Halloween

Well, we had a pretty great Halloween I would say. Yesterday, Teah had her Halloween party at preschool. We all dressed up and they had a little "parade" around the building where the parents lined up so the kids could "trick or treat" from us. Teah and I were pirates and Carter was a crocodile. After preschool Carter took a nap and then we were off to a Halloween party thrown by a friend that I met through a playgroup. It was kid oriented and we had a good time. Today, I decided to take the kids out in their costumes in the morning and get all of the pictures that I wanted. I didn't want to have to worry about pictures while we were actually trick or treating. Sometimes I miss the fun trying to take pictures... Robert was on-call tonight so the kids and I were on our own. Trick or treating hours are really early here - 3 to 6pm. At 3 o'clock I had hung up some decorations and downloaded some Halloween songs and had them playing. Carter woke up from his nap and we had a few early trick or treaters - we don't get many anyway - maybe 30 kids total. Well, then Teah got quite lethargic and told me that she wanted to go upstairs and take a nap. She told me that her throat hurt earlier, so I figured that she might be getting sick. I took her temperature and it was 102, so I laid her down and she fell asleep at 3:30pm. It was a REALLY beautiful day - the temperature was almost 70 degrees - so I had the windows open and Carter and I decided to walk to our next door neighbors during Teah's nap (we live in townhomes, so it wasn't far :) and trick or treat a little. He caught on to the idea pretty quickly and seemed to really enjoy carrying around his pumpkin basket and going up to the houses. He took a little break to eat a sucker on the front porch - it was really relaxing and fun to spend some time with just Carter. At 5pm I woke Teah up - her fever had gone down from the Tylenol, so we went out trick or treating around the block. I really didn't want her to miss out on that. The kids had a great time - Teah said Trick or Treat and Thank You. About 3/4 of the way, Carter pooped out, but I convinced him to sit in the stroller with another sucker. Teah started pointing out "scary" things that she wanted to avoid - like a guy who was dressed in a pretty scary devil costume and some window decorations. One of the last houses we stopped at there was a sign that said "The wicked witch lives here". Perhaps this should've been a hint for me to skip this one. There were 2 little kids lined up in front of Teah and the woman came to the door dressed as a witch (green face, hat) and cackling. When Teah saw her she freaked out, dropped her basket, and ran away screaming and crying! It took me a few minutes to get her to calm down. Hopefully she will not be having any bad dreams about witches. The kids had a little candy when we got home and it was fun to relive the joys of Halloween as a child through them :) Check out the slideshow of pictures:

Flashback Friday

2007 - Carter in a bowlfull of candy!


HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

A Morning Surprise

Yesterday morning Carter woke me up as usual. I went to get him from his room and noticed that Teah's door was open. We don't shut it all the way at night, so sometimes it creeps open. I went to shut it and it didn't look like she was in her bed. I figured she was just hiding under her covers a bit, but went in to check. Sure enough, she was nowhere to be found. Normally the minute Teah's feet pitter patter across the floor it wakes me up, but I guess I was sleeping very well that night. I went downstairs and found her asleep on the couch with a blanket over her. It was 8am and I thought that she must've woken up an hour before and came downstairs. Well, when I told Robert about it when he got home from work he told me she was there asleep on the couch when he left at 6am! I guess it's time to start shutting the gate when we go to bed...

Pumpkins!

We went to Aaron & Pam's pumpking carving party tonight and had a great time. Martha gave me a great pumpkin idea (check out the pick). The kids weren't very interested in helping, but they had a great time playing. We were able to get them both to fall asleep at Aaron's and picked them up to leave around midnight. Teah didn't wake up at all - she went from house to car, car ride, then car to her bed without waking. Carter on the other hand was awake the entire drive home, but went back to bed with a bottle. So, all went well and a great evening was had by all!

