Boys Archives - Roubinek Reality

It Has to Get Better

April 17, 2013 By Jamie Roubinek 18 Comments

I told my friend the other day that it feels like I’m getting my butt kicked everyday, all day long.

It’s the truth.

I used to be able to get the boys entertained with something they could do on their own, while I did a little work of my own, whether it be housework or computer work. I can’t do that anymore. Now, if they are not totally engaged in something, they are jumping off of the end tables showing their swan dive form on to the couch cushions. That’s just one of many things they do that makes me want to pull my hair out.

Let’s see, there’s also Riverson’s toothbrush obsession. We have to hide our toothbrushes from him because he will walk around with them in his mouth. And how can I forget the toothpaste. It’s all gone and I think it’s because he ate it all. Gross, I know.

It’s a problem we have in our house. It’s also a problem I never DREAMED we’d have. It’s a problem because he will take our toothbrushes when he finds them and then we find them in random places, or sometimes not at all.

I don’t know what the obsession with the toothbrushes is, but it’s wearing me out. It doesn’t matter how many times I have to get on to him about it, he just KEEPS ON going back to get what ever toothbrush he can find. And, he even hunts for them until he can find them. It’s so crazy!

As if the toothbrush obsession wasn’t enough, we also have an obsession with water.

I constantly find Riverson playing in the toilet because he just wants to splash all. of. the. time!

He’s attracted to every body of water he sees, just to splash.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to pull him out of the bathtub because he would not listen when I said, “No more splashing.” We’re usually lucky to get out of the bathroom without slipping on the slick, covered with water, tile floor.

I know one day I will look back on this time lovingly (I think), but I’m in a tough spot right now and I can’t wait to get out of it.

I’m constantly asking myself, “Will they ever settle down?” “Will he ever listen to me when I say ‘no more’?” It has to get better. It has to.

Filed Under: Boys, Parenting, Riverson

Wordless Wednesday: 2 Year Old Attachments

April 2, 2013 By Jamie Roubinek 6 Comments

This is one of my favorite pictures of Riverson right now. It shows a part of him rarely seen in pictures.

He’s so attached to his blanket and pacifier, both lovingly referred to as “blankie” and “nigh nigh.”

“Nigh nigh” came from Langston. His pacifier was always needed when it was time to go night night and it didn’t take any time at all for him to name his pacifier “nigh nigh.”

I know Riverson’s tired when he insists on having his “blankie” and “nigh nigh” in his possession, no matter where we are.

Seeing this picture shows me his sweet side. Most of the time he’s silly, rough, and tumbly, but this sweet side makes me want to sweep him up and cuddle him.

Linking up this almost wordless Wednesday post here.

Filed Under: Boys, Riverson

Don’t Sass Me, Young Man!

March 30, 2013 By Jamie Roubinek 16 Comments

“Don’t sass me, young man!”

“You don’t talk to your mommy like that!”

“Don’t talk back to me!”

I say some variation of those three phrases almost daily.

I don’t know if it’s his age, or his birth order. {He’s the third child in terms of our “whole” family, but he’s the oldest in terms of the kids who are in this house day in and day out.}

Whatever the case may be, anytime I get on to him, he has a comment for me. Sometimes it doesn’t even make sense. It’s like he HAS to have the last word. Already! At age 3. Oh man.

When I’m getting on to him, he doesn’t even wait for the last word to come out of my mouth before he’s opening his. Sometimes the response is “No” and sometimes it’s just some loud jibberish that he uses to make his point.

We do time out a lot and sometimes I even catch myself arguing with him. It takes me a second to tell myself, “Jamie, this is ridiculous. You’re arguing with a 3 year old and YOU are the boss. Not him.”

While I want to raise these boys to be confident in their opinions, I also want them to have respect for their authority and I can’t stand seeing kids sass their parents. I get that there are some things not worth fighting about with your kids, and that line your kids cross is all dependent on what’s important to you as a parent. For me, the sass and the backtalk are disrespectful and crossing the line. I can’t stand it.

