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When you are a kid you often wonder if your mom has eyes in the back of her head since she seems to know everything that’s going on when she couldn’t possibly see you. Now that I’m a mom I know those eyes are actually called ears. Ryan is amazed sometimes that I know exactly what Ethan’s doing when he’s in another room. It’s really just that I know where everything in the room is, what he’s most likely playing with when he’s quiet, and exactly what all of his toys sound like. So when I hear a certain toy playing when he’s supposed to be in bed for naptime, I can pretty much guarantee that he’s broken the no getting out of bed during naptime rule even though I can’t see him.  Well, now I actually can see him since we have a video monitor, which I love by the way!, but that’s beside the point.  Of course, I do still use various tools around the house to help my eyes see what Ethan’s doing that I never really noticed before having him, like the oven door, fireplace glass, tv, and anything else shiny that will show me his reflection.  So in those cases I’m just using the eyes in the front of my head, it’s just that Ethan hasn’t figured out how I can see him.  I guess part of being a mom is using all the resources at your diposal in ways that you hadn’t thought of before to try to keep on top of things.  The fun part is not letting your kids know how you do it.

I finally figured out what the big construction project near our house is good for, aside from decreasing the flooding of the area around the creek, which is the actual point of the project.  It is fabulous for entertaining an almost 2 year old boy who is fascinated by big trucks.  :)  We went for a walk last Thursday, and I just happened to go the opposite direction from the way we normally go because of a big truck blocking the way so we went on the main road across from the construction area.  There was construction equipment out, and one backhoe was picking up large pieces of pavement, dropping them to make them smaller, and then putting them into the back of a dump truck.  Ethan was riveted.  I thought it was pretty interesting too, but wasn’t quite as amazed as he was.  So instead of walking, he watched from the stroller and I sat on the ground and we watched the guys work.  For almost an hour.  We went back on Friday.  It was a great source of free, close entertainment.  Well, free is relative I guess since the project is actually my tax money at work and is budgeted for just over one million dollars.  But I didn’t have to take out a credit card or fill up my gas tank so that works for me!  Friday wasn’t quite as interesting so we only watched for about half an hour and then went to the park.  But on the way home we did get to see the really big backhoe (no idea if that’s actually what it was or not) pick up gigantic boulders to put them into place.  It’s a bit of a strange concept, remodeling a creek, but it does look a lot nicer and hopefully won’t flood near as often.  So as long as the big equipment is over there I will continue to take Ethan to watch it.  I’m not sure what I’ll do when they’re done, but there is always construction going on somewhere!

I think I must repeat myself by saying the saying things over and over again a lot.  Ethan has entered the language explosion common to almost 2 year olds and has started saying a lot more phrases.  His favorites (that don’t have anything to do with cars) are “big mess”, “almost”, and “too fast”.  I think I must say that he’s made a big mess about 100 times a day, and now he’s completely capable of identifying when he’s made a big mess.  Not that that stops him from making a big mess, he can just tell me about it now.  He has to help me with cleaning up his room after making said big mess by throwing his blocks into a big bin, and apparently I say “almost” a lot.  Hopefully he’ll also learn “try again”!  And now his preferred method of going down the stairs is by holding my hand and going down like a big boy, and again I must say “too fast” a lot because now he says it when he first starts going down before we’ve even gotten anywhere.  It’s funny how little I identified the common things I say until I started hearing them come out of his mouth.  Of course, he’s picked up “big truck”, “fire truck”, and “school bus” on his own too.  It’s a lot of fun hearing what he has to say, most of the time. He still does just babble sometimes and there are times when I would wish for a little more quiet, but I love being able to get a little window into his mind, even if it does just reflect back a bit of me that I never noticed before.

