the needs are great

Q went for his 5 year check up and the doctor looked at me and said, "You've got him in speech therapy, right?"

I paused, pulled my eyelids back down into position and asked nonchalantly, "for what?"

Now there are certain questions you expect....
Does he sit in a booster?
Does he snore? (Q answered, "No I don't snore I just make noises when I sleep.")
Does he eat a variety of foods?

speech therapy? mild panic.....what have I been doing?

And then I realized when the nurse asked him if he could count to 100, that maybe I forgot to teach him that.

counting? mild panic....what have I been doing?

Then there is the baby that doesn't talk.
baby talking? mild panic....what have I been doing?

Then there is the eldest boy...a real smart cookie. I haven't been really supplying the endless books he needs to feed his never ending reading list.
I realized this last night when I looked at some of the books other kids have been reading.
Harry Potter? mild panic....what have I been doing?

I spoke at length today with a friend about the constant chaos into our lives...not just chaos but searching for and inviting chaos in for dinner and to become members of the family. Kind of like me, the three kids, dog, cat, stripping wallpaper and redoing the bathroom. I really don't need to be taking on any more projects around here, I can BARELY complete my own basic hygiene.

But we did decide that the mind does tend to wander while we complete the mundane tasks of the day to bigger and better and more, and so we start a new project and are never able to do it quite the way we should because we've got all the other things that have to be done before it.

And then we realize that our kids can't count or aren't reading and smack ourselves on the head and say...what have we been doing?

an ode to the party

Twas the night before the party
and as I stood on my stoop

not a swimmer was swimming
because someone pooped

The sign, it was hung
on the pool door with ease

"POOL CLOSED!" it read
Please...let us not
go to Chuck E Cheese!


There are a couple things you need to know about me....1) I am a germ-o-freak-nomaniac. 2) I do NOT like to host birthday parties.

But the middle son turning 5, and what I take upon myself as his lacking MIDDLE son status, prompted me to plan a pool party.

So of course, imagine my shock when upon returning from yet another trip to the store for supplies, my eldest boy says, "Mama, I've got some bad news."

Someone had deposited their fecal matter in the pool....hours and much scrambling later I find another pool.

Now we are in the middle of a drought here, strict watering bans, temperatures that have been above 90 since July, two weeks straight of 100+ degree temperatures.....and then today...the pool party....

130p starts the thunder and lightening. 2p the guests arrive. 220p starts the downpour. 4p the storm clears as the last guest leaves and the crumbs are swept away.

There should be no question why I hate to host birthday parties.

"Mama, is this a nap?" Q asks just moments ago.
I can understand his confusion.

Usually around 5 pm and stare at the clock and wonder how oh how I will live through the next three to 3.5 hours before they all are in bed.

So tonight I put them in bed at 7:00 pm. I gave myself the gift of an hour

"MAMA! IS THIS A NAP?!"

Ahm no, it is evening, and it is time to go to bed.

"Then why is the sky so blue?" he asks.

I launch into an explanation of the summer daylight and how the sun stays up longer.....

"No Mama, the sun doesn't stay up. The earth moves REMEMBER?!"

(sigh)....go to bed

Son #1 just came down to tell me he has a sore throat. Son #3 is in his crib reading his farm books, because I can hear him making animal noises.

today's horoscope

I sat in Chick-fil-A today after lunch and read the newspaper while the kids played in the playcenter.

I came across my horoscope.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Your children will get on your nerves, and they're just about to ruin their clothing.

hooray

This is the day.....I'm writing it down....Sunday, August 19th.

There are days like today when you look at your kid and think hey, what happened to you. They change so fast and although it is a cliche....it happens overnight.

Like today, Baby KC just seems to be more of a human being and not the whirling dervish he so often is. He said "uh-oh." And this is huge in my personal mother's book of milestones. Especially for a kid that doesn't talk much, if at all. I feel like once a baby says "uh-oh" he is on his way. Thing just seem to roll from there.


Also....and this is a big one.

