….every child expresses his or her creativity by modifying their personal appearance. Depending on the child, depends on the medium they use. Some use markers, some use makeup, and some use scissors.

Or, like my children, they use all of the above at one time or another. Last night, Matthew used them all, except when I was scraping aftershave out of my heating vents and scrubbing lipstick off his cheek I did not notice his new hairstyle.

This morning it became a little more apparent

So after Austin’s trip to Best Buy to spend his money he has been saving since Christmas, I dropped off Bobby and the kids and took Matthew to get his hair cut for the second time this week. The after looks almost as bad as the first because there is only so much you can do to fix someone else’s mistake.

As soon as he was finished with his haircut he ran behind the counter and said “I need a lollypop” and he had it in his mouth before I could even say no. Ugh.

Thanks to the “wonder drug” making me so sick, I have yet to have a full night’s sleep. The first night I was puking, the second night I kept waking from crazy dreams (the kind you get when you are sick), and last night I was in so much pain that not even the hot bath could relax me enough to get more than a couple hours of sleep. Everything from my waist up (to include wrists and thumbs) hurt so bad that breathing is almost unbearable. Even sleeping upright did not help.

My only solace is that DH is taking our oldest to school, so I don’t have to get out of my pajamas. I need whatever comfort I can get so not dragging out the two year old, scraping frost off my windshield to drive him to school is the best thing I could have asked for.

Don’t get me started on the middle son though…. the boy is on my last nerve. I have been wondering how it takes my oldest two boys to get ready to school when the oldest has 1 1/2 - 2 hours to get ready for school, and the middle child has 2 hours to get ready. Yes, they have chores in the morning (make sure the dishwasher is loaded, should have been done after dinner so that is a cinch, get the clothes out of the dryer and start a new load in the wash, pick up your messes, and get yourself showered, dressed, eat breakfast, brush your hair & teeth). NOTHING that should take more than an hour. Apparently my middle son thinks it should take 45 minutes to be dressed up to his underwear. When I finally gave up trying to sleep, and got up because I was sick of hearing him yell through the house, I got up to find he had showered for 15 minutes (no biggie) and then done nothing but stand around in nothing more than his underwear for the next 30 minutes. I am not sure how I can get that boy motivated without breathing down his neck for 2 hours each morning, which just is not feasible with my lack of sleep lately.

On a better and brighter note, I am 12 weeks today! The baby is starting to look more human, and I am *supposed* to start feeling more human soon, but I will just watch and wait to see if my morning sickness gets the hint that it is time to hit the road. I am going to go out on a limb here and say either I am carrying a girl (since I have 2x as much morning sickness than I did my other two pregnancies combined) OR this is another baby boy trying to guarantee he is last baby we have (which was always the plan anyways). Either way, I will be happy, as I truly just want a healthy baby. Don’t tell Matthew this, as he insists this is his “baby sister”, he gets angry anytime I even suggest it could be a baby brother.

Please someone tell my 2 year old that mama REALLY needs him to take a nap today, so she can try to nap herself. This nap strike he is on is about to drive me batty!

Matthew has a new word & sign; “please”. He is so cute about how he says it, because usually he is begging for something I have that he wants me to share with him. He will come up to me and say “Pwease, mommy, bite, pwease?” rub his belly (the sign for please), open his mouth, stick out his tongue and then say “ahhhhh”. Then he will start up with the “pwease, pwease” again until I share. Since he started saying please when I had candy, I was worried that to him candy = please, but when he was asking daddy for “moo” (milk) or me for “boo” (to nurse) last night, he kept adding “pwease” to it.

“Mommy, boo pwease”? I love when they start talking!! At the rate Matthew is going, I hope he does not need intervention like his brothers did.

Finally!

We got Matthew’s hair cut!

We have been meaning to get it cut for weeks now, but we kept putting it off. Finally I just said “get in the car, we are going NOW”.

He was not too thrilled about it, but there were no tears, or grumbling, just wiggling and a lot of signing and saying “help”.

I was impressed how well he did, even when she pulled out the clippers to shave the back of his neck.

Afterwards we celebrated by getting Korean food at a REALLY good restaurant here in town, and then got him his own cup of ice cream on the way home.

And yes, I even cut the back.

Terri asked me how I felt about it earlier. Yes, it looks good, and I do like it… but I am also very sad. I have always loved the long soft downy locks of hair, and I do think the long hair was so cute… but it was time. He feels so much older to me now, and I miss being able to hold him against my chest and put my fingers through his hair at night when he was sleepy… but it was time. My 22 month old baby seems one step closer to being a two year old toddler.

Last night at the mall we decided to try Ruby Tuesday’s, I got steak, Bobby got ribs, Austin got chicken, Christopher got shrimp, and Matthew got a grilled cheese. It was so funny because he picked up the sign “sandwich” last night and repeatedly kept signing “cheese sandwich”. He wanted cheese fries, so he would take fries and cram it between the bread and then pull out a french fry covered in cheese. He also kept asking for bites of our food and when I gave him a bite of my steak, he stole my fork.

First he used the fork to eat his fries, and it was hilarious watching him try to put it on the fork and then try to dip it in the little cup of ketchup. Then he decided sandwiches are probably better on a fork, so he put it on the fork. Then he decided to try grilled cheese dipped in ketchup; but that lost his interest pretty quick. We got some nice little laughs out of his funny dining habits, it is so funny how much better anything tastes on a fork, even fries.

Matthew thinks it’s cold outside, if you ask him if he is cold, he balls up his little fists and shakes while pulling his face tight. It is very cute. He signs ‘cold’ just like it shows it on his signing time DVDs. He was quite the ham tonight at dinner with his signing.

Matthew now wants everything in its origional, but opened package. With string cheese he just wants you to open one side just a little bit. With crackers and raisins he want’s to graze straight from the container. With graham crackers he wants to eat them straight from the bag, which was a no-go, since there were still 6 in the bag and he wanted to just nibble a little on each one and then put it away. This is so frustrating because we know what he wants by what he signs (fish crackers, cheese, water, cookie, etc) but it is always a mystery on how he wants it, and if you get it wrong, he screams.

I do have to say, his indipendence can be nice. He is a cleaner eater than before because 9 out of 10 times he can use his utensils all by himself, and he will use the rag to clean his face and tray (with limited success and effectiveness).

Cute story, this morning he was making himself some ‘aquarium soup’ and drinking it. He was dropping about 5 or 6 goldfish crackers into his cup of water and then drinking them. I asked him what he called his new meal and he signed ‘fish-water’ and then said “yum”!

Mr. Independent is getting even more self-sufficient; tonight he was thirsty and I guess I was not jumping fast enough when he called, so he moved the chair to the fridge, filled his cup with ice, and then water. He then brought it over to me and together we drank his ice water. He then decided ice makes better blocks, and proceeded to decorate the living-room with ice. I asked him to help me put them in the sink, and he did.

And he loves cornbread. His belly was so full after dinner he looked bloated. He kept signing for more “crackers” and handing us his bowl for chili or his plate for cornbread. It amazes me how fast they develop non-verbal communication, that is why I think he is so good with signing; it’s easier than language and speech development. He has been starting to say ‘boo’ though when trying to scare us. He is on the low end when it comes to speech, but all my boys are (their daddy was too) and once they get to a certain age, they catch up so I am not too concerned about it. He will be checked again in 4 months if he is meeting the minimum. If he’s not, we will get him into see a speech therapist.