Before I Had Kids...

I judged.

There. I said it. I suppose I have to be honest here.

I judged those crazy parents and their crazy kids and vowed I'd NEVER be a parent like that. My kids are going to be perfect is what I'd tell myself. (And they are! Don't get me wrong. At least I was right about that.)

I bet if we are all honest, we can all say we judge how others do things to some degree. Come on...be honest. :-)

My kids would never eat that processed crap they sell at the store.

And yet they did. My motto became whatever they'll eat is wonderful, just eat!

My kids would never throw a tantrum like THOSE kids in the middle of the store.

And they have. Thankfully it was just once that I remember, which is still pretty good considering that we have three potential time bombs on our hands. We are fortunate that they are pretty decently behaved in public.

There are a few more gems that I vowed never to do. I have of course seen the cold, sometimes harsh light of reality. With kids, it all sort of becomes fair game. You just do what you gotta do.

I laugh in the face of the old me!

Take bribery for instance. The pre kids me vowed I'd never bribe my kids. Oh, no. My little angels would just do whatever I asked out of the goodness of their hearts. We wouldn't need bribery. For a while, I didn't. But I didn't realize how EFFECTIVE and EFFICIENT bribery is in the parent's arsenal of tricks. Once I learned that, it crept in ever so slowly.

Eat all your sandwich, and I'll give you more chips.

If you're very good, then we can go to the store.

You know, stuff like that.

That is until our family met our biggest foe thus far...........

The Potty. (I imagine "dum, dum, dummmmm" playing in the background every time I hear that word. Potty. There it went again. Did you hear it?)

Potty training has been quite the experience. The boys got their first potties over a year ago. I was all bight eyed and optimistic that the boys would potty train easily. Ha. For the longest time, neither boy wanted anywhere near the potty for anything other than to store their cars in them.

Then the bribery started.

Sit on the potty for 10 seconds and you get some jellybeans. Okay, that worked, but the boys would only do said sitting with all of their clothes on, which as I am sure you are aware DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF SITTING ON THE POTTY. Still, I soldiered on, wanting them to at least get over their fear.



Santa was kind enough to bring them some undies in their stockings this last Christmas.

The boys would have none of that. Sigh.

Then I got all professional and went all teachery. I broke out the charts. I moved to the big guns. Pee on the potty and get jellybeans AND a sticker! 5 stickers and YOU GET A PRIZE!

The boys insisted that mommy and daddy got a chart too. Ok, no problem. Except only mommy and daddy ever got any stickers. We were earning prizes left and right.

The boys?

Not so much.

They stopped being interested in the jellybeans. No one had yet earned a sticker. And no, there was no pee in the potty from them either.

Today, I got smart. I went for the cannon. Pee or poop on the potty and get a matchbox car. Jason heard that, and his interest was definitely peaked. When I pulled out the cars for him to look at, I had him.

He got on the potty. Nothing. He admired the cars he wanted. Nothing. I gave him TWO glasses of water. Nothing. I turned on the water. Nothing.

He was done and wanted down. He also cried and threw a fit because he didn't get his car. Off he went to console himself in the living room. Not ten seconds later, he started again with I want a caaaaaaarrrrrrr!!!! I asked him if he needed to get on the potty.

Why yes, yes he did!

"Here it comes!" he said. Voila! He earned a car! He earned a sticker! He asked for some jellybeans, so I threw that in there, too! Woohoo!

He later added another sticker for pooping in the potty after this!

Now, I am a smart girl. I can see that this getting a matchbox car every time you get on the potty is going to get expensive. But you know what, I'm not thinking about that right now.

My boy is finally peeing on the potty. That is what matters here! (And woohoo! One less diaper to change. Yippee!)

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30 Day Challenge #18

Team Lopez - The Starting Line Up

We've got an awesome team!

