Are Poptarts Healthy?

So Ben has to be the "leader" at preschool when he goes back to school next week. I asked him today what he wanted to take for a snack. He said, "mmmm, how about chocolate chip cookies?" I said, "nope, it has to be something healthy," to which he responded "are poptarts healthy?" I said, "they sure aren't". So he said, "Well, what's healthy? You tell me.". Pretty funny. This from the kid who had a lunch of glazed donut and cheetos on New Year's Day. Wherever would he get the idea that poptarts are healthy? At his "new school" (aka daycare) they have "helpers" for things. He has brought this concept home and is the "helper" for everything including lights, doors, remote controls, phones, toilet paper, flushing, the list goes on and on. He will say "I will open this door because that is what helper I am.". It's great. However, the really, really great part is that I get all the crap helper jobs like taking off his shoes and putting the dishes in the sink. He tells me that's what helper I am. Awesome.

Zach and Maddie are also doing pretty great. We actually moved all three of our kids to one bedroom upstairs, by us, which has its pros and cons. I told Matt that when I originally came up with this concept that hey, the Gosselins had six kids in one bedroom. Later I got to thinking, I should maybe (just maybe) not be taking parenting advice from the Gosselins. Anyway, the kids seem to like it and it hasn't been too bad. It is great having them just across the hall from us instead of down in the basement, however, Zach is still not really sleeping through the night and he will take any excuse to get up.

I did get my Xmas cards printed. If you are lucky, you may just have them in your hands by St. Patrick's Day.

Happy Birthday Jesus...Let's Have a Poop Fest

C'mon kids, don't you know that Christmas is a sacred day? These things shall be held sacred: you shall sleep until at least 8 am on Christmas morning, you shall eat some sort of baked good for breakfast and you shall not take a disgusting poop that your mother has to clean up! Well, our Christmas morning was one for three. Our kids were up at 6:30 and despite us trying to convice them that Santa just may take their stuff back for getting up that early, they called us on our bluff and were ready to have at it. We did have a delicious baked good for breakfast after the disgusting show of materialism at its best followed by all three of my kids taking utterly disgusting number twos. I mean, seriously, on Christmas? But, what do you do?

If you are wondering where your Brogan family Christmas card is, well, honestly, it isn't even started yet. I am so behind that I had to give Matt's mom an IOU for Christmas because I also haven't even started the calendar we usually give her each year. And, as if to rub my face in my personal failures, I get a beautiful Christmas card from my good friends the Smiths (it was really cute Kerry), and I was like c'mon...even the Smiths got their Xmas card out and I don't even have a decent picture of my three kids together! (Kerry, I hope you know that I write this in love and appreciate the fact that I measure my personal failures against your successes).

We did have a big week if you don't count Christmas with the fact that Zach had his ENT visit, had another raging ear infection and had tubes four days later (he got them this Tuesday). All in all, it went pretty well. He was super peeved when they brought him back from recovery but a bottle, cereal bar and 4 hour nap later he seemed to be back to his old sweet self. He seems to be having some balance issues (or maybe it is the new laminate floor we put in (courtesy of Dennis) but I'm sure he will adjust. Apparently the ENT had to suck a whole bunch of crap out of his ear, and give him two more shots of antibiotics as the regular stuff just doesn't seem to cut it anymore, so hopefully this procedure will take care of all of that.

Ben and Maddie had a great Christmas morning, but Ben is a little confused on the finer points of how Christmas works. We kept asking him if he thought Santa came and he ran right by his presents to go upstairs to see if Santa was outside. So, he was a little disappointed by the fact that he didn't get a personal visit and present delivery from Santa Claus (thank you Polar Express), but did enjoy his spoils. Maddie just does a really good job of following Ben's lead. They were both pretty fascinated by the fact that Santa ate their cookies and drank their milk, more so then the fact that the old fat guy spent way too much on them bringing them all this great stuff that they asked for and then some, so....note to self for next year:)

I hope you and yours all had a great Xmas season and I promise I will get a card out as soon as I get a decent picture of all three of my kids, in other words, 2017. Merry Christmas everyone oh, and Happy Birthday Jesus!

