Makeover My Monday

*This post could alternatively be titled "preserving Monday's sanity" (or Mommy's sanity), but the abbreviation has a few too many connotations/inferences that I am not willing to admit to. I much prefer the 'M' alliteration, don't you?

I work part-time outside of our home, Tuesday-Thursday. So I am home with the cherubs four days out of the week. But for some reason, it is always Mondays that get us. As previously mentioned, I've learned that if I don't have a plan the boys come up with one (see picture to left...don't be fooled into thinking that is a hug). It just seems like there are more battles, more messes, more tears, more tantrums, more TROUBLE on Mondays. Maybe it is because RRL has been home to help all weekend and we are missing him on Mondays. Maybe it is because I feel overwhelmed trying to get the house cleaned up after a busy weekend and get us all ready for the week of work/school/babysitters house. Maybe its because my kids just have the Monday blues. Whatever causes it, I'm definitely willing to take ownership for the fact that Mondays are rough (my attitude, my patience, my attention to what really matters) and I've decided to do something about it. Something small yet intentional.

I've started "Makeover my Monday" plans. Today, and for the previous two Mondays, I just tried to plan ahead for an activity or craft for the boys that is something we don't usually do or haven't done before. In the morning while we get our chores done, I talk to them about what we are going to do. This buys me a little time to get the laundry going, clean up the kitchen or tidy up around the house while they get excited. Then we do our "project" (as KJ likes to call it) when Lou goes down for a nap.

1) The first week we made our first ever (but definitely not last) couch/sheet fort to:

hide in,

read stories in

and play flashlight games in

...and as a bonus, invited a friend over to make and decorate cookies.

2) Last week we decorated pumpkins using things we could find around the house (construction paper, stickers, markers)

Note: I can neither confirm nor deny whether Cbug

colored on his face with brown marker during this

little project.

Aren't the final results just the cutest things you have ever seen? KJ declares them to be "BEEEAUTIFUL pumpkins". I concur.

3) This week we played with dried beans. We measured them, dug for buried treasure (which may or may not have been candy left from last Easter), and made roads for racecars. For the big finale we used the beans inside of paper plates as noise makers and had a dance party (see video below).

Thanks to Kendra V for the idea of digging for things in the beans. The funny thing about the "treasure dig" was that they were having so much fun, they found and re-buried the candy about 12 times before even thinking to ask if they could eat it. And we definitely covered our noise-makers in stickers. Mostly I like involving stickers in every project just to get to hear Cbug say "steeeeeeekers"

over and over. So cute!

This Monday "mission" is definitely still a work-in-process but has already been successful, I think, at giving the boys some time on Monday with my undivided attention (or at least a little less divided). Its been a learning process to figure out the timing to make it happen, what are reasonable expectations for their attention span, etc. It really hasn't been so much about the what we do, as much as just that I have a plan and am intentional about spending some Monday time with them.

I would love to hear your ideas of things to do. I would prefer it to be something we can do in our home, with few supplies, and age appropriate for a nearly 2 year-old and a 3 1/2 year-old. Share your ideas, then when we try it I'll share pictures and let everyone else know how it goes. I've also been posting a facebook status on Sundays saying what we'll be doing on Monday so if anyone else needs "a plan" you can use ours or maybe get an idea of your own. Hope that helps if there is anyone else out there needing "An Extreme Monday Makeover". Hopefully it will also hold me accountable to having a plan ahead of time.

Let me know your ideas!

ABL

A story of a boy and his blanket

Kj really likes his "blankies" but he is not nearly as attached to them as is Cbug to his. Oh my, he loves this blanket and its constant companion, blue bear. He's pretty good about limiting his time with them to sleepy time, but also requests them when he is hurt or upset.

Which is why it was nearly disasterous when we found it like this...

...an unfortunate meeting with a green highlighter. It wasn't so much that we were concerned about the appearance of the blanket. Its already looking pretty worn. The problem was more that he also drools while he sleeps so when we let him keep it during nap time he woke up with a green spot on his cheek. This clearly could not continue.

This was going to require some over-night soaking so we miraculously convinced Cbug to accept one of his sister's silky blankets- same fabric, just pink. Then we soaked it over-night to try to get all of the green dye out. It turned three sink-fulls of water completely green just rinsing it out. When Cbug woke up this morning the blanket was in the dryer. He saw it. For a short time he was fine just telling McQueen about it, but then he'd had enough.
So, even though it was still slightly damp, Daddy reunited the friends, good as new (well, as good as a well worn but clean blanket can be).

The boy and his blanket...

...and Cbugs "Linus-status" was restored.

Shew. That was close.

ABL

One by One- Cbug

Last week, I did an update on our oldest son, KJ.
Now, for a bit about Cbug.

