At work with Joseph

Joseph came to work with me. It has been fun. He is awfully whiny because he has a runny nose, dry cough, and is tired. The humidifier helped him sleep last night. We will turn it on some more and see how it helps.

It is also snowing a lot. :( I am so not in the mood to drive in the snow. I would prefer to be at home, cleaning and cooking in preparation for Joe's family arrival on Thursday. Joe has been painting and I have been trying to keep up with how fast he is going.

I am tired right now. I wish that I could sleep in, but I don't sleep that well these days. At least it is lots of fun to feel the baby moving around. He kicks a lot and seems to enjoy sticking his elbows, feet and knees out in any direction he can.

Well, we left work and found our car buried in 4 to 5 inches of snow. I am so grateful that we have a garage that we can park our car in. I had to clean off the snow. We don't know where our long scraper and brush are, so I used a hand scraper to get the snow off. It came off easily. We had problems getting out of our space because of how deep the snow had gotten. Joseph enjoyed walking in all the deep snow. I did not enjoy driving in it. It was scary and took me twice as long to get to Joe's work. I am just glad that I didn't slide or crash. It is still snowing outside. We are getting lots and lots of snow. We will have a white Christmas for sure.

I went to the doctor and have gained about 4 pounds in the past 2 weeks. Yikes! If I am not careful, I will be huge...actually too late for that.

Mommy, who am I going to marry?

Tonight we dropped Alison and Ryan off at the airport. On our way back, Joseph and I were looking for the Oquirrh (?) temple. I think we had passed it. I decided to explain part of what the temple means for marriage. Joseph then said that he was going to marry Alison. He said, "when I get bigger, I marry Alison and carry her." This is from a conversation that happened on the way to the airport. Joseph wanted Alison to carry me to the car. Alison said she couldn't carry me, but that Ryan could carry her.

After I told him that Alison was marrying Ryan, he paused and said, "mommy, I marry you." I told him that I would love him for always, but that I was married to daddy. He said that when grew up and got married, daddy and I could get married and dance (something he associates with marriage). His 2 options gone for marriage, he asked me, "mommy, who am I going to marry." I said that after he was in college and after his mission, that he would meet a beautiful young lady and they would be married in the temple. That is when he said daddy and I would dance.

On the way back, he was falling asleep and he didn't want to stop anywhere. I needed to change his diaper so that I could be sure that he wouldn't fall asleep in anything that would give him a rash. Well, we got him changed (no thanks to the person who almost hit our car parking in the stall next to ours outside). We made it back into Utah Valley and then started to listen to Christmas music. Joseph enjoys it. Well, he had not been talking for a little bit, so I turned the stations to regular music. I turned it on to 94.9 the Blaze and they were playing GNR's "Sweet child of mine." I had only been listening for a few seconds when Joseph pipes up from the back, "that sounds like guitar hero." He went right back to sleep afterwards. I thought it was funny. One of our sure fire ways of getting him to nap is to play "Guitar hero" or "Super mario kart." He watches for a few minutes, makes himself comfortable on the couch, and then falls right asleep with a chorus of whatever song happens to be playing.

This morning, he woke up and crawled into our room as he let out tiny roars. I saw my "baby stegosaurus" and went to pick him up. He was happy that "mommy stegosaurus" was there. He is excited to go to work with me on Monday and Tuesday. I would take him tomorrow, but I have an appointment and will be taking the biology advisor's students since she is on holiday (lucky Kim).

My gold medal runner

We cleared out the furniture in the big room and Joseph has discovered the joys of running around and around. He runs with all his might and laughs as he does it. Yesterday, when he was running, he said, "I running fast so I can get gold medal." I guess he enjoyed the Olympics as well. The other day, he and Joe were running in circles for a long time. Little Joseph was flushed and sweating. As he produces more spit, he says that he is drinking the water to help him have energy. It is his new pasttime. I need to be sure to have my camera so I can record him.

Nursery trouble

Joseph is excited that he starts sunbeams in a few weeks. Of course, he really doesn't want to go to nursery either. This is not the first time he has wanted to skip out on nursery. We asked him why he didn't want to go. He said there were mean boys that liked to push him in nursery. Well, we talked to him about that a little and I said that I would talk to his leader. When we were taking him to nursery, he said that he would tell us if anybody pushed him again.

