Living the Mom Life

2010-09-28T09:54:00.000-07:00

We're in Arkansas Virtual Academy!

We are now an Arkansas Virtual Academy family! My younger daughter has been accepted into the school and my older daughter has been moved to the sibling waiting list.

This is a public charter school that is based online and done at home. It is free as it is public school and all the materials, books, etc. you need are sent to you. The website is www.k12.com/arva. There are all the same requirements as traditional public school like attendance, testing, and accountability.

I've been interested in this program since it started the year my older daughter entered kindergarten. I got them both on the waiting list for this year and sent them to school while we waited. We got a call this weekend and began filling out online and paper applications. My younger daughter was officially approved last night. She withdrew from school today and is continuing some things she was doing at her school until our books and materials come in.

We are excited and nervous and hope her sister is called soon.

2009-07-09T00:50:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago

We became parents at this moment 10 years ago. I became a mother exactly 10 years ago.

Our daughter was born at 12:43 a.m. Friday, July 9, 1999. She entered the world flamboyantly, and has lived the last 10 years in that exact same manner. How we do love her passion, her enthusiasm, just her.

Parenthood has been the most incredible, wonderful, challenging, and downright difficult thing I've ever done, as pretty much any good parent will tell you. There have been a lot of lows, but I like to think that the highs greatly outnumber them, and I like to think that we are raising a loving and respectful person. Though I have often struggled to understand her, I have never had any difficulty loving her and accepting her just as she is. She is a beautiful human being and I am proud to be her mother.

Growing in parenthood with my co-parent has been a delightful experience as well. Watching him interact with our daughter through all her confounding moments and all of the moments that are just HER has been truly a privilege. I knew that he would be a good father, but never did I imagine that he would be quite the father that he is.

We were entrusted with the responsibility of caring for and loving unconditionally a little human being 10 years ago. We have made many mistakes along the way, and have often felt that we are making it up as we go. We have often been perplexed and wonder which way we should guide her. She has understood this all with a remarkable maturity and has pardoned us for our inexperience and accepted our attempts at directing her life. She is growing into a young lady with all the hopes and dreams that a young girl who is loved, safe, and happy would have. I only hope that the next 10 years of her life fill her with the realization that she is indeed loved and secure no matter what.

We have been parents for 10 years, an entire decade. It seems nearly like an eternity yet a fleeting moment at the same time.

2009-05-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

Ketchup the Siamese fighting fish

The kids want a dog, they ended up with a betta fish (Siamese fighting fish) today.

They've asked for a dog forever, and I keep saying no as there is no way I can take care of all of them and a dog too. We don't even have a fully-fenced yard. The neighbor has beagle mix puppies he's trying to give away and I had to be just downright mean about it the other day. NO!

We all went to Wal-Mart this morning to get tires for my daughters $2 yard sale bike, and my husband walks straight back to the fish and announces that we are getting a betta fish. (If you know him you know that he has thoroughly researched this in his own way and has been thinking about it for a while.)

We got two red fish, one for our kids and one for our nieces, plus bowls, food, and water de-chlorinator. We took our nieces' fish right to their house, and he was promptly named Prince Ruby Fin. Our girls named their fish Ketchup. He has a bit of purple on his side but Prince Ruby Fin is solid red.

Ketchup loves his bowl and his live philodendron, too. His water has to be from 78-82 degrees, which is what our house usually is during the spring/summer but I just read that water gets cooler than room temperature. These fish are native to Thailand and prefer warmer water. Now I'm wondering how to keep his water warm.

2009-05-12T14:11:00.000-07:00

Character of the Month

My fourth-grade daughter was honored as the "Character of the Month" from her class at school today. She got to eat lunch on the stage with a guest (well, two guests, her baby brother and me) and a friend from her class.

The character word for the month is "contemplation," and her teacher said it was very fitting for her since she's so thoughtful in her schoolwork. (That's just about it, otherwise she doesn't think about anything first!)

I just figured out something with the Character of the Month honor, they let the new kids be Character of the Month first.

2009-05-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

I'm impressed

We had a houseful of kids last night (ours plus our two nieces) so I employed my no-nonsense bedtime routine. I was preparing to employ my no-nonsense morning routine but my 10-year-old niece and nine-year-old daughter informed me that they were setting their alarm and they were going to get up early to work on some projects. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. At any rate I have to get up earlier because I have double the kids to get out the door, and two of them leave the house at 7 a.m. on the bus. That's early!

At some point around the time my alarm went off this morning I saw a glimpse of my niece's face and heard her say, "We're already up." Okay great, so I snoozed for 10 more minutes. Then I realized I had one more niece to wake, the one who has to have her blood sugar checked before she leaves for school. The bed was empty, though, all the beds were empty.

All four of the girls were downstairs, dressed in matching uniforms -- red tops and navy skirts -- doing crafts! They'd eaten! They'd brushed their teeth! Blood sugar had been checked! They had shoes on! WOW!

"Who are you children and what did you do with MY kids?" I teased. They just smiled and explained that they were making cards and other crafty gifts for their teachers and some other teachers. My older niece's teacher from last year is getting a card with a stuffed long-armed monkey wrapped around it!

Since it was 6:40 a.m. and the only thing I had to do in the next 45-50 minutes was comb two heads of hair, I laid back down with the baby for a few minutes.

These children will probably never return to my house but it was nice while it lasted!

2009-05-06T15:59:00.000-07:00

Two weeks, seriously?

My fourth-grade daughter hopped in the car after school today and promptly announced that she and her entire class have two weeks of detention for talking in the cafeteria today, starting tomorrow.

Two weeks, seriously? Come ON. That's a bit excessive for talking, I thought, but I have been in the cafeteria quite a bit and they do talk QUITE a bit. But this year they have changed cafeteria monitoring styles, using one quite effective male to keep everyone in line instead of three or four nearly useless women who have to spend the entire lunch period making threats. I'm not sure why the ladies were overseeing lunch today but evidently they weren't able to control the kids, who talked so much that they landed in detention for TWO WEEKS. My daughter did point out, though, that her class stopped talking once they reached the three DAYS in detention mark; the cafeteria lady must have heard Mrs. So-and-So's class talking.

Now, I'm one to be honest with my children. If I think two weeks of detention (or any punishment) is a bit much (or not enough) for a particular crime, I say so. They already know it anyway. BUT, we are working very hard to teach them to be respectful and obedient, so I always encourage them to accept what is handed to them and be mature about it, and learn from it. I wasn't upset about the two-week punishment since it was obviously out of line, so I just noted that it was a bit excessive for talking and moved on to the positive points, of which there are many!

When you are in detention, you must miss your recess (which is right before your lunch) and go sit in the cafeteria and read or do school work. (This is a bit traumatic for a child like my daughter who very rarely gets in trouble and on the rare occasion that she does, it's usually the result of a misunderstanding.) My daughter has gotten a bit behind in some of her work because of going to her advanced/gifted and talented class, so I said, "Oh! What a GREAT opportunity for you to catch up on all your reading or even get ahead! Think of all the reading you can do every day for two weeks!"

She agreed and thought that detention wouldn't be so bad, especially since it wasn't even her fault, it was the entire class who got in trouble. We have talked many times about how innocent people have to take punishment along with the entire group they are with. They should be mature about it, taking their punishment and letting it build their character. So that's another positive aspect of the situation.

I explained how sometimes bad situations turn out to be very positive (lots of reading, strong character building for the young people in detention) and even a blessing sometimes.

After this lovely discussion my first-grade daughter piped up and said HER whole class has detention tomorrow for talking in the cafeteria. (*sigh* why can the cafeteria ladies not keep order??) Oh well, reading time!

2009-04-28T11:11:00.001-07:00

Summer break creeping ever closer

I am already dreading summer break. I mean really, really dreading it. As in near-tears, tummy-hurting dreading it. I'll be smacked with it in about a month and although I'm already anticipating it I'm afraid it's going to leave me gasping for air like an unpleasant surprise that I wasn't prepared for.

Last summer was horrible, so frustrating and overwhelming with so many children to take care of all day long. (There are five of them, maybe not a lot to some people but definitely a lot to me.) The endless cooking, cleaning up after them, trying to keep them from getting too unruly, taking care of a baby and a sick child, and attempting to get some paid work done was just more than I could handle most days. Mondays were the worst, since I had had some help from my husband on Saturday and Sunday, and was again left alone with all of them while trying to get my work week started. By Tuesday mid-day I wondered how I was ever going to get through the week. This cycle continued pretty much all summer; by the time I figured out (with the help of a younger sister, thank you so much dear!) that I could spread my paid work out over the entire week a bit more instead of trying to do so much of it on Mondays, my first day along with all the children, it was almost time for them to return to school.

My plan had been so simple: work at the beginning of the week and take them somewhere fun at the end of the week. We had had a very good summer the year before, which was my first summer with our new baby and with taking care of my diabetic niece. I had thought that summer would be really tough, but since it turned out to be really nice I got my hopes up pretty high for having a good summer last year.

All my hopes came crashing down very quickly. I got behind the second week into summer and never caught up; there were several weeks where they didn't get to go anywhere at all. I was so behind, so exhausted from all the cooking, cleaning, maintaining, trying to get through the hours until another grownup showed up, and just so mentally and emotionally tired that I couldn't bear to think of all the preparations necessary for an outing. With a baby and a sick child you can't just stick your feet in your shoes and walk out the door. And you can't just send the kids somewhere for the day or weekend either. I tried pretty hard to arrange some times when they could all be gone but it never really worked out; other people have jobs, illnesses, and lives of their own.

I surely don't mean to be a whiner and a complainer, and I love every one of them so much I could just pop wide open. Spending time with each and every one of them in their all-too-fleeting childhoods is a privilege I cherish every single day. I just don't like summer break being dumped on me. I'm gonna pull myself up by my boot straps and try to be a big girl about it but I do not have high hopes at all.

2009-04-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

Disappointed!

I'm pretty disappointed right now. I just found out we didn't get into ARVA (Arkansas Virtual Academy), the home-based public school we wanted our daughter to attend starting in fifth grade, next school year. Well, we're number 103 on the waiting list, so that's the same as not getting in.

I actually wanted to start her in sixth grade since her elementary school goes through fifth grade. But her dad wanted me to apply and go ahead and get her in for this school year.

I've been very interested in it since it started, which was the year this child went to kindergarten. It's public school, so it is free, and they give you everything you need, lessons, materials, even stuff for projects, and they reimburse you for an Internet connection. You have a certified teacher available if you need one, and you do conferences every two weeks. I like that it is public school, which I love, and free, which I love, and that you aren't left alone to figure out curriculum and how to do stuff. I know traditional homeschoolers like that, but I'm not all for traditional homeschooling here ... I need some backup! There are a certain number of hours you are supposed to spend each week on lessons and it works out to about 4-6 hours a day. You can customize lessons so that she can work on whatever level she's on and not just stick to grade level. I think it pulls the best of public school and the best of home school and puts it together, but of course I haven't tried it so I don't know for sure. Looks like it'll be another year before we can try.

I'm pretty nervous about scheduling since I work in the mornings; and also working with her one-on-one for extended periods of time. I get very impatient with her on her homework sometimes, especially math, because she doesn't want to understand, and I have trouble understanding it. But we can work all that out and put her dad on teaching math in the evenings.

Maybe we'll get in for sixth grade. If they have this much interest maybe the program can be expanded soon. They have a lottery system for choosing students; basically they put all the names "in a hat" and draw applicants until there are no more slots left. They don't have any information about grades or anything so it's totally fair to everyone.

http://www.k12.com/arva/ if anybody wants to read up on it.

2009-04-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

The performances have begun!

Today was the first day my fourth grade daughter's performing group went out for a show. It's a singing and dancing group that concentrates on building character. You must have good grades and behavior to be asked to try out.

They normally perform at other school's but today's show was at an education seminar. Here's the group performing Mitchell Musso's "Lean on Me." My daughter is fifth from the left on the front row. A friend of ours took this photo. His son is first on the left in the front row.

The baby and I will be groupies for their performances; there will be a few more before school is out.

2009-04-10T07:24:00.000-07:00

Testing, testing!

The kids are all testing in school this week and next week. My daughter in first grade and my niece in kindergarten tested this week, and the older girls will test next week. All four of them will help bring their schools' scores up!

My daughters' school was put on "school improvement" a few years ago, and they have to score well for three years in a row to come out of it. My older daughter helped pull scores up last year and the year before, and I have a feeling her school will do well again this year and will be able to come out of school improvement! All four girls went to school there last year and got to enjoy a big party because of the school doing well on the tests for the second year in a row.

2009-04-08T07:38:00.001-07:00

Report cards

Our girls got report cards last week and this week and are all on the honor roll. My daughters got theirs last week and my nieces got theirs yesterday. Everyone had mostly A's and a B or two.

My first grade daughter has all A's and one B in math; it's one point away from being an A! She has a 100 in reading. My fourth grader has a B in math but brought another B back up to an A. Another A in science went down several points to a B, so she has to work to get that one back up. My fifth grade niece has mostly A's with a couple of B's, and my kindergarten niece has all P's, which means proficient.

Everyone made the honor roll and also qualify for good behavior parties ... my daughters' school calls it a behavior bash and my nieces' school calls it good citizens' day.

2009-03-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

She's famous!

