Don't Say To Me

Sam's giving me a run for my money today. Apparently, he doesn't like to be told no. I know . . . shocking!

The first time I told him no this morning, he answered, "Mom, don't say to me. You has to be nice to babies." He likes to classify himself as a baby ONLY when he thinks it will benefit him.

All day long, I've been hearing variations on the above. "Don't say to me. Don't you talk to me that way. You talk nice. You have to listen to me." He's pretty much repeating everything that comes out of my mouth and turning it right back on me. On and on and on all day long. At least I'm laughing inside as I pull my hair out. Is it naptime yet!?

Sam in all his misery

About the 10th time I told him to turn off the water and made him get down from the sink, he said very sternly, "You has to be nice to babies AGAIN!"

Not a minute later, I heard a big splash. He had climbed back up to the kitchen sink and dumped a big bowl of cold, dirty dishwater all over himself (and the floor!). Crying, he said, "Mom, I sad. I don't like water on me. It's dust disgusting. Get dat off of me." I have to agree with him. Cold, dirty dishwater (complete with macaroni remnants) is disgusting. Now he's crying, but hopefully it will cool him off and teach him to listen to me.

Cowboy Peanuts

Have you ever tasted these? They're spicy deliciousness.

Sam sure loves them and asks me every day if he can have "cowboy peanuts." I guess he thinks cowboys are tough enough to take it.

He almost cries when he eats them, especially the Wasabi flavor.

But he always comes back with tears in his eyes for more.

And thank you to Kristin for the kind award.

Milestones

When I first started my family, I remember a lot of people telling me that it goes so fast. I naively agreed with them and sincerely tried to savor my kids' babyhoods. But suddenly, it's truly sinking in how fast the time actually goes.

Anna has her learner's permit. She finds a lot of humor in the contrast between my calm, patient words and my death grip on the doorframe.

When we arrived in California for Christmas, Matthew was a little shorter than me. When we left two weeks later, he was a little taller than me. I cried. Now he's about 2 inches taller than me, and I have to look up at him. He's very proud.

Sarah got her first zit. She was afraid to let me anywhere near it and even cried trying to keep me from getting a closer look. But I insisted, "When you were born, it was written into my contract as your mother that I get to pop your first zit. Now quit your crying and get over here!"

Abby (1st grader) is a reading machine. Like mother, like daughter.

Sam is just Sam. He makes us laugh and, hopefully, will keep me young. He's not quite three, and when I put him on timeout today, he said, "I sad. Sometimes, I just want to give up." What!?!

Leah is growing up way too fast. She's working hard on her chess game. She's very competetive and is gunning for her dad.

She's also learned to "Give Me Five" and is well on her way to performing all sorts of stupid pet tricks.

These milestones are so much fun, but boy, some of them make me feel like time is passing too fast.

Ten Honest Things

I was tagged by Ashly to give 10 honest things about myself. She's right when she says, "Frankly, 'honest things' is just code for 'freak flags.'"

1. I'm absolutely terrified of strong wind - I think this can be traced back to seeing Darby O'Gill and the Little People when I was little.

2. I'm not an animal lover. My kids think I hate the dog. I don't hate her - I just don't like her. She rolls in gross stuff and smells, she sheds, she gets under my feet and begs for food while I'm cooking, she wakes me up in the middle of the night. What's to like?

3. I'm a neat freak when it comes to my pantry. Everything is lined up in rows with each item mostly in its own row. Each item is also turned on a diagonal with a little bit of space between each row so that I can easily peer down the row and see the fronts of each label. Each shelf is labeled with what belongs where (this is necessary when kids help put away groceries), and there is a sign on the door reminding everyone to put things back "exactly" where they belong. And my spices are all alphabetized. The rest of the house may be a wreck, but my pantry is pristine.

4. I'm also a neat freak about my linen closet. It seriously can ruin my day to open the linen closet and see it a mess. It should be one of the few places in the whole house that the kids don't have in constant chaos. For that reason, I'm considering installing a lock on it.

5. I used to cut school with one of my best friends, and nerds that we are, we'd hang out at the book store or the art museum. We'd also go to Neiman Marcus for lunch - mmmmmmm, popovers and strawberry butter at the Zodiac.

