Just the Parents

I don't hardly ever post anything on Craig and I on this blog. It's our family blog and Craig and I never seem to make it into any of the pictures - or any of the stories that are told. I need to do better about that. We're part of this family too and we should get a little screen time every now and then :) Anyways, in light of this recent realization . . . . .

Craig had a birthday! He turned 29 back on the 8th. He told me he didn't want me to blog about his birthday. But I'm going to anyway. :) His birthday wasn't that great to be honest with you. I think he didn't want me to blog about it because he didn't really care to ever remember it. His birthday fell on a Sunday. Lately our kids have been very well behaved at church and we have actually been able to make it through the whole hour and ten minutes of sacrament meeting without taking them out into the hall. This was NOT the case on Craig's birthday. Mallory decided to have a COMPLETE meltdown. I don't even remember what it was for, but WOW. She was screaming so loud that even after Craig had taken her out into the hall you could still hear her in the chapel! So he took her into a classroom where she continued to scream and cry for the next 30 minutes. Mallory refused to get control of herself! Craig finally pinned her to his chest into a little ball trying to get her to calm down. Mallory was so hysterical she couldn't even speak. Between sobs she was trying to tell Craig that she couldn't breathe. I'm sure most parents have seen this type of cry. . . . . the one where you have to sit there and tell your child to breathe. . . .and you end up blowing in their face to get them to inhale. Clark is VERY attached to Craig right now. So when Craig walked out of the chapel with Mallory at the beginning of her tantrum, Clark started screaming uncontrollably as well. I ended up out in the hall with Clark screaming - not as bad as Mallory. And it wasn't long before Chase realized he was the only one left sitting on the church bench and he joined us out in the hall.
We have church first thing in the morning so this was not a great start to Craig's birthday. He was pretty frazzled after finally dropping Mallory off at Primary. The rest of church went well up until the last 10 minutes. I was holding Clark when he peed through his diaper and clothes and onto my dress. He spent the rest of church without pants on. After church we all got to take a much needed nap. Mallory woke up from her nap first and she came into our bedroom to wake us up. She wanted a piece of candy and I told her she had to go potty first. This caused another complete meltdown. To the point where she lost control of her bladder and peed from our bedside, through our bedroom, into the hallway, into her bedroom, and into her closet. I told her to go to the bathroom. Why she headed for her closet I do not know. So we now had a trail of pee running through most of the upstairs. Lovely, more pee. So Craig gets out the carpet cleaning machine(a great investment!)we have and starts cleaning the upstairs. I got Clark up and took him downstairs to play with Chase. About 15 minutes later Clark blows out his diaper and gets poo on the carpet! I go up to inform Craig that when he's through cleaning the carpets upstairs, a section of the downstairs will need to be cleaned as well. At this point his special day isn't really feeling too special! So he ended up cleaning carpets for an hour and a half while I prepared dinner. I cooked him a roast and potatoes for his birthday. At least that turned out good! He loved it! And the kids ate their dinner in COMPLETE silence. We looked at each other halfway through the meal and asked each other what was going on? Things had been absolutely crazy and now our children seemed to be mute? We welcomed the break from the noise and complimented them on their good behavior at dinner. I was going to bake brownies for Craig's birthday. He didn't want them. I think he was a little crushed about how badly his birthday had gone that he didn't even want dessert. So we just put the kids right back into bed after dinner. It was 7:30 by this time and Craig was ready to call it a day! Craig wanted a memory foam topper for our bed for his birthday. I had ordered it online and it didn't end up arriving until after his birthday. So Craig had a crappy birthday and no presents to open. I felt bad. Our mattress is cheap and isn't the greatest so Craig had been wanting something to help him get a better night's sleep. We've now had it on the bed for a little over a week and WOW!! It's great! We have both been sleeping better and we don't wake up with sore backs and necks anymore. And I hope I don't jinx myself here, but Craig has stopped snoring. I used to wake up 2 and 3 times a night and have to kick him to roll over and stop snoring. Since we have had this lovely mattress topper I have not woken up once to him snoring. Not once! It's a miracle! It has cured his snoring! Anyway, I felt bad that Craig had to spend his birthday dealing with unruly children and cleaning carpets. He didn't want his picture taken on his birthday so I snapped the one above a few days ago and snuck it on here :)It was one for the books. . . . .