Shawn - the first born;

• Known as the "brawn" of the bunch
• Takes a licking and keeps on ticking
• A tough guy who likes to snuggle

Position: Linebacker

Jason - the middle child;

• The thinker and planner
• Likes to tell others what to do
• Quick mind and body

Position: Quarterback

Jackson, aka the "Tank" - the baby

• Easy going, but not a push over
• Great at following the coach's playbook (almost to sleeping through the night)
• Strong and nimble like his brothers

Position: Tight End

Isaac - the dad

• Identifies strengths/weakness of each player in order to maximize the effectiveness of the team
• Strength and conditioning coordinator - ie, plays tag, hide and go seek, and wrestling among others
•  Nutrition consultant

Position - The Coach

Stacie - the mom

• Appointment scheduler
• Stats keeper and blog writer
• The one who keeps everyone else in line.

Position - The Manager

30 Day Challenge #17

It Shouldn't Make You This Happy...

...to run over your brother,

but it totally does!

This picture is a few months old, but I love Shawn's look here. He is having so much fun. They thought it was hilarious to run into each other and wanted to do it again and again. I can't look at this shot without smiling, too. :-)

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30 Day Challenge #16

Awards Night - Part 3

And last, but not least, we have our little Jack. He is still trying to make a name for himself around these parts, but I do have to say that he is just as awesome as his big brothers. Of course that means we couldn't leave him out of the festivities, so he, too, earned an awesome son award.

The rules for this award are simple - just give 7 fun facts about the nominee for the awesome son award.


7 fun facts about Jackson:

1. Jack clearly has the darkest complexion out of the trio. His skin tone is the most olive, and his eyes are super dark. His hair is also darker, but it seems to be lightening up a bit--maybe even taking on a reddish hue! (Isaac tells me his hair was red as a baby, too.)
2. Interestingly, Jack has two stork bites (red marks) on him. One is over his left eye. The other is on the nape of his neck. What I find even more interesting is that Shawn also has a stork bite over his eye (his is on his right) AND a mark at the nape of his neck. I think it is such a strange coincidence.
3. Jack also has super long fingers and my crooked toe. :-) (Beyond that, I can't tell you who he looks like.)
4. Jackson has discovered his fist. He loves, loves, loves to suck on his fist (especially his left-do you think we have a 3rd leftie on our hands?) and prefers it to his pacifier.
5. Jack has little tufts of dark hair on the edges of his ears. Oh my goodness, they are so cute!
6. Jack loves to be naked on the changing table. Even though he is pretty vocal and smiley, the changing table brings the smiles and the coos to a whole new level. We have some pretty deep conversations on that changing table. :-)
7. Jack rarely spits up when he eats. I can count the total number of times he's spit up in his 9 weeks on my two hands. Seriously. If he does spit up, it is usually because one of us got impatient and tried to get him to eat before he had a chance to get out all of his burps. I don't know, but that seems pretty unusual from what I've heard. (I hope I didn't jinx things by writing that.)

As an aside, I call the baby Jack more often than not, but I need to start using his full name. The other day, Jason asked me who I was holding and I told him Jackson. He was adamant that his name was Jack, not Jackson! Oops!

Shawn's fun facts are here.
Jason's fun facts are here.

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30 Day Challenge #15

Decisions, Decisions!

30 Day Challenge #14

Doesn't this make it look like he has such a hard life?



So much on his mind!

• 2 hour nap or 3?
• How many ounces should I drink. Let's see, if I take 2 now, it will throw off her schedule...but if I go for 3, it will mean I'll get to wake up just as the boys are going down for their naps. That's it! One on one time with mommy! Score!
• Should I poop now or just pass gas? A little of both? Maybe I should poop a little now and then poop again ten seconds after I have my diaper changed? Oh whoa is me. This is a tough one.
• What can I do to them today? I'll bet that I can make them run over here. Should I use my "classic gotta burp" noise? No. I know. I'll give them the old "I'm getting uncomfortable here you better hurry before I get to blood curdling scream in 4.2 seconds" response. Yeah. That usually gets what I want!
• Shall I lay in the swing? On mommy's chest? Maybe on my play mat?

Hmmmmm decisions, decisions...

