Funny Boys

During a recent trip to the toilet, "the potty just didn't want to come out", as Ian often says. Then Ian said, "Hmmm. I think my potty must be on vacation still."

***

Joseph is still obsessed with apples. Whenever he sees a picture of any fruit he delightedly points out the "Appy". But you have to be careful: if Joseph says "Appy" and comes at you with a gleeful look in his eye, he is about to bite you.

***

"Way!" as in 'Go Away!' is the phrase Joseph has recently adopted from his brother. It is usually accompanied by a push. Ian seems really hurt when Joseph uses it on him.

***

When Joseph needs a snuggle or wants to be carried down the stairs, he whines desperately: "Hohg you! Hohg you!" This is his version of "Hold you!", which Ian says when wanting to be held. I like it because it sounds like "Hug you" when Joseph says it.

 ***

Today while I was sorting laundry Ian put on one of Scott's free BYU shirts and declared "I am a thermostat!" Don't worry -- it didn't make sense to me either. Ian found a shirt for Joseph and they danced to the potty watch music while I finished sorting.

***

If you even whisper something about scripture study when Joseph is in the room he will disappear and reappear with 3 sets of scriptures from our nightstand. Joseph always says "Alma" and "Mormon" when reading it. Ian likes to say "Shiblon". We gave Ian his first copy of the Book of Mormon (a red military copy) back in March and Joseph his own similar one in April and wrote their names in the cover. For some reason they both prefer the others' copy.

 ***

Joseph is learning that binkies are only for bedtime and naptime. Now when Ian whines for a binkie (does that ever stop?) Joseph will say "No bap-pime" (naptime) in response to Ian. This drives Ian bonkers. "Joseph said naptime to me mom! He said naptime!"

 ***

This week Ian says he wants to be a princess when he grows up. And "fly around and take care of my babies."

***

A month ago I made hats for the boys. I felt like a fun mom when I did it and they wore them for a whole five minutes.

***

I thought Joseph didn't like music because when I sing he bops me on the top of my head (maybe to turn me off?) and shakes his head and says "uh uh! uh uh!" But it turns out it's only Joseph's reaction to music of inferior quality, because he daily requests and sings along to "Ahh ya ya" known to the rest of us as Handel's Messiah Hallelujah Chorus. And I am sometimes allowed to sing along too.

 ***

When Ian and I listened to our Christmas CD (which has been in our CD changer since October) and "Ahhh ya ya" came on while Joseph was napping, Ian worried that Joseph would be sad he was missing it and said we should go "wake up him".

 ***

When I first started this post, Joseph was saying some fun new words, all in his own way: bed, door, open, down, up, drink (dink), juice (jew) and my very favorite, Eee-uh (Ian!). But less than a month later, he says at least a hundred more words, and with even clearer pronunciation. He will repeat anything Ian tells him to and spontaneously says new words I haven't tried to teach him. I love this stage of development! Also he will only do the sign for milk when Ian says it in Russian (mal-eh-co)

 ***

 Joseph has started stringing words together to make mini-sentences:

"Daddy. Door. Go work." (After he heard the garage door close in the morning) "Eee-uh. Bed. Seep." (When Joseph wakes up before Ian does) and "Down down. Eat eat dinner." (Go downstairs and eat dinner) When we get to the end of a book Joseph always declares "Eh End!"

***

When I carry Joseph down the stairs he always says "Heavy!"on my behalf. And when I carry both boys with one on either hip and we arrive at the bottom he says "Whoa! Made it!" I don't realize the things I repeat throughout our day together until they start saying it!

***

Ian ate his first pita and read a book about cheetahs the same day. The next day he was playing outside and requested "a cheetah with peenta butter and pepperoni and juice in it. But the juice in a cup." He asks for 'cheetahs' all the time now.

 ***

A hip-hop song came on the radio while we were in the car. Ian said, "I want to listen to music and this is not real music."

 ***

Ian's pronunciation is great but there are a few things he repeatedly says incorrectly that are so cute I can't correct him. Peanut butter = peenta butter, Puppets = puffits, Squirrel = skirwul

***

A few Sunday's ago we started the self-cleaner on the oven when there was too much burned food in the bottom. Within minutes black smoke poured out of the oven and eventually filled the whole house, even once we turned it off. We spent the morning outside while the house aired out and during that time Ian learned to go potty on a tree. He thinks it's great fun and usually will find a way to do it when we are playing outside. Joseph also frequently walks up the the tree, lifts his shirt and aims his belly button at the tree.

***

When my parents were visiting my mom asked Ian which sport he liked better: soccer or football. His response "Traditionally football but I like football sometimes and soccer..."  plus several more uses of the word "traditionally".

***

Ian recently corrected me "It's not offen mom, it's ofTen."

 ***

 Some of my favorite things Joseph says are "I found it!" (Which sounds more like 'sound it') and "I did it!" (Which is more like 'Diiid it!') and "Phoooone!" (Which sounds more like 'Sone!')

***

We've watched the adorable trailer for the movie Babies more than a few times this week. In the opening scene two toddlers in an African village are pounding stones, then quarrel and one bites another. Several other interesting things happen afterward, but both Ian and Joseph seem to be processing this incident in particular and keep talking about it.

Joseph mentions it first thing every morning when I get him up: " A Baby. A Bite. Band-aid. A Baby. A Bite. No no."

Ian told Scott about the video, "The baby bite'ed the other baby because he didn't know how to say he was feeling angry." Can you tell I have been doing the "Emotionally Intelligent Child" stuff with Ian this month?

