I wish I could see the video surveillance...

So, on Sunday I asked Brian to run to the store to pick up a few things for dinner. Lauren begged to go with him and he agreed thinking that they could spend a little time together without Nathan. About 30 minutes later, I hear them pull up and Lauren gets out of the car crying and Brian is mad, mad, mad. He tells her to go sit in her room and he'll come talk to her in a minute.

Of course I'm pretty confused, so I wait until she is upstairs and I ask Brian what happened. He begins to tell me about the horrible trip to the store they had. She ran up and down the isles and would run from him when he tried to get her. She was touching EVERYTHING in the store. (By this point, I'm thinking, "This isn't that unusually for her.") Then they get up to the checkout counter and as Brian is putting the groceries on the conveyor belt, my daughter walks up behind him, grabs a hold of his pants, and yanks them down! All the way to his ankles! He was just wearing little elastic-waist shorts so it wouldn't take a lot of effort to get them down. Brian said he calmly reached down and pulled them up. Luckily there was no one in line behind him, but I bet the cashier saw the whole thing.

I laughed and laughed. I laughed so hard I cried. He, of course, didn't think it was as funny as I did. Man, I wish I could see the video surveillance camera of it happening!

Update

A few updates...

Nathan has two teeth! The first broke through the skin last weekend and the second is almost through. I knew he must have been teething with all the fussiness and general discontent. He is so much like Lauren. She was also 7 months when she got her first tooth and she got two at the same time like him. The main difference is that she apparently has a higher tolerance for pain. She was never as unhappy as he is. She fussed a bit, but once they broke the skin she was over it. Not Nathan. He is cranky. All.Day.Long. Our poor sitter, I'm not sure how she is holding up. I guess lots of Tylenol. ;)

Lauren attended her 2nd gymnastics class tonight. She is doing so great! She went right in this time and didn't throw a fit. She actually participates with the other kids. I am so impressed with her. It's funny, she is the tallest girl out there. I don't think I realized how much bigger than other girls she was until this. She says that she really likes going. The bars are her favorite part. Tonight the teacher helped her flip over the bar. She's been wanting to do it since she saw another kid do it, but she's been nervous. She also loves the balance beam. She is getting really good at waking on it. Overall, I am really impressed with the place she is going. The teachers are great with the kids. They are so patient and they try to teach them real gymnastic moves.

Brian went tonight and he said he had fun. It's hard not to enjoy yourself when you are watching a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds do gymnastics.

Gross

I never knew how thankful I was that Lauren, as a baby, was not a spitter until Nathan. Nathan has reflux and, in most cases, it is silent reflux. That basically means that his milk comes back up in his throat without actually coming out of his mouth. He has been on Prevacid since he was three weeks old and it has really helped make him a much happier person. However, more recently he has started spitting up after just about every time he eats. Spitting up isn't even an accurate term. Anyone with a baby that has reflux knows that the volume of milk that comes back up far surpasses a baby that "spits up."

Tonight I had one of those moments that just makes you say "Gross." Just plain, monotone, no excitement "Gross."

Nathan was laying on his changing table getting ready for his bath. I reached down and picked him up and I heard the ominous burp. You know this burp. It's not the normal "I swallowed a little too much air" burp, it's the deep, wet gurgle burp that makes most people start looking for a burp rag. Unfortunately, tonight I didn't have time to find a rag. In one swift motion I picked him up from the changing table and as I was bringing him to my body I heard the burp followed by the splat of "spit up" (I use that word loosely) hitting my cheek, neck and chest.

All I could do was freeze as I felt the warm, stinky milk hit me. I shouted for Brian to "HELP!" and as he walked in he smiled followed by gagging. I quickly handed Nathan to him and walked into our bathroom. When I looked in the mirror, I had chunky, yellowed formula down my cheek, all over my neck, and slowly sliding down my chest to pool up in my bra. Gross.

I've been spit up on before, but never like this. Most things about my children don't gross me out. I can handle snot and boogers and pee and even poop. Drool doesn't bother me even when it is laced with baby food. I can pick up one of my kids from a high chair when they are covered in food mess from head to toe and it doesn't bother me. They're my kids. Nothing about them is too gross. Except for throw up. Yuck. That's all I could say as I was cleaning myself off. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. I really hope he out grows this soon.