I spoke to his leader and asked how Joseph behaved in nursery. She said he was very good. I asked her if there were any kids that Joseph got into fights with. She asked if Joseph was saying something and I repeated what he had told me. She said that a couple of weeks ago, there was one little boy that was really aggressive towards all the other kids, Joseph being one of them. She apologized and said the situation was taken care of. Well, Joseph stayed and we went to Sunday School. When Joe picked him afterwards, he said that he had fun. I did visit him between Sunday School and Relief Society. They were having snacks. He had 3 animal crackers left on his napkin. I asked why he wasn't eating them and he said that he didn't like them. One of the nursery leaders brought him more goldfish and took the animal crackers away. I waved goodbye with one finger and he did the same. He is so cute!!

I decided that I didn't want to stay in the k-z class because there are a couple of people that really interrupt and get off topic easily in class. It really bothers me, so I felt that it would be better for me to attend the a-j class. Joe agreed. This is the first time I was able to listen and enjoy the lesson in a long time.

A sister yesterday met Joe for the first time and she kept smiling and staring at him. It weirded him out a bit, especially because she told me, "Your husband is very handsome." It reminded me of when a sister in a different ward came up to Joe one Sunday and said, "You have the most gorgeous eyes, you should let me paint them sometime." She was an artist. I have to agree, I do have a very handsome husband.

Joseph loved that it snowed and wanted to walk in it before and after church. He wants to build snowmen with Joe, because Joseph and I are too small. He also wanted to wrap lots of presents with the excess paper we had. He know has lots of presents from himself under the tree.

This morning, as I was dropping him off at Grandma's, I said, "I am going to miss you little one."
He said, "I am going to miss you big one." I love my little boy!!

One big thing down...

Yesterday was Alison's bridal shower. As of Friday, when I was leaving work, I didn't have that many people that had RSVPed. I had a lot more people do it later that day and that night. Thanks to Ryan and Alison who helped me clean. Also, a big thanks to Joe for cleaning and moving furniture and fixing things. We now have a good jumpstart towards his parents arrival. Now I can take a couple of days off and try to get refueled for round 2 of cleaning and organizing. Of course, right before the shower started, I was getting the vegetable tray ready and to my horror, my ranch dressing was rotten. I about started to cry then and there. Thanks to my mom who saved the day.

Alison's shower was nice. We played a famous couples game. I had one half of a famous couple and people needed to write down the 2nd half of the couple. I had a list of 25. For those who would like to try, here it is:

Here are the names of one half of a well-known couple. Name their significant other. Some of the couples are real and others are fictitious.

1. Gordon B. Hinckley
2. Elizabeth Bennett
3. John Lennon
4. Lucille Ball
5. David Beckham
6. Emma
7. Angelina Jolie
8. Romeo
9. Buttercup
10. Adam
11. Beatrice (Shakespeare)
12. Johnny Cash
13. Cosette
14. Alfalfa
15. Arnold Schwarzenegger
16. Lucy Honeychurch
17. Helena Bonham Carter
18. Tom Hanks
19. Han Solo
20. Bella Swan
21. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
22. Hermione Granger
23. Queen Victoria
24. Eleanor Roosevelt
25. Lois Lane

Our winner got 19 out of 25. She got her choice of chocolate. Our next game was having Alison answer questions that I had recorded Ryan answering the night before. I didn't have time to transfer it to my computer and burn it to a dvd. It was fun. Alison only missed 10 out of 30. She had to put a piece of gum in her mouth everytime she got one wrong.

I wanted to shower to be low key, so we finished off with snacks and writing advice to the bride. I guess before the snacks, Alison opened her gifts. She got a nice array of things. She received some things for the honeymoon night and also other things to start setting up her household. At least she didn't get duplicates of anything.

Ryan's bachelor party was last night, so Alison hung out with us and graded papers. Adam was also here. He and Joe played soccer and guitar hero. Joseph had fun because he had the kids here to play.

Dear Santa

Joseph remembered tonight that we hadn't written his letter to Santa Claus. We went and found some paper (actually a Christmas card) and started to write the letter. The letter said:

Dear Santa-

I have been a good boy this year. Please get me a treehouse, and a snimming dinosaur, and talking cars. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

your friend-
Joseph

Yeah. He has a lot of toys from Santa, but the treehouse and snimming dinosaur are lacking. I feel kind of bad because the treehouse is what he has been asking for for 5 months and every month, I tell him we need to wait and see if Santa will get it for him. Not that he will be disappointed with his Christmas loot by any means, but he has only asked for 3 things. Now the question is, do I spend another $60 to $90, or do we just wait. Joe says wait. I am trying to decide if that is best. I might have to side with my husband on this. Hmmmm...what to do?

