Mondays

We had the best day. Every Monday Marci and I have a play date with the younger kids. We pick the girls up from school and head to one of our houses. We swap every week. The babies nap and the girls play. It has been great. This week her husband had to work and J is out of town so we decided to continue the play date into the night for dinner. I was going to pick Av up from school and head back to her house. But then I got a great idea. Why not have Av ride Jackson's bus home. The only weird part of it is that they go to 2 different schools. Their schools are so close to each other that the buses go to both schools. So the bus Jackson rides home picks up the Wilder kids first then the Dunn and then drops them all off at their homes. So why couldn't she just ride his bus home? I sent a note in her back pack and then called this am to make sure. I was slightly worried but Av was all for it. She is a very strong little girl. I explained to her that she would be on a bus with kids she didn't know other than Jackson when he got on. I wanted to make she sure knew what she was doing wo scaring her though. She was not scared. She was all for it and very excited. I would have been so scared at her age. When I called the school they were slightly taken back. A Wilder kid had never went home on a bus with a Dunn kid. But in reality it was not a big deal and with the note I had written they were all good with it. I felt better. The lady I talked to took down Jackson's name to tell the bus driver and said she would make a copy of my note for him as well. It worked perfectly and Jackson and Av got of the bus very happy. Come to find out one of the boys in Av's class rides that bus so she sat with him. Very fun. We had a great time playing. It was almost 60 here so we spent a lot of the night outside. E loved playing with Jackson. He is really going to look up to him. Pretty neat. Av and Jackson had a great time together as always too. They don't see each other enough these days but it never seems to matter. Guess that's a sign of a true friendship!!!

rough week

It all started okay but by Wednesday it started to go down hill. That morning I got Av on the bus and then we came home to get C to school. As we were leaving I decided to leave Jack outside in our fenced in yard bc he was very muddy and didn't want to put him in the house. After dropping C, E and I went to the grocery. As soon as I got home I knew something was wrong. Jack was gone. I didn't think too much of it right away bc he is someone known to roam to a few of our neighbors houses. They give him treats which is what keeps him coming back to our dismay. I called and called for him and after a few minutes of him not showing up the worry set in. Yes he drives me crazy but he was my first baby. He is SUCH a great dog and the kids would be devastated. Near tears I continued to call for him. I knew he could not have been gone long so I was hoping he was in the neighborhood and not at the pound or the vet 4 blocks away. Of course I was just hoping most of all he was safe. Put E in the stroller and started walking the neighborhood. We didn't get far and a lady pulled up with a big brown down in her car. Jack!!! I was so happy. She said he was 6 blocks away checking out her bunnies she has in her yard. She gave him "treats" 2 hotdogs. Great now he is going to start roaming to her house. Although not sure he thinks the car ride home is worth the hotdogs.

On Thursday during quiet time C was playing with her beads as she is always doing lately. All the sudden I heard, "mommy" in a voice I knew what was wrong right away. Yep a bead up her nose. OMG. I really thought she was older than that. wtf My heart dropped. What now. It took a minute but I was able to push it out from the top of her nose.

Thursday night was great and we all went to bed normally. About 130 Av woke us saying her ear hurt. I didn't put much stock in it. Her cold had been gone for days. I gave her meds and told her to go back to bed. She was up a few more times in pain that night. Poor thing. She ended up busting an ear drum (possibly) and missing most of her school day on Friday which messed up poor C's gymnastics. No fun. I will have to take her back in in a few weeks to make sure it heals ok and to check her hearing. She might end up needing tubes put back in.

During all of this I was dealing with another one of those headaches. Not as bad as my last one but enough pain to make me uncomfortable. Meds kind of take it away but not fully and as soon as they wear off it is back. I finally remembered that an ice pack before bed is what made the last one go away so I did that last night. I think it is gone. Need to remember ice for the next one. EVERYONE is sick here in this town and a headache seems to be part of it so I am still hoping these stupid headaches I am getting are a part of that.

