My "stalker" has crossed the line...

Can't remember if I have mentioned it here before or not, but I have a stalker. He is short and handsome, never lets me out of his sight when I'm home, and clings like a koala bear when I hold him (which he is almost getting too big for me to do but I will keep it up as long as I can).

^{Think he has enough cinammon in his hair?}

He follows me wherever I go, and that includes the bathroom. I should be embarrassed to admit that, but I KNOW I am not alone in this regard. Now, that's not the part that "crosses the line." Sadly, I am used to that from when his big brothers used to stalk me. They sometimes still do but not as often these days. I can occassionally get a little privacy in the bathroom from them anyway.

No, what crossed the line is when the other day, he not only followed me into the bathroom, he brought his little plate of chicken nuggets with him...

I'm sorry, you mean you couldn't just keep eating at the table and wait for me to come back?? Really?!? Or, if you must follow me, you couldn't leave your plate at the table for a minute? AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!

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SOOC Saturday: Shadow cat

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Momdot Blog Party Day 2: Holiday traditions

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Brought to you by LaPlates, Let's Go Strolling, and Natity's Design.

Day #2 Question: What are some of your favorite family traditions? What are some traditions you want to begin?

We tend to keep our holidays pretty casual, but we do have a few fun traditions:

Singing Happy Birthday
On Christmas morning, before we open any presents, we sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. It's something my family did when I was growing up, and it's a way to remind ourselves of the reason for Christmas.

Polar Express & Sleigh bells
We watched the Polar Express movie for the first time in 2005, when Cuddlebug and Bearhug were 4 yrs old. They LOVED it, because it is about a train (well, as far as they're concerned it's about a train, lol). We got them the book, and now every year we watch the movie and read the book several times. It was the Polar Express that got them somewhat interested in the concept of Santa Claus this past Christmas. Cuddlebug and Bearhug were really intrigued with the sleigh bell that Santa left for the boy in the story, so on Christmas morning Santa left them each a bell on a red ribbon next to their stockings. :)

Advent Calendars
Every year my mom sends each of us an advent calendar (the kind with the little chocolates inside) before the start of December. And every year, we eat all the chocolates within the first few days, haha!

The Christmas Tree
We got a real tree for the first time in 2004, and that has turned into a yearly tradition. The first time, I underestimated how big the tree was and got one that was way too big. Somehow it looked a lot smaller out in the field than it did once we set it up in our house. We still call that one the Griswold family tree, because it reminded us of this:

A Tradition I'd like to begin:
When the boys are old enough to have the attention span for it, I'd love to start a tradition of reading the Christmas story from the Bible on Christmas Eve each year.

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Momdot Blog Party Day 1: Meet the family

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Brought to you by La Belle Toile and This and That by Randi.

Day #1 Question: Introduce us to your family and share Holiday pics of years past.


2000

Here's me and dh - this was taken at a Christmas party. I was just 7 weeks pregnant with our twins and we didn't know they were twins yet!

2001

Here's Cuddlebug and Bearhug just prior to their first Christmas. These are the only Santa pictures we have. When I took them the following year for Santa pictures, it was a disaster and we left with no pictures. By the year after that, I had figured out that taking them to wait in a long line at a crowded mall to sit on the lap of a bearded stranger was really *not* a good idea. They weren't interested in Santa anyway.

2005Little Bitty's first Christmas



2007

Here's the Christmas card I made last year to send out :).

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SEW & WW: Will they still be doing this...

... five years from now??

Here's Cuddlebug (grey shirt) and Bearhug (blue shirt) five years ago, at age 2:



And here they are just a week or so ago, at age 7 (Cuddlebug is wearing a hat):



Can you say "sensory-seekers"? LOL, this is why we aren't buying a new couch until all the boys are grown and have their own couches to climb on :).

Just for fun, since we're on the topic, here's a video I did a while back, enjoy!



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Success!!!

Bitty hasn't shown any interest in potty training for quite a while. At home, anyway. His teacher said he's doing great with it at school. I guess once he gets home he figures it's time to kick back and relax with his pullups, and he has resisted our efforts to get him on the potty at home. The few occasions he has gone on the potty, he has "missed," (he wouldn't aim or let anyone help him aim) which resulted in a big puddle on the bathroom floor.

Well, when I got home from work today, dh told me he had gone pee-pee on the potty. Not just ON the potty, but IN the potty. Woo-hoo!

But wait, there's more! Not long after that, I noticed Bitty looking like he needed to go, so I asked if he needed to go potty. He said no, but when I took his hand and led him into the bathroom he didn't complain. I helped him up, and he did it! Yay!

Then he got up, but got right back on the potty, saying "mo'" (more). So I asked if he needed to go poo-poo. He didn't answer, but he stayed there and sure enough, he did. What's funny is that he kept getting down, wiping, flushing, and then getting back up there because there was "more." LOL I lost count of how many times he got up and down, but he did all of his business in the potty and I was so impressed! It really caught me by surprise, like it just clicked.

I guess we'll see over the next few days if this was an isolated incident or the start of a new developmental milestone, I'm hoping for the latter!





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Happy Veterans Day

I just want to take a moment to say thank you to America's veterans, for defending our freedoms as well as the freedoms of those around the world. We owe you a debt of gratitude for your service.

(And thanks to Julie for creating and sharing the graphic above, it's beautiful!)





