Influence

My extended family never seemed particularly tight-knit. We would have the occasional reunion, wedding, or, more often, funeral that would bring people I considered strangers together. It didn't help that I was usually one of the youngest at these events. I was more interested in scoring a free funeral parlor keychain that getting to know all of the older people around me.

Someone in that extended family started a FB page to post old pictures. I managed to get invited by my 2nd or 3rd cousin (honestly I'm not sure which). They have pictures of my grandfather when he was younger, posing with his 8 siblings or his parents.

He passed away when I was 11 yrs old, the week before Valentine's Day. He had a heart attack in the kitchen and was gone. It was one of the few times I've seen my dad cry.

Even though over 20 yrs have passed since I last saw him, I still have the occasional dream about him. If I think about it, I can conjure up all of these random details about him, everything from from the shaving cake and brush he used, to buying Kit-Kat bars from KMart. He made me learn to read, ate dinner while watching The People's Court, drank Sanka, and took afternoon naps.

Then for every detail, there's another layer of memories. I'd watch him shave and he'd stick some cream on my chin. We'd share the tiny guest bathroom, him shaving and me brushing my teeth over the toilet (I was too short to reach the sink).

He would fall asleep in his recliner while I sat in his lap, reading out loud the Dick and Jane books he pulled out of the dumpster at the school he cleaned. I'd try to stop reading and sneak away, but he'd always catch me.

It's weird, thinking back to how young I was compared to him. It wasn't until years after he passed away, did I realize the affect he had on me. As an adult, it makes me wonder if I had any influence on his. I'll never know how much of me hanging out with him was my grandma needing a break, or him actually wanting me around.

I don't mean this in a bad way at all, and I wouldn't feel slighted if it were the former. Most of the time I spent with him I was little, about 3-4yrs. You see things differently when you are that young. And now that my kids are the same age, I have a better understanding of how the adult side operates.

Seeing the pictures of him makes me miss him, but in a good way.

My grandfather, 4th from the left, with all of his siblings except one brother, in 1983.

Mason's 1st Birthday

Ever since moving into this house, I've been feeling crafty.  I don't know if it's because I now have room for all of my stuff, or the endless miles of blank walls are inspiring, or what.  One of my latest endeavors was Mason's 1st Birthday Party.

I bounced around a lot of themes but nothing would really stick.  He's ONE.  Sure, he has an opinion on what food he wants next, but what theme?  Uh, no.  I briefly considered going the self-indulgent route and doing what would be fun for me, but that sounded pretty much like Alex and Zach's 1st birthday.  Add a layer of guilt because I never did get around to making Mason a Halloween costume, and, well, it needed to be decent party for Mason.

Combing through Pinterest I came across this party where the theme was what their daughter liked.  Their daughter was their theme.  I loved it and thus began Mason's Mason-y Birthday.

Before the party began, we ran into some snags.  We all caught RSV days before the big bash, so we pushed it back a week.  Then we found mold in our basement.  That's a key area for the kids (all 17!) to play during a get together, but we decided the upstairs alone would work.  People can suffer for 2hrs, right?

All of the photos below were taken by Lollipopz Photography.



The invite and the whole party had a subway art-esque look to it.  Mason hates getting dressed, so all the kids wore their pajamas for the party.  The food was what Mason (with only two teeth) could eat, including all of his favorites except spaghetti.



Our entry way and dinning room had balloons with captioned pictures of Mason attached to them.  Many of them were firsts like "Mason's first time eating Mexican" or "Mason's first time reading a Magazine." All of them were cute.  I also did gallery style decorating.  Color posters with his likes and dislikes alternated with black and whites of Mason.



I had about 150 pictures printed for the party.  Roughly 40 were attached to balloons.  Another 35 or so went into making a giant 1 to hang on the basement door.




Another 16 went into a game I thought was hilarious, but no one noticed/played/liked.




