The rest of the month

March has flown by and we have April just around the corner. I feel like our family has been running every which way this month and I'm looking forward to some weekend when everything slows down. I'm not sure when that will be, but I'm hopeful that it's just around the corner. 2012 maybe?

The kids are having a good month. Except for the first week and the trip to the ER, everybody has managed to stay healthy. After we returned from Florida, we took Reina to the ENT doctor to take a look at her tonsils and adenoids. Reina's a snorer (like a cute little blonde freight train) and at her annual check-up, the pediatrician mentioned that 2-yr olds shouldn't snore so she sent us to the ENT for another consultation. Reina has to do the sleep apnea test this weekend and then we'll find out if a tonsillectomy/adenodectomy is in her future. Let's just say that neither Glenn nor I relish the idea of going through that again and we don't want our sweetie pie to go through any unnecessary medical procedure but we'll just how the test results look.

When she's not snoring, Reina spends most of her time perfecting her use of the English language, particularly those words that indicate a command, displeasure or a change in behavior on our part. She's getting really good at all three. All joking aside, her speech really is getting better and she has a lot to say. Since turning four a few weeks ago, Will has matured at an amazing rate and no longer gets up in the middle night, uses tantrums as a bargaining tool or torments his sister. Okay, not really. He still does all of those things, he just tells everyone that he's four. His favorite saying is "Hey! Check this out!" or "Awesome!" Will is very curious right now. Along with the "what would happen if we didn't have arms" questions come "What's the road made out of?" "What are rocks made out of?" (answer that one for me!) ad naseum, I mean ad infinitum. I do love his curiousity and to see his brain start trying to figure out more stuff beyond what would happen if two toy cars ran into each really super hard. Will has also discovered Reina's box of dress-up clothes and he's at that delightful age where he doesn't care that he's wearing maribou trimmed mules with a kicky little sequin skirt. Reina was less concerned about what she was wearing and was more worried about the quantity. Let's see, here we've got three skirts around the neck, fairy wings and a green scarf. Fashion! So spring weather is theoretically right around the corner. Kids are healthy and if the winds not howling, they are sleeping by themselves all night. As we move into 2-yrs and 4-yrs, traveling is getting a little easier and one of my favorite parts of the day is to watch the two of them play together. Well.... until playtime dissolves into squeals, tears, recriminations and one loudly placed "Mommmmmmmmmmmmm!" Happy Spring!

A three alarm party

As I mentioned in the previous post, Will celebrated his fourth birthday last Saturday and we threw him a little party at the local firestation. There were about 18 two-, three-, four- and five-year olds running around and the good news is that we all survived and managed to have a little fun while we were there. Some very nice firefighters gave us a tour of the firehouse. One of the highlights of my morning was when we were walking through tv room, Glenn asked the fireman if they often watch "Fireman Sam." All the parents giggled. The kids were most impressed by the firetrucks and spent a lot of time scrambling all over them. Then it was cake time. Anybody remember last year's robot cake? Well this year, Aunt Vicky and I decided to attempt a fire engine cake. We found this link and thought, "how hard can it be?" You can see the answer for yourself right here:

But it was edible and some of us really enjoyed it.

Some of us demonstrated what a really healthy birthday lunch looks like (grandparents, look away).

All four of us had a great time and took long naps that afternoon. Perfect ending to a perfect day.

A letter to the birthday boy

Dear Will:

Yesterday you turned FOUR! You woke up to a pile of presents on the sofa and the whole day sped by in a whirlwind of Will-ness. You had a birthday party at the local fire station and you spent the rest of the day moving from new toy to new toy with barely a breath in between. You were pretty excited to unwrap two boxes of 'big boy' legos and I'm afraid your trusty Duplos will gather dust until Reina decides that they are interesting.

So, you are four. You asked me last night what you'll get to do now that you are four. Well, it won't be kindergarten or learner's permit time quite yet, but you are already showing us all of the fun things that come along with four. You love hypothetical questions and you bombard us with them every time we get in the car. Topics range from the mundane to the existential. "Mom, what would happen if we didn't have bones?" "What would happen if there wasn't a morning?"

