Thankful

I am most grateful for my family.  Some scenes from Family O this past Thanksgiving.

Singing 'the wheels on the bus' to his little sister.

Playing with play dough-pure entertainment for Newbie O and her big brother loves an audience.

Evenings on the front porch.

Is there any other way to spend the first night of Thanksgiving break than taking a bubble bath in Mom and Dad's tub?  Not in this house.

 These are supposed to be bunny ears, but I think they look like horns...

Tummy time with big brother.

My new running partner.

Big brothers wanted in on the action.

Boy O loves to play football with his Dad.  He's really good too.  Kind of scary how good.

Here's a family photo-not everyone is happy.  And yes, Newbie O's entire head of hair is one big cow-lick.   She prefers to wear hats most days.

From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

The Tag Team

It would be an understatement to say that I need more sleep.  There seem to be too many mornings when I wake up groggy and cranky feeling like the previous night was a tag team wrestling match.  My kids are the mighty wrestlers and I am the one being flung around the ring by my ankles.

Newbie O is not the greatest sleeper.  At her best, she wakes up three times a night to nurse.  At her worst....well, it's not good.  By four or five in the morning, I'm exhausted, give up and she eventually falls asleep between Daddy O and myself.

Baby O has gone from being a fabulous sleeper to regularly getting up at least once a night for any silly, inane reason.  It started when we moved with all the unfamiliar sounds of the new house.  Then it was onto needing to go to the bathroom.  Then it was just needing a hug.  Then it was because his toe hurt or he needed to blow his nose...and now it's most often because a stuffed animal has fallen off the bed.

Boy O is awesome-he rarely has a moment in the middle of the night...

...until...

MONDAY NIGHT-THE PERFECT STORM
It started out pretty normal.  Newbie O and the boys went down at their normal bedtime. Newbie O woke up for her normal late night feeding around 11:00 pm.  I remember waking up a couple hours later thinking, Wow! She's doing great, I haven't heard a peep....

Boy O nudged me awake around 2:00 am saying he didn't feel well.  His temperature was a whopping 104.3 degrees.  Normally I panic when the kids go into high temperature mode, but after having two expensive ER visits in the previous year for a simple dose of Tylenol, I managed to stay calm and Daddy O stayed with him for the next hour waiting for his fever to come down. And down it came.  Whew.

Second feeding at 2:30 am.  3:36 am-Baby O ran into our room screaming that his dream lite had fallen off the bed.   4:02 am-Newbie O got up again. 4:42 am-Baby O's dream lite fell off the bed again (followed by an intense screaming session).  The screaming woke up Newbie O so I gave up putting her back in her crib and tried to catch some shuteye before our morning officially started.  Baby O woke up at 6:00 am bright eyed and bushy tailed.  Newbie O stayed sound asleep with a faint smile smudged on her face in the warmth of our bed and I only wish I could say the same for everyone else.

KID # 1
Boy O's fever was kept in check on Tuesday with more Tylenol and rest.  Daddy O came home to spend some time with him while I took Newbie O and Baby O to the doctor for previously scheduled wellness checks.  A couple of minor issues, but everyone was deemed happy and healthy.

Boy O was not able to shake the fever and after a couple hours of medicine, his fever would shoot right back up to 104 degrees.  He got into see his pediatrician on Wednesday who discovered that he had pneumonia.   And I'm happy to report that after a couple more nights of a high fever and some antibiotics, he is doing much better. Other than developing a sudden aversion to taking liquid medication, Boy O has been an ideal patient.  So quiet and stoic.  I know I would have been a whiny mess at that age.

Lots of rest in front of the television.  Lots of cajoling him to eat and drink anything at all...not even a strawberry smoothie made with ice cream worked.  In the last four days he has had a total of 4 clementines, 2 fruit roll-ups, 1 animal cracker, 3 slices of salami, a bit of homemade chicken-pot-pie and a sip of hot chocolate (didn't even try to eat one of the marshmallows).

As of now, the doctor has given him a clean bill of health and I have many plans to fatten him up over the next few days.

KID # 2
I don't know how to resolve his sleep issues.  We've tried pretty much everything we can think of and are hoping this is just another phase.  Is it just his age?  When will the screaming stop?  He screams at every little thing.  It's hard to know when something is really wrong.  Baby O screams just as loud when a piece of his pancake doesn't make it on the fork as he does if he falls off the monkey bars and splits his lip.  We try to remain calm and instruct him to use words instead of  howling screams, but gee whiz it's hard to maintain the peace inside my brain when I'm woken up by blood curdling screams in the middle of the night.  I sprint to his bedroom, thinking the worst....only to discover that his dream light fell off the bed or his toe nail is catching on the sheet.  Year three is turning out to be very loud.

