Jumping on Leap Day. Year. Whatever.

Does anyone actually KNOW what Leap Year even is? Other than an extra day in February and that some unlucky bastards only get to celebrate their birthdays every four years. I actually remembered to Google it this time around, and THIS is the official reasoning behind Leap Year:

"February 29, known as a leap day in the Gregorian calendar, is a date that occurs in most years that are evenly divisible by 4, such as 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016. Years that are evenly divisible by 100 do not contain a leap day, with the exception of years that are evenly divisible by 400, which do contain a leap day; thus 1900 did not contain a leap day while 2000 did. Years containing a leap day are called leap years. February 29 is the 60th day of the Gregorian calendar in such a year, with 306 days remaining until the end of that year."

Yeah, I don't feel any more educated about Leap Year than before I read that paragraph of numerical garbage. 

So because I have much better ideas than the ancient knowledge brains of the world (is that even proper English?), I have decided that Leap Year is just an event that happens every four years to screw with your mind and your calendar. 

You're welcome.

To celebrate Leap Year (not really, it was to celebrate a rainy Wednesday and six stir-crazy toddlers/babies), we took the boys with their best friends Mason, Saoirse, Everett and Weston on a drive up to Egg Harbor (just as goofy a place as the name) for an afternoon of indoor force-fed exhaustion. Which the kids called "fun". 

We had lunch at Chick Fil A, an "upscale" fast food restaurant that the Northwest hasn't ever heard of. Too bad too, because it's pretty super awesome. And it's kind of like the Twilight Zone, because I walked up to the counter and gave my order, and when I got back to our table, my lunch that I had JUST ordered was sitting there waiting for me. Like the lady took my change pushed the register button and it zapped my chicken sandwich on my table. Sweet awesomeness! Calen wanted a "cheezebugar???" (he pronounces it like an LOLZ Cat would) but settled for nuggets and lemonade that made him pee 55 times before we left.

After lunch we went to "Jump", as the kids call it, which is actually a gymnastics center that has a toddler drop in stay and play program three days a week. Today we should have called it "Leap" because of Leap Year because we're so clever. The idea is every mother's dream: take their shoes off, throw open the doors, let them enter basically a huge padded warehouse with tumbling mats, balance beams, trampolines, foam pits etc. Then you say "have fun!" and they run, jump, bounce, run, jump, crawl, climb, RUN, JUMP laugh, (did I mention the RUN AND JUMP part??), for two hours until they literally collapse from exhaustion. It's the best place EVER.

Most of the time, their feet don't even touch the ground.

So after two hours and the circus monkeys have melted into puddles of mushes on the floor, it's time for the trek back home. They were SO tired from jumping. I mean leaping. Whatever. So we scrape our ooze puddles off the mats and put them in the car. Cam slept the whole way home. Calen fell asleep 6 minutes before we reached our house. Typical.

Our street turned into a wetlands area after today's rain, so I decided it was a good time to throw Calen into boots and a rain jacket and we went off to search for mud puddles. I don't think Calen thought I was serious, I was actually ALLOWING him to get his shoes/pants/everything wet and muddy. 

Jumping in mud puddles turned into jumping into the bay across the street. Which is even more fun because it involves sand. Sand is more dirty. Thus sand is more fun. It's 40 degrees, raining, windy and Calen fell in the bay so he was soaking wet. And he did NOT want to go home. After an hour, I even bribed him.

"Hey Calen, want to go home and get warm clothes and watch Yo Gabba Gabba?



"No. I play mud in the water."



Okay fine. Acquire hypothermia. I'll just keep taking pictures.


(I did finally convince him to come inside when I promised a snack. And his toy trains. And Yo Gabba Gabba.)

We found a BIG puddle to splash in. Called Cape May Bay.

 

It's National Pancakes are Awesome Day!

And now for an extremely important ALL POINTS BULLETIN: It's National Pancake Day! 

I know you couldn't possibly continue your life without knowing that priceless little bit of information. And, according to extremely reliable pancake investigators, if you go to IHOP today (February 28th), even YOU can get free pancakes!