You are getting really interested in words. I can't drive down the street without you asking me what something 'says'. You ask us to read books, magazines, road signs and the warning labels on medicine bottles. Just today you decided to be interested in what letters sound like. T is for Target, tiger, turkey, tomorrow, etc. You have an inquisitive mind (if it's something that you are interested in) and I can practically see the wheels turning in your brain as you work to figure something out. A few weeks ago you drew your first drawing of our family and it was fun to see us through your eyes (I was really tall and thin - thanks for that!).

Will, you are a really great big brother. You are getting more and more patient with Reina and you include her in your games a lot more lately. Seeing you two play together really makes me and your dad happy. Not that everything is rosy all the time. You two screech at each other and you are quick to tell me when Reina is messing with your stuff/bothering you/refusing your commands. But your teachers tell me that when you see each other at school, there are hugs all around (even through the fence of the playground). Don't tell her that I told you so, but Reina adores her Bobo. She mimics everything you say and giggles when you are being an imp at the dinner table. I already feel sorry for the first girl who treats you poorly, she's going to feel the wrath of Reina.

One last anecdote to wrap up your birthday weekend. On St. Patrick's Day, at dinnertime, you told us all about a leprechaun hunt that you had at school that day. You told us how the leprechaun turned all the chairs upside down, made the milk turn green but you drank it anyway and how you and your classmates set a trap for the leprechaun but all you found were chocolate coins. You confidently told us, "We didn't find the leprechaun. But if we did, I was going to shoot him and show him to my friends."

Happy birthday Wyoming boy. We love you very much!

Florida, part 2

After we serendipitously saw the space shuttle land, we headed to Playa Linda for an afternoon in the sand. The sun was shining but the wind was a little gusty and the water was a robust 63 degrees. Not surprisingly, the weather didn't keep the kids out of the water or the sand. So we hunkered down with a picnic lunch and spent a few hours on the beach. We woke up to rain the next morning so we packed everything up and headed north to New Smyrna Beach. The skies were gray and the water felt ever coooooolder than the day before, but that didn't deter either Pauley kid making it a beach day again.

I know, these are the same picture but I couldn't decide which one was better. He's such a little hambone...

Reina is at a stage where she wants to do everything that her brother is doing. If Will's laughing and yelling, Reina's laughing and yelling. If Will's banging his fork on the table, Reina bangs her fork on the highchair. If Will gets to the beach and peels off his shirt, well then Reina goes topless too. Reina-of-the-future please note that this behavior is only going to be tolerated for a little while longer. Their favorite game on the beach was to run from the waves as they came in. Maybe it was more of a survival thing because the water was cold (have I mentioned that?) but I'll have happy memories of hearing them squeal and shriek as they race up the beach.

The second favorite game was to pick up handfuls of sand and throw them. At each other. And mommy. Fun for everyone.

On Friday, we drove up to St. Augustine for a day trip. It's one of my favorite places to see when we go to Florida. It has some of the oldest history in the U.S., cute little old houses, pretty views, great shopping and ice cream shops on every corner. What's not to like?

Will slept through most of the afternoon but he was awake while we toured Fort Matanzas. He was mildly interested in the sights but he did enjoy the cannons shooting off.

On Saturday we headed home.

Some of us slept on the plane.

Some of us didn't.

We had a nice trip. The kids enjoyed spending time with their Pauley grandparents and we all had fun getting some sun for a few days. The trip wasn't without its challenges but considering we were traveling with a 2-year old and an almost 4-year old, I think it went pretty well. For my part, I sure enjoyed getting to spend all day, every day with my kids and my husband for a whole week. Next time, we'll try to order up some warmer weather and hope to avoid any predawn trips to the ER.

Our view when we woke up Sunday morning. It was a bit of a shock to our system.

Florida! Part 1....