My nine-year-old daughter is now famous, as the kids like to say, since her picture was in the paper today and Friday for the store ad. She had on the long green dress and the two-piece outfit in Friday's ad, and is wearing the pretty green and purple dress in today's ad.

The ad was publicizing a sale on the dresses, and we went yesterday to take a look and get one for each of them for the upcoming Memorial of Jesus Christ's death on April 9. They picked out so many and the older one couldn't decide so I picked one out for her ... the long green one from the ad! Her sister picked out one that wasn't in the advertisement but tried on several that were.

2009-03-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

Spelling bee

Today was the much-awaited (by me) spelling bee day for my daughter in the fourth grade. My daughter lost her enthusiasm for studying early on and decided she didn't want to be in the spelling bee. We told her she couldn't quit, gave her some tips and tricks, and encouraged her to try to beat her performance from last year. She was eliminated in the third round last year and I thought she could certainly beat that this year.

The kids dropped like flies in the first round this morning, and my little girl was one of the ones eliminated. Her word was "ballot," and she spelled "ballet." She was disappointed but quickly overcame it since I let her sit with me and help me keep her baby brother quiet. Last year's champion (a fourth grader in my daughter's class) defended her title against a fifth grader.

2009-03-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

Photo shoot

My nine-year-old daughter had a photo shoot today and her photo is scheduled to appear in a department store ad in the newspaper the 27th and 29th of this month.

Her sister had a photo shoot on her sixth birthday and the photo appeared later that month in a department store ad in the newspaper. (Same department store, same newspaper.) Her little brother had a photo shoot this time last year and his photo was greatly enlarged for an in-store display (same department store) that stayed up for a good while.

She got her hair washed the night before and was quite excited about the prospect of getting her makeup done. She modeled a light green long dress, another dress she'd seen in the store already (bright green and purple) and a two-piece yellow and blue skirt and top set. She looked so pretty and really enjoyed herself. She went to school afterward and wore her makeup for everyone to see.

2009-03-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

Character of the Month

My first grade daughter is the Student of the Month -- or as they say at her school -- Character of the Month -- in her classroom. She got to eat lunch on the stage today, so everyone got to literally look up to her as she was eating lunch and watching a movie.

I missed out on the honor because I didn't know about it. I didn't receive a note from school like I normally do. I was terribly disappointed because I always try to come out to the school for activities like that and have never missed a character lunch before. Turns out an invitation to lunch was made out for me but didn't make it home. My darling first grader not only didn't tell me she was the Character of the Month but didn't bring my lunch invitation home, either.

I'm proud of her anyway.

2009-03-05T18:51:00.000-08:00

Clinic visits

My son gets to spend two days in a row in testing at children's hospital clinics. Today's visit was for allergy testing and tomorrow's visit will be for lung testing, a science guinea pig sort of thing.

It was our first visit to the allergy clinic so we didn't really know what to expect. We answered a lot of questions, and the doctor found out my son is healthy as a horse except for his bad eczema breakouts, possible seasonal allergies, and possible allergy to peanuts.

Then came the actual testing but it didn't turn out very well. He has had at least two doses of allergy medicine in the last week when I should have stopped all of it five days before the clinic visit. (When the doctor/clinic sends you paperwork about an upcoming visit, you should read everything and then keep up with it. Just FYI.) They put a histamine in his skin that should have made him break out but his medicine was still working. (Bad for the testing appointment but very good to know otherwise.)

They couldn't do the skin testing but drew some blood and will test it for allergies to peanuts, tree nuts (I'm allergic to brazil nuts) and other things and will let us know the result.

He didn't cry or even flinch when he got his blood drawn and of course the nurses thought he was adorable. The doctors enjoyed him too and commented on how nice-looking and well-behaved he is. My son just enjoyed the fish tank out in the waiting room and the Nemo sticker he got for letting the nurses take his height and weight.

The lung test tomorrow is part of a long term lung function study; we've participated in it before. We come in to the clinic and the baby gets something to make him sleep. The doctor and nurse use a breathing machine to observe and record how his lungs function. It takes a couple of hours during which I can come and go, and we are usually finished by 12:30 p.m. or so. We hope to make it out in time to attend his sister's quiz bowl competition.

2009-03-04T18:40:00.000-08:00

After-school tutoring and other school activities

My fourth grader started after school tutoring today. It's more like homework/snack time after school. It's on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons from the time school lets out until 4:30 p.m.

She really enjoyed herself today. The teacher she was assigned to for tutoring wasn't there, so she went to another teacher, who happens to be my first grader's regular teacher. She sat at her sister's desk and noticed that it was really messy inside (no surprise there). She worked on multiplication tables (good!) and had a snack.

The other kids and I walked to school after it was over to pick her up.

After school tutoring started back in November for any child in the school but I didn't sign her up. She's at school all day every day -- I figured that was enough and besides, her staying up there means I have to make another trip to the school two afternoons a week. That's not an easy thing when you are taking care of four to six other kids. But her dad suddenly announced last week that he thought after school tutoring would be a good thing for her. Boy was she happy to hear that. She's been wanting to go ever since it started.

She's been busy with other school things lately too. Her performance group has stepped up rehearsals to three times a week in preparation for their "tour" to other schools at the end of the school year.

She's got a quiz bowl competition this week. All of the students are participating. There is a heavy emphasis on African-American history (yay, I love it!). Her sister and I have been helping her study and we know the answers pretty well.

She's got a spelling bee next week; she'll start studying for that after the quiz bowl is over. She didn't do as well as she could have in last year's spelling bee so she's determined to advance further this time. I think she can at least make it to the final round this year. The words are fairly easy or will be if she'll study. Time will tell!

2009-02-28T17:32:00.000-08:00

It's snowing! Wait, what? It's snowing?

It's finally snowing in our part of the world! Yay! This is our first snow of the winter I believe.

The bad part is (well there are several bad parts) that it waited until nightfall to snow, that it waited until the 28th of February to snow, and that it isn't sticking because it has been nearly 70 degrees two days in a row. Yes, it has been so pleasant here that I've had the windows open for two days and have walked the kids home from school.

Now no one can enjoy it. :(

The weather forecast this morning called for a 30 percent chance of snow, but I didn't believe them. The big round snowflakes outside proved me wrong. I just wish I had been proven wrong earlier in the day, maybe even earlier in the winter!

2009-02-27T17:36:00.000-08:00

Field trip!

My daughters went on an honor roll school field trip to the movies today! They saw "Bolt" at the dollar theater, and my son and two nieces and I went with them.

The students who made the honor roll got to go to the movies. My two nieces — they are also on the honor roll but go to a different school — were home sick with me but not sick enough to make me miss this field trip, so they got to go too. I've missed so, so many field trips taking care of one child or another, mostly the baby and our diabetic and I really, really wanted to go on this one.

They rode to the movies on four buses and got a snack box of popcorn, a drink, and a stick of candy as they came in. We all enjoyed the movie and made plans to come back again to see it again before it leaves the theater. My girls went back to school on the bus and the rest of the kids and I went home for lunch.

That was it for my kids' field trip, but right in the middle of our lunch some important papers for my husband came in the mail and it was almost his lunchtime, so we took them up to him at work and went with him to tend some business. When the kids and I got back it was nearly time to pick my girls up from school, so we just went early and checked them out. We got to sit on on my older daughter's practice session for her school's performance group. The kids are chosen based on their behavior and grades and they go to a few other schools to sing and dance.

Believe it or not, my girls squeezed in two tests each at school, in between going to the movies, doing a practice session, and checking out early!

2009-02-20T07:48:00.000-08:00

Report on parent-teacher conferences

The parent-teacher conferences from yesterday went really well with good reports for both girls. My first grader has straight 100s so far this grading period, and is reading on a second grade level. She's one of seven first graders who have a book discussion club and she gets other extra work as well.

My fourth grader has A's and B's; her grades have dropped even from the last grading period, when she had her first ever B's on her report card, but her grades are still good. She is capable of better so we'll keep working with her and encouraging her. It's not that she doesn't understand, it's mostly a matter of not paying attention to directions and details. She sometimes skips problems or does them incorrectly because she didn't pay attention to the directions or the details, and sometimes they throw in trick questions. I can look and see right away what happened, so I can see that it's not that she doesn't understand. Her teacher also pointed out that spring in the fourth grade is a time when "love" blooms ...

All the kids came with me to the school of course, and they played in the first grader's room while I talked to the teacher. My son loves it in there because there is pint-sized furniture in the reading corner and all sorts of things to dump in the floor in the math corner. They went to the pre-k room while I went to the fourth grader's class; they painted, played with blocks, played in the sandbox, and had all manner of fun. None of them wanted to leave when I finished so I had to gently encourage them to wrap things up so we could head home for lunch. They were very well behaved so I was proud of them for that.

2009-02-19T05:42:00.000-08:00

Parent-teacher conferences

All the kids are here today since school is out for parent-teacher conferences today, and I have several conferences to attend. I don't think we are going to make all of them though. The girls' teachers want to see me at 10:50 a.m. (yes, both of them, wow that's cool that people think I can be in two different places at the same time) so I'm going to go to one of them a few minutes before that. Both of the girls are in a pull-out program for advanced students, and that teacher wants to see me at 9 a.m. for the first grader and 9:30 a.m. for the fourth grader. I'd really like to talk to her but I doubt I can get five kids fed and ready by that time, and I really don't want to think about keeping them under wraps for two hours, from 9-11 a.m. They'd be just fine, but I'd be nuts.

I'm expecting good reports for both girls as usual. They both have excellent grades and behavior. I hope to find out some ways we can help them improve.

I had planned on walking to the school with them, taking snacks and letting them have a picnic and play outside at school, but it turned cold again during the night. There is plenty for them to do inside the school building though. They like to visit their old teachers and go in the preschool room and play.

School is out again tomorrow for teacher's meetings, so all five will be with me all day tomorrow too. We'll just hang out at the house and maintain, and I do have some work to do.

2009-02-17T07:39:00.000-08:00

Almost two!

My son is 22 months old today ... It's so hard to believe he's almost two years old. He's talking a lot now and loves to read books. He's a big handful but he's so entertaining and brings joy to everyone who sees him. We just thoroughly enjoy having him around.

2009-02-05T09:01:00.000-08:00

Another lover of books in the family!

My son has joined the *We Heart Books* portion of the family! Right now his favorites are "Green Eggs and Ham" and pretty much everything by Dr. Seuss, "Are You My Mother?" by P.D. Eastman (he thinks this one is by Dr. Seuss too), one called "My First ABC Book" and another one called "What is My Shadow Made Of?" The part he likes in the shadow book is the part about airplanes.

His first book that he loved (to death almost) was "Ten Little Fishes" AKA "FISHIES!!!" but then he tore it up and ate it. *sigh* I have to get him another one.

He wants everyone to read to him all the time. It's so cute to see him sitting in his *big* big sister's lap, the two of them reading together. His *little* big sister also reads to him, and is reading easy chapter books herself!

Here he is in my bed reading one of his sister's books. It's called "Sugarplum Princess" or something like that. Right now he doesn't care if the book IS pink and about a princess!

2009-01-21T09:12:00.001-08:00

House off the market

Our six-month contract with the realtor expired on Monday and he came this morning to pick up his sign. He worked really hard for us but there are so many problems with the market right now.

We've made a lot of adjustments in our already tight budget and have identified some financial/budget patterns. Our kids still have a roof over their heads and that is all we are worried about, so the current plan is to keep doing like we are doing. We would still like to sell and are most likely going to list it for sale by owner for now.

2009-01-20T09:09:00.000-08:00

Back to school and work!

The kids have been out of school since last Wednesday and their dad has been off work since last Friday, but they all had to get back to normal today. They were all slightly reluctant but went to their destinations without much complaint!

My husband spent most of this short vacation working on our vehicles. He still has some more work to do and one more vacation day next week.

2009-01-14T14:10:00.000-08:00

Another school break coming up

The kids just finished up winter break and here comes another one! They are out of school Monday (Jan. 19) for the holiday and the school has teacher workshops tomorrow and Friday, so they are now officially out of school "on break" until Tuesday.

I didn't check the school calendar so I wasn't aware of these two days they have out this week until they went back to school after winter break. If I had realized they had these two days plus the holiday after the weekend I could have tried to help my husband coordinate his time off work. He just took a vacation last Thursday and Friday plus this past Monday, the same days the kids are out of school except for a week ahead. He does have this Monday off on vacation so they'll all have one day off at the same time.

2009-01-13T14:21:00.000-08:00

Update on the house-selling situation

Just as suddenly as our house became popular on the house-showing circuit, its popularity died down! After that rash of house showings a couple of weeks ago we haven't heard anything on interest or more showings.

Our realty contract is up this coming Monday; we've heard from the realtor and he'll be coming to pick the sign up. We have a "For Sale" sign with our phone number on it left over from the last house we sold that we'll most likely put up in its place. I'm looking into a few FSBO (for sale by owner) websites for possible listings. On a few of them you can list your house and put up a photo for free; for a really reasonable fee you can list the house for a year with up to 20 photos, plus they send you yard signs. We are talking about doing the one with the 20 photos and yard signs, and I'll probably look into some other avenues of low cost advertising.

We're still talking about what to do; right now the plan is to keep doing like we are doing and be patient.

