Enough kids, no matter how many I have

On my walk with friends yesterday, one of them brought up the subject of people who have too many kids. She said that it seemed that people who have more than 6 have a house that's always trashed, kids that slip through the consequence cracks all the time, and a general disregard for their space.

I think that this would be the case no matter how many kids you have, depending on the temperament of the children and parents, how much personal time those parents must have (even at the expense of the home or kids), how organized and consistent the parents are, and how much time and effort is invested in training each child to care for themselves and their space.

I love having two older kids (well, "older", you know) who can help me be consistent with the little one concerning the rules. In some ways they make better police than I do, which sometimes leads me to tell them to ease up on her.

I knew of at least two families growing up that had more than 6 kids that seemed to do alright in the "raising responsible, happy people" department. I don't know what one family did to make that happen, but the other family has shared their secrets over time since the sheer number of kids they have (10!) has led to a lot of incredulous "how do you do it?!?" type questions. They simply had to run things in slightly unorthodox ways. For instance, all of the laundry happened in the basement. Each person had a drawer (or set of drawers?) along with space on a hanger rod where their clothes were kept. They all changed clothes down there (not at the same time or without a curtain, I'm sure!!) so all of the clothes were kept in one place unless they were being worn. This allowed for greater ease of gathering and sorting, washing, folding, and immediately putting away all of the clothes. She also spent a lot of effort teaching each of them how to pull their weight so that all of the tasks that seem to grow exponentially with the addition of each child were not so breathtakingly burdensome to the parents themselves.

The dad was able to keep working, mom was able to stay home and care for kids, each was able to hold and preform well in church callings, and their kids are turning out alright.

Makes me tired just thinking about it.

There are days when three is so enough that I can't even express myself. Days when I put them to bed, close their door, and stand in the hall just shaking for a moment before I can get back to either some down time or pulling the house back together.

Then there are other days, like this past Sunday, when I put an old blanket on the grass outside the church and enjoy a picnic while Man sings in the choir. We all eat apples and sandwiches and walk around before heading inside for drinks and potty before the meeting starts. It's peaceful, they share, they all make sure that Pebbles doesn't toddle off to the parking lot, we laugh, Princess tells some of her outlandish stories, Tag talks about how he's going to grow up to be a boy grandma and his grandkids will call him Charlie, and it really feels like home. Even though we're not in the house we live in.

It's too easy to lose sight of my priorities now vs. the time I'll have later when they won't need quite so much.

I'm still overwhelmed by the prospect of having a fourth child. I've heard a heart beat and I've felt little Frodo move a bit, and then I think of another two loads of laundry a week, and another piece of chicken that needs to go into the pot, another little person to bash his teeth into the pavement, more nightmares to sooth at night. And more baby smiles, toddler kisses and hugs, temper tantrums, first teeth, words, and steps.

I feel like I'm struggling to make my heart larger to accommodate yet another precious person in my life, and I just need to remember that as soon as I plant eyes on that little person I'll find that extra room an effortless thing to make. Heck yeah we have a large family. I'll have four kids at the age of 25 and Princess won't be quite 6.

But here I've been typing when I really need to do just about everything. Thank goodness I have such great kids who are willing to help so much. And a husband who is also willing to help when he can and is always available for hugs for everyone in the house. I'm so very proud of him.




(the kids have suggested names for the new baby: Edo (eed-oh) and Bingohd. Um, yeah)

A couple pics

Last night I took a couple pics after the kids were ready for bed.

Miss Pebbles in her new sunhat. Her face has got neosporin on it, making it shiney. The worst part of the burn is on her cheek where a blister rubbed away and left a scab. It looks like the rest will just peel in a while.



And here's Snaggle Tooth. The other front incisor is the one that has a slight chip out of it. He has an appt on Thurs for a full exam.



And Miss Princess watching Clue. Those people are crazy but I'm not sure how seriously she takes it. I love that movie, especially when the butler starts explaining everything at the end.

