"You just don't know what our kid life is all about."

Oh my dear sweet Isabella. I know, you have it so hard. You're fed on an overly regular basis, you have enough clothing that you can change your outfit four times each day and then throw them all on the floor and do it over again the next day, you have open access to a ridiculous number of craft supplies which have become the bane of my existence, you have everything. And yet, your little life is so unbearably hard, and let us not forget, boring.

I'm sorry. We've had a rough day, and at the moment, I'm feeling less than positive.

With lunch in hand, I sat down with Isaac in the living-room and let out a heavy sigh,
"What's the matter mommy?"
"Well, Isaac has spent most of the day screaming, and you've spent most of the day complaining, so I'm tired."
"You just don't know what our kid life is all about."

Okay. Maybe I don't. But your kid life looks pretty darn appealing compared to my adult life.

Say goodbye to our much loved, old, ugly, blue couches. We're getting new ones on Saturday. Hip hip hooray! I must admit, I'll be a little sad to see them go. This is where I nursed both of my babies, and spent countless hours sleeping with Isaac.

This is about as high tech as it gets at our house...

I'm a neglectful mother. Until yesterday, when his pediatrician cleaned it off with alcohol wipes, Isaac still had glue stuck to the side of his neck and his chest from the sleep study tape. 

 So much for my positive spin on math. She tells me repeatedly that she wishes "math didn't even exist."

Dude, your camera is sooo awesome. He looks a little stoned, does he not?

"Does everyone's heart look the same?"
"No, just like every person looks different, hearts are the same way. Like Kieran, he has to have surgery on his heart because it looks different, and the doctors need to fix it to make it better."
"Is that why he's always so loud? Because at Maya's house, we were having a kid meeting, where we were going around in a circle and taking turns saying something, and Kieran was making noise the whole time."
"No, that doesn't have to do with his heart, I think that just has to do with him being younger than you guys."

"Why are we going so slow?" (driving in the car)
"Because I'd rather not hit the car in front of me."
"Maybe, they should make a rule where everyone has to drive slowly so there aren't any accidents. I think that would be a good idea."
"Maybe."
"You know, I only get these ideas about once a month. I have room in my brain for these ideas only one time each month."

"Every day I try to look just like a princess."
"That's nice."
"Do you want to see how beautiful I look?"
"Sure."
"I try to look just like Jesse (my sister), because she is so beautiful."

"Daddy, do we have enough gas to get home?"
"We have enough to make it to the gas station."
"Well, we don't want to end up on the side of the road! Mommy, remember when you made us end up on the side of the road? When you went past that stop sign, remember? We were in the Honda Fit."
True story. Her memory is too good.

I don't know about you, but we all share one main bathroom. Which is fine with me, because I'd hate to have to clean another one (besides our other half bath). This also means that when I want to take a bath, which is pretty frequent during colder months since I refuse to turn up/on the heat, and a bath is the quickest way to warm up before bed, I have a fair amount of bath toys to clean up before I can even get in. The last time Isabella saw me heading to take a bath, she said, "play with the dolphins, mommy. They're really fun."

With that, I'm off to play with dolphins, because I could certainly use some happy sea creatures to entertain me.

Goodnight,

Sierra

Stuff.

How about that creative title?

Did you know I'm a princess? Or, at least according to Isabella, when I wake up in the morning, my hair makes me look like a princess. On the flip side, she was pointing out some little bumps on her face and suggested that they might be "the pink things" that are on my face. Pimples. Thank you for boosting my self-esteem and then bringing it right back down.

Homeschooling. Some days are great, and it's amazing to watch her pick up on stuff, like reading words, which is something I've been particularly excited about. And other days, she falls on the floor at the mere suggestion of using her brain, and melts into a puddle of tears. I want her to enjoy learning. I even want her to enjoy math of all things. Which led to my spontaneous math song all about how exciting math is. It was a total lie. I hate math, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't learn to like it. I bribe her with stickers, and craft time, and play dates. But ultimately, I want her to enjoy learning for the sake of learning! I continue to remind myself that this is just Kindergarten.

Isabella is doing so well with learning how to read. It is incredibly exciting and rewarding for me to teach her how to read. She recently read the first five Beginning Reader B.O.B Books. I couldn't stop smiling. It was the coolest thing! She was reading to me! Next week she will have her first Assessment for Phonics Book A to make sure she is ready to move to the next book. I think she'll pass with flying colors.

"Do you remember what we end a sentence with?...A period." 
"Oh. Well, I'll put that on my 'thinking list'."

Sleep Study. Isaac spent the first half hour screaming. This was also before anyone touched him, so I thought we were in for a horrible night until they took us back to our room, and he saw the toys they'd put on his bed.  That perked him up but he was still skeptical and trust me, there was not shortage of his evil eye. He tolerated everything surprisingly well and once all of the stickers and wires we on him, he laid down on the pillow and didn't move until I sat him up the following morning. He was awake from 2:30 a.m. to 4:00 a.m., but other than that he slept really well.