BUT, to be perfectly honest, I don’t really know what to do about it or how to stop it.

Yesterday, my dad came over to pick up my niece, who was in town visiting. Langston hadn’t had a real nap and had been a bear for several hours. When my dad walked in, I told Langston to do something (or maybe it was to stop doing something) and he yelled ”no” at me. The next bit of dialogue was basically an argument between us. {Another moment when I question why I’m arguing with a 3 year old.}

I told him to go to time out and he refused. As I went to grab him to escort him to time out, he took off running from me. I was literally chasing him around my living room and he started laughing. All of this was taking place in front of my dad and my 20 year old niece, who probably think I have very little control over my kids. Fun. And embarrassing. :/

After about 2 minutes, I did win the battle and took him to time out, but I still felt defeated. Hearing him argue with me and sass me is such a beat down. I think I’m more embarrassed of someone seeing THAT than I am an epic meltdown.

What’s a mamma to do? I can’t stand it! So tell me, what tips worked for you??

Filed Under: Boys, Langston, Parenting

Dallas Arboretum

March 29, 2013 By Jamie Roubinek 5 Comments

Do you need beautiful pictures of your kids or family? I think the Dallas Arboretum might make for the prettiest backdrop in Dallas. Seriously, it’s just gorgeous there, right now, with all of the different flowers everywhere. The tulips seem to be what really stick in my mind and they are everywhere, in many, beautiful colors!

My niece, Allie, came to visit us for a few days, all the way from Oregon. This niece is extra special to me because she’s my birthday buddy. I actually became an aunt when she was born on my 12th birthday. Because she lives so far away, she’s never met her baby cousins, so it was high time she paid us a little visit.

We turned our little trip to the Dallas Arboretum in to a photo shoot for all of us. I’ve posted about this beautiful place before, on the blog, but it’s been a while. Check out these pictures of the fall decor at The Arboretum. It’s gorgeous with all of the fun pumpkins!

Because I’m always the one behind the camera, I’m extra thankful for these pictures Allie took of me and my little ones.

That’s White Rock Lake in the background. Such a beautiful setting!

Since we went straight from school at 2:00 to the Arboretum, it was pretty empty, with very few people there. That’s the way I like it! I had no problem letting the boys run on their own and the stroller was really just there for when they got tired of walking.

It was great to let them run free and play.

He was obsessed with every body of water he could put his hands in!

Now that the weather’s getting so nice, I hope to make some more trips to Dallas Arboretum! The boys loved it and I liked being in the middle of such pretty flowers.

If you’re looking for a great place to take your kids’ pictures in Dallas, you can’t beat it at Dallas Arboretum!

So thankful for these last few days with Allie. The little ones loved having her around and it was fun for me to catch up on her busy college life!

Filed Under: Boys, DFW, Family

St. Patrick’s Day Leprechaun Hat Kids Craft

March 10, 2013 By Jamie Roubinek 1 Comment

There’s one thing I haven’t ever been great about, and that’s doing crafts with my kids. I love when they make things and I love seeing their excitement when they’ve created something they’re proud of, but I just never have this burning desire to do crafts with them. I think it’s because I know what a mess it will make and all I can think of is the clean up I’ll have when we’re finished. It’s selfish, really.

I’m changing all of that now and I couldn’t think of a cuter project for us to start with than these precious leprechaun hats for St. Patrick’s Day.

These really were so easy for us to do and took no preparation what so ever.

Here’s exactly how easy they were.

I free handed what looked like a tall hat on a large piece of green construction paper. I’m clearly not an artist. We’re going for a quick and easy project. If you’re looking for straight lines and perfect measurements, you might want to stop reading here.

After drawing some white stripes and coloring them in a little, myself, I handed them over to the boys, armed them with some crayons and told them to get busy.

While they were coloring, I grabbed my yellow and brown pieces of construction paper.

On the brown paper, I freehanded a buckle I thought would be the appropriate size for the hat we had created.

