A family of 5, Super Mom, USMC Dad, & three boys ages 5, 7, & 9. This is glimpse into the daily life of raising 3 American boys while living in Bangkok, Thailand.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Clean house

Today I spent almost all day cleaning the house. It's amazing how much more relaxing it is this evening knowing that cleaning is not something that I have to do! The boys were pretty cooperative today. They spent their time either outside, chasing each other, playing video games, watching tv, or "helping" me clean. Not a whole lot going on this weekend. Soccer tomorrow, some homework, and some work. Not sure what the weather is supposed to be like but hopefully it will be nice enough to mow the lawn because its getting pretty long. Have I ever mentioned I don't like mowing the lawn? It makes my nose run :-(  But I do like how the yard looks after it is all freshly cut, and I enjoy being outside with the kids. Arcadian and Brosnan LOVE being outside. Justice is a little more picky. The weather needs to be right and everything needs to be on his terms. Ahhh, to be an opinionated kid.

Enough for tonight, the clock is ticking...

JP

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Misc Pictures from the last couple months

Here are a few pictures from the last couple of months. If you get this emailed to you and don't see the pics go to http://www.peltonfamily.blogspot.com/ ENJOY!!


Arcadian at the Ocean
Grandma Jeannie and the boys
Grammie Margo and the boys
Grammie Margo and Arcadian
Justice with his Karate instructors after getting his yellow belt!
Brosnan, Arcadian, Justice and the Easter Bunny
Arcadian likes to wear his brother's bicycle helmet.
Doesn't Brosnan look good in mascara?

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Justice's Dreams 1 & 2

The other day Justice told me he had a dream. I asked what it was about and he told me that Arcadian and I left and him and Brosnan stayed home by themselves because they did not want to go with me. He said that they were playing video games and then a lot of mice and rats came so they left. He told me that they got in the car and Justice drove off, but then he banged into another car and the police men came.

Today he told me he had another dream. He dreamt that there was a tree with candy on it and candy was falling from the sky. He told me that he wished that dream was real.

I love him being able to recall his dreams and tell me about them. It is great to see a young imagination at work.

On a different subject. I am feeling much better today. Hopefully I will continue to feel better :-) Tomorrow we have an IKEA playdate planned with a friend from Highschool. I am looking forward to it!

Later
JP

Monday, April 26, 2010

We made it through the weekend!

3 birthday parties over two days is to many. We made it through all three of them though. One saturday night and two on sunday. The boys had fun at all of the parties. I envied the parents that were able sit and relax while their kids played. I on the other hand was constantly running back and forth checking on the older boys and following Arcadian around making sure he wasn't climbing on something or running off into the woods, or playing in bathrooms etc. etc. I am thinking that functions like this will be much better in a year or two. Right now, they are just stressful. However I was proud of myself for actually making it to all three of the parties and still mustered up enough energy to give them all a bath when we got home.

To top off a wonderful day, Brosnan felt that sleeping was overrated. They went into their bedrooms for bed around 8:30. Brosnan stayed up and was playing with toys in his room. Around 10:30 he was finally quiet and I assumed that he fell asleep. However, when one kid becomes quiet another decides they need to wake up. I heard Arcadian starting to fuss through the monitor. I went to go check on him, as I turned the corner to walk down the hall I saw a child (Brosnan) run from the bathroom to his bedroom. As he went into his bedroom he rubbed his hand on the door and it left a black mark. Hmmm, wonder what that was. I told him to come out of his bedroom and when he did I couldn't help but laugh. My baby boy turned into a raccoon! Both his eyes were covered in black.... as we walked into the bathroom to get him cleaned up I saw my mascara on the counter. Brosnan was trying to look pretty like his mama! I did take a picture and I will upload it....eventually.... After getting him cleaned up I put him back in bed and he went to sleep. It was pretty hilarious. It is extremely hard to show anger towards a childs behavior when you are laughing at them.

So, that was yesterday...today... nothing new and exciting. Not sure what is going on with me but I am still fighting exhaustion. I feel like maybe I am about to come down with something and my body is trying really hard to fight it off. I will be making a call to the Dr's in a couple of days if I am not doing better. As soon as I sit down I just want to close my eyes and go to sleep but of course with three boys running around that is not possible. Not to mention the lack of motivation to get homework, work, or housework done. Letting any of those slide for a few days just makes things worse when I try to get caught up.

