The Holy Grail of Christmas Cards

I have spent the past few days making myself insane. For some reason, I actually believe I can get a good picture of Aidan and Conner together under the Christmas tree ...one in which they have angelic smiles and are posed just perfectly. I guess you could say I've been on the quest for the holy grail of Christmas card pictures because I'm beginning to believe such a picture of a toddler and a baby together does not exist. Here's some of my work so far....







Notice that the good pictures are of Conner. Aidan thought it would be cute to "take a picture" of me. After his attempt at photography, he split. He wasn't sticking around regardless of all my pathetic pleas and bargains...

"Aidan, please stand next to the rocking chair and smile. Then you can have some Goldfish."
"OK, Aidan, stand next to your brother and show him the ladybug Christmas ornament. If you do that, we'll go get a happy meal."
Aidan...please, please, please, stand next to Conner just for one minute! Mommy wants a Merry Christmas picture. Then you can have all the (insert chocolate candy and forbidden foods here) you want!!!"

Didn't work. Ed said it was because he was embarrassed about the red reindeer sweater I made him wear. Hmm...Perhaps.

Gettin' some culture!

School is officially out for winter break for me! I have a little bit of freedom until January 5...well, as much freedom as one can get with two children! The boys and I decided to visit the Children's Museum in Oak Ridge one day last week. I have never been there before so I wasn't sure what to expect. I thought I might as well try it out now while I'm the only one who gets charged for admission. I think Aidan was excited about his trip: he decided to dress up for the big outing.

After making sure I had the diaper bag packed (diapers, wipes, toy school bus, bottles for Conner, juice, and the obligatory half pound bag of Goldfish), we were off to Oak Ridge. The museum looks like it's in an old school house and is situated next to a large, nice playground. After plunking down $6 to cover my admission, we explored the exhibits. There was a room called Grandma's Attic and had lots of little play things in it like an old children's tea set and old clothes to play dress-up. Every room we walked in Aidan said "Wow, look at all this stuff!" I think he was mesmerized- everything was on his level. They had a NASA room but he didn't care to much for that. We really liked the Rain Forest room. There were sounds of thunder piped in over an intercom system and any time Aidan heard it he froze where he stood and said "Thunder, we have to get out of here!" The room called the Doll House was under construction and I would like to go back and see that one. Apparently, it's like a huge life size doll house kids can play in. When I mentioned the room to Ed, he said that his son did not need to play in a doll house. Guess I won't tell him how Aidan really liked to play with the old tea set.


We continued to roam and explore the museum. They had a nice display about what life was like in the Atomic City right after the war began although Aidan didn't care for that. However, he did go bananas over the train room!
They had a life size train car that flashed lights and whistled and choo-choo'd. Aidan loved it; he climbed all over it and hollered: All Aboard, Thomas, All Aboard! Frankly, I thought it was annoying but it didn't seem to bother Conner. Conner, by the way, was content to ride in his stroller, suck on his sock, and enjoy the view throughout our adventure at the museum.
Aidan really enjoyed the model trains and tiny city. I actually thought it was very cool too. But the piece-de-resistance was the water room. Here was a replica of a body of water and a system of locks and channels that kids could play in with toy boats. The museum provided little aprons for the kids to wear so they won't get their clothes. Mind you, that would probably work with ordinary kids but this is Aidan we're talking about! He had a blast playing in this room and I'm so relieved we saved it for last. I let him go crazy, which is not hard to do. I sat back and watched him play and have a grand old time.

I'm also relieved I had a change of clothes in the car because he was soaked from his head to his shoes. Somehow, Conner got wet in the process too. Not sure how that happened, though. Anyway, it was a fun adventure and the boys had a great time.

Sniffles, Sneezes, and Co-pays, Oh My!

