Terrible Two's and Ferocious Fours

Ok when you first have a child there is one age that sticks in your mind that you KNOW will be the worst... two. Everyone has heard of the terrible twos afterall. Well as many of you mothers out there know, 2 really isn't that bad. In fact it should be called the terrible threes to be honest. So after dreading the twos but living through them and barely surviving the threes I had high hopes for the fours, even looked forward to them. Wow... someone should have warned me ahead of time that threes were easy compared to the fours. I have decided that I am going to warn all new mothers about the ferocious fours.

Who took my child and replaced it with the one that looks like my child but acts like someone else's? You know my child...the one that you could bribe into being good, or at least scare into behaving? The one who at least acknowledged that I raised my voice, said sorry, or looked at me when I was talking. He's gone, someone stole him. Is this a joke? Seriously, I have 3 kids 4 and under I don't need any more challenges, but such is life huh?

What is so bad about this child you ask? Well let me start off by saying, he is an ANGEL at school. His teachers have always told me if they all acted like him their job would be easy. I always laughed at that but was proud he saved his bad behavior for home. Now I am just angry. Angry that he can behave perfectly all day long but turns into another person at home. The problem is, I am onto him, I know he can be good I hear all about it... unfortunately I never get to experience it myself.

At Sutton's last pediatrician appointment I asked our dr. about four year old behavior. I told her I was noticing some serious attitude. She laughed and said, "Oh you wait, there will be times when you will think a teenage girl has taken over your little 4 year old's body." Boy was she right. If I could describe Mason in a few words I would say, "attitude, sassy, back talker, defiant, and argumentative." I swear he can't even talk to me without this certain sassy tone to his voice. The tone that makes me want strangle him. The tone that pushes me to the edge before I even get to speak a word in response to his latest demand.

If it isn't his way then he is livid, throws fits, screams at me, gives me ultimatums. A funny one from the other day... he asked for chips for breakfast and of course I said no. His response, "well if you won't let me have chips then I won't let you have chips." Apparently he thinks he has some control over those who really have control. I realize he is pushing his boundaries to see what he can get away with, he's learning independence. I am relatively sure I did the same thing to my parents (I often wonder why I am still alive...there must have been many times my mom wanted to kill me. I am sure she is enjoying every minute of my motherhood. I hope my kids have bad kids someday too. LOL). I realize it is very normal behavior but it's just so tiring day after day the same dialog. I swear, he says yes, just because I say no. I am sure it will end, one day when he is grown up and moved out, but until then I guess I will live by something I once heard a mother say, "I always love my kids, but sometimes I just don't like them." I have found myself more than once lately thinking this same exact thought.

A side note that is related and very timely: As I have posted before, Mason asks some interesting questions. Tonight on the way home from school Mason asked me, "mom, will you be happy when all 3 bugs grow up and move away?" Wow... I thought I only said that in my head, not outloud. ha ha ha. I said, "well yes and no Mason" "Yes because I will be happy you grew up and can be on your own, but it makes me sad that you are getting so big." I am trying to enjoy these days as I know they really are the good ones and it can only get worse...but I do find myself dreaming of retirement and the days ahead where my kids get to experience days that their kids act just like they did.

For now, go back up and look at the picture at the beginning of this post. That is Mason and his "attitude" this morning, he didn't want his picture taken. See the other well behaved boys? If I live through Sutton being 4; I think I will be able to accomplish anything :)

Our boy is big....waaaaaahhhhhhhhhh

This deserves a seperate post all of it's own. Sutton got his first haircut. He looks like such a little boy now. I have never been nostalgic about cutting the boys hair, it never bothered me like it does some mother's but for some reason this did make me a little sad. He did a great job and he needed a haircut so bad. Here are pics to commemorate the occasion:

3 boys before we left:

In the chair

All done! And he looks a lot better!

Future Olympians!

First off sorry for the missing week... read post that follows this post to understand why I didn't update.

