random pics and ramblings

It's 8:07am, and (miracle of miracles) both boys are still asleep, so I thought I'd go through some of our pics from the last few weeks/months and blog until the boys wake up (which, since I actually started to try and accomplish something, I'm sure they'll come out bleary eyed any second now).

The boys continue with their unfortonate head/facial injury streak. 

The squadron here is closing  down this year, which has been YEARS in the making. Honest to goodness, one year after we got here we started to hear rumblings that the squadron may close, and quite honestly, I totally doubted whether it was going to happen, but low and behold, here were are a couple months away from shutting the place down. Most of my friends will head out of here before the first of the year, which will be a total bummer since they are my sanity here. When we come back from Christmas break our squadron commander's wife said that there will about 5 families left! Life of playdates and dinners with friends will be at a minimum but hopefully we'll find life slowing down and family time increasing! Here's the boys at one of our play dates out at White Sands. It's been a total joy watching these little guys grow up together! We are in a completely unique situation, and the Air Force is basically closing the squadron here, picking up all jets, pilots and maintainers and plopping us down in a new building in FL. So, that means for the most part, we'll be moving to FL with our group of friends.

I ran another half marathon and did it in some good company! 8 kids among us and Taryn (459) rocked the half marathon while pregnant. What's your excuse for not running? ;)

They have a local gymnastics place that has open toddler gym on Saturday mornings, and last week I took the boys for the first time. It was a blast and we plan to head back to burn off energy on the weekends! 

Welp, that was good while it lasted. Happy Friday everyone!

Happenings this week

* John and I went on our first date on November 12, 1999 so we celebrated our 14 year

 date-aversary this week. Here we are at the ripe not-so-old age of 17! Those of you that knew the 17yr old john, doesn't that beanie and black hooded sweatshirt bring back memories. 

*The boys had their first put put golf experience this week, and it was a blast. The whole idea was lost on Bram initially and he chucked his golf ball towards the parking lot and yelled "catch mom." We narrowly avoided paying for golf ball damage on someones Volvo. He quickly figured out the idea that he was supposed to get the ball in the hole, but the boy cheated every step of the way. I had to pose him for this picture.

*The next day I took a visit to my hair lady (the one that fixed Brammy's hair-tastrophy) and was jonesing for a change of some sort. I opted for a dark all over color, and after a day of uncertainty, I am now solidly thrilled with the color. 

* For the first time in John's AF career, we had the chance to get our picture taken near the jet, so we jumped on that. It was super informal, BYO camera, and of course, there's the monumental task of getting both boys to look in the same direction at the same time...  so we'll see how they turn out, but at least we tried. 

Pre pictures

* Here's one we took with the phone. 

Boys club

*John's job has tons of traditions, some more fun and crazier than others, but one of my favorites is a piano burning. There's probably a reason why they burn a piano, but I have no idea what it is. I do know, that it's always recipe for a good time.  

Sorry it's so dark, but there it is. The giant fire ball in the background is the piano...on fire. 

*last but not least, John shot an oryx. Normally, oryx are found in Africa, but at some point, ages ago, someone brought them over here to the desert of NM and they can be found here. Any who, the state issues a set number of tags each year, and John and his friend were lucky enough to draw one each. It took a few weekends of them traipsing through the dessert from 5am-6pm, but he got one. The meat is fantastic and hands down the least gamy meat of all the big game animals I've tried. We are so excited for the grocery bill break that it will bring (however, now that I type that statement, it's a total lie. I've quickly come to find that hunting is the most expensive "free" meet you'll ever eat....).

Pumpkin patch

I'm writing this in the car from my phone. All hail technology ( or not so much, because publishing this post from the car didn't work....whatevs.). We are headed up to the mountains to do some bike riding and fishing, which would be all around awesome, except bram is running slight fever (100 degrees) . Bram has been begging to go all morning ( since we told him yesterday of our fun plans), so I'm Hoping the hour long drive up and down the mountain will count as down time for him and he won't break out in the plague later this afternoon.

