Ugh! and Wow!

I am pretty careful not to discuss work on here too much. Lately, I can't think about much else... Work just seems to be over powering my life right now!

I have been back at school for a mere 2 weeks and I have never felt like this before....

In more important news....

Chase had the most wonderful birthday! I can't believe my final baby is one, walking, eating, using sippy cups, working on words.... He doesn't really cuddle any more. He does give vampire kisses! (He goes in for a big sloppy baby kiss but then bites down with his newly found teeth!) He thinks this is VERY funny! Such an amazing little boy... so different than his brother and sister. He's bigger than they were, blond instead of red headed, prone to ear infections, and FAR more curious. We never had to secure the cabinets and drawers for the big kids, one or two warnings and they just left things alone. Chase heads straight for the pantry or the pots and pans and just looks at us with this little face that says.... are you going to come and get me! HA! I'm opening the cabinets now!!!!!! He's a challenge, and an adventure, and a treasure!

It goes by so fast...

I was cleaning out some shelves at school, shelves I haven't used in about a year. I found a scrap of paper on which I'd written some of the important milestones of my children. It was written long before Chase was a glimmer of hope in my heart. I am amazed by some of the similarities and differences...

First Tooth:
Brianna- 10 mo.
Grant- 11 mo.
Chase 8 mo.

Out of the Infant/portable Car Seat:
B- 18 mo (such a tiny peanut!)
G- 9 mo
C- 9 mo

Forward Facing in the car:
B- 18 mo (still wasn't 20 lbs but I gave up!)
G- 12 mo
C- not yet- probably at 12 mo

Running:
B- 10 mo
G- 15 mo
C- we'll see!

First huge goose egg on head!:
B- 10 mo (see also running... in the driveway!)
G- 15 mo
C- a first I'm glad not to have seen yet!

Children are such an adventure!

A 9 month old moose!

When Chase was born he was a tiny baby who needed so much. Somehow I blinked and now he's nine months old! He's 19.2 lbs and 28 inches long. In our family history, that's really big!

He crawls, fast. He will shovel Cheerios in his mouth for hours if you let him. He tolerates baby food but prefers anything he can feed himself. He talks to himself often and likes to pull himself up on furniture to see what everyone else is doing. He LOVES snuggling into my neck and giving big open mouth kisses while pulling my hair to get as close as he can. He has figured out that mommy can't resist him if he puts his arms up, whine's a little, and gives me puppy dog eyes. Thank goodness he started sleeping through the night and now sleeps for 10-12 hours at night.


He is still my precious little baby even as I see him turning into a little boy right in front of my eyes!

6 going on 17

Brianna HATES talking on the phone! Even to mommy, daddy or Grandma...she will only talk if the phone is on speaker phone. We apparently found an exception to the rule!

Last week, Brianna got a phone call from A BOY! One of her little friends from school called to talk about a computer game/website he likes and she talked to him for a couple minutes. I of course listened to her side of the "conversation" but it was a lot of ... yes, uh huh, yes, mom, can I go on the computer, nah, yes, bye!

When I asked her about it later, she said she wanted him to be her boyfriend because he was funny. Considering sense of humor is one of the reasons I married the perfect man, I had some scary flash backs at that moment. At least she has good taste!

I thought we would have a few more years before I was thinking about boys calling!
Yikes! ;-)

Deluding myself as usual

What a nice quiet weekend!

My parents and sister took the big kids from Saturday lunch to Sunday lunch so Adam and I were left with just little Chaser!

We cleaned, we napped, we grocery shopped without someone pulling on our hand or running away every 3 seconds.

Very quiet... nothing big... no one started crawling or anything!
(I refuse to believe that he did and therefore it is true!)
(YIKES! Where did my baby go?)
(and where did the baby gates get stored?)

My little darling

Chase,

You are going to be 8 months old tomorrow. It amazes me all the things you do and how fast the time has gone. You would think, since your our third, that I would be used to the growth rate of babies and no longer be amazed. That couldn't be more wrong.

You roll yourself everywhere! You would really like to crawl but haven't quite figured that one out. However, you have figured how to get from your belly back up to sitting on your butt. From there, you throw yourself in whatever direction you'd like to go, roll a bit, and sit back up. You can move yourself a good foot that way. Do it over and over, you get to every little piece of paper, every sticker, every not-safe-for-children-under-3 toy we own.

You are so happy! It still amazes us that you just seem to go with the flow most of the time. That is, unless dinner is a minute late, then you become a crying pile of mush. You love Cheerios and fruit. You HATE veggies, we have to trick you into eating those. We will start meat dinners this weekend. I was going to start them earlier this week but we had to wait due to another first.