Letting mommy rest

Last night I was extremely tired. I had a long day at work (nothing compared to Joe's work). When I got home, I just had no energy. I went upstairs after dinner and "watched" Joseph play with his toys. I started to fall asleep. Joseph would talk to me and then I finally did fall asleep. I kept waking up because I felt badly that my little boy wanted attention. At one point when I opened my eyes, Joseph was pulling some toys out of his shopping cart, and he looked my direction. He immediately apologized and said, "I sorry mommy, I make noise." I think he thought he would get in trouble. He let me rest for a little bit more and then I started to really wake up and he came to lay down with me. he lay in my arms. It makes me want to cry because all in all I have been blessed with a sweet, thoughtful little boy. I only slept half an hour, but it helped me finish those things that I needed to for the night.

Joseph stories

This is a picture of Joseph with Kayla. My parents have been guardians over Kayla since she was 5 months old. They are also guardians of her 3 older siblings as of 2 years ago.

• I have a tendency to forget cute things that Joseph says, so I wanted to post before I forget. Last night Joe picked Joseph and me up from work. My mom was close by, so she brought him. When we were in the car, Joseph started to fall asleep. I tried talking to him, and he said, "I a tired boy, I just need a little nap." I then said, "but I thought you didn't like naps." He said, "I like naps." Well, I tried to keep him up till we got home, but he finally whined in desperation, "I just going to sleep for a little bit!" So, Joe and I let him sleep. He probably got a 40 minute nap because I had errands to run.

• Apparently, when he was with grandma and the kids, he started to sing a song about all the dinosaurs. He sang about them for a long time, and when he was done, he exclaimed, "Whew, that was a long song." When they asked him to sing more, he said, "I don't know any more songs." That is not exactly true. As of late, he likes to sing. He sings "Jingle bells" a lot as well as other random songs that he makes up. The other night, he showed me a crocodile and shark and said, "These animals are dangerous." I asked why and he explained, "they bite other animals and people too!" After that, he walked around singing a little song that had a chorus of dangerous in it. Daddy asked him to sing the dinosaur song last night, but he said he was too tired.

• He did tell me that he spilled orange juice all over his pajamas in the morning and that made him sad.

• Last night, I decided to expend what little energy I have to cook rice and gravy and make a pseudo-hawaiian haystack. Joseph was tired, thirsty, hungry and really cranky. He was whining every few minutes that I needed to "hurry, hurry." I lay him on the couch and then started to cook. When I was done, I went to get him and that made him sad because he wanted to lay down on the couch and nap. I got him to the table and the gravy and rice he had wanted became unappetizing. He only wanted a plate of cheese to eat. I explained that we could put cheese on his rice. He started to bawl. Then he said he was full and that he only wanted apple juice. He then shows me that he is full by trying to push in his belly and then telling me that he can't make himself skinny, so he must be full. I told him he needed to eat some dinner, and I would give him apple juice. He started to cry and say, "that not nice!" I know he is mad at me when he starts to say, "I want my daddy!" Well, I finish my dinner and proceed to start putting things away, except for his food. After a few minutes, he decides that a tantrum won't work, so he will try to talk me into it. "Mommy, I ate eggs at grandma's. I super full. I thirsty and want only drink." He then explains why he doesn't need the food and so forth. I tell him that he is welcome to have a drink when he eats.

• Daddy saved Joseph's day! He went to McDonald's and bought a chicken nugget kid's meal with apples (no apple dippers), and an apple juice. Joseph devours the nuggets and drinks the juice and has a great rest of the night. I am grateful Joe brought food because it got him to eat, unfotunately, the rice went to waste.

