Elisa’s Day

summer is winding down, but as illustrated above, much fun was had on our second trip to stay with my dad while the older girls did their pottery class. the weather was sub-par and the drive was a bit longer this time ( which i’ll get into more in a bit ) so the younger girls and i spent most of our mornings in town, killing time, instead of going all the way back to the cottage. which meant a lot of wandering around downtown, a lot of time spent in the park and also the library ( unfortunately the early years center up there is closed for the entire month of august, it would have been nice to have that to do ) luckily they do have this great park right downtown. molly hearts swings.

the older girls really liked pottery, and this time around the class was at the actual college as opposed to the highschool. what a neat school.  the highschool is on the edge of town on the side closer to my dad’s, but the college is through town and then several minutes out the other way. making the drive almost 25-30 min. but it was worth it to get to see the college and the girls got to use the actual pottery class room.

and even though the weather was not the best, kids just don’t care. they swam every afternoon. they even scored an extra day, as my plan to pack up friday morning while they were at class, scoop them up and drive home right from the college, was dashed down by a slow firing kiln. the pieces were not cooled off enough to unload by noon. so our options were to wait around until 4 or have them shipped. so we just waited and the kids were happy enough to have one more afternoon in the water. all in all a good week. one day we even drove to the next small town to hit it’s little ice cream spot, just for the fantastic climber my dad had spotted earlier in the week. there it is right behind the local ice cream shack…..the best climber ever, this is what we need to build in our back yard.

i came home to a lot of cleaning and organizing to do since school is only a week away now, and a truckload of beans. we over planted beans for sure. now i’m just trying to give them away as much as i can. plus birthday craziness. september is really dreadful as far as being overwhelming. first is my mom’s birthday, then hannah’s, then school starts, then ryan’s birthday and then sidney’s. and then the fair, which is a big deal around here too. just pure crazy for 4 full weeks pretty much. just typing that sentence made me a little panicky.

hey, an update !! man, the ol’ blog updates a few and far between in the summer. i know it’s mostly because the few blogs i read are mostly “local” and people i know in real life, and the real life truth is, us crazy canadians are out sucking up as much nice weather as we can because we all know that at least 6 months of shit weather is just around the corner.

not much going on around here. well not much that seems eventful or worthy of mentioning really. just the same old routine……ashley already said it. garden.feed kids.laundry.more gardening.get your own snack please.knitting.chickens.chase baby.more laundry.no fighting.clean.give up on cleaning. more garden.chickens.baking.as always laundry.knitting.baby what are you eating off the floor?stop fighting.garden.etc.

other then that, not much. every saturday we go to the farmers market and meet up with friends. all the kids run around the park and all the parents drink fair trade coffee and eat delicious home made treats the fair trade coffee lady makes. there’s been the odd play date. and everyone under 5 feet tall saw the dentist yesterday and sees the eye doctor next week.

yesterday we re-arranged the girls bedroom. we’re having some sleep issues right now. with two bedrooms and four kids. one of whom is not yet sleeping through the night on any kind of regular basis. so for a while now we’ve had molly in a room by herself and the three older girls in the other room ( they are huge rooms ) but much hi-jinx was ensuing after bed time. which doesn’t matter much now, but in a few short weeks, when we’re back to 6 am wake ups it’s going to be a problem. so first we tried olivia in the babies room, which she wanted to try. but it involved waiting until molly was asleep, then sneaking in. and then molly started getting up more in the night. which may or may not be related i guess, but last night with her room back to herself she slept through so…….but then i had to remove the instigator. which is, duh, hannah. if you know 3 yr olds, you know hannah is the instigator. so we have this crazy “hallway” between the two bedrooms. it’s really something else. a sitting room, or something. it’s too big to be a hallway. it’s where my MIL sleeps when she’s here. it has a huge dresser and a day bed in it. as well as this big recessed area with built in shelving where i keep all the kids books and some toy overflow. so yesterday i put hannah’s little toddler bed in there. which ryan and i have been jokingly referring to as “the hole” in all my theoretical plans for this sleeping arrangement. so now hannah is “doing time in the hole” hee hee. i mean, her bed fits perfectly with just enough room to walk beside it, and if it works out, i’ll paint it and let her put all her stuff on the shelves. and that will be hannah’s space until molly is ready for a room mate. which i predict to be 6-8 months from now. not ideal, but hey, what can you do.

