NILL FAMILY news

Ashton was Star of the Week last week at school! I promise you, he did nothing to receive this accolade. He is just 3rd in the class alphabetically and they are going down the line with one kid per week 😉 

What does this mean? From his teacher: “During your child’s week, he/she may bring in family photos to display on  our “STAR” bulletin board. You can make a poster with pictures or just send individual pictures in. Feel free to be creative and have fun with this theme. Along with the pictures your child can bring in special items to share with the class such as: a favorite toy, favorite book (that I could read to the class) or anything your child feels is special to them.  This gives all the children the opportunity to get to know one another. Throughout the week they will be filling out a form with Miss Kristen to hang on the board so that everyone can get to know the “STAR”. The child will be line leader for the week, the teacher helper, and get to do a one-on-one special project with me! At the end of the week your child will be given a certificate to keep as a token for being “STAR.”

Tell me you don’t remember the rush of superiority that came with being the line leader.

Anyway, “you can make a poster with pictures” was my second assignment so far where I’ve had to send Ashton to school with something crafty (first was valentines). Okay, so let’s “make a poster with pictures”.

Get all set up and paint.

Cut out letters. (Really, watch your mom do it. “Kid scissors” is kind of an oxymoron.) Then glue them.

Practice for college and work late into the night.

Then, go to bed and in the morning, the poster is magically finished!

He proudly trotted off to school with his poster and his battery-operated Diesel train for show and tell. I couldn’t wait to pick him up and see how it went.

Well, he came home in pants that looked like this.

Let’s just say there was an “accident”, his diaper didn’t quite hold and he needed to borrow some clothes. Luckily I don’t think he knew enough to be embarrassed but this is certainly not how you want your first day as Star to go. Line leaders need to be taken seriously and pants like these are hardly ideal.

But the rest of the week went fine, he came home with big star stickers, a certificate, and his special “All About Me” form, which stated that his favorite color is blue, his favorite toy is his scooter, and when he grows up he wants to be a racecar driver. I suspect this was influenced by what he knew he was going to be for Halloween 😉 He also said he lives with Mommy and Daddy (sorry Alex, no mention of you) and that his favorite food is “carrots”. What the what? I’d like to see that! In the meantime, my kid is out there lying to his teachers.

Sunday night before Ashton’s week began, Jason and I were looking at his poster in awe. Our little 3 year old has a real little life, his own likes and dislikes, goes to school and without a doubt, seizes every day. He wakes up in the morning raring to go because isn’t it true?

I could now write something cheesy like “Ashton, you’re our star of the week EVERY week!”…oh wait. I just did ;P

Well this will be a predictable post as you know that last Friday was Halloween. But did you know that Ashton and Alex went dressed as racecar drivers? Did you know that racecar spelled backwards is racecar? Now you do! That’s called a palindrome, people.

When I asked Ashton what he wanted to be for Halloween several weeks ago, he said, “What is it?” I explained and then told him, “So you can dress up as anything you want – like a racecar driver, for example” and he said, “YEAH! I’m a wacecar dwiver! Vrooooom!!” (spit everywhere) and that was that. I could never convince him there was any alternative. I debated on dressing Alex up as his pit crew (and so beginning a lifetime of servitude) but ultimately just got him a racecar driver costume too.

Lots of blurry pictures, lots of colors and general chaos. It is worth mentioning that at this point, Ashton’s excitement level hit a 9. At a 9 or above, he’s fixated on whatever he is doing and is completely incapable of being still (like for a nice picture) and basically can’t hear you. He wants what he wants and I swear there is a faint buzzing noise that emanates from his body. Overload is imminent. Halloween poses a significant risk because not only do kids wear costumes, which in and of itself will transform their behavior, but add sugar? Forget it.

Still, I did find myself trying to monitor Ashton’s lollipop intake. Jason and I talked about candy like you would talk about drinks if you knew you had to drive home.
“How many has he had?”
“Three, but they were over 4 hours so he should be fine.”

After Cushing Square, we headed home for pizza and then Jason took Ashton back out to hit the neighborhood while I put Alex to bed. We had a few trick or treaters and it was nice and quiet until they got back. Ashton sat right down and started to take inventory.

