Release me

Johnny, Hank and I spent nine whole days in the house being too sick to associate with others. We went outside to paint and get the mail and I made a solo trip to the grocery store. That was it. For nine whole days. Now, that may not sound so awful, but we don't have a backyard the boys can play in much, therefore we normally go to parks/other houses/anywhere other than our house nearly every day. Which means that being home bound for over a week was excruciating for all three of us. So by day nine we were feeling like this:

RELEASE ME!!!!! Independence Day anyone?

On day 10, I thought the boys were well enough to go to a park and run around there. Yes, they still had runny noses and some yucky green boogies, but my patience was worn thin and the boys were incredibly bored with our home. So, we left the house.

Once we got to the park (a cool new one we found in North Park), Johnny and Hank were beside themselves with excitement. I let them out of the car and then it was climbing ALL THE THINGS and sliding down ALL THE SLIDES and jumping off ALL THE SURFACES.

FREEDOM! Now where do I go? (this is Hank, BTW)

Johnny climbing the curvy yellow ladder...

Hank climbing the curvy yellow ladder.

Johnny at Hilltop in the afternoon

Hank chasing after Johnny

This is what happens when you are sick and do serious playing outside all day.

 I got a few side-eyes from some of the other moms there because it's obvious Johnny and Hank were still a little sick, but oh well. I tried to keep them away from the smaller children and mostly succeeded in keeping them from wiping snot on other kids. I call that a win.

What could possibly go wrong? (Alternatively titled: Boys are weird.)

Yes, another post about bath time. We were in a bath-loving stage last week... probably because we didn't leave the house for nine days and baths are a good change of pace. Since they spent so much time in the bath, Johnny and Hank had to come up with better ways to keeping themselves occupied than merely splashing water all over the bathroom. So they came up with this lovely game:

(Note: No teeth were lost in the making of this film. At least not yet.)

The Orange Shirt

Johnny, being a 3-year-old, has obsessions over some things. Of course, he is obsessed with letters and numbers, but another, much more visible, obsession is his love of a particular orange shirt. I purchased this orange shirt at Target sometime in September.

The Orange Shirt

Then, one day in October, he decided that it was his favorite shirt ever and he never wanted to remove it. Thus, he wore it day and night, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, excepting the couple of hours that John and I managed to coax it off of him so we could wash it. There was probably a six week period where he didn't wear any other shirt. Evidence below:

October 28th, 2013

November 2nd, 2013

November 6th, 2013

November 10th, 2013

November 15th, 2013

December 5th, 2013

December 17th, 2013

In effort to stem the tears and screaming caused by taking the orange shirt away to wash it, I purchased another orange shirt, though it was different since Target was out of blue monster shirts in his size. This new orange shirt was inadequate because it had a blue car on it instead of the beloved blue monster. Shame on me. So it sat, with the rest of his T-shirts, in his closet unused.

Until one day, he wanted to wear the orange shirt with the blue car.

December 25th, 2013

And now Johnny's obsessed with BOTH of these orange shirts. Which is preferable to being attached to only one shirt. Also on the plus side? Orange really stands out in a crowd; I think I would have lost him at the zoo by now if he had an obsession with black shirts.

Splash!

Both boys go through waves of loving baths and then hating baths. For now, we're in a loving-the-bath stage. Mostly because Johnny has learned the concept of water displacement. Typically in the form of splashing.

Hey, Hank, since I know you hate this, here's a little water for your face!

Ready, set...

Go!

Yay! Gigantic splash! Water everywhere! Whoo-hoo!!

Now, the pictures would indicate that fun is had by all. This is not entirely true. Johnny, of course, thinks his tidal waves are awesome and hilarious, but Hank sometimes gets doused with so much water that he probably thinks he's being water-boarded... I mean, if he had any concept of POW torture techniques, he would totally think that.

I digress. John and I used to freak out a little about getting so much water on the floor since the kids' bathroom is right over the kitchen and the seam between the tub and linoleum lines up nicely with our beautiful cabinets... but then John re-caulked that seam and I don't care so much any more. (Hopefully you did extraordinary job on that caulking, honey!) That doesn't mean that I don't lay down at least two towels on the floor for each bath session, though. Baths create quite a bit of laundry these days.

Maybe he'll be an astronaut.

I hope not an astronaut... maybe a physicist? Or maybe he'll be a biologist like his mama, since he's pretty good at memorizing things. :)

I should probably note here that this video is of Hank. And he's only 19 months.

Hank is 19 months old!

I'm 19 months old today!

I am FINALLY feeling better today! Feeling good enough to even write out a little blog in honor of my 19 month birthday. Whoo-hoo!

Let's see? What has been happening with me in the last couple of months? I  haven't written since my 15 month birthday, so I suppose I have some catching up to do! 