As usual, my husband is making home improvement plans. ;)

2009-01-02T22:13:00.000-08:00

Winter break almost over

The kids' winter break from school is almost over. It was actually quite pleasant as two weeks with a house full of kids is much easier to manage than two months. We had fun sleeping late, eating homemade pancakes (from scratch, Ma's recipe!) at noon, and playing outside.

The kids had a list of things they wanted to do (visiting family mostly) and it looked like it would all get done this weekend until a few relatives turned up sick. :( We hope everyone gets better soon and we'll try to visit everyone after they start feeling better.

My husband tried to take some time off work while the kids were on break but it didn't work out. That would have been great if they could have spent more time together. He was off two days during their break and we did enjoy some quiet family time together. He has a day off work in January that corresponds with a day out of school. Some days off work while they are in school means he can visit them at school, which they always love!

2009-01-01T10:20:00.000-08:00

More house showings!

Suddenly our house is so popular. Hmmm ...

The preparation work for Monday night's showing went really well. I got the house clean Sunday night and the next morning I got the kids up early and took everyone over to my SIL's house before one dish could be dirtied or one toy pulled out of place! Other than it being a long day (the showing was set for 5-6:30 p.m.), it worked out wonderfully.

The next day we had not one but TWO showings! The realtor called my husband, who in turned called me at about 9 a.m. to let me know about the 1 p.m. showing. I had the kids be as un-messy as possible while I fed them and supervised them getting ready. My husband came from work to pick us up at 11:30 a.m. and we went with him to run errands. He treated us all to lunch at Burger King for our trouble. We were returning him to work at around 1:15 p.m. when the realty appointment office called to schedule an appointment for 4:45 p.m. that same day. Of course that was fine. That just meant that we would need to stay at my SIL's house a little longer, until it was time to pick my husband up from work.

We haven't heard back on the Tuesday showings, but we did hear Monday night that the person looking at the house decided against it. No word usually means the same thing.

Since then we haven't had any more requests but we are (read: I am) trying hard to keep things to where I can straighten up quickly and gather kids and leave quickly, just in case.

Our realty contract expires mid-January; we are still discussing the options.

2008-12-28T19:35:00.000-08:00

Another house showing

We were notified this evening of another house showing for tomorrow evening. We had one last weekend after a very long time of no showings, so I had my work cut out for me cleaning the house from top to bottom. We managed to keep it pretty clean most of the week and then the whole thing just blew up in my face around Friday.

Everyone has been helping clean tonight, and it'll be all clean when I go to bed tonight. Tomorrow will be the tricky part, since there will be five kids here all day tomorrow. I'm thinking about getting up early and getting them up and taking everyone over to my SIL's house for the day. Of course that is much easier said than done, but if we can keep from messing up the entire house again tomorrow that would be wonderful for me.

We'll see how it goes!

2008-12-27T05:57:00.000-08:00

Facebook nurse-in

A virtual nurse-in is being hosted at Facebook today. I'm participating!

Facebook removes breastfeeding photos, saying they are obscene.

To participate in the nurse-in, just change your profile photo to a breastfeeding one and in the bubble that says "What are you doing right now?" type in the words "Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!"

My profile photo has been changed to this sweet one taken by my older daughter when my son was just several weeks old.

If you want to participate but are not a member, just go to www.facebook.com and sign up. If you do not have a breastfeeding picture, it looks like any photo of a mother feeding her young will do, according to the Boston Herald.

To find out more about the event, just go to this Facebook link.

I found a lot of interesting information by searching the name of the host group: Mothers International Lactation Campaign. In fact, the entire first page was filled with sites giving information about the Facebook nurse-in today.

One of the better sites I found when I searched was Motherwear's Breastfeeding Blog.

It's offensive enough that Facebook says a mother feeding her child in the way nature intended, but it's widely known that this social site allows all manner of lewd photos on their site. That is what is obscene, not a mother and child doing what they were created to do.

I joined Facebook about a month ago at the urging of a friend of mine, but I decided that it's a bit too social for me. I really don't need to know what my friends are saying to their other friends. Now with the knowledge that Facebook says photos of mothers feeding their children are obscene, I doubt I will frequent the site much at all anymore. I do hope the nurse-in moves them to change their policy and to apologize to all the users whose breastfeeding photos were removed.

2008-12-26T09:45:00.000-08:00

Look who's talking now!

Verbal communication is finally starting to make sense to my 20-month-old son! He's been saying words for several months but many of them he doesn't utter on a regular basis. He'll just say a word all of a sudden, very clearly, and you're surprised to hear him say it.

Of course his favorite words he's been saying all along ... eat, Momma and Daddy being probably the top three. He signs for a lot of things, milk being his favorite, first, and most used sign. He first signed for milk at five months. He also signs for eat and will sign for a lot of other things as well.

For the past month or so he's learned to babble so he'll talk that way, gesturing and all.

This past week he's actually been talking and saying words regularly. He'll get the ending sound right, use any vowel, and usually leave off the beginning sound. He has never used a word for milk before, but the past few days he's been saying "ilk," "ohk" and all manner of vowel combinations with the "k" sound at the end.

His verbal communication has always been fun for us as his older sisters were very articulate and profuse with their verbiage at a very early age. At 20 months they were both speaking in perfectly understandable paragraphs. But everyone is completely different. We are all having fun as he starts to speak and are as proud of him as if he were the first child to utter speech.

2008-12-24T21:25:00.000-08:00

Family ties

You gotta love the way kids understand family ties.

My older daughter and older niece were talking today and they mentioned the name of a little boy. We know a few kids by this name so I asked them who they were talking about. I figured it was their cousin but I asked anyway. My niece said, "Our COUSIN!"

The funny part about it is that he's related through at LEAST two marriages and he is not my niece's cousin and really isn't my children's cousin. But we don't make any difference about my children's cousins being or not being my niece's cousins, since they are always together and we are family, blood or not. My sisters are my niece's aunts and my children's cousins are their cousins; they call my parents (and grandma) the same things my children call them.

So anyway, here is how this little boy they were talking about is my niece's "cousin."

(I hope this makes sense.)

Child (my niece)
Mother (my SIL)
Brother (my DH)
Wife (me)
Sister (my sis)
Husband (my BIL)
Brother
Child

So these two are cousins by way of child's mother's brother's wife's sister's husband's brother's child!!

But for all practical purposes they are cousins. And that's that.

2008-12-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

House-selling update

Things have been moving very slowly (well, not really moving at all) on selling our house. We have less than a month on our realtor contract with no offers and very few showings. It's not the realtor's fault; the market is bad for sellers right now and since we have not paid on the house very long (less than three years) we cannot go extremely low on the price.

We got a few calls for house showings back in October when we all had the stomach virus, and I had to tell them we couldn't show. We got a couple of last-minute calls in November and I again had to say we couldn't show on 15 minutes notice (with the house upside down, of course, but I left that part out). It's my fault but because of the scarce showings I haven't kept the house in tip-top shape like it should be, and wasn't able to honor those requests for quick showings.

We're now in the holiday season and we expected the requests for house showings to be just like last year this time -- no requests. We actually got a call a little while ago for a showing early tomorrow afternoon.

Of course every room in the house needs a lot of attention so we're going to try to have the kids all spend the night elsewhere so I can focus on cleaning up and getting the place ready to show.

Beyond that we are in the process of filling out financial paperwork while we decide what to do and explore our options. There aren't many options left for us, and our financial situation will not allow us to continue to make payments on the house.

We'll just look on the bright side, knowing that someone will be looking at the house tomorrow. There will be an open house in the next few weeks with the possibility of a potential homeowner or two looking at it then.

2008-12-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

I'm impressed!

My 10-year-old niece has once again impressed me. She normally impresses me with her head full of common sense, her practicality, helpfulness, dependability, her sweet nature, and the list goes on and on but this time it is with her academic skill and ability to work quickly.

I'm not just proud of her because I've been taking care of her since she was born. This child is just full of wonderful qualities and she REALLY helps me out on a daily basis with her good ideas, common sense, and trustworthiness. She has a few faults, just like anyone, but they are very predictable and I can usually head off most situations in her case. One of them is that she puts things off until the VERY LAST minute and that was one of the things she did in this situation but she totally redeemed herself.

She wrote a school report while laying in the bed two nights ago and then typed both of them up pretty quickly last night. It was due today and she had to write six paragraphs about a historical person and then six more paragraphs telling the history from that person's point of view. I didn't read the report before she typed it out and I was kind of afraid I was going to end up having to do the actual typing since she put it off to the very end. But I worried for NOTHING! The writing is EXCELLENT and the typing was also OUTSTANDING! When she finished typing it she came to me and said she was finished and pointed out that the only things underlined were her first name and a person in the report's last name.

I read over it and printed it out last night after she finished it. There were literally FOUR things I corrected: I took out a lot of spaces between the paragraphs to make each report fit on one page; I changed an "O" to an "I," I changed a "weather" to a "whether," I changed a "Martin Luther King Jr." to "Martin Luther" (didn't even notice that one until it was printed out) and this last one was so cute. The lady rebelled against her husband by not using his last name but instead of "surname" my niece typed "username." It was so cute. It was just a typo but "username" is a buzz word in Internet culture and among young people of course.

After I had it all printed out I was amazed at how good it looked and sounded with only those few corrections. She did all that herself. Then I had a flashback to the fifth grade of a big mess we had because of my teacher saying an adult had done some of my work. So I pointed out to my niece each thing I corrected so she would know in case her teacher asked. It's for her advanced class plus her teacher knows what she is capable of so I hope she isn't called into question. If she is she won't get upset (she can handle herself very well) but will be able to explain.

That's my brag for today!

2008-12-16T21:01:00.001-08:00

Allergy medicine for the babes

I hate medicine ... I hate medicine ... Oh, maybe it's not so bad!!

My son has terrible allergies, to what I'm not sure but he'll be tested around his second birthday. Whatever it is, he's allergic to the same things his big sister is allergic to, only worse.

His ped said give him Benadryl. He loves the chewable tablets and thinks they're candy but that's about all it is for him, just candy. It does no good. It does his big sister no good either.

So I told them the Benadryl doesn't work and they prescribed Claritin, or loratadine, the generic medicine. It's available OTC but we thought that since we have ARKids 1st (state funded Medicaid) it would be cheaper with a prescription. They gave him a 5mg syrup. (That's just great, he spits liquid meds right back in my face and dribbles them down his chin.)

Finally I got the prescription filled, and literally the day before he figured out how to use a sippy cup (no joke) so I decided to put 3-4 oz. of juice in the cup and his teaspoon of medicine in with it and give it to him. I was skeptical that he would even drink it and more skeptical that it would even work.

To my amazement, he drank it, and further to my amazement, IT WORKED!

His eyes are no longer red and itchy, his nose isn't running as much, and his cheeks and chin aren't red anymore. AND he's sleeping a bit better at night!

*happy dance*

I want to try this medicine with his sister too, since it has worked so well for my son. She has not ever been diagnosed with specific allergies, but it looks like she needs to be tested and treated as well.

I'd rather treat allergies without medicine but these kids really have us stumped. My daughter had eczema when she was a young child and she did not respond to the hydrocortizone that was prescribed for her. We just slogged through her first few years trying one thing after another until she finally grew out of it. My son did respond to the hydrocortizone at first but after a while it wasn't really doing anything, so now he is using something stronger for his eczema.

Now we have allergies to deal with in two kids, but I'm open to medicine if it makes their lives (and mine) easier.

2008-10-11T19:29:00.001-07:00

A peaceful day

Today has been such a wonderfully peaceful and quiet day. We have had only one child at the house all day and have done nothing useful.

Some friends of ours called us and asked us to come have pizza with them at CiCi's last night, so we did. They wanted to take the girls home with them for the night and we were only too happy to let them go. They called today and wanted them to stay another night so we met them this evening with clothes and essentials for another night. Our other girls (our two nieces) have been with their mother all day since she is off both jobs on Saturdays.

There is tons of housework and yardwork to do but we've done nothing and it's been wonderful. My hubby has watched TV and napped for most of the day, and I've just puttered around the house trying to avoid doing anything useful. The baby has enjoyed himself immensely just playing by himself and playing with his dad.

2008-10-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

Out sick

Our entire family is going through a round of stomach virus, etc.!

My oldest daughter threw up at school Thursday and had to come home. She was sick the rest of the day.

My son threw up all morning Saturday but was okay by mid-afternoon and played outside a lot.

I got sick Sunday evening and my hubby was about three hours behind me. After all the running to the bathroom subsided we laid in the bed all day yesterday and moaned and groaned and tried to take care of the baby.

We have one kid who hasn't gotten sick yet. She doesn't catch things easily but I am keeping my phone close by in case the school calls.

We are trying to keep away from our little diabetic child. This will land her in the hospital. Her sister doesn't get sick easily so that's good.

Hubby and I feel some better today, not good but a bit better than yesterday and the day before. He went back to work because he had to and I'm trying to get a few things done. I'm behind in my work but still on schedule. Laundry needs to be folded and the living room and kitchen are both a mess. Ugh.

2008-09-21T22:31:00.000-07:00

Back to school (after four days out)

The kids go back to school tomorrow after having been out since last Wednesday!

It's been a nice vacation for us and we've spent some great family time together.

