Not-so-lazy Saturday

You would think, just by looking at us, that we had a lazy Saturday. The girls just took off their pajamas, are in the bathtub, and are going to put on fresh pajamas afterward. (It's 6 p.m.) Actually, Lorelei had already changed out of her pajamas. She was wearing this:

I unpacked a bunch of next-season, next-size clothes for her today, and she chose to wear this "workout" outfit that used to be Syd's and that she kept telling us was her bathing suit. (That shirt fits her better than it ever did Sydney, thanks to her more athletic build.) 

Chet also took the time to change out of his pajamas, but he didn't really have a choice since he went to the Commissary (for those of you who don't know, the Commissary is a grocery store on a military base).

Come to think of it, Ford is also out of his pajamas and on his third outfit of the day. But that's because he's so fastidious and likes to look snazzy.

But Sydney and I definitely did NOT put on real clothes, and I didn't even bother to put my contacts in today. Syd added a  tutu to her ensemble though:

There she is, glued to the movie "Frozen." I think she watched it four times today. We bought the girls "Frozen" and "Tangled" for their Easter baskets, but caved last night and went ahead and let them open and watch "Frozen." Syd was confused as to why her friend next door had the ability to watch "Frozen" in the comfort of her own home, and with rain in the forecast for today, Chet and I knew we needed something special to keep the kids distracted while we continued to put the house in order.

So, back to the lazy Saturday. The girls DID have a lazy Saturday, and breathed nary a breath of fresh outside air, but Chet and I worked hard to unpack/organize/decorate. It really did rain all day, so it was a perfect day for such chores, but we're still in that unpacking stage where you can work all day and still be surrounded by a big mess, making you feel like you accomplished nothing (even though you did). For example:

Yikes. But I'm trying to stay positive here, so I'll have you know that all of that cardboard is finally empty of pictures (we have a picture problem, meaning that we have too many pictures to hang and not enough walls to hang them on), and that's a clean load of laundry on the couch. 

Hope you had a great Saturday!

Special Delivery!

This morning I watched a 4'10" woman haul these boxes from her UPS truck to my front door (have I mentioned there are about 10 steps leading up to our front door?). 

Oh, well--Happy Amazon Day! (And that's not even all of it--yikes.)

I'm pretty sure Chet could comfortably take a nap in that box Syd is sitting on. It's huge.

I've mentioned before that Lorelei is a bit of a hoarder. She loves little things that she can put in different bags and containers, and I often find myself at the end of the day on my belly on the living room floor searching for said little things under the couch. 

Grammy gave her a fruit pie toy for Christmas, with 60 pieces of tiny fruit. About a month before we moved, five of the twelve oranges went missing. (It's a good sign when several things go missing at once--it's a sure bet they're all in the same place). I looked EVERYWHERE, pretty much every day, for those oranges. I was sure they'd turn up when the movers came and emptied out the house, but no.

Well. Today Syd was rummaging around in the basement, and opened this tea pot. I had put the tea pot away (I like to rotate the kids' toys about once a month) right around the time the oranges went missing. Voila! My life is complete again!

My sidekick:

Happy Friday!

Lorelei, Lorelei...

For those of you who know her, Lorelei is totally irresistible.  Am I'm not even exactly sure why.  She's an adorable, disheveled, chubby (but not really), smart, coordinated, borderline-hoarder ball of love.  She's talking so well these days, and says things that Sydney would have never said when she was the same age (not bad things, just surprising things).  I suppose it comes with the territory of being the little sister; Lorelei gains "wisdom" (ha!) from her older sister, making her more knowledgeable and street smart at an earlier age.

Anyway, Lorelei is potty training.  Actually, I kind of think she's potty trained.  I started potty training Sydney at exactly the same time of year, two years ago.  Sydney turned two in late January (2012), we went on a trip to TX, and I declared that I would start the potty training process as soon as we returned home from the trip.  We did, and she did fine.  By the end of March she was potty trained, with very few scars for life.  Something I learned though was that the younger you potty train them, the more you have to be involved (physically putting them on the potty, helping them pull up their pants, etc.).  I already knew I would wait until Lorelei was older than Sydney was when it was her turn, because I didn't want to be quite so "involved."

Lorelei turned two in October, and I knew I would not attempt potty training before we moved.  She was probably ready to start training in January, but in January Ford was born, Chet returned home from deployment, and in February we moved 1,000 miles away.  Potty training took a back seat to all of that; no sense in putting ourselves in a situation that would send us to the funny farm.  Even after we "moved" (as in, physically arrived in the area where we would be living), potty training was still not feasible; first we needed to unload the moving truck, then we needed to get the house livable, then we needed to continue to unpack, then, then...  You get the idea.  But last week, I knew it was "time" when we had two little neighborhood girls here at the house (in addition to my three) and I found Lorelei in the upstairs bathroom, sitting on the potty after removing her diaper (#2, mind you).  I slapped some panties on her, pulled out the portable princess potty, and informed her, "Lorelei, from now on you potty in the big potty.  Like Sydney."