Carter's obsession with dogs

Carter is pretty obsessed with dogs. He always points when we see them on walks and gets upset if they start walking in a different direction than we are. Our next door neighbor has a dog and every tme we leave the house we have to walk in that direction to see if Buddy is out on his line. Last week in Michigan he followed Skeeter (Robert's parents 15 year old Beagle) around the house. For the first few days he didn't even try to touch her - just followed her around. Even after that he was very gentle. He loved just following her around and bending over to look at her face! If she laid down he would sit down next to her (see picture!). We went over to visit the Wade's for dinner yesterday and they have a much larger black lab with a very big bark. I was carrying Carter inside and Ella barked a few times. Poor Carter just started screaming and crying. For the first hour we had to keep Ella separated and he would cry if he just saw her. Then he must've forgotten about the barking because he wanted to watch her and try to pet her again.

I wasn't expecting that!

I was getting ready in the bathroom this morning and Carter was hanging around climbing up on the stool next to the toilet. The lid was closed and he was behaving himself. I stopped watching him for a minute to put my hair up and he opened the lid and started to climb on in! One foot was all the way in the toilet before I pulled him up!

Carter Update

Carter is 16 1/2 months old now. Last week while we were in Michigan he perfected his run. He had been walking really fast, but last week he decided to work on picking up his knees and running. He picks up his knees a bit too much which makes him wobbly - it's hilarious to watch! Other things he has learned recently: perfected his eating with a spoon, sometimes can poke things with a fork and eat them, animal sounds: cow, dog, duck, snake, and monkey. When he wants something he will reach his hand for it and then open and close his palm - it's funny how he just made that "sign" up all on his own. He will also vigorously shake his head no if he doesn't want something. He has been saying the "mama" sound for awhile now, but only recently has he started to use it to actually get my attention. He's growing up so fast!

Our Trip to Michigan

Last week we packed up the family and headed to Michigan for the week. Robert's sister Marj, who is now a permanent resident of Tampa, was up for a visit, so we drove over to metro-Detroit on Saturday. It took 6 hours total and the worst part of the drive was the stop at the rest area because Teah was afraid of the bathroom and refused to go. It was busy and the toilets were loud - she doesn't like the loud flushing. Anyway, here are some of the highlights of the trip.

Good Sleep

Finally, the kids slept well while traveling. We hadn't traveled since I stopped having to rock Carter to sleep - and not having to do that this time around was GREAT! When we were in Michigan for his birthday in June I ended up walking around with him (since neither of our parents have rockers) for 15 minutes for naptime and bedtime and he weighed 22 lbs at that time! It was hell on my back. Well, this time around I just gave him his bottle, laid him down in the pack -n- play, and walked out. Voila! he fell asleep without issue. It was tight quarters at Robert's parents house (Thanks to them for having us all stay!) so we brought Teah her Thomas the Train tent and a little kids pullout foam couch that fit inside of it. She slept in there and thought it was great. Now I wish I had taken a picture of her sleeping quarters!

Cousins

We drove up to Flint to visit Robert's grandparents, his aunt and uncle, and their children - Emily and Sarah - who are Robert's cousins, but more the age of our kids. Emily is 5 and Sarah is 3 - Teah and Sarah were born only a few months apart. The kids had a great time playing together. Emily did a great job watching Carter if he would walk out of sight and playing with him! Sarah and Teah played nicely without too many problems - a big feat for 3 year olds!

The Library

Here in the Chicago burbs we live in an unincorporated section of the city, which means that we pay no city taxes. The downside is that we also cannot get a library card without paying for one. So, we haven't been to our library much. While in Troy we all took a trip to the Troy library and had a really great time. Teah checked out 15 books and read them all numerous times in the 2 days before we left. I think that her favorite was called Mommy in my Pocket.

The Corn Maze

After Marj left to drive back home, we drove to my parents house in the country. Right across the street is a field with feed corn, so this time of year the corn hasn't been harvested yet, but it's all dried out. While Carter and Daddy napped on afternoon, Teah and I went out to play in the "corn maze" (field across the street). We had a REALLY great time finding a few cobs of corn inside the husks and playing the game, "trying to get out of the corn maze" after we would walk in a little ways. Here are some pictures that I took.