Today our only excitement was karate. The boys were pretty good there. They recently changed the location of karate to a new building. The old place was much better for us. They had a little play room that Brosnan and Arcadian and I hung out in. It was nice because I could close the doors and the boys could play without much effort on my part. The new place has a play room but it is open and Arcadian thinks it is fun to play cat and mouse. So he runs off down the hall waiting for me to catch him..... Not relaxing at all... I let him run off once or twice then ended up putting him back in his stroller.

Well that is all for now. I am going to go to bed and get a little extra sleep. Tomorrow is Speech therapy so we have to leave fairly early. Luckily the sitter is coming over to watch the other two boys. So it is kind of a break for me to only have to manage one kid. Brosnan likes the one on one time too!

Night
JP

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Busy, Busy, Busy

        It is late on a Saturday night, I have homework that needs to get done and I am already stressing over the events planned for tomorrow. So this will be short but I wanted to make sure that I continued my streak of posting!
       A short list without details of today's event included 9:30am soccer, a semi-relaxing afternoon, a 3pm phone call from my younger brother informing me of his step-kids birthday party that was at 6pm tonight, a 3 year old that found the one and only mud puddle in the back yard at the party, a 5 year old that had some hurt feelings because he is still a little to young to run off with the other kids, and a rescue of a 1 year old  from an exercise machine. I'll give more details tomorrow. Everyone is safe asleep in bed right now though.
       Tomorrow we are supposed to go to a birthday party at noon and another one at 4pm. I am not sure if I will have the energy to run after the kids all day. Keeping track of them at other people's houses with lots of people around is no fun and not very enjoyable for me, I hope the kids have fun. We will see if I make it to both the parties!

Later-
JP

Friday, April 23, 2010

Exhaustion is setting in...

What does exhaustion mean exactly? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, exhaustion is to a) consume entirely: use up b) to tire extremely or completely c) to deprive of a valuable quality

          All three of those definitions fit me right now.  All my energy and motivation is completely consumed up, I am extremely tired, and I am deprived of a valuable quality...the desire to do anything that needs to get done.  There could be a couple of reasons for this exhaustion. 1) It's just one of those days, 2) I'm getting sick with something (keeping my fingers crossed that this is not what is going on) 3) 6 months of taking care of the boys is catching up with me 4) late nights up studying is not working out for me anymore 5) a combination of all of the above.  My best best guess is a combination of everything (minus the getting sick part). This happens every once in a while. It's like my system just begins to crash. I'll be better in a day or two.

          Nothing really to complain about today. The boys were pretty good. I have been promising to get Justice new shoes for the last two weeks so I took the boys to Target this morning after my mom left. I have only been able to find one of his new soccer shoes. I think the cute little almost 2 year old might have thrown the other away and he's been wearing broken sandals. Poor kid..  They were good for the most part, they started to get a little crazy when we were leaving and I ended up carrying a crying Brosnan out to the car while pushing Justice and Arcadian in the cart. Justice kept playing with stuff I had told him not to, which is why he got placed in the cart, Brosnan started running away from me which is why I ended up carrying him. Arcadian was pretty good.

          After Target we came home, ate lunch, I put Arcadian in bed then I crashed on the couch. The other two boys were laying on the couch too and I hoped they would fall asleep but no such luck. The ended up playing video games. Oh.. I have decided that I am going to try and video tape Arcadian watching Blues Clues sometime. He is crazy cute when he shakes his little but every time they start singing. And he mimics Steve (the host of the show). It's pretty funny. Justice today spent time writing in his "magic Ink Thomas the Train book" that Grandma Jeannie brought back for them. I'm pretty sure he finished his entire book and started on ArcadiansBrosnan has just been his typical cuteness all day long. Have I told everyone that he is potty trained now? He still has accidents every once in awhile but I think that is because he just gets lazy.  Last night he told me that he had to go pee but wanted to go outside and pee. I let him.. I don't mind peeing in the yard (heck the cats do it) but I try to encourage it in an area out of our way. Well yesterday I watched him as he walked outside, pulled down his pants and started peeing into a bucket. Working on his aim I guess. He then took the bucket and started to put it on one of his other toys.  Today when we were playing outside I noticed the bucket was over the fence in the neighbors yard !?!  whoops, they'll throw it back over the fence when they go to mow their lawn, hope it doesn't sprinkle on them. Actually, when he was trying to aim for the bucket he missed pretty bad because the concrete around the bucket was pretty wet. The point behind this story is that it is very comical to watch children when they do not know that they are being watched.

