Levi's Bloody Lip

Levi fell off a chair and greeted the marble floor with his face.

Not a happy guy:

Right after it happened:

About 20 minutes later (notice the bruising):

Showing you his lip:

I'm so done with marble floors!

Singing and Discipline

Here's a video of Levi singing his version of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" at the dinner table. You can also see him acting every bit of his two years and being disciplined. We're using "1-2-3 Magic for Christian Parents" for disciplining them...we just didn't pull it out quite soon enough this time. You can see, though, that as soon as I said, "That's one," he sat down. Three means time-out. Levi does not like time-out, which is good for us!

Enjoy!

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star from Jennifer ReflectingHim on Vimeo.

You can also view the video here.

Paint The Town...err...Walls Red!

Look what Levi did while I was drying my hair.

The "artist" posing by his work (this pic was taken long after he was punished for coloring on the walls...because he wasn't smiling when I scolded him and sent him to time-out!)

Me, scrubbing the crayon off. (It will all come off, but it's going to take a while.)

Apparently he thought our bare white walls needing some sprucing up. He colored on all 3 walls in the hallway.

Quiet Time with Small Children

A sweet friend emailed me today and said it had been a long time since she'd had a quiet time, especially since the birth of her baby. She was asking my advice on how to start spending time in God's Word again. I thought I'd share my answer here because I know that the two of us aren't the only moms of small children struggling to find quite time with God in the midst of dirty diapers, cranky babies, and toddlers who don't stop talking from sun-up to sun-down. I surely don't have all the answers, but in the almost 4 years I've been a mom of small kids, I've learned some things from other moms, more seasoned moms, and from my own struggles...

"Well, I'll tell you that I don't have a quiet time every day. While that's my goal, it doesn't happen. I go through periods where I do pretty well, but I just can't seem to discipline myself enough yet where it happens every day. BUT, I have been in the Word more lately, which is a good thing. It always helps if I'm a part of a study with other people because it forces me to get my work done by the next week! I lack seriously in the self-control and discipline areas.

If you're like me, you struggle with an "all or nothing" kind of personality sometimes. It can be so detrimental to our walk with God. Let me tell you NOT to start one of those Bible in a year things. I tried to do that recently and am already behind, so that's just not gonna work right now; it just makes me feel guilty and I don't need anymore of that. While I wish I could read the Bible in a year, and hope to do so regularly just as a part of my everyday life, it's not happening right now. Since Levi got up at 6:15 this morning, every plan I had to get up early and get my quiet time done before the kids got up just went out the window. I recently started getting up an hour or two earlier than normal, and about 9 times out of 10 Levi has been up within 15 minutes of my new wake time. It's very frustrating. And the middle of the day for me isn't much easier a lot of days. Caleb stopped napping when he was 2 1/2, so there hasn't been a break in the middle of the day in a long time. Now that he's older, he can entertain himself for a while, so sometimes I can grab a little time to do my Bible study then, but it never goes uninterrupted. That's just life with little kids!

I think you and I might have to let go of the "quiet" in quiet time for a while. There's just so little time for quiet in my day, and when Justin gets home, I need to spend that time with him. A lot of times I will stay up after he goes to bed and do my Bible study, but we don't like going to bed at different times, so that's not a good option most of the time.

So, here's my advice:

1) Pick a book of the Bible. Any one. Don't stress...pray about it and see where God leads you. "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." ~Psalm 119:11

2) Don't set a goal to read the whole thing by a certain date, just read some each day.

3) If you can find 5-30 minutes of retreat in your day, GREAT! If not, then just be in His Word. Read to your kid(s) as you're playing or eating or whatever. Listen to the Bible on the Internet or on CD as you go about your day. God understands our situations as moms of small children, and He wants us in His Word. That's what He wants. He doesn't want us to be legalistic about trying to have 30 minutes or an hour of quiet time like we did before kids. That is not the season we're in, so let's stop beating ourselves up about it. "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." ~Hebrews 4:12

4)Just read His Word. That's it. Don't plan to read 3 chapters a day or 10 verses or whatever. Just start reading. When something strikes you, stop. Meditate on it. Repeat it. Write it down and memorize it if that would help. Think about it. Pray it back to Him. "Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this." ~2 Tim. 2:7

5) Read a little more the next day or later the same day.