Lauren... The Vain One

Lauren has been asking for about a month to take a dance class. I'm not sure where she came up with this, but I have wanted to enroll her in something but I was worried it would go the way of the swim lessons from last summer.

Sidebar: We enrolled her in a 2 week, 4 days a week for an hour, swim lessons at the YMCA last summer. I think we made it to half of the lessons. Lauren would either cry through the whole swim lesson or cry before we would leave. She decided she was scared of the water and even though we were in a Mommy and Me class with babies, she acted like the biggest baby out of all of them. Seriously, there were a couple of 6 month olds in our class.

Anyway, I have been dragging my feet about starting a dance class because I know my child and I know she will not participate for most of the class. I decided we would not enroll her in any sort of professional dance place because I didn't want to waste our money. Everyone at work talks about a place called The Little Gym (we are having Lauren's birthday party there this year) so I called them today and they let us come for a free class to see if we would like it. The dance class consists of 30 minutes of tap and ballet and 30 minutes of gymnastics. When we left there Lauren had decided that she did not want to take dance but did want to take gymnastics. So tomorrow will be our first day of gymnastics. Hopefully she will warm up to it and have fun.

We went to Target tonight to get her a leotard. We had to try them on to make sure we got the right size. I have been in the dressing rooms with Lauren a couple of times now and I am shocked and horrified. :) When she is trying on clothes she struts and spins and really checks herself out in the mirror. Tonight was no different. Once the leotard was on, she immediately turned around, stuck out her butt and really admired herself. She then announced that the one she had on would do. After we had tried them all on (none of the others met her liking) I told her to put her clothes back on. She spent the next several seconds admiring her naked body (she only had panties on) in the mirror. Lots of bending over and lots of sticking her butt out.

I have no idea where this comes from. She hasn't seen Brian or I do this. She is very into what she looks likes. Her vanity definitely comes from Brian, but he certainly doesn't stick his butt out in front of the mirror and check himself out. She's crazy! And very entertaining. ;)

Nathan Like Me?... Scary

I've realized over the past few weeks that Nathan is so much like me it's scary. I have lots of querks that I really hoped would never get passed on. ;) Beside the fact that he currently seems to have my physical characteristics and build (on the shorter side and prone to extra weight), he seems to have several of my other traits.

I am one of those persons who gets hot very easily - always have. I blame this for the main reason I disliked sports so much growing up. I can just look out the window on a summer day and start sweating. I get all red-faced and sweaty just sitting outside in the summer so you can imagine what I'm like if I am doing any sort of physical activity. Lauren seems to have gotten Brian's traits. Brian is one of those people that can run a mile in the middle of summer and barely look like he's worked out. It takes a lot for him to get hot. He never get's red-faced and while he does sweat he doesn't look like I do - hair wet and matted to the side of my face like some sort of cat that has been dunked in water.

Anyway, it became very clear to me on our Seaworld trip that Nathan is, sadly, much like me. Poor thing. Just sitting in the stroller at Seaworld and he was drenched in sweat and his little cheeks were bright red. We shared several water bottles trying to keep cool. While Lauren and Brian were off seeing all the animals at the zoo, Nathan and I were trailing behind panting in the heat and trying to cool off. We were miserable.

We went to the beach this past weekend and he seems to have more of my traits. He sunburns very easily. Lauren has never been sunburned, partially because I lather her in sunscreen and partially because she has Brian's olive-ish skin.

(Soapbox for a moment - I hate seeing young kids burned or darkly tanned. Sun tanning is bad for your skin. I know too many 20-somethings that have had cancer cells removed from their bodies because of all the sun exposure they had in their teen years. As long as I can control it, my kids will be white. Okay, back to my blog.)

It takes a lot for Brian to burn - he usually just tans. So while I am lathering myself with SPF 50, Brian doesn't put anything on and he is just fine. The same seems to be true for our children. Poor Nathan, 15 minutes into our beach trip and he is hot and sweaty and sandy and unhappy. Very much like me as a child. (I hated the beach and still do.) To me there is nothing worse than having dried salt water all over yourself and sand in all kinds of areas sand shouldn't be.

