Year: 2015

This post is going to be kind of pitiful. It’s really not newsworthy at all but I just wanted to share that we finally did something about our little foyer. Not it’s fault, but it has become the play area for lack of anyplace else to put toys (besides the sideboard table, and besides the built-in cabinet, and besides the other built-in cabinet, all of which are, um, full already).

Way back when, Jason made a toy box for Ashton. And I had nothing better to do so I painted all the letters. Time has gone on, Alex was born, and we have accumulated more and more colorful small plastic playthings  (“toys”). The toybox was overflowing and looked like this.

While it was good for easy clean up in that you could just toss everything in, there were toys on the bottom that never saw the light of day. Plus it looked messy and there was no lid. Especially now that Alex is in the thick of things, I knew it was time to come up with a better and more attractive toy storage solution that was also not personalized to favor our older child.

I took to Pinterest, where someone has always thought of something good. It saves a lot of time not to have to come up with original ideas of your own. Most of the search results were of the cubby-with-basket variety, either DIY or IKEA, but some of the especially handsome wall storage units were…Pottery Barn Kids. I drooled. I got on their website. I spent way too much time going through the different arrangements for their Cameron storage system until I had it:

Nicely covers up most toys, still room for a couple cute baskets, and tons of space. The best part was that this beauty is 87 inches wide and the space I was working with? 87.5 inches wide. Llllllllike a glove. Excuse the terrible rendering, but it was to go something like this.

But with all the surrounding toys nicely inside and not visible. And if a toy could not fit? It was headed to the basement. I was not messing around; I wanted my foyer back.

So it would have fit perfectly. Totally a sign that this PBKids unit was the solution. Price tag? Expensive, but it was on “special sale” and I had a 15% off coupon.

So I said, I’m just going to go up to Pottery Barn Kids in the mall to see the pieces in person before I order it. Make sure the white is a good white and all that. But in my mind, the store visit was a formality. This puppy was as good as bought.

And then I got there. They didn’t have the exact set up but they didn’t need to. I prepared myself to be in love and get out my wallet.

Hmmm. We’ll say it was a quiet introduction. My heart did not somersault. I opened and closed the cabinet doors and slid the drawers in and out. I stepped back and stared at it and all of a sudden, it was like someone brought out the smelling salts. I blinked. This unit was well over one thousand dollars. Plus shipping, plus tax, and plus the totally BS “delivery surcharge”, which was yet another $120 (courteously knocked down to $75 due to the sale). I was really looking at more like fifteen hundred dollars after all was said and done. For this! It wasn’t even that great! Oh how I wanted to love it, to tell Jason “Oh my gosh, it’s so well made, 100% solid wood and worth the money, I promise!” but it wasn’t! I could not believe how fast reality came into focus.

I stood there staring at it for another minute and then picked myself up and walked out, irrationally angry at Pottery Barn Kids for such an outrageous, downright offensive price tag.  I was so mad. Mad because I was ready to invest in something high-quality and PBKids is supposed to deliver that, but it was so unbelievably overpriced I just wanted to yell at someone about the injustice. I guess that someone is you haha. To this day I remain loathe to order from them. You would have had to see it and touch it in person, but that storage unit was not worth it, and there was no denying it, no matter how much I thought I wanted it.

So what did I end up doing? Naturally, the answer was Ikea. Basic cube storage, a few baskets, and the added fun of using tools with Daddy while wearing his special watch. (Sorry, this video is too funny not to link. “What time is it?” “Forty-five minutes.”)

After way too long a post about this…

You know what’s funny? There is virtually no difference between the two. And the toybox is somehow still full!

We call this a fail, people. Big time. I am the official loser of the fight against toys in my house. The kitchen usually looks like this by dinnertime anyway.

In the end, I have two boys that play and leave toys and snack crumbs in their wake. Our walls are dented, our finishes are chipped, and there is pee all over the place every time Ashton goes to the bathroom. I could have shelled out $1,500 for that storage system, but these truths would have remained.

So this is my little public service announcement: Just say no to Pottery Barn Kids. Because even if you have the money, nothing can help you 😉

This is one of those posts that is really for me to look back on and reference some day. Like I’m very glad I documented last year’s allergy appointment so I could compare the two.

