I Hate Naptime and Attack of the Cabbage Worms

Once again, I've spoken too soon.

After two sort of successful days of naps (an hour one day, an hour and fifteen minutes the second day), we're now on our 2nd day without a nap. I'm trying to stay optimistic, but the end-of-the-day meltdowns from non-napping are killer. Especially when combined with dogs barking, phones ringing, dinner needing cooked, etc. My least favorite time of day.

Thank God for pie (and beer) in times like these:

Blueberry

Truth be told, I made this pie a few weeks ago now when the blueberries were fresh, and it was amazing. We didn't eat it fast enough, though, and it got soggy. Next time, pie consumption must increase to daily. Might need to double up some days. Kevin?

Now onto the garden...things aren't looking so hot. We've got worms. Not sure what kind they were, I did some Googling that just about made me sick. Anywho, I think they are cabbage worms. And you know how you walk by something every day and don't always look at it? Well, apparently I haven't looked at our Brussels sprouts or broccoli in a little while (either that, or the worms are very efficient creatures)...

Bye, bye Brussels sprouts 

Bye, bye Broccoli

I dug them out and carefully picked out every remaining worm I could find, so hopefully they're gone with the plants.

 

This morning, before removal 

And after

Lewis was super happy to have more dirt area to drive his trucks through. Like, thankyouverymuch, I'll take it from here, Ma. I have dirt to move and plants to destroy. :) (He's actually very good about not crushing the plants.)

I also pulled the peas last week because they were starting to look bad. It's hard to see, but the 2nd batch is coming up on both sides of the trellis in the lower left corner of the bed. I also added some more rows of green beans amongst the mass of green in the upper right corner--we've had a really good green bean harvest so far this year! They are very large and taste good. We've had them on the grill, sauteed/steamed, and in stir fry (with our peas, too). I was trying to include something from the garden every night, but now I'm shooting for 2 nights a week. It's kind fun and has made meals a little bit easier to come up with.

I had 2 tomatoes last week, but they both had black spots on the bottom of them. There are some fatties (and a bunch of cherry tomatoes) that should be ripening up soon, so hopefully they are edible. I made a double batch of pesto last week (2/3 of which went in the freezer), so I hacked the heck out of the basil to get enough leaves. It is finally recovering and will probably be ready to cut again by the beginning of next week.

Lewis is going to camp for 3 days next week, and I can't wait! Hopefully they run him to the ground (with fun, of course) so he'll take naps! :) One can hope.

Lewis is napping. I repeat, Lewis is napping.

I am happy to report that Lewis is napping today for the first time in 9 days. 

(I will pause for a moment of silent happy dancing in my chair.)

I wouldn't recommend it to those wanting to keep their blood pressure in check, but I could start to see improvements in his 'naptime' behavior the past few days and am glad we've stuck with it. He got out less books and messed with less stuff each day (we put most things up and out of the way, too, as we wised up to his ways), and, frankly, the non-napping was finally catching up to him. 

I did a lot of reading and tweaking and got lots of encouragement from my dearests, and I hope/think we have had a breakthrough. For today, at least, we have nappage. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. :)

Big Boy Bed: Mid-week Report

Last Friday evening at dinner, Kevin and I decided it was, at last, time to go forth with the crib removal process for Lewis. That day, he finally climbed over the side of his turned around crib (with the high side in front). He scratched and bruised his back on the bookshelf on the way down, so something finally needed/needs to be done. We got home, disassembled the crib, and took it to the basement, with Lewis' help. Our plan was to time it over a weekend so that Kevin could be here to help with the wrath of No Nap Lewis.

Well, today was Day 4 with No Nap Lewis, and this mama is about to lose her damn mind. With his lack of sleep and subsequent fussiness, on top of my lack of sleep (waking up at 5:22am or 'sleeping in' until 6am), I'm not winning any awards for patience. What keeps me going is the thought: 'He has to sleep eventually, right?' but I'm beginning to lose hope and my sanity. Maybe tomorrow will be the day...today was most certainly not the day.

His new room set-up:

His bed has a little bit of Mater, Thomas, and Bob the Builder

Bob!

He and I ran down to 50% day at The Unique on Sunday (Kevin had to go into work), and, lo and behold, there was a set of Bob the Builder sheets. It's like the thrift store gods knew we were coming. :)

:)

One happy buddy.

Haha, Lewis. Real freakin' funny.

He slays me when he pretends to lay down and/or yawns. It's like, 'Really?!?'

This was the result of yesterday's 'nap': 

 

At least the lined-up shampoo bottles made me laugh. :)

Funny Faces

Kevin and Lewis had fun taking pictures with Kev's phone over the weekend: 

 

 

 

My dad is just the funniest dad in the whole world!! 

