I just realized that in three months we will be celebrating birthdays for a 3 year old, a 1 year old and a 31 year old all in one weeks time!

My "Used-to-be" Friend

I used to have this really good friend. We were REALLY close. It did not matter where I went, I had NO problem finding my friend. Until about a year to a year and a half ago.

My friend never visits anymore.

My "used-to-be" friends name is Sleep. It eludes me now. ALL. THE. TIME.

Used to be, I could lay my head down anywhere and be out. ESPECIALLY in the car! Sleep LOVED to visit me and stayed until I could not stand to be around Sleep anymore.

But then it happened. Or should I say SHE happened. Or, should I say Madeleine happened! Madeleine scares Sleep off. Ever since about half way through my pregnancy with her Sleep quit visiting. And, when Sleep DID visit, they were very short and uncomfortable visits.

When I had Mady, I expected Sleep to go away for a while. But, NINE. MONTHS. LATER. and Sleep still makes infrequent visits. I guess Sleep and Mads don't get along.

Actually it is not Mady that Sleep has a problem with. Mady has a better friend named Awake. Awake is Sleeps enemy and I guess Sleep doesn't like that Mads is friends with Awake. I am caught in the middle of Sleep and Awakes bitter fight. Sleep and I had such a great relationship, but Awake and Mads relationship is ruining it! Awake is much stronger than Sleep and ALWAYS wins.

Sleep TRIES to be friends with Mady. Every now and then they get a really good visit. Rarely, Sleep beats Awake and keeps Awake away ALL night! But, those nights are few and far between and I cannot see an end to Awake in sight.

I think Sleeps lack of good, quality visits is beginning to mess with my head!!

I miss you Sleep. PLEASE come back to me and become stronger than Mads friend, Awake. We would ALL appreciate it!!

Princess Pooter Tooter

Lovely bruise on her forehead, huh? That was her first. She now has a matching one on the other side of her forehead!

I walked in to Madeleine's room a couple of days ago when she woke up from a nap and this is what I found:




All of that should have been on the pretty red flowers on the wall:

A Message From Mads

r v47tg nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnbv4ym8y463fr33333333f3555553 yubritttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt5 mr tn56666nb mkiufuuuuuuuuuuu hthgy5 bg6 gmvutygg bjyjst 435iu toob6h7gh

Love,
Princess Pooter Tooter

The Quest

We have entered the keep-all-the-blinds-in-the-house-pulled-half-way-up-at-all-times phase with Mady's quest for independence! Which means we have also entered the buy-stock-in-windex phase again.

I would keep the handprints and slobber marks, but I have to make room for her to make more!

Cups....Finally!

I gave Madeleine a cup when she was about six months old to see what she would do. She instantly drank out of it. Not just an accidental-she-didnt-know-what-she-was-doing drink, a real drink. Ever since, when I give her a cup she takes a sip, wrinkles her nose and throws it down.

She knows how to drink out of the cup, just refuses, as she does with so many things! Well, yesterday I decided to tackle the cup with her. I was expecting a major battle, and she didn't let me down. Over an hour of her screaming and me offering her a cup. Finally, she was so exhausted from crying that she drank her formula from the cup and fell asleep.

Now, everytime I give it to her she looks at the cup and looks at me like she is deciding whether it is worth the battle. I say "Be a big girl and drink from a big girl cup" and she always smiles and starts drinking from the cup. Don't know why she likes that, but it works.

She had one bottle yesterday and DADDY gave it to her (but it was at bedtime).

Andrew has been wearing underwear all day and earlier he kept grabbing himself. Daddy told him to stop or it was going to fall off and he would be a girl.

He wrinkled up his face and said "I no be a girl, Daddy!"

Big Boy

Andrew has never been a fan of showers. He LOVES the bath, hates the shower. On rare occasions he has HAD to take a shower, because we are in a hurry or things are just that bad.

I said this afternoon that I was going to take a shower (yes, Paul is working from 5am-2pm shift 7 days a week and I cannot leave FIVE kids unattended long enough to jump in the shower. And when kids are getting up at 4:15 am I dont get a chance to jump in the shower BEFORE they get up, so it was THIS EVENING before I made it to the shower...but, I digress). Andrew jumped up and said he wanted to take a shower. Usually, he will SAY he wants to, he will get undressed, but as soon as he SEES the shower on, he runs away! I figured that is what he was going to do, so I played along.

