Everything Else February/Early March 2026

Like just about every other human in the northern hemisphere, I can't wait for the spring weather to come back and stick around this time. I'm tired of being stuck in the house, although Ash and I have been taking every opportunity we get to go for a walk when it's warm enough. These kids need to go outside and play and leave me alone for a bit 😂. Given the precedence that Quinn set for three year old behaviors, Ash has been a saint, comparatively.  However, his fourth birthday brought a sudden drop in impulse control that was unexpected and completely annoying. I used to be in some gentle parenting groups on FB (which I've since left because the idea is great, but most of the people in those groups seem to equate permissive parenting with gentle parenting, and they are not the same) and some of the moms would talk about how impulse control doesn't fully form until ages 5-7, and I would scoff at them. I accused them of using that as excuse to allow bad behaviors, and some of them definitely did, but I also now think that Quinn learned self-control exceptionally young. There were frustrating times, of course, and maybe hindsight is just painting a rosier picture, but I don't remember Quinn being as persistent with his asking for things. Maybe he did, I don't know. If so, I guess this too shall pass, and there will come a day when I don't remember Ash's phase either. However, in the meantime, he makes me wanna pull my hair out some days 😂. He's currently in his strawberry era and wants to eat them 16 times a day. He asks, and I'll say yes, but before I've even had time to get them out of the fridge, he's asking if they're ready. It's infuriating. Part of the problem is that he is distracted, watching his iPad, so he forgets that I've answered him, so I've started asking him what I said after I say it. That helps sometimes. 

Quinn comes with us on walks sometimes but he always wants to ride his scooter, which entices Ash into marathon training, chasing after him on foot

I'll tell you what, the boys both got iPads for/around Christmas and I regret it. They both have time limits, and when they've used their time for the day, they're out. I appreciate the appeal of it being an electronic babysitter sometimes, but unless they're both doing it at the same time, it's not very helpful for that. Quinn is good at amusing himself but Ash is not. He clings to me extra hard when Quinn is ignoring him, and if I'm busy, I get overwhelmed easily. He gets a case of the "look at me's" and expects an acknowledgement for every move he makes. Or he'll decide to practice writing, but then he wants me to spell words and phrases for him to copy. He'll be like, "Mom, how do you spell, 'Santa, I'm glad you brought me presents?'" 🤦🏻‍♀️. Yes, we're still talking about Santa in March 😂. On one hand, I don't want to discourage him from writing and spelling, on the other, I don't want to try to spell things while I'm doing burpees, or following a recipe, or lifting things overhead while I'm on a ladder 🙄 (seriously). When he's not saying, "Look at me," he's asking nonsense questions or saying nonsense things, which are equally irritating. He spotted a small bubble bottle that Quinn got at school on the kitchen counter, so he asked me about it. I told him where Quinn got it, and then Ash said, "Quinn has never blown bubbles before." I told him he has, lots of times. Ash asked, "When?," and I said, "I don't know when specifically, but lots of times." He then asked where, and I told him outside. So then he asked where outside. I was like, "Stop, Ash. Just stop." So he did because he has great emotional intelligence and knows when I've reached my limit. I try not to snap at him, but oh man is it hard some days. He takes it well, honestly, and I'm always proud of him for it. When I was a kid, if my mom got irritated with me I would cry every single time 😂. There are rare times when Ash gets upset, too, but he's typically able to take the criticism and move on. 

I still can't leave his sight without him coming and looking for me, which annoys me to no end, but I do kinda love that his little hand is always reaching for mine.  I try to remind myself that he's still little and I had better enjoy him needing me for as long as I can because it won't last much longer. Quinn gained so much independence once he started school, so I imagine Ash will be the same. In less than 6 short months he'll be going off to Pre-K and I know I'll miss his nonstop chatter (maybe 🤪). I picked him up from LRS one day and his teacher told me he talked the entire time to them and the other kids. I was like, "Welcome to my world," but she said they were happy because he doesn't normally do that. I guess he finally warmed up...after 7 months 😂. 

