School Pics

It's that time of year again!  I crack up every time I look at these pics, my boys are so full of character, even posed like this (or maybe it's the poses that bring out their character?).  This year, I had one done with the two of them together too.  I love how they all turned out.  Hope you do too!

Logan's Class

Callum's Class

Logan: 4 yrs, 4 months old

Callum: 2 yrs old

Hilarious! :)

Brothers

Today was picture day at school so the boys were dressed a little nicer than usual. (Which is becoming a bigger fight as they get older!)

Callum's teacher texted me this pic today of three sets of brothers since the younger ones are all in the same class and the older ones are all in the same class. And, they are all good pals. :)

Pucker up!

Today, as we were leaving school, Logan said goodbye to his sweetheart and best pal, Stephanie, giving her a big hug.

He then leaned in real close. Do you want a kiss too?

She leaned away.  No kissing!

Why?  (I was curious too)

My Daddy said no more kissing.

Logan tried chasing her around the grass to get his kiss in, until I made him stop (if she says no, then that means no!).  ;-)

As we're piling into our respective cars, a few minutes later, the two are literally YELLING at each other across the street, continuing their conversation.

But I still love you Logan!

I love you too!  See you tomorrow!

Happy New Year!

While it may be winter, we've been having a few sunny and pleasant days where the boys are enjoying the outdoors. 

A pirate, drawn by Logan

A bee, drawn by Logan

Logan is also IN LOVE with the long holiday vacation they've had (their school has been closed since Christmas Eve and won't be open again until this Tuesday).  Every morning, Logan wakes up and asks if it's another "stay home" day - and when we reply yes, he literally jumps for joy.  ;-)

All set to test out his new ride!

I'm gonna get you Mama! (He is actually VERY fast!)  :)

Cutest Costume Award!

Just like Logan 3 yrs ago (wearing the stinker skunk costume), Callum won the Cutest Costume Award at the school's Halloween party last night!  We left early so we missed the celebration but still got the certificate and prize (a neat book) this morning when I dropped the kids off. So funny!

Loganism of the day

My teacher is going to jail because she always says no.

Mortality

Ever since I got pregnant with Logan, Jon and I have taken a much more serious look at our lives, what is in (and out) of our control, and our overall mortality. It's certainly a topic that weighs heavy on the mind as is, but when you become a parent, I think it just increases exponentially and takes a much more FRONT AND CENTER place in our minds.

So, this week, I'm sad to say, we've had a few reminders of (our own) mortality. And frankly, both Jon and I are a little shaken by them.

A few days ago, a good friend of Jon's, someone whom Jon has worked with for many years, suddenly and unexpectedly died of an embolism. He woke up one morning, dropped his two kids off at school, came home, and died. At the ripe old age of 43. Jon went to his viewing and funeral just a couple of days ago - and it certainly has weighed heavily on his (both of our) mind.

Bright and early this morning, Jon texted me to let me know there had been a shooting in Cupertino, where three people died and several were injured. But what was worse, was that the mad man was armed, dangerous, and still on the loose. Schools (including our kids') were on lock-down all day long. I've done my best to keep it out of my mind today, but certainly nervous and worried about Logan and Callum's safety. And the fact that I can't do anything at the moment to protect them or keep them safe, particularly given I'm not even in town! is maddening, I must admit.

Later this afternoon, we learned that Steve Jobs passed away. An amazing man, a true leader and visionary, who has done so very much in the short time that he had. My colleagues and I were discussing how the news feels somewhat surreal, particularly given, again, that we aren't actually in the Bay Area right now.

Non-coincidentally (I hope), one of the sessions I attended today discussed the importance of being financially organized, since you can't always be prepared with what life hits you (examples were divorce and death!).

So you can bet your ass I texted Jon right then and there. WE NEED TO FINISH OUR WILL AND LIVING TRUST ASAP. Full stop.

I can't wait to get home and hug my three boys tight.

School Pics

It's that time of year again!