It was a great trip and we all enjoyed seeing Marj as well as the rest of our family and even a few friends. We headed home the following Saturday after a BBQ. Carter had woken up early from his nap because Teah walked into the room where he was sleeping at my parents house because she wanted to get to their computer. Well, we didn't get home until 9pm - at least an hour after their bedtimes - and neither of them fell asleep on the way home. I couldn't believe it! Now I'm still trying to adjust the kids back to Central time - Teah has yet to wake up later than 6:30am since we've been back!

Flashback Friday

Well this is my first "Flashback Friday" blog. Thanks for the idea Becky - I love it! I started it on Friday, but am publishing it today, so I guess now it's a "Flashback Monday"... doesn't quite have the same ring!

3 years ago... October 2005
























2 years ago... October 2006
























1 year ago - October 2007







Currently - October 2008

The many faces of Carter

Teah's latest phase

With the kids so far I've learned that everything is a phase - the good and the bad will all pass. All summer Teah had gotten into a really good groove. She was for the most part very polite and easy going. Before that had been a "screaming phase" where she was just screaming about everything that would happen. It was strange because one day is just ended and she was so well-behaved. I was hoping this well-behaved Teah wasn't a phase, but a permanent disposition - unfortunatley that was not the case. About 3 weeks ago we entered another screaming phase. Actually it's more of a defiant phase this time around. She can't handle it at all when we tell her she can't have or do something that she wants. She wants to do everything by herself even more than before. Numerous times we've found her with the gallon of milk and a cup on the floor about to try to pour herself a drink. The funny thing about these "bad" phases is that they always seem to happen when Teah has shown a big change and started doing things that she hadn't been doing previously. You would think that she would grow and change gradually and we wouldn't really even notice, but it seems to be more that in a week she just starts doing all sorts of new things and understanding things in a different way - this is when she enters the bad phases. I can see that probably numerous things started this one rolling - she realized she could open the fridge by herself, she was finally brave enough to go down the slide at the mall, she started writing her name, and she started preschool. So, I guess she's just dealing with the new idea of her "big girl" self. Check out the picture below - it's the first time that Teah has drawn a real picture. She drew the sun all by herself, colored the sky blue, and added the grass at the bottom. I think it's some sort of developmental milestone when children start drawing pictures with a bottom (ground type of area). I drew the outline of the cow and she added the face and ears. Notice the piece of grass that Teah drew up to the cow's mouth :)

An eventful weekend

So, we rarely have many functions to attend, but this past weekend we had two in one day. Addison's 1st birthday party (Mike & Lindsey's daughter) and a BBQ thrown by one of the few other residents that has a child. Carter was getting over a bit of sickness or perhaps just a reaction from his vaccinations, so there was no way he wasn't getting a full nap that day. So, Teah and I headed out to Addison's birthday party and left Robert at home to laze while Carter napped (for 3 1/2 hours). It would've been nice for everyone to see Carter, but it was also very nice to just have Teah. She's very easy to deal with by herself, especially when we're at a house with toys, a playset in a fenced backyard, and a friend (Austin) to play with. Here's a picture of Addison in the hairbow I got her (love the little girl things! - I tried it on Carter in the store to see how it looked :) and the best one I could get of Austin and Teah. It's impossible to get them to both look at the camera. Funny that in this picture they look like they're dating LOL.

Addison's 1st Birtday!

Teah and Austin

I hated having to leave the party early, but Teah and I headed out to pick up Robert and Carter and go downtown to our next function. The kids took a little break in the van and ate some chicken nuggets on the go. The BBQ was fun and the kids were both great. Carter was obsessed with the closed bedroom door, behind which he could hear the barking dogs. Teah was hilarious - She found a little piano and decided to get everyone's attention (there were like 15 people there) and proceed to sing along to one of the songs with the attached microphone. She really isn't shy. The kids didn't get to bed until 9:30pm, but we all survived and actually had a great time!

A flu shot please?