Oh boy, oh boy. How do I even put into words how hilarious, busy, snuggley, charming, sneaky, loving and mischievous our middle child is? I guess you just have to know him to know the amazingness that is Cbug. He is a rule tester (unlike his rule-follower big brother) but is also quick to say "sorry" and give hugs. We're realized in the last couple of months that our middle son is more keenly aware that he is being disobedient than we gave him credit for. We're having to really crack down on obeying with him. It is definitelytough not to laugh sometimes, though! Here are some recent pictures and thoughts about our stinker.

I've referred to Cbug as a "bull in a china closet". He is a daredevil, goes fast and furious, is busy constantly, and thinks about the consequences LATER (if ever). On one such occasion this summer (just a week before his sister's arrival), he tried to climb up onto our bed. In the process, the bridge of his nose had an unfortunate meeting with the bed railing resulting in 3 stitches. Does this keep him from climbing now? Oh, no. I've found him on top of my desk, on the dining room table, in the bathtub (not during bathtime), in the window sill, on the bathroom counter,etc...and that is just at our house. He jumped off of diving boards this summer and we have to watch him like a HAWK around water. At the retreat this fall he just took off running toward the lake. I have no doubt that if he had gotten there first he would have been in the water.

Cbug is growing and growing and growing! Really, it is amazing to me to see how different he is just in the last few months.

These pictures were taken on his

<---FIRST

and

LAST -->

days in the nursery at church with one of his favorite people to snuggle!

If you follow us on facebook where we post a lot of pictures, you'll see lots of photos of KJ and baby sister together and lots of Cbug by himself. This is for two reasons.

1) Cbug marches to his own drum. While he loves playing with his big brother, he often prefers to just wander around by himself. For example, to the left, he was at the splash park. There were definitely other kids (and adults) there, but he was just enjoying the water, dancing, splashing and having a big time by himself.

2) Cbug gets cropped out of a lot of sibling pictures. TERRIBLE...I KNOW. But usually he puts a toy on his head, makes a funny face, dives out of the shot, etc. For example...last week I was taking pics of the kiddos on the front porch. KJ was holding Lou so it was a super fast "photo shoot". These are the faces of Cbug in that VERY short period of time. In the end, I got a really cute (cropped) picture of KJ with his sister...and these faces of Cbug.

Just like KJ, Cbug LOVES his siblings! He adores his big brother (especially when they are wrestling) and these days is quite a shadow of him. He also loves being a BIG brother. His carseat is right beside his sister's in the van and because she faces the back they can see each other. I'll often hear him get so excited and yell "SMILE" because he is pleased he made her smile at him. In the picture to the right he was reading to her and telling her the sounds the animals make. This kid has some AMAZING animal sounds. Monkey, sheep, crocodile, cow, horse, pig, rooster and cat are some of my favorites!

Cbug does everything BIG. Best of all he LAUGHS big....about everything. I love to hear his deep hearty laugh. What a JOY our Cbug is! He brings new adventures everyday and lots and lots of FUN!

And finally...a video. This video amazes me for a couple of reasons. First, because this is one of the only things C will sit still to do. There are a couple of others (loves crafts and stories) but they are few and far between. And second because this puzzle is HARD (i mean, for a toddler...i won't talk about whether it is hard for mom). The pieces are only slightly different shapes and there is nothing to designate which order they go in. The first time I saw him do this I was truly amazed. But then again, I'm the mom!! As an added bonus, you get to hear his adorable deep voice and his 3-year-old brothers not-so-adorable tantrum!

Oh how I love this little boy!!

ABL

One by One- KJ

To get back into the swing of things, I'm going to update on each kiddo, one by one. Then I'll try to get back to just blogging about the day by day. I know that thrills you to no end, especially after the glimpse at our day-to-day you got in that highly entertaining Texas Macaroni post.


So, here we go. Oldest to youngest.

KJ (3 1/2-years-old)
Here are a few of my favorite summer pics and some info on our oldest son.

Potty training, oh potty training. It may kill me.
I really don't have anything encouraging
to say on this topic.
So...moving on...

Just a funny story. One day, at the height of potty training frustration, I lost my cool and said "KJ, only animals squat in the corner to poop instead of using the potty" (I know, I regret it) to which KJ replied "Can I be a monkey?". Nice.

The rock wall.

KJ LOVES rock-climbing and several of the parks in our area have great walls at the playgrounds. Now, KJ has his very own in our backyard. He thinks it is the coolest. He also LOVED helping his Daddy put it together.

One of KJs favorite things to do is read. He has several books completely memorized and loves to read to others. Here he is reading "Go Dog Go" to his Great-Grandmomma when we visited her this summer. Other favorites include "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and "The Cat in the Hat".

Fun in the sun is right up KJ's ally. From the summer foods like popsicles and watermelon, to summer fun like the splash park and swimming pool, he LIVES for summer.

