I mean Happy Monday! I was thinking this morning how I used to dread Mondays, particularly when I was a student or working outside of the home. but now, I really rely on my Mondays to get things back in order. By Sunday night I just feel like the house is in shambles, the laundry is piled up, the boys are worn out from extra weekend excitement, the kitchen is a mess and it looks as if I haven’t cleaned in weeks. On Monday mornings Jackson is in preschool and Owen and I have the house to ourselves. He oscillates between being extra needy without Jackson around and being much more independent enjoying every precious share-free moment.   I try to find a balance between my “reclaiming the house” and spending special one-on-one time with Owen. It’s amazing how changing the sheets, starting a few loads of laundry, wiping the kitchen counters and tidying can help the place feel much less chaotic. And it’s equally amazing how a couple of hours apart for the boys can give them both some space to learn and grow and also help them to miss each other!

talking on his banana phone

Oh yes, and today is also a birthday celebration in our house! Seth is turning the big 3-3 today. When Jackson comes home he and I will spend some time baking a birthday treat. I am cooking one of Seth’s favorite meals and I am sure Jackson and Owen will sing Happy Birthday as many times as we will let them.  The rest of the evening will be spent with everyone getting over their sugar high and Jackson discussing how long it really is until it is his birthday. It’s tough that all of our birthdays are sandwiched kind of together between December and February and he has to wait until late July. Oh to be a social boy who loves to plan the next party….I just cannot imagine where he got that from.  Last night when he asked about his birthday I told him the moving men coming to pack out stuff would be his cue…but that is still a long way off.

We have enjoyed the coziness of snowy days but we are ready for some warmth, the ability to take walks and just generally ready for the cabin fever to pass. We have gone through the gamut of puppet shows, building forts, turning the playroom upside down and we are just plain ready for Spring.  BUT we know we still have a while to go! It feels like a February for sure!

every great show needs a good audience

Coming soon I have some recipes to share and a post on toddler sleep…because we have been living in a toddler sleep nightmare….don’t be deceived by the word nightmare,  we are barely sleeping. It has improved enough that I am almost ready to share.

As Owen would call them. For those of you that don’t speak Owen that would be “boots” and “balloons”! And for those of you that don’t speak Jackson those other words refer to the Statue of Liberty!  As we approach the busy season of holidays and travel I thought it was a good time to sit down and reflect on what our boys are into and up to these days! Owen is turning 2 this month and Jackson will be 4 1/2.

Owen ,the “baby” is turning the big 2!!!! And he is rockin’ our world. As with most other almost 2 year olds the joys are oh so joyous and the hiccups are oh so tumultuous!  When he loves he loves with all of his might and when he fights..well you get the idea.   Owen loves balls and has developed a pretty good throw! He also enjoys animals, dogs being his all time favorite! He will be having a puppy party this year with his cousins in Texas! Owen has just begun to show more interest in building with legos and the train set. Previously he was content to toss them around while Jackson played but he now wants to really make them work. He sees them as avenues to his brothers heart so he is trying so hard to be good at them too!  And goodness me we pray those magnets match up to make the trains stick together…..because he will let you know if they don’t. Owen has lots of new words and then a whole lot of paragraphs in his own language.  His latest words are “pretty”, “pumpkin”, “boops” /boots, “purple”, “pink”, “bue”/blue, “yellow”, “geen”/green,  “I too”/ me too, “mine”….oh wait, that is not new, it’s just CONSTANT!, “nein”, “ne”/”no” in German, “cool”, “doctor”, “snow”, and “ice”. He is trying to sing along with songs now and imitates counting with Jackson….although mostly in his own translation. He has turned into a better eater over the past few months…depending on his mood!  He gets served what we eat and he can decide if it is to his liking. One of the toughest parts of having a house guest is their observance of us carrying out discipline and routines. Owen loves the extra attention and takes advantage of someone watching, particularly at dinner time. Unfortunately for the rest of the diners mom and dad are sticking to our guns.  Daddy is Owen’s hero these days. Really he has been for a long time but over the past month he has transitioned into the role more of a little boy and needs mommy much less.

And the J man?! Well, he is continuing on his energetic little boy trend. He is eating us out of house and home and burning off those calories between meals. Jackson enjoys music, dressing up, fighting off intruders, building, talking, friends, and going to school. Today he was looking over my shoulder as I checked a blog and he asked who that person was, I told him it was a friend. He said “moooooom, you have so many friends and I only have a few”. He is a lover of people! Jackson and Seth just finished the book “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”  and they are currently reading through “The Children’s Book of Virtues”. Like Owen, Jackson loves his daddy so much and cherishes these reading times.   Jackson’s favorite foods are spaghetti and meatballs and thai food. He  reminds me about how my mom’s thai food is the best but he still seems to enjoy mine too.  A couple of weeks ago when my cousin offered to make thai food Jackson was so thrilled and said, “how did Nathan know that is my second favorite food?” He’s precocious alright! Jackson keeps us on our toes with questions and “why?”s.  My cousin Jenny sent me a quote today that sums but Jackson’s current pastime…”The average four year old asks about four hundred and thirty-seven questions a day”.

This picture makes me think Jackson looks like my brother Ryan! Gotta love a 4 yr old in skinny jeans, construction gear and wrong-foot frog boots!

And these pictures capture their friendship!