I am talking up a storm and have figured out how to make rudimentary sentences. Of course, they are generally missing pronouns and some critical verbs, but hey, I can get my point across. This morning I said to Mommy, "Johnny Daddy shower!" Which, of course, means "Johnny and Daddy are in the shower!" But you could figure that out, right? I have also gotten pretty good at asking questions like, "Johnny go?" which actually means "Where did Johnny go?" not "Johnny, will you go?" I know, sometimes my language can be tricky. Lucky for me, Mommy is around all the time so she knows what's up.

I'm quite a good runner now and enjoy chasing Johnny everywhere. G-ma calls us Pete and Re-Pete because when Johnny runs to the kitchen, I also run to the kitchen. When he runs down the street, I also run down the street. If he wants to eat raisins, I want to eat raisins. Johnny's pretty much my best friend. We do fight over the occasional toy or when we should leave the park, but mostly we play together. I love to take baths with him and splash together and play trains with the set we got for Christmas. 

Physically, I can climb up high ladders and go down steep slides all by myself, which apparently, most children my age can't or won't. Mommy says that other people are often impressed by my abilities to do things that their 2.5-year-olds have trouble with. Well, they should be impressed. I'm kind of a big deal.

On the "academic" front, I have figured out most of the alphabet and know all the numbers from 0 to 10 (courtesy of Johnny and his numerical fervor). The letters "O" and "W" are my favorite and I like to find those particular ones and put them in a box to carry around with me. I enjoy "spelling words" with Johnny, though Mommy says my words aren't words at all. I beg to differ. "BGHHOOOTW" totally spells "sea lion".

My treasure box of favorite letters.

Sick week

We've been sick for something like eight years. And our house has been like those leper colonies that existed in medieval times; no one enters and no one leaves, but if someone comes too close, they take one look at the inhabitants and jump back involuntarily.

Maybe that was over dramatic.

We have been hit hard with a really bad cold and, thus, have been stuck in the house for nearly a week. Hank got hit with it really hard, which leads us to a kind of funny story. Not really funny in a "OMG that's stand-up worthy comedy", but more of a "Yeah, sometimes that's how things go when you're a parent" kind of funny.

I shall warn you now, there are bodily fluids contained in this story... please skip down until you see pictures if you're squeamish.

Consider yourself warned.

Ahem. The boys had been a little sick on Tuesday, but not alarmingly so, considering they were still getting over colds they had contracted a couple of weeks prior. But when Hank woke up Wednesday morning, he had a fever. Not a bad one, he was just warmer and fussier than usual. He wasn't up to eating much, but then Johnny really wasn't either, so I just chalked it up to cold symptoms. After all, eating with a stuffy nose and a sore throat is certainly not a good time.

Well, even though the boys were obviously getting sick with a new cold, I had to leave the house. I had just used the last wet wipe and was perilously close to being out of diapers for Johnny (he refuses to use cloth). So, we went to Target, that beacon of all things necessary and delightfully unnecessary. In order to get Johnny in the car, however, I had to promise him that we would get hot dogs afterward at Costco since I had to go there, too. Our Target trip passed without incident (except for two young boys running rampant through the store... in different directions).

We got to Costco, picked up a couple of hot dogs for the boys and sat down to eat those hot, grease-laden treats. Hank and Johnny sat on the other side of the table, downing every piece of cooled hot dog I put in front of them. They took down a hot dog and half of the other before they were sated. And then they wanted to throw away the trash. So I sat and tore up pieces of napkin for them to throw away, while chatting with the nice older man next to me.

And then I hear it.

Johnny's laughter ringing out through the eating area. Not like a little laugh, it was full-on belly laughing, nearly maniacal. So I turn around with a big smile on my face to see what he's laughing at... and see Johnny lying on the concrete rolling around with laughter while Hank is vomiting up pieces of hot dog. In the middle of the thoroughfare.

So I grabbed a whole bunch of napkins to clean up Hank (and catch the vomit still coming up) and Johnny continued laughing. The whole time. I clean up the area and book it to the van so that I can get my little sickie home, but I realize that I didn't get any red juice, which is what I promised to get for Hank since he was sick. Which is how we ended up in Trader Joe's, looking around for a suitable "red juice" while Johnny is laughing hysterically in the cart saying, "Hank puked up the hot dog!" and then laughing some more, while other shoppers were trying hard to laugh themselves because Johnny's laugh really is quite contagious.

After that initial vomiting session, we stayed home, where Hank's fever got worse and he wouldn't keep any food down, so we ended up at the doctor, who prescribed an inhaler. He also gave me a prescription for an antibiotic, but said I shouldn't cash it in unless Hank didn't get better. He finally turned the corner on Saturday and is now recovering.

But we're still like a leper colony since we can't leave the house since we're sick... something that's hard to explain to a 3 year old.