Last Thursday was parent-teacher conference day at the school and I had all five of the kids. We walked/biked to the school for the conference that morning. Last Friday was my girls' dentist appointments. That evening my husband and I took the kids to see "Space Chimps" at the dollar theater. Yesterday our kids spent the afternoon at their auntie's house while my husband and I did a few errands by ourselves. Today one of our nieces spent the day with us.

The girls aren't quite ready to go back after their four-day break and I've enjoyed them being around. We'll get back into our routine tomorrow, getting up early and walking to school.

Starting tomorrow I'll have two more kids for a while in the afternoon, along with my three, of course, and my two nieces. A friend of mine had to change her work schedule because of her husband's job change and she's now working later in the afternoons. I'll be picking their kids up after school since their kids go to the same school as my kids. So that will make a grand total of seven kids in the afternoon ... my three, my two nieces, and my friend's two kids!

My friend's kids will go home around 5 p.m. and then my nieces go home after supper. It should be very interesting getting things coordinated!

The way we do things after school now is get snacks right away and then I sit down with each of the girls and go through their folders and look at their homework assignments. They get their homework done and then they go play outside, do arts and crafts, watch PBS, read, etc.

Back to school tomorrow ...

(That's me getting my mind ready)

2008-09-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

Treat night!

Since the girls have excellent grades at school so far and since they did so well at the dentist yesterday, we took them out for a treat last night.

We went up to the dollar movie theater and saw "Space Chimps" again! (We saw it last Saturday night there as well.) There were three movies showing that are appropriate for children (Kit Kittrell, rated G, and Kung Fu Panda, rated PG are the other two) but the Space Chimps starting time was first.

We loved it last night just like we loved it last weekend.

I'd like to take them to see the other two movies while they are still in the dollar movie theater.

Speaking of movies, "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" comes out in November! We loved "Madagascar" and went to see it twice (I think) in the dollar movies. We bought it on DVD too and watch it often. I can't wait for the second one to come to the dollar movies.

2008-09-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

Back to the dentist!

The girls went back to the dentist today for their fillings and caps, and they both did wonderfully. They went on Monday for cleanings and exams and were scheduled for the actual work today. I knew my older daughter needed her caps replaced on two top teeth (the ones behind the vampire teeth, the caps fell off some time ago) but I didn't think they'd need as many fillings as they did! But the fillings were all in baby teeth so I guess we get another chance to keep their teeth healthy.

The girls saw two different dentists but one was wrapping up while the other was just getting started. It didn't take very long, though. We spent more time waiting than anything else. The older girl got her two caps replaced and two or three fillings done. The younger girl got six (yes I said six) fillings done. I joked and said I didn't even know she had six teeth! They were both very good and did only a minimal amount of whimpering in the chair and complaining after they were finished. Both dentists bragged on how good they did; the older girl's dental assistant said my daughter was the Patient of the Day.

I didn't stay with them during the procedures, mostly because of waiting with the other one. When we took the first one into the room the dentist wanted me to take the other girl out because she didn't want her to see the procedures. I went ahead and left but mainly because the second girl was going to have to go into another room anyway. When the second one got in the chair the first one was finished and she looked rather pitiful so I went with her and helped her get her toys out of the dispenser.

They were back to normal in no time and eating a couple of hours afterward.

The baby stayed with his aunt and two cousins while we were gone since I figured we'd be there all afternoon and it would be hard to keep him occupied and distracted from all the fascinating dental equipment.

2008-09-18T21:26:00.001-07:00

Parent-teacher conference

The girls got excellent reports during the parent-teacher conference today. They received their first mid-term grades today, with lots of As and several 100s. We are proud of them and are going to treat them to something special this weekend.

This school district has changed up how they do the parent-teacher conference every year we have been here. The first year they dismissed school an hour early every day for an entire week and scheduled conferences for the rest of the afternoon. Last year they didn't let school out early at all. They just started the conferences as soon as school was dismissed at regular time each day for a week. This year they let school out for an entire day, and scheduled conferences all day long on that one day.

That left me with five kids for the day today. Since we're in a walking mood, we walked/skated/biked to school for the conferences with my two girls' teachers. (The other two girls' mother did phone conferences with their teachers.) While we were there the kids gave out hugs and played inside my daughter's first grade classroom and outside.

Both of the girls' teachers said the girls are doing very well and showed me their mid-term grades to prove it.

My nine-year-old daughter has all As as usual, and even a 100 in spelling so far. She has an A in math, which she normally does, but this is the subject she struggles with. She will be able to keep these grades up and be on the all A honor roll for the first grading period. Her grades will probably go down a couple of points or so as the year goes on and the subject matter gets harder. Besides math the thing she has to work on across the board is paying attention to what she is doing. Sometimes she misses questions, not because she didn't know the answer, but because she didn't see it or didn't pay attention to the directions. We always have to work on that with her.

My six-year-old daughter has a very impressive 106 in math and 100s in social studies and spelling. She has As in reading and handwriting, although I'd like to see the handwriting point grade come up. There is some room for improvement in the language arts grade, but it will be very simple to help her. In fact, I've already seen some improvement in her skills this very day. They are working on sentence structure right now. My daughter has a precious thought pattern but needs to work on constructing her sentences properly. Here's all that means for now: a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and no other capital letters in the sentence, spaces between the words, and a period at the end of the sentence. (See, I said that was simple!) She did beautifully on copying some phrases tonight. The wording she was copying was in all capital letters, and with two or three reminders she was able to properly copy the phrases, even changing the all capital letters to uppercase and lowercase on her own. Ir was very proud of her. We'll continue to work on writing each day and she'll have that grade up to an A in no time. That will help her handwriting grade too.

Their behavior in school is excellent as well. Their school has a points system. Each child starts out with five points and for certain infractions they lose a point. Throughout the school year my girls usually get three, four, or five "fours," which I think is very good. Nobody's perfect. My older daughter did get two fours in one week last year, and I got on her case pretty hard about that.

There are rewards at the school for honor roll and good behavior, and we usually have rewards at home too. My husband and sister-in-law gave them a nice party once last year. We are looking forward to a nice treat this weekend for all the good mid-term grades we got today!

2008-09-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

Walking to school (and back home)

The girls kept bugging me about letting them walk to school so finally I gave in, halfway at least. The baby and I have been walking them to school this week, and then going back up to the school in the afternoons to walk them back home.

They want to do it on their own but I just can't agree to that right now.

It's about a five block walk, but it's not straight blocks. There are lots of turns and the street at the end of our street is a busy one (with double yellow lines). There is another really busy street near the school but there is a crossing guard there, so that's nothing to worry about. They can make it on their own but it's the other people you have to worry about, along with the distance. For now I'll just walk them there and back, or at least until it gets too cold.

It takes 12-15 minutes to make the walk. It doesn't seem like it should take that long but it does. We walk at a rather quick pace in the mornings but we take our time getting home. That could take almost as long as 20 minutes! We all really enjoy it.

2008-09-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

Teacher's pet

My fourth grade daughter is the teacher's pet this week! Everyone gets to take a turn at being teacher's pet. For an entire week, the teacher's pet leads the line, delivers notes and papers to the office, and any and everything else the teacher needs her (or him) to do.

The teacher's pet puts together a bulletin board about herself (or himself) on Monday morning so that everyone gets to know her (or him) well. The teacher's pet brings photos, awards, certificates, etc. for the board.

We looked through old (and not so old) photos last night and found a lot of good ones to send to school. Here's one of the adorable old photos we found, taken the day she turned one. They loved looking at the old photos so we'll do it again tonight!

She also took her behavior awards from kindergarten and first grade at her old school.

The teacher's pet can also bring a pet to school. The only pet my daughter has is her little brother, so he is going to school to be her pet for a while on Wednesday.

2008-09-06T17:57:00.000-07:00

My girls are now mistresses of the domestic arts. Here is the nine-year-old at the sewing machine for the first time today and the six-year-old at the sink.

New mistresses of the domestic arts

My girls are now mistresses of the domestic arts. Sewing and washing dishes, anyway.

The younger child is actually an old pro at washing the dishes. Nobody gets dishes cleaner than she does. That's probably because she's naturally slow and thorough with everything she does.

My older daughter really surprised me at the sewing machine today. I was stitching around some old towels on the sewing machine at my mom's house today. She wanted to help me and since it ws just kitchen towels I figured it couldn't hurt. I started her off and showed her how to do it, and she took off! After one towel she didn't even need me to stand there anymore. I was very impressed!

2008-09-05T09:02:00.000-07:00

First "big boy" haircut

My 16-month-old son got his first "big boy" haircut yesterday!

It wasn't something I was planning on doing, though. It was a "have-to" thing.

Here's what happened (the long version): He was asleep when it was time for the girls to go to school yesterday morning and his dad was home, so I left the two of them together and took the girls to school. As soon as I walked back in the door I noticed my son's hair looked lopsided, but didn't think much of it because he's got crazy hair and it was getting to be time for a haircut.

Upon closer examination a few minutes later I realized his hair had been cut! It was taken out almost down to the scalp in a V-shape on the top of his head. I immediately blamed it on my six-year-old daughter. She is always messing with his head and she has cut her own hair two times before. I decided to leave it until after school because I wanted her to see it and I wanted a full confession. I did look for clumps of hair and a pair of scissors; I found two locks on the floor in my bedroom but didn't find a pair of scissors that I thought had been used.

When the girls got home from school I asked my daughter if she had anything to say about her brother's hair. She looked at him and said, "It's been cut!" I knew by the tone of her voice that she had not done it! That left only him and maybe his five-year-old cousin, but I thought it had been done that morning and she had not seen him that morning. I called my husband to see if he knew anything about it and he didn't. He did tell me though, that the baby had gotten up out of the bed and came down the stairs on his own that morning. (He had done the same thing after naptime before I knew he had done it that morning.)

He had cut it himself! He had gotten up out of the bed, gave himself a haircut, and then come downstairs, all fresh and groomed for the new day!

I had to cut the rest of his hair, and I had to cut it very short. I dreaded doing it. He has had a couple of good trims and a few snips, but not a big haircut. I sat him up on the ledge of the sink with his feet in the sink and the water on. I knew he would play in the water and let me cut his hair. He did. I felt like I was hacking it off with a knife but I did manage to get it looking halfway decent. I see now why little boys wear their hair kind of long sometimes. They are too little to be still long enough to get a good cut. Plus it's cuter longer when they are little.

It's too short. I don't like it. I miss his curls. But it's hair, and it grows quickly.

2008-09-02T18:18:00.000-07:00

The words of a child

My six-year-old first grader wrote me this note at school the other day:

My baby Brothr SLOBS on my stoF I bo not no wy Bot He DOS AND He is my LiDOL Brothr

to: Mothr From ****
PS

(She wrote this pretty much as one word but I put the word spaces in there.)

Translation: My baby brother slobbers on my stuff I do not know why but he does and he is my little brother.

Today for homework she had to write her spelling words and then write a sentence using each word. I helped her with ideas for sentences on the first three words and then she did the rest completely on her own.

blot: my mohtr blotid spiLt melc
My mother blotted spilled milk.

plot: I hAV A GrDiN plot
I have a garden plot.

clap: if you claP AND my Brohtr is SLiPiNG you wiL wAk him
If you clap and my brother is sleeping you will wake him. (So cute because her sister loves to clap and make other unecessary repetitive noises.)

flap: flaP yor wiNGS AND fli uwa
Flap your wings and fly away.

slip: YOU WiL SLiP on wet flow
You will slip on the wet floor.

glad: I AM GLAD YOU r her
I am glad you are here.

(Again I put the word spaces in for her.)

I just think her thought pattern is so cute.

2008-09-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

Long weekend over

Our long anniversary weekend is over and everyone is back to school and work. I kind of miss everyone but on the other hand I'm so glad to get back to normal and I'm loving this quiet.

It's a rainy day today as we're getting the tail end of Hurricane Gustav. It's breezy and raining steadily but not too hard. I think I'll hurry up and get my work done so I can sit on the couch with the baby and enjoy the weather.

2008-08-31T17:46:00.000-07:00

Happy anniversary to us!

This weekend is our anniversary weekend!

On Saturday (Aug. 30) we were together 13 years, and today, Sunday (Aug. 31) we were married 12 years.

My husband took off work Friday and he's off on Monday for the holiday. (We got married on Labor Day weekend for that purpose!) He was off for three days in a row and we had a really nice time.

Our big day was Saturday afternoon. My sister and her husband came for the weekend, and they kept the girls. They all went up to my parents' house for the afternoon. The baby went to spend the evening with my sister-in-law, his favorite girl (besides me).

While my husband went to take the baby to his sister's house for the evening I had a spa afternoon! The main part of it was a good haircut, something I haven't had in a long time.

When he got back we went to eat at Olive Garden. We set out for Carino's actually but they were too full and so was our second choice, Applebee's.

We left there full and laden down with to-go boxes, and headed for downtown. We parked at the trolley barn and waited for a trolley ride, but the trolley was taking too long so we just walked to our destination ... the ball park! We went to a minor league baseball game, the farm team for the Angels. It was nice because it's something we rarely do, plus the night was perfect. It was just the right temperature with even a little breeze. The nice weather came from the park sitting right on the banks of the Arkansas River.

We left the game around 9 p.m. and decided to catch the trolley back to the car. We took a trolley tour and close to an hour later got off right at our vehicle.

