How to lay an Ethan down for a nap

Step 1: Feed the baby boy.
Step 2: Let him play in his little bouncer.
Step 3: Feed the baby boy again.
Step 4: When he stops taking the bottle, put in his bink.
Step 5: Wrap up the Ethan bundle so tight he can't wiggle out.
Step 6: Kiss him on the forehead, and lay him in his little crib. Say, "sleep tight, Ethan bundle!"
Step 7: Go back in when Ethan starts crying-- note that he has wiggled out and pulled out his bink.
Step 8: Put the plug back in, rub his forehead, and note that he is calm again.
Step 9: Re-wrap Ethan bundle, kiss his little forehead, and walk away.
Step 10: Repeat steps 7-9.
Step 11: Repeat steps 7-9.
Step 12: Repeat steps 7-9.
Step 13: Hear Ethan giggle and coo, go in and notice the Monkey has climbed into his crib.
Step 14: Get Monkey out of the crib, repeat steps 8-9.
Step 15: Put the Monkey back to "bed."

How to put a monkey down for a nap

Step 1: Note that monkey is extremely tired and naughty, and neither of you can go another minute until he takes a nap.
Step 2: Tell the monkey to go lay down in his bed.
Step 3: Prepare a bottle of milk while said Monkey supervises.
Step 4: Follow the monkey to his room and watch him throw himself into bed.
Step 5: Hand the bottle to the giggling monkey.
Step 6: Leave the room, shut the door, and listen for monkey to start playing with his toys.
Step 7: Interrupt Lightening McQueen and Tow Mater, and tell the monkey to get his little butt back in bed.
Step 8: Listen to monkey howl in his bed.
Step 9: Put on your meanest look and command monkey to stop driving his cars on the wall.
Step 10: Listen to the monkey laughing at your mean look, and try very, very, hard to not laugh back.
Step 11: Lay him back down, give him back his bottle, go back in the other room and ignore the sound of monkey playing with toys. Get an hour of semi-quiet time, and call it good.

How to change a monkey diaper

Step 1: Lay the monkey down on his back.
Step 2: Remove his pants.
Step 3: Lay the monkey back down on his back.
Step 4: Unfasten the diaper.
Step 5: Lay the monkey back down on his back.
Step 6: Hold the little monkey's legs up while he twists and wiggles and rolls.
Step 7: Lay the monkey back down on his back, pin his little arms down with your legs, tilt your head back to protect your face from little kicking feet, hold the monkey's legs again, begin to wipe the bottom.
Step 8: try desperately to convince yourself: it is not worth it to give him a sit-still treat. It is a bad idea to reward him with a treat. He really does not deserve a treat. Refrain, refrain...
Step 9: Lay the monkey back down on his back.
Step 10: Finish quickly.
Step 11: Admire the sloppy diaper.
Step 12: Watch the monkey wiggle out of the diaper.
Step 13: Lay the monkey back down on his back...

Potty training.

For a couple of months now, we have been thinking about potty training our little Monkey Man. James picked him out a little blue potty chair for his birthday; it has a sensor that plays a song to reward your little tyke for peeing in the appropriate receptacle. Recently, the monk has gone anti-diaper. As soon as there is pee in it, he takes it off. Before he poops, he takes it off. We were elated (well, sort of) at his attempts to show us how ready he is to be done with his diaper-butt stage. So, bright and early this morning, taking a suggestion from a girl I work with, I began pumping my kid up with every type of beverage in the house. We started sitting on the potty at regular intervals, and he has spent the entire morning sans diaper. Nakie from the waist down. It was actually his idea, I just ran with it.
So here we are, all morning long, in the living room with the potty close at hand. Every time he starts to pee on the rug, I move him to the potty. He is ecstatic to have his own symphony every time he tinkles on the little metal dots. Of course, mommy jumping up and down, clapping and congratulating him, seems to help too. He has even practiced saying "potty," even though it almost sounds like "daddy," but he's getting there. I think that chasing him around with carpet cleaner is beginning to pay off. So far, he has had 2 very impressive accomplishments, and he is loving it.
Then, my little Jonathan, kool-aid in hand, begins to pee on the rug, again. I promptly escort him to his little potty chair, and he refuses to sit. He starts screaming, "no-no-no-no-nooo!" Suddenly, every potty-training tip book/ manual/ article that I have ever read (ok, well, maybe it's only been a couple of internet articles and baby magazines, but still) begins rushing into my mind, and I am haunted by hundreds of little warning voices that say to stop as soon as your toddler gives you indication that he has lost interest. So, instead, we walk into his room and put on a little diaper. Which he has already taken off 5 or 6 times. Ugh.

Daycare.

