from last fall

more Spud talk

Me: Can I give you a kiss?
Spud: Yeah, just don't steal one.
Me (kissing him on the cheek): Is this okay?
Spud: Yeah.

Noodle leans over and gives him a hug.
Spud: Hey! You stealed a hug!

forgot to share this...

So, back in January, Spud was looking at my feet. I happen to have a very small "baby" toe, so after he looked at it a while he said, "If I had a skinny little toe, I'd get a fake toe and put it over it, like a cap."

Thanks, kid.

do more things badly

Y'know, I think there is some truth to this idea.

What do you think?

good things from today

1. One clean kitchen floor

2. Two freshly bathed doggies

3. Three swinging kids in the backyard

breathing

So, Day 10 of Sprout's antibiotic treatment (prescribed by the otolaryngologist) was Saturday, and he is still breathing clear! So it looks like the congestion since the first of December was likely caused by a bacterial infection, maybe in his sinuses or adenoids. I am a bit frustrated that the family practice doctor I took him to for his 1 year checkup didn't suggest antibiotics, but he just said, "Everything looks fine to me." When I pushed and said that everything was obviously NOT fine, as the kid hasn't been able to breathe through his nose for two months, he suggested we try Benadryl at night and see if that made any change. If it did, we were probably dealing with an allergy. I am just so delighted that the little guy can breathe, and SLEEP, much better now.

In other news, two of David's sisters have moved in with us. One moved in a couple of weeks ago and the other arrived Sunday. So far, so good. They are both pleasant and fun people, so I think we'll be fine. Plus, it makes a difference to know that it is only for a few months. We are all mature enough to handle anything temporarily. They are living a bit more "snuggly" than they are used to, though, since they are sharing a room with bunk beds, something they haven't done for a while. But they seem busy enough that they don't need their rooms for much beyond closet space and sleeping.

Lately my blog-brain is kind of muddled. I will start thinking of a post, but then either forget it, or by the time I have some time to sit down and type it, it's kind of irrelevant. (Notice that it took more than a month to post Sprout's cake pictures!)

I'm also wishing for someone to send me $5-7000 to improve my yard/landscaping. Ah, wouldn't it be nice?

cake pictures

I can't believe I didn't get around to posting these pictures from Sprout's first birthday celebration. For the other kids, we've gotten them a free "1 year old cake" at a local grocery store, but this year I just made one. It was a very very yummy cake, thanks to my good friend Betty Crocker. I made the frosting myself, though. (Impressive, I know!)

one fine day

Today was a really nice day. Nothing extraordinary happened, but things went fairly smoothly, the sun was shining, and all was right in my world. I even took the dogs for a walk this morning at 7 a.m., and it wasn't cold! We had a productive morning doing school and were nearly finished by the time we took a lunch break at 1:00. I think a late lunch might be the key to us getting mostly done by lunch (which I think would be nice). After lunch, the kids and I took a walk around the block with my sister-in-law Tina, and Noodle practiced her roller skates. She's getting pretty good, I'm impressed. Spud tried his for a bit after we got home. I think we'll have to go to the skating rink soon so they can experience skating on a really smooth surface. It's harder, but more fun, too. After the walk, we spent some time outside just sitting on blankets and the kids played. Then I came inside to put Sprout down for his nap, and then I ate some delicious ice cream (with no kids around) and read a novel! It felt so deliciously decadent to ignore the many things I could have been doing (baskets of laundry to fold, things to organize, etc) and just have some "me" time. Perhaps I should do it more often. Seriously, the sunshine and warmer weather makes me feel like celebrating in a very pagan fashion. Where can I get a Maypole?

So, here's to spring and more fabulous days, where kids play outside, draw with chalk on the driveway, run around and through the yards and house, and don't complain to me about being bored.

i am not in college anymore

Staying up all night kills me. I tried to sleep, but it didn't happen. I think my body rejected the notion of sleep because it knew that even if I did fall asleep, Sprout would wake me up before I got asleep enough for it to do any good. The little guy has been congested for 3 months. I took him to the doctor at the beginning of the month and he didn't find anything wrong with him. I pushed, saying that something HAS to be wrong, because the boy can't breathe out of his nose and hadn't been able to for the last 2 months. Doctor said, "Maybe it's allergies. Try some benadryl at night. If that clears it up, it's an allergy." It didn't clear it up at all. So I'm thinking it's not an allergy. I have an appointment for him with an Otolaryngologist on Thursday. Then at least we'll know if there is some sort of issue or swelling or whatever somewhere that is preventing him from breathing normally. Since Thanksgiving, I've had maybe 2 decent nights of sleep. Before that, Sprout was not a super sleeper by any means, but he would go a few hours at a time most nights. Now his snuffiness keeps him waking about every 45 minutes, at best.