we also hit the big thrift store in hopes of finding a bookshelf or something for the girls room yesterday, which i did not find. but found quite a few good dresses for miss hannah who wants to only wear dresses. and this is the one downfall of hand me downs. if your “thing” doesn’t mesh with your big sisters “thing” when she was that size then you’re kind of screwed. and then the cashier let me know that today was a big half off furniture sale and they would be opening up the back area ( this location is a sorting station, so it’s 80% warehouse to it’s 20% retail space ) so while i write this i must remember that we have to be dressed and out the door by 8:45 to get there for opening. and speaking of thrift stores ( of which i am queen btw, i can spot a quality garment from 20 paces no matter how much crap it’s crammed onto the rack with ) there is a CRAZY on where my dad lives. one day while the girls were in their art class hannah and molly and i checked it out. and once i learned that the pricing structure is as follows “unless otherwise marked, shirts are 25c and pants are 50c”…..well…….i cleaned them out of every decent thing in any size my girls are or could wear ( gap,old navy, childrens place….some like brand new, hello cottage country…..i guess if you own a half a millon dollar cottage you don’t wear through your clothes so much ) it was ridiculous !! i told me dad i was running into town to hit that place every single time we visit now. i saw a women on tv who tried to not buy anything new for a whole year. i have been thinking about this a lot lately and wondering if i could pull that off. anyway…….

we’re back up there in a week and a half for the pottery class too. i am kind of in denial about having to pack again for another week away. though i did leave a lot of stuff up there, anything i could manage without.

okay, must get moving, it’s 7:45, and getting everyone ready and out of the house takes about an hour best case scenario.

well hopefully we’re done with sickness for awhile. olivia just finished her second round of Rx in a month, as did sidney ( olivia did in fact have a nasty ear infection, and surprise, sidney had tonsillitis ) in light of these two facts, we wrapped up our school year a few days early. i mean, don’t get me started on the absurdity of making the kids go right until the 30th even though marks for report cards go in the second week of june. so with both kids sick again last weekend, i decided to call it a year and told the school as much. and so, with that, our summer begins. thank goodness. looking forward to some sleeping in and some lack of schedule.

busy weekend last weekend, ryan’s mom was here and it was another rainy day at the market. so when my usual veggie guy pleaded with me to take some strawberries off his hands because he was never going to get rid of them in the rain, what could i do? $10 later i have a flat of strawberries ( that he continued to pour pints on top of as i picked veggies ) that i need to do something with. normally i only make raspberry jam, i’m not a big fan of strawberry, but the kids like it, so i kinda thought i might make some anyway. so we did. lots of jam, and one delicious strawberry pie. then sunday we blew through our egg surplus with a ridiculously huge pound cake recipe ( it takes 24 eggs ) and muffins and cookies. at least it solved my end of year gift dilemma for the kids teachers. so wednesday i dropped by the school to grab any last bits of stuff ( and report cards ) and drop off a pound cake for the office, and mini pound cakes plus jam for the teachers.

we had some birthdays too. someone turned one, which is hard to believe.

and finally started crawling, which means i can’t turn my back on her for a second or she’s into the kids book shelf, trying to stick her finger in a light socket, chewing on the kids dirty shoes……general ‘baby on the go’ mischief. i’m definitely in that same bittersweet place i’m sure all mom’s go with the last baby, glad it’s all coming to an end but sad to see it go. i’m finding myself very undedicated to trying to get her on bottles, i am both so ready to be done nursing and so aware this is my last time. even when i felt like maybe we wouldn’t have more before, i always knew there was a [good]chance we’d have more. but with this, the very last baby, it’s so much harder to let that go, even though i want to. and there has been sleeping through the night. which i hope means sooner then later i can split the girls back up two and two, because if i have to listen to hannah and the older girls spend many more early mornings arguing in bed, i may just loose my shit. don’t ask how i plan to split them i haven’t decided yet. the obvious, older two, younger two maybe, but  maybe i mix it up a little too? who knows.