If you were there, you would have heard “Chips? Why chips Daddy? Chips are for LUNCH.” He started in on another lollipop (a nightcap) and the doorbell rang.

Ashton was up like a flash to see “who was here”. When he saw the little girl take candy out of the bowl, it did not go well. Because it was his! Why was she taking it? Where was HER house? WHHHAAAAAHHHHH!! Finally, school + music concert + parade + pinata + costumes + friends + collecting candy + lots of pictures + pizza + lollipops and minus a nap…the meltdown.

Surprisingly, I had nothing but patience for the sticky little boy crying in his racecar driver outfit. I brought him back down to earth and explained again about trick-or-treating with every knock at the door. He eventually was eager to hold out the bowl but boy, if Halloween is a difficult concept to grasp, Christmas is going to be a doozy. I’ve already started to prepare.

I’ll leave you with this year’s Halloween “Seen and Heard” between Jason and myself.

1. After taking candy from the bowl, asking for money.
2. A 5 year old looked up and said, “Aw! All you have is Three Muskateers?! I already have a TON of those!”
3. The group of just-barely-teens wearing their regular clothes, zero attempt at a costume, and putting their candy into white, kitchen-sized garbage bags. They didn’t even say thank you!
4. Sometimes people leave a bowl on their porch if for whatever reason they are not personally giving the candy out. Jason saw a woman dump the entire bowl into her bag.
5. There was a group of women that hit our house twice! They gestured both times to a stroller back on the sidewalk, like presumably there was a child in it, but who knows.
6. All the older kids took at least two pieces. Greedy little buggers. We must have said, “Take one!” to Ashton a million times. Why would he listen to us when everyone else is doing something different? Talk about an uphill battle not even specific to Halloween.

7. Ashton picked a large lollipop out of a basket, held it up and loudly announced “I’mma gonna have this one for brequist!” (Breakfast)
8. The best part was the few little kids in their tiny costumes not old enough to be on a mission for candy but just taking in the whole experience with an innocence that totally can’t be described. When they were at the door and I held out the bowl (which also had non-food treats like stickers and little toys), they stood for a good few seconds trying to pick out exactly what they wanted. They’d slowly reach their little hand out and put it on their choice and look up at me, waiting for me to say, “Sure!”. It was so cute. Ashton’s already past that stage but luckily I can look forward to it with Alex.

So, the story ends with Ashton practically falling into bed at 8:30 pm and Jason and I toasting a Halloween well done with some hot toddies. Vroom!

It’s really hard to get my mind around the fact that school picture day, at least at Belmont Nursery School, is absolutely no different than it was when I was young. Ashton came home with a paper order form a few weeks ago and I was supposed to circle the package I wanted and return the form with a check. (They also still send home those Scholastic Book Club brochures, the ones printed on that newspapery-like stuff with muted colors and blurred ink. Classic!)

So portrait packages were anywhere from $25 – $35 and a variety of sizes: 4×6, 5×7, 8×10 and wallets. WALLETS! The only people interested in those would have to be grandparents. At any time, I can open my iPhone and look at 963 different pictures of Ashton, edit them if I want, apply cool tones, post them online and/or print them myself. Can you imagine if every one of those photos was a little piece of paper I physically carried around? I mean, there’s simply no room! My wallet is far too full of receipts 😉

Where was I. Oh, besides the wallets, I was not to receive any electronic file. No jpgs of any kind! No online proofing. No option of picking a background, choosing my favorite photo out of several, or retouching. Not that 3 year olds need to be airbrushed but frankly, it doesn’t hurt. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t “fixed” drool, boogers, food and scratches in several pictures posted on this very blog.

Luckily, none of this mattered and Ashton came home today with his packet of perfect prints 🙂 I took out my iPhone, snapped a picture of his picture, and hereby present you with Ashton Nill, age 3, in a nice cardigan/button down combo.

