so the childs and i went to the library today. it was awesome. as i was driving away i wondered to myself why it took me so long to take them there.
oh yes
the crazy cold temperature that made me feel bad about taking them out. the walk from the car to the children’s museum even made me feel bad, but was worth it since we were there 1.5-2 hours. it would not have be worth it for a 45 min library visit.

there are few things cuter the aiden exiting the library with a thomas the train book under his arm.
seriously cute.

of course, the big draw at the library was the elevator.

liam has his first cold, and it is sucky. his crackles when he breaths. we have two humidifiers going in his room in hopes that helps. but i know that only time will help

so yes, temps are in the upper 30s. the sun is shining. i can taste spring, though the wind still has a chill and the ground is covered by a foot of snow cover. but the snow is shrinking and the car was hot from the sun when we came out of the library instead of ice cold.

the other day sarah and i exchanged tweets about how in our old age we get all hot and bothered by other people’s decisions that have nothing to do with us. and i am currently all bothered by this blogger i follow b/c she gives great money saving deals. she has a son liam’s age, and she tweet a lot about letting him “cry it out”. the poor child cries a lot. like hours at a time! i am not against cry it out. in fact, when aiden was ready (turned 1) we did cry it out. we did extinction where you went in after 5 mins and settled him down, and then back in after 10 mins, etc. but aiden went to sleep usually after 15 mins. and after a week we were golden. and now he sleeps awesomely. but he was ready (i felt) and understood that we weren’t abandoning him, but that it was time for sleep. i do not feel that liam is at that point. and so it hurts me to read her tweets mainly b/c i have a kid the same age. but as i feel about pretty much every child rearing issue – to each their own (with in reason) you have to do what works for your family and ignore everyone else (including me)

in other news, liam is all over the place.

ALL OVER THE PLACE

cute, but it is much harder to police the small things with a two year old, and i am forever pulling things out of his mouth – paper, dog food, a sticker. LINT. jeez. i don’t remember aiden trolling for such randomness to put in his mouth.

in other other news i made liam puree black beans and brown rice and it was sooooo yummy i almost ate it all myself.

just random!

so liam. dear child is much more mobile then typical children his age. aiden did not crawl until after 9 months, so imagine my surprise when liam started being so so so mobile a couple of weeks ago and last week took off crawling. in a funny way (see video), but aunt jenny assures me that it is normal. that they call it “the hitch” and some kids just crawl like that until they walk. though this morning ben said that he was doing a more traditional crawl. but still hitching it in the kitchen later.

you just turned 8 months on sunday.

they were suppose to leave on thursday if they got their kids passports in time.

we saw them on monday.

so i’m assuming they went down there on thursday.

AND chile welcomed them with an earthquake! (which i am sure you’ve heard about by now)

they are in the capital of the country (Santiago), which felt shaking (according to the current phone interview on the today show), but is about 200 miles away from the epicenter, so was just shaken.

anyways. i am sad that she has gone, but excited for her! they’ll be back this summer (chicago time).

i would move too as we’ve gotten 50! inches of snow this season and i swear the majority has come in February! i am ready for spring, and yet, we got more snow last night!

liam is officially mobile. he’s developed his own version of crawling and can get around. is a an all fours crawling but the fourth leg he gets his foot up and pushes off on that. it is funny. i’m going to try to get a video, but the heisenberg uncertainty principle is alive and well around here as whenever i get out the camera to record something whatever i am want to record changes.

so until then, here’s a video of cuteness and sledding:

i recommend it, though only if you are going to use it. i think it is one of those things that you should really spring for the state of the art (the HD) and it is pricey. so if you aren’t going to use it much, i would wait until you have the need for it as i’m sure the price will come down.

anyways. new video. of cuteness. first of the amazing movement of liam. mostly for my family as 7.5 months is early to be moving as much as he is. in fact, i went to a mom’s group with babies on tuesday at my friends house and the other 4 babies were also 7 months (and my friend’s 3 month old). and liam was by far the most vertically moving. there was an army crawler there, though she did not sit unassisted yet. goes to show everyone develops differently.
the second half of the video is the utter cuteness of my children. also. demonstration of the narration of every though that 2 years have.

is is a four day weekend for ben. in service day on friday that got cancelled b/c service dude got stuck in NY. and president’s day on monday. upon hearing that he had president’s day off, i promptly made myself a dr’s appt for a physical. also. to get my wrist bump looked at, though i am 99% sure it is a cyst.

it has been excellent so far. though pretty social. on friday we took the whole family to the vet. yes. children + dog + cat. We LOVE LOVE LOVE our vet. and she hadn’t met liam yet. and she just had a baby 3 months ago. so i wanted to see her. and ben had this random friday off so we got ourselves a double appt. and it was fantastic. the kids were in awesome moods. and they gave the cat a mini spa day (brush, nail clip, and some spot cleaning) and they cut the dogs nails. so that was fun.