and someone turned six. also hard to believe.

our traditional birthday pancakes, which you get on your actual birthday since you get a cake at your party and two cakes was too many. olivia decided to ask for money for her birthday this year, because she really wanted to take gymnastics, and the only money in our budget for extra curricular right now goes to swimming lessons ( no body needs to know how to walk a balance beam to save their own life so….. ) so that is what she got from all the grandparents and aunties. and she is very excitedly waiting for the fall session to start up now. my mom also gave her a leotard to wear ( which she desperately wanted as well ) and a new book, that she estimates to be about a 4th grade reading level ( based on the vocabulary ) that olivia is already half way through. i am definitely glad she’s in the french, i could see her being much less challenged in a regular class.

and this weekend, i think we’ll have to forgo any going away to spend the entire weekend trying to catch up on all the outside stuff we fell behind on due to the last three weeks of rain. i heard this was the most rain to ever fall in june. and i’d believe it if all the standing water everywhere is any gauge. i just really hope that our garlic and potatoes don’t get rot.

well, one more coffe and then time to get moving. my step dad is away and so his morning chores fall to me, which means there are birds waiting for me to start their day.

my final thought today is, you know the only good part about having to wake a baby up from a nap? getting to snap the elusive ‘cute sleeping baby’ photo without any concern that it might wake them up.

spent most of the long weekend in the gardens, both of the vegetable and flower variety. i’ve learned to embrace the gardening ( not that i had any choice really ) but once i realized i could overcome my minor bug phobia by just wearing gloves all the time ( it literally makes my skin crawl when a bug touches me……in a completely illogical way, which is what makes it a phobia i guess ) it all got much much easier. so with my MIL’s help we got it 90% of the veggies planted and made some real headway on the ridiculously huge flower gardens. all that is left for the veg garden is a second planting of some things to stagger it a bit, and to put the tomato seedlings in after they spend another week or so hardening off.  this year, after two failed attempts at tomatoes on our own, ryan found a local woman that sells heirloom seedlings. so he went at got some and they look great, i really hope we get some tomatoes this year. now if it could just rain, that would be great. until we get some rain to fill the shiny new rain barrel, situated conveniently off the garden shed roof, right in the garden, it’s several trips back and forth to the house with watering cans each time we water, which in this heat is also, several times a day.

this morning before it got too hot, i dug out all the “soil” around our front walkway. which was really less soil, and more this weird gravel of busted up clay pots. see, the previous owners seemed to want as much garden with as little work as they could possible have. so instead of actual weeding, they instead employed every wacky gimmick and trick they could think of to keep the weeds down, which in the end, is just making the lives of those of us who don’t want they crazy, scrubby, invasive ground cover heavy, type garden going on, well…..hellish. everywhere you dig there are buried tarps and rocks, bricks and anything else they could “put down” to keep weeds from coming through. including copious amounts of busted up clay pots. each time we get rid of some ridiculous invasive thing ( first year, lambs ear, last year brown eyed susan, this year i don’t know, a bunch of other crap ) we uncover all this stuff that was getting choked out, including several lovely variegated hostas. which i can’t transplant to beside my walkway until i dig out the clay pot gravel. oh well…..small steps.