The rest were scattered on the tables for people to admire.  With the exception of the Mason game and the "1" all of the pictures went home with friends and family so they could set up their own shrines.



Since there wasn't enough mention of Mason on every available surface, I put together a home movie collage of him on the TV in the living room.  Yes, we went from 6 hours old and still in the hospital, to 11 months old and walking around in about 15min. 



The main attraction was the cereal bar.  Since I never over-do anything, we had a selection of 9 different cereals.  I ran out of bowls or it would have been 10.




Walmart sells these cool straws that flavor the milk as you suck it through.  They couldn't be passed up.

The cereal bar doubled as the party favor.  Everyone got a straw bowl, reclosable container for their cereal mix, wooden spoon, and straws to take home.  I got reports back of cereal for dessert that night.

Not pictured, and honestly not very interesting, was the rest of the food: pizza, juice boxes, crackers, fruit salad, yogurt tubes, and gallons upon gallons of milk.

I'm pretty much an expert at making my kids cry when it comes to cake time.  This party was no exception.  We have a strong aversion to icing in our family.

Since everyone (about 40 people in all) were stuck upstairs, we tried to give the kids things to do.  Alex and Zach's room already had beds with slide, so I called that good.  Mason's room was converted into a ball pit extravaganza complete with a flamingo.  This couldn't have been possible without two friends that made it happen.

 

 

Our front spare room had paper and crayons to draw.  Baby strollers and giant trucks were zooming around everywhere.  Fifteen kids under the age of 6 ran around like maniacs.  I pumped them full of sugar and sent them home.  It was a good day.

Square Foot Gardening

Last year in NY I had tons of gardening plans. I had prices to rent a tiller, a sunny spot picked out, and a plant list made. Many peas died on our back deck (Oops! They don't like warm weather!). Then we moved back to SC. Everything became too dynamic in my life to even try.

This year I'm going with square foot gardening. It had all if the things I was looking for: small/condensed, easy to setup, simple planting layout, and supposedly good yield. The idea of breaking everything down by grid is right up my alley.

So at this point I've got my frame done, bed filled, and the grid setup. It took two days of shopping and two days of work. I just need to get the seeds planted. I was hoping that would be today but 20 pounds of toddler sleeping on me is saying otherwise.

Our plan of attack is three squares each of Bibb lettuce, peas, carrots, and spinach. There will also be two squares of broccoli and potatoes. Later once the cooler weather plants are done, they'll be replaced with stuff like squash and corn.

I'm hoping the watermelon from last year will volunteer on their own. I left the areas they were in mostly undisturbed.

When I removed the old bed frame it was teeming with termites. Those are not attractive bugs. Naturally, I panicked and sent Jim a dramatic email. Apparently termites are everywhere and unless you want to use some nasty stuff, you just have to accept that they have a job to do.

Back but Different

I'm going to start posting again, but I'm going with more of a "This is what I'm working on." than "This is every detail the boys have done this week." For continuity, we have three boys now. He is Mason and a year old.

So this is the line in the sand. :)

Christmas Part 1

First a correction - the boys did not actually get the same tooth in at the same time.  It was all lies (and a faulty memory).  Alex got his bottom left canine, but Zach popped his bottom right.  They have since both gotten in their other bottom one in, so no one's the wiser.  Let's just keep this slip-up between us.

Diaper issues were resolved in time for me to take the boys to the pool before we left for the holiday's.  You could tell they were really confused when instead of asking for just their shoes, I took all of their clothes, too.  Then they had to wear a blue swim diaper.  Once they saw the water and got comfortable playing in it, they had a good time.  We brought some bath toys and a beach ball, plus the pool has a ring sprinkler.

The thing I like most about the pool is that it's zero depth entry.  There's no steps, but a ramp so the boys and I had the option of how deep we wanted to go.  Most of the time we played in only a couple of inches of water, with forays out to knee-deep (for them) to play in the ring sprinkler.  No one in the room could resist their cuteness and everyone stopped by to say hello to them.  They don't get much attention when we go out in Olean, so I think they enjoyed it.

