I wrote an entire entry this morning defending my parenting choice to teach my children to say, “Yes, ma’am” and “Yes, sir.” And then it occurred to me…why do I care? It’s a very difficult thing to explain to people who truly hate it, and the people on the fence? Don’t judge me about it, they just might not teach their own kids the same thing. So why am I wasting an entire blog entry on defending myself to people who just hate it and won’t ever understand why I do it?

Instead…let’s look at cute pictures of my kids. And trains.

I took my kids to look at some old trains this weekend. Wes is obsessed with trucks and trains and anything BIG and LOUD. I decided to take my fisheye lens out, but I put it on a camera that I had previously set the iso to 1600 for a low-light situation and forgot. So, all of my fisheye photos from our adventure turned out grainy. This was a bit depressing as I took some cute ones with the kids and the trains, so I opted to do a few Photoshop tricks to try to make the grain look intentional.

(Sidenote: This is why I could never be a professional portrait photographer. I do this kind of screwup ALL THE TIME.)

Did it work? Does it look like the noise (or grain) in that photo was totally planned? Or is it obvious I was covering up a mistake? Either way…the grain just added some interesting texture to the photos of the trains. So, no FAIL there!

The kids were bored because they wanted to get in the trains, but I promised them we would ride the train on September 11th. This museum takes the trains out several times a year so we made sure to get tickets to the next ride. I can’t wait. I’m hoping Wes will really enjoy it since he’s so into things like that right now. Now, he has his favorites. He’d probably poop his diaper over excitement if I could figure out a way to get him on a Blue Recycling Truck! (his favorite) or a Big Yellow School Bus! (his second favorite) – but for now? The train will have to do.

We’re still alive, I promise! Still very busy unpacking and getting the old house ready to sell. LilZ’s childhood friend that comes to visit every summer is also here for two weeks so that adds it’s own element of very fun chaos to our lives. I just wanted to pop in and let you all know I have uploaded some more pictures to flickr – my favorite being this one above. Wes used to help me cook all the time at the old house and I love that this house hasn’t changed that. Here he is – in our new kitchen – stirring beans before I put the on the stove. Sometimes I just feel like my life is perfect.

And then he pours the beans on the floor. But, you know…still pretty close to perfect.

AndyZ’s birthday was Friday, and to celebrate I booked the evening solid with dance recitals and then a camping trip at the Botanical Gardens. Go me! I’m the master of planning, you know. I mean, what boy doesn’t want to spend his birthday watching his sister dance? It’s the dream celebration!

The camp-out, on the other hand, we knew he’d love. We’ve only been able to do one of the camp-outs since AndyZ was born because of rain so I was thrilled that the bad weather cleared out before Go! time. He didn’t remember much from the last trip as he was, you know, a baby. If you’ll recall, I camped there a few days before I was scheduled to deliver the birthday boy so it was a bit fitting to be there again on his second birthday. One of the staples of the Gardens, a wonderful man named Harvey, came up to talk to us and asked us how old AndyZ was. I said, “Two. Today! We actually camped here two years ago a few days before he was born.” He looked up at me and said, “I thought that was you. We tell that story a lot.”

HA! We’re a story now! The crazy pregnant lady camping mere days before she was due to give birth! I’m famous.

It was loads of fun, although MrZ opted to stay home and build a closet. Jeez…some people are just so selfish.

I wish every one of you could do something like this in your town. It is all of the fun parts of camping, without any of the stress. Someone else brings the food. It’s only for one night so you don’t worry about bathing. There are tons of other families in a safe environment. And there are wonderful Garden employees there to tell you all of the cool things you miss on your normal visits. Like giant spiders and millipedes! Yum! If you don’t mind the effort of loading your camping gear for one night, and then spreading it all in your yard the next day to dry, it really is the best way to take small children camping. AndyZ loved it, especially the 9 o’clock s’mores. I didn’t love those as much as I was up until about 10:30 bouncing him around the area singing to him, trying to get him to sleep. I’m praying I stayed far enough from the other tents that no one could hear my terrible voice.

All in all? Great night. The kids slept great and I did too, considering! And then Sunday? We celebrated the real way at Mimi and Grandpa’s house with cake and bubbles!

I’m looking forward being able to host future birthdays in our new home (Me: Thinking Optimistically) since it will be big enough. I don’t see how people have birthday parties for kids in their home without a place to lock them up. Which is what I plan on doing. With chains and shackles. We’ll call it a Jail Party! I won’t have to even make good food because Jail doesn’t have good food!