 ***

During naptime one day I painted my toenails hot pink, whereas usually I just paint them clear... once every six months... Later that day Ian was in the middle of an "But I just need  liccorice!" fit by the pantry door when he looked down and suddenly exclaimed "Mama! I just love your pretty pink toe nails! They are so pretty." He wanted his to be red, but I explained that boys get to shave their faces and girls get to wear makeup and paint their toes. He seemed okay with this.

***

Sick of Sick

Ever since I began teaching nursery two months ago, I have been sick every single week. Most of the time I also pass it along to my kids. Nothing too exotic, just run of the mill stomach flu and colds. I totally expected this and I know eventually I will have had it all. But a few weeks ago I began to whine that I was tired of having these constant minor illnesses.

And now it appears that I was taught a lesson about appreciating the relatively good health our family usually enjoys. Here is the chronology of events that I recorded two weeks ago:

Friday night Scott's cough got bad enough that he went to our doctors' walk-in clinic on the way home from work. Turns out he has bronchitis.

Saturday morning my fever got to 104 degrees and I wanted to tear out my throat each time I swallowed, so Scott drove me to the walk-in clinic. After 3 hours of waiting (IE sleeping on the love-seat in the waiting room) I found out I have strep throat.

Monday morning my face broke out in a nasty rash. Surprise! I am allergic to penicillin. My rash gets uglier by the minute (why did it have to be on my face?!) but at least my throat feels so much better. The doctor changed the prescription, so we made our 5th trip to the pharmacy this week.

Wednesday Ian's skinned-elbow (which he got at a really germy indoor playground) got little red bumps all around it. A trip to the pediatrician confirmed what I suspected -- impetigo. Ian got an enormous shot, which they said was like the consistency of peanut butter. Two nurses came in to help hold him down, but he didn't struggle or cry. But he did walk with a stiff leg all afternoon. As we left the pediatrician I texted Scott and joked that Joseph better watch his back because everyone had been stricken with something fancy but him. But I forgot to knock on wood, so...

Thursday morning Joseph showed me an ouchie on his foot -- it was twice as big as the day before and had tiny red lines streaking away from it. Another trip to the pediatrician, and this time the diagnosis was a Staph infection. No shot for him, but he joined the rest of the family in rounds of antibiotics.

It was an insane streak of illness. Now that we are all on antibiotics, we should be impervious to further illness, right? Unless during one of our eleven (literally, eleven) trips to the Kroger pharmacy this week we picked up a virus... but definately one benefit of being sick at the same time and all taking antibiotics was the Scott and I could kiss as much as we wanted without worrying about getting the other sick. Plus, the kids were spared our illness because they were also on antibiotics. Silver lining, right?

Update: We are healthy again! No one shared illnesses (phew!) and we only have a few days left on our antibiotics (we were no longer contagious after 24 hours on antibiotics, but we stayed quarantined for almost a week) We've actually started venturing out of the house and interacting with human beings other than our doctors. Hooray!

We were pretty sleep deprived that week.

The upside is that we spent a lot of time sampling new

popsicles. 

While wearing bedhead. 

Birthday Girl

LESLEY'S BIRTHDAY IS THIS SATURDAY, MAY 8TH! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Grandma and Grandpa Ogden Visit!

We just enjoyed a fun, busy visit with my parents! I love seeing them with my boys and it is so fun to hang out with them. And I loved having family near while we celebrated Easter!

As usual, they accomplished a lot of projects while here and somehow balanced it beautifully with playing with their grand-kids and making special memories with them. (They are so productive even with little boys underfoot!) Here are a few projects I captured on camera:

Joseph enjoyed supervising my mom as she made new roman shades for our living room and nook. I love how she can make my dreams come true with a couple of yards of $3 fabric!

And my dad used his expertise to engage and dazzle the boys with homemade tents, stories and lots of walks and trips to the park --he always seemed to know when some fresh air was just what they needed.

Ian loved to be Grandpa's helper. This was taken just after Ian woke up from a nap and asked right away what Grandpa was doing and if he could help. Here they are putting coasters on the kitchen chairs.

 My parents spent an entire day pruning our trees and getting our flower beds hooked up with a drip system. What a difference! During this project the boys took part in what Ian called "Jumpin' in the Jeep!" where he and Joseph climbed all over the inside of my parents rental car. This event is still reminisced about by Ian.

 Grandma brought lots of fun new books and spent a lot of time reading them to the boys. They loved it. She also taught them about one of her favorite hobbies -- gardening. 

She and the boys started a little garden of sunflower seeds.

The boys loved pouring the dirt.

 Joseph spent a lot of time scooping the dirt....

...dumping the dirt...

...and eating the dirt...

The pot was repeatedly dumped and marched in and we thought the seeds were lost entirely. But just yesterday they suddenly sprouted!

It was so fun to do the Easter holiday with family. Here Joseph is hunting for eggs at a friends house.

Their Easter baskets were full of fun surprises and each boy seemed to know just what was intended for him. Ducks for Joseph and bunnies for Ian. PEZ dispensers were a special hit. Forget the Easter bunny -- the kids probably assume that all Easter fare arrives in Grandma and Grandpa's suitcase!

We also spent the weekend watching General Conference.

And riding bikes while wearing "Easter Ears".

Some of us also danced with underwear on our heads.

And of course we all ate a lot of chocolate and pies (5 delicious pies in a week, to be exact!)

We had so much fun with you Grandma and Grandpa! We loved having you here and we missed you the minute you drove away.  Josephs still says "Papa" and pats the guestroom door and Ian keeps telling me he wants to read "Oops!" to Grandma. We love you!