This can't be normal

This is dedicated to Xander's future wife - the woman who has to raise his offspring. May this story answer some questions you may have about your own kids.

Xander has seasons where he goes to bed like a champ and other where he is coming out 2-6 times stalling to go to bed. Currently we are in the latter season. He can be absolutely exausted but still will stall in going to be. "When will you go to bed?" "If you stay up then I can stay up!" "I am not tired." "I just need to tell you something." "I just want to give you a hug and kiss." "My room is too hot (at 65 deg). These are all of Xander's standard excuses. Last night was no exception. When this happens we usually threaten to put or actually put a lock on his door. Then he throws a horrific fit for 15 min, the lock is removed and he almost always stays in after that. Although it is a successful process it is annoying and drags out bedtime. Some nights we are more patient with this process. Last night was not one of those and he ended up in the closet for time out which he fell asleep in less then 2 minutes.

Xander is also in a pattern of waking up 1-2 times a night crying from dreams or random requests. These also fluctuate cyclically and they are currently bad. Again last night was no exception. However the end result was really weird. So at 12:30 am he woke up crying. I was in REM or something because it was so painful to drag myself out of that bed. Once I got up there he was crying saying, "why is everyones underwear twisted?"

Q "Did you have a bad dream buddy?"

X "No! Why is everyones underwear twisted?"

Q "I don't know sweetie. Lets go back to bed."

X "Yes you do. Tell me!

This is a bad sign. If he denies a bad dream and wants a question answered and my first answer is not satisfactory then we are dealing with an anal unrational kid on the search for a very specific answer who will not stop until he gets it. He can do this during the day it can take 5-15 mins to resolve and may end up an a full tantrum. Needless to say it is annoying even at my full rested best self. At night with a tired Mommy it is a recipe to disaster.

Q "They are twisted because of the wind." Easiest way out of this is to play the game - but I only have one guess in me.

X "No that is not it."

Q "Then why are they twisted Xander?"

X "Well, who is wearing underwear?"

I got sucked into this painful conversation for a few minutes until I saw no easy way out and my fatigue clock struck and "desperate for sleep Mom" came out. (=Grumpy) When this happens my problem solving skills go into the toilet and the only things I can think of to solve these sort of problems is super glueing Xanders lips shut and the like. So I declared myself an unfit parent and tag teamed Ryan in. (By now it was 1:30am so I gave it my best.) He was working the next day so I try to avoid at all costs waking him which is why Xander couldn't just cry it out. However after waking Ryan that was the only solution we could come up with. So I walked in, told Xander that Daddy said he could just cry it out, and put the lock on the door. Of course Xander began screaming and kicking the door. Luckily we have a dehumidifier that makes some excellent white noise.

At 2:30am I woke up and checked on Xander. He was crying still and I almost went in because it was so sad. But then he began kicking the door again and nothing destroys sympathy faster then a good old door kicking session. So I walked away.

Then I woke up at 4am. I went to check on him and his lights were on. I assumed he would be asleep on the floor were he was protesting. I opened the door. He was pleasant, calm, cooperative and AWAKE!

Q "What are you doing?"

X "I am trying to get the lock off."

Q " Have you been awake this whole time."

X "Yes."

Q "You need to go to bed!"

X "Then take off my lock."

Terrified about the next day I took the lock off and he finally went to bed.

What the flibity-gibit! This can't be normal. That kid can get crazy hyper-focused. Are we just dealing with extreme stubbornness here or is this something else?

He Won

Everyday no matter how the weather is clearly exhibited out our window Xander ask?

"Is it sunny today?" On those rare days I reply with a "yes", he immediately proceeds to say, "Then can I wear shorts?" and I always have to be the bearer of bad news and reply, "No, even though it is sunny it is still freezing."

Xander loves shorts so much that he is has been known to risk his life to get some. After battling Xander all winter long about when it is appropriate to wear shorts, I finally collected all the shorts and put them up in a bin on the tallest shelf in Xander's closet. Surely he won't reach them. He is barely 3 feet tall and that is 7 feet tall and I declared myself a good Mom.