We didn't do anything special today, our wedding anniversary day, except for spend the day together, which is always special. We plan to do pretty much nothing tomorrow too.

There was no big vacation this year but the best part of a vacation is just spending days on end together anyway. We get to do that until Tuesday. Yipee!!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!!!!

Now for a bit of sap. Just skip this part.

We've known each other for years, since around 1979. He liked me when we were teenagers/young adults, but I always thought he was weird. But there was always something very special about him. Anyway, he asked me to go out with him in 1994 and I said no after thinking about it for two weeks. I did leave the impression that I would want him to ask me again, and finally he did, about a year later. By that time I had started to see him in a different light and I really liked what I saw. On Aug. 30, 1995 he asked me to date him and I was delighted to say yes. On Jan. 12, 1996, he asked me to marry him and again I was delighted to say yes. Our wedding on Aug. 31, 1996 was wonderful and the days, months and years just get better.

2008-08-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

House for sale update

There isn't much to report on the house for sale front. We had a few showings right at first but then they tapered off. My daughter said it's because I keep trying to keep the house clean. She said if I'd just let it go for a while then we'll get a call about a showing in a few hours!

With the short sale option a possibility after we've had the house up for sale for three months coupled with the fact that we overhauled the budget with some immediate success, we aren't overly worried about it.

We'll just take things as they come!

2008-08-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

School drop-off lanes

I thought that school drop-off lanes were pretty easy to use and fairly self explanatory, but evidently not.

Why must some people park their vehicles right in the drop-off lane and then go inside the school with their kids?

Doesn't common sense dictate that you park somewhere else other than the drop-off lane so that your car won't be in other people's way? Maybe in the designated parking areas?

Okay, this is the first year that we've regularly used the drop-off/pick-up lane at this school but I've used it on numerous occasions during the past two years. I don't think I missed the thick manual that they released on how to use this lane. It can't be just me.

This morning a woman pulls up right in front of the school, parks her car in the drop-off lane, piles out with all of her kids and goes in the school with them. One of the kids is a pre-k student (no uniform) so she had to go all the way in the school and to the classroom to sign that child in. YOU PARK IN THE PARKING SPACES FOR THAT, NOT STOP IN THE DROP-OFF LANE! The parents who are dropping off/picking up pre-k students are actually supposed to pull up and park at the back of the building rather than block the drop-off lane in the front.

There's no one out there directing traffic in the mornings but it's a very small school and honestly, it's not that hard to understand how to do things.

People are just as inconsiderate in the afternoons. There is a line formed in front of the school and when you get up to the school they assist your children into your car. It is very orderly and safe. But you have your people who get tired of waiting and get out and go into the school to check their kids out. In the meantime everyone else in the line has to drive around their car.

One day this guy in front of me WOULD NOT drive up. It was his turn to drive up in front of the school so they could get his kids in his vehicle. Evidently he saw his kids and he was waiting for them to come get in the truck and he wasn't about to move. But it doesn't work that way. You move your vehicle up and the people in the four or so cars directly in front of the school get their kids. Then they move and you move up and get your kids. You don't just get them when you see them and they DO NOT run out to the cars when they see their parents.

It's aggravating that some people are so self-absorbed that they can't figure out how to use the drop-off lane and they can't grasp that they aren't the only ones using it. How hard could it really be to park in the designated parking area?

I'm really getting tired of it as there seems to be an instance every day. I believe I'm going to go back to using the back of the school for drop-offs/pick-ups. There isn't a lane back there, you just pull up, park, and do what you have to do. You don't block anybody if you get out, and it's actually a lot less frustrating. We have used the back for the last two years because of having pre-k students to sign in and out. We don't have any this year but I believe I'm going to keep doing like I was doing anyway.

2008-08-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

School starts today!

The kids are all back in school today! Yipee!

They were so excited about getting back to school, and I was too. It's been a long, overwhelming summer but then again it seemed like school starting back sneaked up on us!

We did our school supply shopping at Target late last week and learned a valuable lesson ... local stores don't order enough see-through (clear or mesh) backpacks so you have to buy them as soon as they put them out. I saw some really cute pink mesh ones with brown floral detailing at Fred's last week but when I went back a few days later to get them there was not one to be had. They took their backpacks from last year to school today and chances are they'll have to use them again this year.

I still want to get some lunch bags for them since I let them take their lunches sometimes. I'm going back to Target to get those later this week.

They were all fine with their uniform clothes from last year.

Hooray for school!

2008-08-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

Time to go back to school (almost)

Summer break is almost over.

Thank goodness!

Oh no! Where did the time go?

I'm greeting the end of summer break with mixed feelings.

I'm mostly feeling relief. This summer has been long, tiring, stressful, frustrating, and nerve-wracking. I kind of dreaded the start of summer, but it's inevitable so I entertained positive thoughts. I made plans to work the first few days of the week and then take all the kids on a “field trip” at the end of the week every week. We even made a list of places we wanted to go, all free places right in the area.

We started off behind our “field trip” schedule. We didn't get to make our fun trip the first week or the second. Things just seemed to get steadily worse as I struggled to care for five children (including a diabetic and a one-year-old), work, and do everything else that life requires.

I didn't make any adjustments but just kept trying to plod through everything without exploding. Finally my younger sister suggested I rearrange my work schedule, spreading my work out more evenly over the entire week and better utilizing times when I had fewer children around. I immediately put her suggestions in action and they worked!

I felt much more in control of the routine, but by then most of the summer was gone and I didn't feel like my kids had much of a fun summer. I feel kind of bad for looking forward to the start of school when the kids haven't had much fun. It could be that I'm just being too hard on myself and expecting too much. Whatever the feelings, I can't go back and redo the summer and the fact is, school starts in a week. It'll be time to rearrange the routine, again, just after I finally got it to a workable point.

2008-08-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

Kids gone for the weekend

All of the kids except for the baby are gone for the weekend!

One of my niece's is at her father's house for the weekend and the other three girls went to their grandmother's for the night last night. All four of them will be back tonight.

We are just going to take it easy in the meantime. I'm going to catch up on work and housework and make a short run to the grocery store. My husband is in sore need of catching up on his rest and sleep.

For right now we are sitting out on the front porch watching the baby romp around and listening to the sound of lightly-falling rain. So peaceful.

2008-08-08T06:58:00.000-07:00

House for sale!

Things are moving along as planned with the “house for sale” arrangement. We've had a few showings but no offers so far.

A few days after we put it back on the market, we got a call at 6:15 p.m. for a last minute showing that evening. I had ducked out for a while, my husband had just laid the baby down for a nap, and the house was most certainly not show-worthy. (I hadn't done my all-night clean-up that I was planning.) He turned them down, mostly because of the baby being asleep. Needless to say, I spent the next several hours (on until the next day) getting the house ready to show.

We went a week and a half without a showing, and then I got a call at 1:30 p.m. earlier this week. I looked around at my five-kids-have-been-here surroundings and hoped for something other than a last-minute showing or even one in an hour. Thankfully, the showing was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. that evening, giving me plenty of time to clean and place things in their proper places.

Another call came yesterday at 3:15 p.m. asking for a 3:30 p.m. showing. I asked if they could push it back to 3:45 p.m. or 4 p.m., and they agreed to 3:45 p.m. We all jumped up and started putting things away. I didn't get a chance to vacuum but the house was neat and clean when we left.

I have a rule when we have our house up for sale: it must be no messier than what we can clean up in less than an hour. The last time we had it up for sale we got a lot of calls scheduling a showing in one hour.

The funny thing is, before I got the call for both of these showings this week I looked around at the house and thought that I needed to go ahead and straighten up. I need to start listening to myself!

We are just taking it one day at a time, not making any other plans for housing right now because we know a sale may or may not happen.

2008-07-15T22:28:00.000-07:00

Round two ...

It was only a matter of time and now, time is here.

Our house is going back up for sale this evening.

We were in quite a bit of a financial jam this time last summer and ended up putting our house up for sale. We left it on the market for the entire contract of six months, but did not sell it, obviously. We had some interest and some offers but none that we could accept. They were quite a bit lower than our asking price and we couldn't go very low and stay in the black, which was the goal.

The sale of our other house plus our income tax refund last spring bailed us out of the jam and so when the realtor's contract expired we didn't renew. We knew that we would come to this point again and felt deep down that we should keep the house on the market, but frankly, we were tired.

We have come to the realization that not being able to make our mortgage payment is more of a permanent situation than a temporary one. In light of that we must make another valiant effort to reduce our monthly housing expenses, and we start by selling our current house.

The housing market is no better, probably worse. But we must give it another try. I did discover an interesting and very helpful piece of information today in talking with the mortgage company. No one shared this with us before because we evidently didn't ask the right questions, and a mortgage company or a realtor isn't going to volunteer this information because no one makes money like this. There is something called a short sale that can be done when you cannot make your mortgage payments and must sell your home, but cannot get the value of the loan. Your realtor submits some paperwork to the mortgage company and you submit some detailing the family's income and expenses. The mortgage company may or may not approve the sale for less than the value of your loan and your debt will be considered paid in full.

Now, this information, as helpful as it is, would have been more helpful last spring. We had a very interested buyer who made us a sincere offer, but it was a few thousand dollars less than what we owed on the house. We couldn't come up with the difference since we had just forked over quite a bit to prevent foreclosure (another lesson we learned last summer) so we had to pass on the offer. If we had known about this short sale option, we would have most certainly tried to get that approved.

Maybe this time we can stash this information away and use it if we must.

I didn't expect the house to go up for sale so soon and now I have all manner of cleaning to do. My husband called our realtor yesterday and they set up an appointment for this evening. He'll be coming by with paperwork and a sign for the yard.

We'll be going back to living in a bare bones house and a lot of hurried house cleanings for showings. It's not easy living in a house you are trying to sell when you have five kids in the house all day long every day!

We are hoping that we can sell the house and find other, less expensive, quarters. Things won't be any easier on us financially but we would like to at least be able to meet our bills each month. We've pared down to about as little as we can expense-wise and no one is able to take on any more work. My husband is already working two jobs and I am doing the best I can with mine.

We may have some changes on the horizon soon!

2008-07-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

Again ...

We are getting ready to put our house up for sale, again. We had it for sale from August to February of this year and took it off the market after our contract with the realtor expired. We had some offers but we couldn't go as low as the offers and still come out in the black.

We could have either renewed with the realtor or put our own sign out in the yard and kept it on the market, but frankly, we were tired. We were able to get ourselves out of the fix we had been in, albeit temporary and we knew that. Reality is hitting and before it gets too bad, it is time to try to sell the house again.

It's not something we want to do, not something we wanted to do before, but it's getting to be a bit much and there's not any real relief ahead.

I'm running some lists of a few minor improvements we need to make to the interior of the house through my mind right now, and will post them in a day or two. I also have to make lists of what I need to do to each room to make it presentable, and then there are the lists of things to do to the house before each showing. I still have the showing lists and will post it later on when we actually get the house back on the market.

Now the memories of getting the house in order for a showing, four kids ready for school (well, two actually come ready), and all of them plus a baby out of the door by 7:30 a.m. headed to school are coming back to me. Not that I could forget them!

2008-07-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

New house in the family

My sister-in-law finally got tired of crazy neighbors, nutty office people, AND her rent going up so she is moving out of her apartment in to a house! She started the move today and will have it completed the first of next week.

It's a great house, much bigger than her apartment and is the same price per month as her apartment. She really likes it and the kids do too.

They are still about the same distance away from us as they were (five minutes maybe) and in the same part of town.

The house has a huge kitchen, a good-sized living room, a bathroom, and two bedrooms. There are big closets everywhere and a laundry/storage room to die for. She's also got an outside storage shed/garage and a nice backyard. The area is right beside the interstate but it is quiet without a lot of traffic and people walking up and down the streets.

It's got us to thinking about trying to sell our house again to find cheaper living quarters. We love our house but the payments are consistently too much to handle these days with no change in sight. The last time we tried to sell our house we couldn't go low enough on the price to get rid of it because we hadn't been there long enough to pay all that much on it. We have briefly discussed either getting our same realtor back or putting it up for sale by owner.

Provided we can sell it, we are much more familiar with the area now to know where to look for quality but economical housing, and we have a sister/SIL who is obviously wonderful at it who we can get to help us! ;)

In the meantime the girls are going to enjoy riding their bikes around out in the new backyard. It's flat and so is the road behind the house!

2008-07-09T08:12:00.000-07:00

Nine years ago on this day ...

My first child was born.

It's hard to believe that I have a child who is nine years old and that I've been a mom for nine years.

Those first couple of years with her were really rough but she mellows out with each passing year.

Now of course she has a six-year-old sister and a 14-month-old brother!

2008-07-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

Nine years ago today ...

I was at the end of my first pregnancy and ready to have my first child! My due date (the day before, July 7) had come and gone with me lying on the couch to prevent another blood pressure spike like the one I had experienced two days ago, on July 6.

At 4 a.m. on the morning of July 8, my water broke! How exciting! I went back to sleep for another couple of hours and then got in trouble with my husband when I told him two hours later. We got ready to go and headed to the hospital an hour away. We stopped to help some stranded motorists on the way, a story that is funny now but back then seemed perfectly normal. I wasn't having any contractions and my husband always stops to help people on the side of the road.

