My man RULES....and other anecdotes about my boys

James truly continues to astound me with his abilities to be handy around the house. To the best of my knowledge, he has not had vast experience (if any) remodeling a bathroom in the past and yet he has redone both of ours in the past year. Not to mention various other household issues he has figured out during our five years here. With that said, I know I can speak for both of us by saying once again how much we are NOT fans of house projects: the time, the expense, the chaos - all of these doubled or tripled by the time you are done. Anyway, the bathroom is complete, as evidenced here:

Ben had his 9 month checkup last Wednesday, and is weighing in at 20lbs. and is measuring 28 3/4 inches long. He took his shots like a champ, as always, but both Jeran and I still aren't fans of watching it happen. Here you can see Daddy helping Ben update his resume:

Benjamin P. Louwerse

Executive in charge of drool production

Proficient in rolling over, sitting up, and giggling

Some experience with solid foods including Cheerios, bananas, and bread products

He's cute as ever and SO BUSY! I realize lately how long it's been since I've had an older baby to entertain. It's always on to the next thing for him, so I'm constantly scrambling to find new toys (or other household objects, i.e. - spoons) to keep him occupied and happily exploring. Lately he'll assume the crawling position, but can't quite coordinate all his body parts to get him places.

Jeran started Little Lambs today, which is a preschool-type program held at a church some of my friends attend. Judging by the amount of nerves I had this morning, you would have thought he was ACTUALLY starting school today. Or entering the military. I'm always anxious about how he'll behave for others, especially when social protocol is required (such as sharing and sitting in one spot for more than 30 seconds). He absolutely loved it and was able to tell me all about the stories he heard, the songs he sang (which he's been going around the house singing bits and pieces of all afternoon), the trains he played with, and the ladybugs he saw that got out of the bucket, apparently. I was also nervous about the whole potty thing since that is a requirement for him to go, and we've still been nailing it down. He admitted to me that he did not, in fact, use the potty during the allotted time, but he was still dry when I came to get him which is a great sign. There were also no other accidents of the OTHER type to speak of, which I was more concerned about. I feel really good about having him in this setting. My personality (which I think is rubbing off on him) is to ease into things, so this seems like a next step toward actual school.

And as for me these days? Still working on a part-time job, ideally in the realm of tutoring, and enjoying taking care of my kids and reading books rather than planning lessons and grading papers. Truly a blessing.

Adventures in haircutting...and beyond

Let's recap the last several days in the life of the Louwerses, shall we? Friday, dawning clear and beautiful (at least I think it did. That was a long time ago.) promised to be a day of fun for the boys and me. We were accomplishing much with our errands and had a lunch with daddy to look forward to. Of course, before we could get to that exciting event, we first had to endure...the haircut. (dum dum DUM - believe me, it warrants the suspenseful music). We go to a place that is especially for kids because I figure they're trained to deal with my haircut-phobic son. We're on -what- haircut #10 of his lifetime at this point, and each time I pump myself up and do a lot of positive self-talk about how this will be the time that it will finally click with Jeran that it does NOT, in fact, hurt him but is actually a pretty darn good time! He gets to watch a Thomas movie while it's happening, for Pete's sake, and cute girls are bribing him with suckers and bubble-blowing. Alas, 10 is not the magic number. There was the usual amount of screaming, squirming, and tears. Generally, if there are other patrons around, I feel that I get the look of sympathy, but this time the other mother in attendance looked at my son in a rather horrified fashion, and because I still have a hard time putting aside what other people think, I grew judgementally angry at her supposed judgement of me. At least the stylist tried to make me feel better by telling me about the kid who clocked her one in the jaw just the other day. As soon as the clippers stopped their buzzing and the cape was removed J.J. was, of course, fine, hair-covered lollipop aside.

