March Was Full of Surprises

Struggling through dinner the day after Daylight Savings Time started.

 

The first change of earrings--little pigs.

 

And a private outing to the movies during spring break.

 

Know Thyself

Alida did not let me get away with saying she could get her ears pierced without scheduling the date and time of the event.

Elaine happily joined the outing,

and picked out a magnetic pair of earrings for herself.

Happy 11th Birthday Girls

Alida.

Not even pretending to be excited about the pop molds I got her for her birthday.

 

Alida.

Attempting to muster up some excitement for her Target gift card.

 

Elaine.

Honestly tickled by the piece of wood block phone I wrapped for her that she had made into an iPhone about 5 years ago.

 

Alida.

Fall on the floor glee when we handed her the real iPhone.

 

Nicholas was not even able to fully spit out his disgust at the girls' luck before we handed him one too.

 

Ben.

He was still trying to figure out what was really happening even after he opened his.

 

A good, although belated, 11th birthday for all.

Happy Anniversary

Two People

Three Deployments

Four Kids

Eight Moves

Fifteen Countries

Twenty Years

A million grey and lost hairs

 

Happy Anniversary, man.

Whew.

 

Tonight, I happen to know the kids will be decorating desert for us while we sneak away for dinner.  It will be perfect.



Congratulations Patric!

And during our first weekend here, we had our first houseguests!

 

For a very important ceremony.

 

Congratulations Lieutenant-Colonel Stuber.

We are so very proud of you.

You can tell because we even got all dressed up for the event!

 

To me, you are still the man who gives me the real chair when we have the choice of the chair or the bean bag, which make me smile 20 years into this journey.  That you will give me the chair and also that you can actually get out of a bean bag without falling over...

Another one in the bag

We are proud to say that these four are celebrating their last day as first graders and kindergartners today. 

There is every indication that they will be allowed to continue on to the next grade.

What an enjoyable year in school, particularly compared to the last. 

And now they will spend their summer with daddy, who is enjoying a well-deserved two months off before we begin the next round of Army life.

Sea World, San Antonio

 Been a long time since I contemplated one of these.

 But when Ben made the height requirement, even I couldn't resist going along for a ride with him on that thing.

The others, the shorters of the crew, didn't seem to mind the viking boat log ride that dumped us from 80 feet in the air to our watery splash-down.

And we saw the Shamu show, which was great except

that after staking out our seats in the splash zone an hour before, this sat down in front of us a minute before it began.  And then Ben was terribly offended that he didn't get wet during the show.

Much more entertaining, their other show.

During which Alida sat down not once.

And late in the day, the Stubers all agreed that a trip to Red Lobster to eat seafood was in order. 

 And that's just what we did.

First Savings Accounts

Ben says he's saving up to buy himself a monster truck--no a real one.

Sure, why not.

Learning to Lisp

And so it was during the "epic" battle, Nicholas punched his brother in the face and helped along the front two teeth that were on their way out.  The next two in line are already loose.

Tooth Fairy did not miss this epic evening.

Good thing she hasn't been hit with the flu lately.

Boy Scouts

This will surely spark some future posting...



Pre-K Graduation

So stinkin' cute

A First Of Many Surely

 First filling for Nicholas yesterday afternoon.

Ben's up in the shoot today.

Kindergarten, And Now

Our first loose tooth.

Nicholas has his feelings hurt that Ben was first for this milestone. He claims when it comes out he will fake sleep all night long so that he can see what the tooth fairy looks like. Then when Ben wakes up in the morning, he'll tell Ben all about her.

"But Nick, she won't come if you don't go to sleep."

"No Ben, she won't come if you don't go to sleep, right mom?"

Crap, I don't know.

School Days

And so the boys were off today to Kindergarten.

Nicholas took off into the crowd when we arrived.

Benjamin held back and held on to our hands until we got him to his room.

His question, "Where do I put my backpack, mom?"

I don't know. But we'll figure it out together.

And the remarkable to me part, the girls were very nervous to not have their brothers there with them this morning and didn't want me to leave.

I Wish

I wish we could say that we have potty trained four people and are done with the monthly diaper bill. But we're not. Elaine however seems to think she is ready. Last night after getting her dressed for bed, she would disappear only to reappear sans diaper and pajamas and wearing only an old pair of the boys' Elmo underwear I keep downstairs for emergencies. (I really need to get rid of those.)

Then I would send her off to go get her clothes and a diaper and we'd do it all again. They keep asking to wear big-boy underwear.

Maybe it's time to have a few accidents. They are so different than the boys. They have the ENTIRE process down--have for months--from unbuttoning their pants to washing their hands and everything in between. They just never seem to actually complete the important part of the process--I have yet to see it happen.

