Princess Mom

As we were walking out the door to walk to the bus stop Rachel said, "Mom, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Can I be a princess? A princess mom?" I told her I thought it was a great idea and asked her how many kids she wants. She happens to want 10, but does not think I should have 10 kids because it would be "too many for you." I said I thought her plan sounded great but there are two things she needs to do first. She jumped right in and said "go to college!" I said "That is the first thing but the second thing you need to do before you have kids is get married." She quietly took this in, and then asked me "is it when I am done with college and walking down the stairs, my husband will be there?" I think she was picturing a husband as sort of this college graduation gift. I so love our walks to the bus stop.

While we are on the subject of Rachel, she competed in her first karate tournament on Saturday. She did well, considering this was her first tournament. She was up against five other kids, three of which were much older than her. She came in fifth place, and I was worried that she would be disappointed. But here is the great thing about competing when you are young. She has no idea what fifth place means. All she knows is she got a ribbon and a trophy and that is all she needs to be happy!

On the day of the karate tournament, Lilly got the stomach flu. I was running when it started, so Shelby called me to tell me that she threw up but felt fine now. When I got home, she was in the bath because she had thrown up again. You have never seen such a cheerful sick kid. I came in to talk to her and she presented the following monologue: Mom, I woke up and came upstairs and dad said "Hey Lilly Bug!" and I said (in a higher pitched tone) "My tomach hurts." And dad said "Want to watch a movie?" and I said (same high pitched tone) "yes" and he cuddled me up in a blanket and then I threw up on the couch." As cheerful as she sounded during this monologue, I know she felt lousy because anytime she was sitting still she would fall asleep. She got over it pretty quick and was herself by dinner time.

Carson loves Emilia, and Emilia loves Carson. He will spend as much time as I allow talking to her, and she just smiles and smiles. He is never rough with her anymore, but sometimes he still growls in her face. I am sure he does it because he thinks Emilia finds it amusing. She does not find it amusing, but she does find it frightening. Whenever he does it she gets this terrified, shocked look on her face. Overall I think they are going to be good buddies.

We officially do not have to see Emilia's doctor for weight checks anymore. She is now over 10lbs, which is a huge milestone. We were supposed to be done with these weight checks about a month ago, but she had a couple of weeks of stagnant weight gains. As of Monday, her heart sounds "beautiful" and her weight is right on track of what my other kids were at this age. I know it seems small but she is in the 10th percentile. For my kids, this is very normal.

Mud Puddles

At boot camp Wednesday morning, it was raining hard enough to create a nice sized mud puddle in our driveway. Carson and our neighbor's one-year-old, Trevor, found this to be very entertaining. It seemed like a perfectly innocent little boy thing to do, so I did not stop them. After boot camp I changed his pants and shoes and assumed he would be good to go for the day. I was getting myself and the house ready to go for our very busy day when Lilly said to me "Mom, I have a bad word for you." Curious to know what Lilly considers a bad word I said, "OK Lilly, what is your bad word?" "Carson is playing in the mud puddle." She was right, that was a bad word. I got his pants changed once again and sent the kids outside to get into the car without me. This was, of course my mistake. Carson walked outside and ran right out into the mud puddle again. At this point I was out of shoes, out of time, and very nearly out of pants, so I let him live with damp feet.

Pretty much everything Lilly says cracks me up. We were in the car the other day and she had a discussion with herself that went like this: "Where is the baby's blanket? Oh, it's back here. How did it get there? Maybe it walked. Oh, wait...I put it back there."

Our renter moved out last week and left us with a huge mess. She left couches, beds, dressers, clothes, and bags and bags of garbage. Shelby went to clean it out on the busy day that Carson spent playing in the mud puddle. I volunteered that evening at the Ronald McDonald house. This was something I really wanted to do because we stayed at a Ronald McDonald house in Salt Lake and had a very good experience. I wanted to reciprocate. On the way home I called Shelby and he asked if I could stop by the rental and help him load up a couple of the big things. It was late and the kids were tired and hungry, but I couldn't leave Shelby with that big mess, so we headed out. By the time I got there, no more that 30 minutes later, there were three neighbor guys helping Shelby load up the last of the stuff. I had time to fill one bag of garbage, and by then the whole place was cleaned out. They just saw that Shelby needed help and jumped in. It just goes to show that when it comes to service, you always come out ahead.