The day progressed slowly at the hospital and finally at about 7 p.m. the doctor and my mom thought it might be best for me to receive a small amount of Pitocin. This would stimulate my contractions and get things progressing, which really needed to happen seeing that my water had already broken. I was very hesitant but I trusted the doctor and even more so, my mom.

Boy, did things ever get going. That was a really long and painful labor but that child still wasn't born nine years ago today. She was born nine years ago TOMORROW! She was born at 12:41 a.m. on July 9.

2008-07-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

Before I was a Mom

(This was on one of my favorite message boards and I just love it.)

Before I was a Mom

Before I was a Mom
I never tripped over toys or forgot words to a lullaby,
I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous,
and I never thought about immunizations,

Before I was a Mom I had never been
puked on
pooped on
chewed on
peed on
I had complete control of my mind and my thoughts
and I slept all night

Before I was a Mom
I never held down a screaming child so doctors could do tests
or give shots,
I never looked into teary eyes and cried,
I never got gloriously happy over a simple smile,
and I never sat up all night watching a baby sleep

Before I was a Mom
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to
put them down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I
couldn't stop the hurt,
I never knew that something so small could affect my life so much,
I never knew that I could love something so much,
and I never knew I would love being a Mom

Before I was a Mom
I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body,
I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby,
I didn't know that bond between a mother and her child,
and I didn't know something so small could make me feel so
important and happy

Before I was a Mom
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to
make sure all was okay
I had never known the warmth, the joy, the love, the heartache, the
wonderment or the satisfaction of being a Mom

Most of all I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much, before I was a Mom

2008-07-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

Another ear infection (Saturday morning doctor run)

The baby has another ear infection, the doctor has just declared this Saturday morning.

This is the third one he's been diagnosed with in his short 14-month-old life.

He's to take an antibiotic for 10 days, ear drops for pain a few times a day, saline and vapor rub for stuffy nose. The doctor made all of that sound so very easy to administer. I think I'll call him when it's time for the medicine fight. ;)

I'm not really surprised with this trouble (ear infections, etc.) When he was born I had the feeling that he'd have allergies and eczema, and I started looking for them right away. Sure enough, they happened.

His eczema was officially diagnosed at five months of age. He uses a one-percent hydrocortisone cream and lots and lots of petroleum jelly for that!

Looks like we are going to have lots of trouble for the next few years. One of his older sisters had eczema (she grew out of it thankfully) but still has allergies.

2008-07-02T09:42:00.001-07:00

So cute!

The baby signed "I love you" to his dad last night! It was so cute and unexpected. He was waving "good night" to his dad when I put up the "I love you" sign and he actually copied it! He held his middle finger down with his thumb, which is really quite similar to how his six-year-old sister signs it!

He knows several signs — Momma, milk, more being the main ones — but very rarely uses them. He also knows how to say a lot of words but again he rarely speaks. When he does, it is usually a word he hasn't said before and it's very clear. He just prefers to communicate in "caveman." As you can imagine that involves a lot of grunting, screaming, and hitting.

2008-07-02T08:22:00.000-07:00

Recipe collection (more cooking in store)

Since I was griping and whining about all the cooking that I am now doing on a daily basis in my previous post, I thought I'd point out that I'm keeping an online recipe collection/blog called I Hate the Kitchen. (Yes, I really do hate the kitchen.)

It's got a lot of really easy recipes that I've either made up, have tried, or am planning to try in the near future.

This is working out better than my paper collection, and I do use the term "collection" very loosely.

I've also subscribed to a daily newsletter from All Recipes that has good ideas.

Posting on the Internet does seem to make the daily dreaded chore of cooking a thousand times (okay, it's only three but it seems like a whole lot more) slightly more pleasant.

2008-07-01T22:49:00.001-07:00

Summer break (is it over yet?)

This morning I was hit with a stunning revelation as I woke up. It was both good news and bad news, but mostly bad.

Being as it was the first day of July, that meant that I had survived ONE WHOLE MONTH of summer break. That's the good news.

But there is another MONTH and a HALF of summer break left. That is the bad, awful, terrible news.

I have felt terribly overwhelmed this summer, especially on Mondays. My husband has been home on the weekend and so has helped with all the kids. (By all the kids I mean our three and our two nieces.) I'm left by myself with all of them on Mondays so I guess I struggle to get back into the swing of things at the beginning of each week.

I feel like I've been blindsided by the constant cooking, sweeping, fighting, somersaulting, mess-making, more cooking, and more sweeping that goes on continually and my inability to control any of it.

The funny thing is, I'm surprised by these feelings I'm having because I had planned on a very nice summer with the kids. I had planned two or three workdays for myself (Monday-Wednesday, of course very flexible) during which time they would do quiet activities around the house and play outside. We'd take one of the last days of the week and do a fun "field trip." We made a list of fun (and free!) things we could do around town and all looked forward to doing our activities.

We got off to a late start on our trips, sad to say, and still haven't caught up. I do feel like I'm getting a little work done, although the house looks like a tornado tore through every single day.

This summer has been a disappointment for me for all of those reasons and because last summer was so nice. I made my mind up last summer that it was just going to be awful, what with three more kids than normal to take care of all day long (the new baby plus my two nieces had just moved over by us). I made plans for friends to drop their kids off at our house, and the kids had fun with their friends right here. It worked wonderfully. We also did some visiting ourselves on the weekends when my husband was around.

So I figured if last summer turned out nicely then this summer surely would. How wrong I was. I just don't seem to be able to get a handle on everything going on.

Every day is just a big mess of cooking breakfast, cleaning up from that, trying to do a few minutes of work, cooking lunch and cleaning up from that, trying to work awhile and clean up the house before figuring out what to cook for supper. In the meantime I'm sweeping the floor 10 times, wiping up spills, dealing with all manner of whining, crying, tattling and tending to the baby. I'm tired of it. I don't have the energy to think much about our field trips or even my errands I need to run.

I've been trying to get the kids to help me clean up and take care of the baby but sometimes it's so much trouble. I expend more energy trying to get them to help me than I would if I just did it myself.

Well, to be fair I know that most people deal with a lot more than this every day, and there are some things I could do to make things easier on myself.

But honestly I am not looking forward to the rest of the summer. I know that's awful but it's the truth. *sigh*

2008-06-22T20:20:00.001-07:00

Free labor (not really that free)

Here's my little son, willingly sweeping the floor. He likes the Swiffer too.

His sisters are not as willing to help with housework, but I just announced to them that they must participate. They are folding towels right now and are going to have the laundry presented to them for folding all week, I'm afraid. Between trying to work and take care of them and cook and clean and ... well, I just don't have the time to do everything that needs to be done.

Although right now I expend more energy trying to get them to complete a task than I would if I just did it myself, they need to know how to do housework and I need the help.

2008-06-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

Big day (or two) of fun

My kids had a big day (really two) of fun last week. We started off the day with a trip to the humane society for a new program they have called "Smarty Cats." It involves reading to their cats, of all things. When I heard about it I thought it was so crazy and I just had to submit the idea for a story. It was approved so off we went to read to the cats. Just as I expected, cats are not very good listeners but the girls had fun playing with them anyway.

After playing with the cats we went down to a worm farm to check that out for a story. We found out how to run a worm farm and we also saw his day lilies, organic garden, and a pond that the man built himself. The girls had great fun looking at the goldfish in the little pond.

That night we took them out to the river to see a screening of "Happy Feet." They show movies for free every Wednesday night in the summer on a huge screen right on the river. The movie was stupid to me but the kids liked it.

They walked over a new bridge after the movie and then all the girls went home together to my husband's sister's house. Oh boy, a slumber party for them, and some peace and quiet for us!

After everyone finally woke up and got around the next day, the kids and their auntie/mom went to the store for picnic stuff (I ran into them there and ended up with two of them) and then everyone came back to our house for a back porch picnic. They followed that up with a dip in the new pool their auntie/mom got for them.

Wow, now that was a lot of fun packed into two days.

2008-06-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

Baby's walking!

The baby, who is now 13½ months old, started walking this past Sunday! We were all sitting around dressed waiting on time to go when he just started toddling around. He's been working on getting ready to walk for some time now and this past Sunday afternoon he was finally ready!

He's so cute because he holds his arms up and out and plods like a zombie. Now he's even more destructive than ever with the new world that walking opens up to him.

He's been able to climb up the stairs for some time now, but with him being able to walk we have to put the gate up at the bottom of the stairs if he's downstairs and at the top of the stairs if he's upstairs. He was walking around upstairs yesterday and got frighteningly close to the stairs. His balance is still a tad off, of course, and it would take nothing for him to topple down the stairs.

It's really neat to see him walking around and the entire family is getting a huge kick out of it!

2008-06-08T01:16:00.000-07:00

First comes love ...

Then comes marriage. And then, along with your guy with a baby carriage, is the problem of how to stay that way. Married, that is.

Here's a little something I wrote earlier this year. It pertains to marriage but of course living the mom life usually requires living the wife life!

Top Ten Ways to Have a Long Marriage
By Michelle Wallace
2008

(My David Letterman-style list)

10. Learn to love your father-in-law's face. Your husband will look just like that in a few years.

9. Be sweet to his mother. She knows what's really going on but he's just happy the two women in his life love each other so much.

8. Just accept the fact that his friends are weird and there's nothing you can do about it.

7. Don't argue about money. It's pointless to argue about something that doesn't exist.

6. Pick up his dirty socks and underwear. He certainly doesn't care that they are lying there stinking up the place.

5. Speaking of cleaning, if he cleans, that's just wonderful. If he doesn't, you do it since you're the only one who's bothered by all the junk anyway.

4. Don't talk during the ballgame.

3. Have lots of ***.

2. Since you're having lots of ***, there'll probably be lots of babies. Because of that, you can't ever get away from him anyway so you may as well stay married.

And the #1 way to have a long marriage ...

NEVER, EVER SHARE A CLOSET. :-)

2008-06-06T23:22:00.000-07:00

First week of summer break is over!

Whew, the first week of summer break is finally over. That was one long, hard week. I'm already looking forward to school starting back.

In honor of getting through the first week of summer break, my husband took me on a date tonight! Before he got off work he asked his sister to take all the kids (the baby included) and told me to decide where I wanted to go to eat. All the kids went home with my sister-in-law when she got off work. Everyone was excited about going roller-skating and bike-riding in the park.

I had planned on spending the evening in front of the TV watching back-to-back episodes of my favorite show, "What Not to Wear," but since I'd been given other instructions, I put on a nice outfit and some makeup. I couldn't decide where I wanted to eat but developed a taste for shrimp and alfredo pasta somewhere along the afternoon.

After my husband got home we hopped in the vehicle and headed out to the "restaurant strip" in town. I suggested Carino's but didn't really care, so we decided on Applebee's because the parking lot was not as full as Carino's.

Afterward we went to Best Buy to buy an Ethernet card for the desktop and went home! We made it home just in time for the start of an episode of "What Not to Wear." Not very romantic, I know!

The kids were still skating so their auntie brought them home when they finished. Our two girls were really excited because their auntie had just bought them some new skates! That gives us something else to do this summer ... go skating in the park some and even go to the skating rink.

2008-06-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

Summer reading program at the library

The girls are excited about getting started in the summer reading program today at the local library. Registration begins today, but I registered my older daughter online this past weekend with her library card. We're heading up to the library this afternoon and will get my older niece a library card. We'll enroll the two older girls along with the two younger girls and check out some books for everyone, too.

We got a jump start on checking out the books this past weekend. My older daughter got bored and asked to read some of my books, so we dashed up to the library to check out some books. I told her to pick out three or four thick books, so maybe that will keep her occupied for a while.That also gets her set up to start reading for the summer reading program!

Everyone who enrolls in the summer reading program gets a bag, a button, a pencil and a reading log to record the number of books they read! My older daughter will have a good time writing down all the books she'll be reading. They can also report online or call the library once a day with the number of chapters they've read.

They'll get a sticker (displayed on a sheet at the library) for every three chapters they read, or for each book a younger child has read to them. There are special incentives in store every week for the kids who report the number of chapters they've read! I'm expecting the two older girls to stay busy with their reading and reporting of chapters to the library every day or pretty much every day.

2008-06-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

Kids' websites

Summer break is now upon us and my kids will be having to spend some of their time quietly indoors while I work. They'll be busy reading, watching TV, helping me with the baby, playing school, doing crafts, and playing on the Internet.

I'm on the lookout for some good kids' sites for playing games, doing crafts, printing worksheets, etc.

Here are some sites we love:

www.pbskids.org (their favorite)

www.schoolexpress.com (my favorite)

And a few new ones I want to check out ...

www.freekidcrafts.com

www.janbrett.com

There is a wonderful list of kids' sites at Mommy Jobs, my favorite Work at Home Mother site, that we will be making use of as well.

Now that I have a laptop along with the desktop I can work on one and let the kids have the other for playing games or getting on the Internet.

What are some of your favorite sites?

2008-05-31T12:57:00.000-07:00

Glad that's over (well, sort of)

These last two weeks have been exhausting as I've been constantly on the go end-of-the-school-year activities, appointments for the kids, and my normal three-times-daily trips to the school for drop-offs, pick-ups, and to tend to my niece's meals/insulin shots.

