The King

As you know, the Butterbean is a handful. He goes from place to place taking things out and redistributing them throughout the house. He is adept at opening doors, drawers and complicated contraptions. At this point I have 4 muffin tins on my kitchen floor, and can only find one potholder. Such is life with him.

Last week our playgroup was going to the play place at Burger King. Normally, I avoid those places, because they are big old germ factories, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Cabin Fever can drive you to do some crazy things!

Let me describe the scene for you (in 600 words or fewer). This is a fancy Burger King complete with a fireplace! So you walk in the front door to BK and you are in a vestibule where straight ahead is the whole fancy BK and to the left is a glass door to the play area. We should have turned around at this point, but I've never been one to do the right thing.

{For your knowledge, I use the word vestiblule to mean the area in between two doors when you are walking into a public place. You know the "no man's land" in between the 2 doors? I call that part the vestibule. Don't know if it is correct, but that's the word I use}

For whatever reason they were replacing the tile floor on the other side of the kids area, so they had a jackhammer going. Lots of dust, noise and crazy kids. As you know, I may or may not, have already been teetering on some mental health issues. The jackhammering didn't help.

We get there and Jackson and his friends took off and began their playing. The structure there is pretty big (and dirty too!), so Miller just kind of hung around the bottom. Eventually he tried to escape, but I caught him and brought him back to the play area. I made sure I closed the door behind me so he couldn't sneak out again. I was pretty vigilant about watching him too. Until I wasn't.

See it all went like this. I saw one of the other boys, who had previously been wearing pants coming out of the play structure with no pants. I called to his mom that there was a little problem and may or may not have giggled a little bit. That giggling stopped when that little boy told me that Jackson had pulled them off of him. Jackson. My Jackson.

At that point my mental health took a tiny turn for the worse. Eventually the guilty party came out with the other boy's pants and gave an explanation that was a lot more innocent than I thought. He just wanted the boy to come with him, so he was pulling him by the pants, and inadvertently pulled the pants off the kid. Still embarrassing, but at least he didn't mean to.

Still there was a full on fit when I told him he needed a time out. It would have been nice if the jackhammer was working just then, but alas it was on a little break. So everyone was treated to his full on fit while in time out.

Whew! About the time I was calming down from all this, I looked up to see a Burger King employee walking in with my baby. Um, see I didn't even know he was missing. I was too ashamed to ask where he had been. It couldn't be good. Was he outside? Was he in the kitchen? Was he playing in a mop bucket? Only he and a BK worker know, but I DID know that I was D.O.N.E. DUN!

Jackson was still having a fit and was not being very helpful as I was trying to put his coat and shoes on, so I asked my friend Lise to watch Miller, while I manhandled that 3 and half year old. She is always such a good sport to help those of us who have more children than we can handle. I love her for this.

So after I won the wrestling match with Jackson, I was ready to move on to Miller. I looked over and Lise was standing at the glass door leading to the vestibule making sure that Miller didn't escape again. Miller was near the door, waiting for her to lapse attention, but Lise was ON IT. No child would escape on her watch.

By the time I walked the 12 or so feet over to the door to get Miller he was already outside the door in the vestibule! What? how? what? I mean he is wily, but he is not Houdini--or is he? Turns out, he is not. We looked at the door and sure enough the glass that surrounds the door was missing, so he was just walking right through. Ah-ha, he found the flaw in the system and he was working it!

I knew I needed to high tail it out of there before Child Protective Services made an appearance.

And that is how I was conquered by The King.

You can Skip this post if you want

There are times when i want to just put some thoughts down so I don't forget. This is going to be a long boring post, but I want to get it down so I don't forget.

We have had so much snow this winter. Last year we had a "snow drought" and I was terribly disappointed. I have learned the lesson of "be careful what you wish for" before, so I know this, but still...

