When Pollock Met Van Gogh

It's been a long time coming, but this post is the (long awaited, much anticipated?) update to a poll that ran awhile back regarding art and how it is best served. The choices were fairly simple and it was about as close to a yes/no answer as a poll can get: do you prefer your art on paper or on the face?

And much like our last poll, it was another landslide victory:

Let's take a moment to check in with the winning candidate to see how (or if) knowing the results swayed his artistic stylings in any way. 

– I not sure I agrees with you lone voter, even though
I mostly tries it your way 'dis time.

– Seriously though, does 'dis look like I is having fun?

This round might have turned out with a little less art on the face. By the time all was said and done, I'd say it affected things about 7%. 

So good on you lone voter*! We are officially making a little bit more art on paper thanks to you. 

The last time we got messy with paints and I finally got a little weary of paintings of "alligators" after the 57th one, I put on my thinking cap and asked the boys if they could paint pictures of each other and Mommy and Daddy too. Seth was a little more on board with this exercise at first, but by the end Nate got into it and did a full family portrait.

I found the results far more telling than I anticipated when I came up with a simple suggestion just so I wouldn't have to look at alligators anymore.

For what it's worth, this is an alligator (WARNING! It's possibly a blood thirsty one and might not be appropriate for sensitive viewers): 

"Alligator" by Nate.

My boys are very much into alligators and things that look like alligators or even things that don't look like alligators but they call alligators anyway. I'm sure you get the idea.

So the rest of our gallery was pretty amazing all things considered. The titles are from the artists themselves.

"Mommy and Seth" by Seth.

"Blast Off" by Nate.

"Seth" by Seth.

"Nate" by Seth.

"Mommy, Daddy, Seth and Nate" by Nate. (clockwise from top left)

- L.

*I would have sworn up and down that Gamma Rita was the hold-out for art on paper, but she's flatly denied it and I believe her. At this point in time, I have no other likely suspects. Really though lone voter, you voted for paper over this? 

PS. I must not have looked back far enough through the post-pending archives last night for a happy post, because this would have been much better choice.

"Mommy Fix 'Dat!"

For at least the past month, whatever you call the strip of metal that sometimes separates two rooms where the floor surfaces are different had started to become increasingly loose in the boys' room. One by one as the screws kept falling out (always accompanied by one of my boys saying "Uh-oh, Mommy! Loose screw!" and then handing me said screw), we ended up with only 3 screws out of 6 still holding that piece of metal down.

In other screw-related mysteries (and around the same time), the screws that held one of the drawer inserts in place on the bookshelves in the boys' room had also found their way out. Upon closer inspection one of the screws was never connected to anything to begin with which might have accelerated things a little, but with both missing it had become a hazard since the boys could easily slip the whole insert out and use it to stand on to get at other things. Also, it's not exactly the safest thing to be standing on in the first place.

And since my boys DO like to challenge a secure room they also managed to loosen the joints on one side of their wardrobe drawer, so with just a bit of a tug it was pulling the whole thing apart.

Last week I decided it was time to take a page from the toddler handbook in the form of "I do it self!".

I fixed the loose metal strip, the drawer insert and the falling-apart drawer. It took me less than 30 minutes using a screwdriver, some wood glue (for the drawer joints) and a whole lot of elbow grease. I felt so good once it was done and even better to realize that I really did "do it self".

And my boys were at least a little impressed too as it turned out, even though I thought they'd lost interest 10 minutes into the venture. Of course, I didn't realize that until halfway through making their lunch and heard them saying "Screwdriver! Screwdriver!" from the next room. I went to investigate and found they had built this:

It's a Duplo screwdriver, and I think a Flathead judging from the well placed breadstick on top.

And since it's not obvious from just one pic, here's another: 

Because yes, it swivels.

As I'm sure you can imagine, it became THE coveted item of the day as my boys took turns using it on all the new screws while saying "Mommy fix 'dat!".

Which of course made me feel like a bit of a super-hero... at least for one day.

- L. 

PS. Nate said the "M" on the screwdriver was for "Nate's motorcycle", Seth said it was for "Mommy". Cue a thoughtful pause followed by "... and is for Mommy too!" from Nate. Toddlers are beyond awesome with their thinking and logic and even though this stage can be infuriating at times, it's also hands-down the most hilarious.

PS. My boys also put together a reasonable facsimile of a toothbrush the same day, which I'm taking as a positive sign that the toothbrushing wars are nearing an end:

... although most likely it's Raffi related – but that's a post for another day.

Happy Leap Year, Everyone!

It turns out February 29th was the day for some surprising new manners at lunch. There was a very brief exchange yesterday over saying "thank you" and "you're welcome" that didn't seem to register much at the time, but obviously made a bigger impression that I'd thought.

Today, my boys – Nate especially – couldn't get enough of finding things to hand to each other in order to elicit the "thank you/you're welcome" exchange.

And I thought we were doing well with "Exmoosey!".

Nicely done, boys. Nicely done.

- L.

PS. Of course there's a video of it all (and then some). You can check it out here.

Family Bed

Family bed (AKA bedsharing) wasn't something I did when the boys were infants for a variety of reasons, not the least of which were the logistics of our apartment at the time (the master bedroom was on the third floor, the only bathroom and the nursery were on the second floor). For the first 8 months or so, I slept on the living room couch (it was the next room over from the nursery) with the Angel Care™ monitor firmly planted by my head.