Dentist!!!

Hey guys, I found a nice dentist who is just down the road. Apparently I was looking on the wrong website (gosh, who knew that I'd have to go look at United/Concordia instead of Tricare/Triwest) and there are several in the area without having to go up on post.

Pebbles has a new dr now, and it turns out that there have been a lot of complaints about the dr I'm dropping. I have now changed all three kids over from him and am feeling pretty good about that decision. Adding to the list of stuff what's gotta happen when I move: ask real people in the community who they love and hate before just switching and taking a chance.

When we left our heroes....

It was only Thursday. Ha! Well, On Thursday we went to visit Grandma B. That was fun. I drove there and back again, which gives me a whole new awe for the phrase "there and back again". Holiday traffic was really terrible and by the time I got into familiar waters on the way home my fingers were numb from griping the steering wheel.

Oh, we also found out why traffic was so awful on Wed. A car flipped on the highway toward the north end of town which of course is the direction everyone was trying to escape to. Thus, the closed on ramps and hundreds of cars milling about with no where to go for a few hours. Next year we may just catch some fireworks on Youtube. ;)

Which brings us to Friday. Man had a class BBQ for most of the day, starting at 10am. I got there a bit late since I was making sure we had everything we needed for such a long haul at the beach and then Man called to ask if I could bring all (8!!) of our folding chairs. So, out goes the extra seat in the van and I furiously clean chairs to get all of the jello off. By the time I got there I was already wondering if it was worth the effort. Man greets me with the information that we probably only needed 4 after all. After I cast a Baleful Look upon him, he meekly got Pebbles strapped onto him in the baby carrier and carried all four chairs. I was there long enough to get the kids fed before I had to run home because I forgot immunization records for the kids and had to run them over to a dr's appt to get shots. I was just walking into the office for our 1:30 appt when Man called me up to let me know that a mandatory meeting had been called for 3 and could I please try to get back to the beach by 2:30 so I could pick up Pebbles? Um, not likely. Two kids were getting new patient appts, updated shots, and I had to go downstairs to get my prenatal bloodwork battery. No problem, he says. He'll ask someone to watch her and he'll try to hurry.

Shots were going well until Tag actually got one. He cried but did a pretty good job. I should have made Princess go first. She saw him crying and got hysterical. I had to take Tag out to the waiting room and left him with a book while I went back to wrestle with PB. It took three of us to hold her down and a total of 40 mins for her to get her shots and calm down afterward. By the time I got out to the waiting room a whole bunch of nice strangers were giving Tag stickers, coloring pages, bandages, and generally fawning over him. Apparently he started to cry after I left him. After thank yous and I'm sorrys, I hustled them out of there, got my work done really quickly, got lost on the way back to the beach (thank you, downtown) and got there in time for Man to have been waiting for about an hour. Two sergeants from his class watched Pebbles and all three of these men didn't think to keep her in the shade that whole time so she has several 2nd degree burns on her face from being out in the sun for 4 hours. ARGH! Thank you, sergeants, though, for preventing Man from getting an Article 15.

Anyway, we got home and crashed. Movies, leftovers for dinner, much sleep.

Saturday, I was running late so Man took Tag to a birthday party at a place in town that has basically a bunch of bouncy castles. Tag decided to jump off of a 5 foot wall and face planted AGAIN with the SAME THREE TEETH and ended up a bloody mess again. Fortunately, the birthday boy's dad is an eye dr and had dr friends over with their kids for the party, and one of them happened to be the ENT that Man was working with a while ago. He took a look at Tag's mouth and said that he likely had a minor fracture in his upper jaw but that really a dentist wouldn't be able to do a whole lot with it since it's all baby teeth. Good to know. I'll still see if I can take them up on post though, just for a check up, you know.

While Man was gone I cleaned the whole house which had suffered from our comings and goings. We chilled the rest of the day.