There are some crazy, stubborn germs floating around the Wilkerson household! It all started at the first of November when Aidan and Conner both had colds. Just when they were getting over their colds, I got sick. I'm one who hates to go to the doctor...hate it with a passion. I had been sick for a few days and Ed bugged me to go to the doctor. He said, "You always let these things go..you'll wind up with pneumonia!" I told him I was ok, and I had never had pneumonia, thank you very much! For some odd reason one day, I felt so bad that I actually went to the doctor. He checked me out, stood back and assumed the doctor position (thumbs in pocket on white coat...you know the position!) and boldly declared that I had pneumonia! I don't know what was worse: actually being that sick or having to tell Ed he was right! Anyhoo, just about the time I started feeling better, Aidan got a nasty ear infection. A few days after that, we had to take Conner to the emergency room at Children's Hospital because he was breathing very quickly and his chest was raspy...not to mention he had a high fever. After x-rays and all that fun stuff, the doctor thought he had an RSV-type virus but he didn't think it was RSV. At least for all our troubles we came home with a nice new breathing machine. Merry Christmas, Conner! It wouldn't be so bad to give Conner breathing treatments but that's when Aidan decides he needs some attention: he runs in circles around Conner's room like a dog chasing its tail. Conner squirms every which way to try to get a good look at him. Or Aidan decides that it's his chance to get into my makeup or markers and draw all over himself. Or he gets into the toothpaste and I find toothpaste all over the bathroom (what was he doing behind the toilet with the toothpaste?). The funny part about it is when he looks at a mess like that he says "Oh Aidan!" in the same tone I would use! All joking aside, one morning when I was giving Conner his breathing treatments, I realized how blessed I am that I only have to give Conner these treatments during an illness and not for the rest of his life. Aidan and Conner came into this world big, fat and healthy, and I thank God everyday for their health.

Over the weekend, Ed and I painted our living room. When we took the painter's tape off the wall, Aidan and Conner decided to get in on the action....

The Butt Jelly Strikes Again

Conner is constipated. This is a whole new territory for me because Aidan never had that problem. He's loose as a goose! For that reason, we go through butt jelly by the pounds all in the name of protecting delicate areas. Perhaps that explains why he's so infatuated with butt jelly. Perhaps. So....you know that whole things about "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?" (is that how it goes?). Yeah, well, if you've read my previous blog you probably know where this story is heading. Picture it: one beautiful, sunny fall day. Aidan, Conner, and I had been outside playing, had our lunch and now the blissful part of the day known as nap time was fast approaching. Conner is easy to put down for a nap. He's so worn out from putting up with Aidan's antics that he happily retreats to his lair of solitude and peace. Once I put him down, he plays with a teething ring, scratches the cars that are on his sheets, and falls fast asleep. One down...one to go. Now on to Aidan. He's more difficult than Conner now that he's in a big boy bed. He doesn't want to go to sleep. He says, "I'm not asleep, I'm awake." I think to myself: OK, great observation, Aristotle, but you need to lie down in your bed and rest (in mom-speak, that means that I really need to rest or at least use the bathroom in peace). So I do the whole routine with him, half mindful of what I'm doing, half repeating the prayer: Lord, please let my child take a nap....Lord, please let my child take a nap. I put Aidan in bed, kiss him, and say nite-nite. I walk out and close the door to mild protest. He cries for a few minutes and then he's quite. I hear him talking. That's a good sign. He' starting to quieten down. I hear him talking to his stuffed horse named Horsey (yeah, we're pretty basic with the names around here). I decide to change over some laundry and then check on him again. When I come back, all is quite. I think, Whew! Today was much easier than the past few days. I breathe a sigh of relief and decide I need to get some school work done. About an hour later, I take a break from school work and walk past Aidan's room. I hear him talking. Oh great, does that mean he hasn't fallen asleep yet!? I walk in and what do I see: Aidan sitting criss-cross, applesauce smack dab in the middle of his room holding a jar of butt jelly. He looks up at me and as he takes a big gob of butt jelly and smears it on his face, says "Gotta put butt jelly on my lips, Momma, need it on my lips." I hold my breath and I decide if I should look around the room. Dare I? I do...and I see nothing but pure shine! There was a shine in his room that would put Solid Gold dancers to shame. Butt jelly was everywhere!!! Gobs all over his bed, all over the floor, all over his rocking chair, all on the walls, all over his toys (apparently Bert and Ernie needed some on their lips, too)....it was everywhere! It looked like a bomb went off in his room: a butt jelly bomb. Who knew a simple jar of Vaseline jelly could be so destructive!? I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I think I did both. I'm still finding gobs of jelly in his room. I picked up a clock today to change the time and noticed there was a big blob of it on the back on the clock. I really thought I put the jar of Vaseline away where Aidan couldn't get it. Either I didn't or there's a little mischievous elf living in our house. I would have taken a picture but I couldn't- my camera is no longer with us. It up and died. I gotta give some props to Ed right now. He has a huge jug of change he collects. The last time he filled it, he bought new tires for his truck with the change. It's full again now, and Ed said I could count the change and buy a new camera with it. What a man! Anyhoo, so I don't have any recent pictures to post. I do have some pics I took with a disposable camera although it's just not the same. I must say I am a digital camera snob. Aidan and I bought some pumpkins at Walmart on this day and he had so much fun playing with them. Who needs Leap Frog toys when $3 pumpkins provide hours of entertainment!!? When we carved the pumpkins, Aidan stuck his hand in the pumpkin and said, "Shoo, dat nasty!" I wanted to ask him, so how come the pumpkin is nasty but the jar of butt jelly is just fine?!