Teah was with me yesterday when I went into our local grocery store pharmacy to get a flu shot. It told her I was going to get one and she said, "Mommy, I want a flu shot!". I told her that only grown-ups could get flu shots here and she would have to get one at her doctor's office. She seriously argued with me for 2 minutes about wanting one right now! :) I'm sure she'll change her mind once she actually gets one - I guess she doesn't remember last years...

Teah's 3rd Day!

Well, I'm sure that I won't blog about every single day of preschool, but today was a pretty good one. The kids were a little challenging getting ready to get out of the house, so I'm glad that they day turned around.

On the preschool calendar for today was "wear red". So, Teah picked out a red shirt and wore her red shoes. I dropped her off at 9am as usual and didn't even come back to peek in today. It was a beautiful fall day, so I let Carter walk most of the way home to get out some of his little energy. He stopped every 5 feet to point at something - a stick, a leaf, a plane in the sky, a bird in the sky, a dog walking by, the trees, the grass :) Then I'd tell him what each thing was and we'd talk about it (by we of course I mean me). It was really great to have time with just the two of us so I could slow down and watch him explore the world! It's amazing to watch him learn about the world.

After our walk, Carter and I went to the mall and I was finally able to use a gift certificate I had for Mother's day and buy a few gifts that needed to be bought. I even found a pair of jeans that fit me and I like rather quickly. We came back to pick up Teah a little early and I watched the end of class. They were using glue sticks to make a big construction paper Clifford the Dog - I'm guessing because today's theme was read and he's the big red dog. They had done a little worksheet that day that had three sets of two pictures. For each set they were supposed to color the item that was red. They had also been given a blank piece of paper with the instructions to draw something for mommy. The teachers had written next to all of the scribbles what the kids had said they were drawing - it was really cute. Teah had written her name for me. Teah also used scissors for the first time to cute out a little lady bug craft.

When I picked Teah up Mrs. Kassanders let me know that Teah was starting to test out the rules. She didn't want to pick up at clean-up time and had told the teachers, "I don't want to". She also hadn't flushed the toilet after going potty and when the teachers asked her to she covered her ears. I talked to Teah about the flushing the potty. She told me that her teachers had to help her and she had covered her ears - the teacher and I were both thinking she had done this to try to act like she wasn't listening to them. I told Teah that covering her ears wasn't a very nice thing to do with her teacher. Thankfully she explained that she doesn't like how loud the potty is so she was covering her ears because of the noise. Of course that made sense once I heard it because she always as to cover her ears before we flush whenever we're using a public potty. So, I ran back and talked to Mrs. Kassanders about her not liking the noise and that's why she was covering her ears! Mrs. Kassanders was just really excited that we had discussed it and figured it out together - I think she was really happy about having some parent/teacher communication going on.

It's really fun to have Teah tell me about preschool afterwards and I'm pretty surprised by how much she tells me and remembers about her day. The 3rd day was a good one!

Silly Pasta

Teah has always made up her own names for things. For example, she calls Target "the ball store", Toys R US "the S store", and string cheese is "white cheese", english muffins are "circle bread"... the list goes on and on. Well, we had farfale (bowtie) pasta for dinner yesterday. Teah decided to call them SILLY MUSTACHE PASTA! I thought it was hilarious and definitely my favorite self-named item :)

Teah's 2nd Day!

Teah had her second day of preschool yesterday. I didn't cry this time, although I was pretty emotional when I left and I did return 30 minutes later to peek on her. I needed to grocery shop, so at that point I decided to commit to being gone the rest of the time (no more peeking!) and Carter and I headed to Trader Joe's. It was nice to shop with just one child. We got back to pick Teah up a little early, so I was able to peek in on the last 10 minutes of class. The theme of the day was new friends and they were coloring a picture of two little kids hugging. The names of the 5 kids were written around the outside. After coloring they sang a song for each kid - inserting their name into the song and pointing to that person, then glued a picture (I'm assuming they'd taken and printed out earlier in the day) underneath the right name. It was really cute.