Well nothing excites me more than FREE, especially when combined with the word PANCAKES. So I planned to join some friends for a sophisticated dinner tonight of pancakes with a side of pancakes. But then the husband reminded me that the nearest IHOP was like 40 miles away. Which, in this ridiculous part of the world, involves paying tolls. And feeding our gas-sucking SUV. Plus did I mention we're driving up the way tomorrow also? I did the math, and it would cost us like $15 to drive up to IHOP (and back) and get a free $4 plate of pancakes.


Yeah, nothing is free in this world is it? 


And because we just paid $1500 on plane tickets to go back to the motherland (i.e. Washington, not Russia), we decided to be totally lame and not enjoy a pancake meal with our friends tonight. It's so stupid being responsible.

I stalled Brad when he got home today before he got out of uniform to get this picture. It also gave me a good excuse to hand off teething Camden the MOMENT he walked the door. Inspiration from Pinterest (how do you not spend 8 hours a day cruising Pinterest??). It's cropped but unedited...I'm not sure where to go from here to make it look not ridiculous cheap stupid. I might try again tomorrow. But I really like the idea. 


 

Some day when the boys are grown (whether Brad is still active duty or not), they will admire all the things their father did while he was enlisted.

How to Train Your Pterodactyls

Every once in a while, the planets align, or the Earth's tectonic plates shift, or the government sprays mind-altering chemicals into the water supply, and my children turn into gurgling, growling, one-eyed monsters.

No, I don't believe in conspiracy theories. (Well, not most of them). No, they don't really lose one of their eyes. I'm also don't have an ounce of sarcasm in me. 

Today is one of those days. I'm not really sure what happened. It started during a nice walk with some friends around Cape May. Maybe the 15mph winds blew insanity right into Calen's lungs, but he started whining, which turned into yelling, screaming, throwing a fit and all that nonsense that goes with it. I blamed it for not taking a nap...for like the 14th day in a row.

Some milestones I really don't appreciate. Like potty training. Yeah sure it's great not having to spend money on (more) diapers. But when you're trying to run a simple errand to Target and your 2 year old announces that he has to pee 429 times, in the car, while on the parkway which has a whopping 2 exits in your 90 minute roundtrip drive, you miss the quiet, peaceful days of diaperhood. Another milestone that I despise is losing naptime. Calen still REQUIRES a nap. If he doesn't have a nap, the second half of his day is ruined. But he's got some idea in his head that he doesn't need to nap. And I can't convince him otherwise. He still has quiet time upstairs in his room while Cam takes a nap, but he isn't sleeping, even though I threaten his life strongly encourage him to. 

So today after we got back from our walk, and nothing would calm the one-eyed monster down. And not to be outdone, Camden crawled around screaming like some type of banshee-dragon-pterodactyl hybrid experiment gone wrong.

Both kids are screaming, so I dig deep down into my mama carpet bag full of ideas, and turn on Yo Gabba Gabba on Netflix.


We try to keep the level of tv watching low in our house. You know trying to be the crunchy award winning mom that doesn't resort to throwing their kids in front of the boob tube when things get to crazy.


But on days like this, TV is the ONLY solution.

Within 2 minutes, both kids are quiet, still, eyes wide, mouths open, drooling. Engrossed in some creepy 80s wannabe musical kid's show. 

Victory was never sweeter. 

The monsters are still....

Let's talk about bodily fluids (and not the fun kind)

(Disclaimer: Hey, I'm sorry. But I have two boys, and gross subjects will come up...often)


The biggest issue with this area is the Cape May Crud. It's such an issue it's been given a name -- that everyone knows. The CM Crud is an ongoing illness that circles through the Coast Guard base and military housing, over and over and over, manifesting into new symptoms but really never goes away completely. We are sick all.the.time. Usually just colds, but every once in a while the CM Crud takes a shot or two of steroids and then boy are we in for it.

Last month, the boys were in the ER in the middle of the night at the same time with high fevers and a diagnosis of RSV (Google it...I don't feel like explaining). They had side by side hospital beds which of course my always-happy 2 year old thought was hysterical, even though his nose was spewing like a fire hose with snot and he was delirious from his 104.1 fever. He also thought that the "car bed" (hospital bed--it's a bed with wheels, makes sense to me) was awesome and he got endless "Outrageous Orange" popsicles. I wish I could have had so much fun at the ER.