Anyway, back to the iPad situation, I honestly wish we had never gotten them for either child and if I could take them back without being an asshole, I totally would 😂. The moment Quinn gets home from school, his nose is stuck on that screen. He answers questions but doesn't have a clue what you asked him. As soon as he wakes up, that's the first thing he goes for. He started not wanting to get dressed in the morning because he was playing a game, so I told him if it's going to be a problem, we just won't have any time on it in the morning. He's been cooperating so far, but I only need about half a reason to do it because I already don't like it. It feels hypocritical to tell them they can't use screens when we do it all of the time though. Not to mention, that's the future, so does it even matter? I don't know. For now, I'm gonna keep their screen time limit intact, maybe even cut it back some. We looked into blackout times, like right after school, but it wont work the way we want it. We're gonna figure something out. It's usually the first thing to go whenever he gets in trouble, and he behaves so much better whenever he doesn't have it. He had to find a way to entertain himself after he lost it for several days for throwing a fit, and he started playing with toys he has never played with before. It made my heart happy to watch him play with action figures and make up scenarios for them, you know, doing kid stuff. 

I'll take this mess every day over his face being glued to a screen

I love unexpectedly finding them playing together 🥰

They make some pretty cool forts sometimes

things we did/places we went

We celebrated cousin Oliver turning 2! His smile is contagious! 😃

We watched Lincoln kick butt on the basketball court

 

We went to the library along with a million other people 😑. Love that 😂. It was tea party day. Who knew it would draw such a crowd! They were supposed to dress as princes or princesses. Ash wanted to wear his cat suit. Close enough, I guess 🙃.

On Dr. Seuss day, we measured their feet with different items 

  

 We went to evening Playgroup, which is the only kind Ash likes to attend anymore so that Quinn can come, too. They LOVED the new see-saw

Play Planet

My favorite thing to do is watch my kids run around somewhere having fun. It brings me indescribable joy, for real. Taking them to a new place to explore is great, but just watching them run around the park on a random warm, winter day will do it, too. Last month, we visited Play Planet in Parkersburg, which is a huge indoor playground, similar to the ones at Burger King and The Center for Children and Families, only way bigger. I mentioned it to Quinn one day, and I wasn't sure he would want to go. He has told me he's too big for Playgroup (although, he has since changed his mind), so it seemed like it could be a bust. He insisted he wanted to check it out, though, so we made the trip. I'm glad we did because they ran around and played for over two and a half hours! Quinn seemed content to explore on his own, but Ash's separation anxiety got him upset when he couldn't keep up with Quinn. Quinn was pretty good about including him after I made him aware, and I was proud of him for that. He is a very good big brother...most of the time. 

Well worth the $12/kid!

Quinn doesn't struggle with leaving my side anymore, but he just typically doesn't like going anywhere. At least not until we get there. I saw a meme that describes him perfectly: 

"Don't invite me places. I was born by caesarean. I didn't want to come out then and I certainly don't want to now." 

Beanie Cole Turned 4!

 

Beanie Cole, aka Bean, aka Ash, aka Asher turned 4! His birthday did not go as planned when his early morning vomiting ruined our plans for the trampoline park. That had to be put on hold, and the fate of his party planned for the following evening was undecided. Finding a convenient time for it was already a hassle because of a basketball tournament, so I really didn’t want to reschedule it. His stomach bug was short lived, and he never spiked a fever, so we went ahead with the plan, but I made sure to let everyone know about the risk. As far as I know, no one else became sick, thankfully. 

That poor kid was so bummed we couldn’t go to the trampoline park on his birthday, but he did get to open his gifts from us. He said he really liked everything he got, so that was good. 

Brain rot toys are some of his fave. I don’t understand them, but he likes them. 

Later, he had fun playing with Brother in a fort they made in the kitchen

All of that fun wore him out, though, and he took a rare afternoon nap. 

