Parenting Lesson Learned

Tonight I learned that this is what happens when you give an almost 2 year old the bag of cereal while you run to the bathroom:

(He actually was standing in the mess holding the empty bag waiting for my reaction.) He started eating the cereal when I went to get the camera and broom.

Asking an almost 2 year old to clean up his mess only seems to make matters worse:

Once he saw what I was doing with the hand broom and dust pan, he took the dust pan that goes with the big broom and tried to get the cereal in the dust pan. He didn't get the idea of using the broom and ended up pushing the cereal until he got bright and picked up the cereal with his hands and put it in the dust pan. I was impressed...then he started walking with the dust pan to the garbage and most of the cereal that he had put in the dust pan had fallen out before he made it to the garbage!

I honestly was more concerned with the cleanliness of his hands (he's been wiping his nose with the back of his hand today) entering the bag of cereal that it didn't even dawn on me that he'd dump out the cereal! And Oh's are a favorite of mine!

Quality Time

Following my nap yesterday, I came down to the basement and this is what I found:

2 sick boys napping

Panty Man

Gerrit was upstairs with Adam on this particular day and I was in the basement. Gerrit made his way down to the basement and stood in front of me smiling and looking like this:

I couldn't resist and had to take a picture. It irritates Adam and I just laugh. Later I asked Adam if he helped him with this look and of course he said no. Gerrit did it all his own and frequently has this look, especially in the morning when we are getting ready for the day.

Adam fears Gerrit will become a wrestler and his wrestling name will be 'Panty Man'. He will be known for entering the ring with panties around his neck!

Sparty Sighting

Last night we were watching MSU women vs Duke in the women's tournament when Gerrit looked at the TV and said "party" (translation: Sparty). He pointed to the corner of the TV where Sparty was dancing because the girls beat Duke! Can you say he bleeds green and white?


PS - when I figure out how to get my pics from the new camera to the computer, I'll post some! (on the to do list this weekend....stay tuned.)

Pathetic Parenting

Tonight after dinner it was obvious Gerrit needed his diaper changed (if you know what I mean). Adam had wanted to take a nap so I said fine, but he had to change the diaper first. Then I mentioned wanting to see Slumdog Millionaire at the Theater across the street tonight. He didn't really want to see it and quickly said I could go if I changed the diaper! So, I did diaper duty, Adam is taking his nap and I will be leaving shortly to see the movie....hopefully Gerrit doesn't feel that is parents use him to barter with each other! :)

A Poor Girl's Dream

We were pretty excited that MSU drew MN for the 1st 2 rounds of the tourney. It has always been a dream of mine to go to the big dance so we immediately looked into getting tickets and our bubble was burst when tickets were a minimum of $100. With the games being in the Metrodome, we knew the seats would be bad so we decided not to get tickets and just watch the games from the comforts of home.

That didn't stop us from seeing the Spartans. Another dream of mine was to see a Spartan practice and that dream came true when we went to the open practice sessions tonight (which was free!). Luckily Adam had a meeting canceled so we were able to go as a family and it was worth the 40 min. session. We had great seats and happened to be next to the hallway they Spartans came out from. I hi fived Sutan and Grey, just to name a few, while I tried taking a few pictures. Gerrit did OK as long as he had his popcorn. The Spartans ended with 2 minutes of slam dunks! Man can those boys jump! I won't bore you and go into details about the practice session, I'll just say, Dad you missed out! Following the session we stopped by the souvenir stand and picked up a basketball for Gerrit. (We are suckers but it was cheaper than buying tickets!)

Here is a snapshot from our evening....(click on the pictures to enlarge)


The evening ended with dinner at Punch...what a great night! The only way it would've been a better night is if I gotten my new camera.

Don't Call...

social services on us:

At His Best

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Just a few pictures taken recently. 

Showing his new skills of playing with the light switch in the basement. Luckily that is the only switch he can reach (right now). 

He choice of seating one Sunday afternoon.

Just finished a chocolate covered doughnut. (Not that messy!)

Practicing his stair stepping skills.

Fight!

At daycare today Gerrit got into a fight. He has the bite mark on his forehead (by his temple) to show for it too. I guess he was fighting over a toy with another boy and the boy bit him! I don't think Gerrit did any bodily harm to the other boy - or could before it was dealt with by Julie. She felt really bad about the whole situation and we just shrugged it off. It's going to happen....