Basically this is the time every year where we go get Ashton’s back pricked and wait for the magic to happen. Besides looking at his reactions, we get a blood test done and then a week later, get the lab results. Last year I was so hopeful as our allergist said he looked like he was going to be a candidate for the egg challenge at the appointment, but his bloodwork said otherwise. One more year of avoiding eggs, sesame, peanuts and treenuts…so what is the latest now that he is 3.5?

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To give you an idea, the sesame number in last year’s labs was 46! So you can see how much more severe that allergy is than anything else.

The note the doctor sent me along with this was “Peanut, tree nuts, and egg were positive.  He should continue to avoid whole and uncooked forms of egg. He is a candidate for challenges to peanuts and tree nuts.  There is a moderate risk of reaction therefore these challenges need to be done under monitored settings.  Let me know if you have questions about this and if you are interested in going forward.  He would need to eat about 2 TBSP of peanut butter in these challenges.”

YAY! Last year he was not a candidate for food challenges and this year he IS! This is a very scary thought but of course we are going to do it. Allergy therapy these days is very big on exposure and in extreme cases, allergies can be controlled as long as the individual has daily intake. Seems counterintuitive but it’s true. And to that end, Dr. Lee advised me I should absolutely be giving Alex eggs and peanut butter, and that I’m doing him a disservice by not introducing these foods at an early age. I’m so conditioned to avoid that I made Jason do the eggs one morning while I was at work. I couldn’t watch! But Alex did fine besides spitting them out. No reaction – phew!

Let me tell you, Ashton knows he can’t have eggs or sesame. So when it was time for his appointment, we talked about it on the car ride there and how we were going to see if it was time for him to be able to eat these things. 

After the first round of pricks, he asked if he could eat eggs now. 
After his flu shot (which thankfully they went ahead with), he asked again.
After they took blood, he asked again. Can I eat eggs now? Like Daddy? 

I found different ways of explaining to him: no, not yet honey. As we were leaving he told one of the doctor’s assistants that he looked like a dentist. The style of his glasses, maybe? I laughed and said, “Sorry, I don’t know where that came from!” and he laughed back and said, “That’s actually not the first time a kid has told me that.” 

On the way home Ashton was still going on about the eggs and said, “After my long nap I want you to make me some eggs for brequist so I can eat them.” [pause] “And taste them. I want to eat them and taste them!”

Unfortunately he won’t get his wish this year, but I’ll definitely keep you posted on his peanut/tree nut food challenges. Hopefully we can cross those off his allergy list!

What is this a picture of?

Ok it’s not that obvious so I’ll just tell you. This is a picture of my preschooler (squinting because “It’s bright Mommy”) holding a bag of diapers. Not just any diapers, no sir. They are his leftover ones. The ones that his school sent home today because he doesn’t need them anymore because…you guessed it…at the tender age of forty three and a half, he’s

Sunday afternoon, February 22, was warm (well, “warm” at 37 degrees) and sunny. All week everyone had agreed on the forecasted temperature but that it was supposed to rain all day. We, like many others, had been preparing for the certainty of a basement flood due to all the melting snow. I took the boys to Home Depot last week and we bought a sump pump and downspout extenders, so Jason could get the water flowing out and away from the foundation. He then spent Sunday morning getting the last of the snow off the roof and chipping ice out of the gutters while I got as much off the basement floor as possible.

Then, around 2 pm, the sun came out. I can’t even begin to tell you. Along with the pleasant temperature, it was just so, so, completely wonderful. We could go outside! And play! It was a much needed end to school vacation week aka the longest week ever in the history of my life. So we suited everyone up, packed up the snowtube and sled, and drove over to Beaver Brook. We had a ball!

There are a lot of smiles in those pictures. When we finally got home we enjoyed some good old après-sled time. Jason whipped up some Moscow Mules (notice my new copper mugs!) and he and Ashton relaxed in front of the fire.

It was a great winter day (FINALLY!)! Oh and this is a funny video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsX__Bn0xZs

Every now and then I like to pepper these posts in. You know, the latest and greatest from the mouth of my 3 year old or certain behaviors that are on trend. A lot of these are cute and/or funny because of the sound of his voice or the way he pronunciates. Given this blog doesn’t have audio, you might not fully appreciate, but I do and definitely want these kinds of things to look back on when he is no longer little.