He's also quite the ham. To the right, he was eating his lunch under his towel because he was FREEZING (it was probably 100 degrees outside).






Another favorite thing about this summer was lots of time with family. Since I was off on maternity leave we got to spend an entire month with my family. A highlight was time we spent with Uncle M, who is currently living in my grandparents old house. I loved getting to watch KJ do some of the things I treasured in childhood, working in the garden and riding the tractor. SO FUN!!

KJ takes his role as Big Brother very seriously. He is a protector and informer (doesn't that sound nicer than tattle-tale). We've been working with the boys on sticking together and watching out for each other when we are in public (I need all the help I can get). I say "We stick together because we are..." and they say "TEAM LEWIS". Its funny, but also effective.






KJ started school in September. Nothing ever suited him better than going to school. He LOVES to learn. I know I am biased, but this is one sharp little cookie so I'm glad he's getting some attention and challenge at school.

Recently, he went with a friend who is in graduate school for speech path to do some mock-testing. No shocker, his verbal skills tested well above his age. When you combine his advanced verbal skills with his small stature people are always amazed at the way he talks (usually thinking he's even younger than he is). It is so funny to see their reactions to things he says.

His "smarts" are also the source for many battles at our house these days. He can rationalize ANYTHING and always has an answer. If he doesn't know the answer, he'll make one up. For example, when I cut my foot open on his matchbox car on the ground and said to him "KJ, we really need to work on putting toys back where they go" and he responded "Or, you could work on stepping over them". Thats pretty standard for how our conversations go. But we are working on being respectful, obeying on the first time, and not arguing. Sometimes its tough not to just laugh, though.

And finally, a real treat if you made it to this point.

Two videos of some of my favorite things about KJ.

The first is him singing to his sister. Love the choice of song
combined with his sweetest lullaby voice!

and the second is him telling Cbug a joke.

I LOVE that KJ loves to tell jokes, but Cbugs reaction is really

what makes this hilarious and they do it OVER AND OVER AND OVER!

Joke translation:

Q: Why does the golfer wear two pairs of pants?

A: In case he gets a hole-in-one.

That's the latest happenings with our big kid. He's a joy!

ABL

Texas Macaroni

When you haven't blogged in months and your first post back was heavier than the norm for this spot on the www, you gotta follow it up with something fun and light, right? Here's a quick post to get the ball rolling because, lets be real, this ball is gonna have to roll pretty stinkin' far if I'm ever going to get all the pictures and updates up that I would like to (doubtful). In the meantime...

Texas Macaroni, anyone?

After being cooped up in the house for sickness and then bad weather, I have been seriously losing the war at our house. I'm just going to go ahead and admit it, the kids were in charge and I was ready to wave the white flag. So when we woke up to a cold icky dday, I needed a plan and fast. My boys do much better when I have plan because if I don't have one, they will make one up. And that is never a good thing, 9 times out of 10 resulting in a full out wrestling brawl. Oh boys. SO, today in a moment of desperation, I finally found a use for the noodles shaped like the State of Texas in my pantry. Noodles which I am fairly certain have been in my pantry since at least 2002 (which would mean I actually moved them from the pantry in our apartment to the pantry in our house). I've been pretty attached to these macaronis and have been unable to either cook them or throw them away (odd since I can't even remember where they came from). But today, I sacrificed my noodles for sanity in an activity for two sets of stir-crazy little hands and it was a blast (a mess, but still fun). I took pictures of the final project because it is highly doubtful that any of these blessed pieces of paper will make it past this evening. I would post pictures of the process and the cute artists, but between keeping KJ from squirting glue everywhere and keeping Cbug from eating the uncooked pastas or glue and intermittently sweeping and then making my very own swirly project...I shockingly didn't take any pics until nap time.

And now that I have amazed even myself by writing two whole paragraphs about macaroni's in the shape of Texas glued to some construction paper...let me amaze you even MORE by showing you the photos that I absolutely DID NOT spend 20 minutes editing while all 3 children were sleeping. No, I would never waste nap time like that.

Drum roll please...

and a couple of close ups, just in case you thought I was kidding about pasta noodles actually in the shape of Texas. Would any other state EVER?

Now wasn't that fun for a wind up blog-post. More coming soon, I promise (and that promise is only slightly less crumbly than a Texas shaped macaroni).

ABL

Persepective

Its been more than 3 months. My poor neglected blog has sure gotten backseat these days to well...LIFE. I sincerely hope that someday I'll get back to writing about the hilarious things KJ says or tell stories about our "bull-in-the-china-closet" of a middle child, or maybe fill you in on our diva of a daughter. I really do want to get some of their current goings on down on cyber-paper soon so that I can remember details of these days. I know if I don't try to document some of it, I'll remember it only for what it seems at a glance...a BLUR.

