Easter vacation

Oh easter weekend how I love you! For some reason this is the one holiday that actually feels like an honest vacation! I am proud to say that this year was no exception!

We had decided the year that Coen was born that we would go up to edmonton every year for easter so that he would still get to keep in touch with Aaron's mom's family. We had gone up last year and had so much fun! So after that, we decided to make it a tradition! This year, we got to make it even better with a side trip to Cardston! My brother had to come back up to canada before he could enter the US with a new visa, so we took the opportunity to come down and see him for a minute or two and meet his new Gf. They were coming home from the Y on Thursday after his last final, so we went in thursday afternoon to spend time with just us and meema. We got there early that expected (Turns out my husband is a packing master!) and ended up waiting for everyone to get off of work. We played ping pong, built lego with coen, and just chilled. When my mom (meema) got home, we went out to see my grandpa's baby pigs. Let me tell you, those things are so ugly that they are cute! haha. It was a lot of fun! Aaron kept making pig sounds and cow sounds and Coen replied with " No no no daddy!" Clearly my kid has no idea that dad making farm noises is the least of his worries when it comes to embarrassment! I am positive we will lull ourselves into a false illusion that we are the coolest parents on the block and only enhance our son's desire to be adopted.

Once we got home from the pigs, we made steak and potatoes, which I am proud to say my son absolutely devoured! We had recently been going through a phase where Coen had no desire to eat food in general. So this was a HUGE step forward.

THen we dyed easter eggs. This has been a long tradition in our family and we normally would have rolled them down the hill afterwards. However mother nature is out to get my this year, and made sure there was JUST enough snow to make that impossible.

When 10:30 came around, my son was still running around and playing the piano. Luckily for us he crashed shortly thereafter. I have always heard people say " I would love a bottle of that stuff" when referring to kids energy, but you know, imagine how people would look at you. You would be bouncing around like a lunatic because your attention span has become that of a bug! At least that is how Coen is. Man oh man can that kid run! After we had put Coen to sleep with his normal routine of scriptures and prayers, (for somereason the scripture part is essential, love it!) we decided to bust out the cards. We played Phase 10 until Jord got home, said hello and went downstairs to crash. However, my wonderful husband didn't inflate our air mattress. By this time my dad had already gone to bed, and I am pretty sure my mom and I told Aaron to inflate the mattress about 10 times. Did he listen... nope. So at 1:30 in the morning we had our HUGE air mattress being risen from the dead. LEt me tell you, the motor on this thing is anything but pleasant. It sounds like a small little engine working it's tail off! For those of you who have seen Jorden's little motorized scooter, it sounds like that! But eventually we all got to sleep and awaited the morning.

Friends are little angels that save my sons life!

So a friend of mine just posted about the wonderful trials of having a strong willed and energetic kid. My mind was so full of different thoughts that I felt the need to write it all out.

I won't lie to you, some days (like she mentioned) there are days where I am pretty sure I could set Coen on the neighbors doorstep and walk away. But with that, I'm pretty sure I would get maybe a block away and start worrying about whether or not they would know to put him to sleep with teddy, and that he likes to read the Book of Mormon at night, or that if you give him corn with his meat, there is no way he will eat the meat. At which point, I would turn around and go pick him up and bawl about how selfish I was. Pretty sure that is how it would go down.

Today was definately one of those days. I was cleaning the bathrooms, and had to go put my niece down for her nap. I had put Coen in the tub, thinking he was pretty contained and I mean what could go wrong? I had just laid her down and I heard a SPLOOSH! I took a breath that would probably fill a 6 foot tall marathon runner's lungs, and proceeded to lay my niece down. When I returned to the bathroom at most a minute later, I found out that the word bathroom no longer fit what my eyes were seeing. It was a lake. Coen had taken my big mopping bucket and dumped it all over. He was standing in the middle of the room saying " Wash wash mama wash wash!" and rubbing his knees and tummy. At that point I had to run from the room because a laugh was going to escape which would render all my other actions useless. After I got a hold of myself, I went in and rationalized. " Coen, thank you so much for washing. But this water is very very dirty from the dirt on Coen's feet! So let's clean up the dirty water and run some bubbles for Coen instead." Looking back on it, I am pretty sure at that point I needed my own portable cheering squad. I was so proud of myself! But then he HAD to bring his microphone that is full of dirty mopping water upstairs and that was where I drew the line. I know it was petty. But for some reason, that was my one bit of control. I explained he had to leave it in his room, and then the melt down happened. His screaming then woke up my niece, and let me tell ya, I was not a happy camper. So I set him down firmly on the bed, and let him cry. Afterwards we talked it out and now we are friends again. You know, looking back on the whole thing, was a microphone really worth it... probably not. Which brings me to my friends next point... I'm still learning and I'm still trying. I have miles to go before I can say I am a perfect parent, and by then, I'll probably have another one that tests me in a million other ways. But you just keep truckin' along. Right? So in short, Thank you so much my friend for posting on your blog. It touched my heart and made me so happy to know that someone in this city knew EXACTLY how I was feeling!