Summer Fun

Memorable Weekend

Memorial weekend happens to be my anniversary and it usually means Jim and I try to get away together to have a nice dinner and a little time alone. This year we were planning on traveling to my mother-in-law's house, spending a little time there and attending my nieces' birthday party, (Happy Birthday Zoe and Raegan!!) and then leaving the kids behind for an evening to ourselves.

On Saturday morning before we left home, I noticed that Charlotte had a little drainage coming from her ear. I figured it was a one time thing since she was not at all sick or fussy. But after the short trip to my MIL's house there was more goo coming from her ear so we made a quick trip to the ER. They said she had a middle ear infection and it had ruptured her eardrum. She had no fever, no runny nose, no sneezing, no sign that anything at all was wrong beside the goo. Actually, she was just as pleasant as could be, cooing, laughing and slightly more attached to Mama than usual. We filled her prescription and went on our way.

Sunday was the birthday party. Check this out...


It was at an indoor mini-golf place where everything was dark and fluorescent. The girls had a blast and enjoyed spending time with all the kids and family.

That evening we left for our special anniversary plan... with one little addition. We couldn't leave Charlotte. I know she would have been fine. But it turns out we are no less nervous Nellies with our third child than our first.

She joined us for Ethiopian food for dinner and then out for dessert after that. She was all giggles and smiles the entire time. It was the first alone time she has had with both of her parents in a long time (probably since we came home from the hospital.)

The next morning she rolled around on the big hotel bed and played in the pillows. I ask you, does this look like a girl with a ruptured eardrum and infection?



Today I took her to our pediatrician's office. They said it is still a mess in her ear and switched her medicine. The doctor said it is very unusual for this kind of infection to come without a cold or any other sickness. We don't have much experience with ear infections. Amelia had one once, but it cleared without any medicine, just some drops for pain. I hope we get this knocked out quickly and it never returns and I am very thankful that she is not bothered by it at all.

Super Villain

Jim taught the baby to laugh like a super villain. This isn't her best laugh, but you get the point.
Happy 8 months Charlotte!!

The A-word

So the conversation went something like this...

Kindergarten Boy: Hey Madeline, I am the A word.
Madeline: You mean aphid?

Spring Day

This past weekend we spent a lot of time outdoors. The yard was mowed, the hostas were split and new mulch was laid. It was the perfect weather to get some work done without getting hot.

Madeline and Amelia wandered between our backyard and the neighbors yard. I think it is going to be really nice this summer because they are both big enough to do most things on their own. There should not be nearly as much whining for me to push them on the swing. Plus the yelling for rescuing from the top of the slide should also be put to rest.

Charlotte rolled around on a blanket and discovered the grass. She had a little reaction to all of the allergens from the mowing and mulch, not to mention all of the pollen from the blooming trees and flowers. Still, I think she enjoyed being outside as much as the rest of the family.

Here is a short video of Charlotte on her 7 month birthday... enjoy...



(Thank you to the always classy OHmommy for the tip about Animoto)

HAPPY EASTER!

Something I said...

The conversation went like this...

Scene: Madeline, Amelia, Charlotte, Crystal - all sitting in the living room, with Amelia and Charlotte cooing and giggling.

Madeline: Mom, the baby doesn't like me very much.

Mom: Well honey, it isn't that she doesn't like you, it is just that Amelia spends a lot of time with her during the day and she and Charlotte just really like each other.

Madeline: Oh

Mom: But this summer when you are out of school you will have more time to spend with her and then she will like you better.

Amelia: Booooohoooooohoooooooo (breaks out into sobs and tears)

Mom: silent

Madeline: Mom, uh was it something you SAID?

Mom: Amelia, what in the world is wrong?

Amelia: (between sobs) You said she would like Madeline better.

Mom: Oh sweetie, I don't mean she would like Madeline better than you, just better than she likes Madeline does now.*

Note to self: should have used the words more than she does now instead of better

*oops

These Are Days

I have talked to a few of my friends with new babies, first babies, about how easy it is to forget the things that make those first moments special. How easy it would have been to forget exactly what Madeline and Amelia's faces looked like when they were crying if I would not have grabbed my camera for just a few seconds before comforting them. These crying photos are a very important reason to keep your camera out of the case, close by and charged up. A baby spends quite a bit of time as an infant crying and a mother and father spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out what each of those cries means. The crying photos of my girls are among my favorite pictures of them. They are just so real, unposed and full of feeling.