While this may be his first official school portrait, it is not his first official smirk. Studying his face, I thought to myself I’ve seen that look somewhere…

Here’s the thing about blogs. They only work if you have something to post about, right? And when you are in a routine as deep as ours has been since back-to-school, it’s hard to see anything extraordinary enough to document. I thought I might have an entry last week, and a real page turner at that: the last in my PYO series (pumpkins!) but then I was too tired and we didn’t go. So I haven’t been around much lately but I don’t want cobwebs to grow all over this blog now do I. Better write something. I figured a nice list of what has been going on would be, well, nice.

1. Alex turned 7 months yesterday. The update since 6 months is what you would expect: more sitting, more laughing, more smiling, more rolls. He truly plays now and shows a lot of emotions. He is mesmerized by music, and I really don’t play it enough. The nights after dinner where I put on a song and Ashton and I dance around – he stares at me like I’m an alien coming down from the mother ship. And then smiles and waves his arms. I wish there was time for me to take him to a little music class. I wish there was time for a lot of things Anyway, his two bottom teeth have poked through, not so much where I can get a picture but you can definitely feel them. In true baby fashion, he always has something in his mouth (or is trying to get something in there).

He was doing great with sleep, only up once per night (or twice) for a few weeks but then last night he was up 4 times so who the hell knows. Overall, he’s still doing great, I’m still pumping at work, and Ashton still calls him “All-yex”.

2. Ashton also still has two speeds: zero or a hundred and twenty. Papa sent him a new bike:

Which he loves. So between that, his balance bike, and his scooter, he’s hard to catch, but we are outside every day, soaking up the last of the warm weather and daylight.

Preschool is going really well, potty training is NOT. That’s another story for another time, but the toilet battles have resulted in

a) smeared poop (sorry, yes it’s totally gross)
b) all the toilet paper unrolled into a heap on the floor
c) a toilet that now runs, probably due to Ashton’s perpetual flushing (necessary or not)
d) a small fortune spent in potty “prizes”, that he gets both when he tries and is successful

Honestly, poop runs my life. Between getting Ashton’s into the potty and getting Alex’s out in general (recall the prunes), I spend way too much time with it, cleaning it, or encouraging it.

3. Ashton really talks a lot. He uses about a hundred words when ten would do, and he repeats himself over and over if I don’t immediately respond.

Ashton: “I want Daaaaaaaddy.”
[silence from me]
“I want DAAAAAAADDY!!”
“I wannnnnnnnnnnnt Daaaaaaaaddy.”
“Where’s Daddy? I wannnnnnt himmmmm.”
“I WANT DADDY!!”

Now mind you, there’s no reason at all why he wants Jason. He can never tell me why he does, he just DOES. Little scamp. So finally after all this whining, I ask: “Why?”

“I just do.”
“But why do you want him?”
“Because I wannnnnt him.”
“Is he better than I am?”
“Yeaaaaaah. He is.”

Between that and the poop, what more could I want.

He does say funny things though – the other day my phone beeped with a text message. Ashton came running in the room and held it out for me: “Mommy! You’ve got something!”
“I do?”
“Yeah! Something good! Call them!”

or the time that he came running (always running) and was gesturing wildly, frantically saying “The mop Mommy! Look at the mop in here!” and pointed and pointed and then showed me: a moth. I said “Wow!” and corrected him: “That’s a MOTH.”
“Moff.”
“No, MOTH.”
“Ok mommy, yeah! Look at this moff right here!”

4. Now that fall’s gorgeous colors are in full swing, I like to take the boys down to walk the fresh pond loop. Ashton scooters and it’s just so beautiful:

I’m starting to think about Christmas cards. If you get one from me with a unicorn on it, it’s because that was easier to get a picture of than both boys smiling and looking at the camera at the same time.

5. What we have coming up: School picture day is Monday, then Ashton is star of the week, then Halloween, my birthday, and lots of little house projects that will resume now that Jason’s work schedule is less busy (notice I didn’t say slow, that is absolutely never the case haha). But we are hosting Thanksgiving and that’s a good deadline for making over my poor dining room. It is in desperate need of window treatments, paint, a light fixture, decorations…no one likes a dry turkey, so to speak. I haven’t done one thing in there since we moved in nearly two years ago *gasp!*. Dining room, it’s your turn. Now I just need to tell Jason how much it will cost 😉

Happy Friday!