          8:00pm time to get the older boys in bed! We are off to soccer early in the morning. It starts at 9:30, WAY to early to get up and get 3 kids dressed, fed, and out the door....

Later!
JP

Thursday, April 22, 2010

It has been a long day and it is not over yet

Last week was my first week of classes for the quarter. I have homework due on Thursdays and Sundays. I procrastinated as usual which led me to scrambling on Thursday night. I quickly realized these two classes (child/adolescent counseling & Career counseling) are more demanding then classes in the past and in order to do the work I might actually have to study. So this week on Tuesday I decided to start reading and taking notes. Two days later I finished the 100 pages for 1 class, but have done nothing on the other. Today it is 6:45pm a little over 3 hours away from the time my weekly work is due and I just finished the homework for one class. Still I have done nothing for the other. Next week I suppose I will have to start reading on Saturday :-( 

The boys have been good today. They played outside a lot. I love having a fenced in back yard. They go out, run around and I am pretty confident that they can not get out. Arcadian has been super cute today delivering bagels to his older brothers. He likes to help.

I think I mentioned yesterday that I have been experimenting with bed times. In the past the boys have been put in their rooms around 7:30 then they would be in and out of bed for the next 2 hours. The past couple of nights I have let them stay up until 8:30 then put them to bed. They are MUCH more tired and have actually fallen asleep pretty quickly. Arcadian still goes to sleep at 7 and the boys can watch some tv or do something quietly before bedtime. It's been working out so far, we will see how it goes though. They are tired before 8:30, but putting them in bed earlier (especially now that it is still light out at 7) didn't seem to be working. 

Tonight will be a late night for all of us. We will be leaving the house around 9pm to go pick up my mother from the airport. She is returning from an East Coast trip to visit my brother Jesse's family.

Until tomorrow....
JP

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Wednesday April 21, 2010

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out. ~Anton Chekhov

Nothing to exciting today. The boys were good. Arcadian was a little clingy but that isn't anything new. He ALWAYS wants to be with me. If I am sitting at the table he climbs onto me (or the table). If I walk into the bathroom, he will immediately climb through the cat door into the laundry room knowing that I will very quickly come to his rescue. The moment I sit down (which isn't very often) he climbs up right next to me. If I am standing in a room he doesn't want to be in he will grab my hand and drag me to his room of choice. He's cute, but sometimes I wish he would sit and play by himself for a few minutes. Arcadian is the reason why it is nearly impossible to get anything done during the day. I can't load the dishwasher because he tries to climb in it, or remove the dirty dishes, I can't do laundry because if he comes into the laundry room he puts the cat food into the cat water. Folding clothes is unheard of with any of the boys, unless my intention is to see how many times I can fold the exact same thing. My saving grace is that Arcadian still takes naps. I usually am guaranteed two hours to either clean, workout, work, or do homework. None of those are options that I really want to do, but I do. No rest for me. The older boys do quiet time, which means a movie in the family room, out of my sight.

Even with the obstacles that my children present me with on a daily basis I feel I have made it work as best as I can. Yes, they have days that they play to many video games, and watch to much tv, but they also have days where they don't play games at all and spend the day playing with Lego's or chasing each other around the house. Life became a lot less stressful when I admitted to myself that I will not be able to get everything done during the day that I would like to. When the boys go to bed at night, there is a scramble to accomplish the tasks that I have neglected so that I can say to myself, "I spent quality time with the boys today and I enjoyed it." Life for me didn't use to be that way. I spent way to much time frustrated with them because I was trying to accomplish tasks that didn't put them as a priority. I have come to realize that I can get things done a lot faster if I wait until they are in bed!

Speaking of bed, the older two are still up and need to go to sleep. I am experimenting with bedtimes....