6) Don't let Satan make you feel like a failure because you made a plan and fell through with it. Just pick it back up and keep going. God desires for us to be in His Word to know Him and be able to share what we know with others. It's for our encouragement and benefit. "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." ~2 Tim. 3:16-17

7) Pray and ask God to help you find time in your day to be quiet before Him.

8) Don't make reading the Bible another box to be checked off on a to-do list. Ask God to help you fall in love with His Word and crave it like you do food. I want to be able to say each day, "I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word...Your statues are my delight; they are my counselors." ~Psalm 119: 16, 24

9) "Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. " ~ 1Thes. 5:12-18. This is the legacy we want to leave our children.


Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers. ~Psalm 1:1-3

Now I'm off to take my own advice...

Anyone out there have any more/different advice about how to stay in God's Word with little ones around?

A VIDEO!!!

I'm finally posting a video. The quality is not good and neither is the lighting, but I figure the grandparents won't complain! This phone of mine is good for so many things. :-)

Daddy was late coming home from work, and dinner wasn't going so well. Life with little boys is always interesting. And loud. (Oh, and "proomp" is Caleb's new word. It has lots of meanings. In this context it obviously means "hit." Joy.)



If you can't view it, go here.

Outings and Our Crazy Kids!

Blogger is putting the pictures in backwards order, so these are all messed up as to when we did stuff. But, here's what we've been doing lately.

Levi playing in the fountain at Clark Quay. We ate at "The Tent" Mongolian restaurant with our friends, The Stunz's. It was so yummy! Our kids adore their kids who are 18, 16, and 10. And they've been babysitting for us, which we so appreciate. There are so many things here that it's just easier if the kids are not with us, like shopping for tvs!
Caleb picked out his own outfit...could you tell? He wears his Batman cape that Mimi made for him ALL.THE.TIME. He got A LOT of attention with this get-up, so he eventually ditched the hat. The cape stayed on, though!

Sign in the MRT station. Don't jump on the tracks, people!

After church this morning, we headed to Holland Village for lunch. There was a group of kids there and one girl stopped and told us they were playing a game and asked if they could take a picture with our cute kids. She called them cute, so we couldn't refuse. I wouldn't let them leave until I had a picture, too. The kids didn't know what to think!

There's a koi pond here where we're staying, and one of the guys let the boys feed the fish the other day. The fed the fish and then threw big rocks at them. No matter how many times they get in trouble for that, they keep doing it.

Our family on top of Vivo, Singapore's largest mall. Not a great picture, but the only one we have of all of us so far. Caleb wouldn't stop moving, so he's blurry. Notice the cape. Again.

Singapore is having its River Festival right now. Justin and I had a date the other night (YAY for date nights!), and we walked down by the river. They had a strange float parade going on that we didn't exactly understand. All the lights were pretty, though. And there was a cool breeze, too, so that was nice and unexpected here.

So, that's what we've been up to. We're so ready to move to our permanent place and have our own furniture and belongings. Today I was scrubbing crayon off the wall here with laundry stain remover. It worked really well, but we need to get out of this place before the boys destroy everything!

And, lastly, here's how a conversation with Levi goes lately. He's really picking up sentences...using two and three words together. But he's also asking lots of questions.

Me: Levi (calling to him)

Levi: Wha? (what?)

Me: Come here

Levi: Why?

:-)

Singapore, Day Two

I'm going to start with something positive because today has been a really hard day and it's only 3pm.

Our boys get lots of looks here in Singapore. While we're walking around people are always craning their necks to see them. More than a few people have stopped to ask us if they are twins. We tell them that the younger one is just big. :-) We're also very aware of just how LOUD Levi is! You can hear him from a mile away...probably why people are always staring at us.

