Things I never thought I'd say #3

An Ifft family tradition which I've implemented into our little family is to hide the Easter baskets after they've been stocked with Peeps, chocolate bunnies, and jelly beans. As we got older the hiding places became more difficult. I'm not really sure where the tradition started...maybe its like hiding Easter eggs, which we never did while growing up.

So on Easter morning I explained to Asher that he needed to look for his Elmo basket because it had candy and other treats in it. He seemed all excited until he spotted the cleaning supply bottle and a little rag which he had reluctantly left at the bottom of the stairs the night before.

He gravitated to the little bottle and immediately began to "squirt squirt" while wiping with the rag. Because Asher was otherwise occupied, I convinced Walter to look for his basket (although he did not have the same temptation to clean first). So here is a picture of the scene where Walter had found his basket in the closet and Asher continued to clean.
I finally had to say another thing I never thought I would need to say;
"Asher, look for your Easter basket then you can finish cleaning."

Things I never thought I'd say #2

Moving on, now to one of the things I've said to Asher recently that makes me wonder if I am doing something wrong in our home that made my son choose vacuums over toys.

Not too long ago, I was at Target with Asher looking for some things that he might like for his birthday (isn’t it great when you can shop for presents while your child is with you!?). I was letting him hold and play with various toys and he was having a great time until his eagle eyes looked way down and across the aisle and saw the vacuum cleaners! In a very loud voice, he shouted, "AUUMS, AUUMS" (translated to be VACUUMS, VACUUMS and meaning we needed to go look at them immediately because they are so cool).

I then heard myself say “We will go look at the vacuums, but first we need to finish looking at the toys.”

As the words came out of my mouth, I found myself hoping that there wasn’t anyone I knew lurking in the next aisle!

Things I never thought I'd say #1

Lately, I've found myself saying some things that I just never imagined would come off of my lips. Most of them have been said to Asher, and mainly are related to his continued obsession with cleaning - which we keep waiting for the day that will stop - but I also have found myself saying things to Walter that I immediately want to take back.

Walter is studying almost constantly these days (ok maybe not that much, but it feels like it), and last week we actually had a night where we were both home. I wanted to watch one of our favorite shows, but he was reading a book I had just ordered on a really interesting topic to us lately. Now, I LOVE to read and I do read almost every night.

During my single days when I spent many evenings reading for the entire night after work until I went to bed, I dreamt about the time when I would have a husband to sit on the couch next to me. We would both be reading our books and would pause every once in a while to tell each other some insightful things we had just read and then after some brief discussions or a quick laugh, we would return to our own books to be lost again in the words of the pages.

This was my romantic dream...that totally did not become reality.

Walter tells me that he enjoyed reading while he grew up and throughout high school, but then in college it become "uncool" for him to read other than if it was assigned reading. So he just kind of stopped reading. He will read if we are reading aloud to each other, or if we are on vacation and I have my nose in a book all day and he has nothing else to do (this was before Asher - now he gets to chase Asher while I read!). But other than that he doesn't just pick up a book and dive in.

So the other night when I told him, "Honey, please stop reading." I couldn't believe what came out of my mouth! I immediately asked to take the words back and changed them to "Wait wait, please keep on reading!" but it was too late. He put down the book and we went to watch The Office leaving a missed opportunity for my romantic ideal to become a reality.

Since this post got way longer than I intended, maybe this will be the first in a series of "Things I Never Thought I Would Say."

He Chose Mommy!

We (I) have had an incredibly busy week. I was gone several nights (and even a day) in a row leaving Walter and Asher home alone together. Asher loves his daddy and they did a lot of fun things together. But Asher kept my heart missing him yesterday while I was gone. He said exactly what I needed to hear during a conversation over Cheerios.

Its always fun to talk over the events of the day with him. There's usually something going on that's really exciting. Yesterday, there happened to be lots of exciting things lined up for Asher's day. We told him that throughout the day he was going to get to play with his friend Grant, go on an Easter Egg hunt, see his Aunt Becky, and go to a hockey game! We are starting to ask what his favorite things are just because his opinions are so important to us. So we asked which of those was his favorite thing. And guess what he said?

