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- Leah walking into her bedroom with a hunk of 3 day old donut in her mouth (how did rosco not find that?)
- Joseph advising me one night before bedtime that maybe I should check my purse for his Grover, since sometimes I lose things there
- Hannah giggling and snorting like crazy while getting tickled by daddy
- Joseph's mouth and hands covered with chocolate and cheeks full like a chipmunk while struggling to get out "kiss and hug, kiss and hug, kiss and hug" as I was getting ready to leave
- Hannah saying she's all done but continuing to grab every spec of food on her plate with the hand not being wiped by the papertowl
- Leah not being able to control her excitement when she sees the double stroller or the wagon in the garage
- Joseph running into the room to tell Jay that he left crust in his underwear because he (Jay) didn't wipe his bumper good enough
- Hannah and Leah giving each other hugs, and Jay capturing it on film. Priceless.
That's what I kept saying outside while the kids were playing today before dinner. Joseph was out riding around on his new bicycle and both Hannah and Leah wanted to be just like him of course. But little Leah was climbing on top of everything and throwing her legs over every bicycle, tricycle and thing with wheels that she could get her hands on. She tried to take over Joseph's new bike, but didn't get very far since Joseph himself wanted to ride it. So instead she tried to quietly commandeer Joseph's old bike, and had herself on the seat with handlebars gripped before anyone realized what she was up to. After both girls attempted to ride the tricycle a few times and landed flat on their backs I realized they needed containment, so I got out the stroller and would you believe Leah could hardly stand waiting so she tried to climb in herself? What a little lady!
Last night after clearing dinner and drinks from the table, Hannah walked into the kitchen and said "cup peas" (peas is translated to please), and after taking a big gulp handed it back to me and said "tank you" (I didn't realize what she was saying right away, but Jay did!) Other common Hannah words are up, down, no, nose, drink, ow-side, ow-we, hat, coat, more, mommy, daddy, Jo Jo (Joseph), e-ah (Leah), nuk, bunny, cow, duck and this morning she quite clearly said "socks and shoes". A key part of our morning routine that she usually enjoys. :)
This weekend was full of little funny moments, and we of course don't remember even half of them but there are a few that haven't escaped us yet. We always have something messy on the weekend for lunch or dinner right before bath time, and Saturday it was ravioli. Then with the girls faces all full of sauce we tell them it's time for a tubby, which brings much squealing and excitement. So much excitement in fact, that as both of them were standing by the tub and I was taking Hannah's diaper off, Leah could no longer contain herself and took a head first dive into the air. Fortunately for both of us, I have cat like reflexes and caught her just before she reached the water. Not even a wet hair, and surprisingly, no crying from either lady. Meanwhile across town Joseph was enjoying his first trip to the toy store with Jay. They went to Toys R Us to pick out a new bike and of course he noticed lots of other things he wanted to bring home as well. He's grown so much that his knees hit the handle bars on his tricycle and bicycle so they are now on reserve for the girls. Though he insisted he was "big enough" to still ride his tricycle all the way to the park last weekend, so we did, and it was quite a funny site. He didn't quite grasp that sometimes you can be "too big" for something. He's definitely getting stronger and more confident, and swam by himself for the first time at swim lessons with the noodle under him to hold him up. We plan to start him in soccer at some point since that is his favorite alley past time. Hannah's also taken an interest in sports, and had fun throwing balls around the basement yesterday. Both girls also spent time dancing and stomping their feet on the ground (picture Flashdance walking in place like steps). Last night Joseph and I went down to a family party in IL, and on the way back Joseph asked if we could drive through the long tunnel with lights. It took me a minute, but eventually I realized he was referring to the tunnel in Wheeling. I wasn't up for driving 10 hours, so he then decided it would be a good idea to go to Bubbie and Papa's and have a nice big lunch at old macdonald's. I wasn't into that idea either since it was over an hour in the opposite direction, and so we continued on our way back home. Oh...and did I mention he also thinks he lives in Minnesota? We passed a police car at one point and I asked him to tell me what he says if he's lost and finds a policeman. His response was "My name is Joseph Dominic Conway and I live in Minnesota". We're working on correcting that one, though I'm sure Grandma wouldn't mind if he showed up on her door step!