As I've mentioned before, I have to tape the baby's diaper on, because he takes it off constantly.


Well three days in a row little houdini has figured his way out of them and did various forms of business in his crib and or from the crib onto the floor.


I've reached my ends with that baby, and then today. He took off his diaper in the living room, walked over to his little potty, sat down and pooped.


Much jubilation followed ....m&m's, dancing, wiggles and ice cream flowed.

can you tell me how to get to sesame street

Baby KC on Sesame Street at the Children's museum.

On TV with Elmo....i always loved watching those babies interact with the Sesame Street characters. This was cool to see my own kid do it.

first day of 2nd grade

bathroom project

i am amazed by the number of colors there are out there in the paint world.

it starts easily enough....hmmmm i think this room needs to be green.....

i think i narrowed my choice of green down for the bathroom, but really i just got tired of thinking about it.

I had the perfect sink and base picked out. I really love it, but then Costco had one that i like....and it was about $400 cheaper.

For the savings, i'm learning to LOVE it.

eyes and feet and hands and mouth

ok so the baby had strep throat a couple weeks ago, right.

sunday he started with a spotty rash. monday he spiked a fever.

and after spending last night and this morning researching rubella, rocky mountain spotted fever, small pox and assorted other diseases.....i decided to call the nurse.

and just because i love packing children in the car, finding alternate child care arrangements for the elementary child getting off the bus soon, trying to entertain and contain a wild almost two-year old in a germ infested space, paying $15 for them to tell me it is only a virus....i went in.

because she said so.
doc said hand foot and mouth disease.

turns out it is that time of year again. both older boys had it when they were younger and it looked different in each one. although maybe this is the kind of thing they just give this diagnosis to when they don't know what it is and don't have any solutions for you.

i think *THINK* the baby may have said some words. "Jeff" "Murray" (both very dear wiggle dudes) "apple" though i cannot confirm.

the first day of the rest

the first day of school today.

Everyone so happy to see 2nd grade start. Life returns to a new state of normal.

Aunt and cousin visited this weekend. Was good to get a little estrogen in this place.

I ran into a friend in the mall today who said I don't update my blog as much as I once did, but I find sometimes that I have not much to say except....like today.....

Ate at Chick-fil-A, the baby has a bumpy rash and a fever....looks like measles. Except I think he had a shot for that. The two oldest boys fight and argue so much.
The dog needs to be walked, but it is too hot to breathe out there.

Have I mentioned I'm going to start to paint walls around here?

August starts

An update on the baby.....He is on the mend. Though now that I think about it....as I'm sitting in Starbucks for my $3 vacation. I'm wondering if anyone at home remembered to hold the poor dear down and squirt antibiotics into the back of his throat while I've been out.

The glands on the left side of his neck are shrinking, though not as fast as I'd like them. Peach pit would describe them. The literature they gave me says to allow more time than I have the patience for.

We are about to embark on a milestone in the boys' life. K and Q are going on their first sleep over. They are out of their minds with anticipation. They're staying with Patty who for the most part is like an aunt to them. They looooove her and she them.

They are very interested in the little taste of life they will get in their brief bit without mama and papa. Patty lives in an apartment, which is the source of much conversation around here.

To be continued....

sick summer

The baby oh that sweet little baby.

He woke up today, ate grapes and promptly threw them up.

His fever was nearing 102. He was on fire.

So you know who we call in these cases of emergency......? Of course, our friends Anthony, Greg, Jeff and Murray. Oh the Wiggles, how I love them.

At one point when the baby stood up to tell Jeff to wake up, in a language that only he can understand. I noticed the little fella looked a little chubby and perhaps a little older. Now, I come from a paternal line of folks that wear their double and triple chins with ease, but his look is at least 30 years premature.

But like a gramma with a goiter, this boy had a neck a-swellin something fierce. It was only on the left size and when the call nurse asked me for the size and gave me options of a pea, a cherry or a peach pit. I told her perhaps a can of peaches was more like it.

