"Peanut" is a GIRL!

So "Ian Luke" won't work for the name. This is going to be tough...

Oh what do we do in the summertime?

Oh what do we do in the summertime, when all the world is HOT?

I have never been much of a summer person, but it has felt abnormally hot and dry to me this year.  It may have something to do with the fact that I am expecting.  Whether it’s really been hotter or not, I haven’t wanted to stir much out of doors.  I am so thankful for air conditioning!   Here’s what we’ve been up to:

 

1.    Visiting the local kiddie pool and splash park

 

All four kids love the kiddie pool.  Maddie and Gwyn aren’t huge fans of sprinklers, but they all have fun wherever we go.

Incidentally, when I was shopping for swimming suits in the spring I bought three different suits for the girls and decided I’d let the girls pick what they liked best.  If necessary, I’d go back to the store and exchange them for three matching suits.  I took each girl into a room one at a time and had them choose.  (I wanted it to be unbiased—I have a couple of sweeties that will change their minds so that a sister can have what she wanted.)  Well they each chose a different suit.  I wasn’t terribly surprised.  These kids are definitely individuals!

 

2.    Enjoying fresh food from the garden

 

3.   Going to church (as usual)

I let Everett pick his own clothes.  Without fail, on Sundays he wears a vest and tie.

 

4.   Playing indoors (Be glad this picture doesn’t come with sound!)

 

5.   Trying to establish/maintain order

The kids enjoy drying dishes and making interesting sculptures (cities?) on the table with the pots and pans.

My experiment with taking away their toys and shoes went pretty well.  The kids have earned things back, and lost them, and earned them back again.  I still have to remind them about a LOT of things, and we definitely have less toys available than we did before, but the order has gotten better.  I have more time to focus on MY jobs when there is less nagging to do about the kids’ jobs.  And we have more time for games and outings.  It is hard to have any kind of structure when you’re working to achieve “square one”.  Once we’re there, I’m a lot less stressed and the rest of the routine can be built.  It’s hard to say where we lost it in the first place, but I’m guessing it was during morning sickness :)

 

6.   Making our weekly excursion to the library

 

7.   As always, striving towards normal eating behavior for Lana

In the morning, we give her a choice between “pink milk” (strawberry soy milk), “white milk” (vanilla soy milk), or chocolate.  One day Cary made Neapolitan for her.

I’m sure we are making progress slowly but surely.  Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it until I take a good look back and see how far we’ve come.  There was a time when I was feeding Lana by syringe and she was still throwing up all the time.  She still needs lots of persuasion or outside motivation, but she drinks from a straw or an open cup.  She can feed herself with a spoon or fork, though I’m usually the one giving bites.  She has three meals per day where she chews food.  She eats some things voluntarily because she is interested in them.  She is no longer taking any medication, and goes months without throwing up.  This may not sound like much to most people, but for us it is a big deal.  I know we have a long way to go, but we are making progress.  I still have this dream, but I see little glimpses of it every now and then.

 

8.  Building anticipation for “Peanut’s” arrival

This one was taken at my last ultrasound—where we had hoped to see the gender.  We didn’t, so baby is still “Peanut” for the time being.  I love Maddie’s facial expression.

I am trying to take good care of myself.  Diabetic control was excellent before pregnancy, but is becoming increasingly difficult.

 

9.  Looking forward to the imminent completion of Cary’s dissertation,  and getting “Dada” back!!!

(To say that I am REALLY looking forward to it is a gross understatement.)

The good, the bad, and the ugly

The kids are often very good helpers.  When directly supervised (sometimes with prodding), they stay on task, get a lot done, and even have fun doing it.

 

Gwyn, Maddie, and Lana washing dishes

 

Lana, Maddie, and Gwyn making Cary’s birthday cake

Everett cooking meat for Cary’s birthday lasagna

Cary enjoying his birthday lasagna (His birthday was in May, and the kids did a great job getting everything ready and making cards for him.  They also enjoyed sampling everything)

Lana, Maddie, and Gwyn helping in the garden

 

Like I said, they are good little helpers when supervised.  But it gets a little ugly when they’re not supervised.  Unfortunately, that has happened more often than I would like since I have been rather tired/nauseated for the last almost 19 weeks.  Sometimes I nap whether I want to or not.  Sometimes everything’s fine when I wake up, and sometimes it’s a disaster.

Today we came home from church, I got lunch for everyone, then I had to take a nap.  When I woke up, the livingroom was trashed.  We had to get ready to go to dinner, so I had the kids do a quick clean up and off we went.  We got home at bed time, so I told them to put their shoes away and get ready for bed.

I got the kids to bed (there was carrying on, water all over the bathroom, etc, but it got done), and then Cary informed me that our home teachers would arrive in about half an hour.  I went downstairs and nearly keeled over.  No one had put their shoes away and the livingroom was still covered in toys, books, trash, etc.  I quickly cleaned it all up, thinking all the while “I shouldn’t be doing this.  I should be saving this for the children to clean up tomorrow.”  But I would be too embarrassed for anyone to see our house in that state.  I came to the conclusion that anything I had to clean up would disappear.  Tomorrow the children will find that they have no toys to play with, no books to read, and no shoes to wear.  We’ll see how this goes.  I need to be able to ask them to do something and have it get done whether I’m watching them or not.  Do you think it will work?  I sure hope so.  I’m getting tired of the mess and destruction.