So, on to the reason for this post....the pumpkin patch.

My texting thumbs are already cramping, so this post will be many pictures and few words.

Here is how Bram approaches all things new, fun or otherwise.

Once you nudge him  throw him in the deep end, he usually realizes it's not so bad, but getting him to that point usually involves a significant amount of screaming. 

sweet spot

To those of you that love parenting babies, more power to ya. For those of you that don't particularly enjoy newborn babies, high five sista....I get you. I totally thought I was a baby person, until I had a baby, and I quickly realized I'm a toddler person, or at least I hoped I was because I sure as heck wasn't a baby person and if I wasn't a toddler person OR a baby person, what in the world did I just do?! 

I feel like stating the fact that babies are hard is a total no brainer, but DUDE, babies are HARD. Even  average babies are hard, but jeez-la-weez, babies like Bram are thank-the-Lord-you-all-make-it-out-alive hard. No joke. I can now look back with 20/20 hindsight and know, times were dicey then. Initially I felt like maybe it was because I just wasn't a strong human being, that maybe everyone was more patient or more cut out for parenting than I was, but even my patience of saint mom assured me, Bram was no joke. I have an entire post labeled "ode to reflux" that is waiting to be finished, but literally folks, it's been sitting in my saved folder for over a year because reading through that post fills me with anxiety and I just can't finish it. 

Ultimately, this post isn't about reflux, or the crying, it's about the fact that this little family in that picture totally survived. And you know what?  It feels like..like..I'm coming up for air I guess. There are these little events that are happening lately that just about cause my heart to burst. They're not big milestones, they're things like going for a bike ride, all of us, at the same time....they're going to the movies together (where Bram lasted 45 minutes, which was a total success in my book!), they're having a conversation with john while the boys play together. I won't even try and kid you and tell you those moments are frequent, or that they last long, but folks, they're actually happening. 

I told john the other day that I think the ages of 4 and 2 may be a kind of sweet spot. The boys are at this age where we aren't being pulled in a million different places by extra curricular activities or homework, but we do send them to preschool for a couple hours a week. We don't have serious fights about real life issues with them and currently, the threat of taking a toy away or a time out work to deter poor behavior. We don't worry where they are at night and we often ( or at least occasionally ) get a full night sleep. They're not totally dependent on us, but they still love being with us. It's a sweet spot, I can totally feel it, and man alive, I could stay here for a good long while. 

Here's what we've been up to

Ambrose:
Lego building. I'm going to really have stretch and think of something else because every single free moment this boys spends building Lego's. All the practice is doing him some good because he can rock a Lego airplane. He's at the point where he digs out the instruction manual, and can follow the directions completely unassisted and either a) build the original item out of the box or b) improvise with pieces that closely resemble that piece and make it work. He also can use his imagination and build tons of things.

Soccer: I'm sure you'll remember that video of Ambrose in soccer back when he was 3. He was far from good and rarely actually participated. We went a different route this year and enrolled him in Smart Start soccer through the base, and it's more his speed. There is a coach, but each kid has one parent attending with them, and the coach sets up circuits that the kids and their parent go through. Ambrose (and Bram) and I go through each circuit and I work one on one with him. It's very basic skills, but he participates the entire time and is actually pink cheeked at the end.

School: AMbrose has an awesome teacher this year and he seems to really be enjoying school. This is the first year they've used the red, yellow and green card discipline system, and this kid is MOTIVATED by it. He stresses and stresses about staying on green the entire ride to school. He tells me about how nervous he is that he might go to yellow, we talk about what kind of choices help us stay on green, he discuesses things he could say to friends when they are making bad choices and he has ev.....He's a total worry wart, and the thought of getting a yellow card just about produces an anurism every gosh darn drive to school. He's a rule follower and a people pleaser.

bike riding: Ambrose continues to love bike riding. He's started venturing onto ramps, dirt roads and loves littering the neighborhood side walks with skid marks :)

Bram:


SChool: Brammy still hates school. He cries his little heart out at every drop off..well, not every drop off, he's held it together once!!  The teacher also mentioned that during most transitions in school ( ie: leaving the classroom to go to recess, walking into music class, cleaning up for snack,  any new person coming into the classroom....) he has a tough time and usually ends up crying at that time too ( so much so that he's sent to the directors office to calm down....which honest to goodness I just don't get why they send him somewhere ELSE to calm down, when they know he struggles with new situations.....). I go back and forth on whether we are making the right decision for bram.