J still has that cold too and does not feel great.

We canceled all of our weekend plans. Hopefully we can lay low and get rid of all the gunk and get well.

the boy

He is the cutest, sweetest most fun boy ever. He really completes our family. He is just so fun. He is almost 16 months. He now will come get you and take you some place to show you something he finds neat, funny or wrong. He is pretty independent. Goes up and down the stairs as he pleases with the girls. Has to be right with them. If C takes off and heads upstairs you can bet your life on it he will be right behind her. He has been working on/getting 8 teeth all at once for a month. His molars and incisors. He has half of them now I think. He still kicks his legs like crazy when something makes him happy. I was carrying him on my left hip and had coffee in that hand too the other day so I could open the door and he kicked his legs so much the coffee was splashing everywhere. He climbs climbs and climbs some more. It's his fav pastime. He has figured out he can carry the girls pink stool around to help his climbing mission. He sleeps from 8 to 8 pretty much every night and takes a great afternoon nap. He still LOVES his pacis. If you ask him if he wants to go night night he will shake his head no but then if you ask if he wants to go see his pacis he runs for his room. He has to have one in his mouth and one to play with. When I get him up I ask him to put his pacis in his bed. He throws the one in bed and spits the other one in bed. He's very good about it. He NEVER cries to get out of his bed. I either am waking him to get up or he's in there happily playing and just waiting for us. He's the most laid back kid ever. He's picking up more and more words and sounds. He knows where his belly, feet, nose and hair is. He can tell you what a lion, horse and a dog say. He knows pretty much everything common you are saying to him and responds as he should. He thinks life and his sisters are very funny. When something is funny or he thinks it should be funny he throws his head back and laughs. He eats very well. Is a piggy. He still is carrying around his playdough containers with him. Not sure why he loves those but he does. Loves legos, balls, cars and the girl's pink stroller. He's not a dainty little girl with it though, if something is in his way or he wants to change directions he picks it up and places it where he wants it. He loves being with his sisters but loves when he gets mom or dad or the toys all to himself though. He is John's shadow. If J is home E is with him. He's a pretty special little boy, we are soooooo lucky to have him.

play houses

My super duper lucky girls got a tour of play houses yesterday. Not only did they play yesterday at 3 different places they also got to play with their really good friends twice and some new friends once. It started at All About Kids for Av's gymnastics. Caroline started in her class so that made Av's day and now Max is there for C to play with. We of course had to stay later to let them play more after class. Which is great for J bc he finally gets a little time each weekend to get some much needed stuff done on the house. When we got home from that we had lunch and watched a little Spartan bb. They were having a GREAT game so it was fun to watch. They shot 64% which is a new high for them so it was fun to watch. Then the girls and I went to Chick Fila for an afternoon snack and to meet a girl from Av's class. Makayla has a little sister Alyssa that is the very same age as C. They were both born in Oct so they could be in K together too. We were there for 2 hours!!!! Michelle and I just sat and talked. It was awesome. The 4 girls played so well together. All we bought were juice boxes and a coke so I didn't spend any money either. Have to improvise in the winter when we can't go to parks. When we got home from there we got ready and picked up the boys to meet the Masons for dinner. We wanted to do something special for Av for her good report card. She doesn't care about food or going out to dinner (none of my kids do they would much rather play food is very secondary to them) so that in itself is not a treat for her so we took her to a play place that has dinner too. Kind of like Chuckie Cheese but better. It has bouncies and bowling. We had never been. We ran into some other kids they knew too so at one point they were all running wild playing tag. It was wild but the kids had the best time. John and I were able to have a beer so that made it pretty ok for us too. As we were leaving J said, "that was fun I would go back, next year." heheheh After that the girls went home and happily crawled into their beds. Today will be a day of rest for sure!!

