Virus

I have been getting a lot of guff for missing a couple of weeks of blogging. I just want to explain myself. Our computer caught a cold and died on us (again. I blame the kids). Thanks to my awesome brother-in-law, we now are virus free. Now for catching up...

In my last blog I forgot to talk about Rachel's birthday party, and I think it is worth mentioning. First of all, I am no great birthday party planner. Lilly's birthday party was a giant, unorganized water balloon fight that turned into all of the kids chasing Cousin Isaac with water balloons. For Rachel's party the weather was lousy so we were limited to what we could do inside. To fit with her pirate/princess theme (pirates for the boys, princesses for the girls) we had a fort building contest. Then we played two rounds of sardines, and a couple of rounds of good old fashioned hide-and-seek. She had an awesome cake thanks to my friend Amber. The bottom tier was blue with a pirate ship molded out of tootsie rolls. The top tier was a princess theme with a cool princes crown made of white chocolate on top. Now here is the part worth mentioning. We invited Rachel's primary class, one girl from her school class and all of her cousins between the ages of 3 and 7. Twelve invitations were sent out, plus a couple of verbal invitations to neighbor kids. Every last invitee showed up and probably half of them brought younger siblings with them. We had a grand total of about 25 kids. It was madness. By the time the party was over my house nearly literally looked like a hurricane had passed through. A good time was had by all, so I consider it a success!

Rachel asked me a couple of weeks ago if she could start going to the "big dragons" karate class instead of the younger class she has been attending with Lilly. Last night was her second time trying out the big kid class. She did so well! Compared to the other kids in the class she is tiny. There are a couple her age, but some of them are as old as 10 or 11. Rachel really held her own. I asked her how she felt about it later and she said it was scary because the kids are so big. She loves it though, and wants to keep going. I was very proud of her.

I have been working with Carson on dressing himself. He is resistant at best.. The girls were able to sort of dress themselves by this age but I have not been as good at working with Carson on it. I think there are a few reasons for this. Because he doesn't talk as well I still think of him as younger than he is. Plus I have a lot of kids now and it is so much easier to dress him myself than to convince him to do it. Today I successfully bribed him with the promise of playing at a friend's house. He did great with the exception of putting his pants on backwards, but I will take it!

Emilia is unanimously the favorite family member among the kids. In fact she is the preferred form of entertainment at our house. This means that during her waking moments she has between one and three children constantly in her face. I have already mentioned that Carson's favorite way to talk to her is by growling at her (loudly). I worry that she is going to be overwhelmed by this, but she loves it. In fact she prefers it to solitude. If there is nobody up in her face she starts to complain. When the kids are in her personal space she has an amused look on her face. Not quite a smile, but close.

Lilly has a new friend. Her name is Elizabeth and she lives across the street. The two of them are quite the mischievous pair. All of the sudden Lilly has forgotten a few basic house rules. Specifically that cat food does not belong anywhere but the cat dish, we don't lock doors, and the exercise equipment is off-limits. I do not think it is Elizabeth's fault. The two of them just seem to like to get into trouble together. The other day Elizabeth was over and needed to use the restroom. Lilly showed her where it was, and a few moments later we heard way too much giggling in the bathroom. When we went to check it out, Lilly told us "we tried to go at the same time but it didn't work."

Sea Blue

If I do not blog about this now, I am worried I will forget. Lilly does a co-op preschool with a couple of other pre-kindergartners in our neighborhood. It was my turn to teach today, and the kids and I had the following conversation:

Me: "Allison, I love the color you are using on your balloon picture!"
Allison: "It is called 'sea blue'."
Lilly: "Hey I saw that movie once!"
Elizabeth: "I have that movie!"
Allison: "Well, I don't have that movie, and I don't want it!"

With the onset of the cold weather, I have been parking my reading chair in front of our pellet stove to get my daily book fix. A few nights ago Carson woke up around 10pm soaked with pee from head to toe, and very upset. He was beside himself while I changed him, and when I was done he led me to the reading chair. We sat down and he snuggled up to me, then pointed to my book and demanded "Read!" So I did, silently to myself while he sat with me. It was a tender, peaceful moment, one that he has repeated several times since (minus the peeing part). I know Carson loves me, but Carson loves everyone. Sometimes I think he loves me no more than he does anyone else, so whenever I can get a little extra snuggle time with that boy, I take it. 

We have begun getting "primary answers" from our girls when we ask them questions. No matter the topic at hand, the answer always seems to be church related (Heavenly Father, say our prayers, follow the prophet, love "our chother"). For example, at the store the other day, one of my kids threw a candy wrapper on the floor. I thought I would use it as a teaching opportunity on cleaning up after ourselves. "Don't throw garbage on the floor at the store," I began. "When you throw garbage on the floor at the store, who has to pick it up?" I was going for something like "the store workers" but Lilly yelled out an enthusiastic "Jesus!"