Logan's Class

Callum's Class

Logan: 3 yrs, 4 mths old

Callum: 1 yr old

Aren't they the most handsome boys you've ever seen??  ;-)

Peek-a-boo!

One of Callum's teachers emailed me this video a couple of days ago and it was the best thing I could have received to brighten my day.



You'll hear one of the teachers say "Jeffrey!" right at the start of the video.  Apparently Callum thinks his name is interchangeable with one of the other kids in the classroom, and will answer to either name right now.  ;-)

Words of Encouragement

Callum's teacher wrote on his daily summary sheet yesterday:

Callum had a great day today.  His mood has definitely improved!

I would have to agree!  From the minute he woke up on Friday after his morning nap (post-surgery), his demeanor has definitely changed.  He seems content, calmer and an overall happier baby.  He is MUCH less clingy and totally fine to instead explore and crawl around the house and play on his own.  I have also noticed he doesn't freak out and get upset the minute he bonks his head on something (like slamming it into the table, or falling backwards on the floor when wrestling with Logan, etc.)  Previously, I had thought I just had gotten used to a toughie kid Logan and that Callum was a more "sensitive" kid.  Now, I'm beginning to think that HEY GENIUS, maybe when he bonked his head on something it actually hurt for a reason!  :)

I've been trying to see if his hearing has improved too - it seems to have, although not as much as I had thought it would.  However, there are definitely changes.  He notices sounds and turns his head to listen a lot more than he used to - but what has been more interesting and unexpected (for me anyway), is that he's had the "startle" reflex a lot more!  I've noticed it a couple of times where something dropped on the floor near his side and he jumped from the noise.  Or, the dogs barked nearby when he wasn't paying attention and sure enough, the noise startled him.  I'm taking all of those as positive signs that his hearing loss wasn't permanent (although we won't definitively know until we do a follow up hearing test in a few weeks).

Callum napped really well all weekend throughout the day.  However, he still had a rough time settling down and sleeping Friday and Saturday nights.  I'm still hopeful that his (night time) sleeping will improve, since Sunday and last night seemed better than the first two nights, but it still seems too early to tell.

Our family alarm clock

These days, most mornings, I'm greeted by a chipper little Logan who climbs into our bed to tell us to wake up (this morning, he actually kissed me on the nose - so cute!), he then climbs down and runs across the hall to throw a few toys into Callum's crib (apparently his version of "good morning" to his little brother?) and then off to his train table to play with his toys, apparently a hard morning's work done.

This morning, in addition to all of that, he made sure to mention to me:

Mom, remember?  Remember when we rode on the very very big choo-choo train?

Yes, I think I remember that.

Remember?  With a blue one [train car] on the back.  It was a really long long long long one! 

I'm marking the trip as a huge success.  ;-)

In other news, Logan has moved up to the next classroom at his school this week!  The class is focused on a bit more academics between play time, but more than that, he's now with his "old" pals again (who had all moved up to the classroom over the past several months, and who he was really starting to miss).  :)

3 years old

Here it is over 3 weeks past my son's third birthday and I'm finally getting around to posting.  I think I've decided that I can't keep up with the monthly updates, and will just have to move to yearly from here.  It was a good run while it lasted Logan!  ;-)

So what can I say about Mr. Logan?  I say it every time (and I'm sure at some point I'll stop saying this), but this is now my favorite age!  I recently received my monthly newsletter from Babycenter about Logan titled:  Your Little Chatterbox

And oooohhhh, how true that is!

I would say that's the biggest change and development in Logan overall.  Every minute, every hour, every day, every month - he picks up additional words that just crack us up.  We have no idea where he hears them half the time but his ability to immediately recognize meaning and patch these new words into sentences (usually correctly!) is astounding.

Mommy, can I have some juice?

Sure.  (pours a glass of juice)

But I want some sugar in it.  I want A LOT of sugar!