uneventful week

We had a nice week, nothing eventful though. E was getting over his cold so we laid pretty low all week. The girls went to school and had fun as normal. Thursday we made it to hbr which was nice. I love that hour talking to my friends there. I figured out how to make it enjoyable there. I bring lots of fun toys for E and C to keep them entertained. They are contained in a small room with me so that helps as long as they have fun things to play with. E's eyes are no longer pink so that's nice. The day he got pink eye when J came home C told him, "Everett doesn't have blue eyes anymore, they are pink." hehehhe Oh and C told me this week, "me and Joey (a friend from her class) say we are best friends forever all the time." She's funny. She plays with the boys way more than the girls. When she talks about friends from school its always the boys. Joey and Adam. She's a little tomboy that's all dressed up in a tutu skirt and LOTS of jewelry. Av got her report card and again it was pretty good. She brought up her math grade so we were super happy about that. Her reading grade went down a little. She is having problems sounding out words but that is partly due to her speech problems. We will work on it like we do everything else. Otherwise everything stayed as an S. The number grades either stayed a 2 or went up to a 3 (out of 4) so we were very happy about that too. I think from what I can tell from it she is not in the top of the class but she's not in the bottom either. Sometimes average is all we can hope for and be very grateful for it.

glad today is over

Today was a weird day. E woke up sick. Couldn't decide whether to take him to MD or not. He had green stuff coming out of his nose but it had just started so decided probably not. So we dropped Av off at school and instead of heading to the gym like normal we came home. We hung around here and got a few things done but then needed to go run a few errands. We didn't have a single wipe left in the house so I wanted to run to Costco. Just as we were getting there, a friend calls me and says we are under a tornado warning. WHAT??? I knew more storms were headed our way but this am according to the news it was nothing big and the bad stuff was more north of us. Where are the weather texts I'm supposed to get?!?!? OMG Costco is not where you want to be with your 2 young kids in a tornado. J was calling me from work saying he was in the basement of his building. He was worried about us. It must be bad out to make him worry. Ugh. So we spent 45 minutes with another mom huddled by the bathrooms. The safest place in there, far away from the huge steel shelfs. Finally we were in the clear. It was still raining though. First thing I did when I was out of there was call Av's school. They were fine. Just getting out of the hallway and off to a late lunch. Yes the whole time I was scared not having her with me but I also knew she was prob in a safer place than we were so that made me feel better. It was just about then that I noticed E's eye was pink. Ugh so off to the MD we did go. So after being stuck in Costco, spending another 45 minutes off the phone with AT&T (major issues with our cable lately) and running to the MD I got nothing done today. We didn't even have bread or eggs in the house (the plan was to head to the grocery after Costco) so I had to piece a dinner together. I actually did a good job on that. Av came home very happy today. Her time in the hallway was fun she said. hehehe She also got to head to the principal's office this am with a few other students to help lead the pledge of allegiance!!! She said she had to introduce herself and tell what class she was in. She was cute pretending to do it again, "I'm Av-e-ry (the way she says it....grrrr) from Ms. Roth's class." That school is amazing. She comes home happy every day. Any school that makes my little girl so happy makes me happy too!!!!

southern wimps

OMG I'm raising southern wimps here. No Michiganders in this house (other than me of course). Av came home today and said, "the sock hop got canceled for tonight." I said, "I know, that's a bummer, do you know why?" "Because all the snow and ice" she said. I about died. There is a dusting on the ground. Our yard is more a mud pit than anything else right now. Not enough snow to make a snow ball and ice? What ice??? This town is turning her into a "jump the gun, send the kids home and shut the city down for the inch of snow that's coming." I was fine with it until I saw that it was making my kid such a wimp. They got sent home from school yesterday the minute the day counted as a full day. We never got all the snow they were predicting. I told Av she was so lucky bc where I grew up in MI we lived for months and months with feet of snow on the ground and we NEVER got sent home early. She looked at me and said, "I don't want to live in Michigan." heheheh

trilingual someday???

