Since we live the homeschool life, I decided to take Pi Day seriously. Caleb and I discussed pi, then we made a pie. That counts, right? I think it counts double since the pie had the pi symbol on it.
Yum!
The pie was waiting for us after dinner. Before dinner, baseball practice! It has been gray and rainy lately, but somehow we lucked out with beautiful weather for Caleb's first practice. Practice was from 4:30-6:00, which does not work well for my family that usually naps until 4 or 4:30, and eats dinner at 5:00. We will make it work though.
It has been rainy and gray lately, but we lucked out with a lovely day for practice! I loaded all the kids in the van, and we drove off. Given Caleb's personality, I was worried that it would take some coaxing to get him to participate. I was dead wrong. Caleb ran right onto the practice field and got started.
Sure, he was a little bit goofy: he wore his glove on his head for one drill, and I don't know what he's doing during the stretching exercise above. But overall, it was a great first practice, and he reported that he had a lot of fun.
Chris arrived halfway through practice, so the little ones and I moved to the playground.
Eli tried to escape. He was desperate to see Daddy.
I was so annoyed that I forgot my big camera, but hey - I remembered all four kids, Caleb's hat, gloves, cleats, and I remembered to put dinner in the crock pot. I call that a win.
It was a full day! In addition to losing an hour of sleep because of Daylight Savings time, we had lots of other stuff going on.
After skipping church for too many Sundays, we finally made it there this morning. Eli is fully into Separation Anxiety, and he did not want me to leave him in the church nursery. He did fine, though, and the service was mercifully short. Then on to Costco, and home for lunch. Chris worked out in the yard while I fed the kids lunch and put Eli down for a nap, and then I headed to the gym and grocery shopping. I had just enough time to get the groceries unloaded and take a quick shower before leaving to hang out with some of the ladies from our small group. We enjoyed dinner and coffee, and I was home just in time to nurse Eli and put him to bed.
Chris texted me this picture of their post-dinner adventure, courtesy of Daylight Savings Time:
Yes, Caleb is wearing a tie. I love that kid. His first-ever baseball practice is tomorrow afternoon. I sure hope it goes well!
I happened to look out our front window this morning as Chris drove off to work, and I noticed that he had stopped his car and was talking to another driver. It was weird. Even weirder was that the other driver then pulled into my driveway. And then it hit me - the other driver was my mom!
She had dropped my little sister off at work nearby, and decided to come by our house for some snuggles. Even though it was a little after 7 am, she knew we would be awake, with snuggles to spare. It was a happy surprise for me, and especially for the kids!
At one point, all four kids were in Lily's room, looking out the window. They were watching robins hopping around in the yard, poking for worms in the grass.
They were all enthralled.
They were also all fighting over one stool.
Finally, an annoyed Lily looked at me and said, "Mommy, we need more stools!" Luckily, there are at least three stools in our house, so everyone was accommodated.
One of the things I love about my mom is that she can make something as simple as watching birds peck in the grass into something fun. She notices things that I often overlook, and the kids love the things she notices. It's a little thing, but it's special, and I am thankful.
For some reason, tonight I find myself wondering what each of my children was like when they were nearly 13 and a half months old, like Eli is now.
How were they similar? Different?
Luckily, I have a treasure trove of resources. Chris and I have spent the past hour scrolling and laughing at all of the fond memories of when each of our kids was little. The thing that surprises me the most, though, is the language factor. Our kids have always been really verbal, and Eli... well, he isn't. I mean, technically, we weren't even expecting to have celebrated his first birthday yet, so it's not really fair to compare him to his siblings at 13.5 months, but I did it anyway.
Eli, however, doesn't say a lot of words. It's mostly "buh-buh-buh", and variations thereof.
For example, if I ask him, "How old is Eli?", he will grin, hold up one finger, and say, "BUH!"
Clearly, he is saying, "one!"
I feel like he was saying several distinct words a month or two ago, but they have all faded back to buh.
he says cat - "tah"
sometimes mama, but I'm never sure if it's really me
"Bah!" is ball, especially for blueberries
he was saying dog - "dah!" - but I haven't heard it lately
He has two signs: milk, and all done. Tonight at bedtime, I was trying to get him to give me kisses before I fed him, but he wasn't cooperating. Finally, he looked at me, angrily signed "all done", then ferociously signed "milk".
Kid meant business.
I know I shouldn't worry, and that Eli is progressing totally normally. And I KNOW I shouldn't compare my children. Yet, it's hard not to.
Oh, but pictures. Only cell phone shots today.
Since Daisy threw up yesterday, I kept her home from school today. It was glorious, and it made the one stressful part of the day - lunch and getting Caleb to speech therapy - so much easier. We just had an early lunch at home, then hung out in the van and waited for Caleb.
Hi, Eli!