New World

It seems like every few weeks we are in awe of what Gerrit has figured out. Today we reflected on what he is now capable of doing - both good and bad:

• Gerrit is now tall enough to reach the light switch in the basement. We often are playing in the dark or by dim lights. Adam wants to duct tape them so Gerrit can't mess with them.
• Gerrit is working on mastering the game of P.I.G. in basketball. He has discovered he can make a basket on his knees. (He has tried sitting and shooting but that hasn't been successful yet.) Opah watch out!
  
• Gerrit will walk up stairs instead of using his hands and knees.
  
• "Dribbling" (and I use that word loosely) is now a routine action before taking a shot.
• Gerrit rarely says 'no' which is quite nice - but will shake his head 'no' instead. I know toddlers can get pretty good at saying 'no' so I will take the head shaking while I can!
• Gerrit brought home his first piece of art from daycare yesterday. I'm not sure what it is, but he did glue some green squares (which I'm sure he got help). We now have started open the art gallery up displaying Gerrit's latest works; I will post the times it is open later. You may be wondering where the gallery is located -- The refrigerator!

Making Strides

Gerrit sat on the toilet tonight! No, we aren't pushing the potty training or even close to being ready. I thought I'd see what he'd do when I put him on it before bath time tonight. He was a bit timid at first but then didn't seem to mind. And if you are wondering, he did not 'go'.

Can't Win

Gerrit has started a bad habit of waking up at 1 am lately. We would be too tired to deal with his crying so we'd bring him into bed with us. So we basically started a bad habit for him - sleeping with us! Now it is time to break him of this habit - not fun. He is stubborn (like his mother some would say) and can cry up to an hour before finally giving in to exhaustion. I figured it would only take a few nights and he'd realize there was not going to be any more slumber parties in mom/dad's bed. But then one of us would get lazy and want to sleep so Gerrit would end up in our bed (I won't say who got lazy...).

The past few nights Adam and I have been on the same page and said to each other before going to bed that we would NOT be giving in to him if he wakes up in the middle of the night. And low and behold (such an old saying, what does that even mean?) he has been sleeping through the night! I think I wake up at 1 in anticipation that he will be crying and I often think I should go check to see if he's alive because I don't hear him! And my whole point is to get a good nights sleep and now I'm the one waking up! This am he didn't even wake at 5 30 when he tends to (and we let him come to bed at this point because its close to when we have to get up). Adam did go in and check on him because we hadn't heard from him since 8 pm!

We are hoping that we all will soon sleep through the night and be back on track.

New Look Etc.

My dear friend Elizabeth gave the site a face lift. I figured the pictures could be updated and she decided to take it one step further and give it a whole new look! Love it! So I won't take credit but wish I could.

Anyways, I'm at conferences again tonight so the boys are on their own. When I checked in they were eating Girl Scout cookies (at 5 pm) and about ready to order pizza for dinner. Got to love it when mom's not around! I think it was Hawaiian pizza too - which I don't like.

2 Day Birthday Celebration

Having a birthday on Leap Year isn't always bad; I get two days to celebrate! Yesterday I woke up and a gift was waiting for me. Adam and Gerrit got me a lavender scented eye pillow. I won't go into great detail as the reason behind it but I have one similar. I appreciated the effort behind the gift (he went to the Bibelot - a fav store of mine) and all but I will be returning it and as Adam put it 'getting myself something real nice' instead. Adam took Gerrit to coffee and I headed off to Lake City with a bunch of women for our first annual UFO day (UnFinished Objects). We had a variety of projects each were working on which was fun to see and hear about all the while looking out at Lake Pepin and admiring the view. (We often go here in the summer to swim and have never been there in the winter.) I worked on scrap booking and continue to make a dent in my photos. When I returned, Adam had brought home Chinese for dinner. I also walked in to a picked up house, a few loads of laundry completed, and the bathroom almost put back together! Adam has improved on his multitasking abilities! (That is a huge birthday present!!)

Today following church and my turn to teach Sunday school, we went to Bridget's for brunch. After naps we watched MSU win and headed out for my finale gift - dinner. We dropped Gerrit off at friends and headed to Roch to a nice Italian restaurant. We realized the last time we were there was for our anniversary which was when I told Adam I was pregnant. I made it clear that there were no big surprises I was going to drop on him this time! A coffee to go and a short visit at Dahlen's ended my birthday celebration.

I can handle not having a birthday 3 out of 4 years if I can celebrate for 2 days - I definitely milked it this year and will continue to do so in years to come!