When I signed up for this mother thing I never in my wildest imagination knew just how CRAZY things can be with 3 kids under 4. There are days when Jake and I look at each other and say, "is this really our life?" It really is sometimes like a dream, you know the kind where you wake up and go, "phew... glad I was only dreaming." Koller boys are crazy, it's in their genes, they come by it naturally of course. I am sure I will get some sort of award if I successfully raise these kids to be 18. ha ha ha.

I thought today's post might be about just how much fun you can have on the stairs. Yes the most dangerous place in the house is also the most fun place to play. Our kids are practicing to be future Luge Olympians. Both Mason and Easton have mastered flying down the stairs backwards, on their tummies at lightening speed. And now Sutton has decided he should learn too just in case they need an alternate at the games someday. He learned to go down the stairs a month or so ago (might have blogged about that being the best day of my life). And within 2 weeks he has gotten so fast.

I have a video of them posted below. Here's a bit of background to set the scene. I heard them flying down the stairs and I come in to find all three of them side by side going down, it was so cute. I ran to get the camera so I could video them doing it again and well you know what happens when you force cuteness, so this is the best I got. Mason is mad because they didn't wait for him. But this is also a good illustration of 4 year old attitude and annoyed mommy (if you have sound). Enjoy.

That's my boys... if nothing else I am just gonna be proud of how crazy they are, no sense in being embarassed huh?

I will finish off with our moment's of the past 2 weeks:

Easton: He poops in the potty now!!! We finally just told him no more diapers, and he was fine with that. Took some bribing with pop, gum, candy, and a new toy but he's a big boy! He's also been talking a lot more, and starting to show his intelligence. We never gave him enough credit but he knows all his shapes and is recognizing letters already. Something Mason never did until 3!!

Sutton: He's getting a couple more teeth and really walking fast now, he is soon to be running I think. He's so agile on his feet and LOVES balls, this makes his daddy incredibly proud. Jake says we might get 1 athlete after all!

Mason: although he continues to have an attitude he has been asking a lot of great questions again lately, he's so inquisitive. His big one yesterday on the way to school, "is that the moon?" I said, " nope that's the sun (it was kind of overcast but you could see the outline of it and it wasn't real bright." He then asked, "well why doesn't it have pokey things coming out of it then?" He sees suns drawn in books and they have the rays coming out and so he was confused.

That's it for now! See you next week.

When it rains it pours

Warning... the beginning of this blog is going to be a lot of complaining on my part, feel free to skip down about half way so you can catch up on the more exciting part of our lives, but I must talk about this to make myself feel better. :)

This has been a bad winter as you know with all the snow, snow days, sick kids, me not feeling well. I have missed SOOO much work and am way behind. So Tuesday morning I woke up, my left tonsil felt like it was going to explode. I decided I would live and left the house. I quickly started feeling crappy. Ran a few errands and took myself to the dr where I had to lay my head on the desk as I talked to her. She ran a strep test and it came back positive. Great, that's all I need is strep. The dr. asked if I wanted Tylenol with codine for my throat pain. I laughed and told her my throat didn't hurt THAT bad. Big mistake, by the next day my throat felt as if someone had a knife fight in it. I was quarantined in the bedroom for 2 days! I was so sick, I could hardly walk because my body ached and my head was pounding. Jake avoided me like I had the plague and slept on the couch. He had to step up and be daddy of the year... I haven't asked him yet, but I wonder if in all that time of child care he got worried that I might die and leave him alone with 3 kids :) So far no one else has it, hoping that continues to be the case.

So when the mommy is sick we go into survival mode and let's say I had a huge weekend of playing catch up... about 15 loads of laundry worth. Sad thing is, today I thought I probably wouldn't need to do any laundry since I did so much this weekend, I then realized that if I don't do it today we will be in the same boat as last week. So back to the laundry.

I did indeed miss another day of work last week, my students just laugh when I tell them I can't believe this semester. So when it rains it pours, as if strep wasn't enough to finally push me over the edge, I went to the mailbox to retrieve 5 days of mail on Saturday and in it was jury summons for ME! March 31st I am to appear in court. Talk about kick me when I am down. It's almost comical now really.

