big like daddy

Sometimes Nate says the cutest things. I feel like I miss some of them, he's not the most talkative child. (Except when he needs me!)

Today after lunch we were sitting and had on CMT. Marisa was reading books in my lap. Nate was having goldfish and pink lemonade.

"Momma, I want to be big." he said

Me: "I like you the size you are, we have a lot of things to do before you get big."

Nate: "Like go to school, and eat healthy foods?"

Me: "Well yeah, that stuff, but we have a lot of memories to make before you get big."

Nate: "What is a Memoly?"

Me: "Things we do together, places we go, so we can remember and look back about it later"

Nate: "We have a lot of pictures to take before I get bigger."

Me: "Yes exactly"

Nate: "Well, I want to be big like Daddy, so I have to eat healthy food and sleep a lot, but don't worry Momma, I'll eat slow."

:-) awww...

Nate Almost 2 years old and Now (3.5 years)

Hand Washing Tutorial by Marisa

Hand Washing Toddler Style

First you use some soap and wait for it to magically come out of the bottle onto your hand.
Giving up on soap, you touch just the fingertips (of course the DIRTIEST part of your hand) under the water.

Then you knock the soap over into the sink and yell at Mommy to pick it up for you. And Repeat!

Food Obsessed

Groceries... really... that should be a sentence all by itself. Here I'll say it again... Groceries. I can't believe I spent $250 at the grocery store. I'm trying to be all healthy and cheap at the same time. It really doesn't go together. Because the only thing that is cheap at our grocery store are Hungry Man dinners. Gross Gross Gross. No thanks. Plus the fact that my kids refuse to eat anything but name brand of their favorite goodies. Nathan actually knows when I replace his beloved Cheeze-its with Cheese Nips. Marisa will throw her cup of juice on the ground if it's not Juicy Juice.

Plus I'm pretty sure that the kids ate $25 of the groceries I purchased when they got home from school today.

Nate: 2 bananas, 1 apple, half of the watermelon that I cut up and put in the fridge. 1 pork chop, 6 baby carrots, and I caught him sneaking a cereal bar that I made him put back.

Marisa 1 banana, 1 apple, 4 baby carrots, 1 cup of pirate booty, sliced mushrooms, 2 glasses of milk, one glass of juice and 1/2 a pork chop.

Yes, I was using Pirate Booty as the "grain" during dinner.

It's as though my children actually know when food is "fresh"... I had to tell Nate he couldn't have 3 bananas tonight. Now my fruit bowl looks naked... sigh. Well we had a full fridge for about an hour. It's no wonder my kids are so big!

NATE AND MOMMY'S DAY OUT!

This week I was on "vacation" (taking time off work to eat up my vacation time before my year rolls). On Friday I planned a special day for just Nate and I. Usually when I'm home, Marisa is attached to me somehow, somewhere, and I get very little time for just him. So our day was supposed to go something like this....

Wake up and have breakfast...Daddy takes Risa to school.... Nate and Mommy get ready and go to the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum http://www.aahom.org/ ... go get some lunch... take a nap (for both of us :-) then make some cupcakes... go get Nate's haircut... pick up Marisa.

I know a hefty list of things for one small day.

Here's how it actually went.

Daddy and Marisa leave a little late, which makes getting ready a little late for us. Nate is unbelievably agreeable today. (Really odd) so he is in the garage before I can even get my shoes on. Once we get in the car we are on our way. Of course once we start to leave the real Nate shows up in my backseat. First he doesn't like the direction we are driving out of the neighborhood. Then he yells at me for how loud my car is during acceleration onto busy Geddes. Then he really hates that we have to wait at a red light, because "red is not his favorite color, he doesn't love it." Once we get downtown, he continues to ask me every time I turn onto a new street, why we are on this street? and my favorite? "Why are we going this way?

