The Hoglund Family Blog: Spring Hasn't Quite Sprung ... So SPRING Already!

So with the seasons always seems to come the wonderful head cold… or should I say head colds. Seems like everyone, other than Chris, got hit by it this time …. Though I seemed to have it the worst. And with such horrible timing. Just days after I ran my 4 mile run in preparation for training for Gmas Half Marathon, I came down with this horrid stuff that has lingered ever since. So needless to say, my training/running has taken a huge nose dive and I haven’t been running since. Hoping it clears up soon so I can get back to running …. But it seems to have travelled down into my lungs now and I am incessantly hacking, especially at night when desperately trying to go to sleep after a long and drawn out day. And so goes the battle….

A little over a week ago I had two interviews setup, on the same day nonetheless, that both went quite well. By well, I mean that I now have two more follow up interviews scheduled for this week. I’m still hoping and pushing (as far as I can without shooting myself in the foot) for part time as I am SO ready to rejoin the working population for both social and mental health reasons, BUT I am not ready to give up total control in the upbringing of my kids. More so, I just don’t know that I am ready to go from full time stay at home mom, to hard core 40 hrs/week workaholic again … nor do I want that. I really would love the best of both worlds, 3 days/week working out of the home for some additional feeling of self worth and conversations with other adults about adult topics (vs potty talk, disciplining, constant nagging etc) … and 2 days back with my kids to ground me a bit. Part time would also help in that Gma Chris agreed to be our “free” [virtually] child care if it were only 2-3 days a week. And one of the potential employers is down in the twin cities (where she lives) so potentially I would periodically come down there to work in the office here and there so she wouldn’t even have to travel those weeks to watch the kids. It would be such an ideal situation for everyone…. But ideal is seldom reality, but I’m holding out hope that this still could work in my favor. Wish me luck this week and hopefully I’ll have more to share on the subject on my next post.
Not much else has happened with us. At least not much that I care to share out here. :) But our little Evie, though still an attitude ridden little diva, has given in a tad bit with her relentless refusal to say “Yes.” Mind you, she is not SAYING “Yes,” but is indicating it now. [I’m calling this a win for me all the same] She now will nod her head and/or say “Uh huh” when she means to say “Yes” but still won’t parrot us when we try to get her to say “Yes.” She will repeat almost ANY other word we try to get her to say and does quite well at saying some pretty difficult words and sounds… but is standing her ground [a little less firmly these days] and still refuses to actually say “Yes” and instead follows it up with a very quick, and in her eyes comical, “No!” She definitely knows the difference between MacKay and Oscar (can point them out and never gets them mixed up) and continues to learn more words, items, animals/sounds etc. She’s a little sponge. She even now says “Ida know” [I don’t know] when we ask her a question … even if she does know the answer, which she will quickly answer after first spouting out her “Ida know.” She wants to do so many things for herself too… which is great to see, yet frustrating as things take MUCH longer to accomplish this way, and there are so many of these things she just cannot do and I have to just wait and wait and wait for her to finally realize that before she will even begin to entertain the idea of letting me help or do it for her. Putting on her socks is one of these things … heck, even the boys can’t get their socks on yet, at least not well. But she gives it a good go and tries for the longest time before allowing me to come even remotely near her to help her out. On the flip side, she’s an absolute pro at taking OFF items. Within minutes of getting in the car she has both her shoes and socks off … never fails, EVERY time we’re in the car. And the minute you mention going to take a shower, she’s running for our room with her shirt over her head and ripping down her pants and diaper – she just loves showers.

The boys have been entertaining lately with how they play together. If they aren’t beating the living day lights out of each other over a stupid toy… they are playing together SO nicely and the things that they say while playing/pretending are entirely comical. They make up names for things and work together, telling each other how it’s all going to go etc. They are just BOYS to the hilt. I love it. They are quite proud of themselves recently as they’ve been empowered to do more for themselves lately. They are now required to brush their own teeth every morning (they do a pretty bang up job of it, so we do their nightly brushing for them to make up for it), and I’m slowly backing away more and more in aiding them in dressing themselves each morning. They are good with their underwear and pants, and usually their shirts end up going on the right way… but socks are still a mystery to them no matter how many tricks I show them. They have been putting on their own shoes and jackets for a while now…. BUT they recently have started tackling the zipper on their jackets – or as they refer to it, putting the banana in the monkey’s mouth – something they learned at preschool. They always used to ask me to help them “put the banana in the monkey’s mouth” (then the monkey climbs the tree/zipper goes up).. but now they make a valiant effort to do it themselves, and just the other day MacKay did it all completely by himself. Usually they get the “banana” in … but not in far enough that it will start to zip. But this time he got it all on his own, which really irked Oscar as he refused to let me help him with his immediately after that,…. He wasn’t about to be shown up by his brother.