(We normally add half water to his juice, because we've told him the juice has too much sugar in it... so our best guess is, he now thinks water is also called sugar... *shrug*)

He's also VERY interested in "bad words".  Everything is now a bad word.  And, he's quick to let you know it.

No Mommy, "fine" is a bad word.

Mommy, "I don't know" is a bad word.

Mommy, "stop that" is a bad word.  Don't say that.

Just the other day, while I was in the kitchen cooking our holiday dinner, Logan was playing in the living room with Callum.  I could hear Logan directing and talking to Callum nonstop - telling him what to do, what to play with, what to look at.  I then heard Callum whine - and I heard Logan say something about "that" being "his toy" and Callum couldn't play with it.  I yelled from the kitchen - Logan, you need to share your toys with Callum.

Logan yelled back, "But, it's not a party in here!"

I guess we're only sharing toys at parties now.

With all the energy Logan has day in and day out, he's often times too busy playing to pay attention or listen to his Mom and Dad.  I can't tell you how many times we have to tell him to listen to us, and when he's not listening, he gets a timeout. I fear it's going to be a constant battle with him - to pay attention and listen to what we have to say or are telling him to do.  It's also kicking us in the ass - since there are times where Jon or I have work to do, or chores to do, or heaven forbid, want to engage in a conversation between each other.  It's usually at that very moment, that Logan tries to interrupt, yelling at one or both of us:

Mommy!  Daddy!  Mommmmmmmm!  Listen to me!!

And then the guilt sets in.  ;-)

A few weekends ago, I needed to stop by the pharmacy on our way home from swimming class.  Logan was full of energy and happy to be out of the house.  While at the checkout stand, he was busy using the shopping cart as his personal jungle gym, crawling up and down and in and out while I'm trying to pay and get the hell out of there before he breaks something (or a limb).  He's talking nonstop the entire time - pausing between jumps and climbs to wave and bellow out "Hi!" at the top of his lungs at each new person who walks by or enters the store.

The cashier (probably a grandmother herself), was laughing and commented to me, "He sure does have a lot of energy, doesn't he?"  To which I responded, "Yep, and this is after just finishing up a half hour swim class!"

She was a little surprised.

Because he's running around so much, I guess it makes sense that he'll fall or hit his head from time to time.  The nice thing is, we have a tough little boy.  Often times, immediately after bonking his head on something, he'll yell out to me:

I'm okay Mom!

and then return to his playing.  Before I even get a chance to look up.

It's one of the many reasons why I love that Logan attends preschool actually.  He's outside, playing in the yard, and running off this endless energy, at least 4-5 times a day.  I could never keep up with him on a regular basis on my own!

As I was getting him dressed today, to get ready for the movies with Daddy (Jon's taking him to see Tangled again, since the last outing with me he didn't fare so well), all he wanted to do was climb and jump on me and tackle me to the ground.

Mom, let's tackle and punch ourselves!

Punch ourselves?  No, we don't punch people.

Yes we do!  You have to punch nicely.  Daddy punches nicely.

Daddy punches nicely?

Yeah, because we're tackling.

Oh I see.

I later told this to Jon, who then laughed asking Logan to show him how to punch nicely - at which point Logan socks the shit out of Jon's chest.  Yes.  Nicely.  I guess we need to work on the meaning of that word some more.  (or perhaps, get him to learn not to punch at all?!)

Another one of Logan's latest interests is peeing and pooping.  Not the potty training stuff - he's a master at that (to the point that half the time, we don't even bother helping him in the bathroom since he does it all himself!).

No, it's the TOPIC of talking about peeing and pooping.  Really, I thought that we'd have a few more years before this started.  But, I guess it hits at a much earlier age.  In fact, at a recent neighborhood holiday party we went to, the "older" 6-8 year old boys that Logan was infatuated with and following around nonstop, thought the little 3 year old who wouldn't stop talking about peeing and pooping was REALLY WEIRD.

It usually goes something like this:

Mom, I'm going to pee on you!  

Callum, I'm going to poop on you!