I cut them out and then cut two strips of yellow off of the short side of the construction paper. I didn’t do any measuring, but I wanted my yellow strip to be wider than the inside of the buckle.

I glued everything down in the right spots and cut off the excess yellow, and then cut the hat out.

I also cut two strips off of the long side of the brown construction paper to use as the headbands.

With a little tape and estimation on the sizes of their heads, I taped my brown straps in place on the back side of the green paper, and that was IT!! So easy!

I may have actually been more excited for them than the boys were. When I asked them to put them on their heads, they flat out refused. Riverson even threw his hat on the floor.

But, wouldn’t you know, it was really close to snack time and my boys sure do love them some applesauce.

I’m sure you know where this is going.

I told them I would love to give them some applesauce if they would put their hats on and let me take their picture. To my surprise, THEY DID IT!

This is Riverson saying, “Aaaaaaand now we can have some applesauce!!!”

This was a great little project for us to do together and it’s fun to see how different they are when it comes to their approach on their projects. Langston is so very careful about everything he does and Riverson really could care less.

I don’t really care how they tackle it, I just loved having a fun activity to do with them!

Come back tomorrow and see some St. Patrick’s Day projects and recipes I’m sharing from some of my blogging friends!

Filed Under: Boys, Holidays Tagged With: craft, kids craft, leprechaun hat, st. patrick's day

This Two Year Old Makes Me Crazy

February 17, 2013 By Jamie Roubinek 6 Comments

Riverson is two years old and luckily my first thoughts about him are how much he loves his mommy, how sweet, funny, and fun loving he can be.

It’s a good thing, too, because man that kid knows how to make me crazy.

Two Year Old Grabby Hands

Wednesday morning, we were scheduled to host some of our playgroup friends at our house for a little Valentine’s Day party. I needed to get a couple of things from the store, so I loaded my littles up and made a stop at the bank to get some cash out before heading to the store.

I got $30 out thinking I would spend $20 at the store, and then have $10 left to run by Starbucks and grab a coffee for me and some chocolate milks for the boys, which I promised them they could have after we went to the store.

The boys love to ride in the carts that have the cozy coupe car attached to the front. They’re always so good in there, so I didn’t buckle them up. {Big mistake.}

When I got to the checkout, my total came to $23. I thought that would still leave me plenty to get what I had planned to buy at Starbucks so I went ahead and did it.

As I turned around to get the boys, I found Riverson out of the car and over by the candy, tearing in to a candy bar, which I had to go back and buy!

That left me $5 and I went ahead and went to Starbucks thinking I could get their milks and a very small coffee. Nope. Itty bitty chocolate milk in a box is expensive!!

No coffee for me.

{Looking back, I wish I had just got my coffee and told the boys there were no chocolate milks, or something along those lines. Dumb.}

Territorial Two Year Old

When our friends arrived, Riverson took it upon himself to make it his mission to keep everyone off of the scooters that were rolling around the house.

He also found it necessary to make sure no other kids played with any toys.

Who was this kid?!?!

He pushed other kids, he yelled at them, took toys from them, and he flat out embarrassed me. You know when you look at your kid after he/she’s done something and think, “What the heck is wrong with you?? I do not raise you that way!” Yes, that was me that morning.

Two Year Old Mischief

After nap time, the boys were following me upstairs so I could do some cleaning — or so I thought.

Langston followed right behind me chatting away and two minutes after we were up there, I realized his brother was not behind him.

Where did I find him?

In the back yard throwing dog poop in to the pool! DOG POOP!

Fortunately, there’s no risk of him being close to the water since we have a gate that separates the back yard from the pool, which he can not open, but STILL!

So disgusting.

Two Year Old With an Accomplice

This is just double trouble.

Sometimes when Langston and Riverson are together, that’s how I feel.

On Thursday, I took the boys outside to play while I hung out with Brantley on the porch.

A neighbor stopped by so I walked out to the edge of the sidewalk to chat with her.

I had my back to the boys, but they were busy playing by the porch.