Just this morning I had the boys’ preschool conferences. Got a lot of good feedback about how they are doing…. Average on most skills, above on quite a few and needing some additional work on some others. They are doing good with their ABCs, cutting, drawing/coloring, counting, shapes, colors and feelings (they identify feelings by facial gestures). They grasp the basic concepts but need some more work on concepts like more/less/equal, patterns, and number association. She said they both counted to around 11 or 12 for her, though I know they both can count to 20 – though they usually skip 15 and repeat 14 a couple times in its place. So all in all I was pleased with how they were doing as were they. I asked if there were any behavioral concerns with either and they said absolutely not, that they are sweet, pleasant and happy little boys….. WHAT? Well I guess I have to say I am glad that they are not a problem for them or displaying some of the behaviors that I am privy to at home … but on the same chord, I sorta wish they had displayed a bit of them so they would understand what I am sometimes dealing with and give me some ideas on how to handle them. Don’t get me wrong… I always said that I didn’t want my kids growing up like many do these days with a complete lack of respect for elders. Even I could see that in the very few years I taught in the schools… kids are just different these days and I don’t know exactly what that is attributed to, but they aren’t fearful of teachers/adult figures and talk back, where kids in my day wouldn’t DARE to do something like that… we cowered when a teacher/elder got on us about something. So I am glad to hear that they are better behaved outside of the home … I guess if they gotta get some naughty-ness out of their systems it is better left with me at home. They were also both very surprised at how independent the two of them are, specifically in relation to each other. They really don’t feel the need to be tied to each other during class and really are pretty much oblivious to what the other is doing most of the time. I guess the first couple weeks of class they would ask to be seated by each other during snack … mostly MacKay asking to be seated by Oscar, but he quickly accepted it when they told them that they had to sit where their place mat was, and since then they haven’t given a hoot where the other is during class time. I totally see that at home too, though I also get to witness those sweet moments where they are completely drawn to each other and have great concern over what is going on with the other – whether it be during the disciplining of one of them (usually MacKay getting upset if Oscar has to be removed from a situation or sit on the naughty bench) or when one of them gets hurt – just the other day we were at the Williams’ house for a play date and Wyatt (I believe) hit MacKay and Oscar’s reaction to that was “Hey, that’s my friend!” I love it… his friend. I gotta say, twins are hard work … but it’s those moments when they bond together like that and play nicely that make all the extra work and craziness all worth it and make it so enjoyable.

Well enough of all of that…. Let’s get onto the good stuff, the pictures.

Here’s little miss Evie (Attitude) in a new sassy zebra print outfit. The 2nd picture explains Evie to a “T”

Fun Outside: the other weekend we were out for the greater part of the day, burning scrap wood and picking up some of the yard
Silly Boys

ALL my silly boys

Throwing wood on the fire

The boys and their big black dope of a pal, Angus

Evie joined us outside when she got up from her nap

Big hug for Evie’s “doggie woof woof”

Evie had fun being the “shagger” for MacKay who was practicing his T-ball skills

The boys in heaven, back on their ‘Gator while Evie reunited herself with her favorite “rock-a-rock-a-rock-a” toy

For being such good helpers outside, the boys were surprised with two new dinosaur toys. [Note: the red one MacKay is holding is the coveted Imaginext TRex dinosaur that his cousin had a few weeks ago at a family function that MacKay went ape over and wanted so badly…. Won this bad boy off of ebay. And the one Oscar is holding is from my lovely friend, Jen (Marinoff) Wilson, who saw pictures from my last blog post about MacKay and this coveted dinosaur and sent me up a whole BOX of Imaginext dinosaurs, and then some, that her son had and no longer plays with… isn’t she a GEM? So little by little we’ll surprise them with more and more of them to reward good behavior.]

MacKay & Oscar’s 4th set of completed Potty Sticker Charts – these charts lasted a little longer than the last couple as we eased up on the frequency of sticker giving. This time around they got stickers for 1. Being dry in the AM (mainly Oscar), 2. Being accident free all day long (both) and 3. Poops (which MacKay gets far more stickers for as he is WAY more regular than Oscar)

MacKay & Oscar’s NEW 5th set of Sticker Charts – I say just sticker (not potty) charts as we’re going to be integrating some other “chores” worthy of giving stickers for with this one: brushing teeth, getting self completely dressed, cleaning up, making bed etc. I wasn’t feeling too creative for this one… so just made a night sky-scape for them to put star stickers on. I’ll try be more creative with the next ones… especially considering Evie is getting a bit of “sticker chart envy” and wants in on this whole shin-dig.