and now, can anyone offer any advice as to what to do about small kids and bugs, mosquitoes mostly, but other biting/stinging ones as well? for myself i cover up completely and use spray when i’m out in the early morning before the heat chases them away. but trying to get them to cover up when it’s already 20 degrees at 7am is pretty much impossible, and i am very reluctant to use bug spray on kids and they have all inherited their mothers crazy histamine reaction to being bit unfortunately. hannah was outside this morning for about 3 minutes before she had 4 HUGE mosquito bites and was stung by something worse. i didn’t see it, but she yelped and there was a chunk missing in the center and clear liquid oozing out so i’m thinking bee or more likely deer fly. then it took about 45 seconds for her whole leg to swell up so i dosed her with some benadryl which took the swelling down but now she’s zonked on the couch. i know some people just react worse then others. if i get a tiny spider bite, it is excruciatingly itchy and will last for weeks. my step father rarely gets bit by anything, and when he does it doesn’t bother him and is gone in a couple days. but the girls are like me. they seem to attract them and then react to them.

last year there were countless incidents of majour swelling and many itchy nights spent treating tired kids with multiple bites and last year we weren’t even gardening like we will be this year or had the weather i think we’re going to have this year…….so since i see a lot, a lot of time outside in our future, especially in mosquito heavy places like the garden, i would really like to know what anyone else does for their kids to keep bites to a minimum

i had a bunch of pictures to go with this entry, of the gardens, what we’ve got done, what still needs to be done……but they are just loading way too slow, so i give up. stupid dial up.

miss molly had me up at 5am this morning. but since that was the first time she had me since going to bed around 10 last night, i’ll take it !! man. there are no words that can describe with any justice how good it feels to get a solid 7 hours sleep. lets leave it at that.

so here i sit, house quiet, kids still in bed, drinking my coffee, staring out the window behind the laptop. reminds me of last spring. baby wasn’t here yet, ryan and i were sharing the van, and on days i needed to have it, i’d get up at 5 and drive him to work ( before you call social services, don’t forget grandma and grandpa are here too, nice that there is pretty much always someone in the house for just such occasions ). those mornings were so much nicer then the rushed mornings when my alarm goes off at 630 and it’s straight into the morning routine. though clearly, not nice enough for me to just set my alarm earlier and get up earlier every day …….haha……

the calm is nice. because the rest of my days are feeling a little…..well, insane. it’s just that time of year. so much to do outside,  on top of the so much there always is to do inside. it’s hard to keep on top of it all. today i definitely have to do a big clean, since we have ryan’s mom and stepdad coming for the long weekend. there going to help out, ryan’s mom will be helping us get the garden in and his stepdad will be doing some odd jobs. and the last week or so, since the weather turned nice again, we have just been outside every free second, in the flower gardens, and keeping on top of the berrys we planted last fall so they don’t get choked out by grass….add in the odd play date and that’s it. something had to give. the house is the only logical thing. someday, my kids will be older and my house will be clean again. this is what i keep telling myself anyway.

hannah went with a friend to his gymnastics class this week. it’s a ploy, “bring a friend day” obviously, to get new kids signed up. and it may have worked for us. hannah just really loved it a lot. and we stopped doing kindergym a couple years ago because it was just too expensive to have three kids signed up all the time. but i could put just hannah in the last 6 weeks of class for a pretty decent price. of course the other girls will be upset. but ryan pointed out that they are going to art classes this summer, and hannah is not ( too young ) so maybe that evens things out. maybe also, it just can’t always be all fair all across the board. i think i will sign her up.

the art classes…..so excited. one of the employees at the early years center, heard me talking about staying at my dad’s on the march break and started talking about how much she loved it up there. how every summer she would rent a cottage and sign her kids up for these amazing art classes put on by the art college up there. the classes took up the morning and then then afternoon was spent on the beach. and i thought to myself, well that does sound pretty awesome. so i asked me dad to get me a brochure and found two classes i wanted to sign them up for. he even offered to pick up the tab for one, which was great (even though the prices were really very good too ) so it’s all set. in july we’ll be staying for 4 days and they’ll be taking “picasso pizazz” and in august it’s “pottery for kids” which, wow, how fun is that going to be? i thought about taking a pottery class too, but alas, they had no adult beginner classes. and the age group is 5-7 so they go in the same class which is nice for them, some sister fun time. and the littler girls and i will chill at grandpa’s on the beach for the am and the older girls have all afternoon on the beach as well. i am really looking forward to it ( though we will all miss ryan )

well, both older girls have wandered down, looking for breakfast, so i guess i better get moving, so i can get them off to school……. lots to do today.