Sometimes he is not the most patient waiter.
And yes, Mom, I did put shoes and socks on my children today. My children just insist on removing said shoes and socks. And anyway, they didn't leave the van.
No pukies! She was grouchy and awful this morning, but took a three- or four-hour nap this afternoon and woke up saying she felt much better. She certainly was more cheerful after that!
And this little boy only wants to be held. Nothing else will ever suffice. You either hold him, you feed him blueberries, or he cries. I don't know how parents who don't wear their babies ever get anything done! Maybe all babies aren't as needy as Eli is. Or maybe all parents aren't as awesome as I am. That's what I keep telling myself: he wants me to hold him all the time because I am just so awesome. Ha!
I've pretty much given up any hopes of doing actual "school" on Wednesdays, since it's full of other stuff for Caleb. It looks like this: After breakfast, the kids play while I pack snacks and lunches and get ready. At 9:30, they get their swimsuits on, and we are loading into the van by 9:45. The kids eat a snack on the way to the YMCA. Swimming is 10:15-11, and then I get everyone dressed and usher Caleb off to the gym for sports and games. Then I take the younger three up to childcare, check them in, and work out for 30 minutes. I pick up Caleb in the gym, then head up to get the little ones. Eli is usually crying and completely unhappy. We get in the van, and I hand each child a lunch bag. They eat lunches in the van while we drive to Caleb's speech therapy. I stop the van in front of the school, hop out with Caleb, and bring him in. Then I get back in the van, find a parking spot, and sit in the back with the kids while they eat their lunch. 30 minutes later, Caleb is finished. We pick him up, drive home, and unload. The kids play while I put Eli down for a nap, and Caleb reads a book while I put Daisy and Lily down for naps. I'm just about finished when Gayle arrives to pick up Caleb for some special time together. If I'm lucky, Eli will nap for another 45 minutes or an hour, and I can tidy up and start dinner space out on Facebook. If I'm unlucky, he wakes up early. Then the girls wake up and Caleb comes home and it's time to make dinner and the day is over.
That's how it usually goes. It's stressful, but it works.
But Daisy has been complaining about childcare at the gym lately. She is the oldest kid there, and she hates it. Eli also hates it. So today, I told Daisy that I would sacrifice my workout so she didn't have to go to childcare. There is a little corner in the YMCA lobby that is set up with a low table for kids, along with a bookshelf with books, coloring books and crayons, Duplos, and some foam blocks. I told the girls that they could play there instead of going into childcare. Lily looked up at me and said, "I go to childcare. I happy girl."
I love that she already notices Daisy's whining and bad attitude, and it's sweet that she wants to be a "happy girl" for me. So I checked her into childcare, and Daisy, Eli and I played in the kids' corner.
Eli was thrilled. He began whimpering the moment we stepped into childcare to check Lily in, so he was thrilled not to be there!
I let him sit in a big kid chair, and he wasn't sure what to think.
I think he settled on being delighted and proud.
He got bored soon, though, so I gave him a cup of water to drink.
He spilled it everywhere, so I gave him an empty cup and gave Daisy a cup of water to drink.
Daisy first just laid her head on the table and rested. It was weird. Then she got out a coloring book and colored Winnie the Pooh. Doesn't she look pale?
Well.
It was a few moments after this that she said, "Mommy, I think I need to throw up."
Do you remember how this child had a stomach bug on Sunday? It's now Wednesday. We are over that. So I told her she was being dramatic.
When she started licking her lips and swallowing hard, I started to worry. Frantically, I scanned the room. The bathrooms were way too far away - no way we could make it there with all of our stuff and Eli.
All of the trashcans had hooded lids with flaps on them. No way she could puke in them.
So I handed her Eli's empty cup. You know, like this:
At first, I thought it might work. She did throw up, and she did it right in the cup. Filled it to the top, but it worked. She stopped, and I thought we were safe. But we weren't there was more. All over the floor, the table, the window overlooking the swimming pool...
I had no idea what to do.
My daughter stood there in a pool of her own vomit, with puke on her dress, her pants, her socks, her shoes...
While she waited patiently, I fluttered around. Got a towel from the front desk and wiped her off. Realized Eli was trying to crawl through the puke, so picked him up. Discovered the puke had splattered on him, so I undressed him, then put him in the ring sling on my back. Finally I turned to Daisy, and had her step out of her shoes, socks, and pants, then away from her puke. What a mess. The workers insisted that I just worry about Daisy, and not her pile of vomit, so I took them at their word. Then it was time to get Caleb. So we picked him up, got Lily, and headed to the van.
Luckily, I keep bags of spare clothes for each child in the van, so I had something clean for Daisy to wear. I got her and Eli dressed, buckled everyone in, and handed lunches to everyone except Daisy. Off to speech.