I Don't Even Know Where to Start

It feels like I have been going non stop yet getting nothing done for the last several weeks. I have been CONSUMED with work, which is both good and bad. Our auction ended today and was a huge success, which makes the hard work seem sort of worth it, yet I look back at the last three weeks and it seems like a blur. We have also been having some crazy medical things with Zach. I can't even remember what my last blog was about, if I touched on the hospital trip with a chest xray and blood draws and antibiotic shot (s) for the ear infection that wouldn't go away. So last week we had his nine month check up/ear check up and the infection was gone (finally!) but being the monster he is, his head is abnormally large (and keeps getting bigger). To be on the safe side we had to get a head ultrasound to make sure there was no fluid around the brain. So three hours and much negative musing later, I hear back from the doctor that he is fine...just big headed. We are off to the ENT and tubes will most likely be in our immediate future (and hopefully before the end of the year as we have an already met deductible). Then there was a week or two there when Matt and I were toying with the will we/won't we go to the bowl game with the Hawks. The answer was we would go to Phoenix, we would go to Orlando, but not so much Miami. Now, we are back to deciding where we will head this spring for our five year anniversary (I am happily accepting destination advice). Ben and Madilyn continue to do pretty well at school. Ben is still having a pretty hard time getting dropped off, but is always having fun when we pick him up. He has been incessantly singing Frosty the Snowman as he will be performing this Friday at his preschool holiday party. I'm pretty pumped for our first preschool concert. Poor Zach, I'm sure by the time his first preschool concert comes around I'll be like "really, this Friday?....hmmm....I'll check my calendar." Ben has been trying to discipline me and Matt by saying things like "do you understand?" "is that a deal?" following long diatrides that usually include things like I will eat this pop tart and then wear my pajamas the rest of the day, do you understand? or I am going to play with Thomas trains all day, not go to bed and cry when you drop me off at school, is that a deal? Pretty great. Madilyn is two going on thirty five. She is learning all of Ben's xmas songs by osmosis, and claims that Jingle Bells is her song and is happy to tell you that if you try to sing it around her. She does awesome at school and we are going to try to knock out potty training over Matt's shutdown. That would mean Ben is out of pull ups and Maddie would be out of diapers. Throw a party...two down, one to go! Now, if we can just knock off paying daycare and buying formula, we may just be millionaires! BTW, if you are usually a person on my Xmas card list and I think I have resigned to the fact that I won't be doing Xmas cards this year. I might send out a nice holiday email or something, but seriously, the cards cost us like $50 and then it's another $100 for the postage...that is a nice Xmas present for me:) Or a charity or something. Anyway, I am eating into my precious alone time, so I best scat...I'll try to be a better updater:) And dieter:) and exerciser:)...who am I kidding? It'll probably be another three weeks, I'm having a snack before I go to bed and I may work out one more time this month (to bring my grand total up to twice). Ah, got to love winter.

A Rough Couple of Weeks

If you, my faithful readers, have been wondering why I have been neglecting you or if you my friends and family have been wondering why I have been neglecting you, or if you, my husband and children wonder I have been neglecting you, I only have one answer for you: there is just not enough Jessi to go around. Does anyone else ever feel like this? It has been a rough couple of weeks in the Brogan household. My good friend and coworker Sandi had her baby a couple of weeks ago (I know, I know there are babies all around me, but don't worry, I haven't caught the baby fever again, just yet) and being the loyal employee and burnt out stay at home mother that I am (yep, six months=burnt out) I headed back to work. Ergo, my kids had to start at a daycare, ergo Ben is being a big ol' pain in my keester. That is about as nice as I can say it. He has been pitching FITS everytime I drop him off and at the same time ripping my heart out of my chest, holding it above is little blond haired head, doing a little dance, throwing it on the juice stained floor, rubbing some graham cracker crumbs in it, and then stomping on it. To the layperson it might just look like a three year old having to be restrained by his teacher all the while yelling at me down the hall "MOM don't leave me in this place, MOM MOM MOM I have to ask you something! MOM DONT GO", but I know what it really is. It's awesome. Maddie on the other hand, LOVES "school" and it is doing some wonders for her. She has given up her binky (okay, okay, except at bed), is peeing on the potty and is about 50% less whiny than usual. Zach is pretty indifferent. He usually is happy when I drop him off and happy when I pick him up, although he did cry the other day when I handed him over and that was just about the straw that broke the camels back. But I stayed strong (or stubborn, or selfish...I'm not sure which it is yet). So between working as much as I can (I'm pretty much doing two people's jobs, plus our receptionist quit and then the replacement we hired got fired, so it's been good times at work too), trying to take care of stuff at home (which I feel like I am barely getting by at) and sleeping when I can, I haven't had a lot of time to catch up with all my friends. So, this is my public apology. I miss you all. Once my son returns to his fun loving, sweet self, maybe we will venture back out in public.

Where Does the Time Go?

So, have I told everyone that Zach is crawling? Everywhere? He is the fastest, nosiest baby that I ever have met. It is crazy, the kid has some sort of sixth sense for finding cords and then ripping them out from under the carpet where they once peacefully rested. He has two little teeth, all the better to scream at 11:00 every night. Okay, those two don't really go together, but I just wanted to point out that Zach still pretty much wakes up every night.