first things first, thank you for the birthday wishes very much. they were much appreciated.

the laptop seems to have healed itself…..very odd. it just started working properly again, all the sudden.

we had a nice and productive weekend. ryan built the girls a sandbox, a little project that has been on tap since we moved in two summers ago. and it got put to good use for sure. saturday was a beautiful day. some friends came over with their sons and we had a bbq for lunch and the kids played and rode their bikes around and the grownups talked and much fun was had. the sandbox was built before they came, and garden and yard work was done after they left, big accomplishments for a single day.

sunday was sadly cool and crazy windy. so our outdoor plans were switched out for indoor plans. i am knee deep in my most hated of chores, the dreaded clothes switch out. huge sigh. i started with miss molly, because at least with molly, even if her drawers and closet are packed with summer clothes, she will not constantly beg me to wear them no matter what the temperature outside might be,  like a few other girls who will remain nameless. so let me tell you how ludicrous it is, at this age by girl number four. at this age, where you stull can’t resist the odd new cute outfit. at this age where people still want to give you the cute outfits, even though they must know you have countless cute outfits all ready…….molly could, no word of an exaggeration here, wear a different thing every single day of the summer. there is a double bed in her room right now, literally covered in various shirts, shorts, capris, dresses, one pieces, skirts…….probably anywhere between 15 and 30 of each thing……..it’s completely ridiculous. and that doesn’t even count the two new little jumpers still hanging in her closet i picked up at costco because i couldn’t resist the cuteness, or the new things her grandma brought back from her trip south. but anyway……it is what it is. i do believe i have made it through the baby stuff anyway. next is the other girls. it’s much less ludicrous. one tub, packed full, for all three of them, plus a few new hand-me-downs from a friends sister ( the above mentioned friend, who with two boys, has no use for her nieces hand-me-downs ) and a few new things also brought home from grandma’s trip. i think we’re good for this year. sidney usually gets two years out of her summer stuff before she grows out of it and i’m pretty sure last year was a “shopping” year for her.

today is a swimming day, with hannah having a lesson at 1pm and olivia having one at 5:15. and today is an olivia home day, which means that i have the pleasure of dragging not just molly to the pool for hannah’s lesson, but also olivia and the little girl i babysit, joy joy. and i desperatly need to do some picking up/cleaning. which it seems like i always say, but it is always true. i have got to say, that i can barely stay on top of it these days. 4 kids under the age of 8. that is a full time job. that is why people don’t have more then a couple kids, because who can do that and work like it seems everyone feels they must. like i feel i must. i have no idea how i’m going to work and keep up on the house, the laundry the cooking/baking. it’s a daunting thought every time i think about it. i may have a line on a job at a new bar in town. if i could work friday and saturday nights, i think i could make enough in those two shifts a week……the most amount of money for the least amount of disruption, that’s what i need. of course that main obstacle is miss molly. for me to do that she needs to start doing one of two things, sleeping more then 2 hours at a time at night, or taking a bottle. neither of which she seems to have any interest in. but we’re working on it.

speaking of that can i say, oh how i long to sleep. to go to sleep and then not have to wake up until morning. it could even be 5 in the morning, as long as i was asleep the whole time in between. molly is by far the happiest baby i’ve ever had. she laughs more then any of the other girls did. so much hilarious baby laughing going on. she plays happily. she shops happily. for hours i might add. she just doesn’t sleep. ever really. i mean, she naps during the day, but a nap is supposed to be 2 hours long. then she stays up all evening with us, happily. never tired. then she sleeps for 2 hour stretches most of the night, once in a while going for a longer 3 to 4 hour stretch in the early am. it is literally torturous. all i can do at this point is tell myself over and over and over again that eventually it will end. and then i will sleep. and there will be no more babies to get up with. molly’s hideous sleep patterns have definitely helped me along this whole “last baby” journey. like ryan said yesterday morning  “you’re lucky you weren’t the first bay or you might have been the only baby”