We left Olean around 8pm Friday night, stayed overnight at my parents, and drove the rest the next day.  We've done a few trips with the boys, but nothing like 12hrs during the day.  Jim and I decided on the fly that a DVD player would probably make things go smoother.  We stopped at Wal-Mart about 45min from my parents and picked up a dual-monitor model.  You can't just pull out the big guns at the beginning of the trip, so we packed it away for a later moment of desperation.

I once read a story about a family that followed their GPS onto a snow covered, mountainous dirt road in the hopes of reducing their trip by 20min.  They got stuck in a snow bank for 24hrs until they were rescued.  At the time I thought "How stupid!" but now I understand.  Instead of going the way I've been traveling from Ohio to South Carolina for about 10yrs, I decided to follow the GPS.  Never.  Again.  We ended up on a winding 2 lane road driving west to go south east.  We did this for 3hrs.

The only other thing to note from the trip down was our multiple stops to find a power adapter that was long enough to reach the DVD player.  When I asked if they had a Best Buy nearby the reply was "We don't have no fancy stuff like that 'round here."  Luckily a second Wal-Mart and a dude with AA batteries stuck through both earlobes had my back.

I had worried that being back in SC, in our old house, would somehow psychologically scar the boys.  They just went with it and acted like it was every other place we've moved in the past month.  And really, I have to agree with them.  It doesn't feel like home here anymore.  A full PODS worth of stuff is missing, we're delegated to using the guest bath because the master shower is impossible to keep clean, and all of our baby gates are gone.  It's like living in someone else's house, except I know where everything is (or isn't, as the case may be).

We put up our Christmas tree here, and got some new shatter-resistant ornaments.  Two ball-obsessed boys are not compatible with the glass ones we used to use.  I overheard Jim telling the boys "This is the season where we travel from house to house putting up trees!"  For all they know, he's telling the truth!  Sunday we let the boys open their kitty cars, mostly to stop the "Busses!  Busses!" whining since we left all things yellow and wheeled in NY.

We've had a full calendar of events, which has been a welcome change.  On Monday we met up with J and Ana for a playdate at the Pavilion's Bounce House.  The boys had a ton of fun and it was really good to see our friends again.  They got the boys a play tent with a tunnel, so we set that up as soon as we got home.  They also got touch and feel first words cards and love them.  J made me an awesome photo book of the boys and Ana playing together over the last year.

Tuesday was the boys' 18mo check-up.  I don't have the stats in front of me (they're packed in the van) so I'll have to report the details later.  One surprise was Alex weighing about a half-pound more the Zach.  I guess all of that mouth stuffing is working to his advantage.  Both boys are maintaining their weight percentiles close to normal but have gone up on height.  They both grew about 2in in the last three months.We had the doctor check their iron levels, just to be sure they're still doing fine on diet alone.  The hemo numbers came back in the 10-11 range, so they're right where they need to be.

Teeth, Talking, and Feet

The boys have FINALLY popped a tooth through, after about 4 months of me saying "They're teething."  It also happens to be the first tooth they've gotten in at the same time, their bottom left canine.  The downside is I think we're just beginning.  The first 8 teeth they have came in within two months.  I see that sort of thing happening again, but with some molar action.  Their gums are really red and swollen.  Zach has woken up two nights in a row needing Motrin to help with the pain.  I'll be glad when we're done getting teeth in.

It's amazing how much the boys understand, even if their current vocabulary is limited.  They can follow directions well, especially if it involves bringing me their shoe or taking something to Jim.  I find myself just requesting things from them like I would any adult, and being surprised when I get what I want in return.  They use "yes" and "no" properly most of the time, with only the occasional "no" before they realize they really meant yes.  It's like they expect to say no, and then change their minds once they see what's being offered.