Followed by something like this:

And that, my friends, is the epitome of sibling love right there.

Any day now...

Late last week Callum's teachers (and we) started noticing Mr. Callum "rocking" on all fours.  He continued practicing a bit through the weekend, whenever I'd set him on the floor.

When I picked him up from school today, there he was, in the middle of the classroom floor, on his hands and knees, rocking back and forth, doing everything he could to will himself closer to the toy (strategically placed) in front of him.  When he got tired, his legs would give out and he'd fall onto his tummy, but then 2 seconds later I'd see him POP his knees up under him to support his weight again.  BAM.

He did this several times in the span of a few minutes, which makes me (and one of his teachers, Danielle) think that he could be crawling any day now.  We'll see!

Class pictures

I just scanned Logan and Callum's class pictures, which they took at school a couple of weeks ago. I decided to skip the individual pics since we have been doing those in the spring time, and I didn't really see any reason to do them twice a year.


The two boys to the right and left of Callum (also in the teachers' laps) are the younger brothers of two of Logan's friends! It's been kind of cool to see Logan and his buddies grow up from the infant class to preschool class together, and now we get to see it all over again with the younger brothers too. :)

HOT HOT HOT!

Not sure what Jon was thinking when he dressed Logan in jeans and a long sleeved shirt this morning. He must've been reading the SF weather report instead. ;-) (luckily we had a short sleeved shirt in Logan's cubby that the teachers changed him into today).

In other news, Callum tried bananas yesterday. He doesn't seem to have a preference (yet) but gobbles up anything I give him. :)

A few things to share

I need to post this quickly because it's ridiculously late and Callum will be waking up soon.

1) HAPPY BIRTHDAY JONATHAN!


Today is my honey's birthday. He turns 12. Or 13. Or something like that. He's a young kid so I can never remember.

We, unfortunately, didn't get to do anything for his birthday today. The week - due to me returning back to work and Callum being sick and Jon having to work late every night (including tonight) - was too frenetic and crazy for us to even think about it. Perhaps next weekend. Or something.

2) HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE KAI!


Today is also Uncle Kai's birthday. I think he turns like -5 or something like that. Damn kids these days.

3) 33 months old!


Today Logan turns 33 months old. Which is like -85 years old in relation to the above two numbers. Or something like that. I plan to write a dedicated post later for Mr. Logan but let's just say the theme of the post is going to go something like "My little one has turned into a defiant little punk who's primary vocabulary now consists of screaming NO to my face".

4) Callum had a follow up appointment with the doctor about his bronchitis and things are looking great! The doc says his lungs are 75-80% better (how do they come up with these numbers? seriously.). He can still hear a bit of congestion and wheezing but it's not nearly as bad and he thinks after we finish up the doses on both meds through the weekend, we'll be good to go. We actually have his 4 month shots and check up scheduled Tuesday morning - which will be a perfect time to do a final check on his lungs to make sure everything really has cleared out.


His daycare has definitely noticed a difference these last two days as well. He's had MUCH better days at school - crying less, eating and sleeping more - slowly getting back to his old self. We still battle a bit in the middle of the night - I think he's most miserable after just waking up when his congestion is probably the worst after sleeping on his face all night. But, again, it's slowly been getting better with each day so I'm hopeful we've turned the corner.

5) What else. First week back to work is behind me. YAY. It took me 2.5 days to get back onto our corporate network and connected to the tools I use day to day. Apparently if your account isn't in use for 30-45 days, they shut you down. Which makes TOTAL sense for all the hundreds of people in this massive company who are taking leave every day. Right? Right. I'm slowly going through my thousands of emails and filing them away never to be seen again. And I've applied for a new job which I'm now interviewing for because this week just couldn't get any busier.

6) Jon and I are off to San Diego tomorrow for a quick 24 hour trip to celebrate Eric's 5th birthday. Or something like that.