but if anything can make life seem that much nicer it is a mild winter and an early spring. it is amazing how uplifting an early spring can be after several brutal and never ending winters. i’d say we are a full month ahead of last year. amazing. this is the first year i can ever remember since having kids, that the girls could actually wear little easter dresses on easter. we went for brunch and everyone had bare legs and arms and it was so warm that day.

eta: after looking at this picture a little, i have to say that hannah’s resemblance to sidney bordering on freakish there……….

yep, that’s me now, entering my mid to late 30’s. huh.

our laptop is under the weather, shutting itself down randomly and often, so i’ll be brief in hopes of making it through this entry without having to re-boot. i think ever since we started blogging you know where ( or maybe you don’t and if you don’t, don’t worry it matters not ) i have always posted on my birthday.

so here i am, 35. wow. it’s crazy how relative age is. how old a number can sound when you’re young, and how much younger it sounds when it’s you. my mom spent the day with my grandmother recently and they got to talking. about how my grandfather has been dead 25 years this year. 25 years!! he was younger then my mom is now when he died ( in his sleep of a heart attack ). then my mom reminded me that she was only 5 short years older then i am now when she was getting divorced. hard to believe. in 5 years i’ll be 40……..with  a 5 year old. crazy.

getting older has never bothered me. and it still doesn’t. fascinates me for sure, but never bothers me.

no big plans today. right now the kids are very sneakily making me a cake at grandma’s house. we’ll have dinner and cake. i got some excellent homemade birthday cards, my favorite thing. and on sunday my mom is taking me shopping and to lunch. nice.

so with that, the birthday picture, i have no photoshop skills beyond fixing red eye, plus i’m in a race against the clock anyway with the ol’ laptop, so here it is straight up, bright and early on a birthday morning……hey at least i had a shower and washed my hair first.

march break is upon us, so far so good. some quiet days at home before we head off to my dad’s place to stay in his cottage ( which sits about 20 feet from his house….long story ) i hope the nice weather holds out.

ryan and i have been teaching the girls how to play cards. it started with family game nights and qwirkle, which i mentioned a few posts back. but qwirkle is a bit advanced still for olivia. sometimes we forget olivia is only five. because she tries ( and succeeds most times ) so hard to keep up with sidney that we tend to lump them in together. and sometimes 21 months makes no difference ( like the fact they both read at the same level, in fact, olivia is probably a better reader then sidney at this point ) but sometimes it makes all the difference. she understands the game well enough, she just doesn’t quite have the attention span for it yet. anyway……i’m wandering away from topic here.

so we got talking about all the games we used to play as kids. for both of us it was a lot. i remember spending so much time playing games with my cousin as kids, so many games. you know, the old days, before there were video games, and when cartoons only played on tv on saturday mornings, there were games. and since we’re kinda running our house like it’s 1984 what with the no video games or computer time and minimal tv, well we need to fill our time, so a quick google for the rules of crazy eights ( because neither of us could remember ) and we were off and running. and the very best part, they can play each other. so got 10 minutes to fill? lets play crazy eights.

love it.

then rummy. they picked it up pretty quickly too, olivia is actually a bit of a card shark. even hannah is learning her suits, often we play “teams” so that hannah is on someone’s team and can hold some cards and throw cards.

we had some friends over and got talking about the same thing, and it ended with some more idea’s of old games i want to get and with us having to haul out the ol’ fireball island to show them since neither of them had heard of it. and then of course the girls wanted to play. so there was some very very exciting games of that. now the quest for more games is on.

