Sunday, August 28, 2011

Ike's Third Birthday

On this day three years ago, Mr. Teichert Blaine came into our lives. In the wee hours of the morning on my fourth day of being overdue, I finally went into labor. Twelve hours later, I held him in my arms for a few minutes before he was taken away to the NICU. As soon as he is old enough to appreciate this, I will remind him that on his way into the world he inhaled his own poop and had to spend several days in the care unit as a result. Ike has a great sense of humor and I imagine he won't mind when his brothers start calling him poo-eater. Speaking of nick names, I wanted to call him Ty but Clark insisted on Ike. Named after one of my favorite artists and my beloved Grandpa, Ike has some big shoes to fill.

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Last night I snuck into Ike's room to take one last picture of my two year old boy. Ike has a bed. A nice little toddler bed with some cute Pottery Barn bedding. Does he sleep in it? No. He sleeps on the floor. Occasionally he sleeps inside his closet. Sometimes he lets me put a quilt under him, but mostly he prefers to sleep directly on the floor.

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Ike loves breakfast foods. Pancakes, sausages, eggs. He gobbles it all up. He otherwise shows very little interest in food. This morning we made him German pancakes and let him have all the powdered sugar and syrup he wanted. My apologies to his nursery leaders.

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Ike will only wear basketball shorts. He has a drawer full of cute and stylish little pairs of shorts but he refuses to wear them. Getting him dressed for church each week is a battle. This afternoon when we got home from church and Ike discovered that all of his basketball shorts were dirty, Booker kindly (and rather unexpectedly) allowed Ike to wear one of his pairs. Hence the oversized basketball shorts.

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Before opening presents, we made Ike eat dinner. He ate so fast that he threw up everywhere. He recovered pretty quickly...

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Ike worships the ground that Booker walks on. We decided on a repeat of presents for Ike- his gifts are the same ones Booker got three weeks ago. A collection of nerf guns and a pillow pet. Ike was THRILLED.

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Ike is always reminding us that his favorite color is green. I suspect that his actual favorite color is blue but since Booker has already laid claim to that favorite color, Ike has settled on green. A green pillow pet for my little peacemaker.

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Now that Booker has started school, Ike is allowed to be a three year old again. With his older brother gone, Ike's been choosing shows like Blue's Clues and Dora instead of Avatar and Spongebob. He's playing more with blocks and stuffed animals and less with light sabers. I'm glad to have my little guy back again. I took him to Walmart to pick a cake (poor second child, my cake-making skills were exhausted a few weeks ago) and Ike picked a Thomas cake. I was so glad. I thought surely he would be excited about a Spiderman cake, but nope, he wanted Thomas.

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Typical thunder-stealing Booker...

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Ike, you really are the sweetest kid I know. If my boys were a banana-peanut butter-nutella sandwich, Ike would be the delicious middle sandwiched between these two crazy guys...

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We love you so much, Ike. Happy birthday!

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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Phone Snapshots

I have an app on my phone that will automatically upload any picture or video I take with my phone to an online Photobucket account. Every picture message that I send or funny little interaction between the boys that I capture automatically gets saved online. Often I'll browse through it for kicks and while some of it isn't exactly blog-worthy, it's a fun little glimpse into my life.

From chatty babies...

To beat-boxing Hasidic Jewish rappers...

To wiping bums during Senate Foreign Relations Committees...

Sick kids...
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Well kids...
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The paranormal...
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The mundane...
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And the beautiful...
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What do your phone pics say about you?

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Happy Birthday Booker!

Five years ago, at 39 weeks pregnant, I came into the hospital so my doctor could try and flip the breech baby boy growing inside my belly. The doctor pushed and pulled and shoved and leaned and prodded and even stood on a step stool to get more leverage. Man, was that uncomfortable. But that baby boy wouldn't budge. A few hours and one major incision later, that little guy was finally in my arms. What a happy day it was for me and Clark. What a telling sign that Booker would be a headstrong, sometimes backwards, always exciting little human being. Happy birthday buddy!

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Booker's second day of school went a little better than the first. It had to, right? It was his birthday! It was also his first day on the bus.

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I met him for lunch in the cafeteria and it was fun to sit with his class and eat. I was reminded of just how young these kids are when his classmates kept asking me to open their milk/crackers/fruit snacks/etc.

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Then I headed home to start working on his cake. Booker was very specific and asked for a blue light saber crossed with a red one. And he wanted Jango Fett on there somewhere. This cake wasn't too hard, especially for a cake making novice like myself. I found the idea here.

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When I picked him up from the bus stop, he looked like this. I hope none of the older kids on the bus made fun of him.

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And then we waited and waited until Clark came home. I let Booker determine the order of the evening and naturally, he wanted to open presents first. His gifts were some Nerf guns and a pillow pet. Someone was selling their Nerf gun collection on Craigslist, so we are fully loaded up. We invite any and all neighborhood children over for a Nerf battle.

