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Noah and Caden are the only grandkids/nephews in our immediate families. Needless to say, they are often spoiled. Today is a perfect example.
My brother let me know a few days ago that there would be a package arriving soon for the boys. So sitting outside our front door when we got home was a long box. We opened it to find this:
 
It was a nice evening, with storms threatening again for tomorrow, so no time like the present to try it out! It wasn’t too difficult to set up, but there was a little bit of wrestling with the long support pole. It was worth it. It’s completely adorable, and now is swimming in our office!
Thanks Uncle Matte and Aunt Cathy-girl!!!
  
p.s. Noah just said (at 9:49 pm, while trying to settle down to sleep), “I can’t wait to tell Grandma and Grandpa-the ones in Waukesha-and Great-Grandma about my shark tent in the office!”
Well, not a marathon in the sense that it is normally used. But for a mom with young kids, 3 movies in 4 days is my version of a marathon!*
Technically, I only saw 2 movies in 4 days, but I went to the theater 3 times in 4 days, as I saw one of the movies 1.5 times. I’ll explain.
A few weeks ago, my PT girlfriends and I finally made plans that worked for everyone’s schedule, and set a date to see “Sex and the City” on Saturday night (the 31st). We were all really excited, and made dinner plans before the movie.
While we were enjoying our table-side guacamole, some margaritas, and our combo platters at Jose’s Blue Sombrero, Beth suddenly got up to go to the bathroom, and Missy went with her. The other girls and I didn’t think much of it, even though they had both gone just before dinner, since Beth often uses the bathroom (she’s really good at hydrating), and Missy is pregnant. When they returned to the table a few minutes later, Beth had a large glass of water, and was pale and sweating. Then Missy said something along the lines of, “So, we called 911 for Beth, and the paramedics should be here soon.” Wha??? Apparently, Beth wasn’t feeling well, asked Missy to go to the bathroom with her, then proceeded to pass out! Luckily, she was sitting down when she decided to lose consciousness, so there was no bodily harm. But Missy was pretty freaked out, seeing as she wasn’t getting any response from Beth with a sternal rub (we’re such PT geeks!). Beth then said that her heart was racing, and she just didn’t feel right. The (somewhat attractive) policeman showed up, followed by the paramedics, and Beth went out to the ambulance to get checked out. Before she went out there, she was asking if she should go to the hospital. “But I really want to go to the movie!” was her reason for not going. She said she was feeling much better, her vitals checked out, so we headed to the movie, all piled into the back of my mini-van!
A little over halfway through the movie, after drinking quite a bit of water, Beth headed back out of the theater, with Missy again. We made a mental note, but decided we’d give them some time before we got too worried. When they didn’t show up a few minutes later, Diana went to check on them. A minute or so later, Diana came back in and motioned for Sarah and me to come out with her. Beth was again feeling weird, so we climbed back into the van and I drove us to the ER, at the hospital where I had just spent my day working. Two and a half hours later, around 12:40 am, Beth’s husband came from Madison, (after calling some friends in the middle of the night to come over to watch their daughter) and the rest of us headed home. (It turns out it was probably a combo of some things that caused the problem-Beth is doing just fine!) Beth had apologized profusely for making us miss the end of the movie. Obviously there were more important things to take care of! One of the nurses in the ER had seen the movie and we debated finding out what happens, and I considered checking online for some spoilers, but neither option came to fruition.
Movie number 1 (or 0.5 if we’re being technical) down.
Yesterday Andy and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. Yea for us! We spent the morning at the zoo with our kids, which we try to do each anniversary, since we held our reception at the zoo. It was a beautiful day, perfect for being outside. That evening, we made plans to have Andy’s sister come over to watch the boys so we could go see the new Indiana Jones movie. I debated timing the movie so I could sneak into SATC right around the part where we had to leave. But another option presented itself. We enjoyed Indiana Jones, but not nearly as much as the first 3 movies. (What do we call it now, a quadrilogy?)
Movie number 2 (or 1.5 if we’re being technical) down.
I started trying to figure out how I’d catch the end of the movie. Option A: go see the movie with my mom. Option B: stay after Indiana Jones (as stated above) and catch the end by sneaking in. Option C (which became an option on Sunday): go see the movie with another set of girlfriends. Option C it is!
Which brings us to tonight. I just got home a little while ago from seeing the full shebang of SATC. It was fantastic! I discovered that we missed between 45 minutes to possibly almost an hour of the movie on Saturday. It was definitely worth it to go back to see the end.
Movie number 3 (or 2.5 if we’re being technical) down.
I’m really glad I didn’t stay after Indiana Jones last night-I don’t think Andy would have appreciated waiting almost an hour, on our anniversary, for me to watch the end of the movie. And I don’t think he would have watched with me!
The best part is I got the best of both worlds: I got to see the ultimate girlfriend movie with two sets of some of my best friends. All of the girls I went with to the movie have a lot of history on me. For 2 years straight, my PT girls and I pretty much spent almost every waking moment together, studying, going out, studying, practicing techniques, and studying. The girls I was with tonight are some of my oldest (in terms of how long we’ve been friends!), and dearest friends: I’ve known Sandy since we were 3 or 4 years old, Becky since first grade, and Amy since middle school. I could say I wish our lives were as glamorous as Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha, but that wouldn’t be the truth. We’ve got a pretty good thing going on here.
It’s been a pretty good few days!
*I even saw a movie 2.5 weeks ago, so I saw 4 movies in a very short span of time, adding to my marathon status!
Noah has come up with quite the list of things he plans to do in his lifetime. Here it is, in a very particular order:
1. Drive a train. “A freight train, not a passenger train. Caden will drive the passenger train. And Daddy will drive the circus train.” (I hope Andy doesn’t expect me to ride with him on the circus train-I really hate circuses!)
2. Play the big bass drum in the Badger marching band.
3. Drive the Wienermobile.
4. Be a nurse.
5. Drive a car transport truck.
6. Make jelly beans.
7. Drive a fire truck.
The list is ongoing. He’ll see something that interests him, and he’ll add it to the end of the list. He has big ambitions!
We did it. We decided it’s time to get Caden out of his crib, into a big boy bed, and into Noah’s room.
Last night, Andy’s parents brought over Andy’s old bed and set it up in Noah’s room. (Andy said something about needing to “reinforce” the bed before I put bedding on it, but I sort of disregarded that-I let Caden climb on the bed, then had the bed collapse under him! I think he was a little scared, and he wasn’t interested in getting back into that bed anytime soon! Oops!) Because the siderails don’t fit very well with the bed frame and lack of boxspring, we moved Noah into the new bed and put Caden in Noah’s old bed (I think, after the bed collapse, Caden was happy with this!). We laid down some ground rules: if one boy wakes up in the morning and sees that the other is still sleeping, DON’T WAKE HIM UP! Okay, just one rule. Then we put them to bed.
 