If I didn't have my calendars covered in notes, I would not have known that Charlotte was not an early crawler, but in fact within days of the same age that Amelia crawled for the first time. I have gone back and referenced my 0-12 month calendars for each of the girls countless times. They have been better than any published "What to Expect" book for my younger kids which works out well because I have never had time to go back to those kind of books since I had more than one kid.

It is the little things that make each stage of their little lives so special. Sometimes there are words that are just too cute to correct for a few months. Madeline and Amelia both still say "calipidder" for caterpillar and even though I have gently corrected them a couple of times I have not done so every time because it makes me smile. Even with their first words you can look back and see hints to personalities. Madeline's first word was a VERY clear "what" and Amelia's first word was "uh-OH."

I have always said that everything is a "stage." Good behavior, bad behavior, cute habits, annoying habits and everything in between, it is all stage. These stages usually last anywhere between 5 weeks and 3 months. The thing about kids is they are constantly changing. In an effort to remember it all, I take pictures, I take video, I fill out calendars and I blog.

Right now Amelia is the queen of silly faces. I don't ever prompt her, I can just sit down beside her with the camera and she goes at it. I don't ever want to forget it. I might love to look back at these pictures when she is a teenager and rolls her eyes and give me dirty looks for trying to get a good shot of her.

Spring Cleaning

Lately I have been taking all kinds of pictures and just dumping them on my computer. So it is time for a little spring cleaning and posting...

Enjoy this gummy grin because there is a tooth getting ready to bust though and bite you.

Last week, the day of Madeline's first soccer practice, I got a call from school that she had a little accident on the playground. Check out that mess!!

As you can see a few scratches on her face didn't slow her down a bit. I did realize that I need a longer zoom lens if I am going to be a professional soccer mom.

As some of you know, my Madeline is now six. What did she want? What did she ask that we get her? Yes, she has been asking for Smart Rinse mouthwash since her 5th birthday!! She also got a new bike, but really, she was most excited about the Smart Rinse.

Charlotte tried carrots for the first time. She started out happy but she found out they were not nearly as satisfying or filling as a nice relaxing bottle. Did I mention that she is now six month old and was 19lbs 4oz at her check up. She is still in the 95% for weight and 90% for her length and head.

It was also Amelia's birthday and she is now a big four year old. She picked out a Cookie Puss cake and decided to just go straight for the cone.

I can't get over how old she looks now. She has lost all the "baby" out of her face.

It is a good thing I still have this face around giving me all the "baby" I need right now.

As you can see, Amelia and Charlotte are really getting along great. Neither one of them can get enough of the other. They spend all day playing, laughing and "talking."

...And that takes care of March spring cleaning.

How Things Have Changed

I have a six year old daughter. I am not sure that there has been another six year time in my life that has resulted in so much change. Maybe the period when I was 0-6. I am guessing that was a pretty big change, but one that I don't really remember so I'm not going to count that stretch. Motherhood has changed me and there is no denying it.

Six years ago I had a new baby girl. She was my only child and I found her to be very portable. We were still going out to dinner once a week with a group of friends and we met every Thursday night. We spent late evenings out at friends' houses and it was no problem because she was on OUR schedule. She stayed up late, she slept in late and she took awesome naps. I took her shopping anytime, she was glued to my hip. I worked from home and had plenty of time to do it. While adding a baby to my life was a huge adjustment and learning to be a mother was the hardest thing I have ever done, I still had time for my life. I still had lots of friends and plenty of time to go and do and have fun.

Four years ago we added another little baby to our family. We tried to keep up with that Thursday night dinner, it lasted about a month. This was about the time that I realized it would be a better plan for all of us if we went with a schedule that centered on the girls. There were nap times to coordinate and alternate and it seemed like someone was sleeping all of the time. I had a two year old and a baby. Running out to the store was never quite as easy again. I could put the baby in the cart, but my two year old was not exactly ready to just walk beside me. So I adjusted the schedule so the girls went to bed at a normal kids' bedtime and I could run all my errands before the stores closed at night. Thank goodness for 24 hour grocery stores. I tried to keep up with my friends, but the calls and visits became few and far between. The biggest change in my life with the second child was working with their schedules instead of mine, but once I did that I got into a groove. During the day I took care of the kids and worked and at night I took care of me, spent time with my hubby and ran errands. I started blogging about this time. It started it as a way to share pictures with family but then I realized it was a great way for me to connect with other moms who were in the same part of their story as I was in mine. I could read and post at anytime of the night or day, it was just the kind of outlet I needed.