Following our lunch with Dad (which is always a treat) and thinking our drama was over for the day, we headed home. About 10 minutes into our 25 minute drive, Jeran suddenly started crying and saying "uh-oh! uh-oh!". Next thing I know he is emptying the contents of his stomach all over his shirt. And this continues...and continues... So I'm desperately trying not to gross out while also calmly finding a spot on the side of the road to pull over. Long story short - I did a quick, crappy roadside clean-up job, got the boys home and tucked into bed for naps, then proceeded to toss the car seat and his clothes into the garbage and wipe up what remained in the car as best I could. I mean, what is with this kid? Carsickness? Lactose intolerance? (There was a lot of dairy at lunch.) It just seems so wierd that 2 weeks in a row he suddenly, with no other symptoms, gets ill like that. Thankfully, it was a one-time deal, but Saturday we laid low anyway, just taking care of details like mowing the lawn (James) and another haircut (me - NOT crazy about it).

Saturday night about 9 p.m. James went to take a look at the bathroom (as he's been doing frequently since he began the dreaded bathroom project - again I say, dum dum DUM!) and noticed more mold growing around the bottom of the bathroom vanity. NOT good. Apparently moisture was trapped under this (very old) vanity and wasn't getting a chance to dry out. So, following some angry outbursts, James proceeded to rip up the vanity and some flooring underneath, and we made a trip to Lowe's the next day for a new bathroom cabinet and sink. Currently, then, the bathroom is looking like:

Seriously, renting or at the very least, townhome ownership, is looking like a really viable option for our future.

I'm happy to say the last two days have been uneventful. After our zoo plans for yesterday got rained upon, we lunched at the train restaurant, and today had a great morning playing with some friends (thanks for a great time, Sal!) and James & Jeran got fitted for tuxes since they'll both be in a wedding in a few weeks. J and I breathed a sigh of relief when Jeran was totally compliant to the measuring process (having his own tape measure and some peanut M&M's along helped probably).

Potty training update: not much to say there. Good days and bad. We're not at a point where Jeran will tell us when he has to go (although that's happened a few times), so it's still just a guessing game, or, rather, a sit on the potty every half hour game.

Home again

After all my bellyaching last week (sorry about that, by the way) the weekend actually turned out really great. Jeran was back to normal on Friday, but we pretty much laid low except for a wonderful dinner with Grandpa and Grandma Louwerse. Saturday, while James fished and the boys hung out with Grandma Louwerse, I was able to join with family to partay in honor of my cousin's first baby (estimated to arrive in early October). It's hard in a way to see my family getting older: grandparents, parents, even cousins - getting married, having babies. I guess because, no matter what, change is just always hard for me. I think I'm just sad, too, that we don't get to see each other very often. Anyway, as usual, I digress. On Saturday evening, Jeran, James, and I got to hang out at the beach for awhile with my brother, after which my parents and Ben joined us for supper. Such a great time, especially since we don't get to see my bro and his wife NEARLY enough (and this time my sis-in-law was galavanting around Guatemala - we missed you, Meliss! I suppose you weren't galavanting so much as...hmmm...what type of gait do you adopt, would you say, when you're working?). Sunday the Louwerse clan was gathered together in Caledonia at Tim and Ruth's, with Uncle Darwin and Aunt Lorraine from Iowa added to the mix. A wonderful time of catching up. Sunday evening we got together with friends we haven't seen since college (going on almost 10 years now?!) at their home - fantastic (both the time spent hanging out AND their home, actually). Monday morning Jeran and I hit the beach again which was really relaxing, and I was grateful to get some one-on-one time with him while James golfed.

Then, of course, we battled the traffic to get home. It was a four-and-a-half hour comedic blend of tag-team crying from the boys, threats directed at three-year-old misbehavior, and muttered curses at the endless construction and traffic (like we don't know better than to expect that by now). All in all, though, a great holiday weekend, and a good end to the summer, as much as we hate to see it come to an end. And the drive home wasn't all bad, as we were graced with this glorious sunset.