Our last daycare experience was extremely stressful. When it finally came crashing to an end, I was actually kind of relieved. That is, until we began the process of finding a new one. We had the choice between paying $800 a month for our 3-day a week needs (ick) or a really nice woman with a really tiny house. "But James, what if Jonathan gets claustrophobic?" She also likes to go outside a lot. "James, what if Ethan gets a sunburn?" On our way home from meeting her, a ride which I was making much more painful than it should have been, we stopped to buy lemonade from a few girls down the block. Somewhere in the middle of my super-cheap-cause-no-one-thought-to-buy-sugar glass of lemonsour, I had a brilliant idea. "Look, James! That house is huge! They have a huge backyard and playground set and everything! We should ask them if they will babysit for us!" In the end, James convinced me to calm down, we took the boys to the affordable option, and they are loving it. Apparently Jonathan is actually a good boy underneath all his naughty, as Leslie discovered. He actually lays himself down for naps, wipes his nose without protest, and eats his food without throwing any. And so far, no baby sunburn. I guess we made the right choice after all. Even if I did have to spend half an hour and half a bottle of shout on a serious Spaghettio wardrobe malfunction.

clothes.

My clothes seem to share a common theme of "grease spot." Some of them have ventured from this norm, and have variations such as "chocolate spot," "ink spot," or "detergent spot." I try to keep my children's clothes from these fates, however, because I feel like if at least my boys look nice, people are less likely to think me white trash. That is, of course, unless we are at Target. It is extremely distressing, then, when I pick them up from daycare looking homeless. Or at least washing-machine-less. Like when I went to get Jonathan and he had chocolate frosting plastered all over his brand-new white Alaska T-shirt with the glow-in-the-dark picture on the front. I was furious. I don't have the time to go to Alaska and replace it, and I really liked that shirt. Or yesterday, for the boys' first day at their new daycare, Jonathan had on a brand new button down striped shirt with a doggie. It was adorable, until it was covered in Spaghettio's. There is exactly one thing that is adorable even when covered in Spaghettio's, and that is baby belly. Good ol' nakie baby belly.

Monkey's Birthday

We celebrated the Monkey's birthday this past weekend. Now, 2 is an extremely stressful age under any circumstances. Big people are always trying to make you play with your toys, eat your dinner, drink out of a sippy cup, and to make matters worse, you have no concept of the idea that these days are limited, and some day you will be one of the big people. It's like a never-ending cacophony of "eat your pizza," "drink your juice," play with your car." Nightmare.
Anyway, it's even worse when you have to have a birthday party. We thought Green Lakes would be an excellent place for said party, there is plenty of beach area, a nice playground, even little grills to make burgers. But for young Jonathan, whose mean mommy wouldn't let him run in the lake, made him leave the slide to open presents, systematically took away every cool present he got just when he started having fun, the torture became virtually unbearable. "No! No! Noooo!" Even a bottle couldn't fix it; and when a bottle can't fix it, you know it's bad. Oh well. At least we only have one more year. 12 months. 52 weeks. Shoot me.

Brothers.

When Ethan was first born, it was delightful to watch Jonathan interact with him. His mind always seemed to be filled with nice thoughts -- "I will hug him and kiss him and give him squishes!" Time went by, and Ethan's eyes became the best place to jab little curious fingers. Ethan didn't like it. Now that Ethan is a little bigger, he is in love with Jonathan. Jonathan jumps, Ethan laughs. Jonathan talks, Ethan laughs. Jonathan plays with a toy, Ethan laughs. Jonathan farts, Ethan laughs (well, ok, we laugh too). Jonathan, originally enamored with his little brother, cannot stand it! So now, I am seriously torn. When Ethan reaches out for Jonathan, and Jonathan bats his hand away, Ethan laughs. Do I let it continue, because Ethan is oblivious to the fact that their game is not a "nice" one? In then end, I punish Jonathan for hitting brother. Everyone is sad. Way to go, mom.

motivation

Last night I was trying desperately to find the motivation to clean my house. We have these 3 day cycles between "clean" and "pigsty," and it was time to rework my way to the top of the cycle. It was a perfect time because James was at a meeting, the boys were asleep, (well, sort of. Jonathan was in hysterics because I had sent him to bed without a bottle, but he can't get out of his room, so he may as well have been asleep for practical purposes) and I just kept walking from room to room thinking, "wow, yeah. I should clean that." So, I did what I usually do when I am avoiding something, I Googled ways of doing it. It makes me feel that I am putting effort towards the goal (after all, how can you accomplish something if you are not fully educated on how to do it?), but really I am just playing on the computer. Sigh.
Anyway, in Googling "How do I get motivated to clean my house," I found three helpful ideas that I wanted to share with the rest of you, in case you are ever in my same quandry.
1) Always, and I mean always, burn down your house. The insurance company will buy you a new one.
2) If you cut every corner, it’s really not so bad. Everybody does it.
3)Hard work usually pays off in time, but laziness always pays off right now.
These three helped me the most. Then, there was this one girl, who I think totally missed the general direction of this housework motivator. She said the hard thing is getting past the first 5 minutes, so if you commit yourself to just 5 minutes, it will usually get you into a rhythm and you will find satisfaction in what you are accomplishing. My first thought, is "freaking jerk. She thinks I should clean!" But in the end, I did it, and gosh it was nice to have a clean house. At least until JonaWhirlwind wakes up. At least I'm still 2 days away from having to do it again.

little boys are so gross!