The next thing I heard was a car door open. I whipped my head around to find Langston standing next to our neighbor’s car, parked on the street, with the driver door open. Riverson was no where to be found.

I ran to the car as fast as I could hoping I could shut the door and get him away as fast as I could. When I got there, I found Riverson in the passenger seat cracking up hysterically.

And was he willing to come out when I asked him to? Of course not.

I had to walk around the car and open the passenger door to get him out.

Thank goodness our neighbor had no idea, but after that, play time was OVER!

Fortunately, I can laugh about most of these events these babies put me through, but there are days they can flat out run. me. over.

Oh, and if I haven’t shown you enough of this kid’s personality, let me show you what he thinks when his chocolate chip cookie breaks in half.

Yes, this was all over a chocolate chip cookie he was so excited to be eating.

Oh, and I can’t forget how he went back to the bathtub that night after I had pulled him out and put his diaper on. Because his brother and sister were still in there, he thought he should be too. He sat right down in that water, wearing his fresh DRY diaper. Oh man, that kid.

What about you?? I’d love to hear some of the crazy things your two year old put you through?? {You know, so I can feel better and all.}

Filed Under: Boys, Parenting, Riverson

The Bodyguard

February 11, 2013 By Jamie Roubinek 5 Comments

Riverson has never known life without a sibling. Langston was only 16 months old when Riverson was born and I bet, by now, he probably doesn’t even remember what his life was like without him.

They’ve been brothers for 2 years and 3 months, but I think they’ve been best friends for at least a year now. Some days they have a love/hate relationship, when they are whacking each other on the head or body, and some days they just want to play together all. day. long.

On Thursdays, Langston goes to school from 9 to noon and Riverson is home with Brantley and me. By 9:15 on most Thursdays, Riverson is already saying, “Mommy, you go get Langston?” This continues for the remainder of our three hours without Langston.

He misses him. He doesn’t know life without him.

At one of Langston’s soccer games this past fall, Jeff and I were watching them play together about 20 yards away from us. They were playing around a soccer goal on a neighboring field. A friend of Langston’s from his team came running over to the two of them saying, “Langston! Langston!”

Riverson jumped up, took two steps in front of Langston and put his hand up in the air saying, “No! No!” I’m not really sure what it meant, but Jeff is convinced it was his way of protecting Langston. It was like he was a little bodyguard.

Langston’s little friend made it over there without Riverson actually stopping him, but you could see the hesitation in Riverson’s face the whole time. Maybe it was jealousy. Who knows.

This weekend, I started to think maybe Jeff was right about that whole incident.

I took the kids to play at the mall play area and although the play area wasn’t packed, there were several kids playing there.

I took the boys’ shoes off, set them free to play, and settled in to a corner seat with Brantley on the floor in her car seat.

A few minutes later, a little girl not much younger than Riverson wandered up to me, after she had seen Brantley. She had an adorable smile on her face and kept creeping closer and closer to Brantley saying, “Baby. Baby.”

I smiled and nodded at her, hoping I wouldn’t have to tell her not to touch the baby. Thanks (I think) to Riverson, I didn’t have to.

He came rushing over and jumped between that little girl and his baby sister. He grabbed the handle on Brantley’s car seat, sat right down next to her and looked at the little girl, saying, “No. No.” He even put his hand up on the little girl, which I had to correct him for, and said, “My Brantley!”

He turned around, while still holding on to the car seat handle and put his head on his baby sister, making sure that little girl saw him. The little girl slowly walked off and he ran off to play, like his bodyguard job was finished.

I think it’s funny that even at just 2 years and 3 months of age, he’s already so incredibly attached to his siblings and fiercely protective.

As long as it doesn’t get out of hand, I think I like this little character trait about him.

Have you ever seen one of your kids be protective like this when it comes to a sibling?

Filed Under: Boys, Riverson Tagged With: siblings

When I Miss Diapers

November 29, 2012 By Jamie Roubinek 7 Comments

Before I started potty training Langston, I remember hearing someone say, “Diapers are your friend!”

