True Mommy Friends

I have never been great at making friends.  Don't get me wrong once I have friends I tend to cling to them like saran wrap for life.  I am pretty sure a certain friend of mine probably thinks I am downright needy at the moment.  Mr. Destructo has switched his work shift to second shift.  Which means I am alone with both kiddos from 4 until 12 every night during the week.  Which means I have to handle dinner, bath time, bedtime all by myself.  ALONE.  This in turn is slowly making me insane.  Which results in phone calls to my bestie nearly every night.  And lots and I do mean LOTS of whining.  Yeah I am talking about you cracker smasher.  Thanks for putting up with me all these years.  

But back to this post.  Never great at making friends.  I am bit more on the introverted would rather stay on my couch reading a book than going out and conquering the friendship world.  Which means that until I started a MOPS group I had no mommy friends.  Well that isn't true.  I guess all my high school friends had kids but they had them way back in the day and I was just starting out.  So it isn't like you can really commiserate as easily with them.

Then I started MOPS and met some awesomely lovely ladies.  And I made a mommy friend that I actually did stuff with outside of MOPS.  Well two in fact.  But one isn't technically a mommy friend since I met her before I ever got pregnant with Destructo.  Yay random Internet message board friends that live really close.  

Yeah back to my one mommy friend that I met once I had friends.  Hmmm maybe I need to draw you guys a time line for this or something since it is getting complicated.  But not tonight.  Tonight my bed is waiting.  Owl still had stomach food insensitivity for me to worry about and Destructo has pink eye.  But tomorrow it could happen.  

Okay for real back to my mommy friend.  You know you have become so firmly comfortable in your friendship when she is coming to your house tomorrow.  You know because you unknowingly exposed her kids to pink eye when you thought it was just allergies.  And she isn't mad.  Nope she is coming to your house tomorrow.  You messy house.  The house that you could be cleaning but nope it is just your mommy friend.  It doesn't matter.  You have seen her house in all it's messy glory.  No judging will go on.  

You do plan on picking up dog poop from the back yard before she gets here.  You also might even get bread for the kids PBand J's.  But if you don't manage that, eh you will pawn your kids off on her when she gets here to run to the store and grab a loaf.  She won't mind.  Well as long as you show back up with a Coke for her.  Although on a brain frazzled day she might not put two and two together and know what a Coke is.  

You give her tomatoes from your garden, she gives you eggs from her chickens.  Clothes are passed down from one kid to another.  And the kids play and beat each other up (okay well maybe the beatings are a bit one sided ::glares at Destructo::) and you guys are okay with that.  You sit and gossip and whine and always plan that girls night.  Always planning.  Probably will never happen because life is busy and kids are needy and times slips away.  

Goat wrangling is more fun with your buddies

And in that moment you realize that this mommy friend is part of your village. Along with your sisters (whom you also exposed to pink eye.  Your mom (yep exposed her too.)  Geez my kid is typhoid Mary.   (Check out this blog post that I stumbled upon last night that really struck a chord.  It is beautifully written and something most moms can totally relate to.)  It used to take a village to raise a child.  Now we are raising children sometimes single handedly.  It is good to have a make shift village to help.

I am so thankful for my mommy friends in real life and online.  Raising a kid is hard work.  Exhausting work even.  And you feel so worn out at the end of the day that you sit and don't go to bed because you are that tired.  It is too much work to move from the couch to your bed.  And you sometimes (more often than you want to admit) skip showers at night because yeah tired so tired.  But walking this long road with your friends lightens the load and makes it much more enjoyable.  

I hope all my lovely readers have mommy friends like mine.  It is nice to have a friendship void of having to clean your house to invite them over.  Yay friends!

Oh and I promise I haven't been drinking.  It was a bad night but the Razberita's were all the way in the fridge and again lazy.  Tired.  I just have a lot of rambling to do tonight obviously.  

Wordless Not Wednesday Since I am a Day Late

Ollie at three months old

Okay okay so he is actually three and a half months old.  I totally forgot to do this blog post until yesterday.  Oops.

Weight-- 14 lbs 3 oz at 3 months and 1 week old. He is the weight Destructo was at 6 months.  My little chunker.  But he has slowed way down compared to when he was a newborn.  I am curious to see who ends up taller when it is all said and done.  

Height--  He is around 23 1/2-24 inches.  He has been so squirmy both times I tried to measure him that I am not sure his exact height.  

Medical Issues--  Same old same old reflux.  I cut out all dairy and he seemed to be doing better with no blood in his poop but then we had an episode with some white chocolate covered strawberries and me having a duh moment regarding them having dairy.  So now the blood is back.  :(  I feel bad.

Source  I miss cheese so much

Sleep--  You have had a bit of a regression recently.  You were sleeping a good six hour stretch every night, but have since regressed back to waking up every 2-3 at night.  I thought it might be because you keep breaking out of the swaddle but even nights you didn't break the swaddle, you still woke up.  I miss sleep.

Clothes Size--  3-6 or 6-9 months (or 9 months in Carters)  Owl is wearing the clothes Destructo wore around ten months.  He is also catching up very quickly to his cousin Liam.  Which means we can't share clothes much longer.  I am pretty sure Owl's feet might already be bigger than his cousins.  Am I raising a future linebacker?

Diapers Size--  Size two although once those are gone he is moving up to a size three in disposables.  He is already one the second snap setting on some of his smaller cloth diapers and  has completely out grown all the newborn sized ones.

Diet--  Still just boob milk and Zantac.  I went the entire month without giving him a bottle or pumping.   Lazy am I.  But then at the very end of the month, he had two bottles in one day and thankfully he took them no problem.