Last Sunday, Alex followed in Ashton’s footsteps and was welcomed into the Catholic faith. While it was important to us that he be baptized, this does not mean we go to church. The idea of Ashton sitting still in a quiet, reverent environment for an hour is enough to send me to the liquor store. Frankly, I fretted about it all week. Would he yell “MOMMY! Why he putting water on Allyex HEAD?” from across the pews? Would he try and rip pages out of the Psalm books? Turns out, he was totally into it and with a little help from Grandpa, completely and utterly behaved himself. But guess who didn’t? Yep, Alex. He fussed the entire time, twisted in my arms, cried and was generally a pill. The 1:30 pm ceremony was past his nap so by the end, he was toast and the only baby of the 6 to lose his cool. As in, wail his head off. So this was the nicest picture we got (with Grandma and Grandpa):

Alex wore the same outfit that Ashton wore, which is the same outfit that Jason wore! As well as Uncle Chris and cousin Owen, so it’s a wonderful tradition. Grandma did the honors and got him dressed.

The hat and the shoes were laughably small so we skipped those, attempted a family photo (this is truly the only one where Ashton wasn’t making a fish-face),

And were off to the church, St Patrick’s in Watertown which is just down the street. We’ve never set foot in there but luckily it didn’t matter 😉 The priest was great, he knocked the ceremony out in 30 minutes flat with 6 babies to baptize. He asked that no pictures be taken except during the actual christening. Poppy was there to photograph, Kari and Ben were the godparents, and we got our token memories 🙂

So, as one of God’s newest children, all of Alex’s sins have been washed away. Not that he had any 🙂

My little Alexander Michael is 6 months old! And totally coming into his own. He has the best little personality, is happy and excitable, and I love watching him learn and grow. There have been a lot of changes even since 5 months, most notably that he sits up unassisted now and is interested in all kinds of toys.

Ashton is very wary of this new skill and watches certain things of his very closely.

It used to be that I would play with Ashton while Alex was in the bouncy seat or napping, but now he is always right there, getting in on the action.

Haha lol that last picture cracks me up.

Alex is also eating solids regularly now for lunch and dinner, which, besides even more sticky messes in the kitchen than there previously was, has resulted in two things.

1) The good news: mealtimes with his brother are super fun

But plum is a legit fall color so at least his style is seasonally appropriate. Anyway, besides the cosmetics, here’s the latest with Alex:

So while everything points to getting bigger, he still does baby things like falling asleep while we are out for a walk.

And then Ashton panicked because an ant was crawling on his shorts. He shot up like a piece of hot popcorn and the photo session was over.

We moved on and Jason found this gem:

We grabbed a couple burgers at the BBQ stand and headed home. Jason and I were exhausted haha. But of course, Ashton wasn’t, so when we got home he and I put on our baking hats and got to work. Julia Child, I am not. I basically cut up some apples, let Ashton sprinkle cinnamon and sugar in the bowl and then we filled the dish that was lined with pie crust (store-bought, obviously).

We made a couple little apple bakes and some envelope-thingys with the leftover dough.

They were not pretty or fancy (most toddler hands-on activities aren’t) but Ashton really likes to cook/bake and is obsessed with “wecipes”. In the end he was very happy because he got to have a little tart for dessert and Alex had apple puree with his baby cereal for dinner 🙂 Happy fall!

If you’ve seen Frozen, the title of this post is a play on the first song of the movie. If you haven’t seen it…well, we can move on.

This post is one of those posts that I post when I have nothing else to post about. Ha ha.

So, a few weeks ago we went and got a nice little build-your-own-birdhouse kit. Jason had wanted to put one together with Ashton so that’s exactly what they did while Alex and I cheered them on (not really).

To be honest, it got a little boring to watch. There were a lot of screws so eventually Jason just broke out the drill. Look at the determination on Ashton’s face – his little jaw means business!

Being the good neighbors that we are, we walked right over and nailed it into the tree next door. The one that doesn’t belong to us. See it there, on the left behind the fence?

