Easter 2014

Kellen caught a little stomach bug the middle of last week which wreaked some havoc on our Easter plans. Since we will see my parents in two weeks, we decided not to travel to the OBX for this holiday. Thank goodness - it was a cold, pouring rain down there for the weekend as opposed to 60's and sunny at home! Friday night we were supposed to dye eggs, make Easter crafts, and have dinner with friends. Canceled. Saturday we were going to spend time playing and eating dinner with other friends. Denied. Oh well. We were supposed to have family time on Sunday and we did do that which was nice.

Kellen's stomach bug was a weird one - he only was super sick at night and then mostly normal during the day except for being more tired and his diapers less pleasant than usual. That meant we could still spend time outside Saturday and Sunday which was lovely. We got in a nice family walk on Saturday (I was trying to take it easy since I had run 4 miles that morning for the first time in 4 weeks as I have been healing) and then did a little hike on Sunday. We did some egg hunts outside, lots of cleaning, and Bryan and I started talks on the fence/backyard path/planting project that we are hoping to complete sometime this year. We still dyed eggs, albeit solo. We read, we sang, we played. And of course we went to church and were excited to have our favorite priest say mass. I even made it to Good Friday service with a mommy friend. So despite it being much slower than expected it was a lovely Easter.

Here are some pictures of our family Easter fun.

 

Scavenge and Feed the Birds

Last Saturday was absolutely gorgeous. Who knew it would snow three days later?

Bryan had another wills for heroes events so my little loves and I hit a local playground in the morning and then spent the late afternoon and early evening hanging out with friends on the Trolley Trail doing a nature scavenger hunt and making bird feeders. We had a great time and hope our friends had fun as well.

Kellen took his scavenger hunt card seriously. He wouldn't let it go as he "climbed mountains," picked buttercups, or checked out paw prints in the mud. I love my little intense nature hunter.

Noelle, on the other hand, was mostly interested in running up and down the trail at top speeds and climbing as many gates/fences as possible with her friends. She is a constant ball of energy that clearly could benefit from returning to gymnastics or something similar. 

Kellen does also like to do everything his big sister does, even when that is heading deeper in to the woods among the thorn bushes...

When we got back to the top of the trail the kids used plastic knives to spread peanut butter over their toilet paper rolls and then rolled them in bird seed. I am pretty sure Kellen ate like a bird literally during this project :)

In comparison, Noelle carefully constructed her bird feeder and didn't ingest any bird seed.

When we finished the bird seed construction we walked on the trail a bit more with friends before heading home to see daddy and eat dinner. Here is one of our finished projects. Daddy had the job of hanging our feeders up when we arrived home. 

The birds have been big fans. Maddie has also enjoyed the seeds that have fallen to the ground so clearly both my son and my dog like peanut butter and bird seed. Oh well!

Stay Calm

Over the past year I have been wanting to make calming bottles for my little guys. Kellen has always been my little love and still spends more time hugging his family then pretty much any kid I have met but he has developed into a little fighter too. He especially likes to throw things when something doesn't go his way and needs some time being still in timeout to reduce his anger. Noelle, on the other hand, has always been a bit more independent and less lovey dovey. When she gets stressed she stomps around and pushes people away. Deep breaths and alone time are good for her when that happens. Calming bottles would certainly benefit both of them when they are upset or in trouble, but are also great just for helping them refocus, especially as they get older.

So I turned to Pinterest. I found a basic recipe for calming bottles and scheduled a day to make these cool things about 6 months ago. Enter sickness and snow, and my plans were foiled for months on end but last Thursday I finally got together to drink some wine, eat some munchies, and finally do some bottle construction. A little glitter glue, hot water, and some extra glitter and tacky glue later, I had my blue and silver (with flecks of pink) masterpiece. Here it is in all of its shaken up glory.

My calming bottle works like a snow globe and it takes about three minutes for the glitter in the bottle to settle after you shake it up. That is about perfect for a Kellen-sized time out or for my daughter to destress. If necessary, we can do a second shake up to really get things calm in our house.

I haven't super glued the top of the bottle on so Kellen hasn't gotten to use it quite yet but Noelle and I both think it is super cool and calming. Hopefully it works its magic over the coming months and years and lives up to its name!

Here is the 2014 Calming Bottle MTM Class. We sure are going to have some even keeled kids around Catonsville these days!