Your first ear infection, and therefore your first amoxicillin. Actually, this is the first ear infection our family has ever had. Brianna and Grant never, ever, had one. I was amazed when the doctor told me that was the problem. Even he didn't believe me when I said we'd never had one before. :-)

You are a great kid but you are different from the big kids. From the first moments of pregnancy, you just did different things. I don't know if it's because you are the third, or if I am different in how I deal with you. I wonder daily if you will continue to be different as you grow or if you will start to resemble the big kids more.

Every day is an adventure and I'm so glad your here!
Love,
Mommy

Interrupting the silence

I suppose I should explain why I've been away so long... except that most of you who read this actually know me and probably weren't surprised... but for prosperity...

• I'm still working on this list, minus a few things but plus a few more things!
• I had my gallbladder out... as discussed here. That went fine but necessitated several days of sitting slightly reclined as to not anger incisions... which meant no sitting up at computer.
• This baby, who I really need more pictures of, turned 6 months old!! He's an amazing little man and we are so blessed to have him. He hates cereal but if you hide it in the baby food, he doesn't mind that. He loves eating little bits of bread but isn't a huge fan of Cheerios. He like the baby puff things but can't quite get them in his mouth with out some help. He is technically sleeping through the night since he goes 7-8 hours without food but when your last meal is around 7:30pm- that still means mommy or daddy is up between 2-4 to feed him again. We are looking forward to when we can make it 5am! Hear me Chaser... 5am?!?
  
• We bought this mini-van. OK- not that exact one but it looks like that if you add some salt/dirt and a tiny scratch on the passenger mirror that I got the first time I pulled it in to the garage.

I suppose in reality, each of those could be their own series of posts but I don't have time. By the end of this month, my work will let up and I hope to be back far more often... posting the usual drivel that no one really needs to know! All my best in the meantime-- Jo

9 months is enough!

When we decided to have a third baby, I knew that meant full nights of sleep were not going to be an option for a while. Starting with the last 2-3 months of the pregnancy- no sleep then due to comfort issues and need to pee! Then the baby is born and he needs feeding a couple times a night. Eventually that tapers off to once a night. And then, the child is supposed to grow enough to sleep through the night.

Opinions differ on when that glorious regular sleep pattern will occur. Maybe when he doubles his birth weight. Maybe when he is eating solid foods on a regular basis. Maybe when he stops napping so much during the day.

Check. CHECK. CHECK!

Why won't he sleep through the night????? He teased me with full nights of sleep around 2 months old but around 3 months old he started getting up again. No problem, I thought! I can handle this! Really, it's only once a night- he drinks his bottle and goes right back to sleep most of the time- I can do this.

I'm done! I don't want to do it anymore! He will be 6 months old soon and I want to sleep through the night! We have tried everything we could think of.... upping the amount he drinks during daytime feedings... waking him to feed him right before I go to bed... adding cereal to the bottle for more calories...

Still- up- every night-
Help me someone please!

Who needs this?

Does a 4 year old need his friends at a birthday party?

We are obviously having all our family and close friends over to celebrate Grant's birthday. We always do, for both kids. That will be a dinner at the house "thing".

He wants a friend party too. I don't remember if Brianna had a friend party at 4... 5- yes, 4- I don't think so. However, Grant has attended birthday parties for about 6 of his friends, and more invites came this week for the upcoming month or so.

• I feel like he will notice, and feel shafted, if he attends birthday parties of friends but doesn't host one.
• Will the friends, or more accurately, parents of friends notice and think I don't like them?
• Is the expense worth it? The last thing the kid needs are cheap toys...
• Where to go? What to do? Is it too late?

Mommy is a bit of a wreck over this. It should be easy but, it's not. I need to decide FAST. If I'm going to do this, I have to get it booked and get the invites out by next Monday. UGH.

Survey says...

At one month old... Chase is 21 inches long and 9 pounds even. This is a full inch growth in length and 1 lb, 5 oz in weight.

Scarier-- This puts my son firmly in the 50% for weight and height. I have never had a child top the 25%!! Chase is our family giant! We hope we will continue and someday be a whopping- normal! :-)

(If you've met my husband, you'd know that normal height is an excellent achievement for one of our children.)

Another successful birthday

Yesterday we had Grant's Birthday Party. It went very well! The family was all there, the food was delicious (Thanks Moe's!), and he loved his presents!

I was so funny to see him exclaim over each new gift. Even a bag of new clothes was met with genuine excitement and the comment, "Look, New Clothes, Wow!" I hope at 13 he accepts gifts as well as he does at 3!