Joseph has been waiting to turn 4 for a long time, and it finally happened! (last night we discussed that there was just one more bedtime and then it would be his birthday) In preparation, I of course started buying gifts on sale for him right after the holidays. Then Jay spotted the star wars cookie cutters in the Williams Sonoma catalog, and when I received the email that they were discounted, our birthday theme was set in motion. We made the dough together the other night, and Joseph requested that he be the one to crack the egg. Only we forgot to remind him that you don't lick raw egg off your fingers. Yesterday he got to go to one of his favorite places on a field trip, the zoo! And between that and the lunchable, it was of course a good day. Last night I finished up the treat bags, Jay made 40 yoda, storm trooper, darth vader, and boba fett sugar cookies, and Joseph went off to school a very happy camper and even got to listen to his favorite music in the car. I picked up McDonalds and hung some streamers up in the kitchen before Jay got home with the kids, so Joseph was very excited when he got home (except for when he and Leah were fighting over one of the balloons and it popped, but we won't post that picture). And then onto cakes and presents. He was only interested in the big globs of balloon frosting, and then was ready to move onto presents (while Leah and Hannah scarfed down every piece of cake on their plate and then some. For Leah that means licking her plate clean and for Hannah that means shoving wrapping paper and paper towels down as her third course) He got many things that he's always wanted that are his very favorites, and was quick to point out on the backs of packages what other things he would like next. As he gets ready for bed I hear Jay reading Oh The Places You Will Go by Dr Suess to him, and I can't help but wonder what our little man will grow up to be. He'll succeed, yes he will indeed, and I hope that the next 20 years don't fly by with such speed!
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".
This was Joseph's follow up to me telling him at dinner not to interrupt when we are talking. We said he has to say "Excuse Me", and then we will tell him whether or not he can talk. He says in Africa, they say "Boo-Ah" and they raise their hands. And at school they don't say "Excuse Me" either, they raise their hands. He then went on to speak of China and other important international topics.
The kids have all had crazy hair lately. Joseph's head is riddled with cowlicks and no matter if we go short, medium, or long, it just doesn't seem right. And the girls, well, we are trying to grow their hair out and have no bangs which means they typically have half their hair up in a pony tail or pig tails. But when the rubber bands come out for bedtime, or grow loose with napping or playing, their hair is rather frazzled. And so Joseph got another mediocre haircut this morning, and I'm thinking the girls will go in soon just to get things trimmed and evened out. The haircut for Joseph this morning was not only a fun visit, but also a safety measure to make sure that we have rid his head of the two nits that were found in it at daycare on Friday. It was going around the schools in December and after the holidays a family brought it in to daycare so since then they have been doing regular checks. They called on Friday and told me that "Joseph wasn't doing so good" and I have to say when they said it was lice I was relieved. I was thinking they were going to say something like "he's puking like crazy and needs to go home" or "he has a high fever and needs to go to the doctor" or horror of horrors "he's having a temper tantrum and won't stop screaming". I have to say, I might prefer a few nits to any of these other scenarios. If lice was creeping and crawling all over his head I suppose I would have a harder time with that. 10 loads of laundry later, 5 heads washed with RID shampoo, and 1 thorough inspection of Joseph's head and I think we're done with this hiccup to what was already going to be a busy weekend. Nothing left on the agenda for today though, other than putting away all of those lovely loads of laundry. Not my favorite thing to do, but I'll take it over cleaning up poop or puke or having everyone actually feel lousy. Plus I can watch Grey's Anatomy, Parenthood, House, The Good Wife, or any recorded shows of my desire while matching socks and putting away shirts. That is, unless all the kids wake up. I'd better go....