More From The Saturday Inning

Saturday marked the first day since having mobile children that I was able to fold laundry without little hands picking everything apart as quickly as it was folded. This is HUGE. Prior to Saturday I would spend the weekend completing baskets of laundry and then hiding them unfolded until Sunday night when I would sit down after they were in bed and fold laundry for an hour. The cost for this momentous occasion was allowing them in my room where they decided to put on make-up and explore all of mommy's things. Thankfully, I am horrible at being a girl so there were lots of make-up brushes and chapstick--that's about it.

Point-to-Remember: They think my economy size bottle of Tums are candy. Must put those up high and still easily at hand...

I Was Wrong

Alida, I thought it would be you that would be a maniac come toddler bed time.

It took one evening of putting you back for 20 minutes, and you got the hang of it.

Now, if you would just keep the pigtails in your hair, you wouldn't look so darn crazy.

No late night visits. No wandering. Just sleeping.

Elaine.

The first night it was 5 in the morning.

The next night it was 4 in the morning.

The following night it was 1 in the morning.

Last night it was 1 in the morning and 4 in the morning.

Girl, go to sleep.

Well We Have That Out of the Way

Road Trip Number 1 with one mommy and four children.

(Notice I said number 1 as if there will be more to follow in the future.)

And really, it was to meet daddy, and on the return we caravanned home in two cars.

It was a good trip for cutting our teeth, which is good because this past weekend his unit announced the formal activation orders for the end of the year. But that's another story all together.

When we met daddy late Saturday, the first order of business was to go swimming. Benjamin is actually getting the hang of it.

But before we got there, we had to get there. So being a planner, I ran everyone around all morning Saturday wearing them out, letting them skirmish, letting them play in the backyard with the water hose in their pajamas. Saturday morning felt like breathing wool here in the Mid-South, so their pajamas didn't stay on long. And after we were sufficiently worn out, we had lunch and packed up for the road.

The ladies are very fond of swimming so far. Nicholas is a bit more reserved about being in the water and not his usual animated self.

Once we hit the road, I was confident a good nap would at least claim the girls and a movie would occupy the boys. Elaine was asleep before we left the driveway, which may have had something to do with the half an hour I spent after buckling everyone in running back and forth to the house after remembering things like swimming suits, sippy cups, Elaine's blanket, and on and on. I was ready for a nap too by then. Half an hour into the trip I was able to have a quiet conversation with my parents and brother on the phone while girls slept and boys watched Spiderman. This was easy.

Saturday night in the hotel we played musical beds. Put the girls on the air mattress, us in the bed between, the boys on the right. You want to sleep with Alida Ben? Whatever. Okay, we'll sleep over here. No, Nicholas, oh forget it, you can sleep on the air mattress. Of course you can too Ben. We'll put the girls in the other bed. Oh, they're screaming. Okay, you take one, I have the other. And that is how we landed, girls sideways on the beds kicking us in the face and pushing on us all night long.



Patric claims that he had one foot of space the entire night. I claim that Elaine was doing round-about kicks with staggering flexibility until at least 5 in the morning.

An hour into the road trip, Nicholas announces he needs to potty. I pull off the road. Judge me here if you must, but this was the plan: Pull to the way back of the Dairy Queen near an empty lot where there were no cars, if the girls didn't wake up when the car stopped, I was going to let Nicholas slip out to the bushes and do his business and we'd be on our way. The moment the car stopped, the girls eyes blinked open ruining that plan.

The boys, of course, slept well. Nicholas popped up like a ground hog from behind the bed the second his father closed the door to go in to work on Sunday morning at 6:30. We had a well mannered breakfast at the hotel and then walked around the hotel on the baggage cart for a good hour.


Back on the road, our fate was sealed with a trip into Dairy Queen to visit the potty and then, because you have to after using their bathroom, buy something messy to eat. We shuffled in and crossed the line of people waiting to order so we could get to the bathroom. The girls were cranky from just waking up, so I had one in each arm and was directing boys towards the door. While about 12 people in line just stared at us, one nice man stepped out of line to open the woman's room door for us. They thankfully had a sizable handicapped stall we all fit into without anyone having to scrape up against a nasty wall.

Daddy rescued us later Sunday morning to head off to National Guard Family Day, but not before we stopped at McDonalds and let them play for half an hour while we had a cup of coffee and planned our strategy for the event and the ride home later in the day.


Back at Dairy Queen, it took no time at all to figure out what we would fight about in the bathroom. As Ben did his thing, Nicholas managed to sneak over to the handle of the toilet. I was making sure that the shocked look on the girls faces that seemed to have frozen them in place was still working and they weren't touching anything when I heard, "NOOOOOO!" Looking up Benjamin is now both doing his business and screaming for his brother to stop. One quick look a bit further, and I see Nicholas with a devilish grin on his face and one finger on the handle to the toilet. Benjamin begins protesting very loudly that he gets to flush. And as he makes his case, Nicholas plunges the handle. Pants down but business finished, Benjamin goes into utter melt-down mode. Quick look at the girls: they are still frozen, thank heaven. Okay. "Okay. Look Ben," I say out loud as I ready myself to take advantage of the room we're in. "You can flush for me okay? Okay?!" Nicholas is still laughing even though he who called the potty break did not produce. "Oooookay," fat bottom lip out. Disaster averted, we manage to complete our trip to the potty as a party of five.