Then 6 months ago we added a third. I have mentioned before that she has been the easiest addition to our family. I didn't have a lot of "me" time to lose, but somehow I did lose what I had left. Actually, the more I think about it, it wasn't me time that I lost, it was that I changed what "me" time meant. I have surrendered to motherhood. I realized that if it doesn't center around my family that I just don't really want to do it. I love my family. I love doing things for us and all about us. When I think about "getting away," I think about leaving town, but doing it all together. I feel like I am in this 100% now. I am a mom 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and I don't get a break and I don't want one. That isn't saying it's not nice to run errands one afternoon kid free, but if that doesn't happen I can still find a way to get it done. It might take me all day to write a post for my blog, but this is something that I really enjoy, so I will fit five minutes here and five minutes there and I will continue to blog. I might not get to comment on all of my favorite bloggers latest posts, but I can read them in my feedreader even if I am a week behind. I might not be able to call my friends anymore, but I can check in with them on Facebook while I feed the baby or zip them a text while the kids scream at the top of their lungs. The things I chose to do, I do them around my family, not the other way around. This might seem like a little thing, but it is not. It makes all the difference.

My life has changed over the past six years and it is awesome. The post just skims the surface of all of the changes. My extended family has changed in ways I could have never predicted with great losses and surprising additions. My professional life has changed and adapted to fit and fill a different side of me. I haven't even touched on how my relationship with my husband has grown with the introduction of each child and every experience that we have shared. Becoming a mother has changed me into a person that I wouldn't have recognized six years ago. I can only imagine who I will be six years from now.

She's all ready to go go go go go.

For almost two weeks now Charlotte has been rocking back and forth getting ready to blast off. The big girls crack up, they call it "shaken' her bootie." She isn't yet 6 months old (still 8 days off) and she might just be crawling before then.
Neither of her sisters were big crawlers. I mean they did it, it just didn't last long. I know they were not crawling by 6 months. They both were walking well before their first birthday but it seems like crawling came just weeks before that and it was straight to pulling up and cruising around.
I have a feeling we are in a different boat this time. Sweet little Charlotte is going to be crawling before I know it. I just hope I don't miss it. But if a baby crawls for the first time and no one is there to see it, then I think it doesn't count. (Yeah, it is that whole tree in the forest deal.)
Here are a couple videos from today. Things to note, you can still see her little stork bite on her lower back, but it is fading fast and that wet ring around her neck, well that is what she looks like about 5 minutes after you put her shirt on. (Please don't tell me that means she is already getting teeth.)

Cute Kids....

I just thought I'd post some of the cute pictures of the kids I have taken lately. I haven't had as much time with my camera as I would like the past few weeks. I received a few great books on photographing children for Christmas and I haven't even cracked one of them. Day by day I am figuring out how to manage my time better and I think I'll get a little time for photography and blogging back soon.

So here are the 5 month old pictures of Charlotte....




Here is that little 5 month old in her cozy bear outfit. I have put her in this outfit everyday this winter when I walk to school to pick up Madeline. It cracks me up!!


I love this picture of the big girls. Oh the big girls, they are just as wonderful as I could ever imagine that they would be. The other night was pizza night and I had Jim pick up all the things we needed to make ice cream sundaes. Needless to say they were thrilled.


That's all I have for now. Please keep visiting and I promise to be back soon!!

No more take out...

Want to know what happened this weekend? We went from a family that gets Chinese take-out (and then fixes mac & cheese and steamed veggies for the kids) to the family that goes out for Chinese food!! The girls got these chopsticks for Christmas and we put them to the test last night.

As you can see from the pictures* below dinner was a SUCCESS!! The girls were incredibly well behaved. I am talking best-behavior-ever. I totally think these girls are the greatest kids on earth. I am one lucky, lucky mama.





Even little Charlotte was all smiles...


*please excuse the blurry camera phone photos

Wordle

I thought this was fun. It's called a Wordle and these are words that have been on my blog recently. I love that "little" and "minutes" showed up as some of the most used.

And the next thing you know...

...She is 4 months old. This 3rd child is rocking my world. In lots of ways she is just the easiest little baby. Actually, she has been the easiest addition to the family so far. But if I had 15 minutes to myself before she was born I was lucky. Now that 15 minutes is so far gone the only way I am sure it ever existed is by reading this blog. I must have had 15 minutes, every few days, to write blog posts. Maybe someday soon I will get that time back or maybe I will just get better at managing my time as a mother of three crazy little girls.
Anyway, here she is, my little (ok not so little) 4 month old baby.