Roll to the Rescue!

When we first asked Eli what he wanted to be for Halloween this year, he quickly declared, "Batman." With a smile I said, "That will be easy enough!" I started to get my costume wheels turning of how the rest of us could dress up to support the leading (bat)man. 

Just before I started going forward with costume prep, I asked Eli one last time to give me a solid answer of what he wanted to be for Halloween. "Batman...actually Bumblebee." was his answer. After one evening of looking up Transformer costumes on Google, Eli was sold on Bumblebee, and there was absolutely no talking him out of it.

For the first time in my life, I almost retreated to the complicity of a Transformer costume and resorted to buying one. But before giving into store-bought temptation, I tried my hand at creating a morphable car costume. 

Bumblebee was coming along quite nicely, so I moved on to making an attempt at Optimus. I wasn't as ambitious with Carson's look. He didn't actually transform because I didn't think Carson would be as patient with all the bulky boxes that would have been required for a morphing ensemble.

These beauties literally took me an entire month to make. And I must admit -- I am proud of the result.  
Carson totally loves his costume (and so do I)! It turned out way cuter than I expected it to.

Don't tell him that his costume doesn't actually transform. He doesn't know the difference.

Also don't tell him I bought his shirt and pants from the girls' section at D.I.

Please note those are working headlights. Bonus safety feature!

When the boys have their costumes on, they go into full character. They don't talk. They only make transforming noises and strictly, robotically call each other Optimus and Bumblebee.

Here's Eli in "vehicle mode."

Mid transform.

Aaaaaaaaand "Bot Mode."

Here's Carson trying with all his might to transform into a semi truck.

 Eli making a transformer face.

Surely all the Rescue Bot fans out there recognize who I am!!

I was Dani and Jeff was Chief Burns. Here's a visual for everyone who doesn't have a 4-year old boy.

If only white mustaches were less than $15 on Amazon, Jeff would have been rocking one.

So I spent hours. Hours. HOURS! Working on Eli's costume. Then I got a letter from his preschool telling me they were having a Halloween party where the kids were supposed to dress up. But "accessories were not allowed." Ummmm....Eli's whole costume is an "accessory."

In a last-minute attempt to give Eli something transformer related to wear to his preschool party, I spray painted a Transformer logo onto his undershirt.

As luck would have it, he loved that shirt more than his costume. In fact, he began rejecting his costume because it covered up the logo on his shirt. Blast.

We were all decked out and ready to go to my Grandma's for her annual Halloween party. Eli loved showing off his costume for all the new on-lookers.

Carson was crying when we first got there. At first I thought it was because he had just woken up from a nap, upon further realization, perhaps he was scared of his grandparents' new look.

 My cute grandparents keep the Halloween spirit alive.

Another family themed costume under our belts! Now to start thinking about what we will be next year with a new Baby Bot in the mix...

Potty Training Carson -- Attempt Two

Something really, truly miraculous happened about a month ago. Carson slept through the night. He did it once and we were like, "Woah." And then he did it for a few days consecutively and we were like, "Don't talk about this because we will jinx it." So we have kept it under tight wraps that our 2 1/2 year old had finally mastered getting a full night's rest.

And then we did what any logical human beings would do and completely sabotaged ourselves. Doh.

It all started two weeks ago when we were eating dinner with my sister and she uttered the simple question, "When are you going to try to potty train Carson again?"

The date this innocent question was asked was August 31. I gulped, cringed, and hesitantly acknowledged, "Oh crap. I told myself I'd give it another shot in September."

That was pretty much all the prompting it took before I found myself at Wal-Mart the next morning buying round two of Kool-Aid, a stockpile of carpet cleaner, and bags and bags of bribery candy. I figured we'd give it one more honest attempt and then we could officially throw in the pee-stained towels until spring.

Right out of the gate, Carson knew he didn't want to wet his underwear. Round one of potty training had at least taught him he didn't like the feeling of an accident, and he sure learned how to hold his bladder a few months ago. Luckily the bladder holding was easily remembered and he really didn't have many accidents this time around.

The trick was to load him up on sugar water (Kool-Aid) and wait for him to yell his latest catch-phrase, "I'M GOING!!" And then you have about 3.5 seconds to get him on his potty without needing the carpet cleaner.

I have learned it's all about "controlled accidents." The problem at first is they don't know how to go in the potty, so you just have to keep putting them there in hopes that they will conveniently be on the potty when their bladder finally gives out on them. You have to give them a few unintentional successes before they warm up to the potty, but it's an anxiety ridden mother's worst nightmare to spend an entire week following around a two-year old in anticipation of directing an uncontrolled bladder explosion to coincidentally occur over an acceptable point of disposal.