JP

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

What a difference some sleep makes :-)

















Today went much better than yesterday. I owe it to a decent night sleep. hmmm... I took all the boys to Brosnan's speech therapy this morning. Justice has been asking to go (they play games there) so I decided I would take them all. It went well.

Afterwards I took them to Wright Park in Tacoma. We walked around for a little while and looked at the birds, squirrels, ducks, and fish. Arcadian was in heaven seeing all the wildlife. I'm pretty sure he was more excited at the park then he was at the zoo. After our walk we went to the playground and I let them all play. Arcadian got to swing and had the biggest grin on his face. If I can figure out how to get my photos off my phone and onto my computer I'll upload them. Justice spent a bunch of time spinning on toy. It made me woozy just watching him. Brosnan wandered around from one thing to the next. We had a good time.

The rest of the day was spent at home. I have been trying to do some reading for school. Last week was not so much fun trying to do homework when I had not done the reading. In previous courses I have been able to get away with that but that doesn't seem like it is going to work as well this quarter.

Until tomorrow...

JP

Monday, April 19, 2010

Not such a fun day.

We have good days and we have bad days, today was a bad day. I stayed up late last night (till about 1:30am) doing some homework and watching 'Army Wives.' I thought no big deal, the kids usually sleep until at least 8. I should be fine. I think the problems began when I went into bed and noticed one very cute little boy (Brosnan) fast asleep in my bed. Oh well, I'll just leave him. I lay down, get comfy cozy and hear footsteps walking down the hall. Here comes another one. The clock is ticking and I didn't feel like fighting with him to go back to sleep in his bed. You would think that there would be plenty of room with two kids in a king size bed. Wrong. Brosnan sleeps basically sideways, and Justice sleeps as close to me as possible, which means I am literally hanging off the side of the bed. Not the most comfortable, but I'll manage. Off to sleep we go. Four hours later at 6am Arcadian wakes up crying. Crap, there is no way he will go back to sleep. I check on him and he is soaking wet with pee. Yuck... I swear he saves all his pee up during the day so he can wet everything in sight during the night.

I get him all clean and dry, grab a pillow and a blanket and head for the family room. I turned on some Blues Clues and kept my fingers crossed that Arcadian would lay down next to me and relax. I couldn't have been more wrong. Instead of lying next to me he jumps on me, hits me in the face with his cup, sits on my head, pokes my eyes, you name it he did it. Not very sleep inducive. About an hour and a half later his brothers start waking up. I guess this means I am up for the day on a little over 4 hours of sleep.

I have had a headache nearly all day, I'm tired and cranky. Luckily Arcadian did go down for a nap from 10am -12:30 so that gave me a little bit of time to relax and take a shower. I had some errands to run so after Arcadian woke up I loaded the boys up and headed to Ft. Lewis to sign Justice up for next months Karate. They were absolute animals inside the place. Running, jumping, laying on the floor you name it they were doing it. I had more places I wanted to go but from their behavior there I knew today was not the day. They have been pretty good for the most part today but with my headache and lack of sleep I knew that I would not have enough energy to get done what I wanted to with them.

It is time to get them ready for bed, I am thinking about maybe taking a bath, reading some child and adolescent text books, then going to sleep early. Why? so I can try to accomplish tomorrow what I did not get done today. The story of my life.

On a better note...After 3 days of constant clothes washing all the clothes are clean. Unfortunately my bedroom is covered in clean clothes. I suppose I should fold them.

The Adventures continue tomorrow with Speech therapy and shoe shopping for Justice.

JP

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Poor Arcadian...

Today was a pretty good day. We woke up to a beautiful spring day. The older boys were playing video games while I fixed breakfast. After breakfast I decided the only way to get them to enjoy the weather was to force them outside and take them to the park. Justice has been asking to have a picnic for sometime now so I decided to day was the day. I packed lunches, bagels, fruit, crackers, and juice. We loaded up the car with Justice's new Ironman bike and off we went. Upon arrival at Wapato Park I recognized a friends car in the parking lot. Yay! Friends!

I pushed Arcadian and Brosnan in the stroller (when Brosnan wasn't running) while Justice rode his bike. We crossed paths with our friends and continued our journey to the playground. I let the kids play, I even let Arcadian out of the stroller so I chased him around while keeping an eye on the other two. After a near collision between Arcadian and some kids on the swing I decided it was time to get our lunches so we can have our picnic.

