A TOOTH

Thank you thank you thank you thank you for this blog.... Who wouldn't love being able to record the date that they feel their son's first tooth. Yep I was totally bad with the first two but then I didn't have a blog. Usually it is the other way around right? Usually by the third child, ie me there isn't as much done in the baby book. This time around I really am trying to record those special firsts. And so I am so pleased to announce this moment.

Milestones

We take things for granted the older we get. Snapping the fingers, whistling, those two seem to be huge for some reason. Both Max and Maggie want so much to be able to do those two things. I can't remember when I learned how to do either one. I know that my Dad was always whistling some tune or another. Probably one of my fondest memories is my Dad doing that plus it helped us to know where he was in the house :). Anyway, yesterday Max was trying to whistle something he has been trying to do for at least a year. Hell I wish I had some audio of his 'whistling' it was a crack up. And he taught Maggie his style of whistling. I digress anyways yesterday I thought I started to hear the start of his whistling and today I have confirmation that he can indeed whistle. It may not be loud or strong but the air come out of his mouth is making the right noise.
And he is oh so close to snapping his fingers.

Now that is another story with my dad. Probably my not fondest memory was of him either snapping his fingers at my sisters and I or whistling to tell us that in his mind it was time to leave some store we were in. Now that I think about it, it was a whistle and it was one he only used for this purpose and it used to bug us a lot. And when he did this time, we had finally had enough. My Mom was there and we spoke to her about how inappropriate and rude we found the whistle to be. We aren't animals that you whistle at to come inside or do your bidding. And you know the bad thing.... I find myself wanting to whistle at my own kids to come to me or do whatever I have asked them to do. And then I give my head a shake as if to say, please do not do what you hated most.

Sunday, the longest day of the week

You know it could have been a rough hard day. I was certainly tired and a bit grumpy. I am sure there could be a debate on the use of the word 'bit'. We need to get Harry a white noise machine for his room because he seems to be bothered by the airplanes flying overhead and the fan isn't cutting it besides that will get turned down with the weather change.
So my saga begins Sunday morning dark and early around 12:50, Harry wakes up. I feed him. Krismon is off working. 3:30am, I hear Harry and come out. Krismon is home, working, Max had gotten up with a nightmare and was back in bed. I went back to bed but did not go back to sleep well. Krismon comes to tell me an hour later that Max had been down a few more times in that time and he says he is still working and I need to help. I finally go up around 4:50, hearing Harry. Max is in their bathroom reading. I open the door and this wakes Maggie up. I tell Max to go back to bed. I get Harry, Maggie comes out of the room and sits on the couch as I feed Harry. Internally, I am freaking out because I am afraid that I am going to end up with three awake kids. Maggie thankfully lets me feed Harry and get him back to bed. I go in and talk to the kids and tell them to go back to sleep. I stayed upstairs in the guest room so I could monitor the kids. The last time I went in their room was 5:30am. 6:15 Maggie comes into the room and says she is hungry. And guess who was asleep? Yep, Max. He did not wake up for another hour or so. argh. Krismon didn't finish working until 6:00 so I kept the kids as quiet as I could until around 11:30. Then he got up because Harry was fussing on the carpet while I was getting something in the kitchen. Around 12:45, Krismon gave me a two hour break. It was really awesome. I didn't exactly nap but I rested. Anyway, honestly the day went well despite the early early start. It was kind of a surprise.

I am hungry, I can't breathe, I am hungry, I can't breathe...

Yes that is the dilemma that Harry is going through at the moment, poor kid. He has this desire to eat but then his nose is blowing snot bubbles in his attempt to breathe while a boob is stuck in his face. I bet you are getting a nice mental picture with that one...

I was able to avoid the doctor's office because Maggie's fever went away finally and hasn't been back. I don't want to take the kids in if at all possible. More worried about what they would pick up in the sick room.

So that was written yesterday. It seems that Harry is doing better. His nose is not running so much. And I have noticed that he can in fact turn from his belly to his back when he wants to. This is a new development that I noticed in his crib. I am quite excited to see this next spark of independent movement from him. I am sure soon enough he will be rolling his way around the floor trying to catch up to his sister and brother.

They are really quite good with him too. It is nice to see them love on him so much. I hope it continues and he doesn't end up falling into the category that I did where my sister's never wanted me around because I was toooooooooooo young. I don't think that will happen since the ages separating them isn't all that far apart.

