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This week has been 
full of 
yummy birthday leftovers, and on Monday night we had a nice dinner at home with Maggianos carry out and Baskin Robbins ice cream cake. Everyone had lots of fun getting spaghetti all over their faces (though we had to remind Joseph that yes, he does like spaghetti and meatballs) and in typical Conway Family Fashion, Hannah dove right into her plate of cake and gobbled it all down without a thought. Joseph carefully picked off all the candy pieces and ate them, and then said he didn't like the rest and refused to finish. Leah sat there for a while contemplating the cake, and then slowly and carefully dissected it to completion. Joseph had fun opening my presents (which we made sure to explain were presents for Mommy and not for Joseph) and commented on how very really cool my new brown slipper shoes are. Hannah played with the tissue paper while Leah was still making her way through her plate of cake. Jay also brought home gelato, which I tried to save for another time but he was just too excited about his flavor selections. Pistachio (a good old favorite), Tiramisu (which he new I'd like) and then, the surprise flavor. Black Pepper and Olive Oil. Not quite sure how to react to that one are you? I like that he went for something new and daring, but my rating on this one is that these are flavors best had on bread, not gelato. The rest of the week flew by, and yesterday I took Joseph to swim lessons and to Jump Zone with a friend while Jay hung out with the girls and gave them baths (they were squealing with glee in the tub when I got home with a very tired and crabby Joseph. A little too much activity for one morning I suppose). Jay is at the gym playing volleyball now, while Joseph is enjoying his movie pick of the day, Toy Story 3. The girls were watching at first but now they are riding around on their little vehicles and speaking in a language that I am not quite sure I understand. They are actually getting much more verbal, and use the words up, down, more, bear, bunny, cup, shoe, and NO quite a lot. Sometimes there is even a little head shake to accompany the NO. It's a word that all of us are quite familiar with, and Joseph uses it quite a bit with his sisters as well. "Hannah NO" and "Leah NO" are frequently said when he has caught one of them picking up one of the remotes or trying to take his grover. The girls don't say "Joseph NO" yet, but I imagine that is not far off in our future. Perhaps if we found another language that made NO sound a little bit more fun and fresh, we could teach everyone to say that instead. Do you think if I started saying Nashi (Japanese) or Meiyou (Chinese) that I would get more compliance to the word? Doubtful, but perhaps I should consider this for other uses.....
After making our star wars cookies and playing in the basement, the kids had pizza and broccoli and then Leah pulled Hannah's hair for the first time, and then we discovered spots on Hannah's tongue and around her mouth and in her diaper (welcome back thrush, good to see you), and then Joseph delivered cookies to his friends Ruthie and Regan, AND THEN Jay and Joseph built a fort with lincoln logs, AND THEN Joseph had fun hiding from Jay upstairs (in the usual spots under his covers and behind the futon) and now that brings us to bedtime.
Today is a cold, wet, and rainy day....but that is ok because it is cleaning away all of the nastiness that was underneath the snow all winter long and hopefully will help things turn green now that spring is almost here. Slowly I am starting to clean out closets and Jay gets to organizing different areas of the basement. We had to get out our lighter jackets earlier in the week, though after a day or two returned to the heavier ones. But while it was warm we actually had all the kids out playing after school one day, and the girls loved running around in the alley with Joseph and our neighbors. For the first time in, oh I don't know, FOREVER, they didn't go nuts crying for dinner right away. A glimpse hopefully of what our spring and summer will look like. We're hoping to get them out more in the evenings with the nicer weather, though they still have their limits. Like clockwork they start to meltdown around 6:30, which I think is around the time they started getting fussy last night during the big Italian feast with my family as a pre-celebration of the fact that I am once again getting older. Thankfully we brought our favorite stuffed animals...Bear (Leah) and Bunny (Hannah). Joseph is still a big Grover fan, and that's who travels with us, but his bed is filled with other favorites like Yurtle, Shark, a Blue Duck and a Blue Bunny. All three kids passed out on the way home (and I may have snoozed through south Milwaukee) and arose before we did this morning. Since the girls are approaching 18mos and Joseph is almost 4 we took everyone for pictures today, and those appointments are getting more and more stressful for me. Three kids coordinated, clean, hair in place.....and happy. Hair and happiness usually prove to be the most difficult. We got everyone haircuts yesterday, as Joseph needed a redo (straight thin hair is impossible it seems) and the girls needed some shaping despite my attempts to just "let it go". And happiness....well if only there was something I could do to prepare for that other than full bellies and clean diapers. Hannah was the hardest one this time around (and I think that was true of last time as well) and group shots....well they are just ridiculous...but we'll keep trying! Stay tuned for shots to get posted this spring! Now everyone is napping and once the silence breaks we plan to make star wars cookies (per Joseph's request) and play in the basement (and then what?). Well I'm not sure, but we'll have to think of something. Joseph likes to know the order of events for any given day, and I'm pretty sure it was me that turned him into this planning oriented little dude. And now I'm off to exercise (or maybe lay on the couch...it's a toss up between the two) and think about "and then what".
We took a quick trip sunday morning downtown to Discover World, and decided to let the girls run around the great lakes exhibit and the aquarium. Joseph was so excited to show them around, and was running all over the place shouting "Girls, girls....over here!!!! Hannah, come look at the fish! Leah, come crawl in the cave!" And between trying to keep Joseph in sight and each of us trying to keep up with our assigned little lady (the I'm on Hannah, you take Leah approach) we were quite busy trying to make sure that no one wandered off, fell down stairs, or jumped into the open water exhibits. When we got down to the aquarium Joseph wanted to keep moving at his fast pace and show all the cool things to his sisters, but the girls came to a quick stop at the first open view exhibit in the floor. I remember Joseph sitting down on his butt and scooting across the first time he did it, Hannah and Leah instead froze and didn't want to move forward. They eventually crawled across, and then Hannah would get wobbly legs if you tried to put her down on the glass floor. Leah eventually decided that it would be best if she crawled on the narrow strip of carpet to the side of the glass, and we had to pick Hannah up in order to continue on and see all the fun things that Joseph wanted to show us.
We had a night out on the town through Jay's work, and when I saw the photo corner set up I couldn't resist pulling Jay over for a quick shoot. The second pose is actually what you get when you tell me to do something "goofy", and Jay's reaction to the "goofiness".
Joseph can be quite the helper with his little sisters. Last week he caught Leah pulling Hannah's hair and told her "No Leah, that is not nice", which was a nice thing he did for Hannah (even though Hannah and Leah were both giggling over the pulling of the hair). He also did a nice thing for Leah, and helped her get her Bear out of her crib (clearly this could not have been accomplished without oven mitts). He then gave her a kiss afterwards. I may have prompted him to do that. Other days he is not quite as helpful, but I am trying not to think about that right now. Tomorrow night will be his third attempt at eating the same dinner (chicken pot pie and green beans) and I hope that he has learned that he is not getting his way on this one. Jay reminded me tonight while I was feeling lousy that our pediatrician once told us that kids don't starve from going to bed without dinner. Thank goodness!
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