Stages. Right? Kids go through thousands of stages! Lots of them are actually super great, while some are just basic learning experiences, and others where I find I just need to try and keep my head above water until its over. As I’ve mentioned on here many times, my mom said to me when I was still pregnant with Dekker that I shouldn’t waste too much time trying to figure out each stage, because by the time I would make headway on that, the stage would be over. That being said, I’m learning that some of the things we’re dealing with in our house currently are not so much stages as they are life lessons.

Dekker is currently learning that he cannot have everything he wants the moment he wants it. He has been learning this very calmly since Laela has been born. He used to cry when she had one of “his” toys, as I’m sure the majority of kids do, but he’s come out of it beautifully, and even asks if he can play with a toy that Laela has put down. Its wonderful.

However, in the recent past, he’s been boycotting supper. Its been going on for a while, and we’ve been getting on him more about it now. The boy can’t live off of cereal! He just can’t!! With the ongoing boycott, evenings have been the part of the day that wears on me more than anything.

I got Dekker up from his afternoon nap, and Brady wasn’t home. I knew Deks would be hungry, but I had a tub running for Laela, so I figured that would distract him for a while. He likes to be around when Laela is getting a bath, almost to keep an eye on her and make sure she’s ok. Don’t forget! Baths are the worst thing in the world!! But upon entering his room, I was greeted with a curt request for his Life cereal. I commented that he wasn’t being very polite, and that before dinner, I needed to wash Laela. He kept saying “ya” as if he understood, but wanted to climb into his chair at the table. I told him many times that I was going to wash Laela first, but he insisted that he sit in his chair. So he did. And through the whole bath, he whined and whined, just saying “Life!” louder and louder. While I dried her off, he cried and cried. I told him he would eat soon, and that we were going to have leftover cheesy chicken and rice. Well, apparently that supper that he usually enjoys was just about as popular as bath time, so that began a HUGE meltdown. Finally, I put him in his room and said I would get him when he was done complaining.

Probably twenty minutes or more later, we brought him (still crying) into the dining room and sat him at his spot, when he continued to shake in anger and snot and tears and oh my gosh!!! Made me crazy, I’m not going to lie. We ate while he screamed, and fed him bites here and there when he was actually breathing. But not too long in, he screamed for sooo long that he began choking and choking. I wanted to lean him over the table but of course by that time he was just frantic, so I had to physically force him forward and shove my fingers into his mouth to fish out some of the chicken. Once the food was out of his mouth and I was certain he had nothing left to choke on, I put him in his room again. Partially because he was being sooo rude and loud and uncooperative, and partly because for the first time, I needed to be apart from him before I did something I’d regret. It was a truly awful feeling 🙁

Once I had calmed down, I went into his room and we had a talk and a punishment. He was then fairly reserved for the rest of the evening, and we put him down for bed about a half hour early. My gosh. I. Am. Exhausted. What an evening.

That story got considerably longer than I was bargaining for. I’m so tired from it all that I was counting on his being a shorter post. Apparently I needed to vent rather than rest. Interesting. On a lighter note, Dekker called himself Dekker Coffee Born today, which was pretty awesome. He’s hilarious 🙂 In the morning, anyway.

I hope you all had a much quieter evening than I did!

We have had solid nights of sleep for the past couple of weeks, and its been sooo nice! Having Laela give us full nights has been such a treat, and I think I can speak for both Brady and I when I say that we feel a lot more rested.

Miss Laela has been teething her heart out the last little while, popping two teeth in May. She gets a bit fussy, but really not bad at all. Nothing an extra nap and some cuddles won’t fix. I also learned today that she is much happier to be sitting on the floor. This is a completely new discovery. Up until now, she liked to lay on the floor or be up in a jumper of some kind. But over the last couple of days, she just wants to sit. Luckily, she’s getting really really good at it.

So her fussiness has been pretty easy to cure, and other than that, she’s just napping a bit more than usual. We knows she’s teething. So when she woke up last night, we had compassion. Granted, we didn’t rush to her immediately at all. She wasn’t crying really at all, but she talked and sort of whined a little. She did this for an unreasonable amount of time before Brady and I realized that she was probably uncomfortable. As soon as we came to that, we headed right to her. She wasn’t super worked up or teary, just a bit frustrated. This being her first midnight wakeup in so long, we were refreshed and happy to see her. I changed her diaper and gave her a little shot of Tylenol while Brady made a very small bottle for her. She went back down easily and we all fell back to sleep. Brady and I both agree that the wakeup call didn’t set up back in the morning at all. It was a nice little treat, rather than the annoying sleep-suck that her nighttime feedings were starting to feel like.