As for me, I am now sporting a new hair color. It's been blonde for a long time and Craig has been begging me to go dark for quite awhile. Plus it saves money, so it was a no brainer. It was a shock at first, but I'm starting to get used to it. When I first came home with the dark hair Clark didn't recognize me. I picked him up and he freaked out! You can see how light my hair was in the picture of me and Craig in the sidebar to the right. So here's a couple pictures of the change:

DAREDEVIL

Here is a dear sweet picture of our baby Clark: Cute, huh? I guess he's not technically a baby anymore. He's 15 months. But I still tend to think of him as my baby. At least until I saw him do this yesterday:

When I first turned around to see this little boy standing on top of his Leap Frog learning table I think I sucked in about a gallon of air! How in the world did he get up there? Notice there are no other toys around the table that he used to climb on to get up on top. He merely used himself. And he accomplished this feat with a toy in hand. Notice the train in his left hand. He had to have done this somewhat one-handedly! Not only that, the center of this learning table is raised and the outsides slant downwards toward the ground. Clark is standing on the sloping edges of the table. And he balanced there just fine. Not a single care. Like he's on top of the world. Today I caught him trying to jump from the couch onto this same toy! Who does this kid think he is?

I started thinking about the absence of fear this child has and all the other "feats" he has recently accomplished that have made me catch my breath. I decided to catch a couple of them on video to document his fearless behavior. Clark started walking 2 months ago. And after catching him do this:

for the first time 2 weeks ago . . . . apparently he thinks he already gone pro on the whole walking thing.

No one showed him how to do this. No one taught him to get down the stairs this way. He figured it out all by himself. Does your 15 month old walk down the stairs like a normal person? Granted he is holding onto the stair rail bars, but he's WALKING down the stairs!! I know some 2 year olds who still will not WALK down the stairs. They still scoot down on their bums. Not this kid! And then there's this method:

Mallory would be the one that instigated this approach down the stairs. But Clark wasted no time in figuring out how she does it. He giggles all the way down. I think we have a thrill seeker on our hands. I foresee many visits to the ER with this child. He thinks he's invincible! Chase and Mallory were not nearly as fearless or daring as Clark is at this age. This is all new to me. Not once did Chase or Mallory ever climb out of their crib - or even ATTEMPT to climb out of their crib. I'm predicting Clark to be a different story. Not only do I think he will attempt it, I think he will succeed. At the rate he's going anyway . . . . with the whole "I like to participate in dangerous activities that freak my mother out" campaign he's running. These are JUST three of the fearless instances that have happened around here lately from our little Clark. The inspiration for Clark's name was Clark Kent . . . . . .Superman. At this point I think we named him after the wrong superhero. We should have named him Matt - after Matt Murdock. You know . . . .the Daredevil. . . .


*Disclaimer: Lest you judge too quickly and make a bad mother out of me . . . .I do watch my "daredevil" son as best I can. There are times when my back is turned for a few moments such as while cooking dinner, changing a load of laundry, helping one of my other two children use the bathroom, or heaven forbid I have to use the restroom myself, etc., etc. Clark seems to have a sixth sense about when my back is turned for those few moments. It is at these times that he decides to pull his freakish, seemingly pre-meditated stunts. I love my child and positively re-direct him toward safer methods of play when I catch him participating in unsafe activities. Including maneuvering the stairs in a safe manner.

We've Got Spirit. . . .

Yes we do! We've got spirit how 'bout you?


GOOOOOOOOOO CARDINALS!!!