Do You Hula?

The other day I read that Michelle Obama hula hooped 143 times in a row. I think she was kicking off something that was supposed to encourage kids to exercise. I was in awe. 143 times! Wow! She's GOOD. I could never hula hoop. Not that I really tried much, growing up. But all I recall is the hoop falling straight to the ground. So I could just not get over 143 times. (Note: Jim did not find this fact nearly as fascinating. I have a bad habit of relaying bits and pieces of odd newspaper stories to him at the end of the day as he is trying to sleep. He really hates that.)

Then, coincidentally, over the weekend, Liam and Natalie and I happened to pop into a grocery store and Radio Disney was outside doing a little thing. They were playing music, and having a hula hoop contest for the kids. So of course I dragged them over to watch. And it was fascinating. A lot of the kids were young, and not very good. But there were about 3 girls, maybe 8-10 yr old range, who were SO good. They hardly moved their bodies at all (much unlike the jerky swinging back and forth I recall from my own attempts). Of course, Liam and Natalie did not want to try. Then after the kid contest, the DJ tried to get parents to try. About half the parents turned and left immediately. I wanted to leave too...the last thing I wanted to do was embarrass myself. But then I realized that I get frustrated when the kids don't try things because they are afraid to not be good. So I tried. And yes, I hula'd about 4 times in a row before it fell. But I made Liam and Natalie smile. And we all got consolation prizes that were cheap little white-board drawing things that the kids loved. And I went home feeling very good that I was a good example that day (and lately, I need a few examples of these).

So of course while birthday shopping for Natalie, I picked up a hula hoop. Supposedly for Liam and Natalie. But you know it was for me to practice. And the next time I picked it up, I tried to imagine how those girls moved, and I shocked the daylights out of Natalie and Liam (and oh yes, Jim) by being pretty darn good! Picture me now practicing in the bathroom at night before bed...and Jim trying too, because I make it look so easy. ha ha Jim does not have the right motion, and that's all I'm going to say. So now I've impressed my husband with my hula hoop skills. AND I'm ready for the next contest. Bring it on! (Still not going to challenge Michelle Obama though. I Googled video of her, and she is crazy good!!)

And NO I'm not posting video of myself.

Halloween Prep

We still have one more left to carve, but I thought it was easier to do most of the knife-work while Owen was napping this weekend. Just a hunch.

We decided to do pumpkins to match the costumes this year. But I don't have a good stencil for a Robin pumpkin...so I'm trying to decide if Owen's will be Elmo or just a simple face. Owen is actually starting to watch tv a teensy bit, in between couch-jumping, and Elmo is his favorite. While getting a flu shot today, the Dr happened to say something about Elmo and Owen said "La la la la" like the first part of the La-La-La-La, Elmo's World song. The Dr recognized it immediately and burst out laughing. She thought he was very smart to pick up on that.

It really is exciting when I recognize what he is saying now. It's usually just a word here or there, but it will surprise me whenever he pops out with a new one. I counted at least 25 words (or almost-words), not including the Russian word for Yes which he has started using recently (he had never used it before, but apparently it was stored in there just waiting to be used). He has also gained a pound and a half and grown an inch since coming home. The Dr just loves his progress (as do we of course!)

If You're Happy In Your Nose

Natalie has a knack for changing the lyrics to songs, just like her Daddy. For instance, I've noticed lately that she has been singing If You're Happy and You Know It (Clap Your Hands...), except she sings "If You're Happy In Your Nose". I tried to tell her the "right" way to sing it, and she told me I was wrong. ha ha So she sings the way she wants to sing.

Her lyrics made me think about her state of happiness, as it relates to her nose. I'm not sure she is happy in her nose. Or her face. In fact, I think maybe her new-sibling-stress has shown itself on her nose and face. She has something that the dermatologist calls Perioral Dermatitis. It started somewhere around May...right before we left on Trips 2 & 3 to Russia. And it has become gradually worse and worse. I think we may be on the right track now with what the Dr recently prescribed, but he said it would take 6 to 8 weeks to go away. The poor girl is also a "picker" like her father, and so she aggravates the bumps until they bleed.

I Googled it, of course, and there doesn't seem to be a clear-cut cause, but stress was mentioned as a possibility. So at the Dr I mentioned that she has been under some...ummm..stress. He (the nurse, not actually the Dr) smirked and said, "she's under stress, is she?" like he couldn't imagine what stress a 3-yr old could be under. Not long after that, Owen, who was strapped very tightly into his stroller and left in as close to the center of the exam room as possible, managed to reach with his octopus-arms and pull the paper from the exam table, unrolling a good portion of the roll and crumpling paper everywhere. Then when I moved him away from the table, proceeded to open and slam shut every drawer and cupboard in the desk area, and shrieked like a rain forest monkey when I tried to stop him. Poor Natalie can't even have a Dr apptmt in peace.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure the nurse went back into her file and recorded "probably stress-related."

