Stevenson Family Blog: Moving Week and Updates

Sure is busy these days! We’re in the middle of moving down the street. I’ve learned a lot about moving – such as moving a family of 6 (while you have a toddler and a 2 month old esp.) is WAY more work than moving a family of 3. Why do we have so much stuff?!?!?! I’d like to get rid of most of it, but realistically, it’s almost all things we use. I don’t collect decorations or knick knacks very much. I dunno. We got the keys a week ago. In my naiveté I was like, “yeah, so the kids and I will move a bunch of stuff all day Friday, then you and I, Brian, we’ll move the furniture and everything that’s left on Saturday.” Hahahahahahaha. HAHAHAHAHA! Oh Hez, you’re too funny. A week later we STILL have a bunch of stuff that needs to be moved over. The old house is SO dirty. I had no idea how many smudges were covering the walls! The fourth bedroom in our new house is stuffed halfway up to the ceiling with boxes. Unfortunately, my cloth diaper stash is in the middle of that too. I’ve been trying to work on things at the other house during odd minutes here and there, but that’s hard to do with littles. Plus laundry, dishes, eating, grocery shopping, etc still needs to go on as usual over here. Adding to the fun is that Brian’s been sick during this. Wonderful.

Kieran had a 2 month checkup last week. He’s doing well. He’s 2.5 months now, but as of his checkup he was 12.5 lbs. Good sized baby. I know I can tell he’s older and bigger than he used to be. Kieran is a happy little guy, always ready to give a smile and a coo. He’s starting to go to bed earlier (so, before 1am), which helps. And lately he’s putting in 4-6 hour sleeping spurts, particularly at night. Yay! Things are going really well with him.

Hollyn also had an appointment with the Dr last week. She was seen for her eyes. Last May she started displaying some lazy-eye tendencies. Some weeks it was almost constant, then for several days or a week it would appear to be resolved. One of those phases was during her appointment. Dr. R was offering subtle thoughts, like “sometimes the lights hit in certain ways that make it seem like the eyes aren’t looking at you the same…” or things like that. He had to just take my word for it as he watched her and considered. I mentioned her seeing the orthodontist about her asymmetrical oral palate (her teeth aren’t growing in evenly – mouth is uneven) and that I wondered if it was related, since it’s the same side of her face. Finally at the VERY end, Hollyn looked up and Dr. R exclaimed, “I saw it! She did it! Yeah, they definitely didn’t track together.” Hollyn’s been referred to the facial/cranial department up at OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University) in Portland. She’ll see an optomologist in early November. It will be interesting to see where this leads.

The other night Brennan got up crying about his ear hurting, so made a visit to the Dr.’s office again. Does anyone else have to hit up the Dr.’s office in spurts like this? We go months with nothing, then all of a sudden Asher will have an asthma thing, Brennan will get an ear infection, etc, etc. I don’t know why these things always happen like this. Anyway, yes, his 2nd set of ear tubes have also failed. He has fluid in both ears, once of them looking infected. We didn’t do antibiotics this time in hopes it would self-heal so that he doesn’t have them too much. 5 days later he seems to be fine, so it must be working. His hearing is very poor though. It’s frustrating, though you can’t get upset at him about it since it’s not his fault, but having to repeat everything a million times gets old really, really fast. And of course this is right before school starts. Again. His hearing has suffered just before every school year. Something about August fills his ears with fluid I guess. Poor Brenny.

But yeah, things are good. The move is exciting despite how much work it is and how desperately I want to just be done with the old house. We love our new place! There are possibly come other big changes in the works too. And school starts in less than 2 weeks! Yikes! Lots of summer to squeeze into next week. Somehow. It’s a fun time to be a Stevenson Smile

K's first tummy time - just last night! He's been in propped tummy position, but not flat on the floor. I've been putting it off because Hollyn was an early roller, and started sleeping on her tummy. Which I suspect is what led to her crawling at 5 months before she even knew how to sit. I want a baby who SITS, just once!

He likes it!

Then all his siblings had to join him.

Hollyn helped move using a friend's wagon. I didn't get pictures of it, but on Friday Brenny and Asher also each had a dolly/cart and we'd all walk down the sidewalk in a row loaded up with boxes. SO cute!