(I’m not going to be very good at this, am I?)

Wes (I’m sorry, I call him Wes on Twitter and Facebook so the whole AndyZ thing is getting more difficult to remember over here…I may have to officially change) is very aware of his surroundings. He is also very observant and very concerned about things being…off, and always needs to bring any of these things to the attention of whomever is nearest to him. Example: At Hobby Lobby the other day he says, “Oh No, Momma! Yook! Paint! Yook!” I turn to where he’s pointing and a paint bottle (the small acrylic kind) is slightly tilted in it’s row. It’s not going to fall, there are several others holding it in, but it concerned him nonetheless. I quickly pushed it back right while the employee stocking items down the aisle kinda giggled silently.

When he hears birds he must immediately make sure everyone around him hears them too. If he sees a cow? You’ll know. If he sees a dog, or a balloon, or anything that he wouldn’t normally expect to see in his everyday surroundings? He’ll point and shot about it with his already-huge eyes even BIGGER in SHOCK over the situation. “MOMMA! BIIIIRRRRRDDDD!” He’ll shout as he points at the picture of Big Bird on the birthday card he just saw. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

His latest obsession is the Moon. He saw it Monday morning and was all, “Momma, Yook! Whats dat?” I said, “That’s the Moon!” For the entire ride home he would keep an eye on it in the sky. When we would turn and it would “move” he would freak out when he saw it again like, “Mom! There it is now…OVER THERE! How does it do that?” He has trouble understanding that it’s not there all day and he really has trouble understanding why he can’t hold it. Whatever his difficulties are with it as a concept, however, he is totally in love with it. I let him come outside with me yesterday morning before taking LilZ to school to just sit in the driveway and look at it. He just kept pointing, “Moon!” and then periodically reaching just to make sure I wasn’t lying when I told him he couldn’t hold it. “It’s too far AND too big!” I assured him, but he’s not going to take my word for it, of course. He’s no dummy.

Nikki joined us, because she doesn’t like to miss out, but she found the whole outing quite anticlimactic. I mean…she knows she can’t hold the moon, she’s seen it in the daytime sky before, she really doesn’t get the whole craze. She joined us anyway, though. Because even she can’t help but be sucked into her brother’s excitement.

Nikki thinks, Eh. Not as exciting as you made it out to be. I was hoping it would be pink.

This shot is Straight Out Of the Camera because, like Heather, I feel like I have to remind you that HIS EYES ARE REALLY THAT BLUE.

I did nothing to his eyes, here. I did “erase” some oatmeal on his lips though. In case you were wondering.

Since we’ve been on a sharing kick lately…you and I…sharing things that work for our families and our kids, I want to add to the collection. We showed this “trick” off the other day at a breakfast and when one of the Moms watched it in action she wondered out loud if it was too late to start with her 2+ year old. Since we started awhile back with AndyZ, it does seem time is essential so I’ll share it with you know. We did it with NikkiZ too and sometimes still use it to this day.

When AndyZ starts crying – essentially for no real reason – we tell him to CALM DOWN.

That’s it.

What?

Okay…so we say it slowly and dramatically. “Caaaalmm….Doowwwwnnn.” (At one point he started beating us to the punch. We’d say, “Caaaalllmmm…” and he’d rush to say, “….Dooowwwnnn.”) Then we say, “Take a DEEP BREATH.” And we start doing the Lamaze deep breathing technique with him. In the beginning he would stop crying and start focusing on breathing with us. Now…he knows the drill so well…that we just have to tell him to take DEEP BREATHS and he’ll do it and stop the crying.

This was an essential activity with his sister who tended to favor that quick freak outs that involved a total meltdown of all senses. We felt like teaching her this tended to stop the downward spiral into CRYING MELEE which every parent tries to avoid. The other thing is that once they calm down, we immediately address whatever it was that caused them to freak out. Did someone take your toy? Do you want to be held? Did you want a cookie? Are the zombies coming? We wouldn’t give in, necessarily, but it at least gave us an opportunity to say, “You can’t have a cookie now. Those are for special occasions. Would you like some spinach instead?” And somehow, that seems to work better than trying to communicate with them while they’re crying because then everyone just loses 12.4 ounces of sanity and let me tell you something: NONE OF US HAVE ANY SANITY TO SPARE.

Now…your turn to share. How do you approach a potential meltdown in your family? Do you have hypodermics of sedatives readily available? Can I have one?