Out of all of those fun things, he said..."MOMMY!"

I'm still his favorite! :)

Our Little Boy is Two

Happy 2nd Birthday Asher!!

Two isn't exactly the age when children leave the house and start spreading their wings, but somehow, Asher seems older to me now that he turned two. He strings words together now, he wakes up and gets out of bed on his own in the morning, and today he even reprimanded me when I sloshed some coffee out of my mug by telling me that I needed to use "two hands!" (Hmm...maybe he's heard that somewhere before!)

This weekend, Walter's parents came in for the celebration and Aunt Becky and Uncle Sam drove over for the evening. We had so much fun together and even our shy little boy enjoyed all of the attention.
Asher requested an Elmo cake this year which is what I made. When we talked about his birthday in the days leading up to this weekend, he would always say, "mommy make Elmo cake." So mommy made an Elmo cake.
Much to everyone's dismay, but to mommy's delight, Asher was very organized as he opened his presents. We had made Asher's cleaning obsession public knowledge previously but until Saturday, no one knew that the obsession extends to organization. After he opened each present, Asher would go put it away where it belonged. Here he is putting away the Elmo movies he just opened.

In the Ifft Family growing up, we loved the Bernstein Bears. I think my sister had every one of those books and bought the new ones as they come out (just like with the Babysitters Club). One of our favorites was Bernstein Bears and Too Much Birthday. I think Asher and Grams illustrate that title exactly!

We Escaped and We're Back

We just got back from Florida where we truly had a (much needed) winter escape. For the first day, I laid in the bright sun and soaked in God's warmth. It was exactly what I needed.

Its nearly impossible to get a good family picture, where Asher is looking at the camera, but here is an attempt.

The beaches we were at had a crazy number of shark's teeth. We now have a little collection with every size and sharpness. Walter really liked looking for them and could have done that for days on end.
I was happy because I read a whole book and it was such a good one. I read lots of sections of it outloud to Walter and underlined most of the rest of it. We don't have any pictures of me reading, but at least the book (in orange) is in this picture!
Last year when we went to the beach, Asher picked every grain of sand off of his legs. This year, he at least would walk in it although he often wanted to be carried. He did like playing in the sand, with the shells, when daddy held him in the waves, and when we swam in a calm area with no waves. One of his favorite things though was getting to have peanut butter and jelly for lunch every day!

Ahh...the simple things in life; sharks teeth, a good book, and peanut butter and jelly. May we continue to celebrate life even through blessings and cursings.

Big Boy Crib

This little boy obviously thinks he rules the bed and naptime. Since we took the rail off of Asher's crib this past weekend, we have been working on helping him to realize he does NOT rule at naptime. This afternoon I decided to keep a log of what exactly happened as I attempted to get Asher to take a nap!
Here he is with everything in place for sleeping Pacifier? check! Blanket? check! Roo Roo? check!

1:07 - Laid down for a nap
1:09 Sitting up in his bed ready to jump out.
1:10 Heard me coming and jumped back in bed
1:12 Physically laid Asher back in bed and removed the Winnie the Pooh blanket he doesn't like so he would lay his head down. (His socks are off now)
1:13 & 1:14 - Laid him back down
1:18 Standing up in crib, reminded him that he could have a heart cookie after he took a nap.
1:29 Asher asked for a diaper change, but with a quick smell check it doesn't appear he needs one. He's now talking about a heart cookie
1:34 Standing up asking for a heart cookie
1:36 Sitting up asking for fan on
1:40"Done sleeping, heart cookie"
1:44 The CD he has listened to every night before bed since being home from the hospital almost 2 years ago has ended, crying starts
1:47 - 1:49 Crying for music to be on
1:50 Laying with head half way off the bed
2:02 Almost ONE HOUR! Feet banging on crib Talking to Roo Roo
2:18 Quietly sitting in corner of bed
2:21 SLEEPING AT LAST!!! (One hour and 14 minutes - not bad compared with earlier this week!)