Friday I took the boys to their friend's house and we had Dominoes for lunch. Clearly I haven't fed Calen in months, because he devoured FOUR slices of pizza and a breadstick in 10.3 seconds. And he would have kept eating if I hadn't told him he was being a pig reminded him that the last time he ate 8 pounds of pizza, he threw up. That evening, he was sitting on the carpet at home watching tv, and he threw up ALL of his pizza/water/whatever else could have possibly have been in his stomach at that time. ALL OVER HIM. And his white shirt (that I pulled the tags off of that morning). And the carpet.

And because I'm such a caring mom I consoled him because he was confused and upset (only the second time he's ever vomited since babyhood), but then took his new white shirt off and left him sitting there on the floor while I desperately sprayed stain remover all over it. And then once I got Calen cleaned up and had no idea how to tackle the horrifying mess all over the carpet, I did what any sane person would do - I let the dogs clean it up. Which I couldn't be present for because I had to throw Calen in the tub, but also because I'm a sympathetic barfer.

Calen seemed fine so he enjoyed his bathtime with Cam, but then Cam spit up (just a little), so I pulled him out of the tub and got him dressed, which then of course he thanked me by having a massive blowout in his 5-minute-old diaper. ::sigh::.

The boys have been healthy since, though all Calen talks about is "spitting pizza". I even outdid myself and cooked a fabulous new recipe of homemade Sweet & Sour pork which was exceptional and delicious. I borrowed a steam cleaner to annihilate the smell/stain on the carpet last night. And then, not even an hour later, Brad started vomiting.

Really??

And you can only crank up the volume on your tv so loud to drown out the noise from upstairs. And I'm sitting on the couch panicking, trying not to breathe the air in the house that is OBVIOUSLY contaminated, otherwise everyone wouldn't be getting sick.

Where did it come from? Definitely NOT from my delicious sweet and sour pork. If I had planned on us getting food poisoning, I would not have made it something delicious and a pain in the ass to cook! It MUST be the CM Crud. After all, Brad's coworker was barfy a few days before. I start to google plans for the next day to get the kids and myself away from the sick house. Calen talks about Daddy "spitting pizza". I told him we're not eating pizza again for at least a decade.

And then I start vomiting in the middle of the night. Crap.

I thought I was really in trouble, because as I'm hanging out on the bathroom floor last night waiting for the next round to come up, our sink starts...purring?



Ohmygod I'm hallucinating. Our sink is purring. I'm REALLY sick.

Until Jersey came out from under the sink. Apparently barfing is a spectator sport (I wasn't aware). Now it's really complicated to try and take care of your sick business while there is a cat obnoxiously rubbing on your HEAD to get your attention, purring, meowing, expecting you to pet it.

Seriously? Go away. I'm extremely busy. Dying. 

It seems like everyone is over the Crud, for the moment, but Brad and I are still recovering from being up all night. Which means pajama party for the kids, eating whatever they ask for (except pizza), and watching tv allllllll day. 



Today's picture is completely unrelated to the post (you didn't REALLY think I would take a picture of something related to barf, did you?). Cam's new thing is crawling around wide-mouthed, gasping in and out loudly (almost laughing). I don't know why he does it, but he only does it when he's excited, and it makes me laugh. He reminds me of a fish.

 

Camden the gasping fish

Boys are Cavemen

I woke up to it being sunny today. Now I'm from the Pacific Northwest, and when we see sun (especially in February), we go in PANIC MODE.

WHERE ARE MY SHORTS?!?! WHERE ARE THE LAWN CHAIRS?! We need to wash the car, mow the lawn, go to the zoo, go to the beach and barbecue ALL BEFORE 6PM!!! Find the sunscreen STAT!


Well what can I say, old habits die hard. After 26 years in the greater Seattle area, I woke up this morning and had a twinge when I saw the sun (even though we've been here 20 months already!). I was watching my friend's two boys today, and I had GREAT outdoor ideas. After all, it was 70 degrees two days ago.

And then I stepped outside and -3000 degree winds hit me in the face. It's a curse of living 500 yards from the ocean (in the winter). So I shut the door, said a few four letter words, threw a bunch of sheets and blankets over the dining table and chairs and made a fort. The boys were delighted.

Can I EAT here?? This is SO fun! I play with my cars in here! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay whooooo!

