All the Sun For You

A mom, two boys, a husband, and a whole lot of adventure!

Category Archives: Adventures!


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First Family 5K

I signed our entire family up for a charity chocolate run this morning. It was a stroller-friendly 5k that wasn’t timed, and had chocolate afterwards. In other words, it was the perfect race for our family! We picked up our race packets yesterday and received loads of handmade chocolates and coupons for more chocolate. YES!

I borrowed a friend’s BOB for Matthew to ride with Hottie and we bundled the kids up (double everything) before hitting the start line. Bryson was asleep by the first mile and Matthew was shouting to get out of the stroller at about the same time. Ha!

Matthew had a kids race afterwards and his medal was solid chocolate. Oh boy! He’s already asking to do another race! He’ll be disappointed next time that there are no chocolate dipped bananas, fancy hot cocoa, biscoff cookies, and chocolate medals afterwards!  


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Another Get-Away

A great blog friend of mine commented on this post, “and then you’ll think WHEN CAN WE GO AGAIN?”

She was right!

From the moment we had dinner that first night in Telluride last month, Hottie and I knew we wanted to get away again… and soon!  We had a back-up sitter lined up for our Colorado trip who asked us to find a weekend soon that she could come and stay with the boys.  With Hottie’s work schedule involving so much travel lately (3-5 nights a week, every other week), I’ve been losing my mind a bit each time he travels.  I needed a break!

I texted our friend just over a week ago asking if she could stay with the boys soon and she asked, “next weekend?”. OK!

It was only one night and the boys loved it. And we loved it! We ate great food, shopped together, grabbed cocktails in between stops, had REAL conversations, and held hands. Just what the doctor ordered for this tired mom and her Hottie!

We’re going to try to do this every-other month!


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First Emergency Stitches

I never needed stitches as a kid. Errr… I should correct that. I never got stitches as a kid. There was one time when I needed them terribly (could see the bone) but my parents told me I was fine and sent me back downstairs to play (I still have a hole in my ankle there, but it’s just fine). I digress…..

Bryson got stitches yesterday morning. He tripped on a stupid rug (one that I’d bought and Hottie had said would kill one of us one day because it was so easy to trip on) and slammed his head into a footstool. Hottie swooped him up, calmly announced that there was blood, brought him to me and I said, “he needs stitches.”. We were loaded up in the car, our family of 4, within a few minutes with clothes and snacks packed for the kids. No one cried, no one yelled, no one got stressed… We all just went.

Bryson stopped crying and was back to smiling the minute we were in the car. He’s such a big kid! The ER got us right in and Bryson was very cooperative. He got some versed for the actual stitching process and was groggy for a couple of hours afterwards.

3 stitches, a big breakfast, and a mall nap later and he was back to thinking that life is grand and that he is invincible!

(I must note that Matthew was such a good boy all day! He was so concerned about his little brother and just rolled with the punches with patience and happiness!)


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Success On Many Fronts

We’re home from our trip.

There is so much to say about our time away:

I cried in the driveway but never again, I SPENT HOURS AND HOURS PUMPING WITH A PLUGGED DUCT, we ate like fools (and kings), WE WALKED EVERYWHERE, the festival made us feel old and off our games, WE MET UP WITH OUR FUN FRIENDS 3 OF THE 4 DAYS THERE, Bryson got very sick with a nasty fever and vomiting but recovered after 2 days, BOTH BOYS DID JUST FINE WITHOUT US, my in-laws were exhausted when we got home, WE ABSOLUTELY LOVE THAT PART OF COLORADO, we had the time of our lives together, I “DONATED” MY PUMPED MILK AFTER BEING DISTRAUGHT OVER DUMPING 11 OUNCES DOWN THE DRAIN, Bryson did not wean himself one bit while I was gone (yay!), WE ALMOST FORGOT TO CALL HOME ON SATURDAY, neither of us slept well at all, WE’RE READY TO TAKE ANOTHER TRIP WITHOUT THE BOYS, we fell in love all over again.

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So… We’re Going

Something big is happening tomorrow.  It’s something I’ve avoided for a VERY long time.  It’s something I’ve come up with every excuse in the book to avoid.  It’s something that has made me feel very uncomfortable just thinking about.

We’re leaving the boys for the first time EVER to go on a trip out-of-town together (I specify “out-of-town” because we did a practice night three weeks ago and we stayed in a hotel downtown).

