In our constant effort...

In my continuing effort to make our home work better for us, I have decided to move my children in together...to the same room. This had originally been the plan all along, but when VO was a baby and ready to move to his crib, I freaked out. I didn't want one kid waking the other kid up, etc, etc, etc, craziness, craziness, craziness.

Well, 2 years later they sleep through the night fine, they go to bed at relatively the same time, they wake up at the same time. They play in each other's rooms all the time. There is no need for them to be running back and forth all day long. And I need a place for all of my sewing stuff.

So, here is the plan...we are going to move SO in with her little brother, because, quite frankly, that room has the best storage in the entire house. We are keeping the walls white. I am not concerned that their bed spreads don't match. Of course they don't. He is a boy and she is a girl. He, of course, has not figured that out yet, but I am banking on a good 5 to 6 years of them sharing before we will have to move them back to their own rooms, you know, for puberty and fun stuff like that!

And once the room moving and sharing is worked out, then, oh then, the fun will begin! I will be able to leave my sewing machines out all the time. Set up and plug in the ironing board without creating a tripping/fire hazard in my bedroom. My fabric that I am working with will be able to stay on the table. That table will no longer be the dining room table. While I am at it, I am moving my desk and all office related things in there too. I WILL HAVE MY. OWN. STORAGE. CLOSET. FOR MY. OWN. STUFF. It really will be a remarkable achievement.

This room will need to be painted. Because, as much as do love the two-tone turquoise (I really do), it was for SO, not for me. So more fun with paint for JO. And did I mention the closet??

Befores and afters will be posted for your viewing pleasure at some point...I am hoping next week. You know, it is the holidays and I apparently do not have enough to do.

The First Birthday

SIGH.

It is with a little bit of both happiness and sadness that I must report that we have celebrated our last first birthday! There has been drama at each first birthday party...which makes me happy that we will not have to do any more and sad that we will not have the opportunity to redeem ourselves and have a drama-free first birthday.

At SO's first (a big blow out mind you, where we invited everyone we had ever met!), we didn't think about handing a one year old a cupcake, that was essentially, on fire, with a big ol' number one candle. Of course she reached for the flame, and of course her dad grabbed her hand so that she did not get burned. But she got scared, started screaming and did not recover until after her nap. It was still fun and memorable - but that is what we remember, vividly, from that one.

Which brings us to yesterday...VO's first birthday extravaganza. This one was MUCH smaller than the first...just family. Which was probably a good thing in hind sight. It was sort of monkey themed...we had monkey invitations, banana cake (he LOVES banana) with yellow swiss buttercream frosting topped with blue monkeys from a barrel. As I was making the frosting, I definitely recognized the amount of egg whites going into the frosting. SO had a sensitivity to egg whites when she was a baby and only recently started being able to eat them without her chin turning red - she is now three. It always cleared up really fast on her, but I still had not tried to give VO eggs yet, at all (my first mistake). So, I took this into consideration when putting the frosting on VO's little cupcake, I just smeared a very thin layer on top (my second mistake), then topped it with the big number 1 candle and a little monkey. This is what his little cupcake looked like.

VO enjoyed it very much. He enjoyed the singing, and mommy was on top of the burning candle this time blowing it out right about the time he noticed it. And he MOWED the cupcake. This is what he looked while enjoying his birthday.



And this is what he looked like after.



Holy CRAP. Can you say *alergic reaction*? There is nothing like giving your 1 year old a chemical shower (so to speak) to get the frosting off his face as soon as possible. And then having daddy rub his face down with hydrocortizone while mommy makes the call to the pediatrician to find out his benadryl dosage! Good times. Good times.

Bad mommy.

So it is with the O's and first birthdays: drama, crisis, medical emergencies...presents! All turned out fine and he even started to be himself and play with all of his new toys once the benadryl kicked in, and his sister let him.

The Second Child - A Different Perspective

I have a slightly different view of the "second child" than our friend Gabrielle (see here: http://culturednativity.blogspot.com/2008/06/second-place-revelations.html) Granted I am in COMPLETE agreement of the first child syndrome...I am also one and I am watching history repeat itself in my first born daughter - Holy Cow, Look Out. However, the second child thing is going a little different for me. For one, he's a boy. There were no boys in my family growing up, just my dad and he was already grown. So I am going into this "boy thing" totally blind AND he is the "second child". Does this mean different things when you have two different sexes? As far as my mothering goes...V gets a lot more undivided attention than S ever did. She got trucked all around and dropped off here and there and watched a TON of Baby Einstein movies so that Mommy could keep working. Well, there is no more of that silly work business so V gets Mommy, all day, every day. And I have not plopped him in front of movie yet and he's 7 months old. Am I going to turn him into a mama's boy? Let's hope not! But there are some other firsts that kid number 2 gets that kid number 1 never did. V has nice bisphenol-A free baby bottles, S had nothing but baby bottles chock full o' bisphenol-A. S breast fed and then had regular formula. V breast fed and then had only organic formula, which made him completely constipated and I had to switch him to regular formula (at least I tried, right?). S ate mostly organic baby food, but if they were out, I would just get whatever they had. For V, I made organic homemade baby food (never had the time the first time around). Did he enjoy it, did I feel the satisfaction of feeding my precious baby something that was not processed in a factory? No, he gagged and then threw everything up. NICE. I am chalking that up to "it is not as smooth as the store bought stuff, we'll freeze it and save it for later when he is eating chunkier food." Does anyone want to place bets on how long that organic homemade with love baby food is going to be taking up space in my freezer? Anyone? I went shopping today and stocked up on some lovely organic mass produced baby food. Maybe this is how the "second kid" gets the stigma, the mom tries and then gives up because the "second kid" is just uncooperative! I'll go ask my husband, he's a second kid...combined youngest for a while and then became the middle kid...which could explain A LOT!