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.

Ode to a One Year Old

This post is about Grayden. Not because he's my first and only child so that's what all my posts are about, but because today is his first birthday. Also, he is playing so nicely by himself right now that I actually have the time to type.

I know it's been said, but here goes: one whole year? It's unbelievable. Tonight I am going to make him a cake and let him blow out a candle and unwrap a new book, and he'll have no idea what's going on. But what I'll be thinking while he eats his cake is that the next time we celebrate his birthday he'll be two, and if it goes by even half as fast as his first year then he's practically two already!

Grayden is a very good kid. He's happy and social and loves to learn, he soaks up everything we tell him. His best words are banana and hi and Dada, and mama when he wants more food, but he also copies so many sounds of words we say I think he'll be adding to that list soon. He signs the words "all done" and "more", and he throws his hands up in the air when you say touchdown. He is in the stage between walking and crawling, where he'll walk until he falls and then crawl the rest of the way. He has about the same amount of hair he had one year ago. He has six teeth when I last counted a couple months ago. He just learned to go downstairs, a good thing since we have 17 in our house. He will sit and look at books and babble to himself, but he loves when we read to him even more. Balls are his favorite toys, any type of ball, and he loves to lift them high above his head and then throw them to you. He loves blowing bubbles in the water at bath time, sleeps at least 12 hours at night and two naps during the day, which makes his mother very happy. He'll do almost anything if I bribe him with going outside, he's an outdoors man. He unfortunately has absolutely zero interest in watching television. He thinks most noises are music and he dances and bobs his head to anything from the prelude music at church to the ice cream truck to a cell phone ring to the beeping of the microwave. He thinks he is the most adorable thing on the planet, and mostly, we agree.

April 2009:




April 2010:




Nate feels the need to give Grayden a mohawk when he puts sunscreen on him. Every time.

Happy Birthday, Little Dude.

April pictures say 1000 words

But I may add a few, just for fun.

First shiner.

Lots of driving.

Road trip at midnight.
(Does this look like a child who is awake five hours past bedtime? DOES IT?)

Muscle man

Huge, huge, trouble.

Also, we're moving to Las Vegas in May. Nate's new company is sending him to manage the work they're doing on this:

http://www.thesmithcenter.com/


Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Today is Bananas

B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

It's official. I always said that I wouldn't count any word as Grayden's first word until he said it on demand, three days in a row. Even Dada, which he says frequently, doesn't really count. But the past few days all I have to do is hold up that yellow fruit and he says NANA or NANANA (while grinning and kicking his feet and waving his hands). I can't say I'm surprised that it was food that motivated him.

Still in Utah

And we're having a great time. Seeing lots of friends and family, eating far too much, and going to sporting events such as last night's BYU basketball game.

It was like Grayden had died and gone to heaven.

I've since decided that the short attention span we all think babies have is a crock. My nine-month-old sat for over half an hour barely moving, watching the players warm up and the cheerleaders cheer and the loudspeaker boom and the crowd yell. He barely blinked. The only time he looked away was to hold his hand out for some popcorn, and as soon as a small piece was safely in his hand his eyes went straight back to the court before it even got to his mouth. I wish I had a video, it was laugh-out-loud funny.

Once the first half hour was over, he spent the next 2.5 hours in total bliss, looking around, clapping his hands, stomping his feet, watching the game, flirting with the people behind us, and mooching every last bit of food he could get his hands on. Popcorn, pizza, red vines, snow cones. He really had the time of his life. You never would have guessed it was two hours after his bedtime when we finally left the game, he was still in such high spirits. Possibly a sugar high, but still.

And we also won. So it was a good night all around.