Vanity and Motherhood Don't Mix

So it may be no surprise (or hopefully for you it will be) to those over 40, but I kind of feel like 40 hit me hard. In the face. Between that and adding to the children, I just feel like I've aged 10 years in the last year. Needless to say, I haven't been feeling real sexy. Or even somewhat attractive.

Now that things with Owen are calming down a bit, I have been trying to spruce myself up a bit here and there so that I don't always feel like I just dragged myself out of bed...or out of a hurricane...or out of a 30-day bender in Las Vegas. Anyway...on Sunday before I went grocery shopping I actually put on a top that I think is attractive. And I thought maybe since it is attractive, perhaps I look attractive in it. And it shows some...curves.

Fast forward to the checkout line at Kroger...and I swear I see the teenage checker taking sideways glances at my...womanly features. And I pretend to myself that I'm rather offended, because he IS so young and I'm so old (but why didn't he card me for that wine?). In reality, I was all "woo-hoo, I still got it!" (as if I ever really had it).

Fast forward some more to unpacking groceries at home. I looked down and realized that Natalie had stuck some very cute address labels that we got in the mail, and one was stuck right under my cleavage. Jim said there was one on my back as well. So much for the sideways glance. I'm sure the boy was thinking "Nice address label! Are you asking for someone to come home with you or what?!?" ha ha

I give up. At any point in time I could have stickers, play jewelry, girly hair bows, and markers all over me. I think maybe I'll have to settle for odd and forget about sexy.

Pumpkin Picking Fun

Notice Owen running away in the background...

Pumpkin picking fun. It made me kind of wish we lived on a farm, where Owen could just run all day. He ran all over and had a great time, especially running through the hay maze with the older kids (although he liked to try to climb over the hay or squeeze through holes...I was afraid he'd somehow make it out some way other than the In/Out).

Hoodie

Owen loves to do everything EXACTLY like his siblings. Liam and Natalie both have hoods on their jackets, and Owen wanted his jacket to have a hood too. So now it does. Sort of...

And this is a picture of our first Play Doh attempt. Surprisingly, he didn't try to eat it (or at least very little). I think maybe we are emerging from the "eat every object in the house as a means of identifying things" stage. Maybe. The cat food I think he actually likes.

The Play Doh didn't really hold his interest as much as I thought it might. He pushed his fingers into it enough to get Play Doh wedged under all his fingernails, of course, but mostly he just wanted to drop it on the floor.

Can you read his new shirt from Target? Does someone there know him?

Halloween Oddity

What happens when Polly Pocket and mini-princesses collide with Halloween decorations?
I don't know why I found it so funny that Natalie made her princesses take a ride on the cat. It just looked so bizarre.
And Owen, for the record, does not like fake cats much more than he likes real ones...

Three Months Home

OK, so when we met him he would only do the deer in the headlights look when the camera came out. Now, all I get is extreme cheese.

Storming sister's castle. Gosh, I think he looks so much more like a boy than a baby in this picture. Can't believe he will be 2 in another month and a half!

This is my too-sweet-to-resist look.
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I suppose at some point we will have to, and want to, stop counting the "months home." For now, that July 8th date is still so etched in my mind, and it marks the great divide of Before Owen and After Owen. Kind of like after a big earthquake, how one might mark the passage of time and always relate everything back to that day. Not that I'm equating bringing Owen home to a natural disaster. No, no...not really...

Every day we learn something new about the little man. Here are some of the things I know now:

Owen Likes:

Being tickled, and having his legs massaged (this is very ticklish for him) and feet kissed.

Hats and shoes.

Balls, ball gloves, bats (Lord help us) ...any sports equipment.

Music.

Getting a laugh (future class clown here).

Beets.

Potatos.

Baths/water.

Anything his sister is playing with.

High fives.

Owen Dislikes:

Cats and dogs (and now that he is using more sign language for things, I've come to realize that he really doesn't distinguish between dogs and cats....calls them all dogs).

Ice cream (too cold).

Peas.

Brushing teeth.

Fake Halloween spiders.

Watching tv or sitting on the couch. (He is the opposite of a couch potato. I think he's a couch-rocket, because all he uses the couch for is a launching pad).