We need this trip – we’ve needed it since Matthew was probably a year old.  Hell, his pediatrician told us that we had to leave him for an overnight trip for at least 2 nights before he turned 1.  We didn’t listen.  He wasn’t sleeping through the night, he wasn’t weaned, he needed me too much.  Now, Bryson is JUST sleeping through the night, he isn’t weaned, and he needs me too much.

Someone is always going to be having problems sleeping, and someone is always going to need me too much (or so I think).

So… we’re going.

We’re even getting on a plane – two of them, in fact, to get there and then back again.  I used to be a nervous flyer but I’m not so much after living in Chicago for 4 years and having no car to get from Illinois back to Iowa to see my family.  I flew all the time and it took the edge off, because it just had to.  But now with kids – kids I’m leaving behind in the care of their grandparents – I’m a little nervous.

I’m really not that nervous… I’m more nervous about Bryson not being weaned and the hell my mother-in-law will pay for that.  And I’m more nervous that Matthew will get over-excited and they’ll never want to watch the kids again for us.  And I’m more nervous that I’ll come home to a messy house like when Bryson was born (MIL does not pick up the things she gets out) that will need at least 5 hours of my time to get back to normal.  And I’m more nervous that the milk cups and straws won’t get washed well enough each night before being used again.  And I’m more nervous that Bryson’s sleep is going to go to complete and total shit.  But with all that said, I’m still a little nervous about flying without the kids.

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We got our wills done.  They’re written, signed, notarized, and on their way to the safe deposit box tomorrow morning.  We selected guardians when Matthew was born but just never got around to asking my dad to do the formal wills.  They’re done now, and that brings me much peace.  My dad is a very responsible attorney who has our affairs in perfect order, so I know that if something would happen, the kids are going to be taken care of and swiftly.  There would be no, “we’re not sure what to do’s” because the man does this for his clients all the time.  The only issue is that he’s not thrilled with our guardian selection, because they’re staunch democrats.  HA!

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All of this travel and will talk makes me think about life insurance, and the fact that we need more on Hottie, specifically, now that Bryson is here.  That’s now on my list for the fall.  But we may be having a third baby if all works out, so maybe we should shelve that for the spring/summer.

No… this fall.

****

Everything is going to be fine.  Matthew is going to have a great time and he’ll be an angel (or a devil disguised as one).  Bryson is going to sleep well because no one in the house will be able to assist him with boobs.  Both boys will eat well because I’ve got all three nights of meals and leftovers for lunch mapped out.  We will be fine because, as we all know, our chances of dying in a plane crash are nothing compared to driving on the road.  My in-laws are probably the ones who are going to suffer in this whole situation… but they signed up for this and they know what they’re possibly getting into.  And the fact that we have notarized wills almost ensures that everything will be OK – because the universe messes with the people who don’t plan ahead – and I’m not one of them!

 


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2:28.5

Hottie and I did our adventure tri today! 2.5 miles of kayaking, 11.5 miles of biking (9+ of which were gravel roads), and 3.5 miles of trail running. My step counter put the run at 4.6 miles – which it felt like. Ha! We finished together in 2:28.5. We’re quite pleased with that!

We didn’t finish last, which is always my fear, and we came in behind a pretty competitive dude just 2 minutes later. It was respectable!

Oh, and we won our division. We won before we started… We were the only coed team. It’s nice starting the race knowing you’ve already won! Our winnings were substantial – $100! We’ve never won prize money before. It was exciting!


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We Keep On Trying

We got a wild hair to bring the boys to Chic.ago for their annual air and water show. We booked it just a couple of weeks ago and before finalizing, B asked, “are you sure you want to do this?” Vacationing with a bad sleeper is hard, and B knew it would fall on me.

But I always say, “we do this so we can say we did and we end up stronger in the end.” Ha!

Right now, Matthew is asleep with B and Bryson is in the GoCrib (for now). I’m not delusional, it’s just a matter of time before Bryson’s in bed with me. But right now, I feel like I’m winning just a little.


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Who Knew?

I am not one of those mothers who pushes her kids towards milestones.  I sometimes wish I was more like that (like with speech for Matthew – good lord we had no idea how to encourage good speech skills early on), but I’m just not.  Matthew hit all of his physical milestones on time or early – he was sitting up unassisted at 4.5 months, truly crawling before 8 months, and walking at 11 months and 1 week (I only know this because he walked while we were on a vacation and I know the date of that hotel stay – May 31).  I have documented his milestones on scraps of paper here and there that I take photos of in case I ever lose them, but there is no baby book, no formal list in sequential order, etc.  All of the things he’s done, he’s done on his own without us trying to get him to do them.  Sitting, for example, was just something I tried because another mother told me I should, and he sat straight up that night with no help for us or him – he just sat there with perfect posture.  Who knew?  If you read about RIE parenting at all, you know that kids just naturally hit these milestones on their own – and that’s what we’ve seen with Matthew.

