Winter Fun

We finally found some good use for our ridiculously steep driveway.

Arnettibles

We recently added an iPad to our collection of household electronics. I love it. I use it for everything. One thing I was thrilled to use it for was a cookbook. I was so excited to be able to have recipes on it while cooking in the kitchen instead of having to print/write them up from the computer or have a floppy book taking up tons of counter space. After I got the iPad and started using it, I realized that it would be a lot easier to organize all of my recipes in one spot. Since I follow a ton of recipe blogs I figured I might as well start one of my own. I was originally going to just keep it for myself but I figured that I might as well share the wealth with all 5 of my blog readers (hi mom, father-in-law, and sisters!). I haven't added a ton yet, but it's a work in progress.

So, without any further ado, enjoy:

www.arnettibles.blogspot.com

Looking back at my old posts, I spotted this update on Joey at 7 months old. I thought it would be fun to compare what I updated on Joey to where we're at with Moses. (DISCLAIMER: I do not intend on making a habit of comparing my children for the rest of their lives. I figure it's okay while they're still babies, right?)

• WEIGHT: Though I didn't weigh Joey at 7 months, he weighed in at 6 months at 16 pounds 7 ounces. Compared to Moses, who just got weighed today at 14 pounds 11 ounces. Needless to say, Moses is a small fella. Joey was small, too, but Moses takes the cake. Moses still wears size 2 diapers while some of his peers are in size 4 (Joey's current size). When I look at him, I know he doesn't have the cute baby chunks and rolls that lots of babies have, but he doesn't seem to look frail. I hope that someday when he's older and I look at pictures of him, I won't say "What was I thinking? He looks like a skeleton!" 
• NIGHT SLEEPING HABITS: Groan. Joey sleeping 12  hours through the night was "old news" by 7 months. Moses has never once given me such a long stretch. These days we're grateful for a 10 hour night of sleep with 2 wake-ups in the middle. 
• NAP SLEEPING HABITS: Joey was easing into 2 naps per day. Moses, who knows! The poor kid gets his naps sacrificed for errands multiple times per week. He will fall asleep in the car, but he's a pretty light sleeper so he won't stay awake if I try to move him. If we're home, though, he usually has 3 naps per day. 
• TEETH: My boys are very consistent with this. Neither boys had teeth at this stage. Joey got his first tooth at 10 months; we'll see if Moses follows suit.
• EATING: I thought Joey was a good eater. He ate all kinds of baby foods and loved most of them. Moses, on the other hand, is a different kind of good eater. He loves food, but he hates pureed baby food. He wants the real thing. Pretty much since he was 6 months old, that kid has turned away jarred baby food and wanted the real deal: cheerios, pancakes, real fruits and vegetables in very small size chunks, pasta, and pretty much anything we have for meals. Moses is WAY more willing to eat our food than 20 month old Joey is. Ridiculous. Despite all this, Moses still is as skinny as can be. The doctor is continuing into encourage me to put butter or cream in everything he eats. I hope this doesn't lead to constant butter cravings for the rest of his life...
• CRAWLING: Joey commando crawled. Moses does the worm. Both were very mobile by this age, just in different ways. 
• STANDING/SITTING: Same pace. Both boys were pulling up to sitting and just starting to pull up to stand against furniture. Moses can even climb a stair onto a little landing. I guess that means it's time to get the baby gates out! 
• QUITTER: I noted that Joey was a quitter at this age. If he couldn't get what he wanted, he'd just cry and stop trying. Moses doesn't give up for anything. Once he has his eye set on something, he is SOO determined to get it, no matter how hard I try to divert his path.
• PHOTOS:  

 JOEY: 

MOSES:

There is clearly no way to compare their cuteness since they are both out-of-this-world adorable (I'm not biased or anything). I love my sweet boys so much. They make me very happy. 

Happiness

I live for moments like this.

Locked Out

Wednesday morning I watched a friend's daughter while she went to a doctor's appointment. After she came to pick her daughter up and had walked out the door, I found some crackers of theirs and ran out to return them before they drove off. Joey, playing his new favorite game, closed the door while I was outside. The door happened to be locked. No problem. That's exactly what the hidden key in our backyard is for. I went and retrieved the key, opened the front door, and went on with my day. I remembered, too, that I also could have come in through the back deck, seeing as the dowel was not currently in place to lock the door (the door doesn't lock like normal, so we just put a dowel in the floor between the wall and the door to keep it from opening). Glad I had two options in case something went wrong. Because I had baby-tending to do, I left the hidden key on the key rack by the front door to go put away later.

Fast forward to Thursday afternoon. Trueman has to go to the bathroom. So I put him on his leash and head out the front door for (what I think will be) 2 minutes. Of course Joey, playing his usual game, closed the door on me. Haha. Very funny. I go back to the door. It's locked. And the key is hanging just inside the door on our key rack. Not a problem, I think. At least I never put the dowel back so that means the deck door is unlocked. I go around to the deck and casually try to open the door. It's stuck. I look down. WHAT? The dowel is back in place? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! My sweet, considerate husband, not wanting any bad guys to come break into the house, had replaced the dowel just that morning. Great.

