No more no's!!

Oh boy...Jake has hit the "no" stage with a vengeance! Everything, no matter what I say, is automatically responded to with an emphatic no. Even if it's something that he actually really wants. For example, yesterday we had a little conversation that went like this:

"Jake, would you like a popsicle?"
"No! (slight pause) Opicle? Yes!"
"Jake, you said no, you don't want a popsicle."
"OPICLE!! OPICLE!!"
"Ok, what do you say?"
"Pwease!"
And this, of course, is where I hand him the popsicle that he told me he didn't want.

Oh my gosh!! I think I'm going to scream! You always hear about this infamous stage, but I had no idea how frustrating it really is. I've heard that giving kids more choices can ease the intensity of this stage, but I feel like I give Jake choices all the time. And, usually, he answers no to all of those wonderful choices. And so, I am posing this question to all you experienced mothers (or fathers) in the blogosphere: What in the WORLD do I do??? How long does this last? HELP!!

He must have gotten that from me...

We had an interesting Sunday yesterday. The size of our ward at church has been cut in half due to all the people graduating or moving for the summer, so they decided to combine the two nurseries. A seemingly innocent enough idea...well, they hadn't anticipated (and neither had we for that matter) the DISASTER that would come from one Jake Dougherty.

You see, they decided to combine the two nurseries into the other nursury room, so Jake was a little thrown off. He was pretty hesitant at first, but we figured he would be ok. After all, he had all of his friends in there, as well as his usual nursery leaders, it was just a different room. So Joseph and I turned to leave, and as soon as we did, Jake started bawling. Instantly. It was like the first day of nursery all over again. I couldn't believe it! We figured he would be ok eventually, and once he saw we were gone and how much fun everyone else was having, we thought he would forget all about us and just join in. Oh boy, were we wrong.

Well, Jake's sobs started off some other kids' sobs. Soon there were three or four toddlers just screaming, which of course made all of the other kids just crazy too. It was a madhouse in there! They tried to include Jake, but he was having none of it. Eventually, he was crying so hard that he threw up!! In nursery!! Apparently it was at that moment that they decided maybe it wasn't such a good idea to combine, and they separated the younger kids from the older ones. Jake went back into his old nursery room and his tears stopped instantly.

At first, I couldn't believe it when they told me that he cried so hard that he threw up. What kind of kid does that?? But then I recalled my very earliest memory. Yes, folks, my very first memory is, in fact, of me crying so hard that I threw up. Why was I crying so hard? Because my dad wouldn't give me dessert. I must have been three years old, and I vividly remember thinking, "If he would just give me some dessert I wouldn't cry like this!" Apparently, Jake has that very same streak of stubbornness in him. I can just imagine him thinking, "If they just took me to the other room I wouldn't cry like this!"

As I was growing up, my parents were known to say, "I hope you have a kid just like you someday!" This was, of course, in reference to my incredibly stubborn attitude. Well, mom and dad, it looks like I do...but I sure do love him.

I am woman, hear me roar!!

I just realized that I forgot to post about this. I can't believe I forgot, as you can tell from the pictures, it was a monumental moment in my life. That's right, folks, I (along with three other amazing women) jump started a car without any help from a man!

We were just leaving a church activity when one of the girls there realized her car wouldn't start. Well, have no fear! I sauntered over to the trunk of our SUV and pulled out our handy-dandy emergency kit, which contained a pair of jumper cables. Once we pulled them out, there was a lot of discussion of what we should actually do with them. I'm pretty sure the conversation went something like this (I'm not sure who said what, these were just all the comments that were thrown out):

"Alright, what now?"
"Um, I think you're supposed to connect the two cars together somehow. By the batteries."
"Yeah, negative to negative, positive to positive." (this was my comment :))
"Wait, are you sure it's not positive to negative?"
"Well...no, but I'm pretty sure..."
"Hold on, aren't you supposed to ground one of them or something?"
"Maybe...what do you think?"
"Just do negative to negative, positive to positive!"
"That better be right because if you do it wrong then the cars will explode!"
"Where do you put these things??"
"Someone turn off the cars first!!"



As you can see, we figured it out.
Here's hoping that it's going to start!It works!!!!!And nothing exploded, either. Well done ladies!

The farmer in the Wisconsin Dells

I thought about the title of this post for a long time. It's so clever, right? Haha, thanks for humoring me!

If you can't tell from the oh-so-lame title, we just got back from the Wisconsin Dells! Joseph had a little two day break from school, so we took advantage and headed up to the land of the cheeseheads. They call Wisconsin Dells "America's best kept secret" and it did not disappoint! I couldn't believe how many waterparks there were. Just at our resort we went to 4 in two days! And we didn't even get to go to any of the outdoor ones! Unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures because we were just having too much fun to stop and get the camera out!!

We started the trip on Thursday morning, and let me just tell you that I have never seen so many farms in my life. You can imagine just farmland straight from Iowa to Wisconsin, but it was beautiful! (I had to add this little bit so you could understand where the "farmer" part of the title of the post came from. Wow, that just gets lamer and lamer the more I have to explain it...)

Once we got to our room we were ready to go SWIMMING (or "wewin" and Jake would call it). He was pretty cautious at first, but after about an hour he was ready to play in all the water!

When Jake wasn't swimming, he wanted to play in the arcade room, where Joseph and I decided to give him a few plays. He loved it!
Also there with us were our friends the Whiteheads with their two boys. The three of them had a blast together, especially on this ladder in one of the bedrooms!

So, yeah, those are about the only pictures that I got, but we really did have a blast!! We definitely want to go back sometime before we leave Iowa!

Mess-o-rama!

There was a time in my life when I thought this was a mess:

But, then a few months went by and I realized that that's not really a mess. No, THIS is a mess, I thought:

And then...well...Angela of 1 1/2 years ago ago...how naive you were!

Deep breaths...deep breaths...can it get worse??

The circle of life

Tragedy struck the Dougherty household today. First, let me give you a little background. Out behind our apartment building there has been a duck sitting on her nest full of eggs for a few weeks. Every day, Jake likes to go outside and look at the duck and we see if the eggs have hatched yet. We've been looking forward to seeing little ducklings! Well...this morning when Joseph went out to get on his bike to ride to school, he found this: I almost cried this morning when Joseph showed me the pictures! There was a hawk standing by the dead mother duck, and her nest was right there, full of eggs, with feathers everywhere.

You can imagine that this mother put up quite the fight for her baby eggs.


I almost feel a personal responsibility for this tragic incident. You see, when we first realized that there were ducks out there, there were two of them. The father was there guarding the eggs also. We were so excited that we went to get some bread to feed the ducks. Apparently, these ducks weren't used to being fed by humans, so instead of eating the bread, we scared away the dad. We never saw him back again. Maybe if we hadn't scared the dad away, the two of them could have fended off the hawk together and they would have stood a chance. *Sigh...*

I have this incredible urge to go outside and sit on those eggs myself, as well as to purge anything and everything in this house that has a hawkeye on it. Don't worry, Jake, you'll get your hat back soon enough, I just need to mourn...

Obsession

I mentioned in my Easter post that Jake never takes off his hawkeye hat. I wasn't kidding:That's right, Jake won't even go to sleep without his hat on. Joseph's dad gave him this hat when he started dental school, but Jake has claimed it as his own lately. Joseph never gets to wear it anymore. Oh, the sacrifices we make for our children...

You wouldn't believe how many times I have had to clean this hat. I assume that it's similar to a child who carries his blanket with him everywhere. It gets ridiculously dirty, and even more ridiculous when you try to wash without your child noticing! Although, I still think it's pretty darn cute.