So tired.

Like, Don't Like

Like:

30 Rock
House
Ugly Betty
Glee
Modern Family


Don't Like:

American Idol
Other Reality-Type Shows

Lawyer shows

Crime shows

I like funny. And escapism. I like to be sucked up in a funny world for a little while, not subjected to the drama of other actual people. Isn't that why we have family and in-laws?

My sister is awesome

Actually, both of them are very awesome, but this is about my oldest sister Melody. She has started a blog aimed at sharing the joy that living the gospel of Jesus Christ should bring. She is trying to get it out there, in the hopes that it will help people and help the world see that LDS women are happy and fulfilled. Every day that I've opened it up and read it, I get something from it, some great nugget of truth to carry with me for a few hours. I highly recommend that you check it out (and become a follower--she'd like to have lots of happy faces in that box). Here it is: Enjoying the Journey

Way to go, Melody!

Love is....

banana nutella crepes.

don't you agree?

I got a crepemaker for Christmas (yay!) and hadn't taken the opportunity to try it out yet. As David and I aren't ones to do much for Valentine's Day, I had the thought to start a V day tradition of making crepes. So we bought supersized jars of Nutella and frozen berries at Costco, some overpriced bananas (and very cute baby bananas just for fun) at the latin market, and we had some killer crepes Sunday night. Ours didn't look quite so finished as the picture, but they still tasted divine! We ate some more this morning for breakfast. I think it is a tradition that I will quite enjoy for years to come. I'd like to make "dinner" crepes, too. I've had those before and they are quite sumptuous.

perspective

My Baby is ONE!

This year has FLOWN by. So much so, that it makes me think maybe I shouldn't have any more kids, since time seems to speed up with each new addition to the family.

Sprout has been such a wonderful addition to our family. After Spud was born, I had a hard time adjusting to my new reality as a stay-at-home mom with two kids. Up until his birth, I was a Grad Student Mom with ONE kid. I went through a really rough patch for about 6 months, and then started feeling pretty normal. After Sprout joined us, though, I realized that I'd still had lingering mild depression for the previous 3 1/2 years. When Sprout entered the world, he brought with him a calmness and serenity that really soothed my spirit. It was noticeable to those who were present at his birth and to those who spent time with him during those first couple of weeks.

Not too longer after Sprout's arrival, I had a bit of a scare with a thyroid issue, and (probably at least partly induced by those crazy hormones) I was paranoid that it was going to be cancer and that I'd die, leaving these three mostly fabulous kids without a mom. Through that experience, I came to realize that I had been wasting so much time and energy on worrying about things I couldn't control and hadn't been using energy on things that would bring me and my family true joy. That's obviously one of those lessons that is easy to forget after a while, but I have tried to make it a part of me, and I can see gradual improvement in my attitude and interactions with others.

Sprout has stayed "babyish" the longest of our three kids, and I've appreciated it. He crawled later, and both of the others were walking well by age one. He's such a big boy that it's kind of nice that his development is not accelerated, just average (Spud walked at 8.5 months--it was so easy to think of him as older than he was, and he's been like that his whole life).

He looks for things to be happy about. He is not one to cry or fuss for no reason, though he really is a mama's boy and prefers to be within eyeshot of me. He is very inquisitive about his environment and does to love to explore (perhaps I should have expected as much given his namesake!).

I'm so grateful to have him in my life. Before he was conceived, I was feeling a little fretful about disrupting our life with a new baby. I was worried about the rearranging that would be neccessary--making room for his crib and carseat and all that sort of thing. After three years, we'd gotten quite used to just being the four of us. I had a distinct impression that there was enough room in our lives for #3, and felt very calm and excited about the person who was coming to join us in time. I didn't worry about it at all after that experience. (Though there was a couple of weeks when the midwife wondered if he might be twins and I thought, "Crap, there's no way we can fit in our car!")