of the top of my head i remember spending hours with daniel ( my cousin, oh hi collinses who read my blog ) playing ( fireball island aside since it’s already mentioned and in play ) cards, so many cards, yatzee, backgammon, clue, scotland yard, and crokinole, which i had forgotten about until above mentioned friends reminded me of it’s existence ( it was at my grandma’s house, a big old wooden one, our main toys there, that, a metal doll house and tons of those porcelain animals you got with your tea )

and for whatever reason, seeing sidney and olivia sitting playing a few hands of cards together is extremely satisfying. and reminds me that they are all getting older so quickly. i kind of still think of hannah as my baby, maybe just because the gap between her and molly was the longest. but clearly that isn’t the case.

a few random things i have been meaning to talk about floating around in my head, i could do a small update for each one, but’s lets go with a scatted, random, longer one instead. but hey, ryan fixed my admin so i can upload pictures, so at least now there will be cute baby( or big kid ) pictures along with the rambling updates.

lets start with the most inane. you already know i love tv, but i especially love crime drama. so anyway, i watch criminal minds. and a couple seasons back they replaced a character. and the new guy was fine. never bothered me one way or the other (though i liked the old character better ). then a couple weeks ago ryan and i watched a special about the simpsons. and during that special i learned that the actor who plays said character also voices fat tony. and NOW all i ever hear while watching criminal minds when he talks is FAT TONY FAT TONY FAT TONY. i NEVER heard it before. now it’s all i hear. not only am i boggled by the fact that it seems so obvious now but that i never noticed before, but i find it distracts from the show when all i hear is fat tony.

sidney had to take something to school today for their valentines party. there was a schedule sent home at the beginning of the year, and we were scheduled for the end of yr party. yesterday she came home telling us that one girl scheduled for valetines day is absent so sidney’s been switched. which, whatever, honestly i could whip up cookies or cupcakes from scratch, no problem, even on that short of notice. what is so !#$%@ annoying is that the school board policy as of this year is “any snack sent to school to be shared with classmates MUST be bought” …….seriously…….because you know, it’s all this bullshit health board regulations and general fear mongering about baked goods and the general public. so you can’t provide anything to the general public that wasn’t prepared in a health board approved kitchen anymore. i’m not sure exactly what kind of evil i’d be spreading with my home made cupcakes, maybe they came in contact with nuts, or i prepared them on a salmonella covered counter or something. because i’m clearly an incompetent moron, as is anyone offering homemade baked goods ( uh, just seems not likely to me ) so instead, i had to get in my car, drive 20 minutes, spend $10 on some chemical heavy, probably don’t even taste good, valentines cookies from the grocery store. it’s nice to know that chemicals and preservatives are considered a better alternative then anything homemade.

as expected my good sleeper was replaced by a not good sleeper around 4 months of age. and it’s been a rough go ever since. i just really can’t get up every 1.5 hours. maybe, if i she was my first baby and i could dedicate all of my energy to her, if i didn’t have three other children that require my attention. i find it very interesting to see the difference between parenting one or two kids and parenting more then three. the luxuries afforded a parent of a single child as far as time and focus are pretty staggering. i know we made the conscious choice to sacrifice some of that for a large family. and i’d do it again. but i’m off topic already. i just can’t get up every 1.5 hours. it is not an option. and since sleep training at this age is also not an option, i was definitely delving into desperation. then my parenting magazine that my MIL always gets me from the kids magazine drive came. it was the yearly “sleep issue” and although it didn’t hold any main articles that held any information i didn’t already know, in an article about the newest fad “sleep doulas” i read one small paragraph about the possible downsides of nursing to sleep. now i nursed all my other babies to sleep all the time. maybe it caused issue, but never issue enough  for me to really notice so…….but every baby is different, and this fell into my “acceptable to try” category ( along with sleeping in bed with us, different sleeping positions in her crib and cereal before bed, which yes, i know is a myth, but hey, remember the desperate part? not a lot of options to even try at 7 months ) so we started nursing at wake up and then a couple hours later in a wakeful environment  ( no more dark quiet nursing ) and then when it’s time i rock her to sleep instead. it has made a shocking difference right away. crazy. a couple night she even slept through the entire night. but most nights she now wakes once  which is a huge improvement on 4 or 5 times ( obviously in the night we still nurse to sleep, it seems to be different for whatever reason, maybe because she isn’t really even awake ). and for several days now, when she is ready for her morning nap i have laid her down in her crib and she goes quietly to sleep all on her own. i only discovered this when i put her down to do the girls hair the other morning before they left for school and she had quietly fell asleep by the time i finished. it only works for the morning nap for some reason, but whatever. best breakthrough ever. seriously.