Teah seemed to have a great time for the 2nd day as well. I'm waiting for the day that she throws a tantrum about something, but maybe she only reserves those for me :) She told me about their snack and about the toys that she played with. Mrs. Kassanders told me that she was really impressed with Teah's ability to listen to the songs they were playing and memorize them quickly, keeping well with the beat. She mentioned putting her in a music class or something since she seems to really like it. Teah always tells me that she wants to play the piano when she grows up, so next year I'll have to look into lessons - when she's a little older and we have a little more disposable income!

Well, it looks like this preschool thing is going to work out and I am even starting to look forward to 2 1/2 hrs of time with Carter.

Teah's 1st Day!

** Picture: Teah in front of her cubby**


Teah had a great time at her first day of preschool! We walked over to be there by 9am. Teah hung up her coat and backpack in her cubby and went right in. We took a few pictures (check out our photo album - http://hilliard.myphotoalbum.com/ - for more) and Carter and I stayed for a few minutes. Teah immediately went in and starting playing with a pretend castle with a little boy in her class. There are 5 kids in the class right now, but last year they started out with 6 and ended with 15. Other than Teah there are two little girls and two little boys - Dima, Rodeena, Basel, and Marco.

After a few minutes I went over and told Teah that it was time for me to leave and asked her if that would be OK. She said, "yep", and kept right on playing. So, I made her give me a kiss goodbye and left (see blog below for my reactions :). I ended up peeking in (without her noticing) through the door 2 times - once Teah was playing happily with the dolls and the other she was in the girls bathroom. One of the little girls was screaming the first time I peeked in, obviously upset being away from her parents. With the second peek she seemed to have fallen asleep sitting on Mrs. Kassanders lap.

When I picked Teah up they were out playing on the playground. I talked to Mrs. Kassanders for a few minutes and she told me that Teah had done well. I guess she dawdled a little at clean up time, but not too bad. We went down and picked up her papers - she had colored a picture of a school that had a poem attached about the first day of school. There was the calendar for the month, which basically just tells you the topic for the day and a few other things. For example, Thursday's theme is "New Friends", next week Tuesday they are supposed to wear red, and the Thursday after that they're supposed to bring an apple.

After we got home I asked Teah questions about her day and she did a great job answering. She told me that they had raisins and crackers for their snack. When I asked her if she had something to drink she told me that she didn't like the orange juice so her teacher had dumped in down the drinking fountain and she had thrown the cup in the trash. I asked her if all the little kids had been happy and she told me that one little girl was sad, probably because she wanted to see her mommy. When we read the little poem attached to the picture she colored that talked a little about being scared and wanting to go home when you're at school, Teah told me that she hadn't felt that way :) Sounds like a great first day of school!

Mommy Reflections

Teah started preschool today. I can't believe I thought that I might not cry. :) She goes Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9am-11:30am and right now it's 11:06 as I'm writing this. So, I'll have to blog about how her first day went for her later in the afternoon. I, on the other hand, have spent the last two hours reflecting on my own emotions.

I made it through the actual dropping her off with just a few moments of glistening eyes, but when I walked out of the building I sat on a park bench, gave Carter some breakfast in his strolled, and cried. Once I had my moment I realized I didn't know exactly when to pick her up - was it 11:15 or 11:30? I couldn't remember. So, back to the front desk I went. Teah's preschool is in the basement of the building so I decided that I needed to peek in after chatting with Dee (working the front desk) for a few minutes - it was 9:30am. Both of the doors were closed, but they have little windows in them. I peeked in and saw Teah happily playing with a doll. There are only 5 kids in her class right now and one little girl was crying for her Mommy. Teah seemed oblivous to this :) After peeking I lost it again and had to take another "moment".

"Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."

~Elizabeth Stone

When I dropped Teah off in her room there was a maintenance man working in one of the rooms next to it and it made me uncomfortable. I thought, "Who is this guy? Do they know him?" I realized one of my first emotions of leaving Teah was fear. The quote above is exactly it - my heart was in the preschool and I wasn't there to protect it. I love the preschool and trust the teachers and know that it is as safe as it can be, but it's hard to get over the paranoia and worry. That made me think about how hard it must've been for parents (in general - I don't feign to even begin to know how those close to the situation felt) to take their children to school after Columbine - I had never really thought about it from that angle before.