Last night was a bad night.  I won’t say horrible because horrible would have been if the false fire alarm had been real.  Just before midnight, we were awoken out of a sound get-sleep-when-you-can-because-you-still-have-a-newborn sleep to an extremely loud fire alarm going off in our whole house.  The alarms in the whole house are wired in together so that when one goes off, they all go off, which is fabulous except if one is going off because it’s defective and not because there is a real fire.  Freaked out would be an understatement of how I responded.  Fortunately Ryan is more level-headed in a crisis than I am because my first completely logical response was to start screaming.  Keep in mind I had just woken up and not much of anything was making sense.  He figured there probably wasn’t a real fire since there was no smoke, I just wanted the noise to stop and to get the heck out of dodge.  So we investigated and finally found the culprit in the basement after said alarm went off a second time, further scaring the crap out of me.  No, there was not a fire anywhere, Ryan checked every piece of electronic equipment in the house for any signs of smoke or anything unusual.  Ethan and Isaac?  They slept through the whole thing, oblivious to the ear-splitting alarms going off just feet above their heads.  Which is good because the last thing this freaked out mom needed was freaked out children to try to calm.  Yes, their hearing is just fine, they are keenly attuned to every little noise each one makes in the morning ensuring that once one is awake they are both awake for the duration.  We did eventually get back to sleep last night, it just took about 3 hours to do so.   So we’re a little tired today, which was fabulous since we had family pictures this morning (those are some pretty nice bags under our eyes).  I would love to say we took the offending alarm out back and beat the snot out of it, but it’s still sitting on the counter sans battery.  Also today we are going to the store to buy a bunch of 9V batteries to replace in every smoke detector in the house, because who really does that every year? I did learn that I’m not that great at responding to a crisis in the middle of the night so I hope if we ever do have a real fire that it’s in the middle of the day when I may still freak out but will at least be a little more aware while doing so.

Ethan loves music.  He loves listening to it, dancing to it, singing to it, and can’t go to sleep without it.  One of his favorite songs is “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and he knows all the motions.  We sing it every night at bedtime and in the car a lot too.  The other night we had cake after dinner (see the five years post) and while Ethan was eating he started kicking his feet and saying “happy feet”.  He also clapped his hands and patted his head, which was really funny since his hands were covered with chocolate cake.  :)  It was really sweet; he was so excited and just wanted to show it.

The Bible says we should be more like little children in our faith, and we saw an example of that on Sunday at church.  Ethan stays in the nursery during the service, but we usually go get him in time for the last few songs.  I brought him into the service at the end so that he could sing with us, because like I said he loves music, and he was seriously rocking out.  He was dancing so much I almost dropped him!   It was really fun to see such joy worshipping God.  I know he probably doesn’t understand that that was what he was doing, but I don’t really know that that matters.  I’m glad my little guy is so happy, and very glad that he lets me know it.

One of the things both Ryan and I love to do together is get a good deal.  We enjoy spending our Saturday mornings (not all, but quite a few) going garage saleing or to baby stuff sales.  We’re fairly picky about what we’ll buy, and we’ve gotten some really great deals on a lot of things that have either been brand new or things that don’t matter if they’re new or not.   And we’ve learned quite a few things in the process.  One, the nicest neighborhoods don’t necessarily have the nicest stuff.  We spent part of the morning driving around a really nice neighborhood that was having a community garage sale and didn’t really find much of anything worth buying.  Sometimes these areas will have great things so we try to go, but like today many times we find the best buys in the more middle class areas.  Two, craigslist is great for finding listings but a lot of people don’t know how to use it to their advantage.  Don’t tell me you have too much to list, I won’t stop by if I have no idea what you’ll have to offer, so take the time to write some of it out.  I don’t need to know everything but I do want to know if you’ll have beer posters or exercise equipment or kids toys, it makes a difference as to whether I’ll make the effort or not.  And please learn how to spell!  The things you wear are clothes, not cloths.  Three, the way you lay things out really does matter.  We passed a lot of houses having sales that we didn’t even see because they actually had everything in the garage.  I don’t think they are called garage sales because you have them in the garage, rather they are to clean out the garage.  Ryan stopped by one house today that apparently had a lot of nice stuff (I wasn’t there, I was feeding Isaac in the park) but it was all in boxes and you couldn’t tell what anything was from the road.  I hate it when people just do “drive bys” when we have a sale, but we do the same thing to a lot of people.  If you don’t give me a good reason to stop and see what you have, then I won’t.  Four, doing something with your spouse that you both really like is a great way to get some couple time even with the kids.  And it’s a fairly cheap way to do it.  We spent a lot of time together as a family today and had a great time doing it.  It sparks conversation and you have to work together to decide how to best spend your allotted money for the day.  Five, driving around following whatever random signs you see is a great way to see a lot of places you might not otherwise know exist.  We found a great park last weekend with a free tennis court that we want to take advantage of some day when we don’t have the kids with us.  Six, your kids can’t tell the difference between new and used and really couldn’t care less how much you paid for something.  Quite a few of Ethan’s toys have come used, and he plays with a lot of them more than the ones that have come in their very own hard to open packages.  I’ve also bought a lot of his clothes at baby stuff sales so he has a pretty extensive wardrobe that I haven’t paid a lot for, and I don’t feel guilty buying my own clothes brand new (not that I ever buy anything that isn’t on sale).  Then when he breaks something or I decide I really can’t stand it, I don’t feel bad about throwing it out.  Seven, you can feel good about being green - recycling someone else’s old stuff and saving some of the green in your wallet.  Eight, you can make fun of the ugly things people have.  We saw one really beautiful house today that was selling some of the ugliest furniture I have ever seen, and we were completely free to make fun of it in the privacy of our own car.  It’s so satisfying to find something you need, want, or just like and to pay so much less for it than the person you are getting it from.  Yes, there are a lot of ugly knick knacks out there, but you may just find a gem in amongst them.

