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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.