Playgrounds and Photo Challenges

This morning we took the kids to meet with some friends at the playground. Which actually involves Calen running around playing and me spending the whole time fish hooking Camden in attempts to pull playground tire mulch out of his mouth. 

This time started out pretty much the same, but then I got caught up talking to the other moms, when suddenly it dawned on me. 

Where's Camden?

I turned around and there he is, climbing UP the slide. Alone. Without assistance. I watched amused for a moment waiting for him to lose his grip and slide all the way down on his belly. 

Orangutan reincarnate

I waited, and waited. And suddenly, he was on the top.

Beginner's luck. He'll never be able to do that twice.

I climbed up the slide to grab him. 

And slipped and slide down. 

Really? I just got one-upped by a ONE year old??

I finally got him and slid him down the slide, which really pissed him off that I had removed him from his victorious summit. He started climbing up again, and we all watched in amazement as he did it again!! And over, and over, and over. 

heading up for maybe the 7th time

The kid really is a monkey. I think he got switched in the hospital with a stray orangutan. 


In other news, I came across a blogger's photo challenge for this week and decided to enter. The subject is "Happiness." This photo is from last week when we went to the beach, but I think I have a good entry. What do you think? 

UPDATE: We didn't place, but we got a runner up "Judge's Favorite" and a fancy button to show off. Yay for my kid's cheesy grin!

"Happiness"

 

Biking With Babies

We went on a bike ride today as a family. 

Well more like Brad and I went on a bike ride and we towed the boys along like a U-Haul trailer. Except it has seat belts and you know, cushy chairs. 

The boys usually love it. They feel like they're going fast because they're so low to the ground, they get the wind from the open trailer and they don't have to even work at pushing pedals or anything to get from point a to point b. Smart kids. 

Ready to roll phat in their Benz

Not that it's a lot of work, since the closest non-manmade hill is in West Virgina. Or Something.

We like to ride around Cape May and gawk at all the 28 room mansions and complain about how ugly some of them are and how it's WAY too much house to clean.

We dis on the mansions to make us feel better about living in a small little military townhome. 



The boys started fighting before we even left the front yard. God forbid they had to sit in such proximity to each other that their skin was touching. Cam doesn't mind because he can lean on big brother's shoulder and sleep. Big brother doesn't appreciate it and tries to shove him off. Then Cam kept pulling Calen's Spiderman sunglasses off and knocking them on Calen's helmet. And then he proceeded to twist in his 5-point harness so that he could chew on Calen's helmet straps. Calen was beside himself.

"NO BABIES!! MINES HATS!"

I imagine it is pretty obnoxious to have to sit next to a one year old that likes to pull/hit/chew on all the shit that's attached to your head. 

NO BABIES!!!! MINES HAT!

 

Ziplock Painting

First of all, my mom flew home today so we decided to go to Red Robin on the way to the airport. 

Kids eating lemons are funny. Especially since neither of my kids will stop eating them even though they're making their eyelids turn inside out. It's some sort of strange rewarding self-torturing device.

I like watching them eat lemons. So I usually ask the waitresses there for a whole bowl of them. 

No, he's not disgusted by the last episode of Jersey Shore. He's eating lemons at Red Robin

We got back home with two especially cranky boys. So I dug into my Super Mom Boredom Device (Pinterest) and picked out a fun/cheap/easy activity that both of them could do. 

It's called Ziplock Painting.

Here's what you do:

1) Take a ziplock freezer bag (gallon size)

2) Squirt one or two colors of paints inside (I used finger paints, since it happened to be what I have on hand)

3) Seal the ziplock bag and tape it down on top of a white piece of paper, on the table (Pinterest called for Painter's tape, but I found it was pretty weak so I used packaging tape)

That's it. 

Ziplock Painting. Product Placement for the win.

The kids can then "paint" using their fingers to push down on the bag and smear it around, but it causes no mess (best.news.ever) AND since I put it on the boys' little picnic table, it can stay there for days and not dry up. 


Calen liked driving his matchbox cars on top and making tire tracks. (because, you know, nothing with him doesn't involve cars). He liked how the green and yellow smeared together in a swirly type way too. Cam liked slamming his hands/blocks/everything on top of it. But they were both tired and cranky so they decided that throwing themselves on the floor whining/crying over nothing was a far more entertaining pasttime.