Justice picked out a beautiful picnic spot between some tree's in a nice semi-shaded area. The boys sat and ate their lunch. They were perfect! They actually sat and ate. Very relaxing. I decided we would get a little more exercise in so we headed for another loop around the lake. I started to feel bad for Arcadian sitting in the stroller so after we got to an area that had a barrier between the path and the lake I let him out. He was doing good and listening, until he found a puddle on the side of the path. He was to far ahead of me to stop him so in he went running, splashing, and giggling. Oh well, wet shoes, not a big deal. After he went through the puddle and realized I was chasing him, he ran faster. Shortly there after he spotted the goldmine of puddles. It was more like a swamp on the side of the path. Mud, grass, algae, a big pile of mess. I saw him head for it and I ran faster to stop him but it was to late. He was trudging through it. Then I saw what was going to happen next. He lost his footing. Can he recover? At this point I'm thinking two things, "Please don't fall" and "I really do not want to go in that." This puddle was probably 5 inches deep. Of course, he fell, face first. Thankfully he was able to pick himself back up and I was able to avoid the filthy swamp water. He was covered from head to toe in mud and green disgusting swamp goo. Those that were walking by were trying not to laugh. Now I remember why Arcadian stays in the stroller.

I stripped him down to his underwear, and listened to him scream as I put him back in his stroller. We continued on our way back to the car and headed home for a cleansing bath.

All in all it was a good day. Looking forward to many more adventures over the next years!

JP

Saturday, April 17, 2010

A Quiet Saturday Afternoon.

Nothing new or exciting today. I think we are all recovering from a busy week. We woke up early and went to Justice's soccer, made a quick trip to Fred Meyer then came home. The two older boys have been relaxing on the couch watching movies while Arcadian sleeps.

As for me, I have been trying to catch up on LOADS of laundry. I have folded about 5 loads (from previous weeks) already and I have about another 3 or 4 to wash. This evening will be filled with dinner, bathtime, and some homework accompanied by a tasty strawberry rum drink! The temperature is warm outside but it has been sprinkling off and on. Of course as I type that it starts to pour outside.
Yay! (said in a sarcastic tone) Arcadian is waking up. I suppose I should go and let him out of his bed before he starts to get angry.

JP

Friday, April 16, 2010

A fun day at the zoo!

I decided against taking the kids to the fair. I'm pretty sure that I made the right decision. The fair can get so crowded and with 3 kids to one adult the numbers just were not with me. So, we went to the zoo instead. The boys wanted to play on the toys so we went to the play area. It was swarming with kids, and older kids probably 10-12 year olds?!? I let them play then after about 10 minutes I realized it wasn't working. There were so many kids playing on the jungle gym that Justice couldn't even get on it, Brosnan was just wandering around aimlessly, and Arcadian was just running....everywhere... The kids that were there were on a field trip so I decided it was time to put Arcadian back in the stroller and go look at some animals and come back to the play area after the older kids were hopefully gone. Arcadian was not agreeing with me, getting in the stroller was the last thing on his mind. I did a quick scan to make sure I saw Justice and Brosnan. Justice was attempting to climb the toys, Brosnan was standing less than 10 feet away from me, so I returned to forcing Arcadian back into the stroller. He was arching his back and making it very difficult to buckle him in. After a minute or two he was in the stroller, time to grab the other boys and start walking. Justice....check... Brosnan....hmmm, where did he go? He was just here... not good..