God I love how easy boys are. Not that girls wouldn't appreciate a good blanket fort, but the way they play with them is different. There's so much THOUGHT involved with a girl. Because usually they mature faster, use more dialogue blah blah blah all that philosophy stuff. I don't have a ton of little girl experience (except for a little girl I used to babysit, and my family members, and oh yeah I guess I'm a girl). Here's what happens when a little girl plays with a blanket fort. There's so much story, and dialogue, and involvement.

"Okay this is a castle and here is the princess and she's trapped in the castle and the prince has to find her but he hasn't found her yet. She's going to have a tea party with her other trapped princess friends in this castle wait I have to go get her a new pair of sparkly shoes for her tea party. And 40 other accessories. Can we bake some cookies for their tea party? Oh and they need tea too. REAL tea. No prince you can't come rescue the princess yet she is in the middle of a life-changing conversation with her pony! Let's do your hair princess so that you look BEAUTIFUL when the prince rescues you."
 

Now don't get me wrong, I love the imagination and pretend play with little girls. But at 7:30am in the morning, I might not be ready for that much involvement. Boys are CAVEMEN. Mine especially. They play with cars, trucks and trains, which of course never have such elaborate stories to them, so their (not their, Calen's) vocabulary is smaller. Here is blanket fort scenario with my almost-3 year old this morning.

"Wow CAVE this a CAVE I play with cars in my CAVE. Ready? Set? Go-VROOOOOOOOM OH NO CRASH hahahahahaha SMASH CARS!!!! I EAT IN MY CAVE Play dinosaurs IN MY CAVE RAWWWWWWWWWWWWR."
 

(Lack of punctuation was on purpose). See? boys are cavemen. They like caves. They like to eat. They like to smash things. They like to YELL LOUD.

Luckily all 3 of the bigger boys played very nicely today in their cave. Until baby Camden decided he wanted to be a caveman too, and pulled all the blankets off the chairs and ruined the fort.

"NO BABIES!!!!!"
 
That's how Calen yells at his brother. Always plural. I'm always looking around for another baby that might have randomly crawled into the house. They're like ants. They come in through cracks in the windowsills.

Luckily the fort cave was fixed, the crisis had passed and the cavemen could spend the rest of their morning in their cave. And now it's naptime. It's been an easy morning for me.

Calen and his little friends in the "Cave"

RE:Introduction

This isn't really a new blog, but it is. Once upon a time I blogged our East Coast adventures on another Website, but I didn't update very often. I'd like to blame it on something important like an ongoing illness, being too busy getting my college degree or an infestation of jaguars in my house, but the cold hard truth is that I was lazy and I didn't have much motivation to sit down and write every day.

But the other truth is that I really enjoy blogging and I feel the need to paste my life all over the blogging world. So I started a new one (more like a continuance of the old one) on a new website (I appreciate the layout of this one better), and what I would like to do is post every day, even if it's just a picture and one sentence. Because I can take a lot of pictures, but not necessarily write a lot of words. See, I'm brilliant and just full of ideas.

This blog is called Shipwrecked, because no thanks to the Coast Guard we are "shipwrecked" on this side of the country until June 2014, i.e. Forever. A long time ago when I worked for a division of Verizon, we had an entire hour conference meeting about why our division's new name is SO WONDERFUL. This isn't that kind of meeting. In fact the only reason I'm mentioning it is because it's basically what this blog is about. Being shipwrecked in a strange place called New Jersey, and being forced to sew clothes out of leaves, explore new scary places, encounter strange natives and eat weird food items with NO HOPE OF RESCUE. Okay all is true except for the first one. I don't know how to sew.

Though I'm sure all of the six people that will actually read this blog are family members, I'll introduce you to the cast of this new reality show.

ME (i.e. the mom, the wife, and the annoying person that always has a camera)

 

 BRAD (i.e. the daddy, the husband, the Coastie that got us here in the first place but I love him anyways)

 

CALEN (i.e. the toddler (in every sense of the word), the big brother, the sweetheart, the character, the happy-no-matter-what fun loving little guy.)

  

CAMDEN (i.e. the baby, the little brother, the silly monkey, the one-that-gets-into-everything, the little monster, the quirky always-laughing peanut.)

CHANCE AND JUNO (i.e. the dogs, the turds, the infatuations of the kids, the obnoxious-but-love-them-anyways pooches.

JERSEY (i.e. the new addition, the 2nd floor queen, the food-obsessed-Jenny-Craig-hating cat.[picture to come soon]