Day two into potty training, Carson was not a fan of going in the potty, but he was a master at holding everything in. For as long as possible. And when he would finally snap and have to relieve himself, he would just go barely enough to make himself not direly uncomfortable.

Since he proved to have a superhuman bladder, I suggested to Jeff that we just go ahead and give night training a try while we're at it. It was all supposed to be purely experimental to just SEE what would happen if we put him to bed without a diaper on.

When he woke up dry after completely sleeping through the night, I was thinking we had finally arrived at potty training paradise.

But then night two came. Night two is the night he was up about every hour. He would finally come to grips that he had to go to the bathroom after waking up screaming unconsolably. Then we (well, Jeff. He only likes Jeff at night) would take him to the bathroom and Carson would do his favorite move of barely emptying his bladder just enough to make the discomfort manageable, and then he'd go back to bed.

But of course he has to go again in another hour because he didn't really go the hour before. And when we finally broke down and put a diaper back on him, it was no use anymore! He doesn't understand that he can go in his diaper now, so even with a diaper on he wakes up to go.

And that's what we've done to ourselves. Our baby who we prayed for two years would sleep through the night finally did. For one month. We got one good month of sleep in two years before we went and ruined everything we worked so hard on. And there's no way to go back anymore. We are stuck with a bladder-conscious toddler who refuses to ever completely empty said bladder.

Pray for us.

A Day in the Life

One look at my Instagram account is all it would take to tell you I'm faaaaaaaaaairly obsessed with my children and think they are the most adorable things in the entire universe.

However, once in a blue moon, or more appropriately, once in a super moon, they turn into life-sucking pint-sized vampires who leave no survivors and spend the majority of their days in destruction mode. Now don't get me wrong, I still love the fanged, scarier alter egos of my offspring but mostly just for the stories of horror they provide for the blog.

Here's the thing, I just finished up my third blog book (yipee!), and I've done a good job at making our lives seem peachy and perfect. It left me with this fear that my now vampire-esque children may one day look back and say, "Mom! You had it so easy with us!" And that's when I'll pull this little nugget of chaos out from the records to show them just how lemonade-sippingly easy raising them was.

Our days always start promising. The boys wake with puffy eyes, shuffling into our bedroom and climbing into bed with us one by one. There's giggling. Smiles. Ahhh. "Today will be a good day." I assure myself. And then it starts.

"Pancakes." Carson says playfully.
"You want pancakes?" Jeff replies, pretending to be shocked, because this is a daily request.
"PANCAKES!!!! PANCAKES! PAAAAAAAANCAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!"
I immediately jump out of bed to prevent the rage of a hungry Carson to spiral further out of control. We race downstairs to whip up some pancakes. Eli wanders down to follow us putting in his never wavering order of Honey Bunches of Oats.

"MILK!" Eli yells at me just as I get him his cereal. This happens every day. Like he thinks I will forget his day cannot start without his morning dose of calcium. I go to grab the cups, sure to grab one blue one because Eli refuses to quench his thirst by any other color.

"IIIIIIIIIIIII get the blue one!!!!" Shouts Eli. Again, demanding his obvious requests, that no longer needs to be requested because they have become a reflex for me.
"No. IIIII get blue one!" Carson says back.

Here's the thing about Carson. He totally knows how to get under your skin. He doesn't care what color cup he has, he only says, "I get blue one!" Because he KNOWS Eli will throw a hissy fit at the mere threat of him trespassing on Eli's blue cup territory. So Carson starts this fight. Every. Morning. Starting as a kind of joke, but then he becomes converted to his blue cup cause and it becomes a quickly escalated brotherly brawl.

Eli starts crying immediately, "NOOOOOO CARSON! The blue cup is MINE!"
"Mine." Short and sweet is his reply. He has Eli right where he wants him.
"MOM! He thinks heeeeeeeeeeeee's going to get the blue cup! Waaaaah waaaaaah waaaaah!"

I top the cups off with milk and shove the blue cup over to Eli before another word can be screamed. Carson isn't even upset by the injustice that he never gets his turn with the blue cup despite his daily battle for it. Proving my theory that he battles for the sole purpose of getting a rise out of the quick-to-erupt Eli.

I present Carson with his fresh, hot pancake, and just as I turn around to get my breakfast, this dialogue plays out:
Carson, "My chair!"
Eli, "No. This is MY chair, Carson!"
Carson, with a smile, "My chair."
Eli melts into a frustrated ball of dysfunction, "He thinks that's his chair!"