I love my little boy to pieces! And this week, when he drives me crazy, I will try and remember how cool he was on his birthday.

Have I mentioned yet...

We are working on potty training Grant.

His teachers have been bugging me since August to just put him in underwear. WELL- since I'm the one who has to do all the laundry, I held off. Finally last week, with his 3rd birthday around the corner, I gave in and sent lots of underwear and dry pants to school.

Everyday I pick up Grant, and his zipper bag full of wet underwear.
Except for yesterday! GRANT HAD A DRY DAY! I've never felt so happy to see a cubby with no zipper baggie!

Yeah Baby! You go boy!
Let's keep it up!

Bittersweet

Today I mailed the invitations to Grant's 3rd birthday party! I can't believe that my "baby" is going to be 3 years old soon. I still look at pictures of him as a baby and I can remember exactly how he liked to be held. I can remember all the nights I slept with him on my stomach because it was the only way we could both be asleep at the same time.

It's been no secret that I'd like a 3rd baby. However, as Grant gets older, and the possibility of a 3rd baby seems less likely, I feel more nostalgic. I know that children get older, and I love the kids more everyday, but I L.O.V.E. babies! I love holding them and cuddling and how they snuggle up and fall asleep. 3 and 5 year olds don't do that...

Lucky 13

13 years ago today I went on a blind date with someone I met on the Internet. We squeezed in a quick first date at Subway before I had to report to play practice. Later that evening I told my best friend/college roommate that he was "OK" and that "I guess I'd go out with him again".

Tonight we will recreate that first date. This time we will have our 2 adorably rambunctious children in tow and will probably spend the entire time planning our big move into our new home.

13 years can go so fast... and so much can change.
Luckily the important things are the same... and everything else is so much better!

I hope I don't jinx it....

We sold the house!!!!!!!!

We have accepted an offer on our house... well actually we've been negotiating since Monday afternoon but late last night we left our emotions out of it (mostly) and decided to accept the offer.

I am feeling quite a few emotions today. I look at what has been MY house for 6 years and know that in about 2 months, it won't be MINE anymore. It will be some other family's home.

Some other family will put their children to bed in the nursery where my children first slept through the night. Someone else will bathe in the tub where my children had first baths and water fights and blew bubbles. No one will know that the flowering tree in the back yard was "The Brianna Tree" because we planted it to celebrate her first birthday. No one will remember when the living room/dining room was empty of furniture and Brianna used it learn to walk and run. No one will look out the bedroom window and remember all the nights I sat there and nursed the babies throughout the night.

I try to remind myself of all the memories we are about to make in our new house. It will be the place I take pictures of Brianna and Grant before taking them to the first day of school. They will learn and grow in this new house too... a new house we LOVE and can't wait to live in. But it won't be the house I brought my new babies to when we came home from the hospital. It won't be our first home, that home now belongs to someone else.

I can only hope they love it as much as we did.

So many things to say

For once, I have a little free time today AND have enough brain cells to think and type! So much has been going on with our lives and I have had so little time or energy to talk about it.

1. Our home is on the market! YES, I know it's the worst possible time to sell a house, thank you for telling me the obvious. I could have proved that to you by the fact that in nearly 90 days on the market we have had exactly NO SHOWINGS! That's right, 3 months on the market, with a professional realtor, and we have had no one come see our home. YES- we have had open houses, those people weren't serious lookers, they were mostly our curious neighbors. YES- we have lowered our price, TWICE. We are trying to stay positive and look at this as a marathon. It's okay to start off a little slow as long as we finish the race within the time we'd hoped.

2. I've over committed myself at work, but that's not really new, just different on any given day. This year it's the program review committee, the internal community committee, the school improvement planning committee, team leader, flag coach, and 6th grade committee co-chair. Not to mention teaching my 100 or so kids and planning for them and grading all the work they do. Some people have said to my face that I need to slow down. They are mostly my co-workers who just complain about problems and then don't offer to help find solutions. I see myself as a go-getter who wants to be part of the solution. And the fact is, none of it will hurt when my resume looks fabulous in 2 years and I want an administrative position!