And guess what. I was right!! The little Miss woke up with a brand new tooth this morning! She has popped three teeth in the last three weeks!!! All top teeth, too! So she has her bottom middle ones, her top middle ones now, and one off the side of those. I am sooo grateful for my (so far) easily teething kids!

Let’s all clap for Laela!!!

*clap clap clap clap clap*

My Jessica left here today, and I was left alone without my bestie, but with my grumpy, grumpy babies. Dekker was a bit shy of Aunty Jessy while she was out, but babbled about her all the way home. Funny boy. Both kids, however, hit the hay pretty quick upon arriving home. Dekker was spent from screaming his morning away (fun fun) and Laela is working on two new teeth and she likes to sleep things off. I spent the afternoon cuddled up in the basement watching Blackfish. Its considerably more intense than I thought it would be, but I’m glad I watched it. Crazy stuff!

I wanted to load a few pictures onto this post and it appears that I haven’t emptied my phone off in a little while, so this is the past where I catch you up in pictures!!

I think I mentioned a while ago that we got six new sets of jammies for Dekker for only $18 off of a Facebook sale page. These are them. They are a size up from what he normally wears, but they fit BEAUTIFULLY! This evening he is wearing the second pair in this line up – striped pants and a lion shirt. The tshirt has the nice little bands around the sleeves and neck, and he was so happy to be in them! He kept checking himself out in the mirror, sooo proud! They are in great shape and feel really, really soft. A great find, if I do say so myself!

This is just me and my sweetie a few days back. Yay for jammies!!

Sigh. This is me just dreaming and wishing I could justify buying a new diaper bag. Too bad our current lug bag is holding up so well :/ I LOVE this one!!!

Ok, some of you have been very clear with me in the past that you don’t care about my interest in makeup or my hair or “shallow” things like that. Feel free to buzz past. However, I’m really enjoying playing with lipstick recently! I guess you can’t see the colors especially clearly in these pictures but regardless, I’m really enjoying it! Its not as easy to wear eyeshadow or too much eye makeup at all, so this is giving me my fun color!

This was a decently popular picture off of my Facebook today 🙂 I couldn’t resist posting it here too. This little girl just cracks me up. Her face is just begging to be a meme!

The cutest picture of all of us that I could get all day! Look look! Dekker isn’t crying!!! Laela isn’t thrilled but she is clearly tipping over. I wouldn’t be happy about that either.  She’s still cute. Oh, and this is my favorite shirt on her, and it is officially too small. *sniff* Goodbye soft peachy striped shirt.

I hope the last quick dose of my children sends you off with sweet dreams! Works for me, anyway 🙂

Yikes! Another late post! Take it as a good sign.

Jessica and I so rarely get to spend any time in person together that we fill our few times together with tons of visiting. I can’t remember the last time I talked this much in one day! We talked about life in general, struggles and personal stuff, shallow stuff, budding interests and goals, and future plans. While we only get one FULL day together, I feel like we filled it well. My throat hurts, so that tells you something.

Brady waited on she and I hand and foot today. He brought us snacks downstairs, put the kids to bed, ran around the house and fetched us things, and all kinds of things I’m not remembering, I’m sure. You were incredible today, my love. Thank you for recognizing we needed some time to just sit and talk. You have such a servant heart.

We will be driving to the airport in less than twelve hours, so I must get myself to bed in order to be able to take on the day! Sleep well, all!

My bestie, Jessica, is out for the weekend! We met at the airport early this morning. Its been months since I’ve seen her, so it was about time! I asked if I could quickly drag her through Costco before taking her to our house, and so began our four hour trip home. But first, coffee from the airport.

Not only did we hit up Costco for an enormous shop including diapers, groceries, and a few cute zipper hoodies, but we backtracked to Walmart for a few other things, spent way too much time in the makeup area, lost my wallet, found my wallet, and eventually got out of there around lunch time.

We picked up some Wendys for a quick lunch, and then went back through Tims for tea. Back to Costco to fill the gas tank. Fun fact: I put 68.5 litres into our 67 litre tank. It would appear I cut it a bit close this time around!!