Why oh why

So our house needs to be bombed to get rid of the germies already! Max has a cold, Maggie's nose is running running running. She woke up yet again last night with a fever. (I have a call into the doctor's office.) Harry had a slight fever this morning and had a crappy night's sleep because of a stuffy nose, poor guy. So out comes the lysol, off go the bedsheets so that they can be washed in hopes of stemming the tide of sickness. I know grasping at straws.

I think more than anything that Maggie is going to get sick of me. Max is feeling neglected since Maggie has been sick. Max isn't feeling all that great and has a hard time expressing that. And I definitely wasn't a barrel of laughs this morning when Max got up at 5. I do regret my childish behavior now after the fact, and yes I did apologize to Max. Anyone with more ideas on how to get him to stay in his room in his bed with his eyes closed please send them my way. Otherwise, I will need to resign myself to getting up early and gasp maybe getting us a better routine of exercise like yoga in the morning so that I can have some namaste.

We tried the alarm and that hasn't worked. I think I just need to again get over myself and accept that my kids at this point are just super early risers and that there is not much I can do about it.

Crap, crap, crap part deux

"You made me sick, you gave me germies" Yes that was me, head held low in shame that my Maggie is sick. She yelled for Krismon Wednesday night, I was on the verge of sleep. He brought her down, temp taken 103+. That is when she made her heartbreaking accusation and what could I say other than sorry. We gave her tylenol, thanked my mom in our head that she got a mattress topper that we could put on the floor in our room to make a bed for Maggie. She laid down next to Krismon. She said she was hungry so Krismon made her warm milk.... That came back up with her dinner. He gave her motrin a few hours later. She did not sleep well that night and neither did I. I ended up worrying about Harry, only to feed him around 4 and finding him as cool as a cucumber. Maggie woke up again with 103 fever around 5:30am. She threw up again so since then we kept her on a limited diet of cheerios, toast, homemade chicken noodle soup, and korean kalbi soup. It had been over 24 hours yesterday and she woke up from her nap with her temp again at 103 so even she wanted to go to the doctors office. I called and I think we must have gotten the last appt for 6pm. Max started developing a cold yesterday. That turned into his usual bad cough that he wakes up with. It was all we could do to get him some benedryl to quiet the cough some vicks on his chest and a cough drop to soothe his throat. While this was going on, Harry for whatever reason woke up unhappy with a wet diaper and then needed to be fed and pacified to sleep. It wasn't an idyllic night's sleep, Max in our room on the mini bed. Both older kids got up at 5am, Krismon thankfully got up with them and fed them. And then they fed themselves and then I got up because Harry woke up and then I fed them some more.

I think the hardest part is that I wasn't buying into the whole swine scare until it was my kids getting sick and then all of sudden I was having worst case scenarios going through my mind. I know they can be hard to handle sometimes but I love them to pieces and to see them sick, not feeling well just hurt. We have so many choices that we need to make as parents when it comes to the care of our kids, vaccines, flu shots, not to mention diet and exercise, school, etc. How do we decide what is best? I am just thankful that Maggie woke up with a 100 degree temp instead of a 103 so we are going in the right direction. Both Max and Maggie's noses are running or sneezing and it is clear so that is nice. And we are making sure they wash hands. What more can we do outside of making sure we have lysol handy so we can spray doorknobs and places that kids tend to touch over and over again.

Crap, crap, crap

That's how I feel and have felt the last few days. Argh. It's tough when mom is sick, not only for mom but for everyone else in the family.

This weekend

So Saturday was not my finest day. I am not sure what was wrong with me but I did not feel at all well so it was more of a stay in bed day. It was actually nice because I stumbled upon ET on one of the movie channels. It was great to call the kids into the room to watch it with me. Maggie came right away and Max did not come for another 20 minutes I believe. The kids couldn't even be pulled away when food was offered. I think Krismon felt pretty lonely eating lunch by himself... He very nicely brought the rest of the food in our room and let the kids picnic while watching. And then he even popped corn for us too. Talk about being a great husband and papa! Max had to practically be dragged away to go to his violin lesson. While Maggie and I finished the movie. She had lots of questions about the movie. I wish I could remember them all now. She is still too young to get all emotional like I did. Wow I can't believe that movie still gets to me after all this time and to watch it now is so different. It really holds up well. Plus I think that it really explores topics of otherness but that could be a whole other blogpost or college paper which I am sure has been written.
Sunday thankfully started with me feeling much better. I got around 10 hours of sleep. While the kids came in between 6 and 7, they let me stay in bed until 7. Harry did not get up for the day until 8. Max and I finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone Sunday afternoon. He cheered when Gryffindor's won the house cup. It was great to see him enjoy the story and be excited for the next book. It was torture when we first started the book but now that he is also reading a chapter book for school, 'Stuart Little' he has changed his tune. Now I just need to hunt down a copy of the movie since he gets to see that as well.
Here is to the start of the new book tonight!