Up close it’s truly a work of art.

Who wouldn’t want this on their property, is what we thought.

Sadly, it is still uninhabited. Perhaps I need to give these birds some incentive because I don’t want Ashton to feel that his birdhouse failed.

Oh who am I kidding. The minute there’s a nest in there I’ll probably be just as excited as he is. Parenting has changed my entertainment bar considerably.

Ashton loves to build in general and his favorite thing is when it’s time for him and Daddy to get out the tools for a project. (This is a segway into the next part, which begins with my admission that I lied in my last post. Ashton was not entirely in his big boy bed and I knew it was because his crib was still in his room. Given the choice, he’d always choose to sleep there instead of his bed, so it was cold turkey time.)

Last night, the crib officially came down (to be moved into Alex’s room shortly). I asked Ashton if he wanted to help Daddy do it and thank the sweet lord in heaven, he nodded and said, “Yeah!”

Here are the before and afters:

Overall the room feels much less crowded with stuff.

Ashton had been napping in his bed but had never slept through the night in it, so we had a big first last night. He got out once at 11:30 pm but I put him right back, had my usual two wake ups with Alex and then at 5:30 am, I heard some thumps. Thumps are never good. Someone’s either breaking in or your kid is not where he is supposed to be.

I rolled over and checked the monitor. Nope, Ashton was not in his bed. I toggled over to Alex’s camera and yep, there was Ashton. He had switched on the light, pulled clothes out of Alex’s drawers and it appeared he was attempting to get him dressed. No, no, no, no no. I raced in and to my dismay, Alex was laying there wide awake, smiling. I marched Ashton back to his crib, told him the light was still yellow (we got this clock for him that switches from yellow to green when it is “Ok to wake” – it’s set to 7 am) and under no circumstances was I to hear a peep until that light was green!!! He cried but stayed put. I will be putting a gate in front of his door, pronto.

Luckily I was able to get Alex back to sleep and Ashton actually had to be woken up at 7:30 am to get ready for school, which is a huge change. Usually he is up around 6-6:30 am, watches the clock and when it is time, he will yell, “IT’S GREEN MOMMY! DADDY, IT’S GREEN! MOMMY! DADDY! IT’S GREEEEEEEN!” and the whole block is up. Between that and the trespassing birdhouse, our neighbors love us 😉

It’s officially setting in – the tiredness, I mean. On the nights when Alex is up twice or three times, I do okay. Lately, it’s three to four times, and compounding the issue is that since Ashton gave up his paci, he wakes up really early (between 5:30 and 6:30 am) and doesn’t really know what to do with himself so he just yells for us. (One thing I really miss about the paci is it kept him quiet. It seems that in getting rid of it we have traded one problem for another! And now that he’s in his big boy bed, when he wakes, there’s no confining him like with his crib…) Anyway, after being up with Alex several times and then dragging myself into Ashton’s room at 6 am because he’s wide awake, well…it hurts. I’ve been back to work full time for the past few weeks and it is hands down the craziest time of year. Like, so busy that I get text messages and don’t even read them until hours later. What is that? The good news is that I’ve hired some work study students and will be working from home on Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons, but really, there are just no breaks. I’m officially tired. Oh, this feeling is nothing new to parents everywhere, but I’m still using this platform to complain about it haha. Coffee doesn’t even help. It’s like in the movie Armageddon with the asteroid. They are all sitting around brainstorming solutions for the impending doom and Billy Bob Thornton’s line is something like: “You could fire every nuke you’ve got at her and she’ll just smile at you and keep on coming.” The nuke is the coffee and the tiredness, that’s the asteroid. You get it.

So which is harder, being exhausted at home or being exhausted at work? There are pros and cons to both. Until today, I could have said that at least at work I’m getting paid to be there. But then, about three hours ago, I finally, finally got paid for being exhausted at home. We had just gotten back from a bike ride around the neighborhood (bike ride because Ashton’s beloved scooter was taken 😦 I am heartbroken over it and need to get him a new one ASAP). Ashton was sitting on the counter leaning over the sink while I helped wash his hands before dinner. He said, “Mommy, I love you.” Out of nowhere, which has never, ever, ever, EVER happened before. Shocked, I said, “Oh that’s so nice! I love you too!” and then he said, “Yeah. I love you soooo much Mommy.”