Brotherly Love

Aidan has been in the habit of coming to our bed whenever he wakes up in the middle of the night (one of the joys of a toddler bed!). There is no set pattern...sometimes it's around midnight when he shuffles in and other times it's four in the morning when I feel 32 lbs of toddler boy flop over my head. We've had a few night of reprieve, though. Aidan's been waking up about the time Ed is getting ready for work...much to my joy! It means a few more minutes of uninterrupted sleep and one less bruise on the head. Unfortunatly, these past few days, Conner has been taking over where Aidan's left off. He's the one waking up at 5 in the AM!!! I hear him loud and clear on the baby monitor. In fact, I think the folks at Walmart can hear him.
Anyhoo, I woke up at 5 one morning to the sound of Conner babbling and cooing away. He has a little lamb in his bed that plays "twinkle, twinkle, little star" when you pull its tail. In my sleep haze, I heard the lamb playing music. I thought, OK he's not crying. He's playing, that's a good sign- maybe he'll go back to sleep". So I laid there and tried to doze back to sleep. I thought how sweet it was to hear the sounds of his baby talk. I heard the lamb stop playing music and thought, OK, maybe now he'll go back to sleep. A moment passed and I didn't hear anything. OK, wonderful! I can go back to sleep! Then, I heard the lamb start playing music again. In my sleep deprived, cloudy and hazed mind, I had a logical thought: Conner can't pull the tail on the lamb. Something's not right. I immediately bolted out of bed and headed to Conner's room. I really couldn't believe what I saw: Conner at one end of the bed, smiling away and laughing and AIDAN at the other end of the bed, holding the lamb. I asked Aidan what he was doing in Conner's bed. He replied: Sleeping, Momma, sleeping" in a manner that suggested how could he be doing anything else and how ridiculous it was to ask the obvious. I put Aidan back to bed in his room (which he didn't like, by the way) and tried to go back to sleep myself. As I laid in bed replaying the episode, I thought about how much Aidan loves Conner. He adores him and knows that he has a special relationship with Conner. In a way, I'm a little jealous. There is such a big age gap between my siblings and me. I basically grew up an only child. I look at Aidan and Conner and think they are starting out in this world together with a best friend by their side. Is that awesome or what!? Now, if I can only get Aidan to stop biting Conner's ear!

The Vaseline Jelly Incident

First of all, I need to let you know that I use vaseline as a diaper ointment and I use lots of it! I call it butt-jelly and Aidan has taken on calling it butt jelly too...except is sounds like 'but-yelly' when he says it. Since I use so much of it, I buy the super large, popcorn tub size jars of vaseline. One night we decided to let Aidan sleep with us. We had been over at granny and papaw's and didn't come home til late that night. Aidan ran all over the farm and was pooped! After bubble-tubby time, I got him ready for bed, which means slathering his bottom with butt jelly before putting a diaper on. He always wants to stick his fingers in the jelly and this night was no different. I grabbed the jar away from him and set it on the rail of his crib. I finished getting him ready for bed and whisked him away to our room. As soon as he hit the pillow, he was out...until 4 the next morning when I awoke to him reciting his numbers and saying we have to go find deer. Here's how I remember the conversation:

Aidan: 1....5..6..7...8..gotta clap, Momma! Gotta clap!
Mom: Great Aidan. It's 4 am. Go back to sleep.
Aidan: No, Momma. Have to go find deer...buck..doe.
Mom: Maybe later, baby. Finish nite-nite.
Aidan: Bulldozers...backhoes...backhoes move dirt.
Mom: Ok. nite-nite now.
Aidan (now getting up and starting to jump on the bed): Aidan want juice...no, want milk...chocolate milk! Aidan wants chocolate milk!
Mom: ARRGHH!