Finally we arrived home to the hubs, my adorable little boy, and a sleeping baby girl. We settled in and put everything away before cuddling up and playing toys in the basement. We cheated and ordered supper in, so food was easy, and as soon as the kids went down, we watched a movie. The day has felt super full to me, but I am comfortably tired, which is always nice 🙂 Hopefully this bodes well for a sound sleep! If only Laela would sleep past 7:00 :/ Still working on that. I’m not sure she’s convinced she wants a full twelve hours just yet…

In all the cuteness of yesterdays post, I forgot to tell you a super cute story! I occasionally make notes if I have a super loaded day and want to remember certain details, but clearly, I didn’t yesterday. However, lucky for me, we had a repeat event!

Nap time. I’m trying to put the kids down together, and have had a nice number of successes in a row. They go down together at 2:30 or 3:00 in the afternoon. The last two days, Laela has slept for two hours solidly before bursting into tears. I keep hoping she’ll fall back to sleep, but she doesn’t. I’m hesitant to go in to get her, because I can tell on our monitor that Dekker is still tired.

So today (and yesterday, but I’m going with today) I gave in and ducked into their room around 5:10 to fetch Laela. Dekker sat up and said in his usual polite voice “Hello mummy.” “Hello, Dekker” I replied quietly. I walked over to the beds and asked if Laela was sad. “Ya…” said my glazed boy who was laying backwards in his bed. I picked her up, and he seemed to be watching like a hawk. Yet, he didn’t try to get up. Finally, I asked him “Would you like to sleep a little more?”

“Ummm…ya.”

Dekker squirmed back to his original spot and flopped his head back on his pillow. “Bu-bye.”

Isn’t that awesome?! Two days in a row!!! He doesn’t immediately try to get out of bed, or get all revved up about me taking Laela and not him. He knows himself and what he needs. I love that boy.

Thats all I cute I have for you today. I’m sure more will be coming this weekend! My best friend, Jessica… Bestica. Yup. My Bestica is coming out tomorrow so I’ll have lots to talk about 🙂 On that note, early to bed! Ok, ok, early to bath…

I was blessed with incredibly friendly and level children today. They played hard, and barely fussed. Laela complained only when she was tired, and Dekker played well pretty much right up until nap time. He shared without too much hesitation, and surprised me over and over.

After his incident of hitting Laela yesterday, he seemed to be extra careful with her today. While I changed her diaper on the floor downstairs, he knelt beside us, watching. Once her diaper was all closed up and her tummy was still all exposed, he inquired “Ticky La?” I right away gave him the go ahead, and he tickled her and ran away and ran back and tickled her and ran away and ran back, over and over and over again. I love that he asked first. He’s never done that. Best big brother ever.

I believe it was in that exact same setting where I discovered…..Laela popped her fourth tooth!! Of course, its not the other top front tooth, but the one to the side of front one she recently popped. Still counts 🙂 She has this adorable crooked smile half the time anyway, so it makes sense for her teeth to come in out of order. She’s incredible beautiful, and I’m so proud of her! I cheered and clapped and made a big show of it, and she squealed excitedly while Dekker imitated the both of us. Yay Laela!!! Congrats on your new tooth! I am incredible grateful for the easy teethers I have.

My last hilarious anecdote of the day is about Dekker and his manners. As I said yesterday, I really focus on manners in our house, but you wouldn’t believe it if you saw how loudly Dekker can burp and fart. He’s always been so careful with his language, and doesn’t like to say words until he’s more confident, but he refuses to say “excuse me.” I haven’t pushed it too hard because I know how method, but its taking too long, and he’s not even trying. So today, being a particularly gassy day for him, I asked him a few times. He would cutely say “stop it,” but I would just keep it light, but insist he try. Even just “scuse me.” And then it happened.

Dekker: *fart* *giggle*
Hailey: Say “excuse me.”
Dekker: Stooooop it!
Hailey: Nope, please say “scuse me.”
Dekker: Snoopy.

It. Is. Pure. Awesome! I’m not even going to correct him. I’ve been wondering at what point I should start getting on his case about pronouncing things correctly, but I’m keeping “snoopy.” I don’t even care. Its sooo funny, and incredible cute!

My adorable son is tucked away in bed already. He was in at his normal bedtime, but its so weird putting him to bed when its so bright out still! I love it. Warmth is coming, guys! The adorable girly will be cuddled away soon too, and then I will eat lemon cupcakes in the bathtub. Anyone else have such delicious plans?