Knees and Toes

I had an exceptionally intense lower body workout last week, and the next day I volunteered in Rachel's class. Towards the end of the day we sang a song about letters starting at the top. Throughout the song we are required to touch our toes several times, which considering my sore bummy was a real struggle. The song went on forever! I kept thinking "surely this is the last time I have to touch my toes." Rachel must have noticed my issue because she finally leaned over and whispered "Mom it's OK if you want to just touch your knees."

We had a cool morning at boot camp last week. One of the ladies who comes asked Carson where his jacket is. He ran inside to find it and came out with a life jacket, which he insisted on wearing. Every boot camp since he finds that life jacket and brings it outside with him.

Lilly's new thing is to tell us nobody likes her whenever she gets reprimanded for anything. Usually we just ignore it, but I finally told her the other day "Lilly stop it. Nobody in the world is as well liked as you!" And that is the truth. Lilly makes friends easily wherever she goes. She is sweet and fun and really funny. I think this is why it pushes my buttons when she says nobody likes her. The truth is everyone likes her! I sometimes have a hard time coming up with stories about her for the blog because nothing she says is anecdotally funny, but everything she says cracks me up.

What a good baby Emilia is getting to be. I put her to bed at 8 last night. I woke her up to feed her before I went to bed and did not hear a peep from her until almost 8 this morning. She is growing out of her "fussy in the evening" phase, and she smiles all the time. There is a sweetness about that baby, and I am so excited to see how it plays into her personality as she gets older. I was feeding her and Carson started crying in the other room. As soon as he started, her face scrunched up and she whimpered a little. I wonder, is it because it hurts her little heart, or just her little ears?

Potato Soup

We decided to toast marshmallows the other day in our back yard. Being the good mother that I am, I made each of my kids eat all of their dinner before they could even entertain the idea of toasting marshmallows.  All three of my kids dislike potatoes to varying degrees. Lilly does not love them, but will eat them, Rachel will eat them when threatened or bribed, and Carson gets a disgusted look on his face whenever we sneak one into his mouth. Because dinner was potato soup, it took a little coercing to get them to eat up. Carson's last bite contained a chunk of potato, and after he ate it I sent him outside to the fire. About 30 minutes later we noticed something in his mouth. It was that darn chunk of potato. We told him he would not get any marshmallows until he swallowed it. A couple of minutes later he came out from inside the house and said "Tada!" The potato was gone, but the circumstances surrounding its disappearance were suspicious. We asked if he spit it out in the garbage and he said "yeah!" At least he is honest.

Rachel was asked to give a scripture and a prayer at primary last Sunday. While we were discussing this she asked if she could say the prayer by herself. I said "sure...what are you going to say?" She responded "umm...that Lilly feels better, that Carson isn't mean anymore, and that daddy doesn't spank us hard." Luckily they asked her to give the talk instead at the last minute.

We had Ella and Cora to our house to play yesterday. Despite the 2 year age difference, Lilly and Ella are pretty well inseparable when they are together, and Lilly goes out of her way to sort of take care of Ella. I asked Lilly to get the mail and she said "sure! Oh, wait, let me put on my shoes." A few minutes later I heard the garage door open. I looked out the window to see Lilly leading Ella to the mailbox. Ella was wearing one flip flop and one water shoe, I am sure the only two shoes Lilly could find besides her own. While Ella was here she had an accident. I was cleaning it up and asked Lilly to go find Ella some of her clothes to wear. When I went downstairs, Lilly was tenderly dressing Ella, and doing a pretty good job. I jumped in to help, and they both kind of pushed me away. Lilly obviously had it under control and wanted nothing to do with my help.

Emilia had her two month checkup yesterday. We have been seeing the doctor every week since we have been home, and she has been gaining weight like crazy. This two month appointment was supposed to be the last for a while, but Emilia lost an ounce since last week. Nothing to worry about really, but now we have to come back for a weight check next week again. I am going to be so glad when we are done with the doctor stuff for a while. Other than that, she is doing great. She has slept through the night every night for more than a week! Emilia is very sensitive to loud noises, more so than any other baby I have had. This has been an unexpected blessing in our house. Since I cannot as readily raise my voice, I have to talk much more peacefully to my children. I can also use her sensitivity as leverage to get my kids to stop fighting. "Please don't fight, it upsets the baby" works pretty well since they all love her and do not want to be the cause of her unhappiness.