yesterday i went to a late lunch with my friend. i learned that brown sugar is also an irritant to her baby resulting in him getting up at night. so looking back it is OFFICIAL that i ate pretty much everything that can be a irritated besides milk. oh well. so it goes. i just tell myself that it is good for his system seriously. it was like at any point in time before NOW did moms cut things out of their diet to nurse. and i’m pretty sure they all drank milk in the 1900s. anyways. it was nice to get out. also. we went by an AWESOME bakery. seriously. i am still picturing the array of yumminess in my mind.

today we had college friends of ben’s over with their twins. i think they were 6 months. though they were born early. very very cute. we had brunch. it was yummy and fun. they don’t know many people with kids. so i bet it was funny to them to come visit people and those people not be all like i want to hold your babies! b/c we have babies. though i did like to make faces at them. though. twins. wow. though b/c they spent some time in the NICU, our friend theorize that that is the reason they are more chill in being put down in swings and chairs and such. unlike my child. who is anti being put down unless he is pulling himself up on the laundry basket.

and then ben and i are filling nap times and bedtimes with super mario bros for wii. i am addicted. and have mad skillz. ben tried to tell me at first i was just lucky. but i was like NO, i am just AWESOME. and so now in retaliation i post all over the internets about how much more awesome i am at the game then he is. i only speak the truth. in fact. he now agrees that i am just awesome. (ben just took a bow for a little maneuver on the game. dork.)

in other news, since acquiring the kindle in dec, i’ve now read more books then i did all of the year before that. loving it. especially b/c for my bday i got a bunch of amazon money for books (thanks carter and fam!)

and in the LCD crack update. it has spread since i dropped the computer off the arm of the chair on friday when i remembered that i had left the dog in the car for an extended period of time and forgotten about her. in my defense she ran out there and got in the car and would not come out earlier. anyways. it is pretty awesome. the crack.

my macbook now has a small, but still spectacular starburst flaw in basically the center. aiden basically dropped the phone on it. he did not mean to. just flung it with a good bit of velocity. and it happened to hit the screen. so it goes. good thing we opted for the personal computer rider on our renters insurance. i’m sure that a claim will make it go up, but worst thing is that we don’t get rider again. i’ve never seen a broken screen. it is pretty amazing.

here’s some more video yumminess. my 7 month old is pulling himself up. why the early milestone meeting? to mess with me, i’m sure. also. video of the snow. and some shoveling and snow angels.

i am in love

recording in hd is amazing

being about to easily plug it into my computer and manpulate is also amazing

(so i shrunk and embedded so ben would not judge. but it is is bigger on the you tube site)

in preparation for our new video habit, we also received a storage drive that plugs into our router and is accessible wirelessly from our computer. it is awesome. we moved all the music on it and it plays in itunes without a lag or anything! it is amazing.

i got this happy birthday ballon from my friend, e. my children love it.

(in case you are wondering, i believe i am watching project runway in the background)

so earlier i clicked on “The New Math On Campus”, a story on the NYT website i was expecting to be about MATH on CAMPUS. instead it was about dating in school with >50% female populations. the story was stupid and just pissed me off.

#1 THE GOAL OF LIFE IS NOT “TO FIND A MAN”

idiots

#2 none of schools were more then 60% female.

#3 i hate stories which all based solely on generalization, stereotypes, and anecdotes. seriously. this article should not be in the education section. it really should just be in the trash.

i know i have mentioned a million times that i hate society’s focus on finding a relationship.

ben and i have a small wii addiction.

i just beat the sword game in the wii resort game. i am awesome.

liam – eating chairs

well. i’m 31. and it amuses me. especially because i taught aiden everyone’s ages.

the other day i was thinking about something profound having to do with my age and i was going to write about it, and now i cannot remember.

tuesday i saw my friend e, and it was nice to chat. since we’ve know each other pre-kids and know each other for a while and so most of our conversations are not about kids. and that is nice. but also, she has two kids the same age, and so we also talk about kids and that is nice. she shares the whole timing & work issue. we both wish that the reality was we could have our childs, stay at home, and then go back to work with no bad repercussions.  but that is not that reality. and so we struggle with timing. it is nice to be with someone who understands.

i wish there were better answers; however, i am lucky and i am very happy with what i am currently doing. let the chips fall where they may.

i had a great birthday. i got lots of amazon money to support my amazon habit, which is mainly books for my kindle. my reading has increased 300% with the kindle solely do to being able to read while i rock the childs. and i do that a lot. and then i get into the book and read in bed.

the only downside to my bay was that the massage i got was pretty lack luster and so i was annoyed and then have these weird thoughts that i need to get another massage soon to erase the memory of the bad massage. : )

so my sister works at the hospital featured. and i saw the clip on the today show this past friday and called her and was like your hospital is on the today show for the second time this week.  (the dug-ger baby also currently lives at this hospital).  i did not see prom date on the clip until my sister mentioned it later (i was calling her during the 2 seconds he was on). he was not one of the main residents they followed, but did get a good chunk of air time (and did not make himself look like a total idiot like some of the residents did).

random.

he has a baby a bit younger then aiden and she is cute.

my other high school prom date (jr. year) is a memphis sportscaster. so maybe someday his image will also be beamed into my living room.

pictures from the musuem today & last week:

(related. i had a whole blog post written in my head that i thought of on the way to the museum, but i totally forgot) (it was kinda of meta)