I know all parents have to make tough decisions about how we raise our kids. I don’t really like the metaphor “choose your battles” because I don’t like to think of my relationships including fighting. We’re always learning and figuring, and yes, I’m sure a lot of you have private opinions about things you would do differently than me. I fully respect that 😀 We can’t all do things the same. If all of our kids were the same, life would be boring. I digress…

We put a lot of significance around Dekker’s manners. Pleases and thankyous are necessities, and too much whining isn’t acceptable. It seems strict, but I think politeness is a great thing to strive towards. This evening, on our drive home from my parents house, Dekker asked for a snack. Kind of. Straight out of the driveway, he says loudly “Snack.” Huh. In a lot of cases, I just give him one. He often eats snacks in the van. But he had really just finished supper, and I figured he could wait until we got on the highway at the very least, and then see if he was actually hungry. So I said “Just wait a few minutes please.” He started fussing like crazy. I asked for his manners and he just shouted “snack” at me louder. Its so cute that he thinks that would work, haha 😉 So for probably the first time, I didn’t give him any more chances and I just said he couldn’t have a snack until we got home. He cried, but recovered within moments, and said “Toy.” Again, no manners. I asked what toy he wanted, and he was saying something I couldn’t quite understand. I asked him to repeat it and he flipped out again, shouting for a toy. So, bracing myself for a long drive home, I said “Ok, no toys either. You have whined too much, and you haven’t used your manners. So you can’t have any snacks or toys for the drive home.” Well, he cried and cried and cried. He didn’t scream and fight and kick, but he cried. He overcame it, and just watched out the window for a bit. Probably ten minutes later, I heard him quietly ask “Toy?” I really wanted to give him one, but he hadn’t used manners again, and I NEEDEd to stick to my guns. So I said “I’m sorry, honey, no toys for the drive, remember?” He replied with “ya” and we drove along silently.

By george, I think he’s got it! I don’t expect everything to be smooth now for the rest of our lives, haha, but it was nice to see him really grasp consequence.

When we got home, we all went into his room and get the kids in fresh diapers and jammies. At the point where both kids were only in diapers, Dekker went and lay on his tummy right near Laela and asked “Ticky La’s tummy?” Of course he could! He continued to ask about different places to ticky. Ears, hair, belly button, legs, even her bum 🙂 It was adorable. At one point he bent down to rub noses with her and she walloped him in the face. Like, she really connected. He came up giggling and went in for another. It was probably the first time she kind of roughed him up and he let her. She pulled his hair and scratched at his face, and he giggled and said things like “La smash eyes.” Don’t get me wrong, we would try to control her, but he wanted to be close to her sooo badly! Most of the fun ended when Laela, laying on the floor, was beating her own belly, and Dekker reached over the smacked her. The second he did it, he leaned back and looked at me. I knew he hadn’t meant to hurt her, but it needed to be said.

“Please don’t hit Laela, Dekker.”

That one sentence seemed to really crush him, and he cried. Luckily, Laela didn’t. If anything, it seemed to catch her by surprise, but she wasn’t upset or hurt. I took Dekker on my lap and told him we knew it was an accident, and he wasn’t in any trouble, but its important to say sorry when you hurt someone. He apologized after a bit of coaxing, and even said he loved her. He felt awful. 

Playtime was eventually over and I was taking Laela out of the room so Brady could put Dekker down for the night. Poor little D wanted Laela to stay. “La touch Detter’s hair again! Detter ticky La’s tummy! La! Bouncy!” Anything to keep her there. It warmed by heart to see him so enamoured with her.

I love these kids. I really couldn’t be happier with my family. I hope you all feel the same way about yours 🙂

Its been three months and two days since Dekker’s corrective eye surgery. If you remember, he had an appointment immediately the day after this surgery to make sure there was no sign of infection, and then four weeks later. Now, two months after that, we went in again, keeping a close watch on his peepers. I appreciate the attention to detail, and the diligence to want to catch any possible decline as soon as possible.

I got the kids ready and out the door on my own, and even arrived at the hospital early. It turned out to be convenient that way, since parking was a nightmare. I just drove around aimlessly until someone left the lot that I wanted to park in. When Dekker gets nervous, we often end up carrying him, and if I was going to have to carry him, our massive diaper bag, and Laela in her car seat, I wasn’t going to carry them any further than I absolutely had to!

