Christmas Pictures

Merry Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas and the Lentz parents were wrapping.
For their two children, one of which won't stop crapping (in his drawers).

They wrapped and they wrapped until their fingers were numb.
For their two children, tweedle dee and tweedle dumb (again, not sure which is which).

The children were all snug and asleep in their beds (or on the floor).
Their snores were so loud - how could that come from such small heads?

Their parents were tired and kind of grumpy too.
These kids are such work, who really knew?!?

How do you stay up late and drink like you were young...?
When Momma is woken up at a quarter to one (with Everest's bloody nose).

And now Momma has her strep throat back, this she knows.
Her throat hurts and is scratchy and there is snot in her nose.

The kids woke up on Christmas to presents and candy.
What followed was batteries, loud toys and temper tantrums so dandy.

Now dinner has been had, dessert is over, the kids in bed.
The grandparents are wishing to Florida early they had fled.

Ahhh, the life of the Lentz family...boy is it fun.
Ahhh, Christmas is over now, finished and done.

You should see this house and its inhabitants, oh what a sight.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Pictures tomorrow.

The Harmonica

We have a harmonica in our house. I hate this harmonica. Ryan had it hidden on top of the refrigerator and Everest has been asking where it is. We finally relented and now there is a bit of a screaming match going on between who gets the harmonica. We don't have arguments in our house due to #2's language. We have screams and whines, which is totally fun and enjoyable on Saturday mornings. By the way, why do my kids wake up early on the weekends and we have to drag their little asses out of bed on weekdays? Today Ryan's mom and sister are coming down to babysit so that we can actually get some much needed Christmas shopping done. We are actually going to go out to dinner together (gasp!)! Last night I got home a bit early from work, we packed up the kid's pajamas and we picked Everest up from school and then Kingston. We told Everest we had a lot of surprises for them. First surprise, McDonalds. Second surprise, we let them play in the play area at McDonalds. I detest play areas (almost as much as harmonicas). We then got into the car and I told Everest to take off his drawers. He looked at me like I was nuts and then got a huge smile on his face when I pulled out his jammers. He started to put on his pajamas and then Kingston got a huge smile on his face. They didn't know what we were doing but the change in routine made them excited. We even changed a diaper in the carseat. Impressive but not nearly as impressive as changing diapers in some of the places we changed them in China. We got onto the highway and I pulled out treats. We had happy boys in the backseat. We went and took a drive through the Christmas lights on Lake Monona and then let the kids stay up way too late pillow fighting in Kingston's room. They were not in the living room so Ryan and I were quite fine with it. Our house is starting to achieve some sort of order. Having Ryan off on Fridays helps. The painter came Thursday and Friday and did our bedroom and basement. I love our basement. I want to live in our basement. I feel like I am living in a grown up house. We are starting to make it our own and starting to get rid of the aqua, red, yellow and turquoise colors that our home's former tenants enjoyed. I'm not going to lie, our house still has about twenty cheerios on the kitchen floor. Some of which Kingston ate last night. Oooops. And we still have piles of laundry but I guess this is our new normal for awhile. In about one hour, Granny Margy and Auntie Trina will be walking through our front door. We will leave them with the harmonica playing children. In fact, Granny Margy gave Ryan the harmonica for Christmas one year....bad idea Granny Margy, bad idea.

I was going through videos of China and came across this one. Looks fun, doesn't it?

Sitting on Edge of Bed

As I write this I am sitting on the corner of the bed, as far off of the bed as possible without falling off. The cat is licking my sleeve and trying to budge his way onto the keyboard. Kingston is straining to see me from his bed (hence me sitting on the corner) and every other seconds says a pathetic, "Momma." It may be starting to be every two seconds. Maybe he is getting tired. Crap, he's at it again. Be quiet kid.

Ahh two minutes later and the only thing I hear is the TV and the cat purring. Damn, I just heard another momma. I thought I had achieved sweet, sweet victory.

In the past two days I feel like Kingston is starting to latch onto the language a little bit more. You can't understand a word he says but he is trying. We can make out some stuff just because we're around him but others wouldn't have a clue. He says Monkey really cute whenever he sees a monkey picture. He also did get quack quack for the duck today. Progress folks, progress. I'm actually quite impressed when you think of what he's been through.

He is still saying momma. I keep saying, "what?" but he only answers with another "momma."

Ryan went to Everest's parent teacher conference today and I'm proud to report that our kids is brilliant. Well not really but he's brilliant in our book. He is doing quite well. His teacher noticed the maturity level having increased since we've been home from China so I have not been imagining it.

Battery is about out and I am about to lose my mind with the repetitive mommas so I need to go bang my head against the wall.