Lilly was playing with the baby the other day and all of the sudden Emilia got hysterical. Lilly came into the kitchen with a very concerned look on her face and said "mom, I bit the baby." I was a little confused because first of all she told me what she had done, but also because it seemed so out of character. "You bit the baby?" I said, in a disbelieving tone on the verge of anger. Lilly started sobbing "It was an accident!" At first you might wonder how you can accidently bite a baby, but I instantly understood what had happened. With all of my babies I look at them and think "I love you so much I could just eat you up!" I am sure this is what Lilly was thinking. She loves Emilia so much she doesn't quite know what to do with all of her feelings, so she bit her.

Wearwolves

Lilly watched about 12 seconds of a very old and very poorly done wear wolf movie about two months ago and she still refuses to go downstairs alone. It is a real problem for us and her since her room, clothes, and all other belongings are down there. We have tried and tried to convince her that wear wolves are not real, but she remains a believer. The other day I was trying to get her to go downstairs and get dressed. I was in a hurry trying to get out the door, and was a little flustered when she refused to go by herself. Finally I told her without really thinking "Lilly, wear wolves only come at night." So now she is still scared, and is even more convinced they are real.

I am not great at taking time to hang out with my children. I always have the next thing on my checklist in mind. The other day I was putting a movie on for the kids and I saw that Princess Bride was on TV. My kids have never seen it, and even though I had dinner to make I decided to sit down and watch it with them. What a great movie! Rachel loved it, and giggled a lot. Lilly was done with it after Wesley kills the giant man-eating rat. She was mad because she "didn't want him to kill the big mouse." The rest of the movie she occasionally would ask "why did he kill it mom?" Leave it to Lilly to root for the animal, no matter how disgusting and dangerous it is. There are limitations on her sympathy though. She was appalled to learn that hamburgers are made from cows. We talked about this a lot while we were shopping and she determined never to eat cows. On the way home we stopped at McDonald's to get dinner for everyone and I told her she could order something that was not made from a cow, but it was her decision. She said "Umm...I think I will have a burger."

I think Rachel might have her first crush. There is a boy in her karate class named Caleb who is very cute. After class yesterday she stuck to him like glue until I practically forced her to the car. He seemed to quite enjoy her company as well. As we were walking to the car she told me "Mom, I like that boy."

Rachel is growing up. We had a friend of hers over to play the other day. She lives just around the corner so we walked her home. Out of habit, while we were walking I reached for Rachel's hand and she pulled it away. After we dropped her friend off, I asked her about it and she said she just didn't want to hold my hand while Olivia was here. On the way home though, it was just fine. I understand, but it still breaks my heart a little.

We are having a hard time getting Carson to eat. He is picky, but more than that he is easily distracted. Dinner is the worst. Every couple of minutes he gets down from the table to do something. And when he is at the table, he spends most of the meal preparing his food with pepper, salt, or whatever other condiment there is on the table. The other night I told if he didn't eat he would have to go to time-out. That stubborn little boy got down from the table and sat himself in time-out! I forgot how stubborn a two-year-old can be. Carson is the official door-shutter/opener in our house and if anyone even tries to shut a door without his help it is a serious issue. Whether it be a car door, the front door, or the door to the refrigerator, he re-opens said door so he can shut it himself. I picked the kids up from the sitter the other day and when I knocked Lilly opened the door. Carson threw a fit, and before I knew what was happening he pushed me back outside and closed the door in my face, all so he could open it himself.

Emilia is doing great. She is a little fussy during the day, but she sleeps like a champ at night, so I will take it. I usually only have to get up with her once, and sometimes not even that. A couple of times she has slept through the night. She is filling out and even smiling at us some. Shelby has loved all of our babies, but newborn is not his favorite age. He is not one for just holding a baby. For whatever reason though, he likes holding Emmy. And he has a magic touch with her. In the evenings when she seems inconsolable to me, he can calm her right down.