and now, my favorite sleeper, almost to small for the big giant baby. heart bum.

for anyone keeping track thats Nov = H1N1, Dec = strep, Jan = stomach flu. at first i thought food poisoning was probably responsible for the traumatizing 8 hours of violent vomiting i endured monday night. but the fact that a general feeling of nausea has stuck with me all week now, makes me think it’s more likely a flu bug of some kind. now i feel fine as long as i don’t eat, just very hungry, and as soon as i eat i feel kind of generally crappy. i don’t want to go on and on, so let me just say, vomiting, well that is just something i could do without ever, EVER, having to do for the rest of my life. and on the very small bright side, i’m probably only one more illness away from fitting into my really skinny jeans not just my in the middle jeans. lets move on shall we.

the baby has managed to avoid all illness somehow, until now, she has a very runny nose. which given the options, i’ll take. but there is something very sad about a stuffed up, snotty, baby. other then that she is great. and huge ( ironic considering she had trouble gaining weight for the first few weeks ) and so cute. all thigh rolls and baby giggles and constant milestones. you know what milestone they need to add to the ol’ baby books? reaching out for tattoos. around 6 months your baby will start to try and reach out for your tattoos. and loves her dad, keeper of the hoody strings. there are times he gets her from bed and she doesn’t even seem to have her eyes open yet before the hoody string is in her mouth.

the older girls are all settled back in to regular routine. everyone is happy to be back in swimming lessons after skipping the last session. hannah is especially doing well, as i suspected she would, now that she is old enough to go into the pool alone. and mom is thrilled to not have to get into the pool as well. yay. and we’re starting a game night a few nights a week with the older girls which is fun.  we got sidney this game for christmas which is always being played at my family functions. it was fun, interesting enough that adults enjoy it, easy enough that olivia ( 5 ) can play it. i think it’s hard to find that combination.

i have a couple new books from christmas i’m looking forward to starting now, i had a few other things i told myself i had to finish first, and now they’re done. it’s kind of a waiting game now right? we just try and survive the end of winter and hold out until spring. so much i want to do this spring and summer. this house needs so much work. and the garden was sadly neglected last years as well. i am not a fan of gardening, but i am a fan of being able to step out my door and grab fresh veggies any time, so i will just have to learn to love gardening i guess.

molly has moved into her own room. happy to have my room back for sure, even if she spends half the night in bed with us, at least there are times i don’t have to sneak around my own room hoping not to wake her up. which means that all three older girls are now in one room ( there are only three bedrooms here, three huge bedrooms ) so it’s all kids who sleep through the night in one room. once molly is older and sleeping through, we’ll split them back up two and two. it was actually hannah that got the ball rolling though, declaring she was a big girl and wanted to sleep with the big girls. ( and oh, how thrilled the big girls were LOL )

i’m also hoping with spring comes a few months illness free for me. i generally don’t get sick alot, usually only when i’m run down from little babies. i don’t care what anyone says. babies are a young girls game. getting up every 2 hours was way less physically taxing on me at 27 then it is at almost 35. like my friend ashley says though, there is nothing to do but suck it up. ever night i wonder how i’m going to be able to do this for another year or so, but in the end i just will, and then it will be over……. for ever, lots of years in my future to sleep. this too shall pass. every time i have to drag myself out of bed i curse it, but every time i look down at her sleeping on my chest, little perfect face turned up to me, little round mouth, little chubby hand at my collar bone, i know it’ll be gone too fast.