Drug Dealing Lullabys

In China Everest's song was, "hush little baby." We modified the song to include momma buying a three or four bottles of wine when the ring don't shine. Originally Kingston's song was "twinkle twinkle little star" because that's what he first sang to us. Well you can't modify twinkle twinkle enough. The other night, Ryan said that he has been changing up "mary had a little lamb" to include additional lyrics where mary and the kids at school eat the lamb. Last night I gave it a shot while putting Kingston to bed. I ran through the traditional lyrics and then that bitchy Mary had herself a lamb BBQ. Tonight I walked past Kingston's room to hear Ryan singing, "mary had some crack cocaine, crack cocaine, crack cocaine."

Ahh the simple things.

We are watching Storage Wars on A&E. Ryan said that he kind of wants to put Kingston in one. It's the holiday season so we won't.

Honestly Kingston has been great. Besides having a new kid in our home and the exponential stress that it brings, he is a good boy. He really is. We just hadn't been prepared for a 1 year old in a 1 year old body who is actually a 3 year old. Shame on us. However, if we were prepared for that we wouldn't have been prepared for something else. You can never prepare for all of the maybes and what-ifs that adoption brings. Or parenthood in general brings. I think little Kingston is going to surprise us all. He'll probably start doing his own lyrics soon.

Plugging Along

We are stressed here. Both Ryan and I ended up in urgent care on Sunday. Luckily for us (unluckily for my mom) my mom had planned on coming up to do Christmas shopping on Sunday. Ryan went in for a crazy infection on his leg from tackle football with the kids and I went in because I woke up in the middle of the night knowing I had strep throat. My mom took a look and told me to head to the doctor. A quick test confirmed what we had suspected. Meanwhile Ryan had a huge antibiotic shot in his leg. Lovely. I feel a lot better today and went into work because I have missed enough being sick.

Meanwhile I am just pissed. I am pissed at almost everybody. I am pissed at Kingston because he wouldn't sleep. I am pissed at Ryan because I almost had Kingston asleep and he ruined it. He is fixing it with bringing me icecream. I am pissed that everything that tastes good has fat in it. I am pissed that I haven't worked out in over a month. I am pissed that really none of my friends called us to see how we were doing when we got home. Text messages do not count. I am pissed at texting.

I am sad. I am sad that I haven't given enough love to my cat when he loves me unconditionally. I am sad that we moved. I am sad that my old house sits empty and alone. Sort of like me. I am sad that we have Christmas decorations up and I haven't been able to shop for my children. I am sad that there are clothes all over the floor. I am sad that it is 10:00 at night and I just sat down. It's just a bit much for me right now.

I have the adoption eye twitch back. My eye apparently twitches when I hit the extreme stress level, which occurred during Everest's adoption and only a few times since. It started again during the strep throat episode. I usually have a cool and calm demeanor but I think my insides take a beating, hence the twitching and infections and general internal resulting pissiness tonight.

Sorry for the doom and gloom. I am just feeling sorry for myself.

A stranger in a strange land

I cannot catch my breath half of the time. The amount of things we need to set up and do keeps on increasing. In Parents of the Year Award news, I realized that Kingston had a holiday party at his daycare today. I realized this when I dropped him off and all of the kids were dressed cute. My kid was slumming it in the jeans he wore yesterday, bed head and a big scratch down the side of his face. Needless to say his parents will not be in attendance because they are negligent.

Last night could have verged on suckage. Everest came home from school sick with a fever and Ryan was heading to the Badger basketball game with his friend. So it was a sick and crabby Everest, an excitable Beebs and me with a glass of wine on constant refill sitting on my bed watching the X Factor, which I will admit is a guilty pleasure. I fell asleep by 9:00, I think before Beebs did. Because the night involved a 9:00 sleep time, the night did not hit suckage level.

It’s so strange having a stranger in the house. A strange stranger. It’s funny because when you give birth to a child you know their bodies from the beginning. You know every strange lump or discoloration. With Kingston we are just finding all of these things out. We are now putting double diapers on Kingston before bed because he soaks his bed EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. One of these diapers is supposedly the diaper of all diapers and alas that still didn’t stop the soakage. Anyway, I digress. This diaper is an actual diaper, not just a pull up and I can’t remember the last time I put an actual diaper on a kid. Anyway, I digress again. So I plop the kid down. He totally knows the drill. I lift up his booty and there is a tiny line of what looks like stitches. I won’t go into details on where exactly the stitches are but it doesn’t look like it would be a comfortable experience getting said stitches. This new find was not in Kingston’s medical files. So the kid doesn’t have the skin condition we thought he had and he has stitches we never heard about. Doctor has been called and appointment finally made. Kingston needs his vaccinations but I’ll admit it was the curiosity of his stitches that finally got me to pick up the phone and make the appointment. Going to the doctor is going to be a totally fun experience that I am letting Ryan do alone.