Mommy Daughter Date

What better than two Hopkins appointments, Kindergarten registration, multiple errands, and a hair cut for a mommy daughter day? Throw in pizza lunch and you've got yourself a real exciting adventure!

Last Tuesday I took off work to escort my daughter to JHH. We continue to love the clinic and Noelle is making some major progress, albeit slow as we knew it would be. I am so proud of my big girl for being so awesome whenever we meet with the urologist. Ellie could do without her hour with the behavioral therapist who works with us on strategies specific to her condition, but honestly sitting in a tiny room talking isn't really my forte either so I get that. Everyone continues to be nice and really helpful and we'll go back down again the end of May and early June and again before Noelle starts school in August to check on things and adjust medications and plans as needed.

Speaking of school, Kindergarten registration was our next task of the day so Noelle and I stopped off for a quick pizza and salad lunch and then headed down to our local elementary school to get all registered. Well first I spent about an hour filling out forms Monday night to get us ready for things while Bryan searched for documents that proved our residency, our identity, and our daughter's medical history.

When we arrived at the school, we quickly got our residency/identity squared away to get registered and then sat and met with 2 of the 6 Kindergarten teachers. Despite Noelle's boyfriend (her word, not mine) showing up with his mom just when we arrived, she was quite shy at the school and didn't say much to the teachers. She did however draw an absolutely lovely rainbow person for them to see and wrote her name while I filled out more forms and asked some questions. Noelle's school does gradual entry for Kindergarten so come August Bryan and I will attend her first morning with her to learn the ropes. I am excited to check it out. Finally we met with the school nurse and she seemed great. Noelle's Hopkins doctors will be filling out information for us in August to get her a 504 plan and the nurse seemed really open to everything. Hopefully it will all be as easy as it sounds and our experience will be better than some friends who have had issues with their allergy kids at other local schools.

We left the school and Noelle was excited about this fall. I continue to be skeptical as the product of almost exclusive catholic school and many horror stories from families about the state of education today, but everyone seemed great, the school seemed orderly despite the 800 K-5th graders there, and the halls seemed lively and well decorated so we'll see!

Noelle and I then journeyed to Costco, Trader Joes, and Aldi to shop for my freezer day and regular groceries and I let her pick out some special fruit and snacks and she was thrilled. Finally we headed to a local salon for her hair cut. She was excited about the angry birds cloak she got to wear and the cut!

So we had lots of together time but not any down time all day. Next time we have a mommy daughter date I hope we can have a more fun adventure.

Sunday Science Adventures

When I returned from Boston, we spent Sunday morning at church and Sunday school and then headed downtown to meet up with friends and enjoy our new science center membership. We arrived early since the center didn't open til 11 and got some free parking in Federal Hill. We then journeyed up to check out the park and the views of the city. It was beautiful and confirmed my thoughts that Baltimore is more scenic than Boston! Of course at the top of the hill Noelle told me she needed to go to potty so a race down the hill and over to the inner harbor visitor center occurred. My princess held it for that 15 minute race though - huge progress for my little lady!

We then headed in to the science center for another short but great excursion. The kids played in the dinosaur area while we waited for our friends to arrive and then we all headed up to the kids room before taking in our first show at the planetarium. The show was a Sesame street character show to introduce the kids to the moon, sun, and major stars and was super cute. Even Kellen was enthralled and watched the show in awe. I am looking forward to more science adventures with our family and friends!

Beantown

The morning of the 4th I headed out early to BWI and caught a flight to Boston for the annual science teacher conference. My colleague and I were presenting that afternoon on differentiation in elementary science classrooms and CTY also had a booth at the exhibit hall to attract summer staff members and give out information on how kids can get involved in our programs. The conference went really well. Our booth was right near SeaWorld and Geico (check out my new friends), and I generally enjoy the energy at these conferences, but I was reminded there how much I hate cities, especially northern ones, and how much I miss my little family even when only gone for one night.

Bryan and I live in the suburbs despite us both working in the city for reasons that go beyond taxes and public school quality. Cities, in my opinion, are ugly, dirty, and often smell. Boston is no exception. Boston in April, was cold and dreary. While spring is working hard to finally bloom in the MD, it still seemed a far cry from appearing in Beantown. I did have a few lovely meals - North African cuisine for dinner, some yummy ice cream for dessert, and a mashed potato flat bread steak pizza for lunch, but otherwise the outside the conference experience was uneventful. And in the conference center I had the worst thai food in existence.