Driving cars on the paint

Either way, it at least created 15 minutes worth of entertainment for today. Hopefully they will be more human-like tomorrow and enjoy it even longer. 

Even Cam got to play today.

P.S. Cam decided it was even more fun to just push the entire picnic table across the room. This kid has some serious upper body strength (hence the nickname: Ze Caminator!)

Rearranging the furniture.

The Real Purpose of Couches

Have you ever been to a house that didn't have a couch?

Actually, I have. It was weird. It felt like it was missing something. Like a couch.

Couches are supposedly designed as something to stuff your ass at the end of the day. Or something like that. They're big (especially mine), usually living rooms are designed around them (that and the enormous tv that is the centerpiece of every household). 
 
I'm sure Martha Stewart thinks that couches are big ugly things that make living rooms less formal and ruins the tranquility and fashion of every household. I think Martha Stewart is ugly. 

Our couch is used for it's designed ass-stuffing services, sure. But it's also used for far more important things in our house. Like entertaining our kids. 


Camden would spend all day crawling from one end to the other, throwing himself limbs out onto his back halfway through like some sort of self-sacrificing Broadway dancer. 

Camden practicing for his audition in Les Miserables

He also likes the couch because it is the gateway to all the forbidden items that we store on top of the windowsill. Like remote controls, coffee mugs, credit cards, laptops, external hard-drives, etc. Which to any 12 month old spells a gold mine of fun activities.

Cam found a credit card on top of the windowsill. Score!

Calen uses the couch to leap into piles of blankets/pillows, drive cars over, and to play his favorite game with Daddy - couch flying. 

No, not like the couch is flying. Like Calen is flying into the couch. 

Child-Flying practice. Meanwhile, Cam is escaping certain annihilation

Calen will run to Daddy. Daddy will lift him up and heave him through the air into the couch. Half of the time Camden is still crawling from one side to the other so Daddy has to aim Calen around his brother. Calen flying through the air makes both boys laugh. 

I affectionately call this the Child Abuse Game. Because it really does look terrible in pictures. "Let's throw our kid across the room!" But really, he LIKES it. So I purposefully took a picture of Calen laughing to show that he REALLY does enjoy this. I promise....

Calm, gentle parenting

This game went on forever this afternoon. I can't believe both boys were still breathing after this. 


Though Cam did do a cartwheel dismount from the couch to the floor...on his head...and that pretty much ended the game. 

*disclaimer: no children were injured in the making of this blog (on purpose. Cam's header off the couch was not my fault. The kid threw himself off of it). If you think this is a form of child abuse, you should seek brain surgery immediately. 


 

One of THOSE days

Sometimes things just do not go as planned. 

This seems to happen far too often when you have teething babies and toddlers that get up at 5:30am every.morning and then refuse to nap. 

I have no idea why my kids morphed into angry baboons this afternoon. Maybe it has to do with Cam's swollen gums (his molars are coming through) and Calen actually falling asleep during "quiet time" and then waking up pissed that he complied with my suggestion of napping during naptime. 

The expression I got pretty much all day. Add a loud whining sound effect and you pretty much have it.

Or, a more realistic theory is that they both snuck a swig or two from the bottle of the Crabby Juice they hide under their mattresses. 

OR, even more realistic, the government sprayed some sort of mood changing irritant into our central-air vents today. 

Nothing could make these kids happy this afternoon. 

Nothing. 

Even dinner was an angry experience. Crimeny.

So it's one of those days where you rejoice when 6:30 rolls around and it's time to throw the angry baboons back into their cage bed. 

Is there any wine in the house? (The kind of wine spelled without the "h"? I have plenty of whine to last me a year). 

Wordless Wednesday {Well Almost}

Today we fulfilled yesterday's promise of taking my mom to climb the Cape May lighthouse.

Ready to climb Cape May lighthouse

Gramma and her boys at the base of the lighthouse

 Followed by playing on the beach below the lighthouse with some friends.

Calen and his lady friends

 And of course, Camden trying to suffocate himself by literally throwing his face into the sand and inhaling as much as possible before he started choking.


God this kid. He's definitely going to be in the ER someday for ingesting some foreign object. 