Early Intervention: School is a perfect segway into our introduction to Early Intervention. I had been somewhat concerned about Bram's speech and both his 18 months and 24 month well baby visits and the pediatrician suggested the wait and see approach. At around 26 months I felt that he was still at the bottom end of average and just not really improving like he should. The pediatrician then referred us to Early Intervention for a speech evaluation. I hope to come back and write a post about our experience, But long story short, Bram was Bram and was very reluctant to participate.  the 2 evlauators were total rock stars and were able to get him to at least interact for a while. He was found to have a 30% speech delay, but part of that is because he quit participating, and she couldn't give him credit for the parts he wouldn't participate in. Very shortly after  he quit participating he had one of the biggest melt downs of his entire life! It was unreal, even for me. He doesn't have near as many melt downs at home, I think it happens more often when he's somewhere unfamiliar, in an unfamiliar situation or with unfamiliar people. Anywho, at that time they also let me know that he qualifies in an area called "coping." I wasn't sure what that was, put aparently it's for kids who have a hard time with transitions and in new situations (aka: spot on Bram) and they give the kids and parents tools on how to deal with that. We have Bram's first speech therapist visit (in our home to boot! Awesome!) and a devleopmental therapist will also come to help him in the coping area. I think it's going to be a fantastic thing for Bram!

Legos: Because Bram loves hanging with Ambrose, he has now developed a love for Lego's as well. He usually does a lot of watching and his fair share of destroying too, but if Ambrose is building he's usually there by his side.

Bike riding:

Every single time we pull in or out of the garage Bram is making a b-line for his bike. He keeps up pretty well with Ambrose and John and we are at the stage where we can actually all go on bike rides together. It's pretty awesome! Brammy is also getting the hang of coasting with his feet up, which is fun to watch!


Steph:

classes: I'm taking two continuing education classes online. My certification expires this summer, and to avoid going through the hassle of trying to renew an expired license, I'm taking the classes now. One of the classes has been a great experience and totally educational. The other one is driving me insane. The professor just doesn't have her act together and she assigns a ton of group projects, which in person is a bummer, but over the internet is a total nightmare. I absolutely can't wait for that class to be over. The classes are a large reason why I enrolled Bram in school. I use Mondays and Wednesday to try and get as much school works completed as I can.

1/2 marathon  training: I've signed up for another half marathon at the end of this month. Training has been so much easier without having to do all the runs with the boys. I'm positive my time will suffer without the added challenge during my training runs, but it is a completely different experience without the boys!

mom-ing: It goes without saying, that the boys are what keeps me the busiest. There's a lot of refereeing and tons of putting out Lego tantrums, but the ages 4 & 2 are pretty stinkin awesome!

John:

hunting: One of the only positives of the whole government shutdown/ the jets being grounded is  John has  had a little more free time. He's been using some of that time to hunt. He helped a friend skin and drag an elk out of the woods over the weekend, and then was able to do some dove hunting this week. The time he spends hunting is a restorative time for him. He comes home from hunting trips refreshed and ready to dive into playing with the boys.

work: that's a no brainer, but felt I had to include it or else you'd think he was unemployed.

dad-ing: As stated before, the ages of 4 & 2 are rocking are socks off. They are so much fun right now, and love playing and running around together. However, their favorite person to play with is John.  The boys ask a million times a day when daddy is coming home. Fun arrives when he walks through the door. He is a master Lego builder ( much much better than me, which Ambrose reminds me of frequently), rides bikes and plays every game they ask him to.