I think perhaps our biggest hurdle lately is food. He will happily request “brequist”, but never, and I mean never, wants to eat “wunch” or dinner. He only wants “tacks” (snacks). ALWAYS snacks. But the problem is, Ashton hates to be specific. He’ll say he wants “something delicious”, “something crunchy” or “something tasty” and I’ll bend over backwards making suggestions, listing every stupid thing in our cabinets, and he will just say “No, I want a TACK”. It’s like, crackers and apples and cheese sticks ARE snacks!! “Snack” is a general term!! AHHHH!!!

Oh, and he won’t eat a grilled cheese. But he WILL eat toast with melted cheese on it. You have to market it correctly. It makes me impossibly crazy so I’ll tell you a story that pretty much sums up what it is like to have to feed a preschooler every day.

So, we’ve had a lot of snow days and for whatever reason, sick of the usual routine, we decided to have pancakes on Sunday morning. I think Ashton’s had a pancake maybe twice, ever, and both times at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. So this was a very big deal, he pulled the stool over to watch it cook on the stove, he was super excited and wouldn’t stop talking about his special brequist and then…can you believe it? That pancake, well, it turned out to be round.  This shape was so offensive, so completely reprehensible, that Ashton got off the stool, walked over to the stairs, sat down and cried. Honestly, he wailed his head off for 10 minutes. We tried to get through to him but it’s hard to talk when you are choking on snot and tears. All we knew was that he could not tell us what he DID want, just that he didn’t want his pancake to be round. We left him on the stairs to howl.

After several minutes, while Ashton was still carrying on in the other room, Jason went ahead and whipped up a dinosaur.

I guess it could also be a lobster, depending on your point of view.

With grand ceremony, we presented this new pancake with oooo’s and ahhhh’s and wasn’t it going to be fun to eat this one? Look it’s a dinosaur! ROAAAAAAR!!

Gradually, Ashton’s tears dried up as he admired his dinosaur-lobster. He said dinosaurs have sharp teeth (like this fact made the pancake more legit). He carried the plate around for awhile. He showed it to Alex. I kept waiting for him to take a bite but he would not touch it. So precious was this new pancake that you know what he did? He went ahead and ate the round one. The round one!! The one that had caused so much pain and suffering 30 minutes earlier. It was just so…typical.

So what’s the lesson here. Basically, 3 year olds are landmines and when in doubt, make them a dinosaur-lobster pancake and all their other problems will pale in comparison to its magnificence.

How about some other favorites lately.

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I reached into the backseat of the car and handed Ashton his sunglasses on a particularly bright day. He put them on and said, “Oooo! I see houses! And trees!”

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Me: Wow, we did a lot today. You had a big day!
Ashton: No, Mommy, I didn’t. I had a little day.

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My daddy’s Jason. I like Jason. He knows ev-we-fing (everything).

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Two favorite questions, asked almost constantly:
“You like it?”
“You happy? Are you happy Mommy?”

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“I’m Batman!” (swings stick)
“You are?”
“Yeah, I’mma gonna bat you!”

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At the rest stop on the highway: “Is this the pee store?”

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“I need to eat brequist. So I have ENGERY for school.”

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“What shape is a shadow?”

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I showed him how to put ice cream on a cookie and held it out so he could take a bite. All he could say was, “Whoaaaa”. I agree, it’s a lifechanging concept. 

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While we are on cookies, we had a snowflake sugar cookie and Ashton held it up and said “This is from Frozen! She sings, ‘Let it goooo!’ And then this comes!” (He didn’t know the word for snowflake 😉 )

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Whenever we are all are on the couch, hanging out in our bed, or generally close together, Ashton wedges himself between me, Jason and Alex and sings, “Fam-leeeeee!”

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Cinnamon is ciminin, gingerbread man is gentleman, and in general “l’s” are “w’s”. He calls going to sleep at night his long nap.
“After my wong nap, I’m gonna wake up and have a PANCAKE!”