6. I tend to be a bit absent-minded. I once drove off and left two of my three (at the time) kids at the high school where I worked. Five minutes later, I thought, "Gee, they're being quiet," glanced in the rearview mirror to see what they were up to, and about had a HEART ATTACK when they weren't there! That was the quickest U-turn I ever pulled!

7. I sometimes act out my dreams. I'm not sure if you'd call it sleepwalking or sleeptalking, but it used to freak Steve out. He's learned not to be offended when I get mad at him for trying to convince me I'm just dreaming when I know whatever I'm doing is real.

8. I am a homebody. Steve once asked me, if I could get on a plane and go anywhere in the world, where would I go, and my answer was the farm.

9. I am good at math. Many, many years ago, I scored a 5 on the AP Calculus test - I only missed one question. But I have also always been a finger counter, go figure.

10. When Ashly does one of these tags, I could almost copy and paste her answers for my own (90% of them apply to me, too). We were raised by mothers who have shown up to family reunions from different parts of the country wearing the same dress, or carrying the same purse, or wearing the same shoes, or wearing the same glasses, . . .

So Ashly, I'm curious, how many of these can you claim as well?

Bebe Shooz

I love it when my mom comes to visit. She gets me out of my usual routine and helps me get interested in the types of activities I used to do in my life before 6 kids.

While she was here a couple weeks ago, we went to Piper's Quilts in Sugarhouse. They have some awesome quilts and knitting projects. They also offer free knitting classes on Tuesday nights if you buy your supplies there. They had some absolutely darling wool felt baby booties that inspired us.

So we bought the pattern . . .

. . . gathered supplies, . . .

. . . and began creating.

They turned out beautiful, if I do say so myself.

And they were made to match 3 of her outfits perfectly

The only thing left to do on them is to cut the scalloped edge on the sole. The only place I can find scalloped fabric scissors is on Ebay, but so far, I haven't won an auction. Apparently, they're in high demand.

She'll just have to wear them as is until I can buy or borrow the scissors.

And how did I find the time for this project?

Because Leah is on the bottle and the other kids are thrilled to feed her, I have a little time for myself.

The fattening up process is going well. Leah has gained 2 pounds in the past 3 weeks and is back on the growth chart. YAY!

Some Recent Sam-isms

This boy, approaching 3, has decided to re-visit his terrible twos with a vengeance, and he's taking the whole family along for the ride. Our days are not complete without a knock-down, drag-out screamfest courtesy of Sam. I'm doing my best to focus on the things he does that make me laugh rather than the ones that make me want to rip out my hair. In that spirit, here are some recent Sam-isms.

As he's doing something he KNOWS he's not supposed to do, such as fitting his entire body into the highest shelf of the flimsy, rickety bookcase, "Mom, I in trouble? I in trouble, Mom?" Is this boy crying out for attention or what!?

Standing on the "stoodle" and sweeping everything in reach with the broom while singing, "IRON Man, Iron man, iron man . . . I the Iron Man Cleaner." Every mom should have one of those.

Again, standing on the kitchen "stoodle," (his favorite perch), as he turns in circles on it, "Mom, I be careful not to fall. If I fall, I be very very sad." You and me both, Sam.

"Mom, don't say go to bed. Say, 'Okay,' Mom." I think he's practicing self-fulfilling prophecy. Either that or hypnosis.

"Mom, can I have some cereal? Mom, say sure like this - 'SHOOOORR.' Kay, Mom?" He likes his cereal in a white bowl with a white spoon and white milk. Hmmmm.

Who needs toys? Sam takes the dustpan and walks slowly back and forth across the kitchen saying, "Beep, beep, beep, beep . . . I a loader." You name it (loader, backhoe, crane, forklift . . .); he can be ANY construction vehicle using various utensils from my kitchen as props.

"Dat one's my tow-truck-bwack-Mater. My Mater has a bwack hook."

He came to me with a hurt finger, and I told him that washing it would make it feel better (cold water, clean fingers, etc). He stood up at the sink washing his finger and repeating, "Washing it will make it feel better. Washing it will make it feel better . . . Actually, it doesn't feel better."

With a very pleased-with-himself smirk on his face and in his voice, "Mom, guess what my bum did?" Given that he's all boy, it took me a ridiculously long time to figure out what his bum had done. Any guesses?