Ryan and I have been married for five years as of today.  I was thinking about that this morning, thinking back to the morning before walking down the aisle, and thinking how much different life is now.  Not only do I not live in the same state anymore, I have two kids, one more cat, a mortgage, lots of experience in home improvements, lessons in patience and communication, and hopefully a more mature outlook on life.  I won’t lie, the first five years of marriage aren’t all roses, as anyone who’s married can tell you, but they’ve been filled with way more good than bad.  I’m still not used to being Mrs. Melton, perhaps because I’m not ever called that, nor am I used to the titles of “wife” or “mother”.  I don’t get used to change very fast!  :)  But I’m used to loving and living with my best friend and two of the sweetest boys on the planet.  There’s nothing like marriage, or being a parent for that matter, for teaching you the things about you that need to change.  I never used to believe that the only person you can change is yourself, and sure gave changing Ryan a valiant effort, but I really do see that more now, not that I always live like it.  I had no idea of what a selfish person I was before getting married, and I still find myself rediscovering that just about every day.  Ryan’s job isn’t to complete me, but part of it is to show me how much more completing I need to become more like Jesus.  The job will never been done this side of heaven, but getting a few steps closer will do everyone in my life a lot of good!

We didn’t do a whole lot for our anniversary, well, I really should say I didn’t do much of anything.  Ryan baked an entire three tier cake!  He knows how disappointed I was in our wedding cake (I doubt anyone else remembers, but it was ugly and not at all what I saw in my head) so he decided to make me a new one.  I think it also had something to do with the fact that he’s tired of hearing me complain about it for the past five years.  :)  He took the afternoon off work and went to a friend’s house to bake the cake, make fondant icing from scratch (tastes way better than store bought by the way), and stack and frost the three cake layers.  It still didn’t turn out just like the one I see in my head, but I think it’s even better because of the thought, time, and effort he put into it.  And because we actually got to eat some of it.  We’re not entirely sure what we’re going to do with the rest of the 2 1/2 layers!  He also picked up dinner on the way home so that neither one of us would have to cook, a feat I still haven’t managed to do other than throwing something from the freezer into the oven since Isaac was born.  So it wasn’t a big flashy anniversary, we have about 50 more years for that, just a comfortable evening at home surrounded by love and family and the life we’ve worked hard to have.  And for me, that’s worth celebrating.