Less then 30 minutes latter - Xander is wearing shorts again! "What?! How did you get those? Show me." With a smile ear to ear he proudly takes my hands and walks me to the closet. The rubbermaid container is on the floor with the contest sprawled about. "How did you get these?" I requested/demanded. His smile widens and he points to the ladder that was used for the bunkbeds that is leaning on the other side of the closet. Then in true Xander form, barely being able to keep up with his own excitement he says, "I climbed up on the ladder and, and, and then I jumped and knocked the box down and, and, and got the shorts." Feeling grumpy that I was outwitted by a 3yr old I mentally vowed to be the winner of this ordeal. "Fine. Then this box has to go on the top shelf in the garage." I sneered with victory. Now it is 9 feet in the air and no ladders in sight. Although I knew he could climb the shelves if he was so desperate, I figured he would get hurt or scared before he got to 9 feet in the air. I felt confident that although I may have an ER bill on my hands - he would not be wearing shorts when I take him there. Take that Xander. Just try to wear shorts now Buck-o. I then mentally celebrated as I preceded to go about my daily activities.

30 min later - I hear Soren desperately beckon me. "Mom you need to come up stairs." These can be false alarms. "Why Soren?" I asked. "Cuz Xander is going to cut his pants." OH MY GOSH! I leap the stairs in 3 bounding steps just in time to see Xander, with only underwear and a shirt on and with his pants nicely laid out on the floor with scissors over them ready to alter them into shorts. Needless to say the shorts are out again. Apparently I would rather have my son be cold then have to go shopping more then I already have to. So the new rule is - You can wear shorts only inside. This does not seem to be a problem as he enjoys changing his clothes and this just gives him more reason to. Dang that boy is good. Scary good.

problem solving

This morning Soren woke up before Xander. Xander is the higher maintenance of the two right now so with this little break I decided to read my scriptures and take a shower before doing anything for the boys. By the time I came out of my room (7:30am) both boys were awake but none to be found. I looked around and finally out the window and saw Xander. Xander is in his jammies, (his summer jammies because if he can get away with shorts he will) two coats and a pair of boots and in each had he had a flashlight and a whistle. To this moment I still don't know why he was outside but I am rather pleased that he wore a coat let alone two and boots. He usually wants to be scantily clad outside during the winter. Apparently he thinks we live in Arizona. After getting him inside I went in the kitchen to find this. This is not sound engineering, but apparently effective as I no longer have lollypops in the cupboard above the refrigerator. This was Soren's handiwork. This is my question. Why when I am in the room my boys can't even zip up their own zipper on their pants, but when I am out of the room they can problem solve anything they want?

Projects

I have been working on some projects over the past few weeks. We may be obsessed with storage. Anyway, we found these series of 5 closets for FREE on Craigslist. I had to disassemble them, move them to my house, and reassemble them. They didn't have any shelves oe top to the closets so I had to build those too. After doing that I trimmed the whole thing out to make it look more built in and have it go all the way to the ceiling. One day, one far distant day, I would like to build new doors because this is not my favorite look and I am not for glass let alone see through. The whole reason why I wanted cabinets in the first place is to hide my stuff. However, it is hard to complain about free.
This is a dress up organizer for the boys I built. It is nice that their dress up clothes that are used daily have a "place". Now I just need to teach them how to hang up clothes........
This is a kids craft table and chairs I built for the boys. The plans for this and the dress up organizer come from this awesome website anawhite.com. This woman designs simple things with easy instructions usually knock offs from pottery barn. She is very inspirational and people who have never built anything are motivated and successful in building her plans. I think she is amazing. I love this website and want to build a bunch more things on her site. I have the cutes fabric I plan on covering the bins with so that their table can be adorable instead of only utilitarian.......I wonder when I will actually do it. Once the function of the project is completed I slow way down in finishing things. (Dang you Thompson trait!) The boys (especially Soren) LOVE this table and use it everyday. Ah, success!