It made me laugh knowing I couldn’t wait to have one less child using diapers. I mean, seriously, with three kids in diapers, it seemed like all I was doing was changing their diapers. All. Day. Long!

What a relief it was when Langston finally turned a corner in potty training.

Well, until the first time we were in public, at the grocery store, and he said, “Mommy, I need to go potty!”

All I could think was, “NOOOOOOOO!”

Does anyone have a good thought in their mind when they think about their three year old using a public restroom?

I rushed him to the restroom and even though he insists on sitting on the potty at home, I basically forced him to stand to pee. We made it out of there fairly easily and I was thankful he wasn’t too ridiculously stubborn like he is about most things.

Fast forward to this past weekend in Hobby Lobby, my happy place. We made three separate trips to the restroom. This time, I had all three kids with me. I’m sure I was quite the sight walking in to the restroom with my double stroller and walking toddler.

Langston peed and we were back out in the fabric section, where I really wanted to be. However, from the moment we left the bathroom, Langston was saying, “Mommy, I want to go bye bye.” I thought it was odd, but told him we would go bye bye in just a minute.

I started to notice he was walking funny. He told me a couple more times, “Mommy, I want to go bye bye.” Then it hit me. He needed to poop but only at home.

I quietly asked him, “Langston, do you need to go poo poo?”

He quickly said, “No,” but I knew.

Then I saw him shaking. I rushed him to the bathroom, for the third time, and he finally agreed to go.

We sat there for a minute, all four of us in the stall. Thank goodness there was a handicap stall!

All of the sudden, I heard Langston say, very loudly, “Oh look Mommy! There it is! I found it!” He was pointing between his legs in to the potty.

Success. All I could do was giggle.

Those three trips to the bathroom took an hour out of what was supposed to be our quick trip to Hobby Lobby. I was quickly reminded of those times I heard people say, “Diapers are your friend.” I knew what they were talking about it and for a moment, I missed him being in diapers.

And, while I’m glad he got things taken care of, I still hate public bathrooms for my little people.

You forget what things you have to teach them NOT to touch and he doesn’t understand when I tell him not to put his hand on the toilet seat. SO gross.

Maybe I’m not in such a big hurry to get Riverson potty trained, too, after all.

Fortunately, there was something good to come out of this trip. I got my fabric and turned it in to these pants for Brantley to wear when she gets her picture taken with Santa!

I’m NOT looking forward to our next public restroom experience, that’s for sure!

Filed Under: Boys, Christmas

Weekend Recap

November 19, 2012 By Jamie Roubinek 1 Comment

We had the big kids this weekend and that usually means it’s a super busy weekend for us, but we love getting to spend time as a big family. The boys LOVE it when they are with their big brother and big sister.

Jeff asked me to snap this picture with all three of his boys cuddled up together. As busy as these boys are, these moments are few and far between. However, since Langston fractured his collarbone, he’s been extra cuddly.

Although, he’s extra cuddly, he hasn’t had much interest in going to sleep and I think it’s mainly because a) he’s three and likes to fight us about naps and b) he’s having a hard time getting comfortable enough to get to sleep.

Right before this picture, he told me he didn’t need a nap and said, “Look Mommy! I’m awake!” I guess he ate those words.

On Saturday, we got to Langston’s last soccer game as late as we could, on purpose. We knew it was going to be super hard having him watch all of his friends play soccer and then tell him he couldn’t play. He was pretty unhappy about it all, and since the game was right around nap time, it wasn’t a recipe for a sweet kid, that’s for sure!

Our team was getting trophies today and we had all planned to take pictures after the game. Langston loved having everyone cheer for him as his name was called to get his trophy! He was so proud!

That afternoon, my mom came to pick up the boys. The trophy was the first thing he wanted to show her and decided it even needed to go in the bag with him. He got to her house and carried it around everywhere he went for the first hour.

Even Riverson would look at it and say, “Wow!!” So fun to see them appreciate a trophy like that, when I thought for sure he’d be too young.