The fall

I'm not sure if I just notice it more because they're my kids, or if every body's kids fall all the time, but my kids fall.ALL.the.time. Most of the time, the falls result in some type of head or facial injury. You know, the bleeds heavily and highly noticeable by all (especially the judgy mcjudgerson pediatrician) type of injuries.

It had been about 2 weeks since we had had an injury (reference Bram's shiner and eye scab from last post), so we were due. Ambrose stepped up to the plate and filled our quota. While I was in the kitchen the boys were in the play room. There are times when I can hear an injury coming. The noise level rises, the rambunctious sounds intensify and there's either laughter or crying mixed in there at some point. This however, was not one of those times. Bram was playing trains at the train table and Ambrose was playing quietly on the floor of the room. However, as all silence goes, it was short lived. Ambrose erupts in screaming. I admit, I didn't rush to his side, because normally, the reason for the screaming is a) he can't get his Legos apart or b) he get can't get his lego together. Rarely is it a crisis.

 I get to Ambroses room, and the amount of blood on his face makes my heart skips a beat. I immediately grab a roll of toilette paper from the near by closet, and try and remind myself that head/face/mouth injuries bleed terribly and always look worse than they really are. This thought calms me a bit, however, Ambrose is completely unaware of the it's-not-as-bad-as-it-looks law, and he's freaking out as he sees the blood pooling in his lap and all over the carpet.  I initially think it's just his nose bleeding, but I soon realize (as he continues to scream), there is copious amounts of blood coming from his mouth as well. Long story short, there's what looks to be a crime scene on our carpet, and Ambroses face and mouth look like this...
here comes a pic of his gums, they're all nice and clean, and not bleeding.  It's not anything that most parents haven't seen, but just in case you're the squeamish type, scroll quickly.



After

The red line is a  cut ( well, not really a cut, he fell face first into the edge of a wooden toy storage box, so that line you see from incisor to incisor is where the wooden edge met his face)
After a few texts s to my dentist friend, and then visiting Ambrose's dentist the next day, we get it nice and cleaned and are sent home with further cleaning instructions. He's got a loose tooth, that may or may not fall out. The look of the healing gum is pretty gnarly. the color is best described as the color of silver skin on pork tenderloin, it's varying shades of gray-ish, white-ish and blue-ish. My dentist friend assures me that it looks "good" and is healing, but man alive, you could have fooled me.

After all was said and done, I found that the injury came from Ambrose tripping over a large airplane in his room, and face planting into our wooden toy storage unit.

Standard...a long over due bulleted catch up

*First, have you read that book I have linked on the side bar? Read it. It absolutely is weepy, but it's so much more than just that. Go grab yourself a copy.

* Ambrose has turned into a pretty rock star Lego builder recently. He thinks of them completely on his own and then builds them unassisted. He usually builds air planes, but he has many buildings, boats and cars in his collection as well.

* We had a small fair here in our tiny town, and to my surprise, it wasn't totally .....ugh...lame I guess is the word I'm looking for. There were a few fun rides, plenty of fried foods and a band stage with some fun local bands. The boys were much braver than I thought they'd be, and ended up costing me a small fortune in tickets, but it was a total blast! 

* John recently build a Murphy bed for the boys playroom. We've always planned to have the boys share a room at some point, but as you know (from my incessant complaining) that Bram hasn't been a rock star sleeper, so we've been hesitant. However, we hope we're getting to the point that sharing a bedroom will work for the boys (which may be my famous last words). I recently stumbled upon the plans for a Murphy bed and thought that it would be perfect for our house. With a little tweaking, john adjusted the plan so that the bed was horizontal rather than vertical. I also saw in the plans that the back of the bed would be a perfect spot to use chalkboard paint and use the closed Murphy bed as a chalkboard. It's worked out perfectly ( well, the chalkboard and bed part....we haven't attempted putting the boys together yet so Ambrose is sleeping on the Murphy bed for now).

* This boy has recently taken to the strider and is getting faster and faster on it. With that speed has come many many crashes. This one he took a handle bar to the eye.