Open letter to my kids

Dear Plice kids:

Sleep is your friend. The more you get, the happier we are. Ri- this means sleeping past 6 a.m. AND taking a good nap. Asher- this means really trying for at least 7 straight hrs. When you sleep well, your parents are a lot happier. This means you get more treats.

Just an FYI,

Your.tired.mom.who.cannot.afford.to.sleep.through.her.alarm.again.and.go.to.work.looking like.a.hot.mess.again.

This is the letter I wrote to my kids on Facebook last night. Surprisingly, they listened. Asher slept 7 straight hours and Riley woke up at 6:25. While Asher eating at 5:30 COMPLETELY threw off our morning, it was nice to get that much sleep consecutively. Also, 6:25 is still far earlier than I would like for Riley, but it is certainly better than the 4:20 stunt Riley pulled Saturday.

Speaking of which... Saturday. 4:20 a.m. Riley comes BUSTING in to our room saying, "hi!!" So I get up and go put her back in bed. She kept saying, "a baby. A baby. A baby." So I go searching for her baby. Nowhere to be found, of course. So I find another baby she likes. That only half way satisfied her. I'm pretty sure she didn't really sleep much between then and 6:45 when she refused to get back in bed. At least she took a good nap and then we had her party that afternoon. My baby is 2. Holy cow.

The birthday girl eating her cupcake

Asher's first LU football game (yes, I made that carseat cover. I'll finish the canopy as soon as I have 5 minutes to breath)

Who could ever be mad at that cute smile? (please excuse the blurriness, I was snapping the picture as fast as possible)

I shave

So Riley has not a lot of words that are understood by an average human being. She talks and talks... just not in English. She actually is scheduled for a speech evaluation next Friday. Of course, she has started saying a bunch of new words in the past few days. I'm sure she'll rattle off all kinds of words next Friday and make me look even more looney than I already do.

So anyways... I was giving her a bath a few nights ago. I turned to grab something and when I looked back, she was standing and grabbing my razor. Mind you, she hardly ever stands in the tub (she's scared) and the razor is, in fact, on a shelf that she typically cannot reach. So as she does that, she throws her other arm up in the air and acts like she is about to put the razor to it and proclaims, "I SHAVE!". She did this as I was reaching to grab the sharp object from her. I said, "Um, no. You don't even talk, so no, you do NOT shave." She looked at me like I was nuts for taking it from her. I'm so mean to not let my 2 yr old play with razors.

Or maybe she was trying to tell me that I need to shave... whatever.

Dear Wednesday.

Thank you for arriving finally. If I make it through you, it will mean I've made it halfway through the week. I love my job, but I love my family more. So the sooner you are over, Wednesday, the sooner I get to have 2 full days with my 3 loves. Thanks.

Goodbye Garlic. Again.

So I gave up onions this time because they make Asher-boy so very gassy. Alright, fine. Most things are just fine if you just add some onion powder and then you don't get the gas factor.

I've stayed away from garlic *just in case* since that was the ONLY thing that bothered Riley. Well I went to Olive Garden for lunch yesterday w/ friends from work. And everyone knows that Olive Garden = salad and bread sticks. I ate a LOT of bread sticks that were coated in butter and garlic. They were so delicious and amazing. What is not amazing is how fussy Asher has been last night and today whenever he'd nurse. He kept pulling away - clearly repulsed by the taste - and fussing. He was insanely gassy. He took the bottle fine all day and so we gave him a few oz in the bottle tonight and no problem. So problem solved. No more garlic. Oy.

Oh this also means that all of my work pumping today was for nothing. NOTHING because it all has to be dumped. It's been tainted with garlic. BLAST!

Other than that...

I started back to work last week. It's been a fairly smooth transition back. I went back on a Wednesday. Ryan was able to stay home Wed/Thurs/Fri. Kids didn't have school Friday or Monday, so it was nice to have 2 low key days. Our weekend was pretty relaxed. Nothing major. Asher and I went to church again finally. He was a dream. Riley was wiggly... but please tell me what 2 yr old is NOT wiggly?

Riley is a hot mess. Cute as she can be! She has learned to sign "help" now. I love it! She "uses her words" when she does it, too. She is sassy and nuts. This afternoon she was coming in the living room and saying, "bye bye!" to me and then running down the hall and slamming her door. She'd open and poke her head out to see if I was looking. When she realized I was, she'd crack up and say, "bye bye!" and slam the door again. Ryan actually had to tell her to stop slamming doors. If she is like this at 2, what is she going to be like at 13? At least this time she was laughing and it's not because she hates us.

Oh... she also no longer has a bed rail on her bed. We took it off last night when I was putting her new quilt (yes, she has ANOTHER quilt. You can NEVER have too many) on her bed and just left it off. She thinks she is so old now. She was giggling and climbing up and down and up and down. I guess she feels like we gave her some freedom..

Expect pictures of my crazies... I mean children... soon.