I tried to weave my way through all the children searching for his blue and gray striped shirt. Shouldn't be to hard to find him, all the other kids were wearing khaki pants and navy or white shirt. No such luck... no Brosnan. After a couple of minutes of continual searching in the play area I come to terms with the fact that Brosnan is not there. Crap, now what do I do. No employee's in sight. I found a nice looking person and told him I lost one of my kids, he offered to stay with Justice while I tried to find someone to help. I figured that way if Brosnan was still in the area, or returns, Justice would still be there and able to recognize Brosnan. So by now my heart is pounding and all the terrible things were going through my mind, he's lost, in with the polar bears or something, or he has found a new family. I walk up to the next area, where the Meerkats are and do a quick scan, nothing. So I went to an employee who had a little concession booth and told him I lost a child. He radioed for help. I told the guy I was going to go continue to look, walked back down toward the area with the Meerkat's and THANK GOD, I saw him. He was playing quietly in a sand box covering himself up with sand. Not a care in the world. No concern that his mother was no where to be seen. I went back and told the guy I found him and went back to claim Justice. Brosnan was upset that I took him away from the sandbox, but I think he could tell that I was pretty concerned about him runnning off. The whole ordeal was probably only 15 minutes long but felt like eternity.
The rest of the day went off without a hitch. Luckily the rest of the zoo was not crowded at all so it was pretty easy to keep an eye on all three. After all was said and done it was a good day. The boys behaved and listened fairly well and I felt quite accomplished after venturing to such an uncontrolled public place with them by myself! I will however be giving an extra big hug to all three of them tonight as I realize the situation could have ended up a lot worse.

JP

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Okay, one more post for the day. Checking to see if I can update through my phone!

April 15, 2010 Another Sunny *Tax* Day

Today has been a pretty relax day. Currently the boys are all outside playing in the sunshine. The boys are taking turns pushing each other on bikes. I just finished cleaning off our table outside so I think I might bring my laptop out there and try and get some homework done.

I am looking forward to the kids being able to play in the sunshine, but I am NOT looking forward to the extra bumps and bruises that the hard concrete and balls and bats will bring.

Today is my father-in-law Walter Hawkes Birthday, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HIM! Justice (daddy) said he is spending the day doing something out in the woods that involved live fire (people shooting guns at him). Hopefully no one sneezes while shooting. Although the situation is controlled, it is still a bit scary knowing that he is running around with people shooting real bullets in his direction.

The Spring Fair at the Puyallup Fair grounds is going on this weekend. I have been contemplating whether or not to take the kids in the morning. The thought of bringing all three of them gives me a bit of worry and anxiety. They have a tendency to run... So, we will see how well they are behaving in the morning. My other option is to take them to IKEA. I just realized this morning that now that Brosnan is potty trained both him and Justice can go into the play area. That would mean an hour of semi-peace while Arcadian and I looked around. Hmmmm, I guess we will have to wait and see what tomorrow brings! If all else fails, the weather is supposed to be gorgeous again tomorrow so I will at least take them to the park.

I am really going to try and keep up a little with this whole blog thing. We shall see how that goes though. Maybe someday I'll even get creative and add pictures!

Until next time,
JP

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Is it Finally Spring?




I can not believe it is almost the middle of April. It has been almost 6 months since Justice left for Virginia and the boys and I have been managing well. However, I am looking forward to having him back in a few months.

A quick update on everyone... Justice is 5 and will be starting kindergarten in the fall. He is a very smart boy, he enjoys looking at books, playing with Lego's, and of course video games.

Brosnan is 3 and enjoys pretty much the same things as Justice. His favorite game to play on the PlayStation is Lego Batman. He LOVES that game. He has been going to speech therapy for the last 3 months. I'm not sure how much of an improvment it is making. I know that I need to work with him more at home in order for it to be effective. He can talk and has a pretty good vocabulary for his age, he just needs some help with his pronunciation. OH!! and Brosnan is finally day time potty trained. 2 down 1 to go!!

Arcadian, my baby, is just a few months shy of his 2nd birthday. He is at that stage where he is on the go constantly and curious about everything. His innocence and willingness to do anything puts a smile on my face all the time. He loves yogurt and fruit and music and dancing.

I do not know how I would make it through this separation from my hubby if my kids were not here. They drive me crazy on most days but when I look at them I remember why we are where we are.

As for myself, I have 3 classes of coursework left in my master's program then 3 quarters of internship. This time next year I should have my M.S. in Mental Health Counseling. I will finally be able to start my career!! Unfortunately most of what I make will be going towards student loans :-(

As I sit on the couch looking out the front window I see blue skies and tree's blooming and growing leaves. Does this mean that Spring is finally here? I am very ready to get outside on a regular basis in the SUNSHINE! I heard a rumor that it will be in the 60's towards the end of the week. BRING IT ON!

JP