They're chartering a boat complete with open bar, beautiful dinner and sinfully delicious birthday cake for dessert. But none of that is as cool as the fact that it's an adults-only evening. Which means, for the FIRST TIME EVAH, we'll be leaving town without our kiddos, who will be spending the night with my parents. Wish them luck. I'm nervous for them.

But, not nervous enough to not look forward to a full night's sleep. ;-)

Open Wide!

Because I didn't have enough going on today, I decided to give Callum his first taste of "solids" (aka rice cereal) for dinner tonight. He did surprisingly well!

My first day at work today was long and tedious, most of the time spent on the phone with IT, trying to get my laptop back on the corporate network. Yay.

I think it was also a long day because it was my first day away from Callum of course, but also because he had the worst night last night yet. Which meant Jon and I had the worst night with him. :( I was pretty tired all day.

Unfortunately, his cough and congestion seem to be getting worse instead of better. Normally, I can calm him down enough to eat and (eventually) fall back to sleep. But last night he REFUSED to go to sleep. He was exhausted and clearly uncomfortable and in pain, shrieking in our ears regardless of how we held him, rocked him, etc. It was horrible.

Today was also really rough. Halfway through the day I got a call from the daycare. They were really worried because he refused to eat and was extremely pissed anytime they tried to offer him a bottle. I finally went over mid-day to see if I could get him to eat and, at the very least, give him some Tylenol. He wouldn't eat but was very tired, passing out for a nap the minute I put him on my chest/shoulder. :( He continued to have a bad day after I left, so I picked him up early to try and get him to eat. He finally took a bottle after much waiting and coaxing which made the teachers (and me) feel a bit better.

Jon is working late tonight and most nights this week. Hopefully what we dealt with last night and today is the worst of it for poor Callum. Whatever "it" is!

My last day

Today is my last official day of maternity leave (even though technically I have three more days before work starts, since we're coming up on a long holiday weekend). I'm a tiny bit stressed and nervous about jumping back into the middle of crazy work after such a long time off. But I'm also looking forward to the change and seeing my old coworkers again. :) Since Tuesday will also be Callum's first day to start daycare, I actually dropped him off at school this morning, when I dropped off Logan, to spend time with his new teachers and classmates for a couple of hours. He was all smiles and did just fine - sleeping the majority of the time. When I arrived to pick him up for lunch, he was just waking up from a short nap, a little groggy and not quite sure where he was. I'm sure the screaming baby near him was also a different and strange experience for him to wake up to! :)

As for me, I miscalculated how difficult and time consuming it would be to get the kids out of the house this morning, given the time change from Hawaii. I had a 10am PT appointment that I had wanted to get to - but that would have meant getting out of the house a bit after 9am, which is 6am Hawaii time. :( I woke Logan up around 9:20am which he was NOT at all happy about - still very much asleep, cranky and whiny - fighting me the entire time I dressed him for school. Can't say I blame him. ;-) But, I figure this will force him back onto our time quickly anyway (Callum, on the other hand, will be harder to transition I fear!). Unfortunately, I was still too late by the time I got the boys dropped off to make my appointment - so I ran a couple of errands (grocery shopping and a pedicure!) instead, before going back to pick up Callum and meet my parents for lunch.

At lunch, Callum was on and off (as he has been for the last week). His teeth are definitely bothering him - he jumps at any chance he can get to bite and chew your fingers and is a nonstop slobbering fool. But, when I look in his mouth, it seems like it's still going to take awhile for any of those teeth to finally break through, poor guy. :( Such is the way it goes at this stage, I guess.

Going Away Party

The Director at Logan's school is retiring. Off to the goodbye party, almond cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting in hand.

No Accidents!

Until we got home that is. *sigh*

Logan had a great first day at school wearing his new big boy underwear. He did awesome with no accidents all day. Of course, I'm not used to it and waited a bit too long once we got home before checking if he needed to pee.

Oh well. Maybe this will help him realize peeing in his pants is not cool (hey, a mama can dream). And, overall, still a great first day! :)