I have officially, well part timingly, rejoined the work force. A girl who I work with is about two seconds from having a baby, so I am going to help cover her maternity leave. I'm working about thirty hours a week and because my bestest babysitter recently had her baby, my kids officially have been enrolled in their first daycare center. I think it will actually be really great for Ben's learning skills, Maddie's social skills, Zach's independence skills and mom's sanity skills. I'm taking this class for church and it has a lot to do with figuring out who you are and let me tell you who I am not: a person who is geared towards being home with three kids all day, every day.

A couple of funny things that Ben has done recently that need to be immortalized in blog world: He recently told Matt that "I have to poop and it is going to be a while" and when coming home from a midweek trip that included a visit to the John Deere Pavillion, The Imagination Movers concert and a trip to visit cousin Jacque at the Iowa Children's Museum, it finally took a toll on him and he actually succumbed to a nap in the car. However, being the most efficient little three year old that he is, he took the time to have his snack of cheese popcorn while he was sleeping. It was one of the funnier things I have ever seen him do and can imagine that when I see him doing it about 18 years from now with the cold pizza of his choice, it won't be quite as funny. And speaking of flashforwards (I haven't watched the show, but heard it was great, so thought I would reference it here) he was taking an awful long time in the bathroom so I busted in on him to see what he was doing and I found him on the floor, shirt off, pants down with a bottle of lotion. I asked him what are you doing? and he told me, mom, I just needed some lotion so I put it on my belly and my knees, see? It was pretty cute, but I couldn't help thinking about how a very similar scene is not going to be so cute, in say, god, I hope never, but probably 11 years or so. Start praying for me now...I have a feeling that having a 3, 2 and 7 month old is going to be a cakewalk compared to a 15, 14 and 12 year old.

Anyway, as Ben keeps informing me, Maddie is not going to go back to sleep (she has been fussing the entire time over the monitor), so I better get back to the duty at hand, which is enjoying my one day at home with my kids...how close is it to five o'clock?

A Busy Week!

So, to start out, go ahead and scratch our "Parents of the Year" Nominations. As I was just blogging about Zach's fits, I finally had enough and took him to the doctor and turns out he has an ear infection. That was probably the problem all along. Oops. Good news is that last night he slept until three with only a brief fit at 11. Much better. At least for one night. Madilyn had her two year check up today. She didn't cry a bit, even when they gave her a shot. She is 25% for weight, 50% for height, 75% for head. Not too shabby. Got both the kids Flu Mist and now just have to wait for the H1N1 vaccination, which I envision us having to wait outside in the snow in a line of about 500 people only to get to the front to find out that they are out. BTW, if that really is the situation, I think we are taking our chances with the virus. I've heard a lot of kids aroung here are sick, but what are you going to do? That's what happens when the weather turns from summer to winter on a dime.
It's been a busy week around here as our beloved friends Travis and Cerrita Anderson had their FOURTH baby, Jaxon Joseph. I was actually there to see the little guy born which was crazy, gross and beautiful all at the same time. It was also fast. I told Cerrita she makes it look easy. Little Jaxon was three weeks early, and only 5 lbs 4 oz and wouldn't cry. Unfortunately, he is in the NICU (for probably 10+ days) to get a little stronger and fight off the infection in his lungs. He is so stinking cute and so stinking little. Say a prayer or two for the little guy.

Madilyn is Two!

Happy Birthday to Maddie! She is celebrating by being a pretty big grouch and insisting on wearing pajamas. Ah, welcome to having a two year old girl who knows way too many words. The good mother in me should say that she is sassy and sweet at the same time, but the truth of the matter is that right now, she is mostly sassy. However, I do attribute some of that to the fact that I think she is getting another molar and it is wearing on her, but maybe that is just wishful thinking. She got a new pink potty for her birthday (thank you Schaefers!) and did go on that a couple of times. That is a good sign. One less baby in diapers would be helpful. As for the other two, they are both doing pretty well. Zach is still throwing a fit just about every night at 11. It is starting to get really annoying. Ben is a pretty good three year old. He does a pretty good job of playing with toys on his own, but man, is he ever a tattle tale. I think he is pretty sure he is the third parent in this family of ours, so from his point of view, he is just doing his duty as a good dad. I celebrated Maddie's second birthday with my 8th (or is it 9th, I've kind of lost count) bout of mastitis, so I write to you today with a dish towel strapped around my chest...my first step to weaning Zach. I figured I'm already going to be in pain because of the infection, I might as well go all out. Please do not brush up against me in the next 5-7 days. It won't be pretty.