Saturday, January 31, 2009

Can I Please Catch a Break?

So it's been a little crazy around here lately. Sweet had roseola. The boys had it last month so he apparently didn't want to miss out on the fun. She got rid of the rash a lot faster than the boys did, which was nice.

When she broke out in the rash, Bam decided he needed some more of the attention and got a fever. It lasted a couple of days and finally broke today.

Sugar couldn't be left out. Today I should have known that something was amiss when he didn't devour all of his breakfast (fruit and cereal). Add to that yesterday and today he kept saying I'm freezing. I had taken his temp earlier and it was normal so I figured that he was just playing. Not so much. As I was cleaning up from lunch I hear him wailing. I found him in my room covered in puke. Apparently mom's bed seemed like the optimal spot. So poor little one has a stomach bug. Hopefully this will pass quickly without spreading.

I miss how healthy the kids were last year. I think they each had one illness last winter. Now, it's once a month. I know it's normal and it's building their immune system, but come on. They eat great, sleep great, and play hard. Doesn't that count for something?

I finally got some pictures uploaded, it hadn't worked the last few times I had tried. So here are a bunch of random pictures. Enjoy.
He's starting to enjoy the snow most of the time.

No, she's not reaching for help. She's trying to make a snow angel on our snow blown drive way. The snow was way too deep to make one in the yard.

See how high the snow is in the background? And it was still snowing.

She loves to accessorize with anything and everything.



Too cute.

Bam thinks that every toy should be a riding toy.

Which in turn make Sugar want to do it too.

Maybe his father is right. I might have to break down and get his hair cut soon since I can put it in a pony tail.

Lately this has been the hot spot for looking at books. The big kids are starting to make up their own stories as they go now.

I love this picture. It totally shows how much Bam wants to be just like his big brother.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Been Awhile

Haven't said much in awhile. I wasn't feeling so well for awhile and I just seem to have been short on time.

Sweet and Sugar are starting to ask to use the potty a little more, but not always successfully. At least they have some interest. I tried putting Sweet in panties the other day since she asks everyday. I told her she could wear them as long as she let me know when she had to go because Elmo doesn't like to get wet. So much for that, it lasted about 5 minutes. Baby steps.

Sweet has had a fever the last couple of days. It is a lot lower today so hopefully it's on it's last leg. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that no one else gets it. We'll see. Other than being hot she seems to be normal.

We took the kids to the playground at the mall the other day. They had a good time, but it made me very aware of how much they need that. We have a good amount of toys of all types here and they have each other to play with, but other than occasionally playing with their cousins, they don't interact with other kids. They were all shy at first. They didn't know how to react to the bigger kids pushing people around. I wanted to step in, but sat back and watched instead. I don't want my kids to fight, but I don't want them to let others walk all over them and shove them around either. We'll definitely have to start going out to play a little more and see if they start to stand up for themselves a little.

Yesterday I was sure that someone had taken my kids during the night and replaced them with children that I didn't know or like. Children that liked to be mean, hit, kick, instigate fights with each other, take, not listen, and throw lots and lots of tantrums. I was very relieved to find that my children had been returned this morning. I really missed them.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Snow Pics

Yesterday was another poopy nap day and was a poopy night too. So far nap time has gone ok. They'll probably wake up screaming any second because I typed that.

Here's some cute snow pics.

























































Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Memories

I love that Sweet and Sugar are getting to the stage that they can recall what they did during the day or week. When I put them to bed at night I tell them that I love them and if it was a good day I thank them for being good and tell them that I had fun with them. Sometimes I tell them what we're going to do the next day.

Sweet has started to tell me her favorite parts of the day while I'm putting her to bed. Last night after I told her that I had fun playing with her she said yeah fun frog and running. We had played downstairs and I found a frog puppet. Sugar was a little taken aback by it at first, but then the frog (on my hand) started talking to him and chasing the kids around the basement and tickling them when they got caught. It made me smile to hear her say that she had fun with it too.

Sweet has finally gotten brave enough to go down the slides like a normal person. Up until recently she went down on her belly feet first. She started going down on her back but lying down about a month ago, but after several head bumps at the bottom has finally realized that mommy is right, it's much better to sit up and go down. Sugar is still to afraid to go down sitting and still prefers to go down on his belly. Bam who always went down the right way now thinks that it's cool to go down on your belly because that's what Sweet and Sugar do.

Bam is starting to use some sign language, which has helped the communication gap. He's also trying to pronounce words, but can't get a whole word out yet. He just gets the beginning of it. Like the other night he had pjs on that had dogs on them. He kept pointing to them and saying do but couldn't get the g sound.

Children are stirring and dinner needs to be cooked. I'm currently uploading some pics onto my computer so maybe some pics tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Summary

The last few days have been well, hard. I am not getting the sleep that I should. I haven't been for quite some time. I stay up after the kids are in bed. It's my time. I can get done whatever I need too. I can work out, which has taken up most of my me time lately. I can watch TV and veg if I want. I stay up to wake Chuck for work.

