I feel like a bad parent...and it's all June's fault

It's all June's fault because she in no way prepared me for the task of parenting Ruben. He is his own child. When he learned to walk he didn't hold on to an adult's hands for balance...he just waited until he could do it himself. Now if you try to hold his hand while he walks he pulls his hand away and looks at you like you're crazy. Why on earth would he want to be shackled in such a way!

Tuesday was one of those days. Hallie was over for the day and oddly enough the five year old was the only one who took a decent nap. June was up after 20 minutes in her room and Ruben followed shortly after.  I didn't complain too much because they were playing contentedly in the living room while Hallie slept on up in my room. Ruben would make is way through the kitchen where I was working. He seemed obsessed with the pantry and kept pulling out a box of cereal and nearly dumping the whole thing on the ground before I manage to catch up with him. Then he would make his way through the rest of the kitchen. He usually had a ball or a toy in his hand that he would bounce or throw on the ground.  It was cute.  Then he started experimenting with other objects. "look mom, when I throw this golf ball on the ground it makes a loud noise and still bounces" then "Look mom, when I throw Nova's water bowl the water splashes all over myself and the floor" then as I'm cleaning up the water and setting up the little table in the kitchen so the girls can play with play dough "look mom, I found a pickle jar in the recycling container. Oh, you're reaching for it so I better throw it fast to see what happens. Whaaaa it shatters!!!"
I pick up Ruben, hustle the gaping girls from the kitchen, close the pocket doors to the kitchen and start cleaning up the glass that has shattered all over the floor.  As I do this, I'm divided between praying for patience as Ruben sticks his little arm around the pocket door and screams and laughing to myself because the mess on the floor is just astounding.  Since no one got hurt, and it was only a pickle jar, I am in pretty good spirits but definitely drained from the constant looking out for what Ruben will do next and all the cleaning. I manage to occupy the kids, get Hallie off to her house, and get dinner on the table without much more excitement. However, after dinner I put a plate of leftovers on the floor for Nova and leave the room to change the diaper laundry over to the dryer.  As I get to the bottom of the stairs (by the way, it is only 3 steps down to our basement), I hear the sound of a plate scraping across the floor.  Nova has been known to move plates, but in the 4 seconds it takes me to turn around, see Ruben with the plate in his hand, and lunge toward the kitchen, Ruben manages to throw the plate on the floor as well shattering it to bits.  He's upset of course because his toy is now broken and mom has once again shuttled him from the room and closed the pocket doors.

Things on today's to do list included: put a latch on the pantry, use pocket doors whenever Ruben's playing in the living room to keep him from going through the kitchen, and blame June for my bad parenting because she never needed to do physics experiments on our kitchen floor.

Where Ruben Is?

I dislike that my kids don't sleep through the night regularly, but I do love the cute things June says when she's pretty much still asleep. June will get out of bed, come out to the landing at the top of the stairs and say something.  I can tell what level of alertness she is by how loud she asks the question. She'll either whisper/whine something like "I wake up. I don't want to go potty" because I always ask her to go potty as soon as she gets up. On the other end of the spectrum is the super happy June who is awake and ready to play.  She says in a piercing voice, "Where Ruben is?" because the first thing she wants to do is act as an alarm clock for her brother.

As a former English major, I've been struggling with the grammatical structure of this sentence. "Where Ruben is?" however, is not as bad as "Where you is?" which I've actually started to correct. Either she can ask the question with the sentence structure out of order or the form of the verb can be incorrect, but my ears cannot tolerate both a sentence structure and verb form error simultaneously. Thank you, Mrs. Schaefer, for making me cringe every time my daughter asks me where I am.

A weekend with multiple personalities

What a weekend.  After the horrors of Ruben's birthday and the subsequent relief from the rescue brigade, I wasn't sure I was ready for the weekend we had planned.  Nana and Papa arrived Friday night, Kory and Cara were coming with the kids Saturday morning, Great Grandma Bev might show up Saturday afternoon, and then Saturday night we had invited nearly 20 people over for a big birthday bash. Oh yes, and then there was Sunday, where Karl preached and we had trick or treating and Bible Study. YIKES! All this on very little sleep.

Let's start at the top.  Friday night, we bit the bullet and let Ruben open all his gifts.  When I say we let Ruben open his gifts I do mean that June waited patiently for Ruben to open his gifts for about 15 seconds and then "helped" Ruben open "his" gifts.  Ruben was definitely more interested in the packaging than the presents in most cases, but June thought the gifts were awesome!

Then Nana and Papa showed up and then Nana and Mom left to go to Uncle Paul's concert while Papa and Dad stayed home to "babysit" (did I mention it was game seven of the World Series and Papa's team, the Cardinals were rallying for the win). The concert was great as expected, then the game was great because the Cardinals won and then sleep was great because I slept through the night (Ruben's 3:30 fussing was handled by the very light sleeping Nana - Thanks, Mom). Things were looking up.

Kory and Cara showed up with the kids and since it was shaping up to be a beautiful day outside we spent some time at the park and even managed to get a picture of all nine of us standing together. It's hard enough to just get a picture of the kids together much less try to find someone to take a picture of all of us!

We had a great time playing with the other Fays - now that everyone is getting older we're really starting to see some good interaction between the kids. June and Lucy are both two so it is hard for them to understand how to play with each other since they're both used to playing with siblings/friends who are 4-5. Each time we get together I see June have just a little more attachment to them as friends, not just family we pray for.

 

The guys (Papa, Dad, and Kory) went to a sports bar to watch a K-State Football game during nap.  I finally spent some time preparing for the impending party, but no fear, Super Nana was there to save the day.  She had already baked two batched of cupcakes, done two days worth of dishes, cleaned out the microwave - sorry about that one, it was gross, organized the toys in the living room, and generally turned the house into a hospitable space to throw a party. Thanks Mom!

Now it was time to party! Karl grilled chicken on the grill as everyone showed up.  The Schmitzers, Tuckers, Carol and Lee Lindquist, and Jan Willard all came. Even though the invitation said no gifts, not one person listened and Ruben ended up opening gifts toward the end of the party.  After some time to socialize and a delicious meal it was time for the cupcake bar.  I gave Ruben a mini cupcake with chocolate frosting.  I figured I'd give him another one if he liked it well enough.  Everyone gathered around to watch him tear into his cupcake...except there was no tearing into it.  We must not give Ruben enough food items larger than bite-size because he didn't know what to do with this huge food item.  We seriously sat there for at least five minutes watching him pick at this mini cupcake before someone finally broke it apart so he could eat it.  Even then, he wasn't exactly excited about the treat.   Oh well, more sugar for the rest of us.

On to Sunday! The morning was fairly normal with a Karl preaching but we were sleepy afterward. By four o'clock we were in costumes and headed over to Jan's house for our one neighborhood trick or treat foray. What do you think?  Are these two cute elephants?

Over to the Schmitzers for some more trick or treating.  Erika and David Bremer joined us for the trick or treating and then the Tuckers came after trick or treating for Bible Study.  It was fun to see everyone in their costumes.  However, it was fairly difficult to get them to hold still long enough to take a picture...I think the sugar high might have been the problem there.

What a fun birthday weekend! I imagine that we will have many more weekends like this since unlike my birthday and Thanksgiving, Ruben's birthday will always fall close to Halloween. I hope he likes dressing up for many more years.