I'm using the term "slept" a bit loosely since sleep was not really on my radar much the first 3 months or so. Maybe longer. Very probably longer. It's hard to say since the very early days are all a bit of a blur with two newborns that woke up every 60 to 90 minutes or so needing to be changed and fed and cuddled.

The boys slept through the night (or STTN) for the first time at 14 weeks. I didn't do anything special to make that happen. It just happened. 

Nate and Seth of course did their own version of family bed since they shared a crib from the first night we brought them home the second time* and did so until they were ready not to – and which they let me know about rather abruptly. They haven't looked back since. 

• • • • • • •

Sleep was a (mostly) wonderful thing at our house from that point on until this past summer.

I'll admit that bedtimes weren't always when I wanted them to be. We had a good thing going the previous summer with bedtime at 7:30 PM and wake-up time around 7 AM. Then our bedtime migrated which I wrote about here (scroll down to the "Party Babies" part) and when I look back at that post now I wonder what I was complaining about.

9 PM doesn't sound so bad now. 

Oh sure, I still put my guys to bed at 9 PM, but that's just when the party gets going most nights. If I'm lucky, everyone is asleep by 10 (9:45 if I'm very, very lucky but those nights are far and few between).

Then there are the nights I'm not so lucky and I'm still poking my head in to see if everyone (or anyone) is asleep by 11. Those night happen more often than I'd like to admit (read: A LOT), but it seems to be the trade-off for reinstating a proper afternoon nap.

I first wrote about out nap woes here, and followed it up with an additional post here. At the time we'd hit a bumpy patch where no nap equalled babies falling asleep around suppertime coupled with much cranky-pants action leading up to bedtime. It was pretty awful for everyone.

That said, sometimes 11 PM doesn't sound so bad if you know you can at least catch a decent nap the following afternoon and it means everyone is reasonably happy. The down-side of course, is a late wake-up and a schedule that is entirely incompatible with fun activities like library programs, Mommy groups, etc. We have yet to participate in any of those things, but did I mention we have naps again?

Naps are a good thing, everyone!

And frequently needed actually because sleeping through the night has become a bit of a crap-shoot since September or so. Let's just say we've had some pretty impressive party times in the wee hours and that when I turn in at night I never know if I'm going to get a chance to STTN myself. 

• • • • • • •

When my boys were first sleeping in longer stretches and nearing the time they started sleeping though the night, Nate was my sometimes early waker. Since I didn't want him to disturb his brother, I'd bring him out to the couch with me and we'd snuggle in the pre-dawn hours. He would often fall back asleep in my arms while I waited for the sun to rise. Despite the lack of sleep on my part, I loved those times so much even then. There was such a sweetness to it, cradling my sleepy baby in the dark while the rest of the world slept.

And although I was glad that Seth slept through it, I felt a bit sad that I didn't get much of a chance to have those kind of moments with him very often (maybe once for every ten early mornings with Nate).

Times change though and so do babies and if I'm getting summoned in the wee hours now it's by Seth at least 95% of the time.

Which brings me to the title of this post.

Getting a reasonably frequent middle-of-the-night summons has led to some serious family bed at the OP. Suffice it to say that Seth and I have long since made up for those early days when I felt sad about him missing out. He's been logging some serious hours in Mommy's bed these last few months.

And as crazy as this is about to sound, I don't halfway mind it.

But mostly because I get to wake up to this a couple of times a week: 

I also occasionally still get to wake up to this: 

Bleary eyes or no, my babies are a sweet sight at any time of the day and I appreciated it even at the time, which is why I got the camera out last October to take a quick pic of Nate. I wanted to make sure I would always remember how sweet he looked sleeping in my bed that morning.

The pic of Seth was taken last week where I both happened to have my camera handy and he wasn't immediately trying to take a dive off the bed so I had time to snap a quick photo. 

• • • • • • •

I'm ending this post with a bit of a sentimental Mommy moment, and mainly for posterity I suppose. Even though this only happened a few nights ago I already know it's one of those things I'm going to want to remember always but will probably forget to remember unless I write it down.

Seth was asleep by 10 and I had high hopes of an "early" night, but the party was strong with Nate. 10:30 went by, then 11, but he was still awake and even though it was perfectly obvious he was very tired he just did not want to shut his eyes and go to sleep. By 11, he was starting to get a bit cranky about it too in a tired, whiny kind of way. 

I wasn't really sure what to do. I don't usually take anyone to bed with me that early (if it's before 3AM I usually make an effort to settle everyone in their own beds), but I was worried he'd wake up his brother.

So from 11 until Nate fell asleep (around 11:45), I sat next to his crib and we chatted in whispers as I watched his eyelids get heavier and heavier. Maybe not the most exciting conversation** unless you are Nate's Mommy, but it's so amazing (to me) that they both know so many words now and I have to say it was extra amazing (and probably not just to me) that at least one of my boys gets the concept of whispering – especially for such an extended period of time. 

- L.

* The second time we brought the boys home is a story that has somehow never made it onto our blog (see: exhaustion at the time). I'll have to get to this one sooner rather than later. It's a pretty big story actually.

** The conversation was focused mostly around: Mommy's brown eyes and Nate's brown eyes, Mommy's pajamas and Nate's pajamas, Mommy's eyeglasses (both my guys are obsessed with eyeglasses), the lateness of the hour and the fact that it was sleepytime. Mercifully, the last one eventually won out.