My daughter, my wonderful, smart, kind, beautiful, thoughtful, amazing daughter. My 6 year old who I worry about constantly, more than just normal mom worry, blew me away tonight. She counted to 10 in 2 other languages. Chinese and spanish. Could she get any more amazing?

homework

Avery's teacher has sent home "I can statements." It's stuff she needs to be able to do for this next report card. It's amazing. For social studies she needs to know what a globe is, where we live on a map, what the green part is, what the blue part is, that she lives on planet earth, in the USA along with much more. I was going over it with her last night (she got out of school early due to weather so we had a lot of extra time) and she knew all this stuff. Already. I was amazed. We also have been talking about directions a lot. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. She knows that stuff too. Then when J and I were eating our dinner I handed her her speech homework. It was new and we had never done it. She "read" all the words herself and said the words almost perfectly. There were pictures but the words were lumberjack, lawn mower, lemonade, log cabin, living room and life jacket not things she is totally familiar with. I am sure she has been over these pics with her speech teacher a few times but she is remembering and learning and picking everything up that she should be. She is amazing and is going to be just fine!!!

smoothie king

this little boy is a crazy about smoothies. I get out the blender and he goes CRAZY. He wants it that minute. It takes me a few minutes to get it together so the whole time he is attached to my leg yelling at me. heheh kind of funny. He is so happy and cute when he gets what he wants.

A boy discovering snow for the first time

He noticed it himself before I pointed it out. He saw it and sat at the window for a while. Just watching it. Loved it. We went out for a few minutes before picking Av up from school.

Skate party

The skate parties have begun. Av's school had one last night. All week Av talked about it and said she wanted to go. J and I just looked at each other knowing she prob is just not old enough. I didn't want to go. I told her if she asked her friends at school if they were going and if they were she had to come home and tell me who. If her friends were going I promised to take her. I figured she would never remember to ask her friends and actually know who was going. She went to summer camp for 2 weeks this summer and everyday I asked her to name one kids name in her group and she NEVER could do it. Even with me reminding her everyday to figure out someone's name. So I thought it was a long shot. J knew otherwise. Her very first words off the bus were "Mckinnely is going." No lead up to let me know what she was talking about. She knew I would know. So as promised I had to take her. A friend warned me to be prepared to be sore the next day. I thought no way. I was not putting skates on bc I knew I would be holding her up and one of us had to be steady and I have done so much working out lately I thought that was crazy. But she was right. Oh my on your lower back, holding up a 40lb ready to fall person. Anyway so off Av and I went when J got home. She was super excited. We got there and I think thats when she realized what she had gotten herself into. We got her skates on and she stood up the tears started right away. "I'm tired. I want to go home." Ugh I had not really prepared for this. What was I going to do? I wanted it to end on a good note so someday she would want to go again, but I didn't want to push her too hard either. So we sat there for awhile. I thought maybe if she got comfortable. Nope. She had several friends come up to her and offer to help and talk to her and she talked to them but none of them could talk her into it. (she is very well liked and that makes me soooooo happy) Finally I was sick of sitting there and I finally had a good idea. (this parenting stuff is hard. have to think on your feet and I was a little slow last night). We made a deal. If she would skate once around the circle with me holding her and then if she still wanted to leave we would. So that's what we did. She made it and I made it too. I could not have done much more. Holding her up was sooooo hard. So it did end on a positive note.

Leaving there I had so many emotions going on in my head. Proud of her for trying, proud of her for wanting to go so badly, sad for her that her body limitations hold her back so badly, sad that she doesn't have the energy her friends do, worried if she misses stuff like this will she be able to make real friends, worried she will not be able to handle sleep overs and such with her low energy, proud of myself getting her to try it, proud that I didn't let her see how sad I was that she couldn't do it, worried she will just never have a "normal" life, but most off all this huge amount of love for my sweet little girl who is loved by so many people. At one point a little girl I didn't know came up to help her. Come to find out it is Lilly from her bus. So sweet. She was right too, McKinnley was there. When we got home she showered and then wanted us to read her a book. Fine we always do that but what was different was that she read 50% of the book!!!!! It's a new book too, not one she has memorized. She is learning and she is doing so well. That's the most important thing.