A Day at the Wildlife Ranch

So we are back from our trip to San Antonio. It was fun. Probably a lot more fun for Lauren than for Brian and I, but still fun. We went to Sea World, the zoo and to the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. The latter will be the focus of this entry. :)

Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch is a fun little drive through park that allows people to feed a variety of animals from the comfort of their car. Think safari, but less scary animals. We got to see deer, antelope, gazelles, long horns, goats, zebras, emu, ostriches, etc. It was a neat experience, kind of.

Before I went, I had been warned that the ostriches are a bit forward and will poke their heads into your car looking for food. I was told to make sure we kept our windows up to avoid having to convince a giant bird to remove its head from our car.

So we got to the park in the morning and the trail starts you off with some very disinterested deer and other varieties of grazing animals. We had a blast. They came pretty close to our car and we got some good pictures. They were very polite and would wait a few feet from your car for you to drop food on the ground for them. Lauren would never have been able to see some of these animals this close if not for this place.

As we are driving through we enter a section of the park called "Kenya." Lauren was so excited at the thought of seeing a real zebra up close. She was sitting on Brian's lap helping him drive and Nathan was in my lap trying desperately to eat some of the animal food. (I can't tell you how many times I had to pull the bag of food out of his mouth. He's sneaky at getting it.)

So right as we cross over the cattle guard into the Kenya section I see the car in front of us stop and an ostrich walk up to their car for food. They clearly have their windows up because it quickly looses interest in their car and begins to walk towards our. Laughing I say "Here it comes, let's get the windows up."

And that is when the horror began. I casually reached over and pulled the window switch... and the window would not roll up. At this point the bird is making a beeline for my open window. So I pull it several more times (obviously I hadn't done it right the first time) and it still won't roll up. So I start shouting "Brian, the window, the window." So Brian then tries to roll the window up from his set of controls. By this point the ostrich is at our car and is pecking around the outside of the open window. I start to panic and start screaming "The window, the window." The ostrich must have thought I was inviting him in, because in came his head right for Nathan. So now, I'm trying to climb over the center console and into Brian's lap with Lauren, I'm screaming, Nathan's crying, Lauren's screaming, Brian's screaming and shouting, the ostrich is pecking around the inside of the car. I'm sure everyone in the cars around us could hear us. Brian finally realizes that he had put the window lock on back at the beginning of the park, so he clicks the lock off and starts to roll up the window. Except now the bird's damn head is in the car and Brian doesn't want to hurt it. So he stops rolling the window up which send me into another fit of shouting and screaming and trying to get Nathan away from it. Brian finally gets the window close enough to the bird's neck that it pulls it's head. We get the window up and kick it into gear and get the heck away from it. Once we are away from it, we laugh. I wish I had a video of what we looked liked. I'm sure it was hilarious. All of us screaming and crying and shouting and me and Nathan practically in Brian's lap. It was awful. :)

I wish that was the end of my tail... after we drive away from the attacking ostrich, we come across the zebras. Lauren is thrilled. We roll our windows back down and start tossing food out to them. Apparently zebras are just as aggressive as ostrich, because within a split second, I have a giant zebra head in my window which kicked off the second round of screaming and frantically trying to get the window rolled up. Luckily the window locks were not one this time and we were able to get the window up before anyone was bitten. (Seriously, they both went after Nathan's legs. Clearly the delicious rolls he has all over his body are tempting to wild animals.)

After we get away from the zebras we think we are nearing the exit, we come across the rest of the ostrich. Obviously the first one was just a scout for the rest of them, because we rounded a bend and there had to be 15 - 20 of them. Lauren starts screaming again and thrashing about trying the get away from them. This time the windows were so I got a good picture. You can't say this wouldn't scare the crap out of you...

It was pecking my window! Anyway, needless to say, Lauren cried the whole time through the second time around. You may be asking yourself, why would you go through it a second time? Well, we still had three bags of food, and we really wanted to see the ostrich and zebras attack some other unsuspecting car. :)

I highly recommend visiting this place. It was so neat. Just keep your windows up when you enter the Kenya section. :) Here are a few more pictures of the nicer animals.