When I was 15 I went on a church trip to Guatemala (with many of you that read this blog!). It was an amazing experience. We all worked on different teams doing camp for the kids, construction, etc. For the most part I spent my week helping in the clinic. It was so humbling to see what these people were dealing with. Mothers brought babies in that were clearly “failure to thrive” but these moms were doing their best to provide for their children. Moms were breastfeeding babies when they had hardly a bite to eat themselves. Kids were sick with diarrhea almost permanently from drinking amoeba-filled water and parents were unable to mask their deep needs with fancy clothes or even a smile to convince us that everything was okay. At the time I wasn’t a mom yet but I could see that their maternal instincts weren’t enough to make their socio-economic situation any better or their children any healthier.  They wore despair in their countenance.  The clinic had a newly acquired ultrasound machine. Now in the US we would have fussed that it wasn’t 3D and that it didn’t even offer a visual but for these mothers the concept of hearing their babies’ heartbeat nearly knocked them off the examining table. We saw them smile and regain hope that they were a part of growing new life!

One of the mornings we heard that there was a pregnant woman coming down from the mountains nearby and that she was ready to deliver her baby.  I was so excited and certainly naive at the thought of experiencing the miracle of birth. I remember riding in the bed of a dirty beat up pickup truck down the road to the clinic.  The road was so uneven that we banged against the metal sides as we rode. While we made our way in the truck a young mother made her way down the mountain. I imagine the rocky path while in labor was far worse than our jostling ride on the mud road.

I stood back as the nurse and my friend prepped the mom for her baby’s birth. I remember the look of terror on the mother’s face like it was yesterday. It wasn’t just the anticipation of sleepless nights and the loss of being alone as a couple with her husband, it was a matter of life and death for her. I am certain she had many friends and family members who experienced births that were a far cry from a sterile hospital. While I prepped my camera and anxiously fidgeted this mom worried that something terrible might happen in childbirth. I imagine she was completely overwhelmed at the thought of taking care of another family member when resources were scrapings from the dirt floor. The birth went smoothly and soon the mother and father were cuddling their sweet boy, beaming with pride and relieved with his health. And for a couple of days they remained there in the clean clinic with cheerful turquoise walls, but after those days they had to hike back up to their mountain hut and carry on with life as they knew it.  She didn’t dream of giving her cupcakes with sprinkles on his first birthday or a shiny new tricycle; I imagine she hoped to be able to feed her boy and help him grow into a strong young man. Isn’t that what we all hope?

Nearly 15 years later I find myself with 2 little boys of my own and living in Switzerland. I have experienced miscarriage, having a sick baby and many a medical procedure but all with the best medical care and resources at my fingertips.  Sometimes living in Switzerland I fail to see any need. It’s clear that providing meals and clean clothes here is not the primary struggle but I bet there are moms that struggle with Postpartum depression, have babies that don’t breastfeed like they had hoped and struggle with sick children that they can’t make well. Moms around the globe have the same heart to have healthy, happy children. I am reminded of the quote from Ravi Zacharias’s book “Recapture the Wonder”, “To think that he was once a baby, held in the arms of his mother while she dreamed great dreams for him”. What would it look like for moms around the globe to have their dreams become a reality instead of losing their little ones to preventable diseases?  Zacharias goes on to write, “A baby throbbing with life is embodied promise. The birth day gives birth to more than a life-it gives birth to new hopes”.

ABC news has launched a Million Moms Challenge in conjunction with the United Nations Foundation. World Moms Blog Bloggers are getting involved to spread the word.  They are looking to raise awareness for mother’s and children’s health around the world. It is super easy to sign their petition and for the first 100,000 that that sign up Johnson & Johnson will donate $1. This money will be used to provide for the needs of mothers and children to give them things like vaccines. (The vaccines I cringe about but save my children’s lives!)  I often feel like there isn’t much I can do…this seems like a simple way to help! Just click here to sign the petition and read more about the situations of mothers and children around the globe.

Over the past few weeks Owen has been making his booster seat his platform for battle. At the ripe age of 10 months Owen refused to eat for 7 days for no exact reason except that he didn’t want to. So I can’t say that I don’t know of his stubborn streak or that I am shocked but it is still not fun. Teething typically contributes but since he continues to eat a variety of textures it is hard to say that something is just not comfortable for his teething mouth. Anyhow, I have continued to present Owen with whatever I have made for the family for dinner and just let him deal. He doesn’t have to eat it but I am not making anything special for him.  If I make something spicy or way out there like Indian curry or something I know they won’t love I will, on rare occasion, make something to go along with it that I know the kids would enjoy more. But typically it just is what it is, and I enjoy making things that they like so it’s a win for them anyways.  And how could you not love a veggie mix that includes carrots cut into fun shapes?! Cars, bunnies, stars, mushrooms, flowers. Come on now, could it be any better?

2 weeks ago he downright refused his dinner, twice, settling for his cup of milk and not a bite. Now don’t feel bad for him, he gets puh-lenty to eat. And these phases do pass. Jackson wasn’t a “food jagger” so when he refused to eat I knew something was not quite right. Owen however does this every few months, gets it out of his system and then gets back in his groove. There is no joke in the phrase “eating us out of house and home”. It really may be true for us one day. ha!  When he is in the mood this boy eats. We are learning to let him be a toddler that can refuse and speak his mind without his parents running around making back up plans and meals to make him think he’s running the show!  It’s tough!  PB&J would brighten any screamy meal but since I want him to enjoy family dinners we persist!

A few funny pics for you!

but before you feel bad for him, just envision him with a banana and nutella crepe, see, life is good for sweet Owen!