Unaware of what they are even arguing about, I try to hash it out with them, only to discover they are each arguing that they are each sitting in their own chair. ????? So even sitting in their own chairs at breakfast has managed to bring them both to tears by the end of the quarrel.

It is by this point I already need my first retreat from the day -- a shower. Where I hear the bickering continue, but I pretend to be oblivious. I get out to find that someone has been hit, toys have been stolen, something is broken, and that bowl of cereal I should have cleaned up before I got in the shower is now covering the rug in my living room as Carson gleefully tells me it "rained cereal." Cool.

In an effort to get Eli motivated for the day, I'll say something like, "Eli! Get your clothes on, buddy and we can go to the park!" To which he'll shout back, "I don't WANT to go to the PARK! I don't want NOBODY to go to the PARK!" And then he'll continue to play with his makeshift Transformers while I get ready.

Carson will come in and punch me, more and more frequently the more bored he becomes. Then he'll start snatching my mascara and running off with it while unscrewing the lid. If I can finally get him interested in his own toys, I may be able to apply a little bit of the mascara he kept trying to run off with.

A quick clean of the house, and the grueling daily attempt to leave the house begins. "Eli, you need to get your clothes on so we can go, please."
"NO!" He'll snap back.
"I guess Carson and I will have to go without you."
Silence. He's learned the art of sniffing out my empty threats. So that leads me to open the garage door for theatrical effect.

"NNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I WANT TO GO! I'M COMING!!!!!" And that's the only way to get Eli dressed in the mornings.

As my overdue second moment of serenity in the day, we head out for a walk, or an errand. This is absolutely critical. If we don't leave the house, the rest of our day is like out morning only 128x the screaming and whining.

There is happiness and smiling and giggly jabbering throughout our walk. So long as Eli isn't rubbing his feet on Carson's head, or Carson isn't shoving his shoes into the wheels of the stroller. Bliss. If we stop at a park, the happiness continues. They're even pretty good at jumping back into the stroller upon request when it's time to leave. Then we head home.

Eli always does this snazzy little move as we turn down our street where he steadily stands up on his seat on the stroller -- while I'm still pushing it full force -- and then shoots himself out of his seat onto a patch of grass as if he had pushed an evacuation button that was activated by that same stretch of sidewalk each time we passed it. He runs along side me to keep up, as I up my pace to hopefully convince him next time to just stay put. It hasn't worked yet.

We get back and they always want to ride bikes out front, but we rarely have time since we usually get back just in time for lunch. I open the garage and we all race inside -- the boys for their bikes and me for the garage button so I can shut the door before they can escape. I usually win.

Screaming. Crying. Gnashing of teeth if they are unsuccessful in their race against the garage door. Then comes the biggest battle of the day. The battle of who gets to close the door to the garage. Both boys walk in and give each other a stare down, with the door leading out to the garage gaping open. Eli makes his move and with a swift kick slams the door shut. He proudly proclaims, "I closed it."

"I CLOSE ITTTT!!!!!" Screams Carson. Zero to crazy person in .3 seconds. Drops to the ground, fists shaking, voice quivering, 2-year old rage oozing from his core.
"Sorry Carson. I already closed it." Eli says matter-of-factly, perhaps in an effort to gain his revenge for the blue cup battle of breakfast.
"I-I-I-I-I-I CLOSE IT!!!!!" Carson's sobs become gaspy and inconsolable. Meanwhile, I'm staring in disbelief, still trying to understand what the heck is going on. I go down to open the door again so Carson can satisfy his door closing urges. He immediately snaps out of it, reaches for the door, slams it shut, and our day can continue.

I shlep up some bowls of cottage cheese, Ritz crackers and maybe an apple. Eli screams he doesn't want the cheese. Carson throws his apples across the kitchen. Carson, without fail, at every meal drops his fork on the ground, completely loaded with food that ricochets off his utensil upon hitting the floor, and then he whines for five minutes about needing to pick it up before he will accept the fact that he has to pick the dang thing up himself. Everybody's tired and grumpy.

We do a much needed quiet time that is sometimes quiet but usually not. Everyone's supposed to be in their room for either about an hour if they don't fall asleep, or however long until they wake up. Carson has no problem blatantly ignoring every rule of quiet time without caution. That's worthy of a whole different blog post. Eli actually enjoys his time to himself.

Then we do a show, get ready for dinner, and Jeff is thankfully home to help simmer out the rest of the earth shattering disputes.