Rachel got the last of her immunizations yesterday. I chose not to tell her we were going to get shots until right before we left. She was not happy and refused to go, which made me realize I should not have told her until we were actually at the doctor's office. After her initial fit, she seemed OK, and even went into the exam room without a fight. I should pause here and point out that we have been working with Rachel on finding a better way to get what she wants other than crying or throwing a fit. This usually translates into "Please can I..." or "Please can you...". As the nurse and I were preparing her for the shot, the reality of it all sunk in and she began to cry and say "I don't want a shot, I don't want a shot!" As a last attempt she finally looked at the nurse and begged "Please can I not get shots?"

I wish I had something great to say about Emilia, but things are much the same as they were last week. She sleeps, eats, poops, pees, and occasionally smiles. I was holding her the other day just for fun (something I do not get the opportunity to do as much as  I would like), and I had a flashback to when she was in the hospital right after her surgery. She had just come back to the PICU and she was lying in her little bed, all sprawled out and pink, with tubes going every direction. I remember thinking then that she looked so small and fragile and out of place. To look at her now you would never know any of that happened. I squeezed her tight, and kissed her chubby, well-fed little cheeks. I love that baby.

Spelling Game

On the way home from boot camp last week Lilly and I were playing the spelling game. I would give her a word and she would tell me what it starts with. Some letters she has down pat, but others are a little tougher for her. When we got to the word "Dad" she was unsure. Finally she wrapped her arms around herself and said "Dad starts with LOVE!" I spent the rest of the morning thinking about how sweet and precious my Lilly is. When I shared the story with aunt Merry however, she said "It sounds like you got played. She didn't know the answer so she got out of it by saying something cute."

On the subject of Lilly, I think we have the world's youngest vegetarian by choice. She will now officially not eat meat of any kind, not even a McDonald's hamburger. Mostly I am proud of her for making a moral decision and sticking with it. Most adults struggle with that. But the other part of me finds this to be incredibly inconvenient. To ensure she is getting enough protein, I have to be really thoughtful about our meals. We keep plenty of peanut butter, eggs, and cheese on hand. What really gets me is her insistence that I don't eat meat either. I want to support her, and meat is not my favorite anyway. But you know how it is when someone tells you that you cannot have something, and then all you want is that thing? Sometimes I sneak meat when she is not looking, but I am trying to decide how moral that is on my part.

Carson loves Shawn the Sheep. It is a claymation show that he watches on Netflix. My favorite is when he sings along with the song at the beginning. Or at least  tries to sing along. Since he does not talk very well or very fast, he mostly just gets basic sounds out. It is so cute, and sometimes I turn it on just to watch him sing along and pump his fists in the air. But as soon as I start giggling he turns to me and says "Out, Mom!" He is starting to say some cute things. He insists that I call him "Carson" or "boy". The other day he wanted me to do something and I said "sorry Charlie." He gave me an offended look and said "Nooo! Carson!" as he pointed to himself. He has also made it clear that I am neither a boy or a girl, but a mom.

Kindergarten has been a little on the rough side for Rachel and I. They have a system in her class where if you are on your best behavior a popsicle stick with your name on it stays in the green pocket, but if you misbehave your stick moves to the yellow or red pockets. At the end of the day you get a green card to take home if you stay on green. Rachel has never been moved from green, which is great for her teacher but less great for us. I think she uses up all of her best behavior in class, and when she comes home she just falls apart. This past week has been a total turnaround though. She has been fantastic at home. I asked her this morning why she has been so great and she told me she said a prayer about it. I asked her what she said in her prayer and she said she asked Heavenly Father to help her be nice for me. Kudos to Rachel's primary teacher!

Of all my babies, Emilia has been the least concerned about eating. She could take it or leave it, and getting her to nurse for what seems like long enough to me is a stressful chore...that is until now. It used to be I had to works to get her to eat every two to four hours. Lately, it is two hours on the nose, and she eats until I cut her off, either because I am out of food for her, or I have other things to get done. I am sore, I don't have enough milk, and I am spending all of my time nursing... I love it!

A quick note about Halloween. Rachel chose to be a witch, I don't know why. She made a good one though. I think the most appealing thing to her about it was painting her face and hair green. Lilly chose a wolf costume. I can only assume this was to help her get over her fear of wolves. So far it has not worked, as she still will not go downstairs by herself. Carson was a fireman because that was the costume we found at Goodwill that fit him the best. He sure was cute. Trick-or-treating for Carson was about a 20-minute ordeal. At that point he was content to go home and eat his take of candy. Rachel could have gone all night, and she was fast! We kept having to reign her in. Lilly would have liked to go all night if it were not for the dogs. No matter the size or temperament, she is terrified of them. She quickly ran up to the first "dog house" unaware, but as soon as she saw it, she turned around and ran back just as quickly. After a few houses with dogs, she began announcing loudly to the houses before knocking "No dogs allowed outside!" If she knocked, and no dog came, just to be sure she would ask the home owners "do you have a dog?"

Pictures to come!