The kids' last day was yesterday, and I'm glad the running back and forth is over. The official last day of school will be Monday, but I think I might oversleep that day! ;-)

of course the end of school doesn't mean there's any time to rest! It means I'll have five kids (my three all the time and my two nieces when their mother is at work) to care for, feed, entertain, etc. five days a week!

2008-05-28T14:50:00.000-07:00

Reading together

We've always loved reading with our kids. Our eight-year-old third grader now devours books like I used to, and our six-year-old kindergarten child is doing very well. For a class assignment this year she has written down all the books she's read each month. Her list is usually pretty long. All the students who have read 10 or more books for the month get a prize, and she has always gotten a prize. This month her list is not as long but each book title has several marks beside it, because we've read the same ones over and over to her!

We are going to get them signed up for the summer reading program at the library next week, so that's exciting.

Here's a good article about the benefits of reading with your kids:

The Benefits of Reading To Your Child

By: Rhonda Gales

To prepare your child for academic success, expose them to books early. Studies have shown that reading is one of the keys to academic success. My daughter loved for me to read aloud when she was a child, especially at bedtime. She loved Strawberry Shortcake, The Berenstain Bears, and any classic bedtime story. As she got older her interest would change, but she continued to read for hours. At age 27 she still loves to read. She follows Oprah's book club and she is a member of Walden's Books as well. One of my fondest memories will be our book fair excursions. We would plan a day where I would meet her at college and we would spend hours at the local book fair. Later we would discuss our finds as well as the latest happenings on campus over dinner. I do believe that our mutual love for books helped to create a strong mother - daughter bond.

My daughter was an honor student, a member of Who's Who in America, and a member of the Spanish Honor Society. I believe that her early exposure to books helped her to excel in her academics. Start reading to your child at an early age. It' never too soon.

Benefits of Reading to Your Child:

·Reading together creates a bond.
·Reading helps to build a child's vocabulary. If there was a word that my daughter didn't understand she would ask what the word meant. It's a perfect opportunity to expose them to the dictionary and read the definition to them.
·Your child will learn to follow a story from beginning to end. (You won't be able to fool them if you try to skip pages. If it's one of their favorite stories, they will know it by heart).
·Your child will have an appreciation for writing as well. My daughter decided to create her own stories. She would sit for hours writing, drawing pictures, and later reading her stories to me.
·Strong academics.

Reading Tips:

·Start reading to your child as early as 6 months. Children this age will usually want to eat their books. Vinyl books would be appropriate for this age group.
·Select reading material that interest your child and is appropriate to his/her age group. Toddlers love bright colors and books that are simple (without a lot of illustrations). Board books are perfect.
·Use different voices and pitches (vary your tone) when you read. Young children usually prefer to hear the same story over and over.
·Purchase a personalized book for your child. They love reading about themselves.
·PBS has great programs where they focus on words, spelling, and their meaning. Check out your TV Guide for time slots and programs.
·Have your child turn the page when you're reading. This gets them involved.
·Allow your child to ask questions, and be sure to ask your child questions about the story.
·Introduce them to book stores early, and allow your child to select books from his or her age group.
·Take them to the local library for story hour. Be sure to get them a library card.
·Set an example. If your child sees you reading, they will follow.
·Don't substitute books on tape. The true bonding experience and benefits come from you taking the time to read to your child.

Article Source: http://www.mommy-articles.com

About the Author - I'm the mother of a beautiful daughter and owner of an on-line business, Rhonda's Fabric Gift Baskets. For unique baby gifts, visit us at www.fabricgiftbaskets.com. We feature diaper cakes, onesies, hand-crocheted dresses, sweaters, and christening gowns for infants. Gift baskets for all occasions! Be sure to visit our blog, Mother 2 Mother, at www.mother-2-mother.blogspot.com.

2008-05-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

Summer break getting closer

This is the last week of school and it's going to be a busy week! We (that is, the girls do) have a song/dance group performance one day and a field day/talent show another day.

The performance will be on Tuesday at their school. It's the last show of the year.

The field day and talent show will be Thursday, and children whose parents attended parents' night last week can come to school out of uniform! The kids are so excited about not having to wear a uniform that day. The field day part of the day will be full of outdoors activities, and the talent show will be that afternoon.

I'm not really ready for them to be out of school but it's here whether I want it to be or not. I'm certainly not looking forward to all their yelling and arguing and all the cooking and cleaning up after them that I'm going to have to do. Oh well. I'm still hoping for a good summer.

We're going to get things going next week by getting all the girls signed up for the reading group at the library, and we've got several other trips to local places planned for the summer.

2008-05-21T21:25:00.000-07:00

We're groupies!

My daughter and niece's school performing group did two performances today at other schools and visited a couple of other places. My son and other niece followed them around all day and we decided that we're groupies!

Their performing group is a song and dance group that sings motivational and popular songs and the kids chosen to try out are on the honor roll and have excellent behavior. My daughter loves being in front of people and she's short, so she is on the first row, dancing, singing and smiling the whole time. My niece is tall and a tad shy, so she's kind of tucked away in the back row, but she might just like it up there.

They started this morning off with a performance at another elementary school in the district, and then visited a famous site for a little bit to run around and let off some steam. Then they went to a park to eat lunch and play, and they finished the day up with another performance at another elementary school in their district. They were gone from school all day and got back to school in time to go home!

My two kids and I followed them around in the car all day and had a very good time being groupies! My son danced, clapped and did the moves during both shows. Toward the end of both shows he got tired and dropped off for a nap. My sister-in-law got to come to the second performance. She couldn't come to the first one because of work. (Speaking of which, we were the only two parents who came. The kids do have a performance next week at their own school so maybe some of the parents will get to come then.)

The girls have one performance tomorrow and we're planning on being groupies again.

2008-05-15T08:01:00.000-07:00

Very busy schedule!

My head is spinning thinking about our very busy schedule for the rest of the month, mostly with school-related activities.

My older daughter has a presentation about the rain forest with her gifted and talented class Monday morning. It's a play, she said.

She and my older niece are in a performing group at their school for kids who have good behavior and good grades. They have been practicing their songs for a couple of months or so and it's getting time to start their tour!

The two girls have not one but TWO performances on Wednesday. The first one is that morning at an elementary school in our district and the second one is that afternoon at another elementary school in our district. The very next day, Thursday, they are going to an elementary school in a neighboring district for a performance. My younger daughter has a fit session that Thursday afternoon.

The following week, the girls have another performance on Tuesday morning at their own school. The next day the baby has to go get recertified for WIC and then he has a photo shoot later that morning. (It's penciled in, actually. We don't have official confirmation but most likely it will happen.)

There will also be some other field trips for good behavior and honor roll for the girls that I haven't been notified about yet. And of course every day or pretty much every day the baby and I have the breakfast and lunch thing at school with my younger niece.

We are also having a dishwasher and front doors installed in the next week or so, and we are going to spend the weekend with some friends this weekend.

This is all making me very tired just thinking about it!

2008-05-06T08:03:00.001-07:00

That was amazing

I have five kids to tend to in the mornings and believe it or not I didn't have to do ANYTHING for ANYONE this morning!

My nieces came a bit earlier today than they normally do. Their mom dropped them off here about 6:40 a.m. on her way to work. When they got here all the kids and I were still in the bed. My nieces got my girls up, and my girls for some odd reason got right up and got dressed.

My older daughter fixed her own hair and made her own lunch, and my older niece fixed my younger daughter's hair. By the time I got up all I had to do was get in the shower. I didn't even have to choose any clothes for myself since my younger niece did that. The baby woke up while I was in the shower and the girls changed his diaper and dressed him. My husband had gotten home from his first job of the day by then and was entertaining the baby and everyone when I got finished getting myself ready.

Really the only things I did this morning were put socks on the baby, give my niece a belt, and pull lunch fixings out for my daughter.

I know that will never happen again but it sure was nice this morning!

Normally I have to do everything from getting girls' clothes out, making them get out of bed, combing their hair, changing and dressing the baby, and a ton of other things, and that's after I've slept until the last possible second. We manage to get it all done by 7:30 or 7:35 a.m. but not having to do anything this morning sure made things start out great for me!

2008-04-17T17:51:00.001-07:00

A year ago today ...

... I took the kids to school, wrote a couple of stories, called my mom, called a friend, cleaned up around the house, picked the kids up from school, and then HAD A BABY!!

I can't believe a year has gone by already. It seems like it has gone so fast. This past year has been exhausting, overwhelming and wonderful. He brings so much joy to all our lives and we are so glad to have him.

2008-03-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

They're famous!

The girls' photograph is in the latest issue of one of the papers I write for. I blogged about our trip to the Clinton Presidential Center in the previous post, and their photo taken there was printed in the March issue of STAND News.

They were viewing the White House in Miniature display there at the Clinton Center, and the story it accompanied described their visit.

They thought it was pretty cool to be in the paper.

2008-02-15T19:11:00.000-08:00

A day of history and culture with the kids

The kids and I had a great day of history and culture! I needed to accompany a group to the Historic Arkansas Museum and the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park, and the kids were out of school, so along they came with me!

We saw Adella the Storyteller at the museum, saw lots of neat things at the presidential center, and finished the day up with a ride on the trolley.

Adella told an African tale about the drongo bird in Madagascar, related the tale of Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch, and finished up with a story about a buzzard tricking a squirrel and a rabbit into becoming a meal for him but he couldn't trick a monkey. (My six-year-old daughter has been doing a fabulous buzzard imitation since then!)

My son got to walk around through the crowd with Adella, and that was okay until she pulled out a tambourine and started playing!

The girls thought it was great fun to go through security at the presidential center, and they thought sitting around the Cabinet Room table was pretty cool too. They wanted to sit in the President's chair, which is two inches higher than the other chairs.

The highlight of the presidential center for them was seeing the White House in miniature, on display there temporarily. It was pretty much a huge dollhouse to them but my eight-year-old daughter said she feels like she's been to the real White House now.

A trolley ride was a great way to end the day. We rode past the museum and the presidential center, which was pretty interesting to them, but a handclap game was much more to their liking!

2008-02-09T19:13:00.000-08:00

A reward for good grades

The kids' honor roll/good grades party last night was a blast! They had a wonderful time, my sister-in-law did a fabulous job with the menu and decorations, and my husband brought home a beautiful and delicious cake.

The only disappointing thing (and it really wasn't a big deal at all) was that most of the people the kids invited didn't get to come. Their only guest was a lively nine-year-old, and with her and our four girls — my two daughters who are 8 and 6, and my two nieces, who are 9 and 5 — there was plenty of little girls to have an exciting party!

My eight-year-old daughter made all A's and the two nine-year-olds made mostly all A's. The six-year-old in kindergarten and the five-year-old in preschool don't get letter grades, but they got lots of checkmarks on their report cards. Everyone was well deserving of a big "good grades" party, that's for sure.

The theme of the party was balloons, so we had balloons everywhere. One of the games they played and loved was one in which you kick ballons into a box. It sounds easier than it really is, because you cannot touch the balloons with your hands, and of course they are so light they go all over the place and you can't get them in the box. We played several different versions of the game with all the balloons that my five-year-old niece and I aired up with a bicycle pump, which was great fun in itself!

The girls also played musical chairs, pin the tail on the donkey (with Donkey from Shrek on a huge printout my husband came up with somehow) and danced their hearts out, mostly to "Soulja Boy" and "Wall to Wall" by Chris Brown. They choreographed some good moves to "Wall to Wall."

The party food was barbecued smokies, baked beans, chicken wings, and chips and dip, all made by my sister-in-law, and that delicious cake made by a woman who works with my husband. It has a great big "A" on it because my older daughter made all A's and her name starts with an A.

The kids had such a good time that we left the decorations up so they could have another party today. This one was much briefer but they still had a good time. We are still eating on all that great party food and the cake.

The girls even got gifts! My sister mailed packages for all four of the girls, and a friend of ours gave them a gift bag this morning.

We told them that we won't give them a party every single time they make all A's or get on the honor roll, but we will always try to reward them. We'll definitely do another party, and we think they'll remember this one and work hard to have another one.

2008-02-07T07:12:00.001-08:00

Good grades party

We are having an honor roll/good grades party for our girls tomorrow!

Our eight-year-old third grader made all A's, our nine-year-old fourth grader made all A's and two B's, and our kindergartner and preschooler got very good marks! The fourth grader and the preschooler are actually our nieces.

A few weeks back my husband promised our third grader that he'd throw her a party if she made all A's, like she normally does. She did make all A's, and her cousin in the fourth grade also got on the honor roll as usual, so the party was on! My husband got his sister (our nieces' mother) involved in the party and it really began taking shape then. She has already bought all the party decorations, plates, cups, goodie bag items, and even invitations, and today she's getting some food. I'm going to do a little food shopping for the party myself today, and my husband will be bringing home a freshly-made cake tomorrow after work.

I've called several of our friends and invited them, and most of them can come. We have the invitations to give to some more of them tonight. We're expecting about 20 kids (give or take a few) tomorrow evening. We're going to keep it very simple with a few games and a little food and hope they have a great time!

2008-01-15T15:58:00.000-08:00

The wonderful thing about Tigger ...

... is Tigger's a wonderful thing!!

My son will be nine months old this week. The last time I posted was just hours before he was born!