Stackable chairs. You can't tell me that is not cool. These chairs cost me about 4$ each. The table I think was about $40. To build these things only takes a few hours. To finish them takes FOREVER. I often dream of Ryan doing some of the finish work on these projects like my Mom would do for my Dad. Although that has not happened he does sometimes clean up after me - a perk which I love.........unless it is while I am building.
These are the most designer shelves I have ever seen. Most the stuff I make does not come out this cute, so I am very pleased with these guys. This is in my laundry room. I now have black baskets on top full of cleaning stuff. The stuff I use often is on the lower little shelf and my favorite feature about these shelves is the rod at the bottom. We go through about 15 towels a day. Half from the boys cleaning up their endless spills, the other half from them being "creative". Anyway, I hang them here to dry so they don't sour and I don't have to do the laundry daily. It has been wonderful for us.
I have 4 major projects either in the works or all the materials collected and just waiting to be manipulated into something better. That doesn't include the fabric I have for the drapes and valances for 5 of my windows that I have had for several months. I often feel confused about which project I should be working on and what is more important because depending on what room I am in, dictates what feels most important. If only I had insomnia, the things I could do.......

Hawaii Heaven

Hawaii really is paradise. WOW. Ryan and I got to go to the Big island for a whole week - KIDLESS!! - Thanks to awesome family. I have never been and Ryan went when he was 12 so it was great exploration for the both of us. It was overcast most the time which you would think is a bummer but it is so gorgeous and warm that it was still amazing. This is the "Valley of Kings" - a gorgeous remote area that has only locals living there with no water and electricity. It is a steep climb in to the valley but it has a beautiful black sand beach, wild horses and gorgeous foliage. It was right out of lost with a awesome sandy beach backed up by a jungle. Here we are with a wild horse. He is hard to see but he is right behind my shoulder. We meet a local when we were hiking down here who was picking up his son and son's girlfriend who were on a 5 day backpacking trip. I immediately knew what I want to do the next time I come back which appears imminent as Ryan has 2 trips planned before the year is up and I am invited on one of them.
Hawaii the big island is the only island with active volcanoes. Although it is not activly erupting in a way we could see well, it was still spectacular to see all the landscape changes and steam vents and lava flows.

I went on a 4 mile hike loop that took you around and through what in the 1950's was a lake of lava. This lake of lava was 400 feet deep and took 30 years to cool. The above picture is the jungle on the ridge of the lake of lava. Below is the dried lake of lava that I walked across. This hike was so cool to me. It is interesting, lava destroys everything in its path, but then years and years later things begin to grow again and then eventually the lava becomes even more nutrient then regular soil.
This is lava flows that reached the shore.

My absolute favorite thing on this trip was swimming with dolphins. We rarely do the expensive tourist stuff, but Ryan talked me into it and boy am I glad he did. Wow what an experience. I mean I really swam with the dolphins. We found several pods of wild dolphins - they estimated about 200 or so. Then we got our snorkel gear and went swimming. It was neat to see the dolphins when they came to the surface of the water but the real action was down below it. The dolphins would play tag with a leaf picking it up with their mouths or catching it with their fins and passing it off. For the first 15 min I sat floating on the top of the water looking below but then I saw this woman dive down and really swim with the dolphins. "Holy Cow!" I thought. "Now that is what I want to do." After watching for a few more minutes I abandoned my "noodle" and quickly got the hang of diving down and in a way that didn't scare the dolphins and coming up and squirting the water out of my snorkel. I was so close I could have touched the dolphins at least a dozen times. I would literally be in the middle of the pod swimming making eye contact with a dolphin for 20 -30 seconds. It was phenomenal. These animals are so gentle and non threatening. The coolest part about it is these dolphins could out swim me at any moment but they were letting you swim with them. I have never been a dolphin lover, but I could just feel of their goodness. I now know why others adore dolphins. They are truly amazing.
We also saw humpback whales. Two sets of mom and baby. One did almost a full breach out of the water (the classic jump out and land on your back.) It goes so fast you just want them to do it again and again to really soak it in and study the image but alas, once is all we got.
I wish I could have dedicate a whole day going from waterfall to waterfall, but this is all is all we could get in. Pictures just don't do it justice.