Isaac turned one month old on Tuesday.  It’s hard to believe he’s already one month old and that he’s only been with us for one month.  He’s already growing and changing.  He started out at just over 7 pounds and is already at 8 1/2 pounds.  He’s also grown 1 1/2 inches, though some of that is probably just from uncramping; his momma isn’t that tall you know.  He’s found some of his voice in the past week and is starting to “talk” to me.  He’s also started smiling, though he’s very stingy with his smiles.  Big brother Ethan got a really big one today though!  He’s a pretty quiet little guy and studies everything.  He seems like he’s going to be a studious one, very observant and will take his time to form opinions.  He loves to be held, and is sleeping pretty well on his own.  Hopefully he’ll start stretching out those sleeping periods overnight soon!  He has an uncanny knack for knowing the second I’ve put shampoo in my hair and can’t get out of the shower, which I don’t really appreciate.  He also has a knack for knowing exactly when I need to change Ethan’s diaper, go to the bathroom, have dirty dishwasher loading hands, and generally any time I just can’t get to him at that exact moment.  Hopefully we’ll both learn patience!  He also loves to cuddle and is the happiest when he’s held so he can see my face.  He has adorable feet, the sweetest little hands, and pinkies that have my heart wrapped around them, which is really fortunate for him since he’s managed to puke all down the front of me three times now.  He has lots of dark hair and the sweetest baby smell too.

It’s harder than I thought it would be to have two kids (not really sure what I thought it would be like) but so much more fun already. The boys get along great so far; Ethan is a very good big brother.  He tries to share his cars with Isaac, he lined a bunch of them up next to him on the bed this morning, but he gets mad sometimes that Isaac won’t take them.  He tries to either give him the paci when he’s crying or take it away while it’s being used.  He loves to sit in the crib and point to the stars and circles on the wall and give Isaac kisses.  He likes to sit with me in the evening after bath time so that I can read both boys a story at the same time.  And he gets very agitated if we’re getting ready to leave, and he has his shoes on but Isaac isn’t in his seat yet.  He also is quick to inform inform us the baby “goes” in the bassinet or the swing when he wants undivided attention and feels Isaac is getting too much of his share.  It is already fun to see the interactions between the two of them, Ethan already tries to teach Isaac how to play with his toys, and I know I have so much more to look forward to.  I love my two little boys, and only in having them have I learned how much I can love.

I had a really great day today.  My mom is in town until tomorrow and has been helping me with the boys for the past few days.  Thanks mom!  We went down into Denver to the Nature and Science Museum this morning and just had a great time.  Ethan was so well behaved (he usually is but was even more so today), it was just a pleasure to be with him.  He was interested in all the exhibits, stayed in his stroller the whole time without any complaining, and just had a lot of fun. We got some really cute pictures of him as an astronaut too (Ryan is super jealous!). It was so much fun to teach him things, show him the exhibits, and just watch him absorb the things that he saw.  He was so excited about the animals, the dinosaurs, and the “planes” (space shuttles) - I love seeing his enthusiasm!  It makes me more interested in what I’m looking at to see him so interested.  He had a great time with “Gransee” too.  :)  Isaac had a good time too, he liked the gems area which was about the only area he was awake and not eating in. 

Then when we got home my mom stayed home with the boys while they napped, and I got to go to the store all by myself!  I had been wondering how I was ever going to go clothes shopping with two kids.  The answer: you don’t go with two kids.  It was just about impossible to go with just Ethan, and Isaac doesn’t really add much difficulty, but really they are just too distracting and it’s just not fun or fair to take them.  So my mom stayed with them, and I got some time to myself to go spend some money.  It was a great day!

I had decided yesterday while the boys and I were at the grocery store buying our weekly 5 gallons of milk (yes I did say 5 gallons! (3 skim and 2 whole)) that since today was Mother’s Day I wanted to buy us doughnuts for breakfast since we never have them and they just sounded good.  So we bought a dozen doughnuts knowing that we’d not eat them all before they went stale but it’s easier to just buy the pre-packed box than actually go through the case and pick them out.  So this morning we had our doughnuts, which Ethan highly approved of (have I mentioned that child has a serious sweet tooth?!)  and while we were eating, he christened them “happy cakes”.  I think it’s a pretty accurate observation on his part, don’t you?  :)  I’m pretty sure it’s the first thing he’s given his own name to, and it was pretty stinkin’ cute.  And while we don’t plan on having doughnuts much in the future, I may have to get them occasionally just so Ethan can have his happy cakes.