How Babies Are Made

So I know you all are thinking I have given up on blogging. Not so. My latest blog has been on my mind for a couple of weeks, I just haven't had the time to write it. I do not mind admitting that there have been moments over the past few days that I have truly thought raising 4 kids was not possible. I was ready to pull my hair out! Then I was gently reminded by Shelby that I have felt this way after the arrival of each of our children, and that things will get better. He was right. Life already feels manageable, and I do not even remember what it was like before Emilia arrived. Bringing her home from the hospital was really like starting from day 1 again. Plus she had a few extra needs that she did not have when she was first born. The most difficult of these was a complex feeding plan that involved her having a feeding tube leading from her nose down her throat into her stomach. We had to feed her with a bottle as much as she would take and then gavage the rest through the feeding tube. The whole process took forever! We all hated the feeding tube, but Emilia hated it the most. She kept pulling it out. Finally we ran out of tape to retape it to her and gave up on the feeding tube. We got the OK from the in-home nurse when she came to weigh Emilia. When we left the hospital she weighed 6lbs 15oz. Now she is a whole 8lbs, which may not sound like much but we are thrilled. Every day she is more like a normal newborn baby. She rarely seems in pain, and is even almost entirely nursing now. She is a sweet and precious baby and we love her.

Lilly asked me if I went to the doctor and he cut a hole in my tummy and put the baby in there when I was pregnant with Emilia. When I told her that is not the way it works, her next question was of course "Well then how does the baby get in there?" I was just about to tell her that I am not ready to have this conversation with her when Rachel piped up "No mom no. There are eggs inside your body and one goes up into your stomach and it um...pops." I am sure by "pops" she means "hatches". I think her slightly vague explanation is perfect for now.

Last Thursday was Rachel's first day of school. You have never seen a child so excited. We bought her a princess backpack and two new outfits that she picked out herself. One was a blue t-shirt with blue leggings and the other was a sweater dress. Both were very cute but I found myself thinking "what if the other kids don't like sweater dresses? And what if they don't think princess backpacks are cool?" Rachel will be well-liked no matter what because she is a great kid, but this school thing is hard on parents! The first day I tried to talk her into letting me take her to school but she wanted none of it. She was going to ride the bus no matter what. I took her to the bus stop in the morning and waited with her. "Are you scared at all about the bus?" I asked. "No." "Are  you scared about kindergarten?" Again she answered "No." Finally when the bus pulled up, she was off. It was all I could do to get a kiss good-bye. When she got home, she told me all about her day. I understood very little of what she was saying, but the general sense I got was that it was a success. she made two new friends, but did not remember their names. She also liked her teacher but did not remember her name either.

While I was gone, the kids and Grandma found a cat face spider living outside our sliding back door. The thing is huge, the biggest spider I have ever seen around here. It has been there for weeks, and has only gotten bigger. They named it Elly, and every so often we see her through the glass door come down to her web to eat her latest catch. We all think it is so cool. I have never seen a spider live and eat this close up before, and since it is outside, it does not bother me a bit. It reminds me of Charlotte's Web.

Carson is so good with Emilia. Sometimes he can be overly affectionate. And often tries to give her her pacifier even if she is already eating, or sound asleep. He thinks she should always have it. He is also a little overly attentive and could use to give her some space. But with all of this it is clear that his intentions are always unquestionably good. Today he was singing her "Wheels on the Bus" which is his favorite song. Since he really cannot say most of the words of the song it was mostly inarticulate sounds along with the hand gestures. So sweet!

Going Home

It's official. They are letting us take Emilia home. She gets discharged from the hospital tomorrow morning. She is coming home with a near clean bill of health. The only extra issue we have is a feeding tube she will have to keep in for a week or two. Emilia takes a bottle, but eating requires a lot of extra effort on her part and she wears out fast. What she will not eat from a bottle goes into a feeding tube that runs from her nose into her stomach. It is not ideal, but it could be worse. After nearly two weeks of being in the hospital, I am anxious to get her home and to get back to life!

We feel incredibly blessed, not despite this event but because of it. We have so much to be thankful for that we have recognized because this happened. First of all, we are grateful that we live in a time where a condition that was a death sentence a few years ago is a relatively easy condition to repair. There are children in this hospital who will never live a normal life because of their health problems. We are thankful that Emilia will have no lasting effects from this. We have a lot of friends and family that love us. I always knew this, but I did not realize truly how many friends we had until they all rallied together to help us through this time. Holy cow, you all did so much! And you all did it so willingly. It eased the burden. We are thankful for the volume of people who jumped at the chance to love and care for our other children. We had more offers here than we have kids! We are thankful for the health we and our other children have taken for granted until now. More than anything we are thankful that in a few hours we get to take home our baby, and that we have the chance to love her and watch her grow and live her life. I want to thank every person individually who helped us through this, but there are too many of you. Please know, it meant the world to us. We love you all!