This vehicle has too many letters to remember as an acronym for a name. But it was big and that was all that mattered.

As we exited the bathroom at DQ, I swear the same 12 people were still in line staring at us. "Are they twins?" the woman who had apparently been appointed to engage us in conversation asked. Yes.

Apparently some commanders will not allow the kids to play on the vehicles. Our daddy is not that kind of daddy, although he did not load up the machine guns with blanks and let people line up to fire them again this year. That was apparently frowned upon when he let everyone do that two years ago...

And so after DQ we stopped at the next three exits because of some drama of some sort. After that I deemed that we would not be stopping anymore and we did scream our way across our state that day through rain and all. And we made it there, and we made it back.

And I'm guessing we'll do it again because really, it wasn't that bad.

Why I Hate Potty Training: Phase III

Last Friday I pulled the final remaining pull-up from it's holder on the back of the door. It unceremoniously slipped out with no clue how special a pull-up it was. I had two boys coming out of the tub, one empty hand, and bedtime staring us in the face. Deep breath. We're ready. No, no we're not ready. We'll have to go out tomorrow and restock. We're not ready. Deep breath. Susan, we're ready. They're ready. And I closed my eyes, said a quick prayer, and put the final pull-up on the obvious choice and vowed not to buy any more. Susan, they're ready; you're ready. We can do over night. We can do it. They can do it.



And in a too-loud voice, I announced to the boys, and their father, and the neighbors that one of us was without overnight protection. And I continued to lecture, nearly screaming at them both what big boys they were and that they should be good boys and remember to use the potty and come get me if there was an accident. And the boys and their father stared at me as I grew more shrill.



Saturday morning dawned without incident.



The Saturday evening portent was strong but I didn't recognize it as I bleached out the tub and ran toys through the dishwasher after the girls' bath went horribly, terribly wrong.



Sunday morning, the boys were up at their usual time, but they didn't come straight to our room, and they played for awhile, and we even heard them entertaining the girls in their cribs. We lay in bed until a decadent 7:30. We started the coffee. He went to free the girls; I went to check the boys' beds. Wet. I sounded the alarm that the boy needed changing and that I was stripping the sheets. And a few minutes later, I heard yelling in a general yelling sort of way as I attempted to stuff sheets in the washing machine without actually touching them. I slammed the lid and flipped it on running toward the general yelling, beginning to make out the words: "He's. Not. JUST. Wet!"



We cleaned. We disinfected. We remained firm. Daytime is nearly perfect; certainly nighttime will follow if we give it a chance.



My weekend laundry pile, which had suddenly become that much bigger, called out to me some time in the afternoon. I opened the dryer to pull out the clean and insert the latest wet. And I looked down just as it flew out, plopped on the floor, and rolled to a stop at my big toe. What is this? What is THIS? WHAT IS THIS?! And in my need to share my experience, I snatched it up in a Clorox wipe and started marching around the house with it. Patric! What is this? What is it? He stared at my hand not knowing where on earth I'd been or what I was holding. What is it? What? Ewww, where'd that come from?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!



We cleaned. We disinfected. We did the laundry again. We remained firm. Daytime is nearly perfect; certainly nighttime will follow if we give it a chance.



Firm lectures and stern warnings were meted out on Sunday evening. And Monday morning we were up before the children. I was pouring coffee and he was packing a bag when we heard feet run to the bathroom. Good boy. And we went on about our business until we heard the second child admonishing the first, "Not too much!" Hmm?



It was nearly time to begin the days' care and feeding of children anyway so we went up. Here we discover that "Not too much" refers to toilet paper. However, it is being improperly applied to this particular situation because when you have hit everything in the bathroom but the toilet, including the wall, you can NEVER use too much toilet paper cleaning it up. Nor can you use too many Clorox wipes. Nor can you be any more happy that it is a cleaning day. Nor can you have any harder time smiling at your child and telling him what a good job he did by actually getting out of the bed this time and making an effort to get to the toilet.



We cleaned. We disinfected. We will remain firm. Daytime is nearly perfect; certainly nighttime will follow if we give it a chance. We will add more Clorox to the list.


This morning I was greeted in the kitchen by a bed-headed child well before time to wake up asking for help. That's how it's done.

Bravery

The staircase feels three times wider without the gates. The girls get on their bellies and start backing toward the top stair to go down somewhere in the middle of the hallway up there about five feet from the actual stairs. Too cute.