Over the weekend Jake and I had some plans and I felt good enough for us to go. Friday night we went to dinner without the kids! (Thanks Karen) and celebrated the 10 year anniversary of our first date. 10 years!!!! I don't feel that old but apparently I am! :) Saturday night we were invited to an 80's party and boy was that interesting. WE had a blast. I scrambled at the last minute to come up with some costumes for us and we turned out awesome. We had a great time and I will post a few pics to show you just how funny we and everyone else was.

Stay tuned, tomorrow night we get to meet Jesse's girlfriend, Jocelyn (hope I spelled that right). She is from Pennsylvania and she's been here to visit before but we didn't make the cut as far as who gets to meet her. So now he has decided he's gonna let her meet the fam. Hope she doesn't think we are too crazy :) I can understand his hesitance for wanting to let us all meet her, I remember after I brought home Jake for the first time (and keep in mind I really liked him and thought there was some potential there), I asked my parents what they thought. Their response was that they thought he was OK... not the worst but not that great. No wonder Jess doesn't want them to meet her :) For the record they at least pretend to love Jake now.

Friday night we are heading to Mt. Hamil for some grease to go with our chicken. We are meeting Mary Berdo and her roommate Amanda, been awhile since we have seen them so we are excited for that. Ian made it safely to Baghdad so we continue to keep him in our thoughts. Ian, hope you are keeping up on here, the kids ask about you a lot!!!

Ok, enough of our boring adult life... Here are the 80's pics! Yep that's a mullet Jake has, doesn't it look real?

Other random people from the party. Check out Miss workout! :)

Birthday party and general weather complaints

One of the best parts of having a birthday is getting a cake (well at least according to me). Mason had a hard time choosing a theme for his party this year because he wanted so many things. He at one point settled on a John Deere-construction-fire truck party. I had to explain to him that he had to choose one. Since he had already had a John Deere party when he turned 2 we tried dissuading him from that. He settled on a fire truck party. He was all excited about having a fire truck on his cake and having everyone here to watch him blow out the candles.

As most of you know this winter has been the worst EVER and sure enough we planned his party for a Sunday and had to cancel it due to a blizzard. Finally this past Sunday we had everyone over and he got his fire truck cake. He of course was spoiled and got tons of presents.

We are definitely ready for spring around here. Even Mason isn't thrilled with going out and playing in the snow anymore. Heard it's going to be in the 40's this weekend, it will feel like a heat wave!

Everyone else is doing well. Sutton's tubes have helped him tremendously and he continues to sleep through the night nearly every night! And he is walking non stop, no more crawling. If he falls down he squats and gets back up and walks some more. He grew up way too fast.

Easton continues to imitate Mason and say things he isn't supposed to. He's so defiant, easy baby....devil of a toddler. :) But we laugh at his antics behind his back. I may have posted about this in another post, but Mason's new favorite words are poopy and butt; therefore Easton's new favorite words are poopy and butt. Time out has proven to help control Mason's use of the words but hasn't been quite so successful with Easton. When he gets mad at someone he frowns, and very sternly and quickly says, "poopy mommy, or poopy Mason." Jake and I have to hold in our laughter when he does it because it is so funny to see him testing his boundaries, but I am ready for some new words.... although scared what Mason might teach him next.

Until next week... hope you are all well. And I wanted to quickly add that if you would keep our dear "uncle" Ian in your thoughts over the next 6 months we would appreciate it. He leaves for Iraq in the next few days. Ian you are never far from our thoughts! Take care everyone!

Happy 4th Birthday Mason!!!

Today is Mason's 4th birthday. He came into the world a whopping 8lbs 8oz at 1:11pm and has been going non stop ever since. Here is a little tribute to his life so far...

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

Today we made special treats for daddy while he was at work. I will include the pictures below. I asked Mason who his girlfriend is and he said, "Morgan." (a cute older girl from school.) Later I asked Easton who his girlfriend is and his response, "Mason." So I repeated it and stressed the GIRL part. He then said, "Ian" (sorry dude.) And I said, NO GIRLfriend. And he said, "mommy." I figured that was a great answer and didn't press him further!



Lots of love from us to you on Valentine's day. Enjoy the pics and be thankful you didn't have to enjoy the mess. ha ha ha.