But Daisy started up the whining. "Mommy, I'm thirsty!!!"
over and over and over and over.
I'm no fool, though. I wasn't going to fall for it. No water for you, child. You will just puke. By the time we got home, it had been over an hour since the vomit, so I let her have some applesauce (spiked with vitamin D and probiotics) before her nap. She stayed in her room for 2.5 hours with no incident. When I went in to check on her, she said her tummy hurt so badly that she couldn't sleep. I let her climb into my bed to watch some TV, with one very strict rule: no puking in my bed.
Of course, once she was awake, the whining about water started again. Finally, I gave in and let her have three sips of water.
Then Caleb and Gayle returned, so I ran out to talk to them. While I was out there, guess what happened.
Yep. The girl puked in my bed.
That was the point that I just quit. I texted Chris that I was done for the day, and he offered to pick up some dinner for us. What a good man I have.
Aside from taking Daisy to and from preschool, today was a perfectly quiet day at home. We played, did school, and did what we normally do. I just remembered to get my camera out this time.
After Daisy was at school and Eli was down for his morning nap, I got out a big roll of paper for Lily to put stickers on. She had been messing with Caleb's beloved Lego Star Wars sticker book, and I wanted to give her something else to do.
Oh my goodness. Doesn't she just kill you with her cuteness?
(Yes, she is wearing a skeleton pajama shirt I got at Goodwill and a pair of tights, with nothing else. She had on a skirt for a while, but I guess she got tired of it? I am thoroughly entertained by all of Lily's wardrobe choices these days.)
She put a sticker on her nose, and thought it was really funny.
And if one sticker is funny, then four are obviously even funnier! This went on for a while.
Caleb loved the big paper, too, so I rolled out a piece for him and he alternated applying stickers and practicing his spelling words on the big paper.
This is a part of homeschooling that fills my heart with joy. I love it.
Then Caleb started getting creative with his letters and tried to make his words look like what they meant. See how the letters of "pie" (which is really a much too easy word for him, but whatever) are people who want to eat a piece of pie?
And "morning" has the sun rising behind it? I don't often see that level of creativity with Caleb, and I was thrilled and relieved to watch him run with his idea today. It was a pretty cool moment.
Then he did this:
It's terrifying, isn't it? Daisy got a sticker book for Christmas that has blank faces, and she can apply the eyes, lips, nose, jewelry, etc. however she likes. Caleb decided this was a good idea.
And then Eli woke up, so I sent Lily in to "wake him up". She took off running to his room, and when I came in a minute later, I saw this:
Lily knows how to turn on the light, turn off the noise machine, and climb into Eli's crib to keep him company. I love it, and so does he!
Except when he's ready to be out and I'm too busy taking pictures. That makes Eli pretty grumpy.
After this, we went to the library to get some more Magic Treehouse books for Caleb, and then we picked Daisy up from school and began the cycle that is lunch, naps, and squeezing in whatever school we can before it is time to make dinner. Home schooling would be so much easier if I had no other responsibilities! Or, being a mom would be so much easier if I had a cook and a maid and a tutor.
Last night, I put Eli to bed at 8:00 (just in time to watch the Downton Abbey series finale!), and he slept until 2 am.
2 am!
On his own!
That was 6 glorious hours, which is the longest stretch he has ever gone.
I mean, I know. He's thirteen months old. It's hardly sleeping through the night. But for us, it's huge.
Especially because in the very near future, Chris and I will be heading to New Orleans for a three-day weekend, WITHOUT THE KIDS.
(That's right. I just bolded, italicized, capitalized, and underlined that phrase. Can you tell I'm excited?)
My mom has foolishly bravely offered to watch all four kids so that Chris and I can attend his cousin's wedding in New Orleans, sans children. I am pumped, but I really don't want to stick my mother with a baby who misses his mommy and is used to snuggling and nursing all night long. We are really hoping that by the time we leave, Eli will be at the very least night weaned, and hopefully sleeping on his own, in his crib, all night long.
That may be wishful thinking, but we are wishing hard. We'll see.
It's tough, though, since he is likely our last baby. I don't want to rush to give up all those snuggles, but I think it's been long enough.
Anyway. Today, I had MOPS friends over for a baby carrier playdate. A volunteer babywearing educator came over to chat with us, and she helped everyone learn how to use various carriers. It was so much fun, especially because my children basically entertained themselves the whole time. They loved having the house full of people, and Eli and Lily (and even Daisy!) loved being tossed up on my back in random carriers throughout the morning.
Eli playing in the curtains after our friends left.
Caleb and I didn't even start school until 2 pm, and by then it was nearly time to start making dinner! We did what we could, though, and when it was really time to start dinner, Eli woke up. He was fussy and wanted to be held, so I put him up on my back.