This will probably end up being one of the longest blog posts I've ever written. But there are a lot of picture and anecdotes to share. The four of us took a spring break trip to Florida last week. We flew to Orlando and stayed with Glenn’s parents. I didn’t get a chance to blog much during the previous week because Glenn was on a work trip in D.C. and both kids took turns being sick, which put a serious damper on my free time. Will had another one of his rashes and Reina kept spiking a fever. I took Will back to the allergy/asthma doctor that we saw in January and they determined that his rash (Will's technical term for it this round is 'my bumpies') was the result of another virus and not an allergy. They recommended that I keep him home for the rest of the day and as I was driving back to work to pick up my computer to bring home, Montessori called to let me know that Reina needed to come home because of a fever. The next morning, after watching her lash out at her brother (and anyone else foolish enough to cross her path), I took Reina to the doctor and found out she had an ear infection. It was quite the auspicious start to our trip but we patched everybody up and headed to the airport.

The flight to Florida was relatively uneventful. Reina slept for a big chunk of time and Will stayed pretty entertained with all of the novelties of flying in an airplane. We did have a slight pee emergency thanks to an extended "no getting up and moving around the plane because of turbulence" but all you need to know is that Will has an iron bladder when he needs to. We landed in Orlando and had to sit on the tarmac for what felt like an eternity but was really only 20 extra minutes. The kids kept their cool although I felt like screaming my cute little head off. Will entertained everyone around us by singing “Life is a highway, I want to ride it all night long.” No, not the whole song, just that line. Over and over again. In a cute, plaintive voice but after about the fifteenth time, everyone around us had the giggles.

Grandpa Pauley picked us up and headed to DeLand. We were all pretty tired from the long day of traveling and the kids slept fairly well. Sunday, we ran errands and tried to get the kids on east coast time.

We walked around a nature preserve and saw turtles and birds and one lone alligator. Reina’s fever made a mysterious appearance and I kept a worried eye on her all day, hoping that she wasn’t coming down with another ear infection. Little did I know, I was worrying about the wrong kid. We went to bed Sunday night and woke up a few hours later to the sight of Will standing in our doorway saying that he’d had a bad dream, something about bear chasing him and he couldn’t find daddy, etc. etc. He was gasping for breath and as we started to wake up, we thought that he was just crying pretty hard. After about 30 seconds, we heard that sound that we should be all too familiar with by now and realized that Will was really struggling to breath and was having another attack of the croup. We woke up the grandparents (although a certain sleepy grandpa at first suggested that we just google the directions to the ER…sorry Grandpa Pauley, Glenn said that I could record that for posterity) and headed to the local ER. A few hours later, Will was on the mend and we were all bleary-eyed and headed back to bed.

So, that was the beginning of the trip. The next few days were uneventful disease-wise and we managed to have some fun too. We visited De Leon Springs which is one of my favorite places in central Florida. We took a boat ride and saw lots of birds, a manatee, turtles and alligators and more green things than we have in Wyoming in mid-March. After the boat ride, we had a pancake lunch at an old Sugar Mill in the park. Delicious! The water in the spring is a constant 73 degrees and that's a little chilly for the Bronco Baby Mom but luckily Dad was a willing volunteer. The kids stayed in the water until they starting to shiver and they still threw a fit about getting out. Back at the Pauley grandparents house, we took the kids swimming and they both loved it. Will’s had some experience in the water lately with swimming lessons with Aunt Vicky but Reina was new to the water. She was much more excited about it than I thought she would be, and as is always a good indicator of how much fun something is, we had to drag both kids away kicking and screaming (really) when it was time to go eat lunch.

Hey look! It's the elusive mom! I'm not in many of these pictures because cameras are not allowed when I'm wearing a bathing suit and the Florida humidity brings out the worst in my hair. Trust me on that one. On Wednesday, the four Wyoming Pauleys packed up the rental car and headed to the beach. Glenn and I both love Merritt Island and the areas around Cape Canaveral and that, combined with the fact that it was Bike Week in the Daytona area, meant that we headed further south to Titusville. A totally serendipitous moment occurred when we realized that we were getting into town right as Discovery was making her landing, meant that we all (minus Reina who was sleeping the backseat) got to see this huge spacecraft come in for landing. It gave me the chills and I’m glad we got to see it.
More on the rest of our trip on Part 2!