 

Best buddies. :)

Or bubbies, if Lew is the one talking.

To the Park, Flash Flooding, and Baby Birds

These are a few pictures I took at the park last weekend.

Wild Man Lew, climbed that all on his own

Dada, Swing!!

He was also yelled 'Mama, Swing' a few times, so all three of us swang together (is swang a word?).

The other night we had a lot of rain over a short period of time, and our front ditch flooded, as it has a few other times:

There's a car (driving way too fast) under there.

Thankfully it went down pretty quickly. Lewis and I had fun that day watching the storm come in.

We've had robin's nests on our porch lights the past few years, but I don't remember seeing actual babies (just some broken shells). I was super excited to peek up there yesterday to see this:

One little open mouth (on the right)

Today I spied a few more, waiting for their breakfast

I think there are 3 of them.

Mama Robin, giving me the eye

She flies off when we open or close the door, so we usually see her on the wire, on the roof, or on the fence, with a worm hanging out of her mouth. We don't get much nature here in the city, so I'll take what little bits I can get. :)

Blueberry Pickin'

Monday morning we headed out to Bryant's Blueberries in New Salisbury, IN, to pick berries with Tonya and Carlton. We went into it fully knowing there was a 40% chance of rain, and it rained the entire drive out there. We were talking about having to call it off, but as soon as we turned onto the road, the rain stopped! We did have a few drizzles as we were picking, but I was quite alright with that. I'm so glad we had that kind of weather vs. the hot/humid stuff we had yesterday.

Our little taste testers :) 

Pick only the BLUE ones, Lewis!

He was picking non-ripe ones and wandering off with my bucket (to the port-o-potty, near the pond, etc.), so I eventually got the Ergo out of my car and carried him on my back. He was pretty content--I think the constant stream of blueberries to his mouth helped. :) 

 Blueberries, blueberries, everywhere!

It was hard to stop myself from picking them! I'd say I was done, and then I'd see another good-looking bunch that was just asking to go home with us. 

Blueberry Delirious, both of us. :)

Lewis was a trooper--he did start to get fussy towards the end, so I went and found Tonya. We'd both lost track of time and found out it was past lunchtime already, so we fed the boys lunch and headed home. It was a fun outing--we'll definitely go again next year!

Back home, I had some serious blueberry cleaning and drying to do during naptime: 

 

I swear, they multiplied! They'd put them all into a grocery bag for me, and I just kept pouring more and more out to wash them and pull out any bad ones. I ended up with just under 9.5 pounds of berries--most of them are in the freezer now, but I did save some for us to eat and to make a pie (apparently Kevin's favorite pie is blueberry, which I did not know).

Our Little Helper (with a few other pics mixed in)

Looking through pictures from this week, I have a lot of Lewis helping us. May he continue to be a sweet, willing helper:

Helping dump the compost (which is blurry)

I was inside doing dishes, watching Lewis carry the compost bucket out with Kevin. Before I could grab the camera and get outside, they were already back to the pile to dump it. He definitely likes to help with that, and he's also good about putting things into the recycling bin when we ask him to (and he likes to help Kevin move recycling from the 'house' bin into the 'curbside' bin, which I've posted pictures of before).

 Doing a 10-foot long alphabet train puzzle

Not necessarily help-related, but I'm throwing it in here anyway. He's really into puzzles the past few weeks and is getting very good at them! There are some 12-piece ones that he has mastered, and he's getting better with the 24-piece ones (he's matching colors and trying the pieces different ways--still gets frustrated at times). This looooong train one is in alphabetical order, so we roughly lay out the pieces in order across the room and he puts them all together (after some trial/error). Then he usually takes his Thomas ride-on toy and rides on top of the completed puzzle, yelling chooooo chooooo!

 Helping make Peter more comfortable and cozy for naptime. :)

Poor Peter... He'll do this to Hattie, too, but she's generally not as tolerant (as we all know).

 Swimming with Dada

Again, not help-related. Though it could be said he was helping Kevin keep cool--he poured cold hose water on Kevin's head and down his back a few times. :)

 Helping make the water dirty--haha.

He got his dump trunk from the garden (covered in dirt) and put it in the pool. And his 2 lawn chairs, his dirty shoes (over and over again), etc. Oh well. :)

 Helping wash all the Waycross dust off of Dada's car

Pretty soon, he might just be able to help with some DIY projects. :)

He's really taken to this toy I found at Goodwill. 'Drill!' 'Screwdriver!' As he gets older, he can try to copy patterns from cards that came with it. For now, he just likes to drive the bolts in.