I'm sure the technicians enjoyed listening to me sing Jesus Loves Me three hundred times. He typically responds to my singing like a robot who instantly runs out of battery. It's kind of amazing and makes me feel powerful.

Fall Hike.

Not the outfit I would choose for hiking, but who am I to argue with this fashion statement?

"But mommy, when you say 'no' it really hurts my feelings, because I want what I want." Well said.

 Time to paint!

Some days she looks so darn cute!

Stella is no longer wearing the cone of shame. Her leg is just about healed, and she's back to her old self. Which means she stole Isabella's taco tonight. We've considered making her wear the cone as punishment.

We have no idea why, but Isaac screamed about sixty percent of last night and watched TV the other forty percent. Before leaving for work, Walter said to him, "I'm not sure what kind of monster you turned into last night, but I'm very angry with you this morning." Isaac appropriately responded with a growl. 

With that said, we are very tired over here. 

Goodnight.

I'm crazy!

The fact that next Wednesday Isaac will have four appointments in one day, proves the point that, I'm crazy! Only a crazy person does that. Last night as I was trying to fall asleep and running through my internalized calendar of Isaac's schedule, I realized that Wednesday Isaac will have OT, PT, SLT, and in the evening he and I will drive to Rainbow Babies for a Sleep Study. Add to that his Help Me Grow appointment on Monday and if I decide my sanity isn't at risk, a Sensory Adventure Day on Friday, at one of the privately run schools for special needs. When you have to schedule so many appointments, there's always one that has to come before the other. Hence my agreement to scheduling the sleep study on the same day as three other appointments. He has to have the sleep study before we go to our already scheduled ENT follow-up, and then of course he has to have that before we go to the already scheduled Sleep Doctor follow-up. Well, and then there's neurology, and she'll want to know all about everything so we might as well come with some juicy sleep study news. 

I think we're going to have amazing sleep study results. After the last one I was kind of freaking out because the Sleep Doctor and the ENT were discussing a future craniofacial surgery that would essentially break his jaw, and move it forward in order to open up his airway. We're still praying that we can avoid that one, and judging by his improvement in sleep and overall breathing since having the tonsillectomy, I think he'll just need some heavy duty orthodontics. 

Side note: I'm kind of excited about the sleep study because the next morning, I get to drop Isaac off at my parent's house, go home, and snuggle up in bed with Stella. It's going to be wonderful. Sleep. I can't wait! 

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Homeschooling doesn't get much better than this: pajamas and a Starbucks coffee. And she says she want to go to real school. She doesn't know what she's talking about.

Isaac is learning to read too. He's also learning to count: "Isaac, say, one - two - three - GO!" "Uh, uh, uh, GO!" Close enough.

Have you ever watched Curious George? If you haven't, I don't recommend it. You listen to the most annoyingly high pitched monkey repeat the same sound over and over again for an entire 20 minutes. With that said, Isaac kind of reminds me of Curious George, in a nicer way, of course. They're both really good at miming, and they both repeat the same sound over and over again until the man with the yellow hat, or in our case, Walter and I figure out what he is telling us.

Isaac's usually goes like this: Mama. Maaaama. MAMA. Uh, uh, uh, eh, eh, eh, oh, oh, oh...as he gestures for me to sit on floor and swings his arms like he's swinging a bat. Oh, duh, you want to play baseball/catch with the ball! I'm getting really good at this game. It's his favorite, and if I don't do it: MaaaaMA, Mama, uh, uh, uh, UH, EH, OH, UH, BA (Ball).

Notice the tongue sticking out for extra focus. :)

I could used some knocked out, oblivious to the world sleep like this....

They love each other so much. If Isaac is sitting next to Isabella, he caresses her hair.

Isaac knows exactly where we keep the board games and he sits at the door and cries until we let him pick which one he wants. Then he forces me to play with him. I tend to hope he doesn't pick Operation. That requires a Tylenol to go with it.

This is Isaac realizing that he just hit the Squinkie jack pot while Isabella wasn't looking.

Squinkie makers, what exactly inspired you to create "Zinkies" (a much smaller version of Squinkies)? Are you trying to find more ways to torture parents?

We had a few very rough months trying to get Isaac to not scream as if we were torturing him every time we went to the library. I really didn't want to give up on going, because when we go it's for Isabella's "special" story time and craft time. Well, the perseverance paid off, and now he will happily (most of the time) play at the computer and is way to loud with excitement while he's there, but so far the librarians haven't kicked us out.

Example of inconsistent exposure. I changed my settings before taking the next two pictures. 

He looked over and saw Charlotte typing and thought that looked like a cool idea. 

I went to the grocery store (Heinen's, to be exact. Where most of the people recognize us because we shop there every week) and bought a bottle of wine for our post roast. I only took in my bank card with me because I don't like carrying a purse if I don't have to. Of course I didn't think to bring in my I.D. I generally assume that if I'm grocery shopping with two kids, that automatically puts me in the category of "old enough to purchase alcohol". Not so, they made me go out to my car to get my I.D.

Here's to looking like a teen mom.

Sierra