Fun fact: I used jelly beans to potty train Sydney.  If she even sat on the potty she got a jelly bean.  If she went potty, she got two.  I didn't want to do that this time around.  I wanted to be super awesome (read: ridiculous) and not bribe/reward her (other than words of encouragement and hugs).  But the morning after we started potty training when I told her, "Let's take off your (nighttime) diaper, go potty, and put on some panties!" she said, "Um, no thank you."  And she refused to potty for the next two hours (I made her try every five minutes).  So I caved, pulled out the jelly beans, and said, "Lorelei, if you potty on the princess potty you get a jelly bean."

Those jelly beans are magic, I tell you.

We've had a few accidents, but very few.  The catalytic incident occurred last Tuesday, and today I say with tentative confidence that she is trained.  She certainly wasn't so quick to learn because of anything I did (remember, I tried to potty train her the cold, heartless way, sans candy).  I really think it happened so quickly because she was older, and because she has a big sister to set the example.

Good job, Lorelei!

Here is Sydney sitting on said princess potty, Christmas Day 2011 (not actually going potty, of course):

And here is the potty trainee, January 2012, the same age Ford is now (I think they look alike, but I also think he looks like Sydney):

Commuting, Amazon, and "Baseball"

I just made up a rule for myself that I'm sure I won't follow: If I say "more on that later" in a blog post, I must talk about it the next time I blog. So, yesterday I mentioned Chet's 16-minute commute to work. When we were told we would be moving to the DC area, we quickly learned how horrible the traffic is in the Northern VA/DC area, and that public transportation is a popular option for commuting to work. We decided Chet should utilize the great public transportation system here, and that we should live as close as possible to the Pentagon so that we could maximize our time together as a family (read: so that Ashley doesn't pull out every last hair on her head at home while Chet spends an unnecessary 1.5 hours in the car to and from work each day). Anyway, we were fortunate enough to find a home (3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms) approximately 4 miles from the Pentagon. Chet walks up the street, catches a bus, and 16 minutes later is deposited at the Pentagon. It really doesn't get any better than that. While we were searching for homes, we learned that if you live even 6+ miles away from work, and have to utilize both bus and Metro rail, or two different Metro rails, to work, you're looking at a 45-minute commute to work. Isn't that crazy?! Anyway, we are seriously thankful for this home. 

Subject change.

I received 15 e-mails from Amazon this afternoon, telling me my order(s) has shipped. Literally, 15. I'm a huge fan of their Subscribe & Save program. And now that I have three children and zero desire to take them all to the store if it can be avoided, I use Amazon more than ever. Excluding diapers and baby wipes, I can wait two shipping days for ANYTHING. No instant gratification needed here (although the one-click purchase feature on Amazon is pretty instantly gratifying...and dangerous...and two days is instant gratification compared to the olden days of the 1990s).

Anyway, I order almost everything from Amazon: diapers, baby wipes, toilet paper, floss, the kids' fruit snacks...you name it, I've probably asked Amazon to send it to me. I DO shop smart on the site though--if it's not truly a good deal, I don't buy it. I could probably pay less for the household items I mentioned above by playing the sale ad/coupon game, but I choose not to make time for that these days. My time and sanity is worth the extra money I use by shopping on Amazon.

And even though I choose what to order and everyone knows toilet paper is not an exciting thing, I swear I'm like a kid on Christmas morning come the first of the month when all of my Subscribe & Save items arrive on our doorstep. Apparently I'm still enthralled with the United States Postal Service and its competitors.

I got my hair cut today at my next-door neighbor's house. Approximately every six weeks she and several friends/neighbors choose a day and line up cut/color appointments with this woman. It's cheaper than getting your hair cut "out in town," more convenient, and therefore genius. My next-door neighbor, like Chet's commute, is also amazing. Right now Syd is with her and her daughters at a tennis lesson. Syd calls tennis "baseball."

And for those of you still with me, here are some pictures:

Chet, on his first day of work:

Syd, all bundled up to play in the snow:

Bubby:

Stream of Consciousness

Ok, y'all. Welcome to my new stream of conscienceness blog. Because if I don't do it this way, it will be Christmas before I blog again. Maybe.

Right now I'm sitting at the dinner table. I'm nursing Ford, who is not feeling too hot after his 2-month shots today (no matter that he is nearly 3-months old), and am ignoring Lorelei, who just threw her dirty napkin at me. Now she is touching her hair. Now she says she needs to go poop. The girl really knows how to get my attention. I should probably be conversing with my children over dinner, but I'm all conversed out (at least with people four-years old and under). We started dinner without Chet because we were all starving and I hadn't heard from him yet. Actually, I never have any idea when Chet will be home from work. Since he works at the Pentagon he has to surrender his cell phone at work, and I don't usually hear from him until he's out of the building.