I was the only one at the preschool who was dropping off my oldest child for the first time. The teachers gave all of the parents a little note with a baggie stapled to it filled with a tissue and tea bag. The note told us to go home, dry our tears, make a cup of tea, and relax. :) They could tell it was hard for me and they called and left me a message letting me know that Teah was doing fine (Carter and I were having breakfast at Burger King). The funny thing is, that's not what I'm worried about. I know she's ready and she'll do great with me not being there. I've always known that this was going to be harder on me than her. I wondered what it was then that made me so emotional and I realized it was because I always know what she's doing and now I don't. And honestly it's not a control thing. The fact is that I'm going to be missing some of her "firsts" and happy moments. I'm not going to be the person there to witness the good times and help her when she's upset. It's only 2 1/2 hours for 2 times a week and I know it's what she needs, but it's definitely part of my sadness just not being there with her.

A Big Step for Carter

Well, I finally think that at 15 months Carter is ready to fall asleep by himself for naps and bedtime. It's been a long and tiring journey, but I'm excited today that he's finally ready. If you're interested in the long and tiring journey, keep reading...

Carter didn't sleep more than 5 hours at a time until he was 9 months old - and often he would wake up every couple and need me to come into the room. At 9 months I just couldn't function any more without a good nights sleep. I wasn't being the best mom because of how tired I was, so I decided to let him cry it out. I had been rocking him to sleep up until that point, but I guessed the reason he kept waking up was because he didn't know how to put himself back to sleep. I HATED doing it, but was desperate for sleep. Thankfully the first two nights Robert slept upstairs and dealt with Carter while I slept downstairs in the basement with lots of background noise - I really can't handle the sound of my kids crying well. For almost 2 weeks we let Carter cry himself to sleep to go to bed and when waking in the night. After only 3 days he was sleeping 11 hours through the night without crying anymore, but at the end of the 2 weeks he was still crying for 10 minutes to fall asleep. For numerous reasons I started rocking him back to sleep again and thankfully his good nighttime sleep continued.

Since that point I've put him to sleep for naps and bedtime by rocking him with a bottle. I've always enjoyed rocking him to sleep for the most part, but I knew it would have to end at some point. There's a lot of "Mom pressure" out there to have your kids put themselves to sleep at a young age and to nix the bottle at 12 months, so I kept feeling like I needed to do something about the rocking and the bottle, but it worked for us and I enjoyed that time Carter and I had. I debated numerous times just trying the crying it out again, but we stuck with our routine for the most part. Once a week or so I would end up putting him down awake just because I couldn't get him to fall asleep and he would cry for 5 or 10 minutes to fall asleep. Last week I encountered one of those naps, so I did the usual and laid him down awake, fully expecting the usual crying, but it didn't come. He talked for a few minutes and then fell asleep! Right before this he had stopped screaming whenever he woke up in the mornings and from naps and instead would just babble until I came to get him. So, these two things made me decide that he was ready to put himself to sleep.

Today for naptime I kept mostly the same routine, except I gave him most of his bottle downstairs and just the last few ounces upstairs while rocking. This achieved a sleepy, but not quite asleep child. I laid him down sleepy, but awake - he sat up and I said my good night and left. No crying and he was asleep in 15 minutes! At bedtime I did the same thing and he was asleep within 5 minutes without a peep. I'm glad he's finally there and continue to think that if I just have the patience to wait until my kids are ready for something and don't give in to what everyone else tells me I should be doing, it'll work itself out.

Nobody's Perfect...

I lost my temper today with Teah and later I apologized for getting angry and yelling. It happens to the best of us with 3 year olds. When I told Teah I was sorry she said, "Don't worry Mommy, everybody makes mistakes sometimes". I know it's something she's memorized to say, but it was really cute.