So, happy birthday my sweet little boy. Thank you for a wonderful year!

cruel irony

The first night all week that Sprout sleeps well, David's cell phone alarm starts going off at 5 a.m. and I can't find it in the dark to turn it off (plus it was a really weird alarm so I didn't even know it was his phone until later--I thought it was his computer or the laptop or something) and goes off every ten minutes and he's not around because he's working out downstairs (except I thought he was in the garage and I didn't want to find him to solve the problem). I finally got up at 6. I did get out of bed twice and stumble around the room trying to localize the source of the sound before it stopped.

::sigh::

At least I had time to exercise this morning.

another picture post

As the resident photographer, I don't often get on the "action" side of the camera.

little guy

This little guy is so ridiculously lovable.

Earlier this week I was feeling frustrated that he wasn't going down for naps easily anymore, as the "nurse to sleep" thing seems to not be working so well. He's also too big for him to feel comfortable enough to go to sleep when I am holding him. So after lamenting to David, we decide to try and institute an actual naptime routine. This was Tuesday, so Tuesday afternoon I took him into the room where he naps, laid down with him, nursed him while singing a couple of songs, then laid him on my chest and patted him for a few minutes while humming, and within ten minutes he was asleep. And he slept for about 1.5 hours. Wow. I was impressed. The next morning, when he seemed to be getting fussy, I did the same thing. He was out in less than 10 minutes. That afternoon, same thing. On Thursday, same thing for both naps. Every time he has napped at LEAST an hour. And prior to this, for the past week or so, he'd been napping only 15-30 minutes at best during the day, unless David was holding him. Today, the same thing, plus we got up earlier, which I hope to continue as we'd been sleeping in a bit too late. Or rather, he'd be restless and I'd keep trying to convince him to sleep a little bit longer.

So, I'm really excited about this new "routine". The other kids were not so easily persuaded to sleep. Their naptime routines took at least 30 minutes. 10 minutes or less is great, since I'm usually in the middle of doing school with Noodle & Spud.

He's also into EVERYTHING these days. I think it deserves its own post.

So, hooray for naps!

one of those times....

when you've failed to mention so much, so where do you begin?

Spud turned FIVE on Christmas Eve. Thanks to some good bargain hunting (and calling around to half a dozen Shopko stores when the item was on sale), he got some fun birthday gifts. The big one was a Hot Wheels Raceway. It's nothing super fancy, but you can race 4 cars at a time and it does tell you which car won, so that's fun.





Christmas was a lot of fun. We opened gifts here in the morning and then headed down to David's folks house. After opening gifts, hanging out and lunching there, we forewent (is that the past tense of "forego"?) the traditional Christmas movie (as we didn't want to take Leif to a theater) and went to my sister Melody's house. My brother Dave and his girlfriend showed up there a bit later, and we had a nice time playing games and just hanging out. I liked seeing my family, too. Even though there are quite a number of us around here (Dave up in Salt Lake county, and Melody and Jeff & I all around here with our families) we don't get together that frequently unless Mom & Dad are in town. I think I'll try and make more of a point of getting together with them on holidays when possible. It was fun.

With a lot of hard work, I finished all the kids' dolls before Christmas. Noodle is in love with her doll. She has been taking her everywhere. Spud likes his, too, mostly because he can play with Noodle. Sprout's doll is up on a shelf for now. He'd happily play with it, but I figure we'll save it for when he's older.






As for the New Year, I'm working on finalizing my resolutions. I'm giving myself the first 10 days to get it all sorted out. Don't want to be too hasty, you know!

mama

Sprout now reliably says "mama" and "dada" for David and me. It's SO. COMPLETELY. CUTE! This morning he even stretched it out to be "Mahhhm." He said it a couple of times. He also points to himself and said, "Doh."

He loves to point to things and have us tell him the names.

and then there were none

Otis, the last living of our four rat brothers, passed away this morning. This is the first time in nearly 7 years that we've had no pet rats living with us. We've had as many as seven before. We aren't planning on getting any more for a while, either. Probably not until the kids are a little older and able to do the cage cleanup on their own. (We have a HUGE cage.)

Otis had been alone since shortly after Thanksgiving, and I think it was mostly sadness and loneliness that hastened his passing, rather than illness. Poor guy just missed his brothers so much.

Rest in peace, little ratties.