I am a third time Mom

I've realized there is a big difference between a mother of one child and a mother of three. It seems that once you get multiple children in your house you just can't sweat the small stuff. Things like wet diapers, messy faces, unkempt hair, chokable toys, germs. It's kind of nice because instead of stressing about exposing him to the horrible bacteria lurking in every nook and cranny of my house I can just let him enjoy some of the fascinating things around him like trash cans, toilets, playground equipment, and generally any floor he crawls on. Sure, my kids has had a cold for about 3 months, but he's going to have a kick-butt immune system in no time.

Here is a little clip I like to call Scooch and the toilet. As the third child he spends a lot of time in the bathroom while siblings are getting teeth brushed, hair done, or baths taken. I just can't keep him out of it like I could with my previous two. Right now he has a fascination with the toilet. More specifically he is very interested in finding out how to get to the water inside the toilet. I know he will shortly learn and I will have to invest in some toilet locks. For the time being I will just enjoy seeing him trying so hard to figure it out. Although once he finds out how to reach that water, I don't think I'll take any videos of him actually playing in it. That's still too gross, even for me. Maybe by the fourth child...

Winter's Last Hurrah

This past week we had what will probably be the last winter storm of the season. It was probably one of the coldest storms this winter, leaving a light dusting of snow on the ground one night.
Chad built a fire in the fire place with the kids. We toasted marshmallows and had smores for family home evening. Since Chad is not a big camper, we need to share that campfire experience with the kids somehow.
Perhaps this reasoning is why we gave in to the kids request to sleep by the fire Sunday night. They spent the whole night in the playroom sleeping on our air mattress. My kids are braver than me. I remember being terrified of my house at night. Thankfully they went to sleep quickly and woke up well rested in the morning. I have to remember that the experience went well. I'm hesitant to let the kids sleep out of their beds for whatever reason. Maybe because I'm still scared of my house at night.

Termites are our friends!

I am ashamed to admit that we live with termites at our residence. They live in our yard and have found there way into our house a few times. I probably should hire someone to spray the yard (we already have had our house sprayed). But that would require picking up the phone book and calling someone plus the money to spend on it. Since our house is made of brick I'm not too worried about damage, plus I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the following experience with Kiwi.

While out in the yard digging grass out from under our deck, we found some termites had established a home there. The kids came to investigate and began to play with them. They are one of the few bugs in our yard that don't bite. Kiwi decided they were cute and let them crawl on her hands and arms. Just writing that makes my skin crawl. A little later she was carrying it around calling it her "little wood eater." I don't know if we need to finally give in and buy the kids a dog, or just come to terms with the fact girls think that all small things that move are cute.