When I tell you I have waited three years, one month, and one week to hear that, I would not be lying. I basked in this wonderful “payment” for about 12 minutes, when Ashton decided he wanted a “gwilled cheese sammich” for dinner instead of the pasta I had made, I said no, and it turned into a knock-down, drag-out affair. Nothing lasts forever, as they say. As I type this though, I am heartened by the fact that we’ve tackled two of the big three goals since Ashton’s birthday: bye-bye paci and move from the crib to the big boy bed. Potty training is next and then he’ll practically be a grown up.

So overall, we’ve come a long way. But all that change is tiring! And it’s been surprising to me that I’ve resisted the change almost as much as Ashton has. Due to a fear of getting even less sleep, I think. We’ve had such a solid routine in so many ways and getting through these important milestones hasn’t been easy. I need my own sticker chart. Ashton shouldn’t be the only one who gets one. I want a sticker too dammit.

And then there’s Alex. Besides being up during the night more times than I would prefer, he is the light of my life. Babies are so easy to love. They smile their gummy smiles and all is right in the world. Alex’s face isn’t even big enough to hold his happiness sometimes. His cheeks stretch as far as they can go and I can tell his smile would be even wider if his face would permit it. So I don’t even care that I have to pump on average three times a day so he has bottles for when I’m at work (he drinks at least 6 ounces 3 times between 8:30 and 4:30, but who’s counting). Some days I have to run home with milk on my lunch break but he is worth every drop. I always worry if there is enough in the fridge, what my back up plan would be, where I can fit in an extra pumping session if I have to. We just started solids too (I use that term loosely – they are purees. Ha ha, get it? Loose solids = purees?) and I want to make them myself vs. buying them, if time would ever let me. All this is to say, Alex doesn’t exactly prevent the asteroid from coming either. Even though he’s cute.

Between the two boys is my neverending to-do list. We have a “one step forward, two steps back” kind of relationship. Last year, I blogged about my one year anniversary as a working mom. Most of that post is still true! Including the fact that I celebrated my two year anniversary last week with another flash mob. It was a bit lackluster 😦 We first performed on Thursday in the usual spot up by the library, but had so many problems with the music skipping that the dance turned into a hot mess. It was so bad it was funny. They gave us another chance to perform the next day at the activities fair (which is the video), but it wasn’t the same. Plus I wasn’t crazy about the song to begin with. But I’m liking the tradition and the main reason I do it is because it is so outside my box. I am not a dancer.

Where am I going with this post? I can’t be certain because my brain is shutting down. That asteroid is fast approaching, so I’m going to get my pajamas on.

p.s. Ashton weighs 38 pounds and is 40.25 inches tall. We finally had his 3 year pedi appointment, and for lack of anywhere else to stick this information, I’m sticking it here. Good night!

Looking back on all my photos from the past few months, one thing is clear: the boys and I, we had some adventures! If we weren’t on a walk, swimming, or at a farm, we were eating ice cream, at a playground or at the beach. Ashton did so much scootering and biking that he had his helmet on for most of July and August. I was lucky enough to work part-time until the official “back to school” season that we are now in, so things have been crazy with all the change in routine (hence the lack of blog posts!). I finally got a chance to look through my summer pictures and what follows is a “small” glimpse of how much fun we had together: dinners outside, concerts, sticky hands, big bugs, playtime with friends…Ashton wore his Crocs down to almost nothing and was often so dirty that I cheated and gave him a bath while he was in the backyard pool. That’s a good summer right there.

As fun as the summer was, I’m looking forward to fall and getting into a set schedule. I think we have it mostly figured out between Ashton’s days at preschool, who picks up and drops off, my 2 half-days a week from work, Jason taking one weekday off, and our nanny to fill in the gaps. I felt like I needed some algorithmic software or something to write out our calendar just for September. So it’s “back into the swing of things” as they say!