Joseph has show and tell every Wednesday (though we did not realize this until recently, so we've missed the past few Wednesdays, which I gotta be honest, irritates me slightly. Kind of like missing homework, only not so much). Well anyway, this week the letter for show and tell is Q. We've done R before, and that was fun because he brought in raisins for everyone in the class. And then we had M for monster, and I think it was O for Optimus Prime (as opposed to T for transformer). And this week, well this week is Q. Q! There is q-tip and quarter of course, though I could see something going terribly wrong with these items, which removes them as candidates to take to class. Quail and quill. Neither of which we have in the house. I thought of making a Quiz (or actually friends thought of that, I just like the idea) but I'm not sold on it because it's not really "show and tell" it's more "look what I came up with". And so far after looking through our things tonight our best ideas are the Quack Quack Quack book or the Riddler who has a Question Mark on his shirt. Now if it was Jay and I doing show and tell, we would go with Quelf. It's a board game and it is fabulous. At first I was skeptical (I was tired the first night we played, and as my to be brother in law pointed out, I wasn't winning which doesn't put me in the best of moods) but I have to say it is quite an amusing game. We played around the table at the Grogg house in Winona two nights in a row, and if we didn't have to come home we probably would have gone for a third round of singing love songs to each other, speaking of ourselves in the third person, crying like willow trees, and wrapping ourselves in gift wrap (actually, I refused to do that. I took the penalty of moving back two spaces). We're back at home, and on the way home we stopped twice for Joseph to go potty (much preferred to the alternative). The second time it was for the big p double o - p. He thought at first that we were going to make him go on the road, but we explained that we were going to go inside somewhere. We ended up at Starbucks (though no need for a drink as I had already had a latte from McDonalds) and as I was trying to speed Joseph along for fear that there was a line forming outside the door, he asked who would be waiting. I said other little boys and daddys (we were in the men's room...twas the only one available). He asked what their names were and I responded with "I'm not sure" to which he exclaimed "you mean they are STRANGERS????" I said yes, strangers sometimes go potty too. We really need to start writing more of these conversations down, as the comedy just doesn't Quit around here. (he said something Quite funny to his cousin Oliver over the weekend, something about "no not him, someone taller") But alas, I did not document the moment and now have to rely on my very unreliable short term memory. Que sera sera...
That was my response to the director at daycare when she asked if I was expecting. She then went on to explain that Joseph had told all of his friends yesterday that his mommy was having a baby. A baby boy actually. And when they asked where the baby boy was going to sleep, he said, in Hannah and Leah's room. Because there are already cribs and baby things in there. When we told Joseph last night that I was not having a baby, and we asked him why he thought that, he said, because you have a belly. I then said, but Daddy has a belly too Joseph, that doesn't mean you are having a baby (laughing). He then said, but you have nipples (more laughing, but trying to maintain composure). To which the reply then was, well you have nipples too Joseph. I'd like to think that he told this short story because a friend in his class is going to have a baby sister soon, and he was just trying to keep up with all the chit chat. We'll have to see if this story fades with time, or if it becomes more of an epic tale. Either way it falls under comedy. That kid. So funny!
I took the kids down to Chicago to go to the Field Museum today with my family and cousins....Joseph was excited to see Sue the T-Rex which he had been looking forward to for a while. He also enjoyed all the other dinosaurs, exploring the ice age, playing in "the jungle", and walking the streets of Tahiti. After lunch we went to see the gems, which I thought he seemed overly excited about, but then I realized that he thought I had told him that we were going to a gym. Needless to say he was a bit disappointed to find himself in a room full of diamonds and topaz. So we only stayed there a short while and then went in search of mummies, which we found, and ended the day in the children's play area. Hannah and Leah enjoyed this part the most (or perhaps second to lunch) because they got to roam around, and crawl through big tree logs on the floor. Leah passed out on the walk outside to the car, Hannah was asleep within minutes once belted in her car seat, and Joseph tried to convince me 10 minutes later on the way to Aunt Gina's that he had finished his nap and was ready for the Tinkerbell movie. I told him he needed to sleep at least an hour and he said, "no mommy a short nap, two hours". I agreed to this bargain, and Joseph held up his end of the deal by sleeping all the way home along with his sisters. Sister's are now asleep again, Joseph finished writing out the letter "J" on all of his valentines, and is now playing with his bat cave, transformers and evil Dr. Porkchop with Jay while I quickly summarize our day. Which reminds me....Jay completed another successful polar plunge! Probably the warmest ever (45 degrees outside) but the water was plenty cold and the costumes were better than ever. Pink leotards! Quite amusing....as was the conversation I had with Joseph while reading him a book tonight. We were reading Franklin and his Secret Club from the library for the first time, and he asked "Mommy, who ripped the pages?" I replied with "probably someone else who had the book before us" to which he said "I bet it was the Oviraptor, the one that eats the other dinosaur's eggs. I bet he did it". Maybe, but that would make it one very old book.
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