Someone feel free to explain this one. 

 

Windy With A Chance of Wind

It was really windy today.

Okay I know that's an incredibly stupid comment since we live..you know..on the ocean. It's always windy or at least breezy. But it was like an "It's a twister Aunty Em!" kind of windy today.

I hate the wind here. Anything cool to do is outside and on blustery days, the wind refrains us from doing cool things if it's below 85 degree. Today was like Windiest Day Ever and that didn't make the 55 degrees very pleasant.

But since my mom is leaving here on Saturday, we couldn't wait for the 2910101 mph winds to die down, so we had to man up, tie our hair back and face it. 

I wanted to take her to the Cape May lighthouse today. It's right on the edge of the cape, really pretty surroundings, panoramic view of the ocean etc. You pay an exorbitant amount of money to get the privilege to climb the old lighthouse and get up on the top observation tower and literally be able to say "hey, I can see my house!" Screw the stupid wind, all it means is if I spit off the top it'll go to Delaware. 

We packed up the kids and drove over to the lighthouse, but apparently the tours close at 3pm. It was 3:08pm. 

Shit!

So, we made an impromptu decision to go to the private Coast Guard "LSU" beach on the other side of town. My mom wanted to see it and though we had planned on going tomorrow when the wind was down to a reasonable 500mph winds, but hey, we were already in the car, dressed down, and even had sand buckets and shovels in the trunk. What the hell, let's go to the beach and get flying sand in my eyes (and every other orifice imaginable. Sand on a windy day is no joke). 

See the lighter color swirls of sand? That's sand moving super fast due to the wind. Right into that surfer.

The boys loved the last minute beach trip, regardless of the cold wind and the sand flying through the air. Calen went to work digging holes and making sand castles and Cam went to work eating every seashell and grain of sand in sight. 

Gramma and her boys found something cool in the sand

We didn't last long. It was like sitting in front of a humongous box fan and some jerk continuously pouring bucket after bucket of sand directly into the propeller blades on full blast. We were covered in sand and the water was too cold to play, so we decided to call it a day. Calen was devastated that we were leaving and didn't seem to care that his brother was turning into the next Ripley's Believe It Or Not sand creature. 

But, the wind made for some cool pictures. And in the end, pictures are all that matter, right?

Wind on the sand and the grass

Cheeseburger Plants

You might remember me mentioning in a previous post about how on Calen's birthday we acquired a packet of radish seeds from the McDonald's counter (ummm...random? But hey - free shit. I'm all about free shit, whether it's useful or not). 

So we planted them in a pot, not really expecting them to grow, but you know making it an educational moment (or some such nonsense). And you know, any excuse to screw around in the dirt.

Or if it's going to grow, it's going to grow cheeseburgers. What the hell else would grow from a seed packet in McDonald's?

Actually, that would be pretty freaking awesome if I had a cheeseburger plant in my back yard. Now all I'd need is a fries bush and a milkshake tree, and I'm in fat city (literally). 

So today my mom and I go out to plant vegetable seeds that I actually expect to grow (I'm pretty sure that seeds from Lowe's have a higher success rate of growing than McDonald's. Call me crazy). I peek over at our pathetic little pot to see how our failing radish experiment was dying doing.

OHMYGOD, is that...a SPROUT?

No, it can't be. It must be a weed. Definitely a weed.

But then I looked closer, and it's a sprout! A real sprout! You mean to tell me something from a McDonald's in South Jersey can actually grow into something green? 

I'm still halfway in denial. 

Now the question is, is it a radish sprout, or a cheeseburger sprout? I'm pretty excited to find out. 

(I'm banking on cheeseburger sprouts). 

The beginning of my cheeseburger garden

 

One Year Ago

Camden was born a year ago today.

First of all, there is no way in HELL that was a year ago. I refuse to believe it. He was definitely only born like four months ago. You people are crazy. 

Second of all, if you don't care to read a birth story, stop reading and come back tomorrow.

I went into labor the night of Thursday, April 21st 2011. I thought it was the greasy food I had for dinner that night that gave me gas. But my mom (who was in town...who is in town currently...deja vu anyone?) and Brad insisted I go to the ER. Fine, fine. Thus I find out it was not the fajitas (or whatever it was) that I ate, but lovely, atrocious back labor, so I stayed the night in the hospital.