3. Oh yeah, did I mention I have two WONDERFUL children who are so amazing it's earth-shattering? The kids are growing so fast.
Brianna is curious about absolutely everything and does nothing but ask questions. I hate to stunt her curiosity, but I might muzzle her! :-) On the plus side she is learning so much and constantly astounds me with the things she picks up. Good and Bad things!
Grant has really found his voice too. Literally. He talks all the time. Sometimes to himself, sometimes to us, sometimes to the toys and TV. He can talk in short phrases and 3-4 word sentences now, it's amazing to hear him form questions and thoughts and actually understand what is going on inside that cute little head of his. On the other hand, I will be trying to find out if muzzles come in his size too. He actually figured out recently that "okay honey" is not the correct answer to whatever it is he's trying to tell me... Now he repeats his phrase over and over and over and over and over and over until I repeat back the right words and respond properly to the comment. Some favorites:

da da dat date mommy?--- Translation: Are we there yet mommy?
sis dack ot ide mommy.--- Translation: It's dark outside mommy.
ca bankie binkie ie ead mommy. Translation: Car blankie and binky are in bed mommy.

(Notice how they all end in mommy... you would think daddy was just a prop or a toy. He apparently is not to be asked questions of, even when he's in the same room or car!!!!!)

WELL- I guess I should go teach class now. Maybe I'll be back later with pictures...

first haircut!

This weekend, Grant got his first hair cut. In all the process was a little sad because we loved his curls. Even now, 2 days later, I kind of do a double-take! I love his new do too but...

Before:


Note the Afro-like quality of the curls. My dear husband lovingly calls this "Jew-Hair". He's allowed to say that because he is Jewish and is the proud owner of similar curls!
(also a great picture of Brianna's hair and why mommy will no longer be cutting hair!)

During:


At this point we are all in Wiggle induced comas! BUT- no one is crying...

After:


My clean-cut little man is born, and LOVING the carousel ride as a reward! Mommy is only crying a little now.

Be Strong

It finally happened.
Yesterday I had to follow through on one of those threats I seem to use too often.

At gymnastics, Brianna refused to go into the gym without me. She has been enrolled in the "big-girl class" for months but her new teacher is male. We have had a hard time getting her to go in and do her warm-ups but she has always gone in by the time they started the real stuff. This week, she REFUSED to enter.

I tried walking in with her, and leaving when she got to the group. NOPE.
The teacher tried sending one of the other kids out to get her. NOPE!
The female receptionist tried walking her in. NOPE!
- At this point I started threatening to go home.-
We stood at the door.... she clung to my leg.... I could not get her to tell me why...
- I threatened to take her home.-
The receptionist tried again... I tried again... the kid from her class tried again...
- I put on her first shoe.- BLOOD CURDLING SCREAMING ENSUED...
We went to the bathroom... I tried again... I tried again...
- AND FINALLY... WE WENT HOME!-

She kicked and screamed as I put her coat and shoes on. She cried and screamed, mostly the word "No", all the way home. She pouted and fussed for an hour afterwards.

But people... I made my point dang it! And I hated every minute of it. I tried not to laugh, or cry, as she screamed. I tried and tried again to get her to go participate. I tried to talk her down, I tried to talk myself down. I'm a teacher, I know that you have to make a point sometimes. But today, I am very sad.

I'll let you know how it goes the next time...
What do you think? Should I switch her to the class with the female teacher?

Happy, Crappy New Year

I had planned on posting today to wish my 6 readers a happy new year and tell you all about my wonderful break. (If you're new to my insanity, I am a teacher and didn't have to work between Dec. 22 and Jan. 8).

That all flew out the window this morning.

At the daycare center I normally love, this morning I hated. Both of my children had to move up to new classrooms after the break so this morning was understandably nutty. Bri took everything very well, she didn't seem disturbed at all by the new classroom since she still had her good friends and one of her former teachers with her. We'll see how she feels when she realizes it's permanent and not just for a day or two.

Grant is another matter entirely. My baby boy made a big change. He has no familiar teacher faces. He doesn't care much about the other kids, but they are at least familiar. This morning, Grant cried when I put him down in the new room. He cried when I held him in the new room. He SCREAMED when I handed him to the teacher. He even did that little twisting thing that only small children can do... while being held by the teacher, he turned his torso fully around to reach for me with both hands while screaming and kicking.

I know, he'll be fine. At least 8 different people today have told me "He'll be fine". In my brain I know that after a few days (weeks at worse!) he'll adjust and he really will be fine. However, today my brain can't tell my heart that because my heart is broken.

Thanks for asking...

Hi Wonder Mom! Thanks for asking...

I felt OK about Brianna leaving. We'd been away from her before, but my parents had come to our house. This was her first sleepover at someone else's house. I must have told her I loved her about 50 times, and reminded her that I'd see her tomorrow about 30! I was a little choked up when I drove away with an empty car, but looking back, I was more worried about how she'd handle it than I was upset that she was away.

My folks said she handled it really well, until the drive back to our house. Then, in her 3 year old mind, the drive was just too long. I guess when your 3, 90 minutes feels like 900. She was very clingy when she got home but it was TOTALLY worth it!