Today, though, I just needed to stop and take a moment to use this blog as a spot for perspective. When things are crazy and time-consuming and just plain BUSY (like life is when the oldest of your three kids is 3) sometimes I feel like...in the words of my wise friend Tara...I WANT OFF THE CRAZY TRAIN! But as soon as those words are out of my mouth, I also feel a strong pull to live in the moment, remember details, absorb the joy of my children and remember to stop and Praise the Maker of the Universe!

Today, my heart is turning easily to PRAISE. I'm particularly praising Him as healer. He's been reminding me this week that He is the one who holds our health in his hands. As of this week, I have been blessed with 5 years (and 3 babies) of living pain-free and medication-free. WOW! When I had surgery for Crohn's disease during this week in 2004, the doctors HOPED for a few years of relief. But God has been so good to not only provide relief, but to provide COMPLETE relief even without medication and even through 3 pregnancies. I just didn't want this week to pass without taking time to thank HIM for that. CAN I GET AN AMEN?

But, it seems when the Lord is showing me something he sometimes has to emphasize it over and over to get me on my knees. As another reminder of His faithfulness in healing, He has been so good to our Cbug this week. What started as a "cold" took a scary turn on Tuesday night when Cbug woke up unable to get a breath. RRL and I heard a gasping sound from the boys room and ran to him. He was panicking and in respiratory distress. Thankfully, we still had an inhaler from when he had RSV nearly a year ago and thankfully RRL had the strength of mind to find it and administer it while I called 911. RRL was able to get him breathing better before the ambulance arrived so we took him in ourselves. A shot of steroids, some antibiotics, tamaflu and several days of rest later he's running around like his crazy self again today. As a mom, it doesn't take much to send me down the "what if" path. What if we hadn't been sitting in the living room so close to his room to hear him, what if we hadn't had the inhaler, what if, what if, what if. But praise HIM who is able to take care of all of the "what ifs" and the ones we can't even imagine. I'm so thankful that it wasn't any worse. As I lay beside him everynight this week, just watching him breathe, I've definitely been mindful of so many others who are struggling through health issues with their babies. PERSECTIVE.

I typed the above earier today. At the time, I was pretty proud of myself for the "perspective" lesson that I had gleaned from this. Oh silly pride of mine. Here are tonight's thoughts...

I spent a couple of hours visiting this afternoon with one of my dearest friends and I realized that the Lord has indeed being speaking to me this week about healing. But maybe that wasn't the only lesson. It is about so much more. He's been showing me about relinquishing control. As Mel and I talked this afternoon, it was one of those "AH HAH" moments...OH NOW I GET IT...or at least I'm beginning to. You actually want me to LET GO of EVERYTHING? Oh. EVERYTHING- right down to even the things that are most precious- the health and well-being of myself, my husband, my children. Oh. And not just in a big way, but in all the little ways, too. In every moment, every decision, ever life-stressor (and there's been a lot of them lately)...EVERYTHING. Oh. Gonna have to go ahead and admit, this is tough for me. These days I'm pretty much drowning in my own need to control things and inability to do so. So while this is a very freeing thought for me, I'm gonna have to update you later on how its going in reality!

Boy, I sure liked it earlier this afternoon when I could tie this post up with a pretty bow and move on with a warm and cozy vibe. Should have known better. In the meantime, on that topic of healing, lots of others have been on my heart for prayers for healing (maritally, physically, emotionally, spiritually). Some close to my heart, some complete strangers. I'd love to make a list of the stories, but they are not really my stories to tell. Just wanted to throw out there that its interesting to me that when I started thinking and praying about relinquishing control my first thoughts were of others. Perspective.

KJ's answers to some questions about his Mommy (facebook tag)

*Originally posted on facebook, August 2009. Just moved to blog for "safekeeping".



The "tag" instructions:
If you have little ones, ask them these questions and record their responses.



Here are the answers from Korben (age 3 years, 3 months):

What is something mommy always says to you?
KJ: "To obey."

What makes mommy happy?
KJ: "When I go pee pee in the potty."

What makes mommy sad?
KJ: "When I be in trouble. When I tell Cbug things to do."

How does your mommy make you laugh?
KJ: "Make jokes."

How old is your mommy?
KJ: "4 or maybe 5."

How tall is your mommy?
KJ: "Big."

What is her favorite thing to do?
KJ: "Eat."

What does your mommy do when you're not around?
KJ: "Cry."

What is your mommy really good at?
KJ: "Go to the zoo...and go to the park."

What does your mommy do for a job?
KJ: "Trains."

What is your mommy's favorite food?
KJ:"Pink and Purple."

What do you and your mommy do together?
KJ: "Play."

How do you know your mommy loves you?
KJ: "I want to make a garage."

Where is your mommy's favorite place to go?
KJ: "Chick Fil A."

What is your mommy's favorite thing to say?
KJ: "KJ, don't do that."