Nope. He got in the shower. He got his hair wet and scrubbed his body with the wash cloth. I put shampoo in his hair and washed his hair and he rinsed it all out.

Top that with the fact that he has been wearing underwear ALL day and had ZERO accidents (yes, still kinda working on potty training too) and he is just turning all grown up!

There is a remote control dinosaur sitting in the bathroom he uses still in the box that he REALLY wants. I told him when he was using the potty ALL the time, he could have it. Otherwise he had to wait until his birthday (in April). He reminds me everytime he pottys that he still wants the dinosaur!

He knows what to do and when to do it, he just never wants to stop what he is doing to actually go to the bathroom!

Allergy-Ridden Head Lice

We had this conversation with Caleb (11 years old) at dinner. I guess I should consider this a clean dinner conversation compared to some others I have heard!

"I think I have head lice."

"Why do you think you have head lice?" I asked

"But they must be allergic to pollen." he said

"Why do you think you have head lice that is allergic to pollen?" I asked laughing

"Because my head itches when I go outside and I am allergic to pollen so they probably are too."

"So these allergy-ridden head lice only make your head itch when you go outside and they start sneezing from the pollen?"

"That is the only thing I can figure."

Because THAT makes PERFECT sense!!!!

And, for the record, he does NOT have head lice, with or without allergies.

Perfect Ending to a Busy Day

Last night Daddy was giving Andrew a bath. While he was playing in the tub, Daddy sat next to it drinking an ice cold water. He poured some on Andrew and Andrew started laughing (I mean body shaking laughs). Then he pulled a fish out of the bubbles and squirted hot water on Daddy (who was NOT expecting it). This made the body shaking laugh turn into a not breathing laugh.

This went back and forth for about 20 minutes. Before too long everyone was in the bathroom checking out what all the laughing was about. There bathroom seems like a decent size until you squeeze a family of seven (even Mads crawled in to see what all the commotion was about) in there. His laugh was contagious and in no time the entire family was laughing as hard as he was. What a perfect ending to a busy day!

YUM!!

Paul and I worked together on a SCRUMPTIOUS dinner tonight! We made peppered shrimp (chicken) alfredo. I don't eat seafood, so we made it with chicken, took some out and added shrimp to it. OH. MY. GOSH!! It was awesome!!
shrimp and chicken
chicken only

Sweet(?) Baby Kisses

As I have previously mentioned, Madeleine is VERY stingy with her sweet baby kisses. She blesses us with them occasionally, but usually keeps them to herself, no matter how much we make her giggle with our kisses.

This morning while we were playing, she wouldn't quit kissing me. Except the kisses were more like gnaw-moms-mouth-off type of kiss. After a while she stopped. Then, later, she did it again. I quickly realized WHY she was giving me these "kisses."

I have been using Burts Bees lipbalm, as this cold weather is not agreeing with my lips. This stuff works great. It is beeswax, vitamin E and peppermint. SHE was going after the peppermint! When the peppermint smell was gone, the kisses were gone as well. It usually last a long time, but when someone is trying (and doing a pretty good job at it) to eat your lips off the lip balm seems to fade a little quicker!

I guess I just take what kisses I can get while I can get them and try to avoid the biting and the baby tongue in my mouth!

You Might Live in the Deep South if.....

they cancel school tomorrow because "there is a potential for bad weather"!

What ever happened to getting up and watching the news when you wake up to snow or ice?

Which, by the way, we are NOT supposed to get!

Apparently, when you live this far south, they cannot go to school when it is THIS cold?

I was actually starting to get naps back on track too!

Weight Comparison

Mady is starting to get some chunk on her, so I thought I would weigh her today. She weighed in at 17 pounds 5 ounces.

I started wondering what Andrew weighed at this age (and since they were born the same month, it is VERY easy to look up January of 2008 on this great blog!!) Since I had two drs that considered him FTT (failure to thrive) because he was not gaining weight fast enough, I was just curious the size difference.

Andrew WEIGHED MORE!! He was 17 pounds 8 ounces at the beginning of January and 18 pounds 2 ounces at the end of January (that is when we started the Pediasure diet).

Kinda makes you wonder! Especially since, when we moved here and took him to see the pediatrician the first time, the dr looked through his chart and said he was NEVER FTT!!!

This is where I tell you that a mothers instinct is a very special thing and you should follow it!

Just in Case.....

AJ has been so excited about his new scooter and helmet that he wears the helmet ALL the time. He also has his shoes on all day (even when he naps) and stays dressed warmly (in his pajamas as much as possible) JUST in case someone decides to go outside so he can ride his scooter.