Caleb now knows who President Obama is; apparently it took us coming to Asia for that to happen. We never really discussed it with him before, and we don't generally watch the news with him, but here in Singapore Obama is on tv all the time! (and there are tvs everywhere...sometimes even beside elevators.) Apparently this part of the world is very interested in his recent trip and report on it all the time. At breakfast this morning, the tv was on and it was showing Air Force One arriving in Germany. President Obama got off the plane and Caleb said, "Obama." I was shocked that he even knew who that was.

Levi woke up at 3am this morning. Caleb quickly followed. Both of them were so tired from jet lag last night that they didn't eat dinner and were cranky beyond belief. We had planned to go to the grocery store to get a few snacks but decided against it because they were spent. At 3am when they were both hungry, we were wishing we'd made that trip. So, in the middle of the night, my children were eating rice krispie treats (thanks, Kimberly!) and fruit snacks. The grocery store was definitely high on our list of things to do today. So, from 3-5am, we had a little party. The boys wanted to watch cartoons, but we don't get any of the cartoon channels here at the hotel. We tried to get on nickjr.com to watch them, but apparently you can only watch those if you are in the US or its territories. Big bummer.

Going to the grocery store (Cold Storage) was a reality check, too. We'd taken the MRT up one station to get there, so we could only get just a few things (whatever we could carry back with us). We got some fruit and a few snacks so we'll be prepared if they kids wake up in the middle of the night hungry again.

It is quickly becoming apparent to me that unless the boys and I take taxis everywhere, we won't be venturing out much without Justin. Singapore is a walking city with great public transportation. It's ideal and pretty easy if you don't have small children, but trying to get two kids (that get tired easily and must be in a stroller most of the time) up and down out of the MRT stations where only one entrance has an elevator is difficult. It seems like the elevator entrance is always across the street from where we want to be and crossing the street is not always easy. Just going to McDonald's for lunch was a huge undertaking. First, we went to the wrong building. So, we had to go down two escalators (balancing 60 lbs of children on one escalator step in the stroller) to the underpass, walk through the underpass, repeat balancing of stroller up the escalators to the street level. Walk down the street to McDonald's. Realize that there are about 20 steps down to the McD's. Get kids out of stroller. I hold Levi while Justin carries the stroller down and Caleb walks on his own. In McDonald's, Levi threw a huge fit and literally threw his box of chicken nuggets and apples across the restaurant. Then he threw his toy and nearly hit a lady.

Later, he threw my drink on the floor in another building while Justin was taking Caleb to potty.

We're so proud.

And I thought getting in my car in my driveway in Houston, strapping the kids in their carseats, driving down the street to Target, parking close to the door, getting them in the cart and walking inside the store was hard. I'm so naive.

So, we're finding our way around and trying to figure out how it's all going to work. Thankfully Justin has been here enough to know where some things are. We're all tired still and hoping to get a good night's sleep tonight.

When The Mommy Is Sick...

...the boys will get into everything. They found the water hose in the back yard yesterday while I was sick and trying to stay as close to the bed as possible. They were a little too quiet, and when I went to check on them, this is what I found. Obviously Levi is an innocent bystander in this situation. (Or maybe not a bystander but a victim since he is being sprayed with water.)

Notice how wet Levi's hair is and how dry Caleb's is...

Luckily I'm feeling somewhat better today and Caleb is at school. It's hard being the mom of two toddlers when you just want to lay in bed all day and not move!

Carpet

Just wondering if anyone knows how to get diaper cream out of carpet. It's Desitin original, the really thick, greasy stuff. I love age 3.

While I was on the phone, Caleb was in the other room emptying a tube of diaper cream all over himself and the carpet. It might be funny in a few days. Right now it just makes me angry because on Monday he smeared a container of Laughing Cow cheese (the soft kind) into the carpet.

Our carpet is already nasty from the dogs and juice spills and who knows what else, and we're going to have to replace it anyway before we put it on the market, but SERIOUSLY I'm tired of cleaning stuff out of it!!!

So, how do I get the stuff out?

Lord, Help Me

Conversations at our house today in the last 30 minutes:

Me: DID YOU EAT ANY OF THESE??? (holding the Singapore cents I had just pulled out of Caleb's mouth)
Caleb: okay. (his answer for everything)
Me: DID YOU EAT ANY OF THESE???
Caleb: okay.
Me: DO NOT PUT MONEY IN YOUR MOUTH!!! YES, MA'AM?
Caleb: (wisely) yes ma'am

*~*~*~*~
Me: DO NOT hit the dog.