recovery weekend

We had the best weekend. We laid low bc we were still recovering. It was a nice fam weekend. Friday was just me and the kids. John got home safely around 9. The kids were soooo excited to see him Sat am. They woke him up as soon as they were up. We all took Av to her gymnastics and then ran some errands. After quiet time it was really pretty out so we all went outside to play. Av wanted to play soccer so that's what we did. J built a fire and we played soccer forever. Av is getting really good. On Sunday J and I did boot camp as always and then he worked on the house while E slept and the girls and I ran some errands. It doesn't sound like much but it was a great weekend!!!

more vomit

Well the vomit was not over. 20 hours later from the first car seat vomit it happened again. Yes in her nice clean car seat, again. I thought I was in some sort of bad movie. She had been fine and actually wanted dinner after the first time. All the sudden she started screaming her head hurt and 10 minutes later it happened. So guess that's the clue with C. Get near a toilet if her head hurts. Then that night in the middle of the night it happened again. J made up for being gone though and took one for the team on that. The vomit didn't get anywhere but on the 2 of them! He caught it in his hands. Very gross for them, yay for me!!! I'm not even sure I could let someone vomit in my hands even if I wanted too. We are now 36 hours vomit free. I hope it stays that way!!!

vomit, vomit, vomit and much more vomit

Warning this post is going to be gross, you probably shouldn't read it. If you do, don't say I didn't warn you.

OMG seriously, if I have to clean up any more vomit I am taking off. Running away. I am DONE!! Right before xmas break I woke the girls up one morning and found a huge pile of chunky vomit next to Av. It stunk sooooo bad. Cleaned it up of course. Then over Christmas break E threw up in his car seat on the way to my Aunt's house. Again, it was chunky and very stinky. Again, I cleaned him and it up. Cleaning vomit from a car seat is HORRIBLE. I hope you never have to do it and I hope I never have to again. Tonight C threw up in her car seat. OMG NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! We were about 30 minutes from home and again it STUNK so bad. I could smell it all the way up front. Again, I cleaned her and the car seat up. That car seat is even harder to clean. Shoot me now please!!! It took me forever to figure out how to get the car seat cover off and I was beyond pissed and cursing J the whole time for not being home. I really hope I can get that car seat back together again for tomorrow. Then poor Av threw up tonight too. Could it get any worse?? Luckily she was not in the car and she got most of it in the toilet. The "tomfy toilet" took one for the team by catching the rest of it. This better be the end. Or else!!!!!!!

school

Both girls have been very happy being back in school. Tuesday started a little rough with Av saying she was still sick. Just as she convinced me that she was and as I was getting ready to call the school she popped up saying she was fine. With that she got dressed and I took her to school. Later that day she got off the bus as happy as can be and said several times she was so glad she went to school and that "she was not sick any longer." Today was much the same. Came home so happy and full of life and energy. I love seeing her like that. She can't stop talking about school, thanking me for things and giving me hugs and kisses and telling me she loves me. She is so sweet. She loves loves loves that school. Makes me love it too. Camille woke up today in a perfect mood until she realized it was a school day for her. Her mood got way worse when she then figured out it was an after care day. She did an annoying noise type thing all am. We all just ignored her. When it was time to get in the car and go though she was fine. We dropped Av off and headed to her school. She was back in a good mood. She asked if I would stay for a few minutes. In her classroom I was talking to her teacher and at that point she decided it was time for me to go. She kicked me out. When I picked her up at 3 she was happily playing in the gym. She came over to me, gave me a huge hug and then ran off again asking to stay longer. Silly girl.

endings are hard

I was so so so sad when I woke up today. The end of a holiday and a break is the worst. We all had 2 weeks off together and now it's over. SUCKS!!!!!!! (sorry mom) It's the coldest it's been here (in the teens) so hard to wake with the alarm and get out of bed, J left for an all week business trip and will not be back till late Friday night, I had to wake all 3 kids and Av had to go back to school. So no fun. The day has gotten better though. The sun is out and Av will be home soon. I also went to Trader Joes to get myself some yummy treats for the week. Makes me feel a little better.

