Last week was very very tiring for all of us! We’ve been dealing with some pretty major sleeping issues with Aiden stemming from a newly-developed fear of the dark. A week ago Friday, I wondered if he might feel better being in the same room with Logan. They talk a lot about getting bunk beds and sharing a room someday. We pulled Aiden’s mattress into Logan’s room and put it on the floor. Logan was a complete doll all week about the whole thing. He would offer to cuddle Aiden, tell him stories, let him leave the light on in the room (like the one on the ceiling!) and let him have his noise machine in there as well. But Aiden would still have troubles settling down, wouldn’t let us leave him and would scream any time he woke in the night and we were gone. Things are getting better now, mostly thanks to an idea that I found on the internet while trying to “Google” our way back to some semblance of normal nights (because let’s face it, I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in almost 5 years! Someone is ALWAYS up in the night). On Wednesday, after dinner and baths, we had a dark party in Logan’s room. I took three of the glow-in-the-dark stars from the ceiling, got ‘em real nice and glow-y with a flashlight, put them on the bed and called everyone in. Every light was off. I even covered the clock face with a tee shirt. The boys each sat where one of the stars had been and we played games.

Game 1: Guess the food. I brought in baggies of blueberries, strawberries, a few Doritos and cereal bars. Everyone took a bit and then we counted to 3 before yelling out our guesses. Logan won that game!

Game 2: Guess the toy. I passed around small toys and the boys had to figure out what they were. We had a little stack of legos, a small plastic sword from our pirate game, one of Aiden’s stretchy lizards and something else I can’t remember.

Game 3: Guess the animal. We took turns making animals sounds and everyone had to say the animal name. Fact: a bunny can say “moo” if he is pretending to be a cow…at least that’s what Logan told us when his bunny went moo.

Game 4: Hide the stars. This was an unplanned game, but the boys were having so much fun that they requested more “dark party”. I would have them either cover their eyes or hide in the closet while I spread the stars around the room. They would run out and look for the glow. I put them on top of daddy, in my pockets, up on the door frames and all over the furniture. We talked a lot during this game about how much fun we were all having in the dark, “right Aiden?! isn’t this so much fun?” He said it was.

As soon as games were over, Brady was removed to his room while daddy told a story in the dark about the stars on the ceiling. The stars were born far away, but wanted to live with little boys. Lately, they were really sad that they couldn’t be seen at night because the lights are always on.

I can’t say that all nighttime issues have faded, but things are WAY better. We can now leave only a nightlight on and the door open to the hallway lights. Aiden doesn’t scream when he wakes up, but he does come find us. I’ve also been sitting in the room until he drifts off, but that won’t last forever…baby steps.

Last night, we made Logan’s room officially into “Logan and Aiden’s Room”. Logan gladly offered to downsize his queen bed to a twin so Aiden could be there with him and they would still have enough room to play. He is now sleeping on a daybed auntie Denna had when we were growing up. Aiden is in a bed someone from Brian’s family had as a child. It’s quite a mish-mash of furniture in the room right now, but I think bunk beds are on the horizon!

The mini man cave. Brian, brilliantly, suggested that we put the rolling drawers from the (broken) train table under the day bed for toy storage. I’m going to have to work that out sometime this coming week.

Brady was following me around today and climbed into “O-gan’s bed”. Maybe you’ll be invited to the party in the mini-man cave someday darling, but not now – crib-city for you sweetie!

Speaking of room for 2, Aiden and Brady apparently don’t even need beds! Look how nicely they fit into the living room blanket basket. It’s a stylish and affordable way to store your children…maybe I can put our gobs of blankets in Brady’s crib??

Being the mother of all boys can present a girl with a number of challenges. One must condition herself to accept certain things like rough play as an every-day occurrence, sound effects as a way of communication, a bizarre yet impressive innate ability to understand electronics, and the constant building of ships and guns when encountered with tinker toys, legos or anything else that could just as easily have turned into something more tame... One must abandon her more gentle sensibilities and embrace all that is “the boy”…plus a degree in engineering would be mighty helpful! Today alone, I was called upon to design and construct several different forms of entertainment. These, I might add, must be assembled at a break-neck speed lest the requestor lose interest and you’re left running after him (them) demanding why there is now another mess-in-progress elsewhere when you have just spent 15 minutes trying to give them what they wanted. Don’t get me wrong, even though the play time enjoyed with most of these things is far less than the time I spend putting them together, boys love their mommies…give good thank-you hugs, lots of praise for well-constructed lego ships…and the smiles are priceless.

Logan was super way-impressed with my ships today. He said, “and you always say WE build good ships! Yours is great!” Ahh…go on! Obviously I spent a little more time building the one on the left. I thought I was done, but he then asked for “a bad guy ship”…so I threw the other one together.

He wanted to be the “background” for my picture.

Brady, the current lover of trains, always stands at the basement door saying “come on mamee…come on mamee!” complete with the come-here hand motion that means he wants to play GeoTrax. The problem is that he usually destroys them when he’s done so I have to build a new one every few days from the rubble. Here is today’s creation. I take pride in my GeoTrax configurations, putting guard rails at the ends of steep drops so the trains don’t fly off, choosing the right tracks for inclines (some don’t have treads and the trains get stuck), and testing traffic patterns in both directions

And finally, we also hit the trick-tracks bin this afternoon. We have a standard configuration, but you have to carefully search through the car bin and find just the right car for each job. View the video below and you’ll see what I mean. (the Bears car doesn’t quite make the cut through the loop section of the track…) While I was building this, Logan lost interest, found a remote in the office/playroom, tested it out, discovered it was for the computer, put on the media center and started Charlie and The Chocolate Factory through our on-line Netflix. It was all I could do to drag him back to the track he BEGGED me to build.