 
I started hearing them around 7:00 this morning, and I think they followed the rules. So far, so good!
On an unrelated note, Noah took a little spill earlier in the day and bumped his lip on the floor. Check out the fat lip:
 
Normally, my kids are great at going to bed. I don’t mean to brag. They just are really good at going to bed. Last night was a different story.
Lately, Caden had occasionally had a hard time going to sleep. One night, he was still awake at 10:30, laying in his crib, reading a book. He didn’t want his light off, so I went to bed, leaving his light on, until I woke up at 3:00 (for no reason) and went and turned his light off. He also wants to “snuggle in his chay-ay” (translation: chair) every night.
Last night, I snuggled with him in his chair, then put him into bed, while he was protesting the whole time. He kept crying in bed, but I left him there. Andy came up and snuggled with him, then put him into his crib and knelt by his bed to get him to settle down. When he left, Caden started crying for “Mommy!” That’ll get you! I went back in, snuggled with him some more, then said it was time to go to sleep. He started crying, saying he wanted to go to bed in Mommy and Daddy’s bed. We weren’t planning on going to bed anytime soon, so I said that wasn’t a choice. In the meantime, Noah had come out looking for me to snuggle with him. So I put Caden in bed with Noah. Kill two birds with one stone! They were really sweet in bed together. It took them a while to fall asleep (we’re talking 10:00 pm by now!). But they finally did. And here are the pictures:
 