I've been trying to put a lot of thoughts down into this blog post and just deleted about 30 minutes worth of writing. I think I am too tired. I am going to regret it later.

Ryan and I have off from work tomorrow. I will try to post later this weekend after a relaxing and kids in daycare day. Ahhh, finally what I consider a "free day!"

First Week of Daycare

The first week of being back to work is done. Done. I am tired. I have escaped upstairs. There is some sort of football game going on between the boys downstairs. A lot of screaming is involved. I actually made a dessert. That’s totally sick. It’s in the freezer freezing or doing whatever it is it is supposed to do before I dip it in chocolate. I am not sure what got into me. I don’t even eat desserts. Am I turning into a domesticated woman? I doubt it. I hope not.

Today we drove to Milwaukee to Everest’s friend’s birthday party. We were two blocks from our old house. I was too sad to drive by. It would have broke my heart all over again.

It smells like burnt chocolate in the house, which doesn’t make sense since this is a frozen dessert I am making.

I hope the kids go to sleep soon.
It’s only 6:30.

There is a large pile of laundry on the chair in the living room next to me. It’s almost like I didn’t see it until just now and I’ve been sitting here for a good half an hour. Scary.

I need a cleaning lady.
Ryan not working on Fridays isn’t going to cut it unfortunately.

The football players just trampled up the stairs. Dang, so much for my escape.

Random Thursday Thoughts

And already it is December. Kingston has been with us for over a month, which to me is insane. We are still trying to adjust to all of the newness in our home. Kingston is pretty amazing. He is just this little fragile being but at the same time he is a tough brute. I think he is a sensitive soul. I think both of my boys are. Kingston is not loving daycare. Mom is not loving dropping Kingston off at daycare. The little lamb-head howls. It gets worse everyday. Now it starts as soon as I ask him to brush his teeth. It is completely heart-wrenching. I know that everybody says that he will get used to it and that kids react this way but our situation it is different. Every morning Kingston probably thinks he is being dropped off to stay. He probably thinks that if he is a good boy we will pick him up at the end of the day. I know this by his complete surprise and unbelievable happiness when we pick him up at night. I want to be able to tell him that we will not leave him, that it is not another orphanage but I cannot and this breaks me each day.

In other news, Kingston is eating like a professional. He can put down the food. Last night he had about 10 chicken nuggets, which kind of disgusts me. He needs to fatten up though. Luckily enough for Ryan and I, Kingston seems to go to the bathroom at school so that we do not have to deal with the consequences of too much unfamiliar food. We knew he loved us.

Kingston got footie pajamas from his Grandma BJ and Grandpa Kirby and the kid looks awesome in them. Everest wanted some so I was able to find some. The two of them in their footies is pretty great. Took some good pictures last night of my footied kids. I will try to post them later.

We’ve laid down the law in our house that mom is not a jungle gym. It seems that whenever I sit on the couch I am trampled on. With Kingston it isn’t so bad because it is like a pesky fly that lands on you but with 45 lbs of Everest it can get a bit dangerous.

The boys have a habit of walking around while brushing their teeth just like Ryan. This is a habit of Ryan’s that I detest on many levels. Now the kids will walk out of the bathroom, footy pajamas on and toothbrushes hanging from their mouths. I will yell, “Get back in the bathroom,” and will chase them back in. Well now it has turned into a game where they run back into the bathroom and Ryan and I hide. We proceed to scare the crap out of them when they come out. There is going to be a lot of dental work if this continues.

Everest is doing better at not annoying me. Yesterday he managed to keep his hands to himself for the most part. The other day I caught him coming out of my closet where the Christmas presents are. He said he was just looking at my clothes. Um yeah, I don’t have spiderman T-shirts so there is no way you are looking at clothes. I told him to say goodbye to his Christmas presents. A massive mental breakdown ensued where there was the continuous mantra of howling, “No goodbye my Christmas presents.” I am a softie and told them I wouldn’t take them back after Ryan told me that he looked at Christmas presents too as a kid. What?!? I never did that. Just another difference between boys and girls I suppose. How are we wired so differently?

Today is my birthday. I am 34. I am not too excited to be 34 but there is some sort of level of excitement still on having a birthday. I used to do it up on my birthday but kids put a damper on all you can drink at the Nitty Gritty. I can’t believe I am 34. Seriously. Where did the last 34 years go? I have a husband and two kids and a cat and a house? No wait, I still have two houses. I am an adult. Why do I not feel like an adult? At some point do we start feeling like adults? I don’t think I want to.

Whoever said that having kids was rewarding? I do not feel rewarded. I feel tired. Having kids makes you tired. Having kids makes you feel pretty crabby. Having kids ages you. Will my kids pay for botox? I love them but wow. You should see us at night. Not sure how people maintain a relatively peaceful existence with two kids. We were duped.