I can honestly say that the family at 3-months has come such a long way compared with the family on July 8th. And Owen is brilliant, sweet, funny, smart, utterly exhausting, charming, strong, and wonderful. Happy 3-month mark, baby boy!

Our Bountiful Garden

There you have it folks, the fruits of our bountiful garden. OK, OK, it's just one jalapeno pepper. We aren't known for growing things around here.

It was an end of season after-thought at Home Depot a month or so ago - we just stuck two pepper plants in a pot on the patio to see if anything would grow. I have had some delusions of starting a garden...next year...and I also have plans to clean out all of the closets and finish Natalie's baby book. But I may need to actually follow through on some sort of gardening in the Spring, because Wow the kids really enjoyed watching these pepper plants grow. They were so excited about this pepper, even though they would never eat it, of course. Liam thinks the pepper is excellent to look at, but if anyone dares to touch it, he is full of dire warnings about washing your hands before you touch your face or eyes (I wonder where he gets his propensity for dire warnings...).

And the pepper is gone now - two tacos later. But it looks like we may have a small crop of them coming along in a few more days.

And this...is what happens when I think I have finally found something to keep Owen quiet in the kitchen while I'm cooking. He was very happily standing on a chair in front of the sink, playing in a sink full of water, with paint brushes and little cups. He was happy, quiet, and I figured the worst that could happen would be a little water on the floor. I took my eyes off him for a second...and turned around to this. Socks and all. Actually, he was trying to sit down, but he stood back up when I grabbed the camera. All we could do was laugh.

Grandma's Visit

We are so thankful that Grandma was able to help us out once again, during Owen's tube surgery. Jim has been traveling quite a bit these days, and it would have been nearly impossible to get Liam to school and Owen to the hospital. Not to mention what would I have done with Natalie. I can just imagine trying to comfort Owen after surgery with Natalie clinging to me screaming.

That is still our biggest issue around here, I think. The Owen/Natalie dynamic, and Natalie's general mood. I thought she might have relented a little bit by now, but she still has major issues "sharing" me with Owen. It drives her nuts when I pick him up or give him lovin'. I think she must still be making her point to me that I have done something she is not happy about. Poor Grandma got to see a few incidents...like when I have O hanging on one leg and N hanging on the other leg and both are screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to push each other off, and I can't move and I can't remove them. Grandma said later that I had a funny look on my face at the time. That may have been the look that was me thinking "if I kick really hard in both directions would it be possible to dislodge both at the same time??" aaahhhh good times

We hope Grandma has recovered. We loved having an extra set of hands (and eyes, to better follow the 100 mile an hour toddler on his races around the house looking for danger), and we loved our trips to Costco. And I know all three kids miss her. It took a while for Owen to settle down after she arrived, but he was quite snuggly with her by the end. I think he's starting to get the idea about extended family.

Dance Night

I took Liam to a Mother/Son dance Saturday night, and we had a great time. I was surprised to see, however, that although Liam can dance at home with no inhibitions, when he is at a dance crowded with people he turns into me (or Jim...or both). Very awkward. At least at first. But he warmed up a bit as we were waiting in line to have our picture taken (oh yes, they know how to milk you for $) and Michael Jackson's Thriller came on. I saw his shoulders wiggling and his hips swaying. All in all, it was a wonderful evening. We went for pizza and Dr Pepper afterward, and he got to play Gallaga on an arcade game while we waited for food. I just enjoyed hanging out with him. I definitely feel like he has gotten the short end of the stick around here lately, and I hardly ever see him anymore.

Natalie's comment was, "You're going on a date AGAIN?!" Like I'm out on the singles circuit every night or something. The truth was that Jim and I went out to dinner last week one night after Owen was put to bed, but before Liam and Natalie were asleep. Grandma was visiting! Yeah! I wouldn't dream of making her put the Crazy Man to bed, but it was very nice to be able to sneak out for sushi after he went to bed. Meanwhile, Natalie must think I'm out painting the town every night. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I will have to do another post about Grandma's visit. She helped us out while Jim was traveling and Owen had his ear tube surgery. All is well there - ears look fine.

So after the dance I asked Liam if it was what he expected it to be and he said NO. I asked why, and he said he thought it would be outside, and he didn't think it would be so LOUD (typical Liam-style, he had his hands over his ears for the first 10 minutes) and with so many lights. He also liked the confetti they dropped from the ceiling - he ran around stuffing it in his pockets - I'm not sure what he planned to do with it later. I've never had a date do that before. Who knew it would be so cute.