We discovered that even though they call every vehicle "bus" they know the difference between cars, trucks, and actual buses.  They also know what a word represents, even if it doesn't look like the same thing.  They have a book with a cartoon tree.  They know "tree" also means the Christmas tree and will point back and forth between them.

They currently can say no, yes, ball (anything round), bus, bye bye, bye bye to you, thank you, shoe, sausage, uh oh, wow, and nose.  They can identify and make the sounds for a horse (neigh), sheep (baa), pig (snorting sound), dog (bow wow), and chicken (bawk bawk).  They also love to mimic, especially crows, emergency sirens, dogs wining, cats meowing, and even Jim snoring.  We'll be in the van going to the grocery store and the boys will take turns laughing at each other's sounds.

I inadvertently taught them that "wow" means you're impressed or it's something you like.  Anytime they see a car or truck they yell "WOW!"  It can be quite a sight walking them through a parking lot to a store.  Every car, no matter how old or beat-up gets their verbal seal of approval.  They want to touch them, too, but I try to keep them reigned in.  We'd never make it to Wal-Mart if we had to pet each dirty, salt-covered car between us and the doors.

We had our first stomach bug last weekend and Zach got the worst of it.  He threw up and both of the boys had bad diaper rashes.  Alex still isn't out of the woods and we've been trying hard to get his hind end fixed up.  I had whatever it was for about 24hrs and pretty much slept all day.

This round of diaper rash certainly isn't my first, but every time we have this problem, I try to figure out what I'm doing wrong, or what I can do to solve it faster.  This time I think the stomach bug started things off but some apple juice and tomato sauce made recovery that much harder for Alex.  We went to Jim's company's Christmas party Wednesday night.  The boys had a great time but the food was pizza with juice to drink.  I wasn't thinking about the acidity, just that they didn't go hungry.  Alex sucked down a lot more juice and pizza than Zach.

I've also been reducing their dairy, since that can prolong digestive issues.  I don't think they have a dairy allergy or sensitivity, since the diaper issues would never stop.  I switched them to soy milk for now, and have cut out most cheese and yogurt.  I got them probiotic powder (that was fun to find here...) and am trying to be sure they get their vitamins.  Zach is pretty much back to normal but Alex still has an open sore.  It doesn't seem to hurt him and he doesn't cry during diaper changes, though.

It has been snowing most days here, with the temperatures in the mid-20's.  I think we had about 10in-12in total accumulated until it got warm today and melted.  I got the boys and myself snow boots since tennis shoes were leaving us with wet feet.  The boys were scared of the boots initially, and both threw themselves on the ground crying when I put them on their feet.  Eventually Alex accepted them but 6hrs later, Zach was still protesting and yelling "Shoe!"  Sigh.

Every year the bed and breakfast owners put on a Mr. and Mrs. Claus night.  There's both characters, plus horse drawn sleigh rides, hot chocolate, and cookies.  We took the boys over and they had a good time, although neither Santa or his wife were well received.  You could see the steam rising off the horses, and the sleigh ride was surprisingly smooth and quiet.  It's a weird sensation to be gliding across a field in the middle of the night.  Every word out of the boys' mouths was "neigh" and we took them to see the horses after our ride.

Our former pasta haters have become noodle lovers.  They ate so much spaghetti last night and I've been making them all different kinds of pasta.  Zach even seems to like mac 'n cheese now, which is a big surprise.  Their favorite food is bread, though, and they ask for it anytime they're hungry.  They're also not shy about going to the fridge and asking for milk.  It's really nice not trying to figure out what they want.  They get their point across nicely most of the time.

Alex is still scared of the Christmas tree and won't retrieve any toy that ends up under it.  Zach, on the other hand, wants to see how many things he can stick in the tree.  Today he attempted to put one of his push toys in it.  I've come in to find a dirty sock on a branch.  They want the tree and the garland on the stairs to be lit whenever they're downstairs.  They'll ask for one of us to turn it on if they're not.