Delinquent blogger

I started out well with blogging.  I was excited about it.  It was like a journal with pictures that I could immediately share with family and friends!  The fact that a few other people were reading it and looking forward to posts helped to motivate me to keep it up.  (Plus the fact that the kids are so cute and I wanted a record of every bit of cuteness.)  I have never been good at keeping a journal, and I think I let my some of my old issues bog me down with the blogging too.  I get busy, stressed, etc, and I stop for a while.  Then I feel like I can’t skip important events, so I want to “catch up” before I continue with the now current events.  Then I get to the point where I don’t know if I can ever catch up and it feels like a huge project.  I am going to try to repent.  I’m starting with what’s happening now, and if I happen to get a chance to go back and catch up on something else I will.  So don’t be surprised if you see me writing about something that happened six months ago (or more) every now and then.

For now, here I am at 19 weeks:

 

I will be posting photos of my cute kids soon.  I promise.

Boys

 

So I went to pick up this guy from a birthday party

 

and I came home with this:

 

I think something went wrong.

Speaking of changes…

If all goes well, “Peanut” will be joining us sometime in November!!!

Changes

When Everett started Kindergarten and began bringing home treats for every holiday, I was mildly concerned that the girls might be a little jealous.  But without even a word from us, Everett eagerly took out his treats and let his sisters choose whatever they wanted.  He was so excited to share that he would give them their “after dinner candy” long before dinner and they would want to carry it around for a couple of hours.  He has shared every last bit of his loot from every holiday.

We still have our scuffles over toys and other possessions, but we’ve come a long way from the overwhelmed little boy who would carry all of his toys around in his arms in order to keep them from his three curious little sisters.  (Yes, I am a proud mama.)

Pets

(I know this is a rather random topic, but I figure that it’s something my kids will enjoy reading later.)

I saw a tiny baby bunny in the back yard today.  Cary was thinking about scooping it up in a bucket and putting it in the woods somewhere.   I’m a big softy, and it reminded me of the one I used to have as a pet.  I figure that as long as we have a garden fence, bunnies are just cute.

I had a lot of pets as a kid, and would probably have one now except that:

1.  I have four small children to take care of, and my plate is full.

2.  I have four small children who would likely terrorize a pet (unintentionally of course).

There are other reasons, but those are the two biggest.

My first “pet” was a toad.  We lived in a farmhouse near a couple of ponds, and would often see frogs or toads in the evening, sitting on our sidewalk.  My toad was named McKenzie.  I’m sure he was really several toads, and maybe even a frog or two, but I was convinced that he was my pet and that he kept coming around because he liked me.  He even followed me to my new house.  I was so excited to see him again.

After that I had some hamsters and we had lots of cats.  The hamsters weren’t very memorable because they weren’t too fond of being held or petted, but I really loved the cats.  Motley, Purrball, and Jake were a few.  Jake was probably my favorite.  He was a stray that became part of the family.  He was orange, very loving, and drooled like crazy when he was happy.  He often slept on my pillow at night.  It’s amazing what awkward positions I was willing to sleep in so that cat could have his choice.

Then, I had Crumpet, my pet rabbit.  I learned a lesson I would never forget from Crumpet.  My brother Jordan had cared for rabbits for years.  I fell in love with a little one at the fair, and thought it would be wonderful to have a pet bunny of my own.  My parents got him for me and I eagerly took him home and fed him, let him run around, etc.  I loved Crumpet, but not enough.  When winter came I got lazy.   One day I went out to find him dead, with the water in his dish frozen solid.  Crumpet had died because of my neglect.  I cried and cried.  I was sad that he was gone, but mostly I was sad because I knew it was all my fault.  How could I be so selfish and let a living thing die just because I didn’t want to go out in the cold?  I was so ashamed of myself.  I’m sure the experience did me good, though I’m still sorry that Crumpet had to pay for it.

My last pet was Stuart.  Cary and I wanted to have children as soon as I finished school, but things don’t always happen the way we want them to.  It would be three more years before Everett would join our family.  It was very hard for me to wait, and sometimes very stressful and emotional.  I worked at a portrait studio at the time, and would take pictures of babies and children all day.   I also had a hard time when I would hear of someone who expecting and didn’t want to be.  We got Stuart when he was a tiny kitten, and he was a great comfort to me—someone else to love while I waited for Everett.

I’m sure that our kids will get to have pets too, when the time is right.

I guess it’s a girl.

We haven’t seen “How to Train Your Dragon”, but we got the toy dragon from McDonalds.  This is what Lana did with hers:

 

The best medicine

I walked into the kitchen the other day to see this:

Lana is wearing a beach hat, and has carefully laid out a large handkerchief on the floor, spread with all kinds of play food from her basket.  She is having a picnic.

Maddie and Gwyn have each put both of their legs into one sleeve of their jackets, and are flopping around on the floor.  They are mermaids.

 

While they are currently capable of trashing the house in a matter of minutes, these girls make me laugh all the time.  I love seeing the products of their imaginations.