Pancakes are definitely his new thing now after the dinosaur-lobster. Poor Jason, trying to make new animals every morning haha. I should see about some molds or something. Anyway, there is always a round one with his regular breakfast on one plate, and the prized special pancake (today, a llama?) on a separate plate.

I’d just like everyone to know, we have officially reached the point of ridiculousness when it comes to the winter of 2015. I’m not sure how many feet of snow we’ve gotten. A million? It’s hard to measure when you are BURIED UNDERNEATH IT. Here’s the view out our front window:

Let’s get back to the rosier side of life, shall we? Happy Valentines Day! You know what actually didn’t make me the happiest though? Finding out on Wednesday that I needed to send twenty seven valentines in with Ashton on Friday for his classmates. I can’t believe it, but I pulled it off again folks. I’m not sure if you remember last year’s feline holograms, but I overcame that hurdle with stuff I had on hand and this year was even better!

Let’s begin with the movie Despicable Me. Actually, let’s begin with the fact that our house is very far from being “screen-free”, even though I vowed we would be for a long time. Bahahaha. The minute Ashton turned 2 and Mickey kept him still and quiet for 24 minutes, the TV became the easiest crutch going. It was very innocent for awhile, basically Mickey-only and simple shows like Curious George. Nothing too fast or loud. BOY has that changed, and now I can only get the same desired result that Mickey once gave by putting on novel movies or programs that Ashton hasn’t seen yet. Even Frozen – Ashton’s seen it and therefore, pays it no attention when I press play.

So what’s a mom to do? Delve into my free Streampix Comcast stuff, that’s what. Under “Kids”, “Movies”, and there was “Despicable Me 2”. I have no idea what this movie is about, but Ashton loves it, calls it “Two Yellow Guys” (referring to the minions) and has watched it several times (in part). WIN.

As luck would have it, the fruit snacks Jason has been buying at BJ’s are ALSO Despicable Me themed (purchased before Ashton’s love affair with the actual movie), and we had a giant unopened box in the basement. Do you smell a Valentine coming on?

I quickly googled “Despicable Me Valentine printable” or something like that, found a template, added some text boxes for the kids’ names and voila!!

the…the…oh wait, we haven’t gone anywhere. The past three weeks have been pretty much record-breaking. Let’s take a look at our calendar of horrors.

Ashton took his first trip to the dentist today! He was totally ready to give up mid-procedure but then pulled himself together and walked out with his head held high.

I know that they are pediatric dentists so they are totally used to the hesitant, scared little kids that come in, but the whole place was amazing. Ashton was so calm, I couldn’t believe it. He sat in the big chair and they gave him this stuffed dinosaur with shockingly life-like human teeth, very strange creature this was, but Ashton took to it instantly and got busy brushing while the dentist counted his teeth. He has 20.

He did not want to take his coat off and he didn’t want me to take mine off either. Like we weren’t staying or something.

When she asked him “Do you brush your teeth in the morning or at night?” he told her “I brush my teeth when it’s dark outside.” She looked at me and I said, “I know, sigh, we only do it at night…” and got the “You really need to do it in the morning too, and start flossing” response. Add it to the list…

So she counted his teeth and we hit a serious snag when it came to the rotating toothbrush. Ashton was petrified of it and after 4 teeth, got out of the chair and cried that he wanted to go home. It took a good 5 minutes of coaxing (and bribing with prizes) but I eventually got him back up there, she finished and did his fluoride treatment and that was that!

When I put off blogging too long, all my postable material accumulates and I find myself facing a monster. I feel very daunted right now with where to begin in terms of describing our week… I guess I’ll start with the snow. It started Monday afternoon and we got about 20 inches total. Tuesday was officially our first snow day of the season! If you’ve been reading my blog all along, you likely know how I feel about snow days. Given the choice to take them or leave them, as much as I love this extra cozy time with my kids, I’d leave them. Haha.

The snow muffins made us want the real thing, so we whipped those up too.

Poor Alex, such is life on the inside. He was glued to the glass for 30 minutes watching Ashton play. Look how skinny his little neck is. This is made worse by the fact that his hair makes his head look bigger than it is. It’s very fluffy. 

Now, can I just take a minute to tell you that when they finally came in, Jason was chuckling about something. I said, “Why are you laughing?” and he said, “We gave our snowman a big bean.”