Fevery toddler just wants to go back to bed. But not enough to actually go back to bed.

All he wanted for me to hold him.

This is his "Why can't we go to the park?!?!?!" face.

Napping on the couch like a boss.

Yesterday we made an outing to the grocery store. It was a huge deal since we hadn't been out of the house since the Costco incident.

Backlog: Emily's Wedding Part Deux

I already detailed Wednesday to Friday of our trip, but the main event, the wedding, happened on Saturday, in Manhattan. So on Saturday morning, we left Aunt Janet's house and set off for the city to get into hotel with enough time to prepare for the big evening ahead. Thanks to John's parents, we stayed in a suite at the Metropolitan Club, where the wedding reception would take place that evening. Thank goodness we did, because it made our lives a whole lot easier! We didn't have to worry about how to get to and from the hotel or where we should leave the car or if we should take or leave the diaper bag. It was really the best situation.

First, Grandma and Grandpa Durso took Johnny to a restaurant a few blocks down from the hotel and they brought back lunch for us.

The noodles were delicious. And all over the hotel room by the time the boys were done.

Then we got all dolled up for the wedding which included tuxedos and bow ties for the boys.

Hank was not thrilled with cuffs on the sleeves

Dark room + squirmy boys = not an excellent picture

The ceremony took place at St. Patrick's Cathedral (I KNOW), which was walkable, but not easily walkable with the boys. Luckily, Emily's parents had arranged for a shuttle from the hotel to the cathedral, which meant all we had to do was keep Johnny and Hank occupied while we waited for the bus to leave.

Keeping Johnny occupied = watching himself on my phone

We arrived at the cathedral, which was swarming with tourists and yet still grand and awe-inspiring. After a short wait, we went inside and watched Emily and Brian get married... well, John watched. Johnny was playing with my iPhone and I was running around the back of the cathedral with Hank trying to keep him occupied. But from what I saw, it was beautiful. Such a cool experience, not only for the bride and groom, but for the rest of us who got to witness it!

Emily, the bride was absolutely stunning. I know everyone says that brides are radiant, but seriously, she was radiant. So beautiful.

Hey look! A family portrait! Thanks for this one, Gail.

And then it was time for the reception... which was, in a word, incredible. The cocktail hour took place in the entire lobby, both the ground floor and upper floors, which meant you could wander around from room to room and explore the place. There were tons of food options to choose from as well as beverages. I spent the majority of the cocktail hour like this:

Tucked away in a corner while Hank napped.

Hank fell asleep on the shuttle ride over, so I just hung out with him on a bench, letting John's Uncle Bobby bring me food and beverages and keep me company for awhile. (Thanks again, Uncle Bobby!) John, on the other hand, was chasing Johnny all over the lobby and the courtyard, trying to keep him from falling in the fountain between quick conversations with family and friends.

Don't give me any sushi, Dad. Yuck.

How far can I stick my hands in before I fall over?

Then there was the actual reception. The food, the location, and the band were all exceptional. Especially the band. They were professional quality, that's for sure, covering everything from Frank Sinatra to Cee Lo Green. The only problem is they were loud. Really loud. For those of us who have a few decades' worth of wear on our ear drums, that was no problem. But Johnny was terrified of the reception room because of all of the noise. So John, John's parents, and myself took turns keeping Johnny entertained in a place other than the reception hall.

Johnny counting all of the posts in the banister. Whoo-hoo! This kid can party.

Hank, on the other hand, didn't seem to care one bit. He stayed at the dinner table and ate his children's meal and even did some dancing with me.

Then he crashed, hard. And that was the end of the night for us!

The next morning, the bride and groom hosted a fabulous brunch in Central Park and it was PERFECT for us. The boys ran around on the grass while John's cousins chased them around so we could stuff our faces with pastries, muffins and bagels. Delicious. I took a stupid amount of pictures, so I tried to pare them down and include only the good ones.

Hank the next morning, in last night's tux with Oliver in hand.

Nap time

JUMP!

Jump some more!

Aw, brothers!

Saying good bye to Johnny's favorite person.

Yes, that was pared down. Anyway. We bid everyone farewell and headed straight to the airport. Where karma bit us in the ass for having a delightfully easy first flight. The flight home was... difficult. Both of the boys were still tired from the wedding the night before, so they whined more than usual and Hank was WAY overtired and thus, did not want to sit in my lap, but he didn't want to nurse, nor did he want to walk up and down the aisles. I believe the word is inconsolable. But hey, we made it and no one punched me in the face for being THAT parent. Whew!

Altogether, we had a good time. I think I'd rather not travel with a one year old ever again though. Two? Sure. Younger than one? Not awesome, but I'll do it. 14 months? I'd rather stick a fork in my eye repeatedly.

Anyway! That was our East Coast trip! I wonder what kind of adventures this year will bring?