Christmas 2012

Here's a little recap of the past 48 hours...

Casey had to work on Christmas Eve, so I packed up the kids and headed over to Fort Russo for some major grubbin' and Christmas pajamas.  My mom made Baccala, which I love, and about a dozen other appetizers, entrees, pastas and sides-- all seafood oriented.  Mmmm! 

((Will never be able to emphasize enough how much Italians love to feed people.))

Once Casey was home, we headed over to his parent's house.  Lucy thoroughly enjoyed hanging with her older cousin, Corbin, and I thoroughly enjoyed my mother-in-law's pumpkin cheesecake.

After the kids went down, Casey and I began wrapping presents.  We went to bed around 1:30...

And just a few hours later, we watched our silly girl tear through all of our hard work.  We loved every second of it.

Before:

After:

Interim:

Christmas kisses and polar bear jammies!

Parker was sort of indifferent about Christmas...

...until he got this sweet hat. Then he loved it!

The slide captivated her morning.  Favorite present, hands down.

It was so nice to spend the morning in our home, just us.  That's one tradition I will look forward to for years to come.

The running around began again shortly after.  A quick stop at the in-laws, and then to Grammy and Grampy's!  (Thank God we're within 10 minutes of our families.))

All the cousins with Great Grandma

Best looking boy in the whole world!

Nap fail.

BFFs since 1992.  (Way to miss the photo opp, Fallon.)

Best looking family EVER.

 

New recliner from Grammy and Grampy!

Lucy like.

Christmas was awesome this year!  Lucy recognized "Danta" (not necessarily his purpose, though), she yelled "Mo mo pwees" (pretties)  ((pretties = Christmas lights)) every time we drove around town at night, and she LOVED opening presents.  We fully expect next year to be twice as much fun.  For now, the kiddos are really loving all their gifts.  We are so blessed!

Car Car sitting in his new highchair at the big kids table.

Lulu watching Annie at her new table and chairs.  Her life is complete.

21 Months (photo dump)

(It's officially weird to refer to your age in months, babes.)

I think I literally said, "I love this age!" at least once everyday this month.  And Daddy probably said, "You're a goof!" just as frequently.  It could not be more true, though.  You learn a new word or dance move everyday; you are very polite (please, thank you, and bless you); you have a new obsession:  Annie (as in, Orphan Annie and Daddy Warbucks.  All thanks to Grammy, by the way); you tickle our feet, brush our hair, and mimic me when I shave my legs; you throw some pretty brutal tantrums; you have a strong distaste for all things denim.  My current favorite Lucy-isms are "Mo mo gookies" (more cookies) and "Dan-ta" (Santa).  Daddy's favorite is hands down "Ny-Ny Car Car" (Night night, Parker) and "Um-pin" (armpit).

You are more beautiful than there are words to describe, and we love you beyond measure.

Professional tree decorator...

...and un-decorator.

"Is this comfortable for you, Car Car?"

Watching Annie, of course.

GOOF.BALL.

"Uncle Cooooo"

Yelling "Baby!" and bursting into the nursery when Parker wakes.

 

Grammy (i.e.: your all-time favorite person in the world)

Those boots!  I die.

 

Lighting ceremony on the avenue-- our oldest tradition.

Dirty feet.  Dirty, dirty, diiiiiiiirty.

 

Boo!

"Hi Belly." and "Bye Belly"

Daddy has been the one working with you on potty training.  You two have the cutest potty conversations.

"Ny-ny Car Car"

 

Re-purposing the Bumbo.

Christmas chain!  Another Russo tradition.

That time I had to cut Parker out of his onesie.

Yesterday marked the 7th day in Parker's pooping strike.  I mentioned this to Grampy, and he decided to give Car Car a good bouncing.  After nearly 45 minutes of bouncing, my dad said, "Don't be surprised if he poops later."  And he was right.  Parker pooped later.  Parker pooped A LOT.  And it was literally the scariest shit I have ever seen.

((Prepare yourself, because I'm about to give a minute by minute recap of the event.))

Parker was in his jumperoo when he suddenly became very fussy.  Since the boy almost never fusses, I picked him up immediately.  He smelled awful.  Huh, guess he finally pooped...  

::walking to the nursery::  Oh God, this is going to suck.

I laid him on the floor of the nursery, expecting to find poop up and down his pant legs; but after a quick inspection, I was surprised to find the leg gussets holding strong.  I put a new diaper under him and peeled open the diaper he was wearing...and that's when I noticed that the new diaper was suddenly covered in poop.  What the hell??  How did that get there?!   I rolled Parker to one side and saw what looked like massive love handles in his onesie; but they weren't love handles.  Babies don't have love handles.  It was gobs and gobs of yellow shit.  It was freakish.  I lifted the onesie and his entire back-- up to his friggin armpits-- was covered.