I finally put Caden to bed in his own crib around 11:00. Noah’s pillow was wet from Caden’s sweaty head! They’re still asleep as I write this. I hope I didn’t start a trend… Maybe they should start sharing a room?
I used to really hate Sunday’s. I used to say I had “Sunday Affective Disorder.” The height of my condition was during grad school, when Andy was living in Appleton and I was still in Madison, and Sunday usually meant one of us driving back home.
Since I graduated (7 years ago already!), it’s gotten better. It wasn’t better overnight, but I think I’m mostly cured. I still have the occasional “Blue Sunday,” but never to the extreme it used to be.
Today was definitely one of the better days. It started out with an early departure for church to get Noah ready to sing in the Cherub Choir. This was the last for a while. But it was great! He gets lots of compliments!
After church, my mom and I headed over to Lowe’s, then Stein’s, to start the spring garden planning. I’ve un-officially designated this year “the year of the hydrangea” here, because I’ve always wanted to plant them, and this is the year I’m finally going to do it. Actually, I already did. I found some great plants at Lowe’s and put them in this afternoon. I can’t wait to see them bloom!
After doing some garden stuff, I went out for a 45 minute run. It’s so nice to be back outside running, instead of in our bedroom, where it gets quite stuffy while I’m on the treadmill. I’m really trying to get a set routine for running, but it’s tough. I’ll work it out. Especially with how good it feels to be outside!
I did some more garden stuff when I got back, watched the boys playing golf, frisbee, and digging in the sandbox, and watched Andy put in a smallish retaining wall in the backyard. Right now, there are burgers on the grill, and they smell awesome. The boys just came running in to see me, Noah asking me to cut out some ghosts for Halloween “next year, next year, next year, next year.” That’s Noah-speak for 4 years from now. Caden wants to make a Valentine for Coco (his cousin, my god-daughter). I don’t know where they come up with this stuff!
Best of all, it’s been sunny all day. It’s spring in Wisconsin (finally-it only took until May!). It’s pretty hard to beat.
I totally lost it. I screamed at my kids. I’m not kidding-sca-reamed! I just wanted to do one little errand, just one. That’s not asking too much, right? I told them that if they were good, I’d pick up some McDonald’s on the way home. Did it work? Nope.
We went to Michael’s to pick up some mat board for picture frames. We were in the store for less than 10 minutes. I asked the boys numerous times to not run. What did they do? They ran. They chased each other down one aisle and back up another. Several times. I really didn’t want to create a scene in the store, so I ignored them, bought my mat board (at least I got that done), and stormed out. No, I didn’t leave them behind! I’m not that terrible! We got in the car, and I started to scream. My throat is still sore.
I can’t believe I’m admitting this to all of you. At least there aren’t that many out there who read this! It’s not the first time that we’ve had problems like this. I need to do errands. I have to take them with me most of the time. Is it really too much to ask that they listen, follow directions, and not act like a pair of wild animals while we’re in a store? (According to Noah, if I say “please” they’ll listen to me. If I hadn’t been so pissed off when he said this, I may have laughed.) I’m still trying to figure out where I went wrong. Not just today. Any time that we’ve had this problem. What am I doing wrong? It’s so frustrating.
Noah: Why won’t you snuggle with me? Best friends always snuggle!
Caden: No thanks.
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Saj: Noah, what’s up with your nose this morning?
Noah: I’m a little snuffy.
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Caden: I’m Caden. And my big brother is Noah. I love Noah!
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