Then we get to the parking ramp, park the car and get out. Let the meltdown begin. Totally chaos over leaving the car. "why can't we take our car with us?" "Why do we have to leave our car here?" Now this is NOT the first time we have parked in a parking lot, although you'd think it is, nor is it the first time in a parking ramp. 1/8 of the walk to the museum from the parking ramp and I hear sobbing coming from the child clutching my hand.
"Nate, what is wrong? Why are you sad?"
"It's too cold, I want to go home!"

So I picked him up and walked the 1/2 mile carrying a 50lb child, while we were passed by every toddler walking with her mommy. Chanting over and over in my head... "he WILL have a good time, this is totally worth it".

When we finally got there, all we had to do was walk down the musical steps and he was in 3 year old heaven. Here are photos of some of his favorite activities.

Driving the Ambulance

Making a giant bubble!

Rock Climbing

Water Table

Then, nap time came. After 5 minutes in his room he came out and said, "I sleeped... I'm all done!" Ummm no. After nap and with no time to bake cupcakes we headed off to get his haircut. Now if you know my child, we haven't had the greatest experiences with ummmm anything. Haircutting is actually the worst (because it happens so often) my sweet, loving, somewhat agreeable child turns into demon child. I seriously expect his head to spin around. He started crying (and chanting) about a mile away. The chant went like this. "I don't want to get my haircut, you are not my best friend!, I'm sad at you momma! (repeat cycle)" He almost walked in the building all by himself. Side note... This is a children's haircut place the inside looks like an arcade, there is a TV at every station, and he gets to pick his DVD. There is a huge slide and when he's done he gets a sucker and a balloon.

But no.

As I dragged him through the open door, (the chant continued) and tried to pretend it wasn't a big deal that my 3 1/2 year old child was sobbing hysterically. I hung my coat up, went over and wrestled his coat off him. Other mommy's looked at me not even sympathetically, more like pathetically. I'm sure thinking, I somehow could control this. (This is the child that has to wear a straight-jacket at the dentist-seriously!) I had to hold him on my lap through the entire ordeal, literally restraining him, and he's so much stronger than he used to be! Of course Alicia who cuts his hair, never remembers this demon child, and tells me every time, he wasn't like this last time... OH YES HE WAS, although he's bigger, and stronger now, I tipped her half the cost of the cut and ran out of there. I'm starting to think that 70's hippie hair look, might work for Nate.

When all is said and done, we really did have a great day. Moments with him young and so loving are dwindling I know, I must take all I can get now.

10 degrees and we are doing WHAT?

Ahhh the Plymouth ice festival.

After we got home I couldn't help but wonder... was it worth it?

As soon as the kids got up from nap, we dressed them in all their snow gear, kicking and screaming the entire time. Head to toe in cushiony water repellent fabric. Marisa crying the entire time. Nate telling us he didn't want to go ANYWHERE! Halfway through getting him dressed, brilliant me remembered that he hadn't gone pee. Which completely threw my husband off the deep end. Calling the whole thing a stupid idea, throwing boots around... to which my daughter just started laughing. I think it's actually quite hilarious when one of my kids laughs at Chris's hissy fits. It makes me smile, because I grew up experiencing those, and it's important to actually have perspective on how ridiculous it is for a grown adult to throw a fit. (Love you sweetie!)

Anyway, parked far away, huge crowd, freezing temps. Nate didn't even look at a thing, just looked like Nanook of the North the whole time. Marisa had a great time. She tried to run ahead, talked to everyone, but unfortunately kept taking off her gloves. This little act made our trip very short. One hour after we got out of the car, we were back in. Although we did manage to purchase a bag of cotton candy. Although we didn't do much of anything when we were there, but walk in a big circle and look at ice. I still felt victorious that we had made a trip out of the house in the winter. Truly a rarity for us. I was however really disappointed that the children didn't get much out of it.

UNTIL that night when Nate wanted to call his grandma. "Grandma! He said. Today I got cotton candy, and saw a dinosaur, and a castle and a BIG BEAR all made out of ice!"

Huh, he doesn't even know, he made my victory seem that much sweeter!