I froze.  What the hell do I do??  Why did this have to happen when Casey wasn't home?  Maybe we should wait for him.... Or maybe I should call someone.  Who the hell can I call??

That's when I realized all this crap was about to ooze onto the rug.  I stuffed a burpie under his butt and bolted into the kitchen for scissors and a towel-- all while yelling, "LUCY, DON'T TOUCH THE POOP!" over and over again.

There was no way to pull the onesie over his head.  So I started snipping.  (Fortunately he was wearing one of those cheap white Gerber onesies underneath his outfit, so it wasn't much of a sacrifice.  Can you believe it was the one time I actually listened to my mom about dressing the kids in layers??  Go figure.)  All I could think was, I can't believe I'm literally cutting a piece of clothing off my kid.  I sat him up and started wiping him down.  His back, his belly, his arms and wrists, his thighs.  Then I transferred him to the towel and re-wiped him.  I threw out the massive, poopy heap of burp cloth, diapers, and approximately 10,000 wipes, and plopped Parker in the bath.

Parker's all, "You'll get over it, Ma." 

Absolutely.horrifying. Do you think this is bad karma for switching to disposables?

PS - Lucy pooped on the kitchen floor tonight.  So, overall, not a good poop week for the Shelton household.  

Done with cloth.

(I wish I could have come up with a more witty title for this post.)

Are you surprised?

It was a snap decision, really.  I texted Casey last Monday and said, "I think I want to switch to disposables.  Discuss tonight?"  And he replied immediately, "No need to discuss.  We're doing it.  I've been waiting almost 2 years for you to say that."  And that was that.  We created an Amazon Mom account and the kids have been in disposables ever since. 

Our decision to cloth diaper was financially driven (the planet saving and cute prints were an added bonus); but, we have decided that, sometimes, it's worth it to spend a little extra money.

I don't want to bash cloth, because I know there are so many benefits to be had from it; but I do want to share why we are no longer cloth diapering...  

1.  LEAKS.  (The catalyst for this whole thing.)  The pocket diapers (which account for approximately half of our stash) have been leaking, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why.  I have tried everything (stripping, adjusting fit, different inserts) to correct the problem!  Nothing pisses me off more than when Parker wakes early from a nap because his diaper has leaked and his clothes are soaked, or when Lucy gets up from the couch and there's a huge wet spot where she was sitting.  Keep in mind, since we have so many pockets, incidents like these happened several times each day. 

2.  Laundry is a bitch.  Washing for one isn't so bad, but washing for two is practically a full-time job!  Between diapers and clothing, I wash 2-4 loads of laundry each day; but, since we've been so busy, there have been days that I didn't get to the laundry...and we've had to make an extra trip to the store to buy disposables.  It was such a ridiculous thing to be stressed about.

3.  Poopy diapers.  I literally contemplated throwing the diaper away (rather than rinsing it) every single time.  I cannot adequately describe how disgusting this task is-- even with a diaper sprayer and liner.  Add to that that I don't always have the opportunity to spray the diaper immediately after each change (hello, two kids)...so that smelly diaper would sit in the bathroom until I could get to it.

4.  My kids can't button their pants.  Kind of trivial, I suppose, but it matters to me.  We grow big babies, and they already have a hard enough time wearing age appropriate sizes; when you add a huge cloth diaper into the equation, there is no hope whatsoever.

I know that we are trading leaks for blowouts, and I know that those blowouts will lead to laundry.  But having a blowout once every few months is so much more manageable than 4-6 leaks per day.  And I know that I could have theoretically purchased new cloth diapers that don't leak, and still spent less money than we will on disposables; but then I'm still stuck with laundry and poop duty, and clothes that don't fit.  (Having just bought their winter wardrobes, I was not eager to buy replacement cloth diapers AND larger clothing.)  Our decision to switch to disposables has lifted such a weight off of my shoulders.  I could probably run through various scenarios of how we could have been more successful with cloth, but what's the point?  We are all so much happier this way.

Breakfast with Santa

Lucy wasn't feelin' it.  Parker was indifferent.

Lulu: "Wahhhhhhhh!"

Me:  "Honey, come on, it's ok.  Just look at the camera and pretend not to be miserable."

She didn't care too much for Rudolph or Frosty either.

Lulu:  "OMG, Mom, who are these creeps?  They look nothing like the cartoon."

Fortunately, there were pancakes and balloons to smooth the whole thing over.

Lulu:  "I don't really do forks, Mom.  I prefer to dive right in."

Parker slept for the majority of the event (surprise, surprise); but he was his usual, happy self when he woke up!

Maybe next year?  ::eyeroll::