Our membership at the Aquarium expires in Feb so we squeezed in one final trip last weekend. The kids love it there and we may renew, but we’ve discussed joining a different place next year (maybe the Museum of Science and Industry) to mix it up a bit.

We’ve been to the aquarium so many times now that Logan decided to be our guide. He grabbed a map and pointed the way to the play submarine…by far his most favorite place!

We hadn’t been to the new show so we checked it out. It was really really cool!

Sadly, the submarine area was closed for a private event until noon. We played in the penguin area and then hit the cafe for lunch to kill time. Look at the cool view from our table!

Aiden stole my camera for a minute. I guess this is a child’s view of mommy.

YEAH – the submarine is open!

The boys played here for a while until we dragged them kicking and screaming to the underwater reef…which they also love so they calmed down once we mentioned sharks and “Nemo fish”

I love music. Lyrics stick in my head and I just can’t help but sing them. Lately, whenever I’m jamming out in the car with kids or making up a funny little ditty around the house, Brady will look at me and say, “um..mama..no. no sing-ig”

everyone’s a critic!

I forgot to post a picture of the boys from our sledding trip last week. It was relatively warm last Thursday so I asked the boys if they wanted to go sledding (insert jumping and yelling and general excitement). Brian had spotted a big hill and said we should try it out. After a trip by Dick’s Sporting Goods for some saucer sleds (we only had a baby/mommy one), we went over to the park. The first thing I said to the boys when I saw the sledding hill was, “guys…your daddy is crazy!” The hill was HUGE! We stayed on the smallest part and everyone did really well. Logan had one mis-hap where he accidentally launched before one of his legs was in so he dragged it down the whole way. He had that panicked look on his face and was yelling “mommy! mommy!” I was trudging my way up the hill after a trip down with Brady. After his scare, Logan came back up the hill and, after I explained to him that he needed to wait for me at the top sit on his bottom not on his knees, he went right back to it. I was really proud of his bravery! Aiden did great and Brady loved our trips together in the double sled. I think I was the only one panicked the whole time. I kept thinking I was going to capsize my sled with Bear or that the older boys were going to go flying out and break a limb! I don’t think it helped that we parked directly by a sign warning about the dangers of sledding (which, it noted, do include death – ack – don’t show me that!) I guess it’s my job as the mom to worry about these things!

Here are the boys at the top of the hill. See the lights on the car from the parking lot WAY down below? That’s a good estimate of how big this hill is…and we were on the VERY smallest part! They loved it!

Since Brady turned 2 last month, I’ve been wanting to “promote” him from hallway and pool-side sitter to actual class taker. He’s been my “waiting buddy” in a wide variety of venues while one or both of his older brothers enjoys swimming, soccer, karate, projects class etc. While we have been doing a gym class together since he could crawl, I thought it was time for him to get a more robust activity schedule of his own. Step one, I enrolled him in the pre-pre-school class Aiden took and loved called “I’m Not Two Young To Learn”. I also thought it would be fun to get him in a swim class (with me) while his brothers are in their respective classes. Of the 4 10:00 Monday swim sessions at the YMCA pool, I now have a kid in 3 of them. Each of us is in our own area and I can still see Logan and Aiden doing their lessons, with the added bonus that I don’t have to chase Brady around hoping he doesn’t fall in.

Not Two Young To Learn Day One: Stood at the (closed) door crying for 15 minutes. The teacher came out and said she was OK with him as long as I was. I offered to come in, help him get involved in an activity and sneak out. No such luck. My excuses to leave and go to the bathroom or to, “get my camera so I can take pictures of you in your big boy class,” were apparently weak and transparent. I let him come out of class, with me, at least 15 minutes early. But…we’ll try again this week!!

Swim Class Day One: Yesterday the four of us got ready in our suits and towels. The big boys seemed to relish the freedom they would have and promised not to need to use the restroom while I was swimming with Brady (a-hem…Aiden went twice and Logan went once) But…back to Bear, the boy who loves nothing better than to have the whole bathtub to himself so he can lay on his tummy, blow bubbles and kick. He cried the whole time, tried to run away during any “side of the pool activates” and kept pointing to the ladder saying “out…that way…out!” But…we’ll try again next week!

I’ve been thinking a lot this Winter about the amazing things you see in nature. I just wanted to write down a few of my observations. I was always told that the Eskimos have over 50 different words for snow. I have since learned that this is more an urban myth. But, I can understand how it could be true. Living in an area where we have snow more often than not, I myself have at least a dozen different ways to describe it. My words are things like fluffy snow, quiet snow, sparkly snow, beach sand snow, snowman snow, too heavy for me to shovel snow (usually a good indication that it’s also snowman snow). One evening back in December, I needed to make a late-night run to Target for some wrapping supplies. Everyone in my house was already sleeping (including Brian). I left a quiet house and entered a quiet night where the snow was falling literally one flake at a time. There was no wind and the lights from the shopping center illuminated the sky making the snow look like glitter. I felt like I was inside a snow globe. It was awesome! We saw giant snow globe snow once in Wisconsin during Christmas of 2007. When I got back home after my Target outing, I noticed that there were tiny, perfect, individual flakes stuck to the side of the car.

The other day, I was driving around town and noticed a funny little phenomenon on top of the stop light pole (the one that is suspended over the ground and holds all the lights). Instead of settling along the pole, the snow had settled along a wire which was wrapped around the pole. It looked like someone had painted a white line around and around the top – pretty cool!

Yesterday morning, I went out for the paper. All the trees, plants and bushes looked just like those fake white Christmas trees. I have absolutely no idea what causes this particular frosting, but upon closer inspection, I realized that everything was covered in tiny spiky snow crystals. I had to take some pictures to show the boys.

Winter, despite the chill, is pretty cool.