I get up and decide to put Aidan in his crib (this story happened pre-toddler bed days). I thought he would play with his cars and go back to sleep. After I put him in his crib, he protested for a while. I headed off to bed, hoping for a few more hours of sleep before Conner woke. I heard him quiet down so I relaxed and dozed back off to sleep. Ed woke up at his usual time of 6 am, and started his day. He says he heard Aidan start yelling "Momma, come here! Momma! MOMMMA!" Ed thought he would let me sleep and tend to Aidan himself. When he walked into the room, he noticed a strong scent of baby powder. Then he looked at Aidan and noticed he was extremely shiny. His bed was really shiny for that matter. He walked over to the bed and saw an empty tub of vaseline jelly and more jelly smeared all over his pillow and quilt. Covered in a thick layer of jelly, Aidan says, "Butt jelly...spilled eberwhere!" (MInd you, I had just bought that tub of vaseline!) Ed says he got Aidan out of bed and took him to the bathroom to give him a bath. As soon as Aidan got in the tub, the water started beading just like a car after a good coating of Turtle Wax. At least for the rest of the day, Aidan's skin was very soft and he smelled great! I still can't the vaseline out of the pillow case.

Toddler Bed Woes

Aidan will sleep anywhere but his toddler bed! A couple of weeks ago Ed and I decided to convert Aidan's crib to a toddler bed. We have one of those grow-with-me cribs that converts to a toddler bed then to a double bed. We thought no big deal; we'll just change out his crib and he will love his new big boy bed. I had read some articles about slowly introducing a toddler to a new bed. I thought Oh what do these people know- that sounds like too much trouble. Aidan will love his new bed and will continue to take naps and go nite-nite just as he always had. Who are these experts anyway? Well, apparently they are people who know what they are talking about! For about the past 2 weeks I thought I was going to loose my mind from lack of sleep and frustration with Aidan not wanting to sleep in his big boy bed. I really should have followed my friend Nicole's example. Her son Miles is Aidan's age. She had a big boy bed in his room while he still slept in his crib. She would gradually get him used to the idea of laying in the bed and staying in the bed. From what I read in her blog, her method is working. Alas, it took two weeks of sleepless nights (and days!) before the Wilkerson method started to work. The first night he saw his bed, he giggled and acted like he would hop right in and sleep in it. Then he got out and hopped in our bed. (I could hear that kid from the Simpsons in the background saying "Ha Ha.") As for taking a daytime nap in it, that was another struggle in and of itself. I felt like I was in the Ultimate Fighting ring. It was a test of strength, stamina and sheer will, and I had met my match. Who knew a 3 foot, 31 lb, curly headed boy in diapers would be such a worthy opponent!? As time went on, he slowly started to accept his bed. At night, it takes him about an hour to go to sleep, which is great because that's down from 2 to 2 1/2 hours. He gets up at 5:00 am and crawls in our bed..on my side of course. I'm the one he wakes up when his legs smack my face, and I can't go back to sleep. At least afternoon nap time is getting better. I bought some door covers and put them on the door knobs in his room so he can't escape. I covered his window with some quilts to make it nice and dark. I go through the whole nite-nite routine with him, put him in bed, and leave the room. For the past few days he has been playing with his toys and then falling asleep in his bed. Today I did the whole nite nite routine and left him alone. I heard him playing with his bulldozer and then after a few minutes it was quiet. Ah, quiet...sweet, sweet quiet! I checked on him and found him sound asleep in the floor right next to his bulldozer with his pillow and quilt keeping him warm and snug. You may ask, Did you move him to his bed? Heck no!!! I left him right where he was! I wasn't about to risk waking him up! Update on Conner: I bought some new cereal for him, and he loves it! And the spit up has ceased.