floaters

E is such a boy. And a stinky one at that. He still has SEVERAL TDs throughout the day every day but the other time he did a new one. In the bath?!?! I turned around for a second and when I looked back there were floaters in the tub. OH MY!!!! I screamed and freaked the girls out and had them get out that minute. They had no idea what was going on and why their mom had suddenly turned crazy. Then as I was cleaning the tub he peed on the floor. Such a boy. Didn't have pooping in the tub issues with the girls.

new hair cuts!!

E did great getting his second hair cut. Didn't scream or ever cry at all. Camille got the Av hairdo.

Phase 2 is under way

We have the storage unit half full!! This house will be on the market soon!!!!

my big girl

Oh and how could I forget the biggest news in our house. C is the very proud new owner of her very own BIG GIRL BED. She is in love and doing a great job staying in it at night and sleeping in it. I am very proud of her and happy for her.

c and her bling

C loves her jewelry and dress up stuff and her new pop beads are no exception. She made a ring for every finger. I like the way she thinks.

bowling

New years day bowling was the best. We all had a great time with our great friends. We went out to dinner afterwards, just the 10 of us. heheh People might think we are crazy with all of our kids but it's so fun. Anyway here are a few pics. C insisted on wearing her dress up skirt AA and I made for her. E made bowling a little challenging, but we managed. For awhile he was in Emi's baby jail. hehehh

back home

It's been a great and busy few days. We got home and got right back into the swing of our busy lives. Wednesday when we got home our house was a wreck!!! The painters had been here and were not done. The Christmas tree was in the middle of the room and all my Santas were pilled on the coffee table. With a walking talking monster like E that was not going to fly so we quickly boxed it all up and put it away. (well away means the boxes are in the corner ready to head to the storage unit) It was SO nice to have it all down and out. I love love love love the Christmas tree before Christmas but frankly after Christmas it makes me sad. I hate looking at it and just thinking how excited we all were when we put it up and how fast it all went, again. It's always usually a job just I do and this year I had lots of help so that was so nice. On Thursday the painters were supposed to be here again so we got up and headed to the gym. From there I took the younger two to the grocery and J took Av to hbr. Then that afternoon I took the girls to the movies with hbr friends to see The Muppets. It's so nice we have made such good friends there. I love the other mom's there so much. Their support means the world to me. They more than anyone can truly relate and it's nice to have have my weekly "support" group with them. I need to get together with them more. On Friday again we were dealing with the painters so off to the gym again we went. After I took the kids to C's weekly gymnastics lesson and J worked on the house. All About Kids was a ZOO!!! As much as E loves it he's really hard to manage there too so I had about had it when we left. When we got home we had to hid from the painters (they had taken over the entire first floor of the house and everything was wet). Around dinner time we left for a party for some of J's college friends. They live in NYC so we don't see them often. Their parents had an open house style party for them so everyone could see each other and all the kids. It was so fun!!! The group has just grown so much in the past few years with more sweet babies to come. On Sat we had not one but 2 parties to go to. We got up and I took Av to All About Kids for her gymnastics by myself. I had an hour to sit. It was wonderful. I refused to take all 3 again. hehehe. Then we met the rest of the fam at a U of L vs. UK party. We had the best time there. Av and C were off with the other kids. We didn't see them the whole time. They had the time of their lives. I got to hang with my girls and J got to watch the game. It was perfect. Then home for nap/quite time and then off to party #2. Our New years eve party. We always celebrate with our great friends the Shumans!!! Love them so much. We had planned to have a sleepover at their house as we have done a few times. Sadly though Marci kind of came down with a stomach bug as we were getting there. We stayed for a bit but then ended up heading home. It was VERY disappointing but what can you do. The kids were very sad. Marci is better though so we are heading to bowling and dinner with them soon. Can't wait!!!