The big thing we're working through right now is keeping their feet off the kitchen table, and teaching them not to lean their chairs back by kicking off with their feet.  I wasn't having much success using only positive reinforcement (saying "Thank You!" whenever they removed their feet).  They started putting their feet up because they wanted the praise when they stopped.  I had to add in food removal to get the point across.  I either won't give them a bite, or I remove the food they have in their hands until they comply.  Of course Alex has figured out I won't take the food out of his mouth, so he stuffs everything in there and puts his feet up to relax while chewing.  For whatever reason, they never put their feet on the table outside the house, so it could be a lot worse.

All in all, the boys are doing pretty well up here.  We haven't really developed a rotation of things to do yet, or have any friends, but the grocery store and Wal-Mart keep us busy.  Once the diaper situation is fixed, we're going to head to the pool at the YMCA.  They also have a big room full of things for them to climb on.  Ideally long term, I'll be able to leave them with the daycare people for a little bit in the morning and go workout.  None of us quite their yet, though.

Olean, Town of Wind and Rain

I think I'm done with the robotic count up of years, months, and weeks.  It's getting a bit silly at this point.


Life in the Carriage House

As I type this, the wind outside is howling, blowing leaves across the yard and bending trees to its will.  Rain pelts down, making it impossible to let the boys run around out there.  Instead, Zach is sitting on the floor and pointing out every "bus" in his book.  Alex is working on removing the dirty laundry from the basket, but selectively.  He doesn't want just any pair of old socks.

The day started out with the boys getting up at 5am.  Like up-for-the-day kind of up.  Ugh.  Jim heard us banging around in the living room and came out to investigate.  I took that as a sign I could go back to bed for 30min.  muhahaha

The boys are still adjusting to being in Olean.  After the long van trip, they want nothing to do with their care seats, which makes grocery shopping a bit difficult.  It rained the last time we were here and it's doing the same now.  Goodbye SC sunshine.  They love playing outside here, especially since there's an abandoned truck parked out back they can pat.

Even though we're staying in a bed and breakfast, it's very much a farm-type scene.  There's a giant red barn right outside our windows, and a huge corn field out back.  All of the neighbors up and down Four Mile Road have their own barns and corn fields, too.

The boys also love the couch.  It must be shorter than ours since they're able to climb up onto it with ease.  This is unfortunate for us since there's no way to gate it off.  They've already fallen off it, Alex off the arm onto his head and Zach off the side onto his rear end.


Life in the Cottage

We moved into the three bedroom house across the street and will be here for the remainder of our temporary housing.  It feels really great to be in a place that has separate rooms for the kitchen and living room.  It's actually quite spacious, especially with the second floor.  It's not without its quirks, though.  There's about 3 light switches for lights in the entire place.  The rest are on pull cords.  The bath tub is raised up in a low ceiling room, so the shower head is about an inch taller than me.  There's no sneaking around upstairs with all of the creaking.  An unheated sunroom has become the boys' favorite space, especially since the rain is never ending.  They can watch cars go by, drive their buses, and throw their bouncy balls.

The worst thing is the fleas.  It only takes one to find me and rebuild their civilization, and plenty more than that are hard at work.  I had 37 bites at last count, but it's higher than that now.  I'm so delicious, the fleas were jumping out of the house after me.  I killed 6 that had leapt out onto the front porch while I was standing there.  The boys each have 3 bites, one of which is on Alex's cheek.  I don't think Jim has a single one.  In a way I'm glad I'm protecting the boys.  On the other hand, I'm very uncomfortable (each bite swells and itches) and "flea paranoia" has set in, where I constantly think I have fleas on me (which I probably do).