Now, with Bryson, I have pushed him a little more.  For family photos, we sat him up in the grass when he was 4 months old and he did it – just like his big brother did before him with no assistance.  Neither of our kids were rollers, and Bryson was never given the opportunity since his brother was always running around him on the floor and it freaked me out.  At some point in January or February, we just said to heck with it and let him loose – and he rolls all over the house to get to where he wants to go.  Matthew NEVER did that.  I think he rolled from his back to tummy maybe 5 times in his whole babyhood.  Not Bryson – he’s a crazy man who uses rolling as his main mode of transportation.  Matthew was crawling by this time (Feb 22, and I know that because I just looked it up a couple of weeks ago for reference) and Bryson is just now army crawling – another thing that Matthew never did.  I am telling you – these kids are all so different.  But yeah, with Bryson, we know that he needs more opportunities to try things since he doesn’t have the freedom his brother had (due to safety concerns with a toddler running around), so we do work with him on certain things while Matthew is napping.  We have worked with him on his speech for months now and he is a very verbal baby – and I do think he may be saying “Mama” with purpose – but how would I know given my past experience?

So anyway, here we are with Matthew, our oldest baby, and he was showing signs that he was ready to think about potty training.  I didn’t read into it because, come on, he’s a BOY!  Boys don’t potty train early (early to me is before 3 years old) unless you want a true fight, or at least that’s what I’d been told.  And I don’t push my kids to do anything.  I ignored the signs (telling me when he pooped, or saying “ooh ooh” before peeing, or showing lots of interest when I used the bathroom) and went on my merry way.  I didn’t understand these people who said they hated diapers, because I loved them!  And my kid has the softest, stinkiest poop on the planet (due to his no-grains diet).  I just liked knowing that I had the freedom to do what I needed and wanted to do and I could change his diaper when needed, and after the fact, versus rushing to the bathroom whenever I heard the word, “pee.”  I also wasn’t sure we were ready to start given Matthew’s speech delays – I wasn’t sure that we would understand each other.  So – we just didn’t do it.  B mentioned a few times that he thought Matthew was ready, and I agreed but said I wasn’t ready.  B finally told me to order the potty chair so that Matthew could get used to seeing it.

Once the potty chair arrived (February 12th), Matthew was INTERESTED.  Which meant that I needed to get myself ready.  It didn’t matter anymore that I wasn’t ready – he was seeming ready.  So I got ready, psyched myself up, and let him start using the potty before his bath each night.  He caught onto that super quickly, so we moved onto just setting him on it off and on.  Almost every time we set him on it, he’d pee.  It took a few days and then he was truly peeing every time we set him on the potty, and he was proud of himself.  He moved up to the big toilet (with the little seat on top) pretty quickly and all but abandoned the potty chair.

OK.  It was time to get serious.

We were letting Matthew wear diapers whenever we weren’t putting him on the potty, and I thought that was OK.  But then I read Gemini Momma’s post on potty training and realized that I am the only mother on the planet who has not read a thing about potty training, but was thinking about potty training.  I decided to do some digging based on the things she mentioned (when is too early to train, when is it too late, what’s the best way, once you start training – no more diapers,  etc).  I learned that we may be confusing him with using the potty, but also having him wear diapers, and I decided it was time to train him or stop using the potty altogether.

We decided to potty train Matthew.  During spring break.  Because we’re stupid.

But actually, we aren’t stupid.  It went amazingly well!  I thought maybe we could try to train without doing it naked, but I was so wrong.  On day 1, Matthew went through 3 pair of undies in 20 minutes and I decided that naked was the way to go.  He didn’t have a single accident naked, but would also go 3 times within 10 minutes because he wouldn’t empty his bladder.  By the end of the first evening, he was telling us when he had to go and would go by himself.  I did some very quick reading that said that he was ready to wear loose pants – so I decided to try that on Tuesday.

Big mistake.  Matthew did not understand that pants weren’t diapers and he peed in them immediately.  Off came the pants and we were back to naked time, which was fine with me since I had originally planned to do that for at least 3 days.  Lots of people on FB said to do naked time for a week, so I was all for that and cool as a cucumber.