So Joey notices me at the deck door and thinks that this is a hysterical game. He's giggling and waving. At least he's not afraid yet, right? So then I realize that Joey can pick up the dowel and rescue me! So I ask him to pick him up and he, to his credit, tries but unfortunately, after I had tried to open the door, I didn't shut it all the way back enough, therefore leaving the dowel slightly wedged and difficult to retrieve. After a few pulls, Joey gave up. I soon realized the problem, shut the door completely, and asked again. He had given up on this game, though, and wanted to go do something else. So much for Joey's help.

All the while, Tom was in the middle of a midterm at school. Plus, he didn't have a car so he was at least an hour away from being able to bring me his key.

I tried to call the landlord. His phone was off.

I tried to call a friend. Her son was napping and she lives in another part of Pittsburgh and was really unable to do much for me anyway. I guess I just needed to cry to somebody more than anything.

I could call a locksmith. The boys weren't crying yet and I was hoping I could find a solution that couldn't cost me who knows how much money.

So, truth be told, I knelt down and I prayed. Really. Really. Hard. I begged my Heavenly Father to keep my babies safe while I was stuck outside. I begged for a way to get in.

So I went to our garage which was conveniently left open my Tom that morning. I found an ice scraper, a bicycle flag, and some painters tape. I taped the two together. I went to the deck door. Because it was only a dowel on the ground "locking" in the door in place, I was able to tilt the top part of the door slightly to put my makeshift stick into the house to try to knock the dowel out of place. Unfortunately, it didn't work because 1) it still wasn't long enough, 2) it wasn't bendy enough, and 3) Joey kept grabbing it. MaGyver attempt: failure.

Then I tried calling the landlord again. It rang. Yes!! He picked up! Hallelujah! He could come over right away and save me. God is good. And so is my landlord.

We all got through it unscathed and with only a few tear-stained cheeks to show for it.

The key is back outside and will never stay in the house again.

RIDICULOUS

I don't know which is more ridiculous: the advertisement I'm about to show you, or the fact that I think it's worth blogging about. Either way, I need to get it off my chest....or tush, in this case.

Today's topic of discussion: Desitin

(sorry for the lame picture with my lovely thumb...I couldn't find the ad on the internet)

Two things SIGNIFICANTLY wrong with this picture: 

1. That baby's butt is PERFECT. I see no sign of rash. None. That tushy looks so soft I could use it as a pillow. Why are you putting Desitin on a perfect little butt? Maybe I could kind of try to wrap my head around the idea with the slogan that it works ON CONTACT, but that's way too magically instant and besides...

2. Wrong place, buddy! Last I checked, rashes originate between the cheeks, not ON the cheek. I know rashes can spread that far, but as noted before, there's no rash to begin with! 

Seriously. If I hadn't seen this advertisement in multiple magazines by now, I would have thought it was a joke. The only explanation I can think of: a bachelor must run the marketing department of Desitin. How else could this have passed for printing? I mean really. Come on guys, your customer base is a group of people who know what a rashed rear looks like and trust me, that ain't it! 

Thank you. I will now step off my soap box and go to bed. Brought to you in part by Boudreaux's Butt Paste, the proud new sponsor of the Arnett baby hineys.

Today's Epiphany

This week my boys thought it would be a fun idea to wake up everyday at 5am. GREAT.

Day 1 - I let it slide. It happens. We all have those days when we just wake up ridiculously early for no reason and can't go back to sleep. No big deal.

Day 2 - Come on, seriously? Oh wait, Tom's awake and home for the morning so I'll just let him deal with it while I put my pillow over my head and go back to sleep for a little while.

Day 3 - Hmmm, is one sick? Perhaps teething? Maybe it's just that diaper rash that's waking Joey up. I'll just put Sesame Street on for an hour while I try to sleep on the couch.

Day 4 - ENOUGH. Seriously. Both boys awake at 4:30 in the morning. This will not do. I'm NOT letting this become habit forming. So I did what every exhausted mother would do: I closed my door and put my pillow over my head. Thankfully after a good half hour of back-and-forth crying (my boys like to take turns so as to make the constant crying last longer. so considerate) they conked out. Whatdoyaknow, they slept in until 8:30! That hasn't happened since Moses has been alive. Talk about a great morning.

So back to the epiphany. It came on day 2 while the boys were screaming and I was hiding under my pillow with Tom taking care of them. The thought: this must be what it's like to be Tom. Let me explain. As the mother of the household, I recognize every single sound in our home: I know the difference between a whiny cry, a hurt cry, and a tired cry. I hear the difference between angry footsteps and giddy footsteps. I can hear a noise from my bedroom and know exactly what Tom is doing in the kitchen. I know the inflections in Trueman's bark that distinguish if he's barking at a familiar face (like a mailman) or is curious of an unfamiliar neighbor walking down the street. I hear these noises all day every day.

On Day 2, though, when I was able to put the pillow over my head while Tom dealt with everything,  something different happened: I heard the sounds but not the nuances and inflections. The pillow couldn't muffle the cries and the dog barking and the footsteps but it cut out my ability to decipher what it all meant.

So how does that translate to my epiphany? Well, Tom (and probably every other non-mother in a household) hears all the same sounds I do when he is home but he never quite seems to know what to do as quickly as I do. It's not because he's slow or dumb; it's because he's not the mom.

I'm grateful for mornings where Tom can step in and I can turn off the mom volume with a silencing pillow, but I'm also grateful that I am a mother with this hearing superpower. Motherhood is such a beautiful thing and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.