Rough Day.

I'm still in denial that this actually happened.

I'm sure Matt wishes he could block out this memory completely.

Sundays have always been hard.

They were hard when we had one kid.

Borderline awful when we had two.

I'm not sure if there's a word to describe what Sundays have become now that we have three kids to keep track of.

I've discovered that there's a little bit of a cycle with kids and church.

At least for us there is.

Church with your new baby starts off wonderful.

You get them all dressed-up. Cuddle them up in their carseat and throw a cover over the top.

You lift the cover only to check on them and to, of course, show them off to all ward members.

The only thing you really have to worry about is a diaper explosion.

And, I hate to break it to any newbies out there, a diaper explosion wouldn't hold a candle to some of the things we've put up with on Sundays.

Things go smoothly with the new baby until they discover mobility.

This makes church way less fun.

When Holynd first got mobile, she was crazy. She was crazy and I was pregnant. The pregnancy made things even more interesting. At this point in time, Matt was in the Young Mens Presidency. This meant that I was on baby-duty every Sunday during the last hour of church. We all know that the last hour is the WORST hour of church for kids. I could go on and on about Sundays with Holynd, but I'll share only one story. I'm not sure if this is the worst story. I'm sure I've suppressed some memories of bad Sundays.

Rule Number One, for me, was to sit by the door. Always sit by the door. I did NOT get to sit by the door this Sunday. In fact, I had to sit up front. Front and center. Possibly the worst possible spot you could sit with an unruly child. Things started off ok. I had an empty chair next to me. (Probably THE ONLY empty chair in Relief Society that day.) So, Holynd spent the first part of the hour crawling off and on this empty chair. She ended up spitting-up on the floor. Not a big deal for me. Holynd was a pukey-child and I was always at the ready with wipes and burp-clothes. When I turned away from Holynd to put the burp cloth away, she fell. She fell through the chair and onto an elderly lady's oxygen tank. The tank toppled over, making a giant crashing noise and stopping the entire class. This noise wasn't the most embarrassing part and neither was my screaming child. The embarrassing part was the elderly lady who was initially hit in the knee by the oxygen tank. When I looked at her to apologize (she was hunched over rubbing her wounded knee) she looked up at me and there were tears in her eyes. I'm sure Holynd gave her a really bad bruise. I vowed to never sit in the front row of Relief Society ever EVER again.

The next cycle to hit is nursery age. For most, this is a blissful time. Some have to deal with the child that refuses to go. I've only experienced this a handful of times. I've been very blessed with kids the (mostly) love nursery. However, a few people get a child like Sloane. Sloane is a bully. I think she's that way because she has to compete with Holynd all day, everyday. Sloane is frequently in trouble in nursery for being mean to other kids. She also does things like taking off her diaper and throwing it in the trash. It's not a proud moment for a parent when they're child is brought to them naked from the waist down.

But, even when your child willingly goes to nursery, they seems to hit the tantrum phase at the exact same time. Matt has spent several sacraments meetings with one of our children strapped in their carseats, screaming at the top of their lungs. Taking the kids out to the car to throw their tantrums is our go-to move. I don't know how much longer it's going to work, but we use this tactic at least every other week.

Once you settle into a routine of just having to get your child through sacrament, all the sudden it's time to potty train.

Oh potty training. I can't even handle to write down one of the stories of Holynd, potty training and church. It's pretty bad. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Once you've overcame potty-training, something amazing starts to happen. Your child starts to actually use all those items you pack in your bag every Sunday. They fold their arms during prayer and take the sacrament WITHOUT stealing several extra pieces of bread. It gets kinda nice. For us, Holynd is good as long as we keep Sloane away from her. However, Holynd is a terror in primary. Mostly because Matt and I are her teachers. But that's a whole other story. Actually, I'm not even sure if that will be one that even makes it to the blog. Not even blog therapy can help me work through those feelings. ;)

Even though I know things will get better as my kids get older, nothing can prepare a parent for what happened this last Sunday.

I'm still thinking about moving. I can tell you that right now.

The morning started off awful. Matt and I were both grumpy and the kids were NOT cooperating. Everyone was in complete meltdown mode for the two hours it took us to get ready.

Needless to say, we were late.

We were walking into church when I turned to Matt and asked if he had remembered to grab Maddox a bottle. Matt had forgotten. I helped get everyone into the chapel, took Maddox and went back to the car so that I could go grab a bottle. The chapel was packed. There was a baby blessing that day and everyone was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. The entire way home I was saying prayer after prayer to help me get through sacrament meeting. I knew, because it was that crowded, sacrament meeting was going to be brutal. Not to mention the fact that my kids were still completely falling apart.

When I turned the corner, I saw Matt walking down the street holding Sloane.

"What could possibly have happened" I thought.

When I got closer I realized that Matt was wet. He was covered in some kind of green juice from shoulder to knee. I knew immediately that the shirt was ruined and the pants would only survive by a full fledged miracle.

"Sloane threw up"

You have got to be kidding me.

When he got in the car, the most awful throw up smell filled the car.