I was thrilled and couldn't sleep for the first snow. i was giddy for the second snow. Then we got our 3rd snow on December 19th. We got a bunch, and we got to have a White Christmas. Loved it! Oh yeah, December 19th was still not Winter yet. Should have figured it out, and headed south! But I LOVE snow, so here we are. We got a few snow falls in January, then got THE BIG ONE. Just as we were digging out we got another 12 inches on top of the other. That was when we hit a wall. No more snow, please! We have tried playing in it, but it is too deep for Miller and he just heads to the street. It is just not fun trying to keep him out of the street. Can't blame him, there is still about 2 freaking feet of snow out there.
Yesterday was President's Day and Allen was home. So I had a dream about building an igloo in the driveway. So out we went into the driveway to try and build said igloo. It ended up being more of a cave with 2 entrances. I think it's Da Bomb. The boys, notsomuch. Jackson wanted real doors and lights and Miller wanted to hit the road (with no gloves, please). Thanks for playing mom, but the whole snow thing is just a ploy to get Hot Chocolate.
So we came inside and took off all the dirty, wet clothes that it took ages and such a hassle to put on. Shortly thereafter I had a break with sanity. All I can say was that it was not pretty. I then decided that it would be best if I took a nice hot shower and had some retail therapy. That made it better. Sort of.
Because you know what? There is still 2 freaking feet of snow outside. I still have to walk across an ice rink (or call it the sides of my driveway) to get to the car. All parking lots are dangerous because half the spaces are filled with plowed snow that's about 10-12 feet tall. I could go on and on.
Did I tell you that Jackson has been to preschool for 2.5 hours in February? I didn't? Well, now I have. Hallelujah for preschool tomorrow!
There are about 5 weeks left until Spring and I have a feeling this is not the last snow we will have before all is said and done. The forecast is showing flurries here and there, but I would not be surprised if we get another big one. we will see if I am of stable enough mind to handle it.
Next of my random posts will be a detailed description of our trip to the Burger King Playground. Just so you know, desperate times call for...The King!

More Snow

So we got about 12 more inches of snow(note the tone of excitement in my voice). That puts about 3 feet in our yard. That's all I can say. Tuesday we went to play with our playgroup friends and the boys had lots of fun playing with their friends. Jackson loved learning how to make a snow cave!


The best part of all this snow has been the sledding. We have learned that we NEED a bigger sled. Good luck finding that! Enjoy!

SNOWMAGEDDON

So you're wondering if we are still here, huh? We are still here and are truly amazed at the amount of snow that fell from the sky in about 28 hours. On the low end we have around 25 inches. It's hard to tell since the snow drifted with all the high winds, but I think it was more like 30 inches. Any way you slice it, we had an enormous amount of snow. Thankfully, we were able to dig out yesterday and free our driveway and cars so that we can get out should we need to. Lucky for us we live 2 blocks from City Hall, so our street is pretty clear. We can get out, but there are very few things open and most roads are not passable.

These are the pictures from-Last Wednesday before the BIG storm we got 5 inches. So this is what it looked like beforeSnowmageddon hit.






Then these are during Snowmageddon. See our trash can on the curb? Yes there is snow up to the rim. I don't know why they didn't come empty it.




This what we woke up to Sunday morning.



We had to keep them inside while Allen cleared a spot for them to walk. Thank you Allen. It was up to Allen's shoulders in some places.



There was a lot of jumping off of the snow mountain. Allen and I made a bet that it would still be there on March 1. I think I'm going to lose that one!









Yes it is up to his shoulders!








Good news! Just when you are tired of seeing snow pictures, just get over it because....Another storm is coming tomorrow and Wednesday and we are due to get ANOTHER 5-10 inches! That is all I have to say about that!

Groundhog day

Yesterday was Groundhog Day and the Groundhog saw his shadow and we all know that we are in for 6 more weeks of...THIS!
Then I read this blog post about motherhood being like Groundhog day. Although her life is a bit different from mine, it seems we are all feeling it.
Around here we have had more snow. 6 inches on Saturday. 6 inches last night. Another big storm coming this weekend. Not complaining, but it is like Groundhog Day.
We are also back on the antibiotic train. Now both boys are on them. Seems we can not get rid of the creeping crud! Poor J never complained, but in the words of the Pediatrician, "His ear looks gross."
So to cheer you up here are MORE pictures of the boys in the snow.







My memory card was full when we went for a walk and some sledding on Saturday afternoon, so you can just imagine. But boy did we have fun! The boys loved sledding. We also walked to the park and when Jackson went down the slide it was so slick with his nylon snow bibs that he landed on his bottom about 3 feet away from the slide. Hot dog! That was a blast!

How Many Times?

How many times a day do I...
-Tell Jackson to pull up his pants? He goes potty and walks around with them down until I repeat myself around 5 times.
-Chase Miller with some object he has swiped and isn't supposed to have?
-Try to get Jackson to sit down and eat a meal while sitting down?
-Take away Miller's pacifier and put it back in the crib?
-Refill sippy cups?
-Laugh at something silly Jackson has said without meaning to?
-Get hugs and or kisses from the best boys ever?
-Pick up all 921 cars and put them back in the basket?
-Pick up 56 books that Miller takes out looking for the one he wants?
-Take Miller out of somewhere he doesn't belong?
-Find random socks scattered about the house?

I feel like a broken record most of the time. I know it is typical for kids to have a mind of their own, but boy oh boy are they a dynamic duo. I just keep reminding myself that one day, I'm going to miss this!