I spent the entire next day preparing for the party, sanitizing all commonly touched surfaces and our bathrooms. Ash wanted me to get food from Pizza Hut for his party, and I made his cake according to his specifications—a yellow cake with white icing, chocolate sprinkles, and Ronaldo 😂. It wasn’t the prettiest, but it was delicious!

He makes the best reaction faces 

We did finally make it to the trampoline park the next weekend, but after all of the anticipation, the experience wasn’t what we hoped for. Ash’s separation anxiety has recently escalated, and he struggled to go off on his own, even with Quinn by his side. Philip and I jumped with them on his birthday celebration last year, but when we went to the one at the beach, they didn’t really care that we were there, so I figured they would be fine jumping by themselves, while we just watched and followed them around. That was true for Quinn. He had a fantastic time. Ash made it for about half of our 90 minute session before having a meltdown. I was hoping he would take a break to calm down and then rejoin the fun, but he dint really recover for more than a few minutes. We, collectively, decided he was done, and let Quinn go until he tired of it, too. Ash said he was hungry, but I don’t think that was his only problem. I actually considered buying a ticket for myself to jump with him, but then I didn’t think that would help and would be a waste of money. He seemed fine after we left. 

We hit the food court at the mall after the trampoline park, and then the Photo Booth on the way out 

🍕🍟🍪📸. 

I’m hoping this phase doesn’t last much longer because my patience is growing very thin. He’s not a super whiny kid, so I try to just breathe through it, but his sudden need to be stuck up my butt again can get overwhelming. The night before his trampoline park adventure, we attended the K Pop Demon Hunters themed dance at The Center for Children and Families. I asked the boys if they wanted to go, Quinn said no, Ash said yes. Quinn changed his mind after some convincing, and he had a great time! He found a pack of boys to play alien invasion with, while Ash clung to my leg like a leech. It wasn’t long ago when Quinn was attached to me like a third appendage. I credit school with giving him the ability to separate from me easily. Hopefully Ash will gain those same skills once he starts Pre-K in the fall. 

It was “comfy clothes” day at school for Quinn that day, so he wanted to wear his soft flannel pants. I could tell he was nervous about wearing them because he asked me more than once that morning if I thought other kids would be wearing pajamas. I told him they would, most kids like doing that. He rarely wants to participate in theme days though. Monkey see, monkey do, so Ash ended up wearing his that day, too ❤️🖤

Life Lesson: don't buy a mattress online

I’ve been waking up with lower back pain for several years at this point, but it was finding the receipt that confirmed our mattress is 13 years old that put an itch into my brain about wanting to get a new one. Philip did some research (as he does), we took sleep surveys about our positional needs (we’re both mainly side sleepers), and decided to go with a Helix based on their rave reviews. We anxiously awaited the shipping updates, and it only took about a week for two giant boxes to arrive on our porch. One had the mattress and the other had the topper, each rolled up and vacuum sealed inside. Before we could set them up, we had to do some rearranging. The boys were sleeping on twin sized floor beds, side by side, with an approximate six inch gap between, which seemed to be my designated spot 🙄. After measuring, I discovered that our king didn’t take up anymore room than the two of theirs, and it remedied the crack problem, so I was happy to relocate our old bed to Ash’s room. Three or four nights a week I would end up in there when one of them (mostly Ash) would wake me up, so at least this way I would have an actual spot to lay that didn’t involve sleeping on a cold ass metal bed rail. 

After we got our old bed situated in Ash’s room, Philip unleashed our new mattress in our room. We decided to downsize with our new bed, because now that we aren’t sharing it with two other little people, we often felt like we were sleeping miles away from each other. We decided to go with a queen, which meant we also had to buy a new bed frame and bed clothes. You may remember me saying before that we had a duvet cover instead of a traditional comforter, and while it may be considered to be more luxurious, I hated changing that duvet cover with a passion. The idea of a new mattress was exciting enough, but unburdening myself from that chore was equally thrilling! Of course, with Snowmagedon on the way at the end of January, none of these things arrived at the same time, so we only had a mattress for the first couple of days. 

