I was challenged to write a blog about my "Tales From The Crib" by the folks at Dropcam To learn more about camera and their competition for the best stories from the crib contact Tiffany at:  tpham@dropcam.com Several months ago I wrote this blog about our family and our sleep schedule. It was a hard time for our family: we were in transit from living as a family of four to moving in with my parents for a few months while my husband was away. Now that we're back as a family of four, we've had to figure out how to become a family again, and how to make schedules work, how to include dad in our lives again, and how to transition two children (not in cribs) into a new room with new beds in a new place. It wasn't easy. Right off the bat my husband took over bedtime, honestly, it was a huge relief. I had been tired of putting these kids to bed night, after night, after night. By the end of the day I was just exhausted, and to have a bedtime fight or strugg...

I have yet to blog about our Olympics lesson, it's been difficult with our life lately to find time to blog activities and projects. However, today, as I sit and watch speed skating while the boys sleep, I'm finding time to catch up. Over President's weekend my husband had a four day weekend, a rarity in his line of work, but glorious when it happens, and he decided he wanted to take the boys to get hockey pads so that they could actually skate and not get hurt. This all started last weekend when our oldest started to show some interest in hockey and actually wanted to skate. After clinging to the pushing gate (for teaching kids how to skate) for quite some time, we were able to convince him that it was OK to let go. He fell. He looked like he was going to cry but I rushed in, "It's okay Henrik, you just fell." I picked him up, he sniffled. He started to let out a few tears, "It's okay to cry, but you didn't get hurt, you are just upset about ...

I've been reading a lot: mommy blogs, parenting magazines, books about parenting, Facebook posts from the parents I respect the most, and I just watched a clip from Glennon Doyle Melton on the Today Show . It can be so overwhelming to be a parent sometimes, and while I feel I'm putting in the good fight daily, I realized while I sit here and take a deep breath after the hour long fight with a two and three year old about taking a nap, that I don't have it bad at all. It's exhausting. The hours are never ending, and most days I give up things that I want to do so I can put my kids in a place where they can be successful (ie: not using my gift cards from Christmas so I can buy pants that fit so I don't have both boys in tow, or going to the gym when my kids are really going after one another) but in my heart, I know that I've made the right choice, for me. I proudly devote every waking moment to these boys. If one doesn't nap, I take the opportunity to do on...

Four years ago I wrote a blog while on week two of a 13 week bed rest while pregnant with Henrik. I wrote... While Eric and Alice have been visiting Menards and working on our house projects, I’ve been having a pretty busy week too. I know you’re thinking, ‘how on earth could a girl on bed rest be having a busy week?’ Well, one word: Olympics. I have seen EVERY sport on TV. I know everything there is to know about our athletes, I know the special stories from other countries, I’ve seen all the medal ceremonies, the trash talking between the Koreans and the U.S (speed skating)  and the Russians and the U.S. (men’s figure skating), I have witnessed the curling mishaps and how to not “pull a Schuster”. I know all of the rules to curling, figuring skating and ice dancing. I watched Canada lose to the US in hockey in one of the greatest games of my time. I’ve seen the Dutch lose a Gold Medal in the largest coaching error of all time. I’ve seen men and women crash and ...

Today, as we spent most of it at the Urgent Care trying to take care of this month long ear infection and pink eye outbreak, I realized that I was overwhelmed. I was tired. Heck, it's been a month (exactly) since I got a good night's rest. A month since I have had a puke free day. A month since I've done something for myself. And, in turn, it's been a month exactly, since my boys have truly been kids. They've been fever ridden, couch bound, in pain, crabby and tired. They have told me that their "ears are falling off" and that they are "just too tired out". So today, as we approached the third hour of the Urgent Care visit, the boys "sat" in the exam room as I waited on the phone with our provider trying to get approval for Theo to be seen. While I answered the redundant questions by the operator, the boys destroyed the room. Literally: they tore the paper off of the exam table, and not in one clean rip, about a million tiny pieces of...

Dear Theodor, Today is your birthday. When you're 18, you'll get a copy of all of your birthday letters, but for now, I write this to your two year old self. It probably won't mean much to you when you are 18, but it means a lot to me to write and remember all of your years. 2.5 months When I say "Happy Birthday" to you this year, I say it in disbelief. I cannot believe, even for a second, that you have been a part of this family for two years already. It feels like you have been a part of it since I met Daddio.  On the other hand, this has been the longest year of your life, at least on my end of things. You started your terrible twos at about 15 months and you've been going strong since. Not that you always throw tantrums, but that you are always doing things by yourself, challenging every word I say, and taking your own path in this great big world. June 2013 You are an explorer, you're up to any task, you are determined, you're bra...

It's not a secret, Theo is a hitter. He hits all the time. Sometimes it's because he gets upset or frustrated, sometimes it's just to hit. It is quite possibly the biggest thing that challenges me as a parent. I've read just about every article out there on how to stop this. I've put him in time out, and when I do that, we make eye contact and I made sure to tell him that he was in time out because he hit. Very straight forward, very to the point and sometimes, I add in how it makes me feel: sad or upset, frustrated etc. Sometimes he says sorry right away. Sometimes he just stares. Sometimes he just cracks this smile at me that makes my blood boil. I repeat myself over and over saying that hitting hurts, that it's not nice, that people won't want to play with you. I've purchased children's books about not hitting. I've pretended to cry when he hits me, I mean, this list just goes on and on. I've done everything. When time outs stopped w...