meeting for the first time

Introducing Claire Elizabeth

The newest member of the Brueseke family has arrived! Claire Elizabeth was born at 6:59am on Oct 27 weighing 7lbs 10oz and 20.5in long. She is beautiful, with lots of DARK hair - two things I was not expecting! (EDITED: the two things I was not expecting were lots of hair and dark hair - I was of course expecting she would be beautiful - Michael pointed out that this didn't sound quite right!) I just assumed she'd be blonde like her big brother...and I think she has more hair now than I had at 2 yrs old. We're doing wonderful -resting and enjoying our sweet little girl. Here's a few pictures to for now:

naptime adventures, part II

On Thursday afternoon I put Boden down for a nap, after about 30 minutes of not hearing him running around anymore I was certain he was asleep. So, I decided to take a nap myself. About 1 1/2 hrs later I woke up to him screaming "Mama! Get me down!" I ran into his room to find him standing inside the second drawer of his dresser! (this was one moment I wish I had a picture of, but wasn't going to just leave the poor kid in the dresser while I went to find my camera, besides...it didn't look all that safe :) )

After I got him down from the drawer I looked over to his bed....

It's probably hard to tell by the picture, but he has gotten into the changing table and found all kinds of interesting things that I didn't even realize were in there - cortizone cream, tubes of vaseline, tubes of antibiotic ointment, lansinol cream, various thermometers, pacifiers, combs & brushes...and of course some books and stuffed animals too. Looks like he had quite the party while I was napping!

I notice there is quite a strong smell in the room too, and as I take a closer look at Boden I realize he's definitely got something in his hair....
I look a little more closely at the items on the bed and it hits me...

A tub of vicks baby rub. Nice job Boden. He proudly tells me he was fixing his hair for the hockey game. ??? No idea why he thought he was going to a hockey game, or why he thought he needed to fix his hair for said hockey game, but he was VERY proud of himself. Apparently he thought it looked a lot like Daddy's pomade that we sometimes put in his hair.

In case you're wondering - it takes 3 days and approximately 17 washes with various shampoos, dish soaps, and household cleaners to remove vicks rub from ones hair. I seriously considered shaving his head after about 10 washes.

This naptime nonsense is driving me crazy, but how can you stay mad when they're this adorable?

Fall Festival

A couple Saturdays ago Boden and I headed to a nearby park to checkout the local Fall Festival. They had all kinds of fun (FREE) stuff for kids and it was a fairly nice day among all the cold rainy ones we'd been having.

There wasn't a lot of parking, mosltly just street parking along the neighborhoods. While we were trying to find a spot I did get to be entertained while watching a man try to parallel park in a spot that was CLEARLY not big enough for his car. He kept bumping into the car in front of him, then backing up into the one behind him, then bumping the one in front of him....again...and again...until he finally sort-of sqeezed into the spot. It was like something you would see in a movie. What made this even more humorous was the police man who sat there and watched him and waited until he got out of his car and then casually wrote him a ticket.

Boden was a little too shy to get his face painted, but he did get a paw print painted on his hand that he was quite proud of:

We decorated some funny glasses at the Magic House tent:

Got a balloon animal frog:

dug for gold:

and watched the other kids jump in the big bouncy inflatables. He wasn't too interested in getting in there with them though.

sleep update

Thanks everyone for all the great advice you left me here or emailed to me. I know most all parents go through these things, so its encouraging to hear what you've done that works. We're still not "there" yet, but we've had a few good days and a few rough ones. For example, today he's down for a nap without a fight and didn't try to come out of his room once. But, yesterday was a completely different story. It was by far the most entertaining to me (probably because I wasn't home and Michael was dealing with it, but I'm sure Michael will laugh about it one day). Yesterday, Michael put Boden down for a nap around 1:30. By about 2:30 he started coming out of his room throwing his clothes (which he had emptied out of his dresser) into the hallway. Around 3pm he took all the books of his bookshelf and piled them up on his bed. And I think it was around 3:30 that Michael took this photo with his phone when he came into the room:

little stinker had moved his bed across the room, climbed into the crib, and was jumping in the crib (which is pretty unsafe considering I had adjusted the mattress to it's highest position in preparation for the new baby).

My, oh, my - children do make life interesting, don't they?

Parenting Advice Needed!

Believe it or not my adorable little 2 year old can be quite stubborn sometimes. Over the past several weeks he's become more and more stubborn and demanding about getting his way regarding snacks, toys, cartoons etc. He will argue with me that he wants to watch a certain cartoon when it isn't even on at that time, and throw a tantrum because he wants to watch it NOW. Two days ago we were driving down the highway and he kept trying to pull the handle on the door open because, as he told me "I want to drive in MY OWN car!" I had never checked to make sure the child lock was set on the door before, but it sure is now! I realize that all these things are just him trying to assert his independence and find out what he does and does not have control over, and while it's driving me crazy, I can handle it.

But, this new thing he has started has me at a complete loss on what to do. The past few nights he has refused to go to bed. He's been in his toddler bed for several weeks now, and doing just fine, but suddenly he won't stay in bed, or in his room (he recently learned how to open doors). He keeps running out of his room and asking me to cover him back up. Thursday night it took probably an hour and a half of taking him back to bed every 5 minutes before he finally went to sleep. Last night we started around 8:30 and finally all went to bed, in our bed, after 11pm and he was up bright and early at 6:30am. Then today, at naptime it took an hour and a half to get him to stay in his room. He's in there now, and I think he's sleeping, but I'm not totally sure.

I realize we probably did the worst possible thing by letting him fall asleep in our bed last night, but honestly, we've had a rough week, were physically and emotionally exhausted and we just couldn't handle it anymore, so we caved.

I've tried encouraging him that if he stays in his room during naptime/at bedtime that he can have a sticker/special treat when he gets up, which worked when we first put him in the toddler bed. I've tried just putting him back in bed without talking to him. I've tried leaving a night light on (at bedtime). I've prayed over him. Michael has prayed over him. We've prayed over him together. I've tried warning him that he'll get a spanking if he comes out of his room again - which isn't working at all because he doesn't seem to care (well, he gets upset when I spank him, but he does the same thing 2 minutes later).

So - all you parents who've been here before...what did you find that works? doesn't work? ideas? I fully expected him to act out a little after the baby arrived, but if he's already acting this way before she gets here, what should I be expecting in a few weeks?!