Once out of the package and given sufficient time to fluff, the Helix Sunset, their softest mattress available, seemed comfortable enough, but one night was enough to prove otherwise. The next morning, we both agreed sleeping on that mattress was akin to sleeping on a slab of concrete. We could’ve just moved our kitchen table upstairs and had a similar slumbering experience. Helix has a 100 day satisfaction or your money back guarantee, BUT they require you to keep it at least 30 days before they’ll start a return. So, for 30 days, we were just counting down, wishing we would’ve saved ourselves some money and just bought a sheet of plywood, which is surely softer than that insanely expensive POS mattress 😂. I already struggle with sleep, if anything at all wakes me up (someone coughs, ice slides on the roof, that godforsaken train blows the damn whistle at 2 am 🤬), I can’t go back to sleep. The firmness only intensified that issue because I was waking up due to being uncomfortable. I actually only made it three entire nights on it. I’m so thankful our old mattress is in the room right next to ours, because it may contribute to my back pain, but at least it’s comfortable! I prefer not to sleep with the kids but even that was better than suffering on the Helix mattress. Philip wears his watch to bed, which tracks his sleep score, and while sleeping on that mattress, it plummeted from a norm of 90's into the 70's! So we didn't just imagine this issue, there is technology to back up our claims 😂. 

The Helix mattress is the most uncomfortable bed I’ve ever slept in, and we used to travel a lot pre-kids. I’ve encountered many mattresses and I can’t remember hating one more 😂. Every morning, Philip and I agreed that it was not getting any better and having the requirement to keep it for 30 days is bullshit. 

the amount of times I've come upstairs to find this sleeping in our new bed is ridiculous

Philip had his first ever out of state work trip and he went to Texas for 3 days. The snow pushed our bed frame arrival back until the day after he left. If there's one thing I'm terrible at, it's following 2D directions to create 3D objects, so constructing most things in our house is a task left for Philip. I was anxious to get the new bed all put together, despite the fact that I already hated the mattress, so I gave it a go. My book club group chat was doing a photo an hour challenge, so I jokingly told them I'm not allowed to put furniture together whenever I sent my hourly update with the bed rails included. I sent Philip a photo, too, whenever I finished, and the he said, "Good job. Did you have to redo any of it?" 😅. The answer was, yes, one piece 😂😂. 

Speaking of photos, my husband and I couldn't be more different in that regard. He traveled to a place he has never been and joined people he's only met online (he works remote), and he took 2 videos and 13 photos, 7 of which were various views from the plane to show the boys, who haven't flown yet. I, on the other hand, stayed home and took 18 videos and 44 photos, 11 of which were of my brother's cat 😂. He was being super funny getting inside of the tote I took to their house with me. Now, the book club hourly photo challenge certainly increased my count, and most of the photos didn't make the keep pile, but still. 

This is Wickett. He's a box thief.

Even though I took my tote back, he wasn't deterred from finding himself a new seat

This is why I took 18 videos. They had a blast breaking jumping over the masking tape line

Fortunately, it didn’t take us long to do what we should’ve done to begin with, which was go to an actual store and try out the mattress before buying. Actually, it was Day 4 when we went shopping, which was the first weekend day we possibly could. Philip hadn't even been home for 24 hours when we hit the road to shop 😂. Our second new mattress arrived 3 weeks later, and while I was concerned about the potential for hating it, too, the bar was pretty low. The second new mattress, a Serta Sealy, was far superior and about half the price!

The only redeeming quality of the Helix is the return process, because it's very lenient. In bigger areas, they partner with organizations, where they pick up and donate your used mattress, but we don't have anything like that here. While that put the effort on us to get rid of it, they afforded us three options: 

1. donate it to a local organization

2. give it to a community member

3. destroy it

We chose option 2, and all that was required was a form to be filled out and photos showing the mattress being loaded onto a vehicle. I was happy to give it to someone who could use it, rather than throwing it away (you all know I don't throw useful things away). I just hope the recipient doesn't injure her back sleeping on it 😂.