"Dat's Weah an Me. She's so cute."

Penguin Avocado

"Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true."

My mom seems like a pretty normal person when you meet her, but she is a little bit of a freak. If you ever hear her say the words, "Listen to this dream I had . . . ," stick around. She has the weirdest dreams I have ever heard of, and she remembers them vividly and in detail. Of course, if you scare easily, you might want to run the other way.

My favorite: she had a gingerbread baby. Everything was great until she tried to give him a bath. Hahaha. It still makes me laugh.

My new favorite (Martha's exact words from an email): "So this is the latest. I was having a dinner party and needed to put the avocado on the salad.

I peeled the skin off of it and it was now a penguin avocado, but it was alive and cuddly. I took it to the table to slice it and had a nice sharp knife, but I couldn't do it. It was just too cute to cut up.

So I put a blanket on it like the kind Leah wears that zip up but don't have legs. I figured, why not, he just waddles back and forth anyway and the blanket will keep him warm since I guess I removed all the feathers when I peeled him.

Sure enough he just waddled away when I set him down. He waddled over to some kids who were sitting on the floor playing and I guess he tripped and I had zipped his flippers inside the blanket so he couldn't catch himself. So when he fell he squashed and I made him into guacamole [waste not, want not]."

I wonder what the price would be to make that one come true. Let's please not try it!

No Batteries Required

I was a little slow to replace the batteries
in Leah's vibrating seat.



Being the self-sufficient 6th child that she is, she figured out a work-around.

Nursing Update

A month ago, we found out that Leah's weight had fallen from the 25th to the 10th percentile. Since then, we've been trying to supplement her with a little formula, but she is a STUBBORN baby. She has absolutely refused the bottle. We tried different nipples, different formulas, different people trying to feed her, but she just screamed and screamed until, after about half an hour of trying, we gave up. I even tried dipping the bottle nipple into Karo syrup. That worked for about 5 seconds before we had to dip it again. By about the 5th time we dipped the bottle, she learned to stick her tongue out to get the syrup while refusing to open her mouth. She looks hilarous with her gums clamped furiously closed. So while the syrup trick didn't work, at least it entertained us.

After a couple weeks of this, I didn't push it so hard thinking that if she were hungry, she would eat, right? Wrong.

She had her 4 month checkup on Tuesday and has fallen completely off the growth chart. In the past month, she has only gained 3 ounces (about 1/8 of what she should have gained)! The doctor said she doesn't act overly hungry because she has gotten used to a small amount of food, and we need to get her used to eating more. Since she is so bottle resistant, I have to wean her completely (yes, I cried).

He gave me a couple suggestions for getting her to take a bottle. The hard one would have been for me to leave for a couple of days so she couldn't even hear my voice, and for Steve to tough it out until she got hungry enough to take the bottle from him.

Luckily, she is doing well with the easier solution. Doc suggested mixing her formula up with some apple juice to make it more sweet and tempting. Genius! Steve tried it first using a bottle that is supposed to be about as close to nursing as you can get. She fussed a little bit, but once she caught the flavor of the sweetened stuff, she did great. She'll even take the bottle from me. We're gradually decreasing the juice until she'll take the formula straight. I've got her down to about 1/4 juice, but she's still refusing the bottle when I try to give her straight formula. I'm nursing her, too, but as we feed her more and her stomach stretches, I can tell it's not going to last long - stupid thyroid.

She's skinny, but I don't think she's quite as bad as Sam was. I won't know for sure until I gain a more distant perspective a few months from now. We jerry-rigged our postage scale with a basket and weighed her on Friday. She gained 5 ounces in just 3 days (and that was in a dry diaper before she ate!)

Rock-A-Bye Baby

When I was pregnant with Sam, I asked Steve if he'd build me a cradle.

He said that if I gathered all the supplies, he'd build it. He thought that'd be the end of that. Oh ye of little faith . . .

Many frustrating months, a few tears and another baby later, the cradle is finally finished. And yay!! Leah still fits!

We figure she's so small that we can still get a good month or two of use out of it.

I love the little key that fits in the side to keep it from swinging. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Sam doesn't make off with it and banish it forever to the black hole of my house.

It took a lot more time than either of us anticipated, but Steve did a great job! Leah thinks so, too.