He always has hair sticking out of the holes in the top of his helmet

Yet ANOTHER Laundry Disaster!

Last week I was finishing up laundry and had a rather depressing discovery. I was washing light clothes (yes, you know where this is going). I had Mady's Christmas dress and monogrammed "panties" and also the little white outfit she came home from the hospital in. I was going through some stuff last week and came across it and noticed a little stain. I wanted to try to get it out because that is one of the things I would like to keep for her.

Well, as we have learned in this house, light clothes in the dryer usually equals a crayon of some color also in the dryer. The boys had not been going to school so I did not have school pants to check (so I thought) and those are the only light color pants the boys own. I have gotten a LOT better at checking pockets lately!

Apparently when I had made the boys clean their rooms, someone found some school pants and put them in the laundry. I did not notice the ONE pair of pants when I was putting clothes in the washer and there are no signs of crayon until they go in the dryer and MELT. ALL. OVER. EVERYTHING!!

So, I go to change out the laundry. I open the dryer and pull some clothes out and notice the RED SPOTS on the laundry. I frantically dug to find the "special" clothes and see the damage. It wasn't TOO bad on the socks and underwear, so I just hoped.

You know my luck! Those THREE special items of clothes got the worst of it. Bright red. THey were not even spots. They were GLOBS! Each glob was surrounded by greasy stains. I was in tears (I know....goofy thing to be in tears about). I immediately got the Shout (whoever invented this stuff should get the Nobel Peace Prize...it has more than once saved some kids in this house from having to run around NAKED all the time)!!! I sprayed and sprayed. I sprayed over 30 ounces and most of that was on those three pieces of clothing, I let it sit over night (which I don't always do, but I followed the directions EXACTLY this time). I got up and put them in the washer with some Tide Stain Releaser and waited.

After two washes, EVERY bit of the stains came out and I was rejoicing!! Her clothes are now safely tucked away and I am in AWE!!!

Adopted Dog

Paul has been researching for a dog that was good for backpacking, hiking, kayaking, etc. for quite some time now. Even since before his dog had to be put down over the summer. There was also other criteria that had to be met before a dog was going to be brought home. Like, it had to be a male (females don't normally do well together and we already have a female), had to be friendly, had to have short hair that required little more than an occasional bath, etc but most importantly....it had to be POTTY TRAINED ALREADY!!!

SO, this past weekend we set off to go find him a dog. Probably was not the smartest idea to do this at the END of the two and a half weeks off, but I digress!

After looking online, at pounds, adoption places, etc Saturday and Sunday morning, we found one. It is a spaniel mix (looks like he has a lot of Pointer in him). So far the only downside to him (other than he is still scared) is that the lady that fostered him let him sleep in her bed with her! I am not a big dog-on-the-bed kinda person!

So, this is Paul's new dog.



He is approximately two years old, house trained, laid back, QUIET dog. He loves to play outside and she says he loves water. He is really under weight because the other dogs at the foster home really beat up on him. I don't think they allowed him to eat much! Just in the few days we have had him he has already started putting on weight.

Did I mention he was quiet? He has barked once since we got him and that was when Caleb came home from school yesterday!

The first night he kept trying to get in our bed. We finally convinced him to stay on the floor and he took over Bella's bed. So, Monday morning we went and bought him his own bed!

When we got him his name was Bobby. Paul and I don't really care for the name (and there are too many B's with Bella, Beaux and Bobby) so Paul has been trying to find a new name for him. Last night he decided he was going to call him Krypto (that is the name of Superman's dog and Paul is a big Superman fan

Today he made the name fit very well! It was his first time to be left home alone. Paul put him in the big black wire kennel when he left this morning. When I got home he was out. The tray from the kennel was out, the kennel was pushed back the length of the kennel. SOMEHOW, this scrawny, little, QUIET dog BENT the bottom of the wire kennel and got out.



He did nothing to the house. He was VERY well behaved, except for the escape. I don't know how he did it other than he must be Superdog! Superdog is not such a cute dog name, but Krypto fits!

I was sitting on the couch and Mady was lying against me drinking her bottle. She fell asleep. I could not move so I asked Daddy to take her to her bed.

"She is out. She is okay there for a while."

I told him I couldn't even change positions and if she was out she could get in bed.

"But, I REALLY enjoy just watching her!"

Have I mentioned how much I love my husband?

And, yes - she is lying on the couch next to him sleeping!