All week there was not one accident until Thursday, when Matthew insisted on wearing his sweat pants after going to lunch.  (At lunch, he actually told me he needed to pee while in his first pull-up – but someone was in the bathroom so he used his pull-up.  Talk about confusing a kid!)  We came home from a great lunch out and he begged me to let him wear his pants with no diaper/pull-up/undies.  I was cool with that since going to loose pants was the next step, so I said sure thing.  Within minutes, he had pooped.  Gah.  I did get him to the toilet and he finished his business there (which was a huge relief as I was worried he’d be afraid of doing a #2 on the toilet since my nephews both were).  I got him and the bathroom all cleaned up and once again he wanted pants.  Fine.  Well, he wasn’t done pooping and pooped in those pants like mad.  He tried so hard to tell me before it happened, but I was busy disinfecting things.  Shoot.  Once that was cleaned up, it was off with the pants again.  HA!

As long as there were no pants, there were no accidents.  I was worried he’d never wear pants again.

On Friday, I let him wear a pull-up to lunch and he came home dry after being out for more than an hour.  And by Friday, we were getting him to empty his bladder each time he peed.  Things were looking up.  At dinner, he took off on us for the bathroom, saying, “pee pee pee!” and came back out (he closed the door and did not want help) talking about Pip and a puddle (Pip and Posy book).  We asked, “did you make a puddle?”  “Yep!”  We asked him to show us where and he turned around to head toward the bathroom and B said, “his butt is covered in poop!”  Well, he’d tried to get on the big potty to poop and couldn’t get there in time, so sat on the potty chair instead and then tried to dump that into the big potty.  Needless to say, the bathroom was a WRECK and I was once again cleaning up poop.  It was everywhere – and in the carpet right by the bathroom.  And then B found some on Matthew’s foot.  It was epic!  But no one lost their cool.  Not once.  Because come on – he KNEW to poop on the potty.  HOORAY!

Today, we had to go out of town to see B’s grandma.  She lives 1.25 hours away and we went to breakfast before heading up.  We had Matthew pee once we got to breakfast, once during breakfast (his idea), and then before leaving and getting into the car.  An hour and 20 minutes later, we were at the nursing home and we went to the potty and his pull-up was DRY.  I was in shock.  The entire time there, he held it until we made him go, and he did great going once again before getting in the car to come home.  Once home, he was still dry so we kept him dressed.  There was not a single drop in that pull-up before, during, or after our long dinner either.  There have been no pee accidents since going naked and then into pull-ups and regular clothes (jeans even!), and the poop issues are simply due to him insisting on doing it on his own without any help from us.

We are keeping him in pull-ups through Wednesday since he has school on Monday and Wednesday and I want to get him better at pooping before letting him loose at school in undies (he usually poops at school – lucky teachers!).  We only use diapers for naps and bed time.  We’re done with diapers for the most part and I’m hoping the pull-ups are a thing of the past by next weekend, but honestly, I could care less if they aren’t.  They’re easy and they’re working for him.  But it would be nice to get him into his cute undies, which he is actually excited about!

So yeah – spring break, baby!  I can honestly say that this has been the most productive spring break of my life.  For a mom who didn’t expect to even try this until her kid turned 3, I’m sort of in shock that we’re at the tail end of potty training at just 33 months.  I wasn’t signing Matthew up for summer camps until the end of July so that we could get him potty trained in time, but I’m now registering him for one the week of his birthday.

I guess he was ready.  Who knew (besides B)?

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Wrapping up the Holidays

Here we are, it’s 2014, and I haven’t visited my own blog in ages. So sad… so very sad.

Things have been busy with the holidays.  My parents planned a family trip to Colorado starting on Christmas Eve, lasting until the 27th, and that trip put a wrench in everything holidays-related.  We were scrambling to buy gifts in time to ship them to the hotel, get things for the flight (stroller, accessories, car seat bag), and pack all four of us up for a four-day trip.  The trip preparations put a damper on everything else, including decorating the house and getting the lights up outside (which never happened).  Needless to say, I was a total Scrooge this year.  It just didn’t feel like Christmas.  I felt robbed – and I still do – in a way.

The trip was great – well – great in an “adult trip” sort of way.  The resort was fantastic (a very special place to my family and a resort that B and I have travelled to many times because it’s special to us too!), the room was spacious (my father insists we call it a suite, which is sooooo not me!), seeing my sisters and their kids was unforgettable, and the food was great.  But my goodness – B and I spent so much time in the room suite with napping/sleeping kids that I felt like I wasn’t able to do the things we were there to do (spend time with my parents, sisters, and their families) and that made me very grumpy.  I wasn’t upset with the kids – they nap (and well) and go to bed early (thank God!) – I was upset that we took our kids away from home ON Christmas to spend it in an unfamiliar place.  The times we spent with my family WERE great and super fun, but I just felt so disconnected from the whole thing, including Christmas in general.  I have nicely told my dad that we will not be doing that again while we have small kids – and he gets it.  I think he knows it was hard for my younger sister and me (she has 3 young kids who nap and go to bed early as well).