Sunday, church and then a BBQ with friends! Thanks, M, for hosting. The food was good and plentiful, and it was nice to relax with some great friends. Friend K even brought me a birthday gift! A cookbook!! Who knows me? lol It's a great one with some classics revisited.

I watched Doom last night. Dude, not a whole lot of story line and tons of gore, but it's pretty cool if you've ever enjoyed a first person shooter video game or ever dreamed of being a Marine. Neither of which I've ever really done, but it was kinda geeky cool anyway.

In good news, Pebbles had another sore on her rear that looked very much MRSAish but after several days of close care it's almost gone with no antibiotics. I was very happy about that.

Which of course brings us to today. LOL I have a short list of errands to run, a walk to go on with friends, and my birthday dinner to prepare. I'm thinking a Costco tray of California rolls, a fruit salad, and mashed potatoes with corn. Yum! Time to go clean the house again before our walk.

Good tooth news

Now that we've had about 18 hours since the tooth incident, the loose one has stopped wiggling and feels pretty secure. The one that got pushed in a bit looks like it has migrated a bit toward its natural spot and the gums aren't swollen anymore, making the whole thing look a lot more friendly by daylight. He doesn't need painkiller today but he's still wanting soft, small foods. I'm not sure if it's the novelty of it or a sensitivity. Once the swelling in his lip goes down, I'm sure his smile won't look a whole lot different.

Fireworks!

So we had friends over and had a nice dinner. We left a bit late to go see fireworks but got a pretty good seat up on post. The kids enjoyed it. I was surprised at how short it was. I've seen more impressive displays in someone's backyard (Cheers, GR!) than what we witnessed tonight.

But I also got my first look at a real, honest to goodness, total traffic gridlock. A 15 mintue drive turned into 90 minutes of stop and go, but mostly stop. The major onramps to the highway were blocked which left people from our town anad some surrounding cities turning around and around in downtown trying to find a way to lever ourselves out of the madness.

Lesson learned: I like smaller cities, or at least ones that are laid out with greater efficiency. Also, no silly fireworks display is worth that sort of frustration.

My friend did make an excellent point, though: this is our first Independence Day as Army wives. Let freedom ring, baby! And with that, I'm hitting the hay.

First decently major tooth accident

Well, it finally happened. A few months ago Princess wiped out on the trampoline and ended up with a really fat lip but her teeth were spared.

Tag was not so lucky today.

He was trying to hide in an outdoor toybox at a neighbor's house when he slipped and caught his face on their cement step. Here is a tooth chart, just for reference. His #7 is knocked loose and his #8 is shoved up into his gum a tiny bit. I think I see a speck chip out of his #9 as well. I'm not sure whether to take him to a dentist only to be told that he's fine and lucky that it was baby teeth. Don't mouths heal pretty quickly? We're going to wait a bit a make sure that things are working out before freaking out. He already has a dr appt on Friday so I might have her take a peek as well.

::sigh:: It had to happen some time, right? Smoothies and pudding for the invalid until his teeth aren't so sensitive.

Other than that our 4th has been pretty nice. We've taken a few minutes here and there to pick up and do dishes but mostly we've hung out. We've played games, Man went out with Tag earlier so he could ride his bike somewhere besides right next to the house. We have friends coming over shortly but one of them had to make a detour to the ER on their way over here, so we're having a late dinner. We're not sure what we're going to do about fireworks but we might just call it a night. Tag fell asleep at the table drinking some juice and didn't even complain about being transferred to his bed. We're still planning on a visit to grandma's house tomorrow. That should be nice and relaxing. :)

After researching, I'm very upset to find that the closest dentist who will take our insurance is 62 miles away. What the heck?? (fuming) That is just ridiculous.

OB Appt

After 4-5 pages of paper work to fill out, I got in to see my OB.