It's Awards Night - Part 2

Now it's Jason's turn before the audience. Surprise! He also won an awesome son award! I know. How can we be so lucky that two in the same family won such an amazing award? :-)

The rules for this award are simple - just give 7 fun facts about the nominee for the awesome son award.


7 fun facts about Jason:

1. Jason is in love with cars. He likes to play with cars, put play doh on his cars, look at pictures of cars,  and especially spot cars on the freeway. He can even name the different types of vehicles by sight. (We're talking he could pick out the exact duplicate of my mom's car on the freeway from far away. I couldn't even do that!) We just about made his life when we introduced him to the Pixar movie, Cars, and we watch it at least once a day. Because of the movie, he has also added "cars with eyes" to his loves--just in time for "Cars 2." While Shawn likes to watch song videos on You Tube, Jason only asks, "Can we see car transporters?" :-)
2. Jason's favorite fashion accessory is a hat. I don't know how he does it, but he always manages to cock it on his head for the perfect amount of reckless style. Right now, his favorite hat has the Cars 2 characters on it. He loves that thing.
3. When Jason sleeps, the only thing he covers with his blanket is his head. Well actually, the reason he has to cover his head is because he likes his ears covered. I'll go into his room most nights to find him laying on his belly, arms tucked underneath him for warmth, his knees bent and feet straight up in the air, and yes, you guessed it, his head is the only thing covered.
4. Jason is fiercely protective of his brother. Sure, he likes to knock the snot out of him when he gets mad, but it is only he that can do that (he doesn't even like it if I discipline Shawn). Jason's protective nature is very evident this week now that Shawn is getting his eye drops three times a day. It is so sweet to see him come to Shawn's aid, even by trying to distract us so Shawn is safe. At the very least, he always gives his brother a reassuring hug after the ordeal.
5. Jason loves to play outside in the dirt. He likes to dig in it and find rocks, which he'll then load onto the back of his dump truck. He'll bury his cars in the dirt and likes to make dirt castles. I think he'd spend all day outside if he could. Well, he would if it wasn't windy...or too sunny (he hates wearing sunblock)...or rainy...or too cold. He doesn't like the wind and cold one bit. He is my kid after all. :-)
6. Jason has a very vivid imagination and loves to play make believe. He went through a stage where he pretended he was different animals. It wasn't uncommon for him to do funny things like this: Isaac had just walked into the house from work. He walked over to his chair and sat down. Jason came hurrying over and without warning licked the top of Isaac's shoe. Like I said, there was no warning. No words. Just a quick lick. Um...okay. "Jason. Did you lick daddy's shoe?" asked Isaac. Jason looked up at him and shook his head no a few times with a devilish look in his eye. Without taking his eyes off of Isaac, the no shake evolved in a few yes nods. "Why, buddy?" Isaac asked. "Cuz I missed you." Yes, my boy was pretending to be a dog. *** Another funny thing he is pretending right now is that the kitchen is filled with "elevators," or as the rest of us know them, floor mats. He sits on them, pretends the elevator door closes, makes a humming noise, and then dings when he's arrived at a new floor. Of course, everyone else in the house plays elevator too.
7. Jason gets Food Drunk-a term that Isaac has coined for the boys after an extremely good meal, usually dinner, most likely the result of a carb overload.  Jason tends to start with a giggle and gets a glazed look in his eyes. Speech and movement becomes slow and slightly impaired until he is slumping over in his chair with a large grin on his face.  The simplest of things, such as a burp, will trigger a belly laugh that causes him to lose his breath.  This laughter usually results in a fit of hiccups which only perpetuates the belly laughter and causes Shawn to join the "inebriated" activity.  It makes for quite an "intoxicatingly" humorous scene.

See Shawn's 7 fun facts here.

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30 Day Challenge #13

Mostly Wordless Wednesday - Who Needs A Gardener?

30 Day Challenge #12

Who needs a gardener to mow your lawn when you can have these?

A little person to hand pick the blades for his dump truck.

It's big enough for the whole lawn, isn't it?