EFF back labor. It sucks. It even sucks worse than vag labor. It was like every 3 or 4 minutes someone taking a big wooden club and thwacking me with it in the lower spine. Yeah, screw that nonsense.


The next morning I was demanding that the hospital staff bring me a cheeseburger. Or a steak. Or a steak cheeseburger. Something with a million calories that tasted remotely interesting, I didn't care, I was starving to death!

Doctors always claim that they don't let you eat in the hospital due to medical reasons/precautions/whatever. I think they just like to see us suffer.

That morning the doctors determined that I "was, in fact, in labor" since my contractions hadn't stopped in 12 hours. (no shit, Sherlock. It took you 12 hours to figure that out? P.S. I'm HUNGRY). My C-Section was scheduled for 10am that morning. 

If I hear one word about "WHY did you have a C-section??" I'll murder you in your face. I am so not interested in throwing myself into that continuous social mom argument. Quite frankly - WHO cares how the kid is born as long as they're healthy. I had a planned repeat C-section. There. That's how much I'm feeding you.


At 10:31am Camden William was born. Of course I couldn't see him due to that blue camping tarp thing they throw in front of you and your fillet belly (thank the Lord). I carried HUMONGOUS with Cam compared to Calen (who was born 7lb 12oz). So expected them to announce this world record breaking 45 pound baby. Then the news came out:


"Six pounds six ounces!"

The first thing I thought about in my second born's first few precious moments was...."That's it?? How the hell did he takes up so much ROOM in my stomach and end up only being a peanut?"

Thus the nickname "Peanut" that he acquired at about 2 minutes old. 

Camden seconds old

He was born on Good Friday. At first we thought it was super special, but there wasn't much "good" about this Good Friday (other than his birth) because it happened to be the day that our truck, which has never had a problem in the five years we owned it, suddenly broke down. After three days we were sent home (on Easter Sunday). We were borrowing our next door neighbor's little commuter car. We wheeled out to the parking lot, and discovered that the car's battery was dead. 


Really?

After a call to Triple-A and an hour sitting in the hospital parking lot, we finally got home to spend the rest of our Easter with our little basket of joy (literally). We took him over to the neighbor's in a little Easter basket and everything. 

Our Easter basket

One year has passed. Now Camden is a busy, crawling, cruising, loud little monkey. 


We spent today inside due to a torrential rain storm. We opened presents from the relatives, ate the last monkey cupcake from his party on Friday and Skyped with the grandparents.


Now the birthday monkey is happily asleep and I'm still sitting here wondering why we celebrated his birthday today when I know that he was only born like four months ago.


Someone is clearly mistaken....and I swear it isn't me. 

One year later!

Crashing the Coast Guard Ball

My feet hurt!!

Whoever invented high heels ought to be shot. Damn those things hurt.

Tonight was the Coast Guard Ball at some casino in Atlantic City. Basically a fancy dinner party where the husbands dress up in uniform and the wives put on a fancy dress, we go have dinner and a few drinks, listen to some music, have a great time etc.

At the ball - before we REALLY crashed it

That is if all the stuffy higher up officers/admirals/whatevers hadn't been so boring and made stupid speeches that actually transformed this "party" into a business meeting.

Luckily, our little table in the back with us three couples (probably the only Enlisted folk in the entire room) made fun. We crashed that shit. We drank, we were loud, we were making fun of all the uptight brass in the room, we dueled with appetizer skewers. People were staring at us disgustedly. Which made us louder. And more obnoxious.

And then we LEFT and found our OWN party.

We decided that this stuffy shit wasn't good enough for our enlisted tastes, so we walked two casinos down the boardwalk and barged in with our fancy dresses and uniforms.

Crashing the VIP lounge. Watch out for them Hansens, Klinzings and Takacs!

You know what happens when you go somewhere with three girls in hot dresses and three men in their fancy Dress Blues? You get in the VIP rooms. You take over reserved tables (that aren't reserved for you).

We ended up in some high rollers club and happened to stumble upon a live show. Where we danced and made fools of ourselves (the wives, anyways), but that's okay because we had hot guys in uniforms at our table, so no one asks questions. 