So after trying a spray that's not supposed to be harmful to kids that didn't work, we've decided to use the cats as flea bait.  My parents got them on Advantage flea drops and we're bringing them back with us as a way to kill all of the fleas without having to coat the place in pesticides.  I'm trying to resist the urge to toss them in the house and then check into a motel for a couple of days.  I hate fleas that much.  I'm also not looking forward to having the cats in such a small space with us, but I know the boys will love having them.


Other Stuff

Thanksgiving was good.  We got here Tuesday night so I was around a little to help with Turkey Day prep.  We brought all of the boys' toys with us, so it "Looks like a toy store exploded in here" as my dad put it.  The boys ate a little turkey and a LOT of bread.  Alex had a few bites of broccoli with cheese.  Both apple and pumpkin pies got the boys' "MMMMM" seal of approval.  Stuffing was spit out and handed back.

My mom wanted the boys to try eating off of little plates.  Alex was the first to get his taken away for banging it on the table.  Zach thought a plate was like a cup, and would tilt the entire thing until the food slid down into his mouth (or more often, his shirt or into the floor).  Watching them at the table, I think I should be giving them utensils so they can practice scooping and stabbing.  Maybe we'll start with forks. They already take the fork out of my hand and feed themselves.

Alex got another case of bad diaper rash.  He had a dirty diaper in the middle of the night and we didn't realize it until morning.  I should have known something out of the ordinary was wrong because he kept waking up and crying.  I just thought it was his teeth.  His bottom canines are on the verge of popping through.  Instead I sent in another nomination for Worst Mother of the Year.  Sigh.  It's getting better now, though, and he doesn't cry when I change his diaper.  On the bright side, he tells us when his diaper is dirty, so I have two boys with this skill now.

Originally when this whole "Let's move to Olean!" thing came about, I was concerned how the boys would take it.  Luckily they're still young enough that they accept their current reality without comment (unless you count their loathing of riding in the van).  We were in Greenville, then we were in the Carriage House, then the Cottage, and now my parent's house.  It's been a busy two weeks and I've tired of living out of suitcases.  I haven't had time to unpack us at the Cottage yet.

Also in housing news, we go in on Monday to sign the papers on a house in Allegany.  We saw it on Monday and went back Tuesday for a second viewing.  It was a weird situation where we met the entire family that lives there and knew they were running out of time to sell.  They want to move 3 miles away so the mom and triplet daughters can have a horse farm, but have to sell their house first.  It's been on the market for almost a year.  Now there's another family that is interested in the horse farm and are scheduled to go back for a second viewing on Sunday.

On thing you'll notice if you click on the link to the house is there's zero pictures of the upstairs or basement.  This is because they need work, especially the bathrooms.  They still have the original 1970's pink and green sinks and toilets and they are ugly.  The basement just needs some carpet and paint.  The family that lives there completely renovated the 1st floor but didn't have time to get to the others.

We talked them down quite a bit on the price.  They modified our offer by wanting the hot tub and playset to go with them.  Jim joked that we should have countered that they had to take the above ground pool with them, too.  I'm not sure what we're going to do with that thing.  I won't keep it unless it can be 100% kid proofed, and I'm not convinced that can happen.  I also don't want to have to take care of it.

One thing that was a bit of a surprise is that the house doesn't have air conditioning.  It doesn't even have ducts that you could tie one into.  It operates off of hot water baseboard heat.  Neither of us have lived in a house like this, so it should be interesting.  Near as we can tell, most people buy window air conditioners for their bedrooms and only run them a couple of days a year.

With the layout of the house, it's possible the boys will have a play area on every level (unless Jim decides the basement is his "man cave").  The dining room, kitchen, and den are all in a row which makes it nice to keep an eye on the boys.  The house is bigger than the 2,200 sqft listed.  For whatever reason, the houses in this area don't count finished basements in the total.

We're planning on coming back to Greenville the week before Christmas and staying in our house.  In fact, we still have the boys' 18mo check-up scheduled with the pediatrician there.  hehe  I'm not sure what going back there will do to Alex and Zach.  I guess they need something to tell the therapist later.