*~*~*~*~
Me: If you don't stay in that bed...(fill in appropriate punishment here)

*~*~*~*~
Me: GET DOWN OFF THAT TABLE!!!

*~*~*~*~

I can already tell the two's are going to be a glorious age.

The Toddler Bed

Brace yourselves. This will not be a pregnancy-related post. :-)

Monday night we decided to move Caleb to the toddler bed (now that Justin is home and finally over the jet lag). Since his crib is convertible, that just meant we had to take off the front and add two little rails to the sides. We thought it would be easy to make the transition because it's the same bed, just with a modification. Apparently it was a world of change for Caleb.

The first night it took us a little over an hour to get him to stay in the bed and actually sleep. There was much crying on Caleb's part. I guess it's a security thing since we took one of his "walls" away.

The second night, he fell out of the bed 3 times. The "rails" that came with the bed aren't quite big/long enough, in my opinion. We put his bumper pad back on that side to give him a little support in that space. It seemed to work last night.

Each night it's gotten a little bit easier and has taken less time for him to actually stay in bed and fall asleep. Nap time, however, has proven to be the hardest. He doesn't cry; he just refuses to sleep and wants to get out and grab every stuffed animal and toy in sight and put it in his bed. I think it's time to clear his room of everything until he learns how to nap with so much "freedom." We're getting there, I guess.

Advice Needed

All of you seasoned c-sections moms...

It occurred to me recently that I'm not going to be able to lift Caleb for a while after I have this baby (a month, maybe?). He weighs about 26 pounds, and that's definitely over the, "don't lift anything heavier than the baby" requirement.

So, I think we need to move Caleb to a toddler bed. I don't want to, since he's doing fine in his crib, now that we turned it around!, and he's not even 2 yet. He has a convertible crib, where the front comes off and two little pieces are added to each side. I'm not looking forward to the energy it will require those first few nights to make him get back in his bed 1,000 times. And he's not old enough for the "big boy bed" logic.

Any advice? Is there any way to keep him in the crib and not have to lift him? Please offer your suggestions!!

And, everyone else who's ever moved a child to a toddler bed, your advice is welcome as well. We're treading in new waters here.

Am I On Candid Camera?

The same day the baby book incident happened, so did all of these things:

1) closed Caleb's hand in the van door, the crying of both of us ensued
2) dropped ice cream on the front seat of the new car while rescuing Caleb, more crying (I cried because I was tired and hormonal and Caleb cried because I was crying)
3) as I'm changing Caleb's diaper and talking to my sister on the phone, heard Caleb saying, "dirty diaper" as he was wiping his poop-covered hand on the wall behind the changing table
4) cleaned up an entire glass of lemonade Caleb dumped on the living room carpet

all in a day's work for a mommy, right?

I asked Justin to bring home dinner that night because I really couldn't take any more. :-)

...and what's the fascination with kids and the dog's food & water bowls? I can't keep Caleb out of them if the laundry room door is open. He wants to put things in the water (like dog food or himself) or throw dog food everywhere.

Trip to the Library (or What Was I Thinking!)

This morning, after laying on the couch for an unknown amount of time trying to recover from a poor night's sleep, I told Caleb it was time to go to the library. I needed to pick up a couple of books on preparing for a c-section that I had requested, and I wanted to get him a few books as well. "Let's go read some books at the library!!" We were both excited at the prospect of getting out of the house and staying in the air-conditioning.

I had visions of reading and sitting and quietness and reading and bonding and reading in my head as we drove the few miles to the library. It must be the pregnancy-induced mental craziness that made me think any of those things might happen. Anyone who's spent, oh, two seconds with my almost 22-month-old could have given me a big whack on the forehead for even envisioning such peace and tranquility.

So.

I underestimated the pandemonium that is the children's section of the library before noon in the middle of the summer. I'm so naive.