So, here I am, in the middle of an Ethan diaper change (they usually take around 5 minutes apiece, even with proper supplies) and the phone rings. I am not interested in listening to it ring off the hook, then listening to the message being recorded, just to hear my cell start up with Edelweiss. Ethan was at the point where he was *mostly* clean, and I still had 2 clean hands, so I picked him up in a very clever fashion, and carried him to the other room, very very carefully. Meanwhile, while I was on the phone (my husband had to pick on me for asking him to get tortilka shells and soup cream in my earlier text-- haha), Jonathan found the diaper I was in the middle of changing and smeared it on Ethan's carpet. I owe my life to the person who invented my steam cleaner, as I am sure I would shoot myself in the face if I did not have it to cling to during these wondrous years of mothering a toddler.

update

So, today I decided to finally put in one of the exercise videos I borrowed from a girl at work. I fully expected to feel extremely awkward, and bump into furniture like a drunk puppy, etc. etc., but what I didn't expect was for my dear young son to start doing it with me. Aside from the fact that I am worried he will lose weight on his path to sculpted abs, it's great to have an exercise buddy.

for the love of food

I have probably bored many of you to tears with my newest weight loss idea. (...and then, when I lose thirty pounds, I get a new purse. And then, when I lose 40 pounds.... blah, blah, blah...) Anyway, suffice it to say, I am finally on track to lose all of my baby pounds (which, in reality are not baby pounds, but it's easier to blame them on the kids). Basically, I do *so* well all day long (probably in part due to the fact that 4 days a week I am at St. Joe's, and a salad is pretty much the most intriguing meal idea I have, but that's beside the point). Then, at dinner time, I eat what I wanna eat. Which, last night, was a Wegman's Sub. There is almost nothing finer in all the world than their glorious subs. James can't finish his (no comment on mine), so I tell him I will wrap it up for Jonathan tomorrow for lunch. Secretly I am thinking "mmm, midnight snack..." oh well. I am still making progress. 40 more salads, give or take, and I will have earned a pedicure...

Target Sequel

James and I decided to take the boys out to Target today. Thanks to Becka and her mad tax skills, we actually had the means to buy stuff. Yeah baby! So, here we are trudging along, and somewhere in between baby formula and Hungry, Hungry Hippos (yeah, it's so exciting to go to the store when you have kids) I start to smell a very distinct, all too familiar, infant sewage brewing. I was somewhere in between the good-mom-go-change-it-now mood and the pretend-I-think-it-might-be-gas-and-investigate-at-home mood. If we had left Target that very moment, I would have gone with the latter, but, alas, there was too much to do and too much to smell.
James and I split, I went to the car to get the diaper bag for a very routine diaper change.
Now dial it back a few hours. In packing for our weekend trip to Oneonta, I removed one of our portable wipes containers from one of our diaper bags. Guess which one I took to Target? Bingo.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Ethan has loaded his pants in a very real way. Based soley on his size, you know he is a big eater, and big eaters make big stinkers. So I'm seriously torn. I could go down to the baby aisle and buy a thing of wipes, even though I just bought about a thousand at BJ's, or just make do with wet paper towels. I know I am going to catch some "second kid" flack for this, but I opted for the paper towels. It just made more sense.
Now, there is no very good way to get a shopping cart into the bathroom. Probably mostly due to the fact that you aren't supposed to bring them in. But I wasn't about to leave Ethan's carseat in the middle of customer service, so in we all went.
In the end, I park my cart so that it is blocking off 2 sinks and a dryer, but since there are 7 total, I don't worry too much about it. This is a pivotal moment for me and my young son-- the discovery that there is not a single paper towel in the entire bathroom. Stupid green initiative. At this point I have come too far to turn back and buy wipes, so I make the decision that I know will be a bad one. I grab a fistfull of toilet paper, wet it in the sink, and cross my fingers.
Now, anyone who has changed a really sloppy diaper knows that no good can come from this. I am very soon low on toilet paper, even after using the diaper itself to scrape off as much of his tooshie as I can. I am forced to run into stalls for seconds or thirds, thankfully it wasn't a busy day and it was easy to be discreet. Thank goodness also, for the placement of my shopping cart. Originally thought to be a liability, it helped to deter people from wanting to come see the baby. I could see the old women sneering and shaking their heads in disgust. I was grateful for it; I have found that if there is anything worse than being unprepared, it is being unprepared with an audience.
Over on the changing table, life is getting messier by the minute. Ethan seems to have taken his own green initiative. I won't go into too much detail, as some may have weak stomachs, but suffice it to say that a battle had been faught, and a battered trail of bunched up toilet paper bits graced my young boy's bottom as I fastened on his new Luvs.
As I am washing my hands and scrubbing down the changing table (yes, it was that bad), I am secretly wondering why I didn't swish him around in the toilet instead. Oh well, there is always next time.