I hope this is just the first of many trophies we collect!

Saturday night, Jeff and I were able to call in a last minute babysitter from our neighborhood, for Brantley, so we could make a surprise birthday party for one of our neighborhood friends.

It was so fun to get away with just this guy! Almost eight years and three babies later, and we can still have fun together! LOVE that!

Miss Brantley is still the easiest baby ever and I just adore playing with her. One of my favorite things to do with her is bath time. She loves her bath and smiles the whole time.

Now that the weather is starting to get colder, I worry about her long hair staying wet after her bath. I’ve decided to start blow drying it to help it dry faster.

She LOVES it! She’s quiet and relaxed the whole time that warm air blows across her hair. It sounds like an awesome experience and I think she’d agree, but this is what her hair had to say about it all.

Crazy hair day, I guess.

She’s still cute, even when her hair is sticking up in every direction!

Filed Under: Baby, Boys, Brantley, Family, Kids

My Favorite Two Year Old

October 29, 2012 By Jamie Roubinek 1 Comment

I won’t lie to you. Riverson’s birthday snuck up on me. How in the world did that happen? I mean, it’s not like we’re busy potty training, or still getting adjusted with a new baby. Busy or not, time goes on, and we have a two year old in our house now. So hard to believe!

It seems like just yesterday, Jeff was racing me to the hospital, while I sat backwards in the front seat, with my hands on the console and my head on his shoulder. Little did we know we would be meeting this face just 25 minutes later!

I loved meeting that baby, but I love the little boy he has become for several reasons.

He’s a compassionate two year old.

Riverson is a lover, most of the time.

While watching Homeward Bound, which is the current movie playing OVER and OVER in our car DVD player, he cries when the dog gets hit by the porcupine. Really, he cries. Genuinely.

It’s pretty sweet.

Last week, Langston was playing a game on the iPad. He did something right and little brother, Riverson, who was standing right next to him, grabbed him for a hug and said, “Goo job, Wayneston. I so prow you.” {Good job, Langston. I’m so proud of you.}

It pretty much melted my heart.

He’s a chatty two year old.

As I went to pick up Riverson from school last week, he ran out of the room with his arms out, saying “Mommy, MOMMY!” As he ran by, his teacher said, “And there’s our talker.”

She told me they are always impressed with his vocabulary and that he talks much more than the other kids in his class.

Pretty sure I walked out of there with my chest sticking out a little more. So proud.

As much as I love him talking so much, there are times when it drives me crazy. I remember when he was younger and couldn’t form words yet. It didn’t matter to him, he would just make noise just to hear himself.

Now, he repeats the same thing over and over, until someone responds to him.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter even if they DO respond.

Last week, while at our lunch play date with friends, the waiter was cleaning up the table and Riverson told that man “thank you” no less than 10 times. The man said, “You’re welcome,” 10 times, too. I had to say something to Riverson to get him to shift gears to something else. HA!

At least he’s polite, right?

He’s a funny two year old.

He loves to make us laugh and thinks it’s funny to call me by my name. Not “Mommy” but “Jamie.”

It sounds so cute when he says it, so I have a really hard time getting on to him about it. But, when you’re at a pizza restaurant having a sit down buffet dinner, the last thing you want to hear from across the restaurant is “DAY-MEE, DAY-MEE, DAY-MEE.” Yes, he was hollering at me, and smiling about it, while I was up at the buffet getting food for them.

He’s a silly two year old.

Even his run is silly.

He takes about 10 steps to go five feet because he’s got this high knee quick step thing going on. He always runs with his head down and constantly runs in to things.

He wants to be just like his brother!

I don’t think this needs explantion. But, hopefully this is a sign that potty training this two year old will be much easier than it has been with his older brother.

Riverson, you are so fun to play with, cuddle with, and laugh with. I hope you always have the sweet demeanor, but feisty spirit. I can’t wait to see what fun we have together this year as a two year old! As always, I’m so proud to be your mamma!