• Joseph was in a good mood the rest of the night. He only took two toys into his bath because it is a small tub. He splashed and played and then we got him out and dressed. He wanted to do a puzzle before bed, but I told him there was no room. We had built a race track out of his blocks on Sunday, so he wanted to clean his room. He ran around putting everything away with my help and then he punched the race track. We put all the blocks away and he said, my room is getting cleaner. He put his books back on the shelf. When the floor was clear, he got the puzzle. It is a 48 piece dinosaur puzzle with jumbo pieces. We put it together and then he broke it apart. We read two books. He counted to eight by himself and then started to be silly again and randomly say a number. We brushed our teeth and he took a vitamin and his fluoride pill. We said our prayers. Lately we have been working on making his prayers a little more than, "Heavenly Father, thank thee for good day, in name of Jesus Christ, Amen." Now he adds, "we thank thee for Jesus," and on occasion, other things.
  

• This blog has turned out a lot longer than I expected. One last story, after Joseph stopped crying and knew he wasn't going to win, he started to talk to me about Batman. He told me, "Batman scary." He then told me that, "Boys like Batman because Batman cool." He then said he wanted a Batman costume because he thinks batman is cool. I said, "I thought you wanted to be a dinosaur." He said, "Apatosaurus cool."

• I love my little boy. He is so much fun even when he is crying and whining. I just pray that I have the patience I need to not give in and completely spoil him. I am excited and feel blessed to be having another little boy soon. I just hope I can handle two kids and give them the love and attention they deserve. Before I end, this morning I went to get Joseph ready to go to grandma's house. He whimpered and said, "Mommy, I a tired little boy."

The prognosis

Well, I had my 33 week check up. I am up a pound and a half. The baby is doing well. The ultrasound shows that the obstructino is gone. Yay!!! All looks normal from there.

Tonight Joseph felt the baby moving and I said the baby was giving love taps. He then proceeded to tell me that when he was in mommy's belly, he would give daddy "hug taps." He came with me to the doctor's office. More to report later.

Toad's halloween party

Well, still no sign of our toad. Joseph has told me that the toad is having Halloween. Apparently, our toad is trick or treating and hasn't come back because he is getting lots of candy.

I have talked to Joseph about the possibility of us moving. He told grandma the other day that we are going to move and when we do, mommy, daddy and Joseph get to be together more. Insightful kid.

When I say, "I love you little one!"
Joseph says, "I love you big one!"

He has helped me wrap presents. All he wants from Santa is a swimming dinosaur (preferably dinosuchus) and a treehouse (both Melissa and Doug and Maxim have them). It costs $90, so that may have to wait. He will have a great Christmas! Already he is saying that Christmas is tomorrow morning.

I have made some progress cleaning, but I still have so much to do before Saturday. At least I am almost done with all the laundry. Now I have to sweep and mop the kitchen and huge room, and vacuum our basement and bedrooms. My mom has given us her expensive couch and chair. They are not necessarily our taste, but they are comfortable. She also gave us some dishes. She doesn't like the couches or the dishes we have, so she gives us the things that suit her taste in hopes that we get rid of our "junk." It is nice of her to give us the items and we are grateful for them.

December already!!

It is crazy to think that today is the 1st day of December. Where has the time gone? I have 12 days to get the house in some semblance of order for a bridal shower and 24 days to get the house in order for my in-laws. I figured if I spend 2 nights per room for the next 2 weeks, I will have the semblance of order and with that semblance, I can create order. Of course as order increases so does disorder (dang entropy!). How to do this and still accomplish all my familial duties? I guess we shall see.

There is still no sign of the toad. We decided to ask Joseph to see if he had some unknown details. His story keeps changing, so I don't know if he took the toad out or not. He mostly says "no" that he didn't take the toad out, but on occasion he states that he did. He says the toad went down the vent (or multiple vents) to the place where the spiders are. He also tells us the toad went to a Halloween party to get candy down in the place with the spiders, the ghosters, and the bats.

We decorated our tree this weekend. Thanks to Alison and Ryan for helping. Thanks to Joe for working on completing all 3 bathrooms. Thanks to Joseph for providing cute comments and helping decorate the tree. Now Joseph wants to nap by the tree and wrap his toys so he can open them. I had forgotten to give everyone candy canes to put on the tree, so Joseph did that yesterday. I need to take a picture of all the candy canes at the bottom of the tree. We couldn't put our "star crystal" on top because the tree is just tall enough that it won't fit. Joseph wants to have a star crystal in the tree like Huggly does in his story.

Here is Joseph helping aunt Alison with decorations. In this one, I think he is actually asking me to help him hang the ornament. He had just turned around.