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I will never understand this whole pillow pet craze.

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Then we headed downstairs for dinner. I told Booker he could have whatever he wanted for dinner and he asked for chicken stew. Not pizza or corn dogs or mac and cheese. Just chicken stew. I decided to spice things up a bit with some Yoda Soda.

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We played a rousing game of Chutes and Ladders during dinner.

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After dinner, there were several Nerf battles.


And then cake.

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He wanted the Jango Fett piece.

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Yummy.

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We ended the evening with a night time dip in the pool, which is one of Booker's favorite things to do. He thinks the pool is pretty neat with the underwater pool light on. It was a good day for a night time swim because earlier in the afternoon, Ike started swimming in the deep end. He was able to show off for all of us.

Booker had a great day. He didn't seem to mind at all that it was a family birthday party and not a friend one. He's so excited to be five because according to him, "fives-years-olds" know how to read, button their church shirts and wipe their own bums. I'm especially excited about that last one.

This morning, I was looking forward to sending Booker off to his third and hopefully first "normal" day of school, but he woke up complaining that his stomach hurt. He threw up all over my bed naturally and then fell asleep next to the toilet. And he's now spent the morning falling asleep all over the house. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

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That is one wiped out birthday kid. Happy birthday, Booker. We love you so much!

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Booker's First Day

Booker's first day of school wasn't exactly rainbows and lollipops. Kindergarten can be a rude awakening from the sweet comforts of preschool.

At the end of the day, I picked him up in the school cafeteria among a chaotic sea of students and parents (maybe some teachers, but I didn't see any). He looked like he had been holding back tears for the last 6 hours but he wouldn't talk to me about it. He wouldn't talk to me. At all. For hours. He was silent. He offered one piece of information about his day: he sat at a table with a boy named Michael who liked to go by Big Mike. Big Mike?!? What is this, kindergarten or prison? Yikes.

On the drive to the ice cream place, he was not himself. He kept trying to curl up (à la fetal position) in his car seat. Once we got ice cream, he took two bites, forced a smile and then resumed the fetal position on the bench.

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Once we got home, he needed an hour to himself. I gave him some aspirin because his head was hurting, he lay on the couch and we didn't talk about school at all. Ten minutes of playing Wii and he was starting to resemble the old Booker. Maybe my dad can confirm this, but I think I had a similar de-stressing routine when I was in kindergarten. Although mine involved standing outside the front door and screaming at the top of my lungs for ten minutes before my mom would let me in the house. I remember trying so hard to be obedient and quiet and good and perfect at school that when I got home, I had to let it all out. In the form of screaming. I wonder what the neighbors thought.

Anyways, I suggested that we go swimming and once he was in the pool, Booker started to volunteer some information.

He started with, "Hey mom, there's a nurse's office and the nurse helps you."

"Oh yeah?"

And from there, he told me about his bloody nose(s?- because I think there was more than one, he picks his nose when he's nervous) and other bits and pieces of his day.

Besides Big Mike and the bloody noses, I don't think anything particularly traumatic happened. It's just a long day for a 5 year old. A long day full of new faces, new rules and new spaces. It's a lot to take in. His preschool class had 4 other kids and was held in his teacher's living room. Now he's got a huge new campus to navigate and 20 other kids to befriend.

I hope it gets better for him.

Monday, August 8, 2011

First Day of Kindergarten

The day finally came.

This morning we tearfully dropped him off. He did great. I could tell he was feeling a little anxious, a little shy. Even when he found his friend Ella, he was pretty reserved. I got home and almost lost it. I put both Ike and Asher down for naps and it hit me. Hit me hard. Booker is at SCHOOL and my other two kids are SLEEPING. I AM A FREE WOMAN! For about two hours, a free woman. Woo hooooooooooooooooooooo!

Kindergarten rocks.

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Booker acting like he didn't spend six hours each week last year with his buddy Ella from Joy School. Geez. Iced out.

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Ike was genuinely surprised that we didn't drop him off at a classroom as well. For weeks now he's been talking about going to Kindergarten to collect eggs in a basket (?!?!) Your guess is as good as mine, I think he's confusing Kindergarten with Easter (something to do with "garten" and garden, I'm not sure?)

Despite several screamed conversations between Booker and Ike (IKE YOU ARE NOT GOING TO KINDERGARTEN ONLY FIVE YEAR OLDS GO TO KINDERGARTEN YOU ARE ONLY TWO YEARS OLD), he's still holding out hope and keeps asking me when he'll be going as well. It's hard being the little brother. I'll try and get video footage of Ike wailing as he chases Booker's school bus down the street tomorrow morning.

Speaking of tomorrow morning, coming soon... Booker's birthday, his second day of school and his first time on the bus.

The Beach: The Rest

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Our line of cabanas.

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A "sand"wich.

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Proof that I was there. With crazy hair.

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Grandma and Grandpa Ron.

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Slideshow seen here.