John and Gus go to Church. Mom goes Insane.

I got a taste of what my Wednesday nights during Advent will be like on Friday night at our church's joint Reformation service.  Hopefully they won't all be this bad, there were some extenuating circumstances, and to be fair to the boys I'll elaborate a bit.

1.  Hans took John to the doctor on Thursday to check on his cough that has been keeping him up at night for the past few nights.  Since they were already at the doctor's office John got his flu shot by a woman who was not accustom to giving shots to kids.  John got stuck three times before the nurse was finally able to administer the vaccine and in one fell swoop my son no longer loves going to the doctor.  While the shot had nothing to do with his behavior on Friday night, his lack of sleep probably had a lot to do with it.
2.  Gus is just in an unhappy stage of life right now.  He badly wants to crawl, but given the opportunity, he doesn't want to be on the floor for more than 2 minutes at a time.  Therefore, there have been a lot of tears shed around here lately as I refuse to pick him up right away...if he gets mad enough, he'll realize he can crawl.
3.  John went to the Halloween party at the preschool on Friday morning.

BUT both boys had a nice 2 hour nap Friday afternoon.

Now that I feel I have properly defended my boys let me share with you their evil ways.  As I said earlier this was a joint Reformation service.  The pastors at Mt. Calvary (our church), Mt. Zion, Hope and Emmaus decided this would be a great idea to do it again since it went well last year.  Since you'd be hard pressed to find a decent sized group of people who would forgo trick or treating they all decided to have the service on Friday night.  The service started at 7 which means bedtime fell somewhere around the second homily.  We didn't even start the service without a fit since John wanted to sit with his friends (other PK's) and was not only relentless in telling me this, but also rolled under our pew and crawled across the isle to get to their pew...twice.  Five minutes into the service, Gus, who was going through the diaper bag, spotted his bottle and started shrieking.  Do you think that bottle actually had formula in it?  Nope, that would be too easy.  Gus had eaten just an hour before, but there is something about seeing a bottle that gets him into a frenzy.  I quickly made Gus the bottle, hoping to get him to calm down before the opening hymn was over. I succeeded and gave myself a mental pat on the back for a job well done, at that moment I had two quiet kids.  But, it was just for that moment, for not 3 minutes later John started whining that he was hungry and he wanted his daddy and he wanted to see his friends and ...

John finally settled down and laid his head on my shoulder.  All was quiet again.  A few minutes later I heard some snickering from the elderly couple behind me and I turned to look down at John and out of the corner of my eye I saw him hanging over the back of the pew.  Since he was still resting his head on my shoulder I'm not sure how I missed the beginning of this.  I sat Gus next to me on the pew and heaved John back on to the pew.  "I want my daddy" he whispered loudly, I'm not sure you could even call that a whisper. "You will see him after church, but if you do that again I guarantee you will not want to be asking for your daddy."  Putting the fear in him just doesn't work right now.  Sometimes I'll say if you do that again you're going to get a spanking and then he just yells "BUT I DON'T WANT TO GET A SPANKING" embarrassing me to no end.  So, threatening to inform his daddy of his misbehavior doesn't phase him at all because Hans is, by far, his favorite parent.  Hans thinks it is because of all of their bonding time the year I worked when we lived in Ft. Wayne, I think it is because I'm the one who does the majority of the disciplining since I'm home more now.

Back to the service.  As I was threatening John, Gus somehow managed to get a hold of a hymnal and was trying to eat it.  This is a very sticky, or should I say slobbery, situation to be in because I wanted to get the hymnal out of his hands without tearing any pages. I got the hymnal away but he was crushed and just burst into tears.  I got the kids quiet again and then Gus starting spitting, loudly, and talking, dadadadadadada.  John thought this was funny so he started copying Gus. Both boys were having a grand time mimicking each other and would interject laughter here and there.  After several minutes I was able to get everyone settle again and then John went into his 'I want daddy, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, is it over' routine .  He took a small break, maybe to gather his thoughts, and laid his head on my shoulder. It looked like he was about to go to sleep when, out of nowhere, Gus smacks him right in the face.  This started the spitting, dadadadadaing and laughing.  Some how I survived.  Actually I should say, somehow they survived.  After the last hymn John bolted for the stairs, knowing there would be cookies and punch down there.  He is very aware of the fact that he does not get to partake in the after service festivities when he has acted like that in church and I'm betting he was hoping I wouldn't be the mean mom in front of non-members.  Au contraire, I bundled up Gus, went downstairs and led John out to the car, screaming.  Both boys screamed all the way home.  We arrived at home and I put Gus in his crib where he quickly fell asleep.  While I was putting Gus to sleep, John curled up in our bed and fell asleep.  When I  started to change him into his pajamas he mumbled, "I'm sorry you got so mad at me tonight Mommy.  Maybe next time you won't get so mad."  He has already learned how to apologize without actually apologizing.  When do kids start realizing the whole cause and effect thing?

Both boys are actually pretty good in church, but all bets are off at night services.  I have a little over a month before I have to do this again, in the meantime I'll pray for strength.

So Spoiled

My boys are definitely spoiled, but not by me. They are lucky enough to have grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, great aunts and great uncles that spoil them.  I was just thinking the other day when I opened a package that was sent to the boys that I used to do this for Emily and Graysen.