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Try This Tuesday: Dressing warm

I posted not too long ago about how Little Bitty insists on wearing a Thomas t-shirt pretty much every day. Normally not a big deal, but with the weather getting colder, it has been a challenge (unfortunately, we don't have any winter clothes with Thomas on them, but we're on the lookout for some). If I get something else out of his closet, he runs back to the closet saying, "Tommy!"

He refuses to wear a jacket, coat, or sweatshirt, and when I say "refuses," I mean it takes an all-out wrestling match on the floor to get one of these items on him, which he then promptly removes. There have been a couple of exceptions when I was able to bribe or distract him long enough to slip something warm on him but most days that doesn't work.

So today I thought of something new to try, it's so simple I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. We have several plain turtlenecks & long sleeve shirts, so I slid one of those inside his Thomas t-shirt (because I know he wouldn't let me put it on separately) and put the two on together, saying "time for your Tommy shirt!" He got annoyed because it didn't feel right, and he tried to take it off, but I quickly hurried him downstairs to get his morning sippy cup and that calmed him down enough that he forgot about the shirt. Then I gave him his book fair flyer to look at and he was a happy camper :). So now he gets to wear a Thomas shirt - without covering up the Thomas picture - and still be dressed warm. Yay! :)

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"Schmolland" Travel Guide

On Friday, I posted my take on the "travel" metaphor for parenting special needs children (warning - this post will probably make more sense if you've read that one). I promised to share some of the customs of our particular "Schmolland" (I really need a good name for it, huh?). So, here are a few:

In our native land, it is customary to run in circles around the living room after dinner / before bedtime. Actually, any time is a good time for running in circles here, but it's part of the established pre-bedtime routine.

The citizens here prefer to make limited eye contact while talking. They find the constant movement of facial expressions to be distracting, making it difficult to focus on what the person is saying. This particular trait causes some misunderstandings when dealing with people of other countries who place high importance on eye contact and mistakenly believe that not looking means not listening.

Much like popular culture influences the language and expressions in other lands, our country is heavily influenced by Thomas the Tank Engine, Yo Gabba Gabba, and Super Mario Bros, among others. The speech and behavior of certain citizens here will be much more readily understood if you are familar with those.

Some citizens prefer to kiss your hand rather than to be kissed on the cheek. Others view head-butting as a gesture of affection (thankfully that particular trend seems to be fading).

Hand flapping is a common gesture here, and it has with multiple meanings. Depending on the context, it can reflect excitement, agitation, or boredom. The more vigorous the flapping, the more intense the emotion behind it.

So, what are some of the native customs of your "Schmolland"?






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November is Prematurity Awareness Month

Did you know that 1 in 8 babies is born prematurely in the U.S.? In approximately 40% of cases, the cause of premature labor is unknown, and it can happen to anyone. I have shared our story before about Cuddlebug and Bearhug's premature birth, but I think it's worth examining what a difference it makes when a baby is able to be born full term. In contrast with his brothers being born 6 1/2 weeks early, Little Bitty was born 1 1/2 weeks late. Being pregnant with him a full 8 weeks longer felt like FOREVER in comparison, lol, but of course it was well worth every minute because I knew he was where he needed to be (and unlike the situation with CB and BH, it was safe for him to remain in the womb).

What a difference those 8 weeks made! Here is a comparison of their footprints:


I scanned them all together so they would be proportionally accurate. Every time I look at these I'm just amazed at how tiny Cuddlebug's foot was compared with Little Bitty's. The size disparity between Cuddlebug and Bearhug was due to TTTS.

In addition to their sizes, here are some other differences we experienced between our twins' premature birth and the full-term delivery of our youngest. I only have my own experience to draw from, so this may not be applicable to everyone, but I'm sharing it to highlight some of the benefits of full-term delivery and why prematurity awareness is so important.

1. Being able to hold your baby right away. We had to wait 8 days before we could hold Bearhug for the first time, and 2 days before we could hold Cuddlebug. I was able to hold Little Bitty within the first few minutes after he was born. It was an amazing experience!

2. Being able to bring your baby home with you. Cuddlebug and Bearhug spent 22 days in the NICU before we were able to bring them home. Some premature babies stay much longer, depending on how early they are born and their health. Some preemies have medical challenges ranging from mild to severe, while others just need a little extra time to grow.

3. Getting a little more sleep at night. Like most newborns, Little Bitty woke up to eat about every 3 hours when he first came home. Because of their small size, Bearhug and Cuddlebug couldn't hold enough food in their stomachs to last 3 hours and needed to eat about every 1 1/2 hours. Add to that the fact that the effort they had to put into eating often wore them out before they were full, and sometimes we didn't even make a whole hour before they needed to eat again. That's a recipe for exhaustion for mom and dad (although well worth it of course!).

4. Less susceptible to illness. Cuddlebug and Bearhug needed 6 months of RSV shots as a precaution since they'd had respiratory distress early on. We had to be very careful about taking them out and having visitors. We were cautious with Little Bitty also, but the risk level for full-term babies is generally not as high.


For more information on prematurity, visit the March of Dimes. Did you know the March of Dimes is responsible for leading the call to develop Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU)? They also funded the research that led to the use of surfactant to treat respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). They have had many other successes as well, but for those two reasons especially, I will be eternally grateful to them!

For more bloggers writing about Prematurity Awareness, visit Kristie McNealy.

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