Regardless of how I feel about Boston in April (or Chicago for March 2015), I do enjoy going to these conferences to see what is going on in the world of education, present, exhibit, and hang out with colleagues. And being away definitely makes you appreciate your family even more. Bryan and the kids survived without me. My expectations are pretty low when I leave - everyone should be fed, clothed, and breathing, but Bryan is able to surpass those thankfully. B is definitely the fun parent when I am away. My loves had dinner and ice cream sundaes at Friendly's Friday night (local friends it was their first outing there and I doubt they'll go back), breakfast at Cracker Barrel Saturday morning, and lunched and played with the Hollywoods at their home and Blandair Park. I was home around 10 Saturday night and Sunday we were able to do a family adventure after church and Sunday school so it was great to not lose the whole weekend.

Big Boy Bed

About two weeks ago, as nap time was wrapping up, Noelle appeared on the first floor in front of me, with two little feet echoing close behind. Uh oh.

"Noelle, did you get Kellen out of his crib?"
"No mom, he just climbed out." This was followed by something such as, "Isn't that awesome?"

No, sweetheart. That isn't awesome. That is what we call a game changer. Especially when Bryan and I made our way upstairs and watched Kellen's moves. Yes, indeed, he had climbed down on his own (you can never believe everything your 4-year old tells you). And no, it wasn't the safest of methods.

My mom has been asking me for months when I am moving Kellen out of his crib. His sister was out at 15 months. With Kellen two came and went and he was still happy as could be in his crib. And at night, he still would be. He loves that bed with a passion that is great. So when this climbing out situation occurred just short of 2.5 years I had been banking on the fact that we would need to bribe the little guy out of his crib sometime as we potty trained him, you know right before he turns 4 or so since potty training went oh so well with Noelle. This climb out threw me for a loop. But then, the next morning it was as if the event had never happened. The six times he had demonstrated this climbing out skill seemed to be erased from his mind, as Kellen stayed firmly in place the next morning waiting for mom or dad to lift him out of the crib. Awesome, I thought, we are safe from late night visits for a few more months.

Just when I thought we were safe, Kellen decided he would no longer take naps in his crib this past weekend. As soon as I put him down for his Friday nap he decided to stand up and put his leg over the side of the crib, daring me to leave the room. We played this game for a few minutes until I decided to lay him in my bed. There he curled up and went down without a problem. The next day the same thing happened at nap time. He did finally end up sleeping in his crib when his initial 1.5 hour nap in my bed wasn't sufficient (he had a cold and we learned yesterday, an ear infection also) but he had no desire to sleep in his bed. So Bryan asked Kel if he wanted a big boy bed and after our family viewing of Frozen, the Saxton family journeyed upstairs to remove the front of Kel's crib.

Our crib converts to a toddler bed and then a full-size bed but has no railing. Kellen went to bed without much of a problem (I did need to usher him back in to his bed and away from his toys once or twice but it wasn't bad) and did great until he fell out around 2 am. At that point he ran down the hall telling me he had fallen (don't worry friends, it is like 8 inches) and I scooped him up and laid with him until he fell back asleep. He did fine the rest of the night. Kellen napped fine in his big boy bed on Sunday and night two was pretty uneventful as well after the first ten minutes or so passed. Bryan and I were in the basement watching TV when I thought I heard a noise. A quick run upstairs later, I found both my children sitting on Kellen's bed and Noelle was reading him books. They were adorable but I mentioned that they could probably wait til morning for their reading fun. They both went right to bed and Kellen did great until he fell out again around 6 am.

On Monday I picked up a bedrail from a friend. Unfortunately it was for a twin bed, not a toddler bed, and it doesn't fit on his bed correctly. Since it was not a great fit, Bryan and Kellen built a wall at the edge of his bed with his stuffed animals. Kellen thought it was fabulous. When I checked on Kellen around 9:30 last night the wall was still firmly in place and Kellen was under his blankets, two sure signs that he never even got out of bed to play around after we tucked him in. Yay! And this morning he was still in bed with the animal wall in check. Success!

So three nights and two naps in, we certainly aren't through the storm but so far the big boy bed is going much better than expected.