This just in: Chet just texted saying he caught the 6:00 pm bus. He should be home in approximately 16 minutes. For those of you familiar with the horrendous traffic in the northern Virginia/DC area, a 16-minute commute to and from work is practically a miracle. More on that in another post.

I will say though that Chet's work schedule hasn't been unmanageable. He's usually home around 6, give or take half an hour. And thank goodness deployments are not in the mix this duty station. Perhaps I'm also becoming a mothering expert. Perhaps...not.

Adding Ford, Baby #3, to the mix wasn't too hard. In fact, I thought it was harder adding Baby #2 (Lorelei, the napkin-throwing, hair-touching pooper) to our family, and learning how to deal with the needs of two very small people. It seemed like someone was always unhappy, waiting their turn, and it was my job to simply manage the chaos, creating as little collateral damage as possible. (Who knew that my stint as a Surface Warfare Officer would come in handy as a mother?) I say all of this only to point out that I am back in that stage again, managing the needs of three little admirals who are all vying for my attention (two of whom still need lots of help from Mama). At least it's not as stressful/terrifying as it was the first time, because now I know that everyone will come out of this stage unscathed (even if they have to scream in their bouncy seat for 20 minutes while I clean Parmesan cheese off the floor before it get tracked through the rest of the house).

And on that note, here are some unrelated pictures:

Lorelei's looking rough with her hair plastered to her head. The dry weather here is not her friend. But she was really proud of this puzzle (I had to help her, because she was using impressive strength to make pieces fit together that shouldn't have.)

The boy is surrounded by pink.

Syd and her Bubby.

The Life of Lorelei

I've accumulated quite a few interesting pictures of Lorelei lately, so I thought I'd share. But first, Happy Valentine's Day! Thank you to our family who sent us cards--we did not have our acts together enough this year to send out anything, but we LOVE you all (y'all)! We didn't even celebrate within our own little family, although Chet cheated a little and got cards from the kids for me.

I can't wait for all of the boxed chocolate to go on sale tomorrow...

A lot of pink:

Acting like she's enrolled in Syd's preschool:

Laying on the steps at City Hall (something tells me this won't be allowed at the government buildings in D.C.):

Hanging out in the princess tent:

We converted her crib to a big girl bed last Thursday:

Sorting, her favorite pastime:

Reading in her makeshift bed (yes, that's Ford's bathtub):

Chet took her to Subway this morning for breakfast (all it took was her throwing a huge, low-blood-sugar fit in the car...and remind me to show Chet where we keep our combs so he can run one through her hair before going out in public :-)):

"This is not too big for me, Daddy!" (because she often hears that things are too big for her...stubby little legs...):

"Go under me, Daddy!" (Syd's and her favorite game):

Poor Ford--his sisters will never let let anything be just his:

1-Month Old

Can you believe Ford was a month old yesterday?  I can't.  Today (because I wasn't "with it" enough yesterday, his actual month-day, to take his picture) begins another year of monthly pictures.  Ford is ecstatic!

So the picture above is the "official" picture, but I like this one best:

Gotta love a slightly cross-eyed baby.

I know I've barely blogged since Ford was born, but there's not too much to tell about him (no offense, buddy).  He sleeps (a lot -- no, I'm not complaining), he eats, he pees and poops, and he fusses.  According to Sydney he fusses "all the time", but he's not that bad.  He doesn't really like pacifiers (Lorelei didn't either; Syd was a paci-aholic).  He nurses well; it's his favorite hobby.  He loves to be swaddled, but we only swaddle him at night (unless he's super fussy during the day, then we swaddle him to calm him down after we've tried everything else).  He does well at night, in that he wakes up to eat, and usually goes right back to sleep (occasionally he'll sleep too much during the day and want to party for a while at night, but that hasn't happened in a while).  Actually, he slept for a 6-hour stretch last night, which was amazing, and which I am calling a fluke (although he usually goes 4-hour stretches at night.  For now he sleeps next to us in bed; I'll change that when it's no longer working for us (hopefully he'll move to the Moses basket soon; he won't have a crib until we get to D.C.).  He doesn't like the swing much; like all of our babies, he likes to be held.

And most importantly, we love him!

Just so you know, these pictures were hard won.  I thought I might want to change things up (from the way I did the girls' monthly pictures) and take the pictures of him laying down with me standing over him, but that was an epic fail.  This was, by far, the best laying down shot we got:

(By the way, our "1 Month" sticker is no longer sticky on the back; the rest of the monthly pictures will look a little better, sticker-wise.)

Anyway, after much frustration, I turned to Pinterest and in less than five minutes figured out how to take the picture a better way (Ford sitting up, with natural light coming in from the window, because there is no natural light coming in from the ceiling...unless you have skylights...). 

Then his big sisters wanted in on the action:

Then I wanted to take the girls' picture, but they didn't comply:

Ragamuffins.

So there you have it!  Happy month-day, Ford!  You're the best!