Glad I didn't bet the doctor

So we ran into the kid's pediatrician on Saturday at REI. Harry's 4 month well check was this morning. I said I thought he was 19 lbs, He looked at him sitting in his carseat in the stroller and said nope, I think he is 18lbs. Well yes he was right.

Here are the stats....

Height 26 90%
Weight 18lbs 10oz 95%
Head Circumference 43.5 75%

And then he had his shots. Poor kid. I mean really poor kid. They just changed how shots could be done here. So now the doctors have to give the shots. When the nurses were giving shots, they were quick and efficient. They tried to get it done fast so the kids wouldn't suffer long. Well as you can imagine, it did not go like that. I am glad I gave him Tylenol before we came. He calmed down fairly quickly. I didn't strap him into his seat before we got outside because I wanted to let him have some time to settle a little. He actually went to sleep in the car on the way home. I am hoping the shots don't affect him like they did last time.

So that's my news for the day.

Joy and Pain

Sunshine and Pain come on come one... Joy and Pain sunshine and pain. You remember this song. It was running through my head yesterday. I thought wow this is a good title for a blogpost considering that is kind of what Motherhood is all about joy and pain.

Maggie and Max were playing outside quite a bit yesterday because the weather is finally changing here. The bonus that Krismon was smoking a turkey breast in his spanking new smoker.

Maggie kept coming into our room, she was a horse once and something else another time. The whole time she kept giggling. It was such a joyful sound to our ears. Then she decided to make a home for a beetle and asked to us to be quiet because the beetle was sleeping. It definitely helped to balance the frustrations of getting Max to do his homework.

It was also so joyful to go out and do stuff with the kids this weekend. Yes, it can be tough but I like going out and finding things that I think we will enjoying doing as a family. Because staying home and doing nothing has its place but then there is the pain involved with bored kids. And we all know what happens when you have bored kids. You end up with bad kids.

Sometimes I think of it like Caesar Milan on the dog whisperer. If you exercise your kids then they are less likely to cause trouble because they are too tired to. lol Now I wish that was true all the time.

Reading Material on the dog crate

Yep that is my couch table. It houses my laptop, the bumbo chair and various baby toys appropriate for Harry as well as a kids dictionary, Harry Potter and Dan Brown's 'The lost symbol'. I have other books that I am trying to read, you know those books that are supposed to help you and your kids get on the same wave length or help them to sleep, stay asleep, go back to sleep, etc. It seems like since College I have had an incredibly tough time reading non fiction books. Maybe because I don't get to open my mouth and talk about the material read and that is what stops me from reading these books. And the best part is that these are books that I think look interesting and I am sure the knowledge would be helpful.
Anyways off that tangent. So I got the new Dan Brown book. I am enjoying it. It reminds of a show that was on tv a year ago or so. It was one of those follow the clues shows with families piecing together clues and traveling throughout the US and even to Paris. It was really a chance to explore our nation's history. I would love to see it happen again. Especially when my kids are older so we could watch it together. And it reminds me of the Nicolas Cage movies National Treasure1 and 2. Needless to say, I am enjoying the book.
Now onto Harry Potter. You know the cool thing about reading it out loud, is that you slow down. You can only read as fast as you can say the words out loud. I feel like I am learning so much more and I am loving that I get to finally share Harry Potter with Max. I look forward to reading it to Maggie as well in the near future (especially since she is the resident story teller.) My only sadness is that Max because of his early mornings falls asleep within a matter of minutes some days. It cuts my reading pleasure short....

Breakfast in Bed Part Deux

Yes... I am hoping that this means that Max has turned some corner and is planning to go back to his sweet ways. Now I do not know what time he got up this morning but he did not come in to our room until 6:15am. Ahhh it was so nice and such a sweet thing to do. The menu you ask...

two bowls of cereal (one for each of us)
2 cups of water
1 apple in a bowl
2 little tupperwares with milk in them for our cereal
1 napkin with forks and spoons
1 tupperware with the rest of our butter pickles

Yep that is right because doesn't everyone want to eat pickles first thing in the morning! lol. It was a pretty nice thing to do and I relish those moments and hope they continue to happen.