We MADE tonight. I bet no one else that went to that ball had half as much fun as we did. Those stuffy officers and their wives should have partied with US.

Monkeying Around

It was pretty stupid of me to have kids so close together (as in, birthdays on the calendar, not their age difference). Because throwing two birthday parties within 4 weeks of each other is amazingly exhausting. Not that I really had a schedule written down as to what months I wanted my kids born or anything. Do people actually do that??

But, how can you give one kid a great party and not the other? Especially when the "other" is his FIRST birthday?

Camden's first birthday is actually two days from now (the 22nd). We had planned to have his party on his birthday on Sunday, but naturally the weather forecast says it's going to pour down rain all.damn.day on Sunday. So we changed it last minute to today, the last nice day before this rain storm comes in.

Oh and did I mention that the Coast Guard ball is tomorrow? Yeah we have a lot going on this weekend.

When Cam was born we nicknamed him "Peanut" because he was so small (1 pound smaller than his older brother was). As he got bigger and turned into a small tank, we re-nicknamed him "Monkey", because he climbs, clings, swings and bounces around just like a monkey. Even makes monkey faces. So fittingly we chose a monkey theme for today's party.

Since I'm totally over making birthday cakes for the year thanks to Calen's enormous Monster Truck cake, I decided to make Camden cupcakes instead. So, thanks to Pinterest, I made him monkey cupcakes with a sugar cookie for the face, and mini sandwich cookies for the ears (with frosting). They took FOREVER to finish but I really like how they turned out.

Monkey cupcakes!

To add to the monkey theme I froze bananas dipped in melted Nutella (OHMYGOD...yummmmmmm. If you think Nutella is good before, nuke it in the microwave for 45 seconds. Wow. Goodbye diet). And I also made Cam a birthday monkey shirt - sort of. I bought a monkey shirt and some cheap blue and brown fabric paint and customized it. 

Stylin birthday style

We barbecued today with my mom and lots of Coast Guard friends. We tossed Cam's high chair out in the back yard so that he was on center stage when we gave him his monkey cupcake...or rather, THREE of them.

We clearly don't feed the kid enough.

Cupcake one of three

Then of course, as how most first birthday parties end, I'm standing there staring at my nasty cupcake-covered creature that was once my son who's trapped in his high chair, and I'm thinking, "What do I do NOW?" I want to give him a bath, but I don't want to touch him. I don't know how to touch him. I should just take him, high chair and all, and put him on the street curb. Or just turn on the garden hose. Hmmmm.

Daring us to bathe him.

Somehow I got him into the tub. The monkey is now clean and asleep. Mission accomplished.

I think he had a good time.

Since we don't have enough birthday fun around here, we're giving him a smash CAKE tomorrow or Sunday, pending on weather. No party or anything, just him, a cake, my camera, on the deck. Stay tuned.

 

The Graveyard Yogo Style

I remember when I was a kid the cool thing to do at the pizza or fast food joints was to be dared by your friends take your cup to the fountain drinks and pour some of each flavor and mix it up. It was affectionately called The Graveyard.

You know, because everyone likes a little Iced Tea and Sunkist Orange soda with their Dr Pepper. 

Don't make fun of me. You know you did it too. If you didn't you were a wussy.


Apparently the Graveyard circa 2012 is not just limited to fountain sodas. Now kids with broken tastebuds brave souls can risk mixing strange concoctions into their frozen yogurt. 

WHOA, did you feel that shiver down your spine too? It's a dangerous world we live in. Carry mace.

We took my mom to the Yogo Factory today (one of my frequent haunts). It's one of about 3 things on this earth that is exclusively on the East Coast but should be on the West Coast, so she has never had the privilege of enjoying it. 

Sitting with grandma waiting to eat his yogurt concoction

Yogo has about 12 flavors of frozen yogurt on hand and maybe a couple dozen toppings (fresh fruit, crumbled cookies, sprinkles, candy, etc), which is what makes it so super delicious and each visit unique. 

Cam thought it was tasty too

I splurged today and let Calen have two flavors of yogurt today. So he chose strawberry and chocolate. And then I held him up to look at all the toppings and told him he could choose any toppings he wanted.