We got up to the fourth floor and checked in without a single meltdown. Dekker loves the elevator, and he finally recognizes the hospital as a good place, so he was eager to find the toys.

Brady came just a few minutes behind us, and after a very short wait, we got into orthoptics for the preliminary tests.

Dekker floored us all today. This was probably the first appointment where he answered questions and participated knowingly in the tests. He said which animals he saw, he counted the rings on the stick, he made jokes, and he played a matching game! We have never done matching with him, and he picked up on it immediately. The woman running the tests would go stand at the far end of the room next to a tv displaying a row of shapes on its screen, and Dekker had a paper with the same shapes on it in front of him. She would point to a shape on the screen and he would point to the one that matched on his paper. He did awesome!!! He was completely adorable and smart and best of all, she said it seemed like he was doing great! She saw no turn in his eye, no flicker, no nothing. He used both eyes the same amount and had the same results with both. What a complete answer to prayer!

After orthoptics, we headed back to the waiting room. I gave him a snack I had packed secretly – grapes and apples – and he ate contentedly until it was our turn with Dr. Rubab.

She only really ran a few short tests, but she was very happy with how things were looking. Dekker was actually disappointed when it was time to get up out of the chair. But before we left, I asked her about something that has been weighing heavily on me. I don’t know a lot about astigmatisms, but at our last appointment, we had been told that meant Dekker had blurry vision and always would. However, at my last appointment, I learned that I have one, and its almost exactly the same as his! For those who understand how these prescriptions work, his astigmatism is 1.00 and mine is 0.75, so both incredibly slight, but my vision isn’t blurry. Never has been. I asked if he would ever have a chance of being out of glasses, or if his vision would be blurry forever. She seemed a bit surprised, but brought me over to her computer and explained everything to me. She said the shape of his eye will likely not change very much anymore, so he’ll always have the astigmatism, but its sooo small, it likely won’t affect him at all. She said the prescription itself is based more on the size of the eye, and that will change significantly over the next several years. She is very careful with the way she speaks, but she says he has a very good chance of being out of glasses one day! I was very excited and asked “So maybe as a teen?” and she said “No, more like 5, 6, 7, something like that.” Crazy, right?!?! I know I can’t hold my breath for it, nor do I expect it will happen immediately, but there is a solid chance 😀 I am so thrilled at that possibility! Even if his eyes don’t get completely better, his prescription is so much lower than I thought it was, and it should only get better and better.

Dr. Rubab clarified with me briefly today, “You’re not using any drops, are you?” I said no. No drops, no patching, nothing. Her response was “Oh, of course no patching…” before she went back to Dekkers exam. I know it could always come back up, but its nice to know we’re nowhere near needing that right now. What a relief!

I am just blown away by today. I was pleasantly surprised that Dekker interacted with the doctor and the orthoptist. He knew so much and answered questions confidently. He didn’t have any breakdowns, and was very polite. I was also so thrilled to be given such encouraging answers and hope for things to keep moving and changing for the better. How great would it be if this whole debacle could just be a distant memory? That would feel. So. Good. It can happen!

I am SO incredibly proud of you, Dekker Thomas. You are such a little man. I can’t even believe you!

I feel sooo much better today! I slept like a log last night, and had a full eight hours, thanks to Laela. My body is still completely achy and tired, but I’m not sick to my stomach or headachey. Win!!!

I spent the day doing some dishes, including the massive amount of bottles we picked up on garage sale day, and playing with my surprisingly peachy kids. I don’t think Dekker had one time out! We played and watched a bit of tv, and the kids even took a nice long nap together 🙂 It was a lovely day.

Brady got home around 5:30 and finished up a few things while I fed Laela and Dekker finished out his nap. Before we knew it, Brady’s parents had arrived. Bradys great uncle passed away recently and the proceedings are taking place around where we live, so they’ve come by for the next day or two to spend time with family. Phil left to attend the viewing while Elvira hung around and played with the babies and took part in bedtime.

Phil arrived home shortly after the babes were down, and we all sat together in the living room with hot drinks and ridiculously yummy lemon cupcakes. We parted ways around 11:00, which is quite a bit later than any of us really make it these days, but it was nice to sit and visit, as always.

So all that being said, its time for bed. While my kids sleeping through the night is a HUGE gift to me, I have been spoiled for quite some time, and 8:00am still feels uncharacteristically early. I’ll get used to it one day, I hope.

Sleep well, all. Monday is behind you 🙂