Well a trip to urgent care *because my kids don't get sick Mon-Fri 9a-5p* turns out that the little fella has strep throat. It just so happens I had strep a couple weeks ago.

Tonight as we wound up the day, Q said he hoped the baby didn't get sicker than he already was. I agreed. That's what happens sometimes, he said, people get sicker and sicker and sicker and sicker and then they die, right mama?

Right, Q.

"Is that what happend to Obachan (grandma)?"

Yup.

"She must not have washed her hands."

what a summer

It started out as a joke.
My kids will go to every bible school available this summer, I thought as I headed into the summer months, thinking of the three hours a day of free supervised childcare. Heck they'll even do Hispanic VBS. ha ha. Nevermind they don't speak Spanish.

Well.....guess what we are doing this week?! Yep Hispanic VBS.

monkey matters

Oh how I felt for this gorilla. "I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL!" I yelled as I pounded at her through the glass.

At one point, this gal had two small babies clinging on to her. One on her back and one on her leg. This little guy on her leg never let go the entire time we watched her.

My little cling-ons are 1, 4 and 7 years-old.

The 7 year old doesn't cling as much as he used to, but the two younger ones are always on me.

"Oh Mama, you are the best person in the whole wide world. There is nobody better than you," my Mama's boy Q tells me with a serious wrinkled brow.

For now I'll take what I can get.

i wonder why i'm tired

My day is almost done. The boys are in bed. That is where I want to be too.

I know that this is the time of day I should get everything done I couldn't do while they were awake, but I just want to sit and stare at the wall. I know that I operate in survival mode most days.

I figured out part of my overeating is an extension of my survival. I eat while I can, all I can because I might not be able to later. But I do later, though maybe not when I want to or what I want to. I eat everything I prepare for these guys. Which by the way is three meals and two snacks, but not always at the same time. And then I eat my regular stuff. I eat while the eatin is good, because oh I don't know, perhaps the end of the world is near and I'll have to live off my fat stores.

And then I'm tired. So tired. I don't know how to shake it. The baby actually sleeps through the night, which means I get anywhere from 6-8 hours of sleep.

I know. Excercise. The healer of all that ails. I excercise. On a semi-regular basis. I have to tell you about the Korean Nazi personal trainer at the YMCA, but I'll save that for another time. I think I need to sleep.

Oh the guilt

Today, my friend took the boys in the morning. I ran some errands sans enfant.

Home, lunch, to the pool.....

By 3 or 4 in the afternoon, I was wondering what I had to do to get them out of my hair again.

These are my little blessings from God right? Oh how I longed to run away from those three little Godly gifts. My hunka works overnights and insists on sleeping during the day and leave me to fend for myself with them.

And then it sets in, the guilt. Oh, the mama guilt. These are my sweet children that I labored for. So sweet, so formative, so wanted so...so maddening.

So I packed them up in the van, which around here takes about 1/2 an hour, and headed to the YMCA. I toke them all to the childcare rooms and then sat and read for about 30 minutes before I did a workout.

So great and yet so guilty. Technically, I shouldn't need the break since my pal took them for three hours in the morning.

Oh well, the day is done. No harm done, as far as I can tell. They'll just have to send me their therapists' bill in 20 years.

Happy Fourth of July 2007

So the baby takes off his diaper, right. Remember how I said I've resorted to duct taping the little guy into those diapers. Somehow the little Houdini has figured yet another way around my tactics. The past two mornings I went into find piles in the crib. Last night I taped him into his diaper around the waist twice and then down through and around the legs a few times. This morning I woke and ran in as soon as I heard him, in hopes of catching him before he had the chance to squat.

nothing.

So I wait all day for this child to relieve himself.

nothing.

This is what has become of me.

As I taught my eldest how to shovel doogie -doo from the back yard, I thought this is what it comes down to for me. poop. poop and more poop

Then as I scooped the cat box later that day I thought, again, poop. Really when the little blessings in my life are able to dispose of their own excrement in a proper and sanitary manner, this is when my life becomes easier.

Happy 4th of July.

The boys catch their first fish