My Aunt Diane, or as John calls her, Diant, was the culprit this time.  She told me to expect a package or two in the mail and I could give it to them whenever I felt it was the right time.  About a week later we got the first package but I was also expecting something else, so without thinking I opened the box.  I got a flap of the box opened and saw part of Thomas the train's face so I quickly shut the box, but it was too late.
"Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, is that for me? Oh thank you Mommy, is it my birthday again?"  I couldn't resist, I had to give it to him.
"No, it isn't your birthday.  This is from Aunt Diane, Uncle Tim, Jimmy and Ericka."  John tore into the box and held the Thomas tent inside its own box for about 15 minutes, aren't kids funny?
"Is it your birthday, Mommy?"
"No, Aunt Diane sent it just because she wanted to"
"Oh Mommy, I love 'just because' presents. (I'm not making this up, he actually said this) Thank you, thank you, thank you, Diant."

He spent the next several hours curled up in his new Thomas tent.

Gus really enjoyed the box.

A couple of days ago we got Gus' package with a musical Octopus.  His reaction was a little more subtle, but I'm sure he likes it just as much.

John liked the octopus too.

Gus seems to be OK with John playing with his toys...for now.

Thank you Great Aunt Diane, Great Uncle Tim, Jimmy and Ericka!!!  They love their new toys.

The Tales of John

This weekend we went to Pueblo, Colorado for a PALS meeting.  I can never remember was PALS stands for so I had to look it up-Post-seminary Applied Learning and Support.  Pretty much, it is a group of people that get together, families in tow, and spend a couple of days doing Bible studies and talking about church life.

While John was a bit of a pistol, he managed to do a few funny/cute things.

1.  We went to the hotel first to check-in and John badly wanted to get out of his car seat so I took him in with me.  We got to the front desk where there were two women standing behind the counter.  One of the ladies asked my name to which John replied, "Hello ladies, my name is John William Fiene and I'm (hums a bit of the Superman theme song and then sings) Superman."  Of course these ladies thought he was just the cutest thing and while I somehow managed to check into my room, I'm not sure they ever even looked at me again.  John had all of the attention.  I think he takes after his Grandpa Fiene.

He managed to be a complete pill for the rest of the afternoon and early evening.

2.  When the church members began to serve dinner, John, who had been asking for chocolate for about three hours, was eager to eat.  He ate about three bites of spaghetti then asked for chocolate.  I told him he needed to finish his spaghetti first and he said, "OK, Mommy, I'll be right back."  He went into the kitchen and found a man that had that 'I'll give you anything you want' grandpa look and asked him for chocolate.  The poor unsuspecting man had no idea that this was a trap and said "You want chocolate, huh?"  And John quickly responded "Oh, yes, yes, thank you, thank you".  Then came back to me and said that he, pointing to the nice man, said John could have chocolate now.  We spent the next few minutes talking about what he would get next time he tried that little trick :)

3.  After dinner the men stayed at the church for more talk and everyone else went back to the hotel to put the kids to bed.  I had my hands full with diaper bags, camera bags, kids, keys, etc...  A very nice couple had mercy on me and held the door open for me and John and then John, of course, introduced himself.  Did I mention that John has yet to meet a stranger?  The couple rode the elevator up with us and happened to be staying on our floor and, in that short elevator ride, John had managed to ask this couple 5 million questions, all of which they were happy to answer...thankfully.  When we passed by their door, the man said "Goodnight John, it was nice to meet you." John looked confused and then said "Nice to meet you, do you want to come to our room?"  The man laughed and said he needed to sleep in his own room, but John wouldn't give up.  "Do you want to come in my room and have a party and watch SpongeBob?"  This time the man's wife answered John and told him they would see him later.  John accepted the answer and said "OK, do you want to have breakfast tomorrow?"  They both laughed and told him they would see him in the morning.  We did not see them at breakfast this morning, but thankfully John forgot.

OK, last one...
After we got in our room it was late and I really needed to get the boys to bed.  John would not allow himself to sit still for more than two seconds for fear he would fall asleep and Gus was just overtired and wanted to be held.  I tried putting him in his hammock, which he hasn't been in since July, and he looked at me like I was crazy.  I didn't realize how much Gus had grown, but the hammock was a little short for him and there was no extra wiggle room.  I figured if I could just get him to fall asleep in my arms I could place him in the hammock and he would be fine.  Thankfully I was right, but I had a hard time getting him to sleep while John was bouncing off the walls.  I was trying very hard to be considerate of our neighbors, as John was running up and body slamming the walls, and keep myself calm so Gus could fall asleep in my arms.  Gus had just fallen asleep and John was jumping on the bed and I told him to just lay down and close his eyes.  John just looks at me and says....get ready for this 'cause it's gonna break your heart.  It did mine.

"Mommy, can you stop being so mad at me?"

I felt so bad.  He had just been testing the limits the whole day and probably felt like he was getting yelled at all day.  I told him I wasn't mad at him and laid next to him after I put Gus down, and as I expected, my head had not even hit the pillow and my active 3 year old was out like a light.

He can't just smile at the camera

I love this picture, but I'm pretty sure he is planning his next move.