He's a funny guy who's balding, wears a pink button up shirt under his white coat and a breast cancer lapel pin. Gay? Likely, but for some reason that makes me feel a lot better about him as this sort of dr. lol

Anyway, he had to fish around for the heartbeat but then found it front and center and poudning away at 164 beats per minute and strong as a hammer on anvil. He was very impressed at how strong the heart was and, after listening for a moment, declared that he could hear both valves functioning which meant that all four chambers were developed and functioning.

And, as far as he's concerned, I'm a picture of health. He told me that the results of this exam were precisely what he hopes for on a late afternoon.

Ha!! And to think I was nervous. You never know what you're going to hear with that first doppler, like that first ultrasound (which we're going to schedule for around 20 weeks) and I was relieved not only to be able to hear it, but to hear it vary as little Frodo kicked around (a sign of good nerve and brain development), to hear it so strong, and to get the good Dr's very positive assessment.

I go back in 3 weeks for a brief follow up. :) Things go smoothly! Due date is still Jan 4th.

Out of the mouths of babes

Princess lately has been getting into this really bossy, snotty, know-it-all phase. But hey, kids learn by example don't they? Sometimes there are great nuggets of wisdom in what she says and I have to swallow my pride and acknowledge that she's right.

This morning I was reading the comics online and she asked for some eggs for breakfast.

M: Wait just one minute, please.

P: Are those important?

M: Not really, why?

P: Well, shouldn't you be doing what's important? Like, feeding me so I don't starve and die?

M: Gee, when you put it that way I just can't argue.

The point is well-made except for the attitude behind it. Miss Smarty Pants. Did you ever notice that the initials for Miss Smarty Pants (MSP) are just a rearrangement of PMS?

But she was right, darn it.

Visiting family

This past weekend we had the opportunity to enjoy one of Man's sisters and her family. It sure was a full house but I sure enjoyed all of them. They have two teenage boys (excellent young men) and three little girls who all match my kids in their various ages. It was fun to see the strong family resemblance and behaviors that have got to be genetic. My SIL and I also got to sneak away to the store for a bit while the men watched the kids. That was such a nice opportunity to get out of the house for a while. Like that Coldplay song... "all that noise, all that sound."

Plans for the 4th of July: relax!!! Maybe take a picnic to the beach. Maybe I'll realize that a picnic at the beach would mean literal sandwiches. The day after we're going up to my grandma's house for the day.

I have my first real OB appointment tomorrow! I'm pretty excited and a little nervous. Princess and Tag have appts this week to FINALLY get caught up on immunizations and get Tag's asthma meds updated. We're going to see if we can drop the Zyrtec entirely since he did without before we moved. We may have to keep it up with all of the moving we'll be doing, and for now I think it's better to keep up the Zyrtec rather than risk having to put him on a course of prednisone. On the other hand, I prefer as little medicine as will keep him safe. Here's hoping. I also told them that they could pick any treat (stickers, gum, water gun) they wanted after they get shots especially since Princess is due for 4. After my monster shots a couple of weeks ago, I treated myself to some peanut butter M&M's and a couple of $7.50 movies at Target.

After shots get updated, I get to register Princess for her first year of public school. It'll be interesting to see how it goes. She has the personality to do well in that setting and I'm working hard now to make sure that she can take care of her own body before then. She's already really good at most things, but lately we've been trying to get her to turn on her own shower water. Why is that scary? Oh, well, it is, so motivating factors have to be added to the experience. I tell her "when you have turned the water on yourself, I will help you adjust the temperature. You get to shower yourself completely, get dressed in clothes you choose, and if you have time after your shower and before bed, we can read some books."

And then I walk away. Sometimes it takes a while for her to turn that first knob.

Man gets to turn older this week. On Sunday I got to stand in front of the Primary kids and get sung to for my birthday as well, but Man had a sleeping Pebbles in a different room. The poor guy didn't get his birthday sticker.

On Friday we have a bbq with some people from Man's work. Saturday, I'm going to work this week to make sure we have absolutely nothing but family time. And maybe some naps. :)