My boys were so good to all the homes they went to. On day 3 Soren told my Mom he missed me, but true to himself Xander quickly exclaimed, "I don't miss Mom. I don't miss anybody. I like lots of sleepovers." Nice to know they are handling change well.

Christmas lives on

Xander was playing "the Christmas story" with a 3 year old boy twist.

He made a manger out of legos. He had a Mary, a Joseph, and a baby Jesus. You can't tell me that is not awesome.

A Thompson Christmas

We had a great Christmas this year. It was a "Thompson year" meaning my side of the family gets first dibs on get together. Both Ryan and my family is in the area. Thompson Christmas's always entail a "gingerbread compitition." Past compititions were

Gingerbread bridges - the bridge who could hold the most weight before breaking won

Gingerbread towers - the tallest one won

Gingerbread catapolts - farthest throw won

Gingerbread race cars - fastest won

ect.

There are always a bunch of rules typed out a month or so before but the number one rule is and always have been, everything you use has to be edible. EVERYTHING. No glue, tape or anything else. If there is any question you have to eat it on the spot.

This year we did an egg drop. We made contraptions or protection covering for our egg and then dropped them at varying heights. The one that could be dropped at 16 feet (our tallest rung on the ladder) and the lightest contraption won. This was a great competition because in years past we have had time issues where now that we have little kids it is hard to find time to design and engineer and build your gingerbread entry which you usually had to leave a day or more to fully dry or cure for full function. For this competition we made our egg protectors right then and there and for the first year no one used gingerbread. Most the grandkids could make these too and so it was fun for all.

Here we are putting them together. We all brought a bunch of ingredient and it was a free for all. I had several nieces and nephew defect to my team. This is not because I am the best at these competitions. Actually contrary to what some of you are thinking I bring very little competitions to the table. Even though I am somewhat handy and build thing and am somewhat mechanically minded, I don't compare at all to more then half of my siblings. Those are not my talents in this family. As a nurse I can't compare to the mechanical engineers and computer geniuses that litter my family. Family members have been known to draw up plans in Cad for these things. Luckily everyone having kids has muted the playing field a little.

Most the entries. Marshmallows were really handy to have. Just sticking a bunch of marshmallows all over your egg and using a bit of fruit by the foot or won ton wrappers could get you to the 16 foot level......of course it wasn't the lightest.

You can't help but love the designs.

One of my many entries. This one was in Soren's name. What I lack in engineering I made up in sheer quantity. Lets face it, the funnest part of the whole event is dropping eggs from 16 feet up in the air and I got to do this a lot. This is an orange who's center is scooped out and the egg is placed inside with a marshmallow cork and some fruit by the foot tape to keep it all together. It survived it's first fall in which the orange partially split ruining the integrity of design. This wasn't our best one but the best picture. Soren took it well.
Everyone loved watching the eggs drop........except we did have a few nephews who got upset when their eggs broke. Not my boys. They were like, "awesome, destruction!" I had to grab a few eggs from their hands to prevent an "egg fight". Known potentials
I didn't get a pic of the winning design. It was by my brother Shem and it was truly awesome. He made a mold out of cardboard that had a cone with an inverted umbrella on it. Then he covered it with soft rice paper and let it dry. He put the egg inside with no padding. The thing gently floated down and the cone protected when it hit the floor. It was awesome. Upon impaction it broke part of the umbrella part making it lighter. So he re-weighed it and sent it down again. It survived 3 falls and came in at just over 3 oz of weight. His other design was also cool, sucessful but a bit heavier. It was a part of a baguet with the bread scrapped out and the egg placed. Then attached 2 semi circles of rice paper around the bread top at angles. The contraption twirled as it fell. Really cool to watch. My brother Corom made this awesome trophy that we will pass down every 2 years when we have the competition. My Dad was the one who started all of this and he would have really loved this year.