"She threw up everywhere. Floor, chairs, everywhere!"

"Where is Holynd?!"

"I left her there with Ruth". Ruth is my friend and is the Primary President.

"She and Billy (Elder's Quorum Presidency) took Holynd and cleaned up the mess while I ran Sloane to the bathroom. She threw up again in there. They were passing the sacrament when this all happened."

OK! Hold the phone! Not only did she cover a 2 foot radius in vomit, she did it during the quietest part of sacrament meeting and then two ward members had to help clean it up!

I could feel the tears coming. After the terrible morning we had, I was near the end of my rope.

I pulled up to the church and went into get Holynd. Ruth came up to me to ask what she could do to help. "We'll be fine. I'm going to run everyone home. Matt or I will be back to take care of Sunbeams". Ruth, without skipping a beat said, "Oh, don't worry about coming back. We'll find a sub." I'm still not sure if she said that because she could see the distress in my eyes, or because she didn't want our sickness anywhere near the Primary Room.

Sloane was really sick, but I can honestly say that I had no idea. All three kids were freaking out before church. We had no idea that she was doing it because her tummy hurt. She never threw up again. She ran a high fever that broke after a dose of Tylenol. Monday she was tired, but up and no longer running a fever.

I'm  little nervous because we ALWAYS seem to top our bad experiences with a worse experience. I'm not sure what would have to happen to beat Sloane covering the chapel with green vomit while the bread was being passed.

Mom.

Maddox has been saying a few words. Well, a few words in his own little language. His favorites have been "Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!", usually spoken while clapping or giving High-Fives. His other favorite has been "Bah-Bah", usually spoken about his bottle or when someone is leaving (Bye-Bye).

This morning, however, while I changed his little bum and he looked up and said,

"Mom".

Best.Day.Ever.

Oh Hello Again....

Oh hello blog.

I've missed you.

Did you even know I was gone?

I was.

I'm having a really hard time with one of my children.

She (or he, but let's face it, you all know Maddox would never make me crazy) has been driving me insane for the last week.

Sloane, I mean this nameless child, pooped in the shower four times last week. FOUR. By the third time, I realized that she was intentionally doing it when I wasn't looking. After the first two times, she noticed that I was watching her rather closely, she would wait until Holynd, I mean, a different child had me good and distracted and then would just POOP in my shower. NOT lovely.

She also crashed our computer this week. Completely crashed. New hard drive. Lots of lost data. This made me very very very sad. And pretty upset.

I had to live without a computer for four days. Luckily, because of Instagram and Facebook, I didn't feel too out of touch with the outside world... but I have desperately missed my blog outlet.

This nameless child also completely destroyed our video monitor and took most of the stuffing out of one of my couch cushions.

She also REFUSED to get a haircut and threw a huge tantrum in the middle of the salon.

I was a little bit fed up with this child.

But at the end of the day, I still love her more then anything else in the world.

Did I forget to mention that Holynd destroyed a laptop at 2 years old too?

Yep.

And believe me, I have been pretty overprotected of this laptop and somehow Sloane still got to it.

Little Miss Diva

I took Holynd to get school clothes on Saturday. G-Ma and Aunt Twitch came along.

The morning before we left she asked me if we were going to find her Hello Kitty backpack. I thought that this was really weird because Holynd isn't a Hello Kitty fan. In fact, this was one of the first times I had ever heard her mention Hello Kitty.

I told her she could have whatever kind of backpack she wanted. (As long as I could pick out all her clothes. Fair? I think so.)

We ended up at Old Navy first. We walked in the door and guess what was staring right at us?

A pink Hello Kitty backpack.

Holynd looked at me and said, "There it is."

She still talking about it. 

I was really worried about how I would handle Holynd going to school. This was part of the reason why I signed her up clear back in February. I wanted to sign her up and then forget about it.

I didn't completely forget about it, but it did make it a little easier.

Summer came and we started playing and playing and playing and playing.

Pretty soon, Holynd was bored with all of our favorite spots and I was running out of ideas on how I could keep it interesting.

About a month ago, she started asking me about school.

"Is school coming tomorrow?" she'd ask. "Please mom, can it start tomorrow?"

She was so bored with being at home with me and so excited for school, I decided to put her in three-days a week instead of just two.

Holynd loves to be busy and when she's not, I suffer.

I can actually say that I'm really really excited for school to start.

Little boy...

This little man is nine months old now.

I can't even begin to explain how much I love him.

Maddox is happy, kind, smart and loving.

He is also starting to get mobile now. He army-crawls all over the house. Everyday his army-crawl starts to look more and more like a regular crawl.

It won't be long before he's under my feet all day long.

Maddox has decided that cutting teeth is his new favorite thing. Having two babies cutting teeth isn't very much fun, but for the most part, Maddox doesn't complain very much.

I can't imagine life without him.

Maddox has gotten very very hungry lately. I haven't been able to keep up, so he takes a bottle twice a day, nurses four times a day and eats two meals - breakfast and dinner.

I remember a few people telling me that boys ate more then girls.

More is an understatement.