This was one of those times where the food didn't make it onto the fork and the camera happened to be at the ready.  Unfortunately and not surprisingly, the sound of the flash didn't do anything to improve the mood.

KID # 3
Up until the perfect storm, Newbie O was still sleeping in our room.  In her crib, but still in our room.  I don't really see any way around that-it was incredibly convenient when she was a newborn to have her at our bedside for hourly feedings.  Four months later,  I don't think anyone was sleeping particularly well with the said sleeping arrangements and on Tuesday morning, I half-hazardly stated that Newbie O should start to sleep in her own bedroom.  About 40 minutes later (around 6 am), wondering where my husband had gotten  off to,  I saw that the crib had been quietly dismantled and placed into the baby room.  Hmmm....was he trying to tell me something?

In her own room!

AND EXHALE...
I think sometimes, things have to get worse before they can get better.  I had to let myself get beaten up in the wrestling ring to make some changes.  Having my bedroom back was and is a huge step towards getting more sleep and more space.  Newbie O is handling it just fine and even though I have to get up to nurse her a couple times a night,  the quality of slumber in both bedrooms is much improved.

There's something to be said about having some breathing room.  After four months of tiptoeing around my bedroom, kicking Daddy O each time he began to snore and sleeping with the bathroom light on,  I can finally take a relaxing bath, watch television in bed or heck, I can even flush the toilet without having to worry about waking the 'sleeping bear'.

I'm still in need of a full night's sleep, but this was a giant step in the right direction.  I can breathe again.  Now if I can just get Baby O to stop the screaming....

Little Helper

It's been a crazy week.  I'm writing all about it in a addition to another post that isn't just a cute kid picture or an update, but then this happened and I had to change direction for just a moment.

Baby O loves to help me in the kitchen.  This morning he requested pumpkin pancakes and pulled out the stool immediately.  I love moments like these in the midst of all the chaos that has been the last 48 hours.

From beginning to end.

Four Months

Four months have passed since Miss Sassy Pants was born.  She has graduated from what we call the bobble head and wet noodle stage to holding her head up and rolling all over the place.  Put her on a flat surface and rest assured, she will turn over (and over and over...).  She's got a great smile and in the last few weeks has started to laugh.  It's never the same thing twice-sometimes it's a silly face or the wind or maybe a simple nursery rhyme that can produce her giggles.  So we all take turns trying new comedy routines on her.  We must look ridiculous.  But it's all worth it when you get this:

What else can I say about Newbie O?

She's what we call a 'binge drinker' and from time to time has trouble holding her milk.  Her dark hair has not fallen out and sticks straight up in the air.  If I don't dress her in pink or put a gigantic bow on her head, people like to comment on his Mohawk.  I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I have actually stooped so low as to put product in her hair and given her a nice blow dry.  Although she enjoyed it immensely, her hair still would not cooperate. Thank goodness my mother likes to make hats!  This would be a good hair day:

She is not the best sleeper in comparison to her soon-to-be playmates.  All the other Moms seem to be sleeping through the night while I am still up several times making sure she's got a full  stomach.   I'm looking forward to these 'schedules' that all the books talk about, because no matter how hard I try, there is no bleeping schedule yet.  But I digress....I'm blaming it on the lack of sleep.

All jokes aside, she's perfectly perfect and it will be interesting to see the new changes that take place in the next whirlwind of a month (and yes, I'm crossing my fingers for more sleep).

Halloween Festivities

October is always busy.  Besides multiple birthdays, there are Halloween costumes to be chosen, pumpkin patches to visit, a plethora of spooky parties to attend and of course, the culmination of it all-trick or treating.  Costumes are never difficult for this family and within 5 minutes of entering the store, Spider Man and Iron Man were in the cart.  It was really fun to see Baby O partake in choosing his costume this year.  We were a bit surprised with his choice of Iron Man, but he never wavered once.  No other costume (not even Thomas the Train or the Hulk) would change his mind.

After last year's rotting pumpkin debacle, we made an appearance at the pumpkin patch much later in the month and carved them just days before Halloween. This was a much better plan and the pumpkins are still intact on the front porch, albeit a bit droopy after being out in the Texas heat.

Baby O honed in on his pumpkin right away, while Boy O took quite awhile to pick the absolute largest pumpkin he could possibly carry.