(I do want to make a note here that both Matthew and Bryson were complete angels on both flights.  Matthew sat in the big seat without his car seat, and he sat still and was a good boy both ways (and slept the entire return flight).  Bryson nursed and slept on the way up for both flights and flirted with everyone once we reached our cruising altitudes.  The descent on the return flight got to his ears and he cried, but no one can be upset about that.  Poor baby.  We are going to fly again this spring and are super calm about it now knowing how well the boys did for this trip.)

We celebrated with B’s family the weekend before Christmas and it was nice!  There were some annoying things like our 4 year-old niece being nasty to Matthew and our nephew constantly referring to Matthew as, “that kid,” but I put a stop to both of those situations immediately so that we could move on with merriment.  HA!  Matthew still is not into opening presents and I had to give him a time-out to get him to come sit with us to open his gifts.  After doing that, I read that that was the entirely WRONG thing to do so relaxed a great deal about his lack of interest in his gifts both in Colorado and then at our house on the 29th.  I’m learning… I’m learning  😉

We got home from Colorado on the 27th and no gifts were wrapped, so we didn’t celebrate on the 28th.  On the morning of the 28th, we felt a strong need to see B’s parents and let the kids have some good interaction with grandparents who are into them (my parents are not into any of the kids – they just aren’t).  That was good for my soul – it was great to be with B’s parents who are so happy to see us whenever we can make it work (every other week or so) and it was nice to just be still with them.  I’m not sure that makes sense – but that’s how it felt.  I always leave them feeling relaxed, which was not always the case.  B’s mom and I have come a  very long way in our relationship and respect for one another.  It feels good!

We finally did our Christmas on the 29th.  The best part about it was wrapping presents the night before.  B and I setup shop in the basement and I put the art easel together as he wrapped, wrapped, wrapped!  He bought a bunch of fun little toys for the boys, things I hadn’t seen yet, and he wanted to keep it that way so that I was surprised when the boys opened their gifts as well.  That was fun!  I picked out the discovery tower (for the kitchen) and the easel and put them both together since they were my ideas and because I like putting things together.  It worked out great!  I got a little tipsy with my favorite beer – hooray!  The next morning, Matthew took forever opening his gifts which was A-OK with me.  He got some super fun stuff from B and it was fun to see his reaction to things.  B is an AWESOME gift giver for the kids!  And this year – he NAILED it with his gift for me.  It made me cry a bit.

I got a wild hair on (our) Christmas morning and asked B if he wanted me to make a big prime rib dinner if I could find a roast (being after Christmas and all).  Of course he said yes (he loves my prime rib… and I will say that it is pretty good thank-you-Williams-So.noma!) so I got to work and spent almost 7 hours in the kitchen cooking, cooking, cooking.  Oh my god, it was like the best gift to myself!  Cooking big dinners relaxes me a great deal – prepping food calms my nerves.  I made cheese fondue (gruyere cheese, Emmentaler cheese, dry white wine, salt, pepper) as our appetizer, endive salads with blue cheese and bacon, prime rib and roasted asparagus, and chocolate fondue for dessert.  It was awesome – so fun to sit down to a multi-course meal together as a family!  We invited B’s brother who is always a fun addition to the evening!

So our holidays ended much better than they started.  They ended with loving grandparents, a happy family unit, well-rested kids (finally!), perfect gifts, and a fantastic (if I do say so myself) dinner.  Finally – finally – it felt like Christmas 4 days after the fact.

Our tree is undecorated and ready for the wood chipper.  The kids are back to their normal sleeping routines (Bryson is sleeping almost through the night with an early morning feeding sometime between 3:45 and 5:45 before sleeping again until 7:00-8:00 each morning).  Our laundry from the trip (and afterwards) is almost all caught up.  All of the new toys have homes within our home.  NYE was celebrated in an unconventional way by letting Matthew stay up to watch The Po.lar Exp.ress in our bed and then sleep all night with us (oh the joy!).  And we’re now looking forward to a 2014 full of travel (starting Jan 9th to KC) and better fitness… and much-needed (and deserved) sleep.

As my Aunt Linda loves to say – HUZZAH!