::sigh::

Here's what he chose. In order:

- fresh strawberries (good boy)

- fresh kiwis (make mama proud!) 

- rainbow sprinkles (okay, it's his choice, right?)

- chocolate chips (getting warmer)

- and........gummy bears.

Gummy bears?! On top of frozen yogurt? Ummm....ewww?

Sure sounds like a new-age Graveyard dare to me. 

Who am I kidding? My three year old would put gummy bears on his spaghetti.  

Yep, those are gummy bears on top of his frozen yogurt with fresh fruit. Crimeny.

 

 

 

Wordless Wednesday {Well Almost}

Thank God it's Wordless Wednesday so I don't have to use a lot of words! My mom flew in from Seattle on Monday and we've been on the go ever since so I don't have a lot of time to sit around and wait for the kids to do something disastrous that I can take pictures write about. 

Today during the five seconds that we were home we threw a bunch of blankets on the floor for the boys to play on. Calen has really gotten into playing and rough housing with brother. 

I don't think he realizes that Brother is more than half his weight and is basically a flailing blob that can't defend himself. We had a lot of "don't chuck your brother across the room Calen!" today. 

Cam tolerates it because Calen is laughing (which makes him laugh). 

It started off cute and both boys were laughing. 

Rough housing toddler style

Then it kind of got more to a point where Calen wanted to rough house but Cam was just trying to escape (but luckily still smiling)

Wait for it...

And then suddenly turned south when Cam decided he had enough (but Calen wouldn't let go of him), so he snatched up a wooden block and shoved it in Calen's eye. Tears ensued, but Cam definitely made his point that he can hold his own. 

Victory for Cam via wooden block violence

 

Questions For Cam

Remember that old stupid movie from the 90s Look Who's Talking? Where babies are talking and all intellectual (or sort of anyways) and what not?

Sometimes I wish Cam could talk. Or just be able to answer questions. Like he can't talk unless I push his talk button (like those creepy talking stuffed animals that have the control panel on their back behind velcro. On, Off, Demo Mode. 

Oh my God. I'm on to something. I wish CALEN had an off button. Or a Demo Mode. Where he only talks for about 15 seconds and then is quiet and still. 

I have a lot of things I would ask Cam.

- Why do you EAT everything (Calen was NOT this way. You can't say "ALL babies are that way"). 

Really Camden? How do I explain this to Netflix?

 
- Why do you crawl like a gorilla/Spiderman hybrid? Is it more fuel efficient? Is it more entertaining? Are you protesting your knees? (knees are extremely useful, you know).

Spider-Cam

 - WHERE did your curly hair come from???? No one in either family (that I know of) has crazy wild super curly hair like yours. Did you lick a toaster? Were you switched in the hospital with Albert Einstein's descendant? Do you secretly have a curling iron stashed under your crib mattress?

I'd sure like to know where this HAIR comes from

 - And finally, how did you learn to smile with your ENTIRE FACE?? You drool every time you crack a grin. It's kind of gross. But cute.

At least it's really cute.

 

The Things You Say

I just drove four hours roundtrip to the airport and back. I'm not in much of an "energetic let's go write 1500 paragraphs in today's blog" kind of mood. 

Here's another chapter to "The Things You Say" - Calen edition. 

Today we're playing with his Mr. Potato Heads. There are some pieces missing (probably hidden somewhere under his bed. Or in the heating vent ducts. Who knows). One of the little pieces that attaches to the potato's backside (you know - where you store all of the body parts) is missing. Clearly this bothered Calen. 

Calen - "Mommy, WHERE is his BUTT??"

Me (other side of the house) - "what?!"

Calen - "Oh NO. His butt is all gone! Awwww. Poor BUTT!! Butt is BROKEN!."

I wish my butt could be all gone. 

Calen puts some Mrs. Potato Head rosy pink lips inside the "butt" compartment. 

Calen - "There. He has butt now see? All better."

Me - "Awesome." (what else am I supposed to say?)

Calen - "Mommy, where is his pee-pee?"

Me - "HEY who wants to have fruit snacks and watch LeapFrog??" 

Calen squeals running through the house "YAY FRUITSNACKS LEAPFROG!!!"

ANYTHING to change the subject before it really gets out of hand.

"There, his butt is fixed!"