Baby Gear I Love-- 

Fisher-Price Snugabunny Cradle 'N Swing   Ollie decided he likes the swing (that I was planning on selling.)  I am so glad because the only time my happy baby gets fussy at all is right at dinner time and this allows me to eat in peace.
Tommee Tippee pacifier  Owl decided he likes these a whole lot for some reason mid way through the month.
Taggies Monster Security Blanket Ollie loves his lovey so much.  He sleeps with it snuggled onto the side of his face.
o ball This is the first toy Ollie expressed interest in.  He can grasp it better than the others.
Beco  carrier.  I wear Ollie a lot to have my hands free when we are out and about.
exersaucer  I love this for when I am not right with Owl and don't want to chance him getting trampled by a wild dance party that Destructo is having.  He loves it because he isn't flat  and has toys to play with.

 Milestones--  He is holding toys much better and trying to imitate sounds and facial expressions.  Ollie learned how to blow raspberries and loves to blow them with his daddy.

Likes/Dislikes--  Ollie dislikes tummy time with a fiery passion.  He hates having to wait even two seconds to eat.  He loves talking to people and talking in general.  Ollie is always babbling and making noise.  He loves his monster taggie lovey.  He chews it and it will end up sopping wet.  Gross.  He seems to really enjoy spitting up on Mr. Destructo.  He loves watching his big brother play.

Things I don't want to forget-- How happy and smily Ollie always is.  How he laughs hysterically when I clean under his neck.  He is such a ticklish baby.  How hard he worked to figure out how to blow raspberries.  How much he loves the helicopter baby game.  How he growls when forced to go into the baby eating monster car seat.  I never want to forget how his eyes just light up when he catches my eye from across the room.  I also never want to forget how sweet Destructo is when holding his baby brother.  He really loves his baby.

Childhood

Oh to be a child again.  Childhood was a simple easy time where the only cares were how many more minutes you could play before the street lights came on and you had to go inside.  I had my boys outside on the swings last night.  Their shining eyes as I pushed them back and forth made me remember my childhood. 

I remember summer especially.  I used to swim in my little plastic back yard pools and pretend I was a mermaid.  We used to make mud pies in my friend Kelly's sand box and mud castles that we drove our cars through.  There was epic Mario Brothers sessions.  Playing school, dress up, house.  I always made my friends be the dad and I was always the mom.  We would ride our bikes around the block over and over because we weren't allowed to go any further than that.  

I remember yelling for an adult to come help us cross the road because that was what we were told to do.  Playing tag, hide and seek, and building cardboard box forts.  Catching lightning bugs and putting them in a jar.  Such joy in the little things.  

Now I get to relive all those little fun moments with my kiddos.  While they were on the swings, Ollie bright blue eyes were shining.  He loves to swing.  He is lucky in that he has a swing set in his own backyard unlike big brother at that age.  The swinging motion is enough to make Owl just giggle hysterically.

Then there was Destructo.  He was begging me to push him fast fast.  He was pretending the swing was a blue angel jet and he was going to take off.  All the while he was wearing his Superhero cape and his firefighter boots.  Isn't that the best part of childhood?  Getting to pretend you are anybody you want to be.  

He has gotten where he loves trying to catch lightening bugs.  Which is huge since he was terrified of bugs just a month ago.  He finally caught one all on his own yesterday and was so proud and came running to show me.  The lucky lightening bug even lived through the experience.

I look forward to all the new old experiences I get to reexperience with my kiddos as they grow.

Favorite Toys at Age Three

Ahh Captain Destructo is three.  Three years old. Oh how time does fly.  And with him being three comes a list of his favorite toys.  If you are interested in what toys he liked all along,click the links below.

Favorite toys 0-6 months

Favorite Toys at a Year Old

Favorite toys at 18 months

Favorite Toys at Two

So without further ado, here are Destructo's favorite toys at age three.

Lego duplos
Any and all of these are much loved in our household.  He has a bunch of Jake and the Neverland Pirate sets and those are his very favorite.  Of course, I get shot with the cannon from the pirate ship all the time so that is slightly obnoxious.  He has another farm set that he also really likes that came with a story book.


Kidkraft Deluxe Fire Rescue Set
There are a whole lot of fire emergencies in our house.  Kai is obsessed with fire trucks and fire fighters.  He plays with this three story fire station all the time.  He has even fashioned a make shift fire garage door out of a cookie sheet from his kitchen set.


Kinetic sand
My mother in law recently got this for Kai.  It is great for a sensory activity and so relaxing for me haha.  This is not a super messy thing as it doesn't stick to your hands at all.  You can build sand castles and mold the sand, but it also runs through your fingers.  How I don't know.  I love this stuff and Destructo likes it nearly as much as I do.


Hotwheels cars
He plays with them on his  road rug that he got for his birthday.  His love of organization really shows with this because they all have their proper places.


Melissa & Doug Farm Blocks 
Melissa & Doug Stacking Train
These have been on a number of lists.  He has liked these two toys for quite some time now.

Balance bike
We are working on teaching him how to pedal on his new pedal bike but he still prefers his balance bike because he is a speed demon on it.

Melissa and Doug water wow books
These are amazing for travel.  You fill the little paint brushes up with water and they can paint on the books.  Once they dry, the color fades away and you can paint them again and again.

Dinosaurs
This is a really new like of Destructo's.  He has a number of toy dinos and is slightly obsessed with the show Dinosaur Train.

Wooden puzzles
Destructo has gotten really good at putting these together.  But more than anything he takes them apart and uses the pieces for different things.  He drives the vehicles on his road mat rug, uses the tools to fix broken things, etc.

Board games for toddlers
Destructo's top two favorite board games right now are Hi Ho Cheerio and Candyland.  We like to play board games with him in the evenings to help calm him down and get him ready for bed.

Those are Kai's favorite toys as of now.  I might add a few to this list as I think of them.  What are your kiddos favorite toys?
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