I spent the 30 or so minutes we were at the library chasing Caleb and trying to keep all the books on the shelves on the shelves. The three most exciting things to him were 1) the balloon behind the desk (oh.the.obsession.with.balloons!!), 2) the soccer ball sitting atop of the shelf of sports books, and 3) the turtle pillows in the back corner. When we found the turtle pillows, I was just glad to have a moment where I wasn't trying to pry him off a shelf or run faster than him to prevent any mishaps. You can see that the visions of reading and bonding and peace were dismissed as soon as we opened the library door.

I tried to walk him back over to the board books and attemp to find a few books that would interest him, but he would have no part of that. He wanted to touch all the babies and play with the toys other kids were playing with.

I decided that was enough, um, reading, and quickly grabbed a Thomas train book on our way to the reservation shelves. I found the two books I had requested and then attempted to wrangle Caleb into STANDING.IN.LINE for 5 or 50 minutes (what's the difference when you're almost two years old?).

I'll just hold to the fact that it's good for him to even be exposed to the library, right?

Reading? Maybe another day.

Breathe, breathe, breathe

Like a good mother of a first child, I have spent a lot of time and energy making sure that Caleb's baby book is up-to-date, complete with pictures, progress sheets from the doctor, and lots of handwritten milestones and anecdotes. Just the other day I recorded his last two teeth that broke through and updated a few other things. I gave myself a little pat on the back for being so on top of things and imagined the day when I would pass that book on to Caleb to look back on when he has his own children, as my mom and Justin's mom did for us.

Caleb walks in the room a few minutes ago saying, "happened, mommy?" holding the "4 Month Check-up" sheet that had been taped into his baby book.

I scurried to the living room where I had left the baby book safely tucked into the coffee table cubby hole to find this:


*sigh*

Thankfully, he didn't rip apart the actual pages of the book or remove any photos. I've learned that if Caleb says, "happened?" he has broken something and can't for the life of him figure out why it now won't work.

After that pat on the back, I should have put that book in a very special place where little toddler hands can't reach. Lesson learned.

The "Mommer"

"Mommer" is what Caleb calls his pacifier. Yes, he's 21 months old and we still let him have a pacifier (only when he sleeps). Before I had kids this was one of those "things" my children would NEVER do. A child walking around with a pacifier! Hmph. Well, as we all know, having children promptly kicks you off your high horse about any of these types of issues. I know the experts say they shouldn't have a pacifier past 15 months...blah, blah, blah. I know.

Part of the problem is that Caleb doesn't have anything else that he's attached to. I have put the same stuffed animals and blanket in his bed almost since his birth. He could care less about any of them. He's not attached to any sort of "lovey." Except the "mommer."

We have no idea why he started calling it a "mommer." We have always called it a pacifier or a paci, but he has affectionately named it his "mommer." Maybe because it sounds like "mommy" and he loves his mommy so much and she is so comforting to him. Yeah, we'll go with that.

I got pregnant when Caleb was 15 months old, the last possible date at which the experts say a pacifier should be used. And, as has been well-documented on this blog, the next 5 months I was practically incapacitated with nausea and vomiting. We decided this period of time was NOT the appropriate time to try and take away the pacifier because I just couldn't deal with that and the nausea, too. We needed to retain all sense of comfort and normalcy that we could since mommy wasn't at her best during those months.

So. We've reached that time where we're overdue to get rid of the thing and he's terribly attached to it. We want it gone before the baby gets here and he tries to steal the baby's pacifier for his own.

I expect there to be much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the loss of the "mommer." I know some kids get rid of it themselves or never grow very attached to it at all. Caled came out of the womb with a suck blister on his wrist. The nurses asked me as soon as they could if we might permit Caleb to have a pacifier. Once I had nursed him a couple of times, I agreed, and everyone (especially Caleb) was a lot happier. It's always been his comfort.

I'll let you know how it goes.

(And, for the record, because I always feel like I'm defending the fact that Caleb still has a pacifier, mostly to myself because it's been drilled into my head that he shouldn't still have it, kids who are thumb-suckers go way past 15 months. I'm just sayin', no judgments.)