathroom. I thought that was a bit odd and assumed Caleb must've given us a visit during the night. We have a child-proof knob on our bedroom door so Caleb could still get to our room by going through the bathroom. When Tim leaned over to close the closet door, he swung it towards him a little and it hit something. .... Caleb's head. Apparently he fell asleep on the floor next to our bed. It was kind of funny.

Today wasn't very eventful. We had Spiderman mac 'n' cheese today and I made strawberry smoothies. Both were good!

That's all for now. Over and out. -Michelle

A new blog...

I haven't used a blog since the year right after college, but have sincerely missed writing about random daily events and thought-provoking entries, etc. Since I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to writing, I always take so long in typing and re-typing what I want to say. I'm guilty of writing paragraphs upon paragraphs only to decide that it wasn't worthy of being available to the public eye and then highlighting the whole darn thing and deleting it.

I'm not quite sure what this blog is going to be "about" or how often I will post entries. I don't even know exactly where to begin anymore. It's funny how I keep telling myself that I want to start another blog... with a new fresh start and just totally forget I even had the other one. Then I'll have a paragraph or two typed up in my head of exactly how I would begin. If only it was that easy. My first blog was in Xanga and I pretty much had that one all figured out. Now, technology allows you to do so much more with a blog and I feel like I'm going to have to start all over getting familiar with the formatting and other capabilities that the blog world offers. *sigh* Well, it'll be something new to do while stretching my mind a little bit while I'm at home with two kids.

Here's to a new beginning....... Enjoy.