Newbie O also participates in all the activities, but it's hard to get a picture when she's being worn by the photographer, so here she is all dressed up and mighty happy to be a little pumpkin.

We go old school with the pumpkin carving-no fancy shmancy tools.  Just a knife and a spoon is all you need.  Of course this also means that we have to watch a little bit closer-at one point, Baby O took a knife and tried to carve his pumpkin himself.  We made sure to be a bit more careful after that.

Boy O's creation was my favorite.  The biggest pumpkin ended up having the smallest face.  I think it looked the spookiest.

Our new neighborhood puts on a fantastic Halloween bash the weekend before Halloween, but there is no trick-or-treating on the actual day.  We loved the party, but felt slightly strange about not going door to door on the actual day, so we packed everyone up, drove around until we found a nice neighborhood, and crashed their Halloween.  It was great!  Apparently we chose a retirement community, so it was fairly quiet and not too busy. 

The boys did a great job saying 'trick or treat' and 'thank you', but Baby O definitely needs to work on not ringing the door bell so many times and just walking right on in when someone opens the door.  The costumed person below didn't even make him pause....I think he asked him what his name was and why he was dressed up right off the bat.  Such cuteness but still had to have the stranger/danger talk again.

After Baby O went to bed, Boy O sat up for quite some time sorting and counting candy.

I wonder if he's going to notice all the pieces I've quietly taken from the bowl...

Maximum Load

The rule at the pumpkin patch is that you have to be able to carry it out by yourself.  He managed to lug the largest pumpkin he could possibly lift all the way up to the scale, where we took pity on him and transported it to the car for him.

SEVEN!

Wow.  Seven.  I can't believe Boy O is seven.  It's a common theme in my posts now-time seems to be moving forward at an incredible pace.  I had hoped to have a birthday party with friends and family, but with Newbie O and life in general, I just could not get it together enough to plan the fabulous superhero themed party I had envisioned in my head.  There's always next year.  So instead, we celebrated in superhero style in our usual low-key way.  Family, food, presents, and all the superheroes you can imagine.

It started a bit early the night before-we let him open one birthday present early for movie night.  If you guessed The Avengers, you would be right on track. He was thrilled-especially since I had promised a fun evening of watching the first presidential debate I had taped previously.

Here the boys are in good spirits the next morning having a wonderful Spiderman breakfast.  He opened one more present at breakfast-an extra 30 minutes at bedtime.

Then it was onto our favorite Ethiopian restaurant where we met family and feasted on injera, shiro and other traditional favorites.  I got a big kick out of Boy O-his cream soda looked like beer and he looked like such a mini grown-up whenever I glanced over at him.

We were so full from lunch that he actually opted to save the birthday cake for later.  Presents definitely held a much higher priority.  Beyblades, superheros and legos were at the top of the list this year.

Boy O wanted a 'Beyblade' cake this year.  This was a hard one and I thought long and hard about how to create it.  Not my greatest masterpiece, but it's the thought that counts, right?  He said he loved it and even though I thought it looked a bit evil, it was mighty tasty.

And as tradition dictates, a letter to my oldest son on his seventh birthday:

Dear Boy O,

It's been another big year of changes for you.  We moved again, switched schools and added another member to the family and although I know you miss our old neighborhood, house and quality time alone together, you have managed to embrace it all with an incredible amount of enthusiasm.  You amaze me.

I want you to know that despite your brave face, I see how difficult it is to adjust to all these new things that have been thrust upon you.  I feel your frustration when seeing our time diverted to a tantrum throwing three year old and a new infant.  I want you to know that our love has and will never diminish-not even one bit-for you.  I want you to know that it weighs heavy on my mind.

You are seven.  Seven!  You still love superheroes.  You love commercials more than the intended television program.  You love wearing long pants on sweltering hot days. You love competition (and HATE losing).   You love soccer, building forts, swords, and capes.  You love to lay down on the floor of the library and surround yourself with books.  You love to chase and antagonize your brother.  You love to make your sister smile.  You love to help out in any situation.

Physically, you have grown by leaps and bounds.  In just one year you have outgrown 4 shoe sizes and at age seven, your feet and hands are as big as mine.  It will not be long before you tower over me.  It's so hard for me to pick you up now, but I try as much as I can because I know I won't be able to hold you in my arms and carry you to bed much longer.

You are so fiercely independent that I know I won't have to worry too much as you get older.  But I still want you to know that your Dad and I will always be here to hold your hands and swing you up in the air anytime you need it.  Once again, I can't tell you how lucky I am to be your Mom.

Much love to you and please don't grow up too fast.

Mommy O