2007-04-17T06:24:00.000-07:00

The time is near!

We are now down to the final stretch as we await the birth of our new baby! We are all ready with everything we need so now we just wait. My body is making some slow but sure progress as it has done with the two previous births, and we are hoping for a quick labor and delivery as we had with the second child. I believe he will be born around his expected arrival date of April 28, but as I tell my daughters, babies come when they are ready so we will just wait!

In the meantime I seem to be growing larger every day and people are starting to shake their heads at me and say things like, "Bless your heart." Actually, nothing hurts and it's not hot here so I'm just fine! I'm enjoying these last few days while my whole family looks forward to meeting the new little one.

2007-04-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

Good doctor's visit today

I went to the doctor this morning for my now-weekly visit and am happy to report that the baby and I are doing wonderful, we were in and out of there in one hour, and I wasn't harrassed much about my Medicaid application!

I'm dilated "a stretchy 2," according to the doctor, up from between 1 and 2 cm last Monday, and I'm 80 percent effaced. Nothing else has happened so I'm sure I'm doing the same thing I did the previous two times, just getting all ready for the due date. I hope that's what happens, since I'm rather busy up until the last weekend of this month, and I am thoroughly enjoying these last few days free from breastfeeding, diaper changing, and being on 24-hour mom duty!

They did ask about my Medicaid application and just shook their heads at DHS when I reported that the application is still pending but they said they'd see if they could put a rush on it.

Best of all, I got there at 11 a.m. and left at noon!

2007-04-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

A bad mom and proud of it

I was a bad mom today but I still have my sanity and I'm proud of it!

My kids got out of school an hour early today for parent-teacher conferences. Of course they were rather rowdy and it was raining outside, so I couldn't send them out to play. I had plan B ... let them watch television. That they did, to the tune of FOUR movies!

First they watched an animal show on VHS, then they watched Babar on VHS.

After that we watched an old movie on TV. (Does it count as parent-child time that I was in the living room with them working on my laptop and watching the movie with them?) It was called "Showboat," a 1951 movie based on the 1928 Jerome Kern musical, about life on a Mississippi River showboat.

They also watched an old Kurt Russell movie (he looked 20) with their dad.

Normally they don't watch near that much TV in the run of a day so this was really unusual for them. But they were nice and quiet and I didn't have to threaten to do bodily harm to anyone and I had peace all afternoon long.

So maybe I was a bad mom for letting them watch that much TV, but I think I'm better person (or at least still sane) for it!

2007-04-09T19:44:00.000-07:00

All morning at the doctor!

The girls and I spent all the morning long at the doctor's office today. It was actually two doctor's offices, as I had to take one of the girls in to see about an eye problem and then I had my regular prenatal checkup. The whole thing lasted from 9 a.m. to noon today, with much of that time spent just waiting.

My older daughter started complaining about something being in her eye yesterday afternoon, and it got really red and irritated. She didn't get much sleep last night because of it, which of course means no one else got much sleep either. (Except her sister.) Her dad wanted me to take her to the doctor this morning, so I got her an appointment at 9 a.m., right before my prenatal checkup at 10 a.m.

We got her to the doctor, and they looked at it and put some stuff in it that made her eye glow in the dark. They didn't see any foreign material but they did see a scratch. Evidently what happened was something got in her eye and scratched it. We're supposed to put medicine in it and cover it with an eye bandage until tomorrow morning, and the doctor wants to see her back in the morning.

We got out of there in record time, in time to get to my doctor's office in time for my 10 a.m. appointment. We sat out in the waiting room for over an hour, and then in the exam room for at least 15 minutes before I was seen. Of course it only took one minute for the doctor to examine me after we'd waited for so long.

The exam revealed that I'm dilated between 1 and 2, which is typical for me. I started dilating four weeks before both of my other children were born. My blood pressure is excellent and the baby's heart rate is wonderful. I won't mention anything about my weight gain but it is right in line with what I weighed two weeks from delivery with my other two children!

We went back out to the waiting room to wait for another appointment, and it was noon before we left. We were there for two hours for a one-minute exam. Goodness.

How's that for an adventurous morning?

2007-03-31T10:08:00.000-07:00

This is rather interesting!

My five-year-old daughter was counting the letters in her first name (there's five of them) yesterday and so the seven-year-old child decided to count the letters in her name. She actually already knew that there are seven letters in her first name, but she made the interesting discovery that EACH of her names has seven letters! Wild! She thought it was pretty cool that she discovered that she has seven letters in each of her names when she was seven years old.

Incidentally, the five-year-old daughter and I each have five letters each in our first names, eight letters each in our middle names, and then her last name is the same as my married name so we each have seven letters in that name too.

What makes this TOTALLY weird is that our son is going to have seven letters in each of his names. We realized that last night when we were relating the story of the kid with the seven letters in each of her names last night to some friends. We couldn't believe it.

Now my sister and her husband's two children together have five letters in each of their three names, but they did that on purpose. Ours was all a complete accident!

2007-03-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

Less than a month to go!

We have now about a month or less before our little boy arrives. The excitement is building for everyone in our family.

We've gotten a lot of nice things for the baby and now a couple of drawers are full of little blankets, sleepers, tiny t-shirts, washcloths, and stuff like that for a sweet little boy.

This month is going to be a busy one as we carry on with all our activities and wait for the baby to come!

2007-03-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

Baby gifts

With the birth of our third child and first son drawing closer, we're receiving a lot of nice baby gifts. We had a baby shower this past weekend and got a lot of things like onesie t-shirts, blankets, clothing, and diapers, all things we really needed!

We also got a couple of beautiful hand-crocheted afghans for him in the last couple of days. My grandmother (who died this past weekend) made a yellow and green one and my sister made a gorgeous blue striped one. My mother is working on a couple of quilts for him and she made him a blanket with some fleece my aunt bought for him and using my grandmother's sewing machine.

Now we just need a little boy to wear all the cute clothes and use the beautiful afghans!

2007-03-21T08:54:00.000-07:00

Homework in pre-k

My five-year-old pre-kindergarten daughter came home with homework yesterday!

It was actually practice work but I thought it was funny her teacher sent work home, along with reward stickers to go with it!

My daughter had a blast doing her work, which was practice writing her name. She does a great job with that but she could use some more practice with the whole writing on the line thing!

2007-03-16T08:06:00.000-07:00

Countdown to baby time!

We are all counting down the time left until our new little one enters our lives ... six weeks now!

We're collecting supplies for the home birth we're planning while trying to be prepared for the hospital in case we have to go, and I'm cleaning up around the house a little at a time. Very slowly we're getting things for the little man to wear and I'm thinking of a few other things we need (a sling, a boppy pillow) and others have things they won't need anymore (a swing, a car seat) to hand on to us.

A baby shower is being planned by one of my friends for next weekend so that is exciting for us.

We've already got a name picked out, although we aren't telling anyone what it is until he's actually born. The girls really want to know what it is but if we want to keep it a surprise we most certainly can't tell them. We've assured them that they will be the first to know what it is as soon as he gets here and then they can tell the whole world!

We aren't preparing a nursery as we've never done that and don't see the need when he's just going to be sleeping with us for the next several months and maybe even the next few years. I'm just figuring out where we'll put his clothing and other things and making sure all the sheets are clean for whatever bed we end up using!

I'm trying to get quite a bit of work done this month so that next month I can focus on more preparations and then the month or so after his birth I can focus on him and the girls. I'll still have some regular assignments but I'd like to have other things out of the way.

Hopefully six more weeks will pass quickly for us as have the previous 34! I'm not so sure about the girls but I'm fairly certain the weeks will pass quickly for me.

2007-03-01T07:55:00.000-08:00

An attitude adjustment

With my blossoming belly has come quite a change in attitude about my pregnancy.

At first I was rather upset about the whole thing, having decided that our family had a good balance with two children and having grown quite used to having "big girls" who can do a lot for themselves. Finding out another one on the way meant I had to again give up my body for several months (years actually, counting the pregnancy and breastfeeding) and all of me for many more years to come.

I'd walk by the mirror and observe my growing belly and just shake my head as if to say, "What have you gotten yourself into?"

Along with that was the feeling that although at 36 I'm quite young, that's still a little old in my book to be starting all over with another baby.

But as my belly continued to grow and could no longer be hidden by what I wore, I began to accept and enjoy what was going on inside me and to look forward to the changes in store for our family. Now I look in the mirror and say, "You're beautiful. This is a beautiful thing happening to you."

Now I view it entirely as a blessing and that I'm up to it (might as well be, right?) and that we are all going to be better off for it. I'm actually glad it happened because the girls have gotten so much enjoyment out of seeing my belly grow and from looking forward to the birth of their little brother. That right now makes it all worth it.

As for myself, I know having another child will be a delight. Although the challenges we are facing will be great (we have to learn how to deal with babies all over again and we'll have to adjust to the dynamics of having another person in the house) I believe this child will make us wonder how we ever lived without him.

2007-02-16T07:48:00.000-08:00

A father's pride

As we make preparations for the little boy that will be entering our lives soon, we are having fun telling people that it is indeed a little boy. No one is more surprised than we are, the parents of two precious girls.

It's rather annoying when people respond, "Oh, I bet Daddy's so proud." Yes he is, but this comment rubs me rather the wrong way, like he's not proud of our two beautiful daughters or like the prospect of having a son is more exciting for a father than that of having a daughter.

Nothing could be further from the truth. He couldn't be more proud of our little girls and has actually wondered what he should do with a son. (I've told him it shouldn't be any different than what he does with the girls, which is everything. "Bench press him and teach him how to cook," I say. He lays on the floor and picks the girls up like he would a weight, bench press fashion.)

I realize the comments are well-intended, not mean-spirited, so I try not to make a mean-spirited response. My children's father is delighted to have another child, boy or girl, and is proud of all his children.

2007-01-26T07:43:00.000-08:00

It's a ... (think blue here)

The specialist who did our second ultrasound really surprised us all when he said to our daughters, "Are you girls ready for a baby brother?"

"Oh, we want a sister," they both politely informed him.

"Well, it's a boy. There are definite boy parts here," he replied. He then proceeded to circle the "parts" on the screen and take a photograph. He gave the photo to us along with several others taken of our little man. They all showed a beautiful and healthy child.

It's probably going to take a while for all of us to get used to the idea of the baby being a boy and for the girls to get over their slight disappointment, but I'm sure there'll be nothing but excitement soon!

2007-01-03T17:03:00.000-08:00

Back to school!

The girls went back to school today after having a couple of weeks out. We had loads of fun visiting family and doing things together here at home. They watched movies and played during the times that I worked while they were out of school.

I wasn't quite ready for them to go back to school this morning but I didn't let on since things were going rather smoothly, especially for people who've slept late and enjoyed generally leisurely lives for two weeks!

I remembered to pick them up from school today (got out of the habit of that during their vacation) and then hauled them around on errands for a couple of hours. Poor dears, but they handled it very well and were treated to a trip to Wendy's -- inside, no less -- before we came home.

It was a full day for the first day back to school, and they're back at it tomorrow. At least they only have two more days to this week.

2006-12-30T13:59:00.000-08:00

Doctor's visit

The checkup at the doctor's office earlier this week went well and it turns out that we may find out the gender of the baby fairly soon!

The girls went with me and were really excited to hear the baby's heartbeat.

Since I'm over 35, my doctor's office is going to send me to another doctor's office for a more advanced ultrasound designed to detect problems more likely to crop up when a woman my age is pregnant. I have already made up my mind not to allow any invasive testing and really not to accept anything just because I'm told I need to do it because of my age, but the nurse practitioner assured me that it's just an ultrasound, and besides, the gender of the baby will probably show up on this one.

We had an ultrasound when I was 18 weeks pregnant but the little one, for the first time in his or her life, refused to move and reveal any telling information. I wasn't disappointed not to discover the gender, especially since the doctor could see how healthy the baby is. (So there!) I was thinking that we may have another ultrasound later on in the pregnancy, but as it turns out it may be sooner than later.

My doctor's office will make an appointment (and clear all the paperwork) with the other doctor's office and let me know when to show up. So for now we just keep waiting ... and growing!

2006-12-20T18:55:00.000-08:00

Another tooth gone!

My daughter lost her second tooth tonight, the second tooth she's lost in three days!

She didn't snatch this one out herself like she did the one night before last. She said she wanted it to "fall out naturally." (Good grief.)

Her dad got after her with a string and that didn't work so finally he grabbed it, saying he was going to count to three and snatched it out on the count of one. She stood there and looked at it until I started cracking up (the whole scene really was funny) and then she started bawling.

She recovered from the whole thing quickly, and proceeded to go around the house flashing grins at everyone.

2006-12-18T19:52:00.000-08:00

First tooth gone!

My seven-year-old daughter lost her first tooth tonight! Good thing too, because I was getting tired of being ordered to look into her mouth to watch her wiggle a barely-moving tooth.

She was just sitting there while we were practicing our ASL together after our family Bible study and snatched it out. I actually heard it come out.

Now she has another loose one right beside it!

She was really wanting to lose some teeth. Most of the kids her age have a mouthful (or several) permanent teeth and she has all baby teeth. She was 12 months before she cut this tooth that came out tonight or any of her teeth, so we expected the teeth to be "late" coming out.

Now we'll see how long it takes for this next loose one to come out.