As I suspected, this is all a lot funnier to me now that it's written out. Writing has a way of helping me squeeze out the humor in otherwise irritating situations. It also helps me to see this is probably just an ornery streak we are in that will likely pass like the previous ornery streaks we've been through.

That being said, I would like this streak to pass as quickly as possible. Our main issue is the constant bickering and whining. Is this an age-old question? How do you get it to stop???!? I have lost all tolerance for whining. My kids' main form of communication as of late is grumpy grunts or high pitched screeches. Am I doomed to a life of fighting over who gets to slam the door shut? Have you found something that works for these seemingly insignificant sibling rivalries? At least tell me I'm not the only one dealing with these kinds of outbursts.

Help. My Instagram account is sure to suffer until I get my happy kids back. :)

Where Oh Where Did My Baby Go?

Carson is two you guys. TWO! My baby is not a baby anymore! In fact, he's so big he prefers to drink out of a sippy-less cup. He's so big, he can already talk fluently in full grammatically correct sentences. He's so big, he is already beating up his older brother...

But somehow he's still not big enough to sleep through the night. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Maybe the new quilt I made him for his birthday will help...just like all my other attempts to get him to sleep through the night have helped...

Carson has pretty much the best birthday ever because it's the day after busy season! Which means everyone is excited to see Jeff again, and we're all ready to party! We left town in a quick hurry after Jeff got home from work on Tax Day, and we headed down to our favorite vacation spot -- St. George! We got into St. George super late, but the boys slept great, and slept in so we were all ready for a fun birthday celebration day.

Every morning. Without fail. Carson requests pancakes. I have had to move my pancake griddle from the bottom shelf in my pantry to a higher spot because when the griddle was in sight, Carson would rummage through the pantry to find all the supplies to make pancakes and throw them up on the counter for me to make him his favorite meal. The birthday boy got his favorite breakfast without any grumbling from me for a change on April 16th though. I really decided to spoil him on his big day, so I didn't even make him lug the griddle out for me.

We thought it would be super fun to take the boys swimming. They agreed! They were in their suits lickety split and so excited about our plans that they agreeably posed for a few pictures for me. This is what happened when I said, "Raise your hand if it's your birthday!!"

Here's my favorite Eli quote from the trip. As we were getting ready I said, "Carson! I'm so excited it's your birthday today!"

Eli then chirped in, "But why are you not excited about my birthday?"

Me, "Because it's not your birthday. Today is all about Carson!"

Eli, "But when is it going to be all about me?"

I think Eli quickly figured out that even though the day wasn't all about him, he still got to do all the fun birthday things Carson got to do. So he ended up being okay with it. We started our day at the splash pad which was a big hit.

Carson was ever so timid when we first got there. He would barely dip his toe in. He had to sit and observe for a good ten minutes before venturing away from us. Then he would go and carefully step into the water and race right back to proclaim to us, "I stepped in water!!" Then he would go back in and he had to loop back around to us every time he did something he felt was adventurous.

By the end he was fearlessly splashing, running and exploring, but it took him quite a bit of warming up.

As I was trying to strategically place myself directly in the sun's rays to achieve my only St. George goal -- get a tan -- Jeff reminded me we are total opposites. I stared at him in unbelief as he comfortably sat in his jacket and then placed a towel over his legs while announcing, "Don't want to get the cancers." or something like that. It's alright if I age myself a little bit with sun rays since Jeff is so much older than me. Then I won't have to be a widow for as long later down the road.

Eli loved the fountain part. There were some kids that put their shoes on the fountain so that when the water came up it pushed their shoes up. Eli found that to be VERY entertaining.

Even better than the flying shoes was the spitting toad if you ask Eli.

My most successful brother photo op.

When Eli started getting bored with the water, he noticed this crab made out of car parts. He had to inspect every inch of it.

Then he ran back over to the water and rinsed his bum off really funny. He kept swishing his bum around in the water. It was hilarious.

We came home for naps and then we grilled up some hot dogs for Carson's birthday dinner.

The boys loved playing with their cars out back while Jeff was cooking.

We served Carson's favorite foods. He loves hot dogs, and he is actually a pretty good vegetable eater, so we threw some broccoli into the mix.

Then it was time for presents!

Several months ago we went over to a friend's house who has three girls. Carson found a shopping cart toy there and monopolized it the entire night. He loves filling things up and pushing things around. We decided to try out the shopping cart to see if he would still like toy shopping carts if we owned one.

Success!

We also got him a basketball hoop. He's a natural.

Then we made brownies for his candles.

It was the perfect birthday for a freshly two-year old boy. And the perfect start to our St. George vacation!