He wasn't happy with my initial wrap job, though, because he really wanted to see exactly what I was working on. I scooted him up higher, and he watched contentedly as I chopped up some red and purple potatoes for dinner.
He started getting agitated, though, and it seemed to me like he really wanted to get the potatoes. Finally I figured out that Eli thought the purple fingerling potatoes looked like giant blueberries! He was desperate to get to the big ol' blueberries so he could eat them all! I died laughing, and then broke a cardinal mom-rule and fed my child a snack right before dinnertime.
I grabbed some blueberries and put them in a heart-shaped ice cube tray.
Eli was thrilled! He got his blueberries, and it was a fun game.
And that, my friends, is how I finished making dinner tonight.
The blog silence this time really has not been my fault, I promise. Friday night, a nasty stomach bug hit half of our family. Chris, Caleb, and I all woke up puking between 12-2 am, and we all threw up every two hours for the rest of the night. It was awful.
At first I thought it was food poisoning, based on the fact that it hit us all at the same time. But we all ate different things for dinner, so I supposed probably a stomach bug. Chris and Caleb felt touchy, but better on Saturday, but I was still laid low. I spent all day in bed, and threw up again Saturday night. Boo. Then Daisy and Lily both threw up in the middle of the night, and I was confident it was a stomach bug.
Luckily, by this morning we all seemed to be feeling better. Not back to 100%, but better enough to deep clean the whole house. Chris and I literally washed every piece of laundry in the house, and I even went as far as sending him to a laundromat to wash all of the covers and blankets for our beds. It was intense, and made even more effective by the fact that it was a lovely day. Nothing makes a house feel cleaner - and less germy! - than a warm breeze blowing through it.
Eli helped clean:
"I really am helping, Ma!"
That drawer full of dishes is his favorite.
Chris got out the vacuum, which is a novelty in our hardwood and tile-only home, and Eli was appropriately impressed.
Chris used the vacuum hose to suck at Eli's jammies, and Eli thought it was hilarious.
I love how he points at everything now.
At breakfast time, Caleb randomly asked if we could read the funnies. We used to subscribe to the local newspaper, and Caleb loved reading the comics with Chris. But the prices kept going up and up and up, so we dropped our subscription back in August. Apparently Caleb hasn't forgotten, and he misses the funnies! Chris and I couldn't refuse his request, so Chris ran out to buy a copy of the Sunday paper for Caleb.
Caleb was a happy, happy boy!
It's so neat to see how his reading skills have improved since August. Back then, he could read some of the comics, but it was a struggle. Now, he can read and understand almost all of them. I love that my little boy loves reading!
My sweet mom was willing to brave the sickness to help in any way she could, so we enlisted her to take Caleb to Boy Scout event at the World Bird Sanctuary. It was win/win/win, because birds are right up her alley, Caleb loved being with her, and Chris was able to stay home and clean while I went grocery shopping.
This picture was accompanied by a request to take Caleb to Jenny's restaurant for a milkshake before she brought him home. Caleb is so lucky to have two sets of grandparents who adore him so much!
It has been a busy couple days here, and, if I'm being completely honest, a dark few days here. My body seems to still be working to regulate my hormone levels, and I have felt the Angry Mom rage creeping back in the past few days. It is strange and scary to find myself reacting to situations in ways that my brain knows are neither kind nor helpful, but somehow I can't stop myself.
Luckily, my children are forgiving.
Luckily, it passes quickly. Two or three days of terribleness, and then I am myself again.
But I'm pretty sure I need to plot the days on a calendar, so that next month I will be prepared for it, and not caught off-guard. Perhaps if I am aware, I can take steps to prevent Angry Mom from exploding all over my sweet children.
But it seems to be mostly over now. Today didn't involve much school, but we had fun with friends. Chris made oatmeal for the kids this morning, and as I was preparing my breakfast, I set Eli in his chair with his bowl of oatmeal just out of reach.
Or so I thought.
After pouring my coffee, I turned around to find Eli doing this:
Somehow, he had reached his little bowl of oatmeal, flung the spoon to the ground, and dug in.
The kid was so proud of himself, and he knew he was being hilarious/naughty.
Oh, my goodness. This little boy is so funny.
I didn't even mind the mess. The bigger kids were all right there, and they thought it was so funny that Eli was helping himself to oatmeal.
Today we did a whole lot of school. Also, this happened:
Yep! Our door project is finally nearly complete!
Chris and I began this project at the beginning of September, and now it is finally (almost) finished.
A worker came today to install our storm door. Now all that's left is a few touch-ups of the navy blue paint, and figuring out how to make our doorbell work again.
And a wreath. Definitely a wreath.
I don't think we've had a functional glass storm door in Eli's lifetime, so he was pretty fascinated by it. I'm just excited to be able to let the breeze in on the beautiful days that are sure to be coming our way soon. Spring, we are ready for you!