Bam is teething. He's working on his last molar, it's FINALLY coming through. Bam does not do well with teething. He doesn't like to sleep much when teething. This means that I'm up late and up early. A tired momma with three kids who are fussy from being coped up and two are teething is not a pretty picture.

We've also been working on getting rid of Bam's passy. Let me add that I never intended for him to use a passy. He was so inconsolable the second night in the hospital that the nurses took him from me and returned him the next morning with a passy, which was definitely not what I wanted since I was nursing him. We tried to get rid of it after he came home, but it ended up being the only thing that could calm him. He's a very oral child. He chews on everything. That's a whole other story though.

Now back to the passy. This has been a long slow process over about two months and no it's still not gone. First I didn't attach it to his clothes anymore. Then I cut the tip. Then I cut more from the tip. This seems to be where teething kicked up a notch and all **** broke out. He has now decided that he will not sleep in his room for a nap. He will sleep on the couch if someone (me) lays by him till he falls asleep.

You might say, well at least he's sleeping. The problem is that if he's sleeping on the couch and the kids and Chuck are asleep in the bedrooms I can't get anything done during nap time (laundry, dinner, cleaning, etc). Lucas also takes the longest nap when he sleeps on the couch which leaves me with two two year olds who I need to keep quiet in the middle of two sleeping people (one at each end of the house).

So yesterday I finally had enough and let him cry it out. This didn't go so well. He cried the entire time he was in there. I felt bad for Sweet and Sugar. So today I broke and gave him a full passy when I put him down for his nap. Guess what! He went to sleep in his room without a protest. I guess I can live with a child who needs a passy to sleep for a little while longer. At least he doesn't walk around with it.

Today Sweet asked to get out of her bath to sit on the potty and she actually went potty! Yeah Sweet. So now she's developing awareness, we just have to get the desire to want to use the potty like a big girl. The other day I showed her the Elmo panties that I have for her. She was incredibly excited about them. I'm hoping that they will be the motivation that she needs. She wanted to wear them today, but when I asked if she was going to use the potty instead of her diaper today she said no. I told her that Elmo doesn't want to get dirty so she can't wear him until she decides to use the potty. We'll see how this goes.

Sweet has entered terrible twos. She has so much attitude at times it's crazy. She is a very opinionated little girl and she also does not like to let the boys near her pink things. If one of the boys tries to put on her hat or slippers, she has a fit. We are definitely developing selective hearing too. She has learned how to ignore already.

Sugar is definitely in terrible twos. He's into taking. He'll walk up to one of his siblings and rip what ever toy they are playing with out of their hands or their hat off of their head and run with it. We also like to tell mom when we disagree with what she has to say. A little bossy at times. I know that it could be a lot worse and I am very thankful that it isn't. He gets lots of praise when he's being good.

We've spent lots of time playing in the snow the last couple of days. It's been very good to get outside and play. Bam didn't take so well to it the first day, but had a blast the second day, and then decided it really wasn't that fun the third day. Sweet loved it the first two days before having lots of attitude the third day and not wanting to play. Sugar was just ok with it the first two days and loved it the third day. Too bad it wasn't good packing snow. We didn't make it outside this morning (which is sad because it was a little warmer so the snow probably would have been perfect for a snowman) and I think it's going to be too cold for the next couple of days, we'll see.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Weekend in a Nutshell

Well me put our cat down on Friday. It was very hard on both of us. My aunt (she manages the vet hospital) called after it was done to let me know that she was gone and she didn't fight. I had kept myself busy after Chuck left with her, but after the phone call I lost it. I haven't cried like that in a long time. We miss her. We haven't brought it up to the kids. I wasn't sure what to say to them. I don't know that they'd understand yet. They haven't brought her up yet. Our other cat is definitely missing her too. He's been very needy since she's been gone. He's always been the quiet cat and he's gotten a little more vocal. He normally doesn't come around the kids all that much and he's been loved on by the kids quite a bit during the last couple of days. I feel bad for him too. He lost his companion, as temperamental as she was during the last couple of months.

Saturday I drove to southern Ohio to see my college roommate. It had been too long since we had seen each other and it was her baby shower. It was very nice to get to see her again. I still miss seeing my college and grad school friends. I wish her an easy delivery to a happy healthy baby. She's due this month!

Well, we decided to try another money saver. I cut Chuck's and Sugar's hair this weekend. Sugar's turned out great. Chuck's isn't bad, but it isn't good either. I need to play around with it a little more next time. I was definitely nervous about Chuck's, since he went first. I have never cut anyone's hair, other than Sweet's bangs. I'll have to post some pictures of Sugar soon.