Adding to the List

Mostly for journaling purposes. Ye be warned.

Last night Brianna, age four, woke up twice telling me her ear hurts. I finally gave her some junior motrin, but she ended up sleeping next to me....(with the kicking, passing gas, talking, and laughing all in her sleep, I can't say I slept much)....she mentioned it again this morning about an hour after she woke up. I checked it with an otoscope and her sore ear is dark red. Fab! So, the four-year-old has an ear infection and, to top it off, Grayden is cutting a tooth. He cut his bottom two teeth over Christmas in Chicago, three of his top four during a February trip to Utah, and now in Washington he is getting two more on the bottom. What is it with this kid and teething while traveling?

Grayden has done other crazy things here, like weaning himself off a bottle. He weaned himself off breastfeeding months ago, and had no problem switching from formula to milk in April, but before we got here he loved having his one daily bottle of milk before bedtime, and it was a great way to get him to drink milk since he prefers water in his sippy cup. Ever since we got here, he takes a swig or two from his bottle, but then is done with it. I wouldn't mind, only now I have to think of creative ways to get some milk in him. Also, he has not crawled at all since we got here. At all! When we left Phoenix if he fell while walking and he was close enough to where he wanted to be, he crawled the rest of the way. I think it's because he saw the little kids walking, and he's decided he's one of them (that might explain the sudden anti-bottle attitude), because crawling ceased to happen the day we flew in and he hasn't gone back. It's led to many bumps on the head.

My sister Chandra left me about 40 frozen Dream Dinners. They are nice if you're in a bind, but I like cooking and I honestly haven't loved the taste of them. I can't make anything too exotic because these kids are super picky, but they liked my homemade spagetti sauce and they'll eat most things if put over rice.

I found Hostess raspberry filled powdered donuts at the Walmart here! They don't have them in Phoenix! When I can't stomach a Dream Dinner, it's a good alternative. Feel free to place bets on how much weight I'll gain in this two and a half weeks.

Josh, age 10, got Grayden out of bed this morning (I don't know why he suddenly felt the need, I've gotten him every other morning) and gave him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast. Peanut Butter. Awesome. Because that specific allergy and many others run in Nate's family, I've been told by the doctor to wait until he's 18 months or two years to give him peanut butter. So now I have to watch for allergies....he had two bad diapers in a row right after eating, I hope that doesn't mean anything. Apparently the first time doesn't really matter as much, but the second time can be worse so I'm a little nervous....I wouldn't even know how to get to a hospital around here. When I got here I did buy a peanut free almond butter and told the kids it's because Gray can't have peanuts yet, but who can expect a ten-year-old to remember much of anything.

And lastly, Chandra is choreographing the local "Joseph" production and apparently told the director I could help out if he needed me since I dance and have done that show twice.....which he misunderstood as "Mandy can come to rehearsal three times a week and teach the dances." So, when I'm not watching 7 kids here at home, I'm teaching 20 teenagers how to dance 60s style, calypso style, and partner square dancing!

There you have it, a day in the life. It makes me laugh to know that many mothers of multiple children are reading this thinking, yeah, so what? I agree, as long as I make it through the next week with no broken bones, I'll be happy.

On The Fourth Day In Washington

So far we've had throwing up, missing car keys, snotty noses, bed wetting, broken glassware, skinned knees, hacking coughs, forehead gooseggs, 8 loads of laundry.....

And a partridge in a pear tree.

Thank heaven I'm not truly a single mother of seven children.

My sister and her hubby are celebrating their 20th anniversary on a Mediterranean cruise, and I am caring for 6 of their 7 kids. For two weeks. So far it's been quite eventful. At this rate we'll have broken bones for sure. Besides that, however, they have been very good to play with Gray and that makes him happy, and they are so funny I laugh a lot.

Here are a few goodies from today:

"You have to be naughty when you play kung fu---because of the hitting"

"Pork chops are grody if the pig rolled in the mud" (said out of the blue, no pork chops present)

"I accidentally drew two dresses on you, so one of them can be a cape"

"Give me back that toy, it's not a part of your future, it's a part of my future"



Right now they are as loud as elephants in the room above me, but they are supposed to be sleeping. That's one thing I was most worried about, all the noise with Grayden sleeping. At home when Nate leaves for work at 5:30, he just has to walk past Grayden's room and it wakes him up. By some miracle, he sleeps through all of this racket....I'm talking seriously loud noise, jumping off top bunks, pretending to be rocket ships running up the stairs right in front of his room, yelling at each other to be quiet. Just the decibel level of the four-year-old girl's helium voice is enough to wake me up every morning, and he sleeps through it. What a blessing.

Alright, time to go bust some heads. Good evening to you all.

Scientific Progress Goes "Walk"

Nate can catch pretty much anything on his special new iPhone. Now that Grayden has decided he's a walker (and it took him a long time from his first steps), we should have all sorts of really boring home videos to post. Blame the technology, folks.